Volume 3 — CHATSWORTH CASTLE.

JOHN LEYLAND.

[“The Peak of Derbyshire,” concerning which Mr. Leyland has written a highly interesting book, presents in its vicinity numerous points of attraction. Here is the location of the castle of “Peveril of the Peak,” the hero of one of Scott’s romances. Here are two much more famous residences of the nobility, Haddon Hall and Chatsworth, the latter of which we have chosen as the subject of our present selection.]

If some have burst into rhapsody in describing the glories of Chatsworth, one can scarcely marvel at their extravagance, for there is in this “Palace of the Peak” and its wooded valley such a rare conjuncture of the fascinating beauties of nature with the finest expressions of art, that language can ill describe the things that are indelibly impressed upon the memory. The placid Derwent, here flowing gently between the meads on which the fallow deer are wont to herd; the graceful slopes bestudded with many a noble tree, whose spreading boughs cast down a wide expanse of shade; the hills on either hand rising in varied height and contour, crowned with a rich woodland of oak, chestnut, beech, and lime; a palace wherein every art finds most fitting expression, and where the fruits of learning are plenteously upstored,—small wonder, indeed, if here the imagination of many be stirred. As we approach the house from Baslow, crossing the Barbrook, which rises in the heights of East Moor, we enter the great park, and, passing the fruit and vegetable gardens on the right, its varied beauties are gradually unfolded with entrancing effect until Chatsworth itself is seen beyond the trees.

The House may be viewed in its majestic proportions from several points in the valley and on the slopes. From across the classic bridge of three arches, which Caius Gabriel Cibber (the father of Colley Cibber) adorned with statues, the dignity of its many-pillared façade has an imposing effect. More varied, however, is the view from the slope of the hill to the northward on the right bank of the river, where the later wing, added by the sixth Duke of Devonshire, lies prominently before the spectator, or again farther southward, where the same wing recedes in the perspective. If one would gain a fine prospect of the whole of this part of Derwent, and of the palatial edifice itself, there can be no better way than to climb to the old turreted hunting-tower, which is such a conspicuous object on the eastern hill.

There is nothing in the regular, classic lines of Chatsworth to remind us of that Chetel, the Saxon, who is believed to have given his name to the place in which he dwelt. His homestead and oxgangs of land fell, as Domesday records, to the Crown, and were given in custody to William Peveril, who had also the stronghold at Castleton, as we have seen, with Haddon by the Wye, and many a castle and manor besides. Nothing now remains of these times at Chatsworth, save, perhaps, the grove of venerable oaks, gnarled, shattered, and time-worn, upon the neighboring hill....

Sir William Cavendish and his wife built the first Chatsworth House of which we have any definite knowledge, for there is scanty record of any mediæval structure, and it was she who completed it some time after his death. The extraordinary lady—something of a vixen, we may believe—who was married to four husbands, and discomfited at any rate the last of them, was the builder also of Hardwick Hall, one of the most celebrated houses in England. The Chatsworth of her time was a quadrangular building of “surprising height,” as Cotton says, with an embattled top, and massive angle, and lateral turrets strengthening its many-windowed walls, as may be seen by a painting of it which now hangs at Chatsworth. The third husband of “Bess of Hardwick” (Sir William St. Lo) being dead, she married that powerful nobleman, George, Earl of Shrewsbury; and it was during his lifetime that Chatsworth became the residence of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was in captivity under his charge. The unhappy prisoner is said to have passed many of her lonesome hours in that moated garden, called Queen Mary’s bower, which was laid out on the top of the low square tower or platform, seen by the visitor amid the trees as he approaches the house from the bridge; and certain rooms in the great quadrangle, though they were built long after her day, are still traditionally said to be hers. If the scandal of the Tudor court be true, the lovely queen and her imperious hostess did not well agree, and the story is not hard to believe. At any rate, the bickerings of the lady with her husband, the Earl, are matters of record, notwithstanding that Fuller has said she “was happy in her several marriages.”...

Queen Mary was brought to Chatsworth in 1570, and was there long afterwards. In that year Cecil visited the house to conduct certain negotiations, and subsequently wrote that Elizabeth was willing her rival should “take y^e ayre about your howss on horsbacke, so that your L. be in company, and not to pass from your howss above one or twoo myle except it be on y^e moores.” Several times during subsequent years she was permitted to visit Buxton, for its waters, in company with the Earl and Countess, and it will be remembered that so well did the Earl treat his charge at one time, that he thereby incurred suspicions of disloyalty to Elizabeth. During the Civil Wars the house was held by both parties. Sir John Gell occupied it for the Parliament in 1643, but, in the December of that year, the Earl of Newcastle captured it, and garrisoned it for the King, and Colonel Shalcross was besieged there in 1645 by the Parliamentary forces, but the leaguer was raised after fourteen days.

