44 



FOREIGN NOTICES, 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



The Bkautiful Gardens of Italy. — [The 

 following is part of a letter received by a late 

 steamer from one of our neighbors, who has left 

 his country seat on the Hudson for a couple of years, 

 to explore Europe and Asia. He looks at Europe 

 so much with our own eyes, in a horticultural sense, 

 and describes the perfections of Italian gardening 

 80 understandingly, that we are sure our readers 

 will enjoy the following long extracts. — Edt.] 



All I said against Italy in the winter, I will un- 

 say of it in the spring. Nothing can surpass it in 

 verdure and luxuriance. lu Lombardy, especially, 

 as far as the eye can reach, the most superb crops, 

 the barley being higher than our horse's heads ; hill 

 upon hill, mountain upon mountain, terraced to the 

 summit, and the cultivation of the grapes as carefully 

 fully attended to in the training up and tying, as in 

 Sivinery in America. And the roads — I do not think 



Mr. L-^ 's, (on the Hudson), the first hour after 



its spring draining and raking, can compare with 

 them : richly gravelled, not a weed to be seen, on 

 either side stone gutters, then granite posts every 

 ten feet, then a double row of horse-chestnuts, (now 

 in bloom) , then a gravel-walk, then a closely sha- 

 ven and verged turf border ; and this for 100 miles, 

 to Milan ; and 31 miles from Milan to Como ; and 

 in fact, all over Lombardy. The country is per- 

 fectly flat, and the roads, or rather avenues, 

 straight, and would be monotonous, if one were not 

 so charmed by the cultivation, and the most ex- 

 quisite order. Not a wall or fence is to be seen, 

 seldom a hedge, — the divisions being made by trees, 

 (pollards,) of mulberry or poplar, whose summer 

 growth generally does duty as fire-wood in winter. 



But these divisions, or even fields, can seldom be 

 much seen, from the density of the shade trees — 

 chesnuts or lindens, that border the great roads. * 

 »«*••* Milan, itself, is surrounded by a 

 noble, gravelled drive of 12 miles, bordered by a 

 double row of horse-chestnut, now in full bloom and 

 very magnificent. The celebrated cathedral here, 

 far surpasses in richness and beauty all I have 

 hitherto seen. Conceive of 7000 statues on the 

 roof, on the different turrets and pinnacles, and the 

 carved stone flowevs that adorn the flying buttresses 

 in 32,000 varieties ! » * * We have been two 

 days at Como, and I am convinced that I have 

 passed last night and this morning at a spot never 

 elsewhere to be surpassed in its glorious beauty. 

 Hitherto I held up for the Hudson, but to-night we 

 have come home to Como, heatful and disspirited ; 

 for we have seen Bellagio ! I am almost tempted 

 to say no more, for I oan't describe it — who can 

 describe Bellagio 1 I will merely say this, that you 

 sail up the lake (which is 52 miles long) some 20 

 miles, through scenery wonderfully similar to the 

 Hudson highlands from Caldwell's to Buttermilk 

 falls, and about as wide as our river there ; but 

 diflering in this way ; where the dock is at Cald- 

 well's, will be a terraced wall, springing from the 



water, surmounted by a heavy stone l/annstracfe' 

 This again is crowned at its angles, and pilasters, 

 with statues, or vases, with a double flight of stone 

 steps, facing two ways, descending into the water. 

 Back of this terrace is another, perhaps a third, 

 with their walls towards the river espaliered with 

 oranges and lemons, or with Lamarque and the 

 true Banksian roses in a mass of bloom. Thea 

 rises a palace, crowned by a ballustrade and sta- 

 tues, and flanked by cypresses, ilex, Italian pines, 

 mingled, towards the flower garden, with magnolia 

 grandiflora, laurustinus, laurels, oleander, and pur- 

 ple beeches. These gardens leading through for- 

 mal, but beautiful myrtle hedges, to bosquets, and 

 finally to terrace upon terrace, with tiers of mul- 

 berry and vines, and so on, up apparently inacces- 

 sible hill sides, to the top of a mountain as perpen- 

 dicular and higher than " Anthony's Nose." On 

 the very apex will be perched, perhaps, a village 

 of 60 or 100 houses, and its church of grey or yel- 

 lowish stone and tiled roof. These villagers are 

 tenants and tillers of the soil of the villabelow. Ima- 

 gine this existing all through the Highlands ; these 

 villas diflering in size and taste like our North 

 river places : some with one teirace, others two, 

 01 hers with half a dozen. Some, on the contrary, 

 immediately rising from the water, like Mr. Cru- 

 ger's summer-house ; having in this case their ter- 

 races in the rear, and on the lake, canopied bal- 

 conies overhanging it : sometimes, again, the vil- 

 lage will be on the water, and the villa half way 

 up the terraced mount. The mountains are gene- 

 rally much more elevated and more sharply pointed 

 than our " Sugar Loaf," (the most conical of the 

 hills on the Hudson); surmounted, perhaps, by a 

 chapel, so inaccessible that you would think it built 

 as a penance for those to visit it who live at its foot ; 

 and this is sometimes actually the intention. We 

 passed one to-day immediately over a village which 

 it took 5 hours to reach. To convey to one at home 

 some idea of the grouping here, you must place 

 yourself in our Highlands, with, on the top of Break- 

 neck a convent ; on the top of Crows-Hest a village; 

 half-way down, perhaps, another, the houses not 

 scattered, but all huddled as close together as pos- 

 sible — 20 houses and a church not covering as 

 much space as 5 with us : a point like Stoney point 

 would have a villa on its south and one on its north, 

 and pp.rhaps another on the point ; the gar- 

 dens and terraces all running into each other by 

 their terraced walls. On the highest ground would 

 be perhaps a little village, or ruined, ivied tower. 

 Every point you turn you come to a villa, a palace, 

 or a town, snugly stowed away on a mountain, or 

 a projecting cliff, like West Point, as if to be put 

 out of temptation. 



All these places are accessible only by boats or 

 mule paths, for there is no beach or level ground. 

 The mountain begins from the water. This is the 

 character of all the Italian lakes. 



After running up through this highland scenery 

 of Como for two hours, you come at last to a pro- 



