_Hurstbourne Tarrant (or Uphusband), Monday, 7th November 1825._
We came off from Burghclere yesterday afternoon, crossing Lord
Caernarvon's park, going out of it on the west side of Beacon Hill, and
sloping away to our right over the downs towards Woodcote. The afternoon
was singularly beautiful. The downs (even the poorest of them) are
perfectly green; the sheep on the downs look, this year, like fatting
sheep: we came through a fine flock of ewes, and, looking round us, we
saw, all at once, seven flocks, on different parts of the downs, each
flock on an average containing at least 500 sheep.
It is about six miles from Burghclere to this place; and we made it
about twelve; not in order to avoid the turnpike-road, but because we do
not ride about to _see_ turnpike-roads; and, moreover, because I had
seen this most monstrously hilly turnpike-road before. We came through a
village called Woodcote, and another called Binley. I never saw any
inhabited places more recluse than these. Yet into these the
all-searching eye of the taxing Thing reaches. Its Exciseman can tell it
what is doing even in the little odd corner of Binley; for even there I
saw, over the door of a place, not half so good as the place in which my
fowls roost, "_Licensed to deal in tea and tobacco_." Poor, half-starved
wretches of Binley! The hand of taxation, the collection for the
sinecures and pensions, must fix its nails even in them, who really
appeared too miserable to be called by the name of _people_. Yet there
was one whom the taxing Thing had licensed (good God! _licensed!_) to
serve out cat-lap to these wretched creatures! And our impudent and
ignorant newspaper scribes talk of the _degraded state of the people of
Spain_! Impudent impostors! Can they show a group so wretched, so
miserable, so truly enslaved as this, in all Spain? No: and those of
them who are not sheer fools know it well. But there would have been
misery equal to this in Spain if the Jews and Jobbers could have carried
the Bond-scheme into effect. The people of Spain were, through the
instrumentality of patriot loan-makers, within an inch of being made as
"enlightened" as the poor, starving things of Binley. They would soon
have had people "licensed" to make them pay the Jews for permission to
chew tobacco, or to have a light in their dreary abodes. The people of
Spain were preserved from this by the French army, for which the Jews
cursed the French army; and the same army put an end to those "bonds,"
by means of which _pious_ Protestants hoped to be able to get at the
convents in Spain, and thereby put down "idolatry" in that country.
These bonds seem now not to be worth a farthing; and so after all the
Spanish people will have no one "licensed" by the Jews to make them pay
for turning the fat of their sheep into candles and soap. These poor
creatures that I behold here _pass their lives amidst flocks of sheep_;
but never does a morsel of mutton enter their lips. A labouring man told
me, at Binley, that he had not tasted meat since harvest; and his looks
vouched for the statement. Let the Spaniards come and look at this poor,
shotten-herring of a creature; and then let them estimate what is due
to a set of "enlightening" and loan-making "patriots." Old Fortescue
says that "the English are clothed in good woollens throughout," and
that they have "plenty of flesh of all sorts to eat." Yes; but at this
time the nation was not mortgaged. The "enlightening" patriots would
have made Spain what England now is. The people must never more, after a
few years, have tasted mutton, though living surrounded with flocks of
sheep.
_Easton, near Winchester, Wednesday Evening, 9th Nov._
I intended to go from Uphusband to Stonehenge, thence to Old Sarum, and
thence through the New Forest, to Southampton and Botley, and thence
across into Sussex, to see Up-Park and Cowdry House. But, then, there
must be no loss of time: I must adhere to a certain route as strictly as
a regiment on a march. I had written the route: and Laverstock, after
seeing Stonehenge and Old Sarum, was to be the resting-place of
yesterday (Tuesday); but when it came, it brought rain with it after a
white frost on Monday. It was likely to rain again to-day. It became
necessary to change the route, as I must get to London by a certain day;
and as the first day, on the new route, brought us here.
