[430] “Barbara Allan’s Cruelty.”

[431] “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine.”

[432] “Gil Morice.”

[433] “King Edward IV and Tanner of Tamworth.”

[434] “The King and the Miller of Mansfield.”

[435] “Adam Bell.”

[436] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”

[437] For the forest in mediaeval poetry see Vernon Lee, “Euphorion,” p. 122.

[438] “Hardyknute.”

[439] “Young Waters.”

[440] “Young Waters.”

[441] “The Heir of Linne.”

[442] Schiller, “Ueber die Naive und Sentimentale Dichtung.”

[443] The poem is quoted entire by Gosse in his “Eighteenth Century Literature.”

[444] In this poem about 16 per cent. of the lines have something to do with Nature. In Wordsworth’s “Descriptive Sketches” over 50 per cent. of the lines treat of Nature.

[445] “The Minstrel,” Preface.

[446] Wordsworth, “The Excursion,” i, 108–300.

[447] Ibid., iv, 466–600.

[448] Wordsworth, “The Prelude,” “Advertisement.”

[449] “The Minstrel,” i, 52.

[450] Ibid., 10.

[451] Ibid., 9. Of this stanza Gray said in a letter to Beattie, March, 1771: “But this, of all others, is my favorite stanza. It is true poetry; it is inspiration; only (to show it is mortal) there is one blemish; the word garniture suggesting an idea of dress, and, what is worse, of French dress.” Beattie said he had often wished “to alter this same word, but had not been able to hit upon a better.”—Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvii.

Gray’s praise of Beattie was faint compared to Beattie’s admiration of Gray. In 1765 he declared that he had “long and passionately admired” Gray’s writings. He thought Gray’s poems finer than those of his contemporaries in any nation. He thought his taste most exact, his judgment most sound, and his learning most extensive. See Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” pp. xvi, xviii.

[452] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvi.

[453] Cowper, Letter to Rev. William Unwin, April, 1784.

[454] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxv.

[455] His chief poems are, “Four Moral Eclogues” (1778); “Four Elegies” (published 1760 but written earlier); “Amwell, A Descriptive Poem” (published 1776 but written 1768); and “Odes and Amoebaean Eclogues” (1782). His “Epistle on the Garden” and “Essay on Painting” will be spoken of later.

It is interesting to note the spirit of apology with which Scott’s friends and admirers comment on his choice of subjects. In such poetry there is little opportunity for genius, for, says Mr. Hoole, “A hill, a vale, a forest, a rivulet, a cataract, can be described only by general terms; the hill must swell, the vale sink, the rivulet murmur, and the cataract foam.” Mr. Hoole recognizes the “slight estimation” in which descriptive poetry is commonly held, but thinks there are devices to render it attractive and calls attention to the skill with which Mr. Scott has made his poems “interesting by the introduction of historical incidents, apt illusions, and moral reflections.”

[456] At this line Mr. Hoole’s admiration broke down. He could only regret that Mr. Scott’s desire for novelty had led him to admit such circumstances as no versification can make poetical.

[457] See “Advertisement” to “Poetical Sketches.”

[458] Introduction to “Songs of Innocence.”

[459] “Night.”

[460] “Contemplation.”

[461] “Book of Thel.”

[462] “Inebriety.”

[463] “The Village.”

[464] “The Choice.”

[465] “The Borough” especially Letters I and IX.

[466] “Tales of the Hall,” Book IV.

[467] In a letter to Newton, November 16, 1791, he wrote: “I would that I could see some of the mountains which you have seen; especially because Dr. Johnson has pronounced that no man is qualified to be a poet who has never seen a mountain. But mountains I shall never see, unless, perhaps, in a dream, or unless there are such in heaven.”

[468] See “Task,” i, 764; iv, 254–58. The best lines on the moon are in “Task,” iv, 3,

[469] “Task,” i, 520; vi, 495.

[470] “Truth,” l. 238.

[471] “Task,” iv, 322.

[472] Illustrative similitudes are those drawn from the thunderstorm “Truth,” l. 238), deer (“Task,” iii, 108), peacocks and pheasants (“Truth,” l. 58), elm and vine (“Retirement,” l. 129), moles (“Task,” i, 276), etc.

[473] In a letter to Rev. William Unwin, October, 1784, Cowper wrote, “My descriptions are all from nature; not one of them second-handed.”

[474] Letter to Lady Herbert, October 12, 1785.

