Foreign Notices : — liali/. 481 



temples, will consist of paintings in encaustic with gilding ; from which, and its 

 elevated situation, it will present, in sunshine, a truly southernly character. 

 The temple will also serve as a monument for the two princes who established 

 this garden ; viz. Carl Theodor, elector, and Maximilian, first king of Ba- 

 varia. Monuments are already erected to the memory of the two persons 

 who laid out the garden ; viz. Count Rumford and F. L. von Sckell, land- 

 scape-gardener. 



The hill on which the temple stands will also soon be finished. I have 

 already, this spring, laid out some of the plantations. I have accomplished 

 the formation of this hill with the greatest difficulty ; and, although I had 

 previously made several artificial hills in the king's garden at Nymphenburg 

 (and, I may flatter myself, not without credit), yet, from this situation being 

 flat by nature, all the difficulties which usually present themselves seemed 

 here united. Nothing which comes under the head of landscape-gardening 

 seems to me so difficult as to give a natural appearance, and a suitable cha- 

 racter, to the formation of a hill ; and it is a good field for the talents of the 

 designer. As to the formation of valleys, rockwork, rivers, brooks, grottoes, 

 and springs, even the arrangement of plantations, they are, in my opinion, 

 not to be compared with the difficulty of forming a hill. 



[We should be greatly obliged to M. Sckell if he would send us a ground 

 plan and sections of this hill, with a particular account of the manner in which 

 he formed it, for the benefit of young landscape-gardeners.] 



Munich advances rapidly in architectural beauties, and also in statuary and 

 painting; and, when you next visit us, you will certainly not see without 

 astonishment so many interesting improvements, all made since you were last 

 here. Indeed, there is no city in Germany, and (Rome and Florence ex- 

 cepted), perhaps, there is no city in Europe, which, in respect to art, can be 

 compared with Munich ; and this taste for the arts among us is entirely 

 owing to the present king. 



This year is the twenty-fifth jubilee of our Agricultural Society; and our 

 celebrated October festival, it is expected, will this year be particularly splen- 

 did. Should you, therefore, or any of your friends, be in Germany about this 

 season, I hope you or they will endeavour to be in Munich about that time. 

 1 enclose you some information from M. von Klenze and M. Hermann (who 

 has just set off for Greece) for your Architectural Magazine, which they both 

 receive. — Sckell , Director of the King's Garden, Munich. 



ITALY. 



Pcufa, near Salerno, June 13. 1835. — The principal reason of my tardiness 

 in writing was the wish of giving you some account, from my personal observ- 

 ation, of the plants in the garden at Caserta, about which you are interested ; 

 and that could not be effected till the end of April, as the season has been 

 uncommonly backward, and the camellias flowered accordingly. I observed 

 the trees with much attention ; and, though I could not measure them with 

 technical accuracy, I could ascertain that all the measures I sent in January last 

 [see p. 150.] fell short of the real dimensions. The largest magnolia is above 

 40 ft. high; the camphor laurel some 16 ft. higher; and all the others you 

 mentioned larger than the first description, on an average, by 8 ft. oi' 10 ft. in 

 height. I was unluckily engaged with a party of countrymen and women, 

 which disabled me from making all the remarks that I could have wished for 

 your information. After that, some particular business, and an excursion 

 into the interior, prevented my giving you the present account; and my re- 

 moval here for the summer induced me to defer writing till I was finally esta- 

 blished, as 1 now am. I will, by the first opportunity, procure the catalogue 

 of the botanic garden at Naples, and transmit it to you, with such observations 

 as I can depend upon as to the growth of the different plants, &c. As to my 

 own garden here, I can have no self-sufficiency in mentioning it favourably, as 

 I have only possessed it two years, and it is, consequently, not the production 

 of my taste, but of that of my predecessor, who planted a shrubbery, about 



