e_ on that side descends from the terrace-walk by steps, and
on the left a terrace goes down to the water-side, from which the garden
on the eastward front is overlooked, and gives a most pleasant prospect.

The fine scrolls and _bordure_ of these gardens were at first edged with
box, but on the queen's disliking the smell those edgings were taken up,
but have since been planted again--at least, in many places--nothing
making so fair and regular an edging as box, or is so soon brought to its
perfection.

On the north side of the house, where the gardens seemed to want
screening from the weather or the view of the chapel, and some part of
the old building required to be covered from the eye, the vacant ground,
which was large, is very happily cast into a wilderness, with a labyrinth
and _espaliers_ so high that they effectually take off all that part of
the old building which would have been offensive to the sight. This
labyrinth and wilderness is not only well designed, and completely
finished, but is perfectly well kept, and the _espaliers_ filled exactly
at bottom, to the very ground, and are led up to proportioned heights on
the top, so that nothing of that kind can be more beautiful.

The house itself is every way answerable on the outside to the beautiful
prospect, and the two fronts are the largest and, beyond comparison, the
finest of the kind in England. The great stairs go up from the second
court of the palace on the right hand, and lead you to the south
prospect.

I hinted in my last that King William brought into England the love of
fine paintings as well as that of fine gardens; and you have an example
of it in the cartoons, as they are called, being five pieces of such
paintings as, if you will believe men of nice judgment and great
travelling, are not to be matched in Europe. The stories are known, but
especially two of them--viz., that of St. Paul preaching on Mars Hill to
the self-wise Athenians, and that of St. Peter passing sentence of death
on Ananias--I say, these two strike the mind with the utmost surprise,
the passions are so drawn to the life; astonishment, terror, and death in
the face of Ananias, zeal and a sacred fire in the eyes of the blessed
Apostle, fright and surprise upon the countenances of the beholders in
the piece of Ananias; all these describe themselves so naturally that you
cannot but seem to discover something of the like passions, even in
seeing them.

In the other ther