ich no man ever loved
better, or esteemed more; we cannot avoid considering Sir William Temple
as one of the greatest characters which has appeared upon the political
stage; and he may be justly classed with the greatest names of
antiquity, and with the most brilliant characters which adorn and
illustrate the Grecian or Roman annals." Mr. Mason, in his English
Garden, contrasts Sir William's idea of "a perfect garden," with those
of Lord Bacon, and Milton; but he candidly says,

----and yet full oft
O'er Temple's studious hour did truth preside,
Sprinkling her lustre o'er his classic page;
There hear his candour own, in fashion's spite,
In spite of courtly dulness hear it own,
_There is a grace in wild variety
Surpassing rule and order._ Temple, yes,
There is a grace; and let eternal wreaths
Adorn their brows who fixt its empire here."

He then, in glowing lines, pays an animated tribute to Addison, Pope,
and Kent. Hume records that "he was full of honour and humanity." Sir
William thus concludes one of his philosophic essays:--"When this is
done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward
child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet
till it falls asleep, and then the care is over." His garden was one of
his last delights. He knew what kind of life was best fitted to make a
man's last days happy. Mr. Walpole, though he censures Sir William's
warm panegyric on the garden at Moor Park, yet scruples not doing him
full justice, in styling him an excellent man, and an admired writer,
whose style, as to his garden, is animated with the colouring and glow
of poetry. Mr. Cobbett, in his _English Gardener_, thus deplores the
fate of Moor Park:--"This really wise and excellent man, Sir W. Temple,
who, while he possessed the soundest judgment, and was employed in some
of the greatest concerns of his country, so ardently, yet so rationally
and unaffectedly, praises the pursuits of gardening, in which he
delighted from his youth to his old age; and of his taste in which, he
gave such delightful proofs in those gardens and grounds at Moor Park,
beneath the turf of one spot of which, he caused by his will, his heart
to be buried, and which spot, together with all the rest of the
beautiful arrangement, has been torn about and disfigured within the
last fifty years, by a succession of wine merchants, spirit merchants,
West Indians, and God