THIS princely seat of the Howards is distant about twenty miles from the venerable city of York, on the road from thence to Malton. The railway station, four miles from the mansion, on the borders of the Derwent, and not far from one of the most interesting of monastic ruins, the ancient abbey of Kirkham, is pretty and picturesque, and the drive from thence to the castle is by a road full of beauty—passing by tranquil villages and umbrageous woods, and commanding, here and there, glorious and extensive views of fertile country, far away from the active bustle of busy life. Castle Howard, one of the most perfect of the “dwellings” that succeeded the castles and “strong houses” of our forefathers, with its gardens, grounds, lawns, plantations, woods, and all the accessories of refined taste, is a model of that repose which speaks of happiness—and makes it; and it is pleasant to imagine there the good statesman, retiring from the political warfare in which he had so large a share, to leave earth, “after life’s fitful fever,” in the midst of the graces of the demesne, and the honourable and lofty associations connected with a numerous list of heroic ancestors.

The Earl of Carlisle, the owner of Castle Howard, is descended from a long line of noble and distinguished men whose services to their sovereigns and their country gained for them the highest honours and distinctions; yet the parts they took in the troublous times in which they lived brought no less than three of their brightest ornaments to the block under charges of high treason.

The House of Howard, although not of the oldest of English families, is one that claims precedence of rank over all others; for its head, the Duke of Norfolk, is Premier Duke and Earl, Hereditary Earl Marshal, and Chief Butler of England, and has, therefore, extraordinary importance attached to it.

This great historical House can only with certainty be traced to Sir William Howard, Judge of Common Pleas in the year 1297, although plausible, and indeed highly probable, connections have been made out to a much earlier period. They inherit much of their Norfolk property from their ancestors, the Bigods. In the fourteenth century, by the match of the then head of the family, Sir Robert Howard, with the heiress of Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, the foundation of the splendour and consequence of the Howards was laid. That lady was Margaret, eldest daughter of the Duke of Norfolk by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Richard, Earl of Arundel. The said Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, was son and heir to John, Lord Mowbray, by Elizabeth, his wife, daughter and heiress to John, Lord Segrave, and Margaret, his wife, daughter and heiress of Thomas de Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England, the eldest son of King Edward I., by his second wife Margaret, daughter to Philip the Hardy, King of France.

By this splendid alliance Sir Robert Howard had an only son and two daughters. The son, Sir John Howard, was created Lord Howard, and afterwards Duke of Norfolk, and had the highest offices bestowed on him—a title and honours which have (excepting the periods of sequestration) remained in the family ever since.

All the present English peers of the noble House of Howard descend from a common ancestor in Thomas, the second Duke of Norfolk of the name of Howard, who died in 1524. Thus the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Suffolk, and the Earl of Carlisle are descended from his first wife, Mary, daughter and heiress to Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel; and the Earl of Effingham from his second wife, Margaret, daughter and heiress of Thomas, Lord Audley of Walden, and widow of Lord Henry Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland. The Howards of Greystoke, in Cumberland, are a younger branch of the present ducal House, as are the Howards of Glossop, &c. The Howards of Corby Castle descend from the Carlisle branch, tracing from “Belted Will Howard.” The titles and dignities now enjoyed by different members of the family of Howard are—Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal, and Hereditary Marshal of England; Premier Duke and Earl next to the royal blood; Earl of Norfolk, Earl of Surrey, Earl of Arundel, Baron Fitzalan, Baron Clun, Baron Oswaldestre, and Baron Maltravers; Earl of Suffolk, Earl of Berkshire, Viscount Andover, and Baron Howard; Earl of Carlisle, Viscount Howard of Morpeth (generally called Viscount Morpeth), and Baron Dacre of Gillesland; Earl of Effingham, Viscount Howard of Effingham, and Baron Howard of Effingham; Baron Howard of Glossop; Baron Lanerton of Naworth; Earl of Wicklow, Viscount Wicklow, and Baron Clonmore.

The earldom of Carlisle was originally enjoyed by Ranulph de Meschines, nephew of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester. The earldom appears next to have been given to Andrew de Harcla, who was son of Michael de Harcla, Governor of Carlisle, who afterwards “being condemned for a traytor, he was at first in form degraded, having his knightly spurs hew’d off from his heels; and at last hang’d, drawn, and quartered, 3rd March, 1322.”

