“Mr. Bowles has no reason to ‘succumb’ but to Mr. Bowles.  As a poet, the author of ‘The Missionary’ may compete with the foremost of his contemporaries.  Let it be recollected, that all my previous opinions of Mr. Bowles s poetry were written long before the publication of his last and best poem; and that a poet’s last poem should be his best, is his highest praise.  But, however, he may duly and honorably rank with his living rivals,” &c. &c. &c.

Among various Addenda for this pamphlet, sent at different times to Mr. Murray, I find the following curious passages:—­

“It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about ’in-door nature’ and ‘artificial images,’ Pope was the principal inventor of that boast of the English, Modern Gardening.  He divides this honour with Milton.  Hear Warton:—­’It hence appears that this enchanting art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes its origin and its improvements to two great poets, Milton and Pope.’

“Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope formed Kent’s taste, and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted for diffusing ‘a taste in laying out grounds.’  The design of the Prince of Wales’s garden was copied from Pope’s at Twickenham.  Warton applauds ’his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres.’  Pope was the first who ridiculed the ’formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening,’ both in prose and verse. (See, for the former, ’The Guardian.’)

“’Pope has given not only some of our first but best rules and observations on Architecture and Gardening.’ (See Warton’s Essay, vol. ii. p. 237, &c.&c.)

“Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in ’Kendal green,’ and our Bucolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a wilderness of bricks and mortar) about ‘Nature,’ and Pope’s ’artificial in-door habits?’ Pope had seen all of nature that England alone can supply.  He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough, Digby, and Bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered Stowe.  He made his own little five acres’ a model to Princes, and to the first of our artists who imitated nature.  Warton thinks ’that the most engaging of Kent’s works was also planned on the model of Pope’s,—­at least in the opening and retiring shades of Venus’s Vale.’