we may now boast a success equal to that profusion of expense which has
been destined to promote the rapid progress of this happy enthusiasm.
Our gardens are already the astonishment of foreigners, and, in
proportion as they accustom themselves to consider and understand them
will become their admiration." The periodical from which this is taken
was published exactly a century ago, and the writer's prophecy has been
long verified. Foreigners send to us for gardeners to help them to lay
out their grounds in the English fashion. And we are told by the writer
of an interesting article on gardens, in the _Quarterly Review_, that
"the lawns at Paris, to say nothing of Naples, are regularly irrigated
to keep up even the semblance of English verdure; and at the gardens of
Versailles, and Caserta, near Naples, the walks have been supplied from
the Kensington gravel-pits." "It is not probably known," adds the same
writer, "that among our exportations every year is a large quantity of
evergreens for the markets of France and Germany, and that there are
some nurserymen almost wholly engaged in this branch of trade."

Pomfret, a poet of small powers, if a poet at all, has yet contrived to
produce a popular composition in verse--_The Choice_--because he has
touched with great good fortune on some of the sweetest domestic hopes
and enjoyments of his countrymen.

If Heaven the grateful liberty would give
That I might choose my method how to live;
And all those hours propitious Fate should lend
In blissful ease and satisfaction spend;
Near some fair town I'd have a private seat
Built uniform; not little; nor too great:
Better if on a rising ground it stood,
On this side fields, on that a neighbouring wood.