650 Description of Harcwood House, 



bronze, is a representation of some drunken and heathenish 

 rite, the subject of which, as I did not care to remember, 

 escaped me before I was out of the mansion. A fine portico, 

 at the south front of the house, communicates with this room. 

 The gallery extends across the west end of the house, and is 

 77 ft. long. The French plate looking-glasses are immense. 

 The superb chimney-piece, supported by two bewitching 

 figures of nymphs, is a chef d'ceuvre. The chandeliers, tripods, 

 busts, &c, are all in the first style of excellence. The ceiling 

 is of stucco work, and adorned with subjects from that endless 

 labyrinth of fiction the Heathen mythology, admirably painted 

 by Rebecca. The music room is very handsome ; the ceiling 

 is divided into compartments by cornices elegantly carved, and 

 the floor is covered with a rich carpet to correspond with it. 

 The white drawing-room, the yellow drawing-room, the couch- 

 room, the dining-room, and others, are all splendour and ele- 

 gance. The best staircase is admirable ; the walls decorated 

 with paintings of the Birth of Venus, the Triumph of Bacchus, 

 &c. It struck me as singular that scenes of drunkenness should 

 so frequently be depicted on the walls of this mansion, to the 

 exclusion of historical pictures, of which there are none of any 

 note. The muniment (archive) room on the ground floor, 

 the kitchens, still-rooms, &c, are all complete in their kind. 

 Water is conveyed to the house by upwards of 2500 yards 

 of lead pipes, from a spring sufficiently high to raise it to the 

 most lofty rooms of the building. 



The park is finely wooded, and contains about 1800 acres. 

 The pleasure-grounds were laid out by the celebrated Launcelot 

 Brown, Esq. (or, as he was in his lifetime often called, " Ca- 

 pability* Brown"), and have subsequently been altered and 

 improved by Repton, and other eminent artists in landscape- 

 gardening, f They are now considered to rank among the 

 first in England ; and indeed their variety and grandeur are 

 very striking, especially when it is considered that, unlike 

 Hafod, Dunkeld, and Mount Edgecumbe, nature has done 

 little to add to their beauty. 



The kitchen and fruit gardens are of an irregular form, and 

 contain about 8 acres : they lie on a very gentle slope towards 



* Some persons say that this prcBnomen arose from a frequent remark of 

 Brown's, when viewing any grounds which he thought might be improved, 

 that " the place had its capabilities:" others consider the term as a title 

 complimentary of his superior talents in his profession. 



+ In the first Lord Harewood's time, R. A. Salisbury, Esq. (who then 

 resided at Chapel Allerton, where he had an immense green-house), was a 

 frequent guest at His Lordship's table, and many important alterations are 

 said to have been made in the grounds from his designs. 



