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WILLIAM COBBET

RURAL RIDES

INTRODUCTION BY PROF. ASA BRIGG, M.A., B.SC.

IN TWO VOLS.

VOLUME ONE

No. 638

EVEIMMAN'S O

PRICE CATEGORY

VOLUME ONE

'There is no better way of rediscovering
a lost but still not forgotten England
than to turn to the colourful pages of
William Cobbett's Rural Rides,' writes
Asa Briggs in the Introduction to this
volume. 'Already when Cobbett began
to write the accounts of his journeys
in 1821, the England which he had
known as a boy was beginning to
look and to feel different. The land-
scape was changing as a result of the
double impact of agricultural enclosure
and the growth of towns: society too
was changing as a result of the com-
bined influences of industry, finance
and war. To many of Cobbett's con-
temporaries the changes were good,
visible signs of the " march of improve-
ment"; to Cobbett and his followers
they were bad, but it still seemed that
there was time enough to reverse them.
"Events are working together", Cob-
bett wrote in 1825, "to make the
country worth living in which, for the
great body of the people, is at present
hardly the case."

'It was for the sake of discovering
the true state of affairs and appealing
to others to help promote the proper
remedies that Cobbett began to travel
round England.'

The illustration depicts the birrh-place at Farnham,
Surrey, of William Cobbett.

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EVER YMAN, I will go with theey

and be thy guide,
In thy most need to go by thy side

WILLIAM COBBETT

Born in 1762, the self-taught son of a
labourer from Farnham, Surrey. Served as
a soldier, but withdrew to Philadelphia to
avoid persecution. Prosecuted for libel, 1797,
and returned to London, 1800, where he
edited a Radical paper. Imprisoned, and
went to America again, 1817-19. M.P. for
Oldham, 1832. Died in 1835.

WILLIAM COBBETT

Rural Rides

IN TWO VOLUMES • VOLUME ONE

INTRODUCTION BY

ASA BRIGGS, M.A., B.SC.

DENT : LONDON

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
DUTTON: NEW YORK

at the
Aldine Press • Letchworth • Herts

for

J. M. DENT & SONS LTD

Aldine House • Bedford Street • London

First included in Everyman s Library 1912

Last reprinted 1966

NO. 638

INTRODUCTION

THERE is no better way of rediscovering a lost but still not
forgotten England than to turn to the colourful pages of
William Cobbett's Rural Rides. Already when Cobbett began
to write the accounts of his journeys in 1821, the England
which he had known as a boy was beginning to look and to feel
different. The landscape was changing as a result of the
double impact of agricultural enclosure and the growth of
towns: society too was changing as a result of the combined
influences of industry, finance, and war. To many of Cobbett's
contemporaries the changes were good, visible signs of the
'march of improvement': to Cobbett and his followers they
were bad, but it still seemed that there was time enough to
reverse them. 'Events are working together,' Cobbett wrote
in 1825, 'to make the country worth living in which, for the
great body of people, is at present hardly the case.' In order
to restore the best in the past it was necessary to root out the
causes of decay, causes which were all interrelated in what
Cobbett came to believe was one great 'system,' 'the Thing.'
In the name of true conservatism, therefore, he appealed for a
radical reform of the House of Commons.

It was for the sake of discovering the true state of affairs and
appealing to others to help promote the proper remedies that
Cobbett began to travel round England. He rode on relent-
lessly, even after Whig parliamentary reform in 1832 seemed
merely to parody his expectations. The account of the last
ride printed in these two volumes was penned on the eve of the
first elections for the reformed Parliament. Although Cobbett
himself was elected a member, the new 'collective wisdom,' as
he always called the House of Commons, proved no wiser than
the old. The system went on, and the Thing continued to
grow. What has happened between 1832 and the present day
gives a certain sturdy pathos to the main themes of Rural
Rides.

The sturdiness, however, is stronger than the pathos. There
are few books in the English language which are as robust as
this. When in 1830 Cobbett first assembled in book form the

vi Introduction

descriptions of his journeys which had already appeared at
regular intervals in his Political Register, he was presenting his
readers with a portrait as well as a landscape. He had put the
whole of himself into Rural Rides, not merely his impressions
or his opinions, and the modern reader learns from his book as
much about the personality and development of England's
greatest radical as about towns and fields or politics and
economics. On an August evening in 1826, in a Wiltshire inn,
as the sun was setting, and the rooks were 'skimming and
curving over the tops of the trees' and a flock of sheep were
'nibbling their way in from the down and going to their fold,'
he mused about the shape of his 'life of adventure, of toil, of
peril, of pleasure, of ardent friendship and not less ardent
enmity.' 'After filling me with wonder/ he went on, 'that a
heart and mind so wrapped up in everything belonging to the
gardens, the fields, and the woods should have been con-
demned to waste themselves away amidst the stench, the noise,
and the strife of cities, it brought me to the present moment.'
'Nothing is so swift as thought: it runs over a life-time in a
moment.' The form of Rural Rides was just as suited for such
long-term contemplation as it was for the statement of griev-
ances, and the author was free to trace connections or to
digress into asides according to his mood. Cobbett's digres-
sions— about the formation of clouds, the pretty faces of the
local girls, the history of parish churches — are often both vivid
and charming: the connections, however, were what interested
him most. Just as he came to discern one great 'system' in
all the separate signs of national corruption — paper money,
the national debt, patronage and sinecures, the 'wen' of
London, the economic power of the Jews and the religious
appeal of the Methodists, Malthus and Pitt, machinery and
utilitarian education — so he came to see one great unifying
purpose in his life. Even his enforced flight from England to
the United States in 1817 to escape from the 'Gagging Bills' of
Lord Sidmouth seemed in retrospect to have been part of one
grand design. 'The trip which Old Sidmouth and crew gave
me to America,' he wrote in August 1823, 'was attended with
some interesting consequences; amongst which were the intro-
ducing of the Sussex pigs into the American farm yards; the
introduction of the Swedish turnip into the American fields;
the introduction of American apple-trees into England; and
the introduction of the making, in England, of the straw plat,
to supplant the Italian. One thing more, and that is of more

Introduction vii

importance than all the rest, Peel's Bill arose out of the "puff-
out" Registers; these arose out of the trip to Long Island; and
out of Peel's Bill has arisen the best bothering that the wigs of
the boroughmongers ever received, which bothering will end in
the destruction of the boroughmongering. It is curious, and
very useful, thus to trace events to their causes.'

Curious and useful though Cobbett's discovering of connec-
tions in his own and in national experience proved to be, it
presents certain difficulties for the modern reader of Rural
Rides. Cobbett's direct style, his devastating power of
denunciation, his careful and detailed observation of nature,
his unrestrained prejudices, his neat descriptions of places,
speak for themselves and need no introduction. His quest for
connections, however, will not be intelligible to a reader who
is ignorant of the outlines of two basic chronologies — first,
Cobbett's own biography, and second, the social and political
biography of England from 1797 to 1832. Acquaintance with
the two chronologies makes passages about Sidmouth, turnips,
Long Island, and Peel's Bill meaningful and even exciting
instead of elusive and unrewarding.

Cobbett was born at Farnham in Surrey in 1762 of farming
stock. He was restless enough to read Swift's Tale of a Tub
under a haystack at the age of 1 1, to try to run away to sea, and
in 1782 to enlist as a private soldier. He served in Nova
Scotia from 1784 to 1791, and soon became a sergeant. This
was the summit of his military career, however, for he found
himself in difficulties after denouncing the conditions of
soldiers' pay. He withdrew to France in 1792 and later to
the United States, where he remained until 1800. Within six
months of arriving in America he had begun his career as a
writer and a politician: eventually choosing the pen-name
Peter Porcupine, he spent his time defending the old order and
the English system of government and bitterly attacking the
French revolution and republicanism. When he returned to
England in 1800, he was the idol of the authorities, a protege
of the politician William Windham, and even on one occasion
the dinner-companion of William Pitt himself .

Between 1800 and 1805 Cobbett moved in the middle of a
world of ministerial writers, although he steadfastly refused to
sell his independence. It was a sign of his traditionalist
inclinations when he bought a farm at Botley in Hampshire
in 1805, where he was to live for twelve years. His life was
not 'designed' to peter out, however, in rural domesticity.

* 638

viii Introduction

He began to feel increasingly dissatisfied with the stock-
jobbing, money-making society which seemed to be taking the
place of the old social order, and such dissatisfaction always
goaded him to action. When in 1806 the new government,
the 'Ministry of All the Talents,' of which his old patron
Windham was a member, failed to attack what he regarded as
political corruption, he turned — with some misgivings — from
Toryism to Radicalism. In 1809 he made an indignant
protest against the flogging of English militiamen by German
mercenaries, which earned him two years in Newgate jail.
He emerged an unflinching radical, and after the end of the
Napoleonic Wars in 1815, he became the natural leader of a
national movement for parliamentary reform. His Political
Register, which had first appeared in 1802 as a Tory periodical,
became the most influential radical newspaper in the country,
particularly after its publication in 1816 in a special twopenny
edition designed to appeal to journeymen and labourers.

The repressive measures of the post-war government, of
which Lord Liverpool was prime minister and Lord Sidmouth
home secretary, forced Cobbett to flee to the United States in
1817. On this occasion the New World seemed very different
to him from what it had been in 1792. It was transformed
into a paradise — a country without a standing army, with no
'tithe-eating tribe of parson-justices' and no national debt.
When he returned to England in 1819, he held up the American
example to his English audiences just as he had held up the
English example to his American audiences during the 1790*5.
His English audiences were growing rapidly, however, and the
severe agricultural distress of the early 1820*3 gave him an
opportunity for the first time to appeal to countrymen as well
as to journeymen and labourers. The country tours, 'rustic
harangues,' county meetings, and local dinners, which all played
a part in his ' agitation,' were to make up the contents of Rural
Rides. If the final book seems to lack a plan, it must be remem-
bered that behind it was the bigger plan of Cobbett's own
political campaigning during the i82o's.

The first ride was from London to Newbury on a foggy day
in October 1821. The fog prevented Cobbett from seeing much
of the fields, but it did not make him lose his way or confuse his
thoughts and feelings. No fog ever could do. However easily
his contemporaries got lost in the foggy England of the 1820*5,
he was always sure of his direction, although it was frequently
his prejudices rather than his experience which served as a

Introduction ix

beacon light. • The journeys of his fellow radicals gave him
little sense of a common pilgrimage, and by 1830, when long-
awaited parliamentary reform was round the corner, he was as
bitter in denouncing rival leaders as he was the supporters of the
old ' system.' When he died in 1835, his personal independence
was still intact, but he was as disillusioned with the ' reformed '
world as he had been with the Ministry of All the Talents. He
had expected changes in the political system to reverse changes
in the social and economic system: instead they consolidated
them. A new generation of radicals was even prepared to take
for granted forces which he had always resisted to the limits of
his power. The high hopes of certain passages of Rural Rides
were dashed.

It is clear from this brief outline how Cobbett's own bio-
graphy is inextricably bound up with the social and political
biography of his country, but certain details of the national
chronology are important. The key dates for Cobbett were
not 1793 — the year when war with France broke out — or 1815
— the year when the Napoleonic Wars came to an end, but 1797
and 1819. It was in 1797 that Pitt, driven by the needs of war
finance, resorted to the issue of paper money. It was in 1819
that Peel's Act, violently opposed by Cobbett, authorized the
return to gold and the resumption of cash payments. Cobbett
was all in favour of gold and loathed 'rag money,' but he
objected to the terms on which the return had been made.
There had been no reduction in the national debt, no fall in
taxation, and no sharing of burdens. The fundholders
continued to profit from the peace just as they had profited
from the war, and their parasitic hold on the community —
expressed as much in the growth of the size of London as in the
size of their own private fortunes — was actually increased.
Cobbett believed that the grievances of farmers, who were
heavily hit by the fall in prices and the greater burden of debt,
and the distress of labourers, who were driven to starvation,
could only be remedied by measures which a reformed parlia-
ment would pass. He did not object to the 'rotten boroughs'
on grounds of abstract principles so much as on practical and
moral grounds, and he disliked the political economists and
'beastly Scotch feelosophers,' who defended the financial
system, as much as the boroughmongers and placemen who
upheld the political system. He was not looking for Utopia
but for Old England, for a land 'with room for us all, and
plenty for us to eat and to drink,' a land fit for bees and not for

Select Bibliography

drones. It needs no introductory gloss to explain the last
sentence of this edition of Rural Rides — ' be the consequences
to individuals what they may, the greatness, the freedom, and
the happiness of England must be restored.'

ASA BRIGGS.

1956.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS. The Soldier's Friend, 1792: Observations on the Emigration of
Dr Joseph Priestley, 1794; Le Tuteur Anglais, 1795 ; trans. Martens's Law of
Nations, 1795; The Works of Peter Porcupine, D.D., 1795; The Life and
Adventures of Peter Porcupine, 1796; The Life of Thomas Paine, 1796;
Porcupine's Works, 1797; Porcupine's Works, 1801; A Treatise on the
Culture and Management of Fruit Trees, 1802; Important Considerations for
the People of this Kingdom, 1803; The Political Proteus, 1804; Cobbett's
Parliamentary History of England, 1804; Cobbett's Complete Collection of
State Trials, 1809; The Life of William Cobbett, by Himself, 1809; Letters on
the Late War between the United States and Great Britain, 1815; Paper
Against Gold, 1815; A Year's Residence in the United States of America,
1818; A Grammar of the English Language, 1818; Thomas Paine, A Sketch
of his Life and Character, 1819; The American Gardener, 1821; Cottage
Economy, 1821; The Farmer's Friend, 1821: introduction to Jethro lull's
The Horse-hoeing Husbandry, 1822; Cobbett's Collective Commentaries, 1822;
A French Grammar, 1824; A History of the Protestant Reformation in
England and Ireland, 1824; Big O. and Sir Glory, A Comedy in Three Acts,
1825; Cobbett's Poor Man's Friend, 1826; The Woodlands, 1828; The
English Gardener, 1828; A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn, 1828; The Emigrant's
Guide, 1829; Rural Rides, 1830; Advice to Young Men, 1830; Eleven Lec-
tures on the French and Belgian Revolutions, 1830 ; History of the Regency and
Reign of King George the Fourth, 1830; Cobbett's Plan of Parliamentary
Reform, 1830; Surplus Population, A Comedy in Three Acts, 1831; A
Spelling Book, with Appropriate Lessons in Reading, 1831; A Geographical
Dictionary of England and Wales, 1832; Cobbett's Tour in Scotland, 1832;
A New French and English Dictionary, 1833; Life of Andrew Jackson, 1834;
Three Lectures on the Political State of Ireland, 1834; Cobbett's Legacy to
Labourers, 1835; Cobbett's Legacy to Parsons, 1835.

Among the most important newspapers and periodicals edited by Cobbett
were The Political Censor, 1796-7; Porcupine's Gazette, 1797-1800; The
Rush-light, 1800; The Porcupine, 1800-1; Cobbett's Political Register (with
various titles), 1802-35; Le Mercure Anglois, 1803; Cobbett's Parliamentary
Debates, 1804 onwards; Cobbett's American Political Register, 1816-18;
Cobbett's Evening Post, 1820; Cobbett's Parliamentary Register, 1820; The
Statesman, 1822-3; Cobbett's Twopenny Trash, 1831-2.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. W. H. Hazlitt : The Character of William
Cobbett, 1835; R. Huish: Memoirs of the late William Cobbett, 1836: J. E.
Thorold Rogers: Historical Gleanings, 1869; E. Smith: William Cobbett;
A Biography, 2 vols., 1878; E. I. Carlyle: William Cobbett, A Study of His
Life as shown in His Writings, 1904; L. Melville: The Life and Letters of
William Cobbett, 2 vols., 1913; G. D. H. Cole: The Life of William Cobbett,
1924 (3rd ed., 1947); G. K. Chesterton: William Cobbett, 1926; G. D. H.
and Margaret Cole : Index of Persons mentioned in Rural Rides, a separately
and privately printed appendix to their edition of Rural Rides, 1930;
W. Reitzel (ed.): The Progress of a Plough-boy to a Seat in Parliament,
X933> W. B. Pemberton: William Cobbett, 1949; M. L. Pearl: William
Cobbett, A Bibliographical Account of His Life and Times, 1953.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction by Asa Briggs ..... v
Journal: From London, through Newbury, to Burghclere,
Hurstbourn Tarrant, Marlborough, and Cirencester, to
Gloucester ........ 3

Journal: From Gloucester, to Bollitree in Herefordshire,
Ross, Hereford, Abingdon, Oxford, Cheltenham,
Burghclere, Whitchurch, Uphurstbourn, and thence to
Kensington ........ 21

Kentish Journal: From Kensington to Dartford,
Rochester, Chatham, and Faversham . . 41

Norfolk and Suffolk Journal . • . . 47

Sussex Journal : To Battle, through Bromley, Sevenoaks,
and Tunbridge ....... 57

Sussex Journal: Through Croydon, Godstone, East-
Grinstead, and Uckfield, to Lewes, and Brighton;
returning by Cuckfield, Worth, and Red-Hill . . 65

Through Ware and Royston, to Huntingdon . . 79

Journal: Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire: to St.
Albans, through Edgware, Stanmore, and Watford,
returning by Redbourn, Hempstead, and Chesham . 84

From Kensington to Uphusband; including a Rustic
Harangue at Winchester. . . . . .92

Through Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey, and Sussex . 116
Journal: Ride from Kensington to Worth, in Sussex • 160

From the [London] Wen across Surrey, across the West
of Sussex, and into the South-east of Hampshire . 163

Through the South-east of Hampshire, back through the
South-west of Surrey, along the Weald of Surrey, and
then over the Surrey Hills down to the Wen . .185

xii Contents

PAGE

Through the North-east part of Sussex, and all across
Kent, from the Weald of Sussex, to Dover . . .217

From Dover, through the Isle of Thanet, by Canterbury
and Faversham, across to Maidstone, up to Tonbridge,
through the Weald of Kent and over the Hills by
Westerham and Hays, to the Wen . . . .239

From Kensington, across Surrey, and along that County 265
From Chilworth, in Surrey, to Winchester . . .278
From Winchester to Burghclere ..... 292
From Burghclere to Petersfield . . . . .312

RURAL RIDES

IN THE COUNTIES OF

SURREY, KENT, SUSSEX, HANTS, BERKS, OXFORD, BUCKS,
WILTS, SOMERSET, GLOUCESTER, HEREFORD, SALOP, WORCESTER,
STAFFORD, LEICESTER, HERTFORD, ESSEX, SUFFOLK, NORFOLK,
CAMBRIDGE, HUNTINGDON, NOTTINGHAM, LINCOLN, YORK, LAN-
CASTER, DURHAM, AND NORTHUMBERLAND, IN THE YEARS
1821, 1822, 1823, 1825, 1826, 1829, 1830, AND 1832:

WITH

ECONOMICAL AND POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO
MATTERS APPLICABLE TO, AND ILLUSTRATED BY, THE STATE
OF THOSE COUNTIES RESPECTIVELY.

WILLIAM COBBETT

A New Edition, with Notes,
BY JAMES PAUL COBBETT, BARRISTER-AT-LAW,

LONDON
PUBLISHED BY A. COBBETT, 137, STRAND,

1853-

PREFACE

THE reader will perceive that there are, in the course of these
Rides, some instances in which the Author has gone over the
same part of the country on more than one occasion: and it
may, also, be considered that there are certain repetitions in
the writing, of statements of fact, or of remarks, which might
with propriety have been omitted.

That omission, however, it was not easy to effect, without
such alterations as would perhaps seem objectionable; and it
has therefore been thought best to reprint the several passages
in their original form.

MANCHESTER, June 1853.

JOURNAL

FROM LONDON, THROUGH NEWBURY, TO BURGH-
CLERE, HURSTBOURN TARRANT, MARLBOROUGH,
AND CIRENCESTER, TO GLOUCESTER

BURGHCLERE, NEAR NEWBURY, HANTS,

October 30, 1821, Tuesday (Evening).

FOG that you might cut with a knife all the way from London
to Newbury. This fog does not wet things. It is rather a
smoke than a fog. There are no two things in this world ; and,
were it not for fear of Six-Acts (the " wholesome restraint "
of which I continually feel) I might be tempted to carry my
comparison further; but, certainly, there are no two things in
this world so dissimilar as an English and a Long Island autumn.
— These fogs are certainly the white clouds that we sometimes
see aloft. I was once upon the Hampshire Hills, going from
Soberton Down to Petersfield, where the hills are high and
steep, not very wide at their base, very irregular in their form
and direction, and have, of course, deep and narrow valleys
winding about between them. In one place that I had to pass,
two of these valleys were cut asunder by a piece of hill that
went across them and formed a sort of bridge from one long hill
to another. A little before I came to this sort of bridge I saw
a smoke flying across it; and, not knowing the way by ex-
perience, I said to the person who was with me, " there is the
turnpike road (which we were expecting to come to); for, don't
you see the dust? " The day was very fine, the sun clear, and
the weather dry. When we came to the pass, however, we
found ourselves, not in dust, but in a fog. After getting over
the pass, we looked down into the valleys, and there we saw
the fog going along the valleys to the north, in detached parcels,
that is to say, in clouds, and, as they came to the pass, they rose,

4 Rural Rides

went over it, then descended again, keeping constantly along
just above the ground. And, to-day, the fog came by spells.
It was sometimes thinner than at other times; and these
changes were very sudden too. So that I am convinced that
these fogs are dry clouds, such as those that I saw on the Hamp-
shire-Downs. Those did not wet me at all; nor do these fogs
wet anything; and I do not think that they are by any means
injurious to health. — It is the fogs that rise out of swamps, and
other places, full of putrid vegetable matter, that kill people.
These are the fogs that sweep off the new settlers in the American
Woods. I remember a valley in Pennsylvania, in a part called
Wysihicken. In looking from a hill, over this valley, early in
the morning, in November, it presented one of the most beautiful
sights that my eyes ever beheld. It was a sea bordered with
beautifully formed trees of endless variety of colours. As the
hills formed the outsides of the sea, some of the trees showed
only their tops; and, every now-and-then, a lofty tree growing
in the sea itself, raised its head above the apparent waters.
Except the setting-sun sending his horizontal beams through all
the variety of reds and yellows of the branches of the trees in
Long Island, and giving, at the same time, a sort of silver cast
to the verdure beneath them, I have never seen anything so
beautiful as the foggy valley of the Wysihicken. But, I was
told, that it was very fatal to the people; and that whole
families were frequently swept off by the "fall-fever" — Thus
the smell has a great deal to do with health. There can be no
doubt that butchers and their wives fatten upon the smell of
meat. And this accounts for the precept of my grandmother,
who used to tell me to bite my bread and smell to my cheese ;
talk much more wise than that of certain old grannies, who go
about England crying up " the blessings " of paper-money, taxes,
and national debts.

The fog prevented me from seeing much of the fields as I
came along yesterday; but the fields of Swedish turnips that
I did see were good; pretty good; though not clean and neat
like those in Norfolk. The farmers here, as everywhere else,
complain most bitterly; but they hang on, like sailors to the
masts or hull of a wreck. They read, you will observe, nothing
but the country newspapers; they, of course, know nothing of
the cause of their " bad times." They hope " the times will
mend." If they quit business, they must sell their stock; and,
having thought this worth so much money, they cannot endure
the thought of selling for a third of the sum. Thus they hang

London to Burghclere 5

on; thus the landlords will first turn the farmers' pockets
inside out; and then their turn comes. To finish the present
farmers will not take long. There has been stout fight going
on all this morning (it is now 9 o'clock) between the sun and
the fog. I have backed the former, and he appears to have
gained the day; for he is now shining most delightfully.

Came through a place called " a park " belonging to a Mr.
Montague, who is now abroad ; for the purpose, I suppose, of
generously assisting to compensate the French people for what
they lost by the entrance of the Holy Alliance Armies into their
country. Of all the ridiculous things I ever saw in my life this
place is the most ridiculous. The house looks like a sort of
church, in somewhat of a gothic style of building, with crosses
on the tops of different parts of the pile. There is a sort of
swamp, at the foot of a wood, at no great distance from the
front of the house. This swamp has been dug out in the middle
to show the water to the eye; so that there is a sort of river,
or chain of diminutive lakes, going down a little valley, about
500 yards long, the water proceeding from the soak of the higher
ground on both sides. By the sides of these lakes there are
little flower gardens, laid out in the Dutch manner; that is to
say, cut out into all manner of superficial geometrical figures.
Here is the grand en petit, or mock magnificence, more complete
than I ever beheld it before. Here is a fountain, the basin of
which is not four feet over, and the water spout not exceeding
the pour from a tea-pot. Here is a bridge over a river of which
a child four years old would clear the banks at a jump. I could
not have trusted myself on the bridge for fear of the conse-
quences to Mr. Montague; but I very conveniently stepped
over the river, in imitation of the Colossus. In another part
there was a lion's mouth spouting out water into the lake, which
was so much like the vomiting of a dog, that I could almost
have pitied the poor Lion. In short, such fooleries I never
before beheld; but what I disliked most was the apparent
impiety of a part of these works of refined taste. I did not like
the crosses on the dwelling house; but, in one of the gravel
walks, we had to pass under a gothic arch, with a cross on the
top of it, and in the point of the arch a niche for a saint or a
virgin, the figure being gone through the lapse of centuries, and
the pedestal only remaining as we so frequently see on the out-
sides of Cathedrals and of old churches and chapels. But the
good of it was, this gothic arch, disfigured by the hand of old
Father Time, was composed of Scotch fir wood, as rotten as a

6 Rural Rides

pear; nailed together in such a way as to make the thing appear,
from a distance, like the remnant of a ruin ! I wonder how long
this sickly, this childish, taste is to remain? I do not know
who this gentleman is. I suppose he is some honest person
from the 'Change or its neighbourhood; and that these gothic
arches are to denote the antiquity of his origin I Not a bad plan;
and, indeed, it is one that I once took the liberty to recommend
to those Fundlords who retire to be country-'squires. But I
never recommended the Crucifixes I To be sure the Roman
Catholic religion may, in England, be considered as a gentleman's
religion, it being the most ancient in the country; and, there-
fore, it is fortunate for a Fundlord when he happens (if he ever
do happen) to be of that faith.

This gentleman may, for anything that I know, be a Catholic ;
in which case I applaud his piety and pity his taste. At the
end of this scene of mock grandeur and mock antiquity I found
something more rational; namely, some hare hounds, and, in
half-an-hour after, we found, and I had the first hare-hunt that
I had had since I wore a smock-frock ! We killed our hare after
good sport, and got to Burghclere in the evening to a nice farm-
house in a dell, sheltered from every wind, and with plenty of
good living; though with no gothic arches made of Scotch-fir '

October 31. Wednesday.

A fine day. Too many hares here; but, our hunting was
not bad; or, at least, it was a great treat to me, who used,
when a boy, to have my legs and thighs so often filled with
thorns in running after the hounds, anticipating with pretty
great certainty, a " waling ' ' of the back at night. We had
grey-hounds a part of the day; but the ground on the hills is
so flinty, that I do not like the country for coursing. The dogs'
legs are presently cut to pieces.

Nov. i. Thursday.

Mr. Budd has Swedish turnips^ mangel-wurzel, and cabbages
of various kinds, transplanted. All are very fine indeed.
It is impossible to make more satisfactory experiments in
transplanting than have been made here. But this is not a
proper place to give a particular account of them. I went
to see the best cultivated parts round Newbury; but I saw
no spot with half the " feed " that I see here, upon a spot of
similar extent.

Hurstbourn Tarrant 7

HURSTBOURN TARRANT, HANTS,

Nov. 2. Friday.

This place is commonly called Uphusband, which is, I think,
as decent a corruption of names as one would wish to meet with.
However, Uphusband the people will have it, and Uphusband
it shall be for me. I came from Berghclere this morning, and
through the park of Lord Caernarvon, at Highclere. It is a fine
season to look at woods. The oaks are still covered, the
beeches in their best dress, the elms yet pretty green, and the
beautiful ashes only beginning to turn off. This is, according
to my fancy, the prettiest park that I have ever seen. A great
variety of hill and dell. A good deal of water, and this, in one
part, only wants the colours of American trees to make it look
like a " creek ; " for the water runs along at the foot of a steepish
hill, thickly covered with trees, and the branches of the lower-
most trees hang down into the water and hide the bank com-
pletely. I like this place better than Fonthill, Blenheim, Stowe,
or any other gentleman's grounds that I have seen. The house
I did not care about, though it appears to be large enough to
hold half a village. The trees are very good, and the woods
would be handsomer if the larches and firs were burnt, for which
only they are fit. The great beauty of the place is, the lofty
downs, as steep, in some places, as the roof of a house, which
form a sort of boundary, in the form of a part of a crescent, to
about a third part of the park, and then slope off and get more
distant, for about half another third part. A part of these downs
is covered with trees, chiefly beech, the colour of which, at this
season, forms a most beautiful contrast with that of the down
itself, which is so green and so smooth ! From the vale in the
park, along which we rode, we looked apparently almost per-
pendicularly up at the downs, where the trees have extended
themselves by seed more in some places than others, and thereby
formed numerous salient parts of various forms, and, of course,
as many and as variously formed glades. These, which are always
so beautiful in forests and parks, are peculiarly beautiful in this
lofty situation and with verdure so smooth as that of these
chalky downs. Our horses beat up a score or two of hares as
we crossed the park; and, though we met with no gothic arches
made of Scotch-fir, we saw something a great deal better;
namely, about forty cows, the most beautiful that I ever saw,
as to colour at least. They appear to be of the Galway-breed.
They are called , in this country, Lord Caernarvon's breed. They

8 Rural Rides

have no horns, and their colour is a ground of white with black
or red spots, these spots being from the size of a plate to that
of a crown-piece; and some of them have no small spots. These
cattle were lying down together in the space of about an acre
of ground: they were in excellent condition, and so fine a sight
of the kind I never saw. Upon leaving the park, and coming
over the hills to this pretty vale of Uphusband, I could not help
calculating how long it might be before some Jew would begin
to fix his eye upon Highclere, and talk of putting out the present
owner, who, though a Whig, is one of the best of that set of
politicians, and who acted a manly part in the case of our deeply
injured and deeply lamented queen. Perhaps his lordship
thinks that there is no fear of the Jews as to him. But does he
think that his tenants can sell fat hogs at 75. 6d. a score, and
pay him more than a third of the rent that they have paid him
while the debt was contracting ? I know that such a man does
not lose his estate at once ; but, without rents, what is the estate ?
And that the Jews will receive the far greater part of his rents
is certain, unless the interest of the debt be reduced. Lord
Caernarvon told a man, in 1820, that he did not like my politics.
But what did he mean by my politics ? I have no politics but
such as he ought to like. I want to do away with that infernal
system, which, after having beggared and pauperised the labour-
ing classes, has now, according to the report, made by the
ministers themselves to the House of Commons, plunged the
owners of the land themselves into a state of distress, for which
those ministers themselves can hold out no remedy! To be
sure I labour most assiduously to destroy a system of distress
and misery; but is that any reason why a lord should dislike
my politics? However, dislike, or like them, to them, to those
very politics, the lords themselves must come at last. And lhat
I should exult in this thought, and take little pains to disguise
my exultation, can surprise nobody who reflects on what has
passed within these last twelve years. If the landlords be well;
if things be going right with them; if they have fair prospects
of happy days; then what need they care about me and my
politics ; but if they find themselves in " distress," and do not
know how to get out of it; and if they have been plunged into
this distress by those who " dislike my politics; ' is there not
some reason for men of sense to hesitate a little before they
condemn those politics? If no great change be wanted; if
things could remain even; then men may, with some show of
reason, say that I am disturbing that which ought to be let

Hurstbourn Tarrant 9

alone. But if things cannot remain as they are; if there must
be a great change ; is it not folly, and, indeed, is it not a species
of idiotic perverseness, for men to set their faces, without rhyme
or reason, against what is said as to this change by me, who have,
for nearly twenty years, been warning the country of its danger,
and foretelling that which has now come to pass and is coming
to pass ? However, I make no complaint on this score. People
disliking my politics " neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my
leg," as Jefferson said by the writings of the Atheists. If they
be pleased in disliking my politics, I am pleased in liking them ;
and so we are both enjoying ourselves. If the country want no
assistance from me, I am quite sure that I want none from it.

Nov. 3. Saturday.

Fat hogs have lately sold, in this village, at 75. 6d. a score
(but would hardly bring that now), that is to say, at 4^. a
pound. The hog is weighed whole, when killed and dressed.
The head and feet are included ; but, so is the lard. Hogs fatted
on peas or barley-meal may be called the very best meat that
England contains. At Salisbury (only about 20 miles off) fat
hogs sell for 55. to 45. 6d. a score. But, then, observe, these are
dairy hogs, which are not nearly so good in quality as the corn-fed
hogs. But I shall probably hear more about these prices as I
get further towards the West. Some wheat has been sold at
Newbury-market for £6 a load (40 bushels); that is at 35. a
bushel. A considerable part of the crop is wholly unfit for
bread flour, and is not equal in value to good barley. In not a
few instances the wheat has been carried into the gate, or yard,
and thrown down to be made dung of. So that, if we were to
take the average, it would not exceed, I am convinced, 55. a
bushel in this part of the country; and the average of all
England would not, perhaps, exceed 45. or 35". 6d. a bushel.
However, Lord Liverpool has got a bad harvest at last! That
remedy has been applied! Somebody sent, me some time ago,
that stupid newspaper, called the Morning Herald, in which its
readers were reminded of my "false prophecies" I having (as
this paper said) foretold that wheat would be at two shillings a
bushel before Christmas. These gentlemen of the " respectable
part of the press " do not mind lying a little upon a pinch. [See
Walter's Times of Tuesday last, for the following: " Mr. Cobbett
has thrown open the front of his house at Kensington, where he
proposes to sell meat at a reduced price."] What I said was this:

io Rural Rides

that, if the crop were good and the harvest fine, and gold
continued to be paid at the Bank, we should see wheat at four,
not two, shillings a bushel before Christmas. Now, the crop
was, in many parts, very much blighted, and the harvest was
very bad indeed; and yet the average of England, including
that which is destroyed, or not brought to market at all, will
not exceed 45. a bushel. A farmer told me, the other day, that
he got so little offered for some of his wheat, that he was resolved
not to take any more of it to market; but to give it to hogs.
Therefore, in speaking of the price of wheat, you are to take in
the unsold as well as the sold; that which fetches nothing as
well as that which is sold at high price. — I see, in the Irish
papers, which have overtaken me on my way, that the system
is working the Agriculturasses in " the sister-kingdom ' too !
The following paragraph will show that the remedy of a bad
harvest has not done our dear sister much good. " A very
numerous meeting of the Kildare Farming Society met at Naas
on the 24th inst., the Duke of Leinster in the chair; Robert
de la Touche, Esq., M.P., vice-president. Nothing can more
strongly prove the BADNESS OF THE TIMES, and very unfortunate
state of the country, than the necessity in which the Society
finds itself of discontinuing its premiums, from its present want
of funds. The best members of the farming classes have got
so much in arrear in their subscriptions that they have declined
to appear or to dine with their neighbours, and general depression
damps the spirit of the most industrious and hitherto prosperous
cultivators." You are mistaken, Pat; it is not the times any
more than it is the stars. Bobadil, you know, imputed his
beating to the planets : " planet-stricken, by the foot of
Pharaoh!" — "No, Captain," says Welldon, "indeed it was a
stick." It is not the times, dear Patrick: it is the government,
who having first contracted a great debt in depreciated money,
are now compelling you to pay the interest at the rate of three
for one. Whether this be right, or wrong, the Agriculturasses
best know: it is much more their affair than it is mine; but be
you well assured that they are only at the beginning of their
sorrows. Ah ! Patrick, whoever shall live only a few years will
see a grand change in your state! Something a little more
rational than " Catholic Emancipation " will take place, or I
am the most deceived of all mankind. This debt is your best,
and, indeed, your only friend. It must, at last, give the THING
a shake, such as it never had before. — The accounts which
my country newspapers give of the failure of farmers are

Hurstbourn Tarrant 1 1

perfectly dismal. In many, many instances they have put an
end to their existence, as the poor deluded creatures did who
had been ruined by the South Sea Bubble! I cannot help
feeling for these people, for whom my birth, education, taste,
and habits give me so strong a partiality. Who can help feeling
for their wives and children, hurled down headlong from
affluence to misery in the space of a few months! Become all
of a sudden the mockery of those whom they compelled, perhaps,
to cringe before them! If the labourers exult, one cannot say
that it is unnatural. If Reason have her fair sway, I am
exempted from all pain upon this occasion. I have done my
best to prevent these calamities. Those farmers who have
attended to me are safe while the storm rages. My endeavours
to stop the evil in time cost me the earnings of twenty long years !
I did not sink, no, nor bend, beneath the heavy and reiterated
blows of the accursed system, which I have dealt back blow for
blow; and, blessed be God, I now see it reel I It is staggering
about like a sheep with water in the head: turning its pate up
on one side: seeming to listen, but has no hearing: seeming to
look, but has no sight: one day it capers and dances: the next
it mopes and seems ready to die.

Nov. 4. Sunday.

This, to my fancy, is a very nice country. It is continual hill
and dell. Now and then a chain of hills higher than the rest,
and these are downs or woods. To stand upon any of the hills
and look around you, you almost think you see the ups and
downs of sea in a heavy swell (as the sailors call it) after what
they call a gale of wind. The undulations are endless, and the
great variety in the height, breadth, length, and form of the
little hills, has a very delightful effect. — The soil, which, to look
on it, appears to be more than half flint stones, is very good in
quality, and, in general, better on the tops of the lesser hills
than in the valleys. It has great tenacity; does not wash away
like sand, or light loam. It is a stiff, tenacious loam, mixed
with flint stones. Bears saint-foin well, and all sorts of grass,
which make the fields on the hills as green as meadows, even at
this season; and the grass does not burn up in summer. — In
a country so full of hills one would expect endless runs of water
and springs. There are none: absolutely none. No water-
furrow is ever made in the land. No ditches round the fields.
And, even in the deep valleys, such as that in which this village
is situated, though it winds round for ten or fifteen miles, there

12 Rural Rides

is no run of water even now. There is the bed of a brook, which
will run before spring, and it continues running with more or
less water for about half the year, though, some years, it never
runs at all. It rained all Friday night; pretty nearly all day
yesterday; and to-day the ground is as dry as a bone, except
just along the street of the village, which has been kept in a sort
of stabble by the flocks of sheep passing along to and from
Appleshaw fair. In the deep and long and narrows valleys,
such as this, there are meadows with very fine herbage and
very productive. The grass very fine and excellent in its
quality. It is very curious, that the soil is much shallower in
the vales than on the hills. In the vales it is a sort of hazle-
mould on a bed of something approaching to gravel; but, on
the hills, it is stiff loam, with apparently half flints, on a bed
of something like clay first (reddish, not yellow) and then comes
the chalk, which they often take up by digging a sort of wells;
and then they spread it on the surface, as they do the clay in
some countries, where they sometimes fetch it many miles and
at an immense expense. It was very common, near Botley, to
chalk land at an expense of sixteen pounds an acre. — The
land here is excellent in quality generally, unless you get upon
the highest chains of hills. They have frequently 40 bushels of
wheat to the acre. Their barley is very fine; and their saint-
foin abundant. The turnips are, in general, very good at this
time; and the land appears as capable of carrying fine crops
of them as any land that I have seen. A fine country for sheep :
always dry: they never injure the land when feeding off turnips
in wet weather; and they can lie down on the dry; for the
ground is, in fact, never wet except while the rain is actually
falling. Sometimes, in spring-thaws and thunder-showers, the
rain runs down the hills in torrents; but is gone directly. The
flocks of sheep, some in fold and some at large, feeding on the
sides of the hills, give great additional beauty to the scenery.—
The woods, which consist chiefly of oak thinly intermixed with
ash, and well set with underwood of ash and hazel, but mostly
the latter, are very beautiful. They sometimes stretch along
the top and sides of hills for miles together; and, as their edges,
or outsides, joining the fields and the downs, go winding and
twisting about, and as the fields and downs are naked of trees,
the sight altogether is very pretty. — The trees in the deep and
long valleys, especially the elm and the ash, are very fine and
very lofty; and, from distance to distance, the rooks have made
them their habitation. — This sort of country, which, in irregular

Hurstbourn Tarrant 13

shape, is of great extent, has many and great advantages. Dry
under foot. Good roads, winter as well as summer, and little,
very little expense. Saint-foin flourishes. Fences cost little.
Wood, hurdles, and hedging-stuff cheap. No shade in wet
harvests. The water in the wells excellent. Good sporting
country, except for coursing, and too many flints for that. —
What becomes of all the water ? There is a spring, in one of the
cross valleys that runs into this, having a basin about thirty
feet over, and about eight feet deep, which they say sends up
water once in about 30 or 40 years; and boils up so as to make
a large current of water. — Not far from Uphusband the Wans-
dike (I think it is called) crosses the country. Sir Richard Colt
Hoare has written a great deal about this ancient boundary,
which is, indeed, something very curious. In the ploughed
fields the traces of it are quite gone; but they remain in the
woods as well as on the downs.

Nov. 5. Monday.

A white frost this morning. The hills round about beautiful
at sun-rise, the rooks making that noise which they always make
in winter mornings. The starlings are come in large flocks;
and, which is deemed a sign of a hard winter, the fieldfares are
come at an early season. The haws are very abundant; which,
they say, is another sign of a hard winter. The wheat is high
enough here, in some fields, " to hide a hare," which is, indeed,
not saying much for it, as a hare knows how to hide herself
upon the bare ground. But it is, in some fields, four inches
high, and is green and gay, the colour being finer than that of
any grass. — The fuel here is wood. Little coal is brought from
Andover. A load of faggots does not cost above IQS. So that,
in this respect, the labourers are pretty well off. The wages
here and in Berkshire, about 8s. a week; but the farmers talk
of lowering them. — The poor-rates heavy, and heavy they must
be, till taxes and rents come down greatly. — Saturday and
to-day Appleshaw sheep-fair. The sheep, which had taken a
rise at Weyhill-fair, have fallen again even below the Norfolk
and Sussex mark. Some South -Down lambs were sold at
Appleshaw so low as Ss. and some even lower. Some Dorset-
shire ewes brought no more than a pound; and, perhaps, the
average did not exceed 285. I have seen a farmer here who can
get (or could a few days ago) 2Ss. round for a lot of fat South-
Down wethers, which cost him just that money, when they
were lambs, two years ago I It is impossible that they can have

14 Rural Rides

cost him less than 245. each during the two years, having to be
fed on turnips or hay in winter, and to be fatted on good grass.
Here (upon one hundred sheep) is a loss of £120 and £14 in
addition at five per cent, interest on the sum expended in the
purchase; even suppose not a sheep has been lost by death or
otherwise. — I mentioned before, I believe, that fat hogs are
sold at Salisbury at from 55. to 45. 6d. the score pounds, dead
weight. — Cheese has come down in the same proportion. A
correspondent informs me that one hundred and fifty Welsh
sheep were, on the i8th of October, offered for 4*. 6d. a head,
and that they went away unsold ! The skin was worth a
shilling of the money! The following I take from the Tyne
Mercury of the 3oth of October. " Last week, at Northawton
fair, Mr. Thomas Cooper, of Bow, purchased three milch cows
and forty sheep, for £18 165. 6d. ! ' The skins, four years ago,
would have sold for more than the money. The Hampshire
Journal says, that, on i November (Thursday) at Newbury
Market, wheat sold from 88.?. to 245. the quarter. This would
make an average of 565. But very little indeed was sold at 885.,
only the prime of the old wheat. The best of the new for about
485. and, then, if we take into view the great proportion that
cannot go to market at all, we shall not find the average, even
in this rather dear part of England, to exceed 32.9., or 45. a
bushel. And, if we take all England through, it does not come
up to that, nor anything like it. A farmer very sensibly
observed to me yesterday, that, " if we had had such a crop and
such a harvest a few years ago, good wheat would have been £50
a load ; " that is to say, 255. a bushel ! Nothing can be truer than
this. And nothing can be clearer than that the present race
of farmers, generally speaking, must be swept away by bank-
ruptcy, if they do not, in time, make their bow, and retire.
There are two descriptions of farmers, very distinct as to the
effects which this change must naturally have on them. The
word farmer comes from the French, fermier, and signifies renter.
Those only who rent, therefore, are, properly speaking, fanners.
Those who till their own land are yeomen ; and, when I was a
boy, it was the common practice to call the former farmers and
the latter yeoman-farmers. These yeomen have, for the greater
part, been swallowed up by the paper-system which has drawn
such masses of money together. They have, by degrees, been
bought out. Still there are some few left; and these, if not in
debt, will stand their ground. But all the present race of mere
renters must give way, in one manner or another. They must

Marlborough 15

break, or drop their style greatly; even in the latter case,, their
rent must, very shortly, be diminished more than two-thirds.
Then comes the landlord's turn ; and the sooner the better. —
In the Maids tone Gazette I find the following: " Prime beef was
sold in Salisbury market, on Tuesday last, at 4^. per lb., and
good joints of mutton at 3!^.; butter, nd. and i2d. per lb. — In
the west of Cornwall, during the summer, pork has often been
sold at z\d, per lb." — This is very true; and what can be better?
How can Peel's Bill work in a more delightful manner? V'hat
nice " general working of events I ' The country rag-merchants
have now very little to do. They have no discounts. What they
have out they owe : it is so much debt : and, of course, they
become poorer and poorer, because they must, like a mortgager,
have more and more to pay as prices fall. This is very good;
for it will make them disgorge a part, at least, of what they have
swallowed, during the years of high prices and depreciation.
They are worked in this sort of way: the tax-collectors, the
excise-fellows, for instance, hold their sittings every six weeks,
in certain towns about the country. They will receive the
country rags, if the rag man can find, and will give, security
for the due payment of his rags, when they arrive in London.
For want of such security, or of some formality of the kind,
there was a great bustle in a town in this county not many days
ago. The excise-fellow demanded sovereigns, or Bank of Eng-
land notes. Precisely how the matter was finally settled I
know not; but the reader will see that the exciseman was only
taking a proper precaution; for, if the rags were not paid in
London, the loss was his !

MARLBOROUGH,
Tuesday noon, Nov. 6.

I left Uphusband this morning at 9, and came across to this
place (20 miles) in a post-chaise. Came up the valley of
Uphusband, which ends at about 6 miles from the village, and
puts one out upon the Wiltshire downs, which stretch away
towards the west and south-west, towards Devizes and towards
Salisbury. After about half a mile of down we came down into
a level country; the flints cease, and the chalk comes nearer
the top of the ground. The labourers along here seem very
poor indeed. Farm houses with twenty ricks round each, besides
those standing in the fields; pieces of wheat, 50, 60, or 100 acres
in a piece ; but a group of women labourers, who were attending

1 6 Rural Rides

the measurers to measure their reaping work, presented such an
assemblage of rags as I never before saw even amongst the
hoppers at Farnham, many of whom are common beggars. 1
never before saw country people, and reapers too, observe, so
miserable in appearance as these. There were some very pretty
girls, but ragged as colts and as pale as ashes. The day was
cold too, and frost hardly off the ground; and their blue arms
and lips would have made any heart ache but that of a seat-
seller or a loan-jobber. A little after passing by these poor
things, whom I left, cursing, as I went, those who had brought
them to this state, I came to a group of shabby houses upon
a hill. While a boy was watering his horses, I asked the ostler
the name of the place; and, as the old women say, " you might
have knocked me down with a feather," when he said, " Great
Bedwin" The whole of the houses are not intrinsically worth
a thousand pounds. There stood a thing out in the middle of
the place, about 25 feet long and 15 wide, being a room stuck
up on unhewed stone pillars about 10 feet high. It was the
Town Hall, where the ceremony of choosing the two members is
performed. " This place sends members to parliament, don't
it?" said I to the ostler. "Yes, sir." "Who are members
now ?'• "I don't know, indeed, sir." — I have not read the
Henriade of Voltaire for these 30 years ; but in ruminating upon
the ostler's answer; and in thinking how the world, yes, the
whole world, has been deceived as to this matter, two lines of
that poem came across my memory.

Representans du peuple, les Grands et le Roi:
Spectacle magnifique! Source sacree des lois! 1

The Frenchman, for want of understanding the THING as well
as I do, left the eulogium incomplete. I therefore here add
four lines, which I request those who publish future editions of
the Henriade to insert in continuation of the above eulogium
of Voltaire.

Representans du peuple, que celui-c» gnore,
Sont fait a miracle pour garder son Or !
Peuple trop heureux, que le bonheur inonde!
L'envie de vos voisins, admire du monde ! a

1 1 will not swear to the very words ; but this is the meaning of Voltaire:
" Representatives of the people, the Lords and the King: ' Magnificent
spectacle! Sacred source of the Laws! "

a " Representatives of the people, of whom the people know nothing,
must be miraculously well calculated to have the care of their money!
Oh! people too happy! overwhelmed with blessings! The envy of your
neighbours, and admired by the whole world ! "

Cirencester 17

The first line was suggested by the ostler; the last by the
words which we so very often hear from the bar, the bench, the
seats, the pulpit, and the throne. Doubtless my poetry is not
equal to that of Voltaire; but my rhyme is as good as his, and
my reason is a great deal better. — In quitting this villainous
place we see the extensive and uncommonly ugly park and
domain of Lord Aylesbury, who seems to have tacked park on
to park, like so many outworks of a fortified city. I suppose
here are 50 or 100 farms of former days swallowed up. They
have been bought, I dare say, from time to time; and it would
be a labour very well worthy of reward by the public, to trace
to its source, the money by which these immense domains, in
different parts of the country, have been formed ! — Marl-
borough, which is an ill-looking place enough, is succeeded, on
my road to Swindon, by an extensive and very beautiful down
about 4 miles over. Here nature has flung the earth about in
a great variety of shapes. The fine short smooth grass has
about 9 inches of mould under it, and then comes the chalk.
The water that runs down the narrow side-hill valleys is caught,
in different parts of the down, in basins made on purpose, and
lined with clay apparently. This is for watering the sheep in
summer; sure sign of a really dry soil; and yet the grass never
parches upon these downs. The chalk holds the moisture, and
the grass is fed by the dews in hot and dry weather. — At the
end of this down the high-country ends. The hill is high and
steep, and from it you look immediately down into a level farm-
ing country; a little further on into the dairy-country, whence
the North-Wilts cheese comes; and, beyond that, into the vale
of Berkshire, and even to Oxford, which lies away to the north-
east from this hill. — The land continues good, flat and rather
wet to Swindon, which is a plain country town, built of the stone
which is found at about 6 feet under ground about here. — I
come on now towards Cirencester, through the dairy country
of North Wilts.

CIRENCESTER,
Wednesday (noon), 7 Nov.

I slept at a dairy-farm house at Hannington, about eight
miles from Swindon, and five on one side of my road. I passed
through that villainous hole, Cricklade, about two hours ago;
and, certainly, a more rascally looking place I never set my eyes
on. I wished to avoid it, but could get along no other way.
All along here the land is a whitish stiff loam upon a bed of soft

B638

i 8 Rural Rides

stone, which is found at various distances from the surface,
sometimes two feet and sometimes ten. Here and there a field
is fenced with this stone, laid together in walls without mortar
or earth. All the houses and out-houses are made of it, and
even covered with the thinnest of it formed into tiles. The
stiles in the fields are made of large flags of this stone, and the
gaps in the hedges are stopped with them. — There is very little
wood all along here. The labourers seems miserably poor.
Their dwellings are little better than pig-beds, and their looks
indicate that their food is not nearly equal to that of a pig.
Their wretched hovels are stuck upon little bits of ground on
the road side, where the space has been wider than the road
demanded. In many places they have not two rods to a hovel,
It seems as if they had been swept off the fields by a hurricane,
and had dropped and found shelter under the banks on the road
side! Yesterday morning was a sharp frost; and this had set
the poor creatures to digging up their little plats of potatoes.
In my whole life I never saw human wretchedness equal to this :
no, not even amongst the free negroes in America, who, on an
average, do not work one day out of four. And this is " pros-
perity," is it? These, O Pitt! are the fruits of thy hellish
system! However, this Wiltshire is a horrible county. This
is the county that the Gallon-loaf man belongs to. The land
all along here is good. Fine fields and pastures all around ; and
yet the cultivators of those fields so miserable! This is par-
ticularly the case on both sides of Cricklade, and in it too, where
everything had the air of the most deplorable want. — They are
sowing wheat all the way from the Wiltshire downs to Ciren-
cester; though there is some wheat up. Winter vetches are up
in some places, and look very well. — The turnips of both kinds
are good all along here. — I met a farmer going with porkers to
Highworth market. They would weigh, he said, four score and
a half, and he expected to get 75. 6d. a score. I expect he will
not. He said they had been fed on barley-meal ; but I did not
believe him. I put it to his honour, whether whey and beans
had not been their food. He looked surly, and pushed on.-
On this stiff ground, they grow a good many beans, and give
them to the pigs with whey; which makes excellent pork for
the Londoners ; but which must meet with a pretty hungry
stomach to swallow it in Hampshire. The hogs, all the way
that I have come, from Buckinghamshire, are without a single
exception that I have seen, the old-fashioned black-spotted
hogs. Mr. Blount at Uphusband has one, which now weighs

Gloucester 1 9

about thirty score, and will possibly weigh forty, for she moves
about very easily yet. This is the weight of a good ox; and yet,
what a little thing it is compared to an ox ! Between Cricklade
and this place (Cirencester) I met, in separate droves, about
two thousand Welsh cattle, on their way from Pembrokeshire
to the fairs in Sussex. The greater part of them were heifers
in calf. They were purchased in Wales at from £3 to £4 105.
each! None of them, the drovers told me reached £5. These
heifers used to fetch, at home, from £6 to £8, and sometimes
more. Many of the things that I saw in these droves did not
fetch, in Wales, 255. And they go to no rising market ! Now,
is there a man in his senses who believes that this THING can go
on in the present way? However, a fine thing, indeed, is this
fall of prices! My " cottager " will easily get his cow, and a
young cow too, for less than the £5 that I talked of. These
Welsh heifers will calve about May; and they are just the very
thing for a cottager.

GLOUCESTER,
Thursday (morning), Nov. 8.

In leaving Cirencester, which is a pretty large town, a pretty
nice town, and which the people call Cititer, I came up hill into
a country, apparently formerly a down or common, but now
divided into large fields by stone walls. Anything so ugly I
have never seen before. The stone, which, on the other side
of Cirencester, lay a good way under ground, here lies very near
to the surface. The plough is continually bringing it up, and
thus, in general, come the means of making the walls that serve
as fences. Anything quite so cheerless as this I do not recollect
to have seen; for the Bagshot country, and the commons
between Farnham and Haselemere, have heath at any rate;
but these stones are quite abominable. The turnips are not a
fiftieth of a crop like those of Mr. Clarke at Bergh-Apton in
Norfolk, or Mr. Pym at Reygate in Surrey, or of Mr. Brazier at
Worth in Sussex. I see thirty acres here that have less food
upon them than I saw the other day, upon half an acre at Mr.
Budd's at Berghclere. Can it be good farming to plough and
sow and hoe thirty acres to get what may be got upon half an
acre? Can that half acre cost more than a tenth part as much
as the thirty acres? But, if I were to go to this thirty-acre
farmer, and tell him what to do to the half acre, would he not
exclaim with the farmer at Botley: "What! drow away all
that 'ere ground between the lains ! Jod's blood ! " — With

2O Rural Rides

the exception of a little dell about eight miles from Cititer, this
miserable country continued to the distance of ten miles, when,
all of a sudden, I looked down from the top of a high hill into
the vale of Gloucester I Never was there, surely, such a contrast
in this world ! This hill is called Burlip Hill ; it is much about a
mile down it, and the descent so steep as to require the wheel of
the chaise to be locked; and, even with that precaution, I did not
think it over and above safe to sit in the chaise; so, upon Sir
Robert Wilson's principle of taking care of Number One, I got
out and walked down. From this hill you see the Morvan Hills
in Wales. You look down into a sort of dish with a flat bottom,
the Hills are the sides of the dish, and the City of Gloucester,
which you plainly see, at seven miles distance from Burlip Hill,
appears to be not far from the centre of the dish. All here is
fine; fine farms; fine pastures; all inclosed fields; all divided
by hedges; orchards a plenty; and I had scarcely seen one
apple since I left Berkshire. — Gloucester is a fine, clean, beauti-
ful place; and, which is of a vast deal more importance, the
labourer's dwellings, as I came along, looked good, and the
labourers themselves pretty well as to dress and healthiness.
The girls at work in the fields (always my standard) are not in
rags, with bits of shoes tied on their feet and rags tied round
their ankles, as they had in Wiltshire.

JOURNAL

FROM GLOUCESTER, TO BOLLITREE IN HEREFORD-
SHIRE, ROSS, HEREFORD, ABINGDON, OXFORD,
CHELTENHAM, BURGHCLERE, WHITCHURCH,
UPHURSTBOURN, AND THENCE TO KENSINGTON

BOLLITREE CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE,
Friday, 9 Nov. 1821.

I GOT to this beautiful place (Mr. William Palmer's) yesterday,
from Gloucester. This is in the parish of Weston, two miles on
the Gloucester side of Ross, and, if not the first, nearly the first,
parish in Herefordshire upon leaving Gloucester to go on through
Ross to Hereford. — On quitting Gloucester I crossed the
Severne, which had overflowed its banks and covered the
meadows with water. — The soil good but stiff. The coppices
and woods very much like those upon the clays in the south of
Hampshire and in Sussex; but the land better for corn and
grass. The goodness of the land is shown by the apple-trees,
and by the sort of sheep and cattle fed here. The sheep are a
cross between the Ryland and Leicester, and the cattle of the
Herefordshire kind. These would starve in the pastures of any
part of Hampshire or Sussex that I have ever seen. — At about
seven miles from Gloucester I came to hills, and the land changed
from the whitish soil, which I had hitherto seen, to a red brown,
with layers of flat stone of a reddish cast under it. Thus it con-
tinued to Bollitree. The trees of all kinds are very fine on the
hills as well as in the bottoms. — The spot where I now am is
peculiarly well situated in all respects. The land very rich, the
pastures the finest I ever saw, the trees of all kinds surpassing
upon an average any that I have before seen in England. From
the house, you see, in front and winding round to the left, a
lofty hill, called Penyard Hill, at about a mile and a half distance,
covered with oaks of the finest growth ; along at the foot of this
wood are fields and orchards continuing the slope of the hill
down for a considerable distance, and, as the ground lies in a
sort of ridges from the wood to the foot of the slope, the hill-and-
dell is very beautiful. One of these dells with the two adjoin-
ing sides of hills is an orchard belonging to Mr. Palmer, and the
trees, the ground, and everything belonging to it, put me in mind

2 L

22 Rural Rides

of the most beautiful of the spots in the North of Long Island.
Sheltered by a lofty wood; the grass fine beneath the fruit trees;
the soil dry under foot though the rain had scarcely ceased to
fall; no moss on the trees; the leaves of many of them yet
green; everything brought my mind to the beautiful orchards
near Bayside, Little Neck, Mosquito Cove, and Oyster Bay, in
Long Island. No wonder that this is a country of cider and
perry ; but what a shame it is, that here, at any rate, the
owners and cultivators of the soil, not content with these, should,
for mere fashion's sake, waste their substance on wine and spirits!
They really deserve the contempt of mankind and the curses of
their children. — The woody hill mentioned before, winds away
to the left, and carries the eye on to the Forest of Dean, from
which it is divided by a narrow and very deep valley. Away
to the right of Penyard Hill lies, in the bottom, at two miles
distance, and on the bank of the river Wye, the town of Ross,
over which we look down the vale to Monmouth and see the
Welsh hills beyond it. Beneath Penyard Hill, and on one of
the ridges before mentioned, is the parish church of Weston.
with some pretty white cottages near it, peeping through the
orchard and other trees ; and coming to the paddock before the
house, are some of the largest and loftiest trees in the country,
standing singly here and there, amongst which is the very
largest and loftiest walnut-tree that I believe I ever saw, either
in America or in England. In short, there wants nothing but
the autumnal colours of the American trees to make this the
most beautiful spot I ever beheld. — I was much amused for an
hour after daylight this morning in looking at the clouds, rising,
at intervals, from the dells on the side of Penyard Hill, and flying
to the top, and then over the hill. Some of the clouds went up
in a roundish and compact form. Others rose in a sort of string
or stream, the tops of them going over the hill before the bottoms
were clear of the place whence they had arisen. Sometimes the
clouds gathered themselves together along the top of the hill,
and seemed to connect the topmost trees with the sky. — I
have been to-day to look at Mr. Palmer's fine crops of Swedish
turnips, which are, in general, called "swedes" These crops
having been raised according to my plan, I feel, of course, great
interest in the matter. The swedes occupy two fields: one of
thirteen, and one of seventeen acres. The main part of the
seventeen acre field was drilled, on ridges, four feet apart, a
single row on a ridge, at different times, between i6th April and
May. An acre and a half of this piece was transplanted on

Bollitree 27

*./

four-feet ridges 3oth July. About half an acre across the middle
of the field was sown broad-cast i4th April. — In the thirteen-acre
field there is about half an acre sown broad-cast on the ist of
June; the rest of the field was transplanted; part in the first
week of June, part in the last week of June, part from the i2th
to i8th of July, and the rest (about three acres) from 2ist to
23rd July. The drilled swedes in the seventeen-acre field,
contain full 23 tons to the acre; the transplanted ones in that
field, 15 tons, and the broad-cast not exceeding 10 tons. Those
in the thirteen-acre field which were transplanted before the 2ist
July, contain 27 if not 30 tons; and the rest of that field about
17 tons to the acre. The broad-cast piece here (half an acre)
may contain 7 tons. The shortness of my time will prevent us
from ascertaining the weight by actual weighings; but, such is
the crop, according to the best of my judgment, after a very
minute survey of it in every part of each field. — Now, here is a
little short of 800 tons of food, about the fifth part of which
consists of tops ; and, of course, there is about 640 tons of bulb.
As to the value and uses of this prodigious crop I need say
nothing; and as to the time and manner of sowing and raising
the plants for transplanting, the act of transplanting, and the
after cultivation, Mr. Palmer has followed the directions con-
tained in my Year's Residence in America ; and, indeed, he
is forward to acknowledge, that he had never thought of this
mode of culture, which he has followed now for three years, and
which he has found so advantageous, until he read that work,
a work which the Farmer's Journal thought proper to treat as
a romance. — Mr. Palmer has had some cabbages of the large,
drum-head, kind. He had about three acres, in rows at four
feet apart, and at little less than three feet apart in the rows,
making ten thousand cabbages on the three acres. He kept
ninety-five wethers and ninety-six ewes (large fatting sheep)
upon them for five weeks all but two days, ending in the first
week of November. The sheep, which are now feeding off
yellow turnips in an adjoining part of the same field, come back
over the cabbage-ground and scoop out the stumps almost to the
ground in many cases. This ground is going to be ploughed
for wheat immediately. Cabbages are a very fine autumn crop ;
but it is the swedes on which you must rely for the spring, and
on housed or stacked swedes too; for they will rot in many of
our winters, if left in the ground. I have had them rot myself,
and I saw, in March 1820, hundreds of acres rotten in Warwick-
shire and Northamptonshire. Mr. Palmer greatly prefers the

24 Rural Rides

transplanting to the drilling. It has numerous advantages over
the drilling; greater regularity of crop, greater certainty, the
only sure way of avoiding the J7y, greater crop, admitting of two
months laicr preparation of land, can come after vetches cut up
for horses (as, indeed, a part of Mr. Palmer's transplanted swedes
did), and requiring less labour and expense. I asserted this in
my Year's Residence; and Mr. Palmer, who has been very
particular in ascertaining the fact, states positively, that the
expense of transplanting is not so great as the hoeing and setting
out of the drilled crops, and not so great as the common hoeings
of broad-cast. This, I think, settles the question. But the
advantages of the wide-row culture by no means confine them-
selves to the green and root crop; for Mr. Palmer drills his
wheat upon the same ridges, without ploughing, after he has
taken off the swedes. He drills it at eight inches, and puts in
from eight to ten gallons to the acre. His crop of 1820, drilled
in this way, averaged 40 bushels to the acre; part drilled in
November, and part so late as February. It was the common
Lammas wheat. His last crop of wheat is not yet ascertained;
but it was better after the swedes than in any other of his land.
His manner of taking off the crop is excellent. He first cuts off
and carries away the tops. Then he has an implement, drawn by
two oxen, walking on each side of the ridge, with which he cuts
off the tap root of the swedes without disturbing the land of the
ridge. Any child can then pull up the bulb. Thus the ground,
clean as a garden, and in that compact state which the wheat is
well known to like, is ready, at once, for drilling with wheat.
As to the uses to which he applies the crop, tops as well as bulbs,
I must speak of these hereafter, and in a work of a description
different from this. I have been thus particular here, because
the Farmer's Journal treated my book as a pack of lies. I
know that my (for it is mine} system of cattle-food husbandry
will finally be that of all England, as it already is that of America;
but what I am doing here is merely in self-defence against
the slanders, the malignant slanders, of the Farmer s Journal.
Where is a Whig lord, who, some years ago, wrote to a gentleman,
that " he would have nothing to do with any reform that Cobbett
was engaged in? ' But, in spite of the brutal Journal, farmers
are not such fools as this lord was: they will not reject a good
crop, because they can have it only by acting upon my plan;
and this lord will, I imagine, yet see the day when he will be less
averse from having to do with a reform in which " Cobbett "
shall be engaged.

Bollitree 25

OLD HALL,

Saturday night, Nov. 10.

