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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:12:13 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:12:13 -0700 |
| commit | a56911302c68217fbfa3b611cfbd43e47eb6b3e0 (patch) | |
| tree | 96cd9538c9699a395b9d3c6f107e2905942272ee /39234-h | |
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diff --git a/39234-h/39234-h.htm b/39234-h/39234-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67f6a09 --- /dev/null +++ b/39234-h/39234-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9523 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old, by Charles G. Harper—A Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 14%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .btr {border-top: solid 1px; border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .br {border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .btlr {border-top: solid 1px; border-left: solid 1px; border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .blr {border-left: solid 1px; border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .bb {border-bottom: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .bbr {border-bottom: solid 1px; border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .bblr {border-bottom: solid 1px; border-left: solid 1px; border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .brdoub {border-right: double; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .bbdoubr {border-bottom: double; border-right: solid 1px; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .botbor {border-bottom: solid 1px;} + .bbdoub {border-bottom: double; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .btrdoub {border-top: solid 1px; border-right: double; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + .bbrdoub {border-bottom: solid 1px; border-right: double; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em;} + + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .poem {margin-left: 15%;} + .note {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + .hang {margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} + .index {margin-left: 20%;} + .caption {text-align: center; font-size: small;} + .title {text-align: center; font-size: 150%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcaplc {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .bbox {border: solid 2px; color: gray; margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + .spacer {padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;} + .spacer2 {padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + .spacer3 {padding-left: 10em; padding-right: 10em;} + + .verts {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + + .sidenote {width: 5em; font-size: smaller; color: black; background-color: #ffffff; position: absolute; left: 1em; text-align: center;} + + p.dropcap:first-letter{float: left; padding-right: 3px; font-size: 250%; line-height: 83%; width:auto;} + .caps {text-transform:uppercase;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries, by +Charles G. Harper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries + To-Day and in Days of Old + +Author: Charles G. Harper + +Release Date: March 24, 2012 [EBook #39234] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORTSMOUTH ROAD AND ITS TRIBUTARIES *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1><small>THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD</small></h1> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="verts"> +<p class="title">WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</p> + +<p class="hang"><b>ENGLISH PEN ARTISTS OF TO-DAY</b>: Examples of their work, with some +Criticisms and Appreciations. Super royal 4to, £3 3<i>s.</i> net.</p> + +<p class="hang"><b>THE BRIGHTON ROAD</b>: Old Times and New on a Classic Highway. With 95 +Illustrations by the Author and from old prints. Demy 8vo, 16<i>s.</i></p> + +<p class="hang"><b>FROM PADDINGTON TO PENZANCE</b>: The Record of a Summer Tramp. With 105 +Illustrations by the Author. Demy 8vo, 16<i>s.</i></p> + +<p class="hang"><b>A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF DRAWING FOR MODERN METHODS OF REPRODUCTION.</b> +Illustrated by the Author and others. Demy 8vo, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> + +<p class="hang"><b>THE MARCHES OF WALES</b>: Notes and Impressions on the Welsh Borders, from the +Severn Sea to the Sands o’ Dee. With 115 Illustrations by the Author and +from old-time portraits. Demy 8vo, 16<i>s.</i></p> + +<p class="hang"><b>REVOLTED WOMAN</b>: Past, Present, and to Come. Illustrated by the Author and +from old-time portraits. Demy 8vo, 5<i>s.</i> net.</p> + +<p class="hang"><b>THE DOVER ROAD</b>: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. With 100 Illustrations by +the Author and from other sources. Demy 8vo. [<i>In the Press.</i></p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><small><i>From a painting by George Morland.</i></small></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td>“<i>Till, woe is me, so lubberly,<br /> +The vermin came and pressed me.</i>”</td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><i>THE PORTSMOUTH<br /> +ROAD AND ITS TRIBUTARIES:</i></span></p> +<p class="center"><i>TO-DAY AND IN DAYS OF OLD.</i></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By</span> <span class="large">CHARLES G. HARPER,</span><br /> +AUTHOR OF<br />The Brighton Road,<br />Marches of Wales,<br />Drawing for Reproduction,<br />&c., &c., &c.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title_page.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>Illustrated by the Author, and from Old-time Prints and<br /> +Pictures.</i></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London</span>: CHAPMAN & HALL <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br /> +1895<br /> +(<i>All Rights Reserved.</i>)</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,<br /> +London & Bungay.</span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="note"> +<p class="title"><span class="smcap">To</span> HENRY REICHARDT, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span></p> + +<p><i>My dear Reichardt,</i></p> + +<p><i>Here is the result of two years’ hard work for your perusal; the outcome +of delving amid musty, dusty files of by-gone newspapers; of research +among forgotten books, and pamphlets curious and controversial; of country +jaunts along this old road both for pleasures sake and for taking the +notes and sketches that go towards making up the story of this old +highway.</i></p> + +<p><i>You will appreciate, more than most, the difficulties of contriving a +well-ordered narrative of times so clean forgotten as those of old-road +travel, and better still will you perceive the largeness of the task of +transmuting the notes and sketches of this undertaking into paper and +print. Hence this dedication.</i></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Yours, &c.</i>,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">CHARLES G. HARPER.</span></p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/preface.jpg" alt="Preface" /></div> + +<div class="note"> +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps"><i>T</i></span><i>here has been of late years a remarkable and widespread revival of +interest in the old coach-roads of England; a revival chiefly owing to the +modern amateur’s enthusiasm for coaching; partly due to the healthy sport +and pastime of cycling, that brings so many afield from populous cities +who would otherwise grow stunted in body and dull of brain; and in degree +owing to the contemplative spirit that takes delight in scenes of by-gone +commerce and activity, prosaic enough, to the most of them that lived in +the Coaching Age, but now become hallowed by mere lapse of years and the +supersession of horse-flesh by steam-power.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Story of the Roads belongs now to History, and History is, to your +thoughtful man, quite as interesting as the best of novels. Sixty years +ago the Story of the Roads was brought to an end, and at that time (so +unheeded is the romance of every-day life) it seemed a story of the most +commonplace type, not worthy the telling. But we have gained what was of +necessity denied our fathers and grandfathers in this matter—the charm of +Historical Perspective, that lends a saving grace to experiences of the +most ordinary description, and to happenings the most untoward. Our +forebears travelled the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> roads from necessity, and saw nothing save +unromantic discomforts in their journeyings to and fro. We who read the +records of their times are apt to lament their passing, and to wish the +leisured life and not a few of the usages of our grandfathers back again. +The wish is vain, but natural, for it is a characteristic of every +succeeding generation to look back lovingly on times past, and in the +retrospect to see in roseate colours what was dull and, neutral-tinted to +folk who lived their lives in those by-gone days.</i></p> + +<p><i>If we only could pierce to the thought of æons past, perhaps we should +find the men of the Stone Age regretting the times of the Arboreal +Ancestor, and should discover that distant relative, while swinging by his +prehensile tail from the branches of some forest tree, lamenting the +careless, irresponsible life of his remote forebear, the Primitive +Pre-atomic Globule.</i></p> + +<p><i>However that may be, certain it is that when our day is done, when Steam +shall have been dethroned and natural forces of which we know nothing have +revolutionized the lives of our descendants, those heirs of all the ages +will look back regretfully upon this Era of ours, and wistfully meditate +upon the romantic life we led towards the end of the nineteenth century!</i></p> + +<p><i>The glamour of old-time travel has appealed to me equally with others of +my time, and has led me to explore the old coach-roads and their records. +Work of this kind is a pleasure, and the programme I have mapped out of +treating all the classic roads of England in this wise, is, though long +and difficult, not (to quote a horsey phrase suitable to this subject) all +“collar work.”</i></p> + +<p class="right">CHARLES G. HARPER.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">35, Connaught Street, Hyde Park,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>April 1895</i>.</span></span></p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img01.jpg" alt="LIST of ILLVSTRATIONS" /></div> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td><td align="center">SEPARATE PLATES</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">1.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Press Gang.</span> <i>By George Morland.</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#frontis">Frontispiece.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">2.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Old “Elephant and Castle,” 1824</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_23">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">3.</td> + <td>“<span class="smcap">Elephant and Castle</span>,” 1826</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">4.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Admiral Byng</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_49">48</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">5.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">A Strange Sight Some Time Hence</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_53">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">6.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Shooting of Admiral Byng</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_57">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">7.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">William Pitt</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_75">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">8.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Recruiting Sergeant</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_91">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">9.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Road and Rail: Ditton Marsh, Night</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_95">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">10.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The “New Times” Guildford Coach</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_99">98</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">11.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The “Tally-ho” Hampton Court and Dorking Coach</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_105">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">12.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Mickleham Church</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_109">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">13.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Brockham Bridge</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_115">114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">14.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Esher Place</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_121">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">15.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Lord Clive</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_125">124</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">16.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Princess Charlotte of Wales</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_129">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">17.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The “Anchor,” Ripley</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_143">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">18.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Guildhall, Guildford</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_149">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">19.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Castle Arch</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_153">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">20.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">An Inn Yard, 1747.</span> <i>After Hogarth</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">162</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">21.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The “Red Rover” Guildford and Southampton Coach</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_167">166</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>22.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">St. Catherine’s Chapel.</span> <i>After J. M. W. Turner</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_171">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">23.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Mary Tofts</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_179">178</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">24.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">New Godalming Station</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_185">184</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">25.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Devil’s Punch Bowl</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_195">194</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">26.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Hindhead.</span> <i>After J. M. W. Turner</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">198</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">27.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Tyndall’s House</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_209">208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">28.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Samuel Pepys</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_237">236</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">29.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">John Wilkes</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_241">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">30.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Sailors Carousing.</span> <i>From a Sketch by Rowlandson</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_253">252</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">31.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The “Flying Bull” Inn</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_269">268</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">32.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Petersfield Market-Place</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_279">278</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">33.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The “Coach and Horses” Inn</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_299">298</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">34.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Catherington Church</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_321">320</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">35.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">An Extraordinary Scene on the Portsmouth Road.</span> <i>By Rowlandson</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_331">330</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">36.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Sailor’s Return</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_335">334</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">37.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">True Blue; or Britain’s Jolly Tars Paid Off at Portsmouth, 1797.</span><br /> + <i>By Isaac Cruikshank</i></td> + <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_339">338</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">38.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Liberty of the Subject, 1782.</span> <i>By James Gillray</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_347">346</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="center">ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The Revellers</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Edward Gibbon</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_18">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>“Dog and Duck” Tavern</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Sign of the “Dog and Duck”</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Jonas Hanway</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>“If the shades of those antagonists foregather”</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The First Umbrella</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The “Green Man,” Putney Heath</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_68">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The Windmill, Wimbledon Common</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Mr. Walter Shoolbred</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_98">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Boots at the “Bear”</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_103">102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The “Bear,” Esher</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Burford Bridge</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_112">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The “White Horse,” Dorking</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The Road to Dorking</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Castle Mill</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Cobham Churchyard</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Pain’s Hill</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_138">139</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Fame up-to-Date</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_141">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Herbert Liddell Cortis</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Market-House, Godalming</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Charterhouse Relics</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Gowser Jug</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Wesley</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Bust of Nelson</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Tombstone, Thursley</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Thursley Church</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_206">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></td><td>Sun-dial, Thursley</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>“Considering Cap”</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Milland Chapel</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>“The Wakes,” Selborne</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Badge of the Selborne Society</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The “Flying Bull” Sign</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>The “Jolly Drovers”</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>“Shaved with Trouble and Cold Water”</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Edward Gibbon</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Windy Weather</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Benighted</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Dancing Sailor</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_360">361</a></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img02.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE ROAD TO PORTSMOUTH</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right">Miles</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: -2em;">Stone’s End, Borough, to—</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Newington</td> + <td align="center">¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Vauxhall</td> + <td align="center">1½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Battersea Rise</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">4</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Wandsworth (cross River Wandle)</td> + <td align="center">5½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Tibbet’s Corner, Putney Heath</td> + <td align="center">7¾</td></tr> +<tr><td>“Robin Hood,” Kingston Vale</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">9</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Norbiton Church</td> + <td align="center">11¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Kingston Market-place</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">12</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Thames Ditton</td> + <td align="center">13¾</td></tr> +<tr><td>Esher</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">16</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Cobham Street (cross River Mole)</td> + <td align="center">19½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Wisley Common</td> + <td align="center">20¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ripley</td> + <td align="center">23½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Guildford (cross River Wey)</td> + <td align="center">29½</td></tr> +<tr><td>St. Catherine’s Hill</td> + <td align="center">30½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Peasmarsh Common (cross River Wey)</td> + <td align="center">31¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Godalming</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">34</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Milford</td> + <td align="center">35¾</td></tr> +<tr><td>Moushill and Witley Commons</td> + <td align="center">36¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Hammer Ponds</td> + <td align="center">38½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Hindhead (Gibbet Hill)</td> + <td align="center">41¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Cold Ash Hill and “Seven Thorns” Inn</td> + <td align="center">44¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Liphook (“Royal Anchor”)</td> + <td align="center">46¾</td></tr> +<tr><td>Milland Common</td> + <td align="center">47½</td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>Rake</td> + <td align="center">50¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Sheet Bridge (cross River Rother)</td> + <td align="center">53¾</td></tr> +<tr><td>Petersfield</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">55</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>“Coach and Horses”</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">59</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Horndean</td> + <td align="center">62½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Waterlooville and White Lane End</td> + <td align="center">65½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Purbrook (cross Purbrook stream)</td> + <td align="center">66½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Cosham</td> + <td align="center">68¼</td></tr> +<tr><td>Hilsea</td> + <td align="center">69½</td></tr> +<tr><td>North End</td> + <td align="center">70¾</td></tr> +<tr><td>Landport</td> + <td align="center">71½</td></tr> +<tr><td>Portsmouth Town</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">72</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Portsmouth, Victoria Pier</td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.75em;">73</span></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img03.jpg" alt="The Portsmouth Road" /></div> +<p> </p> +<h2>I</h2> + +<p>The Portsmouth Road is measured (or was measured when road-travel was the +only way of travelling on <i>terra firma</i>, and coaches the chiefest machines +of progression) from the Stone’s End, Borough. It went by Vauxhall to +Wandsworth, Putney Heath, Kingston-on-Thames, Guildford, and Petersfield; +and thence came presently into Portsmouth through the Forest of Bere and +past the frowning battlements of Porchester. The distance was, according +to Cary,—that invaluable guide, philosopher, and friend of our +grandfathers,—seventy-one miles, seven furlongs; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> our forebears who +prayerfully entrusted their bodies to the dangers of the roads and +resigned their souls to Providence, were hurried along this route at the +break-neck speed of something under eight miles an hour, with their hearts +in their mouths and their money in their boots for fear of the highwaymen +who infested the roads, from London suburbs to the gates of Portsmouth +Citadel.</p> + +<p>“Cary’s Itinerary” for 1821 gives nine hours as the speediest journey +performed in that year by what was then considered the meteoric and +previously unheard-of swiftness of the “Rocket,” which, in that new and +most fashionable era of mail and stage-coach travelling, had deserted the +grimy and decidedly unfashionable precincts of the Borough and the +“Elephant and Castle,” for modish Piccadilly. So imagine the “Rocket” (do +you not perceive the subtle allusion to speed in that title?) starting +from the “White Bear,” Piccadilly, which stood where the “Criterion” now +soars into the clouds—any morning at nine o’clock, to the flourishes of +the guard’s “yard of tin,” and to the admiration of a motley crowd of +’prentice-boys; Corinthians, still hazy in their ideas and unsteady on +their legs from debauches and card-playing in the night-houses of the +Haymarket round the corner; and of a frowzy, importunate knot of Jew +pedlars, and hawkers of all manner of useful and useless things which +might, to a vivid imagination, seem useful on a journey by coach. Away, +with crack of whip, tinful, rather than tuneful, fanfare, performed by +scarlet-coated, purple-faced guard, and with merry rattle of harness, to +Putney, where, upon the Heath, the coach joined the</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +“... old road, the high-road,<br /> +The road that’s always new,”</p> + +<p>thus to paraphrase the poet.</p> + +<p>They were jolly coach-loads that fared along the roads in coaching days, +and, truly, all their jollity was needed, for unearthly hours, +insufficient protection from inclement weather, and the tolerable +certainty of falling in with thieves on their way, were experiences and +contingencies that, one might imagine, could scarce fail of depressing the +most buoyant spirits. But our forebears were composed of less delicate +nerves and tougher thews and sinews than ourselves. Possibly they had not +our veneer of refinement; they certainly possessed a most happy ignorance +of science and art; of microbes, and all the recondite ailments that +perplex us moderns, they knew nothing; they did all their work by that +glorious rule, the rule of thumb; and for their food, they lived on roast +beef and home-brewed ale, and damned kickshaws, new-fangled notions, +gentility, and a hundred other innovations whole-heartedly, like so many +Cobbetts. And Cobbett, in very truth, is the pattern and exemplar of the +old-time Englishman, who cursed tea, paper money, “gentlemen” farmers, and +innumerable things that, innovations then, have long since been cast aside +as old-fashioned and out of date.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ENGLISHMAN OF YORE</i></div> + +<p>The Englishman of the days of road-travel was a much more robust person +than the Englishman of railway times. He had to be! The weaklings were all +killed off by the rigours of the undeniably harder winters than we +experience to-day, and by the rough-and-ready conditions of existence that +made for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> survival of the strongest constitutions. Luxurious times and +easier conditions of life breed their own peculiar ills, and the +Englishman of a hundred years ago was a very fine animal indeed, who knew +little of nerves, and, altogether, compared greatly to his own advantage +with his neuralgia-stricken descendants of to-day.</p> + +<p>Still, our ancestors saw nothing of the romance of their times. That has +been left for us to discover, and that glamour in which we see their age +is one afforded only by the lapse of time.</p> + +<p>No: coaching days had their romance, more obvious perhaps to ourselves +than to those who lived in the times of road-travel; but most certainly +they had their own peculiar discomforts which we who are hurled at express +speed in luxurious Pullman cars, or in the more exclusive and less +sociable “first,” to our destination would never endure were railways +abolished and the coaching era come again. I should imagine that +three-fourths of us would remain at home.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>COACHING MISERIES</i></div> + +<p>Here are some of the coaching miseries experienced by one who travelled +before steam had taken the place of good horseflesh, and, sooth to say, +there is not much in the nature of romantic glamour attaching to them:—</p> + +<p><i>Misery number one.</i> Although your place has been contingently secured +some days before, and although you have risen with the lark, yet you see +the ponderous vehicle arrive full. And this, not unlikely, more than once.</p> + +<p>2. At the end of a stage, beholding the four panting, reeking, foaming +animals which have dragged you <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>twelve miles, and the stiff, galled, +scraggy relay, crawling and limping out of the yard.</p> + +<p>3. Being politely requested, at the foot of a tremendous hill, to ease the +horses. Mackintoshes, vulcanized india-rubber, gutta-percha, and gossamer +dust-coats unknown then.</p> + +<p>4. An outside passenger, resolving to endure no longer “the pelting of the +pitiless storm,” takes refuge, to your consternation, inside; together +with his dripping hat, saturated cloak, and soaked umbrella.</p> + +<p>5. Set down with a promiscuous party to a meal bearing no resemblance to +that of a good hotel, excepting in the charge; and no time allowed in +which to enjoy it.</p> + +<p>6. Closely packed in a box, “cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in,” with +<i>five</i> companions morally or physically obnoxious, for two or three +comfortless days and nights.</p> + +<p>7. During a halt overhearing the coarse language of the ostlers and the +tipplers of the roadside pot-house: and besieged with beggars exposing +their horrible mutilations.</p> + +<p>8. Roused from your fitful nocturnal slumber by the horn or bugle; the +lashing and cracking of whips; the noisy arrivals at turnpike gates, or by +a search for parcels (which, after all, are not there) under your seat: to +say nothing of solicitous drivers who pester you with their entirely +uncalled-for attentions.</p> + +<p>9. Discovering, at a diverging-point in your journey, that the “Tally-ho” +coach runs only every other day or so, or that it has been finally +stopped.</p> + +<p>10. Clambering from the wheel by various iron<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> projections to your +elevated seat, fearful, all the while, of breaking your precious neck.</p> + +<p>11. After threading the narrowest streets of an ancient town, entering the +inn-yard by a low archway, at the imminent risk of decapitation.</p> + +<p>12. Seeing the luggage piled “Olympus high,” so as to occasion an alarming +oscillation.</p> + +<p>13. Having the reins and whip placed in your unpractised hands while +coachee indulges in a glass and chat.</p> + +<p>14. To be, when dangling at the edge of a seat, overcome with drowsiness.</p> + +<p>15. Exposed to piercing draughts, owing to a refractory glass; or, <i>vice +versâ</i>, being in a minority, you are compelled, for the sake of +ventilation, to thrust your umbrella accidentally through a pane.</p> + +<p>16. At various seasons, suffocated with dust and broiled by a powerful +sun; or crouching under an umbrella in a drenching rain—or petrified with +cold—torn by fierce winds—struggling through snow—or wending your way +through perilous floods.</p> + +<p>17. Perceiving that a young squire is receiving an initiatory lesson into +the art of driving; or that a jibbing horse, or a race with an opposition +coach, is endangering your existence.</p> + +<p>18. Losing the enjoyment, or employment, of much precious time, not only +on the road, but also from subsequent fatigue.</p> + +<p>19. Interrupted by your two rough-coated, big-buttoned, many-caped +friends, the coachman and guard, who hope you will remember them before +the termination of your hurried meal. Although<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the gratuity has been +frequently calculated in anticipation, you fail in making the mutual +reminiscences agreeable.</p> + +<p>Clearly this was no <i>laudator temporis acti</i>.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>II</h2> + + +<p>But there are two sides to every medal, and it would be quite as easy to +draw up an equally long and convincing list of the joys of coaching. It +was not always raining or snowing when you wished to go a journey. +Highwaymen were always too many, but they did not lurk in every lane; and +the coach was not overturned on every journey, nor, even when a coach +<i>did</i> upset, were the spilled passengers killed and injured with the +revolting circumstance and hideous complexity of a railway accident. On a +trip by coach, it was possible to see something of the country and to fill +one’s lungs with fresh air, instead of coal-smoke and sulphur—and so +forth, <i>ad infinitum</i>!</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE COACHING AGE</i></div> + +<p>The Augustan age of coaching,—by which I mean the period when George IV. +was king,—was celebrated for the number of gentlemen-drivers who ran +smart coaches upon the principal roads from London. Many of them mounted +the box-seat for the sake of sport alone: others, who had run through +their property and come to grief after the manner of the time, became +drivers of necessity. They could fulfil no other useful occupation, for at +that day professionalism was confined only to the Ring, and although +professors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> of the Noble Art of Self-Defence were admired and (in a sense) +envied, they were not gentlemen, judge them by what standard you please. +What was a poor Corinthian to do? To beg he would have been ashamed, to +dig would have humiliated him no less; the only way to earn a living and + +yet retain the respect of his fellows, was to become a stage-coachman. He +had practically no alternative. Not yet had the manly sports of cricket +and football produced their professionals; lawn-tennis and cycling were +not dreamed of, and the professional riders, the “makers’ amateurs,” +subsidized heavily from Coventry, were a degraded class yet to be evolved +by the young nineteenth century. So coachmen the young Randoms and +Rake-hells of the times became, and let us do them the justice to admit +that when they possessed handles to their names, they had the wit and +right feeling to see that those accidents of their birth gave them no +licence to assume “side” in the calling they had chosen for the love of +sport or from the spur of necessity. If they were proud by nature, they +pocketed their pride. They drove their best, took their fares, and +pocketed their tips with the most ordinary members of the coaching +fraternity, and they were a jolly band. Such were Sir St. Vincent Cotton; +Stevenson of the “Brighton Age,” a graduate he of Trinity College, +Cambridge; and Captain Tyrwhitt Jones.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GENTLEMEN COACHMEN</i></div> + +<p>St. Vincent Cotton, known familiarly to his contemporaries as “Vinny,” was +one who drove a coach for a livelihood, and was not ashamed to own it. He +became reduced, as a consequence of his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> folly, from an income of five +thousand a year to nothing; but he took Fortune’s frowns with all the +nonchalance of a true sportsman, and was to all appearance as +light-hearted when he drove for a weekly wage as when he handled the reins +upon his own drag.</p> + +<p>“One day,” says one who knew him, “an old friend booked a place and got up +on the box-seat beside him, and a jolly five hours they had behind one of +the finest teams in England. When they came to their journey’s end, the +friend was rather put to it as to what he ought to do; but he frankly put +out his hand to shake hands, and offered him a sovereign. ‘No, no,’ said +the coachman. ‘Put that in your pocket, and give me the half-crown you +give to another coachman; and always come by me, and tell all your friends +and my old friends to do the same. A sovereign might be all very well for +once, but if you think that necessary for to-day you would not like to +feel it necessary the many times in the year you run down this way. +Half-a-crown is the trade price. Stick to that, and let us have many a +merry meeting and talk of old times.’”</p> + +<p>“What was right,” says our author, “he took as a matter of course in his +business, as I can testify by what happened between him and two of my +young brothers. They had to go to school at the town to which their old +friend the new coachman drove. Of course they would go by him whom they +had known all their little lives. They booked their places and paid their +money, and were proud to sit behind their friend with such a splendid +team.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>“The Baronet chaffed and had fun with the boys, as he was always +hail-fellow-well-met with every one, old and young, all the way down; and +at the end, when he shook hands and did not see them prepare to give him +anything, he said, as they were turning away, ‘Now, you young chaps, +hasn’t your father given you anything for the coachman?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes,’ they said, looking sheepish, ‘he gave us two shillings each, but +we didn’t know what to do: we daren’t give it to you.’</p> + +<p>“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘it’s all right. You hand it over to me and come back with +me next holidays, and bring me a coach-full of your fellows. Good-bye.’”</p> + +<p>“I drive for a livelihood,” said the Baronet to a friend. “Jones, +Worcester, and Stevenson have their liveried servants behind, who pack the +baggage and take all short fares and pocket all the fees. That’s all very +well for them. I do all myself, and the more civil I am (particularly to +the old ladies) the larger fees I get.” And with that he stowed away a +trunk in the boot, and turning down the steps, handed into the coach, with +the greatest care and civility, a fat old woman, saying as he remounted +the box, “There, that will bring me something like a fee.”</p> + +<p>The Baronet made three hundred a year out of this coach, and got his sport +out of it for nothing.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>III</h2> + + +<p>The “Rocket,” and the other fashionable West-end coaches of the Regency +and George IV.’s reign,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> scorning the plebeian starting-point of the +“Elephant and Castle,” whence the second and third-rate coaches, the +“rumble-tumbles” and the stage-wagons set out, took their departure from +the old City inns, and, calling at the Piccadilly hostelries on their way, +crossed the Thames at Putney, even as Captain Hargreaves’ modern +Portsmouth “Rocket” did in the notable coaching revival some years since, +and as Mr. Shoolbred’s Guildford coach, the “New Times,” does now.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>OLD PUTNEY BRIDGE</i></div> + +<p>Here they paid their tolls at the old bridge—eighteenpence a time—and +laboriously toiled up the long hill that leads to Putney Heath, not +without some narrow escapes of the “outsiders” from having their heads +brought into sudden and violent contact with the archway of the old +toll-house that—though by no means picturesque in itself—was so strange +and curious an object in its position, straddling across the roadway.</p> + +<p>What Londoner worthy the name does not regret the old crazy, timbered +bridge that connected Fulham with Putney? Granted that it was +inconveniently narrow, and humped in unexpected places, like a dromedary; +conceded that its many and mazy piers obstructed navigation and hindered +the tides; allowing every objection against it, old Putney Bridge was +infinitely more interesting than the present one of stone that sits so low +in the water and offends the eye with its matter-of-fact regularity, +proclaiming fat contracts and the unsympathetic baldness of outline +characteristic of the engineer’s most admired efforts.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>Perhaps an artist sees beauty where less privileged people discover only +ugliness; how else shall I account for the singular preference of the +guide-book, in which I read that “the ugly wooden bridge was replaced in +1886 by an elegant granite structure”?</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img04.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE REVELLERS.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Old Putney Bridge could never have been anything else than picturesque, +from the date of its opening, in 1729, to its final demolition twelve +years ago: the new bridge will never be less than ugly and formal, and an +eyesore in the broad reach that was spanned so finely by the old timber +structure for over a hundred and fifty years. The toll for one person +walking across the bridge was but a halfpenny, but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> frequently happened +in the old days that people had not even that small coin to pay their +passage, and in such cases it was the recognized custom for the tollman to +take their hats for security. The old gatekeepers of Putney Bridge were +provided with impressive-looking gowns and wore something the appearance +of beadles. Also they were provided with stout staves, which frequently +came in useful during the rows which were continually occurring upon the +occasions when wayfarers had their hats snatched off. “Your halfpenny or +your hat” was an offensive cry, and, together with the scuffles with +strayed revellers, left little peace to the guardians of the bridge.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>SUBURBS</i></div> + +<p>Everything is altered here since the old coaching-days; everything, that +is to say, but the course of the river and the trim churches of Fulham and +Putney, whose towers rise in rivalry from either shore. And Putney +church-tower is altogether dwarfed by the huge public-house that stands +opposite: a flaunting insult scarcely less flagrant than the shame put +upon the House of God by Cromwell and his fellows who sate in council of +war in the chancel, and discussed battles and schemed strife and bloodshed +over the table sacred to the Lord’s Communion. Putney has suffered from +its nearness to London. Where, until ten years ago, old mansions and +equally old shops lined its steep High Street, there are now only rows of +pretentious frontages occupied by up-to-date butchers and bakers and +candlestick-makers; by drapers, milliners, and “stores” of the suburban, +or five miles radius, variety. Gone is “Fairfax House,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> most impressive +and dignified of suburban mansions, dating from the time of James I., and +sometime the headquarters of the “Army of God and the Parliament”; gone, +too, is Gibbon’s birthplace, and the very church is partly +rebuilt—although <i>that</i> is a crime of which our forebears of 1836 are +guilty. It is guilt, you will allow, who stand on the bridge and look down +upon the mean exterior brick walls of the nave, worse still by comparison +with the rough, weathered stones of the old tower. Every part of the +church was rebuilt then, except that tower, and though the Perpendicular +nave-arcade was set up again, it has been scraped and painted to a newness +that seems quite of a piece with other “improvements.” All the monuments, +too, were moved into fresh places when the general post of that +sixty-years-old “restoration” was in progress. The dainty chantry of that +notable native of Putney, Bishop West, who died in 1533, was removed from +the south aisle to the chancel, and the ornate monument to Richard Lussher +placed in the tower, as one enters the church from the street.</p> + +<p>Richard Lussher was not a remarkable man, or if he was the memory of his +extraordinary qualities has not been handed down to us. But if he was not +remarkable, his epitaph is, as you shall judge:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center"><span class="large">“Memoriae Sacrum.</span></p> + +<p>“Here lyeth y<sup>e</sup> body of Ric: Lussher of Puttney in y<sup>e</sup> Cōnty of +Surey, Esq: who married Mary, y<sup>e</sup> second daughter of George Scott of +Staplefoord, tanner, in y<sup>e</sup> Cōnty of Essex, Esq: he departed y<sup>s</sup> +lyfe y<sup>e</sup> 27<sup>th</sup> of September, An<sup>o</sup>o 1618. Aetatis sue 30.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +“What tounge can speake y<sup>e</sup> Vertues of y<sup>s</sup> Creature?<br /> +Whose body fayre, whose soule of rarer feature;<br /> +He livd a Saynt, he dyed an holy wight,<br /> +In Heaven on earth a Joyfull heav̄y sight.<br /> +Body, Soule united, agreed in one.<br /> +Lyke strings well tuned in an unison,<br /> +No discord harsh y<sup>s</sup> navell could untye.<br /> +’Twas Heauen y<sup>e</sup> earth y<sup>s</sup> musick did envye;<br /> +Wherefore may well be sayd he lived well,<br /> +& being dead, y<sup>e</sup> World his vertues tell.”</p></div> + +<p>Some scornful commentator has called this doggerel; but I would that all +doggerel were as interesting.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>HISTORIC FIGURES</i></div> + +<p>We have already heard of one Cromwell at Putney, but another of the same +name, Thomas Cromwell,—almost as great a figure in the history of England +as “His Highness” the Protector,—was born here, a good deal over a +hundred years before warty-faced Oliver came and set his men in array +against the King’s forces from Oxford. Thomas was the son of a blacksmith +whose forge stood somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Wandsworth Road, +on a site now lost; but though of such humble origin he rose to be a +successor of Wolsey, that romantic figure whom we shall meet lower down +the road, at Esher, who himself was of equally lowly birth, being but the +son of a butcher. But while Wolsey,—that “butcher’s dogge,” as some +jealous contemporary called him,—rendered much service to the Church, +Cromwell, like his namesake, had a genius for destruction, and became a +veritable <i>malleus ecclesia</i>. He it was who, unscrupulous and servile in +attendance upon the King’s freaks, unctuous in flatteries of that Royal +paragon of vanity, sought and obtained the Chancellorship of England,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> by +suggesting that Henry should solve all his difficulties with Rome by +establishing a national Church of which he should be head. No surer way of +rising to the kingly favour could have been devised. Henry listened to his +adviser and took his advice, and Thomas Cromwell rose immediately to the +highest pinnacle of power, a lofty altitude which in those times often +turned men giddy and lost them their heads, in no figurative sense. None +so bitter and implacable towards an old faith than those who, having once +held it, have from one reason or another embraced new views; and Cromwell +was no exception from this rule. He was most zealous and industrious in +the work of disestablishing the religious houses, and the most rapacious +in securing a goodly share of the spoils. He was a terror to the homeless +monks and religious brethren whom his untiring industry had sent to beg +their bread upon the roads, and “fierce laws, fiercely executed—an +unflinching resolution which neither danger could daunt nor saintly virtue +move to mercy—a long list of solemn tragedies weigh upon his memory.”</p> + +<p>But these topmost platforms were craggy places in Henry VIII.’s time, and +the occupants of such dizzy heights fell frequently with a crash that was +all the greater from the depth of their fall. Wolsey had been more than +usually fortunate in his disgrace, for he was ill, and died from natural +causes. When his immediate successor, Sir Thomas More, fell, his life was +taken upon Tower Green. “<i>Decollat</i>,” says a contemporary document, with a +grim succinctness, “<i>in castrum Londin: vulgo turris appellatur</i>.” +Indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> this was the common end of all them that walked arm-in-arm with +the King, and could have at one time boasted his friendship in the +historic phrase, “<i>Ego et Rex meus</i>.” Why, the boast was a sure augury of +disaster. Wolsey found it so, and so also did More; and now Cromwell was +to follow More to the block. That his head fell amid protestations of his +belief in the Catholic faith is a singular comment upon the conduct of his +life, which was chiefly passed in violent persecutions of its ministers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GIBBON</i></div> + +<p>Another famous man was born at Putney: Edward Gibbon, the historian. Him +also we shall meet at another part of the road, but we may halt awhile to +hear some personal gossip at Putney, although it would be vain to seek his +birthplace to-day.</p> + +<p>He says, in his posthumously-published “Memoirs of My Life and Writings”: +“I was born at Putney, the 27th of April, O.S., in the year one thousand +seven hundred and twenty-seven; the first child of the marriage of Edward +Gibbon, Esq., and of Judith Porten. My lot might have been that of a +slave, a savage, or a peasant; nor can I reflect without pleasure on the +bounty of Nature, which cast my birth in a free and civilized country, in +an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and +decently endowed with the gifts of fortune. From my birth I have enjoyed +the rights of primogeniture; but I was succeeded by five brothers and one +sister, all of whom were snatched away in their infancy. My five brothers, +whose names may be found in the parish register of Putney, I shall not +pretend to lament.... In my ninth year,” he continues, “in a lucid +interval<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> of comparative health, my father adopted the convenient and +customary mode of English education; and I was sent to +Kingston-upon-Thames, to a school of about seventy boys, which was kept by +a Doctor Wooddeson and his assistants. Every time I have since passed over +Putney Common, I have always noticed the spot where my mother, as we drove +along in the coach, admonished me that I was now going into the world, and +must learn to think and act for myself.”</p> + +<p>At that time of writing he had “not forgotten how often in the year ’46 I +was reviled and buffetted for the sins of my Tory ancestors.” At length, +“by the common methods of discipline, at the expence of many tears and +some blood, I purchased the knowledge of the Latin syntax; and, not long +since, I was possessed of the dirty volumes of Phædrus and Cornelius +Nepos, which I painfully construed and darkly understood.”</p> + +<p>Gibbon’s “Miscellaneous Works,” published after his death, are prefaced by +a silhouette portrait, cut in 1794 by a Mrs. Brown, and reproduced here. +Lord Sheffield, who edited the volume, remarks that “the extraordinary +talents of this lady have furnished as complete a likeness of Mr. Gibbon, +as to person, face, and manner, as can be conceived; yet it was done in +his absence.” By this counterfeit presentment we see that the author of +the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was possessed of a singular +personality, curiously out of keeping with his stately and majestic +periods.</p> + +<div class="figright"><img src="images/img05.jpg" alt="" /><br /><small>EDWARD GIBBON.</small></div> + +<p>This is how Gibbon’s personal appearance struck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> one of his +contemporaries—that brilliant Irishman, Malone:—</p> + +<p>“Independent of his literary merit, as a companion Gibbon was uncommonly +agreeable. He had an immense fund of anecdote and of erudition of various +kinds, both ancient and modern, and had acquired such a facility and +elegance of talk that I had always great pleasure in listening to him. The +manner and voice, though they were peculiar, and I believe artificial at +first, did not at all offend, for they had become so appropriated as to +appear natural. His indolence and inattention and ignorance about his own +state are scarce credible. He had for five-and-twenty years a hydrocele, +and the swelling at length was so large that he quite straddled in his +walk; yet he never sought for any advice or mentioned it to his most +intimate friend, Lord Sheffield, and two or three days before he died very +gravely asked Lord Spencer and him whether they had perceived his malady. +The answer could only be, ‘Had we eyes?’ He thought, he said, when he was +at Althorp last Christmas, the ladies looked a little oddly. The fact is +that poor Gibbon, strange as it may seem, imagined himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> well-looking, +and his first motion in a mixed company of ladies and gentlemen was to the +fireplace, against which he planted his back, and then, taking out his +snuff-box, began to hold forth. In his late unhappy situation it was not +easy for the ladies to find out where they could direct their eyes with +safety, for in addition to the hydrocele it appeared after his death that +he had a rupture, and it was perfectly a miracle how he had lived for some +time past, his stomach being entirely out of its natural position.”</p> + +<p>For other memories of Gibbon we must wait until we reach his ancestral +acres of Buriton, near Petersfield, and meanwhile, we have come to the +hill-brow, where the new route and the old meet, and the Portsmouth Road +definitely begins.</p> + +<p>There are many other memories at Putney; too many, in fact, to linger +over, if we wish to come betimes to the dockyard town that is our +destination.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THEODORE HOOK</i></div> + +<p>So no more than a mention of Theodore Hook, who lived in a little house on +the Fulham side of Putney Bridge, which was visited by Barham (dear, +genial Tom Ingoldsby!) while rowing up the Thames one fine day. Hook was +absent, and Barham wrote some impromptu verses in the hall, beginning—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Why, gadzooks! here’s Theodore Hook’s,<br /> +Who’s the author of so many humorous books!”</p> + +<p>But the author of those books was the author also of many practical jokes, +of which the Berners Street Hoax is still the undisputed classic. But that +monumental piece of foolery is not more laughable than the jape he put +upon the Putney inn-keeper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> (I think he was the landlord of the old “White +Lion”).</p> + +<p>He called one day at that house and ordered an excellent dinner, with wine +and all manner of delicacies for one, and having finished his meal and +made himself particularly agreeable to the host (who by some singular +chance did not know his guest), he suddenly asked him if he would like to +know how to be able to draw both old and mild ale from the same barrel. Of +course he would! “Then,” said Hook, “I’ll show you, if you will take me +down to your cellar, and will promise never to divulge the secret.” The +landlord promised. “Then,” said the guest, “bring a gimlet with you, and +we’ll proceed to work.” When they had reached the cellar the landlord +pointed out a barrel of mild ale, and the stranger bored a hole in one +side with the gimlet. “Now, landlord,” said he, “put your finger over the +hole while I bore the other side.” The second hole having been bored, it +was stopped, in the same way, by the landlord’s finger. “And now,” said +the stranger, “where’s a glass? Didn’t you bring one?” “No,” said mine +host. “But you’ll find one up-stairs,” replied the guest. “Yes; but I +can’t leave the barrel, or all the ale will run away,” rejoined the +landlord. “No matter,” exclaimed the stranger, “I’ll go for you,” and ran +up the cellar steps for one. Meanwhile, the landlord waited patiently, +embracing the barrel, for five minutes—ten minutes—a quarter of an hour, +and then began to shout for the other to make haste, as he was getting the +cramp. His shouts at length brought—not the stranger—but his own wife. +“Well,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> where’s the glass? where’s the gentleman?” said he. “What, the +gentleman who came down here with you?” “Yes.” “Oh, he went off a quarter +of an hour ago. What a pleasant-spoken gent——” “What!” cried the +landlord, aghast, “what did he say?” “Why,” said his spouse, after +considering a moment, “he said you had been letting him into the mysteries +of the cellar.” “Letting <i>him</i> in,” yelled the landlord, in a rage, +“letting <i>him</i> in! Why, confound it, woman, he let <i>me</i> in—he’s never +paid for the dinner, wine, or anything.”</p> + +<p>When Hook subsequently called upon the landlord and settled his bill, it +is said that he and his victim had a good laugh over the affair, but if +that tale is true, that landlord must have been a very forgiving man.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>IV</h2> + + +<p>Let us now turn our attention to the original route to Portsmouth; the +road between the Stone’s End, Borough, and Wandsworth. I warrant we shall +find it much more interesting than going from the West-end coach-offices +with the fashionables; for they were more varied crowds that assembled +round the old “Elephant and Castle” than were any of the coach-loads from +the “Cross Keys,” Cheapside, or from that other old inn of coaching +memories, the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 600px; height: 380px;"><img src="images/img06.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">OLD “ELEPHANT AND CASTLE,” 1824.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AN UNCONSIDERED TRIFLE</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>Every one journeyed from the “Elephant and Castle” in the old stage-coach +days, before the mails were introduced, and this well-known house early +became famous. It was about 1670 that the first inn bearing this sign +was erected here, on a piece of waste ground that, although situated so +near the borders of busy Southwark, had been, up to the time of Cromwell +and the era of the Commonwealth, quite an unconsidered and worthless plot +of ground, at one period the practising-ground for archers,—hence the +neighbouring title of Newington Butts,—but then barren of everything but +the potsherds and general refuse of neighbouring London. In 1658, some +one, willing to be generous at inconsiderable cost, gave this Place of +Desolation towards the maintenance of the poor of Newington; and it is to +be hoped that the poor derived much benefit from the gift. I am, however, +not very sure that they found their condition much improved by such +generosity. Fifteen years later, things wore a different complexion, for +when we hear of the gift being confirmed in 1673, and that the premises of +the “Elephant and Castle” inn were but recently built, the prospects of +the poor seem to be improving in some slight degree. Documents of this +period put the rent of this piece of waste at £5 <i>per annum</i>! and this +amount had only risen to £8 10<i>s.</i> in the space of a hundred years. But so +rapidly did the value of land now rise, that in 1776 a lease was granted +at the yearly rent of £100; and fourteen years later a renewal was +effected for twenty-one years at £190.</p> + +<p>The poor of Newington should have been in excellent case by this time, +unless, indeed, their numbers increased with the times. And certainly the +neighbourhood had now grown by prodigious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> leaps and bounds, and Newington +Butts had now become a busy coaching centre. How rapidly the value of land +had increased about this time may be judged from the results of the +auction held upon the expiration of the lease in 1811. The whole of the +estate was put up for auction in four lots, and a certain Jane Fisher +became tenant of “the house called the ‘Elephant and Castle,’ used as a +public-house,” for a term of thirty-one years, at the enormously increased +rent of £405, and an immediate outlay of £1200. The whole estate realized +£623 a year. As shown by a return of charities, printed for the House of +Commons in 1868, the “Elephant and Castle” Charity, including fourteen +houses and an investment in Government stock, yielded at that time an +annual income of £1453 10<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ‘ELEPHANT AND CASTLE’</i></div> + +<p>The two old views of the “Elephant and Castle” reproduced here, show the +relative importance of the place at different periods. The first was in +existence until 1824, and the larger house was built two years later. A +dreadful relic of the barbarous practice by which suicides were buried in +the highways, at the crossing of the roads, was discovered, some few years +since, under the roadway opposite the “Elephant and Castle,” during the +progress of some alterations in the paving. The mutilated skeleton of a +girl was found, which had apparently been in that place for considerably +over a hundred years. Local gossips at once rushed to the conclusion that +this had been some undiscovered murder, but the registers of St. George’s +Church, Southwark, probably afford a clue to the mystery. The significant +entry <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>occurs—“1666: Abigall Smith, poisoned herself: buried in the +highway neere the Fishmongers’ Almshouses.”</p> + +<p>No one has come forward to explain the reason of this particular sign +being selected. “Y<sup>t</sup> is call’d y<sup>e</sup> Elephaunt and Castell,” says an old +writer, “and this is y<sup>e</sup> cognizaunce of y<sup>e</sup> Cotelers, as appeareth +likewise off y<sup>e</sup> Bell Savage by Lud Gate;” but this was never the +property of the Cutlers’ Company, while the site of “Belle Sauvage” is +still theirs, and is marked by an old carved stone, bearing the initials +“J. A.,” with a jocular-looking elephant pawing the ground and carrying a +castle.