Impriroements at Windsor Castle. 



605 



idea of a perfect whole. We have no doubt there may be persons who 

 would haixily venture to question the beauty and propriety of any thing in 

 the garden of a king; but we hardly think there can be a single individual 

 who, if he saw an orangery so situated in the garden of a private gentleman, 

 would not consider it as deforming the scene to which it belongs. A farmer 



would call it an orangery at the bottom of a ditch, and a gardener in de- 

 scribing it would say that it formed the wall of a ha-ha. If the true 

 history of its formation could be known, we have little doubt it would 

 turn out to be an afterthought, and like most afterthoughts it remains a 

 blemish on the original design. The deformity would have been less had 

 there been a level plot of 50 or 60 yds. in breadth in front ; but the slope 

 coming abruptly down to the upright glass, makes the very worst of a bad 

 idea. Let any reader imagine such a bank raised in front of the orangery 

 windows at Versailles, and then say what would be the effect. The dimi- 

 nution of reflected light by such a bank is demonstrable j but that is com- 

 paratively not worth enquiring about. 



This ha-ha orangery appeared to us to be about 300 ft. long, 18 or 20 

 wide, and 25 or 50 high ; the roof is of flag-stones, laid on cast-iron rafters; 

 the stones are covered with lead to prevent the rain from penetrating, and 

 this with clay and the gravel of the terrace. The grass slope {fig. 130. i i) 

 may be about 100 ft. long, and the rise about 15ft.; but these dimensions 

 are entirely guesswork, and being made from memory, after a very hurried 

 glance, are probably far from the truth. Their inaccuracy, however, will not 

 affect our argument. The defects of the level part of the flower-garden, 

 unlike those of the orangery and the ha-ha part of the garden, are 

 remarkable. The greater part of the level surface of the garden is in grass, 

 with beds of shrubs and flowers parallel to the walks. The objection that 



