Villa Residences. We have found a few of these very perfect; viz. Hoole House, Lady Broughton's; the villa of Mr. Barber, at Grasmere; Mrs. Starkey's villa, at Bowness; the poet Wordsworth's, at Rhydal; and the garden of Mr. Tong's cottage, near Garstang. We regret the want of room to describe these places. Lady Broughton's is chiefly celebrated for a lawn, varied by flower-beds, and terminating in rockwork, in imitation of Swiss glaciers. This rockwork contains one of the best collections of alpines in Britain; admirably managed by the gardener, Mr. Welsby, who has promised us a list of them. The margins of the beds and of the walks at this place are exactly as we could wish them. The cottage and grounds of Mr. Barber of Grasmere are decidedly the most perfect things of the kind we have ever seen: notwithstanding the greatest temptation to indulge in extravagant fancies, nothing of the kind is to be found; and one wonders how it happens that the whole has escaped the common fate of even the finest places, viz. that of having some part incongruous with the rest. Mrs. Starkey's villa, at Bowness, is perfection's self, as far as it goes; for, though the area of the grounds is not much larger than that of the magnificent library at Eaton Hall, they contain more beauty and variety than the whole of the hundred acres of pleasure-ground at that great dull place.
