r of its charms and always increasing
them in number. It delights all the senses. Its pleasures are not of an
unsocial character; for every visitor, high or low, learned or
illiterate, may be fascinated with the fragrance and beauty of a garden.
But shells and minerals and other curiosities are for the man of science
and the connoisseur. And a single inspection of them is generally
sufficient: they never change their aspect. The Picture-Gallery may
charm an instructed eye but the multitude have little relish for human
Art, because they rarely understand it:--while the skill of the Great
Limner of Nature is visible in every flower of the garden even to the
humblest swain.

It is pleasant to read how the wits and beauties of the time of Queen
Anne used to meet together in delightful garden-retreats, 'like the
companies in Boccaccio's Decameron or in one of Watteau's pictures.'
Ritchings Lodge, for instance, the seat of Lord Bathurst, was visited by
most of the celebrities of England, and frequently exhibited bright
groups of the polite and accomplished of both sexes; of men
distinguished for their heroism or their genius, and of women eminent
for their easy and elegant conversation, or for gaiety and grace of
manner, or perfect loveliness of face and form--all in harmonious union
with the charms of nature. The gardens at Ritchings were enriched with
Inscriptions from the pens of Congreve and Pope and Gay and Addison and
Prior. When the estate passed into the possession of the Earl of
Hertford, his literary lady devoted it to the Muses. "She invited every
summer," says Dr. Johnson, "some poet into the country to hear her
verses and assist her studies." Thomson, who praises her so lavishly in
his "Spring," offended her ladyship by allowing her too clearly to
perceive that he was resolved not to place himself in the dilemma of
which Pope speaks so feelingly with reference to other poetasters.

Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I,
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.
I sit with sad civility, I read
With honest anguish and an aching head.

But though "the bard more fat than bard beseems" was restive under her
ladyship's "poetical operations," and too plainly exhibited a desire to
escape the infliction, preferring the Earl's claret to the lady's
rhymes, she should have been a little more generously forgiving towards
one who had already made her immortal. It is stated, that she never
repeated