This is large, the walls massy; they form the allies of a garden, and the rooms, the beds; the whole display the remains of excellent workmanship.  One may nearly guess at a man’s consequence, even after a lapse of 500 years, by the ruins of his house.

The steward told me, “they pulled down the walls as they wanted the stone.”  Unfeeling projectors:  there is not so much to pull down.  Does not time bring destruction fast enough without assistance?  The head which cannot contemplate, offers its hand to destroy.  The insensible taste, unable itself to relish the dry fruits of antiquity, throws them away to prevent another.  May the fingers smart which injure the venerable walls of Dudley, or of Kenilworth.  Noble remains of ancient grandeur! copious indexes, that point to former usage!  We survey them with awful pleasure.  The mouldering walls, as if ashamed of their humble state, hide themselves under the ivies; the generous ivies, as if conscious of the precious relics, cover them from the injuries of time.

When land frequently undergoes a conveyance, necessity, we suppose, is the lot of the owner, but the lawyer fattens:  To have and to hold are words of singular import; they charm beyond music; are the quintessence of language; the leading figure in rhetoric.  But how would he fare if land was never conveyed?  He must starve upon quarrels.

Instances may be given of land which knows no title, except those of conquest and descent:  Weoley Castle comes nearly under this description. To sign, seal, and deliver, were wholly unknown to our ancestors.  Could a Saxon freeholder rise from the dead, and visit the land, once his own, now held by as many writings as would half spread over it, he might exclaim, “Evil increases with time, and parchment with both.  You deprive the poor of their breeches; I covered the ground with sheep, you with their skins; I thought, as you were at variance with France, Spain, Holland, and America, those numerous deeds were a heap of drum heads, and the internal writing, the articles of war.  In one instance, however, there is a similarity between us; we unjustly took this land from the Britons, you as unjustly took it from us; and a time may come, when another will take it from you.  Thus, the Spaniards founded the Peruvian empire in butchery, now tottering towards a fall; you, following their example, seized the northern coast of America; you neither bought it nor begged it, you took it from the natives; and thus your children, the Americans, with equal violence, have taken it from you:  No law binds like that of arms.  The question has been, whether they shall pay taxes? which, after a dispute of eight years, was lost in another, to whom they shall pay taxes?  The result, in a future day will be, domestic struggles for sovereignty will stain the ground with blood.”

When the proud Norman cut his way to the throne, his imperious followers seized the lands, kicked out the rightful possessors, and treated them with a dignity rather beneath that practiced to a dog.—­This is the most summary title yet discovered.