37$ 



P. 1^6. 1.20. The abbe.de Lille, who has very pointedly 

 ridiculed the little fountain and the statues in a 

 citizen's garden, and all such attempts to be mag- 

 nificent in miniature, has done justice to the real 

 magnificence and spleudour of those on a large 

 scale, and has celebrated them in verses well suited 

 to the effects he has described. Mr. Mason, on 

 the other hand, ha* altogether condemned upright 

 fountains with their decorations, and the principle 

 on which they are made. He had certainly a good 

 right to object to them in the English garden, of 

 which he has made Simplicity the arbitress ; but 

 to condemn them absolutely and universally, sa- 

 vours more of national prejudice, than of genuine 

 comprehensive taste. As 1 feel something of a 

 national pride, I am sorry to give a decided prefe 4 - 

 reuce to the French poet in point of justness and li- 

 berality ; but I have often thought that Mr. Ma- 

 son's passion for the two words, Simplicity and Li- 

 berty, has in this, and in other instances, betrayed 

 him into opinions and sentiments of a very con- 

 tracted kind. Upon this occasion he says, 



" Thy poet Albion scorns, 



" E'en for a cold unconscious element 



" To forge the fetters he would scorn to wear." 



It is difficult to say, whether Simplicity, or Liber- 

 ty, would have most reason to be disgusted with 

 so puerile a conceit. 



P. 159« 1. 17- The same aversion to symmetry shew- 

 ed itself nearly at the same period, in other 

 arts a| well as in gardening : fugues and imi- 



