botany, and who, during these temperate summers and fitful winters,
often hankers after the equator, the atmosphere of a thorough-going
conservatory has a profound fascination. At one step I pass from the
latitude of "the roaring forties" to that of Martinique or the Galapagos
Islands. I unbutton my coat, and inhale deep breaths of air laden
with the fragrance of the sun-lands. The heat is not enervating, but
stimulating; for it is redolent with the life-giving emanations of
plants that riot in luxuriance all the year round,--that know neither
spring, autumn, nor winter,--whose multitudinous boughs were made to be
the haunt of paroquets and monkeys, and amidst whose fern-enwrapped
roots lurk lizards and gliding serpents. Here thrive the dark-skinned
races of the torrid zone, innocent of clothes and civilization, seeking
excitement not in the mutations of the stock-exchange or the scandals of
society, but in trapping the alligator and shooting the jaguar and the
antelope with arrows deadly with _curari_. Into the intricate depths of
these jungles the fierce sun scarcely penetrates; the unstinted energy
of his own rays has erected a barrier against himself. Here, when the
rain falls, it falls in rushing torrents; when the wind blows, it blows
a shrieking hurricane; when the lightning flashes, the whole dome of
heaven is ablaze with passionate splendor. Here the stars poise and
smoulder close to the earth, and the moon is brighter than the sun
of hyperborean England. Sitting on a rustic bench hedged round with
tapering palm-stems, and screened by leaves two or three of which would
carpet the floor of an ordinary drawing-room, I love to think of these
things.
The enjoyment is perhaps enhanced by an occasional peep through the
glass walls of the paradise, revealing the melancholy Britisher, close
at hand in space, but thousands of miles distant in temperature,
stalking rigidly about in overcoat and gloves. Then, too, the hot-house,
while giving the charm and beauty of the tropics, dispenses with the
inconveniences. Here are no coral-snakes to drop from the boughs down
the back of your neck; no scorpions or tarantulas to crawl up your
trousers; no apes to pelt you with cocoa-nuts; no rhinoceroses to toss
you above the tree-tops; no tigers to disembowel you and bite your head
off. On the contrary, everything is scrupulously neat and secure. The
rich loam round the roots of the plants harbors nothing noxious; the
asphalt walks that thread the thicket are clean and trustworthy. Ever
and anon you come upon a native of the place,--not a savage, painted in
red and black stripes and with his bow-string drawn to his ear, but--a
quiet and sober gardener in his shirt-sleeves, pruning a dead leaf or
bough, or raking the mould round the roots of a new importation, or
wielding a watering-pot. The place is quite still; the huge leaves hang
motionless; the noise of a pair of steps being dragged into position
resounds through the building; and, if you listen, you will at all times
hear the pleasant trickling of water in some reservoir or other. If the
terrors of the jungle are still too much for your nerves, you may be
comforted by observing that each plant wears a label, painted on wood or
enamelled on tin, describing its scientific name and habitat. It cost
money to bring them here, and the very leaves of their twigs are
numbered.
But there are other places to be visited besides the palm-house. As we
emerge from its luxurious warmth into the cool English air, we see in
front of us a large, circular pool, with broad, shallow flights of
stone steps leading down to it, and English willows bending over it.
Water-fowl swim and quack here, and children elude their nurses and get
their feet wet. If we pass round to the other side, and then look back
to the palm-house, we behold it inverted in the smooth mirror of the
water,--a delectable spectacle. It was like a fairy palace already;
but this shadowy duplication of it quite removes it from the material
sphere, and makes it a lovely dream. Kew Gardens are full of such
felicitous devices.
To our right are acres of yet unexplored hot-houses. We stroll towards
them along eccentric paths, amidst beds of purple rhododendrons,
geraniums, tulips, narcissuses, hyacinths, according to the season; and
everywhere is the matchless English turf, compact and flawless as
velvet, and the leafy, overshadowing English trees. But let us seek the
dwelling-place of the _Victoria Regia_. It grows, I believe, on the
Amazon, which is as near the equator as one can well get; but latitudes
are much mixed up in Kew Gardens, and this titanic water-lily is only a
few rods distant. It basks on the surface of a pool, in an atmosphere of
delicious warmth,--its leaves, each of the diameter of a dining-table,
covering the water. Amidst these great green disks blossoms the flower,
a nosegay of which would fill a farm-wagon. It is said that the native
Brazilian savages and Guianians walk about on the green leaves, and use
them as rafts or stepping-stones to cross the lagoons. As to the
flowers, though it is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful than
our own water-lilies, yet these blossoms fairly surpass them, not only
because they are a foot across, but because of the richness of the
innumerable petals, and the gorgeous cluster of purple stamens that form
the centre. And they fill the air with a fragrance vital and voluptuous.
