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in England, by the name of "the Dutch style;" square flower-beds; raised terraces, in straight lines; arbors of trelliswork at regular distances, covered with vine and other creeping plants; ponds for water-fowl and for fish, form the representations of this ancient people. The value set upon the lotus-plant is per

The Egyptian ladies almost invariably held the blossom of the lotus in their hand, and it was the decoration for their hair; the necklaces, too, which they wore at their bánquets, were formed of its petals. The plants in which the gardens of Egypt abounded, are particularly alluded to in the Song of Solomon."

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introduced, and the appearance of some great convulsion of nature is imitated. Trees are bent from their natural form, and made to look as if scathed by lightning, or blasted by the tempest. Some are seen torn and shivered; others are lying across the torrents, as if rent from their places by the rush of the waters; the ruins of castles and villages, as if destroy-ceived at once; it is seen everywhere. ed by lightning and the storm, are interspersed throughout the scene; while wretched homes here and there intimate the misery to which the inhabitants of this region of desolation are reduced. You emerge suddenly from this gloom and devastation into the Scene of Delight, which is diversified by wood and water, and embellished with a profusion of flowering shrubs and flowers of every hue. Vistas of cascades are seen through the openings in the woods, with sheets of water, where vessels are gliding along; bridges and buildings lie scattered in the distance. To surprise seems the great aim of this style of gardening. Sometimes, gradually led on from this delightful landscape to a wild, rugged path, the explorer is involved in dark caverns; and again he finds himself in the midst of luxuriance and beauty. All appears like enchantment. The scene derives its great interest from an air of supernatural mystery; strange sounds are heard to issue from the ground, (contrived by making streams pass beneath it ;) openings are left in the rocks and buildings, through which the wind rushes like an awful dirge; grotesque-looking trees and plants are introduced into this scene, where a number of strange animals are let loose. The imperial gardens, which are of vast extent, are laid out after this fashion, embellished with artificial hills, valleys, lakes, and canals; palaces, towns, and villages of wood, painted and varnished, (for such are always introduced into pleasuregrounds,) bridges, colonnades, restingplaces; a farm and fields fill up the design, where the emperor presides once a year for the encouragement of industry.

The fantastic style of gardening which at one time prevailed throughout Europe, did not originate there, but has been traced by those who have carefully examined the paintings and the bas-reliefs which represent the Egyptian gardens, where the flowers and fruits so essential for the Egyptian banquets were cultivated. They were laid out in the manner which went, VOL. XI.-40

The gardens of Switzerland appear to have been laid out without any attempt at imitation; they exhibited none of the fantastic ornaments which were so profusely introduced into the gardens of other countries. Hirschfield tells that "they are theaters of true beauty, without vain ornaments or artificial decoration." There is an unspeakable charm in simplicity, which makes it a component part in all that is sublime and lovely. The natural advantages of these gardens would, indeed, ren-. der embellishment, beyond the culture of plants, quite out of place. Their romantic and picturesque situations, the undulations of the ground, the rocks, the verdure for which some are remarkable, the noble views which they command, render them most delightful pleasure-gardens; and they are, besides, cultivated with the greatest care and most scrupulous neatness. The first botanic garden was founded at Zurich, by Gesner, before the middle of the sixteenth century. Though his means obliged him to limit its extent and the number of hands he employed, yet his energy was such that he had a vast collection of plants which he had preserved in his extensive travels and procured from his friends. Most of the cantons can now boast of a botanic garden. Pisa is distinguished for having opened the first in Europe. The botanic garden of Ghent, established by Napoleon in 1797, is the richest and best in the Netherlands. Here, too, the festivals of Flora are held twice a year by the agricultural society; they last for three days at midsummer, and again at midwinter. An honorary medal is the prize awarded to the finest plants exhibited.

[The subject will be continued in a future article.]

THE FAITHFUL PASTOR AND THE

THE

DEVOTED WIFE.

