Good housewives now may say;

   For now foule sluts in dairies,

    Doe fare as well as they:

   And though they sweepe their hearths no less

    Than mayds were wont to doe,

   Yet who of late, for cleaneliness,

    Finds sixe-pence in her shoe?"

   —

    Percy's Reliques.

    The ancient mansion of Healey Hall was a cumbrous inconvenient dwelling of timber; but the spirit of improvement having gone forth in the reign of Elizabeth, an ordinary hall-house of stone was erected, about the year 1620, by Oliver Chadwick. On the south front was a projecting wing and three gables, with a large hall-window. The north front had two gables only, with a projecting barn. The north entrance, covered by a porch, was a thorough passage, answering to the screens of a college, having on one side the hall and parlour beyond; on the other were the kitchen, buttery, &c. On the river below was a corn-mill; this and a huge barn being necessary appendages to the hospitable mansions and plentiful boards of our forefathers. Over the front door was this inscription—

    C. C. DOC. T: R. C: I. C. A. C: R. B.

    ANO. DOM'I. 1168.

    About the year 1756 the east wall gave way, and a considerable fishure appeared on the outside. This event was considered by many as the usual foretokening that its owner, Charles Chadwick, of Healey and Ridware, would speedily be removed by death from the seat of his ancestors; and so it proved, for in the course of a few months he died at Lichfield,

     aged eighty-two

    . His great age, though, will be thought the more probable token, the surer presage of approaching dissolution.

    On a stone near the top of the building, on the north side, a human head was rudely carved in relief, which tradition affirms to have been a memorial of one of the workmen, 

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