I had been three times at Uphusband before, and had, as my readers will,
perhaps, recollect, described the bourn here, or the _brook_. It has, in
general, no water at all in it from August to March. There is the bed of
a little river; but no water. In March, or thereabouts, the water begins
to boil up in thousands upon thousands of places, in the little narrow
meadows, just above the village; that is to say a little higher up the
valley. When the chalk hills are full; when the chalk will hold no more
water; then it comes out at the lowest spots near these immense hills
and becomes a rivulet first, and then a river. But until this visit to
Uphusband (or Hurstbourne Tarrant, as the map calls it), little did I
imagine that this rivulet, dry half the year, was the head of the river
Teste, which, after passing through Stockbridge and Rumsey, falls into
the sea near Southampton.
We had to follow the bed of this river to Bourne; but there the water
begins to appear; and it runs all the year long about a mile lower down.
Here it crosses Lord Portsmouth's out-park, and our road took us the
same way to the village called Down Husband, the scene (as the
broad-sheet tells us) of so many of that Noble Lord's ringing and
cart-driving exploits. Here we crossed the London and Andover road, and
leaving Andover to our right and Whitchurch to our left, we came on to
Long Parish, where, crossing the water, we came up again on that high
country which continues all across to Winchester. After passing
Bullington, Sutton, and Wonston, we veered away from Stoke-Charity, and
came across the fields to the high down, whence you see Winchester, or
rather the Cathedral; for at this distance you can distinguish nothing
else clearly.
As we had to come to this place, which is three miles _up_ the river
Itchen from Winchester, we crossed the Winchester and Basingstoke road
at King's Worthy. This brought us, before we crossed the river, along
through Martyr's Worthy, so long the seat of the Ogles, and now, as I
observed in my last Register, sold to a general or colonel. These Ogles
had been deans, I believe; or prebends, or something of that sort: and
the one that used to live here had been, and was when he died, an
"admiral." However, this last one, "Sir Charles," the loyal address
mover, is my man for the present. We saw, down by the water-side,
opposite to "Sir Charles's" _late_ family mansion, a beautiful
strawberry garden, capable of being watered by a branch of the Itchen
which comes close by it, and which is, I suppose, brought there on
purpose. Just by, on the greensward, under the shade of very fine trees,
is an alcove, wherein to sit to eat the strawberries, coming from the
little garden just mentioned, and met by bowls of cream coming from a
little milk-house, shaded by another clump a little lower down the
stream. What delight! What a terrestrial paradise! "Sir Charles" might
be very frequently in this paradise, while that Sidmouth, whose Bill he
so applauded, had many men shut up in loathsome dungeons! Ah, well! "Sir
Charles," those very men may, perhaps, at this moment, envy neither you
nor Sidmouth; no, nor Sidmouth's son and heir, even though Clerk of the
Pells. At any rate it is not likely that "Sir Charles" will sit again in
this paradise contemplating another _loyal address_, to carry to a
county meeting ready engrossed on parchment, to be presented by Fleming
and supported by Lockhart and the "Hampshire parsons."
I think I saw, as I came along, the new owner of the estate. It seems
that he bought it "stock and fluke" as the sailors call it; that is to
say, that he bought moveables and the whole. He appeared to me to be a
keen man. I can't find out where he comes from, or what he or his father
has been. I like to see the revolution going on; but I like to be able
to trace the parties a little more _closely_. "Sir Charles," the loyal
address gentleman, lives in London, I hear. I will, I think, call upon
him (if I can find him out) when I get back, and ask how he does now?
There is one Hollest, a George Hollest, who figured pretty bigly on that
same loyal address day. This man is become quite an inoffensive harmless
creature. If we were to have another county meeting, he would not, I
think, threaten to put the sash down upon anybody's head! Oh! Peel,
Peel, Peel! Thy Bill, oh, Peel, did sicken them so! Let us, oh, thou
offspring of the great Spinning Jenny promoter, who subscribed ten
thousand pounds towards the late "glorious" war; who was, after that,
made a Baronet, and whose biographers (in the Baronetage) tell the world
that he had a "presentiment that he should be the founder of a family."
