_Thursley, four miles from Godalming, Surrey, Sunday Evening, 23rd
October, 1825._
We set out from Chilworth to-day about noon. This is a little hamlet,
lying under the South side of St. Martha's Hill; and, on the other side
of that hill, a little to the North West, is the town of Guilford, which
(taken with its environs) I, who have seen so many, many towns, think
the prettiest, and, taken, all together, the most agreeable and most
happy-looking, that I ever saw in my life. Here are hill and dell in
endless variety. Here are the chalk and the sand, vieing with each other
in making beautiful scenes. Here is a navigable river and fine meadows.
Here are woods and downs. Here is something of everything but _fat
marshes_ and their skeleton-making _agues_. The vale, all the way down
to Chilworth from Reigate, is very delightful.
We did not go to Guildford, nor did we cross the _River Wey_, to come
through Godalming; but bore away to our left, and came through the
village of Hambleton, going first to Hascomb, to show Richard the South
Downs from that high land, which looks Southward over the _Wealds_ of
Surrey and Sussex, with all their fine and innumerable oak trees. Those
that travel on turnpike roads know nothing of England.--From Hascomb to
Thursley almost the whole way is across fields, or commons, or along
narrow lands. Here we see the people without any disguise or
affectation. Against a _great road_ things are made for _show_. Here we
see them _without any show_. And here we gain real knowledge as to their
situation.--We crossed to-day, three turnpike roads, that from Guildford
to Horsham, that from Godalming to Worthing, I believe, and that from
Godalming to Chichester.
_Thursley, Wednesday, 26th Oct._
The weather has been beautiful ever since last Thursday morning; but
there has been a white frost every morning, and the days have been
coldish. _Here_, however, I am quite at home in a room, where there is
one of my _American Fire Places_, bought, by my host, of Mr. Judson of
Kensington, who has made many a score of families comfortable, instead
of sitting shivering in the cold. At the house of the gentleman, whose
house I am now in, there is a good deal of _fuel-wood_; and here I see
in the parlours, those fine and cheerful fires that make a great part of
the happiness of the Americans. But these fires are to be had only in
this sort of fire-place. Ten times the fuel; nay, no quantity, would
effect the same object, in any other fire-place. It is equally good for
coal as for wood; but, for _pleasure_, a wood-fire is the thing. There
is, round about almost every gentleman's or great farmer's house, more
wood suffered to rot every year, in one shape or another, than would
make (with this fire-place) a couple of rooms constantly warm, from
October to June. _Here_, peat, turf, saw-dust, and wood, are burnt in
these fire-places. My present host has three of the fire-places.
Being out a-coursing to-day, I saw a queer-looking building upon one of
the thousands of hills that nature has tossed up in endless variety of
form round the skirts of the lofty Hindhead. This building is, it seems,
called a _Semaphore_, or _Semiphare_, or something of that sort. What
this word may have been hatched out of I cannot say; but it means _a
job_, I am sure. To call it an _alarm-post_ would not have been so
convenient; for people not endued with Scotch _intellect_ might have
wondered why the devil we should have to pay for alarm-posts; and might
have thought, that, with all our "glorious victories," we had "brought
our hogs to a fine market," if our dread of the enemy were such as to
induce us to have alarm-posts all over the country! Such unintellectual
people might have thought that we had "conquered France by the immortal
Wellington," to little purpose, if we were still in such fear as to
build alarm-posts; and they might, in addition, have observed, that, for
many hundred of years, England stood in need of neither signal posts nor
standing army of mercenaries; but relied safely on the courage and
public spirit of the people themselves. By calling the thing by an
outlandish name, these reflections amongst the unintellectual are
obviated. _Alarm-post_ would be a nasty name; and it would puzzle people
exceedingly, when they saw one of these at a place like Ashe, a little
village on the north side of the chalk-ridge (called the Hog's Back)
going from Guildford to Farnham. What can this be _for_? Why are these
expensive things put up all over the country? Respecting the movements
of _whom_ is wanted this _alarm-system_? Will no member ask this in
Parliament? Not one: not a man: and yet it is a thing to ask about. Ah!
