The grotto.

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

In a spring day with no sun, I would work hard following Mr. John Serle’s instructions to transform my empty room in a grotto.

Mr. John Serle was the gardener and the invaluable help of Mr. Alexander Pope, the English poet and gardener who lived near London at the beginning of the 18th century. The success of his translation of Homer's The Iliad into English couplets allowed him to settle in a leased property in Twickenham around 1719. He built a three-storey Palladian villa overlooking the Thames and created a garden on the other side of the road, the Hampton Court - London highway. He arranged a subterranean passage to link the villa to the garden and transformed it into a fancy grotto. In his correspondence, he proudly informed his friends about developments:

Pope to Blount, June 2, 1725

“…I have put the last hand to my works of this kind, in happily finishing the subterraneous way and grotto … When you shut the doors of this grotto it becomes on the instant, from a luminous room a Camera obscura on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats are forming a moving picture in their visible radiations; …It is finished with shells interspersed with pieces of looking-glass in angular forms; and in the ceiling is a star of the same material, at which when a lamp, of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster, is hung in the middles, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place.” (vol.6)

Swift to Pope, Sept. 29, 1725

“…I have been told by Mr. Ford of your great achievements in building and planting, and especially of you subterranean passage to your garden, whereby you turned a blunder into a beauty, which is a piece of Ars Poetica.” (vol.7)

Pope to Fortescue London, March 22, 1734-5

“…My garden, however, is in good condition and promises fruits not too early. I’m building a stone obelisk, making two new ovens and stoves, and a hot-house for ananas, of which I hope you will taste this year. “ (vol.9)

Pope to Swift London March 25, 1736

“…Yet my house is enlarged, and the gardens extend and flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost. I have more fruit-trees and kitchen-garden than you have any thought of: may, I have good melons and pineapples of my own growth. I am as much a better gardener, as I am a worse poet, then when you saw me; but gardening is near akin to philosophy, for Tully says, Agricultura proxima sapientiae.” (vol.7)

Pope to Sir Hans Sloane, Twickenham, March 30, 1742

“Sir, I am extremely obliged to you for your intended kindness of furnishing my grotto with that surprising natural curiosity, which indeed I have ardently sought some time.” (vol.9)

Pope to Warbourton Twitenam, March 1743

“…I have lived much by myself of late, partly through ill-health, and partly to amuse myself with little improvements in my garden and house, to which possibly I shall, if I live, be soon more confined..” (vol.9)

The melancholy tone of the last letter does not stifle his pleasure and interest in gardening. Pope was part of a group of noble patrons and artists who were creating the new landscaped garden: asymmetry, surprise and variety, clumps of trees, winding paths and unexpected panoramic views, statues, urns and inscriptions to recall the high moral values of the classical world that inspired their life and art. 

The Grotto was a place of retirement and inspiration and, in his last years, a museum for his minerals. I quote Mr. John Serle, who described the incredible collections of minerals in the only official guide to the garden published in 1745, one year after Mr. Alexander Pope’s death:

“… Several large piece of fine Crystal intermix’d with Yellow Mundic;…Silver Ore from the mines of Mexico, …petrified wood, Brazil pebbles, Egyptian pebbles and blood-stones from Mr. Brisden... Some large clumps of Amethyst and several pieces of White Spar from the Duchess of Cleveland. …Many pieces of corals…One Cornish diamond, from the Prince’s Mine in Cornwall…”

I would like to have a room, an empty room with heaps of shells, glasses, stones, ores, minerals, gems, stalactites, crystals, marbles, alabaster and amethysts scattered on the floor, and an inspired poet with a cup of tea in his hand entering the door.



Further reading:
Alexander Pope, The works of Alexander Pope : including several hundred unpublished letters and other new materials, London 1841 - different volumes from Internet Archive  http://www.archive.org

John Serle, A plan of Mr. Pope's garden: as it was left at his death, with a plan and perspective view of the grotto, Garland Publishing Inc. New York London 1982.

Photos:
Travelinagarden
except The Grotto as drawn by John Serle in 1745 (from The Twickenham Museum)

Links:
The official site of The Twickenham Museum: 

http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk