"And, that which all faire works doth most aggrace,
"The art, which all that wrought, appearéd in no place."
Which is literally from Tasso, C, xvi 9.
"E quel, che'l bello, e'l caro accresce à l'opre,
"L'arte, che tutto fa, nulla si scopre."
The next stanza is likewise translated from Tasso, C. xvi 10. And, if the reader likes the comparing of the copy with the original, he may see many other beauties borrowed from the Italian poet. The fountain, and the two bathing damsels, are taken from Tasso, C. xv, st. 55, &c. which he calls, Il fonte del riso. UPTON.
[[040]] Cowper was evidently here thinking rather of Milton than of Homer.
Flowers of all hue, and without thorns the rose.
Paradise Lost.
Pope translates the passage thus;
Beds of all various herbs, for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.
Homer referred to pot-herbs, not to flowers of all hues. Cowper is generally more faithful than Pope, but he is less so in this instance. In the above description we have Homer's highest conception of a princely garden:--in five acres were included an orchard, a vineyard, and some beds of pot-herbs. Not a single flower is mentioned, by the original author, though his translator has been pleased to steal some from the garden of Eden and place them on "the verge extreme" of the four acres. Homer of course meant to attach to a Royal residence as Royal a garden; but as Bacon says, "men begin to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection." The mansion of Alcinous was of brazen walls with golden columns; and the Greeks and Romans had houses that were models of architecture when their gardens exhibited no traces whatever of the hand of taste.