Me, let the tender office long engageTo 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."
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, "her 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 if they might vegetate. "Perhaps," said he, "these may produce something that we have not yet in England." He tried a cutting, and it succeeded. The tree was removed by some person as barbarous as the reverend gentleman who cut down Shakespeare's Mulberry Tree. The Willow was destroyed for the same reason, as the Mulberry Tree--because the owner was annoyed at persons asking to see it. The Weeping Willow
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,[013]
has had its interest with people in general much increased by its association with the history of Napoleon in the Island of St. Helena. The tree whose boughs seemed to hang so fondly over his remains has now its scions in all parts of the world. Few travellers visited the tomb without taking a small cutting of the Napoleon Willow for cultivation in their own land. Slips of the Willow at Twickenham, like those of the Willow at St. Helena, have also found their way into many countries. In 1789 the Empress of Russia had some of them planted in her garden at St. Petersburgh.
Mr. Loudon tells us that there is an oldoakin Binfield Wood, Windsor Forest, which is calledPope's Oak, and which bears the inscription "HERE POPE SANG:"[014]but according to general tradition it was abeechtree, under which Pope wrote his "Windsor Forest." It is said that as that tree was decayed, Lady Gower had the inscription alluded to carved upon another tree near it. Perhaps the substituted tree was an oak.
I may here mention that in the Vale of Avoca there is a tree celebrated as that under which Thomas Moore wrote the verses entitled "The meeting of the Waters."
The allusion toPope's Oakreminds me that Chaucer is said to have planted three oak trees in Donnington Park near Newbury. Not one of them is now, I believe, in existence. There is an oak tree in Windsor Forest above 1000 years old. In the hollow of this tree twenty people might be accommodated with standing room. It is calledKing's Oak: it was William the Conqueror's favorite tree.Herne's Oakin Windsor Park, is said by some to be still standing, but it is described as a mere anatomy.
----An old oak whose boughs are mossed with age,And high top bald with dry antiquity.
As You Like it.
"It stretches out its bare and sapless branches," says Mr. Jesse, "like the skeleton arms of some enormous giant, and is almost fearful in its decay."Herne's Oak, as every one knows, is immortalised by Shakespeare, who has spread its fame over many lands.
There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns,And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle;And makes milch cows yield blood, and shakes a chainIn a most hideous and dreadful manner.You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know,The superstitious, idle-headed eldReceived, and did deliver to our age,This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.
Merry Wives of Windsor.
"Herne, the hunter" is said to have hung himself upon one of the branches of this tree, and even,
----Yet there want not many that do fear,In deep of night to walk by this Herne's Oak.
Merry Wives of Windsor.
It was not long ago visited by the King of Prussia to whom Shakespeare had rendered it an object of great interest.
It is unpleasant to add that there is considerable doubt and dispute as to its identity. Charles Knight and a Quarterly Reviewer both maintain thatHerne's Oakwas cut down with a number of other old trees in obedience to an order from George the Third when he was not in his right mind, and that his Majesty deeply regretted the order he had given when he found that the most interesting tree in his Park had been destroyed. Mr. Jesse, in hisGleanings in Natural History, says that after some pains to ascertain the truth, he is convinced that this story is not correct, and that the famous old tree is still standing. He adds that George the Fourth often alluded to the story and said that though one of the trees cut down was supposed to have beenHerne's Oak, it was not so in reality. George the Third, it is said, once called the attention of Mr. Ingalt, the manager of Windsor Home Park to a particular tree, and said "I brought you here to point out this tree to you. I commit it to your especial charge; and take care that no damage is ever done to it. I had rather that every tree in the park should be cut down than that this tree should be hurt.This is Hernes Oak."
Sir Philip Sidney's Oak at Penshurst mentioned by Ben Jonson--
That taller tree, of which the nut was setAt his great birth, where all the Muses met--
is still in existence. It is thirty feet in circumference. Waller also alludes to
Yonder tree which stands the sacred markOf noble Sidney's birth.
Yardley Oak, immortalized by Cowper, is now in a state of decay.
