k still clings to the under side. The dancing hall
is the great room of the building. All that the taste, art and
wealth of that day could do, was done to make it a splendid
apartment, and it would pass muster still as a comfortable and
respectable salon. As we pass out, you may decipher the short
prayer cut in the wasting stone of a side portal, "GOD SAVE THE
VERNONS!" I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for
history records much virtue in the family, mingled with some
romantic escapades, which have contributed, I believe, to the
entertainment of many novel readers.

Just what Haddon Hall was to the baronial life and society of
England five hundred years ago, is Chatsworth to the full stature of
modern civilization and aristocratic wealth, taste and position. Of
this it is probably the best measure and representative in the
kingdom; and as such it possesses a special value and interest to
the world at large. Were it not for here and there such an
establishment, we should lack waymarks in the progress of the arts,
sciences and tastes of advancing civilization. Governments and
joint-stock companies may erect and fill, with a world of utilities
and curiosities of ancient and modern times, British Museums,
National Galleries, Crystal Palaces and Polytechnic Institutions;
but not one of these, nor the Louvre, nor Versailles, nor the
Tuileries can compete with one private mind, taste and will
concentrated upon one great work for a lifetime, when endowed with
the requisite perceptions and means competent to carry that work to
the highest perfection of science, genius and art. Museums,
galleries and public institutions of art are exclusively _visiting_
places. The elegancies of _home_ life are all shut out of their
attractions. You see in them the work and presence of a committee,
or corporation, often in discrepant layers of taste and plan. One
mind does not stand out or above the whole, fashioning the tout-
ensemble to the symmetrical lines of one governing, all-pervading
and shaping thought. You see no exquisite artistry of drawing-room
or boudoir elegance and luxury running through living apartments of
home, out into the conservatories, lawns, gardens, park and all its
surroundings and embellishments, making the whole like a great
illuminated volume of family life, which you may peruse page by
page, and trace the same pen and the same story from beginning to
end. Even the grandest royal residences