_Blenheim._--Twenty-five hundred acres, of which two hundred is garden, one hundred and fifty water, twelve kitchen-garden, and the rest park. Two hundred people employed to keep it in order, and to make alterations and additions. About fifty of these employed in pleasure-grounds. The turf is mowed once in ten days. In summer, about two thousand fallow-deer in the park, and two or three thousand sheep. The palace of Henry II. was remaining till taken down by Sarah, widow of the first Duke of Marlborough. It was on a round spot levelled by art, near what is now water, and but a little above it. The island was a part of the high-road leading to the palace. Rosamond's Bower was near where now is a little grove, about two hundred yards from the palace. The well is near where the bower was. The water here is very beautiful and very grand. The cascade from the lake is a fine one; except this the garden has no great beauties. It is not laid out in fine lawns and woods, but the trees are scattered thinly over the ground, and every here and there small thickets of shrubs, in oval raised beds, cultivated, and flowers among the shrubs. The gravelled walks are broad; art appears too much. There are but a few seats in it, and nothing of architecture more dignified. There is no one striking position in it. There has been great addition to the length of the river since Whately wrote. In a letter written, after his return to Paris, to his old friend, John Page, of Virginia, Mr. Jefferson speaks thus of England: _To John Page._ I returned but three or four days ago from a two months' trip to England. I traversed that country much, and must own both town and country fell short of my expectations. Comparing it with this, I have found a much greater proportion of barrens, a soil, in other parts, not naturally so good as this, not better cultivated, but better manured, and therefore more productive. This proceeds from the practice of long leases there, and short ones here. The laboring people are poorer here than in England. They pay about one half of their produce in rent, the English in general about one third. The gardening in that country is the article in which it excels all the earth. I mean their pleasure-gardening. This, indeed, went far beyond my ideas. The city of London, though handsomer than Paris, is not so handsome as Philadelphia. Their architecture is in the most wretched style I ever saw, not meaning to except America, where it is bad, nor even Virginia, where it is worse than any other part of America which I have seen. The mechanical arts in London are carried to a wonderful perfection.