438 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOOD-NYMPHS. 



was excavated into a deep and spacious reservoir, and 

 from this a pipe was carried along under ground to the 

 front yard, where it terminated in a jet d'eau, 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 out- 

 buildings. 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 w r ild plants or weeds, was repeatedly 

 ploughed and pulverized to destroy them, and afterwards 

 " laid down " to legitimate English grasses. The dande- 

 lion and buttercup 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 being wet by the dews. 

 Many of the slopes were provided with marble steps, and 

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

 erected marble statues to emblemize the rural deities. 



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

 presence of the deity. In vain do we strive to compen- 

 sate Nature, when we have despoiled her of her original 

 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 hunt- 

 ress 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 works of 

 art. The dryads had forsaken the old wood, whose moss- 

 grown trees were deprived of their variegated undergrowth, 



