(Sr.), a celebrated royal residence of Spain, distant about two miles from Segovia. It was erected by Philip V. in the midst of a solitary wood, and in the bottom of steep mountains. It is chiefly remarkable for its gardens. There is nothing magnificent in the palace, particularly in its exterior appearance. The front on the side of the garden is of the Corinthian order, and not destitute of elegance. Here are the king's apartments, which look upon a parterre surrounded with vases and marble statues, and a cascade which, for the richness of its decorations, may be compared with the finest of the kind.

The purity and cleanness of the water is indeed incomparable. Philip V. could not, in this respect, be better served by nature. From the mountains which shade the palace descend several rivulets, which supply the reservoirs. These waters answer the double purpose of supplying numerous fountains, and of diffusing life and verdure through the magnificent gardens, the sight of which alone is a sufficient recompense for a journey into Spain. They are on the inside a league in circumference. The inequality of the ground affords every moment new points of view. The principal alleys answer to different summits of neighbouring mountains; and one in particular produces the most agreeable effect. It is terminated at one end by the grand front of the palace. From this point are seen, at one view, five fountains, ornamented with elegant groups, rising into an amphitheatre, above which appear the summits of lofty mountains. The most elevated of these groups is that of Andromeda fastened to a rock. When seen at a little distance it is perhaps defective, because the rock appears too diminutive by the side of the monster which threatens Andromeda; and of Perseus, by whom it is attacked; but the whole contributes to the beauty of the view. The most remarkable of the five groups is that of Neptune.

Genius (says M. Bourgoanne+) presided at the composition and in the choice of the situation; the deity of the ocean appears erect, surrounded by his marine court. His attitude, his threatening countenance, and the manner of holding his trident, announce that he has just imposed silence on the mutinous waves; and the calm which reigns in the basin, defended from every wind by the triple wall of verdure by which it is surrounded, seem to indicate that he has not issued his commands in vain. Often have I feasted myself, with Virgil in my hand, by the side of this silent water, under the shade of the verdant foliage, nor ever did I fail to recollect the famous Quo Ego!

"There are other fountains worthy of the attention of the curious; such as that of Latona, where the limpid sheaves, some perpendicularly, and others in every direction, fall from the hoarse throats of the Lycian peasants, half transformed into frogs, and spouting them forth in such abundance, that the statue of the goddess disappears under the wide mantle of liquid crystal; that also of Diana in the bath, surrounded by her nymphs; in the twinkling of an eye all the chalet court is hidden beneath the waters; the spectator imagines he hears the whistling of aquatic birds, and the roaring of lions, from the place whence this momentary deluge escapes by a hundred canals. The fountain of Fame is formed by a single jet-d'eau, which rise 130 feet, exhibiting to the distance of several leagues round the triumph of art over nature, and falls in a gentle shower upon the gazing spectators. There are some situations in the gardens of St Ildefonso, whence the eye takes in the whole of the greater part of these fountains, and where the ear is delighted with the harmony of their murmurs. The traveller who wishes to charm all his senses at once, must take his station on the high flat ground in front of the king's apartment. In the thick part of the foliage are contrived two large arbours, from the top of which are seen twenty crystal columns rising into the air to the height of the surrounding trees, mixing their resplendent whitenees with the verdure of the foliage, uniting their confused noise to the rustling of the branches, and refreshing and embalming the air; if the traveller here experience no pleasing sensations, let him return home, he is utterly incapable of feeling either the beauties of art or nature.

"The reader may here imagine (continues our author) my enthusiasm too extravagant. He is mistaken; let him follow me to the great reservoir of abundant and limpid waters. He will have to climb for some minutes, but will not regret the trouble he has taken. Let us suppose ourselves arrived at the long and narrow alley which takes up the whole of the upper part of the gardens; proceed to the middle, and turn your face toward the castle. To the vast horizon around you, no other boundaries are discovered but those which limit the human sight; these alone prevent you from discovering the Pyrenees. Observe the steeple, which seems but a point in the immense extent: you will perhaps imagine it to be that of the parish church of St Ildefonso; but, in reality, it is the cathedral of Segovia, at two leagues distance. The gardens, through which you have palled, become narrower to the eye. You suppose yourself close to the royal habitation; the alleys, fountains, and parterres, have all disappeared; you see but one road, which, in the form of a vessel, upon the prow of which you seem to stand, has its stern on the top of the palace. Afterward turn and take a view of the little lake behind you." you, of which the irregular borders do not, like what we call our English gardens, merely ape the disorder of nature. Nature herself has traced them, except on the side where you stand. This straight alley is united at each end to the curve which surrounds the reservoir. The waters, which stream in abundance from the sides of the mountain in front, meet in this reservoir, and thence descend by a thousand invisible tubes to other reservoirs, whence they are spouted in columns or sheets upon the flowery soil to which they were strangers. The birds, drawn by their clearness, come to skim and agitate their crystal. The image of the tufted woods which surround them is reflected from their immovable surface, as is also that of some simple and rural houses, thrown, as by accident, into this delightful picture, which Lorrain would have imitated, but perhaps could not have imagined. The opposite bank is obscured by thick shades. Some hollows, overshadowed by arching trees, seem to be the asylums of the Naiads. Disturb them not by indiscreet loquacity, but silently admire and meditate.

