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: Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain, You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again. Even in an ornament its place remark, Nor in an hermitage set Dr Clarke.[49] Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete; His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet; 80 The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, And strength of shade contends with strength of light; A waving glow the blooming 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, 90 With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet, Or see the stretching branches long to meet! His son's fine taste an opener 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[50] let us pass a day, Where all cry out, 'What sums are thrown away!' 100 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; 110 Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind Improves the keenness of the northern wind. 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; 120 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; 130 And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs, Just at his study-door he'll bless your eyes.