House and Garden 
one of the larger kitchens at Oxford or Cambridge, 
and it is said that a ton of coal is required to set 
the huge fire going in the morning. 
A memorable scene took place at Stowe. King 
Louis XVIII., of 
France, driven 
from his country 
by the revolution 
of 1793, came to 
reside in the 
neighbourhood 
at Hartwell 
House, Bucking¬ 
hamshire. The 
illustrious exile 
often used to 
visit Stowe and 
here he met 
Louis Philippe, 
who went on his 
knees and beg¬ 
ged pardon of 
his royal uncle 
for having ever 
worn the tri- 
coloured cock¬ 
ade. Another 
illustrious name, 
connected with 
the history of France is associated with Stowe. 
The Comte de Paris came to reside here in 1889, 
and died in the house six years later. 
The gardens occupy four hundred acres. Historic 
they are, and associated with the names of many 
worthies in English history, neglected but glorious, 
appearing like a grove adorned with obelisks, col¬ 
umns, statues, temples, and towers apparently emerg¬ 
ing from a luxuriant mass of foliage. They were 
originally laid out by Viscount Cobham, who em¬ 
ployed Bridgman and Kent to carry out his designs. 
A lake spreads its placid waters on the south side, 
and on the side remote from the house are two 
Ionic pavilions designed by Kent. A little lake 
is hidden within a shady dell, wherein trees and 
thickets, grass and flowers flourish, and here and 
there quaint monuments and temples arise amid the 
verdure, sometimes recalling (as Horace Walpole 
wrote) “Albano’s landscapes to our mind: and 
oftener to our fancy the idolatrous and luxurious 
vales of Daphne and Tempe.” We can imagine 
the aged beau “with certain other giddy young 
creatures of near three-score supping in a grotto 
in these Elysian fields, refreshed with rivers of dew 
and gentle showers that dripped from all the trees, 
and being reminded of the heroic ages when kings 
and queens were shepherds and shepherdesses, and 
lived in caves, and were wet to the skin two or 
three times a day.” 
We find a monument of Lord Cobham’s nephew, 
Captain Thomas Grenville, who was killed fighting 
the French under Admiral Lord Anson, in 1747. 
Yet another temple is that of Concord and Victory, 
girt with Ionic 
columns, erected 
for the co m- 
memoration of 
the Treaty of 
Paris in 1763 
and the close 
of the Seven 
Years’ War. 
Lord Cobham’s 
pillar still sur¬ 
vives and an urn 
keeps in mem¬ 
ory the achieve¬ 
ments of Wil¬ 
liam Pitt, Earl 
of Chatham. 
Here is the 
Temple of 
Friendship. Wal¬ 
pole has enumer¬ 
ated many of 
the ephemeral 
friendships it 
commemorated. 
It is impossible to exhaust the treasures of Stowe’s 
wondrous gardens. The Bourbon tower records the 
restoration of the French monarchy in 1814; Kent’s 
monkey tells of the comedies of Congreve; a Moor¬ 
ish Gothic temple which reminded Walpole of the 
Place of St. Mark’s, Venice, and I know not what 
else lies buried within the shades of the trees. 
Rysbrach’s seven statues of Saxon deities who gave 
their names to the days of the week used to be 
there, but perhaps they have vanished. I hen there 
is the Palladian Bridge, after the design of the great 
Italian, a fine structure similar to that at Wilton. 
It was in the gardens at Stowe that “Capability 
Brown first worked, whose hand fell heavily on 
many a fair English garden, which he uprooted and 
destroyed in his quest for landscape-gardening 
triumphs. Here his energies were happily confined 
to the kitchen-garden, and it would have been well 
if he had never strayed from the cultivation of 
useful herbs. 
We love to linger among the trees of Stowe and 
picture to ourselves its past glories and to see the 
ghosts of the great men who trod the Elysian fields 
and read again Walpole’s delightful descriptions of 
his visit with the Princess Amelia and other exalted 
people, “whose images crowd upon one’s memory 
and add visionary personages to the charming scenes, 
that are so enriched with fanes and temples, that the 
real prospects are little less than visions themselves.” 
24 
