former editor was scarcely
scholar enough to estimate as they deserved; and Mr. Mitford has shewn
us, that some omissions, and perhaps some alterations, were
unnecessarily made by him in the letters themselves. As to the task
which the latter of these gentlemen imposed on himself, few will think
that every passage which he has admitted, though there be nothing in any
to detract from the real worth of Gray, could have been made public
consistently with those sacred feelings of regard for his memory, by
which the mind of Mason was impressed, and that reluctance which he must
have had to conquer, before he resolved on the publication at all. The
following extract from a letter, written by the Rev. Edward Jones,
brings us into the presence of Mason, and almost to an acquaintance with
his thoughts at this time, and on this occasion. "Being at York in
September 1771," (Gray died on the thirtieth of July preceding), "I was
introduced to Mr. Mason, then in residence. On my first visit, he was
sitting in an attitude of much attention to a drawing, pinned up near
the fire-place; and another gentleman, whom I afterwards found to be a
Mr. Varlet, a miniature painter, who has since settled at Bath, had
evidently been in conversation with him about it. My friend begged leave
to ask _whom_ it was intended to represent. Mr. Mason hesitated, and
looked earnestly at Mr. Varlet. I could not resist (though I instantly
felt a wish to have been silent) saying, surely from the strong likeness
it must be the late Mr. Gray. Mr. Mason at once certainly forgave the
intrusion, by asking my opinion as to his fears of having caricatured
his poor friend. The features were certainly softened down, previously
to the engraving."[1]--_Nichols's Literary Anecdotes_, vol. ix. p. 718.

In the next year, 1772, appeared the first book of the English Garden.
The other three followed separately in 1777, 1779, and 1782. The very
title of this poem was enough to induce a suspicion, that the art which
it taught (if art it can be called) was not founded on general and
permanent principles. It was rather a mode which the taste of the time
and country had rendered prevalent, and which the love of novelty is
already supplanting. In the neighbourhood of those buildings which man
constructs for use or magnificence, there is no reason why he should
prefer irregularity to order, or dispose his paths in curved lines,
rather than in straight. Homer, when he describes the cav