Time made thee what thou wert--king of the woods!And time hath made thee what thou art--a caveFor owls to roost in.
Cowper.
The tree is said to be at least fifteen hundred years old. It cannot hold its present place much longer; but for many centuries to come it will
Live in description and look green in song.
It stands on the grounds of the Marquis of Northampton; and to prevent people from cutting off and carrying away pieces of it as relics, the following notice has been painted on a board and nailed to the tree:--"Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of Northampton is particularly desirous of preserving this Oak."
Lord Byron, in early life, planted an oak in the garden at Newstead and indulged the fancy, that as that flourished so should he. The oak has survived the poet, but it will not outlive the memory of its planter or even the boyish verses which he addressed to it.
Pope observes, that "a tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation robes." Yet probably the poet had never seen any tree larger than a British oak. What would he have thought of the Baobab tree in Abyssinia, which measures from 80 to 120 feet in girth, and sometimes reaches the age of five thousand years. We have no such sylvan patriarch in Europe. The oldest British tree I have heard of, is a yew tree of Fortingall in Scotland, of which the age is said to be two thousand five hundred years. If trees had long memories and could converse with man, what interesting chapters these survivors of centuries might add to the history of the world!
Pope was not always happy in his Twickenham Paradise. His rural delights were interrupted for a time by an unrequited passion for the beautiful and highly-gifted but eccentric Lady Mary Wortley Montague.
Ah! friend, 'tis true--this truth you lovers know;In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenesOf hanging mountains and of sloping greens;Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.What are the gay parterre, the chequered shade,The morning bower, the evening colonnade,But soft recesses of uneasy minds,To sigh unheard in to the passing winds?So the struck deer, in some sequestered part,Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;He, stretched unseen, in coverts hid from day,Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.
These are exquisite lines, and have given delight to innumerable readers, but they gave no delight to Lady Mary. In writing to her sister, the Countess of Mar, then at Paris, she says in allusion to these "most musical, most melancholy" verses--"I stifled them here; and I beg they may die the same death at Paris." It is not, however, quite so easy a thing as Lady Mary seemed to think, to "stifle" such poetry as Pope's.
Pope's notions respecting the laying out of gardens are well expressed in the following extract from the fourth Epistle of his Moral Essays.[015]This fourth Epistle was addressed, as most readers will remember, to the accomplished Lord Burlington, who, as Walpole says, "had every quality of a genius and an artist, except envy. Though his own designs were more chaste and classic than Kent's, he entertained him in his house till his death, and was more studious to extend his friend's fame than his own."
Something there is more needful than expense,And something previous e'en to taste--'tis sense;Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,And though no science fairly worth the seven;A light, which in yourself you must perceive;Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.To build, or plant, whatever you intend,To rear the column or the arch to bend;To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;In all let Nature never be forgot.But treat the goddess like a modest fair,Nor over dress nor leave her wholly bare;Let not each beauty every where be spied,Where half the skill is decently to hide.He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds.Consult the genius of the place in all;[016]That tells the waters or to rise or fall;Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale,Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;Calls in the country, catches opening glades,Joins willing woods and varies shades from shades;Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines;Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.Still follow sense, of every art the soul;Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,Spontaneous beauties all around advance,Start e'en from difficulty, strike from chance;Nature shall join you; time shall make it growA work to wonder at--perhaps a STOWE.[017]Without it proud Versailles![018]Thy glory falls;And Nero's terraces desert their walls.The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make,Lo! Cobham comes and floats them with a lake;Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain,You'll wish your hill or sheltered seat again.
Pope is in most instances singularly happy in his compliments, but the allusion to STOWE--as "a work to wonder at"--has rather an equivocal appearance, and so also has the mention of Lord Cobham, the proprietor of the place. In the first draught of the poem, the name of Bridgeman was inserted where Cobham's now stands, but as Bridgeman mistook the compliment for a sneer, the poet thought the landscape-gardener had proved himself undeserving of the intended honor, and presented the second-hand compliment to the peer. The grounds at Stowe, more praised by poets than any other private estate in England, extend to 400 acres. There are many other fine estates in our country of far greater extent, but of less celebrity. Some of them are much too extensive, perhaps, for true enjoyment. The Earl of Leicester, when he had completed his seat at Holkham, observed, that "It was a melancholy thing to stand alone in one's country. I look round; not a house is to be seen but mine. I am the Giant of Giant-castle and have ate up all my neighbours." The Earl must have felt that the political economy of Goldsmith in hisDeserted Villagewas not wholly the work of imagination.
