OF GARDENS OLD -AND NEW 

 BY SIR RICHARD STEELE 



I LATELY TOOK A PARTICULAR Martial's 



friend of mine to my house in the country, not K ! . 



J f " epigram 



withoutsome apprehension that it could afford 

 little entertainment to a man of his polite taste, 

 particularly in architecture and gardening, who 

 had so long been conversant with all that is 

 beautiful and great in either. But it was a plea- 

 sant surprise to me, to hear him often declare, 

 he had found in my little retirement that beauty 

 which he always thought wanting in the most 

 celebrated seats, or, if you will, villas, of the 

 nation. This he described to me in those 

 verses, with which Martial begins one of his 

 epigrams : 



"Baiana nostri villa, Basse, Faustini, 

 Non otiosis ordinata rnyrtetis. 

 Viduaque platano, tonsilique buxeto, 

 Ingrata lati spatia detinet campi; 

 Sed rure vero barbaroque laetatur." Lib. iii. 

 Ep. 58. 



"Our friend Faustinus' country seat I've seen : 

 No myrtles, plac'd in rows, and idly green, 

 No widow'd plantain, nor clip'd box-tree, 



there, 

 23 



