any one condemned to make this lovely spot his home are not apt to present themselves as the acme of despair.  A sensation of relief and lulling repose would be more reasonably expected, especially after so stormy a career as that of Louis.  The change from restless and capricious Paris to dewy shades and luxurious halls in the heart of changeless and impregnable England ought, on common principles, to have promoted the content and prolonged the life of the old king.  Possibly it did, but if so, the French had not many months’ escape from a second Orleans regency, for the exile’s experience of Claremont was brief.  We may wander over his lawns, and reshape to ourselves his reveries.  Then we may forget the man who lost an empire as we look up at the cenotaph of him who conquered one.  Both brought grist to Miller Bull, the fortunate and practical-minded owner of such vast water-privileges.  His water-power seems proof against all floods, while the corn of all nations must come to his door.  Standing under these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we hear none of the clatter of the great mill, and we cease to dream of affixing a period to its noiseless and effective work.

[Illustration:  CLIVE’S MONUMENT.]

If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail will carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and more or less dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames.  But a surfeit even of English country-houses and their pleasances is a possible thing; and nowhere are they more abundant than within an hour’s walk of our present locality.  So, taking Ashley Park, Burwood Park, Pains Hill and many others, as well as the Coway Stakes—­said by one school of antiquarians to have been planted in the Thames by Caesar, and by another to be the relics of a fish-weir—­Walton Church and Bradshaw’s house, for granted, we shall turn to the east and finish the purlieus of Hampton with a glance at the old Saxon town of Kingston-on-Thames.  Probably an ardent Kingstonian would indignantly disown the impression our three words are apt to give of the place.  It is a rapidly—­growing town, and “Egbert, the first king of all England,” who held a council at “Kyningestun, famosa ilia locus,” in 838, would be at a loss to find his way through its streets could he revisit it.  It has the population of a Saxon county.  Viewed from the massive bridge, with the church-tower rising above an expanse of sightly buildings, it possesses the least possible resemblance to the cluster of wattled huts that may be presumed to have sheltered Egbert and his peers.

[Illustration:  PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.]