654< Notes on Gardens and Country Seats : — 



equally without appropriate scenery ; with tlie exception, 

 however, of an arch, serving as a viaduct for the public road. 

 At the dam built to raise the lake, a very good cascade has 

 been produced ; and in one or two other places there are 

 some stones arranged in imitation of rockwork. With the 

 cascade and rockwork we have no fault to find ; and little with 

 the Grecian fragments, which are put together with consider- 

 able taste : but all the rest we consider bad. We must not 

 forget to mention a very handsome stone bridge, of five or 

 six arches, which we think altogether inappropriate to lakes, 

 and more especially to their broad parts. Bridges are best 

 adapted to rivers, or to the narrow parts of lakes; where one, 

 or at most two, arches will suffice for joining the opposite 

 banks. We have the same objection to the long bridge in 

 Kensington Gardens as to this one at Virginia Water, as we 

 have shown at length in our first volume. 



The Cottage of George the Fourth is taken down, with the 

 exception of one room ; and this room, and the adjoining 

 grounds, are in a state of neglect. 



The FIoxicer-Garden at Windsor Castle has received the ad- 

 dition of a number of marble vases, and statues, some of 

 them cast in metal, and some of marble. Some of these 

 are from the antique, and some in the style of Louis XIV. 

 The planting of the garden is liable to all the objections which 

 we before mentioned (Vol. V. p. 605.) ; and the beds at this 

 time are almost without flowers : very different, indeed, from 

 the dazzling display at Dropmore. In some of the vases 

 there were a few shabby half-starved fuchsias and other 

 green-house plants, which would be considered a disgrace in 

 a cottager's window ; and the few flowers introduced in the 

 beds were chiefly yellow lupines, marigolds, and other of the 

 commonest annuals. In the centre there is a fountain, issuing 

 from the orifices of a piece of metal resembling the rose of a 

 watering-pot. The horizontal jets, which rise only an inch 

 or two above the water, and extend almost in contact with its 

 surface, have an exceedingly good effect, by giving great 

 agitation to the water ; but there is much w^ant of a perpen- 

 dicular central jet. The view from the noble terrace round 

 this garden is, for richness and grandeur, as far as we know, 

 unrivalled ; and the exterior architecture of the castle, now 

 nearly everywhere renovated, appears to us in unexception- 

 able taste. The gates to the long walk or avenue, with their 

 low stone-roofed lodges, and massive angular stone piers con- 

 necting the iron palisading, we particularly admire. We saw 

 the state-roon s, which are finished in a simple Gothic style 



