252 be (Barfcett 



he suffer by the loss of sight. It sufficed him 

 to have seen the materials with which he could 

 work. The vigor of a boundless imagination 

 told him how a plan might be disposed that 

 would embellish nature and restore art to its 

 proper office the just improvement or imitation 

 of it* 



It is necessary that the concurrent testimony 

 of the age should swear to posterity that the 

 description above quoted was written about half 

 a century before the introduction of modern 

 gardening, or our incredulous descendants will 

 defraud the poet of half his glory by being per- 

 suaded that he copied some garden he had seen, 

 so minutely do his ideas correspond with the 

 present standard. But what shall we say for 

 that intervening half century which could read 

 that plan and never attempt to put it in execu- 

 tion ? 



Now let us turn to an admired writer posterior 

 to Milton, and see how cold, how insipid, how 

 tasteless is his account of what he pronounced 

 a perfect garden. I speak not of his style, 

 which it was not necessary for him to animate 

 with the coloring and glow of poetry. It is his 

 want of ideas, of imagination, of taste, that I 



* Since the above was written I have found Milton 

 praised and Sir William Temple censured, on the same 

 foundations, in a poem called " The Rise and Progress of 

 the Present Taste in Planting," printed in 1767. 



