He was not lucky enough to escape the scaffold by that death which freed his father. Surely there was a shout of joy in Wolsey's halls when the most hateful of English kings died in his pious blasphemy,-infamous for all ages.

In the succeeding reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, Hampton Court was not associated in any remarkable degree with the regal history. The usual court ceremonies were here enacted, whether the meek Boy-King, the Bigot-Queen, or she of "lion-port," was the presiding genius of the place. Each reign added something to the original splendour of the palace. Paul Hentzner, a foreigner who visited England in 1598, and whose 'Itinerary' was translated from the Latin by Horace Walpole, thus describes what then appeared to him the most memorable things at Hampton Court:

"The chief area is paved with square stone. In its centre is a fountain that throws up water, covered with a gilt crown, on the top of which is the figure of Justice, supported by columns of white and black marble. The chapel of this palace is most splendid, in which the Queen's closet is quite transparent, having its windows of crystal. We were led into two chambers, called the presence, or chambers of audience, which shone with tapestry of gold and silver, and silk of different colours: under the canopy of state are these words, embroidered in pearl: Vivat Henricus Octavus.' Here is besides a small chapel, hung with tapestry, where the Queen performs her private devotions. In her Majesty's bed-chamber the bed was covered with very costly coverlids of silk. great distance from this room, we were shown a bed, the tester of which was worked by Anne Boleyn, and presented by that lovely accomplished Queen to her husband, Henry the Eighth. All the other rooms, being very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces, in others Turkish and American dresses, all extremely natural.

At no

"In the hall are these curiosities-A very clearlooking-glass, ornamented with columns, and little images of alabaster; a portrait of Edward the Sixth, brother to Queen Elizabeth; the true portrait of Lucretia; a picture of the Battle of Pavia; the history of Christ's passion, carved in mother-of-pearl; the portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots: the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of Philip his son; that of Henry the Eighth, under which was placed the Bible, curiously written upon parchment; an artificial sphere, and several musical instruments. In the tapestry are represented negroes, riding upon elephants. Afterwards we were led into the gardens, which were most pleasant." Hentzner, in conclusion, declares "that all its walls shine with gold and silver." With James I., Hampton Court is more identified than with the son and daughters of Henry VIII. Sixty years had passed since the pursy sensualist stalked about these halls, and marked down his victims, even while the banquet and the dance showed like the sum

mer calm before the sudden thunder-cloud. Here is now a man who has slid into the throne of the selfwilled Tudors, and is going to rule the world by the rod and ferule. His own will is strong enough to make the reign of pedantry the reign of terror-for he is a king, and has wondrous notions of "the divinity that doth hedge a king." But he is the ripe scholar of old Buchanan, and will try the force of logic and Latinity upon troublesome subjects before he calls in the halter and the pillory. See him in Hampton Court at the famous Conference on religion. On New Year's Day of 1604, Shakspere's company have been performing before the King in the Great Hall. On the 14th of the same month he is the great performer himself in his Privy Chamber. Here are assembled the lords of the council, and bishops, and church dignitaries—a host on the side of conformity. Four reforming preachers, acute logicians and professors of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge, attend to demand that the Common Prayer should be revised, that pluralities should be abolished, that certain ceremonies should be deserted, and that subscription to the Articles should cease. The King sits as moderator. His notion of moderation is not altogether uncommon-to have all the talk to himself, and to abuse every one who ventured to hint a difference in opinion. Little did he allow the Divinity professors to say; and when he was exhausted with his own harangues, he exclaimed that if they had disputed so lamely in a college, he would have had them up and flogged for dunces; and that if that was all they could say he would have them all conform, or hurry them out of the land, or do worse for them. "I peppered them soundly," said the conceited pedant; and he shuffled about in his padded trunk-hose, and chuckled and winked, as the Bishop of London went on his knees and protested that his heart melted with joy, and acknowledged God's singular mercy in giving them such a king. Forty years. later, the Puritans had the chief share in working out a terrible retribution upon despotism assuming the semblance of justice, and one-sidedness putting on the garb of moderation.

