21 DECEMBER 1872, Page 2

The papers have been filled this week with glowing accounts

of the festivities at Chatsworth, where the Duke of Devonshire has been entertaining the Prince of Wales in almost royal fashion. The presence of the Prince, the beauty of the place, the magnifi- cence of the house and its decorations, the lavish expenditure of the Duke, and the concourse of guests of all classes, and from three counties, make the entertainment quite an event in the Midland Counties. We do not share the opinion that such festivities are injurious, either to the welfare or to the minds of the people, for they receive most of the money spent in one form or another, and they are helped to understand that wealth can produce something beyond the costly bourgeois comfort, which is their usual ideal of enjoyment. Scenic stateliness does no more harm than operatic stateliness does, and gives as much enjoyment to heavy imaginations. The only objections we should raise are to the presence of reporters, who drop too readily into the adver- tising style, and to the excessive toilsomeness which marks the daily round of " gaieties." Everything is arranged, as if for some huge Masque, and everybody required to work as hard as for his living. The Cavendishes, with their wonderful tradition of sustained but aesthetic stateliness, should see more clearly than, to judge from the reports, they do, the 'beauty of spontaneity.