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GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



Wilton . . . it is said they were the design of 

 Inigo Jones, executed at Florence . . . They 

 are naked figures in lead and painted, and relate to 

 some uncommon water diversions." The grotto and 

 the water-works were, however, wholly claimed by 

 Isaac de Caus as his creation, and Inigo Jones does 

 not seem to have worked for the third Earl of 

 Pembroke, who, neve-theless, was his patron and 

 seems to have had him at Wilton on his return from 

 his second visit to Italy. The south front of Wilton, 

 erected by Solomon de Caus, was burned in the 

 fourth Earl's time, and it was then, after the 

 completion of the gardens, that Inigo Jones was 

 employed to design the new and present south front, 



under Queen Anne, shows that the old garden lay to 

 the south, and that there was none to the west. We 

 may see from the pictures that the present garden 

 has the broad classic character, and is distinguished 

 by fine terraces, garden-houses, statues of amormi 

 and shapely vases. Where shall we find a noblei 

 garden prospect than that beheld from the 

 terrace as we look over the brilliant area, with 

 its fountain and its parterre, through the vista 

 cut in the dark bank of the tall yew trees, to 

 where that Holbein garden-house stands ? The 

 fountain, with its three basins and its lovely Venus as 

 its jewel and crowning beauty, is superb. There are 

 vases of the fairest classic form, and statues standing 



THE STAIRWAY Of- THE TERRACE. 



and the noble suite of rooms which it contains. It is, 

 therefore, a curious mistake on the part of Messrs. 

 Belcher and Macartney, in their fine work on 

 Renaissance architecture, to say that Inigo Jones, 

 " having introduced the Italian method in the south 

 front, followed it up with the Italian garden," and 

 to give a picture of the garden as it now is, and 

 lying, as they admit, " on the west side of the 

 house," as being Inigo Jones's work. He did not 

 finish the south front till 1648, and Isaac de Caus 

 published the views of his Wilton garden in 1640, 

 some years, probably, after their completion. More- 

 over, a glance at the great bird's-eye view of Wilton 

 and its grounds in the third volume of the 

 " Vitruvius Britannicus," representing its condition 



out against the yews, and the low enframing walls 

 are adorned with most charming amorini and vases, 

 all of lead, which has a hue much fairer than the 

 gleaming white of marble. From a loggia on the 

 right, this enchanted garden realm is surveyed, with 

 all its nodding colonies of radiant inhabitants, its 

 magnificent ilex and cedars, and the level lawns 

 beyond, which margin the Madder, whose stream is 

 spanned by the Palladian bridge, built from designs 

 by Morris by that Earl of Pembroke who, with 

 Burlington, led English society in art and architec- 

 ture in the early part of the eighteenth century. 

 Delightful garden fancy is in all we behold the 

 leaden quarrellers and the leaden friends, the 

 sculpture of urns and vases, the delicacy and 