Went to Hereford this morning. It was market-day. My
arrival became known, and, I am sure, I cannot tell how. A
sort of buz got about. I could perceive here, as I always have
elsewhere, very ardent friends and very bitter enemies; but all
full of curiosity. One thing could not fail to please me exceed-
ingly; my friends were gay and my enemies gloomy : the former
smiled, and the latter, in endeavouring to screw their features
into a sneer, could get them no further than the half sour and
half sad: the former seemed, in their looks to say, " Here he

is," and the latter to respond, " Yes, G — d him ! ' — I went

into the market-place, amongst the farmers, with whom, in
general, I was very much pleased. If I were to live in the
county two months, I should be acquainted with every man of
them. The country is very fine all the way from Ross to Here-
ford. The soil is always a red loam upon a bed of stone. The
trees are very fine, and certainly winter comes later here than in
Middlesex. Some of the oak trees are still perfectly green, and
many of the ashes as green as in September. — In coming from
Hereford to this place, which is the residence of Mrs. Palmer
and that of her two younger sons, Messrs. Philip and Walter
Palmer, who, with their brother, had accompanied me to Here-
ford; in coming to this place, which lies at about two miles
distance from the great road, and at about an equal distance
from Hereford and from Ross, we met with something, the
sight of which pleased me exceedingly: it was that of a very
pretty pleasant-looking lady (and young too) with two beautiful
children, riding in a little sort of chaise-cart, drawn by an ass,
which she was driving in reins. She appeared to be well known
to my friends, who drew up and spoke to her, calling her Mrs.
Lock, or Locky (I hope it was not Lockart) or some such name.
Her husband, who is, I suppose, some young farmer of the neigh-
bourhood, may well call himself Mr. Lucky ; for to have such
a wife, and for such a wife to have the good sense to put up
with an ass-cart, in order to avoid, as much as possible, feeding
those cormorants who gorge on the taxes, is a blessing that falls,
I am afraid, to the lot of very few rich farmers. Mrs. Lock
(if that be her name) is a real practical radical. Others of us
resort to radical coffee and radical tea; and she has a radical
carriage. This is a very effectual way of assailing the THING,
and peculiarly well suited lor the practice of the female sex.

*B638

26 Rural Rides

But the self-denial ought not to be imposed on the wife only:
the husband ought to set the example: and, let me hope, that
Mr. Lock does not indulge in the use of wine and spirits, while
Mrs. Lock and her children ride in a jack-ass gig; for, if he do,
he wastes, in this way, the means of keeping her a chariot and
pair. If there be to be any expense not absolutely necessary;
if there be to be anything bordering on extravagance, surely it
ought to be for the pleasure of that part of the family, who have
the least number of objects of enjoyment; and for a husband
to indulge himself in the guzzling of expensive, unnecessary, and
really injurious drink, to the tune, perhaps, of 50 or 100 pounds
a year, while he preaches economy to his wife, and, with a face
as long as my arm, talks of the low price of corn, and wheedles
her out of a curricle into a jack-ass cart, is not only unjust but
unmanly.

OLD HALL,

Sunday night, n November.

We have ridden to-day, though in the rain for a great part of
the time, over the fine farm of Mr. Philip Palmer, at this place,
and that of Mr. Walter Palmer, in the adjoining parish of
Pencoyd. Everything here is good, arable land, pastures,
orchards, coppices, and timber trees, especially the elms, many
scores of which approach nearly to a hundred feet in height.
Mr. Philip Palmer has four acres of swedes on four-feet ridges,
drilled on the nth and i4th of May. The plants were very
much injured by the fly ; so much, that it was a question,
whether the whole piece ought not to be ploughed up. How-
ever, the gaps in the rows were filled up by transplanting; and
the ground was twice ploughed between the ridges. The crop
here is very fine; and I should think that its weight could not
be less than 17 tons to the acre. — Of Mr. Walter Palmer's swedes,
five acres were drilled, on ridges nearly four feet apart, on the
3rd of June; four acres on the i5th of June; and an acre and
a half transplanted (after vetches) on the fifteenth of August.
The weight of the first is about twenty tons to the acre; that of
the second not much less; and that of the last even, five or six
tons. The first two pieces were mauled to pieces by the fly :
but the gaps were filled up by transplanting, the ground being
digged on the tops of the ridges to receive the plants. So that,
perhaps, a third part, or more of the crop is due to the trans-
planting. As to the last piece, that transplanted on the i5th
of August, after vetches, it is clear, that there could have been

Bollitree 27

no crop without transplanting; and, after all, the crop is by no
means a bad one. — It is clear enough to me, that this system
will finally prevail all over England. The " loyal," indeed, may
be afraid to adopt it, lest it should contain something of
"radicalism." Sap-headed fools! They will find something
to do, I believe, soon, besides railing against radicals. We will
din " radical " and " national faith " in their ears, till they shall
dread the din as much as a dog does the sound of the bell that
is tied to the whip,

BOLLITREE,
Monday, 12 Nov.

Returned this morning and rode about the farm, and also
about that of Mr. Winnal, where I saw, for the first time, a
plough going without being held. The man drove the three
horses that drew the plough, and carried the plough round at
the ends; but left it to itself the rest of the time. There was
a skim coulter that turned the sward in under the furrow; and
the work was done very neatly. This gentleman has six acres
of cabbages, on ridges four feet apart, with a distance of thirty
inches between the plants on the ridge. He has weighed one
of what he deemed an average weight, and found it to weigh
fifteen pounds without the stump. Now, as there are 4320 upon
an acre, the weight of the acres is thirty tons all but 400 pounds !
This is a prodigious crop, and it is peculiarly well suited for
food for sheep at this season of the year. Indeed it is good
for any farm-stock, oxen, cows, pigs: all like these loaved
cabbages. For hogs in yard, after the stubbles are gone; and
before the tops of the swedes come in. What masses of manure
may be created by this means! But, above all things, for
sheep to feed off upon the ground. Common turnips have not
half the substance in them weight for weight. Then they are
in the ground; they are dirty, and, in wet weather, the sheep
must starve, or eat a great deal of dirt. This very day, for
instance, what a sorry sight is a flock of fatting sheep upon
turnips ; what a mess of dirt and stubble ! The cabbage stands
boldly up above the ground, and the sheep eats it all up without
treading a morsel in the dirt. Mr. Winnal has a large flock of
sheep feeding on his cabbages, which they will have finished,
perhaps, by January. This gentleman also has some " radical
swedes," as they call them in Norfolk. A part of his crop is
on ridges five feet apart with two rows on the ridge, a part on
four feet ridges with one row on the ridge. I cannot see that

28 Rural Rides

anything is gained in weight by the double rows. I think that
there may be nearly twenty tons to the acre. Another piece
Mr. Winnal transplanted after vetches. They are very fine;
and, altogether, he has a crop that any one but a " loyal " farmer
might envy him. — This is really the radical system of husbandry.
Radical means, belonging to the root ; going to the root. And the
main principle of this system (first taught by Tull) is, that the
root of the plant is to be fed by deep tillage, while it is grow-
ing; and to do this we must have our wide distances. Our
system of husbandry is happily illustrative of our system of
politics. Our lines of movement are fair and straightforward.
We destroy all weeds, which, like tax-eaters, do nothing but
devour the sustenance that ought to feed the valuable plants.
Our plants are all well fed ; and our nations of swedes and of
cabbages present a happy uniformity of enjoyments and of bulk,
and not, as in the broad-cast system of Corruption, here and
there one of enormous size, surrounded by thousands of poor
little starveling things, scarcely distinguishable by the keenest
eye, or, if seen, seen only to inspire a contempt of the husband-
man. The Norfolk boys are, therefore, right in calling their
swedes Radical Swedes.

BOLLITREE,
Tuesday, 13 Nov.

Rode to-day to see a grove belonging to Mrs. Westphalin,
which contains the very finest trees, oaks, chestnuts, and ashes,
that I ever saw in England. This grove is worth going from
London to Weston to see. The lady, who is very much beloved
in her neighbourhood, is, apparently, of the old school ; and her
house and gardens, situated in a beautiful dell, form, I think,
the most comfortable looking thing of the kind that I ever saw.
If she had known that I was in her grove, I dare say she wculd
have expected it to blaze up in flames; or, at least, that I was
come to view the premises previous to confiscation! I can
forgive persons like her; but I cannot forgive the parsons and
others who have misled them! Mrs. Westphalin, if she live
many years, will find, that the best friends of the owners of the
land are those who have endeavoured to produce such a reform
of the Parliament as would have prevented the ruin of tenants.
• — This parish of Weston is remarkable for having a rector,
who has constantly resided for twenty years I I do not believe
that there is an instance to match this in the whole kingdom.
However, the "reverend' gentlemen may be assured, that^

Bollitree 29

before many years have passed over their heads, they will be
very glad to reside in their parsonage houses.

BOLLITREE,
Wednesday, 14 Nov.

Rode to the Forest of Dean, up a very steep hill. The lanes
here are between high banks, and, on the sides of the hills, the
road is a rock, the water having, long ago, washed all the earth
away. Pretty works are, I find, carried on here, as is the case
in all the other public forests I Are these things always to be
carried on in this way? Here is a domain of thirty thousand
acres of the finest timber-land in the world, and with coal-
mines endless ! Is this worth nothing ? Cannot each acre yield
ten trees a year? Are not these trees worth a pound a piece?
Is not the estate worth three or four hundred thousand pounds
a year? And does it yield anything to the public, to whom it
belongs? But it is useless to waste one's breath in this way.
We must have a reform of the Parliament : without it the whole
thing will fall to pieces. — The only good purpose that these
forests answer is that of furnishing a place of being to labourers'
families on their skirts; and here their cottages are very neat,
and the people look hearty and well, just as they do round the
forests in Hampshire. Every cottage has a pig, or two. These
graze in the forest, and, in the fall, eat acorns and beech-nuts
and the seed of the ash; for, these last, as well as the others,
are very full of oil, and a pig that is put to his shifts will pick
the seed very nicely out from the husks. Some of these
foresters keep cows, and all of them have bits of ground, cribbed,
of course, at different times, from the forest: and to what
better use can the ground be put? I saw several wheat stubbles
from 40 rods to 10 rods. I asked one man how much wheat
he had from about 10 rods. He said more than two bushels.
Here is bread for three weeks, or more, perhaps; and a winter's
straw for the pig besides. Are these things nothing ? The dead
limbs and old roots of the forest give fuel ; and how happy are
these people, compared with the poor creatures about Great
Bedwin and Cricklade, where they have neither land nor shelter,
and where I saw the girls carrying home bean and wheat stubble
for fuel! Those countries, always but badly furnished with
fuel, the desolating and damnable system of paper-money, by
sweeping away small homesteads, and laying ten farms into one,
has literally stripped of all shelter for the labourer. A farmer,

30 Rural Rides

in such cases, has a whole domain in his hands, and this, not
only to the manifest injury of the public at large, but in open
violation of positive law. The poor forger is hanged; but where
is the prosecutor of the monopolising farmer, though the law
is as clear in the one case as in the other? But it required
this infernal system to render every wholesome regulation
nugatory; and to reduce to such abject misery a people famed
in all ages for the goodness of their food and their dress. There
is one farmer, in the North of Hampshire, who has nearly eight
thousand acres of land in his hands; who grows fourteen hundred
acres of wheat and two thousand acres of barley ! He occupies
what was formerly 40 farms! Is it any wonder that paupers
increase ? And is there not here cause enough for the increase
of poor, without resorting to the doctrine of the barbarous and
impious Malthus and his assistants, the fee losofers of the Edin-
burgh Review, those eulogists and understrappers of the Whig-
Oligarchy? "This farmer has done nothing unlawful" some
one will say. I say he has; for there is a law to forbid him
thus to monopolise land. But no matter; the laws, the manage-
ment of the affairs of a nation, ought to be such as to prevent the
existence of the temptation to such monopoly. And, even now, the
evil ought to be remedied, and could be remedied, in the space
of half a dozen years. The disappearance of the paper-money
would do the thing in time; but this might be assisted by
legislative measures. — In returning from the forest we were
overtaken by my son, whom I had begged to come from London
to see this beautiful country. On the road-side we saw two
lazy-looking fellows, in long great coats and bundles in their
hands, going into a cottage. " What do you deal in? " said I,
to one of them, who had not yet entered the house. ' In the
medical way," said he. And, I find, that vagabonds of this
description are seen all over the country with tea-licences in their
pockets. They vend tea, drugs, and religious tracts. The first
to bring the body into a debilitated state; the second to finish
the corporeal part of the business; and the third to prepare
the spirit for its separation from the clay ! Never was a system
so well calculated as the present to degrade, debase, and enslave
a people! Law, and, as if that were not sufficient, enormous
subscriptions are made; everything that can be done is done
to favour these perambulatory impostors in their depredations
on the ignorant. While everything that can be done is done,
to prevent them from reading, or from hearing of, anything that
has a tendency to give them rational notions, or to better their

Ross 3 r

lot. However, all is not buried in ignorance. Down the deep
and beautiful valley between Penyard Hill and the hills on the
side of the Forest of Dean, there runs a stream of water. On
that stream of water there is a paper-mill. In that paper-mill
there is a set of workmen. That set of workmen do, I am told,
take the Register, and have taken it for years ! It was to these
good and sensible men, it is supposed, that the ringing of the
bells of Weston church, upon my arrival, was to be ascribed;
for nobody that I visited had any knowledge of the cause.
What a subject for lamentation with corrupt hypocrites ! That
even on this secluded spot there should be a leaven of common
sense ! No : all is not enveloped in brute ignorance yet, in spite
of every artifice that hellish Corruption has been able to employ;
in spite of all her menaces and all her brutalities and cruelties.

OLD HALL,

Thursday, 15 Nov.

We came this morning from Bollitree to Ross-Market, and,
thence, to this place. Ross is an old-fashioned town; but it is
very beautifully situated, and if there is little of finery in the
appearance of the inhabitants, there is also little of misery.
It is a good, plain country town, or settlement of tradesmen,
whose business is that of supplying the wants of the cultivators
of the soil. It presents to us nothing of rascality and roguish-
ness of look, which you see on almost every visage in the
borough-towns, not excepting the visages of the women. I can
tell a borough-town from another upon my entrance into it by
the nasty, cunning, leering, designing look of the people; a look
between that of a bad (for some are good) Methodist parson
and that of a pickpocket. I remember, and I never shall forget,
the horrid looks of the villains in Devonshire and Cornwall.
Some people say, " O, poor fellows 1 It is not their fault."
No ? Whose fault is it, then ? The miscreants who bribe them ?
True, that these deserve the halter (and some of them may have
it yet); but are not the takers of the bribes equally guilty?
If we be so very lenient here, pray let us ascribe to the Devil
all the acts of thieves and robbers: so we do; but we hang the
thieves and robbers, nevertheless. It is no very unprovoking
reflection, that from these sinks of atrocious villainy come a
very considerable part of the men to fill places of emolument
and trust. What a clog upon a minister to have people, bred
in such scenes, forced upon him! And why does this curse

32 Rural Rides

continue? However, its natural consequences are before us;
and are coming on pretty fast upon each other's heels. There
are the landlords and farmers in a state of absolute ruin: there
is the debt, pulling the nation down like as a stone pulls a dog
under water. The system seems to have fairly wound itself up;
to have tied itself hand and foot with cords of its own spinning !
— This is the town to which Pope has given an interest in our
minds by his eulogium on the " Man of Ross " a portrait of whom
is hanging up in the house in which I now am. — The market at
Ross was very dull. No wheat in demand. No buyers. It
must come down. Lord Liverpool's remedy, a bad harvest, has
assuredly failed. Fowls 2S. a couple; a goose from 2s. 6d. to
35.; a turkey from 35. to 35. 6d. Let a turkey come down to
a shilling, as in France, and then we shall soon be to rights.

Friday, 16 Nov.

A whole day most delightfully passed a hare-hunting, with
a pretty pack of hounds kept here by Messrs. Palmer. They
put me upon a horse that seemed to have been made on purpose
for me, strong, tall, gentle and bold; and that carried me either
over or through everything. I, who am just the weight of a
four-bushel sack of good wheat, actually sat on his back from
daylight in the morning to dusk (about nine hours), without
once setting my foot on the ground. Our ground was at Orcop,
a place about four miles distance from this place. We found a
hare in a few minutes after throwing off; and in the course of
the day, we had to find four, and were never more than ten
minutes in finding. A steep and naked ridge, lying between
two flat valleys, having a mixture of pretty large fields and small
woods, formed our ground. The hares crossed the ridge forward
and backward, and gave us numerous views and very fine sport.
— I never rode on such steep ground before; and, really, in
going up and down some of the craggy places, where the rains
had washed the earth from the rocks, I did think, once or twice,
of my neck, and how Sidmouth would like to see me. — As to the
cruelty, as some pretend, of this sport, that point I have, I think,
settled, in one of the chapters of my Year's Residence in America.
As to the expense, a pack, even a full pack of harriers, like this,
costs less than two bottles of wine a day with their inseparable
concomitants. And as to the time thus spent, hunting is in-
separable from early rising ; and with habits of early rising,
who ever wanted time for any business?

Oxford 3 3

OXFORD,

Saturday, 17 Nov.

We left Old Hall (where we always breakfasted by candle-
light) this morning after breakfast; returned to Bollitree; took
the Hereford coach as it passed about noon; and came in it
through Gloucester, Cheltenham, Northleach, Burford, Whitney,
and on to this city, where we arrived about ten o'clock. I
could not leave Herefordshire without bringing with me the
most pleasing impressions. It is not for one to descend to
particulars in characterising one's personal friends; and, there-
fore, I will content myself with saying, that the treatment I met
with in this beautiful county, where I saw not one single face
that I had, to my knowledge, ever seen before, was much more
than sufficient to compensate to me, personally, for all the
atrocious calumnies, which, for twenty years, I have had to
endure; but where is my country, a great part of the present
hideous sufferings of which, will, by every reflecting mind, be
easily traced to these calumnies, which have been made the
ground, or pretext, for rejecting that counsel by listening to
which those sufferings would have been prevented; where is
my country to find a compensation! — At Gloucester (as there
were no meals on the road) we furnished ourselves with nuts and
apples, which, first a handful of nuts and then an apple, are, I
can assure the reader, excellent and most wholesome fare.
They say that nuts of all sorts are unwholesome; if they had
been, I should never have written Registers, and if they were
now, I should have ceased to write ere this; for, upon an
average, I have eaten a pint a day since I left home. In short,
I could be very well content to live on nuts, milk, and home-
baked bread. — From Gloucester to Cheltenham the country is
level, and the land rich and good. The fields along here are
ploughed in ridges about 20 feet wide, and the angle of this
species of roof is pretty nearly as sharp as that of some slated
roofs of houses. There is no wet under; it is the top wet only
that they aim at keeping from doing mischief. — Cheltenham is
a nasty, ill-looking place, half clown and half cockney. The
town is one street about a mile long; but then, at some distance
from this street, there are rows of white tenements, with green
balconies, like those inhabited by the tax-eaters round London.
Indeed, this place appears to be the residence of an assemblage
of tax-eaters. These vermin shift about between London,
Cheltenham, Bath, Bognor, Brighton, Tunbridge, Rams^ate,

34 Rural Rides

Margate, Worthing, and other spots in England, while some of
them get over to France and Italy: just like those body-vermin
of different sorts, that are found in different parts of the
tormented carcasses at different hours of the day and night, and
in different degrees of heat and cold.

Cheltenham is at the foot of a part of that chain of hills,
which form the sides of that dish which I described as resembling
the vale of Gloucester. Soon after quitting this resort of the
lame and the lazy, the gormandising and guzzling, the bilious
and the nervous, we proceeded on, between stone walls, over a
country little better than that from Cirencester to Burlip-hilL—
A very poor, dull, and uninteresting country all the way to
Oxford.

BURGHCLERE (HANTS),

Sunday, 18 Nov.

We left Oxford early, and went on, through Abingdon (Berks)
to Market-llsley. It is a saying, hereabouts, that, at Oxford,
they make the living pay for the dead, which is precisely accord-
ing to the Pitt-System. Having smarted on this account, we
were afraid to eat again at an inn; so we pushed on through
Ilsley towards Newbury, breakfasting upon the residue of the
nuts, aided by a new supply of apples bought from a poor man,
who exhibited them in his window. Inspired, like Don Quixote,
by the sight of the nuts, and recollecting the last night's bill, I
exclaimed: "Happy! thrice happy and blessed, that golden
age, when men lived on the simple fruits of the earth and slaked
their thirst at the pure and limpid brook ! when the trees shed
their leaves to form a couch for their repose, and cast their bark
to furnish them with a canopy ! Happy age ; when no Oxford
landlord charged two men, who had dropped into a common
coach-passenger room, and who had swallowed three penny-
worths of food, ' four shillings for teas,' and ' eighteen pence for
cold meat,' ' two shillings for moulds and fire ' in this common
coach-room, and ' five shillings for beds I ' This was a sort
of grace before meat to the nuts and apples; and it had much
more merit than the harangue of Don Quixote; for he, before he
began upon the nuts, had stuffed himself well with goat's flesh
and wine, whereas we had absolutely fed from the breakfast-
table and blazing fire at Oxford. — Upon beholding the masses
of buildings, at Oxford, devoted to what they call " learning,"
I could not help reflecting on the drones that they contain and
the wasps they send forth! However, malignant as some are,

Burghclere 35

tne great and prevalent characteristic is folly : emptiness of
head; want of talent; and one half of the fellows who are what
they call educated here, are unfit to be clerks in a grocer's or
mercer's shop. — As I looked up at what they call University
Hall, I could not help reflecting that what I had written, even
since I left Kensington on the 2Qth of October, would produce
more effect, and do more good in the world, than all that had,
for a hundred years, been written by all the members of this
University, who devour, perhaps, not less than a million pounds
a year, arising from property, completely at the disposal of the
" Great Council of the Nation; " and I could not help exclaiming
to myself: " Stand forth, ye big-wigged, ye gloriously feeding
Doctors! Stand forth, ye rich of that church whose poor have
had given them a hundred thousand pounds a year, not out of
your riches, but out of the taxes, raised, in part, from the salt
of the labouring man! Stand forth and face me, who have,
from the pen of my leisure hours, sent, amongst your flocks, a
hundred thousand sermons in ten months ! More than you have
all done for the last half century!' I exclaimed in vain.
I dare say (for it was at peep of day) that not a man of them
had yet endeavoured to unclose his eyes. — In coming through
Abingdon (Berks) I could not help thinking of that great
financier, Mr. John Maberly, by whom this place has, I believe,
the honour to be represented in the Collective Wisdom of the
Nation. — In the way to Ilsley we came across a part of that
fine tract of land, called the Vale of Berkshire, where they grow
wheat and beans, one after another, for many years together.
About three miles before we reached Ilsley we came to downs,
with, as is always the case, chalk under. Between Ilsley and
Newbury the country is enclosed; the land middling, a stony
loam; the woods and coppices frequent, and neither very good
till we came within a short distance of Newbury. In going
along we saw a piece of wheat with cabbage-leaves laid all over
it at the distance, perhaps, of eight or ten feet from each other.
It was to catch the slugs. The slugs, which commit their
depredations in the night, creep under the leaves in the morning,
and by turning up the leaves you come at the slugs, and crush
them, or carry them away. But besides the immense daily
labour attending this, the slug, in a field sowed with wheat, has
a clod to creep under at every foot, and will not go five feet to
get under a cabbage-leaf. Then again, if the day be wet, the slug
works by day as well as by night. It is the sun and drought that
he shuns, and not the light. Therefore the only effectual way

Rural Rides

to destroy slugs is, to sow lime, in dust, and not staked. The
slug is wet, he has hardly any skin, his slime is his covering;
the smallest dust of hot lime kills him; and a few bushels to
the acre are sufficient. You must sow the lime at dusk ; for
then the slugs are sure to be out. Slugs come after a crop that
has long afforded a great deal of shelter from the sun; such as
peas and vetches. In gardens they are nursed up by strawberry
beds, and by weeds; by asparagus beds; or by any thing that
remains for a long time to keep the summer-sun from the earth.
We got about three o'clock to this nice, snug little farm-house,
and found our host, Mr. Budd, at home.

BURGHCLERE,
Monday, 19 Nov.

A thorough wet day, the only day the greater part of which
I have not spent out of doors, since I left home.

BURGHCLERE,
Tuesday, 20 Nov.

With Mr. Budd, we rode to-day to see the Farm of Tull,
at Shalborne, in Berkshire. Mr. Budd did the same thing
with Arthur Young twenty-seven years ago. It was a sort of
pilgrimage : but, as the distance was ten miles, we thought it
best to perform it on horseback. — We passed through the parish
of Highdere, where they have enclosed commons, worth, as
tillage land, not one single farthing an acre, and never will and
never can be. As a common it afforded a little picking for
geese and asses, and, in the moory parts of it, a little fuel for
the labourers. But now it really can afford nothing. It will
all fall to common again by degrees. This madness, this blind
eagerness to gain, is now, I hope, pretty nearly over. At
East Woody, we passed the house of a Mr. Goddard, which is
uninhabited, he residing at Bath. — At West Woody (Berks) is
the estate of Mr. Sloper, a very pretty place. A beautiful sport-
ing country. Large fields, small woods, dry soil. WThat has
taken place here is an instance of the workings of the system.
Here is a large gentleman's house. But the proprietor lets it
(it is, just now, empty), and resides in a farm house and farms
his own estate. Happy is the landlord, who has the good sense
to do this in time. This is a fine farm, and here appears to be
very judicious farming. Large tracts of turnips; clean land;
stubbles ploughed up early; ploughing with oxen; and a very

Burghclere 37

large and singularly fine flock of sheep. Everything that you
see, land, stock, implements, fences, buildings; all do credit to
the owner; bespeak his sound judgment, his industry and care.
All that is wanted here is, the radical husbandry ; because that
would enable the owner to keep three times the quantity of
stock. However, since I left home, I have seen but very few
farms that I should prefer to that of Mr. Sloper, whom I have
not the pleasure to know, and whom, indeed, I never heard of
till I saw his farm. At a village (certainly named by some
author) called Inkpen, we passed a neat little house and paddock,
the residence of a Mr. Butler, a nephew of Dr. Butler, who died
Bishop of Oxford, and whom I can remember hearing preach
at Farnham in Surrey, when I was a very, very little boy. I
have his features and his wig as clearly in my recollection as if
I had seen them but yesterday; and, I dare say, I have not
thought of Doctor Butler for forty years before to-day. The
" loyal " (oh, the pious gang !) will say, that my memory is good
as to the face and wig, but bad as to the doctor's sermons. Why
I must confess that I have no recollection of them; but, then,
do I not make sermons myself ? — At about two miles from Inkpen
we came to the end of our pilgrimage. The farm, which was
Mr. TulVs ; where he used the first drill that ever was used;
where he practised his husbandry; where he wrote that book,
which does so much honour to his memory, and to which the
cultivators of England owe so much; this farm is on an open
and somewhat bleak spot, in Berkshire, on the borders of
Wiltshire, and within a very short distance of a part of Hamp-
shire. The ground is a loam, mixed with flints, and has the
chalk at no great distance beneath it. It is, therefore, free
from wet ; needs no water furrows ; and is pretty good in its
nature. The house, which has been improved by Mr. Blandy
the present proprietor, is still but a plain farm-house. Mr.
Blandy has lived here thirty years, and has brought up ten
children to man's and woman's estate. Mr. Blandy was from
home, but Mrs. Blandy received and entertained us in a very
hospitable manner. — We returned, not along the low land, but
along the top of the downs, and through Lord Caernarvon's
park, and got home after a very pleasant day.

BURGHCLERE,

Wednesday, 21 Nov.

We intended to have a hunt; but the fox-hounds came across
and rendered it impracticable. As an instance of the change

38 Rural Rides

which rural customs have undergone since the hellish paper-
system has been so furiously at work, I need only mention the
fact, that, forty years ago, there were jfa><? packs of fox-hounds
and ten packs of harriers kept within ten miles of Newbury;
and that now there is one of the former (kept, too, by subscrip-
tion) and none of the latter, except the few couple of dogs kept
by Mr. Budd ! ' So much the better," says the shallow fool,
who cannot duly estimate the difference between a resident
native gentry, attached to the soil, known to every farmer and
labourer from their childhood, frequently mixing with them in
those pursuits where all artificial distinctions are lost, practising
hospitality without ceremony, from habit and not on calculation ;
and a gentry, only now-and-then residing at all, having no relish
for country-delights, foreign in their manners, distant and
haughty in their behaviour, looking to the soil only for its rents,
viewing it as a mere object of speculation, unacquainted with
its cultivators, despising them and their pursuits, and relying,
for influence, not upon the good will of the vicinage, but upon
the dread of their power. The war and paper-system has
brought in nabobs, negro-drivers, generals, admirals, governors,
commissaries, contractors, pensioners, sinecurists, commissioners,
loan -jobbers, lottery -dealers, bankers, stock-jobbers; not to
mention the long and black list in gowns and three-tailed wigs.
You can see but few good houses not in possession of one or the
other of these. These, with the parsons, are now the magis-
trates. Some of the consequences are before us; but they have
not all yet arrived. A taxation that sucks up fifty millions
a year must produce a new set of proprietors every twenty years
or less; and the proprietors, while they last, can be little better
than tax-collectors to the government, and scourgers of the
people. — I must not quit Burghdere without noticing Mr. Budd's
radical swedes and other things. His is but miniature farming:
but it is very good, and very interesting. Some time in May.
he drilled a piece of swedes on four feet ridges. The fly took
them off. He had cabbage and mangel-wurzel plants to put
in their stead. Unwilling to turn back the ridges, and thereby
bring the dung to the top, he planted the cabbages and mangel-
wurzel on the ridges where the swedes had been drilled. This
was done in June. Late in July, his neighbour, a farmer
Hulbert, had a field of swedes that he was hoeing. Mr. Budd
now put some manure in the furrows between the ridges, and
ploughed a furrow over it from each ridge. On this he planted
swedes, taken from fanner Hulbert's field. Thus his plantation

Burghclere 39

consisted of rows of plants two feet apart. The result is a
prodigious crop. Of the mangel-wurzel (greens and all) he has
not less than twenty tons to the acre. He can scarcely have
less of the cabbages, some of which are green savoys as fine as I
ever saw. And of the swedes, many of which weigh from five
to nine pounds, he certainly has more than twenty tons to the
acre. So that here is a crop of, at the very least, forty tons to
the acre. This piece is not much more than half an acre; but,
he will, perhaps, not find so much cattle food upon any four
acres in the county. He is, and long has been, feeding four
milch cows, large, fine, and in fine condition, upon cabbages
sometimes, and sometimes on mangel-wurzel leaves. The
butter is excellent. Not the smallest degree of bitterness or
bad taste of any sort. Fine colour and fine taste. And here,
upon not three-quarters of an acre of ground, he has, if he manage
the thing well, enough food for these four cows to the month of
May ! Can any system of husbandry equal this ? What would
he do with these cows, if he had not this crop? He could not
keep one of them, except on hay. And he owes all this crop to
transplanting. He thinks that the transplanting, fetching the
swede plants and all, might cost him ten or twelve shillings. It
was done by women, who had never done such a thing before.
— However, he must get in his crop before the hard weather
comes; or my Lord Caernarvon's hares will help him. They
have begun already; and, it is curious, that they have begun
on the mangel-wurzel roots. So that hares, at any rate, have
set the seal of merit upon this root.

WHITCHURCH,
Thursday (night), 22 Nov.

We have come round here, instead of going by Newbury, in
consequence of a promise to Mr. Blount at Uphusband, that I
would call on him on my return. We left Uphusband by lamp-
light, and, of course, we could see little on our way.

KENSINGTON,
Friday, 23 Nov.

Got home by the coach. At leaving Whitchurch we soon
passed the mill where the Mother-Bank paper is made ! Thank
God, this mill is likely soon to want employment! Hard by
is a pretty park and house, belonging to " 'Squire " Portal, the
paper-maker. The country people, who seldom want for sar-
castic shrewdness, call it " Rag Hall "I — I perceive that they

40 Rural Rides

are planting oaks on the " wastes," as the .-IgrietilturassfS call
them, about Hartley Row; which is very good; because the
herbage, alter the first year, is rather increased than diminished
by the operation; while, in time, the oaks arrive at a timber
stale, and add to the beauty and to the real wraith of the country,
and to the real and solid \vealth of the descendants of the planter,
who, in every such case, merits unequivocal praise, because he
plants for his children's children. The planter here is l.adv
Mildmav, who is, it seems, l.adv of the Manors about here. It is
impossible to praise this act of hers too much, especially when
One Considers her age. 1 beg a thousand pardons! 1 do not mean
to say that her ladyship is old ; but she has long had grand
children. If her ladyship had been a reader of old dread death
and dread devil Johnson, that teacher of moping and melan
cholv, she never would have planted an oak tree. 1 f the writings
of this time serving, mean, dastardly old pensioner had got a
linn hold of the minds of the people at large, the people would
have been bereft of their very souls. These1 writings, aided by
the charm of pompous sound, were fast making their way, till
light, reason, and the Krcnch revolution came to drive them
into oblivion; or. at least, to confine them to the shelves ol
repentant, married old rakes, and those of old stock-jobbers
with young wives standing in need of something to keep down
the unrulv ebullitions which are apt to take place while the
'dearies'' are gone hobbling to 'Change. 'After pleasure
comes /><//;/," savs Solomon; and after the sight of l.adv Mild
mav's trulv noble plantations, came that of the clouts of the
"gentlemen cadets" of the "Royal Military College of Sand-
hurst!' Here, close by the road side, is the drying-ground,
Sheets, shirts, and all sorts of things were here spread upon lines,
covering, perhaps, an acre of ground! \Ye soon afterwards
came to " York Place" on " ()smihnrg Hill." And is there
never to be an end of these things? Awav to the left, we sec
that immense building, which contains children breeding uj-> to
be nnlitarv commanders I Has this plan cost, so little as two
millions of pounds? 1 never see this place (and 1 have seen it
fortv times during the last twenty years) without asking mysell
this question: Will this thing be suffered to go on; will this
thing, created bymonev raised by loan ; will this thing be upheld
by means of taxes, while the interest of the debt is reduced, on the
ground that the nation is unable to (\iv the interest in full ?-
Answer that question, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, llrougham, or
Scarlett.

KENTISH JOURNAL

FROM KENSINGTON TO DARTFORD, ROCHESTER,
CHATHAM, AND FAVERSHAM

Tuesday, 4 December, 1821.
ELVERTON FARM, NEAR FAVERSHAM, KENT.

THIS is the first time, since I went to France, in 1792, that I
have been on this side of Shooters' Hill. The land, generally
speaking, from Deptford to Dartford is poor, and the surface
ugly by nature, to which ugliness there has been made, just
before we came to the latter place, a considerable addition by
the inclosure of a common, and by the sticking up of some
shabby-genteel houses, surrounded with dead fences and things
called gardens, in all manner of ridiculous forms, making, all
together, the bricks, hurdle-rods and earth say, as plainly as
they can speak, " Here dwell vanity and poverty." This is a
little excrescence that has grown out of the immense sums, which
have been drawn from other parts of the kingdom to be expended
on barracks, magazines, martello-towers, catamarans, and all
the excuses for lavish expenditure, which the war for the
Bourbons gave rise to. All things will return; these rubbishy
flimsy things, on this common, will first be deserted, then
crumble down, then be swept away, and the cattle, sheep, pigs
and geese will once more graze upon the common, which will
again furnish heath, furze and turf for the labourers on the
neighbouring lands. — After you leave Dartford the land becomes
excellent. You come to a bottom of chalk, many feet from the
surface, and when that is the case the land is sure to be good;
no wet at bottom, no deep ditches, no water furrows, necessary;
sufficiently moist in dry weather, and no water lying about upon
it in wet weather for any length of time. The chalk acts as a
filtering-stone, not as a sieve, like gravel, and not as a dish, like
clay. The chalk acts as the soft stone in Herefordshire does;
but it is not so congenial to trees that have tap-roots. — Along
through Gravesend towards Rochester the country presents a
sort of gardening scene. Rochester (the bishop of which is, or
lately was, tax collector for London and Middlesex), is a small
but crowded place, lying on the south bank of the beautiful
Medway, with a rising ground on the other side of the city.

42 Rural Rides

Stroud, which you pass through before you come to the bridge,
over which you go to enter Rochester; Rochester itself, and
Chatham, form, in fact, one main street of about two miles and a
half in length. — Here I was got into the scenes of my cap-and-
feather days! Here, at between sixteen and seventeen, 1
enlisted for a soldier. Upon looking up towards the fortifications
and the barracks, how many recollections crowded into my mind !
The girls in these towns do not seem to be so pretty as they were
thirty-eight years ago; or am I not so quick in discovering
beauties as I was then? Have thirty-eight years corrected my
taste, or made me a hypercritic in these matters? Is it that I
now look at them with the solemnness of a " professional man,"
and not with the enthusiasm and eagerness of an " amateur? '
I leave these questions for philosophers to solve. One thing I
will say for the young women of these towns, and that is, that I
always found those of them that I had the great happiness to be
acquainted with, evince a sincere desire to do their best to
smooth the inequalities of life, and to give us, " brave fellows,"
as often as they could, strong beer, when their churlish masters
or fathers or husbands would have drenched us to death with
small. This, at the out-set of life, gave me a high opinion of
the judgment and justice of the female sex; an opinion which
has been confirmed by the observations of my whole life. — This
Chatham has had some monstrous wens stuck on to it by the
lavish expenditure of the war. These will moulder away. It
is curious enough that I should meet with a gentleman in an inn
at Chatham to give me a picture of the house-distress in that
enormous wen, which, during the war, was stuck on to Ports-
mouth. Not less than fifty thousand people had been drawn
together there! These are now dispersing. The coagulated
blood is diluting and flowing back through the veins. Whole
streets are deserted, and the eyes of the houses knocked out by
the boys that remain. The jack-daws, as much as to say,
" Our turn to be inspired and to teach is come," are beginning
to take possession of the Methodist chapels. The gentleman
told me, that he had been down to Portsea to sell half a street
of houses, left him by a relation; and that nobody would give
him anything for them further than as very cheap fuel and
rubbish! Good God! And is this "prosperity?' Is this
the " prosperity of the war? ' Have I not, for twenty long
years, been regretting the existence of these unnatural emboss-
ments; these white-swellings, these odious wens, produced by
corruption and engendering crime and misery and slavery?

Sittingbourne 43

We shall see the whole of these wens abandoned by the inhabit-
ants, and, at last, the cannons on the fortifications may be of
some use in battering down the buildings. — But what is to be the
fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called, by the silly
coxcombs of the press, " the metropolis of the empire? '
What is to become of that multitude of towns that has been
stuck up around it? The village of Kingston was smothered
in the town of Portsea; and why? Because taxes, drained
from other parts of the kingdom, were brought thither.

The dispersion of the wen is the only real difficulty that I see
in settling the affairs of the nation and restoring it to a happy
state. But dispersed it must be ; and if there be half a million,
or more, of people to suffer, the consolation is, that the suffering
will be divided into half a million of parts. As if the swelling
out of London, naturally produced by the funding system, were
not sufficient; as if the evil were not sufficiently great from
the inevitable tendency of the system of loans and funds, our
pretty gentlemen must resort to positive institutions to augment
the population of the Wen. They found that the increase
of the Wen produced an increase of thieves and prostitutes, an
increase of all sorts of diseases, an increase of miseries of all
sorts; they saw that taxes drawn up to one point produced
these effects; they must have a " penitentiary" for instance,
to check the evil, and that they must needs have in the Wen!
So that here were a million of pounds, drawn up in taxes,
employed not only to keep the thieves and prostitutes still in
the Wen, but to bring up to the Wen workmen to build the
penitentiary, who and whose families, amounting, perhaps to
thousands, make an addition to the cause of that crime and
misery, to check which is the object of the penitentiary ! People
would follow, they must follow, the million of money. However,
this is of a piece with all the rest of their goings on. They and
their predecessors, ministers and House, have been collecting
together all the materials for a dreadful explosion; and if the
explosion be not dreadful, other heads must point out the means
of prevention.

Wednesday, 5 Dec.

The land on quitting Chatham is chalk at bottom ; but, before
you reach Sittingbourne, there is a vein of gravel and sand under,
but a great depth of loam above. Above Sittingbourne the
chalk bottom comes again, and continues on to this place, where
the land appears to me to be as good as it can possibly be.

44 Rural Rides

Mr. William Waller, at whose house I am, has grown, this year,
mangel-wurzel, the roots of which weigh, I think, on an average,
twelve pounds, and in rows, too, at only about thirty inches
distant from each other. In short, as far as soil goes, it is
impossible to see a finer country than this. You frequently see
a field of fifty acres, level as a die, clean as a garden and as rich.
Mr. Birkbeck need not have crossed the Atlantic, and Alleghany
into the bargain, to look for land too rich to bear wheat ; for here
is a plenty of it. In short, this is a country of hop-gardens,
cherry, apple, pear and filbert orchards, and quickset hedges.
But, alas ! what, in point of beauty, is a country without woods
and lofty trees ! And here there are very few indeed. I am
now sitting in a room, from the window of which I look, first,
over a large and level field of rich land, in which the drilled
wheat is finely come up, and which is surrounded by clipped
quickset hedges with a row of apple trees running by the sides
of them; next, over a long succession of rich meadows, which
are here called marshes, the shortest grass upon which will fatten
sheep or oxen ; next, over a little branch of the salt water which
runs up to Faversham; beyond that, on the Isle of Shepry (or
Shepway), which rises a little into a sort of ridge that runs
along it; rich fields, pastures and orchards lie all around me;
and yet, I declare, that I a million times to one prefer, as a spot
to live on, the heaths, the miry coppices, the wild woods and
the forests of Sussex and Hampshire.

Thursday, 6 Dec.

" Agricultural distress " is the great topic of general conversa-
tion. The Webb Halhtes seem to prevail here. The fact is,
farmers in general read nothing but the newspapers; these, in
the Wen, are under the control of the corruption of one or the
other of the factions; and in the country, nine times out of ten,
under the control of the parsons and landlord?, who are the
magistrates, as they are pompously called, that is to say, Justices
of the Peace. From such vehicles what are farmers to learn?
They are, in general, thoughtful and sensible men; but their
natural good sense is perverted by these publications, had it not
been for which we never should have seen " a sudden transition
from war to peace " lasting seven years, and more sudden in its
destructive effects at last than at first. Sir Edward Knatr.h-
bull and Air. Honeywood are the members of the " Collective
Wisdom " for this county. The former was, till of late, a tax-
collector. I hear that he is a great advocate for corn-bills I I

Faversham 45

suppose he does not wish to let people who have leases see the
bottom of the evil. He may get his rents for this year; but it
will be his last year, if the interest of the debt be not very greatly
reduced. Some people here think, that corn is smuggled in
even now ! Perhaps it is, upon the whole, best that the delusion
should continue for a year longer; as that would tend to make
the destruction of the system more sure, or, at least, make the
cure more radical.

Friday, 7 Dec.

I went through Faversham. A very pretty little town, and
just ten minutes' walk from the market-place up to the Dover
turnpike-road. Here are the powder-affairs that Mr. Hume so
well exposed. An immensity of buildings and expensive things.
Why are not these premises let or sold? However, this will
never be done, until there be a reformed parliament. Pretty
little Van, that beauty of all beauties; that orator of all
orators ; that saint of all saints ; that financier of all financiers,
said that, if Mr. Hume were to pare down the expenses of
government to his wish, there would be others, " the Hunts,
Cobbetts, and Carliles, who would still want the expense to be
less." I do not know how low Mr. Hume would wish to go; but
for myself I say, that if I ever have the power to do it, I will
reduce the expenditure, and that in quick time too, down to
what it was in the reign of Queen Anne; that is to say, to less
than is now paid to tax-gatherers for their labour in collecting
the taxes; and, monstrous as Van may think the idea, I do
not regard it as impossible that I may have such power; which
I would certainly not employ to do an act of injustics to any
human being, and would, at the same time, maintain the throne
in more real splendour than that in which it is now maintained.
But I would have nothing to do with any Vans, except as
door-keepers or porters.

Saturday, 8 Dec.

Came home very much pleaded with my visit to Mr. Walker,
in whose house I saw no drinking of wine, spirits, or even beer;
where all, even to the little children, were up by candle-light in
the morning, and where the most perfect sobriety was accom-
panied by constant cheerfulness. Kent is in a deplorable way.
The farmers are skilful and intelligent, generally speaking.
But there is infinite corruption in Kent, owing partly to the
swarms of West Indians, nabobs, commissioners, and others of

Rural Rides

nearly the same description, that have selected it for the place
of their residence; but owing still more to the immense sums
of public money that have, during the last thirty years, been
expended in it. And when one thinks of these, the conduct of
the people of Dover, Canterbury, and other places, in the case
of the ever-lamented queen, does them everlasting honour.
The fruit in Kent is more select than in Herefordshire, where it
is raised for cyder, while, in Kent, it is raised for sale in its fruit
state, a great deal being sent to the Wen, and a great deal sent
to the North of England and to Scotland. The orchards are
beautiful indeed. Kept in the neatest order, and indeed, all
belonging to them excels anything of the kind to be seen in
Normandy; and, as to apples, I never saw any so good in
France as those of Kent. This county, so blessed by Providence,
has been cursed by the system in a peculiar degree. It has
been the receiver of immense sums, raised on the other counties.
This has puffed its rents to an unnatural height; and now that
the drain of other counties is stopped, it feels like a pampered
pony, turned out in winter to live upon a common. It is in an
extremely " unsatisfactory state," and has certainly a greater
mass of suffering to endure than any other part of the kingdom,
the Wens only excepted. Sir Edward Knatchbull, who is a
child of the system, does appear to see no more of the cause
of these sufferings than if he were a baby. How should he?
Not very bright by nature; never listening but to one side of
the question; being a man who wants high rents to be paid him;
not gifted with much light, and that little having to strive
against prejudice, false shame, and self interest, what wonder
is then? that he should not see things in their true light?

MORFOLK AND SUFFOLK JOURNAL

BERGH APTON, NEAR NORWICH,
Monday, 10 Dec. 1821.

FROM the Wen to Norwich, from which I am now distant
seven miles, there is nothing in Essex, Suffolk, or this county,
that can be called a hill. Essex, when you get beyond the
immediate influence of the gorgings and disgorgings of the Wen;
that is to say, beyond the demand for crude vegetables and
repayment in manure, is by no means a fertile county. There
appears generally to be a bottom of day ; not soft chalk, which
they persist in calling clay in Norfolk. I wish I had one of these
Norfolk men in a coppice in Hampshire or Sussex, and I would
show him what clay is. Clay is what pots and pans and jugs
and tiles are made of; and not soft, whitish stuff that crumbles
to pieces in the sun, instead of baking as hard as a stone, and
which, in dry weather, is to be broken to pieces by nothing short
of a sledge-hammer. The narrow ridges on which the wheat is
sown; the water furrows; the water standing in the dips of the
pastures; the rusty iron-like colour of the water coming out
of some of the banks; the deep ditches; the rusty look of the
pastures; all show that here is a bottom of clay. Yet there
is gravel too; for the oaks do not grow well. It was not till I
got nearly to Sudbury that I saw much change for the better.
Here the bottom of chalk, the soft dirty-looking chalk that the
Norfolk people call clay, begins to be the bottom, and this, with
very little exception (as far as I have been), is the bottom of all
the lands of these two fine counties of Suffolk and Norfolk. —
Sudbury has some fine meadows near it on the sides of the river
Stour. The land all along to Bury Saint Edmund's is very fine;
but no trees worth looking at. Bury, formerly the seat of an
abbot, the last of whom was, I think, hanged, or somehow put
to death, by that matchless tyrant, Henry VIII. , is a very pretty
place; extremely clean and neat; no ragged or dirty people to
be seen, and women (young ones I mean) very pretty and very
neatly dressed. — On this side of Bury, a considerable distance
lower, I saw a field of rape, transplanted very thick, for, I
suppose, sheep feed in the spring. The farming all along to

Rural Rides

Norwich is very good. The land clean, and everything done in
a masterly manner.

Tuesday, n Dec.

Mr. Samuel Clarke, my host, has about 30 acres of swedes in
rows. Some at 4 feet distances, some at 30 inches; and about
4 acres of the 4-feet swedes were transplanted. I have seen
thousands of acres of swedes in these counties, and here are the
largest crops that I have seen. The widest rows are decidedly
the largest crops here. And the transplanted, though under dis-
advantageous circumstances, amongst the best of the best. The
wide rows amount to at least 20 tons to the acre, exclusive of
the greens taken off two months ago, which weighed 5 tons to
the acre. Then there is the inter tillage, so beneficial to the
land, and the small quantity of manure required in the broad
rows, compared to what is required when the seed is drilled or
sown upon the level. Mr. Nicholls, a neighbour of Mr. Clarke,
has a part of a field transplanted on seven turn ridges, put in
when in the other part of the field, drilled, the plants were a
fortnight old. He has a much larger crop in the transplanted
than in the drilled part. But if it had been & fly-year, he might
have had none in the drilled part, while, in all probability, the
crop in the transplanted part would have been better than it
now is, seeing that a wet summer, though favourable to the
hitting of the swedes, is by no means favourable to their attain-
ing a great size of bulb. This is the case this year with all
turnips. A great deal of leaf and neck, but not bulbs in pro-
portion. The advantages of transplanting are, first, you make
sure of a crop in spite of fly, and, second, you have six weeks or
two months longer to prepare your ground. And the advan-
tages of wide rows axt, first, that you want only about half the
quantity of manure; and, second, that you plough the ground
two or three times during the summer.

GROVE, NEAR HOLT,

Thursday, 13 Dec.

Came to the Grove (Mr. Wither's), near Holt, along with Mr.
Clarke. Through Norwich to Aylsham and then to Holt. On
our road we passed the house of the late Lord Suffield, who
married Castlereagh's wife's sister, who is a daughter of the late
Earl of Buckinghamshire, who had for so many years that
thumping sinecure of eleven thousand a year in Ireland, and
who was the son of a man that, under the name of Mr. Hobart,

Holt 49

cut such a figure in supporting Lord North and afterwards Pitt,
and was made a peer under the auspices of the latter of these
two heaven-born ministers. This house, which is a very
ancient one, was, they say, the birthplace of Ann de Boleyne,
the mother of Queen Elizabeth. Not much matter; for she
married the king while his real wife was alive. I could have
excused her, if there had been no marrying in the case; but,
hypocrisy, always bad, becomes detestable when it resorts to
religious ceremony as its mask. She, no more than Cranmer,
seems, to her last moments, to have remembered her sins against
her lawful queen. Foxe's Book of Martyrs, that ought to be
called the Book of Liars, says that Cranmer, the recanter and
re-recanter, held out his offending hand in the flames, and cried
out " that hand, that hand ! ' If he had cried out Catherine /
Catherine I I should have thought better of him ; but, it is
clear, that the whole story is a lie, invented by the protestants,
and particularly by the sectarians, to white-wash the character
of this perfidious hypocrite and double apostate, who, if bigotry
had something to do in bringing him to the stake, certainly
deserved his fate, if any offences committed by man can deserve
so horrible a punishment. — The present Lord Suffield is that
Mr. Edward Harbord, whose father-in-law left him £500 to
buy a seat in parliament, and who refused to carry an address
to the late beloved and lamented queen, because Major Cart-
wright and myself were chosen to accompany him! Never
mind, my lord; you will grow less fastidious! They say, how-
ever, that he is really good to his tenants, and has told them
that he will take anything that they can give. There is some
sense in this! He is a great Bible man; and it is strange that
he cannot see that things are out of order, when his interference
in this way can be at all necessary, while there is a Church that
receives a tenth part of the produce of the earth. — There are
some oak woods here, but very poor. Not like those, not near
like the worst of those, in Hampshire and Herefordshire. All
this eastern coast seems very unpropitious to trees of all sorts. —
We passed through the estate of a Mr. Marsin, whose house is
near the road, a very poor spot, and the first really poor ground
I have seen in Norfolk. A nasty spewy black gravel on the top
of a sour clay. It is worse than the heaths between Godalming
and Liphook; for, while it is too poor to grow anything but
heath, it is too cold to give you the chirping of the grasshopper
in summer. However, Mr. Marsin has been too wise to enclose
this wretched land, which is just like that which Lord Caernarvon

C638

50 Rural Rides

has enclosed in the parishes of Highclere, and Burghclere, and
which, for tillage, really is not worth a single farthing an acre. —
Holt is a little, old-fashioned, substantially-built market-town.
The land just about it, or, at least, towards the east, is poor,
and has been lately enclosed.

Friday, 14 Dec.

Went to see the estate of Mr. Hardy at Leveringsett, a
hamlet about two miles from Holt. This is the first time that
I have seen a valley in this part of England. From Holt you
look, to the distance of seven or eight miles, over a very fine
valley, leaving a great deal of inferior hill and dell within its
boundaries. At the bottom of this general valley, Mr. Hardy
has a very beautiful estate of about four hundred acres. His
house is at one end of it near the high road, where he has a malt-
house and a brewery, the neat and ingenious manner of managing
which I would detail if my total unacquaintance with machinery
did not disqualify me for the task. His estate forms a valley of
itself, somewhat longer than broad. The tops, and the sides of
the tops of the hills round it, and also several little hillocks
in the valley itself, are judiciously planted with trees of
various sorts, leaving good wide roads, so that it is easy to ride
round them in a carriage. The fields, the fences, the yards,
the stacks, the buildings, the cattle, all showed the greatest
judgment and industry. There was really nothing that the
most critical observer could say was out of order. However,
the forest trees do not grow well here. The oaks are mere scrubs,
as they are about Brentwood in Essex, and in some parts of
Cornwall; and, for some unaccountable reason, people seldom
plant the ash, which no wind will shave, as it does the oak.

Saturday, 15 Dec.

Spent the evening amongst the farmers, at their market room
at Holt; and very much pleased at them I was. We talked
over the cause of the low prices, and I, as I have done every-
where, endeavoured to convince them that prices must fall a great
deal lower yet; and that no man, who wishes not to be ruined,
ought to keep or take a farm, unless on a calculation of best
wheat at 4$. a bushel and a best South Down ewe at i$s. or
even 125. They heard me patiently, and, I believe, were well
convinced of the truth of what I said. I told them of the
correctness of the predictions of their great countrymen, Mr.
Paine, and observed, how much better it would have been to
take his advice, than to burn him in effigy. I endeavoured

Bergh Apton 51

(but in such a care all human powers must fail !) to describe to
them the sort and size of the talents of the Stern-path-of-duty
man, of the great hole-digger, of the jester, of the Oxford-
scholar, of the loan-jobber (who had just made an enormous
grasp), of the Oracle, and so on. Here, as everywhere else,
I hear every creature speak loudly in praise of Mr. Coke.
It is well known to my readers, that I think nothing of him as a
public man; that I think even his good qualities an injury to
his country, because they serve the knaves whom he is duped
by to dupe the people more effectually; but it would be base
in me not to say, that I hear, from men of all parties, and sensible
men too, expressions made use of towards him that affectionate
children use towards the best of parents. I have not met with
a single exception.

BERGH APTON,
Sunday, 16 Dec.

Came from Holt through Saxthorpe and Cawston. At the
former village were on one end of a decent white house, these
words, " Queen Caroline ; for her Britons mourn," and a crown
over all in black. I need not have looked to see: I might have
been sure, that the owner of the house was a shoe-maker, a trade
which numbers more men of sense and of public spirit than any
other in the kingdom. — At Cawston we stopped at a public
house, the keeper of which had taken and read the Register for
years. I shall not attempt to describe the pleasure I felt at the
hearty welcome given us by Mr. Pern and his wife and by a
young miller of the village, who, having learnt at Holt that we
were to return that way, had come to meet us, the house being
on the side of the great road, from which the village is at some
distance. This is the birthplace of the famous Botley Parson,
all the history of whom we now learned, and if we could
have gone to the village, they were prepared to ring the bells,
and show us the old woman who nursed the Botley Parson 1
These Norfolk haws never do things by halves. We came
away, very much pleased with our reception at Cawston, and
with a promise, on my part, that, if I visited the county again.
I would write a Register there; a promise which I shall certainly
keep.

GREAT YARMOUTH,
Friday (morning), 21 Dec.

The day before yesterday I set out for Bergh Apton with
Mr. Clarke, to come hither by the way of Beccles in Suffolk

52 Rural Rides

We stopped at Mr. Charles Clarke's at Beccles, where we saw some
good and sensible men, who see clearly into all the parts of the
works of the ' Thunderers," and whose anticipations, as to the
:' general working of events," are such as they ought to be.
They gave us a humorous account of the " rabble ' having
recently crowned a Jack-ass, and of a struggle between them
and the " Yeomanry Gavaltry." This was a place of most
ardent and blazing loyalty, as the pretenders to it call it; but,
it seems, it now blazes less furiously; it is milder, more measured
in its effusions; and, with the help of low prices, will become
bearable in time. This Beccles is a very pretty place, has
watered meadows near it, and is situated amidst fine lands.
What a system it must be to make people wretched in a country
like this ! Could he be heaven-born that invented such a system ?
Gaffer Gooch's father, a very old man, lives not far from here.
We had a good deal of fun about the Gaffer, who will certainly
never lose the name, unless he should be made a lord. — We
slept at the house of a friend of Mr. Clarke on our way, and got
to this very fine town of Great Yarmouth yesterday about noon.
A party of friends met us and conducted us about the town,
which is a very beautiful one indeed. What I liked best, how-
ever, was the hearty welcome that I met with, because it showed
that the reign of calumny and delusion was passed. A company
of gentlemen gave me a dinner in the evening, and in all my
life I never saw a set of men more worthy of my respect and
gratitude. Sensible, modest, understanding the whole of our
case, and clearly foreseeing what is about to happen. One
gentleman proposed, that, as it would be impossible for all to go
to London, there should be a Provincial Feast of the Gridiron,
a plan, which, I hope, will be adopted. — I leave Great Yar-
mouth with sentiments of the sincerest regard for all those
whom I there saw and conversed with, and with my best wishes
for the happiness of all its inhabitants; nay, even the parsons
not excepted; for, if they did not come to welcome me, they
collected in a group to see me, and that was one step towards
doing justice to him whom their order have so much, so foully,
and, if they knew their own interest, so foolishly slandered.

BERGH APTON,
22 Dec. (night}.

After returning from Yarmouth yesterday, went to dine at
Stoke-Holy-Cross, about six miles off; got home at midnight,

Norwich 53

and came to Norwich this morning, this being market-day, and
also the day fixed on for a Radical Reform Dinner at the Swan
Inn, to which I was invited. Norwich is a very fine city, and
the castle, which stands in the middle of it, on a hill, is truly
majestic. The meat and poultry and vegetable market is
beautiful. It is kept in a large open square in the middle, or
nearly so, of the city. The ground is a pretty sharp slope, so
that you see all at once. It resembles one of the French markets,
only there the vendors are all standing and gabbling like parrots,
and the meat is lean and bloody and nasty, and the people
snuffy and grimy in hands and face, the contrary, precisely the
contrary of all which is the case in this beautiful market at
Norwich, where the women have a sort of uniform brown great
coats, with white aprons and bibs (I think they call them) going
from the apron up to the bosom. They equal in neatness (for
nothing can surpass) the market women in Philadelphia. — The
cattle-market is held on the hill by the castle, and many fairs are
smaller in bulk of stock. The corn-market is held in a very
magnificent place, called Saint Andrew's Hall, which will contain
two or three thousand persons. They tell me that this used
to be a most delightful scene; a most joyous one; and I think
it was this scene that Mr. Curwen described in such glowing
colours when he was talking of the Norfolk farmers, each worth
so many thousands of pounds. Bear me witness, reader, that
/ never was dazzled by such sights; that the false glare never
put my eyes out; and that, even then, twelve years ago, I
warned Mr. Curwen of the result I Bear witness to this, my
Disciples, and justify the doctrines of him, for whose sakes you
have endured persecution. How different would Mr. Curwen
find the scene now 1 What took place at the dinner has been
already recorded in the Register; and I have only to add with
regard to it, that my reception at Norfolk was such, that I have
only to regret the total want of power to make those hearty
Norfolk and Norwich friends any suitable return, whether by
act or word.

KENSINGTON,

Monday, 24 Dec.

Went from Bergh Apton to Norwich in the morning, and from
Norwich to London during the day, carrying with me great
admiration of and respect for this county of excellent farmers,
and hearty, open and spirited men. The Norfolk people are
quick and smart in their motions and in their speaking. Very

54 Rural Rides

neat and trim in all their farming concerns, and very skilful.
Their land is good, their roads are level, and the bottom of their
soil is dry, to be sure ; and these are great advantages ; but they
are diligent, and make the most of everything. Their manage-
ment of all sorts of stock is most judicious; they are careful
about manure; their teams move quickly; and, in short, it is a
county of most excellent cultivators. — The churches in Norfolk
are generally large and the towers lofty. They have all been
well built at first. Many of them are of the Saxon architecture.
They are, almost all (I do not remember an exception), placed
on the highest spots to be found near where they stand; and. it
is curious enough, that the contrary practice should have pre-
vailed in hilly countries, where they are generally found in
valleys and in low, sheltered dells, even in those valleys ! These
churches prove that the people of Norfolk and Suffolk were
always a superior people in point of wealth, while the size of
them proves that the country parts were, at one time, a great
deal more populous than they now are. The great drawbacks
on the beauty of these counties are, their flatness and their want
of fine woods; but to those who can dispense with these,
Norfolk, under a wise and just government, can have nothing
to ask more than Providence and the industry of man have
given.

LANDLORD DISTRESS MEETINGS

For, in fact, it is not the farmer, but the landlord and parson.
who wants relief from the " collective." The tenant's remedy is,
quitting his farm or bringing down his rent to what he can
afford to give, wheat being 3 or 4 shillings a bushel. This is
his remedy. What should he want high prices for? They can
do him no good; and this I proved to the farmers last year.
The fact is, the landlords and parsons are urging the farmers on
to get something done to give them high rents and high tithes.

At Hertford there has been a meeting at which some sense was
discovered, at any rate. The parties talked about the fund-
holder, the debt, the taxes, and so on, and seemed to be in a very
warm temper. Pray, keep yourselves cool, gentlemen ; for you
have a great deal to endure yet. I deeply regret that I have not
room to insert the resolutions of this meeting.

There is to be a meeting at Battle (East Sussex) on the 3rd
instant, at which / mean to be. I want to see my friends on the
South-Downs. To see how they lo(. k now.

Landlord Distress Meetings 55

[At a public dinner given to Mr. Cobbett at Norwich, on the
market-day above mentioned, the company drank the toast of
Mr. Cobbett and his " Trash," the name " two-penny trash,"
having been at one time applied by Lord Castlereagh to the
Register. In acknowledging this toast Mr. Cobbett addressed
the company in a speech, of which the following is a passage:]

My thanks to you for having drunk my health are great and
sincere; but much greater pleasure do I feel at the approbation
bestowed on that trash, which has, for so many years, been a
mark for the finger of scorn to be pointed at by ignorant selfish-
ness and arrogant and insolent power. To enumerate, barely to
name, all, or a hundredth part of, the endeavours that have been
made to stifle this trash, would require a much longer space of
time than that which we have now before us. But, gentlemen,
those endeavours must have cost money ; money must have been
expended in the circulation of Anti-Cobbett, and the endless
bale of papers and pamphlets put forth to check the progress of
the trash : and when we take into view the immense sums
expended in keeping down the spirit excited by the trash, who
of us is to tell, whether these endeavours, taken altogether, may
not have added many millions to that debt, of which (without
any hint at a concomitant measure] some men have now the
audacity, the unprincipled, the profligate assurance to talk of
reducing the interest. The trash, gentlemen, is now triumphant ;
its triumph we are now met to celebrate; proofs of its triumph I
myself witnessed not many hours ago, in that scene where the
best possible evidence was to be found. In walking through
St. Andrew's Hall, my mind was not so much engaged on the
grandeur of the place, or on the gratifying reception I met with;
those hearty shakes by the hand which I so much like, those
smiles of approbation, which not to see with pride would argue
an insensibility to honest fame : even these, I do sincerely assure
you, engaged my mind much less than the melancholy reflection
that, of the two thousand or fifteen hundred farmers then in
my view, there were probably three-fourths who came to the hall
with aching hearts, and who would leave it in a state of mental
agony. What a thing to contemplate, gentlemen! What a
scene is here! A set of men, occupiers of the land; producers
of all that we eat, drink, wear, and of all that forms the buildings
that shelter us; a set of men industrious and careful by habit;
cool, thoughtful, and sensible from the instructions of nature;
a set of men provident above all others, and engaged in pursuits
in their nature stable as the very earth they till: to see a set of

56 Rural Rides

men like this plunged into anxiety, embarrassment, jeopardy,
not to be described; and when the particular individuals before
me were famed for their superior skill in this great and solid
pursuit, and were blessed with soil and other circumstances to
make them prosperous and happy: to behold this sight would
have been more than sufficient to sink my heart within me,
had I not been upheld by the reflection, that I had done all in my
power to prevent these calamities,, and that I still had in reserve
that which, with the assistance of the sufferers themselves, would
restore them and the nation to happiness.

SUSSEX JOURNAL

TO BATTLE, THROUGH BROMLEY, SEVENOAKS, AND

TUNBRIDGE

BATTLE,
Wednesday, 2 Jan. 1822.

