‘Last Friday Lady Mansfield and Miss Murray (grand-niece to the Lord Chief Justice) came here from Kenwood, and invited Mrs. Boscawen and all her guests to dine there yesterday, which we did. A most agreeable day it proved, Lord Mansfield in charming spirits; and after dinner he invited me to walk round his garden and through his wood; and by the time we came back to tea it was eight o’clock. We had walked two miles at least, and though I felt a little tired, the pleasure of the place and his conversation made me not sensible of it till I came home.’ This walk was most probably the serpentine path which is mentioned by Brewer, nearly two miles in extent, and which conducted round the most interesting part of the grounds, and through the large and venerable woods. In this perambulation some charming views occur, revealing landscapes wholly unconnected with the demesne, but which add greatly to its apparent extent and picturesqueness. Looking at an engraving of Caen Wood House, taken after its restoration and enlargement by Robert Adam, and subsequently Saunders, soon after it came into the possession of the then Attorney-General, it looks a fitting home for learned leisure, or the refreshment of one weary of the toil of public life. Handsome without magnificence, lapped amongst bowery woods, with charming views, fine gardens, water, and beautifully laid-out grounds. We read that within the house the arrangements were more imposing than the exterior would suggest, the rooms being large, lofty, and well proportioned.[217] Amongst the pictures were several portraits of celebrated men, notably two by Pope (who took lessons of Jarvis, the face-painter), the famous head of Betterton, the actor, and the portrait of the poet himself. After the burning of his lordship’s house in Bloomsbury Grove, hundreds of persons called at Caen Wood to inquire if Pope’s portrait had been saved.[218] Lord Mansfield lived to be eighty-six years of age, and voluntarily resigned in 1788 (not a day, it was said, before it was imperatively necessary for him to do so) the Lord Chief Justiceship of the Court of King’s Bench, which he had held for thirty-two years. [Illustration: _Caen Wood House._] When Fanny Burney, on the occasion of her visit to Mrs. Crewe at Hampstead, was taken by that lady to see, amongst other places of interest, Caen Wood, she tells us Lord Mansfield had not been out of his room for four years, though he continued to see his intimate friends. His last years, she is careful to note, were brightened by the assiduous attentions and tender care of his nieces, the Hon. Miss Murrays. He died March, 1793.