Something there is more needful than expense, COMMENTARY. building and planting, that the SUBLIME is in painting and poetry; and consequently, the qualities necessary for the attainment of both must be analogous. 1. The first and fundamental, he shews (from ver. 38 to 47.) to be SENSE: "Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven; And tho' no science, fairly worth the seven." And for that reason; not only as it is the foundation and parent of them all, and the constant regulator and director of their operations; or, as the Poet better expresses it,—of every art the soul; but likewise as it alone can, in case of need, very often supply the offices of every one of them. Ver. 47. To build, to plant, &c.] 2. The next quality, for dignity and use, is TASTE, and but the next. For, as the Poet truly observes, there is-something previous even to taste-'tis sense; and this in the order of things. For Sense is a taste and true conception of Nature; and Taste is a sense or true conception of beautiful Nature; but we must first know the essences of things, before we can judge truly of their qualities. The business of Taste, therefore, in the pursuit of magnificence, is, as the Poet shews us (from ver. 46 to 65.), 1. (to ver. 51.) To catch or lay hold on Nature, where she appears most in her charms. 2. (to ver. 57.) To NOTES. Ver. 46. Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.] Inigo Jones, the celebrated architect, and M. Le Nôtre, the designer of the best gardens of France. Pope. To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; In all, let Nature never be forgot. COMMENTARY. 50 To adorn her, when taken, as best suits her dignity and quality; that is, to dress her in the light and modest habit of a virgin, not load her with the gaudy ornaments of a prostitute. This rule observed, will prevent a transgression in the following, which is, not to let all her beauties be seen at once, but in succession; for that advantage is inseparable from a graceful and well-dressed person. 3. (to ver. 65.) To take care that the ornaments be well directed to that part, which it is your purpose to adorn; and as, in dressing out a modest Fair (which is the Poet's own comparison,) the colours are suited to her complexion; the stuff, to the proportion of her person; and the fashion, to her air and shape; so in ornamenting a villa, the rise or fall of waters should correspond to its acclivities or declivities; the artificial hills or vales, to its cover or exposure; and the manner of calling in the country, to the disposition of its aspect. But again, as in the illustration, whatever be the variety in colour, stuff, or fashion, they must still be so suited with respect to one another, as to produce an agreement and harmony in their assemblage: so woods, waters, mountains, vales, and vistas must, amidst all their diversity, be so disposed with a relation to each other, as to create a perfect symmetry resulting from the whole; and this, the Genius of the place, when religiously consulted, will never fail to inform us of; who, as the Poet says,' "Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines; Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs." And this is a full and complete description of the office of Taste. NOTES. Ver. 50. In all, let Nature] In Castell's Villas of the Ancients, folio, London, 1728, may be seen how much the celebrated Tuscan villa resembled our gardens, as they were planned a few years ago. Pliny's villa was like his genius. Warton. Ver. 50. In all, let Nature] Notwithstanding all the objections which of late have been made to the method of laying out grounds pursued by Brown, &c. it ought always to be remembered, that both Pope and Kent and Shenstone, and afterwards Brown (for I But treat the Goddess like a modest fair, NOTES. I do not mention Milton, because he was not a practical gardener), were the first who approached towards Nature, in discarding the artificial style and trim quaintnesses which were considered the great ornaments of garden-scenery before their time. Let them at least have this merit. If, as is very true, they carried their ideas too far; if their perpetual line of beauty be tiresome, and their ornaments, the laurel circuses, their "terminated points," the edged waters, are to the eye of the GREAT POET or PAINTER but so many littlenesses, as insipid as the artificial objects, the clipped hedges, and the cut yews they supplanted, were unnatural; yet the merit of having first opened the eye of taste to more natural combinations of beauty, ought not to be denied them. Nor should they be decried as the subverters of rural beauty, instead of being considered the first promoters; for no one can say but that clumps, however round and black, are handsomer, and more natural, than trees cut into "dragons," &c. It remained for an ingenious and eloquent writer of the present age, a gentleman of fortune,* of taste, and originality of thinking, accurately to distinguish the characters of the “beautiful and picturesque;" and he has opened the English eye to ampler and nobler views of Landscape Gardening; such as Milton, when he meditated his sublimest rural picture, would have approved. I still, however, think he carries his ideas, particularly respecting foregrounds, too far; and that he is somewhat too hard in his strictures on those who, after all, were the first to inculcate, whatever might have been their practice, 66 let NATURE never be forgot!" Dr. Warton mentions Milton and Pope as the Poets to whom English Landscape is indebted. He forgot poor Shenstone! Ver. 53. Let not each beauty every where be spied, Where half the skill is decently to hide.] Bowles. The late lamented Thomas Warton, in his excellent edition of Essay on the Picturesque, by H. Price, Esq. Milton's He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, 55 Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds. Consult the genius of the place in all; That tells the waters, or to rise or fall; NOTES. Milton's Poems, has, as usual, with as much taste as good sense, most clearly elucidated this point: "Where only a little is seen, more is left to the imagination. These symptoms of an old palace, especially when thus disposed, have a greater effect, than a discovery of larger parts, and a full display of the whole. The embosomed battlements, and the spreading top of the tall grove, on which they reflect a reciprocal charm, still further interest the fancy; whilst just enough of the towering structure is shewn, to make an accompaniment to the tufted expanse of venerable verdure, and to compose a picturesque association. Modern seats are seldom so deeply ambushed: they disclose their glories at once, and never excite expectation by concealment, by gradual approaches, and by interrupted appearances." Edition of Milton, p. 54. Bowles. Ver. 57. Consult the genius of the place, &c.] The personalizing, or rather deifying, the Genius of the place, in order to be consulted as an oracle, has produced one of the noblest and most sublime descriptions of Design, that poetry could express; where this Genius, while presiding over the work, is represented by little and little, as advancing from a simple adviser, to a Creator of all the beauties of improved nature, in a variety of bold metaphors and allusions, all rising one above another, till they complete the unity of the general idea. Warburton. Ver. 58. That tells the waters,] Would it not give life and vigour to this noble prosopopæia, if we were to venture to alter only one word, and read, in the second line, He tells the waters instead of That tells? Our author is never happier than in his allusions to painting, an art he so much admired and understood. So below, at ver. 81. "The 60 Or helps th' ambitious hill the heavens to scale, COMMENTARY. 65 Ver. 65. Still follow sense, &c.] But now when good Sense has led us up to Taste, our fondness for the elegances of our new mistress, oftentimes occasions us to neglect the plainness and simplicity of the old; we are but too apt to forsake our guide, and to give ourselves up solely to Taste. Our author's next rule, therefore, 3. is, Still to follow Sense, and let Sense perpetually accompany us through all the works of Taste: "Still follow sense, of every art the soul." That is, good Sense should never be a moment absent from the works of Taste, any more than the soul from the body; for just as the soul animates and informs every air and feature of a beauteous body, so Sense gives life and vigour to all the productions of Taste. Ver. 66. Parts answering parts, &c.] The Poet then explains the particular advantages of the union of Sense with Taste (from this verse to 71.). 1. That the beautiful parts which Taste has laid out and contrived, Sense makes to answer to one another, and to slide naturally, without violence, into a whole. 2. That many beauties will spontaneously offer themselves, suggested from the very necessity which Sense lays upon us, of conforming the parts to the whole, which no original invention of Taste would have supplied. NOTES. "The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, And strength of shade contends with strength of light." Indeed, the two arts in question differ only in the materials which they employ. Warton. |