It was a pleasure quite equal to my anticipation to visit Chatsworth for
the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for sixteen years.
It is the lion number three, according to the American ranking of the
historical edifices and localities of England. Stratford-upon-Avon,
Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are the three representative celebrities
which our travelers think they must visit if they would see the life of
England's ages from the best standpoints. And this is the order in which
they rank them. Chatsworth and Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if
possible; so that you may carry the impression of the one fresh and active
into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the
kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough
grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility
five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when
Thomas-à-Becket, the Magnificent, used to entertain great companies of
belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in
those days--even directing fresh straw to be laid for them on his ample
mansion floor, that they might not soil the bravery of their dresses when
they bunked down for the night. The building is brimful of the character
and history of that period. Indeed, there are no two milestones of English
history so near together, and yet measuring such a space of the nation's
life and mariners between them, as this hall and that of Chatsworth.
It was built, of course, in the bow and arrow times, when the sun had to
use the same missiles in shooting its barbed rays into the narrow
apertures of old castles--or the stone coffins of fear-hunted knights and
ladies, as they might be called. What a monument this to the dispositions
and habits of the world, outside and inside of that early time! Here is
the porter's or warder's lodge just inside the huge gate. To think of a
living being with a human soul in him burrowing in such a place!--a big,
black sarcophagus without a lid to it, set deep in the solid wall. Then
there is the chapel. Compare it with that of Chatsworth, and you may count
almost on your fingers the centuries that have intervened between them. It
was new-roofed soon after the discovery of America, and, perhaps, done up
to some show of decency and comfort. But how small and rude the pulpit and
pews--looking like rough-boarded potato-bins! Here is the great
banquet-hall, full to overflowing with the tracks and cross-tracks of that
wild, strange life of old. There is a fire-place for you, and the mark in
the chimney-back of five hundred Christmas logs. Doubtless this great
stone pavement of a floor was carpeted with straw at banquets, after the
illustrious Becket's pattern.
Here is a memento of the feast hanging up at the top of the kitchenward
door--a pair of roughly-forged, rusty handcuffs amalgamated into one pair
of jaws, like a muskrat trap. What was the use of that thing, conductor?
"That sir, they put the 'ands in of them as shirked and didn't drink up
all the wine as was poured into their cups, and there they made them stand
on tiptoe up against that door, sir, before all the company, sir, until
they was ashamed of theirselves." Descend into the kitchen, all scarred
with the tremendous cookery of ages. Here they roasted bullocks whole, and
just back in that dark vault with a slit or two in it for the light, they
killed and drest them. There are relics of the shambles, and here is the
great form on which they cut them up into manageable pieces. It would do
you good, you Young America, to see that form, and the cross-gashes of the
meat ax in it. It is the half of a gigantic English oak, which was growing
in Julius Caesar's time, sawed through lengthwise, making a top surface
several feet wide, black and smooth as ebony. Some of the bark still
clings to the under side. The dancing-hall is the great room of the
building. All that the taste, art and wealth of that day could do, was
done to make it a splendid apartment, and it would pass muster still as a
comfortable and respectable salon. As we pass out, you may decipher the
short prayer cut in the wasting stone over a side portal, "God Save the
Vernons." I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for history
records much virtue in the family, mingled with some romantic escapades,
which have contributed, I believe, to the entertainment of many novel
readers.
Just what Haddon Hall is to the baronial life and society of England five
hundred years ago, is Chatsworth to the full stature of modern
civilization and aristocratic wealth, taste and position. Of this it is
probably the best measure and representative in the kingdom; and as such
it possesses a special value and interest to the world at large. Were it
not for here and there such an establishment, we should lack way-marks in
the progress of the arts, sciences and tastes of advancing civilization.
EATON HALL [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and by
arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin
Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.]