"distant spires, antique towersThat crown the watery glade."
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Perhaps the best view of the castle from the Thames is that from a point just beyond the Great Western Railway bridge. When the queen is absent, access is easy. St. George's Chapel, built by Edward IV., is the finest existing specimen of the architecture of that period; and the view from the North Terrace, constructed by Queen Elizabeth, is perhaps the most beautiful on the River Thames.
A little lower down, and we are passing between Runnimede ("Meadow of Council"), where the barons camped, and Magna Charta Island, where the great charter of English liberty was signed; and a temporary struggle between king and nobles laid the broad foundations of English freedom.
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As we sweep round the bend beneath the broad meadow and the wooded isle, "while we muse the fire burneth,"—the ardour of grateful love to Him who has shaped the destinies of our beloved land, and has never from that hour withdrawn the trust then committed to the nation, of being the guardians and pioneers of the world's freedom. A multitude of thoughts and questionings throng in upon us, but we must not lose the opportunity of impressing on our memory the outward features of the scene. There is not much to see: if there be time to land upon the island, it will be as well to do so, and enter the pretty modern cottage there erected, containing the very stone—if tradition is to be believed—on which the Charter was laid for the royal signature.
From Runnimede, it is but an easy climb to the brow of Cooper's Hill, with its far-famed view of the river, of Windsor, and its woods. Dr. Johnson speaks of Sir John Denham's poem, of which we have taken some lines as the motto to this chapter, as "the first English specimen of local poetry." Its subject, as well as its style, will preserve it from the oblivion to which the greater number of the poet's works have descended.
Another Coin falls into the river, to the left, a little farther on—suggestive, in its name, of the Roman occupation; the "street" to the west here crossing the Thames by a bridge. "London Stone," a few hundred yards lower down, marks the entrance into Middlesex; then clean and quiet Staines——"Stones," so termed, perhaps, from the piers of the old Roman bridge, or, it may be, from the London Stone itself, comes into view: but if the traveller has time to spare, he will rather pause at Laleham, so well known to every Christian educator as the earliest scene of Arnold's labours.
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"The first reception of the tidings of his election at Rugby," we are told by his biographer, "was overclouded with deep sorrow at leaving the scene of so much happiness. Years after he had left it, he still retained his early affection for it, and till he had purchased his house in Westmoreland, he entertained a lingering hope that he might return to it in his old age, when he should have retired from Rugby. Often he would revisit it, and delighted in renewing his acquaintance with all the families of the poor whom he had known during his residence; in showing to his children his former haunts; in looking once again on his favourite views of the great plain of Middlesex—the lonely walks along the quiet banks of the Thames—the retired garden with its 'Campus Martins,' and its 'wilderness of trees;' which lay behind the house, and which had been the scenes of so many sportive games and serious conversations." *
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Chertsey, on the other side of the river, is next passed, the leisurely traveller having the opportunity, if he so please, of visiting the house of Cowley the poet, or of climbing to St. Anne's Hill, once the residence of the statesman Charles James Fox.
Then, still on the right, the mouth of the Wey is seen, the pretty town of Wey-bridge not being far off. Towns and villages now multiply: the villas of city men begin to dot the banks, and the suburban railway station appears, with its hurrying morning and evening crowds. The chronicle of names now would be like the monotonous cry of the railway porter: "Shepperton; Walton; Sunbury; Hampton." But as yet we need not join with the throng. The "silent highway"—as the river has been called—is also a retreat. Still we can leisurely survey the charm, which, so long as the sky, the water, and the trees remain, no builder can efface, although he may try his best, or worst.
