doing whatever you thought I desired, or could be for my credit or advantage.

I have often admired at the capriciousness of fortune in regard to your lordship'. She hath forced courts to act against their oldest, and most constant maxims; to make you a general, because you had courage and conduct; an ambassador, because you had wisdom and knowledge in the interests of Europe; and an admiral, on account of your skill in maritime affairs: whereas, according to the usual method of court proceedings, I should have been at the head of the army, and

you of

the church, or rather a curate, under the Dean of St. Patrick's.

The archbishop of Dublin laments that he did not see your lordship till he was just upon the point of leaving the Bath. I pray God you may have found success in that journey, else I shall continue to think there is a fatality in all your lordship's undertakings, which only terminate in your own honour, and the good of the public, without the least advantage to your health or fortune.

I remember Lord Oxford's ministry used to tell me, that not knowing where to write to you, they were forced to write at you. It is so with me, for you are in one thing an Evangelical man, that you know not where to lay your head, and I think, you have no house. Pray, my lord, write to me, that I may have the pleasure, in this scoundrel country, of going about, and showing my depending parsons a letter from the Earl of Peterborough.

I am, &c.

7 After his glorious successes in Spain, he was appointed ambassador extraordinary, with full powers for adjusting all matters of state, but was hastily recalled; when he appealed to parliament, and afterwards had the thanks of the House of Lords for "the many great and eminent services he had performed.”

I suppose Swift calls him "an admiral," because he was appointed General of the marine forces by George I., and was continued in that commission by George II.-Bowles.

LETTER XXIII.

MR. POPE TO LORD BATHURST.

September 13.

I BELIEVE you are by this time immersed in your vast wood; and one may address to you as to a very abstracted person, like Alexander Selkirk, or the Selftaught Philosopher. I should be very curious to know what sort of contemplations employ you. I remember the latter of those I mentioned, gave himself up to a devout exercise of making his head giddy with various circumrotations, to imitate the motions of the celestial bodies. I do not think it at all impossible that Mr. L. may be far advanced in that exercise, by frequent turns towards the several aspects of the heavens, to which you may have been pleased to direct him in search of prospects and new avenues. He will be tractable in time, as birds are tamed by being whirled about; and doubtless come not to despise the meanest shrubs or coppice-wood, though naturally he seems more inclined to admire God in his greater works, the tall timber: for, as Virgil has it, Non omnes arbusta juvant, humilesque myrica. I wish myself with you both, whether you are in peace or at war, in violent argumentation or smooth consent, over gazettes in the morning, or over plans in the evening. In that last article, I am of opinion your lordship has a loss of me; for generally after the debate of a whole day, we acquiesced at night, in the best conclusion of which human reason seems capable in all great matters, to fall fast asleep! And so we ended, unless immediate Revelation (which ever must

8 The title of an Arabic Treatise of the Life of Hai Ebn Yocktan ; written to explain and recommend the mystic theology of the Mahometans, in all respects the same with the mysticism of Christian fanatics.-Warburton.

overcome human reason) suggested some new lights to us, by a vision in bed. But laying aside theory, I am told, you are going directly to practice. Alas, what a fall will that be? A new building is like a new church; when once it is set up, you must maintain it in all the forms, and with all the inconveniences; then cease the pleasant luminous days of inspiration, and there is an end of miracles at once!

That this letter may be all of a piece, I will fill the rest with an account of a consultation lately held in my neighbourhood about designing a princely garden. Several critics were of several opinions: one declared he would not have too much art in it; for my notion (said he) of gardening is, that it is only sweeping nature" another told them that gravel-walks were not of a good taste, for all the finest abroad were of a loose sand: a third advised peremptorily there should not be one lime-tree in the whole plantation: a fourth made the same exclusive clause extend to horsechesnuts, which he affirmed not to be trees but weeds: Dutch elms were condemned by a fifth; and thus about half the trees were proscribed, contrary to the paradise of God's own planting, which is expressly said to be planted with all trees. There were some who could not bear ever-greens, and called them nevergreens; some who were angry at them only when cut into shapes, and gave the modern gardeners the name of ever-green tailors; some who had no dislike to cones and cubes, but would have them cut in forest trees; and some who were in a passion against any thing in shape, even against clipped hedges, which they called green walls'. walls. These, my lord, are our men of

9 An expression of Sir Thomas Hanmer.-Bowles.

Many of these observations are certainly very just we must allow for Pope's colouring. The objection to limes and horse-chesnuts, is the very short duration of their beauty; they are the first trees that fade, and none

taste, who pretend to prove it by tasting little or nothing. Sure such a taste is like such a stomach, not a good one, but a weak one. We have the same sort of critics in poetry; one is fond of nothing but heroics, another cannot relish tragedies, another hates pastorals; all little wits delight in epigrams. Will you give me leave to add, there are the same in divinity; where many leading critics are for rooting up more than they plant, and would leave the Lord's vineyard either very thinly furnished, or very oddly trimmed.

I have lately been with my Lord **, who is a zealous yet a charitable planter, and has so bad a taste as to like all that is good. He has a disposition to wait on you in his way to the Bath, and if he can go and return to London in eight or ten days, I am not without a hope of seeing your lordship with the delight I always see you. Every where I think of you, and every where I wish for you. I am, &c.

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are more mournful in their discoloration, and decay of leaves. The calling "ever-greens," never-greens," is something like Mr. Knight's substitution of "lump," taking off the first letter, for "clump" see his Poem, the "Landscape." The whole subject is most ably investigated on just principles, with accurate reasoning, picturesque description, and animated language, by Uvedale Price.-Bowles.