mself a patron and a critic of art. He gave
Thorwaldsen his first commission in marble, and Thorwaldsen celebrated
the day of the order every year of his life. But he owed his name to a
romance, _Anastasius or Memoirs of a Modern Greek_, which he wrote at
his leisure, and which places him, as Mr. John Timbs, promenading around
Dorking in 1824, assures us, "in the highest list of eloquent writers
and superior men." The _Edinburgh Reviewer_ was not less effusive. Until
_Anastasius_ was published he had known Mr. Hope merely as the author of
an essay on _Household Furniture and Interior Decoration_. In
_Anastasius_ was the change from the upholsterer to the epicurean.

Deepdene still holds statues and pictures, of which Mr. Bright, in his
history of Dorking, gives a long list. Such a list belongs rightly to a
history; but since the pictures can no longer be seen, other pages need
but note that permission is occasionally granted to walk in the park.
Aubrey's engaging description of the garden as he saw it late in the
seventeenth century, a hundred years before Mr. Thomas Hope, belongs to
his century and ours:--

"Near this place the Honourable Charles Howard of Norfolk hath very
ingeniously contrived a long Hope (_i.e._, according to Virgil,
_Deductus Vallis_) in the most pleasant and delightful solitude for
house, gardens, orchards, boscages etc., that I have seen in
England: It deserves a Poem and was a subject worthy of Mr. Cowley's
Muse. The true name of this Hope is Dibden (quasi Deep Dene).

Mr. Howard hath cast this Hope in the form of a theatre on the sides
whereof he hath made seven narrow walks like the seats of a theatre,
one above another, about six in number, done with a plough, which
are bordered with thyme, and some cherry-trees, myrtles, etc. Here
was a great many orange trees and syringas which were then in
flower. In this garden are twenty-one sorts of thyme. The pit, as I
may call it, is stored full of rare flowers and choice plants. He
hath there two pretty lads his gardeners, who wonderfully delight in
their occupation, and this lovely solitude, and do enjoy themselves
so innocently in that pleasant corner, as if they were out of this
troublesome world, and seem to live in the state of innocency."

But not the gardeners alone. The visitor had a quiet mind who could
exclaim, as John Aubrey did, that "the pleasures of the garden were so