The English Spy, page 258 by Bernard Blackmantle
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es, ~296~~the different varieties, from the early blossom to maturity: curious Chinese symbols are suspended from the trunk, and connect themselves with a grand lustre, rising to a height of thirty feet, and reflecting the most varied and magical effect, being multiplied by other lustres, in the several angles adjoining. The walls are decorated with groups of figures, nearly the size of life, portraying the costume of the higher classes of the Chinese; domestic episodes, painted on a ground of imitative pearl, richly wrought, in all the varied designs of Chinese mythology. The furniture is of the most costly description--rose-wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and enriched with or molu chasings of the most elegant design; the effect of which is admirably contrasted with the rich glossy jars of blue porcelain, of English manufacture, and magnificent brilliancy. Centrally, between these magnificent apartments, is the Rotunda or Saloon; an oblong interior of fifty-five feet in length, the decoration chaste and classical in the extreme, being simply white and gold, the enriched cornice being supported by columns and pilasters, and the whole decoration uniting coolness with simplicity. The passages to some of the minor apartments are unique in their style of embellishment, which appears to be of polished white marble, but is, in fact, nothing but a superior Dutch tile, cemented smoothly, in plaster of Paris, and highly varnished. There are many other private and anterooms to the west of the Chinese gallery, the decorations of which are more simple, but in a corresponding style. We had now arrived at the Yellow Room (see Plate), where we understood his Majesty would receive his evening party.
[Illustration: page296]
The apartment is fifty-six feet in length, by twenty in breadth, and is hung round with a rich fluted drapery of yellow satin, suspended from the ceiling, and representing a magnificent Chinese tent, from the centre of which hangs a chandelier of ~237~~the mo