A TRAVELLER AT BERLIN. 151 



feoufe-trees and ihrubs ; and juft over the fummit of the 

 iippermoft trees afcends the white and yellow palace. 

 An extremely happy thought ; as it awakens the idea 

 of a fairy's abode in this region of fand. The king is 

 in pofleilion of an excellent orangerie, and a multitude 

 of rare exotic fruits in his kot-houfes ; from whence 

 his table can be fupplied the whole winter through. 



Sans Souci was the palace fir it built by the king. He 

 wifhed to have a place where he might retire, and at 

 times converfe at eafe with nature, and live apart from 

 the noife of a court and the tumults of ambition ; and 

 for this purpofe he could not, in all the parts adjacent, 

 have found a better place. The building conliits but 

 of one floor, laid out in an elegant fimplicity, and the 

 roof is fupported by pillars of the caryatic order. Over 

 the main door, in the middle, are the words Sans 

 Sou ci, in large golden letters. Baron von Knobelf- 

 dorf drew the plan for it ; and, from the very begin- 

 ning of it, it was deftincd folely to be the habitation 

 of the king. Therefore, what are called the new cham- 

 bers, Gn the right-hand of the palace, which were for- 

 merly orangerie-houfes, were turned into dwellings for 

 the lords who mull neceffarily be about the king, or for 

 the principal generals at the time of the Potfdam re- 

 view. They are furnifhed with elegance and tafte. The 

 fame character likewife prevails in the palace itfelf ; one 

 fees indeed that it is the abode of a great fovereign, 

 but all magnificence is banifhed from it ; and the whole 

 is conftituted in conformity with that repofe for which 

 the king deligned it. We every where perceive traces - 

 of a foft, effeminate tafte, which commonly paffes un- 

 noticed in him, and which yet, according to the teft£ 



l 4 mony 



