In the State Bedroom is an enormous bedstead with elaborate embroidery, and a dome crowned with artificial flowers. Mr. Child took especial pains to obtain. the shade of green which predominates in the hangings, but when he saw the total cost of the bedstead and its furniture, he was so horrified that he destroyed the bill, and would never let any one know its amount. Beyond this Bedroom is a room decorated by Angelica Kaufmann in the Pompeian style, which found so much favour in the eighteenth century. Angelica's husband, Zucchi, contributed two large panel paintings to the Dining-room, and the handiwork of both husband. and wife may be observed in several other rooms.

The Entrance Hall is somewhat original in design, being decorated and coloured to represent a large piece of Wedgewood china.

Horace Walpole's description of the whole place, inflated and exaggerated as it certainly is, gives an idea of the effect produced on his contemporaries. He writes thus to the Countess of Ossory: :-

"On Friday we went to see-oh, the palace of palaces !-and yet a palace sans crown, sans coronet, but such expense! such taste! such profusion! and yet half an acre produces all the rents that furnish such magnificence. It is a Jaghire got without a crime. In short, a shop is the estate, and Osterley Park is the spot. The old house I have often seen, which was built by Sir Thomas Gresham; but it is so improved and enriched, that all the Percies and Seymours of Sion must die of envy. "There is a double portico that fills the space between the towers of the front, and is as noble as the Propyleum of Athens. eating-room, all chefs d'œuvre of Adam, a

There is a hall, library, breakfast-room, gallery a hundred and thirty feet long,

and a drawing-room worthy of Eve before the fall. Mrs. Child's dressing-room is full of pictures, gold filigree, china and Japan. So is all the house; the chairs are taken from antique lyres, and make charming harmony; there are Salvators, Gaspar Poussins, and to a beautiful staircase, a ceiling by Rubens.

"Not to mention a kitchen garden that costs £1400 a year, a menagerie full of birds come from a thousand islands, which Mr. Banks has not yet discovered; and then, in the drawing-room I mentioned, there are door-cases, and a crimson-and-goid frieze, that I believe were borrowed from the Palace of the Sun; and then the park is the ugliest spot of ground in the Universe-and so I returned, comforted, to Strawberry. You shall see these wonders the first time you come to Twickenham.”

When the present owner desired to repair and renovate parts of his predecessor's work, it was satisfactory to find that the carpets and ornamental metal-work had been produced by English firms still existing, whose representatives were able to continue and complete labours begun over a century previously. The Park, which Horace Walpole unkindly describes as the ugliest spot of ground in the universe, was probably then very bare of trees, but subsequent plantations have done much to redeem it from reproach. The large cedars between the house and the Upper Lake are believed to have been planted at the time of the marriage of Mr. Child's granddaughter to Lord Villiers, presumably by the direction of her grandmother, then Lady Ducie, who had a life interest in the property.

One of the attractions of Osterley during the lifetime of Mr. Child and his widow was the menagerie, which contained many rare and valuable birds. The

most remarkable of these were perpetuated in two volumes of coloured prints published by Thomas Hayes of Southall.

Mr. Child had an only daughter Sarah, whose charms may still be admired in the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds at Middleton, and the still more beautiful portrait by Romney at Osterley. Near her, in the latter place, hangs the picture of the handsome and fascinating Lord Westmorland, who went by the name of "Rapid Westmorland," and whose good looks won the heart of the beautiful Miss Child, though his banking account was not equally satisfactory to her father.

Lord Westmorland must have suspected what answer he was likely to receive should he lay his proposals before Mr. Child, for the story goes that when he was dining with the banker at his house in Berkeley Square, he exclaimed,

"Child, if you were in love with a girl, and the father would not let you marry her, what would you do?"

"Do? Why, run away with her, of course!" was the rash reply. Lord Westmorland made no further comment to the father, but quietly arranged matters with the young lady. Shortly afterwards, in May 1782, she walked deliberately out of the Berkeley Square house carrying a small parcel; a little schoolroom maid, who was in her confidence, had a hackney-cab in waiting. round the corner, which conveyed Miss Child to meet her lover. He was in readiness with the crthodox post-chaise; she mounted without demur, and away they drove, bound for Gretna Green.

A hue and cry arose ere long, and Mr. Child, having ordered out a second post-chaise in which to pursue the fugitives, sent on in advance a messenger, one

mounted on his own favourite hunter,

with orders to detain them till he should arrive.

Richard, who doubtless changed horses several times (unless the hunter equalled Black Bess in powers of endurance), came up with the carriage near Rokeby, in Yorkshire, and delivered his master's message to its occupants.

"Shoot, my lord," exclaimed Miss Child, who must have been a strongminded young lady for her years-only

seventeen.

Lord

Westmorland accordingly cut short further discussion by shooting Gillam's horse; and when Mr. Child, who was now

approaching the scene of action, saw the poor beast fall, he turned back and would carry the pursuit no further.

Gillam ended his life at an advanced age as lodgekeeper at Middleton Park. He used to relate this adventure with great gusto, and from the tone of satisfaction with which " Shoot, my lord!" was repeated to me by one of his hearers, I gather that the groom's admiration for his young mistress's spirit quite outweighed any resentment for the discomfort which the execution of her orders might have entailed upon himself.

The above is, I believe, a substantially correct account of the elopement; other traditional versions assert that Lord Westmorland shot one of the leaders of Mr. Child's post-chaise and for this offence was never forgiven, as his father-in-law thought that the shot was intended for him. However that may be, Mr. Child declared that no one bearing the name of Westmorland should be his heir; yet, unwilling to disinherit his own descendants, he left all his property to the first daughter of Lady Westmorland who should be christened Sarah and take the name of Child. Under this will Lady Sarah Sophia Child Fane became his heiress, and by her marriage with Lord Villiers, afterwards fifth Lord Jersey, brought Osterley into his family.

Our ancestors were easily amused. The editor of an old collection of bons

mots thought the following worthy of preservation. When Miss C. returned from her expedition to Gretna Green with Lord W., Mrs. C. said to her, "My dear, why were you so hasty, when I had much better parties in view for you?" "Mamma," replied the young lady, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." If the repartee has no other merit, it tends to show that Lady Westmorland

was

From the Shrubbery.

quarrel had arisen between Captain Hon. G. Vaughan and Sir William, then Mr. Gregory. A meeting was arranged; Captain Vaughan missed, and his opponent fired in the air. Sir Robert (who was Mr. Gregory's second) and his colleague declared a second shot to be unnecessary, and, as Sir William confesses in his Memoirs, the combatants went on their way rejoicing.

If it was any satisfaction to them, they had at all events afforded much amusement to Lady Jersey's grandchildren, who were staying at Osterley, and were highly delighted at having seen gentlemen shooting at each other in the Park. Lady Jersey was not equally pleased, as she by no means approved such desecration of the peaceful shades of Osterley.

Peaceful they certainly are. The Park is but nine miles from Hyde Park Corner, and the District Railway has planted a station just outside its walls, but when one steps across the road and passes through the lodge doors the roar and traffic of the City might be a hundred miles away. The tall elms fling their shadows across the paths, the cattle graze tranquilly in the long grass, the water-fowl splash and dive in the lakes, just as they may have done when Sir Thomas Gresham disturbed them with his oil and paper mills.