HE little village of Eyam, in Derbyshire, England, is memorable for the ravages of the great plague in 1665-6, and as the scene, says Mrs. Hall, to whom we are mainly indebted for this sketch, of the more than Roman fortitude, the Christian devotion and self-sacrifice, of its pastor, the Rev. William Mompesson, who by his influence and example confined the plague to this one spot, and tended, encouraged, and lived among his people, until God was pleased to "stay" it.

The plague was introduced into this remote district through the medium of a box of clothes sent to a tailor who resided there. The person who opened the box, whence the imprisoned pestilence burst forth, was its first victim; and the whole of the family, with the solitary exception of one, shared the same fate. The disease spread rapidly, and almost every house was thinned by the contagion. The same roof, in many instances, sheltered at the same time both the dying and the dead. Short indeed was the space between health and sickness, and immediate the transition from the death-bed to the tomb. Wher

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ever symptoms of the plague appeared, so hopeless was recovery, that the dissolution of the afflicted patient was watched with anxious solicitude, that so much of the disease might be buried, and its fatal influence destroyed. In the churchyard, on the neighboring hills, and in the fields bordering the village, graves were dug ready to receive the expiring sufferers, and the earth with an unhallowed haste was closed upon them, even while the limbs were yet warm. A clear idea of the ravages made here by this awful scourge may be gathered from the fact, that out of a population of three hundred and thirty persons who then inhabited Eyam, two hundred and fifty-nine fell victims to death. When the pestilence first appeared, the clergyman, Mr. Mompesson, was residing

The

here with his wife and two children. alarmed villagers communicated the fearful fact at once to their minister and friend. After the first shock, he speedily made up his mind as to the proper course to pursue; he determined to confine the plague, if possible, to the bounds of his own parish, and to remain there with his flock, as a true pastor should, and thus literally become "the priest, the physician, and the legislator of a community of sufferers." He was at this time a young man, his wife was in her twenty-seventh year, and for her safety and for that of his two children he was deeply anxious; he therefore at once imparted the melancholy news to her, explained the determined nature of his own self-sacrifice, and urged her immediate flight with the children while life and

health remained. But he addressed a spirit as bold as his own, as truly imbued with knowledge of Christian duty, as determined to act with fortitude and resignation to death. She sent her children to a temporary home of safety, but she refused to go herself; he whom she had sworn to love and cherish she would not desert in his hour of need; the marriage vow of consolatory companionship, "till death doth part," she would keep to the letter, and resolutely, with Christian fortitude, cast away all fear, and prepared for a duty, although it was rendered doubly repulsive by the terrors which surrounded it.

These noble spirits by their example upheld the hopes of their poor parishioners; they flew not from their homes when their pastor showed his faith and determination; they trusted in him and obeyed his behests; he was their guide, their monitor, in life and death. By this means the plague was pent in the narrow limits of the village, and the county-or perhaps we may say the country generally-was saved from similar ravages. Such was his influence over the villagers, that at a time when, of all others, men listen least to argument and most to fear, he was implicitly obeyed in all things; his character and example drew a moral cordon-" a charmed circle" -round Eyam, which none attempted to pass, even though to remain within it was to hazard death almost inevitably. He ar

ranged that food should be left at stated spots around the village, that troughs filled with water should be placed near the boundary line of communication, to receive and purify the purchase money used in the perilous traffic; and thus all danger be avoided of spreading contagion. In his labors he was much assisted by the Earl of Devonshire, who was at the time residing at Chatsworth, where he also remained, undeterred by fear, during the whole time the plague was ravaging Eyam, doing all in his power to second the exertions of its noble pastor.

Mompesson felt more than ever the necessity for religious comfort and observances, and wished that his flock should unite in prayer to God, and listen to the certain hope of salvation as they had done heretofore. But to assemble where they used, in the village church, would be to woo the embraces of Death. He therefore fixed on a spot where he had often enjoyed the beauty of retirement in happier hours, and there determined to assemble his hearers. It is a deep dell, close to the village, formed by the fissures of the rocks as they descend toward Middleton Dale, its craggy sides covered with trees, and a small stream trickling along the midst. Half-way down the dell a rock projects from the mass of foliage, and at a little height from the base is a small cavernous arch about twelve feet high. This Mompesson chose for his pul

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pit; it was sufficiently high to command a view of the little dell; its arched roof concentrated and threw forth his voice to his hearers on the hill opposite.

