Mason's "English Garden."
A garden is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works. And a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely: as if gardening were the greater perfection.' VERULAM.
DEDICATION TO SIMPLICITY, THE ARBITRESS.
To thee, divine Simplicity! to thee, Best arbitress of what is good and fair, This verse belongs. O, as it freely flows, Give it thy powers of pleasing: else in vain It strives to teach the rules, from Nature drawn, Of import high to those whose taste would add To Nature's careless graces; loveliest then, When, o'er her form, thy easy skill has taught The robe of Spring in ampler folds to flow. Haste, Goddess! to the woods, the lawns, the vales; That lie in rude luxuriance, and but wait Thy call to bloom with beauty. I, meanwhile, Attendant on thy state serene, will mark Its faery progress; wake th' accordant string; And tell how far, beyond the transient glare Of fickle fashion, or of formal art, Thy flowery works with charm perennial please.
INVOCATION TO POETIC AND ARTISTIC FANCY.
Ye too, ye sister Powers! that at my birth Auspicious smiled; and o'er my cradle dropped Those magic seeds of Fancy, which produce A Poet's feeling, and a Painter's eye, Come to your votary's aid. For well ye know How soon my infant accents lisped the rhyme, How soon my hands the mimic colors spread, And vainly strove to snatch a double wreath From Fame's unfading laurel fruitless aim: Yet not inglorious; nor perchance devoid Of friendly use to this fair argument; If so, with lenient smiles, ye deign to cheer, At this sad hour,1 my desolated soul.
WHY THE AUTHOR WRITES. — TRIBUTE TO MRS. MASON.
For deem not ye that I resume the strain To court the world's applause my years mature Have learned to slight the toy. No, 't is to soothe That agony of heart, which they alone,
Who best have loved, who best have been beloved, Can feel, or pity: sympathy severe ! Which she too felt, when on her pallid lip The last farewell hung trembling, and bespoke A wish to linger here, and bless the arms
She left for heaven. She died, and heaven is hers! Be mine, the pensive solitary balm That recollection yields. Yes, Angel pure !
1 Written shortly after the death of the author's wife.
While Memory holds her seat, thy image still Shall reign, shall triumph there; and when, as now, Imagination forms a Nymph divine
To lead the fluent strain, thy modest blush, Thy mild demeanor, thy unpractised smile Shall grace that Nymph, and sweet Simplicity Be dressed (ah, meek Maria !) in thy charms.
ADDRESS TO TRAVELLING ENGLISHMEN OF TASTE.
Begin the Song! and ye of Albion's sons Attend; ye freeborn, ye ingenuous few, Who, heirs of competence, if not of wealth, Preserve that vestal purity of soul [youths, Whence genuine taste proceeds. To you, blest I sing; whether in Academic groves Studious ye rove; or, fraught with learning's stores, Visit the Latian plain, fond to transplant Those arts which Greece did, with her Liberty, Resign to Rome.
LANDSCAPE GARDENING UNKNOWN TO THE ROMANS. - ITALIAN SCENERY.
Yet know, the art I sing
Ev'n there ye shall not learn. Rome knew it not While Rome was free. Ah! hope not then to find In slavish, superstitious Rome the fair Remains. Meanwhile, of old and classic aid Tho' fruitless be the search, your eyes entranced Shall catch those glowing scenes, that taught a To grace his canvas with Hesperian hues : [Claude And scenes like these, on Memory's tablet drawn, Bring back to Britain; there give local form To each idea; and, if Nature lend Materials fit of torrent, rock, and shade, Produce new Tivolis. But learn to rein, O Youth whose skill essays the arduous task, That skill within the limit she allows.
NATURE TO BE MENDED, Not made.
