THE LONG LINE AND THIS BOOK END.
The time was at hand which should bring the antagonism of Sir Roger
Rockville to our friends in this history to an end. The severity
which he had for so many years exercised towards all sorts of
offenders, independent of his unconquerable repugnance to all the
views and principles of advancing society, had made him the object of
deepest vengeance. Eyes watched for him, ears listened for him, dark
hearts burned in murderous breasts in lonely places, to discharge
upon his head the collected fury of a thousand injuries. In a lonely
hollow of his woods, watching at midnight with two of his men, there
came a sturdy knot of poachers. An affray ensued. The men perceived
that their old enemy, Sir Roger, was there, and the blow of a
hedge-stake stretched him on the earth. His keepers fled. And thus
ignominiously terminated the long line of the Rockvilles. The actual
nature of the catastrophe was concealed at the time from the public,
and the conservative newspaper of Castleborough announced that Sir
Roger had died suddenly in his bed. It was true that he died in his
bed, but it was from the lingering effects of the injury received in
the wood. Sir Roger was the last of his line, but not of his class.
There is a feudal art of sinking, which requires no study, and the
Rockvilles are but one family amongst thousands who have perished in
its practice.
Scarcely had Sir Roger breathed his last, when his title and estate
fell into litigation. Owing to two generations having passed with
no other issue of the Rockville family than a single son and heir,
the claims, though numerous, were so mingled with obscuring
circumstances, and so equally balanced, that the lawyers raised
quibbles and difficulties enough to keep it in chancery till they
had not only consumed all the ready money and rental, but had made
frightful inroads into the estate itself. To save the remnant, the
contending parties came to a compromise. A neighbouring squire, whose
grandfather had married a Rockville, was allowed to secure the title,
on the condition that the residuum of the estate should be divided
amongst the whole of the claimants. The woods and lands of Rockville
were accordingly announced for sale.
It was at this juncture that old William Watson reminded Simon Degge
of a conversation in the great grove at Rockville which they had
held at the time that Sir Roger was endeavouring to drive the people
thence.
“What a divine pleasure,” said Mr. Degge, “might this man enjoy if he
had a heart capable of letting others enjoy themselves. If he could
but see that the laws of property should be maintained in consistency
with the laws of God: that He has given the rentals of the earth to
individuals, but that He has never repealed his great law which gives
the whole earth to the undivided race of man: that the rentals may
be enjoyed by the individual possessors without infringement of the
general enjoyment of the pleasures of nature by society at large.
These different kinds of possession may surely co-exist without one
interfering with the other.”
“But we talk without the estate,” William Watson had said; “what
might we do if we were tried with it?”
Mr. Degge, when reminded of this conversation, was silent for
a moment, and then replied, that there was sound philosophy in
William’s remark. He said no more, but went away, and the next day
announced to the astonished old man that he had purchased the groves
and the whole ancient estate of Rockville.
Simon Degge, the last of a long line of paupers, had become the
possessor of the noble estate of Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville,
the last of a long line of aristocrats! It may be imagined what was
the consternation of the whole Bullockshed and Tenterhook clan;
what the delightful amazement of Woodburn, Cotmanhaye, and all
Castleborough. To the squirearchy of the old school, the audacity
of this purchase surpassed the range of their limited imaginations.
This daring and fortunate quondam pauper, and present manufacturing
millionaire, squatted down, as they expressed it, amid all the woods
and lands, amid all the ancient honours of the line of Rockville.
To them it portended something very like the end of the world.
They saw all the old fixedness of ancestry and soil broken up, and
the despised men of spindles and looms invading everything which
to them was sacred. It seemed that Sir Roger and all his ghostly
forefathers and foremothers must rise up and scare, in the midnight
hours, the plebeian new comers from their hall and possessions of
nearly a thousand years. It seemed as if those stately monuments
and procumbent effigies of so many Rockvilles in armour, ruffs, and
farthingales, must start up from their tombs in the old church,
saturated as it was with the presence and emblazoned with the arms
and glorious epitaphs of the Rockvilles. But they all remained
perfectly quiescent; neither chiselled stone nor ancestral spirit
moved. Nature received these _terræ filii_ with as much equanimity
and indifference as it had received the Norman hordes before. There
was neither storm-wind nor earthquake, but the still small voice
of reason was heard whispering in many quarters, that whenever man
puts forth his powers he makes himself the lord of the circumstances
around him; whenever he sinks into sloth and imbecility, nature
throws him from her weird shoulders, as the vigorous but interloping
young cuckoo throws the hedge-sparrow from its parental nest. The
earth is for the bold.
