Breathing the smell of field and grove attune,
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal Spring.

Pope in his grounds at Twickenham, and Shenstone in his garden farm of the Leasowes, taught their countrymen to understand how much taste and refinement of soul may be connected with the laying out of gardens and the cultivation of flowers. I am sorry to learn that the famous retreats of these poets are not now what they were. The lovely nest of the little Nightingale of Twickenham has fallen into vulgar hands. And when Mr. Loudon visited (in 1831) the once beautiful grounds of Shenstone, he "found them in a state of indescribable neglect and ruin."

Pope said that of all his works that of which he was proudest was his garden. It was of but five acres, or perhaps less, but to this he is said to have given a charming variety. He enumerates amongst the friends who assisted him in the improvement of his grounds, the gallant Earl of Peterborough. "whose lightnings pierced the Iberian lines.'

Know, all the distant din that world can keep,
Rolls o'er my grotto, and but soothes my sleep.
There my retreat the best companions grace
Chiefs out of war and statesmen out of place.
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul;
And he whose lightnings pierced the Iberian lines
Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines;
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain

Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain.

Frederick Prince of Wales took a lively interest in Pope's tasteful Tusculanum and made him a present of some urns or vases either for his "laurel circus or to terminate his points." His famous grotto, which he is so fond of alluding to, was excavated to avoid an inconvenience. His property lying on both sides of the public highway, he contrived his highly ornamented passage under the road to preserve privacy and to connect the two portions of his estate.

The poet has given us in one of his letters a long and lively description of his subterranean embellishments. But his verse

will live longer than his prose. He has immortalized this grotto, so radiant with spars and ores and shells, in the following poetical inscription:

Thou, who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill;
Unpolished gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow;

Approach! Great Nature studiously behold,
And eye the mine without a wish for gold.
Approach-but awful! Lo, the Egerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, ST. JOHN sat and thought,

Where British sighs from dying WYNDHAM stole,

And the bright flame was shot thro' MARCHMONT'S soul;
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor

Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

Horace Walpole, speaking of the poet's garden, tells us that "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 at the cypresses that led up to his mother's tomb, were managed with exquisite judgment."

Cliveden's proud alcove,

The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love, alluded to by Pope in his sketch of the character of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, though laid out by Kent, was probably improved by the poet's suggestions. Walpole seems to think that the beautiful grounds at Rousham, laid out for General Dormer, were planned on the model of the garden at Twickenham, at least the opening and retiring "shades of Venus's Vale." And these grounds at Rousham were pronounced "the most engaging of all Kent's works." It is said that the design of the garden at Carlton House, was borrowed from that of Pope.

Wordsworth was correct in his observation that " Landscape gardening is a liberal art akin to the arts of poetry and painting." Walpole describes it as "an art that realizes painting and improves nature." "Mahomet," he adds, "imagined an Elysium, but Kent created many."

Pope's mansion was not a very spacious one, but it was large enough for a private gentleman of inexpensive habits. After the poet's death it was purchased by Sir William Stanhope who enlarged both the house and garden.* A bust of Pope, in white marble, has been placed over an arched way with the following inscription from the pen of Lord Nugent:

The humble roof, the garden's scanty line,

Ill suit the genius of the bard divine;

But fancy now displays a fairer scope

And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope.

I have not heard who set up this bust with its impudent inscription. I hope it was not Stanhope himself. I cannot help thinking that it would have been a truer compliment to the memory of Pope if the house and grounds had been kept up exactly as he had left them. Most people, I suspect, would greatly have preferred the poet's own "unfolding of his soul" to that" unfolding" attempted for him by a Stanhope and commemorated by a Nugent. Pope exhibited as much taste in • laying out his grounds as in constructing his poems. Sir William,

