244 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



another to look on ! And how they chirrup and applaud, as if 

 they too had a voice of some importance in these parties of 

 pleasure they are loath to separate. 



Eugenius. Parties of pleasure ! birds, fruits, shallow running 

 waters, lute-players and wantons ! Parties of pleasure ! and com- 

 posed of these ! Tell me now, Filippo, tell me truly, what com- 

 plexion in general have the discreeter females of that hapless 

 country. 



Filippo. The colour of an orange-flower, on which an overladen 

 bee has left a suffusion of her purest honey. Ibid. (Fra Filippo 

 Lippi and Pope Eugenius IV.) 



Landor. Enter the gardens and approach the vases : do you 

 perceive the rarity, the beauty, the fragrance of the flowers ? In 

 one is a bush of box, in another a knot of tansy. Neptune is 

 recumbent on a bed of cabbages, and from the shell of a Triton 

 sprout three turnips ... to be sold. 



Pallavidni. Our first object in the garden is profit. The 

 vicinity of Genoa produces a large quantity of lemons, and many 

 families are supported by renting, at about thirty crowns, half an 

 acre or less of lemon ground. . . . 



Landor. We Englishmen talk of planting a garden ; the 

 modern Italians and ancient Romans talk of building one. 

 Ours, the most beautiful in the universe, are not exempt from 

 absurdities; but in the shadiness of the English garden it is 

 the love of retirement that triumphs over taste, and over a 

 sense of the inconveniences. 



Inhabiting a moist and chilly climate, we draw our woods 

 almost into our dining-rooms; you, inhabiting a sultry one, 

 condemn your innocent children to the ordeal of a red-hot 

 gravel. The shallow well called pescina, in the middle of every 

 garden, contains just enough water to drown them which happens 

 frequently and to supply a generation of gnats for the villegianti. 

 We again may be ridiculed in our turn : our serpentine ditches 

 are fog-beds. 



You should cover your reservoirs (an old hat or wig would do 



