“Visits, after a certain hour, are not to be avoided; some of which I own to be a little fatiguing (tho’ thanks to the town’s laziness, they come pretty late) if the garden was not so near, as to give a seasonable refreshment between those ceremonious interruptions. And I am more sorry than my coachman himself, if I am forced to go abroad any part of the morning. For though my garden is such, as by not pretending to rarities or curiosities, has nothing in it to inveagle ones thoughts; yet by the advantage of situation and prospect, it is able to suggest the noblest that can be; in presenting at once to view a vast town, a palace, and a magnificent cathedral. I confess the last, with all its splendor, has less share in exciting my devotion, than the most common shrub in my garden; for though I am apt to be sincerely devout in any sort of religious assemblies, from the very best (that of our own church) even to those of Jews, Turks, and Indians: yet the works of nature appear to me the better sort of sermons; and every flower contains in it the most edifying rhetorick, to fill us with admiration of its omnipotent Creator. After I have dined (either agreeably with friends, or at worst with better company than your country neighbours) I drive away to a place of air and exercise; which some constitutions are in absolute need of: agitation of the body and diversion of the mind, being a composition of health above all the skill of Hippocrates.
“The small distance of this place from London, is just enough for recovering my weariness, and recruiting my spirits so as to make me better than before I set out, for either business or pleasure. At the mentioning the last of these, methinks I see you smile; but I confess myself so changed (which you maliciously, I know, will call decayed) as to my former enchanting delights, that the company I commonly find at home is agreeable enough to make me conclude the evening on a delightful terrace, or in a place free from late visits except of familiar acquaintance.
“By this account you will see that most of my time is conjugally spent at home; and consequently you will blame my laziness more than ever, for not employing it in a way which your partiality is wont to think me capable of: therefore I am obliged to go on with this trifling description, as some excuse for my idleness. But how such a description itself is excusable, is what I should be very much in pain about, if I thought any body could see it besides yourself, who are too good a judge in all things to mistake a friend’s compliance in a private letter, for the least touch of vanity.
“The avenues to this house are along St. James’s Park, through rows of goodly elms on one hand, and gay flourishing limes on the other; that for coaches, this for walking; with the Mall lying betwixt them. This reaches to my iron pallisade that encompasses a square court, which has in the midst a great basin with statues and water-works; and from its entrance rises all the way imperceptibly, till we mount to a terrace in the front of a large hall, paved with square white stones mixed with a dark-colour’d marble; the walls of it covered with a set of pictures done in the school of Raphael. Out of this on the right hand we go into a parlour thirty-three feet by thirty-nine, with a niche fifteen feet broad for a beausette, paved with white marble, and placed within an arch with pilasters of divers colours, the upper part of which as high as the ceiling is painted by Ricci.
“From hence we pass through a suite of large rooms, into a bedchamber of thirty-four feet by twenty-seven; within it a large closet, that opens into a green-house. On the left hand of the hall are three stone arches supported by three Corinthian pillars, under one of which we go up eight and forty steps, ten feet broad, each step of one entire Portland stone. These stairs by the help of two resting places, are so very easy, there is no need of leaning on the iron baluster. The walls are painted with the story of Dido; whom though the poet was obliged to dispatch away mournfully in order to make room for Lavinia, the better natur’d painter has brought no farther than to that fatal cave, where the lovers appear just entering, and languishing with desire. The roof of this stair-case, which is fifty-five feet from the ground, is forty feet by thirty-six, filled with the figures of Gods and Goddesses. In the midst is Juno, condescending to bed assistance from Venus, to bring about a marriage which the Fates intended should be the ruin of her own darling queen and people. By which that sublime poet intimates, that we should never be over eager for any thing, either in our pursuits, or our prayers; lest what we endeavour or ask too violently for our interest, should be granted us by Providence only in order to our ruin.
“The bas reliefs and all the little squares above are all episodical paintings of the same story: and the largeness of the whole had admitted of a sure remedy against any decay of the colours from salt petre in the wall, by making another of oak laths four inches within it, and so primed over like a picture.
“From a wide landing place on the stairs head, a great double door opens into an apartment of the same dimensions with that below, only three feet higher; notwithstanding which it would appear too low, if the higher saloon had not been divided from it. The first room of this floor has within it a closet of original pictures, which yet are not so entertaining as the delightful prospect from the windows. Out of the second room a pair of great doors give entrance into the saloon, which is thirty-five feet high, thirty-six broad, and forty-five long. In the midst of its roof a round picture of Gentileschi, eighteen feet in diameter, represents the Muses playing in concert to Apollo lying along on a cloud to hear them. The rest of the room is adorned with paintings relating to arts and sciences; and underneath divers original pictures hang all in good lights, by the help of an upper row of windows which drown the glaring.
“Much of this seems appertaining to parade, and therefore I am glad to leave it to describe the rest, which is all for conveniency. As first, a covered passage from the kitchen without doors; and another down to the cellars and all the offices within. Near this, a large and lightsome back stairs leads up to such an entry above, as secures our private bedchambers both from noise and cold. Here we have necessary dressing rooms, servants rooms, and closets, from which are the pleasantest views of all the house, with a little door for communication betwixt this private apartment and the great one.
“These stairs, and those of the same kind at the other end of the house, carry us up to the highest story, fitted for the women and children, with the floors so contrived as to prevent all noise over my wife’s head, during the mysteries of Lucina.
“In mentioning the court at first, I forgot the two wings in it, built on stone arches which join the house by corridores supported by Ionic pillars. In one of these wings is a large kitchen thirty feet high, with an open cupulo on the top; near it a larder, brew-house, and laundry, with rooms over them for servants; the upper sort of servants are lodged in the other wing, which has also two wardrobes and a store-room for fruit. On the top of all a leaden cistern holding fifty tuns of water, driven up by an engine from the Thames, supplies all the water-works[[1]] in the courts and gardens, which lie quite round the house; through one of which a grass walk conducts to the stables, built round a court, with six coach houses and forty stalls. I will add but one thing before I carry you into the garden, and that is about walking too, but ’tis on the top of all the house; which being covered with smooth milled lead, and defended by a parapet of balusters from all apprehension as well as danger, entertains the eye with a far distant prospect of hills and dales, and a near one of parks and gardens. To these gardens we go down from the house by seven steps, into a gravel walk that reaches cross the garden, with a covered arbour at each end of it. Another of thirty feet broad leads from the front of the house, and lies between two groves of tall lime trees, planted in several equal ranks upon a carpet of grass: the outsides of these groves are bordered with tubs of bays and orange trees. At the end of this broad walk, you go up to a terrace four hundred paces long, with a large semicircle in the middle, from whence is beheld the Queen’s two parks, and a great part of Surry; then going down a few steps, you walk on the bank of a canal six hundred yards long, and seventeen broad, with two rows of limes on each side of it.