THE "LORD OF BURGHLEY."

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not only of the Cecils and their belongings, but of persons distinguished by various talents and labours. The likeness of Hobbes, author of "The Leviathan," is here, painted by an unknown artist. Verrio's portrait is by his own hand; Sir Isaac Newton is depicted by Lewis Crosse; while the pleasing affectations of Kneller and Lely are shown in the artificial presentments of ladies belonging to or allied with the Cecil stock. Here too is a more modern portrait-picture of considerable interest, to wit, the full-lengths of Henry Cecil, tenth Earl and first Marquis of Exeter, and his wife and little daughter. The painting is by Sir Thomas Lawrence, who has represented his lordship standing against a column, his countess being seated beside him, holding their child. Readers of Tennyson have

this bit of the Cecil genealogy, at all events, at their fingers' ends. Let us, however, recall some outlines of the story.

These are the words with which it opens :

"In her ear he whispers gaily,

'If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watched thee daily,
And I think thou lov'st me well.'
She replies, in accents fainter,

'There is none I love like thee.'
He is but a landscape-painter,
And a village-maiden she."

Promising her but a cottage home, he "leads her to the village altar," and, as they depart on their wedded life, he speaks to her of the handsome houses they are passing, among the parks and summer woods, and suggests a visit to the fairest of these noble and wealthy homes.

"All he shows her makes him dearer:
Evermore she seems to gaze

On that cottage growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their days.

O but she will love him truly!

He shall have a cheerful home;

She will order all things duly,

When beneath his roof they come.

"Thus her heart rejoices greatly,

Till a gateway she discerns,
With armorial bearings stately,

And beneath the gate she turns;

Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before:

Many a gallant gay domestic

Bows before him at the door.

"And they speak in gentle murmur
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly-
'All of this is mine and thine.'"

Then we read how, finding herself Lady of Burghley, she blushes and turns pale; strives against her weakness and her sinking spirits, and meekly shapes her heart to all duties of her new rank.

"And a gentle consort made he,

And her gentle mind was such

That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much.
But a trouble weighed upon her,

And perplex'd her night and morn,
With the burthen of an honour
Unto which she was not born.

"Faint she grew and ever fainter,

As she murmur'd, 'Oh, that he
Were once more that landscape-painter
Which did win my heart from me!'
So she droop'd and droop'd before him,
Fading slowly from his side:
Three fair children first she bore him,
Then before her time she died.

"Weeping, weeping, late and early,

Walking up and pacing down,
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh,
Burleigh House by Stamford Town.

THE OLD BALL-ROOM.

And he came to look upon her,

And he look'd at her and said,
'Bring the dress and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed.'

"Then her people, softly treading,
Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,
That her spirit might have rest."

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Poetical licence has been taken by the Laureate in this love-tale. Sir Bernard Burke, who is himself not sternly proof against the blandishments of fair romance, puts the matter somewhat more solidly on the ground of fact; while Dod and Debrett are almost common-place on the subject. The countess was her loved and loving lord's second wife. He, being at the time his uncle's heir, lived in seclusion after the death of his first spouse, whom he mourned for a time very tenderly. Taking up his lodging at the house of Mr. Thomas Hoggins, a farmer, at Bolas in Shropshire, he fell in love with his host's daughter Sarah; and, representing himself to be a person of slender but sufficient fortune, named Jones, he obtained her parents' consent to their marriage. The lady died young, as her lord's first wife had died; but there is no positive justification of the poet's conclusion that "the burthen of an honour unto which she was not born" weighed upon her as a mortal trouble. Nor was he "Lord of Burghley" at the time of his wedding Miss Hoggins. The fact is, he preserved his incognito for some time

after the marriage, and only disclosed his true rank when, having succeeded by the death of his uncle to the earldom and accompanying estate, he took his unsuspecting countess home to Burghley, pretty much as the poem relates. The death of the countess occurred in 1797; and her husband died in 1804, at the age of fifty, the Marquisate dating from 1801.

The Old Ball-room, or second Billiard-room, is our next stage in the journey over Burghley House. The walls and ceilings are painted by Laguerre, who divides with Verrio the questionable glory of having covered vast expanses of ceiling and wall in this mansion with attitudinising gods, goddesses, demi-gods, nymphs, and heroes. They sprawl, as Walpole says, all over "those public surfaces on which the eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where one would be sorry to place the works of a better master." This is truly one sort of excuse for art of the conventionally meretricious order. In the Brown Drawing-room we find more of the beautiful lime-wood carvings of birds, flowers, and fruit, by Gibbons, over the chimney-piece. Some excellent pictures are in this room; a highly curious example of Hugo van der Goes, the Life of St. Augustine, in divisions, being one of the most notable. The central compartment of this work represents the installation of Augustine as Archbishop of Africa. A china dish, with a view of Burghley, and the date 1745 painted thereon, is one of the objects in this room. Next is the Black and Yellow Bed-chamber, hung with tapestry, and containing a state bed of great age. Here, too, the Gibbons carving recurs; and the chamber, with its adjacent dressing-room, contains pictures decidedly worth notice. Another bed-room, nearly square and of good size, is designated "Queen Elizabeth's Chamber." It is doubted, however, whether the maiden

queen ever visited Burghley, albeit there is a chair in the Chapel also called after her, and certain spots in the park are identified with her name. The bed-room furniture may have been brought from Lord Burghley's house in Stamford, where Elizabeth certainly was entertained, as appears from a distinct and precise entry in the Lord Treasurer's Diary, under the date of August 5th, 1566. It is further evidenced that a fever in the house at Burghley-then the old house-prevented Elizabeth from going thither at that time, and there is no record of her having visited the place at any other period.

It was after a stay at Theobalds that the queen made her famous speechto her old minister, saying that his head and her purse could do anything; and it was at Theobalds that those royal entertainments which cost Burghley £2,000 and £3,000 each were given. The tapestry of "Queen Elizabeth's Bed-room," so called at Burghley, could never have been seen by her at all events; since it was made, probably at Mortlake, for the fifth Earl of Exeter. The subjects are the story of Actæon, Bacchus and Ariadne, and Acis and Galatea. Among the pictures, Bassano's fine composition, "The Agony in the Garden," is decidedly the best.

In the Pagoda-room, which is so styled after a model that has long had a place there, will be found the most interesting series of portraits. Of especial note are those by Holbein and

Mark Garrard, inasmuch as they are authentic and excellent pictures of historical men and women. Under Holbein's hand are the likenesses of King Henry VIII.; Edward VI., at the age of seven or eight years, a very striking piece of portraiture; Princess Mary Tudor, afterwards queen; and Cromwell, Earl of Essex. To Mark Garrard belongs the celebrity of having painted the principal portrait at Burghley, it being no other than that of the great Lord Treasurer himself, with white beard, black cap, high ruff, crimson dress, mantle, collar of the Garter, and Treasurer's staff. It is very probable that this same picture afforded the details for the effigy on the tomb in St. Martin's Church. Garrard's, too, is the likeness of Queen Elizabeth, at the age of sixty-five; in yellow wig, high jewelled head-dress, and wide starched and wired ruff, at the side of which two small pink roses are set. The first Earl of Exeter, Burghley's eldest son, Thomas, is here painted on panel by Cornelius Janssen, in half-length, dressed in black, with the ribbon and badge of the Garter, and wearing a high black hat. This nobleman was created Earl of Exeter by