</p> + +<p>When the first “Elephant and Castle” was built on this site, the land to +the westward as far as Lambeth and Kennington was quite rustic, and +remained almost entirely open until the end of last century. Lambeth and +Kennington were both villages, difficult of access except by water, and +this tract of ground, now covered with the crowded houses of an old +suburb, was known as St. George’s Fields. It was low and flat, and was +traversed by broad ditches, generally full of stagnant water. Roman and +British remains have been found here, and it seems likely that some +prehistoric fighting was performed on this site, but as all this took +place a very long while before the Portsmouth Road was thought of, I shall +not propose to go back to the days of Ostorius Scapula or of Boadicea to +determine the facts. Instead, I will pass over the centuries until the +times of King James I., when there stood in the midst of St. George’s +Fields, and on the site of Bethlehem Hospital, a disreputable tavern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +known as the “Dog and Duck,” at which no good young man of that period who +held his reputation dear would have been seen for worlds.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img07.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">“DOG AND DUCK” TAVERN.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>There still remains, let into the boundary-wall of “Bedlam,” the old stone +sign of the “Dog and Duck,” divided into two compartments; one showing a +dog holding what is intended for a duck in his mouth, while the other +bears the badge of the Bridge House Estate, pointing to the fact that the +property belonged to that corporation. Duck-hunting was the chiefest +amusement here, and was carried on before a company the very reverse of +select in the grounds attached to the tavern, where a lake and rustic +arbours preceded the establishment of Rosherville.</p> + +<p>At later periods St. George’s Fields were the scene of “Wilkes and +Liberty” riots, and of the lively proceedings of Lord George Gordon’s “No +Popery” enthusiasts. It is by a singular irony that upon the very spot +where forty thousand rabid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> Protestants assembled in 1780 to wreak their +vengeance upon the Catholics of London, there stands to-day the Roman +Catholic cathedral of St. George.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img08.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">SIGN OF THE “DOG AND DUCK.”</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ROADS</i></div> + +<p>This event brings us to the threshold of the coaching era, for in 1784, +four years after the Gordon Riots, mail-coaches were introduced, and the +roads were set in order. Years before, when only the slow stages were +running, a journey from London to Portsmouth occupied fourteen hours, <i>if +the roads were good</i>! Nothing is said of the time consumed on the way in +the other contingency; but we may pluck a phrase from a public +announcement towards the end of the seventeenth century that seems to hint +at dangers and problematical arrivals. “Ye ‘Portsmouth Machine’ sets out +from ye Elephant and Castell, and arrives presently <i>by the Grace of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +God....</i>” In those days men did well to trust to grace, considering the +condition of the roads; but in more recent times coach-proprietors put +their trust in their cattle and McAdam, and dropped the piety.</p> + +<p>A fine crowd of coaches left town daily in the ’20’s. The “Portsmouth +Regulator” left at eight a.m., and reached Portsmouth at five o’clock in +the afternoon; the “Royal Mail” started from the “Angel,” by St. +Clement’s, Strand, at a quarter-past seven every evening, calling at the +“George and Gate,” Gracechurch Street, at eight, and arriving at the +“George,” Portsmouth, at ten minutes past six the following morning; the +“Rocket” left the “Belle Sauvage,” Ludgate Hill, every morning at +half-past eight, calling at the “White Bear,” Piccadilly, at nine, and +arriving (quite the speediest coach of this road) at the “Fountain,” +Portsmouth, at half-past five, just in time for tea; while the “Light +Post” coach took quite two hours longer on the journey, leaving London at +eight in the morning, and only reaching its destination in time for a late +dinner at seven p.m.</p> + +<p>The “Night Post” coach, travelling all night, from seven o’clock to +half-past seven the next morning, took an intolerable time; the “Hero,” +which started from the “Spread Eagle,” Gracechurch Street, at eight a.m., +did better, bringing weary passengers to their destination in ten hours; +and the “Portsmouth Telegraph” flew between the “Golden Cross,” Charing +Cross, and the “Blue Posts,” Portsmouth, in nine hours and a half.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 600px; height: 383px;"><img src="images/img09.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">“ELEPHANT AND CASTLE,” 1826.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>V</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>OLD-TIME TRAVELLERS</i></div> + +<p>Many were the travellers in olden times upon the Portsmouth Road, from +Kings and Queens—who, indeed, did not “travel,” but “progressed”—to +Ambassadors, nobles, Admirals of the Red, the White, the Blue, and +sailor-men of every degree. The admirals went, of course, in their own +coaches, the captains more frequently in public conveyances, and the +common ruck of sailors went, I fear, either on foot, or in the +rumble-tumble attached to the hinder part of the slower stages; or even in +the stage-wagons, which took the best part of three days to do the +distance between the “Elephant and Castle” and Portsmouth Hard. If they +had been paid off at Portsmouth and came eventually to London, they would +doubtless have walked, and with no very steady step at that, for the +furies of Gosport and the red-visaged trolls of Portsea took excellent +good care that Jack should be fooled to the top of his bent, and that +having been done, there would be little left either for coach journeys or +indeed anything else, save a few shillings for that indispensable sailor’s +drink, rum. So, however Jack might go <i>down</i> to Portsmouth, it is +tolerably certain that he in many cases either tramped to London on his +return from a cruise, or else was carried in one of those lumbering +stage-wagons that, drawn by eight horses, crawled over these seventy-three +miles with all the airy grace and tripping step of the tortoise. He lay, +with one or two companions, upon the noisome straw of the interior, +alternately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> swigging at the rum-bottle which when all else had failed him +was his remaining stay, and singing, with husky and uncertain voice, +seafaring chanties or patriotic songs, salty of the sea, of the type of +the “Saucy Arethusa” or “Hearts of Oak.” He was a nauseous creature, full +of animal and ardent spirits, redolent of rum, and radiant of strange and +most objectionable oaths. He had, perhaps, been impressed into the Navy +against his will; had seen, and felt, hard knocks, and expected—nay, +hoped—to see and feel more yet, and, whatever might come to him, he did +his very best to enjoy the fleeting hour, careless of the morrow. He was +frankly Pagan, and fatalist to a degree, but he and his like won our +battles by sea and made England mistress of the waves, and so we should +contrive all our might to blink his many faults, and apply a telescope of +the most powerful kind to a consideration of his sterling virtues of +bull-dog courage and cheerfulness under the misfortunes which he brought +upon himself.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PETER SIMPLE</i></div> + +<p>Marryat gives us in “Peter Simple” a vivid and convincing picture of the +sailor going to Portsmouth to rejoin his ship. He must have witnessed many +such scenes on his journeys to and from the great naval station, and it is +very likely that this incident of the novel was drawn from actual +observation.</p> + +<p>Peter is setting out for Portsmouth for the first time, and everything is +new to him. He starts of course from the time-honoured starting-point of +the Portsmouth coaches, the historic “Elephant and Castle”; now, alas! +nothing but a huge ordinary “public,” where a grimy railway-station and +tinkling <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>tram-cars have taken the place of the old stage-coaches.</p> + +<p>“Before eight,” says Peter, “I had arrived at the ‘Elephant and Castle,’ +where we stopped for a quarter of an hour. I was looking at the painting +representing this animal with a castle on its back; and assuming that of +Alnwick, which I had seen, as a fair estimate of the size and weight of +that which he carried, was attempting to enlarge my ideas so as to +comprehend the stupendous bulk of the elephant, when I observed a crowd +assembled at the corner; and asking a gentleman who sat by me in a plaid +cloak whether there was not something very uncommon to attract so many +people, he replied, ‘Not very, for it is only a drunken sailor.’</p> + +<p>“I rose from my seat, which was on the hinder part of the coach, that I +might see him, for it was a new sight to me, and excited my curiosity; +when, to my astonishment, he staggered from the crowd, and swore that he’d +go to Portsmouth. He climbed up by the wheel of the coach and sat down by +me. I believe that I stared at him very much, for he said to me—</p> + +<p>“‘What are you gaping at, you young sculping? Do you want to catch flies? +or did you never see a chap half-seas-over before?’</p> + +<p>“I replied, ‘that I had never been to sea in my life, but that I was +going.’</p> + +<p>“‘Well then, you’re like a young bear, all your sorrows to come—that’s +all, my hearty,’ replied he. ‘When you get on board, you’ll find monkey’s +allowance—more kicks than halfpence. I say, you pewter-carrier, bring us +another pint of ale.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>“The waiter of the inn, who was attending the coach, brought out the ale, +half of which the sailor drank, and the other half threw into the waiter’s +face, telling him ‘that was his allowance. And now,’ said he, ‘what’s to +pay?’ The waiter, who looked very angry, but appeared too much afraid of +the sailor to say anything, answered fourpence: and the sailor pulled out +a handful of bank-notes, mixed up with gold, silver, and coppers, and was +picking out the money to pay for his beer, when the coachman, who was +impatient, drove off.</p> + +<p>“‘There’s cut and run,’ cried the sailor, thrusting all the money into his +breeches pocket. ‘That’s what you’ll learn to do, my joker, before you +have been two cruises to sea.’</p> + +<p>“In the meantime the gentleman in the plaid cloak, who was seated by me, +smoked his cigar without saying a word. I commenced a conversation with +him relative to my profession, and asked him whether it was not very +difficult to learn.</p> + +<p>“‘Larn,’ cried the sailor, interrupting us, ‘no; it may be difficult for +such chaps as me before the mast to larn, but you, I presume, is a reefer, +and they a’n’t got much to larn, ’cause why, they pipeclays their weekly +accounts, and walks up and down with their hands in their pockets. You +must larn to chaw baccy, drink grog, and call the cat a beggar, and then +you knows all a midshipman’s expected to know now-a-days. Ar’n’t I right, +sir?’ said the sailor, appealing to the gentleman in a plaid cloak. ‘I +axes you, because I see you’re a sailor by the cut of your jib. Beg +pardon, sir,’ continued he, touching his hat, ‘hope no offence.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>“‘I am afraid that you +have nearly hit the mark, my good fellow,’ replied the gentleman.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE DRUNKEN SAILOR</i></div> + +<p>“The drunken fellow then entered into conversation with him, stating that +he had been paid off from the ‘Audacious’ at Portsmouth, and had come up +to London to spend his money with his messmates; but that yesterday he had +discovered that a Jew at Portsmouth had sold him a seal as gold for +fifteen shillings, which proved to be copper, and that he was going back +to Portsmouth to give the Jew a couple of black eyes for his rascality, +and that when he had done that he was to return to his messmates, who had +promised to drink success to the expedition at the ‘Cock and Bottle,’ St. +Martin’s Lane, until he should return.</p> + +<p>“The gentleman in the plaid cloak commended him very much for his +resolution: for he said, ‘that although the journey to and from Portsmouth +would cost twice the value of a gold seal, yet that in the end it might be +worth a <i>Jew’s eye</i>.’ What he meant I did not comprehend.</p> + +<p>“Whenever the coach stopped, the sailor called for more ale, and always +threw the remainder which he could not drink into the face of the man who +brought it out for him, just as the coach was starting off, and then +tossed the pewter pot on the ground for him to pick up. He became more +tipsy every stage, and the last from Portsmouth, when he pulled out his +money he could find no silver, so he handed down a note, and desired the +waiter to change it. The waiter crumpled it up and put it into his pocket, +and then returned the sailor the change for a one-pound note: but the +gentleman in the plaid had observed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> that it was a five-pound note which +the sailor had given, and insisted upon the waiter producing it, and +giving the proper change. The sailor took his money, which the waiter +handed to him, begging pardon for the mistake, although he coloured up +very much at being detected. ‘I really beg your pardon,’ said he again, +‘it was quite a mistake,’ whereupon the sailor threw the pewter pot at the +waiter, saying, ‘I really beg your pardon too,’—and with such force, that +it flattened upon the man’s head, who fell senseless on the road. The +coachman drove off, and I never heard whether the man was killed or not.”</p> + +<p>“Liberty” Wilkes was a frequent traveller on this road, as also was Samuel +Pepys before him; but as I have a full and particular account of them both +later on in these pages, at the “Anchor” at Liphook—a house which they +frequently patronized,—we may pass on to others who were called this way +on business or on pleasure bent. And the business of one very notorious +character of the seventeenth century was a most serious affair: nothing, +in short, less than murder, red-handed, sudden, and terrible.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>JOHN FELTON</i></div> + +<p>John Felton’s is one of the most lurid and outstanding figures among the +travellers upon the Portsmouth Road. For private and public reasons he +conceived he had a right to rid the world of the gay and debonair +“Steenie,” George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Felton at this time was a +man of thirty-two, poor and neglected. He was an officer in the army who +had chanced, by his surly nature, to offend his superior, one Sir Henry +Hungate, a friend of the Duke’s, and who effectually prevented his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +obtaining a command. Felton retired from the service with the rank of +lieutenant, disgusted and vindictive at having juniors promoted over his +head. Arrears of pay, amounting, according to his own statement, to £80 +were withheld from him, and no amount of entreaty could induce the +authorities to make payment. Ideas of revenge took possession of him while +in London, staying with his mother in an alley-way off Fleet Street. The +famous Remonstrance of the Commons presented to the King convinced Felton +that to deprive Buckingham of existence was to serve the best interests of +the nation, and to this end he determined to set out for Portsmouth, where +the Duke lay, directing the expedition for the relief of La Rochelle. He +first desired the prayers of the clergy and congregation of St. Bride’s +for himself, as one wretched and disturbed in mind, and, buying a tenpenny +knife at a cutler’s upon Tower Hill, he set out, Tuesday, August 19, 1628, +upon the road, first sewing the sheath of the knife in the lining of his +right-hand pocket, so that with his right hand (the other was maimed) he +could draw it without trouble. He also transcribed the opinion of a +contemporary polemical writer, that “that man is cowardly and base, and +deserveth not the name of a gentleman or soldier, who is not willing to +sacrifice his life for his God, his King, and his country,” and pinned the +paper, together with a statement of his own grievances, upon his hat. He +did not arrive at Portsmouth until the next Saturday, having ridden upon +horseback so far as his slender funds would carry him, and walking the +rest of the way.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>Buckingham was staying at a Portsmouth inn—the “Spotted Dog,” in High +Street—long since demolished. Access to him was easy, among the number +who waited upon his favours, and so Felton experienced no difficulty in +approaching within easy striking distance. The Duke had left his +dressing-room to proceed to his carriage on a visit to the King at +Porchester, when, in the hall of the inn, Colonel Friar, one of his +intimates, whispered a word in his ear. He turned to listen, and was +instantly stabbed by Felton, receiving a deep wound in the left breast; +the knife sticking in his heart. Exclaiming “Villain!” he plucked it out, +staggered backwards, and falling against a table, was caught in the arms +of his attendants, dying almost immediately. No one saw the blow struck, +and the cry was raised that it was the work of a Frenchman; but Felton, +who had coolly walked from the room, returned, and with equal composure +declared himself to be the man. Thus died the gay and profligate +Buckingham, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Surrounded by his +friends, his Duchess in an upper room, he was struck down as surely as +though his assailant had met him solitary and alone.</p> + +<p>Within the space of a few minutes from his falling dead and the removal of +his body into an adjoining room, the place was deserted. The very horror +of the sudden deed left no room for curiosity. The house, awhile before +filled with servants and sycophants, was left in silence.</p> + +<p>Many were found to admire and extol Felton and his deed. “God bless thee, +little David,” said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> country folk, crowding to shake his hand as he +was conveyed back to London for his trial. “Excellent Felton!” said many +decent people in London; and tried to prevent the only possible ending to +his career. That end came at Tyburn, where, we are told, “he testified +much repentance, and so took his death very stoutly and patiently. He was +very long a-dying. His body is gone to Portsmouth, there to be hanged in +chains.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>VI</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>JOHN WESLEY</i></div> + +<p>Among the memorable passengers along the Portsmouth Road in other days who +have left any record of their journeys is “that strenuous and painful +preacher,” the Rev. John Wesley, D.D. On the fifth day of October, 1753, +he left the “humane, loving people” of Cowes, “and crossed over to +Portsmouth.” Here he “found another kind of people” from the complaisant +inhabitants of the Isle of Wight. They had, unlike the Cowes people, none +of the milk of human kindness in their breasts, or if they possessed any, +it had all curdled, for they had “disputed themselves out of the power, +and well-nigh the form of religion,” as Wesley remarks in his “Journals.” +So, after the third day among these backsliders and curdled Christians, he +shook the dust of Portsmouth (if there was any to shake in October) off +his shoes, and departed, riding on horseback to “Godalmin.”</p> + +<p>We do not meet with him on this road for another eighteen years, when he +seems to have found the Portsmouth folk more receptive, for now “the +people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> in general here are more noble than most in the south of England.” +Curiously enough, on another fifth of October (1771), he “set out at two” +from Portsmouth. This was, apparently, two o’clock in the morning, for +“about ten, some of our London friends met me at Cobham, with whom I took +a walk in the neighbouring gardens”—he refers, doubtless, to the gardens +of Pain’s Hill, and is speaking of ten o’clock in the morning of the same +day; for no one, after a ride of fifty miles, would take walks in gardens +at ten o’clock of an October night—“inexpressibly pleasant, through the +variety of hills and dales and the admirable contrivance of the whole; and +now, after spending all his life in bringing it to perfection, the +grey-headed owner advertises it to be sold! Is there anything,” he asks, +“under the sun that can satisfy a spirit made for God?” This query is no +doubt a very correct and moral one, but it seems somewhat cryptic.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>JONAS HANWAY</i></div> + +<p>Another traveller of a very singular character was Jonas Hanway, who, +coming up to town from Portsmouth in 1756, wrote a book purporting to be +“A Journal of an Eight Days’ Journey from Portsmouth to +Kingston-on-Thames.” This is a title which, on the first blush, rouses +interest in the breast of the historian, for such a book must needs (he +doubts not) contain much valuable information relating to this road and +old-time travelling upon it. Judge then of his surprise and disgust when, +upon a perusal of those ineffable pages, the inquirer into old times and +other manners than our own discovers that the author of that book has +simply enshrined his not particularly luminous remarks upon things in +general in two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> volumes of leaded type, and that in all the weary length +of that work, cast in the form of letters addressed to “a Lady,” no word +appears relating to roads or travel. Vague discourses upon uninteresting +abstractions make up the tale of his pages, together with an incredibly +stupid “Essay on Tea, considered as pernicious to Health, obstructing +Industry, and Impoverishing the Nation.”</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 400px; height: 360px;"><img src="images/img10.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">JONAS HANWAY.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>The disappointed reader, baulked of his side-lights on manners and customs +upon the road, reflects with pardonable satisfaction that this book was +the occasion of an attack by Doctor Johnson upon Hanway<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> and his “Essay on +Tea.” It was not to be supposed that the Doctor, that sturdy tea-drinker, +could silently pass over such an onslaught upon his favourite beverage. +No; he reviewed the work in the “Literary Magazine,” and certainly the +author is made to cut a sorry figure. Johnson at the outset let it be +understood that one who described tea as “that noxious herb” could expect +but little consideration from a “hardened and shameless tea-drinker” like +himself, who had “for twenty years diluted his meals with only the +infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to +cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and +with tea welcomes the morning.”</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img11.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">“IF THE SHADES OF THOSE ANTAGONISTS FOREGATHER.”</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>No; Hanway was not successful in his crusade against tea. As a merchant +whose business had called him from England into Persia and Russia, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> had +attracted much attention; for in those days Persia was almost an unknown +country to Englishmen, and Russia itself unfamiliar. His first printed +work—an historical account of British trade in those regions—was +therefore the means of gaining him a certain literary success, which +attended none of the seventy other works of which he was the author. +Boswell, indeed, goes so far as to say that “he acquired some reputation +by travelling abroad, and lost it all by travelling at home;” and Johnson, +to whom Hanway addressed an indignant letter, complaining of that unkind +review, regarded with contempt one who spoke so ill of the drink upon +which he produced so much solid work.</p> + +<p>Johnson’s defence of tea is vindicated by results; and if the shades of +those antagonists foregather somewhere up beyond the clouds, then Ursa +Major, over a ghostly dish of his most admired beverage, may point to the +astonishing and lasting vogue of the tea-leaf as the best argument in +favour of his preference.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>CHAMPION OF THE UMBRELLA</i></div> + +<p>Hanway was more successful as Champion of the Umbrella. He was, with a +singular courage, the first person to carry an umbrella in the streets of +London at a time when the unfurling of what is now become an indispensable +article of every-day use was regarded as effeminate, and was greeted with +ironical cheers or the savage shouts of hackmen, “Frenchman, Frenchman, +why don’t you take a coach!” Those drivers of public conveyances saw their +livelihood slipping away when folk walked about in the rain, sheltered by +the immense structure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> the umbrella was upon its first introduction: a +heavy affair of cane ribs and oiled cloth, with a handle like a +broomstick. In fact, the ordinary umbrella of that time no more resembled +the dainty silk affair of modern use than an omnibus resembles a +stage-coach of last century. Hanway defended his use of the umbrella by +saying he was in delicate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> health after his return from Persia. Imagine +the parallel case of an invalid carrying a heavy modern carriage umbrella, +and then you have some sort of an idea of the tax Hanway’s <i>parapluie</i> +must have been upon his strength.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img12.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE FIRST UMBRELLA.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPY</i></div> + +<p>For the rest, Jonas Hanway was a philanthropist who did good in the sight +of all men, and was rejoiced beyond measure to find his benevolence +famous. He was, in short, one of the earliest among professional +philanthropists, and to such good works as the founding of the Marine +Society, and a share in the establishment of the Foundling Hospital, he +added agitations against the custom of giving vails to servants, schemes +for the protection of youthful chimney-sweeps, and campaigns against +midnight routs and evening assemblies. Carlyle calls him a dull, worthy +man; and he seems to have been, more than aught else, a County Councillor +of the Puritan variety, spawned out of all due time. He died, in fact, in +1786, rather more than a hundred years before County Councils were +established, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was a meddlesome man, +without humour, who dealt with a provoking seriousness with trivial +things, and was the forerunner and <i>beau ideal</i> of all earnest +“Progressives.”</p> + +<p>The year after Jonas Hanway travelled on this road, noting down an +infinite deal of nothing with great unction and a portentous gravity, +there went down from London to Portsmouth a melancholy cavalcade, bearing +a brave man to a cruel, shameful, and unjust death on the quarter-deck of +the man-o’-war “Monarque,” in Portsmouth Harbour.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Admiral Byng was sent to Portsmouth to be tried by court-martial; and at +every stage of his progress there came and clamoured round his guards +noisy crowds of people of every rank, who reviled him for a traitor and a +coward, and thirsted for his blood in a practical way that only furious +and prejudiced crowds could show. Their feeling was intense, and had been +wrought to this pitch by the emissaries of a weak but vindictive +Government, which sought to cloak its disastrous parsimony and the ill +fortunes of war by erecting Byng into a sort of lightning-conductor which +should effectually divert the bolts of a popular storm from incapable +ministers. And these efforts of Government were, for a time, completely +successful. The nation was brought to believe Byng a poltroon of a +particularly despicable kind; and the crowds that assembled in the streets +of the country towns through which the discredited Admiral was led to his +fate were with difficulty prevented from anticipating the duty of the +firing-party that on March 14, 1757, woke the echoes of Gosport and +Portsmouth with their murderous volley.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>ADMIRAL BYNG</i></div> + +<p>Admiral Byng was himself the son of an admiral, who was created Viscount +Torrington for his distinguished services. Some of the innumerable +caricaturists who earned a blackguardly living by attacking a man who had +few friends and powerful enemies, fixed upon his honourable birth as an +additional means of wounding him; and thus there exists a rare print +entitled “B-ng in Horrors; or T-rr-ngt-n’s Ghost,” which shows the shade +of the father as he</p> + +<p class="poem">“Darts through the Caverns of the Ship<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where <i>Britain’s Coward rides</i>,”</span></p> + +<p>appearing to his son as he lies captive on board the “Monarque,” and +reproaching him in a set of verses from which the above lines are an +elegant extract.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 335px; height: 500px;"><img src="images/img13.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">ADMIRAL BYNG.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>Other caricatures of the period more justly include ministers in their +satire. One is reproduced here, chiefly with the object of showing the +pleasing roadside humour of hanging criminals in chains. By this +illustration the native ferocity of the eighteenth-century caricaturists +is glaringly exemplified. The figure marked <i>A</i> is intended for Admiral +Lord Anson, <i>B</i> is meant for Byng, and <i>C</i> represents the Duke of +Newcastle, the Prime Minister of the Administration that detached an +insufficient force for service in the Mediterranean. The fox who looks up +with satisfaction at the dangling bodies is of course intended for Charles +James Fox, whose resignation produced the fall of the ministry. The other +figures explain themselves by the aid of the labels issuing from their +mouths.</p> + +<p>And what was Byng’s crime, that his countrymen should have hated him with +this ferocious ardour? The worst that can be said of him is that he +probably felt disgusted with a Government which sent him on an important +mission with an utterly inadequate force. His previous career had not been +without distinction, and that he was an incapable commander had never +before been hinted. He doubtless on this occasion felt aggrieved at the +inadequacy of a squadron of ten ships, poorly manned, and altogether +ill-found, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> he was given to oppose the formidable French armament +then fitting at Toulon for the reduction of Minorca, and possibly for a +descent upon our own coasts in the event of its first object being +attained.</p> + +<p>When Byng reached Gibraltar with his wallowing ships and wretched crews, +he received intelligence of the French having already landed on the +island, and laying siege to Port St. Philip. His duty was to set sail and +oppose the enemy’s fleet, and thus, if possible, cut off the retreat of +their forces already engaged on the island. He had been promised a force +from the garrison of Gibraltar, but upon his asking for the men the +Governor refused to obey his instructions, alleging that the position of +affairs would not allow of his sparing a single man from the Rock. So Byng +sailed without his expected reinforcement, and arrived off Minorca too +late for any communication to be made with the English Governor, who was +still holding the enemy at bay. For as he came in sight of land the French +squadron appeared, and the battle that became imminent was fought on the +following day.</p> + +<p>Byng attacked the enemy’s ships vigorously: the French remained upon the +defensive, and the superior weight of their guns told so heavily against +the English ships that they were thrown into confusion, and several +narrowly escaped capture. The Admiral sheered off and held a council of +war, whose deliberations resulted four days later in a retreat to +Gibraltar, leaving Minorca to its fate. Deprived of outside aid the +English garrison capitulated, and Byng’s errand had thus failed. He was +sent home under arrest, and confined in a room of Greenwich Hospital +until the court-martial that was now demanded could be formed.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 600px; height: 387px;"><img src="images/img14.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">A STRANGE SIGHT SOME TIME HENCE.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>The action at sea had taken place on May 20, 1756, but the court-martial +only assembled at Portsmouth on December 28, and it took a whole month’s +constant attendance to hear the matter out. The court found Byng guilty of +negligence in not having done his utmost in the endeavour to relieve +Minorca. It expressly acquitted him of cowardice and disaffection, but +condemned him to death under the provisions of the Articles of War, at the +same time recommending him to mercy.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>BYNG’S DEATH</i></div> + +<p>But no mercy was to be expected of King, Government, or country, inflamed +with rage at a French success, and all efforts, whether at Court or in +Parliament, were fruitless. The execution was fixed for March 14, and +Byng’s demeanour thenceforward was equally unaffected and undaunted. He +met his death with a calmness of demeanour and a fortitude of spirit that +proved him to be no coward of that ignoble type which fears pain or +dissolution as the greatest and most awful of evils. His personal friends +were solicitous to avoid anything that might give him unnecessary pain, +and one of them, a few days before the end, inventing a pitiful ruse, said +to him, “Which of us is tallest?” “Why this ceremony?” asked the Admiral. +“I know well what it means; let the man come and measure me for my +coffin.”</p> + +<p>At the appointed hour of noon he walked forth of his cabin with a firm +step, and gazed calmly upon the waters of Portsmouth Harbour, alive with +boats full of people who had come to see a fellow-creature die.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> He +refused at first to allow his face to be covered, lest he might be +suspected of fear, but upon some officers around him representing that his +looks might confuse the soldiers of the firing-party and distract their +aim, he agreed to be blindfolded; and thus, kneeling upon the deck, and +holding a handkerchief in his hand, he awaited the final disposition of +the firing-party that was to send him out of the world by the aid of +powder and ball, discharged at the range of half-a-dozen paces. At the +pre-arranged signal of his dropping the handkerchief, the soldiers fired, +and the scapegoat fell dead, his breast riddled with a dozen bullets.</p> + +<p>The execution of Byng was (to adopt Fouché’s comment upon the murder of +the Duc d’Enghien) worse than a crime; it was a blunder. The ministry +fell, and the populace, who had before his death regarded Byng with a +consuming hatred, now looked upon him as a martyr. The cynical Voltaire, +who had unavailingly exerted himself to save the condemned man (and had +thereby demonstrated that your cynic is at most but superficially +currish), resumed his cynicism in that mordant passage of “Candide” which +will never die so long as the history of the British Fleet is read: “<i>Dans +ce pays-ci</i>,” he wrote, “<i>il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un Amiral +pour encourager les autres!</i>”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 600px; height: 289px;"><img src="images/img15.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE SHOOTING OF ADMIRAL BYNG.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> +<h2>VII</h2> + + +<p>One of the earliest records we have of Portsmouth Road travellers is that +which relates to three sixteenth-century inspectors of ordnance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“July 20th, 1532—Paid to X pofer Morys, gonner, Cornelys Johnson, the +Maister Smythe, and Henry Johnson for their costs in ryding to +Portismouthe to viewe the King’s ordenaunce there, by the space of X +dayes at Xs’ the daye—V li.”</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>MONMOUTH</i></div> + +<p>So runs the record. But the business of most of them that fared this way +whose faring has been preserved was of a very doleful character. I except, +of course, royal personages, who, as previously noted in these pages, +“progressed,” and did nothing so plebeian as to “travel.” Monmouth, who, +though of royal birth, had failed to achieve a throne in his ill-fated +rebellion of 1685, “travelled,” “unfriended, melancholy, slow,” on that +fatal journey from Ringwood to London in a carriage guarded by a strong +body of troops and militia-men. Poor fellow! the once gay and handsome +Duke of Monmouth, the prettiest fellow and courtliest gallant of a courtly +age, was conveyed, a prematurely grey and broken man, to his death, the +due reward, it is true, of rebellion, but none the less pathetic. The +mournful <i>cortège</i> halted a night on the road at Guildford, where, in a +room over the great entrance-gateway of Abbot’s Hospital, the +prisoners—the wretched Monmouth and the undaunted Lord Grey—were lodged, +until daylight should come again and their road to execution be resumed.</p> + +<p>A more lightsome tour must have been that undertaken by the four Indian +kings who, in 1710, came to pay their devoirs to Queen Anne, and journeyed +up to London, much to the wonderment of the country-folk, to whose lurid +imaginations their copper-coloured countenances represented everything +that was evil. Twenty years later seven chiefs of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Cherokees came this +way, on a mission to the English Court; but the first pedestrian of whom +we have any account who walked the whole distance between London and +Portsmouth was a Mr. John Carter, who, having witnessed the proclamation +of George I. in London on August 1, 1714, in succession to Queen Anne, set +forth immediately for Portsmouth on foot. It is an emphatic comment upon +contemporary social conditions to note that when Carter reached +Portsmouth, on August 3, he was the first to bring the news. His zeal +might conceivably have been attended with serious consequences had the +Jacobites been more active; but as it was, Gibson, the Governor of +Portsmouth, an ardent adherent of the Stuarts, threatened the newsmonger +with imprisonment for what he was pleased to term “a false and seditious +report.”</p> + +<p>A journey quite in keeping with the sombre history of this road was that +by which the body of General Wolfe, the victor of Quebec, was brought to +London. The remains of the General were landed at Portsmouth on Sunday, +November 17, 1759, and were escorted by the garrison to the outskirts of +the town. He was buried at Greenwich on the night of the 20th.</p> + +<p>For the rest the history of travel upon the Portsmouth Road in olden times +is chiefly made up of accounts of felons condemned to death for crimes +ranging from petty larceny to high treason. The halo of a questionable +kind of romance has perpetuated the enormities of the greater malefactors, +but the sordid histories of the sheep-stealers and cattle-lifters, the +miserable footpads, and contemptible minor sneaks and rogues who suffered +death and were gibbeted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> with great profusion and publicity by the +wayside, are clean forgotten.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>NICHOLAS NICKLEBY</i></div> + +<p>Modern times of road travel, that range from the reign of George IV. to +the beginning of the Railway Era, are chiefly filled with stories of the +Allied Sovereigns, who ate and drank a great deal too much on their way +down to Portsmouth to celebrate the Peace of 1814; of the Duke of +Wellington, who followed them in a carriage drawn by eight horses, and ate +sparingly and drank little; and of all sorts of naval and military bigwigs +and left-handed descendants of Royalty who held fat offices in army or +navy, and lorded it grandly over meaner, but more legitimate, mortals. No +literary or artistic annals belong to this time, saving only the +well-known scenes in “Nicholas Nickleby.”</p> + +<p>It was on the Portsmouth Road that Nicholas Nickleby and Smike met that +redoubtable <i>impresario</i>, Mr. Vincent Crummles. Nicholas, it may be +remembered, had fallen upon evil times. His capital “did not exceed, by +more than a few halfpence, the sum of twenty shillings,” and so he and +Smike were compelled to foot it from London.</p> + +<p>“‘Now listen to me, Smike,’ said Nicholas, as they trudged with stout +hearts onwards. ‘We are bound for Portsmouth.’</p> + +<p>“Smike nodded his head and smiled, but expressed no other emotion; for +whether they had been bound for Portsmouth or Port Royal would have been +alike to him, so they had been bound together.</p> + +<p>“‘I don’t know much of these matters,’ resumed Nicholas; ‘but Portsmouth +is a seaport town, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> if no other employment is to be obtained, I should +think we might get on board some ship. I am young and active, and could be +useful in many ways. So could you.’...</p> + +<p>“‘Do we go all the way to-day?’ asked Smike, after a short silence.</p> + +<p>“‘That would be too severe a trial, even for your willing legs,’ said +Nicholas, with a good-humoured smile. ‘No. Godalming is some thirty and +odd miles from London—as I found from a map I borrowed—and I purpose to +rest there. We must push on again to-morrow, for we are not rich enough to +loiter.’...</p> + +<p>“To Godalming they came at last, and here they bargained for two humble +beds, and slept soundly. In the morning they were astir: though not quite +so early as the sun: and again afoot; if not with all the freshness of +yesterday, still, with enough of hope and spirit to bear them cheerily on.</p> + +<p>“It was a harder day’s journey than that they had already performed, for +there were long and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it +is a great deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, +with unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to +heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.</p> + +<p>“They walked upon the rim of the Devil’s Punch Bowl; and Smike listened +with greedy interest as Nicholas read the inscription upon the stone +which, reared upon that wild spot, tells of a foul and treacherous murder +committed there by night. The grass on which they stood had once been dyed +with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> gore; and the blood of the murdered man had run down, drop by drop, +into the hollow which gives the place its name. ‘The Devil’s Bowl,’ +thought Nicholas, as he looked into the void, ‘never held fitter liquor +than that!’”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>VIII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>WANDSWORTH</i></div> + +<p>And now, having disposed of this batch of travellers, let us ourselves +proceed, through Kennington and past Battersea Rise, to Wandsworth. There +is, doubtless, much to be said of Kennington, seeing that its name is +supposed to derive from <i>Köningtun</i>, or “the King’s town,” but that is no +affair of ours; and while its history is much too remote for inclusion in +these pages, its present-day appearance does not invite us to linger. But +with Wandsworth the case is very different.</p> + +<p>Wandsworth is set down at the mouth of a little river whose confluence +with the greater Thames determined the precise locality of the first +village established on what were, in the far-off days of Wandlesworth, the +sedgy banks of the little Wandle. This stream, taking its source from +Croydon, “flows ten miles and turns forty mills,” and is in our own times +perhaps the most despitefully-used river within the London area.</p> + +<p>For, at the very beginning of its brief career, the Wandle now rises from +a brick culvert beneath a railway embankment, where once its source +bubbled up freely in the light of day; and, flowing through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Beddington +and Carshalton, comes through Mitcham and Earlsfield to its outlet at +Wandsworth, a muddy river, defiled with sewage and the refuse of factories +and mills whose produce ranges from linoleum and snuff, to paper, copper, +and chemicals of every noxious variety.</p> + +<p>There would have been no Wandsworth, either in fact or in name, had there +been no Wandle, for the water-power that brought prosperity to the mills +also provided a natural outlet for the manufacturers; and so there early +grew up a series of wharves by the river’s mouth that have done a great +quantity of business at any period during these last two hundred years. +Aubrey, indeed, says that in his time there were many factories here, and +that here were made “brass plates for kettles, skellets, and frying-pans, +by Dutchmen, who kept it a mystery.” Many of these old Dutchmen’s places +of business lasted until comparatively recent years, and were known as the +“Frying Pan Houses.” The greater part, however, of old Wandsworth is gone. +Gone, too, is the hamlet of Garratt, whose mock elections of a Mayor +caused such convivial excitement a century ago. But a few old houses of a +Dutch style of architecture still remain to show what manner of place this +was before it had become suburban and its spacious old architecture +destroyed to make way for the interminable back streets where City +clerkdom dwells in houselets composed of slack-baked bricks built on +ash-heaps, “comprising” four cupboards, miscalled “rooms,” with what the +estate-agent magniloquently terms “the usual domestic offices.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Here and there in the High Street and on Wandsworth Plain stand these +remains of Old Wandsworth, and they give a distinct <i>cachet</i> to “the +village.” But the fury of the dabblers in bricks and mortar continues +unabated, and they will not last long. One of the oldest houses here was +destroyed some years back, and on its site stands a new police-station. +This was the well-known “Sword House,” which took its name, not from the +making of swords, but from a <i>chevaux de frise</i> of claymores, of which, up +to the beginning of the present reign, some few vestiges were left. The +story goes that the occupant of the house was a retired officer of the +army who had taken part in the defeat of the Scotch rebels at Culloden, +and had collected a number of claymores for the protection of his house at +Wandsworth, at that time a secluded place round whose outskirts hung a +number of footpads. He defended the outer walls of his residence with +these weapons, but they gradually disappeared, being stolen, one by one, +by timid and peaceable wayfarers as some sort of protection against the +gentry who rendered the suburbs dangerous o’ nights.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A PIOUS BENEFACTOR</i></div> + +<p>But if these purlieus were infested by a rascally crew who rendered all +the outlying districts notorious for violence and robbery, Wandsworth can +at least boast one conspicuously good man. This was that Alderman Henry +Smith whose tomb and effigy are so conspicuous in the parish church. The +Alderman was one of the greatest benefactors of the seventeenth century, +and left his large estate in trust for the purchase of lands “for setting +the poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> people a-worke,” and in bequests to parishes in Surrey. Henry +Smith was a native of Wandsworth, an Alderman of the City of London, and a +silversmith. He died in 1627; but in 1620, having neither wife nor +children, made a disposition of his property, reserving for himself only +sufficient for his personal needs. It is said that every parish in the +county of Surrey benefits by his charity, with the sole exception of +Mitcham, which owes this unenviable distinction to his having been whipped +through its bounds as a common beggar. But how or why came so wealthy and +well-considered a man as this respected Alderman of London City to be +whipped as a rogue and vagabond? It is an old story which professes to +explain this, and it is a story to which so respectable a gentleman as +John Evelyn, the diarist, lends his authority, in Aubrey’s “Surrey.” It +is, however, entirely apocryphal. According, then, to John Evelyn, the +benefactor was known as “Dog Smith,” and was a beggar who wandered through +the country accompanied by his dog, and received alms in money and in +kind. By this means was his vast fortune supposed to have been amassed. +But this tale is too grotesque for belief, put beside the well-known facts +of his membership of the Silversmiths’ Company, and of his friendship with +the Earls of Essex and Dorset, who were also two of the executors of his +will. The story of Mitcham may be dismissed when it is learned that the +parishes of Surrey certainly owed their bequests to Henry Smith, but that +the incidence of them was at the discretion of the trustees.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> +<h2>IX</h2> + + +<p>The parish of Wandsworth extends up to Putney Heath, to which we come +up-hill past the singularly-named “Tibbets’ Corner.” Research has failed +to discover who or what was Tibbets, after whom or which the Corner was +named; but a familiarity with the old-time character of the neighbourhood +suggests that “Tibbets” is merely a corruption of “Gibbets,” which were at +one time the chiefest features of the landscape in these parts.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>JERRY ABERSHAWE</i></div> + +<p>Putney Heath was the scene of the notorious Jerry Abershawe’s exploits in +highway robbery. Where Veitch’s nurseries now stand, at the corner of Stag +Lane, in Putney Bottom, just before you come to the Beverley Brook, +formerly stood the “Bald-faced Stag,” or “Half-way House,” at one time a +notorious house of call for this youthful but daring desperado, who with +numerous lesser lights infested the neighbourhood, in the latter half of +last century, lurking in the remotenesses of Coombe Wood, and plundering +unhappy wayfarers.</p> + +<p>There is a story told of this lawless and picturesque figure to the effect +that on a dark and inclement night of November, after having stopped every +passenger along the road, he was suddenly taken ill and compelled to +retire to the shelter of this public-house, standing lonely upon the +roadside. His comrades—“pals,” he would, doubtless, have called +them—sent for a doctor, and a Dr. William Roots attended. He was bled, +and the doctor was about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> to return home, when his patient, with a great +appearance of earnestness, said, “You had better, sir, have some one to go +back with you, as it is a very dark and lonesome journey.” This, however, +the doctor declined, remarking that “he had not the least fear, even +should he meet with Abershawe himself,” little thinking to whom he was +speaking. This story was a favourite with Abershawe: it afforded him a +reliable criterion of his unholy prowess.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img16.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “GREEN MAN,” PUTNEY HEATH.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Louis Jeremiah Avershawe—to give him his proper name—was born in 1773, +and ended his career with a hempen cravat round his neck on August 3, +1795. He was tried at Croydon Assizes, on July 30, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> the murder of +David Price, an officer sent to apprehend him in Southwark, whom he had +shot; wounding at the same time another officer with a second pistol. A +flaw in the indictment acquitted him on the first count, but he was +convicted on the charge of feloniously shooting at one Barnaby Taylor. +With all his crimes, he was no coward, for, as a contemporary account of +his trial says, “When Mr. Baron Penryn put on the black cap, the prisoner, +regardless of his sad situation, at the same time put on his own hat, +observing the judge with contemptuous looks while he was passing the awful +sentence of the law.”</p> + +<p>He was executed on Kennington Common. Arriving at the gallows, he kicked +off his boots and died unshod, to disprove the letter, if not the spirit, +of an old warning of his mother’s, that he was a bad lad and would die in +his shoes. His body was subsequently hanged in chains in Putney Bottom, +the scene of his exploits; and the satisfaction with which the passers-by +beheld his tattered skeleton, swinging in its iron cage from the gibbet, +may well be imagined; although it was not unlikely that, before they had +reached the streets of Kingston, or the High Street of Putney, some +surviving member of the malefactor’s fraternity would exact his +unauthorized tolls.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD</i></div> + +<p>Imagine how palpitating with incertitude the breasts of eighteenth-century +travellers must have been when once the oil-lit streets of the towns were +left behind. The stage-coach passengers sat glum and nervous,—each +suspecting his fellow,—with their money in their boots, their watches in +the lining of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> their hats, and other light valuables secreted in unlikely +parts of their persons, in the fond hope that the fine fellow, mounted on +a mettlesome horse, and bristling with weapons, who would presently bring +the coach to a stop in some gloomy bend of the road, might be either too +unpractised or in too great a hurry to think of those very obvious +hiding-places. Rarely, at one time, did the mails or the stages escape the +highwayman’s unwelcome attentions, for, during a lengthy period, the wide, +unenclosed waste lands in the neighbourhood of London were the nocturnal +resorts of all who desired to better their fortunes at the expense of +whoever happened to be travelling upon these lonely roads after nightfall. +All the ruined gamesters and unconventional or reckless ne’er-do-wells who +could manage to buy, hire, or steal a horse, took to the exciting +occupation of highway robbery. This diversion promised at once to be +remunerative, and satisfying to the Englishman’s sporting instincts, and +if the end of it was identical with a rope’s end and a morning dance upon +nothing, why, the sportsman was unlucky,—and so an end. For although +death was the penalty for highway robbery, yet the pursuit of it does not +seem to have been looked upon as so very disgraceful; and the bold +gentlemen (!) who, well-armed and not ill-horsed, lurked upon Putney Heath +or Barnes Common, or any other of the many wildernesses that surrounded +London in the midst of last century, were accounted somewhat romantic, +even by the contemporaries whose pockets they occasionally lightened.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ROMANCE OF ROBBERY</i></div> + +<p>Believe me, these rascals who hung by the dark <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>roadside, and, disguised +in black crêpe or velvet masks, cried hoarsely in the ears of travellers, +“Stand and deliver!” were not the social pariahs they would be to-day, +could they revisit their suburban haunts. These fellows robbed the mails +“with the utmost regularity and dispatch,” and despoiled every one who was +not sufficiently well armed to withstand them, without distinction of +class or sex. “Purses,” says one, who recounts his memories of these +times, “rings, watches, snuff-boxes, passed from their owners to the +attentive highwayman, almost as soon as the muzzle of his pistol obtruded +through the window”; and when at last the poor fellow was lagged, and +languished in the stone jug of Newgate, the ladies whom he had relieved, +with much politeness, of their money and jewels came and condoled with +him, and flaunted their handkerchiefs out of window as he passed one fatal +morning to Tyburn in a tumbril, seated on his coffin, with the chaplain +beside him, preaching of kingdom-come.</p> + +<p>Jerry Abershawe was a hero of this stamp, only he did not make his last +appearance on so fashionable a stage as Tyburn. Croydon was the scene of +his trial, and Wandsworth, as we have seen, was the place of his taking +off.</p> + +<p>Two other highwaymen—William Brown and Joseph Witlock—who were both +hanged at Tyburn in 1773, for house-breaking, haunted the neighbourhood of +Putney Heath and Kingston, and robbed solitary pedestrians or children. +They were not of the fine flower of their profession, as one may judge +from the evidence given at their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> trial, by which it appeared that they +laid in wait for topers in wayside taverns, and robbed them upon their +coming out in a more or less helpless state. Two convivial fellows whom +they had seen carousing in the “Green Man” they waited for, and having +tied their hands behind their backs, relieved them of some twenty guineas, +together with such small odds and ends as knives and tobacco-boxes. A +little way further on, upon this occasion, they chanced upon a baker’s +boy, and disdaining not even the merest trifles, they “persuaded” him to +hand over a few halfpence and a silver buckle he was carrying in a bag.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 400px; height: 353px;"><img src="images/img17.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE WINDMILL, WIMBLEDON COMMON.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE DUELLO</i></div> + +<p>But Putney Heath and the adjoining Wimbledon Common were not notorious +only for highwaymen and footpads: they were the favourite meeting-grounds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +of belligerent gentlemen with an exaggerated and altogether mistaken idea +of honour, who faced one another armed with swords or pistols, and fought +duels at an early hour of the morning, when courage was apt to be +insufficiently warmed. Their notions of honour and “satisfaction” were, +possibly, somewhat ridiculous, but it seems to me that a man who would get +up at an unearthly hour of the morning, perhaps in the coldest of weather, +to shoot at a fellow-creature, or to be shot at by him,—to be run through +the body with a rapier, or else to run his opponent through some vital +part,—must have been either singularly courageous or peculiarly +vindictive.</p> + +<p>To either (or both) of these categories, then, must have belonged my Lord +Chandos and Colonel Compton, who were among the earliest to be “out” upon +this spot. The affair took place in 1652, and was fought with swords, the +Colonel being run through the body in a trice. In later times one of the +most extraordinary duels of the eighteenth century took place on Wimbledon +Common, between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox, afterwards Duke of +Richmond and Viceroy of Ireland. It seems that the Duke of York, with his +brother the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), was insulted one +night at Vauxhall by two gentlemen and a lady, all three masked, whose +identity, although shrewdly suspected, could not be certainly ascertained +at the time. They were, as a matter of fact, Lady Charlotte Lennox, who +had some grievance against the Prince, and her two brothers, the Duke of +Grafton and Lieutenant-Colonel Lennox. Now, the latter being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +Lieutenant-Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, of which regiment the Duke of +York was full Colonel, was thus in a position of considerable delicacy +when his commanding officer took the first opportunity that offered of +putting an affront upon him on parade; for if he challenged and killed a +Royal Duke in a duel, the severest penalties would no doubt be inflicted +upon him,<a name='fna_1' id='fna_1' href='#f_1'><small>[1]</small></a> but if, on the other hand, he pocketed the insult, his +“honour” was indelibly stained. Colonel Lennox took what he thought the +best course, and challenged the Duke of York to a hostile meeting, which +duly came off in a dell near where that well-known landmark, the Wimbledon +Common windmill, now stands. The seconds were Lord Rawdon and the Earl of +Winchilsea, and the weapons chosen were pistols. On the word “Fire!” being +given, only the Colonel’s pistol was discharged: the Duke not having +pulled the trigger, and the Colonel not being desirous of another shot, +honour was declared to have been satisfied; the only damage done, +according to a contemporary account, being the loss of a curl from his +Royal Highness’s head. An historian of the duello, however, throws unkind +doubts upon this story, and insinuates that the seconds, mindful no less +of their own safety than that of the Duke of York, took very good care +that the pistols were primed without bullets.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 350px; height: 500px;"><img src="images/img18.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">WILLIAM PITT.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>VICARIOUS DUELLING</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>In 1798 Mr. Pitt and Mr. George Tierney, M.P. for Southwark, had a +bloodless set-to, and two other political antagonists—Lord Castlereagh +and the jocular George Canning—fought, without a scratch, in 1809. In the +same year Lord Paget and Captain Cadogan had a “hostile meeting” here, and +exchanged shots without effect, the cause being, not politics this time, +but that much more fruitful origin of discord—a woman. Lord Paget, +himself a married man, had eloped with Lady Charlotte Wellesley, the wife +of his friend Henry Wellesley, and the lady’s brother (one would have +thought the injured husband should have given battle) decided to avenge +the outraged honour of his family. So, as related, the combatants faced +one another and fired. The Captain’s bullet went wide: my lord’s pistol +merely flashed, and he, with a spark of right feeling, declined to shoot +again at a man whose family he had wronged. Mr. Henry Wellesley, though +apparently pusillanimous, was a more formidable, if less romantic, +antagonist. That gentleman brought an action for <i>crim. con.</i> against Lord +Paget, and salved his wounded feelings effectually with a verdict carrying +damages to the tune of £20,000.</p> + +<p>One of the very few serious encounters that took place here happened to be +also the last. This was the duel between General Lorenzo Moore and Mr. +Miles Stapylton, fought with pistols on February 13, 1832. The General +wounded the civilian, who was seen to fall to the ground by the passengers +in the Godalming coach, which happened to be passing at the time. Some of +them came to his assistance, conveyed him off in a carriage, and desired +the General to consider himself under arrest. General<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> Moore was +ignominiously marched off by a police-constable (so unromantic had the +times grown!), and was charged at Kingston. His antagonist, however, +becoming better, the man of war was released on bail, and no more was ever +heard of the affair.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PITT</i></div> + +<p>Mr. Pitt, “the Great Commoner,” who fought here without a scratch, was, if +not upon his “native heath” (for he was born at Hayes, in Kent), at least +within sight of his home. In fact, he practically went forth to do battle +at the very gates of Bowling Green House, where he lived—and died, +broken-hearted at Napoleon’s successes, in later years. The house still +stands, altered, ’tis true, but not rebuilt; and the trees that shade its +lawn and make beautiful its rearward gardens have in their ranks some that +grew here when Pitt was resident under this roof. To call him “master” +here were to use the wrong expression, for the private conduct, and the +in-comings and out-goings of this great man, who made continental +alliances and whose political ascendancy set vast armies in motion all +over Europe, were very fully ordered by his eccentric and imperious niece, +Lady Hester Stanhope, who kept his bachelor household, acted as a +secretary, and filled by her own appointment the post of candid friend and +adviser. If Pitt endured uncomplainingly all this frank criticism under +his own roof-tree, the fact says much for the natural sweetness of his +temper; if he followed the advice of his volatile and irresponsible niece, +then he must have been weak-minded indeed. But the things that she did and +said, and he endured, are written by Lady Hester herself, and no less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +reliable witness could be cited than she of her uncle’s domestic life.