MR. DOWNING' S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



The gardens of the Borghesian villa Mondragone, at Frascati, combine to an unusual 

 extent the richness of immediately surrounding features with the result of art. The no- 

 blest views over the Appenine range, and the campagna, the latter extending even to Rome, 

 where the vast cupolas of St. Peter's are seen describing a dim blue arch upon the horizon. 

 The various and picturesque foreground offered by the rich marble terraces of Moudragone, 

 have not been overlooked by artists; many distant views of Rome, and of the ever attrac- 

 tive campagna, have been painted from this spot. 



MR. DO WNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



Dropmore is the seat of Lady Grenville, and has been celebrated, for some time, for 

 its collection of rare trees — especially evergreens. It is in the neighborhood of Windsor, 

 and I passed a morning there with a good deal of interest. 



In point of taste and beauty, Dropmore disappointed me. The site is flat, the soil sandy 

 and thin, and the arrangement, in no way remarkable. The mansion is not so fine as 

 some upon the Hudson, and the scenery about it, does not rise above the dead level of an 

 uniformity rendered less insipid by abundant plantations. There is, however, a wilderness 

 of flower-garden about the house, in which I saw scarlet geraniums and garden vases 

 enough to embellish a whole village. The effect, however, was riant and gay without the 

 sentiment of real beauty. 



But one does not go to Norway to drink sherbet, and Dropmore is only a show place 

 by virtue of its Pinetum. This is its collection of evergreen trees, and particularly of 

 the piyie tribe — every species that will grow in England being collected in this one place. 



Of course, in a scientific collection of evergreen trees, there are many that are only 

 curious to the botanist — many that are only valuable for timber, and many that are al- 

 most ugly in their growth — or at least present no attractive feature to the general eye. 

 But there are also, in this Pinetum, some evergreens of such rare and wonderful beauty, 

 growing in such exquisite perfection of development, that they effect a tree-lover like those 

 few finest Raphaels and Vandykes in the great galleries, which irradiate whole acres of 

 common art. 



The oldest and finest portion of the Pinetum occupies a lawn of several acres near the 

 house, upon which are assembled, like belles at a levee, many of those loveliest of ever- 

 greens — the Araucaria or pine of Chili, the Douglass' Fir of California, the Sacred Cedar 

 of India, the Funebral Cypress of Japan and many others. 



Perhaps the finest tree in this scene is the Douglass' Fir (^Jlhies Douglassii.^ It is 

 sixty-two feet high, and has grown to this altitude in twenty-one years from the seed. 

 It resembles most the Norway Spruce, as one occasionally sees the finest form of that 

 tree, having that graceful downward sweep of the branches and feathering out quite 

 down to the turf — but it is altogether more airy in form and of a richer and dark 

 er green in color. At this size it is the symbol of stately elegance. Here is also a speci- 

 men, thirty feet high, of Pinus insignis, the richest and darkest of all pines, as well as 

 Pinus excelsa, one of the most affectedly pretty evergreens — its silvery leaves resemblin"- 

 those of the white pine, but drooping languidly — and Pinus macrocarpa with longer leaves 

 than those of the Pinaster.* 



* Taxodiuin sempervirens is here seventeen feet hia:U — rich dark green m foliage and very ornamental 

 tomeriajaponica, nearly as large, rather disappointed me — keeping its brown leaves so long as to disfigure 

 somewhat. Picea ncAilis is a truly beautiful fir tree. 



No. III. 3^ ~~~ 



