He was born, and lived,

And died upon the Hudson River.

His life was devoted to the improvement of the national taste in rural art.

An office for which his genius and the natural beauty amidst which he lived had fully endowed him

His success was as great as his genius, and for the death of few public men, was public grief ever more sincere. When these grounds were proposed, he was at once called to design them;

But before they were completed he perished in the wreck of the steamer Henry Clay.

His mind was singularly just, penetrating, and original. His manners were calm, reserved, and courteous. His personal memory belongs to the friends who loved him;

His fame to the country which honors and laments him.

Southern Front

The taste of an individual,

as well as that of a nation, will be in direct proportion to the profound sensibility with which he

perceives the beautiful in natural scenery.

Open wide, therefore, the doors of your libraries and picture galleries all ye true republicans!

Build halls where Knowledge shall be freely diffused among men and not shut up within the narrow walls of narrow institutions

Plant spacious parks in your cities, and enclose their gates as wide as the gates of morning to the whole people.-Downing's Rural Essays.

Eastern front

66

'Weep no more,'

For Lycidus your sorrow is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor,
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet, anon, repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky;

So Lycidus sunk low, but mounted high

Through the dear might of Him that walks the waves."

Western front

I climb the hills from end to end

Of all the landscape underneath

I find no place that does not breath
Some gracious memory of my friend.

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,

Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee,
Which not alone had guided me,

But served the seasons that may rise.

And doubtless unto thee is given,

A life that bears immortal fruit,
In such great offices as suit
The full grown energies of Heaven.

And love will last as pure and whole

As when he loved me here in time
And at the spiritual prime
Re-awaken with the dawning soul.

On the base is the following:

THIS MEMORIAL

Was erected under a resolution passed at Philadelphia, in September, 1852, by the

AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY

of which Mr. DOWNING was one of the original founders. MARSHAL P. WILDER, President.

The memorial was not erected in the Mall until four years, to the month from the passing of the resolution in Philidelphia, or, in September, 1856. It was prior to the twenty-fourth day of that month, but diligent search has not revealed the exact date. The office of Public Buildings and Grounds was appealed to, but no reply was received, indicating, possibly, that no information was available from that source. The National Intelligencer and the Evening Star were both scanned, but without success. Perhaps the exact date may still be found.

Evidently there was some sort of an unveiling and celebration, for I have heard my mother say that she witnessed the exercises incidental thereto, when she was a girl, then seventeen years old. She then lived with her parents at their home, which is still standing and known as 215 Tenth Street, N.W. It has been converted into business property. This was only about two blocks from the memorial.

It was just as impossible to please everybody in days gone by as it is at the present time, and so, when this memorial was first set up, the editor of the Horticulturist, the periodical Downing had edited up to the time of his death, expressed his dissatisfaction by saying: