Wesley Corpus

Elysian Fields. 6. It was ominous for My Lord to entertain himself and his noble company in a grotto built on the bank of Styx; that is, on the brink of hell. 7. The river on which it stands is a black, filthy puddle, exactly resembling a common sewer. 8. One of the stateliest monuments is taken down, the Egyptian Pyramid; and no wonder, considering the two inscrip- tions, which are still legible ; the one,- Linquenda tellus , et domus, et placens Uxor : Neque harum, quas colis, arborum Tepræter invisas cupressos, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur ! The other,- Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti : Tempus abire tibi est : Ne potum largius æquo Rideat, et pulset lasciva decentius ætas." Upon the whole, I cannot but prefer Cobhamgardens to those at Stow: For, 1. The river at Cobham shames all the ponds at * The following is Boscawen's translation of these verses from Horace :- Thy lands, thy dome, thy pleasing wife, These must thou quit ; 'tis nature's doom : No tree, whose culture charms thy life, Save the sad cypress, waits thy tomb. Ofmeat anddrink, ofpleasure and ofplay, You've had your fill : 'Tis time you steal away, Lest you be jostled offby that brisk race W'hom sports become, and wanton revels grace.-EDIT. 170 REV. J. WESLEY'S [Nov. 1779. Stow. 2. There is nothing at Stow comparable to the walk near the wheel which runs up the side of a steep hill, quite grotesque and wild. 3. Nothing in Stow gardens is to be com- pared to the large temple, the pavilion, the antique temple, the grotto, or the building at the head of the garden ; nor to the neatness which runs through the whole. But there is nothing even at Cobham to be compared, 1. To the beautiful cross at the entrance of Stourhead gardens. 2. To the vast body ofwater. 3. The rock-work grotto. 4. The temple of the sun. 5. The hermitage. Here too every thing is nicely clean, as well as in full preservation. Add to this, that all the gardens hang on the sides of a semicircular mountain. And there is nothing either at Cobham or Stow which can balance the advantage of such a situation. On this and the two following evenings I preached at Whit- tlebury, Towcester, and Northampton. On Saturday I returned to London.