pictures
represent him, in a long gown and a velvet cap. He received Bolingbroke
with great tenderness, and being, as he said, in robuster health than he
had enjoyed for months, he insisted on carrying us to his grotto. I
know nothing more common to poets than a pride in what belongs to their
houses; and perhaps to a man not ill-natured, there are few things more
pleasant than indulging the little weaknesses of those we admire. We sat
down in a small temple made entirely of shells; and whether it was that
the Creative Genius gave an undue charm to the place, I know not: but as
the murmur of a rill, glassy as the Blandusian fountain, was caught, and
re-given from side to side by a perpetual echo, and through an arcade
of trees, whose leaves, ever and anon, fell startingly to the ground
beneath the light touch of the autumn air; as you saw the sails on the
river pass and vanish, like the cares which breathe over the smooth
glass of wisdom, but may not linger to dim it, it was not difficult
to invest the place, humble as it was, with a classic interest, or
to recall the loved retreats of the Roman bards, without smiling too
fastidiously at the contrast.

"Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen,
Within thy airy shell,
By slow Meander's margin green,
Or by the violet embroidered vale
Where the lovelorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;
Sweet Echo, dost thou shun those haunts of yore,
And in the dim caves of a northern shore
Delight to dwell!"

"Let the compliment to you, Pope," said Bolingbroke, "atone for the
profanation of weaving three wretched lines of mine with those most
musical notes of Milton."

"Ah!" said Pope, "would that you could give me a fitting inscription for
my fount and grotto! The only one I can remember is hackneyed, and yet
it has spoilt me, I fear, for all others.

"'Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis
Dormio dum blandae sentio murmur aquae;
Parce meum, quisquis tanges cava marmora, somnum
Rumpere; sive bibas, sive lavere, tace.'"*

* Thus very inadequately translated by Pope (see his Letter to Edward
Blount, Esq., descriptive of his grotto):--

"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."

It is, however, quite impossible to convey to an unlearned reader