DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.50017#0028
xxii INTRODUCTION
heart is to rest in his garden 1—the rest of his body
being bequeathed to Westminster Abbey. Surely this
transfigures a legal into a human document of poignant
literary associations.
Temple’s prose has been praised by many critics in
varying voices. Hume, writing in an age when style
had sunk its individuality in the generic; and, in
pursuit of colourless Ciceronianism, had lost the per-
sonal note and become de V epoque meme plutot que de
1 The versions of this affaire du cceur are various. Stephen
Switzer, in the valuable “ History of Gard’ning” prefixed to
his Ichnographia Rustica, thought the heart was interred “in
his beloved Gardens at Sheen.” Defoe’s account (1748) is as
follows :—
About Two Miles from Farnham is More-park, formerly
the Seat of Sir William Temple, who, by his Will, ordered
his Heart to be put into a China Bason, and buried under a
Sun-dial in his Garden, which was accordingly performed.
This House is situated in a Valley, surrounded on Every
Side with Hills, having a running Stream thro’ the Garden,
which with a small Expence might be made to Serpentize
through all the adjacent Meadows, in a most delightful
manner.
While Cobbett in his Rural Rides writes : —
I would have showed him (his son) the garden-seat,
under which Sir William Temple’s heart was buried, agree-
ably to his Will; but, the seat was gone, also the wall at
the back of it; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in
which the seat stood, was turned into a parcel of divers-
shaped cockney-clumps, planted according to the strictest
rules of artificial and refined vulgarity.
heart is to rest in his garden 1—the rest of his body
being bequeathed to Westminster Abbey. Surely this
transfigures a legal into a human document of poignant
literary associations.
Temple’s prose has been praised by many critics in
varying voices. Hume, writing in an age when style
had sunk its individuality in the generic; and, in
pursuit of colourless Ciceronianism, had lost the per-
sonal note and become de V epoque meme plutot que de
1 The versions of this affaire du cceur are various. Stephen
Switzer, in the valuable “ History of Gard’ning” prefixed to
his Ichnographia Rustica, thought the heart was interred “in
his beloved Gardens at Sheen.” Defoe’s account (1748) is as
follows :—
About Two Miles from Farnham is More-park, formerly
the Seat of Sir William Temple, who, by his Will, ordered
his Heart to be put into a China Bason, and buried under a
Sun-dial in his Garden, which was accordingly performed.
This House is situated in a Valley, surrounded on Every
Side with Hills, having a running Stream thro’ the Garden,
which with a small Expence might be made to Serpentize
through all the adjacent Meadows, in a most delightful
manner.
While Cobbett in his Rural Rides writes : —
I would have showed him (his son) the garden-seat,
under which Sir William Temple’s heart was buried, agree-
ably to his Will; but, the seat was gone, also the wall at
the back of it; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in
which the seat stood, was turned into a parcel of divers-
shaped cockney-clumps, planted according to the strictest
rules of artificial and refined vulgarity.