GARDEN PLANTATIONS 39 



You may still see them, dead as haunts of fairies, 

 By the old seats of Killigrews and Careys, 

 Where all, alas, is banished from the ring, 

 Wits and black eyes, the skittles and the king ! 



LEIGH HUNT. 



GARDEN PLANTATIONS 



(From " The Spectator") 



WE have before observed, that there is generally in 

 nature something more grand and august than what 

 we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, 

 therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it 

 gives us a nobler and more exalted kind of pleasure 

 than what we receive from the nicer and more 

 accurate productions of art. On this account our 

 English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy 

 as those in France! and Italy, where we see a large 

 extent of ground covered over with an agreeable 

 mixture of garden and forest, which represent every- 

 where an artificial rudeness, much more charming 

 than that neatness and elegance which we meet 

 with in those of our own country. It might indeed 

 be of ill consequence to the public, as well as un- 

 profitable to private persons, to alienate so much 

 ground from pasturage and the plough in many 

 parts of a country that is so well peopled and culti- 

 vated to a far greater advantage. But why may 

 not a whole estate be thrown into a kind of garden 

 by frequent plantations, that may turn as much to 

 the profit as the pleasure of the owner ? A marsh 



