_Ryall, Friday Morning, 29th September, 1826._
I have observed, in this country, and especially near Worcester, that
the working people seem to be better off than in many other parts, one
cause of which is, I dare say, that _glove manufacturing_, which cannot
be carried on by fire or by wind or by water, and which is, therefore,
carried on by the _hands_ of human beings. It gives work to women and
children as well as to men; and that work is, by a great part of the
women and children, done in their cottages, and amidst the fields and
hop-gardens, where the husbands and sons must live, in order to raise
the food and the drink and the wool. This is a great thing for the land.
If this glove-making were to cease, many of these women and children,
now not upon the parish, must instantly be upon the parish. The
glove-trade is, like all others, slack from this last change in the
value of money; but there is no horrible misery here, as at Manchester,
Leeds, Glasgow, Paisley, and other Hell-Holes of 84 degrees of heat.
There misery walks abroad in skin, bone and nakedness. There are no
subscriptions wanted for Worcester; no militia-clothing. The working
people suffer, trades'-people suffer, and who is to escape, except the
monopolizers, the Jews, and the tax-eaters, when the Government chooses
to raise the value of money, and lower the price of goods? The whole of
the industrious part of the country must suffer in such a case; but,
where manufacturing is mixed with agriculture, where the wife and
daughters are at the needle, or the wheel, while the men and the boys
are at plough, and where the manufacturing, of which one or two towns
are the centres, is spread over the whole country round about, and
particularly where it is, in very great part, performed by females at
their _own homes_, and where the earnings come _in aid of the man's
wages_; in such case the misery cannot be so great; and accordingly,
while there is an absolute destruction of life going on in the
hell-holes, there is no _visible_ misery at, or near, Worcester; and I
cannot take my leave of this county without observing, that I do not
recollect to have seen one miserable object in it. The working people
all seem to have good large gardens, and pigs in their styes; and this
last, say the _feelosofers_ what they will about her "antallectual
enjoyments," is the _only_ security for happiness in a labourer's
family.
Then, this glove-manufacturing is not like that of cottons, a mere
gambling concern, making Baronets to-day and Bankrupts to-morrow, and
making those who do the work slaves. Here are no masses of people,
called together by a _bell_, and "kept _to it_" by a driver; here are no
"patriots," who, while they keep Englishmen to it by fines, and almost
by the scourge, in a heat of 84 degrees, are petitioning the Parliament
to "give freedom" to the South Americans, who, as these "patriots" have
been informed, use a great quantity of _cottons_!
The dilapidation of parsonage-houses and the depopulation of villages
appears not to have been so great just round about Worcester, as in some
other parts; but they have made great progress even here. No man appears
to fat an ox, or hardly a sheep, except with a view of sending it to
London, or to some other infernal resort of monopolizers and tax-eaters.
Here, as in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, you find
plenty of large churches without scarcely any people. I dare say, that,
even in this county, more than one half of the parishes have either no
parsonage-houses at all; or, have not one that a parson thinks fit for
him to live in; and, I venture to assert, that one or the other of these
is the case in four parishes out of every five in Herefordshire! Is not
this a monstrous shame? Is this "a church"? Is this "law"? The parsons
get the tithes and the rent of the glebe-lands, and the parsonage-houses
are left to tumble down, and nettles and brambles to hide the spot where
they stood. But, the fact is, the Jew-system has swept all the little
gentry, the small farmers, and the domestic manufacturers away. The land
is now used to raise food and drink for the monopolizers and the
tax-eaters and their purveyors and lackeys and harlots; and they get
together in Wens.
Of all the mean, all the cowardly reptiles, that ever crawled on the
face of the earth, the _English land-owners_ are the most mean and the
most cowardly: for, while they support the churches in their several
parishes, while they see the population drawn away from their parishes
to the Wens, while they are taxed to keep the people in the Wens, and
while they see their own Parsons pocket the tithes and the glebe-rents,
and suffer the parsonage-houses to fall down; while they see all this,
they, without uttering a word in the way of complaint, suffer
themselves and their neighbours to be taxed, to build new churches for
the monopolizers and tax-eaters in those Wens! Never was there in this
world a set of reptiles so base as this. Stupid as many of them are,
they must clearly see the flagrant injustice of making the depopulated
parishes pay for the aggrandizement of those who have caused the
depopulation, aye, actually pay taxes _to add to_ the Wens, and, of
course, to cause a further depopulation of the taxed villages; stupid
beasts as many of them are, they must see the flagrant injustice of
this, and mean and cowardly as many of them are, some of them would
remonstrate against it; but, alas! the far greater part of them are,
themselves, getting, or expecting, _loaves and fishes_, either in their
own persons, or in those of their family. They smouch, or want to
smouch, some of the taxes; and, therefore, they must not complain. And
thus the thing goes on. These landowners see, too, the churches falling
down and the parsonage-houses either tumbled down or dilapidated. But,
then, mind, they have, amongst them, the giving away of the benefices!
Of course, all they want is the income, and, the less the
parsonage-house costs, the larger the spending income. But, in the
meanwhile, here is a destruction of public property; and also, from a
diversion of the income of the livings, a great injury, great injustice,
to the middle and the working classes.
Is this, then, is this "church" a thing to remain untouched? Shall the
widow and the orphan, whose money has been borrowed _by the land-owners_
(including the Parsons) to purchase "victories" with; shall they be
stripped of their interest, of their very bread, and shall the Parsons,
who have let half the parsonage-houses fall down or become unfit to live
in, still keep all the tithes and the glebe-lands and the immense landed
estates, called Church Lands? Oh, no! Sir James Graham "of Netherby,"
though you are a descendant of the Earls of Monteith, of John of the
bright sword, and of the Seventh Earl of Galloway, K.T. (taking care,
for God's sake, not to omit the K.T.); though you may be the _Magnus
Apollo_; and, in short, be you what you may, you shall never execute
your project of sponging the fund-holders and of leaving Messieurs the
Parsons untouched! In many parishes, where the livings are good too,
there is neither parsonage-house nor church! This is the case at Draycot
Foliot, in Wiltshire. The living is a Rectory; the Parson has, of
course, both great and small tithes; these tithes and the glebe-land are
worth, I am told, more than three hundred pounds a year; and yet there
is neither church nor parsonage-house; both have been suffered to fall
down and disappear; and, when a new Parson comes to take possession of
the living, there is, I am told, a temporary tent, or booth, erected,
upon the spot where the church ought to be, for the performance of the
_ceremony of induction_! What, then!--Ought not this church to be
repealed? An Act of Parliament made this church; an Act of Parliament
can unmake it; and is there any but a monster who would suffer this
Parson to retain this income, while that of the widow and the orphan was
taken away? Oh, no? Sir James Graham of Netherby, who, with the
_gridiron before you_, say, that there was "no man, of any authority,
who foresaw the effects of Peel's Bill;" oh, no! thou stupid, thou
empty-headed, thou insolent aristocratic pamphleteer, the widow and the
orphan _shall not_ be robbed of their bread, while this Parson of
Draycot Foliot keeps the income of his living!
On my return from Worcester to this place, yesterday, I noticed, at a
village called Severn Stoke, a very curiously-constructed grape house;
that is to say a hot-house for the raising of grapes. Upon inquiry, I
found, that it belonged to a Parson of the name of St. John, whose
parsonage house is very near to it, and who, being _sure_ of having the
benefice when the then Rector should die, bought a piece of land, and
erected his grapery on it, just facing, and only about 50 yards from,
the windows, out of which the _old parson_ had to look until the day of
his death, with a view, doubtless, of piously furnishing his aged
brother with a _memento mori_ (remember death), quite as significant as
a death's head and cross-bones, and yet done in a manner expressive of
that fellow-feeling, that delicacy, that abstinence from
self-gratification, which are well known to be characteristics almost
peculiar to "the cloth"! To those, if there be such, who may be disposed
to suspect that the grapery arose, upon the spot where it stands, merely
from the desire to have the vines in bearing state, against the time
that the old parson should die, or, as I heard the Botley Parson once
call it, "kick the bucket;" to such persons I would just put this one
question; did they ever either from Scripture or tradition, learn that
any of the Apostles or their disciples, erected graperies from motives
such as this? They may, indeed, say, that they never heard of the
Apostles erecting any graperies at all, much less of their having
erected them from such a motive. Nor, to say the truth, did I ever hear
of any such erections on the part of those Apostles and those whom they
commissioned to preach the word of God; and, Sir William Scott (now a
_lord_ of some sort) never convinced me, by his parson-praising speech
of 1802, that to give the church-clergy a due degree of influence over
the minds of the people, to make the people revere them, it was
necessary that the parsons and their wives should shine at _balls_ and
in _pump-rooms_. On the contrary, these and the like have taken away
almost the whole of their spiritual influence. They never had much; but,
lately, and especially since 1793, they have had hardly any at all; and,
wherever I go, I find them much better known as _Justices of the Peace_
than as Clergymen. What they would come to, if this system could go on
for only a few years longer, I know not: but go on, as it is now going,
it cannot much longer; there must be _a settlement of some sort_: and
that settlement never can leave that mass, that immense mass, of public
property, called "church property," to be used as it now is.
I have seen, in this country, and in Herefordshire, several pieces of
Mangel Wurzel; and, I hear, that it has nowhere failed, as the turnips
have. Even the Lucerne has, in some places, failed to a certain extent;
but Mr. Walter Palmer, at Pencoyd, in Herefordshire, has cut a piece of
Lucerne four times this last summer, and, when I saw it, on the 17th
Sept. (12 days ago), it was got a foot high towards another cut. But,
with one exception (too trifling to mention), Mr. Walter Palmer's
Lucerne is on the Tullian plan; that is, it is in rows at four feet
distance from each other; so that you plough between as often as you
please, and thus, together with a little hand weeding between the
plants, keep the ground, at all times, clear of weeds and grass. Mr.
Palmer says, that his acre (he has no more) has kept two horses all the
summer; and he seems to complain, that it has done no more. Indeed! A
stout horse will eat much more than a fatting ox. This grass will fat
any ox, or sheep; and would not Mr. Palmer like to have ten acres of
land that would fat a score of oxen? They would do this, if they were
managed well. But is it _nothing_ to keep a team of four horses, for
five months in the year, on the produce of two acres of land? If a man
say that, he must, of course, be eagerly looking forward to another
world; for nothing will satisfy him in this. A good crop of early
cabbages may be had between the rows of Lucerne.
_Cabbages_ have, generally, wholly failed. Those that I see are almost
all too backward to make much of heads; though it is surprising how fast
they will grow and come to perfection as soon as there is _twelve hours
of night_. I am here, however, speaking of the large sorts of cabbage;
for the smaller sorts will loave in summer. Mr. Walter Palmer has now a
piece of these, of which I think there are from 17 to 20 _tons_ to the
acre; and this, too, observe, after a season which, on the same farm,
has not suffered a turnip of any sort to come. If he had had 20 acres of
these, he might have almost laughed at the failure of his turnips, and
at the short crop of hay. And this is a crop of which a man may always
be _sure_, if he take proper pains. These cabbages (Early Yorks or some
such sort) should, if you want them in June or July, be sown early in
the previous August. If you want them in winter, sown in April, and
treated as pointed out in my _Cottage Economy_. These small sorts stand
the winter better than the large; they are more nutritious; and they
occupy the ground little more than half the time. _Dwarf Savoys_ are the
finest and richest and most nutritious of cabbages. Sown early in April,
and planted out early in July, they will, at 18 inches apart each way,
yield a crop of 30 to 40 tons by Christmas. But all this supposes land
very good, or, very well manured, and plants of a good sort, and well
raised and planted, and the ground well tilled after planting; and a
crop of 30 tons is worth all these and all the care and all the pains
that a man can possibly take.
I am here amongst the finest of cattle, and the finest sheep of the
Leicester kind, that I ever saw. My host, Mr. Price, is famed as a
breeder of cattle and sheep. The cattle are of the Hereford kind, and
the sheep surpassing any animals of the kind that I ever saw. The
animals seem to be made for the soil, and the soil for them.
In taking leave of this county, I repeat, with great satisfaction, what
I before said about the apparent comparatively happy state of the
labouring people; and I have been very much pleased with the tone and
manner in which they are spoken to and spoken of by their superiors. I
hear of no _hard_ treatment of them here, such as I have but too often
heard of in some counties, and too often witnessed in others; and I quit
Worcestershire, and particularly the house in which I am, with all those
feelings which are naturally produced by the kindest of receptions from
frank and sensible people.
