There appear to have existed at one time three different portraits of Dr. Carey :—

1. That referred to in Andrew Fuller's life of Pearce.

2. The portrait of Dr. Carey attended by his pundit, which was painted by Mr. R. Home of Calcutta. The one in our frontispiece is from this picture.

3. An oil painting presented to the Rev. John Sutcliff. After the death of Mrs. Sutcliff it passed into the hands of her nephew, Mr. Johnson, the first husband of Mrs. J. W. Soul of Olney, who died in 1885. Mrs. Soul bequeathed it to the Baptist Mission House, where it now hangs.

XV.

WESTON UNDERWOOD.

"I find myself here situated exactly to my mind. Weston is one of the prettiest villages in England, and the walks about it at all seasons of the year are delightful."-COWPER: Letter to Joseph Hill, Esq., Dec. 9, 1786.

I. WESTON HALL.

WESTON HALL, the ancient mansion of the Throckmortons, which stood on the left side of the road leading from Olney to Weston, just outside the village, was entirely demolished in 1827; and of its near appurtenances none are now standing except the iron gates with four stone piers, and a portion of the stabling and granary crowned by a cupola. It consisted of a quadrangle enclosing a court, or, as the villagers used to call it, "the jail-yard;" and drawings are in existence of each of its fronts. The north, principal, or Queen Anne front faced the park, and was built by Sir Robert Throckmorton about 1710. Projecting northwards and at right angles to it were the stables, the one on the west side, which occupied the site of the present Roman Catholic chapel, being for the coach-horses, the one on the other side for the hunters. The rest of the exterior was partly in the Queen Anne style and partly Elizabethan, the most irregular portion being the west front, which had a porch, and was a perfect medley of chimneys, gabled projections, and windows, the last dotted about in the oddest manner imaginable. From the general appearance of the interior it was judged that the house must have been commenced about the end of the fifteenth century; at the time of its demolition the southern portion was in ruins and had not been inhabited for two hundred years. Coats-of-arms which adorned some of the windows bore the date 1572, and over the door of one of the parlours were several ancient escutcheons of arms.

In taking the house down several interesting discoveries were made. In one place was a concealed door, which when bolted withinside could not be distinguished from the wainscot. Three of the garrets on the west side of the house had in days of persecution been thrown together to form a chapel; and in another garret next to the chapel was found a trap-door opening into a small secret room below, the situation of which was concealed from the outside by a large stack of chimneys. It contained a box sufficiently long for a person to lie in at ease; in which were two mattresses, a rough hewn ladder long enough to reach the trap-door, a candlestick, a crust of bread, some chicken bones, and a priest's breviary. Doubtless these hidingplaces often had occupants in the troublous days of Elizabeth and James I., during which the Throckmortons suffered so much on account of their religion; but although it was a matter of history that hiding-places of some sort existed in the house they had not been known even to the family of late years.

In a portion of one of the walls, which at the sale of materials had been purchased by an inhabitant of Olney for eleven shillings, the workmen employed to take it down found a leathern purse containing twenty-eight guineas and four half guineas of the reigns of Charles II. and James II., as bright all of them, and in as good preservation, as if they had just come from the Mint. The library, the family portraits, and the coats-of-arms on painted glass with which the windows were adorned, were removed to Coughton, the principal residence of the family; the black marble and white flags which formed part of the pavement of the entrance-hall are now in the floor of the Roman Catholic chapel.

At the entrance of the village is still standing one of the gateways of the Park; the other, which was similar in appearance, and stood on the side nearest Olney, has disappeared. The road in front of the house, which ran through the park (from which it was not railed off), was formerly a private one, and consequently the gates were shut at night. The public road ran between the hall and the river, but with the exception of the portion abutting upon the village street, where stands the socket of the ancient cross, has since been done away with.

The fact that Cowper was connected with both Olney and Weston has ever since his day closely associated them together in the minds of the thousands to whom his works are dear, but it is worth noticing that from earliest times Olney has been more closely connected with Weston than with any of the other surrounding villages. In the first place, they once formed one parish; in the second, although ever since about 1400 parochially separate, they have frequently been united ecclesiastically, e.g., Scott was curate at the same time of both Olney and Weston; and again, the first mention we have of the wealthy family of Olney is as lords of the manor, not of Olney, but of Weston Underwood.

John de Olney, who is said to have built Weston Church, is buried in the chancel. Covering his grave is a very large blue flag with a Latin inscription in brass round its verge, and the symbols of the evangelists at the corners. He died in 1405.

In 1446 Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Olney, married Sir Thomas Throckmorton of Warwickshire; and the Throckmorton family has owned the manor ever since.

The most famous of the early Throckmortons was Sir Nicholas, who rose to high dignities in the state in the reign of Henry VIII. In Mary's reign, however, he got into trouble for aiding and abetting the rebellion of Wyat; but at his trial he pleaded his cause so ably that, in spite of the strength of the evidence and the influence of the ministry, the jury acquitted him. The other prisoners, five in all, received judgment: one of them, Croft, obtained a pardon; the other four, the Duke of Suffolk, Wyat, Lord Thomas Grey, and William Thomas, private secretary to the late king, were executed. Throckmorton was detained a prisoner for some time and fined £2000. In the reign of Elizabeth he entered heartily into the intrigues of Court and became a principal in Leicester's faction, but the Earl's insincerity having involved him in trouble, he changed sides, made concessions to Cecil, and by betraying important secrets converted his late patron into a bitter enemy. To outward appearance, however, they still kept on good terms; but as far as Leicester was concerned it was only that the more easily he might carry out his sinister designs, for, a short time

after, Throckmorton was attacked by a malignant distemper, caused, it is said, by a poisoned salad eaten at the Earl's; and the distemper proved fatal.

Sir Robert Throckmorton (knight), the next head of the family whom we can here notice, was the person who in 1578 rebuilt the greater part of Weston Hall. His wife, Elizabeth, is buried at the upper end of the south aisle of Weston Church, where there is a headless brass to her memory. At the feet

of the figure are an inscription and a small brass representing her five daughters.

Sir Robert, the fourth baronet, died in 1791. Sir John Courteney Throckmorton, the fifth baronet, the friend of the poet Cowper and the Benevolus of "The Task," was born at Weston in 1753, and died and was buried at Coughton in 1819. He married Miss Giffard, the Maria of Cowper's poems. Sir George Courteney Throckmorton, the sixth baronet, succeeded his brother, Sir John. He married Miss Stapleton (Cowper's Catherina).

The poems addressed to "Maria" are the graceful lines entitled "The Poet's New Year's Gift," the lines "On the Death of Mrs. Throckmorton's Bullfinch," and those "To Mrs. Throckmorton on her beautiful transcript of Horace's Ode, 'Ad librum suum.''

II. THE WALKS AT WESTON AND WESTON LODGE.

As we have already spoken of the eminence sometimes alluded to as "The Cliff," it will be more convenient in noticing Cowper's favourite walks to commence at the Ho-brook, a diminutive stream that crosses the road about half way from Olney 1 to Weston.

1

"This stream," says Mr. James Storer,2 " according to tradition, was frequently so swelled, that it was dangerous to attempt a passage; and Weston being then a hamlet to Olney, the clergy made application to the Pope for leave to build a

1 From the Weston Road, just outside the town, can be seen Goosey Bridge, near which occurred the incident that gave birth to Cowper's poem of "The Dog and the Water-Lily."

24 Rural Walks of Cowper," published in 1803.