turrets have made the hearts of the young galliards thrill, as they
first discerned them from afar, rising from among the trees, and
pictured to themselves the beauties casketed like gems within these
walls! Indeed, I have discovered about the place several faint records
of this reign of love and romance, when the Hall was a kind of Court
of Beauty.

Several of the old romances in the library have marginal notes
expressing sympathy and approbation, where there are long speeches
extolling ladies' charms, or protesting eternal fidelity, or bewailing
the cruelty of some tyrannical fair one. The interviews, and
declarations, and parting scenes of tender lovers, also bear the marks
of having been frequently read, and are scored and marked with notes
of admiration, and have initials written on the margins; most of which
annotations have the day of the month and year annexed to them.
Several of the windows, too, have scraps of poetry engraved on them
with diamonds, taken from the writings of the fair Mrs. Philips, the
once celebrated Orinda. Some of these seem to have been inscribed by
lovers; and others, in a delicate and unsteady hand, and a little
inaccurate in the spelling, have evidently been written by the young
ladies themselves, or by female friends, who have been on visits to
the Hall. Mrs. Philips seems to have been their favourite author, and
they have distributed the names of her heroes and heroines among their
circle of intimacy. Sometimes, in a male hand, the verse bewails the
cruelty of beauty, and the sufferings of constant love; while in a
female hand it prudishly confines itself to lamenting the parting of
female friends. The bow-window of my bed-room, which has, doubtless,
been inhabited by one of these beauties, has several of these
inscriptions. I have one at this moment before my eyes, called
"Camilla parting with Leonora:"