An excellent road, sheltered for nine English miles by rows of high
poplars, conducted us through richly cultivated plains from Manheim to
Schwetzingen, a small village, distinguished by an Electoral chateau
and gardens. This was one of the pleasantest rides we had found in
Germany, for the road, though it exhibited little of either the wild
or picturesque, frequently opened towards the mountains, bright with
a variety of colouring, and then again was shrouded among woods and
plantations, that bordered the neighbouring fields, and brought faintly
to remembrance the style and mingled verdure of our native landscape.
Schwetzingen had been very lately the Austrian head-quarters, for the
army of the Upper Rhine, and some soldiers were still stationed near
the road to guard an immense magazine of wood; but there were otherwise
no military symptoms about the place.
The chateau is an old and inelegant building, not large enough to
have been ever used as a formal residence. The present Elector has
added to it two wings, each of six hundred feet long, but so low, that
the apartments are all on the ground floor. Somewhat of that air of
neglect, which can sadden even the most delightful scenes, is visible
here; several of the windows are broken, and the theatre, music-room,
and ball-room, which have been laid out in one of the wings, are
abandoned to dust and lumber.
The gardens, however, are preserved in better order. Before the palace,
a long vista of lawn and wood, with numerous and spacious fountains,
guarded by statues, display something of the old French manner; other
parts shew charming scenery, and deep sylvan recesses, where nature
is again at liberty; in a bay formed by the woods is an amphitheatre
of fragrant orange trees, placed in front of a light semi-circular
green-house, and crowned with lofty groves. Near this delicious spot,
extends a bending arcade of lattice-work, interwoven with vines and
many beautifully flowering plants; a sort of structure, the filagree
lightness of which it is impossible not to admire, against precept, and
perhaps, when general effect is considered, against necessary taste. In
another part, sheltered by the woods, is an edifice in the style of a
Turkish mosque, with its light cloistered courts, slender minarets, and
painted entrances, inscribed with Arabic mottos, which by the German
translations appear to express the pleasure of friendly conversation
and of indolence in summer. The gardens have this result of a judicious
arrangement, that they seem to extend much beyond their real limits,
which we discovered only by ascending one of the minarets. They are
open to the public, during great part of every day, under certain rules
for their preservation, of which copies are pasted up in several places.