SIR WALTER SCOTT. 141 



Chesterfield left Eythrope that day, and never set foot 

 again in the county. A year or two after he gave orders 

 that the mansion should be destroyed and the place 

 dismantled, and the glories of Eythrope came to an end. 



The Eythrope estate subsequently became the 

 property of the Marquis d'Harcourt ; from him it was 

 purchased a few years since by Miss Alice de Rothschild, 

 who has built a spacious pavilion near the site of the 

 old house, and has once more made the gardens 

 celebrated for artistic design and their beautiful display 

 of flowers and rare shrubs. 



My recollection does not, of course, carry me back to 

 the time when Lord Chesterfield entertained m^en of 

 fashion and fame at Eythrope, but still it seems able to 

 transport me to days distant enough for the thoughts 

 of ordinary men and their methods of life to be very 

 different to what they are now. I remember one 

 evening, in the year 1828, a carriage and pair of horses 

 pulling up at our door, and a benevolent-looking, elderly 

 gentleman, with a young lady, alighting therefrom to 

 take up their abode for the night ; after they had dined 

 and retired to bed, a servant informed my father that he 

 had learned from the servant in attendance upon the 

 visitor that his master was " Mister" Walter Scott. My 

 father at once knew, from the portraits he had seen of 

 the author of Wavcrky, who his illustrious guest must 

 be, and told me to wait with my mother and younger 

 brother in the hall to wish the guest of the night good 

 morning — we were youngsters then of six or seven 

 years. I remember Sir Walter, as he thanked my 

 father for his attention to him and his daughter. My 



