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 entrée 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, T’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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