Title:  Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 Vol.  XVII, No. 475.  Saturday, February 5, 1831

Author:  Various

Release Date:  October 22, 2004 [EBook #13829]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

Vol.  XVII, no. 475.] Saturday, February 5, 1831. [Price 2d.

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[Illustration:  The princess ELIZABETH’S cottage, Windsor.]

THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH’S COTTAGE, WINDSOR.

They who draw their notions of royal enjoyment from the tinsel of its external trappings, will scarcely believe the above cottage to have been the residence of an English princess.  Yet such was the rank of its occupant but a few years since, distant as may be the contrast of courts and cottages, and the natural enjoyment of rural life from the artificial luxury—­the painted pomp and idle glitter of regal state.

The above cottage stands in the grounds of Grove House, adjoining the churchyard of Old Windsor.  It was built under the superintendent taste of the Princess Elizabeth,[1] second sister of the present King, and now known as the Landgravine of Hesse Homburg.  To the decoration of this cottage the Princess paid much attention:  it is quite in the ornee style; and its situation is so beautiful as to baffle all embellishment.

Grove House, the seat of Lady Dowager Onslow, of whom the Princess purchased the whole property, was built by Mr. Bateman, uncle to the eccentric Lord Bateman.  This gentleman made it a point in his travels to notice everything that pleased him in the monasteries abroad; and, on his return to England, he built this house; the bedchamber being contrived, like the cells of monks, with a refectory, and every other appendage of a monastery; even to a cemetery, and a coffin, inscribed with the name of a supposititious ancient bishop.  Some curious Gothic chairs, bought at a sale of the curiosities in this house, are now at Strawberry Hill.

Old Windsor gives rise to many more interesting reminiscences; and few who “suck melancholy from a song” would exchange its sombre churchyard for the gayest field of fancy.  We may be there anon.

    [1] Born May 22, 1770; married April 7, 1818, to Frederick Joseph
        Lewis, Landgrave of Hesse Homburg, who died April 2, 1829 aged 61.

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ENGLISH SUPERSTITION.