[Illustration]
The lamented death of the Right Hon. George Canning has naturally
excited the curiosity of our readers to the villa in which that eminent
statesman breathed his last; and we have therefore obtained from our
artist an original drawing, which has been taken since the melancholy
event occurred, and from which we are now enabled to give the above
correct and picturesque engraving.
Chiswick House is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, built by the last
Earl of Burlington, whose taste and skill as an architect have been
frequently recorded. The ascent to the house is by a noble double flight
of steps, on one side of which is a statue of Palladio, and on the other
that of Inigo Jones. The portico is supported by six fluter Corinthian
pillars, with a pediment; and a dome at the top enlightens a beautiful
octagonal saloon. "This house," says Mr. Walpole, "the idea of which is
borrowed from a well-known villa of Palladio, and is a model of taste,
though not without faults, some of which are occasioned by too strict
adherence to rules and symmetry. Such are too many corresponding doors
in spaces so contracted; chimneys between windows, and, which is worse,
windows between chimneys; and vestibules however beautiful, yet little
secured from the damps of this climate. The trusses that support the
ceiling of the corner drawing-room are beyond measure massive, and the
ground apartment is rather a diminutive catacomb than a library in a
northern latitude. Yet these blemishes, and Lord Hervey's wit, who said
'the house was too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to one's
watch,' cannot depreciate the taste that reigns throughout the whole.
The larger court, dignified by picturesque cedars, and the classic
scenery of the small court, that unites the old and new house, are more
worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur which our
travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long voyages. The
garden is in the Italian taste, but divested of conceits, and far
preferable to every style that reigned till our late improvements. The
buildings are heavy, and not equal to the purity of the house. The
lavish quantity of urns and sculpture behind the garden front should be
retrenched." Such were the sentiments of Mr. Walpole on this celebrated
villa, before the noble proprietor began the capital improvements which
have since been completed. Two wings have been added to the house, from
the designs of Mr. Wyattville. These remove the objections that have
been made to the house, are more fanciful and beautiful than convenient
and habitable; the gardens have also been considerably improved, and now
display all the beauties of modern planting.
It is a remarkable coincidence that at this secluded and beautiful villa
Charles James Fox terminated his glorious career, in the same month, and
having arrived at the same age (fifty-seven) as Mr. Canning.
As many of our readers may be induced to visit this quiet and
picturesque spot, we would recommend them to pass down the private
carriage-way which leads from Turnham-green to the porter's lodge, and
having reached the door that opens to a rural lane which runs in front
of the villa, to turn into the field, the gate of which is situated near
a small bridge, and from thence a delightful view may be obtained of
this celebrated villa. It was on this spot the above view was sketched.
In returning through the lane which we have just alluded to, the first
turning on the right conducts to the church, which interestingly-ancient
edifice demands a remark in this place.
Chiswick church is situated near the water side. The present structure
originally consisted only of a nave and chancel, and was built about the
beginning of the fifteenth century, at which time the tower was erected
at the charge of William Bordal, vicar of Chiswick, who died in 1435. It
is built of stone and flint, as is the north wall of the church and
chancel; the latter has been repaired with brick: a transverse aisle, at
the east end of the nave, was added on the south side in the middle of
the last, and a corresponding aisle on the south side, towards the
beginning of the last century. The former was enlarged in the year 1772,
by subscription, and carried on to the west end of the nave: both the
aisles are of brick.
In the churchyard is a monument to the memory of William Hogarth. On
this monument, which is ornamented with a mask, a laurel wreath, a
palette, pencils, and a book, inscribed, "Analysis of Beauty," are the
following lines, by his friend and contemporary, the late David
Garrick:--
"Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reached the noblest point of art,
Whose pictur'd morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart!
If genius fire thee, reader, stay;
If nature move thee, drop a tear;
If neither touch thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here."
Near this is the tomb of Dr. Rose, many years distinguished as a critic
in a respectable periodical publication.
In the church, in the Earl of Burlington's vault, is interred the
celebrated Kent, a painter, architect, and father of modern gardening.
