When the old farmhouses are down (and down they must come in time) what a miserable thing the country will be! Those that are now erected are mere painted shells, with a Mistress within, who is stuck up in a place she calls aparlour, with, if she have children, the “young ladies and gentlemen” about her: some showy chairs and a sofa (asofaby all means): half a dozen prints in gilt frames hanging up: some swinging book-shelves with novels and tracts upon them: a dinner brought in by a girl that is perhaps better “educated” than she: two or three nick-nacks to eat instead of a piece of bacon and a pudding: the house too neat for a dirty-shoed carter to be allowed to come into; and everything proclaiming to every sensible beholder, that there is here a constant anxiety to make ashownot warranted by the reality. The children (which is the worst part of it) are all too clever towork: they are all to begentlefolks. Go to plough! Good God! What, “young gentlemen” go to plough! They becomeclerks, or some skimmy-dish thing or other. They flee from the dirtyworkas cunning horses do from the bridle. What misery is all this! What a mass of materials for producing that general anddreadful convulsionthat must, first or last, come and blow this funding and jobbing and enslaving and starving system to atoms!
I was going, to-day, by the side of a plat of ground, where there was a very fine flock ofturkeys. I stopped to admire them, and observed to the owner how fine they were, when he answered, “We owe them entirelyto you, Sir, for we never raised one till we read yourCottage Economy.” I then told him, that we had, this year, raised two broods at Kensington, one black and one white, one of nine and one of eight; but, that, about three weeks back, they appeared to become dull and pale about the head; and, that, therefore, I sent them to a farmhouse, where they recovered instantly, and the broods being such a contrast to each other in point of colour, they were now, when prowling over a grass field amongst the most agreeable sights that I had ever seen. I intended of course, to let them get their full growth at Kensington, where they were in a grass plat about fifteen yards square, and where I thought that the feeding of them, in great abundance, with lettuces and other greens from the garden, together with grain, would carry them on to perfection. But I found that I was wrong; and that, though you may raise them to a certain size, in a small place and with such management, they then, if so much confined, begin to be sickly. Several of mine began actually to droop: and, the very day they were sent into the country, they became as gay as ever, and, in three days, all the colour about their heads came back to them.
This town of Reigate had, in former times, a Priory, whichhad considerable estates in the neighbourhood; and this is brought to my recollection by a circumstance which has recently taken place in this very town. We all know how long it has been the fashion for us to take it forgranted, that the monasteries werebad things; but, of late, I have made some hundreds of thousands of very good Protestants begin to suspect, that monasteries were better thanpoor-rates, and that monks and nuns, whofed the poor, were better than sinecure and pension men and women, whofeed upon the poor. But, how came the monasteries! How came this that was at Reigate, for instance? Why, it was, if I recollect correctly,founded by a Surrey gentleman, who gave this spot and other estates to it, and who, as was usual, provided that masses were to be said in it for his soul and those of others, and that it should, as usual, give aid to the poor and needy.
Now, upon the face of the transaction, whatharmcould this do the community? On the contrary, it must, one would think, do itgood; for here was this estate given to a set of landlords who never could quit the spot; who could have no families; who could save no money; who could hold no private property; who could make no will; who must spend all their income at Reigate and near it; who as was the custom, fed the poor, administered to the sick, and taught some, at least, of the people,gratis. This, upon the face of the thing, seems to be a very good way of disposing of a rich man’s estate.
“Aye, but,” it is said, “he left his estate away from his relations.” That is notsure, by any means. The contrary is fairly to be presumed. Doubtless, it was the custom for Catholic Priests, before they took their leave of a dying rich man, to advise him to think of theChurch and the Poor; that is to say to exhort him to bequeath something to them; and this has been made a monstrous charge against that Church. It is surprising how blind men are, when they have a mind to be blind; what despicable dolts they are, when they desire to be cheated. We, of the Church of England, must have a special deal of good sense and of modesty, to be sure, to rail against the Catholic Church on this account, when our Common Prayer Book, copied from an Act of Parliament,commands our Parsons to do just the same thing!
Ah! say the Dissenters, and particularly the Unitarians; that queer sect, who will have all the wisdom in the world to themselves; who will believe and won’t believe; who will be Christians and who won’t have aChrist; who will laugh at you, if you believe in the Trinity, and who would (if they could) boil you in oil if you do not believe in the Resurrection: “Oh!” say the Dissenters, “we know very well, that yourChurch Parsonsarecommanded to get, if they can, dying people to give their money and estates to the Church andthe poor, as they call the concern, though thepoor, we believe, come in for very little which is got in this way. But what isyour Church? We are the real Christians; and we, upon our souls, never play such tricks; never, no never, terrify old women out of their stockings full of guineas.” “And, as to us,” say the Unitarians, “we, the mostliberalcreatures upon earth; we, whose virtue is indignant at the tricks by which the Monks and Nuns got legacies from dying people to the injury of heirs and other relations; we, who are the really enlightened, the truly consistent, the benevolent, the disinterested, the exclusive patentees of thesalt of the earth, which is sold only at, or by express permission from our old and original warehouse and manufactory, Essex-street, in the Strand, first street on the left, going from Temple Bar towards Charing Cross; we defy you to show that Unitarian Parsons....”
Stop your protestations and hear my Reigate anecdote, which, as I said above, brought the recollection of the Old Priory into my head. The readers of the Register heard me, several times, some years ago, mention Mr. Baron Maseres, who was, for a great many years, what they call Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. He lived partly in London and partly at Reigate, for more, I believe, than half a century; and he died, about two years ago, or less, leaving, I am told,more than a quarter of a million of money. The Baron came to see me, in Pall Mall, in 1800. He always came frequently to see me, wherever I was in London; not by any means omitting tocome to see me in Newgate, where I was imprisoned for two years, with a thousand pounds fine and seven years heavy bail, for having expressed my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen, in the heart of England, under a guard of German bayonets; and to Newgate he always came inhis wig and gown, in order, as he said, to show his abhorrence of the sentence. I several times passed a week, or more, with the Baron at his house, at Reigate, and might have passed many more, if my time and taste would have permitted me to accept of his invitations. Therefore, I knew the Baron well. He was a most conscientious man; he was when I first knew him, still a very clever man; he retained all his faculties to a very great age; in 1815, I think it was, I got a letter from him, written in a firm hand, correctly as to grammar, and ably as to matter, and he must then have been little short of ninety. He never was a bright man; but had always been a very sensible, just and humane man, and a man too who always cared a great deal for the public good; and he was the only man that I ever heard of, who refused to have his salary augmented, when an augmentationwas offered, and when all other such salaries were augmented. I had heard of this: I asked him about it when I saw him again; and he said: “There was noworkto be added, and I saw no justice in adding to the salary. It must,” added he, “bepaid by somebody, and the more I take, the less that somebody must have.”
He did not save money for money’s sake. He saved it because his habits would not let him spend it. He kept a house in Rathbone Place, chambers in the Temple, and his very pretty place at Reigate. He was by no means stingy, but his scale and habits were cheap. Then, consider, too, a bachelor of nearly a hundred years old. His father left him a fortune, his brother (who also died a very old bachelor), left him another; and the money lay in the funds, and it went on doubling itself over and over again, till it became that immense mass which we have seen above, and which, when the Baron was making his will, he had neither Catholic priest nor Protestant parson to exhort him to leave to the church and the poor, instead of his relations; though, as we shall presently see, he had somebody else to whom to leave his great heap of money.
