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k-ground decorated with Grecian architecture. Paul Veronese placed Benedictine fathers and _Swiss soldiers_ among his paintings from the Old Testament. A painter, intending to describe the miracle of the fishes listening to the preaching of St. Anthony of Padua, painted the lobsters, who were stretching out of the water, _red!_ probably having never seen them in their natural state. Being asked how he could justify this anachronism, he extricated himself by observing, that the whole affair was a miracle, and that thus the miracle was made still greater. In the Notices des MSS. du Roi VI. 120, in the illuminations of a manuscript Bible at Paris, under the Psalms, are two persons playing at cards; and under Job and the Prophets are coats of arms and a windmill. Poussin, in his picture of the Deluge has painted boats, not then invented. St. Jerome, in another place, with a clock by his side; a thing unknown in that saint's days.--_Nous revenons._ * * * * * THE TOPOGRAPHER * * * * * VIRGINIA WATER, (_The favourite Retreat of his Majesty_.) Virginia Water was planted, and the lake executed, under the direction of Paul Sandby, at a time when this part of Windsor Forest was the favourite residence of Duke William of Cumberland. The artificial water is the largest in the kingdom, with the single exception of Blenheim; the cascade is, perhaps, the most striking imitation we have of the great works of nature; and the grounds are arranged in the grandest style of landscape-gardening. The neighbouring scenery is bold and rugged, being the commencement of Bagshot Heath; and the variety of surface agreeably relieves the eye, after the monotony of the first twenty miles from town, which fatigues the traveller either upon the Bath or Western roads. At the time when the public were allowed to visit Virginia Water, the best point of entrance was at the gate at Bishopsgate; near which very pretty village, or rather green, the Royal Lodge is at present situated. Shelley, who had a true eye for the picturesque, resided for some time at this place; and it would have been difficult for a poet to have found, in any of the highly cultivated counties of England, a spot so full of the most exquisite variety of hill and dale, of wood and water,--so fitted to call forth and cherish the feelings upon which poetry must depend for its peculiar nurture. Bishop
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