345. Weil (fig. 93.) is a small pavilion in a rich valley, erected from designs by Salucci, in 1818, as a summer lodge. The grounds around are intended to assume the character of an English farm. They are chiefly under meadow and pasture, with little artificial planting or ornament. The chief interest of the place is created by the river Neckar, and by the surrounding hills: the latter are covered by vineyards on one side, and by natural forest on the other. Some scars of rock appear in the declivities, partially shaded by Scotch pines, which add to the interest of the natural character; but this is powerfully counteracted, and, indeed, in point of taste, the place totally destroyed, by the recent introduction of straight avenues of lime trees. Whoever directed this, can have had no idea of unity of character. The kitchen, and other servants' offices, are at some distance from the house, and may be seen to the right of the picture (fig. 93.). This would be an inconvenience in England, but in Wirtemberg it is customary to carry the dinners of the royal family in a close iron box over a fire of charcoal; the whole surrounded by a wooden box, and borne along by two men like a hand-barrow. The house contains numerous apartments communicating with a staircase in the centre, lighted from the roof; the rooms have scarcely any distinction of character, and are neither well finished nor well furnished. The cow-houses here are as clean as those of Holland, and might afford a useful lesson to gentlemen's farm bailiffs in England.
