44° PALAIS ROYAL. 



gular order. It Is covered with gravel, and kept well - 

 rolled. Nothing is to be feen of any grafs-plot or gar- 

 den-beds. Four pavilions indeed are left Handing, 

 but they ferve the purpofes of a coffee-man, a mar- 

 charid de modes, a bookfeller, and a lecturer in natural 

 philofophy. The chefnut-trees which form a double 

 walk on each fide of the wings, are frill very fmall, 

 afford but little made, and towards the middle of the 

 fummer their leaves are quite dried by the reflected 

 rays of the fun. A fountain that plays to a conlidera- 

 ble height, is railed in with iron rails and marble pil- 

 lars, and has no more of a rural effect than all the reft 

 of this once famous garden. It is all fo manifeftly the 

 work of art, that it cannot deceive one into the idea of 

 any thing like nature. 



However, the builder was determined that even in 

 the midft of luxury and art, nature fhould fhew her 

 head, that no fenfe, no humour, no difpofition mould 

 depart unfatisfied from his magnificent edifice. 



In the middle of the garden, a narrow long building 

 runs almoffc its whole length, inclofed all about with 

 lattice work, round the bottom of which run pleafant 

 rivulets, and at the top is crowned with a balluftrade, 

 where is feen from below a frefh and variegated verdure 

 of curious plants, flowers, fhrubs, and trees, both 

 foreign and domeftic, waving in the wind. This is 

 the fuperterrene part of the celebrated circus ; the fub- 

 terranean is of a kind entirely oppofite. As the former 

 is intended to be a difplay of nature, fo in this is fhewn 

 the hi shell efforts of art ; but it was impoffible to make 

 both fo independent on each other, that art in the for- 

 mer, and nature in the latter, fhould not appear in con- 

 trail:. 



