WE do not refer to the earlier families who held the title of Earls, &c., of Pembroke—those of Montgomery, of Clare, of Marshall, of De Valence, and of Hastings—as they, although the predecessors of the Herberts in the title, were not so in regard to the estates. It has been well said by Sir Bernard Burke that “the name of Pembroke, like the scutcheons and monuments in some time-honoured cathedral, cannot fail to awaken a thousand glorious recollections in the bosoms of all who are but tolerably read in English chronicles. Sound it, and no trumpet of ancient or modern chivalry would peal a higher war-note. It is almost superfluous to repeat that this is the family of which it has been so finely said, that ‘all the men were brave, and all the women chaste;’ and what nobler record was ever engraved upon the tomb of departed greatness?”

We commence our notes with William ap Thomas, whose ancestors traced back to Henry Fitz-Herbert, chamberlain to King Henry I. This Sir William ap Thomas (who was the son of Thomas ap Gwillim ap Jenkin, by his wife Maud, daughter and heiress of Sir John Morley, Knight, Lord of Raglan Castle) married Gladys, daughter of Sir Richard Gam, and widow of Sir Roger Vaughan, by whom he had three sons and a daughter. The eldest of these sons was “created Lord of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower, and commanded to assume the surname of Herbert, in honour of his ancestor,” the chamberlain to King Henry I., and afterwards Earl of Pembroke. “He was succeeded by his son, who renounced the earldom of Pembroke for that of Huntingdon, at the request of King Edward IV., that monarch being anxious to dignify his son, Prince Edward, with the title of Earl of Pembroke.

The honour, however, reverted to the Herberts in the reign of Edward VI., who conferred it upon Sir William Herbert.” This William Herbert, who had married Anne, sister of Queen Catherine Parr, was knighted by Henry VIII., and was appointed executor, or “conservator,” of the King’s will; and shared with Sir Anthony Denny the honour of riding to Windsor in the chariot with the royal corpse, when Henry’s ashes were committed to their final resting-place. By Edward VI. Sir William was elevated to the peerage by the titles of Baron Herbert of Cardiff and Earl of Pembroke. In 1551 his wife, the Countess of Pembroke, “died at Baynard’s Castle, and was carried into St. Paul’s in this order: first, there went an hundred poor men and women in mantle-freez gowns; next followed the heralds, and then the corse, about which were eight bannerels of armes, then came the mourners, lordes, knights, and gentlemen; after them the ladies and gentlewomen mourners, to the number of 200 in all; next came in coats 200 of her own and other servants. She was interred by the tomb of the Duke of Lancaster; and after, her banners were set up over her, and her armes set on divers pillars.” The Earl died March 17th, 1569-70, and was succeeded by his son Henry as Earl of Pembroke. This nobleman was thrice married; first, to Catherine, daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, from whom he was afterwards divorced; secondly, to Catherine, daughter of George, Earl of Shrewsbury; and, thirdly, to Mary Sidney, daughter to Sir Henry Sidney, Knight of the Garter, by his wife, the Lady Mary, daughter of John, Duke of Northumberland. This lady, the third wife of the Earl of Pembroke, was sister to one of the greatest of all great Englishmen—Sir Philip Sidney; and it was for her special delight that he, while visiting her at Wilton, wrote his inimitable “Arcadia.” By this lady the Earl of Pembroke had two sons, William and Philip, both of whom in turn succeeded to the earldom. The Countess, “Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,” “a principal ornament to the family of the Sidneys,” and of whom Spenser wrote that she was

“The gentlest shepherdess that liv’d that day,
And most resembling, both in shape and spirit,
Her brother dear,”

survived her husband some time, and at her death, which took place in 1621, that beautiful epitaph so often quoted, and as often erroneously ascribed to Ben Jonson, was penned by William Browne, and will bear again quoting here:—

“Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse;
Sidney’s sister! Pembroke’s mother!
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair, and learn’d, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee!
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name for after days;
Some kind woman, born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.”

William, third Earl of Pembroke under the new creation, eldest son of the Earl and of “Sidney’s sister,” succeeded to the title and estates on the death of his father in 1600-1. Of him Aubrey says, “He was of a most noble person, and the glory of the court in the reigne of King James and King Charles. He was handsome and of an admirable presence.

‘Gratior et pulchro veniens a corpore virtus.’

