We have been delighted with the following admirable sketch of English
comfort from the pen of Mr. Cobbett:
"I never had, that I recollect, a more pleasant journey or ride, than
this into Sussex. The weather was pleasant, the elder-trees in full
bloom, and they make a fine show; the woods just in their greatest
beauty; the grass-fields generally uncut; and the little gardens of the
labourers full of flowers; the roses and honeysuckles perfuming the air
at every cottage-door. Throughout all England these cottages and gardens
are the most interesting objects that the country presents, and they are
particularly so in Kent and Sussex. This part of these counties have the
great blessing of numerous woods: these furnish fuel, nice sweet fuel,
for the heating of ovens and for all other purposes: they afford
materials for the making of pretty pigsties, hurdles, and dead fences of
various sorts; they afford materials for making little cow-sheds; for
the sticking of peas and beans in the gardens; and for giving to every
thing a neat and substantial appearance. These gardens, and the look of
the cottages, the little flower-gardens, which you every where see, and
the beautiful hedges of thorn and of privet; these are the objects to
delight the eyes, to gladden the heart, and to fill it with gratitude
to God, and with love for the people; and, as far as my observation has
gone, they are objects to be seen in no other country in the world.
The cattle in Sussex are of a pale red colour, and very fine. I used to
think that the Devonshire were the handsomest cows and oxen, but I have
changed my mind; those of Sussex, of which I never took so much notice
before, are handsomer as well as larger; and the oxen are almost
universally used as working cattle.
"Throughout this county I did not observe, in my late ride, one single
instance of want of neatness about a poor man's house. It is the
same with regard to the middle ranks: all is neat and beautiful, and
particularly the hedges, of which I saw the handsomest white thorn hedge
at Seddlescomb, that ever I saw in my life. It formed the inclosure of
a garden in front of a pretty good house. It was about five feet high,
about fifteen inches through; it came close to the ground, and it was
sloped a little towards the top on each side, leaving a flat about four
inches wide on the top of all. It had just been clipped; and it was as
perpendicular and as smooth as a wall: I put my eye and looked along
the sides of the several lines near the top, and if it had been built
of stone, it could not have been truer. I lament that I did not ask
the name of the owner, for it does him infinite credit. Those who see
nothing but the nasty slovenly places in which labourers live, round
London, know nothing of England. The fruit-trees are all kept in the
nicest order; every bit of paling or wall is made use of, for the
training of some sort or other. At _Lamberhurst_, which is one of
the most beautiful villages that man ever sat his eyes on, I saw what
I never saw before; namely, a _gooseberry tree trained against a
house_. The house was one of those ancient buildings, consisting of
a frame of oak wood, the internal filled up with brick, plastered over.
The tree had been planted at the foot of one of the perpendicular pieces
of wood; from the stem which, mounted up this piece of wood, were taken
side limbs to run along the horizontal pieces. There were two windows,
round the frame of each of which the limbs had been trained. The height
of the highest shoot was about ten feet from the ground, and the
horizontal shoots on each side were from eight to ten feet in length.
The tree had been judiciously pruned, and all the limbs were full of
very large gooseberries, considering the age of the fruit. This is only
one instance out of thousands that I saw of extraordinary pains taken
with the gardens."
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