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both, the latter to the extent of twenty-six acres. Anne added thirty acres; Queen Caroline, wife of George the Second, added three hundred; and the house, which had been growing all this time, was finally brought to its present size or appearance by the late Duke of Sussex, who added or rebuilt the rooms, with their still fresh-looking brickwork, that form the angle on the south

west.

No royal personage now lives in the palace, unless we may so call the respected Duchess of Inverness, whom the Duke of Sussex, by the good sense and liberality of Queen Victoria, was allowed to marry morganatically, and who was presented, in consequence, with one of his Royal Highness's titles. The apartments not occupied by her Grace, are in possession of various gentlemen and ladies, who formerly held office in the

household, or under government. There is one great defect in their accommodation. The house, nominally, possesses gardens that are miles in circumference; but these having become public every day in the week, which in the early times of the Georges was not the case, it has, in reality, to any sequestered purpose of enjoyment, no gardens at all, except at one corner.

The inmates must remain in-doors, or walk in the public thoroughfare. Now a house without a garden, is, to lovers of gardens, but a kind of prison; and however arboraceous the look-out may be from the Palace windows, or however welcome even the sight of the passengers or promenaders may be to such of the persons in doors as are prevented from going out by illness or infirmity, this consideration of their condition is not pleasant to beholders. It is impossible

not to wish their comfort completed; nor do we think such a thing impracticable, sup

posing they would prefer small shut-in

gardens to none at all.

enough for very pleasant

There is room

bowers in the

spaces to the east and south, that are now grassed and railed in from the public path; nor would the look of the Palace be injured with the spectator, but rescued from its insipidity; garden walls with trees; by the help of a little taste in their construction, being capable of picturesqueness, and even of architectural elegance. Had enclosures of this kind existed in the times of such Ladies of the Bedchamber as Lady Suffolk, or the Duchess of Somerset, the occupants would have built capital summerhouses in them. Arbuthnot might have had a berceau or pergola in one of them, such as Le Sage delighted to walk up

and down in, while composing his Gil Blas.

The gardens, in the time of the Finches, consisted of little but the ground squaring with the north side of the Palace, laid out in the first formal and sombre style of our native gardening, and originating the still existing circle of yew trees, a disposition of things congenial with the owners. Heneage Finch, the Speaker, and his sons, the first and second Earls of Nottingham, were all lawyers and statesmen; and though a clever, and upon the whole, a worthy, appear to have been a melancholy race. The first Earl suffered under a long depression of spirits before he died; the second was a man of so atrabilarious a complexion, and such formal and dreary manners, that he was nicknamed Dismal ; and Dismal's son, from a like swarthy appearance, and the way in which he neglected

his dress, was called the Chimney-sweep. Hanbury Williams, the reigning lampooner of the days of George the Second, designated the whole race as the "black funereal Finches."

These unusual "Finches of the Grove," made way for a kind of Jupiter's bird in the eagle-nosed, hawk-eyed, gaunt little William the Third; a personage as formal and melancholy as themselves, though not so noisy (for Dismal, notwithstanding his formality, was a great talker); and under William, the Gardens though they grew larger, did but exchange English formality for Dutch. The walks became longer and straighter, like canals; the yews were retained and clipped; there was, perhaps, a less number of flowers, comparatively; for the English had always been fond of flowers, and the Dutch had not yet grown mad (commercially) for tulips; in

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