_Lib. IV. Plantarum_.
Here is a similar allusion by the same poet to the delights which great
men amongst the ancients have taken in a rural retirement.
Methinks, I see great Dioclesian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade
Which by his own imperial hands was made,
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain
To entice him to a throne again.
"If I, my friends," said he, "should to you show
All the delights which in these gardens grow,
'Tis likelier much that you should with me stay,
Than 'tis that you should carry me away:
And trust me not, my friends, if every day
I walk not here with more delight,
Than ever, after the most happy sight
In triumph to the Capitol I rode,
To thank the gods, and to be thought myself almost a god,"
_The Garden_.
Cowley does not omit the important moral which a garden furnishes.
Where does the wisdom and the power divine
In a more bright and sweet reflection shine?
Where do we finer strokes and colors see
Of the Creator's real poetry.
Than when we with attention look
Upon the third day's volume of the book?
If we could open and intend our eye
_We all, like Moses, might espy,
E'en in a bush, the radiant Deity_.
In Leigh Hunt's charming book entitled _The Town_, I find the following
notice of the partiality of poets for houses with gardens attached to
them:--
"It is not surprizing that _garden-houses_ as they were called; should
have formerly abounded in Holborn, in Bunhill Row, and other (at that
time) suburban places.
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