BIOGRAPHY. 37 



Gentry/' raost of them in the style satirized by Hogarth 

 in his " Marriage h la Mode." 



In fact, the architecture of that era is on a par with the 

 classical costumes of the stage. I have possessed for 

 many years a volume of Shakspeare in which there is a 

 portrait of an actor in the part of Troilus. He is 

 classically costumed as a Trojan in a tight scale cuirass, 

 a short cloak, knee breeches and silk stockings, Eoman 

 buskins, a tie wig, a helmet with a vast plume of ostrich 

 feathers, and he is bidding defiance to Diomedes with a 

 toy Moorish sword which would hardly cut off the head 

 of a wax doll. 



So if Waterton had desired architectural magnificence, 

 he could not have obtained it, except by pulling the 

 house down, and building another. But, he had no taste 

 for such magnificence, his life being one of rigid, not to say 

 severe, simplicity. 



His personal expenses were such as could have been 

 covered by the wages of one of the labourers on his own 

 estate. His single room had neither bed nor carpet. He 

 always lay on the bare boards with a blanket wrapped 

 round him, and with an oaken block by way of a pillow. 

 As has been mentioned, he never touched fermented liquids 

 of any kind, and he took but very little meat. 



When I knew him, he always retired to his room 

 at 8 P.M. Few men of his age would have chosen a 

 room at the very top of a large house; but stairs were 

 nothing to Waterton, whose limbs were strengthened by 

 perpetual tree climbing. Punctually at three A.M., being 

 roused by the crowing of a huge Cochin China cock, which 

 he called his ' morning gun,' he rose from his plank couch, 

 lighted his fire, lay down for half an hour, and was always 

 dressed and closely, or as he called it, ' clean ' shaven, by 

 four, when he went into the private chapel which was 



