Parham.
Another notable visit of some days, was one to Parham, the ancient—and haunted—seat of my old friend both at Charterhouse and at Christ Church, Robert Curzon, afterwards Lord de la Zouche, the great collector of Armenian and other missals and manuscripts. With him (alas! no more amongst us, and his son has dropped the "de la") I spent a joyful and instructive time: out of doors we fished in the lake and rode about the park among the antlered deer,—three heads and horns whereof are now in our glass-porch entrance at Albury; indoors, there was the splendid gallery of family armour from feudal days,—several suits of which Curzon told me he had tried to wear on some occasion, but couldn't; most were too small for him, though by no means a tall man; and those which he could struggle into were too heavy. Then there was the interminable companion gallery of full-length portraits, some of whom, probably the wicked ancestors, walked! and I'm sure that when I slept in a tapestried chamber under that gallery, I did hear footsteps—could it be, horrible fancy! in procession? When I told Curzon this, he answered that he had often heard them himself, from boyhood, but that familiarity bred contempt: he said also, with a twinkle in his eye, that there was a room which was usually set apart for new-married couples, as such would probably not be so much startled as lonely maids and bachelors might be, at the whispered conversations across the bed! Moreover, evil wings (possibly owls or bats, looking after glow-worm candles) occasionally flapped at the casements. But Curzon was a humorist as well as inventive. Perhaps one secret as to ghosts at Parham lay in the fact that in the old thick walls were concealed staircases and "priests' chambers," which possibly might be of use, even now, to vagrant lovers (like Mr. Pickwick at Ipswich), or perhaps sleep-walkers,—or burglarious, thieves. Anyhow, I liked to lock my bedroom door there,—as indeed I do generally elsewhere, if lock and key are in good agreement; for once I couldn't get out without the surgical operation of a carpenter, having too securely locked myself in. This shall not happen twice, if I can help it. Curzon's great glory, however, was his library, full of rarities: he showed me, amongst other MSS., his unique purple parchments, with gold letter types, being (if I remember rightly) Constantine's own copy of the New Testament; and, to pass by other curios, some tiny Elzevirs uncut: imagine his horror when I volunteered to cut these open for him!—their chief and priceless wonder being that no eye has ever seen, nor ever can see, the insides of those virgin pages! I know there is such a rabies as bibliomania,—and I have myself, at Albury, a "breeches" Bible, which belonged to a maternal ancestor, a Faulkner, of course valued beyond its worth as a readable volume; and I might name many other instances; but to esteem a book chiefly because it has never been cut open, did strike my ignorance as an abnormal fatuity. Curzon was one of our Aristotelians, as before mentioned.