LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.

MADAM,

June 22.

I

PROMISED you an account of Sherborne before I had seen it, or knew what I undertook. I imagined it to be one of those fine old feats of which there are numbers fcattered over England. But this is fo peculiar, and its fituation of fo uncommon a kind, that it merits a more particular defcription.

The house is in the form of an H. The body of it, which was built by Sir Walter Rawleigh, confifts of four stories, with four fix-angled towers at the ends. These have fince been joined to four wings, with a regular stone balustrade at the top, and four towers more that finish the building. The windows and gates are of a yellow ftone throughout; and one of the flat fides toward the garden has the wings of a newer architecture, with beautiful Italian windowframes, done by the firft Earl of Bristol, which, if they were joined in the middle by a portico covering the old building, would be a noble front. The defign of fuch an one I have been amufing myself with drawing; but it is a question whether my Lord Digby will not be better amufed than to execute it. The finest room is a faloon fifty feet long, and a parlour hung with very excellent tapestry of Rubens, which was a prefent

VOL. X.

C

prefent from the King of Spain to the Earl of Bristol, in his embaffy there.

This ftands in a park, finely crowned with very high woods on all the tops of the hills, which form a great amphitheatre floping down to the house. On the garden fides the woods approach close, so that it appears there with a thick line and depth of groves on each hand, and fo it fhews from most parts of the park. The gardens are fo irregular, that it is very hard to give an exact idea of them, but by a plan. Their beauty arifes from this irregularity; for not only the feveral parts of the garden itself make the better contraft by these fudden rifes, falls, and turns of ground; but the views about it are let in, and hang over the walls in very different figures and afpects. You come first out of the house into a green walk of ftandard limes, with a hedge behind them, that makes a colonnade; hence into a little triangular wilderness, from whofe centre you fee the town of Sherborne, in a valley interspersed with trees. From the corner of this you iffue at once upon a high green terrace, the whole breadth of the garden, which has five more green terraces hanging under each other, without hedges, only a few pyramid yews and large round honeyfuckles between them. The honeyfuckles hereabouts are the largest and finest I ever faw. You'll be pleased when I tell you the quarters of the above-mentioned little wilderness are filled with thefe, and with cherry-trees of the best kinds, all within

reach

reach of the hand. At the ends of these terraces run two long walks, under the fide walls of the garden, which communicate with the other terraces that front thefe, oppofite. Between the valley is laid level, and divided into two irregular groves of horse-chefnuts, and a bowling-green in the middle of about one hundred and eighty feet. This is bounded behind with a canal, that runs quite acrofs the groves, and alfo along one fide, in the form of a T. Behind this is a femicircular berceau, and a thicket of mixed trees, that completes the crown of the amphitheatre, which is of equal extent with the bowling-green. Beyond that runs a natural river through green banks of turf, over which rifes another row of terraces, the first fupported by a flope wall planted with vines; fo is alfo the wall that bounds the channel of the river. A fecond and third appeared above this; but they are to be turned into a line of wildernefs, with wild winding walks, for the convenience of paffing from one fide to the other in fhade, the heads of whofe trees will lie below the uppermoft terrace of all, which completes the garden, and overlooks both that and the country. Even above the wall of this the natural ground rifes, and is crowned with feveral venerable ruins of an old caftle, with arches and broken views, of which I muft fay more hereafter.

When you are at the left corner of the canal, and the chefnut groves in the bottom, you turn of a sudden, under very old trees, into the deepest fhade.

The walk winds you up a hill of venerable wood, over-arched by Nature, and of a vaft height, into a circular grove, on one fide of which is a close high arbour, on the other a fudden open feat, that overlooks the meadows and river with a large diftant prospect. Another walk under this hill winds by the river fide, quite covered with high trees on both bank, overhung with ivy; where falls a natural cascade, with neverceafing murmurs. On the oppofite hanging of the bank (which is a steep of fifty feet) is placed, with a very fine fancy, a ruftic feat of stone, flagged and rough, with two urns in the fame rude taste upon pedestals, on each fide; from whence you lofe your eyes upon the glimmering of the waters under the wood, and your ears in the conftant dashing of the waves. In view of this is a bridge, that croffes this ftream, built in the fame ruinous tafte: the wall of the garden hanging over it is humoured fo as to appear the ruin of another arch or two above the bridge. Hence you mount the hill, over the Hermit's feat (as they call it) described before, and fo to the highest terrace again.

On the left, full behind these old trees, which makes this whole part inexpreffibly awful and folemn, runs a little, old, low wall, befide a trench, covered with elder-trees and ivys; which being croffed by another bridge, brings you to the ruins, to complete the folemnity of the scene. You firft fee an old tower penetrated by a large arch, and others above

it,

it, through which the whole country appears in prospect, even when you are at the top of the other ruins; for they stand very high, and the ground flopes down on all fides. These venerable broken walls, fome arches almost entire of thirty or forty feet deep, fome open like porticoes with fragments of pillars, fome circular or inclofed on three fides, but expofed at top, with fteps, which time has made of disjointed ftones, to climb to the highest points of the ruin. Thefe, I fay, might have a prodigious beauty, mixed with greens and parterres from part to part; and the whole heap ftanding as it does on a round hill, kept smooth in green turf, which makes a bold basement to show it. The open courts from building to building might be thrown into circles or octagons of grafs or flowers; and even in the gaping rooms you have fine trees grown, that might be made a natural tapestry to the walls, and arch you over-head, where time has uncovered them to the fky. Little paths of earth or fand might be made up the halftumbled walls, to guide from one view to another on the higher parts; and feats placed here and there to enjoy thofe views, which are more romantic than imagination can form them. I could very much with this were done, as well as a little temple built on a neighbouring round hill, that is feen from all points of the garden, and is extremely pretty. It would finish fome walks, and particularly be a fine termination to the river, and be feen from the entrance into that deep scene I have defcribed by the cafcade, where