LETTER I.
TO THE BARON DE B.

IT is not without a pleasure known only to Friendship,—and where is the isolated wretch who knows not that?—I hear you still cherish the intention of visiting the Country from whence I have now the honour to address you; and that, whether "Grim-visag'd War shall smooth his wrinkled front," or not, you will indulge a curiosity which has grown up with you from your earliest youth, of passing some time on a little handful of Earth, which is, comparatively, but as an ant-hill on the Globe; but which, like the ant-hill, is populated by the most industrious, ingenious, and wonder-work­ing creatures in the universe.

[Page 2]The information which your last favour, by the route of Hamburgh, brought me, that your long-form'd design of coming amongst us, acknowledges a new motive in the "animat­ing thought," as you generously call it, of our being again within reach of each other, is no small addition to my pride and pleasure. And your reminding me of my promise to give you some IDEA of my Country in return of the liberal and instructive services rendered me in yours, flatters my self-love, at the same time that it confirms your good opinion.

But you chide me, for so long appearing to neglect my native Land. Lovingly, and like a brother, indeed, but still you chide; and you measure my deserving your reproof, from the Letter which I sent you, of my being again on English ground; when I transmitted to you an account of the flowery ^* day I past immediately after my landing; and which the copy of the Books, I had the honour to transmit since, [Page 3] will shew, was printed as an introduction to what I had imported from other shores.

Knowing you could not arrange your affairs so as to leave Germany, for the term proposed, in less than five years, from the period of forward­ing to you those remarks, I imagined, they would serve as a general description, till a more particular one became necessary; and I was willing, besides, that the observations I stood pledged to give you, should not be too remote from the time of their proving useful; lest with the loss of all their novelty, they should lose some of their interest.

Still you are dissatisfied. "A Gleaning of England!" you argue, "would be in keeping with the nature and spirit of your friend's former pictorial sketches, independent on all the compacts of private friendship; not only as the proper finish and crown of the corre­spondence, but as a tribute of gratitude and of patriotism to the talents, the dignity, and the beauty of the Island."

This is seductive reasoning, my dear Baron. But you have lived, chiefly, in an unemigrating [Page 4] country;—persons of almost all countries may be comparatively so called with the wanderers of Great Britain:—perhaps, therefore, you do not know how often our inland travellers have trod the beaten, and some the unbeaten paths— that trips, tours, journals, and journies, through every nook and corner of the realm, frequently for the sole purpose of detailing, or giving in the gross, parts of their travel to others,—not to mention a considerable phalanx, that make very good books of this kind, without travelling at all, or at least only from one library to another;— a kind of literary worms which live upon any old leaf they can get at, and are even more abun­dant than our histories of England,—and that our histories, are only to be out-numbered by our authors, and that our authors are only less incalculable than yours. Hence, it would be no easy task to find a river, or a rill, a palace, or a hut, that has not meandered or murmured, displayed its magnificence or boasted its humi­lity, and been some way or another made known to fame by a "true-born Englishman."

Were I disposed to break promise, I might [Page 5] add to the above reasons for not re-describing the described, a fear to offer you the lenten entertainment of not simply, a twice, but a two thousand times told tale.

Of this there was less danger, in regard to the Letters which I formerly wrote from abroad; for though many had gone over the ground I took in foreign lands, they were very few, in comparison of the multitudes who staid at home; and, for one book that describes another country, we have a dozen which treats of our own: nay, the history of any one of our coun­ties, or shires—the several shires, and counties, seeming to have contended which shall have produced the largest and longest story—would furnish you with more reading than what we have of trip and tour of all the world besides.

And what of other writers! Are they objec­tionable? Inasmuch as they imitate nature with truth and loveliness; as they develope with candour, and with skill, the yet more interest­ing pictures of the human heart; as they dwell fondly on its excellencies, and etch with light hand, its little frailties—taking care even in [Page 6] their portraitures of vice, not to make their shades too sombrous—too deadly dark—and scorning with the pride of true Genius, to let Hate or Envy mix the colours,—such artists should be welcome, though they were a thou­sand fold more numerous than they are.

It will be with peculiar pleasure I shall consult, or refer you, as we go along, to such of those as have displayed the richness and the variety of their native land, whether in its productions of art or nature; its manners, or its genius; and who give you a proof of that genius, even in their descriptions of the country itself.

The point proposed, is an amusing, interesting, and true idea of England, and of Englishmen, in their various classes; and, towards your gain­ing this, I will, with the helps above mentioned, endeavour to be the Guide, which a man of your mind,—ingenious, candid, inquisitive, and literary—will have occasion for: Neither will I affect to disallow, though I am aware it im­plies a too flattering compliment on myself, that a residence in, and review of, what was to [Page 7] be seen abroad, enables a man to judge with less prejudice of what is passing at home; helps him to weigh the possessions of the latter in a surer scale; to poise good with good, advantage with advantage; to make the national estimate with more precision; and, finally, to settle the moral and natural balance of Great Britain with other parts of Europe.

It is fortunate for me also, that an unshackled freedom, as to the delineation of men and things, places and people, was adopted in the first instance, because it will seem a matter of course in the second: and I shall thus have full liberty to pursue my usual, unencumbered mode of travelling without being set down as eccentric.

I beg it may, however, be fully understood, that I do by no means pledge myself, or pretend to make a journey THROUGH England, but to de­scribe, after my manner, the things which shall impress my mind in an excursion to particular towns, and counties, where affection, curiosity, or partial favour, call me IN England! an important monosyllable, which, you will observe, [Page 8] underscored by a triple mark of emphasis on my paper, and which in print—for I trust this partial Tour will be acceptable to all minds congenial with yours — will be noted by Capitals.

And never was there a country more auspicious to travellers of this character than England; they may take their ground even as the stick falls, and be sure that it will not point to the barren; or, at worst, that the sterile will lead quickly to the fertile. The place, or the in­habitant, the soil, the situation, or the pro­ductions, will always render it pregnant with something which will prevent the eye from being long bent on vacancy.

These matters, then, being explained and adjusted before we set out, I will take the first fair day to begin our journey; diverging from the place of my present address—stupendous London!—the great central point, both of object and observation; and to which we may return, and pay the tribute and homage it commands, when the raven-winged days of Winter succeed to the livelier months, that are, [Page 9] as you will perceive by the date of this Epistle, now smiling, upon the Country and upon our undertaking.

For the present, I have only to inform you, I shall be prepared with a duplicate of each Letter, or each parcel of Letters, I may send, to guard against the interruption of the mails, and the various ‘moving accidents of flood and field,’ which continue, alas! to retard not only the soft intercourse of private friend­ship, but the publick happiness, and whatever is most dear to the interests and affections of man.

LETTER II.

ALTHOUGH I know you to be well grounded in general history, and, of course, have some previous acquaintance with that of the country from which I now write to you, it may not be amiss to desire you will have in re­collection, even as you direct your course over the cliffs of Albion, that the people you design to visit, are the descendents of those hardy tribes who lived upon the produce of the chace, cloathing themselves with the skins which they threw off when they were in action; making thus the animals, which were the objects of their pursuit, supply them at once with food, raiment, and a defence against the rigours of the precarious climate in which they were born:—that their huts were scattered over the face of the island, without regularity or arrangement; their choice of a particular spot [Page 11] being influenced by its happier supply of water and wood—that much of their bodies were exposed, and ferociously coloured with terrific figures, either to protect them from the weather, or to affright their foes ^*—that their towns, if, [Page 12] as has been observed, a collection of miserable tenements, could deserve that name — were mostly built upon the coasts: where the poorest shed of a modern fisherman, in any of the sea­side villages to which I shall have the pleasure of conducting you, would have been thought a magnificent palace, even for the chieftain of their tribes—that the commodities of barter, in the majestic island, which is now the emporium and grand mart of the world, were chiefly the hides of those savage beasts, on whose flesh they feasted—that unconscious of the endearing ties of affection and love, ^* poligamy was permitted to a more than brutal extent, and, finally, that the government, which, with more of private and of public good, and less of evil, is now, perhaps, the most excellent, and certainly the most happy of any upon the globe, was simply derived from the authority of the parent, who, having given life, had, as it was thought, a natural right to dispose of the gift, as circum­stances [Page 13] required—and, moreover, that religion, which has now for so many centuries held out the blessed influence of the mild system of JESUS CHRIST, was in the beginning dictated to the ancient inhabitants of Britain by those bar­barous teachers the Druids, ^* who, have been so variously represented,—by some as a frater­nity not less simple and guiltless, than the [Page 14] Bards, awful by their practical virtue, no less than by their professional character, and benignly chastizing, or reproving, vices from which they were themselves exempt—and as one of their advocate historians expresses it, "using no other arms than the reverence due to integrity,"— while, by others, they have been drawn as a sanguinary brotherhood, which sought the refuge of woods and caves to perpetrate unequalled depredations under the mask of piety, sacrificing human victims, and accumulating the absurdi­ties of superstition on the horrors of murder. The truth lies, possibly, between both of these descriptions, yet it seems on all hands agreed, that the original possessors of the fair land to which you meditate a visit, were under the controul of these persons, who gradually ac­quired such an ascendancy, ^* that they were in [Page 15] the end invested with the power not only of pas­tors but of judges; no laws being instituted with­out [Page 16] their approbation, nor any vice punished with bonds or death but by virtue of their sentence. ^*

[Page 17]I wish you to take this retrospective view, that you may be the more forcibly impressed with what your eyes, your head, and heart will observe and feel when you are amongst us— when you shall have had an opportunity to [Page 18] enter fully into the contrast, by comparing the same people in their progress to nearly the per­fection of social life, from an unaccommodated, and almost savage state — destitute alike of science and of morals — ignorant of every charity—every decency—utterly unconscious of the interior graces of the mind, and scarcely bearing the external form of educated man. ^*

This, you will tell me, is the infant history of the whole human race: the origin of feeble, uncivilized mortals through every part of the globe. But, you will at the same time allow, that the progression of these weak, strong, [Page 19] diminutive and august beings, from the child­hood of their powers, up to their proudest maturity, has been as widely different as the climates by which many of them were separated from each other; and I trust, you will have vari­ous instances, ere you quit this great island,— where formerly, it is known "roamed the bear, the wolf, and the wild boar," scarce more bar­barous than their human associate,—to confirm the character which has so often been given of the English—that to be brave, and jealous of its LIBERTY, ^* is natural and hereditary to [Page 20] them, in the first instance, and habitual to them in the second—that, although they are suffici­ently [Page 21] persevering to endure toil in all the industrious, they are lovers of the elegant arts, [Page 22] and capable of conducting them to the greatest perfection—that, if they sometimes err on the side of a rough honesty, they seldom offend on that of a polished insincerity—that, the base arts of adulation make no part of the national character—and that, although, I fear, one can­not, truly, give them the graces of that general urbanity, which smoothes the path of the traveller in your own, and some other coun­tries, the more essential duties of generosity, pity, and protection, even to their most deter­mined foes, have, in various periods of their history,—and certainly, never more eminently than at present—done honour to themselves and to humanity; and, finally, that—compounded as they are, of as many nations as the mixtures of language they converse in—that insipid monotone of character which deadens most other [Page 23] countries, is not found in Great Britain; but that a rich, entertaining, energetic and almost endless diversity, marks the manners and the temper, the thoughts and compositions of its native and naturalized inhabitants.

Amongst these strong virtues and varied talents, that there should be a proportionate quantum of vice, of folly, and all the shades of these from dark to darker; or that some inveterate habits of prejudice, and some deter­mined nationalities should therewith blend themselves, you will be prepared, by your skill in human nature itself; to expect to give you, as occurrences arise, some illustrations of all these, in a way, that may bring to your eye impressively, our MIND AND CHARACTER, will be the endeavour of this correspon­dence. At the same time, my dear Baron, on your arrival in this land of wonders, ten thousand peculiarities of great and little, of good and evil—the former I trust always pre­ponderant—will, progressively, open on your eye corporeal, and be conveyed to your mental vision beyond the powers of pen or pencil to [Page 24] pourtray, even though our Shakspeare held the one and our Reynolds the other.

For the geographic description and general situation of the Island, you can want no guide, as your reading must have long since informed you how we stand in the map of the world, and in the favour of nature. But were such intelligence necessary, I could refer you to various auxiliaries, each exhibiting a fair and just specimen of the country and its domestic historians. These will all tell you, and tell you truly, though, I think, not any of them more clearly or agreeably than an ingenious writer ^* of a very ingenious family: "That the face of the country affords all the beautiful variety which can be formed in the most extensive tracts of the globe. In some parts, verdant plains extend far as the eye can reach, watered by copious streams, and covered with innumerable cattle. In others, the pleasing vicissitudes of gently-rising hills and bending vales, fertile in corn, waving with wood, [Page 25] and interspersed with meadows, offer the most delightful landscapes of rural opulence and beauty. Some abound with prospects of a more romantic kind; lofty mountains, craggy rocks, deep narrow dells, and tum­bling torrents: nor are there wanting, as a contrast to so many agreeable scenes, the gloomy features of black barren moors, and wide uncultivated heaths."

When we come to illustrate, by particular proofs, this general account, and when you have tried those proofs by the criticism of the living eye, and the confirming heart, I feel assured, that you will allow the justice of an opinion that has for ages prevailed, and been circulated concerning us,—that no country in the world can equal the cultivated parts of Eng­land for the great number of beautiful scenes, with which it is adorned. The variety of high and low lands, both of them forming prospects that fill the most luxuriant imagination—the richness of the corn fields—the freshness of the pasture grounds—the intermixture of plantation and enclosure—the majestic seats, comfortable [Page 26] houses, cheerful villages, enable cots, and well-stocked farms, sometimes animating the most retired parts of the country, and sometimes rising in the neighbourhood of well-populated towns, and magnificent cities, decorating the most vivid colours of nature, with the most in­genious and useful aids of art—all these, afford a proud delight to the native, and must impress every man of every other country, with a con­viction of its being, indeed, the Queen of Isles.

Of its climate, we shall have much to say as we pass on: meantime, we may boldly assert, with the sensible Delineator above quoted, that, although England is situated in the northern part of the temperate zone, no country is cloathed with so beautiful and lasting a verdure, and that the rigours of winter and the heats of summer are felt in a much less degree than in parallel climates on the Continent—while the sea-ports of Holland, and of your country, my loved friend, are every winter locked up with ice, ours are never known to suffer this incon­venience. I am aware, however, you have [Page 27] heard so much of our heavy atmosphere, and its melancholy consequences, that it will require far more eloquence than is in the possession of your present correspondent, to prove, that even this humour of our air is attended with various benefits. And though you will find all this set down, right patriotically, in our written books, and maintained in our conversations, ocular demonstration alone can satisfy you, that the diversity of our weather secures the island from those extremes of heat and cold to which other nations, within the same degree of latitude, are annually exposed, and that it is to this mode­ration of the air and variegation of the weather, that we live to as great an age as in any part of Europe. But the prejudice of our fogs, and the vaporous evils they are presumed to engender,— even to the mixing with our blood, till they convert us into self-murderers—is, I know, so strong, that I prepare you for my determined, yet warrantable, vindication of my country on this matter, so often as an opportunity of defence presents itself. In the mean while, the remark of one of our British monarchs, as recorded by [Page 28] Sir William Temple, deserves a place in your memory, and I take it from that writer, that it may be ready for your use when you are our guest. It was, we are told, an observation of our Second Charles, in reply to some persons who were reviling our climate. "That," said the king, "is the best climate where a man can be abroad in the air with the most pleasure, or at least, without trouble or inconvenience the most days in the year, and the most hours in a day, and that I can be in England."

It would be repetition of a common school­boy fact to tell you, that civil policy has dis­tributed the kingdom into fifty-two counties or shires; of which, according to the delineator's perspicuous arrangement, there are six northern, four bordering on Wales, twelve midland, eight eastern, three south-eastern, four southern, three south-western, six of North Wales, and six of South Wales: nor should I have mentioned this division, had our correspondence been limited to your own eye; but, as I design it to endeavour at a more general service to foreigners, after it has, in the first instance, paid [Page 29] its homage to you, the little time which has been consumed in this,—to you, superfluous communication,—will be forgiven!

You will now suffer me to be your reporter and precursor as the affections may lead; but at present, you will be glad of a short pause, in the interval of which, I am proud to subscribe myself, very faithfully yours.

LETTER III.

MY intention, was to have set out, in my accustomed way, by gentle stages.

"Sedate to think, and watching each event," even with the first fair day, as I before men­tioned, that should succeed the period of closing my introductory Letter. My purpose was, to direct my course from the metropolis of the British empire, to one of its celebrated univer­sities; making a pause at Cambridge—which, as a seminary of British education, and for the literary and sacred awe that a sight of its classic edifices inspires, is one of the places every stranger should visit; and from thence to have taken a circuitous tour into different parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Huntingdonshire; not, because those divisions of England afford the best opportunity of giving you a first favourable [Page 31] impression; but, because, I stood pledged to several beloved friends, and relations, in each of those counties, to parcel out the present summer amongst them; and as it is sometimes good policy to begin the display of what we have in store for curiosity or for friendship, with the less commanding articles — as dealers in sights, artfully conduct you to the minuter objects, before they usher you to the proudest, and largest of all their lions, whether the said lions be dead or alive—I imagined it would be a measure of dexterity and prudence, to introduce you to our gradual ascents, easiest declivities, and softest scenery, before I took you to the depths of our precipice, and summits of our mountains? Perhaps, too, a consciousness that we could do nothing with you in stupen­dous heights, and dizzy eminences, till I had beguiled you from the lofty ideas and feelings which the tour you made last Autumn of the sublimities of Switzerland must have inspired,— might secretly enter into my plan of presenting you to the contrasting views of verdant tran­quillity and scenes of content—where indeed, [Page 32] Nature herself, seems to seek relief from her magnificence—her cloud-piercing rock, terrific steep, and unfathomed abyss, to take repose amongst her lawns, recover her serenity in a less aspiring clime, and condescends, herself to be­come a cottager, in an English cottage, my friend, where, I hope to shew you, the Goddess has not been a niggard of her favours, and that if she has not fixed the humbler dwellings of our land on the cloud-top'd hill, or beneath the luxury of a voluptuous sky, she has permitted her lowly children to rear them amidst the violets of the field and the lilies of the vale, and where, so far from their being despoiled, or invaded—as in some prouder climes, where neither a volup­tuous sky, nor the cloud-top'd hill are se­cure from violation,—there lives not a man, who, unpermitted, dares to pluck one fragrant leaf!

Yes, I certainly had some motive like this, mingling with others, for intending to visit our least ambitious counties first. But my design has been long interrupted. Sickness, my dear Baron, which so frequently suspends, or wholly [Page 33] frustrates all the proud arrangements of feeble mortals in their journey of life, fell on my plans a few hours after I had dispatched to you my second letter from London, where I have been confined from that date to the present; a lapse of the fairest of the spring months, out of which I have only been able to rescue one little week, which,—change of air being thought indispen­sable,—I have passed at the place of address, a small town in Kent, situated at the distance only of twelve miles from London, and for which, besides its being the residence of some beloved friends, is endeared to me by other considerations I shall mention in their place. I am much recovered.

That the purest air should assist in producing the purest pleasure, both of thoughts and feel­ings, is natural. It is reasonable, that the imagery of nature, in the diversity of her beauties, pressing on the eye, and entering into the heart, should not a little dispose to such sensations and ideas. Persons, resident in the country, may, per­haps, be less susceptible of this than its occasional visitors. We know that the constant sight of [Page 34] the most captivating objects invariably dimi­nishes their attraction. Indeed, we seem to have neither eyes nor ears for what forms a necessary part of our daily and hourly inter­course. This must, however, be understood of things inanimate: the loveliest flower may bloom and die unheeded by him whose villa is situated in the midst of a garden; and the finest ring of bells will scarcely be heard, or at least with little distinction of sounds, by those persons who live in the precincts of a church. Yet, in a general sense, none of these persons may want taste or feeling; some may have even a relish of natural beauty, and some may be enamoured of musiek: a similar flower blooming in any remote garden, though neglected in their own, or in their neighbours; and even a less harmo­nious set of bells in a distant church might call forth their attention, and excite their applause. We will not entangle this fact with abstract reasoning, my dear Baron; it is obvious enough that an unwearied familiarity with objects the most beautiful and sublime, (and those of vegetation are certainly of this kind,) makes [Page 35] them literally "fade in the eye," even if they do not "pall upon the sense."

Never, perhaps, has this remark been more strongly confirmed than in this visit to Bromley, after so many months residence in London, amidst the perplexities of business, and the languors of indisposition. I arrived, and have had my vernal banquet you see, before this most charming month ^* of the twelve has shone itself away. The contrast has been extraordi­nary: the sensations of your correspondent have been like what might be supposed to attend a person, who, after a long and disturbed state of slumber, in which he had been dreaming of clouds of dust, and of smoke, of unmitigating heat, and of corroding cares, has, by a change in his vision, found his imagination at length conveying him to scenes the reverse of these. Early in the morning I paid my acknowledgment to every object; the Sun and all which he warms and blesses with life, were in the prime [Page 36] of their magick; and although all was frolick and song, kind words, and smiling faces around, and above, sufficient to diffuse smiles and joy through the world, I do not believe, that within its round there could have been seen a happier being than your friend. Mending in health, and my spirits, every hour this felicity has continued increasing through the week. O what a space for man to confess he has been most happy! Blest Gleaner! thy felicity broke forth in song; spontaneous emotions in which every man feels something of the poet. The thoughts and feelings of the lay were suggested by the immediate objects. These, at such a season, amid such scenery, are always abundant: from those, you will accept a

Without entering farther into the description of the favourite little village, which has fur­nished my Muse with these slight touches of her pencil, I shall just note, that, in the year 955, one of our early monarchs, Edgar, is said to have presented the manor to the bishops of Rochester, who have still a palace here; that, on the episcopal ground, a mineral spring of the quality of the Tunbridge waters invites the valetudinarians—but invites in vain—being too near home—I mean the metropolis-home—for any body, but a few stray patients whom the doctors force to the fountain, and whom busi­ness, or finances, limit to the nearest remedies. [Page 46] But though the Bromley mineral, has been proved, by a chemical analysis, to be more strongly impregnated with the salutary particles that form the basis of the other water, and though Fashion cannot get to Tunbridge without passing Bromley,—the few well-bred invalids who really are sent to the former for health, never think of stopping to take a draught from the neglected stream of the latter, but speed to the more polite fountain, where health, and the soft vanities of life, may be united.

There is a college in this village sacred to clergymen's widows, erected by one of the bishops of Rochester, Dr. Warner, a descend­ant from whom, is one of the most extraordinary existing characters of our Island—of whom in his order.

The county of KENT is too important a part of England, upon all accounts, to be passed by thus transiently—but it must be the object of some future tour. This sketch of a par­ticular spot, however, will, I hope, be received as no unfavourable specimen of what it has to [Page 47] offer, when the hour of its gleaning shall come.

Meanwhile, I cannot but point out to your heart a little village on the return to London from this place called LEE; not on account of the Hamlet itself, though that, being environed by the villas on Blackheath, is pleasant; but for the sake of some very singularly affectionate circumstances which attach more to the reposi­tories of the dead than the mansions of the living.

In the church-yard of the above-named village, are deposited the remains of the Right Hon. Trevor Charles Roper Baron DACRE, who is preserved to the memory by more powerful ties upon it than his wealth and titles; or the common traditions of his having been born on one day, and died on another.—Suffer me to lead you, with consecrating steps, to what better separates him from the surrounding and oblivious mass of Mortality. You will one day, I trust, read the whole of the inscription graven on his tomb: Meanwhile, I shall offer you a partial extract.

[Page 48]"His afflicted widow, as a testimony of their distinguished and unclouded union, for upwards of twenty years; their unexampled happiness, and of the unbounded confidence in which they lived; and as a sincere token of her real gratitude for his uniform, endearing affec­tion, and particular generosity,—her deep-felt sorrow, and tenderest remembrance,—has erected this unadorned monument, and herself inserted these well-known truths to his beloved me­mory, accounting them most consonant to the purity of his life, his mild disposition, his amiable temper, and genuine character."

This conjugal tribute proceeds in the same strain, and closes with the mourner's assurance, that "she submits, with pious faith, to the will of her GOD, and trusts in the same intercession to his mercy with brightest hopes of re-union in eternal bliss."

In the spirit of this attachment, she has acted ever since the aera of her loss, to the present hour; and will, probably, continue so to deport herself to the latest of her life; at least, while the power is given her to walk, or to be con­veyed [Page 49] to the sacred spot where she has en­shrined her heart.

Lady Dacre has been in the practice of visit­ing the grave of her husband twice a day since the time of his burial: and as very many of the inhabitants of the village, report, once in each night. She has agreed with a person to keep the precincts of the tomb sacred from every prophanity both of ill accident, and malicious design: indeed, from the elements and winds of Heaven, which she literally will not suffer "to visit the grave too roughly." While I was marking these reflections with my pencil, I observed the lady who had called them forth, coming towards the church-yard with hasty and anxious steps, which, on perceiving I was seated on the style, she directed to a smaller gate, but found it locked, and seemed much disappointed. Unwilling to interrupt her pious progress, I quitted the style, when, bending in acknowledgment, she passed into the church-yard, but was again diverted from her purpose; a party of people, it being Sunday, were hasting to the tomb, in order to read, as I had done, [Page 50] its inscription. The throng increasing by the entrance of some additional company, her lady­ship went back into the road, where she re­mained walking backwards and forwards within view of the church-yard, till the intruders had left it, when returning to the spot from which she had been so long withheld, she redoubled her attention, and I saw her, while I stood aloof, myself unseen, kneel in reverence at the foot of the grave, where, after remaining some time, I presume in prayer, she went back to the villa where in his life time she had so long been blest in the society of him she now bewails.

Such are the matin and vesper, if not, likewise, the midnight, homages of her affianced heart. Yet, certain singularities of dress, and of manner, with the yet greater singularity of an attachment so long faithful to the ashes of its object, and, perhaps, a barbed regret in her bosom that makes her inattentive to, if it does not even absorb all thought or care of the world's usages, have brought on her, I understand, much of that wild conjecture, malign interpretation, and unseemly ridicule, which are always attendant [Page 51] upon every one who deviates from the ordinary ceremonies of life. And whosoever presumes to think, to act, or to feel for themselves, are set down either as affected or insane. To disregard prescribed forms and ceremonies, even in our joys or sorrows, is considered as setting at defi­ance the arbitrary laws of society; thus our very smiles and tears are in awe of "the world's dread laugh;" and it is hard to say where the controul of fashion may stop, or how far her capricious system may dispossess sweet and simple Nature of her rights. She has already taught mothers to deny the sustenance of their own bosoms to their own offspring; near and dear relatives to look upon it as ill-bred to follow a parent's, or a child's coffin to the grave, and to content themselves with performing the last sacred offices by proxy—a task consigned to hired mourners—and to be caught visiting the tomb of a lover, wife or husband, oftener than the imperious modes of the world allow, may not, it seems, in these refined times, pass uncensured.

Hallowed, however, be the tender and generous fortitude, and sacred be the pious [Page 52] griefs that are superior to, and that resist such contemptible dominion over all the ribald jests and insults, that a reverence for natural impression induces. And who, my dear Baron, that has duly contemplated the varieties by which he is surrounded, many of which are, no doubt, ap­propriate to his own peculiar modes of being acted upon, and acting, shall dare to accuse any form of words or actions, to express joy or woe, as the results of affectation, hypocrisy or mad­ness, because similar sensations are displayed by himself or others, by different signs and tokens? A genuine felicity or anguish may be felt by a thousand enraptured or suffering beings with equal truth, and often with equal force; but the external forms and ceremonies maybe diversified, even as the causes of our happiness and woe. Affliction drives some to the depths of solitude, to mourn, unseen, like the wounded deer; but it impels others to rush into society, even though in the hour of gladness they might have cherished a love of the shade: the effect is different, the causes, as to the sincerity of the emotion, the same. GOD knows, my friend, there is enough [Page 53] of pretention, trick, and parade in this world, with respect to our feelings, our passions, and our principles; and the shadow is but too fre­quently mistaken for the substance! But in the name of that liberality which we all stand in need of, let us not impute to ostentation, or to fraud, whatever deviates from ourselves, where the deviations are only in manner, or the usual customs of life. And as to the mourner which gave occasion to these remarks, if there should still be any persons disposed to scoff at, or disbelieve the faithful sentiment that has long conducted her to the place where most things are forgotten—the mansions of the DEAD; let them condescend to imitate her bounty to the LIVING. Let their charities emulate her's, and if by the kinder allotment of Providence—if we may dare to call it kinder—they have no rela­tive or friend in the grave to lament: if they have none of her misery, let them be animated by the spirit of her benevolence. In this there can be no mockery. It is an active spirit, that literally goes about to do good. Of which—as it is no less difficult to make the doubters of [Page 54] sorrow, and of the affection on which it is founded, believe that it can continue its duties after its object has long mingled with the dust, in the manner they are cherished and practised by Lady Dacre, than to credit that beneficence may be powerful as love, even in a bosom where that sorrow has established a throne—let the whole neighbourhood of Lee, lend vigour to their faith, even if it cannot animate their virtue. ^*

LETTER IV.

SURELY the demon of disappointment had fixed my foot, as by a spell! I have been en­chained in town another of the lovely months by unyielding circumstances, even till a few hours only remained to keep sacred my promise to a family, which resides a hundred miles from the capital.

It may, however, serve as no bad specimen of our English carriages and horses, to mention the speed with which I have been conveyed over the said hundred miles—and, for the most part, during the hours of darkness.

How shall I gain credit from my Continental friends in general?—though you, I know, will rely upon the fidelity of my report,—when I desire those who have been accustomed to the [Page 58] sickly movement of the reluctant wheel over German leagues of absorbing sand—where man, beast and machine—so heavily are they moved along, — appear to be alike torpid — pardon me, my friend—how shall I dare even to ask such to believe, that an Englishman may take his seat at nine o'clock of the evening in a common public vehicle of this country—pro­foundly atmospherical, and constitutionally saturnine, as we have been deemed!—and be rolled,boundingly, over the almost velvet sur­face of one hundred miles by the corresponding hour of the morning? and that,—in comparison of the Dutch, Persian or German stages,—almost without being sensible of any motion at all?

Foreigners, unfamiliar to such luxury, might think that the feathered Mercury was convey­ing them on his own pinion, or flying with them in a chariot of gossamer. Yet this velocity is an ordinary fact, which every man in England can attest; and if a traveller can bear the expence of what we call going post, that is, in one of our post-chaises, more than double—I believe I might venture to say, nearly treble—the num­ber [Page 59] of miles might be measured in the same space of time.

What! methinks I hear some of my Con­tinental friends, just unpacked from a German post waggon, as you call your stage coaches— things, which you will soon have the candour to allow, are but very awkward and mis-shapen imitations of our broad-wheel waggon—a huge piece of workmanship made use of to convey sacks, tubs, boxes, barrels, household furniture, and other dead-weight luggage—What! Mon­sieur le Baron, would this correspondent of yours attempt to persuade us, his cloudy countrymen are whirled in their airy chariots at this rate? then may we believe that Phaëton did, indeed, assail the regions of the Sun, and that the winged steeds of Apollo, and of Jove himself, are outstripped by the public stage-coaches, ^* and post-chaises of Great Britain!

[Page 60]I make all possible allowance, my dear Baron, for this incredulity on your side of the great gulph that separates us: and though every joint of me has often borne witness to the truth—the aching truth of my assertion—when, in, or after, a long, sad, solemn, slow and dizzy drag, from one town to another, across the tracts of almost Arabian sands—not to say desarts, of some parts [Page 61] of the Continent, I must own I have been able to endure it only by the promise of finding better things at the end of them—a promise which, I confess, has been amply performed. Yet I will be content, even by you, my candid friend, to be thought a prejudiced reporter, till you have tried the assertion here advanced, and confirmed it.

In the mean while, I hazard nothing by observing, that—though it is certainly a pecu­liar remark—had we no attraction except our Roads to draw foreigners to England, they would be well paid for their journey by the voluptuous novelty of passing from one extre­mity of the island to the other, in our little portable parlours, and wheeled drawing-rooms, with an ease, expedition and elegance, of which no other people in Europe can offer—of which, indeed, they cannot conceive even an idea.

Into one of these public vehicles, then, but into one on the last, best principle of improve­ment, I was carried along a public road, after evening tea;—over which, had not my mind been otherwise occupied, I might have toyed [Page 62] with a book, or played with the tea-spoon, in contemplation or vacancy;—and yet, without any apparent hurry, and no confusion, I was ready to meet the birth-day friends at a villa, more than a hundred miles distant from London! In truth, almost as soon as the sun gilded the anniversary with his beams; too soon even for a rural breakfast, and by half a day too early for a well-bred town dejunè; and in repetition, I must desire you not to forget, that I began my journey while that blessed orb was yet cheering my path with his setting beams.

It is from that villa, then, I now address you in the language of our MONARCH BARD, ^* whom, when you come better to understand than any foreigner seems yet to have done— and I know it is one of the motives of your intended residence amongst us so to do—you will, I am persuaded, feel, poetically speaking, [Page 63] to be— the Sovereign not only of Great Britain, but of the great globe itself.—In his language, I must,

My engagement was sacred, and the great Disposer only left me time to keep it holy; even with the aid of British STEEDS British ROADS, and British CONVEYANCES,—three of our great public characteristics, each command­ing honourable notice.

It is indeed, no way important, as to what part of the county we first begin with, it being your design to visit all parts; and you will remember that I stand engaged to give accounts only of particular places—taking care, however, that those which I describe, shall present to you the best sketches I can give or find; and [Page 64] pointing out to you in these etchings ^* where you may see the pictures at full length.

[Page 65]I can scarce form any idea of what a sensible foreigner must feel on his first view of the [Page 66] various novelties which are obvious even on the surface of England: To a German, Dutch, [Page 67] or French traveller, it must certainly seem an original land; because it is in many respects altogether dissimilar from what either of them can have seen on their native shores, or, indeed, any where else. The agriculture, the gar­dening, the natural and artificial arrangements, the vegetation, and numberless productions both of the fancy, the spirit, and the genius, are peculiar. Instead of stately rows of trees, awful and equidistant, in the straight line, and a level of many an unvaried league that fatigues the eye—and a stony ridge in the middle of the [Page 68] highway, with sandy, sinking slopes on each side,—which, though canopied with aspiring foliage, and displaying an air of gothic grandeur, amusing and imposing at first, soon weary by their uniformity, and by the heavy hours we are constrained to pass in the sad sepulchral vehicles, that "drag their slow length along,"— instead of these, a traveller no sooner recovers the dizziness of passing the water, than all at once, he finds himself, in almost every part of the island, transported as it were, to a new region, where every object must have the effect of a magical illusion. In an almost flying car, he is lightly and rapidly borne on a smooth expanse, to the summit of a flowery, fertile hill, or down the soft declivities of a valley,— the horse-path usually social enough to admit three or four, and sometimes as many carriages abreast; all running, as we call it, bowlingly on the nail, with scarce a pebble in the way— on a fine gravel which binds to the firmness, and, even in the first trading country in the world, almost preserves the beauty of a garden-walk, without one dislocating rut. The foot­paths, [Page 69] he perceives, are either across cultivated pastures or corn-grounds, or through clustering thickets, or by woods of more ambitious extent, and yet not sufficiently deep and continuous to be dreary.—Such farms and cottages too, as the sons of Industry and Toil can rarely boast in any other land, are seen springing up to cheer his progress betwixt village and village, town and town; and then each side of him even in the public highway, he is presented with either an entertaining, or a rich variety, by the innu­merable and rapid turnings of the path, forming a complete contrast to the ceremonious foliage of the road-side scenery of the Continent. There, you know, the solemn firs are often drawn up like grenadiers at roll-call, or a more formidable troop of giants, standing as perpen­dicular, and at measured spaces as if they had been drilled, just in the style of our old English Barons, when they stalked in their buckram and brocade to pay their court to his, or her, Majesty of England. To say truth, like our own scenery in those days of state­liness, when our gardens exhibited birds, [Page 70] beasts and fishes in evergreen—gigantic avenues of forest oaks all in a row—entrenchments of rampart-looking ditches and mantling moats— and dreadful drawbridges — and embattled halls, and turreted abbeys—all of them duly haunted—a ghost-room and an apparition in each—the very gates and walls bespeaking power, and frowning defiance. In short, when Nature herself, instead of the ^* liberal and graceful freedom with which we now array her, was forced into stilts.

Those were the days, my dear Baron, when even our English roads were,—wonderful to tell,—more impassable than the worst of yours! when our communications with each other, whether by epistolary or personal intercourse, were encumbered by so many delays and diffi­culties, that had not most of the movements [Page 71] of those times been solemn and slow, the feelings, in certain cases—cases of separation, for instance, from a beloved object—must have in every desperate effort, hazarded the neck of the enamoured youth, who doubtless would have preferred a dislocated limb, or a broken bone, to a broken heart—the proper death, nevertheless, of absent lovers.

More seriously, however, to speak—before the grand public work of our turnpike roads, a journey of a hundred miles, was an affair of such peril and protraction, that it was deemed pru­dent for a sober-minded man to make some very solemn arrangements in his family concerns before he set out; nor, after all, was this formi­dable undertaking entered upon without the parties about to separate taking leave of each other, as if they were, probably, never to meet again.

How, then, can I expect credit for our unri­valled improvements in the art of travelling? —improvements which would stagger the belief of any of our forefathers, and make them sup­pose themselves under some illusion of the [Page 72] senses, and disbelieve their own eyes, were they suddenly to become spectators?

I cannot yet close this great national object, which is amongst the very first to attract and to astonish a foreigner. The perfection of that object is yet to be mentioned. I mean the in­vention of our Mail Coaches, ^* which increase [Page 73] the accommodation and speed of every thing most valuable, and most precious to the busi­ness [Page 74] and pleasure of this illustrious Island, almost to a winged celerity. In the days of [Page 75] our ancestors—nay, within the memory of many persons still living, one relative who should [Page 76] have summoned another to his bed of sickness, might have died even a lingering death, without [Page 77] the friend most relied on to close his eye, or to receive of that eye, its last love-beam: the heart, [Page 78] condemned by some stern necessity to throb alone, far distant from its associate, might, [Page 79] indeed, have been broken, long before the balmy comfort of affection could have [Page 80] been supplied, even by those who think, with the Poet, that "a Friend is worth all hazards we can run;" and a thousand advan­tages in public, with ten thousand endear­ments in private life, are facilitated and con­nected [Page 81] with this interesting and noble invention. It is, in fine, the crown both of our commerce and correspondence—and were temples now built, or monuments erected to those who, by public works have expanded public good, while the benefactors are yet living, I know not of any man more deserving a mark of his coun­try's gratitude than he who conceived, and carried into practice, this great national idea. It deserves the emulation and adoption of every other clime, that has but a relish of business, or of social love; and next to the project of any post at all, and the invention of writing, to confide thereto the secrets of our hearts, and our most important worldly concerns, the esta­blishment of a MALL COACH IN ENGLAND will be honourably recorded.

The present has been the first opportunity of shewing my gratitude to it as an individual; and I do it heartily;—for though it cannot literally, ‘Waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole,’ nor convey my affectionate wishes from the [Page 82] British to the German empire,—the salt sea, and many a frowning league of dry land dividing us—it will convey this Letter to the confine of the ocean, where, I hope, the most favourable wind "will kiss the sails to make the vessel," which is to take charge of it, "nimble;" and it enables me to inform you of a luxury, that will not only smooth, but speed your way to the hand of, yours affectionately.

P.S. I ought not to have forgotten what I farther owe to the Mail-Coach on the score of bearing me to this flower-encircled villa, which is situated in the midst of a garden, and where I found every face and heart so happy to receive me, that the wishes which filled my heart over­flowed in the following spontaneous address, which, if it breathe not of Poetry, is replete with truth, and on that sacred ground, you will allow me to preserve it in our correspondence.

LETTER V.

ALTHOUGH I have repeatedly renounced all methodical movements, and set out with a design of furnishing you with a general idea of my country, derived from a description of par­ticular places and people, I am desirous that no material objects should be left unnoticed, which, in a particular manner, distinguishes the Island, in its present state, and may assist you in form­ing a right notion of us.

Hence, I should, methinks, have incorporated with my last Letter, respecting the ROADS and CARRIAGES, some information as to the good things to which those Roads will lead you.

