In the gardens of Stowe is the following inscription to ALEXANDER POPE, Who, uniting the correctness of judgment To the fire of genius, By the melody and power of his numbers, Gave sweetness to sense, and grace to philosophy. He employed the pointed brilliancy of his wit To chastise the vices, And the eloquence of poetry To exalt the virtues of human nature; And, being without a rival in his own age, Imitated and translated with a spirit equal to the originals, The best Poets of antiquity. WILLIAM KENT, whose portrait appears in Mr. Dallaway's rich edition of the Anecdotes of Painting. Kent, with Bridgman, Pope, and Addison, have been termed the fathers of landscape gardening.[82] Mr. Walpole, after reviewing the old formal style of our gardens, in language which it is painful to me thus only to advert to, instead of copying at length, (for I am fully "aware of the mischiefs which generally ensue in _meddling_ with the productions of genius"); and after stating that when _nature_ was taken into the plan, every step pointed out new beauties, and inspired new ideas: "at that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opiniative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden. Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of landscape on the scenes he handled. But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful country, none surpassed his management of water. Thus, dealing in none but the colours of nature, and catching its most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening before their eyes." And again he calls him "the inventor of an art that realizes painting, and improves nature: Mahomet imagined an elysium, but Kent created many." The greatest of all authorities tells us, that in Esher's peaceful grove, both Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love. Mr. Mason, in his English Garden, thus panegyrises his elysian scenes:-- ---- Kent, who felt The pencil's power; but fix'd by higher hopes Of beauty than that pencil knew to paint, Work'd with the living lives that _nature_ lent, And realized his landscapes. Mr. Pope, as well as Kent, would, and Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Mason, must each of them have read with high approbation the following remark of the late Sir Uvedale Price:--"the noble and varied works of the eminent painters of every age and every country, and those of their supreme mistress, Nature, should be the great models of imitation."