Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

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HAMPTON COURT
If the court, when viewed from the cloister, appears
somewhat small, the effect of the east and south fronts
is entirely the reverse of this. There was compactness;
here is size and magnificence.
Through the cloister at the middle of the eastern
side we enter, under the state-rooms, into the great
Fountain Garden. Here the design of William III.
to rival Versailles becomes at once apparent, as the
trees and canals stretch out in vistas before the eye.
But of the gardens we do not now speak. We
turn rather to examine the great front of Wren's
building, which shows more than any other part of
the Palace the impressive dignity of his design.
Formal it is certainly, and geometrical, the work of
an accurate draughtsman, whose eye was ruled, it
might seem, by mathematical calculations. But it is
impossible to deny the magnificence of the plan. It
were absurd to compare it with Wolsey's front, the
characteristic excellences of each are so distinct and
different. It is the most important specimen of Louis
Quatorze architecture that we have in England. It
should be compared with Versailles;and it will bear
the comparison. But inappropriate though the thought
may be,Icannot but confess that it makes me think
also of the Italian palaces which were raised in the
fifteenth century, like the Strozzi Palace at Florence,
or the sixteenth or seventeenth century palaces of
Florence and Genoa, and it seems to me that Wren's
building has a variety and attractiveness which the
others lack. In Hampton Court Wren brought this