478 LETTERS TROM ENGLAND. 



■with tarunts a cotiple of feet in diameter, the growth of more than 

 '200 yea*. ■ > . , . ,'^ . . 



On the south fiide 'of this court lies the principal mass of the 

 castle, -affording an unbroken suiteof rooms 333 f6et long. Afthe 

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

 the whole Mifice, whose exact date is untnown— which rises dark, 

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

 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 thfe 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 mighificent— the floer 

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

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

 weapons of «very age since the first erection of the castlte. 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 cnrioUs 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 stra,i^ht 

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

 right is the. arile-dra'wing-room,' the walls crimsoSi and gold; next, 

 the cedar drawing-room — the w^lls 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, aad enriched with gilding'; next. 

 Queen Anne's "state bedroqnl, 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 beycind this a cabinet filled .with the choicest specimienS-of an- 

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

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



