Part 11

It must have been in this old hall, and not in the present edifice, that Mary Stuart resided during her short stay at Hardwicke. I am sorry to disturb the fanciful or sentimental tourists and sight-seers; but so it is, or rather, so it must have been. Yet it is not surprising that the memory of Mary Stuart should now form the principal charm and interest of Hardwicke, and that she should be in a manner the tutelary genius of the place. Chatsworth has been burned and rebuilt. Tutbury, Sheffield castle, Wingfield, Fotheringay, and the old house of Hardwicke, in short, every place which Mary inhabited during her captivity, all lie in ruins, as if struck with a doleful curse. But Hardwicke Hall exists just as it stood in the reign of Elizabeth. The present Duke of Devonshire, with excellent taste and feeling, keeps up the old costume within and without. The bed and furniture which had been used by Mary, the cushions of her oratory, the tapestry wrought by her own hands, have been removed hither, and are carefully preserved. There can be no doubt of the authenticity of these relics, and there is enough surely to consecrate the whole to our imagination. Moreover, we have but to go to the window and see the very spot, the very walls which once enclosed her, the very casements from which she probably gazed with a sigh over the far hills; and indulge, without one intrusive doubt, in all the romantic and fascinating, and mysterious, and sorrowful associations, which hang round the memory of Mary Stuart.

With what different eyes may people view the same things! "We receive but what we give," says the poet; and all the light, and glory, and beauty, with which certain objects are in a manner _suffused_ to the eye of fancy, must issue from our own souls, and be reflected back to us, else 'tis all in vain.

"We may not hope from outward forms to win, The passion and the life, whose fountains are within!"

When Gray, the poet, visited Hardwicke, he fell at once into a very poet-like rapture, and did not stop to criticise pictures, and question authorities. He says in one of his letters to Dr. Wharton, "of all the places I have seen in my return from you, Hardwicke pleased me most. One would think that Mary queen of Scotts was but just walked down into the park with her guard for half an hour: her gallery, her room of audience, her ante-chamber, with the very canopies, chair of state, footstool, _lit de repos_, oratory, carpets, hangings, just as she left them, a little tattered indeed, but the more venerable," &c. &c.

Now let us hear Horace Walpole, antiquarian, virtuoso, dilettante, filosofastro--but, in truth, no poet. He is, however, in general so good-natured, so amusing, and so tasteful, that I cannot conceive what put him into such a Smelfungus humour when he visited Hardwicke, with a Cavendish too at his elbow as his cicerone!

He says, "the duke sent Lord John with me to Hardwicke, where I was again disappointed; but I will not take relations from others; they either don't see for themselves, or can't see for me. How I had been promised that I should be charmed with Hardwicke, and told that the Devonshires ought to have established themselves there! Never was I less charmed in my life. The house is not gothic, but of that _betweenity_ that intervened when Gothic declined, and Palladian was creeping in; rather, this is totally naked of either. It has vast chambers--aye, vast, such as the nobility of that time delighted in, and did not know how to furnish. The great apartment is exactly what it was when the Queen of Scots was kept there.[53] Her council-chamber (the council-chamber of a poor woman who had only two secretaries, a gentleman usher, an apothecary, a confessor, and three maids) is so outrageously spacious that you would take it for King David's, who thought, contrary to all modern experience, that in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. At the upper end is the State, with a long table, covered with a sumptuous cloth, embroidered and embossed with gold--at least what was gold; so are all the tables. Round the top of the chamber runs a monstrous frieze, ten or twelve feet deep, representing a stag-hunt in miserable plastered relief.[54]

"The next is her dressing-room, hung with patchwork on black velvet; then her state bed-chamber. The bed has been rich beyond description, and now hangs in costly golden tatters; the hangings, part of which they say her majesty worked, are composed of figures as large as life, sewed and embroidered on black velvet, white satin, &c., and represent the virtues that were necessary to her, or that she was found to have--as patience, temperance,[55] &c. The fire-screens are particular;--pieces of yellow velvet, fringed with gold, hung on a cross-bar of wood, which is fixed on the top of a single stick that rises from the foot.[56] The only furniture which has any appearance of taste are the table and cabinets, which are of oak, richly carved."

(I must observe _en passant_, that I wonder Horace did not go mad about the chairs, which are exactly in the Strawberry Hill taste, only infinitely finer, crimson velvet, with backs six feet high, and sumptuously carved.)

"There is a private chamber within, where she lay: her arms and style over the door. The arras hangs over all the doors. The gallery is sixty yards in length, covered with bad tapestry and wretched pictures of Mary herself, Elizabeth in a gown of sea-monsters, Lord Darnley, James the Fifth and his queen, (curious,) and a whole history of kings of England not worth sixpence a-piece."[57]

"There is a fine bank of old oaks in the park over a lake: nothing else pleased me there."

