CannoJis, Dr. Hooper's Cottage, Priory Grounds. 279 



for some supposed irregularities in tlie mode by which he acquired 

 his immense fortune. That he did acquire both his wealth and 

 his title, as a government contractor, is a matter of notoriety ; but 

 we know of nothing upon record that indicates him to have been 

 less honest than other men of his time ; and it appears to us proba- 

 ble, that the chief difference between him and other men of modern 

 times, who have made large fortunes as government contractors, 

 consists in the greater liberality and public spirit he displayed in 

 spending the sums he had acquired. The park of Cannons has 

 the advantages of possessing a rich soil, and of being near Lon- 

 don ; but the situation is low, the grounds little varied, and there 

 is scarcely any distant prospect. In looking at the park from the 

 road, we observed some round clumps of newly planted trees, 

 placed in the midst of large open spaces, which we could not 

 but consider as deformities, destroying the breadth of the land- 

 scape. It surely could never be the intention of the planter, 

 that these formal and unconnected masses should grow up and 

 remain. 



Dr. Hooperh Cottage at Stanmore. — On Stanmore Hill great 

 efforts have been making in the cottage Gothic style, by Dr. 

 Hooper. The proprietor being from home, we did not enter the 

 grounds ; but we could observe the outline of the cottage pic- 

 turesquely varied by enriched clusters of chimney tops, and the 

 pointed roofs of projections and dormer windows. From what 

 we could see of the exterior offices and garden walls, they seemed 

 to be all finished in the same style, and in enrichments kept duly 

 subordinate to the principal mass. We have since heard that 

 the place, in the interior, is unique in its kind. 



The Grounds of the Priory. — Farther on are certain plantations 

 of spruce firs, apparently meant to conceal the grounds of the 

 Priory from the public road. They have been thickly planted, 

 and never thinned; and, like other woods of the same kind which 

 have been similarly treated, they are now beginning to defeat the 

 purpose for which they were intended. Had two thirds of the 

 plants been hollies, there would now have been a phalanx of vege- 

 tation, impenetrable, both as a fence and as a screen. A few 

 hollies, indeed, appear to have been planted among the spruce 

 firs ; but, from inattention to thinning out the latter, the former 

 have never come to any size. 



Watford deserves to be mentioned for its gravel, which is equal 

 to the best of that at Kensington. Mr. Snare, the nurseryman 

 here, has attracted notice, for many years past, by his dwarf 

 apple trees. It was formerly, it seems, quite new here, to graft 

 apples on paradise stocks, and thus produce bushes not larger, and 

 not less prolific, than the gooseberry. 



Cashiohury Park, the Seat of the Earl of Essex, has been cele- 

 brated for upwards of a century and a half, for its plantations and 



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