[025] The poet had a cottage and garden in Kew-foot-Lane at or near Richmond. In the alcove in the garden is a small table made of the wood of the walnut tree. There is a drawer to the table which in all probability often received charge of the poet's effusions hot from the brain. On a brass tablet inserted in the top of the table is this inscription--"_This table was the property of James Thomson, and always stood in this seat._"
[026] Shene or Sheen: the old name of Richmond, signifying in Saxon _shining_ or _splendour_.
[029] On looking back at page 36 I find that I have said in the foot note that it is only within _the present century_ that gardening has been elevated into _a fine art_. I did not mean within the 55 years of this 19th century, but _within a hundred years_. Even this, however, was an inadvertency. We may go a little further back. Kent and Pope lived to see Landscape-Gardening considered a fine art. Before their time there were many good practical gardeners, but the poetry of the art was not then much regarded except by a very few individuals of more than ordinary refinement.
[030] Catherine the Second grossly disgraced herself as a woman--partly driven into misconduct herself by the behaviour of her husband--but as a sovereign it cannot be denied that she exhibited a penetrating sagacity and great munificence; and perhaps the lovers of literature and science should treat her memory with a little consideration. When Diderot was in distress and advertized his library for sale, the Empress sent him an order on a banker at Paris for the amount demanded, namely fifteen thousand livres, on condition that the library was to be left as a deposit with the owner, and that he was to accept a gratuity of one thousand livres annually for taking charge of the books, until the Empress should require them. This was indeed a delicate and ingenious kindness. Lord Brougham makes D'Alembert and not Diderot the subject of this anecdote. It is a mistake. See the Correspondence of Baron de Gumm and Diderot with the Duke of Saxe-Gotha.
Many of the Russian nobles keep up to this day the taste in gardening introduced by Catherine the Second, and have still many gardens laid out in the English style. They have often had in their employ both English and Scottish gardeners. There is an anecdote of a Scotch gardener in the Crimea in one of the public journals:--