404 THE CHATEAU. 



shall take the due precaution of recording the opinions of our relative, 

 as if he formed a part and parcel of the subject-matter of his narrative. 

 He had formed his notions of a solitude on one of those comfortable 

 misconceptions, under which the unreflecting portion of our species are 

 led into adoptions, at once delusive and instructive. In the joyous 

 beauty of a summer's day, he beheld his chateau with inexpressible 

 delight. The bright sun, the glowing foliage, the refreshing shade, the 

 song of birds, the murmur of his fountain, the luxuriant fruit and 

 flowers, alike delicious in their hue and fragrance, had imparted to his 

 fancy that creative foretaste of delight, which, like the credulous happi- 

 ness of youth, appears too fresh and vigorous to be subjected to the 

 mortal law of gradual decay and ultimate cessation. The natural beau- 

 ties of his retreat elect were of that simple, wild, and gay exuberance, 

 which conveys the image of its own profuse fertility and joyance to the 

 mirror of a fond imagination. The preliminaries of his lease had been 

 discussed; the items yet remained for settlement. On the day of his 

 induction he was led through his future mansion by his landlady, the 

 countess ; a gi-devant enjouee of some fifty years ; wordly, and, but for 

 the obtrusions of her selfishness, well bred. She dilated on the beauty 

 of much faded finery ; pointed out the dim remains of gilding which 

 occasionally struggled through the dust with which her furniture was 

 covered ; offered to my uncle's use a vast variety of mildewed portraits, 

 in the riant costume of the aera of the grand Louis ; exhibited with 

 perfect nonchalance the various appointments of the bedchambers, at 

 which my uncle's mauvaise honte was laughably elicited ; and from the 

 practice of profuse laudation, for she was a large proprietor, bestowed 

 as many eloquent encomiums on a compilation of incongruous rubbish, 

 as Mr. Robins, in the rostrum of appraisement, could confer on some 

 ancestral mansion, which the pleasures of St. James's have subjected to 

 the disposal of his estranging hammer. On the discussion of the lease, 

 my uncle had to battle every clause with much exception and minute- 

 ness : every point was pregnant with suspicion ; precautionary in the 

 extreme, anticipating and restrictive. But my uncle's firm composure 

 easily defeated all the countess's concerted plans of overreaching, and 

 after much apparent earnestness on her part, she conceded with an air of 

 infinite contentment and affability such points as to my relative appeared 

 essential to his comfortable occupancy of the chateau. 



When the countess had mounted her ass, on which humble animal 

 she usually made her tours in the vicinity, herself and retinue withdrew, 

 and left my uncle to the contemplation of the ruins, of which he was 

 now the inhabitant. It seemed, from the long line of irregular building, 

 that the chateau had been the work of opulence and fantasy at one time, 

 and of poverty and mere necessity at others. Each successive genera- 

 tion had added something to the old original, and mostly in the style 

 and taste of its respective aera. There was still remaining much of that 

 carved foliage and tracery, in which the French delighted and excelled 

 in former times ; pilasters, and compartments with classic subjects in 

 relief. Then came a solid mass of simple masonry, in which several 

 former windows were blocked up with naked brick. The niches, here 

 and there, retained a mutilated statue of some sylvan deity, and at the 

 extremity of the more ancient portion of the pile, were discoverable 

 some concomitant emblems of the crucifixion. The chapel was trans- 

 formed into a cow-house, and was still surmounted by a clocker, where 



