[Illustration: Pope's Temple, at Hagley]
Reader! are you going out of town "_in search of the picturesque_"--if
so, bend your course to the classic, the consecrated ground of HAGLEY!
think of LYTTLETON, POPE, SHENSTONE, and THOMSON, or refresh your memory
from the "_Spring_" of the latter, as--
Courting the muse, thro' _Hagley_ Park thou strayst.
Thy _British Tempe_! There along the dale,
With woods o'erhung, and shagg'd with mossy rocks,
Whence on each hand the gushing waters play,
And down the rough cascade white dashing fall,
Or gleam in lengthen'd vista through the trees,
You silent steal; or sit beneath the shade
Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts
Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand,
And pensive listen to the various voice
Of rural peace; the herds, the flocks, the birds,
The hollow-whispering breeze, the 'plaint of rills,
That, purling down amid the twisted roots
Which creep around their dewy murmurs shake
On the sooth'd ear.