Oh, knew he but his happiness, of men
    The happiest he!  Who far from public rage
    Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired
    Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life, &c.

Then again:—­

Let others brave the flood in quest of gain And beat for joyless months, the gloomy wave. Let such as deem it glory to destroy, Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek; Unpierced, exulting in the widow’s wail, The virgin’s shriek and infant’s trembling cry.

* * * * *

    While he, from all the stormy passions free
    That restless men involve, hears and but hears,
    At distance safe, the human tempest roar,
    Wrapt close in conscious peace.  The fall of kings,
    The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
    Move not the man, who from the world escaped,
    In still retreats and flowery solitudes,
    To nature’s voice attends, from month to month,
    And day to day, through the revolving year;
    Admiring sees her in her every shape;
    Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;
    Takes what she liberal gives, nor asks for more. 
    He, when young Spring, protudes the bursting gems
    Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
    Into his freshened soul; her genial hour
    He full enjoys, and not a beauty blows
    And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.

Thomson in his description of Lord Townshend’s seat of Rainham—­another English estate once much celebrated and still much admired—­exclaims: 

    Such are thy beauties, Rainham, such the haunts
    Of angels, in primeval guiltless days
    When man, imparadised, conversed with God.

And Broome after quoting the whole description in his dedication of his own poems to Lord Townshend, observes, in the old fashioned fulsome strain, “This, my lord, is but a faint picture of the place of your retirement which no one ever enjoyed more elegantly."[019] “A faint picture!” What more would the dedicator have wished Thomson to say?  Broome, if not contented with his patron’s seat being described as an earthly Paradise, must have desired it to be compared with Heaven itself, and thus have left his Lordship no hope of the enjoyment of a better place than he already possessed.

Samuel Boyse, who when without a shirt to his back sat up in his bed to write verses, with his arms through two holes in his blanket, and when he went into the streets wore paper collars to conceal the sad deficiency of linen, has a poem of considerable length entitled The Triumphs of Nature.  It is wholly devoted to a description of this magnificent garden,[020] in which, amongst other architectural ornaments, was a temple dedicated to British worthies, where the busts of Pope and Congreve held conspicuous places.  I may as well give a specimen of the lines of poor Boyse.  Here is his description of that part of Lord Cobham’s grounds in which is erected to the Goddess of Love, a Temple containing a statue of the Venus de Medicis.