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GARDEN, FRANCIS, a
distinguished judge under the designation of lord Gardenstone, was born at
Edinburgh on the 24th of June, 1721. He was the second son of
Alexander Garden to Troup, in Banffshire, and of Jane, daughter of Sir
Francis Grant, lord Cullen, one of the judges of the court of session. He
followed the usual course of education at the grammar school and
university, and being destined for the bar, entered as a member of the
faculty of advocates on the 14th of July, 1744. During the
earlier stages of his professional career, Mr Garden was distinguished for
his conviviality, at a period when, especially in Scotland, it must be
admitted that real proficiency was requisite to procure fame in that
qualification. A strong hale body and an easy benevolent mind gave him a
particular taste for social hilarity; had he lived at a different age, he
might have turned these qualities into a different channel, but they
suited with the period, and he accordingly became the prince of jolly
livers. Nor, when he reached that period of life when certain bodily
feelings generally make ancient bacchanalians look back with bitterness on
their youthful frolics, did his ever contented mind lose its equanimity.
If he was no longer able to indulge himself he bore the indulgences of
others with charity. His mind was of the same overflowing description, and
continued, after the body was disabled, to perform its part in the social
circle. Many characteristic anecdotes have been preserved of his convivial
propensities during his early practice at the bar. On one occasion, during
the time when prince Charles Edward was in possession of Edinburgh, he and
a Mr Cunningham (afterwards general) are said to have so far preferred
wine and oysters, to watching and warding, that, when sent as a patrol by
Sir John Cope, to watch the coast towards Musselburgh, instead of proving
a protection to the army, they were themselves taken prisoners, just when
the feast was at its highest, by a single individual, who happened to be
prowling in the neighbourhood. It must, however, be allowed, that at that
period, there were not many inducements to exertion held out to Scotsmen
of the higher rank. There were few men eminent for their genius, or even
for the more passive acquirements of classical learning, which
distinguished the neighbouring country. The bar was the only profession
which, from its respectability and emoluments, offered itself as a
resource to the younger sons of the landed proprietors, then sufficiently
poor; and while the learning and information at that time required by its
members in their professional capacity were not great, the jealousy of
England, just after the Union, allowed but to one family in Scotland, the
rational prospect that time and labour might be well spent in preparing
for the duties of a statesman. The state of the country and its political
influence were singularly discouraging to the upper classes, and from many
naturally active spirits being left unemployed, they turned to indolence
or unprofitable amusements those talents which might have rendered them
the best ornaments of their country. The nation had then, indeed, begun by
degrees to shake off its lethargy, and by the time the subject of this
memoir had advanced a little in life, he became one of the most admired
and beloved social members of a circle of illustrious philosophers and
historians, whose names are dear to the memory of their countrymen, as
those who first roused their slumbering energies.
On the 14th of July, 1744,
Mr Garden was made sheriff of Kincardineshire, and he soon after showed
the soundness of his perception and the liberality of his mind, by
stretching forth his hand to assist the modest talent and elegant taste of
the author of the Minstrel. To those who may, from its lingering remnants
at the present time, have formed any idea of the stately coldness
preserved by the higher classes in Scotland towards their inferiors, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, it will operate as no small evidence
of the discernment and kindness of the judge, that he began his
acquaintance with the poet and philosopher, when that individual was only
a cotter boy sitting in a field writing with a pencil. In August, 1759, Mr
Garden was chosen one of the legal assessors of the town of Edinburgh; and
as a higher step in professional advancement, in April, 1761, accepted
office in the latter days of Mr Pitt’s administration, as joint
solicitor-general of Scotland, along with Mr James Montgomery, afterwards
lord chief baron. What were his professional attainments as a lawyer, it
is at this distance of time difficult to determine, as he has left behind
him no professional work, the only index which can lead to a knowledge of
his mere technical attainments as a barrister. As a pleader, however, we
know he was highly estimated—as his connexion with a renowned lawsuit,
which spread its fame over all Europe, and created in Scotland a ferment
of disputation inferior only to the heat of religious controversy, has
well shown. The appearance made by Mr Garden in the Douglas cause rendered
his name better known, and his talents more appreciated, than generally
falls to the lot of a mere forensic pleader. He was early connected with
the proceedings of this great case, in the Tournelle process in France,
where he appeared as senior to his future friend and literary associate,
the classical Burnet of Monboddo, and is generally reported to have left
behind him a high opinion of his learning, and the powers of his
eloquence, even when clothed in a foreign language. He became connected
with the case on its transference to England, but amidst its multifarious
changes, he was raised to the bench as successor to lord Woodhall on the
3rd of July, 1764, in time to act as a judge on the case, then very
different in its aspect and material from what it was when he performed
the part of a counsel.
