Southgate Lodge.-The house at this beautiful place was built by Nash, and the grounds laid out by Repton, for Walker Gray, Esq., about the beginning of the present century; but the place is now the property of -Taylor, Esq. In 1819, when we last saw it, the grounds were in beautiful order, but they are now in a state of comparative neglect and ruin. They consist of a gently sloping bank, on which the house is placed; and opposite to this is an amphitheatre of wood in the manner of Kenwood, but more open and extensive. The lawn or park reaches from the house to the bottom, which lies between it and the opposite bank covered with wood, the bottom being formed into a beautiful lake. The wood reaches down to the water in some places, and in others is deeply penetrated by glades of turf, finely broken by scattered groups of oaks. With the exception of the tower of a church which has been lately built, and the smoke rising from a cottage in the wood, there is not the slightest indication of houses or buildings. The place, in this respect, resembles Kenwood, with the advantage of being of greater extent and having a fine piece of water, but with the disadvantage of much less inequality in the ground, and consequently not exhibiting scenery of so strongly marked a character. We have seldom seen a place more in want of a terrace in the two garden or lawn fronts of the house, in order by its horizontal lines to contrast with the sloping lines of the lawn, and form an effective foreground to it and to the wooded bank beyond. Attached to the house is a conservatory forming the segment of a circle, and of the same width as the library, the entire end of which, consisting of two bookcases, opens and folds back in such a manner as to carry in the sides of the room to the branches of the plants. On our former visit we were in the library, and saw this bookcase opened: the effect was very striking, and it would have been more so if the walk in the conservatory had been along the centre instead of along one side. The roof and front of the conservatory is now falling in pieces, which affords an opportunity of renewing it on a better plan. Beyond the conservatory its back wall is continued as a separation from the kitchen-garden, and the dead wall, though covered with creepers, being thought rather heavy, was pierced with openings in the manner of windows. In coming along the approach road, we pass a number of scattered oak trees, almost all of the species Q. sessiliflora, and exemplifying in a very decided manner the inferiority of this species to the Q. pedunculata, as a painter's tree; a fact first pointed out by the Rev. W. T. Bree, in Vol. XII. p. 534.; and in Arb. Brit., vol. iii. p. 1797. Among minor remarks we may notice the circumstance of the grass of the lawn being mixed with wild thyme, which, when it is cut by the scythe, or bruised by rolling or walking over it, fills the air with fragrance. The common garden thyme, and various other fragrant species, are sown on terrace walks in Italy and Portugal, where scarcely any grass will grow; and the effect when parties walk on these terraces backwards and forwards, especially during the evening or night, is to fill the air with the most delightful fragrance. We can state this from our own experience when forming one of an evening party at the Signor di Negro's, in Genoa, in the summer of 1819.
