King Edred, in 491; who piously inserted his anathema against any person—­whatever their rank, sex, or order—­who should infringe the rights of these holy men.  ‘May their memory,’ the king decreed, with a force worthy of the excommunicator-wholesale, Pius IX., ’be blotted out of the Book of Life; may their strength continually waste away, and be there no restorative to repair it!’ nevertheless, there were in the time of Lysons, a hundred and fifty acres of fruit-gardens at Twickenham:  the soil being a sandy loam, raspberries grew plentifully.  Even so early as Queen Elizabeth’s days, Bishop Corbet’s father had a nursery garden at Twickenham,—­so that King Edred’s curse seems to have fallen as powerlessly as it may be hoped all subsequent maledictions may do.

In 1698, one of the Earl of Bradford’s coachmen built a small house on a piece of ground, called in old works, Strawberry-Hill-Shot; lodgings were here let, and Colley Cibber became one of the occupants of the place, and here wrote his Comedy called ‘Refusal; or the Ladies’ Philosophy.’  The spot was so greatly admired that Talbot, Bishop of Durham, lived eight years in it, and the Marquis of Carnarvon succeeded him as a tenant:  next came Mrs. Chenevix, a famous toy-woman.  She was probably a French woman, for Father Courayer—­he who vainly endeavoured to effect an union between the English and the Gallican churches—­lodged here some time.  Horace Walpole bought up Mrs. Chenevix’s lease, and afterwards the fee-simple; and henceforth became the busiest, if not the happiest, man in a small way in existence.

[Illustration:  STRAWBERRY HILL FROM THE THAMES.]

We now despise the poor, over-ornate miniature Gothic style of Strawberry Hill; we do not consider with what infinite pains the structure was enlarged into its final and well-known form.  In the first place, Horace made a tour to collect models from the chief cathedral cities in England; but the building required twenty-three years to complete it.  It was begun in 1753, and finished in 1776.  Strawberry Hill had one merit, everything was in keeping:  the internal decorations, the screens, the niches, the chimney-pieces, the book-shelves, were all Gothic; and most of these were designed by Horace himself; and, indeed, the description of Strawberry Hill is too closely connected with the annals of his life to be dissevered from his biography.  Here he gathered up his mental forces to support and amuse himself during a long life, sometimes darkened by spleen, but rarely by solitude; for Horace, with much isolation of the heart, was, to the world, a social being.

What scandal, what trifles, what important events, what littleness of mind, yet what stretch of intellect were henceforth issued by the recluse of Strawberry, as he plumed himself on being styled, from that library of ‘Strawberry!’ Let us picture to ourselves the place, the persons—­put on, if we can, the sentiments and habits of the retreat; look through its loopholes, not only on the wide world beyond, but into the small world within; and face the fine gentleman author in every period of his varied life.