AND PLACES.


THE Lord Chancellor Bacon says,* " As for nobility in particular
persons, it is a reverend thing to see an antient castle or building
not in decay: or to see a fair timber tree sound and perfect; how much
more to behold an antient noble family, which hath stood against the
waves and weathers of time: for new nobility is but the act of power;
but antient nobility is the act of time."

*Essay XIV. of Nobility.

But "Omnium rerum est vicissitudo": families and places have their
fatalities, according to that of Ovid.

"Fors sua cuique loco est". Fast. lib. 4.

This piece of a verse puts me in mind of several places in Wiltshire,
and elsewhere, that are, or have been fortunate to their owners: and
e contra.

Stourton, (the seat of the Lord Stourton) was belonging to this family
before the conquest. They say, that after the victory at Battaile,
William the Conqueror came in person into the west, to receive their
rendition; that the Lord Abbot of Glastonbury, and the rest of the
Lords and Grandees of the western parts waited upon the Conqueror at
Stourton-house; where the family continue to this day.

The honourable family of the Hungerfords, is probably of as great
antiquity as any in the county of Wilts. Hungerford, (the place of the