ubraken has also engraved the same
for Birch's Lives. Sir William Temple, after spending twenty years in
negociations with foreign powers, retired in 1680 from public life, and
employed his time in literary pursuits. He was ambassador for many years
at the court of Holland, and there acquired his knowledge and taste in
gardening. He had a garden at Sheen, and afterwards, another at Moor
Park, where he died in 1700; and though his body was buried in
Westminster Abbey, his heart was enclosed in a silver urn under a
sun-dial in the latter garden. His Essay "Upon the Gardens of Epicurus,
or of Gardening in the year 1685," is printed in all the editions of his
works.[70] These works are published in 2 vols. folio, and 4 vols. 8vo.
Switzer, in his History of Gardening, first published in 1715, says,
"That he was a great lover of gardening, appears by his own writings,
and several kinds of fruit brought over by him out of Holland, &c. as
well as by the testimony of his neighbours _yet living_, the greatest
consolation of his life being, in the lucid intervals he had from public
employs, in his beloved gardens at _Sheen_." And, in his Fruit Gardener
he says, that "the magnificence and generosity of this great lover of
planting, distributed vast numbers of the finest grapes among the
nurserymen about London, as well as amongst the nobility and gentry."
Lord Mountmorris thus speaks of him:--"The retirement of this great man
has bequeathed the most invaluable legacy to posterity. Of the taste and
elegance of his writings too much can never be said, illuminated as they
are by that probity and candour which pervade them, and those charms
which render truth irresistible. Though other writers may be more the
objects of imitation to the scholar, yet his style is certainly the best
adapted to the politician and the man of fashion; nor would such an
opinion be given, were it not for an anecdote of Swift, which I had from
the late Mr. Sheridan, who told me the dean always recommended him as
the best model, and had repeatedly said that the style of Sir William
Temple was the easiest, the most liberal, and the most brilliant
in our language. In a word, when we consider his probity, his
disinterestedness, his contempt of wealth, the genuine beauty of his
style, which was as brilliant, as harmonious, and as pure as his life
and manners; when we reflect upon the treasures which he has bequeathed
by his example and by his works to his country, wh