Note 202 — KENILWORTH CASTLE.

Among other embellishments of the “great chamber of state,” was a most sumptuous Chimney-piece, composed of alabaster or marble, richly carved and gilt. It was usually of very large dimensions, widely spread, and reaching from the floor to the ceiling. There were sometimes statues placed within columns and niches, which represented some of the cardinal virtues, or grotesque termini, in the Roman manner, then lately introduced into this country. The whole was painted with gaudy colours; and the armorial bearings of the family, in one large escóchéon, or the quarterings dispersed into many others, were an indispensable decoration. In certain instances, the chimney-piece was of carved freestone, left plain. The almost perfect resemblance of these to the superb monuments which in that age were dedicated to the memory of the dead, leave no doubt that the original idea had the same analogy. Of this opinion one most splendid instance will suffice—that of the mausoleum of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, and the CHIMNEY-PIECE (see preceding Woodcut) of Kenilworth Castle.—Dallaway’s Discourses, page 363, 364.