HISTORICAL NOTICES 
37 
more especially the oaks, are such trees as we see in the 
pictures of Claude, or our own Durand ; richly developed, 
their trunks and branches grand and majestic, their heads 
full of breadth and grandeur of outline. 
These oaks, distributed over a nearly level surface, with 
the trees disposed either singly or in the finest groups, as 
if most tastefully planted centuries ago, are solely the work 
of nature ; and yet so entirely is the whole like the 
grandest planted park, that it is difficult to believe thal 
all is not the work of some master of art, and intended for 
the accompaniment of a magnificent residence. Some of 
the trees are five or six hundred years old. 
In Connecticut, Monte Video , the seat of Daniel Wads- 
worth, Esq., near Hartford, is worthy of commendation, as 
it evinces a good deal of beauty in its grounds, and is one 
of the most tasteful in the state. The residence of James 
Hillhouse, Esq., near New- Haven, is a pleasing specimen 
of the simplest kind of Landscape Gardening, where grace- 
ful forms of trees, and a gently sloping surface of grass, 
are the principal features. The villa of Mr. Whitney 
near New-Haven, is one of the most tastefully managed in 
the state. In Maine, the most remarkable seat, as respects 
landscape gardening and architecture, is that of Mr. Gar- 
diner, of Gardiner. 
The environs of Boston are more highly cultivated than 
.hose of any other city in North America. There are here 
whole rural neighborhoods of pretty cottages and villas, ad- 
mirably cultivated, and, in many cases, tastefully laid out 
and planted. The character of even the finest of these 
Diaces is, perhaps, somewhat suburban, as compared with 
those of the Hudson river, but we regard them as furnish- 