And here again, my dear Baron, I am con­strained, by the truth which you venerate, to assign the Palm to Old England—by an un­qualified preference of the INNS of this Country [Page 85] to those either of Germany, France, or any other nation in the world; and to do away all appearance of partiality herein, I will boldly appeal for attestation of this judgment to every inhabitant, in that world, who has had oppor­tunity of proving its unbiassed equity, by living amongst us; and of making fair comparisons. Ere you have gone over as much of our ground as from London to this place, I will confidently make the appeal to you, my Friend. The reality of a comfort, of which other countries have scarcely an idea, will be visible to you at the first English Inn, where you may stop, and accom­pany you to the end of your journey.—The warmth, the neatness, the attention, the atten­dance; the propretè of the apartments, the cleanliness of the food, the polish of the fur­niture, of the plate, and of the glasses,—these will always strike you, and not unfrequently, the elegance of the rooms, and splendour of the ac­commodation. Every foreigner, who has either taste or feeling, must candidly give the prece­dency to us in all these articles.—Indeed, the comparisons which a travelled visitant, from [Page 86] your own shores must make, would be more victorious for us than any eulogy of our own. Englishmen are so much in the habit of seeing these things in all parts of this country,—with very few exceptions indeed,—that they are scarcely seen at all; or noticed only by the in­dignant manner in which we mark the excep­tions—a dirty, disgusting Inn, fitted up for les gens comme il faut, being as rare to be met on English ground as it is common on the Continent. There, indeed, we occasionally see a dismantled castle, or dilapidated chateau, degraded to a chearless road-side public-house, where men, horses, hogs and other cattle, house, stable, stall and stye, on the same floor; and, to say truth, the beast has often the best birth. Huge rooms, beds shabbily sump­tuous, a kind of majesty in tatters, long chill passages, damp floors, high dingy cielings, and unwieldy figures in tapestry, where the spider, as in mockery, drawing kings and warriors into his web, sits brooding his venom in the ruined face of a Princess, or makes his den on the bo­som of a Queen in decay! But where shall we [Page 87] find the triumphant enjoyments which the Writer, with whose acute remark, rich diction, and unrivalled morality, you will in due time, I trust, be better acquainted, where, I say, shall we find those home-felt public luxuries which our Samuel Johnson so often considered as one of the grand domestic perfections of his country, an English Inn or Tavern?—the presidential chair of which, upon account of the unrestrained ease and freedom it bestows, he gaily called, "the throne of human felicity." "As soon," said he, "as I enter the door of a tavern I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude; when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants ob­sequious to my call; anxious to know, and ready to supply my wants. Wine then exhila­rates my spirits, and prompts me to free con­versation, and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love. There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as a capital tavern." But he must be understood, my dear Baron, to mean an ENG­LISH tavern, because the circumstances that constitute that enjoyment, can, in their per­fection, [Page 88] be found no where else; and not only in our capital taverns, but in almost every well-regulated inn upon the road, in every possible direction of the country, and he might have added, there only am I regaled by decency, as a hand-maid, waiting on appetite—there only are the eyes, taste, and touch at once ban­quetted! And this is true, not only of our capital inns, but of other houses of accommo­dation on a more circumscribed scale. Most of our villages, and almost every stage, have to boast their full share of the like attracting pro­perties, and it is very seldom, indeed, that our "Golden Fleece," "Fair Lamb," "White Lion," "Black Bull," or even "Blue Boar," hold out a sign that, when we accept their invitation, we shall find ourselves disappointed. And all this awaits you at a moment's warning. Your carriage no sooner stops than it is sur­rounded by alert attendants, who measure you, even as they hold the obsequious arm to assist your descent, and almost by an intuitive glance, know, by the step and voice of a traveller, be the disguise of dress what it may—for we have many men of property who affect to be [Page 89] slovens—what are his pretensions, with as much accuracy as if he had settled them at the Herald's Office, or St. James's. From the instant you are ascertained, the motion of your eye is arbi­trary, your temper is vested with supreme authority, and your very nod has the fiat of Jove's. The signs of wealth, no doubt, will, in all countries, make certain distinctions in the courtesy of people who live by it, and it is very difficult for those signs to be concealed, either by affected humility on the one hand, or by assumed poverty on the other. PROPERTY in every country where it is an object of import­ance, and where is it not such? discovers itself in despite of every counterfeiting, and one of our adroit English waiters, who, as I before observed, takes the dimensions of your quality, while, with a kind of unobserved observation, he is conducting you from your chaise into a room, could no more mistake a man of property for a needy person, because he might travel in a rusty wig, sloucht hat, or thread-bare coat, than he could conceive an adventurer to be a man of property, from seeing him rush from [Page 90] the carriage in tawdry habiliments. Plenty and indigence, from a certain habitual consciousness, which they can neither of them put on or off with their cloaths, betray themselves in a very short time, and literally, in the case we are now stating, he who runs may read them. Not that you are to infer from hence that the landlords of our inns and taverns, or the people in their train, are attentive only to rank and riches—though these will, in all societies, be allowed their privileges, even were they not insisted on—a ready hand, a smiling countenance, a brisk step, and a chearful room are offered to all degrees of passengers, with as few surly exceptions, as in a rule so broad and general, can be imagined— and every foreigner would feel in a single half hour, let him have come from whatever part of the world he might, that he was in England, and that he could be only in an English tavern.

Doctor Johnson, indeed, gave some reasons, besides those above quoted, for HIS preference of a tavern life, not so immediately in support of my arguments in our favour; and yet related with so much glee and sincerity, when his mind [Page 91] and fancy were in tune, that I will here transcribe them into a NOTE ^* for your amusement, either at the moment you have read this passage, or any other that may better suit you.

And now, my friend, having promised you the best horses, the best carriages, and the best roads, we will see what you have to expect from some of the places to which they will convey you: and in confirmation of what we asserted in the letter that opened our correspondence— [Page 92] that—"were we only to follow the falling stick, it could not point to barren ground," we may take our first views of the country, as it happens to lie before us, from the place of address.

NORTH RUNCTON, situated exactly an hundred miles from London, and three short ones from Lynn, in Norfolk, is one of the numberless unassuming villages, which ensures attention, though it aspires not to admiration. The scenery around is soft, agreeable, and engag­ing: the peasantry wholesome, and healthy, the yeomanry diligent, ingenious, and at their ease, and the neighbourhood respectable; yet the village itself, though too "low for a high praise, is too high for a low praise," can boast only two families which are term­ed independent gentry, that of Mr. Lane, who has another garden-encompassed villa, and the friends of whom I am at present a guest. But you will here find, if you allow yourself time, a very interesting specimen of those un­ambitious beauties of nature with which this country abounds, and which not only give an [Page 93] idea of content, but tend to produce the reality of it in the beholder. The more obvious prospects maintain the character I have already given them; and if you will follow my usual custom of quitting, occasionally, the open to see what the covert yields, you will be recom­pensed by those retiring graces, which lie em­bowered amidst leaves and blossoms in our sequestered scenes: long green lanes, various foliage over-arching them; the hedges, at in­tervals, interspersed with trees of irregular height and bulk, deriving charms even from their confusion; some bending with age over the path of the traveller, as if for his pity and support, some standing firm, as if in the pride and independence of youth, their vernal heads erect in air, and seeming to brave the lightning which, I observe, has left a shattered oak, in the same hedge-row, without a green leaf, to shew that it had ever vegetated. These will all repay you for the humility of an unostentatious walk, embalmed too by the wild fragrance of roses and woodbines, blooming about your walk, through a diversity or mazes, now so alcoved [Page 94] by nature as scarce to admit the penetrating sun-beams of this radiant season, and now opening upon you the unbroken day, and the sublime orb from whence it springs.

Then the enclosures, the rustic stiles leading into them, the foot-paths, direct or in wind­ings, conducting to innumerable little farms and cots, unmarked by the high-road Traveller who can never know either the prosperity or popu­lation of his country, one half of which is hid like the violets, amidst the lowliest glens, and humblest scenery.

This pleasant village leads by one of the enviable public roads, I have recently described, to LYNN; before, however, we proceed to which, it may be clearing our way, as we go, to present you with some general character of this county, the largest proportion of which, is said to lie West and North-West of NOR­WICH: but the part at which we begin our correspondence is called West-Norfolk, and on account of several advantages, in due time to be explained, is by far the most auspicious to a traveller at this season of the year.

[Page 95]Were you to consult all the books which have been written on NORFOLK, a year's assiduous reading would scarcely bring you to the end of them; for, besides Doomsday­book, the mighty fountain of our English annals, you would have to wade through the copious channels of DUGDALE, SPEED, SPEL­MAN, PARAGE, CAMDEN, KENT, BLOOMFIELD, PARKINS, SWINDEN, MACKRIL, MARTIN, BROWNE, and many other streams of intelli­gence; in doing which, it would be well if Patience, Memory, and Truth herself, are not drowned. The histories of Norfolk, says a sensible Tourist, and of its principal towns, are comprised in so many folios, quartos, and books of all sizes, as, collectively, are too voluminous and expensive, and several of them too scarce to be easily procured. These, amongst other reasons, induced the Observer to compress into as small a compass as possible, an epitome of what seemed most worthy of par­ticular notice, and he has accordingly performed the task with good effect in a work, which he calls, "the Norfolk Tour;" and by occasional [Page 96] reference to which, I shall rescue you from a useless and overwhelming labour. Indeed, a judicious selection from the time-consuming mass, as to the brick and mortar, baptismal and burial, post-road, parochial history of each county, is become a desideratum to the traveller, and will answer to him a much better purpose than the dreary and torpid detail of fiefs, beruites, &c. &c. and though you will always hear less from me of, who was in fee, or demi­fee, whether the antipathies, or the affections of the descendants, struck them out of the family, or kept the regular line in it, than you will what is now actually to be seen or heard; what is the face of the country, and the feature, moral and personal, of the existing inhabitants— a more interesting sort of information, except to curiosity-hunters and antiquarian compilers, than you could derive from the most minute in­telligence, to be extracted from those unwieldy reporters, who, however, have their use, when a man is at home in his library, but are the worst heavy luggage abroad that a traveller can take with him, either in his head or his portmanteau: [Page 97] Indeed, without sending them forward in a baggage waggon, in which the details of this single county would make no slight figure, there would be no taking them at all; and then they would be found such dead weight, that even antiquarians and curiosity-hunters would wish they had left them with the moths on their shelves; though, I say, my dear Baron, you will find me more zealous to give you the living figure, than the dead letter, in continua­tion of my former plan, I will endeavour to collect, even from these Giants of our Press, as well as from their "brief abstracts," and convey to your mind, clear and accurate accounts, of what, so far as I have the honour to be your Guide, it may be pleasant or useful for you to know.

It seems generally admitted, that Camden's character of Norfolk, though written more than two centuries ago, will, in most of the features that distinguish it, be found a true likeness at this moment: that the soil is more various than that of any other county of England, compre­hending all the sorts that are to be found in [Page 98] the island; arable, pasture, meadow, wood­lands, light sandy grounds, deep clays, heaths and fens. The agriculture of the country has received such astonishing improvements, since the time of the above writer, that the scene immediately before the eye, will exhibit every thing to you in the most rich, abundant and favourable light; and although the resemblance of objects are still to be recognized, yet it is as the similitude of a youth, with much of his wildness, much of his rudeness, and most of his unformed awkwardness about him, and the same being, strengthened by time, invigorated by maturity, meliorated by discipline, and fer­tilized by a wise, wholesome, and improving education, as necessary to the fruits of the earth, in these fallen ages at least, as to the creatures who move upon its surface.

Norfolk, is one of our maritime counties, nearly of an oval form, and so surrounded by water, that except at a small causeway, near Lopham, it is an island. The British Ocean forms its boundary on the North and East for near an hundred miles; on the South it is [Page 99] divided from Suffolk by the river Waveney and the Little Ouse. According to the Roman divisions, it was part of the Iceni; in the Saxon arrangement it made a certain proportion of the East Angles; Ptolemy called it Simeni; and the modern name Norfolk, or Northern-folk, is, by way of distinction from Suffolk, or the South­ern-folk. In point of magnitude it has been estimated at about one thirty-fifth part of England; pays, according to Spelman, twenty-two parts of the land-tax raised in Great-Britain; to the poor in his time, (of the rising scale of modern taxation, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter;) £83,739 4 10; and con­tains an area of 1,148,000 acres, or 1,793¼ square English miles, each being 640 acres. It is divided into 33 hundreds, in which are one city, four burghs, 24 market towns, and about 700 villages; in these are reckoned, 47,780 houses.

To many continental travellers, I am aware, that this will seem as a contracted span of earth in comparison of the scale on which they are able to measure ground against us. I [Page 100] am fully sensible of the small spot my fellow-islanders occupy, and that we are limited in point even of cultivated possessions, to less terra firma than Germany could very well afford to throw from some of her petty principalities, yea, and feel herself relieved: a few of her long-extended tracts of unyielding sand and heath-grounds, would tell, in point of num­bers, against the whole of our landed property. It is not, therefore, most certainly, from diameter or circumference, we can presume to approach you, my dear friend, and still less the inhabitants of some other countries. We must submit length and breadth to most of the nations both in and out of Europe; but, in the use we have made of our little, ^* in what­ever [Page 101] most essentially tends to the accommo­dation, the energies, the comforts, and the genius of man, we may assert with the sacred Writer, that "we have a goodly heritage, and that the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places!" On this text, I remember, long since, to have met with the most interesting arguments to prove, we ought not simply to be content with the general dispensations of Providence, but be impressed with particular gratitude for being born in the country which we inhabit; and to pour forth the tribute to Him, who is the great benefactor of all the nations of the earth, and the instructor of all the beings who cultivate its productions. My memory retains nothing but what extremely interests my heart; yet my heart itself, must forget all it has appreciated, ere it [Page 102] loses one trace of the emotions called forth by the sentiments, in the discourse alluded to, which pointed out the motives of my gratitude for being a native and inhabitant of Great-Britain. I was infinitely touched by the passage which reminded me, that if it were permitted me to rise so high, as to see from some sublime elevation, all the kingdoms of the earth roll under my eye, I should feel a disposition to prefer, upon the whole, this in which I dwell. I should bless the great Appointer, that my country is not one of those burning lands, "where the heaven over head is brass, and the earth under the feet iron;" and where the sun rises more like a strong man to destroy, than a bridegroom coming out of his chamber to make men rejoice. Nor yet one of those frozen parts of the universe, where the lord of it, reserves his treasures of snow and hail: nor amongst those dreadful climes, where whirl­winds and earthquakes, thunder, lightning, and the desolating hurricane, destroy all the hopes of man; where the bolt of heaven breaketh the cedar, and shakes the wilderness to its foun­dation; [Page 103] nor where contagion has fixed her polluted throne, and the pestilence hath its com­mission to depopulate whole nations at a stroke: but that it has pleased Providence to allow me the breath of life, in a country, whose advan­tages are upon the whole the first in the world; he has bestowed on us, an island guarded by the ocean, and open to all the treasures of every shore: a land productive of corn, herbs, timber, and fruits; watered with the most genial dews of heaven; feeding innumerable springs and wells, and navigable rivers; a land that maintains on its surface, cattle, fowls, flocks, dairies, hives, and a thousand of classes labouring for its blessed inhabitants; and from whose very bowels you may dig innumerable articles for daily use: natural advantages these, without speaking of acquired wonders from the improved state of husbandry, trade, building, learning, and the other benefits and ornaments of the country.

Nor are these all. The author, in a style of the like chaste simplicity, the truest constituent of the sublime, passed, I remember, to other [Page 104] causes why we should render the fervid thanks of our hearts for being born to the goodly heritage of Britain: particularly for the civil liberty we enjoy.

And not without good reason. The life of the meanest of us, my friend, is so protected by the law, that in the heat of the day after the labourer has mowed half an acre of grass, he may securely lie down and refresh himself by sleep at the end of the swathes; or, should any daring hand invade his life, either his fellow­servant, the master who hired him, or the King of his country, his blood would be re­quired of the murtherer by the hand of the magistrate. O ye despots! wheresoever ye have fixed your hateful empire, attend and blush at your usurpations; those usurpations which first made the poor worms ye have trod upon raise themselves to your crest, and seize your throats! Here, no man can keep back the hire of the labourers who have reaped his fields. The poorest subject is absolute lord of his little all: the ploughman may leave his coat at the land's end, and the gleaner trust her bread and [Page 105] her bottle, and her scanty sheaf on the green balk: THE LAW OF ENGLAND IS AS A FIRE ROUND ABOUT THEM. ^* The freedom, too, of the lowliest man is established. He lives where he pleases, toils where he chooses; and the charities, when he can toil no longer, are at hand to relieve his sickness, and to smooth the pillow of his age. In many countries, we both of us know but too well, the breaths, strength, health, and labour of the poor are appropriated: the very life of the vassal is at the will of his lord: there, the subordinate classes of society have no property: they are [Page 106] themselves property, the slaves of the higher orders, who buy and sell them as part of the live stock on their estates. How many coun­tries are there, I have sojourned in some, which resemble a large jail, a house of bond­age, in which the chains of some are of iron, and those of others are of gold; but all is slavery! and as our delightful Yorick says, "it is a bitter portion."

Is it not then with heart-felt truth that Englishmen exclaim—"O happy people! O blessed country!" It is true that the Demon of war has drawn his sword, and is still thirsting for blood, but your garners afford, in the midst of an almost famished universe, all manner of store, your sheep bring forth tens of thousands on your yet unmolested plains; you may be objects of envy, but not of plunder. Your wives, your children, your property, your lives, your religion, are yet your own!

For all these beatitudes, O friend of my heart! and for numberless more, though I trust I have publicly borne testimony that I have travelled off all little nationalities, that I [Page 107] have had an eye to see, and a heart to feel, all the goodness, and the good of other lands, and that I am by no means blind, or insensible to the frailties and imperfections of my own, as I shall, in the course of our correspondence, have occasion to evince; yet, for all the blessings above enumerated, I praise the GOD of empires, him who, to use the inspired language of the prophet, instructed the ploughman to open and break the clods of our generous earth, make smooth her surface, cast her wheat, her rye and barley in the places appointed for them, and own, that he has, indeed, given to me, and to my countrymen, a goodly heritage!

You are hastening to share it with me; my heart of hearts shall welcome you: and your heart of hearts shall then bear record of the truths I am telling you.

LETTER VI.

NOTWITHSTANDING my enthusiastic love of nature's beauty, whether blooming over the earth in flowers, expanding in billows on the sea, dimpling in streams, or breathing along the valleys, you are not now to be told that all these are subordinate, in my scale of things estimable, to the beauty of the human mind: neither the graces, not the glorious vegetation, nor the skies, by which they are canopied; nor even the blessed orb, in whose rays they all rejoice, can furnish so rich a harvest as this, where the soil is naturally good, and has been well cultivated.

Let this sentiment prepare you for a gleaning of mental excellence, the object of which has presented itself since my last.

[Page 109]Previously to taking a wider range, and while I am yet stationary at the smiling abode of my friends, excursing in morning rides or evening walks, permit me to shew you objects, which not only rapid travellers, but many who have their dwellings amongst them, pass over un­noticed; either because, they are too near their eyes, or because, having seen them so often, they now cease to see them at all. It will form part of my pleasure also, and I cannot but think it will make an ingredient in yours, to draw for you, occasionally, as our pausing-places may allow, some of the intellectual features of my country; without which you can catch no real likeness of it: mind, being the vital part of every just portrait. That of England, from my pencil, can be but a sketch. I have pro­mised, however, to make it a true one. The light delicacy, indeed, which finishes while it seems but to sketch, is the point to be endea­voured; and this I will attempt. At present I wish to make you partaker of as Arcadian an evening as ever could have graced the Utopian dominions, had they really been on the map of the world.

[Page 110]You already know, from my former report, that this villa is in the midst of a garden; yet the happiness which last night sat as a guest within, derived little of its charm from that circumstance, and little from the unnumbered sweets that embalmed the air, and carried fragrance into every apartment that was opened to receive it. No, my friend, it was of a kind, that had the dwelling been situated on a barren heath, and offered no better accommodation than is to be found in the hut of an unpoetical modern shepherd, it would have elevated your mind, your feelings, above the influence of external circumstance; nay, it would have exalted to a felicitous height every mind not meaner than the hut, not more steril than the heath­ground. This interesting enjoyment was de­rived from the innocent effusions, and unfoldings of nature, in one of her fairest and best works: the mind of a lovely girl just old enough to be yet called truly a work of nature, pure as the flowrets that sprang around her cottage.

The party was composed of six persons, most of whom are known to you. The worthy, [Page 111] unassuming Fanny R*****, whom neither in­dulgence or affection could ever spoil, nor rigour or ingratitude alienate. My worthy friend and his wife, who offer to their guests, besides the good things which hospitality pro­vides, "the feast of reason and the flow of soul;" a French emigrant general officer, ^* whose pri­vate virtues, even had they not been endeared by misfortune, are sufficiently numerous to counterbalance the injury done to us by his professional bravery, when duty raised his sword against that nation which is now his shield: to him must be added your correspondent, and the blooming hope of my host and hostess, the interesting Sophia.

As the last mentioned of these furnished the intellectual part of the evening's entertainment, you will receive with pleasure a sketch of her person. And yet, I know you are such a champion for general symmetry in the works of nature, that were I to delineate only the mind [Page 112] of Sophia you would give the correspondent form and features; averring, that to be in natural harmony, a well-organized mind must be placed in a well-organized body. And, perhaps, you would not be very far from the truth; for, although it occasionally happens that the mental gem is enclosed in a sorry casket, and so vice versa, there is much more frequently a due proportion and symmetry of the interior and exterior of the human oeconomy; and that, independent on all modes of education and habits of life. But admitting the full influence of these, when I tell you that the custom of Sophia from her earliest age, in her little rambles through the garden or fields, have been to stray from her servants, or mother, in order to cull such flowers, weeds, shells or pebbles, as were remarkable either in the tint, colouring or texture, for a certain delicacy; when I observe to you, that she would select these from innumerable others more shewy, more generally attracting, and which would have been the choice of most children: if, for instance, roses were to form part of her collection, they would [Page 113] be chiefly in bud, or slightly blown: or, if any more strongly tinted shrubs, or gaudier flowers, were admitted, it would be by way of contrast, and they would be thrown by her little fingers in the back-ground.—Were I, in addition to these facts, to assure you that flaunting or vulgar flowers would never be seen in her hand, and that in all her arrangements she dis­covered the like delicacy of taste: that, more­over, her selection of playmates was but a more animated continuation of this delicacy, prefer­ing the gentle to the rude, the pensive to the romping: that her infant affections shewed the same bias among her feathered and animal favourites, which were ever the more endeared to her in the proportion as they stood in need of her protection; that their wants, their sickness, or their little sorrows, would have more of her notice than their prosperity, health or sports: a bird in full song, and a lamb in full frolic, would be neglected were but an invalid wren beside them, to claim her care—should I join to this the information that every sound of her voice, from its most whispered note to "the [Page 114] top of its compass" is music, in all its varia­tions, would you not exclaim, Sophia's person MUST be as delicate as her soul? In truth, a first sight of this lovely girl would determine the most timid disciple of Lavater to associate congenial affections, and a mind in keeping with the almost aërial lightness of her form, her sylphid movements, her heaven-blue eyes, contour of face, redundance of light-brown hair playing round it, lips of softened ruby, and alternations of the lily and the rose in her complexion.

I, who have had opportunities of watching the opening and progression of her mind and person, almost from her birth, could propose a question to philosophers, as to the long­disputed thesis of innate ideas. Sophia began to be a nurse to the sick, a friend to the sorrowful, a separater of the delicate from the garish beauties of nature, before she had either time or opportunity to imitate either of her parents, who might, otherwise, have been suc­cessfully taken for her models.

Forgive me, then, ye who have adopted your [Page 115] great master's opinion, that the human mind is but as a sheet of white paper to be afterwards filled up in the nursery, the school, and the world: forgive me, if I trace, or attempt to trace, certain manifestations of soul in the early dawn of human life to pure nature, unassisted by any thing below the sun. We may, perhaps, meet with illustrations as we proceed.

Sophia is now hastening to her ninth year, was herself but a visitor, being at the cot only for the holidays, which were, indeed, so near their end, that the promise of a supernumerary week was to be considered as a loan, borrowed from study and added to her half-year's jubilee. For though Sophia has no objection to study, she is too much a child of nature to reconcile easily to stated forms and periods of learning, and too much genius for lessons not of her own choosing.

When your correspondent entered, the sub­jects were, literally, shifting "from grave to gay, from lively to severe." In all these Sophia took a ready part, mixing a woman's wisdom with a child's simplicity, without which [Page 116] the wisdom of youth is either premature, and therefore must have an early check, and pro­duce, at last, but a dwarf's understanding at the age of an adult; or, it degenerates into cunning, and is fruitful only in mischief.

It had been a day of event to our Sophia. Early in the morning, several of her nurselings among the poultry had called upon her com­passion: the last brood of chickens required unusual care. With sadness in her looks she brought one of them into the parlour, and she told us it had died in the night, for which she reproached the hen whom she had seen peck at it while it stood languishing before the mother, as she past clucking along with the rest of her brood. "What an unnatural parent!" ex­claimed Sophia, running to caress her own. Another, she said, looked as if it were dying, and on being told that many creatures, parti­cularly a hen, which is not saying much for the animal creation by the bye, would sometimes kill an invalid of its own species, nay, of its own family, to save the trouble of nursing, the indignant colour rose to her cheek, and she [Page 117] hurried off the dead to succour the dying. The latter was, indeed, in as unpromising a state as a valetudinarian could well be found; a downcast head, drooping wing, ruffled plumage, or rather down, closed eyes, and feeble twitter. Its protectress breathed upon it, warmed it in her hand, dipt its feverish bill in wine, and cradled it in her bosom. In recompence of these good offices it seemed to revive, opened its eyes, and picked up some of the crumbs which Sophia had spread for it on the table. Thus recovered, she returned it to te mother with a charge to treat it more kindly; yet the first news of the morning was, that her protegé was no more. She left the breakfast-table without answering the intelligence any other way than by running for the deceased, which she brought in the hollow of a hand shaped by beauty, and, after desiring the company to bid it good bye for ever, took it into her own garden—a little slip of ground in the angle of the shrubbery, where she has not only a nursery but a place of burial—exhibiting, as she moved slowly along, a figure that would exactly [Page 118] have suited the angel of pity, scarcely seeming to want the wings, which, for the sake of meeting the popular idea of angelic forms, a painter might, perhaps, have fixed on her beautiful shoulders.

But what is most to be admired in these her mental developements, is, that the objects which call them forth, occupy, for the time, her whole soul; and no miser was ever more earnest to add a guinea to his store, or to see it deposited in the strong box, and shining on the brooding heap, than is this little girl to add one comfort to the Being under her care. She cannot, on sad occasions, be averted from her pensioner till she has done her utmost to serve it. Its welfare seems to annihilate every pro­mise or profession that enriched the preceding moment: this proves it to be genuine; proves it to be the pure and unelaborated operation of the heart. In discoursing with her dolls—and I have heard her give them very sage advice, and most serious lectures and reproofs on the propriety of their conduct, and reform of their manners—in the burial of a sparrow or a chicken, [Page 119] it would be impossible, until the ceremonies are over, to call off her mind to any thing else, however pleasurable; although on joyful occa­sions, such as the high health of any creature she has domesticated, or any gay vision of fancy she has created—and she creates thousands in an hour—she will seize a new object, though but an insect on the carpet, and convert that into a very substantial amusement; and this also is an ingredient in the genuine of her character. A sage's steady wisdom, without a child's volition and simplicity is a bad omen; but the degree of her gravity is proportioned to the object: for example, the loss of her feathered favourites had been preceded by the supposed death of a four-footed friend, whom she ha [...] known and loved the greatest part of her life, and his fate was thought to be aggravated by several circumstances. The morning after this supposed disaster, our child of impulse followed her affectionate feelings, by appearing in suit­able habiliments: sable ribbons graced her arms, and a black collar encircled her neck. Not contented with this, she invested the little [Page 120] Juliet also, Romeo's only surviving daughter, with correspondent mourning, in which the pathetic black crape was as liberally made use of. It was the unaided suggestion of a heart alive to every sentiment and action of tenderness, and the friend of every living thing, at an age when too many children are the little tyrants of all within their reach.

I said supposed death, because it turned out that the Destinies were pleased to extend the thread of poor Romeo's life, even to the date at which I am writing. The honest fellow is now sleeping at my feet under my writing table, and was amongst the old associates who awaited me here, and who, in his reception of me, did not seem to forget that I was a friend to dogs in general, and to him in particular. His escape from the Power "that putteth all things under his feet," would seem too marvellous for any persons not gifted with a faith enlarged enough for Bruce and Robinson Crusoe. Perhaps certain critics, who, measuring the powers of all other beings by the partial scale of their own observations, determine the point at which [Page 121] the progressions of instinct, by the help of education, must stop; and thereupon make a liberal use of the censorial words, absurd, un­natural, impossible; perhaps, I say, dear friend, some of these, in their all-wise decisions, may add the name of the GLEANER to those right-wonderful travellers; for there are, I find, who dispute the ingenuity and accom­plishments of his poor Canary, the sagacity of his travelling Steed, though by all the powers of nature he swears, he has acted but the part of a faithful historian to both these honest and ingenious creatures, and if his heart has now and then thrown its most glowing effusions over their actions and characters, and sometimes called on Fancy for a decoration; that, although it embellishes, does not injure or conceal the sacred lineaments of Truth: what, but a cold and Cynic caviller will quarrel with a description that gives to an innocent and interesting object its full power of pleasing?

Sweet Bijou! honest Surefoot! farewell! your genius and your adventures have drawn the sigh of sympathy from many a generous [Page 122] bosom, and your true story shall be long dear to reason, to feeling, and the heart, not from merit in your historian, but from the trans­actions he records.

Notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding also, that the extraordinary and fictious-seem­ing events in the preservation of Romeo, might be attested ^* by as faith-worthy beings as ever boregwitness to the truth, the particulars of this matter shall stand over to our next meeting.

Let us return to the sweet Sophia, to detail the infinity of glee with which she sported over some observations on domestic happiness, as she saw it subsist between the amiable pair to whom she belonged, to mark the naïvéte with which she felicitated the husband on the trea­sure of such a wife, while the bliss-o'erflowing eyes of the former confirmed the truth of her [Page 123] remarks, to describe the affection with which she divided herself among the whole party, now, wishing passionately, that each individual might be blest with each other's society through life, and undivided by death; now, hoping that after living an hundred years, in unbroken amity, all present might occupy one grave, and, then, looking on this as impossible, while she placed the happy couple and herself in one, and the Lady, the General, and the Gleaner, in another, would be a vain attempt, the image of death assuming its usual terrors, she returned to the chearing idea of protracted life, and pro­tested, with all the fervour, though without the oath of uncle Toby, and without knowing there had been an uncle Toby, or an oath, that none of the groupe should die; but that GOD ALMIGHTY would keep them upon earth a long, long time to love each other, and afterwards permit them all to meet in Heaven, and there live together for ever.

It were in vain, you are aware, to expect the effect of this description on your mind, should at all equal that which was produced by the [Page 124] object described, because a great share of the impression and interest grew out of looks and actions far beyond the reach of written lan­guage, and to give the mere words without these, where each of those actions and looks was grace, beauty and innocence, unsullied by the world, and free from the pertness, or hoy­den freedoms of a spoiled child, is to offer you but the shadow; yet they may give you an interesting idea of the beautiful substance.

I do not, however, place it before you as a partial selection, to serve as a portrait of a little favourite, nor as a specimen of the grace and talents of English children, in preference to any I have observed in other countries; but I bring it forward in some sort to strengthen the ground on which I shall presume to dissent from those who maintain the impossibility of innate ideas of any kind. In the contemplation of this lovely girl, and a few others, I have been strangely puzzled to know from whence, if not from some such ideas, can have proceeded the eager pur­suit and choice of whatever is most delicate or graceful; and the neglect or rejection of their [Page 125] contraries, at an age when the discrimination of colours, or the determinations of fashion upon them, cannot possibly have been the result of tuition, or that earnest curiosity, or that imi­tative power, which, at a certain stage of youth, are such wonderous helps to the opening mind. From the age of three to five or six curiosity must be the chief engine of knowledge; but it cannot teach in matters of taste the superior delicacy and interest of a flower, tinted faintly, or with too much strength, for our idea or feeling of the delicate, or regulate a child in the choice of a shrub or shell, which in its leaf or blossom, formation or mark, bears the like characteristic.

The selector is of too tender an age to com­prehend the distinction, or the definition of delicacy, even were the mother or governess to explain it: now as similar reasoning will go to a number of other early propensions of human beings, in their choice either of the elegant and delicate, or the tawdry and glaring, it will, at least, support me in a query submitted to learn­ing and candour, whether we must not neces­sarily [Page 126] refer these preferences to some inborn delicacy, or coarseness of the infant mind; whe­ther we must not consider them as dictates of pure nature, seeing they are antecedent to all instruction and imitation? Be this as it may, you will agree with me, in believing, that from whatever source these propensions are derived, they "grow with our growth, and strengthen with our strength."

In one of the cases, indeed, a change may take place: the youth, who in childhood, ap­peared attached to the gaudy and garish, may sometime be taught a better taste; but it will scarce ever happen that an infant admiration of the delicate and gentle will lose any of its relish for those graces of Nature, much less be ex­changed for their reverse: on the contrary, they almost always form into principles and habits, which as life proceeds, will influence a mature person in whatever are the proper objects of them: I think, indeed, it would be difficult to adduce a single instance, even as an exception, where either the man or woman, who, in child­hood, discovered a bias towards the abovemen­tioned [Page 127] graces of Nature, was forced, either by bad culture or worse associations, into a total dereliction of what must have once afforded them so many delightful sensations, the very memory of which will be endeared.

If, therefore, instead of being repressed, these dawning indications of, permit me to call it, a natural good taste are fostered and encouraged, of what progress are they not capable? and what avenues of bliss in thought and action do they not open to their possessor?

Did you ever hear of a being who had the impulses of the child that has led to this train of reflection, turning out an inelegant, I had almost said an immoral, woman? A very great perversion of what I have ventured, but not presumptuously, to consider as innate ideas, of the GENTLE and DELICATE, must have expelled them from their native residence in the juvenile bosom, before this degeneracy can happen. Bad tuition may do much, evil communications yet more, towards dislodging the angel guests from their proper mansion; but, as both edu­cation and example, instead of unlearning, will [Page 128] sanction and confirm what pure nature has taught, I shall consider it a more arduous task to change the flower-garden, in which stands the abode of Sophia, into a morass, and the salutary air that breathes fragrance around it, into "a pestilential congregation of vapours," than to see any noxious weed of folly, or poison­ous plant of vice, if you will allow me to proceed with the florid image I first took hold of, encumber the fair soil, and rob of its natural fruit the mind now opening upon the maternal eye, and upon her own innocent heart, a Para­dise of sweets!

Just as I had written the last passage, the blooming subject of it tripped up stairs to my chamber, in the way to her own, to bid me, after all the little adventures of the day and evening, good night. The animation of genial discourse had kept her beautiful eyes unclosed, and unfatigued, many hours beyond that of her usually seeking and finding repose: for in the bloom of youth, health, spirits, and innocence, what should invade her slumbers? But as it had been a day of enterprize, so had it been [Page 129] an evening of indulgence, and under the charm of that youth, those spirits and that innocency, the Hours seemed to have thought their own wings too heavy, and to have borrowed the lighter pinions of the moments. Sophia found me at my writing-table, and having in the morning presented her with a little book, partly extracted from the Letters, which, at your wish, I have continued in this correspondence, she desired to know if I were making any more Gleanings? then, without waiting any reply, she repeated her caresses and adieus, and as she tripped to the door to join her maid, said— "Well, GOD bless you, I wish you would glean me! and what an odd little thing you would make of me." I stepped to her cham­ber door to inform her I had done so, and I had not a doubt the friend to whom I was writing would thank me for it.

Returning to my table, I felt strongly inclined to close what I had said concerning her with some wishes of peculiar kindness. But I knew not what to wish.

Oh! thou, unspotted, by the world, the [Page 130] genuine thought, the natural heart, the generous impulse, the fancy, that, though it has the rapidity of light, never imagined guile; the pure word, and the alabaster deed; these, dear innocent, are already thine—what then, is there to wish? what to pray for thee? what, but the continuance of these treasures, these beati­tudes? Yes, their continuation will be a foretaste of Heaven, and of "the best loved angels there." Fountain of purity, continue them! and now, without apology, I bid you, my dear friend, farewell.

P. S. Since writing the above, the holiday Jubilee is ended; Sophia has returned to her school. However well the seminary may be conducted, it is, like every other, a long pas­sage into the temple of general society. I repeat, therefore, with yet greater energy and fervour the prayer that closed my letter. But, I mentioned the presentation of a book to my little friend, in some measure connected with a former correspondence: suffer me to add the lines which accompanied it; they in a manner incorporate with the subject.

LETTER VII.

As, upon all occasions, I feel a pleasure in praising, and a sincere reluctance to with­hold praise, it is some mortification that I cannot agree with the Tourist who has called this a beautiful town, though I am ready to allow the application of his other epithets, namely, that it is rich and populous; nor will I deny, that its situation, near the fall of the Ouse into the sea, is highly favourable to the extention of its trade, which is thus conducted into no less than eight different counties, open­ing, thereby, as many channels for the produce of our own, and other shores.

By whatever road you enter this sea-port, my dear Baron, you will be impressively struck with its general resemblance to some of your own German, and many French, fortified [Page 133] towns. Its neat quicksets on each side the road as you enter by the South gate, the gate itself, the deep rampart-looking elevation, the entrenched ditch by which it is encompassed on the land side, the platform of cannonry, the formal military-looking walks, terrace fashion, and the fragment of ancient wall, with the various old buildings, in keeping with this picture of a foreign fortress, will all bring home to your recollection. Indeed, it is almost impossible to offer an Englishman a juster idea of the usual style of a continental town, or a foreigner any one more resembling what he has been accus­tomed to see, than by referring him to a view of Lynn. I wish I could extend the resem­blance between this and many of the French or German ^* public roads, but there it falls off importantly on the part of the two former; the turnpike road to Lynn in almost every [Page 134] direction, but especially near the little village, I have lately drawn for you, being so beautiful, that I am not sure whether the most national traveller would not overlook the similitude of the town to any one in his own land, in his admiration of the paths that lead to it. And the cultivated scenery which variegates the prospect as he passes along, though somewhat contrast­ing the war-breathing spirit of bastions and battlements, by displaying a specimen of the smiling progress of modern agriculture, gives that assemblage of the rich and the agreeable which are seldom completely associated but in the landscapes of England.

As you advance towards Lynn, however, this scenery gives way to various circumstances which more assimilate to Holland; the meadows are on each side separated rather by the ditch, and the drain, than by hedge-rows; the soil flattens upon the eye; the marshy earth appears to sink under the feet of the herds that browze it, but the verdure is lovely, and the pasture abundant.

You will very soon perceive, in this, as in [Page 135] every other part of England, vestiges of the religion which for so many ages and in so many regions of the earth prevailed, and which, indeed, still maintains its ground, though, it seems at present, to be trembling ground, in various parts of Europe. Catholicism, how­ever, in this island, is now rather permitted than encouraged; she is confined to the con­tracted chapel, or even to temporary edifices yet more limited, where she is privileged by the courtesies of the country, to rear her altar, strew her incense, wreathe her garlands, and chaunt her oraison. But her magnificent pile, that expanded widely its commanding powers, her consecrated grounds, that appropriated and encircled half a district within its walls, and took whole villages in its gripe—till Ceres and Pomona were compelled to become tributary, not only by surrender of their first fruits, but their last—her "cloud-capt towers, and solemn temples," are to be seen amongst us no more. Of her former grandeur, and of her once almost immeasurable power, we trace no longer the trophies but the tombs; her disjointed monas­try, [Page 136] her ivy-girded ruin, her proud abbey converted into huts for the herdsman, or stalls for the ox, and her most secret places where the penitent breathed her confession, embraced her punishment, or received her pardon amidst hymns that seemed to penetrate her soul, now all changed to the asylum of the bat, and to receive only the vespers of the night-bird.

We retain, however, the names of number­less Saints even in our churches, and the Cross is frequently seen displayed at the top of our Protestant Temples: thus, the principal church in Lynn, which is said to have been built about the year 1100, by HERBERT DE LOZINGA, Bishop of Norwich, ^* is dedicated to St. Mar­garet, [Page 137] who is the titulary Saint and Patroness of the Town: it is, also, curious enough to give you a scrap of superstition that attaches to the history of this Virgin. She is reported to have conquered a fierce Dragon with a Cross; so the good men of Lynn have no less than three [Page 138] dragons' heads, each wounded with a cross, for the Town Arms. This is by way of compliment, and the effigies of the patroness are impressed on the public seal. She is standing in a right victo­rious posture, wounding and treading this same dragon under foot; with a Latin inscription too, which, no doubt, must be very pleasing to her: and an ancient man whom I conversed with on the subject, assures me that the dragon tipifies the devil himself!

Saint NICOLAS, ^* has, likewise, some sacred honours assigned him in his chapel, which was erected in the reign of our third Edward, but I can glean nothing to distinguish him from the saint­hood in general. St. James, indeed, whose chapel [Page 139] was demolished with others at the dissolution, exhibits a circumstance more honourable to him than if he had to boast a priory in all the pomp and ceremonies of monastic dignity. By a liberal benefaction of the mayor, burgesses and inhabitants, this dismantled edifice was rebuilt in 1682, to serve as a charity for fifty decayed old men, women, and poor children, where a comfortable endowment is made for their work, instruction and maintenance, and for putting out the children to honest employ­ments: of late, great additions, we are told, have been made, and St. JAMES's chapel is become the general workhouse ^* of the whole town.

Should you ever happen to be here in Febru­ary, you would see a something that a little resembles one of your German Fairs in what they call the Lynn Mart; but the new walk, or mall, which has so extremely a French air, [Page 140] is, in the blooming season, really worth your observation. What follows, I have tried by the test of the living eye, and find the descrip­tions accurate as well of this as some surrounding objects: concerning which as there is nothing new to be said, I retain what seems to me worth preserving of the old. This public promenade is about 340 yards long, and eleven wide between the quick hedges. At convenient distances on each side, are semi-circular recesses in the verdure sufficient to receive twenty people on each bench. Upon a gentle ascent on the right, is a plantation and shrubbery, at the bottom of which winds a stream, and at the end of the shrubbery is a small plantation of lime trees, intermingled with Scotch firs, whence there is a good view of Lynn and the adjacent villages, where wood, water, modern buildings and ancient ruins, form a various and interesting prospect.

About half way between the South and East gates, stand the remains of an ancient oratory, with several vaults and cavities under ground, over which are some dark cells for the priests to [Page 141] take confessions, and above them a small chapel in the figure of a cross, arched and enriched with carvings; it is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and commonly called the Lady's, or the Red Mount, whither Romish penitents, in their pilgrimage to the holy wells and monas­tery of our Lady at Walsingham, used to resort and perform their devotions.

Of this Lady of WALSINGHAM, we shall have further to speak as we proceed. She was, indeed, in her way, a lady of ladles, and did we continue to be proud of what we once boasted in this stile, my good protestant Baron, the atchievements of this wonder-working dame might be pitted against even the long-famous Lady of LORETTO.

Meantime, you are not to think the Lynn monastics lived and died by thousands, without leaving behind them any trace more useful than the nodding fragment, and desolated wall; for it is recorded that of these thousands, two holy men had mortal life to some social purpose; the one a Franciscan Friar, saith the annalist, an excellent musician, mathematician and [Page 142] astrologer, bred at Oxford, after having applied his studies chiefly to astronomy, by the help of his astrolabe, made five voyages to the North seas. In the first he sailed from Lynn to Iceland with company, whom he left on the sea-coast, while he travelled up into the island in search of discoveries. He presented his charts of the northern seas, at his return, to Edward III. in the year 1360, and they were afterwards made use of in the reign of Henry IV. Chaucer had a great esteem for him, stiling him, Frere Nicholas Linn, a Reverend Clerk. He is said to have wrote a book of Discove­ries. The other, made Indexes to Thirty-three Writers!

But what are a pair of Monks? This town, we are told, has been honoured with the visits and favours of fifteen royal personages! Let us see whether any of these have bequeathed "the good men of Lynn," any better legacy than the Reverend Clerk, who wrote the book of Discoveries, or the enduring Carmelite, who made Indexes to thirty-three Writers.

Yes! one of them presented the corporation [Page 143] with an elegant double gilt, embossed and enamelled cup and cover, weighing seventy-three ounces, and holding a full pint; which is well preserved, and upon all public occasions and entertainments used with some uncommon ceremonies; at drinking the health of the King or Queen; and whoever goes to visit the mayor, drinks sack out of this cup. He also, it is said, then gave them from his own side, a sword with a silver mounting, to be carried before the mayor;—there's for you!—but as the charter, dated September 14, in the sixth year of this King's reign, calls him prepositus, or provost, a title not clearly defined, it has been denied that King John granted the town a mayor, but that it had one in the last year of his reign, is evident from his letters patent, dated June 7, 1216, directed:

—Screw your expectations then to their proper bent, and proceed. Flourish kettle-drum and trumpet! for a circumstance that calls upon the most chaste fidelity and minute historical cir­cumspection, is at hand. My friend, you are no doubt prepared. Read on.