"In the first character," says Mr. Walpole, "he was below mediocrity; in
the second, he was the restorer of the science; in the last, an
original, and the inventor of an art that realizes painting and improves
nature. Mahomet imagined an Elysium, but Kent created many." He
frequently declared, it is said, that he caught his taste in gardening
from reading the picturesque descriptions of Spencer. Mason, noticing
his mediocrity as a painter, pays this fine tribute to his excellence in
the decoration of rural scenery:--
----"He felt
The pencil's power--but fir'd by higher forms
Of beauty than that pencil knew to paint,
Work'd with the living hues that Nature lent,
And realiz'd his landscapes. Generous be,
Who gave to Painting what the wayward nymph
Refus'd her votary; those Elysian scenes,
Which would she emulate, her nicest hand
Must all its force of light and shade employ."
On the outside of the wall of the churchyard, on a stone tablet, is the
following curious inscription:--"This wall was made at ye charges of ye
right honourable and trulie pious Lorde Francis Russel, Duke of Bedford,
out of true zeal and care for ye keeping of this churchyard, and ye
wardrobe of God's saints, whose bodies lay therein buried, from
violating by swine and other profanation, so witnessed! William Walker,
V., A.D. 1623."
We cannot better conclude our description than with a sketch from Sir
Richard Phillips's "Morning's Walk to Kew." He was walking on the
opposite banks of the river, when on a sudden he caught the sound of a
ring of village bells. "Surely," he exclaimed, "they are Chiswick
bells!--the very bells under the sound of which I received part of my
early education, and, as a schoolboy, passed the happiest days of my
life!--Well might their tones vibrate to my inmost soul, and kindle
uncommon sympathies!" I now recollected that the winding of the river
must have brought me nearer to that simple and primitive village than
the profusion of wood had permitted me to perceive, and my memory had
been unconsciously acted upon by the tones which served as keys to all
the associations connected with these bells, their church and the
village of Chiswick! I listened again, and now discriminated those
identical sounds which I had not heard during a period of more than
thirty years. I distinguished the very words in the successive tones,
which the school-boys and puerile imaginations at Chiswick used to
combine with them. In thought, I became again a schoolboy--"Yes," said
I, "the six bells tell me that _my dun cow has just calv'd_, exactly as
they did above thirty years since!"--Did the reader never encounter a
similar key-note, leading to a multitude of early and vivid
recollections? Those well-remembered tones, in like manner, brought
before my imagination numberless incidents and personages no longer
important, or no longer in existence. My scattered and once-loved
schoolmates, their characters and their various fortunes, passed in
rapid review before me; my schoolmaster, his wife, and all the gentry,
and heads of families, whose orderly attendance at divine service on
Sundays, while those well-remembered bells were "chiming for church,"
(but now gone and mouldering in the adjoining graves,) were again
presented to my perceptions! With what pomp and form they used to enter
and depart from their house of God! I still saw with the mind's eye the
widow Hogarth, and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle
dressed in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black
hoods, their lace ruffles, and their high-crook'd canes, preceded by
their aged servant, Samuel; who, after he had wheeled his mistress to
church in her Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and
opened and shut the pew! There too was the portly Dr. Griffiths, of the
_Monthly Review_, with his literary wife in her neat and elevated
wire-winged cap! And oftimes the vivacious and angelic Duchess of
Devonshire, whose bloom had not then suffered from the canker-worm of
pecuniary distress, created by the luxury of charity! Nor could I forget
the humble distinction of the aged sexton, Mortefee, whose skill in
psalmody enabled him to lead that wretched group of singers, whom
Hogarth so happily portrayed; whose performance with the pitch-fork
excited so much wonder in little boys; and whose gesticulations and
contortions of head, hand, and body, in beating time, were not outdone
even by Joah Bates in the commemorations of Handel! Yes, simple and
happy villagers! I remember scores of you;--how fortunately ye had, and
still have, escaped the contagion of the metropolitan vices, though
distant but five miles; and how many of you have I conversed with, who,
at an adult age, had never beheld the degrading assemblage of its
knaveries and miseries!
I revelled in the melancholy pleasure of these recollections, yielding
my whole soul to that witchery of sensibility which magnifies the
perception of being, till one of the bells was overset, when, the peal
stopping, I had leisure to think on the rapid advance of the day, and on
the consequent necessity of quickening my speed.
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