it is in vain, THING, that you thus are _making your preparations_; in
vain that you are setting your trammels! The DEBT, the blessed debt,
that best ally of the people, will break them all; will snap them, as
the hornet does the cobweb; and, even these very "Semaphores,"
contribute towards the force of that ever-blessed debt. Curious to see
how things _work_! The "glorious revolution," which was made for the
avowed purpose of maintaining the Protestant ascendancy, and which was
followed by such terrible persecution of the Catholics; that "glorious"
affair, which set aside a race of kings, because they were Catholics,
served as the _precedent_ for the American revolution, also called
"glorious," and this second revolution compelled the successors of the
makers of the first, to begin to cease their persecutions of the
Catholics! Then, again, the debt was made to raise and keep armies on
foot to prevent reform of Parliament, because, as it was feared by the
Aristocracy, reform would have humbled them; and this debt, created for
this purpose, is fast sweeping the Aristocracy out of their estates, as
a clown, with his foot, kicks field-mice out of their nests. There was a
hope, that the debt could have been reduced by stealth, as it were; that
the Aristocracy could have been saved in this way. That hope now no
longer exists. In all likelihood the funds will keep going down. What is
to prevent this, if the interest of Exchequer Bills be raised, as the
broad sheet tells us it is to be? What! the funds fall in time of peace;
and the French funds not fall, in time of peace! However, it will all
happen just as it ought to happen. Even the next session of Parliament
will bring out matters of some interest. The thing is now working in the
surest possible way.
The great business of life, in the country, appertains, in some way or
other, to the _game_, and especially at this time of the year. If it
were not for the game, a country life would be like an _everlasting
honey-moon_, which would, in about half a century, put an end to the
human race. In towns, or large villages, people make a shift to find the
means of rubbing the rust off from each other by a vast variety of
sources of contest. A couple of wives meeting in the street, and giving
each other a wry look, or a look not quite civil enough, will, if the
parties be hard pushed for a ground of contention, do pretty well. But
in the country, there is, alas! no such resource. Here are no walls for
people to take of each other. Here they are so placed as to prevent the
possibility of such lucky local contact. Here is more than room of every
sort, elbow, leg, horse, or carriage, for them all. Even _at Church_
(most of the people being in the meeting-houses) the pews are
surprisingly too large. Here, therefore, where all circumstances seem
calculated to cause never-ceasing concord with its accompanying
dullness, there would be no relief at all, were it not for the _game_.
This, happily, supplies the place of all other sources of alternate
dispute and reconciliation; it keeps all in life and motion, from the
lord down to the hedger. When I see two men, whether in a market-room,
by the way-side, in a parlour, in a church-yard, or even in the church
itself, engaged in manifestly deep and most momentous discourse, I will,
if it be any time between September and February, bet ten to one, that
it is, in some way or other, about _the game_. The wives and daughters
hear so much of it, that they inevitably get engaged in the disputes;
and thus all are kept in a state of vivid animation. I should like very
much to be able to take a spot, a circle of 12 miles in diameter, and
take an exact account of all the _time_ spent by each individual, above
the age of ten (that is the age they begin at), in talking, during the
game season of one year, about the game and about sporting exploits. I
verily believe that it would amount, upon an average, to six times as
much as all the other talk put together; and, as to the anger, the
satisfaction, the scolding, the commendation, the chagrin, the
exultation, the envy, the emulation, where are there any of these in the
country, unconnected with _the game_?
