Chapter XVIII: Book II: , 226), with Shelley’s “Revolt of Islam,” i, sts. 8–10

[368] “Ode to Fear,” “Ode to Simplicity,” “An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer,” “Ode to Pity.”

[369] “Ode to Fear,” “On the Poetical Character,” “Popular Superstitions,” st. 11, “An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer.”

[370] Mason, “Memoirs of Gray,” p. 261.

[371] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 26 (1770).

[372] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 38–51 (1770); cf. “Hymn to the Naiads,” ll. 243–49; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” Book I, 402, and many other passages concerning the silent power of Nature over him in his youth.

[373] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 136–40 (1757).

[374] _Ibid._, 120 (1744).

[375] _Ibid._, 150 (1757).

[376] _Ibid._, 153–60 (1757).

[377] _Ibid._, 168–75 (1757); cf. Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” ll. 41–49.

[378] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 591–6O5 (1744). This “sacred order” of the universe is one of the points on which Wordsworth dwells, and he refers frequently to the tranquilizing, steadying effect which the contemplation of this order and harmony will have on the mind of man. See “Excursion,” Book IV, 1198–1219, 1254–65.

[379] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 615–33 (1744).

[380] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 14, st. 4–6; cf. Wordsworth’s statement that Nature reveals herself to the heart that “watches and receives.”

[381] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 5, st. 8.

[382] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 670–75 (1757).

[383] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 484 (1757).

[384] _Ibid._, I, 576–89 (1757).

[385] _Ibid._, 432–37 (1757). Akenside’s presentation of this doctrine has led Gosse to call him a “sort of frozen Keats,” but Akenside’s pleasure in Nature was philosophical rather than sensuous. His scientific delight in the analyzed rainbow (“Pleasures of Imagination,” Book II, 103–20 [1744]) would have filled Keats with horror.

[386] “Sickness,” v, 5.

[387] “Hymn to May,” st. 20.

[388] “Sickness,” v, 17.

[389] Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement.”

[390] Wordsworth, “A Poet’s Epitaph,” st. 10.

[391] “On the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude.”

[392] “Couplet about Birds.”

[393] “All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charms,” “the vast, various Landscape,” “sight-refreshing green,” “the thousand-colored tulip,” are typical Thomsonian phrases.

“Liquid lapse of murm’ring waters”

--“Enthusiast,” l. 93, “Paradise Lost,” viii, 263;

“Mountain shagg’d with horrid shapes”

--“Enthusiast,” l. 75; “Comus,” l. 429;

“When young-eyed spring profusely throws
From her green lap the pink and rose.”

--“Ode to Fancy,” l. 106; “Song on May Morning;”

“Then lay me by some haunted stream,
Rapt in some wild poetic dream.”

--“Ode to Fancy,” l. 41; “L’Allegro,” l. 129;

are some of the characteristic instances of the echoes from Milton.

[394] “The Enthusiast.”

[395] _Ibid._

[396] “Ode to Fancy.”

[397] “The Enthusiast.”

[398] “The Enthusiast.” Cf. Thomson, “Liberty,” ii, 1–26, for a similar eulogy of a past golden age, but without Warton’s modern application.

[399] “An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.”

[400] Note such lines as

Haste thee nymph, and hand in hand,
With thee lead a buxom band;
Bring fantastic-footed joy, etc.,

But ever against restless heat, etc.,

Let not my due feet fail to climb, etc.--“Approach of Summer.”

[401] See under “Travels.”

[402] “Hope.”

[403] “Vision of Fancy,” Elegy 3.

[404] _Ibid._

[405] “Fable IV.”

[406] “The Bee Flower.”

[407] “To the Rev. Lamb.”

[408] “Fable IV.”

[409] “Autumnal Elegy.”

[410] “Fable X.”

[411] “Inscription on the Door of a Study.”

[412] “The Immensity of the Supreme Being.”

[413] _Ibid._, l. 56. Cf. also the similar lines in “Hymn to the Supreme Being,” st. 16. It was apparently a favorite image. See Browning’s reference to it in his poem on Smart.

[414] “Almada Hill,” l. 330.

[415] “The Sorceress,” st. 4.

[416] “Elegy,” st. 4.

[417] “Syr Martyn,” ii, 31.

[418] “Pollio,” st. 3.

[419] “Eskdale Braes,” st. 1.

[420] See Bailey Saunders, “Life and Letters of James Macpherson,” p. 14.

[421] “Carric-Thura.”

[422] “Carthon.”

[423] Dr. Blair has a significant comment on the truth in the poems of Ossian. “The introduction of foreign images betrays a poet copying not from nature, but from other writers. Hence so many lions and tigers, and eagles and serpents which we meet with in the similes of modern poets; as if these animals had acquired some right to a place in poetical comparisons for ever, because employed by ancient authors. They employed them with propriety, as objects generally known in their country; but they are absurdly used for illustration by us, who know them only at second-hand, or by description.”

[424] Blair’s “Critical Dissertation,” in Tauchnitz ed. of the “Ossian Poems.”

[425] See “Child of Elle,” “Edom o’ Gordon,” “Hardyknute,” and others.

[426] “Robin and Makyne.”