In how many a quarter of this island of late years has this same
revolution been developing itself? The sons of industry, risen by it
to wealth, in how many of the seats of the old aristocracy, decayed
through luxury and indolence, do we find them planted? Perhaps the
new blood thus infusing itself may reinvigorate and thus perpetuate
the old race; but at any rate, new ideas, new sentiments, and a more
popular spirit must follow these transformations. _Novi homines_
cannot rest on their laurels, and to rest solely on their money were
too odious; they must, therefore, proclaim a newer and more popular
creed; and so the world moves on its spiral course.
To the inmates of Woodburn Grange, of Cotmanhaye Manor, of Fair
Manor, and of the whole population of Castleborough, this was a
delightful event. The old odious antagonism was at an end. The more
earthy squirearchy receded into the distance, and a spirit of a more
genial nature took possession of all this pleasant neighbourhood.
The following summer, when the hay was lying in fragrant cocks in
the great meadows below Rockville, and on the little islands of the
river, Simon Degge held a grand fête on the occasion of his coming to
reside at Rockville Hall, henceforth the family seat of the Degges.
Simon Degge remained plain Simon Degge. On occasion of going up
to London with an address to the King on some great occasion, the
honour of knighthood had been offered him; and further, it had been
communicated to him through his friend, Lord Netherland, the Recorder
of Castleborough, that his majesty, in consideration of his great
wealth and his public spirit, was disposed graciously to create him
a baronet. Both these intended honours Simon Degge as graciously
declined. He declared that he preferred the simple unadorned name
which he had ever borne, and he desired no honours but such as
naturally sprung from the exercise of virtue and benevolence.
For the present occasion his house and gardens had all been restored
in the most consummate style. For years Mr. Degge had been a great
purchaser of works of art and literature—painting, statuary, books,
and articles of antiquity, including rich armour and precious works
in ivory and gold. As Mrs. Degge had a particular weakness for
beautiful china, he had gratified her eyes with a grand array of the
most exquisite specimens of the ceramic art.
First and foremost, he now gave a great banquet to his wealthy
friends—and no man with a million and a half is without them, and in
abundance. In the second place, he gave a substantial dinner to all
his tenantry, from the wealthy farmer of five hundred acres to the
tenant of a cottage. On this occasion he said, “Game is a subject of
great heart-burnings, and of great injustice to the country. It was
the bane of my predecessor, let us take care that it is not ours.
Let every man kill the game on the land that he rents, then he will
neither destroy it utterly, nor allow it to grow into a nuisance.
I am fond of a gun myself, and my sons probably will be more so;
but we shall find game enough in our own fields and woods for our
destructive propensities, without fostering such a swarm of these
animals as may lead us to degenerate into game-butchers. Gentlemen,
I should as soon think of setting up to kill my own oxen, as to kill
game merely for the sake of killing it. The healthy excitement of the
chase vanishes when a very inundation of the animals pursued rolls
under our feet, and a satiating slaughter takes the place of a keen
and vigorous search after it. To hunt!—yes, the word expresses what
field-sports once were—the game had to be hunted out. Now the foreign
name best designates it—battu, beat it up, and knock it ignobly on
the head. Gentlemen, whenever we may occasionally extend our pursuit
of game beyond the fields of the home-farm and the woods, across the
lands of our tenants, it shall not be to carry off the first-fruits
of their feeding, and we will still hold the enjoyment as a favour.”
We need not say that this speech was applauded most vociferously.
