George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[393] insisted upon, and the children were less quick and eager than ours. Otherwise, the examination might have occurred in Massachusetts. But I do not suppose that many schools are like those cared for by Lord Fitzwilliam.

We drove afterwards about the immense park. . . . . On our return from this excursion,—as it may well be called from its length, —we walked on that beautiful terrace built up so grandly, and as soft to the foot as velvet, for half a mile. It is finer than it was formerly, some of the trees having been cut away, and a greater breadth given to it. . . . .

I spent a part of the evening in looking over several volumes of the correspondence of the great Earl of Strafford and his friends, of which Lord Fitzwilliam has eight or ten, all autographs; and in talking with him about that stirring period of English history, with which he seems to be as familiar as we are with what has passed in our own times. Some of the private letters of Strafford to his agent, the manager of his Yorkshire estates, and some about his wife's health, are very curious. Those on political matters are grand, strong, decisive, as he was himself. I do not know but Evelyn was right, when he called him ‘the wisest head in Europe.’

August 15.—. . . . After breakfast, I went with Lady Charlotte over some parts of the house that I cared to see again, looked at some of the fine pictures of the Italian school,—the Salvators, the so-called Raffaelle, the Titians,—and then the portraits of Strafford and his friends by Vandyck, which are certainly among the best Vandycks td be seen anywhere . . . . . But when I had taken this long walk through the interminable series of rooms,—that you cannot have forgotten,—it was time for me to go. They all sent, anew, kindest messages to you. Lord Fitzwilliam did not get up from his chair. He took my hand in both of his, and was very much moved. At last he said, ‘I hope we may meet again in a better place,’ and as I went away added, calling aloud after me, ‘Good by, dear Mr. Ticknor. God bless you.’ . . . .

At Rotherham I took the railroad and dashed on for Northumberland, . . . . arriving at our old friend Sir Walter Trevelyan's just as twilight was closing in. He lives about twelve miles from Morpeth, where I left the railroad, and in driving to his place—which is called Wallington—I passed through a broken country that looked very beautiful in the declining light. On arriving, I was ushered into a grand saloon, where there was a bright coal-fire,—for the weather is chilly,—and found half a dozen or more people sitting