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The UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE for FEBRUARY, 1792. 81

An Hiftorical Defcription of LONGLEAT, in Wiltshire, the Seat of the Marquis of BATH: With a fine View of that magnificent Mansion, and the beautiful Scenery around it.

ONGLEAT, the feat of the marquis of Bath, four miles from Warminster, and four from Frome, stands in a valley, in that part of the county of Wilts, which is bounded by the great tract of woodland, formerly part of the foreft of Frome Selwood, in Somerfetfhire, on the weft, and by the beautiful abrupt breaks and jettees, called Warminster and Deverill hills, which terminate the Wiltshire downs on the east and south. A very pretty branch of the river Frome runs through the valley, and on this the houfe ftands. The beautiful difpofi-tion of the hills to the east and fouth; the vast mafs of native woodland to the weft; and the peculiar fituation of the valley, which, as far as the eye can reach, appears to be an immense bason of rich country, verging to the house as to a common center; renders the view of Longleat, when feen from the adjacent. hills, efpecially from the Warminster approach, one of the most picturefque and enriched profpects in this kingdom, and gives the house a degree of centrality and confequence, of which no other gentleman's feat can boast,

Longleat was a small priory of the monks of St. Auguftin, dedicated to St. Radigund, founded anciently by fir John Vernon, lord of Horning fham; but being in a very ruinous condition by the neglect and mifmanagement of the prior, &c. it was, by the confent of Peter Stantour, efq. ford of Horningham, and patron of Longleat, diffolved by king Henry VIII, in the twenty-ninth year of his reign; and the perpetual prefentation of it, with the lands thereunto belonging, was granted to John, prior of the Carthufian monaftery of Hinton, in the county of Somerset, and his brethren for ever. It continued a cell to that monastery only one year; for, in the

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30th of Henry VIII, Edmund Horde, prior of the Carthufian monastery of Hinton, with the consent of the convent, made a furrender of all their lands, houses, &c. (including the priory of Longleat) to the king, who, two years afterward, granted the fite of the priory of Longleat to fir John Horfey of Clifton, in the county of Dorfet, and the lands, belonging to the faid priory, to Edward earl of Hertford; and fir John Thynne purchafed the whole in that and the fucceeding year.

It was not till twenty-five years after this purchase, that fir John Thynne began to build the prefent manfion; previous to which, it is faid, the old houfe had been burnt down: for, by the books of the building of Longleat, it appears that the foundation of it was laid in January 1567, and that the fhell was not compleated till 1579, after fir John Thynne had expended thereon the fum of 80161. 13s. 8d. exclufive of the materials of the old house, and of timber, stone, and carriage; an enormous fum, in thofe days, to be expended in workmanship only! Sir John Thynne is faid to have procured plans from Italy, and by them to have built this magnificent pile. Certain it is, as appears by his books of the building of the houfe, that he was his own architect; a flupendous undertaking, in thofe times, by a private gentleman. He died in 1580, leaving great part of the infide of the house unfinished.

Thofe parts of the houfe, which were left incompleat by fir John Thynne, were partly finished by his fon and fucceffor; and it is very furprising, that during the debafement of architecture, and perverfion of national tafte, which afterward prevailed (particularly in the reign of James I.) very few mutilations or

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alteratious of the original plan fhould have taken place, as was the cafe with moft of the old houfes in the kingdom. But it was reserved for the firft lord Weymouth (fo created by Charles II, in 1682) a man of fingular good tafte and judgment, to reftore the houfe to its original fimplicity, and to finish the whole as it now ftands. At a vaft expence, he put the whole in compleat repair, and furnished it in thejutmoft magnificence of the times; and when the Dutch tafte of gardening was introduced into the kingdom at the acceffion of William and Mary, he laid out the grounds in beautiful gardens, canals, fountains, viftas, and avenues, all the extravagant and expenfive taste of that reign, and left it equal, if not fuperior to any feat in the kingdom,

His lordship dying in 1714, and leaving his nephew and heir, the late lord, an infant, and that lord living only a few years at Longleat, and leaving his fon, the prefent marquis of Bath, a minor, very little was done to the place, but barely keeping the houfe in repair, for forty-one years; and the prefent noble proprietor, on his coming of age in 1755, finding the gardens, and improvements in the grounds, made by the first lord Weymouth, quite in ruins, and the taste of the times entirely altered, he, with the advice of Mr. Brown, planned the park and grounds in the way they are now laid out. Mr. Brown executed only a part of the plan; but his lordship has, from that time, unremittingly purfued it, till he has brought the place to its prefent degree of perfection. The houfe, which, for its grandeur, ftrikes every beholder with aftonishment, is faid to be the only regular pile of Grecian architecture, of the fixteenth century, in the kingdom. It is an oblong of 220 feet by 180, and fixty feet high, and is built entirely of freeftone, ornamented with pilafters of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, with enriched capitals and cornices; and the intercolumniations are fo properly

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attended to, that not a fingle extraneous ornament or variation is introduced in the whole building. It confifts of three principal fronts, and the original defign had a fourth front, which, as tradition fays, was burnt down while building; and it being neceffary to have offices in that part of the house, the front was never rebuilt.

