31st May. I saw the Queen at dinner; the Judges came to compliment her arrival, and, after them, the Duke of Ormonde brought me to kiss her hand. 2nd June. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen made their addresses to the Queen, presenting her £1000 in gold. Now saw I her Portuguese ladies, and the Guarda-damas, or Mother of her Maids,1 and the old knight, a lock of whose hair quite covered the rest of his bald pate, bound on by a thread, very oddly. I saw the rich gondola sent to his Majesty from the State of Venice; but it was not comparable for swiftness to our common wherries, though managed by Venetians. 4th. Went to visit the Earl of Bristol, at Wimbledon.2 8th. I saw her Majesty at supper privately in her bedchamber.3 9th. I heard the Queen's Portugal music, consisting of pipes, harps, and very ill voices. Hampton Court is as noble and uniform a pile, and as capacious as any Gothic architecture can have made it. There is an incomparable furniture in it, especially hangings designed by Raphael, very rich with gold; also many rare pictures, especially the Cæsarean Triumphs of Andrea Mantegna, formerly the Duke of Mantua's; of the tapestries, I believe the world can show nothing nobler of the kind than the stories of 1 The Maids of Honour had a Mother at least as early as the reign of Elizabeth. The office is supposed to have been abolished about the period of the Revolution of 1688. 2 [See ante, p. 176.] 3 [At Hampton Court (see ante, p. 3), which had been remodelled and refurnished by Charles II. (see also post, under 23rd August). Before the Restoration it had been occupied by Cromwell (ante, p. 115 n.). In November, 1657, his daughter Mary had been married there to Thomas Belasyse, Lord Fauconberg; and at Hampton Court (6th August, 1658), four weeks before his own death, died his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole.] The gallery of horns is The Abraham and Tobit. very particular for the vast beams of stags, elks, antelopes, etc. The Queen's bed was an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet, and cost £8000, being a present made by the States of Holland when his Majesty returned, and had formerly been given by them to our King's sister, the Princess of Orange, and, being bought of her again, was now presented to the King. The great looking-glass and toilet, of beaten and massive gold, was given by the Queen-Mother. Queen brought over with her from Portugal such Indian cabinets as had never before been seen here. The great hall is a most magnificent room. The chapel-roof excellently fretted and gilt. I was also curious to visit the wardrobe and tents, and other furniture of state. The park, formerly a flat and naked piece of ground, now planted with sweet rows of lime trees; and the canal for water now near perfected; also the hare-park. In the garden is a rich and noble fountain, with Sirens, statues, etc., cast in copper, by Fanelli; but no plenty of water. The cradle-work of hornbeam in the garden is, for the perplexed twining of the trees, very observable. There is a parterre which they call Paradise, in which is a pretty banquetinghouse set over a cave, or cellar. All these gardens might be exceedingly improved, as being too narrow for such a palace. 10th June. I returned to London, and presented my History of Chalcography (dedicated to Mr. Boyle) to our Society.1 19th. I went to Albury, to visit Mr. Henry 1 [Sculptura: or the History, and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper... To which is annexed a new Manner of Engraving, or Mezzo Tinto, communicated by his Highness Prince Rupert to the Authour of this Treatise. London: 1662. See ante, p. 158, and Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, pp. 243-336.] |