made to rebuild the devastated home of our English kings, though public opinion strongly urged that this should be done, and though the opposition writers bitterly attacked him for not doing so, and for not availing himself of the opportunity thus offering itself of giving London a palace worthy of England's kings. On the contrary, the portions that escaped the fire were demolished, and the ground scandalously parcelled out among his Dutch parasites.

A fresh reason was thus afforded for expending further sums on the completion of the new palace at Hampton Court, the works at which, after having been more or less suspended for nearly six years, were now ordered to be pressed on to completion without delay.

CHAPTER XXIV.

KING WILLIAM'S WORKS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

VERY Soon after the disastrous fire at Whitehall, King William instructed Sir Christopher Wren to furnish him with " an estimate of the expense of fitting the Inside of the Rooms of State at Hampton Court." The estimate, which is dated April 28th, 1699, and which is entirely in Sir Christopher's handwriting, was discovered in 1847, all saturated with wet, and reduced almost to a pulp. With great care it was dried unhurt, unravelled and flattened into pages, and is now safely preserved in the Record Office.

The works, which, we may observe, relate only to the King's own rooms, and do not apply to the Queen's rooms or the bulk of the rest of the new palace, were authorized and begun forthwith; and about a fortnight after-on Monday, the 15th of May-the King came down to Hampton Court to dine and see what progress was being made. The first six rooms cost £5,246, while the "finishing of the Great Bed Chamber," the King's Writing Closet, the socalled Queen Mary's Closet, and several other rooms and lobbies, raised the total to £7,092 19s. old.

ROOMS ADORNED WITH GIBBONS'S CARVINGS. 323

These charges, however, were independent of the sums paid to Verrio for painting the King's Great Staircase, William III.'s State Bedchamber, and his Dressing Room; and possibly, also, those paid to Gibbons for the exquisite carvings with which he ornamented every room.

As to Gibbons, we have already seen in a previous page, that he had, in the earlier half of the decade, done a good deal of work here for the King, both in stone on the outside, and in wood in the inside, of the palace; and in the summer of this year, 1699, we may be sure that he was hard at work on those beautiful garlands of fruit, flowers, and dead game in limewood that are among the most attractive ornaments of the King's State Apartments. His skill in this particular style of work-which he may be said to have originated, and in which he has remained without a rival to this day—was consummate. Never before or since has an artist's hand given to wood, with such exquisite delicacy, the loose and airy lightness of the leaves and petals of flowers, and the downy softness of the feathers of birds. And it was not only in limewood that he produced these remarkable effects: even in oak he achieved results, which were almost more wonderful, considering the difficulty of working in so hard a wood. Of this there is a beautiful specimen, in one of the rooms on the ground floor in the south-east angle of the new palace, in the suite which seems to have formed part of William III.'s private apartments, and which communicates by a private stair with the State Apartments on the first floor above.

This carving, which consists of a beautiful oak mantelpiece representing various musical instruments and a music score, was probably executed in the summer of the year of which we are now writing; as was doubtless also that in King William's State Bedchamber, which is more elaborately decorated in this respect than other rooms of the suite; and which, beside the usual festoons, is ornamented with a rich border or frieze of foliated scroll-work just below the cornice.

It was the King's State Bedchamber, also, on which Verrio first began to work, and on the ceiling of which he expended his best efforts of art, when he came-probably in the summer of 1699--to paint the State Apartments for William III. For some time after the Revolution, he, as a

Catholic and a loyal adherent of King James, refused to work for William of Orange at all; but at length, by persuasion of Lord Exeter, for whom he had executed a great many ceilings and staircases at Burleigh, he condescended to serve the heretical usurper in this palace.

The ceiling of the State Bedchamber, which, as we have said, he seems to have undertaken first, and which may be looked upon as one of his most successful achievements, is appropriately painted with designs emblematic of Sleep, showing in one part Endymion reposing in the lap of Morpheus, while Diana, in her crescent, admires him as he slumbers; and in the other part a figure of Somnus, with his attendants. The border has four small landscapes, and boys with baskets, intermingled with poppies.

