Oh! there is joy and happiness in every thing I see,Which bids my soul rise up and bless the God that blesses me
Anon.
The amiable and pious Doctor Carey of Serampore, in whose grounds sprang up that dear little English daisy so beautifully addressed by his poetical proxy, James Montgomery of Sheffield, in the stanzas commencing:--
Thrice welcome, little English flower!My mother country's white and red--
was so much attached to his Indian garden, that it was always in his heart in the intervals of more important cares. It is said that he remembered it even upon his death-bed, and that it was amongst his last injunctions to his friends that they should see to its being kept up with care. He was particularly anxious that the hedges or railings should always be in such good order as to protect his favorite shrubs and flowers from the intrusion of Bengalee cattle.
A garden is a more interesting possession than a gallery of pictures or a cabinet of curiosities. Its glories are never stationary or stale. It has infinite variety. It is not the same to-day as it was yesterday. It is always changing the character of its charms and always increasing them in number. It delights all the senses. Its pleasures are not of an unsocial character; for every visitor, high or low, learned or illiterate, may be fascinated with the fragrance and beauty of a garden. But shells and minerals and other curiosities are for the man of science and the connoisseur. And a single inspection of them is generally sufficient: they never change their aspect. The Picture-Gallery may charm an instructed eye but the multitude have little relish for human Art, because they rarely understand it:--while the skill of the Great Limner of Nature is visible in every flower of the garden even to the humblest swain.
It is pleasant to read how the wits and beauties of the time of Queen Anne used to meet together in delightful garden-retreats, 'like the companies in Boccaccio's Decameron or in one of Watteau's pictures.' Ritchings Lodge, for instance, the seat of Lord Bathurst, was visited by most of the celebrities of England, and frequently exhibited bright groups of the polite and accomplished of both sexes; of men distinguished for their heroism or their genius, and of women eminent for their easy and elegant conversation, or for gaiety and grace of manner, or perfect loveliness of face and form--all in harmonious union with the charms of nature. The gardens at Ritchings were enriched with Inscriptions from the pens of Congreve and Pope and Gay and Addison and Prior. When the estate passed into the possession of the Earl of Hertford, his literary lady devoted it to the Muses. "She invited every summer," says Dr. Johnson, "some poet into the country to hear her verses and assist her studies." Thomson, who praises her so lavishly in his "Spring," offended her ladyship by allowing her too clearly to perceive that he was resolved not to place himself in the dilemma of which Pope speaks so feelingly with reference to other poetasters.
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I,Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.I sit with sad civility, I readWith honest anguish and an aching head.
But though "the bard more fat than bard beseems" was restive under her ladyship's "poetical operations," and too plainly exhibited a desire to escape the infliction, preferring the Earl's claret to the lady's rhymes, she should have been a little more generously forgiving towards one who had already made her immortal. It is stated, that she never repeated her invitation to the Poet of the Seasons, who though so impatient of the sound of her tongue when it "rolled" her own "raptures," seems to have been charmed with herat a distance--while meditating upon her excellencies in the seclusion of his own study. The compliment to the Countess is rather awkwardly wedged in between descriptions of "gentle Spring" with her "shadowing roses" and "surly Winter" with his "ruffian blasts." It should have commenced the poem.
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courtsWith unaffected grace, or walk the plain,With innocence and meditation joinedIn soft assemblage, listen to my song,Which thy own season paints; when nature allIs blooming and benevolent like thee.
Thomson had no objection to strike off a brief compliment in verse, but he was too indolent to keep upin propriâ personâan incessant fire of compliments, like thebon bonsat a Carnival. It was easier to write her praises than listen to her verses. Shenstone seems to have been more pliable. He was personally obsequious, lent her recitations an attentive ear, and was ever ready with the expected commendation. It is not likely that her ladyship found much, difficulty in collecting around her a crowd of critics more docile than Thomson and quite as complaisant as Shenstone. Let but aCountess
Once own the happy lines,How the wit brightens, how the style refines!