Bishop Gibson in his addition to Camden, observes, that this sword, which by the inscrip­tion, is said to have been given by KING JOHN, was really the gift of KING HENRY the VIII. after the town came into his possession; and he changed their burgesses into aldermen, and granted them several privileges. The charter granted by King John, does not mention the sword, but that granted by Henry expressly says, "he granted them a sword to be carried before their mayor." A loose paper of Sir Henry Spelman's, dated September 15, 1630, says, one THOMAS KENET, town-clerk of LYNN, assured him to compose an inscription, to be engraved upon the plain hilt of the town­sword, as above stated: "KING JOHN gave this sword to the town;" hereupon he caused the person who gave this information, and was then his scholar, to write these words:—

which the sword-bearer carried to Mr. Cooke, a Goldsmith, who engraved it upon one side of the hilt. If this story be true, the inscription of which the town so much boasts, is of no authority. On the other side of the hilt, is vivat Rex Henerîcus octavus, Anno Regeni sui 20.

The gentlemen of the corporation insist, that the sword now borne before the mayor, was given by King John, and has been used for that purpose from the time of Henry III; and that when some kings have honoured the town with their presence, the mayors themselves have carried this sword before them! "and it is remarkable," says Mr. Mackerell, "that in a window on the north side of the choir, near the altar of St. Nicholas's chapel, the town arms and the sword are depicted in glass, and most probably were fixed there soon after erect­ing the chapel, and glazing the windows, which is supposed to have been in the reign of Edward III, between the years 1326 and [Page 146] 1376, or about 150 years after King John is said to have given the sword to the town. Upon the whole, it is pretty clear, that the sword was given by King John, but whether from his own side, and to be carried before a provost or a mayor, must still remain doubtful; if there be any error in the inscription upon the sword, it is in saying that King John took it from his own side, thereby intimating, that it was the sword he commonly wore, which it is not easy to believe, it not only being much too large for an offensive weapon, but also, like all other swords used for purposes of state, by corporate bodies."

The corporation consists of a mayor, re­corder, twelve aldermen, and eighteen common­council men, a town clerk, chamberlain, &c. the town has sent two burgesses to parliament ever since the 26th of Edward I, (1298,) and the election is in the whole body of the freemen and free-burgesses, in number about 330, and the mayor is the returning officer.

I have been the more particular in detailing to you this very great affair as I find it stated in [Page 147] all the traditions of it, because, you see, it is extremely important whether the sword was taken from the royal side, by himself, or offered by the medium of a more plebeian hand!— Nor would I, by any means, have you attach any credit to the insinuation of those who dispute whether the regal personage above­mentioned gave either the Cup or Sword; for as King John is not one of our English mo­narchs who can afford posterity to lose even a trifling instance of his having done any thing worthy of remembrance, though he was compel­led, you know, by his barons, to do that which remains the pride of our constitution, confirm MAGNA CHARTA, one would not make his little less, by depriving him of even the gilding of a liberal action, though but in the gift of a gay cup and a fine sword. The more particu­larly, as the donation seems to connect with the public benefit of granting the town of Lynn, now called Lynn Regis, ^* to be a free [Page 148] borough. This was done on the petition of John Grey, the Bishop of Norwich, (1204,) by [Page 149] virtue of which the burgesses were to choose themselves a praetor or provost; and although the good Bishop tacked to this a condition, that the said provost should be subject to the mitre, taking an oath to that end yearly, and be called the Bishop's Man, it was, no doubt, for one of those weighty reasons which have led the spiritual guardians of all countries, and at all times, to take on themselves the trouble of having a controul over temporals, purely to the intent of teaching good management. This part of Norfolk, however, was not always pro­pitious to the princely visitant, for he is said to have lost not only his baggage but his treasure in passing the marshes of Lynn in 1216. The marsh lands here spoken of form a penin­sula—surrounded by navigable rivers, and an arm of the sea—consisting of about 30,000 acres, feeding as many sheep.

Several of the historians of this country mention a custom established at Lynn, so long ago as 1588, called the Feast of Reconciliation, holden the first Monday of every month, when the mayor, aldermen, and the preachers, met [Page 150] to hear, decide, and settle, in an amicable manner, all controversies between man and man, in order to prevent law-suits. No doubt, a very commendable expedient, but as this convention no longer subsists, I presume the litigious spirit that is said, in ancient days, to vex the good fellowship of the county, has been quieted: but the wise ancient man I before mentioned, in the case of the Saint, the Devil, and the Dragon, said "there happened, as he had heard his grandam report, so many quarrelling bouts at the Feast of Amity, spring­ing from difference of opinion, that they soon wanted another Reconciliation assembly to settle themselves; so the lawyers took it in hand, Sir," continued he, "and managed the disputes of the town their own way, and though we have a power of Feasts here every year, there has not been one Reconciliation Feast since; and somehow, though we have more lawyer-gentry now-a-days ten to one, than i' my young time, more than a limb of them to a street, and e'en almost one to a quarrel, I don't find there is more of the good thing called peace, amongst [Page 151] us than there us'd to be, though there is twenty times the law, which is, to be sure, another good thing, you know."

My ancient man smiled, and seems so curi­ously to have explained, that I shall leave the subject, to say something of the TRADE of this thriving town, a very prominent feature, you will allow, in the portrait of all the sea-ports of this commercial isle. Lynn deals more largely in coals and wine than any other town in England, except London, Bristol, and Newcastle. In return for these articles of merchandize imported, it receives back for exportation the corn produced in the several counties which it supplies.

The rest of the LYNN lions are the statue of our third William in the quadrangle market­place, with a cross and sixteen-pillared dome and gallery round it; the theatre, and the assembly rooms: the first is under the direction of a very good conducter, ^* good performer, and good MAN, who attends even to the morals as [Page 152] well as the abilities of his company, which is, therefore, as respectable as attracting; and the last are ample and commodious. The Norfolk tourist has criticised its plan and construction, and certainly not fastidiously, but with justice; yet, as we have not room for the enumeration of defects for which there is none but the radical remedy, and these are not, my friend, the times for sustaining the cost of pulling down in order to rebuild a luxury, while every necessary article of life is almost doubled, and several trebled, in price, by absorbing but inevi­table taxation, we will pass over the objections, and after a short pause pursue our journey.

In close of this letter, accept two com­mercial calculations; the one respecting a particular branch of the agriculture, the other of its exportation.

In the county of Norfolk are 660 parishes, and upon the average 260 acres of turnips grown in each, making 171,600 acres, the mere hoeing of which at 6s. per acre amounts to 51,480l. per ann. consequently more than one-seventh of the county are in turnips, as the total quantity [Page 153] of acres in the county, I have already told you, are 1,148,000.

It has been said, that the four Norfolk ports export as much corn as all the rest of England. The following extract, taken from the custom­house books, at Lynn, is to be considered as the yearly average which has been exported to foreign markets and coastwise, for the years 1791, 1792, and 1793, which were far from being greatly productive. It will serve to shew you the astonishing energies of the country, when scope is given for unembarrassed exertion.

LETTER VIII.

IT has been well observed, that the minds of the English, like their climate, are chequer­ed with an extraordinary variety; which seems, indeed, to have been infused into the whole system of nature, and which is most agreeable where the scene is often changing. In most other countries, my friend, there is more of uniformity, both of clime and of character. In those, allowing for now and then a solitary Mannerist, or,—if you will grant me the word— Whimmist, there are not more distinctions of characters than of classes. The two degrees of high and low, with a sort of undefined inter­mediate body, form the whole nation, from the most stately order of the premier Noblesse, to the petite Baron, the distance of whose veins from the rich and ichorous blood which the [Page 155] former derives from the unfathomable ocean of ancestry, is regarded but as a common puddle, dribbling through the system, impoverishing the very spirit, and unfitting him to mix a rivulet so sullied and scanty, with the crimson torrent that ennobles every artery of the first order.

Nor do the subordinate arrangements upon the Continent—and more especially, you know, in Germany,—the class of merchants, shop-people, and le plus bas, differ, essentially, from each other. A traveller, for instance, in a jour­ney of a hundred miles, upon your land, will not only meet with duplicates and triplicates, but these again four times quadrupled, as like to each other, as tree to tree; yea, as leaf to leaf, even of the same kind of leaves. It is either the august Duke, the superb Marquis, the stately Margrave, the lofty Landgrave, the courtly Count, or the legitimate Baron: it is either these of the first class, their imitators of the second, or their imitators of the third. And so in the descending series; but all, in their line, very much alike, and on your [Page 156] approach to them as little distinguishable in the interior of character, as soldiers, at a distance, in their ranks and uniform.

But a social Traveller cannot go an hundred yards on ENGLISH ground without meeting something in one person, if he meets any body, that separates him from another, either in the manner or the matter of his character; and it is fifty to one but the next person he encoun­ters will shew himself off as differently, as if he were of a different country; even should the discourse with the first man be continued with the second.

A Dutch passage-boat, for instance, and an English stage-coach, will bring this into apt illustration. In the former, you will find a pipe in every mouth, and a long pause, broken only by the necessity of changing the barge, or by some solemn observation, for the most part, as ponderous as the vehicle in which you are drawn, and stagnant as the canal whereon you soporifically move. If the great subject, as they call it, (Trade) forces their thick and melan­choly spirits through the fumes that envelop [Page 157] them—I speak chiefly of commercial people, for I have shewn, and you will admit, faith­fully, there are very merry and light Dutch­men—yea, and Dutch women too—they seem to labour through their clouds, and you hear but one sound upon the one theme. Gelt, gelt, gelt—Money, money, money—That is my demand, what is your offer? Half an hour after the question, the breath is drawn in, to negative by a nod, or sent off with a puff into a fuliginous affirmative: yes, or no, often beginning and ending the compact. And one trade is the echo of another trade, as similar to each other as their pipes.

An English stage-coach, on the contrary, is usually filled with as many unimitating beings, as there are places to receive them. There is something peculiar and appropriate in every passenger, whether male or female; and they are not only strongly marked from each other in the casual journey that associates them for the moment, but very frequently each is distinct from every other of his family. The thoughts, and the mode of expressing them, belong, ex­clusively, [Page 158] to him or to herself; and though the principles of the heart, whether bad or good; are the same all over the world, it is here; chiefly, that those principles are displayed in an unnumbered variety of forms, I had almost said of fancy dresses, even like characters at a masque, according to the particular humour, or disposition of the wearer.

This diversity amongst us may be attributed, partly to the freedom of our government, which, without stilting some men into giants, and dwarfing others, preserves the due line of gra­dation, investing every individual with a just sense of himself, and of his happy situation. Of this we have instances which could scarce be credited in the less liberal arrangements of many other nations: particularly where prevails the spirit, that brings the whole human race, soul as well as body, to a size, cutting off the heads of the high, to level them with the low, and then, ludicrously, insisting we are one and all of the same stature.

But I conceive that the British constitution allows to every being that contributes to form [Page 159] it, whatever be his state or station, an oppor­tunity to reverence himself; and though this, sometimes, encourages an over-rated estimate, it preserves, upon the whole, the due measure and weight, civil, political and religious.

From whatever cause, however, our variega­tion from each other, in opinion and in action, arises, its effect is always pleasant, and often useful, to a traveller. It offers him, in every direction of his route, interesting, amusive, or singular companions by the way: and notwith­standing the deep national reserve, and coldness, imputed to my countrymen and women, and in which, it must be owned, they too often en­trench themselves, they may be all brought into conversation if a traveller is resolved upon it; and, however thick may be the ice at first setting out, the chilling influence will yield by degrees; a few good-natured remarks will cheer the surface like morning sunshine on the frozen current; the first subject that calls out a human affection, will begin the thaw, and an ingenuous exchange of those still, small, civilities that make up the great comforts of life, will, like the [Page 160] noon-tide ray, loosen yet more the stream from its impediments, the warm beams of the ima­gination, or the yet more ardent ones of the heart, will break out upon it; and there, joining each other, will melt away every remaining coldness and obstruction, so as to produce a flow of good humour, or good sense, during the rest of the voyage or journey, whether it be of a day, a month, or a year: perhaps, for the residue of the mortal travel of the parties. The ice, which, as it were, shuts up the lips, and closes the heart of an Englishman to strangers, whether of his own or other countries, being once thus unlocked, and the free current of his estimable heart disencumbered, the blood that animates it flows copiously towards the being who has in this manner subdued the frost, and ever after it exchanges with that being the permanent glow of friendship, or of love.

Much, therefore, depends on our taking out with us, a sufficient stock of that with which you, I know, are always amply provided— COURTESY—without a supply of which no man [Page 161] should attempt to go beyond the limit of his own garden-walls, and, scarcely indeed, to their extent; for a gilded fly, an obstructing flower, an obtrusive sunbeam, or a few heat-drops falling in his path, might annoy and put him out of temper with heaven and earth. The courtesy I write of, is, in truth, as necessary to a traveller as his passport, or his letters of credit, and it will be current where all other recommendations and introductions fail. It will create urbanity in the bosom where it was unknown before. It is solid as sterling gold, lighter of carriage than an English bank-bill, and though all Europe confesses the intrinsic value and utility of both these, at home and abroad, unnumbered instances have met my eye in this jarring world, where an ounce of courtesy would have outweighed, in the pur­chase of human happiness or human content, more than our banks or treasuries could buy. "A sweet word not only turneth away wrath," but it leads to knowledge, to wisdom, to conciliation, to honour, pleasure and repose. It conducts to the best felicities of life, and [Page 162] attains the most gracious ends by the easiest means.

Yet what is it but that engaging demeanour, proceeding from a disposition to give and to receive what ought to be acceptable to the loftiest mind and proudest spirit? What is it but to gild our home with the smile of Peace, and in our excursions abroad, to make the best of what we see and hear by the way? Where, either in a literal or social sense, the road is rugged, it softens its asperities by temper or forbearance: and where the surface is too smooth, not to be in overhaste to suppose there is no medium betwixt insult and adulation, but to remember, there are a thousand smooth sur­faces which have not the slippery illusions of the ice, though they display the polish of the mirror, and often represent the true form and figure of the soul, in its beauty, as that mirror doth the shape and fashion of the body. And even when they have the treachery of the ice, our sliding lightly and boundingly over them, when we begin to feel them breaking their fair promise, may ensure our safety.

[Page 163]In short, my dear and faithful friend, where­ever we are constrained to travel a land barren in itself, amidst the sullen silence of the brood­ing tempest, or its stunning clamours, when its vext spirit is let loose, whether it be a storm of the elements over our heads, or those more furious and destructive hurricanes in men's bosoms, both of which every traveller on this earth must sometimes encounter, it is even wonderful of what consequence is this courteous amenity. It steals a sun-beam over the most gloomy parts of nature and society, and adds a ray to their brightest splendours.

In my former remarks, I confessed that this magic power was more generally possessed abroad than at home. It is every where, how­ever, of inestimable price. Like the divine quality of mercy, so finely described by THE POET of our Isle, it is "twice blessed."

"It blesses him that gives and him that takes." I am guilty of tautology in saying how much it is an innate of your bosom; and it is, I thank GOD, amongst the few possessions no harsh events have yet had the power to estrange from mine.

LETTER IX.

DIVERGING from LYNN, it is my inten­tion to proceed towards the sea-coast till we reach CROMER, by the route of HOUGHTON, FAKENHAM, WALSINGHAM and HOLT. I am writing this letter at the little thorough-fare village from whence I date. It is just half way betwixt LYNN and the first of the above-men­tioned places. You are prepared for, and you tell me, you are pleased with my custom of winding with you occasionally through alleys, green and flowery nooks from the broad high­way, to see the face, and mind, and heart of the country in unsuspected places, ^* then return to the more ostensible paths.

of happier note, and every other lover of the humid earth,—and in truth, the whole marshy pasturage, may be said to wear the willow, from the eastern gate of LYNN, to HILLING­TON. But the very heath grounds of England, have their appropriate fertilities, and one of these you will pass in your way to the place where I have now paus'd to write; you cannot, during the Summer, ride over one of our village commons but you will observe it agreeably populated: herds of cattle, part standing satis­fied in the refreshing pool, part reposing on the verdant sod, troops of horses and flocks of sheep, at feed or at play, enlivened by the cottage and farm, with innumerous geese and other aquatic fowl, exhibiting to your eye a striking contrast to the long, the dreary and unprofitable wastes which you have so often traversed in Germany, where, perhaps, a soli­tary goldfinch is seen waving on the thistle, a gaunt-horse sadly ruminating in the sand, or a lean goat browzing the fern. Indeed, a few miles of heath or moor, are to the English Traveller, sometimes a relief from the abun­dance [Page 168] and beauty of the general cultivation. At the same time, it must be owned, we have, in different parts of the island, too great an extent of waste land; but it is amongst the grand national improvements of the present moment to reform the face, and enrich the bosom of the country by enclosure; a measure, which, according to the report of the Com­mittee of Agriculture, will yield to the nation the enormous sum of twenty millions a year! and, it appears by the same calculation, that the total amount of waste lands in the Empire,

Your arithmetic will serve you to make the deduction hereby produced in the agricultural riches of the country, from so large a portion of it lying unemployed. Yet when you come to have nearer your view the almost miracles which are worked by the little island, without [Page 169] one rood of the 21,997,001 acres being brought into the national account, when you come to be an eye-witness of the spirit of commerce, of fashion, of elegance, of luxury, of private benefaction, and of the magnificence of public liberality, manifested not only in the metropolis, but in every part of the empire, your astonish­ment at what hitherto we have done, could be exceeded only by that of perceiving what we continue to do; and that too with a debt on the shoulders of our poor Britannia enough to weigh down Atlas. The very account of this debt is in itself almost too mighty for the grasp of the human mind, and while it displays the grand complexity of our resources seems to turn the head of the coldest calculator dizzy, as he goes on to figure its still increasing progress. It was even in the midsummer of 1796, £. 360,100,000! a sum, which, from its mag­nitude, has thrown even over a description of the means and modes of paying it, an air of ridicule. "It would require," says an ingenious abridger and epitomist, "47,265 pounds weight in ten pound Bank notes, having 512 notes to one [Page 170] pound. This sum in cash, if put into carts, each containing 1000lb. and have two horses to draw, allowing 40 feet to each cart, would load 5000 carts, and cover 37 miles in length, with a remainder of 116 carts in the 38th mile. Were it to be laid down in guineas in a line, would extend above 4,300 miles in length. In 1794 the national debt was 260 millions ster­ling, and if a man was to count 100 shillings per minute for 12 hours a day, it would take him 1797 years, 283 days, 9 hours, and 2 minutes. The whole of this sum being 5,200 millions of shillings, and the coinage standard being 62 shillings in the Troy pound, its whole weight will be 83 million 709 thousand and 968 pounds, which will require 41,936 carts, each to have a ton weight, to convey it to any place; or supposing a man could carry 100 pound weight from London to York, it would require 838,670 men to perform it; and if all these men were to walk in a line at only one yard distance from each other, they would cover 456 miles and a half, and 70 yards. The breadth of a shilling being one inch, and if all [Page 171] these shillings were laid in a strait line, close to one another's edge, the line they would cover would be 83,070 miles, which is 8,070 miles more than double the circumference of the globe.

"Supposing the interest of this sum to be only three and a half per cent. per ann. it amounts to nine millions one hundred thousand pound sterling.

"Quere. Is there in the whole universe as much gold in circulation as would discharge this debt? If this is not sufficient, is there as much gold and silver in circulation as would be sufficient for the purpose?"

There is little to fix the attention of the passing traveller in this village, as to scenery or houses, except the agreeable, though obviously elaborated spot, occupied by the house and estate of Sir MARTIN FOLKES. Clumps of the enduring fir, and other hardy trees, generally indicate, at once, the ungenial temper of the soil, and the diligent hand of industry. But the particular ground on which this gentleman's hall is erected, is productive of something far [Page 172] better than the proudest mansions, amidst the most fertile domains, have always to offer: for what so fair or rich in nature, dear Baron, as a human being placed by fortune on an eminence, amongst the poor and lowly, at once able and willing to make them happy?

Such a man is the owner of the house and lands which present themselves to your view at the extremity of this otherwise humble hamlet.

A real knowledge of personal character is amongst the most difficult things to be got at, not merely in the limited circuit of a few leagues, but in the longest journey of human life. It lies involved in so many labyrinths, that the actual clue is torn from the hand of Truth till she herself is often wounded and lost among the mazes; yet, innumerable pretenders are ready to connect the broken thread, each pro­fessing that his fidelity equals his zeal. It thus becomes the hardest matter, even for a deliberate traveller to gain, in some respects, information that is to be depended on, either as to the real character of the poor or rich; but in others he cannot be mistaken. He who runs may read, [Page 173] where the general voice of a country is in arms to attack, or to defend any particular member of it, whether that individual be high or low; provided, nevertheless, that individual is resi­dentiary; in which case it would be impossible for vice or virtue, in the relative characters of domestic life, of friend and neighbour, master and servant, to be concealed. And, methinks, even an en passant traveller may form a pretty just account if he will adhere to a plan which suggested itself to your correspondent many years ago, and which he has found correct, in the ratio of at least ten to one, where it has failed. He is never so much in a violent hurry as to render his eyes and ears as useless upon the road as if he had put them into his port­manteau, or locked them up in his trunk, to be taken out, and worn like his gala suit, only at his place of visiting, or on some grand occasion in some grand place, where it is as impossible for them to be of any use as to either seeing of hearing the truth of character in any reasonable time, as to count the drops of a shower of rain in London, where though you [Page 174] see and hear them pouring on you on all sides, they seem to be all alike, and to form only one indiscriminate puddle, where the chrystal drops that have just descended from the heavens blend in a moment with the filth and ordure of the kennel, and are thereby incorporated with the very dregs of the earth. But, in the country— O, in the country,—my dear friend, ears and eyes, if a traveller will but stop a little to employ them, and call in one of man's proudest dis­tinctions, the voice, are of real service, as to furnishing the inquirer with unequivocal truth, as to human character. We may trace the same shower till its skiey particles free themselves from the embarrassments of the world, and gain the stream, where they assert and ascertain themselves. We there see them pure as they fall from above: they succour the drooping flower, supply the thirsty herb, enrich the land on which they fall, and form its beauty, and its good. It is thus with the in­vestigation of character. In the country, all that morally constitutes its bane or blessing, and, na­turally, its beauty and deformity, lies within [Page 175] reach: and, to continue the allusion, whether the drop which each individual in the parish forms, acts with the benign influence of the dew from heaven; or, so far as his power extends, be­comes tyrannous as the northern blast, and perishes what it touches, even like the breath of pestilence, its salient or noxious quality is soon generally known. Any four persons you may accidentally meet in your walk of liberal inquiry through a village, or town, will usually give you that knowledge respecting any cha­racter in the parish, as well in the tour of an hour as could be attained in a twelvemonth by a person who took his report from thrice the number of chosen men, who might be con­sidered as the known friends or enemies of that character: because both these are under a bias, and I could not receive, unsuspiciously, the report of either: whereas, if in your chat with four residents you hear nearly the same opinion, whether good or bad, or even if there are three to one assenting, however differently each may express himself, you run very little hazard of being able, with the deciding powers of your [Page 176] own judgment, summing up, as it were, the evidence before you, of assuring yourself you have the true measure of the object ex­amined.

It may seem fanciful, but I have no hesita­tion in recommending the adoption of this mode to all travellers in this dark road of existence. In the usual way you are frequently referred from one partial or prejudiced person to another; these giving you a determined pane­gyric, and those an inveterate lampoon, till poor Truth loses both her temper and her object.

To travellers, indeed, who never stop but to change horses, or stopping, ask no questions but for the bill of fare, and the distance betwixt stage and stage, improving the intermediate time and space in sleep, dashing with the swift­ness, but not with the use of a telegraph, from one place to another, or a main-chance traveller, whose total of information, and of object, is very properly confined to the contents of the enor­mous red pocket-book, and to the saddle-bag wardrobe; whose walk is from shop to shop, [Page 177] with his portable shop, in shining oil-skin, holding the samples of his art, and all his eloquence exerted to recommend them:—to him, indeed, or even to the traveller, who, from pride or modesty, is averse to ask any questions at all, or even to speak to strangers— to all such my plan will appear worse than fanciful— formidable, impracticable, imperti­nent. No matter! for one person who has received my converse with rudeness, or repulsed my inquiry with a yet more sullen silence,— though even these things, I know, make up the character of the English to foreigners,—it has helped me, frequently, to discover worth, genius, and benevolence, where none of those travellers would ever have found it; and, in the various countries I have passed, has even endeared to my recollection many an humble cot, and lowly path-way, with many an object to share it, all of which, but for the inquisitive disposition to explore them, would, to me, at least, have "wasted their sweetness on the desert air:" and, not seldom, has it given me opportunity to recommend such of their sequestered in­habitants, [Page 178] as wanted, and deserved relief, to protection more powerful than my own.

Nor is it necessary to acquire these best delights of the traveller by the means either of curiosity, or of obtrusion. They are pro­cured without exertion, and are, indeed, the natural, the inevitable consequences and re­wards of those passing courtesies mentioned in my last letter. The artisan at his work, the labourer at his meal, the youth at his sports, the veteran resting on his crutch, or seated on the bench of his porch to catch the vital spirit of the noon-beam, the maid or matron at her wheel beside the door, or the now busy and now vacant landlord, whose whole stock of in­telligence you purchase by a small portion of his own eloquent ale or good spirits, are all sources of information; and, taken as they happen to present themselves to your view, will not only prove the faithful historians of the place, but they will, generally, look upon your entering with them into the urbanities of dis­course,—the matter and manner being not re­pulsive,—as a kindness which entitles you to theirs in return.

[Page 179]"He that questioneth much shall gain much;" said the profound Bacon; "but espe­cially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather know­ledge."

Thus, too, you gain not only genuine opini­ons, and an insight into the characters of per­sons absent,—the estimate each man holds in the mind of his fellow-villager or townsman, but of the reporters, who give you a hasty, per­haps, but strong drawn, frequently humourous, almost always sincere, sketch of themselves—of their characters, manners, habits of thinking, and modes of expression.

Suffer me to illumine these remarks by an example drawn from immediate objects.

An English landlord, though not so officious a personage as one of the old France—perhaps courtesy, in the new, is unrepublican—is far more expert than the same sort of character in Germany. Mine host of Hillington has been liberal of his knowledge and civility—both [Page 180] of which he dispensed in the following manner, without charging these articles in his bill—As I was drawing on my gloves at the outward door of his house he thus began:

You are disposed I see, Sir, for a walk in our bit of a village.—Except our Hall, there is nothing worth seeing, nor that much, for itself.

And what is the name of the Owner?

Sir Martin Folkes, a very worthy gentleman— my house is his—observe the sign, Sir—Hil­lington-Hall, and a good Hall it is, for rich and for poor—and there goes Sir Martin—and that's his daughter, as good as himself.—Not such a fortune, Sir, as our Mr. Coke, and our Marquis Townsend, or the new Lord of Houghton; but has as good a heart as any of them, and that is saying a bold word for our Baronet too.

Pleased with report thus far, I thanked my reporter, and passed on to the stable, where a man was rubbing down a friend, whom I never forget.

I am not the hostler, Sir, says the man, but [Page 181] I lend him a hand, such as it is, when he is out of the way; he is gone into the field for our Sir Martin—make hay while the sun shines, you know, Sir, such weather as this; but for that matter, were it deep of winter, who would not work up to his chin in water for our Sir Martin.

This Sir Martin bears a good name among you then?

I will tell you how you shall have him at once—and as true as this is a whisp of straw; for, old as I am, there is not a he or she in the parish have ever caught me in a lie. As to Sir Martin then, I will, as I said, tell you how you shall have him at once, and do the needful to this poor beast of yours at the same time. I can talk and work all under one.

He twisted a fresh whisp, and rubbed away.

In the first place, Sir Martin is a man re­markably good at Justizeing.

What, he sends some of you to the Stocks and House of Correction?

You shall hear: if any of our Farmers are hard and heavy on a poor man, he will see him [Page 182] right-sided. 'Tis in vain for a Farmer to down with a poor man, because Sir Martin, if he deserves it, will as surely up him again; ay and set him on his legs stronger than ever, and make no more of the Farmer than I do of this straw;—same by the Farmer; for if he wants right-siding, right-sided he shall be: and so shall your honour's horse presently.

A large estate I suppose?

Where he has a penny I wish he had a pound—However he don't want—Stock and shock o' the parish is his; and what I say of him, every chick and child will say also.

A young Gentleman, is he not?

You shall have him at once there likewise— his eldest daughter—God bless her—a sweet young Lady, and a fine—a jot ago past the stable-door.—She is about sixteen, more or less, so, you know, he must be about forty, more or less—a time for all things—no great age; yet he's a Father to me that am sixty and two, and a bit besides.

How so?

You shall have him again. You must know, [Page 183] that after having served one of our topping Far­mers thirty and three years, comes a new man into Farm and outs with me—thereupon I went to Sir Martin to justize with him a little—Your honour, says I, you know all about me. I then up'd and told him my case—am I to be outed after this fashion, and after such a sort of years service? Sir Martin thought and thought, and resulted and resulted.

Never mind my good fellow, said he, when he had done resulting—I will take care of you— And so he did; and so he does still—and I have a house and a home, and am merry to say, God bless the donor!

Here is something, honest friend, to drink Sir Martin's health, after you have given my horse something to drink also, and then you may get him ready.

All that shall be done, Sir, and I will drink your health into the bargain; and if you are half as good as our Baronet, to God will you go, die when you please.

I have taken a turn round the pleasure grounds by paths in the park which are open [Page 184] to the passenger; and in one of them I met three women and a boy returning from the Hall. Two had their aprons well stored, with more than the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table—a third had a large bowl of broth in her hand; and the lad was laden with an ample jugg of milk.

You have met with good luck this morning, my friends.

We meer as good any day when we have a mind to go for it, said one of the women, only we don't like to spur a free horse to death.

Where do you come from?

Hillington-Hall, was the answer.

I required no more; the evidence was all-sufficient for me to look at the mansion with the reverence due to philanthropy, and pro­nouncing as I passed—blessed be the inhabit­ants! Nor, in your future survey of this village, will you forget the circumstances that induce me to recommend it.

In the map of Norfolk it occupies an incon­siderable spot. It is scarce noted in the com­mon [Page 185] Road-books: a few straggling farms and cottages comprize the whole hamlet—the Hall itself is neither imposing by its grandeur, nor awful from its antiquity; and the circumjacent country is rather scanty than prodigal of the riches and the graces of Nature; yet shall gra­titude and hospitality ennoble it to your mind, even as it will to that of your correspondent. "It is not," said Atticus to Tully, "our superb Athens so delights me by its magnificent structures, as by presenting me with the images of excellent men, whilst I review the houses where they liv'd, the benches where they sat, the places where they disputed. And with plea­sure, also, I contemplate their sepulchres. I shall ever love, therefore," continued Atticus, the spot where thou Cicero wert born." On this principle I shall ever appreciate Hilling­ton-Hall.

The importance of private benevolence, or of tyranny, as exercised by the Esquire or Lord, or whatever other name or title the chief per­sonage bears, in a small town or village; is beyond common calculation. He can almost [Page 186] give the part of the country where he is resident, a new face: bid peace and comfort smile around his neighbourhood, or cover it with gloom. If his disposition leads him to benignity, the poorest hovel shall boast a chearful hearth, and all its tenantry sport in his influence. At little cost, he may exclude even the powers of Envy from the bosoms of the lowly, and implant the more happy inmates of gratitude and joy. He may extend his generous sway, so far as to dis­pense amongst those over whom Fortune has given him dominion, the lenitives of pain, the solaces of disease, and attemper death itself; nor are his good offices less eminently useful for the body than the soul: the wisdom of his precepts, or the example of his practice, dis­countenances the vice, and gives energy to the virtue of his dependents: their heads and their hearts thrive equally under his protectorship— and he includes in his character ^* the philan­thropist, [Page 187] the physician, the moralist, or the christian.

[Page 188]It is, indeed, almost impossible to enumerate the degrees of felicity which may result from an [Page 189] intelligent, upright, and benevolent country gentleman, whom Providence has blessed with the means of doing good.

[Page 190]On the other hand, if he is of a harsh and despotic temper, of a base and sordid nature, the pleasing picture here drawn, the original of which your conscious eye has a daily oppor­tunity of seeing displayed in every part of your own signiory, would instantly change to its reverse, and spread to the utmost limit of the village despot's authority. His tenants would languish, his peasantry droop, the spacious mansion, where, like some malign demon, he resides in solitary grandeur, or amidst selfish carousals, would be annoyed by the curse of the cottagers. They would lie in wait for occasions of reprisal, either in the silent mischief of nightly depredations; or armed by wrongs, act in avowed opposition to the oppressor's wishes and commands.

[Page 191]How often have I seen a pestilential wretch of this kind, even in generous England, diffuse the aggravations of penury, of sickness, and of misery around him! All ages and descriptions of persons unite to produce the vexation which such a being deserves, and can never escape: he is the scorn of the better part of his neigh­bourhood, and the terror as well as scourge of the children of indigence! But, thank heaven, much oftener have I seen amongst us the man of kinder manners operate as a most balmy antidote to this rural poison—I have seen child­hood hang fondly on his robe, as if it were the mantle of an angel; I have observed the youth of the country follow his steps as if they led to heaven. Towards him, too, have I noticed age hurry under the crutch, that it might not lose an opportunity of paying him the homage of the silver hair. In the slip of ground attached to the meanest shed, the wholesome herb is substituted for the thistle, which haply, a harder master caused to grow there; a cheary faggot warms the hut within, and an uncankered rose blooms without. It is a sacred scrap of [Page 192] property, a cherished morsel of independence, which many of my more fortune-favoured coun­trymen delight to bestow, and it makes the labourer's heart feel proudly, even while it recon­ciles him to his humble situation; he reflects that, though it is his lot to toil over a thousand acres for others, he has one dear spot which he may call HIS OWN. O, those two little words, my friend, how great is their import! and how frequently does a single acre, before which the exulting heart can place these monosyllables, out-measure kingdoms and empires! The span of ground which has been dressed by the hand of affection is often more precious to the peasant, who can say IT IS MINE, than the whole domain of his master; and the simplest flower, which that smiling pittance of earth may yield, proves a more welcome heart-gift to the bosom of her he loves, when he who presents it can say,—; it is from my own garden, and was set by my own hand,— than if it had been the offering of a monarch. You will find in many parts of Norfolk, and, indeed, very generally, through the island, these elevations of the human character, where [Page 193] as, in many other States, the subordinate, though certainly not the least useful classes of Society, so far from being encouraged, to believe, that they have a mite of property, are not even permitted to feel that they are them­selves, in comparison of the higher orders, more than mites in the vast creation.

At a country seat in a small town, or village, generosity and avarice, loving-kindness and tyranny are as easily seen, and as plainly felt as the sun-beam and the mildew; but I consider a well-accommodated nobleman, or gentleman resident upon, or frequently resorting to, his estate, as a first-rate benefactor of mankind. In the vast metropolis, I may admire his establish­ment, seem for a moment, though but for a moment I hope, diminished by his situation, or be really attracted by his talents and popular qualities; but all this, in his town house has more or less of a grand exhibition: it gives the sensation of a spectacle; and, on the gala scale, measures to little more than the gaze of the mob, as their eyes pursue the ornaments of his carriage, or the court dress in which his natural [Page 194] size and shape are encumbered and concealed, when he disenthralls himself from that carriage to make his bow at the levee.

It is chiefly at his country seat, and in the thriving farms, or comfort-brightening cottages, which encircle and rejoice around, like satel­lites illumined and fed by their planet, that I can offer him the tribute of my affection.—And when I have witnessed a man of this description, in the benignity of his orb effusing his rays, where their light and heat were wanted, I have frequently compared him with the most re­nowned conqueror, brightest wit, or most august potentate,—provided they had nothing better than the laurels of victory or genius, or the sceptre of dominion—and found him supe­rior to them all. "After having made to pass in review before the reader," says an ingenious writer, "the many tyrants who oppressed the earth, the many madmen who laid it waste, the many fanatics who have been deceived, it may be asked of what advantage to mankind were the conquests of Clovis, the cunning of Ma­homet, the victories of Charlemagne, the [Page 195] invasion of William the Norman, the valour of Godfrey de Bouillon, the prudence of Rhodolph of Hapsburgh, the politics of Charles the Fifth, the ambition of Philip the Second, and the genius of Richelieu?" Their empires, their triumphs, their conquests, their politics, these disappeared with them. Even the violent shocks they gave the world have scarcely left a trace of them. We contemplate with in­finitely more pleasure the discoveries of Vasco de Gama, and Columbus, the voyages of Ma­gellan, and of Drake; the great changes which the intrepidity of Luther and Calvin produced in the politics and religions of Europe; the labours of Copernicus and Tycho Brache, of Kepler and Galileo, the works of Bacon, Descartes, Newton and Locke; the productions of Tasso, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, and Dryden; of Corneille, Raphael, and Michael Angelo: the study of religious truths, of the sciences, and of Belles Lettres have a more beneficial influence upon the mind, and produce more lasting effects, than the most intimate acquaint­ance with the conquests and intrigues of princes [Page 196] and statesmen. But we might go much farther, Baron. We might insist, that the private gentleman who preserves the morals, and pre­sides over the beings around him, as well by the influence of his example as his bounty, is the true glory of a nation. As far as in him lies, he repairs the ruins which have been made by the different circumstances that set men at variance: in fine, that every such person, of whatever country, of whatever persuasion, tends to RE-CREATE that order, which the anarchy of clashing interests, and the wild hurry of human passions, have brought into the world.

The most delightful object, afforded us by the bountiful Creator, my friend, is a rich and good man dispensing comfort of body, and content of soul, to the Poor, and the Unhappy.

LETTER X.

TILL we get within about two miles of HOUGHTON a contracted kind of scenery pre­vails, but then it is that more spacious fields, ample pastures, and extended woodlands, with a road broadning to your feet, and foliage arching over your head, announce something extraordinary. By the imposing attraction of these, you enter upon the long-celebrated domain of the WALPOLES, who took their names from a town in what is called the marsh­land of this county. Here, Joceline de Wal­pole, was living in the reign of our first Richard; but Reginalde de Walpole, who flourished in the time of our first Henry, is thought to be the lineal ancestor of the present family: not that I hold the settlement of this matter quite so material as the disputed point [Page 198] between "the good men of Lynn," whether King Henry ^* or King John presented the cup and sword to the corporation. It would, indeed, run Time himself out of breath, as well as you, my friend, out of patience, to follow this illustrious house, from Richard, who married Emma, daughter of Walter de Houghton, topping thus the free ancestral, and sliding down again by its ramifications till we reach the far-famed Sir Robert, whose branch put forth all the blooming honours, hereditary and acquired, and yielded its richest fruit in due season, after it first began to sprout in l674. A thousand times more than I can make room for, about all this, as well in regard to the family under consideration, as that of Holkham, Rainhim, and fifty others, you will find curiously and laboriously set down for you in the county-histories; yea, and in the several [Page 199] shew-books, presented to ladies and gentlemen-travellers, at the shew-houses by the domestic oracles in waiting, and who have related the family honours so often, that you will hear them describe the beauty of one ancestor, the heroism of another, and the bounty of a third, with as unmeaning a voice and tone as the chorister chaunts his hymn, or the school-boy chimes his lesson; looking at the same time with as unmoved a set of features, and as inveterate an aspect as the great founders of the family, whether ruff'd or whisker'd, whether in tapes­try, marble or bronze. For these good reasons I shall not describe them here. Much less shall I rob the household historians of their perquisite, by leading you step by step through the apartments, beginning with the Hall of Entrance, although the ceiling and the frieze of boys were executed by Alteri; though the base reliefs are from the antique; and though the figures over the great doors and the boys over the small ones, are by Rystrack: thence to the marble parlour. And least of all shall I enter into a catalogue of the treasury which the [Page 200] Picture Gallery of this seat had once to boast: because that would be to inflict on a man of your taste, the torment of Tantalus, the said treasure being now to be enjoyed only by a journey to the palace of the heir of the Impe­rial Purchaser. ^* Yet I will not refuse you such an account of this splendid edifice, as may engage your curiosity to consider it worth your notice were there no object but itself; but not till I have directed your attention to some things which your heart will deem of far more consequence, and at the same time save you the pains of hunting through formidable folios, and scarce less terrific quartos.

I will begin by the very beautiful, because chaste yet rich, concise yet copious inscription, by Horace Walpole,—of whom in his place— on the monument of a lady whose portrait will be shewn you, and which you wall contemplate [Page 201] with even a tender interest, after you have thus been made acquainted with her singular virtues.

The first impression made on the mind of a classic traveller upon a first view of plantations which have been cultured, and mansions that have been erected by illustrious persons, more particularly if their celebrity has been derived from the splendour of intellectual or moral qualities, is that, my friend, which will impress yours, long before the doors of this noble edifice shall be opened to you by the servant permitted to shew them. With the rapidity of thought, your mind will go back to all you have heard or read of the celebraited ^* founder, [Page 203] and those distinguished relatives who have successively possessed and ennobled it. The [Page 204] inanimate objects first looked at, within and without, will soon become secondary. The [Page 205] simple circumstance of knowing that many of the trees in the magnificent woods were planted [Page 206] by Sir Robert Walpole, will carry your reflec­tions from the plantation to the planter, and all which refers solely to vegetation, however delicious its charm at other times to the senses, will give place to more profound reflections. You will take a retrospective view of the extra­ordinary man who continued first British Minis­ter of State from the time that the structure was begun in 1722 to its complete finishing, inside and out, in 1735. The whole expanse of your mind will fill with the events, charac­ters and deep public concerns which marked the epoch of his administration. The history of this little island, and of the vast continent, as connected with, and suffer me to say, in many respects, dependent on its politicks and its commerce, will croud upon you: for a while, [Page 207] woods which have long been the admiration of travellers, will shrink diminished before you, or be so subordinate to the governing idea, that you will be able to afford then no distinct notice; and the very first portrait you are shewn of this Minister, or of Horace Walpole, will engross you whole attention, though the keeper of the house lions, who has little time to spare for contemplative visitors, will be impatient to draw you off from Statesmen and from Bards, to her Derbyshire marble, bronze Gladiators, granite cisterns, alabaster columns, velvet beds, sleeping Venusses, bathing Nymphs, santa Susannas and Court beauties.

But as all these, and whatever is assembled near them, certainly deserve the notice of every traveller, and will be the principal attractions with most, I will no longer withhold the promised description; you will gain a clear idea from what follows.

