From this spot the view on all sides is truly grand (embracing the mansion, the gardens, the lakes, basins and fountains, the woods and shrubberies, the park and the river, and the distant country towards Rowsley), and paths lead in various directions among the beauties of the place: here a delightful little dell or a fernery where ferns and heaths grow in wild profusion, there another dell of rhododendrons, or with statuary among heathery banks and masses of rock. Near here, too, is a sylvan slope, headed by a gigantic bronze bust of the late Duke, mounted on a pillar, composed of fragments of an ancient Greek fluted column from the Temple of Minerva at Sunium. On the base are these beautiful verses by Lord Carlisle:— “These fragments stood on Sunium’s airy steep; They reared aloft Minerva’s guardian shrine; Beneath them rolled the blue Egean deep; And the Greek pilot hail’d them as divine. “Such was, e’en then, their look of calm repose. As wafted round them came the sounds of fight, When the glad shouts of conquering Athens rose O’er the long track of Persia’s broken flight. “Tho’ clasped by prostrate worshippers no more, They yet shall breathe a thrilling lesson here; Tho’ distant from their own immortal shore, The spot they grace is still to freedom dear.” Of this classic pedestal, with its crowning bust, we give an engraving on the preceding page. Opposite to the Orangery is the FRENCH GARDEN, with its forest of pillars surmounted by busts, its grand old Egyptian figures, its Chinese beakers and vases, its sculptured figures and groups, and its raised parterres: near this are green-houses, conservatories, and camelia and orchid houses, with their endless store of beauties; while here and there an antique tomb, or sculptured figures, or groups of statuary, add their charms to the place. [Illustration: _The French Garden._]