Maboh 27.] THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 391 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
D D 
1 l 
MARCH 27—APRIL 2, 1851. j 
Weather near London in 1850. 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. Rain in In. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R.& S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
2? Tb 
Golden Saxifrage flowers. 
29 . 570 — 29.351 45—34 
S.E. 
0.14 
50 a. 5 
22 a. 6 
3 
59 
24 
5 
36 
86 
28 F 
Eave Swallow seen. 
29-399 —29.250! 45—38 
S.E. 
47 
23 
4 
31 
25 
5 
18 
87 
29S 
Goslings hatched 
29.385 — 29.343' 51—29 
E. 
0.14 
45 
25 
4 
58 
26 
4 
59 
88 
30 Son 
4Tn, or Midlent Sunday. 
29-433 — 29.280, 52—29 
S.W. 
0.16 
43 
27 
5 
21 
27 
4 
41 
69 
31 M 
Ducks hatched. 
29.607 —29.560j 59—34 
S. 
0.30 
41 
28 
5 
43 
28 
4 
23 
90 
1 To 
Nightingale sings. 
|29.524 — 29.448' 55—40 
S.E. 
0.12 
V 
30 
sets. 
@ 
4 
5 
91 
2 W 
Millepede seen. 
‘ 29 . 437 — 29.410 56—26 
s. 
0.10 
36 
32 
7 
16 
1 
3 
46 
92 
That there is nothing new under the sun, has been acknowledged as a . 
true apothegm, ever 9ince it was uttered by Solomon, and we always find 
cause for rendering an unexceptional assent to its truth, so far as gar¬ 
dening is concerned, every time we have occasion to refer to the old prac¬ 
tical writers upon our art. An example is before us in our pages to-day. 
Mr. Beaton has given directions for preparing his very beautiful shot- 
silk-like bed of Verbenas and Geraniums ; and it will be found presently 
that somewhat similar beds were in the gardens of Sir Henry Fanshawe, 
nearly three centuries ago. Now we dare wager the value of the best 
acre of Shrubland Park, against that of a shoe’s breadth of Brandon sand, 
that our able coadjutor never read a page of the Reliquice Wottoniance, in 
which Sir Henry Fanshawe’s garden is described; it is, therefore, no 
plagiary, but one of the usual results of similar good tastes aiming to 
produce similar improvements in the same art, and Mr. Beaton may say, 
as the poet said of Shakespere—“ I have not stolen from him, but he has 
robbed me by thinking before I was born, what I have thought since.” 
Sir Henry Wotton was bom on the 30th of March, in 1568, at Bocton, 
or Boughton Hall, in Kent, “ on the brow of such a hill,” says Isaac 
Walton, his friend, “ as gives the advantage of a large prospect, and of 
equal pleasure to all beholders.” His mother, Elionora Morton, we 
mention, not only because she was “ tutoress unto him during much of 
his childhood,” but because she offers a merry instance that love laughs 
at wise resolves, as well as at locksmiths. Sir Henry’s father, as a 
widower, replied to his friends’ importunity, “ that if ever he put on a re¬ 
solution to re-mnrry,” it should be to one that had no children, no law 
suits, and no relationship to his family. “But,” quoth Sir Isaac 
Walton, “ beauty drest in sadness, is observed to have a charming elo¬ 
quence, which I mention, because it proved so with Thomas Wotton, for 
there were in Elionora Morton, a concurrence of all those accidents, 
against which he had so seriously resolved.” Sir Henry was their only 
son, and we must pass over his pupilage at Winchester and Oxford, until 
the time, when, in his twenty-second year, “ he laid aside his books, and 
betook himself to the useful library of travel.” During the nine years he 
remained abroad, “ he stayed but one year in France, and most of that in 
Geneva, where he became acquainted with Theodor Beza (then very aged), 
and with Isaac Causabon, in whose house (if I be rightly informed) Sir 
Henry Wotton was lodged, and there contracted a most worthy friend¬ 
ship with that man of rare learning and ingenuity. Three of the re¬ 
maining eight years were spent in Germany, the other five in Italy (the 
stage on which God appointed he should act a great part of his life), 
where both in Rome, Venice, and Florence, he became acquainted with 
the most eminent men for learning, and all manner of arts ; as picture, 
sculpture, chymistry, architecture, and other manual arts, even arts of 
inferior nature ; of all which, he was a most dear lover, and a most ex¬ 
cellent judge. He returned out of Italy into England about the thirtieth 
year of his age, being then noted by many, both for his person and com¬ 
portment ; for indeed he was of a choice shape, tall of stature, and of a 
most persuasive behaviour, which was so mixed with sweet discourse, 
and civilities, as gained him much love from all persons with whom he 
entered into an acquaintance.” 
Amongst others whose friendship he acquired, he unfortunately in¬ 
cluded the Earl of Essex, and when that rash nobleman was conveyed to 
the Tower, which was but the entrance lodge of the scaffold, Sir Henry 
thought it prudent, “ very quickly, and as privately, to glide through 
Kent to Dover,” and to be set upon the French shore within sixteen 
hours after his departure from London. Sir Henry journied onward to 
Florence, from whence he privately visited Scotland, to apprize King 
James of a design of the Jesuits, to poison him, a service which the king 
subsequently rewarded with the ambassadorship to Venice. In his 
journey on that employment, he passed through Augusta, in Germany, 
and being requested to write some sentence in the album of his friend, 
Albopher Flecamore, he inscribed this witty definition. “An Ambassador 
is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” And 
no pun was ever nearer working the punster’s ruin, for it was quoted 
against him by his enemies, as a demonstration of his unfitness for his 
representative office. However, his defence was satisfactory, and he re¬ 
mained at Venice, yet it is very certain that he had learned from long ex¬ 
perience that Ambassadors were not relied upon for their veracity in those 
days, for when asked by a friend, designed for the same employment, to 
give him some rules by which he might guide himself in his negociations, 
Sir Henry replied—“ Upon all occasions speak the truth ; your truth will 
secure yourself, and it will put your adversaries on the wrong scent, for 
they will not believe you, and will still hunt counter.” 