In 1762, Mr Garden had
purchased the estate of Johnston, in Kincardineshire, and in 1765, he
commenced those improvements on his estate, which, if not among the most
brilliant acts of his life, are perhaps among those which deserve to be
longest and best remembered. At the time when the estate of Johnston was
purchased, the village of Lawrencekirk, if a village it could then be
called, contained but fifty-four inhabitants, living there, not because it
was a centre of commercial or industrial circulation, but because chance
had brought a few houses to be built in each other’s vicinity. Lord
Gardenstone caused a new line of street to be planned out on his own
property; he gave extremely moderate leases of small farms, and ground for
building upon, to the last, for the period of 100 years; he established a
linen manufactory, built an inn, and with a singular attention to the
minute comforts and happiness of his rising flock, seldom equalled by
extensive projectors, he founded a library for the use of the villagers.
To assist the progress of society in reducing men dispersed over the
country into the compact limits of a town, is an easy, and generally a
profitable process, but to found towns or villages where there is no
previous spirit of influx, is working to a certain degree against nature,
and can only be accomplished by labour and expense. Although the
benevolent mind of lord Gardenstone, caused a mutual understanding and
kindness betwixt himself and his tenants, which mere commercial
speculators fail in producing, yet many of his best formed plans for the
prosperity of the village proved unavailing, and he was frequently subject
to disappointment and needless expense. He seems, however, to have felt
the pleasure of being kind without profiting himself. At much expense he
supported a printfield and manufacture of stockings, and purchased a royal
charter erecting Lawrencekirk into a burgh of barony, with a regular
magistracy. He had the satisfaction before his death to find the
population increase to five hundred souls, and in a letter to the
inhabitants which he published late in life, he says,—"I have tried
in some measure a variety of the pleasures which mankind pursue; but never
relished any thing so much as the pleasure arising from the progress of my
village."
In 1776, lord Gardenstone,
in addition to his seat on the civil bench, was appointed to fill the
office of a lord commissioner of justiciary, or ordinary judge in the
criminal court, as successor to lord Pitfour. Nine years afterwards,
having succeeded, by the death of his elder brother, to the extensive
estate of Troup, he relieved himself for ever from some of his laborious
judicial duties, and for a time from them all, and resolved to attempt to
recruit his failing constitution, by making a pleasure tour through the
continent Accordingly, in 1786, he passed into France by Dover, visiting
Paris and Lyons, remaining during part of the winter at Marseilles. In the
ensuing spring he passed to Geneva, where he saw the ruined remnant of
Voltaire’s village at Ferney, from which he was able to draw a
comparison much in favour of his own, where the people enjoyed permanent
political rights, which would render them independent of any future
superior who might not be disposed to imitate the beneficence of the
original patron. Lord Gardenstone spent the remainder of his allotted time
in traversing the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy; making, in his
progress, a collection of natural curiosities, and committing to writing a
number of cursory remarks on the men and manners he encountered, and the
works of art he had seen on his tour or met any where else, part of which
were submitted to the world in two duodecimo volumes, denominated
"Travelling Memorandums made in a Tour upon the Continent of Europe
in the year 1792," and a remaining volume was published after his
death. About the same time he published "Miscellanies in Prose and
Verse," a collection of petty productions which had given him
amusement, either in composing or hearing, during his earlier days.
