THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
209 
many in full blossom, I never saw; I do not except Loddigesh Now we 
cross the magnificent park which, though I might fill a large sheet in 
describing, I will not, as all parks are parks; but perhaps this is most 
beautiful by nature, and improved by art to its highest perfection. I 
will only just stop you one moment to look at the mansion-—or I ought 
rather to say small town, for it is the largest house I ever saw (Buck¬ 
ingham palace would be lost in it), and of the purest Grecian architecture, 
splendid in the extreme. The window-frames are gilt, and the divisions 
between the panes are also gilt; but withal they are not gaudy or tinsel- 
looking, but majestic, and really nobleman or princely-like. We have 
now reached the ornamental garden, at a distance of a quarter of a mile 
from the house, forming one of the vistas from the windows, the beds of 
flowers cut out of the finest velvet carpet you ever saw; each flower 
having its own peculiar bed, the formality of it broken by standard rose 
trees, climbers, running up antique pillars (real antiques), baskets of 
flowers, or broken ruins covered with the tribe of rock plants; the garden 
backed by a fine wood, in front of which is the greenhouse, of a large 
size, though, as you will learn hereafter, not sufficiently large for the 
duke’s princely imagination : the greenhouse filled with Camellias, five 
and six, and even ten feet high ; Geraniums, Botany Bay trees (for I 
cannot call them shrubs), Mimosas, Ericas, Palms, Musas; in fact, a mixture 
of the productions of all countries; and an iron staircase leading to a 
gallery, that you may after admiring the plants go above, and see their 
tops reaching ten to fifteen feet high. Nothing can be finer than the 
state these plants are in. From this we descended to the Italian garden, 
which is close under the windows of the house; stopping on our way to 
admire the different vistas over lakes of water, which by magic throw up 
fountains on different sides, the water of one of which reaches sixty feet 
in a single column. Arrived at the Italian garden, we might fancy 
ourselves really in that country ; a level plot of some two or three acres, 
with marble divisions for the flowers, some in form of immense baskets, 
others vases, some immense sea-shells ; in fact, every variety of form, all 
filled with plants in flower; which being in pots, are taken away and 
succeeded by others, thus under the windows of the house having a per¬ 
petual flower-garden : the formality of these again broken by large plots 
of roses, many of which are still in flower, and the whole garden is formed 
in terraces, in the Italian style, with stone balustrades fencing each 
terrace. 
We must now, however, walk on, or our time will not let us see the 
waterfall, which terminates one of the vistas. The machinery of this is 
so good, and the deception so well managed, that you have a broad stream 
VOL. I.-NO. VII, 
E E 