The Baron was a most implacable enemy of the Catholics, as Catholics. There was rather a peculiar reason for this, his grand-father having been aFrench Hugonotand having fled with his children to England, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz. The Baron was a very humane man; his humanity made him assist to support the French emigrant priests; but, at the same time, he caused Sir Richard Musgrave’s book against the Irish Catholics to be published at his own expense. He and I never agreed upon this subject; and this subject was, with him, avitalone. He had no asperity in his nature; he was naturally all gentleness and benevolence; and, therefore, he neverresentedwhat I said to him on this subject (and which nobody else ever, I believe, ventured to say to him): but he did not like it; and he liked it less because I certainly beat him in the argument. However, this was long before he visited me in Newgate: and it never produced (though the dispute was frequently revived) any difference in his conduct towards me, which was uniformly friendly to the last time I saw him before his memory was gone.
There was great excuse for the Baron. From his very birth he had been taught to hate and abhor the Catholic religion. He had been told, that his father and mother had been driven out of France by the Catholics: and there wasthat motherdinning this in his ears, and all manner of horrible stories along with it, during all the tender years of his life. In short, the prejudice made part of his very frame. In the year 1803, in August, I thinkit was, I had gone down to his house on a Friday, and was there on a Sunday. After dinner he and I and his brother walked to the Priory, as is still called the mansion house, in the dell at Reigate, which is now occupied by Lord Eastnor, and in which a Mr. Birket, I think, then lived. After coming away from the Priory, the Baron (whose native place was Betchworth, about two or three miles from Reigate) who knew the history of every house and every thing else in this part of the country, began to tell me why the place was calledthe Priory. From this he came to thesuperstitionanddark ignorancethat induced people to found monasteries; and he dwelt particularly on theinjustice to heirs and relations; and he went on, in the usual Protestant strain, and with all the bitterness of which he was capable, against thosecrafty priests, who thusplundered familiesby means of the influence which they had over people in their dotage, or who were naturally weak-minded.
Alas! poor Baron! he does not seem to have at all foreseen what was to become of his own money! What would he have said to me, if I had answered his observations by predicting, thathewould give his great mass of money to a little parson for that parson’s own private use; leave only a mere pittance to his own relations; leave the little parson his house in which we were then sitting (along with all his other real property); that the little parson would come into the house and take possession; and that his own relations (two nieces) would walk out! Yet, all this has actually taken place, and that, too, after the poor old Baron’s four score years of jokes about the tricks ofPopishpriests, practised, in thedark ages, upon theignorantandsuperstitiouspeople of Reigate.
When I first knew the Baron he was a staunchChurch of England man. He went to church every Sunday once, at least. He used to take me to Reigate church; and I observed, that he was very well versed in his prayer book. But a decisive proof of his zeal as a Church of England man is, that he settled an annual sum on the incumbent of Reigate, in order to induce him to preach, or pray (I forget which), in the church, twice on a Sunday, instead of once; and, in case this additional preaching, or praying, were not performed in Reigate church, the annuity was to go (and sometimes it does now go) to the poor of an adjoining parish, and not to those of Reigate, lest I suppose, the parson, the overseers, and other rate-payers, might happen to think that the Baron’s annuity would be better laid out in food for the bodies than for the souls of the poor; or, in other words, lest the money should be taken annually and added to the poor-rates to ease the purses of the farmers.
It did not, I dare say, occur to the poor Baron (when he wasmaking this settlement), that he was now giving money to make a church parson put up additional prayers, though he had, all his lifetime, been laughing at those, who, in thedarkages, gave money, for this purpose, to Catholic priests. Nor did it, I dare say, occur, to the Baron, that, in his contingent settlement of the annuity on the poor of an adjoining parish, he as good as declared his opinion, that he distrusted the piety of the parson, the overseers, the churchwardens, and, indeed, of all the people of Reigate: yes, at the very moment that he was providing additional prayers for them, he in the very same parchment, put a provision, which clearly showed that he was thoroughly convinced that they, overseers, churchwardens, people, parson and all, loved money better than prayers.
What was this, then? Was it hypocrisy; was it ostentation? No: mistake. The Baron thought that those who could not go to church in the morning ought to have an opportunity of going in the afternoon. He was aware of the power of money; but, when he came to make his obligatory clause, he was compelled to do that which reflected great discredit on the very church and religion, which it was his object to honour and uphold.
However, the Baronwasa staunch churchman as this fact clearly proves: several years he had become what they call anUnitarian. The first time (I think) that I perceived this, was in 1812. He came to see me in Newgate, and he soon began to talk aboutreligion, which had not been much his habit. He went on at a great rate, laughing about the Trinity; and I remember that he repeated the Unitarian distich, which makesa jokeof the idea of there being a devil, and which they all repeat to you, and at the same time laugh and look as cunning and as priggish as Jack-daws; just as if they were wiser than all the rest of the world! I hate to hear the conceited and disgusting prigs, seeming to take it for granted, that they only are wise, because othersbelievein the incarnation, without being able to reconcile it toreason. The prigs don’t consider, that there is no morereasonfor theresurrectionthan for theincarnation; and yet having taken it into their heads tocome up again, they would murder you, if they dared, if you were to deny theresurrection. I do most heartily despise this priggish set for their conceit and impudence; but, seeing that they wantreasonfor the incarnation; seeing that they will haveeffects, here, ascribed to none butusual causes, let me put a question or two to them.
1.Whencecomes thewhite clover, that comes up and covers all the ground, in America, where hard-wood trees, after standing for thousands of years, have been burnt down?2.Whencecome (in similar cases as to self-woods) the hurtleberries in some places, and the raspberries in others?3.Whencecome fish in new made places where no fish have ever been put?4.What causeshorse-hair to become living things?5.What causesfrogs to come in drops of rain, or those drops of rain to turn to frogs, the moment they are on the earth?6.What causesmusquitoes to come in rain water caught in a glass, covered over immediately with oil paper, tied down and so kept till full of these winged torments?7.What causesflounders, real littleflat fish, brown on one side, white on the other, mouth side-ways, with tail, fins, and all,leaping alive, in theinsideof a rotten sheep’s, and of every rotten sheep’s,liver?
1.Whencecomes thewhite clover, that comes up and covers all the ground, in America, where hard-wood trees, after standing for thousands of years, have been burnt down?
2.Whencecome (in similar cases as to self-woods) the hurtleberries in some places, and the raspberries in others?
3.Whencecome fish in new made places where no fish have ever been put?
4.What causeshorse-hair to become living things?
5.What causesfrogs to come in drops of rain, or those drops of rain to turn to frogs, the moment they are on the earth?
6.What causesmusquitoes to come in rain water caught in a glass, covered over immediately with oil paper, tied down and so kept till full of these winged torments?
7.What causesflounders, real littleflat fish, brown on one side, white on the other, mouth side-ways, with tail, fins, and all,leaping alive, in theinsideof a rotten sheep’s, and of every rotten sheep’s,liver?
There, prigs; answer these questions. Fifty might be given you; but these are enough. Answer these. I suppose you will not deny the facts? They are all notoriously true. Thelast, which of itself would be quite enough for you, will be attested on oath, if you like it, by any farmer, ploughman, and shepherd, in England. Answer this question 7, or hold your conceited gabble about the “impossibility” of that which I need not here name.
