When I read such a book as this of Whately’s,—­so informed and leavened as it is by an elegant taste,—­I am most painfully impressed by the shortcomings of very much which is called good landscape-gardening with us.  As if serpentine walks, and glimpses of elaborated turf-ground, and dots of exotic evergreens in little circlets of spaded earth, compassed at all those broad effects which a good designer should keep in mind!  We are gorged with petit-maitre-ism, and pretty littlenesses of all kinds.  We have the daintiest of walks, and the rarest of shrubs, and the best of drainage; but of those grand, bold effects which at once seize upon the imagination, and inspire it with new worship of Nature, we have great lack.  In private grounds we cannot of course command the opportunity which the long tenure under British privilege gives; but the conservators of public parks have scope and verge; let them look to it, that their resources be not wasted in the niceties of mere gardening, or in elaborate architectural devices.  Banks of blossoming shrubs and tangled wild vines and labyrinthine walks will count for nothing in park-effect, when, fifty years hence, the scheme shall have ripened, and hoary pines pile along the ridges, and gaunt single trees spot here and there the glades, to invite the noontide wayfarer.  A true artist should keep these ultimate effects always in his eye,—­effects that may be greatly impaired, if not utterly sacrificed, by an injudicious multiplication of small and meretricious beauties, which in no way conspire to the grand and final poise of the scene.

But I must not dwell upon so enticing a topic, or my wet day will run over into sunshine.  One word more, however, I have to say of the personality of the author who has suggested it.  The reader of Sparks’s Works and Life of Franklin may remember, that, in the fourth volume, under the head of “Hutchinson’s Letters,” the Doctor details difficulties which he fell into in connection with “certain papers” he obtained indirectly from one of His Majesty’s officials, and communicated to Thomas Gushing, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay.  The difficulty involved others besides the Doctor, and a duel came of it between a certain William Whately and Mr. Temple.  This William Whately was the brother of Thomas Whately,—­the author in question,—­and secretary to Lord Grenville,[L] in which capacity he died in 1772.[M] The “papers” alluded to were letters from Governor Hutchinson and others, expressing sympathy with the British Ministry in their efforts to enforce a grievous Colonial taxation.  It was currently supposed that Mr. Secretary Whately was the recipient of these letters; and upon their being made public after his death, Mr. Whately, his brother and executor, conceived that Mr. Temple was the instrument of their transfer.  Hence the duel.  Dr. Franklin, however, by public letter, declared that this allegation was ill-founded, but would never reveal the name of the party to whom he was indebted.  The Doctor lost his place of Postmaster-General for the Colonies, and was egregiously insulted by Wedderburn in open Council; but he could console himself with the friendship of such men as Lawyer Dunning, (one of the suspected authors of “Junius,”) and with the eulogium of Lord Chatham.