and courteous: the churches are many and elegant enough, especially Allhallows, a neat fabric of modern architecture, with a very handsome spire. St. Peter’s in the east is venerable for its antiquity: the east end by its fabric appears prior to the time of the Conquest. Leaving this famous repository of learning, we saw on our left hand, on the other side of the river, the last ruins of Godstow nunnery, placed among the sweet meadows: here fair Rosamond, the beloved mistress of Henry II. had a tomb remarkably fine; but before the dissolution, scarce could her ashes rest, whose beauty was thought guilty even after death. [Sidenote: +Woodstock.+] At Woodstock we saw part of the old palace, and her famous labyrinth, which is since destroyed: her bathing-place, or well (as called) is left, a quadrangular receptacle of most pure water, immediately flowing from a little spring under the hill, and over-shadowed with trees: near it some few ruins of walls and arches. King Ethelred called a parliament here; it has been a royal seat from most ancient times: Henry I. inclosed the park. A-cross this valley was a remarkably fine echo, that would repeat a whole hexameter, but impaired by the removal of these buildings. A stately bridge from hence now leads along the grand approach to the present castle: one arch is above a hundred foot diameter: a cascade of water falls from a great lake down some stone steps into the canal that runs under it. The new palace is a vast and magnificent pile of building; a royal gift to the high merit of the invincible duke of Marlborough; the lofty hall is painted by Sir James Thornhill; the salon by la Guerre: the rooms are finely enriched with marble chimney-pieces and furniture, but more by the incomparable paintings: many of Rubens’s best and largest pieces; that celebrated one of himself, his wife, and child, among others; Vandyke’s king Charles I. upon a dun horse, of great value; and the famous loves of the Gods, by Titian, a present from the king of Sardinia. The gallery I admired beyond any thing I have seen, lined with marble pilasters and whole pillars of one piece, supporting a most costly and beautiful entablature, excellent for matter and workmanship: the window frames of the same, and a basement of black marble quite round. Before it is stretched out a most agreeable prospect of the fine woods beyond the great valley: it is indeed of an admirable model: this, and what is of the most elegant taste in the whole house, is of the duchess’s own designing. The chapel is not yet finished, and which I doubt not will be equal to the rest. The garden is a large plot of ground taken out of the park, and may still be said to be part of it; well contrived by sinking the outer wall into a foss, to give one a view quite round, and take off the odious appearance of confinement and limitation to the eye, and which quite spoils the pleasure and intention of a garden: within, it is well adorned with walks, greens,