CAME here to-day from Kensington, in order to see what goes
on at the meeting to be held here to-morrow, of the " gentry,
clergy, freeholders, and occupiers of land in the Rape of Hastings,
to take into consideration the distressed state of the agricultural
interest." I shall, of course, give an account of this meeting
after it has taken place. — You come through part of Kent to get
to Battle from the Great Wen on the Surrey side of the Thames,
The first town is Bromley, the next Seven-Oaks, the next Tun-
bridge, and between Tunbridge and this place you cross the
boundaries of the two counties. — From the Surrey Wen to
Bromley the land is generally a deep loam on a gravel, and you
see few trees except elm. A very ugly country. On quitting
Bromley the land gets poorer; clay at bottom; the wheat sown
on five, or seven, turn lands; the furrows shining with wet;
rushes on the wastes on the sides of the road. Here there is a
common, part of which has been inclosed and thrown out again,
or, rather, the fences carried away. — There is a frost this morn-
ing, some, ice and the women look rosy-cheeked. — There is a
very great variety of soil along this road; bottom of yellow clay;
then of sand; then of sand-stone; then of solider stone; then
(for about five miles) of chalk; then of red clay; then chalk
again; here (before you come to Seven-Oaks) is a most beautiful
and rich valley, extending from east to west, with rich corn-
fields and fine trees; then comes sand-stone again; and the hop-
gardens near Seven-Oaks, which is a pretty little town with
beautiful environs, part of which consists of the park of Knowle,
the seat of the Duchess of Dorset. It is a very fine place. And
there is another park, on the other side of the town. So that
this is a delightful place, and the land appears to be very good.
The gardens and houses all look neat and nice. On quitting
Seven-Oaks you come to a bottom of gravel for a short distance,
and to a clay for many miles. When I say that I saw teams
carting gravel from this spot to a distance of nearly ten miles.
*c 63* 57

58 Rural Rides

along the road, the reader will be at no loss to know what sort
of bottom the land has all along here. The bottom then becomes
sand-stone again. This vein of land runs all along through the
county of Sussex, and the clay runs into Hampshire, across the
forests of Bere and Waltham, then across the parishes of Ousle-
bury, Stoke, and passing between the sand hills of Southampton
and chalk hills of Winchester, goes westward till stopped by the
chalky downs between Romsey and Salisbury. — Tunbridge is a
small but very nice town, and has some fine meadows and a
navigable river. — The rest of the way to Battle presents,
alternately, clay and sand-stone. Of course the coppices and
oak woods are very frequent. There is now and then a hop-
garden spot, and now and then an orchard of apples or cherries;
but these are poor indeed compared with what you see about
Canterbury and Maidstone. The agricultural state of the
country or, rather, the quality of the land, from Bromley to
Battle, may be judged of from the fact, that I did not see, as I
came along, more than thirty acres of swedes during the fifty-
six miles ! In Norfolk I should, in the same distance, have seen
five hundred acres ! However, man was not the maker of the land ;
and, as to human happiness, I am of opinion that as much, and
even more, falls to the lot of the leather-legged chaps that live
in and rove about amongst those clays and woods as to the more
regularly disciplined labourers of the rich and prime parts of
England. As " God has made the back to the burthen," so the
clay and coppice people make the dress to the stubs and bushes.
Under the sole of the shoe is iron ; from the sole six inches
upwards is a high-low; then comes a leather bam to the knee;
then comes a pair of leather breeches; then comes a stout
doublet; over this comes a smock-frock; and the wearer sets
brush and stubs and thorns and mire at defiance. I have always
observed that woodland and forest labourers are best off in the
main. The coppices give them pleasant and profitable work
in winter. If they have not so great a corn-harvest, they have a
three weeks' harvest in April or May; that is to say, in the
season of barking, which in Hampshire is called stripping, and
in Sussex flaying, which employs women and children as well as
men. And then in the great article of fuel I They buy none.
It is miserable work where this is to be bought, and where, as
at Salisbury, the poor take by turns the making of fires at their
houses to boil four or five tea-kettles. What a winter-life must
those lead, whose turn it is not to make the fire ! At Launceston
in Cornwall a man, a tradesman too, told me, that the people

Battle 59

in general could not afford to have fire in ordinary, and that he
himself paid $d. for boiling a leg of mutton at another man's
fire! The leather-legged-race know none of these miseries, at
any rate. They literally get their fuel " by hook or by crook"
whence, doubtless, comes that old and very expressive saying,
which is applied to those cases where people will have a thing
by one means or another.

BATTLE,
Thursday (night), 3 Jan. 1822.

To-day there has been a meeting here of the landlords and
farmers in this part of Sussex, which is called the Rape of
Hastings. The object was to agree on a petition to parliament
praying for relief I Good God ! Where is this to end ? We
now see the effects of those rags which I have been railing
against for the last twenty years. Here were collected together
not less than 300 persons, principally landlords and farmers,
brought from their homes by their distresses and by their alarms
for the future! Never were such things heard in any country
before; and it is useless to hope, for terrific must be the con-
sequences, if an effectual remedy be not speedily applied. The
town, which is small, was in a great bustle before noon; and
the meeting (in a large room in the principal inn) took place
about one o'clock. Lord Ashburnham was called to the chair,
and there were present Mr. Curteis, one of the county members,
Mr. Fuller, who formerly used to cut such a figure in the House
of Commons, Mr. Lambe, and many other gentlemen of landed
property within the rape, or district, for which the meeting was
held. Mr. Curteis, after Lord Ashburnham had opened the
business, addressed the meeting.

Mr. Fuller then tendered some resolutions, describing the
fallen state of the landed interest, and proposing to pray,
generally, for relief. Mr. Britton complained that it was not
proposed to pray for some specific measure, and insisted, that
the cause of the evil was the rise in the value of money without
a corresponding r duction in the taxes. — A committee was
appointed to draw up a petition, which was next produced.
It merely described the distress, and prayed generally for relief.
Mr. Holloway proposed an addition, containing an imputation
of the distress to restricted currency and unabated taxation,
and praying for a reduction of taxes. A discussion now arose
upon two points: first, whether the addition were admissible at
all! and, second, whether Mr. Holloway was qualified to offer

60 Rural Rides

it to the meeting. Both the points having been, at last, decided
in the affirmative, the addition, or amendment, was put, and
lost ; and then the original petition was adopted.

After the business of the day was ended, there was a dinner
in the inn, in the same room where the meeting had been held.
I was at this dinner; and Mr. Britton having proposed my
health, and Mr. Curteis, who was in the chair, having given it,
I thought it would have looked like mock-modesty, which is,
in fact, only another term for hypocrisy, to refrain from ex-
pressing my opinions upon a point or two connected with the
business of the day. I shall now insert a substantially correct
sketch of what the company was indulgent enough to hear from
me at the dinner; which I take from the report, contained in
the Morning Chronicle of Saturday last. The report in the
Chronicle has all the pith of what I advanced relative to the
inutility of Corn Bills, and relative to the cause of further declining
prices ; two points of the greatest importance in themselves,
and which I was, and am, uncommonly anxious to press upon
the attention of the public.

The following is a part of the speech so reported: —
I am decidedly of opinion, gentlemen, that a Corn Bill of no
description, no matter what its principles or provisions, can do
either tenant or landlord any good; and I am not less decidedly
of opinion, that though prices are now low, they must, all the
present train of public measures continuing, be yet lower, and
continue lower upon an average of years and of seasons. — As
to a Corn Bill; a law to prohibit or check the importation of
human food is a perfect novelty in our history, and ought,
therefore, independent of the reason, and the recent experience
of the case, to be received and entertained with great suspicion.
Heretofore, premiums have been given for the exportation,
and at other times for the importation, of corn; but of laws
to prevent the importation of human food our ancestors knew
nothing. And what says recent experience? When the
present Corn Bill was passed, I, then a farmer, unable to get
my brother farmers to join me, petitioned singly against this Bill;
and I stated to my brother farmers, that such a Bill could do
us no good, while it would not fail to excite against us the ill-
will of the other classes of the community; a thought by no
means pleasant. Thus has it been. The distress of agriculture
was considerable in magnitude then ; but what is it now ? And
yet the Bill was passed; that Bill which was to remunerate and
protect is still in force; the farmers got what they prayed to

Battle 6 1

have granted them; and their distress, with a short interval
of tardy pace, has proceeded rapidly increasing from that day
to this. What, in the way of Corn Bill, can you have, gentle-
men, beyond absolute prohibition? And have you not, since
about April, 1819, had absolute prohibition? Since that time
no corn has been imported, and then only thirty millions of
bushels, which, supposing it all to have been wheat, was a
quantity much too insignificant to produce any sensible de-
pression in the price of the immense quantity of corn raised in
this kingdom since the last bushel was imported. If your
produce had fallen in this manner, if your prices had come down
very low, immediately after the importation had taken place,
there might have been some colour of reason to impute the fall
to the importation ; but it so happens, and as if for the express
purpose of contradicting the crude notions of Mr. Webb Hall,
that your produce has fallen in price at a greater rate, in pro-
portion as time has removed you from the point of importation;
and as to the circumstance, so ostentatiously put forward by
Mr. Hall and others, that there is still some of the imported
corn unsold, what does it prove but the converse of what those
gentlemen aim at, that is to say, that the holders cannot afford
to sell it at present prices; for, if they could gain but ever so
little by the sale, would they keep it wasting and costing money
in warehouses? There appears with some persons to be a
notion, that the importation of corn is a new thing. They seem
to forget, that, during the last war, when agriculture was so
prosperous, the ports were always open; that prodigious quantities
of corn were imported during the war; that, so far from importa-
tion being prohibited, high premiums were given, paid out of the
taxes, partly raised upon English farmers, to induce men to
import corn. All this seems to be forgotten as much as if it had
never taken place; and now the distress of the English farmer
is imputed to a cause which was never before an object of his
attention, and a desire is expressed to put an end to a branch
of commerce which the nation has always freely carried on. I
think, gentlemen, that here are reasons quite sufficient to make
any man but Mr. Webb Hall slow to impute the present distress
to the importation of corn ; but, at any rate, what can you have
beyond absolute efficient prohibition? No law, no duty, how-
ever high; nothing that the parliament can do can go beyond
this; and this you now have, in effect, as completely as if this
were the only country beneath the sky. For these reasons,
gentlemen (and to state more would be a waste of your time and

62 Rural Rides

an affront to your understandings), I am convinced, that, in the
way of Corn Bill, it is impossible for the parliament to afford
you any, even the smallest, portion of relief. As to the other
point, gentlemen, the tendency which the present measures and
course of things have to carry prices lower, and considerably
lower than they now are, and to keep them for a permanency
at that low rate, this is a matter worthy of the serious attention
of all connected with the land, and particularly of that of the
renting farmer. During the war no importations distressed the
farmer. It was not till peace came that the cry of distress was
heard. But, during the war, there was a boundless issue of
paper money. Those issues were instantly narrowed by the
peace, the law being that the bank should pay in cash six
months after the peace should take place. This was the cause
of that distress which led to the present Corn Bill. The disease
occasioned by the preparations for cash-payments has been
brought to a crisis by Mr. Peel's Bill, which has, in effect, doubled,
if not tripled, the real amount of the taxes, and violated all
contracts for time; given triple gains to every lender, and
placed every borrower in jeopardy.

KENSINGTON,
Friday, 4 Jan. 1822.

Got home from Battle. I had no time to see the town, having
entered the inn on Wednesday in the dusk of the evening,
having been engaged all day yesterday in the inn, and having
come out of it only to get into the coach this morning. I had
not time to go even to see Battle Abbey, the seat of the Webster
family, now occupied by a man of the name of Alexander I
Thus they replace them I It will take a much shorter time than
most people imagine to put out all the ancient families. I
should think, that six years will turn out all those who receive
nothing out of taxes. The greatness of the estate is no pro-
tection to the owner; for, great or little, it will soon yield him
no rents; and when the produce is nothing in either case, the
small estate is as good as the large one. Mr. Curteis said, that
the land was immovable ; yes ; but the rents are not. And ii
freeholds cannot be seized for common contract debts, the
carcass of the owner may. But, in fact, there will be no rents;
and, without these, the ownership is an empty sound. Thus,
at last, the burthen will, as I always said it would, fall upon the
landowner ; and, as the fault of supporting the system has
been wholly his, the burthen will fall upon the right back.

Battle 63

Whether he will now call in the people to help him to shake it
off is more than I can say; but, if he do not, I am sure that he
must sink under it. And then, will revolution No. I. have been
accomplished; but far, and very far indeed, will that be from
being the close of the drama! — I cannot quit Battle without
observing that the country is very pretty all about it. All hill
or valley. A great deal of woodland, in which the underwood
is generally very fine, though the oaks are not very fine, and
a good deal covered with moss. This shows that the clay ends
before the tap-root of the oak gets as deep as it would go; for
when the clay goes the full depth the oaks are always fine. —
The woods are too large and too near each other for hare-
hunting; and as to coursing it is out of the question here.
But it is a fine country for shooting and for harbouring game
of all sorts. — It was rainy as I came home; but the woodmen
were at work. A great many hop-poles are cut here, which
makes the coppices more valuable than in many other parts.
The women work in the coppices, shaving the bark of the hop-
poles, and, indeed, at various other parts of the business.
These poles are shaved to prevent maggots from breeding in the
bark and accelerating the destruction of the pole. It is curious
that the bark of trees should generate maggots; but it has, as
well as the wood, a sugary matter in it. The hickory wood in
America sends out from the ends of the logs when these are
burning great quantities of the finest syrup that can be imagined.
Accordingly, that wood breeds maggots, or worms as they are
usually called, surprisingly. Our ash breeds worms very much.
When the tree or pole is cut, the moist matter between the outer
bark and the wood, putrifies. Thence come the maggots, which
soon begin to eat their way into the wood. For this reason the
bark is shaved off the hop-poles, as it ought to be off all our
timber trees, as soon as cut, especially the ash. — Little boys and
girls shave hop-poles and assist in other coppice work very
nicely. And it is pleasant work when the weather is dry over
head. The woods, bedded with leaves as they are, are clean
and dry underfoot. They are warm too, even in the coldest
weather. When the ground is frozen several inches deep in the
open fields, it is scarcely frozen at all in a coppice where the
underwood is a good plant, and where it is nearly high enough
to cut. So that the woodman's is really a pleasant life. We
are apt to think that the birds have a hard time of it in winter.
But we forget the warmth of the woods, which far exceeds any-
thing to be found in farmyards. When Sidmouth started me

64 Rural Rides

from my farm, in 1817, I had just planted my farmyard round
with a pretty coppice. But, never mind, Sidmouth, and I shall,
I dare say, have plenty of time and occasion to talk about that
coppice, and many other things, before we die. And, can I,
when I think of these things now, pity those to whom Sidmouth
owed his power of starting me! — But let me forget the subject
for this time at any rate. — Woodland countries are interesting
on many accounts. Not so much on account of their masses of
green leaves, as on account of the variety of sights and sounds
and incidents that they afford. Even in winter the coppices
are beautiful to the eye, while they comfort the mind with the
idea of shelter and warmth. In spring they change their hue
from day to day during two whole months, which is about the
time from the first appearance of the delicate leaves of the birch
to the full expansion of those of the ash ; and even before the
leaves come at all to intercept the view, what in the vegetable
creation is so delightful to behold as the bed of a coppice
bespangled with primroses and bluebells? The opening of the
birch leaves is the signal for the pheasant to begin to crow, for
the blackbird to whistle, and the thrush to sing; and just
when the oak-buds begin to look reddish, and not a day before,
the whole tribe of finches burst forth in songs from every bough,
while the lark, imitating them all, carries the joyous sounds to
the sky. These are amongst the means which Providence has
benignantly appointed to sweeten the toils by which food and
raiment are produced ; these the English Ploughman could once
hear without the sorrowful reflection that he himself was a
pauper, and that the bounties of nature had, for him, been
scattered in vain ! And shall he never see an end to this state
of things! Shall he never have the due reward of his labour!
Shall unsparing taxation never cease to make him a miserable
dejected being, a creature famishing in the midst of abundance,
fainting, expiring with hunger's feeble moans, surrounded by a
carolling creation! 0! accursed paper-money! Has hell a
torment surpassing the wickedness of thy inventor I

SUSSEX JOURNAL

THROUGH CROYDON, GODSTONE, EAST-GRINSTEAD,
AND UCKFIELD, TO LEWES, AND BRIGHTON;
RETURNING BY CUCKFIELD, WORTH, AND RED-
HILL

LEWES,

Tuesday, 8 Jan. 1822.

CAME here to-day, from home, to see what passes to-morrow
at a meeting to be held here of the owners and occupiers of land
in the rapes of Lewes and Pevensey. — In quitting the great Wen
we go through Surrey more than half the way to Lewes. From
Saint George's Fields, which now are covered with houses, we
go, towards Croydon, between rows of houses, nearly half the
way, and the whole way is nine miles. There are, erected within
these four years, two entire miles of stock- jobbers' houses on
this one road, and the work goes on with accelerated force!
To be sure; for the taxes being, in fact, tripled by Peel's Bill,
the fundlords increase in riches; and their accommodations
increase of course. What an at once horrible and ridiculous
thing this country would become, if this thing could go on only
for a few years! And these rows of new houses, added to the
Wen, are proofs of growing prosperity, are they? These make
part of the increased capital of the country, do they? But
how is this Wen to be dispersed ? I know not whether it be to
be done by knife or by caustic; but dispersed it must be ! And
this is the only difficulty, which I do not see the easy means of
getting over. — Aye ! these are dreadful thoughts ! I know they
are; but they ought not to be banished from the mind; for
they will return, and, at every return, they will be more frightful.
The man who cannot coolly look at this matter is unfit for the
times that are approaching. Let the interest of the debt be
once well reduced (and that must be sooner or later) and then
what is to become of half a million at least of the people con-
gregated in this Wen? Oh! precious "Great Man now no
more!" Oh! "Pilot that weathered the Storm!" Oh!
" Heaven - born ' pupil of Prettyman! Who but him who
can number the sands of the sea, shall number the execrations
with which thy memory will be loaded! — From London to

66 Rural Rides

Croydon is as ugly a bit of country as any in England. A poor
spewy gravel with some clay. Few trees but elms, and those
generally stripped up and villainously ugly. — Croydon is a
good market-town; but is, by the funds, swelled out into a
Wen. — Upon quitting Croydon for Godstone, you come to the
chalk hills, the juniper shrubs and the yew trees. This is an
extension westward of the vein of chalk which I have before
noticed (see page 57) between Bromley and Seven-Oaks. To
the westward here lies Epsom Downs, which lead on to Merrow
Downs and St. Margaret's Hill, then, skipping over Guildford,
you come to the Hog's Back, which is still of chalk, and at the
west end of which lies Farnham. With the Hog's Back this
vein of chalk seems to end; for then the valleys become rich
loam, and the hills sand and gravel till you approach the Win-
chester Downs by the way of Arlesford. — Godstone, which is in
Surrey also, is a beautiful village, chiefly of one street with a fine
large green before it and with a pond in the green. A little way
to the right (going from London) lies the vile rotten Borough of
Blechingley ; but, happily for Godstone, out of sight. At and
near Godstone the gardens are all very neat; and, at the inn,
there is a nice garden well stocked with beautiful flowers in the
season. I here saw, last summer, some double violets as large
as small pinks, and the lady of the house was kind enough to
give me some of the roots. — From Godstone you go up a long
hill of clay and sand, and then descend into a level country of
stiff loam at top, clay at bottom, corn-fields, pastures, broad
hedge-rows, coppices, and oak woods, which country continues
till you quit Surrey about two miles before you reach East-
Grinstead. The woods and coppices are very fine here. It is
the genuine oak-soil ; a bottom of yellow clay to any depth, I
dare say, that man can go. No moss on the oaks. No dead
tops. Straight as larches. The bark of the young trees with dark
spots in it; sure sign of free growth and great depth of clay beneath.
The wheat is here sown on five-turn ridges, and the ploughing
is amongst the best that I ever saw. — At East-Grinstead, which
is a rotten borough and a very shabby place, you come to stiff
loam at top with sand-stone beneath. To the south of the place
the land is fine, and the vale on both sides a very beautiful
intermixture of woodland and corn-fields and pastures. — At
about three miles from Grinstead you come to a pretty village,
called Forest-Row, and then, on the road to Uckfield, you cross
Ashurst Forest, which is a heath, with here and there a few
birch scrubs upon it, verily the most villainously ugly spot I

Lewes 67

ever saw in England. This lasts you for five miles, getting, if
possible, uglier and uglier all the way, till, at last, as if barren
soil, nasty spewy gravel, heath and even that stunted, were not
enough, you see some rising spots, which instead of trees, present
you with black, ragged, hideous rocks. There may be English-
men who wish to see the coast of Nova Scotia. They need not
go to sea; for here it is to the life. If I had been in a long trance
(as our nobility seem to have been), and had been waked up
here, I should have begun to look about for the Indians and the
squaws, and to have heaved a sigh at the thought of being so
far from England. — From the end of this forest without trees
you come into a country of but poorish wettish land. Passing
through the village of Uckfield, you find an enclosed country,
with a soil of a clay cast all the way to within about three miles
of Lewes, when you get to a chalk bottom, and rich land. I
was at Lewes at the beginning of last harvest, and saw the fine
farms of the Ellmans, very justly renowned for their improve-
ment of the breed of South-Down sheep, and the younger Mr.
John Ellman not less justly blamed for the part he had taken in
propagating the errors of Webb Hall, and thereby, however
unintentionally, assisting to lead thousands to cherish those
false hopes that have been the cause of their ruin. Mr. Ellman
may say, that he thought he was right; but if he had read my
New Years Gift to the farmers, published in the preceding
January, he could not think that he was right. If he had not
read it, he ought to have read it, before he appeared in print.
At any rate, if no other person had a right to censure his publica-
tions, I had that right. I will here notice a calumny, to which
the above visit to Lewes gave rise; namely, that I went into the
neighbourhood of the Ellmans, to find out whether they ill-
treated their labourers! No man that knows me will believe
this. The facts are these: the Ellmans, celebrated farmers,
had made a great figure in the evidence taken before the com-
mittee. I was at Worth, about twenty miles from Lewes. The
harvest was begun. Worth is a woodland country. I wished
to know the state of the crops; for, I was, at that very time,
as will be seen by referring to the date, beginning to write my
First Letter to the Landlords. Without knowing anything of
the matter myself, I asked my host, Mr. Brazier, what good corn
country was nearest to us. He said Lewes. Off I went, and
he with me, in a post-chaise. We had 20 miles to go and 20
back in the same chaise. A bad road, and rain all the day.
We put up at the White Hart, took another chaise, went round ^

68 Rural Rides

and saw the farms, through the window of the chaise, having
stopped at a little public-house to ask which were they, and
having stopped now and then to get a sample out of the sheaves
of wheat, came back to the White Hart, after being absent only
about an hour and a half, got our dinner, and got back to Worth
before it was dark; and never asked, and never intended to
ask, one single question of any human being as to the conduct
or character of the Ellmans. Indeed the evidence of the elder
Mr. Ellman was so fair, so honest, and so useful, particularly as
relating to the labourers, that I could not possibly suspect him
of being a cruel or hard master. He told the committee that
when he began business, forty-five years ago, every man in the
parish brewed his own beer, and that now, not one man did it,
unless he gave him the malt! Why, here was by far the most
valuable part of the whole volume of evidence. Then, Mr.
Ellman did not present a parcel of estimates and God knows
what; but a plain and honest statement of facts, the rate of day
wages, of job wages, for a long series of years, by which it clearly
appeared how the labourer had been robbed and reduced to
misery, and how the poor-rates had been increased. He did not,
like Mr. George and other Bull-frogs, sink these interesting
facts; but honestly told the truth. Therefore, whatever I
might think of his endeavours to uphold the mischievous errors
of Webb Hall, I could have no suspicion that he was a hard
master*

LEWES,
Wednesday, 9 Jan. 1822.

The meeting and the dinner are now over. Mr. Davies Giddy
was in the chair: the place the County Hall. A Mr. Partington,
a pretty little oldish smart truss nice cockney-looking gentle-
man, with a yellow and red handkerchief round his neck, moved
the petition, which was seconded by Lord Chichester, who
lives in the neighbourhood. Much as I had read of that great
doctor of virtual representation and Royal Commissioner of
Inimitable Bank Notes, Mr. Davies Giddy, I had never seen him
before. He called to my mind one of those venerable persons
who administer spiritual comfort to the sinners of the " sister-
kingdom; " and, whether I looked at the dress or the person, I
could almost have sworn that it was the identical Father Luke
that I saw about twenty-three years ago, at Philadelphia, in the
farce of the Poor Soldier. Mr. Blackman (of Lewes I believe)
disapproved of the petition, and in a speech of considerable

Lewes 69

length, and also of considerable ability, stated to the meeting
that the evils complained of arose from the currency, and not
from the importation of foreign corn. A Mr. Donavon, an Irish
gentleman, who, it seems, is a magistrate in this " disturbed
county," disapproved of discussing anything at such a meeting,
and thought that the meeting should merely state its distresses,
and leave it to the wisdom of parliament to discover the remedy.
Upon which Mr. Chatfield observed; " So, sir, we are in a trap.
We cannot get ourselves out though we know the way. There
are others, who have got us in, and are able to get us out, but
they do not know how. And we are to tell them, it seems, that
we are in the trap; but are not to tell them the way to get us
out. I don't like long speeches, sir; but I like common sense."
This was neat and pithy. Fifty professed orators could not,
in a whole day, have thrown so much ridicule on the speech of
Mr. Donavon. — A Mr. Mabbott proposed an amendment to
include all classes of the community, and took a hit at Mr.
Curteis for his speech at Battle. Mr. Curteis defended himself,
and I thought very fairly. A Mr. Woodward, who said he was
a farmer, carried us back to the necessity of the war against
France; and told us of the horrors of plunder and murder and
rape that the war had prevented. This gentleman put an end
to my patience, which Donavon had put to an extremely severe
test; and so I withdrew. — After I went away Mr. Blackman
proposed some resolutions, which were carried by a great
majority by show of hands. But pieces of paper were then
handed about, for the voters to write their names on for and
against the petition. The greater part of the people were gone
away by this time; but, at any rate, there were more signatures
for the petition than for the resolutions. A farmer in Penn-
sylvania having a visitor, to whom he was willing to show how
well he treated his negroes as to food, bid the fellows (who were
at dinner) to ask for a second or third cut of pork if they had not
enough. Quite surprised at the novelty, but emboldened by a
repetition of the injunction, one of them did say, " Massa, I
wants another cut." He had it; but as soon as the visitor was
gone away, " D — n you," says the master, while he belaboured
him with the " cowskin." " I'll make you know how to under-
stand me another time ! " — The signers of this petition were in
the dark while the show of hands was going on; but when it
came to signing they knew well what Massa meant I This is a
petition to be sure; but, it is no more the petition of the farmers
in the rapes of Lewes and Pevensey than it is the petition of the

70 Rural Rides

mermaids of Lapland. — There was a dinner after the meeting
at the Star Inn, at which there occurred something rather curious
regarding myself. When at Battle, I had no intention of going
to Lewes, till on the evening of my arrival at Battle, a gentle-
man, who had heard of the before-mentioned calumny, observed
to me that I would do well not to go to Lewes. That very
observation made me resolve to go. I went, as a spectator, to
the meeting; and I left no one ignorant of the place where I
was to be found. I did not covet the noise of a dinner of from
200 to 300 persons; and I did not intend to go to it; but, being
pressed to go, I finally went. After some previous common-
place occurrences, Mr. Kemp, formerly a member for Lewes,
was called to the chair; and he having given as a toast, " the
speedy discovery of a remedy for our distresses" Mr. Ebenezer
Johnstone, a gentleman of Lewes, whom I had never seen or
heard of until that day, but who, I understand, is a very opulent
and most respectable man, proposed my health, as that of a
person likely to be able to point out the wished-for remedy.—
This was the signal for the onset. Immediately upon the toast
being given, a Mr. Hitchins, a farmer of Seaford, duly prepared
for the purpose, got upon the table, and, with candle in one hand
and Register in the other, read the following garbled passage
from my Letter to Lord Egremont. — " But let us hear what the
younger Ellman said: ' He had seen them employed in drawing
beach gravel, as had been already described. One of them, the
leader, worked with a bell about his neck.' Oh! the envy of
surrounding nations and admiration of the world ! Oh ! what
a ' glorious constitution ! ' Oh ! what a happy country !
Impudent Radicals, to want to reform a parliament, under
which men enjoy such blessings! On such a subject it is im-
possible (under Six- Acts) to trust one's pen! However, this I
will say; that here is much more than enough to make me
rejoice in the ruin of the farmers; and I do, with all my heart,
thank God for it; seeing, that it appears absolutely necessary,
that the present race of them should be totally broken up, in
Sussex at any rate, in order to put an end to this cruelty and
insolence towards the labourers, who are by far the greater number ;
and who are men, and a little better men too, than such employers
as these, who are, in fact, monsters in human shape I '

I had not the Register by me, and could not detect the
garbling. All the words that I have put in italics, this Hitchins
left out in the reading. What sort of man he must be the public
will easily judge. — No sooner had Hitchins done, than up started

Lewes 7 1

Mr. Ingram, a farmer of Rottendean, who was the second person
in the drama (for all had been duly prepared), and moved that I
should be put out of the room I Some few of the Webb Hallites,
joined by about six or eight of the dark, dirty-faced, half-
whiskered, tax-eaters from Brighton (which is only eight miles
off) joined in this cry. I rose, that they might see the man that
they had to put out. Fortunately for themselves, not one of
them attempted to approach me. They were like the mice
that resolved that a bell should be put round the cat's neck ! —
However, a considerable hubbub took place. At last, however,
the chairman, Mr. Kemp, whose conduct was fair and manly,
having given my health, I proceeded to address the company
in substance as stated here below; and, it is curious enough,
that even those who, upon my health being given, had
taken their hats and gone out of the room (and amongst
whom Mr. Ellman the younger was one) came back, formed a
crowd, and were just as silent and attentive as the rest of the
company !

[NOTE, written at Kensington, 13 Jan. — I must here, before
I insert the speech, which has appeared in the Morning Chronicle,
the Brighton papers, and in most of the London papers, except
the base sinking Old Times and the brimstone-smelling Tramper,
or Traveller, which is, I well know, a mere tool in the hands of
two snap-dragon Whig - lawyers, whose greediness and folly I
have so often had to expose, and which paper is maintained by
a contrivance which I will amply expose in my next; I must,
before I insert this speech, remark, that Mr. Ellman fie younger
has, to a gentleman whom I know to be incapable of falsehood,
disavowed the proceeding of Hitchins; on which I have to
observe, that the disavowal, to have any weight, must be public,
or be made to me.

As to the provocation that I have given the Ellmans, I am,
upon reflection, ready to confess that I may have laid on the
lash without a due regard to mercy. The fact is, that I have so
long had the misfortune to be compelled to keep a parcel of
badger-hided fellows, like Scarlett, in order, that I am, like a
drummer that has been used to flog old offenders, become heavy
handed. I ought to have considered the Ellmans as recruits and
to have suited my tickler to the tenderness of their backs. —
I hear that Mr. Ingram of Rottendean, who moved for my being
turned out of the room, and who looked so foolish when he had
to turn himself out, is an officer of Yeomanry " GavaltryJ" A
ploughman spoiled! This man would, I dare say, have been

72 Rural Rides

a very good husbandman; but the unnatural working of the
paper-system has sublimated him out of his senses. That
greater doctor, Mr. Peel, will bring him down again. — Mr.
Hitchins, I am told, after going away, came back, stood on the
landing-place (the door being open), and, while I was speaking,
exclaimed, "Oh! the fools! How they open their mouths!
How they suck it all in." — Suck what in, Mr. Hitchins? Was
it honey that dropped from my lips ? Was it flattery ? Amongst
other things, I said that I liked the plain names of farmer and
husbandman better than that of agriculturist ; and the prospect
I held out to them, was that of a description to catch their
applause? — But this Hitchins seems to be a very silly person
indeed.]

The following is a portion of the speech :—

The toast having been opposed, and that, too, in the extra-
ordinary manner we have witnessed, I will, at any rate, with
your permission, make a remark or two on that manner. If
the person who has made the opposition had been actuated by
a spirit of fairness and justice, he would not have confined him-
self to a detached sentence of the paper from which he has read ;
but would have taken the whole together; for, by taking a
particular sentence, and leaving out all the rest, what writing
is there that will not admit of a wicked interpretation? As to
the particular part which has been read, I should not, perhaps,
if I had seen it in print, and had had time to cool a little [it was
in a Register sent from Norfolk], have sent it forth in terms so
very general as to embrace all the farmers of this county; but
as to those of them who put the bell round the labourer's neck, I
beg leave to be now repeating, in its severest sense, every word
of the passage that has been read. — Born in a farm-house, bred
up at the plough tail, with a smock-frock on my back, taking
great delight in all the pursuits of farmers, liking their society,
and having amongst them my most esteemed friends, it is
natural that I should feel, and I do feel, uncommonly anxious to
prevent, as far as I am able, that total ruin which now menaces
them. But the labourer, was I to have no feeling for him?
Was not he my countryman too ? And was I not to feel indigna-
tion against those farmers, who had had the hard-heartedness
to put the bell round his neck, and thus wantonly insult and
degrade the class to whose toils they owed their own ease?
The statement of the fact was not mine; I read it in the news-
paper as having come from Mr. Ellman the younger; he, in a

Lewes 73

very laudable manner, expressed his horror at it; and was not
I to express indignation at what Mr. Ellman felt horror? That
gentleman and Mr. Webb Hall may monopolise all the wisdom
in matters of political economy; but are they, or rather is Mr.
Ellman alone, to engross all the feeling too? [It was here denied
that Mr. Ellman had said the bell had been put on by farmers.]
Very well, then, the complained of passage has been productive
of benefit to the farmers of this county; for, as the thing stood
in the newspapers, the natural and unavoidable inference was,
that that atrocious, that inhuman act, was an act of Sussex
farmers,

BRIGHTON,
Thursday, 10 Jan. 1822.

Lewes is in a valley of the South Downs, this town is at eight
miles distance, to the south-south-west or thereabouts. There
is a great extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes.
The town itself is a model of solidity and neatness. The build-
ings all substantial to the very outskirts; the pavements good
and complete; the shops nice and clean; the people well-
dressed; and, though last not least, the girls remarkably pretty,
as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; round faces,
features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright
eyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good
looks. A Mr. Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a
farmer's account book, which is a very complete thing of the
kind. The inns are good at Lewes, the people civil and not
servile, and the charges really (considering the taxes) far below
what one could reasonably expect. — From Lewes to Brighton
the road winds along between the hills of the South Downs,
which, in this mild weather, are mostly beautifully green even
at this season, with flocks of sheep feeding on them. — Brighton
itself lies in a valley cut across at one end by the sea, and its
extension, or Wen, has swelled up the sides of the hills and has
run some distance up the valley. — The first thing you see in
approaching Brighton from Lewes, is a splendid horse-barrack
on one side cf the road, and a heap of low, shabby, nasty houses,
irregularly built, on the other side. This is always the case
where there is a barrack. How soon a reformed parliament
would make both disappear ! Brighton is a very pleasant place.
For a wen remarkably so. The Kremlin, the very name of
which has so long been a subject of laughter all over the country,
lies in the gorge of the valley, and amongst the old houses

74 Rural Rides

of the town. The grounds, which cannot, I think, exceed a
couple or three acres, are surrounded by a wall neither lofty
nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad in sorts,
stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the " palace '
as the Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be
all upon the ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a
distance, you think you see a parcel of cradle-spits, of various
dimensions, sticking up out of the mouths of so many enormous
squat decanters. Take a square box, the sides of which are
three feet and a half, and the height a foot and a half. Take
a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the green of the leaves, leave the
stalks 9 inches long, tie these round with a string three inches
from the top, and put the turnip on the middle of the top of the
box. Then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the
same way, and put them on the corners of the box. Then take
a considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the
narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let
the leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less
according to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty pro-
miscuously, but pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then
stand off and look at your architecture. There ! That's u a
Kremlin I ' Only you must cut some church-looking windows
in the sides of the box. As to what you ought to put into the
box, that is a subject far above my cut. — Brighton is naturally
a place of resort for expectants, and a shifty ugly-looking swarm
is, of course, assembled here. Some of the fellows, who had
endeavoured to disturb our harmony at the dinner at Lewes,
were parading, amongst this swarm, on the cliff. You may
always know them by their lank jaws, the stiff eners round their
necks, their hidden or no shirts, their stays, their false shoulders,
hips and haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins,
colour of veal kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered
with dirty dust. — These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton
make a very fine figure. The trades-people are very nice in all
their concerns. The houses are excellent, built chiefly with a
blue or purple brick; and bow-windows appear to be the general
taste. I can easily believe this to be a very healthy place:
the open downs on the one side and the open sea on the other.
No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no swamps. — I have
spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of reformers,
who, though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite
satisfied more about the questions that agitate the country
than any equal number of lords.

Battle 75

KENSINGTON,
Friday, n January, 1822.

Came home by the way of Cuckfield, Worth, and Red-Hill,
instead of by Uckfield, Grinstead and Godstone, and got into
the same road again at Croydon. The roads being nearly
parallel lines and at no great distance from each other, the
soil is nearly the same, with the exception of the fine oak
country between Godstone and Grinstead, which does not go
so far westward as my homeward bound road, where the land,
opposite the spot just spoken of, becomes more of a moor than
a clay, and though there are oaks, they are not nearly so fine
as those on the other road. The tops are natter; the side
shoots are sometimes higher than the middle shoot; a certain
proof that the tap-root has met with something that it does
not like. — I see (Jan. 15) that Mr. Curteis has thought it neces-
sary to state in the public papers, that he had nothing to do
with my being at the dinner at Battle ! Who the Devil thought
he had? Why, was it not an ordinary; and had I not as
much right there as he? He has said, too, that he did not
know that I was to be at the dinner. How should he? Why
was it necessary to apprise him of it any more than the porter
of the inn? He has said, that he did not hear of any deputation
to invite me to the dinner, and, " upon inquiry" cannot find
that there was any. Have I said that there was any invitation
at all? There was; but I have not said so. I went to the
dinner for my half-crown like another man, without knowing,
or caring, who would be at it. But, if Mr. Curteis thought it
necessary to say so much, he might have said a little more.
He might have said, that he twice addressed himself to me in
a very peculiar manner, and that I never addressed myself to
him except in answer; and, if he had thought " inquiry '
necessary upon this subject also, he might have found that,
though always the first to speak or hold out the hand to a
hard-fisted artisan or labourer, I never did the same to a man
of rank or riches in the whole course of my life. Mr. Curteis
might have said, too, that unless I had gone to the dinner, the
party would, according to appearances, have been very select;
that I found him at the head of one of the tables, with less than
thirty persons in the room; that the number swelled up to
about one hundred and thirty; that no person was at the other

Rural Rides

table; that I took my seat at it; and that that table became
almost immediately crowded from one end to the other. To
these Mr. Curteis, when his hand was in, might have added,
that he turned himself in his chair and listened to my speech
with the greatest attention; that he bade me, by name, good-
night, when he retired; that he took not a man away with him;
and that the gentlemen who was called on to replace him in the
chair (whose name I have forgotten) had got from his seat
during the evening to come and shake me by the hand. All
these things Mr. Curteis might have said; but the fact is, he
has been bullied by the base newspapers, and he has not been
able to muster up courage to act the manly part, and which, too,
he would have found to be the wise part in the end. When he
gave the toast " more money and less taxes," he turned himself
towards me, and said, " That is a toast, that I am sure, you
approve of, Mr. Cobbett." To which I answered, " It would be
made good, sir, if members of parliament would do their duty."
I appeal to all the gentlemen present for the truth of what I
say. — Perhaps Mr. Curteis, in his heart, did not like to give my
health. If that was the case, he ought to have left the chair,
and retired. Straight forward is the best course; and see what
difficulties Mr. Curteis has involved himself in by not pursuing
it! I have no doubt that he was agreeably surprised when he
saw and heard me. Why not say then: " After all that has
been said about Cobbett, he is a devilish pleasant, frank, and
clever fellow, at any rate." — How much better this would have
been, than to act the part that Mr. Curteis has acted. — The
editors of the Brighton Chronicle and Lewes Express have, out
of mere modesty, I dare say, fallen a little into Mr. Curteis's
strain. In closing their account (in their paper of the i5th)
of the Lewes meeting, they say, that I addressed the company
at some length, as reported in their supplement published on
Thursday the loth. And then they think it necessary to add:
" For ourselves, we can say, that we never saw Mr. Cobbett
until the meeting at Battle." Now, had it not been for pure
maiden-like bashfulness, they would, doubtless, have added,
that when they did see me, they were profuse in expressions of
their gratitude to me for having merely named their paper in my
Register, a thing, which, as I told them, I myself had forgotten.
When, too, they were speaking, in reference to a speech made
in the hall, of " one of the finest specimens of oratory that
has ever been given in any assembly," it was, without doubt,

Battle 77

out of pure compassion for the perverted taste of their Lewes
readers, that they suppressed the fact, that the agent of the
paper at Lewes sent them word, that it was useless for them
to send any account of the meeting, unless that account con-
tained Mr. Cobbett's speech; that he, the agent, could have
sold a hundred papers that morning, if they had contained
Mr. Cobbett's speech; but could not sell one without it. I
myself, by mere accident, heard this message delivered to a
third person by their agent at Lewes. And, as I said before,
it must have been pure tenderness towards their readers that
made the editors suppress a fact so injurious to the reputation
of those readers in point of taste I However, at last, these editors
seem to have triumphed over all feelings of this sort; for, having
printed off a placard, advertising their supplement, in which
placard no menion was made of me, they, grown bold all of a
sudden, took a painting brush, and in large letters, put into
their placard, " Mr. Cobbett's Speech at Lewes ; " so that, at a
little distance, the placard seemed to relate to nothing else;
and there was " the finest specimen of oratory " left to find
its way into the world under the auspices of my rustic harangue.
Good God ! What will this world come to ! We shall, by and
by, have to laugh at the workings of envy in the very worms
that we breed in our bodies ! - - The fast-sinking Old Times
newspaper, its cat-and-dog opponent the New Times, the
Courier, and the Whig - lawyer Tramper, called the Traveller ;
the fellows who conduct these vehicles; these wretched fellows,
their very livers burning with envy, have hasted to inform their
readers, that " they have authority to state that Lord Ash-
burnham and Mr. Fuller were not present at the dinner at
Battle where Cobbett's health was drunk." These fellows have
now " authority " to state, that there were no two men who
dined at Battle, that I should not prefer as companions to Lord
Ashburnham and Mr. Fuller, commonly called " Jack Fuller/'
seeing that I am no admirer of lofty reserve, and that, of all things
on earth, I abhor a head like a drum, all noise and emptiness.
These scribes have also " authority " to state, that they amuse
me and the public too by declining rapidly in their sale from
their exclusion of my country lectures, which have only begun.
In addition to this the Tramper editor has " authority " to
state, that one of his papers of 5th Jan. has been sent to the
Register office by post, with these words written on it: " This
scoundrel paper has taken no notice of Mr. Cobbett's speech."

78 Rural Rides

All these papers have " authority " to state beforehand, that
they will insert no account of what shall take place, within these
three or four weeks, at Huntingdon, at Lynn, at Chichester, and
other places where I intend to be. And, lastly, tbe editors have
full " authority " to state, that they may employ, without let or
molestation of any sort, either private or public, the price of the
last number that they shall sell in the purchase of hemp or
ratsbane, as the sure means of a happy deliverance from their
present state of torment.

HUNTINGDON JOURNAL

THROUGH WARE AND ROYSTON, TO HUNTINGDON

ROYSTON,

Monday morning, 2ist Jan. 1822.

CAME from London, yesterday noon, to this town on my way
to Huntingdon. My road was through Ware. Royston is just
within the line (on the Cambridgeshire side), which divides
Hertfordshire from Cambridgeshire. On this road, as on almost
all the others going from it, the enormous Wen has swelled
out to the distance of about six or seven miles. — The land till
you come nearly to Ware which is in Hertfordshire, and which
is twenty-three miles from the Wen, is chiefly a strong and deep
loam, with the gravel a good distance from the surface. The
land is good wheat- land; but I observed only three fields of
Swedish turnips in the 23 miles, and no wheat drilled. The
wheat is sown on ridges of great width here and there; some-
times on ridges of ten, at others on ridges of seven, on those of
five, four, three, and even two, feet wide. Yet the bottom is
manifestly not very wet generally; and that there is not a
bottom of clay is clear from the poor growth of the oak trees.
All the trees are shabby in this country; and the eye is in-
cessantly offended by the sight of pollards, which are seldom
suffered to disgrace even the meanest lands in Hampshire or
Sussex. As you approach Ware the bottom becomes chalk of a
dirtyish colour, and, in some parts, far below the surface. After
you quit Ware, which is a mere market town, the land grows by
degrees poorer; the chalk lies nearer and nearer to the surface,
till you come to the open common-fields within a few miles of
Royston. Along here the land is poor enough. It is not the
stiff red loam mixed with large blue-grey flints, lying upon the
chalk, such as you see in the north of Hampshire; but a whitish
sort of clay, with little yellow flattish stones amongst it; sure
signs of a hungry soil. Yet this land bears wheat sometimes.
— Royston is at the foot of this high poor land ; or rather in a
dell, the open side of which looks towards the North. It is a
common market town. Not mean, but having nothing of
beauty about it; and having on it, on three of the sides out of

8o Rural Rides

the four, those very ugly things, common-fields, which have all
the nakedness, without any of the smoothness, of Downs.

HUNTINGDON,
Tuesday morning, 22 Jan. 1822.

Immediately upon quitting Royston, you come along, for a
considerable distance, with enclosed fields on the left and open
common-fields on the right. Here the land is excellent. A
dark, rich loam, free from stones, on chalk beneath at a great
distance. The land appears, for a mile or two, to resemble
that at and near Faversham in Kent, which I have before
noticed. The fields on the left seem to have been enclosed by
act of parliament; and they certainly are the most beautiful
tract of fields that I ever saw. Their extent may be from ten
to thirty acres each. Divided by quick-set hedges, exceedingly
well planted and raised. The whole tract is nearly a perfect
level. The cultivation neat, and the stubble heaps, such as
remain out, giving proof of great crops of straw, while, on land
with a chalk bottom, there is seldom any want of a proportionate
quantity of grain. Even here, however, I saw but few Swedish
turnips, and those not good. Nor did I see any wheat drilled;
and observed, that, in many parts, the broad-cast sowing had
been performed in a most careless manner, especially at about
three miles from Royston, where some parts of the broad lands
seemed to have had the seed flung along them with a shovel,
while other parts contained only here and there a blade; or,
at least, were so thinly supplied as to make it almost doubtful
whether they had not been wholly missed. In some parts, the
middles only of the ridges were sown thickly. This is shocking
husbandry. A Norfolk or a Kentish farmer would have sowed
a bushel and a half of seed to the acre here, and would have
had a far better plant of wheat. — About four miles, I think it is,
from Royston you come to the estate of Lord Hardwicke. You
see the house at the end of an avenue about two miles long,
which, however, wants the main thing, namely, fine and lofty
trees. The soil here begins to be a very stiff loam at top; clay
beneath for a considerable distance; and, in some places, beds
of yellow gravel with very large stones mixed in it. The land
is generally cold; a great deal of draining is wanted; and yet,
the bottom is such as not to be favourable to the growth of the
oak, of which sort I have not seen one handsome tree since I left
London. A grove, such as I saw at Weston in Herefordshire,

Huntingdon 81

would, here, be a thing to attract the attention of all ranks
and all ages. What, then, would they say, on beholding a
wood of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, walnuts, locusts, gum-trees,
and maples in America! — Lord Hardwicke's avenue appears to
be lined with elms chiefly. They are shabby. He might have
had ash ; for the ash will grow anywhere ; on sand, on gravel,
on clay, on chalk, or in swamps. It is surprising that those
who planted these rows of trees did not observe how well the
ash grows here! In the hedge-rows, in the plantations, every-
where the ash is fine. The ash is the hardiest of all our large
trees. Look at trees on any part of the sea coast. You will
see them all, even the firs, lean from the sea breeze, except the
ash. You will see the oak shaved up on the side of the breeze.
But the ash stands upright, as if in a warm woody dell. We
have no tree that attains a greater height than the ash; and
certainly none that equals it in beauty of leaf. It bears pruning
better than any other tree. Its timber is one of the most useful;
and as underwood and fire-wood it far exceeds all others of
English growth. From the trees of an avenue like that of Lord
Hardwicke a hundred pounds' worth of fuel might, if the trees
were ash, be cut every year in prunings necessary to preserve
the health and beauty of the trees. Yet, on this same land,
has his lordship planted many acres of larches and firs. These
appear to have been planted about twelve years. If instead of
these he had planted ash, four years from the seed bed and
once removed; had cut them down within an inch of the ground
the second year after planting; and had planted them at four
feet apart, he would now have had about six thousand ash-poles,
on an average twelve feet long, on each acre of land in his
plantation; which, at three-halfpence each, would have been
worth somewhere nearly forty pounds an acre. He might now
have cut the poles, leaving about 600 to stand upon an acre
to come to trees ; and, while these were growing to timber, the
underwood would, for poles, hoops, broomsticks, spars, rods,
and faggots, have been worth twenty-five or thirty pounds an
acre every ten years. Can beggarly stuff, like larches and firs,
ever be profitable to this extent? Ash is timber, fit for the
wheelwright, at the age of twenty years, or less. What can you
do with a rotten fir thing at that age? — This estate of Lord
Hardwicke appears to be very large. There is a part which is,
apparently, in his own hands, as, indeed, the whole must soon
be, unless he give up all idea of rent, or unless he can choack off
the fundholder or get again afloat on the sea of paper-money.
0638

82 Rural Rides

In this part of his land there is a fine piece of Lucerne in rows
at about eighteen inches distant from each other. They are
now manuring it with burnt-earth mixed with some dung; and
I see several heaps of burnt-earth hereabouts. The directions
for doing this are contained in my Year's Residence, as taught
me by Mr. William Gauntlet, of Winchester. — The land is, all
along here, laid up in those wide and high ridges, which I saw
in Gloucestershire, going from Gloucester to Oxford, as I have
already mentioned. These ridges are ploughed back or down ;
but they are ploughed up again for every sowing. — At an inn
near Lord Hardwicke's I saw the finest parcel of dove-house
pigeons I ever saw in my life. — Between this place and Hunting-
don is the village of Caxton, which very much resembles almost
a village of the same size in Picardy, where I saw the women
dragging harrows to harrow in the corn. Certainly this village
resembles nothing English, except some of the rascally rotten
boroughs in Cornwall and Devonshire, on which a just Provi-
dence seems to have entailed its curse. The land just about
here does seem to be really bad. The face of the country is
naked. The few scrubbed trees that now and then meet the
eye, and even the quick-sets, are covered with a yellow moss.
All is bleak and comfortless; and, just on the most dreary part
of this most dreary scene, stands almost opportunely, " Caxton
Gibbet" tendering its friendly one arm to the passers-by. It has
recently been fresh-painted, and written on in conspicuous
characters, for the benefit, I suppose, of those who cannot exist
under the thought of wheat at four shillings a bushel. — Not far
from this is a new house, which, the coachman says, belongs to
a Mr. Cheer, who, if report speaks truly, is not, however, not-
withstanding his name, guilty of the sin of making people either
drunkards or gluttons. Certainly the spot, on which he has
built his house, is one of the most ugly that I ever saw. Few
spots have everything that you could wish to find; but this,
according to my judgment, has everything that every man of
ordinary taste would wish to avoid. — The country changes but
little till you get quite to Huntingdon. The land is generally
quite open, or in large fields. Strong wheat-land, that wants
a good deal of draining. Very few turnips of any sort are
raised; and, of course, few sheep and cattle kept. Few trees,
and those scrubbed. Few woods, and those small. Few hills,
and those hardly worthy of the name. All which, when we see
them, make us cease to wonder, that this country is so famous
for fox-hunting. Such it has doubtless been, in all times, and

Huntingdon 8 3

o o

to this circumstance Huntingdon, that is to say, Huntingdun,
or Huntingdown, unquestionably owes its name; because down
does not mean unploughed land, but open and unsheltered land,
and the Saxon word is dun. — When you come down near to the
town itself, the scene suddenly, totally, and most agreeably,
changes. The River Ouse separates Godmanchester from
Huntingdon, and there is, I think, no very great difference in
the population of the two. Both together do not make up a
population of more than about five thousand souls. Huntingdon
is a slightly built town, compared with Lewes, for instance.
The houses are not in general so high, nor made of such solid and
costly materials. The shops are not so large and their contents
not so costly. There is not a show of so much business and so
much opulence. But Huntingdon is a very clean and nice
place, contains many elegant houses, and the environs are
beautiful. Above and below the bridge, under which the Ouse
passes, are the most beautiful, and by far the most beautiful,
meadows that I ever saw in my life. The meadows at Lewes,
at Guildford, at Farnham, at Winchester, at Salisbury, at
Exeter, at Gloucester, at Hereford, and even at Canterbury, are
nothing, compared with those of Huntingdon in point of beauty.
Here are no reeds, here is no sedge, no unevennesses of any sort.
Here are bowling-greens of hundreds of acres in extent, with a
river winding through them, full to the brink. One of these
meadows is the race-course ; and so pretty a spot, so level, so
smooth, so green, and of such an extent I never saw, and never
expected to see. From the bridge you look across the valleys,
first to the west and then to the east; the valleys terminate at
the foot of rising ground, well set with trees, from amongst
which church spires raise their heads here and there. I think it
would be very difficult to find a more delightful spot than this
in the world. To my fancy (and every one to his taste) the
prospect from this bridge far surpasses that from Richmond
Hill. — All that I have yet seen of Huntingdon I like exceedingly.
It is one of those pretty, clean, unstenched, unconfmed places
that tend to lengthen life and make it happy.

JOURNAL

HERTFORDSHIRE, AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: TO
ST. ALBANS, THROUGH EDGWARE, STANMORE,
AND WATFORD, RETURNING BY REDBOURN,
HEMPSTEAD, AND CHESHAM

SAINT ALBANS,

19 June, 1822.

FROM Kensington to this place, through Edgware, Stanmore,
and Watford, the crop is almost entirely hay, from fields of
permanent grass, manured by dung and other matter brought
from the Wen. Near the Wen, where they have had the first
haul of the Irish and other perambulating labourers, the hay
is all in rick. Some miles further down it is nearly all in.
Towards Stanmore and Watford, a third, perhaps, of the grass
remains to be cut. It is curious to see how the thing regulates
itself. We saw, all the way down, squads of labourers, of
different departments, migrating from tract to tract; leaving
the cleared fields behind them and proceeding on towards the
work to be yet performed; and then, as to the classes of
labourers, the mowers, with their scythes on their shoulders,
were in front, going on towards the standing crops, while the
hay-makers were coming on behind towards the grass already
cut or cutting. The weather is fair and warm; so that the
pu' lie-houses on the road are pouring out their beer pretty
fast, and are getting a good share of the wages of these thirsty
souls. It is an exchange of beer for sweat; but the tax-eaters
get, after all, the far greater part of the sweat; for, if it were
not for the tax, the beer would sell for three-halfpence a pot,
instead of fivepence. Of this threepence-halfpenny the Jews
and jobbers get about twopence-halfpenny. It is curious to
observe how the different labours are divided as to the nations.
The mowers are all English ; the haymakers all Irish. Scotch-
men toil hard enough in Scotland; but when they go from
home it is not to work, if you please. They are found in gardens,
and especially in gentlemen's gardens. Tying up flowers,
picking dead leaves off exotics, peeping into melon-frames,
publishing the banns of marriage between the " male ' and
"female " blossoms, tap-tap-tapping against a wall with a

St. Albans 85

hammer that weighs half an ounce. They have backs as straight
and shoulders as square as heroes of Waterloo; and who can
blame them? The digging, the mowing, the carrying of loads;
all the break-back and sweat-extracting work they leave to be
performed by those who have less prudence than they have.
The great purpose of human art, the great end of human study,
is to obtain ease, to throw the burden of labour from our own
shoulders, and fix it on those of others. The crop of hay is very
large, and that part which is in, is in very good order. We shall
have hardly any hay that is not fine and sweet; and we shall
have it, carried to London, at less, I dare say, than £3 a load,
that is 18 cwt. So that here the evil of " over-production '
will be great indeed ! Whether we shall have any projects for
taking hay into pawn is more than any of us can say; for, after
what we have seen, need we be surprised, if we were to hear it
proposed to take butter and even milk into pawn? In after
times, the mad projects of these days will become proverbial.
The oracle and the over-production men will totally supplant
the March-hare. — This is, all along here, and especially as far as
Stanmore, a very dull and ugly country: flat, and all grass -
fields and elms. Few birds of any kind, and few constant
labourers being wanted; scarcely any cottages and gardens,
which form one of the great beauties of a country. Stanmore
is on a hill; but it looks over a country of little variety, though
rich. WThat a difference between the view here and those which
carry the eye over the coppices, the corn-fields, the hop-gardens
and the orchards of Kent ! It is miserable land from Stanmore
to Watford, where we get into Hertfordshire. Hence to Saint
Albans there is generally chalk at bottom with a red tenacious
loam at top, with flints, grey on the outside and dark blue
within. W'herever this is the soil, the wheat grows well. The
crops, and especially that of the barley, are very fine and very
forward. The wheat, in general, does not appear to be a heavy
crop; but the ears seem as if they would be full from bottom
to top ; and we have had so much heat, that the grain is pretty
sure to be plump, let the weather, for the rest of the summer,
be what it may. The produce depends more on the weather,
previous to the coming out of the ear, than on the subsequent
weather. In the northern parts of America, where they have,
some years, not heat enough to bring the Indian corn to per-
fection, I have observed, that, if they have about fifteen days
with the thermometer at ninety, before the ear makes its ap-
pearance, the crop never fails, though the weather may be ever

86 Rural Rides

so unfavourable afterwards. This allies with the old remark
of the country people in England, that " May makes or mars
the wheat; " for it is in May that the ear and the grains are
formed."

KENSINGTON,

24 June, 1822.

Set out at four this morning for Redbourn, and then turned off
to the westward to go to High Wycombe, through Hempstead
and Chesham. The wheat is good all the way. The barley and
oats good enough till I came to Hempstead. But the land along
here is very fine : a red tenacious flinty loam upon a bed of chalk
at a yard or two beneath, which, in my opinion, is the very best
corn land that we have in England. The fields here, like those in
the rich parts of Devonshire, will bear perpetual grasj. Any of
them will become upland meadows. The land is, in short,
excellent, and it is a real corn-country. The trees from Red-
bourn to Hempstead are very fine; oaks, ashes, and beeches.
Some of the finest of each sort, and the very finest ashes I ever
saw in my life. They are in great numbers, and make the fields
look most beautiful. No villainous things of the fir-tribe offend
the eye here. The custom is in this part of Hertfordshire (and
I am told it continues into Bedfordshire) to leave a border round
the ploughed part of the fields to bear grass and to make hay
from, so that, the grass being now made into hay, every corn
field has a closely mowed grass walk about ten feet wide all
round it, between the corn and the hedge. This is most beauti-
ful ! The hedges are now full of the shepherd's rose, honeysuckles,
and all sorts of wild flowers ; so that you are upon a grass walk,
with this most beautiful of all flower gardens and shrubberies on
your one hand, and with the corn on the other. And thus you
go from field to field (on foot or on horseback), the sort of corn,
the sort of underwood and timber, the shape and size of the
fields, the height of the hedge-rows, the height of the trees, all
continually varying. Talk of pleasure-grounds indeed! What
that man ever invented, under the name of pleasure-grounds,
can equal these fields in Hertfordshire? — This is a profitable
system too; for the ground under hedges bears little corn, and
it bears very good grass. Something, however, depends on
the nature of the soil : for it is not all land that will bear grass,
fit for hay, perpetually; and, when the land will not do that,
these headlands would only be a harbour for weeds and couch-
grass, the seeds of which would fill the fields with their mis-

Chesham 87

chievous race. — Mr. Tull has observed upon the great use of
headlands. — It is curious enough, that these headlands cease
soon after you get into Buckinghamshire. At first you see now
and then a field without a grass headland; then it comes to now
and then a field with one; and, at the end of five or six miles,
they wholly cease. Hempstead is a very pretty town, with
beautiful environs, and there is a canal that comes near it, and
that goes on to London. It lies at the foot of a hill. It is clean,
substantially built, and a very pretty place altogether. Between
Hempstead and Chesham the land is not so good. I came into
Buckinghamshire before I got into the latter place. Passed
over two commons. But still the land is not bad. It is drier;
nearer the chalk, and not so red. The wheat continues good,
though not heavy; but the barley, on the land that is not very
good, is light, begins to look blue, and the backward oats are very
short. On the still thinner lands the barley and oats must be a
very short crop. — People do not sow turnips, the ground is so
dry, and I should think that the swede-crop will be very short;
for swedes ought to be up at least, by this time. If I had swedes
to sow, I would sow them now, and upon ground very deeply
and finely broken. I would sow directly after the plough, not
being half an hour behind it, and would roll the ground as hard
as possible. I am sure the plants would come up, even without
rain. And the moment the rain came, they would grow
famously. — Chesham is a nice little town, lying in a deep and
narrow valley, with a stream of water running through it. All
along the country that I have come, the labourers' dwellings
are good. They are made of what they call brick-nog ; that is to
say, a frame of wood, and a single brick thick, filling up the
vacancies between the timber. They are generally covered
with tile. Not pretty by any means; but they are good; and
you see here, as in Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, and,
indeed, in almost every part of England, that most interesting
of all objects, that which is such an honour to England, and that
which distinguishes it from all the rest of the world, namely,
those neatly kept and productive little gardens round the labourers'
houses, which are seldom unornamented with more or less of
flowers. We have only to look at these to know what sort of
people English labourers are: these gardens are the answer to
the Malthuses and the Scarletts. Shut your mouths, you Scotch
economists; cease bawling, Mr. Brougham, and you Edinburgh
Reviewers, till you can show us something, not like, but approach-
ing towards a likeness of this I

Rural Rides

The orchards all along this country are by no means bad.
Not like those of Herefordshire and the north of Kent; but a
great deal better than in many other parts of the kingdom.
The cherry-trees are pretty abundant and particularly good.
There are not many of the merries, as they call them in Kent
and Hampshire; that is to say, the little black cherry, the name
of which is a corruption from the French merise, in the singular,
and merises in the plural. I saw the little boys, in many places,
set to keep the birds off the cherries, which reminded me of the
time when I followed the same occupation, and also of the toll
that I used to take in payment. The children are all along
here, I mean the little children, locked out of the doors, while
the fathers and mothers are at work in the fields. I saw many
little groups of this sort; and this is one advantage of having
plenty of room on the outside of a house. I never saw the
country children better clad, or look cleaner and fatter than they
look here, and I have the very great pleasure to add, that I do
not think I saw three acres of potatoes in this whole tract
of fine country, from St. Albans to Redbourn, from Redbourn
to Hempstead, and from Hempstead to Chesham. In all the
houses where I have been, they use the roasted rye instead of
coffee or tea, and I saw one gentleman who had sown a piece of
rye (a grain not common in this part of the country) for the
express purpose. It costs about three farthings a pound,
roasted and ground into powder. — The pay of the labourers
varies from eight to twelve shillings a week. Grass mowers get
two shillings-day, two quarts of what they call strong beer, and
as much small beer as they can drink. After quitting Chesham,
I passed through a wood, resembling, as nearly as possible, the
woods in the more cultivated parts of Long Island, with these
exceptions, that there the woods consist of a great variety of
trees, and of more beautiful foliage. Here there are only two
sorts of trees, beech and oak: but the wood at bottom was
precisely like an American wood: none of that stuff which we
generally call underwood : the trees standing very thick in some
places: the shade so complete as never to permit herbage below:
no bushes of any sort; and nothing to impede your steps but
little spindling trees here and there grown up from the seed.
The trees here are as lofty, too, as they generally are in the Long
Island woods, and as straight, except in cases where you find
clumps of the tulip-tree, which sometimes go much above a
hundred feet high as straight as a line. The oaks seem here to
vie with the beeches in size as well as in loftiness and straightness.

