a broad lake, the Dairy, a pretty building picturesquely placed;
and right before us is a steep ascent, from which there is a fine
view—north, south, east, and west.
[Illustration: _The Dairy._]
The South Front shows Castle Howard in its finest point of view: it is
in length 323 feet; the centre consists of a pediment and entablature
supported by fluted Corinthian pilasters; and the door is reached by
a flight of stately steps. “The North Front consists of an elaborate
centre of the Corinthian order, with a cupola rising from the top, and
on either side extensive wings—the east according to the original
design, the west from a design by Sir James Robinson, which has been
more recently built in a very different style from the other wing; and,
as the building has been deemed by some architectural critics to be
wanting in the qualities of lightness and elegance, and uniformity of
parts, to this circumstance is owing the alleged incongruity.”
[Illustration: _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,
Have clung in pious reverence round its base,
And from the voice inspired received the law?
A British chief, as famed in arms as those,
Has borne this relic o’er th’ Italian waves,
In war still friend to science, this bestows,
And Nelson gives it to the land he saves.”
The Saloon has an exquisitely painted allegorical ceiling representing
Aurora, and is also adorned by a large number of statues and busts, as
well as valuable paintings.
The Drawing-room is hung with rich tapestry after Rubens’ designs, and
the walls are adorned with many gems of Art. Among the other treasures
in this elegant apartment are some fine antique bronzes.
The Gold or State Bed-room is hung with the finest Brussels tapestry,
after designs by Teniers. The chimney-piece is very elegant, being
supported by Corinthian columns, the shafts of Sienna marble, the
capitals, bases, and cornice white, with pigeons of polished white
marble in the centre of the frieze. Upon it stands a bust of Jupiter
Serapis.
The Breakfast and Dining Rooms—and, indeed, the whole of the
apartments in the mansion—are elegantly and even sumptuously
furnished, and filled to repletion with objects of interest and of
_virtu_.
The Crimson-figured Room has its walls painted, by Pellegrini, with a
series of incidents of the Trojan war: these are—the Rape of Helen,
Achilles in disguise amidst the daughters of Lycomedes, King of Scyros,
and Ulysses in search of him, Ajax and Ulysses contending for the
armour of Achilles, Troy in flames, and Æneas bearing on his shoulders
Anchises from the burning city.
The Blue Drawing-room, the Green Damask Room, the Yellow Bed-chamber,
the Silver Bed-room, the Blue Silk Bed-room, and, indeed, all the
remaining apartments, need no further remark than that they are, in
their furnishing and appointments, all that the most fastidious taste
could desire them to be.
The pictures that so lavishly adorn Castle Howard have been long
renowned. The collection contains some of the very finest examples
of the great old masters to be found in Europe. The best of them
once formed part of the famous Orleans Gallery, and were acquired by
the Earl of Carlisle when the French Revolution of 1789 caused their
distribution.
To name all the works in this collection would occupy more space than
we can spare: chief among them all is “The Three Marys,” by Annibale
Carracci; it suffices to name it as one of the world’s wonders in Art.
And also “The Adoration of the Wise Men,” by Mabuse, the _chef-d’œuvre_
of the master. Other grand examples are by Titian, Correggio,
Domenichino, Guercino, Carlo Maratti, Giorgione, Primaticcio, Julio
Romano, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Velasquez, Cuyp, Claude, Ruysdael,
Vandyke, Rubens, Wouvermans, Breughel, Berghem, Jansen, Holbein,
Huysman, Mabuse, Van der Velde, Teniers, and Canaletti. Of Canaletti
there are no fewer than forty-five examples—his best productions in
his best time—scattered throughout the corridors and rooms, with
famous specimens of Reynolds and Lawrence, and family portraits by
other artists; notably those of Jackson, an artist who, from his
obscure boyhood in Yorkshire, was encouraged and upheld by the House of
Carlisle.
The history of the dispersion of the Orleans Gallery deserves
record here. When the French prince, Philippe of Orleans, surnamed
_Égalité_, wanted a sum of money to carry out his political projects,
he sold his entire gallery of pictures (in 1792) for a comparatively
insignificant amount: those of the Italian and French schools to a
banker of Brussels, and those of the Flemish, Dutch, and German schools
to an Englishman, Mr. T. M. Slade. The Italian and French pictures
subsequently passed into the hands of a French gentleman, M. Laborde
de Mèreville, who, being compelled to quit his country during the
Revolution, caused his pictures to be brought to London, and ultimately
sold them to Mr. Jeremiah Harman, a wealthy merchant. “Thus matters
stood,” says Dr. Waagen, in his “Treasures of Art in Great Britain,”
“till the year 1798, when Mr. Bryan”—the well-known picture-buyer, and
author of the “Dictionary of Painters and Engravers,” a standard book
of reference—“prevailed on the late Duke of Bridgewater, Earl Gower,
afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and the Earl of Carlisle, to purchase
this splendid collection for the sum of £43,000, and thus to secure it
for ever to England.”
