STERNE 165 



reach of his house. He will make it so commodious and so 

 agreeable, that he can please himself there at all hours of the 

 day, and moreover so simple and so natural, that he seems to 

 have done nothing. He will combine water, verdure, shade and 

 coolness ; for Nature too combines all these things. He will 

 give symmetry to nothing ; it is the enemy to nature and variety ; 

 and all the alleys of an ordinary garden have so strong a 

 resemblance, that you think you are always in the same one : 

 he will level the soil to walk on it comfortably : but the two 

 sides of his alleys will not be always exactly parallel ; its direc- 

 tion will not be always in a straight line, it will have a certain 

 vagueness, like the gait of a leisurely man who sways as he 

 walks. He will not be anxious to open up fine prospects in 

 the distance : the taste for points of view and distances comes 

 from the tendency which most men have to be pleased only 

 where they do not happen to be : they are always longing for 

 what is far from them, and the artist, who does not know how 

 to make them sufficiently satisfied with what surrounds them, 

 allows himself this resource to amuse them : but the man of 

 whom I speak, has not this anxiety : and when he is well where 

 he is, he does not desire to be elsewhere.— y^^/zV, or the New 



Heloise. 



—fj\f\[\t^ — 



METHINKS I see my contemplative girl now in the gardens, STERNE 

 watching the gradual approaches of Spring. Dost not thou ^'^^^'^^ '' 

 mark with delight the first vernal buds? the snow-drop, and 

 primrose, these early and welcome visitors, spring beneath thy 

 feet. Flora and Pomena already consider thee as their hand- 

 maid; and in a little time will load thee with their sweetest 

 blessing. The feathered race are all thy own, and with them, 

 untaught harmony will soon begin to cheer thy morning and 

 evening walks. Sweet as this may be, return — return, the birds 

 of Yorkshire will tune their pipes, and sing as melodiously as 

 those of Staffordshire. 



I think I see you looking twenty times a day at the house, 



