arrived to see the house--a man and three women in riding-dresses--who
'rode post' through the apartments. 'I could not,' he adds, 'hurry
before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing the whole
gallery as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by
heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of
_seers_; they come, ask what such a room is called in which Sir Robert
lay, write it down, admire a lobster or a cabbage in a Market Piece,
dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the
inn, for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my
sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one but I
remembered in Downing Street, or Chelsea, where queens and crowds
admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers![5]

[5: Sir Robert Walpole purchased a house and garden at Chelsea in 1722,
near the college, adjoining Gough House.--Cunningham's 'London.']

After tea he strolled into the garden. They told him it was now called a
_pleasure-ground._ To Horace it was a scene of desolation--a floral
Nineveh. 'What a dissonant idea of pleasure!--those groves, those
_allées_, where I have passed so many charming moments, were now
stripped up or overgrown--many fond paths I could not unravel, though
with an exact clue in my memory. I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand
hares! In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity
(and you will think perhaps it is far from being out of tune yet), I
hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with
many regrets, I love Houghton--Houghton, I know not what to call it--a
monument of grandeur or ruin!'

Although he did not go with the expectation of finding a land flowing
with milk and honey, the sight of all this ruin long saddened his