Flowers And Flower-Gardens Part 6

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 grow A 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 his _Deserted Village_ was 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 Loveliest of the lawn, Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen And desolation saddens all the green,-- _One only master grasps thy whole domain_.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 brains Where 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 Powers That o'er the garden and the rural seat Preside, which s.h.i.+ning through the cheerful land In 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 sh.o.r.e E'er saw such sylvan scenes; such various art By genius fired, such ardent genius tamed By cool judicious art, that in the strife All-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 files Of 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 men The happiest he! Who far from public rage Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life, &c.

Then again:--

Let others brave the flood in quest of gain And 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 pa.s.sions free That restless men involve, hears and _but_ hears, 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 gems Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale Into his freshened soul; her genial hour He full enjoys, and not a beauty blows And 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 haunts Of angels, in primeval guiltless days When man, imparadised, conversed with G.o.d.

And Broome after quoting the whole description in his dedication of his own poems to Lord Townshend, observes, in the old fas.h.i.+oned 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 Lords.h.i.+p no hope of the enjoyment of a better place than he already possessed.

Samuel Boyse, who when without a s.h.i.+rt 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 ent.i.tled _The 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 G.o.ddess of Love, a Temple containing a statue of the Venus de Medicis.

Next to the fair ascent our steps we traced, Where s.h.i.+nes afar the bold rotunda placed; The artful dome Ionic columns bear Light as the fabric swells in ambient air.

Beneath enshrined the Tuscan Venus stands And 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 blow Each 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 beds And 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 wood To 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.

And _Cobham's groves_ and Windsor's green retreats When Pope describes them have a thousand sweets.

"Magnificence and splendour," says Mr. Whately, the author of _Observations 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 Buckinghams.h.i.+re and Oxfords.h.i.+re, 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 n.o.bler 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 roof Re-echoing pious anthems.

Almost the only traces of Pope's garden that now remain are the splendid Spanish chesnut-trees and some elms and cedars planted by the poet himself. A s.p.a.ce 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 s.e.xton, possession of the skull was obtained for one night; another skull was then returned instead of the poet's.