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 John Thorpe that I have no hesitation in putting it down to his creative genius. He was beyond all doubt the greatest architect of the Elizabethan age; it was he who designed the glorious mansions of Burleigh "by Stamford town," Longford Castle, Wollaton Hall, most probably Hardwicke Hall, Holland House, and many other notable and picturesque piles, not to forget Kirby in Northants, now, alas! a splendid ruin, which we shall visit on our homeward way.

Writing of the stately homes of England, it seems to me that the stones of England have their story to tell as well as the "Stones of Venice," over which Ruskin goes into such raptures. Why is it ever thus, that other lands seem more attractive than our own; wherein lies the virtue of the faraway? Who will do for Old England at our own doors what Ruskin has so lovingly done for Venice of the past? What a song in stone is Salisbury's splendid cathedral, with its soaring spire rising like an arrow into the air; what a poem is Tintern's ruined abbey by the lovely Wye-side; what a romance in building is Haddon's feudal Hall; what a picture is Compton Wynyates' moated manor-*house! and these are but well-known specimens, jotted down hastily and at haphazard, of countless other such treasures, that are scattered all over our pleasant land in picturesque profusion, but which I will not attempt to enumerate catalogue fashion.

Between Hatfield and Welwyn I find no mention of the country in my note-book, nor does my memory in any way call it to mind; the scenery,