A bend in the river between Shepperton and Walton is of historic interest, as there Julius Cæsar with his legions forced the passage of the Thames, and routed the British General Cassivelaunus. "Cæsar led his army to the territories of Cassivelaunus, to the river Thames, which river can be crossed on foot in one place only, and that with difficulty. On arriving, he perceived that great forces of the enemy were drawn up on the opposite bank, which was moreover fortified by sharp stakes set along the margin, a similar stockade being fixed in the bed of the river, and covered by the stream. Having ascertained these facts from prisoners and deserters, Cæsar sent the cavalry in front, and ordered the legions to follow immediately. The soldiers advanced with such rapidity and impetuosity, although up to their necks in the water, that the enemy could not withstand the onset, but quitted the banks and betook themselves to flight." * The name Cowey, or Coway Stakes, to this day commemorates the event.
* Stanley'sLifevol. i. p. 37. One of Arnold's Lalehampupils, afterwards his colleague at Rugby, writes: "The mostremarkable thing which struck me at once in joining theLaleham circle, was the wonderful healthiness of tone andfeeling which prevailed in it. Everything about me Iimmediately felt to be most real; it was a place where anew-comer at once felt that a great and earnest work wasgoing forward. Dr. Arnold's great power as a private tutorresided in this, that he gave such an intense earnestness tolife. Every pupil was made to feel that there was a work forhim to do—that his happiness as well as his duty lay indoing that work well. Hence, an indescribable zest wascommunicated to a young man's feeling about life; a strangejoy came over him on discovering that he had the means ofbeing useful, and thus of being happy; and a deep respectand ardent attachment sprang up towards him who had taughthim thus to value life and his own self, and his work andmission in this world." September 23, 1872.
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"Who calls the council, states the certain day.Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way."—Pope
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Two or three miles farther, and just past Hampton village, on the left bank, the traveller will notice a little rotunda with a Grecian portico with a mansion of some pretensions in the wooded back-ground. The house was Garrick's residence, and in the rotunda there originally stood Roubiliac's famous statue of Shakspere, now in the British Museum. Bushey Park and Hampton Court next tempt us to the shore. Great names of history again rise to memory—Wolsey, Cromwell, Williams. But the charm of Hampton Court is, that its palace and gardens are free of access to the people; a privilege which, all the summer through, is appreciated by eager, happy throngs. But let us cross the river to the comparative solitude of the two Dittons—"Thames," and "Long." Animpromptuof poor Theodore Hook, lively and graceful, according to his wont, has led many a tourist in search of a holiday to this pretty neighbourhood, and the poet's memory is reverenced in the village accordingly. Here are the first and last verses:
"When sultry suns and dusty streets proclaim town's 'winter season,'And rural scenes and cool retreats sound something like high treason—I steal away to shades serene which yet no bard has hit on,And change the bustling, heartless scene for quietude and Ditlon.Here, in a placid waking dream, I'm free from worldly troubles,Calm as the rippling silver stream that in the sunshine bubbles;And when sweet Eden's blissful bowers, some abler bard has writ on.Despairing to transcend his powers, I'll-ditto-say for Ditton."
Then comes trim Surbiton with its villas, and Kingston—once, as its name imports, a town of kings. Por here were crowned several Saxon monarchs; is there not the coronation-stone in the market-place, engraven with their names? Teddington Lock, a little lower down, is the last upon the Thames; and here too the anglers of the river put forth their chief and almost their final strength. The mile from Teddington to Eel-pie Island off Twickenham will be a quiet one indeed, if the voyager interfere not with the sport of one or other of these gentry, and draw down their resentment accordingly. Strawberry Hill reminds us of Horace Walpole, literary idleness, sham Gothic, andbric-à-brac. We glance and pass on. Pope's Villa no longer exists; only a relic of his famous grotto remains; but a monument to the poet is in Twickenham Church, with an inscription by Warburton, setting forth that Pope "would not be buried in Westminster Abbey."
Past wood-fringed meadows on either hand, the "Broadwater," now rightly named—sweeps on to Richmond, where we must ascend the far-famed hill, to gaze once more upon the finest river-view in Europe. A little farther down, on autumn days, off lsleworth, may be descried flights of swallows, preparing for their outward journey. "They arrive," writes the artist who has depicted the scene, "in a mass, at the same hour, without confusion, as it were in regiments, and in some of their oblique evolutions resemble a drift of black snow. At dusk they all sink down into the island or 'ait' opposite the church of Isleworth, where a large bed of osiers affords them in its slender wands a settling-place for the night."