[427] “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.”

[428] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”

[429] “Adam Bell.”

[430] “Barbara Allan’s Cruelty.”

[431] “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine.”

[432] “Gil Morice.”

[433] “King Edward IV and Tanner of Tamworth.”

[434] “The King and the Miller of Mansfield.”

[435] “Adam Bell.”

[436] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”

[437] For the forest in mediaeval poetry see Vernon Lee, “Euphorion,” p. 122.

[438] “Hardyknute.”

[439] “Young Waters.”

[440] “Young Waters.”

[441] “The Heir of Linne.”

[442] Schiller, “Ueber die Naive und Sentimentale Dichtung.”

[443] The poem is quoted entire by Gosse in his “Eighteenth Century Literature.”

[444] In this poem about 16 per cent. of the lines have something to do with Nature. In Wordsworth’s “Descriptive Sketches” over 50 per cent. of the lines treat of Nature.

[445] “The Minstrel,” Preface.

[446] Wordsworth, “The Excursion,” i, 108–300.

[447] _Ibid._, iv, 466–600.

[448] Wordsworth, “The Prelude,” “Advertisement.”

[449] “The Minstrel,” i, 52.

[450] _Ibid._, 10.

[451] _Ibid._, 9. Of this stanza Gray said in a letter to Beattie, March, 1771: “But this, of all others, is my favorite stanza. It is true poetry; it is inspiration; only (to show it is mortal) there is one blemish; the word garniture suggesting an idea of dress, and, what is worse, of French dress.” Beattie said he had often wished “to alter this same word, but had not been able to hit upon a better.”--Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvii.

Gray’s praise of Beattie was faint compared to Beattie’s admiration of Gray. In 1765 he declared that he had “long and passionately admired” Gray’s writings. He thought Gray’s poems finer than those of his contemporaries in any nation. He thought his taste most exact, his judgment most sound, and his learning most extensive. See Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” pp. xvi, xviii.

[452] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvi.

[453] Cowper, Letter to Rev. William Unwin, April, 1784.

[454] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxv.

[455] His chief poems are, “Four Moral Eclogues” (1778); “Four Elegies” (published 1760 but written earlier); “Amwell, A Descriptive Poem” (published 1776 but written 1768); and “Odes and Amoebaean Eclogues” (1782). His “Epistle on the Garden” and “Essay on Painting” will be spoken of later.

It is interesting to note the spirit of apology with which Scott’s friends and admirers comment on his choice of subjects. In such poetry there is little opportunity for genius, for, says Mr. Hoole, “A hill, a vale, a forest, a rivulet, a cataract, can be described only by general terms; the hill must swell, the vale sink, the rivulet murmur, and the cataract foam.” Mr. Hoole recognizes the “slight estimation” in which descriptive poetry is commonly held, but thinks there are devices to render it attractive and calls attention to the skill with which Mr. Scott has made his poems “interesting by the introduction of historical incidents, apt illusions, and moral reflections.”

[456] At this line Mr. Hoole’s admiration broke down. He could only regret that Mr. Scott’s desire for novelty had led him to admit such circumstances as no versification can make poetical.

[457] See “Advertisement” to “Poetical Sketches.”

[458] Introduction to “Songs of Innocence.”

[459] “Night.”

[460] “Contemplation.”

[461] “Book of Thel.”

[462] “Inebriety.”

[463] “The Village.”

[464] “The Choice.”

[465] “The Borough” especially Letters I and IX.

[466] “Tales of the Hall,” Book IV.

[467] In a letter to Newton, November 16, 1791, he wrote: “I would that I could see some of the mountains which you have seen; especially because Dr. Johnson has pronounced that no man is qualified to be a poet who has never seen a mountain. But mountains I shall never see, unless, perhaps, in a dream, or unless there are such in heaven.”

[468] See “Task,” i, 764; iv, 254–58. The best lines on the moon are in “Task,” iv, 3,

the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright.

[469] “Task,” i, 520; vi, 495.

[470] “Truth,” l. 238.

[471] “Task,” iv, 322.

[472] Illustrative similitudes are those drawn from the thunderstorm “Truth,” l. 238), deer (“Task,” iii, 108), peacocks and pheasants (“Truth,” l. 58), elm and vine (“Retirement,” l. 129), moles (“Task,” i, 276), etc.

[473] In a letter to Rev. William Unwin, October, 1784, Cowper wrote, “My descriptions are all from nature; not one of them second-handed.”

[474] Letter to Lady Herbert, October 12, 1785.

[475] “Task,” v, 58.

[476] _Ibid._, 27.

[477] _Ibid._, 41.

[478] _Ibid._, i, 161.

[479] _Ibid._, 358.

[480] _Ibid._, vi, 147.

[481] _Ibid._, i, 304.

[482] “Task,” i, 195.

[483] _Ibid._, 185.

[484] _Ibid._, 159.

[485] _Ibid._, 346.

[486] “Task,” vi, 310.

[487] _Ibid._, v, 22.

[488] _Ibid._, vi, 77.

[489] _Ibid._, i, 109, 142.

[490] _Ibid._, iv, 700.

[491] _Ibid._, 695.

