| praise for Twickenham.

| of human pleasures,” as he calls it, gardening.

EMBLEMS

OF CHRIST. | 215

| He found himself very lonely at Twickenham Lodge,

which he did not much mind, “for methinks solitariness
collecteth the mind as shutting the eyes doth the sight.”

In shadowing forth a scheme for philosophical study, |
| Bacon says, “ Let Twickenham Park, which I sold in my |

younger days, be purchased, if possible, for a residence

| for such deserving persons to study in, since I experi- |
mentally found the situation of that place much con- |

yenient for my philosophical conclusions.” This is high
Here Bacon had received visits
from the Queen, and had doubtless practised “that purest
The

house passed into the possession of the Berkeleys, when

| Sylva Evelyn visited it ; it was pulled down and divided
| at the beginning of the present century.

Lord Chan-
cellor Clarendon used to spend the summer months at

York House, and Charles the Second, when he was staying
amid “the more than Italian luxury of Ham,” would pass |

the river to hold confab with his chancellor. And when

the great “ Chancellor of Human Nature,” was forced to |

fly, Pepys says, “ His coach and people about it went to
Twickenham, and all people thought he had been there.”

But Pope’s is the great name of Twickenham. He
was buried in the churchyard, and Mr. Howitt says—it
is lamentable if true—that his skull is in a private col-
lection. That would indeed be Yorick’s skull over again.
In the church is the monument of his own inscription

_to his parents, with an added line that records his own

“that it has a very good effect.”

demise. The old embattled stone tower fell in a century
and a half ago, and has been replaced by red brick.

Pope’s divelling’ at Twickenham, where the wit, and

fashion, and intellectual power of his day were brought
together, has been improved off the face of the earth.
A rich vulgar woman bought it, and being annoyed *by
the number of people who came to see Pope’s villa, she
pulled it down, and built another house close by. Here
was the famous grotto, of which some remains still exist.

Year by year the civic authorities moor their stately
barge by the lawn that was once his, as if in homage to
the Nightingale of Twickenham.  Pope’s house and
grounds were separated from five acres of garden, that
were his, by the high-road. So Pope tunnelled a passage

below the road, and turned it into an exquisite grotto.

“They tell me,” writes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
She writes, “they tell
me,” for by this time they had had their famous quarrel,
and she had not gone to see it. There is a tradition which
seems well authenticated, that this quarrel arose in a
paltry matter of a few shillings. The readers of the
Rey. Whitwell Elwin’s magnificent edition of Pope,
which is now being published by Mr. Murray, will find
repeated references to the grotto. Pope has celebrated it
both in prose and verse. Most of his readers are familiar
with the celebrated description beginning —

Thou who shalt stop where Thames’ translucent wave

Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave ;

Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,

And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill.

He says in a letter, “From the river Thames you see
through my arch, up a walk of the wilderness, to a kind
of open temple, wholly composed of shells, in a rustic
manner, and from the distance under the temple you
look down through a sloping arcade of trees, and see the
sails on the river passing suddenly, and vanishing as
through a perspective-glass. When you shut the doors

| of this grotto, it becomes on an instant, from a luminous
| room, a camera obscura, by the walls of which all objects
_ of the river, hills, woods, and boats, are forming a moving
| picture in their visible radiations ; and when you have a
mind to light it up, it affords you a very different scene.”
Pope then goes on to explain other aspects of his grotto.
His enemies—and no man ever had a greater share of
them—said that it was only a cellar under the road
patched up with sea-shingle. The grotto, however, must
have been very pretty, and Pope’s gardens were among
the best of his day. Every body who strolls about this |
part of the Thames, asks for Pope’s lawn and grotto.

We have mentioned Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
with whom Pope swore eternal friendship, and afterwards
eternal enmity. She has at least the distinction of
having been one of the first Englishwomen to inoculate
her children for small-pox, according to what she had
seen in Turkey. She had a second cousin, the great
| novelist, Henry Fielding, who lived in what is called the
Back Lane, at Twickenham ; through which one generally
makes all haste to the river-side. I believe his humble
| abode is still very much the same as when he inhabited
it. Lady Mary says, “No man enjoyed life more than
he did, though few had less reason to do so. I am
| persuaded he has known more happy moments than any
prince upon earth.” Oh, happy faculty, that even from
most untoward cireumstances can garner up refreshment |,
and enjoyment! Close by Pope’s villa there came a
great man to live, the youngest son of Walpole, the
Prime Minister. He bought a cottage at the base of
Strawberry Hill. Then he set to work to make a sort
of Hotel Cluny of it, and though he really knew nothing
of Gothic architecture, he rendered it curiously medieval.
Horace Walpole showed the same sort of taste, by writing
the “ Castle of Otranto,” and he tried to make his dwelling
a kind of Otranto in its way. His rich collections were
dispersed in 1842, and brought between thirty and forty
thousand pounds. One often hears of the house now, as
it is the residence of Mr. Chichester Fortescue and the
Countess Waldegrave. And, friendly reader, I think I
have finished my stores of reminiscences, and we will
stroll back through the Twickenham meadows, in order
to catch one of the frequent trains from Richmond to
Waterloo. Turner, the painter, used to come here very
often, and Mr. Ruskin speaks of his ‘“ Twickenham
classicism.” That large brick house, almost at the foot
of the bridge, was once the residence of a very worthy
man, Owen Cambridge. To him used to resort another
great painter, none other than Sir Joshua; and Gibbon
came also; moreover, Boswell tells us, “ No sooner had
we made our bow to Mr. Cambridge in his library, than
Johnson ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on
poring over the backs of books.” But we must make
haste, if we are to catch our train. We shall soon be
whirled to town; the woods and waters will fade away
from the mental eye, and once more we shall stand in “ the
long, unlovely street !”

EMBLEMS OF CHRIST.
PRIDE.
By Thy dear side
We cast away all haughtiness and pride.
Haughty, how dare a child of man to be
Before Thy Cross and Thee.

E. H.

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