illula_, to that of Cassiodorus, the prime minister
of Theodoric, who has left so magnificent a description of his literary
retreat, where all the elegancies of life were at hand; where the
gardeners and the agriculturists laboured on scientific principles; and
where, amidst gardens and parks, stood his extensive library, with
scribes to multiply his manuscripts:--from Tycho Brahe's, who built a
magnificent astronomical house on an island, which he named after the
sole objects of his musings Uranienburgh, or the Castle of the
Heavens;--to that of Evelyn, who first began to adorn Wotton, by
building "a little study," till many years after he dedicated the
ancient house to contemplation, among the "delicious streams and
venerable woods, the gardens, the fountains, and the groves, most
tempting for a great person and a wanton purse; and indeed gave one of
the first examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue."--From Pope,
whose little garden seemed to multiply its scenes by a glorious union of
nobility and literary men conversing in groups;--down to lonely
Shenstone, whose "rural elegance," as he entitles one of his odes,
compelled him to mourn over his hard fate, when

----EXPENSE
Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught
CONVENIENCE to perplex him, ART to pall,
POMP to deject, and BEAUTY to displease.

We have all by heart the true and delightful reflection of Johnson on
local associations, when the scene we tread suggests to us the men or
the deeds, which have left their celebrity to the spot. We are in the
presence of their fame, and feel its influence!

A literary friend, whom a hint of mine had induced to visit the old
tower in the garden of Buffon, where the sage retired every morning to
compose, passed so long a time in that lonely apartment as to have
raised some solicitude among the honest folks of Montbard, who having
seen the "Englishman" enter, but not return, during a heavy
thunder-storm which had occurred in the interval, informed the good
mayor, who came in due form, to notify the ambiguous state of the
stranger. My friend is, as is well known, a genius of that cast who
could pass two hours in the _Tower of Buffon_, without being aware that
he had been all that time occupied by suggestions of ideas and reveries,
which in some minds such a locality may excite. He was also busied with
his pencil; for he has favoured me with two drawings of the interior and
the exterior