Great Nature scorns control: she will not bear One beauty foreign to the spot or soil
She gives thee to adorn: 't is thine alone To mend, not change her features. Does her hand Stretch forth a level lawn? Ah, hope not thou To lift the mountain there. Do mountains frown Around? Ah, wish not there the level lawn. Yet she permits thy art, discreetly used, To smooth the rugged and to swell the plain. But dare with caution; else expect, bold man! The injured Genius of the place to rise In self-defence, and, like some giant fiend That frowns in Gothic story, swift destroy, By night, the puny labors of thy day.
NO SPOT ENTIRELY INCAPABLE OF BEAUTY. ART.
What then must he attempt, whom niggard Fate Has fixed in such an inauspicious spot As bears no trace of beauty? Must he sit Dull and inactive in the desert waste, If Nature there no happy feature wears To wake and meet his skill? Believe the Muse, She does not know that inauspicious spot Where Beauty is thus niggard of her store : Believe the Muse, through this terrestrial vast The seeds of grace are sown, profusely sown, Ev'n where we least may hope: the desert hills Will hear the call of Art; the valleys dank Obey her just behests, and smile with charms Congenial to the soil, and all its own.
THE DESERT IS ONLY WHERE MAN IS NOT; IN BEAUTIFYING IT, LABOR LEADS ART. THE NEW SETTLER.' For tell me, where 's the desert? there alone Where man resides not; or, if 'chance resides, - He is not there the man his Maker formed, Industrious man, by heaven's first law ordained To earn his food by labor. In the waste Place thou that man with his primeval arms, His ploughshare, and his spade; nor shalt thou long Impatient wait a change; the waste shall smile With yellow harvests; what was barren heath Shall soon be verdant mead. Now let thy Art Exert its powers, and give, by varying lines, The soil, already tamed, its finished grace.
IN BEAUTIFYING A WET DALE, ART LEADS LABOR. Nor less obsequious to the hand of toil, If Fancy guide that hand, will the dank vale Receive improvement meet; but Fancy here Must lead, not follow Labor; she must tell In what peculiar place the soil shall rise, [wear, Where sink; prescribe what form each sluice shall And how direct its course; whether to spread Broad as a lake, or, as a river pent
By fringed banks, weave its irriguous way Through lawn and shade alternate: for if she Preside not o'er the task, the narrow drains Will run in tedious parallel, or cut Each other in sharp angles; hence implore Her swift assistance, ere the ruthless spade Too deeply wound the bosom of the soil.
And each has left a blessing as it rolled : Even then, perchance, some vain fastidious eye Shall rove unmindful of surrounding charms And ask for prospect. Stranger! 't is not here. Go seek it on some garish turret's height; Seek it on Richmond's or on Windsor's brow; There gazing on the gorgeous vale below, Applaud alike, with fashioned pomp of phrase, The good and bad, which, in profusion there, That gorgeous vale exhibits.
THE DELL FAVORABLE TO MEDITATION. THE POET. THE NATURALIST. THE PAINTER.
Here, meanwhile, Even in the dull, unseen, unseeing dell, Thy taste contemns, shall Contemplation imp Her eagle plumes; the Poet here shall hold Sweet converse with his Muse; the curious Sage, Who comments on great Nature's ample tome, Shall find that volume here. For here are caves, Where rise those gurgling rills, that sing the song Which Contemplation loves; here shadowy glades, Where through the tremulous foliage darts the ray That gilds the Poet's day-dream; here the turf Teems with the vegetating race; the air Is peopled with the insect tribes, that float Upon the noontide beam, and call the Sage To number and to name them.
WHAT SCENERY POSSIBLE IN A VALE.-RUISDALE.- INVO CATION TO THE MUSE OF PAINTING. Nor if here The Painter comes, shall his enchanting art Go back without a boon for Fancy here, With Nature's living colors, forms a scene Which Ruisdale best might rival: crystal lakes, O'er which the giant oak, himself a grove, Flings his romantic branches, and beholds His reverend image in th' expanse below. If distant hills be wanting, yet our eye Forgets the want, and with delighted gaze Rests on the lovely foreground; there applauds The art, which, varying forms and blending hues, Gives that harmonious force of shade and light, Which makes the landscape perfect. Art like this Is only art, all else abortive toil.
Come, then, thou Sister Muse, from whom the mind Wins for her airy visions color, form,
FANCY'S TASK TO BEAUTIFY A LOW Vale difficult, YET NOT And fixed locality, sweet Painting, come
IMPOSSIBLE. RICHMOND. WINDSOR.
Yet, in this lowly site, where all that charms Within itself must charm, hard is the task Imposed on Fancy. Hence with idle fear! Is she not Fancy? and can Fancy fail In sweet delusions, in concealments apt, And wild creative power? She cannot fail. And yet, full oft, when her creative power, Her apt concealments, her delusions sweet, Have been profusely lavished; when her groves Have shot, with vegetative vigor strong, Ev'n to their wished maturity; when Jove Has rolled the changeful seasons o'er her lawns,
To teach the docile pupil of my song
How much his practice on thy aid depends.
THE ART OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING AND GARDENING.- COLORS.FOLIAGE.
Of Nature's various scenes the Painter culls That for his fav'rite theme, where the fair whole Is broken into ample parts, and bold;
Where to the eye three well-marked distances Spread their peculiar coloring. Vivid green, Warm brown, and black opaque the foreground bears Conspicuous; sober olive coldly marks
The second distance; thence the third declines
In softer blue, or, less'ning still, is lost
In faintest purple. When thy taste is called To deck a scene where Nature's self presents All these distinct gradations, then rejoice As does the painter, and like him apply Thy colors plant thou on each separate part Its proper foliage.
ARRANGEMENT OF SHRUBBERY AND TREES.
Chief, for there thy skill Has its chief scope, enrich with all the hues That flowers, that shrubs, that trees can yield, the sides
Of that fair path, from whence our sight is led Gradual to view the whole. Where'er thou wind'st That path, take heed between the scene and eye To vary and to mix thy chosen greens. Here for a while with cedar or with larch, [hide That from the ground spread their close texture, The view entire.
Then o'er some lowly tuft, Where rose and woodbine bloom, permit its charms To burst upon the sight; now through a copse Of beech, that rear their smooth and stately trunks, Admit it partially, and half exclude, And half reveal its graces in this path, How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each step Shall wake fresh beauties; each short point present A different picture, new, and yet the same.
CAUTION AS TO FELLING TREES. - POUSSIN. — CLAUDE.
Yet some there are who scorn this cautious rule, And fell each tree that intercepts the scene. O great Poussin ! O Nature's darling, Claude ! What if some rash and sacrilegious hand Tore from your canvas those umbrageous pines That frown in front, and give each azure hill The charm of contrast! Nature suffers here Like outrage, and bewails a beauty lost, Which time with tardy hand shall late restore.
TREES ILL PLACED. FENCE. SALVATOR ROSA.
Yet here the spoiler rests not; see him rise Warm from his devastation, to improve, For so he calls it, yonder champian wide. There on each bolder brow in shapes acute His fence he scatters; there the Scottish fir In murky file lifts his inglorious head, And blots the fair horizon. So should art Improve thy pencil's savage dignity, Salvator! if where, far as eye can pierce, Rock piled on rock, thy Alpine heights retire, She flung her random foliage, and disturbed The deep repose of the majestic scene.
This deed were impious. Ah, forgive the thought, Thou more than painter, more than poet! He Alone thy equal, who was Fancy's child.'
POVERTY OF FORESTING FORBIDDEN. AMPLY FLOWING LINES OF FOREST. ELM. CHESTNUT.—OAK. SIMILE OF THE GROWN-UP WARRIOR.
Does then the song forbid the planter's hand To clothe the distant hills, and veil with woods Their barren summits? No; it but forbids All poverty of clothing. Rich the robe, And ample let it flow, that Nature wears On her throned eminence: where'er she takes Her horizontal march, pursue her step With sweeping train of forest; hill to hill Unite with prodigality of shade.
There plant thy elm, thy chestnut; nourish there Those sapling oaks, which, at Britannia's call, May heave their trunks mature into the main, And float the bulwarks of her liberty: But if the fir, give it its station meet; Place it an outguard to th' assailing north, To shield the infant scions, till possessed Of native strength, they learn alike to scorn The blast and their protectors. Fostered thus, The cradled hero gains from female care His future vigor; but, that vigor felt, He springs indignant from his nurse's arms, Nods his terrific helmet, shakes his spear, And is that awful thing which Heaven ordained The scourge of tyrants, and his country's pride.
THE PRINCIPLES OF LANDSCAPE. BROAD CONTRASTS.CARELESS LINES.
If yet thy art be dubious how to treat Nature's neglected features, turn thy eye To those, the masters of correct design, Who, from her vast variety, have culled The loveliest, boldest parts, and new arranged; Yet, as herself approved, herself inspired. In their immortal works thou ne'er shalt find Dull uniformity, contrivance quaint, Or labored littleness; but contrasts broad, And careless lines, whose undulating forms Play through the varied canvas: these transplant Again on Nature; take thy plastic spade, It is thy pencil; take thy seeds, thy plants, They are thy colors; and by these repay With interest every charm she lent thy art.
PERFECTION FROM UNION OF ART AND NATURE. RAPHAEL. -COMBINE SELECTED EXCELLENCES.
Nor, while I thus to Imitation's realm Direct thy step, deem I direct thee wrong; Nor ask, why I forget great Nature's fount, And bring thee not the bright inspiring cup From her original spring. Yet, if thou ask'st, Thyself shalt give the answer. Tell me why Did Raphael steal, when his creative hand Imaged the seraphim, ideal grace And dignity supernal from that store Of Attic sculpture, which the ruthless Goth Spared in his headlong fury! Tell me this : And then confess that beauty best is taught By those, the favored few, whom Heaven has lent
The power to seize, select, and reunite Her loveliest features; and of these to form One archetype complete of sovereign grace. Here Nature sees her fairest forms more fair; Owns them for hers, yet owns herself excelled By what herself produced. Here Art and she Embrace; connubial Juno smiles benign, And from the warm embrace Perfection springs.
AIM AT AN IDEAL.-VARIETY SCORNS THE CUBE AND CONE.
Rouse then each latent energy of soul, To clasp ideal beauty. Proteus-like, Think not the changeful nymph will long elude Thy chase, or with reluctant coyness frown. Inspired by her, thy happy art shall learn To melt in fluent curves whate'er is straight, Acute, or parallel. For, these unchanged, Nature and she disdain the formal scene. "Tis their demand, that every step of rule Be severed from their sight: they own no charm But those that fair Variety creates,
Who ever loves to undulate and sport
In many a winding train. With equal zeal She, careless goddess, scorns the cube and cone, As does mechanic order hold them dear: Hence springs their enmity; and he that hopes To reconcile the foes, as well might aim With hawk and dove to draw the Cyprian car.
THE WILD-WOOD GLADES OF BRITAIN.
And yet, my Albion! in that fair domain, Which ocean made thy dowry, when his love Tempestuous tore thee from reluctant Gaul, And bade thee be his queen, there still remains Full many a lovely, unfrequented wild, Where change like this is needless; where no lines Of hedge-row, avenue, or of platform square, Demand destruction. In thy fair domain, Yes, my loved Albion! many a glade is found, The haunt of wood-gods only; where, if Art E'er dared to tread, 't was with unsandalled foot. Printless, as if the place were holy ground. And there are scenes, where, though she whilom Led by the worst of guides, fell Tyranny, [trod, And ruthless Superstition, we now trace Her footsteps with delight; and pleased revere What once had roused our hatred.
THE HARSHNESS OF ART MELLOWED BY TIME. — RUINS.— CASTLE. ABBEY.
