poetical Epistle to the Earl of Burlington.  Gray, the poet, observes in one of his letters, that “our skill in gardening, or rather laying out grounds, is the only taste we can call our own; the only proof of original talent in matters of pleasure.  This is no small honor to us;” he continues, “since neither France nor Italy, has ever had the least notion of it.”  “Whatever may have been reported, whether truly or falsely” (says a contributor to The World) “of the Chinese gardens, it is certain that we are the first of the Europeans who have founded this taste; and we have been so fortunate in the genius of those who have had the direction of some of the finest spots of ground, that we may now boast a success equal to that profusion of expense which has been destined to promote the rapid progress of this happy enthusiasm.  Our gardens are already the astonishment of foreigners, and, in proportion as they accustom themselves to consider and understand them will become their admiration.”  The periodical from which this is taken was published exactly a century ago, and the writer’s prophecy has been long verified.  Foreigners send to us for gardeners to help them to lay out their grounds in the English fashion.  And we are told by the writer of an interesting article on gardens, in the Quarterly Review, that “the lawns at Paris, to say nothing of Naples, are regularly irrigated to keep up even the semblance of English verdure; and at the gardens of Versailles, and Caserta, near Naples, the walks have been supplied from the Kensington gravel-pits.”  “It is not probably known,” adds the same writer, “that among our exportations every year is a large quantity of evergreens for the markets of France and Germany, and that there are some nurserymen almost wholly engaged in this branch of trade.”

Pomfret, a poet of small powers, if a poet at all, has yet contrived to produce a popular composition in verse—­The Choice—­because he has touched with great good fortune on some of the sweetest domestic hopes and enjoyments of his countrymen.

    If Heaven the grateful liberty would give
    That I might choose my method how to live;
    And all those hours propitious Fate should lend
    In blissful ease and satisfaction spend;
    Near some fair town I’d have a private seat
    Built uniform; not little; nor too great: 
    Better if on a rising ground it stood,
    On this side fields, on that a neighbouring wood.

The Choice.

Pomfret perhaps illustrates the general taste when he places his garden “near some fair town.”  Our present laureate, though a truly inspired poet, and a genuine lover of Nature even in her remotest retreats, has the garden of his preference, “not quite beyond the busy world.”