He was the greatest MecÆnas to learned men of any peer of his time—or since. He was very generous and open-handed. He gave a noble collection of choice bookes and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which remain there as an honourable monument of his munificence. ‘Twas thought, had he not been suddenly snatcht away by death, to the grief of all learned and good men, that he would have been a great benefactor to Pembroke College, in Oxford; whereas, there remains only from him a great piece of plate that he gave there. He was a good scholar, and delighted in poetrie; and did sometimes, for his diversion, write some sonnets and epigrammes which deserve commendation. Some of them are in print in a little book in 8vo., intituled ‘Poems writt by William, Earle of Pembroke, and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer, Knight, 1660.’”

His lordship married Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Gilbert, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury, by his countess, Mary, daughter of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, and his wife, Elizabeth Hardwick—“Bess of Hardwick”—afterwards Countess of Shrewsbury. By this marriage the Earl of Pembroke had two sons, who died in their infancy. Dying without surviving issue, he was succeeded in the title and estates by his brother, Philip Herbert, who thus became fourth Earl of Pembroke, and was shortly afterwards created Earl of Montgomery, and appointed Lord Chamberlain, Gentleman of the King’s Bed-chamber, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries. He was twice married: first, to Lady Susan Vere, daughter to the Earl of Oxford, by whom he had a numerous family; and, secondly, to Anne, daughter and heiress of George, Earl of Cumberland, and widow of Richard, Earl of Dorset.

Dying in 1649-51, the Earl was succeeded by his fourth but eldest surviving son, Philip, as Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. This nobleman married, first, Penelope, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Naunton; and, secondly, Catherine, daughter of Sir William Villiers, and, dying in 1669-70, was in his turn succeeded by the eldest son of his first marriage, William, who, dying unmarried, was succeeded by his half-brother, Philip (the son of his father by his second wife), who thus became seventh Earl of Pembroke, and fourth Earl of Montgomery. This nobleman married Henrietta de Querouaille, sister to the Duchess of Portsmouth, but dying without male issue, the title and estates devolved on his younger brother, Thomas, eighth Earl of Pembroke, who held distinguished offices under William III., Queen Anne, and George I., and was the founder of the noble collection of sculptures, &c., at Wilton. His lordship married three times, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry, as ninth earl, of whose taste Lord Orford says, “Besides his works at Wilton, the new lodge in Windsor Park, the Countess of Suffolk’s house at Marble Hill, Twickenham, the water house in Lord Orford’s park at Houghton, are incontestable proofs of his taste: it was more than taste, it was passion for the utility and honour of his country, that engaged his lordship to promote and assiduously overlook the construction of Westminster Bridge by the ingenious Monsieur Labeyle.”

He was succeeded in the title and estates by his son, Henry, as tenth Earl of Pembroke and Earl of Montgomery, who, marrying Elizabeth, second daughter of Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough, had issue one son and one daughter, and, dying in 1794, was succeeded by his son, George Augustus Herbert, as eleventh Earl of Pembroke, &c.

That nobleman married, first, in 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of Topham Beauclerk, Esq., son of Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and by her, who died in 1793, had issue the Lady Diana, married to the Earl of Normanton, and one son, Robert Henry, who succeeded him; and, secondly, in 1808, Catherine, daughter of Count Woronzow, the Russian ambassador, by whom he had issue one son, the Hon. Sidney Herbert, M.P., and Secretary for War, created, in 1861, Lord Herbert of Lea (which title has now merged into the earldom of Pembroke), and five daughters—viz. the Lady Elizabeth, married to the Earl of Clanwilliam; the Lady Mary Caroline; the Lady Catherine; the Lady Georgiana; and the Lady Emma. His lordship, dying in 1827, was succeeded by the son of his first marriage, Robert Henry Herbert, as twelfth Earl of Pembroke, &c. This nobleman was born in 1791, and married, in 1814, the Princess Octavia Spinelli, daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, and widow of the Sicilian Prince Buttera de Rubari, by whom he had no issue. He died in 1862, and (his half-brother, Sidney Herbert, Baron Herbert of Lea, the heir to the title, having died a few months before him) was succeeded by his nephew (the son of that honoured statesman), George Robert Charles Herbert, the present peer—the thirteenth earl—then a minor.

The Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, who was born in 1810, married, in 1846, Elizabeth, only daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Ashe A’Court, who survives him, and is the present Baroness Herbert of Lea. By her he had issue four sons and three daughters—viz. George Robert Charles Herbert, now Earl of Pembroke; Sidney, Lord Herbert, who is heir-presumptive to his brother, and was born in 1853; William Reginald Herbert, born in 1854; Michael Henry Herbert, born in 1857; Mary Catherine Herbert, born in 1849; Elizabeth Maude Herbert, born in 1851; and Constance Gwladys, born in 1859. Lord Herbert of Lea died in 1861, and was succeeded in that title by his eldest son, George Robert Charles Herbert, then eleven years of age, and who, eight months later, succeeded to the full family estates and earldom.

The present peer, the Right Hon. George Robert Charles, thirteenth Earl of Pembroke, Earl of Montgomery, Baron Herbert of Cardiff, Baron Herbert of Shurland, and Baron Herbert of Lea, Hereditary Visitor of Jesus College, Oxford, and High Steward of Wilton, was born July 6th, 1850, and succeeded his father as second Baron Herbert of Lea, in 1861, and his uncle as Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, &c., in 1862. His lordship, in 1874, married the Lady Gertrude Frances Talbot, daughter of the eighteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, and sister of the present earl.

The arms of the Earl of Pembroke are—party per pale, azure and gules, three lions rampant, argent. The crest is a wyvern, vert, holding in its mouth a sinister hand couped at the wrist, gules. The supporters are—dexter, a panther guardant, argent, incensed, spotted, or, vert, sable, azure, and gules alternately, ducally collared, azure; sinister, a lion, argent, ducally collared, or. Motto—“Ung je serviray.” The Earl is patron of twelve livings, ten of which are in Wiltshire, one in Dorsetshire, and one in Shropshire.

His lordship’s brothers and sisters, children of Lord Herbert of Lea, were, on his succeeding to the earldom, raised to the rank of earls’ children by royal warrant in 1862.

Wilton, a town of “great antiquity,” is situated at the conflux of the rivers Nadder and Willey, from the latter of which it is said to derive its name—“Willytown” or “Wilton:” “in Latin it is called Ellandunum.” The ancient Britons had one of their chief seats here; it was a capital of the West Saxons, and was undoubtedly famous long before the Norman Conquest. Afterwards it obtained renown from the number and importance of its monastic establishments. Leland informs us that it had over twelve parish churches. Of its abbey there are no remains. It was dissolved in the thirty-fifth year of King Henry VIII., and the site and buildings given to Sir William Herbert, afterwards created Earl of Pembroke; while from its relics Wilton House was principally built.[47]

Wilton House—one of the grandest and most beautiful in the kingdom, and the entrance to which adjoins the town—stands on the site of a monastery of Saxon foundation, which, on the dissolution, was levelled with the ground. As we have just intimated, no portion whatever of the monastic buildings remains, but there can be no doubt they were of considerable extent and importance. The mansion was built partly from the designs, it is said, of Hans Holbein, to whom is ascribed the porch, which, however, in the early part of the present century was much altered. “The garden front was built by M. Solomon de Caus in the reign of Charles I., and, having been destroyed by fire in 1648, was re-erected by Webb from plans which are presumed to have been furnished by Inigo Jones. In the commencement of the present century the house was considerably enlarged and remodelled by James Wyatt, R.A., one of the principal additions being the cloisters for the display and preservation of the magnificent collection of sculptures. The general plan of the house is a hollow square, the glazed cloister occupying the central space.”

In this Cloister, and in the Hall that leads to it, are the famous “marbles” which form so prominent a feature in the attractions of Wilton—statues, busts, bassi-relievi, urns, vases, fragments of various kinds—a wonderful assemblage of remains of Greece and Rome.[48] The collection was formed towards the close of the last century by Thomas, Earl of Pembroke, who purchased such of the Earl of Arundel’s collection as had been placed in the house, which were principally busts; to these he added many purchased at the dispersion of the Giustiniani collection of marbles, and also at the dispersion of the Mazarin collection, and from various other sources.

The Hall contains several statues; but its interest is derived from the many suits of armour by which it is adorned: they are chiefly trophies and memorials of the battle of St. Quentin, fought in 1557, in which the Earl of Pembroke commanded the forces of England. One of the suits was worn by the Earl, and two of them were, it is said, worn by the Constable Montmorency and the Duc de Montpensier, both taken prisoners at that eventful fight. A passage from the Hall leads to the Cloisters, from which, on either side, are entrances to the various apartments: these are furnished with judgment and taste, but their attractions are the pictures that adorn the walls.