The extent of the building, including the colonnade and wings, which contain the offices, is 450 feet; the main body of the house extends 166 feet. The hall, which is furnished in the [Page 208] inside with stone, is a cube of 40 feet; the saloon 40 by 30 feet; and the other rooms are 18 feet high. The rustic and attic stories are 12 feet high each; under the rustic story are arched vaults. The whole building is of stone, and is crowned with an entablature of the Ionic order, with a balustrade above; and there is a cupola with lanterns, at each corner of the house. The mansion, for the compass of ground it stands on, is reckoned as finely orna­mented, and as well furnished as any house in the kingdom.

The foundation-stone placed in the south-east angle, hath a Latin inscription upon it to the following purport. "Here, that Sir Robert Walpole, with whom thou, posterity, shalt not be unacquainted, hath fixed me to stand, as the foundation of a seat, designed to be built in his native country, the 24th day of May in the year 1722. GOD grant, that after its master, to a mature old age, shall have long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendents may safely possess it, in an unimpaired condition, to the end of time!"

[Page 209]To this inscription, has been annexed the subsequent morsel of morality. "One would think Sir Robert, had in his thoughts, the uncertain state in all ages and countries, of Prime Ministers, and of the superb structures built by them in the height of their power."

Neither shall the august anecdote be omitted of one of your German Emperors, who being in England when Duke of Lorrain, was entertained at Houghton with the most magnificent repast that it is said was ever given in this kingdom; a right patriotic banquet too, loyal as liberal, for, it seems, all the fish, and all the fowl, and all the game, and every other viand, was of the produce of Old England, and its domestic appendages! yea, and the variety, such as was never before known or collected at one table. Even relays of horses were provided on the roads to bring rarities from the remotest parts of the Empire!

In the way from Syderstone, the woods appear to the greatest advantage; they are seen to a great extent, with openings left judiciously in many places, to let in the view of more [Page 210] distant plantations, which changes the shade and gives them that solemn brownness that has always a happy effect. It appears to give a congenial colour to thought, and the hue most favourable to meditation.

The woods, which are seen from the south-front of the house, are planted with great judg­ment, to remedy the defect of a flat country. The trees are so disposed as to appear one be­yond another in different shades.

Having banquetted your taste and feelings in a survey of the stately Pile and all that there meets the eye, you will allow me to conduct you to other interesting objects. I have to beg then, you will, in idea, accompany me in a walk across the park, by the newly-projected grand entrance, to the place where all greatness but that of the soul must fade away,—the place of sepulture.

Houghton-church is a neat gothic building in the full view of the hall, thus furnishing a picturesque and moral object to the living proprietors.

I am attended in my visit to this sacred [Page 211] spot by the village-clerk, who is another of those original beings so frequently to be met with in England, and who is at this moment so singularly blending an account of himself with his information of others, that if I can describe both, as well as he has done,—and that I may the more vividly do so, I have, as usual, my pencil in my hand—you will gain the truth of character, through all the quaintness and oddity of the reporter, better than if Biography was to address you in all her dignity; though she were to wait on you arrayed in her long robes, sweeping into their folds all the pomps and vanities of posthu­mous panegyric.

"You come on a remarkable day, Sir Stranger,—birth-day of his Royal Highness-ship, George, by the Grace of GOD, Prince of Wales; and on that of our Audit-Feast; and moreover, the day before we begin harvest;— so ten of his Highness-ship's father's pictures set in gold, have been given by order of our new Lord,—and the Lord love him for it,—to drink his Highness-ship's health, and success to harvest. You took me just in the right nick, [Page 212] Sir Stranger:—was beginning to be merry there at the King's Head; merry but wise; later i' the day, you might have found me non-composs'd a-bit, for to-morrow, as I said, begins harvest; and harvest comes but once a year, Sir Stranger; and if a man don't get, as I may say, a little sun-burn'd here i' the noddle, before he sticks sickle into corn, why the whole stack will catch cold before it gets into sheaf,— that's our Norfolk notion,—so we treat with a little of last year's corn—out of the barrel— hope no offence, Sir Gentleman Stranger.

None in the world, Mr. Clerk.

Clerk, Sir Gentleman, is only my title; my name is Jarvis; and I am, moreover, Sexton as well; and more than that, I am the greatest fool in Houghton-Parish; nay, in this whole hundred of Gallow where it stands; and if any man can prove himself a greater numps than Jarvis, let him come forth.

How so, my friend?

Look at those pretty deer staring at you, Sir Stranger, while some stamp their little feet, as though they were angry at you, while others [Page 213] trot away as if they were frightened at you, and some keep nibbling the grass as if they cared nothing about you; by the same token, I have seen as fine a head of deer in this park as in any of Norfolk; and, would you believe it, I had, for a sort ^* of years, the care of all those dappled fellows, and hundreds upon hundreds more; I was their play-fellow, and their friend, Sir Gentleman, and the poor fools knew me, and would follow me, and eat out of my hand, and I do really think, they loved me as well as they do one another:—as well as that doe at feed under the elms, does the fawn by its side:— and when i' the venison time, I was obliged to single my marks from the herd, I went skulking about the park like a thief;—and for that matter so I was, you know;—I felt just as if I was going to shoot a child; and when I hit any of them, they cried just like one:—O, 'tis a barbarous piece of work, Sir Gentleman!— and when I have seen 'em, just as they were [Page 214] dying, looking pitifully in my face, with the tears in their eyes, I thought I deserved to be shot myself.

But how came your Lord to part with so good a park-keeper?

He, part! GOD love the stone that covers him! I will shew it you presently. I parted myself. I was not only park, but game-keeper, —and a better thing besides,—Lord George's right-hand man, as he used to call me. First thing in a morning was, Jarvis, bring my boots; Jarvis, my slippers; how fare the greyhounds, the deer, the horses, and more than all, the sheep, hey Jarvis? and all just as freespoken and kindly as I am to you, and so on for years; hasty and hot a little now and then, to be sure; but give him his way, that youngster of a fawnling skipping across our path, might lead him; but cross-grain him, and one of our bulls,—and there is a mad one in the meadows, —could not match him for raving and roaring. Let him run on, he would stop before he got at you, and give you his hand instead of his foot; and I, that knew all this, and that loved him as [Page 215] I did my soul, and might have kept my place till his death-hour. I—to go and say to him one day, as I did! Lord George, if you don't like me, leave me, Lord George; if you think you can mend yourself, try. And what, Sir Stranger, do you think he did upon this? Up's with a table, and if I had not run off and shut the door, would have smash'd my saucy sconce as I hear he smash'd the table, and there would have been an end of Jarvis.

Why did you not return, and by submission, try to make your peace, Jarvis?

Afraid and ashamed, Sir Stranger,—and you would have been afraid too,—he glared at me like a lion, and would have devoured me just as easily. O, Lord George! what a terrible Lord George you was in a passion! and O, Jarvis, Jarvis, what a d—d numps must you be, who knew this, not to let him have it out with you! If a servant, or tenant, or neighbour, would but give him time to turn himself round in one of his high winds, he would be as mild as a May morning; but when once he turned [Page 216] any one away for cross-hoppling, never took him again.

That was an unfortunate day for you, friend Jarvis.

So my brother got the place, and held it to my Lord's death, and holds it still; for our last Lord, Lord Horace, one of your scholar gentry, though we never saw much of him, indeed, after he was lorded, kept all the old servants; and our new Lord has not yet said, you must go, to any of them; so I suppose they are to stay. Ay, Sir Stranger, it was a sorrowful thing, to think I never afterwards could hear the best master, and the best man in the world, say, how do the greyhounds? how fare the deer? and how are all the people in Houghton-village? with Jarvis, or good Jarvis, and sometimes, friend Jarvis, at the end of the question. It wasn't the losing the place, so much; but never again being about such a master; having free regress and ingress into his own room; or if I saw him in the park, gardens, plantations, or what not, running to him, speaking to him on [Page 217] this case, and that case—such a poor man is foot-sore, and should rest, Lord George; such a poor woman is sick, and wants sommut more comforting than doctors or doctor's stuff, Lord George; poor Snap must have a holiday; Spring is fresh as a daisy again; Smoaker is now a match for any they can bring against him, Lord George. No, Sir Gentleman, this was all over; and then to lose going of his errands i' the parish, or farther a-field, as case required; a bottle of wine to one; a broth-joint to an­other; a bit of money to another; Jarvis, go and see how poor Will is; carry something good to Tom's wife. Yes, Sir Stranger, to lose all this after such a sort of years, being his kindness-carrier, as I may say, to half the coun­try, for wherever there was a want, there would go Lord George or his kindness-carrier. But after I had shot my fool's bolt, Sir Gentleman, no more of all this for me; if I met him in my path, I dropt my head and slunk off like a hound who had been sheep worrying; and I have sat moping under a hedge, like a beggar going to steal the linen, or hid myself i' the [Page 218] woods as if I wanted to rob the house, though, GOD knows, I only went there because I was ashamed to be seen; and many is the good cry I have had there, all alone, though I sup­pose, at my age, Sir Stranger, you think I ought to be ashamed of that. But this would not do long; so I went to live in another family, because I hated at last, to see myself upon the grounds, where I was as useless as a nettle in a garden, and worse, for nobody thought it worth while to pull me up or knock me down; —Heigho!—and the deer too, they seem'd to join against me.

A fallen favourite you know, Jarvis.

I know what you mean, having, thank GOD, a pretty tightish understanding in the natural way, I was fallen out of favour sure enough, for Tall Jack, one of the old standards,—a brave buck, —when I came, like a fool one day, and walked a matter of twelve miles, just to look at the old park, shook his antlers at me, and stampt his foot several times, and stood as stiff as a ram, as much as to say—"You have no business at Houghton now, old Jarvis."—But, since that [Page 219] time, I have got to be Sexton—Clerk, and by coming backwards and forwards to this church, the dappled chaps, some of them get round me; yet, I sometimes think, it is more for a little prog I now and then carry in my pocket, to coax them, rather than for love of me as it used to be;—heigho!—heigho!—Well, now if you please, Sir, we will go inside my church.— Poor Lord George! we have him there still. It was my lot to do for him after he was dead, however. I buried him. Would to GOD he was alive, to look at me again, though he looked like a lion. I would not run away from him again, I promise you. Angry or pleased, I never saw such another friend, nor landlord, nor master, and if you don't choose to believe me, ask every man, woman and child you meet, that knew him, in the country."

We had rather strolled and sauntered in different directions near the chapel, than moved towards it, during the greatest part of the above conversation; from which, I trust, you will catch a more striking likeness of Lord George Orford, than from any, or from all [Page 220] the portraits, you will be shewn of him at the hall. You will see the genuine features of that truly worthy nobleman's soul, in their best lights, thinly shaded, if they may be called shades, by his singular manners, and by the one dark, yet passing shadow of a sudden tem­per. The painter, it is true, has etched without art, but every touch is a stroke of nature, and had you seen his figure, or heard his voice, while they were thus employed, you would swear to the whole drawing being an original. Indeed, to two originals, for he would have presented you with an admirable sketch both of the living and of the dead. I had abun­dant opportunity, before I left Houghton, to find, that the master and the man were given with equal fidelity of pencil: of this, I will offer some pleasing evidence, before we take our leave of this interesting spot.

But I must allow you and myself a pause; having just transcribed this letter at the Inn, from my pencil'd minutes of friend Jarvis's discourse, which, I offer you as nearly as pos­sible, in his own words, and my landlady, [Page 221] Mrs. Kendal, assures me, she could swear to their being the words of neighbour Jarvis. They are, however, those of an odd, but tender-hearted fellow, and I hope, he will recommend himself to the patronage of his new Lord.

LETTER XI.

I PROCEED in my transcriptions from my penciled note-book; which, both at home and abroad, I have considered as the vehicle in which I place the unassorted ears I gather in the fields of observation; a plan which has the advantage of collecting my stores from the spots where they grew, and allows the opportunity of selecting and separating, winnowing and pre­serving, at more leisure, after my growing stock is housed. But, though I always perform these several tasks to the best of my judgment, not only before I carry the grain to the public market, but before I send my detached sheaves to you, my judicious friend, in the way of sample, I can no more promise you, that I do not, from oversight, send you some­times [Page 223] a poppy with the corn, sometimes an idle weed with the balmy herbs, and sometimes a useless flower with the verdant loads, than the farmer can undertake to warrant his hay, or his wheat free from a thistle, a weed, or a worm-bite. Neither of us can do more than aver, that no pains are spared to prevent these inter­mixtures becoming objects of weight or con­sequence in the general bulk of our commodity; and, as to myself, I may fairly be allowed to observe, that it has all along been, and will continue to be, my custom, to submit my gatherings to the inspection of some of our most approved judges in the quality of all sorts of literary grain, from the most golden ear of intellectual wheat, to the minutest blade of grass, and simplest flower in the abundant garden of nature, previously to my conveying them to you. Thus guided by their judg­ment in the first instance, and assisted, in the second, by yours, I think I may be permitted, in the language of our English merchants, to "hope you will find the accounts correct, errors excepted."

[Page 224]Immediately on entering the chapel, Jarvis went hastily to the part of the aisle where the ashes of his master were deposited. "Here he lies, Sir Stranger," said he, pointing to the plain stone that covered the remains: "here he is— I help'd to put him down with my own hands— and mine were not the only tears that dropt upon his coffin as it was lowering: if it had been all night in the dew it could not well have been wetter. I don't often cry, but I did then like a beat baby—and the thought on't often makes a child of old Jarvis still." It does honour to his memory, and to your own feelings at this moment, my good Jarvis, said I, per­ceiving his eyes were filling. "And here," cried Jarvis, "is the great Sir Robert—there his first lady—here his second—and there Lord Horace—and I put HIM in too."

As I moved a few steps to inspect the marble of the latter, my foot slid insensibly on the stone sacred to Lord George—"Don't tread upon him, Sir Gentleman," said Jarvis, sud­denly, but very gently plucking my coat— "Its foolish enough, you'll say, but I never set [Page 225] foot on it myself if I can help it—but then to be sure I was but his serving-man—yet, I be always so bold to keep off strangers when I can; and many's the douse I have given the boys and girls, whose fathers and mothers he gave house and home to, whensomever I have seen them run and scuttle over it, as if it was the grave of one of my Lord's greyhounds; or as if it held the bones of such a fellow as his humble servant, Jarvis."

The most natural testimony of the speaker's full heart followed this expression. He bowed at every word he uttered of the last line, and it was precisely such a bend, both of the head and body, as a comparative sense of situations betwixt master and servant, excites in a grateful and respectful domestic: and I am convinced it was just the sort of reverence which Jarvis had often paid in the life-time of his Lord: for the features, the air, and the accent, of a dutiful adherent all harmoniously accorded. At the end of a very long pause which ensued, he shook his head, and in a sigh-retarded articu­lation, exclaimed—"Little and great must all [Page 226] go, to be sure, but I wish I could have got cleverly at the speech of you before you lost yourself, Lord George, just to have heard you say—Jarvis, I don't think any more of your sauce!—or that you could but know how I have mop'd about it since—may be, though, you DO know it, for 'twill be a bad job for other folk's souls, if yours, Lord George, an't in heaven."—The head continued shaking till the owner of it arrived at this consolatory close, when, seeming to be inspired with the cheering influence of the sentiment, he lifted up his drooping figure, and cried—"'Tis nothing but dust, Sir Stranger, that lies here, and a man loses his time in moaning thus for a heap of bones, which, to be sure, we are all born to be, gentle and simple, you and I! So now let me tell you something about this fine old affair a little farther on."

He pointed to a stone coffin. "That, too, is a Walpole," added he; "part, you see, broke: eleven years back I got a piece of his rib. He was taken up in Brumsthorpe church­yard, and brought here—was one of the Nor­wich [Page 227] bishops, with the date on his foot—and that's all we know of him. Lookee, there are the 'scutcheons of our Orfords—Sir Robert's and Lord George's—and there is the last the scholar Lord's, not yet put up."

And are there to be no other monuments erected to them?

"None, Sir Stranger."

This intelligence interested my mind, and if I were not fearful of hazarding too bold a figure, should add, inspired my Muse. By her assistance at least on my return to Mrs. Kendal's, I finished from the note-marks, made as I repassed the park, the tributary lines which follow:

LETTER XII.

THE good clerk was little disposed to break in upon the reflections that filled my mind, as he returned with me to the inn, being himself inclined to silent meditation: on re­joining him, however, after two or three con­vivial hours which he passed at the birth-day and audit feast, the quaint hilarity of his character, which opened our first views of him returned, and he was earnest to know if he could give me any farther pleasure. To ask this well-meant question, he came from the festive throng into the room where I had been throwing upon paper the verses which con­cluded my last letter. He had obviously dispel­led the gloom collected at the chapel, where he bewailed the dead, and by some generous draughts, had since warmed his heart towards the [Page 231] living. He now came with a hope I would not refuse to go into the banquetting apartment to drink the health of his Highness-ship, George Prince of Wales, the new master and mistress of Houghton, Lord and Lady Cholmondeley, and success to the sickle—making a very respectful, though not quite correct, bow, for each of the objects thus to be toasted. Having promised this, I was proceeding to place my papers in a small ecritoire which is always my compagnon de voyage, when the page on which I had written the monumental verses falling on the floor, he picked it up with great respect, and said, as he delivered it to me, he fancied, it was full of poetals. He instantly repeated, that it had pleased GOD, though he was a poor fellow, to give him a fairish understanding in the natural line, and that he had made a poetal or two himself: one on a famous dog of Lord George's, which beat every thing, both at Swaffham and Newmarket, and one the night Lord George was buried. I told him I would gladly ex­change with him on that subject, by reading my poetal to him, if he would read or repeat his [Page 232] to me. "Yours then, Sir Stranger, first: my head is a little noncomposs'd at present."

I then read to him what I had the pleasure to insert in my last letter; and I dare say his poetals, which did not, however, return to his memory in time for me to see them, were not more curious than his criticals, which I received in the very words I will give them to you. Yet it is not in written, nor, indeed, in any oral, language, but his own, that I can express or figure him. Though a little noncomposs'd, as he called it, that is, inspirited by circulating the jovial rounds to the healths of the Prince, the new Lords of Houghton Hall, and success to the sickle, just enough to obliviate the gloom which the scene in the church had produced, the quaint gravity of his voice, and the innocent conceits of himself, mixed with his opinion of others, came to the exact point of being pleasant. One bumper too little, I have ob­served, will make an Englishman of this class, sullen, incommunicative, or rudely talkative, and one too much renders him insufferably loquacious; while the medium glass seems to [Page 233] invigorate his active, and excite his dormant good qualities, or talents, but drinking deep, or not drinking at all, discloses all that are bad and offensive, making him a downright saucy or sulky fellow.

At friend Jarvis's desire I read the verses twice over, "because poetals," he said, "hit a poor man i' th' noddle, harder than prosals; at first I can't so cleverly get at 'em." On the second reading he had comments for almost every couplet. Accept a few:— ‘All of one noble stock, and all our own. Line 8.’

On telling him these applied to three of the Walpoles, he cried, "Sir Stranger, you are right, as to that poetal—for they are all our own, sure enough—but as you say, there were three times three of them Muses. I have met with some of they in one of our books in the library, about the gods and goddesses; though there was, as I thought, a pretty deal of deviltry in them, too—and as for the goddesses, I think a little whipping at the cart's tail would have [Page 234] been too good for most of they. I should be sorry to have my old dame half as bad as the best of 'um. By the bye," added he, "three times three is just the rounds we have been making out of the jolly birth-bowl below, to his Highness-ship, and the other honourships, the founders of the feast, and I hope, Sir Gentleman, you will help us off with three times three rounds more—when you have got through your poetals. So, pray, read on— but don't hurry—'Learning is better than house or land,' ay, or punch either."

I smiled and proceeded:

That, observed I, is designed as a tribute to the goodness of your noble—

"Lord George," interposed the learned clerk, "you need not tell me that.—Before I have done with you, please GOD, I'll shew you more of this, not only in printed book, but [Page 235] in other guess places, worth all the poetals that ever was—yours, Sir Gentleman, into the bar­gain:"

"Died a Peer—there you hit him," quoth Jar­vis, "he was but an Honourable before—a nation great poetal, though; and a good Sir gentle­man, which is better.—One of the sups of broth I used to take from the Hall kitchen to one of Lord George's poor bodies is worth all them devil come gods, and goddesses too—muse ma­dams into the bargain.

"Piradims!" repeated the clerk▪ "ay, there you hit him again, Sir Stranger, but please GOD, I will know more about it by next Sunday. As you said, the poetals are to be left in my church"—I had told him so—"I'll have at them at bye-hours all the week—for you may see I have a little meaning of these things in me—but must not let 'em lie about to [Page 236] be catch'd up every Sabbath by our Houghton-folk, who could no more make 'em-out than the old Walpole in the stone coffin I shewed you—except the steward—Mrs. — the housekeeper, and Mrs. Kendal, my landlady here below, who has no bad gift at poetals herself."

"I am sure," exclaimed Jarvis, fervently, "Lord George has one in mine! ay, and I will have every word of the poetal here in my head, before my new lady comes, which is to be in October; and till then I will clap 'um in my prayer-book, and the first Sunday morning she comes to church they shall be laid on her ladyship's Pess, and I will tell her they were left for the family by a travelling poeter: and I'll tell her ladyship your name, Sir Stranger, if you like to say who you be."

That is not necessary, but you may say, if you please, they were left by the Gleaner.

[Page 237]"Very well, Mr. Gleaner, ^* and so I will— and for that matter, about that time I shall be a Gleaner myself—but first and foremost I shall be Mr. Harvester—and by the same token only hear how they farmer-gentry in the par­lour, and we worky-folk in the kitchen, roar out the sickle-songs, as we call them—enough to turn the heads of poor Mrs. Kendal, and her well-look'd daughter—but, as I said, harvest comes but once a year—so, what say you, Sir Stranger?—huzza! there they work it, huzza! [Page 238] —a drop after your poetals, won't be amiss— huzza! his Highness-ship for ever"—

The cheary echos, and choruss'd burthens from below, now had their full effect upon every muscle in the face, and, indeed, in every limb of my right learned clerk and commen­tator, and that I might not any longer detain him from joining the happy groupe, I delivered him the monumental lines, to be presented with "what flourish he might." And after putting them very cautiously in his pocket-book, between, as he said, two bans of marriage, and notice of a parish meeting for the next Sunday, I rose to accompany him down stairs; where two as jovial crews had assembled as I ever had the delight to see happy: more especially, as is usually the case, those in the kitchen; at the supreme presidency of which our learned clerk soon placed himself. They were gathered together in the inn facing the old grand entrance, which was built by Sir Robert Walpole, and it may be fairly doubted, whether since the foundation of his splendid hall, or this his humble inn, there has [Page 239] met, on any occasion, a set of more blissful beings. Amorous and agricultural songs were mixed, unclouded joy shook the loud note as from their heart of hearts, and the louder the sound, the truer the joy.

"Home, celebrate Harvest-home,"—an old field ditty in great favour with the English pea­santry, was encored and re-encored with that vehemence of applause, which marks in a par­ticular manner, the labouring parts of mankind when loosed a little from toil to joy, which they describe by a mixture of ungovernable noises, from hands, feet, and voice.—This is the point of time which opens the whole soul of this useful class of men; throws hand into hand, heart into heart, and divides good-fellowship from drunkenness. It is a crisis when a lover of nature, and of his species, whatever might be the state of his own mind, unless his temper is harder than the severest misfortune, must "gather bliss to see his fellows bless'd"—and at such a moment have I recently come, dear Baron, from viewing this care-free groupe of beings: every one of whom, in the pauses from [Page 240] drink, dance and song, bore genuine evidence of the high and endearing qualities of the late and present possessors of Houghton-Hall. The groundless fears of some of the domestics, from the apprehension that old adherents of the family would be dismissed to make way for new—the goodness of their new Lord in continuing the generous custom of their Lord to receive, for the rent of each house in Houghton-Village, a shilling instead of a guinea—the school bounty, and establishment instituted by Lady Cholmon­deley, for poor male and female children—with their pretty uniform dresses, in preparation for the day on which they are first to have the honour of appearing before their patroness— these, and various other records of the existing charities and benevolencies were all poured forth, with tones, and with looks, that ratified the intelligence. It was AN HONEST MOMENT; and a spectator might securely have given in to the court of humanity every syllable of the evidence on oath: and it will make your heart glow, my friend, as it has already done mine. Would you had been at my side to have shared [Page 241] it [...] alas! many an hour must intervene before even this imperfect report reaches you; and then it will be but as a fair but faint shadow of the living pleasure I have tasted; but its coun­terpart will wait your coming. On every genial return of the year, you may enjoy the sub­stance, either at the place from which I am now writing, or at some other. Thus the felicity of our peasantry, and the liberality of our Nobles, are not merely local; those who bless, and those who are blessed are widely diffused. You will meet with heart-touching instances of both; and while nature groans, and philanthropy is bleed­ing in almost every other land, and those amongst us who have never—as alas! we too often have, my friend, heard those groans, or seen that blood, raise the voice of discontent, you will be convinced that we may proudly say, that the poorest subject of the realm of England,—amidst all our foes, abroad and at home—all our political evils, or religious errors—and I not only confess, but will dis­cover to you many of each—our very day-la­bourers,—our children of the plough and of the [Page 242] flail—nay, even those who, literally, can neither toil nor spin,—our children of age, of infirmity, and of misfortune, are better secured in their domestic enjoyment—in the dear and fertile land whereon they live, in their morsels of property upon it—in their sickness and their sorrows better consoled and administered to, than either the rich or poor in any other coun­try of the globe. ^*

You will more than forgive, my friend, you will welcome these patriot effusions of a heart, which, though it feels an enlarged wish for the happiness of mankind, more affectionately beats to Britain; not, simply, because it is ‘Link'd to that heart, by ties for ever dear;’ [Page 243] but, because, having had various opportunities of seeing, and residing in many other popular countries, and making on each comparative observations, not those of an enthusiast or of a bigot, but of a slow, patient, and pausing ex­perimentalist, I must again, and as often as every fresh cause offers, pronounce England, with all its imperfections on its head, THE UNRIVALLED COUNTRY. I will venture to add, no man that has at any time been, or that now ^* is within the shelter of its protecting arms, has "seen its like."

Nor have I ever yet conversed with a tra­velled person, or read a travelled Authour— supposing him to have possessed the degree of health which fairly tints every object, who has not been of this opinion—whatever his character — whatever be his country. The rule, therefore, is, I am persuaded, general: and I cannot allow, as exceptions, those [Page 244] ephemera who fly from one clime to an­other, with the idle and undetermined course of a butterfly, and who, if you will permit me the use of a facetious expression, are as com­pletely ignorant of the real good which a country contains, as a cat or monkey running over a harpsichord is of the use of the keys; from a skilful touch of which, even were it an indifferent instrument, the true artist would bring some sweet sounds.

P. S. You will more than accept, you will welcome, a brilliant passage from an animated foreigner, who, while he confirms, illustrates the exulting assertions of the foregoing letter; assertions, my friend, which, on so many dif­ferent occasions I already have been, and, I trust, shall again, be called upon, in the cha­racter of a faithful delineator, an intrepid defender of my country, to maintain. And so firmly do I feel myself standing on this ground, that I am ready to meet whatever wit, elo­quence, ambition, ridicule, or enmity could oppose to the unadorned, the almost naked arms of truth.

[Page 245]MALLET DU PAN, and the reputation that is associated with him, cannot be unknown to you. This slight mention of his name will bring him to your mind, as the indefatigable and ingenious opposer of anarchy, and the French Directory; a native, I believe, of Switzerland, that stu­pendous and romantic country with which you are so enamoured, and justly, whether it be con­sidered topographically or intellectually. He left Switzerland just in time to escape the requisition, made by the five new despots of Paris to their Helvetic dependants, to deliver up every man of genius who was their adversary. Soon after his arrival in the country where every man of every nation is safe, and where all genius is honoured and rewarded, he published the pro­spectus of a work, called "Mercure Britan­nique," with the avowed purpose of being the public accuser of the French Directory, and vigilant detector of all their falsehoods and fabrications. He has kept his word; began, and has continued every fortnight an animated commentary on the conduct of France, and the other powers of Europe, including a [Page 246] general and accurate history of the times, and drawing the characters of the chief actors in the hurly-burly of this amazing scene. His book will be a most valuable source to the future historian, and I am happy to inform you that my countrymen have shewn themselves sensible of the merit of such a writer. You will find a copy of his work, so far as it has proceeded, in the literary packet I am preparing for the first safe opportunity. In the mean time, the passage I have promised, and which will be recommendatory of the rest, shall now be transcribed:

"J'ai laissé le Continent, persuadé que l'An­gleterre touchoit à sa perte, & que la France alloit l'engloutir dans ses chaloupes canonnières. Les plus courageux, en lui accordant la possi­bilité d'une résistance extérieure, la livroient aux fleaux d'une revolution interne: l'un gemissoit sur la ruine de son commerce, l'autre sur celle de ses finances; & si l'on admiroit son heroisme, on en plaignoit l'inutilité.

"Quelle surprise d'observer, en debarquant, que la guerre la plus terrible à laquelle aucun [Page 247] empire ait été exposé, produit mille fois moins de risques, de trouble, de tristesse, & de crainte, que les charmes de la paix dans lesquels se bercent en frissonnant tous les concurrens à la concorde avec la République Françoise!

"C'est avec 800 vaisseaux de guerre, 150 mille matelots, trois cent mille hommes sous les armes, 50 millions sterling versés annuelle­ment, par le patriotisme, l'opulence & la libéralité publique, dans la balance des res­sources; c'est avec des victoires périodiques, dont les annales de la marine d'aucun peuple n'avoit encore présenté l'éclat; c'est en affer­missant tous les ancres d'une admirable con­stitution, à mesure que l'ennemi tente de les soulever, que l'Angleterre attend sans crainte comme sans impatience, l'issue de ses dangers.

"Lorsqu'on voit des flottes innombrables apporter à l'Angleterre les tributs de l'univers, & renouveller sans interruption la richesse na­tionale, sous la protection d'une force navale devant laquelle les François osent à peine aujourd 'hui hasarder quelques pirates; lorsqu'on [Page 248] contemple ces merveilles d'industrie, de travail, & d'activité, toutes les sources d'opulence & de grandeur maintenues & augmentées, à côté des obstructions, de la langueur, du décourage­ment, des désastres, qui ont ruiné depuis six ans le commerce & la richesse des nations les plus florissantes; lorsque de Londres aux mon­tagnes d'Ecosse, du trône à la chaumière, du parlement à la plus chétive municipalité, dans les comptoirs comme dans les palais, chez le citadin le plus obscur comme chez le pair de la Grande Bretagne, on observe un sentiment & un dévouement uniformes; tant de lumières unies à un attachement si enthousiaste à la patrie & à ses loix, un accord si heureux entre le gouvernement & la nation, & toutes les con­ditions en harmonie, repousser d'un commun effort le féroce étranger qui menace leur liberté & leur bonheur, on s'agenouille devant la Pro­vidence qui transmet cette leçon vivante à tous les peuples, comme un Phare de secours & de préservation." ^*

[Page 249]"I left the continent under an apprehension that England was on the brink of ruin, and [Page 250] that France with her gun-boats was going to complete her destruction. The most confident, [Page 251] allowing her the possibility of an exterior resist­ance, gave her up to the scourges of an internal revolution: one bewailed the destruction of her commerce, another that of her finances; and when her heroism was admired, the inutility of it was lamented.

"How was I surprised on landing, to find that a war, the most terrible that any Empire was ever exposed to, produces a thousand times less risk, trouble, sadness and fear, than the charms of Peace, in which all the competitors for concord with the French Republic rock themselves and tremble!

"It is with 800 ships of war, 150,000 sea­men, 300,000 men under arms, £50,000,000 sterling annually poured by public patriotism, opulence and liberality, into the scale of re­sources; it is with periodical victories, the brilliancy of which has never yet been equalled in the naval annals of any nation; it is in [Page 252] securing all the anchors of the admirable con­stitution the more, the more the enemy tries to remove them, that England waits without fear and without impatience the issue of her dangers.

"When we see innumerable fleets bearing the tributes of the whole world to England, and without interruption renewing the national wealth, under the protection of a naval force, before which the French scarcely dare now to venture a few pirates; when we compare those wonders of industry, labour and activity, all the sources of opulence and grandeur maintained and increased, with the obstructions, languor, discouragements and disasters, which have ruined for six years past the commerce and wealth of the most flourishing nations; when from London to the Highlands of Scotland, from the Throne to the Cottage, from the Par­liament to the pettiest Borough, in Counting-houses as well as in Palaces, at the obscurest citizen's as at the peer's, we observe a uniform sentiment and zeal, so much knowledge united to so enthusiastic an attachment to the country and its laws, so happy an agreement between [Page 253] the Government and the Nation, and all ranks and degrees in harmony conspiring to repel the ferocious stranger who menaces their liberty and their happiness, we fall on our knees before Providence, who gives this living lesson to all nations as a watch-tower of help and preser­vation."

LETTER XIII.

WITH assenting heart, I joined in the harmless merriment of these humble children of nature, and after the cheap dedication—I will not call it sacrifice—of a single half hour to their festivities, I withdrew, amidst their bless­ings, to my chamber, where, having transcribed the impressions I had received, I took my walk of contemplation in the park, under favour of the Harvest-moon, in one of the most balmy-breathing evenings I have ever known in Eng­land. I repassed every object which I had visited in the morning; but partly from the accession of interest they had gained by the various circumstances and reflections that had since taken place, and partly from the new and more benign aspect they assumed, from the [Page 255] mild influence of that orb, which softens every thing within reach of her beams, my satisfaction seemed not so much a repetition as an improvement. The gentle night-breeze that whispered amongst the branches—the majestic foliage, whose canopy half admitted and half excluded the moon-ray, which broke into fairy and playful shadows at my feet—the timid steps of the deer, as they tripped before me—the attempered magnificence, yet height­ened magic, of the Hall where the illustrious persons who had supplied my heart with so many impressive circumstances, both within and without the mansion, and the lunar survey of that church, in which the ashes of those persons reposed, combined to produce that feeling of the mind which is the most solemn, and, perhaps, the most salutary. To the farthest extent of the scene within sight of the eye, or hearing of the ear, every thing,—for even the zephyr seemed to slumber for a time,—became as still as the silent portraits of the family in the house, or the dust of the originals over which I had paused in the church.

[Page 256]Going up close to one of the Gothic windows I looked into the church, and, aided by the moon, saw the flat marbles under which the Walpoles were buried as distinctly as by day, and in a more awful point of view. Of the Prime Minister and the Poet, what then re­mained, my dear Baron, that could give them "form and pressure" in the mind of a meditative traveller, but the image of the virtues and talents they were known to possess in their days of nature, and which that mind appreciated? Truly may I answer, the rest "was leather and prunella:" their titles, their wealth, their honours, the loud applauses of the senate, and the softer voice of the Muses were lighter than the dust of their crumbling bones, in the scale of reflection.

Yet a few years, thought I, and the whole of those merry-hearted groupes whom I have just left in a happiness, high, perhaps, as mortals can taste, from the strong and mingled emotions of simplicity, vivid spirits, animated by unusual auxiliaries, and a respite from labour, —yet a few years▪ and these, with all the myriads [Page 257] that at this moment wake or sleep on the bosom of the earth, shall, like the tenants of that cold spot, be covered in its bowels. My face was still pressed to the casement, and my eye, intently directed to the part of the aisle which Jarvis had shewn me, could not have gazed more earnestly, had I expected that the tombs would have yielded to me their dead. It is certain I formed no such notion; neither is my imagina­tion sufficiently creative to embody my own thoughts and fears; shaping them into skele­tons, or throwing over them the customary winding-sheet of the common people, nor their long crape veil and satin manteau; no, nor the coats of mail, nor any other of the prescrip­tive drapery of the dramatic poets: though, in this case, it would have been dressing them more in character to have given Horace the Bard's velvet-cap and loosened shirt-collar, and Sir Robert the robes of a Peer of England. Indeed, a very slight dash of superstition, might have helped me to work up as well-accoutred a pair of sprites as have lately appeared either in print or on the stage.

[Page 258]As I stood to view the effect of the moon­light on the four lofty cupolas of Houghton, and on the desolated wing of the building which had been destroyed by fire, and was yet black from the flame, the wonders of Otranto passed across my mind, assimilating, in some degree, with the imagery around me; and I should have had as good a shadow ^* of proba­bility in seeming to see the author of that awe-exciting romance, rise before me with a magici­an's wand in his hand, as any of the literary conjurers, in my country or in yours; and the influence of a Prime Minister of State, being, in the opinion of many, more potent than any other magician, there would have been at least as strong reason to support me, had I fancied Sir Robert moving before me in the plenitude of power with more than the enchantments of Prospero.

But I was not wrought up to fancy any of these preternatural visions, yet if such appear­ances [Page 259] had really been permitted, this was, methought, a moment in which my mind would have been best fitted to receive and to welcome them, had they 'taken any shape in which they could have been recognized. I became interested and even affected, by the varieties of light and shade that the sweet planet over my head had given to the objects; when walking a few paces backward, to survey the exterior of this picturesque little edifice of public worship, somewhat of a hard-breathed sigh aroused my attention: the sudden move­ment of a light step, several times repeated, increased the alarm. There came over me, a kind of chilling sensation, which, it is probable, even heroes have felt on hearing unexpected sounds after a ghost-story, while alone and in the night; and though the foot-steps were now close behind me, I had not resolution to turn round to see from what or whom they pro­ceeded: I shifted ground a little more to the other side of the church, and the instant I did so, I felt the skirt of my coat forcibly struck; a hurried movement succeeded. This [Page 260] impelled me to press yet more round to the back of the building, where I remained still and silent, and with a palpitating breast, till I found every thing else so. I was beginning to recede, when the moon shone on two large dark eyes staring full in my face!

Believe me, I shall henceforth the less wonder, at the force of imagination in others, under the influence of certain fears, against which no courage can stand prepared. It was not immediately I could perceive, that over those eyes grew a pair of lofty antlers, the property of one of the Houghton Bucks, and who had got, like myself, by stealth into the church-yard. The long-drawn sigh, heard at first, was but the natural consequence of the poor animal's respiration in a comfortable nap, and the quick motion which followed, merely the natural effect of my own retrograde steps, as they approximated the sod he had chosen for his bed, and being abruptly driven out of it. Thus it is, my friend, that, not only con­science, but FANCY

It is probable that were most of the ghostly terrours which have so long haunted men's ima­ginations, to be traced from their effects to their causes, they would be as humanly accounted for as the apparition of the poor Buck in Houghton church-yard.

Yet the mind, circumstanced as mine then was, does not very readily recover its poise. Both at the cause and effect we smile long be­fore we have resumed ourselves. The harmless creature that occasioned my late apprehensions, seemed to watch the opportunity which my opening the church-gate afforded him, of escap­ing from himself and joining the herd. I saw him run eagerly to some of his companions, and I have not a doubt but he made them as well acquainted with the adventure and with the alarm I had put him to, in his language, as I have explained it to you in mine. I will venture to speak yet more positively as to the consolation I am sure he received from their [Page 262] Society. I felt that my consolements must be derived from a similar source—I had, indeed, no friends, to whose bosoms I could resort for immediate relief; but, blessed be the medium through which our joys and griefs can be com­municated from heart to heart, and receive returns of sympathy, though separated by dis­tant shores, and though vast gulphs roll be­tween them!—I could hasten to my "local habitation" at the King's-head, and relieve my­self, as I have now done, by addressing the Baron de B****.

LETTER XIV.

IT will interest you to read whatever can be collected to the posthumous honour of a nobleman whose life was distinguished by so many works of practical benevolence. I will not, therefore, deny either you or myself the pleasure of communicating a liberal and judi­cious review of his general character, from a gentleman who was well acquainted with the valuable qualities that formed it.

Such an example of active patronage in the agriculture of an extensive county, added to so much unvaunted private bounty, cannot be too widely diffused, nor too closely emulated. It is, indeed, of more importance to society, and goes nearer to the heart than all the catalogues and criticisms of pictures and paint­ings, whether modern or antique, from the [Page 264] imperial palace where the pictorial treasures of Houghton Hall are now transferred, to the dismantled gallery of Duzzeldorf, thence to dismantled Italy, onward to their present revo­lutionary depositories in Paris. Such a cultiva­tor of his native land, and such a protector of the useful peasantry that render it productive, under his encouraging auspices, gives to the part of the earth intrusted to his care, a new face, to nature a richer form, and teaches wealth and industry their wisest lesson.

The public papers that have announced the death of Lord Orford have recorded the ancestry from which he was descended, the heirs of his honours, and the inheritors of his wealth, and have dwelt upon the titles that are extinct or devolved, together with all the posts and em­ployments that are vacant. To me be the melancholy duty, says the author ^* of this tribute, of noting what is of much more mo­ment than the descent of peerage, or the [Page 265] transfer of an estate—the loss of an animated improver; of one who gave importance to cultivation by a thorough knowledge of political oeconomy; and who bent all his endeavours towards making mankind happy, by seconding the pursuits of the farmer, and the inquiries of the experimentalist: I leave the lieutenancy of a county, the rangership of a park, and the honours of the bedchamber, to those in whose eyes such baubles are respectable, I would rather dwell on the merit of the first importer of South-down sheep into Norfolk; on the merit of sending to the most distant regions for breeds of animals represented as useful, not, indeed, always with success, but never without liberality in the motive; on the patron and friend of the common farmer, not the lord of a little circle of tenants, but the general and diffusive encourager of every species of agricultural improvement, nor did he associate with useful men because he was not qualified for the com­pany of higher classes, for his mind was fraught with a great extent of knowledge; it was decorated by no trivial stores of classical [Page 266] learning, which carried and set off the powers of a brilliant imagination, and thus qualified alike for a court, or an academy of science, he felt no degradation in attending to the plough.

There were, it is said, strong peculiarities, and some shades in this estimable character: but they have so little to do, with the real and general good to be educed from the parts above stated, that you will excuse my officiously gathering them up to send them into Ger­many, or extend their circulation in England. Much less shall I allow myself to dwell on the circumstances which clouded several years of his valuable life, and which grew, alas! more and more dark till they brought on the gloomy catastrophe of his death. Be it sufficient to say, that in that event, the British farmer was deprived of a wise instructor, the labourer of a generous friend, the county of Norfolk of a protector, and England of a real patriot, with­out any of the obtrusive claims, and noisy pretences to patriotism—a word as little under­stood, and as much abused, perhaps, in all countries, as any in language.

