ible
oaken framework, showing the whole skeleton of the house,--as if a man's
bones should be arranged on his outside, and his flesh seen through the
interstices) is often imitated by modern builders, and with sufficiently
picturesque effect. The objection is, that such houses, like all
imitations of by-gone styles, have an air of affectation; they do not
seem to be built in earnest; they are no better than playthings, or
overgrown baby-houses, in which nobody should be expected to encounter
the serious realities of either birth or death. Besides, originating
nothing, we leave no fashions for another age to copy, when we ourselves
shall have grown antique.

Old as it looks, all this portion of Warwick has overbrimmed, as it
were, from the original settlement, being outside of the ancient wall.
The street soon runs under an arched gateway, with a church or some
other venerable structure above it, and admits us into the heart of
the town. At one of my first visits, I witnessed a military display. A
regiment of Warwickshire militia, probably commanded by the Earl, was
going through its drill in the market-place; and on the collar of one of
the officers was embroidered the Bear and Ragged Staff, which has been
the cognizance of the Warwick earldom from time immemorial. The soldiers
were sturdy young men, with the simple, stolid, yet kindly, faces of
English rustics, looking exceedingly well in a body, but slouching into
a yeoman-like carriage and appearance, the moment they were dismissed
from drill. Squads of them were distributed everywhere about the
streets, and sentinels were posted at various points; and I saw a
sergeant, with a great key in his hand, (big enough to have been the key
of the castle's main entrance when the gate was thickest and heaviest,)
apparently setting a guard. Thus, centuries after feudal times are
past, we find warriors still gathering under the old castle-walls, and
commanded by a feudal lord, just as in the days of the King-Maker, who,
no doubt, often mustered his retainers in the same market-place where I
beheld this modern regiment.

The interior of the town wears a less old-fashioned aspect than the
suburbs through which we approach it; and the High Street has shops with
modern plate-glass, and buildings with stuccoed fronts, exhibiting as
few projections to hang a thought or sentiment upon as if an architect
of to-day had planned them. And, indeed, so far as their surface goes,
they are p