already dragged some ancestors out of the dust there, written their names on their portraits; besides which, I have found and brought up to have repaired an incomparable picture of Van Helmont by Sir Peter Lely.—­But now for recoveries—–­think what I have in part recovered!  Only the state papers, private letters, etc., etc., of the two Lords Conway,(934) secretaries of state.  How you will rejoice and how you will grieve!  They seem to have laid up every scrap of paper they ever had. from the middle of Queen Elizabeth’s reign to the middle of Charles the Second’s.  By the accounts of the family there were whole rooms full; all which, during the absence of the last and the minority of the present lord, were by the ignorance of a steward consigned to the oven and the uses of the house.  What remained, except one box that was kept till almost rotten in a cupboard, were thrown loose into the lumber room; where, spread on the pavement, they supported old marbles and screens and boxes.  From thence I have dragged all I could, and, have literally, taking all together, brought away a chest near five feet long, three wide, and two deep, brim full.  Half are bills, another part rotten, another gnawed by rats; yet I have already found enough to repay my trouble and curiosity, not enough to satisfy it.  I will only tell you of three letters of the great Strafford and three long ones of news of Mr. Gerrard, master of the Charter-house; all six written on paper edged with green, like modern French paper.  There are handwritings of every body, all their seals perfect, and the ribands with which they tied their letters.  The original proclamations of Charles the First, signed by the privy council; a letter to King James from his son-in-law of Bohemia, with his seal; and many, very many letters of negotiation from the Earl of Bristol in Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton, Lord Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roe.—­What say you? will not here be food for the press?

I have picked up a little painted glass too, and have got a promise of some old statues, lately dug up, which formerly adorned the cathedral of Litchfield.  You see I continue to labour in my vocation, of which I can give you a comical instance:—­I remembered a rose in painted glass in a little village going to Ragley, which I remarked passing by five years ago; told Mr. Conway on which hand it would b, and found it in the very spot.  I saw a very good and perfect tomb at Alcester of Sir Fulke Greville’s father and mother, and a wretched old house with a very handsome gateway of stone at Colton, belonging to Sir Robert Throckmorton.  There is nothing else tolerable but twenty-two coats of the matches of the family in painted glass.—­You cannot imagine how astonished a Mr. Seward,(935) a learned clergyman, was, who came to Ragley while I was there.  Strolling about the house, he saw me first sitting on the pavement of the lumber room with Louis, all over cobwebs and dust and mortar; then found me in