University of Virginia Library

To thee, divine Simplicity! to thee,
Best arbitress of what is good and fair,
This verse belongs. O, as it freely flows,
Give it thy powers of pleasing: else in vain
It strives to teach the rules, from Nature drawn,
Of import high to those whose taste would add
To Nature's careless graces; loveliest then,
When, o'er her form, thy easy skill has taught
The robe of Spring in ampler folds to flow.
Haste, Goddess! to the woods, the lawns, the vales;
That lie in rude luxuriance, and but wait
Thy call to bloom with beauty. I meanwhile,
Attendant on thy state serene, will mark
Its faery progress; wake th' accordant string;
And tell how far, beyond the transient glare
Of fickle fashion, or of formal art,
Thy flowery works with charm perennial please.

Ye too, ye sister Powers! that, at my birth,
Auspicious smil'd; and o'er my cradle dropp'd
Those magic seeds of fancy, which produce
A Poet's feeling, and a Painter's eye,
Come to your votary's aid. For well ye know
How soon my infant accents lisp'd the rhyme,
How soon my hands the mimic colours spread,
And vainly strove to snatch a double wreath
From Fame's unfading laurel: fruitless aim;
Yet not inglorious; nor perchance devoid
Of friendly use to this fair argument;
If so, with lenient smiles, ye deign to cheer,
At this sad hour, my desolated soul.
For deem not ye that I resume the strain
To court the world's applause: my years mature
Have learn'd to slight the toy. No, 'tis to sooth
That agony of heart, which they alone,
Who best have lov'd, who best have been belov'd,
Can feel, or pity; sympathy severe!
Which she too felt, when on her pallid lip
The last farewell hung trembling, and bespoke
A wish to linger here, and bless the arms
She left for heav'n. She died, and heav'n is hers!
Be mine, the pensive solitary balm
That recollection yields. Yes, Angel pure!
While Memory holds a seat, thy image still
Shall reign, shall triumph there; and when, as now,
Imagination forms a nymph divine
To lead the fluent strain, thy modest blush,
Thy mild demeanour, thy unpractis'd smile
Shall grace that Nymph, and sweet Simplicity
Be dress'd (ah meek Maria!) in thy charms.

Begin the Song! and ye of Albion's sons
Attend; ye freeborn, ye ingenuous few,
Who heirs of competence, if not of wealth,
Preserve that vestal purity of soul
Whence genuine taste proceeds. To you, blest youths,
I sing; whether in academic groves
Studious ye rove; or, fraught with learning's stores,
Visit the Latian plain, fond to transplant
Those arts which Greece did, with her liberty,
Resign to Rome. Yet know, the art I sing
Ev'n there ye shall not learn. Rome knew it not
While Rome was free: Ah! hope not then to find
In slavish superstitious Rome the fair
Remains. Meanwhile, of old and classic aid
Though fruitless be the search, your eyes entranc'd
Shall catch those glowing scenes, that taught a Claude
To grace his canvass with Hesperian hues:
And scenes like these, on Memory's tablet drawn,
Bring back to Britain; there give local form
To each idea; and, if Nature lend
Materials fit of torrent, rock, and shade,
Produce new Tivolis. But learn to rein,
O youth! whose skill essays the arduous task,
That skill within the limit she allows.
Great Nature scorns control: she will not bear
One beauty foreign to the spot or soil
She gives thee to adorn: 'tis thine alone
To mend, not change her features. Does her hand
Stretch forth a level lawn? Ah, hope not thou
To lift the mountain there. Do mountains frown
Around? Ah, wish not there the level lawn.
Yet she permits thy art, discreetly us'd,
To smooth the rugged and to swell the plain.
But dare with caution; else expect, bold man!
The injur'd Genius of the place to rise
In self-defence, and, like some giant fiend
That frowns in Gothic story, swift destroy,
By night, the puny labours of thy day.

