THE HISTORY OF GARDENING. 59 



" Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all kinds 

 the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, 

 that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet 

 with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expense. 

 It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not 

 very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of 

 most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden ; the 

 gTeat parlour opens into the middle of a terrace gravel walk that lies 

 even with it, and which may lie, as I remember, about three hundred 

 paces long, and broad in proportion ; the border set with standard 

 laurels, and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange trees 

 out of flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many 

 stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. 

 This is divided into quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two 

 fountains and eight statues in the several quarters. At the end of the 

 terrace-walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are 

 ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden, upon arches of 

 stone, and ending with two other summer-houses even with the 

 cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for walks of 

 shade, there being none other in the whole parterre. Over these two 

 cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balusters; 

 and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer- 

 houses at the end of the first terrace-walk. The cloister facing the 

 south is covered with vines, and would have been proper for an 

 orange-house, and the other for myrtles or other more common 

 greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece 

 of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now. 



" From the middle of this parterre is a descent by many steps 

 flying on each side of a grotto that lies between them, covered with 

 lead and flat, into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees ranged 

 about the several quarters of a wilderness, which is very shady; the 

 walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell 

 rock-work, fountains, and water-works. If the hill had not ended 

 with the lower garden, and the wall were not bounded by a common 

 way that goes through the park, they might have added a third 

 quarter of all greens ; but this want is supplied by a garden on tlic 

 other side of the house, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, 

 and adorned with rough rock-work and fountains. 



