222 Ube <$arfcen 



do ! How wretched a creature would he be if 

 he saw the end as well as the beginning of his 

 projects ! He would have nothing left but to sit 

 down in torpid despair, and exchange employ- 

 ment for actual calamity. 



I was led into this train of thinking upon lately 

 visiting the beautiful gardens of the late Mr. 

 Shenstone,* who was himself a poet, and pos- 

 sessed of that warm imagination which made 

 him ever foremost in the pursuit of flying hap- 

 piness. Could he but have foreseen the end of 

 all his schemes, for whom he was improving, 

 and what changes his designs were to undergo, 

 he would have scarcely amused his innocent 

 life with what, for several years, employed him 

 in a most harmless manner, and abridged his 

 scanty fortune. As the progress of this im- 

 provement is a true picture of sublunary vicissi- 

 tude, I could not help calling up my imagina- 

 tion, which, while I walked pensively along, 

 suggested the following reverie. 



As I was turning my back upon a beautiful 

 piece of water enlivened with cascades and rock- 

 work, and entering a dark walk by which ran a 

 prattling brook, the Genius of the Place ap- 

 peared before me, but more resembling the God 

 of Time than him more peculiarly appointed to 



*"The I^easowes," sometimes spoken of as a ferme 

 i situated between Birmingham and Hagley, 



