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)

Prolong the peal, yet spite of all your clatter,
The tedious chime is /sill ground, plants, and water*
So, when home John his dull invention racks,
To rival Boodle’s dinners, or Almack’s, 56
Three uncouth legs of mutton slrock our eyes,
Three roasted geese, three butter’d apple-pies.
Come then, prolific Art, and with thee bring
The charms that rise from thy exhauilless spring;
To Richmond come, for see, untutor’d Brown
Destroys those wonders which were once thy own.
Lo, from his melon-ground the peasant (lave
Has rudely rush’d, and levell’d Merlin’s Cave ;
Knock’d down the waxen Wizzard, seiz’d his wand,
Transform’d to lawn what late was Fairy land ;
And marr’d, with impious hand, each sweet desigii
Of Stephen Duck, and good Queen Caroline.
D Haile
NOTE.
And again, “ Our larger works are only a repetition of the small ones, like thehonejl Bache-
lor’s feafl, which consided in nothing but a multiplication of his own dinner; three legs os
mutton and turneps, three roajled geefe, and three buttered apple-pies.” Preface, page 7.