Though Thomson's first want on his arrival in London from the North was a pair of shoes, and he lived for a time in great indigence, he was comfortable enough at last. Lord Lyttleton introduced him to the Prince of Wales (who professed himself the patron of literature) and when his Highness questioned him about the state of his affairs, Thomson assured him that they "were in a more poetical posture than formerly." The prince bestowed upon the poet a pension of a hundred pounds a year, and when his friend Lord Lyttleton was in power his Lordship obtained for him the office of Surveyor General of the Leeward Islands. He sent a deputy there who was more trustworthy than Thomas Moore's at Bermuda. Thomson's deputy after deducting his own salary remitted his principal three hundred pounds per annum, so that the bard 'more fat than bard beseems' was not in a condition to grow thinner, and could afford to make his cottage a Castle of Indolence. Leigh Hunt has versified an anecdote illustrative of Thomson's luxurious idleness. He who could describe "Indolence" so well, and so often appeared in the part himself,
Slippered, and with hands,Each in a waistcoat pocket, (so that allMight yet repose that could) was seen one mornEating a wondering peach from off the tree.
A little summer-house at Richmond which Thomson made his study is still preserved, and even some articles of furniture, just as he left them.[025]Over the entrance is erected a tablet on which is the following inscription:
HERETHOMSON SANGTHE SEASONSAND THEIR CHANGE.
Thomson was buried in Richmond Church. Collins's lines to his memory, beginning
In yonder grave a Druid lies,
are familiar to all readers of English poetry.
Richmond Hill has always been the delight not of poets only but of painters. Sir Joshua Reynolds built a house there, and one of the only three landscapes which seem to have survived him, is a view from the window of his drawing-room. Gainsborough was also a resident in Richmond. Richmond gardens laid out or rather altered by Brown, are now united with those of Kew.
Savage resided for some time at Richmond. It was the favorite haunt of Collins, one of the most poetical of poets, who, as Dr. Johnson says, "delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens." Wordsworth composed a poem upon the Thames near Richmond in remembrance of Collins. Here is a stanza of it.
Glide gently, thus for ever glide,O Thames, that other bards may seeAs lovely visions by thy sideAs now fair river! come to me;O glide, fair stream for ever so,Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,Till all our minds for ever flowAs thy deep waters now are flowing.
Thomson's description of the scenery of Richmond Hill perhaps hardly does it justice, but the lines are too interesting to be omitted.
Say, shall we windAlong the streams? or walk the smiling mead?Or court the forest-glades? or wander wildAmong the waving harvests? or ascend,While radiant Summer opens all its pride,Thy hill, delightful Shene[026]? Here let us sweepThe boundless landscape now the raptur'd eye,Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send,Now to the sister hills[027]that skirt her plain,To lofty Harrow now, and now to whereMajestic Windsor lifts his princely browIn lovely contrast to this glorious viewCalmly magnificent, then will we turnTo where the silver Thames first rural growsThere let the feasted eye unwearied stray,Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woodsThat nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat,And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd,With her the pleasing partner of his heart,The worthy Queensbury yet laments his Gay,And polish'd Cornbury woos the willing MuseSlow let us trace the matchless vale of ThamesFair winding up to where the Muses hauntIn Twit nam's bowers, and for their Pope imploreThe healing god[028], to loyal Hampton's pile,To Clermont's terrass'd height, and Esher's groves;Where in the sweetest solitude, embrac'dBy the soft windings of the silent Mole,From courts and senates Pelham finds reposeEnchanting vale! beyond whate'er the MuseHas of Achaia or Hesperia sung!O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills!On which thePower of Cultivationlies,And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
The Revd. Thomas Maurice wrote a poem entitledRichmond Hill, but it contains nothing deserving of quotation after the above passage from Thomson. In theEnglish Bards and Scotch Reviewersthe labors of Maurice are compared to those of Sisyphus
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heavesDull Maurice, all his granite weight of leaves.
Towards the latter part of the last century the Empress of Russia (Catherine the Second) expressed in a French letter to Voltaire her admiration of the style of English Gardening.[029]"I love to distraction," she writes, "the present English taste in gardening. Their curved lines, their gentle slopes, their pieces of water in the shape of lakes, their picturesque little islands. I have a great contempt for straight lines and parallel walks. I hate those fountains which torture water into forms unknown to nature. I have banished all the statues to the vestibules and to the galleries. In a word English taste predominates in myplantomanie."[030]
I omitted when alluding to those Englishmen in past times who anticipated the taste of the present day in respect to laying out grounds, to mention the ever respected name of John Evelyn, and as all other writers before me, I believe, who have treated upon gardening, have been guilty of the same oversight, I eagerly make his memory some slight amends by quoting the following passage from one of his letters to his friend Sir Thomas Browne.
"I might likewise hope to refine upon some particulars, especially concerning the ornaments of gardens, which I shall endeavor so to handle as that they may become useful and practicable, as well as magnificent, and that persons of all conditions and faculties, which delight in gardens, may therein encounter something for their owne advantage. The modell, which I perceive you have seene, will aboundantly testifie my abhorrency of those painted and formal projections of our cockney gardens and plotts, which appeare like gardens of past-board and marchpane, and smell more of paynt then of flowers and verdure; our drift is a noble, princely, and universal Elysium, capable of all the amoenities that can naturally be introduced into gardens of pleasure, and such as may stand in competition with all the august designes and stories of this nature, either of antient or moderne tymes; yet so as to become useful and significant to the least pretences and faculties. We will endeavour to shew how the air and genious of gardens operat upon humane spirits towards virtue and sanctitie: I mean in a remote, preparatory and instrumentall working. How caves, grotts, mounts, and irregular ornaments of gardens do contribute to contemplative and philosophicall enthusiasme; howelysium, antrum, nemus, paradysus, hortus, lucus, &c., signifie all of themrem sacram it divinam; for these expedients do influence the soule and spirits of men, and prepare them for converse with good angells; besides which, they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures, phylosophy naturall; and longevitie: and I would have not onely the elogies and effigie of the antient and famous garden heroes, but a society of theparadisi cultorespersons of antient simplicity, Paradisean and Hortulan saints, to be a society of learned and ingenuous men, such as Dr. Browne, by whome we might hope to redeeme the tyme that has bin lost, in pursuingVulgar Errours, and still propagating them, as so many bold men do yet presume to do."
The English style of landscape-gardening being founded on natural principles must be recognized by true taste in all countries. Even in Rome, when art was most allowed to predominate over nature, there were occasional instances of that correct feeling for rural beauty which the English during the last century and a half have exhibited more conspicuously than other nations. Atticus preferred Tully's villa at Arpinum to all his other villas; because at Arpinum, Nature predominated over art. Our Kents and Browns[031]never expressed a greater contempt, than was expressed by Atticus, for all formal and artificial decorations of natural scenery.
The spot where Cicero's villa stood, was, in the time of Middleton, possessed by a convent of monks and was called the Villa of St. Dominic. It was built, observes Mr. Dunlop, in the year 1030, from the fragments of the Arpine Villa!
Art, glory, Freedom, fail--but Nature still is fair.
"Nothing," says Mr. Kelsall, "can be imagined finer than the surrounding landscape. The deep azure of the sky, unvaried by a single cloud--Sora on a rock at the foot of the precipitous Appennines--both banks of the Garigliano covered with vineyards--thefragor aquarum, alluded to by Atticus in his workDe Legibus--the coolness, the rapidity and ultramarine hue of the Fibrenus--the noise of its cataracts--the rich turquoise color of the Liris--the minor Appennines round Arpino, crowned with umbrageous oaks to the very summits--present scenery hardly elsewhere to be equalled, certainly not to be surpassed, even in Italy."
This description of an Italian landscape can hardly fail to charm the imagination of the coldest reader; but after all, I cannot help confessing to so inveterate a partiality for dear old England as to be delighted with the compliment which Gray, the poet, pays to English scenery when he prefers it to the scenery of Italy. "Mr. Walpole," writes the poet from Italy, "says, ourmemorysees more than our eyes in this country. This is extremely true, since forrealitiesWINDSOR or RICHMOND HILL is infinitely preferable to ALBANO or FRESCATI."
Sir Walter Scott, with all his patriotic love for his own romantic land, could not withhold his tribute to the loveliness of Richmond Hill,--its "unrivalled landscape" its "sea of verdure."
"They" (The Duke of Argyle and Jeanie Deans) "paused for amoment on the brow of a hill, to gaze on the unrivalledlandscape it presented. A huge sea of verdure, with crossing andintersecting promontories of massive and tufted groves wastenanted by numberless flocks and herds which seemed to wanderunrestrained and unbounded through the rich pastures. TheThames, here turreted with villas, and there garlanded withforests, moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty monarchof the scene, to whom all its other beauties were butaccessaries, and bore on its bosom an hundred barks and skiffswhose white sails and gaily fluttering pennons gave life to thewhole."The Heart of Mid-Lothian.
