Welstead, Capt. F., R.N., 14th May, aged 68. Were, Harriet, wife of Robert Berwick West, Mrs. Anne, 27th May, at Princesses Terrace, Regent's Park, aged 74. Whistler. Drowned, on the 20th March last, near Rajmahal, occasioned by the taking fire of the Benares steamer, Captain Gabriel Henry Whistler, of the Bengal Army, youngest son of the late Rev. Webster Whistler, rector of Hastings and Newtimber, Sussex. White, Richd. Esq., of Woolwich, 29th May, aged 79. Wilkinson, Thomas, Esq., of Old Elvet, formerly of Oswald House, Durham, J.P. and D.L., 28th May, aged 81. Willington, Anne, daughter of the late Thomas Willington, Esq,, of Tamworth, 28th May. Wilson, Mrs. Thomas, 3rd June, at Hackney. Wilson, Margaret Clive, wife of Matthew Wilson, Esq., 29th May, at Eshton Hall, aged 86. This lady was only surviving daughter and heir of Matthew Wilson, Esq., of Eshton Hall, barristerat-law, by Frances, his wife, daughter of Richard Clive, Esq., of Styche, co. Salop, M.P., and sister of the great Lord Clive. She married first, 3rd Feb., 1783, the Rev. Henry Richardson, A.M., rector of Thornton, and by him had an only child, Frances Mary, the present Miss Richardson Currer of Kildwick and Bierly. She married secondly, in 1800, her first cousin, Matthew Wilson, Esq., by whom she had two sons and three daughters; the eldest, Matthew, is M.P. for Clitheroe. Wood, John, Esq., of Brownhills, county of Stafford. This gentleman, an opulent landed proprietor in the counties of Stafford and Hereford, died on the 18th June, in his 70th year. He was son of the late John Wood, Esq., of Staffordshire, by Mary, his wife, dau. of Nicholas Price, Esq., of Pont-yPandy, county Glamorgan; was born 15th July, 1778, and married, 26th November, 1807, Mary, daughter and co-heir of John Baddeley, Esq., of Shelton, by whom he had issue : Nicholas Price, now of Brownhills, Richard Mountford, in holy orders, John Wedg, Clement Baddeley, Edmund Thomas Wedgwood, and Marianne, wife of William Davenport, Esq., of Longport. The arms were confirmed to Mr. Wood by the Earl Mar shal, and appear on record in the Herald's Office. THE PATRICIAN. SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF A VISIT TO BRAMSHILL. FEW places afford such an unmixed treat to visitors and lovers of old halls as the fine old house of Bramshill. It is not the largest, nor the finest, nor the shewiest, nor the best plenished of our ancient mansions, but it is as it was, and as it was intended to be. It has no new wing built "in a modern style of convenience" in the middle of last century, nor has it any restorations (!) by Wyatt or his followers, nor improvements by Kent or Brown-no! there it stands, as it stood two hundred years ago, a little more weather-dyed perhaps, but still the same; and its wild and picturesque park, in all its main features, as it was half a century after it was reclaimed from the heath around it. This then is the great charm that Bramshill possesses for those who love to let their thoughts run back to former days, and converse in books, or meet in pictures, with the great-hearted and loyal men of olden time. We look here on the home, such as they dwelt in or visited; we gaze on the woods and glades such as they loved to gaze upon or to wander in; we pass through the rooms furnished as they used them. Bramshill then-for let us draw near to it-is situate in the Parish of Eversley, in Hampshire, and almost on the borders of Berkshire. We will approach it from the Basingstoke side, over the plain called Hasely Heath: and as the house stands nobly before us, or above us, on the crest of the opposite hill, let us look around at the wide expanse, and, though we love that heathy country, with its purple bloom in summer, or its clear brown tint in winter, yet we almost agree with old Fuller's words, when he tells us that "Bramsell was built in a bleak and barren place."* Yes! there it stands, with its park, like a green and wooded island, in the midst of the great heathy plain which occupies this part of the country-Hartford *Fuller's Worthies. VOL. VI. NO. XXVIII. I bridge flats stretching away on one side, and this Hasely heath we are now crossing lying on the other side of it. But we have now entered the long straight avenue of old oaks that leads us in a direct arrow-like line up to the west front, and as we have opened quaint old Fuller's book, we must agree in the epithet he applies to the house, even more cordially than in that he bestows on the country round, for he calls it a "stately structure," and so it is: we feel that the quaint old man has just got the right word-it does seem a stately structure, as it looks down on us with its multitude of windows, its airy parapets, its clustered chimneys, and its long front, so beautifully broken into light and shade by its projecting wings and richly ornamented centre. But we have now mounted the hill on which the house stands, and