Nothing else! Monsieur Traveller?--certes, this is one way of seeing things! Yet, perhaps, if I had only visited Hardwicke as a casual object of curiosity--had merely walked over the place--I had left it, like Gray, with some vague impression of pleasure, or like Walpole, with some flippant criticisms, according to the mood of the moment; or, at the most, I had quitted it as we generally leave show-places, with some confused recollections of state-rooms, and blue-rooms, and yellow-rooms, and storied tapestries, and nameless, or mis-named pictures, floating through the muddled brain; but it was far otherwise: I was ten days at Hardwicke--ten delightful days--time enough to get it by heart; aye, and what is more, ten _nights_; and I am convinced that to feel all the interest of such a place one should sleep in it. There is much, too, in first impressions, and the circumstances under which we approached Hardwicke were sufficiently striking. It was on a gusty, dark autumnal evening; and as our carriage wound slowly up the hill, we could but just discern an isolated building, standing above us on the edge of the eminence, a black mass against the darkening sky. No light was to be seen, and when we drove clattering under the old gateway, and up the paved court, the hollow echoes broke a silence which was almost awful. Then we were ushered into a hall so spacious and lofty that I could not at the moment discern its bounds; but I had glimpses of huge escutcheons, and antlers of deer, and great carved human arms projecting from the walls, intended to sustain lamps or torches, but looking as if they were stretched out to clutch one. Thence up a stone staircase, vast, and grand, and gloomy--leading we knew not where, and hung with pictures of we knew not what--and conducted into a chamber fitted up as a dining-room, in which the remnants of antique grandeur, the rich carved oak wainscoting, the tapestry above it, the embroidered chairs, the collossal armorial bearings above the chimney and the huge recessed windows, formed a curious contrast with the comfortable modern sofas and easy chairs, the blazing fire, and table hospitably spread in expectation of our arrival. Then I was sent to repose in a room hung with rich faded tapestry. On one side of my bed I had king David dancing before the ark, and on the other, the judgment of Solomon. The executioner in the latter piece, a grisly giant, seven or eight feet high, seemed to me, as the arras stirred with the wind, to wave his sword, and looked as if he were going to eat up the poor child, which he flourished by one leg; and for some time I lay awake, unable to take my eyes from the figure. At length fatigue overcame this unpleasant fascination, and I fell asleep.

The next morning I began to ramble about, and so day after day, till every stately chamber, every haunted nook, every secret door, curtained with heavy arras, and every winding stair, became familiar to me. What a passion our ancestors must have had for space and light! and what an ignorance of comfort! Here are no ottomans of eider down, no spring cushions, no "boudoirs etroits, ou l'on ne boude point," no "demijour de rendezvous;" but what vast chambers! what interminable galleries! what huge windows pouring in floods of sunshine! what great carved oak-chests, such as Iachimo hid himself in! now stuffed full of rich tattered hangings, tarnished gold fringes, and remnants of embroidered quilts! what acres--not yards--of tapestries, once of "sky-tinctured woof," now faded and moth-eaten! what massy chairs and immovable tables! what heaps of portraits, the men looking so grim and magnificent, and the women so formal and faded! Before I left the place I had them all by heart; there was not one among them who would not have bowed or curtsied to me out of their frames.

But there were three rooms in which I especially delighted, and passed most of my time. The first was the council-chamber described by Walpole: it is sixty-five feet in length, by thirty-three in width, and twenty-six feet high. Rich tapestry, representing the story of Ulysses, runs round the room to the height of fifteen or sixteen feet, and above it the stag-hunt in ugly relief. On one side of this room there is a spacious recess, at least eighteen or twenty feet square; and across this, from side to side, to divide it from the body of the room, was suspended a magnificent piece of tapestry, (real Gobelin's,) of the time of Louis Quatorze, still fresh and even vivid in tint, which from its weight hung in immense wavy folds; above it we could just discern the canopy of a lofty state-bed, with nodding ostrich plumes, which had been placed there out of the way. The effect of the whole, as I have seen it, when the red western light streamed through the enormous windows, was, in its shadowy beauty and depth of colour, that of a "realized Rembrandt"--if, indeed, even Rembrandt ever painted any thing at once so elegant, so fanciful, so gorgeous, and so gloomy.

From this chamber, by a folding-door, beautifully inlaid with ebony, but opening with a common latch, we pass into the library, as it is called. Here the Duke of Devonshire generally sits when he visits Hardwicke, perhaps on account of the glorious prospect from the windows. It contains a grand piano, a sofa, and a range of book-shelves, on which I found some curious old books. Here I used to sit and read the voluminous works of that dear, half-mad, absurd, but clever and good-natured Duchess of Newcastle,[58] and yawn and laugh alternately; or pore over Guillim on Heraldry;--fit studies for the place!

