----On passing the little village of Erith, once one of the prettiest
rustic spots in Kent, where the parson and the surgeon formed the heads
of the community, and its only intelligence of the living world depended
on the casual arrival of a boat from the Margate Hoy in search of fresh
eggs for the voyage, a small house was pointed out to me, embosomed in a
dell, which would have completely suited the solitary tastes of a poet
weary of the world:
"Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful, or successful war,
Might never reach me more!"
Fifty years ago, a weekly newspaper was the only remembrancer to either
parson or doctor, of the world which they had left, and that one only
sent by the member for the county, when he thought it desirable to awake
the general gratitude on the approach of a general election. The Thames
certainly might remind the village population that there were merchants
and mariners among mankind; but what were those passing phantoms to
them? John the son of Thomas lived and died as Thomas the father of John
had lived and died from generation to generation. The first news of the
American war reached it in the firing of the Woolwich guns for peace;
and the original tidings of the French Revolution, in similar rejoicings
for the Battle of Waterloo.
"O happy ye, the happiest of your kind,
Who leave alike life's woes and joys behind!"
says the philosophic Cowley; and with Cowley I perfectly agree.
But Erith is this scene of philosophy no more. It has now shared the
march of mind: it has become almost a watering-place; it has a library,
a promenade, lodgings for gouty gentlemen, a conventicle, several
vigorous politicians, three doctors, and, most fatal of all, four
steam-boat arrivals every day. Solitude has fled, and meditation is no
more.
But, to my story. In that lonely house, lived for several years, in the
beginning of the century, a singular character, of whom nothing more was
known, than that he had come from some distant place of abode; that he
never received a letter; and that he never hunted, shot, or fished with
the squiredom of the country. He was of large form, loud voice, had a
sullen look, and no trust in her Majesty's ministers for the time being.
At length, on some occasion of peculiar public excitement, the recluse
had gone to Gravesend, where, tempted by the impulse of the moment, he
had broken through his reserve, dashed out into a diatribe of singular
fierceness, but of remarkable power, accused England of all kinds of
oppression to all kinds of countries, and finished his speech by a
recapitulation of all the wishes, wants, woes, and wrongs, as he called
them, of Ireland,
"First flower of the west, and first gem of the ocean."
Within the next twelve hours, a pair of Bow Street officers were seen
galloping into the village in a post-chaise and four. They brought a
warrant from the Secretary of State to arrest the Irish orator, as a
leader of the late Rebellion returned from transportation, on his own
authority. He was captured, and conveyed to the Tower. And this was the
last intelligence of the patriot; except that he appealed to the
government against all repetition of his Australian voyage, and swore
that he preferred the speedier performance of the law to the operations
on the Coal-mine river. A remarkable tempest, which broke all the
windows, and threw down half the chimneys of the city, a few weeks
after; was supposed by the imaginative to be connected with his
disappearance. At all events, he was heard of no more.