Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1872-07-31
Letter From England.

| FdHille I1uuSSoLi WIN Is enjoying IL EuTO-
pean tour. 1t was not written for publica-
ton, but is nevertheless interesting:
OswEsTRY, ENGLAND.
July Is, 1872.
Oswestry is completely surrounded with
places of interest, and the sole object of
our party seems to be to carry me from one
point to the other without giving me time
to recover the breath loose in my spasms
I of admiration. l have not time even to
mention most of the places / have seen
but | can not pass by
CHIRK CASTLE,
. where we spent yesterday. Just think of
| Chirk Castle, built in 1913 and standing
yet with the ivy covering its gray old bat
Elements, frowning over the miles of park,
Just as they frowned when in CromWells
! time Sir Charles MIDDLETON defended ii
against GeAeral Lambert and gave shelter
| to King Charles in "ye days of hys sore
neede,n as the chronicles say. Just think
of tapestry worked from generation to gen.
Grafton by the fair DANES of MIDDLETON,
whose ancient portraits hang in the long
galleries. galleries with polished oaken
! floors, so smooth that one can hardly stand
OH them, and with carven ceilings and
! CTven oaken chairs and tapestried screens,
| and wonderful massive old cabinets hun
dreds and hundreds of years old. King
/ Charles was the firm friend of the Myddle
| tons, it seems they were Royalsts, of
| course and they have an oil painting of
/ him and one of the second Charles favor
ties, the celebrated Nell Guyn, a blonde
! with wonderful yellow hair and n pi-
! quaint face. And then there is
CABINET OF EBONY AND SILVER,
valued at ten thousand pounds, and pre-
| sented to Sir Thomas at the time of the
restoration, when, on his refusing the peer
age offered him for his services, King
Charles said to him. "Then take the cab
met as II proof of my lasting love-" Then
comes the room and the very bed in which
King Charles slept, all in perfect state of
/ preservation, and still containing the curl
| Gus old mirror and magnificent furniture
/ he used. From this, one goes into dress
| ing room, cut out of the solid wall, which
| is twenty-One feet thick i'll some parts.
! Then there is
THE ARMoRY,
with halberds and breast plates and he'll
NETS and gloves of mail and such quaint
matchlocks and daggers and broadswords,
! &C., &c, with such quaint carvings and
/ appointments that one can only lose ones
self in wild day-dreams over them, wax
! ing with a start 10 find oneself young la
dy of the 18th century, in the panier and
Dolly Warden of the period, gazing amaz-
eddy at the Inconsistency of five hundred
year old weapon grasred in q canary col
ored glove of our own esteemed Jou-
wins best" The fact is, it is almost fam
tastically inconsistent from beginning to
end-to me l might say it seemed almost
| Sacreligious. How could one think in
peace and lose ones individuality COM
fortably in the midst of a modern picnic
party, who introduced cakes and sherry in
silver cupon the very battlements them
selves. OF course it was - awfully jolly"
as they remark, and | laughed and drank
sherry with the rest but | really think
! 1p1 RI tn or n
tellectual advantage in Il select party of
tUO. The winding stone staircase leading
up to the battlements is worn with the feet
of passing ages and their generation
worn into actual grooves and ridges, though
every step is a massive block of granite.
We went down into
THE DUNGEON,
OF course-a troop of awe-stricken, but &C.
: static explorers with wax tapers-and we
reached the bottom with undislocated
necks somewhat to my surprise, for the
5 steps of the subteranean staircase were the
! merest foot hold at some points of it incom'
| prehensible winnings. i must confess to
some slight disappointment in that dun
geon there was no skeleton there chained
e round the waist to the wall, on which was
= not carved an inscription. There ought tC
have been n skeleton or at least a few bones
any kind of bones would have done.
am sure for my part, l would have takeI
l. anything ossitied on trust. | felt my way
# round (the darkness was so thick that th'
~ slender tapers only cast an awesome glare
u in all the horrible corners in the desperate
K hope of fuding something, but my searcl
was all in vain. We tried on the manacle
and shuddered in the orthodox manner a
the sight of a suspicious iron instrumen
with screws to it, which somebody in
stantly recognized as an instrument of tor
ture, but which we discovered upon maxim
a. inquiry was nothing more or less than
- photographic arrangement for holding pee
Piles heads still. Such Is the air of the plac
that we can not help placing everythin
u. on an equal footing OF ancient horror
ys One little incidental mistake is worth n
of cording. On entering the armory, on
% lady, who usually wears spectacles but ha
In unfortunately left them at home, drew IN
III attention to formidable array of ind
of scribable article in one corner:
I'd you see, my love-" she said, THAT the'
mn are the ancient helmets. Isn't it intercs
Then, num-" interrupted the guild
Mt stOlidlY, lis the fire buckets"
ne can only touch upon few of the thin!
we saw, and ] can not forget
THE PICTURES,
'niv so | will run over the principal one
~ There were actual miles Of ancestors al
es ancestresses, the latter attircd principally
30 shoulders and stiff trains. There was
y, Thomas MIDDLETON and General LambeI
~ defender and attacker of the castle
m Cromwel's days; King Charles, NJ
H.. Gwynne, Fair Rosamond, Jane ShOl
| q Taf1. raVaa