a trifling circumftance of Pope's being furprized by fome patrician company, whom he neither desired nor expected to fee, and who broke in upon his privacy. To avoid them, he fled to his gardener, whom he directed to take him up in his arms, and convey him over his boundary, which he did, and escaped by this help from his intruding visitors, as Anchifes did, by the strength of Æneas, from the flames of Troy. If this allufion is too important for the incident, the reader may be recommended to recollect the endeavours of Horace, a brother Satirift, to get rid of the Impertinent Man, whom it was fo difficult to fhake off, and from whom he was rescued at last by the interpofition of Apollo. So lively an image of this fpot is raised by Mr. Walpole, in his obfervations upon modern gardening, that my reader fhall have it in his own words, which are always the beft. "Mr. Pope undoubtedly contributed to form the taste of Kent. The design of the Prince of Wales's garden at Carleton-house was evidently borrowed from the Poet's at Twickenham. There was a little of affected mo defty in the latter, when he faid, of all his works, he was most proud of his garden. And yet, it was a it was a fingular effect of art and tafte to impress fo much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres. The paffing through the gloom, from the Grotto, to the opening day, the retiring and again affembling shades, the dufky groves, the larger lawn, and folemnity of the termination at the cypreffes, that lead to his mother's tomb, are managed with exquifite judgement: and though Lord Peterborough affifted him, "To form his quincunx, and to rank his " vines," thefe are not the most pleasing ingredients in this little perspective!" Whilft the pen is performing this office, I recollect that I was formerly told by a refpectable intelligencer (who had the opinion from the noble Lord himself) that Lord Peterborough did not think his friend Pope fo good nor fo great a poet as Dryden. Sir William Temple compofes a popular effay, in 1685, under the title, Of the Gardens of Epicurus, or, Of Gardening. From spleen, spleen, bad health, or despair of doing his country any important fervice, he refolved to have nothing more to do with public affairs, nor the intrigues nor duplicities of a court. He had the honour of compleating the triple alliance against France (would to heaven fuch an alliance were formed at this hour!) and of concluding the treaty at Nimeguen; on which fubject, he says, Mr. Godolphin (afterwards the great minifter in the fplendid years of Queen Anne) wrote him word, and told him, if he compaffed it, he would move to have his ftatue fet up. He fled from the metropolis (to which he was become as great a ftranger as the man of Verona to Rome; and had already been unrepentently absent for five entire years) to write like a philosopher, and to live and die like one. He He pays a devotional refpect to the practice and principles of Epicurus (the Epicurus of Lucretius and Gaffendi) and feems to make health of body and peace of mind his chief good; and, as Cheyne, in his chearful book on health and long life, expreffes it of the neceffity of exercife, a part of his religion. Hear the C 2 poetical poetical pupil of Temple, Matthew Green, under these inspirations : "And let my mind, beguil'd by talk, Who thought it heaven to be ferenė; Pain, hell, and purgatory, fpleen." Sir William Temple did not retire, like Dioclefian, to raise cabbages at Spalatro. The abdicated prince (according to our last information from the excellent historian Mr. Gibbon) gave this memorable answer to old Maximilian, who invited him to re-affume the reins of government, and the imperial purple: "If I could fhew you the cabbages I planted with my own hands at Salona, I fhould be no longer urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power." His leisure hours, like Temple's, were employed in building, planting, and gardening; and fo would Cowley's, if his life had been longer and his fortune greater. Temple introduced and cultivated grapes, (he mentions and boafts of his introduction of four forts) and pears, and the choiceft. fruits from the warmer climates, which he brought brought to perfection. "I would make you confefs, fays he in a letter to Wicquefort, were any favourable accident to bring you hither (and this age produces ftrange ones enough) that the fruits of my garden have another taste than those of my closet (meaning his account of the United Provinces) and will keep better than thofe of my embaffies." He had told the penfionary De Wit, in 1671, "that he was better turned for making a good gardener than an able minister." He remarks, that "Homer's defcription of the garden of Alcinous in Phæacia, now Corfu, contains the justest rules and provifions, which can go towards composing the best gardens." He lavishes on the garden of Moorpark in Hertfordshire, made by the Countess of Bedford, which lately belonged to that great feaman Lord Anfon, all the hyperbole of praise. It had, in the course of thirty years, fuftained much alteration; Sir William talks of it at that diftance of time with as much rapture as of Milton's Garden of Eden, or of Taffo's enchanted garden of Armida. Temple, who is much inclined to admire the works C 3 |