Wrox toil Abbey. 117 



" Look where we may, we cannot err 

 In this cleHcious region — change of place 

 Producing change of beauty — ever new." 



Every day's journey only proves to us how little of 

 all there is to see we can see ; how much we miss on the 

 right and on the left. One might coach upon this Island 

 every summer during his whole life and yet die leaving 

 more of beauty and of interest to visit than all that he 

 had been able to see. When one does not know how to 

 spend a summer's holiday let him try this coaching life 

 and thank heaven for a new world opened to him. 



We chose the first route, and whatever the others 

 might have proved we are satisfied, for it is unanimously 

 decided that in Wroxton Abbey we have seen our most 

 interesting structure. Though it dates only from the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century, it is a grand build- 

 ing and a fine example of the domestic architecture of 

 the period. Its west front is a hundred and eighteen 

 feet long, and its porch is an elegant specimen of the 

 Italian decorated entrances of the time. Blenheim and 

 Windsor are larger, but had we our choice we would 

 take Wroxton in preference to either. With what in- 

 terest did we wander through its quaint irregular cham- 

 bers and inspect its treasures ! James I. slept in this 

 bed, Charles I. in that, and George IV. in another ; this 

 quilt is the work of Mary Queen of Scots — there is her 

 name ; Queen Elizabeth occupied this chamber during a 

 visit, and King WilHam this. Then the genuine old 



