Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Volume II Part 12

[Footnote 32: Vide Sh.e.l.ley's Epipsychidion.]

[Footnote 33: Mr. Russel is quite right in his observation that the Correggios are hung too near together: the fact is, that in the Dresden gallery, the pictures are not well hung, nor well arranged; there is too little light in the inner gallery, and too much in the outer gallery.

Lastly, the numbers are so confused that I found the catalogue of little use. A new arrangement and a new catalogue, by Professor Mattha, are in contemplation.]

[Footnote 34: Spence.]

[Footnote 35: Lanzi says, that many of the works of Lavinia Fontana might easily pa.s.s for those of Guido;--her best works are at Bologna.

She died in 1614.]

[Footnote 36: At Althorpe.]

[Footnote 37: The Miss Sharpes were at Dresden while I was there, and their names and some of their works were fresh in my mind and eye when I wrote the above; but I think it fair to add, that I had not the opportunity I could have wished of cultivating their acquaintance. These three sisters, all so talented, and so inseparable,--all artists, and bound together in affectionate communion of hearts and interests, reminded me of the Sofonisba and her sisters.]

[Footnote 38: She is the "Julie" celebrated in some of Goethe's minor poems.]

[Footnote 39: Since this was written, in November 1833, Retzsch has sent over to England a series of these _Fancies_ for publication.]

[Footnote 40: We have among us a young German painter, (Theodor von Holst,) who, uniting the exuberant enthusiasm and rich imagination of his country, with a just appreciation of the style of English art, is likely to achieve great things.]

[Footnote 41: "Belier! mon ami! commence par le commencement!"--_Contes de Hamilton._]

[Footnote 42: A manor situated on the borders of Derbys.h.i.+re, between Chesterfield and Mansfield.]

[Footnote 43: The Cavendishes were originally of Suffolk. Whether this William Cavendish was the same who was gentleman usher and secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, is, I believe, a disputed point.]

[Footnote 44: Bishop Kennel's memoirs of the family of Cavendish.]

[Footnote 45: Lodge's Ill.u.s.trations of British History.]

[Footnote 46: Scott's Memoir of Sir Ralph Sadler.]

[Footnote 47: Lodge's "Ill.u.s.trations."]

[Footnote 48: This celebrated letter is yet preserved, and well known to historians and antiquarians. It is sufficient to say that scarce any part of it would bear transcribing.]

[Footnote 49: See two of her letters in Sir Henry Ellis's Collection.]

[Footnote 50: See some letters in Ellis's Collection, vol. ii. series 1, which show with what constant jealousy Lady Shrewsbury and her charge were watched by the court.]

[Footnote 51: In All Hallows, in Derby. After leaving Hardwicke, I went, of course, to pay my respects to it. It is a vast and gorgeous shrine of many coloured marbles, covered with painting, gilding, emblazonments, and inscriptions, within which the lady lies at full length in a golden ruff, and a most sumptuous farthingale.]

[Footnote 52: As the measurements are interesting from this fact, I took care to note them exactly; as follows:--length 55 ft. 6 inches; breadth 30 ft. 6 inches; height 24 ft. 6 inches.]

[Footnote 53: Horace Walpole, as an antiquarian, should have known that Mary was never kept _there_.]

[Footnote 54: It had formerly been richly painted, and must then have had an effect superior to tapestry; the colours are still visible here and there.]

[Footnote 55: Mary's own account of her occupations displays the natural elegance of her mind. "I asked her grace, since the weather did cut off all exercises abroad, how she pa.s.sed her time within? She sayd that all day she wrought with her needle, and that the diversitie of the colours made the work appear less tedious, and that she continued at it till pain made her to give o'er: and with that laid her hand on her left side, and complayned of an old grief newly increased there. Upon this occasion she, the Scottish queen, with the agreeable and lively wit natural to her, entered into a pretty disputable comparison between carving, painting, and working with the needle, affirming painting, in her opinion, for the most commendable quality."--_Letter of Nicholas White to Cecil._]

[Footnote 56: I was as much delighted by these singular fire-screens as Horace himself could have been; they are about seven feet high. The yellow velvet suspended from the bar is embossed with black velvet, and intermingled with embroidery of various colours and gold--something like a Persian carpet--but most dazzling and gorgeous in the effect.

I believe there is nothing like them any where.]

[Footnote 57: Now replaced by the family portraits brought from Chatsworth.]

[Footnote 58: Margaret Cavendish, wife of the first Duke of Newcastle.]

[Footnote 59: Anecdotes of Painting. Reigns of Elizabeth and James I.]

[Footnote 60: Dante. Inferno, Canto 28.]

[Footnote 61: Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 144. Boswell asked, "Are you of that opinion as to the portraits of ancestors one has never seen?"

JOHNSON. "It then becomes of still _more_ consequence that they should be like."]

[Footnote 62: This picture and the next are said to be by Richard Stevens, of whom there is some account in Walpole, (Anecdotes of Painting.) Mary also sat to Hilliard and to Zucchero. The lovely picture by Zucchero is at Chiswick. There is another small head of her at Hardwicke, said to have been painted in France, in a cap and feather.

The turn of the head is airy and graceful. As to the features, they have been so marred by some _soi-disant_ restorer, it is difficult to say what they may have been originally.]

[Footnote 63: Waller's lines on Lady Rich.]

[Footnote 64: William, sixth Duke of Devons.h.i.+re.]

[Footnote 65: "Lady Dorothy Savile, daughter of the Marquis of Halifax: she had no less attachment to the arts than her husband; she drew in crayons, and succeeded admirably in likenesses, but working with too much rapidity, did not do justice to her genius; she had an uncommon talent too for caricature."--_Anecdotes of Painting._]

[Footnote 66: He was a monster; and no wife of the coa.r.s.est plebeian profligate could have suffered more than did this lovely, amiable being, of the highest blood and greatest fortune in England. "She was," says the affecting inscription on her picture at Chiswick, "the comfort and joy of her parents, the delight of all who knew her angelic temper, and the admiration of all who saw her beauty. She was married October 10th, 1741, and delivered by death from misery, May 2nd, 1742.

But how did it happen that from a condition like this, there was no release but by _death_?--See Horace Walpole's Correspondence to Sir Horace Mann, vol. i. p. 328.]

[Footnote 67: I was much struck with the inscription on a stone tablet, in a fine old wood near the house: "This wood was planted by Sir William Spencer, Knighte of the Bathe, in the year of our Lord 1624:"--on the other side, "Up and bee doing, and G.o.d will prosper." It is mentioned in Evelyn's "Sylva."]

[Footnote 68: See the accounts of Sir John Spencer, in Collins's Peerage, and prefixed to Dibdin's "aedes Althorpianae."]

[Footnote 69: Henry, first Earl of Sunderland.]

[Footnote 70: This Lord Sunderland not only changed his party and his opinions, but his religion, with every breath that blew from the court.]

[Footnote 71: Horace Walpole's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 227.]

[Footnote 72: Anne Brudenel.]

[Footnote 73: See Pepys's Diary.]

[Footnote 74: I was told that a female servant of the family was so terrified by this picture that she could never be prevailed on to pa.s.s through the door near which it hangs, but made a circuit of several rooms to avoid it.]

[Footnote 75: She is supposed to have been poisoned by her husband, at the instigation of the Chevalier de Lorraine.]

[Footnote 76: Elizabeth Brooke, poisoned at the age of twenty.]

[Footnote 77: See the scene between Beck Marshall and Nell Gwyn, in "Pepys."]

[Footnote 78: Walpole.]