It must of course be admitted that there are grander, more sublime, more varied and extensive prospects in other countries, but it would be difficult to persuade me that the richness of English verdure could be surpassed or even equalled, or that any part of the world can exhibit landscapes more trulylovelyandloveable, than those of England, or more calculated to leave a deep and enduring impression upon the heart. Mr. Kelsall speaks of an Italian sky "uncovered by a single cloud," but every painter and poet knows how much variety and beauty of effect are bestowed upon hill and plain and grove and river by passing clouds; and even our over-hanging vapours remind us of the veil upon the cheek of beauty; and ever as the sun uplifts the darkness the glory of the landscape seems renewed and freshened. It would cheer the saddest heart and send the blood dancing through the veins, to behold after a dull misty dawn, the sun break out over Richmond Hill, and with one broad light make the whole landscape smile; but I have been still more interested in the prospect when on a cloudy day the whole "sea of verdure" has been swayed to and fro into fresher life by the fitful breeze, while the lights and shadows amidst the foliage and on the lawns have been almost momentarily varied by the varying sky. These changes fascinate the eye, keep the soul awake, and save the scenery from the comparatively monotonous character of landscapes in less varying climes. And for my own part, I cordially echo the sentiment of Wordsworth, who when conversing with Mrs. Hemans about the scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, observed: "I would not give up the mists thatspiritualizeour mountains for all the blue skies of Italy."
Though Mrs. Stowe, the American authoress already quoted as one of the admirers of England, duly appreciates the natural grandeur of her own land, she was struck with admiration and delight at the aspect of our English landscapes. Our trees, she observes, "are of an order of nobility and they wear their crowns right kingly." "Leaving out of account," she adds, "ourmammoth arboria, the English Parks have trees as fine and effective as ours, and when I say their trees are of an order of nobility, I mean that they (the English) pay a reverence to them such as their magnificence deserves."
Walter Savage Landor, one of the most accomplished and most highly endowed both by nature and by fortune of our living men of letters, has done, or rather has tried to do, almost as much for his country in the way of enriching its collection of noble trees as Evelyn himself. He laid out £70,000 on the improvement of an estate in Monmouthshire, where he planted and fenced half a million of trees, and had a million more ready to plant, when the conduct of some of his tenants, who spitefully uprooted them and destroyed the whole plantation, so disgusted him with the place, that he razed to the ground the house which had cost him £8,000, and left the country. He then purchased a beautiful estate in Italy, which is still in possession of his family. He himself has long since returned to his native land. Landor loves Italy, but he loves England better. In one of hisImaginary Conversationshe tells an Italian nobleman:
"The English are more zealous of introducing new fruits, shrubs and plants, than other nations; you Italians are less so than any civilized one. Better fruit is eaten in Scotland than in the most fertile and cultivated parts of your peninsula.As for flowers, there is a greater variety in the worst of our fields than in the best of your gardens.As for shrubs, I have rarely seen a lilac, a laburnum, a mezereon, in any of them, and yet they flourish before almost every cottage in our poorest villages."
"We wonder in England, when we hear it related by travellers, that peaches in Italy are left under the trees for swine; but, when we ourselves come into the country, our wonder is rather that the swine do not leave them for animals less nice."
Landor acknowledges that he has eaten better pears and cherries in Italy than in England, but that all the other kinds of fruitage in Italy appeared to him unfit for dessert.
The most celebrated of the private estates of the present day in England is Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire. The mansion, called the Palace of the Peak, is considered one of the most splendid residences in the land. The grounds are truly beautiful and most carefully attended to. The elaborate waterworks are perhaps not in the severest taste. Some of them are but costly puerilities. There is a water-work in the form of a tree that sends a shower from every branch on the unwary visitor, and there are snakes that spit forth jets upon him as he retires. This is silly trifling: but ill adapted to interest those who have passed their teens; and not at all an agreeable sort of hospitality in a climate like that of England. It is in the style of the water-works at Versailles, where wooden soldiers shoot from their muskets vollies of water at the spectators.[032]
It was an old English custom on certain occasions to sprinkle water over the company at a grand entertainment. Bacon, in his Essay on Masques, seems to object to getting drenched, when he observes that "some sweet odours suddenly coming forth,without any drops falling, are in such a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment." It was a custom also of the ancient Greeks and Romans to sprinkle their guests with fragrant waters. The Gascons had once the same taste: "At times," says Montaigne, "from the bottom of the stage, they caused sweet-scented waters to spout upwards and dart their thread to such a prodigious height, as to sprinkle and perfume the vast multitudes of spectators." The Native gentry of India always slightly sprinkle their visitors with rose-water. It is flung from a small silver utensil tapering off into a sort of upright spout with a pierced top in the fashion of that part of a watering pot which English gardeners call therose.
