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 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,) '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 economise 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, Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell. 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. * "Protector, at least, of the Raphael Cartoons, which formerly were hung here, but were removed to South Kensington a few years ago." 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 adviceis to adopt the speediest means possible; for you will have enough to do there, without bestowing. much care on what may be interesting on the route thither. Of the direct route by the South-Western Railway from Waterloo Station to Hampton Court, we need say nothing. But to those coming upwards to the Surbiton station (where one may change for Hampton Court), we may remark that between the Walton and Esher 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 Surbiton is about two miles from Hampton Court, from which place there is a branch to Hampton Bridge. Should the visitor prefer to walk "By the soft windings of the silent Mole," he will obtain distant glimpses of the Gothic turrets of Wolsey, by the side of the Grecian lines of Wren. This sluggish stream offers to the angler a quiet retreat for good ground fishinglicence, a guinea a year-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 Court 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. The District and North London Railways also run frequent trains to Richmond in connexion with others from that place to Teddington or Bushey Park Station. The walk through the Park to Hampton Court Palace is about a mile. 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 Court 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 smooth river, in silence broken only by the measured music from the oars of their liveried rowers, rather than in carriages to jolt along rough roads, . Western Entrance from the Chames. reverberating with the discord of whips and clatter of horses' hoofs. It is, however, a good day's journey to and from Hampton Court by the river, and this route leaves the visitor but an hour or two to see the palace. For an out-of-doors excursion, making the palace the goal, and seeing only its grounds, few things are pleasanter than this water trip. Many steam-boats leave the metropolis in the morning, and reach, with a favourable tide, Richmond, fitly named by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors as the "Shene" or beautiful, in about two hours. Being here, you should ascend the hill, for the sake of one of the most gorgeous panoramas of English landscape of which our own most picturesque country can justly boast. Having descended the hill, if you care not for a few shillings, and have time to spare, you will engage, at the foot of Richmond Bridge, a couple of stout watermen-for it is hard work tugging against the stream-to row you up to Hampton Bridge, and in your going or returning refresh yourself with an eel-pie |