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 the instant, from a luminous room, a Camera obscura; on the walls of which all the 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; it is finished with shells interspersed with pieces of looking-glass in angular forms; and in the ceiling is a star of the same material, at which when a lamp (of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster) is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this grotto by a narrower passage two porches, one towards the river, of smooth stones, full of light, and open; the other towards the garden, shadowed with trees, rough with shells, flints, and iron-ores. The bottom is paved with simple pebble, as is also the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural taste, agreeing not ill with the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It wants nothing to complete it but a good statue with an inscription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of:

Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis,
Dormio, dum blanda sentio murmur aquæ.
Parce meum, quisquis tangis cava marmora, somnum
Rumpere; seu bibas, sive lavere, tace.

Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep,
And to the murmur of these waters sleep;
Ah, spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave!
And drink in silence, or in silence lave!

"You'll think I have been very poetical in this description, but it is pretty near the truth. I wish you were here to bear testimony how little it owes to art, either the place itself or the image I give of it."

Of his house, when it was finished, the best account, he said, would be, that it afforded a few pleasant rooms for a few friends. And such were never wanting. It is one of the best traits in the character of Pope, that he could retain as well as gain the attachment of those who would esteem him as much for the qualities of the heart as of the head. This is a matter about which there is no difference of opinion. Arbuthnot writes as emphatically on this point from his death-bed, as Warburton does after one week of intimacy. Pope had friends among those whose friendship was the highest honour he could possess; and he lost very few of them except in the common course of nature. To his Twickenham Tusculum poets, scholars, statesmen, and divines, the foremost in their day, were the frequent and willing visitors: nor were the gay and the fair absent. To have won early, and maintained through a lifetime, the friendship of such men as Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, Atterbury and Warburton, and many more of almost equal reputation, would itself be a memorable thing: and the house wherein such men were accustomed to assemble round the first poet of the age, would be a shrine sure to attract the feet of many a pilgrim, who would like to recal on the spot, the memory of those literary meetings where, as their master sung,

66

'Mingled with the flowing bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul:"

meetings which gave the tone to the critical taste of the whole kingdom; and at which were laid the ground-plans of more than one work that will last as long as the literature of the country.

But the house has long been destroyed. After Pope's death, which occurred here in 1744, the estate was purchased by Sir William Stanhope, who added new wings, but carefully preserved the original building. The garden was also enlarged at the same time. On the death of Sir William Stanhope, the house descended to his son-in-law, the Hon. Welmore Ellis, afterwards Lord Mendip ; and from him to two or three other persons. Finally in 1807 the estate was purchased by the Baroness Howe, wife of Sir Wathen Waller, and daughter of the celebrated Admiral Lord Howe. Hitherto the house had been preserved with the care and respect which such a building seemed to claim: but her ladyship having apparently "no music in her soul," 66 soon after her purchase levelled with the ground this celebrated villa," says Lysons, writing within two or three years of the time," and has since built a new mansion on its site."

Lysons was mistaken if he meant it to be understood that the new house was erected exactly on the site of Pope's; but he probably only meant that it was built on the grounds. Pope's house, as is shown by the engravings published while it was standing, stood directly over the grotto. Lady Howe built hers on one side of it.

Four

As will be supposed, amid all this havoc, few relics were suffered to remain of the poet's abode. or five years back, there was some talk of building a new house exactly on the site of Pope's, and exactly resembling it; and the intention is men

tioned in several books as though it were about to be accomplished. A new house has been built close against the grotto, but it is not at all like Pope's -hardly like any other one. It is quite an original-or rather, unique edifice. It is constructed of very red brick and tiles, carved timber, stone, encaustic tiles, and various other and many-coloured materials. The style is quite indescribable: but it may be briefly said, that it appears to be a combination of an Elizabethan half-timber house and a Stuart renaissance, with the addition of Dutch and Swiss, Italian and Chinese features; and it was probably designed when the architect was fresh from a diligent study of the paintings in Lord Kingsborough's work on Mexican antiquities. Altogether it is enough to make the shade of Pope irate.

"The Aegerian grot Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought; Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole, And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul "

the grotto remains; but shorn of all "the pointed crystals, and unpolished gems," and with only its memory to give to it interest. If it remain still as it was before the erection of the last new building, it will, in its unadorned condition, disappoint the poetic pilgrim. It is singularly petite. Pope might have found "ample room and verge enough," but how any ordinary man could have "sat and thought" within it, is rather puzzling.

It is sometimes said that the willows are those of Pope's planting-but that is a mistake. Lysons says, that the willow which was called Pope's perished in 1801, notwithstanding the utmost care being taken by Sir W. Stanhope to preserve it.

The obelisk which Pope raised to the memory of his mother is also gone. The grotto alone remains. Pope speaks with pride of the view from the lawn; and it is said that in the Homer which he used there is a drawing of it made by himself. The view is a very lovely one :—

"Thames' translucent wave

Shines a broad mirror;"

and beyond it are the rich woods of Ham and the Hill of Richmond. Or, directing the eye along the stream instead of across it, a very picturesque glimpse of Twickenham village with the ait is obtained. The lawn slopes gently to the river, and it requires little stretch of fancy to recall the living figure of the poet, in bag-wig and black coat, with a little sword by his side, stepping briskly along to hand his favourite Martha from her boat, or to welcome the Dean and the Doctor from theirs; or to see him getting into the sedan-chair placed in the centre of his own boat, in order to take the air or ride to London.

Pope's remains were interred in Twickenham church, along with those of his parents: and there are the monuments which the poet erected to the memory of his father and mother; and that which Warburton raised to himself. Pope's monument is a tablet with a relievo portrait; it bears, besides the usual information in Latin as to date of birth and death, his well known lines, which bespeak as much pride as humility. On the monument they stand thus:

"Poeta loquitur.

For cne who would not be buried in Westminster Abbey.