[475] “Task,” v, 58.

[476] Ibid., 27.

[477] Ibid., 41.

[478] Ibid., i, 161.

[479] Ibid., 358.

[480] Ibid., vi, 147.

[481] Ibid., i, 304.

[482] “Task,” i, 195.

[483] Ibid., 185.

[484] Ibid., 159.

[485] Ibid., 346.

[486] “Task,” vi, 310.

[487] Ibid., v, 22.

[488] Ibid., vi, 77.

[489] Ibid., i, 109, 142.

[490] Ibid., iv, 700.

[491] Ibid., 695.

[492] See “Hope,” ll. 39–60; “Task,” iii, 721; iv, 780; iii, 301; and other passages. In the passage from “Hope” compare the line:

and Wordsworth’s

[493] See “Retirement,” ll. 481, 563; “Task,” iii, 314, 306.

[494] “Task,” i, 749.

[495] “Task,” vi, 109; cf. ll. 84–117 of Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned”:

See also, “To My Sister”:

[496] “Task,” vi, 121–97.

[497] Ibid., i, 369.

[498] “Retirement,” l. 419.

[499] “Task,” vi, 181.

[500] Ibid., 59.

[501] Burns, “Works,” V, 185.

[502] Ibid., I, 28. Cf. lines in the “Epistle to William Simson”:

[503] Burns, “Works,” IV, 272.

[504] “The Vision,” sts. 36, 37.

[505] Burns, “Works,” I, 18. In one poem Burns declares that he prefers “wild mossy moors” to “Forth’s sunny shores,” but a characteristic reason,

forbids the use of the passage as a proof of real enjoyment of the wild in Nature.

[506] Burns, “Works,” VI, 242.

[507] Ibid., p. 241.

[508] Ibid., V, 165.

[509] Burns warmly admired Ossian, and this phrase sounds like an echo from one of the Ossian poems.

[510] Burns, “A Winter Night.”

[511] Ibid., “The Brigs of Ayr.”

[512] Ibid., “Works,” V, 231.

[513] Burns, “Elegy on Captain Henderson.”

[514] Bowles, “Poetical Works,” II, XII (ed. 1855).

[515] See sonnet by Coleridge.

[516] “After this third edition came out, my friend Mr. Crutwell, the printer, wrote a letter saying that two young gentlemen, strangers, one a particularly handsome and pleasing youth, lately from Westminster School, [Robert Southey] and both literary and intelligent, spoke in high commendation of my volume.”—Bowles, “Poems” (Introduction to ed. of 1837).

[517] “Fourteen Sonnets,” 1789. The same with additions, 1790. The same reproduced with illustrations, 1798.

[518] Bowles, “Poems,” Introduction to edition of 1837.

[519] “Hope.”

[520] “The Tweed Visited.”

[521] “Elegy Written at the Hotwells, Bristol.”

[522] “To the River Itchen.”

[523] “The River Cherwell.”

[524] “Elegy Written at the Hotwells, Bristol.”

[525] “The River Wainsbeck.”

[526] Ibid.

[527] “At Tynemouth Priory.”

[528] “Absence.”

[529] “The Bells, Ostend.”

[530] “At Malvern.”

[531] Bowles, “Memoir.”

[532] I have been unable to find the exact date of this letter, but in all probability it antedates “The Life of John Buncle” and the “Descriptive Poem” by some years. It was probably before 1760, because at that time occurred the quarrel between Lyttleton and Brown. It seems also probable that it was before 1756, because at that time Dr. Brown took the living at Great Horkesley, near Colchester. The most natural period for the Letter is between 1748 and 1754, for at some time during that period, and apparently during the early part of it, Dr. Brown held the living of Morland, Westmoreland. (See “Brown,” “Osbaldiston,” “Lyttleton” in “Nat. Dict. of Biog.” and memoir of Brown in “British Poets.”)

[533] Young explains that he cannot find anyone to spell the names for him so he must spell them as they are pronounced.

[534] Cf. L. Charlanne, “L’influence française en Angleterre au XVII^e siècle,” p. 115.

[535] Alicia Amherst, “A History of Gardening in England,” p. 206.

