It is now probable that I may reside some time at my castle; and as to my villa, I wish Lady Gwyn joy of it; for in my opinion it is a fright. Conceive the difference between the two. The villa mere lath and plaster; with its pretty little stucco-work, and its pretty little paintings, and its pretty little bronzes. Nice, new, sweet, and charming, are the only epithets that one can apply to it; while antique, sublime, terrible, picturesque, and Gothic, are the adjectives appropriate to my castello. What signify laced footmen, Chinese vases, Grecian tripods, and Turkish sofas, in comparison with feudal vassals, ruined towers, black hangings, dampness, and ivy? And to a person of real taste, a single stone of this edifice is worth a whole cart-load of such stones as the onyx, and sardonyx, and the other barbarous baubles belonging to Lady Gwyn. But nothing diverts me more than the idea that poor Lady Gwyn is twice as old as the house she lives in. I have got a famous simile on the subject. What think you of a decayed nut in an unripe shell? The woman is sixty if she is a day. Adieu. LETTER XXXIX The moist shadows of night had fled, dawn shook the dew from his purple ringlets, and the sun, that well-known gilder of eastern turrets, arose with his usual punctuality. I too rose, and having now recovered my wardrobe, enjoyed the luxury of changing my dress; for I had worn the same cloaths several days, and consequently was become a perfect slattern. How other heroines manage, I cannot imagine; for I have read of some of them who were thrown among mountains, or into cells, and desolate chambers, and caverns; full of slime, mud, vermin, dust, and cobwebs, where they remained whole months without clean linen, soap, brush, towel, or comb; and, at last, when rescued from captivity, forth they walked, glittering like the morning star, as fragrant as a lily, and as fresh as an oyster. We breakfasted on the top of the tower; and after our repast, the minstrel told me that he had employed the day before in composing a Metrical Romance, called 'Monkton Castle;' which, with my permission, he would now repeat. I was delighted; and to give it every advantage, I placed him at the harp, flung his black garments over him, and making him sit on the battlements, endeavoured to fix him in the fine attitude of old Allan Bane; but his limbs were so muscular and impracticable, that I could make nothing of them. With an emphatic enunciation, he thus began. MONKTON CASTLE A METRICAL ROMANCE