These vaunting lines, which represent the addition of another grotto and another field as unfolding the soul of Pope, and Sir William Stanhope as somebody capable of far greater things than the poet himself, still remain, the monument of the writer's and the erector's folly. The bust, of course, is gone. The grotto is lined with spars; pieces of basalt, perhaps the very joints of the Giant's Causeway sent to Pope by Sir Hans Sloane in 1742, but two years before Pope's death; some huge pieces of glazed and striped jars of pottery; and masses of stalactites and of stone worn by the action of the waters, evidently brought from some cavernous shore or bed of a torrent, perhaps from a great distance, and no doubt at a great expense. As this, however, was the work of Sir William Stanhope, and not of Pope, the whole possesses little interest. Every trace of the temple of which Pope speaks, as being in full view from his grotto, is annihilated; and if the small obelisk, having a funeral urn on each side, said to have been placed in a retired part of the grounds, remain, it escaped my observation. It had this inscription in memory of his mother: Ah! Editha, Matrum Optima, Mulierum Amantissima, Vale! Lord Mendip, who married Sir William Stanhope's daughter, is said to have been particularly anxious to retain every trace of Pope. Yet in his care to maintain, he must have very much altered. He stuccoed the house, and adorned it, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, in an elegant style. He inclosed the lawn, and propped with uncommon care the far-famed weeping willow, supposed to be the parent stock of the willows in Twickenham Park. Yes, Pope is said to have been the introducer of the weeping willow into England; that, seeing some twigs around the wrapping of an article of _vertu_ sent to Lady Sylvius from abroad, he planted these, saying they might belong to some kind of tree yet unknown in England. From one of these sprung Pope's willow, and from Pope's willow thousands. Slips of his tree were anxiously sought after; they were even transmitted to distant climes; and in 1789, the Empress of Russia had some planted in her garden at Petersburgh. Notwithstanding every care, old age overcame this willow, and in spite of all props, it perished, and fell to the ground in 1801. On the decease of Lord Mendip in 1802, the property was sold to Sir John Briscoe, Bart.; after whose death it was again sold to the Baroness Howe. This lady and her husband, Sir J. Waller Wathen, with a tasteless Vandalism, leveled the house of Pope to the ground; extirpated ruthlessly almost every trace of him in the gardens, and erected that house already mentioned at the extremity of Pope's property, now occupied as two tenements. This house of the unpoetical Lady Howe was also erected on the site of an elegant little villa, belonging to Hudson, the painter, the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds.