p. 76 _noble Clifdon_. Evelyn, 23 July, 1679, writes: ‘To Court: after dinner I visited that excellent painter, Verrio, whose works in _fresco_ in the King’s palace, at Windsor, will celebrate his name as long as those walls last.... I went to Clifden, that stupendous natural rock, wood, and prospect, of the Duke of Buckingham’s, buildings of extraordinary expense. The grots in the chalky rock are pretty: it is a romantic object, and the place altogether answers the most poetical description that can be made of solitude, precipice, prospect, or whatever can contribute to a thing so very like their imaginations. The stand somewhat like Frascati as to its front, and, on the platform, is a circular view to the utmost verge of the horizon which, with the serpenting of the Thames, is admirable. The staircase is for its materials singular; the cloisters, descents, gardens, and avenue through the wood, august and stately; but the land all about wretchedly barren, and producing nothing but fern. Indeed, as I told his Majesty that evening (asking me how I liked Clifden) without flattery, that it did not please me so well as Windsor for the prospect and park, wch is without compare; there being but one only opening and that narrow, wch led one to any variety, whereas, that of Windsor is everywhere great and unconfined.’ Pope’s reference is quoted to triteness:-- Cliveden’s proud alcove The bow’r of wanton Shrewsbury and love. --_Moral Essays_, iii, 307-8. p. 76 _Sir Samuel Morland, or Sir Robert Gorden_. Sir Samuel Morland, the celebrated inventor and projector, was born in 1625. Having served the Commonwealth, he turned royalist, and on Cromwell’s death joined the King at Breda. He was rewarded at the Restoration with a baronetcy, a pension, and the appointment of Master of Mechanics to the King. He devoted himself to practical science, and his house was long the resort of the curious to view his models, inventions, &c. In a MS. (Harleian) treatise he shows an accurate knowledge of steam power and explains how it can be employed to work cylinders in raising water, a subject to which he had paid particular attention, having brought water from a considerable distance to the top of Windsor Castle. He died blind and in penury, 30 December, 1695.