Thirdly, and lastly, Mr. Degge gave a grand entertainment to all his
work-people, both of the town and country. His house and grounds were
thrown open to the inspection of the whole concourse. The delighted
crowd admired the pictures and pleasant gardens. On the lawn, lying
betwixt the great grove and the hall, an enormous tent was pitched,
or rather a vast canvas canopy erected, open on all sides, in which
was laid a charming banquet. A military band from Castleborough
Barracks played during the time. Here Simon Degge, leaning his hand
on the shoulder of his happy mother,—his worthy father-in-law,
Spires, was gone to his rest,—surveyed the scene with the utmost
delight. His mother, fresh and hale as ever, was seated with William
Watson and her old Castleborough neighbours about her; and as her
son there stood, he made a speech which was as rapturously applauded
as that delivered to the farmers. It was to the effect that all the
old privileges of wandering in the groves, of angling and boating on
the river, were restored. The inn was already rebuilt in a handsome
Elizabethan style, larger than before, and to prevent it ever
becoming a fane of intemperance, he had there placed as landlord, he
hoped for many years to come, his old friend and benefactor, William
Watson. William Watson, he was sure, would protect the inn from riot,
and they themselves the groves and river banks from injury.
Long and loud was the applause which this announcement occasioned.
The young people turned out upon the green for a dance, and in the
evening, after an excellent tea, the whole company descended the
river in boats and barges decorated with green boughs and flowers,
and singing a song made by William Watson for the occasion, called,
“The Health of Simon Degge, the last and first of his line!”
Years have rolled on. The groves and river banks, and islands of
Rockville are still greatly frequented, but are never known to be
injured. Poachers are never known, for excellent reasons: nobody
would like to annoy the good Mr. Degge. Game is not very numerous
there; there is no fun in killing it, where there is no resistance,
and it is vastly more amusing to kill it where it is abundant, and is
jealously watched and guarded by the proprietor of the demesnes, and
where there is the chance of a good spree with the keepers.
And with what different feelings does the good Simon Degge look
down from his lofty eyrie over the princely expanse of meadows,
and over the glittering river, and over the stately woods to where
Great Castleborough still stretches farther and farther its red-brick
walls, its red-tiled roofs, and its tall, smoke-emitting chimneys!
There he sees no haunts of crowded men, enemies to himself or to any
one. No upstarts, no envious opponents, but a vast family of human
beings, all toiling for the good of their families and their country.
All advancing, some faster, some slower, to a better education, a
better social condition, a better conception of the principles of art
and commerce, a clearer recognition of their rights and duties, and a
more cheering faith in the upward tendency of humanity.
Looking on this interesting scene from his distant and quiet home,
Simon Degge sees what blessings flow—and deeply he feels them in
his own case—from the circulation not only of trade but of human
reciprocities. How this corrects the mischiefs, moral and physical,
of false systems and rusty prejudices, and he ponders not on poachers
and encroachers, but on schemes of no ordinary beauty and beneficence
yet to reach his beloved town through him. He sees lecture halls and
academies, means of sanitary purification and delicious recreation,
in which baths and wash-houses and airy homes figure largely, whilst
the public walks round the town are still farther extended, including
woods, hills, meadows, and rivers, in a circuit of many miles. There
he lives and labours, around him a noble family of sons and daughters
to perpetuate his labours and his virtues.
And what a change has fallen on all the country and the families,
rich and poor, around! The friends of Sir Roger have fallen out
of the circuit, as it were. The old leaven of heart-burnings and
conflicting principles has died out from amongst those in whom we
are most interested. In that lovely little district, which includes
Cotmanhaye, Woodburn, Rockville, Bilts’ Farm, Fair Manor, and
Castleborough, the abodes of the Claverings, the Woodburns, Degges,
and Heritages, the old sunny and Arcadian days have returned. Young
families are springing up here and there, bringing with them new
floods of happiness, and a spirit of peace and harmony floats over
all that charmed region, and from no cause more conspicuously than
from the simple circumstance of the providential removal of one
single man out of so many thousands—THE LAST OF A LONG LINE.
No longer antagonist—no longer mutually irritant, the towers and
woods of Rockville look down with an affectionate smile on the russet
roof and green paddocks of WOODBURN GRANGE.
