So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied: and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and as, the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops,
The verdurous wall of Paradise up-sprung:
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round;
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once, of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamell'd colours mix'd;
On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams,
Than on fair evening cloud, or humid bow.
When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd
That landscape: and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest; with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
* * * * *
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulf'd; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden mould, high raised
Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears;
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendent shades,
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrown'd the noontide bowers; thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves whose rich, trees wept odorous gums and balm;
Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste:
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed;
Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; meanwhile murmuring waters fall
Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
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.[012] 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, 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_. A line of Lord
Nugent's might in that case have been transferred from the marble bust
to the printed volume:
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."
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