CHISWICK HOUSE 
tones of greens, and in dealing with trees that turn red and 
yellow in autumn. 
In the grounds at Chiswick there is a certain sedgy pool in the 
centre of which is an obelisk—one of three in the gardens— 
and while its moss-grown base is reflected in the still water, its 
summit catches, at times, the last gleams of the sinking sun. It 
lies in a green hollow, and is faced by a little domed and circular 
temple with a portico of the Ionic order, and broad steps; a temple 
that looks eastward. Above the pool, now picturesquely-enough 
half choked with reeds and rushes—rise in concentric semicircles, 
terraces of soft green turf, said to have been the favourite haunt 
of Georgiana, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire. 
The whole is shut in on the north, east, and west sides, by a 
dense and high plantation of yews, and solemn evergreen oaks. 
But rather to the left there is a break in the belt of foliage, allowing 
a vista of open glade terminating in the elegant Palladian stone 
bridge that—superseding the original wooden one—the architect 
Wyatt threw across the serpentine lake that lies at the farther 
side of the little temple just referred to. 
A gentle and rather pleasing melancholy pervades the spot, 
even when the sun shines; for it belongs obviously to the past, 
and is reminiscent of the faded glories of the eighteenth century ; 
the temple itself showing very evident signs of incipient decay. 
I first beheld the place on a moist, rather sad afternoon in 
February, when nature seemed asleep and almost devoid of life 
Everything was damp and cheerless—last year’s sedges and rushes, 
for the most part, lay prostrate, dank and yellowing, and partly 
submerged, in the pool. But here and there touches of bright green 
testified to the presence of life in this apparent death, and also to the 
promise of spring even, in decay. The old-world stateliness of the 
place made itself felt notwithstanding the cheerlessness of the 
afternoon, and there lingered over the scene that subtle charm 
which nothing can obliterate when nature is resting and quiescent. 
It was that moment : 
“* Before decay’s defacing fingers 
Has swept the lines where beauty lingers.” 
‘The chastened sentiment of the place was so exactly in harmony 
with the mood of the day, that mentally I instantly resolved to 
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