The Conservatories are remarkably fine, and well ordered with all the
floral treasures of the world, while the collection of hardy herbaceous
plants congregated at Castle Howard, numbering upwards of six hundred
species, is unmatched elsewhere.
[Illustration: _The Garden._]
Of the Gardens we give two engravings: the one chiefly to show a
charming fountain, a work of great merit, the production of the
sculptor Thomas; the other to convey an idea of the peculiar and very
beautiful character of the grounds and their adornments—the terrace
walks, the lake, the summer-house (Temple of Diana), and the Mausoleum,
environed by umbrageous woods; here and there vases judiciously
interspersed with memorial pillars, commemorating some striking event
or some renowned benefactor of the race of the Howards.
The lawns and gardens are admirably laid out, somewhat trim and
formal, but not out of character with the building of which they are
adornments. The grounds are unsurpassed in beauty—that of which Nature
has been lavish, and that which is derived from Art.
[Illustration: _The Grand Fountain._]
The ornamental grounds are of vast extent, and are beautifully
diversified with the varied attractions of lake, lawn, and forest.
The parterre “occupies several acres of a cheerful lawn, of which a
considerable space on the south front of the mansion is laid out in the
most tasteful and pleasing manner, and interspersed with flower-beds,
clumps of evergreens and shrubs, and statuary.” The Raywood, approached
by a gravel walk 687 yards in length, with its delightful walks and
grand old trees, also abounds with statuary. Near the iron gates at
which this walk commences is the Rosary, and close by is a pedestal
erected by one earl, and inscribed with some chastely beautiful lines
by his successor. The Green Terrace Walk, 576 yards in length, is
adorned with statuary, and Lady Mary Howard’s Garden is one of the most
lovely features on the south front.
The Temple of Diana, from which charming views of the mansion and its
surroundings are obtained, is an Ionic erection, and bears in niches
over its doors busts of Vespasian, Faustina, Trajan, and Sabina.
The Mausoleum, a circular domed structure, 35 feet in diameter in its
interior, and 98 feet in height, contains in its basement sixty-four
catacombs built under ground arches. Externally, it is surrounded by
a colonnade of twenty-one Doric columns. In the vaults are interred
many illustrious members of this truly noble family: among these are
the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Earls of Carlisle; Frances and
Caroline, Countesses of Carlisle; and some of the sons and daughters of
these “peerless peers and peeresses.” The Mausoleum is interesting as
being the first, unconnected with a church, erected in England.
The Pyramid, on St. Ann’s Hill, 28 feet square at its base, and 50 feet
in height, was raised in 1728 to the memory of William, Lord Howard,
third son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1639. It contains in
its interior a bust, with the inscription—
“Gulielmus Dominus Howard, obiit x die Martis, ætatis suæ octogesimo
primo, anno salutis MDCXXXIX;”
and on its north side, on the exterior, the following inscription in
marble:—
“William, Lord Howard, third son to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who
was beheaded by Queen Elizabeth, married Elizabeth, one of the
co-heiresses of William, Lord Dacre; by which marriage, and the said
William’s great industry and ability, are descended to me most of the
estates that I now possess; in grateful remembrance therefore of that
noble and beneficent parent, and of that pious and virtuous lady, this
monument is erected by Charles, the third Earl of Carlisle of the
family of the Howards, their great-great-great-grandson, Anno Domini,
1728.
“To thee, O venerable shade,
Who long hast In oblivion laid,
This pile I here erect;
A tribute small for what thou’st done.
Deign to accept the mean return,
Pardon the long neglect.
“To thy long labours, to thy care,
Thy sons deceased, thy present heir,
Their great possessions owe.
Spirit Divine, what thanks are due?
This will thy memory renew,
It’s all I can bestow.”
KEDLESTON HALL.
KEDLESTON, the seat of Lord Scarsdale, is justly considered to be one
of the most pure and chaste in design of any of the classical mansions
of our English aristocracy. It may, therefore, both on that account
and from the beauty of its situation, the interest attaching to the
family of its noble owner, and the many associations which surround it,
well be called a “Stately Home,” and thus claim to be included in our
present volume. At the time of its erection, in 1761, it was pronounced
to be one of the most perfect specimens of architectural taste in
the kingdom, and it has, consequently, been visited by many persons
of note: these have, one and all been lavish in their praises of its
proportions and parts, of the interior details and finishing, of the
pictures and articles of _virtu_ which it contains, and of its grand
old park, studded with the finest of oaks and other forest trees.
