Some
prints of the Cambridge colleges, and other pictures indicating Byron's
predilections at the time, and which he himself had hung there, were on
the walls. This, the housekeeper told us, had been the Abbot's chamber,
in the monastic time. Adjoining it is the haunted room, where the
ghostly monk, whom Byron introduces into Don Juan, is said to have his
lurking-place. It is fitted up in the same style as Byron's, and used to
be occupied by his valet or page. No doubt in his Lordship's day, these
were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's
account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the
place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down condition,
inside and out, when he bought it.
It is very different now. After showing us these two apartments of Byron
and his servant, the housekeeper led us from one to another and another
magnificent chamber fitted up in antique style, with oak panelling, and
heavily carved bedsteads, of Queen Elizabeth's time, or of the Stuarts,
hung with rich tapestry curtains of similar date, and with beautiful old
cabinets of carved wood, sculptured in relief, or tortoise-shell and
ivory. The very pictures and realities, these rooms were, of stately
comfort; and they were called by the name of kings,--King Edward's, King
Charles II's, King Henry VII's chamber; and they were hung with beautiful
pictures, many of them portraits of these kings.
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