For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show how many tastes he wanted. What brought sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste? 15 26 You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse; And pompous buildings once were things of use. Yet shall, my lord! your just, your noble rules, Fill half the land with imitating fools; Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, And of one beauty many blunders make; Load some vain church with old theatric state; Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate; Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all On some patch'd dog-hole eked with ends of wall; 30 18 Ripley. This man was a carpenter, employed by a first minister, who raised him to an architect, without any genius in the art; and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public buildings, made him comptroller of the Board of Works.-Pope. 20 Bubo. Bubb Doddington, who had just built a fine house at Eastbury, near Blandford. After ver. 22. in the Ms. Must bishops, lawyers, statesmen have the skill Bridgman explain the gospel, Gibbs the law? 23 The earl of Burlington was then publishing the designs of Inigo Jones, and the antiquities of Rome by Palladio.Pope. Then clap four slices of pilaster on 't, 36 40 That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front; 50 Consult the genius of the place in all; 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; 60 46 Le Nôtre. The architect of the groves and grotos of Versailles he came hither on a mission to improve our taste. He planted St. James's and Greenwich-parks.-Pope. 65 Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines; Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls, And Nero's terraces desert their walls : 70 67 Spontaneous beauties. The true theory of landscape is laid down by Pope in these few lines. All landscape decoration that deserves the praise of taste must have some connexion with utility: yet this principle, rational and obvious as it is, is violated in the whole practice of those modern decorators who labor to ambush' houses in unnecessary groups of vegetation, for the sake of the picturesque; dig lakes where water is useless, and raise mounts where utility and nature would have left a plain. All changes, whose purpose is merely effect, are offensive to taste. The ancients, fond as they were of pomp, and vast as the means of their chief men were, often protested against this lavishness of rural decoration. Cic. de Leg. 70 The seat and gardens of the marquis of Buckingham. 71 Proud Versailles. Yet the sarcasms levelled against the formal magnificence of the French palaces forget one highly important circumstance, which would justify a much worse style. Versailles and its compeers were built as much for the people as the prince: they were clearly intended for a pleasing popular show, a source of popular indulgence, and a perpetual gratification for the national pride of the multitude. Their profusion of ornament was expressly adapted for the eyes of the Parisians: even the stiff regularity of their gardens rendered them only the fitter for their original purpose, the promenade of the citizens. English palaces are not intended for those objects, and they thus have not the French excuse but they also undoubtedly throw away, what was long felt in France to be a natural, innocent, and yet powerful source of royal popularity. The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make; 76 80 Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete ; A waving glow the bloomy beds display, With silver-quivering rills meander'd o'er : 75 Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain, You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again. 85 This was done in Hertfordshire by a wealthy citizen, at the expense of above £5000; by which means, merely to overlook a dead plain, he let in the north wind on his house and parterre, which were before adorned and defended by beautiful woods.-Pope. 78 Set Dr. Clarke. Dr. S. Clarke's busto, placed by queen Caroline in the Hermitage.- Pope. 87 Tired of the scene. The earl of Leicester, on receiving some compliments on the completion of his house at Holkham, observed, It is 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 eaten up all my neighbors.' This is Warton's anecdote, which Roscoe says, 'is directly contradicted by the inscription placed by this lord Leicester over the entrance of Holkham :-"This seat, on an open, barren estate, was planned, planted, built, decorated, and inhabited, in the middle of the eighteenth century.' Yet, how contradicted?-Might not the same man have thought Through his young woods how pleased Sabinus stray'd, 90 Or sat delighted in the thickening shade, The thriving plants, ignoble broomsticks made, Where all are thrown What sums So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air; 100 differently on the same subject at different times? or have been pleased with his activity, yet wearied with his work? or have expressed ideas in a chance conversation, of which he felt the unsuitableness in a grave record meant for posterity? 100 Where all cry out, What sums are thrown away!' This passage, as has been observed in the 'Life,' involved Pope in some of the inconveniences common to all who hold the pen of satire it produced at least the partial alienation of the duke of Chandos, and the violent scurrility of those who volunteered to adopt his quarrel. A spurious edition of this epistle was published in 1732, with bitter notes, supposed to be by Concanen and Welsted, and a frontispiece by Hogarth, representing Pope on a builder's scaffold, whitewashing the gateway of Burlington-house, and bespattering the duke of Chandos's carriage passing by. Hogarth subsequently suppressed this print, which, of course, has become precious in the eyes of collectors. Warton observes it as remarkable, that Pope never once alludes to a man of such kindred genius, and such celebrity at the time, as Hogarth. Possibly the fear of the libell'd person and the pictured shape,' dictated this singular and perfectly prudent reserve. |