Lord Hervey, with the ladies of the court, Mrs. Howard as their chaperon, delighted in being wafted to that village, so rich in names which give to Twickenham undying associations with the departed great.  Sometimes the effeminate valetudinarian, Hervey, was content to attend the Princess Caroline to Marble Hill only, a villa residence built by George II. for Mrs. Howard, and often referred to in the correspondence of that period.  Sometimes the royal barge, with its rowers in scarlet jackets, was seen conveying the gay party; ladies in slouched hats, pointed over fair brows in front, with a fold of sarsenet round them, terminated in a long bow and ends behind—­with deep falling mantles over dresses never cognizant of crinoline:  gentlemen, with cocked-hats, their bag-wigs and ties appearing behind; and beneath their puce-coloured coats, delicate silk tights and gossamer stockings were visible, as they trod the mossy lawn of the Palace Gardens at Richmond, or, followed by a tiny greyhound, prepared for the lazy pleasures of the day.

Sometimes the visit was private; the sickly Princess Caroline had a fancy to make one of the group who are bound to Pope’s villa.  Twickenham, where that great little man had, since 1715, established himself, was pronounced by Lord Bacon to be the finest place in the world for study.  ‘Let Twitnam Park,’ he wrote to his steward, Thomas Bushell, ’which I sold in my younger days, be purchased, if possible, for a residence for such deserving persons to study in, (since I experimentally found the situation of that place much convenient for the trial of my philosophical conclusions)—­expressed in a paper sealed, to the trust—­which I myself had put in practice and settled the same by act of parliament, if the vicissitudes of fortune had not intervened and prevented me.’

Twickenham continued, long after Bacon had penned this injunction, to be the retreat of the poet, the statesman, the scholar; the haven where the retired actress, and broken novelist found peace; the abode of Henry Fielding, who lived in one of the back-streets; the temporary refuge, from the world of London, of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the life-long home of Pope.

Let us picture to ourselves a visit from the princess to Pope’s villa:—­As the barge, following the gentle bendings of the river, nears Twickenham, a richer green, a summer brightness, indicates it is approaching that spot of which even Bishop Warburton says that ’the beauty of the owner’s poetic genius appeared to as much advantage in the disposition of these romantic materials as in any of his best-contrived poems.’  And the loved toil which formed the quincunx, which perforated and extended the grotto until it extended across the road to a garden on the opposite side—­the toil which showed the gentler parts of Pope’s better nature—­has been respected, and its effects preserved.  The enamelled lawn, green as no other grass save that by the Thames side is green, was swept until late years by the light boughs of the famed willow.  Every memorial of the bard was treasured by the gracious hands into which, after 1744, the classic spot fell—­those of Sir William Stanhope.