Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/246

 Meanwhile, on the death of William III, Anne committed the royal gardens to the care of Wise in preference to London, who had the mortification of seeing the demolition of all the box-work which he had designed at Hampton Court in conformity with the Dutch taste. In 1706 London and Wise laid out a town garden at Nottingham for Count Tallard, the French general who had fallen into Marlborough's hands at the battle of Blenheim. A description of this garden was appended to London and Wise's ‘The Retir'd Gard'ner, being a translation of “Le Jardinier Solitaire”’ [from the French of the Sieur Louis Liger], or rather a combination of two French manuals on gardening, with a small admixture of original matter (for Jacob Tonson, 2 vols. 8vo, 1706). In one of his papers in the ‘Spectator,’ ridiculing the newly introduced opera, Addison writes, on 6 March 1711: ‘I hear there is a treaty on foot with London and Wise (who will be appointed Gardeners of the Play-house) to furnish the Opera of “Rinaldo and Armida” with an Orange Grove; and that the next time it is acted, the Singing Birds will be personated by Tom-Tits.’ In the same journal, on 6 Sept. 1712, Addison describes the partners as ‘the heroic poets’ of gardening, citing the upper garden at Kensington as a signal example of their skill. By this time the famous nursery at Brompton had passed into the hands of a gardener named Swinhoe; but Wise had not yet definitely quitted his profession, for in 1714 he was reappointed head-gardener to George I. In 1709 Wise had bought the estate and mansion of the Priory, Warwick, where he spent his declining years. He died at Warwick on 15 Dec. 1738, being then ‘worth 200,000l.,’ and was buried in St. Mary's Church. By his wife, Patience Banks, he had issue Matthew (d. 12 Sept. 1776), Henry, and John. Horace Walpole visited the Priory, and declares that he unintentionally offended one of the sons by asking him if he had planted much. A portrait of the gardener is in the possession of the Wise family of Woodcote in Warwickshire.

Elwin represents Pope's ‘Fourth Moral Essay’ on false taste as especially directed against Wise; but Wise was less a typical representative of the formal Dutch style than his predecessors and teachers, though he was one of the last upholders of the old French tradition against the innovations of Bridgeman and Kent. In addition to the ‘Retir'd Gard'ner’ Wise collaborated with London in ‘The Compleat Gard'ner, or Directions for cultivating and right ordering of Fruit Gardens and Kitchen Gardens,’ abridged and improved from John Evelyn's translation from the French of J. de La Quintinye (London, 1699, 1704, 1710, 1725, enlarged).



WISE, JOHN RICHARD CAPEL (1831–1890), author and ornithologist, born in 1831, was eldest son of John Robert Wise (1792–1842), British consul-general in Sweden, by his wife Jane, daughter of Richard Ellison of Sudbrooke. The eldest branch of the Wise family has been long seated at Clayton Hall, Staffordshire. John Wise (1751–1807), the author's grandfather, was a younger son; he was recorder of Totnes, and married Elizabeth, sister of Robert Hurrell Froude, archdeacon of Totnes, the father of James Anthony Froude the historian. After attending Grantham grammar school, Wise proceeded to Lincoln College, Oxford, whence he matriculated on 15 March 1849 at the age of eighteen. He took no degree, and left the university to travel abroad. Deeply interested in ornithology, he began at an early age to collect birds' eggs, and he devoted much energy through life to perfecting his collection. At the same time all aspects of nature attracted him, and wherever he wandered he studied carefully the zoology, botany, and scenery of the district. Nor did he neglect the dialect of the inhabitants. He was also a devoted student of literature, and wrote both prose and verse with directness and feeling.

On returning to England he wandered through country districts, frequently changing his residence and maintaining little communication with his friends. In 1855 he published a pamphlet of poems called ‘Robin Hood,’ and in 1857 a lecture on ‘The Beauties of Shakespeare,’ which he delivered at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1860 he issued a novel in two volumes called ‘The Cousin's Courtship;’ but it achieved little success. Repeated visits to the neighbourhood of Shakespeare's birthplace suggested a 