[Page 267]To the above meritorious nobleman, it has been already observed to you that our celebrated Horace Walpole, the youngest son of Sir Robert, and uncle to Lord George, succeeded. It has been said very truly, that his Royal and Noble Authors, and Historic Doubts, sufficiently prove his excellence as an English antiquary, and how much the most dull and dry subjects in the hands of a man of genius, may be rendered interesting and amusing. His lighter works are all marked by an easy elegance of style, a playfulness of imagination, and a deli­cacy of wit, of which kind of writing ^* he first set the example in England, as Voltaire some years before had done in France. His Lordship [Page 268] dying in the 80th year of his age, March 2, 1797, the earl Cholmondeley came into pos­session of the Houghton estate, the 20th of the same month, and it could not have de­volved into more worthy hands.

Houghton village consists of a single street of neat brick buildings, uniform both within and without: it was erected by Sir Robert for his own appropriate little tenantry and poor. From forty to fifty families of this description have here comfortable homes, with various indulgent privileges attached, and for which, that it may not altogether have the air of a bounty, they are rated for room-rent, at an annual guinea, which has, for a time long past, been received in full by a yearly shilling; a mode of payment con­tinued by the present noble proprietor of the town. I have conversed with several of the inhabitants, sat down in their cottages, heard their tales of satisfaction, and seeing them all happy, am myself the happier. It has, indeed, been a sincere joy to me this morning, to observe not only those who had gaily yielded to the brief respite of their toils last night, but a [Page 269] numerous band of others, young and old, the garrulous Jarvis at their head, each crowned with a sickle, going with willing hearts, and therefore more able hands, to begin that harvest, which a few hours ago I had heard them so gleefully anticipate. I saw them gather into jovial rings the length of their street, three deep, the centre formed by the men, the top part by the women, and that nearest the road by the park paling,—which is their boundary,— gave space for the children. Three merry and heart-sent huzzas were given, and then, quitting hands, they all started together for the field, as if they were rushing to their pastime.

Happy, harmless beings! we commiserate, my friend, those whom we should gratulate, and measure the sum of felicity, not by the healthful labour of others, but by our own dispiriting in­dolence. I was up with the sun to witness this preparation for hard work. The face of that sun, though he had risen in splendour, looked not more joyous than did the blithe and rosy coun­tenances he shone upon. To a man of your unsophisticated feeling—to any man who has [Page 270] a heart, and loves his kind—it was a sight worth a journey from your German Chateau, to the spot in England where scarce two hours ago it delighted your friend.

In what spirits did it not send me back to my little inn! and what a zest has it given to my pleasant breakfast; which, instead of taking alone in the room where I had at first ordered it, mixed me with mine hostess and her family in her own bar parlour. A scene of sadness would have sent me pining into the solitude of my chamber, for I derive little solace from making others as wretched as myself, when the division of pain is the only good to be expected from its communication. But in joy!—in the fulness of happy feelings, not to seek, and even throw oneself in the way of any human creature that has enough of heart to share it, unites folly to avarice. It hoards the treasure which would accumulate by circulation.

And mine hostess has a heart, and her fair daughter another. I described what I had heard and seen; a tale of glee and good humour seldom wants a well-natured hearer, and all was [Page 271] as it should be. I had ordered my horse, when I found, all at once, that mine hostess was a poet; Whilom she had sung, a famous cour­sing match, in Houghton-park:

And those were two of her verses, which, for aught I know, merit the prize as well as the greyhounds. Yea, and her Muse had mourned, if not amid the inspirings of poesy, in the simplicity of truth, which is better, the death of Lord George:

Moreover a song of her own composing was amongst the joyous tributes of yesterday's con­viviality, and the poet-hostess herself has furnished me with a stanza, by which you may judge of the rest:

No bad wish, you will say, for an inn-keeper: but I am satisfied the author had no more idea of self-love, or self-interest while she wrote, than had the merry mortals who sung and re­sung her strain. Whoever could enter into the sentiment, I will be sworn would have been wel­come to the most exhilarating accompaniments of her cellar. And as for criticism upon the poetry, the Cynic whose brow could have wrinkled at the humble efforts of a self-taught, happy being, in the momentary overflowings of her gratitude, ought never to smile again, or have cause to smile.

LETTER XV.

AFTER you have passed the boundary of Houghton plantations, you will meet nothing to win attention from reflections on the past, till you reach FAKENHAM; if, peradventure, you do not immediately direct your steps to HOLKHAM: unless, indeed, you should be in­duced to pass a few minutes at the outskirt of the village of East Rudham, and there converse with my poor ANTHONY FLOWER, the old man of the gate.

Thirty and seven years has this veteran sat, as he told me, in the capacity of clerk under the minister, and, every Sabbath-day sits under him still; "because the minister, Sir," says he, "will not part with me, and because we have [Page 274] gotten into years together." (I am using Anthony's words,) "GOD be bless'd! I can say Amen still, and, except now and then, in the right places; and when I don't so cleverly hit it off, as I us'd to do, master gives me a nudge, and I am almost sure to have it next time."

He told me, moreover, that the minister has a fine voice, and always marks the closing words of a prayer with more force, to serve as a cue to the clerk. Anthony has kept a gate, which you will find at the end of the town, upwards of seven years; in Winter he pulls it open to the passengers from a mossed hut, which seems a part of himself; in summer, from the bank, where the sods are formed into a pleasant seat, and where he can feel that cordial of age, the nourishment of the sun. He was born in the year eleven; and though now demi-deaf, and more than demi-blind— for he is almost in total darkness—he contrives to carry on his double duties as usual: "Yes— thank GOD—old master still likes to have me pottering about him, Sir," said Anthony, "and, I fancy, he would miss me of a Sabbath, if he [Page 275] did not see me, as much as all of the parish would his discourse—for he's a fine discourser, and practises as well. Ay, and I should miss him as much if I did not hear him; and I have often said, if any body else should sit under him, and take away my Amen while I can call it, it would go hard with me. I am a poor man, to be sure, Sir, but I had rather throw myself wholly on my gate-gettings, than lose my seat under my minister, though I should not get a farthing for doing it."

But is it not difficult for you to get either to your gate or your pew, Anthony? questioned I.

"No;" he answered, "not so much as I might think. 'Tis true, he was getting feebler and feebler every day, and he could not do a sort himself: but his town-folk were very good natur'd to him, because he never did harm to any of them, but now and then, times are gone, a good turn: his little grand-daughter, every night at sun-set, led him from his gate to the village: his wife, though, to be sure, be-crippled, always made shift, hitherto, to ring his Sabbath, and his burial bells— [Page 276] to chime in and to chime out — his little grand-daughter would shoot up soon, and be able to do more for him in a year or two—if it should please GOD to let him live so long— but as he did not like to take up her time now, as he lov'd her, and paid for her schooling, he gave her every twelfth halfpenny he got at his gate; and as she was a very good, pretty-like-looking girl, he wished to give her some learning; so got one neighbour or another, as he went to work, to help him to his gate. "I was always up betimes, Sir," added An­thony, "and in my young years as stirring as any of them. Why, for a sort of years I was a carrier, and walked twice a week by the side of my cart—for I was almost too proud, with such a pair of legs under me, to ride—from Lynn, Rudham, and other places, to Norwich, and back again as well, and as to wrestling, single-sticking, and such like, few could match ANTHONY FLOWER."

The remains of this man moved at once my pity and my reverence: the frame which is now bowed with, literally, the weight of years, must [Page 277] once have measured to the proudest standard of what we call the hero—a chosen figure for the field of battle—and his limbs, though visibly shrunk by decay, could still boast a less emaciated sign of the fair proportions of manhood, than the attenuated, thread-like, shadowy forms of some of our dissipated youth—they were limbs that measured to the standard of something more than the mere hero; they composed a figure for the field of peace; yet, as the sword has, in every age of the world, been, alas! as necessary as the plough, and as the one has been frequently drawn to protect the other, it behoves us to do honour to both, by entwining the garland of industry with that of glory, the corn-sheaf with the laurel;—O, my friend! that we could, in this terrible crisis, mingle the olive in our wreath.

[Page 278]O, may the wish and prayer of the Poet ^* be soon granted!

But I dare not, at present, trust myself with a subject that to the eye of Pity discolours every scene of the sun that has been shining on my quiet path, and cheering every unmolested object within my view, from the poor gateman on his bank, to the small bird that I now hear whistling near his shed.

Blessed sun! and blessed country! where freedom still adds lustre to his beams! In the wide travel of his orb, around this his zone of attempered radiance—where else, even on this beauteous day, can its inhabitants promise to themselves either the herb which he expands, the fruit which he matures, or the varied seed which multiplies itself in the abundant earth?

The question has the energy of a self-evident proposition, and includes its answer.

[Page 279]And this, Baron, is amongst the prime beatitudes of our land. In almost every other, the establishments of society, the arrangement of nations, and the harmonies of nature are either broken or destroyed. Even in yours, my friend, they are endangered. The Baltic and the Rhine, which partially lave your shores only partially defend them: and you feel already the difference between a Continent, vast and almost immeasurable, without a navy, and a small insulated speck, girded by the ocean which it commands, and guarded by the im­pregnable castles that repel the billow and the foe. The visitations which have been inflicted, on the territory of your Emperor, in the circle of Burgundy and the Belgic provinces, and the contributions since the unstable peace, in dis­tricts bordering on the Lhan, without counting the spoliations on electorates, palatinates, and other principalities, have already desolated their beauty, and drained the internal treasure of an enormous sum; and that only in two campaigns, and a third is begun. In the mean time, our palace and our hut, our bounteous fields and [Page 280] beauteous gardens remain to us. "In Britain, thank GOD!" says an animated writer, "the throne stands above the cottage to protect it; but its basis is too sound to fall upon and crush it." It looks down benignly upon it—it smiles even upon my poor gate-man's shed, my friend, like a tutelary guardian from above.

A very short residence amongst us will carry the conviction of these awful truths from your eye to your heart. You are coming to us with improved faculties; with the partial endow­ments of nature highly cultivated—and with an expanded soul—with feelings too, which an in­timate acquaintance with man, in different climes, and under different governments, have instructed and enlarged. The wisdom thus collected, will prepare you for an early, un­prejudiced, and honest confession, and for a full enjoyment of what would, indeed, inspire in the breast of every foreigner a sentiment of admiration; though in some bosoms, it would be mixed with envy; yet, what is envy but admiration in despair? In your manly bosom, the emotion will be as generous as honourable.

[Page 281]A survey of England, were you now its visit­ant—and could that survey of it be taken, even at this perturbed crisis;—its still uninjured scenery, its life-sustaining surface, its prosper­ing agriculture, its protected arts, its guarded commerce, and its unviolated property—how­ever hard certain levies on it, in this dread season of uncommon exigence, and of expedi­dient, may seem to bear on those UNTRAVELLED natives, who, happily for them, have not had, —and O, my lov'd countrymen, may ye never have!—the various opportunities which you, and I, my friend, and thousands more have but too often possessed, of comparing themselves with others—of being eye-witnesses how much more tranquil, more rich, more happy, and more secure in rights, in morals, in freedom; in their treasure, their progeny, and their religion—in all that the ALMIGHTY gives, and that man receives—however, I say, the reverse of these simple yet solemn facts, may, by temporary pressures, or seductive arguments, be imposed on some of those who daily possess, though they do not enjoy, the blessings of England, YOU [Page 282] will soon be satisfied, that neither in this, nor in any former sketch, however warmly coloured, have I indulged in the language of enthusiasm or nationality. Yes, were you this moment— and O that you were!—the companion of my way, even at this casual resting-place on the public road—could your liberal eye survey with mine the serenity, the plenty, the exuberance around—could your ear, like mine, receive the unbroken carol of the woods, the villages, the fields, and listen to the undisturbed minstrelsy of gleeful labour, of affection, and of joy, on this fair day, which in so many other parts of the earth dawn'd, and alas! must close, in blood, you would feel, not only what it is to be a Briton, but to be under the shadow of Britan­nia's wing, even in the worst of times!

"We have every thing yet to lose," says a powerful writer, "we have under our own form of government, comfort, protection, honour, security, and happiness. The price of preserv­ing them is, indeed, great, very great; but the price of anarchy, of unqualified reform, and inextricable confusion, would be greater beyond [Page 283] all calculation. We have still many and great resources; but the times never called with so loud, and so commanding a voice, for wisdom, discernment and integrity, for temperate, timely, and gradual concession, with dignity and secu­rity, and for an oeconomy rigid and undeviating, on the parts of our governors. The times call equally for obedience, systematic acquiescence under temporary pressure, alacrity in defence, and vigilance, and loyalty, and steadiness in all the subjects of this land. We have no need of the Roman Armilustrium; our arms are purified already. Our soldiers are loyal and honour­able, and without spot. They have been weighed in the balance, and found perfect. And I trust, our naval flag will never again wave but in defiance to our enemies."

The flame of this manly and impassioned Author kindles into a kind of glory, as he pro­ceeds—"I see" continues he, "the ancient marks of our country in every loyal counte­nance. I would give life to every one who thinks, and who loves our great kingdom and its constitution. In times of national distress [Page 284] Poets have sometimes found means to invigorate the public mind, and to confirm its stability. I speak, indeed, of the days of old, 'the image of our antique world.' But now, when the temple and the citadel, the worship, and the strength, and the constitution of our fore­fathers are to be venerated and defended; it is happy that we can trace and find these powers, each in their order. We may be reminded of all that was depicted in the fabled palace, where the deities once assembled in full consistory:

"But I fable not. We have not the images, but the very things before us; and the words of poetry are set off by the superior force of truth."

I will offer nothing after this very masterly display of oratory in support of truth, but leave it on your heart with the glow it must have produced. Let us not degrade such writers, whatever cause they espouse, by calling them [Page 285] Partizans. They are Philanthropists. They are, indeed, amongst the noblest works of GOD; they are honest men.

Yet, eloquence, philanthropy, genius and honesty may be associated in the same head and heart. The assemblage is rare in any nation; but to the honour of ours you will join the following Verses, on the character of the true POET, to the sentiments of the PATRIOT—by which word▪ I understand a real Lover of his Country—and acknowledge, that we have a right, in this instance, to be proud of their Union:

Such, my dear Baron, is this Poet, Patriot, and Philanthropist!—A man who can thus feel, and thus express his feelings, illustrat­ing his theory by his practice, a teacher of the most sublime art, and amongst the very best illustrations of what is to be taught; one who has proved himself able, alike to point the keen yet polished shaft of satire, and to sweep the lyre, is privileged, even on Mr. Pope's axiom, ^* to censure or to praise. My own pub­lic efforts have slightly, or not at all, come [Page 288] under his notice, either in the way of eulogy or blame; I, therefore, feel myself the more free to pour forth my sentiments of his high capacities, without suspicion of a motive less dis­interested, than the pure enthusiasm which true genius should inspire: and I dare to hope,— though heaven knows we are all feeble beings —had such a Writer been my foe—it being scarcely possible he should be an ungenerous one—I should thus have yielded to the general delight which conviction of general excellence, would have excited in my heart.

Not that I conceive he has always been right in his judgments: and for that reason I lay some stress on the repetitions of the word general. No doubt, he has sometimes, like other men, followed prejudices, and partialities. Me­thinks it might be shewn that he has. In some cases, perhaps, his affections, and in others his informations, may have misled him;—but, "take him for all in all,"—in the varied combinations that unite the accurate Critick, the man of sound sense, the rational Politi­cian, and legitimate Poet, it is a long time [Page 289] since we have seen the like of the Author of the "Pursuits of Literature," in OUR World of Letters: although we have at all times been, as we are now, infested by a mongrel tribe, usurping, by turns, all those august characters, —in the way that a monkey may be said to resemble a man.

Yes, in sad truth, my illumined friend, a race we have, as noxious as numerous; a sorry sort of vermin which not only eject the venom they engender in their own heads and hearts; but, by a baneful kind of process, extract fresh supplies from the sweetest flowers of poesy, and from every precious intellectual substance they literally feed upon and disgorge.

These are amongst the vermin that one of the most brilliant writers England ever had to boast, observes, "find poison every where, take a delight in collecting it, and then diffusing it abroad." ^* Thousands of them are spawned [Page 290] annually even in that palladium, the BRITISH PRESS, whence have issued so many fair crea­tions: [Page 291] but the Rose, you know, nourishes the canker. These pests are more thick than the [Page 292] toads at the bottom of our ditches, as dirty too, as loathsome and as empoisoned. Yet, behold the justice of Heaven! while, for inscrutable rea­sons, they are permitted to operate as a literary plague, in every unclean form of Life-makers, Historians, Memoir-men, Pamphleteers, and Paragraphists, amidst all the intellectual pro­perty and plenty of the land—a land flowing with the milk and honey of true genius—our literary Canaan—they usually die of famine; not unfrequently, indeed, destroyed by an excess of their own gall. Alas! you are no stranger to them on the Continent. Even the profound Lavater and the interesting Zimmerman, have had their share. How many hundred of the miscreant animalcula have viprously crept into the wreathes of our British Bards, banquetted on the beauties of which they were formed, but died like the bloated fly amidst the sweets? [Page 293] And, is it not exulting, to see how that which is immortal, triumphs over that which is corrupt? The spoiler perishes, the wreath remains; the one is swept like the atom away, and of the other not a laurel leaf shall ultimately be injured.

Delightful ZIMMERMAN! tender, empassi­oned Soliloquist, endearing Sage, virtuous man! How often do thy just and generous reflections, animate, or soothe me! how often does thy high and ennobling sense of Genius, and thy proud scorn of its daring yet impotent foes warm my assenting heart! more especially, when I ob­serve little minds, "drest in a petty, brief authority," wreaking their malice upon great ones.

You, Baron, have the happiness to enrol ZIMMERMAN amongst your friends: his virtues, and the sentiments which describe them, are familiar to you. I cannot have a doubt but the subsequent passage, so apposite to what has been just said, is amongst the treasures of your memory.

"The invectives of the vulgar and the in­dignation [Page 294] of the critics, are wreak'd in vain against celebrated names, and against all those who liberally imitate them. Why, say each of them to the laughing blockhead, would you expound the meaning of all that I write, since my finest strokes, congealing in your mind, produce only such frigid ideas? Who are you? by what title do you claim to be keeper of the archives of folly, and arbiter of the public taste? Where are the works by which you are distinguished? When, and where, have you been announced to the world? how many superior characters do you reckon among the number of your friends? What distant country is conscious that such a man exists? Why do you continually preach your nil admirari? Why do you strive to depreciate every thing that is good, great and sublime, unless it be from a sense of your own littleness and poverty? You seek the approbation of the weak and giddy multitude, because no one else esteems you: and despise a fair and lasting fame, because you can do nothing that is worthy of honest praise; but, THE NAME's YOU ENDEA­VOUR [Page 295] TO RIDICULE SHALL BE REMEMBERED WHEN YOUR's WILL BE FORGOTTEN!"

Letters of gold would be too poor for the sentence that closes this animated apostrophe. But it is presented to a rich mind, which knows how to feel and to enshrine it.

LETTER XVI.

THE remarks which ended the last Letter, have kept my mind in the same train of thought during the remainder of my ride, even from the flowery and fruitful spot where I began them; and before I give you any account of this place, you will feel nothing loath, I trust, in permit­ting me to go somewhat farther into the sub­ject.

The CRITICISM of English Literature, can only be of less importance than the LITERA­TURE itself; or, will it not be more correct to say, it forms a part of that Literature! The subject, it is true, has been often discussed as a SCIENCE in a very masterly manner. It has been part even of our school learning, and we [Page 297] have all been taught to reverence the art which directs the human understanding how best to form its judgment, and to exercise the powers which principally distinguish the mind of man.

From the fountain heads, from Athens, Greece and Rome, sources the most rich and pure, flowing in full streams from the Tiber to the Thames, we have derived at once the theory and practice of this great and noble art—an art, which once had, and guardedly speaking, has still for its characteristic, that which, one of our English Bishops has given to what real wisdom and judgment, will ever consider as the most arduous, because the least agreeable part of the critical office. "Satire," says this good old pillar of our church, ^* should be,

[Page 298]But we live in days of revolution; many of the old English terms, such as Patriot, Poet, [Page 299] Critic, Orator, are not yet explained, according to their new interpretations, though we have [Page 300] plenty of new dictionary men, with our great lexicographer at their head—and though the [Page 301] word aster has been joined to each of the above names, as patriotaster, criticaster, &c. much [Page 302] might yet be done. You know enough of our language to see how easily I might pun upon these two adjunct syllables, and with the help only, of what you foreigners call the hisser in our throats, (the s) as critic- ass-ter, dividing one from the other by a slight hyphen, you feel that the appellation would lose none of its force. In solemn discussions, however, we hold punning, on this side the German ocean, to be inadmissible.

Know then, my friend, that amongst our innovations, we have literary statutes at large, and codes of criticism in abstract, with which the noble art, just mentioned, has no more to do, than with Breslaw's art of Trickery. Those [Page 303] codes and statutes, indeed, much more resemble the mighty magic of the miracle-worker last named, than any of the regular bred practi­tioners of old, or of modern times. Circum­scribed mortals! they could only work by rule and measure, the rule of reason, and the measure of right: but the critical Breslaws of Great Britain, might make Longinus, and all other book legislators blush, to think they had exhausted so many years in studying a science which their successors have proved, requires no study, nor any science at all. Why, Sir, we have biographers, who know only, that the subjects of their memoirs, were born within the century, and if not still alive, must certainly be dead; but who, with these slight materials, can story us from the swathing cloaths to the shroud; can catalogue the minutiae of soul and body, vices and virtues, weigh to the fraction of a scruple, even to the weight of a split hair, or thistle-down thrice divided, the natural stock of sense and nonsense, ascertaining each man's share—in short, chartists, who draw maps of our morality, with our black sea, and our red [Page 304] sea, our depths and our shallows, our Scylla and our Charybdis, and all coloured and dis­coloured, and lined and interlined, curved and straightened, even like the map of the world itself. ^*

Yea, and we have critics, who on the like principles, and the like stock of ingenuity and information, deal wholesale and retail in the trade of lampoonery, or panegyric; but, by a singular inversion of common rules, it is a species of fame for an author, or for his book to [Page 305] become the subject of the former, and a kind of disgrace to find himself, or his composition, the burden of the latter.

Peaceful plunder to all such.—You know the remark of Pope. ^* A poetical axiom that has expanded itself through every country, and has a place in every memory. Its truth, indeed, will travel down to all ages, and continue unim­paired till the earth shall be freed of noxious reptiles. But as the animalcula of the mind, like those of the air and earth, are, doubtless, among the evils entailed upon us by the Fall, and will probably, more or less, annoy us till our eternal Rise, they have, I perceive, derived a con­sequence to which they are not entitled, even while I have been describing their filthy nature.

I have to discourse with your enlightened mind, my friend, on a matter of more weight, as to the office of literary criticism.

[Page 306]There cannot be a doubt but that while the liberty of the press, as to the freedom of pub­lication, shall be sacred—and on this side of licentiousness, it ought to be uncontrolled— it is equally just that the sense and nonsense which indiscriminately issue from the immense vehicle of communication, should be subject to vigilant examination; otherwise the whole world would be over-run with abortions of the mind. We want the assistance of some guides, who will take upon themselves the trouble of separating the good from the bad, and wade through the troubled deep of lite­rature, in order, if we may be permitted a continuation of the figure, to collect the pearls and gems, and to describe the useless weeds, whether swimming on the surface, or lying at the muddy bottom. A stupendous labour! if we consider the great disproportion betwixt the former and the latter. Applying this to the case in point, and it is by no means in­apposite, a reader unused to such arduous undertakings, can image to himself no task so overwhelming as that of being left unaided to [Page 307] search for instruction in the mass of productions which are every year piled, mountain high, before him. We will even suppose whatever is most beautiful in fancy, captivating to the heart, and informing to the intellect, under his eye; but he startles at the view of the enormous quantity, nor can any degree of ex­cellence in the quality reconcile, or, indeed, justify him,—in a life so brief, and so connected with other duties as the present,—to the im­measurable fatigue of such a task. Even if there should be found a few persevering spirits, endowed with a fortitude to peruse all that comes to hand, the profit would be no ways answerable to the pain by which it must be procured. For this reason, it would be proper that there should be some professional inspectors to direct our choice, even were lite­rary excellence and defect nearly equal. But when the average is on a ratio of at least ninety in the hundred in the scale of compositions dead weight, there is not, perhaps, any office so necessary as his, who, with patient circum­spection, will examine the great account be­twixt [Page 308] wisdom and folly, and settle the ba­lance.

It is not, therefore, possible to conceive a more useful institution than that of a Literary Journal, when conducted with various ability and inflexible justice; nor can it be denied that a great variety of articles, in every branch of literature, have been analysed on these princi­ples; and a due proportion of good has thence resulted to the community.

Numerous as are the critical reptiles above­mentioned, there are very many writers endued with the perseverance, judgment and candour, necessary to all the useful as well as valuable purposes I have just stated.

We have to boast even at this day, of great and noble critics; and from most, indeed, in all of our Literary Journals, ^* we find substantial [Page 309] evidence of unimpeachable judgment and un­warped integrity. It is not, however, to be expected, that any human association composed of many members, should be conducted on principles uniformly sagacious and correct. Were they to write apart, and consult together ultimately, there must even then often be a clash of sentiment, a dissonance of opinion.

Yet, I am persuaded, the critics above-de­scribed, are the very persons who most reprobate the virulences, and regret the errors for which they are made responsible. The literary body [Page 310] cannot be supposed to separate, or seem to move a limb independently;—much less to commit themselves, and confederate against each other, by deploring the want of candour in some of their colleagues, and of capacity in others. Thus from their not being associated by congeni­ality, or chosen by consent—and yet under a kind of compact to hold together, and by the good faith that should be preserved in all trea­ties, bound to support one another in the way of a common cause—the errors, incongruities, adulations and virulences, which are observed occasionally to disfigure their journals, attach indiscriminately to all.

A man must write from the spirit of envy, or from pique, or ignorance, if he assents not to these arguments because there is monthly con­firmation of them. And of the authors who have, individually, to complain of uncandid treatment, or partial representation, there can­not be one who has genius and candour, in his own mind and heart, but must see and feel there is often just criticism, in the very publication where his own performance may be slighted or aspersed.

[Page 311]If, therefore, like every other valuable insti­tution, abuse has crept into this; if prejudice and prepossession too often vault into the chair, and instead of its becoming a Judgment-seat, where the labours of the human mind are to have a fair trial, it is frequently a secret Tribunal, where the judges are wholly unknown, and the facts judged, so unfairly selected and argued, although formed into the most serious charges, that the work which ought to be condemned is acquitted, and the production that deserves to receive distinguished honours,—is, by this un­generous artifice, supposed to be guilty of all the imperfections imputed to it.—

If, what by a misnomer is called criticism, the mutilated parts of a book are sometimes given as specimens of its general character— If, in offering an author's argument without reference to the context—by which alone its force or feebleness is to be determined—the most important and admirable reasoning is torn from its antecedent and consequent, like a limb hacked from the body, and presented in a mangled state, to serve as a measure for the [Page 312] harmony and beauty of the whole; ^* or if, which is not more generous, or reasonable, a frequently licentious, sometimes malignant dis­play is made of ill-grounded ridicule—a power, by which all things, the most grave and sacred, however happy they may be, in their concep­tion and delivery—are discoloured, distorted, tending to excite the very reverse impression of that they probably would have made, on a mind unseduced by the intemperate sally of misap­plied or ill-tempered wit—and all this to indulge [Page 313] the miserable propensity of raising a laugh against what, even at worst, is, perhaps, the best effort of its author to please the public; and who, possibly, in the bitterness of his dis­appointment, weeps not only over the loss of that daily bread which the scorner earns by his taunts, but which the industrious author has often earned more honestly than his critic— if, while it must be owned there are number­less objects, which deserve to be assailed by all the powers of wit, this dangerous talent snatches the honest morsel from the lip of Genius, for the paltry triumph of saying "a good thing;" —if those compositions which deserve our reve­rence, and which, perhaps, have delighted even the defamer himself privately, have, nevertheless, been publicly sacrificed—If the attempt to turn performances of indubitable merit and labour into ridicule, ^* by shewing them under [Page 314] absurd circumstances, is but too successfully practised. If, "the sovereigns of Reason, and the artificers and purveyors of our most ex­quisite pleasures," ^*—those of the intellect are unquestionably of that order—if the rightful Critic upon the human understanding, is, by the common and inevitable lot of all corporate bodies, thus unfortunately mixt with those critical usurpers, who with pontifical pride, fulminate their defamatory bulls against Genius and Learning, in ignorant pomposity or in rude impertinence — If such accusations are well founded, depend upon it, those who are the true protectors, advocates, and guardians of Literature—the TRUE critics—even while by a sacred duty they are constrained to reprehend, punish, or wholly condemn some of the [Page 315] votaries of science and the Muses, they are the persons most touched and aggrieved whenever the numerous pettifoggers of Literature, any of those unprincipled, usurpers with whom, by imperious circumstances, they may be blended, have perplexed or lost the cause of real Genius or Learning. The verdict, it is true, is always given by the PUBLIC — our Literary Grand Jury—but, if by false reasoning, or false im­pression, by partial evidence, or by corrupt influence, it is practised upon and misguided, the sentence would of course be unjust, though it might have the sanction of a majority of the council and of the judges.

It is the advice of LONGINUS to the Poet, that, on perusing his composition, he should seriously ask himself, whether on such an occasion, HOMER would have written such verses? It seems no less expedient, for a Critic to consult his own heart, and ask, whether LONGINUS would confirm his judgment and ratify his opinions? But when we reflect on the great masters of antiquity, their chaste and simple, yet bold and animated criticisms, the [Page 316] soundness of their judgment and the extent of their erudition, who shall forbear blushing for the petty cavils and peevish puerilities of our times? It were to be wished that such Critics and such Judges, would remember the fate of ZOILUS: for though they may seldom have a HOMER to criticise, they may discover equal ignorance and equal malignity in analyzing even the dullest of his commentators.

With respect to READERS, there is a feeble­ness in the mind that has been warped by early dependance. It has so long been under the dominion of others, that it fears to judge for itself; like childhood in leading-strings, or age under its crutches, we often tremble to walk alone, and know not the degree of our intellectual strength. They who have been accustomed to take up the opinions of others, seem even to forget they have a right to form any of their own; and in cases of literary judgment, so far from asserting any independ­ency, they are afraid either to praise or blame, to be pleased or angry, till they learn, from the higher powers, how far they ought to approve or [Page 317] condemn. And it is well known that many persons neither venture to purchase, nor even to peruse a book till they have seen what these arbiters of the intellect say of it: nay, such is the degree of subjugation in which these despots hold some of their slaves, that I have personal knowledge of a man of no mean understanding, who confessed his vassalage was at one time so extreme from the force of habit, and the want of fortitude, that his impatience to read a work of which the title had attracted him, and feeling it impossible to wait for the permission of his judges, he had the temerity to be delighted on the authority of his own emotions, but soon repented of his rashness: a decree was issued against the performance on the first day of the succeeding month, the adventurous Reader ^* [Page 318] found out that his untutored nature had yielded to impulses unsanctioned by his tyrants, and on [Page 319] a second perusal, he discovered how very hasty he had been in pronouncing that to be simple, [Page 320] tender and elegant, which his critics had proved, by a variety of instances, and which they would [Page 321] probably have: undertaken to prove against Nature herself.

[Page 322]At the same time, it must be owned, pro­fessional critics have a hard task to perform, [Page 323] even when their fund of candour and sagacity, their heads and hearts are equally rich. Consider, [Page 324] my friend, their drudgery. How often are they condemned to waste the most precious of all things [Page 325] in this brief world—time and temper,—on what frequently cannot repay the attention of a single hour. The pious Roman deplored pathetically the loss of a single day: the English professors of criticism have to bewail the consumption of months, and of years. And though by a long habit of reading with design to analyze, they may acquire a facility of seeing the force or feebleness of a subject, we frequently perceive the most painful internal evidence of their having honestly, but laboriously, waded through, and even plunged profoundly into the troubled waters of ignorance and vanity, without even finding one drop of wit or wisdom at the muddy bottom. And, how many a weary league on the waste land of literature must they pass, even after they have emerged, before they arrive at the realms of poesy, realms, where they may purify in streams of the genuine Castaly, and luxuriate amongst flowers of the true Parnassus? or hope to taste of those ripe and rare fruits which adorn the groves and gardens of true philosophy?

[Page 326]But, O how sweet, you will exclaim, must be the recompence, when, after all their toils, the lettered adventurers reach those enchanting climes. True, my friend, harassed and disap­pointed, can we be surprised if sometimes the best critic, and best tempered man should be too much fatigued with labouring over barren ground, and fretted at meeting disagreeable or disgusting company by the way, he should, for a while, be indisposed to enjoy more fertile land, or more beautiful scenery? He has escaped as from a wreck, and wishes for nothing so much as a resting place, even were he thrown upon the treeless heath, or unshel­tered beach.

Our writers, therefore, must participate the blame with our critics; and thus, even the most valuable of the former, must some­times be content to receive a slight if not a wound from the most just and honourable of the latter. But this can rarely happen, and we are still, for the most part, to attribute bad criticism of good composition, to bad critics; [Page 327] and if they depreciate willingly, not ignorantly, even to bad men. Literary property, to speak of it only as it refers to genius and honour, exclusively of labour or reward, is certainly as important, and as dear as any that may be called our worldly substance. Ought it not then to be as sacred? "He who filches from us our good fame" is a robber; and as the treasures of the mind, may be taken, like our purses, by assassins under a mask, and as even our English laws have provided no punish­ment for an apprehended offender this way— except for the poor, and comparatively innocent thief who steals our intellectual children, to deface and mutilate them gypsy fashion, that they may very well pass for his own—as, moreover, there is no award of damages in relief of the sufferers, and, amongst all the great public works, as we have no literary scandalum magnatum, nor even one poor clause in favour of defrauded authors in our black acts—though a wanton critic should plunder a man of genius, not only of reputation, but of bread—and as, notwithstanding the general impotence of false [Page 328] criticism, this must, sometimes, have been done, —a reform in LITERARY ESTABLISHMENTS, would certainly be another grand national object of this country; and it is a great pity insurmountable difficulties are in the way of it.

Yet, as the whole world is now said to want a reform, and as there are, luckily, more re­formers than there can be defects, to whatever number the latter may amount—most likely a hundred reformers to a single defect—and as every reformer has been, and continues to be, hard, very hard at work with his voice, his pen, and his sword—all powerful weapons—why it may be hoped that when every thing else is in the state of PERFECTION, to which many of the religious, and all the political prophets of the age, assure us all things are advancing,—yea, with the strides of a giant, though every stride, those prophets cannot but allow, have been, and must still be made in human gore; while battle, murder, and sudden death, must rally round the standard of reformation, and the desolating angel—should I not write DEMON?— brings up the rear, with nothing but a ruin [Page 329] for the trophy, and a blood-dropping laurel to mark the progress, or grace the triumph of the spirit of PERFECTABILITY—still, I say, Baron, we may hope, that even authors, yea, and critics, may come in for some few of the good things in the new land of promise. Indeed, when whatever is wanted in ethics, politics, and religion shall be supplied, and when every thing that is now crooked in a world which has so long had a twist, shall be made strait;—when, in fine, we are to be made perfect upon earth, a privilege we have been blindly taught for three thousand years, was a work reserved for heaven—it would be hard, indeed, if literature should not be entitled to a share.

Animated by this joyful hope, and I am sure you see the reasonableness of it as clearly as myself, we must be content to receive all things with the old leaven, and to accept of bad with good authors, and critics, in this bad, good, but, it seems, perfectionizing world.

Yet, while that world, and this small, but lovely part of it, contains a true friend, fixes a [Page 330] sentiment of honour in the mind, an emotion of tenderness in the heart, displays a warm sun over our heads, and spreads a fair expanse of generous land at our feet, I shall in proud, but reverential imitation of the great Bestower, continue to see that "IT IS GOOD," and most gratefully bless the Giver and the gift!

P. S. Since the time of sending these letters, two new literary journals have been established; and both have begun their career under every fair and favourable auspice. Their plan is generous, their professions liberal; and if their practice continues to confirm them, they will prove a valuable addition to the national stock of just criticism, while they serve at the same time as a farther atonement for what is dis­graceful to literature, and its guardians. The one is called the "ANTIJACOBIN REVIEW, and Magazine; or Monthly Political and Literary Censor: and the other the "NEW LONDON REVIEW; or Monthly Report of Authors and Books." My promised parcel shall enclose the numbers which have hitherto been published of both. You will receive them as specimens [Page 331] of their respective pretensions. They propose to accomplish the same objects, and on the same honourable principle:—a determination to counteract the designs of those writers, whether Reviewers, or others, "who labour to undermine our civil and religious establishments, and to restore criticism to its original standard;" ^* — "to notice in terms of severe and unequivocal reprehension whatever disturbs the public harmony, insults legal authority, outrages the best regards of the heart, invalidates the radical obligations of morality, attacks the vital springs, and established functions of piety, or in any respect clashes with the sacred forms of de­cency, however witty, elegant, and otherwise well written." ^† To furnish, in short, an honest and exact report of what is passing among those engaged in the pursuit of Science and polite Learning, and to give such a picture of it in its present cultivated state, as may do honour [Page 332] to the English Press, and such as men of polished and enlightened minds delight to contemplate.

Inasmuch as the new journalists shall effect such noble ends by such laudablemeans, they will not only reflect credit on themselves but de­serve well of their country; they may then, indeed, call their work registers of domestic literature, animated by a spirit of manly and liberal criticism; and they will materially contri­bute to illustrate the sentiment which the new London Reviewers have chosen for the motto of their prospectus, "Reviews show the progress of a country, or an age, in taste and arts, in refinement of manners, and in the cultivation of science. They mark the gradation of language itself, and the progressive or retrograde motions of the public mind upon the most interesting subjects in ethics, in politics, and religion."

Were I not fully persuaded you will read this terse and polished sentence, with the liberal spirit, yet limited sense, in which it must have been written,—by the very learned and ingenious author, DR. PARR, one of the chief ornaments [Page 333] of erudition,—I should desire you to place the helping verb should between the first and second words of the passage, to signify the time WHEN the golden age of pure criticism shall return; not admitting we now enjoy it un­reservedly.

LETTER XVII.

THERE is not much to be said for this small town, but the little that truth affords will be to its advantage—Compact, neat, and agree­able are its epithets. The environs are in a part of the county which corresponds to this engag­ing character; and at the distance of a few miles, you are presented with beauties of a very distinguished kind. In its vicinity is RAINHAM-HALL, very deservedly enumerated amongst the beauties of England. Amidst other capital paintings, that of Belisarius, by Salvater Rosa, has been particularly noticed. It is said to be the gift of the GREAT Frederick of Prussia. ARTHUR YOUNG, whose Tour into this county is published, and which I recommend to your [Page 335] attention, particularly the part which treats of the Norfolk husbandry, has marked Mr. STRANGE's print from this painting as admirable; though there is a doubt amongst the connois­seurs whether, after all, the original picture represents Belisarius or Caius Marius. It is not without good reason, that another Tourist has preferred the situation of this mansion to that of any other in the county, and he justly observes, that the country around is rich, and comfort-looking. The park and woods have been esti­mated at about 800 acres: and the house itself has the advantage of being built under the superintendance of Inigo Jones. The river on which the town stands might, probably, be called Fa-ken, part of which word, anciently, denoted water, as HAM, in the time of the Saxons, did a dwelling.

But, there is something better than the finest edifice that the above-named great architect has left us as a memorial of his art;—something more delightful to the traveller even than glassy lakes, vivid lawns, or luxuriant woods— the urbanity and benevolence of its present [Page 336] noble possessor. By means of the first quality, every stranger who has the air and manners of gentleman may become a guest, and by virtue of the last, all whose deservings are at all known may become its object: and those who have claims upon that benevolence on the simple recommendation of poverty, or the more sacred one of misfortune, will have their claims allowed. This is not only a county-character, but a good name, that, gathering well-earn'd plaudits as it goes, spreads to the remotest part of Great Britain; and in the course of a long and estimable life must have travelled into more distant lands.

The Marquis has filled many great official situations, with honour to himself, and service to his country. With a great share of facile wit, he commixes a yet greater proportion of good-humour; and if you should encounter him in any of the walks or rides around his domain, he will soon make you forget that you see him for the first time, or that you have been introduced to him only by the affability of his own dis­position.

[Page 337]I thus delineate him, my dear Baron, on more powerful testimony than my own, or that of any individual. He is amongst the few, whose domestic and public reputation may be trusted to,—in general a very faithless historian —common report; and although I know him but by a transient view, I have so long been in the habit of hearing him spoken of, by persons of very different minds, that whenever by any accident he has met my eye, I have looked at him with as much conscious feeling of being intimate, as if I had seen the transactions which have built up the fair superstructure of his character; ^* nay, seen its basis—his generous heart.

[Page 338]"FAKENHAM," says one of its old describers, "is famous for nothing, but for having had salt-pits formerly;"—but a young historian of the place, whom I have just met, assures me, it can at present boast of something else. My intelligencer is a female, whose prompt but apt reply to my question, occasioned the following information: the truism it contains, is not dimi­nished by being in verse, even though com­posed on horseback, and in a canter. I beg to call it

It seems worse than a slight, an injustice to nature, and to art,—a neglect of some of their best displays, in this fair country, to pass unnoticed the mansion and domain of MR. COKE, at a short and beautiful ride from Faken­ham. The truth is, I paid my visit to these, under the most unfavourable circumstances: first from ignorance, or rather forgetfulness, that the house is open! to public, curiosity only one day in the week, (Tuesday,) and I was luckless enough not to select that one; a circumstance, however, which would not have been an interruption to you, my dear Baron, because foreigners have an exception in their [Page 342] favour. I had still, you will say, the most inviting part of the property before me:

but, disappointment likes company, you know, and did not on this occasion come alone. A fair-seeming day broke its promise to me, and scarce allowed one lucid interval that I could rely on: and whenever I did, though deceived before, put my trust in a smiling moment to glance over the ample park, the twenty-acred lake, and the embellishing plan­tations, I was soon taught the rashness of be­lieving in appearances, and forced to take shelter under some of the majestic trees, till even they poured down, their vengeance on my head, and I was glad to seek the more solid protection of an exceeding good inn, which offered an in­vitation I very gladly accepted.