_Fairford (Gloucestershire), Saturday Morning, 30th Sept._
Though we came about 45 miles yesterday, we are up by day-light, and
just about to set off to sleep at Hayden, near Swindon, in Wiltshire.
_Hayden, Saturday Night, 30th Sept._
From Ryall, in Worcestershire, we came, yesterday (Friday) morning,
first to Tewksbury in Gloucestershire. This is a good, substantial town,
which, for many years, sent to Parliament that sensible and honest and
constant hater of Pitt and his infernal politics, James Martin, and
which now sends to the same place his son, Mr. John Martin, who, when
the memorable _Kentish Petition_ was presented, in June 1822, proposed
that it should not be received, or that, if it were received, "the House
should not separate, until it had resolved, that the interest of the
Debt should never be reduced"! Castlereagh abused the petition; but was
for _receiving_ it, in _order to fix on it a mark of the House's
reprobation_. I said, in the next Register, that this fellow was _mad_;
and, in six or seven weeks from that day, he cut his own throat, and was
declared to have been mad at the time when this petition was presented!
The mess that "_the House_," will be in will be bad enough as it is; but
what would have been its mess, if it had, in its strong fit of "good
faith," been furious enough to adopt Mr. Martin's "resolution"!
The Warwickshire Avon falls into the Severn here, and on the sides of
both, for many miles back, there are the finest meadows that ever were
seen. In looking over them, and beholding the endless flocks and herds,
one wonders what can become of all the meat! By riding on about eight or
nine miles farther, however, this wonder is a little diminished; for
here we come to one of the devouring Wens; namely, Cheltenham, which is
what they call a "watering place;" that is to say, a place, to which
East India plunderers, West India floggers, English tax-gorgers,
together with gluttons, drunkards, and debauchees of all descriptions,
female as well as male, resort, at the suggestion of silently laughing
quacks, in the hope of getting rid of the bodily consequences of their
manifold sins and iniquities. When I enter a place like this, I always
feel disposed to squeeze up my nose with my fingers. It is nonsense, to
be sure; but I conceit that every two-legged creature, that I see coming
near me, is about to cover me with the poisonous proceeds of its
impurities. To places like this come all that is knavish and all that is
foolish and all that is base; gamesters, pickpockets, and harlots; young
wife-hunters in search of rich and ugly and old women, and young
husband-hunters in search of rich and wrinkled or half-rotten men, the
former resolutely bent, be the means what they may, to give the latter
heirs to their lands and tenements. These things are notorious; and Sir
William Scott, in his speech of 1802, in favour of the non-residence of
the Clergy, expressly said, that they and their families ought to appear
at watering places, and that this was amongst the means of making them
respected by their flocks! Memorandum: he was a member for Oxford when
he said this!
Before we got into Cheltenham, I learned from a coal-carter which way we
had to go, in order to see "_The New Buildings_," which are now nearly
at a stand. We rode up the main street of the town, for some distance,
and then turned off to the left, which soon brought us to the
"desolation of abomination." I have seldom seen anything with more
heartfelt satisfaction. "Oh!" said I to myself, "the accursed THING has
certainly got a _blow_, then, in every part of its corrupt and
corrupting carcass!" The whole town (and it was now ten o'clock) looked
delightfully dull. I did not see more than four or five carriages, and,
perhaps, twenty people on horse-back; and these seemed, by their
hook-noses and round eyes, and by the long and sooty necks of the women,
to be, for the greater part, _Jews and Jewesses_. The place really
appears to be sinking very fast; and I have been told, and believe the
fact, that houses, in Cheltenham, will now sell for only just about
one-third as much as the same would have sold for only in last October.
It is curious to see the names which the vermin owners have put upon the
houses here. There is a new row of most gaudy and fantastical dwelling
places, called "Colombia Place," given it, doubtless, by some dealer in
_Bonds_. There is what a boy told us was the "_New Spa_;" there is
"_Waterloo-house_!" Oh! how I rejoice at the ruin of the base creatures!
There is "_Liverpool-Cottage_," "_Canning-Cottage_," "_Peel-Cottage_;"
and the good of it is, that the ridiculous beasts have put this word
_cottage_ upon scores of houses, and some very mean and shabby houses,
standing along, and making part of an unbroken street! What a figure
this place will cut in another year or two! I should not wonder to see
it nearly wholly deserted. It is situated in a nasty, flat, stupid spot,
without anything pleasant near it. A putting down of the one pound notes
will soon take away its _spa_-people. Those of the notes, that have
already been cut off, have, it seems, lessened the quantity of ailments
very considerably; another brush will cure all the complaints!
They have had some rains in the summer not far from this place; for we
saw in the streets very fine turnips for sale as vegetables, and
broccoli with heads six or eight inches over! But as to the meat, it was
nothing to be compared with that of Warminster, in Wiltshire; that is to
say, the veal and lamb. I have paid particular attention to this matter,
at Worcester and Tewksbury as well as at Cheltenham; and I have seen no
veal and no lamb to be compared with those of Warminster. I have been
thinking, but cannot imagine how it is, that the Wen-Devils, either at
Bath or London, do not get this meat away from Warminster. I hope that
my observations on it will not set them to work; for, if it do, the
people of Warminster will never have a bit of good meat again.
After Cheltenham we had to reach this pretty little town of Fairford,
the regular turnpike road to which lay through Cirencester; but I had
from a fine map, at Sir Thomas Winnington's, traced out a line for us
along through a chain of villages, leaving Cirencester away to our
right, and never coming nearer than seven or eight miles to it. We came
through Dodeswell, Withington, Chedworth, Winston, and the two Colnes.
