for which he paid £18,000. The Cartoons of Rafaelle were obtained in Flanders, through the agency of Rubens. Fresh additions were also continually made either by purchase, or by gift to the king, than which nothing could be more acceptable. The "cream of the collection was at Whitehall, which contained four hundred and sixty pictures, including twenty-eight by Titian, eleven by Correggio, sixteen by Julio Romano, nine by Rafaelle, four by Guido, and seven by Parmegiano. Rubens' introduction to Charles I. was as an ambassador, and his success in the mission which had been entrusted to him was complete and in every way satisfactory. The king, indeed, held the painter in high esteem, and commissioned him to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting House. For this work Rubens received £3000. It is with regret that we turn from these pleasant reminiscences of Whitehall and its accomplished owner to the darker events with which it is so permanently associated in our minds. A week after Charles had attempted to seize the five members in 1642, he left Whitehall, with his queen, children, and entire court, and removed to Hampton Court. Whitehall was now seized by the Parliament; who in 1645 ordered the "boarded masque house," an immense room built by Charles for these exhibitions, to be pulled down, and that "all such pictures and statues" as were at "York House," as were without any 66 superstition," should be forthwith sold, for the benefit of Ireland and the north. The "last scene of all " need not here be described.

At the time of the dissolution of the Long Parliament, in 1653, Cromwell resided at Whitehall, and when he had finished that extraordinary act he returned with the keys of the house in his pocket to his lodging in the palace. Here he continued to reside during his elevation; and here he died. Evelyn, under the date of 1656, thus refers to the state of the palace under Cromwell's care :-“I ventured to go to Whitehall, where of many years I had not been, and found it very glorious and well furnished."

With the period of Cromwell's death all the great memories of Whitehall may be said to cease. There is plenty of matter in the ensuing reigns to keep up the interest we feel in it, but that interest is of a lower and less absorbing character. Charles II. and James II. were its last regal occupiers. On the 10th of April, 1691, a considerable portion of it was burnt by a fire which broke out in the apartment of the Duchess of Portsmouth; and in 1698 the entire structure, with the exception of the Banqueting House, and some small portion of its buildings, was destroyed by the same element. Evelyn thus generalises the results:-"Whitehall burnt; nothing but walls and ruins left.”

The interior of the Banqueting House has been occupied as a chapel since the time of George I., who granted a stipend to certain clergymen to preach in it. About twelve years ago it underwent a thorough repair and restoration; when a gallery, built for the use of the guards, was removed. The immense size and noble proportions of this room now appear in all their original grandeur. Over the door is a bust of the founder, James I. A lofty gallery runs along the two sides of the room, and across the end over the door of entrance, where there is a fine organ. But the great attraction of the Banqueting House is the ceiling, with its series of paintings by Rubens, before referred to, which, immediately the spectator enters the room, attract his eyes by their brilliant and harmonious colouring. Their great height, however, renders any close and accurate inspection impossible.

The statue behind the Banqueting House is that of James II. This is the work of Gibbons, and in every way worthy of his reputation. The attitude of the figure is easy, yet dignified; and a calm but serious and very thoughtful expression is

stamped upon the well-formed features and brow. It is a vulgar error to suppose that James is pointing to the spot of his father's execution.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

"George the Fourth," says Mrs. Jameson, "had a predilection for low ceilings, so all the future inhabitants of the Pimlico Palace must endure suffocation; and as his Majesty did not live on good terms with his wife, no accommodation was prepared for a future Queen of England." From the accession of her present Majesty Buckingham Palace has required immense alterations for the purpose of rendering it habitable.

The palace derives its name from the house that previously stood here, which was built, in 1703, by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who took the trouble to describe it at great length in a letter that has been frequently published, but somewhat unnecessarily, it appears, so far as its architectural value is concerned. Buckingham Palace was commenced in 1825, from the designs and under the superintendence of Mr. Nash, and has been completed only recently by Mr. Blore. The eastern front is entirely new, having been erected in advance of the former wings. This front is occupied as private apartments. The Queen has occupied Buckingham Palace as her town residence since 1837.

