Were it not for the “out-heroded” descriptions in the guide-books, one
might say a great deal of Warwick castle. It is the quality of overdone
or ill-expressed enthusiasm to silence that which is more rational and
real. Warwick is, perhaps, the best kept of all the famous old castles
of England. It is a superb and admirably-appointed modern dwelling, in
the shell, and with all the means and appliances preserved of an ancient
stronghold. It is a curious union, too. My lady’s maid and my lord’s
valet coquet upon the bartizan, where old Guy of Warwick stalked in his
coat-of-mail. The London cockney, from his two days’ watering at
Leamington, stops his pony-chaise, hired at half-a-crown the hour, and
walks Mrs. Popkins over the old drawbridge as peacefully as if it were
the threshold of his shop in the Strand. Scot and Frenchman saunter
through fosse and tower, and no ghost of the middle ages stalks forth,
with closed visor, to challenge these once natural foes. The powdered
butler yawns through an embrasure, expecting “miladi,” the countess of
this fair domain, who in one day’s posting from London seeks relief in
Warwick castle from the routs and _soirées_ of town. What would old Guy
say, or the “noble imp” whose effigy is among the escutcheoned tombs of
his fathers, if they could rise through their marble slabs, and be
whirled over the drawbridge in a post-chaise? How indignantly they would
listen to the reckoning within their own port-cullis, of the rates for
chaise and postillion. How astonished they would be at the butler’s bow
and the proffered officiousness of the valet. “Shall I draw off your
lordship’s boots? Which of these new vests from Staub will your lordship
put on for dinner?”
Among the pictures at Warwick, I was interested by a portrait of Queen
Elizabeth, (the best of that sovereign I ever saw;) one of Machiavelli,
one of Essex, and one of Sir Philip Sidney. The delightful and gifted
woman whom I had accompanied to the castle observed of the latter, that
the _hand_ alone expressed all his character. I had often made the
remark in real life, but I had never seen an instance on painting where
the likeness was so true. No one could doubt, who knew Sir Philip
Sidney’s character, that it was a literal portrait of his hand. In our
day, if you have an artist for a friend, he makes use of you while you
call, to “sit for the hand” of the portrait on his easel. Having a
preference for the society of artists myself, and frequenting their
studios habitually, I know of some hundred and fifty unsuspecting
gentlemen on canvass, who have procured for posterity and their children
portraits of their own heads and dress-coats to be sure, but of the
hands of other persons!
The head of Machiavelli is, as is seen in the marble in the gallery of
Florence, small, slender, and visibly “made to creep into crevices.” The
face is impassive and calm, and the lips, though slight and almost
feminine, have an indefinable firmness and character. Essex is the bold,
plain, and blunt soldier history makes him, and Elizabeth not unqueenly,
nor (to my thinking) of an uninteresting countenance; but, with all the
artist’s flattery, ugly enough to be the abode of the murderous envy
that brought Mary to the block.
We paid our five shillings for having been walked through the marble
hall of Castle Warwick, and the dressing room of its modern lady, and,
gratified much more by our visit than I have expressed in this brief
description, posted on to Kenilworth.