sions" people look for in a picture. And to many who set up for judges of art, they are as difficult of comprehension as to the unlearned. To one who has that most horrific of all species of boreisms, a small acquaintance with the technical language of art, a smaller knowledge of the practice, and just so much intimacy with its history and its professors as to be able to string together a number of foreign names, and talk about schools and styles and manners, they are quite perplexing. He can get on bravely at Charing-Cross or Pall-Mall, but he finds it hard to play the connoisseur here. The properly educated student of art will not be disappointed even at the first visit, because he will know that works of the highest order require a prolonged and close study to be properly appreciated.

The truth is, the Cartoons are too grand and elevated in character to be appreciated at first sight, or to be construed by school-boy "rules of art." Like all great works, they must be studied. To hope in a hurried promenade through a picture gallery to be able rightly to judge of any great work of art, is a mistake; and least of all can the works of Raphael be so understood. In another manner and in a more reverential spirit must they be examined. Grave, simple, earnest, their appeal is to the heart, and by it, as well as by the intellect, must they be tried; and when so tried and comprehended, they will be dwelt on with ever increasing admiration. Their truth and consistency, the absence of all affectation, the calm repose and dignity, the religious sobriety and elevation, will take firm hold upon the best affections of the mind; and they will be felt to be, beyond almost all other

pictorial representations of the events connected with the foundation of the Christian faith, worthy of their glorious theme.

It is upon no merely technical or executive skill, however great, that they depend. They were not addressed to artists merely. They were painted for all men, and they can be understood by every one who has feeling and imagination, and will examine them seriously. They will not let an earnest, trustful student go unrewarded. To every one who will study them, they will unfold continually more and more of that higher beauty which it is only at rare seasons given to man to apprehend and to embody.

Yet though their superiority is independent of mere objective artistic skill, how noble are they, considered as works of art! How every part teems with meaning, and how unflinching is the degradation of every subordinate accessory! Not a touch but is to the purpose; not an object is introduced merely to fill up a vacant space. What at first appears to be an excrescence, or at most an object or an incident too trifling or insignificant to be worthy of notice, is seen on further study-as in similar instances in the dramas of Shakspere-to have been carefully considered and introduced with forethought, or rather, perhaps, is the effect of that intuitive power of genius which accomplishes unconsciously what careful study acknowledges to be true and fitting. And so of every object and indeed of every line of the composition; while each stands distinct and self-supported, all are so mutually connected and interlinked as to depend upon each other for the full and perfect impression. They have, like every human work, their faults and

their deficiencies, but they are probably as perfect as human productions ever have been or will be.

It would be pleasant, and not out of place, to endeavour to sustain these remarks by a somewhat detailed examination of the several Cartoons; but with a knowledge of the many words that have been expended to little purpose on these wonderful creations, I shrink from adding by any particular criticism to the dim and murky atmosphere through which they are too often viewed.

The peeps which the visitor has had over the gardens of Hampton Court from the windows of the state apartments, will have prepared him to expect pleasure from a stroll through them—if he be one

"That in trim gardens takes his pleasure."

They are of considerable size, and kept in the most scrupulous order. Hentzner describes the gardens of Hampton Court as being, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, "most pleasant." They were laid out anew in the reign of Charles II., in the prevalent French fashion, but their present arrangement is perhaps chiefly due to the taste of William III., under whose direction they were rearranged by Messrs. London and Wise. William was a thorough Dutchman, and he retained his Dutch tastes and likings to the last. Gardening was one of the most favourite pursuits of his countrymen, and they were very proud of their attainments therein. William, it may be, desired to show his subjects an example of the superior taste of his old country. The gardens of Hampton Court were accordingly remodelled. Many straight walks were formed; square ponds and straight canals excavated; yew-trees were cut into strange, monstrous,

and anomalous shapes. The whole was made formal, rigid, and rectangular, as the lines of a fortification, or the banks of an Amsterdam canal. It was a Dutch version of the French style. Yet though the taste be perverse and extravagant, there were both taste and good feeling shown by those two old landscape-gardeners to whom the work was intrusted; and now that their designs have been judiciously remodelled, the effect is undoubtedly very pleasing. The trees have been permitted to resume their natural shapes, and the excessive formality has been got rid of. The gardens have still a formal appearance, but it is only sufficient to impart the air of old-fashioned stateliness that seems so proper to the pleasaunce of the old palace; and is infinitely more pleasing here than would be any of the latest novelties. long lines of sombre evergreens, the broad walks, pleached alleys, trim bowers, most brilliant of flowerbeds, wide, verdant, and smooth-shaven lawns, and sparkling fountains, admirably combine to make up a garden right worthy of the old house. But the statues and the sculptured fountains should be restored, or others brought in their place. We may not compare it, and the sober folks who are collected in it, to

"Boccaccio's garden and its faery,

The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry;"

The

nor, while sauntering about, fancy it a garden of the Grand Monarque, with groups of Watteau peopling it but it is a place to delight in nevertheless, and I know not whether, with the happy crowds who troop merrily to and fro on a bright

summer's day, it be not a more enjoyable spectacle

than either.

The long lofty front of Wren's building shows itself perhaps to most advantage in connexion with the formal walks and terraces and fountains of the gardens. Some of the peeps over the river too have a charming effect, and so has the church tower and roofs of Kingston, as seen at the termination. of one of the long avenues. Indeed the whole grounds afford numerous very pretty little bits of garden scenery. And then the park beyond is also very fine, though level, and not very extensive. Some of the trees in it are very large. An oak near the old stables is one of the largest in England. Mr. Jesse says that the trunk is thirty-three feet in girth. A poplar, according to the same authority, is nearly a hundred feet high. There are also some elms of enormous magnitude; and two or three fine corktrees. Before leaving the gates, the stranger should turn aside to the private garden, which is worth seeing. The prime attraction in it for the majority of visitors, the vine famous as "the largest in Europe," and which is said to produce above two thousand pounds weight of fruit, the reader has no doubt heard of, if he has not seen. The Wilderness and the Maze are a never-failing delight to juvenile visitors and their merriment does good, or ought to do good, to the heart of the oldest.

Then having left the Lion gate of Hampton Court, you have only to cross the road to the hardly less delightful Bushy Park. Well fare the fame of old Timothy Bennet, who preserved the right of way through Bushy Park to his own and succeeding generations. It was about the middle of the last century that Bennet, who lived at Hampton