Oh, thou, thou great Peel, do thou let us have only two more years of
thy Bill! Or, oh, great Peel, Minister of the interior, do thou let us
have repeal of Corn Bill! Either will do, great Peel. We shall then see
such _modest_ 'squires, and parsons looking so queer! However, if thou
wilt not listen to us, great Peel, we must, perhaps (and only perhaps),
wait a little longer. It is sure to come _at last_, and to come, too, in
the most efficient way.
The water in the Itchen is, they say, famed for its clearness. As I was
crossing the river the other day, at Avington, I told Richard to look at
it, and I asked him if he did not think it very clear. I now find that
this has been remarked by very ancient writers. I see, in a newspaper
just received, an account of dreadful fires in New Brunswick. It is
curious that in my Register of the 29th October (dated from Chilworth in
Surrey) I should have put a question relative to the White-Clover, the
Huckleberries, or the Raspberries, which start up after the burning down
of woods in America. These fires have been at two places which I saw
when there were hardly any people in the whole country; and if there
never had been any people there to this day it would have been a good
thing for England. Those colonies are a dead expense, without a
possibility of their ever being of any use. There are, I see, a church
and a barrack destroyed. And why a barrack? What! were there bayonets
wanted already to keep the people in order? For as to an _enemy_, where
was he to come from? And if there really be an enemy anywhere there
about, would it not be a wise way to leave the worthless country to him,
to use it after his own way? I was at that very Fredericton, where they
say thirty houses and thirty-nine barns have now been burnt. I can
remember when there was no more thought of there ever being a barn there
than there is now thought of there being economy in our Government. The
English money used to be spent prettily in that country. What do _we_
want with armies and barracks and chaplains in those woods? What does
anybody want with them; but _we_, above all the rest of the world? There
is nothing there, no house, no barrack, no wharf, nothing, but what is
bought with taxes raised on the half-starving people of England. What do
_we_ want with these wildernesses? Ah! but they are wanted by creatures
who will not work in England, and whom this fine system of ours sends
out into those woods to live in idleness upon the fruit of English
labour. The soldier, the commissary, the barrack-master, all the whole
tribe, no matter under what _name_; what keeps them? They are paid "by
Government;" and I wish that we constantly bore in mind that the
"Government" pays _our_ money. It is, to be sure, sorrowful to hear of
such fires and such dreadful effects proceeding from them; but to me it
is beyond all measure _more sorrowful_ to see _the labourers of England
worse fed than the convicts in the gaols_; and I know very well that
these worthless and jobbing colonies have assisted to bring England into
this horrible state. The honest labouring man is allowed (aye, by the
magistrates) less food than the felon in the gaol; and the felon is
clothed and has fuel; and the labouring man has nothing allowed for
these. These worthless colonies, which find places for people that the
Thing provides for, have helped to produce this dreadful state in
England. Therefore, any _assistance_ the sufferers should never have
from me, while I could find an honest and industrious English labourer
(unloaded with a family too) fed worse than a felon in the gaols; and
this I can find in every part of the country.
