Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/212

138 now been planted a hundred and twenty-eight years, and though not uniquely large, is certainly respectable for its age and dignity. It may be seen in its own great house near the south-west corner of the Palace, beyond the "Pond Garden."

Much more might be said about the parks, so skilfully designed, and yet so free from offensive artificiality—the long terrace that looks upon the Thames, the bowling-green, and the shady walks under the limes that skirt the canal. But it would take a book to describe the gardens for those who do not know them, and still more, it may be, for those who do. Their attraction lies in the combination of the styles of different periods—of which they present the beauties of each—in the continuity of their history, and in the happy examples which they afford of the history of horticulture in England. We may still walk in fancy with Henry VIII. in the Pond Garden, with Charles II. by the Long Water, and with William III. along the Broad Walk.