homely age of good King George,--stiff gentlemen and ladies in doublets and ruffs,--others with cuirasses and long flowing hair, and black dresses and love-locks, be-speaking the well known cavalier principles of the House in the times of the rebellion; and ever and anon gentlemen in long three-quarter frames, with many a square yard of pink or blue velvet for their coats, cuffs turned up to their elbows, waistcoats big enough to make surtouts for any of us degenerate moderns; the forefinger and thumb of one hand on the pummel of the sword, the other gently placed on some gilded table,--the head turned disdainfully aside, or else courting with graceful pride some comely dame in a green negligé, or habited as a shepherdess,--the Corydon and Chloe of the court of Queen Anne. The staircase leads to an enormous drawing-room, that looks as if some three or four other rooms had been thrown into one, with two bay-windows on one side, and a fireplace--ah! such a fireplace!--on the other. But here no personages more ancient than the days of George the Second are allowed to show their canvasses on the walls,--the great grandfathers and grandmothers of the present possessors,--the men looking like rakish Quakers, the ladies all in flimsy white muslin, straw hats, and powdered locks. They may have more interest for those to whom they are related, but we always consider them much worse company than their progenitors on the staircase,--those glories and beauties of an earlier day, whom they are themselves destined to join hereafter, when thrust out from their present quarters by a future squire. A stray Sir Joshua may be seen in one corner of the room, and an early Sir Thomas is by one of the windows. The furniture here is of that remarkable, rickety kind, which our own dads admired so much when this nineteenth century of ours was making its appearance, and which--but we may have bad taste herein--we would willingly consign _en masse_ to the kitchen fire or the broker's shop.