For twenty years Sir Henry remained our representative at the Court 
of Venice, and during the time successfully sustained the Doge, in his 
resistance to the aggressions of the Papal power. Many of his encounters 
with the Roman Catholic advocates are on record, but we must content 
ourselves with this one. A priest demanded of him, “ Where his, the 
Protestant, religion was to be found before the time of Luther ? ” to 
which Sir Henry answered—“ My religion was to be found then , where 
yours is not to be found now —in the written Word of God.” 
During his long residence in Italy, Sir Henry acquired an extensive 
knowledge of the best architecture and gardening of his age, and he 
turned it to good account, when on his final return to England, he ob- 1 
tained the Provostship of Eton College. Time passed on, and this veteran 
in varied knowledge saw death rising above the horizon, but it brought j 
to him nothing but hope and kind remembrances of the past, and among j 
these the wish to revisit the school of his opening career. For that pur¬ 
pose he journied to Winchester, and this is his commentary :— 
“ How useful was that advice of a holy Monk, who persuaded his friend 
to perform his customary devotions in a constant place, because in that 
place, we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed us at our 
last being there. And I find it thus far, experimentally true ; that, at my 
now being in that school, and seeing that very place where I sat when I 
was a boy, occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth 
which then possessed me ; sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my 
growing years numerous pleasures, without mixtures of cares ; and those 
to be enjoyed, when time (which I therefore thought slow paced) had 
changed my youth into manhood. But, age and experience have taught 
me, that those were but empty hopes. For I have always found it true, 
as my Saviour did foretel, ‘ Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ ” 
Returning to Eton, he died there in the December of 1639, and rests in 
the College Chapel, according to his own direction, with no other in¬ 
scription on his tomb than. 
Here lies the author of this sentence; 
The Itch of Disputation is the Scab of the Church. 
Truthful words, and worthy of regard, for they who accustom their 
minds to ecclesiastical controversy, too often, like the Pharisees of old, 
are careful to give tithe of trivial herbs, whilst they neglect the weightier 
matters of mercy and faith. Turning, in conclusion, to his Essay on the 
Elements of Architecture , we find that though he remarks concisely on 
the style of gardening he admired, yet the little he says is just, and 
evinces that correct taste which dictates, that though the grounds at large, 
by degrees as we proceed from the mansion, should become irregular and 
imitations of picturesque nature, yet in the immediate neighbourhood of 
the house, art should be more manifest. “ I must note a certain con¬ 
trariety between building and gardening, for as fabricks should be regular, 
gardens should be irregular, or at least cast into a very wild regularity* 
To exemplify my conceit, I have seen a garden, for the manner perchance 
incomparable, into which the first access was a high walk like a Terrace, 
from whence might be taken a general view of the whole plot below, but 
rather in delightful confusion, than with any plain distinction of the 
species. From this the beholder descending many steps was afterwards 
conveyed again by several mountains and valings, to various entertain¬ 
ments of his scent and sight, which I shall not need to describe, for that 
were poetical, let me only note this, that every one of these diversities, was 
as if he had been magically transported into a new garden. But though 
other countries have more benefit of sun than we, and thereby more 
properly tied to contemplate this delight, yet have I seen in our own, a 
delicate and diligent curiosity, surely without parellel among foreign 
nations, namely, in the garden of Sir Henry Fanshawe, at his seat in Ware 
Park, where I well remember, he did so precisely examine the tinctures 
and seasons of his flowers, that in their settings, the inwardest of which 
that were to come up at the same time, should be always a little darker 
than the outmost, and to serve them for a kind of gentle shadow, like a 
piece not of nature, but of art. Of figured fountains I will describe a 
matchless pattern done by the hand of Michael Angelo de Buonaroti, in 
the figure of a sturdy woman washing and winding of linen clothes, in 
which act, she wrings out the water that made the fountain ; which was 
a graceful and natural conceit—the artificer, implying this rule ; that all 
designs of this kind should be proper.” 
Nor did Sir Henry attend to garden design only, for we find these 
passages in his letters :—“ I have sent,” he says, “ writing from Venice, 
in 1622, the choicest Melon seeds of all kinds, which his Majesty doth 
expect, as I had order both from my Lord Holderness, and from Mr. Se¬ 
cretary Calvert.” And Sir Henry “ sent withal a very particular instruc¬ 
tion in the culture of that plant.” He sent also to the Earl of Holder¬ 
ness “ a double yellow rose of no ordinary nature, for it flowereth every 
month (unless change of climate do change the property) from May till 
almost Christmas.” He also introduced one of our Amaranths in 1613. 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations 
during the last twenty-four years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures are 54.3°, and 35°, respectively. The greatest heat, 75°, occurred 
on the 27 th of March, 1830, and the lowest cold, 16 °, on the 1 st of April, 
in 1838. During the time, 101 days were fine, and on 67 rain fell. 
! 
In answering a correspondent a few weeks since, we 
stated that there is hut one kind of autumn-bearing 
Raspberry; and we so stated because, though we have 
had many sorts sent to us, and some under the names 
we shall mention presently, yet, under one system oi 
liberal culture, they all proved to be alike. Mr. Rivers, 
of the Nurseries, Sawbridgeworth, however, says, that 
we are in error, and we are ready to find that we are so 
No. CXXX, Von. V. 
