who loved few human beings was, after the fashion of bachelors, fond of
cats.

They ascend the staircase: the domestic adornments merge into the
historic. We have Francis I.--not himself, but his armour: the
chimneypiece, too, is a copy from the tomb-works of John, Earl of
Cornwall, in Westminster Abbey; the stonework from that of Thomas, Duke
of Clarence, at Canterbury.

Stay awhile: we have not done with sacrilege yet; worse things are to be
told, and we walk with consciences not unscathed into the Library,
disapproving in secret but flattering vocally. Here the very spirit of
Horace seemed to those who visited Strawberry before its fall to breathe
in every corner. Alas! when we beheld that library, it was half filled
with chests containing the celebrated MSS. of his letters; which were
bought by that enterprising publisher of learned name, Richard Bentley,
and which have since had adequate justice done them by first-rate
editors. There they were: the 'Strawberry Gazette' in full;--one glanced
merely at the yellow paper, and clear, decisive hand, and then turned to
see what objects he, who loved his books so well, collected for his
especial gratification. Mrs. Damer again! how proud he was of her
genius--her beauty, her cousinly love for himself; the wise way in which
she bound up the wounds of her breaking heart when her profligate
husband shot himself, by taking to occupation--perhaps, too, by liking
cousin Horace indifferently well. He put her models forward in every
place. Here was her Osprey Eagle in terra-cotta, a masterly production;
there a _couvre-fire,_ or _cur-few,_ imitated and modelled by her. Then
the marriage of Henry VI. Figures on the wall; near the fire is a screen
of the first tapestry ever made in England, representing a map of Surrey
and Middlesex; a notion of utility combined with ornament, which we see