What then must he attempt, whom niggard Fate
Has fixt in such an inauspicious spot
As bears no trace of beauty? Must he sit
Dull and inactive in the desert waste,
If Nature there no happy feature wears
To wake and meet his skill? Believe the Muse,
She does not know that inauspicious spot
Where Beauty is thus niggard of her store:
Believe the Muse, through this terrestrial vast
The seeds of grace are sown, profusely sown,
Ev'n where we least may hope: the desert hills
Will hear the call of Art; the vallies dank
Obey her just behests, and smile with charms
Congenial to the soil, and all its own.

For tell me, where's the desert? There alone
Where man resides not; or, if chance resides,
He is not there the man his Maker form'd,
Industrious man, by heav'ns first law ordain'd
To earn his food by labour. In the waste
Place thou that man with his primæval arms,
His plough-share, and his spade; nor shalt thou long
Impatient wait a change; the waste shall smile
With yellow harvests; what was barren heath
Shall soon be verdant mead. Now let thy art
Exert its powers, and give, by varying lines,
The soil, already tam'd, its finish'd grace.

Nor less obsequious to the hand of toil,
If Fancy guide that hand, will the dank vale
Receive improvement meet; but Fancy here
Must lead, not follow Labour; she must tell
In what peculiar place the soil shall rise,
Where sink; prescribe what form each sluice shall wear,
And how direct its course; whether to spread
Broad as a lake, or, as a river pent
By fringed banks, weave its irriguous way
Through lawn and shade alternate: for if she
Preside not o'er the task, the narrow drains
Will run in tedious parallel, or cut
Each other in sharp angles; hence implore
Her swift assistance, ere the ruthless spade
Too deeply wound the bosom of the soil.

Yet, in this lowly site, where all that charms
Within itself must charm, hard is the task
Impos'd on Fancy. Hence with idle fear!
Is she not Fancy? and can Fancy fail
In sweet delusions, in concealments apt,
And wild creative power? She cannot fail.
And yet, full oft, when her creative power,
Her apt concealments, her delusions sweet
Have been profusely lavish'd; when her groves
Have shot, with vegetative vigour strong,
Ev'n to their wish'd maturity; when Jove
Has roll'd the changeful seasons o'er her lawns,
And each has left a blessing as it roll'd:
Ev'n then, perchance, some vain fastidious eye
Shall rove unmindful of surrounding charms
And ask for prospect. Stranger! 'tis not here.
Go seek it on some garish turret's height;
Seek it on Richmond's, or on Windsor's brow;
There gazing, on the gorgeous vale below,
Applaud alike, with fashion'd pomp of phrase,
The good and bad, which, in profusion, there
That gorgeous vale exhibits. Here meanwhile
Ev'n in the dull, unseen, unseeing dell
Thy taste contemns, shall Contemplation imp
Her eagle plumes; the Poet here shall hold
Sweet converse with his Muse; the curious Sage,
Who comments on great Nature's ample tome,
Shall find that volume here. For here are caves,
Where rise those gurgling rills, that sing the song
Which Contemplation loves; here shadowy glades,
Where through the tremulous foliage darts the ray,
That gilds the Poet's day-dream; here the turf
Teems with the vegetating race; the air
Is peopled with the insect tribes, that float
Upon the noontide beam, and call the Sage
To number and to name them. Nor if here
The Painter comes, shall his enchanting art
Go back without a boon: for Fancy here,
With Nature's living colours, forms a scene
Which Ruisdale best might rival: crystal lakes,
O'er which the giant oak, himself a grove,
Flings his romantic branches, and beholds
His reverend image in th' expanse below.
If distant hills be wanting, yet our eye
Forgets the want, and with delighted gaze
Rests on the lovely fore-ground; there applauds
The art, which, varying forms and blending hues,
Gives that harmonious force of shade and light,
Which makes the landscape perfect. Art like this
Is only art, all else abortive toil.

Come then, thou sister Muse, from whom the mind
Wins for her airy visions colour, form,
And fixt locality, sweet Painting, come
To teach the docile pupil of my song,
How much his practice on thy aid depends.