At Dodeswell we came up a long and steep hill, which brought us out of
the great vale of Gloucester and up upon the Cotswold Hills, which name
is tautological, I believe; for I think that _wold_ meaned _high lands
of great extent_. Such is the Cotswold, at any rate, for it is a tract
of country stretching across, in a south-easterly direction from
Dodeswell to near Fairford, and in a north-easterly direction, from
Pitchcomb Hill, in Gloucestershire (which, remember, I descended on the
12th September) to near Witney in Oxfordshire. Here we were, then, when
we got fairly up upon the Wold, with the vale of Gloucester at our back,
Oxford and its vale to our left, the vale of Wiltshire to our right, and
the vale of Berkshire in our front: and from one particular point, I
could see a part of each of them. This Wold is, in itself, an ugly
country. The soil is what is called a _stone brash_ below, with a
reddish earth mixed with little bits of this brash at top, and, for the
greater part of the Wold, even this soil is very shallow; and as fields
are divided by walls made of this brash, and as there are, for a mile or
two together, no trees to be seen, and as the surface is not smooth and
green like the downs, this is a sort of country, having less to please
the eye than any other that I have ever seen, always save and except the
_heaths_ like those of Bagshot and Hindhead. Yet, even this Wold has
many fertile dells in it, and sends out, from its highest parts, several
streams, each of which has its pretty valley and its meadows. And here
has come down to us, from a distance of many centuries, a particular
race of sheep, called the _Cotswold_ breed, which are, of course, the
best suited to the country. They are short and stocky, and appear to me
to be about half way, in point of size, between the Rylands and the
South Downs. When crossed with the Leicester, as they are pretty
generally in the North of Wiltshire, they make very beautiful and even
large sheep; quite large enough, and, people say, very profitable.
A _route_, when it lies through _villages_, is one thing on a _map_, and
quite another thing on the ground. Our line of villages, from Cheltenham
to Fairford was very nearly straight upon the map; but, upon the ground,
it took us round about a great many miles, besides now and then a little
going back, to get into the right road; and, which was a great
inconvenience, not a public-house was there on our road, until we got
within eight miles of Fairford. Resolved that not one single farthing of
my money should be spent in the Wen of Cheltenham, we came through that
place, expecting to find a public-house in the first or second of the
villages; but not one was there, over the whole of the Wold; and though
I had, by pocketing some slices of meat and bread at Ryall, provided
against this contingency, as far as related to ourselves, I could make
no such provision for our horses, and they went a great deal too far
without baiting. Plenty of farm-houses, and, if they had been in
America, we need have looked for no other. Very likely (I hope it at any
rate) almost any farmer on the Cotswold would have given us what we
wanted, if we had asked for it; but the fashion, the good old fashion,
was, by the hellish system of funding and taxing and monopolizing,
driven across the Atlantic. And is England _never_ to see it return! Is
the hellish system to last _for ever_!
Doctor Black, in remarking upon my Ride down the vale of the Salisbury
Avon, says, that there has, doubtless, been a falling off in the
population of the villages, "lying amongst the chalk-hills;" aye, and
lying everywhere else too; or, how comes it, that four-fifths of the
parishes of Herefordshire, abounding in rich land, in meadows, orchards,
and pastures, have either no parsonage-houses at all, or have none that
a Parson thinks fit for him to live in? I vouch for the fact; I will,
whether in Parliament or not, prove the fact to the Parliament: and, if
the fact be such, the conclusion is inevitable. But how melancholy is
the sight of these decayed and still decaying villages in the dells of
the Cotswold, where the building materials, being stone, the ruins do
not totally disappear for ages! The village of Withington (mentioned
above) has a church like a small cathedral, and the whole of the
population is now only 603 persons, men, women, and children! So that,
according to the Scotch fellows, this immense and fine church, which is
as sound as it was 7 or 800 years ago, was built by and for a
population, containing, at most, only about 120 grown up and
able-abodied men! But here, in this once populous village, or I think
town, you see _all_ the indubitable marks of most melancholy decay.
There are several lanes, crossing each other, which _must_ have been
_streets_ formerly. There is a large open space where the principal
streets meet. There are, against this open place, two large, old, roomy
houses, with gateways into back parts of them, and with large stone
_upping-blocks_ against the walls of them in the street. These were
manifestly considerable _inns_, and, in this open place, markets or
fairs, or both used to be held. I asked two men, who were threshing in a
barn, how long it was since their public-house was put down, or dropped?
They told me about sixteen years. One of these men, who was about fifty
years of age, could remember _three_ public-houses, one of which was
what was called an _inn_! The place stands by the side of a little
brook, which here rises, or rather issues, from a high hill, and which,
when it has winded down for some miles, and through several villages,
begins to be called the River Colne, and continues on, under this name,
through Fairford and along, I suppose, till it falls into the Thames.
Withington is very prettily situated; it was, and not very long ago, a
gay and nappy place; but it now presents a picture of dilapidation and
shabbiness scarcely to be equalled. Here are the yet visible remains of
two gentlemen's houses. Great farmers have supplied their place, as to
inhabiting; and, I dare say, that some tax-eater, or some blaspheming
Jew, or some still more base and wicked loan-mongering robber is now the
owner of the land; aye, and all these people are his _slaves_ as
completely, and more to their wrong, than the blacks are the slaves of
the planters in Jamaica, the farmers here, acting, in fact, in a
capacity corresponding with that of the negro-drivers there.
A part, and, perhaps, a considerable part, of the decay and misery of
this place, is owing to the use of _machinery_, and to the
_monopolizing_, in the manufacture of Blankets, of which fabric the town
of Witney (above mentioned) was the centre, and from which town the wool
used to be sent round to, and the yarn, or warp, come back from, all
these Cotswold villages, and quite into a part of Wiltshire. This work
is all now gone, and so the women and the girls are a "surplus
_popalashon, mon_," and are, of course, to be dealt with by the
"Emigration Committee" of the "Collective Wisdom"! There were, only a
few years ago, above thirty blanket-manufacturers at Witney: twenty-five
of these have been swallowed up by the five that now have all the
manufacture in their hands! And all this has been done by that system of
gambling and of fictitious money, which has conveyed property from the
hands of the many into the hands of the few. But wise Burdett _likes_
this! He wants the land to be cultivated by few hands, and he wants
machinery, and all those things, which draw money into _large masses_;
that make a nation consist of a few of very rich and of millions of very
poor! Burdett must look sharp; or this system will play him a trick
before it come to an end.
The crops on the Cotswold have been pretty good; and I was very much
surprised to see a scattering of early turnips, and, in some places,
decent crops. Upon this Wold I saw more early turnips in a mile or two,
than I saw in all Herefordshire and Worcestershire and in all the rich
and low part of Gloucestershire. The high lands always, during the year,
and especially during the summer, receive much more of rain than the low
lands. The clouds hang about the hills, and the dews, when they rise,
go, most frequently, and cap the hills.