Men of sense do not attempt to discover that which it isimpossibleto discover. They leave things pretty much as they find them; and take care, at least, not to make changes of any sort, without very evident necessity. The poor Baron, however, appeared to be quite eaten up with his “rationalChristianity.” He talked like a man who has made adiscoveryof hisown. He seemed as pleased as I, when I was a boy, used to be, when I had just found a rabbit’s stop, or a black-bird’s nest full of young ones. I do not recollect what I said upon this occasion. It is most likely that I said nothing in contradiction to him. I saw the Baron many times after this, but I never talked with him about religion.
Before the summer of 1822, I had not seen him for a year or two, perhaps. But, in July of that year, on a very hot day, I was going down Rathbone Place, and, happening to cast my eye on the Baron’s house, I knocked at the door to ask how he was. His man servant came to the door, and told me that his master was at dinner. “Well,” said I, “never mind; give my best respects to him.” But the servant (who had always been with him since I knew him) begged me to come in, for that he was sure his master would be glad to see me. I thought, as it was likely that I might never see him again, I would go in. The servant announced me, and the Baron said, “Beg him to walk in.” In I went, and there I found the Baron at dinner; butnot quitealone; nor withoutspiritualas well as carnal and vegetable nourishment before him: for, there, on the opposite side of hisvis-à-visdining table, sat that nice, neat, straight, prim piece of mortality, commonly called the Reverend Robert Fellowes, who was the Chaplain to the unfortunate Queen until Mr. Alderman Wood’s son came to supply his place, and who was now, I could clearly see, in a fair way enough. I had dined, and so I let them dine on. The Baron was become quite a child, or worse, as to mind, though he ate as heartily as I ever saw him, and he was always a great eater. When his servant said, “Here is Mr. Cobbett, Sir;” he said, “How do you do, Sir? I have read much of your writings, Sir; butnever had the pleasure to see your person before.” After a time I made him recollect me; but he, directly after, being about to relate something about America, turned towards me, and said, “Were you ever in America, Sir?” But I must mention one proof of the state of his mind. Mr. Fellowes asked me about the news from Ireland, where the people were then in a state of starvation (1822), and I answering that, it was likely that many of them would actually be starved to death, the Baron, quitting his green goose and green pease, turned to me and said, “Starved, Sir! Why don’t they go tothe parish?” “Why,” said I, “you know, Sir, that there are no poor-rates in Ireland.” Upon this he exclaimed, “What! no poor-rates in Ireland! Why not? I did not know that; I can’t think how that can be.” And then he rambled on in a childish sort of way.
At the end of about half an hour, or, it might be more, I shook hands with the poor old Baron for the last time, well convinced that I should never see him again, and not less convinced, that I had seen hisheir. He died in about a year or so afterwards, left to his own family about 20,000l., and to his ghostly guide, the Holy Robert Fellowes, all the rest of his immense fortune, which, as I have been told, amounts to more than a quarter of a million of money.
Now, the public will recollect that, while Mr. Fellowes was at the Queen’s, he was, in the public papers, charged with being anUnitarian, at the same time that he officiatedas her chaplain. It is also well known, that he never publicly contradicted this. It is, besides, the general belief at Reigate. However, this we know well, that he is a parson, of one sort or the other, and that he is not a Catholic priest. That is enough for me. I see this poor, foolish old man leaving a monstrous mass of money to this little Protestant parson, whom he had not even known more, I believe, than about three or four years. When the will was made I cannot say. I know nothing at all about that. I am supposing that all was perfectly fair; that the Baron had hissenses when he made his will; that he clearly meant to do that which he did. But, then, I must insist, that, if he had left the money to aCatholic priest, to be by him expended on the endowment of a convent, wherein to say masses and to feed and teach the poor, it would have been a more sensible and public-spirited part in the Baron, much more beneficial to the town and environs of Reigate, and beyond all measure more honourable to his own memory.
Chilworth, Friday Evening,21st Oct.
It has been very fine to-day. Yesterday morning there wassnowon Reigate Hill, enough to look white from where we were in the valley. We set off about half-past one o’clock, and came all down the valley, through Buckland, Betchworth, Dorking, Sheer and Aldbury, to this place. Very few prettier rides in England, and the weather beautifully fine. There are more meeting-houses than churches in the vale, and I have heard of no less than five people, in this vale, who have gone crazy on account of religion.
To-morrow we intend to move on towards the West; to take a look, just a look, at the Hampshire Parsons again. The turnips seem fine; but they cannot be large. All other things are very fine indeed. Everything seems to prognosticate a hard winter. All the country people say that it will be so.
Thursley, four miles fromGodalming, Surrey,Sunday Evening, 23rd October, 1825.
We set out from Chilworth to-day about noon. This is a little hamlet, lying under the South side of St. Martha’s Hill; and, on the other side of that hill, a little to the North West, is the town of Guilford, which (taken with its environs) I, who have seen so many, many towns, think the prettiest, and, taken, all together, the most agreeable and most happy-looking, that I ever saw in my life. Here are hill and dell in endless variety. Here are the chalk and the sand, vieing with each other in making beautiful scenes. Here is a navigable river and fine meadows. Here are woods and downs. Here is something ofeverything butfat marshesand their skeleton-makingagues. The vale, all the way down to Chilworth from Reigate, is very delightful.
We did not go to Guildford, nor did we cross theRiver Wey, to come through Godalming; but bore away to our left, and came through the village of Hambleton, going first to Hascomb, to show Richard the South Downs from that high land, which looks Southward over theWealdsof Surrey and Sussex, with all their fine and innumerable oak trees. Those that travel on turnpike roads know nothing of England.—From Hascomb to Thursley almost the whole way is across fields, or commons, or along narrow lands. Here we see the people without any disguise or affectation. Against agreat roadthings are made forshow. Here we see themwithout any show. And here we gain real knowledge as to their situation.—We crossed to-day, three turnpike roads, that from Guildford to Horsham, that from Godalming to Worthing, I believe, and that from Godalming to Chichester.
Thursley, Wednesday, 26th Oct.
The weather has been beautiful ever since last Thursday morning; but there has been a white frost every morning, and the days have been coldish.Here, however, I am quite at home in a room, where there is one of myAmerican Fire Places, bought, by my host, of Mr. Judson of Kensington, who has made many a score of families comfortable, instead of sitting shivering in the cold. At the house of the gentleman, whose house I am now in, there is a good deal offuel-wood; and here I see in the parlours, those fine and cheerful fires that make a great part of the happiness of the Americans. But these fires are to be had only in this sort of fire-place. Ten times the fuel; nay, no quantity, would effect the same object, in any other fire-place. It is equally good for coal as for wood; but, forpleasure, a wood-fire is the thing. There is, round about almost every gentleman’s or great farmer’s house, more wood suffered to rot every year, in one shape or another, than would make (with this fire-place) a couple of rooms constantly warm, from October to June.Here, peat, turf, saw-dust, and wood, are burnt in these fire-places. My present host has three of the fire-places.
