A-NTWEItP. 101 



gust. Wc have still no praise to bestow on the device 

 which next succeeds, — a fancy tomb, with grated doors 

 and windows, and the inscription VanUas vanitatum: nor 

 could we perceive either beauty or wit in an adjoining cave 

 being insidiously beset with fountains, and quaintly in- 

 scribed " XI. Pr^ceptum." The eleventh commandment, 

 the gardener exultingly told us, was " Gardez-vous ;" an 

 injunction which was at this time quite superfluous, the 

 pipes and stop-cocks being all out of order; a state in 

 which wc have found every threatening fountain which 

 we have hitherto seen on the Continent. In this por- 

 tentous cave, the Grecian Cynic is represented in his 

 tub ; and in an adjoining hermitage, covered with the bark 

 of trees, and verging to decay, an anchorite is seen poring 

 over his missal. To close the list of these miserable ex- 

 travagancies, we shall notice only a chair or seat, which 

 was also pointed out to us by our guide with no little self- 

 complacency ; it is so contrived, that the unwary visitant 

 who takes possession of it soon finds himself seated among 

 water ! 



We turn to a more pleasing subject, the glazed houses 

 for plants, which are here on an extensive scale. M. Smetz 

 had sent his gardener both to Faris and London, to 

 observe the modes of gardening, and particularly the 

 construction of hot-houses, at the many fine country- 

 seats near those capitals; and Mr Donkelaar had cer- 

 tainly not been inattentive to what he saw. There is an 

 old greenhouse, more than a hundred English feet in 

 length: on this the gardener had made some improve- 

 ments ; but the construction is radically defective. It did 

 not now contain plants, but was, as usual in this part of 

 the world, plentifully stored with lumber, — the gardener 

 having omitted to learn the lesson of neatness, which the 

 practice of his English brethren might have taught him, in 



