Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet

He is best remembered today for two aspects of his life after retirement: a passage on the designs of Chinese gardens, written without ever having seen one, and for employing a young Jonathan Swift as his secretary.

Born in London, and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge,[2] Temple travelled across Europe, and was for some time a member of the Irish Parliament, employed on various diplomatic missions.

During his time as a diplomat, Temple successfully negotiated the Triple Alliance of 1668 and the marriage of the Prince of Orange and Princess Mary of England in 1677.

He was the architect of the Privy Council Ministry of 1679, which, though it failed, was an early effort to establish an executive along the lines of what later came to be understood as Cabinet government.

Temple installed his family motto "God has given us these opportunities for tranquility" above the door and took great pleasure from this house in his retirement from public life.

[11] The normally cynical Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, was deeply grieved by his death, writing to Temple's sister Martha that "the chief pleasure I proposed to myself was to see him sometimes".

[13] It was a love marriage and the couple were noted for constancy during their long engagement: Dorothy resisted pressure from her family to accept any of several other more eligible suitors, including Henry Cromwell and her cousin Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds.

In his essay of 1685 (first published in 1690), "Upon the Gardens of Epicurus" Temple wrote of "the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public employments, I have passed five years without once going to town".

[17] The passage in which Temple outlines the concept of Sharawadgi or Sharawaggi is the following:Amongst us, the Beauty of Building and Planting is placed chiefly in some Proportions, Symmetries and Uniformities; our Walks and our Trees ranged so, as to answer one another, and at exact Distances.

But their greatest reach of Imagination, is employed in contriving Figures, where the Beauty shall be great, and strike the Eye, but without any Order or Disposition of Parts, that shall be commonly or easily observ'd.