Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/98

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86
TOUR THROUGH

likenesses can occasion the unprejudiced spectator but little regret, unless indeed he considers their removal as an insult to fallen grandeur.

Great care is taken of the gardens belonging to the House in the Wood, at the expence of the nation, and in fine weather they are resorted to from the Hague, as a promenade somewhat in the style of our parks. What attractions they possess when summer draws forth the beauties of vegetation, I am not competent from the lateness of the season to pronounce; but undoubtedly they are laid out in the worst style of horticulture. Here are stagnated canals in abundance, with puerile bridges thrown over them, trees bent and cut into fantastic shapes, and flower-beds of a thousand forms. But every thing is unnatural and artificial. The canal meanders without grace, and trees stunted in their growth exhibit nothing but specimens of deformity. The luxuriance of Nature smiles not here, and her operations are carefully limited with more than mathematical severity. It is a fault of less consequence