[Illustration: STRAWBERRY HILL FROM THE THAMES.]

We now despise the poor, over-ornate miniature Gothic style of
Strawberry Hill; we do not consider with what infinite pains the
structure was enlarged into its final and well-known form. In the first
place, Horace made a tour to collect models from the chief cathedral
cities in England; but the building required twenty-three years to
complete it. It was begun in 1753, and finished in 1776. Strawberry Hill
had one merit, everything was in keeping: the internal decorations, the
screens, the niches, the chimney-pieces, the book-shelves, were all
Gothic; and most of these were designed by Horace himself; and, indeed,
the description of Strawberry Hill is too closely connected with the
annals of his life to be dissevered from his biography. Here he gathered
up his mental forces to support and amuse himself during a long life,
sometimes darkened by spleen, but rarely by solitude; for Horace, with
much isolation of the heart, was, to the world, a social being.

What scandal, what trifles, what important events, what littleness of
mind, yet what stretch of intellect were henceforth issued by the
recluse of Strawberry, as he plumed himself on being styled, from that
library of 'Strawberry!' Let us picture to ourselves the place, the
persons--put on, if we can, the sentiments and habits of the retreat;
look through its loopholes, not only on the wide world beyond, but into
the small world within; and face the fine gentleman author in every
period of his varied life.

'The Strawberry Gazette,' Horace once wrote to a fine and titled lady,
'is very barren of weeds.' Such, however, was rarely the case. Peers,
and still better, peeresses,--politicians, actors, actresses,--the poor