For he had, like most of his countrymen, a pleasure in decorating a country house; and next to hunting, though at a great interval, his favourite amusements were architecture and gardening.

He had already created on a sandy heath in Guelders a paradise, which attracted multitudes of the curious from Holland and Westphalia.

Mary had laid the first stone of the house.

Bentinck had superintended the digging of the fishponds.

There were cascades and grottoes, a spacious orangery, and an aviary which furnished Hondekoeter with numerous specimens of manycoloured plumage.