ves, to shelter him
from the sun, and afford him means of contemplation and repose; and he
expects to find the hedges, groves, and walks, and lawns kept with the
utmost order and propriety. He who loves the beauties of simple nature,
and the charms of neatness will seek for them in vain amidst the groves
of Italy. In the garden of the Villa Pinciana, there is a plantation of
four hundred pines, which the Italians view with rapture and
admiration: there is likewise a long walk, of trees extending from the
garden-gate to the palace; and plenty of shade, with alleys and hedges
in different parts of the ground: but the groves are neglected; the
walks are laid with nothing but common mould or sand, black and dusty;
the hedges are tall, thin and shabby; the trees stunted; the open
ground, brown and parched, has scarce any appearance of verdure. The
flat, regular alleys of evergreens are cut into fantastic figures; the
flower gardens embellished with thin cyphers and flourished figures in
box, while the flowers grow in rows of earthen-pots, and the ground
appears as dusky as if it was covered with the cinders of a
blacksmith's forge. The water, of which there is great plenty, instead
of being collected in large pieces, or conveyed in little rivulets and
streams to refresh the thirsty soil, or managed so as to form agreeable
cascades, is squirted from fountains in different parts of the garden,
through tubes little bigger than common glyster-pipes. It must be owned
indeed that the fountains have their merit in the way of sculpture and
architecture; and that here is a great number of statues which merit
attention: but they serve only to encumber the ground, and destroy that
effect of rural simplicity, which our gardens are designed to produce.
In a word, here we see a variety of walks and groves and fountains, a
wood of four hundred pines, a paddock with a few meagre deer, a
flower-garden, an aviary, a grotto, and a fish-pond; and in spite of
all these particulars, it is, in my opinion, a very contemptible
garden, when compared to that of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, or even to
those of Kensington and Richmond. The Italians understand, because they
study, the excellencies of art; but they have no idea of the beauties
of nature. This Villa Pinciana, which belongs to the Borghese family,
would make a complete academy for painting and sculpture, especially
for the study of antient marbles; for, exclusive of the statues and
busts in the