The title was next enjoyed by the Plantagenets, and thus again merged into the Crown. In 1620, the title—with those of Viscount Doncaster and Baron Hay—was conferred on Sir James Hay: he was succeeded by his son James, who died without issue. The title thus again became extinct, and so remained until it was conferred on the Howards.

Lord William Howard—third son of the Duke of Norfolk, already spoken of—was the “Belted Will Howard” of history, one of the leading heroes of Border minstrelsy—the hero of whom Sir Walter Scott writes—

“Costly his garb—his Flemish ruff
Fell o’er his doublet, shaped of buff,

With satin slashed and lined;

Tawny his boot, and gold his spur,
His cloak was all of Poland fur,

His hose with silver twined;

His Bilboa blade, by Marchmen felt,
Hung in a broad and studded belt;—
Hence, in rude phrase, the Borderers still
Called noble Howard ‘Belted Will.’”

He was, as we have stated, the third son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and grandson of the famous Earl of Surrey:—

“Who has not heard of Surrey’s fame?”

His father lost his title, his estates, and his head on Tower Hill, and bequeathed him to the care of his elder brother, as “having nothing to feed the cormorants withal.” He was married, in 1577, to the Lady Elizabeth Dacre, daughter of Thomas, and sister and co-heiress of George, Lord Dacre of Gillesland, the ages of both together being short of eight-and-twenty—he being fourteen years old, and she a few months younger. During the whole of the reign of Elizabeth, however, he and his brother Arundel, and several other members of his family, were greatly oppressed—subjected repeatedly to charges of treason, and kept in a state of poverty, “very grievous to bear.” On the accession of James I. their prospects brightened; Lord William was received into special favour, and, in 1605, was appointed to the perilous post of King’s Lieutenant and Lord Warden of the Marches, when the northern shires of England were exposed to perpetual inroads of Border caterans. The onerous and very difficult duties imposed upon him he discharged with equal fearlessness and severity. His boast was so to act that the rush-bush should guard the cow; so that, to quote “quaint old Fuller,” “when in their greatest height, the moss-troopers had two fierce enemies—the laws of the land, and Lord William Howard, who sent many of them to Carlisle, that place where the officer does his work by daylight.”

Although formidable to his enemies, Lord William Howard was fervent and faithful to his friends. His attachment to his lady was of the “truest affection, esteem, and friendship;” and his love of letters and the refined pursuits of leisure and ease rendered him conspicuous even among the many intellectual men of the period. He was the friend of Camden and other men of note. For Camden he copied the inscriptions on the Roman remains in his district; and he collected together a fine library of the best authors (part of which still exists), and, in addition, he himself edited the “Chronicle of Florence of Worcester.” He collected a number of valuable MSS., which now form a part of the Arundel Collection in the British Museum. An excellent portrait of this great man, of whom the Howards may well feel proud, is preserved at Castle Howard. His dress is a close jacket of thick black figured silk, with rounded skirts to mid-thigh, and many small buttons. The rest of his dress is also of black silk. His sleeves are turned up, and he has a deep white falling collar. He wears a dress rapier, and is bareheaded. The dress in which he is painted is, curiously enough, ascertained, from the steward’s accounts of the time, to have cost £17 7s. 6d. There is also a portrait by the same artist (Cornelius Jansen) of the Lady Elizabeth, his wife. To the courage of the soldier “Belted Will” added the courtesy of the scholar, and, although the “tamer of the wild border” has been pictured as a ferocious man-slayer, history does him but justice in describing him as a model of chivalry, when chivalry was the leading characteristic of the age. He died in 1640, surviving the Lady Bessy—“Bessie with the braid apron”—only one year, their union having continued during sixty-three years, and leaving by her ten sons and five daughters, the eldest of the sons being the direct ancestor of the Earls of Carlisle. Their sons and daughters, with their wives and husbands and children, are said, all at one time, to have lived with them; the family numbering fifty-two persons. The sobriquet of “Belted Will” was “not, it is understood, derived from the breadth of the baldric, a broad belt, the distinguishing badge of high station, but rather meant ‘bauld,’ or bold, Willie; and that the term ‘Bessie with the braid apron’ did not refer to that portion of a lady’s dress, but to the breadth, or extent, of her possessions.”