THE END.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
THE HISTORY OF DISCOVERY IN AUSTRALIA, TASMANIA, AND NEW ZEALAND,
FROM THE EARLIEST DATE TO THE PRESENT DAY. By William Howitt, Author
of “Two Years in Victoria,” etc. etc. With Maps of the Recent
Explorations, from Official Sources. In 2 Vols. 20s. London, Longman
and Co.
NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
TIMES, DEC. 8, 1865.
We welcome these volumes as giving a full account of the Enterprises
by which Australia has been explored, and as calculated to enlarge
our knowledge respecting this vast and important region. They are
careful, accurate, and succinct epitomes of Australian discovery, and
the results it has produced, and contain a great deal of valuable
information.
ATHENÆUM, MAY 6, 1865.
Mr. Howitt’s volumes comprise the history of Tasmania and New Zealand
as well as that of the Australian Continent. We recommend them to
those who wish for a convenient book of reference on Australian
discovery and exploration, or those who wish to know all that has
been done towards our present acquaintance with New Holland and the
adjacent islands.
ILLUSTRATED NEWS.
Mr. Howitt in this work does, as it seems to us, all the justice in
his power to every gallant explorer; enlivens his history with many
anecdotes, and has enriched his work with excellent maps.
LONDON REVIEW, JULY 22, 1865.
Mr. Howitt possesses a sort of family claim to write on the topics
contained in his book. He has been in Australia; one of his sons,
Alfred, commanded the expedition sent out in quest of Burke and
Wills, whose remains he found and buried; and another, Charlton,
was drowned in New Zealand while trying to make his way across the
country from Canterbury to the Western Coast over the Southern Alps.
The history of the exploration of the New Zealand group is briefly
told, and well.
BELL’S MESSENGER, JUNE 17, 1865.
Mr. William Howitt, of all travellers, is perhaps the very best
person that could have been encouraged to give a history of those
vast colonies, which in little more than a quarter of a century
have vied with the mother country in progress and prosperity. For
some time a resident in one or more of the three great dependencies
whose growth he describes, he is perhaps better adapted than even
many a permanent settler to solve the question so often asked, “How
is it that these enormous districts became annexed to England?” His
object in going thither was not to trade, not to seek for gold at the
“diggings,” not to dispossess a single Maori of his vast pasturage,
and grow his own wool, tallow, and mutton thereon, to the ruin of
the original native holder. He crossed the broad seas, not as a
cosmopolitan, but as a keen observer, a patient investigator, and an
honest student, bent rather upon gathering information that might do
more good to others, in a pecuniary point of view, than to himself,
since the remuneration for his literary work could never bring to
him the return, which the facts he had collected may be the means
of recommending to others. The subject he undertook to deal with is
large; but he has had the power to grasp it; and the simple-minded
manner in which he relates the trials of the first adventurers,
the difficulties they had to surmount, and the results which have
followed upon their enterprise, adds a charm to the book, which will
ensure its popularity. To those desirous of trying their fortune
at the antipodes this will be a book indeed of very considerable
usefulness; not because it abounds with advice to such individuals,
or tells them what to do, and what to avoid, but because it is
suggestive of a host of things that will enable a prudent man to
judge rightly, and act accordingly. Whilst however, the value of Mr.
William Howitt’s experience will do good service in this particular,
it is also calculated to assist the merchant and manufacturer at
home, to tell them many truths it were well for them to know.
EXAMINER, APRIL 15, 1865.
An old friend of the public’s, Mr. William Howitt, who has been
himself to Australia, and whose son has made a name for himself there
in the history of exploration, now adds one more to the number of the
histories of “Discovery in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.”
His book, a history in two octavo volumes, begins at the beginning
and brings down its story to the present day. It is a story that
will bear many a telling, and who will not gladly hear it told by
William Howitt in sympathy with the strong interest he feels in it,
of which he writes, “Having had one son engaged in these researches
in Australia, as the successful discoverer of the lost expedition of
Burke and Wills, and the recoverer of their remains, and having lost
another in assisting to open up the interior of New Zealand, he has
entered on the undertaking as a labour of love.” Such a book from his
hands cannot fail to be attractive.
EXAMINER, APRIL 22, 1865.
