Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/81

 Stephen Lyttelton and Robert Winter. The term of their concealment, however, was but short, being betrayed by an under-cook belonging to the family. Humphrey Lyttelton, the owner at that time of the estate, who had received the traitors into his protection, and endeavoured to secrete them, was content to save his neck by discovering, as it is said, the unfortunate men that had taken refuge in Hendlip-house. The present mansion is a plain and simple but classical building, placed in the flat part of the park, the ground swelling into gentle hills on three sides of it. Its form is a parallelogram, and its chief front adorned with a double flight of steps on each side, from the platform of which is a fine extensive view.

The land rises majestically behind the house, but is utterly spoiled by those artificial decorations which the fashion of the day sixty years ago considered as additions the most elegant and appropriate; and which attached to Hagley-park almost the exclusive character of taste in the design, disposition, and ornament of pleasure-grounds. These decorations are a temple; a Gothic ruin; an obelisk; a pillar; a Palladian bridge; two or three trumpery grottos; and as many bits of water of diminutive size and accurate mathematic forms; quotations painted on tablets of wood, culled