Thank Heaven, the old man did not call them "CASKETS"!--a vile
modern phrase, which compels a person of sense and good taste to shrink
more disgustfully than ever before from the idea of being buried at
all. But as regards those eighty coffins, only sixteen have as yet
been contributed; and it may be a question with some minds, not merely
whether the Grevilles will hold the earldom of Warwick until the
full number shall be made up, but whether earldoms and all manner of
lordships will not have faded out of England long before those many
generations shall have passed from the castle to the vault. I hope not.
A titled and landed aristocracy, if anywise an evil and an incumbrance,
is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders;
and an American, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque
effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what
affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. Nevertheless, conservative
as England is, and though I scarce ever found an Englishman who seemed
really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears
as if the old foundations of things were crumbling away.
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