‘Mais revenons à nos moutons;—c’est à dire, parlons de nouveau de parcs.’
Dreadful weather—rain and darkness, detained me at Oxford till three in the afternoon, when it cleared sufficiently for me to set out. The postilion missed the road, which is not a main one, and drove us a long way about, so that we arrived very late. While the fire was lighting in my room, I sat down in mine host’s, where I found a very pretty girl, his niece, and two doctors of the place, with whom I talked away the evening very pleasantly.
Aylesbury, Jan. 11th.
Stowe is, like Blenheim, another specimen of English grandeur and magnificence. The park embraces a large tract of undulating ground, with fine trees; the house is a noble building in the Italian style. The grounds were laid out long ago; and though in many respects beautiful, and remarkable for fine lofty trees, are so overloaded with temples and buildings of all sorts, that the greatest possible improvement to the place would be the pulling down ten or a dozen of them. There is a charming flower-garden, thickly surrounded with high trees, firs, cedars and evergreens, and flowering shrubs. The parterre forms a regular pattern like a carpet, in front of a crescent-formed house filled with rare birds. In the middle of this carpet is a fountain, and on either side are two pretty ‘volières’ of wire.
In the park stands a tower called the Bourbon Tower, from the circle of limes around it which Louis the Eighteenth planted during his long residence at Hartwell in this neighbourhood. The tower, though modern, is half fallen in. I wish this be no ill omen for the Bourbons in France, where even the sage Charter-giver could obtain no better titles from his subjects than ‘Louis l’Inévitable,’ and ‘Deux Fois Neuf.’
Here is a monument deserving of mention, dedicated to the great men and women of England, with very appropriate inscriptions, and busts modelled after the best pictures.
The façade of the building is four hundred and fifty feet long, and as long is the unbroken ‘enfilade’ of rooms in the ‘bel étage,’ which you enter from the garden by a fine flight of steps. You pass through a bronze door into an oval marble hall with a beautiful dome, whence alone it is lighted. A circle of twenty pillars of red scagliola marble surrounds it, and in the niches between them are ten antique statues. The floor is paved with real marble, and a gilded grating admits heated air. I will not weary you with further description of the rooms;—they are very rich, and all more or less decorated with pictures and curiosities. The state bed-room, which is not used, is crowded with fine porcelain, and contains a curious old bed of embroidered velvet with gold fringe.
In a boudoir near were many other curiosities, which we were only permitted to see through a grating. The loss of a ruby necklace formerly belonging to Marie Antoinette, is the very sufficient reason for this prohibition, which is never removed but in the Duke’s presence.
The library is a long gallery covered from top to bottom with shelves, with a light and elegant gallery in the middle. An adjoining room, fitted up in the same way, contains nothing but maps and engravings, probably one of the richest collections in the world. This seems the peculiar taste of the present Duke.
The hall on the other side of the house, looking on the park, commands a view which struck me as quite peculiar. You see a large open grassy plain, skirted on either side by an oak wood, and in the middle and back ground meadows and wood interspersed. In the centre of the plain, about sixty or seventy paces from the house, stands, perfectly isolated, a colossal snow-white equestrian statue, of admirable workmanship. The pedestal is so high that the horseman seems to rest on the top of the wood behind him. Not a building, nor any other object than trees, grass, and sky, are visible; and the whole scene so utterly still and inanimate, that the white spectral image rivets the attention:—no finer decoration for Don Juan could be imagined. It happened, too, by a fortunate chance, that the sky on that side of the house was perfectly black with a threatening snow-storm, so that the dazzling white statue stood out in almost fearful grandeur. At the moment, it looked alive, and every muscle seemed to rise in the sharp lights.