_Petersfield, Friday Evening, 11th November._
We lost another day at Easton; the whole of yesterday, it having rained
the whole day; so that we could not have come an inch but in the wet. We
started, therefore, this morning, coming through the Duke of
Buckingham's Park, at Avington, which is close by Easton, and on the
same side of the Itchen. This is a very beautiful place. The house is
close down at the edge of the meadow land; there is a lawn before it,
and a pond, supplied by the Itchen, at the end of the lawn, and bounded
by the park on the other side. The high road, through the park, goes
very near to this water; and we saw thousands of wild-ducks in the pond,
or sitting round on the green edges of it, while, on one side of the
pond, the hares and pheasants were moving about upon a gravel walk on
the side of a very fine plantation. We looked down upon all this from a
rising ground, and the water, like a looking-glass, showed us the trees,
and even the animals. This is certainly one of the very prettiest spots
in the world. The wild water-fowl seem to take particular delight in
this place. There are a great many at Lord Caernarvon's; but there the
water is much larger, and the ground and wood about it comparatively
rude and coarse. Here, at Avington, everything is in such beautiful
order; the lawn before the house is of the finest green, and most neatly
kept; and the edge of the pond (which is of several acres) is as smooth
as if it formed part of a bowling-green. To see so many _wild_-fowl in
a situation where everything is in the _parterre_-order has a most
pleasant effect on the mind; and Richard and I, like Pope's cock in the
farmyard, could not help _thanking_ the Duke and Duchess for having
generously made such ample provision for our pleasure, and that, too,
merely to please us as we were passing along. Now this is the advantage
of going about on _horseback_. On foot the fatigue is too great, and you
go too slowly. In any sort of carriage you cannot get into the _real
country places_. To travel in stage coaches is to be hurried along by
force, in a box, with an air-hole in it, and constantly exposed to
broken limbs, the _danger_ being much greater than that of ship-board,
and the _noise_ much more disagreeable, while the _company_ is
frequently not a great deal more to one's liking.
From this beautiful spot we had to mount gradually the downs to the
southward; but it is impossible to quit the vale of the Itchen without
one more look back at it. To form a just estimate of its real value, and
that of the lands near it, it is only necessary to know that from its
source at Bishop's Sutton this river has, on its two banks, in the
distance of nine miles (before it reaches Winchester) thirteen parish
churches. There must have been some _people_ to erect these churches. It
is not true, then, that Pitt and George III. _created the English
nation_, notwithstanding all that the Scotch _feelosofers_ are ready to
swear about the matter. In short, there can be no doubt in the mind of
any rational man that in the time of the Plantagenets England was, out
of all comparison, more populous than it is now.
When we began to get up towards the downs, we, to our great surprise,
saw them covered with _Snow_. "Sad times coming on for poor Sir Glory,"
said I to Richard. "Why?" said Dick. It was too cold to talk much; and,
besides, a great sluggishness in his horse made us both rather serious.
The horse had been too hard ridden at Burghclere, and had got cold. This
made us change our route again, and instead of going over the downs
towards Hambledon, in our way to see the park and the innumerable hares
and pheasants of Sir Harry Featherstone, we pulled away more to the
left, to go through Bramdean, and so on to Petersfield, contracting
greatly our intended circuit. And, besides, I had never seen Bramdean,
the spot on which, it is said, Alfred fought his last great and glorious
battle with the Danes. A fine country for a battle, sure enough! We
stopped at the village to bait our horses; and while we were in the
public-house an Exciseman came and rummaged it all over, taking an
account of the various sorts of liquor in it, having the air of a
complete master of the premises, while a very pretty and modest girl
waited on him to produce the divers bottles, jars, and kegs. I wonder
whether Alfred had a thought of anything like this when he was clearing
England from her oppressors?
A little to our right, as we came along, we left the village of
Kingston, where 'Squire Graeme once lived, as was before related. Here,
too, lived a 'Squire Ridge, a famous fox-hunter, at a great mansion, now
used as a farmhouse; and it is curious enough that this 'Squire's
son-in-law, one Gunner, an attorney at Bishop's Waltham, is steward to
the man who now owns the estate.
Before we got to Petersfield we called at an old friend's and got some
bread and cheese and small beer, which we preferred to strong. In
approaching Petersfield we began to descend from the high chalk-country,
which (with the exception of the valleys of the Itchen and the Teste)
had lasted us from Uphusband (almost the north-west point of the county)
to this place, which is not far from the south-east point of it. Here we
quit flint and chalk and downs, and take to sand, clay, hedges, and
coppices; and here, on the verge of Hampshire, we begin again to see
those endless little bubble-formed hills that we before saw round the
foot of Hindhead. We have got in in very good time, and got, at the
Dolphin, good stabling for our horses. The waiters and people at inns
_look so hard at us_ to see us so liberal as to horse-feed, fire,
candle, beds, and room, while we are so very very sparing in the article
of _drink_! They seem to pity our taste. I hear people complain of the
"exorbitant charges" at inns; but my wonder always is how the people can
live with charging so little. Except in one single instance, I have
uniformly, since I have been from home, thought the charges too low for
people to live by.
