brick walls, slate roof, ungainly stunted chimney, and note the difference.  Usually these modern cottages are built in a row, each one exactly like its fellow, with door and window frames exactly alike, brought over ready-made from Norway or Sweden.  The walls are thin, and the winds of winter blow through them piteously, and if a man and his wife should unfortunately “have words” (the pleasing country euphemism for a violent quarrel) all their neighbours can hear them.  The scenery is utterly spoilt by these ugly eyesores.  Villas at Hindhead seem to have broken out upon the once majestic hill like a red skin eruption.  The jerry-built villa is invading our heaths and pine-woods; every street in our towns is undergoing improvement; we are covering whole counties with houses.  In Lancashire no sooner does one village end its mean streets than another begins.  London is ever enlarging itself, extending its great maw over all the country round.  The Rev. Canon Erskine Clarke, Vicar of Battersea, when he first came to reside near Clapham Junction, remembers the green fields and quiet lanes with trees on each side that are now built over.  The street leading from the station lined with shops forty years ago had hedges and trees on each side.  There were great houses situated in beautiful gardens and parks wherein resided some of the great City merchants, county families, the leaders in old days of the influential “Clapham sect.”  These gardens and parks have been covered with streets and rows of cottages and villas; some of the great houses have been pulled down and others turned into schools or hospitals, valued only at the rent of the land on which they stand.  All this is inevitable.  You cannot stop all this any more than Mrs. Partington could stem the Atlantic tide with a housemaid’s mop.  But ere the flood has quite swallowed up all that remains of England’s natural and architectural beauties, it may be useful to glance at some of the buildings that remain in town and country ere they have quite vanished.

[Illustration:  Mill Street, Warwick]

Beneath the shade of the lordly castle of Warwick, which has played such an important part in the history of England, the town of Warwick sprang into existence, seeking protection in lawless times from its strong walls and powerful garrison.  Through its streets often rode in state the proud rulers of the castle with their men-at-arms—­the Beauchamps, the Nevilles, including the great “King-maker,” Richard Neville, the Dudleys, and the Grevilles.  They contributed to the building of their noble castle, protected the town, and were borne to their last resting-place in the fine church, where their tombs remain.  The town has many relics of its lords, and possesses many half-timbered graceful houses.  Mill Street is one of the most picturesque groups of old-time dwellings, a picture that lingers in our minds long after we have left the town and fortress of the grim old Earls of Warwick.