usually complete bowers cut in the trees, the leaves forming the only covering; and the people, while taking refreshments, sit at little tables placed in each, as in tea-gardens of an inferior description in England. Over the open entrances to the alcoves are stretched wires, from which are suspended the numbers of the different tables; and behind the whole is generally a saloon appropriated to dancing, in which is a very tolerable band of music.

The Salles de Mars and de Flore, in the Champs Elysées, are also dancing rooms, with bands of music, for the lower orders; the visitors being generally inferior servants, laundresses, flower girls, common soldiers, &c. The decorum and excellent order preserved in these places are truly astonishing; as is the air of refinement which pervades the whole. Very little wine is drunk, but ices and cakes are taken abundantly; and the girls, with large baskets of bouquets of flowers, who stand in different parts of the saloon, seem to find a ready market for their nosegays. The saloons are circular, and the place for dancing is surrounded by pillars, which support the roof; the space between the walls and the pillars being occupied by lookers-on. The gardens belonging to these saloons are laid out like those belonging to the guinguettes on the other side of Paris.-J. W. L.

(To be continued.)

ART. II. Description of Harewood House, and its Gardens and Grounds. By Ovτws.

HAREWOOD HOUSE is nearly a mile from the beautifulvillage of that name, and is a noble specimen of architecture, of the Corinthian order. On the wings of the building of the north or carriage front are four beautiful medallions, representing Liberty, Britannia, Agriculture, and Commerce. The rooms are universally admired for the taste and splendour of their decorations; the entrance hall is spacious and noble; the panels on the walls adorned with trophies of war; and in niches are beautiful bronzed statues of Euterpe, Minerva, Iris, Flora, &c. The library is a very splendid room; the coved ceiling is highly ornamental, and very rich; it is supported by pilasters with Corinthian capitals: there is an excellent collection of books, well arranged, and busts of Newton, Machiavel, Dante, Petrarch, &c. The saloon is most elegant; the furniture green and gold. The chimney-piece, of white marble, by

bronze, is a representation of some drunken and heathenish rite, the subject of which, as I did not care to remember, escaped me before I was out of the mansion. A fine portico, at the south front of the house, communicates with this room. The gallery extends across the west end of the house, and is 77 ft. long. The French plate looking-glasses are immense. The superb chimney-piece, supported by two bewitching figures of nymphs, is a chef d'oeuvre. The chandeliers, tripods, busts, &c., are all in the first style of excellence. The ceiling is of stucco work, and adorned with subjects from that endless labyrinth of fiction the Heathen mythology, admirably painted by Rebecca. The music room is very handsome; the ceiling is divided into compartments by cornices elegantly carved, and the floor is covered with a rich carpet to correspond with it. The white drawing-room, the yellow drawing-room, the couchroom, the dining-room, and others, are all splendour and elegance. The best staircase is admirable; the walls decorated with paintings of the Birth of Venus, the Triumph of Bacchus, &c. It struck me as singular that scenes of drunkenness should so frequently be depicted on the walls of this mansion, to the exclusion of historical pictures, of which there are none of any note. The muniment (archive) room on the ground floor, the kitchens, still-rooms, &c., are all complete in their kind. Water is conveyed to the house by upwards of 2500 yards of lead pipes, from a spring sufficiently high to raise it to the most lofty rooms of the building.

The park is finely wooded, and contains about 1800 acres. The pleasure-grounds were laid out by the celebrated Launcelot Brown, Esq. (or, as he was in his lifetime often called, "Capability* Brown"), and have subsequently been altered and improved by Repton, and other eminent artists in landscapegardening. They are now considered to rank among the first in England; and indeed their variety and grandeur are very striking, especially when it is considered that, unlike Hafod, Dunkeld, and Mount Edgecumbe, nature has done little to add to their beauty.

