504 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



you almost expect it, with its next leap, to reach the sky ; and yet ; 

 with all this vast power and volume, it is so light, and airy, and beau- 

 tiful, and it bursts at the top, and falls in such a superb storm of 

 diamonds, that you will not be convinced that it is not a produc- 

 tion of nature, like Niagara. This is the Emperor Fountain the 

 highest in the world ; about the height, I should say, of Trinity 

 Church spire.* It is only suffered to play on calm days, as the 

 weight of the falling water, if blown aside by a high wind, would 

 seriously damage the pleasure-grounds. 



As the eye turns to the left, the wooded hill, which forms the 

 rich forest back-ground to this scene, seems to have run mad with 

 cataracts. Far off among the precipices, near its top, you see water- 

 falls bursting out among the rocks, now disappearing amid the 

 thick foliage of the wood, and then reappearing lower down, foam- 

 ing with velocity, and plunging again into the dark woods. To- 

 wards the base of the hill stands a circular water-temple, out of 

 which the water rises. It gushes out as if from the hydrant of the 

 water gods, and, running down a slope, falls at the back of the gar- 

 dens down a long flight of very broad marble steps, that lead from 

 the water-temple to the edge of the pleasure-grounds, so as to give 

 the effect of a waterfall of a hundred or more feet high. This 

 wealth of water, as if some river at the back of the mountain had 

 broke loose, and, after wild pranks in the hills, had been forced into 

 order and symmetry in the pleasure-grounds, gives almost the 

 tumult and excitement of a freshet in the wilderness to this most 

 exquisite combination of garden and natural scenery. 



Leaving the point where you take in, without moving, all this 

 magical landscape you wander through flower gardens, and amid 

 pleasure-grounds, till you reach a more wooded and natural looking 

 paysage. The fountains, the carefully polished Italian gardens, are 

 no longer in view. The path becomes wild, and, after a turn, you 

 enter upon a scene the very opposite to all that I have been describ- 

 ing. You take it for a rocky wilderness. The rocks are of vast 

 size, and indeed of all sizes ; with thickets of laurels, rhododen- 



* The height of the Emperor Fountain is 267 feet. The next highest 

 fountains in the world, are one at Hesse Cassel, 190 feet; one at St. Cloud, 

 160 feet ; ni:d the great jet at Versailles, 90 feet. 



