will dine with me, my cousin, and I will shew you all my hermitage," (for so he called his place); " and though I won't promise to drive you myself back to Oakingham in the evening, you shall have the chair, and the groom to bring it home."

I suitably acknowledged this civility, and gladly accepted the dinner, but declined the chair.

"For I am sure," said I, you of all men, in such a season and such a country, would not deprive me of a moonlight walk."

"Not for the world," cried he; "" I see more and more you are of the right sort, and a worthy scion of the De Cliffords and Manners."

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE

PLEASANT AND NOTABLE

CONVERSATION

I HAD

WITH MR. MANNERS, ON THE CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE

WORLD AND RETIREMENT.

Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court,
And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?
.I seek not to wax great by other's wanning,
Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy;
Sufficeth that I have, maintains my state,

And sends the poor, well pleased from my gate.

SHAKSPEARE. 2 Henry VI.

MR. MANNERS now invited me into his garden, "which," said he, "I am not without pleasure in shewing; although, if you are a Brownite or a Reptonite, you will not like it, for it is what I hold that the garden of a grange-which is not, you know, a palace-ought to be. Indeed, I am not certain if a palace garden stoopt a little more to the grange it would be the worse for it. However, a grange we are, and

a grange we must be.

'Parvum parva decent, mihi jam non regia Roma,
Sed vacuum Tiber placet, aut imbelle Tarentum.'*

"As to the house," continued he, "I trust it has comforts; which is all I aim at, for nature wants no more; though in a garden, I acknowledge, she revels, and requires that her rich gifts should be gratefully acknowledged by unremitting care."

Seeing that I lingered still, in eying the house, he added

"You will find nothing there particularly worth looking at. I admire the arts, and think architecture among the very finest; I have looked by the hour at Michael Angelo's wonders, and enjoy Inigo Jones's elegant proportions; but as to the interior of dwellings, Heaven keep me from a house too fine to live in."

We now sallied into the garden, and I own I was disappointed. I expected a French or Italian taste, or perhaps both, engrafted on the modern English ;-trellises, balustrades, busts, hot-houses, conservatories. Except the last (of no great dimensions), there were none of these. There was an abunbance of natural flowers, and some beautiful exotics; but these were, I thought, too much mingled with beds of herbs for culinary purposes, of which the flowers formed the borders. This produced a style nearer the preceding, than the then century, in which, indeed, the useful seemed to interfere rather too much with the ornamental, not to weaken the appearance of the latter. There was even an approximation to the ferme ornee, which I knew many critics would censure. There was a piece of water, which had all the appearance of a pond (for it was too small for a lake), and was only divided from the garden by an open fence, letting in the view of whatever cattle might choose to drink, or cool themselves in it. This appeared to derogate from the trim garden seclusion which is so recommended by the learned in those matters; and I own I myself thought it a fault.

Horace, Ep. 1, 7.

VOL. II.

For little folks become their little fate:
And at my age, not Rome's imperial seat,
But soft Tarentum's more delicious ease,
Or Tiber's solitude, my taste can please

14

FRANCIS' Horace.

This, however, I did not venture to remark to him; indeed, as he was a man who had a reason for every thing, whether for or against general customs, I expected, as it turned out, that he would himself explain the apparent solecism.

Observing what I thought of it, he began his defence with animation, as if I had already touched upon a hobby of his which he would not have censured.

"Why, there it is," said he; "I see what is in your mind; and that you are one of the petits maitres of landscape gardening, who call yourselves men of taste, and think you monopolize it. You have nature and simplicity always in your mouths, yet are always departing from them. What sight in nature can be more gratifying than to see that meek, patient, and bountiful animal (pointing to a cow) revelling in the feast which nature has provided for her in the flowery mead she crops, or the clear water she drinks? Exclusive of the pleasure which to see this alone creates in a benevolent mind, for the animal's sake, what ideas of luscious. plenty does it not call up for our own! How pleasant, not to say beautiful (from the associations of the foaming pails of the dairy, which it creates), is the sight of these useful creatures, cooling themselves in the water, or drinking it without fear of harm, and all to contribute to our comfort and our plenty. These are what I call the simple, because the natural, and therefore the primitive pleasures of man. They were those which man enjoyed before he was made an artificial character, or built palaces and hanging gardens; for Eden was before Babylon."