Of Nature's various scenes the Painter culls
That for his fav'rite theme, where the fair whole
Is broken into ample parts, and bold;
Where to the eye three well-mark'd distances
Spread their peculiar colouring. Vivid green,
Warm brown, and black opake the fore-ground bears
Conspicuous; sober olive coldly marks
The second distance; thence the third declines
In softer blue, or, less'ning still, is lost
In faintest purple. When thy taste is call'd
To deck a scene where Nature's self presents
All these distinct gradations, then rejoice
As does the Painter, and like him apply
Thy colours; plant thou on each separate part
Its proper foliage. Chief, for there thy skill
Has its chief scope, enrich with all the hues
That flowers, that shrubs, that trees can yield, the sides
Of that fair path, from whence our sight is led
Gradual to view the whole. Where'er thou wind'st
That path, take heed between the scene and eye,
To vary and to mix thy chosen greens.
Here for a while with cedar or with larch,
That from the ground spread their close texture, hide
The view entire. Then o'er some lowly tuft,
Where rose and woodbine bloom, permits its charms
To burst upon the sight; now through a copse
Of beech, that rear their smooth and stately trunks,
Admit it partially, and half exclude,
And half reveal its graces: in this path
How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each step
Shall wake fresh beauties; each short point present
A different picture, new, and yet the same.

Yet some there are who scorn this cautious rule,
And fell each tree that intercepts the scene.
O great Poussin! O Nature's darling, Claude!
What if some rash and sacrilegious hand
Tore from your canvass those umbrageous pines
That frown in front, and give each azure hill
The charm of contrast! Nature suffers here
Like outrage, and bewails a beauty lost,
Which Time, with tardy hand, shall late restore.

Yet here the spoiler rests not; see him rise
Warm from his devastation, to improve,
For so he calls it, yonder champian wide.
There on each bolder brow in shapes acute
His fence he scatters; there the Scottish fir
In murky file lifts his inglorious head,
And blots the fair horizon. So should art
Improve thy pencil's savage dignity,
Salvator! if where, far as eye can pierce,
Rock pil'd on rock, thy Alpine heights retire,
She flung her random foliage, and disturb'd
The deep repose of the majestic scene.
This deed were impious. Ah, forgive the thought,
Thou more than Painter, more than Poet! He,
Alone thy equal, who was “Fancy's child.”

Does then the Song forbid the Planter's hand
To clothe the distant hills, and veil with woods
Their barren summits? No; it but forbids
All poverty of clothing. Rich the robe,
And ample let it flow, that Nature wears
On her thron'd eminence: where'er she takes
Her horizontal march, pursue her step
With sweeping train of forest; hill to hill
Unite with prodigality of shade.
There plant thy elm, thy chesnut; nourish there
Those sapling oaks, which, at Britannia's call,
May heave their trunks mature into the main,
And float the bulwarks of her liberty:
But if the fir, give it its station meet;
Place it an outgard to the assailing north
To shield the infant scions, till possest
Of native strength, they learn alike to scorn
The blast and their protectors. Foster'd thus,
The cradled hero gains from female care
His future vigour; but, that vigour felt,
He springs indignant from his nurse's arms,
Nods his terrific helmet, shakes his spear,
And is that awful thing which heav'n ordain'd
The scourge of tyrants, and his country's pride.

If yet thy art be dubious how to treat
Nature's neglected features, turn thy eye
To those, the masters of correct design,
Who, from her vast variety, have cull'd
The loveliest, boldest parts, and new arrang'd;
Yet, as herself approv'd, herself inspir'd.
In their immortal works thou ne'er shalt find
Dull uniformity, contrivance quaint,
Or labour'd littleness; but contrasts broad,
And careless lines, whose undulating forms
Play through the varied canvass: these transplant
Again on Nature; take thy plastic spade,
It is thy pencil; take thy seeds, thy plants,
They are thy colours; and by these repay
With interest every charm she lent thy art.

