“Lo! what huge heaps of littleness around!”

In front of the palace is a vast terrace which you mount with considerable difficulty by innumerable flights of stairs.  To occasion an unexpected treat to the admirers of art, by excluding every thing natural, the whole of this elevation is abundantly supplied with ponds and water-works.  The grand vista in front of the palace is formed into a canal, and no description can give a more just idea of these boasted gardens than the following lines of Pope; the only difference being, that the water-works of Versailles are put in motion the first Sunday of every month, and remain stagnant the rest of the year.

    “Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
    And half the platform just reflects the other. 
    The suffering eye inverted nature sees,
    Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
    With here a fountain, never to be play’d,
    And there a summer-house that knows no shade;
    Here Amphitrite sails thro’ myrtle bow’rs,
    There gladiators fight or die in flow’rs;
    Unwater’d see the drooping sea-horse mourn,
    And swallows roost in Nilus’ dusty urn.”

What pleased me most at Versailles was the great number of large orange and lemon trees.

The forest of Versailles is of great extent, and abounds in wood, but there is little of what would be considered in England as good timber.

Windsor and Versailles have been often compared, although no two places can possibly differ more completely than they do.  To have again recourse to the words of the poet, Windsor is a place,

    “Where order in variety we see;
    And where, tho’ all things differ, all agree.”

And, in my judgment, it is as far superior to Versailles as its forests of oak are to the elms which surround that boasted palace.

I was permitted to see the royal stables.  They are, it is said, sufficiently large to contain 4000 horses, but are at present much out of repair.  The city of Versailles is large and well built, but has a melancholy and deserted appearance, having lost nearly half its population since it has ceased to be a royal residence, and the present number of inhabitants does not exceed 30,000.  The Grand and Petit Trianons deserve attention from having been the favourite retreats of the late unfortunate Queen of France; but few traces of the taste once displayed in their decoration now remain.  They are situated within the limits of the forest of Versailles, which is said to be twenty leagues in circuit.  At Sevres, which is celebrated for the beauty of its porcelain manufactory, I observed workmen employed in finishing a new and handsome bridge of nine arches over the Seine, in place of the old one which is hardly passable.  Near the barrier of Passy is a carpet-manufactory, which was established there by Henry the Fourth.  This barrier is thought to be the most striking entrance to Paris.  In