Bray, who wrote in 1777, says of the present building—then, it must
be remembered, only newly erected—“Kedleston may properly be called
the glory of Derbyshire, eclipsing Chatsworth, the ancient boast of the
county; the front is magnificent and beautiful, the apartments elegant,
at the same time useful, a circumstance not always to be met with in
a great house.” This, of course, was before the great additions and
alterations were made to and at Chatsworth, and therefore must not
be taken to refer to that palatial residence as it now stands. Since
Bray’s time, every writer who has spoken of Kedleston speaks in the
same strain of praise of its symmetry and design.
Before describing the hall, or speaking of its history, we will, as
usual, give a brief genealogical account of the family of its noble
owner. The Curzons are said to be descended from Geraline de Curson,
or Curzon, who came over with the Conqueror, and was of Breton origin.
This Geraline de Curzon was lord of the manor of Locking, in Berkshire,
and held, by the grant of the King, many other manors and lands in that
county and in Oxfordshire. He was a great benefactor to the abbey of
Abingdon. He had three sons, Stephen, Richard, and Geraline, by the
first of whom he was succeeded. This Stephen de Curzon, besides the
estates in Oxon and Berks to which he had succeeded, had the manor of
Fauld, in Staffordshire, granted to him by William de Ferrars, Earl of
Derby. He had an only daughter, married to Nicholas Burton, of Fauld,
and was succeeded by his brother, Richard de Curzon, who, in the reign
of Henry I., held four knight’s fees in Kedleston, Croxhall, Twyford,
and Edinghall, in the county of Derby. He was succeeded by his son
Robert, who married Alice de Somervile, and was, in turn, succeeded
by his eldest son, Richard, who married Petronel, daughter of Richard
de Camville, Lord of Creek, or Creeth, by whom he had a son, Robert
de Curzon, of Croxhall, “whose line terminated in an heir female,
Mary, daughter and sole heiress of Sir George Curzon, who was married
to Edward Sackville, Duke of Dorset. Of this family was Cardinal de
Curzon, so famous about the time of King John.” Thomas Curzon, grandson
of Robert, was succeeded by another Thomas, whose son, Engelard Curzon
(_temp._ Henry III.), left issue a son, Richard, who (25 Edward I.)
held a fourth part of a knight’s fee at Kedleston. His son, Ralph, was
father of Richard de Curzon, who (4 Edward III.) held three parts of a
knight’s fee at Kedleston, and was succeeded by his son, Sir Roger de
Curzon, of Kedleston, Knt., who was living _temp._ Richard I. His son,
Sir John Curzon, who was one of the King’s Council, married Eleanor,
daughter of Sir Robert Twyford, and was succeeded by his son John,
who married Margaret, daughter of Sir Nicholas de Montgomery, by whom
he had issue three sons—viz. Richard, who succeeded him; Walter, who
married Isabel, daughter of Robert Saunders, Esq., of Harrington, in
the county of Northampton, from which marriage descended the Curzons
of Water-Perry; and Henry, who was the great-grandfather of Sir Robert
Curzon, created a baron of the German empire by Maximilian in 1500, and
a baron of England by Henry VIII., but died without issue. The line of
Curzon of Water-Perry, just now alluded to, passed successively from
Walter Curzon through his son and grandson, Richard and Vincent, to Sir
Francis Curzon, Knt., who married Anne, daughter of Judge Southcote;
his son, Sir John Curzon, who married Mary, daughter of Robert, Lord
Dormer; Sir Thomas Curzon, Bart. (son of the last), who married
Elizabeth Burrow, and was created a baronet in 1661; his son, Sir John
Curzon, Bart., who was succeeded by his son, Sir Francis Curzon, Bart.,
who died without surviving issue. The baronetcy thus became extinct,
the family estates of Water-Perry devolving eventually upon Francis,
Lord Teynham, who, in consequence, assumed the surname of Curzon in
addition to that of Roper.
Richard Curzon, the eldest son and successor of John Curzon and his
wife, Margaret Montgomery (just named), was, in the 11th year of
Henry VI., Captain of Sandgate Castle, Kent, and was succeeded by
his son, John Curzon, of Kedleston. This gentleman, generally known
as “John with the white head,” was high sheriff of the counties of
Nottingham and Derby in the 15th year of Henry VI., and, four years
later, escheator for the same. He married Joan, daughter of Sir John
Bagot, by whom he had issue one son, Richard, and four daughters,
one of whom married John Ireton, of Ireton, in Derbyshire, and was
great-great-grandmother of General Henry Ireton, the celebrated
Parliamentarian officer.
Richard Curzon married Alice Willoughby, of Wollaton, of the family
of Lord Middleton, and, dying in 1496, left issue by her, two
sons—John and Henry—and a daughter, Elizabeth, who was prioress of
King’s Mead, Derby. This John de Curzon was high sheriff on three
different occasions, and died in the 4th year of Henry VIII. He married
Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Eyre, of Hassop, and was succeeded by
his only son and heir, Richard, who married Helen, daughter of German
Pole, of Radbourne, by whom he had issue four sons and three daughters.
The eldest son, John, dying without issue, was succeeded by his
brother Francis (aged twenty-five, 2 Edward VI.), who married Eleanor,
co-heiress of Thomas Vernon, of Stokesley, through whom a claim to the
barony of Powis was brought into the family. By this lady he had issue
four sons (from one of whom the Curzons of Minley were descended) and
two daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John Curzon, who
took to wife Millicent, daughter of Sir Ralph Sacheverell, and widow
of Sir Thomas Gell, of Hopton. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir
John Curzon, created a baronet by Charles I. Sir John, who represented
the county of Derby in Parliament, 15 and 16 of Charles I., married
Patience, daughter of Sir Thomas Crewe, and sister of John, Lord Crewe,
of Steene, by whom he had issue four sons—John, Francis, and Thomas,
who all died without issue, and Nathaniel, who succeeded him—and three
daughters—Patience, who died unmarried; Eleanor, who married Sir John
Archer, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas; and Jane, who
married John Stanhope, son of Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, brother
of Philip, Earl of Chesterfield.
[Illustration: _The Hall and Bridge from the Park._]
Sir Nathaniel Curzon, Bart., succeeded his father in 1686. He married
Sarah, daughter of William Penn, of Penn, in the county of Bucks, by
whom he had issue five sons and four daughters, and died in 1718.
His sons were—Sir John, who succeeded him; Sir Nathaniel, who also
succeeded to the title and estates; Francis, who was a Turkey merchant,
and died at Aleppo unmarried; William, who represented Clitheroe in
Parliament; and Charles, LL.D. Sir John Curzon, Bart., who represented
the county of Derby in Parliament during the whole of the reign of
Queen Anne, died unmarried in 1727, when the baronetcy and estates
passed to his brother, Sir Nathaniel Curzon, who also represented, till
his death in 1758, the county of Derby in Parliament. He married Mary,
daughter and co-heiress of Sir Ralph Assheton, Bart., of Middleton,
county Lancaster, by whom he had issue three sons—-John, who died in
infancy; Nathaniel, first Baron Scarsdale; and Assheton, first Viscount
Curzon, and father of the first Earl Howe. This Assheton Curzon,
created Baron and Viscount Curzon of Penn, was member of Parliament
for Clitheroe. He married, first, Esther, daughter of William Hanmer,
Esq., by whom he had issue the Hon. Penn Assheton Curzon; secondly,
Dorothy, sister of the first Earl of Grosvenor, by whom, with other
issue, he had a son, Robert, who married the Baroness Zouche; and,
thirdly, Anna Margaretta Meredith, by whom he had no issue. The Hon.
Penn Assheton Curzon, just alluded to, eldest son of Viscount Curzon,
married Charlotte Sophia, Baroness Howe, by whom he had issue seven
sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Richard William Penn
Curzon-Howe, created Earl Howe, who married twice—first, the Lady
Harriet Georgiana Brudenell, daughter of the Earl of Cardigan, by whom,
with others, he had issue the late Earl Howe; and, secondly, Ann Gore,
maid of honour to Queen Adelaide, by whom also he had issue. The Earl
died in 1870, and was succeeded by his eldest son, George Augustus
Frederick Louis Curzon-Howe, as second Earl Howe, Viscount Curzon,
Baron Curzon of Penn, and Baron Howe of Langar, who was born in 1821,
and was M.P. for South Leicestershire from 1857 to the time of his
accession to the peerage. His lordship married, in 1846, Harriet Mary,
daughter of the late Henry Charles Sturt, Esq., M.P., by whom, however,
he had no issue. He died in 1876, and was succeeded by his brother,
the Hon. Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe. The present peer, who is
third Earl Howe, Viscount Curzon, Baron Curzon of Penn, and Baron Howe
of Langar, was born in 1822, and, having entered the army, became
Captain in 1844, Major 1853, Lieut.-Colonel 1854, Colonel 1857, and
Major-General 1868. Having served in the Kaffir war as Aide-de-camp to
Sir George Cathcart, and at the siege of Delhi, at which time he was
Acting Assistant Quartermaster-General, he became Military Secretary
to the Commander-in-chief in India, and was also an Aide-de-camp to
H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge. His lordship married, in 1858, Isabella
Katherine, daughter of Major-General the Hon. George Anson, and has
issue, besides other children, a son, the Hon. George Richard Penn
Curzon-Howe, who is heir to the titles and estates.