The renowned “family picture” by Vandyke is beyond question the great painter’s masterpiece: it is 17 feet in length, by 11 feet in height, and fills one end of the drawing-room. It contains ten whole-length figures, the two principal of which are Philip, Earl of Pembroke, and his lady, Susan, daughter of Edward, Earl of Oxford. On the right stand their three sons, on the left their daughter and her husband, Robert, Earl of Carnarvon. Before them is Lady Mary, the wife of Charles, Lord Herbert, and above them, in the clouds, are two sons and a daughter who died young. It is a most grand and glorious work, the value of which is not to be estimated by money.

The room, which is called also the Cube Room, contains some thirteen other pictures, the productions of Vandyke.

Other of the great old masters are well represented in the several apartments of the mansion: many of them are, indeed, of great beauty and value.

We might occupy much space by printing a list of these pictures: they comprise a large number of the great Italian artists. They are, however, such as one usually meets in these palatial residences, and are thrown into comparative obscurity by the glorious assemblage of Vandykes.

In Lady Pembroke’s Summer Dressing-room there is a Gothic window by Price, “to whom Parliament granted £5,000 for having discovered the ancient method of staining glass.”

The house is made thoroughly comfortable as a home; it has never been abandoned by the family, but has been their continual residence. Everywhere, consequently, there is an aspect of thorough comfort. Grace, elegance, and indeed splendour, are sufficiently apparent, but the obvious study has long been to render the dwelling in all respects the abode of an English nobleman who loved to live among his own people. None will wonder at this who knew the late Lord Herbert of Lea, who so long and so continuously lived in that delightful home.

To the Gardens and Grounds of Wilton House we desire to direct the reader’s especial attention; they have been by no means left solely to the guardianship of Nature. Art has done much to give aid to the beauties of hill and dell, and river and wooded slopes and pasture-land. Immediately around the mansion the skill of the gardener is manifest: trim walks, and pastures, and summer-houses, and conservatories add to the natural grace and beauty of the scene. One garden especially, into which there is a passage from the Drawing-room, is very beautifully laid out, overlooked by a graceful arcade, in which are vases and busts, and to which, no doubt, the family and their guests often retreat to enjoy the bounties of free air and light among the adornments that are here so lavish.

A most picturesque and singularly beautiful bridge joins the park to the grounds, crossing the Nadder. It was built from a design by Palladio, and has an open Ionic colonnade. The park slopes up from the river; and in the grounds are some of the finest cedars to be seen in England.

Here, it is said, Sir Philip Sidney wrote the “Arcadia;” and the memorable book bears conclusive evidence that he drew much of his inspiration from these gardens and grounds. The book may be, as Milton styles it, “a vain amatorious poem;” but it is full of beautiful descriptions of Nature, and shows how dearly the chivalric writer really loved the natural and the true; and it demands no strong stretch of fancy to imagine Philip Sidney, accompanied by William Shakspere, Edmund Spenser, and Philip Massinger (he was born in the place, and probably in the house), walking among these now aged trees, along these embowered walks, and by the banks of the fair river that runs to enrich them as it did centuries ago:—

“And all without were walkes and alleys dight
With divers trees enrang’d in even rankes;
And here and there were pleasant arbors pight,
And shadie seates and sundry flowring bankes,
To sit and rest the walker’s wearie shankes.”

Yes; it is obviously to these grounds and gardens that reference is made in the “Arcadia:”—

“There were hilles which garnished their proud heights with stately trees; humble vallies whose base estate seemed comforted with refreshing of silver rivers; medowes enamel with all sortes of eypleasing floures; thickets, which, being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so too, by the cheerfull disposition of many well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheepe feeding with sober securitie, while the pretie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the dams’ comfort; here a shepheard’s boy piping as though he should neuer be old; there a young shepherdesse knitting and withall singing; and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her hands kept time to her voice’s musick.”

It is to-day as it was so long ago—when the sweetest of all the singers and the most heroic of all the cavaliers of old times had their healthy walks through these woods, and their poetic “talks” under the branches of these patrician trees—old then, and very old now. Truly Wilton is “a place for pleasantnesse,” and “not unfit for solitarinesse.”

