a standing monument of the barbarity of modern innovation. From the small armoury you pass, as I said before, into the drawing-room, a large, lofty, and splendid salon, with antique ebony furniture and crimson silk hangings, cabinets, china, and mirrors quantum suff, and some portraits; among the rest glorious John Dryden, by Sir Peter Lely, with his gray hairs floating about in a most picturesque style, eyes full of wildness, presenting the old Bard, I take it, in one of those "tremulous moods," in which we have it on record he appeared when interrupted in the midst of his Alexander's Feast. From this you pass into the largest of all the apartments, the library, which, I must say, is really a noble room. It is an oblong of some fifty feet by thirty, with a projection in the centre, opposite the fireplace, terminating in a grand bow window, fitted up with books also, and, in fact, constituting a sort of chapel to the church. The roof is of carved oak again—a very rich pattern—I believe chiefly a la Roslin, and the bookcases, which are also of richly carved oak, reach high up the walls all round. The collection amounts, in this room, to some fifteen or twenty thousand volumes, arranged according to their subjects: British history and antiquities, filling the whole of the chief wall; English poetry and drama, classics and miscellanies, one end: foreign literature, chiefly French and German, the other. The cases on the side opposite the fire are wired and locked, as containing articles very precious and very portable. One consists entirely of books and MSS. relating to the insurrections of 1715 and 1745; and another (within the recess of the bow window), of treatises de re magica, both of these being (I am told, and can well believe), in their several ways, collections of the rarest curiosity. My cicerone pointed out, in one corner, a magnificent set of Mountfaucon, ten volumes folio, bound in the richest manner in scarlet, and stamped with the royal arms, the gift of his present majesty. There are few living authors of whose works presentation copies are not to be found here. My friend showed me inscriptions of that sort in, I believe, every European dialect extant. The books are all in prime condition, and bindings that would satisfy Mr. Dibdin. The only picture is Sir Walter's eldest son, in hussar uniform, and holding his horse, by Allan of Edinburgh, a noble portrait, over the fireplace; and the only bust is that of Shakspeare, from the Avon monument, in a small niche in the centre of the east side. On a rich stand of porphyry, in one corner, reposes a tall silver urn, filled with bones from the Piraeus, and bearing the inscription, "Given by George Gordon, Lord Byron, to Sir Walter Scott, Bart." It contained the letter which accompanied the gift till lately: it has disappeared; no one guesses who took it, but whoever he was, as my guide observed, he must have been a thief for thieving's sake truly, as he durst no more exhibit his autograph than tip himself a bare bodkin. Sad, infamous tourist, indeed! Although I saw abundance of comfortable-looking desks and arm chairs, yet this room seemed rather too large and fine for work, and I found accordingly, after passing a double pair of doors, that there was a sanctum within and beyond this library. And here you may believe, was not to me the least interesting, though by no means the most splendid, part of the suite.
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1
Dr. Burney says he was "equal in science, if not in genius, to the best musicians of his age."
2
Born in his father's house, at the Spread Eagle in Bread-street, Cheapside, Decembe
1
Dr. Burney says he was "equal in science, if not in genius, to the best musicians of his age."
2
Born in his father's house, at the Spread Eagle in Bread-street, Cheapside, December 9, 1608.
3
W. Kennedy—in the Amulet for 1829.
4
From this custom probably originated that in England, of widows concealing their hair for a stated period after the death of their husbands. Indeed, we know of more than one instance of a widow closely cutting off her hair. But these sorrowful observances are becoming less and less frequent.—ED.</>
