with patch-work on black velvet; then her state bedchamber. The bed has been rich beyond description, and now hangs in costly golden tatters. The hangings, part of which they say her Majesty worked, are composed of figures as large as life, sewed and embroidered on black velvet, white satin, &c., and represent the virtues that were necessary for her, or that she was forced to have, as Patience and Temperance, &c. The fire-screens are particular; pieces of yellow velvet, fringed with gold, hang on a cross-bar of wood, which is fixed on the top of a single stick, that rises from the foot. The only furniture which has any appearance of taste are the table and cabinets, which are all of oak, richly carved. There is a private chamber within, where she lay, her arms and style over the door; the arras hangs over all the doors; the gallery is sixty yards long, covered with bad tapestry, and wretched pictures of Mary herself, Elizabeth in a gown of sea-monsters, Lord Darnley, James the Fifth and his Queen, curious, and a whole history of Kings of England, not worth sixpence a-piece. There is an original of old Bess of Hardwicke herself, who built the house. Her estates were then reckoned at sixty thousand pounds a-year, and now let for two hundred thousand pounds. Lord John Cavendish told me, that the tradition in the family is, that it had been prophesied to her that she should never die as long as she was building; and that at last she died in a hard frost, when the labourers could not work. There is a fine bank of old oaks in the park over a lake; nothing else pleased me there. However, I was so diverted with this old beldam and her magnificence, that I made this epitaph for her :— Four times the nuptial bed she warm'd, And every time so well perform'd, That when death spoil'd each husband's billing, He left the widow every shilling. Fond was the dame, but not dejected; Five stately mansions she erected With more than royal pomp, to vary The prison of her captive Mary. When Hardwicke's towers shall bow their head, Nor mass be more in Worksop said; When Bolsover's fair fame shall tend Like Olcotes, to its mouldering end; When Chatsworth tastes no Ca'ndish bounties, Let fame forget this costly countess. I As I returned, I saw Newstead and Althorpe I 3 Newstead, since Walpole's time immortalised as the seat of the illustrious Byron. Evelyn had compared it, for its situation, to Fontainebleau, and particularly extolled "the front of a glorious Abbey Church" and its "brave woods and streams ;" and Byron himself has given an elaborate description of it under the name of "Norman Abbey," not overlooking its woods: It stood embosomed in a happy valley Crowned by high woodlands, where the Druid-oak His host, with broad arms, 'gainst the thunderstroke— nor the streams: Before the mansion lay a lucid lake nor the abbey front: A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile While yet the church was Rome's, stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screened many an angle. In like both. The former is the very abbey. The great east window of the church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient cistern of the convent, and their arms on it; a private chapel quite perfect. The park, which is still charming, has not been so much unprofaned; the present Lord has lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds of which have been cut near the house. recompense he has built two baby forts, to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy, and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like ploughboys dressed in old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is a very good collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory, now the great drawingroom, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof remaining, but the windows have new dresses making for them by a Venetian tailor. Althorpe has several very fine. pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery of all one's acquaintance by Vandyke and Lely. I wonder you never saw it; it is but six miles from Northampton. Well, good night; I have writ you such a volume, that you see I am forced to page it. The Duke [of Cumberland] has had a stroke of the palsy, but is quite recovered, except in some letters, which he cannot pronounce; and it is still visible in the contraction of one side of his mouth. My compliments to your family. GENTLEMAN'S DRESS-INFLUENCE OF LORD BUTEODE BY LORD MIDDLESEX-G. SELWYNS QUOTATION. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. ARLINGTON STREET, April 16, 1761. You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace. Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or three-and-twenty shillings the yard; you might have a very substantial real lace, which would wear like your buffet, for twenty. buffet, for twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve shillings, and those tarnished, for the species is out of fashion. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for Hamilton your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Bushy, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months. I was last night at your plump Countess's, who is so shrunk, that she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen hassocs. Lord Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The Duchess of Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great He Pam was just dead, to wit, her brother-in-law. was abroad in the morning, was seized with a palpitation after dinner and was dead before the surgeon could arrive. There's the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute's head!! Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward, on Monday last proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts, genius, and agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the villainy of physicians! You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middlesex upon Sir Harry Bellendine: I have not seen anything so antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace. Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join Lord Bute used his influence in favour of Scotchmen with so little moderation that he raised a prejudice against the whole nation, which found a vent in Wilkes's North Briton and Churchill's bitter and powerful satire, "The Prophecy of Famine." |