One longs to verify in his own experience that story about walking on
the leaves,--not to speak of lopping off a flower or two to furnish
one's study withal. But the quiet gardener, in his shirt-sleeves, though
he appears to be absorbed in his work, has his eye on you; and you can
do nothing but stand and stare in admiration.
The hottest of the hot-houses, if my memory serves me, were the
cactus-house and the fern-house. The cacti were not beautiful, but they
were grotesque and curious. There were none that I should have cared
to handle. Their uncouth shapes and awkward putting together seem
characteristic of an epoch when Nature's handiwork was much less skilful
and comely than it is now. They call up visions of forlorn wastes and
desert solitudes. Their armature of thorns and prickles appears to
indicate that they consider themselves very attractive and take unusual
pains in the way of self-protection. Perhaps the donkeys of their
time were unreasonably voracious. The modern thistle certainly
indicates increased refinement of taste on the donkeys' part. Yet this
ungainliness is occasionally redeemed by exquisite blossoms, of pale,
pure hues, cropping out directly from the substance of the plant,
without any pretence of a stem. One variety of cactus, in addition
to its prickles, had provided itself with long white hair, which,
surmounting its tall and rather meagre figure, gave it the aspect of an
aged man of repulsive character. Among the cacti, though not of them,
was a hideous plant (or it may have been a wax model of one) apparently
of the fungus family. It grew on the bare sand or rock, and both flowers
and leaves had a greasy, flesh-like surface, deeply tinted, and
ornamented with poisonous-looking blotches. It was of immense size, the
flowers being at least a foot in diameter; and if the Vale of Gehenna
has any vegetation, I should expect it to be like this. A more depraved,
diabolical plant it would be impossible to imagine. Its preposterous
attempt to imitate the form and characteristics of ordinary vegetation
made it still more revolting. The label described it as being very
rare,--which is some comfort.
The fern-house, besides being hot, is dripping with moisture; and,
the glass being tinged with green, the effect is somewhat like being
submerged in a tropic ocean. The greenness of the ferns is vivid enough
at any rate, but this artificial light adds such intensity to it that,
after a few minutes, you are on the point of forgetting that there is
any other color besides green in the world. The ferns are arranged in
glass cases, or vivariums. There is nothing in nature to parallel their
delicate and various beauty. I call it various; but it is chiefly beauty
of form, and that, too, within comparatively narrow limitations. But
the fineness, the subtilty, the changefulness of line, are endlessly
charming; they may have other uses, but if they had been made for pure
beauty it would be use enough. They must have been of great aesthetic
value to artists, especially to architects, decorators, and chasers of
metals. The mediaeval illuminators certainly made capital out of them;
reminiscences of their shapes render lovely the ornament of innumerable
missals. As for the color, green seems to admit of more gradations than
any other hue, as any one who has observed the woods in spring knows;
and of all others it is the most grateful and wholesome to the eye.
With the rough grays and browns of the rocks it makes enchanting
combinations. But, really, this moist fern atmosphere is too languorous
and enervating; we must escape into the outer world, which, for a time,
will appear strangely red, like that which astronomers suppose to be
characteristic of the planet Mars.
It would take too long, even in imagination, to go through all Kew
Gardens at this leisurely rate. Only, for splendor of color and
voluptuousness of perfume, there is nothing comparable to the
Conservatory, in which roses and all other bright-hued flowers are
grouped and massed in sumptuous magnificence. The rose is England's
flower: she has taken possession of it, as of so many other good things,
without troubling herself to prove any title to it; and there is nothing
in her history or character to make her worthy of it. One can understand
why Persia should claim the rose; and in our own Southern States the
houses are smothered with roses, and the air that flows from them is
sweeter than incense. I have, it is true, gathered English roses in
December; and the houses of York and Lancaster wore roses which, red and
white alike, were steeped in blood. But, if anything could justify
England in her appropriation of the rose, it would be this rose-house at
Kew, where criticism becomes impossible, and one can only gaze, and
inhale, and love. Pink, white, crimson, golden, they cluster and triumph
there: with their exquisite petals Venus and Mars might strew a couch
worthy of an Olympian marriage. If love, romance, and beauty died out of
human nature, this flower would bring them back; and so long as it stays
with us, we may be sure that life will not lose the glory that entitles
it to immortality.
While meditating these matters, we might take a turn in the
wood-house,--by which I mean the building containing specimens, polished
and in the rough, of all kinds of woods from all parts of the world.
Their gamut of color embraces all the hues of the rainbow, and many
others; and there are specimens of wood-mosaics that are inferior in
beauty only to agate and marble. Or we may wander through the corridors
and halls of the museum, which exhibits every sort of manufacture into
which vegetable substances enter, including numberless fabrics of Indian
or savage origin. One is surprised, after examining these things, that
our little earth should be large enough to contain anything that is not
more or less botanical.
CHATSWORTH CASTLE.
JOHN LEYLAND.
["The Peak of Derbyshire," concerning which Mr. Leyland has
written a highly interesting book, presents in its vicinity
numerous points of attraction. Here is the location of the
castle of "Peveril of the Peak," the hero of one of Scott's
romances. Here are two much more famous residences of the
nobility, Haddon Hall and Chatsworth, the latter of which we
have chosen as the subject of our present selection.]
If some have burst into rhapsody in describing the glories of
Chatsworth, one can scarcely marvel at their extravagance, for there
is in this "Palace of the Peak" and its wooded valley such a rare
conjuncture of the fascinating beauties of nature with the finest
expressions of art, that language can ill describe the things that are
indelibly impressed upon the memory. The placid Derwent, here flowing
gently between the meads on which the fallow deer are wont to herd;
the graceful slopes bestudded with many a noble tree, whose spreading
boughs cast down a wide expanse of shade; the hills on either hand
rising in varied height and contour, crowned with a rich woodland of
oak, chestnut, beech, and lime; a palace wherein every art finds most
fitting expression, and where the fruits of learning are plenteously
upstored,--small wonder, indeed, if here the imagination of many be
stirred. As we approach the house from Baslow, crossing the Barbrook,
which rises in the heights of East Moor, we enter the great park,
and, passing the fruit and vegetable gardens on the right, its varied
beauties are gradually unfolded with entrancing effect until Chatsworth
itself is seen beyond the trees.
The House may be viewed in its majestic proportions from several points
in the valley and on the slopes. From across the classic bridge of three
arches, which Caius Gabriel Cibber (the father of Colley Cibber) adorned
with statues, the dignity of its many-pillared facade has an imposing
effect. More varied, however, is the view from the slope of the hill to
the northward on the right bank of the river, where the later wing,
added by the sixth Duke of Devonshire, lies prominently before the
spectator, or again farther southward, where the same wing recedes in
the perspective. If one would gain a fine prospect of the whole of this
part of Derwent, and of the palatial edifice itself, there can be no
better way than to climb to the old turreted hunting-tower, which is
such a conspicuous object on the eastern hill.
There is nothing in the regular, classic lines of Chatsworth to remind
us of that Chetel, the Saxon, who is believed to have given his name to
the place in which he dwelt. His homestead and oxgangs of land fell, as
Domesday records, to the Crown, and were given in custody to William
Peveril, who had also the stronghold at Castleton, as we have seen,
with Haddon by the Wye, and many a castle and manor besides. Nothing
now remains of these times at Chatsworth, save, perhaps, the grove of
venerable oaks, gnarled, shattered, and time-worn, upon the neighboring
hill....
Sir William Cavendish and his wife built the first Chatsworth House of
which we have any definite knowledge, for there is scanty record of any
mediaeval structure, and it was she who completed it some time after his
death. The extraordinary lady--something of a vixen, we may believe--who
was married to four husbands, and discomfited at any rate the last of
them, was the builder also of Hardwick Hall, one of the most celebrated
houses in England. The Chatsworth of her time was a quadrangular
building of "surprising height," as Cotton says, with an embattled top,
and massive angle, and lateral turrets strengthening its many-windowed
walls, as may be seen by a painting of it which now hangs at Chatsworth.
The third husband of "Bess of Hardwick" (Sir William St. Lo) being dead,
she married that powerful nobleman, George, Earl of Shrewsbury; and it
was during his lifetime that Chatsworth became the residence of Mary,
Queen of Scots, when she was in captivity under his charge. The unhappy
prisoner is said to have passed many of her lonesome hours in that
moated garden, called Queen Mary's bower, which was laid out on the top
of the low square tower or platform, seen by the visitor amid the trees
as he approaches the house from the bridge; and certain rooms in the
great quadrangle, though they were built long after her day, are still
traditionally said to be hers. If the scandal of the Tudor court be
true, the lovely queen and her imperious hostess did not well agree, and
the story is not hard to believe. At any rate, the bickerings of the
lady with her husband, the Earl, are matters of record, notwithstanding
that Fuller has said she "was happy in her several marriages."...
Queen Mary was brought to Chatsworth in 1570, and was there long
afterwards. In that year Cecil visited the house to conduct certain
negotiations, and subsequently wrote that Elizabeth was willing her
rival should "take ye ayre about your howss on horsbacke, so that your
L. be in company, and not to pass from your howss above one or twoo myle
except it be on ye moores." Several times during subsequent years she
was permitted to visit Buxton, for its waters, in company with the Earl
and Countess, and it will be remembered that so well did the Earl
treat his charge at one time, that he thereby incurred suspicions of
disloyalty to Elizabeth. During the Civil Wars the house was held by
both parties. Sir John Gell occupied it for the Parliament in 1643, but,
in the December of that year, the Earl of Newcastle captured it, and
garrisoned it for the King, and Colonel Shalcross was besieged there
in 1645 by the Parliamentary forces, but the leaguer was raised after
fourteen days.
The descendants of Sir William Cavendish, and of his celebrated wife,
were content, during these years, to preserve Chatsworth as it had been
left to them. The present quadrangular building is the work of William,
the fourth Earl and first Duke of Devonshire, who was one of those who
brought about the Revolution of 1688, and placed the Prince of Orange on
the throne. During the reign of James II., the Earl was committed to
prison, as it is quaintly said, because he led Colonel Colepepper out
of the royal presence-chamber by the nose, whereupon, after sundry
difficulties, he betook himself to his estates, and, as a chronicler of
the new order of things puts it, in order to prevent his patriotic mind
from dwelling unduly upon the woes of his country, rebuilt the south
side of Chatsworth....
Whatever the age possessed of skill and merit in every branch of art was
employed for the beautification of the new Chatsworth. Caius Gabriel
Cibber, the Laureate's father, with Geeraerslius, Augustine Harris,
Nost, Davis, Lanseroon, Nadauld, and others, carved the friezes, adorned
with rich foliage the door-cases, worked upon many vases and other
objects in and about the mansion, and peopled the gardens with nymphs
and goddesses. Cibber himself has left notes of some of the sums he
received, and it appears that he executed two statues in the pediments,
others, both in the round and in relief, heads of Roman emperors,
figures of dogs, sphinxes, and such-like. "For two statues as big as
life, I had 35_l._ apiece, and all charges borne, and at this rate I
shall endeavor to serve a nobleman in freestone."
[Many others might be named who helped to give Chatsworth its
wealth of carvings, but we shall omit the catalogue of their
names.]
So completed, as a noble Palladian quadrangle, divided externally into
sections by fluted Ionic pilasters, crested by a balustrade which is
adorned with decorative vases, and having on its principal front a fine
compartment with a sculptured pediment, Chatsworth remained, even then
one of the noblest mansions of its kind in the kingdom, until the sixth
Duke of Devonshire (ob. 1858) added to it the great northern wing,
containing the magnificent dining-room, the sculpture-gallery, the
orangery, and many other chambers, as well as a whole range of offices
in the basement. Of this wing, which is three hundred and eighty-five
feet in length, Sir Jeffrey Wyattville was the architect, and it will be
observed that he has adopted a more broken style, and a somewhat more
picturesque method, than that of Talmari, but there are many who think
that his addition detracts from the classic character and fitting
symmetry of the whole, to which, nevertheless, it must be admitted it
gives a greater aspect of grandeur and magnificence.
We shall not here dwell at any very great length upon the many treasures
of which Chatsworth is the storehouse, for they are described after the
manner of a catalogue in several guide-books. Passing from the Porter's
lodge, the visitor, having traversed the whole length of the new wing,
arrives at the quadrangle, which is entered through the sub-hall, where
the ceiling is painted with a copy of Guido's Aurora.
