"He whose lightnings pierced the Iberian lines,
Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines."
Even the querulous dean, even the proud Bolingbroke, as well as the easy and good-humored Gay, zealously partook of the rural as well as the philosophical labors of Pope at Twickenham. Swift made two extraordinarily long sojourns here, one of five months; and though he took an abrupt leave at length, it was not, as Johnson would biliously represent it, because they could not live together, or had abated their mutual regard, but because they were both completely out of health, and the dean especially, afflicted with the nervous irritability which proved the forerunner of insanity. It was necessary for him to get home, where he could as little bear any society, in that morbid condition. Gay dead, Bolingbroke obliged to live abroad, Swift sunk into a hypochondriac, the latter end of Pope's life was melancholy, and Twickenham a comparative solitude. He had, however, the cordially cheering attentions of Martha Blount; and Warburton, whose advancement in the church was the work of his friendship, came in to supply the places of the old companions gone.
Such was the home of Pope: there is still another portion of his life of which we get most picturesque glimpses, I mean into his haunts. Occasionally we find him at Bath for his health, but more frequently making a summer sojourn of a few weeks or months at the houses of some of his friends in the country. At one time he is at Dawley, with Bolingbroke, where they are lying and reading between two haycocks; at another at Prior Park, near Bath, at the Allens', where an odd kind of stiffness grew up between the Allens and Miss Blount and himself, that was never cleared up, but blew away, and left them as good friends as before. Then he is at Oakley Bower, Lord Bathurst's seat at Cirencester. In 1716, he writes to Martha and Teresa Blount—that was in his young and Homeric days—"I am with Lord Bathurst at my bower in whose groves we had yesterday a dry walk of three hours. It is the place that of all others I fancy, and I am not yet out of humor with it, though I have had it some months; it does not cease to be agreeable to me so late in the season (October); the very dying of the leaves adds a variety of colors that is not unpleasant. I look upon it as upon a beauty I once loved, whom I should preserve a respect for in her decay; and as we should look upon a friend, with remembrance how he pleased us once, though now declined from his gay and flourishing condition.
"I write an hour or two every morning, then ride out a hunting upon the downs, eat heartily, talk tender sentiments with Lord B., or draw plans for houses and gardens, open avenues, cut glades, plant firs, contrive water-works, all very fine and beautiful in our own imagination. At night we play at commerce, and play pretty high. I do more. I bet too; for I am really rich, and must throw away my money, if no deserving friend will use it. I like this course of life so well, that I am resolved to stay here till I hear of somebody's being in town that is worth coming after."
In another letter to these sisters, he gives us a curious peep at court life. "First, then, I went by water to Hampton Court, unattended by all but by my own virtues, which were not of so modest a nature as to keep themselves or me concealed; for I met the prince, with all his ladies, on horseback, coming from hunting. Mrs. B—— and Mrs. L——" (Mary Bellenden and Mary Lepell, maids of honor to the queen) "took me into protection, contrary to the laws against harboring papists, and gave me a dinner, with something I liked better, an opportunity of conversing with Mrs. H——" (Mrs. Howard, afterward Countess of Suffolk). "We all agreed that the life of a maid of honor was of all things the most miserable; and wished that every woman that envied it had a specimen of it. To eat Westphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and—what is worse a hundred times—with a red mark in the forehead from an uneasy hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for fox-hunters, and bear abundance of ruddy-complexioned children. As soon as they can wipe off the sweat of the day, they must simper an hour, and catch cold in the princess's apartment; from thence, as Shakspeare has it, 'to dinner with what appetite they may;' and after that, till midnight, walk, work, or think, which they please. I can easily believe no lone house in Wales, with a mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative than this court; and, as a proof of it, I need only tell you, Mrs. L—— (Mary Lepell) walked with me three or four hours by moonlight, and we met no creature of any quality but the king, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain, all alone, under the garden wall.
"In short, I heard of no ball, assembly, basset-table, or any place where two or three were gathered together, except Madam Kilmansegg's, to which I had the honor to be invited, and the grace to stay away.
"I was heartily tired, and posted to—— Park (q. Bushy?); there we had an excellent discourse of quackery; Dr. S—— was mentioned with honor. Lady—— walked a whole hour abroad without dying after it, at least in the time I stayed, though she seemed to be fainting, and had convulsive motions several times in her head. I arrived in the forest by Tuesday at noon."
At another time we find him at Orchard Wyndham, the seat of Sir William Wyndham, in Somersetshire. "The reception we met with," says he, "and the little excursions we made, were every way agreeable. I think the country abounds with beautiful prospects. Sir William Wyndham is at present amusing himself with some real improvements, and a great many visionary castles. We are often entertained with sea views and sea-fish; and were at some places in the neighborhood, among which I was mightily pleased with Dunster Castle, near Minehead. It stands upon a great eminence, and hath a prospect of that town, with an extensive view of the Bristol Channel, in which are seen two small islands called the Steep Holms and Flat Holms, and on the other side we could plainly distinguish the divisions of the fields on the Welsh coast. All this journey I performed on horseback." To how many readers will this fine scene here mentioned be familiar!
But another visit of Pope's to Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, an old mansion of Lord Harcourt's, who lent it to him for the summer, has furnished us with a description which, though somewhat long, we must take in full. So much delighted was Pope with it, that he has described it twice; once to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and once to the Duke of Buckingham. The following account is made complete by a careful comparison of both these letters; but may be supposed to be addressed to Lady Mary.
"I am fourscore miles from London; and the place is such as I would not quit for the town, if I did not value you more than, nay, every body else there; and you will be convinced how little the town has engaged my affections in your absence from it, when you know what a place this is which I prefer to it. I shall therefore describe it to you at large, as a true picture of a genuine ancient country seat.
"You must expect nothing regular in my description of a house which seems to be built before rules were in fashion. The whole is so disjointed, and the parts are so detached from each other, and yet so joining again, one can not tell how, that in a poetical fit you could imagine it had been a village in Amphion's time, when twenty cottages had taken a dance together, were all out, and stood still in amazement ever since.
"You must excuse me if I say nothing of the front; indeed, I do not know which it is. A stranger would be grievously disappointed who should think to get into this house the right way. One would reasonably expect, after the entry through the porch, to be let into the hall; but alas! nothing less! you find yourself in a brew-house. From the parlor you think to step into the drawing-room, but, upon opening the iron-nailed door, you are convinced, by a flight of birds about your ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, that it is the pigeon-house. On each side of our porch are two chimneys, that wear their greens on the outside, which would do as well within; for whenever we make a fire, we let the smoke out of the windows. Over the parlor window hangs a sloping balcony, which time has turned to a very convenient pent-house. The top is crowned with a very venerable tower, so like that of the church just by, that the jackdaws build in it as if it were the true steeple.
"The great hall is high and spacious, flanked on one side with a very long table, a true image of ancient hospitality. The walls are all over ornamented with monstrous horns of animals, about twenty broken pikes, ten or a dozen blunderbusses,