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The whole three fronts are furrounded by a handfome baluftrade; and, on the east and fouth fides, are mounted eight handsome stone statues, which, with the ftone turrets and column-like chimnies on the top of the house, give the whole an air of grandeur and magnificence. The entrance to the houfe is by a grand fight of fteps, with a handfome rail and baluftrade, and the door cafe is ornamented with two noble pillars of the Doric order (of fingle ftones) on which is an architrave and enriched frieze, terminated by an open pediment, inclofing a fhield with the family arms. The workmanship of this entrance is much admired.

The infide of the houfe was much more adapted to ancient hofpitality than to modern convenience, but it has been repaired, and made very comfortable, by its prefent lord, with as little infringement as poffible on the original defign. The hall is a beautiful room, fixty-two feet long, thirty wide, and thirty-four high, with a recefs of ten feet wider at the end, and ornamented with the old baronial furniture of flags horns, &c. as alfo with the arms of the family, and their relations and friends, as was cuftomary in thofe days. It contains alfo fix beautiful large pictures of fox-hunting done by Wootton for the late lord; on which fubject there are few pictures, if any, equal. At one end of this, behind a fereen which supports a mufic gallery, is the old buttery hatch (worn with ufe quite off the old hooks) and on the other end is an exceeding good dining parlour, fifty feet by twenty-fix, with a recefs for the fide board. The whole of the

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ground ftory is fifteen feet high, the econd eighteen feet, and the third thirteen. In the middle ftory is a picture gallery of 100 feet long, and, in the third, a gallery upward of 160 feet long, and adjoining to the latter is an exceeding good and well-furnished library. There is an arched cellar under the whole of the fouth front, viz. 220 feet long. But one of the greatest curiofities of the houfe, is the number of curious and valuable portraits which it contains, many of which are undoubted originals.

now at full growth. There are alfo many oak trees, the aborigines of the foil, of fuch an enormous fize, as are not to be met with elfewhere in the weft of England.

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In the Dorfetfhire entrance, viz. from Stourhead, we pass over planted hill, from whence we have a moft picturefque view of the village of Horningham, and part of the park, and an unbounded profpect of North Wiltshire, and the Gloucefterfhire hills; but the view of the house is purpofely concealed until we come to the porter's lodge, which is built in ftone in the form of a triumphal arch, and from whence the houfe forms the most magnificent coup d'œil, the imagination can conceive. It appears to ftand at the end of an avenue of near three-quarters of a mile, of fullgrown handsome trees, which are fo difpofed, as juft to catch the ends of the houfe; fo that the eye fees no limits to its length, but as we approach it, the avenue of trees which appeared to be continued to the house, is fo broken as to admit views of the water and of the hanging plantations on our right-hand, and of the vast mass of native woodland, in which is the garden, on the left; and all together, it forms one of the most pleafing as well as of the moft magnificent approaches that can be conceived.

The demefnes, to which vaft additions have been made, and are ftill making, by the marquis, contain near 4000 acres, and are nearly fifteen miles in circumference. There are three principal approaches to the houfe, viz. from Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire. In the former (that is, the entrance from Warminster) we enter the grounds from the Frome turnpike-road, immediately oppofite the beautiful fingle hill, called Clayhill; and, after paffing through a fine curving valley, enriched with plantations (which, ten years ago, was a barren heath) we find ourselves almoft imperceptibly on the top of a very high hill, from whence the profpect, on every fide, is unbounded; and where the contrast between the open champaign country of Wiltshire and the rich inclofures of Somersetfhire has a very charming effect. At the edge of the hill, we burft inftantly on the valley in which the houfe ftands; although, being hid by venerable grove of oaks, we do not fee it until we come within a mile of it.

In this grove ftands the stump of the antient, Weymouth pine, the mother of that fpecies of trees in this kingdom (it having long fince loft its top by a hurricane) and fome of the largest firs of the Scotch Spruce and filver kinds, particularly of the latter, in the kingdom. There are alfo many abeles of a great fize, and upward of 120 feet high. All these were planted by the first lord Weymouth, about the year 1696, and are

The entrance from Somersetshire, viz. from Frome, paffes through a very beautiful foreft-like country, but lofes at prefent much of its effect, by paffing near an old decayed pile of ftabling, which it is his lordship's intention to remove, but which is not yet done.

In the fouth-eat part of the demeínes toward Deverill Longbridge, is a tract of many hundred acres of land, which his lordship found quite a barren defert, but which he has fo much improved by planting the hills, and lawning the vales, that it now forms a very picturesque contrast to the Wiltshire downs, to which it nearly extends. In this part, at the head of one of the branches of the

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