“Gloriana”—Queen Elizabeth—did certainly visit this “chosen plot of fertile land;” partook of “a very fair and pleasant banquet” in this park; and from Wilton she carried away many rich gifts, including “a mermaid of gold, having a maid upon her back garnished with sparks of diamonds.”

From a queen to a man of genius, who was a good man, is not a long leap. What visitor to Wilton will forget the name of that George Herbert who was the humble and faithful servant of God—who did His work in this locality, and who, while he threw a line across the glistening Nadder (for he was the disciple as well as the friend of Izaak Walton), here wove those fancies into verse which after ages have not suffered to die?

And surely we may well close our notes on Wilton by quoting good old Izaak’s summary of the character of Lord Edward Herbert:—

“He was one of the handsomest men of his day, of a beauty alike stately, chivalric, and intellectual. His person and features were cultivated by all the disciplines of a time when courtly graces were not insignificant, because a monarch-mind informed the court, nor warlike customs rude or mechanical, for industrial nature had free play in the field, except as restrained by the laws of courtesy and honour. The steel glove became his hand, and the spur his heel; neither can we fancy him out of his place, for any place he would have made his own.”

There is yet another of the worthies of Wilton to claim and receive the homage of every visitor—the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, created Lord Herbert of Lea before his premature death. He did not outlive his brother, the Earl, but his son inherited the titles and estates, and is now, as we have stated, the thirteenth Earl of Pembroke.

There is a statue of Sidney Herbert, by Marochetti, in the Market-place at Salisbury; and a far better statue of him, by Foley, fronts the War Office in Pall Mall: it honours him as the Secretary of War, and makes record of some of his triumphs as the gentle and genial advocate of peace and Christian charity to all mankind. “Sidney Herbert,” says Mr. Hall, who was associated with him as one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Nightingale Fund, “seemed to me a copy, and without an atom deteriorated, of his renowned relative-predecessor, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. He lived in another age, and had to discharge very different duties; but there was the same heroic sentiment, the same high chivalry, the same generous sympathy with suffering, the same stern and steady resolve to right the wrong. It is not too much to say that what we may have imagined of the chivalry of a past age we have witnessed in our own: a gentleman who gave dignity to the loftiest rank; who thought it no condescension to be kind and courteous to the very humblest who approached him. To rare personal advantages he added those of large intellectual acquirements. He spoke, if not as an orator, with impressive eloquence; as a man of practical business, few were his superiors; he had the mind of a statesman, yet gave earnest and thoughtful care to all the minor details of life. His death was a public calamity.”

No one who visits Wilton—either the town or the mansion—will leave it without seeing and examining “the New Church,” of which we give an engraving. It was erected in 1844, at the cost of Sidney Herbert, the architects being F. H. Wyatt and D. Brandon. The style, as will be perceived, is that of the ordinary Romanesque. It is a singularly beautiful and very gorgeous structure, built without regard to expense: perhaps there is nothing more perfect, of its class, in the kingdom. The following details from a local newspaper give a technical description of this edifice:—

“The church is raised on a terrace with a noble flight of steps 100 feet long, and a platform 20 feet in width. The centre entrance of the east front forms an open-recessed porch within a rich archway, which contains four columns on each side. Over this centre entrance is a series of small circular-headed arches, forming a sort of exterior gallery at the back of the one within, and producing a good deal of relief and richness. Immediately above it is a very large rose window, of elaborate design, set within a square, whose spandrils are sculptured with the emblems of the four evangelists. The lofty campanile tower is connected with the south-east angle of the building by a vestibule or cloister, whose elaborately carved open arches and columns present a pleasing contrast to the breadth and solidity of the other parts. On the same side of the church, at the west end, is a projecting porch (or vestry), which naturally increases the play and picturesqueness of the composition. Upon entering the rich door in the east front, already described, we pass between two screens of twisted columns, dividing the gallery staircase from the centre porch. Immediately opposite to this entrance is placed the font, a massive structure of black and variegated Italian marble. It is carved with lions’ heads at the corners, and the basin is richly foliated. The pedestal is of white marble in panels, inlaid with vine-leaves in black marble. The whole is raised on a black marble plinth.... The pulpit is of stone, inlaid with panels of marble, and glittering with rich mosaic-work, having also four twisted columns wholly composed of ancient mosaic, and supported by the black marble columns with alabaster capitals. The roofing of the nave and aisles is of open timber-work, stained to imitate dark chestnut.... The height of the campanile is 100 feet; and in it are hung a peal of six bells, brought from the old church. The remaining dimensions are as under: from the western porch to the chancel apse, 120 feet; width, 53 feet; width of nave between the columns, 24 feet; height, 57 feet; aisles, 13 feet wide, and 24 feet high.”

