GIFT of royal benevolence, right voluntary too-making many days, bright and holy days in the lives of thousands, even hundreds of thousands - -is the unrestricted freedom of man, woman, and child of every degree, to enter Hampton Court Palace. Harry the Eighth, with a narrow, selfish sensuality, snatched its courts and gardens from Cardinal Wolsey, its founder; and the better to herd undisturbedly, like Nebuchadnezzar among the beasts of the field, chased the people from the country for miles around, (Statutes, vol. iii., fol. ed., p. 721.) But Victoria, gentle, generous, and sympathetic, gets possession, and one of the first acts of her reign is to throw open its gates to share unreservedly with the humblest of her subjects the delights of its accumulated treasures. How many, various, ennobling, and exhilarating are these! Nature's works and man's bravest achievements go hand in hand together here. Space bounded by art, which crowds never rob of solitude!-Trees never leafless; verdure and brightness omnipresent! In all the whole world where are B there such flower-forests of chestnuts? Gayest blossoms of every season gladden the eye, filling the air with fragrance. Beauty of scene near at hand, and stretching as far distant as the sight can reach. Lulling music of waters; the magnificent in architecture; the matchless in painting; and, best of all, the throngs of happy faces, (records of parliament tell you they exceed thirty thousand a month in the summer,) abandoned to mirth, and oblivious of dull cares and toil left behind them! Miserable indeed the wretch whose sympathies are not touched with some of these. "Let any wight, (if such a wight there be,) To whom thy lofty towers unknown remain, And view thy splendid halls: then turn again 'For kings the rest,' (he'd say,) but thou for gods wert raised!'" Not one summer's day, or many, make familiar all Hampton Court can show; not in summer only, but in winter, when most places are cold, gloomy, and sad, is it warm, bright, and gleeful. It has charms for all the year round; and embarrassed with its riches, the difficulty to the occasional visitor, and still more so to the visitor for a single day, as many thousands are, is to economize strength and spirits to relish each succeeding beauty, and leave the place not in surfeited lassitude, but with vivid impressions of its most remarkable features. How best to make the selection-and see the sights in the best order, is the aim of this our hand-book; in which, among such a crowd of objects, we shall possibly fall into mistakes and errors in judgment. A hundred pages cannot pretend to be a history of the place, which, in fact, is the history of three centuries, not the least eventful of our country. A hundred pages would not suffice to enumerate the mere names of the men of fame linked in association with it. A hundred pages, to speak sympathetically of Wolsey, its great architect, the last political priest, bold practical reformer of monastic corruption, (too ripe for his age,) and promoter of learning and of art!—or of Thomas Cromwell, his secretary, next in rank and ability! pursuing his master's example in the overthrow of papal authority in England-Wolsey and Cromwell, both men raised from the people, by the strength God had blessed them with-or of Cranmer, Shakspeare, Oliver Cromwell, " protector," at least of the Cartoons, perhaps man's grandest work here!-A hundred pages to tell, too, of the doings of our kings and queens since Hampton Court became their palace! -a hundred pages to affect a dilettanti talk on its works of art! These are subjects to fill as many volumes, rather than to overwhelm our little book. We therefore pretend to do no more with them than glance lightly, and for the most part lovingly, at them, as we pursue our course through the buildings, the galleries, and gardens. N the outset, it may be as well to tell what experience we have of the BEST WAY OF REACHING HAMPTON COURT. When the visit is limited to a single day, our advice is to adopt the speediest means possible; for you will have enough to do there, without be stowing much care on what may be interesting on the route thither. Of the route by the South Western Railway we need say nothing, except to those coming upwards to the Ditton station. Between the Ditton and Walton stations, on the south side of the railway, the Water Gate House of Wolsey's residence at Esher may still be seen standing on the Banks of the Mole. The station at Ditton Marsh is about two miles from Hampton Court. On this route to the palace, 66 'By the soft windings of the silent Mole," distant glimpses appear of the Gothic turrets of Wolsey, by the side of the Grecian lines of Wren. This sluggish stream offers to the angier a quiet retreat for good ground fishingbut you must get leave to fish-and better still to the artist, some most charming picturesque home views on its banks. The better to refresh the memory of the visitor, and to stimulate others to undertake the same beneficial pilgrimage, we have called in the aid of some pleasant and characteristic engravings, all of them the handiwork of ladies' fingers, as woodcuts-clean, delicate work—according to our notions of things, may very properly be. Should your approach be in this direction, do not cross Hampton Bridge without resting on its apex, to get another and not less interesting view of the palace. Descend to the river's bank, where the old elms, with a few peeps of the palace behind, and the sparkling river before them, will reward you for going thus much out of your way. Another way of getting to Hampton Court-though more tedious-and at about the same cost, is for a party to club together and engage a carriage. According to the point of starting, you will take the road south of the Thames, through Wandsworth and Kingston, or that by Kensington, over Hammersmith Bridge, through Richmond. The best road, if you regard chiefly the interests of your horses, is through Brentford. But we quite agree with a Westminster Reviewer, who is an excellent guide to Hampton Court, (No. lxvii. page 326,) that the right royal road to Hampton Court is by the "silent highway" of the Thames, which he pleasantly describes from London to Richmond Bridge. Doubtless this was Wolsey's route hither from his York Palace at Whitehall; and the convenience of water transport must have influenced his selection of the site. His successors thus travelled between Hampton and Greenwich, then a royal residence. In the privy purse expenses of Henry VIII., we find watermen paid " for wayting at his grace's going from Yorke Place to Hampton Courte. For nearly two centuries afterwards, it was the fashion for the rich, under canopied barges, to glide on the B2 |