There was another beautiful little allegory of Love in the character of a Picklock, opening, or trying to open, a variety of albums, lettered, the "Human Heart, No. 1; Human Heart, No. 2;" while Philosophy lights him with her lanthorn. There were besides many other designs of equal poetry, beauty, and moral interest—I think, a whole portfolio full of them.
I endeavoured to persuade Retzsch that he could not do better than publish some of these exquisiteFancies, and when I left him he entertainedthe idea of doing so at some future period. To adopt his own language, the Genius of Art could not present to the Genius of Humanity a more delightful and a more profitable gift.39
The following list of German painters comprehends thoseonlywhose works I had an opportunity of considering, and who appeared to me to possess decided merit. I might easily have extended this catalogue to thrice its length, had I included all those whose names were given to me as being distinguished and celebrated among their own countrymen. From Munich alone I brought a list of two hundred artists, and from other parts of Germany nearly as many more. But in confining myself to those whose productions Isaw, I adhere to a principle which, after all, seems to be the best—viz. never to speak but of what weknow; and then only of the individual impression: it is necessary to know so many things beforewe can give, with confidence, an opinion about any one thing!
While the literary intercourse between England and Germany increases every day, and a mutual esteem and understanding is the natural consequence of this approximation of mind, there is a singular and mutual ignorance in all matters appertaining to art, and consequently, a good deal of injustice and prejudice on both sides. The Germans were amazed and incredulous, when I informed them that in England there are many admirers of art, to whom the very names of Schnorr, Overbeck, Rauch, Peter Hess, Wach, Wagenbauer, and even their great Cornelius, are unknown; and I met with very clever, well-informed Germans, who had, by some chance,heardof Sir Thomas Lawrence, and knewsomethingof Wilkie, Turner, and Martin, from the engravings after their works; who thought Sir Joshua Reynolds and his engraver Reynolds one and the same person; and of Callcott, Landseer, Etty, and Hilton, and others of our shining lights, they knew nothing at all. I must say, however, that theyhave generally a more just idea of English art than we have of German art, and their veneration for Flaxman, like their veneration for Shakspeare, is a sort of enthusiasm all over Germany. Those who have contemplated the actual state of art, and compared the prevalent tastes and feelings in both countries, will allow that much advantage would result from a better mutual understanding. We English accuse the German artists of mannerism, of a formal, hard, and elaborate execution,—a pedantic style of composition and sundry other sins. The Germans accuse us, in return, of excessive coarseness and carelessness, a loose sketchy style of execution, and a general inattention to truth of character.40"You English have no school of art," was often said to me; I could have replied—if it had not been a solecism in grammar—"You Germans havetoo muchschool." The "esprit de secte," which in Germany hasbroken up their poetry, literature, and philosophy into schisms and schools, descends unhappily to art, and every professor, to use the Highland expression, hashis tail.
At the same time, we cannot deny to the Germans the merit of great earnestness of feeling, and that characteristic integrity of purpose which they throw into every thing they undertake or perform. Art with them, is oftener held in honour, and pursued truly for its own sake, than among us: too many of our English artists consider their lofty and noble vocation, simply as the means to an end, be that end fame or gain. Generally speaking, too, the German artists are men of superior cultivation, so that when the creative inspiration falls upon them, the material on which to work is already stored up: "nothing can come of nothing," and the sun-beams descend in vain on the richest soil, where the seed has not been sown.
It is certain that we have not in England any historical painters who have given evidence of their genius on so grand a scale as some of the historical painters of Germany have recently done.Weknow that it is not the genius, but the opportunity which has been wanting, but we cannot ask foreigners to admit this,—they can only judge from results, and they must either suppose us to be without eminent men in the higher walks of art,—or they must wonder, with their magnificent ideas of the incalculable wealth of our nobles, the prodigal expenditure of our rulers, and the grandeur of our public institutions, that painting has not oftener been summoned in aid of her eldest sister architecture. On the other hand, their school of portraiture and landscape is decidedly inferior to ours. Not only have they no landscape painters who can compare with Callcott and Turner, but they do not appear to haveimaginedthe kind of excellence achieved by these wonderful artists. I should say, generally, that their most beautiful landscapes want atmosphere. I used to feel while looking at them as if I were in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump. Of their portraits I have already spoken; the eye which has rested in delight upon one of Wilkie's or Phillips's fine manly portraits, (not to mention Reynolds, Gainsborough,Romney, and Lawrence,) cannot easily be reconciled to the hard, frittered manner of some of the most admired of the German painters; it is a difference of taste, which I will not call natural but national;—the remains of the old gothic school which, as the study of Italian art becomes more diffused, will be modified or pass away.
