THE FIRST EARL OF SALISBURY 205
into the Thames, is a place so convenient for his Majesty's princely sports and recreation, and so commodious for the residence of his Highness' Court and entertainment of foreign Princes or their ambassadors, upon all occasions, as his Majesty hath taken great liking thereunto ; of which the said Earl having taken particular knowledge, although it be the only dwelling-house left unto him by his father, most willingly, dutifully made offer thereof unto his Highness, with any such other his manors and lands thereabouts as should be thought fit for his Majesty's use, preferring therein his Majesty's health and contentation before any private respects of his own, which offer his Majesty hath graciously forborne to accept, without a full and princely recompense to the said Earl," etc. 1
Salisbury gave up possession with another grand entertainment to the King, and Ben Jonson composed a masque for the occasion. It opened with a speech by the genius of the house, who appeared in a melancholy posture and dressed in a mourning garb. The first stanza ran as follows :
" Let not your glories darken, to behold
The place and me, her genius here, so sad ; Who, by bold rumour have been lately told,
That I must change the loved lord I had, And he, now in the twilight of sere age,
Begin to seek a habitation new ; And all his fortunes and himself engage
Unto a seat his father never knew : And I, uncertain what I must endure, Since all the ends of Destiny are obscure."
James still further enlarged the Park, and surrounded it with a brick wall ten miles in circumference. He made it his chief country
1 Clutterbuck, II. 93.
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