The new building has experienced many considerable alterations + and improvements, particularly during the time it has been in the possession of the present noble owner. Mr. Holland, the architect of Drury-lane Theatre, has displayed much taste and ability in the designs for the additional buildings here, which have been executed under his direction. The west front is built of the Ionic order, with a rusticated basement. The principal floor, or suite of rooms, on this side, consists of a saloon, state bed-room, drawing and dining rooms: the south contains the library, breakfast, etruscan, and duke's rooms; the east, the vestibule, servants' offices, &c. and the north, the French bed-rooms, and various other chambers. Most of the apartments are embellished with fine paintings; some of these we shall describe, occasionally enlivening our descriptions with historical anecdote.

As the PORTRAITS form a very prominent feature in this collection, we shall particularize a few of them, without attending to the rooms in which they are situated.

QUEEN

Thorney abbey gave Lord Russel an amazing tract of fens in Cambridgeshire, together with a great revenue. Melchburn abbey increased his property in Bedfordshire. The priory of Castle Hymel gave him footing in Northamptonshire; and he came in for parcels of the appurtenances of Saint Alban's, and Mount Grace, in Yorkshire. Not to mention the house of the Friars Preachers in Exeter, with the revenues belonging to the foundation: and, finally, the estate about Covent-Garden, with a field adjoining, called the Seven-acres, on which Long-acre is built."

+ When part of the abbey was taken down in 1744, a corpse was discovered, the flesh of which was so sound as to bear cutting with a knife, though it must have been interred at least 200 years. Soon afterwards, on pulling down one of the walls of the abbey church, a stone coffin was found, which consisted of feveral loose stones set in the ground; and in sinking a cellar, several more stone coffins were discovered, some of them very large, being six feet eight inches long in the inside; they had all a place shaped for a head, and most of them two or three holes at the bottom. Near them were two pots or urns, which probably contained the bowels of some of those who had been buried there, On a scull belonging to some bones, which lay in a stiff blue clay, was some black cloth, which might have been a monk's cowl. Pieces of shoes were also taken up, &c. Bray's Tour.

QUEEN ELIZABETH. This is a very singular picture. The Maiden Queen is represented with a fan of feathers in her left hand, and a ring on her thumb. The canvass is so completely covered with the gaudy and cumbrous ornaments of her dress, that the painter would have found it extremely difficult to have introduced a new object, unless he had adorned her cheek with sticking plaster. Her hair is of a sandy colour; her complexion rather fair. "A pale Roman nose," says Horace Walpole, “a head of hair loaded with crowns, and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, and a bushel of pearls, are the features by which every body knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth." This description is truly applicable to the present piece.

LADY JANE SEYMOUR. Pleasing, and well painted. She is portrayed in a velvet drapery, with a rich gold net-work covering the whole dress.

MARY, QUEEN of ENGLAND; by Antonio More. Sandrart observes, that Mary was very handsome. This is a good painted face, but hard favoured, and rather stern. If her features were ever beautiful, the cruelty of her heart and actions must have made lamentable ravages. It is painted on pannel, and dated 1556.

KILLIGREW. Commonly called Charles the Second's Jester. LORD WILLIAM RUSSEL. This memorable victim to a lawless court, fell a martyr to the gallant design of preserving the constitution and liberties of his country, from the attempts of an insidious and arbitrary faction. When his chief enemy, James the Second, heard of the landing of the Prince of Orange, his pusillanimous weakness induced him to request the advice of the Earl of Bedford, Lord Russel's father: the Earl answered with this melancholy but piercing reproach; "I had a son, Sir, who could have advised your Majesty." If the Monarch had possessed sensibility, his heart must have shrunk into nothingness. He was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, July 31, 1683.

NICHOLAS BACON, father of the Lord Chancellor Bacon, Etat. 52.

EDWARD