The old towns of Surrey have more or less undergone the same change as the metropolitan outskirts, some almost lost in the "Wen," as Cobbett loved to call it, some making a nucleus for a sort of remote suburb, much affected by the "dead weight" fund-holders and stock-jobbers so loudly denounced by that obstreperous patriot. The villages, too, are a conglomeration of old and new about their ancient or spick-and-spanly rebuilt churches, and their straggling greens, kept in time-honoured sanctuary from the weapons of the jerry-builder. The whole county betrays its metropolitan dependence in the many trim enclosures around modern mansions and villas, among which holds up its head here and there some lordly old hall like Sutton or Loseley, some once strong castle like those of Guildford or Farnham. There are not a few ivied manor-houses still standing; some fallen to the estate of farm-houses, some restored or enlarged to be choice residences for new owners. A weather-beaten cottage of gentility will command a fancy price, so long as it be not too near the madding crowd, nor yet too far from means of soon mingling with the same. Then Surrey is famed for those real cottages, "sacred to the poor," that may appear in the very heart of some smug, commonplace suburb, but more often in out-of-the-way nooks, where nature better blends with their timbered and gabled quaintness, "each a nest in bloom," thatched, tiled, time-stained, patched, top-heavy, leaning-to as if ripe to tumble among a bed of flowers-- One that, summer-blanch'd, Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad; and here The warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle: One look'd all rose-tree, and another wore A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars: This had a rosy sea of gillyflowers About it; this, a milky way on earth, Like visions in the Northern dreamer's heavens, A lily-avenue climbing to the doors; One, almost to the martin-haunted eaves A summer burial deep in hollyhocks: Each its own charm.