ificial gardening, made a dial out of
herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses a little higher up, for
they are full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy.
They will not come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and
sun-dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes:

What wondrous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head.
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine.
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach.
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness.
The mind, that ocean, where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
How well the skilful gardener drew,
Of flowers and herbs, this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers?[1]

The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like manner, fast
vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or bricked over. Yet, where one
is left, as in that little green nook behind the South-Sea House,
what a freshness it gives to the dreary pile! Four little winged
marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever
fresh streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of
Lincoln's-inn, when I was no bigger than they were figured. They are
gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion, they tell me, is gone by,
and these things are esteemed childish. Why not then gratify children,
by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They
are awakening images to them at least. Why must every thing smack of
man, and mannish? Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is
there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some of the child's
heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments