Part 8 (1/2)
Thomson had no objection to strike off a brief compliment in verse, but he was too indolent to keep up _in propria persona_ an incessant fire of compliments, like the _bon bons_ at a Carnival. It was easier to write her praises than listen to her verses. Shenstone seems to have been more pliable. He was personally obsequious, lent her recitations an attentive ear, and was ever ready with the expected commendation. It is not likely that her ladys.h.i.+p found much, difficulty in collecting around her a crowd of critics more docile than Thomson and quite as complaisant as Shenstone. Let but a _Countess_
Once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens, how the style refines!
Though Thomson's first want on his arrival in London from the North was a pair of shoes, and he lived for a time in great indigence, he was comfortable enough at last. Lord Lyttleton introduced him to the Prince of Wales (who professed himself the patron of literature) and when his Highness questioned him about the state of his affairs, Thomson a.s.sured him that they ”were in a more poetical posture than formerly.” The prince bestowed upon the poet a pension of a hundred pounds a year, and when his friend Lord Lyttleton was in power his Lords.h.i.+p obtained for him the office of Surveyor General of the Leeward Islands. He sent a deputy there who was more trustworthy than Thomas Moore's at Bermuda.
Thomson's deputy after deducting his own salary remitted his princ.i.p.al three hundred pounds per annum, so that the bard 'more fat than bard beseems' was not in a condition to grow thinner, and could afford to make his cottage a Castle of Indolence. Leigh Hunt has versified an anecdote ill.u.s.trative of Thomson's luxurious idleness. He who could describe ”_Indolence_” so well, and so often appeared in the part himself,
Slippered, and with hands, Each in a waistcoat pocket, (so that all Might yet repose that could) was seen one morn Eating a wondering peach from off the tree.
A little summer-house at Richmond which Thomson made his study is still preserved, and even some articles of furniture, just as he left them.[025] Over the entrance is erected a tablet on which is the following inscription:
HERE THOMSON SANG THE SEASONS AND THEIR CHANGE.
Thomson was buried in Richmond Church. Collins's lines to his memory, beginning
In yonder grave a Druid lies,
are familiar to all readers of English poetry.
Richmond Hill has always been the delight not of poets only but of painters. Sir Joshua Reynolds built a house there, and one of the only three landscapes which seem to have survived him, is a view from the window of his drawing-room. Gainsborough was also a resident in Richmond. Richmond gardens laid out or rather altered by Brown, are now united with those of Kew.
Savage resided for some time at Richmond. It was the favorite haunt of Collins, one of the most poetical of poets, who, as Dr. Johnson says, ”delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.” Wordsworth composed a poem upon the Thames near Richmond in remembrance of Collins. Here is a stanza of it.
Glide gently, thus for ever glide, O Thames, that other bards may see As lovely visions by thy side As now fair river! come to me; O glide, fair stream for ever so, Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, Till all our minds for ever flow As thy deep waters now are flowing.
Thomson's description of the scenery of Richmond Hill perhaps hardly does it justice, but the lines are too interesting to be omitted.
Say, shall we wind Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild Among the waving harvests? or ascend, While radiant Summer opens all its pride, Thy hill, delightful Shene[026]? Here let us sweep The boundless landscape now the raptur'd eye, Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send, Now to the sister hills[027] that skirt her plain, To lofty Harrow now, and now to where Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow In lovely contrast to this glorious view Calmly magnificent, then will we turn To where the silver Thames first rural grows There let the feasted eye unwearied stray, Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woods That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat, And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks, Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd, With her the pleasing partner of his heart, The worthy Queensbury yet laments his Gay, And polish'd Cornbury woos the willing Muse Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt In Twit nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore The healing G.o.d[028], to loyal Hampton's pile, To Clermont's terra.s.s'd height, and Esher's groves; Where in the sweetest solitude, embrac'd By the soft windings of the silent Mole, From courts and senates Pelham finds repose Enchanting vale! beyond whate'er the Muse Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung!
O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills!
On which the _Power of Cultivation_ lies, And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
The Revd. Thomas Maurice wrote a poem ent.i.tled _Richmond Hill_, but it contains nothing deserving of quotation after the above pa.s.sage from Thomson. In the _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ the labors of Maurice are compared to those of Sisyphus
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves Dull Maurice, all his granite weight of leaves.
