I Have Mentioned That This County Is Generally A Vast Continued
Body Of High Chalky Hills, Whose Tops Spread Themselves
Into
fruitful and pleasant downs and plains, upon which great flocks of
sheep are fed, &c. But the reader is
Desired to observe these
hills and plains are most beautifully intersected and cut through
by the course of divers pleasant and profitable rivers; in the
course and near the banks of which there always is a chain of
fruitful meadows and rich pastures, and those interspersed with
innumerable pleasant towns, villages, and houses, and among them
many of considerable magnitude. So that, while you view the downs,
and think the country wild and uninhabited, yet when you come to
descend into these vales you are surprised with the most pleasant
and fertile country in England.
There are no less than four of these rivers, which meet all
together at or near the city of Salisbury; especially the waters of
three of them run through the streets of the city--the Nadder and
the Willy and the Avon--and the course of these three lead us
through the whole mountainous part of the county. The two first
join their waters at Wilton, the shiretown, though a place of no
great notice now; and these are the waters which run through the
canal and the gardens of Wilton House, the seat of that ornament of
nobility and learning, the Earl of Pembroke.
One cannot be said to have seen anything that a man of curiosity
would think worth seeing in this county, and not have been at
Wilton House; but not the beautiful building, not the ancient
trophy of a great family, not the noble situation, not all the
pleasures of the gardens, parks, fountains, hare-warren, or of
whatever is rare either in art or nature, are equal to that yet
more glorious sight of a noble princely palace constantly filled
with its noble and proper inhabitants. The lord and proprietor,
who is indeed a true patriarchal monarch, reigns here with an
authority agreeable to all his subjects (family); and his reign is
made agreeable, by his first practising the most exquisite
government of himself, and then guiding all under him by the rules
of honour and virtue, being also himself perfectly master of all
the needful arts of family government--I mean, needful to make that
government both easy and pleasant to those who are under it, and
who therefore willingly, and by choice, conform to it.
Here an exalted genius is the instructor, a glorious example the
guide, and a gentle well-directed hand the governor and law-giver
to the whole; and the family, like a well-governed city, appears
happy, flourishing, and regular, groaning under no grievance,
pleased with what they enjoy, and enjoying everything which they
ought to be pleased with.
Nor is the blessing of this noble resident extended to the family
only, but even to all the country round, who in their degree feel
the effects of the general beneficence, and where the neighbourhood
(however poor) receive all the good they can expect, and are sure
to have no injury or oppression.
The canal before the house lies parallel with the road, and
receives into it the whole river Willy, or at least is able to do
so; it may, indeed, be said that the river is made into a canal.
When we come into the courtyards before the house there are several
pieces of antiquity to entertain the curious, as particularly a
noble column of porphyry, with a marble statue of Venus on the top
of it. In Italy, and especially at Rome and Naples, we see a great
variety of fine columns, and some of them of excellent workmanship
and antiquity; and at some of the courts of the princes of Italy
the like is seen, as especially at the court of Florence; but in
England I do not remember to have seen anything like this, which,
as they told me, is two-and-thirty feet high, and of excellent
workmanship, and that it came last from Candia, but formerly from
Alexandria. What may belong to the history of it any further, I
suppose is not known--at least, they could tell me no more of it
who showed it me.
On the left of the court was formerly a large grotto and curious
water-works; and in a house, or shed, or part of the building,
which opened with two folding-doors, like a coach-house, a large
equestrian statue of one of the ancestors of the family in complete
armour, as also another of a Roman Emperor in brass. But the last
time I had the curiosity to see this house, I missed that part; so
that I supposed they were removed.
As the present Earl of Pembroke, the lord of this fine palace, is a
nobleman of great personal merit many other ways, so he is a man of
learning and reading beyond most men of his lordship's high rank in
this nation, if not in the world; and as his reading has made him a
master of antiquity, and judge of such pieces of antiquity as he
has had opportunity to meet with in his own travels and otherwise
in the world, so it has given him a love of the study, and made him
a collector of valuable things, as well in painting as in
sculpture, and other excellences of art, as also of nature;
insomuch that Wilton House is now a mere museum or a chamber of
rarities, and we meet with several things there which are to be
found nowhere else in the world.
As his lordship is a great collector of fine paintings, so I know
no nobleman's house in England so prepared, as if built on purpose,
to receive them; the largest and the finest pieces that can be
imagined extant in the world might have found a place here capable
to receive them.
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