Sweet smiling village! Loveliest of the lawn,Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seenAnd desolation saddens all the green,--One only master grasps thy whole domain.
Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside,To scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
"Hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton," as Lamb calls him, describes Stowe as a Paradise.
ON LORD COBHAM'S GARDEN.
It puzzles much the sage's brainsWhere Eden stood of yore,Some place it in Arabia's plains,Some say it is no more.But Cobham can these tales confute,As all the curious know;For he hath proved beyond dispute,That Paradise is STOWE.
Thomson also calls the place a paradise:
Ye PowersThat o'er the garden and the rural seatPreside, which shining through the cheerful landIn countless numbers blest Britannia sees;O, lead me to the wide-extended walks,The fair majestic paradise of Stowe!Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shoreE'er saw such sylvan scenes; such various artBy genius fired, such ardent genius tamedBy cool judicious art, that in the strifeAll-beauteous Nature fears to be out-done.
The poet somewhat mars the effect of this compliment to the charms of Stowe, by making it a matter of regret that the owner
His verdant filesOf ordered trees should here inglorious range,Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,And long embattled hosts.
This representation of rural pursuits as inglorious, a sentiment so out of keeping with his subject, is soon after followed rather inconsistently, by a sort of paraphrase of Virgil's celebrated picture of rural felicity, and some of Thomson's own thoughts on the advantages of a retreat from active life.
Oh, knew he but his happiness, of menThe happiest he! Who far from public rageDeep in the vale, with a choice few retiredDrinks the pure pleasures of the rural life, &c.
Then again:--
Let others brave the flood in quest of gainAnd beat for joyless months, the gloomy wave.Let such as deem it glory to destroy,Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek;Unpierced, exulting in the widow's wail,The virgin's shriek and infant's trembling cry.
While he, from all the stormy passions freeThat restless men involve, hears andbuthears,At distance safe, the human tempest roar,Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,The rage of nations, and the crush of states,Move not the man, who from the world escaped,In still retreats and flowery solitudes,To nature's voice attends, from month to month,And day to day, through the revolving year;Admiring sees her in her every shape;Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;Takes what she liberal gives, nor asks for more.He, when young Spring, protudes the bursting gemsMarks the first bud, and sucks the healthful galeInto his freshened soul; her genial hourHe full enjoys, and not a beauty blowsAnd not an opening blossom breathes in vain.
Thomson in his description of Lord Townshend's seat of Rainham--another English estate once much celebrated and still much admired--exclaims:
Such are thy beauties, Rainham, such the hauntsOf angels, in primeval guiltless daysWhen man, imparadised, conversed with God.
And Broome after quoting the whole description in his dedication of his own poems to Lord Townshend, observes, in the old fashioned fulsome strain, "This, my lord, is but a faint picture of the place of your retirement which no one ever enjoyed more elegantly."[019]"A faint picture!" What more would the dedicator have wished Thomson to say? Broome, if not contented with his patron's seat being described as an earthly Paradise, must have desired it to be compared with Heaven itself, and thus have left his Lordship no hope of the enjoyment of a better place than he already possessed.
Samuel Boyse, who when without a shirt to his back sat up in his bed to write verses, with his arms through two holes in his blanket, and when he went into the streets wore paper collars to conceal the sad deficiency of linen, has a poem of considerable length entitledThe Triumphs of Nature. It is wholly devoted to a description of this magnificent garden,[020]in which, amongst other architectural ornaments, was a temple dedicated to British worthies, where the busts of Pope and Congreve held conspicuous places. I may as well give a specimen of the lines of poor Boyse. Here is his description of that part of Lord Cobham's grounds in which is erected to the Goddess of Love, a Temple containing a statue of the Venus de Medicis.