On entering the original part of the palace a sumptuous hall receives us, surrounded with an extensive range of double columns, standing on an elevated continuous basement, every one formed of a single piece of veined white (Carrara) marble, with gilded bases and capitals. The steps of the grand staircase on the left are also of white marble. We have at times another addition to the architectural picturesqueness of the scene, in the vista between the pillars directly facing the entrance, through the sculpture gallery which it crosses, and so on through the open door of the library, or council room, with its semicircular termination, to the very windows that open on the opposite side of the building. The library, which is very large, is used as a waiting-room for deputations, which, as soon as the queen is prepared to receive them, pass across the sculpture gallery into the hall, and thence ascend by the grand staircase through an ante-room and the green drawing-room to the throne-room. The library, with the other rooms on each side of it, are furnished and decorated in a manner that happily combines elegance and luxury with simplicity and comfort, whilst their situation is truly delightful, opening directly upon a terrace, having the conservatory at one extremity, and the new chapel on the other, whilst over the balustrade, with its elegant vases of flowers, appears the beautifully varied and undulating surface of the park-like grounds," a mimic Arcady embosomed in deep foliage," as it has been called. The sculpture in the gallery consists chiefly of busts of eminent statesmen, and members of the royal family, ranged on each side through the gallery, which extends the whole length of the central portion of the front of the edifice. Ascending the grand staircase towards the state apartments, we find these latter comprise-to mention the principal only-an ante-room, the green drawing-room, and the throne-room, in the eastern front of the palace; and a dining-room, music-room, and two drawing-rooms, in the western or garden front, with a picture gallery over the sculpture gallery, between the two ranges. The prevailing colour of the throne-room is crimson, the walls being hung with crimson striped satin, and the alcove with crimson velvet, both also relieved by a profusion of golden hues. The ceiling is richly carved and gilt; and the frieze below, adorned

with bassi-relievi by Baily, after designs by Stothard, illustrative of the wars of the White and Red Roses. The scene presented in the throne-room on state occasions is as picturesque as it is splendid. From the throne-room we pass to the picture gallery, which charms us at the first glance by the admirable distribution and arrangement of the light, which is admitted by a treble range of skylights extending through the entire length of the gallery. The collection is very valuable, though, rightly considered, it should form but one division of a complete regal picture gallery, since it comprises in the main works of the Flemish and Dutch schools. The chief exceptions are Reynolds'' Death of Dido,' and his 'Cymon and Iphigenia,' a landscape by Gainsborough, with a few recent English works, some pictures by Watteau, and—an interesting evidence of Titian's versatility—a landscape with herdsmen and cattle, by that master. Of the extraordinary wealth of the collection in the schools we have mentioned, some idea may be formed from the enumeration of the number of works by their chief artists:-three by Albert Durer, seven by Rembrandt, seventeen by Teniers, five by Ostade, six by Gerard Dow, nine by Cuyp, eight by Wouvermans, three by Paul Potter, six by Rubens, five by Vandyke, in addition to his various portraits of children, and a great number of others by masters scarcely less famous. Among Rembrandt's pictures, we must specially mention the 'Wise Men's Offering;' among Vandyke's, the Marriage of St. Catherine;' among Albert Durer's, 'The Miser;' and among Rubens', the portrait of his wife. Claude's 'Europa' also enriches the collection. The pictures belonged, for the most part, to George IV.

From the pictures, we pass to the range of rooms that occupy the western or garden front of the same story, namely, the dining-room at the southern extremity, then the music-room with its orchestra and other appropriate fittings up, next the bow drawing-room, in the centre, so called from the semicircular projection; whilst beyond, towards the northern extremity, we find the yellow drawing-room, the most superb of the whole. Full-length portraits of members of the royal family, painted in pannels on the walls, form a conspicuous feature. The private apartments of her Majesty extend along the whole of the northern front of the palace, and are therefore directly connected with the suite we have just noticed. In the gardens is her Majesty's summer-house, decorated with fresco paintings, forming a series of subjects from Comus, by Eastlake, Maclise, Stanfield, E. Landseer, Uwins, Dyce, Leslie, and Ross. The mews, which contain the state carriages and horses, is behind the palace.

HAMPTON COURT.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the order of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem was safe and flourishing, and its prior and brethren little dreamt that within forty years their magnificent house of St. John's of Clerkenwell would be nearly demolished, to build up a palace for a proud lord and semi-king out of its fallen towers,-at that period, a district of some thousand acres, through which the Thames flowed from Ditton to Walton on the Surrey shore, and from Teddington to Hanworth on the Middlesex bank, was a large manorial property belonging to the great order of military monks; and in the heart of this property of Hampton Court was a manor-house, and a chapel of the manor. Here, in this wide sandy level, which the wintry floods of the Thames inundated and fertilized-where little corn was grown—where rabbits were the chief habitants-lived a priest and a few of the humbler brethren of the order, with no great store of the riches which made some of the proud Preceptories objects of envy to barons and burghers. The great Wolsey, in