Nor, while I thus to Imitation's realm
Direct thy step, deem I direct thee wrong;
Nor ask, why I forget great Nature's fount,
And bring thee not the bright inspiring cup
From her original spring? Yet, if thou ask'st,
Thyself shalt give the answer. Tell me why
Did Raphael steal, when his creative hand
Imag'd the Seraphim, ideal grace
And dignity supernal from that store
Of Attic sculpture, which the ruthless Goth
Spar'd in his headlong fury? Tell me this:
And then confess that beauty best is taught
By those, the favour'd few, whom heav'n has lent
The power to seize, select, and reunite
Her loveliest features; and of these to form
One archetype complete of sovereign grace.
Here Nature sees her fairest forms more fair;
Owns them for hers, yet owns herself excell'd
By what herself produc'd. Here Art and She
Embrace; connubial Juno smiles benign,
And from the warm embrace Perfection springs.

Rouse then each latent energy of soul
To clasp ideal beauty. Proteus-like,
Think not the changeful Nymph will long elude
Thy chase, or with reluctant coyness frown.
Inspir'd by her thy happy art shall learn
To melt in fluent curves whate'er is straight,
Acute, or parallel. For, these unchang'd,
Nature and she disdain the formal scene.
'Tis their demand, that ev'ry step of rule
Be sever'd from their sight: they own no charm
But those that fair Variety creates,
Who ever loves to undulate and sport
In many a winding train. With equal zeal
She, careless Goddess, scorns the cube and cone,
As does mechanic Order hold them dear:
Hence springs their enmity; and he that hopes
To reconcile the foes, as well might aim
With hawk and dove to draw the Cyprian car.

Such sentence past, where shall the Dryads fly
That haunt yon antient vista? Pity, sure,
Will spare the long cathedral isle of shade
In which they sojourn; Taste were sacrilege,
If, lifting there the axe, it dar'd invade
Those spreading oaks that in fraternal files
Have pair'd for centuries, and heard the strains
Of Sidney's, nay, perchance, of Surry's reed.
Yet must they fall, unless mechanic skill,
To save her offspring, rouse at our command
And, where we bid her move, with engine huge,
Each ponderous trunk, the ponderous trunk there move.
A work of difficulty and danger try'd,
Nor oft successful found. But if it fails,
Thy axe must do its office. Cruel task,
Yet needful. Trust me, though I bid thee strike,
Reluctantly I bid thee: for my soul
Holds dear an antient oak, nothing more dear;
It is an antient friend. Stay then thine hand;
And try by saplings tall, discreetly plac'd
Before, between, behind, in scatter'd groups,
To break th' obdurate line. So may'st thou save
A chosen few; and yet, alas, but few
Of these, the old protectors of the plain.
Yet shall these few give to thy opening lawn
That shadowy pomp, which only they can give:
For parted now, in patriarchal pride,
Each tree becomes the father of a tribe;
And, o'er the stripling foliage, rising round,
Towers with parental dignity supreme.

And yet, my Albion! in that fair domain,
Which Ocean made thy dowry, when his love
Tempestuous tore thee from reluctant Gaul,
And bade thee be his Queeu, there still remains
Full many a lovely unfrequented wild,
Where change like this is needless; where no lines
Of hedge-row, avenue, or of platform square
Demand destruction. In thy fair domain,
Yes, my lov'd Albion! many a glade is found,
The haunt of wood-gods only; where if Art
E'er dar'd to tread, 'twas with unsandal'd foot,
Printless, as if the place were holy ground,
And there are scenes, where, tho' she whilom trod,
Let by the worst of guides, fell Tyranny,
And ruthless Superstition, we now trace
Her footsteps with delight; and pleas'd revere
What once had rous'd our hatred. But to Time,
Not her, the praise is due: his gradual touch
Has moulder'd into beauty many a tower,
Which, when it frown'd with all its battlements,
Was only terrible; and many a fane
Monastic, which, when deck'd with all its spires,
Serv'd but to feed some pamper'd Abbot's pride,
And awe th' unletter'd vulgar. Generous youth,
Whoe'er thou art, that listen'st to my lay,
And feel'st thy soul assent to what I sing,
Happy art thou if thou can'st call thine own
Such scenes as these: where Nature and where Time
Have work'd congenial; where a scatter'd host
Of antique oaks darken thy sidelong hills;
While, rushing through their branches, rifted cliffs
Dart their white heads, and glitter through the gloom.
More happy still, if one superior rock
Bear on its brow the shiver'd fragment huge
Of some old Norman fortress; happier far,
Ah, then most happy, if thy vale below
Wash, with the crystal coolness of its rills,
Some mould'ring abbey's ivy-vested wall.