There is, however, an important distinction to be made between _hunters_
(including coursers) and _shooters_. The latter are, as far as relates
to their exploits, a disagreeable class, compared with the former; and
the reason of this is, their doings are almost wholly their own; while,
in the case of the others, the achievements are the property of the
dogs. Nobody likes to hear another talk _much_ in praise of his own
acts, unless those acts have a manifest tendency to produce some good to
the hearer; and shooters do talk _much_ of their own exploits, and those
exploits rather tend to _humiliate_ the hearer. Then, a _great shooter_
will, nine times out of ten, go so far as almost to _lie a little_; and,
though people do not tell him of it, they do not like him the better for
it; and he but too frequently discovers that they do not believe him:
whereas, hunters are mere followers of the dogs, as mere spectators;
their praises, if any are called for, are bestowed on the greyhounds,
the hounds, the fox, the hare, or the horses. There is a little
rivalship in the riding, or in the behaviour of the horses; but this has
so little to do with the personal merit of the sportsmen, that it never
produces a want of good fellowship in the evening of the day. A shooter
who has been _missing_ all day, must have an uncommon share of good
sense, not to feel mortified while the slaughterers are relating the
adventures of that day; and this is what cannot exist in the case of the
hunters. Bring me into a room, with a dozen men in it, who have been
sporting all day; or, rather let me be in an adjoining room, where I can
hear the sound of their voices, without being able to distinguish the
words, and I will bet ten to one that I tell whether they be hunters or
shooters.
I was once acquainted with a _famous shooter_ whose name was William
Ewing. He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became far more renowned
by his gun than by his law cases. We spent scores of days together
a-shooting, and were extremely well matched, I having excellent dogs and
caring little about my reputation as a shot, his dogs being good for
nothing, and he caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a
lawyer. The fact which I am going to relate respecting this gentleman,
ought to be a warning to young men, how they become enamoured of this
species of vanity. We had gone about ten miles from our home, to shoot
where partridges were said to be very plentiful. We found them so. In
the course of a November day, he had, just before dark, shot, and sent
to the farmhouse, or kept in his bag, _ninety-nine_ partridges. He made
some few _double shots_, and he might have a _miss_ or two, for he
sometimes shot when out of my sight, on account of the woods. However,
he said that he killed at every shot; and, as he had counted the birds,
when we went to dinner at the farmhouse and when he cleaned his gun, he,
just before sun-set, knew that he had killed _ninety-nine_ partridges,
every one upon the wing, and a great part of them in woods very thickly
set with largish trees. It was a grand achievement; but, unfortunately,
he wanted to make it _a hundred_. The sun was setting, and, in that
country, darkness comes almost at once; it is more like the going out
of a candle than that of a fire; and I wanted to be off, as we had a
very bad road to go, and as he, being under strict petticoat government,
to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted, was compelled to get
home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse and gig) being
mine. I, therefore, pressed him to come away, and moved on myself
towards the house (that of old John Brown, in Bucks county, grandfather
of that General Brown, who gave some of our whiskered heroes such a
rough handling last war, which was waged for the purpose of "deposing
James Madison"), at which house I would have stayed all night, but from
which I was compelled to go by that watchful government, under which he
had the good fortune to live. Therefore I was in haste to be off. No: he
would kill the _hundredth_ bird! In vain did I talk of the bad road and
its many dangers for want of moon. The poor partridges, which we had
scattered about, were _calling_ all around us; and, just at this moment,
up got one under his feet, in a field in which the wheat was three or
four inches high. He shot and _missed_. "That's it," said he, running as
if to _pick up_ the bird. "What!" said I, "you don't think you _killed_,
do you? Why there is the bird now, not only alive, but _calling_ in that
wood;" which was at about a hundred yards distance. He, in that _form of
words_ usually employed in such cases, asserted that he shot the bird
and saw it fall; and I, in much about the same form of words, asserted,
that he had _missed_, and that I, with my own eyes, saw the bird fly
into the wood. This was too much! To _miss_ once out of a hundred times!
To lose such a chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I
liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him, when he said,
"Well, _Sir_, I killed the bird; and if you choose to go away and take
your dog away, so as to prevent me from _finding_ it, you must do it;
the dog is _yours_, to be sure." "The _dog_," said I, in a very mild
tone, "why, Ewing, there is the spot; and could we not see it, upon this
smooth green surface, if it were there?" However, he began to _look
about_; and I called the dog, and affected to join him in the search.
