The Abbé de Lille, in his poetical description of a Garden, compares it to a picture; he considers the unadorned and naked soil as the painter's canvass, and all the means of decoration as the pencil-colours with which he is to work:

To me the garden a vast picture seems :
Be painter then. The ample fields around;
Their varying shades, unnumber'd, that display
The vivid rays of light, or mass of gloom;
The hours, and seasons, and revolving still
The circle of the year, and circle of the day;
The meads' invariegated beauty bright;
The ever-cheering verdure of the hills;

The streams; the rocks; the rivers; and the flow'rs;
Thy pencils these, thy canvass, and thy tints.

Homer

The poets, in every age, have been enraptured with the beauties of a Garden, how various soever their ideas of its constituent parts. The Elysian Fields, those sweet regions of poetry, are adorned with all that fancy can imagine to be delightful. describes the garden of Alcinous in the richest poetry; and Ovid wanders with rapture through his Thessalian Temple. Lucan is represented by Juvenal, as reposing in his garden. Horace prayed for a villa where there was a garden, a rivulet, and a grove; and Virgil languished for the enjoyment of rivers and woods, and the cool valleys of Mount Hæmus. The latter, too, as appears from his Georgics, was not only highly captivated with rural scenes, but a great cultivator of them. In the fourth book of the Georgics, he seems to lament that the limits of his subject would not permit him to sing of Gardens. He gives us pleasure, however, in a rapid and delightful sketch of horticulture, and the affecting episode of a venerable old man, happy in cultivating and adorning a few barren and forsaken acres. What the Roman poet regretted he could not do, was performed in the 17th century by father Rapin, who wrote a poem on gardens, in the language, and sometimes in the style, of Virgil. Shenstone and Mason both exercised their poetical talents on this delightful subject.

The following reflections on a Flower Garden, were written by a young lady:

What soft delight the peaceful bosom warms,
When nature, dress'd in all her vernal charms,
Around the beauteous landscape smiles serene,
And crowns with every gift the lovely scene!
In every gift the donor shines confess'd,
And heavenly bounty cheers the grateful breast.
Now lovely verdure paints the laughing meads,
And o'er the hills wide waving plenty spreads;
There woodbines climb, dispensing odours round,
There smiles the pink with humble beauties crown'd;
And while the flowers their various charms disclose,
Queen of the garden, shines the blushing rose.
The fragrant tribes display their sweetest bloom,
And every gentle whisper breathes perfume.
But this delightful season must decay,
The year rolls on, and steals its charms away;
How swift the gaily transient pleasure flies!
Stern winter comes, and every beauty dies;
The fleeting bliss while pensive thought deplores,
The mind in search of nobler pleasure soars;
And seeks a fairer paradise on high,
Where beauties rise and bloom, that never die.
There winter ne'er invades with hostile arms,
But everlasting spring displays her charms;
Celestial fragrance fills the blest retreats,
Unknown to earth, in all her flow'ry sweets;
Enraptur'd, there the mind unweared roves
Thro' flow'ry paths and ever verdant groves.
Such blissful groves not happy Eden knew,
Nor fancy's boldest pencil ever drew:
No sun, departing, leaves the scene to mourn,
To droop and languish for his kind return;
Or with short visits cheers the wintry hours,
And faintly smiles on nature's drooping pow'rs:
But there the Deity himself displays
The bright effulgence of his glorious rays;
Immortal life and joy his smile bestows,
And boundless bliss for ever ever flows.

Here follows the description of a Garden, by Spenser :

Eftsoons they heard a most delicious sound.

Of all that mote delight a dainty ear;
Such as at once might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:

Right hard it was for wight which did it hear,
To hear what manner music that mote be,
For all that pleasing is to living ear,
Was there consorted into harmony;

Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree.
The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade,
Their notes unto the voice attemper'd sweet;
Th' angelical, soft-trembling voices made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmur of the water's fall;
The water's fall, with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call
The gentle-warbling wind low answered to all.

I shall close this paper with Hughes's Thoughts on a Garden :

Blest retreat
Where all is silent, all is sweet!
Here contemplation prunes her wings;
The raptur'd muse more tuneful sings,
While May leads on the cheerful hours
And opens a new world of flowers.
Gay pleasure here all dresses wears,
And in a thousand shapes appears.
Pursued by Fancy, how she roves
Thro' airy walks, and museful groves;
Springs in each plant and blossom'd tree
And charms in all I hear and see!
In this Elysium while I stray,

And nature's fairest face survey,

Earth seems new-born, and life more bright,
Time steals away, and smooths his flight;

And thought's bewilder'd in delight.

CHAP. XXVI

IGNORANCE

The learn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more.

POPE.

IGNORANCE is a constant source of pleasure to man; it conceals from his view many things of which the knowledge would be a detriment to his comfort. We must not however confound ignorance with error, for error is always pernicious, but ignorance is, in many instances, a blessing to the human race. Ignorance is the work of nature, error is the work of man.

The wise man observes, that " In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." It should seem that there is such a fault as intemperance in the pursuit of knowledge. It is an undoubted fact, that there is much inconvenience, anxiety, and care, connected with knowledge, to which the majority of mankind are perfect strangers.

Whatever pleasure we feel in the acquisition of knowledge, its charms, when once acquired, in a great measure cease. It may excite the envy, or the admiration of others, yet to the possessor it affords but little joy. The more we know, the more conscious we are of the unsatisfying nature of all our attainments. The ignorant are not plagued, in any great degree, with the passion of curiosity, but with the man of knowledge it is a growing and unruly propensity, ever craving and never satiated; for the solution of one difficulty engages us in a fresh disquisition, and we go on discovering and doubting, arriving in the

After long and

end at no permanent satisfaction. painful inquiries into some particular subjects, we find our knowledge of these subjects is not superior, perhaps not equal, to that of the most ignorant of mankind. And when we consult the works of the learned, even those productions which will hold a distinguished place in the republic of letters, as long as any vestige of human learning shall remain on the earth, how little is the knowledge we are able to gain. These works are often little better than a heap of words, a mere jingle of sounds without any solid memory, and serve no better purpose, than to afford a harmless recreation to men who are weak enough to mistake words for things. Most of our controversies are disputes about words, and mere games of intellect, which evince the skill, cunning, or spleen of the disputants, rather than their knowledge of the subjects in debate.

РОРЕ.

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. The following observations from Feltham, on curiosity in knowledge, may properly be introduced at this place:

"Nothing wraps a man in such a mist of errors, as his own curiosity in searching things beyond him. How happily do they live that know nothing but what is necessary? Our knowledge does but shew us our ignorance. Our most studious scrutiny is but a discovery of what we cannot know. We see the effect, but cannot guess at the cause. Learning is like a river, whose head, being far in the land, is, at first rising, little, and easily viewed: but still, as you go, it gapeth with a wider bank: not without pleasure and delightful winding; while it is on both sides set with trees, and the beauties of various flowers. But still, the further you follow it, the deeper and the broader it is, till at last it immures itself in the unfathomed ocean: there you see more water; but no shore; no end of that liquid, fluid vastness. In many things we may sound nature in the shallows of her revelations. We may trace her to her second causes; but beyond them, we meet with nothing but the puzzle of the soul, and the dazzle of the mind's dim eyes. While we speak of things that are, we may dissect, and have power and means to find the causes : there is some pleasure, some certainty. But when you come to metaphysics, to long-buried antiquity, and unto unrevealed