478 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



with trunks a couple of feet in diameter, the growth of more than 

 200 years. 



On the south side of this court lies the principal mass of the 

 castle, affording an unbroken suite of rooms 333 feet long. At the 

 northeast, Caesar's tower, built in Saxon times, the oldest part of 

 the whole edifice, whose exact date is unknown which rises dark, 

 gloomy and venerable, above all the rest ; while at the southeast 

 stands the tower built by the great WARWICK broader and more 

 massive, and partly hidden by huge chestnuts. The other sides are 

 not inhabited, but still remain as originally built, a vast mass of 

 walls, with embattled parapets broken by towers with loopholes and 

 positions for defence but with their sternness and severity broken 

 by the tender drapery of vines and shrubs, and the luxuriant beauty 

 of the richest verdure. 



In the centre of the south side of this noble court-yard, you 

 enter the castle by a few steps. Passing through the entrance hall, 

 you reach the great hall, vast, baronial and magnificent the floor 

 paved with marble and the roof carved in oak. Along the sides, 

 which are panelled in dark cedar, are hung the armor and the 

 weapons of every age since the first erection of the castle. I was 

 shown the leather shirt, with its blood-stains blackened by time, 

 worn by an ancestor of the present earl, who was slain at the battle 

 of Litchfield, and many other curious and powerful weapons used 

 by the great warriors of the family through a course of centuries. 



On either side of this hall, to the right and left, in a straight 

 line, extend the continuous suite of apartments. The first on the 

 right is the ante- drawing-room, the walls crimson and gold ; next, 

 the cedar drawing-room the walls richly wainscoted with wood of 

 the cedar of Lebanon ; third, the great drawing-room, finely propor- 

 tioned and quite perfect in tone its walls delicate apple-green, re- 

 lieved by a little pure white, and enriched with gilding ; next, 

 Queen Anne's state bedroom, with a superb state bed presented to 

 the then Earl of Warwick, by that queen, being antique, with tapes- 

 try, and decorated with a fine full-length picture of Queen Anne ; 

 and beyond this a cabinet filled with the choicest specimens of an- 

 cient Venetian art and workmanship. Behind the hall is the chapel, 

 and on the left the suite is continued in the same manner as on the 



