ch has alone been preserved of the palace of Wolsey is an embattled
gatehouse that looks into the sluggish Mole, and joins it mayhap in
musing over "the days that we have seen."

[Illustration: CLAREMONT.]

Claremont, its next neighbor, unites, with equal or greater charms of
landscape, in preaching the old story of the decadence of the great.
Lord Clive, the Indian conqueror and speculator, built the house from
the designs of Capability Browne at a cost of over a hundred thousand
pounds. His dwelling and his monument remain to represent Clive. After
him, two or three occupants removed, came Leopold of Belgium, with
his bride, the Princess Charlotte, pet and hope of the British
nation. Their stay was more transient still--a year only, when death
dissipated their dream and cleared the way to the throne for Victoria.
Leopold continued to hold the property, and it became a generation
later the asylum of Louis Philippe. To an ordinary mind the miseries
of any one condemned to make this lovely spot his home are not apt to
present themselves as the acme of despair. A sensation of relief and
lulling repose would be more reasonably expected, especially after
so stormy a career as that of Louis. The change from restless and
capricious Paris to dewy shades and luxurious halls in the heart of
changeless and impregnable England ought, on common principles, to
have promoted the content and prolonged the life of the old king.
Possibly it did, but if so, the French had not many months' escape
from a second Orleans regency, for the exile's experience of Claremont
was brief. We may wander over his lawns, and reshape to ourselves his
reveries. Then we may forget the man who lost an empire as we look up
at the cenotaph of him who conquered one. Both brought grist to
Miller Bull, the fortunate and practical-minded owner of such vast
water-privileges. His water-power seems proof against all floods,
while the corn of all nations must come to his door. Standing under
these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we hear none of the clatter
of the great mill, and we cease to dream of affixing a period to its
noiseless and effective work.

[Illustration: CLIVE'S MONUMENT.]

If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail will
carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and more or less
dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames. But a surfeit even of
English country-houses and their pleasances is a possible thing;
and nowhere