Their eldest son, Sir Philip Howard, died in his father’s lifetime, leaving by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir John Carryl, a son, Sir William Howard, who succeeded his grandfather, Lord William, in the enjoyment of his estates. He married Mary, eldest daughter of William, Lord Eure, by whom he had issue five sons—William (who died in the lifetime of his father), Charles, Philip, Thomas, and John—and five daughters. He was succeeded by his second son, Charles, who, for many loyal services to his king, was, in 1661, created Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Earl of Carlisle. He also enjoyed many high appointments and privileges. He married Anne, daughter of Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick, and had issue by her two sons, Edward and Frederick Christian, and three daughters. Dying in 1684, his lordship was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward Howard.

Edward, second Earl of Carlisle, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Berkeley, by whom he had issue three sons and two daughters. His lordship died in 1692, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles, as third earl, who, during the minority of his kinsman, the Duke of Norfolk, held the office of Deputy Earl Marshal: many important posts were conferred upon, and trusts reposed in, him. He married Lady Elizabeth Capel, daughter of the Earl of Essex, by whom he left issue two sons—Henry, who succeeded him, and Charles, a general of the army—and three daughters.

Henry, who succeeded his father, in 1738, as fourth Earl of Carlisle, married, first, Lady Frances Spencer, only daughter of Charles, Earl of Sunderland, by whom he had issue three sons, who predeceased him, and two daughters; and, secondly, in 1743, Isabella, daughter of William, fourth Lord Byron, by whom he left issue one son—Frederick, who succeeded him—and four daughters.

Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle, succeeded his father in the title and estates in 1758, being at the time only ten years of age. In 1768 he was made a Knight of the Thistle, and in 1793 installed as K.G. His lordship, who was a man of letters and of high intellectual attainments, in 1801 published “The Tragedies and Poems of Frederick, Earl of Carlisle, K.G.” This lord was the guardian of Lord Byron, and to him the “Hours of Idleness” was dedicated. Some severe and satiric passages concerning the Earl may be called to mind in “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers”—passages which the erratic poet afterwards regretted.

He married the Lady Margaret Caroline Leveson-Gower, daughter of Granville, first Marquis of Stafford, by whom he had issue—the Hon. George, Viscount Morpeth; Lady Isabella Caroline, who was married, first, to Lord Cawdor, and, secondly, to the Hon. Captain George Pryse; Lady Charlotte; Lady Susan Maria; Lady Louisa; Lady Elizabeth, who married John Henry, Duke of Rutland, and was mother of the present Duke of Rutland, of Lord John Manners, and a numerous family;[42] the Hon. William Howard, who died unmarried; Lady Gertrude, who married William Sloane Stanley, Esq.; Major the Hon. Frederick Howard, who married Frances Susan Lambton, sister to the Earl of Durham (he was killed at the battle of Waterloo), who married, secondly, the Hon. H. F. C. Cavendish, second son of the Earl of Burlington; and the Hon. and Very Rev. Henry Edward John Howard, Dean of Lichfield, &c., who married Henrietta Elizabeth, daughter of Ichabod Wright, Esq. His lordship died in 1825, and was succeeded by his son—

George, Viscount Morpeth, as sixth Earl of Carlisle, who filled many important offices. He married the Lady Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish, daughter of William, fifth Duke of Devonshire, and sister to the late duke, and by her had issue—George William Frederick, Lord Morpeth (who succeeded his father); Lady Caroline Georgiana, married to the Hon. William Saunders Sebright Lascelles, brother to the Earl of Harewood; Lady Georgiana, married to Lord Dover; the Hon. Frederick George; Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana, married to the Duke of Sutherland, and mother to the present illustrious nobleman of that title;[43] the Hon. and Rev. William George Howard (the present peer); the Hon. Edward Granville George, Baron Lanerton, married to Diana, niece of Lord Ponsonby; Lady Blanche Georgiana, married to William Cavendish, afterwards second Earl of Burlington, and now the present highly esteemed and illustrious Duke of Devonshire, by whom she had issue—the present Marquis of Hartington, M.P., Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish, M.P., Lord Edward Cavendish, M.P., and Lady Louisa Cavendish (Egerton); the Hon. Charles Wentworth George Howard, M.P., married to Mary, daughter of Judge Parke; Lady Elizabeth Anne Georgiana Dorothea, married to the Hon. and Rev. F. R. Grey, brother to Earl Grey; the Hon. Henry George Howard, married to a niece of the Marchioness Wellesley; and Lady Mary Matilda, married to the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, Baron Taunton. His lordship, who died in 1848, was succeeded by his son—

