of admirable workmanship, dating back to the
fourteenth century, was full of nothing but
cobwebs. A few melancholy cows and a pair
of aged hairy-legged cart-horses were the
only sign of farming stock. The carriages
figuring in the catalogue were an ancient
family coach, in which a hen turkey was
hatching her broods (not for the first time
apparently), a chariot with three wheels, and
a wonderfully tall gig.

Nothing remained to show the ancient
glories of the De Buckleighs, except the avenue
of oaks, the groves of beech-trees, and two
solitary cedars waving over either end of the
mouldering terrace.

Although the great Mr. Smug exerted all
his eloquence, and dived into Domesday Book,
and the History of Landed Gentry by the
ingenious Mr. Perk, there were no bidders.
The village was the natural appurtenance of
the Hall, and there were few rich enough
and bold enough to embark in an investment
so dilapidated that for many years there must
be perpetual outgoings, and few comings-in,
in order to put the estate into decent condition.
A century of neglect had to be recovered.

So the auction fell dead, advertisements
announced that all that beautiful estate, including
the park and mansion,—with the
manorial rights, and also all the village of
Riverport, were to be disposed of by private
contract, on application to Messrs. Brown
and Crayton, Solicitors. The mansion was
shut up, the few servants and dependents
migrated, some to settle on their savings,
others to the workhouse and the almshouse.
In a more remote part of the county, before
the age of railways and high-roads, Buckleigh
Park might have grown into a wilderness for
gipsies to settle on, and tramps to appropriate.
Some did, on the unfenced land.

At length a rumour ran through the
country—travelling by way of the parish
surgeon, the parson, and the lawyer—that a
London man had bought the Buckleigh estate,
and was going to live there. Among a certain
class peculiar to every agricultural
county, as much indignation was excited by
this intelligence, as if a burglarious entry
into the Hall had been effected by "the London
man."

The class I mean are respectably descended
from old squirearchical families, or fancy they
are; at any rate, they have not been in trade
for at least two generations—it includes a
select few of the learned professions—brief-less
barristers who have retired to cultivate
a few hundred paternal acres, and been
made magistrates on the strength of connection
and profession; parsons (a decreasing
number, I am glad to say) who despise their
flocks, especially the broad-cloth section.

These squires and their dames with very
moderate original education, not much enlarged
by travelling, or sharpened by the
rapid and miscellaneous society of the great
world of great towns, where dulness, unless
gilded with millions, so soon finds its proper
place, associate with each other, ruminate
over the same round of stationary ideas, and
speak a language—unintelligible to strangers
—composed of a mosaic of allusions to county
or parish gossip. They generally agree in
worshipping a county idol. Sometimes at is a
duke or an earl,—in less titled counties, a
baronet of the Browncoated school,—and this
idol is their standard of taste, fashion, morals,
and politics. To be noticed by the idol is to
be happy, as that fortunate Peri commemorated
by the late Mr. Thomas Moore;—to be
unnoticed is to be miserable and contemptible.
Loyalty to their idol, whose reflected brilliancy
is supposed to give the worshippers a
certain degree of importance, is the special
virtue of these squires. It is not safe to
suggest that any one not belonging to the
set has fatter pheasants, finer horses, a better
port wine, or more anything than the idol.

A shriek of horror was raised at a county
tea-table, when a young rebel—a medical
student fresh from St. George's—ventured
to hint that perhaps the new purchaser
might be a person of taste and spirit.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed a chorus, "the
idea of some tailor or grocer or alderman
succeeding to Buckler Park; building a villa
with transparent drawing-room windows,
a green door, a brass knocker, and a leaden
Cupid for a sun-dial; cutting down the old
trees, and having his vulgar city acquaintance
to visit him." However, as no one of
the species was prepared to protect the county
by paying the price of the estate, Buckler
Park passed into the hands of the London
man.

Surveyors came down with chains, and
mysterious triangles, and dumpy levels.
Trees were felled and vistas opened. On one
day it was announced that the Hall was to
be levelled to the ground; and the next that
every tenant and every cottager who did
not hold a lease had received notice to quit.
The new man was beginning to take possession
with a strong hand. The whole park
and home-farm was divided by red lines of
draining tiles,— the gardens and the farm-buildings
shared the fate of the Hall, and
nothing except the Dutch garden was spared
by the ruthless improvers; who, with new-fashioned
spades and picks, barrows and
carts, cleared all before them, and left not a
stone or a brick to show where the last
Buckler died.

From time to time I used to meet at Lignum's
Hotel, Gray's Inn, Mr. Clipper, a cousin
of my friend Splinter, a junior partner of
Binds and Clipper, the legal firm who did the
business of nearly all the squires round Riverport,
and shared their antipathies and genteel
prejudices with a zeal not injurious to their interests.
My before-described journey through
his native parish was always an excuse for
indulging the curiosity, which, by a sort of