Trianon.

persecuted, but immortal Rousseau, whose tomb every one knows is here, became so famous as to be resorted to very generally. It has been described, and plates published of the chief views; to enter into a particular description would therefore be tiresome, I shall only make one or two observations, which I do not recollect having been touched on by others. It consists of three distinct water scenes; or of two lakes and a river. We were first shown that which is so famous for the small Isle of Poplars, in which reposes all that was mortal of that extraordinary and inimitable writer. This scene is as well imagined, and as well executed as could be wished. The water is between forty and fifty acres ; hills rise from it on both sides, and it is sufficiently closed in by tall wood at both ends, to render it sequestered. The remains of departed genius stamp a melancholy idea, from which decoration would depart too much, and accordingly there is little. We viewed the scene in a still evening. The declining sun threw a lengthened shade on the lake, and silence seemed to repose on its unruffled bosom; as some poet says, I forget who. The worthies to whom the temple of philosophers is dedicated, and whose names are marked on the columns, are Newton, Lucem.— Descartes, Nil in rebus inane.-Voltaire, Ridiculum.-Rousseau, Naturam. And on another unfinished column, Quis hoc perficiet? The other lake is larger; it nearly fills the bottom of the vale, around which are some rough, rocky, wild and barren sand hills; either broken or spread with heath; in some places wooded, and in others scattered thinly with junipers. The character of the scene is that of wild and undecorated nature, in which the hand of art was meant to be concealed as much as was consistent with ease of access. The last scene is that of a river, which is made to wind through a lawn, receding from the house, and broken by wood: the ground is not fortunate; it is too dead a flat, and no where viewed to much advantage.

To Trianon, to view the Queen's Jardin Anglais. I had a letter to Mons. Richard, which procured admittance. It contains about 100 acres, disposed in the taste of what we read of in books

of Chinese gardening, whence it is supposed the English style was taken. There is more of Sir William Chambers here than of Mr Brown, more effort than nature-and more expence than taste. It is not easy to conceive anything that art can introduce in a garden that is not here; woods, rocks, lawns, lakes, rivers, islands, cascades, grottos, walks, temples, and even villages. There are parts of the design very pretty, and well executed. The only fault is too much crouding; which has led to another, that of cutting the lawn by too many gravel walks, an error to be seen in almost every garden I have met with in France. But the glory of La Petite Trianon is the exotic trees and shrubs. The world has been successfully rifled to decorate it. Here are curious and beautiful ones to please the eye of ignorance; and to exercise the memory of science. Of the buildings the temple of Love is truly elegant.

Pass Rosoy to Maupertuis, through a country chearfully Maupertuis. diversified by woods, and scattered with villages; and single farms spread every where as about Nangis. Maupertuis seems to have been the creation of the marquis de Montesquiou, who has here a very fine chateau of his own building; an extensive English garden, made by the Count d'Artois' gardener,1 with the town, has all been of his own forming. I viewed the garden with pleasure; a proper advantage has been taken of a good command of a stream, and many fine springs which rise in the grounds; they are well conducted, and the whole executed with taste. In the kitchen garden, which is on the slope of a hill, one of these springs has been applied to excellent use, it is made to wind in many doubles through the whole on a paved bed, forming numerous basons for watering the garden, and might with little trouble, be conducted alternately to every bed as in Spain. This is a bit of real utility to all those who form gardens on the sides of hills; for watering with pots and pails is a miserable, as well as expensive succedaneum to this infinitely more 1 Thomas Blaikie, a Scotsman, who laid out many of the best gardens in France before and after the Revolution (see Loudon, p. 88).

effective method. There is but one fault in this garden, which is its being placed near the house, where there should be nothing but lawn and scattered trees when viewed from the Chateau.Travels in France, 1787-9.

SIR

1780, Translated Pausanias: his various works on the Picturesque, Beauty UVEDALE and Landscape were collected in one volume by Sir T. D. Lauder in 1842. PRICE

1747-1829).

MAY perhaps have spoken more feelingly on this subject, from having done myself what I so condemn in others-destroyed an old-fashioned garden. . . .

I remember, that even this garden (so infinitely inferior to those of Italy) had an air of decoration, and of gaiety, arising from that decoration-un air paré—a distinction from mere unimbellished nature, which, whatever the advocates for extreme simplicity may allege, is surely essential to an ornamented garden: all the beauties of undulating ground, of shrubs, and of verdure are to be found in places where no art has ever been employed, and consequently cannot bestow a distinction which they do not possess.

Among other circumstances, I have a strong recollection of a raised terrace, seen sideways from that in front of the house, in the middle of which was a flight of steps with its iron rails, and an arched recess below it backed by a wood: these steps conducted you from the terrace to a lower compartment, where there was a mixture of fruit-trees, shrubs, and statues, disposed, indeed, with some formality, yet which formed a dressed foreground to the woods; and with a little alteration would have richly and happily blended with the general landscape. . . .

I regret extremely, not only the compartment I have just mentioned, but another garden immediately beyond it and I cannot forget the sort of curiosity and surprise that was excited after a short absence, even in me to whom it was familiar, by the simple and common circumstance of a door that led from the first compartment to the second, and the pleasure I always experienced on entering that inner and more secluded garden. There was nothing, however, in the garden itself to excite any

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