Next to the fair ascent our steps we traced,Where shines afar the bold rotunda placed;The artful dome Ionic columns bearLight as the fabric swells in ambient air.Beneath enshrined the Tuscan Venus standsAnd beauty's queen the beauteous scene commands:The fond beholder sees with glad surprize,Streams glisten, lawns appear, and forests rise--Here through thick shades alternate buildings break,There through the borders steals the silver lake,A soft variety delights the soul,And harmony resulting crowns the whole.
Congreve in his Letter in verse addressed to Lord Cobham asks him to
Tell how his pleasing Stowe employs his time.
It would seem that the proprietor of Stowe took particular interest in the disposition of the water on his grounds. Congreve enquires
Or dost thou give the winds afar to blowEach vexing thought, and heart-devouring woe,And fix thy mind alone on rural scenes,To turn the level lawns to liquid plains?To raise the creeping rills from humble bedsAnd force the latent spring to lift their heads,On watery columns, capitals to rear,That mix their flowing curls with upper air?
Or slowly walk along the mazy woodTo meditate on all that's wise and good.
The line:--
To turn the level lawn to liquid plains--
Will remind the reader of Pope's
Lo! Cobham comes and floats them with a lake--
And it might be thought that Congreve had taken the hint from the bard of Twickenham if Congreve's poem had not preceded that of Pope. The one was published in 1729, the other in 1731.
Cowper is in the list of poets who have alluded to "Cobham's groves" and Pope's commemoration of them.
AndCobham's grovesand Windsor's green retreatsWhen Pope describes them have a thousand sweets.
"Magnificence and splendour," says Mr. Whately, the author ofObservations on Modern Gardening, "are the characteristics of Stowe. It is like one of those places celebrated in antiquity which were devoted to the purposes of religion, and filled with sacred groves, hallowed fountains, and temples dedicated to several deities; the resort of distant nations and the object of veneration to half the heathen world: the pomp is, at Stowe, blended with beauty; and the place is equally distinguished by its amenity and grandeur." Horace Walpole speaks of its "visionary enchantment." "I have been strolling about in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from garden to garden," says Pope in one of his letters, "but still returning to Lord Cobham's with fresh satisfaction."[021]
The grounds at Stowe, until the year 1714, were laid out in the old formal style. Bridgeman then commenced the improvements and Kent subsequently completed them.
Stowe is now, I believe, in the possession of the Marquis of Chandos, son of the Duke of Buckingham. It is melancholy to state that the library, the statues, the furniture, and even some of the timber on the estate, were sold in 1848 to satisfy the creditors of the Duke.
Pope was never tired of improving his own grounds. "I pity you, Sir," said a friend to him, "because you have now completed every thing belonging to your gardens."[022]"Why," replied Pope, "I really shall be at a loss for the diversion I used to take in carrying out and finishing things: I have now nothing left me to do but to add a little ornament or two along the line of the Thames." I dare say Pope was by no means so near the end of his improvements as he and his friend imagined. One little change in a garden is sure to suggest or be followed by another. Garden-improvements are "never ending, still beginning." The late Dr. Arnold, the famous schoolmaster, writing to a friend, says--"The garden is a constant source of amusement to us both (self and wife); there are always some little alterations to be made, some few spots where an additional shrub or two would be ornamental, something coming into blossom; so that I can always delight to go round and see how things are going on." A garden is indeed a scene of continual change. Nature, even without the aid of the gardener, has "infinite variety," and supplies "a perpetual feast of nectared sweets where no crude surfeit reigns."
Spence reports Pope to have said: "I have sometimes had an idea of planting an old gothic cathedral in trees. Good large poplars, with their white stems, cleared of boughs to a proper height would serve very well for the columns, and might form the different aisles or peristilliums, by their different distances and heights. These would look very well near, and the dome rising all in a proper tuft in the middle would look well at a distance." This sort of verdant architecture would perhaps have a pleasing effect, but it is rather too much in the artificial style, to be quite consistent with Pope's own idea of landscape-gardening. And there are other trees that would form a nobler natural cathedral than the formal poplar. Cowper did not think of the poplar, when he described a green temple-roof.
