"Did you ever see an old abbey before, Mr. Peters?"
"Yes, miss, a French one; we have got one at Ramsgate; he teaches the Miss Joneses to parleyvoo, and is turned of sixty."
Miss Simpkinson closed her album with an air of ineffable disdain.
Mr. Simpkinson from Bath was a professed antiquary, and one of the first water; he was master of Gwillim's Heraldry, and Milles's History of the Crusades; knew every plate in the Monasticon, had written an essay on the origin and dignity of the office of Overseer, and settled the date of a Queen Anne's farthing. An influential member of the Antiquarian Society, to whose "Beauties of Bagnigge Wells" he had been a liberal subscriber, procured him a seat at the board of that learned body, since which happy epoch Sylvanus Urban had not a more indefatigable correspondent. His inaugural essay on the President's cocked hat was considered a miracle of erudition; and his account of the earliest application of gilding to gingerbread, a masterpiece of antiquarian research. His eldest daughter was of a kindred spirit: if her father's mantle had not fallen upon her, it was only because he had not thrown it off himself; she had caught hold of its tail, however, while yet upon his honoured shoulders. To souls so congenial what a sight was the magnificent ruin of Bolsover! its broken arches, its mouldering pinnacles, and the airy tracery of its half-demolished windows. The party was in raptures; Mr. Simpkinson began to meditate an essay, and his daughter an ode: even Seaforth, as he gazed on these lonely relics of the olden time, was betrayed into a momentary forgetfulness of his love and losses; the widow's eye-glass turned from her cicisbeo's whiskers to the mantling ivy; Mrs. Peters wiped her spectacles; and "her P." pronounced the central tower to be "very like a mouldy Stilton cheese,—only bigger." The squire was a philosopher, and had been there often before; so he ordered out the cold tongue and chickens.
"Bolsover Priory," said Mr. Simpkinson with the air of a connoisseur,—"Bolsover Priory was founded in the reign of Henry the Sixth, about the beginning of the eleventh century. Hugh de Bolsover had accompanied that monarch to the Holy Land in the expedition undertaken by way of penance for the murder of his young nephews in the Tower. Upon the dissolution of the monasteries the veteran was enfeoffed in the lands and manor, to which he gave his own name of Bowlsover, or Bee-owls-over, (by corruption Bolsover,)—a Bee in chief, over three Owls, all proper, being the armorial ensigns borne by this distinguished crusader at the siege of Acre."
"Ah! that was Sir Sidney Smith," said Mr. Peters; "I've heard of him, and all about Mrs. Partington, and——"
"P. be quiet, and don't expose yourself!" sharply interrupted his lady. P. was silenced, and betook himself to the bottled stout.
"These lands," continued the antiquary, "were held in grand serjeantry by the presentation of three white owls and a pot of honey——"
"Lassy me! how nice!" said Miss Julia. Mr. Peters licked his lips.
"Pray give me leave, my dear——owls and honey, whenever the king should come a rat-catching into this part of the country."