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Tickets taken there bear

London, the contrast of

a tolerably busy place. the impress Bettisfield of the names excited a smile from a great statesman to whom I showed it. But all ways led to Rome, and so do ours; as once by the Watling Street, so now by the rail, whithersoever we may be going; and one of the longest fibres of the world's commerce has surely reached us here, for the fine hard Californian wheat is sold at the station without causing alarm or regret to our farmers.

I remember when a bitter counsel, wishing to annihilate an antagonist before a House of Commons committee, barbed his arrow by saying that the gentleman in question had as much regard for the public interest as a Californian savage. Now the trees and flowers of that beautiful region ornament our gardens, and one of the Wellington pines, with its dark-green stately branches, is growing opposite my windows in the garden of old Sir Thomas the Cavalier. This house, as he rebuilt or repaired it after the Civil War, had the date of 1658 over the door. My grandfather made some additions, which were not very congruous with the rest, but were only part of a house he intended to complete, and did not. I have no money to spend on architecture, nor indeed any

taste or learning of that kind; but it appears to me that every dwelling of a gentleman ought to have an idea about it, and I governed such works as I have done here from time to time by a verse of Victor Hugo, where, writing to a friend, he speaks of his château as tour vieille et maison neuve; therefore I built a large red tower to stand for the tour vieille, and connected it with all the ancient parts of the house; and I left my grandfather's building to stand for the maison neuve, and the general arrangement seems not unsuccessful. Some trees and seedlings about the place have been grown from cones and berries that I have brought from a distance or have been given me from thence by friends; the curly-leaved willows came from Simla; the maritime pines are from seeds that ripened by Mediterranean waves. long had cypresses from Mount Sinai, but they died in one of the late cold winters. The other cypresses I brought from the Albani Villa at Rome; some mountain-ashes are from the Tamar; some oaks from acorns gathered near the Severn from a tree which is reputed to be descended from Augustine's. The other St. Augustine, of Hippo, says in one of his sermons (I am indebted to a

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book by Archbishop Trench for the quotation), Vis possidere terram; vide ne possidearis a terrâ; with which wise words of the African Bishop I dutifully devote these notes to memories and to landmarks.

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NOTES.

Caerliky, Preface, p. viii.

IKY, or Leiki, which is frequently given in
Reynold's Pedigrees as the name of a woman,
appears to be a Saxon corruption of the Welsh
Leucu, or Lucy.

Pedigree of my own family, p. 19.

It will be observed that this book is altogether framed upon the straight lines of descent of the families of Hanmer and The Fens, for which reason tables of pedigrees have been omitted as unnecessary, and only adding to its bulk.

Whether he has joined him, who expiates far off" Bolsena's eels and cups of muscadel," p. 196.

This was Pope Martin IV., whom Dante saw in Purgatory; he had his eels boiled in the wine called Vernaccia.

"Ebbe la santa Chiesa in le sue braccia

Dal Torso fu, e purga per digiuno

L'anguille di Bolsena in la vernaccia."

PURG. Canto xxiv.

The Speaker engaged in Parliamentary management, p. 213. Macpherson, in the passage I have quoted, has made a mistake which I have carelessly followed. Sir Thomas was not Speaker till the ensuing Parliament. The old Duchess of Marlborough, in a passage of a letter to her relation, Mr. Robert Jennings, lately published from the papers at Madresfield, and which is not very complimentary to Sir Thomas, says, "All of his merit that I can remember is that he has supported The Sorcerer to break the best alliances that ever were made, and had the most glorious end, and his last great action was in making a fine speech in favour of the Trade, and the next day managed an address to the Queen quite contrary to what he had proposed." I suppose The Sorcerer means Mrs. Masham.

THE END.

CHISWICK PRESS:-PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE,

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