How airy and how light the graceful arch,Yet awful as the consecrated roofRe-echoing pious anthems.
Almost the only traces ofPope's gardenthat now remain are the splendid Spanish chesnut-trees and some elms and cedars planted by the poet himself. A space once laid out in winding walks and beautiful shrubberies is now a potatoe field! The present proprietor, Mr. Young, is a wholesale tea-dealer. Even the bones of the poet, it is said, have been disturbed. The skull of Pope, according to William Howitt, is now in the private collection of a phrenologist! The manner in which it was obtained, he says, is this:--On some occasion of alteration in the church at Twickenham, or burial of some one in the same spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred, and opened to see the state of the remains. By a bribe of £50 to the Sexton, possession of the skull was obtained for one night; another skull was then returned instead of the poet's.
It has been stated that the French termFerme Ornéewas first used in England by Shenstone. It exactly expressed the character of his grounds. Mr. Repton said that he never strolled over the scenery of the Leasowes without lamenting the constant disappointment to which Shenstone exposed himself by a vain attempt to unite the incompatible objects of ornament and profit. "Thus," continued Mr. Repton, "the poet lived under the continual mortification of disappointed hope, and with a mind exquisitely sensible, he felt equally the sneer of the great man at the magnificence of his attempt and the ridicule of the farmer at the misapplication of his paternal acres." The "sneer of the great man." is perhaps an allusion to what Dr. Johnson says of Lord Lyttelton:--that he "looked with disdain" on "the petty State" of his neighbour. "For a while," says Dr. Johnson, "the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress, by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain." Mr. Graves, the zealous friend of Shenstone, indignantly denies that any of the Lyttelton family had evinced so ungenerous a feeling towards the proprietor of the Leasowes who though his "empire" was less "spacious and opulent" had probably a larger share of true taste than even the proprietor of Hagley, the Lyttelton domain--though Hagley has been much, and I doubt not, deservedly, admired.[023]
Dr. Johnson states that Shenstone's expenses were beyond his means,-- that he spent his estate in adorning it--that at last the clamours of creditors "overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and that his groves were haunted by beings very different from fauns and fairies." But this is gross exaggeration. Shenstone was occasionally, indeed, in slight pecuniary difficulties, but he could always have protected himself from the intrusion of the myrmidons of the law by raising money on his estate; for it appears that after the payment of all his debts, he left legacies to his friends and annuities to his servants.
Johnson himself is the most scornful of the critics upon Shenstone's rural pursuits. "The pleasure of Shenstone," says the Doctor, "was all in his eye: he valued what he valued merely for its looks. Nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if there were any fishes in his water." Dr. Johnson would have seen no use in the loveliest piece of running water in the world if it had contained nothing that he could masticate! Mrs. Piozzi says of him, "The truth is, he hated to hear about prospects and views, and laying out grounds and taste in gardening." "That was the best garden," he said, "which produced most roots and fruits; and that water was most to be prized which contained most fish." On this principle of the valuelessness of those pleasures which enter the mind through the eye, Dr. Johnson should have blamed the lovers of painting for dwelling with such fond admiration on the canvas of his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds. In point of fact, Dr. Johnson had no more sympathy with the genius of the painter or the musician than with that of the Landscape gardener, for he had neither an eye nor an ear for Art. He wondered how any man could be such a fool as to be moved to tears by music, and observed, that, "one could not fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs or looking at rough cascades." No; the loveliness of nature does not satisfy the thirst and hunger of the body, but itdoessatisfy the thirst and hunger of the soul. No one can find wheaten bread or wine or venison or beef or plum-pudding or turtle-soup in mere sounds and sights, however exquisite--neither can any one find such substantial diet within the boards of a book--no not even on the pages of Shakespeare, or even those of the Bible itself,--but men can find in sweet music and lovely scenery and good books something infinitely more precious than all the wine, venison, beef, or plum- pudding, or turtle-soup that could be swallowed during a long life by the most craving and capacious alderman of London! Man is of a dual nature: he is not all body. He has other and far higher wants and enjoyments than the purely physical--and these nobler appetites are gratified by the charms of nature and the creations of inspired genius.
