Page:The Wentworth Papers 1715-1739.djvu/42

 26 THE WENTWORTH PAPERS.

in the dog-days." He bought there a great number of pic- tures, " which, though it cost me a great deal, yet it is a furniture for me and my posterity. I have about 30 pictures, most part originals by the best hands or the copies by good painters after the best pictures in Rome, and had I had time there I should have ruined myself with buying up such sort of curiosities."

To his kinsman Sir William Wentworth, of Bretton, whom when making the grand tour he had often met in the preceding year, he writes on February 25, in reply to a hope expressed of drinking " a glass of good ale or strong beer at Strafford Hall " — the name of Wentworth Castle was not given to his seat in Yorkshire for some years afterwards : —

" I am going on as hard as I can drive with my building and am at last persuaded to make it of brick and stone as Hampton Court is, and which I am assured will look better than all stone .... so the new front will be something like that of the Duke of Leeds at Keton [Kiveton.?] in our country. We talk much of peace and shall know the certainty of it in a very few days. If it is made I shall soon see you in Yorkshire, or be there before you. I have already brewed very good ale which is in my cellars, so they are not empty ; and I am resolved to turn arrant country gentleman and try to gain my neighbours by looking up my great dogs, opening my cellars, and having no inn by my house."

In July he writes to the same friend, " I have great credit by my pictures and find I have not thrown my money away. They are all designed for Yorkshire, and I hope to have a better collection there than Mr. Watson." A love of the fine arts was not, however, a prominent trait in Sir William's character ; indeed, he writes, he has no money to buy them with, and " I shall be well content with the walls of Bretton just as they are so that I have but a good glass of ale or beer to make my friends welcome with when they honour me with their company." Judging by these extracts the liking for

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