I live on a high hill in the charming boccage, County of Berkshire-the royal county, as we love to call it, because Windsor Castle, that glorious legacy from our Norman Kings, half feudal, half palatial, lies within our limits.

From our garden terraces, towards the south -a kindly place for brightest flowers and ruddiest fruits-peaceful woodlands rise all around. Here and there higher and larger woods break the horizon, marking the loftier timber of neighbouring park and pleasure-ground. Every inch of country is rich, trim, and cultivated, realizing the Frenchman's notion that England is all a garden. To the right, plainly seen from our lawn, are the dark lines of the Strathfieldsaye woods—oak, spruce, fir, feathery ash, and spirey poplar, stretching along one side of a picturesque common, half heather, half woodland, and wholly sylvan, called Heckfield.

Looking out again from our garden terraces, towards the left, are certain vast forests of dark fir-nothing but fir; no brighter colour or livelier green to gladden these sombre masses, covering a wild moorland district that stretches miles away towards the south. Those are the Bramshill woods, enshrouding one of the grandest Elizabethan mansions in England, built by an Italian architect for Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James 1st, and brother of the illfated Charles. It is a kind of ditto of Hatfield, also built for the same prince, and now the great house of the Salisbury family. Only Hatfield lies flat and low, and Bramshill crowns an eminence like Windsor Castle, with an avenue of elms resembling the Windsor Long Walk stretching from the sculptured grand entrance —a magnificent avenue, falling in the middle into a valley, rising upwards to a second emi

nence, and finally losing itself in a purple distance of boundless heather. This place, called Bramshill, belongs to the Cope family, and is the glory of our country-side. The house (grey with age, and checkered by many-shaded lichen) has remained untouched since the day it was built. It is a happy architectural inspiration, blending the grand outlines of the Italian palace with the rich ornamentation of the Tudor period. Over the principal entrance, lavishly decorated with carved stonework, are the coat of arms and feathers of the Prince, while large latticed windows, mullions, and cyphers break the line of the brick walls with bold effect. A lovely stone cornice, rich, yet open, like guipure lace, ornaments the top. Stone terraces and delicate turf run parallel to long ranges of windows on the south front, and there is an orangery and a bowling-green under the shadow of the great house, broken by flights of steps, and balustraded with carved stone.

Beyond a foreground of sylvan beauty one would gladly walk ten miles to see-lies the grand old chase, half grass, half heather, studded with oaks, that stand calmly surveying themselves in their shadows on the grass, as if sitting for their portraits as magnificent patriarchs. Prodigious lime trees scent the air with blossoms, and the largest, wierdest firs ever seen in England, frown over the margin of a placid lake. A lovely scene, bright in the summer sunshine, and fitly framing the stately mansion towering over the woods.

Within are spacious rooms laid out in large suites on the first and second floors, lined with ancient Flemish tapestry, and decorated with choice old china, pictures and marbles. A ghost is supposed to inhabit one very ghastly

looking room at the end of a long gallery-a gallery so long, indeed, that persons standing at the further end look quite dim and small. Well, this glorious old place (historical without any special history but that of its own exceeding beauty) was selected by the nation as a fitting home for our Iron Duke, when just warm from the great struggle at Waterloo. But unluckily, the very merit of this grey, unaltered edifice was, in his practical eyes, its demerit, for it was much out of repair, and it would have required the expenditure of many thousands to secure its venerable walls against further decay. A large sum of money being voted by Parliament for the purpose of purchasing a residence for the Duke, his grace characteristically took the unromantic view of the matter, and, failing to appreciate the medieval charm of this ancient mansion, preferred Strathfieldsaye—a good, fat, well-to-do, well-preserved house and estate, which the willing nation purchased for

him from the Rivers' family.

How often I have driven through that flat, uninteresting park, traversed by that most sluggish of Berkshire rivers, the Loddon, celebrated by Pope as the "Fair Lodona !" It would not do, however. No poet could make anything but prose of that lazy, muddy stream, which drags its weary way through beds of bulrush and flags, under withes and aspen trees, until it drops fairly asleep, and is absorbed by the Thames. Never was any park so conventional, so dull. A stone bridge, of the most ordinary stereotyped pattern, spans the turgid river; a road runs here, and a road there; and then tufts of plantations, and single trees, and groups of timber, all, according to immemorial precedent, like any number of other English parks all over the kingdom. No one would care for the place but for the all-pervading memory of the great man whose shadow will ever linger among these woods, and up and down these roads where he rode, and walked, and hunted, and shot, and fished for so many years. He was keen at country sports, and loved to be

thought the perfect country gentleman. He was kind to munificence to all his people, and when he died, not a servant or a keeper on the property but had a pension for life, and was remembered by name in his will.