The descendants of Sir William Cavendish, and of his celebrated wife, were content, during these years, to preserve Chatsworth as it had been left to them. The present quadrangular building is the work of William, the fourth Earl and first Duke of Devonshire, who was one of those who brought about the Revolution of 1688, and placed the Prince of Orange on the throne. During the reign of James II., the Earl was committed to prison, as it is quaintly said, because he led Colonel Colepepper out of the royal presence-chamber by the nose, whereupon, after sundry difficulties, he betook himself to his estates, and, as a chronicler of the new order of things puts it, in order to prevent his patriotic mind from dwelling unduly upon the woes of his country, rebuilt the south side of Chatsworth....

Whatever the age possessed of skill and merit in every branch of art was employed for the beautification of the new Chatsworth. Caius Gabriel Cibber, the Laureate’s father, with Geeraerslius, Augustine Harris, Nost, Davis, Lanseroon, Nadauld, and others, carved the friezes, adorned with rich foliage the door-cases, worked upon many vases and other objects in and about the mansion, and peopled the gardens with nymphs and goddesses. Cibber himself has left notes of some of the sums he received, and it appears that he executed two statues in the pediments, others, both in the round and in relief, heads of Roman emperors, figures of dogs, sphinxes, and such-like. “For two statues as big as life, I had 35l. apiece, and all charges borne, and at this rate I shall endeavor to serve a nobleman in freestone.”

[Many others might be named who helped to give Chatsworth its wealth of carvings, but we shall omit the catalogue of their names.]

So completed, as a noble Palladian quadrangle, divided externally into sections by fluted Ionic pilasters, crested by a balustrade which is adorned with decorative vases, and having on its principal front a fine compartment with a sculptured pediment, Chatsworth remained, even then one of the noblest mansions of its kind in the kingdom, until the sixth Duke of Devonshire (ob. 1858) added to it the great northern wing, containing the magnificent dining-room, the sculpture-gallery, the orangery, and many other chambers, as well as a whole range of offices in the basement. Of this wing, which is three hundred and eighty-five feet in length, Sir Jeffrey Wyattville was the architect, and it will be observed that he has adopted a more broken style, and a somewhat more picturesque method, than that of Talmari, but there are many who think that his addition detracts from the classic character and fitting symmetry of the whole, to which, nevertheless, it must be admitted it gives a greater aspect of grandeur and magnificence.

We shall not here dwell at any very great length upon the many treasures of which Chatsworth is the storehouse, for they are described after the manner of a catalogue in several guide-books. Passing from the Porter’s lodge, the visitor, having traversed the whole length of the new wing, arrives at the quadrangle, which is entered through the sub-hall, where the ceiling is painted with a copy of Guido’s Aurora.

A corridor leads thence to the Great Hall, on the eastern side of the court-yard, which is a very impressive apartment, with its floor of black and white marble, laid down by the son of Watson, the wood-carver, the fine staircase at its farther end, its walls painted by Verrio and Laguerre with scenes from the life of Julius Cæsar,—among others the crossing of the Rubicon, the passage of the Adriatic, and the assassination by Brutus,—and the great scene of Cæsar’s apotheosis on the ceiling, where he goes to join the Immortals. One very noteworthy object in it is the immense slab of Derbyshire encrinitic marble that forms the top of its table. It also contains a great Turkish canoe which the sultan gave to the sixth Duke.

The south corridor, hung with pictures, leads from this hall to the Chapel, one of the most interesting chambers in Chatsworth. Here everything that art could do to lend enchantment to the classic interior has been done. The lower walls are richly panelled with fragrant cedar; above, Verrio and Laguerre have depicted the miracles of our Lord; and on the ceiling is the “Ascension;” over the altar Verrio’s “Incredulity of St. Thomas” is regarded as his masterpiece, though the work has been attributed to Laguerre; the baldacchino at the east end is of the choicest marbles and spars of Derbyshire, with figures of Faith and Hope by Gibber; and there are marvellous wood-carvings, probably by Samuel Watson and Thomas Young, but perhaps from the designs or with the assistance of Grinling Gibbons. Passing onward, the Gallery of Sketches is a place where not hours only, but days, might be spent with equal pleasure and profit, a treasure-chamber in which, as it were, the great masters of every school may be seen at their very work....

Entering the state apartments by the dressing-room, with its painted ceiling of the “Mission of Mercury to Paris,” its carved marble door-cases, and its tours de force in wood, by Gibbons or Watson, as the case may be, we notice the great vista through the open doors of the suite and pass on into the state bedroom. Here Aurora chases Night on the ceiling; we notice the fine embossed leather on the walls, the canopy embroidered, it is said, by “Bess of Hardwick,” the coronation chairs of George III. and Queen Charlotte, with their footstools, the wardrobe of Louis XVI., and much else. Next we come to the state music-room, which has similar decorations, and a strangely deceptive painting, attributed to Verrio, of a violin on its door. From this we enter the state drawing-room, where Phaeton drives the horses of the sun above us, where the walls are hung with Gobelin tapestry after the cartoons of Raffaelle, and where, in the malachite table and other fittings, there is much to attract the attention. In the state dining-room, which is the last of the suite, Verrio has depicted upon the ceiling, in his best manner, the “Fates cutting the Thread of Life.” In this luxurious chamber it is hard to think the wood-carving can be by any other than Gibbons, if we regard his characteristic manner; but whoever he may have been, the skilful craftsman has surpassed himself in giving the very touch of nature to these marvellous representations of flowers, fruit, birds, and shells....

