The grotto is paved with black and white marble; the roofe is vaulted. The figures of the tritons, &c. are in bas-relieve, of white marble, excellently well wrought. Here is a fine jeddeau and nightingale pipes. Monsieur de Caus had here a contrivance, by the turning of a cock, to shew three rainbowes, the secret whereof he did keep to himself; he would not let the gardener, who shewes it to strangers, know how to doe it; and so, upon his death, it is lost. The grott and pipes did cost ten thousand pounds. The garden is twelve acres within the terrace of the grott.
The kitchin garden is a very good one, and here are good ponds and a decoy. By the kitchin garden is a streame which turnes a wheele that moves the engine to raise the water to the top of a cisterne at the corner of the great garden, to serve the water-workes of the grotto and fountaines in the garden.
Thomas, Earle of Pembroke, told me that his sister-in-law's priest, a Frenchman, made a pretty poem or poemation on Wilton House and Garden, in Latin verse, which Mr. Berford, his Lordship's Chaplain, can procure.
THE STABLES, of Roman architecture, built by Mons. de Caus, have a noble avenu to them, a square court in the middle; and on the four sides of this court were the pictures of the best horses as big as the life, painted in severall postures, by a Frenchman. Among others was the great black crop-eared stone horse on which Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was killed at the battle of Lutzen, two miles from Leipzig. Upon the comeing of the Scotts, in 1639, Sir. .. Fenwyck and. .. fearing their breeds of horses would be taken away by the Scotts, did sell their breeds of horses and mares to Philip (first) Earle of Pembroke. His Lordship had also Morocco horses, and for race horses, besides Peacock and Delavill, he had a great many more kept at the parke at Ramesbury and at Rowlinton. Then for his stagge-hunting, fox-hunting, brooke-hawking, and land-hawking, what number of horses were kept to bee fitt at all seasons for it, I leave the reader to guesse, besides his horses for at least halfe a dozen coaches. Mr. Chr. Wroughton guesses not lesse than an hundred horses. [In the notice of William, first Earl of Pembroke, in Aubrey's "Lives of Eminent Men," he says, "This present Earl (1680) has at Wilton 52 mastives and 30 greyhounds, some beares, and a lyon, and a matter of 60 fellowes more bestiall than they." - J. B.]
OF HIS LORDSHIP'S HOUNDS, GREYHOUNDS, AND HAWKES. His Lordship had all sorts of hounds, for severall disports: sc. harbourers (great hounds) to harbour the stagges, and also small bull-dogges to break the bayes of the stagge; fox-hounds, finders, harriers, and others. His Lordship had the choicest tumblers that were in England, and the same tumblers that rode behind him he made use of to retrieve the partridges. The setting-doggs for supper-flights for his hawkes. Grayhounds for his hare warren, as good as any were in England. When they returned from hawking the ladies would come out to see the hawkes at the highest flying, and then they made use of their setting dogges to be sure of a flight. His Lordship had two hawkes, one a falcon called Shrewsbury, which he had of the Earle of Shrewsbury, and another called the little tercel, which would fly quite out of sight, that they knew not how to shew the fowler till they found the head stood right. They had not little telescopes in those dayes; those would have been of great use for the discovery which way the hawke's head stood.
TILTING. Tilting was much used at Wilton in the times of Henry Earle of Pembroke and Sir Philip Sydney. At the solemnization of the great wedding of William, the second Earle of Pembroke, to one of the co-heires of the Earle of Shrewsbury, here was an extraordinary shew; at which time a great many of the nobility and gentry exercised, and they had shields of pastboard painted with their devices and emblemes, which were very pretty and ingenious. There are some of them hanging in some houses at Wilton to this day but I did remember many more. Most, or all of them, had relation to marriage. One, I remember, is a man standing by a river's side angling, and takes up a rammes-horne: the motto "Casus ubiq{ue} valet". - (Ovid de Arte Amandi.') Another hath the picture of a ship at sea sinking in a storm, and a house on fire; the motto "Tertia pestis abest"; meaning a wife. Another, a shield covered with black velvet; the motto "Par nulla figura dolori". This last is in the Arcadia, and I believe they were most of them contrived by Sir Philip Sydney. Another was a hawke lett off the hand, with her leashes hanging at her legges, which might hang her where'ere she pitcht, and is an embleme of youth that is apt to be ensnared by their own too plentifull estates. ___________________________________
'Tis certain that the Earles of Pembroke were the most popular peers in the West of England; but one might boldly say, in the whole kingdome. The revenue of his family was, till about 1652, 16,000li. per annum; but, with his offices and all, he had thirty thousand pounds per annum, and, as the revenue was great, so the greatnesse of his retinue and hospitality was answerable. One hundred and twenty family uprising and down lyeing, whereof you may take out six or seven, and all the rest servants and retayners. ___________________________________
FOR HIS LORDSHIP'S MUSICK. Alphonso Ferrabosco, the son, was Lord Philip (the first's) lutenist. He sang rarely well to the theorbo lute. He had a pension and lodgings in Baynard's Castle.