amusements were architecture and gardening. He had already
created on a sandy heath in Guelders a paradise, which attracted
multitudes of the curious from Holland and Westphalia. Mary had
laid the first stone of the house. Bentinck had superintended the
digging of the fishponds. There were cascades and grottoes, a
spacious orangery, and an aviary which furnished Hondekoeter with
numerous specimens of manycoloured plumage.61 The King, in his
splendid banishment, pined for this favourite seat, and found
some consolation in creating another Loo on the banks of the
Thames. Soon a wide extent of ground was laid out in formal walks
and parterres. Much idle ingenuity was employed in forming that
intricate labyrinth of verdure which has puzzled and amused five
generations of holiday visitors from London. Limes thirty years
old were transplanted from neighbouring woods to shade the
alleys. Artificial fountains spouted among the flower beds. A new
court, not designed with the purest taste, but stately, spacious,
and commodious, rose under the direction of Wren. The wainscots
were adorned with the rich and delicate carvings of Gibbons. The
staircases were in a blaze with the glaring frescoes of Verrio.
In every corner of the mansion appeared a profusion of gewgaws,
not yet familiar to English eyes. Mary had acquired at the Hague
a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused herself by forming
at Hampton a vast collection of hideous images, and of vases on
which houses, trees, bridges, and mandarins were depicted in
outrageous defiance of all the laws of perspective. The fashion,
a frivolous and inelegant fashion it must be owned, which was
thus set by the amiable Queen, spread fast and wide. In a few
years almost every great house in the kingdom contained a museum
of these grotesque baubles. Even statesmen and generals were not
ashamed to be renowned as judges of teapots and dragons; and