beasts were scattered about in various parts of the grounds, so that you
came upon them unexpectedly. Also, there were archery and
shooting-grounds, and a sewing. A theatre, also, at which a rehearsal
was going on,--we standing at one of the doors, and looking in towards the
dusky stage where the company, in their ordinary dresses, were rehearsing
something that had a good deal of dance and action in it. In the open
air there was an arrangement of painted scenery representing a wide
expanse of mountains, with a city at their feet, and before it the sea,
with actual water, and large vessels upon it, the vessels having only the
side that would be presented to the spectator. But the scenery was so
good that at a first casual glance I almost mistook it for reality.
There was a refreshment-room, with drinks and cakes and pastry, but, so
far as I saw, no substantial victual. About in the centre of the garden
there was an actual, homely-looking, small dwelling-house, where perhaps
the overlookers of the place live. Now this might be wrought, in an
imaginative description, into a pleasant sort of a fool's paradise, where
all sorts of unreal delights should cluster round some suitable
personage; and it would relieve, in a very odd and effective way, the
stern realities of life on the outside of the garden-walls. I saw a
little girl, simply dressed, who seemed to have her habitat within the
grounds. There was also a daguerreotypist, with his wife and family,
carrying on his business in a shanty, and perhaps having his home in its
inner room. He seemed to be an honest, intelligent, pleasant young man,
and his wife a pleasant woman; and I had J-----'s daguerreotype taken for
three shillings, in a little gilded frame. In the description of the
garden, the velvet turf, of a charming verdure, and the shrubbery and
shadowy walks and large trees, and the slopes and inequalities of ground,
must not he forgotten. In one place there was a maze and labyrinth,
where a person might wander a long while in the vain endeavor to get out,
although all the time looking at the exterior garden, over the low hedges