Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy :

Is it less strange the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham1 drawings and designs;
For Pembroke statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.

For what has Virro painted, built, and planted?
Only to show how many tastes he wanted.
What brought Sir Visto's ill got wealth to waste?
Some demon whisper'd, "Visto! have a taste."
Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool,
And needs no rod but Ripley2 with a rule.
See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide:
A standing sermon at each year's expense,
That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence !

8

You show us Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use;

1 A gentleman who was a judicious collector of drawings. 2 An architect, who was originally a carpenter.

8 An allusion to Bub Dodington's mansion at Eastbury, near Blandford, which he had just finished.

4 The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Designs of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio.

Yet shall, my lord, your just, your noble rules
Fill half the land with imitating fools;

Who random drawings from your sheets shall take,
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state,
Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate;
Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all
On some patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall,
Then clap four slices of pilaster on't,

That lac'd with bits of rustic makes a front;
Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door:
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
Oft have you hinted to your brother peer
A certain truth, which many buy too dear:
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste-'tis sense;
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven;
A light which in yourself you must perceive;
Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.

To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot,
In all, let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor overdress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty every where be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.

He gains all points who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.
Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise or fall;
Or helps th' ambitious hill the heavens to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale,

Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades;
Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and as you work designs.
Still follow sense, of every art the soul;

Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,

Start e'en from difficulty, strike from chance:
Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at-perhaps a Stow.

Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls, And Nero's terraces desert their walls: The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make, Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake: Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain, You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again. E'en in an ornament its place remark, Nor in a hermitage set Dr. Clarke.

Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete: His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet, The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, And strength of shade contends with strength of light;

5 Dr. S. Clarke's bust was placed by the Queen in the Hermitage, while he regularly frequented the Court.

A waving glow the bloomy beds display,
Blushing in bright diversities of day,
With silver quivering rills meander'd o’er—
Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more:

Tir'd of the scene parterres and fountains yield, He finds at last he better likes a field.

Through his young woods how pleas'd Sabinus stray'd,

Or sat delighted in the thickening shade,
With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet,
Or see the stretching branches long to meet.
His son's fine taste an opening vista loves,
Foe to the dryads of his father's groves;
One boundless green or flourish'd carpet views,
With all the mournful family of yews;

The thriving plants, ignoble broomsticks made,
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.
At Timon's villa" let us pass a day,

Where all cry out, "what sums are thrown away;"
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there;

Greatness with Timon dwells in such a draught
As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect shivering at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole a labour'd quarry above ground.

6 See Memoir prefix'd to these volumes, p. lxxxvi.

Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call;
On every side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,

No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suffering eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain never to be play'd,

And there a summer-house that knows no shade;
Here Amphitrité sails through myrtle bowers,
There gladiators fight or die in flowers;
Unwater'd, see the drooping seahorse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.
My lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen:
But soft! by regular approach—not yet—
First through the length of yon hot terrace
sweat;

And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs,

Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.
His study with what authors is it stor❜d?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord.
To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound;
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good,
For all his lordship knows,—but they are wood!