sadors gives an idea
of the ministerial prelate's imperial establishment very puzzling to the
comprehension of a modern inspector. Six hundred persons, I think, were
banqueted and slept in an abode which appears to us so mean, but which
Stowe calls "so stately a palace." To avoid the odium of living in this
splendid edifice, Wolsey presented it to the king, who, in recompense,
suffered the Cardinal occasionally to inhabit this wonder of England, in
the character of keeper of the king's palace;[118] so that Wolsey only
dared to live in his own palace by a subterfuge! This perhaps was a
tribute which ministerial haughtiness paid to popular feeling, or to the
jealousy of a royal master.

I have elsewhere shown the extraordinary elegance and prodigality of
expenditure of Buckingham's residences; they were such as to have
extorted the wonder even of Bassompierre, and unquestionably excited the
indignation of those who lived in a poor court, while our gay and
thoughtless minister alone could indulge in the wanton profusion.

But Wolsey and Buckingham were ambitious and adventurous; they rose and
shone the comets of the political horizon of Europe. The Roman tiara
still haunted the imagination of the Cardinal: and the egotistic pride
of having out-rivalled Richelieu and Olivarez, the nominal ministers
but the real sovereigns of Europe, kindled the buoyant spirits of the
gay, the gallant, and the splendid Villiers. But what "folly of the
wise" must account for the conduct of the profound Clarendon, and the
sensible Sir Robert Walpole, who, like the other two ministers, equally
became the victims of this imprudent passion for the ostentatious pomp
of a palace. This magnificence looked like the vaunt of insolence in the
eyes of the people, and covered the ministers with a popular odium.

Clarendon House is now only to be viewed in a print; but its story
remains to be told. It was built on the site of Grafton-street; and when
afterwards purchased by Monk, the Duke of Albemarle, he left his title
to that well-known street. It was an edifice of considerable extent and
grandeur. Clarendon reproaches himself in his Life for "his weakness and
vanity" in the vast expense incurred in this building, which he
acknowledges had "more contributed to that gust of envy that had so
violently shaken him, than any misdemeanour that he was thought to have
been guilty of." It ruined his estate; but he had been encouraged to it
by the royal grant o