The finest of the water-works at Chatsworth is one called theEmperor Fountainwhich throws up a jet 267 feet high. This height exceeds that of any fountain in Europe. There is a vast Conservatory on the estate, built of glass by Sir Joseph Paxton, who designed and constructed the Crystal Palace. His experience in the building of conservatories no doubt suggested to him the idea of the splendid glass edifice in Hyde Park. The conservatory at Chatsworth required 70,000 square feet of glass. Four miles of iron tubing are used in heating the building. There is a broad carriage way running right through the centre of the conservatory.[033]This conservatory is peculiarly rich in exotic plants of all kinds, collected at an enormous cost. This most princely estate, contrasted with the little cottages and cottage-gardens in the neighbourhood, suggested to Wordsworth the following sonnet.
CHATSWORTH.
Chatsworth! thy stately mansion, and the prideOf thy domain, strange contrast do presentTo house and home in many a craggy tentOf the wild Peak, where new born waters glideThrough fields whose thrifty occupants abideAs in a dear and chosen banishmentWith every semblance of entire content;So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried!Yet he whose heart in childhood gave his trothTo pastoral dales, then set with modest farms,May learn, if judgment strengthen with his growth,That not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms;And, strenuous to protect from lawless harmsThe extremes of favored life, may honour both.
The two noblest of modern public gardens in England are those at Kensington and Kew. Kensington Gardens were begun by King William the III, but were originally only twenty-six acres in extent. Queen Anne added thirty acres more. The grounds were laid out by the well-known garden-designers, London and Wise.[034]Queen Caroline, who formed the Serpentine River by connecting several detached pieces of water into one, and set the example of a picturesque deviation from the straight line,[035]added from Hyde Park no less than three hundred acres which were laid out by Bridgeman. This was a great boon to the Londoners. Horace Walpole says that Queen Caroline at first proposed to shut up St. James's Park and convert it into a private garden for herself, but when she asked Sir Robert Walpole what it would cost, he answered--"Only three Crowns." This changed her intentions.
The reader of Pope will remember an allusion to the famous Ring in Hyde Park. The fair Belinda was sometimes attended there by her guardian Sylphs:
The light militia of the lower sky.
They guarded her from 'the white-gloved beaux,'
These though unseen are ever on the wing,Hang o'er the box,and hover o'er the Ring.
It was here that the gallantries of the "Merry Monarch" were but too often exhibited to his people. "After dinner," says the right garrulous Pepys in his journal, "to Hyde Parke; at the Parke was the King, and in another Coach, Lady Castlemaine, they greeting one another at every turn."
The Gardens at Kew "Imperial Kew," as Darwin styles it, are the richest in the world. They consist of one hundred and seventy acres. They were once private gardens, and were long in the possession of Royalty, until the accession of Queen Victoria, who opened the gardens to the public and placed them under the control of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods and Forests, "with a view of rendering them available to the general good."
She hath left you all her walks,Her private arbors and new planted orchardsOn this side Tiber. She hath left them youAnd to your heirs for ever; common pleasuresTo walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
They contain a large Palm-house built in 1848.[036]The extent of glass for covering the building is said to be 360,000 square feet. My Mahomedan readers in Hindostan, (I hope they will be numerous,) will perhaps be pleased to hear that there is an ornamental mosque in these gardens. On each of the doors of this mosque is an Arabic inscription in golden characters, taken from the Koran. The Arabic has been thus translated:--
LET THERE BE NO FORCE IN RELIGION.THERE IS NO OTHER GOD EXCEPT THE DEITY.MAKE NOT ANY LIKENESS UNTO GOD.
