y the nice and critical pen of the late Sir U. Price; and when he
informs us, in more than one instance, of the great Earl of Chatham's
"turning his mind to the embellishment of rural nature."

THOMAS WHATELEY, on whose "Observations on Modern Gardening," the
Encyclopaedia of Gardening (that most comprehensive assemblage of every
thing delightful and curious in this art,) observes, "It is remarkable,
that so little is known of a writer, the beauty of whose style, and the
justness of whose taste, are universally acknowledged." The same work
further says, "his excellent book, so frequently referred to by all
succeeding writers on garden scenery, ought to be in the hands of every
man of taste." And the same work still further observes, that "its style
has been pronounced by Ensor, inimitable, and the descriptions with
which his investigations are accompanied, have been largely copied, and
amply praised by Alison, in his work On Taste. The book was soon
translated into the continental languages, and is judiciously praised in
the _Mercure de France_, _Journal Encyclopedique_, and Weiland's
_Journal_. G. Mason alone dissents from the general opinion, enlarging
on the very few faults or peculiarities which are to be found in the
book. Wheatley, or Whately (for so little is known of this eminent man,
that we have never been able to ascertain satisfactorily the orthography
of his name,) was proprietor of Nonsuch Park, in Surrey; and was
secretary to the Earl of Suffolk. He published only this work, soon
after which he died. After his death, some remarks on Shakspeare, from
his pen, were published in a small 12mo." A second edition of this
elegant little work was published in 1808, by Parson, Oxford; or
Rivington, St. Paul's; in which, the advertisement to the reader informs
us, that "the respectable author intended to have gone through eight or
ten of the principal characters of Shakspeare, but suspended his design,
in order to finish his Observations on Modern Gardening, first published
in the year 1770; immediately after which time, _he was engaged in such
an active scene of public life_, as left him but little leisure to
attend to the Belles Lettres; and in the year 1772 he died."[57]

His remarks on some of the characters of Shakspeare (whom, in his
_Observations_, he calls _the great master of nature_) breathe in many
of his pages, that fire, which he could have caught only from those of
the great poet. Such was his eagerne