vista. The scene around is quite a grotto of native stone running up it, roots of trees overhanging it, and the whole shaded over head. However, we first approach,upon the left, a chalybeate spring, with an iron bowl chained to it, and this inscription upon a stone:

Fons ferrvginevs

Divae quae secessu isto frvi concedit.

Then turning to the right, we find a stone seat, making part of the aforesaid cave, with this well-applied inscription:

Intus aqvae dulces, vivoqve sedi.ia saxo;
Ni mharvm domvs.

which I have often heard Mr. Shenstone term the
definition of a grotto.
We now wind up a shady
path on the left hand, and crossing the head of this
cascade, pass beside the river that supplies it in our
way up to the house. One seat first occurs under a
shady oak as we ascend the hill; soon after we enter
the shrubbery, which half surrounds the house,
where we find two seats, thus inscribed to two of his
most particular friends. The first thus:

EXPLANATION.

To the Goddess

Who bestowed the enjoyment

of these retreats,

This chalybeate spring
is consecrated.

IMITATION.

Within are wholesome springs, and marble seats

Carv'd in the living rock, of Nymphs the bless'd retreats.

Volume I.

E

Amicitiæ et meritis

RICHARDI GRAVES †:

Ipse te, Tityre! pinvs,

Ipsi te fontes, ipsa hæc arbvsta, vocabant.

and a little further the other, with the following inscription:

Amicitiæ et meritis
RICHARDI JAGO §.

From this last is an opening down the valley over a large sliding lawn, well edged with oaks, to a piece of water crossed by a considerable bridge in the flatthe steeple of Hales, a village amid trees, making on the whole a very pleasing picture. Thus winding through flowering shrubs, beside a menagerie for doves, we are conducted to the stables. But let it not be forgot, that on the entrance into this shrubbery the first object that strikes us is a Venus de Medicis, beside a bason of gold-fish, encompassed round with shrubs, and illustrated with the following inscription:

† EXPLANATION.
To the

friendship and merits
of

RICHARD GRAVES.

EXPLANATION.

Thee, Tityrus! the pines,

The crystal springs, the very groves, invok'd,

EXPLANATION.

To the

friendship and merits

"Semi-reducta Venust."

To Venus, Venus here retir'd,

My sober vows I pay;

"Not her on Paphian plains admir'd,

The bold, the pert, the gy

6. Not her whose am'rous leer prevail'd To bribe the Phrygian boy;

Not her who, clad in armour, fail'd

"To save disastrous Troy.

"Fresh rising from the foamy tide,

She ev'ry bosom warms,

"While half withdrawn she seems to hide, And half reveals, her charms.

Learn hence, ye boastful sons of Taste!

"Who plan the rural shade,

Learn hence to shun the vicious waste

Of pomp at large display'd.

Let sweet Concealment's magic art

Your mazy bounds invest,

And while the sight unveils a part,

Let Fancy paint the rest.

Let eny Reserve with Cost unite,

To grace your wood or field,

No ray obtrusive pall the sight,

In aught you paint or build.

And far be driv'n the sumptuous glare

Of gold, from British grove,

And far the meretricious air

Of China's vain alcoves.

'Tis bashful Beauty ever twines

"The most coercive chain;

"Tis she that sovereign rule declines,

Who best deserves to reign."

EXPLANATION.

Venus half-retired.

's affuence born, and

Lagerie weeks the sores of gay resort,

The Mall, the ro the playhose and the court:

Soon for some varnish'd nymph of dubious fame, 5
Or powder'd peeress, counterfeits a flame.
Behold him now, enraptur'd, swear and sigh,
Dress, dance, drink, revel, all he knows not why,
Till by kind Fate restor❜d to country air,

He marks the roses of some rural fair;

Smit with her unaffected native charms,
A real passion soon his bosom warms;
And, wak'd from idle dreams, he takes a wife,
And tastes the genuine happiness of life.

Thus, in the vacant season of the year,
Some Templar gay begins his wild career :
From seat to seat o'er pompous scenes he flies,
Views all with equal wonder and surprise,
Till, sick of domes, arcades, and temples, grown,
He hies fatigu'd, not satisfy'd, to Town,
Yet if some kinder genius point his way
To where the Muses o'er thy Leasowes stray,
Charm'd with the sylvan beauties of the place,
Where Art assumes the sweets of Nature's face,
Each hill, each dale, each consecrated grove,
Each lake, and falling stream, his rapture move.
Like the sage captive in Calypso's grot,
The cares, the pleasures, of the world forgot,
Of calm content he hails the genuine sphere,
And longs to dwell a blissful hermit here.

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