miles and a half on the great western road, is Spring Grove, a seat of SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BART, of which we present a view. This is a substantial, but unornamented, brick mansion, built by the late Elisha Biscoe, Esq. The interior, though not on an extensive scale, is commodious, and fairly suited to the temperate and elegant style of hospitality in which the distinguished proprietor is well known to live. Sir Joseph Banks has not any museum at this villa, and his peculiar good taste is chiefly perceptible in the air of dignified simplicity which prevails throughout. The name of its eminent possessor is sufficient to impart interest to this mansion;-a name revered wherever science has a votary and genuine worth is respected.

THE HUNDRED OF SPELTHORNE

occupies the south-western portion of Middlesex, and is bounded on the south by the river Thames, which also waters a great part of its limits on the east and west, naturally dividing it, in each of these districts, from the county of Surrey. Towards the north it meets Buckinghamshire; and in other directions it abuts on the hundreds of Isleworth and Elthorne.

This division of the county contains one market-town, Staines; and is enriched by the regal Palace of Hampten Court.

HAMPTON.

This parish is rendered peculiarly interesting to the student of English bistory, and to the admirer of the fine arts, by a Palace connected with some important passages of national story, and which presents, in many parts, a splendid specimen of the English style of domestic architecture at a period conspicuous for pomp and adornment. The parish of Hampton

is

is bounded towards the south by the river Thames, and meets on other sides, the parishes of Twickenham, Teddington, Hanworth, and Sunbury.

In the record termed Domesday the manor of Hampton is stated to be held by Walter de St. Waleric. It answered for thirty-five hides. Land to twenty-five ploughs. Pasture for the cattle of the village. For nets and draughts in the river Thames, three shillings. The whole value was thirty-nine pounds; when received twenty pounds. In King Edward's time, forty pounds.†

Towards the commencement of the thirteenth century this manor was bestowed on the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, by Lady Joan Gray, who died in the year 1211. Early in the reign of Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, intent on building here a mansion suited to his ostentatious habits, procured a lease of the manor from the prior of St. John's, which lease he surrendered to the King in 1526. On the suppression of the order of Knights Hospitallers, the fee of the manor was retained by the crown, to which it has since continued annexed, except as to the usual interruption of royal property which occurred during the usurpation of Cromwell.

When King Henry VIII. was unable, from the pressure of age and the increase of that corpulency which was the disease of his habit, to pursue his wonted field-pleasures in the freedom of the forest, an act of Parliament was passed for making a royal chase, called Hampton Court Chase, which extended over the parish of Hampton and several parishes on the opposite side of the Thames; the whole of which district was enclosed

For the right of fishing and laying nets there.

+ Bawdwen's Trans. of Domesday for Midd. p. 21.

In the year 1180, there was a preceptory at Hampton, in which resid ed a sister of the order of St. John. She was removed, with other sisters of the same order, from preceptories in various places, to a convent at Buckland, in Somersetshire, Lysons, after Dugdale's Monasticon, Vol. II. p、 5.54.

enclosed within a wooden paling, and was stocked with deer. So arbitrary an exercise of power could not fail to occasion great discontent; and, in consequence of the numerous applications for relief preferred by the inhabitants of the aggrieved villages, an order of council was made by the Lord Protector (Somerset) in the reign of Edward VI, under the operation of which the deer were removed and the paling taken down. But the district formerly enclosed is still considered as a royal chase, and the paramount authority over all game within its limits has been reserved by the crown.

The manor of Hampton Court was created an honour, by act of Parliament, in the year 1540; and it is believed that there are not more than two other honours in the kingdom which, like this, are not formed from escheated Baronies.*

The honour of Hampton Court comprehends numerous manors on the Surrey side of the river Thames, and the manors of Hampton; Hanworth; Kennington (or Kempton); Feltham, and Teddington, in Middlesex. The office of chief Steward of this Honour has uniformly been held in conjunction with that of Lieutenant and Keeper of his Majesty's Chase mentioned above. These offices have always been bestowed on persons of dignity or esteem at Court, and they were granted in 1797, to his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, by whom they are now exercised.

HAMPTON COURT.

The Royal Palace so termed is situated on the northern border of the river Thames, at the distance of about one mile from the village of Hampton. Although founded by a subject, and constructed at different periods, this is, perhaps, the most magnificent of all the Royal Palaces of England, and it is certainly the most capacious.

It

See Madox's Baronia Angliea, p. 9, 10. The two other Honours thes particularly constituted arc said by Madox to be Ampthill and Grafton.