Peter Cornelius, born at Dusseldorf in 1778, was for a considerable time the director (president) of the academy there, and is now the director of the academy of art at Munich: much of his time, however, is spent in Italy. The Germans esteem him their best historical painter. He has invention, expression, and power, but appears to me rather deficient in the feeling of beauty and tenderness. His grand works are the fresco painting in the Glyptothek at Munich, already described.
Friedrich Overbeck, born at Lubeck in 1789: heexcels in scriptural subjects, which he treats with infinite grandeur and simplicity of feeling.
Wilhelm Wach, born at Berlin in 1787: first painter to the king of Prussia and professor in the academy of Berlin: esteemed one of the best painters and most accomplished men in Germany. Not having visited Berlin, where his finest works exist, I have as yet seen but one picture by this painter—the head of an angel, at the palace of Peterstein, sublimely conceived, and most admirably painted. In the style of colour, in the singular combination of grand feeling and delicate execution, this picture reminded me of Leonardo da Vinci.
Professor Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, born at Leipsig in 1794. His frescos from the Nibelungen Lied in the new palace at Munich have been already mentioned at length.
Professor Heinrich Hesse: the frescos in the Royal Chapel at Munich, already described.
Wilhelm Tischbein, born at Heyna in 1751. He is director of the academy at Naples, and highly celebrated. He must not be confounded with his uncle, a mediocre artist, who was thecourt painter of Hesse Cassel, and whose pictures swarm in all the palaces there.
Philip Veit, of Frankfort—fresco painter.
Joseph Schlotthauer, professor of historical and fresco painting at Munich. (I believe this artist is dead. He held a high rank.)
Clement Zimmermann, now employed in the Pinakothek, and in the new palace at Munich, where he takes a high rank as painter, and is not less distinguished by his general information, and his frank and amiable character.
Moritz Retzsch of Dresden.
Professor Vogel, of Dresden, principal painter to the king of Saxony. He paints in fresco and history, but excels in portraits.
Stieler, of Munich, court painter to the king of Bavaria, esteemed one of the best portrait painters in Germany.
Goetzenberger, fresco painter. He is employed in painting the University Hall at Bonn.
Eduard Bendeman, of Berlin. I saw at the exhibition of the Kunstverein at Dusseldorf, a finepicture by this painter—"The Hebrews in Exile."
"By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept."
"By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept."
"By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept."
The colouring I thought rather hard, but the conception and drawing were in a grand style.
Wilhelm Schadow, director of the academy at Dusseldorf.
Hetzsch of Stuttgardt.
The brothers Riepenhausen, of Göttingen, resident at Rome. They are celebrated for their designs of the pictures of Polygnotus, as described by Pausanius.
Koehler. He exhibited at the Kunstverein at Dusseldorf a picture of "Rebecca at the well," very well executed.
Ernst Förster, of Altenburg, employed in the palace at Munich. This clever young painter married the daughter of Jean Paul Richter.
Gassen, of Goblentz; Hiltensberger, of Suabia; Hermann, of Dresden; Foltz, of Bingen; Kaulbach, of Munich; Eugene Neureuther, of Munich; Wilhelm Röckel, of Schleissheim; Von Schwind,of Vienna; Wilhelm Lindenschmidt, of Mayence. All these painters are at present in the service of the king of Bavaria.
Julius Hübner; Hildebrand; Lessing; Sohn; history and portraits;—these four painters are the most distinguished scholars of the Dusseldorf school.
Peter Hess, of Munich, one of the most eminent painters in Germany. In his choice of subjects he reminded me sometimes of Eastlake, and sometimes of Wilkie, and his style is rather in Wilkie's first manner. His pictures are full of spirit, truth, and character.
Dominique Quaglio, of Munich. Interiors, &c. He also ranks very high: he reminds me of Fraser.
