Page:Cole, Henry - A hand-book to Hampton Court.djvu/16

10 faces (records of parliament tell you they exceed thirty thousand a month in the summer) abandoned to mirth, and oblivious of dull cares and toil left behind them! Miserable indeed the wretch whose sympathies are not touched with some of these.

Not one summer's day, or many, make familiar all Hampton Court can show; not in summer only, but in winter, when most places are cold, gloomy, and sad, is it warm, bright, and gleeful. It has charms for all the year round; and embarrassed with its riches, the difficulty to the occasional visitor, and still more so to the visitor for a single day, as many thousands are, is to economise strength and spirits to relish each succeeding beauty, and leave the place not in surfeited lassitude, but with vivid impressions of its most remarkable features. How best to make the selection—and see the sights in the best order—is the aim of this our Hand-book; in which, among such a crowd of objects, we shall possibly fall into mistakes and errors in judgment.

A hundred pages cannot pretend to be a history of the place, which, in fact, is the history of three centuries, not the least eventful of our country. A hundred pages would not suffice to enumerate the mere names of the men of fame linked in association with it. A hundred pages, to speak sympathetically of Wolsey, its great architect, the last political priest, bold practical reformer of monastic corruption (too ripe for his age), and promoter of learning and of art!—or of Thomas Cromwell, his secretary, next in rank and ability! pursuing his master's example in the overthrow of papal authority in England—Wolsey and Cromwell, both men raised from the people, by the strength God had blessed them with — or of Cranmer, Shakespeare,Oliver Cromwell, "protector," at least of the Raphael Cartoons, which formerly were hung here, but were removed to South Kensington a few years ago! A hundred pages to tell, too, of the doings of our kings and queens since Hampton Court became their palace!—a hundred pages to affect a dilettanti talk on its works of art! These are subjects to fill as many volumes, rather than to overwhelm our little book. We therefore pretend to do no more with them than glance lightly, and for the most part lovingly, at them, as we pursue our course through the buildings, the galleries, and gardens.