ing current, twining among the tall trees, and spindling underwood-or faftens upon other beauties which every way croud into the view.

From hence the path takes a folitary turn to the roaring cascade, plunging down the rock, in bold luxuriance, near which is a chalybeate spring; and on a square ftone over it, is

FONS FERRUGINEUS

DIVA QUÆ SECESSU ISTO. FRUI CONSEDIT

SALUTI. S.

That is,

The chalybeate spring,

Sacred to the Goddefs of Health

In this Recefs.

And upon the bank, which rises steeply from hence, appears another feat on the back of the cafcade, which looks over a

cryftal pond, fringed with bushes and trees, into the green, rifing fields above: this bench is thus infcribed,

Claudite jam rivos pueri fat prati biberunt.

That is,

The ftreams refrain,

Enough the floods have drench'd the thirsty plain. WARTON.

The fcene now changes to an open lawn, where the path waves up to the houfe and fhrubbery, laid out in taste, and agreeably bushed by clumps of evergreens and flowering fhrubs; a fmall lawn in the midft, has a ftatue of Venus, well executed, and the pedeftal gives us these beautiful lines:

Semi educta Venus."

To Venus, Venus here retir'd,
My fober vows I pay :

Not her on Paphian plains admir'd,
The bold, the pert, the gay.

Not

Not her whofe amorous leer prevail'd
To bribe the Phrygian boy;
Not her who clad in armour, fail'd

To fave difaft'rous Troy.

Fresh rifing from the foamy tide,
She every bofom warms:
While half withdrawn fhe feems to hide,
And half reveals her charms.

Learn hence ye boastful fons of taste,
Who plan the rural shade;
Learn hence to fhun the vicious waste
Of pomp, at large difplay'd."

Let coy referve with coft unite,
To grace your wood or field;

No ray obtrusive pall the fight,
In aught you paint or build.

And far be driven the fumptuous glare
Of gold, from British groves;

And far the meretricious air, .

Of China's vain alcoves.

"Tis bafhful beauty ever twines,

The moft coercive chain;
'Tis the that fovereign rule declines,
Who best deserves to reign.

The houfe ftands remarkably pleafane on the brow of this delightful lawn, which fpreads itself into the groves, and boldly fweeps in the front, down the valley, where Hales Owen makes a very agreeable appearance, and the Clent hills always beautiful, with numberlefs other objects, make it the moft lovely fituation imagi nable.

The glory of the Leafowes chiefly confifts in its fimplicity; and this is preferved in fuch purity, that every trace of art is totally hid from the moft difcerning eye. Mr. Shenftone always implicitly adhered to Nature; a man of his nice judgment and tafte could never deviate from that leading principle; he was fenfible if he

did, that the nobleft defign would become contemptible; and perhaps it may be owing to this, that he never chose to introduce a tree, but what was vernacujar to the place. Indeed, when we-confider the Leafowes as a Farm only, it would be taking too great a liberty, to throw it into thofe extragenious plants or trees, which (tho' not here) are a real or nament to a garden :-it would entirely ruin the intention, fpoil the whole of its fimplicity, and caft a gloomy fhade, o'er all its beauties. The rofe, the althea, or the hypericum, which fo fweetly become a fhrubbery, would difgrace the fimple banks of the Leafowes; a plain cowflip, a primrofe, or a kingcup, in thofe receffes, is infinitely beyond the tulip, the carnation, or the auricula; in fhort, these delightful fcenes will never lofe their reputation, fo long as no rude hand attempts to deform them, by introducing a more. elegant drefs, as they may call it, than

that