[492] See “Hope,” ll. 39–60; “Task,” iii, 721; iv, 780; iii, 301; and other passages. In the passage from “Hope” compare the line:

She spreads the morning over Eastern hills,

and Wordsworth’s

A boy I loved the sun
... for this cause that I had seen him lay
His beauty on the morning hills.--“Prelude,” ii, 183.

[493] See “Retirement,” ll. 481, 563; “Task,” iii, 314, 306.

[494] “Task,” i, 749.

[495] “Task,” vi, 109; cf. ll. 84–117 of Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned”:

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife,

* * * * *

Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth
Our minds and hearts to bless.

* * * * *

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things.

See also, “To My Sister”:

One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason.

[496] “Task,” vi, 121–97.

[497] _Ibid._, i, 369.

[498] “Retirement,” l. 419.

[499] “Task,” vi, 181.

[500] _Ibid._, 59.

[501] Burns, “Works,” V, 185.

[502] _Ibid._, I, 28. Cf. lines in the “Epistle to William Simson”:

Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me
When winds rave thro’ the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee
Dark’ning the day!
O Nature! a’ thy shews and forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms,
Whether the summer kindly warms
Wi’ life an’ light;
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night.

[503] Burns, “Works,” IV, 272.

[504] “The Vision,” sts. 36, 37.

[505] Burns, “Works,” I, 18. In one poem Burns declares that he prefers “wild mossy moors” to “Forth’s sunny shores,” but a characteristic reason,

For there by a lanely sequestered stream
Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream,

forbids the use of the passage as a proof of real enjoyment of the wild in Nature.

[506] Burns, “Works,” VI, 242.

[507] _Ibid._, p. 241.

[508] _Ibid._, V, 165.

[509] Burns warmly admired Ossian, and this phrase sounds like an echo from one of the Ossian poems.

[510] Burns, “A Winter Night.”

[511] _Ibid._, “The Brigs of Ayr.”

[512] _Ibid._, “Works,” V, 231.

[513] Burns, “Elegy on Captain Henderson.”

[514] Bowles, “Poetical Works,” II, XII (ed. 1855).

[515] See sonnet by Coleridge.

[516] “After this third edition came out, my friend Mr. Crutwell, the printer, wrote a letter saying that two young gentlemen, strangers, one a particularly handsome and pleasing youth, lately from Westminster School, [Robert Southey] and both literary and intelligent, spoke in high commendation of my volume.”--Bowles, “Poems” (Introduction to ed. of 1837).

[517] “Fourteen Sonnets,” 1789. The same with additions, 1790. The same reproduced with illustrations, 1798.

[518] Bowles, “Poems,” Introduction to edition of 1837.

[519] “Hope.”

[520] “The Tweed Visited.”

[521] “Elegy Written at the Hotwells, Bristol.”

[522] “To the River Itchen.”

[523] “The River Cherwell.”

[524] “Elegy Written at the Hotwells, Bristol.”

[525] “The River Wainsbeck.”

[526] _Ibid._

[527] “At Tynemouth Priory.”

[528] “Absence.”

[529] “The Bells, Ostend.”

[530] “At Malvern.”

[531] Bowles, “Memoir.”

[532] I have been unable to find the exact date of this letter, but in all probability it antedates “The Life of John Buncle” and the “Descriptive Poem” by some years. It was probably before 1760, because at that time occurred the quarrel between Lyttleton and Brown. It seems also probable that it was before 1756, because at that time Dr. Brown took the living at Great Horkesley, near Colchester. The most natural period for the Letter is between 1748 and 1754, for at some time during that period, and apparently during the early part of it, Dr. Brown held the living of Morland, Westmoreland. (See “Brown,” “Osbaldiston,” “Lyttleton” in “Nat. Dict. of Biog.” and memoir of Brown in “British Poets.”)

[533] Young explains that he cannot find anyone to spell the names for him so he must spell them as they are pronounced.

[534] Cf. L. Charlanne, “L’influence française en Angleterre au XVII^e siècle,” p. 115.

[535] Alicia Amherst, “A History of Gardening in England,” p. 206.

[536] Few of these details, except the radiating avenues and the high jets of water characteristic of Le Nôtre’s gardens, were absolutely new after 1660. Topiary work was of Roman origin. “It is said to have been invented by Matius, a friend of the emperor Augustus. The chief gardener was known as the “topiarius” and it was his none too easy task to see that the evergreens were artistically shorn” (Nichols, “English Pleasure Gardens,” p. 39). The cutting of trees and shrubs into quaint forms was introduced into England in the early Tudor period and became very popular. The clipped garden at Heslington, near York, is said to date from about 1560. In 1618 Lawson in his “A New Orchard and Garden” wrote, “Your Gardiner can frame your lesser wood to the shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell; or swift-running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare.” There was also early protest against such work. Bacon in his “Essay on Gardens” said, “I, for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff; they be for children.” Of figured and colored knots Bacon said, “They be but toys; you may see as good sights many times in tarts.” He also objected to fantastic fountains where the water spouted forth in “feathers, drinking glasses, canopies, and the like.”

