such the tardiness of its progress, that it is
about as much as he will do to live till its completion; and as
he is not married, has no children, and dislikes the heir on whom
his property is entailed, it is the means and not the end to
which he looks for gratification. He says that it is his
amusement, as hunting or shooting or feasting may be the objects
of other people; and as the pursuit leads him into all parts of
the world, and to mix with every variety of nation and character,
besides engendering tastes pregnant with instruction and curious
research, it is not irrational, although he should never inhabit
his house, and may be toiling and saving for the benefit of
persons he cares nothing about. The cottages round Harlaxton are
worth seeing. It has been his fancy to build a whole village in
all sorts of strange fantastic styles. There are Dutch and Swiss
cottages, every variety of old English, and heaps of nondescript
things, which appear only to have been built for variety's sake.
The effect is extremely pretty. Close to the village is an old
manor house, the most perfect specimen I ever saw of such a
building, the habitation of an English country gentleman of
former times, and there were a buff jerkin and a pair of jack
boots hanging up in the hall, which the stout old Cavalier of the
seventeenth century (and one feels sure that the owner of that
house was a Cavalier) had very likely worn at Marston Moor or
Naseby.

[24] The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Salisbury,
Lord Exeter, Lord Wilton, Lady Adeliza Manners, Lords
Aberdeen, FitzGerald, J. Manners, and myself.

[Page Head: LIFE AT BELVOIR.]

To-day (the cook told me) nearly four hundred people will dine in
the Castle. We all went into the servants' hall, where one
hundred and forty-five retainers had just done dinner and were
drinking the Duke's health, singing and speechifying with
vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never
knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall,
but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of
the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of
eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head
coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian
brows are adorned with an ample flaxen wig, which is the peculiar
distinction of the functionaries of the whip. I should like to
bring the surly Radical here who scowls