fortable apartment, according
to Mr. Rhodes, is now called the drawing room, but was formerly the
_pillar-parlour_, from its having in the centre a stone column, from
which springs an arched ceiling, while round the lower part of the shaft
is a plain dinner-table, in the right chivalric fashion. From the roof
of this building, to which the ascent is by winding stairs, the view
extends "till all the stretching landscape into mist decays." The garden
beneath is surrounded with a wall about three yards thick, and contains
an old fountain of curious and expensive workmanship, which Dr. Pegge,
(who was a native of Chesterfield, and wrote a history of Beauchief
Abbey,) has laboured to prove very beautiful.

Hitherto we have spoken but of that part of Bolsover Castle which was
formerly denominated the Little House, to distinguish it from the more
magnificent structure adjoining. This immense fabric, whose walls are
now roofless and rent into fissures, was built by William, the first
Duke of Newcastle, in the course of the reign of Charles II., but is
said never to have been entirely finished. The interior walls are but
bare stones; the door and window cases, and the different apartments,
are of unusually large dimensions, the principal remaining apartment
being 220ft. by 28: the entire western part, including the _Little
House_ at the northern extremity, extends about 150 yards. The
designs for the whole castle are said to have been furnished by
Huntingdon Smithson, (an architect noticed by Walpole,) but he did not
live to witness its erection. He collected his materials from Italy,
where he was sent by the Duke of Newcastle for the purpose. Smithson
died at Bolsover, in 1648, and was buried in the chancel of the church,
where there is a poetical inscription to his memory, in which his skill
in architecture is commemorated.

The whole pile is now wearing away. Trees grow in some of the deserted
apartments, and ivy creeps along the walls; though the ruins have little
of the picturesqueness of decay. The best point of view, or north-west,
is represented in the Engraving; a short distance hence lies the village
of Bolsover.

[1] The duke was an important personage in the hostilities between
his soverign and the parliament. In 1642, he was appointed
general of all his majesty's forces, raised north of Trent,
with very full powers. He levied a considerable army at his own
expense, with which h