everything that can make an inland (or, as I may call it, a
country) river pleasant and agreeable.
I shall sing you no songs here of the river in the first person of
a water-nymph, a goddess, and I know not what, according to the
humour of the ancient poets; I shall talk nothing of the marriage
of old Isis, the male river, with the beautiful Thame, the female
river (a whimsey as simple as the subject was empty); but I shall
speak of the river as occasion presents, as it really is made
glorious by the splendour of its shores, gilded with noble palaces,
strong fortifications, large hospitals, and public buildings; with
the greatest bridge, and the greatest city in the world, made
famous by the opulence of its merchants, the increase and
extensiveness of its commerce; by its invincible navies, and by the
innumerable fleets of ships sailing upon it to and from all parts
of the world.
As I meet with the river upwards in my travels through the inland
country I shall speak of it, as it is the channel for conveying an
infinite quantity of provisions from remote counties to London, and
enriching all the counties again that lie near it by the return of
wealth and trade from the city; and in describing these things I
expect both to inform and divert my readers, and speak in a more
masculine manner, more to the dignity of the subject, and also more
to their satisfaction, than I could do any other way.
There is little more to be said of the Thames relating to Hampton
Court, than that it adds by its neighbourhood to the pleasure of
the situation; for as to passing by water to and from London,
though in summer it is exceeding pleasant, yet the passage is a
little too long to make it easy to the ladies, especially to be
crowded up in the small boats which usually go upon the Thames for
pleasure.
The prince and princess, indeed, I remember came once down by water
upon the occasion of her Royal Highness’s being great with child,
and near her time–so near that she was delivered within two or
three days after. But this passage being in the royal barges, with
strength of oars, and the day exceeding fine, the passage, I say,
was made very pleasant, and still the more so for being short.
Again, this passage is all the way with the stream, whereas in the
common passage upwards great part of the way is against the stream,
which is slow and heavy.
But be the going and coming how it will by water, it is an
exceeding pleasant passage by land, whether we go by the Surrey
side or the Middlesex side of the water, of which I shall say more
in its place.
The situation of Hampton Court being thus mentioned, and its
founder, it is to be mentioned next that it fell to the Crown in
the forfeiture of his Eminence the Cardinal, when the king seized
his effects and estate, by which this and Whitehall (another house
of his own building also) came to King Henry VIII. Two palaces fit
for the kings of England, erected by one cardinal, are standing
monuments of the excessive pride as well as the immense wealth of
that prelate, who knew no bounds of his insolence and ambition till
he was overthrown at once by the displeasure of his master.
Whoever knew Hampton Court before it was begun to be rebuilt, or
altered, by the late King William, must acknowledge it was a very
complete palace before, and fit for a king; and though it might
not, according to the modern method of building or of gardening,
pass for a thing exquisitely fine, yet it had this remaining to
itself, and perhaps peculiar–namely, that it showed a situation
exceedingly capable of improvement, and of being made one of the
most delightful palaces in Europe.
This her Majesty Queen Mary was so sensible of, that, while the
king had ordered the pulling down the old apartments, and building
it up in that most beautiful form which we see them now appear in,