a noble mansion. There seems
to have been a positive mania for pulling down houses at that period.
As I go over in my mind the existing great houses in this country, I
find that by far the greater number of the old houses were wantonly
destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some
other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at
Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of
the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: "When
an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at
parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old
house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more
perhaps from the old associations than from any particular
architectural merit the building may have." We have many pangs of
regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston,
where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the
lodge, and when leaving wrote on a window-shutter--

Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me;
Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!

may be instanced as an example of a demolished mansion. Nothing is now
left of it but the entrance-gates and a part of the stables. It was
pulled down in 1827. It is described as a fine mansion, possessing
secret chambers which were occupied by Roman Catholic priests when it
was penal to say Mass. One of these chambers was found to contain,
when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of
food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now
occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the "Wilderness"
behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the graves of
favourite dogs, which still bear the epitaphs written by Cowper on Sir
John Throckmorton's pointer and Lady Throckmorton's pet spaniel.
"Capability Brown" laid his rude, rough hand upon the grounds, but you
can still see the "prosed alcove" mentioned by Cowper, a wooden
summer-house, much injured

By rural carvers, who with knives deface
The panels, leaving an obscure rude name.

Sometimes, alas! the old house has to vanish entirely through old age.
It cannot maintain its struggle any longer. The rain pours through the
roof and down the insides of the walls. And the family is as decayed
as their mansion, and has no money wherewith to defray the cost of
reparation.

[Illustration: The