remember, was capable of pleasing off the stage as well as on-and also of being pleased. "Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say, was the great moralist's opinion of Kitty; while she used to say of him, “I love to sit by Dr. Johnson, he always entertains

one.'

"This then is Little Strawberry Hill, Mr. Rambler ?"

་ It is, good reader; and these are Twickenham Meads. For thus plodding slowly onwards, we have arrived at length at a place familiar by name to every one who has looked into the literature of the last century, and whose fame will last as long as the language in which it has been celebrated. The Parish Register of Twickenham, written about 1758,' by one who has contributed (after Pope) most largely to its renown, will save us the enumeration of many names, and be more agreeable to the reader than dry prose. Walpole's lines are not generally known to the present generation of readers; they are a choice sample of his courtly taste:

"Where silver Thames round Twit'nam meads
His winding current sweetly leads;
Twit nam, the Muses' fav'rite seat,
Twit'nam, the Graces' lov'd retreat;
There polish'd Essex* wont to sport,
The pride and victim of a court.
There Bacon tun'd the grateful lyre
To soothe Eliza's haughty ire.
-Ah, happy had no meaner strain
Than friendship's dash'd his mighty vein!
Twit'nam, where Hyde,† majestic sage,
Retir'd from folly's frantic stage,

*Rob. Devereux, Earl of Essex.
+ Lord Clarendon

While his vast soul was hung on tenters,
To mend the world, and vex dissenters;
Twit'nam, where frolic Wharton* revell'd;
Where Montagu,† with lock dishevell❜d,
(Conflict of dirt and warmth divine,)
Invok'd-and scandalised the Nine:
Where Pope in moral music spoke,
To th' anguish'd soul of Bolingbroke,
And whisper'd how true genius errs,
Preferring joys that pow'r confers;
Bliss never to great minds arising
From ruling worlds, but from despising:
Where Fielding met his bunter Muse,
And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice,
Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit
With inimaginable wit:

Where Suffolks sought the peaceful scene,
Resigning Richmond to the queen,
And all the glory, all the teasing,
Of pleasing one|| not worth the pleasing;
Where Fanny, ever-blooming fair,
Ejaculates the graceful pray'r,

And, 'scap'd from sense, with nonsense smit,
For Whitfield's cant leaves Stanhope's** wit:
Amid this choir of sounding names,

Of statesmen, bards, and beauteous dames,
Shall the last trifler of the throng
Enroll his own such names among?
-Oh! no, enough if I consign
To lasting types their notes divine;
Enough if Strawberry's humble hill
The title-page of fame shall fill."

In winding up his verses with this affected humility, Walpole, of course, meant nothing. He would have been grievously mortified, if he could have brought himself to believe that Strawberry Hill, * The Duke of Wharton, † Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Henry Fielding.

§ Henrietta Hobart, Countess of Suffolk.
|| George II.
Lady Fanny Shirley.
** Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

as well as its master, would not stand high up in the roll of fame. At any rate Strawberry Hill must now occupy a prominent position in any sketch of Twickenham Meadows.

The Great Strawberry Hill stands only a short way below its little namesake. Horace Walpole took such pains to inform posterity of the history of the house which his admiring contemporaries were fain to look up to with devout regard as a model of Gothic architecture, and which he had traversed the kingdom in order to complete satisfactorily, that it would be a pity not to give his own account : "Where the Gothic castle now stands was originally a small tenement, built in 1698, and let as a lodginghouse: Cibber once took it, and wrote one of his plays here- The Refusal; or, the Lady's Philosophy.' After him, Talbot, Bishop of Durham, had it for eight years then, Henry Bridges, Marquis of Carnarvon, son of James, Duke of Chandos, and since Duke himself. It was next hired by Mrs. Chenevix, the noted toy-woman, who, on the death of her husband, let it to Lord John Philip Sackville: he kept it about two years; and then Mr. Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. Chenevix's lease, in May, 1749, and the next year bought it by Act of Parliament, it being the property of three minors of the name of Mortimer.... The castle now existing was not entirely built from the ground, but formed at different times, by alterations of and additions to the old small house. The library and refectory or great parlour were entirely new-built in 1753; the gallery, round tower, great cloister, and cabinet in 1760 and 1761; the great north bed-chamber in 1770; and the Beauclerc tower, with the hexagon closet, in 1776 ” His description of the house would be too long to

VOL. II.

G

:

quote of the interior, it may suffice, as a sample, to give his note of" the refectory or great parlour :""It is 30 feet long, 20 wide, and 12 high; hung with paper in imitation of stucco. The chimney-piece was designed by Mr. Bentley: upon it stands a fine Etruscan vase, between two bottles of black and gold porcelain." After he had finished the house or castle to his liking, he set about storing it with all sorts of articles of taste and virtù," as the catalogues have it. Of the contents he drew up, and printed in a handsome quarto form to range with his other "Works," a catalogue, in which such things as two old blue and white plates, artichoke pattern," or an octagon square plate with a cock and hen," or "a blue and white caudle-cup "- -are of perpetual recurrence. And this was the man who set himself up, and was pretty generally admitted, as an infallible critic upon all matters of art and the practical application of taste.

66

66

The "castle" itself is perhaps the most trumpery piece of gingerbread Gothic ever constructed. As a whole, it is monstrously ill-looking and absurd; while the details are not only incorrect and out of place, but wretchedly meagre and poverty stricken. By descent Strawberry Hill became the property of a late Earl of Waldegrave, who dismantled it, and converted the plates and japan-ware and nicknacks that so fitly decorated the rooms, into solid cash--not fearing the repose of the ghost of Otranto. It is to be hoped that the present Earl will soon remove the crazy castle itself:-if he respect the memory of his precedessor, or the taste of Horace, he certainly will. Nothing can be more melancholy than the air of the rickety structure in its present neglected state-the walls cracked, the plaster