The PICTURE-GALLERY, the “great glory” of Hardwick, occupies the entire length of the building from north to south, on the upper floor of its eastern front. Its length is 170 feet, and its width 40 feet, including the recessed windows; its height being 26 feet. The walls of this superb gallery are hung with the finest tapestry, almost hidden, however, by the magnificent assemblage of portraits with which it is, as will be seen from our engraving, literally covered. The tapestry here is, as has been said, remarkably fine, and is very early, some of it bearing the date of 1478. It was brought from the old mansion and from Chatsworth. The gallery is lit by eighteen enormous windows, each 20 feet in height, on its eastern side, which is deeply recessed. In the centre of this side is a gorgeous canopy over the state seat, bearing the monogram of W.D., with a coronet; and on the western side are two gigantic chimney-pieces, reaching from the floor to the cornice, composed of Derbyshire black marble, alabaster, and other marbles, one bearing in the centre of its upper height a finely sculptured figure of Pity, and the other that of Justice. They are said to be the work of “Stephens, a Flemish sculptor, or of Valerio Vicentino.” The ceiling is of geometric design, in raised plaster-work; it gives that finish to the room which is wanting in other of the apartments. The upper portion of the walls, above the wainscoting and arras, is worked in panels and festoons. [Illustration: _The Picture-Gallery._] The furniture is of the most costly and curious character, and in perfect preservation. Much of it, indeed, belongs to the time, or to a time not much later, when the house was constructed, and indicates the artistic feeling and manual dexterity of the foundress. Here are beds of state, with their curtains of black and silver; Venetian velvets and damascenes; “cloth of Raynes to slepe on softe,” and hangings “raied with gold;” hard cushions of blue baudekyn; high-seated chairs, covered with samit and powdered with flowers, yet most uncomfortable for use; screens of crimson velvet, covered with patterns worked in silver wires; couches, every portion of which is thickly overlaid with threads of silver and of gold; tables with legs twisted and turned about in the most picturesque manner; fire-dogs of gorgeous description; and a magnificent giant-glass, with the arms of Devonshire impaling Ormonde—these are among the beauties which greet the eye at every turn in its progress through Hardwick. As we said at the commencement of this chapter, there is no place so likely as Hardwick to carry the mind back to those times which we have indicated and to which it belongs. One is unresistingly and forcibly carried by the imagination back to the time of Elizabeth, and while pacing along through these rooms, we are led, “in the mind’s eye,” to people them with the forms of those who lived and moved and had their being within its walls.