[537] In the Arts and Crafts Museum at Hamburg there is a fine and perhaps unique historical collection of garden prints, a collection made by Professor Brinckmann, director of the Museum, and shown at the great Gardening Exhibition in Hamburg, 1897 (Albert Forbes Sieveking, “Gardens Ancient and Modern,” 1897).

[538] Sir John Thynne bought Longleat in 1541 and was occupied during 1567–79 in building the mansion. The baron Thynne who made the gardens became viscount in 1682 and Kip’s plans date sometime after that year. Lady Winchilsea, who visited often at Longleat, wrote, about 1690, a poem to Lady Worsley, the only daughter of Viscount Weymouth, in which she speaks of

Longleate that justly has all praise engross’d,
The strangers wonder and our nations boast.

She comments on the finish in details and on the splendid effect of the whole. She describes labyrinths, flowery groves, smooth grass terraces, but she devotes her most eager lines to the fountains. Words are inadequate to

Paint her Cascades that spread their sheets so wide
And emulate th’ Italian waters pride,
Her Fountains which so high their streames extend
Th’ amazed Clouds now feel the Rains ascend,
Whilst Phoebus as they tow’rds his Mantion flow
Graces th’ attempt and marks them with his Bow.

[539] Horace Walpole says of this description, “Any man might design and _build_ as sweet a garden, who had been born in, and never stirred out of Holburn.” In Mason’s “English Garden” is another scornful description of Temple’s idea of a perfect garden.

[540] This treatise is quoted almost entire in Nichols’ “English Pleasure Gardens” in the chapter on “French Fashions.”

[541] Mr. Barrington in “On the Progress of Gardening,” 1782 (“Archaeologia,” Vol. V) says that Lord Bathurst, at Ryskins, near Colebrook, was the first to make a winding stream through a garden. “So unusual was the effect that his friend, Lord Stafford, could not believe it had been done on purpose, and supposing it had been for economy, asked him to own fairly how little more it would have cost to have made the course of the brook in a straight direction.”

[542] “Paradise Lost,” Book IV, 299.

[543] Letter from Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, June 20, 1760. For a description of Twickenham see “Famous Parks and Gardens” (Nelson and Sons, London, 1880), p. 134.

[544] Pope, “Works” (Elwin and Courthope), V, 182.

[545] Blomfield and Thomas, “The Formal Garden in England,” p. 80.

[546] William Mason, “The English Garden” (1772). In the edition of 1738 Dr. Burgh in his notes calls Bacon the prophet, Milton the herald, and Addison, Pope, and Kent the champions of the true taste in gardening.

[547] Horace Walpole, “Essay on Modern Gardening” (written in 1770, printed in 1785).

[548] William Hazlitt, “Gleanings in Old Garden Literature,” p. 66 (ed. 1882).

[549] Letter to Jervas, December 12, 1718. Pope, “Works” (Elwin and Courthope), IV, 494.

[550] In the very full bibliography (covering the years 1516–1836) given by Miss Amherst in “A History of Gardening in England” more than sixty books or articles are listed between 1700 and 1725. Most of these seem from the titles to be of purely horticultural interest and have to do with the kitchen garden or the fruit garden rather than with ornamental grounds. One popular sort of title in which the word “Recreation” is the keynote would seem to indicate something more than a collection of practical precepts, but on investigation “The Ladies’ Recreation” (1707), “The Clergyman’s Recreation” (1714), “The Gentleman’s Recreation” (1717), “The Lady’s Recreation” (1718), and the rest, prove to be severely technical, treating only of the planting and nurture of gardens.

[551] Quoted by Sieveking in “Gardens Ancient and Modern,” p. 122.

[552] There is a discriminating eulogy of Kent by Francis Coventry in “The World,” April 12, 1753. But see also Coventry’s “Strictures on the Absurd Novelties Introduced into Gardening, and a Humorous Description of Squire Mushroom’s Villa,” “The World,” November 15, 1753.

[553] In Mr. Dallaway’s “Supplementary Anecdotes” to Walpole’s “On Modern Gardening” (In Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 819,) is the statement that Mr. Southcote at Wooburn Farm in Surrey, and the Hon. C. Hamilton at Pain’s Hill, Surrey, undoubtedly preceded Shenstone in priority of design.

[554] Sir Walter Scott said of this sketch, “I can trace, even to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley’s description of Shenstone’s Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend’s sketch of his grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phyllis to boot.” For another full prose description of Leasowes and the neighboring place, Hagley, see Hugh Miller’s “Impressions of England and English People,” pp. 95–132, 147–69. See also “On the Tenants of the Leasowes,” Essay XXI in “Essays” (1758–65) by Goldsmith, for a description of Leasowes gone to decay. There is an interesting supposed conversation between Shenstone and a utilitarian cockney visitor in “Blackwood’s,” XIV, 262 (1823). Another early description is in “Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes,” by Joseph Heeley, 1777. There are poetical descriptions in Woodhouse’s “Poems” and in Giles’ “Miscellanies.” In Shenstone’s “Works,” published by Dodsley in 1773 are collected nine poetical tributes to the place. In “The Spiritual Quixote” (1773) one of the noted exploits of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose, the quixotic reformer, is an attempted defacement of the gardens at Leasowes in order thereby to save the soul of his friend Shenstone from being wedded to idols. The influence and fame of this garden are indicated by the fact that the Marquis de Giradin at Ermonville called his own place “The Leasowes of France.” Anderson, in his Preface to Shenstone’s “Works” says that the planning of pleasure grounds in the manner of Leasowes “seems to require as great powers of mind as those which we admire in the descriptive poems of Thomson, or in the noble landscapes of Salvator Rosa, or the Poussins.” For later descriptions see “Shenstone and the Leasowes” in “Once a Week,” 1862, by Edward Jesse.