The first sentence of the translation is rather ambiguously worded. The sentiment has even an impious air: an apparent meaning very different from that which was intended. Of course the original textmeans, though the English translator has not expressed that meaning--"Let there be no forceusedin religion."
When William Cobbett was a boy of eleven years of age he worked in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at Farnham. Having heard much of Kew gardens he resolved to change his locality and his master. He started off for Kew, a distance of about thirty miles, with only thirteen pence in his pocket. The head gardener at Kew at once engaged his services. A few days after, George the Fourth, then Prince of Wales, saw the boy sweeping the lawns, and laughed heartily at his blue smock frock and long red knotted garters. But the poor gardener's boy became a public writer, whose productions were not exactly calculated to excite the merriment of princes.
Most poets have a painter's eye for the disposition of forms and colours. Kent's practice as a painter no doubt helped to make him what he was as a landscape-gardener. When an architect was consulted about laying out the grounds at Blenheim he replied, "you must send for a landscape-painter:" he might have added--"or a poet."
Our late Laureate, William Wordsworth, exhibited great taste in his small garden at Rydal Mount. He said of himself--very truly though not very modestly perhaps,--but modesty was never Wordsworth's weakness-- that nature seemed to have fitted him for three callings--that of the poet, the critic on works of art, and the landscape-gardener. The poet's nest--(Mrs. Hemans calls it 'a lovely cottage-like building'[037])--is almost hidden in a rich profusion of roses and ivy and jessamine and virginia-creeper. Wordsworth, though he passionately admired the shapes and hues of flowers, knew nothing of their fragrance. In this respect knowledge at one entrance was quite shut out. He had possessed at no time of his life the sense of smell. To make up for this deficiency, he is said (by De Quincey) to have had "a peculiar depth of organic sensibility of form and color."
Mr. Justice Coleridge tells us that Wordsworth dealt with shrubs, flower-beds and lawns with the readiness of a practised landscape- gardener, and that it was curious to observe how he had imparted a portion of his taste to his servant, James Dixon. In fact, honest James regarded himself as a sort of Arbiter Elegantiarum. The master and his servant often discussed together a question of taste. Wordsworth communicated to Mr. Justice Coleridge how "he and James" were once "in a puzzle" about certain discolored spots upon the lawn. "Cover them with soap-lees," said the master. "That will make the green there darker than the rest," said the gardener. "Then we must cover the whole." "That will not do," objects the gardener, "with reference to the little lawn to which you pass from this." "Cover that," said the poet. "You will then," replied the gardener, "have an unpleasant contrast with the foliage surrounding it."
Pope too had communicated to his gardener at Twickenham something of his own taste. The man, long after his master's death, in reference to the training of the branches of plants, used to talk of their being made to hang "something poetical".
It would have grieved Shakespeare and Pope and Shenstone had they anticipated the neglect or destruction of their beloved retreats. Wordsworth said, "I often ask myself what will become of Rydal Mount after our day. Will the old walls and steps remain in front of the house and about the grounds, or will they be swept away with all the beautiful mosses and ferns and wild geraniums and other flowers which their rude construction suffered and encouraged to grow among them. This little wild flower,Poor Robin, is here constantly courting my attention and exciting what may be called a domestic interest in the varying aspect of its stalks and leaves and flowers." I hope no Englishman meditating to reside on the grounds now sacred to the memory of a national poet will ever forget these words of the poet or treat his cottage and garden at Rydal Mount as some of Pope's countrymen have treated the house and grounds at Twickenham.[038]It would be sad indeed to hear, after this, that any one had refused to spare thePoor Robinsandwild geraniumsof Rydal Mount. Miss Jewsbury has a poem descriptive of "the Poet's Home." I must give the first stanza:--
WORDSWORTH'S COTTAGE.
Low and white, yet scarcely seenAre its walls of mantling green;Not a window lets in lightBut through flowers clustering bright,Not a glance may wander thereBut it falls on something fair;Garden choice and fairy moundOnly that no elves are found;Winding walk and sheltered nookFor student grave and graver book,Or a bird-like bower perchanceFit for maiden and romance.
Another lady-poet has poured forth in verse her admiration of
THE RESIDENCE OF WORDSWORTH.
Not for the glory on their headsThose stately hill-tops wear,Although the summer sunset shedsIts constant crimson there:Not for the gleaming lights that breakThe purple of the twilight lake,Half dusky and half fair,Does that sweet valley seem to beA sacred place on earth to me.The influence of a moral spellIs found around the scene,Giving new shadows to the dell,New verdure to the green.With every mountain-top is wroughtThe presence of associate thought,A music that has been;Calling that loveliness to life,With which the inward world is rife.His home--our English poet's home--Amid these hills is made;Here, with the morning, hath he come,There, with the night delayed.On all things is his memory cast,For every place wherein he past,Is with his mind arrayed,That, wandering in a summer hour,Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower.
L.E.L.
The cottage and garden of the poet are not only picturesque and delightful in themselves, but from their position in the midst of some of the finest scenery of England. One of the writers in the book entitled 'The Land we Live in' observes that the bard of the mountains and the lakes could not have found a more fitting habitation had the whole land been before him, where to choose his place of rest. "Snugly sheltered by the mountains, embowered among trees, and having in itself prospects of surpassing beauty, it also lies in the midst of the very noblest objects in the district, and in one of the happiest social positions. The grounds are delightful in every respect; but one view-- that from the terrace of moss-like grass--is, to our thinking, the most exquisitely graceful in all this land of beauty. It embraces the whole valley of Windermere, with hills on either side softened into perfect loveliness."
Eustace, the Italian tourist, seems inclined to deprive the English of the honor of being the first cultivators of the natural style in gardening, and thinks that it was borrowed not from Milton but from Tasso. I suppose that most genuine poets, in all ages and in all countries, when they give full play to the imagination, have glimpses of the truly natural in the arts. The reader will probably be glad to renew his acquaintance with Tasso's description of the garden of Armida. I shall give the good old version of Edward Fairfax from the edition of 1687. Fairfax was a true poet and wrote musically at a time when sweetness of versification was not so much aimed at as in a later day. Waller confessed that he owed the smoothness of his verse to the example of Fairfax, who, as Warton observes, "well vowelled his lines."
THE GARDEN OF ARMIDA.
When they had passed all those troubled ways,The Garden sweet spread forth her green to shew;The moving crystal from the fountains plays;Fair trees, high plants, strange herbs and flowerets new,Sunshiny hills, vales hid from Phoebus' rays,Groves, arbours, mossie caves at once they view,And that which beauty most, most wonder brought,No where appear'd the Art which all this wrought.So with the rude the polished mingled was,That natural seem'd all and every part,Nature would craft in counterfeiting pass,And imitate her imitator Art:Mild was the air, the skies were clear as glass,The trees no whirlwind felt, nor tempest's smart,But ere the fruit drop off, the blossom comes,This springs, that falls, that ripeneth and this blooms.The leaves upon the self-same bough did hide,Beside the young, the old and ripened fig,Here fruit was green, there ripe with vermeil side;The apples new and old grew on one twig,The fruitful vine her arms spread high and wide,That bended underneath their clusters big;The grapes were tender here, hard, young and sour,There purple ripe, and nectar sweet forth pour.The joyous birds, hid under green-wood shade,Sung merry notes on every branch and bow,The wind that in the leaves and waters plaidWith murmer sweet, now sung and whistled now;Ceaséd the birds, the wind loud answer made:And while they sung, it rumbled soft and low;Thus were it hap or cunning, chance or art,The wind in this strange musick bore his part.With party-coloured plumes and purple bill,A wondrous bird among the rest there flew,That in plain speech sung love-lays loud and shrill,Her leden was like humane language true;So much she talkt, and with such wit and skill,That strange it seeméd how much good she knew;Her feathered fellows all stood hush to hear,Dumb was the wind, the waters silent were.Thegently budding rose(quoth she) behold,That first scant peeping forth with virgin beams,Half ope, half shut, her beauties doth upfoldIn their dear leaves, and less seen, fairer seems,And after spreads them forth more broad and bold,Then languisheth and dies in last extreams,Nor seems the same, that deckéd bed and bowerOf many a lady late, and paramour.So, in the passing of a day, doth passThe bud and blossom of the life of man,Nor ere doth flourish more, but like the grassCut down, becometh wither'd, pale and wan:O gather then the rose while time thou hast,Short is the day, done when it scant began;Gather the rose of love, while yet thou may'stLoving be lov'd; embracing, be embrac'd.He ceas'd, and as approving all he spoke,The quire of birds their heav'nly tunes renew,The turtles sigh'd, and sighs with kisses broke,The fowls to shades unseen, by pairs withdrew;It seem'd the laurel chaste, and stubborn oak,And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,It seem'd the land, the sea, and heav'n above,All breath'd out fancy sweet, and sigh'd out love.