Major-General von Heydeck, of Munich, an amateur painter of merited celebrity. In the collection of M. de Klenze, and in the Leuchtenberg Gallery, there are some small battle pieces, scenes in Greece and Spain, and other subjects by Von Heydeck, very admirably painted.
F. Müller, of Cassel. At the exhibition atDusseldorf I saw a picture by this artist, "A rustic bridal procession in the Campagna," painted with a freedom and lightness of pencil not common among the German artists.
Plüddeman, of Colberg.
T. B. Sonderland, of Dusseldorf. Fairs and merrymakings.
H. Rustige. The same subjects. Both are good artists.
H. Kretzschmar, of Pomerania. His picture of "Little Red Ridinghood," (Rothkäppchen,) at the Kunstverein, at Dusseldorf, had great merit.
Adolf Scrötte. Rustic scenes in the Dutch manner.
Dahl, a Norwegian settled at Dresden, esteemed one of the best landscape painters in Germany. There is a very fine sea-piece by this artist in the possession of the Countess von Seebach at Dresden, with, however, all the characteristicpeculiaritiesof the German school.
T. D. Passavant, of Frankfort.
Friedrich, of Dresden, one of the mostpoeticalof the German landscape painters. He is rathera mannerist in colour, like Turner, but in the opposite excess: his genius revels in gloom, as that of Turner revels in light.
Professor von Dillis, of Munich.
Max Wagenbauer, of Munich. He is called most deservedly, the German Paul Potter.
Jacob Dorner, of Munich. A charming painter; perhaps a little too minute in his finishing.
Catel, of Dusseldorf. Scenes on the Mediterranean. This painter resides chiefly in Italy; but in the collection of M. de Klenze I saw some admirable specimens of his works.
Biermann, of Berlin, is a fine landscape painter.
Prëyer, certainly the most exquisite of modern flower painters. I believe he is from Dusseldorf.
Rothman, of Heidelberg. I saw some pictures and sketches by this young painter, full of genius and feeling.
Fries, of Munich, a young painter of great promise. He put an end to his own life, while I was at Munich, in a fit of delirium, caused by fever, and was very generally lamented.
Wilhelm Schirmer, of Juliers, an exceedingly fine landscape painter.
Audeas Achenbach, of Dusseldorf: he has also great merit.
There are several female artists in Germany, of more or less celebrity. The Baroness von Freyberg (born Electrina Stuntz) holds the first rank in original talent. She resides near Munich, but no longer paints professionally.
The Countess Julie von Egloffstein has also the rare gift of original and creative genius.
Luise Seidler, of Weimar; Madlle. de Winkel and Madame de Loqueyssie, of Dresden, are distinguished in their art. The two latter are exquisite copyists.
In architecture, Leo von Klenze and Professor Girtner, of Munich; and Heideloff of Nuremberg, are deservedly celebrated in Germany.
The most distinguished sculptors in Germany are Christian Rauch, and Christian Friedrich Tieck, of Berlin; Johan Heinrich von Dannecker,of Stuttgardt; Schwanthaler, Eberhardt, Bandel, Kirchmayer, Mayer, all of Munich; Reitschel of Dresden; and Imhoff, of Cologne. Those of their works which I had an opportunity of seeing have been mentioned in the course of these sketches.
HARDWICKE.
Who that has exulted over the heroic reign of our gorgeous Elizabeth, or wept over the fate of Mary Stuart, but will remember the name of the only woman whose high and haughty spirit out-faced the lion port of one queen, and whose audacity trampled over the sorrows of the other—
"Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride!"
"Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride!"
"Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride!"
But this is anticipation. If it be so laudable, according to the excellent, oft quoted advice of thegiant Moulineau, tobegin at the beginning,41what must it be to improve upon the precept? for so, in relating the fallen and fading glories of Hardwicke, do I intend to exceed even "mon ami le Belier," in historic accuracy, and take up our tale at a period ere Hardwicke itself—the Hardwicke that now stands—had a beginning.
There lived, then, in the days of queen Bess, a woman well worthy to be her majesty's namesake,—Elizabeth Hardwicke, more commonly called, in her own country, Bess of Hardwicke, and distinguished in the page of history as theoldCountess of Shrewsbury. She resembled Queen Elizabeth in all her best and worst qualities, and, putting royalty out of the scale, would certainly have been more than a match for that sharp-witted virago, in subtlety of intellect, and intrepidity of temper and manner.
