United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"To my farther benefit, as I grew older, I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses in England, in reverent and healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was probably much happier to live in a small house, and have Warwick castle to be astonished at, than to live in Warwick castle and have nothing to be astonished at; but that, at all events, it would not make Brunswick Square in the least more pleasantly habitable, to pull Warwick castle down."
But this was fuel to the fire of the combined noblemen's anger; two hostile parties were formed, and the question of etiquette was nearly being decided by the sword. It required all the tact and statesmanship of Mazarin to prevent this, and in the end the right was conceded to three of the most distinguished ladies of the lower aristocracy, to sit down in the presence of the queen.
Of pedantry, however, there never seems to have been any danger in Court circles, either in Tudor or Stuart days. It took constant exhortations to make the majority of noblemen's sons learn anything at all out of books.
His growing reputation soon made him a welcome guest in many houses to which his mere position as vicar of Trowbridge might not have admitted him. Trowbridge was only a score or so of miles from Bath, and there were many noblemen's and gentlemen's seats in the country round.
It was performed by the King, the duke of Lenox, earls of Devonshire, Holland, Newport &c. with several other Lords and Noblemen's Sons; he was assisted in the contrivance by Mr. Inigo Jones, the famous architect. The Masque being written by the King's express command, our author placed this distich in the front, when printed;
Men extol the foreign herbs to the neglect of the native, and especially tobacco, "which is not found of so great efficacy as they write." In the orchards were plums, apples, pears, walnuts, filberts; and in noblemen's orchards store of strange fruit-apricots, almonds, peaches, figs, and even in some oranges, lemons, and capers.
It was crowded when we entered. I, endeavoring to conserve a natural demeanor, felt my sight blur. I saw, as we entered, only a row of backs of customers standing at the counter: three in noblemen's togas, one in the toga of a senator, their fulldress boots conspicuously red beneath their robes; four in the silken garments of wealthy ladies, all in pale soft hues of exquisite Coan dyes.
Certes in noblemen's houses it is not rare to see abundance of arras, rich hangings of tapestry, silver vessels, and so much other plate as may furnish sundry cupboards to the sum oftentimes of a thousand or two thousand pounds at the least, whereby the value of this and the rest of their stuff doth grow to be almost inestimable.
Our gardener was a very sublime sort of man, an Englishman, and of course used to laying out noblemen's places, and we became as grasshoppers in our own eyes when he talked of Lord This and That's estate, and began to question us about our carriage drive and conservatory; and we could with difficulty bring the gentleman down to any understanding of the humble limits of our expectations; merely to dress out the walks, and lay out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes, turnips, beets and carrots, was quite a descent for him.
When visitors came they were received either indoors or in the little garden which Carlyle found "of admirable comfort in the smoking way." In the garden they smoked and talked sitting on kitchen chairs, or on the quaint china barrels which Mrs. Carlyle named "noblemen's seats." Among the many friends Carlyle made was the young poet Alfred Tennyson.
Word Of The Day