but not so fine as it hath
heretofore to me; particularly the ceilings are not so good as I always
took them to be, being nothing so well wrought as my Lord Chancellor's
are; and though the figure of the house without be very extraordinary
good, yet the stayre-case is exceeding poor; and a great many pictures,
and not one good one in the house but one of Harry the Eighth, done by
Holben; and not one good suit of hangings in all the house, but all most
ancient things, such as I would not give the hanging-up of in my house;
and the other furniture, beds and other things, accordingly.

[Mr. George T. Robinson, F.S.A., in a paper on "Decorative Plaster
Work," read before the Society of Arts in April, 1891, refers to the
ceilings at Audley End as presenting an excellent idea of the state
of the stuccoer's art in the middle of James I.'s reign, and adds,
"Few houses in England can show so fine a series of the same date
... The great hall has medallions in the square portions of the
ceiling formed by its dividing timber beams. The large saloon on
the principal floor-a room about 66 feet long by 30 feet wide-has a
very remarkable ceiling of the pendentive type, which presents many
peculiarities, the most notable of which, that these not only depend
from the ceiling, but the outside ones spring from the walls in a
natural and structural manner. This is a most unusual circumstance
in the stucco work of the time, the reason for the omission of this
reasonable treatment evidently being the unwillingness of the
stuccoer to omit his elaborate frieze in which he took such delight"
("Journal Soc. of Arts," vol. xxxix., p. 449)]

Only the gallery is good, and, above all things, the cellars, where
we went down and drank of much good liquor; and indeed the cellars are
fine: and here my wife and I did sing to my great content. And then to
the garden, and there eat many grapes, and took some with us and so away
thence, exceeding well satisfied, though not to that degree that, by
my old esteem of the house, I ought and did expect to have done, the
situation of it not pleasing me. Here we parted with Lowther and his
friends, and away to Cambridge, it being foul, rainy weather, and there
did take up at the Rose, for the sake of Mrs. Dorothy Drawwater,
the vintner's daughter, which is mentioned in the play of Sir Martin
Marrall. Here we had a good chamber, and bespok