• The first lines I shall quote exhibit Stourhead on a more magnificent scale:

Thro' Eden went a river large,

Nor chang'd his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath'd ingulph'd, for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden-mound, high rais’d
Upon the rapid current-

Hagley seems pictured in what follows:

which thro' veins

Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden-

• What colouring, what freedom of pencil, what landscape in these lines!

from that saphire fount the crisped brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, With mazy error under pendent shades Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art In beds and curious knots but nature boon Pour'd forth profuse on hill' and dale and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierc'd shade Imbrown'd the noon-tide bow'rs.-Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view.

1.

• Read this transporting description, paint to your ⚫ mind the scenes that follow, contrast them with • the savage but respectable terror with which the Poet guards the bounds of his Paradise, • fenced

with the champaign head

Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and over head upgrew

Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade a woody theatre

Of stateliest view

' and then recollect that the author of this sublime 'vision had never seen a glimpse of any thing like • what he has imagined, that his favorite Antients had dropped not a hint of such divine scenery, and that the conceits in Italian gardens, and • Theobalds and Nonsuch, where the brightest originals that his memory could furnish. His 'intellectual eye saw a nobler plan, so little did he suffer by the loss of sight. It sufficed him to have seen the materials with which he could 'work. The vigour of a boundless imagination told him how a plan might be disposed, that 'would embellish nature, and restore art to its

proper office, the just improvement or imitation • of it*.

'It is necessary that the concurrent testimony of 'that age should swear to posterity that the descrip• tion above quoted was written above half a century before the introduction of modern garden⚫ing, or our incredulous descendants will defraud 'the poet of half his glory, by being persuaded that 'he copied some garden or gardens he had seen— 'so minutely do his ideas correspond with the present standard. But what shall we say for that 'intervening half century who could read that plan and never attempt to put it in execution?

Now let us turn to an admired writer, posterior 'to Milton, and see how cold, how insipid, how 'tasteless is his account of what he pronounced a perfect garden. I speak not of his style, which it was not necessary for him to animate with the colouring and glow of poetry. It is his want ' of ideas, of imagination, of taste, that I censure, 'when he dictated on a subject that is capable of ' all the graces that a knowledge of beautiful nature 'can bestow. Sir William Temple was an excel⚫lent man; Milton a genius of the first order.

* ‹ Since the above was written, I have found Milton praised ⚫ and Sir William Temple censured, on the same foundations, ' in a poem called The Rise and Progress of the present Taste in Planting, printed in 1767.'

'WE cannot wonder that Sir William declares ⚫ in favour of parterres, fountains, and statues, as necessary to break the sameness of large grassplats, which he thinks have an ill effect upon the eye, when he acknowledges that he discovers fancy in the gardens of Alcinous. Milton studied the Antients with equal enthusiasm, but no bigotry, and had judgement to distinguish between the • want of invention and the beauties of poetry. Compare his Paradise with Homer's Garden, • both ascribed to a celestial design. For of Sir • William, it is just to observe, that his ideas centered in a fruit-garden. He had the honour of giving to his country many delicate fruits, and ⚫ he thought of little else than disposing them to the best advantage. Here is the passage I proposed to quote; it is long, but I need not make an apology to the reader for entertaining him with any other words instead of my own.

"THE best figure of a garden is either

a square or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a descent:

they have all their beauties, but the best I esteem "an oblong upon a descent. The beauty, the air, "the view, makes amends for the expence, which "is very great in finishing and supporting the "terrace-walks, in levelling the parterres, and in "the stone stairs that are necessary from one to "the other.

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"THE perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, "either at home or abroad, was that of Moorpark in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess "of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits of "her time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne; "and with very great care, excellent contrivance, "and much cost; but greater sums may be "thrown away without effect or honour, if there "want sense in proportion to money, or if nature "be not followed, which I take to be the great rule “in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far "as the conduct not only of our lives but our

governments.

'WE shall see how natural that admired • den was.']

gar

"BECAUSE I take* the garden I have named to "have been in all kinds the most beautiful and

perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, that "I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model "to those that meet with such a situation, and are "above the regards of common expence. It lies "on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands,

• ‹ This garden seems to have been made after the plan • laid down by Lord Bacon in his 46th Essay, to which, that I may not multiply quotations, I will refer the reader.'