[012] A bust of Pope, in white marble, has been placed over an
arched way with the following inscription from the pen of Lord Nugent:
The humble roof, the garden's scanty line,
Ill suit the genius of the bard divine;
But fancy now displays a fairer scope
And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope.
I have not heard who set up this bust with its impudent inscription. I
hope it was not Stanhope himself. I cannot help thinking that it would
have been a truer compliment to the memory of Pope if the house and
grounds had been kept up exactly as he had left them. Most people, I
suspect, would greatly have preferred the poet's own "unfolding of his
soul" to that "_unfolding_" attempted for him by a Stanhope and
commemorated by a Nugent. Pope exhibited as much taste in laying out his
grounds as in constructing his poems. Sir William, after his attempt to
make the garden more worthy of the original designer, might just as
modestly have undertaken to enlarge and improve the poetry of Pope on
the plea that it did not sufficiently _unfold his soul_. A line of Lord
Nugent's might in that case have been transferred from the marble bust
to the printed volume:
His fancy now displays a fairer scope.
Or the enlarger and improver might have taken his motto from
Shakespeare:
To my _unfolding_ lend a gracious ear.
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