543
his imagination teems with the most soothing and
elevated figures. ... It appears to have been
no part of his plan to seek out for new subjects of
preaching, or to exert his ingenuity in exhibiting new
views of moral and religious topics. To embellish
the most common subjects, which are certainly the
most proper and useful, with new ornaments—to
persuade by more forcible and captivating illustration
—to unite the beauties of elegant diction and the
splendour of fine imagery—in this lay his chief exer-
tions, and here rests his chief praise."
LOTHIAN, DR. WILLIAM, F.R.S.E., author of
a History of the United Provinces of the Netherlands,
was born at Edinburgh in 1740, being the son of
Mr. George Lothian, a respectable surgeon in that
city. Having passed through the various stages of
his education with some eclat, he was licensed as a
preacher of the gospel in 1762, and appointed in
1764 one of the ministers of the Canongate. As a
preacher his method of instruction was simple and per-
spicuous, his sentiments rational and manly, and his
manner unaffected and persuasive. For many years
before his death he was afflicted with a very painful
disease; yet he not only performed his professional
duties with unabated zeal, but found energy and
spirit to compose the work above-mentioned, which
appeared in 1780. Previously to this publication he
had been honoured by the Edinburgh university
with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He died
December 17,  1783, having only completed the
forty-third year of his age. Two sermons by him
are published in the Scotch Preacher, 4 vols. I2mo,
1776. For a more copious notice of this respectable
divine, reference may be made to the first volume of
the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
LOUDON", JOHN CLAUDIUS. This eminent im-
prover of our gardening and agriculture was born
at Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, on the 8th of April,
1783. His father was a respectable farmer, who
resided at Kerse Hall, near Gogar, in the neighbour-
hood of Edinburgh: his mother was only sister of the
mother of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, so well known
by his philanthropic labours in behalf of the Hin-
doos, and his work entitled Christian Researches in
Asia. Even when a child, John Claudius Loudon
evinced that taste in gardening for which he was
afterwards so distinguished; and his chief pleasure
at that time was to lay out and make walks and
beds in a little garden which his father had given
him. He was early sent to Edinburgh for the bene-
fit of his education, where he resided with his uncle;
and besides studying botany and chemistry, he learned
Latin, and afterwards French and Italian, contriving
to pay the fees of his teachers by the sale of his
translations from the two last-mentioned languages.
Being placed at the age of fourteen under the charge
of a nurseryman and landscape-gardener, he continued
his studies in botany and chemistry, to which he
added that of agriculture, at the university of Edin-
burgh; while, to obtain as much time as possible from
the duties of the day, he was wont to sit up two
nights during each week, a practice that grew into
a habit, and which he continued for years during his
subsequent studies.
In 1803, when he had now reached his twentieth
year, and obtained a considerable reputation in land-
scape-gardening, Loudon went up to London, carry-
ing with him numerous letters of introduction to some
of the first landed proprietors in England. On
entering the great metropolis the tasteless manner
in which the public squares were laid out caught his
observant eye: their gloomy trees and shrubs were
planted as if the places had been designed for church-
yards rather than haunts of recreation. As the soli-
tary voice of a stranger would have been unheard
upon such a prevalent evil, he had recourse to the
press, and published an article, entitled "Observations
on Laying out the Public Squares of London," in the
Literary Journal, in which he recommended the
oriental plane, almond, sycamore, and other lighter
trees, instead of the lugubrious plantings that had
hitherto been in vogue. The advice gradually pre-
vailed, and the effect is to be seen in the cheerful,
graceful aspect of our public squares in London, as
well as over the kingdom. He now became an author
as well as practical workman, and his pen went
onward with little intermission for forty years, until
his life terminated. His first publication, which ap-
peared in 1804, was entitled Observations on the For-
mation and Management of Useful and Ornamental
Plantations. In the following year he published
A Short Treatise on some Improvements lately made
in Hot-houses; and in 1806 "A Treatise on Forming,
Improving, and Managing Country Residences; and
on the Choice of Situations appropriate to every
Class of Purchasers." As Loudon was an excellent
artist, this work was enriched with thirty-two copper-
plate engravings of landscape scenery, drawn by him-
self.
A disaster which soon after befell him, and under
which the activity of others would have been para-
lyzed, only opened up for Loudon a wider range of
action. In consequence of travelling upon a rainy
night on the outside of a coach, and neglecting after-
wards to change his clothes, so severe an attack of
rheumatic fever ensued that he was obliged to take
lodgings at Pinner, near Harrow. Here, during the
days of convalescence, he had an opportunity of ob-
serving the cumbrous, wasteful, and unskilful modes
of farming pursued in England, and so much at
variance with those which were beginning to be put
in practice in his own country. With Loudon to
see an evil was to labour for its removal, and persist
until it was removed. For the sake of giving prac-
tical illustrations of his proposed amendments, he
induced his father to join with him in renting Wood
Hall, near London, where their operations were so
successful, that in 1807 he was enabled to call public
attention to the proof, in a pamphlet entitled " An
Immediate and Effectual Mode of Raising the Rental
of the Landed Property of England, &c., by a Scotch
Farmer, now farming in Middlesex." This excel-
lent work introduced him to the notice of General
Stratton, by whom he was induced to farm Tew
Park, a property belonging to the general in Ox-
fordshire. On moving to this new locality Mr.
Loudon did not content himself with reaping the
fruits of his superior farming; anxious that others
should share in the benefit, he established an academy
or college of agriculture on the estate of Tew Park,
where young men were instructed in the theory of
farming and the best modes of cultivating the soil;
and, anxious to diffuse this knowledge as widely as
possible, he published, in 1809, a pamphlet, entitled
'' The Utility of Agricultural Knowledge to the Sons
of the Landed Proprietors of Great Britain, &c., by
a Scotch Farmer and Land-agent."
In this way, while Loudon was generously doing
his uttermost to be the Triptolemus of England, and
teaching the best modes of increasing and eliciting
the riches of its soil, his own success was a practical
comment upon the efficacy of his theories; for, in
1812, he found himself the comfortable possessor of
£15,000. This was enough for one who had a
higher aim in life than mere money-making, and to
fit himself more effectually for that aim, he resolved