The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-11-13
HISTORIC TwICKENHAM.
where Pope Sung and Where tho Young
Lady Took tho Ferry Ride.


Lady Took the Ferry Ride.
TwIcKENHAx, England. Nov. I.-[Spe-
clai Correspondence Here Pope lived
the greater part of his life. Here Louis
Philippe plotted and planned for the
restoration of the Orleans princes to the
throne OF France, and here he lived again
after he was exiled. Around the corner
from my house stands portion of ARA
gon Towers, once the home of Queen
Katharine, of that ilk. Near by are the
walls that once echoed the voices of Pitt.
Walpole, Gay, Swift, Warburton and a
host OF names familiar to the student of
English literature. and last, but not least,
who has not heard of "Twickenham
Ferry" so famed in song il in nothing
else.
OF course, it is around Pope's villa that
the largest measure of interest centers-
or. rather, around the spot where Pope's
villa stood, for the original edifice has
been replaced by larger and more pre-
tentious one now tenanted by Mr.. La
bouchere, NJ. p, the enterprising editor
and proprietor of Truth Here it was
that Pope wrote 1.-THE Deathless Satire,
the Immortal Song" which neither time.
fashion nor envy can obliterate; here he
entertained the most highly gifted men Of
his own or perhaps any other time, the
most noble, influential and amiable. The
grotto which he formed and where he
loved to sit with his friends is before US, as
we'll a. the garden he planted. And it is
in this garden. perhaps, though enlarged
and altered by his first successor, that We
find most trace of the poets handiwork.
He spent much time and money beautify-
the grounds. and transformed the plat Of
five acres into Landscape in miniature,
as like as possible to natures own pic
lures. The walk so twisted and twirled
and rhymed and harmonized," as Walpole
tells, that there appeared two or three
sweet little lawns opening one beyond an
other, and the whole surrounded with
thick impenetrable woods"
To the most picturesque part of this
garden the entrance was through the cele-
brated grotto. A highroad divides the
grounds. the house standing on one side,
that nearest the river, with its wooded
lawn sloping down to the waters edge.
The grotto was formed to obviate the
necessity Of crossing the road every time
the other part of the ground had to De
reached. 1t was, therefore, necessity as
we'll as a luxury. Pope thus describes it
himself in q letter to his friend Edward
Biount. dated June 2, 1925.
II have put the last hand to my work of
this kind. in happily finishing the subter-
ranean way and Srotto. / there found a
spring of the clearest water, which falls in
a perpetual rill that echoes through the
cavern day and night. From the River
Thames you see through my arch up a
walk of the wilderness, to kind of open
temple, wholly composed OF she'll in the
rustic manner; and from that distance
under the temple you look down through
a sioping arcade of trees, and see the sails
on, al n O anddonlv a h
ing as through perspective glass. When
you shut the doors of this grotto it be-
comes On the instant, from luminous
room. camera obscura, on the walls of
which all objects Of the river. hills, woods
and boats are forming q moving picture in
their visible radiatiOns; and when you
have mind to light it up it affords you
very different scene. It is finished with
shells. interspersed with pieces of looking.
glass i'll angular forms, and in the ceiling
is star Of the same material. at which,
when q lamp (of an orbciular figure Of
thin alabaster) is hung in the middle, a
thousand pointed rays glitter and are re-
hected over the place.
There are connected with this grotto
by narrower passage two porches; one
towards the river, of smooth stones. full
of light and open; the other towards the
garden. Swallowed with trees. rough with
shells. flints and iron ore. The bottom is
paved with simple pebble. as is also the
adjoining walk up the wilderness to the
temple, in the natural taste, agreeing not
i'll with the little dripping murmur and
the aquatic idea of the whole place."
This grotto still remains, though shorn
of much of its former glory.
In addition to the lawn, the grove and
the grotto. there is only one other memo
rial Of Pope in Twickenham; his tomb in
the parish church. The gravestone itself
IS now hidden under the flooring of the
seats: hit on IN" ""s' wall marble m onr-