There, however, the very circumstance I had been lamenting was the means of my gaining some particulars which neither sun­shine nor shade could so soon have procured. [Page 343] When the storm "is pitiless" the nearest asylum becomes welcome. On entering the inn I found it filled to the gate-way, and out-houses, as well as the passages of the house, with people of as different manners as sizes. The historians of the moment were numerous, and dealing forth their knowledge to a listening party, which I remembered to have seen in the park, and which, like myself, had been tempest-driven out of it; for the showers were not more sudden than severe. It is pleasing to gather a man's character from a groupe of persons thus assembled. Their sentiments are as spontaneous as the occasion that brought them together. They are, therefore, to be depended upon: more particularly where those who dissent essentially on one point, are unanimous in others of at least equal importance. Of these delineators of the mind and manners of the present proprietor of HOLKHAM, though there were many, who thought altogether differently, and more than one, who was in avowed oppo­sition to him, in what is supposed to be his politics—a difference in which even the nearest [Page 344] bonds of consanguinity, and the dearest ties of friendship are often sacrificed in this country— they perfectly agreed in describing him as one whose possessions of fortune were not more estimable, not more splendid than those of his heart; the benignity of which, indeed, gave them their highest value and use. "If a landholder cannot thrive upon one of MR. COKE's farms, and pay his rent into the bargain," said one of my weather-associated biographers, "he must be a sot, or a prodigal; and if there are any persons in Holkham, or in any of the parishes where this gentleman has property, who can be truly called poor folks, whether they can labour or not, it must be where it would not only be a weakness, and almost a wickedness to encourage them." "That, I believe, every one in any of those parishes will allow," observed another; "and as to his friends," added this last de­scriber, "they may be as much at their ease at Holkham house, as if they were at home, and I have heard many gentlemen say, if they find any difference, it is in the attendance and attention being more constant and watchful there than in their own houses."

[Page 345]"Norfolk is fortunate in this respect," remark­ed a gentleman who had not taken any part in the conversation before. He then spoke of some whom I have already mentioned, and adjoined the amiable owner of NARFORD; then, by a most unexpected transition, and in a most pointed manner, he contrasted those worthies by describing a very reverse character; one, whose immense property neither afforded hap­piness to others, nor to himself; who sought solitude without any apparent relish of its wise, or sacred powers—who shrunk from the eye of the traveller with as much haste as the Lord of Rainhim advanced towards it—who even shunned the face of day, and travelled in the most heart-rejoicing season, through the finest countries, usually by night; while his estate, yeomanry, peasantry and neighbourhood ex­hibited the marks of an unsocial man."— Possibly, my friend, an unhappy one; and if so, alas! he may be trying—it is to be feared, vainly—to escape from himself. And although, no doubt, the best, and the most blessed way to soothe us, even under this evil, is to occupy [Page 346] ourselves in the good of others; to spread the industrious over our fields and gardens; to give new beauties to the earth, and fresh bounties to its poorer inhabitants; to command the artist to display his talent, while he augments its just reward, to make nature herself more rich, more lovely; and at length beckon honourable friendship to mark our improvements, while faithful love has seen, and assisted their pro­gress; or invoke active contemplation,—and may I not be suffered so to call the study, or the science that in a condition of hoarded sorrow keeps us beneficially employed? though these are certainly the most wise, and the most salutary means of forgetting ourselves, or of obliviating what we wish not to remember of others, yet, not the habits only, but the temperament, the Indolence, or the inveteracy which sometimes character the effects of grief, or result from its causes, may prevent applying to such lenitives, or receiving from them any solace. In such cases, without knowing how far they may apply in the present, shall we not deplore the state of a human being thus [Page 347] shut by his own hand into a prison, which, however splendid to the passenger, has the dark­ness of the tomb to the self-devoted, and shall not pity, though uninvited, follow him there?

The weather continued equally unpropitious during the whole day and evening, and having an early engagement for this morning, I have been obliged to leave Holkham-House, and its varied attractions, unexamined by my own eye. The eyes of so many observers, have, however, been so long upon it, that there can be no other difficulty in presenting to you a descrip­tion, but what arises—from not knowing which to prefer.

One great feature of objection, indeed, which I cannot but feel against the very sight of fine places upon paper, arises from the repetition of the very terms by which they are described. Varied and abundant as is our language, a whole warehouse of words, a magazine of epithets are soon at an end, when we come to five quadrangles, four wings and a centre, saloons of forty-two feet by twenty-seven, drawing-rooms thirty-three by twenty-two, [Page 348] and a statue gallery, of which the middle part consists of seventy feet by twenty-two, and at each end an octagon of twenty-two, with whatever of rich and rare can be put into these by the hand of fortune, or arranged by that of taste, which is, I understand, with as few ex­ceptions as may be, the case at Holkham-House. The words beautiful, fine, sublime, light, magnificent, brilliant, elegant and exquisite, are forced upon such hard, yet necessary duty, that the only chance one has of not being sickened of looking at them is, if possible, to vary their position so as not to make them come too thick and fast upon us in the same order.

"The house, may be said to consist of five quadrangles, the centre, and the four wings; not that they are squares, but we use the term to give a general idea. Each of the two fronts thereof present a centre and two wings. That to the South, and the grand approach, is as beautiful, light, airy, and elegant a building as can be viewed. The gilding of the window frames and sashes of this front, done in 1777, by the present Mr. Coke, gives it a magnificent [Page 349] appearance. The portico is in a fine taste, and the Corinthian pillars beautifully proportioned. This central front, in every respect that can be named, appears all lightness, elegance, and pro­portion."

This is all very true, I dare say, as also what is said of the saloon—"that it is in an elegant taste, the pier glasses exceedingly elegant, the agate tables beautiful, the state bed-chamber (30 by 24,) fitted up in a most elegant style, that the colours of the tapestry are brilliant, the chimney-piece remarkably beautiful, the figure of the Diana in the statue-gallery is fine, and the turn of the arms inimitable—the Venus also, in the wet drapery, and the form of the limbs seen through the cloathing exquisite—neither can it be denied that the fitting up the house in all particulars is in the highest degree elegant."

But the reverberation of the epithets, though, perhaps, inevitable, return so rapidly, not only in the above description, but in almost every other, they seem to have the mockery of the echo without its sweetness, the routine of the [Page 350] parrot without her drollery; and have sometimes brought to my mind the mountebank orator, with his "Walk in ladies and gentlemen, walk in, and see what you shall see—the most beauti­ful tyger—the most amazingly—astonishing fine leopard, and the most magnanimously— magnificent lion that was ever shewn in Europe!" Then running the stunning elo­quence back again with no other relief to the ear than beginning with the lion, and ending with the tyger.

You enter into the spirit of an observation too clearly, and with too much candour to imagine that I wish to depreciate the real grandeur or beauty of this noble mansion, or its domain, which is universally ranked amongst the triumphs of the island. Indeed, the inside of the house, ^* in point of contrivance, is [Page 351] allowed to surpass any other in the kingdom, for being so admirably adapted to our English way of living.

[Page 352]But I confess, my friend, I go on the wing of impulse to every thing that has HEART in it, [Page 353] that I often feel myself, as it were, flying from lath and plaster, brick and mortar, however [Page 354] skilfully arranged, or beautified, to soar above them into regions of nature and sensation. For which reason, though I hold it right, and part of my promise, to have this account of Holk­ham set down for you, I have a more sin­cere, I would have said a more congenial [Page 355] satisfaction in the following well-attested tra­dition.

Influenced, by a tender regard to indigent and widowed age, in the year 1755 the Countess Dowager of Leicester, who finished the building of this house, erected and endowed, and in 1763 further benefited, an alms-house in this parish for the maintenance of three men, and three women, to have sixpence a day each, one chaldron of coals each annually, and to have new cloaths once in two years; the objects of her bounty to be elected by the possessor of Holkham-House, out of some parish in which its estates are situated. The building and furnishing the six dwellings, and purchasing the rents and estates for the support and maintenance of the whole at her Ladyship's cost. ^*

I adopt the idea of Mr. Parkin, my friend, who considered a book which endeavoured [Page 356] to eternize the memory of truly great and noble benefactors, to whom works of con­summate excellence, and public acts of piety and charity, have deservedly given superior distinction ih the age in which they lived—a RECORD OF VIRTUE.

From FAKENHAM to WALSINGHAM more than one attractive object meets your view. Midway are the ruins,—I had almost said the repairs—of BASHAM-ABBEY, formerly a residence of the Colthorpes. "It is worthy the notice of the traveller, whatever be his character or pro­fession; if an architect, the singularity of the edifice, with its double display of entrances— its ten connected chimnies—its massy pillars, and its almost impenetrable walls, would be attractive; if an antiquary, it holds out to him, in addition to the above, the embrick­ment, if so I may write, of different armorial bearings, even up to the chimney tops; if a moralist, he may contemplate in the dilapidated state of these edifices, the weakness of the utmost strength in the works of men's hands. Nor will any one, who has but the air of a [Page 357] person anxious to see more, be bounded in his curiosity by the outer walls. Your immediate correspondent is an evidence of this: for while he was viewing, from the back of his horse, the relicts of this venerable pile, one of its present residents (Mrs. Dennis) happening to be passing through the back part of the court-yard with some children, sent her servant to inquire if the gentleman wanted any thing?— Only to take a passing survey of this extraor­dinary old hall, was the answer, which being carried to the mistress, the servant came a second time to beg the gentleman would alight: the steed was conveyed into the stable, and not to an empty rack—Mrs. Dennis received your friend as if he had been hers: went over the habitable parts of the house—pointed to the fretted roofs, the massy walls, storying them as we past, and concluded with a courteous offer of refreshment, and declared what I had called a trouble had been a pleasure, with so much real urbanity, that I dare to ensure you as liberal a welcome as I have myself received; and I am certain you will deem this a sufficient [Page 358] encouragement to stop your horse at the gate of Basham-abbey.—I feel persuaded, at the same time, you will suffer this instance of courtesy to go amongst others I have reported to you, to dislodge from the minds of your friends, an idea, which I know prevails on the Continent, of a certain rough—not to say in­solent—though, indeed, brutal is the foreign word—haughtiness, that, literally, shuts the gate of good manners, in the very face of an un­recommended stranger. The real fact is, my dear friend, both in this, and many other coun­tries, that strangers shut it against themselves. A traveller, bringing out with him such an idea throws over his own manners a kind of suspicion which is enough, not only to realize, but to justify it. The urbanities of society are inti­mately connected with each other, and many of those most necessary, as well in the long and intricate journey of life, as in the excursions of pleasure, of learning, or of curiosity, which form no inconsiderable part of it, depend, in no slight degree, on ourselves. If our advances be frigid and suspicious, so will be our recep­tion; [Page 359] and if they be conciliatory, they will generally excite a correspondent demeanour; and not seldom make courtesy, at least, a guest in the mind where it may not be an inmate.

But the almost expressed word repairs, in the early part of the above account of Basham-Abbey, has not been used without a stronger reason that what at first meets the eye. Sup­posing, and the supposition is founded, any of the original inmates or owners of the mansion to have been amongst the proud old English Barons, who held the humble and the poor in tyrannic vassalage; or, that holy hypocrisy profaned the devotional parts of the building, may we not consider the wealthy farm-yard which now employs the honest labourer, and carries health, competence and content to his cottage in these milder times—the chapel, which was once deformed by the imposing despotism of monkish superstition, now converted into commodious stabling for the generous steeds, and into gra­naries for private bounty and for public service,— the enormous rooms of monastic carousal, and swinish indolence turned into a comfortable [Page 360] kitchen, where Prudence is the handmaid of Plenty, and into the decent keeping-room, where children, instead of being perverted in their opinions, shackled in their faith, and warpt in their understanding, are nurtured and instructed, may we not, I say, consider all these somewhat in the way of repairs or changes for the better?

Parkin, in his continuation of Blomfield, tells us, that Sir W. Farmer built here (at E. B.) a very large and stately mansion-house, or hall of brick, in the reign of the 8th Henry, now very much decayed and ruinous. Over the great Gate-house, leading into the Court-yard on the outside, are arms of the kings of France and England, quarterly, supported by a lion and a griffin, the arms of Henry, and on the right side are those of Farmer. Below these are two wild men or giants in two niches, one on each side of the gate, as janitors, armed with clubs. Over the door of the porch, leading into the hall, are the arms of France and England, with a griffin and greyhound supporters, Henry the VIIth's arms, and Farmer impaling. And in a low window in the hall, is this date 1638, in [Page 361] which year, it is probable, the house was built.

The estate now belongs to Sir Edward Astley, of Melton Constable, ^* which as I am informed, has claims on your attention.

LETTER XIX.

AND now, my dear Baron, the country begins to lift itself into superior beauty. Nature, who had been timid and retired, comes suddenly forth, and asserts herself. The utmost which she could do upon a flat, assisted by art, has been exhibited at the seat of the Walpoles, and in the modest scenery that cheered your way to that august mansion. But the smallest cottage in the deep vallies, or on the ambitious mountains, where the lands rise and fall in solemn and sublime diversity, must ever be preferred by a pictorial traveller, to the most princely structures, and magnificent woods on a level surface.

Indeed, you are now leaving behind all the [Page 364] flats in this direction of Norfolk, and I must admit the opinion of an observer upon it, as to the injustice with which it has been de­scribed by many of its hasty historians. Most parts, except the marsh and fen lands, are marked with rising grounds, which, though they do not ascend, with the almost presumptu­ous daring of sky-top'd Switzerland, carry your eye over a rich prospect, frequently of twenty, and sometimes thirty miles.

You will perceive a bold variety mark your path, and elevate your view, from the time you gain the steep ascent that begins its rise from the vale at the foot of Basham-abbey— a bold variety of ground, indeed, where nature grows adventurous; where she swells the hills more proudly than she is wont in her Norfolk domain, and sinks more abrupt and more pro­foundly into her glens. Yet, in this particular spot she discovers the nakedness of her land, in one respect, more than in some of the most un­decorated, uncheary, and even in the wildest parts of her British possessions.

You will be attracted for a moment by the [Page 365] summits unobstructedly rising before you; you will be refreshed by verdure that invites the foot and invigorates the eye—but, alas! where is now the wood, the thicket, the hedge-row? where are even the shrubs? Oh, beauteous Nature, prodigal as thou art of all these, in thy spring, thy summer, thy autumnal charms, why hast thou withdrawn them from WAL­SINGHAM?

The question will be answered in no common way: and I must, on this occasion, be the medium of Nature's reply. You will hear on the road, my friend, and, indeed, from the utmost verge of the country, were you even there to begin your inquiries, of a strange, distraught being, who turns night into day, day into night—who goes to bed when all the rational part of the world get up, and who rises when they retire to rest.—You will be told, that in the oeconomy of his houshold he is no way absurdly profuse; yet, that he has suffered, and therefore encouraged, for twice ten years, a pack of vagabonds in his parish, to cut down, burn, and sell the timber, which were of his [Page 366] father's, and his own planting, that he has allowed this felonious enormity to grow from bad to worse—from breaking up hedges, and lopping branches, to the exterminating whole nurseries and plantations, of no less value than ornament to his estate; and, indeed, to the picturesque beauty of the country—that when any of these midnight robbers—who ought, at least, to incur the penalty of a law in our country, called the Black Act—come in view of our midnight wanderer—for at the noon of night, you will be told, commence his peram­bulations—he only says, mildly, "take care how you get down that tree, or you may hurt yourself."

In addition to all this, you will hear it asserted, and very truly, that by these depre­dations, he has sustained a loss of twenty thou­sand pounds at least; that,—so daring have at length become the offenders,—strings of boys and girls have been seen, in the broad eye of day, to bend under the burthen of nurseling plants of as tender an age, and smaller than themselves—while the parents of these children, [Page 367] setting the odious example, have been laden with whole trees.

All this you will inevitably hear, Baron; and you will, doubtless, conclude, either that the proprietor is, in effect, out of his mind, or that the indignant peasantry, having long groaned under his tyranny, or famished under his avarice, had formed themselves into a conspiracy against the despotism of the tyrant, and collected a phalanx so powerful as to make the loss even of the miser's gold secondary to his dread of proceeding against the banditti.—You will, per­haps, conclude, that some apprehension of personal outrage might be added to such an attack on property, and that a certain con­sciousness of deserving it, is the chief motive of thus inverting the order of nature, by venturing forth only when timid, or guilty things suppose themselves comparatively safe, and even then, "treading as if in fear they trod."

The vegetable desolation which you will see around you, on entering the domain of this singular person, who is still living, might [Page 368] possibly, under the impression of these first appearances, lead you to turn back, that you may escape the very air which such a wretch is permitted to breathe, or you might be tempted to pass rapidly through his village, were you not to learn—which you will from every Walsingham villager—that this grinder of the poor, this tyrant of the rich—this—but you shall judge of him by characteristical anecdotes, —for the truth of which—singular as they must appear to every foreigner—strange, even as they are to us in this country of character, I refer you not only to every inhabitant of Walsingham, but almost to every person in this part of Norfolk.

In my first walk of observation and inquiry, the following conversation passed between your correspondent and Mr. Jacobs, the landlord of a public house immediately fronting the garden walls of the above gentleman.

A handsome seat, my friend, this, and if I am to believe report, inhabited by a very ex­traordinary person?

"Extraordinarily good, Sir—for that matter, too good!"

[Page 369] That, I should conceive, to be more singular still. How is he too good?

"Why because he has made almost every chick and child of the parish good for nothing. And they use him just as if he was as bad as themselves, though he would not hurt a fly. Nay, for that matter, I can tell you what happened between him and a fly, in his own house. And if you'll step with me as far as those iron gates, I'll shew you the very room where it fell out."

We walked together to the place he men­tioned—a stately railing, according to the ancient fashion, opening on a spacious lawn, at the end of which stands the abbey, whose architecture, as well as the broad moat that half encircles it, resembles such of the country houses of England, and the chateaus of Germany, as were erected about the beginning of the present, or towards the close of the last century. On each side of the piece of water is a kind of grove, equidistant, and somewhat formal, but in good keeping, with the fashion of the house: for in those days, as, I think I have before mentioned [Page 370] to you, the vegetable scenery of this country, as well as its buildings, and, indeed, its inha­bitants, consulted rather the grandeurs than the graces: an evidence of false taste, finely ridi­culed by one of our favourite poets:

I really do not believe there are a dozen trees on the one side of this grovelet more or less than the other, and, certainly, not half the number of inches, either in the diameter or circumference of the grassplots, and foliage of the same kind, stand so exactly parallel that a quarter-master might shew them to his raw recruits as an example of soldier-like symmetry; not a branch nor arm, or scarcely a leaf but has its companion, and assisted by the equal motion of the breeze they seem to exchange the salute military.

But the space between the water and the wood, on either side, was at the time I surveyed them, filled with objects by no means formal; an innumerable quantity of poultry of all kinds were spreading themselves over the lawn, or [Page 371] swimming in the moat; and I could not but express my surprize that the inhabitants of the court yard should be suffered to take their pas­time in the garden.

"I suppose, Sir," says Jacobs, "you are wondering to see so many ducks, geese, chick­ens, cocks, hens, &c. in the 'Squire's garden; but if you had been here before sunrise, or if you should come later in the evening, there would be something worth looking at, for then the 'Squire gets them all about him by hundreds. He is not up yet, for I suppose it is not above five in the afternoon, in a couple of hours though he will begin to think about rising, but if he does not come down stairs till ten or twelve at night, which is often the case, not a fowl of them will roost till they see him.— The moment he leaves his room—that is it with the closed shutters—he opens that front door and gives his poultry their supper, though he does not get even his breakfast till mid­night, and sometimes, two or three in the morning. Oh! 'twould do your heart good, to see the pigeons come from that dove-house [Page 372] and light upon his hat, shoulders, hands, and arms! and the other creatures that are now straying about, run to him fit to break their necks; the pullets and chickens fly up to perch on him while they peck out of his hand or his basket. Then his pigs, his dogs, and other animals in the yard get their turn, for he goes out at that gate on the right, and gives them their breakfast, and all this, in Winter and Summer as sure as the day and night goes and comes."

"But you promised me the story of the fly, Mr. Jacobs."

"And I will be as good as my word, Sir. The affair fell out in that parlour to the left, when with some other townsman we were dining with the 'Squire, who has no more pride than one of his chickens, and as you shall hear presently, not more gall than his pigeons. As we were standing just before dinner came in, at that very window, we heard a humming over our heads, and looking up, saw a fly in a cob­web-trap, the spider just at the end of his line, balancing away just like one of the tumbling [Page 373] men I have seen at our Walsingham Wake. He looked just like a little black ball of poison, and in another minute would have darted away, and got the poor fly in his clutches, if the 'Squire had not frightened him away with his white handkerchief—but only the air of it as he waved it about, in this fashion:—for though he made the web—ecod! and the weaver too,— shake and shiver as if they were both in an ague fit, he did not break a single thread of the fellow's work; however, it got the fly out of her hobble, for down she dropt at the very first whisk upon the window seat, flat on her back and almost stunned. Almost all this time the dinner was standing by itself on the table, and there it might have stood for the 'Squire till now, if he had not settled the affair,—and how do you think he managed it?—as sure as you are alive, he took her up as soft as if she was his kin, then let her lay in his handkerchief as if she was on a fine white muslin bed with nice cotton sheets. We then went to table:—he used in those days to dine in Summer even be­fore sunset,—sometimes so soon as three or four [Page 374] o'clock,—and I think I never saw the 'Squire so merry,—for he is as nice a man, and as full of cleverness, as any in the hundred:—but in the midst of the fun, up he got and ran to the win­dow, but was back in an instant with the hand­kerchief in his hand; 'as the bird is flown,' said he, 'I think I may venture to take the nest.' 'Squire, said I, the fly may thank heaven you were at the window! "I suppose, he answered, 'every thing that has life wishes to live as long as it can, friend Jacobs, and as so many animals die that we may live, it is the least we can do to save one or two when we can.'

"And are there any amongst you—any, who can do an injury, or even an injustice to this restorer of the fallen fly? No doubt, his benevolent disposition ascends from animals to man; from the poor reptile you have just men­tioned from the poor reptile you have just men­tioned as its object, to such of his fellow-creatures as are in distress," questioned the Gleaner.

"Distress, Sir," answered Jacobs, "why he never could bear to hear of it or to see it; and, as I told you, did not hurt that damn'd spider, though for my part, I wish'd his poison-bag [Page 375] taken from his little pod belly, and cram'd down his own ugly throat:—I love an honest fellow, but down with a rogue wherever you meet him, say I.—'Tis a sort of years ago, to be sure, since we largess'd ^*—for it was at har­vest-tide, in that parlour, else I should not wonder if the rascal was see-sawing upon his line, or mending his nets, or squating in his corner, as sly as a bailiff, just when I left him, at this minute. But I dare say some imps, as black as young devils and as wicked, are there or thereabouts, for neither rogue nor honest personage will the 'Squire harm, not he; and that, Sir, makes me say, he is too good. O, it would make your blood-freeze or else boil, but to think how he has been used for it!"

"So I have heard. You allude to the devastations committed in his woods and hedges, the theft and plunder of his timber."

"Woods and hedges! that is bad enough to be sure; for except the small fir-grove at the [Page 376] head of yon high-land, and that stands only because it is in the hands of a tenant, who has a long lease of his farm; there's not a tree that is bigger than a may-pole, and but very few of them on the whole estate. Nay, the people have begun upon this wilderness, which I re­member as thick and green again as you now see it: for that matter, they go into the abbey back yard, and carry away just what they like: for the devil a dog will he keep—as I would— to snap at their legs, or jump at their throats; and if a servant catches them in the fact and speaks to them, their only answer is, 'if the 'Squire comes to tell us himself, that we should not do as we like, why we will leave off.'

"And has this reply ever been reported to the 'Squire?"

"A hundred times, Sir; but what of that? He'll not come out if they were to tell him so a thousand times a hundred. Pray, Sir, at what inn are you?"

"The King's-head, I think, kept by a widow-woman."

"Close to the abbey yard: a good house, [Page 377] and a good woman, and just lost a good husband."

"I perceive she is in mourning."

"When you get back, do but step into the 'Squire's back yard, three or four doors on the right from the widow's, and you will have cause to mourn, as you shall hear. The yard is a kind of grove. I remember it sweet-some to behold; it has a good deal of shade yet, but a sort more trees lie dead on the ground, than are to be seen alive in it; ay, and some of the finest timber in England. But you could never guess how they got into the 'Squire's back-yard, unless I were to tell you. Why, Sir, they were all brought there, at different times, either by the 'Squire's own tenants of servants when they were returning from plough, or passing in a waggon or cart.

"For what purpose, Mr. Jacobs?"

"To, save them from being carried off, and sold by the vagabonds in Little and Great Walsingham, and, in short, all round the country, after they had hewn and hacked them down. I, myself, Sir, have help'd to draw [Page 378] some of them to the abbey with my own donky, and have taken some of the hatchets and axes out of the thieves' hands, and carried them myself to the 'Squire?"

"And what said he upon that evidence?"

"Said he!" answered Jacobs, half grinding his teeth—"why he said to me just what he has often said to every servant in the abbey, and, indeed, to almost every honest man in the parish—there are some honest fellows in spite of him—'Not right, Mr. Jacobs,'—for he mus­ters every body—the civilest gentleman you ever saw—'Not right, Mr. Jacobs, that the people should use their axes and hatchets to cut down my timber, but very wrong, Mr. Jacobs, that you should steal them. It is but commit­ing the same fault a different way; yet one bad thing does not excuse another: so, pray, Mr. Jacobs, make all the haste you can to return what you have stolen.' I see, Sir, you look as if you did not believe me; and how the devil should you?—I do not think there have ever been such doings as there have at WALSINGHAM since the beginning of the world; at least, [Page 379] since the planting of the first tree in Adam's garden: but the thing is as true as that those ducks are swimming in the moat." ^*

But what I have now told you is nothing to the shocking tricks played on his cattle, horses, and corn: I suppose you would think I must be fibbing were I to inform you that whoever has a mind to it goes into his stable, saddles, or harnesses a horse, and rides, or ploughs with him, bringing him home at night, or keeps him a week, or a fortnight together, without so much as a question being asked by the 'Squire; and what is worse, they not only steal the wheat, barley, and other grain, from the field when it is sheaved, to save themselves tho [Page 380] trouble of cutting it, but they are wicked enough to cut off the corn-ears, by whole acres before they are half ripe."

"Good GOD! what wantonness!" (ex­claimed I,) "why this is worse than all the rest."

"Not the worst neither, Sir," (rejoined Jacobs,) "there is a tenant of his, an innholder, and I hope you will not think I am going to tell a lie of him because he is a brother pub­lican, but he has not paid rent these nine or ten years, and the 'Squire lets him go on just the same as I do, who am as sure as quarter-day; but what will you say when I tell you that the 'Squire sent his servant to say he might lessen the debt by supplying the abbey family with beer, but for all that the second time it was sent in, a bill went with a letter, "to hope the 'Squire would not be offended, but times were so hard he could not afford to trust, unless one barrel was paid for when another should be brought."

"Can that be possible?"

"Ay, and worse yet, for you may see little [Page 381] boys and girls steal the pease from the very troughs, when they cannot carry off the pigs, for which the 'Squire has left off hog-fatting, for fear of their being starved to death, and is now obliged to buy his own bacon; though, to be sure, there are a few old swine in the yard, because the 'Squire says they may as well stay where they are till they're called for: he has always something droll and merry to say upon it, let people do what they will: as you must needs think when you hear another of his answers about cutting down his trees.—"The estate was barren, friend, when I came to it, and is likely to be barren again."

During the latter part of this discourse, Mrs. Jacobs came from the house to tell her husband he was wanted, and we soon parted. I re­turned to the inn, under sensation and im­pression scarce to be described, still wishing to discredit, at least, that part of the evidence which was brought against the common grati­tude of the neighbourhood; but whatever I heard or saw afterwards—and from all ranks of people, in the progress of several days' sojourn [Page 382] at Walsingham, and in various walks and rides of observation—not only confirmed the details which Jacobs had given, but added many aggravating circumstances. In particular the anecdote of a tenant, who having omitted to pay any thing for the rent of a considerable farm, came at last to the abbey with a com­plaint to the 'Squire, that so far from thinking he could settle arrears he must give up his farm, his family being so large he could not live on it himself. "Poor Tom!" (said the 'Squire,) "that is hard, indeed; then we must go some other way to work." "I do not know how that can be, Sir," said the farmer — "seeing that I have neither horses, carts, cows, nor sheep—having sold them all—there's no­thing but the land left, and that you may have back—and here and there, mayhap, a half-starved hen or turkey, and they may go with it." "My poor, poor Tom! worse and worse," (quoth the Squire,) "nevertheless, go home to your family, and we will see what can be done; if you have no carts or horses I have, and I believe the best way to make you pay me is now to help you to do it."

[Page 383]With these assurances, he was prevailed upon to continue in the farm, and from that time to that day twelve-month his landlord shared with him the use, not only of the promised articles, as to cattle and stock, but every instrument of husbandry—his own servant lent to plough, to sow, and to reap, previously buying for him the very seed to put in the ground, and, in short, farmed for the farmer. An expression, alas! for human nature, but too literal. It is lamentably true, that he was not farming for himself; for, I find, poor Tom succeeded as ill as before, at least the profits of this eleemosynary labour much oftener found its way into the pocket of my hostess at the King's-head, and other alehouses in the neighbourhood, than into that of the 'Squire at the Abbey.

In course of various conversations, however, I found that Mr. ****** had once been moved gently to remonstrate against axe and hatchet-men; and that was when a banditti of them were about to cut down a favourite, and, indeed, famous chesnut-tree; then it was, he ventured to signify—but still, by a medium— [Page 384] "that he could wish they would desist." In answer to which they repeated what they had often said before, "if the 'Squire comes and says so to us himself, we will." The servant carried the answer, the master said nothing more, and the tree was cut down.

My mind had been filling as well with the strange things I had heard from Jacobs as with the confirming report of others I had encoun­tered on the way, and I literally "went forth into the fields at even-tide to meditate." But what did those fields present, as I wandered about them, without any settled direction? I followed a ruthless guide—even the exterminating axe! Unexpectedly the Sun broke out intensely hot, and I absolutely panted for the shade. I observed some cattle in the same pursuit. A clump of trees would have been a real comfort to man, and beast. Even the patient cows, with their tails twisted, mouths open, and at their full unwieldy run, were hunting over the mead, for a green covert; while a bull, labouring with the heat, and tortured by the flies, was tearing up the earth for what none of us could find. [Page 385] I bent my way again towards Walsingham, and took refuge in the first cottage I found at the outskirts of the village. The peasants were at their tea, the rosy children, equally defying the powers of sun or shade, were laden with their brown-bread supper—a huge, health-looking slice. Perhaps I envied; I certainly blessed both them and their meal: I blessed their hut, and, as usual, was soon a part of the humble hous-hold. The parents of the family ratified every former account respecting the desolation of the woods, and the indifference of the proprietor as to what became of them. The mother of the family allowed, "it was very strange the 'Squire should suffer such doings," and the father loudly reprobated the wickedness of those "who could take advantage of such an easy gentleman's temper." I must remark, never­theless, I have since heard that both mother and father, and also a married son, at a place called Snoring, were three of the most active and determined loppers and choppers the poor woodlands had to complain of.

[Page 386]On leaving the cot, I fell into some profound ruminations respecting the vegetable ruins I had been surveying. The very sight of them was to me a serious affliction. You know, Baron, how much I luxuriate in verdure, and that I may be said, without any strain on the metaphor, to see feelingly the charms of nature; that my heart rejoices to observe a flourishing plan­tation, with as sincere, and, perhaps, a more pure delight than its possessor. Knowing this, you will judge of what I experienced from a view of a whole dismantled estate, which, indeed, was left little more than the green earth.

To the eye of fancy, the very genius of the woods seemed to be seated on a trunk of one of the many THOUSAND, (the word is used in a literal sense,) many THOUSAND majestic trees which were wont to grace and enrich the do­main. The licensed, yet merciless robbers have scarcely left a shade for the diminutive wren, much less a shelter for the way-farer even from a passing shower. They have not only hewn down, and cast into the fire, whole thriving purseries of oak and fir, planted by Mr. ***+******'s [Page 387] own hand, and trees of nobler growth, but have carried their felonious depredations even to the hedge-rows, which they have stripped of every tree that answered to a poor man, even the trouble of cutting down. In a word, the whole estate, a circuit of several miles, exhibits, in a natural sense, a mutilated, and mangled prospect, once pleasing and profit­able; and, in a mord sense, a yet more melan­choly view, of the depravity, the ingratitude, and the wantonness of men, when they have not the fear of the iron hand of the law before their eyes.

I returned to my inn with the true step of profound reflection,—a step which our poets, treading in the track of each other, have justly called "solemn and slow." A character alto­gether new in an old world, and even in a part of it abounding with original beings of almost every possible kind, had displayed itself to my view. I knew my mind to be free from the deep-rooted incredulity of those stay-at-home deciders of what is seen abroad, and who think every thing must be false that seems so, par­ticularly [Page 388] if it is incomprehensible to them; and I had so often attested the wonderful diversity of nature in all her operations—and, perhaps, more than any other in the mind of man—that I could not easily be staggered in my faith. But I had unexpectedly met, in an obscure nook of the island, a variety of circumstances which I feel I should myself have doubted, had they been given to me on the credit of any single reporter, however respectable. Here was at once a complete indifference, not to say triumph, over what every other being in civi­lized society, when not absorbed in grief, has always considered as sacred— the value, or the beauty of their property. I had before heard of men who had prosecuted a poor man to the ut­most rigour of our law, for breaking a hedge, or cutting down a twig, but it had never come within my knowledge or belief, that a gentle­man, in the possession of a well-wooded domain, and of sound understanding, could allow almost every tree it had once to boast to be delibe­rately cut down, and carried away: and that without so much as making an inquiry after the [Page 389] offenders, or entering into any remonstrance as to their past, or present, or future depredations.

Yet I felt an earnest desire to become per­sonally acquainted with so extraordinary a man, and from repeated assurances collected in the course of the following day, respecting the politeness and urbanity with which he received strangers, I wrote to entreat the favour of an interview, and received an answer about eleven o'clock the same evening by his servant, who said his master was going to get up, and would be glad to receive me at twelve.

I cannot describe to you the unusual sensation on my entering his abbey. It was about a quarter past twelve o'clock.—From the histo­rians of the place, and from the country reporters, I seemed to be familiar with him— the poor fly, and the story of farmer Tom were still in my heart, yet it beat faster, and somewhat more anxiously than usual as I found myself in his room of receiving com­pany—I stood amidst a groupe of old family pictures. Wines of different sorts were on the table, and two glasses and chairs set ready, [Page 390] Wax candles were lighted by a servant, who informed me "the 'Squire would be down stairs presently—in the mean time, Sir," said he, "there are books and maps, and the last news­paper to amuse you." I turned over some of these, rather mechanically than with conscious­ness; for the palpitation continued, and assisted by the lateness of the hour, the long abbey yard I had passed, the sight of the rescued timber Jacobs spoke of, and which a lantern I was obliged to use shewed me — and the antique, though hospitable air of every thing around, produced a sort of gothic sensation, and might have told extremely well in one of the magical romances of the day. Had I been keeping an assignation with one of the very ghosts with which a novelist might haunt this abbey I could not have been more awfully situated; and to give a finish to my feelings, the bearded ancestors of the family seemed to look frowningly at me from their canvas.

I believe we all make fancy drawings of the persons we have long admired, wondered at, or wished to see, especially when any singular [Page 391] qualities associate with our ideas of them: and as, for the most part we give features and figures correspondent to what we have heard or read, of their manners or minds, we are, probably, in general, more correct than faulty in these por­traitures of the imagination. My anticipated lineaments and dimensions of this gentleman, however, formed a complete exception to the rule, for they failed in every particular. I had fashioned him muscular, and corpulent, with a projected brow, and somewhat of a misanthropic cast of countenance, attributing his seclusion and supineness partly to having unfitted himself for exercise, and his indifference to the public injuries he had sustained, to a secret resentment against those who had wronged him, although he forbore to complain, or to punish.

The reverse of this picture was soon made manifest, for the original appeared even while I was finishing his copy. Mr. ****** is between seventy and eighty years of age, yet perfectly upright, small, but elegantly formed, and of the most engaging countenance. His manners are prepossessing, his address easy, [Page 392] and he has nothing that bespeaks the old school but his dress, which gave me back the exact image of the English gentleman of the last age. He was habited in a fawn-coloured suit of cloaths, edged with gold, which, however, from the effect of time had taken the cast of silver, a binding of the same ornamented his knees, a deep chitterlin of rich lace, somewhat yellowed by age, graced his bosom, and the deep slash sleeves, and high-wrought, richly embossed button of good old days, decorated the sleeves of his coat. His shoes were curved at the toe, and their buckles were such as are now worn by our old gentlemen upon the stage, and, indeed, by some young gentlemen at present off the stage, for the fashion of times past are, in this respect, come round again. His conversation is animated, his remarks judicious, his reading extensive, and his acquaintance with modern, as well as ancient literature by no means incon­siderable. Over the whole of his communica­tions presides a certain hospitable, and yet unassuming courtesy, that captivates while it instructs. Soon after one in the morning the [Page 393] tea equipage was brought, which served for his breakfast, and the beverage I should have taken about seven the preceding evening, had I not reserved myself for all that might happen on an occasion which promised what it performed, —something very extraordinary. The subjects we discussed were various. We warmed as we proceeded. Social topics are interesting. I caught from my host the wisdom of the past, and endeavoured to remunerate him by describing scenes of the present; the middle, and the closing parts of the century were thus divided between us. In this kind­ling progress I soon forgot that I had passed the hour at which I usually had been asleep, and that Mr. ****** had but lately risen.

At length preparations were made for supper, and while the table was serving, he took upon himself the trouble to shew me every part of the abbey, giving me as we passed along its ancient history, in the best and clearest language, and pointing out to me the most correct sources of farther information respecting other anti­quities of Walsingham.

[Page 394]The servant announced the repast. It was his master's dinner, and, of course, my supper. The clock struck the fourth hour of the morning soon after we were seated. There was a little of every thing, and that little of the best, and it may be truly said "he gaily pressed and smiled." Thankless and sullen must have been the guest, that would not have been cheered. It was not till after the Sun had put our candles to the blush, and quenched their miserable morsels of artificial light in his living beams, that I could prevail upon myself to bid him good morning, or, let me proudly say, that he would suffer me to say farewell.

On the following night I repeated my visit, and renewed my pleasure. A third, and a fourth invitation succeeded, and I could not but accept them. In these I had opportunity to see him in every point of view that bespoke the scholar, and the gentleman. But not a sentence nor a circumstance at any time came forth that denoted the wonderful things—the almost phaenomena—that were reported of him without-doors. I was more than once tempted to lead [Page 395] the subject that way, but not perceiving him disposed to follow, it would have been rudeness to persist, and his silence struck me as a new trait in a new character.

LETTER XX.

YET the force of the facts was by no means diminished by his silence; every hour of my sojourn here has increased their energy. Persons of every character had something to add to the strength of former accounts. When, however, I heard that the amiable man under consideration had paid five hundred pounds as the forfeit of refusal to act as sheriff for the county, rather than engage in a situation that might make him an eye-witness, if not an accessary, in the punishment of crimes even to death; and that while he was in commission of the peace, as a magistrate, many instances are on record wherein there has been the most severe conflict betwixt his sense [Page 397] of justice, and his feeling of compassion: when, moreover, I had myself watched his conduct to the domestic animals that surrounded him, and, if you will permit me so to express myself, observed their conduct to him: when I saw every living thing under his protection approach towards, instead of receding from him—while I was myself unseen, and unsuspected—and when I heard his servants speak of him with uniform gratitude and respect, and the peasants of the country declare, like his tenant Jacobs, that he was "too good,"—with very few excep­tions to this report—and those bearing the marks of malignity and disappointment, rather than of truth—when I considered all this, I no longer laboured to discover that the motive for his thus seeming to disregard what men in general are so tenacious of, must originate in a principle of virtue, even while it sanctions a vice. The cause is honourable to his nature, though the effect is injurious to society. I scarcely know how to express myself, dear Baron: the circumstance is new; and methinks there should be a new form of words, or, at [Page 398] least, a better arranger of old ones than your correspondent to express it, without incurring the censure of a paradox. It is, notwithstanding, clear to my mind, however I may have embarrassed the language, that his nature can endure neither to be principal nor abettor in giving pain or sufferance, even to those whom his good sense must Inform him abundantly deserve it; and that were he once to appear, in the character of a prosecutor, and pursue a detected culprit to the extremity of the law, his own private misery would far exceed his sense of the service he would thereby do to the public.

I by no means presume to offer this as a general justification of such kind of lenity. I am aware it would confuse and disorder the community beyond all reparation. I only suggest it in defence of a mind constructed with peculiar softness, and from a wish to re­present him to a number of his friends who I know, love and honour him, yet who seem to want a vindication,—an explanation—of the only part of a character that stands in need of it.

[Page 399]Having now finished my sketch of the most prominent object in Walsingham,—and one which would certainly be considered as deserving to stand very forward on the canvas in any part of the world—I can conscientiously pass on to other matters deserving your attention.

In a former letter, you remember, I promised you more particulars of our august dame of WALSINGHAM; of whom, wishing to pay her all possible homage, I have been sedulous to collect whatever has been said to her honour that merits notice, though not the hundredth tythe of the marvellous circumstances which tradition has told. For in our days of darkness and superstition, when priests and monks ruled not only the consciences but the purses of the English Laity, "they who had not made a pilgrimage and an offering at the shrine of the blessed Virgin of this place were looked upon as impious and irreligious."

Now for it then!

So great was the fame of this idol or image of the Lady of Walsingham, that foreigners of all nations came on a pilgrimage to her, [Page 400] insomuch that the number of her devotees and worshippers, seemed to equal those of the Lady of Loretto in Italy; and what my friend will deem much better, the town of Little Walsingham owed its chief support and main­tenance to the devotional offerings which were paid to this great personage. Of the royal visitors, our third Henry appears to have done homage to her, March 24, in the 26th year of his reign; his precept enjoining all who held in capite, to meet him on the octaves of Easter, at Winchester, on an expedition into Gascoign, being dated here as above; and what expedition could have the hope to prosper, unless her Ladyship was disposed to assist the cause?

Next in the princely procession was the first EDWARD; who was here on January the 8th, in his 9th year, as appeared by the date of a patent for the repair of London-bridge; and again, in his 25th year, on the Purification of the Virgin; and his successor was also here, October the 6th, in his 9th year.

In the 35th of Edward II. John de Mont­fort, duke of Bretagne in France, came and [Page 401] had the king's liberate to the treasurer and chamberlains of the Exchequer, to deliver £.9 for the expences of his journey to Walsingham and back to London: and in the said year, the duke of Anjou had licence to visit the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket of Canterbury.

David Bruce, king of Scotland, had in the 38th year of the said king, a protection to come to Walsingham with thirty horse; and his queen Margaret, made a vow to visit also St. Thomas of Canterbury.

Moreover, ISABEL, countess of Warwick, in 1439, bequeathed her tablet with the image of our Lady, to the church of Walsingham; also to the Lady there, her gown of alyz cloth of gold, with wide sleeves, and a tabernacle of silver like in the timbre to that of our Lady of Caversham.

HENRY the VII mentions in his will, that he had ordered an image of silver, and gilt, to be made and offered up and set before the Lady of Walsingham: and also a like image for St. Thomas of Canterbury.

