applies to the above part of his own poem, the language of a 

 French critic on another subject: — " Le style en est dur, et 

 scabreux. II semble que Fauteur a ramasse les termes les 

 plus extraordinaires pour se rendre ihintelligible." Percy, 

 Bishop of Dromore, in vol. x. page 602, of the British Critic, 

 has given a critique of Mr. Mason's edition of Hoccleve, in 

 which he chastises its injustice, arrogance, and ignorance. 

 Mr. Mason has been more liberal in warmly praising Kent, 

 and Shenstone, in acknowledging the great taste and ele- 

 gance of Mr. Thomas Warton, when the latter notices 

 Milton's line of 



Bosoind high in tufted trees, 



which picturesque remark of Mr. Warton's could not have 

 been excelled even by the nice and critical pen of the late 

 Sir U. Price; and when he informs us, in more than one in- 

 stance, of the great Earl of Chatham's " turning his mind 

 to the embellishment of rural nature." 



Thomas Whateley, on whose " Observations on Modern 

 Gardening," the Encyclopaedia of Gardening (that most 

 comprehensive assemblage of every thing delightful and cu- 

 rious in this art,) observes, " It is remarkable, that so little 

 is known of a writer, the beauty of whose style, and the just- 

 ness of whose taste, are universally acknowledged." The 

 same work further says, " his excellent book, so frequently 

 referred to by all succeeding writers on garden scenery, 

 ought to be in the hands of every man of taste." And the 

 same work still further observes, that " its style has been 

 pronounced by Elisor, inimitable, and the descriptions with 

 which his investigations are accompanied, have been largely 

 copied, and amply praised by Alison, in his work On Taste. 

 The book was soon translated into the continental languages, 

 and is judiciously praised in the Mercure de France, Journal 

 Encyclop6dique, and Weiland's Journal. G. Mason alone 



