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kind-hearted, hale old countenance. As he has the honour 

 of being classed with Mr. Addison, and with Pope, and Kent, 

 as one of the champions who established the picturesque 

 scenery of landscape gardening, (which Bacon, and Spencer, 

 and Milton, as hath been observed, foresaw) his portrait 

 must surely be interesting. The engraved portrait which I 

 saw of him more than fifty years ago, made then a strong 

 impression on me. I think it was an etching. It marked a 

 venerable healthy man. I neither recollect its painter nor 

 engraver; and it is so scarce, that neither Mr. Smith, of Lisle 

 Street, nor Mr. Evans, of Great Queen Street, the intelli- 

 gent collectors and illustrators of Granger, have been able 

 to obtain it. Perhaps it will be discovered that it was a pri- 

 vate plate, done at the expence of his generous and noble 

 employer, Lord Cobham. Of this once able and esteemed 

 man, I can procure little information. The Encycl, of Gar- 

 dening says, " Lord Cobham seems to have been occupied in 

 re-modelling the grounds at Stowe, about the same time that 

 Pope was laying out his gardens at Twickenham. His lord- 

 ship began these improvements in 1714, employing Bridgman, 

 whose plans and views for altering old Stowe from the most 

 rigid character of the ancient style to a more open and irre- 

 gular design, are still in existence. Kent was employed a 

 few years afterwards, first to paint the hall, and afterwards 

 in the double capacity of architect and landscape-gardener; 

 and the finest scenes there are his creation." The finest 

 views of Stowe gardens were drawn by Rigaud, and pub- 

 lished by Sarah Bridgman, in 1739. The fine and magnifi- 

 cent amphitheatre at the Duke of Newcastle's, at Claremont, 

 was designed, I believe, by Bridgman. When Queen Caro- 

 line added nearly three hundred acres from Hyde Park to 

 the gardens at Kensington, they were laid out by him. He 

 also laid out the gardens at Shardeloes, near Amersham. 

 Mr. Walpole thus mentions Bridgman, after alluding to the 

 shears having been applied to the lovely wildness of na- 