Wheat-sowing is yet going on on the Wold; but the greater part of it is
sown, and not only sown, but up, and in some places, high enough to
"hide a hare." What a difference! In some parts of England, no man
thinks of sowing wheat till November, and it is often done in March. If
the latter were done on this Wold there would not be a bushel on an
acre. The ploughing and other work, on the Wold, is done, in great part,
by oxen, and here are some of the finest ox-teams that I ever saw.
All the villages down to Fairford are pretty much in the same dismal
condition as that of Withington. Fairford, which is quite on the border
of Gloucestershire, is a very pretty little market-town, and has one of
the prettiest churches in the kingdom. It was, they say, built in the
reign of Henry VII.; and one is naturally surprised to see, that its
windows of beautiful stained glass had the luck to escape, not only the
fangs of the ferocious "good Queen Bess;" not only the unsparing
plundering minions of James I.; but even the devastating ruffians of
Cromwell.
We got in here about four o'clock, and at the house of Mr. Iles, where
we slept, passed, amongst several friends, a very pleasant evening. This
morning, Mr. Iles was so good as to ride with us as far as the house of
another friend at Kempsford, which is the last Gloucestershire parish in
our route. At this friend's, Mr. Arkall, we saw a fine dairy of about 60
or 80 cows, and a cheese loft with, perhaps, more than two thousand
cheeses in it; at least there were many hundreds. This village contains
what are said to be the remnants and ruins of a mansion of John of
Gaunt. The church is very ancient and very capacious. What tales these
churches do tell upon us! What fools, what lazy dogs, what presumptuous
asses, what lying braggarts, they make us appear! No people here, "_mon,
teel the Scots cam to seevelize_" us! Impudent, lying beggars! Their
stinking "_kelts_" ought to be taken up, and the brazen and insolent
vagabonds whipped back to their heaths and their rocks. Let them go and
thrive by their "cash-credits," and let their paper-money poet, Walter
Scott, immortalize their deeds. That conceited, dunderheaded fellow,
George Chalmers, _estimated_ the whole of the population of England and
Wales at a few persons more than _two millions_, when England was just
at the highest point of her power and glory, and when all these churches
had long been built and were resounding with the voice of priests, who
resided in their parishes, and who relieved all the poor out of their
tithes! But this same Chalmers signed his _solemn conviction_, that
Vortigern and the other Ireland-manuscripts, which were written by a lad
of sixteen, were written by SHAKSPEARE.
In coming to Kempsford we got wet, and nearly to the skin. But our
friends gave us coats to put on, while ours were dried, and while we ate
our breakfast. In our way to this house, where we now are, Mr. Tucky's,
at Heydon, we called at Mr. James Crowdy's, at Highworth, where I was
from the 4th to the 9th of September inclusive; but it looked rainy,
and, therefore, we did not alight. We got wet again before we reached
this place; but, our journey being short, we soon got our clothes dry
again.
_Burghclere (Hampshire), Monday, 2nd October._
Yesterday was a really _unfortunate day_. The morning promised fair; but
its promises were like those of Burdett! There was a little snivelling,
wet, treacherous frost. We had to come through Swindon, and Mr. Tucky
had the kindness to come with us, until we got three or four miles on
this side (the Hungerford side) of that very neat and plain and solid
and respectable market town. Swindon is in Wiltshire, and is in the real
fat of the land, all being wheat, beans, cheese, or fat meat. In our way
to Swindon, Mr. Tucky's farm exhibited to me what I never saw before,
four score oxen, all grazing upon one farm, and all nearly fat! They
were, some Devonshire and some Herefordshire. They were fatting on the
grass only; and, I should suppose, that they are worth, or shortly will
be, thirty pounds each. But the great pleasure, with which the
contemplation of this fine sight was naturally calculated to inspire me,
was more than counterbalanced by the thought, that these fine oxen, this
primest of human food, was, aye, every mouthful of it, destined to be
devoured in the Wen, and that, too, for the far greater part, by the
Jews, loan-jobbers, tax-eaters, and their base and prostituted
followers, dependents, purveyors, parasites and pimps, literary as well
as other wretches, who, if suffered to live at all, ought to partake of
nothing but the offal, and ought to come but one cut before the dogs and
cats!
Mind you, there is, in my opinion, no land in England that surpasses
this. There is, I suppose, as good in the three last counties that I
have come through; but _better_ than this is, I should think,
impossible. There is a pasture-field, of about a hundred acres, close to
Swindon, belonging to a Mr. Goddard, which, with its cattle and sheep,
was a most beautiful sight. But everything is full of riches; and, as
fast as skill and care and industry can extract these riches from the
land, the unseen grasp of taxation, loan-jobbing and monopolizing takes
them away, leaving the labourers not half a belly-full, compelling the
farmer to pinch them or to be ruined himself, and making even the
landowner little better than a steward, or bailiff, for the tax-eaters,
Jews and jobbers!
Just before we got to Swindon, we crossed a canal at a place where there
is a wharf and a coal-yard, and close by these a gentleman's house, with
coach-house, stables, walled-in-garden, paddock _orne_, and the rest of
those things, which, all together, make up _a villa_, surpassing the
second and approaching towards the first class. Seeing a man in the
coal-yard, I asked him to what gentleman the house belonged: "to the
_head un_ o' the canal," said he. And, when, upon further inquiry of
him, I found that it was the villa of the chief manager, I could not
help congratulating the proprietors of this aquatic concern; for, though
I did not ask the name of the canal, I could readily suppose, that the
profits must be prodigious, when the residence of the manager would
imply no disparagement of dignity, if occupied by a Secretary of State
for the Home, or even for the Foreign, department. I mean an _English_
Secretary of State; for, as to an _American_ one, his salary would be
wholly inadequate to a residence in a mansion like this.