The kitchen and fruit gardens are of an irregular form, and contain about 8 acres: they lie on a very gentle slope towards

* Some persons say that this prænomen arose from a frequent remark of Brown's, when viewing any grounds which he thought might be improved, that "the place had its capabilities:" others consider the term as a title complimentary of his superior talents in his profession.

In the first Lord Harewood's time, R. A. Salisbury, Esq. (who then resided at Chapel Allerton, where he had an immense green-house), was a frequent guest at His Lordship's table, and many important alterations are said to have been made in the grounds from his designs.

the south, and are sheltered from the north by a large wood of fine oaks, beeches, &c. The walls (brick) which surround them are 15 ft. high. There is a very fine cross wall, with aspect south by east, appropriated entirely to peaches and nectarines; the crop of fruit in some seasons is immense: at present some of the trees seem to be stunted in their growth, and want renewing. A very large and beautiful mulberry tree, trained within the very obtuse angle of a wall with the greatest symmetry, bears abundant crops of fruit. The range of forcing pits, for asparagus and culinary fruits, as cucumbers, capsicums, &c. is very commodious, and on a very extensive scale.

The forcing department for fruit consists of a vinery, with the glass-work at a very great angle; the forcing commencing when the sun's meridian altitude is at the lowest. The vines are, of course, trained to light open trellising, a little detached from the wall and flues. Adjoining, in the same range, is another vinery for the latest crop of grapes, to succeed the general crop in the pine-houses. There are four considerable houses for the forcing of peaches, nectarines, and figs: the trees introduced are both trained and standards; the latter are in very large pots, and are exceedingly fruitful. Slight hotbeds of decayed leaves are made in the front of the houses, on which the pots are placed. Abundance of fine mushrooms are grown on the beds. The "old stove," as it is called, a large house, exhibits a fine assemblage of pines, of the best varieties. A muscat grape fills all the rafters in the house, and bears abundantly; the bunches, thinned to six or seven on each rafter, very large and well grown. In this stove are many rare plants: the plantain (Musa sapiéntum), allspice (Piménta officinalis), silk cotton tree (Bombax heptaphyllum), striped-leaved arrow root* (Maránta zebrina, or Calathea zebrina of Loudon's Hort. Brit.), and other tropical plants, are cultivated with great success. The limodorums (Tankerville and hyacinthinum), very large and strong plants. Gloriòsa supérba, very rampant, with the largest flowers I have ever seen. Nèrium

ner.

*Perhaps I may be pardoned for here mentioning that of the beautiful order Scitamíneæ the stoves of John Smith, Esq., of Hungate, in the city of York, afford many fine specimens, grown and managed in a superior manMr. Smith is entirely blind; he is, nevertheless, an ardent admirer of plants, and an assiduous collector, which may be thought a singular pursuit for a person under so pitiable a bereavement. The precision and quickness of his touch in recognising plants in other collections than his own, are altogether surprising; and his knowledge of botany and floriculture is no less gratifying to the gardener or amateur, than his urbanity and kindness in showing his collection of rarities. I regret to hear that Mr. Smith's health is seriously impaired, attributed to his unceasing attention to his

spléndens, very tall and graceful plants, with amazing clusters of flowers. The "new stove" is 100 ft. long, 30 ft. broad, and 15 ft. high. It is used principally as a pine-house, but has, moreover, abundance of grapes. There are in it two very fine plants of the granadilla (Passiflòra quadrangulàris), which for a long period have annually ripened in the greatest perfection plenty of well grown fruit. In this house I observed a number of pots of the Treviràna coccínea, of very fine growth, and covered with the greatest profusion of flowers. There is only one plant in a pot, by which mode of culture they are grown more strong and bushy than when several stems are suffered to rise; they seem to have much heat given them, being placed near the back flue. The "Calcutta house," built purposely for pines, is 80 ft. long, the back wall little more than 8 ft. high, the lights at a very small horizontal angle, and nothing trained within the sashes; so that the summer's sun has greater effect on the temperature of the house than where the inclination of the glass is greater, and the light and heat of its rays obstructed by the foliage of vines. The pines in this house are of the finest growth and beauty. The conservatory is but small; it contains a very fine and wide-spreading heliotrope (Heliotròpium peruvianum) trained to a trellis, choice varieties of Ipomoea, Ixia, and other herbaceous plants. The green-house is a very light, airy, and handsome structure, upwards of 70 ft. long, well stocked with the best pelargoniums, orange and lemon trees, Australian and Cape plants; several fine varieties of Alstromèria, capitally grown, larger and more luxuriant than any I have seen; a fine collection of cockscombs of the greatest