I was struck with his energy about this, and perhaps to hear what he had more to say (for I began to agree with him), I said, all that was abstractedly true of a farm, but there were persons who might think the sight not so compatible with garden elegance.

Why, taking you at your word," said he, "what can even be more elegant? for you see my cows are handsome in shape, and have polished skins, denoting by their sleekness, health, and therefore happiness to themselves, of which the possessor of them must necessarily partake. Hence, one of the necessary parts of taste itself (which is to produce pleasurable sensations) is completely exemplified; and the more so, because it is moral and mental pleasure, as all notions of

In this, therefore, this sim

happy feelings or prospects are. ple sight exceeds that of the most costly specimens of art, diamonds, or what is beyond them, sculpture or painting. But it is even sensual-if that is what you fine people require; for what can equal the perfume of the atmosphere occasioned by the mere breathing of these delightful animals ?"

At this he snuffed up the air, as if to prove his assertion beyond contradiction, and I confess he compelled me to follow his example, not merely from imitation, for it equalled the purest essence of flowers. For the sake of argument, however, I pointed at the unsightly track made by his favorites in passing to and from the pond.

66

Aye," said he, "I allow that is a defect, and a drawback if you will; and if you saw it from the parterre, or the windows of the house, or in any of the immediate walks around, it might be an eyesore to you professors of taste. But you see, that in those parts it is completely planted out from the eye, and you must come expressly to this spot to behold the unsightliness. Could the sightly parts of a farm be viewed alone, I would have them in the midst of the garden; they and the flowers would mutually set off one another. Even as it is, the flowers of the field, and the pleasure given by the sight of the animals, counterbalance the disadvantages."

Here I thought him wrong, his strong partiality to natural tastes not sufficiently distinguishing their differences; so I observed that it seemed to me he was blending the garden and farm-yard too much together.

"I agree with you," said he, "that the exhibition belongs rather to farming than gardening; but what law prevents a union of both, if you can keep the disagreeables out of sight, and only preserve the agreeables?-and then, what more pleasing than these condemned objects? As to their proximity to the house, I prefer the pleasure arising from the sense of convenience and household advantages which it gives, (for that in itself is a strong natural pleasure), to the total want of this interest, occasioned by the fastidiousness of banishing them so far off, that out of sight, they are out of mind. It is astonishing what havoc this fastidiousness makes in our stock of happiness, when, under a false notion of elegance, it persuades us to part with the notion, that as men, we are to

feel wants, and that to supply them is our natural employment. No; I would rather have the smell of tedded grass, or kine,' and that little Alderney close even to my drawing-room windows, were Queen Charlotte herself and her daughters there, than all the finery of lawns and orange trees, without a single reminiscence of our real condition. How much," added he; "do kings and queens, and overgrown nobles, and minions of wealth, lose, in being deprived of this sentiment, by having all things done for them! Who would not be miserable with Fortunatus' wishing cap!"

I felt the force of this reasoning, and also of the consequence he drew from it, that all good taste requiring natural feeling for its foundation, and the homely feelings being most natural of all, they were eminent ingredients in forming good

taste.

"By the homely feelings," said he, "I mean all that relates to the comfort and convenience of a home; and so far I carry it, that the most common domestic sights and sounds, denoting the habitation and occupations of man, give me (as a matter of taste, mind you) more uniform and unfailing pleasure than many of the finest works of art."

I asked what sights and sounds he meant.

"Even a flock of pigeons on the house-top, if you will," he auswered; "the smoke of chimneys, the bark of the watch-dog, or the crow of a cock. I have even felt my taste gratified on returning from a twilight walk, in hearing the sound of cattle in a field, though perhaps I could not see them, biting the fresh grass or chewing the cud. I am not sure that I am not more pleased with this (though certainly not so struck with wonder) than with the columns of Staffa, the magnificence of Schaffhausen, or the falls of Lodore."

The animation with which he uttered this let me more into the essence of his character (that is, his enthusiasm) than any thing that had yet occurred; and though I did not quite agree with him, I both wished and expected more. Nor did he disappoint me, for the stream of his mind was perpetual, especially on the subject we were upon, for he said, whoever had pleasure in a garden, need never stir out of it.

"I would not indeed," said he, exchange the elegance, beauty, and perfume, and above all, the soothing of this spot, for all the gratifications which ambition can give. For when