beautifully painted by that celebrated history-painter, Sir Peter
Paul Rubens: it is adorned on the outside with a lower and upper
range of columns of the Ionic and Composite orders, their capitals
enriched with fruit, foliage, &c., the intercolumns of the upper and
lower range being handsome sashed windows. It is surrounded on the
top with stone rails or banisters, and covered with lead.

St. James's Palace, where the Royal Family now resides in the winter
season, stands pleasantly upon the north side of the Park, and has
several noble rooms in it, but is an irregular building, by no means
suitable to the grandeur of the British monarch its master. In the
front next St. James's Street there appears little more than an old
gate-house, by which we enter a little square court, with a piazza
on the west side of it leading to the grand staircase; and there are
two other courts beyond, which have not much the air of a prince's
palace. This palace was a hospital, suppressed by Henry VIII., who
built this edifice in the room of it.

But the house most admired for its situation is that of the Duke of
Buckingham at the west end of the Park; in the front of which,
towards the Mall and the grand canal, is a spacious court, the
offices on each side having a communication with the house by two
little bending piazzas and galleries that form the wings. This
front is adorned with two ranges of pilasters of the Corinthian and
Tuscan orders, and over them is an acroteria of figures,
representing Mercury, Secrecy, Equity, and Liberty, and under them
this inscription in large golden characters, viz., SIC SITI
LAETANTVR LARES (Thus situated, may the household gods rejoice).

Behind the house is a fine garden and terrace, from whence there is