CASTLE HOWARD, YORKSHIRE.

109

An entrance hall, thirty-five feet square and sixty in height, is adorned with columns of the Composite order, and terminated overhead by a spacious dome, the apex of which is one hundred feet from the floor. The walls are painted by Peligrini, with the story of Phaeton from Ovid's Metamorphoses; and a magnificent collection of antique statues and busts is placed in niches and on pedestals in the ambulatory. In the grand saloon, there is another gallery of classical productions, and on the ceiling a beautiful painting of Aurora rising from the horizon. A chimney-piece of Sienna and other marbles, in the state dining-room, is particularly admired: the mantel-shelf is sustained by fluted columns, and besides the exquisite designs in polished white marble that adorn the centre panel, three admirable bronzes, Brutus, Cassius, and Laocoon, are amongst the decorations. Tables of silver, of jasper, and green porphyry, stand in this apartment. Peligrini's labours again appear on the ceiling of the saloon on the first floor, where he has represented the chief incidents in the story of the siege of Troy; these include the Rape of Helen, Sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis, Achilles in disguise at the court of Laomedes, Ajax and Ulysses contending for the armour of Achilles, the burning of Troy, and Æneas carrying Anchises on his shoulders from the flames.

The enrichments of the drawing-room are superior still to those of the other apartments of ceremony. Rubens contributed designs for the tapestry suspended on the walls; and the bronze statues, that rest here on real porphyry pedestals, are antiques brought from Rome by one of the noble proprietors of the castle. In the blue diningroom, state bed-room, and other apartments, numerous objects of vertu are displayed, such as rich mosaic pavements, tapestry designed by Teniers, sculptures after Canaletti, precious marbles from various countries, and an altar, taken from the temple of Delphi, on which these lines are inscribed.

Pass not this ancient altar with disdain,

'Twas once in Delphi's sacred temple rear'd.
From this the Pythian pour'd her mystic strain,
While Greece its fate in anxious silence heard.

What chief, what hero of the Achaian race,
Might not to this have bowed with holy awe,
Have clung in pious reverence round its base,
And from the voice inspir'd receiv'd the law.

A British chief, as fam'd in arms as those,
Has born this relic o'er the Italian waves,
In war still friend to science, this bestows.
And Nelson gives it to the land he saves.

The gallery, a hundred and sixty feet in length, contains a vast collection of wellselected works of art, of different ages: statuary, relics from ruined cities, trophies of splendid achievements, all chef-d'œuvres of the first masters in their respective studies. No palace in England can boast a more choice assemblage of original paintings; indeed, a few only in the catalogue of Castle Howard, are of sufficient worth to constitute a memorable gallery in themselves. Here is the Finding of Moses, by Velasques, presented

by the Court of Spain to the Duke of Orleans; twenty of Canaletti's principal pictures, besides that "ne plus ultra" of the painter's art, "the Three Marys," by Annibal Caracci.

The park, or grounds, is in character with the grandeur and taste exhibited in the mansion. Spacious, varied in surface, in intermixture of wood, and lawn, and water, it commands a most extensive prospect over the fine moor of the district. Near the south entrance a caravansary is erected for the accommodation of strangers; at the intersection of four noble avenues lined with forest trees, stands an obelisk, a hundred feet in height, one side of which bears an inscription recording the glories of Marlborough ; the other, a poem commemorative of the taste and liberality of the third Earl of Carlisle, by whom the castle was built, and the grounds improved. A noble monument to Nelson should not be forgotten, in describing the ornamental buildings that impart a sort of classic lustre to this demesne; nor the Ionic temple and the grand mausoleum be passed without some expressions of admiration. The designs of both are chaste and elegant, their positions most happily chosen.

THE FAIR MAIDS OF EINERSLIE.

BY MARY HOWITT.

THERE sat two maidens all alone,
The ancient nurse to rest was gone;
The porter slept and the ban-dog true;
None were awake save only two,

In the dreary house of Einerslie!
What kept them up so late at night?
Had they no fear of evil sprite-
Of monk in black, of dame in white,
The two fair maids of Einerslie!

The wind blew low, the wind blew high;
The screech-owl made a dismal cry;
The rusty weathercock turned round—
Still with a harsh and screaming sound,
On the ivied tower of Einerslie !
All was so hushed within the house,
From out its corner came the mouse,
On what was left to make carouse,-

There was feasting good at Einerslie!