It is hardly possible for us, within the limits of our columns to do justice to the magnificence of Hampton Court.  The grand facade towards the garden extends 330 feet, and that towards the Thames 328 feet.  The portico and colonnade, of duplicated pillars of the Ionic order, at the grand entrance, and indeed, the general design of the elevations, are in splendid style.  On the south side of the palace is the privy garden, which was sunk ten feet, to open a view from the apartments to the Thames.  On the northern side is a tennis court, and beyond that a gate which leads into the wilderness or Maze.[7] Further on is the great gate of the gardens.

The gardens, which comprise about 44 acres, were originally laid out by London and Wise.  George III. gave the celebrated Brown permission to make whatever improvements his fine taste might suggest; but he declared his opinion that they appeared to the best advantage in their original state, and they accordingly remain so to this day.  The extent of the kitchen gardens is about 12 acres.  In the privy garden is a grape house 70 feet in length, and 14 in breadth; the interior being wholly occupied by one vine of the black Hamburgh kind, which was planted in the year 1769, and has in a single year, produced 2,200 bunches of grapes, weighing, on an average, one pound each.

The grotesque forms of the gardens, and the mathematical taste in which they are disposed, are advantageously seen in a bird’s-eye view as in the Engraving, which represents the tortuous beauty of the parterres, and the pools, fountains, and statues with characteristic accuracy.  The formal avenues, radiating as it were, from the gardens or centre, are likewise distinctly shown, as is also the canal formed by Wolsey through the middle avenue.  The intervening space, then a parklike waste, is now planted with trees, and stretches away to the village of Thames Ditton; and is bounded on the south by the Thames, and on the north by the high road to Kingston.

The palace is open to the public, and besides its splendid apartments, and numerous buildings, there is a valuable collection of pictures, which are too celebrated to need enumeration.  A curious change has taken place in the occupancy of some apartments—­many rooms originally intended for domestic offices being now tenanted by gentry.  The whole is a vast assemblage of art, and reminds us of the palace of Versailles, which is about the same distance from Paris as Hampton Court from London.

* * * * *

GREECE.

(For The Mirror.)

  Alas! for fair Greece, how her glories are failed,
  Her altars are broken, her trophies are gone,
  The Crescent her temples and shrines hath invaded,
  And Freedom hath bow’d to the Mussulman throne.