This is the great vine, ninety years or a hundred old, of the Black
Hamburg variety. It does not cover as much space as the Carolina
Scuppernong--the native variety that so surprised and delighted
Raleigh's Roanoke Island settlers in 1585--often does. But its
bunches, sometimes two or three thousand in number, are much larger
than the Scuppernong's little clumps of two or three. They weigh
something like a pound each, and are thought worthy of being reserved
for Victoria's dessert. Her own family vine has burgeoned so broadly
that three thousand pounds of grapes would not be a particularly large
dish for a Christmas dinner for the united Guelphs.

[Illustration: GATE TO PRIVATE GARDEN.]

We must not forget the Labyrinth, "a mighty maze, but not without a
plan," that has bewildered generations of young and old children since
the time of its creator, William of Orange. It is a feature of the
Dutch style of landscape gardening imprinted by him upon the Hampton
grounds. He failed to impress a like stamp upon that chaos of queer,
shapeless and contradictory means to beneficent ends, the British
constitution.

Hampton Court, notwithstanding the naming of the third quadrangle the
Fountain Court, and the prominence given to a fountain in the design
of the principal grounds, is not rich in waterworks. Nature has done a
good deal for it in that way, the Thames embracing it on two sides
and the lowness of the flat site placing water within easy reach
everywhere. This superabundance of the element did not content the
magnificent Wolsey. He was a man of great ideas, and to secure a head
for his jets he sought an elevated spring at Combe Wood, more than two
miles distant. To bring this supply he laid altogether not less than