220 CASTLE HOWARD GARDENS, MAUSOLEUM 



at work amid surroundings almost massive enough for Diocletian 

 himself. 



The lay out is of corresponding scenic magnificence. From 

 one direction the house is approached along a far-stretching 

 avenue, which leads up hill and down dale, then beneath a 

 gateway in a long, symmetrically designed range of building 

 crowned with a sturdy pyramid, and so onwards towards a lofty 

 obelisk, the meeting-point of several roads, one of which leads to- 

 the house. The formal gardens close to the house surround a 

 large basin, in the midst of which is Atlas bearing up the world, 

 amid the encouragements of four huge tritons who raise great 

 horns towards him across the water. The broad gravel walk 

 along the garden front leads in one direction to the walled fruit 

 gardens ; in the other to a smooth grass track which slopes 

 upwards to a copse of beeches. Curving away from this is 

 another grass track which, passing an ordered row of lead 

 figures, comes eventually to a classic temple. Beyond are 

 undulating fields skirting an artificial lake, across which is flung 

 a massive bridge which deserves, even more than that at Wilton, 

 Wai pole's epithet of " theatric," for it serves no purpose but to 

 adorn the landscape. It spans a sheet of water contrived for 

 little else than to provide the opportunity to build it. Its 

 roadway, deep-grown in grass, leads from nowhere to nowhere. 

 The Palladian bridge at Prior Park, near Bath, illustrated in 

 Fig. 1 54, is almost an exact replica of that at Wilton. 



Still further on, crowning an eminence, stands a huge 

 mausoleum, a noble building designed by Hawksmoor (Fig. 153). 

 It rests on a lofty and spacious platform of irregular symmetry, 

 whereon the friends and tenants of deceased earls may have 

 gathered to await the arrival of the funeral procession as it 

 made its slow way along the grass walks, and after halting at 

 the temple, wound across the rolling fields. Long stone benches 

 suggest the scores of horsemen who dismounted and left their 

 horses to be tended on the ample spaces of the platform. The 

 mausoleum itself is a circular domed building, surrounded by 

 disengaged columns ; within it are two chambers ; the lower,., 

 level with the platform, contains the vaults ; the upper is the 

 chapel. The latter is approached by long flights of steps, and 

 is itself circular and covered at a great height with a coffered 

 dome. The sweep of the walls within is relieved by eight 

 recesses for an altar, the clergy, and the chief mourners. The 

 vaulted apartment below is massively constructed, and in the 



