HORACE WALPOLE, SHENSTONE. 259 



Lordship has run after his cart, and I have a mo- 

 ment to tell you that I overheard him agree with 

 a painter, to paint his hall with rakes, spades, 

 prongs, and other ornaments, to countenance his 

 calling this place a farm/' 



Horace Walpole, in his letters, frequently speaks 

 of his garden, and of the pleasure it afforded him, 

 especially in the lilac and laburnum season. He 

 says, in one of them, (e My present and sole occu- 

 pation is planting, in which I have made great 

 progress, and talk very learnedly with the nursery- 

 men, except that now and then a lettuce, run to 

 seed, overturns all my botany, as I have more than 

 once, taken it for a curious West-Indian flowering 

 shrub." In another letter, he thus mentions his 

 favourite pursuit to his friend, Mr. Montague, 

 " I can furnish you with a few plants, particularly 

 three Chinese arbor-vitses, a dozen of the New 

 England pines,* that beautiful tree that we have 

 so much admired at the Duke of Argyle's, for its 

 clear, straight stem, the lightness of its hairy green, 

 and for being feathered quite to the ground. * * 

 There is another bit of picture of which I am fond, 

 and that is a larch or spruce fir, planted behind 

 a weeping willow, and shooting upwards as the 

 willow depends." 



Shenstone talks with enthusiasm of his flowers, 



* What pine is this, which Walpole calls New England. Quaere 

 Weymouth. J. M. 