[555] Downing, in “Landscape Gardening,” p. 20, says that the term “landscape gardening” was first used in this essay. The essay begins, “Gardening may be divided into three species ... kitchen-gardening ... parterre-gardening ... and landskip, or picturesque gardening.”

[556] For a full statement of Mason’s views on this point see the notes to the first book of “The English Garden.” Switzer had already made a similar claim in regard to Milton. It is interesting to note in this connection that Kent often referred his love of Nature in gardens to his study of Spenser’s “Fairy Queen.”

[557] Mason, “The English Garden,” “General Postscript.”

[558] In “The Garden: As Considered in Literature by Some Polite Persons,” edited by Walter Howe (“Knickerbocker Nuggets” series, G. P. Putnam’s Sons), may be found essays by Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, Addison, Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Whateley, Goldsmith, Walpole, and Evelyn. A fine edition of Sir William Temple’s essay, “On the Gardens of Epicurus,” with illustrations, has been brought out by Chatto and Windus.

[559] Viscount Irwin, “The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting,” 1767.

[560] Cowper, “The Task,” Book III, “The Gardens,” l. 764.

[561] Richard Payne Knight, “The Landscape, A Didactic Poem,” 1794.

[562] Uvedale Price, “An Essay on the Picturesque” (1794–98).

[563] William Gilpin, “Observations ... Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty.” Eleven separate volumes, 1783–1809.

[564] Richard Jago, “Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect Delineated and Moralized,” 1767. In this poem Jago describes the country seats of fifty gentlemen. The most important are Farnborough, Packington, Shuckburgh, and Leasowes.

[565] There are many indications about the middle of the century of a widespread interest in all that pertained to China. In about 1750 Mrs. Montague remodeled her house in Hill Street and made a Chinese room of which she wrote, “Sick of Grecian elegance and symmetry, or Gothick grandeur and magnificence, we must all seek the barbarious goût of the Chinese; and fat-headed pagods and shaking manderins bear the prizes from the finest works of antiquity.... You will wonder I should condemn the taste I have complied with but in trifles I shall always conform to the fashion.” As early as 1750 appeared William Halfpenny’s “New Designs for Chinese Temples ... Garden Seats,” etc. In 1753 in “The World” for March, Coventry satirizes the rage for Chinese furniture. In April there is a protest against the excessive use of Chinese bridges and buildings in gardens. In February, 1754, and March, 1755, are pleas for an “anti-Chinese society.” Chippendale’s “Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Directory” of 1753 and Sir William Chambers’ more influential “Book on Chinese Buildings,” 1757, did much to establish the taste for Chinese furnishings and for Chinese garden accessories, and also to render that taste more correct.

[566] As illustrative see Isaac Oliver’s (1566–1617) portrait of Sir Philip Sidney who is represented as seated on a turf-covered rock, leaning against a broad tree-trunk, while in the rear is a formal arcaded garden with a distant row of trees sending up slender green spires against a sunset sky. (Reproduced in Gosse and Garnett, “An Illustrated History of English Literature.”) Compare also Oliver’s portrait of himself where is seen through the open window a broad river flowing at the base of castle-crowned crags. (Reproduced in Horace Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 176.)

[567] Among Vandyck’s contemporaries in England the one who made most successful use of landscape was Mytens (in England after 1618), another foreigner, to whom is attributed the interesting portrait of “Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the Dwarf” at Hampton Court. The diminutive figure is represented as standing in a full landscape in which there is an admirable effect of distance and of clear, harmonious coloring.

[568] Now in William III’s State Bedroom at Hampton Court but formerly in the Queen’s Bedchamber at Windsor Castle.

[569] The ablest of Lely’s pupils was John Greenhill (1649–76). One of his portraits at the Dulwich Gallery is described by Mr. Cartwright as “My first wife’s pictur, Like a sheppardess.” It shows a charming lady in low satin bodice and pearls, her right hand resting on the head of a sheep, while behind her is a landscape of brown trees and rough tower-crowned hills under a gray and misty sky. William Wissing (1656–87), another pupil of Lely, and a rival of Kneller in popular favor, also made some attractive use of vaguely indicated stretches of landscape, but usually his portrait accessories were pillars, heavily draped curtains, stormy skies, with, as the loveliest point, a flowering rose-bush, an elaborately painted thistle, a vase of flowers, in the foreground. Two characteristic portraits are those of Mrs. Knott and Mrs. Lawson at Hampton Court.

[570] Reproduced from engraving by Isaac Becket in Cyril Davenport, “Mezzotints,” p. 94.

[571] Engraved by J. Smith. Reproduced in Davenport, “Mezzotints,” p.100.