entering the court-yard in front of it between two multangular turrets, we will first, as we stand before the west front, consider a little of the history of the place and house, and then wander round the house, and take a glance of the various, yet harmonious design of its different sides. Bramshill, then, was built by Edward Lord Zouche, about the year 1612, as the leaden water-spouts in the south front tell us which bear that date upon them. It is said that he built it as a palace for Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James the First, and some features of the building seem to confirm that tradition, as we shall presently see. The famous John Thorp, who was the architect of so many of our fine Elizabethan houses (as they are called), is thought to have furnished the designs to Lord Zouche for his mansion or palace. It is said, moreover, that Bramshill was never completed to the extent originally intended by Lord Zouche, or proposed by the architect, John Thorp. Fuller, whom I have so often quoted, and now call to my aid for the third and last time, preserves another very curious fact about Bramshill House, namely, that its extent originally was greater than it now is, but that part of it was destroyed by an accidental fire-so I understand him, but here are his words: "Next Basing," he says, " Bramsell, built by the last Lord Zouche, in a bleak and barren place, was a stately structure, especially before part thereof was defaced by a casual fire." I am unwilling to doubt the tradition which assigns to Bramsell a more extensive plan than was ever executed; least of all can I bring myself to call in question truthful Fuller's statement of a fact apparently within his own knowledge; but it really will puzzle us to devise, as we walk round the house, where Lord Zouche or John Thorp meant to extend the building, or where any part did exist which has been defaced, and has disappeared by the casual fire. Here is the house as it stands, in shape like two T's, or a double T,.if one of those letters stood upon its head and supported its fellow on its foot, as I have seen some posture masters do, thus, I This is a rough way of explaining the outline of the plan of the house: and it seems such a complete plan, and the aspect of the house itself seems so perfect and so finished, that, as I said, we can scarcely imagine what more was to be added, or what was added and has vanished. It may be that Lord Zouche or his architect intended to form a quadrangle or quadrangles to his house, as we see at Burleigh, and elsewhere; but still the difficulty meets us, where was such a quadrangle to stand? Not before the beautiful west front, nor on the terrace front. The supposition would be absurd, and the nature of the ground, rapidly falling away on both those sides, for bids our entertaining it. The stable yard front certainly looks the most unconnected and unfinished, and, at first sight, we may be inclined to think that there, probably, the designer intended to build other sides, and to form a quadrangle; but such an arrangement would have utterly destroyed the proportions of the beautiful west front, for if the building had been continued in line with the present west front, to form a side of a quadrangle to the stable yard front, the ornamented stone porch, which was evidently intended to be the feature of this front, and, indeed, of the whole house, would not have been in the centre of the west front; altogether, then, I incline to the belief that, if a more extended edifice was contemplated, or if part of the building has disappeared, such addition must have been beyond the east front, that in which Lord Zouche's statue stands, and that possibly that front may have formed, or been intended to form a side only of a quadrangle. And yet, let us look round the house as we will, we do not feel the want of these proposed or additional buildings, nay, we should be sorry if they existed, for the house seems, as it stands, just what it ought to be, and we cannot help thinking that we should lose in compactness and symmetry by the addition of a single stone. And now to return from a long digression, which you will say has been as inconclusive as such theories usually are; but let us think again of Lord Zouche and his building. Whether it was that the death (so exceedingly lamented by the whole nation) of Prince Henry, which took place at the end of the year 1612, while Bramshill was building, deterred Lord Zouche from proceeding further with his intended structure, or whether the casual fire reduced it to its present dimensions, it seems certain, that Lord Zouche soon after took up his abode at Bramshill, for here he was residing when, in 1614, William Browne, a poet of some consideration in his day, dedicated to him his "Shepherd's Pipe," in these pleas ng lines: "Be pleased, great Lord, when underneath the shades, This Lord Zouche, of