Over the Ocean; or, Sights and Scenes in Foreign Lands

by Curtis Guild

and upon an eminence, overlooking the whole, stands the palace of the duke, the whole front, of twelve or thirteen hundred feet, having a grand Italian flower garden, with its urns, vases, and statues in full view over the dwarf balustrades that protect it; the beautiful Grecian architecture of the building, the statues, fountains, forest, stream, and slope, all so charmingly combined by both nature and art into a lovely landscape picture, as to seem almost like a scene from fairy land.

But here we are at Edensor, the little village owned by the duke, and in which he is finishing a new church for his tenantry, a very handsome edifice, at a cost of nearly fifteen thousand pounds. This Edensor is one of the most beautiful little villages in England. Its houses are all built in Elizabethan, Swiss, and quaint styles of architecture, and looking, for all the world, like a clean little engraving from an illustrated book.

I hardly know where to commence any attempt at description of this magnificent estate; but some idea may be had of its extent from the fact that the park is over nine miles in circumference, that the kitchen gardens and green-houses cover twenty acres, and that there are thirty green-houses, from fifty to seventy-five feet long; that, standing upon a hill-top, commanding a circuit view of twelve miles, I could see nothing but what this man owned, or was his estate. Through the great park, as we walked, magnificent pheasants, secure in their protection by the game laws upon this vast estate, hardly waddled out of our path. The troops of deer galloped within fifty paces of us, sleek cattle grazed upon the verdant slope, and every portion of the land showed evidence of careful attention from skilful hands.

We reached a bridge which spanned the little river,—a fine, massive stone structure, built from a design by Michael Angelo,—and crossing it, wound our way up to the grand entrance, with its great gates of wrought and gilt iron. One of those well-got-up, full-fed, liveried individuals, whom Punch denominates flunkies, carried my card in, for permission to view the premises, which is readily accorded, the steward of the establishment sending a servant to act as guide.

Passing through a broad court-yard, we enter the grand entrance-hall—a noble room some sixty or seventy feet in length, its lofty wall adorned with elegant frescoes, representing scenes from the life of Cæsar, including his celebrated Passing of the Rubicon, and his Death at the Senate House, &c. Passing up a superb, grand staircase, rich with statues of heathen deities and elegantly-wrought columns, we went on to the state apartments of the house. The ceilings of these magnificent rooms are adorned with splendid pictures, among which are the Judgment of Paris, Phaeton in the Chariot of the Sun, Aurora, and other mythological subjects, while the rooms themselves, opening one out of the other, are each rich in works of vertu and art, and form a vista of beauty and wonder. Recollect, all these rooms were different, each furnished in the most perfect taste, each rich in rare and curious productions of art, ancient and modern, for which all countries, even Egypt and Turkey, had been ransacked.

The presents of kings and princes, and the purchases of the richest dukes for three generations, contributed to adorn the apartments of this superb palace. Not among the least wonderful works of art is some of the splendid wood-carving of Gibbon upon the walls—of game, flowers, and fruit, so exquisitely executed that the careless heap of grouse, snipe, or partridges look as though a light breeze would stir their very feathers—flowers that seem as if they would drop from the walls, and a game-bag at which I had to take a close look to see if it were really a creation of the carver's art.

Upon the walls of all the rooms are suspended beautiful pictures by the great artists. Here, in one room, we found our old, familiar friend, Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time, the original painting by Landseer, and a magnificent picture it is. In another room was one of Holbein's portraits of Henry VIII., and we were shown also the rosary of this king, who was married so numerously, an elegant and elaborately-carved piece of work. In another apartment was a huge table of malachite,—a single magnificent slab of about eight feet long by four in width,—a clock of gold and malachite, presented to the duke by the Emperor Nicholas, worth a thousand guineas, a broad table of one single sheet of translucent spar.

In the state bedroom was the bed in which George II. died. Here also were the chairs and foot-stools that were used by George III. and his queen at their coronation; and in another room the two chairs in which William IV. and Queen Adelaide sat when they were crowned, and looking in their elaborate and florid decoration of gold and color precisely like the chairs placed upon the stage at the theatre for the mimic monarchs of dramatic representations. In fact, all the pomp, costume, and paraphernalia of royalty, so strikingly reminds an American of theatric display, that the only difference seems that the one is shown by a manager, and the other by a king.

Then there were numerous magnificent cabinets, ancient and modern, inlaid with elegant mosaic work, and on their shelves rested that rich, curious, and antique old china of every design, for which the wealthy were wont to pay such fabulous prices. Some was of exquisite beauty and elegant design; others, to my unpractised eye, would have suffered in comparison with our present kitchen delf. Elegant tapestries, cabinet paintings, beautifully-modelled furniture, met the eye at every turn; rare bronze busts and statues appropriately placed; the floors one sheet of polished oak, so exactly were they matched; and the grand entrance doors of each one of the long range of beautiful rooms being placed exactly opposite the other, give a vista of five hundred and sixty feet in length.

Then there was the great library, which is a superb room over a hundred feet long, with great columns from floor to ceiling, and a light gallery running around it. Opening out of it are an ante-library and cabinet library—perfect gems of rooms, rich in medallions, pictures by Landseer, &c., and, of course, each room containing a wealth of literature on the book-shelves in the Spanish mahogany alcoves. In fact, the rooms in this edifice realize one's idea of a nobleman's palace, and the visitor sees that they contain all that unbounded wealth can purchase, and taste and art produce. I must not forget, in one of these apartments, a whole set of exquisite little filigree, silver toys, made for one of the duke's daughters, embracing a complete outfit for a baby-house, and including piano, chairs, carriage, &c., all beautifully wrought, elaborate specimens of workmanship, artistically made, but, of course, useless for service.