Here terminate the splendours of Woburn Abbey. But no--two things I must still mention. In the house, the decorations of which I have described to you 'en gros,' I found a very ingenious contrivance. Round all the apartments of the great quadrangle runs an inner wide gallery, on which several doors open; and a variety of collections, some open, some in glass cases, and here and there interspersed with stands of flowers, are set out. This affords a walk as instructive as it is agreeable in winter or bad weather, and is rendered perfectly comfortable by the 'conduits de chaleur,' which heat the whole house.--The second remarkable thing is a picture of the Earl of Essex as large as life. He is represented as of a fine and slender person, but not a very distinguished face; small features without much expression, small eyes, and a large red beard with dark hair. But I have written off a quarter of an inch of my finger, and must conclude. To-morrow another step in the ascending scale, for I must see Warwick Castle, which is spoken of as England's pride. I am curious to see if we can really mount higher; hitherto we have certainly ascended from beautiful to more beautiful. As the mail is just going off I enclose this to L----, who will have the kindness to forward it to you more quickly than it would otherwise go. Think of the wanderer in your tranquil solitude, and believe that if fate drove him to the antipodes, his heart would ever be near you. Your L----. LETTER IX. _Warwick, Dec. 26th, 1826._ DEAR JULIA, Now, indeed, for the first time, I am filled with real and unbounded enthusiasm. What I have hitherto described was a smiling country, combined with everything that art and money could produce. I left it with a feeling of satisfaction; and, although I have seen things like it,--nay, even possess them,--not without admiration. But what I saw to-day was more than that,--it was an enchanted palace decked in the most charming garb of poetry, and surrounded by all the majesty of history, the sight of which still fills me with delighted astonishment. You, accomplished reader of history and memoirs, know better than I that the Earls of Warwick were once the mightiest vassals of England, and that the great Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, boasted of having deposed three kings, and placed as many on the vacant throne. This was his castle, standing ever since the ninth century, and in the possession of the same family since the reign of Elizabeth. A tower of the castle, said to have been built by Beauchamp himself, remains unaltered; and the whole stands colossal and mighty, like an embodied vision of former times.