Very different in size and in variety of interest is Haddon Hall; yet Haddon Hall, like the Peak Castle, is no longer, according to modern notions of comfort, a tolerable dwelling, although we cannot agree with Horace Walpole that it never could have been considered such. For a long period it was the home of a powerful family, and was altered again and again to meet the need which successive centuries demanded. Parts of the chapel take us back to a date but little subsequent to that of the Peak Castle; and although few, if any, remains of the rest of the contemporary house are to be seen, yet the existence of the chapel indicates that it pertained to a large house. It is easy to understand that the discomforts of a primitive house would call for remedy long before the chapel grew out of date, and we need not wonder that the chapel should be the only surviving portion of the original dwelling. The kind of accommodation to be found in a keep, however large, grew to be insufficient and inconvenient, and it became the fashion no longer to pile one room over another, but to spread them out horizontally, and thereby, among other advantages, to assign to the various rooms different sizes suitable to their different purposes. The hall, always the chief apartment, was made the central feature; the kitchens were attached to one end, the family rooms to the other; the courtyard was enclosed by ranges of buildings looking into it, and presenting little but blank walls to the outside world; through one of these ranges was pierced the entrance gateway, defended by strong doors, and sometimes a portcullis, such as rased Marmion’s plume as he dashed in hot haste from under its falling mass. Haddon is a good illustration of this kind of house, only it has two courts, with the hall placed between them, as well for greater security as to obtain large windows on each of its main sides. There are very few windows of the older rooms looking out into the country, and the kitchen in particular suffers in this respect, for a darker apartment can scarcely ever have been devoted to such important uses. The windows of the long gallery, now called the ballroom, are large and airy; but they date from Elizabeth’s time, when defensive precautions were no longer necessary. Haddon appeals to all sorts and conditions of men. Its romantic situation and venerable appearance delight the ordinary sightseer; its veritable and unrestored antiquity appeals to the more earnest student of by-gone ways; while to those interested in the minute details of the past, it is a storehouse of all kinds of work wrought in all kinds of styles. Surely, it has enough of true and genuine interest to be able to dispense with the fictitious, sixpenny-magazine romance of Dorothy Vernon. Let those who cling to her invented story, and picture her as a fascinating, winsome heroine, go and look at her portraiture on her monument in Bakewell Church—a more staid, prosaic person could hardly be imagined.