yards long, and was adorned with thirty shields in wood, painted with
the arms of the family. In the three rooms there were chimney-pieces
of delicate marble of various colours, and many fine portraits on the
walls. The central part of the house was surrounded by a cupola, and
clustering chimneys rose in the two wings. A noble park with splendid
oak-trees, and containing 300 head of deer, stretched away to the
north, while on the south side were the ruins of the old Nunnery, the
flower-garden, and the low meadows called _ings_ extending to the
banks of the Wharfe. In this flower-garden the General took especial
delight. The flowers were planted in masses, tulips, pinks, and
roses, each in separate beds, which were cut into the shape of forts
with five bastions. General Lambert, whom Fairfax had reared as a
soldier, also loved his flowers, and excelled both in cultivating
them and in painting them from Nature. Lord Fairfax only went to
Denton, the favourite seat of his grandfather, when the floods were
out over the _ings_ at Nunappleton, and he also occasionally resorted
to his house at Bishop Hill in York."[31:1]

In this garden the muse of Andrew Marvell blossomed like the
cherry-tree.

Lord Fairfax, though furious in war, and badly wounded in many a fierce
engagement, was, when otherwise occupied, a man of quiet literary
tastes, and a good bit of a collector and _virtuoso_. Some of the rare
books and manuscripts he had around him at Nunappleton are now in the
Bodleian, the treasures of which he had protected in troubled times. He
loved to handle medals and coins, and knew the points of old
engravings. He wrote a history of the Christian Church down to our own
ill-conducted Reformation, and composed a complete metrical version of
the Psalms of David and of the Song of Solomon. These and many other