Thus the private
pleasures of a man of genius may become at length those of a whole
people. The creator of this new taste appears to have received far less
notice than he merited. The name of Shenstone does not appear in the
Essay on Gardening, by Lord Orford; even the supercilious Gray only
bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his
friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by
nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the
offices of the landscape designer, adds, that 'he will not inquire
whether they demand any great powers of mind.' Johnson, however, conveys
to us his own feelings, when he immediately expresses them under the
character of 'a sullen and surly speculator.' The anxious life of
Shenstone would indeed have been remunerated, could he have read the
enchanting eulogium of Whateley on the Leasowes; which, said he, 'is a
perfect picture of his mind--simple, elegant and amiable; and will
always suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verse, or whether
in the scenes which he formed, he only realised the pastoral images
which abound in his songs.' Yes! Shenstone had been delighted could he
have heard that Montesquieu, on his return home, adorned his 'Chateau
Gothique, mais orne de bois charmans, don't j'ai pris l'idee en
Angleterre;' and Shenstone, even with his modest and timid nature, had
been proud to have witnessed a noble foreigner, amidst memorials
dedicated to Theocritus and Virgil, to Thomson and Gesner, raising in
his grounds an inscription, in bad English, but in pure taste, to
Shenstone himself; for having displayed in his writings 'a mind
natural,' and in his Leasowes 'laid Arcadian greens rural;' and recently
Pindemonte has traced the taste of English gardening to Shenstone.
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