Being out a-coursing to-day, I saw a queer-looking building upon one of the thousands of hills that nature has tossed up in endless variety of form round the skirts of the lofty Hindhead. This building is, it seems, called aSemaphore, orSemiphare, or something of that sort. What this word may have been hatched out of I cannot say; but it meansa job, I am sure. To call it analarm-postwould not have been so convenient; for people not endued with Scotchintellectmight havewondered why the devil we should have to pay for alarm-posts; and might have thought, that, with all our “glorious victories,” we had “brought our hogs to a fine market,” if our dread of the enemy were such as to induce us to have alarm-posts all over the country! Such unintellectual people might have thought that we had “conquered France by the immortal Wellington,” to little purpose, if we were still in such fear as to build alarm-posts; and they might, in addition, have observed, that, for many hundred of years, England stood in need of neither signal posts nor standing army of mercenaries; but relied safely on the courage and public spirit of the people themselves. By calling the thing by an outlandish name, these reflections amongst the unintellectual are obviated.Alarm-postwould be a nasty name; and it would puzzle people exceedingly, when they saw one of these at a place like Ashe, a little village on the north side of the chalk-ridge (called the Hog’s Back) going from Guildford to Farnham. What can this befor? Why are these expensive things put up all over the country? Respecting the movements ofwhomis wanted thisalarm-system? Will no member ask this in Parliament? Not one: not a man: and yet it is a thing to ask about. Ah! it is in vain,Thing, that you thus aremaking your preparations; in vain that you are setting your trammels! TheDEBT, the blessed debt, that best ally of the people, will break them all; will snap them, as the hornet does the cobweb; and, even these very “Semaphores,” contribute towards the force of that ever-blessed debt. Curious to see how thingswork! The “glorious revolution,” which was made for the avowed purpose of maintaining the Protestant ascendancy, and which was followed by such terrible persecution of the Catholics; that “glorious” affair, which set aside a race of kings, because they were Catholics, served as theprecedentfor the American revolution, also called “glorious,” and this second revolution compelled the successors of the makers of the first, to begin to cease their persecutions of the Catholics! Then, again, the debt was made to raise and keep armies on foot to prevent reform of Parliament, because, as it was feared by the Aristocracy, reform would have humbled them; and this debt, created for this purpose, is fast sweeping the Aristocracy out of their estates, as a clown, with his foot, kicks field-mice out of their nests. There was a hope, that the debt could have been reduced by stealth, as it were; that the Aristocracy could have been saved in this way. That hope now no longer exists. In all likelihood the funds will keep going down. What is to prevent this, if the interest of Exchequer Bills be raised, as the broad sheet tells us it is to be? What! the funds fall in time of peace; and the French funds not fall, in time of peace!However, it will all happen just as it ought to happen. Even the next session of Parliament will bring out matters of some interest. The thing is now working in the surest possible way.
The great business of life, in the country, appertains, in some way or other, to thegame, and especially at this time of the year. If it were not for the game, a country life would be like aneverlasting honey-moon, which would, in about half a century, put an end to the human race. In towns, or large villages, people make a shift to find the means of rubbing the rust off from each other by a vast variety of sources of contest. A couple of wives meeting in the street, and giving each other a wry look, or a look not quite civil enough, will, if the parties be hard pushed for a ground of contention, do pretty well. But in the country, there is, alas! no such resource. Here are no walls for people to take of each other. Here they are so placed as to prevent the possibility of such lucky local contact. Here is more than room of every sort, elbow, leg, horse, or carriage, for them all. Evenat Church(most of the people being in the meeting-houses) the pews are surprisingly too large. Here, therefore, where all circumstances seem calculated to cause never-ceasing concord with its accompanying dullness, there would be no relief at all, were it not for thegame. This, happily, supplies the place of all other sources of alternate dispute and reconciliation; it keeps all in life and motion, from the lord down to the hedger. When I see two men, whether in a market-room, by the way-side, in a parlour, in a church-yard, or even in the church itself, engaged in manifestly deep and most momentous discourse, I will, if it be any time between September and February, bet ten to one, that it is, in some way or other, aboutthe game. The wives and daughters hear so much of it, that they inevitably get engaged in the disputes; and thus all are kept in a state of vivid animation. I should like very much to be able to take a spot, a circle of 12 miles in diameter, and take an exact account of all thetimespent by each individual, above the age of ten (that is the age they begin at), in talking, during the game season of one year, about the game and about sporting exploits. I verily believe that it would amount, upon an average, to six times as much as all the other talk put together; and, as to the anger, the satisfaction, the scolding, the commendation, the chagrin, the exultation, the envy, the emulation, where are there any of these in the country, unconnected withthe game?
There is, however, an important distinction to be made betweenhunters(including coursers) andshooters. The latter are, as far as relates to their exploits, a disagreeable class, compared with the former; and the reason of this is, their doings are almost wholly their own; while, in the case of the others, theachievements are the property of the dogs. Nobody likes to hear another talkmuchin praise of his own acts, unless those acts have a manifest tendency to produce some good to the hearer; and shooters do talkmuchof their own exploits, and those exploits rather tend tohumiliatethe hearer. Then, agreat shooterwill, nine times out of ten, go so far as almost tolie a little; and, though people do not tell him of it, they do not like him the better for it; and he but too frequently discovers that they do not believe him: whereas, hunters are mere followers of the dogs, as mere spectators; their praises, if any are called for, are bestowed on the greyhounds, the hounds, the fox, the hare, or the horses. There is a little rivalship in the riding, or in the behaviour of the horses; but this has so little to do with the personal merit of the sportsmen, that it never produces a want of good fellowship in the evening of the day. A shooter who has beenmissingall day, must have an uncommon share of good sense, not to feel mortified while the slaughterers are relating the adventures of that day; and this is what cannot exist in the case of the hunters. Bring me into a room, with a dozen men in it, who have been sporting all day; or, rather let me be in an adjoining room, where I can hear the sound of their voices, without being able to distinguish the words, and I will bet ten to one that I tell whether they be hunters or shooters.
I was once acquainted with afamous shooterwhose name was William Ewing. He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became far more renowned by his gun than by his law cases. We spent scores of days together a-shooting, and were extremely well matched, I having excellent dogs and caring little about my reputation as a shot, his dogs being good for nothing, and he caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a lawyer. The fact which I am going to relate respecting this gentleman, ought to be a warning to young men, how they become enamoured of this species of vanity. We had gone about ten miles from our home, to shoot where partridges were said to be very plentiful. We found them so. In the course of a November day, he had, just before dark, shot, and sent to the farmhouse, or kept in his bag,ninety-ninepartridges. He made some fewdouble shots, and he might have amissor two, for he sometimes shot when out of my sight, on account of the woods. However, he said that he killed at every shot; and, as he had counted the birds, when we went to dinner at the farmhouse and when he cleaned his gun, he, just before sun-set, knew that he had killedninety-ninepartridges, every one upon the wing, and a great part of them in woods very thickly set with largish trees. It was a grand achievement; but, unfortunately, he wanted to make ita hundred. The sun was setting, and, in that country, darknesscomes almost at once; it is more like the going out of a candle than that of a fire; and I wanted to be off, as we had a very bad road to go, and as he, being under strict petticoat government, to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted, was compelled to get home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse and gig) being mine. I, therefore, pressed him to come away, and moved on myself towards the house (that of old John Brown, in Bucks county, grandfather of that General Brown, who gave some of our whiskered heroes such a rough handling last war, which was waged for the purpose of “deposing James Madison”), at which house I would have stayed all night, but from which I was compelled to go by that watchful government, under which he had the good fortune to live. Therefore I was in haste to be off. No: he would kill thehundredthbird! In vain did I talk of the bad road and its many dangers for want of moon. The poor partridges, which we had scattered about, werecallingall around us; and, just at this moment, up got one under his feet, in a field in which the wheat was three or four inches high. He shot andmissed. “That’s it,” said he, running as if topick upthe bird. “What!” said I, “you don’t think youkilled, do you? Why there is the bird now, not only alive, butcallingin that wood;” which was at about a hundred yards distance. He, in thatform of wordsusually employed in such cases, asserted that he shot the bird and saw it fall; and I, in much about the same form of words, asserted, that he hadmissed, and that I, with my own eyes, saw the bird fly into the wood. This was too much! Tomissonce out of a hundred times! To lose such a chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him, when he said, “Well,Sir, I killed the bird; and if you choose to go away and take your dog away, so as to prevent me fromfindingit, you must do it; the dog isyours, to be sure.” “Thedog,” said I, in a very mild tone, “why, Ewing, there is the spot; and could we not see it, upon this smooth green surface, if it were there?” However, he began tolook about; and I called the dog, and affected to join him in the search. Pity for his weakness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After walking backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards square with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us knew was not there, I had passed him (he going one way and I the other), and I happened to be turning round just after I had passed him, when I saw him, putting his hand behind him,take a partridge out of his bag and let it fall upon the ground! I felt no temptation to detect him, but turned away my head, and kept looking about. Presently he, having returned to the spot where the bird was, called out tome, in a most triumphant tone; “Here! here!Come here!” I went up to him, and he, pointing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face at the same time, said, “There, Cobbett; I hope that will be awarningto you never to be obstinate again”! “Well,” said I, “come along:” and away we went as merry as larks. When we got to Brown’s, he told them the story, triumphed over me most clamorously; and, though he often repeated the story to my face, I never had the heart to let him know, that I knew of the imposition, which puerile vanity had induced so sensible and honourable a man to be mean enough to practise.
