writings.

BLAKESMOOR IN H-----SHIRE

I do not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at will
over the deserted apartments of some fine old family mansion. The
traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better passion than envy: and
contemplations on the great and good, whom we fancy in succession
to have been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible
with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vanities of foolish present
aristocracy. The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us
between entering an empty and a crowded church. In the latter it is
chance but some present human frailty--an act of inattention on the
part of some of the auditory--or a trait of affectation, or worse,
vain-glory, on that of the preacher--puts us by our best thoughts,
disharmonising the place and the occasion. But would'st thou know the
beauty of holiness?--go alone on some week-day, borrowing the keys of
good Master Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some country church:
think of the piety that has kneeled there--the congregations, old
and young, that have found consolation there--the meek pastor--the
docile parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross conflicting
comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the place, till thou thyself
become as fixed and motionless as the marble effigies that kneel and
weep around thee.

Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going some few miles
out of my road to look upon the remains of an old great house with
which I had been impressed in this way in infancy. I was apprised that
the owner of it had lately pulled it down; still I had a vague notion
that it could not all have perished, that so much solidity with
magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into the mere
dust and rubbish which I found it.

The work of ruin had proceeded with a swift hand indeed, and the
demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to--an antiquity.

I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. Where had stood
the great gates? What bounded the court-yard? Whereabout did the
out-houses commence? a few bricks only lay as representatives of that
which was so stately and so spacious.

Death does not shrink up his human victim at this rate. The burnt
ashes of a man weigh more in their proportion.

Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their process of
destruction, at the plucking of every pannel I should have felt the
varlets at my heart. I should have cried out to t