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| The Gothic Hall. | South wall of the Red Withdrawing-Room. |
The Gothic hall in which this picture hangs is a curious example of the eighteenth century taste for toyshop Gothic, the fan tracery of the ceiling being stucco upon basket-work. The rococo Chinese mantel-piece of the Swan with-drawing-room is sufficiently curious, with its.shining sun, its clambering Chinamen and its pagoda and tendrils. Rose-coloured tapestries, woven in 1783, and the medallions and garlands of the walls rem'-ind us, in the red drawing-room, that the eighteenth century, surrendering to the fashions of Versailles and the Trianon, was more true to itself than when it wandered after Gothic and Chinese fantasies.