t. But honest Hugh was, like ourselves, on the ramble; so
we had nothing to do but to drive back to Derby, and from thence to
Tamworth, where we slept.

_April 7_.--We visited the Castle in the morning. It is inhabited by a
brother-in-law of the proprietor; and who is the proprietor? "Why, Mr.
Robbins," said the fat housekeeper. This was not a name quite according
with the fine chivalrous old hall, in which there was no small quantity
of armour, and odds and ends, which I would have been glad to possess.
"Well, but madam, before Mr. Robbins bought the place, who was the
proprietor?" "Lord Charles Townshend, sir." This would not do neither;
but a genealogy hanging above the chimney-piece informed me that the
Ferrars were the ancient possessors of the mansion, which, indeed, the
horseshoes in the shield over the Castle gate might have intimated.
Tamworth is a fine old place, neglected, but, therefore, more like hoar
antiquity. The keep is round. The apartments appear to have been
modernised _tempore_ Jac. I'mi. There was a fine demipique saddle,
said to have been that of James II. The pommel rose, and finished off in
the form of a swan's crest, capital for a bad horseman to hold on by.

To show Anne what was well worth seeing, we visited Kenilworth. The
relentless rain only allowed us a glimpse of this memorable ruin. Well,
the last time I was here, in 1815,[160] these trophies of time were
quite neglected. Now they approach so much nearer the splendour of
Thunder-ten-tronckh, as to have a door at least, if not windows. They
are, in short, preserved and protected. So much for the novels. I
observed decent children begging here, a thing uncommon in England: and
I recollect the same unseemly practice formerly.

We went to Warwick Castle. The neighbourhood of Leamington, a
watering-place of some celebrity, has obliged the family to decline
showing the Castle after ten o'clock. I tried the virtue of an old
acquaintance with Lord Warwick and wrote to him, he being in the
Courthouse where the assizes were sitting. After some delay we were
admitted, and I found my old friend Mrs. Hume, in the most perfect
preservation, though, as she tells me, now eighty-eight. She went
through her duty wonderfully, though now and then she complained of her
memory. She has laid aside a mass of black plumes which she wore on her
head, and which resembled the casque in the Castle of Otranto. Warwick
Castle is still the noblest sight in England.