The Great Hall.
From this point is the main or state entrance into the Great Hall, pictured in the engraving. It is 65 feet high; a square of 35 feet; lit from a dome, the top of which is 100 feet from the floor. The principal entrance is on its north side, and the spaces between the piers on that and on the south side are open the whole height of the arches. The south side opens to the suite of apartments on the garden front, and a richly balustraded gallery gives access to the upper rooms. The east and west sides are partly filled, the upper portions being open, and showing the splendid ceilings of the staircase, &c. On one of these sides is the fire-place, and on the other a canopied recess. The fire-place is a rich piece of sculptured marbles, and there are panels filled with pendent groups of musical instruments; allegories grace the ceilings and walls, principally painted by Pellegrini; and statues and busts are placed on pedestals, and otherwise adorn the sides. These allegorical paintings are, on the ceiling, the Fall of Phaëton; and on the walls, the four seasons, the signs of the zodiac, the four quarters of the world, Apollo and Midas, Apollo and the Muses, Mercury and Venus, Vulcan and his attributes, &c. Among the sculptures are Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Sabina, Julia Mammea, Bacchus, Ceres, Diodumenus, Paris, Hadrian, Lucius Verus, Vitellius, Epaphroditus, Marc Antony, a bacchanal, and others.
Several doors lead to the various apartments, the state-rooms being hung with pictures of inestimable worth, and all being decorated in pure taste. To the pictures we shall presently refer.
A gallery called the Antique Gallery—160 feet long, by 20 in width—contains a number of rare, beautiful, and valuable examples of Roman, Egyptian, and Greek antiquities, among which are many really fine and unique specimens of early Art. It also contains many interesting pictures and some good old tapestry. In the Museum has been collected an immense variety of objects, gathered by several lords in various countries, with not a few precious relics found in the ancient localities of Yorkshire and Cumberland: among these are some examples of ancient mosaic-work, a curious basso-relievo of Mercury, a number of urns and inlaid marbles, and other objects. There is also here shown a casket or wine-cooler of bog-oak, mounted in solid silver, a gift to the good Lord Carlisle by his constituents of the West Riding; it measures 3 feet 6 inches in length, by 2 feet 4 inches in height and breadth, and cost about a thousand guineas; and “a monster address, 400 feet long,” presented to him on his retiring from the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland. One object of more than passing interest is an altar supposed to have “stood in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.” On its top is a tablet bearing the following lines from the pen, we believe, of the Earl of Carlisle:—
“Pass not this ancient altar with disdain,
’Twas once in Delphi’s sacred temple rear’d;
From this the Pythian pour’d her mystic strain,
While Greece its fate in anxious silence heard.
What chief, what hero of the Achaian race,
Might not to this have bow’d with holy awe,