Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/388

382  this, of English manufacture; the other is one of the three which Benjamin Franklin made. The host's own sanctum, where he was regretfully writing addresses on catalogues of the sale, was not the least interesting spot in the old house, for there were "curios" in every nook of it. A case of strange insects from China hung on one wall, and on another a leathern drinking-bottle, shaped to fit the shoulder, with its strap, which is a relic from a battle-field in Lancashire. For that matter, most of the things in the house are relics from battle-fields; spoils of the strife of creeds, the strife of dynasties, the strife of fortune, and the silent, always victorious fight of time with human lives and the possessions of men. The ancient furniture, the pride of the collection, has been gathered from churches and castles and homesteads, which are dust, like the hands that wrought those rare designs with such patient skill and yet such careless freedom as our age of hurried accuracy and machine-made monotony knows not of; like the heads which rested beneath the stately roofs, rich with pious images and armorial bearings, of those amazing sleeping-places, the contemplation of which makes us understand the legacies in the wills of our remote forefathers, and the feuds which came of favoritism in the article of best beds. The cabinets, the sideboards, the ancient wardrobes, and the chairs — one is said to have belonged to King Henry VII., and subsequently to have formed a portion of the effects of Queen Katharine Parr — were all curious, and many of them were beautiful, but the beds and the chests were more interesting to a mere observer than any of the other objects.

In the room which was occupied by Mr. Dickens on his two visits to Lancaster, and which bears his name over its doorway, was one of these wonderful carved oak beds, so ponderous that one finds a world of speculation in the simple questions, — How was it ever put up? and how is it ever to be taken down? It is so imposing, with its grand pedestals standing beyond the footboard, and its heavy carved panels, that one feels rather timid about sleeping in it, and prepares to do so with a vague sense that one is taking a liberty with a long line of the illustrious ancestors of somebody. Tall carved chairs stand at either side of this monumental couch, all ready for the ghosts in ruff and farthingale, or in powder and patches, or for occupation by some of the creations of the head which rested under that imposing tester. Any of them would be welcome, except, perhaps, Mrs. Nickleby. Mysterious things in frames upon the walls attract one. On the whole, the Dickens room suggests a night-light, and reading in bed as long as one can keep one's eyes open, so as to leave no margin for fright, but in the daylight these mysterious things reveal themselves as the very pieces of needlework on which Mr. Ruskin expatiates, in his delightful, simply superlative style, in an early number of "Fors Clavigera." Here is, in "an old silken sampler of great grandame's work," much patient industry devoted to the career of Abraham, who is seen ruefully turning out Hagar and Ishmael, and hospitably entertaining the angels; while Sarah, arrayed in a very voluminous gown with a stomacher, looks, laughing at both performances, out of the aperture of a tent barely high enough for her to stand upright in. This is the "silken sampler" of which Mr. Ruskin says that it is "all wrought with such involution of ingenious needlework as may well rank, in the patience, the natural skill, and the innocent pleasure of it, with the truest work of Florentine engraving; in it the actual tradition of many of the forms of ancient art is manifoldly evident." Hard by is the "Culture of the Tulip," in silk and silver thread, a beautiful piece of work; of which the art-seer says that "the spirits of Ariadne and Penelope reign vivid in all the work," and that "the richness of pleasurable fancy is as great still in these silken labors as in the marble arches and golden roof of the Cathedral of Monreale." In the great saloon, where Mr. Sly tells, and the inscription over the door records, that the "crowned heads of Europe" have been severally entertained "since the peace," and whose latest illustrious guests were that much-meandering couple, the emperor and empress of the Brazils, hang several pieces of valuable tapestry, old Gobelins and old Florentine; and here some ancient chests again attract one to the most important portion of the collection. Worthy of the bedsteads, even of that from Rydal Mount, and that which once belonged to the Stanleys, and bears the deeply-carven device of the eagle and child, are these chests, so massive, so richly ornamented, so mysterious. Each of them might have been the identical one in which the bride of "Mistletoe Bough" memory so "long lay hid;" each one could easily hold her, and her trousseau too. Whose garments, and papers, and household gear have these laboriously