No sheers to check her sprouting vigour,
Or shape the yews to antick figure."
But you forsooth your all must squander
On that poor spot, call'd Dell-ville, yonder:
And when you've been at vast expenses
In whims, parterres, canals, and fences,
Your assets fail, and cash is wanting;
Nor farther buildings, farther planting:
No wonder, when you raise and level,
Think this wall low, and that wall bevel.
Here a convenient box you found,
Which you demolish’d to the ground:
Then built, then took up with your arbour,
And set the house to Rupert Barber.
You sprang an arch, which, in a scurvy
Humour, you tumbled topsyturvy.
You change a circle to a square,
Then to a circle as you were:
Who can imagine whence the fund is,
That you quadrata change rotundis?
To Fame a temple you erect,
A Flora does the dome protect;
Mounts, walks, on high; and in a hollow
You place the Muses and Apollo;
There shining 'midst his train, to grace
Your whimsical poetick place.
These stories were of old design'd
As fables: but you have refin'd
The poets' mythologick dreams,
To real Muses, gods, and streams.
Who would not swear, when you contrive thus,
That you're don Quixote redivivus?
Beneath, a dry canal there lies,
Which only Winter's rain supplies.
