372 Qtieries and Answers. 



eloquent passage in your own favourite newspaper, the Scotsman, which I 

 extract, thinking it well worth a place in your Magazine : — "I sometimes 

 wonder how rich men, who can live where they please, after having once 

 enjoyed the glories of mountain scenery, should choose to live in the 

 interminable flats of Lincoln or Cambridgeshire. To dwell in a plain, 

 without visible boundaries, affects me as if I were left at large in the world 

 without a home j and to nestle in a wooded spot, where the eye cannot 

 penetrate a mile in any direction, gives me a feeling of being imprisoned 

 or smothered. This, I own, is a matter of taste ; but the superior advan- 

 tages which a mountain offers for exercise are great and palpable." {Scots- 

 man, Aug. 1. 1829.) I am, Sir, yours, &c. — John Robert Lawrence. 

 Aberdeen, Dec. 30. 1831. 



Art. VI. Queries and Answers. 



A certain Irish Mansion (fig. 35. p. 91.). — The singular edifice of 

 which a drawing is given in p. 91., stood at Ballyscullion, in the county of 

 Londonderry, and was erected by Lord Bristol, then bishop of that diocese. 

 A figure and description of both the interior and exterior, but which I do 

 not consider of sufficient importance to occupy your pages, will be found 

 in the Rev. Mr. Sampson's Statistical Survey of the County of Londonderry. 

 The situation of this house was extremely ill-chosen, and notwithstanding 

 the immense sum that was expended in erecting it, and that it was 

 furnished in a style of Oriental splendour, Sir Harvey Bruce, to whom it 

 was bequeathed, wisely abandoned it for a less imposing but more rational 

 mansion. The portico of Ballyscullion House is now the portico of one 

 of the churches in Belfast ; and some splendid foreign marble columns and 

 chimney-pieces, which were brought from it, may be seen in the Bishop 

 of Meath's house at Portglenone. In this way the whole has been trans- 

 ported to one place or other, and not a vestige remains to mark the spot 

 where, like the builders of the tower of Babel of old, the Bishop of 

 Deny fondly imagined he was establishing for himself a name. " Sic transit 

 gloria mundi! " — E. Murphy. Dublin, Feb. 7. 1832. 



Sir, Lord Bristol's mansion, Ickworth, near Bury St. Edmunds, is upon 

 the plan indicated in your engraving (p. 91.), though it does not agree with 

 it in all its details. When I saw it in 1821, the body of the house only 

 was erected ; but the foundation of the wings indicated a plan as nearly as 

 possible agreeing with that in the drawing. The history I then learned 

 respecting it was this, that it was built in imitation of an Italian villa, 

 after a plan sent over from Italy, by the late. Lord Bristol, who was 

 bishop of Deny, and who, residing almost entirely abroad, spent a great 

 part of the revenues of the see in works of taste and fancy. I was told 

 also that he had had two other mansions erected in Ireland, upon exactly 

 the same plan ; that Ickworth was the last of the three ; and that he 

 himself had never seen any of them. Ickworth was intended to be the 

 principal of these three mansions ; but a vessel, containing rich marble and 

 other ornaments, purchased in Italy, and intended for it, having been 

 taken by one of Napoleon's ships, the building itself was not proceeded 

 in beyond the erection of the walls and roof, till the present Lord Bristol 

 commenced fitting up some of the rooms a few years since. What pro- 

 gress has been made since the visit I paid it in 1821, 1 have not learned.' — 

 S. R. B. Feb. 1832. 



Salt as a Destroyer of Weeds. — I should be glad to know if any of your 

 readers has tried what quantity of salt will destroy all the perennial-rooted 

 weeds, and how long it will be before the soil can be cropped with safety ? 

 Also, what vegetable or fruit will be most suitable for the first crop ? I 

 am, Sir, yours, &c. — A Friend to Enquiry. March 26. 1832. 



