(96) Anciently the seat of the Vernons. Sir George Vernon, in Queen Elizabeth's time, was styled King of the Peak," and the property came into the Manners family by his daughter marrying Thomas, son of the first Earl of Rutland.-E. (97) She was daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke in Derbyshire. Her first husband was Robert Barley, Esq. who settled his large estate on her and hers. She married, secondly, Sir William Cavendish; her third husband was Sir William St. Lo; and her fourth was George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, whose daughter, Lady Grace, married her son by Sir William Cavendish. (98) Evelyn, who visited Newstead in 1654, says of it:--"It is situated much like Fontainbleau, in France, capable of being made a noble seat, accommodated as it is with brave woods and streams; it has yet remaining the front of a glorious abbey church." Lord Byron thus beautifully describes the family seat, in the thirteenth canto of Don Juan: "An old, old monastery once, and now Still older mansion-of a rich and rare Mix'd Gothic, much as artists all allow Few specimens yet left us can compare. "Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its soften'd way did take In currents through the calmer water spread Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fix'd upon the flood."-E. (99) A mighty window, hollow in the centre, Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings, Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter, Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings, Now yawns all desolate."-E. (100) "----The cloisters still were stable, The cells, too, and refectory, I ween: An exquisite small chapel had been able Still unimpaired to decorate the scene The rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk, And spoke more of the baron than the monk."-E. (101) The seat of Earl Spencer.-E. Letter 43 To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1760. (87) My dear lord, You ordered me to tell you how I liked Hardwicke. To say the truth, not exceedingly. The bank of oaks over the ponds is fine, and the vast lawn behind the house: I saw nothing else that is superior to the common run of parks. For the house, it did not please me at all; there is no grace, no ornament, no Gothic in it. I was glad to see the style of furniture of that age; and my imagination helped me to like the apartment of the Queen of Scots. Had it been the chateau of a Duchess of Brunswick, on which they had exhausted the revenues of some centuries, I don't think I should have admired it at all. In short, Hardwicke disappointed me as much as Chatsworth surpassed my expectation. There is a richness and vivacity of prospect in the latter; in the former, nothing but triste grandeur.