EXTENT OF THE SITE. 27 



lead to great subsequent expense and inconvenience. 

 We have seen a line mansion so j^ut down between 

 two steep banks that at its entrance there was scarcely 

 room to turn a donkey-cart, if we may be permitted to 

 employ a familiar but undignified comparison. At the 

 same time, the garden front was such that it required 

 a thick wall, reared up from a considerable depth be- 

 low, to form a walk a few yards wide, in front of a 

 pile of buildings which would grace a terrace of mag- 

 nificent dimensions. Such an error, if we may pre- 

 sume to call it one, was rendered excusable, or at least 

 was accounted for, by the circumstance that it was the 

 site of an ancient ancestral castle that was thus oc- 

 cupied. AVe cannot wonder that old feudal associations 

 and family recollections should lead " afar descended" 

 proprietors to cleave to some particular spot as their 

 time-hallowed homestead. Still, we sometimes think 

 that there is bad. economy of cherished memories in 

 thus enveloping and concealing the old with the new. 

 If an eligible site were to be found in the vicinity, we 

 should rather have chosen that for the house, and have 

 left the ruin in its own inherent dignity : — so would 

 there have been two objects of interest instead of one; 

 and the fragment of departed grandeur would have 

 "spoken directly to the eye, and not have been beholden 

 to the imperfect medium of words for the occasional 

 telling of its history Of course, the same excuse can- 

 not be made for error committed in the erection of a 

 new mansion, or in the rebuilding of one of little his- 

 torical or family importance: and yet a picturesque 

 view will sometimes seduce a man to set down a house 

 on a narrow pinnacle, where there is scarcely room 

 for a dovecot. Want of judgment like this is not 