George William Frederick, Viscount Morpeth, as seventh earl, one of the most distinguished men of the age in literature and science, as well as in the senate. His lordship, as Lord Morpeth, took a prominent part in the political affairs of the kingdom, and among the important offices he held, at one time or other in his useful life, were those of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was a man of the most refined taste and of the highest intellectual culture, and his writings were of a rare order of merit. He died unmarried in 1864, and was succeeded by his brother—

The present noble peer, the Hon. and Rev. William George Howard, eighth Earl of Carlisle, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Baron Dacre of Gillesland, in the titles and estates. His lordship was born in 1808, and was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took honours, and proceeded M.A. in 1840. In 1832 he was appointed to the rectory of Londesborough, which living he held until 1866. He is senior co-heir to the barony of Clifford, and is unmarried, the heir-presumptive to the earldom being his brother, Admiral the Hon. Edward Granville George Howard, R.N., Lord Lanerton. His lordship is patron of five livings—viz. Brampton, Farlam, and Lanercost Abbey, in Cumberland; Slingsby, in Yorkshire; and Morpeth, in Northumberland.

The arms of the Earl of Carlisle are—quarterly of six: 1st, gules, a bend between six cross crosslets fitchÉe, argent, on the bend an escutcheon, or, charged with a demi-lion, pierced through the mouth with an arrow, within a double tressure flory counter-flory, all gules, and above the escutcheon a mullet, sable, for difference, Howard; 2nd, gules, three lions passant guardant, or, and a label of three points, argent, Thomas of Brotherton, son of Edward I.; 3rd, checky, or and azure, Warren, Earl Warren and Surrey; 4th, gules, a lion rampant, argent, Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; 5th, gules, three escallops, argent, Dacre; 6th, barry of eight, argent and azure, three chaplets of roses, proper, Greystock. Crest—on a chapeau, gules, turned up ermine, a lion statant guardant, with the tail extended, or, ducally gorged, argent. Supporters—dexter, a lion, argent, charged with a mullet, sable, for difference; sinister, a bull, gules, armed, unguled, ducally gorged and lined, or. Motto—“Valo non valeo” (“I am willing, but not able”).

His seats are Castle Howard, Yorkshire, and Naworth Castle, Cumberland.

The heir-presumptive to the titles and estates is, as just stated, Admiral the Right Hon. Edward Granville George Howard, Baron Lanerton of Naworth, which peerage was bestowed on him in 1873. He was born in 1809, entered the Royal Navy in 1823, and advanced step by step till he became Admiral in 1870. He married, in 1842, Diana, daughter of the Hon. George Ponsonby, by whom, however, he has no issue.

In the grounds of Castle Howard an avenue of about a mile in length, bordered on either side by groups of ash-trees, leads to a pretty, cosy, and comfortable inn, on the front of which is the inscription:—“CAROLUS HOWARD, COMES CARLIOLENSIS, HOC CONDIDIT ANNO DOMINI MDCCXIX.” It forms a sort of entrance gate to the park: the mansion, however, is a long way off, the whole length of the avenue from the road to the house being four miles, with the avenue of trees continued all the way. Midway is an obelisk one hundred feet in height, which contains the following inscriptions:—

“Virtute et FortunÆ, Johannes, MarlburiÆ
Ducis PatriÆ EuropÆquÆ Defensoris.
Hoc saxum admirationi ac famÆ
Sacrum Carolus Comes Carliol posuit,

Anno Domini MDCCXIV.”

“If to perfection these plantations rise,
If they agreeably my heirs surprise,
This faithful pillar will their age declare,
As long as time these characters shall spare;

Here then with kind remembrance read his name,
Who for posterity perform’d the same.”

