In sunny garden bowers Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken, And buds and bells with changes mark the hours.
He discovered that it was more profitable to solicit nature than to flatter the great.
For Nature never did betray The heart that loved her.
People of a poetical temperament--all true lovers of nature--can afford, far better than more essentially worldly beings, to exclaim with Thomson.
I care not Fortune what you me deny, You cannot bar me of free Nature's grace, You cannot shut the windows of the sky Through which Aurora shows her brightening face: You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns and living streams at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the _great children_ leave:-- Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
The pride in a garden laid out under one's own directions and partly cultivated by one's own hand has been alluded to as in some degree unworthy of the dignity of manhood, not only by mere men of the world, or silly coxcombs, but by people who should have known better. Even Sir William Temple, though so enthusiastic about his fruit-trees, tells us that he will not enter upon any account of _flowers_, having only pleased himself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled himself with the care of them, which he observes "_is more the ladies part than the men's_." Sir William makes some amends for this almost contemptuous allusion to flowers in particular by his ardent appreciation of the use of gardens and gardening in general. He thus speaks of their attractions and advantages: "The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking, but above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease of the body and mind." Again: "As gardening has been the inclination of kings and the choice of philosophers, so it has been the common favorite of public and private men, a pleasure of the greatest and the care of the meanest; and indeed _an employment and a possession for which no man is too high or too low_." This is just and liberal; though I can hardly help still feeling a little sore at Sir William's having implied in the passage previously quoted, that the care of flowers is but a feminine occupation. As an elegant amusement, it is surely equally well fitted for all lovers of the beautiful, without reference to their sex.