fruit-time; I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. By this means I have always the music of the season in its perfection, and am highly delighted to see the jay or the thrush hopping. about my walks, and shooting before my eyes across the several little glades and alleys that I pass through. I think there are as many kinds of gardening as of poetry; your makers of parterres and flower-gardens are epigrammatists and sonneteers in this art; contrivers of bowers and grottos, treillages and cascades, are romance writers. Wise and London are our heroic poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out any passage of their works to commend, I shall take notice of that part in the upper garden at Kensington, which was at first nothing but a gravel pit. It must have been a fine genius for gardening that could have thought of forming such an unsightly hollow into so beautiful an area, and to have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into. To give this particular spot of ground the greater effect, they have made a very pleasing contrast; for as on one side of the walk you see this hollow basin, with its several little plantations, lying so conveniently under the eye of the beholder; on the other side of it there appears a seeming mount, made up of trees rising one higher than another, in proportion as they approach the centre. A spectator, who has not heard this account of it, would think this circular mount was not only a real one, but that it had been actually scooped out of that hollow space which I have before mentioned. I never yet met with any one, who has walked in this garden, who was not struck with that part of it which I have here mentioned. As for myself, you will find, by the account which I have already given you, that my compositions in gardening are altogether after the Pindaric manner, and run into the beautiful wildness of nature, without affecting the nicer elegancies of art. What I am now going to mention will, perhaps, deserve your attention more than anything I have yet said. I find that, in the discourse which I spoke of at the beginning of my letter, you are against filling an English garden with evergreens; and indeed I am so far of your opinion, that I can by no means think the verdure of an evergreen comparable to that which shoots out annually, and clothes our trees in the summer season. But I have often wondered that those who are like myself, and love to live in gardens, have never thought of contriving a winter garden, which would consist of such trees only as never cast their leaves. We have very often little snatches of sunshine and fair weather in the most uncomfortable parts of the year, and have frequently several days in November and January that are as agreeable as any in the finest months. At such times, therefore, I think there could not be a greater pleasure than to walk in such a winter garden as I have proposed. In the summer season the whole country blooms, and is a kind of garden; for which reason we are not so sensible of those beauties that at this time may be everywhere met with; but when nature is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees that smile amidst all the rigours of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy. have so far indulged myself in this thought, that I have set apart a whole acre of ground for the executing of it. The walls are covered with ivy instead of vines. The laurel, the hornbeam, and the holly, with many other trees and plants of the same nature, grow so thick in it that you cannot imagine a more lively scene. The glowing redness of the berries, with which they are hung at this time, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and is apt to inspire the heart of the beholder with that vernal delight which you have somewhere taken notice of in your former papers. It is very pleasant at the same time, to see the several kinds of birds retiring into this little green spot, and enjoying themselves among the branches and foliage, when my great garden, which I before mentioned to you, does not afford a single leaf for their shelter. 66 'You must know, Sir, that I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life. A garden was the habitation of our first parents before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at rest. It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Providence, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation. I cannot but think the very complacency and satisfaction which a man takes in these works of nature to be a laudable, if not a virtuous, habit of mind. For all which reasons, I hope you will pardon the length of my present letter. ADDISON. "I am, Sir, &c." C. things to buy for his family, would oblige me to walk with him to the shops. He was very nice in his way, and fond of having everything shown, which at first made me very uneasy; but, as his humours still continued, the things which I had been staring at along with him began to fill my head, and led me into a set of amusing thoughts concerning them. "I fancied it must be very surprising to any one who enters into a detail of fashions, to consider how far the vanity of mankind has laid itself out in dress, what a prodigious number of people it maintains, and what a circulation of money it occasions. Providence in this case makes use of the folly which we will not give up, and it becomes instrumental to the support of those who are willing to labour. Hence it is that fringe-makers, lace-men, tirewomen, and a number of other trades, which would be useless in a simple state of nature, draw their subsistence; though it is seldom seen that such as these are extremely rich, because their original fault of being founded upon vanity keeps them poor by the light inconstancy of its nature. The variableness of fashion turns the stream of business, which flows from it, now into one channel, and anon into another; so that different sets of people sink or flourish in their turns by it. "From the shops we retired to the tavern, where I found my friend expressed so much satisfaction for the bargains he had made, that my moral reflections (if I had told them) might have passed for a reproof; so I chose rather to fall in with him, and let the discourse run upon the use of fashions. 66 Here we remembered how much man is governed by his senses, how lively he is struck by the objects which appear to him in an agreeable manner, how much clothes contribute to make us agreeable objects, and how much we owe it to ourselves that we should appear so.