58 THE FLOWER GARDEN". 



colouring we ever beheld ; but was only one of the 

 many beautiful effects produced on this spot by the 

 taste of the late Lady Farnborough. For a modern 

 garden, of limited size, this was the most complete 

 we ever visited, the situation allowing greater variety 

 than could well be conceived within so small a com- 

 pass. A conservatory connected with the house led 

 to a summer-room : this looked on a small Italian 

 garden the highest point of the grounds, and afford- 

 ing a dim view of the dome of St. Paul's in the 

 distance ; and thence you descended, by steep grassy 

 banks and steps of rock and root-work, from garden 

 to garden, each having some peculiar feature of its 

 own, till you came to the most perfect little Ruysdael 

 rivulet, and such crystal springs, in all their natural 

 wildness, that it seemed, when you saw them, you 

 had never known what pure cold native fountains 

 were before. Any common taste would have be- 

 dizened these springs with cockle-shells and crockery, 

 and what not ; but there they lay among the broad 

 leaves of the water-lily and the burdock, glittering 

 like huge liquid diamonds cast in a mould of nature's 

 own making, and in their simplicity and pureness 

 offering a striking contrast to the trim gardens and 

 the dusky distant city you had just left above.* 



* There was no occasion in this place for the exclamation of the 

 Roman satirist on a similar scene which had been marred by art 

 Quanto praestantius esset 



Numen aquae, viridi si margine clauderet undas 

 Herba, nee insenuum violarent marmora tophum." 



Juv. iii. 19. 



And which shows, by the way, that there were some Romans, at 

 least, who could appreciate the beauties of natural scenery. 