“Charles, the third Earl of Carlisle of the family of Howards, erected a Castle where the old Castle of Henderskelf[44] stood, and called it Castle Howard. He likewise made the plantations in this park, and all the outworks, monuments, and other plantations belonging to the said seat.

“He began these works in the year MDCCII, and set up this inscription anno Domin MDCCXXXI.”

The history of the house is thus told; but it has no pretensions to the name of a castle: the mansion is free from all semblance of character as a place for defence, being simply and purely the domestic home of an English nobleman, though, as our engravings show, very beautiful in construction, of great extent, and perfect in all its appliances.

It is the chef-d’oeuvre of the architect, Sir John Vanbrugh, he who laid in England “many a heavy load,” and whose graceful and emphatically “comfortable” structures, including notably that of Blenheim, adorn several of our English shires. Comparing Castle Howard with Blenheim, Dr. Waagen writes—“The former is less ‘broken up’ than the latter, and though not of equal extent, has a grander and more massive appearance. In the whole arrangement of the mansion and the garden, the architect evidently had Versailles in his mind as the perfection of this style.”

Sir John Vanbrugh was, as his name indicates, of Dutch descent. He was born at Chester in 1666. his father being a sugar-baker in that city. In 1695, his architectural skill having acquired him some reputation, he was appointed one of the commissioners for completing Greenwich Palace, at the time when it was about to be converted into a hospital. In 1702 he built Castle Howard for the Earl of Carlisle, who was so pleased with his skill, that, being at the time Deputy Earl Marshal of England, he conferred upon him the important appointment of Clarencieux King-of-arms. In 1726 he died, and was buried in the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook.

En route to the house, we pass, to the left, in a hollow adjoining a broad lake, the Dairy, a pretty building picturesquely placed; and right before us is a steep ascent, from which there is a fine view—north, south, east, and west.

The South Front shows Castle Howard in its finest point of view: it is in length 323 feet; the centre consists of a pediment and entablature supported by fluted Corinthian pilasters; and the door is reached by a flight of stately steps. “The North Front consists of an elaborate centre of the Corinthian order, with a cupola rising from the top, and on either side extensive wings—the east according to the original design, the west from a design by Sir James Robinson, which has been more recently built in a very different style from the other wing; and, as the building has been deemed by some architectural critics to be wanting in the qualities of lightness and elegance, and uniformity of parts, to this circumstance is owing the alleged incongruity.”

From this point is the main or state entrance into the Great Hall, pictured in the engraving. It is 65 feet high; a square of 35 feet; lit from a dome, the top of which is 100 feet from the floor. The principal entrance is on its north side, and the spaces between the piers on that and on the south side are open the whole height of the arches. The south side opens to the suite of apartments on the garden front, and a richly balustraded gallery gives access to the upper rooms. The east and west sides are partly filled, the upper portions being open, and showing the splendid ceilings of the staircase, &c. On one of these sides is the fire-place, and on the other a canopied recess. The fire-place is a rich piece of sculptured marbles, and there are panels filled with pendent groups of musical instruments; allegories grace the ceilings and walls, principally painted by Pellegrini; and statues and busts are placed on pedestals, and otherwise adorn the sides. These allegorical paintings are, on the ceiling, the Fall of PhaËton; and on the walls, the four seasons, the signs of the zodiac, the four quarters of the world, Apollo and Midas, Apollo and the Muses, Mercury and Venus, Vulcan and his attributes, &c. Among the sculptures are Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Sabina, Julia Mammea, Bacchus, Ceres, Diodumenus, Paris, Hadrian, Lucius Verus, Vitellius, Epaphroditus, Marc Antony, a bacchanal, and others.

Several doors lead to the various apartments, the state-rooms being hung with pictures of inestimable worth, and all being decorated in pure taste. To the pictures we shall presently refer.

