Among the most ancient heads is a medallion of Henry VII. by Torregiano, the peppery and gifted Florentine who executed the marvelous chapel in Westminster Abbey and broke the nose of Michael Angelo.  English art—­or rather art in England—­may be said to date from him.  He could not create a school of artists in the island—­the material did not exist—­but the few productions he left there stood out so sharply from anything around them that the possessors of the wealth that was then beginning to accumulate employed it in drawing from the Continent additional treasures from the newly-found world of beauty.  The riches of England have grown apace, and her collectors have used them liberally, if not always wisely, until her galleries, in time, have come to be sought by the connoisseurs, and even the artists, of the Continent.

[Illustration:  Portico leading to gardens.]

The last picture-gallery we traverse is the only one at Hampton Court specially built for its purpose; and it is empty.  This is the room erected by Sir Christopher Wren for the reception of the Cartoons.  It leads us to the corridor that opens on the garden-front.  We leave behind us, in addition to the state apartments, a great many others which are peopled by other inhabitants than the big spiders, said to be found nowhere else, known as cardinals.  The old palace is not kept wholly for show, but is made useful in the political economy of the kingdom by furnishing a retreat to impecunious members of the oligarchy.  Certain families of distressed aristocrats are harbored here—­clearly a more wholesome arrangement than letting them take their chance in the world and bring discredit on their class.

[Illustration:  Centre avenue.]

Emerging on the great gardens, forty four acres in extent, we find ourselves on broad walks laid out with mathematical regularity, and edged by noble masses of yew, holly, horse-chestnut, etc. almost as rectangular and circular.  We are here struck with the great advantage derived in landscape gardening from the rich variety of large evergreens possible in the climate of Britain.  The holly, unknown as an outdoor plant in this country north of Philadelphia, is at home in the north of Scotland, eighteen degrees nearer the pole.  We are more fortunate with the Conifers, many of the finest of which family are perfectly hardy here.  But we miss the deodar cedar, the redwood and Washingtonia of California, and the cedar of Lebanon.  These, unless perhaps the last, cannot be depended on much north of the latitude of the Magnolia grandiflora. They thrive all over England, with others almost as beautiful, and as delicate north of the Delaware.  Of the laurel tribe, also hardy in England, our Northern States have but a few weakly representatives.  So with the Rhododendra.

[Illustration:  Hampton court—­garden front.]