BEAUFORT HOUSE.*
IN this pleasantly discursive volume Mr. Randall Davies, who. has already written authoritatively on the old church and.' other features of Chelsea, follows the history of the great.: house which was built by Sir Thomas More in 1520 and. demolished by Sir Hans Sloane in 1739.40, leaving traces' which still survive in occasional fragments of brickwork and in the names of "Beaufort Street," "More's Garden." and "Burleigh," " Dacres," and " Winchester " Houses. The house had many interesting owners, besides those already mentioned., though none have left us such a delightful record of their personalities as the More family, to whom Mr. Davies wisely devotes a good deal of space. Other famous occupants were Lord. Buckhurst, part-author of Gurbodue, sometimes called the, first English tragedy, and Sir Arthur Gorges, a friend of Spenser, and Ralegh, and a man of original character and talents, an may be seen from his account of Ralegh's Azores Expedi-: tion included in the fourth book of Turehas's Pagrinzes, and from some hitherto unpublished poems of which Mr. Davies gives extracts. Very interesting, too, is the account of Lionel. Cranfield, first Earl of Middlesex, who bought the house from Gorges in 1619. The story of Cranfield's quarrel with Bucking- ham and his subsequent impeachment and fall is well known, though the causes remain something of a mystery. Mr. Davies has been able to publish for the first time some letters from the Knole Collection, which throw a little light on the subject, though they, do not bring us very much nearer to a definite understanding. Another charming chapter deals with Edmund Howard, who, as. Sloane's gardener, was entrusted by his master with the final demolition of the great house.. Howard, who was a character and a man of wit, left a memoir which has been printed in the Friends' Quarterly Examiner (1906), and should, judging from Mr. Davies's extracts, make. capital reading.
The volume is excellently got up and profusely illustrated. It is a pity that Mr. Davies could not include the five plans (reproduced in the London County Council survey) showing. the rebuilding scheme designed by Bnrleigh during his brief tenancy of the house, but be gives us Thorpe's plan from, the Soane Museum and Rips's well-known engraving, in addition to Holbein's admirable drawings of the More family.,
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