Dr. Johnson's gastronomic allusions to nature recal the old story of a poet pointing out to a utilitarian friend some white lambs frolicking in a meadow. "Aye," said, the other, "only think of a quarter of one of them with asparagus and mint sauce!" The story is by some supposed to have had a Scottish origin, and a prosaic North Briton is made to say that the pretty little lambs, sporting amidst the daisies and buttercups, would "mak braw pies."
A profound feeling for the beautiful is generally held to be an essential quality in the poet. It is a curious fact, however, that there are some who aspire to the rank of poet, and have their claims allowed, who yet cannot be said to be poetical in their nature--for how can that nature be, strictly speaking,poeticalwhich denies the sentiment of Keats, that
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever?
Both Scott and Byron very earnestly admired Dr. Johnson's "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes." Yet the sentiments just quoted from the author of those productions are far more characteristic of a utilitarian philosopher than of one who has been endowed by nature with
The vision and the faculty divine,
and made capable, like some mysterious enchanter, of
Clothing the palpable and the familiarWith golden exhalations of the dawn.
Crabbe, also a prime favorite with the authors of theLay of the Last Minstrel, andChilde Harold, is recorded by his biographer--his own son--to have exhibited "a remarkable indifference to all the proper objects of taste;" to have had "no real love for painting, or music, or architecture or for what a painter's eye considers as the beauties of landscape." "In botany, grasses, the mostusefulbut the least ornamental, were his favorites." "He never seemed to be captivated with the mere beauty of natural objects or even to catch any taste for the arrangement of his specimens. Within, the house was a kind of scientific confusion; in the garden the usual showy foreigners gave place to the most scarce flowers, especially to the rarer weeds, of Britain; and were scattered here and there only for preservation. In fact he neither loved order for its own sake nor had any very high opinion of that passion in others."[024]Lord Byron described Crabbe to be
Though nature's sternest painter, yetthe best.
What! was he a better painter of nature than Shakespeare? The truth is that Byron was a wretched critic, though a powerful poet. His praises and his censures were alike unmeasured.
His generous ardor no cold medium knew.
He seemed to recognize no great general principles of criticism, but to found all his judgments on mere prejudice and passion. He thought Cowper "no poet," pronounced Spenser "a dull fellow," and placed Pope above Shakespeare. Byron's line on Crabbe is inscribed on the poet's tombstone at Trowbridge. Perhaps some foreign visitor on reading the inscription may be surprized at his own ignorance when he learns that it is not the author ofMacbethandOthellothat he is to regard as the best painter of nature that England has produced, but the author of theParish Registerand theTales of the Hall. Absurd and indiscriminate laudations of this kind confound all intellectual distinctions and make criticism ridiculous. Crabbe is unquestionably a vigorous and truthful writer, but he is not thebestwe have, in any sense of the word.
Though Dr. Johnson speaks so contemptuously of Shenstone's rural pursuits, he could not help acknowledging that when the poet began "to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks and to wind his waters," he did all this with such judgment and fancy as "made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers, and copied by designers."
Mason, in hisEnglish Garden, a poem once greatly admired, but now rarely read, and never perhaps with much delight, does justice to the taste of the Poet of the Leasowes.
Nor, Shenstone, thouShalt pass without thy meed, thou son of peace!Who knew'st, perchance, to harmonize thy shadesStill softer than thy song; yet was that songNor rude nor inharmonious when attunedTo pastoral plaint, or tale of slighted love.
English pleasure-gardens have been much imitated by the French. Viscomte Girardin, at his estate of Ermenonville, dedicated an inscription in amusing French-English to the proprietor of the Leasowes--
THIS PLAIN STONETO WILLIAM SHENSTONE;IN HIS WRITINGS HE DISPLAYEDA MIND NATURAL;AT LEASOWES HE LAIDARCADIAN GREENS RURAL.
