building is all of Portland stone in the front, which makes it look
extremely glorious and magnificent at a distance, it being the
particular property of that stone (except in the streets of London,
where it is tainted and tinged with the smoke of the city) to grow
whiter and whiter the longer it stands in the open air.
As the front of the house opens to a long row of trees, reaching to
the great road at Leightonstone, so the back face, or front (if
that be proper), respects the gardens, and, with an easy descent,
lands you upon the terrace, from whence is a most beautiful
prospect to the river, which is all formed into canals and openings
to answer the views from above and beyond the river; the walks and
wildernesses go on to such a distance, and in such a manner up the
hill, as they before went down, that the sight is lost in the woods
adjoining, and it looks all like one planted garden as far as the
eye can see.
I shall cover as much as possible the melancholy part of a story
which touches too sensibly many, if not most, of the great and
flourishing families in England. Pity and matter of grief is it to
think that families, by estate able to appear in such a glorious
posture as this, should ever be vulnerable by so mean a disaster as
that of stock-jobbing. But the general infatuation of the day is a
plea for it, so that men are not now blamed on that account. South
Sea was a general possession, and if my Lord Castlemain was wounded
by that arrow shot in the dark it was a misfortune. But it is so
much a happiness that it was not a mortal wound, as it was to some
men who once seemed as much out of the reach of it. And that blow,
be it what it will, is not remembered for joy of the escape, for we
see this noble family, by prudence and management, rise out of all
that cloud, if it may be allowed such a name, and shining in the
same full lustre as before.
This cannot be said of some other families in this county, whose
fine parks and new-built palaces are fallen under forfeitures and
alienations by the misfortunes of the times and by the ruin of
their masters’ fortunes in that South Sea deluge.
But I desire to throw a veil over these things as they come in my
way; it is enough that we write upon them, as was written upon King
Harold’s tomb at Waltham Abbey, INFELIX, and let all the rest sleep
among things that are the fittest to be forgotten.
From my Lord Castlemain’s, house and the rest of the fine dwellings
on that side of the forest, for there are several very good houses
at Wanstead, only that they seem all swallowed up in the lustre of
his lordship’s palace, I say, from thence, I went south, towards
the great road over that part of the forest called the Flats, where
we see a very beautiful but retired and rural seat of Mr.
Lethulier’s, eldest son of the late Sir John Lethulier, of Lusum,
in Kent, of whose family I shall speak when I come on that side.
By this turn I came necessarily on to Stratford, where I set out.
And thus having finished my first circuit, I conclude my first
letter, and am,
Sir, your most humble and obedient servant.
APPENDIX.
Whoever travels, as I do, over England, and writes the account of
his observations, will, as I noted before, always leave something,
altering or undertaking by such a growing improving nation as this,
or something to discover in a nation where so much is hid,
sufficient to employ the pens of those that come after him, or to
add by way of appendix to what he has already observed.
This is my case with respect to the particulars which follow: (1)
Since these sheets were in the press, a noble palace of Mr.
Walpole’s, at present First Commissioner of the Treasury, Privy-
counsellor, etc., to King George, is, as it were, risen out of the