This Dialogue upon the Gardens ... at Stow is valuable both for its documentation of Stowe and for its early indications of Gilpin's picturesque tastes (see pp. 337 ff.). He visited Lord Cobham's gardens in 1747 and published his Dialogue anony mously the following year; there were further editions in 1749 and 1751. The three extracts here clearly reveal Gilpin's central concerns. At the Rotunda his two characters debate rival ideas of landscape style: Callophilus, as his name implies, loves the beauty of natural scenes that have been arranged by art; Polypthon expresses his eponymous ill-will by rejecting the decorations of art and by affirming (as he does more lyrically in the second passage) a penchant for natural beauties. In the Elysian Fields they concur, however, in `reading' this example of 'moral gardening', and though Polypthon enjoys the `satire' of the temples he still waxes enthusiastic about northern scenery outside gardens. Both visitors to Stowe enjoy the painterly suggestions of Stowe's landscape, finding landskips at every turn; both testify to the mental and emotional responses that places like Stowe elicit from visitors. The third extract, which concludes the Dialogue , makes each of those reactions quite clear; in addition, it announces an early occasion of Gilpin's finding that a scene struck him `beyond the power of thought ... and every mental operation is suspended. In this pause of intellect, this deliquirium of the soul, an enthusiastic sensation of pleasure over spreads it.' ( Three Essays , 1792.) As a young man at Stowe, Gilpin displays the two habits that characterize his later picturesque writings: a delight in tracing the formal, abstract patterns of a landscape, and a fascination with his imaginative involvement. Read full article...