A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honorouble the Lord Viscount Cobham at Stow in Buckinghamshire. Gilpin William

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      A DIALOGUE UPON THE Gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham, &c

      Polypthon was a Gentleman engaged in a way of Life, that excused him two Months in the Year from Business; which Time he used generally to spend in visiting what was curious in the several Counties around him. As he had long promised his Friend Callophilus to pass away his Vacancy, at some time or other, in Buckinghamshire, he determined upon it this Year; and accordingly paid him a Visit at * * *. Stow was one of the first Places where his Curiosity carried him; and indeed he had scarce got his Foot within the Garden-door, before he broke out into the following Exclamation.

      Why, here is a View that gives me a kind of Earnest of what my Expectation is raised to!

      It is a very fine one indeed (replied Callophilus:) I do not wonder it should catch your Sight: The old Ruin upon the left of the Canal, the Opening to the Pyramid, the View towards the House, the River, the beautiful Disposition of the Trees on the other side of it, and that venerable old Temple, make a fine Variety of Objects. But your Eye is so taken up with Views at a distance, that you neglect something here at hand very well worth your notice. What do you think of these two Pavilions?

      Polypth. Why really they are light, genteel Buildings enough. I like these rough Paintings too; they are done in a very free, masterly Manner. Pray, Sir, do you know the Stories?

      Calloph. They are both taken from Pastor Fido; the disconsolate Nymph there, poor Dorinda, had long been in love with Sylvio, a wild Hunter, of barbarous Manners, in whose Breast she had no reason to believe she had raised an answering Passion. As she was roving in the Woods, she accidentally met his Dog, and saw her beloved Hunter himself at a distance hollowing, and running after it. She immediately calls the Hound to her, and hides it amongst the Bushes. Sylvio comes up to her, and enquires very eagerly after his Dog: The poor Nymph puts him off, and tries all her Art to inspire him with Love, but to no purpose; the cold Youth was quite insensible, and his Thoughts could admit no other Object but his Dog. Almost despairing, she at length hopes to bribe his Affections, and lets him know she has his Dog, which she will return if he will promise to love her, and give her a Kiss; Sylvio is overjoyed at the Proposal, and promises to give her ten thousand Kisses. Dorinda upon this brings the Dog: but alas! see there the Success of all her Pains: the Youth transported at the Sight of his Dog, throws his Arms round its Neck, and lavishes upon it those Kisses and Endearments, in the very Sight of the poor afflicted Lady, which she had been flattering herself would have fallen to her share. – On this other Wall Disdain and Love have taken different Sides; the Youth is warm, and the Nymph is coy: Poor Myrtillo had long loved Amarillis; the Lady was engaged to another, and rejected his Passion. Gladly would he only have spoke his Grief, but the cruel fair One absolutely forbid him her Presence. At length a Scheme was laid by Corisca, the young Lover's Confidant, which was to gain him Admission into his dear Amarillis's Company. The Lady is enticed into the Fields with some of Corisca's Companions, (who were let into the Plot) to play at Blindman's Buff, where Myrtillo was to surprize her. See there he stands hesitating what use to make of so favourable an Opportunity, which Love has put into his Hands. – If you have satisfied your Curiosity here, let us walk towards the Temple of Venus. But hold: we had better first go down towards that Wilderness, and take a View of the Lake.

      Polypth. Upon my Word here is a noble Piece of Water!

      Calloph. Not many Years ago I remember it only a Marsh: it surprized me prodigiously when I first saw it floated in this manner with a Lake. Observe, pray, what a fine Effect that old Ruin has at the Head of it: Its Ornaments too, the Cascade, the Trees and Shrubs, half concealing, and half discovering the ragged View, and the Obelisk rising beyond if, are Objects happily disposed.

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      1

      Before 1753 there was no guide to any English garden except Stowe; by then the Stowe guidebook had gone through sixteen editions (one in French) plus two pirated editions, the Dialogue itself which mentions the guidebook on p. 17, and two

1

Before 1753 there was no guide to any English garden except Stowe; by then the Stowe guidebook had gone through sixteen editions (one in French) plus two pirated editions, the Dialogue itself which mentions the guidebook on p. 17, and two sets of engraved views. For a modern account of Stowe see Christopher Hussey, English Gardens and Landscapes, 1700-1750 (London: Country Life, 1967), pp. 89-113. As a companion piece to this facsimile of Dialogue, ARS plans to publish in its 1976-77 series a facsimile of the Beauties of Stowe (1750), with an introduction by George Clarke.

2

Gilpin's authorship is argued by William D. Templeman, The Life and Works of William Gilpin (1724-1804), Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, XXIV. 3-4 (Urbana, 1939), pp. 34-5.

3

The distinction is made by Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening, 5th ed. (London, 1793), pp. 154-5.

4

The Grecian Valley is seen first on Bickham's engraved plan of 1753. This and other plans of Stowe are reproduced by George Clarke, "The Gardens of Stowe," Apollo (June, 1973), pp. 558-65.

5

See Peter Willis, "Jacques Rigaud's Drawings of Stowe in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," Eighteenth-Century Studies, 6 (1972), 85-98.

6

See George Clarke, op. cit., p. 560.

7

On this topic see two essays by Ronald Paulson: "Hogarth and the English garden: visual and verbal structures," Encounters, Essays on Literature and the Visual Arts, ed. John Dixon Hunt (London: Studio Vista, 1971), and "The Pictorial Circuit and related structures in eighteenth-century England," The Varied Pattern, ed. Peter Hughes and David Williams (Toronto: Hakkert, 1971).

8

"There is more Variety in this Garden, than can be found in any other of the same Size in England, or perhaps in Europe" (p. 290).

9

Derek Clifford, A History of Garden Design (London: Faber, 1962), pp. 138-9.

10

"Poetry, Painting, and Gardening, or the Science of Landscape, will forever by men of taste be deemed Three Sisters, or the Three New Graces who dress and adorn nature": MS. annotation to William Mason's Satirical Poems, published in an edition of the relevant poems by Paget Toynbee (Oxford: Clarendon, 1926), p. 43. For an anthology of similar comments see The Genius of the Place: The English Landscape Garden 1620-1820, ed. John Dixon СКАЧАТЬ