144 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



seats, — one towards the river, of smooth stones, full of light, and 

 open; the other towards the arch of trees, rough with shells, 

 flints and iron-ore. The bottom is paved with simple pebble, as 

 the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple is to be 

 cockle-shells, in the natural taste, agreeing not ill with the little 

 dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It 

 wants nothing to complete it but a good Statue with an inscrip- 

 tion, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so 

 fond of: — 



" Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis, 



Dormio, dum blandae sentio murmur aquae ; 



Parce meum, quisquis tangis cava murmura, somnum 



Rumpere ; sive bibas, sive lavare, tace. 



" Nymph of the Grot, those sacred springs steep, 

 And to the murmur of these waters sleep ; 

 Ah, spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave ! 

 And drink in silence, or in silence lave." 



Letter to Edward Blount, Twkkenha7?i, June 3, 1725. 



My Lord Chesterfield tells me your Lordship has got ahead of 

 all the gardening lords ; that you have distanced Lord Burlington 

 and Lord Cobham in the true scientific past ; but he is studying 

 after you, and has here lying before him those Thesauruses 

 from which he affirms you draw all your knowledge — Miller's 

 Dictionaries ; but I informed him better, and told him your chief 

 lights were from Johannes Serlius,i ^hose books he is now enquiring 

 for of Leake, the bookseller, who has wrote for them to his cor- 

 respondents. — Letter to Lord Marchmont, 1743. 



MONTESQUIEU TT is, then, the pleasure which an object gives us, which carries 

 (1689-1755). 1 ug on to another ; it is for this reason that the soul is always 



seeking new things, and is never at rest. 



1 This looks like a joke of Pope's— John Serle being his gardener and fac- 

 totum at Twickenham, who has left a " Plan of Mr Pope's Garden and Grotto," 

 and an account of the materials composing the latter, published by Dodsley, 

 1745. (See Plan in Appendix.) 