Nowhere else, in the history of modern discovery,—save in those
Arctic explorations which have had for chief promoters more than one
man schooled to hardship and perseverance in this southern field of
adventure,—was there so much room for unflinching heroism, with such
abundance of dangers to be overcome and substantial victories to be
gained over the treacherous elements. Names like those of Oxley,
Cunningham, King, Grey, Eyre, Sturt, Stuart, Burke, and Wills have,
in the annals of the present century, a dignity akin to that which
makes the lives of Willoughby and Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh, and
a crowd of others, illustrious in Tudor history. Best known, and
noblest of all, is the story of the disastrous expedition of Burke
and Wills in 1860 and 1861, followed, while the fate of the missing
adventurers was unknown, by several memorable journies in quest of
them. Two of these, undertaken by Mr. McKinlay and Mr. Landsborough,
have been described in recent publications. Two others, led by Mr.
Howitt’s own son, are here for the first time made known in detail.
OBSERVER, APRIL 16, 1865.
This book contains a most complete and faithful summary of the
various discoveries that have been made in Australia during the
last 260 years, commencing with those made by the Portuguese in
the north west of Australia before the discovery of the north of
Australia by the Dutch in 1605. It shows, however, that even these
early navigators were not the first discoverers; and that it is
difficult to decide how long Australia had been previously known to
the Chinese. In fact indications exist from the most remote antiquity
of unrecorded voyages, which led the ancients to speak of countries
lying beyond the regions of any positive knowledge then remaining,
and our author cites the passage from Mænilius, who lived in the time
of Tiberius or Augustus, in which the rotundity of the earth and the
existence of antipodes were distinctly referred to.
LITERARY GAZETTE, JUNE 10, 1865.
We are greatly impressed with the value of this work, and cannot
doubt but that it will take rank as a standard authority on all that
pertains to the history of our trans-Pacific possessions. Maps of
Australia, Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand, compiled from official
and authentic information, accompany the volumes, which abound
in pictures new and strange, and contain a large number of facts
illustrative of countries which seem destined to become centres of a
new and extensive civilization.
AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, APRIL 20, 1865.
The want of a connected history of the progress of discovery in
Australia has long been felt, but we are glad to find that the delay
has been amply compensated for in the very excellent work which has
just been published by William Howitt, who, in addition to his other
literary claims, has the advantage of not only being personally
connected with the colonies, but also with the subject, for his sons
enjoy a conspicuous position in the illustrious phalanx of Australian
explorers. In conclusion, we can only say that Mr. Howitt is entitled
to the best thanks of the public, both at home and in the colonies,
for the manner in which he has executed his task.
MORNING ADVERTISER, APRIL 17, 1865.
As a graphic and vigorous writer, one who deals with his subject in
an earnest manner, William Howitt requires no eulogy from the pen of
any critic. His present work is the best and most comprehensive which
has yet appeared on the countries it treats of. The author’s personal
knowledge of several of the colonies, and the possession of documents
not yet given to the public, have achieved for his work greater
accuracy than would otherwise have been the case.
GUARDIAN, SEPT. 1, 1865.
The two handsome volumes before us, are really standard, useful
works, and in some respects exhaustive of their subject. There
are, we imagine, few, if any, points of information for which the
intending emigrant, the settler, or the student need search this
history in vain. The maps are clearly and accurately drawn, and are
founded on the most recent discoveries, with which Mr. Howitt has
made himself fully acquainted. The whole subject is well handled,
but perhaps Australia with the greatest fullness and success, as
presenting scenes of danger and of wild romance, of heroic daring and
devoted deaths, such as few countries have to show.
DAILY NEWS, JUNE 5, 1865.
The author of these volumes has well qualified himself to write
upon the subject to which they are devoted. He has had a personal
acquaintance with the country, and written a delightful book about
it: he has had access to all the sources of information in the
possession of both the colonial and home government, and the better
half of his heart has been long given to the great southern land,
upon which he has bestowed two noble sons. One of Mr. Howitt’s sons
perished in an attempt to explore the interior of New Zealand; the
other still lives, and has had the triumph of discovering the remains
of poor Burke and Wills, who perished in the centre of Australia on
their return after having traversed the continent. The history of
this remarkable, and in many respects, anomalous land, could not have
fallen into better hands. It is a work which engages Mr. William
Howitt’s affections as well as his very great talents, and with his
long practised pen the reader may be sure that the interest of the
subject is not diminished by him.
