Mason, William: An Heroic Epistle To Sir William Chambers, Knight, Comptroller General of his Majesty's Works, And Author of a late Dissertation on Oriental Gardening: enriched with explanatory notes, chiefly extracted from that elaborate Performance (London: Almon, 1773)

There was a time, <4 in Esher’s peaceful grove, 35
44 When Kent and Nature vy’d for Pelham’s love/’
That Pope beheld them with auspicious smile,
And own’d that Beauty blest their mutual toil.
Mistaken Bard! could such a pair design
Scenes fit to live in thy immortal line ? 40
Hadst though been born in this enlighten’d day,
Felt, as we feel, Tailc’s oriental ray,
Thy satire sure had given them both a stab,
Called Kent a Driveller, and the Nymph a Drab.
For what is Nature ? Ring her changes round, 45
Her three ssat notes are water, plants, and ground;
Prolong
NOTE.
Verse 45. [For what is Nature ?] This is the great and fundamental axiom, on
which oriental taste is founded. It is therefore expressed here with the greatest preci-
siori, and in the identical phrase of the great original. The figurative terms, and even the
explanatory simile, are entirely borrowed from Sir William’s Dissertation. cc Nature (says
the Chinese, or Sir William for them) affords us but few materials to-work with. Plants,
ground, and water, are her only productions ; and, though both the forms and arrange-
ments os these may be varied to an incredible degree, yet have they but few striking va-
rieties, the rest being of the nature of changes rung upon bells, which, though in reality dif-
ferent, still produce the same uniform kind of gingling-, the variation being too minute to be
casily perceived.” “ Art must therefore supply the fcantinefs of Nature,” &c. &c. page 14.
And