new-married couples, as such would probably not be so much startled as lonely maids and bachelors might be, at the whispered conversations across the bed!  Moreover, evil wings (possibly owls or bats, looking after glow-worm candles) occasionally flapped at the casements.  But Curzon was a humorist as well as inventive.  Perhaps one secret as to ghosts at Parham lay in the fact that in the old thick walls were concealed staircases and “priests’ chambers,” which possibly might be of use, even now, to vagrant lovers (like Mr. Pickwick at Ipswich), or perhaps sleep-walkers,—­or burglarious, thieves.  Anyhow, I liked to lock my bedroom door there,—­as indeed I do generally elsewhere, if lock and key are in good agreement; for once I couldn’t get out without the surgical operation of a carpenter, having too securely locked myself in.  This shall not happen twice, if I can help it.  Curzon’s great glory, however, was his library, full of rarities:  he showed me, amongst other MSS., his unique purple parchments, with gold letter types, being (if I remember rightly) Constantine’s own copy of the New Testament; and, to pass by other curios, some tiny Elzevirs uncut:  imagine his horror when I volunteered to cut these open for him!—­their chief and priceless wonder being that no eye has ever seen, nor ever can see, the insides of those virgin pages!  I know there is such a rabies as bibliomania,—­and I have myself, at Albury, a “breeches” Bible, which belonged to a maternal ancestor, a Faulkner, of course valued beyond its worth as a readable volume; and I might name many other instances; but to esteem a book chiefly because it has never been cut open, did strike my ignorance as an abnormal fatuity.  Curzon was one of our Aristotelians, as before mentioned.

Other Visits.

I am also mindful of a very pleasant week spent long ago at Shenstone’s Leasowes, a beautiful estate near Birmingham, now being dug up for coal even as Hamilton is, where in those days some good friends of mine resided, of whom (now departed like so many others) I have most kindly recollections.  The hostess, a charming and intelligent lady of the old school, wearing her own white ringlets, used to have many talks with me about Emanuel Swedenborg, a half-inspired genius whom she much favoured; the host, a genial county magnate, did his best to enable me to catch trout where Shenstone used to sing about them, and tried to interest me in farm improvements:  but my chief memory of those days is this.  Whilst I was there, a splendid testimonial in silver arrived in a fly from Birmingham, well guarded by a couple of police against possible roughs, the result of a zealous gathering from his political supporters; and that Testimonial, “little Testy” as I called it, was a source of care and dilemma to everybody; for care, it was immediately locked away for fear of burglars; and as to dilemma, the white elephant was too tall for the centre of a table, and too short to stand upon the floor.  It seemed closely to illustrate to my mind that wise text about a man’s life and his possessions.  The cheerful spirit of the mansion and its inmates seemed quite subdued by this unwelcome acquisition.  When at the Leasowes, I produced some suitable poems which were very kindly received:  here is one of them, hitherto unprinted.