178 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



horizon, his taste as an architect could bestow immediate termina- 

 tion. His buildings, his seats, his temples, were more the works 

 of his pencil V than of his compasses. We owe the restoration of 

 Greece and the diffusion of architecture to his skill in landscape. 

 But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful 

 country, none surpassed his management of water. Adieu to 

 canals, circular basons, and cascades tumbHng down marble steps, 

 that last absurd magnificence of Italian and French villas. The 

 forced elevation of cataracts was no more. The gentle stream 

 was taught to serp^ntize seemingly at its pleasure, and where 

 discontinued by different levels, its course appeared to be con- 

 cealed by thickets properly interspersed, and glittered again at 

 a distance where it might be supposed naturally to arrive. Its 

 borders were smoothed, but preserved their waving irregularity. 

 A few trees scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled the 

 tame bank that accompanied its maeanders; and when it dis- 

 appeared among the hills, shades descending from the heights 

 leaned towards its progress, and framed the distant point of light 

 under which it was lost, as it turned aside to either hand of the 

 blue horizon. — On Modern Gardening. 



CLAUDE Receiver -General of Finances, Member of the French Acadeniy and of the 



HENRI Royal Acadeniy of Painting and Sculpture, author of poem on * The Art of 



WATELET, Painting'' and 'Essay on Gardetts'' ; a critic of the type of the Comte de 

 (1718-1786). Caylus. He created the Moulin-Joli {near Paris) of which the Prince de Ligne 

 •wrote : — 



' Void un lieu peut-etre enco7-e plus selon vion ca'ur {qii Erjnenonville), et 

 plus pres de Paris. Cest en quittant un jour son vain tourbillon, qtier^-ant a 

 taventure, le long de la Seine, je le perdis de vtie au Moulin-Joli, et que je me 

 irouvai moi-?neme, car ce nest qtiaux champs qiion petit se trouver. Qui que 

 votis soyez, si vous n'ctes pas des cxurs endurcis, asseyez-vous entre les bras dun 

 saule, au Moulin-Joli, sur le bord de la riviere. Lisez, voyez et pleurez, ce ne 

 sera pas de tristesse, mais d'tine sensibilite delicieuse. Le tableau de votre dme 

 viendra s'offrir a votis. . . . Allez-y, incridules. . . . Meditez sur les inscrip- 

 tions que le gout y a dict^es. Miditez avec le sage, soupirez avec Pamant, et 

 binissez Watelet.^ 



