110

115

Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught,
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought :
To compass this, his building is a town, 105
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down.
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect, shivering at a breeze !
Lo! what huge heaps of littleness around !
The whole, a labor'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call;
On
every

side

you look, behold the wall ! No pleasing intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other. The suffering eye inverted nature sees ; Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees; 120 With here a fountain, never to be play'd ; And there a summer-house, that knows no shade: Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers; There gladiators fight, or die in flowers ; Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, 125 And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.

My lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure, to be seen: But, soft! by regular approach! not yet! First through the length of you hot terrace sweat;

1:6 No artful wildness. The taste for laying out gardens in the Englisb style was seized on by Europe, towards the close of the eighteenth century, with the violence of a passion. The czarina, in her correspondence with Voltaire in 1772, writes,— J'aime à la folie présentement les jardins à l'An

131

!; 135

145

And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg’d

your thighs,
Just at his study-door he 'll bless your eyes.

His study! with what authors is it stored?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord :
To all their dated backs he turns

you

round These Aldus printed, those Du Suëil has bound ! Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good For all his lordship knows, but they are wood. For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look ; These shelves admit not any modern book. 140

And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of prayer: Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. On painted ceilings you devoutly stare, Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre ; On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all paradise before your eye. To rest the cushion and soft dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite.

But, hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call ; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall : The rich buffet well-color'd serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. Is this a dinner? this a genial room?

155 No, 'tis a temple and a hecatomb; A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state; You drink by measure, and to minutes eat: glaise, les lignes courbes, les pentes douces, &c. En un mot, l'Anglomanie domine dans ma plantomanie.'

146 Verrio or Laguerre. Verrio (Antonio) painted many ceilings, &c. at Windsor, Hampton-court, &c. and Laguerre at Blenheim-castle, and other places.- Pope.

150

So quick retires each flying course, you

'd swear, Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there. Between each act the trembling salvers ring, 161 From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the king. In plenty starving, tantalised in state, And complaisantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave, 165 Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve: I curse such lavish cost and little skill, And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.

Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed ; Health to himself, and to his infants bread

170 The laborer bears. What his hard heart denies, His charitable vanity supplies. Another

age

shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope and nod on the parterre, Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann’d, 175 And laughing Ceres reassume the land.

Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like

Boyle. 'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, And splendor borrows all her rays from sense. 180

His father's acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his neighbors glad if he increase ;
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;

Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed 185
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies, grow :
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town. 190

You too proceed ! make falling arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before;
Till kings call forth the ideas of your mind, 195
Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd.
Bid harbors open, public ways extend;
Bid temples, worthier of the God, ascend;
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain;
The mole projected break the roaring main; 200
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land :
These honors, peace to happy Britain brings;
These are imperial works, and worthy kings.

SATIRES AND EPISTLES.