mr. sponge's sporting tour. 143 



lected a vast quantity from all parts of the world (no easy feat in those 

 days), he made them heirlooms, and departed this life, leaving the 

 next earl the pleasure of contemplating them. The fifth earl having 

 duly starved through life, then made way for the sixth ; who, finding 

 such a quantity of valuables stowed away as he thought in rather a 

 confined way, sent to London for a firstrate architect, Sir Thomas 

 Squareall (who always posted with four horses), who forthwith pulled 

 down the old brick-and-stone Elizabethan mansion, and built the 

 present splendid Italian structure, of the finest polished stone, at an 

 expense of — furniture and all — say 120,000/. : Sir Thomas's estimates 

 being 30,000/. The seventh earl of course they starved ; and the 

 present lord, at the age of forty-three, found himself in possession of 

 house, and coins, and curiosities ; and, best of all, of some 90,000Z. in 

 the funds, which had quietly rolled up during the latter part of his 

 venerable parent's existence. His lordship then took counsel with 

 himself — first, whether he should marry or remain single ; secondly, 

 whether he should live or starve. Having considered the subject 

 with all the attention a limited allowance of brains permitted, he came 

 to the resolution that the second proposition depended a good deal 

 upon the first ; " for," said he to himself, " if I marry, my lady, per- 

 haps, may make me live ; and therefore," said he, " perhaps I'd bet- 

 ter remain single." At all events, he came to the determination not 

 to marry in a hurry ; and until he did, he felt there was no occasion 

 for him to inconvenience himself by living. So he had the house put 

 away in brown Holland, the carpets rolled up, the pictures covered, 

 the statues shrouded in muslin, the cabinets of curiosities locked, the 

 plate secured, the china closeted, and everything arranged with the 

 greatest care against the time, which he put before him in the dis- 

 tance like a target, when he should marry and begin to live. 



At first he gave two or three great dinners a-year about the height 

 of the fruit season, and when it was getting too ripe for carriage to 

 London by the old coaches — when a grand airing of the state-rooms 

 used to take place, and ladies from all parts of the country used to 

 sit shivering with their bare shoulders, all anxious for the honours of 

 the head of the table. His lordship always held out that he was a 

 marrying man ; but even -if he hadn't they would have come all the 

 same, an unmarried man being always clearly on the cards : and 

 though he was stumpy, and clumsy, and ugly, with as little to say for 

 himself as could well be conceived, they all agreed that he was a 

 most engaging, attractive man — quite a pattern of a man. Even on 

 horseback, and in his hunting clothes in which he looked far the best, 

 he was only a coarse, square, bull-headed looking man, with hard, dry, 

 round, matter-of-fact features, that never look yoimg, and yet some- 

 how never get old. Indeed, barring the change from brown to grey 

 of his short stubbly whiskers, which he trained with great care into a 

 curve almost on to his cheek bone, he looked very little older at the 



