How shall we describe Château Desir, that place fit for all princes? In
the midst of a park of great extent, and eminent for scenery, as varied
as might please nature’s most capricious lover; in the midst of green
lawns and deep winding glens, and cooling streams, and wild forest, and
soft woodland, there was gradually formed an elevation, on which was
situate a mansion of great size, and of that bastard, but picturesque
style of architecture, called the Italian Gothic. The date of its
erection was about the middle of the sixteenth century. You entered by a
noble gateway, in which the pointed style still predominated; but in
various parts of which, the Ionic column, and the prominent keystone,
and other creations of Roman architecture, intermingled with the
expiring Gothic, into a large quadrangle, to which the square casement
windows, and the triangular pediments or gable ends supplying the place
of battlements, gave a varied and Italian feature. In the centre of the
court, from a vast marble basin, the rim of which was enriched by a
splendidly sculptured lotus border, rose a marble group representing
Amphitrite with her marine attendants, whose sounding shells and coral
sceptres sent forth their subject element in sparkling showers. This
work, the chef d’oeuvre celebrated artist of Vicenza, had been purchased
by Valerian, first Lord Carabas, who having spent the greater part of
his life as the representative of his monarch at the Ducal Court of
Venice, at length returned to his native country; and in the creation of
Château Desir endeavoured to find some consolation for the loss of his
beautiful villa on the banks of the Adige.
Over the gateway there rose a turreted tower, the small square window of
which, notwithstanding its stout stanchions, illumined the muniment room
of the House of Carabas. In the spandrils of the gateway and in many
other parts of the building might be seen the arms of the family; while
the tall twisted stacks of chimneys, which appeared to spring from all
parts of the roof, were carved and built in such curious and quaint
devices that they were rather an ornament than an excrescence. When you
entered the quadrangle, you found one side solely occupied by the old
hall, the huge carved rafters of whose oak roof rested on corbels of the
family supporters against the walls. These walls were of stone, but
covered half-way from the ground with a panelling of curiously-carved
oak; whence were suspended, in massy frames, the family portraits,
painted by Dutch and Italian artists. Near the dais, or upper part of
the hall, there projected an oriel window, which, as you beheld, you
scarcely knew what most to admire, the radiancy of its painted panes or
the fantastic richness of Gothic ornament, which was profusely lavished
in every part of its masonry. Here too the Gothic pendent and the Gothic
fan-work were intermingled with the Italian arabesques, which, at the
time of the building of the Château, had been recently introduced into
England by Hans Holbein and John of Padua.
How wild and fanciful are those ancient arabesques! Here at Château
Desir, in the panelling of the old hall, might you see fantastic
scrolls, separated by bodies ending in termini, and whose heads
supported the Ionic volute, while the arch, which appeared to spring
from these capitals, had, for a keystone, heads more monstrous than
those of the fabled animals of Ctesias; or so ludicrous, that you forgot
the classic griffin in the grotesque conception of the Italian artist.
Here was a gibbering monkey, there a grinning pulcinello; now you viewed
a chattering devil, which might have figured in the “Temptation of St.
Anthony;” and now a mournful, mystic, bearded countenance, which might
have flitted in the back scene of a “Witches’ Sabbath.”
A long gallery wound through the upper story of two other sides of the
quadrangle, and beneath were the show suite of apartments with a sight
of which the admiring eyes of curious tourists were occasionally
delighted.
The grey stone walls of this antique edifice were, in many places,
thickly covered with ivy and other parasitical plants, the deep green of
whose verdure beautifully contrasted with the scarlet glories of the
pyrus japonica, which gracefully clustered round the windows of the
lower chambers. The mansion itself was immediately surrounded by
numerous ancient forest trees. There was the elm with its rich branches
bending down like clustering grapes; there was the wide-spreading oak
with its roots fantastically gnarled; there was the ash, with its smooth
bark and elegant leaf; and the silver beech, and the gracile birch; and
the dark fir, affording with its rough foliage a contrast to the trunks
of its more beautiful companions, or shooting far above their branches,
with the spirit of freedom worthy of a rough child of the mountains.
Around the Castle were extensive pleasure-grounds, which realised the
romance of the “Gardens of Verulam.” And truly, as you wandered through
their enchanting paths there seemed no end to their various beauties,
and no exhaustion of their perpetual novelty. Green retreats succeeded
to winding walks; from the shady berçeau you vaulted on the noble
terrace; and if, for an instant, you felt wearied by treading the velvet
lawn, you might rest in a mossy cell, while your mind was soothed by the
soft music of falling waters. Now your curious eyes were greeted by
Oriental animals, basking in a sunny paddock; and when you turned from
the white-footed antelope and the dark-eyed gazelle, you viewed an
aviary of such extent, that within its trellised walls the imprisoned,
songsters could build, in the free branches of a tree, their
natural nests.
“O fair scene!” thought Vivian Grey, as he approached, on a fine
summer’s afternoon, the splendid Château, “O fair scene! doubly fair to
those who quit for thee the thronged and agitated city. And can it be,
that those who exist within this enchanted domain, can think of anything
but sweet air, and do aught but revel in the breath of perfumed
flowers?” And here he gained the garden-gate: so he stopped his
soliloquy, and gave his horse to his groom.