THE ENGLISH GARDEN. 31 



Thou polim'd Sage, or (hall I call thee Bard, 

 I fee thee come : around thy temples play 

 The lambent flames of humour, bright'ning mild 500 



Thy judgment into fmilesj gracious thou com'ft 

 With Satire at thy fide, who checks her frown, 

 But not her fecret fling. With bolder rage 

 POPE next advances : his indignant arm 



Waves the poetic brand o'er Timon's fhades iy 505 



And 



princely garden he had largely expatiated upon that adorned natural wildnefs 

 which we now deem the efience of the art. The latter, on account of his hav- 

 ing made this natural wildnefs the leading idea in his exquifke defcription of pa- 

 radife. I here call Addifon, Pope, Kent, &c. the Champions of this true tafte, 

 bccaufe they abfolutely brought it into execution. The beginning therefore of 

 an aclaal reformation may be fixed at the time when the Spectator firft appeared. 

 The reader will rind an excellent chapter upon this fubjecl in the Pleafures of 

 the Imagination, publifhed in N. 414 of the Spectator; and alfo another 

 paper written by the fame hand, N. 447 ; but perhaps nothing went further to- 

 wards deftroying the abfurd tafte of clipp'd evergreens than the fine ridicule upon 

 them in. the 17 3d Guardian, written by Mr. Pope. 



It may not be amifs to inform the reader in this place, that the ht/iory of 

 modern Gardening, of which the nature of didactic poetry would admit here only 

 an epifodical (ketch, will fhortly appear in a more extenfive and methodical 

 form, written with that peculiar tafte and fpjrit which characterizes the pen of 

 Mr. Walpole. 