From Swindon we came up into the _down-country_; and these downs rise
higher even than the Cotswold. We left Marlborough away to our right,
and came along the turnpike road towards Hungerford, but with a view of
leaving that town to our left, further on, and going away, through
Ramsbury, towards the northernmost Hampshire hills, under which
Burghclere (where we now are) lies. We passed some fine farms upon these
downs, the houses and homesteads of which were near the road. My
companion, though he had been to London, and even to France, had never
seen _downs_ before; and it was amusing to me to witness his surprise at
seeing the immense flocks of sheep, which were now (ten o'clock) just
going out from their several folds to the downs for the day, each having
its shepherd, and each shepherd his dog. We passed the homestead of a
farmer Woodman, with _sixteen_ banging wheat-ricks in the rick-yard, two
of which were old ones; and rick-yard, farm-yard, waste-yard,
horse-paddock, and all round about, seemed to be swarming with fowls,
ducks, and turkeys, and on the whole of them not one feather but what
was white! Turning our eyes from this sight, we saw, just going out from
the folds of this same farm, three separate and numerous flocks of
sheep, one of which (the _lamb_-flock) we passed close by the side of.
The shepherd told us, that his flock consisted of thirteen score and
five; but, apparently, he could not, if it had been to save his soul,
tell us how many hundreds he had: and, if you reflect a little, you will
find, that his way of counting is much the easiest and best. This was a
most beautiful flock of lambs; short legged, and, in every respect,
what they ought to be. George, though born and bred amongst sheep-farms,
had never before seen sheep with dark-coloured faces and legs; but his
surprise, at this sight, was not nearly so great as the surprise of both
of us, at seeing numerous and very large pieces (sometimes 50 acres
together) of very good early turnips, Swedish as well as White! All the
three counties of Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester (except on the
Cotswold) do not, I am convinced, contain as great a weight of turnip
bulbs, as we here saw in one single _piece_; for here there are, for
miles and miles, no hedges, and no fences of any sort.
Doubtless they must have had _rain_ here in the months of June and July;
but, as I once before observed (though I forget _when_) a chalk bottom
does not suffer the surface to burn, however shallow the top soil may
be. It seems to me to absorb and to _retain_ the water, and to keep it
ready to be drawn up by the heat of the sun. At any rate the fact is,
that the surface above it does not burn; for there never yet was a
summer, not even this last, when the downs did not _retain their
greenness to a certain degree_, while the rich pastures, and even the
meadows (except actually _watered_) were burnt so as to be as brown as
the bare earth.
This is a most pleasing circumstance attending the down-countries; and
there are no _downs_ without a chalk bottom.
Along here, the country is rather _too bare_: here, until you come to
Auborne, or Aldbourne, there are _no meadows_ in the valleys, and no
trees, even round the homesteads. This, therefore, is too naked to
please me; but I love _the downs_ so much, that, if I had to choose, I
would live even here, and especially I would _farm_ here, rather than on
the banks of the Wye in Herefordshire, in the vale of Gloucester, of
Worcester, or of Evesham, or, even in what the Kentish men call their
"garden of Eden." I have now seen (for I have, years back, seen the
vales of Taunton, Glastonbury, Honiton, Dorchester and Sherburne) what
are deemed the richest and most beautiful parts of England; and, if
called upon to name the spot, which I deem the brightest and most
beautiful and, of its extent, _best_ of all, I should say, the villages
of _North Bovant and Bishopstrow_, between Heytesbury and Warminster in
Wiltshire; for there is, as appertaining to rural objects, _everything_
that I delight in. Smooth and verdant downs in hills and valleys of
endless variety as to height and depth and shape; rich corn-land,
unencumbered by fences; meadows in due proportion, and those watered at
pleasure; and, lastly, the homesteads, and villages, sheltered in winter
and shaded in summer by lofty and beautiful trees; to which may be
added, roads never dirty and a stream never dry.
When we came to Auborne, we got amongst trees again. This is a _town_,
and was, manifestly, once a large town. Its church is as big as three of
that of Kensington. It has a market now, I believe; but, I suppose, it
is, like many others, become merely nominal, the produce being nearly
all carried to Hungerford, in order to be forwarded to the Jew-devils
and the tax-eaters and monopolizers in the Wen, and in small Wens on the
way. It is a _decaying place_; and, I dare say, that it would be nearly
depopulated, in twenty years' time, if this hellish jobbing system were
to last so long.
A little after we came through Auborne, we turned off to our right to go
through Ramsbury to Shallburn, where Tull, the father of the
drill-husbandry, began and practised that husbandry at a farm called
"Prosperous." Our object was to reach this place (Burghclere) to sleep,
and to stay for a day or two; and, as I knew Mr. Blandy of Prosperous, I
determined upon this route, which, besides, took us out of the
turnpike-road. We stopped at Ramsbury, to bait our horses. It is a
large, and, apparently, miserable village, or "town" as the people call
it. It was in remote times a _Bishop's See_. Its church is very large
and very ancient. Parts of it were evidently built long and long before
the Norman Conquest. Burdett owns a great many of the houses in the
village (which contains nearly two thousand people), and will, if he
live many years, own nearly the whole; for, as his eulogist, William
Friend, the Actuary, told the public, in a pamphlet, in 1817, he has
resolved, that his numerous _life-holds shall run out_, and that those
who were life-holders under his Aunt, from whom he got the estate, shall
become _rack-renters to him_, or quit the occupations. Besides this, he
is continually purchasing lands and houses round about and in this
place. He has now let his house to a Mr. Acres; and, as the _Morning
Herald_ says, is safe landed at Bordeaux, with his family, for the
winter! When here, he did not occupy a square inch of his land! He let
it all, park and all; and only reserved "a right of road" from the
highway to his door. "He had and has _a right_ to do all this." A
_right_? Who denies that? But is this giving us a specimen of that
"liberality and generosity and hospitality" of those "English Country
Gentlemen," whose praises he so loudly sang last winter? His name is
Francis Burdett _Jones_, which last name he was obliged to take by his
Aunt's will; and he actually used it for some time after the estate came
to him! "Jones" was too common a name for him, I suppose! Sounded too
much of the _vulgar_!
However, what I have principally to do with, is, his _absence from the
country_ at a time like this, and, if the newspapers be correct, his
intended absence during the whole of next winter; and such a winter,
too, as it is likely to be! He, for many years, complained, and justly,
of the _sinecure placemen_; and, are we to suffer him to be, thus, a
sinecure Member of Parliament! This is, in my opinion, a great deal
worse than a sinecure placeman; for this is shutting an active Member
out. It is a dog-in-manger offence; and, to the people of a place such
as Westminster, it is not only an injury, but a most outrageous insult.
