into two by the grand armoury. A porch on the left side of the inner court leads you to the entrance-hall. In a cavetto moulding over the archway in characters of the time of Edward II., is the following infcription: →→

AUSPICE EDV. BLORE.

SUMPTIBUS S. R. MEYRICK.

A.D. MDCCCXXVIII.

In the spandrels of the arch, on each fide, is a stone shield, sculptured with armorial bearings of the family. On the door is a bronze knocker, defigned by Giovanni di Bologna, representing the destruction of the Philiftines by Samson. The entrance-hall is divided by an archway, and is adorned with arms, hunting weapons, stags'-horns, etc., difplayed with great tafte. The fire-place, of Painfwick ftone, is finely defigned by Mr. Blore, the architect; but the great curiofity of the hall is a Bohemian pavoise, of the middle of the fifteenth century. The hall at night is lighted by a Greek lamp found in Herculaneum, rich in ornaments of female masks and horfes' heads ; a head of Janus forming the lid of the receptacle for the oil. On the principal door is a curious carving of George and the Dragon, of the time of Henry VII., in which the dragon holds his meat-dish in his paws, containing the king's daughter ready to be devoured. In the part leading to the ftaircase is a fine oriel window, richly emblazoned with painted glass, representing Sir Samuel's ancestor, Meuric or Meyrick ab Llewellyn, of Bodorgan, in the island of Anglesey, efquire of the body to King Henry VII., with the family arms, crest and motto. From the hall a fallyport with drawbridge leads to the Ladies' Terrace; thence by another drawbridge you cross the moat to the flower-garden, and thence you can descend through the wood to the river.

To the left of the entrance-hall you pafs into the gallery of

Henry VI., the length of which is one hundred and fix feet. The window is an admirable specimen of German painted glass, representing St. George in fluted armour, with the date 1517. On the righ, hand, in a niche, ftands a figure accoutred in probably the most magnificent suit of armour in existence : beautifully emboffed with bas-reliefs, and inlaid with gold. It belonged to the Duke of Ferrara, the patron of Taffo. It is one of those gleanings of the world with which Buonaparte intended to enrich Paris, and was defigned for Malmaison, but did not reach France before Buonaparte was dethroned in 1814, and was purchased at Modena by Sir Samuel.

Quitting the entrance-hall on the right, you are introduced to the ASIATIC GALLERY, in which are arranged a great number of articles of coftume, arms, armour, etc., from India, China, and other parts of Afia. The room is papered to imitate the walls of the Alhambra in Spain, and there is a figure in Moorish armour brought from Spain, made of pieces of hide cut into fcales, and resembling the lorica of the Romans. In the centre is a Pindaree warrior on horseback. The chain-armour of the warrior and the trappings of the horse were brought by Captain Grindley from India, the headgear being of folid filver. The whole group was prepared from a drawing by Captain Grindley. There are two glass cafes filled with arms and armour from various countries of Afia, including China. Behind this, feparated from the anteroom by a row of arches, is the ASIATIC ARMOURY, in which is a grand group of Indian figures on horseback, to exhibit varieties of Indian and Perfian armour and coftume. There is another glass-cafe containing arms and other articles; and two others, one on each fide of the window, containing a variety of Hindoo deities and Chinese curiofities. Then comes the SOUTH SEA ROOM, fimilarly furnished with the

weapons from the islands of the Pacific, including a grand war-cloak of feathers, brought from the Sandwich Isles by Captain Cook. These rooms are curious and inftructive, but they are the least of all like what you are looking for in a British baronial hall: you enter with a more satisfied feeling the oppofite fuite of rooms.

