XXIV REPORT. 
estates in Gloucestershire were settled upon her; and fourthly, 
to the then greatest subject of the realm, George Talbot, Earl of 
Shrewsbury, whom she survived 17 years. Hardwick. passed to 
the descendants of her second husband, Sir William Cavendish, 
and is now the seat of the Marquis of Hartington. The two 
buildings which are the objects of your visit to-day, and which 
present so striking a feature in the landscape, are of stone 
quarried from the rock on which they stand. The more ancient 
of them was probably not erected any great length of time before 
the present mansion ; but of the person who built it, undoubtedly 
one of the Hardwicks, we have no account. The central part is 
the oldest, the two ends of the building of the date of Henry 
VIII. being additions to it. One stately room may yet be seen, 
though in a very dilapidated condition, which has long been 
considered by architects a good specimen of grand proportions ; 
and we have the authority of Bishop Kennet for saying ‘‘ that it 
was on that account thought fit for the pattern of a room in the 
palace of Blenheim.” A short passage connects this room with 
another, probably the drawing-room, over the fireplace of which 
was this inscription :— 
“ As fainting stagge the water-brooks desireth, 
Even so my soule the livinge Lord requireth.” 
The old hall was standing entire until the time of William IIL., 
when a great part of it was pulled down, and the timber used in 
the new buildings at Chatsworth. A short distance from the 
house in which the Countess was born, and which she left 
standing, ‘‘ as if intending to construct her bed of state close to 
her cradle,” is the present mansion, a magnificent relic of the 
Elizabethan age, and the building of which was commenced about 
the year 1576, and not finished until after 1607. Its exterior, as 
you will readily testify, is extremely imposing, and is of the style 
of architecture which prevailed in the last years of Queen 
Elizabeth and the first of James I. Horace Walpole selected 
Hardwick as an example. He remarked that “in ancient times 
the mansions of the nobility were built for defence and strength 
rather than for convenience. The walls thick ; the windows pierced 
