[1] Gough's Camden.

The present mansion is partly ancient, and partly modern, and was very
lately the property of Sir William Curtis, Bart. Up to the period at
which the castle is represented in the engraving, the building must have
undergone many alterations, as the tower on the left, and the two
octagonal and centre towers, will prove. The grounds there appear laid
out in the trim fashion of the seventeenth century, and ornamented with
fountains, vases, &c.


* * * * *

NEW YEAR'S CUSTOM.

_(For the Mirror.)_


BROMLEY PAGETS, Staffordshire, is 129 miles from London, and is a pretty
town on the skirts of Derbyshire. This place is remarkable, or was
lately, for a sport on New Year's Day and Twelfth Day, called _The
Hobby-Horse Dance_, from a person who rode upon the image of a horse,
with a bow and arrow in his hands, with which he made a snapping noise,
and kept time to the music, while six men danced the hay and other
country dances, with as many deer's heads on their shoulders. To this
hobby-horse belonged a pot, which the reeves of the town kept filled
with cakes and ale, towards which the spectators contributed a penny,
and with the remainder they maintained their poor and repaired the
church.