A gallery called the Antique Gallery—160 feet long, by 20 in width—contains a number of rare, beautiful, and valuable examples of Roman, Egyptian, and Greek antiquities, among which are many really fine and unique specimens of early Art. It also contains many interesting pictures and some good old tapestry. In the Museum has been collected an immense variety of objects, gathered by several lords in various countries, with not a few precious relics found in the ancient localities of Yorkshire and Cumberland: among these are some examples of ancient mosaic-work, a curious basso-relievo of Mercury, a number of urns and inlaid marbles, and other objects. There is also here shown a casket or wine-cooler of bog-oak, mounted in solid silver, a gift to the good Lord Carlisle by his constituents of the West Riding; it measures 3 feet 6 inches in length, by 2 feet 4 inches in height and breadth, and cost about a thousand guineas; and “a monster address, 400 feet long,” presented to him on his retiring from the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland. One object of more than passing interest is an altar supposed to have “stood in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.” On its top is a tablet bearing the following lines from the pen, we believe, of the Earl of Carlisle:—

“Pass not this ancient altar with disdain,

’Twas once in Delphi’s sacred temple rear’d;

From this the Pythian pour’d her mystic strain,

While Greece its fate in anxious silence heard.

What chief, what hero of the Achaian race,

Might not to this have bow’d with holy awe,

Have clung in pious reverence round its base,

And from the voice inspired received the law?

A British chief, as famed in arms as those,

Has borne this relic o’er th’ Italian waves,

In war still friend to science, this bestows,

And Nelson gives it to the land he saves.”

The Saloon has an exquisitely painted allegorical ceiling representing Aurora, and is also adorned by a large number of statues and busts, as well as valuable paintings.

The Drawing-room is hung with rich tapestry after Rubens’ designs, and the walls are adorned with many gems of Art. Among the other treasures in this elegant apartment are some fine antique bronzes.

The Gold or State Bed-room is hung with the finest Brussels tapestry, after designs by Teniers. The chimney-piece is very elegant, being supported by Corinthian columns, the shafts of Sienna marble, the capitals, bases, and cornice white, with pigeons of polished white marble in the centre of the frieze. Upon it stands a bust of Jupiter Serapis.

The Breakfast and Dining Rooms—and, indeed, the whole of the apartments in the mansion—are elegantly and even sumptuously furnished, and filled to repletion with objects of interest and of virtu.

The Crimson-figured Room has its walls painted, by Pellegrini, with a series of incidents of the Trojan war: these are—the Rape of Helen, Achilles in disguise amidst the daughters of Lycomedes, King of Scyros, and Ulysses in search of him, Ajax and Ulysses contending for the armour of Achilles, Troy in flames, and Æneas bearing on his shoulders Anchises from the burning city.

The Blue Drawing-room, the Green Damask Room, the Yellow Bed-chamber, the Silver Bed-room, the Blue Silk Bed-room, and, indeed, all the remaining apartments, need no further remark than that they are, in their furnishing and appointments, all that the most fastidious taste could desire them to be.

The pictures that so lavishly adorn Castle Howard have been long renowned. The collection contains some of the very finest examples of the great old masters to be found in Europe. The best of them once formed part of the famous Orleans Gallery, and were acquired by the Earl of Carlisle when the French Revolution of 1789 caused their distribution.

To name all the works in this collection would occupy more space than we can spare: chief among them all is “The Three Marys,” by Annibale Carracci; it suffices to name it as one of the world’s wonders in Art. And also “The Adoration of the Wise Men,” by Mabuse, the chef-d’oeuvre of the master. Other grand examples are by Titian, Correggio, Domenichino, Guercino, Carlo Maratti, Giorgione, Primaticcio, Julio Romano, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Velasquez, Cuyp, Claude, Ruysdael, Vandyke, Rubens, Wouvermans, Breughel, Berghem, Jansen, Holbein, Huysman, Mabuse, Van der Velde, Teniers, and Canaletti. Of Canaletti there are no fewer than forty-five examples—his best productions in his best time—scattered throughout the corridors and rooms, with famous specimens of Reynolds and Lawrence, and family portraits by other artists; notably those of Jackson, an artist who, from his obscure boyhood in Yorkshire, was encouraged and upheld by the House of Carlisle.