</p> + +<p>The “Telegraph” inn, that stands so short a distance from Bowling Green +House, marks the site of one of the old Admiralty telegraph-towers that +were placed in a line between London and Portsmouth, and whence signals +were transmitted by semaphores before the introduction of the electric +telegraph. Here it was that the anxious politicians gathered while Pitt +lay a-dying up the road in January 1806, in his forty-seventh year, struck +down by an attack of gout brought on by news of Austerlitz. He received +the “heavy news” while at Bath, sent in haste by courier; and shortly +afterwards he journeyed home to Putney, whence he was never fated to go, +only to his grave. It was on January 12 that he arrived at Bowling Green +House, and the first thing that met his gaze when he entered was the map +of Europe, hanging in the hall. The sight of it struck the dying man like +the thrust of a dagger, for of what use were political divisions and +boundaries, now that Napoleon was master? “Roll up that map,” he +exclaimed; “it will not be wanted these ten years!” On January 23 he was +dead, and his last words, “My country, how I leave my country!” show the +mental agonies of his passing.</p> + +<p>Thus died the greatest statesman of the eighteenth century, and the most +precocious in our annals. His opponents held it truth that he died of port +wine; his colleagues and his admirers of our own times say his wounded +patriotism dealt him the fatal blow; and this last, with some +modification, seems the correct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> view. Port he drank in prodigious +quantities: in his childhood it saved his life, and it probably enabled a +weakly constitution to hold out for forty-seven years. But save for the +coloration of his face, which in later days had a port-wine complexion, +his appearance showed nothing of the <i>viveur</i>. He was tall, angular, and +emaciated, and his features were cast in a most irregular mould. His nose +was long and tip-tilted, his face thin and spare, and his upper lip, +according to George III. (who certainly should have been an excellent +judge of obstinacy, seeing that he was perhaps the most self-willed and +unreasonable man of his time), was “d——d long and obstinate.” But Pitt’s +unprepossessing and even mean appearance was redeemed by the fire and +brilliancy of his eyes, and the dignity and lofty bearing he assumed in +public transfigured the awkward figure that was so severely commented upon +in private life.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>X</h2> + + +<p>From here, where Pitt died, it is a long and gentle descent to Kingston +Vale and the Robin Hood Gate. As you go down, the eye ranges over the +hills of Surrey, blue in the distance, and the picturesquely-broken waste +of Wimbledon Common appears in the foreground, now all innocent of the +bustle and turmoil, the business and the pleasure of the Wimbledon +Meeting. Alas! for the days, and still more alas! for the nights, of +Wimbledon Camp.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the hill, going down from the Heath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> to Kingston, there +used to stand, beside the road, a mounting-block for assisting horsemen in +alighting from or mounting their horses. On it was carved the name of +Thomas Nuthall, Surveyor of Roehampton, 1654, with the curious jingle:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“From London towne to Portse downe<br /> +They say ’tis miles three score.”</p> + +<p>This has disappeared, like many another quaint roadside relic, and there +comes now nothing but evidence of suburban activity until Kingston is +reached, save indeed the ruined Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, now a +school-house, beside the footpath.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES</i></div> + +<p>Kingston-on-Thames is still provincial in appearance, though now the +centre of a great growth of modern suburbs. Here we are eleven miles from +the Borough, and at the end of the first stage out of London in the old +days of the mail-coaches. Modern drags, like the “Rocket” Portsmouth coach +of some years back, changed at the “Robin Hood,” in Kingston Vale, but the +coachmen of coaching times made longer stages.</p> + +<p>The story of Kingston is a great deal too long for me to dwell upon in +these pages, which are not intended for a topographical dictionary. I am, +indeed, not at all sure but that a book might not be written upon this old +town, both to the advantage of the writer and the inhabitants of this +truly royal borough; and here is the suggestion, generously offered to any +one who wishes a subject!</p> + +<p>Kingston-upon-Thames is so explicitly named in order to distinguish it +from the many other Kingstons<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> which loyalty or snobbery (please to take +your choice) has created all over England. There is a Kingston near +Portsmouth, and the town of Hull was always known as Kingston-upon-Hull +until conveniency and democracy conspired together (much, I should +imagine, to the delight of Citizen Carnegie, the Almighty Millionaire and +Astounding Autocrat of Homestead) to dock it of two-thirds of its name. +But the list of Kingstons is too long for this place, and so you are +referred to the “Gazetteer” for the rest, while I proceed to delve amid +antiquarian matter in respect of the kings whose coronations took place +here.</p> + +<p>It seems, then, that before their Saxon majesties had conferred this +undying distinction upon the town it was (or what little there was of it) +called Moreford, from the ford by which Julius Cæsar and his hosts crossed +the Thames; if, indeed, they did not cross at quite a different place, as +some antiquaries contend, called Coway Stakes, by Shepperton. When +ninth-century Unification prevailed, and the Heptarchy was knocked into a +cocked hat, Egbert (only the late Mr. Freeman would have preferred to call +him “Ecgbehrt”) held a great council here; but that first great Bretwalda +was crowned elsewhere, and the Kingston coronations begin in <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> 900 with +Edward the Elder, who sat upon a big stone in the market-place and +received his crown amid the acclamations of the people and the +confoundedly rough horse-play of the chiefs, who bore him aloft upon a +buckler, and (I assure you it was so) tossed him vigorously in the air +until the new king became sick and silly, and was devoutly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> thankful that +a Coronation came only once in a lifetime!</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>SAXON KINGS AND MODERN CYCLISTS</i></div> + +<p>I trouble you with these details merely because the stone upon which these +kings received their crowns is still in existence in the market-place, +enclosed by and mounted on a modern seven-sided pedestal, upon whose every +face is carved the name of one of those Seven Kings, fearfully and +wonderfully spelled, to the amazement of the thousands of cyclists who +pass by and darkly remember to have heard of Edward the Elder and his +successors. When they come and read of Eadweard and similar perversions, +they go away, more than ever determined to forget all about the pre-Norman +monarchs and to confine their attention to those nineteenth-century +bounders, the idols of their little purview—I name the “Makers’ +Amateurs.”</p> + +<p>But this Anglo-Saxon line of kings, from Edward the Elder to Edmund the +Martyr and Ethelred, is a great deal more interesting than the +professional cyclist. True, you cannot well lay a wager about Athelstan or +Edred, who have been dead a considerable time, something, in fact, a +little under a thousand years,—and they never played things low down for +“records” or took sordid cheques or shared in “gate-money”; but they are +still interesting, and made things so lively in their days that some of +their doings have been handed down through ten centuries—and <i>that</i> is a +kind of “record” in itself!</p> + +<p>The Saxons managed to defeat the Danes here in some great battle, half +mythical, half historic, and the old Shrovetide game of football that used +to be indulged in, within the town, is supposed to have been derived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> from +the (certainly unchivalric) way in which the townsfolk of that dim era +indulged in the sport of kicking the decapitated head of the Danish leader +about their streets.</p> + +<p>However that may have been, here was the chosen spot of Saxon coronation, +and here stands the stone within a modern iron railing which is fondly +believed to be of Saxon character. This stone is supposed to have been one +of thirteen, originally forming a Druidical circle, and invested with a +sacred character, if not a godlike power. Indeed, the connection between +sacred stones and coronation stones is very close, for at one time kings +were heirs of the gods, and not only pretended to Divine right, but were +actually regarded as themselves divine. People, however, shed this last +superstition, and began to disregard sacred stones at a comparatively +early date, and the other twelve deities or sacred objects of Kingston +soon disappeared, for when the townsfolk set about rebuilding their +original wooden houses with more enduring materials, they quickly broke up +the gods and built walls of their fragments.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>KINGSTON LOYALTY</i></div> + +<p>Kingston has ever been a place of importance, and its castle (than which +no other stronghold in England has so utterly passed away and vanished, +even its site being a mere matter of conjecture) was several times +captured and recaptured by opposing hosts in the Middle Ages. In later +times Kingston became celebrated much in the same way as Yankee Boston +leaped into fame; for it was here that the first armed force assembled in +the Civil War between Charles I. and his Parliament. Colonel Lunsford and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +other Royalist officers attempted to seize for the King the store of arms +in the town, intending to proceed afterwards to Portsmouth, to hold that +fortress in the Royal cause. The King was at that time at Hampton Court. +But Lunsford’s enterprise failed, for the Parliament got wind of it and +speedily arrested him. By a singular coincidence, Kingston was also the +scene of one of the last stands of the Royalists, for, in July 1648, a +body of some six hundred men was assembled here under the commands of Lord +Holland, the second Duke of Buckingham, and his brother, Lord Francis +Villiers.</p> + +<p>They set out for Carisbrooke, with the object of releasing the King, who +was imprisoned there, but a superior force met them at Reigate, and in the +last skirmish that followed their retreat to Kingston, Lord Francis +Villiers was slain, in a road between the town and Surbiton Common, at a +spot long marked by the tree against whose trunk he stood and fought +single-handed a hopeless fight against six Roundheads.</p> + +<p>“Here,” says Aubrey, the historian of Surrey, “was slain the beautiful +Francis Villiers, at an elm in the hedge of the east side of the lane; +where, his horse being killed under him, he turned his back to the elm, +and fought most valiantly with half-a-dozen. The enemy, coming on the +other side of the hedge, pushed off his helmet and killed him, July 7, +1648, about six or seven o’clock in the afternoon. On the elm, cut down in +1680, was cut an ill-shaped <span class="large">V</span> for Villiers, in memory of him.”</p> + +<p>Indeed, Kingston has always been a loyal town, and its people High Tories +of a kind that warms my heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> towards them when I think of their bravery. +Not resting content with appearing in arms against the Parliament, they +petitioned in behalf of their King, thereby incurring considerable danger +of being “remembered” in no kindly wise by my lords and commons of Puritan +sympathies. Their High Toryism and hatred of modernity have been seen in +recent times by their objection to having their Corporation reformed, and +even in the persecution of cyclists has their bias been shown; but +centuries ago these traits took a much less pleasing shape: the whipping +and despiteful using of beggars, the ducking of scolds and the plentiful +hangings of petty criminals; although, to be sure, there were some kindly +souls in the town, as evidenced by the entries given in the parish +registers of alms bestowed instead of scourgings, and we have here no such +record of brutality as Godalming registers afford. Kingston, being on a +well-worn road and itself a considerable place, was in receipt of much +custom from wayfarers of every class, travelling to the sea. Here came +sea-salts, men-of-war, personages of the highest station, and Dick, Tom, +and ragged Harry. The fine old inns that Kingston boasted afford proof of +the amount of custom the town enjoyed. Of these, alas! only the “Castle” +is left, and that well-known house, going back to Elizabethan times, is +cut up into separate tenements.</p> + +<p>The travellers who “put up” here must have made a goodly crowd, and were, +doubtless, the source of much prosperity to this ancient borough,</p> + +<p class="poem">“A praty town, by Tamise ripe.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>MENDICANTS</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>Another kind of mediæval wayfarers (who took away what others brought) +were those who went from place to place, collecting alms for the relief of +their distresses. These beggars were “briefed” or authorized by the +Ecclesiastical Courts to collect alms and solicit aid at any church they +might think fit, even at great distances away from their homes.</p> + +<p>Thus the country was, before the passing of the Poor Laws, infested with +certificated beggars and tramps who, coming with pitiful tales of robbery, +disease, and spoliation, worked upon the charitable feelings of country +churchwardens, who listened to the woeful tales of mendicants both native +and from over sea, and relieved them with a few pence and a “God be with +you,” passing them over to the next parish, where the process would be +repeated. The roads leading to and from the sea-board would be +particularly favoured by these unfortunates, and the Portsmouth Road, in +especial, must have witnessed at times quite a procession of dolorous +alms-seekers telling of sad mishaps on land and sea in foreign climes. +Some of the items given in this way are recorded in old parish registers +and churchwardens’ accounts. Here are some significant extracts from +Kingston-upon-Thames records:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“June 25, 1570. Sonday was her Ihō Jinkin by pattin w<sup>ch</sup> was +robbid on the sea by Spanyards.</p> + +<p>“February 1571.</p> + +<p>“10 Sonday was her a man for his Father who was robbed on the Sey by +Lycence from my Lord Admirall.”</p></div> + +<p>Here we are not to assume, from the absence of punctuation, that this +unfortunate man was robbed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> licence from the Admiral, but that this was +a variety of licence from the ecclesiastical kind—a kind of secular +recommendation to all and sundry, subscribed by the man’s commanding +officer.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“10 Item was here the proctor of Kingsland beside Knightbrig.</p> + +<p>“24 Sonday was here ij weman the mother and dowghter owte of Ireland +she called Elynor Salve to gather upon the deathe of her howsbande a +gentlman slayne amongst the wylde Iryshe being Captain of Gallyglasses +and gathered xviij<i>d</i>.</p> + +<p>“May 26 Item her was a man from Dorkinge whose howse was brent.</p> + +<p>“August 20 Item the proctor of Kingsland was here the Sonday being the +20 of August. In the same day was here ij men being robbid on the +Seye.”</p></div> + +<p>This licensed mendicancy was finally suppressed by the Act of Parliament, +passed in the thirty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, “For the +Suppressing of Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars.” It begins by +setting forth in detail all those who were considered to come under these +designations. These were:—“Persons calling themselves scholars, going +about begging; all idle persons going about in any country either begging +or using any subtil craft or unlawful games or plays, or feigning +knowledge in physionomy or palmestry; patent-gatherers; common players of +interludes, other than players belonging to any Baron of the Realm; +juglers, tinkers, pedlers, and petty chapmen; and generally all wandering +persons using, loytering, and refusing to work for reasonable wages, or +pretending to be Egyptians. These are to be taken, adjudged, and deemed +rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and on apprehension to be, by +appointment of any justice of the peace, &c.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> being assisted therein with +the advice of the minister and one other of the parish, stripped naked, +from the middle upward, and openly whipped until his or her body be +bloody; and then sent from parish to parish to his or her last residence, +and in default of going there within a time limited, to be eftsoons taken +and whipped again.”</p> + +<p>This statute was continued and altered in subsequent reigns, and not +repealed until the twelfth year of Queen Anne.</p> + +<p>There is an entry in Godalming parish registers, on this very road, which +shows that this was no disregarded law. On April 26, 1658, the Godalming +authorities seem to have inflicted a peculiarly brutal scourging:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Here was taken a vagrant”—says this yellow page, stained with time +and grotesque with crabbed writing and singular spelling—“one Mary +Parker, Widow, with a Child; and she was wipped according to law, +about the age of Thirty years, proper of personage; and she was to goo +to the place of her birth, that is, in Grauesend in Kent, and she is +limitted to iiij days, and to be caried from Tithing to Tything tell +she comes to the end of the s<sup>d</sup> jerney.”</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ‘GOOD OLD TIMES’</i></div> + +<p>Oh, those “good old times”!</p> + +<p>Other singular entries occur at Kingston. In 1570, for instance, we read +that, on October 9—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thursday at nyght rose a great winde and rayne that the Temps rosse +so hye that they myght row w<sup>t</sup> bott<sup>s</sup> owte of the Temps a gret waye +in to the market place and upon a sodayne.”</p></div> + +<p>Two years later, a new cucking-stool was made at the expense of the +parish. It cost £1 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>, and seems to have been freely used. The +cucking-stool<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> was a contrivance for the punishment of shrewish women who +made such ill use of their tongues as to disturb their neighbours as well +as their own families. Wherever there happened to be a pond or watercourse +in a parish a post was set up in it; across this post was placed a +transverse beam turning on a swivel, with a chair at one end of it, in +which when the offender was comfortably placed, that end was turned to the +water and let down into it as many times as the occasion was supposed to +require.</p> + +<p>This new cucking-stool had not long been made when it was brought into +use, for, as the registers say—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“1572, August. On Tewsday being the xix day of this monthe of August +—— Downing wyfe to —— Downinge gravemaker of this parysshe she was +sett on a new cukking stolle made of a grett hythe and so browght a +bowte the markett place to Temes brydge and ther had iij Duckinges +over hed and eres because she was a common scolde and fyghter.”</p></div> + +<p>During the next month the registers give the information that, September +8—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“This day in this towne was kept the Sessions of gayle Delyverye and +her was hangyd vj persons and seventeene taken for roges and vagabonds +and whippid abowte the market place and brent in the ears.”</p></div> + +<p>I think these extracts are sufficient to give a portraiture of the place +in olden times. For the Kingston of that remote date it were well not to +seek: it has gone with the snows of yester-year and the fallen leaves of +autumns past. There hangs to-day, in the Kingston Public Library, an old +drawing by a former Secretary of the Royal Academy, which, although as +a drawing it is as bad as may well be, has become, since the old +market-place was rebuilt, very valuable as a piece of documentary +evidence, showing what Kingston was like in olden times. This is negative +praise, but, even so, it is praise to which little of the handiwork of +by-past Secretaries of the Royal Academy can attain; for it has ever been +the practice of that distinguished body to confer the salaried posts at +their disposal upon those of their numerous members who could neither draw +nor paint. This old drawing shows dimly what manner of place Kingston was +until well on into the last century: the old timbered houses and the +projecting signs of the crazy inns making a brave show.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 417px;"><img src="images/img19.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE RECRUITING SERGEANT.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE RECRUITING SERGEANT</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>I should suppose it was at Kingston that John Collett conceived the idea +of his picture of “The Recruiting Sergeant,” reproduced here; for the +wagon that stands in the road is labelled “Portsmouth Common Stage +Waggon,” and the sign of the “Three Jolly Butchers” is clearly a +reminiscence of the “Jolly Butchers” at Clattern Bridge.</p> + +<p>The recruiting sergeant was a scarcely less familiar figure on the road +than the stage-coach a hundred years ago, and a figure, too, that has ever +been seized upon by painters and writers alike for sentimental reasons. +Has he not been made notorious as “Sergeant Kite,” the unscrupulous +ruffian who inveigled the country yokel into drink and the acceptance of +the King’s shilling at the roadside inn? Evidently the painter of this +picture was a sentimentalist who regarded the recruiting sergeant in the +worst light. The composition and the figures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> are alike theatrical and +conventional. The weeping sweetheart is a figure borrowed from the stage, +and so are the two other prominent actors, the Sergeant and the Recruit. +The other figures are interesting. In the wagon a fellow is in the act of +kissing a girl, while an old woman belabours him about the head. Two +children are fearfully feeling the edge of a halberd in the foreground, +while a distressed dame—possibly the Recruit’s mother—is being comforted +by some women friends.</p> + +<p>At Kingston we had better take Mr. Shoolbred’s “New Times” coach to +Guildford. That is to say, if we can find a seat; for this popular drive +is patronized so extensively that booking is brisk throughout the coaching +season. At eleven o’clock punctually, on every week-day forenoon in the +heyday of the year, the “New Times” starts from the “Berkeley” Hotel, +Piccadilly. The fame of this sole survivor of the Guildford coaches is of +no mere mushroom growth, for it is now over twenty years since Mr. Walter + +Shoolbred first drove his own teams over this road, so that to-day he is +become an institution. Time was (and that but a few years since) when a +Portsmouth coach was the delight of the road; but Captain Hargreaves’ +“Rocket” no longer enlivens the way, and, below Guildford, the Portsmouth +Road is unexploited. To-day we fare no farther behind our four-in-hand +than Mr. Shoolbred can take us, and he has the route entirely to himself.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img20.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">ROAD AND RAIL: DITTON MARSH, NIGHT.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>DITTON MARSH</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>It is but rarely that this “well-appointed coach”—to speak after the +manner of advertisements—leaves London without a full load or an admiring +crowd of onlookers to witness its departure, and you feel yourself +(wrongly, it may well be) an essential part of the performance, as, +perched on the box-seat beside the driver, you are driven through the +thronging traffic of a May morning in Piccadilly. Not until the streets of +London are left behind us do the clean-limbed chestnuts of our team have +the opportunity of showing their paces; but Kingston Vale is done smartly, +and Kingston itself reached at 12.8. Presently we are out upon Ditton +Marsh, flat and broad and sombre, and we bowl along here at a fine round +pace until we reach the foot of the ascent where, outside a roadside +public-house—the “Orleans Arms”—stands a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> huge stone post, a century +old, carved with the names and distances of many towns and villages, and +known as the “White Lady” milestone.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 298px; height: 400px;"><img src="images/img21.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">MR. WALTER SHOOLBRED.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Away to the right lies Thames Ditton, beloved of Theodore Hook and a +certain “lazy minstrel,” well known to fame in these days, Mr. Ashby +Sterry. There also lived at Ditton, during the early part of this present +century, that eminent lawyer, Sir Edward Sugden, afterwards Lord St. +Leonards, and Lord Chancellor of England. His career was an example of the +rise of worth, for he was the son of a hairdresser in Duke Street, +Piccadilly, and won his way by the sole aid of his own bright intellect. +But, on the other hand, he remains the most dreadful example of the man +who draws his own will, and thus gives rise to wasteful litigation with +his testamentary incoherencies. He was also the victim of a particularly +odious witticism while living here. It shall be recounted, to the +perpetual infamy and dishonour of the man who uttered it. Theodore Hook +and Croker were on one occasion the guests of Sir Edward Sugden at Boyle +Farm. They were admiring a very beautiful vase that stood in the hall, and +Sir Edward told them it was a copy of the celebrated Warwick vase. “Yes,” +said Croker, “it is extremely handsome; but don’t you think a facsimile of +the Barberini vase would have been more appropriate to the place?” I do +not remember to have heard if Sugden kicked his unmannerly guest: if he +did <i>not</i>, I regret the omission.</p> + +<p>On the way to Esher, up the hillside, the coach passes the entrance-gates +of Sandown Park, that most fashionable of race-courses, opened in 1870, +and ever since then the “ladies’ race-course” <i>par excellence</i>. Those +ornamental iron gates that face the road have a history: they came from +Baron Albert Grant’s mansion, Kensington House, that stood where now +Kensington Court faces the Gardens and the old Palace.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 417px;"><img src="images/img22.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “NEW TIMES” GUILDFORD COACH.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘ESHER’S STEEP’</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>At Esher we make our second change, at that old-fashioned hostelry the +“Bear,” and are shown those religiously preserved boots worn by the +post-boy who drove Philippe Egalité to Claremont in 1848, when escaping +“the red fool-fury of the Seine,” then at flood-tide. These are boots +indeed, and more resemble the huge jack-boots in which Marlborough’s +soldiers won Ramilies and Malplaquet, than nineteenth-century foot-gear. +The “Bear” is one of the finest of the old inns that ornament this old +road, and its stables, large enough, as the proprietor says, to hold a +hundred horses, are a sight to see.</p> + +<p>Esher is a pleasant village, prettily rural, with a humble old church +behind that old coaching inn the “Bear,” and a newer church, not at all +humble, across the way. Nearly all the monuments have been removed to the +new building; the most notable among them an elaborate memorial to Richard +Drake, Equerry to Queen Elizabeth, and father of the famous Sir Francis +Drake, who caused it to be placed in the old church. Some minor literary +lights, too, are buried here, among them Samuel Warren, Q.C., Recorder of +Hull and Master in Lunacy, who was born in 1807. This literary character +and legal luminary (of no great brilliancy, indeed) lived until 1877, when +his feeble flicker was finally dowsed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> death. The injunction “de +mortuis” is kindly, but I cannot refrain from remarking here that I have +seen this shining light of law and letters characterized in print as a +“pompous ass.” What else but pompous could he possibly have been after his +remarkable training, first for a degree in medicine, and, secondly, for +the bar? Such a career as this would be sufficient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> to turn any man of +average intelligence and more than average conceit into a third-rate +Johnson—such a man, in fact, as Warren became. Add to these advantages +(or disadvantages, you are free to choose your epithet) that of an author +successful more by hitting the bull’s-eye of public taste than by +intrinsic merit, and you will wonder the less at his self-sufficient +mental attitude.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img23.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">BOOTS AT THE “BEAR.”</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img24.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “BEAR,” ESHER.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PRIGGERY</i></div> + +<p>Warren was the author of such one-time extremely popular works as “Ten +Thousand a Year” and the “Diary of a Late Physician”: applauded to the +echo in their day—a day that is done. He is additionally famous, however, +on another and very different count. His vanity was monumental, and he +possessed a prig’s delight in recounting details of the social functions +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> which he was used to be invited by the notabilities of his day.</p> + +<p>A good anecdote survives of this unpleasing trait in Warren’s character. +Let us howk it up again, and send it forth with a new lease of life.</p> + +<p>Warren, it would seem, was narrating to Douglas Jerrold,<a name='fna_2' id='fna_2' href='#f_2'><small>[2]</small></a> with much oily +circumstantiality, the splendid details of one of the dinners to which he +had been bidden in the mansions of the great. He constantly referred to +the unusual fact of no fish having been served at one of these feasts, and +asked Jerrold what explanation he thought could be offered of so strange +an omission. The reply was worthy of that wounding and blackguardly wit +for which Jerrold was so notorious; a form of ill-natured satire that +seems never to have brought him the sound thrashing he so richly deserved.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps they ate it all up-stairs,” said he.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XI</h2> + + +<p>And now, before we proceed further along the Portsmouth Road, we must +“change here” for Dorking, a coach-route greatly favoured of late years, +both by Mr. Rumney’s “Tally-ho” coach, and Mr. E. Brown’s “Perseverance,” +by way of a relief from their accustomed haunts, to St. Albans and +elsewhere. The “Perseverance” (which, alas! no longer perseveres) left +Northumberland Avenue at eleven a.m., and came down the old route until +Surbiton was passed, when it turned off by way of Hook and Telegraph Hill, +by Prince’s Coverts to Leatherhead, and so into Dorking.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 600px; height: 302px;"><img src="images/img25.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “TALLY-HO” HAMPTON COURT AND DORKING COACH.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ‘TALLY-HO’</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>Mr. Rumney’s “Wonder”—bah! what do I say?—I <i>should</i> say that +gentleman’s “Tally-ho” ran to Dorking in 1892, what time the +“Perseverance” also ran thither, and a fine seven-and-sixpenny ride it +was, there and back. By “there and back” I do not name the route between +London and the old Surrey town. Oh no; Mr. Rumney’s was quite an original +idea. He gave Londoners the benefit of a country drive throughout, and ran +between the sweet rurality of Hampton Court and Dorking. At 11.10 every +morning he started from the “Mitre” Hotel, and so, across Hampton Bridge, +to Ditton and Claremont, and thence to Dorking, where, at the “White +Horse”——</p> + +<p>But I anticipate, as the Early Victorian novelists were wont to say. I +will quote an account of the journey that appeared in one of the weekly +papers at the time, and have the less hesitation in quoting therefrom, +because I wrote the article myself, and if a man may not quote himself, +who, in Heaven’s name, <i>may</i> he quote?</p> + +<p>“Every week-day of this spring-time the ‘Tally-ho’ leaves the ‘Mitre,’ at +Hampton Court, for Dorking. At eleven o’clock everything is in readiness +save the driver, who puts in a staid and majestic appearance on the box +only at the last moment. All around are ostlers and stablemen and men who, +although they have nothing whatever to do with the coach, and do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> not even +intend to go by it, are yet drawn here to admire the horses and to +surreptitiously pat them after the manner of all Englishmen, who, even if +they know nought of the noble animal’s ‘points,’ at least love to see good +horse-flesh. Vigorous blasts from ‘yards of tin’ arouse alarums and +excursions, and bring faces to the hotel-windows, reminding one, together +with the gold-laced red coat of the guard, of the true coaching age, so +eloquently written of by that mighty historian of the road, C. J. +Apperley, whom men called ‘Nimrod.’</p> + +<p>“The appointments and the horse-flesh that go to make a first-rate modern +turn-out are luxurious beyond anything that ‘Nimrod’ could have seen, +splendid as were some of the crack coaches of his day. Were he here now, +he could but acknowledge our superiority in this respect; but we can +imagine his critical faculties centred upon what he would have called the +‘tooling’ of the drag, and his disappointment, not in the workmanship of +the driver, but in the excellence of the highways of to-day, which give a +coachman no opportunities of showing how resourceful he could be with his +wrist, nor how scientific with his ‘springing’ of his team. Let us +compassionate the critic whose well-trained faculties are thus wasted!</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img26.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">MICKLEHAM CHURCH.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>TO DORKING</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>“But it is full time we were off. A final flourish of the horn, and away +we go, our coach making for the heart of Surrey. ‘Southward o’er Surrey’s +pleasant hills,’ as Tom Ingoldsby says, we go, to Leatherhead, beside +Drayton’s ‘mousling Mole’; and so, with a clatter and a cheery rattle of +the harness, past Mickleham, with its wayside church, and Juniper Hall, +red-faced, green-shuttered; perched above the roadside, redolent of +memories of the French refugees,—of whom M. D’Arblay, the husband of +Fanny Burney, was one,—and still wearing a fine and most unmistakable +eighteenth-century air, even though, as we pass, an equally undoubted +nineteenth-century telegraph-boy comes walking, with the leisurely air<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +peculiar to telegraph-boys, out of its carriage-drive into the road.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img27.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">BURFORD BRIDGE.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img28.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “WHITE HORSE,” DORKING.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>“Now we are nearing our journey’s end. The glorious woodlands of Norbury +Park—that old-time resort of literary ladies and gaping gentlemen, who +stapped their vitals and protested monstrously that the productions of +those blue-stockings were designed for immortality, long before the modern +woman was thought possible—the woods of Norbury come in view, and the +great swelling side of Box Hill rises in front, with the Burford Bridge +Hotel beneath, shaded by lofty trees which take their nourishment from the +Mole, bridged here by a substantial brick-and-stone structure that gives +that hostelry its name.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img29.jpg" alt="The Road to Dorking." /></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>BURFORD BRIDGE</i></div> + +<p>“No more pleasant week-end resort than the Burford Bridge +Hotel—‘providing always,’ as the lawyers might say, that you do not make +your week-end coincide with one of Sir John Lubbock’s popular carnivals. +Then——! But enough, enough. Hie we onwards, casting just one backward +glance towards that hotel which was just a decent road-side inn when Keats +wrote ‘Endymion’ there, coming in from moonlit walks across Box Hill, +inspired to heaven knows what unwritten poesy. Also, the Burford Bridge +Hotel has a claim upon the patriotic Englishman, who, thank goodness, is +not extinct, although Mr. Grant Allen thinks the generous feeling of +patriotism is unfashionable. For here Nelson slept during his last night +on English soil. The next<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> day he embarked from Portsmouth, and—the rest +is history!</p> + +<p>“Dorking at last! We pull up, with steaming cattle, at the old ‘White +Horse,’ where lunch is spread. We speculate upon the theory (one of many) +that the real original Weller inhabited here, but come, of course, to no +conclusion, where so many learned doctors in Dickens disagree. We +adventure down to Castle Mill; yea, even to the picturesque Brockham +Bridge below the town, beyond the foot of Box Hill. The town of Dorking +stretches out its more modern part in this direction, halting within sight +of Castle Mill, whence its <i>avant-garde</i> is seen stalking horribly across +the meadows. For the rest, Dorking is pleasant enough, though containing +little of interest; and the parish church of St. Martin has been rebuilt. +Yet the long High Street still contains a few quaint frontages of the +seventeenth century, and our halting-place has a curious sign of wrought +ironwork. Those who do not pin their faith to the ‘White Horse’ as the +original of the ‘Marquis of Granby’ in the ‘Pickwick Papers,’ elect to +swear by the ‘Red Lion,’ once owned by a coach-proprietor who <i>might</i> +have sat for Samivel’s father.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>LITERARY LIGHTS</i></div> + +<p>“The town and district have, indeed, many literary associations. Some of +these authors are now forgotten, or were never of more than local +celebrity; but what generation will that be which forgets old John Evelyn, +the diarist and author of ‘Sylva,’ and many other works, who must often +have ridden into the town from Wotton House, near by? He was a friend of +another congenial worthy, John Aubrey to wit. That amusingly quaint, +but not strictly reliable, old chronicler, says of this town:—‘Dorking is +celebrated for fowls. The kine hereabout are of a sandy colour; the women, +especially those about the hill, have no roses in their cheeks.’ I do not +notice that, however true may be his remarks about the fowls.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img30.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">BROCKHAM BRIDGE.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img31.jpg" alt="Castle Mill." /></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>“Defoe, among others, lived here; and Benjamin Disraeli at Deepdene +conceived the idea of ‘Coningsby,’ and wrote part of that work under its +roof, as may be seen set forth in his dedication. The fame of Madame +D’Arblay belongs more correctly to Mickleham. Then there were at Dorking +many disciples of the Aikins and Barbaulds, those Clarissas and Laetitias +of a pseudo-classic age whose dull wit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> was as forced as were the turgid +sentiments of the eminently proper characters in their writings. Theirs +was an age whose manners were as superficial as was the stucco upon the +brick walls of their neo-classic mansions and quasi-Greek conventicles; +and, for frankness’ sake, I think I prefer our own times, when we have no +manners and make no pretensions that way.</p> + +<p>“However, time is up. The guard winds his horn up the street, and we take +our seats again. The coachman gathers up his reins and shakes squarely +down into his seat; the ostlers step back. ‘Good-bye, good-bye,’ and we +are off at a quarter-past three on the return journey. We halt our team by +the way at a cheerful inn. The air bites shrewdly, and——‘Well, yes; I +don’t mind if I do!’ ‘Here’s confusion to the Apostles of the Pump; a +health to our driver; prosperity to the “Tally-ho,” and——’ ‘Hurry up, +please, gentlemen!’ We take our seats once more with alacrity, and another +hour sees us again at Hampton Court.”</p> + +<p>To show the manner in which coach accounts were kept in the coaching age, +I append a copy of an old statement now in my possession. It is a “sharing +account,” and details a month’s takings and expenses in the expiring days +of road travel.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile we resume our itinerary of the Portsmouth Road where we broke +off, at Esher.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>COACH ACCOUNTS</i></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Dr.</i><span class="spacer3"> </span><i>Cr.</i></p> +<p class="center">LONDON AND <i>Dorking</i><span class="spacer"> </span>COACH.</p> +<p class="center"><i>Account for 4 Weeks, ending the 5th Day of</i> August <i>1837, both inclusive.</i></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="table"> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center" class="brdoub">RECEIPTS.</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub" align="center">DISBURSEMENTS.</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"><span class="smcap">Messrs. Horne</span></td> + <td class="br" align="center">82</td> + <td class="br" align="center">17</td> + <td class="br" align="center">6</td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub" align="center">——</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"><i>Mr. Walker</i></td> + <td class="br" align="center">75</td> + <td class="br" align="center">12</td> + <td class="br" align="center">—</td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub" align="center"><span class="smcap">Messrs. Horne.</span></td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Duty</td> + <td class="br" align="center">16</td> + <td class="br" align="center">17</td> + <td class="brdoub" align="center">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Mileage</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Tolls and Wages</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Booking and Settling Accounts</td> + <td class="br" align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">3</span></td> + <td class="br" align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">3</span></td> + <td class="brdoub" align="center">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Washing and Greasing</td> + <td class="bbr" align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">1</span></td> + <td class="bbr" align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">1</span></td> + <td class="bbrdoub" align="center">—</td> + <td class="bbr" align="center">21</td> + <td class="bbr" align="center">1</td> + <td class="bb" align="center">—</td></tr> +<tr><td class="brdoub">Dr. Mr. <i>Walker</i>.</td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="brdoub"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">To Receipts <i>of Messrs. Horne</i></span></td> + <td align="center" class="br"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">24</span></td> + <td align="center" class="br">11</td> + <td align="center" class="br">4</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="brdoub"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Do.<span class="spacer"> </span><i>of Mr. Walker</i></span></td> + <td align="center" class="bbr"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">75</span></td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">12</td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" class="brdoub">£</td> + <td align="center" class="bbdoubr">100</td> + <td align="center" class="bbdoubr"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">3</span></td> + <td align="center" class="bbdoubr">4</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" align="center" class="btrdoub">Mr. <i>Walker</i>.</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Wages and Tolls</td> + <td align="center" class="br">13</td> + <td align="center" class="br"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">4</span></td> + <td align="center" class="brdoub">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Booking</td> + <td align="center" class="br">—</td> + <td align="center" class="br">—</td> + <td align="center" class="brdoub">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub">Washing and Greasing</td> + <td align="center" class="br">—</td> + <td align="center" class="br">—</td> + <td align="center" class="brdoub">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"><i>Mileage</i></td> + <td align="center" class="br"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">7</span></td> + <td align="center" class="br">—</td> + <td align="center" class="brdoub">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"><i>Touter</i></td> + <td align="center" class="bbr"> </td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">16</td> + <td align="center" class="bbrdoub">—</td> + <td class="bbr" align="center">21</td> + <td class="bbr">—</td> + <td class="bb" align="center">—</td></tr> +<tr><td class="brdoub" align="right">Cr.</td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="brdoub">By shares</td> + <td align="center" class="br"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">79</span></td> + <td align="center" class="br">3</td> + <td align="center" class="br">4</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="brdoub"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Disbursements</span></td> + <td align="center" class="bbr"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">21</span></td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">—</td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">—</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" class="brdoub">£</td> + <td align="center" class="bbdoubr">100</td> + <td align="center" class="bbdoubr">3</td> + <td align="center" class="bbdoubr">4</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" align="center" class="btrdoub">SHARES.</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td align="center">Miles.</td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">8</span></td> + <td class="brdoub">Messrs. Horne</td> + <td align="center" class="br">37</td> + <td align="center" class="br">5</td> + <td align="center" class="brdoub">2</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="botbor" align="center">17</td> + <td class="brdoub"><i>Mr. Walker</i></td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">79</td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">3</td> + <td align="center" class="bbrdoub">4</td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">116</td> + <td align="center" class="bbr">8</td> + <td align="center" class="bb">6</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td align="center"><i>25</i></td> + <td class="brdoub"><i>Miles</i> @£4 13 1½ <span style="font-size: 0.8em;"><sup>18</sup></span>⁄<span style="font-size: 0.6em;">25</span> <i>a mile</i>.</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td colspan="2" align="center" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="bbdoubr">£158</td> + <td class="bbdoubr" align="center">9</td> + <td class="bbdoubr" align="center">6</td> + <td colspan="2" align="center" class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="brdoub"> </td> + <td class="bbdoubr">£158</td> + <td class="bbdoubr" align="center">9</td> + <td class="bbdoub" align="center">6</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>At Esher the fallen Cardinal Wolsey lived awhile when Providence frowned +upon him—and for Providence in this connection read Henry VIII., who +filled that position towards the great prelate, with great <i>éclat</i> and an +altogether overwhelming success. When the king commanded Wolsey to retire +hither, the Cardinal lived in the old building of Esher Place, whose only +remains are seen at this day in the Gatehouse standing in the damp and +watery meadows beside the Mole. He found the place little to his liking, +and displayed his sorrows in a letter to Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, +wherein he complains of the “moist and corrupt air.” That he was quite in +a position to appreciate the dampness of his residence, we may well +believe when we read that he was “without beds, sheets, table-cloths, or +dishes”; and that he presently “fell sore sick that he was likely to die” +creates, under the circumstances, no surprise.</p> + +<p>The place of Wolsey’s compulsory retirement was almost completely +destroyed when the modern mansion of Esher Place was built, and the chief +historic house of Esher is now Claremont.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XII</h2> + + +<p>Claremont is a house of sad memories, destined, so it might seem to the +superstitious, to witness a succession of tragedies and sorrows.</p> + +<p>Neither the house nor the estate are of any considerable age; the estate +originating in a fancy of Sir John Vanbrugh,—that professional architect +and amateur dramatist of Queen Anne’s time,—for a suburban retreat. He +purchased some land at Esher, between the village and the common, and, +foregoing his usual ponderous style of piling up huge masses of stone +and brickwork, put up quite a small and unpretentious brick house upon it. +Sir John Vanbrugh died in 1726, and posterity seems still in doubt as to +whether he excelled in writing comedies or in designing ponderous palaces +of the type of Blenheim and Castle Howard. Certainly his writings are as +light as his buildings heavy, and though a wit might justly compose an +epitaph for him as an architect,</p> + +<p class="poem">“Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he<br /> +Laid many a heavy load on thee,”</p> + +<p>the application can extend no further.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img32.jpg" alt="Ruins of Wolsey’s Palace Esher" /></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>Before he died, Vanbrugh’s estate was sold to the Earl of Clare, who added +a banqueting-hall to the architect’s modest dwelling, purchased additional +land, and, after the custom greatly honoured in the observance during the +eighteenth century, stole much more from the neighbouring common, until he +brought the palings of the park coterminous (as the political geographers +might say) with the Portsmouth Road. In midst of the land he had thus +filched from the commoners of Esher, the Earl of Clare built a kind of +belvidere on a pleasant eminence overlooking the country-side, and called +it Clare Mount. Thus arose the name of the house and park. Soon +afterwards, however, the Earl was created Duke of Newcastle, and, to +honour his new pomp and circumstance the more, employed Kent, the +celebrated landscape gardener, to re-arrange the grounds and gardens, +until their magnificence called forth this eulogium from Sir Samuel Garth, +a dabbler both in medicine and metre:—</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +“Oh! who can paint in verse those rising hills,<br /> +Those gentle valleys, and their silver rills;<br /> +Close groves and opening glades with verdure spread,<br /> +Flow’rs sighing sweets, and shrubs that balsams bleed?”</p> + +<p>Ah! who indeed? Not Sir Samuel Garth, though, if this be a representative +taste of his quality.</p> + +<p>The Claremont that we see now was built by the “heaven-born general,” +Clive, who purchased the estate upon the death of the Duke of Newcastle in +1768. He built, with the aid of Lancelot Brown (Capability Brown his +contemporaries eke-named him), in a grand and massive style that excited +the gaping wonder of the country folk. “The peasantry of Surrey,” says +Macaulay, in his “Essay on Clive,” “looked with mysterious horror on the +stately house which was rising at Claremont, and whispered that the great +wicked lord had ordered the walls to be made so thick in order to keep out +the devil, who would one day carry him away bodily.” This unenviable +reputation for wickedness was the work of Clive’s enemies, of whom, +perhaps, from one cause and another, no man has possessed so many. The men +above whose heads his genius and daring had carried him, and the Little +Englanders of that day, both hated the hero of Plassey with a lurid and +vitriolic vehemence. They circulated strange tales of his cruelty and +cupidity in India, until even well-informed people regarded Clive as an +incarnate fiend, and “Capability” Brown even came to wonder that his +conscience allowed him to sleep in the same house with the notorious +Moorshedabad treasure-chest.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img33.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">LORD CLIVE.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>Clive ended his brief but glorious career, slain by his own hand, in +November 1774, but none the less murdered by the ingratitude of his +country, a country so prolific in heroes that it can afford, for the sport +of factions, to hound them occasionally to ruin and to death, coming +afterwards in recriminating heart-agony to mourn their loss. Clive died, +not yet fifty years of age, killed by constitutional melancholia, +aggravated by disease and the yelpings of politicians, eager to drag down +in the mire the man who gave us India. The arms of Clive still decorate +the pediment of Claremont, the only house, so ’tis said, that “Capability” +Brown ever built, though he altered many.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PRINCESS CHARLOTTE</i></div> + +<p>In the forty years that succeeded between the death of Clive and the +purchase of the estate by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, +Claremont had a succession of owners; and upon the marriage of the Prince +Regent’s only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, in 1816, it was allotted +to her for a residence. It was in May of that year that the Princess +Charlotte of Wales was married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the petty +German Duchy that has furnished princelings innumerable for the recruiting +of kingdoms and principalities, and has given the Coburg Loaf its name.</p> + +<p>But within a year of her marriage the Princess died in child-birth, and +was buried in a mausoleum within the park. Then Claremont was for long +deserted. There is a much-engraved portrait of the Princess, painted by +Chalon, R.A., which shows a pleasant-faced girl, with fine neck and full +eyes,—the characteristic eyes of the Guelphs,—and a strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> facial +resemblance to her father and grandfather, the Third and Fourth Georges. +She is represented as habited in the indecent dress of the period, with +ermined robe, and wearing a velvet hat with an immense plume of ostrich +feathers. But a much more pleasing portrait is that by an unnamed artist, +“a Lady,” reproduced here, which gives a representation of the Princess +without those elaborate feathers and showy trappings of Court ceremonial.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>CHRONIQUES SCANDALEUSES</i></div> + +<p>The circumstances that attended the death of this Princess, to whom the +nation looked as their future Queen, were not a little mysterious, and +gave rise to many sinister rumours and scandals. Sir Richard Croft, a +fashionable <i>accoucheur</i> of that time, was in attendance upon her with +other physicians. He was one who signed the bulletins announcing her +steady progress towards recovery after the birth of a dead child; but on +the following day the news of the Princess’s death came as a sudden shock +upon England, whose people had but recently shared in the joy and +happiness of her happy marriage, doubly welcome after the sinister +quarrels, estrangements, and espionages that marked the wedded life of the +Regent. Scarce had the tidings of the Princess Charlotte’s death at +Claremont become public property than all manner of strange whispers +became current as to the causes of it. The public mind was, singularly +enough, not satisfied with the medical explanations which would ordinarily +have been accepted for very truth; but became exercised with vague +suspicions of foul play that were only fanned into further life by the +mutual recriminations of medicos and lay pamphleteers. Even those who +saw no shadow of a crime upon this bad business were ready to cast blame +and the bitterest reproaches upon Sir Richard Croft, in whose care the +case chiefly lay, for his mistaken treatment. And this was not the first +occasion upon which Croft’s conduct had been looked upon with suspicion, +for, years previously, a scandalous rumour had been bruited about with +regard to two of his noble patients,—the Duchess of Devonshire and an +unnamed lady of title,—by which it would seem that he was privy to a +supposititious change of children at the Duchess of Devonshire’s +accouchement, when it was believed that the Duchess exchanged a girl for +her friend’s boy.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img34.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>But on this occasion the affair was much more serious, whether blame +attached to him solely for mistaken treatment, or whether scandal +whispered at criminal complicity. The Princess Charlotte died on November +6, 1817; three months later—on February 13, 1818—Sir Richard Croft, in +despair, shot himself. He was but fifty-six years of age.</p> + +<p>Years later—in 1832—when Lady Ann Hamilton’s extraordinary scribblings +were published in two volumes under the title of “A Secret History of the +Court of England, from 1760 to the Death of George IV.,” these old rumours +were crystallized into a definite charge of murder against some nobleman +whose name is prudently veiled under a blank. The Princess, says Lady +Hamilton, was in a fair way of recovery, and a cup of broth was given her; +but after partaking of it she died in convulsions. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> nurse who handed +her the cup noticed a dark red sediment at the bottom, and on tasting it +found her tongue blistered! This peer, according to Lady Hamilton, acted +with the connivance of the King, George III., and his glorified German +<i>hausfrau</i>, and with the approval of the Princess’s father, the Regent, +who, it is asserted in those pages, was heard to say some time previously +at Esher that “no child of the Princess Charlotte shall ever sit upon the +throne of England.” Lady Ann Hamilton, however, was a malevolent gossip, +holding the most extreme Radical views, and as a personal friend and +uncompromising partisan of Caroline, Princess of Wales,—that silly and +phenomenally undignified woman—was eager to believe anything, no matter +how atrocious, of her husband and his people.</p> + +<p>No member of the Royal Family was present at the Princess Charlotte’s +death-bed. She died, with the sole exception of her husband, Prince +Leopold, amid physicians and domestics.</p> + +<p>The King and Queen were (says Lady Hamilton) a hundred and eight miles +away, and the Regent was either at Carlton House or staying with the +Marquis of Hertford (or rather the <i>Marchioness</i>, she adds, in significant +italics).</p> + +<p>It is said that Lady Ann Hamilton’s writings, published as a “Secret +History,” were given to the world, without her knowledge or consent, by a +gentleman who had obtained the manuscript. Certain it is that when these +two volumes appeared, in 1832, they were suppressed; and some four years +later, when some other manuscripts belonging to the author<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> were +advertised for sale by auction, they were hastily bought up on behalf of a +royal personage, and, it is believed, destroyed.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to understand the hardihood which asserted at that time +that the Princess Charlotte had been the victim of a murderous conspiracy +between her nearest relatives; the more especially because her death would +not seem to have been any one’s immediate great gain. Had it been of great +advantage to any prominent member of the Royal Family, the suspicion might +have been better founded, for royalty has no monopoly of virtue, while the +temptations of its position are a hundredfold greater than those of lower +estate. The history of royal houses shows that murder has frequently +altered the line of succession, but surely the House of Brunswick (that +heavy and phlegmatic line) never soared to this tragic height, or plumbed +such depths of crime in modern times.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘MR. SMITH’</i></div> + +<p>For many years after the death of the Princess Charlotte, Claremont was +closed, the rooms unoccupied, and left in much the condition they were +then. Prince Leopold became, by the death of his wife, life-owner of the +place, but its sad memories led him to leave it for ever. In after years +the Prince became King of the Belgians, and, in 1832, a year after this +advancement, married the eldest daughter of Louis Philippe, King of the +French. Sixteen years later, during the stress of the French Revolution of +1848, that <i>bourgeois</i> King fled from Paris and crossed the Channel as +“Mr. Smith,” and his son-in-law placed Claremont at the disposal of the +<i>émigré<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> malgré lui</i>. Here he died in 1850. In 1865 the King of the +Belgians died, and Claremont reverted to the Crown. Six years later the +Marquis and Marchioness of Lorne stayed here on the occasion of their +marriage, and when the Queen’s youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of +Albany, was married, Claremont became his home. But the Duke died in 1884, +and the house is now in the occupation of his widow.</p> + +<p>Claremont, indeed, is a place weighted with memories and sad thoughts of +the “might have been.” If only the intrepid Clive had lived to take the +field against our rebellious colonists, as it was proposed he should do, +it seems likely that the New England States had yet been ours, and +Washington surely hanged or shot. Then North America had not become the +safe refuge of political murderers commanding sympathetic ears at the +White House, nor had we ever heard of the <i>scagliola</i> fripperies of a +Presidential Reception. But a dull and obstinate King, a stupid ministry, +and incompetent generals combined to lose us those colonies, and death +snatched away untimely the foremost military genius of the time, to leave +statesmen in despair at what they thought was surely the decay of a +glorious Empire.</p> + +<p>How changed, too, would have been the succession had the Princess +Charlotte lived! The Sailor King—that most unaffected and heartiest of +monarchs, whom the irreverent witlings of his day called “Silly Billy,” +for no particular reason that I know of—would have still remained Duke of +Clarence, and the Princess Victoria would have been but a mere cousin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> of +another Queen. But no matter what Fate has in store for other Houses, the +Coburger reaps an advantage, whate’er befalls; and though one is relegated +to a less distinguished career by the death of his consort, another of +that prolific race becomes the husband of a Queen, and the father of our +future Kings.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XIII</h2> + + +<p>But it is a long way yet to Guildford, and eight miles to our next change, +at the “Talbot” Hotel, Ripley; equally with the Esher “Bear” a coaching +inn of long and honourable lineage. Let us then proceed without more ado +down the road.