he best society, and
became very intimate with Earl Cowper, first husband of the well-known
Lady Palmerston, and at his death bequeathed Sandringham to the
Honorable Spencer Cowper, that nobleman's younger son, who married
Lady Blessington's stepdaughter, Lady Harriet Gardiner, after her
divorce from Count d'Orsay. When the prince of Wales was casting round
for a country-seat, Sandringham was selected. Lord Palmerston was then
in office, and some ill-natured things were said as to the sale of his
stepson's place having been a much better thing for Mr. Cowper than
for the prince of Wales. Vast sums have since been spent here.

Where a deer-park has long existed on his paternal estate, it goes
to an Englishman's heart to give it up. An incident in point occurred
about twenty years ago. In a secluded part of Devonshire, approached
by the narrow, high-hedged, tortuous lanes characteristic of that part
of the country, stands a magnificent old Tudor mansion known as Great
Fulford Hall. Here for upward of six hundred years have been seated
the Fulfords, a family of Saxon origin, the rivals of the Tichbornes
in antiquity. The mansion of Fulford was garrisoned by Charles I., and
taken by a detachment of Cromwell's army in 1645. The marks they left
behind them may be seen to this day. The Fulfords have supporters to
their arms, a very rare circumstance in the case of commoners. These
supporters are two Saracens, and were granted in consideration of
services in the Crusades. "Sir Baldwin de Fulford fought a combat
with a Saracen, for bulk and bigness an unequal match (as the
representation of him cut in the wainscot at Fulford doth plainly
shew), whom yet he vanquished, and rescued a lady." This gentleman's
granddaughter was the mother of Henry VIII.'s favorite, Russell, first
earl of Bedford, and the Fulfords are connected with a hundred other
ancient and honorable houses. But for a long time the heads of the
house have failed "to marry money;" and when this happens for two
or three generations in the case of a country gentleman with a large
family to portion off, the result must usually be impecuniosity. Thus,
when the late Mr. Fulford succeeded to the family property in 1847,
he found himself the owner of a majestic old dilapidated mansion,
surrounded by a deer-park, which had been gradually growing less until
the portion of the park devoted to this purpose was little more than a
big field.

Like his ancestor in the time of "