[572] In William III’s Presence Chamber at Hampton Court. “Lady Middleton” is No. 54.

[573] Reproduced in Mrs. Oliphant’s “The Reign of Queen Anne.”

[574] Reproduced in Walpole, “Letters,” IX, 484, and II, Frontispiece.

[575] Engraved by J. McArdell, a famous example of his work. Reproduced in Davenport, “Mezzotints.”

[576] Horace Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” II, 442.

[577] Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, F.S.A., “Sir Joshua Reynolds, F.R.A.,” p. 23.

[578] The last four portraits mentioned are in the National Gallery.

[579] Reproduced in Lord Gower’s “Sir Joshua Reynolds.”

[580] These pictures of women and children are for the most part in private galleries. But no artist has been more fully and adequately represented in engravings than Reynolds. In the Print Room of the British Museum there are twelve large albums of prints after his paintings. There are also numerous reproductions in books such as Cyril Davenport’s “Mezzotints,” Lord Gower’s “Sir Joshua Reynolds,” Alfred Whitman’s “The Print Collector’s Handbook,” Gordon Goodwin’s “British Mezzotinters,” and Julia Frankau’s “Eighteenth-Century Colour-Prints.” The most important of the engravers of Reynolds’ pictures were James McArdell (1729–65), Valentine Green (1739–1813), S. W. Reynolds (1773–1835), John Raphael Smith (1752–1812) and Caroline Watson (1761?–1814). Valentine Green began in 1780 a series of Reynolds’ “Beauties of the Present Age” on the plan of Lely’s and Kneller’s “Beauties.” These engravings were originally issued at fifteen shillings each, but they have increased enormously in value. At a recent sale a proof of the “Duchess of Rutland” brought a thousand pounds, nearly five times as much as Reynolds received for the original picture (Salaman, “Old Engravers of England,” p. 138).

[581] It seems strange that Reynolds did not do more in the way of pure landscape. In the South Kensington gallery is a pleasing little brown landscape, “The Entrance to Mrs. Thrale’s Park at Streatham.” Lord Gower in “Sir Joshua Reynolds, R.A.” reproduces a landscape in the possession of Lord Northcote and entitled “A Study from Sir Joshua’s Villa at Richmond Hill.” We find mention, also, of other landscapes, but they form no significant part of his work.

[582] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in British Art,” p. 171

[583] John C. Van Dyke, “Old English Masters,” p. 58.

[584] In the Wallace Gallery, London. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 88.

[585] Owned by the Lord Rothschild. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 124.

[586] These two pictures are in the Dulwich Gallery, London.

[587] Owned by the Lord Rothschild. Reproduced by Braun, Clement & Cie.

[588] Owned by Sir Algernon Neeld. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 140.

[589] For an account of the engravings from Gainsborough’s pictures see H. P. Horne, “Engraved Works of Gainsborough and Romney,” 1891.

[590] Aside from the works of the Van de Veldes English public galleries have very few examples of landscape painting in England during the years 1660–1707. From Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting” and from standard dictionaries of art and biography a partial list of the foreigners painting in England at this time may be compiled. Chief among them were Hendrik Danckerts who, after painting landscapes in Italy, came to England about 1667 and was engaged by Charles II to paint views; Cornélius Bol who, during the same reign, was painting views of the Thames; John Looten (d. 1680), whose chosen subjects were “glades, dark oaken groves, land-storms, and waterfalls;” Henry Lankrink (1628–92), a successful imitator of Salvator Rosa in the depiction of rough country, was especially commended for “the beauty and freedom” of his skies, and employed by Lely to paint some of his backgrounds; John Sybrecht (1630–1703), a painter of pictures of the Rhine, who was in England after 1680, and whose “Prospect of Longleat” was one of the pictures at Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron’s home; Philip Boul who left a pocketbook of sketches of Derbyshire and the Peak, “worked out in the Salvator Rosa style;” Henry Verzagen who devoted himself to “ruins and landscapes;” Adrien Vandiest (1655–1704), who came to England in 1672 and seven of whose landscapes were in Sir Peter Lely’s collection; Jan Van Wyck (d. 1702) who painted “excellent landscapes” from scenes in Scotland and the isle of Jersey; and Jan Griffier (1645–1718) who painted mixed scenes of river and rich country in the manner of Ruysdael, and who was so much of an enthusiast that he bought a yacht and, “embarking with his family and pencils passed his whole time on the Thames.”

[591] Streater’s “Boscobel House,” one of the pictures in James II’s collection, is at Hampton Court. At Dulwich a picture described in Cartwright’s catalogue as “A large Landschift done by Streeker” is now ascribed to Streater.

[592] Francis Place is noteworthy as one of the first Englishmen, if not the very first, to practice the newly discovered art of mezzotint engraving (M. C. Salamon, “The Old Engravers of England,” pp. 52, 66).

[593] There are fourteen sea-pieces by him in the National Gallery; eight in the Wallace collection at Hertford House; and several at Hampton Court. At Dulwich are two pictures by him, “A Calm” and “A Brisk Breeze” that are especially attractive examples of his style.

[594] M. Rouquet was a French enamel painter who came to England in 1725.

