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
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,[013]
has had its interest with people in general much increased by its
association with the history of Napoleon in the Island of St. Helena.
The tree whose boughs seemed to hang so fondly over his remains has now
its scions in all parts of the world. Few travellers visited the tomb
without taking a small cutting of the Napoleon Willow for cultivation in
their own land. Slips of the Willow at Twickenham, like those of the
Willow at St. Helena, have also found their way into many countries. In
1789 the Empress of Russia had some of them planted in her garden at St.
Petersburgh.
Mr. Loudon tells us that there is an old oak in Binfield Wood, Windsor
Forest, which is called Pope's Oak, and which bears the inscription
"HERE POPE SANG:"[014] but according to general tradition it was a
beech tree, under which Pope wrote his "Windsor Forest." It is said
that as that tree was decayed, Lady Gower had the inscription alluded to
carved upon another tree near it. Perhaps the substituted tree was an
oak.
I may here mention that in the Vale of Avoca there is a tree celebrated
as that under which Thomas Moore wrote the verses entitled "The meeting
of the Waters."
The allusion to Pope's Oak reminds me that Chaucer is said to have
planted three oak trees in Donnington Park near Newbury. Not one of them
is now, I believe, in existence. There is an oak tree in Windsor Forest
above 1000 years old. In the hollow of this tree twenty people might be
accommodated with standing room. It is called King's Oak: it was
William the Conqueror's favorite tree. Herne's Oak in Windsor Park, is
said by some to be still standing, but it is described as a mere
anatomy.
----An old oak whose boughs are mossed with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity.
As You Like it.
"It stretches out its bare and sapless branches," says Mr. Jesse, "like
the skeleton arms of some enormous giant, and is almost fearful in its
decay." Herne's Oak, as every one knows, is immortalised by
Shakespeare, who has spread its fame over many lands.
There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns,
And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle;
And makes milch cows yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know,
The superstitious, idle-headed eld
Received, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.
Merry Wives of Windsor.
"Herne, the hunter" is said to have hung himself upon one of the
branches of this tree, and even,
----Yet there want not many that do fear,
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's Oak.
Merry Wives of Windsor.
It was not long ago visited by the King of Prussia to whom Shakespeare
had rendered it an object of great interest.
It is unpleasant to add that there is considerable doubt and dispute as
to its identity. Charles Knight and a Quarterly Reviewer both maintain
that Herne's Oak was cut down with a number of other old trees in
obedience to an order from George the Third when he was not in his right
mind, and that his Majesty deeply regretted the order he had given when
he found that the most interesting tree in his Park had been destroyed.
Mr. Jesse, in his Gleanings in Natural History, says that after some
pains to ascertain the truth, he is convinced that this story is not
correct, and that the famous old tree is still standing. He adds that
George the Fourth often alluded to the story and said that though one of
the trees cut down was supposed to have been Herne's Oak, it was not
so in reality. George the Third, it is said, once called the attention
of Mr. Ingalt, the manager of Windsor Home Park to a particular tree,
and said "I brought you here to point out this tree to you. I commit it
to your especial charge; and take care that no damage is ever done to
it. I had rather that every tree in the park should be cut down than
that this tree should be hurt. This is Hernes Oak."
Sir Philip Sidney's Oak at Penshurst mentioned by Ben Jonson--
That taller tree, of which the nut was set
At his great birth, where all the Muses met--
is still in existence. It is thirty feet in circumference. Waller also
alludes to
Yonder tree which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth.
Yardley Oak, immortalized by Cowper, is now in a state of decay.
Time made thee what thou wert--king of the woods!
And time hath made thee what thou art--a cave
For owls to roost in.
Cowper.
The tree is said to be at least fifteen hundred years old. It cannot
hold its present place much longer; but for many centuries to come it
will
Live in description and look green in song.
It stands on the grounds of the Marquis of Northampton; and to prevent
people from cutting off and carrying away pieces of it as relics, the
following notice has been painted on a board and nailed to the
tree:--"Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of
Northampton is particularly desirous of preserving this Oak."
Lord Byron, in early life, planted an oak in the garden at Newstead and
indulged the fancy, that as that flourished so should he. The oak has
survived the poet, but it will not outlive the memory of its planter or
even the boyish verses which he addressed to it.
Pope observes, that "a tree is a nobler object than a prince in his
coronation robes." Yet probably the poet had never seen any tree larger
than a British oak. What would he have thought of the Baobab tree in
Abyssinia, which measures from 80 to 120 feet in girth, and sometimes
reaches the age of five thousand years. We have no such sylvan patriarch
in Europe. The oldest British tree I have heard of, is a yew tree of
Fortingall in Scotland, of which the age is said to be two thousand five
hundred years. If trees had long memories and could converse with man,
what interesting chapters these survivors of centuries might add to the
history of the world!
Pope was not always happy in his Twickenham Paradise. His rural delights
were interrupted for a time by an unrequited passion for the beautiful
and highly-gifted but eccentric Lady Mary Wortley Montague.
Ah! friend, 'tis true--this truth you lovers know;
In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;
In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains and of sloping greens;
Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,
And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.
What are the gay parterre, the chequered shade,
The morning bower, the evening colonnade,
But soft recesses of uneasy minds,
To sigh unheard in to the passing winds?
So the struck deer, in some sequestered part,
Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
He, stretched unseen, in coverts hid from day,
Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.
These are exquisite lines, and have given delight to innumerable
readers, but they gave no delight to Lady Mary. In writing to her
sister, the Countess of Mar, then at Paris, she says in allusion to
these "most musical, most melancholy" verses--"I stifled them here; and
I beg they may die the same death at Paris." It is not, however, quite
so easy a thing as Lady Mary seemed to think, to "stifle" such poetry as
Pope's.
Pope's notions respecting the laying out of gardens are well expressed
in the following extract from the fourth Epistle of his Moral
Essays.[015] This fourth Epistle was addressed, as most readers will
remember, to the accomplished Lord Burlington, who, as Walpole says,
"had every quality of a genius and an artist, except envy. Though his
own designs were more chaste and classic than Kent's, he entertained him
in his house till his death, and was more studious to extend his
friend's fame than his own."
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste--'tis sense;
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science fairly worth the seven;
A light, which in yourself you must perceive;
Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.
To build, or plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column or the arch to bend;
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;
In all let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor over dress nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty every where be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds.
Consult the genius of the place in all;[016]
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.
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