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GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



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THE FOUNTAIN GARDEN. 



1 Country Lije." 



the park gates, says that " Art and Nature did strive which 

 might contribute most to make him a most accomplished 

 gentleman." The second Harl of Bridgewater was a liberal 

 patron of learning, and once was a friend of Milton. It was 

 said that upon the circumstance of his losing his way, with his 

 sister, in a wood at Harefield, some miles from Ashridge, the 

 plot of " Comus " was founded. But when Milton published 

 his " Pro Pofiilo Anglicano Defensio," Bridgewater wrote upon 



THE MONKS' WALK. 



the title of his copy, "Liber igne, auctor furcd dignissimi." 

 Much concerning Ashridge and its old possessors may be road 

 in Todd's " History of the College of Bonshommes at 

 Asnridge," 1823. 



Earl Brownlow holds Ashridge by female descent from 

 the House of Egerton, Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater. 

 Their monuments are in the church at Little Gaddesden, 

 with epitaphs so magnificent as to inspire a belief, as one 



writer said, that we of tlvs 

 later age are but very 

 degenerate individuals. The 

 monument of the last Duke, the 

 father of inland navigation, the 

 suitor, too, of one of the 

 "beautiful Miss Gunnings," he 

 who could see no use in rivers 

 except as feeders of navigable 

 canals, is among them. It was 

 the Duke's misfortune that the 

 beauties of life did not appeal to 

 him. Perhaps they wsre all 

 swallowed up in the supreme 

 beauty of Miss Gunning, in 

 whose honour he remained a 

 bachelor to the end of his days. 

 Women never waited upon him, 

 and things that were merely 

 ornamental he despised. Once, 

 it is recorded, on returning from 

 London to his Lancashire house 

 at Worsley, finding some flowers 

 had been planted there, he 

 " whipped their heads off and 

 ordered them to be rooted up." 

 When, therefore, he died in 

 1803, leaving Ashridge to his 

 cousin and successor in the 

 liarldom, General Hdward Egrr- 

 ton, his work at his fine 



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