In the rooms are some fine and interesting pictures, but most of them by modern artists. The pleasure-grounds and gardens are still larger than those at Cashiobury. You will find a part of them in Repton, viz. the American garden, the Monk's garden, and the Rosary; to which I must add, first, the very elegant French garden, with a covered gallery, on one side; a porcelain-like ornament with flower-pots in the centre; and a large parterre, every bed of which is filled with a different sort of flower: secondly, the Rockery, in which are to be found every kind of rock and creeping plant. Nothing but the long habit of great luxury could enable people even to conceive a whole so manifold, so equally exemplary in all its parts, and in such perfect order and condition; for we must confess that even our sovereigns possess only fragments of what is here found united. Some thousand head of deer, and countless groups of giant trees, animate and adorn the park, which with the exception of the road leading through it, is left wholly to nature, and to its numerous grazing herds. Accept it as a small sacrifice, dear Julia, that I send you all these minute details. They may not be useless in our own plans and buildings, and are at least more tedious to write than to read.[35] For better illustration, I take sketches of everything interesting, which will stand us in good stead, as furnishing new ideas. In the morning we are going to see Woburn Abbey, the seat of the Duke of Bedford, one of the richest peers of England, which is said to exceed Ashbridge in extent and grandeur, as much as that does Cashiobury; a very agreeable climax. The inn whence I write is again very good, and I purpose, after all my fatigues, to do as much honour to my principal meal as I did to my breakfast; though the former is here far more simple, and consists of the same dishes day after day. The eternal 'mutton chops' and a roast fowl with 'bread sauce,' with vegetables boiled in water, and the national sauce, melted butter with flour, always play the principal part. _Leamington, Dec. 21st._ I am now in a large watering-place, of which, however, I have as yet seen but little, as I only arrived at eleven o'clock last night. The greater part of the day was spent in seeing Woburn Abbey. This beautiful palace is in the Italian taste; the design simple and noble, and infinitely more satisfactory than the colossal would-be-Gothic 'nonsense.'