In the Hort. Trans. may be found a paper on the cultivation of this fruit, which was written by Mr. Robert Chapman, who was then the able and intelligent gardener at Harewood. Mr. Chapman is a native of Scotland, and, I believe, in early life worked under Aiton; he was upwards of forty years in the only situation as head-gardener which he ever held: a more upright and industrious man never entered His Lordship's service. In the rigours of winter, the heats of summer, early or late, call when you might at the gardens, there was this sedulous man to be found, always at some employment neat, clean, and respectable in his person and dress; affable and cheerful in his demeanour. He retired from Lord Harewood's service about three years ago, and now lives, as he ought, in comfortable retirement, free from all fears of the "res angusta domi" [poverty], having received from the hands of his noble master a handsome piece of plate, of the value of 501., as a token of the respect and estimation in which he was held, as a skilful, industrious, and upright servant; a memento, certainly, not the less honourable for Mr. Chapman to have deserved, than for His Lordship to bestow. There are, in many parts of England, nurserymen and gentlemen's gardeners who have had the advantage of Mr. Chapman's instructions, and the benefit of his example; and who, if this note should fall under the observation of any of them, will be pleased to hear of the honourable exit from their fraternity of an intelligent and honest man.

beauty, and surprisingly uniform in height and size. The tree carnation, trained upon little trellised poles, 7 to 8 ft. high, is very ornamental, and has a fine appearance. There is a small shrub, of straggling growth, in a shallow rectangular pot of white and blue porcelain, supposed to be some variety of tea, but, as it has never flowered, its species has not been ascertained; it is said to have been in its present domicile from 20 to 30 years: the leaves appear much like those of the poplar-leaved birch (Bétula populifolia). At the entrance of the gardens there is a neat and commodious building, with apartments for the foremen; and business, seed, and fruit rooms. The number of gardeners and assistants averages 15 or 16: they have constant wages, being employed in severe weather in the winter season (when out-door operations are impeded) in making nets for wall trees, grinding tools, making brooms for sweeping lawns and walks, cleaning and sponging the leaves of hot-house plants, &c. There are two spacious flowergardens adjoining the mansion, one at each end. That to the east is very much shaded by large trees; the rosariums in it are very beautiful and well managed, and there are some admirable weeping ashes: also a small conservatory, with a few ornamental plants, chairs and seats, &c. and delightful arbours and summer houses. The new flower-garden to the west of the house is, I think, capable of much improvement in the arrangement of its walks, flower clumps, &c., not being commensurate with the magnificence of the house and other parts of the grounds. It was, I believe, laid out about 12 years ago by a country nurseryman, whose experience in landscapegardening I should think has been very limited, or his knowledge and taste very defective; there are, however, abundance of fine herbaceous plants, and many luxuriant exotic shrubs, a fountain, &c.

The whole of the gardens, pleasure-grounds, and park are kept in the highest order. The name of the present gardener, I believe, is Laurel, a very well educated and highly respectable man, and, it is needless to add, master of his profession. Yorkshire, Oct. 7. 1830. ΟΝΤΩΣ.

ART. III. A few Observations made on visiting several Public and Private Gardens, &c., in England and Scotland, during the Summer of 1830. By Mr. W. SAUnders.

FROGNALS, the seat of Lord Sidney, near Bromley, Kent;