a long distance not only dry, but overgrown with trees which must have been a century old. Some of the grandest beeches I ever saw lined the walks above this deep ravine. And several of the largest trunks were fluted and twisted like some of the pillars in Durham Cathedral. At the head of the ravine and almost on a level with the bottom of it was a little stone cabin set into the side of the declivity, and called the "Hermitage." The cell had two apartments, and a tall man could scarcely stretch himself on the floor of either except diagonally. Here a fanatic, by name Smith, lived invisible for several years, and tested all the romance of a hermit's life in this damp, dark, miserable hole, when he emerged into the broad light of the sun and into the sight and companionship of his fellow-men. But he was succeeded in the tenancy of this wretched place by a poor weakly man with a wife and several children, who when lying down must have covered every square foot of the floor of both apartments. Here the poor man died, and was lifted up from among his pale and sickly children and carried to the common hermitage of the grave, and had as large space allotted to his last sleep as the lord of Tong Castle occupies in the churchyard.
The gateway of the park is one of the most elaborately carved works of the kind that I ever saw. The pillars and façade on each side must