The notorious HARRY the VIII, in his 2d [Page 402] year, soon after Christmas, rode here; and in the said year, May 14, as appears in a MS. of payments, by the keeper of the privy seal, 6s. 8d. were then paid to Mrs. Garneys, for the king's offering to her, and signed by the king's hand at Walsingham!

Queen CATHERINE his wife, during the king's absence in France, in his 5th year, came and returned thanks to the Lady, for the great victory over the Scots, at Floddonfield, Septem­ber 9, 1513.

Nay, Spelman says, that when he was a youth, it was commonly reported, that Henry the VIII walked barefoot from the town of Basham to the chapel of the Lady, and there presented her with a necklace of very great value; "with a view, perhaps," says Spelman, "to moderate the resentment of the Virgin when he thought fit," as he did soon after, "to banish her from her monastery and to pull it down:" for he was so sensible of her wonderful goodness, how ready she was to remember small favours, and godlike to forget great injuries, that on his death-bed he bequeathed his soul to [Page 403] her: but whether his executors disposed of it strictly according to his will and testament, is not a point altogether certain, because, I be­lieve, they fulfilled it in no other article. You are sufficiently conversant with the history of that Monarch to set a due value on the Royal legacy: at any rate, you will allow it wanted a little purification, and was therefore very properly bequeathed to a Saint.

Queen CATHERINE in her will, desires that five hundred masses should be said for her soul, and that a person should make a pilgrimage to our Lady at Walsingham, and distribute two hundred nobles in charity upon the road. The amiable though outraged mind of Catherine, gives every hope, that without any such homage to the image, her charitable spirit would be acceptable and ascend to the veritable GOD, to whose mercy we may trust even the ill-assorted soul of her lord the king, more safely than to a myriad of idols.

So superstitious, so weak and credulous were the commonalty, that they believed—as they were then imposed upon and taught—the Galaxy, [Page 404] or, what is called in the sky, the Milky-Way, was appointed by Providence to point out the particular place and residence of this Virgin, beyond all other places, and was thereupon, generally, in that age, called Wal­singham-WAY; and I have heard old people in this county so distinguish it.

Among the innumerable miracles that were ascribed to her, accept what follows:—On the north side, at which you enter the close of the priory, was a very low and narrow wicker-door, through which it was difficult for any one to pass on foot, being, as an old MS. says, "Not past an elne hye, and three guarters in bredth." And a certain Norfolk knight, Sir Ralph Boutetourt, armed cap-a-pee and on horseback, being pursued by a cruel enemy and in the utmost danger of being taken, made full speed for this gate, and invoking the Lady for hi [...] deliverance, he immediately found himself and his horse within the close and sanctuary of the priory in a safe asylum, and so "fooled his enemy." This is said to have happened in the year 1314. A memorial of it was engraven [Page 405] on a plate of copper, with the effigies of the knight, his horse, &c. nailed on the gate of the priory, and was read by Erasmus; who ob­serves, that there was preserved one joint of a finger of St. Peter, as large as that of the Colossus at Rhodes!

But, alas! this so famous image of the Lady, was in the 30th of Henry the VIII brought by the Lord High Chamberlain—Cromwell, to Chelsea by London, and there publicly burnt! No doubt she was first beheaded. Henry, you remember, was quite in the habit of decapi­tating his idols;—but all for conscience' sake— as, no doubt, was the motive of this noble act. You observe, that in the second year of his reign, he went barefoot from Basham to Walsingham, with an offering of the rich necklace, then threw the sacred image into the fire. I cannot find any account of what became of the neck­lace. The Lord High Chamberlain of the day, —Thomas Cromwell, carried the image from this town to Chelsea, a village in the neighbourhood of London, and saw it, by the royal order, committed to the flames; and if you choose, [Page 406] you may believe that the pious Monarch, deeming the necklace polluted by the wearer, disdained to receive it back, so directed that it should be consumed with the image.

The shrine of the Virgin is splendidly de­scribed by Erasmus who had been on the spot. The church is beautiful, but the Virgin dwells not in it; out of veneration and respect, that honour is granted to her son. She has, however, so contrived as to be on the right hand of her son; but neither in that doth she live, the build­ing being not yet finished, says Erasmus. In this church there is a small chapel of wood, into which the pilgrims were admitted on each side at a narrow door; there was but little or no light in it, but what proceeded from wax tapers, yielding a most pleasant and odoriferous smell; but, "if you look in, you will say it is a seat of the Gods, so bright and shining it is all over, with jewels, gold and silver." Blomfield observes, that a Canon resident always attended at the altar, to receive and take care of the offerings. The Lady was patroness both of the abbey and priory.

[Page 407]It appears, likewise, that the chief Prior had the second-best of every animal in the parish, and if there was but one,—why he had that.

I am just come from inspecting the remains of the building of the abbey. They consist of a large portal or gate-house at the west en­trance; the east window of the chapel is a richly ornamented arch, upwards of sixty feet high, built in the reign of Henry the VII, the old one being pulled down; the refectory, or eating-house, entire, seventy-eight feet long, and twenty-seven broad; the walls twenty-six feet and a half high—the measures taken within side. There are a good west window and stone pulpit in it; the whole building is in good preservation, twelve columns with gothic arches, and, part of the old cloisters, evidently built before the last chapel.

Buck, in a plate published in 1738, and dedicated to the present proprietor, has taken away the roof in order to make it appear in the print more picturesque.

The length of the cloister, which was square, was fifty-four paces. The length of [Page 408] the chapter-house twenty paces, the breadth ten: the old abbey wall, was near a mile in cir­cuit, and is yet entire in many parts; also a stone bath, with steps descending into it, and two uncovered wells, called "the wishing wells." Of the virtue of the last, great things are said; as indeed, might be well expected, when the devotees to the Lady of Walsingham were taught to believe, that whomsoever was per­mitted to drink of these waters, might obtain their wishes "sans fee."

Many of the wonders of these miraculous wells might be recorded for you, but the com­ments of the Sage who told them to me, —Mr. ******'s old Gardener—is, I hope a curiosity in store for you. Though half deaf and not a little lame, he has good promise of yet longer existence, and each domestic of Walsingham abbey being a tenant at will, and I dare anticipate, will, if survivor, have more even than a master's life-interest in the estate: you will, therefore, probably, see as curious a Gardener of as curious a garden, as you can ever expect to meet in this world of curiosities [Page 409] and if, on your arrival, the poor fellow should no longer be a moveable, you will find him a fixture. In the meantime, I will not withhold from you a little discourse that passed between us at the wells. "If you are for a wish, Sir, now is your time: and they do say, that you may have just what you will; though, for my part, I have been wishing here these thirty years, and have not got my wish yet."

"That is hard indeed, Mr. Gardener, seeing that you live at the fountain-head."

"Very good for bad eyes, I believe, master, but not much in them to help us out of bad luck: though a pair of lasses who came a-wishing here last Summer, and dipt their pretty faces into them, were here again in the beginning of this season, and told me that both had got what they wanted; and whether the well-water had any thing to do with it or not, so as they had their wishes, you know, Sir, it was the same thing, 'specially as they gave me a shilling a piece, because they said, funnily enough, methought, I had help'd them to their wants and wishes."

[Page 410]"Still you could not succeed for yourself, my poor fellow. But that is not singular. The greatest prophets, fortune-tellers and magicians, who have predicted such mighty matters for others, can seldom do more than keep them­selves from starving. Even a witch, ^* you must have heard, hardly ever got enough to buy her a new broomstick, after she had worn out the old one to the stumps."

"But, perhaps, you do not believe in the power of witches any more than you do in your wishing wells."

"Under favour, Sir, I do not."

"Is it fair to inquire into any of your own wishes, Mr. Gardener?"

"Why sometimes I wish, Sir, that I could [Page 411] get the buzzing out of this ear, that I might not be so deaf, and I grow worse every year; then again, I have wished I could bring this hip about, and yet I am lamer than ever; and lastly, which is worse than all, I have wished a hundred times, the 'Squire would let this yard and wilderness be kept in the trim it used to be, and that he would get somebody to trim the thieves that rob him of all they can lay hold of, but no such good luck. Why, as sure as you are alive, Sir, they come now into the yard and garden in broad day, knowing master is safe in bed, and carry off what comes to hand, without taking any more notice of me than if I was a dead thing: and a dead thing I don't doubt but they would soon make of me, if I was to say much to them.—A pure good man— a right good master—and won't harm a worm:— Pity, an't it, Sir, he should let them go on thus. Well, it's no use to talk to him; he's fast a-sleep, I suppose now, and GOD bless him!—its some comfort though, there is little or nothing left for the rogues to take, without they begin upon the garden trees here, which, [Page 412] I dare say, they will, when they have cleared the abbey-yard of the fell'd and standing timber now in it.

That I might not seem to throw myself out of the way of fortune, I took a draught of the water out of the wishing tumbler, which the good gardener kept in a little nook of the wall, and wish'd—that master and servant might have health and happiness till I saw them again.

The town of WALSINGHAM has a good market, stands on the banks of a nameless river which runs into the sea below STIFKEY, at about six or seven miles' distance, and one of its most delightful rides, is to the last-named village. This recommendation goes strengthened to you by various travellers, particularly Arthur Young, who says, what I found delightfully true, "that the ride from WARHAM by STIFKEY, is through a most picturesque country; the road runs on the brow of the hill looking down on STIFKEY vale. The vale, which is composed of mea­dows of the finest verdure, winds in a very beautiful manner from out of a thicket of woody [Page 413] inclosures, and retires behind a projecting hill; an humble stream glides through it, and adds a cheerfulness, which water can so well confer." The hills ascend boldly before you, and though they are bare of wood, that defect is compen­sated by the thick inclosures, in which the vil­lage is scattered, forming with its church in a dip of the hill, and that of Blakeney above it, in a prouder situation, a complete picture.

The hall, or manor-house, now occupied at present by Mrs. Buck, the tenant of the farm, is the stately ruin of a large and noble structure, built by Sir Nicholas Bacon, in the reign of queen Elizabeth; whose arms and date, 1604, are on the gate-way. The house is situated in the bottom of a deep and gloomy vale, sur­rounded with the high and steep hills just men­tioned; a languid stream runs close by its south front, environed with a few tall trees, which add not a little to the pensive appearance of the whole scene.

The west front, with two embrasured towers, is more uniform than most houses of the same age. The gate-way introduced you to a spaci­ous [Page 414] area, of which the main building formed the west and north, and the gardens and offices, with high walls, the east side.

The church, dedicated to St. John the Bap­tist, stands on the higher ground, a little north of the hall, as does the parsonage, a neat and commodious dwelling, now occupied by the rector. The present Marquis Townshend re­sided here some time, after his return from Ireland, where, as has been already noted, he had presided as Lord Lieutenant, with the greatest reputation and dignity for many years.

The first three miles from WALSINGHAM on the way to HOLT, continue to shew the progress of the hatchet, and the boundaries of the estate of Mr. ******, are marked so accurately by that fell conveyancer, that you take measure of them for a full league, on both sides the road, whereon you are left with scarce the shelter of a hedge, much less of a tree, the truth of which I might justly say, a forest of stumps evince. You know your return to foliage, the exact point at which the spoilers have been constrained to [Page 415] check their course. The traveller, and Nature herself are relieved by the change.

I stop in a little road-side glen of Oaks on the left, about a mile from the first village belong­ing to Sir George Chad, to enjoy the alteration. I have given the rein to my horse, who in the midst of the shaded grass, which has still some of the morning dew upon it, seems to luxuriate in the change.

We will now set off mutually refreshed— he better able to carry me to new scenes and objects, and I more disposed to explore and de­scribe them.

I need not request you, or any traveller, but a blind one, to pause when he has gained the summit of a little rising in the road, about a mile of HOLT. The prospect from thence will, as one of our bards boldly expresses it, ‘Take captive the wild motion of the eye’ by a thousand pictorial attractions. The seat and grounds of Mr. JODDRIL—the variegation of wood, pasture, and corn-fields, on the up­lands to the left, and of the church; its round [Page 416] tower, the house and gardens of Mr. Hurd, Mr. Ouse, and, indeed, of the whole pretty village, with the refreshing sight and sound of the mill-water below, will amply reward your attention; the rather, if you come from WAL­SINGHAM, to which, for the wide-wasting circum­stances already detailed, it forms a very striking contrast. What that lordship of Mr. ******'s was antecedent to its honours being put to the axe—this is: and though, in both, the rise and fall of the ground are alike happy, the manor of Mr. JODRELL serves only to display the outrage committed on the other more lamentably. Let me recommend to you to take a retrospective view of this landscape, half a mile after you have past its front. Stop at an opening in the road about that distance from the village, oppo­site a detached cluster of oaks, to your left, and it will be still better if you are upon a residen­tiary horse, you may throw his bridle at full length on his docile neck at the gate, which you will find precisely in this place, and he may entertain himself one way, with the herbage within his reach, while you are regaled another— [Page 417] or, if you are disposed to cross the adjoining fields, and ascend the hill to its summit, you will be yet more gratified. I stood charm­bound. I penciled what I now retrace with the pen—and I defy any one, who has but a relish of the painter or poet, the lover of nature, or any lover; or even the cool-headed, and quiet-hearted man,—who has plain good sense though he admits not enthusiasm, but whose eye is a fair medium betwixt Painter and Poet— not to be delighted "to the top of his compass." But, notwithstanding I have here brought a middle man into this argument, I may be suspected to have been influenced by the en­thusiastic love I profess, and which you know I really feel, for the beauties of Nature. I dare permit you to call in the most plain proseist you please, as a judge, and have nothing to fear from his sentence, while I pronounce the spot on which the seat of Mr. JODRELL is placed, as, one of the most lovely in England,—considering its extent. In proof of which assertion, I shall bring the terrace, the varieties of sea and land­views—the sudden shutting out of society, so [Page 418] that you are left, as it were, alone in the vast creation,—the abrupt discovery of the peopled world—then by a few steps, your second retreat from, or return to, human kind, and its busy occupations—the invitations to solemn musing which steal upon you, as you find yourself insensibly enveloped in, literally, a grove of ivy; and the disposition you feel to indulge gayer thoughts as you disembower from thence into brighter foliage, amidst the inspiration of flowers,—your ideas expanding like the blos­soms, whose tints you seem to borrow, and weave into, as well as colour, your thoughts and sensations; — Hence, I conceive, the Bard, and the Painter, derive their most vivid hues: and it is, I should imagine, from such real scenes, charming the senses, and touching the soul—it is from the magic force of such ori­ginals—immediately under the eye, and at the heart—that we have copies of Nature, second in grace and beauty only to their originals. Such copies may be taken at Bayfield, and I can venture to promise your Genius, that the door of the mansion will be opened to you [Page 419] by Hospitality, and that "as a stranger," you will be welcomed as a guest.

A provincial history speaks of the picture of a Tortoise in the manor-house, with the fol­lowing inscription:

"This tortoise, in 1685, was brought by Mr. Robert Swallow from Smyrna to Bayfield, and in July, 1686, given to John Jermy, Esq. It yearly, in November, went, under ground: there laid and slept till the latter end of March. In May, she made a hole in the middle of a gravel-walk, most open to the sun, and therein usually laid nine eggs, but never produced, any young, having no commerce with a male. She was found dead in the earth in April, 1783."

The beautiful little village, however, which, both at the foot of Bayfield and at the approach to HOLT, forms so important, and so lovely a part of the enchanting scenery, is annoyed by one intruder.

My friend, there is not in the round of vice, any thing more baneful to the reason, dignity, and every other sublime distinction of man, than a virtue broke from its proper bound, [Page 420] —even the noblest and the best—an over­charged, and intemperate idea of devotion. It is the lawless meteor of the soul, that, rushing from its sphere, sets the little globe of man on fire: it consumes whatever it approximates, and is as far from the true, the pure, and the attempered religion of a benign Redeemer, and, —I humbly hope I am not presumptuous in adding—as distinct from the worship which Religion's GOD requires, as the burning flame of a wild irregular comet, which—though for wise reasons, it is permitted to affright the air— as the terrestrial meteor just spoken of does the earth, and the blessed, and blessing orb, which, with a fix'd and steady radiance, a permanent principle of warmth, animation, and glory— enlivens, and enlightens the universe.

Hallowed, thrice hallowed be every pure aspiration. Sacred, on that ground, be the worshipped feather, the idolized stone, and the adored image, of whatever materials it may be formed—The motive that deified it, and that bends before it the knee of the untutored, and humbles the spirit of the unguided, shall give it [Page 421] lustre, even in the eyes of the illumined Christian, and, I doubt not, of the Christian's GOD.

But can philanthropy or pity — can even Christianity itself, my dear Baron, with all its wondrous store of charities, forbear a sigh, or tear, to reflect, that, at the close of the eighteenth century, the best emotions of the human soul, springing, I dare aver, in general, from the most pious impulses, should be carried to an excess which dethrones all the faculties, the power, and the majesty of that soul?—emo­tions which destroy at once both the means and the ends of religion? Does not an evil of this giant stature grow out of the gloomy, and terrific devotion, which is substituted for one of meekness, benevolence, and joy?

The Father of all true religions forbid that the spirit of toleration should ever be restrained! GOD forbid! that,—in this country more espe­cially,—the liberty of praying to the Great Bestower, each member of the community, according to what he feels most consonant to the sentiment by which he is moved, and [Page 422] to what he hopes may be most acceptable to the Power whom he supplicates, should ever be violated. Be religious liberty the most distinguished, and most appreciated, as it must ever be the most sacred part, of British freedom! would to heaven it were so through­out the world—would it were the charter of the whole universe! But is it not deeply to be deplored that in almost every quarter of the civilized earth, there should more or less prevail an idea, which, by torturing particular passages, or expressions in the holy volume of Faith, from their true import, our very nature is debased, and the figure and form which we are allotted to wear, made lower even than the lowest orders of creatures, which are said by the very same scriptures, to be put in subjection under our feet? Weak, ineffectual, frail, and in every breath we draw dependent, unquestionably we are—but what wise, or pious purpose is to be answered, or how is the great work of penitence, or of peace to be promoted, by our being represented as the "heirs of hell!" and that, to make us heirs of heaven, we must be "snatched [Page 423] from the arms of the devil," or come to a pitched battle with Belzebub, until,

Or, what good can ever be proposed, what pious principle established, by thus furiously holding out dark images of our "contemptible," and perishable state, and often in filthy, sometimes even indecent language?—thus degrading in­stead of exalting the prime work on earth, of Him who made us the creatures of his hands,— thus opprobriously implicating even the Creator?

Such images, however, will be seen publicly displayed in various fugitive poems, in songs, hymns, and prayers not far from Bayfield-Hall, and in too many other parts of England. Johnson imputed the great success which at­tends the religionists, to whom I here allude, to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which, he thought, the only way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited [Page 424] to their congregations; a practice for which they will be praised by men of sense. To insist, says the Doctor, against drunkenness as a crime, because it debases Reason, the noblest faculty of man, would certainly be of no service to the common people; but to tell them that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and shew them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. It seems to have been the opinion of this great man, that the esta­blished Clergy in general did not preach plain enough; and that polished periods and glitter­ing sentences flew over the heads of the com­mon people, without any impression upon their hearts. Something might be necessary, he imagined, to excite the affections of the com­mon people, who were sunk in languor and lethargy, and therefore he supposed that the new concomitants of what we call methodism might probably produce so desirable an effect. The mind, like the body, he conceived, de­lighted in change and novelty, and even in religion itself courted new appearances and modifications. Whatever, therefore, might be [Page 425] thought of some methodist teachers, he said, he could scarcely doubt the sincerity of that man who travelled nine hundred miles in a month—and I could name many virtuous men who have exceeded this—the excellent Mr. Wesley was one,—who preached twelve times a week!—no adequate reward, merely temporal, could be given for such indefatigable labour.

The general sincerity of this sect I have fully admitted; nor do I hesitate to approve the unlaboured manner, and the conversation-style ^* [Page 426] of delivery in which they frequently begin their effusions, whether studied or spontaneous; al­though [Page 427] I must notice that they frequently sink into the mean, while they are sedulous to pre­serve the familiar; yet, I have to lament that they too seldom continue in this simplicity, either of argument or expression, but work themselves gradually up from moderation to vehemence, both of gesture and tone, and some times, by a [Page 428] sudden spiritual jerk, bound up from the still small voice of persuasive remonstrance and good sense, to anathemas and reprobations of them­selves, and rhapsodies to GOD, are piled moun­tain high, making Ossa, indeed, "like a wart!" For the sincerity, however, even of these paroxysms, I give credit, in by far the greater part of the auditory. I have seen, not remote from the spot whence these reflections have just been drawn, the most unequivocal testimonies of genuine feeling—I have seen it, my friend, in the scalding tears that have de­luged the cheeks of youth, and of age,—in the uplifted eye, that turning abhorrent from the wickedness of the creature—looks to the mercy of the Creator, in the now pallid, and now crimson flushes of a distorted countenance— and I have heard its voice, rising from the first agitated sigh, to the last distracted groan of a fermenting, and heated soul. But it is as the raging heat of the dog-star that withers the sweet herb and flower, not as the benign planet that nourishes them. Betwixt deep humility, from a consciousness of imperfection and utter [Page 429] self-abasement—there is surely as wide and im­portant a difference, as betwixt arrogant pride, and the reverence which a lowly spirit may feel and indulge. The first, it is true, "was not made for man," the second, I cannot but appre­hend, was; because in thus reverencing himself, man reverences the Power who made him in his own express image. The horrors of a mind overburthened with a sense of guilt, will, no doubt, force a way into public notice from the most profound recesses of the bosom; and in such cases, the voice of Contrition may cry aloud, and be heard afar off; but, God forbid! this dire sentiment of acknowledged, or even of latent shame, should be general; and even in those lamentable instances it is not often that Penitence forgets the meekness and silence which are her characteristics. That a holy fear— a sacred awe—should mix with a love of GOD is natural; but partakes more of the emotion of a duteous child to a tender parent,—and what is the Omnipotent but the lovely Father of all mankind? The point I contend for, is, that of seeing him and his religion drawn in that charac­ter: [Page 430] and what I complain of in many of the votaries of Methodism, is suffering the serious sen­timent they truly feel, not only to throw over the hours of prayer a headlong terror and an enfu­riate zeal, which hurries them out of themselves, but impregnates their whole lives with the gloom of the grave. The cheerfulness which smiles around them in the fairest and purest works of the Almighty, as, for instance, they glow in the scenes of Bayfield, at this beautiful season, communicates no reflected complacency to many of the villagers below. Humanly speaking, when their lives are unspotted, when the seeds of Virtue in their hearts have shot up into the pure blossom, and yielded the fruit of good works, they still fear to shew, in the nameless relative and endearing alliances of life, that they ought to partake of the innocent hilarity,—in which every bird over their heads, every insect at their feet, every animal which lives but to assist, and which die to nourish them,—till the last unconscious moment of sacrifice—so generally REJOICE.

"There are four sorts of people," says the [Page 431] amiable Author, who has furnished me with the example I have given you, in my last note, a few pages back, "and each of these persons is differently affected towards our Father which is in heaven." The first he describes as being without Him; the second as against Him; the third as dreading Him; the last," adds he, "love and adore Him." Of that class, I firmly believe, are very frequently the people called Methodists. But excess of this dread is often fatal to their individual comfort, and renders them in a man­ner useless as connected beings. The distraught or downcast eye, the shaded brow, the droop­ing figure, the melancholy air, and the heavy step, too often mark their progress through the cheerful walks of Nature and Society. Why is this? The volume of their faith and the blessed Author of it, recommend modest cheer­fulness continually, and hold out a sweet assu­rance that the temple of GOD, the everlasting temple,—and surely the earthly one should copy its character,—instead of being filled with general lamentations, ungovernable sentiments, foaming expressions of them, and convulsive [Page 432] gesticulations, exhibits to the virtuous the fullness of joy! and should not even the wicked when he turneth away from his wickedness, console his wounded spirit with the inexpressible goodness and smiling love, rather than the desolating or withering frown of the Power, "who pitieth and forgiveth, even as a father pitieth his children?"

Those whose dread overwhelms their love, are, in truth, the sincerest objects of pity. The Author above-mentioned, in his own familiar, yet impressive manner, is of the same opinion; and by an allusion drawn from com­mon life, gives a lively representation of the mercy of the Deity as a solace from the terror of his judgments. It brings to so good an issue the whole of this argument, is so illus­trative, and favours the comfortable idea I so wish to establish, that it shall close my present Letter.

"Suppose I could take a person out of this assembly"—he addressed this from the pulpit— "one who had never seen the sea, and carry him in an instant to the sea-side, and set him [Page 433] down there; and suppose the sea at that instant to be in a storm: the great, black, and dismal clouds rolling, thunders bellowing, lightnings flashing, the winds roaring, the sea dashing ten thousand watery mountains one against another, the beach covered with shattered timber and cordage, merchandise and corpses; this man would instantly conceive a dreadful idea of the sea, and would shudder, and shriek, and flee for his life. It would be hard to give this man a pleasant notion of the sea, especially if he had been well-informed that several of his relations and friends had perished in the tempest; yet this man would have but half a right notion of the sea; for could he be prevailed on to go down on the beach a few days after, the heavens would smile, the air be serene, the water smooth, the seamen whistling and singing, here a vessel of trade sailing before the wind, there a fleet of men of war coming into har­bour, yonder pleasure boats basking in the sun, the flute making melody of the breeze, the company, even the softer sex, enjoying them­selves without fear; this man would then form [Page 434] the other half-notion of the sea; and the two put together would be the just and true idea of it. Apply this, and your confidence in GOD will be as much greater than your dread, as his MERCIES are greater than his PUNISHMENTS.

LETTER XXI.

THE distance from LETHERINSET to Holt is scarcely more than a mile, but were it a league, your eye would find welcome occu­pation. The town of Holt stands on a hill, which, were I writing to a Dutchman, I should call lofty, but to a Switzer, I shall only venture to say, its top is airy enough for health, and it is scarce necessary to observe it affords a suf­ficient scope for a prospect of vernal beauty; for it includes a summary view of all that I have detailed in my way from Hillington, Houghton, and Fakenham; the richest variega­tion of scenery, perhaps, in Norfolk; of which, indeed, it has been called the garden. Not [Page 436] that I would have you attach too much faith to this expression generally, though in this par­ticular instance it happens to be true; because I have frequently found men and books, pay­ing the like compliment to several parts of the same county; insomuch, that one might deem the whole district to consist of garden-ground: and sometimes where there is little preference to be made in any of the spots favoured.

There has been a complaint as to water, the want of which was severely felt some years ago; but the landlord of the Feathers, a good well-attended Inn, which I recommend to you, asserts that this objection is entirely removed.

Holt is generally under-rated by publishing travellers, who have agreed to say "it contains some good houses." It may be improved; for at this very day that I am writing of it, I must give the preference to most others of the same size I have seen in any part of England. It is extremely clean, has a countenance of neatness, something of an air of gentility, and most of the environing cottages convey to the spectator an image of comfort.

[Page 437]Sir John Gresham, who was born here, bought the manor-house, which he converted into a school, endowing it with the manor, which is now in a flourishing condition, under the auspices of a very able and amiable man, Mr. Atkins. The school-house, may be called in every sense, the best house in a town, where, as I have said, there are many good. You saw too much of my questionary habits abroad, to be surprised at my entering into unceremonious chat with some of my com­patriot school-boys, who were playing near the house. I singled the boy, who seemed to bow to me in the most answerable shape, and thus en­couraged, I set off on my interrogatory poney.

"How many scholars, my little fellow?"— "Six boarders."—"How many day-scholars?" —"Very few now, Sir, in harvest time."

"Why, they are not sons of farmers, are they?"—"No, Sir, Gleaners." It was quite impossible to help observing to my little intelli­gencer, that I was one too.

"The youth looked at my boots, as if he did not believe a word of the matter.

[Page 438]"And are ye all good in school, and merry out of it?—and do you fight and make it up, and play the truants bravely?"

"That is what we do," exclaimed several together."

"And mind our books, too, now and then, when we can't help it," cried a taller strippling than the rest, archly."

"And, I dare say, you love nuts, apples, and pies, as well as I did at your age. Let me see, there are five of you, and that small piece of silver will divide into as many parts, leaving a Benjamin portion for my friend here, whom I have troubled with so many questions."

For an idea of the delight that attached to this poor donation, you must go back to the blithsome period when a penny was compe­tence, and sixpence riches. Time wears away the fine and pure sense of these things—but memory brings them back, and the very soul hangs over the recollection when such small circumstances occur to us in the bustle of life.

[Page 439]THE ride from Holt to SHELLINGHAM, must be taken like many other things in this various world—on compromise—You pass from the town of Holt almost immediately on a heath, which on the left gives you nothing but fern, thistles and rabbits, to the extent of your hori­son; but then your view to the left is recom­penced by a pretty bordering of country, and its villages, spires, &c. &c. True it is, that the continuity of the heath, for near four miles, is a little fatiguing—the rabbits gambol without effect—and I found the sheep-boys, with whom I attempted to converse, even sillier than their sheep. You have nothing, therefore, for it but to get to better things as fast as you can—and a quarter of an hour's brisk riding will bring you to them; for, after rising from a deep descent, which terminates this dreary scene, the ocean lifts itself unexpectedly to view, and the irregular elevations between the land and the water are finely covered with wood—you wind gradually along a valley, on the lofty sides of which no­thing is to be seen, even to the summits, but dark green broom, and a few straggling trees [Page 440] that slope almost to the vale, and seem even to be themselves in fear of falling. Pursuing the meander, you reach the first Shellingham, from whence I continue my Letter.

It is remarkable for nothing but miserable-looking huts, and by no means merry-looking inhabitants — there is a large supply of little shoe and stockingless children ^*—as there always is in villages near the sea—Venus, you know, sprung from thence. They open the gates on the road—and scramble, and grub, and combat, for the reward of a halfpenny thrown amongst them,—like warriors, fighting, and tearing up the earth, and each other, for ^† different objects [Page 441] —and whoever is so lucky as to find and bear it off from the rest, is as proud as any such warriors of the greatest victory that was ever obtained by the most illustrious butcher of them all; which was, as I take it, the Great Alexander of Greece, or the Great Frederick of Prussia, or the Greatest of the Great Nation, or any other great Conqueror who may happen to be your Hero, my good Friend, and my good Reader.

The second Shellingham is a mile beyond the first, and your passage to it is over some well-cultivated arable lands, which conduct you to the good, and, indeed, only inn of that place, (the Crown) situated on the verge of the cliff, where you will find, a civil innholder, good accom­modation, and a comfortable bed, on which it being now ten o'clock, I will prepare to re­pose, and wish you a good night.

LETTER XXII.

A RESPLENDANT morning shone on my farther progress. SHERINGHAM ^* Priory is an object that will command your notice in the [Page 454] degree that it has recently attracted mine; and if you take your way to it by the brook—or as they call it in this country, the beck—you will meet with a courteous reception from the well-informed gentleman-farmer upon whose grounds the ruin stands. ^* He will shew you the spot [Page 455] where the stone coffin was discovered about thirty years since by Blomfield, and a variety of other particulars respecting the antiques; and if you have the luck that I had, you will see several very pretty moderns, in the form of his fair daughters, who happened to be then in the garden that fronted his house.

Passing the farm you strike again into the CROMER road, and if you stop at the first field gate to your left, you will well employ your time in the survey of a very fine picture. The well built, comfortable, modern farm-house of the present times, with its garden, and nurseries, mixed with the reliques of the ancient Priory; Beeston-hill, and a similar ridge of smaller ones as its satellites, bounding your horizon; the ocean is seen through an arch to the left, and to the right, you have more expansive openings of it with various small craft and larger vessels [Page 456] gliding over its bosom; while Beeston-church ^* standing close to the beach, serves at once as a pleasure-mark to the traveller, and as a sea-guide to the tar.

You then proceed by a pleasant green lane till you come to the village of Further Run­ton, in which you have an elegant villa, situated in a romantic valley, screened by a continuation of the hills, and rendered more picturesque by several hanging groves, ornamented by a thick wood in the back ground, consisting of fir, sycamore, oak, and elm, less injured by their proximity to the sea than they certainly would have been had they not been under protection of the glen. The road onward, shews on one side, far-extended mountains more barren of foliage yet not destitute either of cultivation or verdure, and on the other, the broadened ocean [Page 457] spreads to the limit of your view. You have Cromer church and light-house all the way in front as the vista of your prospect.

The Norfolk Tourist, and all the other histo­rians, have done what they could for CROMER; desiring their readers will suffer its situation and the scenery around it, to make amends for the town itself. On the ostensible common facts they are all so accordant—as to the medioore buildings and foot-piercing streets, and a few other objects,—that nothing can be added to the old accounts which will do the interior of the place further service.

The embattled church has been a magnifi­cent, and is still an interesting structure. It was built about the year 1396: its steeple, which is 159 feet high, is square and richly ornamented with free-stone sculpture: the chancel is in ruins. About a mile to the east of the town is the light-house. Cromer boasts a great fishery for lobsters and crabs, and within the last few years, a considerable number of herrings have been taken on the coast.

The fair is on Whit-Monday, which [Page 458] draws together the neighbourhood. To a mind that can receive pleasure from seeing others happy, without despising or arguing upon the reasons of their being so, this is a striking scene; several hundreds of truly delighted beings of all sexes and ages, in their holiday cloaths, are seen from the cliff in boats, enlivening the sea, whilst swarms of people who cannot get boats enough to gratify their desire of floating, im­patiently wait on the beach, which they cover.

There is now no harbour at Cromer, yet corn is exported, and coals, deals, &c. received in return. The vessels used are from 60 to 100 tons burden, few larger: at high water they are laid upon the beach, and, as soon as the water is sufficiently ebbed, carts are drawn to the side of the ship, and the coals shot into them, as they are into lighters in other places: but the carts carry only half a chaldron at a time, as the road up the cliff is very steep. In this manner the carts continue working, till the water flows so high as to wash the sides of the horses, and just to float the carts; they can then unload sometimes sixty chaldron in a tide. When the [Page 459] vessel is empty it floats on a high tide, and continues at a little distance from the shore, and is then loaded with corn by boats, as they sel­dom run the hazard of loading them when laid on the Beach, lest contrary wind should prevent their getting off with the cargo.

While I thus report what has been reported, and seem to catch eagerly at these poor coal-barges and corn-boats—or any thing like a curiosity—methinks, my friend perceives the difficulty I am in between a wish to promise him something worthy of his attention in this little sea-port, and the impossibility of accom­plishing it, so far as mere town goes; which, in my opinion, is not very far any where, out of the metropolis.

But the exterior of Cromer is replete with interesting and commanding objects: blending, indeed, some things which are sublime with many that are beautiful. The cliffs, and sands combine both these. To the fullest extent of a various walk, or ride, the Beach is in itself an object of peculiar attraction. It is broad, firm, and smooth, I think, beyond any I have seen. [Page 460] May I not flatter myself you have in recol­lection the Beach verses which were drawn from me at SCHEVELING, in Holland, in my former Gleanings? and will it not be permitted me to consider the kind reception which I re­member you gave them, as passports for more sea-side poesy? I cannot but anticipate your answer to this question, in the way most pleasing to me; and when we are our own respondents as well as appellants, and no one is at hand to put in a rejoinder, or to make a single objection, we are sure, you know, of our cause.—Take then what may follow from the influence of the poetic passion which I found rising at the view of the ocean—an element which has, in some re­spects, advantage of the land, even allowing the latter as in the scene before me, to be eminently beautiful. The ever-shifting varieties, either soft or sublime, rich or interesting, of the marine picture moving on the face of the water, its colouring, its quietude, its menace of a storm, and the storm itself—considering only the sur­face—are endless; and if you add the diversity of objects moving on it, each of those objects [Page 461] presented in different points of view, according to the different periods and humours of the air and water by which they are influenced, it is altogether impossible that any fixed scenery, however diversified by the changes of the sea­sons, or of verdure, should, as a novelty, afford such amusement to the eye, and supply to the soul such trains of reflection.

Since I reached Cromer I have had the curiosity to keep watch, on the movements of this sublime object, from a window that commanded it, during the chief part of a day and evening; both of which exhibited, even in their own changes, a strong specimen of the vicissitude of human things. For beyond my power was it to catch the quick succession from shade to splendour, and from splendour again to shade; I passed many hours in my observatory—indeed, most part of the day and eve—then onward to the not unwelcome pensive interval, when an em­browning cast of deeper shadowing follows the last sun-tints, and precedes the rising of the moon—this was accompanied by a still pause, as if nature was preparing her scenery for a new [Page 462] change — groupes of spectators were on the Beach, many in the room with me were dis­posed to sympathy of silence.—It was sweet to attend the gradual peering, to the full lustre of the loveliest planet, to our vision, in the heavens—the patroness of philosophy, friend­ship, and love—softener of our woe, composer of our strife, the solacer of the wounded heart, chastener of our worst, encourager of our best contemplations.

Had Neptune himself sent his azure chariot to receive, with a chosen suite of his sea­nymphs to invite and escort me to his coral palace, I scarce could have been more awed, more softened, or more enchanted; sometimes at the window—sometimes ruminating on the cliff, and sometimes pacing along, or listening to the surf-sound, the flap of the boat-sail, or the measured dash of the distant oar.

My heart warmed, its sensibility kindled, its rapture glowed! I penciled its effusions—begun and ended—just as you will see them.—After a short pause I will retrace them, so that they may go with this their introduction, in my next packet.

LETTER XXIII.

IT is now the prime season here both of the ocean and the land; and as health and happiness can never be long parted, even in this age of separate maintenance, without both being the worse for it, they are, if not found in harmony so often as might be desired, more likely to be conciliated in places where they may receive the breezes of our tutelary Nep­tune than in any other part of our wave-crown­ed empire—There, like lovers, they may go hand in hand, or if, lover-like, they should be in quarrel—may kiss and be friends, unmocked of the world. Not that I mean to bring into the account, certain well-bred withering max­ims, [Page 490] which, though they frequently turn the healthy into sickness, and the sick into their graves, certainly compliment our better sort of folk with the etiquette of dying politely. No, truly, I speak of the charms of Nature in a sea village, as Nature has made them; and—I thank her—as she has made me to feel them;—as they enliven my view, renovate my frame, and invigorate my senses—as they open upon me the wonders and glories of the beautiful uni­verse in the survey of the liquid element, and assist me to enjoy them: in fine, as they inspire all that entered into, and formed the feelings which, with the aid of the Muse, I attempted to delineate in my last.

Albeit, this town is not, as I observed, to be spoken of vauntingly, you are not to conclude from thence that its habitations are hovels, or its accommodations destitute of comfort, a word by no means so expletive in England, as it is in many other parts of the world. CROMER, to be sure, compared with some of our high­ton'd watering-places,—such, for instance, as Weymouth, which is made royal; or Brighthelmstone, [Page 491] which is made princely; and many others on the coasts of Sussex, Kent, &c. &c. which are so be-duked, and be-dutchessed, be-lorded, and be-ladied, that they seem to think they have a title—your pardon, for this slip of the pen into a pun—to lift up their heads more proudly even than their waves—compared with these, it must always be low water with my poor Cromer at sea, and low land on shore; but only figuratively, and in the eye of Fashion; for naturally, you will find it all, and much more than all, I have described.

There are to be found several dwellings, sufficiently spacious for families, and many that might well content bachelor, or spinster tra­vellers—yea, and with their appropriate attend­ants, the petit-chien of the one, and the petite-chat of the other—their characteristic little dog and cat, inclusive.— except indeed very old spinsters and bachelors. Those "who libel the fair" assert, that in England my dear countrywomen then begin to have less of the milk of human kindness, and to that acquire more of the gall afloat in their constitution. Yet [Page 492] even in that sore case, I know not where a dis­appointed and repining spirit can find more room to compose itself than at CROMER. Such a spirit has here continual opportunity of medi­tating on the fickleness of men and women—of their want of feeling, and of taste. Both in the winds and waves it may perpetually find some­thing analogous to false vows, and the lovers who made them—for that every bachelor has had his heart accepted, and every spinster heard oaths which have been abused, you know, cannot be doubted—and if, in ruminating along by the margin of the main upon these dire wrongs, any elderly gentleman, or gentle­woman should be tempted to furnish the world with another example of what has been seen less frequently than the comet—to wit—playing the prank of the young Leander—though not, like him, gaining the beloved by a swim, yet find a cure for perfidiousness, which is the same thing—there cannot, I think, be a spot in the whole world of waters where such a sublime undertaking could be attempted with more assurance of success than from any part of the [Page 493] very cliff now before me; nor can it be doubted but that the German ocean—into whose friendly bosom a person, so disposed, might be con­veyed by a single jump—would answer the comfortable purpose, to the full as well as the Hellespont. The libellers alluded to above would farther insist, that ancient masters or misses might expect to be received as wel­come guests by the brother of Pluto, and even by Pluto himself, and that upon more accounts than one. In the first place, they would argue, the Roman soothsayers always offered to Neptune the gall of the victims, because in taste it resembles the bitterness of the sea water, and consequently the more bitter the gall the more acceptable; besides, would they say, ancient single personages are amongst the con­secrated things of the infernal Jupiter, who is known to have a particular objection to the number two—Consequently all the number ones would be amongst the auspicious beings sacred to him—so that instead of leading apes in the mythological Erebus, with which they are threatened, the venerable bands will probably be [Page 494] presented on their first descent into hell with a bouquet of the hallowed cypress; and for ever after occupy the appropriate symbols—the distaff, the spindle, and the scissars, and sit like the Parcae on the right hand of Proserpine, the dog Cerberus at their feet to guard them from future annoyance, and the Lethean river to enable them to forget past injuries.

I have thus been led with great good humour to throw out friendly hints for an emergency— an affair of life and death—in the mean time all sorts of people resolved upon this world may be very well accommodated.

If you wish your local habitation to the sea, there are pleasant houses standing on the verge of the cliff; and if more inland, you have a choice of dwellings that give you the fragrance of gardens, and the verdure of fields. The dwelling, ^* for example, in which I am writing [Page 495] to you, should it be unoccupied when you arrive here, might be recommended as enjoying a combination of these agremens: it stands in a side direction of the town, has an unobstructed view of lawny hills, and waving corn-fields in front, a slanted prospect of the ocean expands to the right, and to the left a wood, which, though within a few paces of the "watry deep," has neither been stinted of its growth nor damaged in its foliage. I must, however, con­fess, that in point of advantage, a timber mer­chant would exclaim, that the trees were too numerous — had been planted too near each other; ^* it must be owned, also, that, in con­sequence [Page 496] the vegetation is so interwoven, the verdure would be thought too much in a mass for critics of picturesque beauty: the whole green top is as compact as a colliflower, and has really something of its general shape, and clumpy appearance; the leaves and branches being in a manner stuck together; but had you been here for the two past days, which have been so intensely torrid that the very sea, earth, and air looked overpowered with heat, neither you, nor a Price, a Repton, or a Gilpin—no, nor even the timber-merchant would have wished a single leaf taken from the verdant ca­nopy under which I am just come from taking shelter: and glad was I to find it impenetrable to the beam of that Sun which the night breeze —which is only beginning to respire, while the [Page 497] curfew is tolling — has scarcely attemp [...]d. This green asylum belongs to Cromer-Hall, of which it is the defence in front, as a grove that corresponds is a screen behind. Both are the property of a gentleman whose affable manners and liberal disposition have gained him the hearts not of this neighbourhood only, but wheresoever he is known; and Cromer-wood does not afford a more agreeable shade to the rich and prosperous, than Cromer-Hall does a resting place—when its master is resident—to the poor and unfortunate.