High Wy combe 89

I saw several oaks which I think were more than eighty feet
high, and several with a clear stem of more than forty feet, being
pretty nearly as far through at that distance from the ground
as at bottom; and I think I saw more than one, with a clear
stem of fifty feet, a foot and a half through at that distance from
the ground. This is by far the finest plank oak that I ever saw
in England. The road through the wood is winding and brings
you out at the corner of a field, lying sloping to the south, three
sides of it bordered by wood and the field planted as an orchard.
This is precisely what you see in so many thousands of places in
America. I had passed through Hempstead a little while before,
which certainly gave its name to the township in which I lived in
Long Island, and which I used to write Hampstead, contrary to
the orthography of the place, never having heard of such a place
as Hempstead in England. Passing through Hempstead I gave
my mind a toss back to Long Island, and this beautiful wood
and orchard really made me almost conceit that I was there, and
gave rise to a thousand interesting and pleasant reflections.
On quitting the wood I crossed the great road from London to
Wendover, went across the park of Mr. Drake, and up a steep
hill towards the great road leading to Wycombe. Mr. Drake's
is a very beautiful place, and has a great deal of very fine timber
upon it. I think I counted pretty nearly 200 oak trees, worth,
on an average, five pounds apiece, growing within twenty
yards of the road that I was going along. Mr. Drake has some
thousands of these, I dare say, besides his beech; and, therefore,
he will be able to stand a tug with the fundholders for some time.
When I got to High Wycombe, I found everything a week earlier
than in the rich part of Hertfordshire. High Wycombe, as if
the name was ironical, lies along the bottom of a narrow and
deep valley, the hills on each side being very steep indeed. The
valley runs somewhere about from east to west, and the wheat
on the hills facing the south will, if this weather continue, be
fit to reap in ten days. I saw one field of oats that a bold farmer
would cut next Monday. Wycombe is a very fine and very
clean market town; the people all looking extremely well; the
girls somewhat larger featured and larger boned than those in
Sussex, and not so fresh-coloured and bright-eyed. More like
the girls of America, and that is saying quite as much as any
reasonable woman can expect or wish for. The hills on the
south side of Wycombe form a park and estate now the property
of Smith, who was a banker or stocking-maker at Nottingham,
who was made a lord in the time of Pitt, and who purchased this

*D638

90 Rural Rides

estate of the late Marquis of Landsdowne, one of whose titles
is Baron Wycombe. VVycombe is one of those famous things
called boroughs, and 34 votes in this borough send Sir John
Dashwood and Sir Thomas Baring to the " collective wisdom."
The landlord where I put up " remembered ' the name of
Dashwood, but had "forgotten " who the " other " was! There
would be no forgettings of this sort, if these thirty-four, together
with their representatives, were called upon to pay the share
of the national debt due from High Wycombe. Between High
Wycombe and Beaconsfield, where the soil is much about that
last described, the wheat continued to be equally early with
that about Wycombe. As I approached Uxbridge I got off
the chalk upon a gravelly bottom, and then from Uxbridge to
Shepherd's Bush on a bottom of clay. Grass-fields and elm-
trees, with here and there a wheat or a bean-field, form the
features of this most ugly country, which would have been
perfectly unbearable after quitting the neighbourhoods of Hemp-
stead, Chesham and High Wycombe, had it not been for the
diversion I derived from meeting, in all the various modes of
conveyance, the cockneys going to Baling Fair, which is one of
those things which nature herself would almost seem to have
provided for drawing off the matter and giving occasional relief
to the overcharged Wen. I have traversed to-day what I think
may be called an average of England as to corn-crops. Some
of the best, certainly; and pretty nearly some of the worst.
My observation as to the wheat is, that it will be a fair and
average crop, and extremely early; because, though it is not
a heavy crop, though the ears are not long they will be full;
and the earliness seems to preclude the possibility of blight,
and to ensure plump grain. The barley and oats must, upon
an average, be a light crop. The peas a light crop; and as to
beans, unless there have been rains where beans are mostly
grown, they cannot be half a crop; for they will not endure
heat. I tried masagan beans in Long Island, and could not get
them to bear more than a pod or two upon a stem. Beans love
cold land and shade. The earliness of the harvest (for early it
must be) is always a clear advantage. This fine summer,
though it may not lead to a good crop of turnips, has already
put safe into store such a crop of hay as I believe England
never saw before. Looking out of the window, I see the harness
of the Wiltshire wagon-horses (at this moment going by) covered
with the chalk-dust of that county; so that the fine weather
continues in the west. The saintfoin hay has all been got in,

Uxbridge 91

in the chalk countries, without a drop of wet; and when that is
the case, the farmers stand in no need of oats. The grass crops
have been large everywhere, as well as got in in good order.
The fallows must be in excellent order. It must be a sloven
indeed that will sow his wheat in foul ground next autumn;
and the sun, where the fallows have been well stirred, will have
done more to enrich the land than all the dung-carts and all
the other means employed by the hand of man. Such a summer
is a great blessing; and the only drawback is, the dismal
apprehension of not seeing such another for many years to come.
It is favourable for poultry, for colts, for calves, for lambs, for
young animals of all descriptions, not excepting the game. The
partridges will be very early. They are now getting into the
roads with their young ones, to roll in the dust. The first
broods of partridges in England are very frequently killed by
the wet and cold; and this is one reason why the game is not
so plenty here as it is in countries more blest with sun. This
will not be the case this year; and, in short, this is one of the
finest years that I ever knew.

WM. COBBETT.

FROM KENSINGTON TO UPHUSBAND

INCLUDING A RUSTIC HARANGUE AT WINCHESTER,
AT A DINNER WITH THE FARMERS, ON THE
28TH SEPTEMBER— 104 MILES

CHILWORTH, NEAR GUILDFORD, SURREY,
Wednesday, 2$th Sept. 1822.

THIS morning I set off, in rather a drizzling rain, from Ken-
sington, on horseback, accompanied by my son, with an inten-
tion of going to Uphusband, near Andover, which is situated
in the north-west corner of Hampshire. It is very true that
I could have gone to Uphusband by travelling only about
66 miles, and in the space of about eight hours. But my
object was, not to see inns and turnpike-roads, but to see the
country ; to see the farmers at home, and to see the labourers
in the fields; and to do this you must go either on foot or on
horseback. With a gig you cannot get about amongst bye-
lanes and across fields, through bridle-ways and hunting-gates;
and to tramp it is too slow, leaving the labour out of the question,
and that is not a trifle.

We went through the turnpike-gate at Kensington, and
immediately turned down the lane to our left, proceeded on
to Fulham, crossed Putney-bridge into Surrey, went over
Barnes Common, and then, going on the upper side of Rich-
mond, got again into Middlesex, by crossing Richmond-bridge.
All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millions
which it is continually sucking up from the rest of the kingdom;
and, though the Thames and its meadows now and then are
seen from the road, the country is not less ugly from Richmond
to Chertsey-bridge, through Twickenham, Hampton, Sunbury
and Sheperton, than it is elsewhere. The soil is a gravel at
bottom with a black loam at top near the Thames; further
back it is a sort of spewy gravel; and the buildings consist
generally of tax-eaters' showy, tea-garden-like boxes, and of
shabby dwellings of labouring people who, in this part of the
country, look to be about half Saint Giles's : dirty, and have
every appearance of drinking gin.

At Chertsey, where we came into Surrey again, there was

Kensington to Uphusband 93

a fair for horses, cattle and pigs. I did not see any sheep.
Everything was exceedingly dull. Cart colts, two and three
years old, were selling for less than a third of what they sold
for in 1813. The cattle were of an inferior description to be
sure; but the price was low almost beyond belief. Cows, which
would have sold for £15 in 1813, did not get buyers at £3. I
had no time to inquire much about the pigs, but a man told me
that they were dirt-cheap. Near Chertsey is Saint Anne's Hill
and some other pretty spots. Upon being shown this hill I was
put in mind of Mr. Fox; and that brought into my head a
grant that he obtained of Crown lands in this neighbourhood,
in, I think, 1806. The Duke of York obtained, by Act of
Parliament, a much larger grant of these lands, at Oatlands,
in 1804, I think it was. But this was natural enough; this is
what would surprise nobody. Mr. Fox's was another affair;
and especially when taken into view with what I am now going
to relate. In 1804 or 1805, Fordyce, the late Duchess of
Gordon's brother, was collector-general (or had been) of taxes
in Scotland, and owed a large arrear to the public. He was
also surveyor of Crown lands. The then Opposition were for
hauling him up. Pitt was again in power. Mr. Creevey was
to bring forward the motion in the House of Commons, and
Mr. Fox was to support it, and had actually spoken once or
twice, in a preliminary way, on the subject. Notice of the
motion was regularly given; it was put off from time to time,
and, at last, dropped, Mr. Fox declining to support it. I have
no books at hand; but the affair will be found recorded in
the Register. It was not owing to Mr. Creevey that the thing
did not come on. I remerrber well that it was owing to Mr.
Fox. Other motives were stated; and those others might be
the real motives; but, at any rate, the next year, or the year
after, Mr. Fox got transferred to him a part of that estate
which belongs to the public, and which was once so great,
called the Crown lands ; and of these lands Fordyce long had
been, and then was the surveyor. Such are the facts: let the
reader reason upon them and draw the conclusion.

This county of Surrey presents to the eye of the traveller
a greater contrast than any other county in England. It has
some of the very best and some of the worst lands, not only in
England, but in the world. We were here upon those of the
latter description. For five miles on the road towards Guild-
ford the land is a rascally common covered with poor heath,
except where the gravel is so near the top as not to surfer even

94 Rural Rides

the heath to grow. Here we entered the enclosed lands, which
have the gravel at bottom, but a nice light, black mould at top;
in which the trees grow very well. Through bye-lanes and
bridle-ways we came out into the London road, between Ripley
and Guildford, and immediately crossing that road, came on
towards a village called Merrow. We came out into the road
just mentioned, at the lodge-gates of a Mr. Weston, whose
mansion and estate have just passed (as to occupancy) into
the hands of some new man. At Merrow, where we came into
the Epsom road, we found that Mr. Webb Weston, whose
mansion and park are a little further on towards London, had
just walked out, and left it in possession of another new man.
This gentleman told us, last year, at the Epsom meeting, that
he was losing his income ; and I told him how it was that he
was losing it! He is said to be a very worthy man; very
much respected; a very good landlord; but, I dare say, he is
one of those who approved of yeomanry cavalry to keep down
the <; Jacobins and Levellers; " but who, in fact, as I always
told men of this description, have put down themselves and
their landlords; for without them this thing never could have
been done. To ascribe the whole to contrivance would be to
give to Pitt and his followers too much credit for profundity;
but, if the knaves who assembled at the Crown and Anchor in
the Strand, in 1793, to put down, by the means of prosecu-
tions and spies, those whom they called " Republicans and
Levellers; " if these knaves had said, " Let us go to work to
induce the owners and occupiers of the land to convey their
estates and their capital into our hands," and if the Govern-
ment had corresponded with them in views, the effect could not
have been more complete than it has, thus far, been. The
yeomanry actually, as to the effect, drew their swords to keep
the reformers at bay, while the tax-eaters were taking away
the estates and the capital. It was the sheep surrendering up
the dogs into the hands of the wolves.

Lord Onslow lives near Merrow. This is the man that was,
for many years, so famous as a driver of four-in-hand. He
used to be called Tommy Onslow. He has the character of
being a very good landlord. I know he called me " a d— — d
Jacobin" several years ago, only, I presume, because I was
labouring to preserve to him the means of still driving four-in-
hand, while he, and others like him, and their yeomanry cavalry,
were working as hard to defeat my wishes and endeavours.
They say here, that, some little time back, his lordship, who

Kensington to Uphusband 95

has, at any rate, had the courage to retrench in all sorts of ways,
was at Guildford in a gig with one horse, at the very moment
when Spicer, the stockbroker, who was a chairman of the
committee for prosecuting Lord Cochrane, and who lives at
Esher, came rattling in with four horses and a couple of out-
riders ! They relate an observation made by his lordship, which
may, or may not, be true, and which, therefore, I shall not
repeat. But, my lord, there is another sort of courage; courage
other than that of retrenching, that would become you in the
present emergency: I mean political courage, and especially
the courage of acknowledging your errors ; confessing that you
were wrong, when you called the reformers jacobins and levellers;
the courage of now joining them in their efforts to save their
country, to regain their freedom, and to preserve to you your
estate, which is to be preserved, you will observe, by no other
means than that of a reform of the Parliament. It is now
manifest, even to fools, that it has been by the instrumentality
of a base and fraudulent paper-money, that loan-jobbers, stock-
jobbers, and Jews have got the estates into their hands. With
what eagerness, in 1797, did the nobility, gentry and clergy
rush forward to give their sanction and their support to the
system which then began, and which has finally produced what
we now behold! They assembled in all the counties, and put
forth declarations, that they would take the paper of the bank,
and that they would support the system. Upon this occasion
the county of Surrey was the very first county; and, on the
list of signatures, the very first name was Onslow I There may
be sales and conveyances; there may be recoveries, deeds, and
other parchments; but this was the real transfer; this was the
real signing away of the estates.

To come to Chilworth, which lies on the south side of St.
Martha's Hill, most people would have gone along the level
road to Guildford, and come round through Shawford under the
hills; but we, having seen enough of streets and turnpikes,
took across over Merrow Down, where the Guildford race-
course is, and then mounted the " Surrey Hills," so famous for
the prospects they afford. Here we looked back over Middlesex,
and into Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, away towards the
north-west, into Essex and Kent towards the east, over part of
Sussex to the south, and over part of Hampshire to the west
and south-west. We are here upon a bed of chalk, where the
downs always afford good sheep food. We steered for St.
Martha's Chapel, and went round at the foot of the lofty hill

96 Rural Rides

on which it stands. This brought us down the side of a steep
hill, and along a bridle-way, into the narrow and exquisitely
beautiful vale of Chilworth, where we were to stop for the night.
This vale is skirted partly by woodlands and partly by sides of
hills tilled as corn fields. The land is excellent, particularly
towards the bottom. Even the arable fields are in some places,
towards their tops, nearly as steep as the roof of a tiled house;
and where the ground is covered with woods the ground is still
more steep. Down the middle of the vale there is a series of
ponds, or small lakes, which meet your eye, here and there,
through the trees. Here are some very fine farms, a little strip
of meadows, some hop-gardens, and the lakes have given rise
to the establishment of powder-mills and paper-mills. The
trees of all sorts grow well here; and coppices yield poles for
the hop-gardens and wood to make charcoal for the powder-
mills.

They are sowing wheat here, and the land, owing to the fine
summer that we have had, is in a very fine state. The rain, too,
which, yesterday, fell here in great abundance, has been just in
time to make a really good wheat-sowing season. The turnips
all the way that we have come, are good. Rather backward in
some places; but in sufficient quantity upon the ground, and
there is yet a good while for them to grow. All the fall fruit
is excellent, and in great abundance. The grapes are as good
as those raised under glass. The apples are much richer
than in ordinary years. The crop of hops has been very fine
here, as well as everywhere else. The crop not only large, but
good in quality. They expect to get six pounds a hundred for
them at Weyhill Fair. That is one more than I think they will
get. The best Sussex hops were selling in the borough of
Southwark at three pounds a hundred a few days before 1 left
London. The Farnham hops may bring double that price; but
that, I think, is as much as they will; and this is ruin to
the hop-planter. The tax, with its attendant inconveniences,
amount to a pound a hundred ; the picking, drying, and bagging
to 505. The carrying to market not less than 55. Here is the
sum of £3 105. of the money. Supposing the crop to be half a
ton to the acre, the bare tillage will be IDS. The poles for an
acre cannot cost less than £2 a year; that is another 45. to each
hundred of hops. This brings the outgoings to 825. Then
comes the manure, then come the poor-rates, and road-rates,
and county- rates; and if these leave one single farthing for rent
I think it is strange.

Kensington to Uphusband 97

I hear that Mr. Birkbeck is expected home from America!
It is said that he is coming to receive a large legacy; a thing
not to be overlooked by a person who lives in a country where
he can have land for nothing I The truth is, I believe, that there
has lately died a gentleman, who has bequeathed a part of his
property to pay the creditors of a relation of his who some years
ago became a bankrupt, and one of whose creditors Mr. Birk-
beck was. What the amount may be I know not; but I have
heard that the bankrupt had a partner at the time of the bank-
ruptcy; so that there must be a good deal of difficulty in settling
the matter in an equitable manner. The Chancery would drawl
it out (supposing the present system to continue) till, in all
human probability, there would not be as much left for Mr.
Birkbeck as would be required to pay his way back again to the
Land of Promise. I hope he is coming here to remain here.
He is a very clever man, though he has been very abusive and
very unjust with regard to me.

LEA, NEAR GODALMING, SURREY,

Thursday, 26 Sept.

We started from Chilworth this morning, came down the vale,
left the village of Shawford to our right, and that of Wonersh
to our left, and crossing the river Wey, got into the turnpike-
road between Guildford and Godalming, went on through
Godalming, and got to Lea, which lies to the north-east snugly
under Hind-Head, about n o'clock. This was coming only
about eight miles, a sort of rest after the 32 miles of the day
before. Coming along the road, a farmer overtook us, and as
he had known me from seeing me at the meeting at Epsom last
year, I had a part of my main business to perform, namely, to
talk politics. He was going to Haslemere Fair. Upon the
mention of that sink -hole of a borough, which sends, ' as
dearly as the sun at noonday " the celebrated Charles Long,
and the scarcely less celebrated Robert Ward, to the celebrated
House of Commons, we began to talk, as it were, spontaneously
about Lord Lonsdale and the Lowthers. The farmer wondered
why the Lowthers, that were the owners of so many farms,
should be for a system which was so manifestly taking away
the estates of the landlords and the capital of the farmers, and
giving them to Jews, loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers, placemen,
pensioners, sinecure people, and people of the " dead weight."
But his wonder ceased; his eyes were opened; and "his heart

9»

Rural Rides

seemed to burn within him as I talked to him on the way,"
when I explained to him the nature of Crown lands and " Crown
tenants," and when I described to him certain districts of
property in Westmoreland and other parts. I had not the
book in my pocket, but my memory furnished me with quite
a sufficiency of matter to make him perceive, that, in supporting
the present system, the Lowthers were by no means so foolish
as he appeared to think them. From the Lowthers I turned to
Mr. Poyntz, who lives at Midhurst in Sussex, and whose name
as a " Crown tenant " I find in a report lately laid before the
House of Commons, and the particulars of which I will state
another time for the information of the people of Sussex. I
used to wonder myself what made Mr. Poyntz call me a jacobin.
I used to think that Mr. Poyntz must be a fool to support the
present system. What I have seen in that report convinces
me that Mr. Poyntz is no fool, as far as relates to his own interest,
at any rate. There is a mine of wealth in these " Crown lands'*
Here are farms, and manors, and mines, and woods, and forests,
and houses, and streets, incalculable in value. What can
be so proper as to apply this public property towards the dis-
charge of a part, at least, of that public debt, which is hanging
round the neck of this nation like a mill-stone? Mr. Ricardo
proposes to seize upon a part of the private property of ever}7
man, to be given to the stock- jobbing race. At an act of
injustice like this the mind revolts. The foolishness of it,
besides, is calculated to shock one. But in the public property
we see the suitable thing. And who can possibly object to this,
except those who, amongst them, now divide the possession or
benefit of this property? I have once before mentioned, but 1
will repeat it, that Marlborough House in Pall Mall, for which
the Prince of Saxe Coburg pays a rent to the Duke of Marl-
borough of three thousand pounds a year, is rented of this
generous public by that most noble duke at the rate of less
than forty pounds a year. There are three houses in Pall Mall,
the whole of which pay a rent to the public of about fifteen
pounds a year, I think it is. I myself, twenty-two years ago,
paid three hundred pounds a year for one of them, to a man
that I thought was the owner of them; but I now find that
these houses belong to the public. The Duke of Buckingham's
house in Pall Mall, which is one of the grandest in all London ,
and which is not worth less than seven or eight hundred pounds
a year, belongs to the public. The duke is the tenant; and I
think he pays for it much less than twenty pounds a year. I

Kensington to Uphusband 99

speak from memory here all the way along; and therefore not
positively; I will, another time, state the particulars from the
books. The book that I am now referring to is also of a date
of some years back; but I will mention all the particulars
another time. Talk of reducing rents, indeed ! Talk of generous
landlords I It is the public that is the generous landlord. It
is the public that lets its houses and manors and mines and
farms at a cheap rate. It certainly would not be so good a
landlord if it had a reformed Parliament to manage its affairs,
nor would it suffer so many snug corporations to carry on their
snugglings in the manner that they do, and therefore it is
obviously the interest of the rich tenants of this poor public,
as well as the interest of the snugglers in corporations, to prevent
the poor public from having such a Parliament.

We got into free-quarter again at Lea; and there is nothing
like free-quarter, as soldiers well know. Lea is situated on
the edge of that immense heath which sweeps down from the
summit of Hind-Head, across to the north over innumerable
hills of minor altitude and of an infinite variety of shapes
towards Farnham, to the north-east, towards the Hog's Back,
leading from Farnham to Guildford, and to the east, or nearly
so, towards Godalming. Nevertheless, the inclosed lands at
Lea are very good and singularly beautiful. The timber of all
sorts grows well; the land is light, and being free from stones,
very pleasant to work. If you go southward from Lea about
a mile you get down into what is called, in the old Acts of
Parliament, the Weald of Surrey. Here the land is a stiff
tenacious loam at top with blue and yellow clay beneath. This
weald continues on eastward, and gets into Sussex near East
Grinstead: thence it winds about under the hills, into Kent.
Here the oak grows finer than in any part of England. The
trees are more spiral in their form. They grow much faster
than upon any other land. Yet the timber must be better;
for, in some of the Acts of Queen Elizabeth's reign, it is provided
that the oak for the royal navy shall come out of the Wealds
of Surrey, Sussex, or Kent.

ODIHAM, HAMPSHIRE,
Friday, 27 Sept.

From Lea we set off this morning about six o'clock to get
free-quarter again at a worthy old friend's at this nice little
plain market-town. Our direct road was right over the heath
through Tilford to Farnham; but we veered a little to the left

ioo Rural Rides

after we came to Tilford, at which place on the green we stopped
to look at an oak tree, which, when I was a little boy, was but
a very little tree, comparatively, and which is now, take it
altogether, by far the finest tree that I ever saw in my life. The
stem or shaft is short; that is to say, it is short before you come
to the first limbs; but it is full thirty feet round, at about eight
or ten feet from the ground. Out of the stem there come not
less than fifteen or sixteen limbs, many of which are from five
to ten feet round, and each of which would, in fact, be considered
a decent stick of timber. I am not judge enough of timber to
say anything about the quantity in the whole tree, but my son
stepped the ground, and as nearly as we could judge, the dia-
meter of the extent of the branches was upwards of ninety feet,
which would make a circumference of about three hundred feet.
The tree is in full growth at this moment. There is a little hole
in one of the limbs; but with that exception, there appears not
the smallest sign of decay. The tree has made great shoots in
all parts of it this last summer and spring; and there are no
appearances of white upon the trunk, such as are regarded as
the symptoms of full growth. There are many sorts of oak in
England; two very distinct; one with a pale leaf, and one with
a dark leaf: this is of the pale leaf. The tree stands upon
Tilford-green, the soil of which is a light loam with a hard sand
stone a good way beneath, and, probably, clay beneath that.
The spot where the tree stands is about a hundred and twenty
feet from the edge of a little river, and the ground on which it
stands may be about ten feet higher than the bed of that river.
In quitting Tilford we came on to the land belonging to
Waverly Abbey, and then, instead of going on to the town of
Farnham, veered away to the left towards Wrecklesham, in
order to cross the Farnham and Alton turnpike-road, and to
come on by the side of Crondall to Odiham. We went a little
out of the way to go to a place called the Bourn, which lies in
the heath at about a mile from Farnham. It is a winding
narrow valley, down which, during the wet season of the year,
there runs a stream beginning at the Holt Forest, and emptying
itself into the Wey just below Moor-Park, which was the seat
of Sir William Temple when Swift was residing with him. We
went to this bourn in order that I might show my son the spot
where I received the rudiments of my education. There is a
little hop-garden in which I used to work when from eight to
ten years old; from which I have scores of times run to follow
the hounds, leaving the hoe to do the best it could to destroy

Kensington to Uphusband 101

the weeds; but the most interesting thing was a sand-hill,
which goes from a part of the heath down to the rivulet. As a
due mixture of pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used
occasionally to desport ourselves, as the lawyers call it, at this
sand-hill. Our diversion was this: we used to go to the top
of the hill, which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used
to draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and
lay himself down with his arms by his sides; and then the
others, one at head and the other at feet, sent him rolling
down the hill like a barrel or a log of wood. By the time he
got to the bottom, his hair, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were
all full of this loose sand; then the others took their turn, and
at every roll there was a monstrous spell of laughter. I had
often told my sons of this while they were very little, and I
now took one of them to see the spot. But that was not all.
This was the spot where I was receiving my education ; and this
was the sort of education; and I am perfectly satisfied that if
I had not received such an education, or something very much
like it; that, if I had been brought up a milksop, with a nursery-
maid everlastingly at my heels, I should have been at this day
as great a fool, as inefficient a mortal, as any of those frivolous
idiots that are turned out from Winchester and Westminster
School, or from any of those dens of dunces called colleges and
universities. It is impossible to say how much I owe to that
sand-hill; and I went to return it my thanks for the ability
which it probably gave me to be one of the greatest terrors, to
one of the greatest and most powerful bodies of knaves and fools
that ever were permitted to afflict this or any other country.

From the Bourn we proceeded on to Wrecklesham, at the
end of which we crossed what is called the river Wey. Here
we found a parcel of labourers at parish-work. Amongst them
was an old playmate of mine. The account they gave of their
situation was very dismal. The harvest was over early. The
hop-picking is now over; and now they are employed by the
parish ; that is to say, not absolutely digging holes one day and
filling them up the next; but at the expense of half-ruined
farmers and tradesmen and landlords, to break stones into very
small pieces to make nice smooth roads lest the jolting, in going
along them, should create bile in the stomach of the over-
fed tax-eaters. I call upon mankind to witness this scene;
and to say, whether ever the like of this was heard of before.
It is a state of things, where all is out of order; where self-
preservation, that great law of nature, seems to be set at

102 Rural Rides

defiance; for here are farmers unable to pay men for working for
them, and yet compelled to pay them for working in doing that
which is really of no use to any human being. There lie the
hop-poles unstripped. You see a hundred things in the neigh-
bouring fields that want doing. The fences are not nearly what
they ought to be. The very meadows, to our right and our left
in crossing this little valley, would occupy these men advan-
tageously until the setting in of the frost; and here are they,
not, as I said before, actually digging holes one day and filling
them up the next; but, to all intents and purposes, as uselessly
employed. Is this Mr. Canning's " Sun of Prosperity ? ': Is
this the way to increase or preserve a nation's wealth ? Is this
a sign of wise legislation and. of good government? Does this
thing " work well," Mr. Canning? Does it prove that we want
no change? True, you were born under a kingly government;
and so was I as well as you; but I was not born under
Six- Acts ; nor was I born under a state of things like this. I
was not born under it, and I do not wish to live under it; and,
with God's help, I will change it if I can.

We left these poor fellows, after having given them, not
' religious tracts," which would, if they could, make the labourer
content with half starvation, but something to get them some
bread and cheese and beer, being firmly convinced that it is
the body that wants filling and not the mind. However, in
speaking of their low wages, I told them that the farmers and
hop-planters were as much objects of compassion as themselves,
which they acknowledged.

We immediately, after this, crossed the road, and went on
towards Crondall upon a soil that soon became stiff loam and
flint at top with a bed of chalk beneath. We did not go to
Crondall; but kept along over Slade Heath, and through a very
pretty place called Well. We arrived at Odiham about half
after eleven, at the end of a beautiful ride of about seventeen
miles, in a very fine and pleasant day.

WINCHESTER,

Saturday, 28th September.

Just after day-light we started for this place. By the turn-
pike we could have come through Basingstoke by turning off
to the right, or through Alton and Alresford by turning off
to the left. Being naturally disposed towards a middle course,
we chose to wind down through Upton-Gray, Preston-Candover,
Chilton-Candover, Brown-Candover, then down to Ovington,

Kensington to Uphusband 103

and into Winchester bv the north entrance. From Wrecklesham

to Winchester we have come over roads and lanes of flint and
chalk. The weather being dry again, the ground under you,
as solid as iron, makes a great rattling with the horses' feet.
The country where the soil is stiff loam upon chalk, is never
bad for corn. Not rich, but never poor. There is at no time
anything deserving to be called dirt in the roads. The buildings
last a long time, from the absence of fogs and also the absence
of humidity in the ground. The absence of dirt makes the
people habitually cleanly; and all along through this country
the people appear in general to be very neat. It is a country
for sheep, which are always sound and good upon this iron soil.
The trees grow well, where there are trees. The woods and
coppices are not numerous; but they are good, particularly
the ash, which always grows well upon the chalk. The oaks,
though they do not grow in the spiral form, as upon the clays,
are by no means stunted; and some of them very fine trees;
I take it, that they require a much greater number of years to
bring them to perfection than in the Wealds. The wood,
perhaps, may be harder; but I have heard that the oak, which
grows upon these hard bottoms, is very frequently what the
carpenters call shaky. The underwoods here consist, almost
entirely, of hazel, which is very fine, and much tougher and
more durable than that which grows on soils with a moist
bottom. This hazel is a thing of great utility here. It furnishes
rods wherewith to make fences; but its principal use is to make
wattles for the folding of sheep in the fields. These things are
made much more neatly here than in the south of Hampshire
and in Sussex, or in any other part that I have seen. Chalk is
the favourite soil of the yew-tree ; and at Preston-Candover
there is an avenue of yew-trees, probably a mile long, each tree
containing, as nearly as I can guess, from twelve to twenty feet
of timber, which, as the reader knows, implies a tree of consider-
able size. They have probably been a century or two in grow-
ing; but, in any way that timber can be used, the timber of the
yew will last, perhaps, ten times as long as the timber of any
other tree that we grow in England.

Quitting the Candovers, we came along between the two
estates of the two Barings. Sir Thomas, who has supplanted
the Duke of Bedford, was to our right, while Alexander, who
has supplanted Lord Northington, was on our left. The latter
has enclosed, as a sort of outwork to his park, a pretty little
down called Northington Down, in which he has planted, here

104 Rural Rides

and there, a clump of trees. But Mr. Baring, not reflecting
that woods are not like funds, to be made at a heat, has planted
his trees too large ; so that they are covered with moss, are dying
at the top, and are literally growing downward instead of up-
ward. In short, this enclosure and plantation have totally
destroyed the beauty of this part of the estate. The down,
which was before very beautiful, and formed a sort of glacis up
to the park pales, is now a marred, ragged, ugly-looking thing.
The dying trees, which have been planted long enough for you
not to perceive that they have been planted, excite the idea
of sterility in the soil. They do injustice to it; for, as a down,
it was excellent. Everything that has been done here is to the
injury of the estate, and discovers a most shocking want of
taste in the projector. Sir Thomas's plantations, or, rather
those of his father, have been managed more judiciously.

I do not like to be a sort of spy in a man's neighbourhood;
but I will tell Sir Thomas Baring what I have heard; and if he
be a man of sense I shall have his thanks, rather than his re-
proaches, for so doing. I may have been misinformed; but
this is what I have heard, that he and also Lady Baring are
very charitable; that they are very kind and compassionate
to their poor neighbours; but that they tack a sort of condition
to this charity; that they insist upon the objects of it adopting
their notions with regard to religion; or, at least, that where
the people are not what they deem pious, they are not objects
of their benevolence. I do not say that they are not perfectly
sincere themselves, and that their wishes are not the best that
can possibly be; but of this I am very certain, that, by pursuing
this principle of action, where they make one good man or
woman, they will make one hundred hypocrites. It is not little
books that can make a people good ; that can make them moral ;
that can restrain them from committing crimes. I believe that
books of any sort, never yet had that tendency. Sir Thomas
does, I dare say, think me a very wicked man, since I aim at the
destruction of the funding system, and what he would call a
robbery of what he calls the public creditor; and yet, God help
me, I have read books enough, and amongst the rest, a great
part of the religious tracts. Amongst the labouring people,
the first thing you have to look after is, common honesty, speaking
the truth, and refraining from thieving; and to secure these, the
labourer must have his belly-full and be free from fear ; and this
belly-full must come to him from out of his wages, and not
from benevolence of any description. Such being my opinion, I

Kensington to Uphusband 105

think Sir Thomas Baring would do better, that he would dis-
cover more real benevolence, by using the influence which he
must naturally have in his neighbourhood, to prevent a diminu-
tion in the wages of labour.

WINCHESTER,
Sunday morning, 29 Sept.

Yesterday was market-day here. Everything cheap and falling
instead of rising. If it were over-production last year that
produced the distress, when are our miseries to have an end ! They
will end when these men cease to have sway, and not before.

I had not been in Winchester long before I heard something
very interesting about the manifesto concerning the poor, which
was lately issued here, and upon which I remarked in my last
Register but one, in my letter to Sir Thomas Baring. Pro-
ceeding upon the true military principle, I looked out for free
quarter, which the reader will naturally think difficult for me
to find in a town containing a cathedral. Having done this,
I went to the Swan Inn to dine with the farmers. This is the
manner that I like best of doing the thing. Six-Acts do not,
to be sure, prevent us from dining together. They do not
authorise justices of the peace to kill us, because we meet to
dine without their permission. But I do not like dinner-
meetings on my account. I like much better to go and fall in
with the lads of the land, or with anybody else, at their own
places of resort; and I am going to place myself down at Up-
husband, in excellent free-quarter, in the midst of all the great
fairs of the west, in order, before the winter campaign begins,
that I may see as many farmers as possible, and that they may
hear my opinions, and I theirs. I shall be at Weyhill Fair on
the loth of October, and, perhaps, on some of the succeeding
days ; and, on one or more of those days, I intend to dine at the
White Hart, at Andover. What other fairs or places I shall go
to I shall notify hereafter. And this I think the frankest and
fairest way. I wish to see many people, and to talk to them:
and there are a great many people who wish to see and to talk
to me. WThat better reason can be given for a man's going
about the country and dining at fairs and markets?

At the dinner at Winchester we had a good number of opulent
yeomen, and many gentlemen joined us after the dinner. The
state of the country was well talked over; and, during the
session (much more sensible than some other sessions that I have
had to remark on), I made the following

io6 Rural Rides

RUSTIC HARANGUE

GENTLEMEN, — Though many here are, I am sure, glad to see
me, I am not vain enough to suppose that anything other than
that of wishing to hear my opinions on the prospects before us
can have induced many to choose to be here to dine with me
to-day. I shall, before I sit down, propose to you a toast, which
you will drink, or not, as you choose; but, I shall state one
particular wish in that shape, that it may be the more distinctly
understood, and the better remembered.

The wish to which I allude relates to the tithes. Under that
word I mean to speak of all that mass of wealth which is vulgarly
called church property ; but which is, in fact, public property,
and may, of course, be disposed of as the Parliament shall please.
There appears at this moment an uncommon degree of anxiety
on the part of the parsons to see the farmers enabled to pay
rents. The business of the parsons being only with tithes, one
naturally, at first sight, wonders why they should care so much
about rents. The fact is this; they see clearly enough, that the
landlords will never long go without rents, and suffer them to
enjoy the tithes. They see, too, that there must be a struggle
between the land and the funds : they see that there is such
a struggle. They see, that it is the taxes that are taking away
the rent of the landlord and the capital of the farmer. Yet
the parsons are afraid to see the taxes reduced. Why? Be-
cause, if the taxes be reduced in any great degree (and nothing
short of a great degree will give relief), they see that the interest
of the debt cannot be paid; and they know well, that the
interest of the debt can never be reduced, until their tithes
have been reduced. Thus, then, they find themselves in a great
difficulty. They wish the taxes to be kept up and rents to be
paid too. Both cannot be, unless some means or other be found
out of putting into, or keeping in, the farmer's pocket, money
that is not now there.

The scheme that appears to have been fallen upon for this
purpose is the strangest in the world, and it must, if attempted
to be put into execution, produce something little short of open
and general commotion; namely, that of reducing the wages
of labour to a mark so low as to make the labourer a walking
skeleton. Before I proceed further, it is right that I communi-
cate to you an explanation, which, not an hour ago, I received
from Mr. Poulter, relative to the manifesto lately issued in this

Kensington to Uphusband 107

town by a bench of magistrates of which that gentleman
was chairman. I have not the honour to be personally ac-
quainted with Mr. Poulter, but certainly, if I had misunderstood
the manifesto, it was right that I should be, if possible, made
to understand it. Mr. Poulter, in company with another gentle-
man, came to me in this inn, and said, that the bench did not
mean that their resolutions should have the effect of lowering
the wages ; and that the sums, stated in the paper, were sums
to be given in the way of relief. We had not the paper before
us, and, as the paper contained a good deal about relief, I, in
recollection, confounded the two, and said, that I had under-
stood the paper agreeably to the explanation. But, upon
looking at the paper again, I see that, as to the words, there
was a clear recommendation to make the wages what is there
stated. However, seeing that the chairman himself disavows
this, we must conclude that the bench put forth words not
expressing their meaning. To this I must add, as connected
with the manifesto, that it is stated in that document, that such
and such justices were present, and a large and respectable
number of yeomen who had been invited to attend. Now,
gentlemen, I was, I must confess, struck with this addition
to the bench. These gentlemen have not been accustomed to
treat farmers with so much attention. It seemed odd that
they should want a set of farmers to be present, to give a sort
of sanction to their acts. Since my arrival in Winchester, I
have found, however, that having them present was not all;
for that the names of some of these yeomen were actually
inserted in the manuscript of the manifesto, and that those
names were expunged at the request of the parties named. This
is a very singular proceeding, then, altogether. It presents to
us a strong picture of the diffidence, or modesty (call it which
you please) of the justices; and it shows us, that the yeomen
present did not like to have their names standing as giving
sanction to the resolutions contained in the manifesto. Indeed,
they knew well, that those resolutions never could be acted
upon. They knew that they could not live in safety even in
the same village with labourers, paid at the rate of 3, 4, and
5 shillings a week.

To return, now, gentlemen, to the scheme for squeezing rents
out of the bones of the labourer, is it not, upon the face of it,
most monstrously absurd, that this scheme should be resorted
to, when the plain and easy and just way of insuring rents must
present itself to every eye, and can be pursued by the Parliament

io8 Rural Rides

whenever it choose? We hear loud outcries against the poor-
rates; the enormous poor-rates; the all-devouring poor-rates;
but what are the facts? Why, that, in Great Britain, six
millions are paid in poor-rates; seven millions (or thereabouts)
in tithes, and sixty millions to the fund-people, the army, place-
men, and the rest. And yet, nothing of all this seems to be
thought of but the six millions. Surely the other and so much
larger sums ought to be thought of. Even the six millions are,
for the far greater part, wages and not poor-rates. And yet all
this outcry is made about these six millions, while not a word
is said about the other sixty-seven millions.

Gentlemen, to enumerate all the ways in which the public
money is spent would take me a week. I will mention two
classes of persons who are receivers of taxes; and you will then
see with what reason it is that this outcry is set up against the
poor-rates and against the amount of wages. There is a thing
called the Dead Weight. Incredible as it may seem that such
a vulgar appellation should be used in such a way and by such
persons, it is a fact that the ministers have laid before the
Parliament an account, called the account of the Dead Weight.
This account tells how five millions three hundred thousand
pounds are distributed annually amongst half-pay officers,
pensioners, retired commissaries, clerks, and so forth, employed
during the last war. If there were nothing more entailed upon
us by that war, this is pretty smart-money. Now unjust,
unnecessary as that war was, detestable as it was in all its
principles and objects, still, to every man, who really did fight,
or who performed a soldier's duty abroad, I would give some-
thing : he should not be left destitute. But, gentlemen, is it
right for the nation to keep on paying for life crowds of young
fellows such as make up the greater part of this dead weight ?
This is not all, however, for, there are the widows and the
children who have, and are to have, pensions too. You seem
surprised, and well you may; but this is the fact. A young
fellow who has a pension for life, aye, or an old fellow either,
will easily get a wife to enjoy it with him, and he will, I'll warrant
him, take care that she shall not be old. So that here is abso-
lutely a premium for entering into the holy state of matrimony.
The husband, you will perceive, cannot prevent the wife from
having the pension after his death. She is our widow, in this
respect, not his. She marries, in fact, with a jointure settled
on her. The more children the husband leaves the better for
the widow; for each child has a pension for a certain number

Kensington to Uphusband 109

of years. The man who, under such circumstances, does not
marry, must be a woman-hater. An old man actually going
into the grave may, by the mere ceremony of marriage, give any
woman a pension for life. Even the widows and children of
insane officers are not excluded. If an officer, now insane, but
at large, were to marry, there is nothing as the thing now stands
to prevent his widow and children from having pensions. Were
such things as these ever before heard of in the world? Were
such premiums ever before given for breeding gentlemen and
ladies, and that, too, while all sorts of projects are on foot to
check the breeding of the labouring classes? Can such a thing
go on ? I say it cannot; and, if it could, it must inevitably
render this country the most contemptible upon the face of the
earth. And yet, not a word of complaint is heard about these
five millions and a quarter, expended in this way, while the
country rings, fairly resounds, with the outcry about the six
millions that are given to the labourers in the shape of poor-
rates, but which, in fact, go, for the greater part, to pay what
ought to be called wages. Unless, then, we speak out here;
unless we call for redress here; unless we here seek relief, we
shall not only be totally ruined, but we shall deserve it.

The other class of persons, to whom I have alluded, as having
taxes bestowed on them, are the poor clergy. Not of the church
as by law established, to be sure, you will say ! Yes, gentlemen,
even to the poor clergy of the Established Church. We know
well how rich that church is; we know well how many millions
it annually receives; we know how opulent are the bishops, how
rich they die; how rich, in short, a body it is. And yet fifteen
hundred thousand pounds have, within the same number of years,
been given, out of the taxes, partly raised on the labourers, for
the relief of the poor clergy of that Church, while it is notorious
that the livings are given in numerous cases by twos and threes
to the same person, and while a clamour, enough to make the
sky ring, is made about what is given in the shape of relief to the
labouring classes ! Why, gentlemen, what do we want more
than this one fact? Does not this one fact sufficiently charac-
terise the system under which we live? Does not this prove
that a change, a great change, is wanted? Would it not be
more natural to propose to get this money back from the Church,
than to squeeze so much out of the bones of the labourers?
This the Parliament can do if it pleases; and this it will do, if
you do your duty.

Passing over several other topics, let me, gentlemen, now

1 10 Rural Rides

come to what, at the present moment, most nearly affects you;
namely, the prospect as to prices. In the first place, this depends
upon whether Peel's Bill will be repealed. As this depends a
good deal upon the ministers, and as I am convinced that they
know no more what to do in the present emergency than the
little boys and girls that are running up and down the street
before this house, it is impossible for me, or for any one,
to say what will be done in this respect. But, my opinion is
decided, that the Bill will not be repealed. The ministers see
that, if they were now to go back to the paper, it would not be
the paper of 1819; but a paper never to be redeemed by gold;
that it would be assignats to all intents and purposes. That
must of necessity cause the complete overthrow of the Govern-
ment in a very short time. If, therefore, the ministers see the
thing in this light, it is impossible that they should think of a
repeal of Peel's Bill. There appeared, last winter, a strong dis-
position to repeal the Bill; and I verily believe that a repeal
in effect, though not in name, was actually in contemplation.
A Bill was brought in which was described beforehand as in-
tended to prolong the issue of small notes, and also to prolong
the time for making Bank of England notes a legal tender.
This would have been a repealing of Peel's Bill in great part.
The Bill, when brought in, and when passed, as it finally was,
contained no clause relative to legal tender; and without that
clause it was perfectly nugatory. Let me explain to you,
gentlemen, what this Bill really is. In the seventeenth year of
the late king's reign, an Act was passed for a time limited, to
prevent the issue of notes payable to bearer on demand, for any
sums less than five pounds. In the twenty-seventh year of the
late king's reign, this Act was made perpetual ; and the preamble
of the Act sets forth, that it is made perpetual, because the
preventing of small notes being made has been proved to be for the
good of the nation. Nevertheless, in just ten years afterwards;
that is to say, in the year one thousand seven hundred and
ninety-seven, when the bank stopped payment, this salutary
Act was suspended ; indeed, it was absolutely necessary, for
there was no gold to pay with. It continued suspended, until
1819, when Mr. Peel's Bill was passed, when a Bill was passed
to suspend it still further, until the year 1825. You will ob-
serve, then, that last winter there were yet three years to come,
during which the banks might make small notes if they would.
Yet this new Bill was passed last winter to authorise them to
make small notes until the year 1833. The measure was wholly

Kensington to Uphusband 1 1 i

uncalled for. It appeared to be altogether unnecessary; but,
as I have just said, the intention was to introduce into this Bill
a clause to continue the legal tender until 1833; and that would,
indeed, have made a great alteration in the state of things; and,
if extended to the Bank of England, would have been, in effect,
a complete repeal of Peel's Bill.

It was fully expected by the country bankers, that the legal
tender clause would have been inserted; but, before it came to
the trial, the ministers gave way, and the clause was not inserted.
The reason for their giving way, I do verily believe, had its
principal foundation in their perceiving, that the public would
clearly see that such a measure would make the paper-money
merely assignats. The legal tender not having been enacted,
the Small-note Bill can do nothing towards augmenting the
quantity of circulating medium. As the law now stands, Bank
of England notes are, in effect, a legal tender. If I owe a debt of
twenty pounds, and tender Bank of England notes in payment,
the law says that you shall not arrest me; that you may bring
your action, if you like; that I may pay the notes into court;
that you may go on with your action; that you shall pay all
the costs, and I none. At last you gain your action; you
obtain judgment and execution, or whatever else the everlasting
law allows of. And what have you got then ? Why the notes ;
the same identical notes the sheriff will bring you. You will
not take them. Go to law with the sheriff then. He pays the
notes into court. More costs for you to pay. And thus you go
on ; but without ever touching or seeing gold !

Now, gentlemen, Peel's Bill puts an end to all this pretty
work on the first day of next May. If you have a handful of
a country banker's rags now, and go to him for payment, he
will tender you Bank of England notes; and if you like the
paying of costs you may go to law for gold. But when the first
of next May comes, he must put gold into your hands in exchange
for your notes, if you choose it; or you may clap a bailiff's hand
upon his shoulder; and if he choose to pay into court, he must
pay in gold, and pay your costs also as far as you have gone.

This makes a strange alteration in the thing! And every-
body must see that the Bank of England and the country
bankers — that all, in short, are preparing for the first of May.
It is clear that there must be a farther diminution of the paper-
money. It is hard to say the precise degree of effect that this
will have upon prices; but that it must bring them down is
clear; and, for my own part, I am fully persuaded, that they

i i 2 Rural Rides

will come down to the standard of prices in France, be those
prices what they may. This, indeed, was acknowledged by
Mr. Huskisson in the Agricultural Report of 1821. That two
countries so near together, both having gold as a currency or
standard, should differ very widely from each other, in the
prices of farm-produce, is next to impossible; and therefore,
when our legal tender shall be completely done away, to the
prices of France you must come; and those prices cannot, I
think, in the present state of Europe, much exceed three or
four shillings a bushel for good wheat.

You know, as well as I do, that it is impossible, with the
present taxes and rates and tithes, to pay any rent at all with
prices upon that scale. Let loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers, Jews,
and the whole tribe of tax-eaters say what they will, you know
that it is impossible, as you also know it would be cruelly unjust
to wring from the labourer the means of paying rent, while
those taxes and tithes remain. Something must be taken off.
The labourers wages have already been reduced as low as
possible. All public pay and salaries ought to be reduced;
and the tithes also ought to be reduced, as they might be to a
greal amount without any injury to religion. The interest of
the debt ought to be largely reduced; but, as none of the
others can, with any show of justice, take place, without a
reduction of the tithes, and as I am for confining myself to one
object at present, I will give you as a toast, leaving you to
drink it or not as you please, A large Reduction of Tithes.

Somebody proposed to drink this toast with three times three,
which was accordingly done, and the sound might have been
heard down to the close. — Upon some gentleman giving my
health, I took occasion to remind the company, that, the last
time I was at Winchester we had the memorable fight with
Lockhart " the Brave ' and his sable friends. I reminded
them that it was in that same room that I told them, that it
would not be long before Mr. Lockhart and those sable gentle-
men would become enlightened; and I observed that, if we
were to judge from a man's language, there was not a land-
owner in England that more keenly felt than Mr. Lockhart the
truth of those predictions which I had put forth at the castle
on the day alluded to. I reminded the company that I sailed
for America in a few days after that meeting; that they must
be well aware that, on the day of the meeting, I knew that I
was taking leave of the country, but, I observed, that I had not

Kensington to Uphusband 113

been in the least depressed by that circumstance; because I
relied, with perfect confidence, on being in this same place again
to enjoy, as I now did, a triumph over my adversaries.

After this, Mr. Hector gave a Constitutional Reform in the
Commons' House of Parliament, which was drunk with great
enthusiasm; and Mr. Hector's health having been given, he,
in returning thanks, urged his brother yeomen and freeholders
to do their duty by coming forward in county meeting and
giving their support to those noblemen and gentlemen that were
willing to stand forward for a reform and for a reduction of
taxation. I held forth to them the example of the county of
Kent, which had done itself so much honour by its conduct last
spring. What these gentlemen in Hampshire will do, it is not
for me to say. If nothing be done by them, they will certainly
be ruined, and that ruin they will certainly deserve. It was to
the farmers that the Government owed its strength to carry on
the war. Having them with it, in consequence of a false and
bloated prosperity, it cared not a straw for anybody else. If
they, therefore, now do their duty; if they all, like the yeomen
and farmers of Kent, come boldly forward, everything will be
done necessary to preserve themselves and their country; and
if they do not come forward, they will, as men of property, be
swept from the face of the earth. The noblemen and gentlemen
who are in Parliament, and who are disposed to adopt measures
of effectual relief, cannot move with any hope of success unless
backed by the yeomen and farmers, and the middling classes
throughout the country generally. I do not mean to confine
myself to yeomen and farmers, but to take in all tradesmen
and men of property. With these at their back, or rather, at
the back of these, there are men enough in both Houses of
Parliament to propose and to urge measures suitable to the
exigency of the case. But without the middling classes to take
the lead, those noblemen and gentlemen can do nothing. Even
the ministers themselves, if they were so disposed (and they
must be so disposed at last) could make none of the reforms
that are necessary, without being actually urged on by the middle
classes of the community. This is a very important considera-
tion. A new man, as minister, might indeed propose the reforms
himself; but these men, opposition as well as ministry, are so
pledged to the things that have brought all this ruin upon the
country, that they absolutely stand in need of an overpowering
call from the people to justify them in doing that which they
themselves may think just, and which they may know to be
£638

1 14 Rural Rides

necessary for the salvation of the country. They dare not
take the lead in the necessary reforms. It is too much to be
expected of any men upon the face of the earth, pledged and
situated as these ministers are; and therefore, unless the people
will do their duty, they will have themselves, and only them-
selves, to thank for their ruin, and for that load of disgrace, and
for that insignificance worse than disgrace which seems, after
so many years of renown, to be attaching themselves to the
name of England,

UPHUSBAND,
Sunday Evening, 29 Sept. 1822.

We came along the turnpike-road, through Wherwell and
Andover, and got to this place about 2 o'clock. This country,
except at the village and town just mentioned, is very open,
a thinnish soil upon a bed of chalk. Between Winchester and
Wherwell we came by some hundreds of acres of ground that
was formerly most beautiful down, which was broken up in
dear-corn times, and which is now a district of thistles and other
weeds. If I had such land as this I would soon make it down
again. I would for once (that is to say if I had the money) get
it quite clean, prepare it as for sowing turnips, get the turnips
if possible, feed them off early, or plough the ground if I got
no turnips; sow thick with saintfoin and meadow-grass seeds
of all sorts, early in September; let the crop stand till the next
July; feed it then slenderly with sheep, and dig up all thistles
and rank weeds that might appear; keep feeding it, but not too
close, during the summer and the fall; and ke p on feeding it
for ever after as a down. The saintfoin itself would last for
many years; and as it disappeared, its place would be supplied
by the grass; that sort which was most congenial to the soil,
would at last stifle all other sorts, and the land would become
a valuable down as formerly.

I see that some plantations of ash and of hazel have been
made along here; but, with great submission to the planters,
I think they have gone the wrong way to work, as to the mode
of preparing the ground. They have planted small trees, and
that is right; they have trenched the ground, and that is also
right; but they have brought the bottom soil to the top; and
that is wrong, always; and especially where the bottom soil is
gravel or chalk, or clay. I know that some people will say that
this is a puff ; and let it pass tor that; but if any gentleman
that is going to plant trees, will look into my Book on Gardening,

Kensington to Uphusband 115

and into the chapter on Preparing the Soil, he will, I think, see
how conveniently ground may be trenched without bringing to
the top that soil in which the young trees stand so long without
making shoots.

This country, though so open, has its beauties. The home-
steads in the sheltered bottoms with fine lofty trees about the
houses and yards, form a beautiful contrast with the large open
fields. The little villages, running straggling along the dells
(always with lofty trees and rookeries) are very interesting
objects, even in the winter. You feel a sort of satisfaction,
when you are out upon the bleak hills yourself, at the thought
of the shelter, which is experienced in the dwellings in the
valleys.

Andover is a neat and solid market-town. It is supported
entirely by the agriculture around it; and how the makers of
population returns ever came to think of classing the inhabitants
of such a town as this under any other head than that of " persons
employed in agriculture" would appear astonishing to any man
who did not know those population return makers as well as
I do.

The village of Uphusband, the legal name of which is Hurst-
bourn Tarrant, is, as the reader will recollect, a great favourite
with me, not the less so certainly on account of the excellent
free-quarter that it affords.

THROUGH HAMPSHIRE, BERKSHIRE, SURREY, AND
SUSSEX, BETWEEN JTH OCTOBER AND IST
DECEMBER 1822—327 MILES

7 to 10 October, 1822.

AT Uphusband, a little village in a deep dale, about five
miles to the north of Andover, and about three miles to the
south of the hills at Highdere. The wheat is sown here, and up,
and, as usual, at this time of the year, looks very beautiful.
The wages of the labourers brought down to six shillings a week I
a horrible thing to think of; but, I hear, it is still worse in Wilt-
shire.

1 1 October.

Went to Weyhill-fair, at which I was about 46 years ago,
when I rode a little pony, and remember how proud I was on
the occasion; but, I also remember, that my brothers, two out
of three of whom were older than I, thought it unfair that my
father selected me; and my own reflections upon the occasion
have never been forgotten by me. The nth of October is the
Sheep-fair. About £300,000 used, some few years ago, to be
carried home by the sheep-sellers. To-day, less, perhaps, than
£70,000, and yet the rents of these sheep-sellers are, perhaps, as
high, on an average, as they were then. The countenances of
the farmers were descriptive of their ruinous state. I never,
in all my life, beheld a more mournful scene. There is a horse-
fair upon another part of the down; and there I saw horses
keeping pace in depression with the sheep. A pretty numerous
group of the tax-eaters, from Andover and the neighbourhood,
were the only persons that had smiles on their faces. I was
struck with a young farmer trotting a horse backward and
forward to show him off to a couple of gentlemen, who were
bargaining for the horse, and one of whom finally purchased him.
These gentlemen were two of our " dead-weight" and the horse
was that on which the farmer had pranced in the Yeomanry
Troop I Here is a turn of things! Distress; pressing distress;
dread of the bailiffs alone could have made the farmer sell his
horse. If he had the firmness to keep the tears out of his eyes,
his heart must have paid the penalty. What, then, must have

116

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 1 17

been his feelings, if he reflected, as I did, that the purchase-
money for the horse had first gone from his pocket into that
of the dead-weight I And, further, that the horse had pranced
about for years for the purpose of subduing all opposition to
those very measures, which had finally dismounted the owner!

From this dismal scene, a scene formerly so joyous, we set off
back to Uphusband pretty early, were overtaken by the rain,
and got a pretty good soaking. The land along here is very
good. This whole country has a chalk bottom; but, in the
valley on the right of the hill over which you go from Andover
to Weyhill, the chalk lies far from the top, and the soil has few
flints in it. It is very much like the land about Maiden and
Maidstone. Met with a farmer who said he must be ruined,
unless another " good war ' should come ! This is no un-
common notion. They saw high prices with war, and they
thought that the war was the cause.

12 to 1 6 October.

The fair was too dismal for me to go to it again. My sons
went two of the days, and their account of the hop-fair was
enough to make one gloomy for a month, particularly as my
townsmen of Farnham were, in this case, amongst the sufferers.
On the i2th I went to dine with and to harangue the farmers
at Andover. Great attention was paid to what I had to say.
The crowding to get into the room was a proof of nothing,
perhaps, but curiosity ; but, there must have been a cause for
the curiosity, and that cause would, under the present circum-
stances, be matter for reflection with a wise government.

17 October.

Went to Newbury to dine with and to harangue the farmers.
It was a fair-day. It rained so hard that I had to stop at
Burghclere to dry my clothes, and to borrow a greatcoat to
keep me dry for the rest of the way; so as not to have to sit in
wet clothes. At Newbury the company was not less attentive
or less numerous than at Andover. Some one of the tax-eating
crew had, I understand, called me an " incendiary." The day
is passed for those tricks. They deceive no longer. Here, at
Newbury, I took occasion to notice the base accusation of
Dundas, the member for the county. I stated it as something
that I had heard of, and 1 was proceeding to charge him
conditionally, when Mr. Tubb of Shillingford rose from his seat,
and said, " I myself, sir, heard him say the words." I had

i 1 8 Rural Rides

heard of his vile conduct long before; but, I abstained from
charging him with it, till an opportunity should offer for doing
it in his own country. After the dinner was over I went back
to Burghclere.

1 8 to 20 October.

At Burghclere, one half the time writing, and the other half
hare-hunting.

21 October.
Went back to Uphusband.

22 October.

Went to dine with the farmers at Salisbury, and got back to
Uphusband by ten o'clock at night, two hours later than I have
been out of bed for a great many months.

In quitting Andover to go to Salisbury (17 miles from each
other) you cross the beautiful valley that goes winding down
amongst the hills to Stockbridge. You then rise into the open
country that very soon becomes a part of that large tract of
downs called Salisbury Plain. You are not in Wiltshire, how-
ever, till you are about half the way to Salisbury. You leave
Tid worth away to your right. This is the seat of Asheton Smith ;
and the fine coursing that I once saw there I should have called
to recollection with pleasure, if I could have forgotten the
hanging of the men at Winchester last spring for resisting one
of this Smith's gamekeepers ! This Smith's son and a Sir John
Pollen are the members for Andover. They are chosen by
the corporation. One of the corporation, an attorney named
Etwall, is a commissioner of the lottery, or something in that
way. It would be a curious thing to ascertain how large a
portion of the " public services " is performed by the voters in
boroughs and their relations. These persons are singularly
kind to the nation. They not only choose a large part of the
" representatives of the people; " but they come in person, or by
deputy, and perform a very considerable part of the " public
services." I should like to know how many of them are em-
ployed about the Salt-Tax, for instance. A list of these public-
spirited persons might be produced to show the benefit of the
boroughs.

Before you get to Salisbury, you cross the valley that brings
down a little river from Amesbury. It is a very beautiful
valley. There is a chain of farm-houses and little churches all
the way up it. The farms consist of the land on the flats on
each side of the river, running out to a greater or less extent, at

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 119

different places, towards the hills and downs. Not far above
Amesbury is a little village called Netherhaven, where I once
saw an acre of hares. We were coursing at Everly, a few miles
off; and one of the party happening to say that he had seen
;< an acre of hares " at Mr. Hicks Beech's at Netherhaven, we,
who wanted to see the same, or to detect our informant, sent
a messenger to beg a day's coursing, which being granted, we
went over the next day. Mr. Beech received us very politely.
He took us into a wheat stubble close by his paddock; his son
took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the same time; the
hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started all ovei
the field, ran into & flock like sheep; and we all agreed that the
flock did cover an acre of ground. Mr. Beech had an old grey-
hound, that I saw lying down in the shrubbery close by the
house, while several hares were sitting and skipping about,
with just as much confidence as cats sit by a dog in a kitchen or
a parlour. Was this instinct in either dog or hares? Then,
mind, this same greyhound went amongst the rest to course
with us out upon the distant hills and lands; and then he ran
as eagerly as the rest, and killed the hares with as little remorse.
Philosophers will talk a long while before they will make men
believe that this was instinct alone. I believe that this dog
had much more reason than half of the Cossacks have; and
I am sure he had a great deal more than many a negro that I
have seen.

In crossing this valley to go to Salisbury, I thought of Mr.
Beech's hares; but I really have neither thought of nor seen
any game with pleasure, since the hanging of the two men at
Winchester. If no other man will petition for the repeal of the
law under which those poor fellows suffered, I will. But let
us hope that there will be no need of petitioning. Let us hope
that it will be repealed without any express application for it.
It is curious enough that laws of this sort should increase, while
Sir James Mackintosh is so resolutely bent on " softening the
criminal code I '

The company at Salisbury was very numerous; not less than
500 farmers were present. They were very attentive to what
I said, and, which rather surprised me, they received very
docilely what I said against squeezing the labourers. A fire,
in a farm-yard, had lately taken place near Salisbary; so that
the subject was a ticklish one. But it was my very first duty
to treat of it, and I was resolved, be the consequence what it
might, not to neglect that duty.

I2O Rural Rides

23 to 26 October.

At Uphusband. At this village, which is a great thoroughfare
for sheep and pigs, from Wiltshire and Dorsetshire to Berkshire,
Oxfordshire, and away to the north and north-east, we see many
farmers from different parts of the country; and, if I had had
any doubts before as to the deplorableness of their state, those
would now no longer exist. I did indeed, years ago, prove that
if we returned to cash payments without a reduction of the
debt, and without a rectifying of contracts, the present race of
farmers must be ruined. But still, when the thing actually
comes, it astounds one. It is like the death of a friend or
relation. We talk of its approach without much emotion. We
foretell the when without much seeming pain. We know it
must be. But, when it comes, we forget our foretellings, and
feel the calamity as acutely as if we had never expected it. The
accounts we hear, daily, and almost hourly, of the families of
farmers actually coming to the parish-book, are enough to make
anybody but a boroughmonger feel. That species of monster
is to be moved by nothing but his own pecuniary sufferings;
and, thank God, the monster is now about to be reached. I hear,
from all parts, that the parsons are in great alarm ! Well they
may, if their hearts be too much set upon the treasures of this
world; for I can see no possible way of settling this matter
justly, without resorting to their temporalities. They have
long enough been calling upon all the industrious classes for
" sacrifices for the good of the country." The time seems
to be come for them to do something in this way themselves.
In a short time there will be, because there can be, no rents.
And we shall see whether the landlords will then suffer the
parsons to continue to receive a tenth part of the produce of the
land ! In many places the farmers have had the sense and the
spirit to rate the tithes to the poor-rates. This they ought to do
in all cases, whether the tithes be taken up in kind or not.
This, however, sweats the fire-shovel hat gentleman. It
" bothers his wig." He does not know what to think of it.
He does not know who to blame ; and, where a parson finds
things not to his mind, the first thing he always does is, to look
about for somebody to accuse of sedition and blasphemy.
Lawyers always begin, in such cases, to hunt the books, to see
if there be no punishment to apply. But, the devil of it is,
neither of them have now anybody to lay on upon! I always
told them that there would arise an enemy that would laugh

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 121

at all their anathemas, informations, dungeons, halters, and
bayonets. One positive good has, however, arisen out of the
present calamities, and that is, the parsons are grown more
humble than they were. Cheap corn and a good thumping debt
have greatly conduced to the producing of the Christian virtue
humility, necessary in us all, but doubly necessary in the priest-
hood. The parson is now one of the parties who is taking away
the landlord's estate and the farmer's capital. When the
farmer's capital is gone, there will be no rents; but, without
a law upon the subject, the parson will still have his tithe, and
a tithe upon the taxes too, which the land has to bear! Will
the landlords stand this? No matter. If there be no reform
of the Parliament, they must stand it. The two sets may, for
aught I care, worry each other as long as they please. When
the present race of farmers are gone (and that will soon be) the
landlord and the parson may settle the matter between them.
They will be the only parties interested; and which of them
shall devour the other appears to be of little consequence to the
rest of the community. They agreed most cordially in creating
the debt. They went hand in hand in all the measures against
the Reformers. They have made, actually made, the very thing
that now frightens them, which now menaces them with total
extinction. They cannot think it unjust, if their prayers be now
treated as the prayers of the Reformers were.

27 to 29 October.

At Burghclere. Very nasty weather. On the 28th the fox
hounds came to throw off at Penwood, in this parish. Having
heard that Dundas would be out with the hounds, I rode to the
place of meeting, in order to look him in the face, and to give
him an opportunity to notice, on his own peculiar dunghill,
what I had said of him at Newbury. He came. I rode up
to him and about him; but he said not a word. The com-
pany entered the wood, and I rode back towards my quarters.
They found a fox, and quickly lost him. Then they came out
of the wood and came back along the road, and met me, and
passed me, they as well as I going at a foot pace. I had plenty
of time to survey them all well, and to mark their looks. I
watched Dundas's eyes, but the devil a bit could I get them
to turn my way. He is paid for the present. We shall see
whether he will go, or send an ambassador, or neither, when I
shall be at Reading on the Qth of next month.

*E638

i 22 Rural Rides

30 October.

Set off for London. Went by Alderbridge, Crookham,
Brimton, Mortimer, Strathfield Say, Heckfield Heath, Eversley,
Blackwater, and slept at Oakingham. This is, with trifling
exceptions, a miserably poor country. Burghclere lies along
at the foot of a part of that chain of hills which, in this part,
divide Hampshire from Berkshire. The parish just named is,
indeed, in Hampshire, but it forms merely the foot of the High-
clere and Kingsclere Hills. These hills, from which you can
see all across the country, even to the Isle of Wight, are of chalk,
and with them, towards the north, ends the chalk. The soil
over which I have come to-day is generally a stony sand upon
a bed of gravel. With the exception of the land just round
Crookham and the other villages, nothing can well be poorer or
more villainously ugly. It is all first cousin to Hounslow Heath,
of which it is, in fact, a continuation to the westward. There
is a clay at the bottom of the gravel; so that you have here
nasty stagnant pools without fertility of soil. The rushes grow
amongst the gravel; sure sign that there is clay beneath to
hold the water; for, unless there be water constantly at their
roots, rushes will not grow. Such land is, however, good for
oaks wherever there is soil enough on the top of the gravel for the
oak to get hold, and to send its tap-root down to the clay. The
oak is the thing to plant here; and, therefore, this whole country
contains not one single plantation of oaks! That is to say, as
far as I observed. Plenty of^r-trees and other rubbish have
been recently planted; but no oaks.