Passing into the new wing through the dining-room (rarely shown), which is a grand chamber, simple in its style, but having a coved ceiling of white and gold, and adorned with rare marbles and splendid furniture, including tables of hornblende, porphyritic syenite, and Siberian jasper, hung with family portraits, and having sculptures by Westmacott, and others, we enter the sculpture-gallery, which is so well known that we need in this article only say that it contains works by Canova, Thorwaldsen, Schadow, Gibson, Wyatt, Westmacott, and several foreign artists. Attention is here drawn to a magnificent vase of the Blue John spar, which is said to be the largest in existence. Having then passed through the orangery, which is filled with sweet-scented blossoms or rich in ripening fruit, we leave the house and enter the gardens.

These stand high among the attractions of Chatsworth, and with their varied character of the natural and the artificial, their terraces and walks, their gay parterres, their fine trees, their fountains and rocks, their great conservatory, and their many other houses stored with choicest exotics, they are certainly among the finest gardens in England.

Few things can be more pleasant, having passed through the luxurious chambers, than to linger in these sweet-scented pathways, which are bordered by rich clusterings of flowers, to listen to the music of the waterfalls, and to see the dark-green trees, and the white-limbed nymphs, reflected in the pellucid basins. We pass down a short flight of steps, between dancing-girls after Canova, and vases of Elfdalen porphyry, and then proceeding through the French gardens, where the pathways are separated from the bright flower-beds by delicate creepers turning about lofty pedestals supporting busts and vases, we reach the great cascade, which pours from a stone water-temple, and rolls foaming down its long flight of formal descents below, to where, amid the rugged rocks at the bottom, it disappears underground.

The waterworks, which are by Grillet, and belong chiefly to the old Chatsworth, include a magnificent jet d’eau, rising from a long sheet of water between lime-trees, to a height of about two hundred and sixty feet, and a strange “weeping willow” of copper, which mysteriously pours copious streams of water from every leaf and twig. This last curiosity is in a sequestered gorge, where the rocks, placed with great labor and ingenuity, lie about apparently in wild confusion, and reared in lofty piles overgrown with moss and creeping plants.

From hence we issue by a curious gate-way of rock, turning upon a pivot, and, passing lofty cliffs over which pour deliciously cool cascades,—being, with much more in the formal gardens, the work of Sir Joseph Paxton,—reach the great conservatory, one of the wonders of Chatsworth. This magnificent house is a parallelogram in form, two hundred and seventy-six feet in length by one hundred and twenty-three feet in breadth, which rises from its basement, by two segmental curves on every side, the apex of the first forming the base of the second, to a height of seventy-six feet. So great is the extent of this wonderful building that, from its portico, which is of Grecian character, a carriage road runs from one end to the other, on either side of which, flourishing, as it were, in the warm air of their native climes, are lofty pines and palms of various kinds, dragon-trees, bananas, and many such tropical growths, with papyrus, lotus, and other water plants in tanks, and gorgeous flowering shrubs, making the air heavy with the rare perfumes of the East. Before descending to the lower gardens, it is well to survey from the terraces near the conservatory, or the quaint old hunting-tower above, the wide prospect of Chatsworth Park, with the palatial house by the Derwent, the picturesque village of Edensor on the slope beyond, and the hills rising, covered with umbrageous groves of trees. Below, in the pleasure gardens, passing many bright parterres, we reach some very fine forest-trees, and notably a magnificent Spanish chestnut, and then, beyond the great Emperor Fountain, pass trees planted by Her Majesty (then Princess Victoria) in 1832, as well as by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, by Prince Albert in 1843, and by the Emperor of Russia and the Grand Duke Michael in 1816 and 1818. The Italian garden, with its trim flower-beds, edged with privet, its beautiful acacia and other trees, its wall-like hedges, its long still basin and lofty fountain, surrounded by sculptured vases, is, from its very characteristic features, among the most attractive and interesting of the formal portion of the Chatsworth grounds.

We have given a brief and altogether imperfect account of the celebrated gardens, but this is scarcely the place in which to dwell upon the rare varieties of plants that are successfully cultivated there, or upon the scientific skill which has enabled the finest growths of tropical climes to flourish in Derwent Dale. Certainly no visitor who has lingered in these enchanting places will fail to appreciate the graceful compliment that Marshal Tallard, who was taken prisoner by Marlborough in 1704, paid to the Duke of Devonshire on leaving the “Palace by the Peak.” “My Lord Duke,” he said, “when I compute the days of my captivity in England, I shall omit those I passed at Chatsworth.”