POPE’S TEMPLE, AT HAGLEY

[Illustration:  Pope’s Temple, at Hagley]

Reader! are you going out of town “in search of the picturesque”—­if so, bend your course to the classic, the consecrated ground of Hagley! think of Lyttleton, Pope, Shenstone, and Thomson, or refresh your memory from the “Spring” of the latter, as—­

  Courting the muse, thro’ Hagley Park thou strayst. 
  Thy British Tempe!  There along the dale,
  With woods o’erhung, and shagg’d with mossy rocks,
  Whence on each hand the gushing waters play,
  And down the rough cascade white dashing fall,
  Or gleam in lengthen’d vista through the trees,
  You silent steal; or sit beneath the shade
  Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts
  Thrown graceful round by Nature’s careless hand,
  And pensive listen to the various voice
  Of rural peace; the herds, the flocks, the birds,
  The hollow-whispering breeze, the ’plaint of rills,
  That, purling down amid the twisted roots
  Which creep around their dewy murmurs shake
  On the sooth’d ear.

Such is the fervid language in which the Poet of the year invoked

  “Lyttleton, the friend!”

Yet these lines will kindle the delight and reverence of every lover of Nature, in common with the effect of the Seasons on the reader, who “wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses."[1]

    [1] Johnson’s Life of Thomson.

But we quit these nether flights of song to describe the locality of Hagley Park, of whose beauties our Engraving is but a mere vignette, and in comparison like holding a candle to the sun.  The village of Hagley is a short distance from Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, whence the pleasantest route to the park is to turn to the right on the Birmingham road, which cuts the grounds into two unequal parts.  The house is a plain and even simple, yet classical edifice.  Whately, in his work on Gardening, describes it as surrounded by a lawn, of fine uneven ground, and diversified with large clumps, little groups, and single trees; it is open in front, but covered on one side by the Witchbury hills; on the other side, and behind by the eminences in the park, which are high and steep, and all overspread with a lofty hanging wood.  The lawn pressing to the front, or creeping up the slopes of three hills, and sometimes winding along glades into the depth of the wood, traces a beautiful outline to a sylvan scene, already rich to luxuriance in massive foliage, and stately growth.  The present house was built by the first Lord Lyttleton, not on, but near to, the site of the ancient family mansion, a structure of the sixteenth century.  Admission may be obtained on application to the housekeeper; and for paintings, carving, and gilding, Hagley is one of the richest show-houses in the kingdom.[2]