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>FAIRMILE</i></div> + +<p>Fairmile Common is the next place of note, and it is especially notable +from the coaching point of view, by reason of the flatness of the road +that is supposed to be the only level mile between London and Guildford. +Along this Fair Mile, then, the coachmen of by-past generations generally +took the opportunity of “springing” their cattle, and as they were +“sprung” then, so they are to-day, over this best of galloping-grounds, +the said “springing” bringing us, in less than no time, to Cobham Street, +where there is a very fine and large roadside inn indeed, called the +“White Lion.” If the coach stopped here, you would be able to verify this +statement by an exploration of the interior, which is as cosy and cheerful +within as it is bare and cold and inhospitable-looking without—at least, +those are my sentiments. But, then, the coach doesn’t stop, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> goes +dashing round the corner and over the river Mole and up Pain’s Hill in the +“twinkling of a bed-post,” that somewhat clumsy <i>façon de parler</i>.</p> + +<p>Now, if you walked leisurely this way, there would be time for talking of +many interesting things. Firstly, as to Fairmile itself, which is worth +lingering over upon a fine summer’s day.</p> + +<p>Fairmile Common is associated, in local tradition, with the following +tragedy. Two young brothers of the Vincent family of Stoke D’Abernon, the +elder of whom had but just come into possession of his estate, were out on +a shooting expedition from that village. They had put up several birds, +but had not been able to get a single shot, when the eldest swore with a +great oath that he would fire at whatever they next met with. They had +gone but little further when the miller of the neighbouring mill passed +them and bade them good-day. When he had passed, the younger brother +jokingly reminded the elder of his oath, whereupon the latter immediately +fired at the miller, who fell dead upon the spot. The murderer escaped to +his home, and, by family influence, backed by large sums of money, no +effective steps were taken for his arrest. He was concealed upon his +estate for some years, when he died from remorse. To commemorate his rash +act and his untimely death, a monument was placed in Stoke D’Abernon +Church, bearing the “bloody hand” which no doubt gave rise to the whole +story.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>COBHAM STREET</i></div> + +<p>The red hand of Ulster, badge of honourable distinction, is not +understanded by the country folk, and so, to account for it, the Stoke +D’Abernon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> villagers have evolved this moving tale. That is my view of the +legend. If you are curious concerning it, why, Stoke D’Abernon is near at +hand, and there, in as charming a village church as you could wish to see, +filled, beside, with archæological interest, is this memorial. Did space +suffice (which it doesn’t) much might be said of Stoke D’Abernon, of +Slyfield Farm, and of Cobham village; which last must on no account be +confounded with Cobham Street. The latter place is, in fact, just an +offshoot (though an old one ’tis true) of the original village, and it +arose out of the large amount of custom that was always going along the +Portsmouth Road in olden times.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img35.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">COBHAM CHURCHYARD.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Cobham Street stood here in receipt of this custom and of much patronage +from that very fine high-handed gentleman, the Honourable Charles +Hamilton,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> who in the reign of George II. filched a large tract of common +land just beyond the other side of the Mole, enclosed it, and by the +expenditure of vast sums of money caused such gardens to blossom here, +such caves and grottoes to be formed, and such cunning dispositions of +statuary to be made (all in the classic taste of the time) that that +carping critic, Horace Walpole, was compelled to a reluctant admiration. +And this was the origin of the estate still known as Pain’s Hill.</p> + +<p class="poem">“’Tis very bad, in man or woman,<br /> +To steal a goose from off the common:<br /> +But who shall plead that man’s excuse<br /> +Who steals the common from the goose?”</p> + +<p>Thus the metrical moralist. But this was common sport (no joke intended +here!) during last century and in the beginning of this, and if a man +stole a few hundred acres in this way, he was thought none the worse of +for it. For all that, however, the Honourable Charles Hamilton was nothing +more, in fact, than a common thief, with this difference—that the poor +devil who “prigged” a handkerchief was hanged for petty larceny, while the +rich man who stole land on a large scale, and converted it to his own +uses, was hailed as a man of taste and culture, and his robbery commended.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img36.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">PAIN’S HILL.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>WISLEY</i></div> + +<p>Pain’s Hill looms up finely as one turns the corner of Cobham Street and +crosses the Mole by the successor of the bridge built here by the “Good +Queen Maud,” in place of the ford where one of her maids-of-honour was +drowned. There are more inns here, and their humped and bowed roofs make +an excellent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> composition in a sketch, with the remarkable mop-like trees +of Pain’s Hill Park seen in silhouette beyond. To Pain’s Hill succeeds +Tartar Hill and Wisley Common; sombre fir trees lining the road and +reflected in the great pond that spreads like some mystic mere over many +acres. The “Huts” Hotel, however, rebuilt and aggressively modern, is not +at all mystic, and neither are the crowds of thirsty, dusty cyclists who +frequent it on summer days.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> +<h2>XIV</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>CYCLING</i></div> + +<p>The Portsmouth Road, from London to Ripley, has, any time these last +twenty years, been the most frequented by cyclists of any road in England. +The “Ripley Road,” as it is generally known among wheelmen, is throughout +the year, but more especially in the spring and summer months, alive with +cycles and noisy with the ringing of cycle-bells. On Saturday afternoons, +and on fine Sundays, an almost inconceivable number take a journey down +these twenty-three miles from London, and back again in the evening; +calling at the “Angel,” at Ditton, on the way, and taking tea at their +Mecca, the “Anchor,” at Ripley. The road is excellent for cycling, but so +also are a number of others, equally accessible, around London, and it +must be acknowledged that the “Ripley Road” is as much favoured by a +singular freak of fashion in cycling, and as illogically, as a particular +walk in Hyde Park is affected by Society on Sundays. But in cycling +circles (apt phrase!) it is quite the correct thing to be seen at Ditton +or at Ripley on a Sunday, and every one who is any one in that sport and +pastime, be-devilled as it is now-a-days with shady professionalism and +the transparently subsidized performances of the makers’ amateurs, must be +there. The “Ripley Road,” now-a-days, is, in fact, the stalking-ground of +self-advertising long-distance riders, of cliquey and boisterous club-men, +and of the immodest women who wear breeches awheel. The tourist, and the +man who only has a fancy for the cycle as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> means of healthful exercise, +and does not join the membership of a club, give the “Ripley Road” a wide +berth.</p> + +<p>The frequenters of this road became in 1894 such an unmitigated nuisance +and source of danger to the public in passing through Kingston-on-Thames, +that the local bench of magistrates were obliged to institute proceedings +against a number of cyclists for furious driving, and for riding machines +without lights or bells. According to the evidence given by an inspector +of police, no fewer than twenty thousand cyclists passed through Kingston +on Whit Sunday, 1894.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img37.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">FAME UP-TO-DATE.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Coaching men hate the cyclist with a bitter hatred, and he will ever be to +them a <i>bête noir</i> of the blackest hue. It may not be generally known that +the contumelious expression of “cads on castors,” which has become so +widespread that it has almost obtained the popularity of a proverb, +originated with Edmund Yates; but he was really the author of that +scornful epithet, whose apt alliteration will probably never be forgotten, +though the “castors” be evolved into hitherto undreamed-of patterns, and +the race of cads who earned the appellation be dead and gone. The +expression “cads on castors” will, with that other humorous epithet, +“Brompton boilers,” achieve immortality when cycling is obsolete, and the +corrugated iron roofs of the Bethnal Green Museum are rusted away. The +objectionable phrase of “bounders on box-seats,” which some cycling +journalists have flung back at their coaching critics has not run to +anything like the popularity of the other, and more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> apt, effort of +alliterative conciseness; for the prejudices of the lieges have, up to +now, been chiefly in favour of the whips and horsey men to whom the cycle +is the “poor man’s horse,” and therefore to be condemned. Will the sport +and pastime of cycling ever become aristocratic? It is to be feared or +hoped (accordingly as you admire or detest the cycle) that it will never +win to this regard: at least, not while the road-racing clubs and +individual cyclists continue to render the Queen’s highway dangerous for +all other travellers; not so long as that peculiar species of Fame, which +is more properly Notoriety, continues to be trumpeted abroad concerning +the doings of racing cyclists who strive, not for the English love of +sport, but for the cheques awarded them by the long-headed manufacturers +whose machines they ride—and advertise.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img38.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “ANCHOR,” RIPLEY.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>RIPLEY</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>But cycling has brought much prosperity to Ripley village and its two +antiquated inns, the “Talbot” and the “Anchor.” A few years ago, indeed +(before cycling had become so popular), the “Talbot” was closed and given +over to solitude and mice, but now-a-days one may be as well served there +as at any country hostel you please to mention. The company, however, of +the “Talbot” is not exclusively made up of wheelmen of the gregarious (or +club) species, and a decent tourist who is neither a scorcher nor a wearer +of badges, nor anything else of the “attached” variety, may rest himself +there with quiet and comfort, except on high days and Bank holidays: on +which occasions the quiet and peaceable man generally stays at home, +preferring solitude to the over-much company he would find on the road.</p> + +<p>But if you wish to see the club-wheelman in his most characteristic moods, +why then the “Anchor” is your inn, for in the low-ceiled rooms that lurk +dimly behind the queer, white-washed gables of that old house, cycling +clubmen foregather in any number, limited only by the capacity of the inn. +The place is given over to cyclists, and beside the road, behind the +house, or on the broad common upon which this roadside village fronts, +their machines are stacked as thickly as in the store-rooms of some +manufactory.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img39.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">HERBERT LIDDELL CORTIS.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>At the further end of the village stands the ancient but much-restored +chapel of Ripley, interesting to cyclists by reason of the memorial window +inserted here to the memory of an early cycling hero of the +race-path—Herbert Liddell Cortis—who died, shortly after reaching +Australia, at Carcoar, New South Wales, on December 28, 1885. Interest of +another kind may be found in the architecture of the Earl of Lovelace’s +beautiful seat, Ockham Park, that borders the road, just before entering +the village; and in the ruins of Newark Abbey, that lie on the banks of +the Wey, across Ripley Green. But time and tide wait for no man, and the +“New Times” coach is equally impatient of delay. Two minutes suffice for +changing teams at the “Talbot,” and off that heir of the coaching age goes +again.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> +<h2>XV.</h2> + + +<p>For six miles the road runs level, from Ripley to Guildford, forming +excellent galloping ground for the horses of the “New Times” coach. All +the way the scenery is pretty, but with no very striking features, and +villas dot the roadside for a considerable distance. On the left hand the +coach passes Clandon Park, and on the right comes Mr. Frederic Harrison’s +historic house, Sutton Place, and Stoke Park, that takes its name from the +village of Stoke-next-Guildford.</p> + +<p>Past some outlying waste lands and over railway bridges, the coach rattles +down the sharp descent into Guildford town; down the narrow High +Street—the steepest, they say, in England, and certainly the stoniest—to +draw up before the “Angel,” punctually at two o’clock.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PROVINCIALITY</i></div> + +<p>Guildford is no more than thirty miles from London, and yet it remains to +this day as provincial in appearance as ever it could have been in the +olden times of road-travel. Provinciality was the pet bugbear of Matthew +Arnold, but he applied it as a scornful term only to literary and critical +shortcomings. To him the vapourings of modern poetasters would have been +provincialisms, and the narrow-minded criticisms of Mr. George Howells, +who can see nothing in Shakespeare, but perceives a wealth of genius in +his fellow-novelists of the United States, would have been provincialisms +of the worst order.</p> + +<p>But the provinciality of places, as distinguished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> from minds, can be no +reproach in these latter days, when all the great towns, with London at +their head, have grown so large and congested that a sight of God’s pure +country and a breath of healthy air are only to be obtained by most +townsfolk with infinite pains and great expenditure of time. It was an +evil day when the great cities of England grew so large that one who +ascended a church steeple in their midst could discover nothing on the +horizon but chimney-pots and bricks-and-mortar; and the best of times were +those when weary citizens took their pleasure after the day’s work in the +fields and groves that bordered upon the habitations of men. What are +Progress and Civilization but will-o’-wisps conjured up by the malignity +of the devil to hide the degeneration of the race and the starvation of +the soul, when the outcome of the centuries is the shutting out from the +face of nature of three-fourths of the population? What else than a sorry +jest is the boast of London’s five millions of people, when by far the +greater proportion of those five millions never know what country life +means, nor even what is the mitigated rusticity of a provincial town in +whose centre you can open your casement of a morning and welcome the sun +rising in a clear sky, listen to the morning chorus of the birds, and see, +though you be in the very midst of the provincial microcosm, the fields +and hedge-rows, the streams and rural lanes of the country-side?</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img40.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">GUILDHALL, GUILDFORD.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GUILDFORD</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>Guildford, then, is provincial in the best and healthiest sense; for +though your habitat be in the High Street, which here, as in all other +properly-constituted towns, is the very nucleus of the borough, you +need never be longer than ten minutes in leaving the town behind if you +are so minded. Guildford is a town of very individual character. Godalming +folks will tell you that Guildford is “cliquey,” by which term I +understand exclusiveness to be meant. It may be so, in fact I believe this +to be one of Guildford’s most marked social characteristics; but +exclusiveness implies local patriotism, which is a refreshing spirit for a +Londoner to encounter once in a way. At any rate, he will find no spirit +of this description in what Cobbett satirically termed “the Wen.” The +patriotism of Peckham has yet to be discovered; the local enthusiasm of +Camberwell is as rare as the song of the lark in London streets; and the +man who would now praise what was once the country village of “merrie” +Islington is not to be found.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to pluck even one greatly outstanding incident from +Guildford’s history wherewith to enliven these pages, for although +Guildford possessed a strong and well-placed castle from Norman times, it +cannot be said that the annals of the town are at all distinguished by +records of battle, murder, and sudden death, or by military prowess. So +much the better for Guildford town, you will say, and the expression may +be allowed, for this old borough has ever been eminently peaceful and +prosperous in the absence of civil or military commotion. Its very name is +earnest of trade and merchandise; and the guilds of Guildford were very +powerful bodies of traders who dealt in cloths and wool, at one time the +chiefest of local products, or in the minor articles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> that ministered to +the wants of those great staple trades.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the guardians of the old Castle, whose keep still dominates +Guildford from most points of view, had little enough to do but to keep +the place in order for such occasions when the King came a-hunting in the +neighbourhood, or progressed past here to some distant part of the realm. +King John seems to have been by far the most frequent royal visitor to +Guildford Castle, and almost the last, for the cold comforts of Norman +keeps went very early out of fashion with kings and queens, and domestic +hearths began to replace dungeon-like apartments in chilly towers as soon +as social conditions began to settle down into something remotely +resembling tranquillity.</p> + +<p>Guildford Keep stands at this day in gardens belonging to the Corporation, +and free to all. It is of the Norman type, familiarized to many by prints +of such well-known Norman towers as those of Rochester and of Hedingham +Castles, and is at this time a mere shell, open to the sky. Within the +thickness of the walls are staircases by which it is possible to climb to +the summit and gaze thence down upon the red roofs of the town that +cluster so picturesquely beneath. Here, too, is a Norman oratory, whose +narrow walls are covered with names and figures scratched deeply into the +stone, “probably,” says a local guide, “the work of prisoners confined +here.” But “J. Robinson, 1892,” was surely no prisoner within these +bounds, although he should have been who thus carved his undistinguished +name here.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img41.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">CASTLE ARCH.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE GUILDHALL</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>Beside the keep there remains but one archway of all the extensive +military works that at one time surrounded the Castle. This is in Quarry +Street, and is known as Castle Arch. The chalk caverns close at hand, and +the vaulted crypt beneath the “Angel,” although they have long been looked +upon as dungeons, had, according to the best-informed of local +archæologists, no connection whatever with the Castle. Perhaps even before +the Castle keep, the delightfully quaint old Guildhall is the most +characteristic feature of Guildford’s architecture. Compared with that old +stronghold, the Guildhall is the merest <i>parvenu</i>, having been built in +1683; but, comparisons of age apart, there is no parallel to be drawn +between the two. The old tower is four-square and stern, with only the +picturesqueness that romance can find, while the belfried tower and the +boldly-projecting clock that impends massively over the pavements of the +High Street, and gives the time o’ day to the good folks of the town, are +the pride of the eye and the delight of the artistic sense of all them +that know how to appreciate at their true æsthetic value those memorials +of the old corporate spirit of business and good-fellowship that have long +since vanished from municipal practice. The legend that may still be read +upon the Corporation mace, of Elizabethan date, is earnest of this +old-time amity. Thus it runs: “Fayre God. Doe Justice. Love thy Brether.” +Set against this, the proceedings of the Kingston-upon-Thames Town Council +of some few weeks back make ugly reading, and at the same time illustrate +the new spirit very vividly indeed. You who list to learn may read in the +records for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the present year of that old borough, that while one member +of the Council stigmatized another member’s statements as falsehoods, the +first rejoined that his accuser was, in plain English, “a liar.” Appealed +to by the Mayor to withdraw the offensive expression, he refused, and the +Mayor and Corporation filed out of the Council-chamber, leaving him to his +own reflections.</p> + +<p>That the burghers of Guildford were always the best of friends one with +another is not my contention; that the dignity of their ancient +surroundings should conduce to loving-kindness may remain unquestioned.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XVI</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GEORGE ABBOT</i></div> + +<p>The greatest of Guildford’s worthies was George Abbot, the son of Maurice +Abbot, a clothworker of this town, and his wife Alice. He was born in +1562, the eldest of that “happy ternion of brothers,” as Fuller quaintly +describes him and his two younger brothers, who became respectively Bishop +of Salisbury and Lord Mayor of London. The parents of these distinguished +men came very near to martyrdom in the reign of Queen Mary, for they were +both ardent Protestants; but, escaping the fate that befell many others, +they had the happiness of seeing their children rise in the world far +beyond all local expectations. Alice Abbot, indeed, had a singular dream +which foretold that “if she could eat a jack or pike, the first son she +should bring into the world would be a great <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>man.” A few days afterwards +(so runs the story) she drew up a pike from the river Wey while filling +buckets for household use; and, in accord with the promptings of her +dream, ate it. “Many people of quality offered themselves to be sponsors +at the baptism of Mistress Alice’s son—the future Archbishop,” says +Aubrey; and if the dream itself was nothing but the result of a late +supper acting upon a vivid imagination, certainly local interest in +“Mistress Alice’s” account of it procured for her firstborn quite an +exceptional degree of favour and consideration. He was educated first at +the Free Grammar School of Guildford, and was sent at the age of sixteen +to Balliol College. Thenceforward his rise was rapid. He studied theology, +and became tutor to the sons of influential personages. Excellent +preferments in the Church became his at an early age, and through many +stages of favour he became Archbishop of Canterbury in his forty-ninth +year. His rise was undoubtedly due to native worth, for Abbot was a +scholar of the foremost rank, and well equipped, both by study and by +force of character, to hold his own in the fierce religious controversies +of his time. He was, moreover, honest, and had little of the truckler or +the time-server in his nature, as his opposition both to James I. and +Charles I. showed, on occasion. It is to his righteous opposition that +Charterhouse School, now down the road at Godalming, owes its very +existence; for, when the cupidity of James I. was aroused over the +provisions of Thomas Sutton’s will, and when he attempted to divert that +pious founder’s money to his own uses, Abbot withstood the attempt, and +the King was fain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> to give way—with an ill grace, ’tis true, but +effectually enough.</p> + +<p>Abbot was nothing of a courtier, and, indeed, no very pleasant-natured +man. He was sour of aspect and morose; gloomy and fanatic in religion, and +no less swift to send religious opponents to the stake than the Catholic +inquisitors of a generation before his time. He had a strong and militant +affection for the reformed religion, and held a singularly lonely position +between the levelling puritanical-democratic doctrines of the age and the +High Church party. A Calvinistic narrowness distinguished this great man’s +public acts, and he was sufficiently Puritan in spirit to look with +disfavour upon, and to absolutely forbid, Sunday sports. His truculent +religious views appeared in a lurid light shortly after he became +Archbishop, when he condemned two Arians to death for what he held to be +“blasphemous heresy.” These two unfortunate men, Bartholomew Legate and +Edward Wightman, were burnt in 1614, three years after their sentence, as +the “recompence of their pride and impiety.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the mind of the Archbishop was liberal enough in other +directions. He could send religious dissenters to a horrible death, and +look back with satisfaction upon his handiwork, while, at the same time, +he was maturing the plans and provisions for the noble almshouse that +still stands in Guildford High Street and bears the honoured name of +Abbot’s Hospital.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A SAD MISCHANCE</i></div> + +<p>In 1619 he laid the first stone of his “Hospital,” and three years later +had the satisfaction of seeing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>it incorporated by Royal Charter; a +satisfaction clouded by an accident that embittered the remainder of his +life. The story of this untoward event illustrates at once the morbid +habit of his mind and the bitter passions of those times. It was in 1621, +while with a hunting party in Bramshill Park, that this thing befell. A +large party had assembled by the invitation of Lord Zouch, and chased the +deer through the glades of that lovely park. The Archbishop drew his bow +at a buck, and at the same time that the arrow sped, a gamekeeper, one +Peter Hawkins, darted forward between the trees, and received the shaft in +his heart.</p> + +<p>A coroner’s jury returned a verdict by which the accident was attributed +to the man’s negligence in exposing himself to danger after having been +warned; but Abbot was greatly distressed, and so heavily did the +occurrence weigh upon him that, to the time of his death, in 1632, he kept +a monthly fast on a Tuesday, the day of the gamekeeper’s death. He also +settled an annuity of £20 upon the man’s widow.</p> + +<p>The King declared that “an angel might have miscarried in such sort,” and +that “no one but a fool or a knave would think worse of a man for such an +accident”; but it suited Abbot’s religious rivals and opponents to regard +with public aversion one “whose hands were imbrued with blood”; and his +clergy, who had felt the curb of the Archbishop’s discipline too acutely +to let this chance slip, felt or expressed a horror of their spiritual +head ever afterwards. Others even went so far as to refuse ordination at +the hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> of a homicide, and bishops-elect scrupled to receive +consecration from him, until the Royal Pardon had been obtained and the +conscience of the Church satisfied.</p> + +<p>For all his opposition to James I., the Archbishop lost a good friend when +that pragmatical monarch died, and gained an enemy when Charles I. came to +the throne. The High Church party were then in the ascendant, and Abbot, +from various causes, declined from favour. In 1627 he was sequestered, and +the Archbishopric of Canterbury put into commission of five bishops, of +whom Laud, Abbot’s particular enemy, was one.</p> + +<p>These misfortunes at length broke Abbot’s health, which finally failed in +1632. At the beginning of that year he seemed upon the point of death, but +revived somewhat, and a letter, still preserved, written by an especial +friend at this juncture, hinted at the indecency of those who expected his +end, and says—“If any other prelate gape at his benefice, his Grace +perhaps may eat the goose which shall graze upon his grave.”</p> + +<p>But death came upon Abbot that same year. He made an edifying end at +Croydon, and was buried, by his own request, in Trinity Church, opposite +the Hospital he had founded in his native town.</p> + +<p>Eight years afterwards, the Archbishop’s brother, Sir Maurice Abbot, +erected the sumptuous monument there which Pepys admired on one of his +visits to Guildford. It still remains, although the church itself (one of +Guildford’s three churches) has been rebuilt.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> +<h2>XVII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE INN-YARD</i></div> + +<p>Guildford has many old inns, as befits an old town which lay directly upon +an old coach-road. Of these the chiefest lie in the High Street, and they +are the “Angel,” the “Crown,” the “White Hart,” and the “Red Lion.” The +“Red Lion” has a modernized frontage, but within it is the same hostelry +at which Mr. Samuel Pepys stayed, time and again; the others are more +suggestive of the flower of the coaching age and of Pickwickian revels; +but in these latter days the wide race of “commercial gentlemen” and the +somewhat stolid and beefy grazier class are their more usual guests. +Behind their prosperous-looking fronts are the vast stable-yards, +approached from the High Street by yawning archways that “once upon a +time” admitted the coaches, and whence issued the carriages and +post-chaises of a by-gone day; now echoing with the rumble of the omnibus +that plies between the town and the railway-station, laden chiefly with +the sample-boxes of enterprising bagmen. But in that “once upon a time,” +whose chronology finally determined and came to an end in the ’40’s, there +was a superabundance of coach traffic here.</p> + +<p>Hogarth has left a picture of a typical country inn-yard of his time which +shows, better than any amount of unaided description, what manner of +places they were whence started the lumbering stages of last century. No +one has yet identified the picture, reproduced here, with any particular +inn, although some have sought to place it in Essex, because of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +election crowd seen in the background carrying an effigy and a banner +inscribed with the weird, and at first sight incomprehensible, legend “No +Old Baby.” A candidate named Child stood for one of the Essex boroughs +about this date, and, according to Hogarth commentators, this group was +intended as an incidental satire upon him. On the other hand, the +likelihood of this being really an inn-yard upon the Portsmouth Road is +seen by the sailor who occupies a somewhat insecure position upon the roof +of the coach beside a French valet, and whose bundle is inscribed +“Centurion.” The “Centurion,” one of Anson’s squadron, put in repeatedly +at Portsmouth, and the sailor is apparently on a journey home, fresh from +the sea and from Anson’s command.</p> + +<p>The scene is very amusing, and most of the interest centres in the +foreground, where a coach is seen, about to start. An old woman sits +smoking in the rumble-tumble behind, while a traveller looks on and pays +no heed to the post-boy who holds his hat in readiness for a tip. A guest +is about to depart, and the landlord is seen presenting his bill. He seems +to be assuring his customer that his charges are strictly moderate; but, +judging from the sour expression of the latter’s face, mine host has been +overcharging him for a good round sum. Meanwhile, the devil’s own din is +being sounded by the fat landlady, who is ringing her bell violently for +the chambermaid, and by a noisy fellow who is winding a horn out of window +with all his might. The chambermaid is otherwise engaged, for an amorous +spark is seen to be kissing her in the open doorway.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 395px;"><img src="images/img42.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">AN INN-YARD, 1747. <i>After Hogarth.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>COACHES</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>So greatly was Guildford High Street crowded in the old coaching times +that, just about a hundred years ago, it was widened at one point by the +slicing off of a portion from one of Guildford’s three churches which +projected inconveniently into the roadway. To gaze upon what is still a +very narrow street, and to remember that this is its “widened” state, is +calculated to impress a stranger with the singular parsimony of our +ancestors, when land was comparatively cheap and considerations of space +presumably not so pressing.</p> + +<p>The pressure of traffic here in the Augustan age of coaching will be +better understood when it is learned that not only did the Portsmouth +coaches pass through Guildford, and the numerous local stages that ran no +further than Guildford and Godalming, but that the Southampton coaches +came thus far, and only turned off from this road at a point just beyond +the town. The celebrated “Red Rover” Southampton coach came this way, and +so did the equally famous “Telegraph”; and, leaving Guildford behind, they +pursued their way to Southampton by way of Farnham and Winchester. To this +route belonged many celebrated whips of those times whose names are almost +unmeaning now-a-days; and some of the best of these once well-known +wielders of the whipcord were stopped by Fate and the Railway in the full +force of their careers. Happy the man whose spirit was not too stubborn to +submit gracefully and at once to the new dispensation, and to seek +employment on the rail. Good servants of the road found equally good +places on the railways—if they chose to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> them. But (and can you +wonder at it?) they rarely chose to accept, having naturally the bitterest +prejudices against the railways and everything that belonged to them; and +many men wasted their energies and expended their savings in a fruitless +endeavour to compete with steam, when they could have transferred their +allegiance from the road to the rail with honour and profit to themselves +and no less to their employers. John Peers, a well-known coachman, and +driver of the London and Southampton “Telegraph,” was reduced by the +coming of the railway to driving an omnibus. From this position, being +scornful and quarrelsome, unable to adapt himself to changed +circumstances, and altogether “above his station,” he drifted finally into +the workhouse. A gentleman who had known him well upon the box-seat in +more prosperous days, discovered him in this refuge of the +poverty-stricken and superseded; started a subscription for him amongst +his former patrons, and rescued him from the small mercies and little ease +of the Guardians of the Poor. He was housed upon the road he had driven +over so often in the days before steam had come to ruin the coaching +interest, and there, in due course, he died.</p> + +<p>And his was a fate happier than that of most others—coachmen, guards, +post-boys, and ostlers—thrown out of employment by railways, and unable +or unwilling to adapt themselves to new surroundings. Many of these soured +and disappointed men lived on and on in a vain hope of “new-fangled +notions” coming to a speedy and disastrous failure. When accidents +occurred and lives were lost by railway smashes, their faces were lit +up with a wintry joy, and they wagged their heads with an air of profound +wisdom, and said individually, “I told you so!” When the “Railway Mania” +of 1844 and succeeding years collapsed and brought the inevitable +financial crash, they chuckled, and felt by anticipation the ribbons in +their hands again. But though financial disasters came on top of +collisions, and though the system of railway travel seemed for a while +like a bubble on point of bursting, the promise was never fulfilled, and +the old coachmen who actually did drive the roads once more did so as +ministers to the amateur spirit that has since 1863 caused so many coaches +to be put upon the country roads of Old England.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 400px;"><img src="images/img43.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “RED ROVER” GUILDFORD AND SOUTHAMPTON COACH.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> +<h2>XVIII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>INEPT CRITICISM</i></div> + +<p>Directly the river Wey is crossed, either in leaving or entering +Guildford, the road begins to rise steeply. Going towards Godalming, it +brings the traveller in a mile’s walk to the ruined chapel of St. +Catherine, standing on a sandstone hill beside the highway, whose red +sides are burrowed by rabbits and sand-martins. The chapel has been ruined +time out of mind, and is to-day but a motive for a sketch. One of Turner’s +best plates in his “<i>Liber Studiorum</i>” has St. Catherine’s Chapel for its +subject, and to the criticism of Turner’s work comes the Rev. Mr. Stopford +Brooke, in this wise:—“It is no picturesque place. Turner painted English +life as it was; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the struggle of the poor is uppermost in his mind in +all these rustic subjects ... pathetic feeling is given them by Turner’s +anxious kindness.”</p> + +<p>No picturesque place! Where, then, do you find picturesqueness if not +here? And as for Turner, the man who dares to say that he “painted English +life as it was,” dares much. It is the chiefest glory of Turner that he +painted or drew or etched things, not as they were, but as they might, +could, should, or would be under an artist’s direction. He was, in short, +an idealist, and cared nothing for “actuality,” and perhaps even less for +the “struggle of the poor.” It is possible to read anything you please +into Turner’s work, for it is chiefly of the frankest impressionism; but +to say that <i>he</i> felt and did all these things is criticism of the most +inept Penny Reading order. Turner was an artist of the rarest and most +generous equipment, and he <i>had</i> to do what he did, and never reasoned +<i>why</i> he did it. Ruskin surprised him with what he read into his work; how +much more, then, would he have been astonished at Mr. Stopford Brooke’s +“Notes on the <i>Liber Studiorum</i>,” had he lived to read them! But angels +and ministers of grace defend us from ministers of religion who essay art +criticism!</p> + +<p>And now, having descanted upon the wisdom of the cobbler sticking to his +last, or of the clergyman adhering rigorously to his spiritual functions, +let us proceed to Godalming on foot.</p> + +<p>“Everybody that has been from Godalming to Guildford knows,” says Cobbett, +“that there is hardly another such a pretty four miles in all England. The +road is good; the soil is good; the houses are neat; the people are +neat; the hills, the woods, the meadows, all are beautiful. Nothing wild +and bold, to be sure, but exceedingly pretty; and it is almost impossible +to ride along these four miles without feelings of pleasure, though you +have rain for your companion, as it happened to be with me.”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 392px;"><img src="images/img44.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">ST CATHERINE’S CHAPEL. <i>After J. M. W. Turner.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>There! is that not a pretty testimony in favour of this stretch of road? +And it is all the prettier, seeing from what source it comes; a source, to +be sure, whence proceeded cursings and revilings, depreciations, and a +thorough belittling of most things. Cobbett, you see, was a man with an +infinite capacity for scorn and indignation, and that bias very frequently +led him to take no account of things that a more evenly-balanced temper +would have found delight in. But here is an altogether exceptional +passage, and therefore let us treasure it.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GODALMING DERIVATIVES</i></div> + +<p>When within sight of Godalming, the road descends suddenly and proceeds +along level lands through which runs the winding Wey. All around, a bold +amphitheatre of hills closes the view, and the queer little town is set +down by the meadows beside the river in the most moist and damp situation +imaginable. It is among the smallest and least progressive of townships; +with narrow streets, the most tortuous and deceptive, paved with granite +setts and cobble-stones in varied patches. Godalming is a town as old as +the Kingdom of the South Saxons, and indeed derives its name from some +seventh-century Godhelm, to whom this fair meadowland (or “ing”) then +belonged. Godhelm’s Ing remains<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> in, probably, almost the same condition +now as when, a thousand years and more ago, the Saxon chieftain squatted +down beside the Wey in this break of the hills and reared his flocks and +herds, and was, in the fashion of those remote times, the father of his +people. The little river runs its immemorial course, gnawed by winter +flood and summer spate, through the alluvial soil of the valley; the grass +grows green as ever, and the kine thrive as they have always done upon its +succulent fare; the hoary hills look down upon the lowlands in these days, +when agitators would restore the Heptarchy, just as they did when the +strife of the Eight Kingdoms watered the island with blood. Only Godhelm +and his contemporaries, with his descendants and many succeeding +generations, are gone and have left no trace, save perhaps in the ancient +divisions and hedges of the fields, like those of the greater part of +England, old beyond the memory of man, or the evidence of engrossed +parchments. Where the Saxon chieftain’s primitive village arose, on a spot +ever so little elevated above the grazing grounds beside the river, there +run Godalming streets to-day; their plan, if not so old as the days of +this patriarch farmer, at least as ancient as the Norman Conquest, when +the invaders dispossessed his descendants and kept them overawed by the +strong castle of Guildford, perched in a strategic position, four miles up +the road.</p> + +<p>Not that those stolid agriculturists required much repression. Malcontents +there might be elsewhere, but here, upon the borders of the great +Andredwald—the dense forest that stretched almost continuously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> from the +Thames to the South Coast—the peaceful herdsmen were content to +acknowledge their new masters, so only they might be left undisturbed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GODALMING</i></div> + +<p>And respectable obscurity has ever been the distinguishing characteristic +of Godalming. At intervals, indeed, we hear of it as the site of a +hunting-lodge of the Merry Monarch; and once, in 1726, “Godliman” (as the +vulgar tongue had it then)<a name='fna_3' id='fna_3' href='#f_3'><small>[3]</small></a> was the scene of a most remarkable +imposture; but, generally speaking, the town lived on, the world +forgetting and by the world forgot, saving only those whose business +carried them here by coach on their way to or from Portsmouth; and +Godalming remained in their memories chiefly, no doubt, by reason of the +excellent fare dispensed at the “King’s Arms,” where the coaches stopped. +The “King’s Arms” is there to this day, in one of the passage-like streets +by the Market House; this last quite a curiosity in its way. The “King’s +Arms,” doubtless so called from the frequent visits of Charles II. and his +Court on their hunting expeditions, has a quite wonderful range of stables +and outhouses, reached through a great doorway from the street, through +which the mails and stages passed in days when road-travel was your only +choice who journeyed to and fro in the land. It is a matter of sixty years +since those capacious stalls and broad-paved yards witnessed the stir and +bustle of the stablemen, coachmen, post-boys, and all the horsey creatures +who found employment in the care of coach and horses, and they are so many +lumber-rooms to-day.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img45.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">MARKET-HOUSE, GODALMING.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>But Godalming was a place notorious in the eighteenth century as the scene +of one of the most impudent frauds ever practised upon the credulity of +mankind. There have been those who have said that such trickery as that to +which Mary Tofts, the “rabbit-breeder” of Godalming, lent herself, would +meet with no success in so enlightened an age as this; but in so saying +those folk have done a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> less than justice to the eighteenth +century, and have been particularly lenient to the nineteenth, which has +proved itself, in the matter of Mahatmas, at least as credulous as by-gone +ages were.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>MARY TOFTS</i></div> + +<p>The story of Mary Tofts, if not edifying, is at least interesting. She was +the wife of Joshua Tofts, a poor journeyman cloth-worker of this little +town, and was described as of “a healthy, strong constitution, small size, +fair complexion, a very stupid and sullen temper, and unable to write or +read.” Stupid or not, she possessed sufficient cunning to maintain her +fraud for some time, and even to delude some eminent surgeons of the day +into a firm belief in her pretended births of rabbits. For this was the +preposterous nature of the imposition, and she claimed to have given birth +to no less than eighteen of them. She attempted to account for this +remarkable progeny by recounting how, “when she was weeding a field, she +saw a rabbit spring up near her, after which she ran, with another woman +that was at work just by her: this set her a-longing for rabbits.... Soon +after, another rabbit sprang up near the same place, which she likewise +endeavoured to catch. The same night she dreamt that she was in a field +with those two rabbits in her lap, and awoke with a sick fit, which lasted +till morning; from that time, for above three months, she had a constant +and strong desire to eat rabbits, but being very poor and indigent, could +not procure any.” A Mr. Howard, a medical man of Guildford, who claimed to +have assisted Mary Tofts in giving birth to eighteen rabbits, seems, from +the voluminous literature on this subject, to have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> something of a +party to the cheat; and even if we did not find him a guilty accomplice, +there would remain the scarce more flattering designation of egregious +dupe. But Mr. Howard, dupe or rogue, was extremely busy in publishing to +the world the particulars of this extraordinary case. The woman was +brought over from Godalming to Guildford, so that she might be under his +more immediate care, and he wrote a letter to Dr. St. André, George I.’s +surgeon and anatomist, asking him to come and satisfy himself of the truth +of this marvel. St. André went to Guildford post-haste, and returned to +London afterwards with portions of these miraculous rabbits, and with so +firm a belief in the story that he wrote and published a pamphlet setting +forth full details of these wonders—the first of a long series of tracts, +serious and humorous, for and against the good faith of this story.</p> + +<p>Public attention was now roused in the most extraordinary degree, and the +subject of Mary Tofts and her rabbits was in every one’s mouth. The +caricaturists took the matter up, and Hogarth has left two engravings +referring to it: a small plate entitled “Cunicularii, or the Wise Men of +Godliman,” and another, a very large and most elaborate print, full of +symbolism and cryptic allusions, entitled “Credulity, Superstition, and +Fanaticism.”</p> + +<p>Even the clergymen of the time rushed into the fray, and one went so far +as to assert that Mary Tofts was the fulfilment of a prophecy in Esdras.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 401px; height: 500px;"><img src="images/img46.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">MARY TOFTS.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>DUPE OR ROGUE?</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>The King, too, was numbered among the believers, and things came to such a +pass that ladies began to be alarmed with apprehensions of bringing +into the world some unnatural progeny. “No one presumed to eat a rabbit,” +and the rent of rabbit-warrens sank to nothing. But a German Court +physician—a Dr. Ahlers—who had proceeded to Guildford in order to report +upon the matter to his Majesty, was rendered sceptical as much by the +behaviour of Mr. Howard as by that of his interesting patient. He returned +to town, convinced of trickery, and finally Mary Tofts and her medical +adviser were brought to London and lodged in the Bagnio, Leicester Fields, +where, in fear of combined threats of punishment and an artfully-pictured +operation darkly hinted at by Sir Richard Manningham, she confessed that +the fraud had been suggested to her by a woman, a neighbour at Godalming, +who, with the showman’s instinct of Barnum, told her that here was a way +to a good livelihood without the necessity of working for it. The part +taken by Mr. Howard has never been satisfactorily explained, but as he was +particularly insistent that Mary Tofts deserved a pension from the King on +account of her rabbits, his part in the affair has, naturally, been looked +upon with considerable suspicion. Doctor and patient were, however, +committed to Tothill Fields, Bridewell.</p> + +<p>Mary Tofts died many years later, in 1763, but a considerable time elapsed +before she was forgotten, and portraits and pamphlets relating to her +imposition found a ready sale. A rare tract, in which she is supposed to +state her own case, still affords amusement to those who care to dig it up +from the dusty accumulations of the British Museum. In it the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> interviewer +of that age says, “It was thought fit to print her opinions <i>in puris +naturalibus</i>, (<i>i. e.</i>) in her own Stile and Spelling”; and a taste of her +“stile” may be had from the following elegant extract:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thof I be ripurzentid as an ignirunt littirat Wuman, as can nethur +rite nor rede, yet I thank God I can do both; and thof mahaps I cant +spel as well as sum peple as set up for authurs, yet I can rite +trooth, and plane <i>Inglish</i>, wich is mor nor ani of um all has dun. As +for settin my Mark to a papur, it was wen I wont well, and wos for +goin the shortist wa to work: if tha had axt me to rite my name, I +wood hav dun it; but tha onli bid me set my mark, as kunclooding I +cood not rite my nam, but tha was mistakn.”</p></div> + +<p>And here is emphasis indeed!—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“All as has bin sad, except what I have here written, is a damd +kunfounded ly.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">“<span class="smcap">Merry Tuft.</span>”</span></p></div> + +<p>Mary Tofts made one more public appearance before she joined the great +majority, and that was an occasion as little to her credit as the other. +Thus we read that, in 1740, she was committed to Guildford Gaol for +receiving stolen goods!</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XIX</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>VICARS VIGOROUS AND VARIOUS</i></div> + +<p>In a more than usually quiet street, upon the edge of the town, stands the +old church of Godalming, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, whose tall +leaden spire rises with happy effect above the roofs, and gives distant +views of Godalming a quiet and impressive dignity all its own among +country towns. Vicars of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>Godalming have not infrequently distinguished +themselves; some for piety, one for piety combined with pugnacity, two for +literature and learning, and at least one for “pride, idleness, +affectation of Popery,” and for refusing to preach. This last-named +divine, Dr. Nicholas Andrews, had the misfortune to have been born out of +due time, for had he but held the living in the sceptical eighteenth +century instead of exactly a hundred years earlier, when piety was +particularly aggressive, his passion for fishing on Sunday would have done +him no harm. As it happened, however, his era fell in the midst of Puritan +times, and the Godalming people of that day were at once godly and +vindictive: a combination not at all uncommon even now. At any rate, they +petitioned Parliament for the removal of this too ardent fisherman, and he +was sequestered accordingly.</p> + +<p>The times were altered when the Rev. Samuel Speed, grandson of Speed the +historian, held the living. He was, according to Aubrey, a “famous and +valiant sea-chaplain and sailor,” whose deeds are handed down to us in the +stirring lines of a song “made by Sir John Birkenhead on the sea-fight +with the Dutch”; in which we hear of this doughty cleric praying and +fighting at one and the same time:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“His chaplain, he plied his wonted work,<br /> +He prayed like a Christian and fought like a Turk;<br /> +Crying, ‘Now for the King and the Duke of York,’<br /> +With a thump, a thump, thump,” &c.</p> + +<p>This worthy was at one time a buccaneer in the West Indies, and later, +while he held the living of Godalming, was imprisoned several times for +debt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> He died, indeed, in gaol, and was buried in London, in the old City +church, since demolished, of St. Michael, Queenhithe, in 1682.</p> + +<p>Manning, scholar and historian of Surrey, was vicar here, and also the +Rev. Antony Warton. Their virtues and their attainments are duly set forth +upon cenotaphs within the church, as also is the discovery of a certain +cure for consumption by</p> + +<table style="margin-left: 15%;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td align="center">“Nathaniel Godbold Esqr.<br /> +Inventor and Proprietor<br /> +of that Excellent Medicine<br /> +The Vegetable Balsam<br /> +For the cure of Consumption and Asthmas.”</td></tr></table> + +<p>He died in December 1799, aged sixty-nine, and his appreciative relatives +caused to be engraved on his epitaph, <i>Hic cineres, ubique Fama</i>; which +really is very amusing, because his fame is now-a-days as decayed as are +his ashes.</p> + +<p>And yet they say these latter days of ours are distinguished above all +else by shameless puffery! At least we spare the churches and do not use +their walls as advertisement hoardings. And, despite Godbold and his +Balsam, consumption still takes heavy toll, and not all the innumerable +remedies nor all the Kochs in creation seem able to prevail in any degree +against the disease.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img47.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">NEW GODALMING STATION.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>OGLETHORPE</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>At a short distance from the church, on the edge of a thickly-wooded hill +overlooking New Godalming station, stands the house and small estate of +Westbrook, once belonging to the Oglethorpes, who settled here from +Yorkshire in the seventeenth century. Of this family was that notable +octogenarian, General Oglethorpe, the literary discoverer of Dr. +Johnson, friend of Whitefield and founder of Georgia. During a long and +active life that extended from 1698 to 1785, Oglethorpe had many +experiences. He warred with the Indians who threatened the North American +Colonies; he was secretary and aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene, when, +according to the alliterative poet, that “good prince” bade</p> + +<p class="poem">“An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,<br /> +Boldly by battery bombard Belgrade.”</p> + +<p>He was suspected of Jacobite leanings, and was court-martialled for want +of diligence in following up the Pretender’s forces in their retreat from +Derby; but he is memorable from a Londoner’s point of view chiefly because +he claimed to have, when a young man, shot woodcock on the spot where in +his old age rose the fashionable lounge of Regent Street.</p> + +<p>Westbrook, too, has some slight connection with the Stuart legend; for +General Oglethorpe’s father—Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe—was a devoted +partisan of that unlucky House, and it was whispered that one of his sons +was the famous child smuggled into Whitehall Palace in a warming-pan, and +known afterwards as the Old Pretender.</p> + +<p>One of the most pleasing views of Godalming is that from the grounds of +Westbrook, above the railway-station, and the station of New Godalming +itself and its situation are distinctly picturesque, composing finely with +the Frith Hill and the uplands away in the direction of Charterhouse.</p> + +<p>And Godalming is celebrated in modern times on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> two distinct counts: +firstly for having been a pioneer in lighting street-lamps by electricity, +and secondly for being the new home of Charterhouse School, removed from +London in 1870, under the care of the Rev. W. Haig Brown, who still +remains head-master of Thomas Sutton’s old foundation. The +school-buildings stand on the plateau of a down, at a distance of about a +mile from Godalming, and occupy a site of about eighty acres.</p> + +<p>Here the Carthusians carry on the traditions of their old home in London, +and some of the stones of the old school, deeply carved with the names of +by-gone scholars, have been removed from old Charterhouse to the new +building, where they are to be seen built into an archway. Charterhouse +School numbers five hundred scholars, and its lovely situation, amid the +Surrey Hills, together with its finely-planned buildings and spreading +grounds, render this amongst the foremost public schools of the time.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting features of the school is its museum, housed +in a building of semi-ecclesiastical aspect, built recently in the +grounds. Here are many relics of old times and old scholars, together with +the more usual collections of a country museum: stuffed birds, chipped +flints, and miscellaneous antiquities; or, to quote the sarcastic Peter +Pindar:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“More broken pans, more gods, more mugs;<br /> +Old snivel-bottles, jordans, and old jugs;<br /> +More saucepans, lamps, and candlesticks, and kettles;<br /> +In short, all sorts of culinary metals!”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>CHARTERHOUSE</i></div> + +<p>Among the <i>alumni</i> of Charterhouse were Addison and Steele; John Wesley, +the founder of Methodism; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Chief Justice Blackstone, Sir Henry Havelock, +Grote, Thackeray, and John Leech. Several of these distinguished +Carthusians are represented here, in a fine collection of autographs and +manuscripts. First, in point of view of general interest, is a collection +of drawings and poems in their original MS. by Thackeray. Some thirty of +his weird sketches are here, with the manuscript of “The Newcomes,” bound +up in five volumes. Here also is Thackeray’s Greek Lexicon, covered +thickly with school-boy scrawls and scribbles.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img48.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">CHARTERHOUSE RELICS.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Leech, the caricaturist,—one of the most absurdly over-rated men of this +century,—was at Charterhouse from 1825 to 1831. Here are two letters from +him, written, it would seem, when he was ten years of age, and apparently +before he had been taught the use of capital letters. In one to “my dear +mama,” he seems<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> to have been in a far from happy frame of mind. His +“mama” had been to the school, but had not seen him, “me being in the +grounds,” “That,” he adds, “made me still more unhappy.” Writing to “my +dear papa,” young Leech is “happy to say I am promoted, because I know it +pleases you very much. allow me to come out to see you on saturday because +I have a great deal to tell you, and I want some one to assist me in the +exercises because they are a great deal harder.”</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img49.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">GOWSER JUG.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘MORTIFYING NEGLECT’</i></div> + +<p>There is a very characteristic letter by John Wesley, and close by it a +letter by Blackstone, part of which is worth reproducing. Writing on +August 28, 1744, Blackstone, then a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, says: “We +were last Friday entertained at St. Mary’s by a curious sermon from Wesley +ye Methodist. Among other equally modest particulars, he informed us (1) +that there was not one Christian among all ye heads of houses; (2) that +pride, gluttony, avarice, luxury, sensuality, and drunkenness were ye +whole characteristics<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> of all Fellows of Colleges, who were useless to +proverbial uselessness; lastly, that ye younger part of ye University were +a generation of triflers, all of them perjured, and not one of them of any +religion at all. His notes were demanded by ye Vice-Chancellor, but on +mature deliberation it has been thought better to punish him by mortifying +neglect.” Which is all very humorous, and the phrase “mortifying neglect” +distinctly good, as showing that the authorities had taken Wesley’s +measure to a nicety, and were maliciously aware that neglect <i>would</i> +mortify a person of his essential vanity a great deal more than +persecution.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img50.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">WESLEY.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>A striking bust of Wesley stands beside a statuette of Thackeray; but +among the chiefest articles of interest in the School Museum are the +curious objects illustrating the rural life of Surrey in the olden times:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +a primitive hand cider-press, from Bramley, a “pot-hook hanger” from +Shamley Green, and a “baby-runner” from Aldfold. Other curiosities are a +bust of Nelson, cut by a figure-head carver from the main-beam of the +“Victory”; “Gowser” jugs and cups, formerly used by gown boys of +Charterhouse, and decorated with the arms and crest of Thomas Sutton, +together with his pious motto, <i>Deo dante dedi</i>; and an Irish blunderbuss +of the most murderous and forbidding aspect.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img51.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">BUST OF NELSON,<br />CARVED FROM MAIN-BEAM OF THE “VICTORY.”</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘YE GODS! WHAT GLORIOUS TWISTS’</i></div> + +<p>So much for Godalming, its sights and its memories. But we have halted +here longer than the most dilatory coach that ever rumbled into the +“King’s Arms” Hotel, that house of good food and plenty in days when men +had robust appetites, fit to vie with that of Milo the Cretonian. What +glorious twists <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>(for instance) must Peter the Great and his suite have +possessed when they lodged here, twenty-one of them, all told, on their +way from Portsmouth to London;—that is to say, if we are to take this +breakfast and this dinner as sample meals:—</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Breakfast.</i></span><br /> +Half a sheep.<br /> +A quarter of lamb.<br /> +10 pullets.<br /> +12 chickens.<br /> +3 quarts of brandy.<br /> +6 quarts of mulled wine.<br /> +7 dozen of eggs,<br /> +<span class="spacer2"> </span>with salad in proportion.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Dinner.</i></span><br /> +5 ribs of beef, weighing 3 stone.<br /> +1 sheep.<br /> +56¾ lbs. of lamb.<br /> +1 shoulder of veal, boiled.<br /> +1 loin<span class="spacer"> </span>"<span class="spacer2"> </span><span class="spacer"> </span>"<br /> +8 rabbits.