Ever yours most truly and affectionately,
BYRON.]
The confidence of Lord Byron in the good feeling and good taste of
Colonel Wildman has been justified by the event. Under his judicious
eye and munificent hand the venerable and romantic pile has risen from
its ruins in all its old monastic and baronial splendor, and additions
have been made to it in perfect conformity of style. The groves and
forests have been replanted; the lakes and fish-ponds cleaned out, and
the gardens rescued from the "hemlock and thistle," and restored to
their pristine and dignified formality.
The farms on the estate have been put in complete order, new farm-
houses built of stone, in the picturesque and comfortable style of the
old English granges; the hereditary tenants secured in their paternal
homes, and treated with the most considerate indulgence; everything, in
a word, gives happy indications of a liberal and beneficent landlord.
What most, however, will interest the visitors to the Abbey in favor of
its present occupant, is the reverential care with which he has
preserved and renovated every monument and relic of the Byron family,
and every object in anywise connected with the memory of the poet.
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