This long evening has given me time to look at the Star newspaper of
last night; and I see that, with all possible desire to disguise the
fact, there is a great "_panic_" brewing. It is impossible that this
thing can go on, in its present way, for any length of time. The talk
about "speculations"; that is to say, adventurous dealings, or, rather,
commercial gamblings; the talk about _these_ having been the cause of
the breakings and the other symptoms of approaching convulsion is the
most miserable nonsense that ever was conceived in the heads of idiots.
These are _effect_; not _cause_. The cause is the _Small-note Bill_,
that last brilliant effort of the joint mind of Van and Castlereagh.
That Bill was, as I always called it, a _respite_; and it was, and could
be, nothing more. It could only put off the evil hour; it could not
prevent the final arrival of that hour. To have proceeded with Peel's
Bill was, indeed, to produce total convulsion. The land must have been
surrendered to the overseers for the use of the poor. That is to say,
without an "Equitable Adjustment." But that adjustment as prayed for by
Kent, Norfolk, Hereford, and Surrey, might have taken place; it _ought_
to have taken place: and it must, at last, take place, or, convulsion
must come. As to the _nature_ of this "adjustment," is it not most
distinctly described in the Norfolk Petition? Is not that memorable
petition now in the Journals of the House of Commons? What more is
wanted than to act on the prayer of that very petition? Had I to draw up
a petition again, I would not change a single word of that. It pleased
Mr. Brougham's "best public instructor" to abuse that petition, and it
pleased Daddy Coke and the Hickory Quaker, Gurney, and the wise
barn-orator, to calumniate its author. They succeeded; but their success
was but shame to them; and that author is yet destined to triumph over
them. I have seen no London paper for ten days until to-day; and I
should not have seen this if the waiter had not forced it upon me. I
know _very nearly_ what will happen by _next May_, or thereabouts; and
as to the manner in which things will work in the meanwhile, it is of
far less consequence to the nation than it is what sort of weather I
shall have to ride in to-morrow. One thing, however, I wish to observe,
and that is, that, if any attempt be made to repeal the _Corn-Bill_, the
main body of the farmers will be crushed into total ruin. I come into
_contact_ with few who are not gentlemen or very substantial farmers;
but I know the state of the _whole_; and I know that, even with present
prices, and with _honest labourers fed worse than felons_, it is
_rub-and-go_ with nineteen-twentieths of the farmers; and of this fact I
beseech the ministers to be well aware. And with this fact staring them
in the face! with that other horrid fact, that, by the regulations of
the _magistrates_ (who cannot avoid it, mind,), the honest labourer is
fed worse than the convicted felon; with the breakings of merchants, so
ruinous to confiding foreigners, so disgraceful to the name of England;
with the thousands of industrious and care-taking creatures reduced to
beggary by bank-paper; with panic upon panic, plunging thousands upon
thousands into despair: with all this notorious as the Sun at noon-day,
will they again advise their Royal Master to tell the Parliament and the
world that this country is "in a state of unequalled prosperity," and
that this prosperity "must be permanent, because _all_ the great
interests are _flourishing_?" Let them! That will not alter the
_result_. I had been, for several weeks, saying that the _seeming
prosperity_ was _fallacious_; that the cause of it must lead to
_ultimate_ and shocking ruin; that it could not last, because it arose
from causes so manifestly _fictitious_; that, in short, it was the
fair-looking, but poisonous, fruit of a miserable expedient. I had been
saying this for several weeks, when, out came the King's Speech and
gave me and my doctrines the _lie direct_ as to every point. Well: now,
then, we shall _soon see_.