206 ON CHINESE GARDENS. 



ARTICLE V. 



ON CHINESE GARDENS. 



(Continued from page 183.) 



Both in their lakes and rivers are seen many kinds of reeds, 

 and other aquatic plants and flowers ; serving for ornament, as 

 well as for covert to their birds. They erect upon them mills 

 and other hydraulic machines, wherever the situation will permit. 

 They introduce a great many splendid vessels, built after the 

 manner of all nations ; and keep in them all kinds of curious and 

 beautiful water-fowl, collected from different countries. 



Nor are they less various and magnificent in their bridges than 

 in their other decorations. Some they build of wood, and com- 

 pose them of rough planks, laid in a rustic manner upon large 

 roots of trees ; some are made of many trunks of trees, thrown 

 rudely over the stream ; and fenced with decayed branches, 

 intertwined with the convolvulus, and climbers of different sorts ; 

 some are composed of vast arches of carpentry, artfully and neatly 

 framed together. They have also bridges of stone and marble, 

 adorned with colonades, triumphal arches, towers, loggias, fishing 

 pavilions, statues, bas-reliefs, brazen tripods, and porcelain 

 vases. Some of them are upon a curve, or a serpentine plap : 

 others branching out into various directions : others straight, and 

 some at the conflux of rivers or canals, are made triangular, 

 quadrilateral or circular, as the situation requires ; with pavilions 

 at their angles, and basons of water in their centers, adorned with 

 Jets d'eau, and fountains of many sorts. 



Of these bridges some are entire, and executed with the utmost 

 neatness and taste ; others seem in ruins ; others are left half 

 finished, being surrounded with scaffolds, machines, and the whole 

 apparatus of building. 



It is natural for the reader to imagine, that all these bridges, 

 with the pavilions, temples, palaces, and other structures, which 

 have been occasionally described in the course of this work, and 

 which are so abundantly scattered over the Chinese Gardens, 

 should entirely divest them of a rural character, and give them 

 rather the appearance of splendid cities, than scenes of cultivated 

 vegetation. But such is the judgment with which the Chinese 

 Artists situate their structures, that they enrich and beautify par- 

 ticular prospects, without any detriment to the general aspect of 

 the whole composition, in which Nature almost always appears 

 predominant ; for though their Gardens are full of buildings, and 



