HORACE WALPOLE 173 



Garden of Eden, I do not doubt but he concludes it was some- 

 thing approaching to that of Versailles, with dipt hedges, 

 berceaus, and trelliswork. If his devotion humbles him so 

 far as to allow that, considering who designed it, there might 

 be a labyrinth full of ^sop's fables, yet he does not conceive 

 that four of the largest rivers in the world were half so magni- 

 ficent as an hundred fountains full of statues by Girardon. It 

 is thus that the word garden has at all times passed for what- 

 ever was understood by that term in different countries. But 

 that it meant no more than a kitchen-garden or orchard for 

 several centuries, is evident from those few descriptions that 

 are preserved of the most famous gardens of antiquity. 



(Walpole then describes Alcinous's garden in Homer ; the hanging gardens 

 of Babylon ; Pliny's gardens, at his Laurentine and Tusculan villas ; the gardens 

 of Herculaneum, of which latter he says :) 



In the paintings found at Herculaneum are a few traces of 

 gardens, as may be seen in the second volume of the prints. 

 They are small square inclosures formed by trellis-work, and 

 espaliers,! and regularly ornamented with vases, fountains and 

 Caryatides, elegantly symmetrical, and proper for the narrow 

 spaces allotted to the garden of a house in a capital city. From 

 such I would not banish those playful waters that refresh a 

 sultry mansion in town, nor the neat trellis, which preserves 

 its wooden verdure better than natural greens exposed to dust. 

 Those treillages in the gardens at Paris, particularly on the 

 Boulevard, have a gay and delightful effect. They form light 

 corridores, and transpicuous arbours through which the sun- 

 beams play and chequer the shade, set off the statues, vases, 

 and flowers, that marry with their gaudy hotels, and suit the 

 galant and idle society who paint the walks between their 

 parterres, and realize the fantastic scenes of Watteau and Durfe. 



From what I have said, it appears how naturally and insensibly 

 the idea of a kitchen-garden slid into that which has for so 

 many ages been peculiarly termed a garden, and by our 



1 At Warwick castle is an ancient suit of arras, in which there is a garden 

 exactly resembling these pictures of Herculaneum. — Walpole s Note. 



