The Northwest Front 
HOUSES WITH A HISTORY 
STOWE HOUSE 
By P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A. 
nPHE glories of Stowe have been sung by many 
poets, a stately mansion that needs no 
panegyric. In its quiet old age it is, perhaps, 
more pleasing to the senses, than ever it was in 
the palmy days of its grandeur and magnificence. 
It whispers a sweet message of peace to the heart, 
war-wearied with the strife of faction and ambi¬ 
tion, and attracts us with its plaintive utterances 
far more than 
when kings and 
poets and wits 
crowded its corri¬ 
dors or sought 
refreshment in 
those wonderful 
gardens of which 
the world has 
heard. In the 
days of its zenith, 
Stowe must have 
been one of the 
grandest man¬ 
sions in England, 
and enough re¬ 
mains of its for¬ 
mer greatness to 
enable us to pic¬ 
ture to our eyes 
the princely seat 
of the Dukes of 
Buckingham as it appeared to Pope, Horace Wal¬ 
pole, Lord Chesterfield, the Prince of Wales and 
a host of other illustrious guests of the dukes of 
former times. Now the dukedom is extinct. 
Stowe has been robbed of most of its choicest 
treasures by the relentless hammer of the auctioneer, 
owing to the ruin of the second duke in 1848. It 
is sad to reflect that all that the prodigal expen¬ 
diture of immense 
wealth had col- 
lected, all that 
had descended 
from numerous 
lines of ancestry 
renowne d for 
taste and oppor¬ 
tunities of ac¬ 
quiring beautiful 
and priceless ob¬ 
jects of art and 
v e r t u, all the 
priceless heir¬ 
looms of an illus¬ 
trious family were 
scattered over the 
world to be sold 
in shops, to glitter 
in the public 
rooms of hotels, 
or to decorate the 
*7 
A STATEROOM 