Pity for his weakness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After
walking backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards square
with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us knew was not
there, I had passed him (he going one way and I the other), and I
happened to be turning round just after I had passed him, when I saw
him, putting his hand behind him, _take a partridge out of his bag and
let it fall upon the ground_! I felt no temptation to detect him, but
turned away my head, and kept looking about. Presently he, having
returned to the spot where the bird was, called out to me, in a most
triumphant tone; "_Here! here!_ Come here!" I went up to him, and he,
pointing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face
at the same time, said, "There, Cobbett; I hope that will be a _warning_
to you never to be obstinate again"! "Well," said I, "come along:" and
away we went as merry as larks. When we got to Brown's, he told them the
story, triumphed over me most clamorously; and, though he often repeated
the story to my face, I never had the heart to let him know, that I knew
of the imposition, which puerile vanity had induced so sensible and
honourable a man to be mean enough to practise.
A _professed shot_ is, almost always, a very disagreeable brother
sportsman. He must, in the first place, have a head rather of the
emptiest to _pride himself_ upon so poor a talent. Then he is always out
of temper, if the game fail, or if he miss it. He never participates in
that great delight which all sensible men enjoy at beholding the
beautiful action, the docility, the zeal, the wonderful sagacity of the
pointer and the setter. He is always thinking about _himself_; always
anxious to surpass his companions. I remember that, once, Ewing and I
had lost our dog. We were in a wood, and the dog had gone out, and found
a covey in a wheat stubble joining the wood. We had been whistling and
calling him for, perhaps, half an hour, or more. When we came out of the
wood we saw him pointing, with one foot up; and, soon after, he, keeping
his foot and body unmoved, gently turned round his head towards the spot
where he heard us, as if to bid us come on, and, when he saw that we saw
him, turned his head back again. I was so delighted, that I stopped to
look with admiration. Ewing, astonished at my want of alacrity, pushed
on, shot one of the partridges, and thought no more about the conduct of
the dog than if the sagacious creature had had nothing at all to do with
the matter. When I left America, in 1800, I gave this dog to Lord Henry
Stuart, who was, when he came home, a year or two afterwards, about to
bring him to astonish the sportsmen even in England; but those of
Pennsylvania were resolved not to part with him, and, therefore they
_stole_ him the night before his Lordship came away. Lord Henry had
plenty of pointers after his return, and he _saw_ hundreds; but always
declared, that he never saw any thing approaching in excellence this
American dog. For the information of sportsmen I ought to say, that this
was a small-headed and sharp-nosed pointer, hair as fine as that of a
greyhound, little and short ears, very light in the body, very long
legged, and swift as a good lurcher. I had him a puppy, and he never had
any _breaking_, but he pointed staunchly at once; and I am of opinion,
that this sort is, in all respects, better than the heavy breed. Mr.
Thornton, (I beg his pardon, I believe he is now a Knight of some sort)
who was, and perhaps still is, our Envoy in Portugal, at the time here
referred to was a sort of partner with Lord Henry in this famous dog;
and gratitude (to the memory of _the dog_ I mean), will, I am sure, or,
at least, I hope so, make him bear witness to the truth of my character
of him; and, if one could hear an Ambassador _speak out_, I think that
Mr. Thornton would acknowledge, that his calling has brought him in
pretty close contact with many a man who was possessed of most
tremendous political power, without possessing half the sagacity, half
the understanding, of this dog, and without being a thousandth part so
faithful to his trust.
I am quite satisfied, that there are as many _sorts_ of men as there are
of dogs. Swift was a man, and so is Walter the base. But is the _sort_
the same? It cannot be _education_ alone that makes the amazing
difference that we see. Besides, we see men of the very same rank and
riches and education, differing as widely as the pointer does from the
pug. The name, _man_, is common to all the sorts, and hence arises very
great mischief. What confusion must there be in rural affairs, if there
were no names whereby to distinguish hounds, greyhounds, pointers,
spaniels, terriers, and sheep dogs, from each other! And, what pretty
work, if, without regard to the _sorts_ of dogs, men were to attempt to
_employ them_! Yet, this is done in the case of _men_! A man is always
_a man_; and, without the least regard as to the _sort_, they are
promiscuously placed in all kinds of situations. Now, if Mr. Brougham,
Doctors Birkbeck, Macculloch and Black, and that profound personage,
Lord John Russell, will, in their forth-coming "London University,"
teach us how to divide men _into sorts_, instead of teaching us to
"augment the capital of the nation," by making paper-money, they will
render us a real service. That will be _feelosofy_ worth attending to.
