dering over the lovely scenes, the pleasant brooks, the
flower-bespangled meadows, which the moral pages of Isaac Walton so
unaffectedly delineate, it is impossible not to recur to the name of the
late author of _Salmonia_, and to reflect, that on these pages he oft
unbended his vigorous mind from his severe and brilliant discoveries. We
can now only lament the (almost) premature death of this high-ranked
philosopher, this great benefactor to the arts, and deep promoter of
science, whose mortal remains were consigned to his unostentatious tomb,
at Geneva, in one of the finest evenings of summer, followed by the
eloquent and amiable historian, De Sismondi, and by other learned and
illustrious men. One may apply to his last moments at Geneva, (where he
had arrived only one day before) these lines of his own favourite
Herbert:--

_Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die!_[69]

SAMUEL GILBERT'S portrait is prefixed to his "Florist's Vade Mecum;"
12mo. In his "Gardener's Almanack," is a particular description of the
roses cultivated in the English gardens at that period. He was the
author of "Fons Sanitatis, or the Healing Spring at Willowbridge Wells."
He was son-in-law to John Rea, the author of Flora, and who planned the
gardens at Gerard's Bromley. Willowbridge Wells are at a little distance
from where these once superb gardens were.

JACOB BOBART, the elder, is an admirable portrait, by D. Loggan, taken
at his age of eighty-one, and engraved by Burghers. Granger says it is
extremely scarce. Beneath the head, which is dated 1675, is this
distich:--

_Thou Germane prince of plants, each year to thee,
Thousands of subjects grant a subsidy._

It is a venerable countenance, of deep thought. Richardson re-engraved
this among his Illustrations to Granger. Granger mentions also a
whole-length of Bobart in a garden, dog, goat, &c. 4to. The Encycl. of
Gardening says, "Bobart's descendants are still in Oxford, and known as
coach proprietors." Do none of them possess the original painting? The
munificence of the Earl of Danby placed Bobart in the physic garden at
Oxford, in 1632, as supervisor; and this garden flourished many years
under his care, and that of his son Jacob, whose zeal and diligence Dr.
Pulteney records. The elder Bobart was the author of the _Hortus
Oxoniensis_, 1648. Wood, in his Athenae, info