Of the private hotels and private gardens of Paris, a stranger can scarcely give a just account.  Although it is now six years since I have been acquainted with the place, they occasion surprise daily, by their number, beauty, and magnificence.  Relatively, Rome, and Florence, and Venice, and Genoa, may surpass it, in the richness and vastness of some of their private residences; but, Rome excepted, none of them enjoy such gardens, nor does Rome even, in absolute connection with the town abodes of her nobles.  The Roman villas[15] are almost always detached from the palaces, and half of them are without the walls, as I have already described to you.  The private gardens of Paris certainly cannot compare with these villas, nor, indeed, can those which belong to the public; but then there is a luxury, and a quiet, and a beauty, about the five or six acres that are so often enclosed and planted in the rear of the hotels here, that I do not think any other Christian city can show in equal affluence.  The mode of living, which places the house between court and garden, as it is termed here, is justly esteemed the perfection of a town residence; for while it offers security, by means of the gate, and withdraws the building from the street—­a desideratum with all above the vulgar—­it gives space and room for exercise and beauty, by means of the verdure, shrubbery, trees, and walks.  It is no unusual thing for the French to take their repasts, in summer, within the retirement of their gardens, and this in the heart of one of the most populous and crowded towns of Europe.  The miserable and minute subdivisions of our own towns preclude the possibility of our ever enjoying a luxury as great, and yet as reasonable as this; and if, by chance, some lucky individual should find the means to embellish his own abode and his neighbourhood, in this way, some speculation, half a league off, would compel him to admit an avenue through his laurels and roses, in order to fill the pockets of a club of projectors.  In America, everybody sympathises with him who makes money, for it is a common pursuit, and touches a chord that vibrates through the whole community; but few, indeed, are they who can enter into the pleasures of him who would spend it elegantly, rationally, and with good taste.  If this were the result of simplicity, it would, at least, be respectable; but every one knows that the passion at home is for display—­finery, at the expense of comfort and fitness, being a prevalent evil.

[Footnote 15:  This word has a very different signification in Italian, from that which we have given it, in English.  It means a garden in the country; the house not being necessarily any part of it, although there is usually a casino or pavilion.]