* 66 We considered man as belonging to societies; societies as formed of different ranks distinguished by habits, that all proper duty and respect might attend their appearance. "We took notice of several advantages which are met with in the occurrences of conversation; how the bashful man has been sometimes so raised, as to express himself with an air of freedom, when he imagines that his habit introduces him in company with a becoming manner; and again, how a fool in fine clothes shall be suddenly heard with attention, till he has betrayed himself; whereas a man of sense, appearing with a dress of negligence, shall be but coldly received, till he be proved by time, and established in a character. Such things as these we could recollect to have happened to our own knowledge so very often, that we concluded the author+ had his reasons, who advises his son to go in dress rather above his fortune than under it. * See No. 360. Osborne in his " Advice to his Son." "At last the subject seemed so considerable, that it was proposed to have a repository built for fashions, as there are chambers for medals and other rarities. The building may be shaped as that which stands among the pyramids, in the form of a woman's head. This may be raised upon pillars whose ornaments shall bear a just relation to the design. Thus there may be an imitation of fringe carved in the base, a sort of appearance of lace in the frieze, and a representation of curling locks, with bows of ribbon sloping over them, may fill up the work of the cornice. The inside may be divided into two apartments appropriated to each sex. The apartments may be filled with shelves, on which boxes are to stand as regularly as books in a library. These are to have folding doors, which being opened, you are to behold a baby * dressed out in some fashion which has flourished, and standing upon a pedestal where the time of its reign is marked down. For its farther regulation, let it be ordered,, that every one who invents a fashion shall bring in his box, whose front he may at pleasure have either worked or painted with some amorous or gay device, that, like books with gilded leaves and covers, it may the sooner draw the eyes of the beholders. And to the end that these may be preserved with all due care, let there be a keeper appointed, who shall be a gentleman qualified with a competent knowledge in clothes; so that by this means the place will be a comfortable support for some beau who has spent his estate in dressing. "The reasons offered, by which we expected to gain the approbation of the public, were as follows.— 66 First, That every one who is considerable enough to be a mode, and has any imperfection of nature or chance, which it is possible to hide by the advantage of clothes, may, by coming to this repository, be furnished herself, and furnish all who are under the same misfortune, with the most agreeable manner of concealing it; and that on the other side, every one, who has any beauty in face, or shape, may also be furnished with the most agreeable manner of showing it. 66 Secondly, That whereas some of our young gentlemen who travel, give us great reason to suspect that they only go abroad to make or improve a fancy for dress, a project of this nature may be a means to keep them at home, which is in effect the keeping of so much money in the kingdom. And perhaps the balance of fashion in Europe, which now leans upon the side of France, may be so altered for the future, that it may become as common with Frenchmen to come to England for their finishing-stroke of breeding, as it has been for Englishmen to go to France for it. "Thirdly, Whereas several great scholars, who might have been otherwise useful to the world, have spent their time in studying to describe the dresses of the ancients from dark hints, which they * No. 277. are fain to interpret and support with much learning; it will from henceforth happen, that they shall be freed from the trouble, and the world from useless volumes. This project will be a registry, to which posterity may have recourse, for the clearing such obscure passages as tend that way in authors; and therefore we shall not for the future submit ourselves to the learning of etymology, which might persuade the age to come that the farthingale was worn for cheapness, or the furbelow for warmth. 66 'Fourthly, Whereas they, who are old themselves, have often a way of railing at the extravagance of youth, and the whole age in which their children live; it is hoped that this ill humour will be much suppressed, when we can have recourse to the fashions of their times, produce them in our vindication, and be able to shew that it might have been as expensive in Queen Elizabeth's time only to wash and quill a ruff, as it is now to buy cravats or neck handkerchiefs. "We desire also to have it taken notice of, that because we would shew a particular respect to foreigners, which may induce them to perfect their breeding here in a knowledge which is very proper for pretty gentlemen, we have conceived the motto for the house in the learned language. There is to be a picture over the door, with a looking-glass and a dressing chair in the middle of it: then on one side are to be seen, above one another, patch-boxes, pin-cushions, and little bottles; on the other powder-bags, puffs, combs, and brushes; beyond these swords with fine knots, whose points are hidden, and fans almost closed, with the handles downward, are to stand out interchangeably from the sides, till they meet at the top, and form a semicircle over the rest of the figures: beneath all, the writing is to run in this pretty sounding manner.— "Adeste, O quotquot sunt, Veneres, Gratiæ, Cupidines, En vobis adsunt in promptu Faces, vincula, spicula; Hinc eligite, sumite, regite.' 'All ye Venuses, Graces, and Cupids attend : See prepared to your hands, Darts, torches, and bands: Your weapons here choose, and your empire extend.' "I am, Sir, your most humble servant, "A. B." The proposal of my correspondent I cannot but look upon as an ingenious method of placing persons (whose parts make them ambitious to exert themselves in frivolous things) in a rank by themselves. In order to this, I would propose that there be a board of directors of the fashionable society; and, because it is a matter of too much weight for a private man to determine alone, I should be highly obliged to my correspondents if they would give in lists of |