We first went into Wolsey's great Hall, up a most spacious staircase, the
walls and ceiling of which were covered with an allegorical fresco by
Verrio, wonderfully bright and well preserved; and without caring about
the design or execution, I greatly liked the brilliancy of the colors.
The great Hall is a most noble and beautiful room, above a hundred feet
long and sixty high and broad. Most of the windows are of stained or
painted glass, with elaborate designs, whether modern or ancient I know
not, but certainly brilliant in effect. The walls, from the floor to
perhaps half their height, are covered with antique tapestry, which,
though a good deal faded, still retains color enough to be a very
effective adornment, and to give an idea of how rich a mode of decking a
noble apartment this must have been. The subjects represented were from
Scripture, and the figures seemed colossal. On looking closely at this
tapestry, you could see that it was thickly interwoven with threads of
gold, still glistening. The windows, except one or two that are long, do
not descend below the top of this tapestry, and are therefore twenty or
thirty feet above the floor; and this manner of lighting a great room
seems to add much to the impressiveness of the enclosed space. The roof
is very magnificent, of carved oak, intricately and elaborately arched,
and still as perfect to all appearance as when it was first made.
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