<br /> +2 dozen-and-a-half of sack.<br /> +1<span class="spacer2"> </span>"<span class="spacer2"> </span>claret.</p> + +<p>These details are from a bill now in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, and +are earnest of Gargantuan appetites that have had their day. If only we +could compare this fare with the provand supplied to the Allied Sovereigns +at the same house by Host Moon when those crowned heads and their suites +were travelling to Portsmouth for the rejoicings over the final overthrow +of the Corsican Ogre! Their Majesties must have had a zest for their +banquets that had been a stranger to them all too long in the terrible +years when Napoleon was hunting their armies all over Europe, from Madrid +to Moscow.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> +<h2>XX</h2> + + +<p>From Godalming the old coachmen had an easy run until they passed the +hamlet of Milford, in those days a very small place indeed, but grown now +to the importance of a thriving village, standing amid level lands where +the road branches to Chichester. Once past Milford, however, they had need +of all their skill, for here the road begins to rise in the long five +miles ascent of Hindhead, and they found occasion for all their science in +saving their cattle in this long and arduous pull through a stretch of +country that for ruggedness has scarce its compeer in England.</p> + +<p>Up to this point the villages and roadside settlements are numerous; but +now we leave the “White Lion” at Moushill behind, the more ordinary signs +of civilization are missing, and long stretches of heath and savage +hill-sides become familiar to the eye. On the right of the road lies +Thursley Common, a perfectly wild spot occupying high ground covered with +sand hummocks and tangled heather, and wearing all the characteristics of +mountain scenery. To the left stretches Witley Common, in the direction of +artist-haunted Witley and beautiful Haslemere, and in the distance are the +sandy hillocks known as the Devil’s Jumps.</p> + +<p>No road so wild and lonely as the Portsmouth Road, from the time when +mail-coaches first travelled along it, in 1784, until recent years, when +houses began to spring up in the wildest spots. From Putney Heath to +Portsdown Hill the road runs, for more than three-quarters of its length, +past ragged heaths, tumbled commons, and waste lands, chiefly +unenclosed; and the sombre fir tree, with its brothers, the larch and +pine, is the predominant feature of the copses and woodlands that line the +way. See what a long list the wayside commons make from London to +Portsmouth. To Putney Heath succeeds Wimbledon Common, Ditton Marsh, +Fairmile Common, and the commons of Wisley and Peasmarsh, all this side of +Godalming; while those of Witley, Hindhead, and Milland, with the bare and +open downs of Rake and Chalton, and the remains of Bere Forest, render the +remainder of the way one long expanse of free and open land.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img52.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE DEVIL’S PUNCH BOWL.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE DEVIL’S PUNCH BOWL</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>Hindhead is the culminating-point of all this agriculturally barren, but +artistically delightful, country, and to see Hindhead aright requires the +grey and tender mists of late autumn. This road, in fact, is seen at its +best, from start to finish, in the last days of October or in the first +weeks of November, when the red sun sets in the early evening like a huge +fiery globe across the wastes and the darkling coppices, and gleams like +molten metal between the tall straight trunks of the melancholy fir trees +that stand like dumb and monstrous battalions deployed across the tangled +crofts. So much has been said and written in praise of Hindhead, that I +have known people to come away from it with a disappointed surprise. They +looked for a deeper profundity in the Devil’s Punch Bowl, and saw but a +cup-like depression (marked on the maps as Haccombe Bottom), where they +expected to find the beetling cliffs and craggy precipices of the +Pyrenees, with, perhaps, the Foul Fiend himself waiting below amid the +scrub and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> the heather for any one more adventurous than his fellows who +should essay to climb down and investigate the scene. I will allow that +the tourists who come here at mid-day of some blazing summer, and gaze +with an air of disappointment at what some reckless writers have called +“these awful depths,” have a right to their dissatisfaction, for the Punch +Bowl is least impressive at such a time, when never a shadow throws aërial +perspective into the view, nor mists hide with a delicate artistic +perception the prosaic fields which the merely utilitarian instincts and +industry of the farmer have created from the surrounding waste. The +imagination is curbed at this bald statement of facts under a cloudless +sky, and I may confess that a first sight of this famous spot under +similar conditions sent me away with no less a sense of disappointment. +But try the same scene on an autumn evening, when a grey-blue haze in the +atmosphere meets the white ground-mists, and your imagination has then a +free rein. There is no telling at such a time what may be the depths of +the Punch Bowl; and as for the houses that stand upon the topmost ridge of +Hindhead, why, they wear all the appearance of romantic castles, in which +not nineteenth-century villadom dwells, but where dare-devil barons of +Rhine-legend, or of the still more terrible Mrs. Radclyffe type, exercise +untrammelled their native ferocity, even unto the colophon of the third +volume.</p> + +<p>The wild grandeur of Hindhead and the gloomy depths of the Devil’s Punch +Bowl are rendered additionally impressive by the memory of a particularly +brutal murder committed here, in 1786, upon an unknown sailor, who was +walking to Portsmouth to rejoin his ship.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 376px;"><img src="images/img53.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">HINDHEAD. <i>After J. M. W. Turner.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A WAYSIDE CRIME</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>On the 24th of September in that year three men—Edward Lonegon, Michael +Casey, and James Marshall—were tramping to Portsmouth in search of +employment, when they met the sailor near Esher. He treated them to drink, +and offered to bear the expense of their journey, and they continued +together down the road. At the “Red Lion,” in Road Lane, beyond Godalming, +where they stopped for refreshment, they were observed by two labouring +men who chanced to be in the house, and who, later in the day, followed in +their footsteps when returning home. On coming to the Devil’s Punch Bowl +they noticed something lying below, amid the heather, that looked like a +dead sheep, but on climbing down to examine it, they found it to be the +dead body of the sailor they had seen drinking in the “Red Lion.” His +villainous companions had knocked him down and killed him, “each agreeing +to have two cuts at his throat,” and after stripping the body they had +rolled it into the hollow.</p> + +<p>An alarm was raised, and the three murderers were overtaken at the hamlet +of Sheet, near Petersfield, where they were actually selling the clothes +of their victim in a public-house. Arrested here, they were tried at the +Spring Assizes of 1787, held at Kingston-on-Thames, were sentenced to +death, and hanged on April 7, their bodies being afterwards gibbeted on +Hindhead, the scene of their crime. For years afterwards the place was +known as Gibbet Hill, and, indeed, the country folk still speak of it by +that name. The tall post of the gibbet appears in Turner’s view of +Hindhead in the “<i>Liber Studiorum</i>,” and the road is shown winding amid +the downs, with a coach in the distance. Turner’s view must be accepted +with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> all reserve, <i>as a view</i>, for he never sank the artist in the mere +topographical draughtsman; and the gibbet is quite an effort of his +imagination, for even so early as Gilbert White’s time, it was shattered +in a terrific thunderstorm, as the old naturalist relates.</p> + +<p>But although Turner has exaggerated the ruggedness of Hindhead in his +picture, the place is not at all gracious or suave. Cobbett roundly +declared that it was “certainly the most villainous spot that God ever +made”; and how wild it was in the seventeenth century, before even the old +high-road was in existence, we may gather from an entry in Pepys’ Diary of +August 6, 1668: “So to coach again, and got to Liphook, late over +Hindhead, having an old man, a guide, in the coach with us; but got +thither with great fear of being out of our way, it being ten at night.” +Hindhead was in the direct line of signalling semaphores between Greenwich +and Portsmouth before the days of the electric telegraph, and every day at +one o’clock the time was passed down from the Observatory. People used to +set their watches by the waving semaphore arms.</p> + +<p>Until 1826 the old Portsmouth Road went along the very summit of Hindhead, +and its course, although deeply rutted and much overgrown with grass, can +still be readily traced near by the great cross of Cornish granite, +erected here, 345 feet above the deepest depths of the Devil’s Punch Bowl, +by Sir William Erle, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in 1851, in memory +of the murdered sailor. The Latin inscriptions, <i>In luce spes, Post +tenebras lux</i>, and others, do not seem particularly appropriate to either +the place or the occasion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>The old highway followed the very brink of the Punch Bowl, and was in +winter-time extremely dangerous for coaches. To avoid the chance of +accident a new roadway was constructed some sixty feet lower, with a +substantial earthen embankment on the outer side, to prevent any +unlooked-for descent into this precipitous gulf.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THURSLEY</i></div> + +<p>The headstone which was set up to mark the spot where the sailor was +murdered has been removed, and placed beside this newer road, where its +position renders its legend peculiarly vivid and terrible, although it is +couched only in the plainest and least affected of phrases. One side is +shown in the illustration, the other repeats the date of its erection, and +invokes a curse upon “the man who injureth or removeth this stone”; but +whether or no the man who thus invites the wrath of heaven would have +included the Ordnance Surveyors, I cannot say. Certainly <i>they</i> have +“injured this stone” by carving upon it the Governmental “broad arrow.” +The body of the murdered sailor was buried at the little village of +Thursley, some two miles distant, and there, in the churchyard, shadowed +by dark fir trees, stands a gruesome tombstone, an unconscionable product +of local art, with a carving in relief of the three murderers in the act +of dispatching their victim. Beneath this melodrama, the circumstances are +recounted at great length, and some halting verses conclude the mournful +narration.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img54.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">TOMBSTONE, THURSLEY.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG!’</i></div> + +<p>Thursley itself is situated on an old road that branches from the newer +highway upon entering Witley Common, and rejoins the ordinary route near +the “Royal Huts” Hotel. The village is rarely visited by strangers. The +old church stands in a commanding position, overlooking a wide tract of +country, including the Hog’s Back, by Guildford, and the scattered ponds +of Frensham. An old sun-dial on the tower has the inscription <i>Hora pars +vitæ</i>, and, like most of our clocks and watches, perpetuates in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> the +numeral “IIII” the long-exploded fiction of the infallibility of kings. I +wonder if any one remembers the origin of the substitution of “IIII” for +“IV” on nearly all the dials, whether sun-dials or clock-faces, of +civilization? Here is the story. The first clock that kept anything like +accurate time was constructed by a certain Henry Vick, in 1370. It was +made to the order of Charles V. of France, who was known as “the Wise.” +Wise he certainly was, in some respects; but Roman numerals were not +within the sum of his knowledge. When Vick brought the King his clock, he +looked at its movements awhile. “Yes,” said he, at length, “it works very +well; but you have got the figures on the dial wrong.” “Surely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> never, +your Majesty,” said Vick. “Yes,” replied the King, “that IV should be +IIII.” “But your Majesty is wrong,” rejoined that not very tactful +clockmaker. “Wrong!” answered outraged majesty, “I am never wrong! Take it +away and correct the error.” Vick did as he was commanded, and so to this +day we have IIII where we should really have IV.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img55.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THURSLEY CHURCH.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img56.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">SUN-DIAL, THURSLEY.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>There is a certain interest bound up with the name of Thursley, for it +affords an excellent example of the lengths to which antiquaries will go, +to scent derivatives. Kemble, the learned author of a deep and scholarly +book, “The Saxons in England,” derives the name of Thursley from the +Scandinavian god<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> Thor, whose equivalent in Saxon mythology was Thunor. +The name of Thunder Hill, a height near the village, has the same origin; +but the clinching argument of the neighbouring “Hammer Ponds,” which Mr. +Kemble assumes to have been named after Thor’s hammer, spoils the +reasoning of the theory altogether, for the “Hammer Ponds” are nothing but +the remains of the old forges that were thickly spread over the surface of +Kent, Surrey, and Sussex during a period from three centuries to one +hundred years ago.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>TYNDALL</i></div> + +<p>Just where the road from Thursley rejoins the highway stands the “Huts” +Inn, now enlarged and refurbished, and nothing less, if you please, in +these days than the “Royal Huts” Hotel. “Ma conscience!” I wonder what +friend Cobbett would have thought, <i>and</i> said. But, believe me, nothing +less than this would serve the turn of Hindhead district now-a-days, for +it fast becoming as suburban as (say) Clapham. Do you want a +building-plot, carved out of a waste, where nothing has yet bloomed but +the tiny purple bells of the heather or the golden glory of the gorse? +Here, then, is your chance, for building-plots fringe the road where, +indeed, the trim-built villa has not already risen. Professor Tyndall, who +built a house for himself just here, in 1882, selected the situation both +for its health-giving air and for its seclusion, but his example served +only to advertise the attractions of the place, and the astonishing favour +with which Hindhead is now regarded as a residence is directly +attributable to him. No one was less pleased than himself at this sudden +popularity of a district that had but a few years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> previously been a more +or less “howling” wilderness, for “he was always curiously sensitive to +the beauty of scenery,” disliked suburbs, and was also singularly +sensitive to being overlooked from any neighbouring house. This preference +for reclusion led to the building of the hideous screens which hid from +his gaze an ugly house close at hand, and created so much angry +controversy a few years ago: screens that to-day remain an unfailing +reminiscence of the Professor. <i>Sic monumentum requiris, circumspice</i>, to +quote the old tag.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXI</h2> + + +<p>And now, save for the slight rise of Cold Ash Hill, it is all down-hill to +Liphook, and excellent going, too, on a fine gravelly road, closely +compacted and well kept. The country, though, is still wild and unfertile, +and for long stretches, after passing the “eligible plots” of Hindhead, +the road is seen narrowing away in long perspectives with never a house in +sight. In midst of all this waste stands a lonely roadside inn—the “Seven +Thorns” a wayside sign proclaims it to be—which draws its custom the Lord +only knows whence. It is frankly an inn for refreshing and for passing on +your way: no one, I imagine, ever wants to stay there; and by its cold and +cheerless exterior appearance one might readily come to the conclusion +that no one even lived there. The sign is singular, and seems either +descriptive or legendary. If legend it has, no whisper of it has ever +reached me; while as for descriptiveness, the “seven thorns” are simply +non-existent; and so the sign is neither more nor less a foreshadowing of +the place than the average Clapham “Rosebank” or the Brixton “Fernlea.”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 373px;"><img src="images/img57.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">TYNDALL’S HOUSE: SCREENS IN THE FOREGROUND.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>Even on a summer’s day one does not find the immediate neighbourhood of +the “Seven Thorns” Inn particularly exhilarating or cheerful, for, +although the country is open and unspoiled by buildings, yet the scenery +lacks the suavity of generous land, prolific of fine timber and graceful +foliage. The soil is ungrateful and unproductive; nourishing only the +gorse and the hardy grasses that grow upon commons and cover the nakedness +of the harsh sand and gravel of the surrounding country-side. Such trees +as grow about here are wind-tossed and scraggy, bespeaking the little +nutriment the land affords, and the greater number of them are firs and +pines, which, indeed, are the chiefest of Hampshire’s sylvan growths.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A MEMORABLE SNOW-STORM</i></div> + +<p>But in winter-time this unsheltered tract is swept with piercing winds +that know no bulwark, nor any stay against their furious onslaughts; and +here, in the great snow-storm of Yule-tide 1836, the Portsmouth coaches +were nearly snowed up. “The snow,” says a writer of local gossip, “was +lying deep upon Hindhead, and had drifted into fantastic wreaths and huge +mounds raised by the fierce breath of a wild December gale. Coach after +coach crawled slowly and painfully up the steep hill, some coming from +London, others bound thither. But as the ‘Seven Thorns’ was neared, they +one and all came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> to a dead stop. The tired, wearied, exhausted cattle +refused to struggle through the snow-mountains any longer. Guards, +coachmen, passengers, and labourers attacked those masses of spotless +white with spade and shovel, but all to no purpose. It seemed as if a way +was not to be cleared. What stamping of feet and blowing of nails was +there! Women were shivering and waiting patiently; men were shouting, +grumbling, and swearing; and indeed the prospect of spending a winter’s +night upon the outside of a coach on such a spot was, to say the least of +it, not cheerful. At last a brave man came to the rescue. The ‘Star of +Brunswick,’ a yellow-bodied coach that ran nightly between Portsmouth and +London, came up. The coachman’s name was James Carter, well known to many +still living. He made very little to-do about the matter, but, whipping up +his horses, he charged the snow-drifts boldly and resolutely, and with +much swaying from side to side opened a path for himself and the rest.”</p> + +<p>And so the Portsmouth Road was kept open in that wild winter, while most +of the main roads in England were hopelessly snowed up. But memories of +coaching days on this old road are rather meagre, for, although sea-faring +business sent a great many travellers journeying between London and the +dockyard town, the Portsmouth Road was never celebrated for crack coaches +or for record times, and when coaching was in full swing, men saw as +little romance in being dragged down the highways behind four horses as we +can discover in railway travelling. With coach-proprietors, the horsing +and equipping <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>of a coach were matters of business, and beyond looking +shrewdly after that business, the most of them cared little enough for +coaching history. With the passengers, too, travelling was an evil to be +endured. It irked them intolerably: it was a necessity, a duty,—what you +will for unpleasantness,—and so, when the journey was done, the better +part of them immediately dismissed it from their minds, instead of +dwelling fondly upon the memories of perils overcome and rigours +endured—as we are apt to imagine.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>REGRETS FOR COACHING DAYS</i></div> + +<p>It was only when the Augustan age of coaching had dawned that travellers +began to feel any delight or exhilaration in road-travel; and that age was +cut short so untimely by the Railway Era that the young fellows and the +middle-aged men whose blood coursed briskly through their veins, and who +knew a thing or two about horse-flesh, felt a not unnatural regret in the +change, and conceived an altogether natural affection for the old +<i>régime</i>. Their regret can be the more readily understood when one +inquires into the beginnings of railway travel; when conveyance by steam +<i>might</i> have been more expeditious than the coach service (although what +with delays and unpunctuality at the inauguration of railways even <i>that</i> +was an open question), but certainly was at the same time much more +uncomfortable. For, in place of the sheltered inside of a coach, or the +frankly open and unprotected outside, the primitive railway passenger was +conveyed to his destination in an open truck exposed to the furious rush +of air caused by the passage of the train; and, all the way, he employed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +his time, not in admiring the landscape, or, as he was wont to do from a +coach-top, in kissing his hand to the girls, but fleeted a penitential +pilgrimage in scooping out from his eyes the blacks and coal-grit +liberally imparted from the wobbly engine, own brother to the “Rocket,” +and immediate descendant of “Puffing Billy.”</p> + +<p>No wonder they regretted the more healthful and cleanly journeys by coach, +and small blame to them if they voted the railway a nuisance; believed the +country to be “going to the dogs,” and agreed with the Duke of Wellington, +when he exclaimed, upon seeing the first railway train in progress, “There +goes the English aristocracy!”</p> + +<p>For these men, and for the amateur coachees who during the Regency had +occupied the box-seats of the foremost stages, this last period of +coaching represented everything that was healthful and manly, and when the +last wheel had turned, and the ultimate blast from the guard’s bugle had +sounded; when the roadside inn and its well-filled stables became +deserted; and when the few remaining coachmen, post-boys, and ostlers had +either accepted situations with the railway companies or had gone into the +workhouse, a glamour clothed the by-gone dispensation that has lost +nothing with the lapse of time. The pity is that these thorough-going +admirers of days as dead as those of the Pharaohs were so largely “mute, +inglorious Miltons,” and have left so small a record of their stirring +times awheel.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AN OLD COACHMAN TALKS</i></div> + +<p>One of the last coachmen on this road was interviewed by a local paper +some years ago, and the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>inclusion here of his reminiscences is +inevitable. The “Last of the Old Whips” they called him:—</p> + +<p>“He was sitting by a blazing fire, in a cheerful, pleasant room, evidently +enjoying a glass of ‘something hot’ in the style that ‘Samivel’s father’ +would have thoroughly appreciated. But truth compels us to add that he had +evidently seen better days, and that the comforts with which he was now +temporarily surrounded had been strangers to him many a long day. Yet +there were many still living who remembered ‘young Sam Carter’ as a +dashing whip, who knew a good team when he sat behind them, and had +handled the ribbons in a most workmanlike fashion. But the old fire and +energy are still unquenched, either by the lapse of years or the pressure +of hard times, and the veteran gladly gives the rein to memory and spins a +yarn of the old coaching days.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>REMINISCENCES</i></div> + +<p>“‘The last conveyance of which I had charge,’ said he, ‘was the old +“Accommodation.” She was not a road wagon, but a van driven by five +horses, three leaders abreast, and reaching London in sixteen hours. We +used to start from the “Globe Inn,” Oyster Street, Portsmouth, and +finished the journey to London at the “New Inn,” Old Change, or at the +“Castle and Falcon,” Aldersgate Street. Yes, I took to the road pretty +early. I was only about sixteen or seventeen years of age when I took +charge of the London mail for my father. Father used to ride to Moushill +and back (that’s seventy-two miles) every night for fifty years. He drove +the night “Nelson” for thirty-two years. That was a coach with a yellow +body, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> about 1822 its name was altered to that of the “Star of +Brunswick.” It ran from the “Fountain” and the “Blue Posts,” Portsmouth, +to the “Spread Eagle,” in Gracechurch Street. Its pace was about eight +miles per hour, including changes. We only changed once between Portsmouth +and Godalming, and that was at Petersfield, but the stages were terribly +long, and we afterwards used to get another team at Liphook. The night +coaches to London used to do the distance in about twelve hours, and the +day coaches did it in nine hours; but the mails were ten hours on the +road. The mail-coaches carried four inside and three out, with a “dickey” +seat for the guard, who never forgot to take his sword-case and +blunderbuss, though in my time we never had any trouble with highwaymen, +and I never heard much about them stopping coaches in this neighbourhood. +Of course every now and then a sailor would tumble off and break a leg, a +head, or an arm, but that was only what you might expect. There were +plenty of poachers and smugglers about, but no highwaymen. We did not have +key bugles, as the books often say; the horn served our turn. William +Balchin, who was guard with me as well as with father, was a good hand +with his horn. I was guard for twelve months to the night “Rocket,” which +ran to the “Belle Sauvage,” then kept by Mr. Nelson. It was established +for the benefit of the people of Portsea, and only ran for six or seven +years. The day “Rocket” was much older, and got a good share of the Isle +of Wight traffic. Both these “Rockets” were white-bodied coaches. Francis +Falconer, who died at Petersfield about 1874, drove the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> “Rocket” all +the time it ran. Robert Nicholls was the only coachman that I ever knew to +save money. He was a post-boy with me, and when he died he left a nice +little fortune to each of his four daughters.</p> + +<p>“‘The “Independent” ran to the “Spread Eagle,” and to the “Cross Keys,” +Wood Street. It was horsed by Mr. Andrew Nance as far as Petersfield, +after which the two coachmen, Durham and Parkinson, found horses over the +remaining stages. Yes, I knew old Sam Weller very well indeed. He drove +the “Defiance” from the “George” and the “Fountain” to the Blue Coach +Office, Brighton. The “Defiance” was painted a sort of mottled colour. Sam +was a lame man, with a good-humoured, merry face, fond of a bit of fun, +and always willing for a rubber. His partner was Neale, for whom I used +sometimes to drive. He afterwards became landlord of the “Royal Oak,” in +Queen Street, Portsmouth. Do you see that scar, sir? I got that in 1841, +through the breaking of my near hind axle as we came down through +Guildford town. I was then driving the “Accommodation” between Ripley and +Portsmouth. One night we were an hour late in starting. I had the guard on +the box with me, and as we were going pretty hard down the High Street at +Guildford I heard the wheel “scroop.” The axle broke, and the next thing I +remember was finding myself in bed at the “Ram” Hotel, where I had lain +without speaking for a week. Whilst I was ill my wife presented me with +twins, so that we had plenty of troubles at once. When I was driving the +“Wanderer,” a pair-horse coach, my team bolted with me near the “Seven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +Thorns,” and on another occasion a dog-cart got in the way of the “Star of +Brunswick,” and we capsized, and a lot of mackerel was spilt all over the +road. That was about half-a-mile this side of Horndean. When I was first +acting as post-boy my chaise got overturned, but on the whole I have been +pretty fortunate. Once during a deep snow there was a complete block of +coaches on the road at “Seven Thorns.” My father undertook to lead the +way, and he succeeded in opening the road for the rest. My father’s name +was James Carter. He was post-boy at the “Royal Anchor” Hotel, Liphook, at +the time that the unknown sailor was murdered at the Devil’s Punch Bowl. +In fact, all my people belonged to Liphook. The names of the murderers +were Michael Casey, James Marshall, and Edward Lonegon. They were captured +the same day, in a public-house at Rake Hill, nearly opposite the present +“Flying Bull,” where they were offering a blood-stained jacket for sale. +The poor fellow who was murdered was buried in Thursley churchyard.</p> + +<p>“‘I used to drive the “Tantivy,”—a day and night coach,—which afterwards +ran only by day. We drove from Portsmouth to Farnborough station, then put +the coach on the train, and drove into town from the terminus at Nine +Elms.</p> + +<p>“‘Of course I remember the old “Coach and Horses,” at Hilsea. It was +afterwards burnt down. There was formerly a guard-house and picket at +Hilsea Bridge, where the soldiers’ passes were examined. Hilsea Green we +used to reckon the coldest spot between Portsmouth and London. Once some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>body-snatchers started from the “Green Posts,” at Hilsea, with the +officers in full cry after them, but the rascals had a famous mare, “Peg +Hollis” (oh! she was a good ’un to go!), and got clear off.</p> + +<p>“‘Yes, I knew Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence well; he was a good friend to me. +Many’s the time he has sat beside me on the box, and at the end of the +stage slipped a crown-piece into my hand.’”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>BY-WAYS</i></div> + +<p>At the “Seven Thorns” Inn the three counties of Sussex, Surrey, and Hants +are supposed to meet; but, like so many of the picturesque legends of +county and parish boundaries that make one house stand in three or four +parishes, this particular legend is altogether unfounded, for the three +counties meet in a dell about two miles southward of the road, in Hammer +Bottom, where once stood a lonely beer-house called the “Sussex Bell.”</p> + +<p>We will not turn aside to visit the site of the “Sussex Bell,” or the +remains of the Hammer Ponds that tell of the old iron-foundries and +furnaces that were wont to make the surrounding hills resound and +despoiled the dense woods of their noblest trees for the smelting of iron +ore. We have no present business so far from the road in a place that has +harboured no notorious evil-doer, nor has ever been the home of any +distinguished man.</p> + +<p>But we may well turn aside after passing Cold Ash Hill to explore a +singular relic of monkish days<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> that still exists, built into a +comparatively modern farm-house and forgotten by the world.</p> + +<p>Some three miles south of the road, reached by a turning below the “Seven +Thorns” Inn, lies the little-visited village of Lynchmere, a rural parish, +embowered in foliage and picturesquely situated amid hills; and in the +immediate neighbourhood stand the remains of Shulbrede Priory, now chiefly +incorporated with farm-buildings. The place is well worthy a visit, for +the farm-house contains a room, called the Prior’s Room, still decorated +with monkish frescoes of a singular kind. These probably date almost as +far back as the foundation of this Priory of Augustinian Canons, in the +time of Henry III., and are unfortunately very much defaced. But +sufficient can be discerned for the grasping of the idea, which seems to +be a representation of the Nativity. The design introduces the +inscription:—<i>Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium; et vocabitur nomen +Jesus</i>; while a number of birds and animals, rudely drawn and crudely +coloured, appear, with Latin legends issuing from their mouths. Uppermost +stands the cock, as in the act of crowing, while from his beak proceeds +the announcement, “<i>Christus natus est</i>.” Next follows a duck, from whose +bill issues another label, inscribed “<i>Quando, quando?</i>” a query answered +appropriately by a raven, “<i>In hac nocte</i>.” “<i>Ubi, ubi?</i>” asks a cow of a +lamb, which rejoins, bleating “<i>In Bethlems</i>.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PRIORS AND PORKERS</i></div> + +<p>But few other relics of this secluded priory are visible. Some arcading; a +vaulted passage; fragments of Early English mouldings: these are all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +Somewhere underneath the pig-sties, cow-houses, and rick-yards of the farm +rest the forgotten priors and the nameless monks of that old foundation. +Haply this worn slab of stone has covered the remains of some jolly Friar +Tuck or ascetic Augustine; this battered crocket, maybe, belonged to the +tomb of some pious benefactor for whose benefit masses were enjoined to be +said or sung for ever and a day; and I dare swear this obscure stone +trough, filled with hog-wash, at which fat swine are greedily drinking, +was once a coffin. Imperial Cæsar’s remains had never so foul an insult +offered them.</p> + +<p>I lean across the fence and moralize; a most unpardonable waste of time at +this <i>fin de siècle</i>, and I regret those old fellows whom Harry the Eighth +in his reforming zeal sent a-packing, to beg their bread from door to +door. I regret them, that is to say, from purely sentimental reasons, +being, all the while, ready to allow the policy and the state-craft that +drove them hence, and willing to acknowledge that the greasy cassocks and +filthy hair-shirts of the ultimate occupants of these cloistral shades +covered a multitude of sins.</p> + +<p>I poke the porkers thoughtfully with a stick in the place where their ribs +should be, but they are of such an abbatical plumpness that my ferrule +fails to discover any “osseous structure.” (I thank thee, Owen, for that +phrase!) They respond with piercing cries that recall the shrieks and the +yells of a witches’ sabbath on the Brocken, as presented before a quailing +Lyceum audience,—and their horrid chorus brings the farmer on the scene. +“Who drives fat oxen should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> himself be fat,” to quote the famous +classical <i>non sequitur</i>; and how much more should it apply to him who +fattens pigs to unwieldy masses of unconverted lard and pork! To do +justice to the quotation, he is fleshy and of a full habit.</p> + +<p>“Fine creeturs, them,” says he. “Aye,” say I. “Thirty score apiece, if +they’re a pound,” he continues. They might be a hundred score for all I +know; but no man likes to acknowledge agricultural ignorance, and so I +agree with him, heartily, and with much appearance of wisdom. “Pooty +creeturs, <i>I</i> say,” continues the farmer, smacking a broad-bellied beast, +with white bristles and pink flesh covered with black splotches. That +dreadful creature looks up a moment from the trough, with ringed snout +dripping liberally with hog-wash, and gazes pathetically at me for +acquiescence. “Yes: fine animals,” I say, in a non-committal voice.</p> + +<p>“Pictures, they are,” says their owner decisively. That settles the +matter, and I am off, to seek the road to Liphook.</p> + +<p>If the excellence of the great highways of England is remarkable, the +tangled lanes and absolute rusticity of the roads but a stone’s throw from +the main routes call no less for remark. Here, just a little way from +Liphook, and in the immediate vicinity of a railway, I might have been in +the deepest wilds of Devon, so meandering were the lanes, so untamed the +country. An old pack-horse trail, still distinct, though unused these many +generations past, wandered along, amid gorse and bracken, and footpaths +led in perplexingly-different directions.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A STRANGE RENCOUNTER</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>Amid this profusion of wild life, with the dark foliage of the fir trees, +the lighter leaves of the beech, and the gaily-flowered hedgerows on +either hand, there appeared before me the most incongruous wayfarer: a +Jingle-like figure, tall and spare, with a tightly-buttoned frock-coat, +and a silk hat of another era than this, set well back upon his head—one +who might have wandered here from Piccadilly in the ’50’s and lost his way +back. I should not have been surprised had he asked news of the Great +Exhibition; of Prince Albert, or the Emperor of the French. However, he +merely said it was a fine day. “Yes, it was,” I said; “but could he direct +me to Liphook?” “Liphook?” said he, as though he had never heard the name; +“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m a stranger in these parts.” And then he walked +away. I believe he was a ghost!</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img58.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">“CONSIDERING CAP.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> +<h2>XXIII</h2> + + +<p>And now the road brings us to the borders of Hants. It is no mere pose to +assert that every English county has its own especial characteristics, an +unmistakable and easily recognizable individuality: the fact has been so +often noted and commented upon that it is fast becoming a truism. But of a +county of the size of Hampshire, which ranks eighth in point of size among +the forty English divisions, it would be rash to generalize too widely. +One is apt to sum up this county as merely a slightly more gracious, and +generous variant of the forbidding downs and uplands of Wiltshire, but, +although quite three-quarters of the area of Hants is poor, waterless, and +inhospitable, yet there are fertile corners, nooks, and valleys, covered +with ancient alluvial soil, that yield nothing to any other part of +England.</p> + +<p>Still, Fuller is a little more than just to Hampshire when he calls it “a +happy countrey in the foure elements, if culinary <i>fire</i> in courtesie may +pass for one, with plenty of the best wood for the fuel thereof; most pure +and piercing the <i>aire</i> of this shyre; and none in England hath more +plenty of clear and fresh rivulets of troutful <i>water</i>, not to speak of +the friendly sea, conveniently distanced from London. As for the <i>earth</i>,” +he continues, “it is both fair and fruitful, and may pass for an expedient +betwixt pleasure and profit, where by mutual consent they are moderately +accommodated.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>HANTS</i></div> + +<p>If old Fuller could revisit the scenes to which this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> description belongs, +he would indeed find profit but moderately accommodated, if at all; for as +the greater proportion of the soil of Hampshire has always been +notoriously poor, so now the farming of it has decayed from the moderately +profitable stage to a condition in which the tenant farmer sits down in +despair, and the landlord has to meet the changed conditions of the times +with heavier reductions of rents than his contemporaries of more fertile +counties are called upon to make. And even so, and despite the fifteen and +twenty-five per cent. deductions that are constantly being made, +innumerable farms have gone, or are going, out of cultivation in +Hampshire, whose bare chalk downs and unkindly levels of sand are growing +lonelier and more desolate year by year.</p> + +<p>But a grateful and profitable feature of Hampshire are the water-meadows +that border the fishful streams of the Itchen, the Test, and the Avon. +They merit all the commendation that Fuller gives them, and more; but, so +far as the Portsmouth Road is concerned, Hampshire exhibits its most +barren, ill-watered, and flinty aspects; from the point where it enters +the county, near Liphook, past the chalky excrescence of Butser Hill, +through the bare and barren downs of Chalton, to Portsmouth itself.</p> + +<p>Cobbett has not very much to say in praise of Hampshire soil, but he found +a considerable deal of prosperity within its bounds in his day, when +agricultural folk still delved, and rural housewives still kept house in +modest fashion. Still! Yes, but already modern luxury and progress had +appeared to leaven the homely life of the villager, when that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> indignant +political and social censor was riding about the country and addressing +the farmers on the State of Politics, the Price of Wheat, and the +advantages of American Stoves.</p> + +<p>Cobbett, writing in 1825, was particularly severe upon the farmers of his +time, who were changing from the race he had known who sat with their +carters and labourers at table; who, with their families, dined at the +same board off fat bacon and boiled cabbage as a matter of course. “When +the old farm-houses are down,” he says, “(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 so stuck-up +in a place she calls the <i>parlour</i>” (note, by the way, the withering irony +of Cobbett’s italics), “with, if she have children, the ‘young ladies and +gentlemen’ about her; some showy chairs and a sofa (a <i>sofa</i> by all +means); half-a-dozen prints in gilt frames hanging up; some swinging +bookshelves 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 a +<i>show</i> not warranted by the reality. The children (which is the worst part +of it) are all too clever to <i>work</i>; they are all to be <i>gentlefolks</i>. Go +to plough! Good God! What! ‘young gentlemen’ go to plough! They become +<i>clerks</i>, or some skimmy-dish thing or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> other. They flee from the dirty +<i>work</i> as cunning horses do from the bridle. What misery is all this! What +a mass of materials for proclaiming that general and <i>dreadful convulsion</i> +that must, first or last, come and blow this funding and jobbing and +enslaving and starving system to atoms!”</p> + +<p>One only wonders, after reading all this, what Cobbett would have said at +this time, when things have advanced another stage towards the millennium; +when nick-nackery is abundant in almost every farm-house; when every other +farmer’s wife has her drawing-room (“parlour,” by the way, being vulgar +and American), and every farmer’s daughter reads,—not tracts, my friend +Cobbett,—but novelettes of the pseudo-Society brand.</p> + +<p>Hampshire cottages remain practically the same, only the dear, delightful +old thatches are gone that afforded pasturage for all sorts of parasitic +plants and mosses; harboured earwigs and other insects too numerous to +mention, and divided the artist’s admiration equally with the rich red +tiling of the more pretentious houses.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>HAMPSHIRE ARCHITECTURE</i></div> + +<p>Hampshire cottage architecture is peculiarly characteristic of the county. +The wayside villages and the scattered hamlets that nestle between the +folds of its chalky hills are made up of cottages built with chalk rubble, +or with black flints and red brick mixed. The flints being readily +obtained, they form by far the greater portion of Hampshire walls; the red +brick being used for dressings and for binding the long, flinty expanses +together, or occupying the place taken by stone quoins, in counties where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +building-stone is freely found. Thus, the homely architecture of the +greater part of Hants is mean and uninteresting, for black flint is not +beautiful and has never been used with good effect in modern times, +although in ancient days the mediæval builders and architects of East +Anglia—notably in Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds—contrived some remarkably +effective work in this unpromising material. Some old work in the larger +Hampshire towns, notably at Hyde Abbey, Winchester, shows an effective use +of black flint in squares alternating with squared stone,—a method known +as diaper work,—but the elaborate flint panelling of Norfolk and Suffolk +is unknown in Hampshire.</p> + +<p>And this brings me to Liphook, a roadside village perhaps originally +sprung from the near neighbourhood of the old deer-forest of Woolmer, when +half-forgotten Saxon and Norman kings and queens, earls and thanes, hunted +here and made the echoes resound with the winding of their horns—“made +the welkin ring,” in fact, as the fine romantic writers of some +generations ago said, in that free and fearless way which is, alas! so +discredited now-a-days. And this is so much more a pity, because along +this old road, upon whose every side the hallooing and the rumour of the +hunting-field were wont to be heard so often and so loudly, one could have +worked in that phrase about “the welkin” with such fine effect, had it not +been altogether so battered and worn-out a literary <i>cliché</i>. This it is +to be born a hundred years later than Sir Walter Scott!</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>FOREST FIRES</i></div> + +<p>The Royal Forest of Woolmer lies partly in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> parish. It is a tract of +land about seven miles in length by two and a half in breadth, running +nearly north and south. In the days of William and Mary the punishments of +whipping and confinement in a house of correction were awarded to all them +that should “burn on any waste land, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any +grig, ling, heath, and furze, goss or fern”; yet in this forest, about +March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast +heath-fires were lighted up that they frequently became quite +unmanageable, and burnt the hedges, woods, and coppices for miles around. +These burnings were defended on the plea that when the old and coarse +coating of heath was consumed, young and tender growths would spring up +and afford excellent browsing for cattle; but where the furze is very +large and old, the fire, penetrating to the very roots, burns the ground +itself; so that when an old common or ancient underwoods are burnt, +nothing is to be seen for hundreds of acres but smother and desolation, +the whole extent of the clearance looking like the cinders of an active +volcano.</p> + +<p>One of these great fires broke out on May 22, 1881, and consumed over 670 +acres. It was originated by the keepers of the Aldershot Game Preserving +Association, for the purpose of obtaining a belt of burnt land around the +Forest, to prevent the straying of the pheasants; but the fire, fanned by +a wind, grew entirely out of hand and quite uncontrollable. Great damage +was occasioned by this outbreak, and the Earl of Selborne’s plantations +were destroyed, together with those of the vicar, whose very house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> and +stabling had a narrow escape. The Forest was the picture of desolation for +a long time afterwards. The oaks were either dead or dying, and the whole +district had an inexpressibly blasted and weird appearance.</p> + +<p>“I remember,” says Gilbert White, of a fire that occurred in his time, +“that a gentleman who lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he +got on the downs between that and Winchester, at twenty-five miles +distance, was surprised with much smoke, and a hot smell of fire, and +concluded that Alresford was in flames, but when he came to that town, he +then had apprehensions for the next village, and so on to the end of his +journey.”</p> + +<p>When the forest was enclosed, in 1858, about one thousand acres were +allotted to the Crown.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXIV</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>LOCAL CELEBRITIES</i></div> + +<p>Liphook is the centre of a tract of country thickly settled with “men of +light and leading.” From Hindhead and Haslemere on one side, to Rake and +Petersfield on the other, are the country homes of men well known to fame. +Away towards Haslemere, on the breezy heights of Blackdown, stands the +picturesque modern house of Aldworth, the home, in his later years, of +Tennyson; and on the very ridge of Hindhead is the obtrusive and still +more modern house built by the late Professor Tyndall, with his hideous +screens of turf and woodwork, set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> up by the Professor with the object of +shielding his privacy from the curious gaze of the vulgar herd. Near by is +a house lately built by Mr. Grant Allen, while Professor Williamson, the +well-known professor of chemistry, resides close at hand, and conducts +experiments with chemical fertilizers over some forty acres of wilderness +and common land, which his care and long-enduring patience have at last +made to “blossom like the rose.” At Blackmoor, towards Selborne, Sir +Roundell Palmer, Q.C., afterwards Lord Chancellor and Earl of Selborne +(“the mildest-mannered man that ever helped to pass a Reform Bill or +disestablish a Church”), has created a fine estate out of a waste of +furze-bushes and heather; while he had for many years a neighbour at +Bramshott in that eminent lawyer, Sir William Erle, who died at the Grange +in 1880. Professor Bell, a natural historian after Gilbert White’s own +heart, and the editor of a scholarly edition of the “Natural History of +Selborne,” lived for many years at that village, in White’s old home, the +Wakes; and at Hollycombe, down the road, Sir John Hawkshaw, the well-known +engineer and designer of the Victoria Embankment, had a beautiful demesne. +Artists in plenty, including Vicat Cole, R.A., Mr. Birket Foster, and Mr. +J. S. Hodgson, have delighted to make their home where these three +counties of Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire meet; and among literary men, +the names of G. P. R. James and of Anthony Trollope occur. Some years ago, +one who was familiar with the country-side said, while standing on the +tower of Milland new church:—“Within a circle of twelve miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> from here +there are more brains than within any other country district in England,” +and if we read <i>quality</i> for quantity, I think he was right.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ‘ROYAL ANCHOR’</i></div> + +<p>But if the neighbourhood of Liphook is the favoured home of so many +distinguished men of our own time, the annals of that famous old hostelry, +the “Royal Anchor,” in Liphook village, can boast quite a concourse of +royal visitors, from the first dawn of its history until the childhood of +Queen Victoria; while as for historic people of less degree (although very +great folk indeed in their own way), why, they are to be counted in +battalions. In fact, had I time to write it, and you sufficient patience +to read, I might readily produce a big book of bigwigs who, posting, or +travelling by stage or mail to Portsmouth, have slept over-night under +this hospitable roof. As for the royalties, one scarce knows where to +begin: indeed, almost every English sovereign within the era of history +has had occasion to travel to Portsmouth, and most of them appear to have +been lodged at the “Anchor,” as it was called before Mr. Peake very +rightly, considering the distinguished history of his house, affixed the +“Royal” to his old sign.</p> + +<p>Records are left of a sovereign as early as the unfortunate Edward II. +having visited Liphook, although we are not told by the meagre chronicles +of his remote age whether the King, who came here for sport in his Royal +Forest of Woolmer, stayed at an inn, nor, indeed, if there was any early +forerunner of the “Anchor” here in those times. Edward VI. passed down the +road to Cowdray, and Elizabeth, who was always “progressing” about the +country,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> and, like the Irishman, never seemed so much at home as when she +was abroad, halted here on her way to that princely seat, and put in a day +or so hunting in the Forest.</p> + +<p>Beyond the fact that the “Merry Monarch” journeyed to Portsmouth and +stayed once at the “Castle” Inn, at Petersfield, we have no details of his +hostelries. He was in a hurry when he came thus far, and troubled the +Woolmer glades but little at any time. Queen Anne, who, after all, seems +rather less of a sportswoman than any other of our Queens, came to Liphook +and Woolmer for the express purpose of seeing the red deer whom her remote +ancestor, the Conqueror, “loved like a father”; and after her time royal +personages came thick and fast, like swallows in summer, and we find them +conferring a deathless fame upon the old inn by the feasts they ordered, +the pretty things they said, and the number of equipages they hired for +the conveyance of themselves and their trains towards the sea-coast. But +never was there in the history of the “Anchor” a more august company than +that assembled here in 1815, after Waterloo, when the Prince Regent, +journeying to Portsmouth to take part in the rejoicings and the reception +of the Allied Sovereigns, entertained at luncheon these crowned heads, +together with the Duchess of Oldenburg and Marshal Blucher. Afterwards +came William IV., who, when Duke of Clarence and Lord High Admiral, had +frequently stayed in the old house and taken his meals in the kitchen, +sitting sometimes, with commendable and endearing <i>bonhomie</i>, on the edge +of the kitchen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> table, gossiping with the landlord, and eating +bread-and-cheese with all the gusto and lack of ceremony of a hungry +plough-boy. The last royal personages to stay at the old inn were the +Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, who walked in the garden or +showed themselves at the windows before the crowds who never failed to +obstruct the roads, eager for a glance at their future Queen.</p> + +<p>I must confess, however, staunch Tory of the most crusted and mediæval +type though I be, that all this array of sovereigns <i>in esse</i> or <i>in +posse</i> seems very dull, and bores me to yawning-point. With the exception +of those two royal brothers, George IV. and the Fourth William, they seem +not so much beings of flesh and blood as clothes-props and the deadly dull +and impersonal frameworks on which were hung so many tinselled dignities +and sounding titles. I turn with a sigh of relief to a much larger and a +great deal more interesting class of travellers who have found beneath the +hospitable roof of the “Royal Anchor” both a hearty welcome and the best +of good cheer; travellers who, however much we may like or dislike them, +were men of character who did not owe everything to the dignities to which +they were born; who, for good or ill, carved their own careers and have +left a throbbing and enduring personality behind them, while a king or a +queen is usually remembered merely by a Christian name and a Roman +numeral.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PEPYS</i></div> + +<p>The guest-rooms of the “Royal Anchor” are called by regal names, and their +titles of “King,” “Queen,” “Crown,” or “George” are blazoned upon the +doors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> with great pomp and circumstance; but as I have retired between the +sweet-smelling, lavender-scented sheets in one or other of the spacious +up-stair rooms and have dowsed the glim of my bedroom candle, I have +considered with satisfaction not so much that “Farmer George” and his +snuffy old <i>hausfrau</i> may have slept here, as that the dearest of old +sinners and inconsequent gossips—I name Samuel Pepys—came to Liphook and +“lay here” o’ nights, in receipt of many conjugal reproaches, I doubt not, +for certain gay vagaries, darkly hinted at with many “God forgive me’s,” +in the pages of those confessions which men know by name as “Pepys’ +Diary.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty first, and amiable gossip +afterwards—although I fancy we generally reverse those titles to +recognition—was among those travellers who have left some sign of their +travels along these miles of heaths and open commons—this wildest +high-road in all England. Apart from his suburban trip to Putney, we find +the diarist chronicling journeys to and from Portsmouth.</p> + +<p>On May 4, 1661, he left Petersfield. “Up in the morning,” says he, “and +took coach, and so to Gilford, where we lay at the ‘Red Lyon,’ the best +inne, and lay in the room where the King lately lay in, where we had time +to see the Hospital, built by Archbishop Abbott, and the free schoole, and +were civilly treated by the Mayster.</p> + +<p>“So to supper and to bed, being very merry about our discourse with the +Drawers” (as who should say the Barmen) “concerning the minister of the +towne, with a red face and a girdle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>“<i>5th, Lord’s Day.</i> Mr. +Creed and I went to the red-faced Parson’s church, +and heard a good sermon of him, better than I looked for. Anon we walked +into the garden, and there played the fool a great while, trying who of +Mr. Creed or I could go best over the edge of an old fountaine well, and I +won a quart of sack of him. Then to supper in the banquet-house, and there +my wife and I did talk high, she against and I for Mrs. Pierce (that she +was a beauty), till we were both angry.”</p> + +<p>Seven years later, on August 6, 1688, to wit, Mr. Samuel Pepys was called +on business to Portsmouth, and Mrs. Pepys determined to go with him, at an +hour’s notice. You may notice that Pepys says her readiness pleased him, +but that would seem to be a shameless want of frankness altogether unusual +in that Diary, wherein are set forth the secret thoughts and doings, not +altogether creditable to him who set them down so fully and freely.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>WAYFARING</i></div> + +<p>He did not travel as an ordinary commoner, being properly mindful of his +dignity as Secretary of a Government Department, a dignity, be it +observed, which it had been well if he had maintained more constantly +before him. Thus he was not a passenger in the Portsmouth “Machine,” which +preceded the mail-coaches, but travelled in his own “coach” or “chariot,” +as he variously describes his private carriage. He would probably have +fared better, swifter, and more certainly if he had used the public +conveyance, but in that case we should have been the poorer by his +description of a journey in which his coachman lost his way for some hours +in the district between Cobham and Guildford, and the party came late +for dinner to the “Red Lion”:—</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img59.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">SAMUEL PEPYS.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>“<i>August 6th, 1688.</i> Waked betimes, and my wife at an hour’s warning is +resolved to go with me; which pleases me, her readiness.... To St. James’s +to Mr. Wren, to bid him ‘God be with you!’ and so over the water to Fox +Hall; and then my wife and Deb. took me up, and we away to Gilford, losing +our way for three or four miles about Cobham. At Gilford we dined; and I +showed them the hospitall there of Bishop Abbot’s, and his tomb in the +church; which, and all the rest of the tombs there, are kept mighty clean +and neat, with curtains before them. So to coach again, and got to +Lippook, late over Hindhead, having an old man a guide in the coach with +us; but got thither with great fear of being out of our way, it being ten +at night. Here good, honest people; and after supper to bed.</p> + +<p>“<i>7th.</i> To coach, and with a guide to Petersfield. And so,” he says, “took +coach again back” after dinner, and “came at night to Gilford; where the +‘Red Lyon’ so full of people, and a wedding, that the master of the house +did get us a lodging over the way, at a private house, his landlord’s, +mighty neat and fine: and there supped; and so” (the usual formula) “to +bed.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXV</h2> + + +<p>Another celebrated (or rather, notorious) person was used to lie here +frequently on his journeys between town and the Isle of Wight. “Liberty”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +Wilkes had an estate at Sandown (<i>he</i> calls it “Sandham”), and when he was +not busy agitating and be-devilling ministers in London, he was taking the +sea-breezes in the Wight and writing innumerable letters to his daughter, +Polly.</p> + +<p>Statesmen must have breathed much more freely when the demagogue had left +London and they were rid for a while, however short, of “his inhuman +squint and diabolic grin.” If we are to believe his contemporaries and the +portrait-painters, he was the ugliest man of his time, with the +countenance of a satyr, to match and typify the low cunning and the +obscenity of his crooked mind. “His personal appearance,” wrote Lord +Brougham, “was so revolting as to be hardly human;” and, indeed, +apologists for Wilkes’ character and appearance are singularly few among +historians in these days, when it is the fashion to review by-past +notorieties with the whitewash brush.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>IMPIOUS REVELLERS</i></div> + +<p>John Wilkes was born in 1727, and married, when in his twenty-second year, +a lady of considerable fortune, who afterwards separated from him, chiefly +owing to the disgust and abhorrence with which she looked upon his +dissolute habits and profligate acquaintances, amongst whom he counted +three of the most notorious rakes of the time, a time excelled in +profligacy only by the reign of Charles II. Shortly after this separation, +Wilkes joined a burlesque monastery, founded, amongst others, by those +three vicious creatures and notorious rakes, Lord Sandwich, Thomas Potter, +son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Francis Dashwood. They +occupied the ruins of an old Cistercian monastery that still stands on +the banks of the Thames at Medmenham, and passed their time in a +blasphemous travesty of religion and the monastic life. The “Medmenham +Monks,” they called themselves, but were known generally as the “Hell-Fire +Club.”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img60.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">JOHN WILKES.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>If the Earl of Sandwich was the champion <i>roué</i>, rake, and profligate of a +vicious age, certainly Wilkes almost bore away the distinction from him; +as we may judge from the result of the election amongst the Medmenham +revellers as to who should be chosen to take a place among the round dozen +who played a leading part in their midnight orgies.</p> + +<p>The Earl of Sandwich, as the greater reprobate of the two, was chosen, and +Wilkes revenged himself upon the company by a practical joke, which +admirably illustrates the nature of their proceedings. “While the profane +revellers were feasting and uttering impious jests, Wilkes let loose, from +a chest wherein he was confined, a baboon dressed according to the common +representations of the Evil One. The moment chosen was during an +invocation addressed by Lord Sandwich to his master, the devil. The +consternation was indescribable. The terror communicated itself to the +baboon, which bounded about the room and finally lighted on Lord +Sandwich’s shoulders, who in a paroxysm of terror recanted all he had been +saying, and, in an agony of cowardice, prayed to Heaven for mercy.”