Not her, the praise is due: his gradual touch Has mouldered into beauty many a tower, Which, when it frowned with all its battlements, Was only terrible; and many a fane Monastic, which, when decked with all its spires, Served but to feed some pampered abbot's pride, And awe the unlettered vulgar. Generous youth, Whoe'er thou art, that listen'st to my lay, And feel'st thy soul assent to what I sing, Such sentence passed, where shall the Dryads fly Happy art thou if thou canst call thine own
HOW TO TREAT A RIGID ROW OF VENERABLE OAKS. SID- NEY. SURRY. — SHADOWY POMP.
That haunt yon ancient vista? Pity, sure, Will spare the long cathedral aisle of shade In which they sojourn; taste were sacrilege, If, lifting there the axe, it dared invade Those spreading oaks that in fraternal files Have paired for centuries, and heard the strains Of Sidney's, nay, perchance, of Surry's reed. Yet must they fall, unless mechanic skill, To save her offspring, rouse at our command; And, where we bid her move, with engine huge, Each ponderous trunk, the ponderous trunk there A work of difficulty and danger tried, Nor oft successful found. But if it fails, Thy axe must do its office. Cruel task, Yet needful. Trust me, though I bid thee strike, Reluctantly I bid thee: for my soul
Holds dear an ancient oak, nothing more dear; It is an ancient friend. Stay then thine hand; And try by saplings tall, discreetly placed Before, between, behind, in scattered groups, To break the obdurate line. So may'st thou save A chosen few; and yet, alas, but few Of these, the old protectors of the plain. Yet shall these few give to thy opening lawn That shadowy pomp, which only they can give : For parted now, in patriarchal pride, Each tree becomes the father of a tribe; And, o'er the stripling foliage, rising round, Towers with parental dignity supreme.
Such scenes as these: where Nature and where Time
Have worked congenial; where a scattered host Of antique oaks darken thy sidelong hills; While, rushing through their branches, rifted cliffs Dart their white heads, and glitter through the More happy still, if one superior rock [gloom. Bear on its brow the shivered fragment huge Of some old Norman fortress; happier far, Ah, then most happy, if thy vale below Wash, with the crystal coolness of its rills, Some mouldering abbey's ivy-vested wall.
EXPENSIVE FOLLY OF OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING. STIFF- NESS. YEW. — HOLLY. — BOX. -CANAL. — TERRACE.
O how unlike the scene my fancy forms, Did Folly, heretofore, with Wealth conspire To plan that formal, dull, disjointed scene, Which once was called a garden! Britain still Bears on her breast full many a hideous wound Given by the cruel pair, when, borrowing aid From geometric skill, they vainly strove By line, by plummet, and unfeeling shears, To form with verdure what the builder formed With stone. Egregious madness; yet pursued With pains unwearied, with expense unsummed, And science doting. Hence the sidelong walls Of shaven yew; the holly's prickly arms Trimmed into high arcades; the tonsile box
Wove, in mosaic mode, of many a curl, Around the figured carpet of the lawn. Hence too deformities of harder cure: The terras mound uplifted; the long line Deep delved of flat canal; and all that toil, Misled by tasteless Fashion, could achieve To mar fair Nature's lineaments divine.
REFORM IN LANDSCAPE GARDENING DUE TO BACON, THE PROPHET OF A TRUE TASTE.
Long was the night of error, nor dispelled By him that rose at learning's earliest dawn, Prophet of unborn Science. On thy realm, Philosophy! his sovereign lustre spread, Yet did he deign to light with casual glance The wilds of taste. Yes, sagest Verulam, T was thine to banish from the royal grove Each childish vanity of crispéd knot And sculptured foliage; to the lawn restore Its ample space, and bid it feast the sight With verdure pure, unbroken, unabridged: For verdure soothes the eye, as roseate sweets The smell, or music's melting strains the ear.
LORD BACON'S GARDEN. A SWEET PICTURE.