Aprofessed shotis, almost always, a very disagreeable brother sportsman. He must, in the first place, have a head rather of the emptiest topride himselfupon so poor a talent. Then he is always out of temper, if the game fail, or if he miss it. He never participates in that great delight which all sensible men enjoy at beholding the beautiful action, the docility, the zeal, the wonderful sagacity of the pointer and the setter. He is always thinking abouthimself; always anxious to surpass his companions. I remember that, once, Ewing and I had lost our dog. We were in a wood, and the dog had gone out, and found a covey in a wheat stubble joining the wood. We had been whistling and calling him for, perhaps, half an hour, or more. When we came out of the wood we saw him pointing, with one foot up; and, soon after, he, keeping his foot and body unmoved, gently turned round his head towards the spot where he heard us, as if to bid us come on, and, when he saw that we saw him, turned his head back again. I was so delighted, that I stopped to look with admiration. Ewing, astonished at my want of alacrity, pushed on, shot one of the partridges, and thought no more about the conduct of the dog than if the sagacious creature had had nothing at all to do with the matter. When I left America, in 1800, I gave this dog to Lord Henry Stuart, who was, when he came home, a year or two afterwards, about to bring him to astonish the sportsmen even in England; but those of Pennsylvania were resolved not to part with him, and, therefore theystolehim the night before his Lordship came away. Lord Henry had plenty of pointers after his return, and hesawhundreds; but always declared, that he never saw any thing approaching in excellence this American dog. For the information of sportsmen I ought to say, that this was a small-headed and sharp-nosed pointer, hair as fine as that of a greyhound, little and short ears, very light in the body, very long legged, and swift as a good lurcher. I had him a puppy, and he never had anybreaking, but he pointed staunchly at once; and I am of opinion, that this sort is, in all respects, better than theheavy breed. Mr. Thornton, (I beg his pardon, I believe he is now a Knight of some sort) who was, and perhaps still is, our Envoy in Portugal, at the time here referred to was a sort of partner with Lord Henry in this famous dog; and gratitude (to the memory ofthe dogI mean), will, I am sure, or, at least, I hope so, make him bear witness to the truth of my character of him; and, if one could hear an Ambassadorspeak out, I think that Mr. Thornton would acknowledge, that his calling has brought him in pretty close contact with many a man who was possessed of most tremendous political power, without possessing half the sagacity, half the understanding, of this dog, and without being a thousandth part so faithful to his trust.
I am quite satisfied, that there are as manysortsof men as there are of dogs. Swift was a man, and so is Walter the base. But is thesortthe same? It cannot beeducationalone that makes the amazing difference that we see. Besides, we see men of the very same rank and riches and education, differing as widely as the pointer does from the pug. The name,man, is common to all the sorts, and hence arises very great mischief. What confusion must there be in rural affairs, if there were no names whereby to distinguish hounds, greyhounds, pointers, spaniels, terriers, and sheep dogs, from each other! And, what pretty work, if, without regard to thesortsof dogs, men were to attempt toemploy them! Yet, this is done in the case ofmen! A man is alwaysa man; and, without the least regard as to thesort, they are promiscuously placed in all kinds of situations. Now, if Mr. Brougham, Doctors Birkbeck, Macculloch and Black, and that profound personage, Lord John Russell, will, in their forth-coming “London University,” teach us how to divide meninto sorts, instead of teaching us to “augment the capital of the nation,” by making paper-money, they will render us a real service. That will befeelosofyworth attending to. What would be said of the ’Squire who should take a fox-hound out to find partridges for him to shoot at? Yet, would this bemoreabsurd than to set a man to law-making who was manifestly formed for the express purpose of sweeping the streets or digging out sewers?
Farnham, Surrey,Thursday, Oct. 27th.
We came over the heath from Thursley, this morning, on our way to Winchester. Mr. Wyndham’s fox-hounds are coming to Thursley on Saturday. More than three-fourths of all the interesting talk in that neighbourhood, for some days past, has been about this anxiously-looked-for event. I have seen no man, or boy, who did not talk about it. There had been a falsereport about it; the hounds didnot come; and the anger of the disappointed people was very great. At last, however, theauthenticintelligence came, and I left them all as happy as if all were young and all just going to be married. An abatement of my pleasure, however, on this joyous occasion was, that I brought away with meone, who was as eager as the best of them. Richard, though now only 11 years and 6 months old, had, it seems, one fox-hunt, in Herefordshire, last winter; and he actually has begun to talk rathercontemptuouslyof hare hunting. To show me that he is in nodanger, he has been leaping his horse over banks and ditches by the road side, all our way across the country from Reigate; and he joined with such glee in talking of the expected arrival of the fox-hounds, that I felt some little pain at bringing him away. My engagement at Winchester is for Saturday; but, if it had not been so, the deep and hidden ruts in the heath, in a wood in the midst of which the hounds are sure to find, and the immense concourse of horsemen that is sure to be assembled, would have made me bring him away. Upon the high, hard and open countries, I should not be afraid for him; but here the danger would have been greater than it would have been right for me to suffer him to run.