What would be said of the 'Squire who should take a fox-hound out to
find partridges for him to shoot at? Yet, would this be _more_ absurd
than to set a man to law-making who was manifestly formed for the
express purpose of sweeping the streets or digging out sewers?
_Farnham, Surrey, Thursday, Oct. 27th._
We came over the heath from Thursley, this morning, on our way to
Winchester. Mr. Wyndham's fox-hounds are coming to Thursley on Saturday.
More than three-fourths of all the interesting talk in that neighbourhood,
for some days past, has been about this anxiously-looked-for event. I
have seen no man, or boy, who did not talk about it. There had been a
false report about it; the hounds did _not come_; and the anger of the
disappointed people was very great. At last, however, the _authentic_
intelligence came, and I left them all as happy as if all were young and
all just going to be married. An abatement of my pleasure, however, on
this joyous occasion was, that I brought away with me _one_, who was as
eager as the best of them. Richard, though now only 11 years and 6
months old, had, it seems, one fox-hunt, in Herefordshire, last winter;
and he actually has begun to talk rather _contemptuously_ of hare
hunting. To show me that he is in no _danger_, he has been leaping his
horse over banks and ditches by the road side, all our way across the
country from Reigate; and he joined with such glee in talking of the
expected arrival of the fox-hounds, that I felt some little pain at
bringing him away. My engagement at Winchester is for Saturday; but, if
it had not been so, the deep and hidden ruts in the heath, in a wood in
the midst of which the hounds are sure to find, and the immense
concourse of horsemen that is sure to be assembled, would have made me
bring him away. Upon the high, hard and open countries, I should not be
afraid for him; but here the danger would have been greater than it
would have been right for me to suffer him to run.
We came hither by the way of Waverley Abbey and Moore Park. On the
commons I showed Richard some of my old hunting scenes, when I was of
his age, or younger, reminding him that I was obliged to hunt on foot.
We got leave to go and see the grounds at Waverley, where all the old
monks' garden walls are totally gone, and where the spot is become a
sort of lawn. I showed him the spot where the strawberry garden was, and
where I, when sent to gather _hautboys_, used to eat every remarkably
fine one, instead of letting it go to be eaten by Sir Robert Rich. I
showed him a tree, close by the ruins of the Abbey, from a limb of which
I once fell into the river, in an attempt to take the nest of a _crow_,
which had artfully placed it upon a branch so far from the trunk as not
to be able to bear the weight of a boy eight years old. I showed him an
old elm tree, which was hollow even then, into which I, when a very
little boy, once saw a cat go, that was as big as a middle-sized spaniel
dog, for relating which I got a great scolding, for standing to which I,
at last, got a beating; but stand to which I still did. I have since
many times repeated it; and I would take my oath of it to this day. When
in New Brunswick I saw the great wild grey cat, which is there called a
_Lucifee_; and it seemed to me to be just such a cat as I had seen at
Waverley. I found the ruins not very greatly diminished; but it is
strange how small the mansion, and ground, and everything but the trees,
appeared to me. They were all great to my mind when I saw them last; and
that early impression had remained, whenever I had talked or thought,
of the spot; so that, when I came to see them again, after seeing the
sea and so many other immense things, it seemed as if they had all been
made small. This was not the case with regard to the trees, which are
nearly as big here as they are anywhere else; and the old cat-elm, for
instance, which Richard measured with his whip, is about 16 or 17 feet
round.
From Waverley we went to Moore Park, once the seat of Sir William
Temple, and when I was a very little boy, the seat of a Lady, or a Mrs.
