Is it because we know not whence they come, And only feel the magic of their power? Outside our ken, from some Elysian home, Spring the delights that charm the passing hour; And heaven itself, beyond thought's bounding line, Lies pictured still as wishful hearts incline. Thus ends our visit to what was once the grand earthly home and possessions of '_the extravagant Lord Cheney_'--one more strange, but not altogether uncommon phase of human life. How many of these historic apparitions have crossed the path of our desultory wanderings over the west-country, flashing like meteors through the gloom of the past, when summoned by the wizard hand of research, and as quickly fading and disappearing when its sympathetic power is withdrawn. In the glance of their happier, or more fortunate, transitory radiance, may shine the pre-eminent glory of the crown, the mild lustre of the mitre, the bold glow of the rod of office, or brilliant flash of the sword; yet thickly interspersed albeit with the lurid gleam of the axe, and perchance, as to-day, with the pitiful, hasty flicker of the spendthrift. So do the glimpses of these noted actors on the passing stage of human existence, and the memories of their short but eventful careers, come back to us, with intensely interesting, because real power, alongside which the strongest flight of Romance is as a phantom. He who affects to contemn such investigations, and lives only in and for the present,--ignorant, careless, or indifferent as to the past, and bent on enjoying, as it is termed, the passing hour,--little wots of the care, the pain, and the strife, through which those who have gone before, have fought and toiled and suffered;--lives but half a life, in itself barren and ephemeral, as it is disassociated from all that has preceded it and built the foundations of that life up. Whether for good or for evil, matters not, the continuity of influence cannot be dissevered, for "In to-day already walks to-morrow." From Toddington and our musing over his collateral descendants, our story finally leads us back to the giant Knight himself, and the solemn grandeur of Salisbury Cathedral. We take a final look at the armoured form of this son of Anak, and as we glance at the lines of recumbent forms,--ecclesiastics,--statesmen,--soldiers, and others, that held high place during their lives in the government of their native land, for the five or six eventful centuries, in which, through much contention, that government was slowly determining and settling,--the thought arises, how comprehensively this grand building, as a sheep-fold, whose door is the Gate of Death, hath silently and surely gathered together here these erstwhile great ones of the earth at last,--even all sorts and conditions of men,--the consecrated, the peaceful, the devoted, rest side by side with the ambitious, the restless, the proud,--