ery delightful to be set under a
parlour, or lower chamber window; but those which perfume the air most
delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and
crushed, are three--that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints;
therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when
you walk or tread."[19] Or when Mr. Evelyn, in the joy of his
enthusiasm, exultingly transposed from Virgil:--

O fortunatos nimium, bona si sua norint
_Horticulas_!

and who declared, that the employ and felicity of an excellent gardener
was preferable to all other diversions. When Mr. Addison says that a
garden "fills the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and lays all its
turbulent passions at rest." When Sir William Temple (who infused into
his writings the graces of some of the best writers of ancient times),
thus allures his readers: "_Epicurus_, whose admirable wit, felicity of
expression, excellence of nature, sweetness of conversation, temperance
of life, and constancy of death, made him so beloved by his friends,
admired by his scholars, and honoured by the Athenians, passed his time
wholly in his garden; there he studied, there he exercised, there he
taught his philosophy; and indeed no other sort of abode seems to
contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind, and indolence of
body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the
pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and
lightness of food, the exercises of working or walking; but above all,
the exemption from cares and solitude, seem equally to favour and
improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and
imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind."
When the industrious Switzer says:--"'Tis in the quiet enjoyment of
rural delights, the refreshing and odoriferous breezes of garden air,
that the deluge of vapours, and those terrors of hypochondraism, which
crowd and oppress the head are dispelled." When the industrious and
philosophic Bradley observes, that "though the trouble of the mind wears
and destroys the constitution even of the most healthful body, all kinds
of gardens contribute to health." When Pope,[20] who loved to breathe
the sweet and fragrant air of gardens, in one of his letters says, "I am
in my garden, amused and easy; this is a scene where one finds no
disappointment." When that "universally esteemed and beloved man," the
Prince de Ligne, declares,