At Strathfield Say is that everlasting monument of English
Wisdom Collective, the Heir Loom Estate of the " greatest
Captain oj the Age!r' In his peerage it is said that it was
wholly out of the power of the nation to reward his services fully;
but that " she did what she could ! ' Well, poor devil ! And
what could anybody ask for more? It was well, however,
that she gave what she did while she was drunk; for, if she had
held her hand till now, I am half disposed to think that her
gifts would have been very small. I can never forget that we
have to pay interest on £50,000 of the money merely owing to
the coxcombery of the late Mr. Whitbread, who actually moved
that addition to one of the grants proposed by the ministers!
Now, a great part of the grants is in the way of annuity or
pension. It is notorious that, when the grants were made,
the pensions would not purchase more than a third part of as

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 123

much wheat as they will now. The grants, therefore, have
been augmented threefold. What right, then, has any one to
say that the labourer's wages ought to fall, unless he say that
these pensions ought to be reduced ! The Hampshire magis-
trates, when they were putting forth their manifesto about
the allowances to labourers, should have noticed these pensions
of the lord-lieutenant of the county. However, real starvation
cannot be inflicted to any very great extent. The present race
of farmers must give way, and the attempts to squeeze rents
out of the wages of labour must cease. And the matter will
finally rest to be settled by the landlords, parsons, and tax-
eaters. If the landlords choose to give the greatest captain
three times as much as was granted to him, why, let him have it.
According to all account, he is no miser at any rate; and the
estates that pass through his hands may, perhaps, be full as
well disposed of as they are at present. Considering the miser-
able soil I have passed over to-day, I am rather surprised to
find Oakingham so decent a town. It has a very handsome
market-place, and is by no means an ugly country-town.

31 October.

Set off at daylight and got to Kensington about noon. On
leaving Oakingham for London, you get upon what is called
Windsor Forest ; that is to say, upon as bleak, as barren, and
as villainous a heath as ever man set his eyes on. However,
here are new enclosures without end. And here are houses too,
here and there, over the whole of this execrable tract of country.
" What! " Mr. Canning will say, " will you not allow that the
owners of these new enclosures and these houses know their own
interests? And are not these improvements, and are they not
a proof of an addition to the national capital? ' To the first
I answer, May be so ; to the two last, No. These new enclosures
and houses arise out of the beggaring of the parts of the country
distant from the vortex of the funds. The farm-houses have
long been growing fewer and fewer; the labourers' houses fewer
and fewer; and it is manifest to every man who has eyes to see
with, that the villages are regularly wasting away. This is the
case all over the parts of the kingdom where the tax-eaters do
not haunt. In all the really agricultural villages and parts of
the kingdom, there is a shocking decay ; a great dilapidation and
constant pulling down or falling down of houses. The farm-
houses are not so many as they were forty years ago by three-

124 Rural Rides

fourths. That is to say, the infernal system of Pitt and his
followers has annihilated three parts out of four of the farm-
houses. The labourers' houses disappear also. And all the
useful people become less numerous. While these spewy sands
and gravel near London are enclosed and built on, good lands
in other parts are neglected. These enclosures and buildings
are a waste ; they are means misapplied ; they are a proof of
national decline and not of prosperity. To cultivate and
ornament these villainous spots the produce and the population
are drawn away from the good lands. There all manner of
schemes have been resorted to to get rid of the necessity of
hands; and I am quite convinced that the population, upon
the whole, has not increased, in England, one single soul
since I was born; an opinion that I have often expressed, in
support of which I have as often offered arguments, and
those arguments have never been answered. As to this rascally
heath, that which has ornamented it has brought misery on
millions. The spot is not far distant from the stock-jobbing
crew. The roads to it are level. They are smooth. The
wretches can go to it from the 'Change without any danger to
their worthless necks. And thus it is " vastly improved, ma am!"
A set of men who can look upon this as " improvement," who
can regard this as a proof of the " increased capital of the
country," are pretty fit, it must be allowed, to get the country
out of its present difficulties! At the end of this blackguard
heath you come (on the road to Egham) to a little place called
Sunning Hill, which is on the western side of Windsor Park.
It is a spot all made into " grounds " and gardens by tax-eaters.
The inhabitants of it have beggared twenty agricultural villages
and hamlets.

From this place you go across a corner of Windsor Park, and
come out at Virginia \Vater. To Egham is then about two miles.
A much more ugly country than that between Egham and
Kensington would with great difficulty be found in England.
Flat as a pancake, and, until you come to Hammersmith, the
soil is a nasty stony dirt upon a bed of gravel. Hounslow
Heath, which is only a little worse than the general run, is a
sample of all that is bad in soil and villainous in look. Yet this
is now enclosed, and what they call " cultivated." Here is a
fresh robbery of villages, hamlets, and farm and labourers'
buildings and abodes! But here is one of those " vast improve-
ments, ma am" called Barracks. What an "improvement!'
What an "addition to the national capital!'' For, mind,

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 125

Monsieur de Snip, the Surrey Norman, actually said, that
the new buildings ought to be reckoned an addition to the
national capital! What, Snip! Do you pretend that the
nation is richer, because the means of making this barrack have
been drawn away from the people in taxes? Mind, Monsieur
le Normand, the barrack did not drop down from the sky nor
spring up out of the earth. It was not created by the unhanged
knaves of paper-money. It came out of the people's labour;
and when you hear Mr. Ellman tell the committee of 1821, that
forty-five years ago every man in his parish brewed his own
beer, and that now not one man in that same parish does it;
when you hear this, Monsieur de Snip, you might, if you had
brains in your skull, be able to estimate the effects of what has
produced the barrack. Yet, barracks there must be, or Gallon
and Old Sarum must fall; and the fall of these would break
poor Mr. Canning's heart.

8 November.
From London to Egham in the evening.

9 November.

Started at day-break in a hazy frost, for Reading. The
horses' manes and ears covered with the hoar before we got
across Windsor Park, which appeared to be a blackguard soil,
pretty much like Hounslow Heath, only not flat. A very large
part of the park is covered with heath or rushes, sure sign of
execrable soil. But the roads are such as might have been
made by Solomon. " A greater than Solomon is here! " some
one may exclaim. Of that I know nothing. I am but a
traveller; and the roads in this park are beautiful indeed. My
servant, whom I brought from amongst the hills and flints of
Uphusband, must certainly have thought himself in Paradise
as he was going through the park. If I had told him that the
buildings and the labourers' clothes and meals, at Uphusband,
were the worse for those pretty roads with edgings cut to the
line, he would have wondered at me, I dare say. It would,
nevertheless, have been perfectly true; and this is feelosofee
of a much more useful sort than that which is taught by the
Edinburgh Reviewers.

When you get through the park you come to Winkfield, and
then (bound for Reading) you go through Binfield, which is
ten miles from Egham and as many from Reading. At Binfield
I stopped to breakfast, at a very nice country inn called the
Stag and Hounds. Here you go along on the north border of

126 Rural Rides

that villainous tract of country that I passed over in going from
Oakingham to Egham. Much of the land even here is but
newly enclosed; and it was really not worth a straw before it
was loaded with the fruit of the labour of the people living in
the parts of the country distant from the Fund- Wen. What
injustice! What unnatural changes! Such things cannot be,
without producing convulsion in the end! A road as smooth
as a die, a real stock-jobber's road, brought us to Reading by
eleven o'clock. We dined at one; and very much pleased I
was with the company. I have seldom seen a number of persons
assembled together, whose approbation I valued more than that
of the company of this day. Last year the prime minister said
that his speech (the grand speech) was rendered necessary by
the " pains that had been taken, in different parts of the
country," to persuade the farmers that the distress had arisen
out of the measures of the government, and not from over-
production I To be sure I had taken some pains to remove
that stupid notion about over-production from the minds of
the farmers; but did the stern-path-man succeed in counter-
acting the effect of my efforts? Not he, indeed. And, after
his speech was made, and sent forth cheek by jowl with that
of the sane Castlereagh, of hole-digging memory, the truths
inculcated by me were only the more manifest. This has been
a fine meeting at Reading ! I feel very proud of it. The morn-
ing was fine for me to ride in, and the rain began as soon as I
was housed.

I came on horseback 40 miles, slept on the road, and finished
my harangue at the end of twenty-two hours from leaving Ken-
sington; and I cannot help saying that is pretty well for " Old
Cobbett." I am delighted with the people that I have seen at
Reading. Their kindness to me is nothing in my estimation
compared with the sense and spirit which they appear to
possess. It is curious to observe how things have worked with
me. That combination, that sort of instinctive union, which
has existed for so many years, amongst all the parties, to keep
me down generally, and particularly, as the County-Club called it,
to keep me out of Parliament " at any rate" this combination
has led to the present haranguing system, which, in some sort,
supplies the place of a seat in Parliament. It may be said,
indeed, that I have not the honour to sit in the same room with
those great Reformers, Lord John Russell, Sir Massey Lopez,
and his guest, Sir Francis Burdett; but man's happiness here
below is never perfect; and there may be, besides, people to

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 127

believe that a man ought not to break his heart on account of
being shut out of such company, especially when he can find
such company as I have this day found at Reading.

10 October.

Went from Reading, through Aldermaston for Burghclere.
The rain has been very heavy, and the water was a good deal
out. Here, on my way, I got upon Crookham Common again,
which is a sort of continuation of the wretched country about
Oakingham. From Highclere I looked, one day, over the flat
towards Marlborough; and I there saw some such rascally
heaths. So that this villainous tract extends from east to
west, with more or less of exceptions, from Hounslow to Hunger-
ford. From north to south it extends from Binfield (which
cannot be far from the borders of Buckinghamshire) to the
South Downs of Hampshire, and terminates somewhere between
Liphook and Petersfield, after stretching over Hindhead, which
is certainly the most villainous spot that God ever made. Our
ancestors do, indeed, seem to have ascribed its formation to
another power; for the most celebrated part of it is called
" the Devil's Punch Bowl." In this tract of country there are
certainly some very beautiful spots. But these are very few
in number, except where the chalk-hills run into the tract.
The neighbourhood of Godalming ought hardly to be considered
as an exception; for there you are just on the outside of the
tract, and begin to enter on the Wealds ; that is to say, clayey
woodlands. All the part of Berkshire of which I have been
recently passing over, if I except the tract from Reading to
Crookham, is very bad land and a very ugly country.

ii November.

Uphusband once more, and, for the sixth time this year,
over the North Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their
everlasting flints, I like very much. As you ride along, even in
a green lane, the horses' feet make a noise like hammering. It
seems as if you were riding on a mass of iron. Yet the soil is
good, and bears some of the best wheat in England. All these
high and, indeed, all chalky lands, are excellent for sheep. But
on the top of some of these hills there are as fine meadows as I
ever saw. Pasture richer, perhaps, than that about Swindon
in the north of Wiltshire. And the singularity is, that this
pasture is on the very tops of these lofty hills, from which you
can see the Isle of Wight. There is a stiff loam, in some places

128 Rural Rides

twenty feet deep, on a bottom of chalk. Though the grass
grows so finely, there is no apparent wetness in the land. The
wells are more than three hundred feet deep. The main part of
the water, for all uses, comes from the clouds; and, indeed,
these are pretty constant companions of these chalk hills, which
are very often enveloped in clouds and wet, when it is sunshine
down at Burghclere or Uphusband. They manure the land
here by digging wells in the fields, and bringing up the chalk,
which they spread about on the land; and which, being free-
chalk, is reduced to powder by the frosts. A considerable por-
tion of the land is covered with wood; and as, in the clearing
of the land, the clearers followed the good soil, without regard
to shape of fields, the forms of the woods are of endless variety,
which, added to the never-ceasing inequalities of the surface
of the whole, makes this, like all the others of the same descrip-
tion, a very pleasant country.

17 November.

Set off from Uphusband for Hambledon. The first place
I had to get to was Whitchurch. On my way, and at a short
distance from Uphusband, down the valley, I went through a
village called Bourn, which takes its name from the water that
runs down this valley. A bourn, in the language of our fore-
fathers, seems to be a river which is, part of the year, without
water. There is one of these bourns down this pretty valley.
It has, generally, no water till towards spring, and then it runs
for several months. It is the same at the Candovers, as you go
across the downs from Odiham to Winchester.

The little village of Bourn, therefore, takes its name from its
situation. Then there are two Hurstbourns, one above and one
below this village of Bourn. Hurst means, I believe, a forest.
There were, doubtless, one of those on each side of Bourn; and
when they became villages, the one above was called Up-
hurstbourn, and the one below, Down-huTStbourn. ; which names
have become Uphusband and Downhusband. The lawyers,
therefore, who, to the immortal honour of high-blood and
Norman descent, are making such a pretty story out for the
lord chancellor, relative to a noble peer who voted for the bill
against the queen, ought to leave off calling the seat of the noble
person Hursperne ; for it is at Downhurstbourn where he lives,
and where he was visited by Dr. Bankhead !

Whitchurch is a small town, but famous for being the place
where the paper has been made for the Borough - Bank I I

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 129

passed by the mill on my way to get out upon the downs to go
to Alresford, where I intended to sleep. I hope the time will
come when a monument will be erected where that mill stands,
and when on that monument will be inscribed the curse of
England. This spot ought to be held accursed in all time hence-
forth and for evermore. It has been the spot from which have
sprung more and greater mischiefs than ever plagued mankind
before. However, the evils now appear to be fast recoiling on
the merciless authors of them; and, therefore, one beholds this
scene of paper-making with a less degree of rage than formerly.
My blood used to boil when I thought of the wretches who
carried on and supported the system. It does not boil now,
when I think of them. The curse, which they intended solely
for others, is now falling on themselves; and I smile at their
sufferings. Blasphemy! Atheism! Who can be an atheist,
that sees how justly these wretches are treated; with what exact
measure they are receiving the evils which they inflicted on
others for a time, and which they intended to inflict on them
for ever! If, indeed, the monsters had continued to prosper,
one might have been an atheist. The true history of the rise,
progress and fall of these monsters, of their power, their crimes
and their punishment, will do more than has been done before
to put an end to the doubts of those who have doubts upon this
subject.

Quitting Whitchurch, I went off to the left out of the Win-
chester road, got out upon the highlands, took an " observa-
tion," as the sailors call it, and off I rode, in a straight line, over
hedge and ditch, towards the rising ground between Stratton
Park and Micheldever Wood; but, before I reached this point,
I found some wet meadows and some running water in my way
in a little valley running up from the turnpike road to a little
place called West Stratton. I, therefore, turned to my left, went
down to the turnpike, went a little way along it, then turned
to my left, went along by Stratton Park pales down East
Stratton Street, and then on towards the Grange Park. Stratton
Park is the seat of Sir Thomas Baring, who has here several
thousands of acres of land; who has the living of Micheldever,
to which, I think, Northington and Swallowfield are joined.
Above all, he has Micheldever Wood, which, they say, contains
a thousand acres, and which is one of the finest oak-woods in
England. This large and very beautiful estate must have
belonged to the Church at the time of Henry the Eighth's " re-
formation" It was, I believe, given by him to the family of

I 30 Rural Rides

Russell ; and it was, by them, sold to Sir Francis Baring about
twenty years ago. Upon the whole, all things considered, the
change is for the better. Sir Thomas Baring would not have
moved, nay, he did not move, for the pardon of Lopez, while he
left Joseph Swann in gaol for four years and a half, without so
much as hinting at Swann's case ! Yea, verily, I would rather
see this estate in the hands of Sir Thomas Baring than in those
of Lopez's friend. Besides, it seems to be acknowledged that
any title is as good as those derived from the old wife-killer.
Castlereagh, when the Whigs talked in a rather rude manner
about the sinecure places and pensions, told them that the title
of the sinecure man or woman was as good as the titles of the Duke
of Bedford I this was plagiarism, to be sure; for Burke had begun
it. He called the duke the Leviathan of grants ; and seemed to
hint at the propriety of overhauling them a little. When the
men of Kent petitioned for a "just reduction of the National
Debt," Lord John Russell, with that wisdom for which he is
renowned, reprobated the prayer; but, having done this in
terms not sufficiently unqualified and strong, and having made
use of a word of equivocal meaning, the man that cut his own
throat at North Cray pitched on upon him and told him that
the fundh older had as much right to his dividends as the Duke
of Bedford had to his estates. Upon this the noble reformer
and advocate for Lopez mended his expressions; and really said
what the North Cray philosopher said he ought to say ! Come,
come: Micheldever Wood is in very proper hands ! A little girl,
of whom I asked my way down into East Stratton, and who was
dressed in a camlet gown, white apron and plaid cloak (it was
Sunday), and who had a book in her hand, told me that Lady
Baring gave her the clothes, and had her taught to read and to
sing hymns and spiritual songs.

As I came through the Strattons, I saw not less than a dozen
girls clad in this same way. It is impossible not to believe that
this is done with a good motive; but it is possible not to believe
that it is productive of good. It must create hypocrites., and
hypocrisy is the great sin of the age. Society is in a queer state
when the rich think that they must educate the poor in order
to insure their own safety : for this, at bottom, is the great
motive now at work in pushing on the education scheme, though
in this particular case, perhaps, there may be a little enthusiasm
at work. When persons are glutted with riches; when they
have their fill of them; when they are surfeited of all earthly
pursuits, they are very apt to begin to think about the next

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 131

world ; and, the moment they begin to think of that, they begin
to look over the account that they shall have to present. Hence
the far greater part of what are called " charities." But it is
the business of governments to take care that there shall be very
little of this glutting with riches, and very little need of
" charities."

From Stratton I went on to Northington Down; then round
to the south of the Grange Park (Alex. Baring's), down to Abbot-
son, and over some pretty little green hills to Alresford, which
is a nice little town of itself, but which presents a singularly
beautiful view from the last little hill coming from Abbotson.
I could not pass by the Grange Park without thinking of Lord
and Lady Henry Stuart, whose lives and deaths surpassed what
we read of in the most sentimental romances. Very few things
that I have met with in my life ever filled me with sorrow equal
to that which I felt at the death of this most virtuous and most
amiable pair.

It began raining soon after I got to Alresford, and rained all
the evening. I heard here, that a requisition for a county
meeting was in the course of being signed in different parts of
the county. They mean to petition for reform, I hope. At any
rate, I intend to go to see what they do. I saw the parsons at
the county meeting in 1817. I should like, of all things, to see
them at another meeting now. These are the persons that I
have most steadily in my eye. The war and the debt were for
the tithes and the boroughs. These must stand or fall together
now. I always told the parsons that they were the greatest
fools in the world to put the tithes on board the same boat with
the boroughs. I told them so in 1817; and, I fancy, they will
soon see all about it.

1 8 November.

Came from Alresford to Hambledon, through Titchbourn,
Cheriton, Beauworth, Kilmston, and Exton. This is all a high,
hard, dry, fox-hunting country. Like that, indeed, over which
I came yesterday. At Titchbourn there is a park, and " great
house," as the country-people call it. The place belongs, I
believe, to a Sir somebody Titchbourne, a family, very likely half
as old as the name of the village, which, however, partly takes its
name from the bourn that runs down the valley. I thought, as I
was riding alongside of this park, that I had heard good of this
family of Titchbourne, and I therefore saw the park pales with
sorrow. There is not more than one pale in a yard, and those

i 32 Rural Rides

that remain, and the rails and posts and all, seem tumbling
down. This park-paling is perfectly typical of those of the land-
lords who are not tax-eaters. They are wasting away very fast.
The tax-eating landlords think to swim out the gale. They
are deceived. They are " deluded " by their own greediness.

Kilmsion was my next place after Titchbourn, but I wanted
to go to Beauworth, so that I had to go through Cheriton;
a little, hard, iron village, where all seems to be as old as the hills
that surround it. In coming along you see Titchbourn church
away to the right, on the side of the hill, a very pretty little view;
and this, though such a hard country, is a pretty country.

At Cheriton I found a grand camp of Gipsy s, just upon the
move towards Alresford. I had met some of the scouts first,
and afterwards the advanced guard, and here the main body
was getting in motion. One of the scouts that I met was a young
woman, who, I am sure, was six feet high. There were two or
three more in the camp of about the same height; and some
most strapping fellows of men. It is curious that this race
should have preserved their dark skin and coal-black straight
and coarse hair, very much like that of the American Indians.
I mean the hair, for the skin has nothing of the copper-colour
as that of the Indians has. It is not, either, of the Mulatto cast;
that is to say, there is no yellow in it. It is a black mixed with
our English colours of pale, or red, and the features are small,
like those of the girls in Sussex, and often singularly pretty.
The tall girl that I met at Titchbourn, who had a huckster
basket on her arm, had most beautiful features. I pulled up
my horse, and said, " Can you tell me my fortune, my dear? '
She answered in the negative, giving me a look at the same tinv
that seemed to say it was too late ; and that if I had been thirty
years younger she might have seen a little what she could do
with me. It is, all circumstances considered, truly surprising
that this race should have preserved so perfectly all its distinc-
tive marks.

I came on to Beauworth to inquire after the family of a worthy
old farmer, whom I knew there some years ago, and of whose
death I had heard at Alresford. A bridle road over some fields
and through a coppice took me to Kilmston, formerly a large
village, but now mouldered into two farms, and a few miserable
tumble-down houses for the labourers. Here is a house that
was formerly the residence of the landlord of the place, but is
now occupied by one of the farmers. This is a fine country for
fox-hunting, and Kilmston belonged to a Mr. Ridge who was a

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 133

famous fox-hunter, and who is accused of having spent his
fortune in that way. But what do people mean? He had a
right to spend his income, as his fathers had done before him.
It was the Pitt-system, and not the fox-hunting, that took away
the principal. The place now belongs to a Mr. Long, whose
origin I cannot find out.

From Kilmston I went right over the downs to the top of a
hill called Beacon Hill, which is one of the loftiest hills in the
country. Here you can see the Isle of Wight in detail, a fine
sweep of the sea; also away into Sussex, and over the New
Forest into Dorsetshire. Just below you, to the east, you look
down upon the village of Exton ; and you can see up this valley
(which is called a Bourn too) as far as West-Meon, and down it
as far as Soberton. Corhampton, Warnford, Meon-Stoke and
Droxford come within these two points; so that here are six
villages on this bourn within the space of about five miles. On
the other side of the main valley down which the bourn runs,
and opposite Beacon Hill, is another such a hill, which they call
Old Winchester Hill. On the top of this hill there was once a
camp, or rather fortress; and the ramparts are now pretty
nearly as visible as ever. The same is to be seen on the Beacon
Hill at Highclere. These ramparts had nothing of the principles
of modern fortification in their formation. You see no signs of
salient angles. It was a ditch and a bank, and that appears to
have been all. I had, I think, a full mile to go down from the
top of Beacon Hill to Exton. This is the village where that
Parson Baines lives who, as described by me in 1817, bawled in
Lord Cochrane's ear at Winchester in the month of March of
that year. Parson Poulter lives at Meon-Stoke, which is not
a mile further down. So that this valley has something in it
besides picturesque views! I asked some countrymen how
Poulter and Baines did; but their answer contained too much of
irreverence for me to give it here.

At Exton I crossed the Gosport turnpike-road, came up the
cross valley under the south side of Old Winchester Hill, over
Stoke Down, then over West-End Down, and then to my friend's
house at West-End in the parish of Hambledon.

Thus have I crossed nearly the whole of this country from
the north-west to the south-east, without going five hundred
yards on a turnpike-road, and, as nearly as I could do it, in a
straight line.

The whole country that I have crossed is loam and flints,
upon a bottom of chalk. At Alresford there are some

134 Rural Rides

watered meadows, which are the beginning of a chain of
meadows that goes all the way down to Winchester, and
hence to Southampton; but even these meadows have, at
Alresford, chalk under them. The water that supplies them
comes out of a pond, called Alresford Pond, which is fed
from the high hills in the neighbourhood. These counties
are purely agricultural; and they have suffered most cruelly
from the accursed Pitt-system. Their hilliness, bleakness,
roughness of roads, render them unpleasant to the luxurious,
effeminate, tax-eating crew, who never come near them, and
who have pared them down to the very bone. The villages
are all in a state of decay. The farm-buildings dropping down,
bit by bit. The produce is, by a few great farmers, dragged to
a few spots, and all the rest is falling into decay. If this infernal
system could go on for forty years longer, it would make all the
labourers as much slaves as the negroes are, and subject to the
same sort of discipline and management.

19 to 23 November.

At West-End. Hambledon is a long, straggling village, lying
in a little valley formed by some very pretty but not lofty hills.
The environs are much prettier than the village itself, which is
not far from the north side of Portsdown Hill. This must have
once been a considerable place; for here is a church pretty
nearly as large as that at Farnham in Surrey, which is quite
sufficient for a large town. The means of living has been drawn
away from these villages, and the people follow the means.
Cheriton and Kilmston and Hambledon and the like have been
beggared for the purpose of giving tax-eaters the means of
making " vast improvements, ma am," on the villainous spewy
gravel of Windsor Forest! The thing, however, must go back.
Revolution here or revolution there: bawl, bellow, alarm, as
long as the tax-eaters like, back the thing must go. Back,
indeed, it is going in some quarters. Those scenes of glorious
loyalty, the sea-port places, are beginning to be deserted.
How many villages has that scene of all that is wicked and
odious, Portsmouth, Gosport, and Portsea; how many villages
has that hellish assemblage beggared ! It is now being scattered
itself I Houses which there let for forty or fifty pounds a year
each, now let for three or four shillings a week each; and thou-
sands, perhaps, cannot be let at all to anybody capable of paying
rent. There is an absolute tumbling down taking place, where,
so lately, there were such " vast improvements, ma'am ! "

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 135

Does Monsieur de Snip call those improvements, then? Does
he insist that those houses form " an addition to the national
capital ? ' Is it any wonder that a country should be miserable
when such notions prevail? And when they can, even in the
Parliament, be received with cheering?

24 Nov. Sunday.

Set off from Hambledon to go to Thursley in Surrey, about
five miles from Godalming. Here I am at Thursley, after
as interesting a day as I ever spent in all my life. They
say that " variety is charming," and this day I have had of
scenes and of soils a variety indeed !

To go to Thursley from Hambledon the plain way was up the
downs to Petersfield, and then along the turnpike-road through
Liphook, and over Hindhead, at the north-east foot of which
Thursley lies. But I had been over that sweet Hindhead, and
had seen too much of turnpike-road and of heath, to think of
taking another so large a dose of them. The map of Hampshire
(and we had none of Surrey) showed me the way to Headley,
which lies on the west of Hindhead, down upon the flat. I knew
it was but about five miles from Headley to Thursley; and I,
therefore, resolved to go to Headley, in spite of all the remon-
strances of friends, who represented to me the danger of breaking
my neck at Hawkley and of getting buried in the bogs of
Woolmer Forest. My route was through East-Meon, Froxfield,
Hawkley, Greatham, and then over Woolmer Forest (a heath if
you please), to Headley.

Off we set over the downs (crossing the bottom sweep of Old
Winchester Hill) from West-End to East-Meon. We came
down a long and steep hill that led us winding round into the
village, which lies in a valley that runs in a direction nearly east
and west, and that has a rivulet that comes out of the hills
towards Petersfield. If I had not seen anything further to-day,
I should have dwelt long on the beauties of this place. Here is
a very fine valley, in nearly an elliptical form, sheltered by high
hills sloping gradually from it; and not far from the middle of
this valley there is a hill nearly in the form of a goblet-glass
with the foot and stem broken off and turned upside down.
And this is clapped down upon the level of the valley, just as you
would put such goblet upon a table. The hill is lofty, partly
covered with wood, and it gives an air of great singularity to
the scene. I am sure that East-Meon has been a large place.
The church has a Saxon tower pretty nearly equal, as far as I

Rural Rides

recollect, to that of the cathedral at Winchester. The rest of
the church has been rebuilt, and, perhaps, several times; but
the tower is complete; it has had a steeple put upon it; but it
retains all its beauty, and it shows that the church (which is still
large) must, at first, have been a very large building. Let those
who talk so glibly of the increase of the population in England,
go over the country from Highclere to Hambledon. Let them
look at the size of the churches, and let them observe those
numerous small inclosures on every side of every village, which
had, to a certainty, each its house in former times. But let
them go to East-Meon, and account for that church. Where
did the hands come from to make it? Look, however, at the
downs, the many square miles of downs near this village, all
bearing the marks of the plough, and all out of tillage for many
many years; yet not one single inch of them but what is vastly
superior in quality to any of those great " improvements " on
the miserable heaths of Hounslow, Bagshot, and Windsor Forest.
It is the destructive, the murderous paper-system, that has
transferred the fruit of the labour, and the people along with it,
from the different parts of the country to the neighbourhood
of the all-devouring Wen. I do not believe one word of what is
said of the increase of the population. All observation and all
reason is against the fact; and, as to the parliamentary returns,
what need we more than this : that they assert that the popula-
tion of Great Britain has increased from ten to fourteen millions
in the last twenty years 1 That is enough ! A man that can suck
that in will believe, literally believe, that the moon is made of
green cheese. Such a thing is too monstrous to be swallowed by
anybody but Englishmen, and by any Englishman not brutified
by a Pitt-system.

To MR. CANNING

WORTH (SUSSEX),

10 December 1822.

SIR, — The agreeable news from France, relative to the intended
invasion of Spain, compelled me to break off, in my last letter,
in the middle of my Rural Ride of Sunday, the 24th of November.
Before I mount again, which I shall do in this letter, pray let me
ask you what sort of apology is to be offered to the nation, if
the French Bourbons be permitted to take quiet possession of

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex I 37

Cadiz and of the Spanish naval force? Perhaps you mav be
disposed to answer, when you have taken time to reflect ; a d,
therefore, leaving you to muse on the matter, I will resume my
ride.

24 November.

(Sunday.) From Hambledon to Thursley (continued).

From East-Meon, I did not go on to Froxfield church, but
turned off to the left to a place (a couple of houses) called Bower.
Near this I stopped at a friend's house, which is in about as
lonely a situation as I ever saw. A very pleasant place how-
ever. The lands dry, a nice mixture of woods and fields, and
a great variety of hill and dell.

Before I came to East-Meon, the soil of the hills was a shallow
loam with flints, on a bottom of chalk; but, on this side of the
valley of East-Meon; that is to say, on the north side, the soil
on the hills is a deep, stiff loam, on a bed of a sort of gravel
mixed with chalk; and the stones, instead of being grey on the
outside and blue on the inside, are yellow on the outside and
whitish on the inside. In coming on further to the north, I
found that the bottom was sometimes gravel and sometimes
chalk. Here, at the time when whatever it was that formed these
hills and valleys, the stuff of which Hindhead is composed seems
to have run down and mixed itself with the stuff of which Old
Winchester Hill is composed. Free chalk (which is the sort
found here) is excellent manure for stiff land, and it produces
a complete change in the nature of days. It is, therefore, dug
here, on the north of East-Meon, about in the fields, where it
happens to be found, and is laid out upon the surface, where it is
crumbled to powder by the frost, and thus gets incorporated
with the loam.

At Bower I got instructions to go to Hawkley, but accom-
panied with most earnest advice not to go that way, for that
it was impossible to get along. The roads were represented as
so bad; the floods so much out; the hills and bogs so dangerous;
that, really, I began to doubt ; and, if I had not been brought
up amongst the clays of the Holt Forest and the bogs of the
neighbouring heaths, I should certainly have turned off to
my right, to go over Hindhead, great as was my objection to
going that way. " Well, then," said my friend at Bower, " if
you will go that way, by G — , you must go down Hawkley
Hanger ; " of which he then gave me such a description! But
even this I found to fall short of the reality. I inquired simply,

i 38 Rural Rides

whether people were in the habit of going down it; and the
answer being in the affirmative, on I went through green lanes
and bridle-ways till I came to the turnpike-road from Peters-
field to Winchester, which I crossed, going into a narrow and
almost untrodden green lane, on the side of which I found a
cottage. Upon my asking the way to Hawkley, the woman at
the cottage said, " Right up the lane, sir: you'll come to a
hanger presently: you must take care, sir: you can't ride down:
will your horses go alone ? '

On we trotted up this pretty green lane; and indeed, we had
been coming gently and generally uphill for a good while. The
lane was between highish banks and pretty high stuff growing
on the banks, so that we could see no distance from us, and
could receive not the smallest hint of what was so near at hand.
The lane had a little turn towards the end; so that, out we
came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the hanger! And
never, in all my life, was I so surprised and so delighted! I
pulled up my horse, and sat and looked; and it was like looking
from the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the
valley was land and not water. I looked at my servant, to see
what effect this unexpected sight had upon him. Plis surprise
was as great as mine, though he had been bred amongst the
North Hampshire hills. Those who had so strenuously dwelt
on the dirt and dangers of this route, had said not a word about
beauties, the matchless beauties of the scenery. These hangers
are woods on the sides of very steep hills. The trees and under-
wood hang, in some sort, to the ground, instead of standing on
it. Hence these places are called Hangers. From the summit
of that which I had now to descend, I looked down upon the
villages of Hawkley, Greatham, Selborne and some others.

From the south-east, round, southward, to the north-west,
the main valley has cross-valleys running out of it, the hills on
the sides of which are very steep, and, in many parts, covered
with wood. The hills that form these cross-valleys run out
into the main valley, like piers into the sea. Two of these
promontories, of great height, are on the west side of the main
valley, and were the first objects that struck my sight when
I came to the edge of the hanger, which was on the south. The
ends of these promontories are nearly perpendicular, and their
tops so high in the air, that you cannot look at the village below
without something like a feeling of apprehension. The leaves
are all off, the hop-poles are in stack, the fields have little ver-
dure; but, while the spot is beautiful beyond description even

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 139

now, I must leave to imagination to suppose what it is when
the trees and hangers and hedges are in leaf, the corn waving,
the meadows bright, and the hops upon the poles 1

From the south-west, round, eastward, to the north, lie the
heaths, of which Woolmer Forest makes a part, and these go
gradually rising up to Hindhead, the crown of which is to the
north-west, leaving the rest of the circle (the part from north
to north-west) to be occupied by a continuation of the valley
towards Headley, Binstead, Frensham and the Holt Forest.
So that even the contrast in the view from the top of the hanger
is as great as can possibly be imagined. Men, however, are not
to have such beautiful views as this without some trouble. We
had had the view; but we had to go down the hanger. We had,
indeed, some roads to get along, as we could, afterwards; but
we had to get down the hanger first. The horses took the lead,
and crept partly down upon their feet and partly upon their
hocks. It was extremely slippery too; for the soil is a sort of
marl, or, as they call it here, maume, or mame, which is, when
wet, very much like grey soap. In such a case it was likely that
I should keep in the rear, which I did, and I descended by taking
hold of the branches of the underwood, and so letting myself
down. When we got to the bottom, I bade my man, when he
should go back to Uphusband, tell the people there that Ash-
mansworth Lane is not the worst piece of road in the world. Our
worst, however, was not come yet, nor had we by any means
seen the most novel sights.

After crossing a little field and going through a farmyard,
we came into a lane, which was, at once, road and river. We
found a hard bottom, however; and when we got out of the
water, we got into a lane with high banks. The banks were
quarries of white stone, like Portland-stone, and the bed of the
road was of the same stone; and, the rains having been heavy
for a day or two before, the whole was as clean and as white as
the steps of a fundholder or dead-weight doorway in one of the
squares of the Wen. Here were we, then, going along a stone
road with stone banks, and yet the underwood and trees grew
well upon the tops of the banks. In the solid stone beneath us,
there were a horse-track and wheel-tracks, the former about three
and the latter about six inches deep. How many many ages
it must have taken the horses' feet, the wheels, and the water,
to wear down this stone so as to form a hollow way! The
horses seemed alarmed at their situation; they trod with fear;
but they took us along very nicely, and, at last, got us safe into

140 Rural Rides

the indescribable dirt and mire of the road from Hawkley
Green to Greatham. Here the bottom of all the land is
this solid white stone, and the top is that mame, which I have
before described. The hop-roots penetrate down into this
stone. How deep the stone may go I know not; but, when
I came to look up at the end of one of the piers, or promon-
tories, mentioned above, I found that it was all of this same
stone.

At Hawkley Green I asked a farmer the way to Thursley.
He pointed to one of two roads going from the green; but, it
appearing to me that that would lead me up to the London road
and over Hindhead, I gave him to understand that I was
resolved to get along, somehow or other, through the " low
countries." He besought me not to think of it. However,
finding me resolved, he got a man to go a little way to put me
into the Greatham road. The man came, but the farmer could
not let me go off without renewing his entreaties that I would
go away to Liphook, in which entreaties the man joined, though
he was to be paid very well for his trouble.

Off we went, however, to Greatham. I am thinking whether
I ever did see worse roads. Upon the whole, I think, I have;
though I am not sure that the roads of New Jersey, between
Trenton and Elizabeth Town, at the breaking up of winter, be
worse. Talk of shows, indeed! Take a piece of this road;
just a cut across, and a rod long, and carry it up to London.
That would be something like a show 1

Upon leaving Greatham we came out upon Woolmer Forest.
Just as we were coming out of Greatham, I asked a man the
way to Thursley. " You must go to Liphook, sir," said he.
" But," I said, " I will not go to Liphook." These people
seemed to be posted at all these stages to turn me aside from
my purpose, and to make me go over that Hindhead, which I
had resolved to avoid. I went on a little further, and asked
another man the way to Headley, which, as I have already
observed, lies on the western foot of Hindhead, whence I knew
there must be a road to Thursley (which lies at the north-east
foot) without going over that miserable hill. The man told
me that I must go across the forest. I asked him whether it
was a good road : " It is a sound road," said he, laying a weighty
emphasis upon the word sound. " Do people go it? " said I.

Ye-es" said he. " Oh then," said I, to my man, " as it is a
sound road, keep you close to my heels, and do not attempt to
go aside, not even for a foot." Indeed, it was a sound road.

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 141

The rain of the night had made the fresh horse tracks visible.
And we got to Headley in a short time, over a sand-road, which
seemed so delightful after the flints and stone and dirt and
sloughs that we had passed over and through since the morning !
This road was not, if we had been benighted, without its dangers,
the forest being full of quags and quicksands. This is a tract
of Crown-lands, or, properly speaking, public-lands, on some
parts of which our land steward, Mr. Huskisson, is making some
plantations of trees, partly fir, and partly other trees. What
he can plant the^r for, God only knows, seeing that the country
is already over-stocked with that rubbish. But this public-
land concern is a very great concern.

If I were a member of Parliament, I would know what timber
has been cut down, and what it has been sold for, since year
1790. However, this matter must be investigated, first or last.
It never can be omitted in the winding up of the concern;
and that winding up must come out of wheat at four shillings
a bushel. It is said, hereabouts, that a man who lives near
Liphook, and who is so mighty a hunter and game pursuer, that
they call him William Rufus ; it is said that this man is Lord
of the Manor of Woolmer Forest. This he cannot be without
a grant to that effect; and, if there be a grant, there must have
been a reason for the grant. This reason I should very much
like to know; and this I would know if I were a member of
Parliament. That the people call him the Lord of the Manor
is certain; but he can hardly make preserves of the plantations;
for it is well known how marvellously hares and young trees agree
together ! This is a matter of great public importance; and yet,
how, in the present state of things, is an investigation to be
obtained? Is there a man in parliament that will call for it?
Not one. Would a dissolution of Parliament mend the matter?
No: for the same men would be there still. They are the same
men that have been there for these thirty years; and the same
men they will be, and they must be, until there be a reform.
To be sure when one dies, or cuts his throat (as in the case of
Castlereagh), another one comes; but it is the same body. And,
as long as it is that same body, things will always go on as they
now go on. However, as Mr. Canning says the body " works
well," we must not say the contrary.

The soil of this tract is, generally, a black sand, which, in
some places, becomes peat, which makes very tolerable fuel. In
some parts there is clay at bottom; and there the oaks would
grow ; but not while there are hares in any number on the forest.

142 Rural Rides

If trees be to grow here, there ought to be no hares, and as little
hunting as possible.

We got to Headley, the sign of the Holly Bush, just at dusk,
and just as it began to rain. I had neither eaten nor drunk
since eight o'clock in the morning; and as it was a nice little
public-house, I at first intended to stay all night, an intention
that I afterwards very indiscreetly gave up. I had laid my
plan, which included the getting to Thursley that night. When,
therefore, I had got some cold bacon and bread, and some milk,
I began to feel ashamed of stopping short of my plan, especially
after having so heroically persevered in the " stern path," and
so disdainfully scorned to go over Hindhead. I knew that my
road lay through a hamlet called Churt, where they grow such
fine bennet-grass seed. There was a moon; but there was also
a hazy rain. I had heaths to go over, and I might go into quags.
Wishing to execute my plan, however, I at last brought myself
to quit a very comfortable turf-fire, and to set off in the rain,
having bargained to give a man three shillings to guide me out
to the northern foot of Hindhead. I took care to ascertain
that my guide knew the road perfectly well; that is to say, I
took care to ascertain it as far as I could, which was, indeed,
no further than his word would go. Off we set, the guide
mounted on his own or master's horse, and with a white smock
frock, which enabled us to see him clearly. \Ve trotted on
pretty fast for about half an hour; and I perceived, not without
some surprise, that the rain, which I knew to be coming from the
south, met me full in the face, when it ought, according to my
reckoning, to have beat upon my right cheek. I called to the
guide repeatedly to ask him if he was sure that he was right, to
which he always answered, " Oh ! yes, sir, I know the road."
I did not like this, " / know the road." At last, after going about
six miles in nearly a southern direction, the guide turned short
to the left. That brought the rain upon my right cheek, and,
though I could not very well account for the long stretch to the
south, I thought that, at any rate, we were now in the right
track; and, after going about a mile in this new direction, I
began to ask the guide how much further we had to go ; for I
had got a pretty good soaking, and was rather impatient to see
the foot of Hindhead. Just at this time, in raising my head and
looking forward as I spoke to the guide, what should I see but a
long, high, and steep hanger arising before us, the trees along
the top of which I could easily distinguish ! The fact was, we
were just getting to the outside of the heath, and were on the

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 143

brow of a steep hill, which faced this hanging wood. The guide
had begun to descend; and I had called to him to stop; for the
hill was so steep, that, rain as it did and wet as my saddle must
be, I got off my horse in order to walk down. But, now behold,
the fellow discovered that he had lost his way I — Where we were
I could not even guess. There was but one remedy, and that
was to get back, if we could. I became guide now; and did
as Mr. Western is advising the ministers to do, retraced my steps.
We went back about half the way that we had come, when we
saw two men, who showed us the way that we ought to go. At
the end of about a mile, we fortunately found the turnpike-road;
not, indeed, at the/00/, but on the tip-top of that very Hindhead,
on which I had so repeatedly vowed I would not go ! We came
out on the turnpike some hundred yards on the Liphook side
of the buildings called the Hut ; so that we had the whole of
three miles of hill to come down at not much better than a foot
pace, with a good pelting rain at our backs.

It is odd enough how differently one is affected by the same
sight, under different circumstances. At the " Holly Bush "
at Headley there was a room full of fellows in white smock
frocks, drinking and smoking and talking, and I, who was then
dry and warm, moralised within myself on their/0//y in spending
their time in such a way. But when I got down from Hindhead
to the public-house at Road Lane, with my skin soaking and my
teeth chattering, I thought just such another group, whom I
saw through the window sitting round a good fire with pipes in
their mouths, the wisest assembly I had ever set my eyes on.
A real Collective Wisdom. And I most solemnly declare, that
I felt a greater veneration for them than I have ever felt even
for the Privy Council, notwithstanding the Right Honourable
Charles Wynn and the Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair
belong to the latter.

It was now but a step to my friend's house, where a good
fire and a change of clothes soon put all to rights, save and
except the having come over Hindhead after all my resolutions.
This mortifying circumstance; this having been beaten, lost the
guide the three shillings that I had agreed to give him. " Either,"
said I, " you did not know the way well, or you did: if the
former, it was dishonest in you to undertake to guide me: if the
latter, you have wilfully led me miles out of my way." He
grumbled; but off he went. He certainly deserved nothing;
for he did not know the way, and he prevented some other man
from earning and receiving the money. But had he not caused

144 Rural Rides

me to get upon Hindhead, he would have had the three shillings.
I had, at one time, got my hand in my pocket; but the thought
of having been beaten pulled it out again.

Thus ended the most interesting day, as far as I know, that I
ever passed in all my life. Hawkley-hangers, promontories,
and stone-roads will always come into my mind when I see, or
hear of, picturesque views. I forgot to mention that, in going
from Hawkley to Greatham, the man who went to show me the
way, told me at a certain fork, " that road goes to Selborne."
This put me in mind of a book, which was once recommended
to me, but which I never saw, entitled The History and An-
tiquities of Selborne (or something of that sort), written, I
think, by a parson of the name of White, brother of Mr. White,
so long a bookseller in Fleet Street. This parson had, I think,
the living of the parish of Selborne. The book was mentioned
to me as a work of great curiosity and interest. But, at that
time, the THING was biting so very sharply that one had no atten-
tion to bestow on antiquarian researches. Wheat at 39$. a
quarter, and South -Down ewes at 125. 6d. have so weakened the
THING'S jaws and so filed down its teeth, that I shall now certainly
read this book if I can get it. By the bye, if all the parsons had,
for the last thirty years, employed their leisure time in writing
the histories of their several parishes, instead of living, as many
of them have, engaged in pursuits that I need not here name,
neither their situation nor that of their flocks would, perhaps,
have been the worse for it at this day.

25 Nov.
THURSLEY (SURREY).

In looking back into Hampshire, I see with pleasure the
farmers bestirring themselves to get a county meeting called.
r[ ' were, I was told, nearly five hundred names to a requisi-
tion a d those all of land-owners or occupiers. — Precisely what
the\ mean to petition for I do not know; but (and now I address
myself to you, Mr. Canning), if they do not petition for a reform
oj the Parliament, they will do worse than nothing. You, sir,
have often told us that the House, however got together,
" works well." Now, as I said in 1817, just before I went to
America to get out of the reach of our friend, the Old Doctor,
arid to use my long arm ; as I said then, in a letter addressed
to Lord Grosvenor, so I say now, show me the inexpediency of
reform, and I will hold my tongue. Show us, prove to us, that
the House " works well," and I, for my part, give the matter

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 145

up. It is not the construction or the motions of a machine
that I ever look at: all I look after is the effect. When, indeed,
I find that the effect is deficient or evil, I look to the construction.
And as I now see, and have for many years seen, evil effect, I
seek a remedy in an alteration in the machine. There is now
nobody, no, not a single man, out of the regions of Whitehall,
who will pretend that the country can, without the risk of some
great and terrible convulsion, go on, even for twelve months
longer, unless there be a great change of some sort in the mode
of managing the public affairs.

Could you see and hear what I have seen and heard during
this Rural Ride, you would no longer say that the House
" works well." Mrs. Canning and your children are dear to
you; but, sir, not more dear than are to them the wives and
children of, perhaps, two hundred thousand men, who, by the
Acts of this same House, see those wives and children doomed
to beggary, and to beggary, too, never thought of, never regarded
as more likely than a blowing up of the earth or a falling of the
sun. It was reserved for this " working well " House to make
the firesides of farmers scenes of gloom. These firesides, in
which I have always so delighted, I now approach with pain.
I was, not long ago, sitting round the fire with as worthy and as
industrious a man as all England contains. There was his son,
about 19 years of age; two daughters from 15 to 18; and a
little boy sitting on the father's knee. I knew, but not from
him, that there was a mortgage on his farm. I was anxious to
induce him to sell without delay. With this view I, in an hypo-
thetical and roundabout way, approached his case, and at last
I came to final consequences. The deep and deeper gloom on
a countenance once so cheerful told me what was passing in
his breast, when turning away my looks in order to seem not to
perceive the effect of my words, I saw the eyes of his wife full
of tears. She had made the application; and there were her
children before her ! And am I to be banished for life if I
express what I felt upon this occasion ! And does this House,
then, " work well? ' How many men of the most industrious,
the most upright, the most exemplary, upon the face of the
earth, have been, by this one Act of this House, driven to despair,
ending in madness or self-murder, or both! Nay, how many
scores ! And yet are we to be banished for life, if we endeavour
to show that this House does not "work well?" — However,
banish or banish not, these facts are notorious : the House made
all the Loans which constitute the debt: the House contracted

146

Rural Rides

for the dead weight: the House put a stop to gold-payments
in 1797: the House unanimously passed Peel's Bill. Here are
all the causes of the ruin, the misery, the anguish, the despair,
and the madness and self-murders. Here they are all. They
have all been Acts of this House; and yet, we are to be banished
if we say, in words suitable to the subject, that this House does
not " work well I '

This one Act, I mean this Banishment Act, would be
enough, with posterity, to characterise this House. When they
read (and can believe what they read) that it actually passed
a law to banish for life any one who should write, print, or
publish anything having a tendency to bring it into contempt ;
when posterity shall read this, and believe it, they will want
nothing more to enable them to say what sort of an assembly
it was! It was delightful, too, that they should pass this law
just after they had passed Peels Bill I Oh, God ! thou art just I
As to reform, it must come. Let what else will happen, it must
come. Whether before, or after, all the estates be transferred,
I cannot say. But this I know very well; that the later it
come, the deeper will it go.

I shall, of course, go on remarking, as occasion offers, upon
what is done by and said in this present House; but I know
that it can do nothing efficient for the relief of the country. I
have seen some men of late, who seem to think that even a
reform, enacted or begun by this House, would be an evil;
and that it would be better to let the whole thing go on, and
produce its natural consequence. I am not of this opinion: I
am for a reform as soon as possible, even though it be not, at
first, precisely what I could wish ; because, if the debt blow up
before the reform take place, confusion and uproar there must
be; and I do not want to see confusion and uproar. I am for
a reform of some sort, and soon ; but when I say of some sort, I
do not mean of Lord John Russell's sort; I do not mean a
reform in the Lopez way. In short, what I want is to see the
men changed. I want to see other men in the House; and as
to who those other men should be, I really should not be very
nice. I have seen the Tierneys, the Bankeses, the Wilberforces,
the Michael Angelo Taylors, the Lambs, the Lowthers, the Davis
Giddies, the Sir John Sebrights, the Sir Francis Burdetts, the
Hobhouses, old or young, Whitbreads the same, the Lord Johns
and the Lord Williams and the Lord Henries and the Lord
Charleses, and, in short, all the whole family ; I have seen them
all there, all the same faces and names, all my lifetime; I

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 147

see that neither adjournment nor prorogation nor dissolution
makes any change in the men ; and caprice let it be if you like,
I want to see a change in the men. These have done enough in all
conscience; or at least, they have done enough to satisfy me.
I want to see some fresh faces, and to hear a change of some
sort or other in the sounds. A " hear, hear," coming ever-
lastingly from the same mouths, is what I, for my part, am
tired of.

I am aware that this is not what the " great reformers " in
the House mean. They mean, on the contrary, no such thing
as a change of men. They mean that Lopez should sit there for
ever; or, at least, till succeeded by a legitimate heir. I believe
that Sir Francis Burdett, for instance, has not the smallest idea
of an Act of Parliament ever being made without his assistance,
if he chooses to assist, which is not very frequently the case. I
believe that he looks upon a seat in the House as being his
property; and that the other seat is, and ought to be, held as
a sort of leasehold or copyhold under him. My idea of reform,
therefore, my change of faces and of names and of sounds will
appear quite horrible to him. However, I think the nation
begins to be very much of my way of thinking; and this I am
very sure ef, that we shall never see that change in the manage-
ment of affairs which we most of us want to see, unless there be
a pretty complete change of men.

Some people will blame me for speaking out so broadly upon
this subject. But I think it the best way to disguise nothing;
to do what is right ; to be sincere; and to let come what will.

GODALMING,

26 to 28 November.

I came here to meet my son, who was to return to London
when we had done our business. — The turnips are pretty good
all over the country, except upon the very thin soils on the
chalk. At Thursley they are very good, and so they are upon
all these nice light and good lands round about Godalming.

This is a very pretty country. You see few prettier spots
than this. The chain of little hills that run along to the south
and south-east of Godalming, and the soil, which is a good loam
upon a sand-stone bottom, run down on the south side, into
what is called the Weald. This Weald is a bed of clay, in which
nothing grows well but oak trees. It is first the Weald of
Surrey, and then the Weald of Sussex. It runs along on the

i48

Rural Rides

south of Dorking, Reigate, Bletchingley, Godstone, and then
winds away down into Kent. In no part of it, as far as I have
observed, do the oaks grow finer than between the sand-hill on
the south of Godstone and a place called Fellbridge, where the
county of Surrey terminates on the road to East Grinstead.

At Godalming we heard some account of a lawsuit between
Mr. Holme Sumner and his tenant, Mr. Nash ; but the particulars
I must reserve till I have them in black and white.

In all parts of the country, I hear of landlords that begin to
squeak, which is a certain proof that they begin to feel the bottom
of their tenants' pockets. No man can pay rent, I mean any
rent at all, except out of capital; or except under some peculiar
circumstances, such as having a farm near a spot where the
fund-holders are building houses. When I was in Hampshire, I
heard of terrible breakings up in the Isle of Wight. They say
that the general rout is very near at hand there. I heard of one
farmer, who held a farm at seven hundred pounds a year, who
paid his rent annually, and punctually, who had, of course, seven
hundred pounds to pay to his landlord last Michaelmas; but
who, before Michaelmas came, thrashed out and sold (the
harvest being so early) the whole of his corn; sold off his stock,
bit by bit; got the very goods out of his house, leaving only a
bed and some trifling things; sailed with a fair wind over to
France with his family; put his mother-in-law into the house
to keep possession of the house and farm, and to prevent the
landlord from entering upon the land for a year or better, unless
he would pay to the mother-in-law a certain sum of money!
Doubtless the landlord had already sucked away about three
or four times seven hundred pounds from this farmer. He would
not be able to enter upon his farm without a process that would
cost him some money, and without the farm being pretty well
stocked with thistles and docks, and perhaps laid half to common.
Farmers on the coast opposite France are not so firmly bounden
as those in the interior. Some hundreds of these will have
carried their allegiance, their capital (what they have left), and
their skill, to go and grease the fat sow, our old friends the
Bourbons. I hear of a sharp, greedy, hungry shark of a land-
lord, who says that " some law must be passed; " that " Parlia-
ment must do something to prevent this ! ' There is a pretty
fool for you! There is a great jackass (I beg the real jackass's
pardon), to imagine that the people at Westminster can do any-
thing to prevent the French from suffering people to come with
their money to settle in France! This fool does not know,

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 149

perhaps, that there are members of Parliament that live in
France more than they do in England. I have heard of one,
who not only lives there, but carries on vineyards there, and
is never absent from them, except when he comes over " to
attend to his duties in Parliament." He perhaps sells his wine
at the same time, and that being genuine, doubtless brings him
a good price; so that the occupations harmonise together very
well. The Isle of Wight must be rather peculiarly distressed;
for it was the scene of monstrous expenditure. When the pure
Whigs were in power, in 1806, it was proved to them and to the
Parliament, that in several instances, a barn in the Isle of Wight
was rented by the " envy of surrounding nations ' for more
money than the rest of the whole farm! These barns were
wanted as barracks ; and, indeed, such things were carried on in
that island as never could have been carried on under anything
that was not absolutely " the admiration of the world." These
sweet pickings caused, doubtless, a great rise in the rent of the
farms; so that, in this island, there is not only the depression
of price, and a greater depression than anywhere else, but also
the loss of the pickings, and these together leave the tenants but
this simple choice, beggary or flight; and as most of them have
had a pretty deal of capital, and will be likely to have some left
as yet, they will, as they perceive the danger, naturally flee for
succour to the Bourbons. This is, indeed, something new in the
history of English agriculture; and were not Mr. Canning so
positive to the contrary, one would almost imagine that the thing
which has produced it does not work so very well. However,
that gentleman seems resolved to prevent us, by his King of
Bohemia and his two Red Lions, from having any change in this
thing; and therefore the landlords, in the Isle of Wight, as well
as elsewhere, must make the best of the matter.

November 29.

Went on to Guildford, where I slept. Everybody that has
been from Godalming to Guildford, knows 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.

150 Rural Rides

DORKING,

November 30.

I came over the high hill on the south of Guildford, and came
down to Chilworth., and up the valley to Albury. I noticed, in
my first Rural Ride, this beautiful valley, its hangers, its
meadows, its hop-gardens, and its ponds. This valley of Chil-
worth has great variety, and is very pretty; but after seeing
Hawkley, every other place loses in point of beauty and interest.
This pretty valley of Chilworth has a run of water which comes
out of the high hills, and which, occasionally, spreads into a
pond; so that there is in fact a series of ponds connected by this
run of water. This valley, which seems to have been created
by a bountiful providence, as one of the choicest retreats of man;
which seems formed for a scene of innocence and happiness, has
been, by ungrateful man, so perverted as to make it instrumental
in effecting two of the most damnable of purposes; in carrying
into execution two of the most damnable inventions that ever
sprang from the minds of men under the influence of the devil !
namely, the making of gunpowder and of bank-notes 1 Here
in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard
earlier and later in the year than in any other part of England;
where the first bursting of the buds is seen in spring, where no
rigour of seasons can ever be felt; where everything seems
formed for precluding the very thought of wickedness ; here has
the devil fixed on as one of the seats of his grand manufactory;
and perverse and ungrateful man not only lends him his aid,
but lends it cheerfully ! As to the gunpowder, indeed, we might
get over that. In some cases that may be innocently, and,
when it sends the lead at the hordes that support a tyrant,
meritoriously employed. The alders and the willows, therefore,
one can see, without so much regret, turned into powder by the
waters of this valley; but, the bank-notes I To think that the
springs which God has commanded to flow from the sides of these
happy hills, for the comfort and the delight of man; to think
that these springs should be perverted into means of spreading
misery over a whole nation; and that, too, under the base and
hypocritical pretence of promoting its credit and maintaining
its honour and its faith I There was one circumstance, indeed,
that served to mitigate the melancholy excited by these re-
flections; namely, that a part of these springs have, at times,
assisted in turning rags into Registers 1 Somewhat cheered
by the thought of this, but, still, in a more melancholy mood

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 1 5 1

than T had been for a long while, I rode on with my friend
towards Albury, up the valley, the sand-hills on one side of us
and the chalk-hills on the other. Albury is a little village con-
sisting of a few houses, with a large house or two near it. At the
end of the village we came to a park, which is the residence of
Mr. Drummond. — Having heard a great deal of this park,
and of the gardens, I wished very much to see them. My way
to Dorking lay through Shire, and it went along on the outside
of the park. I guessed, as the Yankees say, that there must be a
way through the park to Shire; and I fell upon the scheme of
going into the park as far as Mr. Drummond's house, and then
asking his leave to go out at the other end of it. This scheme,
though pretty barefaced, succeeded very well. It is true that
I was aware that I had not a Norman to deal with ; or I should
not have ventured upon the experiment. I sent in word that,
having got into the park, I should be exceedingly obliged to Mr.
Drummond if he would let me go out of it on the side next
to Shire. He not only granted this request, but, in the most
obliging manner, permitted us to ride all about the park, and to see
his gardens, which, without any exception, are, to my fancy, the
prettiest in England; that is to say, that I ever saw in England.
They say that these gardens were laid out for one of the
Howards, in the reign of Charles the Second, by Mr. Evelyn,
who wrote the Sylva. The mansion-house, which is by no means
magnificent, stands on a little flat by the side of the parish
church, having a steep, but not lofty, hill rising up on the south
side of it. It looks right across the gardens, which lie on the
slope of a hill which runs along at about a quarter of a mile
distant from the front of the house. The gardens, of course,
lie facing the south. At the back of them, under the hill, is a
high wall; and there is also a wall at each end, running from
north to south. Between the house and the gardens there is a
very beautiful run of water, with a sort of little wild narrow
sedgy meadow. The gardens are separated from this by a
hedge, running along from east to west. From this hedge there
go up the hill, at right angles, several other hedges, which divide
the land here into distinct gardens, or orchards. Along at the
top of these there goes a yew hedge, or, rather, a row of small
yew trees, the trunks of which are bare for about eight or ten
feet high, and the tops of which form one solid head of about
ten feet high, while the bottom branches come out on each side
of the row about eight feet horizontally. This hedge, or row,
is a quarter of a mile long. There is a nice hard sand-road under

152 Rural Rides

this species of umbrella; and, summer and winter, here is a most
delightful walk! Behind this row of yews there is a space, or
garden (a quarter of a mile long you will observe), about thirty
or forty feet wide, as nearly as I can recollect. At the back of
this garden, and facing the yew-tree row, is a wall probably ten
feet high, which forms the breastwork of a terrace ; and it is this
terrace which is the most beautiful thing that T ever saw in the
gardening way. It is a quarter of a mile long, and, I believe,
between thirty and forty feet wide; of the finest green sward,
and as level as a die.

The wall, along at the back of this terrace, stands close
against the hill, which you see with the trees and underwood
upon it rising above the wall. So that here is the finest spot
for fruit trees that can possibly be imagined. At both ends of
this garden the trees in the park are lofty, and there are a pretty
many of them. The hills on the south side of the mansion-
house are covered with lofty trees, chiefly beeches and chest-
nut: so that a warmer, a more sheltered, spot than this, it
seems to be impossible to imagine. Observe, too, how judicious
it was to plant the row of yew trees at the distance which I
have described from the wall which forms the breastwork of
the terrace: that wall, as well as the wall at the back of the
terrace, are covered with fruit trees, and the yew-tree row is
just high enough to defend the former from winds, without
injuring it by its shade. In the middle of the wall, at the back
of the terrace, there is a recess, about thirty feet in front and
twenty feet deep, and here is a basin, into which rises a spring
coming out of the hill. The overflowings of this basin go under
the terrace and down across the garden into the rivulet below.
So that here is water at the top, across the middle, and along at
the bottom of this garden. Take it altogether, this, certainly,
is the prettiest garden that I ever beheld. There was taste and
sound judgment at every step in the laying out of this place.
Everywhere utility and convenience is combined with beauty.
The terrace is by far the finest thing of the sort that I ever saw,
and the whole thing altogether is a great compliment to the
taste of the times in which it was formed. I know there are
some ill-natured persons who will say that I want a revolution
that would turn Mr. Drummond out of this place and put me
into it. Such persons will hardly believe me, but upon my word
I do not. From everything that I hear, Mr. Drummond is very
worthy of possessing it himself, seeing that he is famed for his
justice and his kindness towards the labouring classes, wrho, God

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 153

knows, have very few friends amongst the rich. If what I
have heard be true, Mr. Drummond is singularly good in this
way; for instead of hunting down an unfortunate creature who
has exposed himself to the lash of the law; instead of regarding
a crime committed as proof of an inherent disposition to commit
crime; instead of rendering the poor creatures desperate by
this species of proscription, and forcing them on to the gallows,
merely because they have once merited the Bridewell ; instead
of this, which is the common practice throughout the country,
he rather seeks for such unfortunate creatures to take them
into his employ, and thus to reclaim them, and to make them
repent of their former courses. If this be true, and I am
credibly informed that it is, I know of no man in England so
worthy of his estate. There may be others, to act in like
manner; but I neither know nor have heard of any other. I
had, indeed, heard of this, at Alresford in Hampshire; and, to
say the truth, it was this circumstance, and this alone, which
induced me to ask the favour of Mr. Drummond to go through
his park. But, besides that Mr. Drummond is very worthy of
his estate, what chance should I have of getting it if it came to
a scramble ? There are others who like pretty gardens, as well
as I; and if the question were to be decided according to the
law of the strongest, or, as the French call it, by the droit du
plus fort, my chance would be but a very poor one. The truth
is, that you hear nothing but fool's talk about revolutions made
for the purpose of getting possession of people's property. They
never have their spring in any such motives. They are caused
by governments themselves ; and though they do sometimes cause
a new distribution of property to a certain extent, there never
was, perhaps, one single man in this world that had anything
to do, worth speaking of, in the causing of a revolution, that
did it with any such view. But what a strange thing it is, that
there should be men at this time to fear the loss of estates as the
consequence of a convulsive revolution; at this time, when the
estates are actually passing away from the owners before their
eyes, and that, too, in consequence of measures which have been
adopted for what has been called the preservation of property,
against the designs of Jacobins and Radicals ! Mr. Drummond
has, I dare say, the means of preventing his estate from being
actually taken away from him; but I am quite certain that
that estate, except as a place to live at, is not worth to him, at
this moment, one single farthing. What could a revolution do
for him more than this? If one could suppose the power of

154 Rural Rides

doing what they like placed in the hands of the labouring classes;
if one could suppose such a thing as this, which never was yet
seen; if one could suppose anything so monstrous as that of
a revolution that would leave no public authority anywhere;
even in such a case, it is against nature to suppose that the
people would come and turn him out of his house and leave
him without food; and yet that they must do, to make him,
as a landholder, worse off than he is; or, at least, worse off
than he must be in a very short time. I saw, in the gardens at
Albury Park, what I never saw before in all my life; that is,
some plants of the American Cranberry. I never saw them in
America; for there they grow in those swamps into which I
never happened to go at the time of their bearing fruit. I may
have seen the plant, but I do not know that I ever did. Here
it not only grows, but bears; and there are still some cranberries
on the plants now. I tasted them, and they appeared to me to
have just the same taste as those in America. They grew in a
long bed near the stream of water which I have spoken about,
and therefore it is clear that they may be cultivated with great
ease in this country. The road, through Shire along to Dorking,
runs up the valley between the chalk-hills and the sand-hills;
the chalk to our left and the sand to our right. This is called
the Home Dale. It begins at Reigate and terminates at Shal-
ford Common, down below Chilworth.

