Scraps, which the
pomps and vanities of those days would have degraded, we thus snatch
from oblivion; a preservation more worthy, and an occupation more
useful, we hope, than to hand down to admiring ages the colour and cut
of taffeta or brocade.
This "wisest" of earthly kings was an ill-spoiled compound of qualities,
the types of which existed in his monitor and his preceptor; two great
men, whom history has not failed to distinguish--Archie Armstrong and
George Buchanan--the wit and the scholar, which in him became the
representatives of two much more useful and esteemed qualities--fool and
pedant!
Attended by his favourite Buckingham and a numerous train of officials,
he "progressed" upon the road to Hoghton Tower, the spacious and
splendid dwelling of Sir Richard Hoghton, the first baronet of that
family, whose guest he was to continue for a space, to the great envy
and admiration of the whole neighbourhood.
As they came nigh the Tower, nothing could be conceived more beautiful
or picturesque. Its embattled-gateway, bartizans, and battlements,
crowning the summit of a bold and commanding eminence, became brightly
illuminated, flashing against grim and shapeless masses of cloud, the
shattered relics of a storm, that was rolling away in the distance.
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