interiors can hardly be denied to be admirably suited for the conventional courtesies of an eighteenth-century household.
The King's great staircase has all the features essential to a ceremonial—width, regularity, and a view of the whole from any part. Verrio's decorations, gods and goddesses, nymphs and muses, in the most inartistic and unedifying combination, must be seen to be sufficiently disliked. But a fine doorway at the top of the stairs admits to the Guard-chamber, a fine lofty room, decorated with arms set up in Wren's day by the gunsmith Harris. It were tedious to describe room after room as it is entered. Some general points apply to all. The wood-work is frequently by Grinling Gibbons, and is always light, delicate, attractive. Other work is by Gabriel Cibber, notablv the "insculpting the Relievo on the Tympan of the great Frontispiece"—the triumph of Hercules over Envy—which is the central decoration of the east front outside. Every room, except possibly the little chapel near the Queen's bathing-closet, is adequately, indeed admirably lighted. The decorations of the rooms, fine chandeliers of silver or glass, rich chairs, beds and canopies of state, are almost all of William III.'s date. Queen Mary's own work has been removed, but the richest work in damask, silk, and velvet is of her time or Anne's. The ceilings are frequently painted, whether by Verrio or Thornhill. The ill success of most of these laborious efforts does not condemn a method of decoration which may be an