</p> + +<p>Some years later, in 1757, Wilkes entered Parliament as member for +Aylesbury, and became a supporter of the elder Pitt. When Pitt was in +opposition and the scandalously venal, corrupt, and utterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> incompetent +ministry of Lord Bute misgoverned the country, Wilkes started the “North +Briton,” a periodical satire, both in its contents and its title, upon +Scotchmen, who were then bitterly hated by the English, and upon the Scots +in Parliament and in politics, among whom Bute was the most prominent. The +persistent abuse which Wilkes showered upon the ministry had successfully +damaged the Government by the time that his forty-fourth number had been +published, and upon the appearance of the famous “Number 45,” in 1763, +containing criticisms of the King’s Speech, it was resolved to prosecute +him for seditious libel, to search his house, and to arrest himself, his +printers, and publishers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘WILKES AND LIBERTY’</i></div> + +<p>Wilkes desired nothing better than persecution. He was nothing of a +patriot, but only a vulgar schemer who worked for notoriety and gain, and +his craft, together with the inconceivable stupidity of the Government in +making a martyr of him, assured him of both. The warrants for his arrest +and for the seizure of his papers were declared illegal, and the numerous +actions-at-law which he brought against members of the Cabinet and +prominent officials in respect of those illegal proceedings, cost the +Government which defended them no less than £100,000. Wilkes now reprinted +“Number 45,” and a majority in the House of Commons ordered the paper to +be burned by the common hangman, and on January 19, 1764, voted his +expulsion from the House, as the author of a scandalous and seditious +libel. He was convicted in the Court of King’s Bench for having +re-published the obnoxious “Number 45,” but did not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>present himself to +receive sentence. He fled, in fact, to France, and resided there for four +years, an outlaw. Twice he returned to England and unsuccessfully +petitioned an incredibly obstinate and stupid King for a pardon, which, it +is scarcely necessary to add, George III. refused to grant. On the second +occasion a general election was in progress, and this agitator then sought +re-election to Parliament, and stood for the City of London. Defeated in +the City, he issued his election address the following day as a candidate +for the county of Middlesex, and was returned triumphantly at the head of + +the poll. “Wilkes and Liberty!” was now the popular cry, and the member +for Middlesex became more than ever the darling of the mob, the idol of +the populace. But the extraordinary stupidity of King, Court, and +Government, that had raised so utterly worthless and degraded a fellow as +Wilkes to this high pinnacle, kept him there by another expulsion from the +Commons, and by fines and imprisonment inflamed the anger of the crowd to +such a pitch that Benjamin Franklin said, with every appearance of +conviction, “that had Wilkes been as moral a man as the King, he would +have driven George III. out of his kingdom.” So strong were prejudices in +favour of superficial morality in even that licentious age!</p> + +<p>So sensible was Wilkes of the advantages conferred upon him by +imprisonment, that when the savage mob rescued him from the coach that was +conveying him to gaol, he escaped from them and gave himself up, rather +than lose the advertisement of an incarceration. He had his reward +subsequently, when,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> offering himself for re-election for Middlesex, he +was returned with an enormous majority over Colonel Luttrell. The House of +Commons, however, by a vain and impotent resolution, declared the latter +to have been duly elected, and now, chiefly by the aid of folly and +fortuitous circumstances, Wilkes found his fortunes identified with the +cause of the Constitution and the liberty of the subject. He was elected +Sheriff of London, and became in 1774 Lord Mayor, being returned as a +member for Middlesex in the same year, unopposed, and for the fifth time. +At this period the citizens of London conferred upon him the post of +Chamberlain of the City, a position of great profit and consideration, +which must have made amends for many inconveniences in the past.</p> + +<p>And now, having attained all he could desire, Wilkes sank the patriot in +the courtier. “Hush! you old fool!” said he at this period to an old woman +who raised the stale cry of “Wilkes and Liberty” in the street; “that was +all over long ago;” and, upon his being presented at Court during his +Mayoralty, he made himself so agreeable to the King that the old Monarch +declared he had never met so well-bred a Lord Mayor! Wilkes, not to be +out-shone when compliments were going free, assured his Majesty that he +had never been a Wilkite; and so, as in the fairy tales, “they lived +happily ever afterwards.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>CORRESPONDENCE</i></div> + +<p>Wilkes is seen to best advantage in his letters to his daughter. In them +he dropped the turgid vehemence which characterized his public utterances, +and became a quiet, mildly humorous gossip, concerned deeply about all +manner of insignificant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> domestic details, the incidents of his journeys, +and his sojournings in town or country. But from time to time the leer of +the elderly satyr is seen in this correspondence, and passages are not +infrequent in which the most frank and unlooked-for things, as between +father and daughter, may be read. But you shall judge for yourself.</p> + +<p>He writes from Newport, Isle of Wight, on June 9, 1772:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“<span class="smcap">My dearest Polly</span>,</p> + +<p>“I arrived at Cobham on Sunday before twelve, and dined, like a sober +citizen, by one; then sauntered through the elysium of Mr. Hamilton’s +gardens till eight in the evening, like the first solitary man through +Paradise; and afterwards went to bed before ten. Yesterday I got to +Guildford by eleven, and paid my compliments to our good friend, Mrs. +Waugh and her family: reached Portsmouth at five.”</p></div> + +<p>At a later date he writes from “Sandham” (Sandown) Cottage, a country +retreat which he occupied frequently in these latter days, and several +references to the Portsmouth Road occur from time to time, as he journeyed +between Sandham Cottage and Prince’s Court, London. He lay generally at +the “Anchor,” Liphook, where the landlady, Mrs. Keen, “dull and sour” +though she might have been, according to one of Wilkes’ letters, seems to +have made the triumphant demagogue and his daughter sufficiently +comfortable. Writing on September 14, 1788, he says:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>“<span class="smcap">My dearest Polly</span>,</p> + +<p>“I arrived at Sandham yesterday afternoon at three, after a lucky +passage of an hour and five minutes. There was very little wind, and +that quite adverse. I therefore hired for four-and-sixpence a wherry +with two oars not larger than a Thames boat, and committed myself to +our English deity, Neptune, who favourably heard my prayers. The +opposition of a little wind to the tide at high water made the +beginning of this long voyage rather rough; but the rest was +exceedingly pleasant.</p> + +<p>“The preceding day I lay at Liphook, and directed Mrs. Keen to send +you this week a fine goose, and a brace of partridges....</p> + +<p>“The road from Guildford quite to Portsmouth is really enchanting. But +I wanted you to enjoy with me these glorious scenes of Nature. I hope, +however, that the quiet of your present situation” (Miss Wilkes was +visiting the Duchess de la Vallière) “has chased away your feveret, +and restored you to sweet sleep, Nature’s best nurse. Pray send me +such welcome news.”</p></div> + +<p>And then this agitator and sometime blasphemous member of the Medmenham +Hell-Fire Club goes on to write verses appreciative of the scenery on the +Portsmouth Road. In this wise:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Ever charming, ever new,<br /> +The landscape never tires the view:<br /> +The verdant meads, the river’s flow,<br /> +The woody vallies warm and low;<br /> +The windy summit, wild and high,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>Roughly rushing on the sky:<br /> +The pleasant seat, the ruin’d tower,<br /> +The naked rock, the shady bower;<br /> +The town and village,”——</p> + +<p>But enough, enough. This “poetry” is but journalism cut into lengths and +rhymed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>WILKES AS CRITIC</i></div> + +<p>We find Wilkes as a <i>poseur</i> on literature in one of these entertaining +letters to “dearest Polly.” He indites from his cottage of Sandham a June +letter wherein he says how impatient he is for “the descending showers to +call forth all Nature’s sweets, and waken all her flowers, for the earth +is as thirsty as Boswell, and as cracked in many places as he certainly is +in one. His book, however, is that of an entertaining madman. Poor +Johnson! Does a friend come and add to the gross character of such a man +the unknown trait of disgusting gluttony? I shall bring his two quartos +back with me, and will point out numberless mistakes; but there are many +excellent things in them. I suspect, not unfrequently, a mistake in the +<i>Dramatis Personæ</i>. He has put down to <i>Boswell</i> what was undoubtedly said +by <i>Johnson</i>; what the latter did, and what the former could not say. The +motto to his book should have been the two lines of Pope,</p> + +<p class="poem">‘Who tells whate’er you think, whate’er you say,<br /> +And if he lies not, must at least betray.’”</p> + +<p>But he has a playful and somewhat engaging style of writing, on occasion. +Perpend:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right"><span style="padding-right: 8em;">“<i>‘Anchor,’ at Liphook,</i></span><br /> +“<i>Friday Afternoon, July 8, 1791.</i></p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">My dearest Polly</span>,</p> + +<p>“I have found the tench here so remarkably delicate, that nothing +could add to their flavour on a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>certain Alderman’s palate but the +eating them in your company. They were, indeed, exquisite, and I see a +brace playing about, which seem to promise equally. I have therefore +spoiled their sport in the watery element, and as they set out this +evening, before ten, it is thought they will arrive in Grosvenor +Square to-morrow morning, in time for you to decide, at four, if their +personal merit is equal to that of their late companions. Two little +feathered folks, young and tender, of the same farm, accompany them in +their journey, and I hope are not unworthy of being <i>croqués</i>.</p> + +<p>“My best compliments to the nymph of the bosquets in Grosvenor Square.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">“Adieu!”</span></p></div> + +<p>The inclemency of the merry month of May is not of modern date, for +Wilkes, who had been travelling from Grosvenor Square to Sandown on the +sixth of that treacherous month, in the year of grace 1792, found a fire +at the hospitable “Anchor” as welcome as fires generally are in dreary +autumn.</p> + +<p>“After I left Grosvenor Square,” he says, “quite to Liphook, it rained +incessantly, and I enjoyed a good fire there as much as I should have done +on a raw day of the month of November. I found the spring very backward, +except in the immediate environs of London; and nothing but a little +purple heath and yellow broom to cheer the eye in the long dreary extent +from Guildford to Liphook.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>TRAVELLING EXPERIENCES</i></div> + +<p>Some few days later, he writes a gossipy letter to his daughter, full of +little domestic details, most <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>strange and curious to find flowing from +the pen of Liberty Wilkes. We find, for instance, “that the gardener’s +wife increases in size almost as much as his pumpkins,” and that “there +are thirteen pea-fowls at the cottage, between whom some solemn +gallantries are continually passing; and the gallinis are as brisk and +amorous as any French <i>petits-maîtres</i>. The consequences I foresee.</p> + +<p class="poem">‘Un et un font deux,<br /> +C’est le nombre heureux,<br /> +En galanterie, mais quelquefois,<br /> +Un et un font trois.’”</p> + +<p>On another occasion we learn that “the farmers are swearing, the parsons +praying, for rain; neither hopeful of any result until the weather +changes.” About this time—on July 7, 1793—Mr. Wilkes has been returning +along the Portsmouth Road from London to the Isle of Wight. He found the +dust and heat almost overpowering, and the highway crowded with recruits, +both for army and navy, who were no small inconvenience to his progress. +Portsmouth was full of warlike preparations, Lord Howe expecting to sail +the same day with a fleet of twenty sail, perfectly well-conditioned, and +the men in high spirits at the prospect of coming to blows with the +French.</p> + +<p>Similarly, the next year, he found the July heat almost beyond endurance. +“I almost melted away,” he tells Polly, “from the extreme of a suffocating +heat before I arrived at Cobham, and a large bowl of lemonade was scarcely +sufficient to wash away the dust, which I had been champing for above +three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> hours.” A Mr. Hervey, “brother-in-law to Mr. Lambe, a silversmith, +and Common Councilman of my ward,” was at that time landlord of the “White +Hart,” at Cobham. “I was well used by him,” says Wilkes, “and the house +has a very decent appearance, but the poor fellow had tears in his eyes +when he told me of thirty-five horse quartered on him.” When he reached +Liphook, what with two hounds, chained together in the outhouses of the +“Anchor,” yelping all night, and the intolerable heat, the patriot had no +sleep the livelong night, and so resorted to his post-chaise and departed +for Portsmouth at an early hour of the morning.</p> + +<p>Those were busy days in the history of the “Anchor,” and the constant +stream of poorer wayfarers added to the bustle. Poor folk took a +shake-down, with what grace they might summon up, in some clean straw on +the floor of outhouses and barns, and in this manner slept the sailor-men +who were continually tramping up the road or down. Not that sailors were +necessarily poor, but the bedrooms that held royalty were judged to be +above the tastes and circumstances of poor Jack, to whom, certainly, clean +straw in a barn would seem at any rate infinitely better than the gloomy +forecastle which he had just left.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>DECADENCE</i></div> + +<p>But if the sailors a hundred years ago, or thereby, were denied the +luxuries of sheets and coverlets, they were free to drink as much as they +pleased at the public bar, so long as they had the wherewithal to settle +the score. Rowlandson, who travelled this very road, has left a sketch of +“Sailors Carousing,” by which you can see that Jack was, at any rate, +not one of Luther’s fools, for the picture shows that he loved “women, +wine, and song” to a riotous extent. And Jack come home from a long +cruise, with prize-money in his pockets, was as ostentatious as any +<i>nouveau riche</i>. He would damn expense with any lord, and has been known +to call for sandwiches at the “Anchor” to place five-pound notes between, +and to eat the whole with an insane bravado.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img61.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">SAILORS CAROUSING. <i>From a Sketch by Rowlandson.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>Those brave days were done when the railway came and left the roads silent +and deserted. Old inns sank into obscurity and neglect, and for many years +afterwards the sight of a solitary stranger wanting a bed for the night +would have aroused excitement in a place where, in the old days, one more +or less was a matter of little import. The “Anchor” for a time shared the +fate of its fellows, and its condition in 1865 is eloquently pictured by +the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. He says—</p> + +<p>“I was travelling about the country, and it so happened that railway time, +as well as inevitable time, chose to make me</p> + +<p class="poem">‘The sport of circumstances, when<br /> +Circumstances seemed most the sport of men,’</p> + +<p>and I found myself belated and tired in the vicinity of the little rural +village of Liphook, on the borders of Hampshire and Surrey, and forced by +time and circumstances to put up at a well-known inn.</p> + +<p>“Now, time was when no traveller would have found fault with this, for the +inn I thus allude to was then the great posting and coaching house of ‘the +road,’<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> and the roar of wheels and the cries of ‘first and second turn +out,’ either ‘up or down,’ rang through the merry air, and kept the +locality in loud and continuous bustle, night and day. Now, however, the +glory of the roadside inn was gone; its site seemed changed to grief, and +the great elm tree<a name='fna_4' id='fna_4' href='#f_4'><small>[4]</small></a> that had formerly during the heat of summer shed a +cooling shade over panting steeds and thirsty, dusty-booted men, +luxuriously grasping a fresh-drawn tankard of ale, stood sorrowing over +the grave of the posting and coaching trade, a tearful mourner on every +rainy day.</p> + +<p>“There were the long ranges of stables, once filled by steeds of every +step and temper, curious specimens of every blemish under the sun. Some +that ran away the whole way, others that would be run away with by the +rest of the team; some that kept the whip in action to send them to the +collar, and others that kept the whip still, lest its touch should shut +them up to stopping, and give them no collar at all.</p> + +<p>“These stables were a melancholy sight to me. They reminded me of my own. +Where, in my full stalls, twenty goodly steeds used to feed, little else +than a mouse stirs now; and that mouse may be a ghost for all I know, +haunting the grave of the last oat eaten a quarter of a century ago. In +this long line of disused stabling I paused. There was a thin cat there, +deceived to expectation by the long-deserted hole of a rat. A broken +broom, covered with very ancient cobwebs, lay under one manger, and the +remnants of a stable-bucket under another. Farmers came in and farmers +went out occasionally and tied up their horses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> anywhere; so that all the +tumbling-down stalls were dirty, and the whole thing given up to dreary +desolation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>RUSTIC CATERING</i></div> + +<p>“A musing and a melancholy man, I left the stables, went into the house, +and called for dinner and a bed. No smart waiter, with a white napkin +twisted round his thumb, came forth to my summons; the few people in the +house looked like broken-down farming-men and women, and seemed to be +occupied in the selfish discussion of their own tap.</p> + +<p>“‘Yes,’ they said, as if astonished by the unwonted desire for such +refreshment, ‘I <i>could</i> have a bed; and what would I like for dinner?’</p> + +<p>“Now, that question was very well for them to ask, when they knew its +meaning to be very wide; but the real dilemma was, what could they get to +set before me? a point on which I at once desired information. ‘A fowl.’ +‘What, ready for dressing?’ ‘Oh yes, quite.’ Spirit of Ude—that King of +Cooks (when he chose it)—if you still delight in heat, then grill these +people; or when you ‘cook their goose,’ teach them to know the difference +between a fowl hung for a time and picked for the spit, and a poor dear +old chuckie, seated at roost in all her feathers, and ‘ready’ certainly; +for her owner has only to clutch her legs and pull her screaming from her +perch, to roast or boil, and send her, tough, to table.</p> + +<p>“Well, up came my hen at last, flanked by some curious compound, dignified +by the name of sherry, which I exchanged for some very nearly as bad +spirits and water; when, having gone through the manual—not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> the +mastication—of a meal, I walked forth, and mused on the deserted garden +and paddock in the rear of all; and in the dusky hue of night fancied that +I saw the shadows of galled and broken-kneed posters limping over the +grass to graze, as no doubt they had done in former times. In short, dear +reader, from this last retrospection, hallucination, or what you will, I +regained mine inn, and, calling for a candle, went to bed.”</p> + +<p>There is a sad picture of decadence for you! But in two years’ time all +this was changed, for in 1867 the present landlord, Mr. Peake, took the +fortunes of the old house in hand, and restored, as far as possible, the +old-time dignity of the place. He has brought back many of the glories of +the past, and still reigns. I have met many sorts of hosts, but none of +them approach so nearly the ideal as he, to whom the history and the care +of this fine old inn are as much a religion as the maintenance of their +religious houses was to the old monks of pre-Reformation days. And no post +more delightful than this, which gives one fresh air, leisure for +recreation, and nearly all the advantages of the country gentleman, to +whom, indeed, mine host of the “Anchor” most closely approximates in look +and speech. Long may the pleasant white face of the “Anchor” be turned +towards the village street, and, friend Peake, may your shadow, with the +grateful shade of the glorious chestnut tree that fronts your hostelry, +never grow less!</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> +<h2>XXVI</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>MILLAND</i></div> + +<p>Leaving Liphook, where, in the coaching revival of the ’70’s, Captain +Hargreaves’ “Rocket” coach between London and Portsmouth stopped forty +minutes for lunch, we take to the road again, and come presently to +Milland Common. This is splendid galloping ground, and coaches always made +good time here, both in the old times and the new. Half-way across the +Common (being, not coach-passengers, but merely pedestrians whose time is +their own) we will step aside to investigate the two ecclesiastical-looking +buildings that are seen between and beyond the trees on the left hand. +Here, then, are the two chapels of Milland, with the adjoining “habitable +parsonage,” to quote the somewhat vague description of the “Clergy List.” +The new chapel, opened in 1880, although a fair specimen of modern work +and the design of the late architect of the Royal Palace of Justice in +London, is uninteresting; but the old, barn-like building that served the +scattered inhabitants of Milland so many years and yet remains beside its +modern successor, is worthy a glance, if only for its extremely small and +simple (not to say primitive) design. It is so small that it could not +conveniently contain a congregation of more than fifty people; its plan, +shaped like the letter L, is surely unique, and altogether, the interior, +with its plain high pews and meagre pulpit, and its plastered, whitewashed +walls, is of the most unusual and secular appearance. Yet this diminutive +building served the needs of the place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> from the days of Edward VI. until +recently, and to it trudged on Sundays those of the Liphook folk who did +not care to tramp to their own distant church of Bramshott; and even some +pious souls from Rake (who, perhaps, valued public worship overmuch) +performed a six-miles journey hither and home again.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img62.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">MILLAND CHAPEL.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>SELBORNE</i></div> + +<p>But here let us leave the Portsmouth Road awhile for an expedition of some +five miles into the still wild and rarely-travelled tract of country in +whose midst lies the village of Selborne, memorable as the home,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> during +his long life, of that most amiable and placid student of Nature and her +works, the Rev. Gilbert White, D.D. When you have passed through the +village of Liss, you come at once into a broad expanse of country whose +characteristics resemble the typical scenes of Devonshire rather than +those of Hants. Swelling hills and fertile vales, still intersected by the +deeply-rutted lanes of which Gilbert White speaks, lead on to the +sequestered village of Selborne, as remote now from the rumours and +alarums of the outer world as when the naturalist penned his “Natural +History of Selborne,” over a hundred years ago.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img63.jpg" alt="The Wakes, Selborne" /></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>The village occupies, with its few cottages, its church and vicarage, and +Gilbert White’s home, “The Wakes,” a long and narrow valley. The Hanger, +covered now as in White’s time with his favourite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> tree, the beech, rises +at the back of the village street, and trees indeed abound everywhere, +coming even to aid the simple architecture of the place.</p> + +<p>The butcher’s shop at Selborne rests its front on three polled limes which +form living pillars to the roof, and give, apart from their rustic +appearance, a welcome shade and grateful coolness to that country shop in +the heats of summer. But the most remarkable tree in Selborne, as indeed +anywhere in Hampshire, is the noble churchyard yew, mentioned by the +naturalist, and still standing to the south-west of the church. This +remarkable tree has a circumference of twenty-five feet two inches at a +height of four and a half feet from the ground; it rises to a total height +of sixty-two feet, and its great branches spread a distance of twenty-two +yards from north to south. It is still in the perfection of good health, +and its foliage wears the dark and lustrous appearance characteristic of +the yew when in a thriving state. It must have been a remarkable tree even +in Gilbert White’s time, and its age can only be counted by centuries.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GILBERT WHITE</i></div> + +<p>The Wakes, where this simple soul lived so long, stands in the village +street, by the open grass-plot, familiar to readers of the “Natural +History” as the Plestor. Additions have been made to the house since +White’s time, but so judiciously that its appearance is little altered. +His summer-house is gone to wreck, but the sunny garden, with its narrow +red-brick path, remains, and so does the American juniper tree, together +with the sculptured sun-dial, both set up by this quiet curate-in-charge.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>His life in this quiet and isolated parish, wherein his observation of and +delight in the living things of garden and lane, hanger and pond, were +mingled with the duties of a country clergyman and the contemplative +recreations of the book-lover, was suave and untroubled. Of the events—so +to call them—of this calm and kindly life there is but a slender outline +to record. He was born here, at the Wakes, the residence of his father and +his grandfather before him, on July 18, 1720. Educated first at +Basingstoke, under the care of the Rev. Thomas Warton, father of Warton +the Poet Laureate, he was entered at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1739; took +his B.A. in 1743; obtained a Fellowship in the succeeding year, and the +degree of M.A. in 1746. He was ordained as a priest in 1747, and +subsequently served, it is said, as curate to his uncle, the Vicar of +Swarraton. He soon removed to Selborne, where he lived the remainder of +his days, dying here on June 26, 1793. It has been said that he accepted +the College living of Moreton Pinkney in Northamptonshire, but he +certainly never went into residence there, and refused other offers of +preferment. A Fellow of his College, he never forfeited his fellowship by +marriage, and he was never Vicar of Selborne, but only curate-in-charge.</p> + +<p>His only regret seems to have been that he had no neighbours whose +pursuits resembled his own in any way. Thus, one of his letters records +the regret that it had been his misfortune “never to have had any +neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural +knowledge”: to which he attributes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> his “slender progress in a kind of +information to which I have been tenderly attached from my childhood.”</p> + +<p>But it was owing to this seclusion and want of companionship that we are +become the richer, by his letters to Thomas Pennant and the Hon. Daines +Barrington, which have delighted successive generations. Little has come +down to us concerning the personal attributes of Gilbert White. No +portrait of him is known. We are told that he was a little man—some say +but five feet three inches in height—who wore a wig and rode on a pony to +Farringdon Church, where he officiated for a quarter of a century, or +ambled benignantly about the lanes and by-ways of the neighbourhood. In +one of his letters to a friend in Norfolk, he speaks of himself as riding +or walking about the parish “attended daily (for although not a sportsman +I still love a dog) by a beautiful spaniel with long ears, and a spotted +nose and legs,” and watching the village folk “as they sit in grave debate +while the children frolic and dance before them.” All that remains of his +memory in village traditions and recollections indicates the modest, +kindly nature of a courteous gentleman, such as peeps out from the pages +of the “Natural History of Selborne.”</p> + +<p>Selborne Church is a roomy and handsome building in the Transitional +Norman and Early English styles. It consists of a nave of four bays, a +south aisle, chancel, and massive western embattled tower. It has, +however, a somewhat unfortunate effect of newness, owing to the +restoration of 1883, when the south aisle was almost completely rebuilt, +under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> direction of a grand-nephew of the naturalist—Mr. William +White, architect.</p> + +<p>A memorial slab to the memory of Gilbert White is placed within the +altar-rails, on the south wall of the chancel, and records that he was the +son of John White, of Selborne, and Anne, daughter of Thomas Holt, Rector +of Streatham. Another tablet, on the north wall, records the death, in +1759, of John White, barrister-at-law; and an earlier Gilbert White, Vicar +of Selborne and grandfather of the more famous naturalist, lies in the +chancel, beneath a ledger-stone bearing the date 1727.</p> + +<p>Gilbert White is buried in the churchyard, among the tall grasses and +waving wild-flowers, in a manner peculiarly fitting for that simple soul; +and his grave—one of a row of five belonging to the White family—has a +plain headstone, grey and lichened now, with the simple inscription, “G. +W., 26th June, 1793.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ‘NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE’</i></div> + +<p>It seems strange that so simple and uneventful a chronicle of the lives +and habits of familiar birds and “wee sma’ beasties,” together with the +plain records of sunshine and storm, rains and frosts, the blossoming of +flowers and the fall of the leaf, which the “Natural History of Selborne” +presents, should have attained so great and lasting a popularity. This +book is become as sure a classic as the “Pilgrim’s Progress” or the +“Compleat Angler,” and no one would have been more surprised at this +result of his patient labours, undertaken simply for the joy they gave +him, than old Gilbert himself. You see, in every page, nay, in every line, +that he wrote for himself and his friends alone, and not with an observant +eye upon the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>booksellers and their clients. Nay, more! Had he written +thus, we should have missed the better part of his book; the observation +of years, which thought nothing of profit for labour and time expended; +the just language, written without any cudgelling of the brain for effect, +and the homely incidents that make him live more surely than aught else. +You can claim Timothy the tortoise as a personal friend, and are thrilled +with the curious annals of the idiot boy whose strange appetite for +honey-bees excited the naturalist’s sympathies, both for the bees and the +boy. Colonies might revolt and become the “United States”; French +Revolutions and other dreadful portents shake thrones and set the world in +arms, but Gilbert was a great deal more interested in the butcher birds, +and in predatory rats, than in soldiers or blood-boltered human tyrants. +The mid-day snoring of sleepy owls in the dusky rafters of some capacious +barn, the hum of the bees, the scream of the peewits, and the clattering +cabals of noisy starlings were more to him than instrumental music or the +disputes of parliaments. And so he lived an uninterrupted round for forty +years and died peacefully at last, happy and contented always, while +dwellers in towns, then as now, beat their hearts out in unavailing +ambitions and fruitless hatreds.</p> + +<div class="figright"><img src="images/img64.jpg" alt="" /><br /><small>BADGE OF THE<br />SELBORNE SOCIETY.</small></div> + +<p>Ornithology owes much to Gilbert White’s patient observations, and his +“Natural History” bids fair to become a possession for all time. +Numberless editions of it have been issued, annotated by men of science, +who have found little of import to add to his work; and other editions are +constantly in the making.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> But best monument of all is that association of +friends to birds and beasts, the Selborne Society, that, taking its name +from Gilbert White’s old home, owns him as master in many branches and +local centres throughout England. When the centenary of the simple +naturalist’s death was celebrated in 1893, the large attendance at +Selborne of members of the Society showed that here lies one whose memory +the lovers of nature and wild life will not willingly let die.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXVII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>TOLL-HOUSES</i></div> + +<p>Returning from this sentimental excursion to Selborne to the road at Rake, +the pedestrian will notice a singular old cottage with many angles, +fronting the highway. This is one of the old toll-houses left after the +abolition of turnpike trusts, and of the vexatious taxes upon road-travel +that only finally disappeared within comparatively recent years. Sixty, +nay fifty, years ago, there were six toll-houses and turnpike bars between +London and Portsmouth. They commenced with one at Newington, followed +closely by another at Vauxhall, and one more at the “Robin Hood,” in +Kingston Vale. The next was situated at Cobham Street, and neither Cary +nor Paterson, the two great rival road-guides of coaching days, mention +another until just before Liphook. The next was at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> Rake, but, singularly +enough, neither of those usually unimpeachable authorities mention this +particular gate, which would appear to have been the last along this +route.</p> + +<p>Just beyond the old toll-house, visible down the road in the illustration +of the “Flying Bull,” comes the rustic public-house bearing that most +unusual, if not unique, sign. Here stands a grand wayside oak beside a +steep lane leading down into Harting Coombe, and the bare branches of this +giant tree make a most effective natural composition with the tiled front +of the inn and its curious swinging sign. The present writer inquired the +origin of the “Flying Bull” of a countryman, lounging along the road, and +obtained for answer the story that is current in these parts; which, +having no competing legend, may be given here for what it is worth.</p> + +<p>“The ‘Flying Bull,’” said the countryman. “Oh, aye, it <i>is</i> a curious +sign, sure-ly. How did it ’riginate? Well, they <i>do</i> say as how, years +ago, before <i>my</i> time, they useter turn cattle out to graze in them +meadows down there;” and he pointed down the lane. “There wur a lot o’ +flies in those meadows in summer at that time, and so there is now, for +the matter o’ that. Howsomedever, when they turned them there cattle into +these here meadows, the flies made ’em smart and set ’em racing about half +mad. They <i>wur</i> flying bulls; but ’tis <i>my</i> belief it useter be the ‘Fly +<i>and</i> Bull’ public-house.... Thankee, sir; yer health, I’m sure!”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img65.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “FLYING BULL” INN.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>The road now rises gradually to a considerable height, being carried along +the ridge of Rake Down, an elevated site now covered with large and +pretentious country residences, but less than fifty years ago a wide tract +of uncultivated land that grew nothing but gorse and ling, grass and +heather, and bore no houses. The view hence is peculiarly beautiful over +the wooded Sussex Weald, towards Midhurst, whose name, even now, describes +its situation amid woods. The hollow below is Harting Coombe, and the +neighbouring villages of Harting and Rogate recall the time when wild deer +roamed the oak woods and the jealously-guarded Chases of Waltham and +Woolmer.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img66.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “FLYING BULL” SIGN.</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE ‘JOLLY DROVERS’</i></div> + +<p>Just beyond the long line of modern houses stands another roadside inn, +the “Jolly Drovers,” planted ’mid capacious barns and roomy outhouses, at +the angle of another country lane, leading to Rogate. The “Jolly Drovers” +looks an old house, but it was built so recently as the ’20’s, by a frugal +drover named Knowles, who saw a profitable investment for his savings in +building a “public” at what was then a lonely spot called Shrubb’s Corner.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img67.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “JOLLY DROVERS.”</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>And now, all the remaining five miles into Petersfield, the road goes +along a fine, healthy, breezy country, bordered for a long distance by +park-like iron fences and carefully-planted sapling firs, pines, and +larches. At a point three and a half miles distant from Petersfield comes +the hamlet of Sheet, where the road goes down abruptly between low, sandy +cliffs, and brings us into the valley of the Rother, here a tiny stream +that trickles insignificantly under a bridge, and rises, some three miles +away, behind Petersfield, amid the hills and hangers of Steep, on the +grounds of Rothercombe Farm, and then flows on through Sussex. The Sussex +and Hampshire borders have, indeed, followed the road nearly all the way +from Milland, but now we plunge directly into Hants. The character of the +country changes, too, almost as soon as we are over the line; the chalk +begins to replace the sand and gravel hitherto met,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> and the trees are +fewer. Only by Buriton and at Up Park, to the south, is there much +woodland; but at the latter place the deep shady copses and the ferny +dells where the red deer still browse are delightful. Up Park should hold +a place in the memory of loyal sportsmen, for it was here, long before +Goodwood was used as a running-ground, that many celebrated races were +held; and here the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., won his first +race, in 1784, when his “Merry Traveller” beat Sir John Lade’s “Medly +Cut.” And so into Petersfield.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXVIII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PETERSFIELD</i></div> + +<p>The old market town of Petersfield is one of those quiet places which, to +the casual stranger, seem to sleep for six days of the week, and for one +day of every seven wake up to quite a sprightly and business-like mood. +But Petersfield is even quieter than that. Its market is but fortnightly, +and for thirteen days out of every fourteen the town dozes tranquilly. The +imagination pictures the inhabitants of this old municipal and +parliamentary borough rubbing their eyes and yawning every alternate +Wednesday, when the corn and cattle market is held; and when the last +drover has gone, at the close of day, sinking again into slumber with a +sigh of relief. Parliamentary, alas! the borough is no longer, since the +latest Reform and Redistribution of Seats Act has snatched away the one +member that remained of the two who represented these free and enlightened +burgesses before the Era of Reform broke out so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> destructively in 1832, +and has now left the representation of Petersfield merged into that of a +county division. The town lives in these days solely upon agriculture, and +the needs of neighbouring fox-hunters. Once upon a time it possessed a +number of woollen manufactories, but industries of this kind have long +since died out, or have been transferred to more likely seats of commerce; +and cattle, sheep, pigs, corn, and similar products now most do exercise +the minds and muscles of local folk. It is a substantial, well-built town, +looking, for all its age, like some late seventeenth-century growth, and +the stranger standing in the market-place finds it difficult, if not +impossible, to realize an antiquity that goes back certainly as far as the +twelfth century, and dimly to an age when primitive savages, naked and +dyed a brilliant blue, lived here in some clearing of the dense forest +that spread over the face of the country, and hunted with ill success, and +the inadequate aid of flint weapons, the wild boars and other fearsome +fauna of that remote time.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>EARLY DAYS</i></div> + +<p>We know, chiefly from geological evidence, that when the Romans came and +sailed up what is now Portsmouth Harbour, and cast anchor off the shore at +Porchester, they found the southern face of Portsdown Hill as bare of +trees as we see it to-day. Mounting to the crest of that imposing range, +the legionaries looked down upon a forest that stretched, with few breaks, +black and sullen, as far as eye could reach. This interior contained a +settlement of the Belgæ at what is now Winchester, and, for the rest, +unknown men and beasts; and was only to be penetrated by slow and +laborious felling of trees, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> clearing of tangled brushwood; while, +every now and again, these determined pioneers would be startled by an +irruption of ferocious Belgæ (those primitive Frenchmen), who with +flint-tipped arrows sent many an invader to his long account. Those +stubborn Romans, however, cleared a way, and, indeed, several ways. For, +from this Portus Magnus, modern Porchester,—where their original fortress +still stands, added to by mediæval builders,—Roman roads were made to +Venta Belgarum (Winchester), Regnum (Chichester), and Clausentum, now +known as Bitterne. On either side of these roadways to and from their +armed camps still stretched the woodlands, and they remained, in greater +part, when the Roman power declined and the legions were withdrawn, to +give room, in due time, to the invading Saxons. All these hundreds of +years the dark recesses of the forest remained practically unknown; but at +some safe and convenient distance from the towns of Venta or Regnum—handy +for support, and yet sufficiently rural—Roman generals, prefects, and +rich merchants erected elaborate villas, whose ruins are even now +occasionally discovered by the ploughman as he laboriously turns over the +grudging soil of Hants. Hypocausts and elaborate mosaic pavements testify +to the comfort and luxury with which they surrounded themselves in those +truly spacious days, while abundant traces of their roads remain. It +cannot have been until late Saxon times that the site of Petersfield +became at all settled, and we first hear of it as a town when William, +Earl of Gloucester, conferred a charter upon it, in the dawn of the +twelfth century.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>That ancient document is still in existence, as also is its confirmation +by the Countess Hawyse, the Earl’s widow in after years; and both these +important parchments, together with any number of later documents, were +produced in the locally-celebrated Petersfield petition in 1820 against +the pretensions of the lord of the manor, who claimed rights over the +municipal elections which the worthy burgesses and freeholders of the town +successfully resisted.</p> + +<p>The result of that contention is evident to-day only in a supremely dull +book in which all the conflicting evidence is printed in page after page +of portentous, though hazy, rhetoric. It is all very uninteresting, and +the quantity of evidence so obscures the issues of the fight that he who, +like the present historian, comes to a consideration of these things from +the point of view of interesting the “general reader,” may be very well +excused for coming away from a survey of the fray with as little knowledge +of it as old Kaspar, in the poem. You cannot know “all about the war and +what they fought each other for” without delving very deep indeed into the +mustiest by-ways of municipal history.</p> + +<p>The Jolliffe, the lord of the manor whose claims were thus resisted by the +good folk of Petersfield, was, singularly enough, a descendant of that +lover of liberty and paragon of latinity, William Jolliffe, Esq., M.P. for +the borough, and a knight in 1734, who presented the leaden equestrian +statue of William III., that now stands in the market square, in +admiration of that “Vindicator of Liberty.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>HALF A HERO</i></div> + +<p>This statue, bowed and bent and painted white, was originally set up in +that part of the town known as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> “the New Way.” In those days it was richly +gilt, and doubtless excited the awe and admiration of the travellers who +passed through Petersfield; but to-day, the attitude of the King is +undignified, and the airy garb of old Rome in which he is represented, not +only adds nothing to our reverence, but outrages our sense of the fitness +of things under these cloudy skies.</p> + +<p>The circumstances under which this statue was erected are recounted (in a +manner dear to the heart of Dr. Johnson) in a Latin inscription of equal +length and magniloquence, carved upon its stone pedestal. It veils with an +impenetrable obscurity the identity of this classic horseman from nine of +every ten people who behold him, and it runs thus:—</p> + +<table style="margin-left: 15%;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="table"> +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">Illustrissimo Celsissimo Principi<br /> +<span class="smcap">Gulielmo Tertio</span><br /> +Qui ob plurima quam maxuma Officia<br /> +De his Gentibus optime meritus est<br /> +Qui Rempublicam pene labefactam<br /> +Fortiter sustentavit<br /> +Qui purum et sincerum Dei cultum<br /> +Tempestive conservavit<br /> +Qui legibus vim suam Senatiq: auctoritatem<br /> +Restituit et stabilavit<br /> +Gulielmus Jolliffe Eques<br /> +Ne aliquid qualecumque deesset Testimonium<br /> +Quanto cum amore Studioq: tam ipsam Libertatem<br /> +Quam egregium hunc Libertatis Vindicem<br /> +Proseartus est<br /> +Hanc Statuam Testamento suo dicavit</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">———</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td colspan="2">Et in hoc Municipio poni curavit</td></tr> +<tr><td rowspan="3" valign="middle">Exts</td> + <td rowspan="3"><span class="large">{</span></td> + <td>Samuele Tufnel</td></tr> +<tr><td>Edvardo Northey</td></tr> +<tr><td>Johanne Jolliffe</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>It was in 1815 that this leaden presentment of Dutch William was removed +to its present site, over against the “Castle” Inn, where a scion of the +House he supplanted—Charles II.—had, years before, slept a night on his +way to France through Portsmouth.</p> + +<p>Gibbon’s father was the fellow-member with Sir William Jolliffe in the +Parliamentary representation of Petersfield from 1734 to 1741, when he +finally resigned all ambition to take part in the councils of the nation. +The historian, although for many years he had a seat in the House of +Commons, never represented Petersfield, but only the remote Cornish +borough of Liskeard. In this connection, the return for the three +candidates who offered themselves for election in 1774 may be of interest. +Between them they polled only a hundred and twenty-five votes, in the +following order:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td>For</td> + <td>Jolliffe</td> + <td><span class="spacer"> </span></td> + <td>55</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">"</td> + <td>Hume</td> + <td> </td> + <td>53</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">"</td> + <td>Sutton</td> + <td> </td> + <td>17</td></tr></table> + +<p>And this is the number of the free and independent electors who at that +time cared to exercise the glorious privilege of the franchise!</p> + +<p>As showing the relative importance of towns and villages in olden times, +it may be noted that Petersfield was an appanage of the manor of Buriton, +and that the ecclesiastical parish was a part of the rectory of the same +village until 1886. Yet the ancient parish church of St. Peter the Apostle +at Petersfield is a fine building, parts of which go back to Norman times. +Indeed, the chancel arch and some elaborate arcading in the church are +very fine examples of that period, and tend to show the importance with +which the early Norman builders invested this spot. But even to-day the +living of the quiet village of Buriton is very much more valuable than +that of the borough town of Petersfield.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img68.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">PETERSFIELD MARKET-PLACE.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PETERSFIELD HOSTELRIES</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>So much for the history of Petersfield. Busy days it had in coaching +times, and its inns were of the best, as befitted a place where the +coaches stopped to change teams. They are still here: the chiefest of +them, the “Castle,” is now a school, and a very fine building it is, +whether as school or hostelry. It stands boldly fronting the market-place, +and is to be seen in the accompanying illustration, behind the statue of +William III. It is the place where Charles II. stayed, on his way to +Portsmouth, and is referred to by Pepys:—</p> + +<p>“<i>May 1st.</i> Up early and bated at Petersfield in the room which the King +lay in lately at his being there. Here very merry and played with our +wives at bowles. Then we set forth again, and so to Portsmouth, seeming to +me to be a very pleasant, strong place.”</p> + +<p>The other inns where the jaded traveller of fifty years ago was certain of +being well and adequately received, were the “Dolphin,” the “White Hart,” +and the “Red Lion,” all of them flourishing still. Of these the “Dolphin” +is the largest, standing at the corner of Dragon Street, where the +high-road passes by. The courtyards and coach-houses of the “Dolphin” are +a sight to see and to wonder at. You gaze at them, and presently the old +times seem to come crowding back. The eight-and-twenty coaches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> (more or +less, as you choose your period) that fared either way upon the Portsmouth +Road seem more real to you who look upon these capacious stables; and the +passengers, the coachmen and guards, the ostlers, and the horsey +hangers-on of such places come upon the imagination with a great deal more +of reality than is gained from the reading of books, howsoever eloquent.</p> + +<p>Cobbett on one of his rides stayed at Petersfield, and put up at this old +house. “We got,” says he, “good stabling at the ‘Dolphin’ for our horses. +The waiters and people at inns <i>look so hard at us</i> to see us so liberal +as to horse-feed, fire, candle, beds, and room, while we are so very very +sparing in the article of drink! They seem to pity our taste!”</p> + +<p>The memory of old times dies hard, and they still tell you here of the +wonderful goat that was used to take his pleasure in following the +up-coaches from here to Godalming, returning day by day to sleep in the +straw of the “Dolphin” stables. For years this singular animal escorted +the coaches, until one day, after running some distance with the mail, he +turned round three times, trotted off home, and during the rest of his +life eschewed the delights of the road altogether. That was in 1825, and +the tale has lost nothing in the telling these seventy years.</p> + +<p>For the rest, the “Dolphin” is a singularly dull and unromantic-looking +house, painted a leaden hue. Within, it is all long dark corridors and +unexpected corners. Commercials frequent it; although inquiries have not +yet discovered what commercial gentlemen sell at Petersfield. Sportsmen +come here too, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> tourists of the pedestrian variety. In the old days, +of the period between the coaching era and the present time, the “Dolphin” +was very much neglected; the flooring precipitous and mostly worn out, so +that the unsophisticated guest who jumped incautiously from his bed in the +morning would, very likely, thrust his foot through some unexpected hole, +to the imminent danger of the ceiling of the room beneath; or else would +find himself rushing, with the steep gradient of the floor, into obscure +corners of his apartment. The mirrors, also, in those days, left much to +be desired of the guest who shaved himself, for they were either cracked +or wavy, or both; and the traveller who, greatly daring, reaped a stubbly +chin with trouble and cold water before one of those uncertain +looking-glasses, in which his features flickered dizzily, required both +stout nerves and a steady hand.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img69.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">“SHAVED WITH TROUBLE AND COLD WATER.”</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>ELBOW ROOM</i></div> + +<p>The dullness of that time has gone, and the roads are tolerably travelled +to-day. The “Dolphin” rejoices in level flooring and decent repair, but +the town, although so neat and cleanly, and, withal, prosperous, is a town +of few wayfarers. You stand in the chief street and look with some +surprise at twin evidences of considerable commerce—a large and modern +Bank building, and a larger and still more modern Post-office. At the +farther end of this street is the market-place, a spacious square, in +which the fortnightly market, already referred to, is held; and the high +jinks of the July fair are performed. On market Wednesdays you can scarce +move for drovers and farmers, for graziers, and for a peculiarly +knowing-looking class of men who might be horse-dealers or jockeys, or +’bus-drivers, or even cabmen: all wear the unmistakable look that they +acquire who have much acquaintance with the noble animal, the Friend of +Man. A very specialist crowd, this; and what they are ignorant of in the +way of swedes and turnips, oil-cake, corn, or top-dressing, is scarce +worth the acquiring. The market-place is partly filled on these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> occasions +with pens in which sheep are closely huddled together, while cattle occupy +the remainder of the space. The lowing of the cattle in a resonant +diapason, the barking of the drovers’ dogs, the querulous bleating of the +sheep, and the hum of the people, amount altogether to an agricultural +<i>charivari</i> as typical of a rural market-day as may be found in England.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXIX</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>BURITON</i></div> + +<p>A short mile off the road, two miles below Petersfield, is the +charmingly-situated village of Buriton. It is reached by a winding lane +turning off the high-road, beside a finger-post and two ugly modern +cottages. Hop-fields and maltings border the lane, which suddenly, at one +of its turns, discloses the village, tucked away in the sheltered lower +slopes of the rolling South Downs, clothed in places with short grass, and +in others bald and showing the white chalk; while just above the village +are woodlands of tall elm and branching oak, vociferous with rooks. These +“hangers,” as hillside woods are locally termed, are a special feature of +this part of Hampshire, and are not to be found in anything like this +profusion in any other part of the county. They form the loveliest setting +imaginable to an old-world village of this character, and it is difficult +to say at what season of the year such a place as Buriton, backed with its +woods, is most beautiful. Spring finds the forest trees bare and black, +with waving branches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> scraping, like wizard fingers, gnarled and crooked, +the leaden skies of moist February and windy March; and with April comes +the stirring of the sap that sets off every little twig with the +fairy-like pale green buds of future leaves, until a distant view of the +hanger seems clothed in a tender emerald mist. Spring passes and leaves +the hillside trees clothed with a thick coat of summer foliage that forms +the best of backgrounds to the red roofs of the village; and when leafy +summer mellows into russet autumn the hanger is one mass of brilliant +colour; gorgeous reds and yellows and tints of dull gold. When November +fades away in mists and midnight frosts into Christmastide and the bleak +days of January, when days draw out and “the cold begins to strengthen,” +as the country folk say, then the hanger is etched black and solemn +against the snow-powdered downs, and you can discern every high-perched +homestead of the rooks, swinging in the topmost branches of the tallest +trees, and looking twice their actual size by this adventitious +juxtaposition of black and white.</p> + +<p>And, indeed, Buriton is as cheerful in winter’s frosts as in summer’s +heat. The village itself is commendably old-fashioned and typically +English of the eighteenth century. True, a post and telegraph office +stands in the village street, but that is the only anachronism: for the +rest, it is a picture by Caldecott come to life. Caldecott saw in his +mind’s eye a characteristically English village of the time of the +Georges, and he crystallized his vision in many tinted drawings. Here, +then, is such a village in very truth, with its ancient church fronting an +open space in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> the village street, where a broad horse-pond, fed by a +trickling rill, reflects the ivied church tower in summer, and in +winter-time bears the shouting, red-faced urchins who come sliding upon +its surface as merrily as English boys have done from time immemorial. +Fronting the other side of the pond is the old farm-house of Mapledurham, +stuccoed, ’tis true, and plebeian enough to a casual observer, but bearing +traces of antiquity in its gables, whence Tudor windows peep from out the +handiwork of the modern plasterer, and thereby indict him for an artless +fellow, with never a soul above contracts and cheap utility.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AN IDEAL MANOR HOUSE</i></div> + +<p>Behind the church, in midst of rick-yards and their pleasing litter of +fragrant straw, stands Buriton Manor House, a solid, staid, and +comfortable four-square building of mellowed red brick, frankly +unornamental, and therefore pleasing. Built in the days of Queen Anne, you +can yet scarce imagine (being a Londoner, and used to the grime of the +eighteenth-century houses of the capital), as you stand in front of it, +these cleanly walls to be so old. Yet there are brilliant lichens upon the +bricks that are not the growth of yesterday, and the cumbrous sashes of +the tall plain windows are not of the fashion of to-day. Some windows, +too, are blank and bricked up; reminiscences, these, of the days of the +window-tax, days when the light of heaven was appraised by the Inland +Revenue authorities, and to be bought at a price in coin of the realm. So +here, in very truth, is the Manor House of Caldecott’s fancy, and of +Washington Irving’s picture-like prose.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img70.jpg" alt="E Gibbon" /></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>GIBBON ACCORDING TO BOSWELL</i></div> + +<p>And here lived, for a time, Edward Gibbon, the historian, whose birthplace +we passed at Putney; and it is for this personal interest, for this +hero-worshipping object, that I have turned aside from the high-road to +visit Buriton. Gibbon, you will say, is a quaint figure for the +hero-worshipper to admire outside his stately pages of Roman History, and +I have no mind to deny your contention. He was, indeed, a humorous figure +of a man, the more so, doubtless, because he was so supremely unconscious +of the whimsical figure he cut before his contemporaries. The difference +between the majestic swing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> and rounded periods of his literary style, and +his personal appearance and his private habits of thought, is scarce less +than ludicrous. Gibbon was, in fine, exceedingly human, and his person was +almost grotesque. Do you, I wonder, conceive in that luminous optic, the +“mind’s eye,” when thinking of the man who wrote the stately prose of the +“Decline and Fall,” the figure of a little snub-nosed gentleman, with a +square head, a prodigious development of chins, and a wagging paunch? +Surely never. Yet this was the appearance of the man, and portraits and +caricatures of him all agree in showing this great literary figure of last +century’s close as a very whimsical-looking human figure indeed.</p> + +<p>It cannot with certainty be said whence Gibbon derived his singular +appearance. Not (one would say) from either his father or his mother, who +were both, to judge from their portraits, very comely persons. But if +neither his face nor his figure would have served to make Gibbon’s +fortune, certainly his agreeable manners stood him in good stead; and +although Boswell describes him, in ferociously unfriendly terms, as “an +ugly, affected, disgusting fellow,” of the race of “infidel wasps and +venomous insects,” he seems to have been in good favour with polite +society. But then Bozzy’s mind had room for only one hero.</p> + +<p>He was not (curiously enough) at all eager in the early part of his career +to be recognized for his literary abilities, for, when a young man, he was +solicitous to be known as a good figure in polite society. Thus when, in +1762, we find the French Ambassador, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> Duc de Nivernais, giving him +introductions to the foremost French writers of the time, we hear him +complaining that the Duke treated him “more as a man of letters than as a +man of fashion.” He was, indeed, <i>very</i> human! This quality (or defect?) +is seen again in a letter, still extant, in which he says, years later, +upon his determination not to stand again for Parliament:—“A seat in +Parliament I can only value as it is connected with some official +situation of emolument.” Does that not endear him to you at once, who live +in these Pharisaical times, when men seek election to the House on the +score of philanthropy, of patriotism, of service to mankind; on any +ground, in fact, but the fundamental consideration of self-interest?</p> + +<p>Gibbon lived and wrote in the days when the literary patron still existed, +and although the historian was a man of some pretensions in his own +county, and on his ancestral acres at Buriton, yet he found the powerful +friendship of Holroyd, afterwards first Earl of Sheffield, most useful, +not only in literature, but in his career as a Member of Parliament. The +almost lifelong friendship between the two was manifested even in death, +for Gibbon sleeps, not in the Abbey, nor among his fathers at Buriton, but +in the Sheffield vault at Fletching, in Sussex.