HE most important additions to the present revised and enlarged edition, are the Historical Notes and Illustrations. The extracts from the accounts of works executed at Hampton Court in the reign of Henry VIII. not only fix beyond dispute the time of the actual erection of the great Hall, and of other parts of the palace, but they throw much light on the architectural and decorative arts, as well as on the value of the labour of the artisan of the Tudor period. The abstract of the parliamentary survey of Hampton Court, being one of King Charles the First's possessions, made during the Commonwealth in A.D. 1653, and now, I believe, first printed, enables us to form a better idea of the extent and character of the original palace, than any existing means that I am at present acquainted with. In other respects, the general plan of the Hand-book remains much the same as in the first edition, published in 1841. I mention the date lest any likeness between the present and other works on the same subject should lead to the inference that I had been borrowing freely elsewhere. Before concluding, I perform a most agreeable duty in thanking the Right Hon. the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Delawarr, for his kindness in procuring for me Her Majesty's most gracious permission to examine all the pictures, both in the state and private apartments at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace; also the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and their very obliging Secretary, for the facilities generally afforded me in revising this Edition. Wren's East Front of Palace and Title-page, consisting of various parts of Hampton Court, drawn and engraved by David Cox. The Views of Old Hampton Court are reduced from the Prints in the Vetusta Monumenta. Bird's-eye view of the Palace in Queen Anne's time, reduced from The Plan of the Principal Floor of the Palace, and the Map of the Grounds, (taken by permission from the official Map of the Office of Woods,) in best edition only, are lithographed by J. Jobbins. |