Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/434

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Walks in the Black Country

pictorial adornments. Wardrobes, cabinets, tables, and all the articles of luxurious furniture found in palaces. English or Continental, modern or ancient, are here in all their variety and curious workmanship. The "Kenilworth Buffet," a work which attracted so much admiration in the Great Exhibition of 1851, is a master-piece of design and execution. It is Kenilworth and its romantic history, with the principal acts and actors of its Elizabethan drama, carved in oak from a tree that stood a green, tall sentinel of nature at the time to witness the festive scenes. Even Elizabeth's meeting with Amy Robsart, and her interview with Leicester after the exposure of his faithlessness, are done to the life by the carver's chisel.

Two objects connected with Warwick Castle every one, young or old, who visits it, will remember perhaps most distinctively. They are the "Guy's porridge-pot" and the great marble Vase. Both are of prodigious capacity, the very Gog and Magog of all hollow-ware. The Irishman who called the donkey the father of all rabbits would call this large porridge-pot the father of all kettles. Its history cannot be got out of it by the grave and solemn thumpings that the old woman gives its massive sides. So it is ascribed to the great Guy's time and to his personal use. As ornithologists deduce the size and habits of some