The gardens at Ritchings were enriched with
Inscriptions from the pens of Congreve and Pope and Gay and Addison and
Prior. When the estate passed into the possession of the Earl of
Hertford, his literary lady devoted it to the Muses. "She invited every
summer," says Dr. Johnson, "some poet into the country to hear her
verses and assist her studies." Thomson, who praises her so lavishly in
his "Spring," offended her ladyship by allowing her too clearly to
perceive that he was resolved not to place himself in the dilemma of
which Pope speaks so feelingly with reference to other poetasters.
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I,
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.
I sit with sad civility, I read
With honest anguish and an aching head.
But though "the bard more fat than bard beseems" was restive under her
ladyship's "poetical operations," and too plainly exhibited a desire to
escape the infliction, preferring the Earl's claret to the lady's
rhymes, she should have been a little more generously forgiving towards
one who had already made her immortal. It is stated, that she never
repeated her invitation to the Poet of the Seasons, who though so
impatient of the sound of her tongue when it "rolled" her own
"raptures," seems to have been charmed with her _at a distance_--while
meditating upon her excellencies in the seclusion of his own study.
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