io8 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



The Gardens are neere an English mile in compasse, enclos'd 

 with a stately wall, and in a good ayre. The parterre is indeed 

 of box, but so rarely designed and accurately kept cut, that the 

 embroidery makes a wonderful effect to the lodgings which front 

 it. 'Tis divided into 4 squares, and as many circular knots, 

 having in the center a noble basin of marble neere 30 feet 

 diameter (as I remember), in which a triton of brasse holds a 

 dolphin that casts a girandola of water neere 30 foote high, 

 playing perpetualy, the water being conveyed from Arceuil by 

 an aqueduct of stone, built after the old Roman magnificence. 

 About this ample parterre, the spacious walkes and all included, 

 runs a border of freestone, adorned with pedestalls for potts and 

 statues, and part of it neere the stepps of the terrace, with a raile 

 and baluster of pure white marble. 



The walkes are exactly faire, long, and variously descending, 

 and so justly planted with limes, elms, and other trees, that 

 nothing can be more delicious, especially that of the hornebeam 

 hedge, which being high and stately, butts full on the fountaine. 



Towards the farther end is an excavation intended for a vast 

 fish-pool, but never finish'd. Neere it is an enclosure for a 

 garden of simples, well kept, and here the Duke keeps tortoises 

 in greate number, who use the poole of water on one side of the 

 garden. Here is also a conservatory for snow. At the upper 

 part towards the palace is a grove of tall elmes, cutt into a starr, 

 every ray being a walk, whose center is a large fountaine. 



The rest of the ground is made into severall inclosures (all 

 hedgeworke or rowes of trees) of whole fields, meadowes, boscages, 

 some of them containing divers acres. 



Next the streete side, and more contiguous to the house, are 

 knotts in trayle or grasse worke, where likewise runs a fountaine. 

 Towards the grotto and stables, within a wall, is a garden of 

 choyce flowers, in which the Duke spends many thousand pistoles. 

 In sum, nothing is wanted to render this palace and gardens 

 perfectly beautifull and magnificent ; nor is it one of the least 

 diversions to see the number of persons of quality, citizens and 

 strangers, who frequent it, and to whom all accesse is freely 



