Ube 5)nF?es of Beaufort 1*5 



four English sovereigns from Charles II to George I, 

 never did anything finer than the carving with which 

 Badminton House is lavishly enriched and embellished. 

 And the noble picture gallery contains masterpieces of 

 Guido, Holbein, Cornelius Janssens, and Carlo Dolci, and, 

 above all, that remarkable picture of Salvator Rosa's, 

 which led to his expulsion from Rome. As one looks at 

 it one is not surprised that the painter made the Imperial 

 City too hot to hold him. For, he has represented in 

 this wonderful piece of satire the European sovereigns of 

 the time under the guise of eagle, wolf, sheep, fox, hog, 

 cow, according as he conceived these animals to indicate 

 the characters of the several monarchs ; whilst he reserves 

 his bitterest and most audacious shafts of satire for the 

 Holy Father himself, for across the ass is thrown the 

 pontifical pall. Over this heterogeneous group of beasts. 

 Fortune, a blind goddess, hovers, and showers her gifts 

 impartially on them all. In that noble mansion William 

 the Third was entertained with princely magnificence on 

 his triumphant return from the victorious campaign 

 which ended with the Battle of the Boyne, and there, 

 too, with not less splendid hospitality was welcomed his 

 successor Queen Anne. What the power and state of 

 the Dukes of Beaufort were then and long afterwards 

 may be gathered from the vivid description given by 

 Macaulay in the first volume of his history. 



From that time the Dukes of Beaufort have been 

 mainly remarkable for ' the sustained magnificence of 

 their stately lives,' the splendour of their hospitality, the 

 superb style in which they carry out their high ideal of 

 sport, and the unselfishness with which they lay them- 

 selves out to provide enjoyment for all genuine lovers of 

 the Chase. There were hounds at Badminton, no doubt, 



K 



