s tasteful
Tusculanum and made him a present of some urns or vases either for his
"laurel circus or to terminate his points." His famous grotto, which he
is so fond of alluding to, was excavated to avoid an inconvenience. His
property lying on both sides of the public highway, he contrived his
highly ornamented passage under the road to preserve privacy and to
connect the two portions of his estate.

The poet has given us in one of his letters a long and lively
description of his subterranean embellishments. But his verse will live
longer than his prose. He has immortalized this grotto, so radiant with
spars and ores and shells, in the following poetical inscription:--

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,
Unpolished gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow,
Approach! Great Nature studiously behold,
And eye the mine without a wish for gold
Approach--but awful! Lo, the Egerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, ST JOHN sat and thought,
Where British sighs from dying WYNDHAM stole,
And the bright flame was shot thro' MARCHMONT'S soul;
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor
Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

Horace Walpole, speaking of the poet's garden, tells us that "the
passing through the gloom from the grotto to the opening day, the
retiring and again assembling shades, the dusky groves, the larger lawn,
and the solemnity at the cypresses that led up to his mother's tomb,
were managed with exquisite judgment."

Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love,

alluded to by Pope in his sketch of the character of Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, though laid out by Kent, was probably improved by the poet's
suggestions. Walpole seems to think that the beautiful grounds at
Rousham, laid out for General Dormer, were planned on the model of the
garden at Twickenham, at least the opening and retiring "shades of
Venus's Vale." And these grounds at Rousham were pronounced "the most
engaging of all Kent's works." It is said that the design of the garden
at Carlton House, was borrowed from that of Pope.

Wordsworth was correct in his observation that "Landscape gardening is a
liberal art akin to the arts of poetry and painting." Walpole describes