The BANQUETTING HALL ftrikes you as perfect. It is fifty feet long. Over the entrance is the Minstrels' Gallery, and on the dais or raised floor at the upper end is a billiard table, on one fide of which folding doors conduct to a covered way leading to the ftables; on the other fide other folding-doors lead to the HASTILUDE CHAMBER. The roof is of oak, high pitched, resting on stone corbels; the floor and panelling are also of oak, and the chimney-piece is elaborately carved in Painswick stone, bearing on its pediment an alto-relievo of Aylmer de Valence, the owner of the caftle in the time of Edward II., copied from his monument in Westminster Abbey. From this window there are fine views of Goodrich Castle, and of the valleys of the Wye and of Lea Bailey. Amongst the paintings in this room are Phillip II. of Spain, by Coello, the Spanish Court painter; his daughter Isabella and her husband Ferdinand; Lord Howard of Effingham; the Queen of James II., and Henry, Prince of Wales; Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in armour, by Cornelius de Neve; a trooper of the Commonwealth, said to be Cornet Joyce, and portraits of Sir Samuel and his fon.

In the HASTILUDE CHAMBER you find yourselves in the midst of a tournament,―men, steeds, spectators, lifts, heralds, the royal box, and the whole coftume and appurtenances of the fame. You have alfo, in the fame room, if our memory serve us right, the proceffion of Sir Samuel himself when high sheriff, with all his javelin-men in his livery. Near this is a

CHAPEL, fitted as all chapels were at the fuppofed date, the time of our Edwards, in the Roman Catholic ftyle. The carvings and figures are many of them of those times, others of Henry VI. The rich altar-cloth, the large candlesticks, the croziers, the reading desks, and other fittings, are all ancient and curious from their histories. But the especial room of the house is THE GRAND ARMOURY. It is eighty feet in length, and you have the hiftory of ancient armour before your eyes on the backs of figures representing known warriors, ten of these figures on horseback. You have also ten glass-cases, containing a series of arms and armour, down from the Greek and Roman and the Ancient Briton, to the time when armour was exploded by that terrible explosive, gunpowder. Above these are ranged banners of many famous men ; and in the intervening spaces are eighty-four halberds, arranged in groups according to their respective periods. The oaken columns supporting the gallery are covered with weapons of all known kinds, including the most complete collection of the kind in the world. It was the poffeffion of this unrivalled affemblage of arms and armour which enabled Sir Samuel to write and illuftrate his fuperb work on the subject. We believe that it was from this armoury that the Auftrians adopted the fame arrangement in the great armoury in one of the palaces in Vienna.

It is an odd feeling that haunts you when walking amongst this extenfive collection of inftruments of death. You seem to have stepped out of the Chriftian world altogether, and entered one of animals, bent above all things on mutual deftruction. What a wonderful exertion of the faculties, from age to age, to devise some newer and more efficient means of fending people out of the world! What an inveterate race of steel porcupines in the fhape of men! If any one ever doubted of the fall, and that "the heart of man is deceitful

above all things, and defperately wicked," it would not, it seems to us, be poffible to doubt it for half-an-hour in such a gallery as this. The ingenious inventions, and the costly productions, of many races and generations of people priding themselves at once on being Christians and exterminators of Christians: fons of the Prince of Peace inveterately given to fighting. Such a display of the weapons of death seems, indeed, to substantiate the doctrine of the late actuary Finlayson, that " war is the natural condition of man, and peace is but the season of exhaustion, and of recruiting himself for fresh encounters of reciprocal murders. What a fingular idea this gives us of the human race!-what a dismal illustration of universal history! That unhappy thing so happily called—' the great river of mingled blood and tears.

Goodrich Court is for the moft part thrown open to public inspection, and is resorted to by throngs of deeply interested visitors: but it is only by those who, like ourselves, have spent some time in the house, that the vast extent of its treasures of art and antiquity can be known. There is a fuite of apartments reserved for the family, and not opened to the public. There are the library, the dining, breakfast, and drawing rooms, the Doucean Museum, the Sir Gelly Chamber, the chambers fitted up in the fashion of and named after James I.; Charles I. and Charles II.'s Galleries; William III.'s Chamber, with the Prince's, the Herald's, the Page's, and the Leech's chambers, and the Greek Room. In these rooms are contained a wealth of articles of ancient art and vertu, of paintings and sculptures and gems, that fill a large catalogue. We may, however, mention one or two particulars. Mifs Strickland in the "History of the Queens of England," wonders what has become of a certain ivory box, carved in the shape of a rose, mentioned by Horace. Walpole to have contained the miniature