A Filbert Walk. 77 



despite their prickl}- leaves, are favorites with gar- 

 den birds. It would be possible, I think, to so plan 

 out a garden as to attract almost every feathered 

 creature. 



A fine old filbert walk extends far awa^^ towards 

 the orchard : the branches meet overhead. In 

 autumn the fruit hangs thick ; and what is more 

 exquisite, when gathered from the bough and eaten, 

 as all fruit should be, on the spot? I cannot under- 

 stand why filbert walks are not planted by our 

 modern capitahsts, who make nothing of spending 

 a thousand pounds in forcing-houses. I cannot help 

 thinking that true taste consists in the selection of 

 what is thoroughly characteristic of soil and climate. 

 Those magnificent j-ew hedges, the filbert walk — all 

 in fact are to be levelled " to make way for a garish 

 stucco-fronted hunting-box, with staring red stables 

 and every modern convenience. The sun-dial shaft 

 is already heaved up and broken. 



The old mansion was used as a grammar school 

 for a great man}' j^ears, but has been deserted for 

 the last quarter of a century ; and melancholy indeed 

 are the silent hollow halls and dormitories. The 

 whitewashed walls are yellow and green from damp, 

 and covered in patches with saltpetre efflorescence ; 

 but they still bear the hasty inscriptions scrawled 

 on them hy boyish hands — some far back in the 

 eighteenth century. The history of this little king- 

 dom, with its dynasties of tutors and masters, its 

 succeeding generations of joyous youth, might be 

 gathered from these writings on the walls : sketches 

 in burned stick or charcoal of extinct monarchs of 

 the desk ; rude doggerel verses ; curious jingles of 



