FLIGHT OF THE WOOD-NYMPHS. 323 



of the wood-nymphs and other deities of the groves. 

 The new proprietor determined to adorn and improve it 

 to the utmost extent. He resolved that the decorations 

 of the modern landscape art should be added to the 

 advantages it had derived from nature; the beauties of 

 other climes should be ingrafted upon it, and the whole 

 work should be crowned with the best efforts of the 

 sculptor and the architect. 



In accordance with these plans, the work of beauti- 

 fying and improving the place was commenced. Stand- 

 ard English works on landscape gardening were con- 

 sulted ; the great Italian painters were studied for hints 

 which nature is supposed to communicate only through 

 their medium, and Brown and Repton guided the taste 

 of the improver in all his operations. The rustic cot- 

 tage was removed to a distant spot, and a splendid 

 Italian villa was erected in the place of it. No labor 

 nor money were spared in the elTort to give it all the 

 external and internal finish which would be needful to 

 adorn a palace. Every piece of work was tasteful and 

 correct; no counterfeit imitations of valuable orna- 

 ments were allowed; and when the edifice was com- 

 pleted, the most scientific architect could find no fault 

 with it. It stood forth proudly on the brow of the hill, 

 one of the masterpieces of villa architecture. 



The elegance of the mansion made it the more ap- 

 parent that the grounds must be improved, that the 

 appearance of nature might harmonize with the work 

 of the architect. On the grassy slope that fronted the 

 cottage, there were occasional projections of the rock 

 that was buried underneath the soil, and around these, 

 various species of wild shrubbery had come up in many 

 a tufted knoll. These prominences were split off, and 

 covered with loam, and the whole surface was graded 



