tially embosomed in an
immemorial wood of the same timber, which had given its name to the
family that dwelt amongst its rook-haunted shades. Descending the
avenue, at the point of access afforded by a road that wound down the
hill-side, towards a village distant about half a mile, as you advanced,
the eye was first arrested by a singular octagonal turret of brick, of
more recent construction than the house; and in all probability
occupying the place where the gateway stood of yore. This tower rose to
a height corresponding with the roof of the mansion; and was embellished
on the side facing the house with a flamingly gilt dial, peering, like
an impudent observer, at all that passed within doors. Two apartments,
which it contained, were appropriated to the house-porter. Despoiled of
its martial honors, the gateway still displayed the achievements of the
family--the rook and the fatal branch--carved in granite, which had
resisted the storms of two centuries, though stained green with moss,
and mapped over with lichens. To the left, overgrown with ivy, and
peeping from out a tuft of trees, appeared the hoary summit of a
dovecot, indicating the near neighborhood of an ancient barn,
contemporary with the earliest dwelling-house, and of a little world of
offices and outbuildings buried in the thickness of the foliage. To the
right was the garden--the pleasaunce of the place--formal, precise,
old-fashioned, artificial, yet exquisite!--for commend us to the
bygone, beautiful English garden--_really a garden_--not that mixture of
park, meadow, and wilderness[3], brought up to one's very
windows--which, since the days of the innovators, Kent, and his "bold
associates," Capability Brown and Co., has obtained so largely--this
_was_ a garden! There might be seen the stately terraces, such as
Watteau, and our own Wilson, in his earlier works, painted--the trim
alleys exhibiting all the triumphs of topiarian art--

_The sidelong walls
Of shaven yew; the holly's prickly arms,
Trimm'd into high arcades; the tonsile box,
Wove in mosaic mode of many a curl,
Around the figured carpet of the lawn;_[4]

the gayest of parterres and greenest of lawns, with its admonitory
sun-dial, its marble basin in the centre, its fountain, and conched
water-god; the quaint summer-house, surmounted with its gilt vane; the
statue, glimmering from out its covert of leaves; the cool cascade, the
urns, the bowers, and a hu