A family with which I was in close intimacy, indeed on affectionate
terms, was the Wilsons, of Stowlangtoft Hall. Let those who from their
disappointments in life have formed a bad opinion of mankind go among
such people as these!
The father of Henry Wilson resided on his estate at Highbury; he had
been a great merchant, a calling from which so many great things have
emanated in our country, and one which will cease to exist when we reach
our socialistic days; for who would give the energy of his commercial
genius as a servant of the State, and pile up tens of thousands to enrich
Cabinets whose members had better have remained prize-fighters and the
like?
Mr. Wilson purchased two baronets’ estates in Suffolk—one of Sir George
Wombwell, the historic seat of Stowlangtoft; one, Langham Hall, the
property adjoining, of Sir Henry Blake. He also held lands in Norfolk.
Henry Wilson, his son and my kindest and best of friends, resided always
at Stowlangtoft; at one time he represented the county in Parliament.
He was educated at Oxford, where he made friends enough to last for a
lifetime, all of whom, like himself, were thoroughly good men, and many
of them fellow-students of Oriel. There was Rickards, who became his
rector, a college-friend; and one of those who joined the set of Newman
and Manning for a time. There was Porcher, Yarde Buller of Downs,[2]
Kindersley, Mozley; nearly all these were guests from time to time of
Rickards and Wilson; in fact, the only one I do not recall as having met
at the hall or rectory was Newman.
It was a deadly surprise to Rickards when Newman and Manning kicked
against the Reformation and became inceptor-candidates for the Papacy.
The Church, from its own point of view, may have deemed it fortunate that
these two gentlemen took their stroll from Oxford to Rome, or they might
have become Anglican archbishops, and have looked the Holy City up later
in life.
Sir R. Kindersley was a most genial man, quiet and sensible, like most
of those who rise to eminence. He gave his daughter in marriage to
Wilson’s eldest son, and Wilson gave one of his daughters to Kindersley’s
eldest son, and a daughter by this marriage is now Lady Herschell. Miss
Wilson had been long adopted by the Porchers, who wished her and young
Kindersley to be their heirs.
Henry Wilson had a large family by his first wife, who was a Maitland.
He married a second time, the daughter of Lord Henry Fitz-Roy, a son of
the Duke of Grafton. This lady brought him several children. She was a
devoted mother to both families; as conscientious a lady as was ever born
to fulfil great duties. She not only treated her stepchildren exactly as
she did her own, but acquired for them the same affection as she felt for
those which she had brought into the world.
Those who knew her may think themselves happy if they ever see her like
again.
My first acquaintance with Sir R. Kindersley was at a dinner at Trinity
College, which I went to with Dr. J. W. Donaldson, the Greek scholar and
philologer. Donaldson was then head-master at the Bury School. It was my
good fortune on the same occasion to meet Professor Sedgwick, some of
whose anecdotes have served my purpose ever since. A very good one was of
a French general who visited England and enjoyed Sedgwick’s attentions,
among those of many others. On taking final leave of the general he
asked him how he liked the English ladies. After some hesitation the
answer came. It was: “I like them very much. They are very beautiful,
but they have one great fault; they are too virtuous. _Elles sont trop
vertueuses._”
I reminded Kindersley of that pleasant dinner when I met him again, and
he remembered it well.
Wilson was boundless in his hospitality to his neighbours, poor and rich.
Could every parish be under the management of such a squire and such a
rector, poverty would cease to be an evil. Wilson may have felt this
organically; it may have been under its influence that he desired to
establish his family on the soil during succeeding generations. He was an
ardent admirer of enterprise and self-aid; he turned his own name into
his motto—“Will soon will.”
He was bent on building a mansion on the Stowlangtoft estate, and this
he did ultimately on a larger scale than had sufficed for the home of
Sir George Wombwell or of Sir Simonds d’Ewes, his predecessors; but not
before his father died, who left him a purse of twenty-four thousand
pounds a year.
The old Wilson, the London merchant, told me that he met Sir George
Wombwell at his bankers’ to pay him the ninety thousand pounds in notes
which he gave for the Stowlangtoft estate, and that the baronet stuffed
the money into his hinder coat pocket, and so walked away.
The old hall was a very comfortable one, commodious, picturesque. A man
does no good to his family in replacing old mansions by new in country
places, to which the owner resorts, often, only for the shooting season.
This adding on to and rebuilding often ends in disappointment to those
who follow later. I saw recently an advertisement in the paper—“To be
let, Stowlangtoft Hall, with the shooting over seven thousand acres
of land.” My friend Mr. Thornhill, of Riddlesworth Hall, Norfolk,
enlarged his mansion, which had sufficed for his wealthy father; he
wished his descendants to reside there for generations, but his son has
thought differently. I saw an advertisement immediately under the above
concerning Stowlangtoft, which ran thus—“To be sold, the property of Sir
Thomas Thornhill, Bart., the well-known sporting estate of Riddlesworth
Hall.” How little influence can the dead exercise over the living!
We must now speak of old Rickards, a name he had gone by all his life,
with the many who loved him. His hair had always been white, his
complexion red, and he always blushed heartily when he laughed. He had
been a Fellow of Oriel till he wedded Miss Wilmot, a daughter of Sir
Robert Wilmot, of Chadsden Hall, Derbyshire, the liveliest, brightest,
tenderest, sweetest of women; a girl to the last; and I hope still alive,
though all this was fifty years ago. But every one is dead nowadays. Time
was when I saw in the paper the death of some acquaintance almost weekly,
then it got to monthly, then perhaps once in a year, but never now, for
every one I ever knew seems dead and gone. I have a brother left, and a
school-fellow and friend;[3] all others appear children.
But how the newly dead who have lived in us half a century and much more
still survive and perform their parts within us, still laughing, still
blushing, still merry, still sensible and intelligent there, telling us
all they ever told us over again: still glad at seeing us, still shaking
us by the hand, still bidding us welcome. Yes, the obituary notices of
them were premature; they live while we live, they die only when we die.
There is one soothing circumstance, however, attendant on death: we
do not miss ourselves when we are dead; not so much even as we do a
shirt-button when we are alive!
[2] Afterwards Lord Churston.
[3] H. W. Statham, since dead.