whom, probably, many only knew the name as being the builder of Bramshill, was a very considerable person in his day. He was ambassador to Scotland, when the embassy to Scotland must have been a very important one, and would have required a cautious diplomatist and a wise man to execute it; he was, moreover, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. And besides his official employments, he seems to have been a man of cultivated mind; he was the first horticulturist of his day; and it is pleasant to find poets and literary men appealing to his protection, and on terms of friendship with him. Here then he lived, and at his death (leaving only two daughters) he bequeathed Bramshill (with other extensive estates in the neighbourhood, which had been granted him by King James I., in 1617) to his kinsman and next heir male, Sir Edward Zouche, Kt., intending, doubtless, to continue Bramshill as the seat of his name and family. But Lord Zouche left the world just as great changes were coming upon his country, and when property was soon to become uncertain and insecure. His relation, Sir Edward Zouche, of Woking, the next possessor of Bramshill, was a dissolute man; he had been one of the favorites of James I., who had made him his knight marshal, and added him to his council. After his death, in 1634, Bramshill was inherited by his son, James Zouche, who, with grateful loyalty to the son of him to whom his family owed so much, raised a troop of horse, as we are told, "at his own proper costs and charges," for the Royal service in the civil wars, and sent two of his sons to serve in it. This very act of loyalty was indirectly the cause of Bramshill passing out of the hands of the Zouche family. For the expense of maintaining this troop was so great, that poor James Zouche, or his son-for he died in 1643- was compelled to dispose of Bramshill (probably the most saleable of his estates in the neighbourhood) to raise money for its necessities. He acordingly sold Bramshill to Andrew Henley, Esq., son of Sir Robert Henley, a considerable lawyer, another of whose sons founded the family of the Grange, in this county, from whom Lord Chancellor Northington descended. Bramshill did not, however, long continue in the hands of the Henley family, and there is something very remarkable in their downward course in the world, and something mysterious about their final disappearance. Thus much, however, we can learn—that Andrew Henley, the purchaser of Bramshill, was created a baronet at the Restoration; he died in 1675, and his son and successor, Sir Robert Henley, dying five years after him, left his estate, encumbered with a debt of 20,000l., to his next brother and successor in the title; he is said to have continued in a course of extravagance which eventually ruined him. He seems to have married an inferior person in the neighbouring village of Yately; and Peter Le Neve, an industrious king-at-arms, at the beginning of the last century, who compiled pedigrees of the baronets and knights of his time, and illustrated them with scraps of chit-chat picked up here and there, for the benefit of succeeding generations, tells us, that this last Sir Andrew Henley, "killed a man and fled for it." What eventually became of him is unknown, but with him the connection of the Henleys with Bramshill ceased, for being thus ruined in fortune and in reputation, he sold his estates. It happened that at the time Bramshill was passing away from the Henleys, the Cope family had migrated or were migrating from their ancient dwelling place in the north of Oxfordshire, where they had "flourished" (to use the words of Philemon Holland, the translator of Camden) "in great and good esteem," since the reign of Henry VII. Without going fully into the causes of their quitting Oxfordshire, it is sufficient to say, that Sir Anthony Cope, the fifth baronet, being offended that his brother and presumptive heir had married contrary to his wishes or without his sanction, made such a testamentary disposition of his estates as effectually alienated the greater portion of them from his successors in his title. His death occurred in 1675, and after some years of uncertainty, and probably of litigation, a final settlement was effected in 1688, under which the bulk of the ancient family estates, including what Leland in his Itinerary, calls the "pleasant and gallant house at Hanwell," (of which only enough now remains standing to shew what a noble place it must once have been) passed away to a distant branch of the family. Sir John Cope, the fifth baronet, thenceforward resided at Chelsea, then the most fashionable and aristocratic suburb of London; his eldest son had just returned from completing the grand tour, had married in 1696 the daughter of Sir Humphrey Monnoux, had received knighthood as the eldest son of a baronet from King William III., and was no doubt desirous of ob |