In this room are some good pictures, particularly the portrait of Lady Anne Boyle, daughter of the first Earl of Burlington, the Lady Sandwich of Charles the Second's time. This is, without exception, the finest specimen of Sir Peter Lely I ever saw--so unlike the usual style of his half-dressed, leering women--so full of pensive grace and simplicity--the hands and arms so exquisitely drawn, and the colouring so rich and so tender, that I was at once surprised and enchanted. There is also a remarkably fine picture of a youth with a monkey on his shoulder, said to be Jeffrey Hudson, (Queen Henrietta's celebrated dwarf,) and painted by Vandyke. I doubt both.

Over the chimney of this room there is a piece of sculptured bas-relief, in Derbyshire marble, representing Mount Parnassus, with Apollo and the Muses; in one corner the arms of Queen Elizabeth, and in the other her cypher, E. R., and the royal crown. I could neither learn the meaning of this nor the name of the artist. Could it have been a gift from Queen Elizabeth? There is (I think in the next room) another piece of sculpture representing the Marriage of Tobias; and I remember a third, representing a group of Charity. The workmanship of all these is surprisingly good for the time, and some of the figures very graceful. I am surprised that they escaped the notice of Horace Walpole, in his remarks on the decorations of Hardwicke.[59] Richard Stephens, a Flemish sculptor and painter, and Valerio Vicentino, an Italian carver in precious stones, were both employed by the munificent Cavendishes of that time; and these pieces of sculpture were probably the work of one of these artists.

When tired of turning over the old books, a door concealed behind the arras admitted me at once into the great gallery--my favourite haunt and daily promenade. It is near one hundred and eighty feet in length, lighted along one side by a range of stupendous windows, which project outwards from so many angular recesses. In the centre pier is a throne, or couch of state, on a raised platform, under a canopy of crimson and gold, surmounted by plumes of ostrich feathers. The walls are partly tapestried, and covered with some hundreds of family pictures; none indeed of any superlative merit--none that emulate within a thousand degrees the matchless Vandykes and glorious Titians of Devonshire House; but among many that are positively bad, and more that are lamentably mediocre as works of art, there are several of great interest. At each end of this gallery is a door, and, according to the tradition of the place, every night, at the witching hour of twelve, Queen Elizabeth enters at one door, and Mary of Scotland at the other; they advance to the centre, curtsey profoundly, then sit down together under the canopy and converse amicably,--till the crowing of the cock breaks up the conference, and sends the two majesties back to their respective hiding-places.

Somebody who was asked if he had ever seen a ghost? replied, gravely, "No; but I was once _very near_ seeing one!" In the same manner I was once _very near_ being a witness to one of these ghostly confabs.

Late one evening, having left my sketch-book in the gallery, I went to seek it. I made my way up the great stone staircase with considerable intrepidity, passed through one end of the council-chamber without casting a glance through the palpable obscure, the feeble ray of my wax-light just spreading about a yard around me, and lifting aside the tapestry door, stepped into the gallery. Just as the heavy arras fell behind me, with a dull echoing sound, a sudden gust of wind came rushing by, and extinguished my taper. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!--not that I felt afraid--O no! but just a little what the Scotch call "eerie." A thrill, not altogether unpleasant, came over me: the visionary turn of mind which once united me in fancy "with the world unseen," had long been sobered and reasoned away. I heard no "viewless paces of the dead," nor "airy skirts unseen that rustled by;" but what I did see and hear was enough. The wind whispering and moaning along the tapestried walls, and every now and then rattling twenty or thirty windows at once, with such a crash!--and the pictures around just sufficiently perceptible in the faint light to make me fancy them staring at me. Then immediately behind me was the very recess, or rather abyss, where Queen Elizabeth was at that moment settling her farthingale, to sally out upon me; and before me, but lost in blackest gloom, the spectral door, where Mary--not that I should have minded encountering poor Mary, provided always that she had worn her own beautiful head where heaven placed it, and not carried it, as Bertrand de Born carried _his_ "a guisa di lanterna."[60] As to what followed, it is a secret. Suffice it that I found myself safe by the fireside in my bedroom, without any very distinct recollection of how I got there.