Temple. Here I showed Richard Mother Ludlum's Hole; but, alas! it is not
the enchanting place that I knew it, nor that which Grose describes in
his Antiquities! The semicircular paling is gone; the basins, to catch
the never-ceasing little stream, are gone; the iron cups, fastened by
chains, for people to drink out of, are gone; the pavement all broken to
pieces; the seats, for people to sit on, on both sides of the cave, torn
up and gone; the stream that ran down a clean paved channel, now making
a dirty gutter; and the ground opposite, which was a grove, chiefly of
laurels, intersected by closely mowed grass-walks, now become a poor,
ragged-looking alder-coppice. Near the mansion, I showed Richard the
hill, upon which Dean Swift tells us he used to run for exercise, while
he was pursuing his studies here; and I would have showed him the
garden-seat, under which Sir William Temple's heart was buried,
agreeably to his will; but the seat was gone, also the wall at the back
of it; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in which the seat
stood, was turned into a parcel of divers-shaped cockney-clumps, planted
according to the strictest rules of artificial and refined vulgarity.
At Waverley, Mr. Thompson, a merchant of some sort, has succeeded (after
the monks) the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert Rich. At Moore Park, a Mr.
Laing, a West Indian planter or merchant, has succeeded the Temples; and
at the castle of Farnham, which you see from Moore Park, Bishop
Prettyman Tomline has, at last, after perfectly regular and due
gradations, succeeded William of Wykham! In coming up from Moore Park to
Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door of a little old house, where
there appeared to be a great parcel of children. "There, Dick," said I,
"when I was just such a little creature as that, whom you see in the
door-way, I lived in this very house with my grand-mother Cobbett." He
pulled up his horse, and looked _very hard at it_, but said nothing, and
on we came.
_Winchester, Sunday noon, Oct. 30._
We came away from Farnham about noon on Friday, promising Bishop
Prettyman to notice him and his way of living more fully on our return.
At Alton we got some bread and cheese at a friend's, and then came to
Alresford by Medstead, in order to have fine turf to ride on, and to
see, on this lofty land that which is, perhaps, the finest _beech-wood_
in all England. These high down-countries are not garden plats, like
Kent; but they have, from my first seeing them, when I was about _ten_,
always been my delight. Large sweeping downs, and deep dells here and
there, with villages amongst lofty trees, are my great delight. When we
got to Alresford it was nearly dark, and not being able to find a room
to our liking, we resolved to go, though in the dark, to Easton, a
village about six miles from Alresford down by the side of the Hichen
River.
Coming from Easton yesterday, I learned that Sir Charles Ogle, the
eldest son and successor of Sir Chaloner Ogle, had sold to some
_General_, his mansion and estate at Martyr's Worthy, a village on the
North side of the Hichen, just opposite Easton. The Ogles had been here
for _a couple of centuries_ perhaps. They are _gone off now_, "for good
and all," as the country people call it. Well, what I have to say to Sir
Charles Ogle upon this occasion is this: "It was _you_, who moved at the
county meeting, in 1817, that _Address to the Regent_, which you brought
ready engrossed upon parchment, which Fleming, the Sheriff, declared to
have been carried, though a word of it never was heard by the meeting;
which address _applauded the power of imprisonment bill, just then
passed_; and the like of which address, you will not in all human
probability, ever again move in Hampshire, and, I hope, nowhere else.
So, you see, Sir Charles, there is one consolation, at any rate."
I learned, too, that Greame, a famously loyal 'squire and justice, whose
son was, a few years ago, made a Distributor of Stamps in this county,
was become so modest as to exchange his big and ancient mansion at
Cheriton, or somewhere there, for a very moderate-sized house in the
town of Alresford! I saw his household goods advertised in the Hampshire
newspaper, a little while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my
eyes, or, rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I
remembered the loyal 'Squire; and I, with singular satisfaction, record
this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt, proceeded
solely from that prevalence of mind over matter, which the Scotch
_feelosofers_ have taken such pains to inculcate, and which makes him
flee from greatness as from that which diminishes the quantity of
"_intellectual_ enjoyment;" and so now he,
"Wondering man can want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."
And they really tell me, that his present house is not much bigger than
that of my dear, good old grandmother Cobbett. But (and it may not be
wholly useless for the 'Squire to know it) she never burnt _candles_;
but _rushes_ dipped in grease, as I have described them in my _Cottage
Economy_; and this was one of the means that she made use of in order to
secure a bit of good bacon and good bread to eat, and that made her
never give me _potatoes_, cold or hot. No bad hint for the 'Squire,
father of the distributor of Stamps. Good bacon is a very nice thing, I
can assure him; and, if the quantity be small, it is all the sweeter;
provided, however, it be not _too small_. This 'Squire used to be a
great friend of Old George Rose. But his patron's taste was different
from his. George preferred a big house to a little one; and George
_began_ with a little one, and _ended_ with a big one.
Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and supporter of Old
George Rose, 'Squire Rawlinson, whom I remember a very great 'squire in
this county. He is now a _Police_-'squire in London, and is one of those
guardians of the Wen, respecting whose proceedings we read eternal
columns in the broad-sheet.
This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o'clock in the morning, a sort of a
jangling, made by a bell or two in the _Cathedral_. We were getting
ready to be off, to cross the country to Burghclere, which lies under
the lofty hills at Highclere, about 22 miles from this city; but hearing
the bells of the cathedral, I took Richard to show him that ancient and
most magnificent pile, and particularly to show him the tomb of that
famous bishop of Winchester, William of Wykham; who was the Chancellor
and the Minister of the great and glorious King, Edward III.; who sprang
from poor parents in the little village of Wykham, three miles from
Botley; and who, amongst other great and most munificent deeds, founded
the famous College, or School, of Winchester, and also one of the
Colleges at Oxford. I told Richard about this as we went from the inn
down to the cathedral; and, when I _showed him the tomb_, where the
bishop lies on his back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his
head, his shepherd's crook by his side, with little children at his
feet, their hands put together in a praying attitude, he looked with a
degree of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took him
as far as I could about the cathedral. The "service" was now begun.
There is a _dean_, and God knows how many _prebends_ belonging to this
immensely rich bishopric and chapter; and there were, at this "service,"
_two or three men and five or six boys_ in white surplices, with a
congregation of _fifteen women_ and _four men_! Gracious God! If William
of Wykham could, at that moment, have been raised from his tomb! If
Saint Swithin, whose name the cathedral bears, or Alfred the Great, to
whom St. Swithin was tutor: if either of these could have come, and had
been told, that _that_ was _now_ what was carried on by men, who talked
of the "_damnable_ errors" of those who founded that very church! But it
beggars one's feelings to attempt to find words whereby to express them
upon such a subject and such an occasion. How, then, am I to describe
what I felt, when I yesterday saw in Hyde Meadow, a _county bridewell_,
standing on the very spot, where stood the Abbey which was founded and
endowed by Alfred, which contained the bones of that maker of the
English name, and also those of the learned monk, St. Grimbald, whom
Alfred brought to England _to begin the teaching at Oxford_!
After we came out of the cathedral, Richard said, "Why, Papa, nobody can
build such places _now_, can they?" "No, my dear," said I. "That
building was made when there were no poor wretches in England, called
_paupers_; when there were no _poor-rates_; when every labouring man was
clothed in good woollen cloth; and when all had a plenty of meat and
bread and beer." This talk lasted us to the inn, where, just as we were
going to set off, it most curiously happened, that a parcel which had
come from Kensington by the night coach, was put into my hands by the
landlord, containing, amongst other things, a pamphlet, sent to me from
Rome, being an Italian translation of No. I. of the "_Protestant
Reformation_." I will here insert the title for the satisfaction of
Doctor Black, who, some time ago, expressed his utter astonishment, that
"_such_ a work should be published in the _nineteenth_ century." Why,
Doctor? Did you want me to stop till the _twentieth_ century? That would
have been a little too long, Doctor.
Storia
Della
Riforma Protestante
In Inghilterra ed in Irlanda
La quale Dimostra
Come un tal' avvenimento ha impoverito
E degradato il grosso del popolo in que' paesi
in una serie di lettere indirizzate
A tutti i sensati e guisti inglesi
Da
Guglielmo Cobbett
E
Dall' inglese recate in italiano
Da
Dominico Gregorj.
Roma 1825.
Presso Francesco Bourlie.
Con Approvazione.
There, Doctor Black. Write _you_ a book that shall be translated into
_any_ foreign language; and when you have done that, you may _again_
call mine "pig's meat."