cling 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Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;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, desc