The treatment of nature in English poetry between Pope and WordsworthReynolds, Myra
History
The treatment of nature in English poetry between Pope and Wordsworth
Reynolds, Myra
English poetry -- History and criticism; Nature in literature
[553] In Mr. Dallaway’s “Supplementary Anecdotes” to Walpole’s “On
Modern Gardening” (In Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 819,) is
the statement that Mr. Southcote at Wooburn Farm in Surrey, and the
Hon. C. Hamilton at Pain’s Hill, Surrey, undoubtedly preceded Shenstone
in priority of design.
[554] Sir Walter Scott said of this sketch, “I can trace, even
to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley’s description of
Shenstone’s Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure
of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend’s sketch of his
grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phyllis
to boot.” For another full prose description of Leasowes and the
neighboring place, Hagley, see Hugh Miller’s “Impressions of England
and English People,” pp. 95–132, 147–69. See also “On the Tenants of
the Leasowes,” Essay XXI in “Essays” (1758–65) by Goldsmith, for a
description of Leasowes gone to decay. There is an interesting supposed
conversation between Shenstone and a utilitarian cockney visitor
in “Blackwood’s,” XIV, 262 (1823). Another early description is in
“Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes,” by Joseph
Heeley, 1777. There are poetical descriptions in Woodhouse’s “Poems”
and in Giles’ “Miscellanies.” In Shenstone’s “Works,” published by
Dodsley in 1773 are collected nine poetical tributes to the place.
In “The Spiritual Quixote” (1773) one of the noted exploits of Mr.
Geoffry Wildgoose, the quixotic reformer, is an attempted defacement
of the gardens at Leasowes in order thereby to save the soul of his
friend Shenstone from being wedded to idols. The influence and fame of
this garden are indicated by the fact that the Marquis de Giradin at
Ermonville called his own place “The Leasowes of France.” Anderson, in
his Preface to Shenstone’s “Works” says that the planning of pleasure
grounds in the manner of Leasowes “seems to require as great powers of
mind as those which we admire in the descriptive poems of Thomson, or
in the noble landscapes of Salvator Rosa, or the Poussins.” For later
descriptions see “Shenstone and the Leasowes” in “Once a Week,” 1862,
by Edward Jesse.
[555] Downing, in “Landscape Gardening,” p. 20, says that the term
“landscape gardening” was first used in this essay. The essay begins,
“Gardening may be divided into three species ... kitchen-gardening ...
parterre-gardening ... and landskip, or picturesque gardening.”
[556] For a full statement of Mason’s views on this point see the notes
to the first book of “The English Garden.” Switzer had already made a
similar claim in regard to Milton. It is interesting to note in this
connection that Kent often referred his love of Nature in gardens to
his study of Spenser’s “Fairy Queen.”
[557] Mason, “The English Garden,” “General Postscript.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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