MR. DOWNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



the antique Elizabctliean style — richly carved in dark oak or ebony. This is not very 

 rare in England, and I had seen a good deal of the same style in many of the great coun- 

 try mansions before. But almost every piece here, was either a master-piece of workman- 

 ship, or marked by singular beauty of design, or of great historical interest. Yet the 

 effect of the whole, and the adaptation to the uses of each separate room, had been con- 

 sidered, so that the ensemble gave the impression of the finest unity of taste. Among the 



fine specimens which Lady S had the goodness especially to make us acquainted 



with, I remember an exquisitelj' carved work-box once presented by Essex to Elizabeth, 

 a curious silver clock that belonged to Charles I. (and was carried about with him in his 

 carriage on his journeys;) and a superbly carved, high bedstead, once Sir AValter Ra- 

 leigh's, and the the couch of Cardinal Woolset. There was also an old Dutch organ, 

 bearing the date 1592, of singularly beautiful workmanship, and still in perfect tone. 

 Some rare and unique carved oak cabinets, of Flemish origin, one of them with the histo- 

 ry of John the Baptist carved in the different pannels, challenged the most elaborate in- 

 vestigation. Of beautiful chairs, seats, and carved wainscot, there was the greatest vari- 

 ety, and in short the house was at once a museum for an antiquarian — and the most agree- 

 able home to live in. 



This villa was built by a wealthy eccentric — I think a bachelor — who wholly finished the 

 collection only a few years ago. He carried his passion for collecting very choice and rare 

 antique furniture — especially that of undoubted historical interest — to such an extent, that 

 it became a species of madness, and at last led him through a very large fortune, and forc- 

 ed hini to surrender the whole to his creditors. You may judge something of the cost of 

 the furniture — every room in the house being well filled — when I tell you that for a single 

 Flemish cabinet, only remarkable for its superb carving, not for any history attached to 

 it, he paid iEOOO, (about !j^-4,500.) The propertj^ when brought into market in the gross, 

 Avas of course bought by the present owner at a merely nominal sum, compared with 

 its original cost. 



England, though in the main remarkable for its common sense, abounds with instances 

 like this, of large wealth applied to the indulgence of personal taste — to the building of a 

 great mansion, the collection of books, pictures, or to the indulgence of personal whims 

 or IJxncies. Thus the Earl of Harrington has in his seat near Derby, a peculiar spot 

 of twenty or thirty acres, wholly filled with the rarest and most beautiful evergreens in 

 the world — where Araucarias and Deodars, bought when they were worth five or ten 

 guineas a piece, are as plentiful now as hemlocks in western New-York; where dark-green 

 Irish Yews stand along thcM'alks like sable sentinels, and gold and silver hollies and yews 

 are cut into peacocks, shepherds and shepherdesses, and all manner of strange and fantas- 

 tical whimsies. The conceit, though odd, (I had a glimpse of it,) is the finest specimen 

 of its kind in the world — yet the owner — an old man now — who has amused himself and 

 spent vast sums on this garden for twenty years past, will not let a soul enter it — unless 

 it may be some gardener whom it is impossible to imagine a critic. Even the Duke of 

 Devonshire — so the story goes— in order to get a sight of it, went incog as a kitchen 

 gardener. The Duke of Marlborough, a few years ago, had a private garden at Blen- 

 heim, surrounded by a high wall, into wliichcvcn his own brother had not been admitted. 

 You sec even the most amiable qualities of the heart— those Avhich lead us to make our 

 homes happy, occasionally run into a monomania. 



I loft the Isle of AYight with the feeling that if I should ever need the nursing of soft 

 d kindly influences in a foreign land, I should try to find my way back to it 

 one, blest with excellent health, and usually insensible to the magical influence 



