tly in
motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you
shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little
parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian
prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as
they are, to be after Titian, &c., but when I gave them this air of
barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at
first sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or
Tottila, done about the very aera. From hence, under two gloomy arches,
you come to the hall and staircase, which it is impossible to describe
to you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty of the castle.
Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper
painted in perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: the lightest
Gothic balustrade to the staircase, adorned with antelopes (our
supporters) bearing shields; lean windows fattened with rich saints in
painted glass, and a vestibule open with three arches on the
landing-place, and niches full of trophies of old coats of mail, Indian
shields made of rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, quivers, longbows,
arrows, and spears--all _supposed_ to be taken by Sir Terry Robsart in
the holy wars. But as none of this regards the enclosed drawing, I will
pass to that. The room on the ground-floor nearest to you is a
bedchamber, hung with yellow paper and prints, framed in a new manner,
invented by Lord Cardigan; that is, with black and white borders
printed. Over this is Mr. Chute's bedchamber, hung with red in the same
manner. The bow-window room one pair of stairs is not yet finished; but
in the tower beyond it is the charming closet where I am now writing to
you. It is hung with green paper and water-colour pictures; has two
windows; the one in the drawing looks to the garden, the other to the
beautiful prospect; and the top of each glutted with the richest painted
glass of the arms of England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces of
green, purple, and historic bits. I must tell you, by the way, that the
castle, when finished, will have two-and-thirty windows enriched with
painted glass. In this closet, which is Mr. Chute's college of Arms, are
two presses with books of heraldry and antiquities, Madame Sevigne's
Letters, and any French books that relate to her and her acquaintance.
Out of this closet is the room where we always live, hung with a blue
and white paper i