In the first year of the reign of Charles I. we find him at Hampton Court, with his young Queen. His favourite Buckingham was not unwilling to foment occasional differences between the royal pair; and it was not till this favourite was removed by the knife of Felton, and Charles began to know what trouble was, that the domestic virtues of his character were fully displayed. He appears to have had a troublesome time with Henrietta Maria and her French followers, in these early days of their affection. In 1636 we find Charles at Hampton Court, keeping Christmas, with constant performances of plays in the Great Hall. From the 17th of November to the 24th of January, 1637, as we learn from the Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court,' published by Mr. Peter Cunningham, there were fourteen plays thus represented. The period had arrived when Beaumont and Fletcher, being more recent than Shakspere, were

could have got; and all the show consisted chiefly in the number of boats and barges; and two pageants, one of a King, and another of a Queen, with her Maids of Honour sitting at her feet very prettily; and they tell me the Queen is Sir Richard Ford's daughter. Anon came the King and Queen in a barge, under a canopy, with 1,000 barges and boats I know, for we could see no water for them, nor discern the King nor Queen. And so they landed at White Hall Bridge, and the great guns on the other side went off.

“Jan. 28th, 1666. Took coach, and to Hampton Court, where we find the King, and Duke, and Lords, all in council; so we walked up and down there being none of the ladies come, and so much the more business I hope will be done."

Another convulsion-and the last of the Stuart kings is hurled from his throne. Then comes William III., who chiefly made Hampton Court what it now is. We have no violent love for William, certainly no fierce dislike; and assuredly we have all kindly sympathies for the great Christopher Wren. But if the truth were told, we would rather have seen the Palace as Hentzner saw it, before the huge mass of square brick-work, with its formal quadrangle, was built upon the ruins of two of Wolsey's Gothic courts. The union of two such dissimilar styles of architecture is somewhat incongruous. However, we will not quarrel with the hero of the Revolution: what he did here he did well, as far as solidity and a Versailles-emulating magnificence in little are concerned. The cartoons of Raphael, which Cromwell-honour to his taste and patriotism— saved from foreigners, were here brought to a gallery which William especially built for them. The Gardens which he improved-some call them in Dutch tastewe regard as something exquisitely beautiful,-rescued from the grasp of the so-called picturesque landscape gardeners, to teach us the difference between a work of art and a paltry imitation of nature upon a small scale. Here, in Hampton Park, the horse fell which carried the just and wise, but cold and unpopular William III., and here he died, from the effects of the accident. Ralph Thoresby, in his curious Diary,' has described Hampton Court after the death of William :

"Through the Park to Hampton Court, a noble Palace indeed, fit for the reception of the greatest monarch, especially the new apartments, lately added by King William, who delighted much in the situation, being in a low champaign country, near the river, so that the gardens, etc., are most charming; nothing can be devised more agreeable; in some parts, that front the new palace, open and spacious, adorned with noble statues of brass (amongst which, the famous Gladiator from St. James's Park,) and marble, particularly two noble vessels; upon which, ancient histories in basrelief, supported by satyrs, set opposite to each other, being the proofs of two great artist's emulation for glory. Other parts, to the north, are full of trees, made into labyrinths, very pleasant and amazing, not easily to be extricated. The park adjoining (replenished with deer, as the river with swans) is separated

from the spacious gardens, by curious iron balustrades, painted and gilt, (in parts,) to a vast distance; the canals seemed to fall short at present of the grandeur of the rest, there not being due care taken to keep the waters from stagnating. Having satiated ourselves with the noble prospects without, we entered within the royal Palace; the staircase is admirably painted, and the several apartments answerably furnished with the noblest and richest hangings. I was the most pleased with those that were the needle-work of the late most pious and exemplary Queen Mary and her maids of honour; there were also pictures of monarchs and grandees, done by the greatest masters."

Queen Anne kept her court at Hampton. Pope is the best local historian of this age:

Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flowers,
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising towers,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighbouring Hampton takes its name,
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take-and sometimes tea.

Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,

To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;
In various talk th' instructive hours they past,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.

Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
RAPE OF THE LOCK, CANTO III.

The last historical records of Hampton Court are those connected with the first and second Georges. Of the first, we have little to remark. In the reign of the second, Queen Caroline here winked at her husband's infidelities, and gave him the support of her capacious and vigorous mind. Here went forward the usual routine of court amusements and court dulness. The old Hall was fitted up as a theatre, with dirty scenes, and a lumbering stage with greasy foot-lamps. We have a boyish recollection of the desolate state in which its faded finery had reposed for some sixty years. Lord Harvey, in a letter of 1733, to Mrs. Clayton (recently published by Mrs. Thomson, in Lady Sundon's Memoirs) has left a smart narrative of the dull doings of Hampton in the transition period of royalty from dreary state to elegant comfort:-" I will not trouble you with any account of our occupations at Hampton Court. No mill-horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more unchanging circle; so that, by the assistance of an almanack for the day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences, fill the morning; at night, the King plays at commerce and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte runs her usual nightly gauntlet— the Queen pulling her head, Mr. Schutz sputtering in her face, and the Princess Royal rapping her knuckles, all at a time.

The Duke of Grafton takes his

nightly opiate of lottery, and sleeps as usual between the Princesses Amelia and Carolina; Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another, (as Dryden says, like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak,) and stirs himself about as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn brisker; which his lordship constantly does, to no purpose, and yet tries as constantly as if it had ever once succeeded. At last the King comes up, the pool finishes, and everybody has their dismission."

During the reigns of George III. and George IV., Hampton Court was utterly neglected. Nothing flouNothing flourished there but the vine, and the dowagers who retired upon pensions to its quiet upper rooms. The yewtrees were cut into shapes of dragons and peacocks; the ponds were stagnant; the lawns were unmown; the walks unswept. No roses were trained in regulated luxuriance; the heart's-ease flowered not in spring, nor the dahlia in autumn. All was dreariness-and at every step through which the people advanced to look upon a deserted palace, a shilling to pay. Things happily are changed.

In November, 1838, the noble example was first set of throwing the doors of Hampton Court Palace wide open to visitors of every age and every rank. The gardens and grounds are open daily after seven o'clock in the morning; the state apartments are open every day of the week except Friday, from ten to six in the summer half-year, from ten till four in the winter. Here may we see little happy parties, without the slightest restraint, pacing the velvet lawns and gravel terraces, sauntering beside the gay parterres, or feeding the gold fish and the swans in the lily-covered basins. In the apartments we may linger from morn to eve, without any ignorant conductor to hurry us forward,

and bore us with the old parrot gabble of "Duns Scotus, who translated the Bible without eating or drinking, and died in the last page." In the first year after the free opening of the Palace, a hundred and fifteen thousand visitors availed themselves of this privilege, so new to England. The official returns of last year show a hundred and seventy thousand. The greatest number, as might be expected, come from May to August. As many as twelve thousand persons have passed through these rooms in one fine week. They come in every variety of conveyance, from the coroneted britska to the covered van. The steam-boat duly lands its merry cargo at Hampton Bridge; and omnibus after omnibus delivers its load at the Palace gates. The merriest parties-for holidays with them are rare things-are those of the vans. In districts well known to the handicraftsmen of London, these capacious conveyances are constantly ready to start to every place of public resort within eight or ten miles; and, with proper foresight, places may be engaged for going and returning at a small price. But in many cases these vans are hired for a summer by subscription; some thirty or forty heads of families engaging the conveyance, and apportioning the days in which each family is to have the holiday. This is one of the many examples of the growing spirit of co-operation amongst the working-classes, by which they secure comforts and enjoyments which the individual rich man some years ago scarcely dreamt of attaining.

Hampton Court cannot be properly seen or understood in a day. There are pictures within its walls which cannot be duly appreciated except by those who come to study them line by line. Our business is not to lead the visitor step by step through its courts and rooms and gardens, but to suggest the associations which may lend additional interest to a first visit, or