have cost the sculptor several years of assiduous labour. The cords and their tassels were done to the life. And a bee-hive, with bees as lightly winged as they can be in stone, are good specimens of carving. But, what was as useful as interesting, the old castle preceding the present structure was literally lithographed with every tower and turret by the chisel in the face of one wing of the wall that flanks the gateway. George Durant bought the castle and estate of the Pierrepont family in 1764, it is said out of the loot of Havannah, embracing a vast amount of ladies' jewelry, plate, and other private personalties which proved that British wars in the West as well as in the East Indies, were carried on pretty much on the same footing. But, as no property in the world is so apt to take to itself wings and fly away so suddenly and so far as possessions thus won, this Durant realized much of the natural experience of such riches. One night a wing of the castle was blown up by gunpowder, it was always supposed, by one of his own sons. Still, he must have been a man of cultivated taste, as the grounds, walks, and trees of the park, and a great variety of picturesque embellishments amply prove. The Earl of Bradford is now the owner of the estate, and the castle has become the summer residence of two Wolverhampton gentlemen who occupy it by turns.
Tong Church! Did one in five hundred of all