The excursions from this place, in every point of the compass—land and sea-ward— whether made on foot, on horse-back, in carriages, or in boats, within the circle of a dozen miles, present somewhat to keep you well amused, and bring you back satisfied, and in good spirits to the point from which you set out.

The particulars, either necessary or pleasant to be known, respecting those places, when disencumbered of the intolerable load, with which the county historians have burthened [Page 498] them—their enfeoffiments, licences, presenta­tions, descents and bequests—may be brought into narrow compass, even as a cup of cocles might be taken from a bushel of shells. The scenes and objects which will afford you the most satisfaction in your little tours from this place, and which may be said to form its neighbourhood, will be found at FELBRIGG, SISTED, GUNTON, ALBOROUGH, ANTINGHAM, WALSHAM and CLEY. In accounts of these I perceive the tourists have followed one an­other: I shall use the liberty of retrenching, compressing, or adding to, as well as own myself indebted to the assistance of all.

Felbrigg, the seat of William Windham, Esq. is by nature one of the most beautiful situations in Norfolk. In the park, which is very extensive, there is more uneven ground than in any other in this county; nor has art been less bountiful; the woods are large and ancient: in the centre of the greatest is an irregular oval of about four acres, surrounded with a broad belt of lofty silver firs; on enter­ing which the eye is enchanted, without at first [Page 499] perceiving why it is so; probably, from the contrast made by this unvaried green to the diversified tints of the other forest trees, which are every where mixed in the rest of the grove, and which the lofty ever-greens entirely ex­clude.

From another part of the road an extensive prospect demands attention through a break in the grove, from whence the irregular ground of the park is seen to the greatest advantage: Norwich spire, at about twenty miles distance, terminates the view.

From the upper part of the wood the sea presents itself, but not so strikingly to your eye as from the new plantation, which will in a few years conceal that pleasing object from the eye, but only to display it at another point in awful majesty.

The house which has been considerably en­larged by the Windham family is large and convenient. But the old style of architecture observable in the south front has been happily kept up in the hall, and in the library, which is well furnished with the most valuable authors, [Page 500] and contains a capital collection of prints from the best masters.

"Mr. Windam's plantations," says the au­thor of the Tour of Norfolk, "are designed to answer two purposes, to ornament and belt his park, and to extend his great woodland scene nearer the sea, towards which, at two miles distance it forms a grand bulwark, from whence he looks down an easy declivity, over a bold shore, to an unlimited prospect on the German ocean."

The general utility of inclosing commons and waste lands has long been a subject of much debate. I have already touched upon it, my dear Baron, in a former part of our correspond­ence. It is, in truth, too important a part of national improvement to be hastily passed over. Many ingenious and distinguished men have written upon, and encouraged it; amongst others, the Earl of WINCHILSEA and Mr. KENT. The former, with a spirit that com­bines public oeconomy with private benevo­lence, has tried the good to be derived from this measure on his late waste ground upon his [Page 501] own estate, and Mr. KENT is a strong advocate for it. The facts stated in his account of the improvement made at Felbrigg, seem to justify his conclusions, he says, "the parish of Felbrigg consists of about thirteen hundred acres of land, and till the year 1771, remained time out of mind in the following state: four hundred acres of inclosed, one hundred of wood-land, four hundred of common-field, and four hundred of common or heath. By authentic registers at different periods, it appeared, that the number of souls had never been known to exceed one hundred and twenty-four; which was the number in 1745; in 1777 they were only one hundred and twenty-one; at this time (1794) they amount to one hundred and seventy-four." This rapid increase Mr. Kent attributes chiefly to the recent improvements made in the parish, by inclosing all the common-field land, and converting most of the common into arable land and plantations. Farther to strengthen his opinion of the benefits of inclosure, Mr. Kent remarks, that the parish of Weyburn, [Page 502] consisting of about the same quantity of unen­closed common and common-fields, as Felbrigg did, has not increased of late in population.

A still farther light is thrown on the subject by VANCOUVER, in his Survey of a county we shall visit in its turn—I mean Cambridgeshire.

It is universally acknowledged, by all writers on political oeconomy, that the population of a country must ever depend upon the means which it possesses; and the proper application of those means for subsisting its inhabitants, Britain, at this time, unquestionably possesses the unemployed means of subsisting, in addition [Page 505] to her present numbers, one third more of in­habitants; that such an augmentation must be deemed politically right there can be no ques­tion; because the internal strength, and pro­ductive labour of the nation would be encreased. By inviting to early marriage the peasantry of the country, who under their present want of con­fidence, that their industry will enable them to support an infant offspring, are not allured to the gratification of an early and generous passion, which is, doubtless, of the highest political as well as moral consequence. Hence the rapid encrease of the inhabitants of North-America, where, by a propagation only, ex­clusive of the accession of foreigners, their numbers are estimated at double in twenty-eight years. That the objects for the employment of the poor would be multiplied, there can be no doubt, when we look at the additional quantity of labour, the country will demand from a general enclosure. The fencing, draining, clay­ing, marling, ploughing, sowing, reaping, mowing, threshing, that will then be necessary to attend to; over and above what the business [Page 506] of the country, at this time, produces, are objects, which, from their employment of the poor, cannot fail creating in the most essential degree, the greatest moral and political advan­tages; whilst the idle objection, that in the event of a general enclosure, there would be more land thrown into pasture than there ought to be, is too weak and frivolous to deserve attention.

The pursuit of this very momentous subject has made a pause in the picturesque beauty of the village scenery in the environs of Cromer: but you must not call, indeed, I think, you will not feel it, a digression.

The enclosure of a country will very mate­rially assist and add to pictorial beauty. If long tracts of rugged heath-ground, or of barren sand, gapped and encaverned by the burrowing rabbit, with here and there a solitary hut, wild and desolate, and made more sad by the wail of the plover, can be meliorated into cheerful pasturage, bounteous corn fields, flowery hedge-rows, and future groves; if the dreary hut can be replaced by the more comfortable [Page 507] cottage, and the sweet note of the linnet suc­ceed to the plaint of the pewit, and the cot­tagers hereby find a screen and a fence, instead of any thing being taken from them, Hu­manity itself will deliver in a prayer to the Committee of Agriculture, for the enclosure of the comparatively waste land of a benevolent country.

Let us return, my Friend, to our village ex­cursions. SISTED lies at the back of FELBRIGG Park, and, after turning the overshot wheel of Gresham-mill, a little brook, important from events, takes its course through the parish; it then, by its meander, increases the beauty of Mr. Doughty's Park at Flanworth; from thence again it rises in its claims, by becoming useful to a mill at Alborough; at length, after making a pleasing labyrinth, it empties itself into the Bure near Lammass.

Upon the banks of this little stream—which, though barely covering its gravelly bottom, abounds with trout—are the remains of a once proud edifice, the seat of the DAMMES: what is most perfect of the foundation appears to have [Page 508] appertained to a square building with large but, tresses, surrounded by a moat, and the rivulet is embanked with a stone wall on one side for at least seventy-five yards from the building. In a few years even these vestiges of its former dignity—for they crumble to the touch—will be hidden even from the antiquary. The name of the manor,—SUSTEAD, late DAMMES—some meagre inscriptions on brass in the church, and the preceding account of the family preserved by Blomfield, are the sole traces of people who once commanded the hat, and the knee of the vassal-neighbourhood. The contemplatist, how­ever, finds an obvious moral in their ruins. If the former Lords fixed their happiness in pageant hospitality, rather than in unostentatious bounty—in pride of ancestry more than mental accomplishments, in the smile of great ones like themselves, rather than in the blessings of the indigent, how would they blush to know, that under the same roof their undistin­guished dust lies mixed with the humble ashes of Elizabeth Lowe.

Amidst the unmeaning tribute necessarily [Page 509] paid to many families in a work of this kind, observe the Compilers of the History of Nor­folk—merely because their ancestors had— though, perhaps, undeservedly—obtained fa­vours from our first William ^*—let the antiquary, or the genealogist, permit us to mention the name of Saint CLAIR, without tracing it back to the reign of Alfred; for though we could, perhaps, gratify them with a long pedigree, as she did not make this her boast, we will only say that Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe was the only daughter of Patrick St. Clair, a respectable cler­gyman—that she passed the greatest part of her life in the fondest filial attendance on her aged and infirm father—and lest she should be in­terrupted in these tender duties to her widow'd and bereaved parent, she continued single till [Page 510] after his death, when she married the Rev. Mr. Lowe, Rector of Stukey, the picturesque vil­lage already described.

To give a just idea of the character of this unassumingly good being, it is needless to string the common-place epithets with which monu­ments are generally loaded; it is enough to say, that those with whom she conversed or corre­sponded were always pleased or instructed by her wisdom, and that those near whom she lived were made happy by her benevolence.

The house in which she resided, you will perceive, sequestered as was its mistress; it is in the middle of a little farm, which she orna­mented with several small plantations. It is now in the occupation of the very ingenious Mr. HUMPHRY REPTON, to whom the Norfolk historians acknowledge themselves obliged for many of the drawings with which their work is embellished; and they might have observed further, whose elegant taste in the disposition, as well as ornament of ground, has added to die embellishments of Nature herself.

The church is a small building surrounded [Page 511] by sycamore trees, over whose tops appears its white round tower: the ground rises agreeably, and presents an engaging view to the north, over an extensive lawn of rich pasture land, intersected by venerable oak, and bounded by a full view of the south front of Felbrigg, boldly relieved by the magnificent wood be­hind.

GUNTON-HALL, the seat of Lord SUFFIELD, has been greatly enlarged and ornamented with entire new offices under the direction of Mr. WYATT. They are thought to be by far the most complete buildings for the purpose of any thing in the kingdom; they are particularly worthy the attention of strangers, as well for their light elegance, and for conveniency in the apartments, as for a beautiful slate covering, which glitters to the sun-ray like spar: they are formed of small square pieces of slate, each fastened by a screw of wood.

Not far from the house is the parish church, which, by the late Sir William Harbord was taken down and rebuilt, with a magnificent portico of the Doric order; this receives an [Page 512] additional degree of sanctity from two Druid-looking oaks, which grace its front.

The situation of the house, though on an eminence, is said by connoisseurs, not to have been well chosen. It commands a large piece of water, yet as the ground about it is flat and swampy, this rather chills the sight than im­proves the prospect.

The quantity of game in the neighbouring plantations, particularly hares and pheasants, is astonishing, and they are preserved with the most rigid attention— to the game laws.

So says Armstrong and Co.; so likewise must your correspondent say, but the latter has something to adjoin. The different sorts of game, are not only injurious to the lands, but almost a nuisance to the public road, along on each side, and over which they run, and fly, in every possible direction — and with so little apparent fear of what awful man, that general alarmer, can do unto them, that the common order of things is reversed: for instead of the man terrifying the birds and beasts of the field, the beasts and the birds terrify the man. The coy [Page 513] pheasant, and the timid hare forget in a manner their nature, and seem to feel they have rights and privileges as well as their masters: at any rate they take their walks and flyings in a sauntering mode, like other protected animals; and that so consciously, not to say saucily, in the present instance, that even the Gleaner's horse, who is not easily put out of his way, was somewhat flurried at a brace of hares crossing his path unexpectedly, chacing each other for mere frolic, like a couple of kittens—and really seeming to care no more either for man or horse than if we had been two of the trees in his lordship's plantations; and at the whir of the first covey of partridges, that without any warning, rose from a sun-bank at an opening about a mile on the Walsford side of Gunton, my poor steed was as much startled as his rider. For the truth of all this—or what is a counterpart of this—every traveller on this road will testify; and it is in many respects seriously incon­venient, but in counterpoise of this evil there is a great deal of good. The noble owners of Gunton-Hall have a large share of public and [Page 514] private benevolence: the first is shewn in assisting the loyal defenders of their country with ample supplies of blankets, sheets, and other comforts of that kind, and abundant proofs of the latter, in the heart-cheering shapes of wine sent to the sick, money to the industrious, and relief to the deserving poor, according to their several necessities—a benevolence that promises to be hereditary—as Lady LOUISA's cottage rides of charity demonstrate. I leave it to the arithmetic of the mind, my dear Baron, to settle the balance, as to this fondness for the remains of a favourite amusement, the preser­vation of the game on the Gunton manors, considering these liberalities as a set-off. I have, however, to observe further, in addition to these gracious deeds, that Lord ***** not only employs a number of keepers to drive the game from the estates of his neighbours into his own grounds every evening with springing-spaniels,—to prevent the depredations of the night,—but he under-lets all the farms in his vicinity to hinder the tenantry from feeling themselves aggrieved. Would to heaven, my [Page 515] friend, all men in power could produce such per contra's of good for the injuries which are occasioned to society by their amusements.

I cannot entirely leave Gunton behind us till I mention a particular anecdote respecting it. No less than three families confederated to prevent the enlargement of the property of the manor, namely, the Kemp, Briggs, and a third family, the name of which I have forgot. Each of these had a considerable estate in, or near Gunton, and each had pre-determined not to part with an inch of ground to the Harbords, which is the proper name of the now Suffield family. That power, however, which over-rules human pre-determinations—the pre-determina­tions, alas! of us poor mole-sighted mortals, who cannot foresee the event of the next second of time—had ordered it otherwise; one of the families died; another was driven to one of the hardest circumstances, to which, in that situation, it could experience in misfortune, viz. the necessity of deriving relief by a mortgage on his estate to these very Harbords; and the third party fell off soon after, by which means, every [Page 516] inch of ground belonging to the three came into the possession of the family who now inherit. Long, however, before these singular events took place, a very extraordinary expression is said to have fallen from a shrewd old man of the neighbourhood, who happened to be at work in a wood which was then the property of the Brigg's. They—meaning the Harbords— have laid their hands, you see, on the property of my neighbours, said one of the Brigg's, but I fancy they'll never get hold of mine: what think you, my friend? My woods look rather in too thriving a condition for that—Hey, what say you, honesty?

I say, quoth the labourer, drily, that to my thinking the trees lean rather too much towards Gunton.

The old man's prophecy has been fulfilled. Not a twig but has been conveyed to the Har­bords.

At North Walford, you will find a good inn, a good country town, and a much better country.

CLEY is a small sea-port on the northern [Page 517] coast of Norfolk. Of late years some baths have been erected for invalids, but with little success. It lies about a mile east from Blakeney, and nine from Wells. Blakeney was formerly a very considerable port-town, and much fre­quented by your German merchants; but Cley does not appear ever to have been of any eminence. Yet inconsiderable as it now is, it is memorable in history upon one account. In the reign of Henry IV. in the year 1406, the eighth of that King, the heir apparent to the crown of Scotland, the son of Robert Bruce, being on a voyage to France, was taken by some seamen belonging to Cley, and carried to the King. He was attended by the earl of Orkney, and was going to France to learn the language. The name of this prince was James. When Henry heard he was taken, he said, laughingly, "My brother of Scotland might as well have sent him to me, for I can speak French." On the royal captive being brought to court, Henry confined both the prince and the earl in the Tower of London, where they remained eighteen years! and so ended his [Page 518] Majesty of England's joke. Methinks it was carrying it rather too far notwithstanding. But, alas! my Friend, the very jest of a tyrant has often been the destruction of his victim; for how­ever the Panther may sport with his prey, his very amusement is fatal, he suffers it to linger in torture, and at last puts it to death. O what dire examples of this wantonness discolour the rubric History of Power! too many of them must lie bleeding in your memory—and we will fly from the blushing subject to the place where even "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

On a grave-stone in the church-yard here, you read—"Of your charite pray for the souls of John Symonds, merchent, and Agnes his wife; the which John decessed the 14 day of January, the yere of our LORD, M. 5, 8; and the said Agnes decessed the last day of May, M. 5, 12."—You will see their portraitures in their winding sheets, and under them those of eight children in brass, and about the stone, brass labels inscribed—"NOW THUS."

The labels NOW THUS, bear the same [Page 519] inscription with the motto of Sir Clement Trafford, of Dunton-hall, in Lincolnshire. The occasion of its being taken by the Traf­fords, is said to be as follows: In the civil war between Charles I, and his Parliament, the gentleman in possession, siding with the king, was eagerly sought after by the parliament faction, and his life being in danger, he dis­guised himself in a coat of many patches, and like a common labourer, was found threshing with a flail in the barn; by his motley dress, and giving no answer to his pursuers, who were mak­ing inquiries after him,—except NOW THUS, NOW THUS, at every stroke of the flait,—he was taken for an idiot, and happily escaped. A man in a fool's coat with a flail in his hand, in memory of the above circumstance, is still borne by the Traffords as their crest; and the motto to the arms, is, NOW THUS, alluding to the answer made by this ancestor.

In the church-yard is an altar tomb:—In memory of John Greve, an assistant of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, in burning the ships in the port of Tripoli, in Barbary, January 14, 1676, [Page 520] for his good services made captain of the Orange Tree by King Charles II.

The coast in this neighbourhood has been deemed fortunate in producing many brave sea­men and admirals ^* who have given it celebrity. Between Cley ^† and Stukey, at Cockthorpe, a village with only three houses in it, were born Sir Cloudesley Shovel, whose monument you will see in Westminster Abbey, as likewise a criticism of its false lustre in the English Spec­tator,—Sir John Narborough, and Sir Christo­pher Minns, and at Docking, Sir Edward, afterwards Lord Hawke, justly immortalized in the annals of his country.

A ride in an opposite direction by the sea, through Blakeney, is also a picturesque treasure in reserve for you, and altogether different from any yet mentioned: the road winds into a sequestered valley, shut out from the ocean by a bold uncultivated hill. To the right the grounds [Page 521] shelve from the road into a narrow vale. In this little woody hollow is a village half seen among straggling trees: the steeple is uncom­monly in picture; half of it is hid by a rising slope, three fourths of the church obscured by a thicket. The opposite hill rises with magnifi­cence; it presents a large inclosure, under the deep shade of a very noble wood, which to the right overhangs another valley, and is in part lost behind a regular bare hill of a conic form, which rises from the junction of the vales, and almost screens a distant range of rising inclosure. Immediately onward, is a sloping tract of fields, and above them wild rising ground, with a white tower peeping from it. The whole forms one of those pensile, and yet not impleasing scenes, in which POUSSIN de­lighted; it would have been worthy of such a pen­cil; it is deserving that of our DE LOUTHERBURG.

LETTER XXIV.

AT length I receive your packet. Next to the society of a friend there can be nothing so dear as his correspondence. You have given my heart a fresh proof of this; and with all the ardour you have excited in that heart, it thanks you. Ah! how sincerely do I wish, in return for this gratification, that I could reply to all your inquiries satisfactorily. In regard to those which concern the "English Doctor," whom you saw with our party in Holland, and from whom I had my Gleaning of Leyden. ^* [Page 527] I have to inform you that the insatiate spirit of war,—which plunders us in such variety of ways, stealing friends, relatives, lovers, and all who are most precious to us, from our arms,—had taken this long-valued treasure from me. He has been employing however his talents for the benefit of his country, by attending our army in his professional appointment of phy­sician. Suivant la Fortune de Guerre — he has visited several of the West-India Islands, some of the Colonies of South, many of the states of North-America, and, in the last place, our angry sister-kingdom, Ireland. He has been in occasional communications with me from all these places. He has an eye to observe, and a judgment to discriminate; and were I at liberty to give to you and the Public, his marks and remarks, they would form inte­resting Gleanings of interesting Situations, and interesting Countries. But, although I cannot do this, I am not without the hope that on some future occasion of greater leizure, he will not continue to think it unbecoming his pro­fessional duties to present them to the world. [Page 528] The prescriptive gravity that in some degree still attaches to all the liberal professions in this country, is not a little amusing to persons determined to see men and things as they really are. Such of our younger clergy as would be thought canonical, must be attired not only in their suit of sables, but if not wigged, must have the hair in a school-boy crop to the nape of the neck,—though, this indeed, is now amongst the insignia of our young patriots—or, it must be worn so stiff in buckle, that, if unpowdered,—which is another right patriotic symbol, and we have, I can tell you, our patriot priests and high-priests—it might pass on certain dark heads, for what we call in Britain a black-pudding,—in Italy a polonie, — en­wreathed from ear to ear: Yea, and as they are to become pillars of the church, it is presumed they think it necessary to stand as upright as the pillars of a cloister. It is pretty much the same with our lawyers,—I mean the counsellor part of them.—The flowing locks of many a templar, and the fair redundant curls of many a barrister, are the most improfessional [Page 529] articles that learned gentlemen,—so are they all technically called,—could enter into a court of justice with. Indeed, were they not forcibly tucked under the tye-wig, before their owner appeared at the bar, they might, perhaps, serve to ground an action of trespass: but should a learned gentleman presume to open a matter of any importance thus headed and thus hair'd, there is so little doubt of his losing the cause by the uproar of ridicule that must follow, that I should think the client might come upon him, if not for heavy damages, or for a new trial, at least for return of the fees. I am not sure, whether pleading a writ of error, might excuse him to the court without a reprimand from the bench. Then, for our doctors:—alas! youth is in itself an unpardonable fault in an English physician; and while nature continues this impediment, it must pro tempore be dis­guised as much as possible. Why, my dear Baron, a theatrical stripling does not find it more difficult to engraft the old man's beard, and wrinkles, on his unrazor'd lips, and polished brow—in short, to unmake himself, [Page 530] for some "wither'd winter rogue," like Old Renault in the tragedy, or for some fashionable cripple, like Old Chalkstone in the comedy, than doth a youthful doctor of physic in this island, to fit himself up for the solemnities of the medical character.

Whatever may be the honours of a doctorial head interiorly, not an attenuated hair of the exterior must dare to wander from the wig pharmacopolic, unless disciplined into something of dignity: a pale visage, measured step, and stately deportment, are recommendations at the English medical college, even in the degree that they are objectionable in an English ball­room, and though a fine head of hair is some­times given by nature to the sons of Aescula­pius, they must either tuck it very adroitly up, as one of their surgeons bandage a broken limb, or they must borrow the scissars of one of their apothecaries to amputate it,—for these goddesses of scissars—the fates — and the college, and even the patients themselves, will have it so. As if the gloom and ghastly appearances of the unhealthy reflected on the countenance, [Page 531] and dispiriting the air of the feeling prac­titioner, were not a sufficient passport to the sick chamber.

I have thrown over this subject a little more sport than it may soberly warrant: but there really is a good deal more attention shewn to the apparatus and trappings of a profession than is necessary; and one is sometimes tempted to think more respect is paid to the shadow than the substance, to the wig, for instance, than to the head it covers, and to the cane, than to the sagacious nose which smells thereat. It is well for your friend, perhaps you will think, that the good doctor who has made the pen thus playful about the paraphernalia of physic, is not, cane-in-hand, immediately within hearing!

I do not after all, expect to remove old for­malities; all I contend for, is, that there should be no ceremony so absurd as to make it thought indecorous or derogatory to the dignity of the diploma, or the long robe, or the short one, if their wearers appropriate some of the leisure, that more or less happens in the most active employments, either to write, or to publish [Page 532] what may be written, on topics which are useful to the community, whether professional or not. In truth, had our lawyers, divines, and phy­sicians, inviolably, adhered only to their pro­fessional discussions, the country must have been deprived of many of the curious, erudite, and beautiful compositions which now adorn it.

It is with unfeigned pleasure I am able to inform you, that, after visiting so many various parts of the globe, and contending with all the dangers of disease, and of war, our doctorial friend is at length returned among us, and you will believe that I am one of those who hope that he has escaped from all his perils, to re­sume the professional employment for which he is so eminently qualified in the busy round of London. I do not wonder at your solicitude to know more of the Irish conflict. It occupies the active world; and the friends, and enemies, of England are looking on it with equal vigilance, though from very opposite motives. I trust, you believe, that I feel it too momentous, and too much a part—a vital part—of the happiness of this country for me to have neglected it; but I [Page 533] waited in a kind of dread suspense, in common with tens of thousands more on either side of the Irish channel, for some conclusion of the point at issue; after which, whatever might be the conse­quence, I had predetermined to detail the un­happy history of this new family quarrel amongst us, so that the whole might be before you. I joined your anxiety to my own in an appeal to Dr. P. from whom I had received progressive in­formation, while he remained with the army in Ireland; and having, at length, "wrung from him his slow leave," I shall, as promised, now proceed to select and transmit, an original, and I am sure a faithful report of this dire civil dissension.

"I wish," says the Doctor, in his first letter on this disastrous theme, "I could give you a more pleasing account of our deeply-troubled sister; but, unhappily, her name transposed conveys too just an idea of her present state— being, in truth, a sad Land of Ire—Inveterate discord threatens her very vitals, and she is in danger of becoming the victim of her own wrath. Rebellion seems to have taken deeper root than was apprehended. It is not only en­couraged [Page 534] by open, and desperate, example, but supported by a chain of systematic secresy. Disaffection and treachery are become the order of the day. Many thousands of the deluded people are in arms against the government. In the south, not less than thirty thousand are supposed to have taken the field; and there is strong reason to believe, that still greater num­bers only lie concealed till a more favourable moment of declaring themselves. In the towns are crowds of United Men, ready to revolt on the first tidings of success. The loyal, and peaceable, subjects cannot be said to pass a night in secu­rity, being constantly exposed to the hazard of being murdered in their beds; and their houses, or towns, given up to flames. It is no longer a partial evil. The whole island is convulsed; and order, it is to be feared, will not be re­stored without the shedding of much blood. It is a contest between property and indigence. Those who seek its cause, only, in political, or religious, grievances are deceived. It is a do­mestic evil, and of such a nature, as to render it highly probable, that it can, only, be removed [Page 535] by an union of Ireland with England. All other remedies will prove but palliatives. An introduction of commerce, and manufactories, into Ireland, must sooner, or later, be made the radical cure. A spirit of industry, and emula­tion, unknown among the lower classes of Irish people, is necessary to it becoming a peaceful, happy, and well-ordered state. It is not the idle, dissipated, mob of large towns—not the drunken, vicious, lawless, overflowings of crowd­ed cities;—it is the sturdy, robust, peasantry— the needy, oppressed, husbandman, who has fled to arms: something must, therefore, be radically bad in the domestic system of the country."

"Knowing my enthusiastic veneration for the admired, and highly respected, character of an English farmer, you will conceive my surprize, and astonishment, when I found that, in Ireland, it was the plough, and the spade, which had been deserted for the pike, and the bayonet:— that the peaceful cultivators of the soil stood foremost in the more than savage project of de­luging that soil with human blood. In England [Page 536] the peasantry are regarded as the firm support of the state—the nation's strong defence:— They are men of independence, virtue, and patriotism:—Sensible of the comforts they en­joy, they feel a common stake in the country, and are ready to defend it:—they form, indeed, that class of men whom it would be most diffi­cult to incite to rebellion.—So widely different is their situation in Ireland, that they, scarcely, appear to be the same order of people. Having no interest in the state, they have no induce­ment to defend it;—born to poverty, and bred in indolence, their only portion is indigence, and wretchedness. No change can depreciate their lot — any they believe may improve it. Scarcely possessing the absolute necessaries of life, they have nothing to lose in the contest, and much to hope:—certain of not becoming worse, they seek amendment of their hard for­tune in the great scramble of anarchy, dis­order, and revolution. Yet it cannot be be­lieved that rebellion can have originated with this class of men. They are but the deluded instruments of artful, wicked, and ambitious [Page 537] leaders—sunk in the most abject poverty, and in the lowest depth of ignorance, they are the ready dupes of the more crafty, and design­ing."

"In every country, be the form of govern­ment what it may, there will be men of vicious minds, of desperate fortune, or of disappointed ambition. Restless and dissatisfied, these men regard everything possessing order, or established form, as the fruit of corruption, and oppression: Jealous of those of better fortune, they sedu­lously seek their ruin, and hesitate at no crime in the attainment of their object. Deluding the ignorant with loud professions of virtue, and patriotism, they conceal their malicious views under the disguise of promoting the public good:—Grant them the change they seek— patriotism instantly expires, and the public good proves only a name. They exalt them­selves to the summit—give loose to their des­potic passions—and, lording it over the deluded instruments of their ambition, deal out tyranny, and oppression, without reserve. To such men is Ireland indebted for the afflicting calamity [Page 538] under which she groans. The poor deluded objects who bear the sanguinary pike, know not why they wield it: oppressed with poverty, they are taught that it can only be removed by the destruction of those in power. To gain over the great body of papists, the artful leaders had concealed their designs under the specious pretence of catholic emancipation;— but as the terms catholic emancipation, and universal suffrage, must be incomprehensible to the majority of these debased, ignorant, beings, the cloven foot has been exposed, and equality, with division of property, being more easily understood, these have been held out as more ready instruments. The poor wretch who holds his acre of land, at an extravagant price, is told that by destroying the government, and those in power, he will become the owner of his morsel; and be at liberty to plant his potatoe, and feed his pig, without paying tythe to the church, or rent to his landlord."

"This, to him, is flattering indeed. It is the consummation of his best wishes. Not aware that his wants would increase, and his masters [Page 539] be many, he represents to himself the enjoy­ment of living without labour, and anticipates the sumptuous feast of seasoning his meal of potatoes with the bacon of his own pig. For this he sacrifices his home—deserts his wife and children, or leads them with him to join the bloody standard—and engages in all the perils of civil war."

"Nor is it only in the readiness of these unfortunate beings to execute the orders of their leaders in the field, that the strong im­pression of these delusive promises is exem­plified. It is seen, no less, in the refusal of many, who have not, actually, appeared in arms, to pay the rent due to their landlords. Certain of success, they delay not to act upon the principle they have adopted."

"The great class of stewards, bailiffs, agents, collectors, and the like, they hold peculiarly obnoxious. Having been represented to them as odious oppressors, they are regarded by the multitude as particular objects of hatred and revenge. It is even perilous for any one to seek, from the tenants, the rent of the land. [Page 540] Some proprietors, who have been hardy enough to demand it, have met only a positive refusal. Others have been answered with threats. Some have had their houses burnt — their cattle houghed—or received other marks of ill-will. Many of the tenants, not of the poorest order, who have been known to have saved money in order to pay the rent, have availed themselves of these distracted times, and, concealing the money, denied they had any, telling the owner of the land that, if he felt inclined, he might drive home a pig, or take away some hay, or straw, but money they would not pay him. It has, indeed, been made part of the system of the rebels to detain as much specie as possible from circulation, in order the more to distress the country. Such landlords who have been severe, or only thought so; or who have, in any way, rendered themselves obnoxious, have been obliged to fly from their homes, and seek a sanctuary in the towns. So desperate, indeed, are the "United Men"—or, as they are more com­monly termed—the "Croppeis"—and so general the danger to men of property, that many [Page 541] gentlemen, who usually reside in the country, and have tenants living in the vicinity of their houses, although on the best terms with these tenants, have deemed it prudent not to hazard their lives by passing their nights in the country. They have, therefore, removed their families, and taken lodgings in the towns, abandoning their homes to pillage, in the fear of being murdered in their beds. Many, who are within reach, are in the habit of riding to their estates in the morning, and returning each evening to sleep in town."

"Such are, already, the evil effects of the poisonous doctrine which has been so artfully inculcated for the worst of purposes. Should the extinction of rebellion be the result of the present struggle, it will be long before a due sense of honesty, and justice, re­sumes its place. Force may compel the rebels to abandon the sanguinary pike; but the moral evil which has assumed the government of their minds will not be easily subdued.

[Page 542]SPEAKING of the situation of the Catholic peasantry, the Doctor thus continues—

LETTER XXV.

THE latitude I have given, my loved friend, to the great national subject so ably sketched in the foregoing abstracts of a highly appreciated correspondence, has, necessarily, postponed every other discussion of matters on this more peaceful side of the Irish channel; and the pause has been made most willingly on my part, as well as advantageously on yours. I wished to give you the best informa­tion on this great topic, and, I am fully convinced that our unfortunate home disputes, in England, or Ireland,—and may Hibernia ever be looked upon and treated as one of the nearest and dearest of our Britannia's family!— [Page 561] our domestic differences, my friend, inspire our foreign foes with much greater confidence of ultimate success, than they can ever hope to derive from all the armies of the Republic. The enemy, indeed, has long since seen and felt that Great Britain can be destroyed only by itself.

The truth of this could not possibly apply more vitally, to the time of the fifth Henry, than to later reigns. But, blessed be GOD! the nest is not now so crouded as it was. On the contrary, were you at Cromer, while I am yet writing—or indeed, in any other part of England,—you would meet with the unbought friends of their country, volunteering her cause, [Page 562] and preparing for her defence. We have a powerful army of yeomanry, daily appropriating part of their time and property to render them­selves as able, as I will not doubt they are willing, to protect their native fields, and to guard their citadel—wherever that citadel may be,— whether on the lofty mountain, or in the humble valley. Men of all fortunes, persuasions and professions, are, in some way or other, zea­lous and active in preparation. Never have the people of England been so TRIED; never has their natural love of the Island,—SO FAR AS GOES TO ITS PRESERVATION FROM AN IN­VADER—been so distinguished,—I will not sim­ply call it loyalty,—because,—though I am no advocate for confusion of orders, and know there must be a head as well as hands, and other mem­bers; and that, most of them are as necessary to the existence,—all to the sound health, of the body-politic, as to the body-natural,—I consider the present energies as proceeding from those mingled impulses which include our connex­ions with Prince, People, Husband, Friend, Fa­ther, and Countryman,—I will call it then—THE [Page 563] PATRIOTISM OF THE WHOLE ISLAND IN COMMON CAUSE ASSEMBLED.

It is on this great principle, that you would observe a glowing spirit displayed in all ranks of people, of whatever age or sex. The children, from something more animated than the mere mimicry of their parents, collect the tiny troop; and sacrificing the usual school-boy pastime—climbing the tree, despoiling the bird's-nest, spinning the top, and driving the hoop,—as well as their supernumerary meals at the pastry and fruit shops, — convert, with earnest attention to military order, most of their holiday sports to serious discipline, while their weekly allowance, and many a visitor's bounty, go to the purchase of their military stores: and every customary toy is now super­seded by the flute, the trumpet, the musket, and the drum; while their miniature little sisters and small friends of the same bloomy age, weave the laurel, animate the infant soldiery, and present the Colours.

I had occasion to mention something of this immediately on my regaining this comparatively [Page 564] happy land, after bidding farewell—a long, but I hope not a last, farewell—to the Continent. ^* There is something sad, awful, and even afflict­ing in our last adieus to almost any place, any people, or any person, even if some pain, some injury, and even some displeasure have resulted from our intercourse, provided but one affection of a generous, or interesting kind lives in the heart. In a state of separation we cherish the recollection of that one, think of it so often, and in so many different ways, that it seems not to have left room in the memory for any thing less pleasing, less amiable than itself.—But where we have nothing to remember but cour­tesy and hospitality, such as endear my recol­lection of you and your Country, the short, but afflicting word last prefixed to my farewell would be solemn indeed.

Many have been the threats of invading this small, but superb span of earth, since the hour of my return to it, when the infant battalions [Page 565] began to form. Without servilely copying, they even then literally imitated the manly virtue reflected from their fathers. They have since had time to nurse their infant ardours; what was then a sort of pastime has in many now grown into a principle: and not a few of those who were the senior chieftains of the puerile tribes in those days have shot up into real practical heroes, and already "done the State some service."

It is truly gratifying to trace the progress of a national sentiment—to watch its course, from almost a baby sport of armory—a play, as it were, of the small sword amongst our striplings, —scarcely amounting to the flourish of drum and trumpet in our theatrical entertainments— thence onward to the study, and the science of arms.—In fine, to the dignified passion of men, who, unsollicited, unrecompensed, but by their feelings, forego the accustomed sweets of ease, and of competence — yield up the habitual attendance on gainful occupations, and at the very time that a great majority might think they had done the duty of good citizens, and [Page 566] good men, by willing contributions to meet the exigences of their country, in the hire of troops, domestic or foreign — and beyond furnishing their quota to which exigences, they cannot be commanded here, even by the chief citizen— stop nothing short of becoming at much cost, and more care, troops themselves.

Fervently do I pray—that since your com­ing amongst us is necessarily postponed to the time mentioned in your last heart-greeted pacquet—yes, my friend, passionately do I sup­plicate the Fountain of PEACE, that long, very long before that aera shall arrive, this dreadful, though generous preparation for WAR may be at an end! "and that not only my country, but yours, and every other now bleeding at every pore,"—may be suffered to repose, re­spire, and replenish. Every prospect that art, or nature can display, in magnificent cities, or bounteous fields: every scene which man may enjoy, or his Maker bestow, is in a manner annihilated by war—and the very sight of a commercial, turned into a military, nation,—as [Page 567] is now the case of Great Britain,—while it reflects the image of public virtue, and of patriotism, mingles with it the idea of muti­lated life, unnatural deaths, and a groaning world. ^* May Peace, therefore, be the hand­maid [Page 568] of hospitality to hail your arrival on our shore, and may the same blessed power accom­pany you to the yet crimson border of your own!

Had it, however, been within your power to ante-date your visit—had you the fabled wing of a sylph, or the magic speed of a guardian spirit, and could you transport yourself above the reach of hostile men, or their bloody instru­ments, from the opposite margin of the main over the German ocean, even to this edge of our English land—could it be done by some aërial flight, or, which would be yet more grateful to me, were we now wreathed arm within arm, in friendship's knot, as oft we have been, in far distant climes—you would have [Page 569] shared with me—and, indeed, would have but just returned to our temporary little home, from as interesting a sight as a season of general hostility can offer to a man of a peaceful mind, and tender nature.

The yeomanry of this town and vicinity have been drawn up on this most beauteous day, upon a platform screened by a small fort, bor­dered on one side by the aspiring cliff, opening upon smiling woodlands, and fields in high cultivation; on the other, upon the inter­minable ocean, with a view of some guard­sloops passing and repassing under your eye, and looking proudly—as they glide along the smooth expanse, in swan-like state, as if conscious they were at once protectors of the land, and sovereigns of the sea—while the liquid space between the cliff and those vessels is relieved by the fishing craft, crouding sail to catch a newborn breeze, and emulously stretching out to sea, no less conscious of pro­tection.

The yeomanry corps here is regulated with [Page 570] peculiar activity and zeal by a man ^* of property, unimpeachable in his professional, and estima­ble in his private character: and if, on the one hand, it is grateful to observe persons of independent fortune resign themselves, in the first instance, to pupilage, so to equip them­selves that they may become the instructors and leaders of others, it is no less pleasing to see the subaltern body cheerfully submit themselves to such guidance, and accommo­date to the unqualified laws of that passive obedience which military discipline exacts; and without which, indeed, neither army or navy can exist.

Inasmuch as the cause is felt to be just, you would have been pleased to share this; it would have satisfied you to have seen the self-appointed corps duly arranged—gather together at the hour of prayer on the Sabbath, march to the church, and after evening service perform their exercise, [Page 571] and make themselves more adroit and perfect in an art by no means easy to be acquired, and wholly new to most of them; attended too by numerous spectators, chiefly composed of the females, or friends, relatives, and persons in the first and last stages of old men, and children—the intermediate age, and the youth of the district, constitute the regiment; a sight of this kind, you are not, however, to suppose local and circumscribed, but broad and general as the occasion for which the nation is in arms: and with, perhaps, fewer exceptions than at any other period of English history, we may be characterised at this moment by our great English Poet, where he exclaims,

Plutarch takes notice of a very remarkable law of Solon's, which declared every man in­famous, who, in "any sedition, or civil dis­sension [Page 572] in the state, should continue neuter, and refuse to side with either party." Aulus Gellius, who gives a more circumstantial detail of this uncommon law, affirms the penalty to be no less than "confiscation of all the effects, and banishment of the delinquent."

But in this great impulse to protect the island there is no SIDE, no PARTY. ^* Every citizen is [Page 573] a soldier in theory, and should it be necessary, I have not a fear, that every soldier would, in practice, become a hero.

[Page 574]And, although, one rustic waggon loaded from the FIELD OF PEACE, with a simple oak-bough [Page 575] garland nodding on its centre, and the toil­embrowned peasants seated in gambol, or [Page 576] stretched in slumber on its fragrant top; though, indeed, one weary team, loosened [Page 577] from the plough,—heavily moving along to the accustomed manger—with a single labourer, flung carelessly across the fore-horse, or idly placed, in side-saddle fashion upon his back, as he returns to the noon-tide meal, and sings, or whistles, the unspell'd, untun'd ditty, by the way;—though these are more cheering to the eye, more comforting to the mind, and convey to both a more gracious assemblage of thoughts and feelings, than the best ordered arrangements of accoutered men, and caparison'd steeds, in the FIELD OF WAR,—in truth, than the Car [Page 578] of Victory, or the Victor himself, in the fulness of triumph—his crown of laurel, songs of con­quest, with all the Muse's classic allusions and proud comparisons to deathless names—or even than the long trains of a vanquished army—with all its treasure, its captive heroes, princes, or kings;—yet the view of a whole country, put­ting on the ARMOUR of PATRIOTISM, on one great, pure, and pious principle, concerning which, even those who continue to lift up the dissenting voice, against whatever else regards the origin and progress of the war, are unani­mous;—the preservation of their natal earth from an INVADER,—is, unquestionably, virtuous in the motive, august in the plan, and glorious in the execution. ^* Every English city, from [Page 579] the smallest to the vast metropolis, and every town, from Cromer to the poorest display of [Page 580] village-architecture—from the well-sheltered family habitation of Mr. PARTRIDGE, to the [Page 581] undefended huts upon the cliff—partake the principle, assist the design, and contribute to the accomplishment.

Drawing then our inference from a great scriptural maxim, that—"A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF SHALL NOT STAND"—while we admit—and it is indisputable—the full force of this sacred truth, is it not fair to conclude— that the inversion of the axiom must be no less certain—A HOUSE DETERMINED TO UNITE CAN­NOT FALL? To the House of England it is, per­haps, only necessary to be unanimous in any one great point—and whatever difference of opinion there may be in the family which inhabit it, as to reforms and repairs of particular parts— their agreement on that one—as in the case of INVASION,—may save the whole building.