It is obvious that a great range of buildings like Knole, covering nearly four acres, dating back, in part, four hundred years, and filled to overcrowding with things precious intrinsically and by association, must involve the existence of a large staff; and it must be at least equally obvious that no lord of Knole could without great physical effort use even a respectable proportion of his three hundred and sixty-five rooms, traverse his fifty-two staircases, or look forth daily from more than ten per cent. of his five hundred and forty windows. The house stands in what is probably the least attractive portion of the park, where the grass is tough and wiry, and like that of some untended prairie. The long, dark-grey, stone front, pierced with mullioned windows, is like that of an ancient Oxford college. You are personally struck with the resemblance, and, reading the impressions of bygone visitors, you find they have all been impressed in the same way. Every gable is surmounted by the leopard “_sejant affronté_” of the Sackville coat of arms, looking like so many tomcats obeying the instruction of some unseen drill-master: “Eyes right.” [Illustration: THE GATEWAY, KNOLE.] The sternly walled-in character of Knole would discourage a burglar, just as it was intended to give pause to any hostile visitor; for the times when it was built were halting between the necessity for fortresses and the liking for magnificence and display. Thus Knole partakes of the character of both castle and palace. XIX No armed guard meets you now: only a porter. There are many kinds of porters. There is the fish-porter of Billingsgate; there are also the railway-porter and the warehouse-porter, to name none others; but it is unthinkable to class the porter of Knole with these. Porters, I should suppose, by the etymology of their name, to be bearers of burdens, carriers, humpers of grievous loads; but this dignified person is rather of the bank-porter variety, own brother to those of the Bank of England, and carries nothing but a highly respectable suit of clothes and an aristocratic air. I am quite sure he is more dignified than even Lord Sackville himself, and his portly presence, his black swallow-tailed coat, his silk hat, and his red waistcoat give a more soothing effect of the permanence of things than even the grey walls of Knole can manage to impart.