of the river, hills, woods, and boats are forming a moving picture, in
their visible radiations; and when you have a mind to light it less, it
affords you a very different scene. It is finished with shells,
interspersed with looking-glass in regular forms, and in the ceiling is
a star of the same material, at which, when a lamp of an orbicular
figure of thin alabaster is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays
glitter, and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this
grotto, by a narrow passage, two porches, one toward the river, of
smooth stones full of light and open; the other toward the garden,
shadowed with trees, rough with shells, flints, and iron ore. The bottom
is paved with simple pebbles, as is also the adjoining walk up the
wilderness to the temple, in the natural state, agreeing not ill with
the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It
wants nothing to complete it but a good statue with an inscription, like
that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of. You will
think I have been very poetical in this description; but it is pretty
near the truth."

But it was not merely in forming this grotto that Pope employed himself;
it was in building and extending his house, which was in a Roman style,
with columns, arcades, and porticos. The designs and elevations of these
buildings may be seen by his own hand in the British Museum, drawn in
his usual way on backs of letters. The following passage, in a letter to
Mr. Digby, will be sufficient to give us his idea of both his Thamesward
garden and his house in a summer view: "No ideas you could form in the
winter could make you imagine what Twickenham is in this warm summer.
Our river glitters beneath the unclouded sun, at the same time that its
banks retain the verdure of showers; our gardens are offering their
first nosegays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily
together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing