But to return to Brompton: ’Tis not to be imagin’d what a surprizing scene, such a spacious _salone_, tapistried with the natural verdure of the glittering foliage, present the spectator, and recompenses the toil of the ingenious planter; when after a little patience, he finds the slender plants, set but at five or six foot distance, (nor much more in height, well prun’d and dress’d) ascend to an altitude sufficient to shade and defend his paradisian treasure without excluding the milder gleams of the glorious and radiant planet, with his cherishing influence, and kindly warmth, to all within the inclosure, refreshed with the cooling and early dew, pregnant with the sweet exhalations which the indulgent mother and teeming earth sends up, to nourish and maintain her numerous and tender off-spring.
But after all, let us not dwell here too long, whilst the inferences to be derived from those tempting and temporary objects, prompt us to raise our contemplations a little on objects yet more worthy our noblest speculations, and all our pains and curiosity, representing that happy state above, namely, the cœlestial paradise: Let us, I say, suspend our admiration a while, of these terrestrial gayeties, which are of so short continuance, and raise our thoughts from being too deeply immers’d and rooted in them, aspiring after those supernal, more lasting and glorious abodes, namely, a paradise; not like this of ours (with so much pains and curiosity) made with hands, but eternal in the heavens; where all the trees are Trees of Life; the flowers all amaranths; all the plants perennial, ever verdant, ever pregnant; and where those who desire knowledge, may fully satiate themselves; taste freely of the fruit of that tree, which cost the first gardiner and posterity so dear; and where the most voluptuous inclinations to the allurements of the senses, may take, and eat, and still be innocent; no forbidden fruit; no serpent to deceive; none to be deceived.
Hail, O hail then, and welcome, you bless’d elyziums, where a new state of things expects us; where all the pompous and charming delights that detain us here a while, shall be changed into real and substantial fruitions, eternal springs, and pleasure intellectual, becoming the dignity of our nature!