o present the artificial conceptions of their learning or fancy.
In all these instances, the degradation of taste arises from the vain
anxiety of men to display the power of the artist, and their utter
forgetfulness of the end of the Art.

The remarkable characteristic of the taste of France is, that this love
of artificial beauty continues with undiminished force, at a period
when, in other nations, it has given place to a more genuine love for
the beauty of nature. In them, the natural progress of refinement has
led from the admiration of the art of imitation to the love of the
subjects imitated. In France, this early prejudice, continues in its
pristine vigour at the present moment: They never lose sight of the
effort of the artist; their admiration is fixed not on the quality or
object in nature, but on the artificial representation of it; not on the
thing signified, but the sign. It is hence that they have such exalted
ideas of the perfection of their artist David, whose paintings are
nothing more than a representation of the human figure in its most
extravagant and phrenzied attitudes; that they are insensible to the
simple display of real emotion, but dwell with delight upon the vehement
representation of it which their stage exhibits; and that, leaving the
charming heights of Belleville, or the sequestered banks of the Seine,
almost wholly deserted, they crowd to the stiff alleys of the Elysian
Fields, or the artificial beauties of the gardens of Versailles.

In the midst of Paris this artificial style of gardening is not
altogether unpleasing; it is in unison, in some measure, with the
regular character of the buildings with which it is surrounded; and the
profusion of statues and marble vases continues the impression which the
character of their palaces is fitted to produce. But at Versailles, at
St Cloud, and Fountainbleau, amidst the luxuriance of vegetation, and
surrounded by the majesty of forest scenery, it destroys altogether the
effect which arises from the irregularity of natural beauty. Every one
feels straight borders, and square porticoes and broad alleys, to be in
unison with the immediate neighbourhood of an antiquated mansion; but
they become painful when extended to those remoter parts of the
grounds, when the character of the scene is determined by the rudeness
of uncultivated nature.

There are some occasions, nevertheless, on which the gardens of the
Thuilleries present a beautiful spectacl