TWO BEAUTIFUL SISTERS.
The fine collection of arms of which he took much notice still adorns the hall. Of the pictures no mention is made by either of the travellers, though in more than one they might have recognized the work of their friend Sir Joshua. Here is his full-length portrait of the beautiful duchess, “about whom the world had gone mad” one-and-twenty years before. When she was presented at Court, “the crowd was so great,” writes Horace Walpole, “that even the noble mob in the drawing-room clambered upon chairs and tables to look at her.” As she passed down to Scotland, “seven hundred people,” it was reported, “sat up all night in and about an inn in Yorkshire to see her get into her post-chaise next morning.”[720] Here, too, is a small but lovely picture of her sister, the Countess of Coventry. On her going down to her husband’s country seat near Worcester, “a shoemaker in that town got two guineas and a half by showing a shoe that he was making for her at a penny a-piece.”[721] In striking contrast with the two sisters are many of the portraits which hang on the walls. It is a strange company which is brought together: Mary, Queen of Scots, and her half-sister, a Countess of Argyle; Oliver Cromwell; the Marquis of Argyle, and just below him Charles II., who sent him to the scaffold; the earl, his son, who was beheaded by James II.; and John, the great duke, who broke the neck of the rebellion in 1715, and rendered desperate the cause of James II.’s son.
THE HALL, INVERARY CASTLE.
DINNER AT INVERARY.
The room in which our travellers dined is much in the state in which they saw it; the walls panelled with the same festoons, and the chairs adorned with the same gilding and the same tapestry. But it is turned to other uses. No “splendid dinner” is served up in it such as Johnson enjoyed and praised; no “luxuries” such as he defended. No Lady Betty Hamilton can quietly take her chair after dinner, and lean upon the back of it, as she listens eagerly to the great talker, who is unaware that she is just behind him. No Boswell can with a steady countenance have the satisfaction for once to look a duchess in the face, as with a respectful air he drinks to her good health. The tables are covered with books and magazines, and pamphlets, and correspondence. It is the duke’s business-room where he sees his chamberlain,[722] and where his librarian receives and sorts the new publications which are ever coming in, before he transfers them to the shelves of the library.
THE OLD DINING ROOM.
The noble drawing-room remains unchanged—the gilded ceiling, the old French tapestry covering the walls, the gilt tapestry chairs, the oaken floor, up and down which the duke and Boswell walked conversing, while her grace made Dr. Johnson come and sit by her. All is the same, except that time has dealt kindly by the tapestry and the gilding, and refined them in their fading.
