242 WARWICK CASTLE 



overnight's conversation, and, after some little delibera- 

 tion, resolved to profit by it as soon as occasion would 

 permit. 



I had been offered a situation as a commercial traveller 

 in a large wine-house in London ; but having known 

 some of these gentlemen, and observed how their habits 

 tended to a short, though to them perhaps a pleasant life, 

 I hung, as it Avere, in the balance — more particularly as 

 the man I was to succeed was then in the last stage of 

 diseased liver and lungs, at something considerably under 

 forty years of age. 



I did not immediately return to town, but, at the 

 invitation of mine host, who was a capital fellow, I 

 remained nearly a week, enjoying the salubrity of the air 

 in daily drives — one day going to Warwick Castle, whose 

 tall keep and old walls, with its galleries filled with 

 portraits, and its halls lined with ancient armour ; its 

 extensive domain, as viewed from the western front or 

 windows, gives a pretty good idea of what a feudal baron 

 was, and brings to recollection the deeds and character 

 of the last and most powerful of that class, whose name is 

 illustrious in our history as the King-maker, and is the 

 subject of one of the best productions of the best of 

 novelists ; ^ — the next day going to Stoneleigh Abbey, then 

 the seat of Chandos Leigh, Esq., who was afterwards 

 ennobled by the title of Lord Leigh, and still holds 

 possession of one of the most beautiful seats in the county 

 of Warwick. Afterwards I went to Kenilworth, now a 

 ruin, but to me not half so romantically situated or so 

 interesting as those of Corfe, although its history is rife 



' " The Last of the Barons." 



