ARCADIAN HUMBUG 191 



which Pope, Dr. Watts, and Thomson were the 

 shiDing lights, and squirted amiable piffle about Chloes 

 and Strephons while her fine London guests strutted 

 about the emerald lawns pretending to be Wiltshire 

 peasantry ; the ladies wielding shepherds' crooks, and 

 leading lambs made presentable with much expenditure 

 of soap and water, in leashes of sky-blue silk ; while the 

 gallant gentlemen, more used, we may be sure, to dining 

 and drinking, learned to play upon oaten reeds, and 

 were quite idyllic and Arcadian. AVhat an astounding 

 time ! and how disgusted these fine folks would have 

 been, had they been forced to fare on the fat bacon 

 and small beer of the real shepherds, instead of the 

 kickshaws and the port which helped them to sustain 

 their affectations ! The spectacle of that vicious era, 

 pretending to rural simplicity is, perhaps, the most 

 notable example of vice paying homage to virtue that 

 may be given. The folly of the age is almost incon- 

 ceivable, but it is all preserved for us and duly 

 certified in its literature and in the pictures of the 

 school of Watteau ; while this particular instance of 

 it may be voluminously read of in the records of the 

 time, or be conjured up by a sight of the winding- 

 walks and grottoes in the Castle gardens, where, 

 perhaps, Dr. Watts may have seen the original busy 

 bee that o^ave him the first notion of — 



" How doth the little Lusy bee 

 Employ each shining hour, 

 By gath'ring honey all the day 

 From ev'ry opening flower." 



Meanwhile, Thomson was sipping nectar (which is 

 Greek for Ijrandy-punch) with my Lord Hertford, 



