--Pray, to whom does this property now belong?"-- --He paused, and said, Scratching his head, "Why, I really _do_ think he's a little to blame, But I can't say I knows the Gentleman's name!" "Well--well!" quoth I, As I heaved a sigh, And a tear-drop fell from my twinkling eye, "My vastly good man, as I scarcely doubt That some day or other you'll find it out, Should he come in your way, Or ride in your 'shay,' (As perhaps he may,) Be so good as to say That a Visitor, whom you drove over one day, Was exceedingly angry, and very much scandalized, Finding these beautiful ruins so Vandalized, And thus of their owner to speak began, As he ordered you home in haste, "NO DOUBT HE'S A VERY RESPECTABLE MAN, But--_I can't say much for his taste_."[36] FOOTNOTES: [34] In my mind's eye, Horatio!--HAMLET. [35] About the middle of the last century a human skeleton was discovered in a recess in the wall among the ruins of Netley. On examination the bones were pronounced to be those of a female. _Teste_ James Harrison, a youthful but intelligent cab-driver of Southampton, who "well remembers to have heard his grandmother say that 'Somebody told her so.'" * * * * * My very excellent brother-in-law, Seaforth, late of the Bombay Fencibles (lucky dog to have quitted the service before this shocking Afghan business!), seems to have been even more forcibly affected on the evening when he so narrowly escaped being locked in at Westminster Abbey, and when--but let him describe his own feelings, as he has done, indeed, in the subjoined FRAGMENT. * * * * * A feeling sad came o'er me as I trod the sacred ground Where Tudors and Plantagenets were lying all around: I stepp'd with noiseless foot, as though the sound of mortal tread Might burst the bands of the dreamless sleep that wraps the mighty dead! The slanting ray of the evening sun shone through those cloisters pale, With fitful light on regal vest, and warrior's sculptured mail; As from the stained and storied pane it danced with quivering gleam, Each cold and prostrate form below seem'd quickening in the beam. Now, sinking low, no more was heard the organ's solemn swell, And faint upon the listening ear the last Hosanna fell: It died--and not a breath did stir;--above each knightly stall, Unmoved, the banner'd blazonry hung waveless as a pall. I stood alone!--a living thing 'midst those that were no more-- I thought on ages past and gone--the glorious deeds of yore-- On Edward's sable panoply, on Cressy's tented plain, The fatal roses twined at length--on great Eliza's reign.