Some scoff at what was, and some shrink from what may be Or is; but they all must be pleased with a place Where even what was looks enchanting in Raby, And where even what is is redeemed by Her Grace.
Apart from genuine castles of feudal type and origin, the greatest houses I have known, if regarded as architectural structures, are Blenheim, Trentham (the Brentham of Lord Beaconsfield's _Lothair_), and Cliveden. In this class I should, perhaps, include also Sir Robert Walpole's Houghton, where I have stayed as the guest of Cora, Lady Strafford, who occupied it for many years as a tenant, and with singular taste and knowledge so arranged the interior that every chair, sideboard, and table then in common use had been Sir Robert Walpole's own. I wrote my letters one morning in his study, at his own writing table, and using his own inkstand. The walls were lined with books, most of them presents from his contemporaries, and some of them extremely curious. I may mention one in particular. It related to the South Sea Bubble, and contained what was practically a list of the largest commercial fortunes existing then in England.
Other houses which in point of magnitude belong to the same group are Stowe, with its frontage of more than a thousand feet, Hamilton Palace, Wentworth Wodehouse, and Eaton. By those whose knowledge is greater than mine, the list, in any case small, might, no doubt, be extended. I speak here only of those at which I have myself stayed. But, in any case, no one, however wealthy, would think of building on a similar scale now. Their magnitude was useful only in days other than ours, when visitors stayed for a month or six weeks at a time, and brought with them their own carriages and the necessary grooms and coachmen. It is only on very rare occasions that such houses could be even half filled to-day; and they dwarf, rather than subserve, the only possible life that a reasonable man could live in them. Blenheim impresses a visitor as though it were built for giants. Alfred Montgomery, when staying for the first time at Eaton, could not, on coming downstairs, find his way to the breakfast room till he encountered a friend who guided him. "Good God!" he exclaimed as he entered the desired apartment, "I don't want to eat my breakfast in a cathedral." Mere magnitude, indeed, beyond a certain point is not a luxury, but an oppression. The greatest private dwelling ever erected in England is said to have been Audley End, when its original builder completed it. James I said of it, "It is a house fit only for a king"; and before it could be rendered habitable three-fourths of it had to be pulled down. Such was the verdict of experience on overbuilding in the past; and though many conditions have changed, a similar practical criticism is occasionally being pronounced to-day. Trentham is practically gone. Hamilton Palace, it is said, will soon exist no longer.