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Defcription o f the palace and gardens o f Aranjuez.
r | "'HE royal feat o f Aranjuez, feven leagues dif-
J - tant from Madrid, and to which a moft noble
road has lately been made, is delightfully fituated at
the conflux o f the rivers Tagus and Jarama ; which
run through the gardens, and add new beauty to this
charming fpot, where art and nature feem to go
hand in hand with the moft pleafing and rural fim-
plicity. On one fide, fine avenues o f ftately oaks
and lofty elms, convey the trueft ideas o f magnificence,
while they afford the moft reviving ihade; on the other,
the fudden tranfitions to lawns and wildernefs, the caf-
cades o f water breaking through the thickets, the tuneful
fongs o f numberlefs birds, iheltered in thefe cool
receffes, the occafional appearance and paffage o f the
monarch, - attended by the grandees o f his kingdom; all
thefe objects united, and concentered in one point,
fill the imagination with pleafing ideas, and imprefs the
mind of a traveller with a thoufand agreeable fenfa-
tions, particularly in the fpring, when every thing is
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