purpose of sketching, as I had stated. Then, too, M. Zola first
distinguished himself in literature as an art critic, the defender of
Manet, the champion of the school of the 'open air.' And if he made no
sketches whilst he remained at Oatlands he at least took several
photographs. Sapient critics will stop me here with the oft-repeated
dictum that photography is not art. But however that may be, so many
painters nowadays have recourse to the assistance of photography that M.
Zola's 'snap-shotting' largely helped to bear out the account which I had
given of him at the hotel.

Oatlands Park is a large pile standing on the site of a magnificent
palace built by Henry VIII. Anne of Denmark, wife of James I., resided
there, and Henrietta Maria there gave birth to the Duke of Gloucester,
the brother of our second Charles and second James. The palace was almost
entirely destroyed during the Civil Wars, and subsequently the property
passed in turn to Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans; Herbert, the admiral, first
Earl of Torrington; and Henry, seventh Earl of Lincoln. A descendant of
the last-named sold the estate to Frederick, Duke of York, the son of
George III. and Commander-in-Chief of the British army. Soon afterwards
the house at Oatlands was destroyed by fire, and the prince erected a new
building, some portions of which are incorporated in the present
hostelry. A pathetic interest attaches to those remains of York House.
Within those walls were spent many of the honeymoon hours of a fair and
virtuous princess, one whose early death plunged England into the deepest
grief it had known for centuries; there she conceived the child who in
the ordinary course of nature might have become King of Great Britain.
But the babe, so anxiously awaited by the whole nation (there was no
Princess Victoria at that time) proved stillborn; and of the unhappy
'mother of the moment,' Byron wrote in immortal lines:

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes; in the dust
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions!

I am bound to add that the tragic story of the Princess Charlotte was not
that which most appealed to M. Zola's feelings at Oatlands Park. Nor was
he particularly impressed by the far-famed grotto which the hotel
handbook states 'has no parallel in the world.' The grotto, an artificial
affair, the creation of which is due to a Duke of Newcastle, whom it cost