Richard Savage
Flowering Pride of Gardens
Today is the anniversary of the death of the English poet Richard Savage.
Richard once wrote about a practice among the wealthy, allowing their servants to show their gardens in exchange for money. Even the Queen let her Richmond garden and cave to be viewed for a sum. It was a practice that distressed Richard.
Richard wrote:
But what the flowering pride of gardens rare,
However royal, or however fair,
If gates, which to access should still give way,
Open but, like Peter's paradise, for pay?
If perquisited varlets frequent stand,
And each new walk must a new tax demand?
What foreign eye but with contempt surveys?
What Muse shall from oblivion snatch their praise?
Richard wisely withheld these lines from publication while the Queen was alive. But after her death, he published his work in its entirety.