Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/258

238 with grotesque shapes of yew and box. Though the "tulip fever" was by this time subsiding, Dutch bulbs were very much planted, as they lent themselves to the stiff style of laying out geometrical patterns and borders. If the parterres were ingenious, so also was the labyrinth at Hampton Court, which was devised at this time, and which has since puzzled so many generations of holiday visitors in modern times. Mary, who had acquired a taste for China porcelain at the Hague, put up a number of curious images and vases at Hampton Court; the fashion spread far and wide, till no great house in England was deemed complete without a museum of grotesque ornaments. Indeed, the Queen's own tea-service of Oriental china was famous; her cups were without handles, proportioned to the little round teapot She, too, was the first to introduce the tea urn into England, for she passionately loved the new dish of tea, which was becoming fashionable, and which was bought for her at 66s. a pound. But the King was not the only person who sought health away from London in the seventeenth century. It was becoming the fashion for persons of note to resort to some