CHARLES DE BROSSES 159 



most fish." He used to laugh at Shenstone most unmercifully for 

 not caring whether there was anything good to eat in the streams 

 he was so fond of; "as if," says Johnson, "one could fill one's 

 belly with hearing soft murmurs, or looking at rough cascades ! " 

 He loved the sight of fine forest trees, however, and detested 

 Brighthelmstone Downs, "because it was a country so truly 

 desolate," he said, "that if one had a mind to hang one's self 

 for desperation at being obliged to live there, it would be difficult 

 to find a tree on which to fasten the rope/' Walking in a wood, 

 when it rained, was, I think, the only rural image he pleased 

 his fancy with j " for," says he, " after one has gathered the 

 apples in the orchard, one wishes them well-baked, and removed 

 to a London eating-house for enjoyment." l With such notions 

 who can wonder he passed his time uncomfortably enough with 

 us, whom he often complained of for living so much in the 

 country ; " feeding the chickens," as he said I did, " till I starved 

 my own understanding. Get, however," said he, " a book about 

 gardening, and study it hard, since you will pass your life with 

 birds and flowers, and learn to raise the largest turnips, and to 

 breed the biggest fowls." It was vain to assure him that the 

 goodness of such dishes did not depend upon their size ; he 

 laughed at the people who covered their canals with foreign fowls, 

 " when," says he, " our own geese and ganders are twice as large : 

 if we fetched better animals from distant nations, there might be 

 some sense in the preference ; but to get cows from Alderney, or 

 water-fowl from China, only to see Nature degenerating round one, 

 is a poor ambition indeed. Mrs Piozzi. ( ll Johnsoniana") 



Comte de Tournai et de Mont fa Icon, first President of the Parliament of Dijon CHARLES 

 (the Burgundian Parliament.} Translator and editor of Sallust. The first DE 

 edition of his Letters from Italy, -written at the age of 'thirty ', appeared in 1839. BROSSES 



WHEN we reached them we forgot all our troubles, so 

 singular is the appearance of that called the Beautiful 

 Island (Isola Bella). Imagine a quantity of arcades, formed in 



1 This reminds one of Caraccioli's remark that "the only fruit in England 

 that ripened in the open air were apples, for they were roasted." Founereau. 



