*[This refers to the "double-cube" room, as it is often called, from its proportions. The Great Hall at Kenilworth was also a double cube; and the same form was adopted in many other old buildings. - J. B.]
†[In "A Description of the Antiquities and Curiosities in Wilton House," 4to. these paintings are ascribed to Signer Tomaso and his brother.-J. B.]
The anti-roome to the great roome of state is the first roome as you come up staires from the garden, and the great pannells of wainscot are painted with the huntings of Tempesta, by that excellent master in landskip Mr. Edmund Piers.‡ He did also paint all the grotesco - painting about the new buildings.
‡[Ascribed to Tempesta junior in the "Description" already mentioned.-J. B.]
In the roome within this great roome is the picture of King Charles the First on his dun horse by Van Dyk; it hangs over the chimney. Also the Dutchess of Richmond by Van Dyk. Now this rare collection of pictures is sold and dispersed, and many of those eminent persons' pictures are but images without names; all sold by auction and disparkled by administratorship: they are, as the civilians term them, "bona caduca". But, as here were a number of pictures sold, with other goods, by the creditors of Philip (the second), so this earle [Thomas] hath supplied it with an admirable collection of paintings by great masters in Italy, when his lordship was there, and since; as he also did for prints, and bookes of fortification, &c.
THE LIBRARIE.- Here was a noble librarie of bookes, choicely collected in the time of Mary Countesse of Pembroke. I remember there were a great many Italian bookes; all their poets; and bookes of politic and historic. Here was Dame Julian Barnes of Hunting, Hawking, and Heraldry, in English verses, printed temp. Edward the Fourth. (Philip, third earle, gave Dame Julian Barnes to Capt. Edw. Saintlo of Dorsetshire.) A translation of the whole book of Psalmes, in English verse, by Sir Philip Sydney, writt curiously, and bound in crimson velvet and gilt; it is now lost. Here was a Latin poëme, a manuscript, writt in Julius Cæsar's time. [See ante, p. 60.] Henry Earle of Pembroke was a great lover of heraldrie, and collected curious manuscripts of it, that I have seen and perused; e. g. the coates of armes and short histories of the English nobility, and bookes of genealogies; all well painted and writt. 'Twas Henry that did sett up all the glasse scutchions about the house: quære if he did not build it? Now all these bookes are sold and dispersed as the pictures.
THE ARMORIE. The armory is a very long roome, which I guesse to have been a dorture heretofore. Before the civill warres, I remember, it was very full. The collection was not onely great, but the manner of obtaining it was much greater; which was by a victory at the battle of St. Quintin's, where William the first Earle of Pembroke was generall, Sir George Penruddock, of Compton Chamberlain, was Major Generall, and William Aubrey, LL.D. my great-grandfather, was Judge Advocat. There were armes, sc. the spoile, for sixteen thousand men, horse and foot. (From the Right Honourable Thomas Earle of Pembroke.)
Desire my brother William Aubrey to gett a copy of the inventory of it. Before the late civill warres here were musketts and pikes for .. . hundred men; lances for tilting; complete armour for horsemen; for pikemen, &c. The rich gilt and engraved armour of Henry VIII. The like rich armour of King Edward VI. In the late warres much of the armes was imbecill'd.
WILTON GARDEN: by Solomon de Caus. [See also in a subsequent page, Chap. IV. OF GARDENS.] "This garden, within the inclosure of the new wall, is a thousand foot long, and about four hundred in breadth; divided in its length into three long squares or parallellograms, the first of which divisions, next the building, hath four platts embroydered; in the midst of which are four fountaines, with statues of marble in their middle; and on the sides of those platts are the platts of flowers; and beyond them is a little terrass raised, for the more advantage of beholding those platts. In the second division are two groves or woods, cutt with divers walkes, and through those groves passeth the river Nader, having of breadth in this place 44 foote, upon which is built the bridge, of the breadth of the great walke: and in the middest of the aforesayd groves are two great statues of white marble of eight foot high, the one of Bacchus, and the other of Flora; and on the sides ranging with the platts of flowers are two covered arbours of three hundred foot long, and divers allies. At the beginning of the third and last division are, on either side of the great walke, two ponds with fountains, and two columnes in the middle, casting water all their height; which causeth the moving and turning of two crowns at the top of the same; and beyond is a compartment of green, with divers walkes planted with cherrie trees; and in the middle is the great ovall, with the Gladiator of brasse, the most famous statue of all that antiquity hath left. On the sides of this compartment, and answering the platts of flowers and long arbours, are three arbours of either side, with turning galleries, communicating themselves one into another. At the end of the great walke is a portico of stone, cutt and adorned with pyllasters and nyckes, within which are figures of white marble, of five foot high. On either side of the said portico is an ascent leading up to the terrasse, upon the steps whereof, instead of ballasters, are sea-monsters, casting water from one to the other, from the top to the bottome; and above the sayd portico is a great reserve of water for the grotto."
[The gardens of Wilton were illustrated by a series of twenty-six folio copper plates, with the following title; "Le Jardin De Wilton, construct par le trés noble et trés p. seigneur Philip Comte Pembroke et Montgomeri. Isaac de Caux invt." The above description is copied from one of these plates. Solomon de Caus was architect and engineer to the Elector Palatine, and constructed the gardens at Heidelberg in 1619. Walpole infers that Isaac and Solomon de Caus were brothers, and that they erected, in conjunction with each other, "the porticos and loggias of Gorhambury, and part of Campden house, near Kensington." (Anecdotes of Painting.) As the engravings of Wilton gardens bear the name of Isaac, he had probably some share in the arrangement of the grounds, and perhaps also in building the house. In Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus, vols. ii. and iii. are several views, plans, and sections of Wilton House and grounds. - J. B.]