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From this point, all Londoners know their river. The beauty of nature is no longer present, but a new sentiment of wonder and interest takes possession of us. We feel the stir and hear the roar of the great Babel. What were once quiet suburban villages are now but a part of the metropolis. Still, however, they retain something of the quaint picturesqueness of the last century. In many a nook and corner we come upon solid comfortable houses of red brick, where our great-grandmothers, over a "dish of tea," may have discussed the "poems of a person of quality," or "the writings of the ingenious Mr. Addison."
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These relics of the last century are rapidly disappearing.
Cheyne Walk at Chelsea, which now forms so striking an object from the river, can hardly hold out much longer against the march of modern improvement, and will probably ere long share the fate of the Lord Mayor's barge, and disappear from view.
The noble embankments which now skirt so large a portion of the London river, and the bridges old and new, afford every facility for the full study of the Thames in all its aspects. Yet those who only cross with the hurrying crowd miss half the picturesqueness of what many who have travelled far feel to be among the most picturesque city views in Europe. Wordsworth's sonnet, beginning—
"Earth has not anything to show more fair,"
was written on Westminster Bridge! But then it was on an early summer morning, when the "mighty heart" of the city was "lying still," and the "very houses seemed asleep." The blue sky, unobscured by smoke, hung in the freshness of the dawn over the dwellings of men and the heaven-pointing spires. The night airs had swept away every city taint, and the atmosphere was pure as among the mountains or by the sea. The experiment is worth making still at the cost of an hour or two's earlier rising, to prove how exhilarating, fresh, and delightful the London air may be.
Or perhaps the charm of the scene may be more deeply felt amid the mystery of night, when the clouds have dispersed, and but for some rare footfalls there is silence, and the countless lights stretch in long lines, reflected by the gently rippling waters, while even the bright glare of the railway lamps aloft only add colour and splendour to the gleaming array, and the steadfast stars hang overhead. By night or in early morning, perhaps through force of contrast, the full beauty of these London river scenes are felt. Or, to vary the impression, we may take boat, as did our fathers, from bridge to bridge, "from Westminster to Rotherhithe," or farther down the broadening stream, with the wealth of the world, as it almost seems, ranged on either hand in the close-crowded vessels or the stupendous warehouses. Every such excursion is a new revelation, even to minds accustomed to the scene, of what is meant by English commerce, and of the ties which connect us with all mankind. Yet there is much to remind us that the universal reign of peace has not as yet set in. Grim preparations for defence and war bespeak a nation prepared, if needs be, for strife. And as at length we reach Tilbury Fort, and glow under the influence of the invigorating sea-breeze, great memories rush in upon us of armaments once gathered here; to lead, as it seemed, the forlorn hope;—to attain, as by God's great mercy it proved, the triumphant victory, of British Protestantism and liberty.
When King James I. threatened the recalcitrant corporation of London with the removal of the court to Oxford, the Lord Mayor, with scarcely veiled sarcasm, replied, "May it please your Majesty, of your grace, not to take away the Thames too!" If the Upper Thames awakens our admiration by its loveliness, the Lower Thames inspires us with wonder and almost awe at the boundless wealth and world-wide commerce which it bears upon its ample bosom. Other rivers may vie with it in beauty. In far-reaching influence it stands alone. As we sail through its forest of masts, or follow its course down to the sea, we feel that we are surrounded by influences which stretch to the very ends of the earth. The stream whose course we have traced from the tiny rivulet in Trewsbury Mead has become the channel of communications which, for good or evil, are affecting every nation under heaven. May He who has endowed us with such wealth and power lead us to hold them both under a deep sense of responsibility to Him who gave them!—"Then shall our peace flow like a river, and our righteousness as the waves of the sea."