Godfrey of Bulloigne
I must place near the garden of Armida, Ariosto's garden of Alcina. "Ariosto," says Leigh Hunt, "cared for none of the pleasures of the great, except building, and was content in Cowley's fashion, with "a small house in a large garden." He loved gardening better than he understood it, was always shifting his plants, and destroying the seeds, out of impatience to see them germinate. He was rejoicing once on the coming up of some "capers" which he had been visiting every day, to see how they got on, when it turned out that his capers were elder trees!"
THE GARDEN OF ALCINA.
'A more delightful place, wherever hurled,Through the whole air, Rogero had not found;And had he ranged the universal world,Would not have seen a lovelier in his round,Than that, where, wheeling wide, the courser furledHis spreading wings, and lighted on the groundMid cultivated plain, delicious hill,Moist meadow, shady bank, and crystal rill;'Small thickets, with the scented laurel gay,Cedar, and orange, full of fruit and flower,Myrtle and palm, with interwoven spray,Pleached in mixed modes, all lovely, form a bower;And, breaking with their shade the scorching ray,Make a cool shelter from the noon-tide hour.And nightingales among those branches wingTheir flight, and safely amorous descants sing.'Amid red roses and white liliesthere,Which the soft breezes freshen as they fly,Secure the cony haunts, and timid hare,And stag, with branching forehead broad and high.These, fearless of the hunter's dart or snare,Feed at their ease, or ruminating lie;While, swarming in those wilds, from tuft or steep,Dun deer or nimble goat disporting leap.'
Rose's Orlando Furioso.
Spenser's description of the garden of Adonis is too long to give entire, but I shall quote a few stanzas. The old story on which Spenser founds his description is told with many variations of circumstance and meaning; but we need not quit the pages of the Faerie Queene to lose ourselves amidst obscure mythologies. We have too much of these indeed even in Spenser's own version of the fable.
THE GARDEN OF ADONIS.
Great enimy to it, and all the restThat in the Gardin of Adonis springs,Is wicked Time; who with his scythe addrestDoes mow the flowring herbes and goodly things,And all their glory to the ground downe flings,Where they do wither and are fowly mardHe flyes about, and with his flaggy wingsBeates downe both leaves and buds without regard,Ne ever pitty may relent his malice hard.
But were it not that Time their troubler is,All that in this delightful gardin growesShould happy bee, and have immortall blis:For here all plenty and all pleasure flowes;And sweete Love gentle fitts emongst them throwes,Without fell rancor or fond gealosy.Franckly each paramour his leman knowes,Each bird his mate; ne any does envyTheir goodly meriment and gay felicity.There is continual spring, and harvest thereContinuall, both meeting at one tyme:For both the boughes doe laughing blossoms beare.And with fresh colours decke the wanton pryme,And eke attonce the heavy trees they clyme,Which seeme to labour under their fruites lode:The whiles the ioyous birdes make their pastymeEmongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode,And their trew loves without suspition tell abrode.Right in the middest of that ParadiseThere stood a stately mount, on whose round topA gloomy grove of mirtle trees did rise,Whose shady boughes sharp steele did never lop,Nor wicked beastes their tender buds did crop,But like a girlond compasséd the hight,And from their fruitfull sydes sweet gum did drop,That all the ground, with pretious deaw bedight,Threw forth most dainty odours and most sweet delight.And in the thickest covert of that shadeThere was a pleasaunt arber, not by artBut of the trees owne inclination made,Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,With wanton yvie-twine entrayld athwart,And eglantine and caprifole emong,Fashioned above within their inmost part,That neither Phoebus beams could through them throng,Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.And all about grew every sort of flowre,To which sad lovers were transformde of yore,Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoureAnd dearest love;Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore;Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late,Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple goreMe seemes I see Amintas wretched fate,To whom sweet poet's verse hath given endlesse date.