Yet, driving through that park there is one feature especially to recall-an avenue of elms,

very long and very high, closing overhead like an early English cloister, in the pointed style; a wonderfully symmetrical avenue, where the trees harmonize, and seem mutually agreed to grow up, and live and die simultaneously, to do honour to the hero who so loved their overarching shadow, and was so proud of their fine proportions. This avenue conducts to the house, which, with little divergencies, we are approaching.

The Duke was a great farmer, and his park being always full of cattle, was consequently obstructed by innumerable gates. These gates were a heavy affliction, for having no footman, it devolved upon me, then a child, to open them, causing thereby much injury to the beauty of my white frock, which I had desired to keep intact for the Duchess' eyes.

Now we are at the house-a low, brick building, with window-facings of stone, after the fashion prevalent in domestic architecture during the reign of Queen Anne. There are scores of these windows above and below, all of one unbroken pattern, very monotonous, and the building is surmounted by a sloping roof, like a long extinguisher. Opposite the house, and divided from it by an oval carriage-drive, are seen one or two blocks of square white buildings. These are the stables, and between them runs a road, ending in a bit of flat park. At a short distance is the church, a strange-looking building, in shape something like a cannon ball, with a little cupola, and two bits of wings tacked on each side, to keep it steady. But the Duke liked it, as he liked the house, and when any disparaging remark was ventured upon in his presence. always said it was "good enough for him," which, of course, as he was the greatest herǝ living, the modern Alexander, covered the bold critic with abject confusion.

That church was served by the Duke's ne

phew, the present Dean of Windsor, conscientious and zealous as a parish priest among country hinds and boors, as he is now, in a

sphere where his duties lie exclusively within. the precincts of a royal court. The Duke a most regular attendant) sat in a large gallery pew, like a parlour, with a stove in the middle and when the sermon became wearisome, of passed the prescribed limit of twenty minutes the Duke would fall to poking and mending the

fire so vigorously that the preacher was fain to conclude, for he would scarce hear himself speak.

On entering the house we find ourselves in a handsome hall, hung with pictures, and from thence we pass into a long low gallery, overlooking the flat park, the sluggish river, and the conventional bridge. The gallery was papered all over with exquisite engravings-a fancy of the Duke's. The Duchess was sitting in a small room beyond; she was the gentlest lady I ever knew, yet gentle with a dignity all her own. Her face was pale and sad, and slightly scarred with small-pox. She had a pensive, tender look, that made one love her even before her sweet manner had settled that matter altogether. No creature could approach her without feeling her influence. Her friendliness to her country neighbours was unfailing. At a great diplomatic reception at Apsley House, a somewhat rustic old squire led her, at her own desire, among her brilliant guests.

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‘Really, madam,” said he at length, "I am unworthy of the honour you are conferring on me."

"Nonsense," said the Duchess, "everyone takes you for the Hanoverian Ambassador; so hold your tongue, and do not undeceive them."

When we entered the boudoir, a great album and a case of drawing materials lay before her, and we found that she was finishing a collection of sketches illustrative of the history of Charles V. Now this was a work naturally suggested by her surroundings, for in the dining-room hard by hung many splendid portraits of that period. A Velasquez presented to the Duke by the King of Spain from his own gallery at Madrid, a sedate Margaret, Governess of the low countries, and replice of the wellknown portraits of Philip le Beau, and Jeanne la Folle. Did the Duchess, I wonder, ever compare the adoring love she bore her absent hero, to the passion that turned this royal lady's brain? Perhaps in the course of her solitary life (for she was often alone) some vague sympathy may have grown up in her heart for the plaintive, anxious face looking out of that tarnished frame !

Luncheon over, a meal of unexampled magnificence to my young imagination, the Duchess proposed a walk. A basket was brought to her full of bread, to feed the Duke's favourite

charger, Copenhagen, on whose back he sat for fifteen hours during the battle of Waterloo. Poor Duchess! she found an outlet for her wifely, womanly love, in the daily feeding of this old horse, now turned out luxuriously to live and die in a paddock close by the garden. On through the shrubberies we walked-I a mere child, bearing the basket, and trotting by the Duchess' side—while my mother followed in silent fear of my untamed garrulity. By-and-by she heard with horror the following remark from her “enfant terrible."

"This is a beautiful place, Duchess, and these are beautiful gardens; but if the Duke had not fought well on Copenhagen's back at Waterloo, you would never have had them, you know!"

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"No," replied she, we should not have had them; neither would you have had your place, for the French and Bonaparte would have had it all."

