220 THE MAGAZINE OP HORTICULTURE. 



ground to the front yard, where it terminated in a jet-d'eaii, 

 that issued from a marble basin, and threw up a wide and 

 graceful spray. 



The inmates of the villa were charmed with the result of 

 these operations. There was an air of elegance and " high 

 keeping'- about the grounds, that corresponded judiciously 

 with the splendor of the villa and its outbuildings. No wild 

 bushes were left in straggling tufts, to suggest the idea of 

 poverty or negligence on the part of the proprietor ; and the 

 pasture, which was full of a great variety of wild plants or 

 weeds, was repeatedly plowed and pulverized to destroy 

 them, and afterwards "laid down" to legitimate English 

 grasses. The dandelion and butter cups were no more to be 

 seen in the spring or the rank hawkweed in the autumn. 

 Through this lawn neat gravel walks were made, that visitors 

 might stroll there in the morning without getting wef by the 

 dews. Many of the slopes were provided with marble steps, 

 and here and there, in the centre of a clump of firs, was 

 erected a marble statue to emblemize some one of the 

 rural deities. 



But where stands the idol, there we may not feel the pres- 

 ence of the deity. In vain do we strive to compensate na- 

 ture, when we have despoiled her of her orighial charms, by 

 calling in the aid of the sculptor, whose lifeless productions 

 serve only to chill the imagination that might otherwise revel 

 among the wizard creations of poetry. The images of Ceres, 

 of Galatea, or of the heavenly huntress were not attractive to 

 the beings whom they were intended to represent. The 

 naiad no longer sat by her fountain, which was held in a 

 marble basin and sent up its luminous spray in the midst of 

 the costly Avorks of art. The dryads had forsaken the old 

 wood, whose moss-grown trees were deprived of their varie- 

 gated undergrowth, and of the native drapery that hung from 

 their boughs. They wept over the exiled bird and the per- 

 ished flowers of the wild wood, and fled sorrowfully to some 

 new and distant haunts. The nymphs who used to frequent 

 these shady retreats had also fled. Woods, groves, hills and 

 valleys were all deserted ; and the cold lifeless forms that 



