AMPTHILL PARK 83 



goes so far as to admire her "glorious figure" in 

 no veiled terms. 



Of course the author of "Modern Gardening" 

 makes allusions to flowers. " My house is a 

 bower of Tuberose ; " also " no fruit, no flowers, 

 no blackbirds, no thrushes because of the belated 

 summer." In January, 1797, when he had not two 

 months to live, writing, for what must have been 

 the last time, to "his Duchess" (as he sometimes 

 called Lady Ossory), he touchingly tells her, " I 

 shall be quite content with a sprig of Rosemary 

 thrown after me when the parson of the parish 

 commits my dust to dust." 



If Ampthill is bound up with the memory of 

 Katherine of Arragon and her presence there in 

 the past which lends it a perpetual interest it 

 is also not a little beholden to Horace Walpole, 

 for his love of its inmates and devotion to its 

 beauty. Admiration from a pen so brilliant and 

 unique as his, even if not always quite sincere, is a 

 tribute not lightly forgotten. 



