"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 Topham,' 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 Ripley3 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!

You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse
And pompous buildings once were things of use.
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 eked with ends of wall;
Then clap four slices of pilaster on't,

That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front:

1 A gentleman famous for a judicious collection of drawings.

2 Two eminent physicians: the one had an excellent library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity.

3 This man was a carpenter, employed by a first minister, who raised him to an architect, without any genius in the art; and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public buildings, made him comptroller of the board of works.

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

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 over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty everywhere 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 the 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, the 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 even from difficulty, strike from chance;
Nature shall join you; Time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at-perhaps a STOWE.1

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:

1 The seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham, in Buckinghamshire; now possessed by the Duke of Buckingham.

Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain,
You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again.1
Even in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in an hermitage set Dr. Clarke.2

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; 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;

Tired of the scene parterres and fountains yield,

He finds, at last, he better likes a field.

Through his young woods how pleased 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 Brobdignag 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.
Two cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind..

1 This was done in Hertfordshire by a wealthy citizen, at the expense of above five thousand pounds, by which means (merely to overlook a dead plain) he let in the north wind upon his house and parterre, which were before adorned and defended by beautiful woods.

2 Dr. S. Clarke's busto, placed by the queen in the hermitage, while the doctor duly frequented the court.

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 Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers;
There gladiators fight, or die in flowers;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse 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 stored?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord;
To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Suëil has bound!
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good
For all his lordship knows, but they are wood.
For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look,
These shelves admit not any modern book.

And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of pray'r:
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heaven.
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,1
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.2

1 Verrio (Antonio) painted many ceilings, &c., at Windsor, Hampton Court, &c., and Laguerre at Blenheim Castle, and other places.

2 This is a fact. A reverend dean, preaching at court, threatened the sinner with punishment in "a place which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly."

But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall:
The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a genial room;
No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb.

A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there.
Between each act the trembling salvers ring,
From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the king.
In plenty starving, tantalized in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave,
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost, and little skill,
And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.

Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed;1
Health to himself, and to his infants bread
The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity supplies.

Another age shall see the golden ear
Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre,
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.

Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. "Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,

And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.
His father's acres who enjoys in peace,

Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase:
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed
The milky heifer, and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town.

1 This is the moral of the whole; where Providence is justified in giving riches to those who squander them in this manner. A bad taste employs more hands, and diffuses wealth more usefully than a good one.