164 tTbe Garden 



garden, which is my greatest amusement, it 

 being now troublesome to walk, or even go in 

 the chaise till the evening. I have fitted up in 

 this farmhouse a room for myself that is to 

 say, strewed the floor with rushes, covered the 

 chimney with moss and branches, and adorned 

 the room with basins of earthenware (which is 

 made here to great perfection) filled with 

 flowers, and put in some straw chairs, and a 

 couch bed, which is my whole furniture. This 

 spot of ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you 

 will scarce credit the description, which, how- 

 ever, I can assure you, shall be very literal, 

 without any embellishment from imagination. 

 It is on a bank, forming a kind of peninsula, 

 raised from the river Oglio fifty feet, to which 

 you may descend by easy stairs cut in the turf, 

 and either take the air on the river, which is as 

 large as the Thames at Richmond, or by walk- 

 ing in an avenue two hundred yards on the 

 side of it, you find a wood of a hundred 

 acres, which was all ready cut into walks and 

 ridings when I took it. I have only added 

 fifteen bowers in different views, with seats of 

 turf. They were easily made, here being a 

 large quantity of underwood, and a great num- 

 ber of wild vines, which twist to the top of the 

 highest trees, and from which they make a very 

 good sort of wine they call brusco. I am now 



