Note 293 — Chapter XX · THE SUB-MANOR OF BELSIZE.
Reading edition
‘And on each side the gate a grenadier; Howe’er, they cannot speak, nor see, nor hear; But why they’re posted there no mortal knows, Unless it be to fright jackdaws and crows.’
A modern writer on the neighbourhood appears to have been misled by these lines into the supposition that the gates were guarded by living soldiers.