walls he and his brothers, we learn, used to indulge their boyish pranks. It is reputed to have been designed by Sir J. Vanbrugh; a substantial, imposing-looking building it is of brick, and suggests a massiveness not often obtained in that material. The parapet that runs along the top is embattled, a great doorway finds a place in the centre of the front facing the road, the windows are heavy and round topped, and at each corner of the house is a square little tower that slightly projects. Though it does not wholly answer to either description, it used to be believed by many people to be the original of "The Moated Grange," and by others that of "Locksley Hall." Now that we know that the poet himself has declared such fond suppositions to be fallacies, the matter is settled for ever.
SOMERSBY GRANGE Seen from the roadway, and across the bit of wild garden, as we saw it then, Somersby Grange, with no sign of life about it, not even smoke from chimney, nor stray bird on roof, nor bark of dog; its sombre mass standing darkly forth, gloomy in the shade cast down by overhanging trees of twisted branches and heavy foliage, its weather-stained walls gray and green with age; seen thus, the old grange impressed us greatly, it seemed the very ideal of a haunted house, it positively called for a family ghost. There was, as the Scotch say, an eerie look about it; the gray, grim walls told of past days, and suggested forgotten episodes, an air of olden romance clings thereto, mingled with something of the uncanny. It was a picture and a poem in one—these first, then a building!