Towards the latter part of the last century the Empress of Russia (Catherine the Second) expressed in a French letter to Voltaire her admiration of the style of English Gardening.[029] ”I love to distraction,” she writes, ”the present English taste in gardening. Their curved lines, their gentle slopes, their pieces of water in the shape of lakes, their picturesque little islands. I have a great contempt for straight lines and parallel walks. I hate those fountains which torture water into forms unknown to nature. I have banished all the statues to the vestibules and to the galleries. In a word English taste predominates in my _plantomanie_.”[030]
I omitted when alluding to those Englishmen in past times who antic.i.p.ated the taste of the present day in respect to laying out grounds, to mention the ever respected name of John Evelyn, and as all other writers before me, I believe, who have treated upon gardening, have been guilty of the same oversight, I eagerly make his memory some slight amends by quoting the following pa.s.sage from one of his letters to his friend Sir Thomas Browne.
”I might likewise hope to refine upon some particulars, especially concerning the ornaments of gardens, which I shall endeavor so to handle as that they may become useful and practicable, as well as magnificent, and that persons of all conditions and faculties, which delight in gardens, may therein encounter something for their owne advantage. The modell, which I perceive you have seene, will aboundantly testifie my abhorrency of those painted and formal projections of our c.o.c.kney gardens and plotts, which appeare like gardens of past-board and marchpane, and smell more of paynt then of flowers and verdure; our drift is a n.o.ble, princely, and universal Elysium, capable of all the amoenities that can naturally be introduced into gardens of pleasure, and such as may stand in compet.i.tion with all the august designes and stories of this nature, either of antient or moderne tymes; yet so as to become useful and significant to the least pretences and faculties. We will endeavour to shew how the air and genious of gardens operat upon humane spirits towards virtue and sanct.i.tie: I mean in a remote, preparatory and instrumentall working. How caves, grotts, mounts, and irregular ornaments of gardens do contribute to contemplative and philosophicall enthusiasme; how _elysium, antrum, nemus, paradysus, hortus, lucus_, &c., signifie all of them _rem sacram it divinam_; for these expedients do influence the soule and spirits of men, and prepare them for converse with good angells; besides which, they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures, phylosophy naturall; and longevitie: and I would have not onely the elogies and effigie of the antient and famous garden heroes, but a society of the _paradisi cultores_ persons of antient simplicity, Paradisean and Hortulan saints, to be a society of learned and ingenuous men, such as Dr. Browne, by whome we might hope to redeeme the tyme that has bin lost, in pursuing _Vulgar Errours_, and still propagating them, as so many bold men do yet presume to do.”
The English style of landscape-gardening being founded on natural principles must be recognized by true taste in all countries. Even in Rome, when art was most allowed to predominate over nature, there were occasional instances of that correct feeling for rural beauty which the English during the last century and a half have exhibited more conspicuously than other nations. Atticus preferred Tully's villa at Arpinum to all his other villas; because at Arpinum, Nature predominated over art. Our Kents and Browns[031] never expressed a greater contempt, than was expressed by Atticus, for all formal and artificial decorations of natural scenery.
The spot where Cicero's villa stood, was, in the time of Middleton, possessed by a convent of monks and was called the Villa of St. Dominic.
It was built, observes Mr. Dunlop, in the year 1030, from the fragments of the Arpine Villa!
Art, glory, Freedom, fail--but Nature still is fair.
”Nothing,” says Mr. Kelsall, ”can be imagined finer than the surrounding landscape. The deep azure of the sky, unvaried by a single cloud--Sora on a rock at the foot of the precipitous Appennines--both banks of the Garigliano covered with vineyards--the _fragor aquarum_, alluded to by Atticus in his work _De Legibus_--the coolness, the rapidity and ultramarine hue of the Fibrenus--the noise of its cataracts--the rich turquoise color of the Liris--the minor Appennines round Arpino, crowned with umbrageous oaks to the very summits--present scenery hardly elsewhere to be equalled, certainly not to be surpa.s.sed, even in Italy.”
This description of an Italian landscape can hardly fail to charm the imagination of the coldest reader; but after all, I cannot help confessing to so inveterate a partiality for dear old England as to be delighted with the compliment which Gray, the poet, pays to English scenery when he prefers it to the scenery of Italy. ”Mr. Walpole,”