'Nature' is really so new as we sometimes fancy. The old squire or country parson may have loved the forest or the moor as well as his descendants, though his love was unconscious. The scenery may have given a charm to his favourite pursuits, his fishing or his hunting, though he did not talk about it, or even know it. Scenery, even in poetry, was kept in the background of human figures, but was not less distinctly present. In Young's time, however, the country gentleman was becoming civilised and polished; he was building mansions with classical porticoes, filling them with pictures bought on the 'grand tour,' and laying out grounds with the help of Kent or a 'capability' Brown. He was beginning, that is, to appreciate the advantage of adapting the environment to his dwelling-place; and the new art of 'landscape gardening' was putting the old formal gardens out of fashion. Pope's garden at Twickenham had become famous, and Shenstone, as Johnson puts it, had 'begun to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful.' Johnson will not inquire whether
