mewhere of the kindly work of his uncle, who had disposed
his walks so as to be a convenience to the poor people of an adjoining
parish, and adds, with curious _naivete_,--"Such attentive kindnesses
are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they
general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding
us against democratical opinions than 'twenty thousand soldiers armed in
proof.'"

Richard Knight (a brother of the distinguished horticulturist)
illustrated the picturesque theory of Price in a passably clever poem,
called "The Landscape," which had not, however, enough of outside merit
to keep it alive. Humphrey Repton, a professional designer of gardens,
whose work is to be found in almost every county of England, took issue
with Price in respect to his picturesque theory,--as became an
independent gardener who would not recognize allegiance to the painters.
But the antagonism was only one of those petty wars about
non-essentials, and significance of terms, into which eager book-makers
are so apt to run.

* * * * *

In the course of one of my earlier Wet-Days I took occasion to allude to
the brave old age that was reached by the classic veterans,--Xenophon,
Cato, and Varro; and now I find among the most eminent British
agriculturists and gardeners of the close of the last century a firm
grip on life that would have matched the hardihood of Cato. Old
Abercrombie of Preston Pans, as we have already seen, reached the age of
eighty. Walpole, though I lay no claim to him as farmer or gardener,
yet, thanks to the walks and garden-work of Strawberry Hill, lived to
the same age. Philip Miller was an octogenarian. Lord Kames was aged
eighty-seven at his death (1782). Arthur Young, though struggling with
blindness in his later years, had accumulated such stock of vitality by
his out-door life as to bridge him well over into the present century:
he died in 1820, aged seventy-nine. Parson Trusler, notwithstanding his
apothecary-schooling, lived to be eighty. In 1826 died Joseph Cradock of
the "Village Memoirs," and a devoted horticulturist, aged eighty-five.
Three years after, (1829,) Sir Uvedale Price bade final adieu to his
delightful seat of Foxley, at the age of eighty-three. Sir John Sinclair
lived fairly into our own time, (1835,) and was eighty-one at his death.

William Speechley, whom Johnson calls the best gardener of his time, and
who established th