PINKIE HOUSE.

EMBOSOMED in fine woods of chestnut and sycamore, this richly-adorned mansion is unnoticed by the ordinary traveller, who catches none of its features in the landscape, save a doubtful-looking turret or chimney glimmering through the interstices of the trees. Few of our old mansions, however, so completely reward inspection, whether by their beauty or their novelty. Immediately in front stands the fountain, conspicuous in the accompanying plate. It is a piece of fine clean-cut stone-work, consisting of two crossed arches, which, from their shape and proportion, have at a distance the appearance of a mitre, the whole being large enough for the market-cross of a town. The central edifice, round which the others cluster, is a square tower, narrow and thick walled. It had probably been one of the simple, stern, undecorated blocks of stone so common in Scotland, and received its airy decorations from later times. Notwithstanding every effort to adapt to purposes of modern comfort and use the basement story, its high-pitched vault of Gothic or pointed proportions has an air of great antiquity. The turrets, stuck on the angles of the tower, are remarkable for their long, slender proportions, and waving tabernacular roofs, so much in contrast with the stern bulging abruptness which generally characterises this feature in our old houses. The square turrets, attached to the corners of the lower building, are peculiar and pleasing. On the other side the full length of the mansion, with a long row of tall chimneys and corresponding moulded windows, has a rich and dignified aspect, especially when seen behind an ancient garden through the converging glades of the old wood, which had been planted in a fan-like form, so as to make the house visible through several avenues. Though the design appears never to have been completed for the mansion was evidently intended to form a square, having the fountain in the centre -it has an air of good keeping, such as, unfortunately, but few of our old castles can boast of. The interior may, perhaps, be in some respects considered the more interesting part of the building. Some of the apartments have richly pargetted roofs; and one room, very lofty, with beautiful decorated pendants, is traditionally said to have been the sleeping apartment of the Chevalier, after the battle of Prestonpans, fought on the adjoining height. But by far the most interesting apartment is the Painted Gallery. It is an arched room, 120 feet long,* lighted at the end by the highest oriel window, delineated in the accompanying plate. The wooden roof is entirely covered with paintings and inscriptions. The former is in part purely decorative, but there are a number of groups, or scenes, round which frames are painted, with cords and nails, so that they represent hanging pictures. Many of them embody incidents to which a moral is attached, and the subjects are usually classical-they have a general analogy to the scenes represented on old Dutch tiles. The drawing is coarse, but powerful, and full of character, and the colours are remarkably fresh and clean. The learned lawyer to whom Pinkie owes its glory seems to have had a passion for Latin inscriptions. They occur in many parts of the stone-work, and the Painted Gallery is thickly strewed with them. They are moral apophthegms, some of them inculcating a special modesty in reference to the vanity of magnificent houses, which sounds rather oddly in the midst of so much architectural magnificence, and seems to import that their author was conscious that his besetting weakness lay in that direction. The following is a speci

PINKIE HOUSE, 1-2.

* This measurement is from New Statistical Account-Edinburgh, 250.