-away Norfolk life; except that his hospitalities
were more bounded by want of room, his life at Northrepps was much the
same as it had been at Cromer Hall. It is one of the pleasures of my
life that I have heard Sir Thomas speak. In modern England the influence
of the Buxton family and name is yet a power.

Having already alluded to the Windhams and Felbrigg, it remains to say
that the last of that illustrious line died in 1810. Felbrigg was
purchased by the Windhams as far back as 1461. The public life of
Windham, the statesman, may be considered as having commenced in 1783,
when he undertook the office of Principal Secretary to Lord Northington,
who was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The great Marquis of
Lansdowne, when he was last at Felbrigg, in 1861, said Mr. Windham had
the best Parliamentary address of any man he had ever seen, which was
enhanced by the grace of his person and the dignity of his manners.
Still more glowing was the testimony borne to Mr. Windham by Earl Grey
when he heard of his death. A mere glance at his diary is sufficient to
convince us that Windham, when in London, mixed with the first men and
women of his time. The late Lord Chief Justice Scarlett, on being asked
by his son-in-law to name the very best speech he had heard during his
life, and that which he thought most worthy of study, answered, without
hesitation, 'Windham's speech on the Law of Evidence.' In a conversation
with Lord Palmerston, Pitt observed of Windham: 'Nothing can be so
well-meaning or eloquent as he is. His speeches are the finest
productions possible of warm imagination and fancy.' In 1800 we read in
the Malmesbury Diaries that old George III. had meant Windham to be his
First Minister. As a friend of Burke and Johnson, Windham's name will
not easily fade away. It is to him we owe the most pathetic account of
the closing hours of the Monarch of Bolt Court.

Sir Cloudesley Shovel may well claim to be one of Norfolk's heroes. Born
in an obscure village, an apprentice to a shoemaker, he obtained rank and
fame as one of Queen Anne's most honoured Admirals. It is denied that he
was in very humble circumstances, and it is a fact that his original
letters were so well worded as to indicate that he had received a fair
education. At any rate, he went to sea at ten years old with his friend
Sir John Hadough; and although not a cabin-boy in the modern acceptation
of that term, he undertook his captain's err