O how unlike the scene my fancy forms,
Did Folly, heretofore, with Wealth conspire
To plan that formal, dull, disjointed scene,
Which once was call'd a Garden. Britain still
Bears on her breast full many a hideous wound
Given by the cruel pair, when, borrowing aid
From geometric skill, they vainly strove
By line, by plummet, and unfeeling sheers,
To form with verdure what the builder form'd
With stone. Egregious madness; yet pursu'd
With pains unwearied, with expence unsumm'd,
And science doating. Hence the sidelong walls
Of shaven yew; the holly's prickly arms
Trimm'd into high arcades; the tonsile box
Wove, in mosaic mode of many a curl,
Around the figur'd carpet of the lawn.
Hence too deformities of harder cure:
The terras mound uplifted; the long line
Deep delv'd of flat canal; and all that toil,
Misled by tasteless Fashion, could atchieve
To mar fair Nature's lineaments divine.

Long was the night of error, nor dispell'd
By him that rose at learning's earliest dawn,
Prophet of unborn Science. On thy realm,
Philosophy! his sovereign lustre spread;
Yet did he deign to light with casual glance
The wilds of taste. Yes, sagest Verulam,
'Twas thine to banish from the royal groves
Each childish vanity of crisped knot
And sculptur'd foliage; to the lawn restore
Its ample space, and bid it feast the sight
With verdure pure, unbroken, unabridg'd:
For verdure sooths the eye, as roseate sweets
The smell, or music's melting strains the ear.

So taught the Sage, taught a degenerate reign
What in Eliza's golden day was taste.
Not but the mode of that romantic age,
The age of tourneys, triumphs, and quaint masques,
Glar'd with fantastic pageantry, which dimm'd
The sober eye of truth, and dazzled ev'n
The Sage himself; witness his high-arch'd hedge,
In pillar'd state by carpentry upborn,
With colour'd mirrors deck'd, and prison'd birds.
But when our step has pac'd his proud parterres,
And reach'd the heath, then Nature glads our eye
Sporting in all her lovely carelessness.
There smiles in varied tufts the velvet rose,
There flaunts the gadding woodbine, swells the ground
In gentle hillocks, and around its sides
Thro' blossom'd shades the secret pathway steals.

Thus, with a Poet's power, the Sage's pen
Pourtray'd that nicer negligence of scene,
Which Taste approves. While he, delicious swain,
Who tun'd his oaten pipe by Mulla's stream,
Accordant touch'd the stops in Dorian mood:
What time he 'gan to paint the fairy vale,
Where stands the fane of Venus. Well I ween
That then, if ever, Colin, thy fond hand
Did steep its pencil in the well-fount clear
Of true simplicity; and “call'd in Art
“Only to second Nature, and supply
“All that the Nymph forgot, or left forlorn.”
Yet what avail'd the song? or what avail'd
Ev'n thine, thou chief of Bards, whose mighty mind,
With inward light irradiate, mirror-like
Receiv'd, and to mankind with ray reflex
The sov'reign Planter's primal work display'd?
That work, where not nice Art in curious knots,
“But Nature boon pour'd forth on hill and dale
“Flowers worthy of Paradise; while all around
“Umbrageous grotts, and caves of cool recess,
“And murmuring waters down the slope dispers'd,
“Or held, by fringed banks, in crystal lakes,
“Compose a rural seat of various view.”
'Twas thus great Nature's herald blazon'd high
That fair original impress, which she bore
In state sublime; e'er miscreated Art,
Offspring of Sin and Shame, the banner seiz'd,
And with adulterate pageantry defil'd.
Yet vainly, Milton, did thy voice proclaim
These her primæval honours. Still she lay
Defac'd, deflower'd, full many a ruthless year:
Alike, when Charles, the abject tool of France,
Came back to smile his subjects into slaves;
Or Belgic William, with his warrior frown,
Coldly declar'd them free; in fetters still
The Goddess pin'd, by both alike opprest.

Go to the proof! Behold what Temple call'd
A perfect Garden. There thou shalt not find
One blade of verdure, but with aching feet
From terras down to terras shalt descend,
Step following step, by tedious flight of stairs:
On leaden platforms now the noon-day sun
Shall scorch thee; now the dank arcades of stone
Shall chill thy fervour; happy, if at length
Thou reach the Orchard, where the sparing turf
Through equal lines, all centring in a point,
Yields thee a softer tread. And yet full oft
O'er Temple's studious hour did Truth preside,
Sprinkling her lustre o'er his classic page:
There hear his candour own in fashion's spite,
In spite of courtly dulness, hear it own
“There is a grace in wild variety
“Surpassing rule and order.” Temple, yes,
There is a grace; and let eternal wreaths
Adorn their brows who fixt its empire here.
The Muse shall hail the champions that herself
Led to the fair atchievement. Addison,
Thou polish'd Sage, or shall I call thee Bard,
I see thee come: around thy temples play
The lambent flames of humour, bright'ning mild
Thy judgment into smiles; gracious thou com'st
With Satire at thy side, who checks her frown,
But not her secret sting. With bolder rage
Pope next advances: his indignant arm
Waves the poetic brand o'er Timon's shades,
And lights them to destruction; the fierce blaze
Sweeps through each kindred vista; groves to groves
Nod their fraternal farewell, and expire.
And now, elate with fair-earn'd victory,
The Bard retires, and on the bank of Thames
Erects his flag of triumph; wild it waves
In verdant splendor, and beholds, and hails
The King of Rivers, as he rolls along.
Kent is his bold associate; Kent, who felt
The pencil's power: but, fir'd by higher forms
Of beauty, than that pencil knew to paint,
Work'd with the living hues that Nature lent,
And realiz'd his landscapes. Generous He,
Who gave to Painting, what the wayward Nymph
Refus'd her votary, those Elysian scenes,
Which would she emulate, her nicest hand
Must all its force of light and shade employ.
On thee too, Southcote, shall the Muse bestow
No vulgar praise: for thou to humblest things
Could'st give ennobling beauties; deck'd by thee,
The simple farm eclips'd the garden's pride,
Ev'n as the virgin blush of innocence,
The harlotry of art. Nor, Shenstone, thou
Shalt pass without thy meed, thou son of peace!
Who knew'st, perchance, to harmonize thy shades
Still softer than thy song; yet was that song
Nor rude, nor inharmonious, when attun'd
To pastoral plaint, or tale of slighted love.
Him too, the living leader of thy powers,
Great Nature! him the Muse shall hail in notes
Which antedate the praise true genius claims
From just posterity: Bards yet unborn
Shall pay to Brown that tribute, fitliest paid
In strains, the beauty of his scenes inspire.

Meanwhile, ye youths! whose sympathetic souls
Would taste those genuine charms, which faintly smile
In my descriptive song, O visit oft
The finish'd scenes, that boast the forming hand
Of these creative Genii! feel ye there
What Reynolds felt, when first the Vatican
Unbarr'd her gates, and to his raptur'd eye
Gave all the god-like energy that flow'd
From Michael's pencil; feel what Garrick felt,
When first he breath'd the soul of Shakspeare's page.
So shall your Art, if call'd to grace a scene
Yet unadorn'd, with taste instinctive give
Each grace appropriate; so your active eye
Shall dart that glance prophetic, which awakes
The slumbering wood-nymphs; gladly shall they rise,
Oread and Dryad, from their verdurous beds,
And fling their foliage, and arrange their stems,
As you, and beauty bid: the Naiad train,
Alike obsequious, from a thousand urns
Shall pour their crystalline tide; while hand in hand,
Vertumnus and Pomona bring their stores,
Fruitage, and flowers of ev'ry blush and scent,
Each varied season yields; to you they bring
The fragrant tribute; ye, with generous hand
Diffuse the blessing wide, till Albion smile
One ample theatre of sylvan grace.