GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



it has been turned into a stable or a warehouse ; and, sighing, 

 one exclaims, " What sacrilege ! 5: 



No trace exists of the gravestone of the bullfinch " Dick," on 

 which he roughly etched its name and epitaph with a nail ; nor yet 

 of the tomb of Pompey, the dog ; but the famous mulberry tree, 

 beneath which tradition says he feasted the country children with 

 luscious fruit, survives, or did so a year ago. It occupies a 

 subordinate place in the centre of my drawing, and is partly hidden 

 by the intervening trees. 



The level of the garden is below the roadway, and when the heavy 

 old gate, or door, in the wall to the left, is opened, we see a well-kept 

 acre, gay in spring-time with daffodils and yellow wallflowers. In 

 the sequence of the seasons, these are followed in May by irises and 

 pansies, and a month later the air is heavily scented with the 

 fragrance of a magnificent snowy syringa. This is the signal for 

 the garden to don its summer dress, a lavish mantle of scarlet 

 geraniums, beautiful in themselves, but somewhat out of keeping 

 with the memories the place enshrines. 



It is a peaceful, retired spot, an oasis in a dreary wilderness of 

 dingy brick, and shabby stucco. In respect of its situation among 

 houses, it is not unlike the Chelsea Physic Garden described in 

 another chapter ; but the surroundings of the old botanic garden 

 are fashionable, and speak of prosperity, while on three sides it is 

 overlooked ; the environment of Hogarth's garden, on the contrary, 

 though not exactly squalid, is dreary, ugly, and vulgar ; and if 

 poverty is not actually present, its spectre seems to hang over it 

 and point at it a threatening finger ; but from without nothing of 

 the garden is visible, and but little of the house occupying an 

 angle of it. 



During the not inconsiderable time that I was going backwards 

 and forwards to and from Hogarth House, the place was nearly 

 deserted. It is open to the public on Mondays, Wednesdays, and 

 Fridays, at the modest charge of sixpence ; yet not more than half 

 a score of visitors came near it, and the caretaker's office is a 

 sinecure. Is this because interest in the work of this unique 

 artist has waned ? that his art itself is discredited ? Or is it that 

 few have the courage to make the unpleasing pilgrimage to his 

 shrine, through the grey back-lanes of Chiswick, for they are green 

 lanes no longer ? To such I would say, " The game is worth the 



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