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HE is a benefactor to his species who makes two blades of corn grow where only one grew before." The substantial truth of the aphorism none will question; vet it would be a doubtful benefit if all our waste lands were reclaimed and brought under the plough. Enclosure Acts, by extending the area of our productive soil, have increased the resources of the country and the food of the people. But the total absorption into cultivated farms of heath, forest, and woodland would be to purchase the utilitarian advantage at too high a price.
The open commons of Surrey and the rolling downs of Sussex are, in their way, of a beauty unsurpassed. Both are chiefly due to the great chalk formation, which comes down in a south-westerly direction from the eastern counties, breaks into the Chiltern Hills, extends over the greater part of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Hampshire; and in the east of the last-named county becomes separated into two branches; one, the "North Downs," running almost due east to the North Foreland and Shakespere's Cliff; the other, the "South Downs," pursuing a south-easterly direction to Beachy Head. In their long and undulating course, they form innumerable combinations of picturesque beauty. Places elsewhere, well known and deservedly famous, are rivalled in loveliness by many a sequestered scene in the line of the lower chalk country, of which few but the thinly-scattered inhabitants, and now and then an unconventional tourist, have ever heard.
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The charm of these lines of rolling upland is much enhanced by the great rough plain which they inclose—"the Weald" (i.e. Forest), as it is termed—extending in an irregular triangle from the point where the Downs diverge to the British Channel. Geologists have framed many theories as to the formation of the Weald. It belongs to the Oolite formation below the chalk; it is the uppermost member of that formation, and was a deposit of sands and clays in a tropical climate, as is abundantly evident from animal and vegetable remains found there. These prove the existence of islands, banks and forests, forming the shores of a vast estuary, the embouchure of some great river from the west. At one time, the deep chalk deposit extended all over it; but this was disturbed by a line of elevation running along its east and west axis, the superincumbent chalk being broken up and washed away; hence the cliff-like aspect of the Downs in many places, where they descend precipitously to the sandy and gravelly edge of the valley, as to a beach. The remains of the huge land lizards and iguanodons of the Weald, collected by the late Dr. Mantell, form one of the most conspicuous exhibitions of fossil bones in the British Museum. The pretty little fossil ferns, Lonchopteris and Sphenopteris, found nature-printed on the sandstones, are, on the other hand, the very counterparts, in size and delicacy, of their present successors.
In early times, as every local historian tells, the Weald was a chief seat of the iron manufacture in Great Britain. The ironstone found here was certainly wrought by the Romans and Saxons, if not by the ancient Britons; and down to the seventeenth century the trade was prosperous. Many an old manor-house, to the present day, attests this former prosperity, while its memories linger also in such local names as Furnace Place, Cinder Hill, and Hammer Ponds. The balustrades round St. Paul's Cathedral are a relic of the Sussex ironworks. Want of fuel, and the more abundant and rich ironstone of the Coal-measures, caused the decay of the industry, after whole forests had been destroyed to feed the furnaces. The old-fashioned cottages, here and there remaining, speak of days of former prosperity among the working-classes; nor are they even yet devoid of comfort, although the transition has been great—ironworkers then, chicken-fatteners now!
The ridge that runs through the centre of the Weald is called the Forest Ridge and Ashdown. It is here that the chief beauties of the district are concentrated, while the whole plain lies open to view from the heights. Starting from East Grinstead, near to which is the source of the Medway, a walk of extraordinary interest and sylvan beauty leads by Forest Row and the ruins of Brambletye House up to High Beeches; from which spot a pleasant excursion may be made to Horsted Keynes, where the gentle and saintly Archbishop Leighton lies buried. His grave is in the chancel; his tomb outside the church. Thence, bearing to the east, the traveller may work his way to Crowborough Beacon, near the road from Tunbridge Wells to Lewes, where, with a foreground of moss and fern, dotted here and there by fir trees, he may look over the whole rolling surface of the Weald, rich with the flowers of spring, the blossoms of summer, or the golden fruitage and yellow corn of the autumn; while the purple downs on either hand close in the prospect, with just one gleam, beyond Beachy Head, of the distant sea. Then, if desirous of prolonging his ramble to other points of view, he may cross the hills to Heathfield, resting on the way at Mayfield, an old-world Wealden town, once a residence of archbishops, and the traditional scene of the renowned combat between Dunstan and the Devil. Here the traveller may find a temporary resting-place in some rustic hostelry, where, if luxuries are not obtainable, the eggs and bacon are wholesome and abundant; the sheets are fragrant with lavender, and though perhaps a little wondered at by the rustic children, he will have a home-like welcome.
