VI. 



WOBURN ABBEY. 



September, 1850. , 



I RECEIVED in London, a note from the Duke of Bedford, which 

 led me, while I was in Bedfordshire, to make a visit to Woburr; 

 Abbey. 



This is considered one of the most complete estates and estab- 

 lishments in the kingdom. It is fully equal to Chatsworth, but quite 

 in another way. Chatsworth is semi-continental, or rather it is the 

 concentration of every thing that European art can do to embellish 

 and render beautiful a great country residence. Woburn Abbey is 

 thoroughly English ; that is, it does not aim at beauty, so much as 

 grandeur of extent and substantial completeness, united with the 

 most systematic and thorough administration of the whole. Besides 

 this, it interested me much as the home, for exactly three centuries, 

 of a family which has adorned its high station by the highest vir- 

 tues, and by an especial devotion to the interests of the soil.* The 

 present Duke of Bedford is one of the largest and most scientific 

 farmers in England, and his father, the late Duke, was not only an 

 enthusiastic agriculturist, but the greatest arboriculturist and botanist 

 of his day, whose works, both practical and literary, made their 

 mark upon the age. 



The Woburn estate consists of about thirty thousand acres of 



* The first John Russell, Duke of Bedford, came into possession of this 

 estate, in 1549, and it has descended in the family ever since. In one of the 

 apartments of the palace is a series of miniature portraits of the heads of the 

 family in an unbroken line, for 300 years. 



