VIEW, LOOKING EASTWARD, OF THE DIAGONAL WALKS, IN THE GREAT FOUNTAIN GARDEN OF HAMPTON COURT, IN THE TIME OF GEORGE II. (From an old engraving published about 1740.) Again, in the same satire, Pope seems to point at these gardens, where statues of the fighting and the dying gladiators were placed, on stone pedestals, in the centres of the lawns: "Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers, It is fortunate, however, that the alterations were of this superficial nature, and that no attempt was made to follow every varying caprice of gardening fashion, which has ever been to destroy, in one generation, what the previous one "with incessant toil and hands innumerable scarce performed." After the death of Queen Caroline, which took place in November, 1737, we hear little of George II. and his Court residing at Hampton Court; and although it was not till the accession of George III. that the sunshine of royalty was permanently withdrawn, its decline in royal favour may be said to have begun from that time. Occasionally, however, George II. would come down to the palace to spend the day, especially in the summer on Saturday afternoons. At other times the King would pass a few days here, though he never stayed long. The bedroom he occupied on these occasions still exists, pretty much in the state it then was; and in a room near it is the bed of crimson silk, which he used when last at Hampton Court, with his portmanteau placed at the foot of it. After dinner," if we may believe Wraxall, "the King always took off his clothes, and reposed himself for an hour in bed of an afternoon. In order to accommodate himself to this habit, Mr. Pitt, when, as Secretary of State, he was sometimes necessitated to transact business with the King during the time he lay down, always knelt on a cushion by the bedside-a mark of respect which contributed to render him not a little acceptable to his Majesty. At his rising, George II. dressed himself completely a second time, and commonly passed the evening at cards with a select party." As George II. grew older his temper did not improve, and when irritated by his ministers or attendants, he would kick his hat or wig about the room. With his grandson, afterwards George III., his anger sometimes became quite OCCASIONAL VISITS TO THE PALACE. 379 uncontrollable; and once, in the State Apartments of Hampton Court Palace, he so far forgot his kingly dignity as to box the ears of the youthful heir of the throne. This insult, it is said, so disgusted George III. with the place that, according to his son the Duke of Sussex, he could never after be induced to think of it as a residence; and it is to this, therefore, that is due the fact that, since the death of George II., Hampton Court has never been inhabited by any sovereign of these realms, and that the history of Wolsey's palace, which for nearly three centuries had formed part of the majestic current of English national life, has, during the last hundred years or more, flowed in a quiet and uneventful channel of its own. Previous, however, to the accession of the third George, the palace had gradually, as a consequence of the continued absence of the Court after the death of Queen Caroline, became more and more of a show place, to which excursions were frequently made from London and the neighbouring towns and country houses. At this period visitors were conducted through the State Rooms by the deputy-housekeeper, who, for her services, exacted a fee, the greater part of which found its way into the pockets of the lady housekeeper, whose post was consequently one much sought after and very lucrative. Horace Walpole, who lived within three miles at Strawberry Hill, always took much interest in Hampton Court, and frequently came over to look at the pictures and study the architecture and archæology of the palace; and to him we are indebted for a number of valuable observations on these topics, elucidatory of its history, art, pictures, and curiosities, which have been duly noticed in the course of these pages. He records also an amusing story of the Misses Gunning, the famous beauties, who, when the furore about them was at its height, could not walk in the streets or the park without being followed by hundreds of people; who found crowds collected at their door to see them get into their chairs; and whose rumoured presence at the theatre caused a run on the seats. "As you talk of our beauties," wrote he to Sir Horace Mann on August 31st, 1751, “I will tell you a new story of the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen. They went the other day to see Hampton Court; as they were going into the Beauty Room, another company arrived; the housekeeper said, 'This way, ladies; here are the Beauties.' The Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant ; that they came to see the palace, not to be shown as a sight themselves." The "Beauty Room" here referred to is the one which we have once or twice noticed, on the ground floor, in the south range, under the King's Guard Chamber, now called the "Oak Room." CHAPTER XXX. HAMPTON COURT DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.-THE PALACE DIVIDED INTO PRIVATE APARTMENTS. GEORGE III.'s accession to the throne, which took place on the 25th of October, 1760, marks, as we have already indicated, a new era in the history of Hampton Court; for thenceforth the regal splendours of the palace came entirely to an end, it definitely ceased to be a residence in the actual occupation of the sovereign, and the whole building, with the exception of the State Rooms, was gradually divided into suites of apartments, allotted by the grace and favour of the King to private families. Nevertheless, it may be doubted whether the King had formed a deliberate intention never to inhabit this palace at all, and still more whether he contemplated that it should cease to be a royal residence. Its prolonged disuse by him, however, had, in effect, this result; for being gradually denuded of most of its furniture, and the State Apartments dismantled and untenanted during his long reign, the expense of preparing it for habitation by the King and Court would have been so considerable, that this fact alone would always THE ROYAL APARTMENTS DISUSED. 381 have been an obstacle to its being occupied, either by him or by his successors—if any of them had ever taken a fancy to do so. In the meanwhile, however, Hampton Court was not entirely abandoned to neglect-the palace being still kept up, and a certain sum annually spent on necessary repairs. As to the gardens at this period, they remained under the care of Lancelot Brown, the famous landscape gardener, better known as "Capability" Brown, on account of his frequent use of that word in reference to grounds submitted to his skill. He had been appointed Royal Gardener at Hampton Court in 1750 by George II. Luckily Brown, when asked by the King to "improve" the gardens here and adapt them to the modern style, had the good sense and honesty to decline the unpromising task, "out of respect to himself and his profession"; and thus they escaped the destruction that overtook so many of the old gardens of England, and have preserved-especially the Privy Gardens -much of their charming old-fashioned air to this day. Nevertheless, it was probably he who replaced most of the terrace steps in the Privy Gardens-though two flights were left-by gravel and grass slopes, for the theoretic reason that "we ought not to go up and down stairs in the open air." Reverting to the topic of the use to which the palace was put on the accession of George III., we should observe that there were, probably, but few persons then residing in it beyond officials and servants; though it is likely enough that, here and there, some dependants of the Court were in occupation of apartments, to which they may have been. admitted by permission or order of the Lord Chamberlain, or to which they might have acquired a sort of prescriptive right, by some of the irregular and surreptitious devices and methods, noticed under the reign of George I. These were, as we then explained-to prolong their stay indefinitely, on one pretext or another, in rooms assigned to them when summoned to Court for a brief visit; to get a footing in the building, by begging a grant of a few rooms from the Lord Chamberlain, or by bribing the housekeeper, or some such functionary, to lend them a room or two, and then stealthily to add other neighbouring rooms thereto, until, by a mingled system of begging, borrowing, and stealing, these Court |