Antiquities of Gardening. 479 



left off travelling, and seldom leave their country seats. In a grand pro- 

 cession and ovation celebrated in Black Heath Square, said to be the 

 largest and finest square in the world, the air was thronged with balloons, 

 and with a variety of aerial horses, bestrode by city dandies, whilst others 

 floated upon wings, or glided along on aerial sledges. " The throng of the 

 balloons was very dense. Some young city apprentices, having hired each 

 a pair of wings for the day, and not exactly knowing how to manage 

 them, a dreadful tumult ensued, and the balloons became entangled with 

 the winged heroes and each other in inextricable confusion. The noise 

 now became tremendous; the conductors of the balloons swearing at each 

 other the most refined oaths, and the ladies screaming in concert. Several 

 balloons were rent in the scuffle, and fell with tremendous force upon the 

 earth ; whilst some cars were torn from the supporting ropes, and others 

 roughly overset. Luckily, however, the whole of England was at this time 

 so completely excavated, that falling upon the surface of the earth was like 

 tumbling upon the parchment of an immense drum, and, consequently, 

 only a deep hollow sound was returned as cargo after cargo of the demo- 

 lished balloons struck upon it; some of them, indeed, rebounded several 

 yards with the violence of the shock. 



The country is governed by an absolute queen, who is " full of wild- 

 goose schemes." — " Only imagine, Sir Ambrose, she showed me this 

 morning a plan for making aerial bridges to convey heavy weights from one 

 steeple to another ; a machine for stamping shoes and boots at one blow 

 out of a solid piece of leather; a steam-engine for milking cows ; and an 

 elastic summer-house, that might be folded up so as to be put into a man's 

 pocket !" 



Coal and other fuel having been long in disuse, smoke is unknown in 

 London, and the English are the first sculptors in the world. The gardens 

 of the nobility, who have town-houses, extend from the Strand to the 

 Thames, and all of them are open to the public. Nothing in summer can 

 be more enchanting than these gardens, filled with statues and beautiful 

 originals ; in winter the Thames " was frozen, and persons glided along it 

 in glittering traineaux, or skated gracefully with infinite variety of move- 

 ment ; whilst, every now and then, a steam-percussion-movable bridge 

 shot across the stream, loaded with goods and passengers, collapsing again 

 the instant its burthen was safely landed on the other side." 



There is, a patent steam book manufactory in Hatton Garden, where 

 also quotations are cut, dried, and made up into pills for the use of 

 authors. Every regiment, ship, and private family has its philosopher as 

 well as its chaplain and surgeon. The government of England is an abso- 

 lute monarchy ; Ireland and Scotland are separate kingdoms ; the Catholic 

 religion is every where established; the most enlightened part of society 

 believe in ghosts and goblins, and the reason given is, " because the 

 extremes of ignorance and civilisation tend alike to produce credulity." 



The most extravagant and impracticable ideas will sometimes aid in 

 forming new and useful combinations; and it is good to see the subject of 

 scientific invention, and intellectual improvement, pushed to the extreme 

 point, in order to show the absurdities to which every thing human is liable 

 to give rise. 



Art. IX. Antiquities of Gardening. 



FOUNTAINS and Jets of Water in the Gardens of the Romans. — It is dif- 

 ficult to conceive how the Romans could render water so great a source of 

 artificial ornament in their gardens, without the use of lead pipes, and yet 



