eBooks Base 2000

The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures
of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the doorways are of polished
and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and
seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown
over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the
damask chairs, being a good deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic
tables, which may serve to adorn another palace when this one crumbles
away with age. One beautiful hall, with a ceiling more richly gilded
than the rest, is panelled all round with large looking-glasses, on which
are painted pictures, both landscapes and human figures, in oils; so that
the effect is somewhat as if you saw these objects represented in the
mirrors. These glasses must be of old date, perhaps coeval with the
first building of the palace; for they are so much dimmed, that one's own
figure appears indistinct in them, and more difficult to be traced than
the pictures which cover them half over.


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