The King-so we learn from a letter of Verrio's, written after his Majesty's death-"contracted for painting his great bedchamber at Hampton Court at a rate certain, which came to the neat sume of £400, and was paid. It was agreed he should be paid at the same rate for whatever work he did. He had painted the great staircase and little bedchamber, amounting to £1,800." The room here mentioned as the "Little Bedchamber" is the one which adjoins the great State Bedchamber, and is now known as the "King's Dressing Room." Verrio's ceiling, which is still as fresh as on the day it was painted, represents Mars reposing in the lap of Venus, while Cupids steal his shield, armour, spear, sword and helmet, and entwine his arms and legs with wreaths of roses. The border is decorated with orange trees in ornamental pots or vases, with jasmine and other trees, and with parrots and other birds. The whole appearance of this little room, which is only 24 feet by 14, is pretty and attractive; and the corner fireplace, with its marble chimney-piece, its antique iron fireback-showing Neptune and attendant mermaids-and its curious oak mantelpiece, the shelves of which diminish as they rise one above another, and have pieces of Queen Mary's china ranged upon them, is characteristic of old times.

With regard to the painting of the King's Great Staircase, it is certainly one of Verrio's largest and most gorgeous, if not most important, works; and though, in the opinion of Horace Walpole, he painted it "as ill as if he had spoiled it

KING'S GREAT STAIRCASE PAINTED BY VERRIO. 325

out of principle," we cannot, for our own part, see that it is much worse than most of his other efforts-unless, indeed, that being larger, there is more of it, and we hold the view that the less of Verrio the better.

In his own day, at any rate, his performances were held in

very high esteem. Evelyn thought "his design and colouring and exuberance of invention comparable to the greatest old masters, or what they do in France"; while others grew so enthusiastic as to give vent to their feelings in verse:

"Great Verrio's hand hath drawn

The gods in dwellings brighter than their own."

His fame, however, was short-lived, and Pope's couplet :

"On painted ceilings you devoutly stare
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio and Laguerre,"

has given the cue to all criticism since.

The painting of this staircase, which is 43 feet long, 37 feet wide, and about 40 feet high, affords us a characteristic and glaring example of the tasteless exuberance of Verrio's pencil: Gods and Goddesses, Nymphs and Satyrs, Bacchanalians and River Deities, Virtues and Attributes, Zephyrs and Cupids, Apollo and the Nine Muses, Æneas and the twelve Cæsars, Juno and her peacock, Diana and the rainbow, Ganymede and the eagle, Fame blowing her trumpet, Fate slitting the thread of life, Ceres with a wheatsheaf, Peace with an olive branch, Pan with his reeds, Hercules with his club, Romulus and the wolf, Julian the Apostate, with Mercury as his secretary, all jostle one another in amazing confusion, in impossible attitudes and wonderful attire, sitting on reeds, floating on clouds, sailing between columns, and reclining beneath canopies of rainbows, flowers, and zephyrs' heads.

The general effect, however, if one does not linger over the details, is striking and gorgeous, and the whole decoration of the staircase, with its walls in their lower part painted in monochrome with emblems and trophies of war, its broad steps of Irish stone, and its handsome baluster of wrought iron, is splendid and magnificent enough, even for the most sumptuous fancy, and forms as good a specimen as there is anywhere in England of that gaudy French taste, which in this reign finally triumphed over our less pretentious, but more picturesque native style.

But the improvements were not confined to the interior of the palace. Orders were at the same time given by the King for increasing the number of fountains in the great semicircular garden, for designing the magnificent terrace, or Broad Walk, no less than 2,300 feet, or nearly half a mile long, in front of the eastern façade, and for laying out the two oblong divisions of the gardens on both sides of the central part, between the Broad Walk and the House Park. William himself attended to all the details, "particularly the