Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/60

18 If the court, when viewed from the cloister, appears somewhat small, the effect of the east and south fronts is entirely the reverse of this. There was compactness; here is size and magnificence.

Through the cloister at the middle of the eastern side we enter, under the state-rooms, into the great Fountain Garden. Here the design of William III. to rival Versailles becomes at once apparent, as the trees and canals stretch out in vistas before the eye.

But of the gardens we do not now speak. We turn rather to examine the great front of Wren's building, which shows more than any other part of the Palace the impressive dignity of his design. Formal it is certainly, and geometrical, the work of an accurate draughtsman, whose eye was ruled, it might seem, by mathematical calculations. But it is impossible to deny the magnificence of the plan. It were absurd to compare it with Wolsey's front, the characteristic excellences of each are so distinct and different. It is the most important specimen of Louis Quatorze architecture that we have in England. It should be compared with Versailles; and it will bear the comparison. But inappropriate though the thought may be, I cannot but confess that it makes me think also of the Italian palaces which were raised in the fifteenth century, like the Strozzi Palace at Florence, or the sixteenth or seventeenth century palaces of Florence and Genoa, and it seems to me that Wren's building has a variety and attractiveness which the others lack. In Hampton Court Wren brought this