the highest part of the building, so that here the sun can never penetrate, neither does any pure air ever visit this habitation, on which descend drizzling damps and eternal fogs, to such excess, that not an article of furniture can be placed beneath the roof, but in four days it becomes covered with green mould. I leave you to judge in what manner such humidity must act upon the human frame; and, to say every thing in one word, the apartments are in general more like dungeons prepared for the reception of the vilest criminals, than suited to persons of a station far inferior to mine, inasmuch as I do not believe there is a lord or gentleman, or even yeoman in the kingdom, who would patiently endure the penance of living in so wretched an habitation. With regard to accommodation, I have for my own person but two miserable little chambers, so intensely cold during the night, that but for ramparts and entrenchments of tapestry and curtains, it would be impossible to prolong my existence; and of those who have sat up with me during my illness, not one has escaped malady. Sir Amias can testify that three of my women have been rendered ill by this severe temperature, and even my physician declines taking charge of my health the ensuing winter, unless I shall be permitted to change my habitation. With respect to convenience, I have neither gallery nor cabinet, if I except two little pigeon-holes, through which the only light admitted is from an aperture of about nine feet in circumference; for taking air and exercise, either on foot or in my chair, I have but about a quarter of an acre behind the stables, round which Somers last year planted a quickset hedge, a spot more proper for swine than to be cultivated as a garden; there is no shepherd's hut but has more grace and proportion. As to riding on horseback during the winter, I am sure to be impeded by floods of water or banks of snow, nor is there a road in which I could go for one mile in my coach without putting my limbs in jeopardy; abstracted from these real and positive inconveniences, I have conceived for this spot an antipathy, which, in one ill as I am, might alone claim some humane consideration. As it was here that I first began to be treated with rigour and indignity, I have conceived, from that time, this mansion to be singularly unlucky to me, and in this sinister impression I have been confirmed by the tragical catastrophe of the poor priest of whom I wrote to you, who, having been tortured for his religion, was at length found hanging in front of my window."[183]