Perhaps without affectation, the gravity of the judge might have
restrained the man from giving to the world a publication which could not
have raised the better part of his reputation. Lord Gardenstone was either
not a poet born, or his imagination had not stood the ordeal of a
profession which deals in fact and reason. His serious verses have all the
stiffness of the French school, without either the loftiness of Pope, or
the fire of Dryden. The author had to be sure an ever teeming mind, which
never emitted any thing common or contemptible, but it is to be feared,
that the merits his verses possess, are those of rhetoric rather than of
poetry; for, though constructed in the same workshop which formed words
and ideas that thrilled through the minds of a subdued audience, they are
certainly very flat and inelegant as poetical productions. The satirical
pieces have a singular pungence and acuteness, and are fine specimens of
the early natural powers of the author; but they are rather destitute of
the tact acquired by professed satirists. A biographer, who seems to have
been intimate with his lordship, [Life introductory to vol. 3d of
Traveling Memorandums, the only life of Gardenstone hitherto published –
at lest the one which, mutates mutandis, has been attached to his
name in biographical dictionaries.] describes him as having expressed
great contempt for the affectation of those who expressed disgust at the
indelicacies of Horace or Swift, and it must certainly be allowed, that,
in his humourous fragments, he has not departed from the spirit of his
precepts, or shown any respect for the feelings of these weaker brethren.
Lord Gardenstone spent the latter days of his life, as he had done the
earlier, in an unrestricted benevolence, and a social intercourse with the
world, indulging in the same principles, which years had softened in their
activity, but had not diminished. He was still an ornament and a useful
assistant to the circle of great men which raised the respectability of
his country. He continued to use his then ample fortune, and his practised
acuteness, in giving encouragement to letters, and in useful public
projects, the last of which appears to have been the erection of a
building over the mineral spring of St Bernard’s, in the romantic vale
of the water of Leith, a convenience which seems to have been much more
highly appreciated formerly than now, and is always mentioned as one of
the chief incidents of the judge’s life. He died at Morningside, near
Edinburgh, on the 22nd of July, 1793. The village which had afforded him
so much benevolent pleasure exhibited, for a considerable period after his
death, the outward signs of grief, and, what seldom happens in the
fluctuations of the world, the philanthropist was mourned by those who had
experienced his public munificence, as a private friend.
In person, lord Gardenstone
is described as having been a commanding man, with a high forehead,
features intellectually marked, and a serious penetrating eye: He was
generally a successful speaker, and differed from many orators in being
always pleasing. The effect appears to have been produced more by a
deep-toned melodious voice, a majestic ease, and carelessness of manner,
which made him appear unburdened with difficulties, and a flow of language
which, whether treating of familiar or of serious, subjects, was always
copious—than by the studied art of forensic oratory. His political
principles were always on the side of the people, and so far as may be
gathered from his remarks, he would have practically wished that every man
should enjoy every freedom and privilege which it might be consonant with
the order of society to allow, or which might with any safety be conceded
to those who had been long accustomed to the restraints and opinions of an
unequal government. From all that can be gathered from his life and
character, it is to be regretted that lord Gardenstone, like many other
eminent persons of his profession in Scotland, should have left behind him
no permanent work to save his memory from oblivion. His "Travelling
Memorandums" display the powers of a strongly thinking mind,
carelessly strewed about on unworthy objects; the ideas and information
are given with taste and true feeling; but they are so destitute of
organization or settled purpose, that they can give little pleasure to a
thinking mind, searching for digested and useful information, and are only
fit for those desultory readers, who cannot, or, like the author himself,
will not devote their minds to any particular end. The author’s
criticisms, scattered here and there through his memorandums, his letters
to his friends in the Edinburgh Magazine, and numberless pencil marks on
the margins of his books, are always just and searching, and strikingly
untrammelled by the prejudices of the day, a quality well exhibited in his
praises of Shakspeare, then by no means fashionable, and of the satellites
of the great bard, Shirley, Marlow, Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher,
who were almost forgotten.
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