You now enter by a Gothic archway the first of the courts of Wolsey remaining.  These two are said to have been the meanest then in the palace.  There were originally five; the three finest of which were pulled down to make way for William III.’s great square mass of brickwork.  The writers who saw it in its glory, describe it in entireness as the most splendid palace in Europe.  Grotius says, “other palaces are residences of kings, but this is of the gods.”  Hentzner, who saw it in Elizabeth’s time, speaks of it with astonishment, and says, “the rooms being very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in other Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely natural.  In one chamber are several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors.  All the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver.  Here is likewise a certain cabinet called Paradise, where, besides that every thing glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one’s eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of glass except the strings.”

It was, indeed, a Dutch taste which leveled all these stately buildings to the ground, to erect the great square mass which replaced them.  A glorious view, if old drawings are to be believed, must all that vast and picturesque variety of towers, battlements, tall mullioned windows, cupolas and pinnacles, have made, as they stood under the clear heaven glittering in the sun....

The hall, the chapel, the withdrawing-room, are all splendid specimens of Gothic grandeur, and possess many historic associations.  In the hall, Surrey wrote on a pane of glass some of his verses to Geraldine; and there, too, it is said, the play of Henry VIII., exhibiting the fall of Wolsey in the very creation of his former glory, was once acted, Shakespeare himself being one of the performers!

Chatsworth and Haddon hall [Footnote:  From “A Walk From London to John O’Groats.”]

BY ELIHU BURRITT

It was a pleasure quite equal to my anticipation to visit Chatsworth for the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for sixteen years.  It is the lion number three, according to the American ranking of the historical edifices and localities of England.  Stratford-upon-Avon, Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are the three representative celebrities which our travelers think they must visit if they would see the life of England’s ages from the best standpoints.  And this is the order in which they rank them.  Chatsworth and Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if possible; so that you may carry the impression of the one fresh and active into the other.  They are the two most representative buildings in the kingdom.  Haddon is old English feudalism edificed.  It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility five