rietta Maria were entertained here--the house being placed at
their disposal whilst their host occupied Bolsover Castle, some miles
distant. Ben Jonson devised a masque entitled "Love's Welcome" for the
royal amusement, and there was such feasting and show that it cost
between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds.

The Abbey is richly furnished, and contains one of the finest
collections of pictures and miniatures in Europe, and a wealth of
ancient manuscripts. The miniatures were gathered together in the early
part of the eighteenth century by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. Of
these treasures Mrs. Delany writes in 1756: "I have undertaken to set
the miniatures of the Duchess of Portland [Lord Oxford's daughter and
heiress] in order, as she does not like to trust them to anybody else,
and for want of proper airing they are in danger of being spoiled. Such
Petitots! such Olivers! such Coopers!" About that time the good lady
describes an evening walk in park and gardens: "By the time we came in,
the moon was risen to a great height, and we sat down in the great
dining-room to contemplate its glory, and to talk of our friends, who in
all likelihood were at that moment admiring its splendour as well as
we". Later she confesses that Welbeck has a _glare of grandeur_, and
that although she admires her Duchess when receiving princely honours
and acquitting herself with dignity, she loves her best in her own
private dressing-room!

The miniatures were wellnigh lost in the middle of the nineteenth
century. The late duke had lent the collection to the Manchester Art
Treasures Exhibition of 1857, and a certain well-known literary man, who
was in the owner's confidence, arranged for all to be sent to London, so
that, like Mrs. Delany, he might arrange them in suitable order. There
he pawned the whole lot for trifling sums, with seven different
pawnbrokers; but, thanks chiefly to a well-known inhabitant of Worksop,
all, with the exception of five, were recovered.

[Illustration: THE BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY]

Here are two famous Riding Houses, one the pride of the author of the
great work on Horsemanship in Stuart times. This is used nowadays as a
picture gallery, the late Duke of Portland having built another of
dimensions almost double. To my thinking, one of the chief beauties of
Welbeck is the gilded gateway opening to the avenue on the road from
Worksop to Ollerton--surely one of the most graceful and yet imposing
structures