[595] Afterward brought together in Buck’s “Antiquities,” published in 1774.

[596] “Humphrey Clinker” was published in 1771 and the supposed time of Matthew Bramble’s visit to Bath is not much earlier. Taverner was sixty-eight in 1771.

[597] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters.”

[598] Bequeathed by Miss Haines in 1898.

[599] See Print Room, British Museum, for prints from his paintings.

[600] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” pp. 35, 36.

[601] Cozens had a curious way of getting hints for landscape composition. He taught his pupils to splash paint on the bottoms of earthenware plates and to stamp impressions therefrom on sheets of damp paper. The accidental forms thus struck out were counted a help to invention. The early exhibitions record many bizarre attempts at landscapes such as “A landscape done in needlework and human hair” (1772), “three drawings made upon a board with a hot iron“ (1777), “flowers cut in cork,” “three small landscapes made in oil with Trees and Shrubs in sea-weed” (1780). These were apparently exhibited in all seriousness. In 1770 there was “A landscape in colored wax.”

[602] In the Print Room of the British Museum are sixty-eight small sketches made by Paul Sandby in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, but most of these are of figures.

[603] Allan Cunningham, “The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters” (1879), II, 210.

[604] Brydall, “Art in Scotland.”

[605] Zucarelli (1701–88) on a first visit to London painted some landscapes but he was chiefly occupied as scene painter at the opera. The great vogue of his pictures belongs in his second visit (1752–73). Jan Griffier’s sons should perhaps be mentioned. Jan (d. 1750) was especially noted as a copier of Claude’s pictures. Robert, who painted in his father’s style, died in 1760.

[606] There is in the National Portrait Gallery, one of the more important of Wilson’s portraits before his Italian visit, entitled, “The Two Princes and their Tutor,” a stiff, formal, but not uninteresting picture. The most admirable portrait by Wilson, that of the artist Mortimer, deserves the high praise it has won from competent critics, and shows what Wilson could do with a congenial subject and after the enfranchisement of his art by his work as a landscape painter. Except for a portrait of himself this portrait of Mortimer is the only one done by him after his return from Italy. It came into the possession of Mr. John Britton who, in 1842, wrote a pamphlet about it and the paintings and merits of Wilson in general (Cunningham’s “British Painters,” I, 153). The portrait of Mortimer is now in the Gibson Gallery of the Royal Academy, London. Reproduced in Beaumont Fletcher’s “Richard Wilson.”

[607] T. Wright, “The Life of Richard Wilson, R.A.,” p. 72.

[608] Beaumont Fletcher, “Richard Wilson, R.A.,” p. 90.

[609] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art,” p. 63.

[610] In 1755 there had been an exhibition started by Hogarth for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. It was the success of this enterprise that led to the establishment of public exhibitions in 1760.

[611] Reproduced in Beaumont Fletcher’s “Richard Wilson, R.A.”

[612] Reproduced in “Magazine of Fine Arts,” November, 1805.

[613] Engraved by W. Watts in 1786. Print Room of British Museum.

[614] Engraved by W. Birch in 1779. Print Room of British Museum.

[615] Quoted by Beaumont Fletcher in his “Life of Wilson,” p. 24.

[616] There are several landscapes by Wilson in the public galleries of London. Two large canvases in the National Gallery, “The Villa of Maecenas” and “Niobe,” were painted for Sir George Beaumont and by him presented to the nation in 1726. They are heavy and dark pictures and do not so satisfactorily represent Wilson’s genius as do some of the eight smaller landscapes in the same gallery, notably the charming little picture “On the River Wye.” In the South Kensington Gallery there are six landscapes by Wilson with several others “by or after” him. The most effective of these is a “Landscape Composition” in the Italian style. At Dulwich is a fine Italian picture, “The Cascatella and Villa of Maecenas near Tivoli.” A more nearly adequate idea of Wilson’s work may be found in the Manchester Art Gallery where, besides a fine example of his Italian pictures, a large canvas entitled “Cicero’s Villa,” are one of Wilson’s most triumphant Welsh pictures, the “Welsh Valley with Snowdon Hill,” and a magnificent English scene, a “Landscape with Ruins.” The Art Gallery at Glasgow has one of the loveliest and most mysteriously suggestive of Wilson’s pictures, called “The Convent Twilight;” and a delicate little Scotch landscape (exhibited 1762) entitled “View of Holt Bridge on the River Dee.” It is apparent that most of Wilson’s pictures are in private galleries. In 1814 there was an exhibition of his works but they have not been brought together in any great number since. Some of his sketches had been published at Oxford in 1811 under the title “Studies and Designs by Richard Wilson, done at Rome in the Year 1752.” In 1825 appeared a book of forty etchings made by Mr. Thomas Hastings after the pictures in the Ford collection, a notable collection that came into the possession of Lady Ford through her brother and her husband both of whom had been admirers of Wilson’s work. In 1863 there appeared “Thirty-seven Sketches and Designs in Crayon” by Richard Wilson, R.A. (London, William Tigg). Probably the best place to study Wilson’s pictures as a whole is the Print Room of the British Museum where there are forty-five engravings from his work, several of these engravings being exceptionally fine reproductions. Wilson has been fortunate in the fact that his landscapes have appealed to the best engravers and etchers. Besides the “Six Views in Wales” already spoken of there were “Twelve Original Views in Italy” published by Boydell in 1776, and very many single pictures have been reproduced. The prices brought by Wilson’s pictures have been in modern times fairly large. In 1875 his “View on the Arno” brought 1,800 guineas. “An Evening Scene in Wales” brought 380 guineas. Some of the engravings also bring high prices, especially those of Woollett.

