Byron
was informed of all the Colonel's fittings up and restorations, and when
he introduces the Abbey in Don Juan, the poet describes it, not as he
himself left it, but as Colonel Wildman has restored it. There is a
beautiful drawing-room, and all these apartments are adorned with
pictures, the collection being especially rich in portraits by Sir Peter
Lely,--that of Nell Gwynn being one, who is one of the few beautiful
women whom I have seen on canvas.
We parted with the housekeeper, and I with a good many shillings, at the
door by which we entered; and our next business was to see the private
grounds and gardens. A little boy attended us through the first part of
our progress, but soon appeared the veritable gardener,--a shrewd and
sensible old man, who has been very many years on the place. There was
nothing of special interest as concerning Byron until we entered the
original old monkish garden, which is still laid out in the same fashion
as the monks left it, with a large, oblong piece of water in the centre,
and terraced banks rising at two or three different stages with perfect
regularity around it; so that the sheet of water looks like the plate of
an immense looking-glass, of which the terraces form the frame. It seems
as if, were there any giant large enough, he might raise up this mirror
and set it on end. In the monks' garden, there is a marble statue of
Pan, which, the gardener told us, was brought by the "Wicked Lord"
(great-uncle of Byron) from Italy, and was supposed by the country people
to represent the Devil, and to be the object of his worship,--a natural
idea enough, in view of his horns and cloven feet and tail, though this
indicates, at all events, a very jolly devil.
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