chair,
sideboard, and table then in common use had been Sir Robert Walpole's
own. I wrote my letters one morning in his study, at his own writing
table, and using his own inkstand. The walls were lined with books, most
of them presents from his contemporaries, and some of them extremely
curious. I may mention one in particular. It related to the South Sea
Bubble, and contained what was practically a list of the largest
commercial fortunes existing then in England.

Other houses which in point of magnitude belong to the same group are
Stowe, with its frontage of more than a thousand feet, Hamilton Palace,
Wentworth Wodehouse, and Eaton. By those whose knowledge is greater than
mine, the list, in any case small, might, no doubt, be extended. I speak
here only of those at which I have myself stayed. But, in any case, no
one, however wealthy, would think of building on a similar scale now.
Their magnitude was useful only in days other than ours, when visitors
stayed for a month or six weeks at a time, and brought with them their
own carriages and the necessary grooms and coachmen. It is only on very
rare occasions that such houses could be even half filled to-day; and
they dwarf, rather than subserve, the only possible life that a
reasonable man could live in them. Blenheim impresses a visitor as
though it were built for giants. Alfred Montgomery, when staying for the
first time at Eaton, could not, on coming downstairs, find his way to
the breakfast room till he encountered a friend who guided him. "Good
God!" he exclaimed as he entered the desired apartment, "I don't want to
eat my breakfast in a cathedral." Mere magnitude, indeed, beyond a
certain point is not a luxury, but an oppression. The greatest private
dwelling ever erected in England is said to have been Audley End, when
its original builder completed it. James I said of it, "It is a house
fit only for a king"; and before it could be rendered habitable
three-fourths of it had to be pulled down. Such was the verdict of
experience on overbuilding in the past; and though many conditions have
changed, a similar practical criticism is occasionally being pronounced
to-day. Trentham is practically gone. Hamilton Palace, it is said, will
soon exist no longer.

When, however, we turn to genuine castles, pseudo-castles, or houses
which, large though many of them are, are small as compared with these,
my memory provides me with examples of them which are scattered all ove