io6 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



wall in oyle, as large as the real one at Rome, so well don 

 that even a man skill'd in painting may mistake it for stone 

 and sculpture. The skie and hills which seem to be betweene 

 the arches are so naturall that swallows and other birds, think- 

 ing to fly through, have dashed themselves against the wall. 

 At the further parte of this walk is that plentiful though artificial 

 cascade which rolls down a very steepe declivity, and over the 

 marble steps and bassins, with an astonishing noyse and fury; 

 each basin hath a jetto in it, flowing like sheetes of transparent 

 glasse, especialy that which rises over the great shell of lead, 

 from whence it glides silently downe a channell thro' the middle 

 of a spacious gravel walk terminating in a grotto. Here are 

 also fountaines that cast water to a great height, and large ponds, 

 2 of which have islands for harbour of fowles, of which there 

 is store. One of these islands has a receptacle for them built 

 of vast pieces of rock, neere 50 feet high, growne over with 

 mosse, ivy, etc., shaded at a competent distance with tall trees, 

 in this the fowles lay eggs and breede. We then saw a large 

 and very rare grotto of shell worke, in the shape of satyres 

 and other wild fancys : in the middle stands a marble table, 

 on which a fountaine plays in forms of glasses, cupps, crosses, 

 fanns, crownes, etc. Then the fountaineere represented a showre 

 of raine from the topp, mett by small jetts from below. At 

 going out two extravagant musqueteers shot us with a streme 

 of water from their musket barrells. Before this grotto is a 

 long poole into which ran divers spouts of water from leaden 

 escollop bassins. 



1644, Mch. i. I went to see the Count de Liancourt's Palace in the Rue 

 de Seine, which is well built. Towards his study and bed- 

 chamber joynes a little garden, which tho' very narrow, by the 

 addition of a well painted perspective is to appearance greatly 

 enlarged; to this there is another part, supported by arches, 

 in which runs a stream e of water, rising in the aviary, out of 

 a statue, and seeming to flow for some miles, by being artifici- 

 ally continued in the painting, when it sinkes down at the 

 wall. It is a very agreeable deceipt. At the end of this 



