SANCROFT IN HIS GARDEN. 61 work-the sowing, grafting, budding, transplanting, and the like -I trust to no other hand but my own-so long, at least, as my health will allow me to enjoy so pleasing an occupation; and, in good sooth, the fruits here taste more sweet, and the flowers have a richer perfume, than they had at Lambeth." If Sancroft could have foreseen the Task, he would have heard his own voice reflected in the writer's account of his rustic labours: no works, indeed, That ask robust tough sinews, bred to toil, Not tire, demanding rather skill than force. Though a mightier hand than Cowper's had long before, in a magnificent history-piece, exhibited the earliest gardeners of the world reposing after their toil Under a tuft of shade that on the green Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side We have, in our gallery of literature, two celebrated personages-who were always longing for country seclusion, and at length obtained what they sought-Cowley and Bolingbroke. Perhaps this wish was the only point of agreement between them. "I never had any other desire," wrote the poet to Evelyn, "so like to covetousness as that one which I have always had that I might be the master at last of a small house and large garden, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of flowers and the study of nature." The lover of sweet fancies has reason to regret that Cowley did not find the Eden which he anticipated, nor live to make it what he hoped; for he had the “inward eye which is the bliss of solitude,” and discovered the Maker in the meanest flower or weed by the hedge-row. These verses, especially those in Italics, seem to enfold the whole system of Mr. Wordsworth-to be at once its text and compendium. Cowley is writing to Evelyn about a garden: Where does the Wisdom and the Power Divine In a more bright and sweet reflection shine? BOLINGBROKE'S FARM. Where do we finer strokes and colours see, Than when we with attention look Upon the third day's volume of the Book? If we could open and intend our eye, Ev'n in a bush the radiant Deity. But we despise these, His inferior ways, The stars of earth no wonder in us raise. 63 When Boswell mentioned to Johnson the saying of Shenstone, that Pope had the art beyond any other writer of condensing sense, Johnson replied: "It is not true, sir; there is more sense in a line of Cowley than in a page of Pope." He might have enlarged this criticism in his Life of Cowley: other poets may be read; he is to be studied. The fruitfulness of his fancy blinds the reader to the strength of his intellect; as in tropical woods, the trunk of the tree is hidden by the tall grass and plants that climb up and encircle it. In Cowley, the feeling for gardens, trees, and fountains was natural and sincere. He was one whose heart the holy forms Of young imagination have kept pure; but it is worth remarking, that the complaint of his touching line Business, that contradiction of my fate, was breathed long before by Bacon.-(De Aug. Sci. 1. viii. c. 3.) By the side of Cowley, Bolingbroke looks like Fiction holding the hand of Truth; upon his lips, affection for the country was a sigh after flowers upon the stage. However, into woods and fields he went-everything was to be rural; the walls of his house were painted with implements of husbandry, done in black crayon. am in my farm," he wrote to Swift; "and here I shoot strong and 66 tenacious roots. I have caught hold of the earth, to use a gardener's phrase, and neither my friends nor my enemies will find it an easy matter to transplant me again." Is it ungenerous to couple with Bolingbroke's affected love of gardens, the delight of Walpole in planting beeches and chestnuts at Houghton? "My flatterers," he wrote to General Churchill, "are mutes; they will not lie. I, in return, with sincerity admire them; and have as many beauties about me as fill up all my hours without dangling; and no disgrace attends me from the age of sixty-seven." There is, truly, a fortitude to be learned of that schoolmistress, whom God employs to guide His children towards Himself—a high and noble sense of the soul's dignity, which makes it her privilege— Through all the years of this our life, to lead The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold but this wisdom is not taught in the academy of the Infidel, or the Plotter. My notes on gardens have swelled into an essay, and I can only say one word on their relationship to the pencil. Among ourselves, landscape-gardening is confined within narrow boundaries. Few parts of England furnish materials for representing the pictures of S. Rosa, Claude, and the Poussins. Occasional situations may give the scenes of Ruysdael, Berghem, and Pinaker; while Hobbema, Waterloo, and A. Vandervelt may be copied wherever trees, lanes, and water are found. Walpole included Claude in the list, but we have neither his architecture nor sunshine. |