Once the best attributes of old house fittings had been pointed out by various means, but chiefly in the language of value sterling, the future of relics existing _in situ_ seemed brighter. Eyes were turned jealously to the equipments in old houses, and a new race of students arose to safeguard national and more or less private treasures. All this has happened in the last half of the nineteenth century. There remains much to be done, however, before the real lessons of the past are impressed upon the public. While certain acts of vandalism have been committed by dealers able to turn their knowledge to account, considerable tolerance must be exercised on their behalf. In the first place they demonstrated the importance which should be attached to many objects of antiquity, and in the second place the business men put their weight into the scale against destruction. In the most practical way they prevented examples of craftsmanship from sharing the fate of firewood and rubble. They have kept things of singular merit intact when extinction was probable, and if sometimes they have exaggerated the importance of work which is merely old and not really interesting, their services in educating public opinion more than counterbalance their transgressions. Even the latter may be condoned to some extent, for through them the fame of English craftsmanship has been spread far and wide, developing a desire among students abroad to visit this country and to see in all their glory the priceless works of architecture and decoration remaining supreme in spite of the attacks by man, time, fire, and vandals. When Goldsmith wrote that he loved “everything that’s old--old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine,” he unaccountably forgot to mention old houses. It may be assumed that the author of “The Deserted Village” included among his delights the actual haunts of his old friends, suggestive of still older times and manners. Looking back on the eighteenth century, when Johnson was uttering his sonorous observations, and Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney were immortalising the illustrious people of the day, we are envious of the opportunities presented to Goldsmith and his contemporaries to study and admire the monuments of the preceding centuries in something approaching perfection. At that time the majority of buildings grouped under the heading of Old English Mansions were unspoiled by decay and environment. They were just mellow and satisfying in every respect. Some of them, of course, had suffered in the Civil War, and bore witness then as now to their unsuitability as places of defence. But on the whole it was Tudor and Jacobean architecture without alloy.