She was the only daughter of John Hardwicke,of Hardwicke,42and being early left an orphan and an heiress, was married ere she was fourteen to a certain Master Robert Barley, who was about her own age. Death dissolved this premature union within a few months, but her husband's large estates had been settled on her and her heirs; and at the age of fifteen, dame Elizabeth was a blooming widow, amply dowered with fair and fertile lands, and free to bestow her hand again where she listed.
Suitors abounded, of course: but Elizabeth, it should seem, was hard to please. She was beautiful, if the annals of her family say true,—she had wit, and spirit, and, above all, an infinite love of independence. After taking the management of her property into her own hands, she for some time reigned and revelled (with all decorum be it understood) in what might be truly termed, astate of single blessedness; but at length, tired of being lord and lady too—"master o'er her vassals," if not exactly "queen o'er herself"—she thought fit, having reached the discreet age of four-and-twenty, to bestow her hand on Sir William Cavendish. He was a man of substance and power, already enriched by vast grants of abbey lands in the time of Henry VIII.,43all which, by the marriage contract, were settled on the lady. After this marriage, they passed some years in retirement, having the wisdom to keep clear of the political storms and factions which intervened between the death of Henry VIII. and the accession of Mary, and yet the sense to profit by them. While Cavendish, taking advantage of those troublous times, went on adding manor after manor to his vast possessions, dame Elizabeth was busyproviding heirs to inherit them; she became the mother of six hopeful children, who were destined eventually to found two illustrious dukedoms, and mingle blood with the oldest nobility of England—nay, with royalty itself. "Moreover," says the family chronicle, "the said dame Elizabeth persuaded her husband, out of the great love he had for her, to sell his estates in the south and purchase lands in her native county of Derby, wherewith to endow her and her children, and at her farther persuasion he began to build the noble seat of Chatsworth, but left it to her to complete, he dying about the year 1559."
Apparently this second experiment in matrimony pleased the lady of Hardwicke better than the first, for she was not long a widow. We are not in this case informed how long—her biographer having discreetly left it to our imagination; and the Peerages, though not in general famed for discretion on such points, have in this case affectedthe same delicate uncertainty. However this may be, she gave her hand, after no long courtship, to Sir William St. Loo, captain of Elizabeth's guard, and then chief butler of England—a man equally distinguished for his fine person and large possessions, but otherwise not superfluously gifted by nature. So well did the lady managehim, that with equal hardihood and rapacity, she contrived to have all his "fair lordships in Gloucestershire and elsewhere" settled on herself and her children, to the manifest injury of St. Loo's own brothers, and his daughters by a former union: and he dying not long after without any issue by her, she made good her title to his vast estates, added them to her own, and they became the inheritance of the Cavendishes.
But three husbands, six children, almost boundless opulence, did not yet satisfy this extraordinary woman—for extraordinary she certainly was, not more in the wit, subtlety, and unflinchingsteadiness of purpose with which she amassed wealth and achieved power, but in the manner in which she used both. She ruled her husband, her family, her vassals, despotically, needing little aid, suffering no interference, asking no counsel. She managed her immense estates, and the local power and political weight which her enormous possessions naturally threw into her hands, with singular capacity and decision. She farmed the lands; she collected her rents; she built; she planted; she bought and sold; she lent out money on usury; she traded in timber, coals, lead: in short, the object she had apparently proposed to herself, the aggrandisement of her children by all and any means, she pursued with a wonderful perseverance and good sense. Power so consistently wielded, purposes so indefatigably followed up, and means so successfully adapted to an end, are, in a female, very striking. A slight sprinkling of the softer qualities of her sex, a littlemore elevation of principle, would have rendered her as respectable and admirable as she was extraordinary; but there was in this woman's mind the same "fond de vulgarité" which we see in the character of Queen Elizabeth, and which no height of rank, or power, or estate, could do away with. In this respect the lady of Hardwicke was much inferior to that splendid creature, Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Cumberland, another masculine spirit in the female form, who had the same propensity for building castles and mansions, the same passion for power and independence, but with more true generosity and magnanimity, and a touch of poetry and genuine nobility about her which the other wanted: in short, it was all the difference between the amazon and the heroine. It is curious enough that the Duke of Devonshire should be the present representative of both these remarkable women.
