Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her favourite minister, her Lord Treasurer, here; and on April 23, 1603, James I., on his journey from Scotland, came to Burghley: the next day, being Easter Sunday, he attended divine worship at the parish church, St. Martin’s, Stamford, when the Bishop of Lincoln preached before him. [Illustration] Entering the court, the beauties of the architecture become apparent. The appended engraving represents the entrance from the courtyard. The eastern side is the most highly decorated, and its three stories adorned with the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, in super-position. Above the last are two large stone lions, supporting the arms of the family. Over an arch before the chapel is a bust of King William III.; the balustrades are enriched with a variety of sculptured vases. Four large gates from the various sides open into the court, and give entrance to the several portions of the building, which contains nearly one hundred and fifty apartments, many of them of great dimensions, all furnished suitably for their purpose, and a considerable number in gorgeous profusion of decorative ornament and splendid furniture. It is one of the few palatial mansions of a refined, gay, and brilliant period, which remain carefully preserved, and undisturbed by modern upholsterers. It is impossible to speak too highly of the elegance and splendour of the interior. The first apartment on entering is the spacious Hall: from some of the remaining features of its construction, it has been imagined that the great Lord Treasurer did not build a new house from the foundation, but that an edifice existed to which he imparted vastness by the additions he made. The dimensions of this Hall show at once that it includes a noble space, being sixty-eight feet long and thirty feet broad. It receives light from two large windows, and has a fine open-worked timber roof, springing from corbels, very similar in idea to the roofs of Westminster Hall, and the Parliament House at Edinburgh. The chimneypiece is in perfect keeping with the Baronial Hall, and is of stone, finely sculptured, bearing for its principal device in the centre the shield and supporters of the founder of the family; it is also ornamented by a number of pictures, some of which are portraits. There are statues in marble of life size, one of which, very much esteemed, represents Andromeda chained to the rock, and the Sea-monster. It was purchased in Rome, a century ago, by the fifth Earl of Exeter, for 300_l._ “Drakard’s Guide” attributes it to Peter Stephen Monnot; but Brydges, in his “History of Northamptonshire,” says it is by Domenico Guidi.