20 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE. 



cade. Above the spring or shoot of the cascade is an 

 arch of rustic rocks, over which fall ivy and rock shrubs, 

 the whole being backed with a healthy rising plantation. 

 Although made at great expense, this cascade cannot be 

 pronounced a happy one ; to me it is less pleasing than the 

 less pretentious ones at the head of the large lakes. 



The fault of the most frequented part of the Bois de 

 Boulogne is that the banks which fall to the water are in 

 some parts a little too suggestive of a railway embankment, 

 and display but little of that indefiniteness of gradation and 



Fig. 10. 



Grand cascade in the Bois de Boulogne. 



outline which we find in the true examples of the real 

 "English style" of laying out grounds. But you do not 

 notice this from the position above described, from whence 

 indeed the scene is charming. The fault just hinted at is 

 common to almost every example of this style to be seen 

 about Paris ; and in most of their walks, mounds, and the 

 turnings of their streams, you can detect a family likeness and 

 a style of curvature which is certainly never exhibited by 

 nature, so far as we are acquainted with her in these latitudes. 

 But it is only justice to say that, taking the park as a whole, 

 it is far before our London ones in point of design. 



