Alexander Garden

Alexander Garden

Texts

• Garden, Alexander, November 4, 1754, letter to Cadwallader Colden, describing John Bartram (New York: The New York Historical Society, 1920), view on Zotero.</ref>

"I have met wt very Little new in the Botanic way unless Your acquaintance Bartram, who is what he is & whose acquaintance alone makes amends for other disappointments in that way.... One Day he Dragged me out of town & Entertain'd me so agreably with some Elevated Botanicall thoughts, on oaks, Firns, Rocks & c that I forgot I was hungry till we Landed in his house about four Miles from Town....

"His garden is a perfect portraiture of himself, here you meet wt a row of rare plants almost covered over wt weeds, here with a Beautiful Shrub, even Luxuriant Amongst Briars, and in another corner an Elegant & Lofty tree lost in common thicket — on our way from town to his house he carried me to severall rocks & Dens where he shewed me some of his rare plants, which he had brought from the Mountains &c. In a word he disdains to have a garden less than Pensylvania [sic] & Every den is an Arbour, Every run of water, a Canal, & every small level Spot a Parterre, where he nurses up some of his Idol Flowers & cultivates his darling productions. He had many plants whose names he did not know, most or all of which I had seen & knew them — On the other hand he had several I had not seen & some I never heard of."

• Ogilvie, George, 1776, describing Alexander Garden's villa, Otranto, in Carolina; or, The Planter (Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 352-57)

"And lo! my friend, where all the muse demands,

"On Goose-creeks banks thy own Otranto stands!

"Where pleas'd and wond'ring as we thrid the maze,

"We doubt what beauty first demands our praise

"The river bounded by the impervious shade,

"The smooth green meadow, or the enamel'd glade,

"Where all the pride of Europe's florist yields

"To the assembled wildings of our fields....

"Here Pales seems with Flora to have strove,

"To blend the beauties of the lawn and grove....

Bright as the blush of Venus when she loves,

"Sweet as the woodbine of her Paphean groves...

"From tree to tree the flow'ry tindrils rove

"Till one continu'd garland binds the grove—

"Winding through shady walks, we slow descend,

"To skirt the mead, or trace the river's bend...

"And Man, with all the animated train

"That wing the air, or tread they grassy plain,

"Shrinks from the fervid ray and sultry breeze,

"To yonder eminence, where lofty trees

"Suspend, on spreading limbs, a leafy veil

"That gently waving, fans the temper'd gale.

"There midst the grove, with unassuming guise

"But rural neatness, see the mansion rise!