BOUGHTON HOUSE, XORTHANTS 199 



much more ornate palace. But the style of this particular work 

 bears a certain resemblance to the grand stable buildings at 

 Versailles ; it is large in scale, sober and dignified in treatment 

 (Fig. 134). Indeed, it is so severe as to be thought dull by the 

 casual visitor. 



This reproach is not brought against the interior. The rooms 

 are large and stately ; their walls are panelled with the great, 

 boldly moulded panels of the period (Fig. 135); their ceilings 

 are painted with the gay mythological subjects of Verrio and his 

 school (see Figs. 310, 311); the floors are filled with the tables, 

 chairs, settees, cabinets, and bedsteads of the time. Portraits of 

 the family l hang on the panelling, there are mirrors in which 

 their glories were reflected, and knick-knacks which they handled. 

 In other wings are rooms of less stateliness, intended for daily 

 use ; in the attics are long rows of still plainer rooms intended 

 for the servants. 



At the time it was built the house, no doubt, answered its 

 purpose admirably ; but times change and we change with them ; 

 and eventually the rooms were found to be cold, draughty, and 

 inconveniently arranged one leading, as a rule, out of another. 

 There was space enough, but there were none of the comforts of 

 modern life ; no baths nor even any supply of water laid on ; it 

 all had to be carried long distances. The house became less 

 constantly in use, and to this fact is largely owing the preserva- 

 tion of its ancient character. Nothing brings home to the mind 

 the changes that have taken place in manners and customs 

 during the last two centuries so forcibly as an attempt to live in 

 an old unaltered house, where even the cooking appliances, 

 although on a grand scale, are ill-adapted to modern needs ; and 

 it is only by drastic alterations in some of the less notable rooms 

 that Boughton has been fitted for modern occupation. 



Ralph was succeeded in 1708 by his son John, the second 

 duke, who carried on^such work as his father had left un- 

 finished. He is responsible for several fireplaces, among other 

 things, on which he made a considerable display of heraldry. 

 The difference between the motif of Duke John's heraldry and 

 that of a hundred years earlier is that in the earlier work 



1 An excellent annotated catalogue of the pictures has been prepared by 

 Mr C. H. Scott and privately printed. The Boughton estates passed to the 

 Dukes of Buccleuch (Montagu-Douglas-Scott) by marriage with an heiress 

 of the Montagus. 



