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a picture of the greatest variety. There is the same irregularity in my plantations, which run into as great a wildness as their natures will permit. I take in none that do not naturally rejoice in the soil, and am pleased when I am walking in a labyrinth of my own raising, not to know whether the next tree I shall meet with is an apple or an oak, an elm or a pear-tree. My kitchen has likewise its particular quarters assigned it; for, besides the wholesome luxuries which that place abounds with, I have always thought a kitchen-garden a more pleasant sight than the finest orangery, or artificial green-house. I love to see every thing in its perfection, and am more pleased to survey the rows of coleworts and cabbages, with a thousand nameless pot-herbs, springing up in their full fragrancy and verdure, than to see the tender plants of foreign countries kept alive by artificial heats, or withering in an air and soil that are not adapted to them. I must not omit, that there is a fountain rising in the upper part of my garden, which forms a little wandering rill, and administers to the pleasure as well as the plenty of the place. I have so conducted it, that it visits most of my plantations; and have taken particular care to let it run in the same manner as it would do in an open field, so that it generally passes through banks of violets and primroses, plats of willows, or other plants, that seem to be of its own producing. There is another circumstance, in which I am very particular, or, as my neighbours call me, very whimsical as my garden invites into it all the birds of the country, by offering them the conveniency of springs and shades, solitude and shelter. I do not suffer any one to destroy their nests in the spring, or drive them from their usual haunts in fruit-time. I value my garden more for being full of black-birds than cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. By this means I have always the music of the season in its perfection, and am highly

delighted to see the jay or the thrush hopping about my walks, and shooting before my eyes across the several little glades and alleys that I pass through. I think there are as many kinds of gardening as of poetry: your makers of parterres and flower-gardens, are epigrammatists and sonneteers in this art; contrivers of bowers and grottos, treillages and cascades, are romance writers. Wise and London are our heroic poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out any passage of their works to commend, I shall take notice of that part in the upper garden at Kensing ton, which was at first nothing but a gravel-pit. It must have been a fine genius for gardening, that could have thought of forming such an unsightly hollow into so beautiful an area, and to have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into. To give this particular spot of ground the greater effect, they have made a very pleasing contrast: for as on one side of the walk you see this hollow basin, with its several little plantations, lying so conveniently under the eye of the beholder, on the other side of it there appears a seeming mount, made up of trees rising one higher than another in proportion as they approach the centre. A spectator, who has not heard this account of it, would think this circular mount was not only a real one, but that it had been actually scooped out of that hollow space which I have before mentioned. I never yet met with any one who has walked in this garden, who was not struck with that part of it which I have here mentioned. As for myself, you will find, by the account which I have already given you, that my compositions in gardening are altogether after the Pindaric manner, and run into the beautiful wildness of nature, without affecting the nicer elegancies of art. What I am now going to mention, will, perhaps, deserve your attention more than any thing I have yet said. I find that in the discourse which I spoke

of at the beginning of my letter, you are against filling an English garden with ever-greens; and indeed, I am so far of your opinion, that I can by no means think the verdure of an ever-green comparable to that which shoots out annually, and clothes our trees in the summer season. But I have often wondered that those who are like myself, and love to live in gardens, have never thought of contriving a winter-garden, which would consist of such trees only as never cast their leaves. We have We have very often little snatches of sun-shine and fair weather in the most uncomfortable parts of the year, and have frequently several days in November and January, that are as agreeable as any in the finest months. At such times, therefore, I think there could not be a greater pleasure, than to walk in such a winter-garden as I have proposed. In the summer season the whole country blooms, and is a kind of garden, for which reason we are not so sensible of those beauties that at this time may be every where met with; but when Nature is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees that smile amidst all the rigour of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy. I have so far indulged myself in this thought, that I have set apart a whole acre of ground for the executing of it. The walls are covered with ivy instead of vines. The laurel, the hornbeam, and the holly, with many other trees and plants of the same nature, grow so thick in it, that you cannot imagine a more lively scene. glowing redness of the berries, with which they are hung at this time, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and are apt to inspire the heart of the beholder with that vernal delight which you have somewhere taken notice of in your former papers. It is very pleasant, at the same time, to see the several

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kinds of birds retiring into this little green spot, and enjoying themselves among the branches and foliage, when my great garden, which I have before mentioned to you, does not afford a single leaf for their shelter.

"You must know, Sir, that I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden, as one of the most innocent delights in human life. A garden was the habitation of our first parents before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at

rest.

It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Providence, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation. I cannot but think, the very complacency and satisfaction which a man takes in these works of nature, to be a laudable, if not a virtuous, habit of mind. For all which reasons I hope you will pardon the length of my present letter.

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Ir is sometimes pleasant enough to consider the

different notions which different persons have of the same thing. If men of low condition very often set a value on things which are not prized by those who are in a higher station of life, there are many things these esteem which are in no value among persons of an inferior rank. Common people are, in particular, very much astonished, when they hear of those solemn contests and debates, which are made among the great upon the punctilios of a public ceremony; and

upon

wonder to hear that any business of consequence should be retarded by those little circumstances, which they represent to themselves as trifling and insignificant. I am mightily pleased with a porter's decision in one of Mr. Southern's plays, which is founded that fine distress of a virtuous woman's marrying a second husband, while her first was yet living. The first husband, who was supposed to have been dead, returning to his house after a long absence, raises a noble perplexity for the tragic part of the play. In the mean while, the nurse and the porter conferring upon the difficulties that would ensue in such a case, honest Sampson thinks the matter may be easily decided, and solves it very judiciously, by the old proverb, that if his first master be still living, "The man must have his mare again." There is nothing in my time, which has so much surprised and confounded the greatest part of my honest countrymen, as the present controversy between Count Rechteren and Monsieur Mesnager, which employs the wise heads of so many nations, and holds all the affairs of Europe in suspence.

Upon my going into a coffee-house yesterday, and lending an ear to the next table, which was encompassed with a circle of inferior politicians, one of them, after having read over the news very attentively, broke out into the following remarks. “I am afraid (says he) this unhappy rupture between the footmen at Utrecht, will retard the peace of Christendom. I wish the Pope may not be at the bottom of it. His holiness has a very good hand at fomenting a division, as the poor Swiss Cantons have lately experienced to their cost. If Monsieur What d'ye-call-him's domestics will not come to an accommodation, I do not know how the quarrel can be ended, but by a religious war."

"Why, truly, (says a wiseacre, that sat by him,) were I as the King of France, I would scorn to take part with the footmen of either side: here's all

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