visible. The complete preservation and good condition of these statues,
even to the minutest adornment of the sculpture, and their very
noses,--the most vulnerable part of a marble man, as of a living one,
are miraculous. Except in Westminster Abbey, among the chapels of the
kings, I have seen none so well preserved. Perhaps they owe it to the
loyalty of Oxfordshire, diffused throughout its neighborhood by the
influence of the University, during the great Civil War and the rule
of the Parliament. It speaks well, too, for the upright and kindly
character of this old family, that the peasantry, among whom they had
lived for ages, did not desecrate their tombs, when it might have been
done with impunity.

There are other and more recent memorials of the Harcourts, one of which
is the tomb of the last lord, who died about a hundred years ago. His
figure, like those of his ancestors, lies on the top of his tomb, clad,
not in armor, but in his robes as a peer. The title is now extinct,
but the family survives in a younger branch, and still holds this
patrimonial estate, though they have long since quitted it as a
residence.

We next went to see the ancient fish-ponds appertaining to the mansion,
and which used to be of vast dietary importance to the family in
Catholic times, and when fish was not otherwise attainable. There are
two or three, or more, of these reservoirs, one of which is of very
respectable size,--large enough, indeed, to be really a picturesque
object, with its grass-green borders, and the trees drooping over
it, and the towers of the castle and the church reflected within the
weed-grown depths of its smooth mirror. A sweet fragrance, as it were,
of ancient time and present quiet and seclusion was breathing all
around; the sunshine of to-day had a mellow charm of antiquity in its