The details of this listless, luxurious description are such as are combined and recombined in many a picture of supposedly English scenes. The poet found his pleasure in the vague, highly generalized representation of such scenery as might exist in some imagined Elysium or Garden of Eden. The final effect on the mind of the reader is never one of reality. All is traditional and bookish. Perhaps there is no more effective way of showing the general characteristics of these poetical descriptions than by an accumulation of examples. Since there is no danger of spoiling the poetry, it may be permissible for purposes of emphasis, to print in italics such phrases as belong to the common poetical stock. The first passage is Rosamond’s description of Woodstock Park: _Flowery mountains, Mossy fountains, Shady woods, Crystal floods._[87] Here the union of phrases, all conventional in their character, is entirely fortuitous and undiscriminating. It is impossible not to feel that Addison picked up his items at random, according to the scheme of his verse. Take next this invocation by Broome: Hail ye soft seats! ye _limpid springs_ and _floods_! Ye _flowery meads_, ye _vales_ and _woods_. Ye _limpid floods_ that ever murmuring flow! Ye _verdant meads_, where flowers eternal blow! Ye _shady vales_, where _zephyrs_ ever play! Ye woods where little _warblers_ tune their lay.[88] Or Shenstone’s description of the place of his birth: Romantic scenes of _pendent hills_ And _verdant vales_, and _falling rills_ And _mossy banks_, the fields _adorn_, Where Damon, _simple swain_, was born.[89] Or Lyttleton’s lines: Here _limpid fountains_ roll through _flowery meads_, Here _rising forests_ lift their _verdant heads_.[90] Or Congreve’s description of the scenery along the Thames: And soft and still the _silver surface glides_, The _zephyrs fan the field_, the _whispering breeze_ With fragrant _breath remurmurs through the trees_.[91] Or Parnell’s High sunny summits, _deeply shaded dales_, Thick _mossy banks_, and _flowery winding vales_.[92] Or Prior’s The _verdant rising_ of the _flowery hill_, The _vale enamelled_ and the _crystal rill_.[93] Or Pope’s Her fate is _whispered_ by the _gentle breeze_, And told in _sighs_ to all the _trembling trees_; The _trembling trees_ in every plain and wood, Her fate _remurmur_ to the _silver flood_.[94] Or Marriott’s The mimic voice repeats the _gales_, That _sigh along_ the _flowery vales_; The _flowery vales_, the _falling floods_, The _rising rocks_, and _waving woods_, To the _sighing gales_ reply Redoubling all the harmony.[95]