So taught the sage, taught a degenerate reign What in Eliza's golden day was taste. Not but the mode of that romantic age, The age of tourneys, triumphs, and quaint masques, Glared with fantastic pageantry, which dimmed The sober eye of truth, and dazzled even The sage himself; witness his high-arched hedge, In pillared state by carpentry upborne, With colored mirrors decked and prisoned birds. But, when our step has paced his proud parterres, And reached the heath, then Nature glads our eye Sporting in all her lovely carelessness.
There smiles in varied tufts the velvet rose, There flaunts the gadding woodbine, swells the In gentle hillocks, and around its sides [ground Through blossomed shades the secret pathway steals.
SPENSER'S RESIDENCE. — ART SECONDING NATURE.
Thus, with a poet's power, the sage's pen Portrayed that nicer negligence of scene, Which Taste approves. While he, delicious swain, Who tuned his oaten pipe by Mulla's stream, Accordant touched the stops in Dorian mood; What time he 'gan to paint the fairy vale, Where stands the Fane of Venus. Well I ween That then, if ever, Colin, thy fond hand Did steep its pencil in the well-fount clear Of true simplicity; and 'called in Art Only to second Nature, and supply All that the nymph forgot, or left forlorn.'1
MILTON THE HERALD OF A TRUE TASTE. HIS DESCRIPTION OF PARADISE. CHARLES II.—WILLIAM III.
Yet what availed the song? or what availed Even thine, thou chief of bards, whose mighty mind, With inward light irradiate, mirror-like
1 See Spenser's Faery Queene, book 4, canto 10.
Received, and to mankind with ray reflex The sovereign Planter's primal work displayed? That work, where not nice Art in curious knots, But Nature boon, poured forth on hill and dale Flowers worthy of Paradise; while all around Umbrageous grots, and caves of cool recess, And murmuring waters down the slope dispersed, Or held, by fringéd banks, in crystal lakes, Compose a rural seat of various view.'1
"T was thus great Nature's herald blazoned high That fair original impress, which she bore In state sublime; e'er miscreated art, Offspring of sin and shame, the banner seized, And with adulterate pageantry defiled. Yet vainly, Milton, did thy voice proclaim These her primeval honors. Still she lay Defaced, deflowered, full many a ruthless year: Alike, when Charles, the abject tool of France, Came back to smile his subjects into slaves; Or Belgic William, with his warrior frown, Coldly declared them free; in fetters still The goddess pined, by both alike oppressed.
TEMPLE'S IDEA OF A GARDEN. BARENESS. STIFFNESS.
Go to the proof! behold what Temple called A perfect garden. There thou shalt not find One blade of verdure, but with aching feet From terras down to terras shalt descend, Step following step, by tedious flight of stairs: On leaden platforms now the noon-day sun Shall scorch thee; now the dank arcades of stone Shall chill thy fervor; happy, if at length Thou reach the orchard, where the sparing turf Through equal lines, all centring in a point, Yields thee a softer tread. And yet full oft O'er Temple's studious hour did Truth preside, Sprinkling her lustre o'er his classic page: There hear his candor own in fashion's spite, In spite of courtly dulness, hear it own 'There is a grace in wild variety Surpassing rule and order.' Temple,2 yes, There is a grace; and let eternal wreaths Adorn their brows who fixed its empire here.
REFORMERS OF GARDENING; ADDISON, POPE, KENT, SOUTHCOTE, SHENSTONE, CAPABILITY BROWN.' The muse shall hail the champions that herself Led to the fair achievement. Addison, Thou polished sage, or shall I call thee bard, I see thee come: around thy temples play The lambent flames of humor, brightening mild Thy judgment into smiles; gracious thou com'st With Satire at thy side, who checks her frown, But not her secret sting. With bolder rage Pope next advances; his indignant arm Waves the poetic brand o'er Timon's shades, And lights them to destrucion; the fierce blaze
1 See Milton's Paradise Lost, book 4.
2 See Sir William Temple's Miscellanies,' vol. I., p. 186, fol. ed.
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