Warwick [Footnote:  From “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.”]

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

When we came fairly into the courtyard of Warwick Castle, a scene of magnificent beauty opened before us.  I can not describe it minutely.  The principal features are the battlements, towers, and turrets of the old feudal castle, encompassed by grounds on which has been expended all that princely art of landscape gardening for which England is famous—­leafy thickets, magnificent trees, openings, and vistas of verdure, and wide sweeps of grass, short, thick, and vividly green, as the velvet moss we sometimes see growing on rocks in New England.  Grass is an art and a science in England—­it is an institution.  The pains that are taken in sowing, tending, cutting, clipping, rolling, and otherwise nursing and coaxing it, being seconded by the misty breath and often falling tears of the climate, produce results which must be seen to be appreciated....

Here, under the shade of lofty cedars, has sprung and fallen an hereditary line of princes.  One can not but feel, in looking on these majestic trees, with the battlements, turrets, and towers of the old castle everywhere surrounding him, and the magnificent parks and lawns opening through dreamy vistas of trees into what seems immeasurable distance, the force of the soliloquy which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the dying old king-maker, as he lies ebreathing out his soul in the dust and blood of the battlefield....

I have described the grounds first, but, in fact, we did not look at them first, but went into the house where we saw not only all the state rooms, but, through the kindness of the noble proprietor, many of those which are not commonly exhibited; a bewildering display of magnificent apartments, pictures, gems, vases, arms and armor, antiques, all, in short, that the wealth of a princely and powerful family had for centuries been accumulating.

The great hall of the castle is sixty-two feet in length and forty in breadth, ornamented with a richly carved Gothic roof, in which figures largely the family cognizance of the bear and ragged staff.  There is a succession of shields, on which are emblazoned the quarterings of successive Earls of Warwick.  The sides of the wall are ornamented with lances, corselets, shields, helmets, and complete suits of armor, regularly arranged as in an armory.

Here we saw the helmet of Cromwell, a most venerable relic.  Before the great, cavernous fireplace was piled up on a sled a quantity of yew-tree wood.  The rude simplicity of thus arranging it on the polished floor of this magnificent apartment struck me as quite singular.  I suppose it is a continuation of some ancient custom.

Opening from this apartment on either side are suites of rooms, the whole series being three hundred and thirty-three feet in length.  These rooms are all hung with pictures, and studded with antiques and curiosities of immense value.  There is, first, the red drawing-room, and then the cedar drawing-room, then the gilt drawing-room, the state bedroom, the boudoir, etc., etc., hung with pictures by Vandyke, Rubens, Guido, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Paul Veronese, any one of which would require days of study.