[536] Few of these details, except the radiating avenues and the high jets of water characteristic of Le Nôtre’s gardens, were absolutely new after 1660. Topiary work was of Roman origin. “It is said to have been invented by Matius, a friend of the emperor Augustus. The chief gardener was known as the “topiarius” and it was his none too easy task to see that the evergreens were artistically shorn” (Nichols, “English Pleasure Gardens,” p. 39). The cutting of trees and shrubs into quaint forms was introduced into England in the early Tudor period and became very popular. The clipped garden at Heslington, near York, is said to date from about 1560. In 1618 Lawson in his “A New Orchard and Garden” wrote, “Your Gardiner can frame your lesser wood to the shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell; or swift-running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare.” There was also early protest against such work. Bacon in his “Essay on Gardens” said, “I, for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff; they be for children.” Of figured and colored knots Bacon said, “They be but toys; you may see as good sights many times in tarts.” He also objected to fantastic fountains where the water spouted forth in “feathers, drinking glasses, canopies, and the like.”

[537] In the Arts and Crafts Museum at Hamburg there is a fine and perhaps unique historical collection of garden prints, a collection made by Professor Brinckmann, director of the Museum, and shown at the great Gardening Exhibition in Hamburg, 1897 (Albert Forbes Sieveking, “Gardens Ancient and Modern,” 1897).

[538] Sir John Thynne bought Longleat in 1541 and was occupied during 1567–79 in building the mansion. The baron Thynne who made the gardens became viscount in 1682 and Kip’s plans date sometime after that year. Lady Winchilsea, who visited often at Longleat, wrote, about 1690, a poem to Lady Worsley, the only daughter of Viscount Weymouth, in which she speaks of

She comments on the finish in details and on the splendid effect of the whole. She describes labyrinths, flowery groves, smooth grass terraces, but she devotes her most eager lines to the fountains. Words are inadequate to

[539] Horace Walpole says of this description, “Any man might design and build as sweet a garden, who had been born in, and never stirred out of Holburn.” In Mason’s “English Garden” is another scornful description of Temple’s idea of a perfect garden.

[540] This treatise is quoted almost entire in Nichols’ “English Pleasure Gardens” in the chapter on “French Fashions.”

[541] Mr. Barrington in “On the Progress of Gardening,” 1782 (“Archaeologia,” Vol. V) says that Lord Bathurst, at Ryskins, near Colebrook, was the first to make a winding stream through a garden. “So unusual was the effect that his friend, Lord Stafford, could not believe it had been done on purpose, and supposing it had been for economy, asked him to own fairly how little more it would have cost to have made the course of the brook in a straight direction.”

[542] “Paradise Lost,” Book IV, 299.

[543] Letter from Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, June 20, 1760. For a description of Twickenham see “Famous Parks and Gardens” (Nelson and Sons, London, 1880), p. 134.

[544] Pope, “Works” (Elwin and Courthope), V, 182.

[545] Blomfield and Thomas, “The Formal Garden in England,” p. 80.

[546] William Mason, “The English Garden” (1772). In the edition of 1738 Dr. Burgh in his notes calls Bacon the prophet, Milton the herald, and Addison, Pope, and Kent the champions of the true taste in gardening.

[547] Horace Walpole, “Essay on Modern Gardening” (written in 1770, printed in 1785).

[548] William Hazlitt, “Gleanings in Old Garden Literature,” p. 66 (ed. 1882).

[549] Letter to Jervas, December 12, 1718. Pope, “Works” (Elwin and Courthope), IV, 494.

[550] In the very full bibliography (covering the years 1516–1836) given by Miss Amherst in “A History of Gardening in England” more than sixty books or articles are listed between 1700 and 1725. Most of these seem from the titles to be of purely horticultural interest and have to do with the kitchen garden or the fruit garden rather than with ornamental grounds. One popular sort of title in which the word “Recreation” is the keynote would seem to indicate something more than a collection of practical precepts, but on investigation “The Ladies’ Recreation” (1707), “The Clergyman’s Recreation” (1714), “The Gentleman’s Recreation” (1717), “The Lady’s Recreation” (1718), and the rest, prove to be severely technical, treating only of the planting and nurture of gardens.

[551] Quoted by Sieveking in “Gardens Ancient and Modern,” p. 122.

[552] There is a discriminating eulogy of Kent by Francis Coventry in “The World,” April 12, 1753. But see also Coventry’s “Strictures on the Absurd Novelties Introduced into Gardening, and a Humorous Description of Squire Mushroom’s Villa,” “The World,” November 15, 1753.

