Here on a fine lawn is the
urn inscribed to Pope, mentioned by Shenstone:
Here Pope! ah, never must that towering mind
To his loved haunts, or dearer friend return;
What art, what friendship! oh! what fame resign'd;
In yonder glade I trace his mournful urn.
At the end of the valley, in an obscure corner is a hermitage, composed
of roots and moss, whence we look down on a piece of water in the
hollow, thickly shaded with tall trees, (_see the engraving_,) over
which is a fine view of distant landscape. This spot is the extremity of
the park, and the Clent hills rise in all their wild irregularity,
immediately behind it.
We have not space to describe, or rather to abridge from Whately's
beautiful description, a tithe of the classic embellishments of Hagley.
Shenstone as well as Pope has here his votive urn. Ivied ruin, temple,
grotto, statue, fountain, and bridge; the proud portico and the humble
rustic seat, alternate amidst these ornamental charms, and never were
Nature and art more delightfully blended than in the beauties of Hagley.
Here Pope, Shenstone, and Thomson[3] passed many hours of calm
contemplation and poetic ease, amidst the hospitalities of the noble
owner of Hagley. To think of their kindred spirits haunting its groves,
and their imaginative contrivances of votive temples, urns, and tablets,
and to combine them with these enchanting scenes of Nature, is to
realize all that Poets have sung of Arcadia of old.
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