THE MORNING HERALD, APRIL 25, 1865.
The title page of this book rather startles us at first, by the very
magnitude of its subject, being no less than a chronicle of three
hundred years of discovery. But Mr. Howitt is an old and able hand at
condensing, and is able to give us an excellent summary of all that
is really worth knowing.
THE GLOBE, MAY 29, 1865.
The peculiar fitness of the writer for his task—his “labour of love,”
as he himself styles it—need hardly be dilated on. His long residence
in the country, the country as distinguished from the town—the
services and discoveries of his son Alfred, who brought back the
remains of Burke and Wills for honourable burial, and the loss of his
youngest son, Charlton, in the work of exploration and improvement in
New Zealand, add a personal and family interest to that of the mere
encyclopædias of other men’s labours.
STANDARD, APRIL 25, 1865.
This is a story of labours and adventures, of romantic daring and
noble endurance, such as few, if any other countries have to show.
The names of such men as Tasman, Dampier, Cook, King, Fitzroy,
Lushington, Austin, Babbage, Kennedy, Burke and Wills, Howitt and
Walker, suggest to all that are acquainted with Australian discovery
a host of scenes in which Englishmen took a noble and brave part,
and made their names as famous in the wilderness as they have since
become in the world. And when we call to mind that the peoples of
Australia are almost entirely of our own race and kindred, bound to
us by the closest ties of blood, commerce, and common fortunes, it
is clear that a good sketch of their history must possess a deep and
lasting interest for the public. Mr. Howitt is well fitted to be
their historian, not simply by his natural gifts as a writer, but by
his wide and varied experience as a traveller, and by the occupation
of his two sons, one as an explorer in Australia and the other in
New Zealand. He had omitted no fair research or exertion to render
his sketch attractive and complete, and we are bound to add that his
efforts are crowned with success.
THE MORNING POST, APRIL 25, 1865.
The title of this work opens up a vista of adventure, enterprise,
and daring which is without parallel in the world of fiction and
romance. Its heroes are travellers by land and by water, “men of
might and high achievement,” and great pioneers, who made their
age and country famous, and all succeeding time their debtors. For
all sorts and conditions of men the work possesses attractions.
The studious will find it a storehouse of information, carefully
collected and imparted with a graceful and graphic pen; those who
have not outlived the sympathies of youth will, while they peruse
its pages, recall the pleasurable emotions with which in the days
gone by they followed heroic voyagers into seas over which a cloud
of mystery had theretofore hung, and traced their perilous progress
from land to land; while the younger reader will have in the history
an instructive and delightful study. To all it will be a source
of interest to watch the growth of an Anglo-Saxon empire at the
antipodes from feeble infancy to robust youth, and to speculate upon
the probable greatness of its future from the rapid development which
has taken place during its brief career.
* * * * *
These are examples of the opinions of the general press, which,
without exception, have been of the most unexampled commendatory
character.
* * * * *
Billing, Printer, Guildford.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 2 Added period to: Mr Woodburn, however
pg 47 Added period to: her and Mr
pg 59 Changed no suspicion cou to: could
pg 77 Changed and reach Indianopolis to: Indianapolis
pg 79 Added single quote after: can do a little.
pg 99 Changed ready to issue to th to: the
pg 102 Changed had not at th to: the
pg 107 Removed duplicate word we from: we we will set about
pg 111 Changed Tom then too to: took
pg 112 Added single quote after: have your nap out
pg 114 Changed that it wont to: won’t
pg 127 Changed if I dont to: don’t
pg 149 Added quote after: some of the money.
pg 248 Changed he shouted down-stairs to: downstairs
pg 276 Changed at a very ow to: low
pg 296 Changed present manufacturing millionnaire to: millionaire
pg 302 Added period after: ignobly on the head
Catalog pg 1 Changed The ubject he undertook to: subject
Catalog pg 3 Changed Mr. Howitt it to: is
Hyphenated and non-hyphenated word combinations left as written.