November 21.] THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 107 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
W 
NOVEMBER 21—27, 1850. 
Weather near London in 1849. 
Sun 
Sun 
Moon 
Moon’s 
Clock 
Day of 
D 
D 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in In. 
Rises. 
Sets. 
R. 
& s. 
Age. 
bef.Sun. 
Year. 
21 
Th 
Prs. Royal b. 1840. Fieldfare comes. 
30.074—30.015 
48—34 
E. 
_ 
30 a. 7 
2 a. 4 
1 5 
56 
1 7 
13 
5 7 
325 
22 
F 
St. Cecilia. Sun’s declin. 20° 12's. 
29 . S 96 — 29.749 
45-32 
S,E. 
— 
32 
1 
6 
51 
18 
13 
42 
326 
23 
S 
St. Clement. [comes. 
29 . 677 — 29.326 
52—37 
S. 
0.36. 
34 
0 
7 
54 
19 
13 
25 
32 7 
24 
Son 
26 Sun. aft. Trinity. Grey Wagtail 
29 . 361 — 29.303 
41—28 
S.E. 
— 
35 
HI 
9 
6 
20 
13 
8 
328 
25 
M 
29 . 552 — 29.356 
42—27 
N.W. 
— 
37 
58 
10 
23 
21 
12 
50 
329 
26 
Tc 
Michaelmas Term ends. 
30 . 065 — 29.732 
38—18 
N.W. 
- , 
38 
5 7 
11 
40 
€ 
12 
32 
330 
2/ 
W 
Anniversary of Botan. Soc. Catherine. 
30.138—30.136 
36—21 
N.W. 
40 
56 
morn. 
23 
12 
12 
331 
On some day of this month in the year 1714 was born William 
Shenstonk— deserving limited praise as a poet, but more favourably 
remembered as one of the first suggesters of improvements in our Land¬ 
scape gardening—improvements which he illustrated at his residence, the 
Leasowes. Previously to his demonstration of its untruthfulness, the 
opinion was entertained by garden designers that the useful could not be 
blended with the beautiful; or, in other words, that the useful must give 
rise to vulgar ideas incompatible with those agreeable suggestions so 
peculiarly characteristic of the garden. Shenstone entertained a different 
opinion, and lived long enough to prove that his opinion was correct. 
The Leasowes, situated between Birmingham and Stourbridge, was 
literally a small farm, and descended to him from his father perfectly 
unadorned. He was thirty-one when its management devolved upon him, 
and for awhile he endeavoured to escape from the unpoetical employment 
of Shropshire farming by living at his house with its tenants ; but this 
partial possession involved such a conflict of tastes, that after a while he 
took the entire estate under his own management, and most successfully 
addressed himself to its embellishment. Mr. Whateley—one who paints 
well with words—saw it as it was finished by its founder, and thus 
pour trays its features :— 
“ It is literally a grazing farm lying round the house; and a wall as 
unaffected and as unadorned as a common field path is conducted through 
the several enclosures. Near the entrance into the grounds this walk 
plunges suddenly into a dark narrow dell, filled with small trees which 
grow upon abrupt and broken steeps, and watered by a brook, which falls 
among roots and stones down a natural cascade into the hollow. The 
stream at first is rapid and open ; it is afterwards concealed by thickets, 
and can be traced only by its murmurs ; but it is tamer when it appears 
again ; and gliding then "between little groups of trees, loses itself at last 
in a piece of water just below. The end of this sequestered spot opens 
to a pretty landskip, which is very feimple; for the parts are but few, and 
all the objects are familiar; they are only the piece of water, some fields 
on an easy ascent beyond it, and the steeple of a church above them. 
The next scene is more solitary : it is confined within itself, a rude neg¬ 
lected bottom, the sides of which are overrun with bushes and fern, 
interspersed with several trees. A rill runs also through this little valley, 
issuing from a wood which hangs on one of the declivities ; the stream 
winds through the wood in a succession of cascades, down a quick 
descent of an hundred and fifty yards in continuance ; alders and horn¬ 
beam grow in the midst of its bed; they shoot up in several stems from 
the same root, and the current trickles amongst them. On the banks are 
some considerable trees, which spread but a chequered shade, and let in, 
here and there, a sunbeam to play upon the water; beyond them is a 
slight coppice, just sufficient to screen the spot from open view, but it 
casts no gloom, and the space within is all an animated scene ; the stream 
has a peculiar vivacity ; and the singular appearance of the upper falls, 
high in the trees, and seen through the boughs, is equally romantic, beau¬ 
tiful, and lively. The walk having passed through this wood returns into 
the same valley, but into another part of it, similar in itself to the 
former ; and yet they appear to be very different scenes, from the conduct 
only of the path ; for in the one, it is open, in the bottom, and perfectly 
retired ; in the other, it is on the brow, it is shaded, and it overlooks not 
only the little wild below, but some corn-fields also on the opposite side, 
which by their cheerfulness and proximity dissipate every idea of solitude. 