But to return: Bess of Hardwicke was nowapproaching her fortieth year; she had achieved all but nobility—the one thing yet wanting to crown her swelling fortunes. About the year 1565 (I cannot find the exact date) she was sought in marriage by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. There is no reason to doubt what is asserted, that she had captivated the earl by her wit and her matronly beauty.44He could hardly have married her from motives of interest: he was himself the richest and greatest subject in England; a fine chivalrous character, with a reputation as unstained as his rank was splendid, and his descent illustrious. He had a family by a former wife, (Gertrude Manners,) to inherit his titles, andherestates were settled on her children by Cavendish. It should seem, therefore, that mutual inclination alone could have made the match advantageous to either party; but Bess of Hardwicke was still Bess of Hardwicke. She took advantage of her powerover her husband in the first days of their union. "She induced Shrewsbury by entreaties or threats to sacrifice, in a measure, the fortune, interest, and happiness of himself and family to the aggrandisement of her and her family."45She contrived in the first place to have a large jointure settled on herself; and she arranged a double union, by which the wealth and interests of the two great families should be amalgamated. She stipulated that her eldest daughter, Mary Cavendish, should marry the earl's son, Lord Talbot; and that his youngest daughter, Grace Talbot, should marry her eldest son, Henry Cavendish.
The French have a proverb worthy of their gallantry—"Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut:" but even in the feminine gender we are sometimes reminded of another proverb equally significant—"L'homme propose et Dieu dispose." Now was Bess of Hardwicke queen of the Peak; she hadbuilt her erie so high, it seemed to dally with the winds of heaven; her young eaglets were worthy of their dam, ready plumed to fly at fortune; she had placed the coronet of the oldest peerage in England on her own brow, she had secured the reversion of it to her daughter, and she had married a man whose character was indeed opposed to her own, but who, from his chivalrous and confiding nature was calculated to make her happy, by leaving her mistress of herself.
In 1568 Mary Stuart, flying into England, was placed in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and remained under his care for sixteen years, a long period of restless misery to the unhappy earl not less than to his wretched captive. In this dangerous and odious charge was involved the sacrifice of his domestic happiness, his peace of mind, his health, and great part of his fortune, His castle was converted into a prison, his servants into guards, his porter into a turnkey, hiswife into a spy, and himself into a jailor, to gratify the ever-waking jealousy of Queen Elizabeth.46But the earl's greatest misfortune was the estrangement, and at length enmity, of his violent, high-spirited wife. She beheld the unhappy Mary with a hatred for which there was little excuse, but many intelligible reasons: she saw her, not as a captive committed to her womanly mercy, but as an intruder on her rights. Her haughty spirit was continually irritated by the presence of one in whom she was forced to acknowledge a superior, even in that very house and domain where she herself had been used to reign as absolute queen and mistress. The enormous expenses which this charge entailed on her household were distracting to her avarice; and, worse than all, jealousy of the youthful charms and winning manners of the Queen of Scots, and of the constant intercourse between her and her husband,seem at length to have driven her half frantic, and degraded her, with all her wit, and sense, and spirit, into the despicable treacherous tool of the more artful and despotic Elizabeth, who knew how to turn the angry and jealous passions of the countess to her own purposes.
It was not, however, all at once that matters rose to such a height: the fire smouldered for some time ere it burst forth. There is a letter preserved among the Shrewsbury Correspondence47which the countess addressed to her husband from Chatsworth, at a time when the earl was keeping guard over Mary at Sheffield castle. It is a most curious specimen of character. It treats chiefly of household matters, of the price and goodness of malt and hops, iron and timber, and reproaches him for not sending her money which was due to her, adding, "I see out of sight out of mind with you;" she sarcastically inquires "how his charge andlovedoth;" she sends him "someletyss(lettuces)for that he loves them," (this common sallad herb was then a rare delicacy;) and she concludes affectionately, "God send my juill helthe." The incipient jealousy betrayed in this letter soon after broke forth openly with a degree of violence towards her husband, and malignity towards his prisoner, which can hardly be believed. There is distinct evidence that Shrewsbury was not only a trustworthy, but a rigorous jailor; that he detested the office forced upon him; that he often begged in the most abject terms to be released from it; and that harassed on every side by the tormenting jealousy of his wife, the unrelenting severity and mistrust of Elizabeth, and the complaints of Mary, he was seized with several fits of illness, and once by a mental attack, or "phrenesie," as Cecil terms it, brought on by the agitation of his mind; yet the idea of resigning his office, except at the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth, never seems to have entered his imagination.
