Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/103

 Spenser, and Dryden. They are the more interesting, from the circumstance of their having been the property of Pope, and bequeathed by him to George Lord Lyttelton.

From most of the rooms the views are agreeably diversified; and a still greater variety might have been introduced, had the little parish church (as I have before observed) been allowed to make a feature in the scene. In the time of George Lord Lyttelton, who was not ashamed of such a neighbour, its ivied tower and Gothic windows peeped prettily from the woods that now encircle it, and threw into the pleasing impressions which the surrounding scenery excited, the agreeable idea of public social worship. But this did not symphonize with the feelings of his successor; to him the house of God was a bugbear, and as such he determined to conceal it from his sight. He, therefore, thickened his plantations; and so effectually, as to preclude all appearance of the little picturesque structure, till it be nearly approached. As we listened to this fact, recorded by an old inhabitant of the place, we could not but advert to the singular and powerful opposition of character exemplified in the two successive possessors of Hagley-park Lord George, and his son. The former a man of the highest intellectual powers and acquirements, and