A  letter  to  me  nearly  thirty  years  ago  thus  whimsically  referred  to
it :  "  Llanthony  is  a  noble  estate  :  it  produces  everything  but  herb-
age, corn,  and  money.  My  son,  however,  may  perhaps  make  some-
thing of  it ;  for  it  is  about  eight  miles  long,  and  I  planted  a  million
of  trees  on  it  more  than  thirty  years  ago.  I  lived  there  little  more
than  eight  months  altogether,  and  built  a  house  to  pull  it  down
again.  Invent  a  hero,  if  you  can,  who  has  performed  such  exploits."
Here  was  an  instance  of  my  old  friend  setting  down  as  the  thing  he
did  the  thing  he  only  intended  to  do  ;  for  his  million  of  trees  fell
considerably  short  in  the  reality  of  perhaps  a  tenth  of  the  number  at
which  his  fancy  reckoned  them.  Such  as  they  were,  however,  his
plantations  have  been  the  most  profitable  part  of  the  estate  ;  which
might  in  other  points  also  have  deserved  as  little  the  irony  applied
to  it,  if  its  capabilities  even  to  the  same  extent  had  been  seen  and
used.  Very  far  from  ill  laid  out  would  have  been  the  whole  seventy
or  eighty  thousand  pounds  drawn  into  it,  if  they  had  but  been
expended  with  competent  skill  and  prudent  management.