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Again we leave the beaten track, and push on through the vale of Heathfield to the south; for a walk of seven or eight miles will bring us to Hurstmonceux, inseparably connected with the name and work of Archdeacon Hare, the philosophic theologian and devout Christian, whose books on the Victory of Faith and the Mission of the Comforter have done so much to elevate the religious thought of the age; and who, by hisVindication of Luther, has made it impossible for any man of competent knowledge and fair judgment to repeat old calumnies against the great Reformer.
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We visit the castle—one of the finest remains of the later feudalism—fortress and mansion in one. "Persons who have visited Rome," writes Archdeacon Hare, "on entering the Castle-court, and seeing the piles of brickwork strewn about, have been reminded of the Baths of Caracalla, though of course on a miniature scale; the illusion being perhaps fostered by the deep blue of the Sussex sky, which, when compared with that in more northerly parts of England, has almost an Italian character." After exploring the great ruddy-tinted ruins, we may ascend to the church, taking a glance at the rectory, the home of so much piety and genius, seeing once again in thought the archdeacon's friend and curate, poor John Sterling, as described by Hare, with his tall form rapidly advancing across the lawn to the study window; or more pensively may pass to the churchyard, where so many members of the parted family band sleep as "one in Christ."
Before turning northwards, let us make our way to Beachy Mead, grandest of the English chalk headlands in the south; or, resting for a while at Eastbourne, that bright modern watering-place, between the sea and the hills, with the quaint Sussex village in the background, we may prepare for a long, health-giving, inspiring ramble over the South Downs, "that chain of majestic mountains," as White of Selborne calls them—for the most part bare treeless hills, sweeping in many a grand curve, broken by shadowed "coombes," or wooded flowery "deans." On the way to Lewes, Firle Beacon, one of the highest points of the Downs, may be ascended, after which the traveller may take the rail to Brighton and Shoreham, and strike up hill again into what is perhaps the finest part of the range, where, from Chanctonbury Ring, he will be able to command at one view all its most characteristic features. The height itself is conspicuous far and wide, from its dark crown of fir trees. Probably the "Ring" denotes here the ancient entrenchment, British or Roman, which is circular, or it may be a reminiscence of the time when fairies were believed in; "fairy rings" being a common feature of the Downs; caused really by the growth of mushrooms, the grass, by the decay of the latter, becoming of a deeper green.
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Steyning is the nearest station to Chanctonbury, and we would advise the tourist to take train there for the North Downs, or better still, to proceed in the opposite direction to Arundel, famous for its picturesque castle and park, with its fair historic pastures: but in either case the Weald will be crossed via Horsham. About half way between Arundel and Horsham, many a traveller will be disposed to turn off to the little Sussex town of Midhurst, on the edge of the Weald, where Richard Cobden was born, and where the old "Schola Grammaticalis," the most prominent building in the town, has the twin honour of the great Free Trader's early education, as well as that of Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist. Between this town and Dorking, whither the traveller is bound, he may see to his left the wooded slopes and imposing tower-crowned summit of Leith Hill, the loftiest elevation in southeastern England. If he can leave the rail, say at the little roadside station of Capel, and climb the hill from the south-east by Ockley and Tanhurst, he will not only be richly rewarded, but may perhaps express his astonishment that such views and such a walk should be found within a short afternoon's journey of London. From the summit of Leith Hill, it is said that ten counties are visible; not only Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, but Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex. Hertfordshire, and Essex. The eye ranges, in short, from a height of just less than 1000 feet over a circumference of 200 miles of fair and various landscape; valley and upland; broad meadows and wooded slopes, with many an open ridge against the sky. Only the charm of river or lake is wanting; but we are in no mood to be critical. Downwards, the walk is full of interest, through wooded lanes to Anstiebury, where there is a fine Roman encampment, and on to romantic Holmwood, with its pine woods and breezy common; past Deepdene, the wonderfully beautiful seat of the Hope family, and so to Dorking, where the wearied pedestrian will find a pleasant rest, with nothing to excite him, save the remembrances of his little excursion.
