A dilapidated court-house, overrun with ivy, and near it an aged church, may be seen by him who knows their locality, from the summit of Stinchcombe hill. The church is the waymark, for the walls of the old court are low, and it is only when the wind favours the sight of them, by causing the branches of near trees to bend beneath its sway, that even the church-tower can be discerned among the young green foliage of the spring. The gardens of the once stately mansion are gone to decay, or else, being overgrown with grass, are fed upon by cattle; the windows were broken by the fierceness of the flames when it was set on fire; and though strong walls, still standing, tell of what has been, not a trace remains of the great oriel window, and the roof has long been gone. He who wishes to trace the former extent of the building may just discover the foundations in some parts; but in others, not even a few scattered stones, sunk deep in the untrodden grass, would reveal that a mansion had stood there. Yet Nibley Court once occupied that spot; there a happy family dwelt, and busy scenes went on--the sports of childhood, and the daily incidents of domestic life. There my ancestors resided. But all are gone, and scarcely-discovered ruins, which, as regard all grandeur of appearance, might have belonged to a barn or an out-house, alone remain. The yew-tree still lives, but that also betokens the lapse of time. Its once ample boughs are few; they yield no shelter now; the blue sky may be seen through them; the stem also teaches that ages have passed away, since it bore up a noble canopy of mingled boughs. A rabbit from the warren on the common might run up the scarred trunk, but it could not find a hiding-place among the scattered branches. [Illustration: BRADGATE PALACE] Bradgate Palace. "This was thy home then, gentle Jane, This thy green solitude;--and here At evening, from thy gleaming pane, Thine eye oft watch'd the dappled deer, While the soft sun was in its wane, Browsing beneath the brooklet clear; The brook runs still, the sun sets now, The trees wave still; but where art thou?"