ARANJUEZ, Aras. at this time of year is particularly pleasing to the eye; but its beauty soon fades on the approach of summer. As the weather grows hot, the company that choose to walk retire to a garden in an island of the Tagus, on the north side of the palace. This is a heavenly place, cut into various walks and circular lawns, which in their primitive state may have been very stiff and formal: but in the course of a century, Nature has obliterated the regular forms of art; the trees have swelled out beyond the line traced for them, and destroyed the enclosure by advancing into the walks or retiring from them. The sweet flowering shrubs, instead of being clipped and kept down, have been allowed to shoot up into trees, and hang over the statues and fountains they were originally meant to serve as humble fences to. The jets-d'eau dash up among the trees, and add fresh verdure to the leaves. The terraces and balustrades built along the river, are now overgrown with roses, and other luxuriant bushes, hanging down into the stream, which is darkened by the large trees growing on the opposite banks. Many of the statues, groups, and fountains, are handsome, some masterly, the works of Algardi: all are placed in charming points of view, either in open circular spots, at a distance from the trees, or else in gloomy arbours, and retired angles of the wood. The banks of this wood, called the Ilas, are also enlivened by elegant yachts for the amusement of the royal family.
The town or village formerly consisted of the palace, its offices, and a few miserable huts, where the ambassadors, and the attendants of the court, endeavoured to lodge themselves as well as they could, but always very uncomfortably; many of the habitations were vaults half under ground. What determined the king to build a new town, and to embellish the environs, was an accident that happened at the nuncio's; a coach broke through the ceiling of his dining-room, and fell in upon the table. The court then began to apply very considerable sums to the purpose of erecting proper dwellings for the great number of persons that flock to the place where the sovereign resides; near 10,000 are supposed to live here two or three months in spring; the king keeps 115 sets of mules, which require a legion of men to take care of them. Above a million sterling has been laid out at Aranjuez since the year 1763; and it must be acknowledged, that wonders have been performed: several fine streets drawn in straight lines with broad pavements, a double row of trees before the houses, and a very noble road in the middle; commodious hotels for the ministers and ambassadors; great squares, markets, churches, a theatre, and an amphitheatre for bull feasts, have been raised from the ground; besides the accession of two new wings to the palace. Neatness and convenience have been more studied and sought for than show in the architecture, but altogether the place has something truly magnificent in the coup d'œil.