[Illustration: FIG. 147.--Plan of the Assembly Room, York.] The other works attributed to Lord Burlington are the dormitory at Westminster, a school and almshouses at Seven-oaks, both illustrated by Kent in his “Designs of Inigo Jones,” and Burlington House, Piccadilly. Of these the dormitory at Westminster was a bald and mutilated version of a design by Wren, and Burlington House was probably designed by Campbell.[65] But although Burlington cannot be regarded as an architect who did anything great in design, he was a munificent patron of the art and of those who pursued it more practically. Contemporary with him, and indeed starting a little before him, was another well-known but more skilful amateur, the witty dramatist, Sir John Vanbrugh, who has left behind him some of the largest and most ponderous houses ever built in England. His patrons and friends among the nobility were all esteemed good judges of architecture, and to their judgment he submitted at least one of his largest designs. Among the noblemen who employed him was the third Earl of Carlisle, who conceived the idea of making himself a magnificent home at Castle Howard, in Yorkshire, to replace the ancient castle of Hinderskelf, which had been brought into the family by marriage with one of the co-heiresses of Lord Dacres. The scheme embraced not only a new palace, but a large lay out of plantations, vistas, lakes, temples, obelisks, lodges, and other objects of interest, such as had been employed by Le Nôtre at Versailles and elsewhere. The completion of his scheme is recorded in verses too bald (one would imagine) to be any but his lordship’s, engraved on an important obelisk. They give the date of commencement as 1702, the inscription is dated 1731, so that year may be held to have witnessed the fulfilment of the main project. But the house had been occupied long before this; for in 1714 Lady Mary Wortley Montague wrote from Yorkshire to her husband, professing to be “in a great fright” about attempts from Scotland in favour of the Pretender. “The four young ladies at Castle Howard,” she says, were as much alarmed as she was, for their father had gone away and was not likely to return for months. They had asked her to join them, a suggestion which she was inclined to comply with, since Castle Howard would be a safe retreat, although rather like a nunnery, as no mortal man ever entered its doors in the absence of the father. [Illustration: FIG. 148.--Lord Burlington’s Villa at Chiswick. Drawn by A. C. Bossom.]