of the nineteenth century is practically apt to taint the younger branches when they read of garden-parties given by the royal princes or balls where duchesses and cabinet ministers are as plentiful as blackberries. Their great-grandmothers, it is true, were sometimes troubled with the same longings, for among the many proclamations against the residence in London of country gentlemen in unofficial positions is one of James I., noticing "those swarms of gentry, who, through the instigation of their wives, do neglect their country hospitality and cumber the city, a general nuisance to the kingdom;" and the royal Solomon elsewhere observes that "gentlemen resident on their estates are like ships in port—their value and magnitude are felt and acknowledged; but when at a distance, as their size seemeth insignificant, so their worth and importance are not duly estimated." There is a weak point in this simile, however; so, to cover it with a better and more unpretentious argument, I will quote a few lines from an old poem of Sir Richard Fanshawe on the subject of one of these proclamations:

PORCH WITH BOW-WINDOW UNDER, OUTSIDE WARWICK GATES.

The solemn county balls, to which access was as difficult as it is now to a court festivity, have dwindled to public affairs with paid subscriptions, yet even in their changed conditions they are somewhat of an event in the winter life of a neighborhood. Everybody has the entrée who can command the price of a ticket, though, as a rule, different classes form coteries and dance among themselves. The country-houses for ten or twelve miles around contribute their Christmas and New Year guests, often a large party in two or three carriages. Political popularity is not lost sight of, and civilities to the wives and daughters of the tradesmen and voters often secure more support in the next election than strict principle warrants; but though the men thus mingle with the majority of the dancers, it is seldom the ladies leave the upper end of the hall, where the local aristocracy holds a sort of court. In places where there is a garrison the military are a great reinforcement to the body of dancers and flirts. The society proper of a county-town is mostly cut up into a small clique of clerical and professional men, with a few spinsters of gentle eccentricity and limited means, the sisters and aunts of country gentlemen, and a larger body of well-to-do tradesmen and their families, including the ministers of the dissenting chapels and their families. One of the latter may be possibly a preacher of local renown, and one of the Anglican clergy will almost invariably be an antiquary of real merit. The mayor and corporation belong, as a rule, to the larger set, but the lawyers and doctors hold a neutral position and are welcomed everywhere, partly for the sake of gossip, partly for their own individual merits. Warwick has the additional advantage over many kindred places of the near neighborhood of Leamington, a fashionable watering-place two miles and a half distant, one of the mushrooms of this century, but in a practical point of view one of the brightest and most attractive places in England. At present it far surpasses Warwick in business and bustle, and possesses all the adjuncts of a health-resort, frequented all the year round, and inhabited by hundreds of resident invalids for the sake of the excellent medical staff collected there. One of its famous physicians was often sent for, instead of a London doctor, to the great houses within a radius of forty or fifty miles. The assembly-rooms, hotels, baths, gardens, bridges and shops of Leamington vie with those of the continental spas, and the display of dress and the etiquette of society are in wonderful contrast to the state of the quiet village fifty years ago. But it is pleasant to know that the new town has already an endowed hospital, founded by Dr. Warneford and called by his name, where the poor have gratuitous baths and the best medical advice. Not content with being a centre in its own way, Leamington has improved its prospects by setting up as a rival to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, known as the "hunting metropolis." Three packs of hounds are hunted regularly during the season within easy distance of the town, which has also annual steeplechases and a hunting club; and this sporting element serves to redeem Leamington from the character of masked melancholy which often strikes a tourist in visiting a regular health-resort.

In natural beauty Warwickshire is surpassed by other counties, but few can boast of architectural features equally striking—such magnificent historical memorials as Kenilworth and Warwick castles, and the humbler beauties to be found in the houses of Stratford-on-Avon, Polesworth and Meriden. The last is remarkable—as are, indeed, all the villages of Warwickshire—for its picturesque beauty, and above all for the position of its churchyard, whence lovely views are obtained of the country around. Of Polesworth, Dugdale remarks, that, "for Antiquitie and venerable esteem it needs not to give Precedence to any in the Countie." "There is a charming impression of age and quiet dignity in its remains of old walls, its remains of old trees, its church and its open common," says Dean Howson. Close to the village, on a hill commanding a view of it, stands Pooley Hall, whose owner in old days obtained a license from Pope Urban VI. to build a chapel on his own land, "by Reason of the Floods at some time, especially in Winter, which hindered his Accesse to the Mother-Church." In the garden of this hall, a modest country-house, a type of the ordinary run of English homes, stands a chapel—not the original one, but built on its site—and from it one has a view of the level ground, the village and the river, evidently still liable to floods. The part of the county that joins Gloucestershire is rich in apple-orchards, which I remember one year in the blossoming-time, while the early grass, already green and wavy, fringed the foot of the trees, and by the road as we passed we looked through hedges and over low walls into gardens full of crocuses, snowdrops, narcissuses, early pansies and daffodils, for spring gardens have become rather a mania in England within ten or twelve years. Here and there older fragments of wall lined the road, and over one of these, from a height of eight feet or so, dropped a curtain of glossy, pointed leaves, making a background for the star-shaped yellow blossoms, nearly as large as passion-flowers, of the St. John's-wort, with their forest of stamens standing out like golden threads from the heart of the blossom. At the rectory of the village in question was a very clever man, an unusual specimen of a clergyman, a thorough man of the world and a born actor. His father and