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taste, but who has the greatest veneration for 

 everything which belonged to that immortal poet. 

 Horace Walpole formed a just estimate of Sir 

 William Stanhope's bad taste, and grieved over 

 the alterations he had made, and the sort of sa- 

 crilege he had committed. In one of his letters, 

 he says, " I must tell you a private woe that has 

 happened to me in my neighbourhood. Sir Wil- 

 liam Stanhope bought Pope's house and garden. 

 The former was so small and bad, one could not 

 avoid pardoning his hollowing out that fragment 

 of the rock Parnassus into habitable chambers ; 

 but would you believe it, he has cut down the 

 sacred groves themselves ! In short, it was a little 

 bit of ground of five acres, enclosed with three 

 lanes, and seeing nothing. Pope had twisted and 

 twirled, and rhymed and harmonized this, till it 

 appeared two or three sweet little lawns opening 

 and opening beyond one another, and the whole 

 surrounded with thick impenetrable woods. Sir 

 William, by advice of his son-in-law, Mr. Ellis, has 

 hacked and hewed these groves, wriggled a wind- 

 ing gravel-walk through them with an edging of 

 shrubs, in what they call the modern taste, and 

 in short, desired the three lanes to walk in again, 

 and now is forced to shut them out again by a 

 wall, for there was not a muse could walk there, 

 but she was spied by every country fellow that 

 went by with a pipe in his mouth."' 

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