The Viscomte, though his English composition was so quaint and imperfect, was an elegant writer in his own language, and showed great taste and skill in laying out his grounds. He had visited England, and carefully studied our modern style of gardening. He had personally consulted Shenstone, Mason, Whateley and other English authors on subjects of rural taste. He published an eloquent description of his own estate. His famous friend Rousseau wrote the preface to it. The book was translated into English. Rousseau spent his last days at Ermenonville and was buried there in what is calledThe Isle of Poplars. The garden is now in a neglected state, but the tomb of Rousseau remains uninjured, and is frequently visited by the admirers of his genius.
"Dr. Warton," says Bowles, "mentions Milton and Pope as the poets to whom English Landscape is indebted, buthe forgot poor Shenstone." A later writer, however, whose sympathy for genius communicates such a charm to all his anecdotes and comments in illustration of the literary character, has devoted a chapter of hisCuriosities of Literatureto a notice of the rural tastes of the proprietor of the Leasowes. I must give a brief extract from it.
"When we consider that Shenstone, in developing his fine pastoral ideas in the Leasowes, educated the nation into that taste for landscape- gardening, which has become the model of all Europe, this itself constitutes a claim on the gratitude of posterity. Thus the private pleasures of a man of genius may become at length those of a whole people. The creator of this new taste appears to have received far less notice than he merited. The name of Shenstone does not appear in the Essay on Gardening, by Lord Orford; even the supercilious Gray only bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the offices of the landscape designer, adds, that 'he will not inquire whether they demand any great powers of mind.' Johnson, however, conveys to us his own feelings, when he immediately expresses them under the character of 'a sullen and surly speculator.' The anxious life of Shenstone would indeed have been remunerated, could he have read the enchanting eulogium of Whateley on the Leasowes; which, said he, 'is a perfect picture of his mind--simple, elegant and amiable; and will always suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verse, or whether in the scenes which he formed, he only realised the pastoral images which abound in his songs.' Yes! Shenstone had been delighted could he have heard that Montesquieu, on his return home, adorned his 'Chateau Gothique, mais orné de bois charmans, don't j'ai pris l'idée en Angleterre;' and Shenstone, even with his modest and timid nature, had been proud to have witnessed a noble foreigner, amidst memorials dedicated to Theocritus and Virgil, to Thomson and Gesner, raising in his grounds an inscription, in bad English, but in pure taste, to Shenstone himself; for having displayed in his writings 'a mind natural,' and in his Leasowes 'laid Arcadian greens rural;' and recently Pindemonte has traced the taste of English gardening to Shenstone. A man of genius sometimes receives from foreigners, who are placed out of the prejudices of his compatriots, the tribute of posterity!"
"The Leasowes," says William Howitt, "now belongs to the Atwood family; and a Miss Atwood resides there occasionally. But the whole place bears the impress of desertion and neglect. The house has a dull look; the same heavy spirit broods over the lawns and glades: And it is only when you survey it from a distance, as when approaching Hales-Owen from Hagley, that the whole presents an aspect of unusual beauty."
Shenstone was at least as proud of his estate of the Leasowes as was Pope of his Twickenham Villa--perhaps more so. By mere men of the world, this pride in a garden may be regarded as a weakness, but if it be a weakness it is at least an innocent and inoffensive one, and it has been associated with the noblest intellectual endowments. Pitt and Fox and Burke and Warren Hastings were not weak men, and yet were they all extremely proud of their gardens. Every one, indeed, who takes an active interest in the culture and embellishment of his garden, finds his pride in it and his love for it increase daily. He is delighted to see it flourish and improve beneath his care. Even the humble mechanic, in his fondness for a garden, often indicates a feeling for the beautiful, and a genial nature. If a rich man were openly to boast of his plate or his equipages, or a literary man of his essays or his sonnets, as lovers of flowers boast of their geraniums or dahlias or rhododendrons, they would disgust the most indulgent hearer. But no one is shocked at the exultation of a gardener, amateur or professional, when in the fulness of his heart he descants upon the unrivalled beauty of his favorite flowers:
'Plants of his hand, and children of his care.'
