The interior is much more successful. Nothing can be
more magnificent and gravely gorgeous than the Chamber of Peers,--a large
oblong hall, panelled with oak, elaborately carved, to the height of
perhaps twenty feet. Then the balustrade of the gallery runs around the
hall, and above the gallery are six arched windows on each side, richly
painted with historic subjects. The roof is ornamented and gilded, and
everywhere throughout there is embellishment of color and carving on the
broadest scale, and, at the same time, most minute and elaborate; statues
of full size in niches aloft; small heads of kings, no bigger than a
doll; and the oak is carved in all parts of the panelling as faithfully
as they used to do it in Henry VII's time,--as faithfully and with as
good workmanship, but with nothing like the variety and invention which I
saw in the dining-room of Smithell's Hall. There the artist wrought with
his heart and head; but much of this work, I suppose, was done by
machinery. Be that as it may, it is a most noble and splendid apartment,
and, though so fine, there is not a touch of finery; it glistens and
glows with even a sombre magnificence, owing to the rich, deep lines, and
the dim light, bedimmed with rich colors by coming through the painted
windows. In arched recesses, that serve as frames, at each end of the
hall, there are three pictures by modern artists from English history;
and though it was not possible to see them well as pictures, they adorned
and enriched the walls marvellously as architectural embellishments.
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