masculine half of the national character found its counterpart in Napoleon, and was carried by that wonderful man to its loftiest pitch. But he was an Italian as to the rest; the side of feeling was paralyzed in him he was blind and "faithless to the divinity of virtue ;" and honour, love, sensibility, were but instruments of policy in his ambitious view. If he could not, however, communicate all his soul to the nation which he led and moulded, his genius was still too great to allow the existence of a spirit contrary to his own. Thus the chivalrous feelings towards the fair sex, natural to Frenchmen, their innate sensibility, their tenderness, were not extinguished, for such things die not-but they slept beneath his reign. He aroused the sterner passions of humanity, while he silenced the more delicate with awe, or shamed them with a sneer. His spirit has passed away, and old feelings begin to spring up, but they are yet young. Love once more is worshipped as a deity, and mutual affection, though yet in real life a prodigy to be met with, commences to have an existence, at least in theory.* Men of years and taste weep over the fadaises of Marmontel's Shepherdess of the Alps, as well as over the burning eloquence of St. Preux; and our English writings of the sentimental cast, which have been translated into their tongue, find in them rapturous admirers. I have seen not only ladies, but mustachio'd heroes shed tears of bitterness over the translations of Washington Irwin's tales of "The Wife," and "The Broken Heart." Their taste every way evinces infancy of feeling: they linger around the prettinesses of sentiment, and in the philosophy of the heart have not yet acquired maturity sufficient to enjoy the manly sensibility of Scott.

In

This is but a poor tribute to the philosophic brethren;-I substitute speculation for feeling, and take refuge from apathy in the niceties of critical discussion. "Tis true:-we know too much of these men-we have heard too much of them, and their lives resemble mirrors that have been breathed on and tainted by too frequent and near approaches. And even could we overcome this, there is not much to repay us. both, human weakness is too clearly visible, and weakness of the pettiest kind-the meanest envy and the most infantine spleen. There is in them every thing that can degrade, and little that can elevate human nature. The very deism of Voltaire is cold and calculating-it has a debtor and creditor kind of tone about it, worthier of a Jew upon 'Change, than of a philosopher or a man of learning. That of Rousseau, with the same defect, is still of a loftier nature; his religious and moral works have all the narrowness of special pleading, but there is a warmth and fire in the special pleading on both sides. There is a feeling even in his very sophisms, that baffles the shrewdest logic-he is sincere, even in paradox; and if he has contributed to deceive and

* It is doubtless a very laudable and prudent custom, that young gentlemen should learn the fortunes of the young ladies with whom they form an acquaintance, and also that young ladies should make the same inquiries. But all these precautions of prudence are taken secretly at least in England; in France there is no modesty of the sort, no pretence to disinterestedness; the buzz excited by a new face is audible enough, and the consideration of pounds, shillings, and pence, not at all spoken in a whisper. A lovely girl made her appearance as a new face, at a ball at the præfecture of Tours; the usual question was asked openly by every French officer in the room. The answer was, "she had the protection of Monsieur." This did not satisfy the sparks; and the lovely face, backed by the protection of Monsieur, went partnerless.

mislead the world, he has at least the excuse of having deceived and misled himself. Voltaire affords the example of a genius, which made the most of itself; it was formed to be vain, and it was vain-to shine, and it shone. It ran for every prize, and plucked a branch from every laurel; the world applauded, and its end was fulfilled. Rousseau, on the contrary, presents the image of genius thrown away: he lived till forty years of age, without knowing his powers, and in ignorance abused them. There can be no doubt that he indulged in habits, both of mind and body, that would have annihilated the most gigantic intellect; and the effusions of his, which we most admire, were in all likelihood but the dotage and the dregs of his original spirit. There dwelt a dissatisfaction about his pen, a straining after its natural sublimity, which, continually baffled and checked by infirmity from taking its full impulse, turned short into antithesis and abruptness. He has left us but hints of what he aimed at; and the far-removed ideas, which were connected in his expansive mind, to us appear linked without their intermediate association.

Both these beings were cursed with the same canker-that which eats through the finest spirit and undermines the proudest intellect-an habitual sensuality of thought. And "in all the catalogue of human griefs" there certainly is not one which has had such effect in paralyzing genius, and consequently in tending to make the world retrograde in wisdom and in virtue. One should think these beings of high intellect might have shaken off such taints, "like dew-drops from the lion's mane," but it is evident that they became more subjected to them the longer they lived,-that they had been "given up to their own imaginations." We may pity the one, but I, who had lately fallen upon those abominable productions which issued from the grey head and trembling hand of the patriarch of Ferney, thought upon them, as I looked upon his grave, with a feeling of dread and disgust, that, I pray, may never again visit me.