If it be true, that he intends to stay away, during the coming session
of Parliament, I trust, not only, that he never will be elected again;
but, that the people of Westminster will call upon him to resign; and
this, I am sure they will do too. The next session of Parliament _must_
be a most important one, and that he knows well. Every member will be
put to the test in the next session of Parliament. On the question of
Corn-Bills every man must declare, for, or against, the people. He would
declare against, if he dared; and, therefore, he gets out of the way!
Or, this is what we shall have a clear right to presume, if he be absent
from the next session of Parliament. He knows, that there must be
something like a struggle between the land-owners and the fund-holders.
His interest lies with the former; he wishes to support the law-church
and the army and all sources of aristocratical profit; but, he knows,
that the people of Westminster would be on the other side. It is better,
therefore, to hear at Bordeaux, about this struggle, than to be engaged
in it! He must know of the great embarrassment, distress, and of the
great bodily suffering, now experienced by a large part of the people;
and has he _a right_, after having got himself returned a member for
such a place as Westminster, to go out of the country, at such a time
and leave his seat vacant? He must know that, during the ensuing winter,
there _must_ be great distress in Westminster itself; for there will be
a greater mass of the working people out of employ than there ever was
in any winter before; and this calamity will, too, be owing to that
infernal system, which he has been supporting, to those paper-money
Rooks, with whom he is closely connected, and the existence of whose
destructive rags he expressed his wish to prolong: he knows all this
very well: he knows that, in every quarter the distress and danger are
great; and is it not, then, his duty to be here? Is he, who, at his own
request, has been intrusted with the representing of a great city to get
out of the way at a time like this, and under circumstances like these?
If this be so, then is this great, and _once_ public-spirited city,
become more contemptible, and infinitely more mischievous, than the
"accursed hill" of Wiltshire: but this is _not so_; the _people_ of
Westminster are what they always were, full of good sense and public
spirit: they have been cheated by a set of bribed intriguers; and _how_
this has been done, I will explain to them, when I _punish_ Sir Francis
Burdett Jones for the sins, _committed for him_, by a hired Scotch
writer. I shall dismiss him, for the present, with observing, that, if I
had in me a millionth part of that malignity and vindictiveness, which
he so basely showed towards me, I have learned anecdotes sufficient to
enable me to take ample vengeance on him for the stabs which he, in
1817, knew, that he was sending to the hearts of the defenceless part of
my family!
While our horses were baiting at Ramsbury, it began to rain, and by the
time that they had done, it rained pretty hard, with every appearance of
continuing to rain for the day; and it was now about eleven o'clock, we
having 18 or 19 miles to go before we got to the intended end of our
journey. Having, however, for several reasons, a very great desire to
get to Burghclere that night, we set off in the rain; and, as we carry
no great coats, we were wet to the skin pretty soon. Immediately upon
quitting Ramsbury, we crossed the River Kennet, and, mounting a highish
hill, we looked back over friend Sir Glory's park, the sight of which
brought into my mind the visit of Thimble and Cowhide, as described in
the "intense comedy," and, when I thought of the "baker's being starved
to death," and of the "heavy fall of snow," I could not help bursting
out a laughing, though it poured of rain and though I already felt the
water on my skin.--MEM. To ask, when I get to London, what is become of
the intense "Counsellor Bric;" and whether he have yet had the justice
to put the K to the end of his name. I saw a lovely female shoy-hoy,
engaged in keeping the rooks from a newly-sown wheat field on the
Cotswold Hills, that would be a very _suitable match_ for him; and, as
his manners appear to be mended; as he now praises to the skies those
40_s._ freeholders, whom, in my hearing, he asserted to be "_beneath
brute beasts_;" as he does, in short, appear to be rather less offensive
than he was, I should have no objection to promote the union; and, I am
sure, _the farmer_ would like it of all things; for, if Miss _Stuffed o'
straw_ can, when _single_, keep the devourers at a distance, say, you
who know him, whether the sight of the _husband's head_ would leave a
rook in the country!
Turning from viewing the scene of Thimble and Cowhide's cruel
disappointment, we pushed through coppices and across fields, to a
little village, called Froxfield, which we found to be on the great
Bath-Road. Here, crossing the road and also a run of water, we, under
the guidance of a man, who was good enough to go about a mile with us,
and to whom we gave a shilling and the price of a pot of beer, mounted
another hill, from which, after twisting about for awhile, I saw, and
recognised the out-buildings of Prosperous farm, towards which we pushed
on as fast as we could, in order to keep ourselves in motion so as to
prevent our catching cold; for it rained, and incessantly, every step of
the way. I had been at Prosperous before; so that I knew Mr. Blandy, the
owner, and his family, who received us with great hospitality. They took
care of our horses, gave us what we wanted in the eating and drinking
way, and clothed us, shirts and all, while they dried all our clothes;
for not only the things on our bodies were soaked, but those also which
we carried in little thin leather rolls, fastened on upon the saddles
before us. Notwithstanding all that could be done in the way of
dispatch, it took more than three hours to get our clothes dry. At last,
about three quarters of an hour before sunset, we got on our clothes
again and set off: for, as an instance of real bad luck, it ceased to
rain the moment we got to Mr. Blandy's. Including the numerous angles
and windings, we had nine or ten miles yet to go; but I was so anxious
to get to Burghclere, that, contrary to my practice as well as my
principle, I determined to encounter the darkness for once, though in
cross-country roads, presenting us, at every mile, with ways crossing
each other; or forming a Y; or kindly giving us the choice of three,
forming the upper part of a Y and a half. Add to this, that we were in
an enclosed country, the lanes very narrow, deep-worn, and banks and
hedges high. There was no moon; but it was starlight, and, as I could
see the Hampshire Hills all along to my right, and knew that I must not
get above a mile or so from them, I had a guide that could not deceive
me; for, as to _asking_ the road, in a case like this, it is of little
use, unless you meet some one at every half mile: for the answer is,
_keep right on_; aye, but in ten minutes, perhaps, you come to a Y, or
to a T, or to a +.
