the doing of it was a kind of trial of skill between them; but it
gives us room, without any partiality, to say they were both
masters of their art.
The PARTERRE on that side descends from the terrace-walk by steps,
and on the left a terrace goes down to the water-side, from which
the garden on the eastward front is overlooked, and gives a most
pleasant prospect.
The fine scrolls and BORDURE of these gardens were at first edged
with box, but on the queen’s disliking the smell those edgings were
taken up, but have since been planted again–at least, in many
places–nothing making so fair and regular an edging as box, or is
so soon brought to its perfection.
On the north side of the house, where the gardens seemed to want
screening from the weather or the view of the chapel, and some part
of the old building required to be covered from the eye, the vacant
ground, which was large, is very happily cast into a wilderness,
with a labyrinth and ESPALIERS so high that they effectually take
off all that part of the old building which would have been
offensive to the sight. This labyrinth and wilderness is not only
well designed, and completely finished, but is perfectly well kept,
and the ESPALIERS filled exactly at bottom, to the very ground, and
are led up to proportioned heights on the top, so that nothing of
that kind can be more beautiful.
The house itself is every way answerable on the outside to the
beautiful prospect, and the two fronts are the largest and, beyond
comparison, the finest of the kind in England. The great stairs go
up from the second court of the palace on the right hand, and lead
you to the south prospect.
I hinted in my last that King William brought into England the love
of fine paintings as well as that of fine gardens; and you have an
example of it in the cartoons, as they are called, being five
pieces of such paintings as, if you will believe men of nice
judgment and great travelling, are not to be matched in Europe.
The stories are known, but especially two of them–viz., that of
St. Paul preaching on Mars Hill to the self-wise Athenians, and
that of St. Peter passing sentence of death on Ananias–I say,
these two strike the mind with the utmost surprise, the passions
are so drawn to the life; astonishment, terror, and death in the
face of Ananias, zeal and a sacred fire in the eyes of the blessed
Apostle, fright and surprise upon the countenances of the beholders
in the piece of Ananias; all these describe themselves so naturally
that you cannot but seem to discover something of the like
passions, even in seeing them.
In the other there is the boldness and courage with which St. Paul
undertook to talk to a set of men who, he knew, despised all the
world, as thinking themselves able to teach them anything. In the
audience there is anticipating pride and conceit in some, a smile
or fleer of contempt in others, but a kind of sensible conviction,
though crushed in its beginning, on the faces of the rest; and all
together appear confounded, but have little to say, and know
nothing at all of it; they gravely put him off to hear him another
time; all these are seen here in the very dress of the face–that
is, the very countenances which they hold while they listen to the
new doctrine which the Apostle preached to a people at that time
ignorant of it.
The other of the cartoons are exceeding fine but I mention these as
the particular two which are most lively, which strike the fancy
the soonest at first view. It is reported, but with what truth I
know not, that the late French king offered an hundred thousand
LOUIS D’ORS for these pictures; but this, I say, is but a report.
The king brought a great many other fine pieces to England, and
with them the love of fine paintings so universally spread itself
among the nobility and persons of figure all over the kingdom that