Of all the scenes in which to moralize and meditate, a picture gallery is to me the most impressive. With the most intense feeling of the beauty of painting, I cannot help thinking with Dr. Johnson, that as far as regards portraits, their chief excellence and value consist in the likeness and the authenticity,[61] and not in the merit of the execution. When we can associate a story or a sentiment with every face and form, they almost live to us--they do in a manner speak to us. There is speculation in those fixed eyes--there is eloquence in those mute lips--and, O! what tales they tell! One of the first pictures which caught my attention as I entered the gallery was a small head of Arabella Stuart, when an infant. The painting is poor enough: it is a little round rosy face in a child's cap, and she holds an embroidered doll in her hand. Who could look on this picture, and not glance forward through succeeding years, and see the pretty playful infant transformed into the impassioned woman, writing to her husband--"In sickness, and in despair, wheresoever thou art, or howsoever I be, it sufficeth me always that thou art mine!" Arabella Stewart was not clever; but not Heloise, nor Corinne, nor Madlle. De l'Espinasse ever penned such a dear little morsel of touching eloquence--so full of all a woman's tenderness! Her stern grandmother, the lady and foundress of Hardwicke, hangs near. There are three pictures of her: all the faces have an expression of sense and acuteness, but none of them the beauty which is attributed to her. There are also two of her husbands, Cavendish and Shrewsbury. The former a grave, intelligent head; the latter very striking from the lofty furrowed brow, the ample beard, and regular but care-worn features. A little farther on we find his son Gilbert, seventh earl of Shrewsbury, and Mary Cavendish, wife of the latter and daughter of Bess of Hardwicke. She resembled her mother in features as in character. The expression is determined, intelligent, and rather cunning. Of her haughty and almost fierce temper, a curious instance is recorded. She had quarrelled with her neighbours, the Stanhopes, and not being able to defy them with sword and buckler, she sent one of her gentlemen, properly attended, with a message to Sir Thomas Stanhope, to be delivered in presence of witnesses, in these words--"My lady hath commanded me to say thus much to you: that though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable than any creature living, and for your wickedness become more ugly in shape than the vilest toad in the world; and one to whom none of any reputation would vouchsafe to send any message; yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you, that she be contented you should live, (and doth noways wish your death,) but to this end: that all the plagues and miseries that may befall any man, may light on such a caitiff as you are," &c.; (and then a few anathemas, yet more energetic, not fit to be transcribed by "pen polite," but ending with _hell-fire_.) "With many other opprobrious and hateful words which could not be remembered, because the bearer would deliver it but once, as he said he was commanded; but said, if he had failed in any thing, it was in speaking it more mildly, and not in terms of such disdain as he was commanded." We are not told whether the gallantry of Stanhope suffered him to throw the herald out of the window, who brought him this gentle missive. As for the termagant countess, his adversary, she was afterwards imprisoned in the Tower for upwards of two years, on account of Lady Arabella Stuart's stolen match with Lord Seymour. She ought assuredly to have "brought forth men-children only;" but she left no son. Her three daughters married the earls of Pembroke, of Arundel, and of Kent.

The portraits of James V. of Scotland and his Queen, Mary of Guise, are extremely curious. There is something ideal and elegant about the head of James V.--the look we might expect to find in a man who died from wounded feeling. His more unhappy daughter, poor Mary, hangs near--a full length in a mourning habit, with a white cap, (of her own peculiar fashion,) and a veil of white gauze. This, I believe, is the celebrated picture so often copied and engraved. It is dated 1578, the thirty-sixth of her age, and the tenth of her captivity. The figure is elegant, and the face pensive and sweet.[62] Beside her, in strong contrast, hangs Elizabeth, in a most preposterous farthingale, and a superabundance of all her usual absurdities and enormities of dress. The petticoat is embroidered over with snakes, crocodiles, and all manner of creeping things. We feel almost inclined to ask whether the artist could possibly have intended them as emblems, like the eyes and ears in her picture at Hatfield; but it may have been one of the three thousand gowns, in which Spenser's Gloriana, Raleigh's Venus, loved to array her old wrinkled, crooked carcase. Katherine of Arragon is here--a small head in a hood: the face not only harsh, as in all her pictures, but vulgar, a characteristic I never saw in any other. There is that peculiar expression round the mouth, which might be called either decision or obstinacy. And here too is the famous Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, the friend and patroness of Ben Jonson, looking sentimental in a widow's dress, with a white pocket handkerchief. There is character enough in the countenance to make us turn with pleasure to Ben Jonson's exquisite eulogium on her.

"I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, _pride_: I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside. Only a learned and a manly soul I purposed her; that should with even powers The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controul Of destiny, and spin her own free hours!"

Farther on is another more celebrated woman, Christian Bruce, the second Countess of Devonshire, so distinguished in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. She had all the good qualities of Bess of Hardwicke: her sense, her firmness, her talents for business, her magnificent and independent spirit, and none of her faults. She was as feminine as she was generous and high-minded; fond of literature, and a patroness of poets and learned men:--altogether a noble creature. She was the mother of that lovely Lady Rich, "the wise, the fair, the virtuous, and the young,"[63] whose picture by Vandyke is at Devonshire-house, and there are two pictures at Hardwicke of her handsome, gallant, and accomplished son, Charles Cavendish, who was killed at the battle of Gainsborough. Many fair eyes almost wept themselves blind for his loss, and his mother never recovered the "sore heart-break of his death."