oseley House. This ancient Mansion—the residence of James More Molyneux, Esq., the lineal representative of two families, famous in old times—although sadly impaired by time and neglect—cannot fail, while one stone remains above another, to retain the interest that arises from venerable antiquity, in association with renowned names. It is situated about two miles south-west of Guildford. A long Avenue, perfectly bare of trees, leads from the public road to the House. The old Hall has been shorn of its proud and graceful proportions; repairs have been made by sloven hands; parts of the Moat have been filled up, but so coarsely, as to seem the result of accident rather than design. The principal approach is over a bridge between clumsy stables and storehouses. The odious face of a modern clock covers the antique Horologe, of which many of its old admirers make honourable mention; the Porch, which bears the date of 1812, over which is still inscribed, in Roman capital letters, the sentence—
“INVIDIÆ, CLAUDOR, PATEO SED SEMPER AMICO,”
is of a nondescript character, utterly out of keeping with the structure; a deformity which—following absurdities of outhouses and unseemly patches—carries conviction that
“Something ails the place.”
Nor is the impression removed upon entering the venerable Hall—venerable only from its age—for bad taste appears to have studied how most effectually to deface it. A patent stove, of Birmingham manufacture, stands a few feet from the embayed window, illuminated with the “Household Coats of the Family, emblazoned in the gorgeous tinctures of Heraldry on the glass;” a “thin” Gallery, which the gauntleted hand of one of the grim Knights of old times might shiver into fragments at a single blow, leads to some upper chambers; above the sturdy arched Doorway hang some double-handed swords, glaives, partisans, and rusty helmets, relics of the once heroic masters of the place,—
“The treasures of a soldier, bought with blood,
And kept at life’s expense,”—
mingled with the bugles of a brass band, and the drumsticks of a corps of Yeomanry.
These unequivocal signs of neglect and tokens of indifference towards ancient honours and long-ago renown are mournful indications—grieving the heart of the antiquary, and nullifying the belief that a proud name is a noble heritage because a stimulus to rivalry in honour and in fame. It has been our bounden duty thus to notice this modern vandalism—for the humblest writer may contribute somewhat to increase a love for what is excellent by aiding to censure what is evil.
Of its internal decorations there are some interesting and valuable remains, which have neither been removed nor defaced. Mr. Shaw, in his “Details of Elizabethan Architecture,” publishes an engraving of the beautiful and elaborately-carved Chimneypiece of the Dining Room. “The compartment above the mantel is entirely devoted to a very full display of heraldic insignia, recording the descent and alliances of the family