If one views the matter in
another way, to be sure, we may feel indignant that such dolt-heads,
rowdies, and every way mean people, as many of the English sovereigns
have been, should inhabit these stately halls, contrasting its splendors
with their littleness; but, on the whole, I readily consented within
myself to be impressed for a moment with the feeling that royalty has its
glorious side. By no possibility can we ever have such a place in
America.
Leaving Hampton Court at about four o'clock, we walked through Bushy
Park,--a beautiful tract of ground, well wooded with fine old trees,
green with moss, all up their twisted trunks,--through several villages,
Twickenham among the rest, to Richmond. Before entering Twickenham, we
passed a lath-and-plaster castellated edifice, much time-worn, and with
the plaster peeling off from the laths, which I fancied might be Horace
Walpole's toy-castle. Not that it really could have been; but it was
like the image, wretchedly mean and shabby, which one forms of such a
place, in its decay. From Hampton Court to the Star and Garter, on
Richmond Hill, is about six miles. After glancing cursorily at the
prospect, which is famous, and doubtless very extensive and beautiful if
the English mistiness would only let it be seen, we took a good dinner in
the large and handsome coffee-room of the hotel, and then wended our way
to the rail-station, and reached home between eight and nine o'clock.
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