dilly, I cannot help mentioning the effect it had on myself. I had not only never seen it, but had never heard of it, at least with any attention, when, soon after my return from Italy, I was invited to a ball at Burlington-House. As I passed under the gate by night, it could not strike me. At day-break, looking out of the window to see the sun rise, I was surprised with the vision of the colonnade that fronted me. It seemed one of those edifices in Fairy Tales, that are raised by genii in a night's time." POPE having appeared an excellent moralist in the foregoing epistles, in this appears to be as excellent a connoisseur, and has given not only some of our first, but our best, rules and observations on architecture and gardening, but particularly on the latter of these useful and entertaining arts, on which he has dwelt more largely, and with rather more knowledge of the subject. The following is copied verbatim from a little paper which he gave *Though he always thought highly of Addison's Letter from Italy, yet he said the poet had spoken in terms too general of the finest buildings and paintings, and without much discrimination of taste. gave to Mr. SPENCE.* "Arts are taken from nature, and, after a thousand vain efforts for improvements, are best when they return to their first simplicity. A sketch or analysis of the first principles of each art, with their first consequences, might be a thing of most excellent service. Thus, for instance, all the rules of architecturef might be reducible to three or four heads; the justness of the openings, bearings upon bearings, the regularity of the pillars, &c. That which is not just in buildings, is disagreeable to the eye, (as a greater upon a lesser, &c.) and this may be called the reasoning of the eye. In laying out a garden, the first and chief thing to be *" Who had both taste and zeal for the present style," says Mr. Walpole, p. 134. + Our author was so delighted with Grævius, that he drew up a little Latin treatise on the chief buildings of Rome, collected from this antiquarian. Mr. Gray had also an exquisite taste in architecture, joined to the knowledge of an accurate antiquarian. See the introduction to Bentham's History of Ely Cathedral, supposed to be drawn up by Gray, or under his eye. To see all the beauties that a place was susceptible of, was to possess, as Mr. Pitt expressed it, "The prophetic eye of taste." be considered, is the genius of the place. Thus at Riskins, now called Piercy Lodge, Lord *** should have raised two or three mounts, because his situation is all a plain, and nothing can please without variety." Mr. WALPOLE, in his elegant and entertaining History of Modern Gardening, has clearly proved that Kent was the artist to whom the English nation was chiefly indebted for diffusing a taste in laying out grounds, of which the French and Italians have no idea. But he adds, much to the credit of our author, that POPE undoubtedly contributed to form Kent's taste. 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 affected modesty in the latter, when he said, of all his works, he was most proud of his garden and yet it was a singular effort of art and taste to impress so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres. The passing through the gloom from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring and again assembling shades, the dusky groves, the larger lawn, and the solemnity of the termination : at the cypresses that lead up to his mother's tomb, are managed with exquisite judgment; and though Lord Peterborough* assisted him To form his quincunx, and to rank his vines, those were not the most pleasing ingredients of his little perspective. I do not know whether the disposition of the garden at Rousham, laid out for General Dormer, and in my opinion the most engaging of all Kent's works, was not planned on the model of Mr. POPE's, at least in the opening and retiring "shades of Venus's Vale." It ought to be observed, that many years before this epistle was written, and before Kent was employed as an improver of grounds, even so early as the year 1713, POPE seems to have been the very first person that censured and ridiculed the I cannot forbear adding, in this place, the following anecdote from POPE to Mr. Spence, which I give in his own words: "Lord Peterborough, after a visit to FENELON, Archbishop of Cambray, said to me- -Fenelon is a man that was cast in a particular mould, that was never made use of for any body else. He's a delicious creature! But I was forced to get from him as soon as I possibly could, or else he would have made me pious." the formal French, Dutch, false and unnatural, mode in gardening, by a paper in the Guardian, Number 173, levelled against capricious operations of art, and every species of verdant sculpture, and inverted nature; which paper abounds with wit as well as taste, and ends with a ridiculous catalogue of various figures cut in evergreens. Neither do I think that these four lines in this epistle, Here Amphitrite sails thro' myrtle bow'rs; * do at all excel the following passage in his Guardian: "A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent Cook, who beautified his countryseat with a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at N VOL. II. one * Ver. 123. |