We came hither by the way of Waverley Abbey and Moore Park. On the commons I showed Richard some of my old hunting scenes, when I was of his age, or younger, reminding him that I was obliged to hunt on foot. We got leave to go and see the grounds at Waverley, where all the old monks’ garden walls are totally gone, and where the spot is become a sort of lawn. I showed him the spot where the strawberry garden was, and where I, when sent to gatherhautboys, used to eat every remarkably fine one, instead of letting it go to be eaten by Sir Robert Rich. I showed him a tree, close by the ruins of the Abbey, from a limb of which I once fell into the river, in an attempt to take the nest of acrow, which had artfully placed it upon a branch so far from the trunk as not to be able to bear the weight of a boy eight years old. I showed him an old elm tree, which was hollow even then, into which I, when a very little boy, once saw a cat go, that was as big as a middle-sized spaniel dog, for relating which I got a great scolding, for standing to which I, at last, got a beating; but stand to which I still did. I have since many times repeated it; and I would take my oath of it to this day. When in New Brunswick I saw the great wild grey cat, which is there called aLucifee; and it seemed to me to be just such a cat as I had seen at Waverley. I found the ruins not very greatly diminished; but it is strange how small the mansion, and ground, and everything but the trees, appeared to me. They were all great to my mind when I saw them last; and that earlyimpression had remained, whenever I had talked or thought, of the spot; so that, when I came to see them again, after seeing the sea and so many other immense things, it seemed as if they had all been made small. This was not the case with regard to the trees, which are nearly as big here as they are anywhere else; and the old cat-elm, for instance, which Richard measured with his whip, is about 16 or 17 feet round.
From Waverley we went to Moore Park, once the seat of Sir William Temple, and when I was a very little boy, the seat of a Lady, or a Mrs. Temple. Here I showed Richard Mother Ludlum’s Hole; but, alas! it is not the enchanting place that I knew it, nor that which Grose describes in his Antiquities! The semicircular paling is gone; the basins, to catch the never-ceasing little stream, are gone; the iron cups, fastened by chains, for people to drink out of, are gone; the pavement all broken to pieces; the seats, for people to sit on, on both sides of the cave, torn up and gone; the stream that ran down a clean paved channel, now making a dirty gutter; and the ground opposite, which was a grove, chiefly of laurels, intersected by closely mowed grass-walks, now become a poor, ragged-looking alder-coppice. Near the mansion, I showed Richard the hill, upon which Dean Swift tells us he used to run for exercise, while he was pursuing his studies here; and I would have showed him the garden-seat, under which Sir William Temple’s heart was buried, agreeably to his will; but the seat was gone, also the wall at the back of it; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in which the seat stood, was turned into a parcel of divers-shaped cockney-clumps, planted according to the strictest rules of artificial and refined vulgarity.
At Waverley, Mr. Thompson, a merchant of some sort, has succeeded (after the monks) the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert Rich. At Moore Park, a Mr. Laing, a West Indian planter or merchant, has succeeded the Temples; and at the castle of Farnham, which you see from Moore Park, Bishop Prettyman Tomline has, at last, after perfectly regular and due gradations, succeeded William of Wykham! In coming up from Moore Park to Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door of a little old house, where there appeared to be a great parcel of children. “There, Dick,” said I, “when I was just such a little creature as that, whom you see in the door-way, I lived in this very house with my grand-mother Cobbett.” He pulled up his horse, and lookedvery hard at it, but said nothing, and on we came.
Winchester,Sunday noon, Oct. 30.
We came away from Farnham about noon on Friday, promisingBishop Prettyman to notice him and his way of living more fully on our return. At Alton we got some bread and cheese at a friend’s, and then came to Alresford by Medstead, in order to have fine turf to ride on, and to see, on this lofty land that which is, perhaps, the finestbeech-woodin all England. These high down-countries are not garden plats, like Kent; but they have, from my first seeing them, when I was aboutten, always been my delight. Large sweeping downs, and deep dells here and there, with villages amongst lofty trees, are my great delight. When we got to Alresford it was nearly dark, and not being able to find a room to our liking, we resolved to go, though in the dark, to Easton, a village about six miles from Alresford down by the side of the Hichen River.
Coming from Easton yesterday, I learned that Sir Charles Ogle, the eldest son and successor of Sir Chaloner Ogle, had sold to someGeneral, his mansion and estate at Martyr’s Worthy, a village on the North side of the Hichen, just opposite Easton. The Ogles had been here fora couple of centuriesperhaps. They aregone off now, “for good and all,” as the country people call it. Well, what I have to say to Sir Charles Ogle upon this occasion is this: “It wasyou, who moved at the county meeting, in 1817, thatAddress to the Regent, which you brought ready engrossed upon parchment, which Fleming, the Sheriff, declared to have been carried, though a word of it never was heard by the meeting; which addressapplauded the power of imprisonment bill, just then passed; and the like of which address, you will not in all human probability, ever again move in Hampshire, and, I hope, nowhere else. So, you see, Sir Charles, there is one consolation, at any rate.”
I learned, too, that Greame, a famously loyal ’squire and justice, whose son was, a few years ago, made a Distributor of Stamps in this county, was become so modest as to exchange his big and ancient mansion at Cheriton, or somewhere there, for a very moderate-sized house in the town of Alresford! I saw his household goods advertised in the Hampshire newspaper, a little while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my eyes, or, rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I remembered the loyal ’Squire; and I, with singular satisfaction, record this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt, proceeded solely from that prevalence of mind over matter, which the Scotchfeelosofershave taken such pains to inculcate, and which makes him flee from greatness as from that which diminishes the quantity of “intellectualenjoyment;” and so now he,
“Wondering man can want the larger pile,Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.”
And they really tell me, that his present house is not much bigger than that of my dear, good old grandmother Cobbett. But (and it may not be wholly useless for the ’Squire to know it) she never burntcandles; butrushesdipped in grease, as I have described them in myCottage Economy; and this was one of the means that she made use of in order to secure a bit of good bacon and good bread to eat, and that made her never give mepotatoes, cold or hot. No bad hint for the ’Squire, father of the distributor of Stamps. Good bacon is a very nice thing, I can assure him; and, if the quantity be small, it is all the sweeter; provided, however, it be nottoo small. This ’Squire used to be a great friend of Old George Rose. But his patron’s taste was different from his. George preferred a big house to a little one; and Georgebeganwith a little one, andendedwith a big one.
Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and supporter of Old George Rose, ’Squire Rawlinson, whom I remember a very great ’squire in this county. He is now aPolice-’squire in London, and is one of those guardians of the Wen, respecting whose proceedings we read eternal columns in the broad-sheet.
This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o’clock in the morning, a sort of a jangling, made by a bell or two in theCathedral. We were getting ready to be off, to cross the country to Burghclere, which lies under the lofty hills at Highclere, about 22 miles from this city; but hearing the bells of the cathedral, I took Richard to show him that ancient and most magnificent pile, and particularly to show him the tomb of that famous bishop of Winchester, William of Wykham; who was the Chancellor and the Minister of the great and glorious King, Edward III.; who sprang from poor parents in the little village of Wykham, three miles from Botley; and who, amongst other great and most munificent deeds, founded the famous College, or School, of Winchester, and also one of the Colleges at Oxford. I told Richard about this as we went from the inn down to the cathedral; and, when Ishowed him the tomb, where the bishop lies on his back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his head, his shepherd’s crook by his side, with little children at his feet, their hands put together in a praying attitude, he looked with a degree of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took him as far as I could about the cathedral. The “service” was now begun. There is adean, and God knows how manyprebendsbelonging to this immensely rich bishopric and chapter; and there were, at this “service,”two or three men and five or six boysin white surplices, with a congregation offifteen womenandfour men! Gracious God! If William of Wykham could, at that moment, have been raised from his tomb! If Saint Swithin, whose name the cathedral bears, or Alfred the Great, to whomSt. Swithin was tutor: if either of these could have come, and had been told, thatthatwasnowwhat was carried on by men, who talked of the “damnableerrors” of those who founded that very church! But it beggars one’s feelings to attempt to find words whereby to express them upon such a subject and such an occasion. How, then, am I to describe what I felt, when I yesterday saw in Hyde Meadow, acounty bridewell, standing on the very spot, where stood the Abbey which was founded and endowed by Alfred, which contained the bones of that maker of the English name, and also those of the learned monk, St. Grimbald, whom Alfred brought to Englandto begin the teaching at Oxford!
