By Thomas Gray


[Footnote: From a letter to his friend West.]



What a huge heap of littleness! It is composed, as it were, of three
courts, all open to the eye at once, and gradually diminishing till you
come to the royal apartments, which on this side present but half a dozen
windows and a balcony. This last is all that can be called a front, for
the rest is only great wings. The hue of all this mass is black, dirty
red, and yellow; the first proceeding from stone changed by age; the
second, from a mixture of brick; and the last, from a profusion of
tarnished gilding. You can not see a more disagreeable tout ensemble; and,
to finish the matter, it is all stuck over in many places with small busts
of a tawny hue between every two windows.

We pass through this to go into the garden, and here the case is indeed
altered; nothing can be vaster and more magnificent than the back front;
before it a very spacious terrace spreads itself, adorned with two large
basons; these are bordered and lined (as most of the others) with white
marble, with handsome statues of bronze reclined on their edges. From
hence you descend a huge flight of steps into a semi-circle formed by
woods, that are cut all around into niches, which are filled with
beautiful copies of all the famous antique statues in white marble. Just
in the midst is the bason of Latona; she and her children are standing on
the top of a rock in the middle, on the sides of which are the peasants,
some half, some totally changed into frogs, all which throw out water at
her in great plenty.