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If he were not well prepared for its exceeding loveliness beforehand, it must have been to him a surprise as well as a delight. Comparisons are proverbially distasteful, but we can understand, if we can not wholly endorse, the rapturous verdict of John Dennis, who gives it as his opinion that the prospect from Leith Hill "surpasses at once in rural charm, pomp, and magnificence" the view of the Val d'Arno from the Apennines, or of the Campagna from Tivoli.
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We are now fairly in the Surrey Hills, and may put what some will think the very crown to these south-eastern excursions by a walk from Dorking to Farnham. Ascending by one of many lanes, shadowed (at the time of our visit) by hedges bright with hawthorn berries, and stately trees just touched with the russet and gold of early autumn, we are soon upon an upland stretch of heath and forest, still remaining in all the wildness of nature. Sometimes the path leads us between venerable trees—oak and beech and yew, whose branches form an impenetrable roof overhead, then traverses a sweep of bare hill, bright with gorse and heather, then plunges into some fairy dell, carpeted with softest moss. Many of the "stately homes of England," with their embowering trees upon the lower slopes, add a charm to the scene by their reminiscences as well as by their beauty. To the left is Wotton; made famous by the name and genius of John Evelyn, author ofSylvaand theDiary—the scholar, gentleman, and Christian—pure-minded in an age of corruption, and the admiration of dissolute courtiers, who could respect what they would not imitate. It is to him that Cowley says:
"Happy art thou, whom God does blessWith the full choice of thine own happiness;And happier yet, because thou'rt blestWith wisdom how to choose the best."
That the choice was made, for life and death, appears by the inscription which Evelyn directed to be placed on his tombstone at Wotton. "That living in an age of extraordinary events and revolution, he had learned from thence this truth, which he desired might be thus communicated to posterity: that all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but real piety."
Two or three miles further Albury is reached, with its lovely gardens designed by Evelyn. The curious traveller may here inspect the sumptuous church erected by the late Mr. Drummond, the owner of Albury, for the followers of Edward Irving. The worth of Mr. Drummond's character, with the shrewd sense and caustic wit by which he was wont to enliven the debates of the House of Commons, laid a deeper hold upon his contemporaries than his theological peculiarities; and the special views of which this temple is the costly memorial have proved of insufficient power to sway the minds and hearts of men. Still ascending, we reach again the summit of steep downs, and advancing by noble yew-trees gain at Newland's Corner another magnificent view. The hill of the "Holy Martyrs'" Chapel, now corrupted to "Saint Martha's," may next be climbed, and a short rest at the fine old town of Guildford will be welcome. The castle, the churches with their monuments, and Archbishop Abbot's Hospital, are all worthy of a visit; but, unless we have a day to spare, we must be content with but a hurried glance, for we have still the "Hog's Back" to traverse, a ten miles' walk to Farnham.