At the extremity of the vale is a grove of large forest trees, inclining 
down a steep declivity; and near it are two fields, both irregular, both 
beautiful, but distinguished in every particular : the variety of the 
Leasowes is wonderful; all the enclosures are totally different; there is 
seldom a single circumstance in which they agree. Of these near the 
grove, the lower field comprehends both the sides of a deep dip ; the 
upper is one large knole; the former is encompassed with thick wood, 
t he latter is open—a slight hedge and a serpentine river are all its boun¬ 
dary. Several trees, single or in groups, are scattered over the swells of 
the ground ; not a tree is to be seen on all the steeps of the hollow. The 
path creeps under a hedge round the one, and catches here and there only 
peeps of the country. It runs directly across the other to the highest 
eminence, and bursts at once upon the view. The prospect is also a 
source of endless variety: it is cheerful and extensive, over a fine hilly 
country, richly cultivated, and full of objects and inhabitants. Hales 
Owen, a large town, is near; and the Wrekin, at thirty miles distance, is 
distinctly visible in the horizon. From the knole, which has been men¬ 
tioned, it is seen altogether, and the beautiful farm of the Leasowes is 
included in the landscape. In other spots plantations have been raised, 
or openings cut, on purpose to shut out or let in parts of it, at certain 
points of view. Just below the principal eminence, which commands the 
whole, is a seat, where all the striking objects being hid by a few trees, 
the scene is simply a range of enclosed country. This at other seats is 
excluded, and only the town, or the church, or the steeple without the 
church, appears. A village, a farm-house, or a cottage, which had been 
unobserved in the confusion of the general prospect, becomes principal in 
more contracted views ; and the same object which at one place seemed 
exposed and solitary, is accompanied at another with a foreground of 
wood, or backed by a beautiful hill. The attention to every circum¬ 
stance which could diversify the scene is indefatigable; but the art of the 
contrivance can never be perceived—the effect always seems accidental.” 
Such is a sketch of what Shenstone effected; and even that lover of 
chimney-pots, Dr. Johnson, says that to him must be allowed some praise 
for doing best what such multitudes are contending to do well. This 
praise, savs the censor, was the praise of Shenstone; but, like all other 
modes of felicity, it was not enjoyed without its abatements. Lord 
Lyttleton, at Hagley, was his neighbour and his rival, whose empire, 
spacious and opulent, looked with disdain on the petty state that 
appeared behind it. For a while the inhabitants of Hagley affected to 
tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make him¬ 
self admired ; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced itself into 
notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity they could not suppress, by 
conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and 
introducing them at the wrong end of a walk, to detect a deception. 
Where there is emulation there will be envy in narrow minds ; but we 
will hope that the counter testimony is true, and that no such envy found 
place in the minds at Hagley. How r ever, envied or unenvied, the Leasowes 
was raised to be the model of ornamental farms ; and Shenstone enjoyed 
the pre-eminence of a mastership in picturesque taste until his death in 
1763. He died at the Leasowes of a putrid fever on the 11th of February, 
and was buried in the churchyard of his parish, Hales Owen. Only a 
few of the other events of his brief career require a record here ; and we 
must not omit to notice as among them, that in his posthumous publica¬ 
tions, which appeared in 17b4, are “ Unconnected Thoughts on Landscape 
Gardening.” This appears to have been the last evidence of that love of 
literature which characterized Shenstone even in infancy. He learned to 
read of an old dame, whom his poem of The Schoolmistress has delivered 
to posterity; and he soon received such delight from books, that he was 
always calling for fresh yet similar entertainment. He always expected 
when any of the family went to market a new book should be brought 
him, which, when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid by 
him. It is said, that, when his request had been neglected, his mother 
wrapped up a piece of wood of the same form, and thus pacified him for 
the night. 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, the average highest 
and lowest temperatures of these days, during the last twenty-three years, 
are 49.2° and 35.9°, respectively. The greatest heat during the time was 
60 °, and the lowest cold 15°. O 11 80 days rain occurred, and 81 days 
were fine. 
There can be no doubt that the present is one of tbe 
worst Chrysanthemum seasons that has been known 
since it became a florist’s flower some thirty years ago. 
Now, when we say that it is a bad chrysanthemum 
season, we do not mean that the weather has been un¬ 
favourable to the flower—far from it; but that the 
show flowers generally never came into bloom more 
imperfectly or more tardily, nor in more instances were 
blind altogether. 
The season has certainly nothing to do with this; for, 
after a tolerably extensive survey, we can state, posi¬ 
tively, that out-of-door chrysanthemums never bloomed 
better, never were more healthy, and never were more 
forward. 
What is the reason, then, that those in pots are in all 
these resjrects quite the reverse? We said, in answer to 
a correspondent a week or two since, that we believed, 
and we still believe, that the neglect and indefensibly 
bad culture with which the plants are visited after they 
have finished blooming, is one cause of this failure. 
The plants in our borders do not receive such barbarous 
treatment, and they have not failed. “ Ah ! but,” said 
No. CXII., Vol V. 
