. . . And now I will tell you of a pilgrimage I made that put me in mind
of you much. I went to Salisbury to see the Cathedral, but more to walk
to Bemerton, George Herbert's village. It is about a mile and half from
Salisbury alongside a pleasant stream with old-fashioned watermills
beside: through fields very fertile. When I got to Bemerton I scarcely
knew what to do with myself. It is a very pretty village with the Church
and Parsonage much as Herbert must have left it. But there is no
memorial of him either in or outside the walls of the church: though
there have been Bishops and Deans and I know not what all so close at
hand at Salisbury. This is a great shame indeed. I would gladly put up
a plain stone if I could get the Rector's leave. I was very sorry to see
no tablet of any kind. The people in the Cottages had heard of a very
pious man named Herbert, and had read his books--but they don't know
where he lies. I have drawn the church and village: the little woodcut
of it in Walton's Lives is very like. I thought I must have passed along
the spot in the road where he assisted the man with the fallen horse: and
to shew the benefit of good examples, I was serviceable that very evening
in the town to some people coming in a cart: for the driver was drunk and
driving furiously home from the races, and I believe would have fallen
out, but that some folks, amongst whom I was one, stopped the cart. This
long history is now at an end. I wanted John Allen much to be with me. I
noticed the little window into which Herbert's friend looked, and saw him
kneeling so long before the altar, when he was first ordained.
* * * * *
In the summer and autumn of this year FitzGerald spent some weeks at
Tenby and was a good deal with Allen to whom he wrote on his return to
London.
LONDON, _Nov_. 21, 1832.