After we came out of the cathedral, Richard said, “Why, Papa, nobody can build such placesnow, can they?” “No, my dear,” said I. “That building was made when there were no poor wretches in England, calledpaupers; when there were nopoor-rates; when every labouring man was clothed in good woollen cloth; and when all had a plenty of meat and bread and beer.” This talk lasted us to the inn, where, just as we were going to set off, it most curiously happened, that a parcel which had come from Kensington by the night coach, was put into my hands by the landlord, containing, amongst other things, a pamphlet, sent to me from Rome, being an Italian translation of No. I. of the “Protestant Reformation.” I will here insert the title for the satisfaction of Doctor Black, who, some time ago, expressed his utter astonishment, that “sucha work should be published in thenineteenthcentury.” Why, Doctor? Did you want me to stop till thetwentiethcentury? That would have been a little too long, Doctor.
StoriaDellaRiforma ProtestanteIn Inghilterra ed in IrlandaLa quale DimostraCome un tal’ avvenimento ha impoveritoE degradato il grosso del popolo in que’ paesiin una serie di lettere indirizzateA tutti i sensati e guisti inglesiDaGuglielmo CobbettEDall’ inglese recate in italianoDaDominico Gregorj.Roma 1825.Presso Francesco Bourlie.Con Approvazione.
There, Doctor Black. Writeyoua book that shall be translated intoanyforeign language; and when you have done that, you mayagaincall mine “pig’s meat.”
Burghclere, Monday Morning,31st October 1825.
We had, or I had, resolved not to breakfast at Winchester yesterday: and yet we were detained till nearly noon. But at last off we came,fasting. The turnpike-road from Winchester to this place comes through a village called Sutton Scotney, and then through Whitchurch, which lies on the Andover and London road, through Basingstoke. We did not take the cross-turnpike till we came to Whitchurch. We went to King’s Worthy; that is about two miles on the road from Winchester to London; and then, turning short to our left, came up upon the downs to the north of Winchester race-course. Here, looking back at the city and at the fine valley above and below it, and at the many smaller valleys that run down from the high ridges into that great and fertile valley, I could not help admiring the taste of the ancient kings who made this city (which once covered all the hill round about, and which contained 92 churches and chapels) a chief place of their residence. There are not many finer spots in England; and if I were to take in a circle of eight or ten miles of semi-diameter, I should say that I believe there is not one so fine. Here are hill, dell, water, meadows, woods, corn-fields, downs: and all of them very fine and very beautifully disposed. This country does not present to us that sort of beauties which we see about Guildford and Godalming, and round the skirts of Hindhead and Blackdown, where the ground lies in the form that the surface-water in a boiling copper would be in if you could, by word of command,make it be still, the variously-shaped bubbles all sticking up; and really, to look at the face of the earth, who can help imagining that some such process has produced its present form? Leaving this matter to be solved by those who laugh at mysteries, I repeat that the country round Winchester does not present to us beauties ofthis sort; but of a sort which I like a great deal better. Arthur Young calls the vale between Farnham and Altonthe finest ten milesin England. Here is a river with fine meadows on each side of it, and with rising grounds on each outside of the meadows, those grounds having some hop-gardens and some pretty woods. But though I was born in this vale I must confess that the ten miles between Maidstone and Tunbridge (which the Kentish folks call theGarden of Eden) is a great deal finer; for here, with a river three times as big, and a vale three times as broad, there are, on rising grounds six times as broad, not only hop-gardens and beautiful woods, but immense orchards of apples, pears, plums, cherries and filberts, and these, in many cases, with gooseberries and currants and raspberries beneath; and, all taken together, the vale is really worthy of the appellation which it bears. But even this spot, which I believe to be the very finest, as to fertility and diminutive beauty, in this whole world, I, for my part, do not like so well; nay, as a spot tolive on, I think nothing at all of it, compared with a country where high downs prevail, with here and there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill, and where you see, in the deep dells, here and there a farm-house, and here and there a village, the buildings sheltered by a group of lofty trees.
This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hampshire, it has its full gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a great down, with two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it, belonging to different farms; and to see, lower down, the folds, in the fields, ready to receive them for the night. We had, when we got upon the downs, after leaving Winchester, this sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our point of destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close under the north side of the lofty hill at Highclere, which is called Beacon Hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of a Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on Winchester Downs; and without any regard toroads, westeeredfor it, as sailors do for a land-mark. Of these 13 miles (from Winchester to Whitchurch) we rode about eight or nine upon thegreen-sward, or over fields equally smooth. And here is one great pleasure of living in countries of this sort: no sloughs, no ditches, no nasty dirty lanes, and the hedges, where there are any, are more for boundary marks than for fences. Fine for hunting and coursing: no impediments; no gates to open; nothing to impede the dogs, the horses, or the view. The water is notseen running; but the great bed of chalkholds it, and the sun draws it up for the benefit of the grass and the corn; and, whatever inconvenience is experienced from the necessity of deep wells, and of driving sheep and cattle far to water, is amply made up for by thegoodness of the water, and by the complete absence of floods, of drains, of ditches and of water-furrows. Asthings now are, however, these countries have one great drawback: the poor day-labourers suffer from the want of fuel, and they have nothing but theirbare pay. For these reasons they are greatly worse off than those of thewoodland countries; and it is really surprising what a difference there is between the faces that you see here and the round, red faces that you see in thewealdsand theforests, particularly in Sussex, where the labourerswillhave ameat-puddingof some sort or other; and where theywillhavea fireto sit by in the winter.
After steering for some time, we came down to a very fine farmhouse, which we stopped a little to admire; and I asked Richard whetherthatwas not a place to be happy in. The village, which we found to be Stoke-Charity, was about a mile lower down this little vale. Before we got to it, we overtook the owner of the farm, who knew me, though I did not know him; but when I found it was Mr. Hinton Bailey, of whom and whose farm I had heard so much, I was not at all surprised at the fineness of what I had just seen. I told him that the wordcharity, making, as it did, part of the name of this place, had nearly inspired me with boldness enough to go to the farmhouse, in the ancient style, and ask for something to eat, for that we had not yet breakfasted. He asked us to go back; but at Burghclere we wereresolved to dine. After, however, crossing the village, and beginning again to ascend the downs, we came to a labourer’s (once a farmhouse), where I asked the man whether he had anybread and cheese, and was not a little pleased to hear him say “Yes.” Then I asked him to give us a bit, protesting that we had not yet broken our fast. He answered in the affirmative at once, though I did not talk of payment. His wife brought out the cut loaf, and a piece of Wiltshire cheese, and I took them in hand, gave Richard a good hunch, and took another for myself. I verily believe that all the pleasure of eating enjoyed by all the feeders in London in a whole year does not equal that which we enjoyed in gnawing this bread and cheese as we rode over this cold down, whip and bridle-reins in one hand, and the hunch in the other. Richard, who was purse bearer, gave the woman, by my direction, about enough to buy two quartern loaves: for she told me that they had to buy their breadat the mill, not being able to bake themselves forwant of fuel; and this, as I said before, is one of the draw-backs in this sort of country. I wish every one of these people had anAmerican fire-place. Here they might, then, even in these bare countries, have comfortable warmth. Rubbish of any sort would, by this means, give them warmth. I am now, at six o’clock inthe morning, sitting in a room, where one of these fire-places, with very lightturfin it, gives as good and steady a warmth as it is possible to feel, and which room has, too, beencured of smokingby this fire-place.