[553] In Mr. Dallaway’s “Supplementary Anecdotes” to Walpole’s “On Modern Gardening” (In Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 819,) is the statement that Mr. Southcote at Wooburn Farm in Surrey, and the Hon. C. Hamilton at Pain’s Hill, Surrey, undoubtedly preceded Shenstone in priority of design.

[554] Sir Walter Scott said of this sketch, “I can trace, even to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley’s description of Shenstone’s Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend’s sketch of his grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phyllis to boot.” For another full prose description of Leasowes and the neighboring place, Hagley, see Hugh Miller’s “Impressions of England and English People,” pp. 95–132, 147–69. See also “On the Tenants of the Leasowes,” Essay XXI in “Essays” (1758–65) by Goldsmith, for a description of Leasowes gone to decay. There is an interesting supposed conversation between Shenstone and a utilitarian cockney visitor in “Blackwood’s,” XIV, 262 (1823). Another early description is in “Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes,” by Joseph Heeley, 1777. There are poetical descriptions in Woodhouse’s “Poems” and in Giles’ “Miscellanies.” In Shenstone’s “Works,” published by Dodsley in 1773 are collected nine poetical tributes to the place. In “The Spiritual Quixote” (1773) one of the noted exploits of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose, the quixotic reformer, is an attempted defacement of the gardens at Leasowes in order thereby to save the soul of his friend Shenstone from being wedded to idols. The influence and fame of this garden are indicated by the fact that the Marquis de Giradin at Ermonville called his own place “The Leasowes of France.” Anderson, in his Preface to Shenstone’s “Works” says that the planning of pleasure grounds in the manner of Leasowes “seems to require as great powers of mind as those which we admire in the descriptive poems of Thomson, or in the noble landscapes of Salvator Rosa, or the Poussins.” For later descriptions see “Shenstone and the Leasowes” in “Once a Week,” 1862, by Edward Jesse.

[555] Downing, in “Landscape Gardening,” p. 20, says that the term “landscape gardening” was first used in this essay. The essay begins, “Gardening may be divided into three species ... kitchen-gardening ... parterre-gardening ... and landskip, or picturesque gardening.”

[556] For a full statement of Mason’s views on this point see the notes to the first book of “The English Garden.” Switzer had already made a similar claim in regard to Milton. It is interesting to note in this connection that Kent often referred his love of Nature in gardens to his study of Spenser’s “Fairy Queen.”

[557] Mason, “The English Garden,” “General Postscript.”

[558] In “The Garden: As Considered in Literature by Some Polite Persons,” edited by Walter Howe (“Knickerbocker Nuggets” series, G. P. Putnam’s Sons), may be found essays by Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, Addison, Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Whateley, Goldsmith, Walpole, and Evelyn. A fine edition of Sir William Temple’s essay, “On the Gardens of Epicurus,” with illustrations, has been brought out by Chatto and Windus.

[559] Viscount Irwin, “The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting,” 1767.

[560] Cowper, “The Task,” Book III, “The Gardens,” l. 764.

[561] Richard Payne Knight, “The Landscape, A Didactic Poem,” 1794.

[562] Uvedale Price, “An Essay on the Picturesque” (1794–98).

[563] William Gilpin, “Observations ... Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty.” Eleven separate volumes, 1783–1809.

[564] Richard Jago, “Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect Delineated and Moralized,” 1767. In this poem Jago describes the country seats of fifty gentlemen. The most important are Farnborough, Packington, Shuckburgh, and Leasowes.

[565] There are many indications about the middle of the century of a widespread interest in all that pertained to China. In about 1750 Mrs. Montague remodeled her house in Hill Street and made a Chinese room of which she wrote, “Sick of Grecian elegance and symmetry, or Gothick grandeur and magnificence, we must all seek the barbarious goût of the Chinese; and fat-headed pagods and shaking manderins bear the prizes from the finest works of antiquity.... You will wonder I should condemn the taste I have complied with but in trifles I shall always conform to the fashion.” As early as 1750 appeared William Halfpenny’s “New Designs for Chinese Temples ... Garden Seats,” etc. In 1753 in “The World” for March, Coventry satirizes the rage for Chinese furniture. In April there is a protest against the excessive use of Chinese bridges and buildings in gardens. In February, 1754, and March, 1755, are pleas for an “anti-Chinese society.” Chippendale’s “Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Directory” of 1753 and Sir William Chambers’ more influential “Book on Chinese Buildings,” 1757, did much to establish the taste for Chinese furnishings and for Chinese garden accessories, and also to render that taste more correct.