e as it was, would still have been
one of beauty in decay, had the work of destruction been wrought by
"Time's defacing fingers" only; but man's more desecrating touch was too
perceptible there; and, independently of peculiar circumstances and
associations, there is a wide difference between the pleasing melancholy
which loves to meditate among ivied and moss-grown ruins, and that
painful feeling with which we contemplate the newness of untimely
desolation. It was a ghastly sight even to a stranger's eye, that of the
gaping void left along one entire side of the little garden by the
demolition of the old mansion; and the dreary effect of that blank
exposure was not a little heightened by the contrasting incongruity of
the prospect beyond, where the great gateway to what had been the
principal entrance-court stood perfectly isolated and entire. The
beautiful gate of iron open work closed between the massy side-pillars,
on each of which the lion couchant of the Devereuxs still kept watch and
ward as proudly as when that gate had unclosed in the last reign of the
Tudors to admit a royal visitant and her courtly train.

On either side, the ballustraded wall was wholly removed, so that the
eye ranged on, unimpeded but by the solitary gateway, down a triple
avenue of magnificent elms, in whose tall tops the dark people, who from
generation to generation had built there unmolested, were fast
assembling for the night; the mingled sounds of their hoarse cawing, and
the rustling of innumerable wings, adding in no slight degree to the
impressive sadness of that scene and hour.

We were now standing on the lime and brick-strewn site of what (L----
informed me) had been the Library. All around us, the vaults and
cellarage below were laid open to view through the bare rafters, from
whence the flooring and pavement had been removed; but the boards were
not yet torn up from that one small spot--so small in its unwalled
exposure, which had been so recently an apartment of noble dimensions,
furnished with the collected wisdom of successive ages! At one end it
was of those few square yards of flooring, that a part of the gable,
including a stack of chimneys, was still standing. We stood on the
hearthstone of what had been the Library fireplace; and high above us,
in the naked wall, yawned a corresponding aperture, belonging to the
upper chamber, which had been Mr Devereux's bedroom, the flooring of
which had been rent away with the side