"I have made myself two gardens," says Petrarch, "and I do not imagine that they are to be equalled in all the world. I should feel myself inclined to be angry with fortune if there were any so beautiful out of Italy." "I wish," says poor Kirke White writing to a friend, "I wish you to have a taste of these (rural) pleasures with me, and if ever I should live to be blessed with a quiet parsonage, andanother great object of my ambition--a garden, I have no doubt but we shall be for some short intervals at least two quite contented bodies." The poet Young, in the latter part of his life, after years of vain hopes and worldly struggles, gave himself up almost entirely to the sweet seclusion of a garden; and that peace and repose which cannot be found in courts and political cabinets, he found at last
In sunny garden bowersWhere vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken,And buds and bells with changes mark the hours.
He discovered that it was more profitable to solicit nature than to flatter the great.
For Nature never did betrayThe heart that loved her.
People of a poetical temperament--all true lovers of nature--can afford, far better than more essentially worldly beings, to exclaim with Thomson.
I care not Fortune what you me deny,You cannot bar me of free Nature's grace,You cannot shut the windows of the skyThrough which Aurora shows her brightening face:You cannot bar my constant feet to traceThe woods and lawns and living streams at eve:Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,And I their toys to thegreat childrenleave:--Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
The pride in a garden laid out under one's own directions and partly cultivated by one's own hand has been alluded to as in some degree unworthy of the dignity of manhood, not only by mere men of the world, or silly coxcombs, but by people who should have known better. Even Sir William Temple, though so enthusiastic about his fruit-trees, tells us that he will not enter upon any account offlowers, having only pleased himself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled himself with the care of them, which he observes "is more the ladies part than the men's." Sir William makes some amends for this almost contemptuous allusion to flowers in particular by his ardent appreciation of the use of gardens and gardening in general. He thus speaks of their attractions and advantages: "The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking, but above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease of the body and mind." Again: "As gardening has been the inclination of kings and the choice of philosophers, so it has been the common favorite of public and private men, a pleasure of the greatest and the care of the meanest; and indeedan employment and a possession for which no man is too high or too low." This is just and liberal; though I can hardly help still feeling a little sore at Sir William's having implied in the passage previously quoted, that the care of flowers is but a feminine occupation. As an elegant amusement, it is surely equally well fitted for all lovers of the beautiful, without reference to their sex.
It is not women and children only who delight in flower-gardens. Lord Bacon and William Pitt and the Earl of Chatham and Fox and Burke and Warren Hastings--all lovers of flowers--were assuredly not men of frivolous minds or of feminine habits. They were always eager to exhibit to visitors the beauty of their parterres. In his declining years the stately John Kemble left the stage for his garden. That sturdy English yeoman, William Cobbett, was almost as proud of his beds of flowers as of the pages of hisPolitical Register. He thus speaks of gardening:
"Gardening is a source of much greater profit than is generally imagined; but, merely as an amusement or recreation it is a thing of very great value. It is not only compatible with but favorable to the study of any art or science; it is conducive to health by means of the irresistible temptation which it offers to early rising; to the stirring abroad upon one's legs, for a man may really ride till he cannot walk, sit till he cannot stand, and lie abed till he cannot get up. It tends to turn the minds of youth from amusements and attachments of a frivolous and vicious nature, it is a taste which is indulged at home; it tends to make home pleasant, and to endear to us the spot on which it is our lot to live,--and as to theexpensesattending it, what are all these expenses compared with those of the short, the unsatisfactory, the injurious enjoyment of the card-table, and the rest of those amusements which are sought from the town."Cobbett's English Gardener.
"Other fine arts," observes Lord Kames, "may be perverted to excite irregular and even vicious emotions: but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it produceth, inclining the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, tend naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence."
Every thoughtful mind knows how much the face of nature has to do with human happiness. In the open air and in the midst of summer-flowers, we often feel the truth of the observation that "a fair day is a kind of sensual pleasure, and of all others the most innocent." But it is also something more, and better. It kindles a spiritual delight. At such a time and in such a scene every observer capable of a religious emotion is ready to exclaim--