the most palmy days of his influence-before the passions of his master had developed the fierceness of his will, and the growing tyrant "was young and lusty, disposed all to mirth and pleasure, and to follow his desire and appetite"-made a bargain with the Prior of St. John for the manor of Hampton Court. This was in the year 1515. The Lord Archbishop of York very soon changed the character of the place. The poor manor-house was swept away; the rank meadows which skirted the Thames were transformed into curious knotted gardens; a great palace arose, as if by magic, at the bidding of the profuse and tasteful Cardinal; and here, within two years of his purchase of the place, did he surround himself with the pomp of kings, and maintain a state which even the most absolute king has rarely practised. Another master soon claimed the fair galleries and the sweet gardens and the garnished chambers of Hampton Court. Henry grew jealous that a subject should have a nobler palace than himself; and, in 1526, the Cardinal surrendered the manor and all its grandeur to the King. From 1531 to 1535 the Hall of this palace was in course of erection by its new master. An old Hall was removed; the present magnificent Hall sprang up. The regal pile saw strange mutations of fortune within its walls. Here Lord Rochford, the unhappy brother of Anne Boleyn, in 1531, was winning forty pounds of his loving sovereign; in 1536 the same kind master sent him to the scaffold. In 1533 his idolised Anne here sat in her estate, and revelled in rich masks and disports, with interlude and banquet; in 1536 she gave her "little neck" to the axe of the headsman. Jane Seymour, in 1537, was here released from the fears which must have always haunted the bed of a wife of Henry, when she gave birth to Edward VI. Anne of Cleves, "the Flanders mare," here found a stall during the preparations for her divorce; and then, when she was removed to Richmond, and had no dread that a sharper process might separate her from her lord, Catherine Howard was exhibited at Hampton Court in a holiday-pageant or two, and was in due time conducted to the block and the saw-dust. At last came Catherine Parr; and Hampton Court saw her marriage. The tyrant, now grown bloated and unwieldy, and unable to hunt the stag in the forests of Hainault or Windsor, made the country round Hampton Court a royal chace, after the old Norman fashion of depopulation. Here he rode and feasted for a short year or two. Here Surrey, at the dangerous festivals of the last of six queens, saw Geraldine, if we may believe his amatory verse;—

"Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine."

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.

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 summer calm before the sudden thunder-cloud. Here is now a man who has slid into the throne of the self-willed Tudors, and is going to rule the world by the rod and ferule. 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. 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. In the first year of the reign of Charles I. we find him at Hampton Court, with his young Queen. In 1636 he is here 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 in some degree more popular; but it is satisfactory to see, that while 'The Beggar's Bush,' and 'Philaster,' were amongst the favourites of the Court, that dramatist who, as we are told by Milton, was the chosen companion of Charles in his solitude and sufferings, was not neglected in these days of his prosperity. 'The Moor of Venice' and 'Hamlet' were performed at Hampton Court, at this festive time of 1636-7. But in little more than ten years what a change has come over these royal halls! Separated from his family-allowed only occasionally to see his children, who were under the guardianship of the Duke of Northumberland at Sion House-Charles had here to apply the full force of his abilities to circumvent the enemies by whom he was surrounded on every side. Well had it been for him if his abilities had been less, so that his opponents might have abated somewhat of their fears,—or had been so pre-eminent as to have dispensed with the craft of common minds. In his dissimulation he perished—a man who commands many of our sympathies; one who would have been deserving of all honour had he been cast upon happier days.

Another ten years, and the great Protector is lord of Hampton Court. Here was he wont to walk up and down the long gallery, and listen to the organ which had been forcibly taken from Magdalen College. Here was his daughter, Mary, married to Lord Falconbridge. Here he shed agonising tears over the lifeless body of his favourite child, Mrs. Claypole. That man—that great Englishman-in many respects truly "the first of men"-he who loved his country with an intense love, whatever might be his personal ambition-was succeeded by one as selfish and voluptuous as the bluff Harry, though not quite so unscrupulous. Like most voluptuaries, Charles was what is called good-natured. Whether he sold Dunkirk to the French king, or cast off Lady Castlemaine or Mrs. Nelly for a new mistress, or fed his ducks in St. James's Park or Hampton Court Gardens, he was equally merry and heartless. Pepys is a good authority for his Hampton Court doings. One sentence is enough:"June 30th. This I take to be as bad a juncture as ever I observed. The King and his new Queen minding their pleasures at Hampton Court."

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 Revolu