144 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



seats, one towards the river, of smooth stones, full of light, and 

 open; the other towards the arch of trees, rough with shells, 

 flints and iron-ore. The bottom is paved with simple pebble, as 

 the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple is to be 

 cockle-shells, in the natural taste, agreeing not ill with the little 

 dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It 

 wants nothing to complete it but a good Statue with an inscrip- 

 tion, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so 

 fond of: 



" Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis, 



Dormio, dum blandae sentio murmur aquse ; 



Parce meum, quisquis tangis cava murmura, somnum 



Rumpere ; sive bibas, sive lavare, tace. 



" Nymph of the Grot, those sacred springs steep, 

 And to the murmur of these waters sleep ; 

 Ah, spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave ! 

 And drink in silence, or in silence lave. " 



Letter to Edward Blount, Twickenham, June 3, 1725. 



My Lord Chesterfield tells me your Lordship has got ahead of 

 all the gardening lords ; that you have distanced Lord Burlington 

 and Lord Cobham in the true scientific past ; but he is studying 

 after you, and has here lying before him those Thesauruses 

 from which he affirms you draw all your knowledge Miller's 

 Dictionaries ; but I informed him better, and told him your chief 

 lights were from Johannes Serlius, 1 whose books he is now enquiring 

 for of Leake, the bookseller, who has wrote for them to his cor- 

 respondents. Letter to Lord Marchmont, 1743. 



MONTESQUIEU TT is, then, the pleasure which an object gives us, which carries 

 (1689-1755). 1 ug Qn to ano ther ; it is for this reason that the soul is always 



seeking new things, and is never at rest. 



1 This looks like a joke of Pope's John Serle being his gardener and fac- 

 totum at Twickenham, who has left a " Plan of Mr Pope's Garden and Grotto," 

 and an account of the materials composing the latter, published by Dodsley, 

 1745. (See Plan in Appendix.) 



