Book I. 



GARDENING IN GERMANY. 



45 



Esterhazy is Eisenstadt ; the palace has lately been improved, and the gardens, which 

 were laid out in 1754 in the French taste, were, in 1814, transforming in the English 

 manner. (Travels in Hungary, 346.) 



207. At Dresden, the royal and principal private gardens exhibit nothing remarkable 

 in the way of art. They were formed chiefly during the electorate of Frederick Augus- 

 tus, King of Poland, and are remarkably confined, and by no means interesting in 

 detail. The situation and environs of Dresden every one feels to be delightful ; but 

 there is perhaps no city of the same rank on the continent equally deficient both in 

 ancient and modern gardens. (Ed. Encyc. art. Landscape Gard.) 



208. Prussia. Almost all the geometric gardens of Prussia were formed during the 

 propitious reign of Frederick II. 



The Thiergarten at Berlin is the most extensive. It is a sort of public park or promenade, on a flat 

 surface, and loose arenaceous soil, intersected by avenues and alleys, pierced by stars and pates d'oye, 

 varied by obelisks and statues, and accommodated with public coffee-houses, sheds for music and rural 

 fetes, and open areas for exercising troops. 



The ancient gardens of Sans Souci at Potsdam are in the mixed style of Switzer, with every appendage 

 and ornament of the French, Italian, and Dutch taste. Various artists, but chiefly Manger, a German 

 architect, and Salzmann, the royal gardener, (each of whom has published a voluminous description of his 

 works there,) were employed in their design and execution ; and a detailed topographical historyof the 

 whole, accompanied by plans, elevations, and views, has been published by the late celebrated Nicholai 

 of Berlin, at once an author, printer, bookbinder, and bookseller. The gardens consist of, 1. The hill, on 

 the summit of which Sans Souci is placed. The slope in front of this palace is laid out in six terraces, 

 each ten feet high, and its supporting wall covered with glass, for peaches and vines. 2. A hill to the 

 east, devoted to hot-houses, culinary vegetables, and slopes or terraces for fruit-trees. 3. A plain at the 

 bottom of the slope, laid out in Switzer's manner, leading to the new palace ; and 4. A reserve of hot- 

 houses, and chiefly large orangeries, and pits for pines to the west, and near the celebrated windmill, of 

 which Frederick could not get possession. 



The Sans Souci scenery is more curious and varied, than simple and grand. The hill of glazed terraces 

 crowned by Sans Souci has indeed a singular appearance ; but the woods, cabinets, and innumerable 

 statues in the grounds below, are on too small a scale for the effect intended to be produced ; and on the 

 whole distract and divide the attention on the first view. Potsdam, with its environs, forms a crowded 

 scene of architectural and gardening efforts ; a sort of royal magazine, in which an immense number of 

 expensive articles, pillared scenery, screens of columns, empty palaces, churches, and public buildings, as 

 Eustace and Wilson observe, crowd on our eyes, and distract our attention. Hirschrield, who does not 

 appear to have been a great admirer of Frederick, and who, as the Prince de Ligne has remarked, was 

 touched with the Anglomania in gardening, says, in 1785, " according to the last news from Prussia, 

 the taste for gardens is not yet perfect in that country. A recent author vaunts a palace chatnpetre, 

 which presents as many windows as there are days in the year : he praises the high hedges, mountains 

 of periwinkle, regular parterres of flowers, ponds, artificial grottoes, jets d'eau, and designs traced on a 

 plain." (Theorie, &c. torn. v. 366.) 



209. The principal examples of the English style in Prussia are the royal gardens at 

 the summer residence of Charlottenburg, near Berlin, begun by Frederick the Great, 

 but chiefly laid out during the reign of Frederick William II. They are not extensive, 

 and are situated on a dull sandy flat, washed by the Spree ; under which unfavorable 

 circumstances, it would be wonderful if they w ere very attractive. In one part of these 

 gardens, a Doric mausoleum of great beauty contains the ashes of the much-lamented 

 queen. A dark avenue of Scotch firs leads to a circle of the same tree, 150 feet in 

 diameter. Interior circles are formed of cypresses and weeping-willows; and within 

 these, is a border of white roses and white lilies (Lilium candidum). The form of the 

 mausoleum is oblong, and its end projects from this interior circle, directly opposite the 

 covered avenue. A few steps descend from the entrance to a platform, in which, on a 

 sarcophagus, is a reclining figure of the queen : a stair at one side leads to the door of a 

 vault containing her remains. 



210. The garden of the palace of the Heiligense (fig. 15.) is avowedly English, and is 

 in much better taste than that at Charlottenburg. The palace is cased externally with 



