110 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



carving by the unrivalled 

 hand of Griniing Gibbons, 

 is one of the wonders of 

 England; and all England 

 contains no such complete 

 gathering of curious and 

 precious statuary. In a word, 

 or in a sentence, there 

 is an unrivalled collection of 

 art treasures within, just as 

 there is the finest example of 

 the work of a very notable 

 gardener without. 



It may be said that Chats- 

 worth is stately, massive, 

 and imposing, rather than 

 exquisitely beautiful, save in 

 point of situation . Yet its very 

 soliaily and substance are in 

 harmony with the status of its 

 owner, the owner also of 

 Hardwick Hall, of Bolton 

 Abbey, of Compton Place 

 near Eastbourne, and of 

 Lismore Castle in the County 

 Waterford. It is essentially 

 ducal, and was built by the 

 first Duke, raised to that Cof y ,ij/,t. 

 honour in 1694, and extended 



and adorned by the sixth Duke, who succeeded in 1811, 

 and died unmarried in 1858. Of the old Chatsworth and its 

 gardens one of our illustrations will serve to give some idea. 

 Its very quaintnrss may also cause a feeling of regret that 

 t!',e ancient building and its surroundings have been so 

 completely obliteraied. In that ancient Chatsworth Mary 

 Queen of Scots was placed in confinement by Elizabeth. The 

 unhappy prisoner is said to have passed many of her lonesome 

 hours in a garden, called Queen Mary's Bower, on the top of the 

 low square tower or platform which is seen by the visitor amid 



THE LOWER WEST GARDEN. 



" Country Lije.' 



the trees as he approaches the house from that classic bridge 

 which Caius Gabriel Gibber, the father of Colley Gibber, 

 adorned with its statues. That tower, indeed, even now, when 

 the creepers have veiled some of its uncompromising outline, 

 is grim and sullen beyond belief. For the rest, we must be 

 content to realise that the Chatsworth of to-day is as different 

 as it is humanly possible for it to be, house, landscape and all, 

 from the Chatsworth in which Mary was immured. The sky 

 is there, and the river, and the lovely and undulating 

 Derbyshire country ; but for the rest all is changed. 





" County Life.' 



THE SOUTH WALK. 



