BUSLEY-ON-THE HILL.
Burley-on-the-Hill. By Pearl Finch. 2 vols. (Ball, Sons, and Danielsson. 42s.)—The mansion of Burley-on-the-Ffill occupies a site which has been inhabited for many generations. Its immediate predecessor was occupied by the first Duke of Buckingham, who entertained Charles I. and Hentietta Maria. Here it was that the pie which contained Geoffrey Hudson was served up. The second Duke sold the estate to Daniel (2nd) Lad of Nottingham (the house had perished in the Civil Wars). The new owner built the present mansion, on which he spent 480,000, having begun— so does history repeat itself—with an estimate of £15,000. (These sums must be trebled to give their equivalent in money of to-day.) Very full accounts of the build. log, the materials used, and the cost have happily been pre- served. We are told that 476,000,000 bricks were used. (Can this vast number be correct? At bs. 6d. per thousand, the con- tract price given on p.42, this would work out at about £120,000.) The house was roofed-in six years after the building was com- menced (1694 1700), but the gard. us were not completed before 1724. Happily Lord Nottingham lived to a good old age (81), and so saw the very end of his great undertaking. He was an admirable specimen of a governing class, not, probably, so able that he would have worked his way up frem a lower station, but fully capable of discharging the duties to which he was born. His biography as given here, with illustrative documents, is highly interesting. His family was of the very largest. There were thirteen daughters, of whom five died in infancy or child- hood, not a little, one would think, from bleeding. The survivors married well, becoming (1) Marchioness of Halifax and after- wards Duchess of Roxburghe, (2) Lady Mostyn, (3) Duchess of Somerset, (4) Marchioness of Rockingham, (6) Duchess of Cleve- land, (6) Countess of Mansfield. The second volume contains inventories and catalogues. The book is an admirable example of a duty discharged. Our laws are framed so as to preserve these great houses, and it is well when they are made to contri- bute to the illustration of the national history.
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