We do not well admit of any diversity in our emotions, and we must be possessed very weakly with any feeling, if it consist of many shades. Thus if at times we are smitten with the genius, or dazzled by the fame of a writer, at others we are overshadowed by some prominent defect. Much unity or much consistency should not be demanded of critical taste: mine blows where it listeth, and I would have no one take it at its word. Capriciousness is as inseparable from it, as sincerity. Some volumes I like not in my chamber, that are my idols in the fields; there are few metaphysicians I can tolerate after dinner; and there are poets, who have moved my utmost indignation in the morning, whom I have mentally embraced in the evening, while contemplating the beauties of a foreign sunset. I shall publish some day "My Friendships and Quarrels with the Dead," and certainly among those, whom I have most warmly esteemed at times, and most cordially detested at others, are my friend Rousseau and my friend Voltaire.

R.

AN OLD ENGLISH GARDEN.

My earliest play-ground was an old English garden. I shall never forget its long green walks branching off at right angles to one another -its well trimmed hedges, which, like so many verdant walls, shielded the flowers they enclosed from the cold and the wind-its statues of gods and goddesses-its sun-dials, and its alcoves. It is one of my pleasantest amusements, though every relic of it is now destroyed, and am far distant from the place where it once existed, in fancy to wander once more over the well-known scene-to walk under those cool and quiet shades beneath which I have sate and talked with all that were dearest to me on earth, and to gather once more the first flowers of spring, with the feelings and hopes of childhood. It is perhaps these early associations, which have given me so great an affection for our old style of gardening. I can never pass an antique mansion-house, some two centuries old, with its lofty garden walls, half covered with moss and ivy, without stopping to admire for a few minutes, through the massy iron gates, the neatness and regularity of the grass and gravel walks the shrubberies, and the lozenge-shaped box-bordered beds of flowers. The art of gardening is lost in modern times. We have parks and grounds, and plantations and shrubberies; but we have no gardens. If our gardens are merely to consist of an imitation of nature, if the trees and the flowers are to grow, and the streams to meander at their own will and pleasure, I can find much greater delight in rambling over the hills and the meadows, where art has never interfered, than in the narrow enclosures of a garden which only mimics the grandeur and the beauty of natural scenery. In our old English gardens, on the contrary, where art was the chief director, there was no attempt to deceive. Every thing around spoke of the labour and ingenuity of man. Invention was exhausted to render them pleasant and amusing retreats. The trees were cut into dragons or peacocks-arbours were shaped out of the thick summer foliage for coolness and repose-fountains springing from a Triton's horn, produced a pleasant murmur a thousand means, in short, were employed to engage the attention and delight the eye.

If it were necessary to justify my affection for our antique fashion of gardening, I should not have much difficulty in so doing. A garden seems to have been the supreme delight of our old authors. "God Almighty," says Lord Bacon, "first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works." Perhaps in the shady walks of his garden, Bacon felt his mind purified from its grosser and more worldly affections. Perhaps he forgot within its quiet confines that love of place and power which tempted him to the lowest and the meanest arts. Even the sober Burnet speaks of a garden with something like enthusiasm: "The managing a garden is a noble, and may be made an useful amusement." It was about the reign of Anne, however, that gardening became most fashionable both with the nobility and the literati. Pope was a celebrated gardener, and though sacrilegious hands have destroyed many of his labours at Twickenham, his grotto yet remains as a monument of his true old English taste. He frequently mentions his gardens in his letters

to his friends. Writing to Dean Swift he says, "The gardens extend and flourish as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost. I have more fruit-trees and kitchen-garden than you have any thought of; nay I have good melons and pine-apples of my own growth. I am as much a better gardener as I am a worse poet than when you saw me; but gardening is near akin to philosophy, for Tully says, Agricultura proxima sapientiæ." And again, in a letter to Mr. Allen, we have a description of his occupations in his garden, "I am now as busy in planting for myself, as I was lately in planting for another. And I thank God for every wet day and for every fog, which gives me the headache, but prospers my works. They will indeed outlive me (if they do not die in their travels from place to place; for my garden, like my life, seems to me every day to want correction, I hope at least for the better) but I am pleased to think that my trees will afford shade and fruit to others, when I shall want them no more." As age and infirmities grew upon him, Pope wisely prepared a pleasant retreat; "I have," says he in a letter to Warburton, "lived much by myself of late, partly through ill health, and partly to amuse myself with little improvements in my garden and house, to which possibly I shall (if I live) be soon more confined." Even the ambitious Bolingbroke, deigned to bestow some of his attention on his gardens ; Pray, my lord," says Swift in a letter to him, "how are the gardens? Have you taken down the mount and removed the yew hedges? Have you not bad weather for the spring corn? Has Mr. Pope gone farther in his ethic poems, and is the headland sown with wheat ?" All his battles in Spain did not make the Earl of Peterborough lose his relish for rustic employments; he tells Pope he shall write to him upon the side of his wheelbarrow.

