study. 'Let Twitnam Park,' he wrote to his steward, Thomas
Bushell, 'which I sold in my younger days, be purchased, if possible,
for a residence for such deserving persons to study in, (since I
experimentally found the situation of that place much convenient for the
trial of my philosophical conclusions)--expressed in a paper sealed, to
the trust--which I myself had put in practice and settled the same by
act of parliament, if the vicissitudes of fortune had not intervened and
prevented me.'

Twickenham continued, long after Bacon had penned this injunction, to be
the retreat of the poet, the statesman, the scholar; the haven where the
retired actress, and broken novelist found peace; the abode of Henry
Fielding, who lived in one of the back-streets; the temporary refuge,
from the world of London, of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the life-long
home of Pope.

Let us picture to ourselves a visit from the princess to Pope's
villa:--As the barge, following the gentle bendings of the river, nears
Twickenham, a richer green, a summer brightness, indicates it is
approaching that spot of which even Bishop Warburton says that 'the
beauty of the owner's poetic genius appeared to as much advantage in the
disposition of these romantic materials as in any of his best-contrived
poems.' And the loved toil which formed the quincunx, which perforated
and extended the grotto until it extended across the road to a garden on
the opposite side--the toil which showed the gentler parts of Pope's
better nature--has been respected, and its effects preserved. The
enamelled lawn, green as no other grass save that by the Thames side is
green, was swept until late years by the light boughs of the famed
willow. Every memorial of the bard was treasured by the gracious hands
into which, after 1744, the classic spot fell--those of Sir William
Stanhope.

In the subterranean passage this verse appears; adulatory it must be
confessed:--

'The humble roof, the garden's scanty line,
Ill suit the genius of the bard divine;
But fancy now assumes a fairer scope,
And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope.'

It should have been Stanhope's 'gold,'--a metal which was not so
abundant, nor indeed so much wanted in Pope's time as in our own. Let us
picture to ourselves the poet as a host.

As the barge is moored close to the low steps which lead up from the
river to the villa, a diminutive figure, then in its prime, (if prime it
_ever_