KEIGATE,

December i*

I set off this morning with an intention to go across the
weald to Worth; but the red rising of the sun and the other
appearances of the morning admonished me to keep upon high
ground; so I crossed the mole, went along under Boxhill,
through Betchworth and Buckland, and got to this place just
at the beginning of a day of as heavy rain, and as boisterous
wind, as I think I have ever known in England. In one rotten
borough, one of the most rotten too, and with another still
more rotten up upon the hill, in Reigate, and close by Gatton,
how can I help reflecting, how can my mind be otherwise than
filled with reflections on the marvellous deeds of the Collective
Wisdom of the nation ! At present, however (for I want to get
to bed), I will notice only one of those deeds, and that one yet
' incohete" a word which Mr. Canning seems to have coined
for the nonce (which is not a coined word), when Lord Castle-
reagh (who cut his throat the other day) was accused of making

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 155

a swap, as the horse- jockeys call it, of a writer-ship against a
seat. It is barter, truck, change, dicker, as the Yankees call it,
but as our horse-jockeys call it, swap, or chop. The case was
this: the chop had been begun ; it had been entered on; but
had not been completed; just as two jockeys may have agreed
on a chop and yet not actually delivered the horses to one another.
Therefore, Mr. Canning said that the act was incohete, which
means without cohesion, without consequence. Whereupon
the House entered on its Journals a solemn resolution, that it
was its duty to watch over its purity with the greatest care ; but
that the said act being " incohete," the House did not think it
necessary to proceed any farther in the matter ! It unfortunately
happened, however, that in a very few days afterwards, that
is to say on the memorable eleventh of June 1809, Mr. Maddocks
accused the very same Castlereagh of having actually sold and
delivered a seat to Quintin Dick for three thousand pounds.
The accuser said he wras ready to bring to the bar proof of the
fact; and he moved that he might be permitted so to do. Now
then what did Mr. Canning say? Why, he said that the re-
formers were a low degraded crew, and he called upon the House
to make a stand against democratical encroachment ! And the
House did not listen to him, surely? Yes, but it did! And it
voted by a thundering majority, that it would not hear the
evidence. And this vote was, by the leader of the Whigs,
justified upon the ground that the deed complained of by Mr.
Maddocks was according to a practice which was as notorious
as the sun at noonday. So much for the word " incohete"
which has led me into this long digression. The deed, or
achievement, of which I am now about to speak, is not the
Marriage Act; for that is cohete enough : that has had plenty of
consequences. It is the New Turnpike Act, which though
passed, is, as yet, " incohete; ' and is not to be cohete for
some time yet to come. I hope it will become cohete during the
time that Parliament is sitting, for otherwise it will have cohesion
pretty nearly equal to that of the Marriage Act. In the first
place this Act makes chalk and lime everywhere liable to turn-
pike duty, which in many cases they were not before. This
is a monstrous oppression upon the owners and occupiers of
clay lands; and comes just at the time, too, when they are
upon the point, many of them, of being driven out of cultivation,
or thrown up to the parish, by other burdens. But it is the
provision with regard to the wheels which will create the greatest
injury, distress and confusion. The wheels which this law orders

i56

Rural Rides

to be used on turnpike-roads,, on pain of enormous toll, cannot
be used on the cross-roads throughout more than nine-tenths of
the kingdom. To make these roads and the drove-lanes (the
private roads of farms) fit for the cylindrical wheels described
in this Bill, would cost a pound an acre, upon an average, upon
all the land in England, and especially in the counties where
the land is poorest. It would, in those counties, cost a tenth
part of the worth of the fee-simple of the land. And this is
enacted, too, at a time when the wagons, the carts, and all the
dead stock of a farm; when the whole is falling into a state of
irrepair; when all is actually perishing for want of means in the
farmer to keep it in repair! This is the time that the Lord
Johns and the Lord Henries and the rest of that honourable
body have thought proper to enact that the whole of the farmers
in England shall have new wheels to their wagons and carts,
or that they shall be punished by the payment of heavier tolls !
It is useless, perhaps, to say anything about the matter; but I
could not help noticing a thing which has created such a general
alarm amongst the farmers in every part of the country where
I have recently been.

WORTH (SUSSEX),
December 2.

I set off from Reigate this morning, and after a pleasant
ride of ten miles, got here to breakfast. — Here, as everywhere
else, the farmers appear to think that their last hour is approach-
ing.— Mr. Charles B 's farms ; I believe it is Sir Charles

B ; and I should be sorry to withhold from him his

title, though, being said to be a very good sort of a man, he
might, perhaps, be able to shift without it: this gentleman's
farms are subject of conversation here. The matter is curious
in itself, and very well worthy of attention, as illustrative of the
present state of things. These farms were, last year, taken
into hand by the owner. This was stated in the public papers
about a twelvemonth ago. It was said that his tenants would
not take the farms again at the rent which he wished to have,
and that therefore he took the farms into hand. These farms
lie somewhere down in the west of Sussex. In the month of
August last I saw (and I think in one of the Brighton news-
papers) a paragraph stating that Mr. B , who had taken his

farms into hand the Michaelmas before, had already got in his
harvest, and that he had had excellent crops ! This was a sort
of bragging paragraph; and there was an observation added,
which implied that the farmers were great fools for not having

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 157

taken the farms! We now hear that Mr. B has let his

farms. But, now, mark how he has let them. The custom in
Sussex is this; when a tenant quits a farm, he receives payment,
according to valuation, for what are called the dressings, the
half-dressings, for seeds and lays, and for the growth of under-
wood in coppices and hedgerows; for the dung in the yards;
and, in short, for whatever he leaves behind him, which, if he
had staid, would have been of value to him. The dressings and
half-dressings include, not only the manure that has been
recently put into the land, but also the summer ploughings;
and, in short, everything which has been done to the land, and
the benefit of which has not been taken out again by the farmer.
This is a good custom; because it ensures good tillage to the
land. It ensures, also, a fair start to the new tenant; but
then, observe, it requires some money, which the new tenant
must pay down before he can begin, and therefore this custom
presumes a pretty deal of capital to be possessed by farmers.
Bearing these general remarks in mind, we shall see, in a moment,

the case of Mr. B . If my information be correct, he has

let his farms: he has found tenants for his farms; but not
tenants to pay him anything for dressings, half-dressings, and
the rest. He was obliged to pay the out-going tenants for these
things. Mind that ! He was obliged to pay them according to
the custom of the country; but he has got nothing of this sort
from his in-coming tenants! It must be a poor farm, indeed,
where the valuation does not amount to some hundreds of

pounds. So that here is a pretty sum sunk by Mr. B ; and

yet even on conditions like these, he has, I dare say, been glad
to get his farms off his hands. There can be very little security
for the payment of rent where the tenant pays no in-coming;

but even if he get no rent at all, Mr. B has done well to get

his farms off his hands. Now, do I wish to insinuate that Mr.

B asked too much for his farms last year, and that he

wished to squeeze the last shilling out of his farmers? By no
means. He bears the character of a mild, just, and very con-
siderate man, by no means greedy, but the contrary. A man
very much beloved by his tenants; or, at least, deserving it.
But the truth is, he could not believe it possible that his farms
were so much fallen in value. He could not believe it possible
that his estate had been taken away from him by the leger-
demain of the Pitt-system, which he had been supporting all
his life: so that he thought, and very naturally thought, that
his old tenants were endeavouring to impose upon him, and

158

Rural Rides

therefore resolved to take his farms into hand. Experience has
shown him that farms yield no rent, in the hands of the land-
lord at least; and therefore he has put them into the hands of

other people. Mr. B , like Mr. Western, has not read the

Register. If he had, he would have taken any trifle from his old
tenants, rather than let them go. But he surely might have
read the speech of his neighbour and friend Mr. Huskisson,
made in the House of Commons in 1814, in which that gentle-
man said that, with wheat at less than double the price that it
bore before the war, it would be impossible for any rent at all

to be paid. Mr. B might have read this; and he might,

having so many opportunities, have asked Mr. Huskisson for
an explanation of it. This gentleman is now a great advocate

for national faith ; but may not Mr. B ask him whether

there be no faith to be kept with the landlord? However, if I

am not deceived, Mr. B or Sir Charles B (for I really

do not know which it is) is a member of the Collective ! If this
be the case he has had something to do with the thing himself;
and he must muster up as much as he can of that " patience '
which is so strongly recommended by our great new state
doctor, Mr. Canning.

I cannot conclude my remarks on this Rural Ride without
noticing the new sort of language that I hear everywhere made
use of with regard to the parsons, but which language I do not
care to repeat. These men may say that I keep company with
none but those who utter " sedition and blasphemy; " and if
they do say so, there is just as much veracity in their words as
I believe there to be charity and sincerity in the hearts of the
greater part of them. One thing is certain ; indeed, two things :
the first is, that almost the whole of the persons that I have
conversed with are farmers; and the second is, that they are
in this respect all of one mind! It was my intention, at one
time, to go along the south of Hampshire to Portsmouth, Fare-
ham, Botley, Southampton, and across the New Forest into
Dorsetshire. My affairs made me turn from Hambledon this
way; but I had an opportunity of hearing something about the
neighbourhood of Botley. Take any one considerable circle
where you know everybody, and the condition of that circle
will teach you how to judge pretty correctly of the condition of
every other part of the country. I asked about the farmers of
my old neighbourhood, one by one; and the answers I received
only tended to confirm me in the opinion, that the whole race
will be destroyed; and that a new race will come, and enter

Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex 159

upon farms without capital and without stock; be a sort of
bailiffs to the landlord for a while, and then, if this system go
on, bailiffs to the government as trustees for the fundholders.

If the account which I have received of Mr. B 's new mode

of letting be true, here is one step further than has been before
taken. In all probability the stock upon the farms belongs
to him, to be paid for when the tenant can pay for it. Who
does not see to what this tends? The man must be blind
indeed who cannot see confiscation here; and can he be much
less than blind, if he imagine that relief is to be obtained by
the patience recommended by Mr. Canning?

Thus, sir, have I led you about the country. All sorts of
things have I talked of, to be sure; but there are very few of
these things which have not their interest of one sort or another.
At the end of a hundred miles or two of travelling, stopping
here and there; talking freely with everybody. Hearing what
gentlemen, farmers, tradesmen, journeymen, labourers, women,
girls, boys, and all have to say; reasoning with some, laughing
with others, and observing all that passes; and especially if
your manner be such as to remove every kind of reserve from
every class; at the end of a tramp like this, you get impressed
upon your mind a true picture, not only of the state of the
country, but of the state of the people's minds throughout the
country. And, sir, whether you believe me or not, I have to
tell you, that it is my decided opinion that the people, high and
low, with one unanimous voice, except where they live upon the
taxes, impute their calamities to the House of Commons. Whether
they be right or wrong is not so much the question, in this case.
That such is the fact I am certain ; and, having no power to make
any change myself, I must leave the making or the refusing of
the change to those who have the power. I repeat, and with
perfect sincerity, that it would give me as much pain as it would
give to any man in England, to see a change in the form of
the government. With King, Lords, and Commons, this nation
enjoyed many ages of happiness and of glory. Without Commons,
my opinion is, it never can again see anything but misery and
shame; and when I say Commons I mean Commons, and, by
Commons, I mean men elected by the free voice of the untitled
and unprivileged part of the people, who, in fact as well as in
law, are the Commons of England.

I am, sir, you most obedient and most humble servant,

WM. COBBETT.

JOURNAL

RIDE FROM KENSINGTON TO WORTH, IN SUSSEX

Monday, May 5, 1823.

FROM London to Reigate, through Sutton, is about as
villainous a tract as England contains. The soil is a mixture
of gravel and clay, with big yellow stones in it, sure sign of
really bad land. Before you descend the hill to go into Reigate,
you pass Gallon (" Gatton and Old Sarum "), which is a very
rascally spot of earth. The trees are here a week later than
they are at Tooting. At Reigate they are (in order to save a
few hundred yards length of road) cutting through a hill.
They have lowered a little hill on the London side of Sutton.
Thus is the money of the country actually thrown away: the
produce of labour is taken from the industrious, and given to
the idlers. Mark the process; the town of Brighton, in Sussex,
50 miles from the Wen, is on the seaside, and is thought by the
stock-jobbers to afford a salubrious air. It is so situated that
a coach, which leaves it not very early in the morning, reaches
London by noon; and, starting to go back in two hours and a
half afterwards, reaches Brighton not very late at night. Great
parcels of stock-jobbers stay at Brighton with the women and
children. They skip backward and forward on the coaches,
and actually carry on stock-jobbing, in 'Change Alley, though
they reside at Brighton. This place is, besides, a place of great
resort with the whiskered gentry. There are not less than about
twenty coaches that leave the Wen every day for this place; and
there being three or four different roads, there is a great rivalship
for the custom. This sets the people to work to shorten and to
level the roads; and here you see hundreds of men and horses con-
stantly at work to make pleasant and quick travelling for the
jews and jobbers. The jews and jobbers pay the turnpikes,
to be sure; but they get the money from the land and labourer.
They drain these, from John-a-Groat's House to the Land's End,
and they lay out some of the money on the Brighton roads!
" Vast improvements, ma'am ! ' as Mrs. Scrip said to Mrs.
Omnium, in speaking of the new enclosures on the villainous

160

Kensington to Worth 161

heaths of Bagshot and Windsor. — Now, some will say, " Well,
it is only a change from hand to hand." Very true, and if Daddy
Coke of Norfolk like the change, I know not why I should dislike
it. More and more new houses are building as you leave the
Wen to come on this road. Whence come the means of building
these new houses and keeping the inhabitants? Do they come
out of trade and commerce ? Oh, no ! they come from the land ;
but if Daddy Coke like this, what has any one else to do with it?
Daddy Coke and Lord Milton like " national faith; " it would
be a pity to disappoint their liking. The best of this is, it will
bring down to the very dirt ; it will bring down their faces to the
very earth, and fill their mouths full of sand; it will thus pull
down a set of the basest lick-spittles of power and the most
intolerable tyrants towards their inferiors in wealth, that the sun
ever shone on. It is time that these degenerate dogs were swept
away at any rate. The blackthorns are in full bloom, and make
a grand show. When you quit Reigate to go towards Crawley,
you enter on what is called the Weald of Surrey. It is a level
country, and the soil a very, very strong loam, with clay beneath
to a great depth. The fields are small, and about a third of the
land covered with oak-woods and coppice-woods. This is a
country of wheat and beans; the latter of which are about three
inches high, the former about seven, and both looking very well.
I did not see a field of bad-looking wheat from Reigate Hill foot
to Crawley, nor from Crawley across to this place, where, though
the whole country is but poorish, the wheat looks very well;
and if this weather hold about twelve davs, we shall recover

^ ,/

the lost time. They have been stripping trees (taking the bark
off) about five or six days. The nightingales sing very much,
which is a sign of warm weather. The house-martins and the
swallows are come in abundance; and they seldom do come
until the weather be set in for mild.

Wednesday, 7 May.

The weather is very fine and warm; the leaves of the Oaks
are coming out very fast: some of the trees are nearly in half-
leaf. The Birches are out in leaf. I do not think that I ever
saw the wheat look, take it all together, so well as it does at this
time. I see, in the stiff land, no signs of worm or slug. The
winter, which destroyed so many turnips, must, at any rate,
have destroyed these mischievous things. The oats look well.
The barley is very young; but I do not see anything amiss with
regard to it. — The land between this place and Reigate is stiff.

1 62 Rural Rides

How the corn may be, in other places, I know not; but, in
coming down, I met with a farmer of Bedfordshire, who said that
the wheat looked very well in that county; which is not a county
of clay, like the Weald of Surrey. I saw a Southdown farmer,
who told me that the wheat is good there, and that is a fine
corn-country. The bloom of the fruit trees is the finest I ever
saw in England. The pear-bloom is, at a distance, like that of
the Gueldre Rose ; so large and bold are the bunches. The plum
is equally fine; and even the blackthorn (which is the hedge-
plum) has a bloom finer than I ever saw it have before. It is
rather early to offer any opinion as to the crop of corn ; but if I
were compelled to bet upon it, I would bet upon a good crop.
Frosts frequently come after this time; and, if they come in May,
they cause " things to come about " very fast. But if we have
no more frosts : in short, if we have, after this, a good summer,
we shall have a fine laugh at the Quakers' and the Jews' press.
Fifteen days' sun will bring things about in reality. The wages
of labour, in the country, have taken a rise, and the poor-rates an
increase, since first of March. I am glad to hear that the Straw
Bonnet affair has excited a good deal of attention. In answer to
applications upon the subject, I have to observe, that all the
information on the subject will be published in the first week
of June. Specimens of the straw and plat will then be to be
seen at No. 183, Fleet Street.

FROM THE [LONDON] WEN ACROSS SURREY, ACROSS
THE WEST OF SUSSEX, AND INTO THE SOUTH-
EAST OF HAMPSHIRE

REIGATE (SURREY),
Saturday, 26 July, 1823.

CAME from the Wen, through Croydon. It rained nearly all
the way. The corn is good. A great deal of straw. The
barley very fine; but all are backward; and, if this weather con-
tinue much longer, there must be that " heavenly blight " for
which the wise friends of " social order " are so fervently praying.
But if the wet now cease, or cease soon, what is to become of
the " poor souls of farmers " God only knows ! In one article the
wishes of our wise government appear to have been gratified to
the utmost; and that, too, without the aid of any express form
of prayer. I allude to the hops, of which, it is said, that there
will be, according to all appearance, none at all! Bravo!
Courage, my Lord Liverpool! This article, at any rate, will
not choak us, will not distress us, will not make us miserable by
" over-production! " — The other day a gentleman (and a man
of general good sense too) said to me: " What a deal of wet
we have: what do you think of the weather now ? " — " More
ram," said I. " D — n those farmers," said he, " what luck they
have ! They will be as rich as Jews ! " — Incredible as this may
seem, it is a fact. But, indeed, there is no folly, if it relate to
these matters, which is, nowadays, incredible. The hop affair
is a pretty good illustration of the doctrine of " relief " from
" diminished production." Mr. Ricardo may now call upon
any of the hop-planters for proof of the correctness of his
notions. They are ruined, for the greater part, if their all be
embarked in hops. How are they to pay rent ? I saw a planter,
the other day, who sold his hops (Kentish) last fall for sixty
shillings a hundred. The same hops will now fetch the owner
of them eight pounds, or a hundred and sixty shillings.

Thus the Quaker gets rich, and the poor devil of a farmer
is squeezed into a gaol. The Quakers carry on the far greater
part of this work. They are, as to the products of the earth,
what the Jews are as to gold and silver. How they profit, or,

163

164 Rural Rides

rather, the degree in which they profit, at the expense of those
who own and those who till the land, may be guessed at if we
look at their immense worth, and if we, at the same time, reflect
that they never work. Here is a sect of non-labourers. One
would think that their religion bound them under a curse
not to work. Some part of the people of all other sects work;
sweat at work; do something that is useful to other people;
but here is a sect of buyers and sellers. They make nothing;
they cause nothing to come; they breed as well as other
sects; but they make none of the raiment or houses, and cause
none of the food to come. In order to justify some measure for
paring the nails of this grasping sect, it is enough to say of
them, which we may with perfect truth, that, if all the other
sects were to act like them, the community must perish. This is
quite enough to say of this sect, of the monstrous privileges of
whom we shall, I hope, one of these days, see an end. If I had
the dealing with them, I would soon teach them to use the spade
and the plough, and the musket too when necessary.

The rye, along the roadside, is ripe enough; and some of it is
reaped and in shock. At Mearstam there is a field of cabbages,
which, I was told, belonged to Colonel Joliffe. They appear
to be early Yorks, and look very well. The rows seem to be
about eighteen inches apart. There may be from 15,000 to
20,000 plants to the acre; and I dare say that they will weigh
three pounds each, or more. I know of no crop of cattle food
equal to this. If they be early Yorks, they will be in perfection
in October, just when the grass is almost gone. No five acres
of common grass land will, during the year, yield cattle food
equal, either in quantity or quality, to what one acre of land,
in early Yorks, will produce during three months.

WORTH (SUSSEX),
Wednesday, 30 July.

Worth is ten miles from Reigate on the Brighton road, which
goes through Horley. Reigate has the Surrey chalk hills close
to it on the north, and sand hills along on its south, and nearly
close to it also. As soon as you are over the sand hills, you
come into a country of deep clay; and this is called the Weald
of Surrey. This Weald winds away round, towards the west
into Sussex, and towards the east into Kent. In this part of
Surrey, it is about eight miles wide, from north to south, and
ends just as you enter the parish of Worth, which is the first

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 165

parish (in this part) in the county of Sussex. All across the
Weald (the strong and stiff clays) the corn looks very well. I
found it looking well from the Wen to Reigate, on the villainous
spewy soil between the Wen and Croydon; on the chalk from
Croydon to near Reigate; on the loam, sand and chalk (for there
are all three) in the valley of Reigate; but not quite so well
on the sand. On the clay all the corn looks well. The wheat,
where it has begun to die, is dying of a good colour, not black,
nor in any way that indicates blight. It is, however, all back-
ward. Some few fields of white wheat are changing colour;
but for the greater part it is quite green ; and though a sudden
change of weather might make a great alteration in a short time,
it does appear that the harvest must be later than usual. When
I say this, however, I by no means wish to be understood as
saying, that it must be so late as to be injurious to the crop.
In 1816, I saw a barleyrick making in November. In 1821, I
saw wheat uncut, in Suffolk, in October. If we were now to
have good, bright, hot weather, for as long a time as we have had
wet, the whole of the corn, in these southern counties, would be
housed, and great part of it threshed out, by the loth of Sep-
tember. So that all depends on the weather, which appears
to be clearing up in spite of Saint Swithin. This saint's birthday
is the 1 5th of July; and it is said that, if rain fall on his birth-
day, it will fall on forty days successively. But, I believe, that
you reckon retrospectively as well as prospectively; and if this
be the case, we may, this time, escape the extreme unction;
for it began to rain on the 26th of June; so that it rained 19
days before the i5th of July; and as it has rained 16 days
since, it has rained, in the whole, 35 days, and, of course, five
days more will satisfy this wet soul of a saint. Let him take
his five days; and there will be plenty of time for us to have
wheat at four shillings a bushel. But if the saint will give us
no credit for the 19 days, and will insist upon his forty daily
drenchings after the fifteenth of July; if he will have such a
soaking as this at the celebration of the anniversary of his birth,
let us hope that he is prepared with a miracle for feeding us, and
with a still more potent miracle for keeping the farmers from
riding over us, filled, as Lord Liverpool thinks their pockets
will be, by the annihilation of their crops !

The upland meadow grass is, a great deal of it, not cut yet,
along the Weald. So that, in these parts, there has not been
a great deal of hay spoiled. The clover hay was got in very
well : and only a small part of the meadow hay has been spoiled

1 66 Rural Rides

in this part of the country. This is not the case, however, in
other parts, where the grass was forwarder, and where it was
cut before the rain came. Upon the whole, however, much
hay does not appear to have been spoiled as yet. The farmers
along here, have, most of them, begun to cut to-day. This
has been a fine day; and it is clear that they expect it to
continue. I saw but two pieces of Swedish turnips between
the Wen and Reigate, but one at Reigate, and but one between
Reigate and Worth. During a like distance, in Norfolk or
Suffolk, you would see two or three hundred fields of this sort
of root. Those that I do see here, look well. The white turnips
are just up, or just sown, though there are some which have
rough leaves already. This Weald is, indeed, not much of land
for turnips ! but from what I see here, and from what I know
of the weather, I think that the turnips must be generally good.
The after-grass is surprisingly fine. The lands, which have had
hay cut and carried from them, are, I think, more beautiful
than I ever saw them before. It should, however, always be
borne in mind, that this beautiful grass is by no means the best.
An acre of this grass will not make a quarter part so much
butter as an acre of rusty-looking pasture, made rusty by the
rays of the sun. Sheep on the commons die of the beautiful
grass produced by long-continued rains at this time of the year.
Even geese, hardy as they are, die from the same cause. The
rain will give quantity, but without sun the quality must be
poor at the best. The woods have not shot much this year.
The cold winds, the frosts, that we had up to midsummer,
prevented the trees from growing much. They are beginning to
shoot now; but the wood must be imperfectly ripened.

I met, at Worth, a beggar who told me, in consequence of my
asking where he belonged, that he was born in South Carolina.
I found, at last, that he was born in the English army, during
the American rebel- war; that he became a soldier himself; and
that it had been his fate to serve under the Duke of York, in
Holland; under General Whitelock, at Buenos Ayres; under
Sir John Moore, at Corunna; and under " the Greatest Captain,"
at Talavera ! This poor fellow did not seem to be at all aware
that, in the last case, he partook in a victory I He had never
before heard of its being a victory. He, poor fool, thought that
it was a defeat. " Why," said he, " we ran away, sir." Oh,
yes! said I, and so you did afterwards, perhaps, in Portugal,
when Massena was at your heels; but it is only in certain cases
that running away is a mark of being defeated; or, rather, it is

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 167

only with certain commanders. A matter of much more interest
to us, however, is, that the wars for " social order," not for-
getting Gatton and Old Sarum, have filled the country with
beggars, who have been, or who pretend to have been, soldiers
and sailors. For want of looking well into this matter, many
good and just, and even sensible men are led to give to these
army and navy beggars what they refuse to others. But if
reason were consulted, she would ask what pretensions these
have to a preference? She would see in them men who had
become soliders or sailors because they wished to live without
that labour by which other men are content to get their bread.
She would ask the soldier beggar whether he did not volun-
tarily engage to perform services such as were performed at
Manchester; and if she pressed him for the motive to this
engagement, could he assign any motive other than that of
wishing to live without work upon the fruit of the work of
other men ? And why should reason not be listened to ? Why
should she not be consulted in every such case? And, if she
were consulted, which would she tell you was the most worthy
of your compassion, the man, who, no matter from what cause,
is become a beggar after forty years spent in the raising of food
and raiment for others as well as for himself; or the man who,
no matter again from what cause, is become a beggar after forty
years living upon the labour of others, and, during the greater
part of which time, he has been living in a barrack, there kept
for purposes explained by Lord Palmerston, and always in
readiness to answer those purposes ? As to not giving to beggars,
I think there is a law against giving ! However, give to them
people will, as long as they ask. Remove the cause of the
beggary and we shall see no more beggars; but as long as
there are boroughmongers, there will be beggars enough.

HORSHAM (SUSSEX),

Thursday} 31 July.

I left Worth this afternoon about 5 o'clock, and am got here
to sleep, intending to set off for Petworth in the morning, with
a view of crossing the South Downs and then going into Hamp-
shire through Havant, and along at the southern foot of Ports-
down Hill, where I shall see the earliest corn in England. From
Worth you come to Crawley along some pretty good land ; you
then turn to the left and go two miles along the road from the
Wen to Brighton; then you turn to the right, and go over

i 68 Rural Rides

six of the worst miles in England, which miles terminate but a
few hundred yards before you enter Horsham. The first two
of these miserable miles go through the estate of Lord Erskine.
It was a bare heath with here and there, in the better parts of it,
some scrubby birch. It has been, in part, planted with fir-trees,
which are as ugly as the heath was: and, in short, it is a most
villainous tract. After quitting it, you enter a forest; but a
most miserable one; and this is followed by a large common,
now enclosed, cut up, disfigured, spoiled, and the labourers all
driven from its skirts. I have seldom travelled over eight
miles so well calculated to fill the mind with painful reflections.
The ride has, however, this in it: that the ground is pretty much
elevated, and enables you to look about you. You see the
Surrey hills away to the north; Hindhead and Blackdown to
the north-west and west; and the South Downs from the west
to the east. The sun was shining upon all these, though it was
cloudy where I was. The soil is a poor, miserable, clayey-
looking sand, with a sort of sandstone underneath. When you
get down into this town, you are again in the Weald of Sussex.
I believe that Weald meant day, or low, wet, stiff land. This
is a very nice, solid, country town. Very clean, as all the towns
in Sussex are. The people very clean. The Sussex women
are very nice in their dress and in their houses. The men and
boys wear smock-frocks more than they do in some counties.
When country people do not they always look dirty and comfort-
less. This has been a pretty good day; but there was a little rain
in the afternoon; so that St. Swithin keeps on as yet, at any rate.
The hay has been spoiled here, in cases where it has been cut;
but a great deal of it is not yet cut. I speak of the meadows;
for the clover-hay was all well got in. The grass, which is not
cut, is receiving great injury. It is, in fact, in many cases,
rotting upon the ground. As to corn, from Crawley to Horsham,
there is none worth speaking of. What there is is very good,
in general, considering the quality of the soil. It is about as
backward as at Worth: the barley and oats green, and the
wheat beginning to change colour.

BlLLINGSHURST (SUSSEX),

Friday Morning, i Aug.

This village is 7 miles from Horsham, and I got here to break-
fast about seven o'clock. A very pretty village, and a very nice
breakfast, in a very neat little parlour of a very decent public-

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 169

house. The landlady sent her son to get me some cream, and
he was just such a chap as I was at his age, and dressed just
in the same sort of way, his main garment being a blue smock-
frock, faded from wear, and mended with pieces of new stuff,
and, of course, not faded. The sight of this smock-frock
brought to my recollection many things very dear to me. This
boy will, I dare say, perform his part at Billingshurst, or at some
place not far from it. If accident had not taken me from a
similar scene, how many villains and fools, who have been well
teased and tormented, would have slept in peace at night, and
have fearlessly swaggered about by day! When I look at this
little chap; at his smock-frock, his nailed shoes, and his clean,
plain, and coarse shirt, I ask myself, will anything, I wonder,
ever send this chap across the ocean to tackle the base, corrupt,
perjured Republican judges of Pennsylvania? Will this little
lively, but, at the same time, simple boy, ever become the
terror of villains and hypocrites across the Atlantic? What a
chain of strange circumstances there must be to lead this boy to
thwart a miscreant tyrant like Mackeen, the chief justice and
afterwards governor of Pennsylvania, and to expose the cor-
ruptions of the band of rascals, called a " Senate and a House
of Representatives," at Harrisburgh, in that state!

I was afraid of rain, and got on as fast as I could : that is to
say, as fast as my own diligence could help me on; for as to
my horse, he is to go only so fast. However, I had no rain; and
got to Petworth, nine miles further, by about ten o'clock.

PETWORTH (SUSSEX),
Friday Evening, i Aug.

No rain, until just at sunset, and then very little. I must
now look back. From Horsham to within a few miles of
Petworth is in the Weald of Sussex; stiff land, small fields,
broad hedgerows, and, invariably, thickly planted with fine,
growing oak trees. The corn here consists chiefly of wheat
and oats. There are some bean-fields, and some few fields of
peas; but very little barley along here. The corn is very good
all along the Weald; backward; the wheat almost green; the
oats quite green; but, late as it is, I see no blight; and the
farmers tell me that there is no blight. There may be yet,
however; and, therefore, our government, our " paternal
government," so anxious to prevent " over production," need
not despair, as yet, at any rate. The beans in the Weald are

170 Rural Rides

not very good. They got lousy before the wet came; and it
came rather too late to make them recover what they had lost.
What peas there are look well. Along here the wheat, in general,
may be fit to cut in about 1 6 days' time; some sooner; but some
later, for some is perfectly green. No Swedish turnips all
along this country. The white turnips are just up, coming up,
or just sown. The farmers are laying out lime upon the wheat
fallows, and this is the universal practice of the country. I see
very few sheep. There are a good many orchards along in the
Weald, and they have some apples this year; but, in general,
not many. The apple trees are planted very thickly, and, of
course, they are small; but they appear healthy in general;
and, in some places, there is a good deal of fruit, even this year.
As you approach Petworth, the ground rises and the soil grows
lighter. There is a hill which I came over, about two miles
from Petworth, whence I had a clear view of the Surrey chalk-
hills, Leith Hill, Hindhead, Blackdown, and of the South Downs,
towards one part of which I was advancing. The pigs along
here are all black, thin-haired, and of precisely the same sort
of those that I took from England to Long Island, and with
which I pretty well stocked the American States. By the by,
the trip which Old Sidmouth and crew gave me to America
was attended with some interesting consequences; amongst
which were the introducing of the Sussex pigs into the American
farm-yards; the introduction of the Swedish turnip into the
American fields; the introduction of American apple-trees into
England; and the introduction of the making, in England, of
the straw plat, to supplant the Italian; for had my son not been
in America, this last would not have taken place; and in
America he would not have been, had it not been for Old Sid-
mouth and crew. One thing more, and that is of more import-
ance than all the rest, Peel's Bill arose out of the " puff-out '
Registers; these arose out of the trip to Long Island; and out
of Peel's Bill has arisen the best bothering that the wigs of the
boroughmongers ever received, which bothering will end in the
destruction of the boroughmongering. It is curious, and very
useful, thus to trace events to their causes.

Soon after quitting Billingshurst I crossed the river Arun,
which has a canal running alongside of it. At this there are
large timber and coal yards, and kilns for lime. This appears
to be a grand receiving and distributing place. The river goes
down to Arundale, and, together with the valley that it runs
through, gives the town its name. This valley, which is very

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 171

pretty, and which winds about a good deal, is the dale of the
Arun: and the town is the town of the Arun-dale. To-day,
near a place called Westborough Green, I saw a woman bleaching
her home-spun and home-woven linen. I have not seen such
a thing before, since I left Long Island. There, and, indeed,
all over the American States, north of Maryland, and especially
in the New England States, almost the whole of both linen and
woollen, used in the country, and a large part of that used in
towns, is made in the farm-houses. There are thousands and
thousands of families who never use either, except of their own
making. All but the weaving is done by the family. There
is a loom in the house, and the weaver goes from house to house.
I once saw about three thousand farmers, or rather country
people, at a horse race in Long Island, and my opinion was,
that there were not five hundred who were not dressed in home-
spun coats. As to linen, no farmer's family thinks of buying
linen. The lords of the loom have taken from the land, in
England, this part of its due; and hence one cause of the
poverty, misery, and pauperism that are becoming so frightful
throughout the country. A national debt, and all the taxation
and gambling belonging to it, have a natural tendency to draw
wealth into great masses. These masses produce a power of
congregating manufactures, and of making the many work at
them, for the gain of a few. The taxing government finds great
convenience in these congregations. It can lay its hand easily
upon a part of the produce; as ours does with so much effect.
But the land suffers greatly from this, and the country must
finally feel the fatal effects of it. The country people lose part
of their natural employment. The women and children, who
ought to provide a great part of the raiment, have nothing to
do. The fields must have men and boys; but where there are
men and boys there will be women and girls ; and as the lords
of the loom have now a set of real slaves, by the means of whom
they take away a great part of the employment of the country-
women and girls, these must be kept by poor rates in whatever
degree they lose employment through the lords of the loom.
One would think that nothing can be much plainer than this;
and yet you hear the jolterheads congratulating one another
upon the increase of Manchester, and such places ! My straw
affair will certainly restore to the land some of the employment
of its women and girls. It will be impossible for any of the
" rich ruffians; " any of the horse-power or steam-power or air-
power ruffians; any of these greedy, grinding ruffians, to draw

172 Rural Rides

together bands of men, women and children, and to make them
slaves, in the working of straw. The raw material comes of
itself, and the hand, and the hand alone, can convert it to use.
I thought well of this before I took one single step in the way
of supplanting the Leghorn bonnets. If I had not been certain
that no rich ruffian, no white slave holder, could ever arise out
of it, assuredly one line upon the subject never would have been
written by me. Better, a million times, that the money should
go to Italy; better that it should go to enrich even the rivals
and enemies of the country; than that it should enable these
hard, these unfeeling men, to draw English people into crowds
and make them slaves, and slaves too of the lowest and most
degraded cast.

As I was coming into this town I saw a new-fashioned sort of
stone-cracking. A man had a sledge-hammer, and was cracking
the heads of the big stones that had been laid on the road a good
while ago. This is a very good way; but this man told me
that he was set at this, because the farmers had no employment
for many of the men. " Well/' said I, " but they pay you to
do this! ' " Yes," said he. " Well, then," said I, " 'is it not
better for them to pay you for working on their land ? ' "I
can't tell, indeed, sir, how that is." But only think; here is
half the haymaking to do: I saw, while I was talking to this
man, fifty people in one hay-field of Lord Egremont, making
and carrying hay; and yet, at a season like this, the farmers are
so poor as to be unable to pay the labourers to work on the land !
From this cause there will certainly be some falling off in produc-
tion. This will, of course, have a tendency to keep prices from
falling so low as they would do if there were no falling off. But
can this benefit the farmer and landlord? The poverty of the
farmers is seen in their diminished stock. The animals are sold
younger than formerly. Last year was a year of great slaughter-
ing. There will be less of everything produced ; and the quality
of each thing will be worse. It will be a lower and more mean
concern altogether. Petworth is a nice market town, but solid
and clean. The great abundance of stone in the land hereabouts
has caused a corresponding liberality in paving and wall-building.
so that everything of the building kind has an air of great
strength, and produces the agreeable idea of durability. Lord
Egremont's house is close to the town, and with its out-buildings,
garden walls, and other erections, is, perhaps, nearly as big as
the town; though the town is not a very small one. The park
is very fine, and consists of a parcel of those hills and dells which

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 173

Nature formed here when she was in one of her most sportive
modes. I have never seen the earth flung about in such a wild
way as round about Hindhead and Blackdown; and this park
forms a part of this ground. From an elevated part of it, and
indeed, from each of many parts of it, you see all around the
country to the distance of many miles. From the south-east
to the north-west, the hills are so lofty and so near, that they
cut the view rather short; but for the rest of the circle, you can
see to a very great distance. It is, upon the whole, a most
magnificent seat, and the Jews will not be able to get it from the
present owner; though, if he live many years, they will give even
him a twist. If I had time, I would make an actual survey of one
whole county, and find out how many of the old gentry have
lost their estates, and have been supplanted by the Jews, since
Pitt began his reign. I am sure I should prove that, in number,
they are one-half extinguished. But it is now that they go.
The little ones are, indeed, gone; and the rest will follow in
proportion as the present fanners are exhausted. These will
keep on giving rents as long as they can beg or borrow the money
to pay rents with. But a little more time will so completely
exhaust them, that they will be unable to pay; and as that
takes place, the landlords will lose their estates. Indeed many
of them, and even a large portion of them, have, in fact, no
estates now. They are called theirs; but the mortgagees and
annuitants receive the rents. As the rents fall off, sales must
take place, unless in cases of entails; and if this thing go on,
we shall see acts passed to cut off entails, in order that the Jews
may be put into full possession. Such, thus far, will be the
result of our " glorious victories " over the French ! Such will
be, in part, the price of the deeds of Pitt, Addington, Perceval
and their successors. For having applauded such deeds; for
having boasted of the Wellesleys ; for having bragged of battles
won by money and by money only, the nation deserves that which
it will receive; and as to the landlords, they, above all men
living, deserve punishment. They put the power into the hands
of Pitt and his crew to torment the people ; to keep the people
down; to raise soldiers and to build barracks for this purpose.
These base landlords laughed when affairs like that of Man-
chester took place. They laughed at the Blanketteers. They
laughed when Canning jested about Ogden's rupture. Let them,
therefore, now take the full benefit of the measures of Pitt and
his crew. They would fain have us believe that the calamities
they endure do not arise from the acts of the government.

174 Rural Rides

What do they arise from, then? The Jacobins did not contract
the Debt of £800,000,000 sterling. The Jacobins did not create
a dead weight of £150,000,000. The Jacobins did not cause a
pauper-charge of £200,000,000 by means of " new inclosure
bills," " vast improvements," paper-money, potatoes, and other
" proofs of prosperity." The Jacobins did not do these things.
And will the government pretend that " Providence " did it?
That would be "blasphemy' indeed. — Poh! These things
are the price of efforts to crush freedom in France, lest the
example of France should produce a reform in England. These
things are the price of that undertaking; which, however, has
not yet been crowned with success ; for the question is not yet
decided. They boast of their victory over the French. The
Pitt crew boast of their achievements in the war. They boast
of the battle of Waterloo. Why! what fools could not get
the same, or the like, if they had as much money to get it with ?
Shooting with a silver gun is a saying amongst game-eaters.
That is to say, purchasing the game. A waddling, fat. fellow
that does not know how to prime and load, will, in this way,
beat the best shot in the country. And this is the way that
our crew " beat " the people of France. They laid out, in the
first place, six hundred millions which they borrowed, and for
which they mortgaged the revenues of the nation. Then they
contracted for a " dead weight " to the amount of one hundred
and fifty millions. Then they stripped the labouring classes of
the commons, of their kettles, their bedding, their beer-barrels;
and, in short, made them all paupers, and thus fixed on the
nation a permanent annual charge of about 8 or 9 millions, or,
a gross debt of £200,000,000. By these means, by these anticipa-
tions, our crew did what they thought would keep down the
French nation for ages; and what they were sure would, for the
present, enable them to keep up the tithes and other things of
the same sort in England. But the crew did not reflect on the
consequences of the anticipations! Or at least the landlords,
who gave the crew their power, did not thus reflect. These
consequences are now come, and are coming; and that must be
a base man indeed, who does not see them with pleasure.

SINGLETON (SUSSEX),
Saturday, 2 Aug.

Ever since the middle of March, I have been trying remedies
for the hooping-cough, and have, I believe, tried everything,

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 175

except riding, wet to the skin, two or three hours amongst the
clouds on the South Downs. This remedy is now under trial.
As Lord Liverpool said, the other day, of the Irish Tithe Bill,
it is " under experiment." I am treating my disorder (with
better success I hope) in somewhat the same way that the pretty
fellows at Whitehall treat the disorders of poor Ireland. There
is one thing in favour of this remedy of mine, I shall know the
effect of it, and that, too, in a short time. It rained a little last
night. I got off from Petworth without baiting my horse,
thinking that the weather looked suspicious, and that St.
Swithin meant to treat me to a dose. I had no greatcoat, nor
any means of changing my clothes. The hooping-cough made
me anxious; but I had fixed on going along the South Downs
from Donnington-hill down to Lavant, and then to go on the
flat to the south foot of Portsdown-hill, and to reach Fareham
to-night. Two men, whom I met soon after I set off, assured
me that it would not rain. I came on to Donnington, which
lies at the foot of that part of the South Downs which I had to
go up. Before I came to this point, I crossed the Arun and its
canal again; and here was another place of deposit for timber,
lime, coals, and other things. White, in his history of Selborne,
mentions a hill, which is one of the Hindhead group, from
which two springs (one on each side of the hill) send water into
the two seas : the Atlantic and the German Ocean I This is big
talk; but it is a fact. One of the streams becomes the Arun,
which falls into the Channel; and the other, after winding along
amongst the hills and hillocks between Hindhead and Godalming,
goes into the river Wey} which falls into the Thames at Wey-
bridge. The soil upon leaving Petworth, and at Petworth.
seems very good; a fine deep loam, a sort of mixture of sand and
soft chalk. I then came to a sandy common; a piece of ground
that seemed to have no business there; it looked as if it had
been tossed from Hindhead or Blackdown. The common, how-
ever, during the rage for " improvements," has been inclosed.
That impudent fellow, Old Rose, stated the number of Inclosure
Bills as an indubitable proof of " national prosperity." There
was some rye upon this common, the sight of which would have
gladdened the heart of Lord Liverpool. It was, in parts, not
more than eight inches high. It was ripe, and, of course, the
straw dead; or I should have found out the owner, and have
bought it to make bonnets of ! I defy the Italians to grow worse
rye than this. The reader will recollect that I always said that
we could grow as poor corn as any Italians that ever lived.

176

Rural Rides

The village of Donton lies at the foot of one of these great chalk
ridges, which are called the South Downs. The ridge, in this
place, is, I think, about three-fourths of a mile high, by the high
road, which is obliged to go twisting about, in order to get to
the top of it. The hill sweeps round from about west-north-west
to east-south-east; and, of course, it keeps off all the heavy winds,
and especially the south-west winds, before which, in this part
of England (and all the south and western part of it), even
the oak trees seem as if they would gladly flee: from it shaves
them up as completely as you see a quickset hedge shaved by
hook or shears. Talking of hedges reminds me of having seen
a box-hedge, just as I came out of Petworth, more than twelve
feet broad, and about fifteen feet high. I dare say it is several
centuries old. I think it is about forty yards long. It is a great
curiosity.

The apple trees at Donnington show their gratitude to the
hill for its shelter; for I have seldom seen apple trees in England
so large, so fine, and, in general, so flourishing. I should like
to have, or to see, an orchard of American apples under this
hill. The hill, you will observe, does not shade the ground at
Donnington. It slopes too much for that. But it affords
complete shelter from the mischievous winds. It is very pretty
to look down upon this little village as you come winding up
the hill.

From this hill I ought to have had a most extensive view. I
ought to have seen the Isle of Wight and the sea before me;
and to have looked back to Chalk Hill at Reigate, at the foot
of which I had left some bonnet-grass bleaching. But, alas!
Saint Swithin had begun his works for the day, before I got to
the top of the hill. Soon after the two turnip-hoers had assured
me that there would be no rain, I saw, beginning to poke up
over the South Downs (then right before me), several parcels
of those white, curled clouds, that we call Judges' Wigs.
And they are just like judges' wigs. Not the parson-like things
which the judges wear when they have to listen to the dull
wrangling and duller jests of the lawyers; but those big wigs
which hang down about their shoulders, when they are about
to tell you a little of their intentions, and when their very looks
say, " Stand dear I ' These clouds (if rising from the south-
west) hold precisely the same language to the great-coatless
traveller. Rain is sure to follow them. The sun was shining
very beautifully when I first saw these judges' wigs rising over
the hills. At the sight of them he soon began to hide his face!

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 177

and before I got to the top of the hill of Don ton, the white clouds
had become black, had spread themselves all around, and a
pretty decent and sturdy rain began to fall. I had resolved to
come to this place (Singleton) to breakfast. I quitted the turn-
pike road (from Petworth to Chichester) at a village called Up-
waltham, about a mile from Donnington Hill; and came down
a lane, which led me first to a village called Eastdean; then to
another called Westdean, I suppose; and then to this village of
Singleton, and here I am on the turnpike road from Midhurst
to Chichester. The lane goes along through some of the finest
farms in the world. It is impossible for corn land and for
agriculture to be finer than these. In cases like mine, you are
pestered to death to find out the way to set out to get from place
to place. The people you have to deal with are innkeepers,
ostlers, and post-boys; and they think you mad if you express
your wish to avoid turnpike roads; and a great deal more than
half mad, if you talk of going, even from necessity, by any
other road. They think you a strange fellow if you will not
ride six miles on a turnpike road rather than two on any other
road. This plague I experienced on this occasion. I wanted
to go from Petworth to Havant. My way was through Single-
ton and Funtington. I had no business at Chichester, which
took me too far to the south. Nor at Midhurst, which took
me too far to the west. But though I staid all day (after my
arrival) at Petworth, and though I slept there, I could get no
directions how to set out to come to Singleton, where I am now.
I started, therefore, on the Chichester road, trusting to my
inquiries of the country people as I came on. By these means
I got hither, down a long valley, on the South Downs, which
valley winds and twists about amongst hills, some higher and
some lower, forming cross dells, inlets, and ground in such a
variety of shapes that it is impossible to describe; and the whole
of the ground, hill as well as dell, is fine, most beautiful, corn
land, or is covered with trees or underwood. As to St. Swithin,
I set him at defiance. The road was flinty, and very flinty. I
rode a foot pace, and got here wet to the skin. I am very
glad I came this road. The corn is all fine; all good; fine crops,
and no appearance of blight. The barley extremely fine. The
corn not forwarder than in the Weald. No beans here; few
oats comparatively; chiefly wheat and barley; but great
quantities of Swedish turnips, and those very forward. More
Swedish turnips here upon one single farm than upon all the
farms that I saw between the Wen and Petworth. These

G638

178 Rural Rides

turnips are, in some places, a foot high, and nearly cover the
ground. The farmers are, however, plagued by this St. Swithin,
who keeps up a continual drip, which prevents the thriving of
the turnips and the killing of the weeds. The orchards are good
here in general. Fine walnut trees, and an abundant crop of
walnuts. This is a series of villages all belonging to the Duke
of Richmond, the outskirts of whose park and woods come up
to these farming lands, all of which belong to him; and I suppose
that every inch of land that I came through this morning belongs
either to the Duke of Richmond or to Lord Egremont. No
harm in that, mind, if those who till the land have fair play ;
and I should act unjustly towards these noblemen, if I insinuated
that the husbandmen have not fair play, as far as the landlords
are concerned; for everybody speaks well of them. There is,
besides, no misery to be seen here. I have seen no wretchedness
in Sussex; nothing to be at all compared to that which I
have seen in other parts; and as to these villages in the South
Downs, they are beautiful to behold. Hume and other historians
rail against the feudal-system ; and we, " enlightened ' and
" free " creatures as we are, look back with scorn, or, at least,
with surprise and pity, to the " vassalage " of our forefathers.
But if the matter were well inquired into, not slurred over, but
well and truly examined, we should find, that the people of these
villages were as free in the days of William Rufus as are the
people of the present day; and that vassalage, only under other
names, exists now as completely as it existed then. Well; but
out of this, if true, arises another question: namely, Whether
the millions would derive any benefit from being transferred
from these great lords who possess them by hundreds, to Jews
and jobbers who would possess them by half-dozens, or by
couples ? One thing we may say with a certainty of being right:
and that is, that the transfer would be bad for the lords them-
selves. There is an appearance of comfort about the dwellings
of the labourers, all along here, that is very pleasant to behold.
The gardens are neat, and full of vegetables of the best kinds.
I see very few of " Ireland's lazy root; " and never, in this
country, will the people be base enough to lie down and expire
from starvation under the operation of the extreme unction 1
Nothing but a potato-eater will ever do that. As I came along
between Upwaltham and Eastdean, I called to me a young man,
who, along with other turnip-hoers, was sitting under the shelter
of a hedge at breakfast. He came running to me with his
victuals in his hand; and I was glad to see that his food

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 179

consisted of a good lump of household bread and not a very
small piece of bacon. I did not envy him his appetite, for I
had at that moment a very good one of my own; but I wanted
to know the distance I had to go before I should get to a good
public-house. In parting with him, I said, " You do get some
bacon then? ' " Oh, yes! sir," said he, and with an emphasis
and a swag of the head which seemed to say, " We must and will
have that." I saw, and with great delight, a pig at almost every
labourer's house. The houses are good and warm; and the
gardens some of the very best that I have seen in England.
What a difference, good God! what a difference between this
country and the neighbourhood of those corrupt places Great
Bedwin and Cricklade. What sort of breakfast would this man
have had in a mess of cold potatoes ? Could he have worked, and
worked in the wet, too, with such food? Monstrous! No
society ought to exist where the labourers live in a hog-like sort
of way. The Morning Chronicle is everlastingly asserting the
mischievous consequences of the want of enlightening these
people " i1 th a sooth ; ' and telling us how well they are
off in the north. Now, this I know, that in the north, the
" enlightened " people eat sowens, burgoo, porridge, and potatoes :
that is to say, oatmeal and water, or the root of extreme unction.
If this be the effect of their light, give me the darkness " o' th a
sooth." This is according to what I have heard. If, when I
go to the north, I find the labourers eating more meat than those
of the " sooth," I shall then say that " enlightening " is a very
good thing; but give me none of that " light," or of that " grace,"
which makes a man content with oatmeal and water, or that
makes him patiently lie down and die of starvation amidst
abundance of food. The Morning Chronicle hears the labourers
crying out in Sussex. They are right to cry out in time. When
they are actually brought down to the extreme unction, it is
useless to cry out. And next to the extreme unction is the
porridge of the " enlightened " slaves who toil in the factories
for the lords of the loom. Talk of vassals ! Talk of villains !
Talk of serfs ! Are there any of these, or did feudal times ever
see any of them, so debased, so absolutely slaves, as the poor
creatures who, in the " enlightened " north, are compelled to
work fourteen hours in a day, in a heat of eighty-four degrees;
and who are liable to punishment for looking out at a window
of the factory !

This is really a soaking day, thus far. I got here at nine
o'clock. I stripped off my coat, and put it by the kitchen

180 Rural Rides

fire. In a parlour just eight feet square I have another fire,
and have dried my shirt on my back. We shall see what this
does for a hooping cough. The clouds fly so low as to be seen
passing by the sides of even little hills on these downs. The
Devil is said to be busy in a high wind; but he really appears to
be busy now in this south-west wind. The Quakers will, next
market day, at Mark Lane, be as busy as he. They and the
ministers and St. Swithin and Devil all seem to be of a mind.

I must not forget the churches. That of Donnington is very
small, for a church. It is about twenty feet wide and thirty
long. It is, however, sufficient for the population, the amount of
which is two hundred and twenty-two, not one half of whom
are, of course, ever at church at one time. There is, however,
plenty of room for the whole: the " tower " of this church is
about double the size of a sentry-box. The parson, whose name
is Davidson, did not, when the return was laid before Parlia-
ment, in 1818, reside in the parish. Though the living is a large
living, the parsonage house was let to " a lady and her three
daughters." What impudence a man must have to put this
into a return! The church at Upwaltham is about such
another, and the " tower " still less than that at Donnington.
Here the population is seventy-nine. The parish is a rectory,
and, in the return before mentioned, the parson (whose name
was Tripp), says, that the church will hold the population, but
that the parsonage house will not hold him! And why? Be-
cause it is "a miserable cottage." I looked about for this
" miserable cottage," and could not find it. What an impudent
fellow this must have been! And, indeed, what a state of
impudence have they not now arrived at! Did he, when he
was ordained, talk anything about a fine house to live in ? Did
Jesus Christ and Saint Paul talk about fine houses? Did not
this priest most solemnly vow to God, upon the altar, that he
would be constant, in season and out of season, in watching
over the souls of his flock ? However, it is useless to remonstrate
with this set of men. Nothing will have any effect upon them.
They will keep grasping at the tithes as long as they can reach
them. "A miserable cottage I ' What impudence! What,
Mr. Tripp, is it a fine house that you have been appointed and
ordained to live in ? Lord Egremont is the patron of Mr. Tripp ;
and he has a duty to perform too; for the living is not his: he
is, in this case, only an hereditary trustee for the public; and he
ought to see that this parson resides in the parish, which,
according to his own return, yields him £125 a year. Eastdean

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 181

is a vicarage, with a population of 353, a church which the
parson says will hold 200, and which I say will hold 600 or 700,
and a living worth £85 a year, in the gift of the Bishop of
Chichester.

Westdean is united with Singleton, the living is in the gift of
the church at Chichester and the Duke of Richmond alternately;
it is a large living, it has a population of 613, and the two
churches, says the parson, will hold 200 people ! What careless,
or what impudent fellows these must have been. These two
churches will hold a thousand people, packed much less close
than they are in meeting houses.

At Upwaltham there is a toll gate, and, when the woman
opened the door of the house to come and let me through, I
saw some straw plat lying in a chair. She showed it me; and I
found that it was made by her husband, in the evenings, after
he came home from work, in order to make him a hat for the
harvest. I told her how to get better straw for the purpose;
and when I told her that she must cut the grass, or the grain,
green, she said, " Aye, I dare say it is so: and I wonder we never
thought of that before; for we sometimes make hats out of
rushes, cut green, and dried, and the hats are very durable."
This woman ought to have my Cottage Economy. She keeps
the toll-gate at Upwaltham, which is called Waltham, and
which is on the turnpike road from Petworth to Chichester.
Now, if any gentleman, who lives at Chichester, will call upon
my son, at the office of the Register in Fleet Street, and ask for a
copy of Cottage Economy, to be given to this woman, he will
receive the copy, and my thanks, if he will have the goodness
to give it to her, and to point to her the Essay on Straw Plat.

FAREHAM (HANTS),

Saturday, 2 August.

Here I am in spite of St. Swithin ! — The truth is, that the saint
is like most other oppressors; rough him! rough him! and he
relaxes. After drying myself, and sitting the better part of
four hours at Singleton, I started in the rain, boldly setting the
saint at defiance, and expecting to have not one dry thread by
the time I got to Havant, which is nine miles from Fareham,
and four from Cosham. To my most agreeable surprise, the
rain ceased before I got by Selsey, I suppose it is called, where
Lord Selsey's house and beautiful and fine estate is. On I went,
turning off to the right to go to Funtington and Westbourn, and
getting to Havant to bait my horse, about four o'clock.

1 82 Rural Rides

From Lavant (about two miles back from Funtington) the
ground begins to be a sea-side flat. The soil is somewhat varied
in quality and kind; but, with the exception of an enclosed
common between Funtington and Westbourn, it is all good soil.
The corn of all kinds good and earlier than further back. They
have begun cutting peas here, and, near Lavant, I saw a field
of wheat nearly ripe. The Swedish turnips very fine, and still
earlier than on the South Downs. Prodigicus crops of walnuts;
but the apples bad along here. The south-west winds have
cut them off; and, indeed, how should it be otherwise, if these
winds happen to prevail in May, or early in June ?

On the new enclosure near Funtington, the wheat and oats
are both nearly ripe.

In a new enclosure, near Westbourn, I saw the only really
blighted wheat that I have yet seen this year. ' Oh 1 ' ' ex-
claimed I, " that my Lord Liverpool; that my much respected
stern-path-of-duty-man could but see that wheat, which God
and the seedsman intended to be white ; but which the Devil
(listening to the prayers of the Quakers) has made black I Oh !
could but my lord see it, lying flat upon the ground, with the
May-weed and the couch-grass pushing up through it, and with
a whole flock of rooks pecking away at its ears! Then would
my much valued lord say, indeed, that the ' difficulties ' of
agriculture are about to receive the ' greatest abatement ! '

But now I come to one of the great objects of my journey:
that is to say, to see the state of the corn along at the south foot
and on the south side of Portsdown Hill. It is impossible that
there can be, anywhere, a better corn country than this. The
hill is eight miles long, and about three-fourths of a mile high,
beginning at the road that runs along at the foot of the hill.
On the hill-side the corn land goes rather better than half way
up; and, on the sea-side, the corn land is about the third (it may
be half) a mile wide. Portsdown Hill is very much in the shape
of an oblong tin cover to a dish. From Bedhampton, which lies
at the eastern end of the hill, to Fareham, which is at the western
end of it, you have brought under your eye not less than eight
square miles of corn fields, with scarcely a hedge or ditch of any
consequence, and being, on an average, from twenty to forty
acres each in extent. The land is excellent. The situation
good for manure. The spot the earliest in the whole kingdom.
Here, if the corn were backward, then the harvest must be back-
ward. We were talking at Reigate of the prospect of a back-
ward harvest. I observed that it was a rule that if no wheat

Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire 183

were cut under Portsdown Hill on the hill fair-day, 26th July,
the harvest must be generally backward. When I made this
observation, the fair-day was passed; but I determined in my
mind to come and see how the matter stood. When, therefore,
I got to the village of Bedhampton, I began to look out pretty
sharply. I came on to Wimmering, which is just about the
mid-way along the foot of the hill, and there I saw, at a good
distance from me, five men reaping in a field of wheat of about
40 acres. I found, upon inquiry, that they began this morning,
and that the wheat belongs to Mr. Boniface, of Wimmering.
Here the first sheaf is cut that is cut in England : that the reader
may depend upon. It was never known that the average even
of Hampshire was less than ten days behind the average of
Portsdown Hill. The corn under the hill is as good as I ever saw
it, except in the year 1813. No beans here. No peas. Scarcely
any oats. Wheat, barley, and turnips. The Swedish turnips
not so good as on the South Downs and near Funtington; but
the wheat full as good, rather better; and the barley as good as
it is possible to be. In looking at these crops, one wonders
whence are to come the hands to clear them off.

A very pleasant ride to-day; and the pleasanter for my having
set the wet saint at defiance. It is about thirty miles from
Petworth to Fareham; and I got in in very good time. I have
now come, if I include my boltings, for the purpose of looking at
farms and woods, a round hundred miles from the Wen to this
town of Fareham; and, in the whole of the hundred miles,
I have not seen one single wheat rick, though I have come
through as fine corn countries as any in England, and by the
homesteads of the richest of farmers. Not one single wheat
rick have I seen, and not one rick of any sort of corn. I never
saw, nor heard of the like of this before; and if I had not wit-
nessed the fact with my own eyes I could not have believed it.
There are some farmers who have corn in their barns perhaps;
but when there is no rick left, there is very little corn in the
hands of farmers. Yet the markets, St. Swithin notwithstand-
ing, do not rise. This harvest must be three weeks later than
usual; and the last harvest was three weeks earlier than usual.
The last crop was begun upon at once, on account of the badness
of the wheat of the year before. So that the last crop will have
had to give food for thirteen months and a half. And yet the
markets do not rise! And yet there are men, farmers, mad
enough to think, that they have " got past the bad place," and
that things will come about, and are coming about ! And Leth-

184 Rural Rides

bridge, of the Collective, withdraws his motion because he has
got what he wanted: namely, a return of good and " remunerat-
ing prices ! ' The Morning Chronicle of this day, which has met
me at this place, has the following paragraph. " The weather
is much improved, though it does not yet assume the character
of being fine. At the Corn Exchange since Monday the arrivals
consist of 7130 quarters of wheat, 450 quarters of barley, 8300
quarters of oats, and 9200 sacks of flour. The demand for
wheat is next to zero, and for oats it is extremely dull. To
effect sales, prices are not much attended to, for the demand
cannot be increased at the present currency. The farmers
should pay attention to oats, for the foreign new, under the
king's lock, will be brought into consumption, unless a decline
takes place immediately, and a weight will thereby be thrown
over the markets, which under existing circumstances will be
extremely detrimental to the agricultural interests. Its dis-
tress however does not deserve much sympathy, for as soon as
there was a prospect of the payment of rents, the cause of the
people was abandoned by the representatives of agriculture in
the Collected Wisdom, and Mr. Brougham's most excellent
measure for increasing the consumption of malt was neglected.
Where there is no sympathy, none can be expected, and the
land proprietors need not in future depend on the assistance of
the mercantile and manufacturing interests, should their own
distress again require a united effort to remedy the general
grievances." As to the mercantile and manufacturing people,
what is the land to expect from them? But I agree with the
Chronicle, that the landlords deserve ruin. They abandoned
the public cause the moment they thought that they saw a
prospect of getting rents. That prospect will soon disappear,
unless they pray hard to St. Swithin to insist upon forty days
wet after his birthday. I do not see what the farmers can do
about the price of oats. They have no power to do anything
unless they come with their cavalry horses and storm the
" king's lock." In short, it is all confusion in men's minds as
well as in their pockets. There must be something completely
out of joint, when the government are afraid of the effects of a
good crop. I intend to set off to-morrow for Botley, and go
thence to Easton; and then to Alton and Crondall and Farnham,
to see how the hops are there. By the time that I get back
to the Wen, I shall know nearly the real state of the case as to
crops; and that, at this time, is a great matter.

THROUGH THE SOUTH-EAST OF HAMPSHIRE, BACK
THROUGH THE SOUTH-WEST OF SURREY, ALONG
THE WEALD OF SURREY, AND THEN OVER THE
SURREY HILLS DOWN TO THE WEN

BOTLEY (HAMPSHIRE),
5 August, 1823.

I GOT to Fareham on Saturday night, after having got a soaking
on the South Downs on the morning of that day. On the
Sunday morning, intending to go and spend the day at Titch-
field (about three miles and a half from Fareham), and perceiv-
ing, upon looking out of the window, about 5 o'clock in the
morning, that it was likely to rain, I got up, struck a bustle,
got up the ostler, set off and got to my destined point before
7 o'clock in the morning. And here I experienced the benefits
of early rising; for I had scarcely got well and safely under
cover, when St. Swithin began to pour down again, and he con-
tinued to pour during the whole of the day. From Fareham to
Titchfield village a large part of the ground is a common enclosed
some years ago. It is therefore amongst the worst of the 1'and
in the country. Yet, I did not see a bad field of corn along here,
and the Swedish turnips were, I think, full as fine as any that
I saw upon the South Downs. But it is to be observed that this
land is in the hands of dead-weight people, and is conveniently
situated for the receiving of manure from Portsmouth. Before
I got to my friend's house, I passed by a farm where I expected
to find a wheat-rick standing. I did not, however; and this is
the strongest possible proof that the stock of corn is gone out
of the hands of the farmers. I set out from Titchfield at 7 o'clock
in the evening, and had seven miles to go to reach Botley. It
rained, but I got myself well furnished forth as a defence against
the rain. I had not gone two hundred yards before the rain
ceased; so that I was singularly fortunate as to rain this day;
and I had now to congratulate myself on the success of the
remedy for the hooping-cough which I used the day before on
the South Downs; for really, though I had a spell or two of
coughing on Saturday morning when I set out from Petworth,
I have not had, up to this hour, any spell at all since I got wet
*G638 185

1 86 Rural Rides

upon the South Downs. I got to Botley about nine o'clock,
having stopped two or three times to look about me as I went
along; for I had, in the first place, to ride, for about three miles
of my road, upon a turnpike road of which I was the projector,
and, indeed, the maker. In the next place I had to ride, for
something better than half a mile of my way, along between
fields and coppices that were mine until they came into the
hands of the mortgagee, and by the side of cottages of my own
building. The only matter of much interest with me was the
state of the inhabitants of those cottages. I stopped at two
or three places, and made some little inquiries; I rode up to
two or three houses in the village of Botley, which I had to pass
through, and, just before it was dark, I got to a farm-house close
by the church, and what was more, not a great many yards
from the dwelling of that delectable creature, the Botley parson,
whom, however, I have not seen during my stay at this place.

Botley lies in a valley, the soil of which is a deep and stiff clay.
Oak trees grow well; and this year the wheat grows well, as it
does upon all the clays that I have seen. I have never seen
the wheat better in general, in this part of the country, than
it is now. I have, I think, seen it heavier; but never clearer
from blight. It is backward compared to the wheat in many
other parts; some of it is quite green; but none of it has any
appearance of blight. This is not much of a barley country.
The oats are good. The beans that I have seen, very indifferent.

