In The Centre Of The Room Was A Toilet Of White
Muslin (Universal Here), And On It A Gilt Dressing-Glass, Which Gave
Pretty Effect To The Whole.
I sat at dinner between Lord Braybrooke and Sir John Boileau, and
found them both very agreeable.
The dining-room is as magnificent
as the other apartments. The ceiling is in the Elizabethan style,
covered with figures, and the walls white and gold panelling hung
with full-length family portraits not set into the wall like the
saloon, but in frames. In the evening the young people had a round
game at cards and the elder ones seemed to prefer talking to a game
at whist. The ladies brought down their embroidery or netting. At
eleven a tray with wine and water is brought in and a quantity of
bed candlesticks, and everybody retires when they like. The next
morning the guests assembled at half-past nine in the great gallery
which leads to the chapel to go in together to prayers. The chapel
is really a beautiful little piece of architecture, with a vaulted
roof and windows of painted glass. On one side is the original cast
of the large monument to Lord Cornwallis (our lord) which is in
Westminster Abbey. After breakfast we passed a couple of hours in
going all over the house, which is in perfect keeping in every part.
We returned to the library, a room as splendid as the saloon, only
instead of pictured panels it was surrounded by books in beautiful
gilt bindings. In the immense bay window was a large Louis Quatorze
table, round which the ladies all placed themselves at their
embroidery, though I preferred looking over curious illuminated
missals, etc., etc.
The next day was the meeting of the County Agricultural Society. . .
. At the hour appointed we all repaired to the ground where the
prizes were to be given out. . . . Lord Braybrooke made first a most
paternal and interesting address, which showed me in the most
favorable view the relation between the noble and the lower class in
England, a relation which must depend much on the personal character
of the lord of the manor. . . . First came prizes to ploughmen, then
the plough boys, then the shepherds, then to such peasants as had
reared many children without aid, then to women who had been many
years in the same farmer's service, etc., etc. A clock was awarded
to a poor man and his wife who had reared six children and buried
seven without aid from the parish. The rapture with which Mr. and
Mrs. Flitton and the whole six children gazed on this clock, an
immense treasure for a peasant's cottage, was both comic and
affecting. . . . The next morning we made our adieus to our kind
host and hostess, and set off for London, accompanied by Sir John
Tyrrell, Major Beresford, and young Mr. Boileau.
LETTER: To W.D.B.
LONDON, November 4, 1847
Dear W.: . . . Mr. Bancroft and I dined on Friday, the 22d, with
Mr. and Mrs. Hawes, under-Secretary of State, to meet Mr. Brooke,
the Rajah of Sarawak, who is a great lion in London just now.
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