We paid a visit to lord Derby at his seat at Knowsley, who may be truly said to be a person _antiquæ fidei_, grown old in wisdom: he has left the vanities of courts and cities for a retirement, which his lordship diversifies and makes still more agreeable with the greatest judgement. This is one of his seats: it stands on very high ground with a delicate prospect, and abounds with canals and fish-ponds: it has a park ten miles in circumference. The whole is newly refitted and adorned by my lord, and rendered very delightful. There is a great range of new building, with fine apartments full of admirable pictures, of antique marbles, and good furniture. The pictures are by the most celebrated masters, as M. Angelo, Caravagio, Veronese, Luca Jordano; a fine stag-hunting by Snyders, engraved by Sympson; sea-pieces by Vandeveld: many of Vandyke, Rubens, (one painted on paper, as Dr. Mead’s) and the story of Ulysses and Achilles; the Triumph of Industry, the original sketch of which I have: many of Salvator Rosa, and two great drawings of his upon boards; Titian, Carlo Maratti, and an infinity more. The bustoes are, young Geta; a coloss one of Faustina; a lesser one of the same, with one breast naked, very beautiful; Caligula; Gallienus; Alba Terentia, Otho’s mother; one that seems to be Pompey when young, or one of his sons: a brass head, said to be Michael Angelo; a lesser bust of Flora; a fine bust of Homer in Parian marble, of curious Greek work; another, a philosopher, of like work and materials; with several more. A statue of Hercules, two foot and a half high; two fine statues of Venus rising from the sea, somewhat less than life; a little statue of a Faunus; one of Bacchus; a lesser one of Ceres; another Venus with a dolphin, and a Mercury, both less than life. Among the portraits, that of the famous countess of Richmond and Derby, foundress of St. John’s and Christ’s colleges in Cambridge; a full-length picture of a man born near here, called the Child of Hale, 11 foot high. My lord has in his library a great collection of drawings, particularly the whole collection of the late Cheron, after Raphael; one of Hans Holbein, Henry VII. Henry VIII. &c. the original of the painting at Whitehall. Near Knowsley are coal-pits. From the summer-house on the top of the hill in the park may be seen six counties in England, three in Wales; the Wrekin. The tower at Liverpool, by the water-side, was built by Sir John Stanley, ancestor to my lord. West-Derby, near here, is the place whence the title of the earldom. The trees here universally bend very much to the east, owing to the continual breezes from the Irish sea. This country is observed to have much rain all the year round, owing to the same cause; and were it not so, it would be very barren, as confiding wholly of sand upon solid rock, as all this western country is.