There were

It was probably about this time that the taste for the genuine style of old English gardening began to waver. Thus in Pope's correspondence we have an account of "a consultation lately held about designing a princely garden. Several critics were of several opinions. One declared that he would not have too much art in it. *** some who could not bear evergreens, and called them Nevergreens; some who were angry at them only when cut into shapes, and gave the modern gardeners the name of Evergreen Tailors. Some who had no dislike to cones and cubes, but would have them cut in forest trees; and some who were in a passion against every thing in shape, even against clipt hedges, which they called green walls." But even earlier than this period the gardeners of the last century had begun to be vitiated. The humorist in gardening, who gives an account of his labours in the Spectator, was a sort of precursor to our present landscape gardeners. A foreigner would take his garden to be a natural wilderness, and one of the uncultivated parts of the country. His plantations ran into as great a wildness as their nature would permit, and he is pleased, when he is walking in a labyrinth of his own raising, not to know whether the next tree he meets with is an apple or an oak, an elm or a pear tree. Then again he takes particular care to let a little stream which flows through his garden, run in the same manner as it would do through an open field, so that it generally passes through banks of violets and primroses, plats of willow or other plants that seem to be of its own producing. However faulty the humorist may have been in his taste, he was yet a true lover of gardening.

"You

must know, Sir," says he, " that I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden, as one of the most innocent delights in human life. A garden was the habitation of our first parents before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at rest. It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Providence, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation. I cannot but think the very complacency and satisfaction which a man takes in these works of nature, to be a laudable, if not a virtuous habit of mind."

Towards the middle of the last century, a grievous and visible change took place in our horticultural system. Our straight common-sense gravel-walks that, with mathematical correctness, led us the nearest way between two points, were bent into all the undulations and meanders of a German tobacco-pipe; the venerable screens of yew and holly, which cherished and protected every neighbouring flower, were swept away root and branch; the Tritons lost their watery dominion, and sacrilegious hands attacked even the long lines of ancient oaks, which formed so fine an approach to every old mansion. Even the solid patient sun-dials, which, in a climate like this, are doomed to exercise their functions so sparingly, but which yet, in cloud and in sunshine, bore on their plates some moral saw for the edification of the inquirer-even they were cast from their bases, as though the new genération were afraid to be told how fast the pinions of Time were moving. Nay, even the presiding deities of the spot were torn from their pedestals. The Apollo Belvidere was compelled to quit the scene, where, for some half a century, he had been watching the flight of his arrow with laudable patience; and the Diana was carried away before she had achieved her purpose of drawing forth the arrow, upon which she had been intent for an equal number of years. The ruins of the alcoves served to fill up the sunk fences, and instead of a garden furnished with all the richest caprices of art, the houses of our gentry were surrounded by grounds which only seemed to form a portion of their parks.

In Shenstone's time, the new fashion had not arrived at its height. There were still pillars, and urns, and fountains, and summer-houses left, though the rectilinear disposition of more ancient times was abolished. The Leasowes were a sort of æra in the art. Yet was Shenstone, though carried away by the prevailing taste, much attached in his heart to the antique style. His idea of a "Lover's walk" was in the true old feeling, with "assignation seats with proper mottoes, urns to faithful lovers, trophies, garlands, &c." Oliver Goldsmith, who ought to have known better, has ridiculed what he did not understand in his paper on the tenants of the Leasowes. I, for one, agree perfectly with Mr. Truepenny, the button-maker, when he employed his shears to some purpose, and clipped the hedges; nor do I altogether dissent from the sea captain's taste, " in making Chinese temples and cage-work summer-houses." In a modern garden, I am sure, one may walk for ever without a possibility of resting oneself.

But hitherto I have been writing about what many of your readers, Mr. Editor, in all probability, never beheld; for these fine old places are disappearing year after year. If it would not consume too much space, I would describe that ever-venerated scene in which all my ear