On one occasion Lady Shrewsbury went so faras to accuse her husband openly of intriguing with his prisoner, in every sense of the word; and she at the same time abused Mary in terms which John Knox himself could not have exceeded. Mary, deeply incensed, complained of this outrage: the earl also appealed to Queen Elizabeth, and the countess and her daughter, Lady Talbot, were obliged to declare upon oath, that this accusation was false, scandalous, and malicious, and that they were not the authors of it. This curious affidavit of the mother and daughter is preserved in the Record Office.
In a letter to Lord Leicester, Shrewsbury calls his wife "his wicked and malicious wife," and accuses her and "her imps," as he irreverently styles the whole brood of Cavendishes, of conspiring to sow dissensions between him and his eldest son. These disputes being carried to Elizabeth, she set herself with heartless policy to foment them in every possible way. She deemed that hersafety consisted in employing one part of the earl's family as spies on the other. In some signal quarrel about the property round Chatsworth, she commanded the earl to submit to his wife's pleasure: and though no "tame snake" towards his imperious lady, as St. Loo and Cavendish had been before him, he bowed at once to the mandate of his unfeeling sovereign—such was the despotism and such the loyalty of those days. His reply, however, speaks the bitterness of his heart. "Sith that her majesty hath set down this hard sentence against me to my perpetual infamy and dishonour, that I should be ruled and overrunne by my wife, so bad and wicked a woman; yet her majesty shall see that I will obey her majesty's commandment, though no curse or plague on the earth could be more grievous to me." * * "It is too much," he adds, "to be made my wife's pensioner." Poor Lord Shrewsbury! Can one help pitying him?
Not the least curious part of this family historyis the double dealing of the imperious countess. While employed as a spy on Mary, whom she detested, she, from the natural fearlessness and frankness of her temper, not unfrequently betrayed Elizabeth, whom she also detested. While in attendance on Mary, she often gratified her own satirical humour, and amused her prisoner by giving her a coarse and bitter portraiture of Elizabeth, her court, her favourites, her miserable temper, her vanity, and her personal defects. Some report of these conversations soon reached the queen, (who is very significantly drawn in one of her portraits in a dress embroidered over with eyes and ears,) and she required from Mary an account of whatever Lady Shrewsbury had said to her prejudice. Mary, hating equally the rival who oppressed her and the domestic harpy who daily persecuted her, was nothing loath to indulge her feminine spite against the two, and sent Elizabeth such a circumstantial list of the most gross andhateful imputations, (all the time politely assuring her good sister that she did not believe a word of them,) that the rage and mortification of the queen must have exceeded all bounds.48She kept the letter secret; but Lady Shrewsbury never was suffered to appear at court after the death of Mary had rendered her services superfluous.
Through all these scenes, the Lady of Hardwicke still pursued her settled purpose. Her husband complained that he was "never quiet to satisfy her greedie appetite for money for purchases to set up her children." Her ambition was equally insatiate, and generally successful: but in one memorable instance she overshot her mark. She contrived (unknown to her lord) to marry her favourite daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, to Lord Lennox, the younger brother of the murderedDarnley, and consequently standing in the same degree of relationship to the crown. Queen Elizabeth, in the extremity of her rage and consternation, ordered both the dowager Lady Lennox and Lady Shrewsbury to the Tower, where the latter remained for some months; we may suppose, to the great relief of her husband. He used, however, all his interest to excuse her delinquency, and at length procured her liberation. But this was not all. Elizabeth Cavendish, the young Lady Lennox, while yet in all her bridal bloom, died in the arms of her mother, who appears to have suffered that searing, lasting grief which stern hearts sometimes feel. The only issue of this marriage was an infant daughter, that unhappy Arabella Stuart, who was one of the most memorable victims of jealous tyranny which our history has recorded. Her very existence, from her near relationship to the throne, was a crime in the eyes of Elizabeth and James I. There is noevidence that Lady Shrewsbury indulged in any ambitious schemes for this favourite granddaughter, "her dear jewel, Arbell," as she terms her;49but she did not hesitate to enforce her claims to royal blood by requiring 600l.a year from the treasury for her board and education as became the queen's kinswoman. Elizabeth allowed her 200l.a year, and this pittance Lady Shrewsbury accepted. Her rent-roll was at this time 60,000l.a year, equal to at least 200,000l.at the present day.