*The house and garden before Pope died were large enough for their owner. He was more than satisfied with them. "As Pope advanced in years," says Roscoe, "his love of gardening, and his attention to the various occupations to which it leads, seem to have increased also. This predilection was not confined to the ornamental part of this delightful pursuit, in which he has given undoubted proofs of his proficiency, but extended to the useful as well as the agreeable, as appears from several passages in his poems; but he has entered more particularly into this subject in a letter to Swift (March 25, 1736): "I wish you had any motive to see this kingdom. I could keep you: for I am rich; that is, have more than I want. I can afford room to yourself and two servants. I have indeed room enough; nothing but myself at home. The kind and hearty housewife is dead! The agreeable and instructive neighbour is gone! Yet my house is enlarged, and the gardens extend and flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost. I have more fruit trees and kitchen garden than you have any thought of; and, I have good melons and apples of my own growth. I am as much a better gardener, as I am a worse poet, than when you saw me; but gardening is near akin to philosophy, for Tully says, Agricultura proxima sapientiæ. For God's sake, why should not you, (that are a step higher than a philosopher, a divine, yet have too much grace and wit than to be a bishop) even give all you have to the poor of Ireland (for whom you have already done every thing else,) so quit the place, and live and die with me? And let tales anima concordes be our motto and our epitaph."

after his attempt to make the garden more worthy of the original designer, might just as modestly have undertaken to enlarge and improve the poetry of Pope on the plea that it did not sufficiently unfold his soul. might in that case have been transferred from the marble bust to the printed volume:

A line of Lord Nugent's

His fancy now displays a fairer scope.

Or the enlarger and improver might have taken his motto from Shakespeare:

To my unfolding lend a gracious ear.

This would have been an appropriate motto for the title-page of "The Poems of Pope: enlarged and improved: or The Soul of the Poet Unfolded."

But in sober truth, Pope, whether as a gardener or as a poet, required no enlarger or improver of his works. After Sir William Stanhope had left Pope's villa it came into the possession of Lord Mendip, who exhibited a proper respect for the poet's memory; but when in 1807 it was sold to the Baroness Howe, that lady pulled down the house and built another. The place, subsequently came into the possession of a Mr. Young. The grounds have now no resemblance to what the taste of Pope had once made them. Even his mother's monument has been removed! Few things would have more deeply touched the heart of the poet than the anticipation of this insult to the memory of so revered a parent. His filial piety was as remarkable as his poetical genius. No passages in his works do him more honor both as a man and as a poet than those which are mellowed into a deeper tenderness of sentiment and a softer and sweeter music by his domestic affections. There are probably few readers of English poetry who have not the following lines by heart.

Me, let the tender office long engage

To rock the cradle of reposing age;

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,

Make langour smile, and smooth the bed of death;

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,

And keep at least one parent from the sky.

In a letter to Swift (dated March 29, 1731) begun by Lord Bolingbroke and concluded by Pope, the latter speaks thus touchingly of his dear old parent:

"My Lord has spoken justly of his lady; why not I of my mother? Yesterday was her birth-day, now entering on the ninety-first year of her age; her memory much diminished, but her senses very little hurt, her sight and hearing good; she sleeps not ill, eats moderately, drinks water, says her prayers; this is all she does. I have reason to thank God for continuing so long to me a very good and tender parent, and for allowing me to exercise for some years those cares which are now as necessary to her, as hers have been to me."

"her

Pope lost his mother two years, two months, and a few days after the date of this letter. Three days after her death he entreated Richardson, the painter, to take a sketch of her face, as she lay in her coffin: and for this purpose Pope somewhat delayed her interment. "I thank God," he says, death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, nor even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired, that ever painting drew, and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow upon a friend if you would come and sketch it for me." The writer adds, "I shall hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded."

On the small obelisk in the garden, erected by Pope to the memory of his mother, he placed the following simple and pathetic inscription.

AH EDITHA!

MATRUM OPTIMA!

MULIERUM AMANTISSIMA!

VALE!

I wonder that any one could have had the heart to remove or to destroy so interesting a memorial.

It is said that Pope planted his celebrated weeping willow at Twickenham with his own hands, and that it was the first of its particular species introduced into England. Happening to be with Lady Suffolk when she received a parcel from Spain, he observed that it was bound with green twigs which looked as