[617] John Ruskin, “The Art of England,” Lecture VI, “George Robson and Copley Fielding.”

[618] Sir Joshua Reynolds, “The Fourteenth Discourse.”

[619] In the “Magazine of Fine Arts,” November, 1805.

[620] C. R. Leslie, R.A., “Memoirs of the Life of John Constable” (ed. 1845), p. 110.

[621] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 47.

[622] George William Fulcher, “The Life of Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 175.

[623] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 249.

[624] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art.”

[625] C. R. Leslie, R.A., “Memoirs of John Constable” (ed. 1845), p. 354.

[626] A letter to Pearce at Bath. William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 277.

[627] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art,” p. 149.

[628] A. E. Fletcher, “Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.,” p. 161.

[629] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 278.

[630] In a letter to William Jackson written about 1768.

[631] Algernon Graves, F. S. A., “The Society of Artists and the Free Society,” 1907; “The Royal Academy Exhibitors,” 1906.

[632] Thomas Gray in his “Journal” for October 13, 1769, says, “At the ale-house where I dined in Malham, Vivares, the landscape painter, had lodged for a week or more; Smith and Bellers had also been there, and two prints of Gordale have been engraved by them.”

[633] Horace Walpole in “Anecdotes of Painting” (pub. 1762–71), II, 717 (ed. 1826), suggested hop-fields as new picturesque material for artists. Scott in his “Essay on Painting” reiterated the idea, giving Walpole credit as its originator. They apparently did not know George Smith’s picture.

[634] There is a fine collection of Sandby’s drawings in the Print Room of the British Museum. For particulars of his life see William Sandby, “Thomas and Paul Sandby: Their Lives and Works.”

[635] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 24.

[636] It is said that Gilpin’s landscape backgrounds were frequently put in by other men, notably by Barret.

[637] Wolcot (“Peter Pindar”) in his verse comments on the exhibitions of 1782, 1783, 1785, 1786, says in an apostrophe to De Loutherbourg:

And Loutherbourg, when Heaven so wills
To make brass skies and golden hills,
With marble bullocks in glass pastures grazing,
Thy reputation too will rise
And people, gaping with surprise,
Cry “Master Loutherbourg is most amazing.”

But thou must wait for that event;
Perhaps the change is never meant;
Till then with me thy pencil will not shine;
Till then old red-nosed Wilson’s art
Will hold its empire o’er my heart,
By Britain left in poverty to pine.

But honest Wilson, never mind,
Immortal praises thou shalt find,
And for a dinner have no cause to fear.
Thou start’st at my prophetic rhymes;
Don’t be impatient for those times,
Wait till thou hast been dead a hundred year.

[638] Walter Thornbury, “The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,” pp. 113–15.

[639] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 62.

[640] Edmund Garvey, an inferior painter, had exhibited “Three Views of the Alps” in 1770, and an artist named Morris had in 1769 exhibited “A Waterfall in the Alps.”

[641] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 38.

[642] Walter Thornbury, “The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,” p. 50.

[643] Of the twenty-seven pictures by Cozens in the South Kensington Gallery all but one or two are Italian scenes. Even more interesting for study is the fine collection of drawings by him in the Print Room of the British Museum.

[644] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 86.

[645] Many of Girtin’s drawings are in the British Museum.

[646] J. T. Smith, “Nollekins and His Times,” II, 339 (London, 1828).

[647] James A. Manson, “George Morland,” p. 80.

[648] Many of Morland’s pictures have been engraved. There are numerous reproductions in “George Morland” by J. T. Herbert Baily (“Connoisseur,” Extra Number, 1906) and in “George Morland” by J. T. Nettleship (“The Portfolio,” December, 1898).

[649] Biese in “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” pp. 209–48, gives a brief résumé of the development of landscape painting in Germany. He calls Rubens and his school the first to make the painting of Nature an independent branch of art, while Ruysdael (1681) is the one in whom “die ganze Poesie der Natur” finds expression. His chapter closes with these words: “Alle diese grossen Niederländer eilen weit der Poesie ihrer Zeit voraus; Gebirge und Meer finden im Wort erst 100 Jahre später ihrer begeisterten Schilderer, und ein in sich stimmungsvoll, abgeschlossenes, lyrisches Landschaftsbild wird erst am Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts in der deutschen Dichtung geboren.” In England, it will be observed, the love of Nature finds earlier and more abundant expression in poetry than in painting, and its completest expression in Wordsworth’s poetry precedes its complete expression in the great English landscape painters of the early nineteenth century. See also for brief résumé of “Landschaftsmalerei” as an indication mainly of the increasing knowledge of distant lands, new forms of vegetation, etc., Humboldt, “Kosmos,” II, 47–58.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.