One of the most interesting places in Wilton is the famous “Royal Axminster and Wilton Carpet Factory” of Messrs. Yates and Co., and this, through the courtesy of the proprietors, may be seen by visitors to this district. This manufactory, which occupies nearly two acres of ground and gives employment to nearly four hundred people, was the first place in England where carpets were made. A charter was granted in 1701, and other charters of 1706 and 1725 (by which the weavers were made a corporate body, with stewards, &c.) were also granted. By these all persons who were not members of the body of weavers were prevented from carrying on the same business within three miles of the borough of Wilton, stamped certificates, after seven years’ apprenticeship, being given by the corporation to such men as were elected by them. The carpets then made were naturally of a coarse and very inferior character to those produced after on. To Henry, ninth Earl of Pembroke and sixth Earl of Montgomery, of whom we have spoken in a preceding page, and who died in 1751, England is indebted for the introduction of the manufacture of superior descriptions of carpets. Like many of his ancestors, he was a man of refined taste, and spent large sums of money in adorning his mansion at Wilton. Lord Orford says of him, “The soul of Inigo Jones, who had been patronised by his ancestors, seems still to hover over its favourite Wilton, and to have assisted the muses of Art in the education of this noble person. The towers, the chambers, the scenes which Holbein, Jones, and Vandyke decorated, and which Earl Thomas had enriched with the spoil of the best ages, received the last touches of beauty from Earl Henry’s hand.” The Earl during his travels in Flanders and France had taken great interest in the carpet works of those countries, and he noticed the much more general use of this article of furniture there than in England, where it was then regarded as an exotic luxury, and the idea occurred to him that the manufacture might be established in England, so as to form a new industry, and be a source of employment to the poor. He therefore entered into arrangements with artists, superintendents, and a body of workmen; brought them to England about the year 1745; and settled them in Wilton—thus laying the foundation of that branch of manufacture which now in England surpasses by far that of any other country.

The productions of this famous historical factory, to which, years ago, the looms and trade from Axminster were transferred, are entirely hand-made, and in this particular the manufactory is the only one in existence in this kingdom. Carpets of various degrees of quality and of different descriptions are here made, but whether “Brussels,” “Saxony,” “Velvet-pile,” “Axminster,” or what not, all are “real hand-made,” and all of extreme excellence, both in design and in superiority of make. “Royal carpets” for Windsor Castle, for Buckingham Palace, and other abodes of royalty, may now and then be seen by the visitor in course of weaving, and many of these better-class carpets, which are an inch or more in thickness, and of the softness of down to the tread, are of the most gorgeous character in design and in brilliancy and arrangement of colours. A “Wilton carpet” indicates a high degree of refinement in furnishing, and its enduring quality gives it a strong recommendation.

Wilton House is within three miles of venerable Salisbury, six miles or so from Stonehenge, and some three or four miles from “Old Sarum;” the visitor may, therefore, with but little sacrifice of time, examine three of the most interesting of all the relics of ancient England, while Wilton itself may well be ranked as a fourth.

If we have cathedrals grander, more extensive, and more magnificent than that of Salisbury, we have none more graceful: “the singular uniformity displayed in its design and style, the harmony which pervades its several parts and proportions, and the striking air of brightness, simplicity, and elegance, that reigns throughout the whole, all conspire to invest it with a charm peculiarly its own; whilst the great elevation of its graceful spire renders it without exception the most lofty building in the kingdom.” Grace is, indeed, its especial attribute, and beauty has not been here “a fatal gift;” for the sacred edifice seems as perfect to-day as it was many centuries ago.

Stonehenge is near at hand; that wonderful assemblage of stones which tell us—nothing, defying even the guess-work of the antiquary, concerning which tradition is dumb; yet there they stand as they stood thousands of years ago, solitary in their solemn grandeur upon the plain where the grouse and hares are even now their only neighbours.

“Old Sarum” seems but a huge waste heap: it rises high above environing scenery; there are no dwellings on the “mound”—not even one where might have been registered the return to Parliament of the member by whom it was represented, until Reform arrested its chronicles, and swept it away as a city for ever.