Over this is an Attic story with square windows and Tuscan pilasters, over which was an Acroteria of figures representing Mercury, Secrecy, Equity, Liberty &c. but these figures were taken away soon after the death of the late Duke of Buckingham. On each side of the building are bending colonades with columns of the Ionic order, crowned with a balustrade and vases. These colonades join the offices at the extremity of the wings to the main building, and each of these offices is crowned with a turret, supporting a dome, from which rises a weathercock.
Behind the house is a garden and terrace, from whence there is a fine prospect of the adjacent country, which gave occasion to the following inscription on that side of the house,
RUS IN URBE:
Intimating that it has the advantage of both city and country; above which were figures representing the four Seasons.
The hall is paved with marble and adorned with pilasters, and during the life of the late Duchess, with a great variety of good paintings, and on a pedestal at the foot of the grand stair-case there was a marble figure of Cain killing his brother Abel.
To this account of Buckingham House we shall add the following letter, written by the Duke of Buckingham himself to the D—— of Sh—— containing a farther description of it, &c.
“You accuse me of singularity in resigning the Privy Seal with a good pension added to it, and yet afterwards staying in town at a season when every body else leaves it, which you say is despising at once both Court and Country. You desire me therefore to defend myself, if I can, by describing very particularly in what manner I spend so many hours, that appear long to you who know nothing of the matter, and yet, methinks, are but too short for me.
“No part of this talk which you impose is uneasy; except the necessity of using the singular number so often. That one letter (I) is a most dangerous monosyllable, and gives an air of vanity to the modestest discourse whatsoever. But you will remember I write this only by way of apology; and that, under accusation, it is allowable to plead any thing for defence, though a little tending to our own commendation.
“To begin then without more preamble: I rise, now in summer, about seven a clock, from a very large bedchamber (entirely quiet, high, and free from the early sun) to walk in the garden; or, if rainy, in a saloon filled with pictures, some good, but none disagreeable: there also, in a row above them, I have so many portraits of famous persons in several kinds, as are enough to excite ambition in any man less lazy, or less at ease, than myself.
“Instead of a little closet (according to the unwholesome custom of most people) I chuse this spacious room for all my small affairs, reading books or writing letters; where I am never in the least tired, by the help of stretching my legs sometimes in so large a room, and of looking into the pleasantest park in the world just underneath it.