a porch with seats in it, and over it a study, the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with hollyhocks. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan and dagger borne by his ancestors in the Civil Wars. The vacant spaces were occupied by stags' horns. Against the wall was posted King Charles's _Golden Rules_, Vincent Wing's _Almanack_ and a portrait of the duke of Marlborough: in his window lay Baker's _Chronicle_, Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, Glanvil on _Apparitions_, Quincey's _Dispensatory_, the _Complete Justice_ and a _Book of Farriery_. In the corner, by the fireside, stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion; and within the chimney-corner were a couple of seats. Here, at Christmas, he entertained his tenants assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees and other great logs, and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village respecting ghosts and witches till fear made them afraid to move. In the mean time the jorum of ale was in continual circulation. The best parlor, which was never opened but on particular occasions, was furnished with Turk-worked chairs, and hung round with portraits of his ancestors--the men, some in the character of shepherds with their crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes, and others in complete armor or buff-coats; the females, likewise as shepherdesses with the lamb and crook, all habited in high heads and flowing robes. Alas! these men and these houses are no more! The luxury of the times has obliged them to quit the country and become humble dependants on great men, to solicit a place or commission, to live in London, to rack their tenants and draw their rents before due. The venerable mansion is in the mean time suffered to tumble down or is partly upheld as a farm-house, till after a few years the estate is conveyed to the steward of the neighboring lord, or else to some nabob, contractor or limb of the law."