BLENHEIM PALACE, FROM THE LAKE.
The palace is a massive structure, with spacious portals and lofty towers, and its principal front, which faces the north, extends three hundred and forty-eight feet from wing to wing, with a portico and flight of steps in the centre. The interior is very fine, with magnificently-painted ceilings, tapestries, statuary, and a rare collection of pictures. The tapestries represent Blenheim and other battles, and there are one hundred and twenty copies of famous masters, made by Teniers. A stately statue of Queen Anne stands in the library. There are costly collections of enamels, plaques, and miniatures; on the walls are huge paintings by Sir James Thornhill, one representing the great duke, in a blue cuirass, kneeling before Britannia, clad in white and holding a lance and wreath; Hercules and Mars stand by, and there are emblem-bearing females and the usual paraphernalia. We are told that Thornhill was paid for these at the rate of about six dollars per square yard. The duchess Sarah also poses in the collection as Minerva, wearing a yellow classic breastplate. Among other relics kept in the palace are Oliver Cromwell's teapot, another teapot presented by the Duc de Richelieu to Louis XIV., two bottles that belonged to Queen Anne, and some Roman and Grecian pottery. The great hall, which has the battle of Blenheim depicted on its ceiling, extends the entire height of the building; the library is one hundred and eighty-three feet long; and in the chapel, beneath a pompous marble monument, rest the great duke and his proud duchess Sarah, and their two sons, who died in early years. The pleasure-gardens extend over three hundred acres along the borders of the lake and river, and are very attractive. They contain the Temple of Health erected on the recovery of George III. from his illness, an aviary, a cascade elaborately constructed of large masses of rock, a fountain copied after one in Rome, and a temple of Diana. This great estate was the reward of the soldier whose glories were sung by Addison in his poem on the Campaign. Addison then lived in a garret up three pair of stairs over a small shop in the Haymarket, London, whither went the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get him to write the poem, and afterwards gave him a place worth $1000 a year as a reward. The Marlboroughs since have been almost too poor to keep up this magnificent estate in its proper style, for the family of Spencer-Churchill, which now holds the title, unlike most of the other great English houses, has not been blessed with a princely private fortune. Not far from Woodstock is Minster Lovel, near the village of Whitney. Some fragments of the house remain, and it has its tale of interest, like all these old houses. Lord Lovel was one of the supporters of the impostor Simnel against Henry VII., and his rebellion being defeated in the decisive battle at Stoke in Nottinghamshire, Lord Lovel escaped by unfrequented roads and arrived home at night. He was so disguised that he was only known by a single servant, on whose fidelity he could rely. Before daybreak he retired to a subterranean recess, of which this servant retained the key, and here he remained several months in safe concealment. The king confiscated the estate, however, and dispersed the household, so that the voluntary prisoner perished from hunger. During the last century, when this stately house was pulled down, the vault was discovered, with Lord Lovel seated in a chair as he had died. So completely had rubbish excluded the air that his dress, which was described as superb, and a prayer-book lying before him on the table, were entire, but soon after the admission of the air the body is said to have fallen into dust.
BICESTER AND EYNSHAM.
BICESTER MARKET.
BICESTER PRIORY.
A pleasant and old-fashioned town, not far away from Oxford, is Bicester, whereof one part is known as the King's End and the other as the Market End. Here is the famous Bicester Priory, founded in the twelfth century through the influence of Thomas à Becket. It was intended for a prior and eleven canons, in imitation of Christ and his eleven disciples. The priory buildings remained for some time after the dissolution of the religious houses, but they gradually disappeared, and all that now exists is a small farm-house about forty feet long which formed part of the boundary-wall of the priory, and is supposed to have been a lodge for the accommodation of travellers. In the garden was a well of never-failing water held in high repute by pilgrims, and which now supplies a fish-pond. The priory and its estates have passed in regular succession through females from its founder, Gilbert Basset, to the Stanleys, and it is now one of the possessions of the Earl of Derby. Bicester is an excellent specimen of an ancient English market-town, and its curious block of market-buildings, occupied by at least twenty-five tenements, stands alone and clear in the marketplace. There are antique gables, one of the most youthful of which bears the date of 1698. On the top is a promenade used by the occupants in summer weather. In the neighboring village of Eynsham is said to be the stone coffin that once held Fair Rosamond's remains, but it has another occupant, one Alderman Fletcher having also been buried in it in 1826. Eynsham once had an abbey, of which still survives the shaft of a stone cross quaintly carved with the figures of saints. It is a relic probably of the thirteenth century, but nothing remains of the abbey beyond a few stones that may have belonged to it. It was near Eynsham, not very long ago, that a strange dark-green water-plant first made its appearance in the Thames, and spread so rapidly that it soon quite choked the navigation of the river, and from there soon extended almost all over the kingdom. The meadows and the rivers became practically all alike, a green expanse, in which from an eminence it was difficult to tell where the water-courses lay. This plant was called the "American weed," the allegation being that it came over in a cargo of timber from the St. Lawrence. It caused great consternation, but just when matters looked almost hopeless it gradually withered and died, bringing the navigation welcome relief.