_The Residence of the Rev. W. L. Bowles._
The garden contains upwards of two acres, with a gravel-walk under the
windows. A Gothic porch has been added, the bow-windows being surmounted
with the same kind of parapet as the house, somewhat more ornamental. It
lies to the morning sun; the road to the house, on the north, enters
through a large arch. The garden is on a slope, commanding views of the
surrounding country, with the tower of Calne in front, the woods of
Bowood on the right, and the mansion and woods of Walter Heneage, Esq.
Towards the south. The view to the south-east is terminated by the last
chalky cliffs of the Marlborough downs, extending to within a few miles
of Swindon. In the garden, a winding path from the gravel-walk, in front
of the house, leads to a small piece of water, originally a square pond.
This walk, as it approaches the water, leads into a darker shade, and
descending some steps, placed to give a picturesque appearance to the
bank, you enter a kind of cave, with a dripping rill, which falls into
the water below, whose bank is broken by thorns, and hazels, and
poplars, among darker shrubs. Here an urn appears with the following
inscription:--"M.S. Henrici Bowles, qui ad Calpen, febre ibi exitiali
grassante, publicè missus, ipse miserrimè periit--1804. Fratri
posuit."--Passing round the water, you come to an arched walk of hazels,
which leads to the green in front of the house, where, dipping a small
slope, the path passes near an old and ivied elm. As this seat looks on
the magnificent line of Bowood park and plantations, the obvious thought
could not be well avoided:
"When in thy sight another's vast domain
Spreads its dark sweep of woods, dost thou complain?
Nay! rather thank the God who placed thy state
Above the lowly, but beneath the great;
And still his name with gratitude revere,
Who bless'd the sabbath of thy leisure here."
The walk leads round a plantation of shrubs, to the bottom of the lawn,
from whence is seen a fountain, between a laurel arch; and through a
dark passage a gray sun-dial appears among beds of flowers, opposite the
fountain.
The sun-dial, a small, antique, twisted column, gray with age, was
probably the dial of the abbot of Malmesbury, and counted his hours when
at the adjoining lodge; for it was taken from the garden of the
farm-house, which had originally been the summer retirement of this
mitred lord. It has the appearance of being _monastic_, but a more
ornate capital has been added, the plate on which bears the date of
1688. I must again venture to give the appropriate inscription:--
"To count the brief and unreturning hours,
This Sun-Dial was placed among the flowers,
Which came forth in their beauty--smiled and died,
Blooming and withering round its ancient side.
Mortal, thy day is passing--see that flower,
And think upon the Shadow and the Hour!"
The whole of the small green slope is here dotted with beds of flowers;
a step, into some rock-work, leads to a kind of hermit's oratory, with
crucifix and stained glass, built to receive the shattered fragments, as
their last asylum, of the pillars of Stanly Abbey.
The dripping water passes through the rock-work into a large shell, the
gift of a valued friend, the author of "The Pleasures of Memory;" and I
add, with less hesitation, the inscription, because it was furnished by
the author of "The Pains of Memory," a poem, in its kind, of the most
exquisite harmony and fancy, though the author has long left the bowers
of the muses, and the harp of music, for the severe professional duties
of the bar. I have some pride in mentioning the name of Peregrine
Bingham, being a near relation, as well as rising in character and fame
at the bar. The verses will speak for themselves, and are not unworthy
his muse whose poem suggested the comparisons. The inscription is placed
over the large Indian shell:--
"Snatch'd from an Indian ocean's roar,
I drink the whelming tide no more;
But in this rock, remote and still,
Now serve to pour the murmuring rill.
Listen! Do thoughts awake, which long have slept--
Oh! like his song, who placed me here,
The sweetest song to Memory dear,
When life's tumultuous storms are past,
May we, to such sweet music, close at last
The eyelids that have wept!"
Leaving the small oratory, a terrace of flowers leads to a Gothic
stone-seat at the end, and, returning to the flower-garden, we wind up a
narrow path from the more verdant scene, to a small dark path, with
fantastic roots shooting from the bank, where a grave-stone appears, on
which an hour-glass is carved.
A root-house fronts us, with dark boughs branching over it. Sit down in
that old carved chair. If I cannot welcome some illustrious visitors in
such consummate verse as Pope, I may, I hope, not without blameless
pride, tell you, reader, in this chair have sat some public characters,
distinguished by far more noble qualities than "the nobly pensive St.
John!" I might add, that this seat has received, among other visiters,
Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir George Beaumont, Sir Humphry Davy--poets as well
as philosophers, Madame de Stael, Dugald Stewart, and Christopher North,
Esq.