Stowe House 
THE LIBRARY 
terminates. I here are two china closets at the 
entrance end of the apartment. 
On the eastern side are the music room, grand 
library, which once contained a vast store of 20,000 
books, and three other rooms, one of which is known 
as the Queen’s bedroom, where Queen Victoria 
slept during her memorable visit in 1844. In the 
basement are extensive corridors which are used 
as armouries. The old muskets used in the Penin¬ 
sular War by the regiment commanded by the Mar¬ 
quis of Buckingham are stored here. The MS. 
room was modelled from Henry VII.’s Chapel in 
Westminster Abbey, by Sir John Sloane, and in the 
centre of the vaulted ceiling are the 719 quarter- 
ings of the noble families who have owned Stowe. 
There is still avast store of valuable papers, but the 
famous Stowe MSS. are now in the British Museum. 
The chapel is worthy of a visit. The cedar wainscot 
was taken from a Spanish prize vessel, and was 
formerly at Pilkhampton, Cornwall, the seat of Sir 
Richard Grenville, the hero of Queen Elizabeth’s 
time, the commander of the gallant little “Re¬ 
venge,” sung of by Tennyson. Grinling Gibbons 
did the carving. Some old regimental colours 
hang from the walls. The vast kitchen resembles 
the other and 
has a portico 
with wings. 
On entering, 
you find your¬ 
self in a vesti- 
bule with a 
ceiling paint¬ 
ed by Kent, 
architect and 
artist, the 
friend of Lord 
Burlington, 
the designer 
of Holkham. 
This ceiling is 
an allegorical 
design repre¬ 
senting Vic¬ 
tory or Mars 
presenting a 
sword to Lord 
Cobham, the 
companion of 
Marlborough 
in his victo¬ 
rious cam¬ 
paign. Some 
people see in 
the face of 
Mars the like- 
nessof“Dutch 
William.” A 
copy of the Venus de Medici, two panels of ancient 
sculpture, and a large Herculanean vase adorn this 
hall. We pass thence into the large saloon (60 
feet by 43 feet), a great feature of a Palladian 
house. It has a vast dome and a frieze with some 
remarkable figures engaged in celebrating a Roman 
triumph, by Valdre. The student of Roman 
antiquities will see in these figures a strong similarity 
to those with which he is familiar in “ The Eternal 
City.” The staterooms all open from this central 
saloon. On the right is the state drawing-room, 
which contains several pictures saved from the 
wreck. There is a Correggio, showing the figures 
of Mars, Venus and Cupid, and over the mantel¬ 
piece is a bas-relief representing a sacrifice to 
Bacchus. We next find ourselves in the noble 
dining-room hung with tapestry, and over the 
mantelpiece are some carvings of Grinling Gib¬ 
bons. Another small dining-room is the next room 
which we enter, also adorned with tapestry repre¬ 
senting battle scenes of the Queen Anne period. 
A portrait of one of the Temples painted by 
Van Dyck is over the mantelpiece. Lrom this 
room opens the Duchess’s drawing-room; with 
which our tour of the western wing of the house 
23 
