debted
for diffusing "a taste in laying out grounds." The design of the
Prince of Wales's garden was copied from _Pope's_ at Twickenham.
Warton applauds "his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing
so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres." Pope was the
_first_ who ridiculed the "formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural
taste in gardening," both in _prose_ and verse. (See, for the former,
"The Guardian.")

"Pope has given not only some of our _first_ but _best_ rules and
observations on _Architecture_ and _Gardening_." (See Warton's Essay,
vol. ii. p. 237, &c. &c.)

Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in "Kendal
Green," and our Bucolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a
wilderness of bricks and mortar) about "Nature," and Pope's
"artificial in-door habits?" Pope had seen all of nature that
_England_ alone can supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst
the beautiful scenery of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at
the country seats of Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough,
Digby, and Bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered
_Stowe_. He made his own little "five acres" a model to princes, and
to the first of our artists who imitated nature. Warton thinks "that
the most engaging of _Kent_'s works was also planned on the model of
Pope's,--at least in the opening and retiring shades of Venus's
Vale."

It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and
he could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he
was famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst's is
carved "Here Pope sang,"--he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one
of his letters, represents them both writing in the hay-field. No
poet ever admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has
done, as I will undertake to prove from his works, _prose_ and
_verse_, if not anticipated in so easy and agreeable a labour. I
remember a passage in Walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished
to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served
Pope in his grounds: "I understand, sir," he replied: "you would have
them hang down, sir, _somewhat poetical_." Now, if nothing existed
but this little anecdote, it would suffice to prove Pope's taste for
_Nature_, and the impression which he had made on a common-minded
man. But I have already quoted Warton and Walpole (_both_ his
enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply quote Pope himself