The last time I saw this gentle lady was shortly before her death. She was lying on a sofa, ill with her last illness; and soon after that she was taken up to town to die. Before leaving Strathfieldsaye she addressed a pencilled note (being too weak to hold a pen) to my mother, asking after her "dear little girl," to whom she sent her "best love." Such was the wife of the great Duke, a domestic saint, too modest and too refined to fill the large frame his glory had made for her! All this time I had never seen the Duke.

Some three or four years afterwards it chanced that I was staying in a house to which he came one day, accompanied by lovely Mrs. Arbuthnot and Lady Stanhope, and the then Lady Salisbury, (née Gascoigne) to see a collection of pictures which he much admired. I was then a long gawky girl in short petticoats, and sat half hidden behind the sofas, terribly ashamed of my legs. No one noticed me. I ran home presently to tell my mother that I had seen the great Duke; and she piqued, mother-like, that her cub had been overlooked, sent him message to say the girl he had met that day, had been much loved by his Duchess. Her memory had now become very dear to him, and all she had loved he valued. A few days after the great hero came trotting down our park avenue in his own decided way, and after being received by my mother, specially begged to see me.

Bold enough now, I advanced, held out

my hand, and fell to talking with such good will, that he was evidently amused. I asked him to look at our view from the garden ter

race.

"There, sir," said I, (for everyone called him "sir," as if he were a royal duke) "that is your lodge, and there are your trees."

"How far off do you call it ?" says he.

dear Mrs., that if he applied for leave of absence for all the young officers who wished it, he would have nothing else to do. F. M., the Duke of Wellington, must decline to make any such application on any pretext whatever."

But when asked by her to give an introduction to the brother of an old comrade he had much esteemed at Madras, and who was since

over the river.”

"Yes," said he, looking hard at it, "it is more than a mile, and I will tell you why. Look at that white lodge of mine; it is but a white mass. If it were less than a mile, you would see an angle. This is a rule in distance which you should always remember."

A vision of the Duke peering with his keen grey eyes, over the barren Sierras of Spain, or the grassy folds of Belgian plains, flitted be

fore me.

How often must he have had occasion to put this rule into practice when calculating the distance from the enemy; arranging troops for battle, or looking out for his bivouac! From this day forward, nothing could exceed his kindness. I was too young to dine out, but my mother was constantly his guest. He was one of the first who introduced the Russian mode of dining with only flowers and fruit upon the table; and this, perhaps, because he was proud of his garden and its fine produce. The dinner was, always served to the minute. If any guests were but five minutes late, woe betide them! Watch in hand the Duke's keen eyes met them in no dulcet mood; nor did he fail to give them some verbal intimation of his displeasure. The house was always full, for he loved the society of beautiful, high-born ladies -loved to hear them sing, or to play with them at little games. Especially did he enjoy the song of "Miss Myrtle, the wonderful woman," which he would nightly call for, and nightly encore. It was Hercules surrounded by many Omphales-the warrior resting from his toils, and sunning himself in the rays of beauty. Still, now and then, the rough side would peep out, especially in his letters; and well as he liked my mother, Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington could, and did, write her many a curt epistle. Once she asked his intercession for lengthened leave for a young officer whose regiment was serving in India. "F. M., the Duke of Wellington," in reply, "assured his

General of India as assured that officer's advancement for life.

The Duke's correspondence occupied a large portion of his day; for, when out of office, he made it a point of conscience to reply to every note or letter he received. Hence the curious specimens of his style, which are extant in his own handwriting; for as his habits were generally known, every autograph-hunter provoked him to an immediate and characteristic reply.

In order to write undisturbed, he used to retire for several hours each day to his library— a pleasant, irregular room on the ground-floor, opening into a conservatory, and thence upon the well-trimmed gravel walks of the gardenplaisance. Adjoining was his bedroom, furnished with Spartan simplicity, containing only a shabby iron sofa-bedstead, and all the scanty appurtenances of his camp life. This love of simplicity in dress, furniture, and habits, was the outward index of his character.

His conversation was singularly straightforward, and his views on men and things presented a curious compound of dictatorial assertion and simple expression. The habit of command was always present with him, and the possibility of contradiction or opposition never entered his head for an instant. Ordinarily courteous, and really benevolent when unprovoked, he could, even in the most familiar converse, become exceedingly stern, both in look and manner; and it was thus, in a perfectly naïve assumption of infallibility, that the conscious supremacy of the Commander-in-Chief asserted itself.

Flattered, loved, consulted as an oracle, by every man, woman and child who came in con tact with him, from his gamekeepers and gardeners to the Ministers and the Quee it is only surprising that he should have pre served, even to extreme old age, his mental equilibrium, and escaped to the extent he did the pitfalls of vanity. As years went by, 1 er