240 Gbe (Sarfcen 



he certainly intended that the garden should 

 be proportionately magnificent. We are sure, 

 therefore, that as late as Homer's age, an en- 

 closure of four acres, comprehending orchard, 

 vineyard, and kitchen-garden, was a stretch of 

 luxury the world at that time had never beheld. 



The hanging gardens of Babylon were a still 

 greater prodigy. We are not acquainted with 

 their disposition or contents, but as they are 

 supposed to have been formed on terraces and 

 walls of the palace, whither soil was conveyed 

 on purpose, we are very certain of what they 

 were not ; I mean, they must have been trifling, 

 of no extent, and a wanton instance of expense 

 and labor. In other words, they were what 

 sumptuous gardens have been in all ages till 

 the present unnatural, enriched by art, possi- 

 bly with fountains, statues, balustrades, and 

 summer-houses, and were any thing but ver- 

 dant and rural. 



From the days of Homer to those of Pliny, we 

 have no traces to lead our guess to what were 

 the gardens of the intervening ages. When Ro- 

 man authors, whose climate instilled a wish for 

 cool retreats, speak of their enjoyments in that 

 kind, they sigh for grottos, caves, and the re- 

 freshing hollows of mountains, near irriguous 

 and shaded founts ; or boast of their porticos, 

 walks of planes, canals, baths, and breezes from 