"It is impossible, however, not to go to the source of these waters; let us follow the meandering of their course, and observe the winding paths which there terminate, after appearing and disappearing at intervals through the copse. Let us listen to the bubbling of the rivulets which from time to time escape from our sight, and hasten to the rendezvous assigned them by the descendants of Louis XIV. They formerly loit themselves in the valleys, where they quenched the thirst of the humble inhabitants, but are now consecrated to the pleasures of kings. Ascending the back of the pyramidal mountain, behind which their source is concealed, we arrive at the wall which confines a part of them in the garden, and which was hidden by the trees; nothing, however, ought here to recall to mind exclusive property and slavery. Woods, waters, and the majestic solitude of mountains, which are at a distance from the tumult of courts and cities, are the property of every man.—Beyond this wall, which forms the exterior enclosure of the gardens, is an empty and flat ground, where the infant Don Louis, brother to the king, chose a place which he consecrated to cultivation. Farther on, the mountain becomes more steep, and is covered with trees to its summit. Let us now return; as we seek amusement and not fatigue. We will follow the course of the waters, they descend in bubbling streams from one level of the gardens to the other. In their course, in one place they water the feet of the trees, in others they cross an alley to nourish more slowly the plants of a parterre. From the basin of Andromeda they run between two rows of trees in the form of a canal, the too sudden inclination of which is taken off by cascades and windings. They receive and carry with them from the gardens the rivulets; which after having played amongst the gods and nymphs, and moistened the throats of the swans, tritons, and lions, humbly descend underground, and run on into the bosom of the neighbouring meadows, where they fulfill purposes less brilliant but more useful.

"We must not quit these magnificent gardens without stopping at a place which appears to promise much, but produces not any very great effect. This is the square of the eight alleys, Plaça de las ocho calles. In the centre is the group of Pandora, the only one which is of whitened stone, all the others are of white marble or lead painted of a bronze colour. Eight alleys answer to this centre, and each is terminated by a fountain. Plats of verdure fill up the intervals between the alleys, and each has an altar under a portico of white marble by the tide of a basin sacred to some god or goddess. These eight altars, placed at equal distances, and decorated among other jets-d'eau, have two which rise in the form of tapers on each side of their divinities. This cold regularity displeased Philip V., who a little before his death, when visiting the gardens, made some severe reproaches to the inventor upon the subject. Philip had not the pleasure of completely enjoying what he had created; death surprised him when the works he had begun were but half finished. The undertaking was however the most expensive one of his reign. The finances of Spain, so deranged under the princes of the house of Austria (thanks to the wife calculations of Orry, to the subsidies of France, and still more to the courageous efforts of the faithful Catalans), would have been sufficient for three long and ruinous wars, and for all the operations of a monarchy which Philip V. had conquered and formed anew, as well as to have resisted the shocks of ambition and political intrigue; but they sunk beneath the expensive efforts of magnificence."

It is singular that the castle and gardens of St Ildefonso should have cost about 45,000,000 of piastres, precisely the sum in which Philip died indebted. This enormous expense will appear credible, when it is known that the situation of the royal palace was at the beginning of this century the sloping top of a pile of rocks; that it was necessary to dig, and hew out the stones, and in several places to level the rock; to cut out of its sides a passage for a hundred different canals, to carry vegetative earth to every place in which it was intended to substitute cultivation for fertility, and to work a mine to clear a passage to the roots of the numerous trees which are there planted. All these efforts were crowned with success. In the orchards, kitchen gardens, and parterres, there are but few flowers, espaliers, or plants, which do not thrive; but the trees, naturally of a lofty growth, and which consequently must strike their roots deep into the earth, already prove the insufficiency of art when it attempts to struggle against nature. Many of them languish with withered trunks, and with difficulty keep life in their almost naked branches. Every year it is necessary to call in the aid of gunpowder to make new beds for those which are to supply their place; and none of them are covered with that tufted foliage which belongs only to those that grow in a natural soil. In a word, there are in the groves of St Ildefonso, marble statues, basins, cascades, limpid waters, verdure, and delightful prospects, everything but that which would be more charming than all the rest, thick shades.

The court of Spain comes hither annually during the heat of the dog-days. It arrives towards the end of July, and returns at the beginning of October. The situation of St Ildefonso, upon the declivity of the mountains which separate the two Castiles, and fronting a vast plain where there is no obstacle to the passage of the north wind, renders this abode delightful in summer. The mornings and evenings of the hottest days... days are agreeably cool. Yet as this palace is upwards of 20 leagues from Madrid, and half of the road which leads to it crosses the broad tops of mountains, extremely steep in many places, it is much more agreeable to the lovers of the chase and solitude than to others.