"A pallid, ghost-like, melancholy crew,
Seated on scattered crags, and far-off knolls,
As fearing each the other."

And thus was God's service conducted at
Eyam during the plague, and the spot is
still sacred to the villagers, who term it
Cucklet Church.

The pastor's home was soon visited by the angel of death. His noble wife fell stricken by the pestilence: she died in the

month of August, and her death is thus feelingly told by her husband in a letter to a friend:

"This is the saddest news ever my pen could write. The destroying angel having taken up his quarters within my habitation, my dearest wife has gone to her eternal rest, and is invested with a crown of righteousness, having made a happy end. Indeed, had she loved herself as well as me, she had fled from the pit of destruction with the sweet babes, and might have prolonged her days, but she was resolved to die a martyr to my interest. My drooping spirits are much refreshed with her joys, which, I think, are unutterable."

Her tomb is in front of the village

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church, near the entrance to the chancel. | self. Further I can assure you, my sweet On one end is sculptured a winged hourglass, and the inscription, Cavete, nesculis horam; on the other a skull and the words Mors mihi lucrum. At each corner, and a little in advance of the tomb, are placed four chamfered stone pillars, and close beside is an antique Runic cross.

When death had thus deprived him of his wife, the pastor's hope of his own life failed him, and in the letter we have just quoted, he speaks of himself to a friend as "your dying chaplain," and assures him "this paper is to bid you a hearty farewell forever." He recommends his children to his care, in memorable words which all parents should echo, "I am not desirous that they should be great, but good." In writing to his children, he says, "I do believe, my dear hearts, upon sufficient grounds, that she was the kindest wife in the world; and I do think from my soul, that she loved me ten times more than her

babes, that her love to you was little inferior to hers for me. For why should she be so desirous of living, but that you might have the comfort of my life?" he adds a touching story of her death-bed, when, on refusing all sustenance or cordials, "I desired her to take them for your dear sakes. Upon the mention of your dear names, she lifted herself up and took them, which was to let me understand, while she had strength left, she would embrace any opportunity she had of testifying her affection to you."

At this time the plague raged fearfully at Eyam; the church-yard was overcrowded, and in the fields and hills adjoining the village, its once happy inhabitants found their graves. Some twenty years ago, the neighboring fields contained the graves and monumental tablets of the dead; but they are all now obliterated by the hand of the husbandman, except one group,

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known as "the Riley Gravestones," which are situated about half a mile from the village on the hill-side; a wall has been erected round the stones that remain, but many whose resting-places were not distinguished by such marks, are not included within this humble inclosure.

One square tomb and six head-stones record the resting-places of an entire family, and show how fearfully sudden the plague swept all away. The first who died was Elizabeth Hancock, on August 3, 1666; the father died on the following day; the three sons died together on the 7th of that month, another daughter on the 9th, and another the day following; leaving one boy only as the representative of the family.

It was during the August and September of this year that the plague raged uncontrolled; early in November it ceased, leaving unscathed the Pastor Mompesson, who on the 20th of November writes:

"The condition of this place has been so sad that I persuade myself it did exceed all hisplace has become a Golgotha, the place of a tory and example; I may truly say that our skull: and had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as. Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Now, blessed be God, all our fears are over, for none have died of the infection since the 11th of October, and all the pest-houses have been long empty."

He now resumed his duties in the village church, the quaint and simple edifice where so many had listened whose ears were now closed by pestilential death.

It has been well said that "a fervent piety, a humble resignation, a spirit that under circumstances peculiarly afflicting could sincerely say, 'Not my will,but Thine be done,' a manly fortitude and a friendly generosity of heart, were blended together in the character of Mompesson."

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