[458] The Plague: in which times, the acting of Plays appears to have
been discountenanced.
[459] He damns the Town: the Town before damn’d him.--ED.
We can almost be not sorry for the ill dramatic success of this Play,
which brought out such spirited apologies; in particular, the masterly
definitions of Pastoral and Tragi-Comedy in this Preface.
[460] So I point it; instead of the line, as it stands in this unique
copy--
Nor instance nor excuse for what they do.
The sense I take to be, what the common playwrights _do_ (or shew by
action--the “inexplicable dumb show” of Shakspeare--), our Chorus
_relates_. The following lines have else no coherence.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ~Lodge and Avenue at Holwood,~
THE RESIDENCE OF JOHN WARD, ESQ. FORMERLY OF THE LATE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM
PITT.]
Mr. S. Young’s comfortable little inn, the Cross at Keston, or Keston
Mark, is mentioned before as being at the north-east corner of the
grounds belonging to Holwood. My friend W---- and I, on a second visit
to Mr. Young’s house, went from thence, for the purpose of seeing the
church and village of Keston, through which the main road runs to
Westerham. We kept along to the entrance gate of Holwood, which we
passed, having the park palings on our left, till we came to a well in
the road, which derives its water from springs within Holwood, and
stands on a swell of meadow land, called “the War Bank.” Further on, and
out of the road to the right, lies the village of Keston, a few houses
embowered in a dell of trees; with a stone church, which did not seem to
have been built more than a couple of centuries. A peep through the
windows satisfied us that there was nothing worth looking at within. We
had heard of stone coffins having been found at the bottom of the War
Bank, and we returned to that spot; where, though the ground had been
ploughed and was in pasture, we met with much stone rubbish in the soil,
and some large pieces loose on the surface and in the ditches of the
hedge. These appearances indicated a former structure there; and an old
labourer, whom we fell in with, told us that when he was a boy, his
grandfather used to talk of “Keston old church” having stood in that
spot, but becoming decayed, it was pulled down, and the church rebuilt
in its present situation, with the materials of the ancient edifice. If
this information was correct, the coffins which were discovered in that
spot were more likely to have been deposited there in ordinary burial,
than to have contained, as most of the country people suppose, the
bodies of persons slain in battle on the War Bank. Besides, if that
mound derives its name, as tradition reports, from a conflict there
between the Romans and the ancient Britons, it must be remembered that
our rude aboriginal ancestors were unaccustomed to that mode of
sepulture, and that Cæsar had work of more consequence to employ his
soldiers on than such laborious constructions for the interment of his
officers. One of these coffins is at Mr. Smith’s, near the well-head on
the War Bank, and another is at lady Farnaby’s, at Wickham Court.
The little village of Keston is, of itself, nothing; but, looking over
it from the road towards the weald of Kent, and particularly Surrey,
there is a sweeping view of hill and dale, arable and pasture,
intersected with woodlands. Its name is said to have been derived from
Cæsar’s (pronounced Kæsar’s) town; but it is quite as likely to have
been a corruption of “castrum,” a fortress or citadel. There is little
doubt that the Romans maintained a military position on the heights
adjoining Keston for a considerable time. The site they held was
afterwards occupied by the late right honourable William Pitt; and
respecting it, there was published in the year 1792 the following