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AN AMATEUR SOLDIER</i></div> + +<p>The mind of this singular man was, indeed, not apt to run in the direction +of ancestor-worship, and old acres represented only so much money to him +when, a year after the publication of his History, he sold the estate. +Years before, in his father’s time, he held the captaincy of a battalion +of Hampshire Militia (a sort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> of bachelor Sir Dilberry Diddle), and thus +he says of himself in the “Memoirs,” in a manner unconsciously +humorous:—“I for two and a half years endured a wandering life of +military servitude.” Thus seriously did he look upon the perfunctory +drilling of yeomen; the pleasant field-days between Portsmouth and +Petersfield, and the Sunday church-parades, in which the militia, gorgeous +in sky-blue coats with red facings; in white breeches with black gaiters; +with astonishing hats and careful perukes finished off daintily with +pigtails and black silk ribbons, bore a gallant part, exciting the +admiration of the ladies, and the scornful animosity of those sober +bachelors who belonged neither to the Militia, the Fencibles, nor to that +doughty body of men, the Petersfield Cavalry; all good men and true, ready +to shed their last drop of blood for their country, in the unlikely event +of an invasion; but, meanwhile, none the less averse from a little parade +of pomp and circumstance and the showing off of fine feathers. They were +gaudy and most remarkable figures, these old militia-men, and the modern +“Saturday afternoon soldier” is to them as a London sparrow is to a +peacock for comparison. Neither is there any adequate compare between the +work done by these old fellows and the modern amateur soldier. Gibbon and +his contemporaries may have boasted of their “military servitude,” and the +historian may have profoundly believed the statement, that hints more than +it really expresses—“The captain of Hampshire grenadiers was not useless +to the historian of the Roman Empire;” but their services were more to the +eye than to practical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> efficiency, and they would have resented, even to +the laying down of their firelocks, the hard work which a battalion of +Cockney rifle volunteers endures with cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>But Gibbon grew tired of his military exploits; and presently, when the +militia were disbanded, his father sent him travelling on the Continent. +It was at Rome, amid the ruins of the Capitol, that, in 1764, he conceived +the first idea of his great work, but it was not until 1788 that the final +volume was issued, after years of incredible toil and research.</p> + +<p>Whatever the popularity of Gibbon may be now, a hundred years after his +death, certainly his “Decline and Fall” had an extraordinary run when it +first appeared. The entire impression was exhausted in a few days; a +second and third edition were scarce adequate to the demand, and it was +said at the time that “the book was on every table and on almost every +toilet.” From that day to this there have been well-nigh twenty editions, +some of them consisting of as many as fourteen volumes, and, as a sign of +Gibbon’s sometime popularity, it may be mentioned that the entries under +his name in the British Museum catalogue number about a hundred and +twenty.</p> + +<p>Not many pilgrims make their way to Buriton for Gibbon’s sake, yet were +you to turn aside from the high-road, you would find the place interesting +beyond expectation. Lying <i>perdu</i> among the hills, although so near the +traffic of the outer world, it is, and has ever been, but rarely visited +by the stranger, and has thus come to retain a distinct and individual +character.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>Push open the old wrought-iron gates of the churchyard and look around. +The church itself is just a typical building, with some few special +features. It has, of course, been restored, but the fury of the restorer +has been wreaked with greater effect elsewhere, and he has come to Buriton +in a manner comparatively mild and harmless. He has left even the fine +Decorated window of the south chapel, and has not cast out all the +memorials of the dead and used their shattered fragments for mending the +village street—as he has been known to do elsewhere. You can, in fact, +discover the names of some of Gibbon’s ancestors upon the walls, and not +all the original encaustic tiles have been thrown away. Prodigious!</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>RESTORERS’ INIQUITIES</i></div> + +<p>But others have (truth to tell) been less fortunate. Poor cadavers! laid +to rest within the church, with storied ledger-stones above, decently +recounting both virtues they had and had not, they have been ruthlessly +removed, and as the stranger paces round the exterior of the church, he +walks upon their memorials, laid end to end, to form a solid footpath for +the good folks o’ Sundays. The frosts of winter crack them; the nailed +boots of the rustics wear down the well-cut inscriptions that date from +the seventeenth century to within a few generations of ourselves; and they +will presently be worn quite away.</p> + +<p>Here—stop and look—is the epitaph of one, a considerable fellow in his +day, a barrister of the Middle Temple. Here is his coat-of-arms, and here +his panegyric, writ, doubtless, by loving hands, and cut, most certainly, +by an artist in his mortuary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> craft. Ha! barrister, where are your fees, +your brief-bag, your writs of escheat and <i>fi fa</i>? Would you could arise +and with all your former eloquence denounce the paltry fellows who have +filched your gravestone for the paving of a churchyard path, whereon the +casual clodhopper thumps his ponderous way and the meditative tourist +pauses to moralize, and with the ferrule of his walking-stick scrapes away +the dirt that hides your identity.</p> + +<p>Where this solemn paving was used to be, are spread now, over the nave of +the church, coloured tiles that wear a neat and cleanly, but distressingly +secular, look. You might be pacing the tiled hall of a suburban villa, +rather than the House of God. “But one must live,” the restoring architect +will tell you. The greater the cost of his commission the larger will be +the amount from his five-percentage; so, out go the old stones and in come +the patent tiles, while that gentleman pockets his money and sets off to +fresh fields and pastures new.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXX</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>BUTSER HILL</i></div> + +<p>Another country lane affords the opportunity of regaining the Portsmouth +Road from Buriton, without undergoing what always is the penance of +retracing one’s steps. It brings the traveller out into the highway just +below where the railway crosses, underneath a bridge; while away in front +lies the long slope that climbs steadily and straight <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>towards the crest +of Butser Hill, that tall knob of the South Downs rising to a height of +nine hundred and twenty-seven feet above the Meonware country, and +commanding views stretching to Salisbury in one direction, and in others +extending to Andover, to the Isle of Wight, and to the rich lands of the +Sussex Weald.</p> + +<p>Butser Hill is the highest ground in Hampshire. Here the traveller enters +upon the chalk country extending to the southern slopes of Portsdown Hill, +and here the character of the scenery changes suddenly with the geological +strata. Beech woods, oak and fir, give place to barren downs, clothed only +with a short and scanty covering of grass, or with meagre patches of +gorse. In favoured nooks, sheltered from the winds and brought by the +painful unremitting labour of years to a condition not altogether +prohibitive of cultivation, farmsteads stand, with their surrounding barns +and cow-sheds, the whole comprised within walls constructed of flints +picked plentifully from the land.</p> + +<p>Here, on the incline leading across Butser Hill, may be noticed the +beginning of these things. At one point, to the left hand, turns off what +was once the old road, leading across the Hill, now a secluded track-way, +bringing the explorer upon excavations in the chalk, and suddenly upon +lime-kilns and lime-burners, working away in a solitude where every sound +re-echoes from the enclosing chalk in gruff and hollow murmurs. The old +road was in course of time abandoned for the new, which marches straight +ahead and is carried in a deep and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>precipitous cutting through the +hill-top. The winds whistle shrilly through this chalky gorge, and the +frosts and thaws loosen great pieces of chalk which come down into the +road with tremendous leaps, and break into a thousand fragments at the +bottom. It is a lonely place. A single cottage stands some distance away; +the lime-burners are hidden in their resounding dell, and the only company +the wayfarer has on ordinary days through the cutting are the two +notice-boards that, with a fine disregard of punctuation, caution folks +“against Chalk falling from the Sides by Order.” These, together with a +board warning cyclists that “This Hill is Dangerous,” are not cheering to +the spirits on a winter’s day.</p> + +<p>It was on Butser Hill that a post-boy from the “Anchor,” at Liphook, was +stopped by an unmounted highwayman, who took the horse he was riding and +cantered off upon its back, in the direction of London. The post-boy +returned, sorrowful, to Petersfield, where he procured another horse and +rode back to Liphook.</p> + +<p>On his way, riding up to the turnpike-gate at Rake, he received +information of the robber’s passing through, and, upon reaching the +“Anchor,” told the landlord of what had happened. Immediately “mine host” +organized pursuit, and so quickly did the party take to the road that they +overtook man and horse at Hindhead. When the highwayman observed his +pursuers gaining upon him, he lost his nerve, and did the very worst thing +possible under the circumstances. He dismounted and attempted to conceal +himself amid the gorse of that wild spot. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>But he was soon discovered, +captured, and hauled off in custody; afterwards receiving sentence of +transportation at Winchester Assizes.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>NICHOLAS NICKLEBY</i></div> + +<p>Passing through the precipitous cutting of Butser Hill, the road now comes +upon the bare and windy expanse of Oxenbourne Downs, where, at a distance +of fifty-eight miles from London, stands beside the road the “Coach and +Horses” Inn, marked on the Ordnance maps “Bottom” Inn, and known in +coaching days as “Gravel Hill” Inn, from the hill in the Downs rising at +some distance to the rear, covered in patches with scrub and gorse. This +is the roadside inn referred to by Dickens in “Nicholas Nickleby.”</p> + +<p>We left Nicholas and Smike looking down into the Devil’s Punch Bowl, and +now take up their journey over Rake Hill and the heights of Butser to this +lonely roadside inn, which Dickens, using the latitude allowed to +novelists, describes as twelve miles from Portsmouth. It is, in fact, +thirteen miles, but its identity is unassailable, because there is no +other house beside the road for miles on either hand.</p> + +<p>“Onward they kept with steady purpose, and entered at length upon a wide +and spacious tract of downs, with every variety of little hill and plain +to change their verdant surface. Here, there shot up almost +perpendicularly into the sky a height so steep, as to be hardly accessible +to any but the sheep and goats that fed upon its sides, and there stood a +huge mound of green, sloping and tapering off so delicately, and merging +so gently into the level ground, that you could scarce define its limits.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +Hills swelling above each other, and undulations shapely and uncouth, +smooth and rugged, graceful and grotesque, thrown negligently side by +side, bounded the view in each direction; while frequently, with +unexpected noise, there uprose from the ground a flight of crows, who, +cawing and wheeling round the nearest hills as if uncertain of their +course, suddenly poised themselves upon the wing and skimmed down the long +vista of some opening valley with the speed of very light itself.</p> + +<p>“By degrees the prospect receded more and more on either hand, and as they +had been shut out from rich and extensive scenery, so they emerged once +again upon the open country. The knowledge that they were drawing near +their place of destination gave them fresh courage to proceed; but the way +had been difficult, and they had loitered on the road, and Smike was +tired.</p> + +<p>“Thus twilight had already closed in, when they turned off the path to the +door of a roadside inn, yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth.</p> + +<p>“‘Twelve miles,’ said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on his stick, and +looking doubtfully at Smike.</p> + +<p>“‘Twelve long miles,’ repeated the landlord.</p> + +<p>“‘Is it a good road?’ inquired Nicholas.</p> + +<p>“‘Very bad,’ said the landlord. As, of course, being a landlord, he would +say.</p> + +<p>“‘I want to get on,’ observed Nicholas, hesitating. ‘I scarcely know what +to do.’</p> + +<p>“‘Don’t let me influence you,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘<i>I</i> wouldn’t go on +if it was me.’”</p> + +<p>And so here they stayed the night, much to their advantage, in a manner +familiar to the readers of Dickens. Of their progress to Portsmouth the +next day, with Mr. Vincent Crummles and his troupe, we will say nothing, +for no other outstanding features of the road are described between this +and Hilsea Lines.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img71.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE “COACH AND HORSES” INN.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>CHALTON DOWNS</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>Oxenbourne Downs are succeeded, on the map, by Chalton (originally +“Chalkton”) Downs; but they are all one to the eye that ranges over their +almost trackless hills and hollows.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXXI</h2> + + +<p>It was in the neighbourhood of Chalton Downs that a terrific, if, in some +of its details, a somewhat farcical, encounter took place between two +highwaymen and a mail-coach in the winter of 1791. The coach had set out +from the “Blue Posts” at Portsmouth in the afternoon, and the coachman +drove up through Purbrook and on, past Horndean, with the greatest +difficulty, in face of a blinding snowstorm. But when he had come, as +daylight faded away, to these bleak and open downs, he found it utterly +impossible to lash his tired horses a step farther. The situation probably +reads a great deal more interesting than those who experienced it had any +idea of. To be snowed up on an open down, miles away from anywhere, reads +prettily enough in Christmas numbers, but, as an experience, it does not +bear repetition. There were, on this occasion, four “insides” and two +“outsides”; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> the lot of these last two, together with that of the +coachman and guard, must have been simply Dantesque in its chilly horrors. +The coachman was a humane creature, and determined, at any rate, not to +expose his shivering horses to the storm; so he unharnessed them and was +proposing to lead them into Petersfield, when two fellows, well mounted, +and apparently furnished with a perfect armoury of pistols, rode up +through the falling snow and the gathering gloom, and demanded the +passengers’ money, or the usual alternative.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A HOMERIC FIGHT</i></div> + +<p>But the guard was a fellow of courage and resolution, and so was one of +the “insides,” a midshipman journeying to London for his Christmas. Quick +as thought, the guard whipped out his blunderbuss from its case, and, at +the same time, the midshipman bounded out of the coach, and laid one +fellow head downwards in the snow by leaping on his horse and delivering a +scientific blow on the side of his face. The other highwayman was, +meanwhile, in single combat with the guard, who having, so to speak, +entrenched himself behind the half-buried coach, opened fire in answer to +a pistol-shot from the enemy.</p> + +<p>The blunderbuss of last century was an appalling weapon, with a bore like +that of a small cannon, and a bell muzzle which poured forth slugs and +small shot in a stream that spread, fan-like, until at the distance of a +yard or so it could be confidently relied upon, not only to hit the object +aimed at, but anything else within a space of six feet on either side. The +guard fired, and when the smoke and roar of the discharge, like that of a +piece of ordnance, had finally died away,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> the second highwayman’s horse +was discovered plunging in the snow, peppered with shot from shoulders to +hind-quarters. The man himself was wounded in the leg, but was seen to be +advancing through the snow upon the guard, with another pistol aimed at +his head. He pulled the trigger, but the snow had damped his powder, and +it snapped harmlessly. The guard was now in a somewhat similar position +with the wasp who has delivered his sting, and is afterwards rendered +comparatively harmless: for the loading of a blunderbuss was an operation +that required time and care and a large quantity of powder and shot, and +not a moment’s grace was he granted. Meanwhile, he was required to act.</p> + +<p>The blunderbusses of that time were furnished with a hinged bayonet, +rather under a foot in length, and doubled back upon the barrel. To +release the bayonet and bring it into an offensive position, one had but +to touch a catch, and it sprang out with terrific force and remained +fixed.</p> + +<p>The guard, touching the spring, remained upon the defensive, with bayonet +fixed, while the highwayman, dismounted, came trampling down the snow and +leaving behind him a trail of blood, trickling from the slug-wounds in his +leg. Arrived at the back of the coach, from which peered the guard’s red +nose and the gaping bore of his blunderbuss, he fired, and the guard would +in all likelihood have been killed, had not the midshipman, by creating a +diversion in the rear with the butt of the coachman’s heavy whip, not only +destroyed his aim, but stretched him senseless in the snow. The enemy were +now utterly defeated.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> The first highwayman, on recovering from the blow +he had received, found his hands securely tied behind him, in a thoroughly +efficient and workmanlike manner characteristic of a sailor, and the +second was treated in the same way, with the help of the guard and the +entirely unnecessary aid of the remaining passengers, who now crawled from +under the seats, where they had taken refuge on the first alarm.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img72.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">WINDY WEATHER.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>Waiting until the second assailant had recovered consciousness, the +coachman and guard, with the coach-horses; the midshipman and the rest of +the passengers, in charge of the two prisoners and their steeds, trudged +through the gloom and the fallen snow to Petersfield, leaving the coach +abandoned on the highway.</p> + +<p>This party of ten reached the town late at night, almost exhausted, and +handed over their prisoners to the civil power, which no doubt dealt with +them in the time-honoured fashion of sending such gentry out of the world +“stabbed to death with a Bridport dagger,” as the humorists of the time +termed execution by hanging, “hempen cravats” being usually of Bridport +make.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXXII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>SMUGGLING</i></div> + +<p>But they were not only highway robberies that gained the Portsmouth Road +so unenviable a notoriety a hundred and fifty years ago. Smuggling was +rife along the highway from Hindhead to Portsmouth in those days, and the +whole sea-board, together with the forest villages that were then so +untravelled, swarmed with the “free-traders,” as they euphemistically +called themselves. And this district was not alone, or even pre-eminent, +in smuggling annals, either for the number or for the ferocity of those +engaged in the illicit trade of importing wines, spirits, tea, or lace, +without the formalities of entering their goods at his Majesty’s +Custom-houses, or of paying duty upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> them. The whole extent of the south +coast, from the North Foreland and Dungeness, in Kent, to the Dodman and +the Land’s End, in Cornwall, was one long line of resistance to the +Excise. The people, groaning under a heavy taxation, whose proceeds went +towards the cost of Continental wars and the perpetration of shameless and +atrocious jobs at home, saw no crime in evading the heavy duties that took +so much out of the pockets of a generation notoriously addicted to +continuous drinking; and the wealthy middle-classes, the squires, even +members of the Peerage, and not a few of the country clergymen (semi-pagan +as they were in those days), purchased and consumed immense quantities of +excisable goods that had never rendered unto Cæsar—if, indeed, that +imperial term may be used of either the Second or the Third George.</p> + +<p>The possession of a cellar well stocked with liquor that had never paid +duty was, in fact, a source of genuine pride to the jolly squires who +winked at each other as they caroused round the mahogany, and, holding +their glasses up to the light, pronounced the tipple to be “the right +sort,” and as good stuff as ever came across the Channel on a moonless +night; and madam or my lady wore her silks, her satins, or her lace with +the greater satisfaction when she knew them to have been brought over from +France secretly, wrapped around some bold fellow’s body who would surely +never have hesitated to put a bullet through the head of the first Excise +officer that barred his path.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>UNHOLY TITHES</i></div> + +<p>The risk of smuggling was great, the profits large,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> and the men who, +having counted the cost of their contraband trade, still persisted in it, +were not infrequently well able to afford presents to those easy folks who +might know a great deal of their midnight runs, and who, knowing much and +suspecting more, were folks to be rewarded for past silence, or to be +bribed into a passive acquiescence for the future. Thus the Parson +Trullibers of that time who discovered the belfries of their churches +crowded with strange kegs and unwonted packages and smelling to Heaven +with the scent of other spirits than those usually associated with +churches and churchyards, were not at all surprised at finding a keg in +their pulpits, together with a package of silk or such similar feminine +gauds, if their parsonages held any womenkind. The sexton was simply told +to take the keg and the package up to the house, and if, some blusterous +night, those easy-going clerics looked forth of their casements and saw +strange processions of men passing along the road, hunched with tubs on +their backs, and bound, strange to say, for the House of God, why, they +said nothing, but thought with great complacency upon the certain prospect +of some right Hollands or some generous brandy from over sea.</p> + +<p>Smuggling, in fact, was not regarded as a crime by any considerable +section of the public, and public opinion in the counties that gave upon +the sea was altogether in favour of the “free-traders” up to a certain +point. And if the squires, the clergy, and the tradesfolk largely +sympathized with them and connived at the wholesale cheating of the +Revenue that went on for a long period almost unchecked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> certainly the +licensed victuallers—the country innkeepers and the struggling pot-house +landlords of the hamlets—were eager to buy goods that had never seen the +inside of a custom-house. Even the officers and men of the Customs and the +Excise were often found to be in league with notorious smugglers, and the +early inadequacy of the Revenue sloops and cutters to prevent the +clandestine landing of excisable goods is to be traced, in part, to bribes +judiciously expended.</p> + +<p>The loss to the Revenue during a long series of years must have been +simply enormous, for the bulk of the hardy ’longshore men were engaged all +the year round in running cargoes across from France; in landing them at +unfrequented coigns and inlets of the sea; and in secreting them in the +most unlooked-for recesses of the country, until such time as they could +be safely disposed of. The fisheries, too, were neglected for this much +more remunerative trade, and few men cared to earn an honest and meagre +livelihood by day when anything from five shillings to a guinea might be +the reward of a night’s work, climbing up cliffs with kegs slung on back +and chest.</p> + +<p>The foremost smugglers were no men of straw, for, like all other trades, +the free-traders’ business had its capitalists and its middlemen, who +financed the buying of cargoes and received their share of the plunder, +taking their ease at home while their less wealthy fellow-sinners worked +in fear of capture and condemnation. Others, anticipating the joint-stock +companies of later years, formed themselves into bands or confederacies +who shared both risks and gains, and kept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> up an armed organization that, +particularly in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire,<a name='fna_5' id='fna_5' href='#f_5'><small>[5]</small></a> kept the +law-abiding country-side in terror, and not infrequently offered battle to +the officers of the Preventive Service. These organized gangs of +desperadoes alienated from themselves much of the sympathy that was felt +for the individual smuggler; for, as their power grew, they committed +crimes, not only upon that impersonal thing, the Revenue, but robbed and +despitefully entreated the lieges, and even overawed considerable towns.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A SMUGGLERS’ RAID</i></div> + +<p>One of the most daring exploits of these armed bands of smugglers was the +famous attack upon the custom-house at Poole. This resistance in arms to +the King’s authority arose out of the capture by a Revenue cutter of a +heavy cargo of tea shipped, in September 1747, by a number of smugglers +from Guernsey. Captain Johnson, the commander of the Government vessel, +brought the tea to the port of Poole, in Dorsetshire, and lodged it in the +custom-house there. The loss of their entire venture was a very serious +matter to the men who had paid for their tea over in the Channel Islands, +and looked to selling it over here for a profit, and they resolved not to +let their cargo go without an effort. Accordingly, a consultation was held +among them, and they agreed to go and take away the tea from the warehouse +where it was lodged. A body of no less than sixty armed and mounted +smugglers assembled in Charlton Forest, and proceeded thence to Poole, +posting half their number on the roads, in true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> military fashion, to +scout, and to report the movements of Revenue officers or soldiers who +might hear of their expedition. Thirty of these bold spirits reached Poole +on the night of October 6, and, meeting with no resistance, broke open the +custom-house and removed all their tea, except one bag, weighing about +five pounds.</p> + +<p>The next morning they returned through Hampshire, by way of Fordingbridge, +where the expedition was a matter of such common notoriety that hundreds +of persons were assembled in the streets of that little town, to witness +the passing of their cavalcade. Among the leaders of this body of +smugglers was a man named John Diamond, and it so happened that this +fellow was recognized by a shoemaker of the place, one Daniel Chater, who +had turned out from his cobbling to witness the unusual spectacle of sixty +“free-traders” riding away with their booty in broad daylight. Diamond and +he had worked together at haymaking some years previously. Now, to be +identified thus was an altogether unlooked-for and unlucky chance, and +Diamond threw his old acquaintance a bag of tea, by way of hushing him, as +he passed by.</p> + +<p>Chater, however, was not gifted with reticence, or perhaps the good folk +of Fordingbridge looked askance upon one of their fellow-townsmen being +selected for so considerable a gift as a bag of tea was in those days, and +they probably plied him with awkward questions. At any rate, Diamond was +shortly afterwards arrested at Chichester, on suspicion of being concerned +in the raid at Poole, and Chater having acknowledged his acquaintance with +the man, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> matter became the subject of local gossip and presently came +to the ears of the Collector of Customs for Southampton. At the same time, +a proclamation was issued, offering a reward for information as to the +persons implicated in the affair, and Chater, in an evil moment for +himself, offered to give evidence.</p> + +<p>The shoemaker, then, in company of an Excise officer, William Galley by +name, set out for Chichester with a letter for Major Battin, a justice of +the peace for Sussex, who lived in that city, and before whom it was +proposed to examine Chater, in relation to what he knew of the affair, and +whether he could prove the identity of Diamond.</p> + +<p>The two set out on horseback on Sunday, February 14, 1748, and, calling on +their way at Havant, were directed by a friend of Chater’s to go by way of +Stanstead, near Rowlands Castle. They, however, lost their way, and +calling at the “New” Inn, at Leigh, to get their direction, were met by +three men, George Austin, Thomas Austin, and their brother-in-law, Mr. +Jenkes, who accompanied Galley and Chater to Rowlands Castle, where they +all drew rein at the “White Hart,” a public-house kept by a Mrs. Elizabeth +Payne, a widow, who had two sons, blacksmiths, in the village; both grown +men, and reputed smugglers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AN ATROCIOUS CRIME</i></div> + +<p>And now commences the horrible story of the two most dreadful and +protracted murders that have ever set lonely folk shivering by their +firesides, or have ever made philosophers despair for the advancement of +the human race. It becomes the duty of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> historian of the Portsmouth +Road to chronicle these things, but here duty and inclination part +company. The tale must be told; but for those who take a deeper interest +in the story, let them procure, if they can, any one of the several rare +editions of a dreadfully detailed pamphlet, entitled “A Full and Genuine +History of the Inhuman and Unparalleled Murders of Mr. William Galley, a +Custom-House Officer, and Mr. Daniel Chater, a Shoemaker, by Fourteen +Notorious Smugglers, with the Trials and Execution of Seven of the Bloody +Criminals, at Chichester.” If a perusal of the gory details set forth in +these pages does not more than satisfy curiosity, why, then the reader’s +stomach for the reading of ferocious cruelties must indeed be strong.</p> + +<p>But to resume the account.</p> + +<p>Shortly after the arrival of the party at the “White Hart,” Mrs. Payne +took Mr. George Austin aside and whispered him her fears that these two +strangers were come with intent to do some injury to the smugglers. When +he replied that she need not believe that, for they were only carrying a +letter to Major Battin, the landlady’s suspicions became more fully +aroused, for what other particular business could Galley, who was dressed +as a “riding officer” of the Excise, have with the Justice of the Peace? +But, to make sure, she sent one of her sons, who was in the house, for +William Jackson and William Carter, who lived within a short distance. +While he was gone, Chater and Galley wanted to be going, and called for +their horses, but the woman told them that the man who had the key of the +stable was gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> out, and would be back presently. Meanwhile the +unsuspecting men remained, drinking and gossiping.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>DRUNKEN QUARRELS</i></div> + +<p>When the two arrived who had been sent for, Mrs. Payne drew them aside and +told them her suspicions, at the same time advising Mr. George Austin to +go away, as she respected him, and was unwilling that any harm should come +to him by staying. Mr. George Austin had the saving virtue of prudence. He +went away, as he was bid, and left his brother and his brother-in-law +behind, which seems to have been unnecessarily selfish on his part. Then +the other son came in and brought with him four more smugglers, and the +whole company drank together. After a while, Jackson took Chater aside +into the yard and asked him after Diamond, and the simple-minded shoemaker +let fall the secret of his journey. While they were talking, Galley, +uneasy about his companion, came out and asked him to rejoin them within, +whereupon Jackson struck Galley a violent blow in the face that knocked +him down. “I am a King’s officer,” said Galley, “and cannot put up with +such treatment!”</p> + +<p>“You a King’s officer!” replies Jackson. “I’ll make a King’s officer of +you; and for a quartern of gin I’ll serve you so again!”</p> + +<p>The others interfered, and the whole party set to drinking again until +Galley and Chater were overcome by drunkenness and were sent to sleep in +an adjoining room. Thomas Austin and Mr. Jenkes, too, were beastly drunk; +but they had no interest in the smugglers, nor the smugglers in them, and +so they drop out of the narrative.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>When Galley and Chater were asleep the compromising letters in their +pockets were found and read, and from that moment the doom of these +unfortunate men was sealed, and the only question seems to have been the +manner of putting an end to their lives. True, less ferocious proposals +were made, by which it was suggested to send them over to France; but when +it became evident that they would return, the thoughts of the company +reverted to murder. At this juncture the wives of Jackson and Carter, who +were both present during these consultations, cried out, “Hang the dogs, +for they came here to hang us!”</p> + +<p>Another proposition that was made—to imprison the two in some safe place +until they knew what would be Diamond’s fate, and for each of the +smugglers to subscribe threepence a week for their keep—was immediately +scouted; and instantly the brutal fury of these ruffians was aroused by +Jackson, who, going into the room where the unfortunate men were lying, +spurred them on their foreheads with the heavy spurs of his riding-boots, +and having thus awakened them, whipped them into the kitchen of the inn +until they were streaming with blood. Then, taking them outside, the gang +lifted them on to a horse, one behind the other, and tying their hands and +legs together, lashed them with heavy whips along the road, crying, “Whip +them, cut them, slash them, damn them!”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>BURIED ALIVE!</i></div> + +<p>From Rowlands Castle, past Wood Ashes, Goodthorpe Deane, and to Lady Holt +Park, this scourging was continued through the night until the wretched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +men were three parts dead. At two o’clock in the morning this gruesome +procession reached the Portsmouth Road at Rake, where the foremost members +of the party halted before the “Red Lion,” kept in those days by one +Scardefield, who was no stranger to their kind, nor unused to the purchase +and storing of smuggled spirits. Here they knocked and rattled at the door +until Scardefield was obliged to get out of bed and open to them. Galley, +still alive, was thrust into an outhouse while the band, having roused the +landlord and procured drink, caroused in the parlour of the inn. Chater +they carried in with them; and when Scardefield stood horrified at seeing +so ghastly a figure of a man, all bruised and injured and spattered with +blood, they told him a specious tale of an engagement they had had with +the King’s officers: that here was one comrade, wounded, and another, dead +or dying, in his brew-house.</p> + +<p>While it was yet dark they carried Galley to a place in Harting Coombe, at +some distance from the “Red Lion,” and, digging a grave in a fox-earth by +the light of a lantern, they buried him, without inquiring too closely +whether or not their victim was dead. That he was not dead at that time +became evident when his body was found, with the hands raised to the face, +as though to prevent the dirt from suffocating him.</p> + +<p>The whole of this day this evil company sat drinking in the “Red Lion,” +having disposed of their other prisoner for a time by chaining him by the +leg in a turf-shed near by. This was Monday, and at night they all +returned home, lest their absence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> might be remarked by their neighbours; +agreeing to meet again at Rake on the Wednesday evening, to consider how +they might best put an end to Chater. When Wednesday night had come, this +council of fourteen smugglers decided to dispatch him forthwith, and, +going down in a body to the turf-shed where he had lain all this while, +suffering agonies from the cruel usage to which he had already been +subjected, they unchained him, and with the most revolting barbarities, +set him across a horse and whipped him afresh all the way back to Lady +Holt Park, where there was a deep, dry well. Into this they threw the +wretched man, and by his cries and groans perceiving that he was not yet +dead, they collected a great number of large stones, which, together with +two great gate-posts, they flung down upon him, and then rode away.</p> + +<p>Even in those times two men (and men who had set out upon public business) +could not disappear so utterly as Chater and Galley had done without +comment, and presently the whole country was ringing with the story of +this mysterious disappearance. That it was the work of smugglers none +doubted: the only question was, in what manner had they spirited these two +men away? Some thought they had been carried over to France, and others +thought, shrewdly enough, that they had been murdered. But no tidings nor +any trace of either Galley or Chater came to satisfy public curiosity or +official apprehensions until some seven months later, when an anonymous +letter sent to “a person of distinction,” and probably inspired by the +hope of ultimately earning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> the large reward then being offered by the +Government for information, hinted that “the body of one of the +unfortunate men mentioned in his Majesty’s proclamation was buried in the +sands in a certain place near Rake.” And, sure enough, when the +authorities came to search they found the body of the Excise officer +“standing almost upright, with his hands covering his eyes.” Another +letter followed, implicating one William Steel as concerned in the murder; +and when Steel was arrested the mystery was discovered, for, to save +himself, the prisoner turned King’s evidence, and revealed the whole +dreadful story.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS</i></div> + +<p>One after another seven of the murderers were arrested in different parts +of the counties of Hants and Surrey, and were committed to the gaols at +Horsham and Newgate, afterwards being sent to Chichester, where their +trial was held on January 18, 1749. They were all found guilty, and were +sentenced to be hanged on the following day. Six of them were duly +executed; William Jackson, the seventh, who had been in ill-health, died +in gaol a few hours after condemnation. The body of William Carter was +afterwards hanged in chains upon the Portsmouth Road, near the scene of +the crimes; three of the others were thrown into a pit on the Broyle, at +Chichester, the scene of the execution, and the rest were hanged in chains +along the sea-coast from Chichester to Selsea Bill, at points of vantage +whence they were visible for miles around. Another accomplice, Henry +Shurman, was indicted and tried at East Grinstead, and being sentenced to +death, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> conveyed from Horsham Gaol by a strong guard of soldiers, and +hanged at Rake shortly afterwards.</p> + +<p>And so an end to incidents as revolting as anything to be found in the +lengthy annals of crime. Country folk breathed more freely when these +daring criminals were “turned off”; and numerous other executions for +resisting the military and the Excise followed, thus breaking up the gangs +that terrorized law-abiding people.</p> + +<p>But the Customs officers were still so intimidated that few possessed +hardihood sufficient to carry them on their duty into places beyond reach +of ready help. The more remote roads and lanes were patrolled at night by +the most daring fellows, who, despite the warnings visible on every side +in the dangling bodies of their dead comrades, dealt largely in many kinds +of crime beneath the very gallows-tree; smuggling, starting incendiary +fires, and assaulting and intimidating those wayfarers whose only fault +was being found on the road after night had fallen.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AT DEAD OF NIGHT</i></div> + +<p>Few people cared to be out alone after the sun had set, for the more +daring among the “free-traders” were wont to appear then, and stopped and +interrogated every one they chanced upon, lest they might be Government +agents. If a peaceable villager, jogging home after sundown, failed to +give a good and ready account of himself and his business upon the highway +at that moment, he stood an excellent chance of a crack across the skull +with something heavy, in the nature of a pistol-butt, which rendered +further explanation impossible; and so, things being still in this pass, +we can afford sympathy for the wayfarer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> who, having missed his road, +found himself, when night was come and the moon risen, at some remote +cross-road, far removed from sight or sound of human beings, except the +ominous pit-a-pat of distant hoofs upon the hard road that heralded the +approach of the merry men who played hide-and-seek with death and the +gallows; to whom daylight was as unwelcome as to the predatory owl, and +whose high noontide stress of business fell at dead of night.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img73.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">BENIGHTED.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> +<h2>XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>Chalton Downs is the ideal tract of country for so heart-stirring an +encounter. Never a considerable tree for miles in any direction: only +bushes and sparse clumps of saplings, and, for the rest, undulations of +chalk as bare as the back of your hand, save for the short and scanty +grass that affords not even a good mouthful for sheep. Here, where the +Downs are most barren, a rough country lane dips into the hollow that runs +parallel with the right-hand side of the highway, where a gaunt +finger-post points the way to “Catherington and Hinton.” On the +corresponding ridge stands the small and scattered village, but large +parish, of Catherington, whose church, dedicated to St. Catherine, is the +parish church of modern Horndean and of other hamlets, a mile or more down +the road.</p> + +<p>The church of Catherington, so far as outward appearance goes, may be +taken as amongst the most representative of Hampshire village churches, +standing on the hill-brow, its graveyard separated from ploughed fields +only by a hedge, its tombs overshadowed by two great solemn yew trees, its +situation, no less than its shape and style, suggesting thoughts of Gray’s +“Elegy,” and the peaceful rural lives of them that sleep beneath the skies +in this retired God’s acre. It is, therefore, with nothing less than a +start of surprise that the wayfarer, weighted with obvious moralizings, +discovers first the tomb of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and then the +resting-place of Charles Kean, his mother, and his wife. What do they +here, who lived so greatly in the eye of the world? Here is the epitaph +“to the memory of Mary, relict of the late Edmund Kean, who departed this +life March 30, 1849, in or about the 70th year of her age”; and from her +grave one can view the ridge along which runs the road to Portsmouth, +tramped by Edmund Kean in 1795, when he, as a boy of eight or nine years, +ran away from his home in Ewer street, Southwark, and shipped as cabin-boy +on a vessel bound for Madeira. He lies at Richmond: his widow was buried +here, close to the small estate upon which she had lived in retirement for +years.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img74.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">CATHERINGTON CHURCH.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>In “Charles John Kean, F.R.G.S.,” whose epitaph occupies one side of this +monument, it is difficult at first to recognize the famous actor, who, +after playing well his varied parts in Shakespearean plays, and in +melodrama, died in 1868, in his fifty-seventh year. His widow, Eleonora, +survived him until 1880, when, at the age of seventy-three, she died, and +“now lies with her loving husband.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>ADMIRAL NAPIER</i></div> + +<p>The Admiral, after his eventful career, rests near at hand beneath an +altar-tomb in an obscure corner of the graveyard, where ashes from the +heating apparatus of the church are heaped, and defile, together with the +miscellaneous dirt and foul rubbish of a neglected corner, his memorial, +that sets forth his rank and a <i>précis</i> of his varied achievements. When +the present writer visited the spot, a bottomless pail and the remains of +an old boot placed on his tomb formed a hideous commentary upon the pride +and enthusiasm of a grateful country, and preached a sermon, both painful +and forcible, on the fleeting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> consideration of men for the distinguished +dead. It is thirty-five years ago since “Charley Napier,” as his +contemporaries (brother-officers, or Tom, Dick, and Harry) called him, +died, after having performed many services for his country in many parts +of the world. It may seem, at the first blush, ungenerous to say so, but +the fact remains that, had he quitted this scene but seven years earlier, +his reputation had been brighter to-day, and this through no shortcoming +of his own. He had achieved many important, if somewhat too theatrical, +victories in his earlier days, when ordnance was comparatively light, and +when the old line-of-battle ship was at its highest development; and so, +when he was, in his old age, sent in command of the Baltic Fleet to reduce +the heavily-armed sea-forts of Cronstadt and Bomarsund, the uninstructed +but enthusiastic mob of his countrymen anticipated merely a naval +promenade, ending with the capitulation of those fortresses of the North. +When the Baltic Fleet cruised ingloriously for years in that icy sea, and +the Russian strongholds yet remained unreduced, the disappointment of the +million knew no bounds, and the Admiral’s fame became tarnished. He was +ridiculed, and he had himself to thank in some measure for this, because, +in his characteristically reckless way, he had vowed to be either in +Cronstadt or Heaven within a month, and Heaven had not claimed him nor +Cronstadt submitted when the war was done.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>AN UNCOUTH FIGURE</i></div> + +<p>But if, like General Trochu, of some sixteen years later, he had “a plan” +and became the butt of witlings when that plan failed, he had the +Englishman’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> infallible refuge and court of public appeal—the “Times,” +and in the columns of that paper he stormed and thundered from time to +time, a great deal more effectively than ever he had done in the Baltic. +He had nearly always possessed a pet grievance, and had, ere this, +obtained election to Parliament to air the injustice of the hour; and in +the House he was wont to hold forth in a fine old quarter-deck manner that +amused many, and let off the steam of his wrath in an entirely harmless +way. Betweenwhiles he resided at Horndean, on a small estate he had +purchased years before, and in a house he had re-christened “Merchistoun,” +from the place of that name in Scotland where he was born. Here he, a +modern Cincinnatus, farmed his own land and pottered about, a singular +combination of sailor and agriculturist, and one of the most extraordinary +figures of his time. “He is,” said one who wrote of his personal +appearance, “stout and broad built; stoops, from a wound in his neck; +walks lame, from another in his leg; turns out one of his feet, and has a +most slouching, slovenly gait; a large round face, with black, bushy +eyebrows, a double chin, scraggy, grey, uncurled whiskers and thin hair, +always bedaubed with snuff, which he takes in immense quantities; usually +his trousers far too short, and wears the ugliest pair of old shoes he can +find.” He became quite an authority upon sheep and turnips, and so died, +after a busy life, on November 6, 1860.</p> + +<p>Another great man lies at Catherington, within the church; Sir Nicholas +Hyde, Lord Chief Justice of England, and uncle of the still greater +Clarendon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> His splendid monument, with recumbent marble effigies of +himself and his wife, occupies the east wall of the Hyde Chapel. Hinton +House—the seat of the Hydes near here, and the scene of the marriage +between James, Duke of York (afterwards James II.), and Anne Hyde, +daughter of the Chancellor, Clarendon, in 1660—has long since been +rebuilt.</p> + +<p>From Catherington, one may either retrace one’s steps to the Portsmouth +Road above Horndean, or else continue on the by-lanes that bring the +pedestrian to the highway below that wayside hamlet.</p> + +<p>Horndean stands at the entrance to the Forest of Bere, and at the junction +of roads that lead to Rowlands Castle and Havant. It is just a neat and +comparatively recent place, like most of the wayside settlements that now +begin to dot the highway between this and Portsmouth. An old house or two +by way of nucleus, with some few decrepit cottages—the remainder of +Horndean is made up of a great red-brick brewery and some rural-looking +shops.</p> + +<p>The Forest of Bere is at this day the most considerable remnant of that +vast tract of woodland (computed at some ninety thousand acres) which +formerly covered the face of southern Hants. It follows on either side of +the roadway from this point to within a short distance of Purbrook, and +extends for many miles across country, including Waltham Chase. Outlying +woodlands still occur plentifully; among them the leafy coverts of Alice +Holt (== <i>Axe-holt</i>, the Ash Wood), Liss Wood, Hawkley Hangers, and the +green glades of Avington, Old Park, and Cheriton.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> +<h2>XXXIV</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>WATERLOOVILLE</i></div> + +<p>Presently the road becomes singularly suburban, and the beautiful glades +of the old Forest of Bere, that have fringed the highway from Horndean, +suddenly give place to rows of trim villas and recent shops. The highway, +but just now as lonely as most of the old coach-roads are usually become +in these days of steam and railways, is alive with wagons and tradesmen’s +carts, and neatly-kept footpaths are bordered with lamp-posts, furnished +with oil-lamps.</p> + +<p>This is the entirely modern neighbourhood of Waterlooville, a settlement +nearly a mile in length, bordering the Portsmouth Road, and wearing not so +much the appearance of an English village as that of some mushroom +township in the hurried clearings of an American forest. The inns, past +and present, of Waterlooville, have all been named allusively—the +“Waterloo” Hotel, the “Wellington” Inn, the “Belle Alliance.”</p> + +<p>Waterlooville, as its ugly name would imply, is modern, but with a +modernity much more recent than Wellington’s great victory. The name, +indeed, was only bestowed upon the parish in 1858, and is a dreadful +example of that want of originality in recent place-names, seen both here +and in America. Why some descriptive title, such as our Anglo-Saxon +forebears gave to their settlements, could not have been conferred upon +this place, is difficult to understand. Certainly “Waterlooville” is at +once cumbrous and unmeaning, as here applied.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>The history of Waterlooville is soon told. It was originally a portion of +the Forest of Bere, and its site was sold by the Commissioners of Woods +and Forests early in the present century. A tavern erected shortly +afterwards was named the “Heroes of Waterloo,” and became subsequently the +halting-place for the coaches on this, the first stage out of Portsmouth +and the last from London. Around the tavern sprang up four houses, and +this settlement, some seven or eight miles from Portsmouth, was called +Waterloo until 1830, when, a rage for building having set in, resulting in +a church and some suburban villas, the “ville” was tacked on to the +already unmeaning and sufficiently absurd name.</p> + +<p>The church of Waterlooville is a building of so paltry and vulgar a +design, and built of such poor materials, that a near sight of it would be +sufficient to make the mildest architect swear loud and long. This +plastered abomination is, of course, among the earliest buildings here; +for no sooner are two or three houses gathered together than an +unbeneficed clergyman—what we may on this sea-faring road most +appropriately term a “sky-pilot”—comes along and solicits subscriptions +towards the building of a church for the due satisfaction of the +“spiritual needs” of a meagre flock. It would be ungenerous to assert that +he always scents a living in this spiritual urgency, but the labourer is +worthy of his hire, and if by dint of much canvassing for funds amongst +pious old ladies and retired general officers (why is it that these men of +war so frequently become pillars of the Church after their army days are +done?) he succeeds in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> putting up some sort of a building called a church, +who else so eligible as incumbent?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PURBROOK</i></div> + +<p>Where Waterlooville ends, the road runs for half-a-mile in mitigated +rusticity, to become again, at the sixth milestone from Portsmouth, lively +with the thriving, business-like village of Purbrook.</p> + +<p>And at this point the traveller in coaching times came within sight of his +destination. Painfully the old stages climbed up the steep ascent of +Portsdown Hill before the road was lowered by cutting through the chalk at +the summit, about 1820, and grumblingly the passengers obeyed the coachman +and walked up the road to save the horses. But when they did reach the +crest of the hill such a panorama met their gaze as nowhere else could be +seen in England: Portsmouth, the Harbour, Gosport, the Isle of Wight, and +the coast-line for miles on either hand lay spread out before their eyes +as daintily as in a plan, and smiling like a Land of Promise. +Unfortunately, however, our forebears were not yet educated to a proper +appreciation and admiration of scenery. They, with that jovial bard of the +Regency, Captain Morris, preferred the pavements of great cities to the +pastorals of the country-side, and would with the greatest fervour have +echoed him when he wrote—</p> + +<p class="poem">“In town let me live, then, in town let me die;<br /> +For, in truth, I can’t relish the country, not I.<br /> +If one must have a villa in summer to dwell,<br /> +Oh! give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall.”</p> + +<p>Fortunately, however, the view remains unspoiled for a generation that +takes its pleasures afield, and can find delight in country scenes which +our <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>great-grandfathers characterized as places of “horror and +desolation.”</p> + +<p>This is the point of view from which Rowlandson has sketched his +“Extraordinary Scene,” and although we miss in the picture the “George +Inn,” that stands so four-square and stalwart, perched up above the road, +yet the likeness to the place remains after these many years have flown.</p> + +<p>The occasion that led to Rowlandson’s producing the elaborate plate from +which the accompanying illustration was made, is referred to at length in +the title, which runs thus—</p> + +<p>“An Extraordinary Scene on the Road from London to Portsmouth, Or an +Instance of Unexampled speed used by a Body of Guards, consisting of 1920 +Rank and File, besides Officers, who, on the 10th of June, 1798, left +London in the Morning, and actually began to Embark for Ireland, at +Portsmouth, at four o’clock in the Afternoon; having travelled 74 Miles in +10 Hours.”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 600px; height: 384px;"><img src="images/img75.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">AN EXTRAORDINARY SCENE ON THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD. <i>By Rowlandson.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>Such a performance as this, at such a time, made a great impression, and +Rowlandson has made a very spirited drawing of the scene, full of life and +vigour. In the foreground is the “Portsmouth Fly,” with officers inside, +taking their ease, and a number of soldiers occupying a precarious perch +on the roof, fifing and drumming, regardless of jolts and lurches. Flags +are waving from the windows of the “Fly,” soldiers on the box are “laying +on” to the horses with a whip, while three others ride comfortably in the +“rumble-tumble” behind. Other parties follow, in curricles and carts, +hugging the shameless wenches who “doted on the military” in those +times as demonstratively as Mary Jane does now. On the right hand stands +an enthusiastic group at the door of the “Jolly Sailor”: the landlord, in +apron and shirt-sleeves, about to drink the soldiers’ healths in a bumper +of very respectable proportions, his womenkind looking on, while a young +hopeful, who has donned a saucepan by way of helmet, is “presenting arms” +with a besom. An ancient, with a wooden leg and a crutch, is fiddling away +with vigour, and a dog runs forward, barking. The long cavalcade is seen +disappearing down the hill, while away in the distance is Portsmouth +Harbour with its crowded shipping.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXXV</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>SAILOR-MEN</i></div> + +<p>But the greater number of the travellers along the Portsmouth Road, +whether they walked or rode, were sailors; and so salt of the sea are the +records of this old turnpike that the romance of old-time travel upon it +is chiefly concerned with them that went down to brave the elements on +board ship; or with those happy mariners who, having entered port, came +speeding up to home and beauty with all the ardour of men tossed and +buffeted by winds and waves on a two or three years’ cruise. Pepys, who +happened to be on the road, on his way up from Portsmouth, June 12, 1667, +met several of the crew of the “Cambridge,” and describes them in a manner +so unfavourable that I am inclined to suspect they showed too little +consideration for the Secretary to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> the Admiralty. At any rate, he +pictures them as being “the most debauched swearing rogues that ever were +in the Navy, just like their prophane commander.” My certes, sirs! just +imagine Pepys playing the shocked Puritan, after having, perhaps, just +committed some of those peccadilloes which he sets down so frankly in his +ciphered “Diary.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE SAILOR’S RETURN</i></div> + +<p>That is one of the earliest glimpses we get of Jack ashore on this route, +and by it we can well see that his spirits were as boisterous then as ever +after. “Sailors earned their money like horses and spent it like asses,” +says an old writer, and certainly, once ashore, they were no niggards. It +was the natural reaction from a long life of stern discipline, tempered by +fighting, wounds, floggings, and marline-spikes, and for the most part +cheerfully endured on a miserable diet of weevilly biscuit, “salt horse,” +and pork full of maggots. The Mutiny at Spithead, April 15, 1797, was due +in part to the shameful quality of the provisions supplied, and partly to +the open huckstering of the pursers, the unfair distribution of +prize-money, to stoppages, and to insufficient pay. But these grievances +were of old standing, and the Government actually felt and expressed +indignation that sailors should object to be half starved and half +poisoned with insufficient and rotten food. However indignant the +Government may have been, redress was seen to be immediately advisable, +and the demands of the mutineers were granted. Sailors rated as A.B.’s had +their wages <i>raised</i> to a shilling a day, and were paid at more frequent +intervals than once in ten years or so. It was stated (and names and dates +were given) in the House of Commons that some ships’ companies had not +been paid for eight, ten, twelve, or fifteen years. Under such a system, +or want of system, as this, it frequently happened in those days of much +fighting and more disease that when the ships were paid off, the sailors +to whom money was due had long been dead. In those cases it was very +rarely that their heirs touched a penny, and certainly the Government +reaped no advantage. The money went into the pockets of the Admiralty +clerks and paymasters, who thrived on wholesale and shameless peculation. +If by some strange chance, or by a singular strength of constitution, some +hardy sailors remained to claim their due, they were paid it grudgingly, +without interest, and whittled away by deductions amounting to as much as +thirty or forty per cent.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img76.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Sailor’s return from Portsmouth to London.</span><br /> +<i>Publish’d as the Act directs March 2 1772 by J. Bretherton, N<sup>o</sup>. 134, New Bond Street.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>But when a man <i>did</i> receive his pay, together with his prize-money, he +was like a school-boy out at play. Nothing was too ridiculous or puerile +for him to stoop to, and he was, as a class, so entirely innocent and +unsophisticated that the land-sharks waiting hungrily for homeward-bound +ships found him an easy prey. Stories innumerable have been told of his +childlike innocence of landsmen’s ways, and pictures and caricatures +without end have been drawn and painted with the object of making men +smile at his strange doings. Here is a caricature dated so far back as +1772, showing “The Sailor’s Return from Portsmouth to London.” The point +of view chosen is, apparently, only a mile or two from Portsmouth, for in +the background rise some ruins obviously intended to represent Porchester +Castle. The sailor, after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> manner so often dwelt upon, is keeping up a +pleasing travesty of sea-faring life. His jaded nag is a ship, and the +course is being steered by the nag’s tail. The sailor himself has +evidently “come aboard” by the rope-ladder, seen hanging down almost to +the ground, and he keeps the fog-horn going to avoid collisions. A flag +flies from his top-gallant—in plain English, his hat—while a Union Jack +is fixed at the forepeak and an anchor is triced up at the bows, in +readiness for “heaving-to.” His log might well be that of “Jack Junk” on a +similar journey:—“Hove out of Portsmouth on board the ‘Britannia Fly’—a +swift sailer—got an inside berth—rather drowsy the first watch or +so—liked to have slipped off the stern—cast anchor at the ‘George’—took +a fresh quid and a supply of grog—comforted the upper works—spoke +several homeward-bound frigates on the road—and after a tolerable smooth +voyage entered the port of London at ten past five, post meridian.”</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img77.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">TRUE BLUE; OR BRITAIN’S JOLLY TARS PAID OFF AT PORTSMOUTH, 1797. <i>By Isaac Cruikshank.