DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52992#0003
THIS Poem was written last Rimmer, immediately
after the publication of Sir William Chambers’s
Dissertation; but the bookseller, to whom it was offered,
diclined publishing it, till the town was full. His reason
sor this is obvious; yet it would hardly have weigh’d with
the author, had he not thought, that his hero’s fame would
increase in proportion to his publisher’s prosit. However
he foresaw, that, by this delay, one inconvenience might
arise, which this presace is written to remove. Readers
os the present generation are so very inattentive to what they
read, that it is probable, one half of Sir William’s may
have forgotten the principles which his book inculcates.
Let these, then, be reminded, that it is the author’s pro-
fest aim in extolling the taste of the Chinese, to condemn
that mean and paltry manner which Kent introduced, which
Southcote, Hamilton, and Brown followed, and which, to
our national disgrace, is called the Englisn Ryle of garden-
ing. He shews the poverty of this taste, by aptly com-
paring it to a dinner, which consisted os three gross pieces,
three times repeated ; and proves to a demonstration, that
Nature herself is incapable of pleasmg, without the assistance
of Art, and that too of the most luxuriant kind. In ssiort,
such art as is displayed in the Emperor’s garden of Yven-
Ming-
after the publication of Sir William Chambers’s
Dissertation; but the bookseller, to whom it was offered,
diclined publishing it, till the town was full. His reason
sor this is obvious; yet it would hardly have weigh’d with
the author, had he not thought, that his hero’s fame would
increase in proportion to his publisher’s prosit. However
he foresaw, that, by this delay, one inconvenience might
arise, which this presace is written to remove. Readers
os the present generation are so very inattentive to what they
read, that it is probable, one half of Sir William’s may
have forgotten the principles which his book inculcates.
Let these, then, be reminded, that it is the author’s pro-
fest aim in extolling the taste of the Chinese, to condemn
that mean and paltry manner which Kent introduced, which
Southcote, Hamilton, and Brown followed, and which, to
our national disgrace, is called the Englisn Ryle of garden-
ing. He shews the poverty of this taste, by aptly com-
paring it to a dinner, which consisted os three gross pieces,
three times repeated ; and proves to a demonstration, that
Nature herself is incapable of pleasmg, without the assistance
of Art, and that too of the most luxuriant kind. In ssiort,
such art as is displayed in the Emperor’s garden of Yven-
Ming-