exemplified in the Grounds of Stoke Park. 587 



The park contains about 300 acres within the paling. It lies nearly due 

 north from Windsor, and is distant from it four miles. To render this park 

 what it is, the skill of artists of the first celebritj' (Richmond, Brown, Repton, 

 Wyatt, &c. &c.,) has been called in to aid in beautifying and adorning, and 

 generally, it is allowed, with the happiest success ; the architectural struc- 

 tures, the artificial rivers, and sylvans cenery, forming most picturesque and 

 pleasing combinations. 



The house is a large modern building composed of Grecian and Roman 

 architecture, having four fronts. The south one, or garden front, commands 

 a magnificent view of Windsor Castle ; the forest, with St. Leonard's on the 

 right, and the Surrey hills on the left. In this view (and the like may be said 

 of all the rest), the boundary of the park is perfectly concealed, and the 

 grouping of the trees so judiciously contrived, and made to blend so well with 

 the intermediate and distant country, as to give these grounds the effect of 

 indefinite extent. 



The view fi'om the east front (though not of that bold character as the 

 former) is a much-admired vista, terminated by a swelling wood of dark pines 

 at a distance of three miles, called Black Park, belonging to R. Harvey, Esq., 

 giving fine relief to the monument erected in memory of Gray, a handsome 

 stone sarcophagus on a lofty pedestal, with inscrifitions in the panels of its 

 four sides. In three of these are quotations from his works, and in the fourth 

 the following memento : — 



THIS MONUMENT, 



IN HONOUR OF THOMAS GRAY, 



WAS ERECTEB A. D. 1799, 

 AMONG THE SCENES CELEBRATED BY THAT GREAT LYRIC AND ELEGIAC 



POET. 



HE DIED JULY 30. 1771, 



AND LIES UNNOTICED IN THE CHURCHYARD ADJOINING, 



UNDER THE TOMBSTONE ON WHICH HE PIOUSLY AND PATHETICALLY 



RECORDED THE INTERMENT OF HIS AUNT 



AND LAMENTED MOTHER. 



This spot is much resorted to by persons of taste, both on account of its 

 beauty, as well as to contemplate those scenes which are supposed to have 

 inspired the muse of Gray to compose some of the most beautiful of his 

 poems. From here may be seen, at the east end of the church, under the 

 window, the gravestone under which the mortal remains of the poet are " for 

 ever laid." The picturesque chimneys, and a remnant of the old manor- 

 house, the subject of Gray's " Long Story," is also seen a little to the right of 

 the church. When seated on the plinth of this monument, and looking west- 

 ward, the eye takes in, in beautiful succession, over beds of flowers in the 

 foreground, the noble mansion at a distance; fine forms and masses of wood, 

 producing great variety of light and shade ; the church and churchyard ; at a 

 distance, in an opening in the park, a lofty column supporting the statue of 

 Sir E. Coke ; and the picturesque old mansion ; the harmonising effect of these 

 objects composing a finished picture. But to go back to the east front of the 

 house; the bridge is a great ornament to this view, both from its position and 

 its form, which is a small segment of a circle, with balustrades and three 

 semicircular arches, the whole built of stone. The spire of the church, too, 

 is an important object in this view, seen rising out of a mass of wood that 

 " crowns the watery glade." 



The north front, being that of approach, has but little to recommend it to 

 notice, the whole space on this side the pales being very flat ; and, although it 

 is well wooded, yet there are a heaviness and formal squareness in the outlines 

 ill adapted, in my opinion, to gratify the eye accustomed to view these things 

 witb taste and discrimination. The monotony, however, is somewhat relieved 

 by a high wood at a distance, and also by the lofty Doric colunm (before no- 

 ticed) supporting the statue of that great lawyer Sir Edward Coke, who died, 

 at an advanced age, in the old manor-house. 



