Strong countenance of a tutor of Lord Eardley. No view, but of the Park, from any of these rooms; nor from the library, opening by pillars from a kind of ante-room, or vestibule. Before a cone at the upper end, is a most noble mahogany library-table with drawers. Between the windows are semicircular inlaid tables, with deep drawers for maps; some valuable modern books, but no old ones. The art of giving effect to the finest views, by permitting them to be seen only from the rooms whence they may be observed without interruption and in their perfection, is carried very far here; for, as you advance through the grounds to the house, the eye is confined by the woods; and is suffered only once to catch a glimpse of distance under the spreading shades, sufficient to touch the imagination and excite expectation of a scene, whose grandeur and simplicity, when at length it does appear, fully repays the impatience of curiosity. We did not see the woody grounds extending very far along the brow over the Thames, nor the tower of the Belvedere, nearly at the extremity of them and on their highest point. This must look down suddenly upon a new scene of the river, where it spreads into that broad bay, whose eastern point projects opposite to the broken steeps of Purfleet, and comprehends within its curve Erith, with its ivied church, and the hills around it, varied with woods and villas, and whose western point lies near the foot of this eminence, concealed by the woods. But from a window of this lofty tower I doubt not the eye extends to Gravesend in the east, and probably further. Its southern window must look athwart the back of Shooter’s Hill to the Knockholt beeches on the ridge near Seven-oaks; and its northern one over Epping Forest and a great part of Essex. Wherever the wood-walks open, there must be a glimpse of the river, and white sails gliding athwart the vista.” In the autumn of 1807, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe visited Knole House for the second time. The following is a small portion of Mrs. Radcliffe’s reminiscences of the house, and especially of its pictures. “We were astonished at the extent of this mansion, and at its vast collection of portraits. Warwick Castle has the greatest number of Vandyke’s pictures; Blenheim of Rubens’s; Knole of Holbein’s, with many of Vandyke too. The old porter at the first gate had lived about the spot fifty years; was there in the time of the late Duke’s grandfather: those were grand times; the late Dukes were very good, but things had got dearer then. When we were going, he desired Mr. R. to write our names in the book, that my lord might have the _pleasure_ of seeing who had been there. * * * * *