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Infuperable height of loftiefl fhade, 

 Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching paîm, 

 A fylvan fcene, and as the ranks afcend, 

 Shade above fhade, a woody théâtre 



Of ftatelieft view 



and then recolle^ that the author of this fublîme vifion had 

 never feen a glimpfe of any thlng like what he bas imagmed, 

 that his favourite ancients had dropped 7iot a hint offuch 

 divine fcenery y and that the conceits in Italian gardens, and 

 ^heobaîds and Nonfuch, were the brightejî originals that his 

 tnemàry coiildfurnip. His intellcBual eye faw a nobîer plan, 

 fo little did he fuffer by the lofs of fight. It fufficed him 

 to hâve feen the materiaîs with which he couîd work. The 

 'vigour of a houndîefs imagination told him how a plan might be 

 difpofedy that ivould embellifi nature, aîid rejiore art to its 

 proper office, the jiijî improvement or imitation of it.'^ 



It is necejary that the concurrent teftimony of the âge 



fjould fwear to pojierîty that the defcription above qiioted 



ivas written above half a century before the introdiiBion of 



modem gardening, or our incredulous defcendents will defraud 



the poet of half his glory, by being perfuaded that he copied 



fome 



* $'tnu the above ivas ivr'itten, I hâve found M'iîton pralfed and fir William 

 Temple cenfured, on the famé foundations, in a poem called T})e Rife and Pro* 

 greji of the prefcmt Tafie in Plant ing, printed in 1767. ^ 