The best news that I have learnt here is, that the Botley
parson is become quite a gentle creature, compared to what he
used to be. The people in the village have told me some most
ridiculous stories about his having been hoaxed in London!
It seems that somebody danced him up from Botley to London,
by telling him that a legacy had been left him, or some such
story. Up went the parson on horseback, being in too great
a hurry to run the risk of coach. The hoaxers, it appears, got
him to some hotel, and there set upon him a whole tribe of
applicants, wet-nurses, dry-nurses, lawyers with deeds of
conveyance for borrowed money, curates in want of churches,
coffin-makers, travelling companions, ladies' maids, dealers in
Yorkshire hams, Newcastle coals, and dealers in dried night-
soil at Islington. In short, if I am rightly informed, they kept
the parson in town for several days, bothered him three parts
out of his senses, compelled him to escape, as it were, from a fire;
and then, when he got home, he found the village posted all
over with handbills giving an account of his adventure, under

Hampshire and Surrey 187

the pretence of offering £500 reward for a discovery of the
hoaxers! The good of it was the parson ascribed his disgrace
to me, and they say that he perseveres to this hour in accusing
me of it. Upon my word, I had nothing to do with the matter,
and this affair only shows that I am not the only friend
that the parson has in the world. Though this may have
had a tendency to produce in the parson that amelioration of
deportment which is said to become him so well, there is some-
thing else that has taken place, which has, in all probability,
had a more powerful influence in this way; namely, a great
reduction in the value of the parson's living, which was at one
time little short of five hundred pounds a year, and which, I
believe, is now not the half of that sum! This, to be sure, is
not only a natural but a necessary consequence of the change
in the value of money. The parsons are neither more nor less
than another sort of landlords. They must fall, of course, in
their demands, or their demands will not be paid. They may
take in kind, but that will answer them no purpose at all. They
will be less people than they have been, and will continue to
grow less and less, until the day when the whole of the tithes
and other church property, as it is called, shall be applied to
public purposes,

EASTON (HAMPSHIRE),
Wednesday Evening, 6 August.

This village of Easton lies at a few miles towards the north-
east from Winchester. It is distant from Botley by the way
which I came about fifteen or sixteen miles. I came through
Durley, where I went to the house of farmer Mears. I was very
much pleased with what I saw at Durley, which is about two
miles from Botley, and is certainly one of the most obscure
villages in this whole kingdom. Mrs. Mears, the farmer's wife,
had made, of the crested dog's tail grass, a bonnet which she
wears herself. I there saw girls platting the straw. They had
made plat of several degrees of fineness; and they sell it to
some person or persons at Fareham, who, I suppose, makes it
into bonnets. Mrs. Mears, who is a very intelligent and clever
woman, has two girls at work, each of whom earns per week as
much (within a shilling) as her father, who is a labouring man,
earns per week. The father has at this time only 7$. per week.
These two girls (and not very stout girls) earn six shillings a
week each : thus the income of this family is, from seven shillings
a week, raised to nineteen shillings a week. I shall suppose that

Rural Rides

this may in some measure be owing to the generosity of ladies in
the neighbourhood, and to their desire to promote this domestic
manufacture; but if I suppose that these girls receive double
compared to what they will receive for the same quantity of
labour when the manufacture becomes more general, is it not a
great thing to make the income of the family thirteen shillings
a week instead of seven? Very little, indeed, could these poor
things have done in the field during the last forty days. And,
besides, how clean; how healthful; how everything that one
could wish, is this sort of employment ! The farmer, who is also
a very intelligent person, told me that he should endeavour to
introduce the manufacture as a thing to assist the obtaining of
employment, in order to lessen the amount of the poor-rates.
I think it very likely that this will be done in the parish of Durley.
A most important matter it is, to put -paupers in the way of ceasing
to be paupers. I could not help admiring the zeal as well as the
intelligence of the farmer's wife, who expressed her readiness to
teach the girls and women of the parish, in order to enable them
to assist themselves. I shall hear, in all probability, of their
proceedings at Durley, and if I do, I shall make a point of com-
municating to the public an account of those interesting pro-
ceedings. From the very first; from the first moment of my
thinking about this straw affair, I regarded it as likely to assist
in bettering the lot of the labouring people. If it has not this
effect, I value it not. It is not worth the attention of any of us ;
but I am satisfied that this is the way in which it will work. I
have the pleasure to know that there is one labouring family, at
any rate, who are living well through my means. It is I, who,
without knowing them, without ever having seen them, without
even now knowing their names, have given the means of good
living to a family who were before half-starved. This is indis-
putably my work; and when I reflect that there must necessarily
be, now, some hundreds of families, and shortly, many thousands
of families, in England, who are and will be, through my means,
living well instead of being half- starved, I cannot but feel
myself consoled; I cannot but feel that I have some compensa-
tion for the sentence passed upon me by Ellenborough, Grose,
Le Blanc, and Bailey; and I verily believe, that, in the case
of this one single family in the parish of Durley, I have done
more good than Bailey ever did in the whole course of his life,
notwithstanding his pious commentary on the Book of Common
Prayer. I will allow nothing to be good, with regard to the
labouring classes, unless it make an addition to their victuals,

Hampshire and Surrey 189

drink, or clothing. As to their minds, that is much too sublime
matter for me to think about. I know that they are in rags,
and that they have not a belly- full; and I know that the way
to make them good, to make them honest, to make them dutiful,
to make them kind to one another, is to enable them to live
well; and I also know that none of these things will ever be
accomplished by Methodist sermons, and by those stupid, at
once stupid and malignant things, and roguish things, called
Religious Tracts.

It seems that this farmer at Durley has always read the
Register, since the first appearance of little Two-penny Trash.
Had it not been for this reading, Mrs. Mears would not have
thought about the grass; and had she not thought about the
grass, none of the benefits above mentioned would have arisen
to her neighbours. The difference between this affair and the
spinning-jenny affairs is this; that the spinning- jenny affairs
fill the pockets of " rich ruffians," such as those who would have
murdered me at Coventry; and that this straw affair makes an
addition to the food and raiment of the labouring classes, and
gives not a penny to be pocketed by the rich ruffians.

From Durley I came on in company with farmer Mears through
Upham. This Upham is the place where Young, who wrote
that bombastical stuff, called Night Thoughts, was once the
parson, and where, I believe, he was born. Away to the right
of Upham lies the little town of Bishop's Waltham, whither I
wished to go very much, but it was too late in the day. From
Upham we came on upon the high land, called Black Down.
This has nothing to do with that Black-down Hill, spoken of in
my last ride. We are here getting up upon the chalk hills,
which stretch away towards Winchester. The soil here is a
poor blackish stuff, with little white stones in it, upon a bed of
chalk. It was a down not many years ago The madness and
greediness of the days of paper-money led to the breaking of it
up. The corn upon it is miserable, but as good as can be
expected upon such land.

At the end of this tract, we come to a spot called Whiteflood,
and here we cross the old turnpike-road which leads from
Winchester to Gosport through Bishop's Waltham. Whiteflood
is at the foot of the first of a series of hills over which you come
to get to the top of that lofty ridge called Morning Hill. The
farmer came to the top of the first hill along with me, and he
was just about to turn back, when I, looking away to the left,
down a valley which stretched across the other side of the down,

190 Rural Rides

observed a rather singular appearance, and said to the farmer,
" What is that coming up that valley? is it smoke, or is it a
cloud? ' The day had been very fine hitherto; the sun was
shining very bright where we were. The farmer answered,
" Oh, it's smoke; it comes from Ouselberry, which is down in
that bottom behind those trees." So saying, we bid each other
good day; he went back, and I went on. Before I had got a
hundred and fifty yards from him, the cloud which he had taken
for the Ouselberry smoke, came upon the hill and wet me to
the skin. He was not far from the house at Whiteflood; but I
am sure that he could not entirely escape it. It is curious to
observe how the clouds sail about in the hilly countries, and
particularly, I think, amongst the chalk-hills. I have never
observed the like amongst the sand-hills, or amongst rocks.

From Whiteflood you come over a series of hills, part of which
form a rabbit-warren called Longwocd warren, on the borders of
which is the house and estate of Lord Northesk. These hills are
amongst the most barren of the downs of England; yet a part
of them was broken up during the rage for improvements ; during
the rage for what empty men think was an augmenting of the
capital of the country. On about twenty acres of this land, sown
with wheat, I should not suppose that there would be twice
twenty bushels of grain ! A man must be mad, or nearly mad,
to sow wheat upon such a spot. However, a large part of what
was enclosed has been thrown out again already, and the rest will
be thrown out in a very few years. The down itself was poor;
what then must it be as corn-land! Think of the destruction
which has here taken place. The herbage was not good, but it
was something: it was something for every year, and without
trouble. Instead of grass it will now, for twenty years to come,
bear nothing but that species of weeds which is hardy enough
to grow where the grass will not grow. And this was " augment-
ing the capital of the nation." These new enclosure-bills were
boasted of by George Rose and by Pitt as proofs of national
prosperity! When men in power are ignorant to this extent,
who is to expect anything but consequences such as we now
behold.

From the top of this high land called Morning Hill, and the
real name of which is Magdalen Hill, from a chapel which once
stood there dedicated to Mary Magdalen; from the top of this
land you have a view of a circle which is upon an average about
seventy miles in diameter; and I believe in no one place so little
as fifty miles in diameter. You see the Isle of Wight in one

Hampshire and Surrey 191

direction, and in the opposite direction you see the high lands in
Berkshire. It is not a pleasant view, however. The fertile spots
are all too far from you. Descending from this hill, you cross
the turnpike-road (about two miles from Winchester), leading
from Winchester to London through Alresford and Farnham.
As soon as you cross the road, you enter the estate of the
descendant of Rollo, Duke of Buckingham, which estate is in
the parish of Avington. In this place the duke has a farm, not
very good land. It is in his own hands. The corn is indifferent,
except the barley, which is everywhere good. You come a full
mile from the roadside down through this farm, to the duke's
mansion-house at Avington, and to the little village of that
name, both of them beautifully situated, amidst fine and lofty
trees, fine meadows, and streams of clear water. On this farm
of the duke I saw (in a little close by the farm-house) several
hens in coops with broods of pheasants instead of chickens. It
seems that a gamekeeper lives in the farm-house, and I dare say
the duke thinks much more of the pheasants than of the corn.
To be very solicitous to preserve what has been raised with so
much care and at so much expense, is by no means unnatural;
but then there is a measure to be observed here; and that measure
was certainly outstretched in the case of Mr. Deller. I here saw,
at this gamekeeping farm-house, what I had not seen since my
departure from the Wen ; namely, a wheat-rick ! Hard, indeed,
would it have been if a Plantagenet, turned farmer, had not a
wheat-rick in his hands. This rick contains, I should think,
what they call in Hampshire ten loads of wheat, that is to say,
fifty quarters, or four hundred bushels. And this is the only
rick, not only of wheat, but of any corn whatever that I have
seen since I left London. The turnips, upon this farm, are by
no means good; but I was in some measure compensated for
the bad turnips by the sight of the duke's turnip-hoers, about
a dozen females, amongst whom there were several very pretty
girls, and they were as merry as larks. There had been a shower
that had brought them into a sort of huddle on the roadside.
When I came up to them, they all fixed their eyes upon me, and
upon my smiling, they bursted out into laughter. I observed to
them that the Duke of Buckingham was a very happy man to
have such turnip-hoers, and really they seemed happier and
better off than any work-people that I saw in the fields all the
way from London to this spot. It is curious enough, but I have
always observed that the women along this part of the country
are usually tall. These girls were all tall, straight, fair, round-

192 Rural Rides

faced, excellent complexion, and uncommonly gay. They
were well dressed, too, and I observed the same of all the men
that I saw down at Avington. This could not be the case if the
duke were a cruel or hard master; and this is an act of justice
due from me to the descendant of Rollo. It is in the house of
Mr. Deller that I make these notes, but as it is injustice that we
dislike, I must do Rollo justice; and I must again say that the
good looks and happy faces of his turnip-hoers spoke much more
in his praise than could have been spoken by fifty lawyers, like
that Storks who was employed, the other day, to plead against
the editor of the Bucks Chronicle, for publishing an account of
the selling-up of farmer Smith, of Ashendon, in that county. I
came through the duke's park to come to Easton, which is the
next village below Avington. A very pretty park. The house
is quite in the bottom; it can be seen in no direction from a
distance greater than that of four or five hundred yards. The
river Itchen, which rises near Alresford, which runs down
through Winchester to Southampton, goes down the middle
of this valley, and waters all its immense quantity of meadows.
The duke's house stands not far from the river itself. A stream
of water is brought from the river to feed a pond before the
house. There are several avenues of trees which are very
beautiful, and some of which give complete shelter to the kitchen
garden, which has, besides, extraordinarily high walls. Never
was a greater contrast than that presented by this place and the
place of Lord Egremont. The latter is all loftiness. Every-
thing is high about it; it has extensive views in all directions.
It sees and can be seen by all the country around. If I had the
ousting of one of these noblemen, I certainly, however, would
oust the duke, who, I dare say, will by no means be desirous of
seeing arise the occasion of putting the sincerity of the compli-
ment to the test. The village of Easton is, like that of Avington,
close by the waterside. The meadows are the attraction; and,
indeed, it is the meadows that have caused the villages to exist.

SELBORNE (HANTS),
Thursday, 7 August, Noon.

I took leave of Mr. Deller this morning, about 7 o'clock.
Came back through Avington Park, through the village of
Avington, and, crossing the Itchen river, came over to the
village of Itchen Abas. Abas means below. It is a French
word that came over with Duke Rollo's progenitors. There

Hampshire and Surrey 193

needs no better proof of the high descent of the duke, and of
the antiquity of his family. This is that Itchen Abas where
that famous parson-justice, the Reverend Robert Wright, lives,
who refused to hear Mr. Deller's complaint against the duke's
servant at his own house, and who afterwards, along with Mr.
Poulter, bound Mr. Deller over to the quarter sessions for the
alleged assault. I have great pleasure in informing the public
that Mr. Deller has not had to bear the expenses in this case
himself; but that they have been borne by his neighbours, very
much to the credit of those neighbours. I hear of an affair
between the Duke of Buckingham and a Mr. Bird, who resides
in this neighbourhood. If I had had time I should have gone
to see Mr. Bird, of whose treatment I have heard a great deal,
and an account of which treatment ought to be brought before
the public. It is very natural for the Duke of Buckingham to
wish to preserve that game which he calls his hobby-horse. It
is very natural for him to delight in his hobby; but hobbies, my
lord duke, ought to be gentle, inoffensive, perfectly harmless
little creatures. They ought not to be suffered to kick and fling
about them: they ought not to be rough-shod, and, above all
things, they ought not to be great things like those which are
ridden by the Life Guards : and, like them, be suffered to dance,
and caper, and trample poor devils of farmers under foot.
Have your hobbies, my lords of the soil, but let them be gentle;
in short, let them be hobbies in character with the commons
and forests, and not the high-fed hobbies from the barracks at
Knightsbridge, such as put poor Mr. Sheriff Waithman's life in
jeopardy. That the game should be preserved, every one that
knows anything of the country will allow; but every man of any
sense must see that it cannot be preserved by sheer force. It
must be rather through love than through fear; rather through
good-will than through ill-will. If the thing be properly
managed, there will be plenty of game, without any severity
towards any good man. Mr. Deller's case was so plain: it was
so monstrous to think that a man was to be punished for being
on his own ground in pursuit of wild animals that he himself had
raised: this was so monstrous, that it was only necessary to
name it to excite the indignation of the country. And Mr.
Deller has, by his spirit and perseverance, by the coolness and
the good sense which he has shown throughout the whole of this
proceeding, merited the commendation of every man who is not
in his heart an oppressor. It occurs to me to ask here, who it
is that finally pays for those " counsels' opinions " which Poulter

194 Rural Rides

and Wright said they took in the case of Mr. Deller; because,
if these counsels' opinions are paid for by the county, and if a
justice of the peace can take as many counsels' opinions as he
chooses, I should like to know what fellow, who chooses to put
on a bobtail wig and call himself a lawyer, may not have a good
living given to him by any crony justice at the expense of the
county. This never can be legal. It never can be binding on
the county to pay for these counsels' opinions. However,
leaving this to be inquired into another time, we have here, in
Mr. Deller's case, an instance of the worth of counsels' opinions.
Mr. Deller went to the two justices, showed them the Register
with the Act of Parliament in it, called upon them to act agree-
ably to that Act of Parliament; but they chose to take counsels'
opinion first. The two " counsel," the two " lawyers," the two
" learned friends," told them that they were right in rejecting
the application of Mr. Deller and in binding him over for the
assault; and, after all, this grand jury threw out the bill, and
in that throwing out showed that they thought the counsels'
opinions not worth a straw.

Being upon the subject of matter connected with the conduct
of these parson-justices, I will here mention what is now going
on in Hampshire respecting the accounts of the treasurer of the
county. At the last quarter sessions, or at a meeting of the
magistrates previous to the opening of the sessions, there was a
discussion relative to this matter. The substance of which
appears to have been this; that the treasurer, Mr. George Hollis,
whose accounts had been audited, approved of, and passed, every
year by the magistrates, is in arrear to the county to the amount
of about four thousand pounds. Sir Thomas Baring appears to
have been the great stickler against Mr. Hollis, who was but
feebly defended by his friends. The treasurer of a county is
compelled to find securities. These securities have become
exempted, in consequence of the annual passing of the accounts by
the magistrates ! Nothing can be more just than this exemption.
I am security, suppose, for a treasurer. The magistrates do not
pass his accounts on account of a deficiency. I make good the
deficiency. But the magistrates are not to go on year after
year passing his accounts, and then, at the end of several years,
come and call upon me to make good the deficiencies. Thus
say the securities of Mr. Hollis. The magistrates, in fact, are
to blame. One of the magistrates, a Reverend Mr. Orde, said
that the magistrates were more to blame than the treasurer;
and really I think so too; for though Mr. Hollis has been a tool

Hampshire and Surrey 195

for many, many years of Old George Rose and the rest of that
crew, it seems impossible to believe that he could have intended
anything dishonest, seeing that the detection arose out of an
account, published by himself in the newspaper, which account
he need not have published until three months later than the
time when he did publish it. This is, as he himself states, the
best possible proof that he was unconscious of any error or any
deficiency. The fact appears to be this; that Mr. Hollis, who
has for many years been under sheriff as well as treasurer of the
county, who holds several other offices, and who has, besides,
had large pecuniary transactions with his bankers, has for years
had his accounts so blended that he has not known how this
money belonging to the county stood. His own statement
shows that it was all a mass of confusion. The errors, he says,
have arisen, entirely from the negligence of his clerks, and from
causes which produced a confusion in his accounts. This is
the fact; but he has been in good fat offices too long not to have
made a great many persons think that his offices would be better
in their hands; and they appear resolved to oust him. I, for
my part, am glad of it; for I remember his coming up to me in
the grand jury chamber, just after the people of St. Stephen's
had passed Power-of-Imprisonment Bill in 1817; I remember
his coming up to me as the under-sheriff of Willis, the man that
we now call Flemming, who has begun to build a house at North
Stoneham ; I remember his coming up to me, and with all the
base sauciness of a thorough-paced Pittite, telling me to disperse
or he would take me into custody 1 I remember this of Mr. Hollis,
and I am therefore glad that calamity has befallen him; but I
must say that after reading his own account of the matter;
after reading the debate of the magistrates ; and after hearing the
observations and opinions of well-informed and impartial persons
in Hampshire who dislike Mr. Hollis as much as I do; I must say
that I think him perfectly clear of all intention to commit any-
thing like fraud, or to make anything worthy of the name of
false account; and I am convinced that this affair, which will
now prove extremely calamitous to him, might have been laughed
at by him at the time when wheat was fifteen shillings a bushel.
This change in the affairs of the government; this penury now
experienced by the Pittites at Whitehall, reaches, in its influence,
to every part of the country. The Barings are now the great
men in Hampshire. They were not such in the days of George
Rose, while George was able to make the people believe that
it was necessary to give their money freely to preserve the

196

Rural Rides

" blessed comforts of religion." George Rose would have
thrown his shield over Mr. Hollis; his broad and brazen shield.
In Hampshire the bishop too is changed. The present is,
doubtless, as pious as the last, every bit, and has the same
bishop-like views; but it is not the same family; it is not the
Garniers and Poulters and Norths and De Grays and Haygarths;
it is not precisely the same set who have the power in their hands.
Things, therefore, take another turn. The Pittite jolterheads
are all broken - backed ; and the Barings come forward with
their well-known weight of metal. It was exceedingly unfor-
tunate for Mr. Hollis that Sir Thomas Baring happened to be
against him. However, the thing will do good altogether.
The county is placed in a pretty situation : its treasurer has had
his accounts regularly passed by the magistrates; and these
magistrates come at last and discover that they have for a long
time been passing accounts that they ought not to pass. These
magistrates have exempted the securities of Mr. Hollis, but not
a word do they say about making good the deficiencies. What
redress, then, have the people of the county? They have no
redress, unless they can obtain it by petitioning the Parliament;
and if they do not petition; if they do not state their case, and
that boldly, too, they deserve everything that can befall them
from similar causes. I am astonished at the boldness of the
magistrates. I am astonished that they should think of calling
Mr. Hollis to account without being prepared for rendering an
account of their own conduct. However, we shall see what they
will do in the end. And when we have seen that, we shall see
whether the county will rest quietly under the loss which it is
likely to sustain.

I must now go back to Itchen Abas, where, in the farm-yard
of a farmer, Courtenay, I saw another wheat-rick. From
Itchen Abas I came up the valley to Itchen Stoke. Soon after
that I crossed the Itchen river, came out into the Alresford
turnpike-road, and came on towards Alresford, having the
valley now upon my left. If the hay be down all the way to
Southampton in the same manner that it is along here, there
are thousands of acres of hay rotting on the sides of this Itchen
river. Most of the meadows are watered artificially. The crops
of grass are heavy, and they appear to have been cut precisely
in the right time to be spoiled. Coming on towards Alresford, I
saw a gentleman (about a quarter of a mile beyond Alresford)
coming out of his gate with his hat off, looking towards the south-
west, as if to see what sort of weather it was likely to be. This

Hampshire and Surrey 197

was no other than Mr. Rolleston or Rawlinson, who, it appears,
has a box and some land here. This gentleman was, when I
lived in Hampshire, one of those worthy men who, in the several
counties of England, executed " without any sort of remunera-
tion," such a large portion of that justice which is the envy of
surrounding nations and admiration of the world. We are often
told, especially in Parliament, of the disinterestedness of these
persons; of their worthiness, their piety, their loyalty, their
excellent qualities of all sorts, but particularly of their dis-
interestedness, in taking upon them the office of justice of the
peace; spending so much time, taking so much trouble, and all
for nothing at all, but for the pure love of their king and country.
And the worst of it is, that our ministers impose upon this dis-
interestedness and generosity; and, as in the case of Mr.
Rawlinson, at the end of, perhaps, a dozen years of services
voluntarily rendered to " king and country," they force him,
sorely against his will, no doubt, to become a police magistrate
in London ! To be sure, there are five or six hundred pounds a
year of public money attached to this; but what are these
paltry pounds to a " country gentleman," who so disinterestedly
rendered us services for so many years? Hampshire is fertile
in persons of this disinterested stamp. There is a 'Squire
Greme, who lives across the country, not many miles from the
spot where I saw " Mr. Justice " Rawlinson. This 'squire also
has served the country for nothing during a great many years;
and, of late years, the 'squire junior, eager apparently to emulate
his sire, has become a distributor of stamps for this famous
county of Hants! What sons 'Squire Rawlinson may have is
more than I know at present, though I will endeavour to know
it, and to find out whether they also be serving us. A great deal
has been said about the debt of gratitude due from the people to
the justices of the peace. An account, containing the names
and places of abode of the justices, and of the public money, or
titles, received by them and by their relations; such an account
would be a very useful thing. We should then know the real
amount of this debt of gratitude. We shall see such an account
by and by; and we should have seen it long ago, if there had
been, in a certain place, only one single man disposed to do his
duty.

I came through Alresford about eight o'clock, having loitered
a good deal in coming up the valley. After quitting Alresford
you come (on the road towards Alton) to the village of Bishop's
Button; and then to a place called Ropley Dean, where there

Rural Rides

is a house or two. Just before you come to Ropley Dean, you
see the beginning of the Valley of Itchen. The lichen river
falls into the salt water at Southampton. It rises, or rather has
its first rise, just by the roadside at Ropley Dean, which is at the
foot of that very high land which lies between Alresford and
Alton. All along by the Itchen river, up to its very source, there
are meadows; and this vale of meadows, which is about twenty-
five miles in length, and is, in some places, a mile wide, is, at the
point of which I am now speaking, only about twice as wide as
my horse is long! This vale of Itchen is worthy of particular
attention. There are few spots in England more fertile or more
pleasant; and none, I believe, more healthy. Following the bed
of the river, or rather, the middle of the vale, it is about five-
and-twenty miles in length, from Ropley Dean to the village of
South Stoneham, which is just above Southampton. The
average width of the meadows is, I should think, a hundred rods
at the least; and if I am right in this conjecture, the vale con-
tains about five thousand acres of meadows, large part of which
is regularly watered. The sides of the vale are, until you come
down to within about six or eight miles of Southampton, hills
or rising grounds of chalk, covered more or less thickly with loam.
Where the hills rise up very steeply from the valley, the fertility
of the corn-lands is not so great; but for a considerable part of
the way, the corn-lands are excellent, and the farm-houses, to
which those lands belong, are, for the far greater part, under
covert of the hills on the edge of the valley. Soon after the
rising of the stream, it forms itself into some capital ponds at
Alresford. These, doubtless, were augmented by art, in order
to supply Winchester with fish. The fertility of this vale, and of
the surrounding country, is best proved by the fact that, besides
the town of Alresford and that of Southampton, there are
seventeen villages, each having its parish church, upon its
borders. When we consider these things we are not surprised
that a spot situated about half way down this vale should have
been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should
have been for a great number of years a place of residence for
the kings of England.

Winchester, which is at present a mere nothing to what it
once was, stands across the vale at a place where the vale is
made very narrow by the jutting forward of two immense hills.
From the point where the river passes through the city, you go,
whether eastward or westward, a full mile up a very steep hill
all the way. The city is, of course, in one of the deepest holes

Hampshire and Surrey 199

that can be imagined. It never could have been thought of as
a place to be defended since the discovery of gunpowder; and,
indeed, one would think that very considerable annoyance might
be given to the inhabitants even by the flinging of the flint-
stones from the hills down into the city.

At Ropley Dean, before I mounted the hill to come on towards
Rotherham Park, I baited my horse. Here the ground is
precisely like that at Ashmansworth on the borders of Berkshire,
which, indeed, I could see from the ground of which I am now
speaking. In coming up the hill, I had the house and farm of
Mr. Duthy to my right. Seeing some very fine Swedish turnips,
I naturally expected that they belonged to this gentleman who
is secretary to the Agricultural Society of Hampshire; but I
found that they belonged to a farmer Mayhew. The soil is,
along upon this high land, a deep loam, bordering on a clay, red
in colour, and pretty full of large, rough, yellow-looking stones,
very much like some of the land in Huntingdonshire; but here
is a bed of chalk under this. Everything is backward here.
The wheat is perfectly green in most places; but it is every-
where pretty good. I have observed, all the way along, that
the wheat is good upon the stiff, strong land. It is so here;
but it is very backward. The greater part of it is full three
weeks behind the wheat under Portsdown Hill. But few farm-
houses come within my sight along here; but in one of them
there was a wheat-rick, which is the third I have seen since I
quitted the Wen. In descending from this high ground, in order
to reach the village of East Tisted, which lies on the turnpike-
road from the Wen to Gosport through Alton, I had to cross
Rotherham Park. On the right of the park, on a bank of land
facing the north-east, I saw a very pretty farm-house, having
everything in excellent order, with fine corn-fields about it,
and with a wheat-rick standing in the yard. This farm, as I
afterwards found, belongs to the owner of Rotherham Park,
who is also the owner of East Tisted, who has recently built a
new house in the park, who has quite metamorphosed the village
of Tisted, within these eight years, who has, indeed, really and
truly improved the whole country just round about here, whose
name is Scot, well known as a brickmaker at North End, Fulham,
and who has, in Hampshire, supplanted a Norman of the name of
Powlet. The process by which this transfer has taken place
is visible enough, to all eyes but the eyes of the jolterheads.
Had there been no debt created to crush liberty in France and
to keep down reformers in England, Mr. Scot would not have

2OO Rural Rides

had bricks to burn to build houses for the Jews and jobbers and
other eaters of taxes; and the Norman Powlet would not have
had to pay in taxes, through his own hands and those of his
tenants and labourers, the amount of the estate at Tisted, first
to be given to the Jews, jobbers and tax-eaters, and then by
them to be given to " 'Squire Scot " for his bricks. However, it
is not 'Squire Scot who has assisted to pass laws to make people
pay double toll on a Sunday. 'Squire Scot had nothing to do
with passing the New Game-laws and Old Ellenborough's Act;
'Squire Scot never invented the New Trespass law, in virtue of
which John Cockbain of Whitehaven in the county of Cumber-
land was, by two clergymen and three other magistrates of that
county, sentenced to pay one half-penny for damages and seven
shillings costs, for going upon a field, the property of William,
Earl of Lonsdale. In the passing of this Act, which was one of
the first passed in the present reign, 'Squire Scot, the brick-
maker, had nothing to do. Go on, good 'squire, thrust ;out
some more of the Normans: with the fruits of the augmen-
tations which you make to the Wen, go, and take from them
their mansions, parks, and villages!

At Tisted I crossed the turnpike-road before mentioned, and
entered a lane which, at the end of about four miles, brought
me to this village of Selborne. My readers will recollect that
I mentioned this Selborne when I was giving an account of
Hawkley Hanger, last fall. I was desirous of seeing this village,
about which I have read in the book of Mr. White, and which
a reader has been so good as to send me. From Tisted I came
generally up hill till I got within half a mile of this village, when,
all of a sudden, I came to the edge of a hill, looked down over all
the larger vale of which the little vale of this village makes a
part. Here Hindhead and Black Down Hill came full in my
view. When I was crossing the forest in Sussex, going from
Worth to Horsham, these two great hills lay to my west and
north-west. To-day I am got just on the opposite side of
them, and see them, of course, towards the east and the south-
east, while Leith Hill lies away towards the north-east. This
hill, from which you descend down into Selborne, is very lofty;
but, indeed, we are here amongst some of the highest hills in
the island, and amongst the sources of rivers. The hill over
which I have come this morning sends the Itchen river forth
from one side of it, and the river Wey, which rises near Alton,
from the opposite side of it. Hindhead which lies before me,
sends, as I observed upon a former occasion, the Arun forth

Hampshire and Surrey 201

towards the south and a stream forth towards the north, which
meets the river Wey, somewhere above Godalming. I am told
that the springs of these two streams rise in the Hill of Hind-
head, or rather, on one side of the hill, at not many yards from
each other. The village of Selborne is precisely what it is
described by Mr. White. A straggling irregular street, bearing
all the marks of great antiquity, and showing, from its lanes
and its vicinage generally, that it was once a very considerable
place. I went to look at the spot where Mr. White supposes
the convent formerly stood. It is very beautiful. Nothing
can surpass in beauty these dells and hillocks and hangers,
which last are so steep that it is impossible to ascend them,
except by means of a serpentine path. I found here deep hollow
ways, with beds and sides of solid white stone; but not quite
so white and so solid, I think, as the stone which I found in the
roads at Hawkley. The churchyard of Selborne is most beauti-
fully situated. The land is good, all about it. The trees are
luxuriant and prone to be lofty and large. I measured the yew-
tree in the churchyard, and found the trunk to be, according to
my measurement, twenty-three feet, eight inches, in circum-
ference. The trunk is very short, as is generally the case with
yew-trees ; but the head spreads to a very great extent, and the
whole tree, though probably several centuries old, appears to be
in perfect health. Here are several hop-plantations in and
about this village; but, for this once, the prayers of the over-
production men will be granted, and the devil of any hops there
will be. The bines are scarcely got up the poles; the bines and
the leaves are black, nearly, as soot; full as black as a sooty bag
or dingy coal-sack, and covered with lice. It is a pity that
these hop-planters could not have a parcel of Spaniards and
Portuguese to louse their hops for them. Pretty devils to have
liberty, when a favourite recreation of the Donna is to crack
the lice in the head of the Don ! I really shrug up my shoulders
thinking of the beasts. Very different from such is my landlady
here at Selborne, who, while I am writing my notes, is getting
me a rasher of bacon, and has already covered the table with a
nice clean cloth. I have never seen such quantities of grapes
upon any vines as I see upon the vines in this village, badly
pruned as all the vines have been. To be sure, this is a year for
grapes, such, I believe, as has been seldom known in England,
and the cause is, the perfect ripening of the wood by the last
beautiful summer. I am afraid, however, that the grapes come
in vain; for this summer has been so cold, and is now so wet,

2O2 Rural Rides

that we can hardly expect grapes, which are not under glass, to
ripen. As I was coming into this village, I observed to a farmer
who was standing at his gateway, that people ought to be happy
here, for that God had done everything for them. His answer
was, that he did not believe there was a more unhappy place in
England: for that there were always quarrels of some sort or
other going on. This made me call to mind the king's pro-
clamation, relative to a reward for discovering the person who
had recently shot at the parson of this village. This parson's name
is Cobbold, and it really appears that there was a shot fired
through his window. He has had law-suits with the people;
and I imagine that it was these to which the farmer alluded.
The hops are of considerable importance to the village, and their
failure must necessarily be attended with consequences very
inconvenient to the whole of a population so small as this.
Upon inquiry, I find that the hops are equally bad at Alton,
Froyle, Crondall, and even at Farnham. I saw them bad in
Sussex; I hear that they are bad in Kent; so that hop-planters,
at any rate, will be, for once, free from the dreadful evils of
abundance. A correspondent asks me what is meant by the
statements which he sees in the Register, relative to the hop-
duty ? He sees it, he says, continually falling in amount; and
he wonders what this means. The thing has not, indeed, been
properly explained. It is a gamble ; and it is hardly right for
me to state, in a publication like the Register, anything relative
to a gamble. However, the case is this: a taxing system is
necessarily a system of gambling; a system of betting; stock-
jobbing is no more than a system of betting, and the wretched
dogs that carry on the traffic are little more, except that they
are more criminal, than the waiters at an E 0 Table, or the
markers at billiards. The hop duty is so much per pound.
The duty was imposed at two separate times. One part of it,
therefore, is called the Old Duty, and the other part the New
Duty. The old duty was a penny to the pound of hops. The
amount of this duty, which can always be ascertained at the
Treasury as soon as the hopping season is over, is the surest
possible guide in ascertaining the total amount of the growth of
hops for the year. If, for instance, the duty were to amount
to no more than eight shillings and fourpence, you would be
certain that only a hundred pounds of hops had been grown
during the year. Hence a system of gambling precisely like
the gambling in the funds. I bet you that the duty will not
exceed so much. The duty has sometimes exceeded two

Hampshire and Surrey 203

hundred thousand pounds. This year, it is supposed, that it
will not exceed twenty, thirty, or forty thousand. The gambling
fellows are betting all this time; and it is, in fact, an account
of the betting which is inserted in the Register.

This vile paper-money and funding-system; this system of
Dutch descent, begotten by Bishop Burnet, and born in hell;
this system has turned everything into a gamble. There are
hundreds of men who live by being the agents to carry on
gambling. They reside here in the Wen; many of the gamblers
live in the country; they write up to their gambling agent,
whom they call their stockbroker; he gambles according to their
order; and they receive the profit or stand to the loss. Is it
possible to conceive a viler calling than that of an agent for the
carrying on of gambling? And yet the vagabonds call them-
selves gentlemen; or, at least, look upon themselves as the
superiors of those who sweep the kennels. In like manner is the
hop-gamble carried on. The gambling agents in the Wen make
the bets for the gamblers in the country; and, perhaps, millions
are betted during the year upon the amount of a duty which,
at the most, scarcely exceeds a quarter of a million. In such
a state of things how are you to expect young men to enter on
a course of patient industry? How are you to expect that they
will seek to acquire fortune and fame by study or by application
of any kind ?

Looking back over the road that I have come to-day, and
perceiving the direction of the road going from this village
in another direction, I perceive that this is a very direct road
from Winchester to Farnham. The road, too, appears to have
been, from ancient times, sufficiently wide; and when the
Bishop of Winchester selected this beautiful spot whereon to
erect a monastery, I dare say the roads along here were some
of the best in the country.

THURSLEY (SURREY),
Thursday, 7 August.

I got a boy at Selborne to show me alon£ the lanes out into
Woolmer Forest on my way to Headley. The lanes were very
deep; the wet malme just about the colour of rye-meal mixed
up with water, and just about as clammy, came, in many places,
very nearly up to my horse's belly. There was this comfort,
however, that I was sure that there was a bottom, which is by
no means the case when you are among clays or quick-sands.
After going through these lanes, and along between some fir-

204 Rural Rides

plantations, I came out upon Woolmer Forest, and, to my great
satisfaction, soon found myself on the side of those identical
plantations, which have been made under the orders of the
smooth Mr. Huskisson, and which I noticed last year in my
ride from Hambledon to this place. These plantations are of
fir, or, at least, I could see nothing else, and they never can be
of any more use to the nation than the sprigs of heath which
cover the rest of the forest. Is there nobody to inquire what
becomes of the income of the crown lands ? No, and there never
will be, until the whole system be changed. I have seldom
ridden on pleasanter ground than that which I found between
Woolmer Forest and this beautiful village of Thursley. The
day has been fine, too; notwithstanding I saw the judges'
terrific wigs as I came up upon the turnpike-road from the
village of Itchen. I had but one little scud during the day:
just enough for St. Swithin to swear by; but when I was upon
the hills, I saw some showers going about the country. From
Selborne, I had first to come to Headley, about five miles. I
came to the identical public-house where I took my blind guide
last year, who took me such a dance to the southward, and led
me up to the top of Hindhead at last. I had no business there.
My route was through a sort of hamlet called Churt, which lies
along on the side and towards the foot of the north of Hindhead,
on which side, also, lies the village of Thursley. A line is hardly
more straight than is the road from Headley to Thursley; and a
prettier ride I never had in the course of my life. It was not
the less interesting from the circumstance of its giving me all
the way a full view of Crooksbury Hill, the grand scene of my
exploits when I was a taker of the nests of crows and magpies.

At Churt I had, upon my left, three hills out upon the common,
called the Devils Jumps. The Unitarians will not believe in
the Trinity, because they cannot account for it. Will they
come here to Churt, go and look at these " Devil's Jumps," and
account to me for the placing of these three hills, in the shape
of three rather squat sugar-loaves, along in a line upon this
heath, or the placing of a rock-stone upon the top of one of them
as big as a church tower? For my part, I cannot account for
this placing of these hills. That they should have been formed
by mere chance is hardly to be believed. How could waters
rolling about have formed such hills? How could such hills
have bubbled up from beneath ? But, in short, it is all wonder-
ful alike: the stripes of loam running down through the chalk-
hills; the circular parcels of loam in the midst of chalk-hills;

Hampshire and Surrey 205

the lines of flint running parallel with each other horizontally
along the chalk-hills; the flints placed in circles as true as a
hair in the chalk-hills; the layers of stone at the bottom of
hills of loam; the chalk first soft, then some miles further on
becoming chalk-stone; then, after another distance, becoming
burr-stone, as they call it; and at last, becoming hard white-
stone, fit for any buildings ; the sand-stone at Hindhead becoming
harder and harder till it becomes very nearly iron in Hereford-
shire, and quite iron in Wales; but, indeed, they once dug iron
out of this very Hindhead. The clouds, coming and settling
upon the hills, sinking down and creeping along, at last coming
out again in springs, and those becoming rivers. Why, it is all
equally wonderful, and as to not believing in this or that, because
the thing cannot be proved by logical deduction, why is any
man to believe in the existence of a God any more than he is
to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity? For my part, I think
the " Devil's Jumps," as the people here call them, full as
wonderful and no more wonderful than hundreds and hundreds
of other wonderful things. It is a strange taste which our
ancestors had to ascribe no inconsiderable part of these wonders
of nature to the Devil. Not far from the Devil's Jumps is that
singular place which resembles a sugar-loaf inverted, hollowed
out and an outside rim only left. This is called the " Devil's
Punch Bowl ; " and it is very well known in Wiltshire that the
forming, or, perhaps, it is the breaking up of Stonehenge is
ascribed to the Devil, and that the mark of one of his feet is
now said to be seen in one of the stones.

I got to Thursley about sunset, and without experiencing any
inconvenience from the wet. I have mentioned the state of
the corn as far as Selborne. On this side of that village I find
it much forwarder than I found it between Selborne and Ropley
Dean. I am here got into some of the very best barley-land in
the kingdom; a fine, buttery, stoneless loam, upon a bottom of
sand or sand-stone. Finer barley and tu nip-land it is im-
possible to see. All the corn is good here. The wheat not a
heavy crop; but not a light one; and the barley all the way
along from Headley to this place as fine, if not finer, than I
ever saw it in my life. Indeed I have not seen a bad field of
barley since I left the Wen. The corn is not so forward here as
under Portsdown Hill; but some farmers intend to begin reap-
ing wheat in a few days. It is monstrous to suppose that the
price of corn will not come down. It must come down, good
weather or bad weather. If the weather be bad, it will be so

206 Rural Rides

much the worse for the farmer, as well as for the nation at large,
and can be of no benefit to any human being but the Quakers,
who must now be pretty busy, measuring the crops all over the
kingdom. It will be recollected that, in the Report of the
Agricultural Committee of 1821, it appeared, from the evidence
of one Hodgson, a partner of Cropper, Benson, and Co., Quakers,
of Liverpool, that these Quakers sent a set of corn-gaugers into
the several counties, just before every harvest; that these
fellows stopped here and there, went into the fields, measured
off square yards of wheat, clipped off the ears, and carried them
off. These they afterwards packed up and sent off to Cropper
and Co. at Liverpool. When the whole of the packets were got
together, they were rubbed out, measured, weighed, and an
estimate made of the amount of the coming crop. This, accord-
ing to the confession of Hodgson himself, enabled these Quakers
to speculate in corn, with the greater chance of gain. This
has been done by these men for many years. Their disregard
of worldly things; their desire to lay up treasures in heaven;
their implicit yielding to the Spirit; these have induced them
to send their corn-gaugers over the country regularly year after
year; and I will engage that they are at it at this moment.
The farmers will bear in mind that the New Trespass - law,
though clearly not intended for any such purpose, enables them
to go and seize by the throat any of these gaugers that they may
catch in their fields. They could not do this formerly; to cut
off standing corn was merely a trespass, for which satisfaction
was to be attained by action of law. But now you can seize the
caitiff who is come as a spy amongst your corn. Before, he could
be off and leave you to find out his name as you could; but
now you can lay hold of him, as Mr. Deller did of the duke's
man, and bring him before a magistrate at once. I do hope
that the fanners will look sharp out for these fellows, who are
neither more nor less than so many spies. They hold a great
deal of corn; they want blight, mildew, rain, hurricanes; but
happy I am to see that they will get no blight, at any rate. The
grain is formed; everywhere everybody tells me that there is
no blight in any sort of corn, except in the beans.

I have not gone through much of a bean country. The beans
that I have seen are some of them pretty good, more of them
but middling, and still more of them very indifferent.

I am very happy to hear that that beautiful little bird, the
American partridge, has been introduced with success to this
neighbourhood, by Mr. Leech at Lea. I am told that they

Hampshire and Surrey 207

have been heard whistling this summer; that they have been
frequently seen, and that there is no doubt that they have broods
of young ones. I tried several times to import some of these
birds; but I always lost them, by some means or other, before
the time arrived for turning them out. They are a beautiful
little partridge, and extremely interesting in all their manners.
Some persons call them quail. If any one will take a quail and
compare it with one of these birds, he will see that they cannot
be of the same sort. In my Years Residence in America, I
have, I think, clearly proved that these birds are partridges,
and not quails. In the United States, north of New Jersey,
they are called quail : south and south-west of New Jersey they
are called partridges. They have been called quail solely on
account of their size; for they have none of the manners of quail
belonging to them. Quails assemble in flocks like larks, starlings
or rooks. Partridges keep in distinct coveys; that is to say,
the brood lives distinct from all other broods until the ensuing
spring, when it forms itself into pairs and separates. Nothing
can be a distinction more clear than this. Our own partridges
stick to the same spot from the time that they are hatched to
the time that they pair off, and these American partridges do
the same. Quails, like larks, get together in flocks at the
approach of winter, and move about according to the season,
to a greater or less distance from the place where they were bred.
These, therefore, which have been brought to Thursley, are
partridges; and if they be suffered to live quietly for a season
or two, they will stock the whole of that part of the country,
where the delightful intermixture of corn-fields, coppices, heaths,
furze-fields, ponds and rivulets, is singularly favourable to their
increase.

The turnips cannot fail to be good in such a season and in
such land; yet the farmers are most dreadfully tormented with
the weeds, and with the superabundant turnips. Here, my
Lord Liverpool, is over production indeed! They have sown
their fields broad-cast; they have no means of destroying the
weeds by the plough; they have no intervals to bury them in;
and they hoe, or scratch, as Mr. Tull calls it; and then comes
St. Swithin and sets the weeds and the hoed-up turnips again.
Then there is another hoeing or scratching; and then comes
St. Swithin again: so that there is hoe, hoe, muddle, muddle,
and such a fretting and stewing; such a looking up to Hindhead
to see when it is going to be fine; when, if that beautiful field
of twenty acres, which I have now before my eyes, and wherein

208 Rural Rides

I see half a dozen men hoeing and poking and muddling, looking
up to see how long it is before they must take to their heels
to get under the trees to obtain shelter from the coming shower;
when, I say, if that beautiful field had been sowed upon ridges
at four feet apart, according to the plan in my Year's Residence,
not a weed would have been to be seen in the field, the turnip-
plants would have been three times the size that they now are,
the expense would have not been a fourth part of that which
has already taken place, and all the muddling and poking about
of weeds, and all the fretting and all the stewing would have
been spared; and as to the amount of the crop, I am now
looking at the best land in England for Swedish turnips, and
I have no scruple to assert that, if it had been sown after my
manner, it would have had a crop double the weight of that
which it now will have. I think I know of a field of turnips,
sown much later than the field now before me, and sown in
rows at nearly four feet apart, which will have a crop double
the weight of that which will be produced in yon beautiful field.

REIGATE (SURREY),
Friday, 8 August.

At the end of a long, twisting-about ride, but a most delightful
ride, I got to this place about nine o'clock in the evening. From
Thursley I came to Brook, and there crossed the turnpike-road
from London to Chichester through Godalming and Midhurst.
Thence I came on, turning upon the left upon the sandhills of
Hambledon (in Surrey, mind). On one of these hills is one of
those precious jobs, called " Semaphores." For what reason
this pretty name is given to a sort of telegraph house, stuck up
at public expense upon a high hill; for what reason this out-
landish name is given to the thing, I must leave the reader to
guess; but as to the thing itself, I know that it means this:
a pretence for giving a good sum of the public money away every
year to some one that the borough-system has condemned this
labouring and toiling nation to provide for. The Dead Weight
of nearly about six millions sterling a year; that is to say, this
curse entailed upon the country on account of the late wars
against the liberties of the French people, this Dead Weight is,
however, falling, in part, at least, upon the landed jolterheads
who were so eager to create it, and who thought that no part
of it would fall upon themselves. Theirs has been a grand
mistake. They saw the war carried on without any loss or any

Hampshire and Surrey 209

cost to themselves. By the means of paper-money and loans,
the labouring classes were made to pay the whole of the expenses
of the war. When the war was over, the jolterheads thought
they would get gold back again to make all secure; and some
of them really said, I am told, that it was high time to put an
end to the gains of the paper-money people. The jolterheads
quite overlooked the circumstance that, in returning to gold,
they doubled and trebled what they had to pay on account of
the debt, and that, at last, they were bringing the burden upon
themselves. Grand, also, was the mistake of the jolterheads,
when they approved of the squanderings upon the Dead Weight.
They thought that the labouring classes were going to pay the
whole of the expenses of the Knights of Waterloo, and of the
other heroes of the war. The jolterheads thought that they
should have none of this to pay. Some of them had relations
belonging to the Dead Weight, and all of them were willing to
make the labouring classes toil like asses for the support of those
who had what was called " fought and bled " for Gatton and
Old Sarum. The jolterheads have now found, however, that
a pretty good share of the expense is to fall upon themselves.
Their mortgagees are letting them know that Semaphores and such
pretty things cost something, and that it is unreasonable for
a loyal country gentleman, a friend of " social order " and of
the " blessed comforts of religion " to expect to have semaphores
and to keep his estate too.

This Dead Weight is, unquestionably, a thing such as the
world never saw before. Here are not only a tribe of pensioned
naval and military officers, commissaries, quarter-masters,
pursers, and God knows what besides ; not only these, but their
wives and children are to be pensioned, after the death of the
heroes themselves. Nor does it signify, it seems, whether the
hero were married, before he became part of the Dead Weight,
or since. Upon the death of the man, the pension is to begin
with the wife, and a pension for each child; so that, if there be
a large family of children, the family, in many cases, actually
gains by the death of the father ! Was such a thing as this ever
before heard of in the world ? Any man that is going to die has
nothing to do but to marry a girl to give her a pension for life
to be paid out of the sweat of the people; and it was distinctly
stated, during the session of Parliament before the last, that the
widows and children of insane officers were to have the same
treatment as the rest ! Here is the envy of surrounding nations
and the admiration of the world ! In addition, then, to twenty

H638

2 i o Rural Rides

thousand parsons, more than twenty thousand stockbrokers
and stockjobbers perhaps ; forty or fifty thousand tax-gatherers ;
thousands upon thousands of military and naval officers in full
pay; in addition to all these, here are the thousands upon
thousands of pairs of this Dead Weight, all busily engaged in
breeding gentlemen and ladies; and all while Malthus is wanting
to put a check upon the breeding of the labouring classes; all
receiving a premium for breeding I Where is Malthus? Where
is this check-population parson! Where are his friends, the
Edinburgh Reviewers? Faith, I believe they have given him
up. They begin to be ashamed of giving countenance to a man
who wants to check the breeding of those who labour, while he
says not a word about those two hundred thousand breeding
pairs, whose offspring are necessarily to be maintained at the
public charge. Well may these fatteners upon the labour of
others rail against the Radicals! Let them once take the fan
to their hand, and they will, I warrant it, thoroughly purge the
floor. However, it is a consolation to know that the jolter-
heads who have been the promoters of the measures that have
led to these heavy charges; it is a consolation to know that the
jolterheads have now to bear part of the charges, and that they
cannot any longer make them fall exclusively upon the shoulders
of the labouring classes. The disgust that one feels at seeing the
whiskers, and hearing the copper heels rattle, is in some measure
compensated for by the reflection that the expense of them is
now beginning to fall upon the malignant and tyrannical jolter-
heads who are the principal cause of their being created.

Bidding the Semaphore good-bye, I came along by the church
at Hambledon, and then crossed a little common and the turn-
pike-road, from London to Chichester through Godalming and
Petworth; not Midhurst, as before. The turnpike-road here
is one of the best that ever I saw. It is like the road upon
Horley Common, near Worth, and like that between Godstone
and East Grinstead; and the cause of this is, that it is made of
precisely the same sort of stone, which, they tell me, is brought,
in some cases, even from Blackdown Hill, which cannot be less,
I should think, than twelve miles distant. This stone is brought
in great lumps, and then cracked into little pieces. The next
village I came to after Hambledon was Hascomb, famous for
its beech, insomuch that it is called Hascomb Beech.

There are two lofty hills here, between which you go out of the
sandy country down into the Weald. Here are hills of all
heights and forms. Whether they came in consequence of a

Hampshire and Surrey 21 i

boiling of the earth, I know not; but, in form, they very much
resemble the bubbles upon the top of the water of a pot which
is violently boiling. The soil is a beautiful loam upon a bed of
sand. Springs start here and there at the feet of the hills ; and
little rivulets pour away in all directions. The roads are diffi-
cult merely on account of their extreme unevenness ; the bottom
is everywhere sound, and everything that meets the eye is
beautiful; trees, coppices, cornfields, meadows; and then the
distant views in every direction. From one spot I saw this
morning Hindhead, Blackdown Hill, Lord Egremont's house
and park at Petworth, Donnington Hill, over which I went to
go on the South Downs, the South Downs near Lewes: the
forest at Worth, Turner's Hill, and then all the way round into
Kent and back to the Surrey Hills at Godstone. From Has-
comb I began to descend into the low country. I had Leith
Hill before me ; but my plan was, not to go over it or any part of
it, but to go along below it in the real Weald of Surrey. A little
way back from Hascomb, I had seen a. field of carrots ; and now
I was descending into a country where, strictly speaking, only
three things will grow well — grass, wheat, and oak trees. At
Goose Green, I crossed a turnpike-road leading from Guildford
to Horsham and Arundel. I next come, after crossing a canal,
to a common called Smithwood Common. Leith Hill was full
in front of me, but I turned away to the right, and went through
the lanes to come to Ewhurst, leaving Crawley to my right.
Before I got to Ewhurst, I crossed another turnpike-road, leading
from Guildford to Horsham, and going on to Worthing or some
of those towns.

At Ewhurst, which is a very pretty village, and the church
of which is most delightfully situated, I treated my horse to
some oats, and myself to a rasher of bacon. I had now to come,
according to my project, round among the lanes at about a couple
of miles distance from the foot of Leith Hill, in order to get
first to Ockley, then to Holmwood, and then to Reigate. From
Ewhurst the first three miles was the deepest clay that I ever
saw, to the best of my recollection. I was warned of the diffi-
culty of getting along; but I was not to be frightened at the
sound of clay. Wagons, too, had been dragged along the lanes
by some means or another; and where a wagon-horse could go,
my horse could go. It took me, however, a good hour and a
half to get along these three miles. Now, mind, this is the real
weald, where the clay is bottomless ; where there is no stone of
any sort underneath, as at Worth and all along from Crawley

212 Rural Rides

to Billingshurst through Horsham. This clayey land is fed
with water soaking from the sand-hills; and in this particular
place from the immense hill of Leith. All along here the oak-
woods are beautiful. I saw scores of acres by the roadside,
where the young oaks stood as regularly as if they had been
planted. The orchards are not bad along here, and, perhaps,
they are a good deal indebted to the shelter they receive. The
wheat very good, all through the weald, but backward.

At Ockley I passed the house of a Mr. Steer, who has a great
quantity of hay-land, which is very pretty. Here I came along
the turnpike-road that leads from Dorking to Horsham. When
I got within about two or three miles of Dorking, I turned off
to the right, came across the Holmwood, into the lanes leading
down to Gadbrook Common, which has of late years been
inclosed. It is all clay here; but, in the whole of my ride, I
have not seen much finer fields of wheat than I saw here. Out
of these lanes I turned up to " Betchworth " (I believe it is), and
from Betchworth came along a chalk hill to my left and the
sand hills to my right, till I got to this place.

WEN,
Sunday, 10 August.

I stayed at Reigate yesterday, and came to the Wen to-day,
every step of the way in a rain ; as good a soaking as any devotee
of St. Swithin ever underwent for his sake. I promised that I
would give an account of the effect which the soaking on the
South Downs, on Saturday the 2nd instant, had upon the
hooping-cough. I do not recommend the remedy to others;
but this I will say, that I had a spell of the hooping-cough,
the day before I got that soaking, and that I have not had a
single spell since; though I have slept in several different beds,
and got a second soaking in going from Botley to Easton. The
truth is, I believe, that rain upon the South Downs, or at any
place near the sea, is by no means the same thing with rain in
the interior. No man ever catches cold from getting wet with
sea water; and, indeed, I have never known an instance of a
man catching cold at sea. The air upon the South Downs is
saltish, I dare say; and the clouds may bring something a little
partaking of the nature of sea water.

At Thursley I left the turnip-hoers poking and pulling and
muddling about the weeds, and wholly incapable, after all, of
putting the turnips in anything like the state in which they
ought to be. The weeds that had been hoed up twice, were

Hampshire and Surrey 213

growing again, and it was the same with the turnips that had
been hoed up. In leaving Reigate this morning, it was with
great pleasure that I saw a field of Swedish turnips, drilled upon
ridges at about four feet distance, the whole field as clean as the
cleanest of garden ground. The turnips standing at equal
distances in the row, and having the appearance of being, in
every respect, in a prosperous state. I should not be afraid
to bet that these turnips, thus standing in rows at nearly four
feet distance, will be a crop twice as large as any in the parish
of Thursley, though there is, I imagine, some of the finest
turnip-land in the kingdom. It seems strange, that men are
not to be convinced of the advantage of the row-culture for
turnips. They will insist upon believing that there is some
ground lost. They will also insist upon believing that the row-
culture is the most expensive. How can there be ground lost
if the crop be larger? And as to the expense, take one year
with another, the broadcast method must be twice as expensive
as the other. Wet as it has been to-day, I took time to look
well about me as I came along. The wheat, even in this raga-
muffin part of the country, is good, with the exception of one
piece, which lies on your left hand as you come down from
Banstead Down. It is very good at Banstead itself, though
that is a country sufficiently poor. Just on the other side of
Sutton there is a little good land, and in a place or two I thought
I saw the wheat a little blighted. A labouring man told me
that it was where the heaps of dung had been laid. The barley
here is most beautiful, as, indeed, it is all over the country.

Between Sutton and the Wen there is, in fact, little besides
houses, gardens, grass plats and other matters to accommodate
the Jews and jobbers, and the mistresses and bastards that are
put out a-keeping. But, in a dell, which the turnpike-road
crosses about a mile on this side of Sutton, there are two fields
of as stiff land, I think, as I ever saw in my life. In summer
time this land bakes so hard that they cannot plough it unless
it be wet. WThen you have ploughed it, and the sun comes
again, it bakes again. One of these fields had been thus ploughed
and cross-ploughed in the month of June, and I saw the ground
when it was lying in lumps of the size of portmanteaus, and
not very small ones either. It would have been impossible to
reduce this ground to small particles, except by the means of
sledge hammers. The two fields, to which I alluded just now,
are alongside of this ploughed field, and they are now in wheat.
The heavy rain of to-day, aided by the south-west wind, made

2 14 Rural Rides

the wheat bend pretty nearly to lying down; but you shall
rarely see two finer fields of wheat. It is red wheat; a coarseish
kind, and the straw stout and strong; but the ears are long,
broad and full; and I did not perceive anything approaching
towards a speck in the straw. Such land as this, such very stiff
land, seldom carries a very large crop; but I should think that
these fields would exceed four quarters to an acre; and the
wheat is by no means so backward as it is in some places. There
is no corn, that I recollect, from the spot just spoken of, to almost
the street of Kensington. I came up by Earl's Court, where
there is, amongst the market gardens, a field of wheat. One
would suppose that this must be the finest wheat in the world.
By no means. It rained hard, to be sure, and I had not much
time for being particular in my survey; but this field appears
to me to have some blight in it; and as to crop, whether of corn
or of straw, it is nothing to compare to the general run of the
wheat in the wealds of Sussex or of Surrey; what, then, is it, if
compared with the wheat on the South Downs, under Portsdown
Hill, on the sea-flats at Havant and at Tichfield, and along on
the banks of the Itchen !

Thus I have concluded this " rural ride," from the Wen and
back again to the Wen, being, taking in all the turnings and
windings, as near as can be, two hundred miles in length. My
objects were to ascertain the state of the crops, both of hops
and of corn. The hop-affair is soon settled, for there will be no
hops. As to the corn, my remark is this : that on all the clays,
on all the stiff lands upon the chalk ; on all the rich lands, indeed,
but more especially on all the stiff lands, the wheat is as good
as I recollect ever to have seen it, and has as much straw. On
all the light lands and poor lands, the wheat is thin, and, though
not short, by no means good. The oats are pretty good almost
everywhere; and I have not seen a bad field of barley during
the whole of my ride; though there is no species of soil in
England, except that of the fens, over which I have not passed.
The state of the farmers is much worse than it was last year,
notwithstanding the ridiculous falsehoods of the London news-
papers, and the more ridiculous delusion of the jolterheads.
In numerous instances the farmers, who continue in their farms,
have ceased to farm for themselves, and merely hold the land
for the landlords. The delusion caused by the rise of the price
of corn has pretty nearly vanished already; and if St. Swithin
would but get out of the way with his drippings for about a
month, this delusion would disappear, never to return. In the

Hampshire and Surrey 215

meanwhile, however, the London newspapers are doing what
they can to keep up the delusion; and in a paper called Bell's
Weekly Messenger, edited, I am told, by a place-hunting lawyer;
in that stupid paper of this day, I find the following passage : —
' So late as January last, the average price of wheat was 395.
per quarter, and on the 2gth ult. it was above 625. As it has
been rising ever since, it may now be quoted as little under 6$s.
So that in this article alone, there is a rise of more than thirty-
five per cent. Under these circumstances, it is not likely that
we shall hear anything of agricultural distress. A writer of
considerable talents, but no prophet, had frightened the kingdom
by a confident prediction that wheat, after the ist of May,
would sink to 45. per bushel, and that under the effects of Mr.
Peel's bill, and the payments in cash by the Bank of England,
it would never again exceed that price I Nay, so assured was
Mr. Cobbett of the mathematical certainty of his deductions on
the subject, that he did not hesitate to make use of the follow-
ing language: ' And farther, if what I say do not come to pass.
I will give any one leave to broil me on a gridiron, and for that
purpose I will get one of the best gridirons I can possibly get
made, and it shall be hung out as near to my premises as possible,
in the Strand, so that it shall be seen by everybody as they pass
along.' The ist of May has now passed, Mr. Peel's bill has not
been repealed, and the Bank of England has paid its notes in
cash, and yet wheat has risen nearly 40 per cent."

Here is a tissue of falsehoods ! But only think of a country
being "frightened " by the prospect of a low price of provisions !
When such an idea can possibly find its way even into the
shallow brain of a cracked-skull lawyer; when such an idea
can possibly be put into print at any rate, there must be some-
thing totally wrong in the state of the country. Here is this
lawyer telling his readers that I had frightened the kingdom,
by saying that wheat would be sold at four shillings a bushel.
Again I say, that there must be something wrong, something
greatly out of place, some great disease at work in the community,
or such an idea as this could never have found its way into print.
Into the head of a cracked-skull lawyer, it might, perhaps, have
entered at any time; but for it to find its way into print, there
must be something in the state of society wholly out of joint.
As to the rest of this article, it is a tissue of down-right lies. The
writer says that the price of wheat is sixty-five shillings a quarter.
The fact is, that on the second instant, the price was fifty-nine
shillings and seven-pence: and it is now about two shillings less

2 i 6 Rural Rides

than that. Then again, this writer must know, that I never said
that wheat would not rise above four shillings a bushel; but
that on the contrary I always expressly said that the price would
be affected by the seasons, and that I thought that the price
would vibrate between three shillings a bushel and seven shillings
a bushel. Then again, Peel's bill has, in part, been repealed;
if it had not, there could have been no small note in circulation
at this day. So that this lawyer is " All lie." In obedience to
the wishes of a lady, I have been reading about the plans of Mr.
Owen; and though I do not as yet see my way clear as to how
we can arrange matters with regard to the young girls and the
young fellows, I am quite clear that his institution would be
most excellent for the disposal of the lawyers. One of his
squares would be at a great distance from all other habitations;
in the midst of Lord Erskine's estate for instance, mentioned by
me in a former ride; and nothing could be so fitting, his lord-
ship long having been called the father of the Bar ; in the midst
of this estate, with no town or village within miles of them, we
might have one of Mr. Owen's squares, and set the bob-tailed
brotherhood most effectually at work. Pray, can any one
pretend to say that a spade or shovel would not become the
hands of this blunder-headed editor of Bell's Messenger better
than a pen? However, these miserable falsehoods can cause
the delusion to exist but for a very short space of time.

The quantity of the harvest will be great. If the quality
be bad, owing to wet weather, the price will be still lower than
it would have been in case of dry weather. The price, therefore,
must come down; and if the newspapers were conducted by
men who had any sense of honour or shame, those men must
be covered with confusion.

RIDE THROUGH THE NORTH-EAST PART OF SUSSEX,
AND ALL ACROSS KENT, FROM THE WEALD OF
SUSSEX, TO DOVER

WORTH (SUSSEX),
Friday, 29 August, 1823.

I HAVE so often described the soil and other matters appertain-
ing to the country between the Wen and this place, that my
readers will rejoice at being spared the repetition here. As to
the harvest, however, I find that they were deluged here on
Tuesday last, though we got but little, comparatively, at
Kensington. Between Mitcham and Sutton they were making
wheat-ricks. The corn has not been injured here worth notice.
Now and then an ear in the butts grown ; and grown wheat is a
sad thing ! You may almost as well be without wheat altogether.
However, very little harm has been done here as yet.

