GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



The poet Gay, Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Bolingbroke, were 

 all members of the famous " Scriblerus " Club that Swift, in 1714, 

 had founded. Gay, Pope, and Swift, were intimate friends, and 

 all had the entree of the Earl of Burlington's house. Chiswick 

 was then a picturesque riverside village in the sequestered heart 

 of Middlesex, and doubtless Lord Burlington's guests found the 

 country-house infinitely restful and delightful. Dean Swift fre- 

 quently visited the Earl, and must have been often at the Villa 

 no doubt mentally contrasting its gardens with those of his 

 former patron Sir William Temple. Sir Walter Scott relates that 

 visiting England soon after the Earl's marriage, Swift accepted 

 an invitation to dinner. Through inadvertence, or perhaps a 

 momentary whim, Burlington did not introduce his wife to the 

 Dean. But Swift was not to be so overlooked : after dinner he 

 turned to Lady Burlington and said, " I hear you can sing ; sing 

 me a song." And when, somewhat nettled by the manner of the 

 command, she declined, Swift would take no refusal : he insisted 

 that " she should sing," he would " make her." " Why, Madam," 

 he argued, " I suppose you take me for one of your English hedge- 

 parsons ; sing, when I bid you." The Earl looked on with much 

 amusement, and did not attempt to interfere, but his wife, annoyed 

 and astonished at this unusual mode of address, burst into tears 

 and left the room. The next time Swift saw her he said, " Pray, 

 Madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you 

 last ? ' She had learnt in the meantime that licence, permitted 

 to no one else, was the privilege of the Dean of St. Patrick's, and 

 good humouredly replied " No, Mr. Dean, I'll sing for you if you 

 please." From that time forward Swift had a great liking and 

 respect for her ladyship. Nevertheless one is inclined to regret 

 her surrender, and to wish that she had continued to teach the 

 spoilt humorist manners. 



Alexander Pope, the greatest member of that wonderful literary 

 coterie to which Swift, and Gay, Arbuthnot, and Bolingbroke 

 belonged a galaxy of genius which shed lustre on the reign of 

 Queen Anne and her immediate successors for many years fre- 

 quented Lord Burlington's house, on pleasant terms of intimacy. 

 As is well known, he was deformed and sickly, but in spite of ill- 

 health he must have contributed greatly to the " feast of reason 

 and the flow of soul " of which he himself wrote. 



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