Climbing from the station at Guildford through pleasant lanes, the traveller emerges upon a narrow chalk-ridge, half-a-mile wide, and nearly level, which etymologists tell us was called by the Anglo-SaxonsHoga, a hill, whence the ridge received its name. Possibly, however, a simpler derivation, as the more obvious, is also the more correct. The long upland unbroken line might not unaptly have been compared with one of those long, lean, narrow-backed swine with which early English illuminations make us familiar; and the homeliness of the name would quite accord with the habit of early topographers. The walk is interesting, but, after the varied beauties of the way from Dorking to Guildford, may appear at first slightly monotonous. On either side the fair, fertile champaign of Surrey stretches to the horizon, broken here and there by low wood-crowned hills, and at one point especially, between Puttenham on the left, and Wanborough on the right, the combinations of view are very striking. Puttenham church-tower, and the manor-house, formerly the Priory, peep out from amongst the foliage of some grand old trees. A few cottages and farmhouses lie scattered about picturesquely, forming the very ideal of an old English village; while pine-covered Crooksbury Hill, with the Devil's Jumps and Hindhead in the farther distance, make a striking background to the view. "Wan" is evidently "Woden," and here there was no doubt a shrine of the ancient Saxon deity.
We must not omit in passing to drink of the Wanborough spring, among the freshest and purest in England; never known, it is said, to freeze.
Pursuing our journey, we presently look down upon Moor Park and Waverley, which we may either visit now, descending by the little, village of Seale, or reserve for an excursion from Farnham. Waverley contains the picturesque remains of an old Cistercian Abbey, built as the Cistercians always did build, in a charming valley, embosomed in hills, irrigated by a clear running stream, abounding in fish, and with current enough to turn the mill of the monastery. The annals of this great establishment, extending over two hundred and thirty years, were published towards the close of the seventeenth century; and Sir Walter Scott took from them the name now so familiar wherever the English language is spoken.
Divided from Waverley by a winding lane, whose high banks and profuse undergrowth remind us of Devonshire, lies Moor Park. Hither Sir William Temple retired from the toils of State, to occupy his leisure by gardening, planting, and in writing memoirs. A trim garden, with stiff-clipped hedges, and watered by a straight canal which runs through it, is doubtless a reminiscence of Temple's residence as our ambassador at the Hague. "But," says Lord Macaulay, "there were other inmates of Moor Park to whom a higher interest belongs. An eccentric, uncouth, disagreeable young Irishman, who had narrowly escaped plucking at Dublin, attended Sir William as an amanuensis for board and twenty pounds a year; dined at the second table, wrote bad verses in praise of his employer, and made love to a very pretty dark-eyed young girl, who waited on Lady Giffard. Little did Temple imagine that the coarse exterior of his dependant concealed a genius equally suited to politics and to letters, a genius destined to shake great kingdoms, to stir the laughter and the rage of millions, and to leave to posterity memorials which can only perish with the English language. Little did he think that the flirtation in his servants' hall, which he, perhaps, scarcely deigned to make the subject of a jest, was the beginning of a long, unprosperous love, which was to be as widely famed as the passion of Petrarch or Abelard. Sir William's secretary was Jonathan Swift. Lady Giffard's waiting-maid was poor Stella."
Just outside the lodge gate, at the end of the park furthest from the mansion, is a small house covered with roses and evergreens. It is known to the peasantry as Dame Swift's cottage. Our rustic guide pointed it out by this name, but who Dame Swift was he did not know. He had never heard of Stella and her sad history. An object of far greater interest to him was a large fox-earth, a couple of hundred yards away, in which some years ago "a miser" had lived and died. A whole crop of legends have already sprung up about the mysterious inmate of the cave. He was a nobleman, so said our informant, who had been crossed in love: he had made a vow that no human being should see his face, and accordingly never came out till after nightfall, even then being closely wrapped up in his cloak. After his death a party of ladies and gentlemen came down from London in a post-chaise and four; and having buried the body carried away "a cartload of golden guineas and fine dresses, which he had hid in the cave."