Before we got this supply of bread and cheese, we, though in ordinary times a couple of singularly jovial companions, and seldom going a hundred yards (except going very fast) without one or the other speaking, began to growdull, or ratherglum. The way seemed long; and, when I had to speak in answer to Richard, the speaking was as brief as might be. Unfortunately, just at this critical period, one of the loops that held the straps of Richard’s little portmanteau broke; and it became necessary (just before we overtook Mr. Bailey) for me to fasten the portmanteau on before me, upon my saddle. This, which was not the work of more than five minutes, would, had I hada breakfast, have been nothing at all, and, indeed, matter of laughter. Butnowit wassomething. It was his “fault” for capering and jerking about “so.” I jumped off, saying, “Here!I’ll carry itmyself.” And then I began to take off the remaining strap, pulling with great violence and in great haste. Just at this time my eyes met his, in which I sawgreat surprise; and, feeling the just rebuke, feeling heartily ashamed of myself, I instantly changed my tone and manner, cast the blame upon the saddler, and talked of the effectual means which we would take to prevent the like in future.
Now, if such was the effect produced upon me by the want of food for only two or three hours; me, who had dined well the day before and eaten toast and butter the over-night; if the missing of only one breakfast, and that, too, from my own whim, while I had money in my pocket to get one at any public-house, and while I could get one only for asking for at any farm-house; if the not having breakfasted could, and under such circumstances, make me what you may call “cross” to a child like this, whom I must necessarily love so much, and to whom I never speak but in the very kindest manner; if this mere absence of a breakfast could thus put meout of temper, how great are the allowances that we ought to make for the poor creatures who, in this once happy and now miserable country, are doomed to lead a life of constant labour and of half-starvation. I suppose that, as we rode away from the cottage, we gnawed up, between us, a pound of bread and a quarter of a pound of cheese. Here was aboutfivepenceworth at present prices. Even this, which was only a meresnap, a merestay-stomach, for us, would, for us two, come to 3s.a week all but a penny. How, then, gracious God! is a labouring man, his wife, and, perhaps, four or five small children, to exist upon 8s.or 9s.a week!Aye, and to find house-rent, clothing, bedding and fuel out of it? Richard and I ate here, at this snap, more, and much more, than the average of labourers, their wives and children, have to eat in a whole day, and that the labourer has toworkon too!
When we got here to Burghclere we were again ashungryas hunters. What, then, must be the life of these poor creatures? But is not the state of the country, is not the hellishness of the system, all depicted in this one disgraceful and damning fact, that the magistrates, who settle on what thelabouring poorought to have to live on,ALLOW THEM LESS THAN IS ALLOWED TO FELONS IN THE GAOLS, and allow themnothing for clothing and fuel, and house-rent! And yet, while this is notoriously the case, while the main body of the working class in England are fed and clad and even lodged worse than felons, and are daily becoming even worse and worse off, the King is advised to tell the Parliament, and the world, that we are in a state ofunexampled prosperity, and that this prosperity must bepermanent, becauseall theGREATinterestsareprospering! THE WORKING PEOPLE ARE NOT, THEN, “AGREATINTEREST”! THEY WILL BE FOUND TO BE ONE, BY-AND-BY. What is to be theendof this? What can be theendof it, but dreadful convulsion? What other can be produced by a system, which allows thefelonbetter food, better clothing, and better lodging than thehonest labourer?
I see that there has been a grandhumanity-meetingin Norfolk to assure the Parliament that these humanity-people willbackit in any measures that it may adopt for freeing theNEGROES. Mr. Buxton figured here, also Lord Suffield, who appear to have been the two principal actors, orshowers-off. This same Mr. Buxton opposed the Bill intended to relieve the poor in England by breaking a little into the brewers’ monopoly; and as to Lord Suffield, if he really wish tofree slaves, let him go to Wykham in this county, where he will see some drawing, like horses, gravel to repair the roads for the stock-jobbers and dead-weight and the seat-dealers to ride smoothly on. If he go down a little further, he will seeCONVICTSatPRECISELY THE SAME WORK, harnessed inJUST THE SAME WAY; but the convicts he will find hale and ruddy-cheeked, in dresses sufficiently warm, and bawling and singing; while he will find the labourers thin, ragged, shivering, dejected mortals, such as never were seen in any other country upon earth. There is not a negro in the West Indies who has not more to eat in a day, than the average of English labourers have to eat in a week, and of better food too. Colonel Wodehouse and a man of the name of Hoseason (whence came he?) who opposed this humanity-scheme talked of the sums necessary to pay theowners of the slaves. They took special care not to tell the humanity-mento look at home for slaves to free. No, no! that would have applied to themselves, as well as to Lord Suffield and humanity Buxton. If it were worth while toreasonwith these people, one might ask them whether they do not think thatanother waris likely to relieve them of all these cares, simply by making the colonies transfer their allegiance or assert their independence? But to reason with them is useless. If they can busy themselves with compassion for the negroes, while they uphold the system that makes the labourers of England more wretched, and beyond all measure more wretched, than any negro slaves are, or ever were, or ever can be, they are unworthy of anything but our contempt.
But the “education” canters are the most curious fellows of all. They have seen “education,” as they call it, and crimes, go on increasing together, till the gaols, though six times their former dimensions, will hardly suffice; and yet the canting creatures still cry that crimes arise from want of what they call “education!” They see the felon better fed and better clad than the honest labourer. They see this; and yet they continually cry that the crimes arise from a want of “education!” What can be the cause of this perverseness? It is not perverseness: it isroguery,corruption, andtyranny. The tyrant, the unfeeling tyrant, squeezes the labourers for gain’s sake; and the corrupt politician and literary or tub rogue find an excuse for him by pretending that it is not want of food and clothing, but want of education, that makes the poor, starving wretches thieves and robbers. If the press, if only the press, were to do its duty, or but a tenth part of its duty, this hellish system could not go on. But it favours the system by ascribing the misery to wrong causes. The causes are these: the tax-gatherer presses the landlord; the landlord the farmer; and the farmer the labourer. Here it falls at last; and this class is made so miserable that afelon’slife is better than that of alabourer. Does there want anyother causeto produce crimes? But on these causes, so clear to the eye of reason, so plain from experience, the press scarcely ever says a single word; while it keeps bothering our brains about education and morality; and about ignorance and immorality leading tofelonies. To be sure immorality leads to felonies. Who does not know that? But who is to expect morality in a half-starved man, who is whipped if he do not work, though he has not, for his whole day’s food, so much as I and my little boy snapped up in six or seven minutes upon Stoke-Charity Down? Aye! but if the press were to ascribe the increase of crimes to the true causes it mustgo further back. It must go to thecause of the taxes. It must go to the debt, the dead-weight, the thundering standing army, the enormous sinecures, pensions, and grants; and this would suit but a very small part of apresswhich lives and thrives principally by one or the other of these.