selves de Constable, from the office and place that they held under the bishops of Norwich, by whom they had been enfeoffed of it. The office of constable related as well to affairs of peace as to military affairs. The Conqueror seems first to have appointed this office: his grand constable or marshal, was stiled Princeps Militia Domus Regis and was hereditary, of whose dignity and authority our statutes and histories afford many proofs, and many lordships were held under the king by virtue of it, and the same was in this family, the office appearing to be hereditary. ག་། LETTER XIX. WALSINGHAM, August 30, 1798. AND now, my dear Baron, the country begins to lift itself into superior beauty. Nature, who had been timid and retired, comes suddenly forth, and asserts herself. The utmost which she could do upon a flat, assisted by art, has been exhibited at the seat of the Walpoles, and in the modest scenery that cheered your way to that august mansion. But the smallest cottage in the deep vallies, or on the ambitious mountains, where the lands rise and fall in solemn and sublime diversity, must ever be preferred by a pictorial traveller, to the most princely structures, and magnificent woods on a level surface. Indeed, you are now leaving behind all the flats in this direction of Norfolk, and I must admit the opinion of an observer upon it, as to the injustice with which it has been described by many of its hasty historians. Most parts, except the marsh and fen lands, are marked with rising grounds, which, though they do not ascend, with the almost presumptuous daring of sky-top'd Switzerland, carry your eye over a rich prospect, frequently of twenty, and sometimes thirty miles. You will perceive a bold variety mark your path, and elevate your view, from the time you gain the steep ascent that begins its rise from the vale at the foot of Basham-abbey — a bold variety of ground, indeed, where nature grows adventurous; where she swells the hills more proudly than she is wont in her Norfolk domain, and sinks more abrupt and more profoundly into her glens. Yet, in this particular spot she discovers the nakedness of her land, in one respect, more than in some of the most undecorated, uncheary, and even in the wildest parts of her British possessions, You will be attracted for a moment by the summits unobstructedly rising before you; you will be refreshed by verdure that invites the foot and invigorates the eye-but, alas! where is now the wood, the thicket, the hedge-row? where are even the shrubs? Oh, beauteous Nature, prodigal as thou art of all these, in thy spring, thy summer, thy autumnal charms, why hast thou withdrawn them from WALSINGHAM? The question will be answered in no common way and I must, on this occasion, be the medium of Nature's reply. You will hear on the road, my friend, and, indeed, from the utmost verge of the country, were you even there to begin your inquiries, of a strange, distraught being, who turns night into day, day into night-who goes to bed when all the rational part of the world get up, and who rises when they retire to rest. You will be told, - that in the economy of his household he is no way absurdly profuse; yet, that he has suffered, and therefore encouraged, for twice ten years, a pack of vagabonds in his parish, to cut down, burn, and sell the timber, which were of his father's and his own planting, that he has allowed this felonious enormity to grow from bad to worse from breaking up hedges, and lopping branches, to the exterminating whole nurseries and plantations, of no less value than ornament to his estate; and, indeed, to the picturesque beauty of the country that when any of these midnight robbers who ought, at least, to incur the penalty of a law in our country, called the Black Act-come in view of our midnight wanderer for at the noon of night, you will be told, commence his perambulations he only says, mildly, "take care how you get down that tree, or you may hurt yourself." - In addition to all this, you will hear it asserted, and very truly, that by these depredations, he has sustained a loss of twenty thou sand pounds at least; that, -so daring have at length become the offenders, - strings of boys and girls have been seen, in the broad eye of day, to bend under the burthen of nurseling plants of as tender an age, and smaller than themselves while the parents of these children, |