The Earl of Shrewsbury died in 1590, at enmity to the last moment with his wife and son; and the Lady of Hardwicke having survived four husbands, and seeing all her children settled and prosperous, still absolute mistress over her family, resided during the last seventeen years of her life in great state and plenty at Hardwicke, her birth place. Here she superintended the education of ArabellaStuart, who, as she grew up to womanhood, was kept by her grandmother in a state of seclusion, amounting almost to imprisonment, lest the jealousy of Elizabeth should rob her of her treasure.50
Next to the love of money and power, the chief passion of this magnificent old beldam, was building. It is a family tradition, that some prophet had foretold that she should never die as long as she was building, and she died at last, in 1607, during a hard frost, when her labourers were obliged to suspend their work. She built Chatsworth, Oldcotes, and Hardwicke; and Fuller adds in his quaint style that she left "two sacred (besides civil) monuments of her memory; one that I hope will not be taken away, (her splendid tomb, erectedby herself,51) and one that I am sure cannot be taken away, being registered in the court of heaven, viz. her stately almshouses for twelve poor people at Derby."
Of Chatsworth, the hereditary palace of the Dukes of Devonshire, all its luxurious grandeur, all its treasures of art, it is not here "my hint to speak." It has been entirely rebuilt since the days of its founder. Oldcotes was once a magnificent place. There is a tradition at Hardwicke that old Bess, being provoked by a splendid mansion which the Suttons had lately erected within view of her windows, declared she would build a finer dwelling for the owlets, (hence Owlcots or Oldcotes.) She kept her word, more truly perhapsthan she intended, for Oldcotes has since become literally a dwelling for the owls; the chief part of it is in ruins, and the rest converted into a farmhouse. Her younger daughter, Frances Cavendish, married Sir Henry Pierrepoint, of Holme-Pierpoint, and one of the granddaughters married another Pierrepoint—through one of these marriages, but I know not which, Oldcotes has descended to the present Earl Manvers.
The mansion of Hardwicke was commenced about the year 1592, and finished in 1597. It stands about a stone's throw from the old house in which the old countess was born, and which she left standing, as if, says her biographer, she intended to construct her bed of state close by her cradle. This fine old ruin remains, grey, shattered, and open to all the winds of heaven, almost overgrown with ivy, and threatening to tumble about the ears of the bats and owls which are its sole inhabitants. One majestic room remainsentire. It is called the "Giant's Chamber" from two colossal figures in Roman armour which stand over the huge chimney-piece. This room has long been considered by architects as a perfect specimen of grand and beautiful proportion, and has been copied at Chatsworth and at Blenheim.52
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 theold 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 mannersuffusedto 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!"
"We may not hope from outward forms to win,The passion and the life, whose fountains are within!"
"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 ofstate, 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 thatbetweenitythat intervened when Gothic declined, and Palladian was creepingin; 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.53Her 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, representinga 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;—piecesof 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.56The only furniture which has any appearance of taste are the table and cabinets, which are of oak, richly carved."
(I must observeen passant, that I wonder Horace did not go mad about the chairs, whichare 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—Ihad 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, tennights; 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 darkeningsky. 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 easychairs, 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 anignorance of comfort! Here are no ottomans of eider down, no spring cushions, no "boudoirs etroits, où 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 byWalpole: 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 onceso 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,58and 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, withoutexception, 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.59Richard 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 aghost? replied, gravely, "No; but I was oncevery nearseeing one!" In the same manner I was oncevery nearbeing 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 carriedhis"a guisa di lanterna."60As to what followed, it is a secret. Suffice it that I foundmyself 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,61and 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 gallerywas 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. Theformer 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; andone 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 withhell-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 forupwards 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.62Beside her, in strong contrast, hangsElizabeth, 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,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.