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The picturesqueness of the approach to Farnham, whether over the last ridge of the Hog's Back, or through the lanes from Seale, Moor Park, and Waverley, is much enhanced by the hop-gardens, which occupy about a thousand acres in the neighbourhood. For excellence the Farnham hops are considered to bear the palm, although the chief field of this peculiar branch of cultivation is in Kent. No south-eastern rambles, especially in the early autumn, would be complete without a visit to the gardens where the hop-picking is in full operation. It is the great holiday for thousands of the humbler class of Londoners, as well as the chosen resort of thousands of the "finest pisantry" from the Emerald Isle. Costermongers, watermen, sempstresses, factory girls, labourers of all descriptions, young and old, bear a hand at the work. The air is invigorating, the task to the industrious is easy, and the pay is not bad. The hop-pickers, who are in such numbers that they cannot obtain even humble lodgings in the villages, sleep in barns, sheds, stables, and booths, or even under the hedges in the lanes. A rough kind of order is maintained among themselves; although outbreaks of violence and debauchery sometimes happen. On the whole the work is not unhealthy, and the opportunity of engaging in it is as real a boon to the hop-pickers as the journey to Scarborough or Biarritz to those of another class. Besides which, the great gathering of people gives opportunities of which Christian activity avails itself; and the evening visit to the encampment, the homely address, the quiet talk, and the well-chosen tract, have been instrumental of lasting good to those whom religious agencies elsewhere had failed to reach.
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Farnham has special associations with both the Church and the Army; and the impartial visitor will no doubt take an opportunity of seeing the stately moated castle, the abode of the Bishops of Winchester, and of visiting the neighbouring camp of Aldershot. The politician will recal the name of William Cobbett, who was born in this neighbourhood, and in his own direct and homely style, often dwells on his boyish recollections of its charms. Some will not forget another name associated with this little Surrey town. One among the sweetest singers of our modern Israel, Augustus Toplady, was born at Farnham. He died at the age of thirty-eight, but he lived long enough to write "Rock of Ages, cleft for me and none need covet a nobler earthly immortality."
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WHEN Britain was first brought by Roman ambition within the knowledge of Southern Europe, the interior of our Island was one vast forest. Cæsar and Strabo agree in describing its towns as being nothing more than spaces cleared of trees—"royds," or "thwaites" in North of England phrase—where a few huts were placed and defended by ditch or rampart. Somersetshire and the adjacent counties were covered by the Coit Mawr, or Great Wood. Asser tells us that Berkshire was so called from the Wood of Berroc, where the box-tree grew most abundantly. Buckinghamshire was so called from the great forests of beech (boc), of which the remnants still survive. The Cotswold Hills, and the Wolds of Yorkshire, are shown by their names to have been once far-spreading woodlands; and the same may be said of the Weald of Sussex, the subject, in part, of the preceding chapter. "In the district of the Weald," writes the Rev. Isaac Taylor, "almost every local name, for miles and miles, terminates inhurst, ley, den, or field. Thehurstswere the dense portions of the forests; theleysare the open forest-glades where the cattle love to lie; the dens are the deep wooded valleys, and thefieldswere little patches of 'felled' or cleared land in the midst of the surrounding forest. From Petersfield and Midhurst, by Billinghurst, Cuckfield, Wadhurst, and Lamberhurst, as far as Hawkshurst and Tenterden, these names stretch in an uninterrupted string." And, again, "A line of names ending indentestifies to the existence of the forest tract in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Huntingdon, which formed the western boundary of the East Saxon and East Anglican Kingdoms. Henley in Arden and Hampton in Arden are vestiges of the great Warwickshire forest of Arden, which stretched from the Forest of Dean to Sherwood Forest." * Hampshire was already a forest in the time of William the Conqueror: all he did was to sweep away the towns and villages which had sprung up within its precincts. Epping and Hainault are but fragments of the ancient forest of Essex, which extended as far as Colchester. Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, and the other northern counties, were the haunts of the wolf, the wild boar, and the red deer, which roamed at will over moorland and forest, and have given their names here and there to a bold upland or sequestered nook.
Even down to the time of Oueen Elizabeth immense tracts of primeval forest remained unreclaimed. Sir Henry Spelman ** gives the following list of those which were still in existence.