The history of the dispersion of the Orleans Gallery deserves record here. When the French prince, Philippe of Orleans, surnamed ÉgalitÉ, wanted a sum of money to carry out his political projects, he sold his entire gallery of pictures (in 1792) for a comparatively insignificant amount: those of the Italian and French schools to a banker of Brussels, and those of the Flemish, Dutch, and German schools to an Englishman, Mr. T. M. Slade. The Italian and French pictures subsequently passed into the hands of a French gentleman, M. Laborde de MÈreville, who, being compelled to quit his country during the Revolution, caused his pictures to be brought to London, and ultimately sold them to Mr. Jeremiah Harman, a wealthy merchant. “Thus matters stood,” says Dr. Waagen, in his “Treasures of Art in Great Britain,” “till the year 1798, when Mr. Bryan”—the well-known picture-buyer, and author of the “Dictionary of Painters and Engravers,” a standard book of reference—“prevailed on the late Duke of Bridgewater, Earl Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and the Earl of Carlisle, to purchase this splendid collection for the sum of £43,000, and thus to secure it for ever to England.”

The Conservatories are remarkably fine, and well ordered with all the floral treasures of the world, while the collection of hardy herbaceous plants congregated at Castle Howard, numbering upwards of six hundred species, is unmatched elsewhere.

Of the Gardens we give two engravings: the one chiefly to show a charming fountain, a work of great merit, the production of the sculptor Thomas; the other to convey an idea of the peculiar and very beautiful character of the grounds and their adornments—the terrace walks, the lake, the summer-house (Temple of Diana), and the Mausoleum, environed by umbrageous woods; here and there vases judiciously interspersed with memorial pillars, commemorating some striking event or some renowned benefactor of the race of the Howards.

The lawns and gardens are admirably laid out, somewhat trim and formal, but not out of character with the building of which they are adornments. The grounds are unsurpassed in beauty—that of which Nature has been lavish, and that which is derived from Art.

The ornamental grounds are of vast extent, and are beautifully diversified with the varied attractions of lake, lawn, and forest. The parterre “occupies several acres of a cheerful lawn, of which a considerable space on the south front of the mansion is laid out in the most tasteful and pleasing manner, and interspersed with flower-beds, clumps of evergreens and shrubs, and statuary.” The Raywood, approached by a gravel walk 687 yards in length, with its delightful walks and grand old trees, also abounds with statuary. Near the iron gates at which this walk commences is the Rosary, and close by is a pedestal erected by one earl, and inscribed with some chastely beautiful lines by his successor. The Green Terrace Walk, 576 yards in length, is adorned with statuary, and Lady Mary Howard’s Garden is one of the most lovely features on the south front.

The Temple of Diana, from which charming views of the mansion and its surroundings are obtained, is an Ionic erection, and bears in niches over its doors busts of Vespasian, Faustina, Trajan, and Sabina.

The Mausoleum, a circular domed structure, 35 feet in diameter in its interior, and 98 feet in height, contains in its basement sixty-four catacombs built under ground arches. Externally, it is surrounded by a colonnade of twenty-one Doric columns. In the vaults are interred many illustrious members of this truly noble family: among these are the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Earls of Carlisle; Frances and Caroline, Countesses of Carlisle; and some of the sons and daughters of these “peerless peers and peeresses.” The Mausoleum is interesting as being the first, unconnected with a church, erected in England.

The Pyramid, on St. Ann’s Hill, 28 feet square at its base, and 50 feet in height, was raised in 1728 to the memory of William, Lord Howard, third son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1639. It contains in its interior a bust, with the inscription—

“Gulielmus Dominus Howard, obiit x die Martis, Ætatis suÆ octogesimo primo, anno salutis MDCXXXIX;”

and on its north side, on the exterior, the following inscription in marble:—

“William, Lord Howard, third son to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded by Queen Elizabeth, married Elizabeth, one of the co-heiresses of William, Lord Dacre; by which marriage, and the said William’s great industry and ability, are descended to me most of the estates that I now possess; in grateful remembrance therefore of that noble and beneficent parent, and of that pious and virtuous lady, this monument is erected by Charles, the third Earl of Carlisle of the family of the Howards, their great-great-great-grandson, Anno Domini, 1728.

“To thee, O venerable shade,
Who long hast In oblivion laid,

This pile I here erect;

A tribute small for what thou’st done.
Deign to accept the mean return,

Pardon the long neglect.

“To thy long labours, to thy care,
Thy sons deceased, thy present heir,

Their great possessions owe.

Spirit Divine, what thanks are due?
This will thy memory renew,

It’s all I can bestow.”