Transcription

[Page 168]

indeed.  Thank God it is passing off.  We are here at a most charming place, the ancestral residence of the Brokes, now Broke-Middleton.  The house, very large & fine is said to be of the time of Henry 8th & to have been built by the Ld. Broke a Ld. Chief [indecipherable] of that time, but it has been so completely modernised in- & externally as to seem more like a house of James 1st time.  It is replete with every comfort.  It has a large library full of the old books which one reads of but never meets except in the British Museum & is filled everywhere with old family portraits, among which I have originals of several in Lodges Portraits - by Van Dyck [indecipherable] Kneller, &c.  One wd. specially please you tho the most modern being the full length portrait of Sir P. Vere Broke who lived & died here.  Several articles of furniture are made out of the oak of the Shannon, and her figure head is in the back Hall.  There are some magnificent avenue of lime trees running in different directions, one running down to the Orwell here a large estuary, especially picturesque & beautiful.  The park is very large & filled with fine old timber, and the gardens very extensive & well kept.  The B & S have been for a fortnight by ourselves, having the advantage

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