A fellow told me once, in my way from Chertsey to Guildford, "Keep
_right on_, you can't miss your way." I was in the perpendicular part of
the T, and the top part was only a few yards from me. "_Right on_," said
I, "what over _that bank_ into the wheat?" "No, no," said he, "I mean
_that road_, to be sure," pointing to the road that went off to the
_left_. In _down-countries_, the direction of shepherds and pig and bird
boys is always in precisely the same words; namely, "_right_ over the
down," laying great stress upon the word _right_. "But," said I, to a
boy, at the edge of the down at King's Worthy (near Winchester), who
gave me this direction to Stoke Charity; "but, what do you mean by
_right_ over the down?" "Why," said he, "_right_ on to Stoke, to be
sure, Zur." "Aye," said I, "but how am I, who was never here before, to
know _what is_ right, my boy?" That posed him. It set him to thinking:
and after a bit he proceeded to tell me, that, when I got up the hill, I
should see _some trees_; that I should go along by them; that I should
then see _a barn_ right before me; that I should go down to that barn;
and that I should then see a _wagon track_ that would lead me all down
to Stoke. "Aye!" said I, "_now_ indeed you are a real clever fellow."
And I gave him a shilling, being part of my savings of the morning.
Whoever tries it will find, that the _less they eat and drink_, when
travelling, the better they will be. I act accordingly. Many days I have
no breakfast and no dinner. I went from Devizes to Highworth without
breaking my fast, a distance, including my deviations, of more than
_thirty miles_. I sometimes take, from a friend's house, a little bit of
meat between two bits of bread, which I eat as I ride along; but
whatever I save from this fasting work, I think I have a clear right to
give away; and, accordingly, I generally put the amount, in copper, into
my waistcoat pocket, and dispose of it during the day. I know well,
_that I am the better_ for not stuffing and blowing myself out, and with
the savings I make many and many a happy boy; and, now-and-then, I give
a whole family a good meal with the cost of a breakfast, or a dinner,
that would have done me mischief. I do not do this because I grudge
inn-keepers what they charge; for my surprise is, how they can live
without charging _more_ than they do in general.
It was dark by the time that we got to a village, called East Woodhay.
Sunday evening is the time _for courting_, in the country. It is not
convenient to carry this on before faces, and, at farmhouses and
cottages, there are no spare apartments; so that the pairs turn out, and
pitch up, to carry on their negociations, by the side of stile or a
gate. The evening was auspicious; it was _pretty dark_, the _weather
mild_, and _Old Michaelmas_ (when yearly services end) was fast
approaching; and, accordingly, I do not recollect ever having before
seen so many negociations going on, within so short a distance. At West
Woodhay my horse _cast a shoe_, and, as the road was abominably flinty,
we were compelled to go at a snail's pace: and I should have gone crazy
with impatience, had it not been for these ambassadors and
ambassadresses of Cupid, to every pair of whom I said something or
other. I began by asking the fellow _my road_; and, from the tone and
manner of his answer, I could tell pretty nearly what prospect he had of
success, and knew what to say to draw something from him. I had some
famous sport with them, saying to them more than I should have said by
daylight, and a great deal less than I should have said, if my horse had
been in a condition to carry me away as swiftly as he did from Osmond
Ricardo's terrific cross! "There!" exclaims Mrs. Scrip, the
stock-jobber's young wife, to her old hobbling wittol of a spouse, "You
see, my love, that this mischievous man could not let even these poor
_peasants_ alone." "_Peasants!_ you dirty-necked devil, and where got
you that word? You, who, but a few years ago, came, perhaps, up from the
country in a wagon; who _made_ the bed you now _sleep_ in; and who got
the husband by helping him to get his wife out of the world, as some
young party-coloured blade is to get you and the old rogue's money by a
similar process!"
We got to Burghclere about eight o'clock, after a very disagreeable day;
but we found ample compensation in the house, and all within it, that we
were now arrived at.
_Burghclere, Sunday, 8th Sept._
It rained steadily this morning, or else, at the end of these six days
of hunting for George, and two for me, we should have set off. The rain
gives me time to give an account of Mr. Budd's crop of Tullian Wheat. It
was sown in rows and on ridges, with very wide intervals, ploughed all
summer. If he reckon that ground only which the wheat grew upon, he had
one hundred and thirty bushels to the acre; and even if he reckoned the
whole of the ground, he had 28 bushels all but two gallons to the acre!
But the best wheat he grew this year was dibbled in between rows of
Swedish Turnips, in November, four rows upon a ridge, with an
eighteen-inch interval between each two rows, and a five-feet interval
between the outside rows on each ridge. It is the white cone that Mr.
Budd sows. He had ears with 130 grains in each. This would be the
farming for labourers in their little plots. They might grow thirty
bushels of wheat to the acre, and have crops of cabbages, in the
intervals, at the same time; or, of potatoes, if they liked them better.
Before my arrival here, Mr. Budd had seen my description of the state of
the labourers in Wiltshire, and had, in consequence, written to my son
James (not knowing where I was) as follows: "In order to see how the
labourers are now _screwed down_, look at the following facts: Arthur
Young, in 1771 (55 years ago) allowed for a man, his wife and three
children 13_s._ 1_d._ a week, according to present money-prices. By the
Berkshire Magistrates' table, made in 1795, the allowance was, for such
family, according to the present money-prices, 11_s._ 4_d._ Now it is,
according to the same standard, 8_s._ According to your father's
proposal, the sum would be (supposing there to be no malt tax) 18_s._ a
week; and little enough too." Is not that enough to convince any one of
the hellishness of this system? Yet Sir Glory applauds it. Is it not
horrible to contemplate millions in this half-starving state; and, is
it not the duty of "England's Glory," who has said that his estate is
"_a retaining fee_ for defending the rights of the people;" is it not
his duty to stay in England and endeavour to restore the people, the
millions, to what their fathers were, instead of going abroad; selling
off his carriage horses, and going abroad, there to spend some part, at
least, of the fruits of English labour? I do not say, that he has _no
right_, generally speaking, to go and spend his money abroad; but, I do
say, that having got himself elected for such a city as Westminster, he
had no right, at a time like this, to be absent from Parliament.
However, what cares he? His "retaining fee" indeed! He takes special
care to augment that fee; but I challenge all his shoe-lickers, all the
base worshippers of twenty thousand acres, to show me one single thing
that he has ever done, or, within the last twelve years, attempted to
do, for his _clients_. In short, this is a man that must now be brought
to book; he must not be suffered to insult Westminster any longer: he
must turn-to or turn out: he is a sore to Westminster; a set-fast on its
back; a cholic in its belly; a cramp in its limbs; a gag in its mouth:
he is a nuisance, a monstrous nuisance, in Westminster, and he must be
abated.