A corridor leads thence to the Great Hall, on the eastern side of the
court-yard, which is a very impressive apartment, with its floor of
black and white marble, laid down by the son of Watson, the wood-carver,
the fine staircase at its farther end, its walls painted by Verrio and
Laguerre with scenes from the life of Julius Caesar,--among others
the crossing of the Rubicon, the passage of the Adriatic, and the
assassination by Brutus,--and the great scene of Caesar's apotheosis on
the ceiling, where he goes to join the Immortals. One very noteworthy
object in it is the immense slab of Derbyshire encrinitic marble that
forms the top of its table. It also contains a great Turkish canoe which
the sultan gave to the sixth Duke.
The south corridor, hung with pictures, leads from this hall to the
Chapel, one of the most interesting chambers in Chatsworth. Here
everything that art could do to lend enchantment to the classic interior
has been done. The lower walls are richly panelled with fragrant cedar;
above, Verrio and Laguerre have depicted the miracles of our Lord; and
on the ceiling is the "Ascension;" over the altar Verrio's "Incredulity
of St. Thomas" is regarded as his masterpiece, though the work has been
attributed to Laguerre; the baldacchino at the east end is of the
choicest marbles and spars of Derbyshire, with figures of Faith and Hope
by Gibber; and there are marvellous wood-carvings, probably by Samuel
Watson and Thomas Young, but perhaps from the designs or with the
assistance of Grinling Gibbons. Passing onward, the Gallery of Sketches
is a place where not hours only, but days, might be spent with equal
pleasure and profit, a treasure-chamber in which, as it were, the great
masters of every school may be seen at their very work....
Entering the state apartments by the dressing-room, with its painted
ceiling of the "Mission of Mercury to Paris," its carved marble
door-cases, and its _tours de force_ in wood, by Gibbons or Watson, as
the case may be, we notice the great vista through the open doors of the
suite and pass on into the state bedroom. Here Aurora chases Night on
the ceiling; we notice the fine embossed leather on the walls, the
canopy embroidered, it is said, by "Bess of Hardwick," the coronation
chairs of George III. and Queen Charlotte, with their footstools, the
wardrobe of Louis XVI., and much else. Next we come to the state
music-room, which has similar decorations, and a strangely deceptive
painting, attributed to Verrio, of a violin on its door. From this we
enter the state drawing-room, where Phaeton drives the horses of the sun
above us, where the walls are hung with Gobelin tapestry after the
cartoons of Raffaelle, and where, in the malachite table and other
fittings, there is much to attract the attention. In the state
dining-room, which is the last of the suite, Verrio has depicted upon
the ceiling, in his best manner, the "Fates cutting the Thread of Life."
In this luxurious chamber it is hard to think the wood-carving can be by
any other than Gibbons, if we regard his characteristic manner; but
whoever he may have been, the skilful craftsman has surpassed himself in
giving the very touch of nature to these marvellous representations of
flowers, fruit, birds, and shells....
Passing into the new wing through the dining-room (rarely shown), which
is a grand chamber, simple in its style, but having a coved ceiling of
white and gold, and adorned with rare marbles and splendid furniture,
including tables of hornblende, porphyritic syenite, and Siberian
jasper, hung with family portraits, and having sculptures by Westmacott,
and others, we enter the sculpture-gallery, which is so well known that
we need in this article only say that it contains works by Canova,
Thorwaldsen, Schadow, Gibson, Wyatt, Westmacott, and several foreign
artists. Attention is here drawn to a magnificent vase of the Blue John
spar, which is said to be the largest in existence. Having then passed
through the orangery, which is filled with sweet-scented blossoms or
rich in ripening fruit, we leave the house and enter the gardens.
These stand high among the attractions of Chatsworth, and with their
varied character of the natural and the artificial, their terraces and
walks, their gay parterres, their fine trees, their fountains and rocks,
their great conservatory, and their many other houses stored with
choicest exotics, they are certainly among the finest gardens in
England.
Few things can be more pleasant, having passed through the luxurious
chambers, than to linger in these sweet-scented pathways, which are
bordered by rich clusterings of flowers, to listen to the music of the
waterfalls, and to see the dark-green trees, and the white-limbed
nymphs, reflected in the pellucid basins. We pass down a short flight of
steps, between dancing-girls after Canova, and vases of Elfdalen
porphyry, and then proceeding through the French gardens, where the
pathways are separated from the bright flower-beds by delicate creepers
turning about lofty pedestals supporting busts and vases, we reach the
great cascade, which pours from a stone water-temple, and rolls foaming
down its long flight of formal descents below, to where, amid the rugged
rocks at the bottom, it disappears underground.