a new chase thereto belonging." Of these matters let lawyers speak; for us, its architecture and history are the sources of its unfading interest.
"There are situated in this county," says Sir Thomas Smith in his treatise "De Republica Anglorum,"[1] speaking of Middlesex, "five royal houses, that is to say, Enfield, Hanworth, Whitehall, S. James's, and Hampton Court, which (last) hath the appearance rather of a city than of a prince's palace, being in its magnificence and its splendid buildings second to none in all Europe, built by Wolsey, added to and perfected by Henry VIII."
Such was its splendour, as the chief of all royal palaces, under Elizabeth—the great house of a great queen. How it gained this proud position can be traced in the history of England, as well as in the less abiding memorials of its own architecture.
Something have we seen of the buildings: we turn now to the history of the Palace, and the men who made and lived in it.
II
"A place where Nature's choicest gifts adorn,
Where Thames' kind streams in gentle currents turn,
The name of Hampton hath for ages borne.
Here such a palace shows great Henry's care,
As Sol ne'er views from his extended sphere,
In all his tedious stage."
Hampton Court was for a long time the usual
- ↑ Ed. Leyden, 1630, p. 36.
