Not a tree is left
standing, and the wood thus shamefully cut down was sold in one day for
L60,000. The hall of entrance has about eighteen large niches, which had
been filled with statues, and the side walls covered with family
portraits and armour. All these have been mercilessly torn down, as well
as the magnificent fireplace, and sold. All the beautiful paintings
which filled the galleries--valued at that day at L80,000--have
disappeared, and the whole place is crumbling into dust. No sum short of
L100,000 would make the place habitable. Lord Byron's few apartments
contain some modern upholstery, but serve only to show what ought to
have been there. They are now digging round the cloisters for a
traditionary cannon, and in their progress, about five days ago, they
discovered a corpse in too decayed a state to admit of removal. I saw
the drinking-skull [Footnote: When the father of the present Mr. Murray
was a student in Edinburgh, he wrote to his father (April 10,1827): "I
saw yesterday at a jeweller's shop in Edinburgh a great curiosity, no
less than Lord Byron's skull cup, upon which he wrote the poem.
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