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>POOR JACK</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>Another, and a much more spirited, plate by Isaac Cruikshank, dated 1797, +and entitled, “True Blue; or Britain’s Jolly Tars Paid Off at Portsmouth,” +shows a coach-load going off to London without more ado, accompanied by +Poll and Sue, Nancy, Kate, and Joan; all (nay, I will not say uproariously +drunk) in the merriest of moods. The horses gallop, hats are waved in +every direction, and those who have no hats flourish beer-bottles instead. +Some jolly Jack-a-Dandy stands upon the roof, at the imminent risk of his +neck, and scrapes a fiddle to what, considering the pace of the coach, +must have been a tune of the most agonizing description; while an amorous +fellow hugs his girl behind. The Union Jack is, of course, in a +prominent position, and a riotous, devil-me-care figure sits one of the +horses backwards. I do not observe any one of this merry company “heaving +the lead overboard,” as became the pleasing fashion among sailor-men flush +of money who rode outside the day coaches to town. These merry men would +purchase long gold chains at Portsmouth, and on their journey would now +and then hang them over the side of the coach with their watches suspended +at the end by way of plummets, and would call out, in nautical style, so +many fathoms. Some home-coming sailors would walk up the road, either +because they had spent most of their money in drink and debauchery at +Portsmouth, or else because the idea commended itself to their freakish +natures; and the people of the inns and beerhouses on the way reaped a +fine harvest from this class of customer. I have told you, on another +page, how most of these sailor-men were accommodated, as to their sleeping +arrangements, by being given a shake-down in the clean straw of some +outhouse. They in many instances threw themselves down amid the straw, +hopelessly drunk; and then entered unto them the honest innkeeper, who +would not rob his guests, but saw no objection to taking them up by the +heels and shaking them vigorously until the money fell out of their +pockets among the straw. If they found the coin in the morning, why, it +was bad luck from the publican’s point of view; and if they reeled away, +leaving their money behind them, it was a happy chance for mine host, who +came and gleaned a golden hoard from his straw. But if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> some indignant +sailor, full of horrid oaths and terrible threats, came and swore he had +been robbed during the night, the virtuous publican could suggest that +before he made such serious charges, it would be better if he made a +search. He <i>might</i> have dropped his money!</p> + +<p>Sometimes the Portsmouth Road was traversed by long processions of wagons +containing treasure captured at sea and landed at Portsmouth for greater +security in transmission to London. Such an occasion was that when Anson, +returning in 1744 from his four years’ cruise in South American waters, +brought home a rich cargo of spoil in the “Centurion.” This treasure was +valued at no less than £500,000, and was stowed away in twelve wagons, +which were sent up to London under an escort of sailors and marines. +Eighteen years later, another splendid haul was made by the capture of the +Spanish galleon “Hermione,” from Lima, off Cadiz, and on this occasion the +value was scarcely less than before. The prize-money distributed amounted +to handsome fortunes for the officers, and conferred competencies upon +every man and boy in the two ships’ companies that took part in the +capture. Such windfalls as these were not everyday occurrences, and many a +man gave and took hard knocks all his life, to die in his old age in +poverty and neglect. Very few, probably, of those fortunate prize-sharers +from the “Hermione” treasure-chest retained their wealth.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>QUOTA-MEN</i></div> + +<p>The people who dwelt along the highway all shared to some degree in this +marvellous good fortune, but they lived in fear of the murderous rascals +who began to infest the roads in 1795, tramping or being sent <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>down from +London to join the navy at a time when every man was needed to help the +nation through the vast wars we were continually engaged in. At that +period of England’s greatest struggle for existence the press-gang was in +full tide of activity, but the pressed men were few in proportion to the +number required to man the ships, and so Acts of Parliament were passed in +order to provide a certain number of men from each county and from every +seaport for the service of the navy. The men thus provided were induced to +join by the extraordinarily large bounties offered, some of which were as +much as £30; and many of these “quota-men,” as they came to be called, +belonged to the most depraved of the criminal classes. The <i>personnel</i> of +the navy was lowered by these men, and the sailors were disgusted with +them. The “quota-bounty,” says an authority, “we conceive to have been the +most ill-advised and fatal measure ever adopted by the Government for +manning the fleet. The seamen who voluntarily entered in 1793 and fought +some of the most glorious of our battles received the comparatively small +bounty of £5. These brave fellows saw men totally ignorant of the +profession, the very refuse and outcasts of society, flying from justice +and the vengeance of the law, come on board with a bounty to the amount of +£70. One of these objects, on coming on board a ship of war with £70 +bounty, was seized by a boatswain’s mate, who, holding him up with one +hand by the waistband of his trousers, humorously exclaimed, ‘Here’s a +fellow that cost a guinea a pound!’”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>Criminals were allowed as an alternative to long terms of imprisonment, to +volunteer for what was evidently regarded by the authorities as an +equivalent to the gaol—a man-o’-war. “All the bad characters of a +neighbourhood, loafers, poachers, footpads, possible murderers, men +suspected of any crime, but against whom there was not sufficient +evidence, were arrested and sent on board, with a note to the captain +begging him to take measures to prevent their return; which, as such men +were commonly stout-built fellows enough, he was no ways loath to do. The +gaol-birds from the towns were unquestionably worse; worse physically, +worse morally, and perhaps worse hygienically; they were not infrequently +infected with gaol-fever, and brought the infection to the fleet; they +were largely the cause of the severe, even brutal, discipline that ruled +in the navy towards the end of last century.” According to the sailors +themselves—“Them was the chaps as played hell with the fleet: every +grass-combing beggar as chose to bear up for the bounty had nothing to do +but to dock the tails of his togs and take to the tender.” They used to +ship in shoals; they were drafted by forties and fifties to each ship in +the fleet; they were hardly up the side, hardly mustered abaft, before +there was “Send for the barber, shave their pates, and send ’em for’rd to +the head, to be scrubbed and sluished from clue to ear-ring, afore you +could venture to berth ’em below. Then, stand clear of their shore-going +rigs—every finger was fairly a fishhook; neither chest, nor bed, nor +blanket, nor bag escaped their sleight-of-hand thievery; they pluck <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>you, +aye, as clean as a poulterer, and bone your very eyebrows whilst staring +you full in the face.”</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>ROADS INFESTED</i></div> + +<p>These were the men who, instead of bringing prosperity to the innkeepers +and country folk, robbed and plundered stray travellers and lonely houses +by the way. Singly, they robbed hen-roosts and old market-women; in bands +their courage rose to highway robbery on a larger scale, and even to +murder. An official posting down to Portsmouth with money for a ship’s +company came within an ace of being relieved of several thousands of +pounds; for on his coach being upset on Rake Hill a number of fellows +appeared with offers of help, and would have carried off the gold had not +the boxes in which it was contained been too heavy. As it was, while some +of them were engaging every one’s attention in attempting to raise the +coach out of the slough in which it had become embedded, the remainder of +the band had got hold of the specie-boxes, and were battering them in with +great stones, when a party of marines opportunely arrived and caught them +in the very act.</p> + +<p>Men of this stamp were the curse of the navy. They were more often +town-bred weaklings than robust countrymen, and to their constitutional +disabilities they added the vices of the towns from which they came, and a +sullen habit of mind that could leave no room for discipline. Those were +the days of the press-gang, when likely fellows, whether seamen or +landsmen, were taken by force from their occupations, shipped under guard +upon men-o’-war in the harbours, and sent to fight, willy-nilly, for King<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +and country. Merchantmen, coming home from long and tedious voyages, were +seized and hurried off immediately upon their stepping ashore, and, in +fact, any well-built young fellow, an apprentice or clerk, who could not +prove himself to be a master-man became at one time the ordinary prey of +the press-gangs that roamed about the seaboard towns in search of prey. +Seamen only were their proper quarry, but when more, and still more, men +were required as time went on, it mattered little whether pressed men were +landlubbers or sailors; and as the members of the press-gang came to be +paid so much a head for all the sturdy fellows they could seize, it may be +seen that they were not apt to stand upon trifles or to weigh evidence +very narrowly. There were exemptions from the press, and it was open to a +man who considered himself to have been illegally seized to send a +statement to the authorities. These became known as “state-the-case-men,” +but as, in many instances, the ship upon which they had been sent sailed +almost immediately, this formality was simply a cruel farce. If their +statements were ever forwarded to their destination, they only arrived by +the time the ships were well out to sea; and if their complaints were ever +investigated, the inquiries would most likely take place while the +subjects of them were in the thick of an action with the enemy; perhaps +wounded, possibly even already dead.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 550px; height: 383px;"><img src="images/img78.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT, 1782. <i>By James Gillray.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>THE PRESS-GANG</i></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>The forays of the press-gangs were battles in themselves, and many a man +on either side was killed in these man-hunting expeditions. “Private +mischief,” said the Earl of Mansfield, “had better be submitted to than +that public detriment and inconvenience should ensue;” but the men who +fought with the press-gangs did not see matters in this light, and neither +did their womenkind. The beautiful decorative drawing by Morland that +forms the frontispiece to this book puts the sentiment of the time against +impressment in a poetical way, but Gillray’s more nervous and satirical +pencil gives, in his “Liberty of the Subject,” a realistic and satirical +picture that shows how strenuously the press was resisted. It is a most +graphic and humorous representation of a “hot press” in the streets of +some seaport town, at a period immediately following upon the American War +of Independence, when men were particularly scarce. A gang has seized a +tailor, a poor, miserable-looking wretch with no fighting in him, almost +literally as well as metaphorically the “ninth part of a man,” and his +captors are dragging him off, knock-kneed and incapable of resistance. But +if he submits so easily, the women of the crowd have to be reckoned with, +and are doing nearly all the fighting. The furious virago in the +foreground is pulling at a midshipman’s hair with all the strength of one +hand, while with the other she is lugging his ear off, kicking him, at the +same time, with her knee. A sailor in the rear, with an animated +expression of countenance, has hold of her arm, and appears to be aiming a +blow at her head with the butt-end of a pistol; while another woman with a +heavy mop is preparing to fell him to the ground.</p> + +<p>One of the “hottest presses,” and at the same time the most successful, +ever known, was that of March 8,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> 1803, Portsmouth. Five hundred able +seamen were obtained on that occasion by the strategy and cunning of a +certain Captain Brown, who assembled a company of marines late at night +with all the fuss and circumstance he could display, in order, as he gave +out, to quell a mutiny at Fort Monckton. The news of this pretended mutiny +spread rapidly, and great crowds came rushing down to see the affair. When +they had all crossed Haslar Bridge they were cooped up like so many fowls, +and that master of strategy, having posted his marines at the bridge end, +seized every suitable man in the crowd.</p> + +<p>But the pressed men, although they tried every dodge to escape this forced +service, and though their unwillingness to serve his Majesty afloat has +made a classic of the saying, “One volunteer is worth three pressed men,” +did good service when once they were trapped and trained. For one thing, +they had no choice. ’Twas either a cheerful obedience to orders and +readiness in action when once afloat, or else a flogging with the cat and +a remand, heavily ironed, to the hold. Seeing how useless would be any +malingering, the pressed men turned to with a will, and fought our battles +with such spirit that the victories of Trafalgar, of “the glorious First +of June,” off Cape St. Vincent, and many of the other notable exploits of +the British Fleet, are due to their courage and resolution.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>REVELRY</i></div> + +<p>When the pressed men came home (if ever they were so fortunate) they were +as a rule so inured to sea-service and hard knocks, that, so soon as they +had had a spree and spent their money, they were ready<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> for another +cruise. But meanwhile they enjoyed themselves with the reckless +prodigality possible only to such men. When the ships came home (and ships +were always coming home then), Portsmouth ran with liquor, riot, and +revelry; and on fine summer days the grassy slopes of Portsdown Hill were +all alive with the jolly Jacks engaged with great earnestness in the +business of pleasure. Here, in the taverns that overlook from this breezy +height the harbour, the town, and the distant mud-flats, generations of +soldiers and sailors, fresh from battle and the salt sea, have caroused. +Here, opposite the “George” and the Belle Vue Gardens, where “the +military” and the servant-girls, the sailors and their lasses, still +disport on high-days and holidays, with swings, Aunt Sallies, cocoa-nut +shies, and, in short, all the fun of the fair, have the look-out men of a +hundred years ago shivered in the wind while scanning the distant horizon +for signs of Bonaparte and his flotilla, the inglorious Armada that never +left port.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>When workmen were engaged in lowering the road opposite the old “George” +Inn, that stands so boldly and with such a fine last-century air on the +hill brow, they opened a tumulus which was found to contain, at a depth of +only eighteen inches, the well-preserved skeletons of sixteen men, the +victims of some prehistoric fray. Their feet were all placed towards the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +east, and in the skull of one was found the iron head of a spear. Who were +these vanquished soldiers in a forgotten fight? Were they Belgæ? Surely +not. Were they Christianized Saxons, slain in battle with Pagan vikings, +marauders from over sea? This seems more likely than any other theory. +That they were Christians appears certain from the position of their +skeletons, east and west; that they fell in battle is evident from the +silent testimony of the spear-head.</p> + +<p>Down goes the road in a long steady slope, flanked by the great forts of +Purbrook and Widley, whose dingy red-brick walls and embrasures command +the entrance to the harbour. Away, to right and left, for a distance of +seven miles, runs a succession of these forts, from Fareham to Purbrook, +cresting the ridge of the long hill, connected by telegraph, and furnished +with extensive barrack accommodation.</p> + +<p>Cosham village comes next, crouching at the foot of the ridge, with the +great guns high overhead to the rearwards: Cosham, neither town nor +village; busy enough for a town, sufficiently quaint for a village; with a +railway-crossing barring the road; a station adjoining it; the tramp of +soldiers re-echoing, and the blare of bugles familiar in the ears of the +people all day and every day.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>SUBURBS</i></div> + +<p>These are suburbs indeed, with the beginnings of pavements and the +terminus of a tramway that runs from here, a distance of three miles, to +Portsmouth itself. We cross over the bridges that span salty channels, +oozy and redolent of ocean and sea-weed during the hours of ebb. Here we +are immediately confronted with the ceinture of forts that embraces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> the +towns and garrisons of Portsea Island in a ring of masonry, earthworks, +and steel. The fortifications straddle across the road on brick arches +containing Royal Engineers’ stores, and ornamented with the device “18 VR +61,” done in red brick upon yellow; and obsolete cannon, buried up to +their trunnions, guard the brickwork piers against the wear and tear of +traffic.</p> + +<p>Now come Hilsea Barracks, with Hilsea Post Office opposite, and further +on, opposite the “Green Posts” Inn, an obelisk, marking the +eighteenth-century bounds of the borough of Portsmouth, with the +inscription, “Burgi de Portesmuth Limes MDCCXCIX. Rev. G. Cuthbert +praetore.” And so by stages through North End into Landport, past +ever-growing settlements and suburban wildernesses where new-built rows of +hutches miscalled villas look out upon market-gardens and those forlornest +of fields already marked out for “building sites,” but still innocent of +houses; where builders’ refuse cumbers the ground, and where muddy pools, +islanded with piles of broken and slack-baked bricks, and wrinkled into +furious wavelets by the blusterous winds, resemble miniature seas in which +(to aid the resemblance) lie the discarded iron pots and kettles of +Portsmouth households, their spouts and handles rising above the waters +like the vestiges of so many wrecked ironclads.</p> + +<p>Successive eras of suburb-rearing are most readily to be noted. First come +the red-bricked suburbs still in the making; then those of the ’60’s and +the ’70’s, brown-bricked and grey-stuccoed; and then the settlements of a +period ranging from 1840 to 1860,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> contrived in a fashion fondly supposed +to represent Italian villas, characteristically constructed of lath and +plaster now very much the worse for wear, but at one time wearing a +spick-and-span appearance that would have delighted Macaulay, to whom the +sight of a row of “semi-detached suburban residences” gave visions of +progress and prosperity that seem to us inexpressibly vulgar. The sight of +wealthy tradesfolk and of plutocratic contractors seems to have warmed +Macaulay into an enthusiasm which became eloquent in enlarging upon the +rows of villas that encircle every great town. To him the ostentatious +surroundings of the despicable rogues—the typical contractors of the +early and mid-Victorian epoch—who contracted to supply hay and fodder for +our armies in the Crimea, and forwarded in their consignments a large +proportion of bricks and rotten straw—the vulgar display of men of this +stamp recalled the most prosperous times of the ancient Romans, and was +therefore to be approved. But these men have long since left their +lath-and-plaster fripperies for a place where (let us hope) their bricks +and their rotten straw will be remembered against them, and their +descendants have mounted on the heaps of their inherited money to a very +high social scale indeed. The eligible residences themselves, with their +“grounds,” are mostly to be let, and the firesides across which unctuous +purveyors and middlemen and their wives grinned at one another and ate +buttered toast at tea-time, and drank “sherry wine” at night, are cold.</p> + +<p>Following upon this suburban stratum come the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> egregious houses of the +Regency period: pseudo-classic houses these, bay-windowed and approached +by steep flights of stone steps surmounted by ridiculously skimpy little +porches, with attenuated neo-classic pillars and pediments, done in wood. +Some of these are gone—pulled down to make room for shops—and doubtless +many more will shortly go the same way. Let us hope one or two will be +preserved for all time, for, although by no means beautiful, they are +interesting as tending to show the manners of a period now removed from us +by nearly a century; the taste in domestic architecture of a time when the +First Gentleman in Europe ruled the land.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>‘ROADS’ v. ‘STREETS’</i></div> + +<p>Here, where we come into Landport, we also come into the less affected +region of “streets.” In the newer suburbs nothing less than “roads” will +serve the turn of the jerry-builder; his ambitious phraseology soars far +above what he thinks to be the more plebeian “street”; but perhaps, after +all, he is wise in his generation, and is amply justified by the +preferences of his clients; and if that is the situation, let us by all +means condole with him as a much-maligned man, who does not what he would, +but what he must.</p> + +<p>Here, too, in these beginnings of the old town, shops jostle villas with +“grounds,” and they in turn elbow artisans’ dwellings, where children +swing with improvised swings of clothes-lines on the railings, and +manufacture mud-pies in the “gardens”; sticking them afterwards upon the +shutters of those ultimate shops of the suburbs which seem to be in a +chronic state of bankruptcy, and hold out no hopes of a living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> for the +pioneer butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers who, having served the +purpose and gone the way of all pioneers, leave them richer in experience +but light of pocket.</p> + +<p>It was in these purlieus that Charles Dickens was born, at 387 Mile End +Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, on February 7, 1812; the son of Mr. +John Dickens, Navy pay-clerk, who is supposed to be portrayed in the +character of Micawber—no flattering portraiture of a father by his son. +Writers who have fallen under the spell of Dickens have tried to do some +sort of poetic representation of his birthplace; and, truth to tell, they +have failed, because there never was any poetry at all about the +place,—and probably never will be any, so long as its scrubby brick front +and paltry fore-court last: while as regards Dickens himself, he was a +very excellent business man among authors, and as little poetic as can +well be imagined.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>XXXVII</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>PORTSMOUTH TOWN HALL</i></div> + +<p>Landport left behind, one came, until within only a comparatively few +years ago, upon Portsmouth town through a series of ditches, scarps, +counterscarps, bastions, and defensible gates. They are all swept away +now, as being obsolete, and where they stood are parks and barracks, +military hospitals, and open spaces devoted to drilling. The surroundings +of Portsmouth are, in fact, very modern, and probably the most ancient +edifice here is the High Level <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>railway station: a class of building which +age has no power to render venerable. The latest effort of modernity is to +be seen from this point in the Town Hall, of which every inhabitant of the +allied towns of Portsmouth, Southsea, Gosport, and Landport is +inordinately proud. And if size should count for anything, they have cause +for pride in this municipal effort; for Portsmouth Town Hall is +particularly immense. This is no place in which to enlarge upon its +elephantine dimensions, nor to specify how many hundreds of feet its tower +rises above the pavement; but it may be noted that it is a second-hand +design, having been closely copied from the Town Hall of Bolton, in +Lancashire. The architectural purist is at a loss how to describe its +architecture; for it is neither good Classic nor passable Renaissance, +although it partakes of the nature of both: it is, in view of the number +of municipal buildings put up in this fashion over the country during the +last forty years or so, perhaps best described as belonging to the +Victorian Town Hall order of architectural design; and that seems to me a +perspicuous definition of it. It has, however, an advantage that Bolton +altogether lacks. The sooty atmosphere of that dingy manufacturing town +has clothed the surface of its Town Hall with a mantle of grime, until the +building, from topmost pinnacle to pavement level, is, to use a +colloquialism, “as black as your hat.” The fresh breezes that blow over +Portsmouth at least spare its Town Hall this indignity, and the design, +such as it is, seems as fresh to-day as when the building was first +inaugurated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>In Leland’s time Portsmouth was “mured from the est toure a forelonge’s +lengthe, with a mudde waulle armid with tymbre, whereon be great pieces +both of yron and brassen ordinauns”; and in later ages these primitive +defences had expanded into great bastions and massive walls, in which were +no less than six gates. When the military authorities dismantled these +town walls, with the gates and the fortifications, they did away at once +with a great deal of inconvenience and annoyance experienced by the civil +population of Portsmouth in being cooped up within bounds at night, and by +their reforming zeal destroyed the greater part of the interest with which +strangers viewed this old stronghold.</p> + +<p>To-day one obtains too little historic colour in the streets of the old +town. The “Blue Posts,” where the midshipmen stayed and joked and +quarrelled, was burned down in 1870, and the “Fountain” is now a Home for +Sailors, conducted upon strictly non-alcoholic lines, and Broad Street, +which was at one time so very, very lively a place, has declined from the +riotous days of yore into a more or less sedate old age. The inns with +which it abounded are still there, but how altered their custom, their use +and wont, from the hard-drinking, hard-swearing, hard-fighting days of +old!</p> + +<p>One may look back upon those old days with regret for a vanished +picturesqueness and yet not wish them back; may know that the sailor who +drinks cocoa and banks his wages in the Post-office Savings Bank is better +off and immeasurably happier than his ancestor who, if he survived to +receive any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> pay at all, squandered it instantly upon all conceivable +kinds of drink and debauchery, and yet can see that his was by far the +most interesting figure. It is the same with the ships of the navy. No one +will contend that life was healthier upon the old wooden line-of-battle +ships than it is on the modern ironclads of the fleet; not a single voice +could be raised in favour of the dim and dirty orlop-decks of the old +men-o’-war, in comparison with the light, airy, and roomy quarters on +board our battle-ships of to-day; and yet there is scarce an Englishman +who does not heartily regret the old three-deckers that rode the waves so +gallantly, whose tier over tier of guns rose high above the waves and made +a braver show than ever the “iron pots” of modern times can do.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>OLD AND NEW</i></div> + +<p>The old-time aspect of Portsmouth is gone for ever. An almost complete +transformation has taken place in appearance, in thought, and manner in +little over a century, and where the body of Jack the Painter hung, high +as Haman, from a lofty gallows on Blockhouse Beach, no criminals swing +to-day. Even the “cat,” that instrument of discipline, too barbarous to be +honoured even by immemorial usage, no longer flays the backs of A.B.’s, +and is relegated to the cold shades of a museum, to rest beside such +long-out-of-date instruments of torture as the branks and the +thumb-screws.</p> + +<p>But, tide what will betide, a fine martial-naval air clings about the old +town, and will last while a bugle remains to be blown or a pennant is left +to be hoisted. The salt sea-breezes still bluster through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> narrow +streets; the dockyard clangs louder, longer, busier than ever; the tramp +of soldiers echoes; the boom of cannon peals across the waters, and God’s +Englishmen are ready as ever they have been, and ever will be; though out +yonder at Spithead and in foreign waters their forebears have strewed the +floor of the sea with their bones, and though, with treacherous iron and +steel beneath their feet while afloat, they may at any moment, be it peace +or war, be sent to the bottom to join the ill-fated ships’ companies of +the “Mary Rose,” the “Royal George,” the more recent “Captain,” +“Eurydice,” “Atalanta,” or “Victoria.”</p> + +<div class="figright"><img src="images/img79.jpg" alt="" /><br /><small>DANCING SAILOR.</small></div> + +<p>Here, where the stone stairs lead down into the water, is Portsmouth +Point. Mark it well, for from this spot have embarked countless fine +fellows to serve King and country afloat. What would we not give for a +moment’s glimpse of “Point” (as Portsmouth folk call it, with a brevity +born of every-day use) just a hundred years ago? Fortunately the genius of +Rowlandson has preserved for us something of the appearance of Portsmouth +Point at that time, when war raged over nearly all the civilized world, +when wooden ships rode the waves buoyantly, when battles were the rule and +peace the exception.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A PATHETIC FIGURE</i></div> + +<p>The Point was in those days simply a collection of taverns giving upon the +harbour and the stairs, whence departed a continuous stream of officers +and men of the navy. It was a place throbbing with life and +excitement—the sailors going out and returning home; the leave-takings, +the greetings; the boozing and the fighting, are all shown in +Rowlandson’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> drawing as on a stage, while the tall ships form an +appropriate background, like the back-cloth of a theatrical scene. It is a +scene full of humour. Sailors are leaning on their arms out of window; a +gold-laced officer bids good-bye to his girl while his trunks are being +carried down to the stairs; a drunken sailor and his equally drunken woman +are belabouring one another with all the good-will in the world, and a +wooden-legged sailor-man is scraping away for very life on a fiddle and +dancing grotesquely to get a living. He is a funny figure, you say; but, +by your leave, it seems to me that he is only a figure of a very great +pathos. Belisarius, over whom historians have wept as they recounted his +fall and his piteous appeals for the scanty charity of an obolus, was but +a rascally Roman general who betrayed his trust and became a peculator of +the first magnitude; and he deserved his fate. But here is a poor devil +who has been maimed in battle and left to earn his bread by playing the +fool before a crowd of careless folk, happy if he can excite their +compassion to the extent of a stray sixpence or an occasional drink. No: +his is not a funny figure.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p> +<h2>XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p>The old coach offices clustered about this spot. Several stood in Bath +Square, and here, among others, was the Old Van Office, kept by Uriah +Green. The vans were similar to the stage-coaches, but much larger and +clumsier, and jogged along at a very easy pace. They took, in fact, from +fifteen to sixteen hours to perform the journey under the most favourable +circumstances, and in bad weather no one ventured to prophesy at what time +they <i>would</i> arrive.</p> + +<p>The fares were, consequently, very much lower than those of the swifter +coaches, which stood at £1 1<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> inside, and 12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> outside. +One might, on the other hand, take a trip from Portsmouth to London on the +outside of a van for 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> The cheapness of these conveyances caused +them to be largely patronized by blue-jackets. One van left Portsmouth at +four p.m. every day for the “Eagle,” City Road, London, arriving there at +about seven or eight o’clock the next morning, and another left the +“Eagle” for Portsmouth at the same time.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>ROAD TRAVEL</i></div> + +<p>This was at the beginning of the present century, and was a vast +improvement upon the still older, clumsier, and infinitely slower +road-wagons. Thirty-five years earlier (<i>circa</i> 1770), even the quickest +stages were no speedier than the vans. For instance, at that time the +“Royal Mail” started daily from the “Blue Posts” at two p.m., and only +arrived in London at six o’clock the next morning. Then came Clarke’s +“Flying Machine,” which was so little like flying that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>it did the journey +only in a day, leaving the “King’s Arms” Inn, Portsmouth, every Monday, +Wednesday, and Friday night at ten o’clock, and returning on alternate +nights.</p> + +<p>In 1805 the number and the speed of coaches were considerably augmented. +Among them were the “Royal Mail,” from the “George”; the “Nelson,” from +the “Blue Posts”; the “Hero,” from the “Fountain”; the “Regulator,” from +the “George”; and Vicat and Co.’s speedy “Rocket,” that started from the +“Quebec” Tavern, and did the journey to town in nine hours. It was at this +period that a local bard was moved to verse by the astonishing swiftness +of the coaches, and this is how he sings their prowess:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“In olden times, two days were spent<br /> +’Twixt Portsmouth and the Monument;<br /> +When Flying Diligences plied,<br /> +When men in Roundabouts would ride,<br /> +And at the surly driver’s will,<br /> +Get out and climb each tedious hill.<br /> +But since the rapid Freeling’s age,<br /> +How much improved the <i>English Stage</i>!<br /> +Now in ten hours the London Post<br /> +Reaches from Lombard Street our coast.”</p> + +<p>Prodigious! But when the railway was opened from Portsmouth to Nine Elms +in 1840, and did the journey in three hours, there were, alas! no votaries +of the Muse to celebrate the event.</p> + +<p>That year witnessed the last of the old coaching days upon the Portsmouth +Road, so far, at least, as ordinary travellers were concerned. Some few, +particularly conservative, still elected to travel by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> road; and, as may +be seen from the appended copy of a Post-office Time-Bill, the +Postmaster-General put no trust in new-fangled methods of conveyance:—</p> + +<p class="center">GENERAL POST OFFICE.<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Earl of Lichfield, Her Majesty’s Postmaster-General.</span><br /> +London and Portsmouth Time-Bill.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="table"> +<tr><td align="center" class="btlr">Contractors’<br />Names.</td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td class="btr"> </td> + <td align="center" class="btr">Time<br />Allowed.</td> + <td class="btr"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="btlr"> </td> + <td class="btr" valign="top" align="center">In</td> + <td class="btr" valign="top" align="center">Out</td> + <td class="btr" valign="top" align="center">M.F.</td> + <td class="btr" valign="top" align="center">H.M.</td> + <td class="btr">Dispatched from the General Post<br />Office, the<span class="spacer"> </span>of<span class="spacer"> </span>, 184 , at<br /> + <span class="spacer"> </span>by time-piece, at<span class="spacer"> </span>by clock.<br /> + Coach No.<span class="spacer"> </span>{ With time-piece safe,<br /> + sent out<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">{ No.</span><span class="spacer"> </span>to </td></tr> +<tr><td class="blr"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br">Arrived at the Gloucester Coffee-House at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="blr" align="center" valign="middle" rowspan="9">Chaplin and<br />Gray</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">13.0</td> + <td class="br" align="center">1.35</td> + <td class="br">Arrived at Kingston at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">4.0</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br">Esher</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">3.4</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br">Cobham</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">3.7</td> + <td class="br" align="center">1.25</td> + <td class="br">Arrived at Ripley at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">6.1</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br">Guildford</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">4.2 </td> + <td class="br" align="center">1.18</td> + <td class="br">Arrived at Godalming at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">2.1</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br">Mousehill</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">10.1</td> + <td class="br" align="center">1.32</td> + <td class="br">Arrived at Liphook at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">8.3</td> + <td class="br" align="center">1.3</td> + <td class="br">Arrived at Petersfield at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="blr">Wise</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">7.4</td> + <td class="br" align="center">57</td> + <td class="br">Arrived at Horndean at</td></tr> +<tr><td class="blr"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br" align="center">5.6</td> + <td class="br"> </td> + <td class="br">Cosham</td></tr> +<tr><td class="bblr" valign="top">Guy</td> + <td class="bbr"> </td> + <td class="bbr"> </td> + <td class="bbr" valign="top" align="center">4.6</td> + <td class="bbr" valign="top" align="center">1.20</td> + <td class="bbr">Arrived at the Post Office, Portsmouth,<br /> + the<span class="spacer"> </span>of<span class="spacer"> </span>, 184 , at<span class="spacer"> </span>by<br /> + time-piece, at<span class="spacer"> </span>by clock.<br /> + Coach No.<span class="spacer"> </span>{ Delivered time-piece safe,<br /> + arrived<span style="margin-left: 3.9em;">{ No.</span><span class="spacer"> </span>to</td></tr></table> + +<p class="center">The time of working each stage, &c. Up-time allowed the same.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">By Command of the Postmaster-General.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14em;"><span class="smcap">George Stow</span>, Surveyor and Superintendent.</span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>HER MAJESTY’S MAILS</i></div> + +<p>This time-bill, quoted by Mr. Stanley Harris in his “Coaching Age,” is +dated April 1841, and shows, by a side-light, the innate conservatism of +all Government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> institutions. At that time the London and South-Western +Railway—then called the London and Southampton—had been opened eleven +months, with a station at Portsmouth and a London terminus at Nine Elms, +yet her Majesty’s mails still went by road, and at a pace scarcely +equalled for slowness among all the coaches of England. Nine hours and ten +minutes taken, at this late period, in journeying between London and +Portsmouth! Why, the Jehus of the Bath and Exeter Roads, the drivers of +the “Quicksilver” and the “Regulator,” even, would have scorned this +jog-trot.</p> + +<p>The present generation, which knows less of coaching times than of the +Wars of the Roses or any other equally far-removed period, will be puzzled +over the references to clocks and time-pieces in the bill printed above. +These time-pieces were served out at the General Post Office to all +mail-coaches. They were wound up and set going in correct time, and, +enclosed in a securely-fastened box to prevent its being tampered with, +one was handed to the guard of each mail leaving London. By means of his +time-piece the guard could check the progress of the mail, and could hurry +up the driver on an occasion. It was the guard’s duty to deliver up his +time-piece on arrival at his destination, when the time shown by it was +entered by the postmaster, and any late arrivals notified to the +Postmaster-General.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>REVIVALS</i></div> + +<p>That august public functionary finally yielded to the pressure of +circumstances, and in 1842 her Majesty’s mails went by rail instead of by +road. The Queen’s highway was then lonely indeed, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> was not until +1875, when the coaching revival was already some twelve or thirteen years +old, that the revived “Rocket” coach was put on between London and +Portsmouth. It ran from the “White Horse” Cellars every Tuesday, Thursday, +and Saturday during the season, returning from the “George,” Portsmouth, +on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. In the earlier years of its running, +the “Rocket” made good time, taking eight and a half hours, up or down; +but its quickest time was made on the down journey during the season of +1881, when it left Piccadilly at 11.10 a.m., and reached Portsmouth at +seven p.m. == seven hours fifty minutes, inclusive of seven changes, as +against six changes in previous seasons. Captain Hargreaves was the bold +projector of this long-distance coach, and since his retirement from the +road none other has had the enterprise sufficient for so great an +undertaking. The Portsmouth Road has known no through coach since his +“Rocket” was discontinued. The Postmaster-General of this age of railways +is, however, about to try an interesting and important revival of the +old-time mail-coach along a portion of this route, as far as Guildford; +and it is understood that, should his venture prove successful, this +journey will be extended to Portsmouth. Meanwhile, night coaches will run, +carrying the Parcel mails, from St. Martin’s-le-Grand to Guildford, going +by way of Epsom and Leatherhead. The reason for this reversion to old +methods is that the railway companies demand rates for the carriage of the +Parcel mails which, in the opinion of the Postal Department, are +excessive, amounting as they do to about fifty-five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> per cent. of the +gross receipts for the parcels carried. The coaches will leave London at +ten p.m., arriving at Guildford at two a.m.; while, from Guildford, branch +coaches will probably run, to serve the more remote country towns of +Surrey.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img80.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img81.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> +<h2>INDEX</h2> + + +<p class="index"> +Abbot, George, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_156">156-160</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Abbot’s Hospital, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Abershawe, Jeremiah, <a href="#Page_67">67-69</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Battersea Rise, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bere, Forest of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bowling Green House, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Buriton, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285-294</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Butser Hill, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295-297</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Byng, Admiral, <a href="#Page_48">48-56</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Catherington, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chalton Downs, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charlotte, Princess of Wales, <a href="#Page_127">127-134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charterhouse School, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Clare, Earl of, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Claremont, <a href="#Page_120">120-134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Clive, Lord, <a href="#Page_124">124-127</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coaches—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Accommodation,” the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Britannia Fly,” the, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Defiance,” the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Flying Machine,” the, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Hero,” the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Independent,” the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Light Post” Coach, the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Nelson,” the, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“New Times,” the, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Night Post” Coach, the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Perseverance,” the, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Portsmouth Fly,” the, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Portsmouth Machine,” the, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Portsmouth Regulator,” the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Red Rover,” the, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Regulator,” the, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Rocket,” the, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Rocket,” the new, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Royal Mail,” the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Star of Brunswick,” the, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Tally-ho,” the, <a href="#Page_104">104-118</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Tantivy,” the, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Telegraph,” the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“True Blue,” the, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Wanderer,” the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Coaching Age, the, <a href="#Page_2">2-11</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-169</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211-219</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362-367</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coaching Notabilities—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Balchin, William, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brown, E., <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carter, James, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carter, Samuel, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cotton, Sir St. Vincent, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Falconer, Francis, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hargreaves, Capt., <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jones, Capt. Tyrwhitt, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nicholls, Robert, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Nimrod,” <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peers, John, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rumney, P. J., <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shoolbred, Walter, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stevenson, William, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weller, Sam, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Worcester, Marquis of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cobbett, Richard, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225-227</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cobham Street, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cold Ash Hill, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a><br /> +<br /> +Cortis, H. L., <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cosham, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Croft, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_128">128-131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Croker, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cromwell, Oliver, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cromwell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cycling, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-146</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Devil’s Punch Bowl, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dickens, Charles, Birthplace of, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ditton Marsh, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dorking, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Duelling, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> +Duels—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord Castlereagh and George Canning, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord Chandos and Col. Compton, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">General Lorenzo Moore and Miles Stapylton, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord Paget and Capt. Cadogan, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">William Pitt and George Tierney, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Duke of York and Col. Lennox, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Esher, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Fairmile Common, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Farnborough, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Felton, John, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fitzclarence, Lord Adolphus, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Gibbon, Edward, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17-20</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288-293</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Godalming, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-193</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Godbold, Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gordon Riots, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Guildford, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147-169</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Guildford Castle, <a href="#Page_152">152-155</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Hon. Charles, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Lady Anne, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hampshire, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hanway, Jonas, <a href="#Page_42">42-47</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harting Coombe, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Highwaymen, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67-72</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301-305</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hilsea, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hindhead, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hinton House, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hook, Theodore, <a href="#Page_20">20-22</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Horndean, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hungate, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hyde, Sir Nicholas, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Inns—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Anchor,” the, Ripley, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Angel,” the, Ditton, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Angel,” the, Guildford, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Angel,” the, Strand, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Bald-faced Stag,” the, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Bear,” the, Esher, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Belle Alliance,” the, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Belle Sauvage,” the, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Berkeley” Hotel, the, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Blue Posts,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Burford Bridge” Hotel, the, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Castle,” the, Petersfield, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Castle and Falcon,” the, Aldersgate Street, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Coach and Horses,” the, Gravel Hill, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Coach and Horses,” the, Hilsea, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Cock and Bottle,” the, St. Martin’s Lane, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Cross Keys,” the, Wood Street, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Crown,” the, Guildford, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Dog and Duck,” the, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Dolphin,” the, Petersfield, <a href="#Page_281">281-283</a>.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Eagle,” the, City Road, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Elephant and Castle,” the, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22-27</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Flying Bull,” the, Rake, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Fountain,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“George,” the, Portsdown Hill, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“George,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“George and Gate,” the, Gracechurch Street, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Globe,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Golden Cross,” the, Charing Cross, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Green Man,” the, Putney Heath, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Green Posts,” the, Hilsea, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Heroes of Waterloo,” the, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Huts” Hotel, the, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Jolly Butchers,” the, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Jolly Drovers,” the, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“King’s Arms,” the, Godalming, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“King’s Arms,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Mitre,” the, Hampton Court, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“New Inn,” the, Old Change, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Quebec,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Ram,” the, Guildford, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Red Lion,” the, Dorking, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Red Lion,” the, Guildford, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Red Lion,” the, Petersfield, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Robin Hood,” the, Kingston Vale, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Royal Anchor,” the, Liphook, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232-258</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Royal Huts,” the, Hindhead, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Royal Oak,” the, Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Seven Thorns,” the, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Spotted Dog,” the, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Spread Eagle,” the, Gracechurch Street, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Sussex Bell,” the, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Talbot,” the, Ripley, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Telegraph,” the, Putney Heath, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White Bear,” the, Piccadilly, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White Hart,” the, Guildford, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White Hart,” the, Petersfield, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White Horse,” the, Dorking, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White Horse Cellars,” the, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White Lion,” the, Cobham Street, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Jerrold, Douglas, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Johnson, Dr. Samuel, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Kean, Charles, <a href="#Page_320">320-323</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kean, Edmund, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kennington, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kingston-on-Thames, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-94</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Lady Holt Park, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Landport, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leech, John, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, Prince, <a href="#Page_127">127-134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leopold, Prince, Duke of Albany, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis Philippe, King of the French, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lussher, Richard, Epitaph, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Liphook, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232-258</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Milford, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Milland, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mole, River, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Monmouth, James, Duke of, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>More, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Murders by Smugglers, <a href="#Page_310">310-318</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Napier, Admiral Sir Charles, <a href="#Page_320">320-325</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Newington, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Nicholas Nickleby,” <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Nine Elms, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Oglethorpe, General, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oxenbourne Downs, <a href="#Page_297">297-301</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Pain’s Hill, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pepys, Samuel, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235-239</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Petersfield, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272-285</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Peter the Great, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Peter Simple,” <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pitt, William, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78-80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Porchester, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Portsdown Hill, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Portsea Island, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357-367</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Portsmouth Point, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Press-Gang, <a href="#Page_345">345-350</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Purbrook, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Putney, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Putney Heath, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Rake, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Recruiting Sergeant,” the, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ripley, <a href="#Page_135">135-146</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rogues and Vagabonds, <a href="#Page_86">86-90</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342-345</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Sailor-men, <a href="#Page_334">334-351</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358-362</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Catherine’s Chapel, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sandown Park, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Selborne, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sheet, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Shulbrede Priory, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Smith, Henry, Alderman, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Smuggling, <a href="#Page_305">305-319</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stoke D’Abernon, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stone’s End, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sugden, Sir Edward, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sword House, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Tartar Hill, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Thames Ditton, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Thursley, <a href="#Page_203">203-207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tibbet’s Corner, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tofts, Mary, <a href="#Page_176">176-182</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Toll-houses, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Travellers, Old-time, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56-63</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252-258</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330-345</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Turner, J. M. W., <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tyndall, Professor, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Up Park, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Vanbrugh, Sir John, <a href="#Page_120">120-123</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vauxhall, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Villiers, Lord Francis, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Villiers, George, Duke of Buckingham, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Wandle, River, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wandsworth, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63-67</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wandsworth Road, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Warren, Samuel, Q.C., <a href="#Page_101">101-104</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Waterloo, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Waterlooville, <a href="#Page_327">327-329</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wellington, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wesley, Rev. John, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.<br /> +<br /> +White, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261-267</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“White Lady,” the, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wilkes, John, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240-252</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wimbledon Common, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wisley, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Witley Common, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wolfe, General, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wolsey, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Woolmer Forest, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.<br /> +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.</i></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name='f_1' id='f_1' href='#fna_1'>[1]</a> It is due, though, to the memory of the Duke of York to state that +<i>he</i> was content to be regarded in this affair as an ordinary private +gentleman.</p> + +<p><a name='f_2' id='f_2' href='#fna_2'>[2]</a> Edmund Yates says it was Sergeant Murphy, the eminent lawyer, and not +Jerrold. See his “Recollections.”</p> + +<p><a name='f_3' id='f_3' href='#fna_3'>[3]</a> This corrupt pronunciation is perpetuated in “Godliman” Street, by St. +Paul’s Churchyard, in London.</p> + +<p><a name='f_4' id='f_4' href='#fna_4'>[4]</a> This “elm” is a chestnut.</p> + +<p><a name='f_5' id='f_5' href='#fna_5'>[5]</a> The “County of Southampton,” to speak by the card.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries, by +Charles G. 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