to see! But the ruin of my
own country is, perhaps, all that I am destined to witness; and that
immense catastrophe (though I am strong in the faith that there is a
national lifetime of a thousand years in us yet) would serve any man
well enough as his final spectacle on earth.

If the visitor is inclined to carry away any little memorial of Warwick,
he had better go to an Old Curiosity Shop in the High Street, where
there is a vast quantity of obsolete gewgaws, great and small, and many
of them so pretty and ingenious that you wonder how they came to be
thrown aside and forgotten. As regards its minor tastes, the world
changes, but does not improve; it appears to me, indeed, that there have
been epochs of far more exquisite fancy than the present one, in matters
of personal ornament, and such delicate trifles as we put upon a
drawing-room table, a mantel-piece, or a what-not. The shop in question
is near the East Gate, but is hardly to be found without careful
search, being denoted only by the name of "REDFERN," painted not very
conspicuously in the top-light of the door. Immediately on entering, we
find ourselves among a confusion of old rubbish and valuables, ancient
armor, historic portraits, ebony cabinets inlaid with pearl, tall,
ghostly clocks, hideous old China, dim looking-glasses in frames of
tarnished magnificence,--a thousand objects of strange aspect, and
others that almost frighten you by their likeness in unlikeness to
things now in use. It is impossible to give an idea of the variety of
articles, so thickly strewn about that we can scarcely move without
overthrowing some great curiosity with a crash, or sweeping away some
small one hitched to our sleeves. Three stories of the entire house are
crowded in like manner. The collection, even as we see it exposed to
view, must have been got together at great cost; but the real treasures
of the establishment lie in secret repositories, whence they are not
likely to be drawn forth at an ordinary summons; though, if a gentleman
with a competently long purse should call for them, I doubt not that
the signet-ring of Joseph's friend Pharaoh, or the Duke of Alva's
leading-staff, or the dagger that killed the Duke of Buckingham, or
any other almost incredible thing, might make its appearance. Gold
snuff-boxes, antique gems, jewelled goblets, Venetian wine-glasses,
(which burst when poison is poured into them, and therefore must not be
used for modern wine-drinking,)