are its glassy petals disposed. Meanwhile, the rays of the sun, streaming
down from above, produce a sort of stationary rainbow: and, in the heat of
the day, as you sit upon the chairs, or saunter beneath the trees, the
effect is both grateful and refreshing. The little flower garden, in the
centre of which this fountain seems to be for ever playing, is a perfect
model of neatness and tasteful disposition: not a weed dare intrude: and
the earth seems always fresh and moist from the spray of the fountain--
while roses, jonquils, and hyacinths scatter their delicious fragrance
around. For one minute only let us visit the _Caffé des Mille Colonnes_: so
called (as you well know) from the number of upright mirrors and glasses
which reflect the small columns by which the ceiling is supported.
Brilliant and singular as is this effect, it is almost eclipsed by the
appearance of the Mistress of the House; who, decorated with rich and rare
gems, and seated upon a sort of elevated throne--uniting great comeliness
and (as some think) beauty of person--receives both the homage and (what is
doubtless preferable to her) the _francs_ of numerous customers and
admirers. The "wealth of either Ind" sparkles upon her hand, or glitters
upon her attire: and if the sun of her beauty be somewhat verging towards
its declension, it sets with a glow which reminds her old acquaintance of
the splendour of its noon-day power. It is yet a sharply contested point
whether the ice of this house be preferable to that of Tortoni: a point,
too intricate and momentous for my solution. "Non nostrum est ... tantas
componere lites."

Of the _Jardin des Plantes_, which I have once visited, but am not likely
to revisit--owing to the extreme heat of the weather, and the distance of
the spot from this place--scarcely too much can be said in commendation:
whether we consider it as a _dépôt_ for live or dead animals, or as a
school of study and instruction for the cultivators of natural history. The
wild animals are kept, in their respective cages, out of doors, which is