At Walton Heath I saw a man who had suffered most terribly
from the game-laws. He saw me going by, and came out to
tell me his story; and a horrible story it is, as the public will
find, when it shall come regularly and fully before them. Apropos
of game-works : I asked who was the judge at the Somersetshire
Assizes, the other day. A correspondent tells me that it was
Judge Burrough. I am well aware that, as this correspondent
observes, " gamekeepers ought not to be shot at" This is not
the point. It is not a gamekeeper in the usual sense of that
word; it is a man seizing another without a warrant. That is
what it is; and this, and Old Ellenborough's Act, are new things
in England, and things of which the laws of England, " the
birthright of Englishmen," knew nothing. Yet farmer Voke
ought not to have shot at the gamekeeper, or seizer, without
warrant: he ought not to have shot at him; and he would not
had it not been for the law that put him in danger of being
transported on the evidence of this man. So that it is, clearly,
the terrible law that, in these cases, produces the violence.
Yet, admire with me, reader, the singular turn of the mind of
Sir James Mackintosh, whose whole soul appears to have been
long bent on the " amelioration of the Penal Code," and who
has never said one single word about this new and most terrible
*H 638 217

218 Rural Rides

part of it ! Sir James, after years of incessant toil, has, I believe,
succeeded in getting a repeal of the laws for the punishment of
" witchcraft," of the very existence of which laws the nation was
unacquainted. But the devil a word has he said about the
game-laws, which put into the gaols a full third part of the
prisoners, and to hold which prisoners the gaols have actually
been enlarged in all parts of the country! Singular turn of
mind! Singular "humanity!' Ah! Sir James knows very
well what he is at. He understands the state of his constituents
at Knaresborough too well to meddle with game-laws. He has
a " friend," I dare say, who knows more about game-laws than
he does. However, the poor witches are safe : thank Sir James
for that. Mr. Carlile's sister and Mrs. Wright are in gaol, and
may be there for life! But the poor witches are safe. No
hypocrite; no base pretender to religion; no atrocious, savage,
black-hearted wretch, who would murder half mankind rather
than not live on the labours of others; no monster of this kind
can now persecute the poor witches, thanks to Sir James, who has
obtained security for them in all their rides through the air,
and in all their sailings upon the horseponds !

TONBRIDGE WELLS (KENT),
Saturday, 30 August.

I came from Worth about seven this morning, passed through
East Grinstead, over Holthigh Common, through Ashurst, and
thence to this place. The morning was very fine, and I left
them at Worth making a wheat-rick. There was no show for
rain till about one o'clock, as I was approaching Ashurst. The
shattering that came at first I thought nothing of; but the
clouds soon grew up all round, and the rain set in for the after-
noon. The buildings at Ashurst (which is the first parish in
Kent on quitting Sussex) are a mill, an alehouse, a church, and
about six or seven other houses. I stopped at the alehouse to
bait my horse; and, for want of bacon, was compelled to put up
with bread and cheese for myself. I waited in vain for the rain
to cease or to slacken, and the want of bacon made me fear as to
a bed. So, about five o'clock, I, without greatcoat, got upon my
horse, and came to this place, just as fast and no faster than ii
it had been fine weather. A very fine soaking! If the South
Dowr.s have left any little remnant of the hooping cough, this
will take it away to be sure. I made not the least haste to get
out of the rain, I stopped, here and there, as usual, and asked

Sussex and Kent 219

questions about the corn, the hops, and other things. But the
moment I got in I got a good fire, and set about the work of dry-
ing in good earnest. It costing me nothing for drink, I can
afford to have plenty of fire. I have not been in the house an
hour; and all my clothes are now as dry as if they had never
been wet. It is not getting wet that hurts you, if you keep
moving while you are wet. It is the suffering of yourself to be
inactive, while the wet clothes are on your back.

The country that I have come over to-day is a very pretty
one. The soil is a pale yellow loam, looking like brick earth,
but rather sandy; but the bottom is a softish stone. Now and
then, where you go through hollow ways (as at East Grinstead)
the sides are solid rock. And, indeed, the rocks sometimes (on
the sides of hills) show themselves above ground, and, mixed
amongst the woods, make very interesting objects. On the road
from the Wen to Brighton, through Godstone and over Turner's
Hill, and which road I crossed this morning in coming from
Worth to East Grinstead; on that road, which goes through
Lindfield, and which is by far the pleasantest coach-road from
the Wen to Brighton; on the side of this road, on which coaches
now go from the Wen to Brighton, there is a long chain of rocks,
or, rather, rocky hills, with trees growing amongst the rocks, or
apparently out of them, as they do in the woods near Ross in
Herefordshire, and as they do in the Blue Mountains in America,
where you can see no earth at all; where all seems rock, and yet
where the trees grow most beautifully. At the place, of which I
am now speaking, that is to say, by the side of this pleasant road
to Brighton, and between Turner's Hill and Lindfield, there is
a rock, which they call " Big-upon-Little ; " that is to say, a
rock upon another, having nothing else to rest upon, and the
top one being longer and wider than the top of the one it lies on.
This big rock is no trifling concern, being as big, perhaps, as a
not very small house. How, then, came this big upon little?
What lifted up the big? It balances itself naturally enough;
but what tossed it up ? I do not like to pay a parson for teach-
ing me, while I have " God's own word " to teach me; but if
any parson will tell me how big came upon little, I do not know
that I shall grudge him a trifle. And if he cannot tell me this :
if he say, All that we have to do is to admire and adore ; then I
tell him, that I can admire and adore without his aid, and that
I will keep my money in my pocket.

To return to the soil of this country, it is such a loam as I
have described with this stone beneath; sometimes the top soil

22O Rural Rides

is lighter and sometimes heavier; sometimes the stone is harder
and sometimes softer; but this is the general character of it all
the way from Worth to Tonbridge Wells. This land is what
may be called the middle kind. The wheat crop about 20 to 24
bushels to an acre, on an average of years. The grass fields not
bad, and all the fields will grow grass; I mean make upland
meadows. The woods good, though not of the finest. The
land seems to be about thus divided: three-tenths woods, two-
tenths grass, a tenth of a tenth hops, and the rest corn-land.
These make very pretty surface, especially as it is a rarity to see
a pollard tree, and as nobody is so beastly as to trim trees up like
the elms near the Wen. The country has no flat spot in it; yet
the hills are not high. My road was a gentle rise or a gentle
descent all the way. Continual new views strike the eye; but
there is little variety in them: all is pretty, but nothing
strikingly beautiful. The labouring people look pretty well.
They have pigs. They invariably do best in the woodland and
forest and wild countries. Where the mighty grasper has all
under his eye, they can get but little. These are cross-roads,
mere parish roads ; but they are very good. While I was at the
alehouse at Ashurst, I heard some labouring men talking about
the roads; and they having observed that the parish roads had
become so wonderfully better within the last seven or eight
years, I put in my word, and said : " It is odd enough, too, that
the parish roads should become better and better as the farmers
become poorer and poorer ! ' They looked at one another, and
put on a sort of expecting look; for my observation seemed to
ask for information. At last one of them said, ' ' Why, it is
because the farmers have not the money to employ men, and so
they are put on the roads." " Yes," said I, " but they must
pay them there." They said no more, and only looked hard at
one another. They had, probably, never thought about this
before. They seemed puzzled by it, and well they might, for it
has bothered the wigs of boroughmongers, parsons and lawyers,
and will bother them yet. Yes, this country now contains a
body of occupiers of the land, who suffer the land to go to decay
for want of means to pay a sufficiency of labourers; and, at the
same time, are compelled to pay those labourers for doing that
which is of no use to the occupiers ! There, Collective Wisdom !
Go: brag of that! Call that " the envy of surrounding nations
and the admiration of the world."

This is a great nut year. I saw them hanging very thick on
the way-side during a great part of this day's ride; and they

Sussex and Kent 221

put me in mind of the old saying, " That a great nut year is a
great year for that class whom the lawyers, in their Latin phrase,
call the ' sons and daughters of nobody.' I once asked a
farmer, who had often been overseer of the poor, whether he
really thought that there was any ground for this old saying,
or whether he thought it was mere banter? He said that he
was sure that there were good grounds for it; and he even cited
instances in proof, and mentioned one particular year, when
there were four times as many of this class as ever had been born
in a year in the parish before; an effect which he ascribed solely
to the crop of nuts of the year before. Now, if this be the case,
ought not Parson Malthus, Lawyer Scarlett, and the rest of that
tribe, to turn their attention to the nut-trees? The Vice
Society too, with that holy man Wilberforce at its head, ought
to look out sharp after these mischievous nut-trees. A law to
cause them all to be grubbed up, and thrown into the fire, would,
certainly, be far less unreasonable than many things which we
have seen and heard of.

The corn from Worth to this place is pretty good. The
farmers say it is a small crop; other people, and especially the
labourers, say that it is a good crop. I think it is not large and
not small; about an average crop; perhaps rather less, for the
land is rather light, and this is not a year for light lands. But
there is no blight, no mildew, in spite of all the prayers of the
" loyal." The wheat about a third cut, and none carried. No
other corn begun upon. Hops very bad till I came within a
few miles of this place, when I saw some, which I should suppose,
would bear about six hundredweight to the acre. The orchards
no great things along here. Some apples here and there; but
small and stunted. I do not know that I have seen to-day any
one tree well loaded with fine apples.

TENTERDEN (KENT),
Sunday, 31 August.

Here I am after a most delightful ride of twenty-four miles,
through Frant, Lamberhurst, Goudhurst, Milkhouse Street,
Benenden, and Rolvenden. By making a great stir in rousing
waiters and " boots " and maids, and by leaving behind me the
name of " a d — d noisy, troublesome fellow," I got clear of " the
Wells," and out of the contagion of its Wen-engendered
inhabitants, time enough to meet the first rays of the sun, on
the hill that you come up in order to get to Frant, which is a
most beautiful little village at about two miles from " the

222 Rural Rides

Wells." Here the land belongs, I suppose, to Lord Abergavenny,
who has a mansion and park here. A very pretty place, and
kept, seemingly, in very nice order. I saw here what I never
saw before: the bloom of the common heath we wholly over-
look; but it is a very pretty thing; and here, when the planta-
tions were made, and as they grew up, heath was left to grow on
the sides of the roads in the plantations. The heath is not so
much of a dwarf as we suppose. This is four feet high; and,
being in full bloom, it makes the prettiest border that can be
imagined. This place of Lord Abergavenny is, altogether, a
very pretty place; and so far from grudging him the possession
of it, I should feel pleasure at seeing it in his possession, and
should pray God to preserve it to him, and from the unholy and
ruthless touch of the Jews and jobbers; but I cannot forget
this lord's sinecure I I cannot forget that he has, for doing
nothing, received of the public money more than sufficient to
buy such an estate as this. I cannot forget that this estate may,
perhaps, have actually been bought with that money. Not
being able to forget this, and with my mind filled with reflections
of this sort, I got up to the church at Frant, and just by I saw a
School-house with this motto on it: " Train up a child as he
should walk," etc. That is to say, try to breed up the boys and
girls of this village in such a way that they may never know
anything about Lord Abergavenny's sinecure; or, knowing
about it, that they may think it right that he should roll in wealth
coming to him in such a way. The projectors deceive nobody
but themselves ! They are working for the destruction of their
own system. In looking back over " the Wells " I cannot but
admire the operation of the gambling system. This little toad-
stool is a thing created entirely by the gamble; and the means
have, hitherto, come out of the wages of labour. These means
are now coming out of the farmer's capital and out of the land-
lord's estate; the labourers are stripped ; they can give no more ;
the saddle is now fixing itself upon the right back.

In quitting Frant I descended into a country more woody
than that behind me. I asked a man whose fine woods those
were that I pointed to, and I fairly gave a start when he said,
the Marquis Camden's. Milton talks of the Leviathan in a way
to make one draw in one's shoulders with fear; and I appeal to
any one, who has been at sea when a whale has come near the
ship, whether he has not, at the first sight of the monster, made
a sort of involuntary movement, as if to get out of the way. Such
was the movement that I now made. However, soon coming

Sussex and Kent 223

to myself, on I walked my horse by the side of my pedestrian
informant. It is Bayham Abbey that this great and awful
sinecure placeman owns in this part of the county. Another
great estate he owns near Sevenoaks. But here alone he spreads
his length and breadth over more, they say, than ten or twelve
thousand acres of land, great part of which consists of oak-woods.
But, indeed, what estates might he not purchase? Not much
less than thirty years he held a place, a sinecure place, that
yielded him about thirty thousand pounds a-year ! At any rate,
he, according to Parliamentary accounts, has received, of public
money, little short of a million of guineas. These, at 30 guineas
an acre, would buy thirty thousand acres of land. And what
did he have all this money for ? Answer me that question,
Wilberforce, you who called him a " bright star," when he gave
up a part of his enormous sinecure. He gave up all but the
trifling sum of nearly three thousand pounds a-year! What a
bright star! And when did he give it up ? When the Radicals
had made the country ring with it. When his name was, by
their means, getting into every mouth in the kingdom; when
every radical speech and petition contained the name of Camden.
Then it was, and not till then, that this " bright star," let fall
part of its " brilliancy." So that Wilberforce ought to have
thanked the Radicals, and not Camden. When he let go his
grasp, he talked of the merits of his father. His father was a
lawyer, who was exceedingly well paid for what he did without
a million of money being given to his son. But there is some-
thing rather out of common-place to be observed about this
father. This father was the contemporary of Yorke, who
became Lord Hardwicke. Pratt and Yorke, and the merit of
Pratt was, that he was constantly opposed to the principles of
Yorke. Yorke was called a Tory and Pratt a Whig ; but the
devil of it was, both got to be lords ; and, in one shape or another,
the families of both have, from that day to this, been receiving
great parcels of the public money! Beautiful system! The
Tories were for rewarding Yorke ; the Whigs were for rewarding
Pratt. The ministers (all in good time !) humoured both parties ;
and the stupid people, divided into tools of two factions, actually
applauded, now one part of them, and now the other part of
them, the squandering away of their substance. They were
like the man and his wife in the fable who, to spite one another,
gave away to the cunning mumper the whole of their dinner
bit by bit. This species of folly is over at any rate. The people
are no longer fools enough to be partisans. They make no

224 Rural Rides

distinctions. The nonsense about " court party " and " country
party " is at an end. Who thinks anything more of the name
of Erskine than of that of Scott ? As the people told the two
factions at Maidstone, when they, with Camden at their head,
met to congratulate the Regent on the marriage of his daughter,
" they are all tarred with the same brush; " and tarred with the
same brush they must be, until there be a real reform of the
parliament. However, the people are no longer deceived. They
are not duped. They know that the thing is that which it is.
The people of the present day would laugh at disputes (carried
on with so much gravity !) about the principles of Pratt and the
principles of Yorke. " You are all tarred with the same brush,"
said the sensible people of Maidstone; and, in those words, they
expressed the opinion of the whole country, boroughmongers
and tax-eaters excepted.

The country from Frant to Lamberhurst is very woody. I
should think five-tenths woods and three grass. The corn,
what there is of it, is about the same as farther back. I saw a
hop-garden just before I got to Lamberhurst, which will have
about two or three hundredweight to the acre. This Lamber-
hurst is a very pretty place. It lies in a valley with beautiful
hills round it. The pastures about here are very fine; and the
roads are as smooth and as handsome as those in Windsor Park.

From the last-mentioned place I had three miles to come to
Goudhurst, the tower of the church of which is pretty lofty of
itself, and the church stands upon the very summit of one of the
steepest and highest hills in this part of the country. The
church-yard has a view of about twenty-five miles in diameter;
and the whole is over a very fine country, though the character of
the country differs little from that which I have before described.

Before I got to Goudhurst, I passed by the side of a village
called Horsenden, and saw some very large hop-grounds away to
my right. I should suppose there were fifty acres; and they
appeared to me to look pretty well. I found that they belonged
to a Mr. Springate, and people say that it will grow half as
many hops as he grew last year, while people in general will not
grow a tenth part so many. This hop growing and dealing
have always been a gamble ; and this puts me in mind of the
horrible treatment which Mr. Waddington received on account of
what was called his forestalling in hops! It is useless to talk:
as long as that gentleman remains uncompen sated for his suffer-
ings, there can be no hope of better days. Ellenborough was
his counsel; he afterwards became judge; but nothing was

Sussex and Kent 225

ever done to undo what Kenyon had done. However, Mr.
Waddington will, I trust, yet live to obtain justice. He has,
in the meanwhile, given the thing now and then a blow; and
he has the satisfaction to see it reel about like a drunken man.
I got to Goudhurst to breakfast, and as I heard that the Dean
of Rochester was to preach a sermon in behalf of the National
Schools, I stopped to hear him. In waiting for his reverence I
went to the Methodist Meeting-house, where I found the Sunday
school boys and girls asembled, to the almost filling of the place,
which was about thirty feet long and eighteen wide. The
" minister " was not come, and the schoolmaster was reading
to the children out of a tract-book, and shaking the brimstone
bag at them most furiously. This schoolmaster was a sleek-
looking young fellow: his skin perfectly tight: well fed, I'll
warrant him : and he has discovered the way of living, without
work, on the labour of those that do work. There were 36 little
fellows in smock-frocks, and about as many girls listening to
him; and I dare say he eats as much meat as any ten of them.
By this time the dean, I thought, would be coming on; and,
therefore, to the church I went; but to my great disappoint-
ment, I found that the parson was operating preparatory to the
appearance of the dean, who was to come on in the afternoon,
when I, agreeably to my plan, must be off. The sermon was
from 2 Chronicles xxxi. 21., and the words of this text described
King Hezekiah as a most zealous man, doing whatever he did
with all his heart. I write from memory, mind, and, therefore,
I do not pretend to quote exact words; and I may be a little
in error, perhaps, as to chapter or verse. The object of the
preacher was to hold up to his hearers the example of Hezekiah,
and particularly in the case of the school affair. He called upon
them to subscribe with all their hearts; but, alas! how little of
persuasive power was there in what he said ! No effort to make
them see the use of the schools. No inducement proved to exist.
No argument, in short, nor anything to move. No appeal either
to the reason, or to the feeling. All was general, commonplace,
cold observation; and that, too, in language which the far
greater part of the hearers could not understand. This church
is about no feet long and 70 feet wide in the clear. It would
hold three thousand people, and it had in it 214, besides 53
Sunday School or National School boys; and these sat together,
in a sort of lodge, up in a corner, 16 feet long and 10 feet wide.
Now, will any Parson Malthus, or anybody else, have the im-
pudence to tell me that this church was built for the use of a

226 Rural Rides

population not more numerous than the present? To be sure,
when this church was built, there could be no idea of a Methodist
meeting coming to assist the church, and as little, I dare say,
was it expected that the preachers in the church would ever
call upon the faithful to subscribe money to be sent up to one
Joshua Watson (living in a Wen) to be by him laid out in " pro-
moting Christian knowledge; " but, at any rate, the Methodists
cannot take away above four or five hundred ; and what, then,
was this great church built for, if there were no more people, in
those days, at Goudhurst, than there are now ? It is very true
that the labouring people have, in a great measure, ceased to go
to church. There were scarcely any of that class at this great
country church to-day. I do not believe there were ten. I can
remember when they were so numerous that the parson could
not attempt to begin till the rattling of their nailed shoes ceased.
I have seen, I am sure, five hundred boys and men in smock-
frocks coming out of church at one time. To-day has been a
fine day: there would have been many at church to-day, ii
ever there are; and here I have another to add to the many
things that convince me that the labouring classes have, in great
part, ceased to go to church; that their way of thinking and
feeling with regard to both church and clergy are totally changed ;
and that there is now very little moral hold which the latter
possess. This preaching for money to support the schools is a
most curious affair altogether. The king sends a circular letter
to the bishops (as I understand it) to cause subscriptions for the
schools; and the bishops (if I am rightly told) tell the parish
clergy to send the money, when collected, to Joshua Watson, the
treasurer of a society in the Wen, " for promoting Christian
knowledge!' What! the church and all its clergy put into
motion to get money from the people, to send up to one Joshua
Watson, a wine-merchant, or late a wine-merchant, in Mincing
Lane, Fenchurch Street, London, in order that the said wine-
merchant may apply the money to the " promoting of Christian
knowledge ! ' What ! all the deacons, priests, curates perpetual .
vicars, rectors, prebends, doctors, deans, archdeacons and
fathers in God, right reverend and most reverend; all! yea all,
engaged in getting money together to send to a wine-merchant
that he may lay it out in the promoting of Christian knowledge
in their own flocks I Oh, brave wine-merchant! What a prince
of godliness must this wine-merchant be ! I say wine-merchant,
or late wine-merchant, of Mincing Lane, Fenchurch Street,
London. And, for God's sake, some good parson, do send me up

Sussex and Kent 227

a copy of the king's circular, and also of the bishop's order to
send the money to Joshua Watson; for some precious sport we
will have with Joshua and his " society " before we have done
with them !

After " service " I mounted my horse and jogged on through
Milkhouse Street to Benenden, where I passed through the estate,
and in sight of the house of Mr. Hodges. He keeps it very neat
and has planted a good deal. His ash do very well; but the
chesnut do not, as it seems to me. He ought to have the Ameri-
can chesnut, if he have any. If I could discover an everlasting
hop-pole, and one, too, that would grow faster even than the ash,
would not these Kentish hop-planters put me in the Kalendar
along with their famous Saint Thomas of Canterbury? We
shall see this, one of these days.

Coming through the village of Benenden, I heard a man at
my right talking very loud about houses I houses I houses !
It was a Methodist parson, in a house close by the road side.
I pulled up, and stood still, in the middle of the road, but look-
ing, in silent soberness, into the window (which was open) of
the room in which the preacher was at work. I believe my
stopping rather disconcerted him; for he got into shocking
repetition. " Do you know" said he, laying great stress on the
word know : " do you know, that you have ready for you
houses, houses I say; I say do you know ; do you know that you
have houses in the heavens not made with hands? Do you
know this from experience ? Has the blessed Jesus told you so ? '
And on he went to say that, if Jesus had told them so, they
would be saved, and that if he had not, and did not, they would
be damned. Some girls whom I saw in the room, plump and
rosy as could be, did not seem at all daunted by these menaces;
and indeed, they appeared to me to be thinking much more
about getting houses for themselves in this world first ; just to
see a little before they entered, or endeavoured to enter, or even
thought much about, those " houses " of which the parson was
speaking: houses with pig-styes and little snug gardens attached
to them, together with all the other domestic and conjugal cir-
cumstances, these girls seemed to me to be preparing themselves
for. The truth is, these fellows have no power on the minds of
any but the miserable.

Scarcely had I proceeded a hundred yards from the place
where this fellow was bawling, when I came to the very situation
which he ought to have occupied, I mean the stocks, which the
people of Benenden have, with singular humanity, fitted up with

228 Rural Rides

a bench, so that the patient, while he is receiving the benefit of
the remedy, is not exposed to the danger of catching cold by
sitting, as in other places, upon the ground, always damp, and
sometimes actually wet. But I would ask the people of
Benenden what is the use of this humane precaution, and, indeed,
what is the use of the stocks themselves, if, while a fellow is
ranting and bawling in the manner just described, at the
distance of a hundred yards from the stocks, the stocks (as is
here actually the case) are almost hidden by grass and nettles?
This, however, is the case all over the country; not nettles and
grass indeed smothering the stocks, but I never see any feet
peeping through the holes, anywhere, though I find Methodist
parsons everywhere, and though the law compels the parishes to
keep up all the pairs of stocks that exist in all parts of them;
and, in some parishes, they have to keep up several pairs. I
am aware that a good part of the use of the stocks is the terror
they ought to produce. I am not supposing that they are of
no use because not continually furnished with legs. But there
is a wide difference between always and never ; and it is clear
that a fellow, who has had the stocks under his eye all his lifetime,
and has never seen a pair of feet peeping through them, will stand
no more in awe of the stocks than rooks do of an old shoy-hoy,
or than the ministers or their agents do of Hobhouse and Burdett.
Stocks that never pinch a pair of ankles are like ministerial re-
sponsibility; a thing to talk about, but for no other use ; a mere
mockery; a thing laughed at by those whom it is intended to
keep in check. It is time that the stocks were again in use, or
that the expense of keeping them up were put an end to.

This mild, this gentle, this good-humoured sort of correction
is not enough for our present rulers. But mark the consequence ;
gaols ten times as big as formerly; houses of correction; tread-
mills; the hulks; and the country filled with spies of one sort
and another, game-spies, or other spies, and if a hare or pheasant
come to an untimely death, police-officers from the Wen are not
unfrequently called down to find out and secure the bloody
offender ! Mark this, Englishmen ! Mark how we take to those
things, which we formerly ridiculed in the French; and take
them up too just as that brave and spirited people have shaken
them off ! I saw, not long ago, an account of a Wen police-officer
being sent into the country, where he assumed a disguise, joined
some poachers (as they are called), got into their secrets, went
out in the night with them, and then (having laid his plans with
the game-people) assisted to take them and convict them.

Sussex and Kent 22Q

What! is this England 1 Is this the land of " manly hearts? '
Is this the country that laughed at the French for their sub-
missions? What! are police-officers kept for this? Does the
law say so? However, thank God Almighty the estates are
passing away into the hands of those who have had borrowed
from them the money to uphold this monster of a system. The
Debt! The blessed Debt will, at last, restore to us freedom.

Just after I quitted Benenden, I saw some bunches of straw
lying upon the quickset hedge of a cottage garden. I found,
upon inquiry, that they were bunches of the straw of grass.
Seeing a face through the window of the cottage, I called out and
asked what that straw was for. The person within said, it was
to make Leghorn-plat with. I asked him (it was a young man)
how he knew how to do it. He said he had got a little book
that had been made by Mr. Cobbett. I told him that I was the
man, and should like to see some of his work; and asked him to
bring it out to me, I being afraid to tie my horse. He told me
that he was a cripple, and that he could not come out. At last
I went in, leaving my horse to be held by a little girl. I found
a young man, who has been a cripple for fourteen years. Some
ladies in the neighbourhood had got him the book, and his
family had got him the grass. He had made some very nice
plat, and he had knitted the greater part of the crown of a
bonnet, and had done the whole very nicely, though, as to the
knitting, he had proceeded in a way to make it very tedious.
He was knitting upon a block. However, these little matters
will soon be set to rights. There will soon be persons to teach
knitting in all parts of the country. I left this unfortunate
young man with the pleasing reflection that I had, in all likeli-
hood, been the cause of his gaining a good living, by his labour,
during the rest of his life. How long will it be before my
calumniators, the false and infamous London press, will take
the whole of it together, and leave out its evil, do as much good
as my pen has done in this one instance ! How long will it be ere
the ruffians, the base hirelings, the infamous traders who own and
who conduct that press; how long ere one of them, or all of them
together, shall cause a cottage to smile ; shall add one ounce to
the meal of the labouring man !

Rolvenden was my next village, and thence I could see the
lofty church of Tenterden on the top of a hill at three miles
distance. This Rolvenden is a very beautiful village; and,
indeed, such are all the places along here. These villages are
not like those in the iron counties, as I call them; that is, the

230 Rural Rides

counties of flint and chalk. Here the houses have gardens in
front of them as well as behind; and there is a good deal of show
and finery about them and their gardens. The high roads are
without a stone in them; and everything looks like gentility.
At this place, I saw several arbutuses in one garden, and much
finer than we see them in general; though, mind, this is no proof
of a mild climate; for the arbutus is a native of one much colder
than that of England, and indeed than that of Scotland.

Coming from Benenden to Rolvenden I saw some Swedish
turnips, and, strange as the reader will think it, the first I saw
after leaving Worth! The reason I take to be this: the farms
are all furnished with grass fields as in Devonshire about Honiton.
These grass fields give hay for the sheep and cattle in winter, or,
at any rate, they do all that is not done by the white turnips.
It may be a question, whether it would be more profitable to
break up, and sow swedes; but this is the reason of their not
being cultivated along here. White turnips are more easily
got than swedes; they may be sown later; and, with good hay,
they will fat cattle and sheep; but the swedes will do this
business without hay. In Norfolk and Suffolk the land is not
generally of a nature to make hay-fields. Therefore the people
there resort to swedes. This has been a sad time for these hay-
farmers, however, all along here. They have but just finished
haymaking; and I see, all along my way, from East Grinstead
to this place, hay-ricks the colour of dirt and smoking like dung-
heaps.

Just before I got to this place (Tenterden), I crossed a bit of
marsh land, which I found, upon inquiry, is a sort of little
branch or spray running out of that immense and famous tract
of country called Romney Marsh, which, I find, I have to cross
to-morrow, in order to get to Dover, along by the seaside,
through Hythe and Folkestone.

This Tenterden is a market town, and a singularly bright
spot. It consists of one street, which is, in some places, more,
perhaps, than two hundred feet wide. On one side of the street
the houses have gardens before them, from 20 to 70 feet deep.
The town is upon a hill; the afternoon was very fine, and just
as I rose the hill and entered the street, the people had come
out of church and were moving along towards their houses. It
was a very fine sight. Shabbily-dressed people do not go to church.
I saw, in short, drawn out before me, the dress and beauty of the
town; and a great many very, very pretty girls I saw; and
saw them, too, in their best attire. I remember the girls in the

Sussex and Kent 231

Pays de Caux, and, really, I think those of Tenterden resemble
them. I do not know why they should not; for there is the Pays
de Caux, only just over the water; just opposite this very place.

The hops about here are not so very bad. They say that one
man, near this town, will have eight tons of hops upon ten acres
of land ! This is a great crop any year: a very great crop. This
man may, perhaps, sell his hops for 1600 pounds! What a
gambling concern it is ! However, such hop-growing always
was and always must be. It is a thing of perfect hazard.

The church at this place is a very large and fine old building.
The tower stands upon a base thirty feet square. Like the
church at Goudhurst, it will hold three thousand people. And,
let it be observed, that, when these churches were built, people
had not yet thought of cramming them with pews, as a stable
is filled with stalls. Those who built these churches had no
idea that worshipping God meant going to sit to hear a man
talk out what he called preaching. By worship, they meant
very different things; and, above all things, when they had
made a fine and noble building, they did not dream of disfiguring
the inside of it by filling its floor with large and deep boxes
made of deal boards. In short, the floor was the place for the
worshippers to stand or to kneel; and there was no distinction ;
no high place and no low place; all were upon a level before God
at any rate. Some were not stuck into pews lined with green
or red cloth, while others were crammed into corners to stand
erect, or sit on the floor. These odious distinctions are of
Protestant origin and growth. This lazy lolling in pews we owe
to what is called the Reformation. A place filled with benches
and boxes looks like an eating or a drinking place; but certainly
not like a place of worship. A Frenchman, who had been driven
from St. Domingo to Philadelphia by the Wilberforces of France,
went to church along with me one Sunday. He had never been
in a Protestant place of worship before. Upon looking round
him, and seeing everybody comfortably seated, while a couple
of good stoves were keeping the place as warm as a slack oven,
he exclaimed: " Pardi I On serf Dieu bien a son aise id I"
That is : " Egad ! they serve God very much at their ease here ! "
I always think of this, when I see a church full of pews; as, in-
deed, is now always the case with our churches. Those who
built these churches had no idea of this: they made their cal-
culations as to the people to be contained in them, not making
any allowance for deal boards. I often wonder how it is that the
present parsons are not ashamed to call the churches theirs I They

232 Rural Rides

must know the origin of them; and how they can look at them,
and, at the same time, revile the Catholics, is astonishing to me.
This evening I have been to the Methodist Meeting-house.
I was attracted, fairly drawn all down the street, by the singing.
When I came to the place the parson was got into prayer. His
hands were clenched together and held up, his face turned up
and back so as to be nearly parallel with the ceiling, and he was
bawling away with his " do thou," and " mayest thou," and
' may we," enough to stun one. Noisy, however, as he was,
he was unable to fix the attention of a parcel of girls in the
gallery, whose eyes were all over the place, while his eyes were
so devoutly shut up. After a deal of this rigmarole called
prayer, came the preachy, as the negroes call it; and a preachy
it really was. Such a mixture of whining cant and of foppish
affectation I scarcely ever heard in my life. The text was (I
speak from memory) one of Saint Peter's epistles (if he have
more than one) the i8th chapter and 4th verse. The words
were to this amount: that, as the righteous would be saved with
difficulty, what must become of the ungodly and the sinner I After
as neat a dish of nonsense and of impertinences as one could
wish to have served up, came the distinction between the ungodly
and the sinner. The sinner was one who did moral wrong; the
ungodly, one who did no moral wrong, but who was not re-
generated. Both, he positively told us, were to be damned.
One was just as bad as the other. Moral rectitude was to do
nothing in saving the man. He was to be damned, unless born
again, and how was he to be born again, unless he came to the
regeneration shop, and gave the fellows money? He distinctly
told us that a man perfectly moral might be damned; and
that " the vilest of the vile, and the basest of the base " (I quote
his very words) " would be saved if they became regenerate;
and that colliers, whose souls had been as black as their coals,
had by regeneration become bright as the saints that sing before
God and the Lamb." And will the Edinburgh Reviewers again
find fault with me for cutting at this bawling, canting crew?
Monstrous it is to think that the clergy of the church really
encourage these roving fanatics. The church seems aware of its
loss of credit and of power. It seems willing to lean even upon
these men; who, be it observed, seem, on their part, to have
taken the church under their protection. They always pray
for the Ministry ; I mean the ministry at Whitehall. They are
most " loyal " souls. The THING protects them ; and they lend
their aid in upholding the THING. What silly, nay, what base

Sussex and Kent 233

creatures those must be, who really give their money, give their
pennies, which ought to buy bread for their own children; who
thus give their money to these lazy and impudent fellows, who
call themselves ministers of God, who prowl about the country
living easy and jovial lives upon the fruit of the labour of other
people. However, it is, in some measure, these people's fault.
If they did not give, the others could not receive. I wish to see
every labouring man well fed and well clad ; but, really, the man
who gives any portion of his earnings to these fellows deserves
to want: he deserves to be pinched with hunger: misery is the
just reward of this worst species of prodigality.

The singing makes a great part of what passes in these meeting-
houses. A number of women and girls singing together make
very sweet sounds. Few men there are who have not felt the
power of sounds of this sort. Men are sometimes pretty nearly
bewitched without knowing how. Eyes do a good deal, but
tongues do more. We may talk of sparkling eyes and snowy
bosoms as long as we please ; but what are these with a croaking,
masculine voice? The parson seemed to be fully aware of the
importance of this part of the " service." The subject of his
hymn was something about love : Christian love; love of Jesus;
but still it was about love ; and the parson read, or gave out,
the verses, in a singularly soft and sighing voice, with his head
on one side, and giving it rather a swing. I am satisfied that
the singing forms great part of the attraction. Young girls like
to sing; and young men like to hear them. Nay, old ones too;
and, as I have just said, it was the singing that drew me three
hundred yards down the street at Tenterden, to enter this
meeting-house. By the by, I wrote some hymns myself, and
published them in " Twopenny Trash." I will give any Metho-
dist parson leave to put them into his hymn book.

FOLKESTONE (KENT),

Monday (Noon}, i Sept.

I have had a fine ride, and I suppose the Quakers have had
a fine time of it at Mark Lane.

From Tenterden I set off at five o'clock, and got to Appledore
after a most delightful ride, the high land upon my right, and
the low land on my left. The fog was so thick and white along
some of the low land that I should have taken it for water, if
little hills and trees had not risen up through it here and there.
Indeed, the view was very much like those which are presented
in the deep valleys, near the great rivers in New Brunswick

234 Rural Rides

(North America) at the time when the snows melt in the spring,
and when, in sailing over those valleys, you look down from
the side of your canoe, and see the lofty woods beneath you !
I once went in a log canoe across a sylvan sea of this description,
the canoe being paddled by two Yankees. We started in a
stream; the stream became a wide water, and that water got
deeper and deeper, as I could see by the trees (all was woods),
till we got to sail amongst the top branches of the trees. By and
by we got into a large open space; a piece of water a mile or
two, or three or four wide, with the woods under us I A fog, with
the tops of trees rising through it, is very much like this; and
such was the fog that I saw this morning in my ride to Appledore.
The church at Appledore is very large. Big enough to hold
3000 people; and the place does not seem to contain half a
thousand old enough to go to church.

In coming along I saw a wheat-rick making, though I hardly
think the wheat can be dry under the bands. The corn is all
good here; and I am told they give twelve shillings an acre
for reaping wheat.

In quitting this Appledore I crossed a canal and entered on
Romney Marsh. This was grass-land on both sides of me to
a great distance. The flocks and herds immense. The sheep
are of a breed that takes its name from the marsh. They are
called Romney Marsh sheep. Very pretty and large. The
wethers, when fat, weigh about twelve stone, or one hundred
pounds. The faces of these sheep are white; and, indeed, the
whole sheep is as white as a piece of writing-paper. The wool
does not look dirty and oily like that of other sheep. The
cattle appear to be all of the Sussex breed. Red, loosed-limbed,
and, they say, a great deal better than the Devonshire. How
curious is the natural economy of a country ! The forests of
Sussex; those miserable tracts of heath and fern and bushes
and sand called Ashdown Forest and Saint Leonard's Forest,
to which latter Lord Erskine's estate belongs; these wretched
tracts and the not much less wretched farms in their neighbour-
hood, breed the cattle which we see fatting in Romney Marsh !
They are calved in the spring; they are weaned in a little bit
of grass-land ; they are then put into stubbles and about in the
fallows for the first summer; they are brought into the yard
to winter on rough hay, peas-haulm, or barley-straw; the next
two summers they spend in the rough woods or in the forests;
the two winters they live on straw; they then pass another
summer on the forest or at work ; and then they come here or go

Sussex and Kent 235

elsewhere to be fatted. With cattle of this kind and with sheep
such as I have spoken of before, this Marsh abounds in every
part of it; and the sight is most beautiful.

At three miles from Appledore I came through Snargate, a
village with five houses, and with a church capable of containing
two thousand people ! The vagabonds tell us, however, that we
have a wonderful increase of population! These vagabonds
will be hanged by and by, or else justice will have fled from the
face of the earth.

At Brenzett (a mile further on) I with great difficulty got a
rasher of bacon for breakfast. The few houses that there are,
are miserable in the extreme. The church here (only a mile
from the last) nearly as large; and nobody to go to it. What!
will the vagabonds attempt to make us believe that these
churches were built for nothing I " Dark ages " indeed those
must have been, if these churches were erected without there
being any more people than there are now. But who built
them ? Where did the means, where did the hands come from ?
This place presents another proof of the truth of my old observa-
tion: rich land and poor labourers. From the window of the
house in which I could scarcely get a rasher of bacon, and not
an egg, I saw numberless flocks and herds fatting, and the fields
loaded with corn !

The next village, which was two miles further on, was Old
Romney, and along here I had, for great part of the way, corn-
fields on one side of me and grass-land on the other. I asked
what the amount of the crop of wheat would be. They told
me better than five quarters to the acre. I thought so myself.
I have a sample of the red wheat and another of the white.
They are both very fine. They reap the wheat here nearly two
feet from the ground ; and even then they cut it three feet long ! I
never saw corn like this before. It very far exceeds the corn under
Portsdown Hill, that at Gosport and Tichfield. They have here
about eight hundred large, very large, sheaves to an acre. I
wonder how long it will be after the end of the world before
Mr. Birkbeck will see the American " Prairies " half so good as
this Marsh. In a garden here I saw some very fine onions, and
a prodigious crop; sure sign of most excellent land. At this
Old Romney there is a church (two miles only from the last
mind !) fit to contain one thousand five hundred people, and
there are for the people of the parish to live in twenty-two or
twenty-three houses! And yet the vagabonds have the im-
pudence to tell us, that the population of England has vastly

236

Rural Rides

increased! Curious system that depopulates Romney Marsh
and peoples Bagshot Heath ! It is an unnatural system. It is
the vagabond's system. It is a system that must be destroyed,
or that will destroy the country.

The rotten borough of New Romney came next in my way;
and here, to my great surprise, I found myself upon the sea-
beach; for I had not looked at a map of Kent for years, and
perhaps, never. I had got a list of places from a friend in
Sussex, whom I asked to give me a route to Dover, and to send
me through those parts of Kent which he thought would be most
interesting to me. Never was I so much surprised as when I
saw a sail. This place, now that the squanderings of the THING
are over, is, they say, become miserably poor.

From New Romney to Dimchurch is about four miles: all
along I had the sea-beach on my right, and, on my left, some-
times grass-land and sometimes corn-land. They told me here,
and also further back in the Marsh, that they were to have 155.
an acre for reaping wheat.

From Dimchurch to Hythe you go on the sea beach, and nearly
the same from Hythe to Sandgate, from which last place you
come over the hill to Folkestone. But let me look back. Here
has been the squandering! Here has been the pauper-making
work! Here we see some of these causes that are now sending
some farmers to the workhouse and driving others to flee the
country or to cut their throats !

I had baited my horse at New Romney, and was coming
jogging along very soberly, now looking at the sea, then look-
ing at the cattle, then the corn, when my eye, in swinging
round, lighted upon a great round building, standing upon the
beach. I had scarcely had time to think about what it could
be, when twenty or thirty others, standing along the coast,
caught my eye; and if any one had been behind me, he might
have heard me exclaim, in a voice that made my horse bound,

" The Marietta Towers by ! ' Oh, Lord! To think that I

should be destined to behold these monuments of the wisdom
of Pitt and Dundas and Perceval ! Good God ! Here they are,
piles of bricks in a circular form about three hundred feet (guess)
circumference at the base, about forty feet high, and about one
hundred and fifty feet circumference at the top. There is a
door-way, about midway up, in each, and each has two windows.
Cannons were to be fired from the top of these things, in order
to defend the country against the French Jacobins !

I think I have counted along here upwards of thirty of these

Sussex and Kent 237

ridiculous things, which I dare say cost five, perhaps ten,
thousand pounds each; and one of which was, I am told, sold
on the coast of Sussex, the other day, for two hundred pounds !
There is, they say, a chain of these things all the way to Hastings !
I dare say they cost millions. But far indeed are these from
being all, or half, or a quarter of the squanderings along here.
Hythe is half barracks ; the hills are covered with barracks;; and
barracks most expensive, most squandering, fill up the side of
the hill. Here is a canal (I crossed it at Appledore) made for
the length of thirty miles (from Hythe, in Kent, to Rye, in
Sussex) to keep out the French ; for those armies who had so
often crossed the Rhine and the Danube, were to be kept back
by a canal, made by Pitt, thirty feet wide at the most! All
along the coast there are works of some sort or other; incessant
sinks of money; walls of immense dimensions; masses of stone
brought and put into piles. Then you see some of the walls
and buildings falling down; some that have never been finished.
The whole thing, all taken together, looks as if a spell had been,
all of a sudden, set upon the workmen ; or, in the words of the
Scripture, here is the " desolation of abomination, standing in high
places.'" However, all is right. These things were made with
the hearty good will of those who are now coming to ruin in
consequence of the debt, contracted for the purpose of making
these things! This is all just. The load will come, at last,
upon the right shoulders.

Between Hythe and Sandgate (a village at about two miles
from Hythe) I first saw the French coast. The chalk cliffs at
Calais are as plain to the view as possible, and also the land, which
they tell me is near Boulogne.

Folkestone lies under a hill here, as Reigate does in Surrey,
only here the sea is open to your right as you come along. The
corn is very early here, and very fine. All cut, even the beans;
and they will be ready to cart in a day or two. Folkestone is
now a little place; probably a quarter part as big as it was
formerly. Here is a church one hundred and twenty feet long
and fifty feet wide. It is a sort of little cathedral. The church-
yard has evidently been three times as large as it is now.

Before I got into Folkestone I saw no less than eighty-four
men, women, and boys and girls gleaning or leasing in a field
of about ten acres. The people all along here complain most
bitterly of the change of times. The truth is that the squandered
millions are gone ! The nation has now to suffer for this squan-
dering. The money served to silence some; to make others

238

Rural Rides

bawl ; to cause the good to be oppressed ; to cause the bad to be
exalted; to "crush the Jacobins": and what is the result?
What is the end ? The end is not yet come; but as to the result
thus far, go, ask the families of those farmers, who, after having,
for so many years, threatened to shoot Jacobins, have, in
instances not a few, shot themselves! Go, ask the ghosts of
Pitt and of Castlereagh what has, thus far, been the result!
Go, ask the Hampshire farmer, who, not many months since,
actually blowed out his own brains with one of those very pistols
which he had long carried in his yeomanry cavalry holsters, to
be ready " to keep down the Jacobins and Radicals ! " O
God! inscrutable are thy ways; but thou art just, and of thy
justice what a complete proof have we in the case of these very
martello towers! They were erected to keep out the Jacobin
French, lest they should come and assist the Jacobin English.
The loyal people of this coast were fattened by the building of
them. Pitt and his loyal Cinque Ports waged interminable war
against Jacobins. These very towers are now used to keep these
loyal Cinque Ports themselves in order. These towers are now
used to lodge men, whose business it is to sally forth, not upon
Jacobins, but upon smugglers I Thus, after having sucked up
millions of the nation's money, these loyal Cinque Ports are
squeezed again: kept in order, kept down, by the very towers
which they rejoiced to see rise to keep down the Jacobins.

DOVER,

Monday, i Sept., Evening.

I got here this evening about six o'clock, having come to-day
thirty-six miles; but I must defer my remarks on the country
between Folkestone and this place; a most interesting spot,
and well worthy of particular attention. What place I shall
date from after Dover I am by no means certain; but be it
from what place it may, the continuation of my journal shall
be published, in due course. If the Atlantic Ocean could not
cut off the communication between me and my readers, a mere
strip of water, not much wider than an American river, will
hardly do it. I am, in real truth, undecided, as yet, whether
I shall go on to France, or back to the Wen. I think I shall,
when I go out of this inn, toss the bridle upon my horse's neck,
and let him decide for me. I am sure he is more fit to decide
on such a point than our ministers are to decide on any point
connected with the happiness, greatness, and honour of this
kingdom.

FROM DOVER, THROUGH THE ISLE OF THANET,
BY CANTERBURY AND FAVERSHAM, ACROSS
TO MAIDSTONE, UP TO TONBRIDGE, THROUGH
THE WEALD OF KENT AND OVER THE HILLS BY
WESTERHAM AND HAYS, TO THE WEN

DOVER,
Wednesday, 3 Sept. 1823 (Evening).

ON Monday I was balancing in my own mind whether I should
go to France or not. To-day I have decided the question in the
negative, and shall set off this evening for the Isle of Thanet;
that spot so famous for corn.

I broke off without giving an account of the country between
Folkestone and Dover, which is a very interesting one in itself,
and was peculiarly interesting to me on many accounts. I have
often mentioned, in describing the parts of the country over
which I have travelled; I have often mentioned the chalk-ridge
and also the sand-ridge, which I had traced, running parallel
with each other from about Farnham, in Surrey, to Sevenoaks,
in Kent. The reader must remember how particular I have
been to observe that, in going up from Chilworth and Albury,
through Dorking, Reigate, Godstone, and so on, the two chains,
or ridges, approach so near to each other, that, in many places,
you actually have a chalk-bank to your right and a sand-bank
to your left, at not more than forty yards from each other. In
some places, these chains of hills run off from each other to a
great distance, even to a distance of twenty miles. They then
approach again towards each other, and so they go on. I was
always desirous to ascertain whether these chains, or ridges,
continued on thus to the sea. I have now found that they do.
And if you go out into the channel, at Folkestone, there you
see a sand cliff and a chalk cliff. Folkestone stands upon the
sand, in a little dell about seven hundred or eight hundred yards
from the very termination of the ridge. All the way along, the
chalk ridge is the most lofty, until you come to Leith Hill and
Hindhead; and here, at Folkestone, the sand-ridge tapers off
in a sort of flat towards the sea. The land is like what it is at

239

240 Rural Rides

Reigate, a very steep hill; a hill of full a mile high, and bending
exactly in the same manner as the hill at Reigate does. The
turnpike-road winds up it and goes over it in exactly the same
manner as that at Reigate. The land to the south of the hill
begins a poor, thin, white loam upon the chalk; soon gets to be
a very fine rich loam upon the chalk; goes on till it mingles the
chalky loam with the sandy loam; and thus it goes on down
to the sea-beach, or to the edge of the cliff. It is a beautiful bed
of earth here, resembling in extent that on the south side of
Portsdown Hill rather than that of Reigate. The crops here are
always good if they are good anywhere. A large part of this
fine tract of land, as well as the little town of Sandgate (which
is a beautiful little place upon the beach itself), and also great
part of the town of Folkestone belong, they tell me, to Lord
Radnor, who takes his title of viscount from Folkestone. Upon
the hill begins, and continues on for some miles, that stiff red
loam, approaching to a clay, which I have several times de-
scribed as forming the soil at the top of this chalk-ridge. I spoke
of it in the Register of the i6th of August last, page 409, and
I then said that it was like the land on the top of this very ridge
at Ashmansworth in the north of Hampshire. At Reigate you
find precisely the same soil upon the top of the hill, a very red,
clayey sort of loam, with big yellow flint stones in it. Every-
where, the soil is the same upon the top of the high part of this
ridge. I have now found it to be the same, on the edge of the
sea, that I found it on the north-east corner of Hampshire.

From the hill, you keep descending all the way to Dover,
a distance of about six miles, and it is absolutely six miles of
down hill. On your right, you have the lofty land which forms
a series of chalk cliffs, from the top of which you look into the
sea; on your left, you have ground that goes rising up from
you in the same sort of way. The turnpike-road goes down
the middle of a valley, each side of which, as far as you can see,
may be about a mile and a half. It is six miles long, you will
remember; and here, therefore, with very little interruption,
very few chasms, there are eighteen square miles of corn. It is a
patch such as you very seldom see, and especially of corn so
good as it is here. I should think that the wheat all along here
would average pretty nearly four quarters to the acre. A few
oats are sown. A great deal of barley, and that a very fine
crop.

The town of Dover is like other sea-port towns; but really
much more clean, and with less blackguard people in it than I

From Dover to the Wen 241

ever observed in any sea-port before. It is a most picturesque
place, to be sure. On one side of it rises, upon the top of a very
steep hill, the Old Castle, with all its fortifications. On the
other side of it there is another chalk hill, the side of which is
pretty nearly perpendicular, and rises up from sixty to a hundred
feet higher than the tops of the houses, which stand pretty
nearly close to the foot of the hill.

I got into Dover rather late. It was dusk when I was going
down the street towards the quay. I happened to look up, and
was quite astonished to perceive cows grazing upon a spot
apparently fifty feet above the tops of the houses, and measuring
horizontally not, perhaps, more than ten or twenty feet from
a line which would have formed a continuation into the air.
I went up to the same spot, the next day, myself; and you
actually look down upon the houses, as you look out of a window
upon people in the street. The valley that runs down from
Folkestone is, when it gets to Dover, crossed by another valley
that runs down from Canterbury, or, at least, from the Canter-
bury direction. It is in the gorge of this cross valley that Dover
is built. The two chalk hills jut out into the sea, and the water
that comes up between them forms a harbour for this ancient,
most interesting, and beautiful place. On the hill to the north
stands the castle of Dover, which is fortified in the ancient
manner, except on the sea side, where it has the steep Cliff for
a fortification. On the south side of the town the hill is, I
believe, rather more lofty than that on the north side; and
here is that cliff which is described by Shakespeare in the play
of King Lear. It is fearfully steep, certainly. Very nearly
perpendicular for a considerable distance. The grass grows
well, to the very tip of the cliff; and you see cows and sheep
grazing there with as much unconcern as if grazing in the bottom
of a valley.

It was not, however, these natural curiosities that took me
over this hill; I went to see, with my own eyes, something of the
sorts of means that had been made use of to squander away
countless millions of money. Here is a hill containing, probably,
a couple of square miles or more, hollowed like a honeycomb.
Here are line upon line, trench upon trench, cavern upon cavern,
bomb-proof upon bomb-proof; in short the very sight of the
thing convinces you that either madness the most humiliating,
or profligacy the most scandalous must have been at work here
for years. The question that every man of sense asks is:
What reason had you to suppose that the French would cvcv
1638

242 Rural Rides

come to this hill to attack it, while the rest of the country was so
much more easy to assail? However, let any man of good plain
understanding go and look at the works that have here been
performed and that are now all tumbling into ruin. Let him
ask what this cavern was for; what that ditch was for; what
this tank was for; and why all these horrible holes and hiding-
places at an expense of millions upon millions? Let this scene
be brought and placed under the eyes of the people of England,
and let them be told that Pitt and Dundas and Perceval had these
things done to prevent the country from being conquered; with
voice unanimous the nation would instantly exclaim: Let the
French or let the devil take us, rather than let us resort to means
of defence like these. This is, perhaps, the only set of fortifica-
tions in the world ever framed for mere hiding. There is no
appearance of any intention to annoy an enemy. It is a parcel
of holes made in a hill, to hide Englishmen from Frenchmen.
Just as if the Frenchmen would come to this hill! Just as if
they would not go (if they came at all) and land in Romney
Marsh, or on Pevensey Level, or anywhere else, rather than come
to this hill; rather than come to crawl up Shakespeare's Cliff.
All the way along the coast, from this very hill to Portsmouth;
or pretty nearly all the way, is a flat. What the devil should
they come to this hill for, then? And when you ask this
question, they tell you that it is to have an army here behind
the French, after they had marched into the country! And
for a purpose like this; for a purpose so stupid, so senseless,
so mad as this, and withal, so scandalously disgraceful, more
brick and stone have been buried in this hill than would go to
build a neat new cottage for every labouring men in the counties
of Kent and of Sussex !

Dreadful is the scourge of such ministers. However, those
who supported them will now have to suffer. The money must
have been squandered purposely, and for the worst ends. Fool
as Pitt was; unfit as an old hack of a lawyer, like Dundas, was
to judge of the means of defending the country, stupid as both
these fellows were, and as their brother lawyer, Perceval, was
too: unfit as these lawyers were to judge in any such a case,
they must have known that this was an useless expenditure of
money. They must have known that; and, therefore, their
general folly, their general ignorance, is no apology for their
conduct. What they wanted was to prevent the landing, not
of Frenchmen, but of French principles; that is to say, to
prevent the example of the French from being alluring to the

From Dover to the Wen 243

people of England. The devil a bit did they care for the
Bourbons. They rejoiced at the killing of the king. They
rejoiced at the atheistical decree. They rejoiced at everything
calculated to alarm the timid and to excite horror in the people
of England in general. They wanted to keep out of England
those principles which had a natural tendency to destroy
boroughmongering, and to put an end to peculation and plunder.
No matter whether by the means of martello towers, making
a great chalk hill a honeycomb, cutting a canal thirty feet wide
to stop the march of the armies of the Danube and the Rhine:
no matter how they squandered the money, so that it silenced
some and made others bawl to answer their great purpose of
preventing French example from having an influence in England.
Simply their object was this: to make the French people
miserable; to force back the Bourbons upon them as a means
of making them miserable; to degrade France, to make the
people wretched; and then to have to say to the people of
England, Look there: see what they have got by their attempts to
obtain liberty ! This was their object. They did not want
martello towers and honeycombed chalk hills and mad canals :
they did not want these to keep out the French armies. The
boroughmongers and the parsons cared nothing about the
French armies. It was the French example that the lawyers,
boroughmongers and parsons wished to keep out. And what
have they done? It is impossible to be upon this honeycombed
hill, upon this enormous mass of anti-jacobin expenditure,
without seeing the chalk cliffs of Calais and the cornfields of
France. At this season it is impossible to see those fields
without knowing that the farmers are getting in their corn there
as well as here; and it is impossible to think of that fact without
reflecting, at the same time, on the example which the farmers of
France hold out to the farmers of England. Looking down
from this very anti-jacobin hill, this day, I saw the parsons'
shocks of wheat and barley, left in the field after the farmer
had taken his away. Turning my head, and looking across the
Channel, " There," said I, pointing to France, " there the
spirited and sensible people have ridded themselves of this
burden, of which our farmers so bitterly complain." It is im-
possible not to recollect here, that, in numerous petitions, sent
up, too, by the loyal, complaints have been made that the
English farmer has to carry on a competition against the French
farmer who has no tithes to pay I Well, loyal gentlemen, why do
not you petition, then, to be relieved from tithes? What do

244 Rural Rides

you mean else? Do you mean to call upon our big gentlemen
at Whitehall for them to compel the French to pay tithes?
Oh, you loyal fools ! Better hold your tongues about the French
not paying tithes. Better do that, at any rate; for never will
they pay tithes again.

Here is a large tract of land upon these hills at Dover, which
is the property of the public, having been purchased at an
enormous expense. This is now let out as pasture land to
people of the town. I dare say that the letting of this land is
a curious affair. If there were a member for Dover who would
do what he ought to do, he would soon get before the public a
list of the tenants, and of the rents paid by them. I should like
very much to see such list. Butterworth, the bookseller in
Fleet Street, he who is a sort of metropolitan of the Methodists,
is one of the members for Dover. The other is, I believe, that
Wilbraham or Bootle or Bootle Wilbraham, or some such name,
that is a Lancashire magistrate. So that Dover is prettily set
up. However, there is nothing of this sort that can, in the
present state of things, be deemed to be of any real consequence.
As long as the people at Whitehall can go on paying the interest
of the debt in full, so long will there be no change worth the
attention of any rational man. In the meanwhile, the French
nation will be going on rising over us ; and our ministers will be
cringing and crawling to every nation upon earth who is known
to possess a cannon or a barrel of powder.

This very day I have read Mr. Canning's speech at Liverpool,
with a Yankee consul sitting on his right hand. Not a word
now about the bits of bunting and the fir frigates; but now,
America is the lovely daughter, who in a moment of excessive
love has gone off with a lover (to wit, the French) and left the
tender mother to mourn! What a fop! And this is the man
that talked so big and so bold. This is the clever, the profound,
the blustering, too, and above all things, " the high spirited '
Mr. Canning. However, more of this hereafter. I must get
from this Dover, as fast as I can.

SANDWICH,
Wednesday, 3 Sept., Night.

I got to this place about half an hour after the ringing of
the eight o'clock bell, or curfew, which I heard at about two
miles distance from the place. From the town of Dover you
come up the Castle Hill, and have a most beautiful view from
the top of it. You have the sea, the chalk cliffs of Calais, the

From Dover to the Wen 245

high land at Boulogne, the town of Dover just under you, the
valley towards Folkestone, and the much more beautiful valley
towards Canterbury; and going on a little further, you have
the Downs and the Essex or Suffolk coast in full view, with a
most beautiful corn country to ride along through. The corn
was chiefly cut between Dover and Walmer. The barley almost
all cut and tied up in sheaf. Nothing but the beans seemed to
remain standing along here. They are not quite so good as the
rest of the corn; but they are by no means bad. When I came
to the village of Walmer, I inquired for the castle; that famous
place, where Pitt, Dundas, Perceval, and all the whole tribe of
plotters against the French Revolution had carried on their
plots. After coming through the village of Walmer, you see the
entrance of the castle away to the right. It is situated pretty
nearly on the water's edge, and at the bottom of a little dell,
about a furlong or so from the turnpike-road. This is now the
habitation of our great minister, Robert Bankes Jenkinson,
son of Charles of that name. When I was told, by a girl \v\ o
was leasing in a field by the road side, that that was Walmer
Castle, I stopped short, pulled my horse round, looked stead-
fastly at the gateway, and could not help exclaiming: " Oh,
thou who inhabitest that famous dwelling; thou, who hast
always been in place, let who might be out of place! Oh,
thou everlasting placeman ! thou sage of ' over-production/
do but cast thine eyes upon this barley field, where, if I am
not greatly deceived, there are from seven to eight quarters
upon the acre! Oh, thou whose Courier newspaper has just
informed its readers that wheat will be seventy shillings the
quarter in the month of November: oh, thou wise man, I
pray thee come forth from thy castle, and tell me what thou
wilt do if wheat should happen to be, at the appointed time,
thirty-five shillings, instead of seventy shillings, the quarter.
Sage of over-production, farewell. If thou hast life, thou wilt
be minister as long as thou canst pay the interest of the debt in
full, but not one moment longer. The moment thou ceasest
to be able to squeeze from the Normans a sufficiency to count
down to the Jews their full tale, that moment, thou great stern-
path-of-duty man, thou wilt begin to be taught the true meaning
of the words Ministerial Responsibility"

Deal is a most villainous place. It is full of filthy-looking
people. Great desolation of abomination has been going on
here; tremendous barracks, partly pulled down and partly
tumbling down, and partly occupied by soldiers. Everything

246 Rural Rides

seems upon the perish. I was glad to hurry along through it,
and to leave its inns and public-houses to be occupied by the
tarred, and trowsered, and blue - and - buff crew whose very
vicinage I always detest. From Deal you come along to Upper
Deal, which, it seems, was the original village; thence upon a
beautiful road to Sandwich, which is a rotten borough. Rotten-
ness, putridity is excellent for land, but bad for boroughs. This
place, which is as villainous a hole as one would wish to see, is
surrounded by some of the finest land in the world. Along on
one side of it lies a marsh. On the other sides of it is land
which they tell me bears seven quarters of wheat to an acre. It
is certainly very fine; for I saw large pieces of radish-seed on
the roadside; this seed is grown for the seedsmen in London;
and it will grow on none but rich land. All the corn is carried
here except some beans and some barley.

CANTERBURY,
Thursday Afternoon, 4 Sept.

In quitting Sandwich, you immediately cross a river up which
vessels bring coals from the sea. This marsh is about a couple
of miles wide. It begins at the sea-beach, opposite the Downs,
to my right hand, coming from Sandwich, and it wheels round
to my left and ends at the sea-beach, opposite Margate roads.
This marsh was formerly covered with the sea, very likely; and
hence the land within this sort of semicircle, the name of which
is Thanet, was called an Isle. It is, in fact, an island now, for
the same reason that Portsea is an island, and that New York is
an island ; for there certainly is the water in this river that goes
round and connects one part of the sea with the other. I had
to cross this river, and to cross the marsh, before I got into the
famous Isle of Thanet, which it was my intention to cross. Soon
after crossing the river, I passed by a place for making salt,
and could not help recollecting that there are no excisemen in
these salt-making places in France, that, before the Revolution,
the French were most cruelly oppressed by the duties on salt,
that they had to endure, on that account, the most horrid
tyranny that ever was known, except, perhaps, that practised
in an Exchequer that shall here be nameless; that thousands and
thousands of men and women were every year sent to the galleys
for what was called smuggling salt; that the fathers and even
the mothers were imprisoned or whipped if the children were
detected in smuggling salt: I could not help reflecting, with
delight, as I looked at these salt-pans in the Isle of Thanet; I

From Dover to the Wen 247

could not help reflecting, that in spite of Pitt, Dundas, Perceval,
and the rest of the crew, in spite of the caverns of Dover and the
martello towers in Romney Marsh : in spite of all the spies and
all the bayonets, and the six hundred millions of debt and the
hundred and fifty millions of dead-weight, and the two hundred
millions of poor-rates that are now squeezing the borough-
mongers, squeezing the farmers, puzzling the fellows at White-
hall and making Mark Lane a scene of greater interest than the
Chamber of the Privy Council; with delight as I jogged along
under the first beams of the sun, I reflected that, in spite of all
the malignant measures that had brought so much misery upon
England, the gallant French people had ridded themselves of
the tyranny which sent them to the galleys for endeavouring
to use without tax the salt which God sent upon their shores.
Can any man tell why we should still be paying five, or six, or
seven shillings a bushel for salt, instead of one? We did pay
fifteen shillings a bushel, tax. And why is two shillings a bushel
kept on ? Because, if they were taken off, the salt-tax-gathering
crew must be discharged! This tax of two shillings a bushel
causes the consumer to pay five, at the least, more than he
would if there were no tax at all ! When, great God ! when
shall we be allowed to enjoy God's gifts, in freedom, as the
people of France enjoy them?

On the marsh I found the same sort of sheep as on Romney
Marsh ; but the cattle here are chiefly Welsh ; black, and called
runts. They are nice hardy cattle; and, I am told, that this
is the description of cattle that they fat all the way up on this
north side of Kent. — When I got upon the corn land in the Isle
of Thanet, I got into a garden indeed. There is hardly any
fallow; comparatively few turnips. It is a country of corn.
Most of the harvest is in; but there are some fields of wheat and
of barley not yet housed. A great many pieces of lucerne, and
all of them very fine. I left Ramsgate to my right about three
miles, and went right across the island to Margate; but that
place is so thickly settled with stock-jobbing cuckolds, at this
time of the year, that, having no fancy to get their horns stuck
into me, I turned away to my left when I got within about half
a mile of the town. I got to a little hamlet, where I breakfasted ;
but could get no corn for my horse, and no bacon for myself!
All was corn around me. Barns, I should think, two hundred
feet long; ricks of enormous size and most numerous; crops of
wheat, five quarters to an acre, on the average; and a public-
house without either bacon or corn ! The labourers' houses, all

248 Rural Rides

along through this island, beggarly in the extreme. The people
dirty, poor-looking; ragged, but particularly dirty. The men
and boys with dirty faces, and dirty smock-frocks, and dirty
shirts; and, good God! what a difference between the wife of
a labouring man here, and the wife of a labouring man in the
forests and woodlands of Hampshire and Sussex! Invariably
have I observed that the richer the soil, and the more destitute
of woods; that is to say, the more purely a corn country, the
more miserable the labourers. The cause is this, the great, the
big bull frog grasps all. In this beautiful island every inch of
land is appropriated by the rich. No hedges, no ditches, no
commons, no grassy lanes: a country divided into great farms;
a few trees surround the great farm-house. All the rest is bare
of trees; and the wretched labourer has not a stick of wood,
and has no place for a pig or cow to graze, or even to lie down
upon. The rabbit countries are the countries for labouring men.
There the ground is not so valuable. There it is not so easily
appropriated by the few. Here, in this island, the work is
almost all done by the horses. The horses plough the ground;
they sow the ground ; they hoe the ground ; they carry the corn
home; they thresh it out; and they carry it to market: nay,
in this island, they rake the ground; they rake up the straggling
straws and ears; so that they do the whole, except the reaping
and the mowing. It is impossible to have an idea of anything
more miserable than the state of the labourers in this part of the
country.

After coming by Margate, I passed a village called Monckton,
and another called Sarr. At Sarr there is a bridge, over which
you come out of the island, as you go into it over the bridge at
Sandwich. At Monckton they had seventeen men working on
the roads, though the harvest was not quite in, and though, of
course, it had all to be threshed out; but, at Monckton, they
had four threshing machines ; and they have three threshing
machines at Sarr, though there, also, they have several men
upon the roads! This is a shocking state of things; and in
spite of everything that the Jenkinsons and the Scots can do,
this state of things must be changed.

At Sarr, or a little way further back, I saw a man who had
just begun to reap a field of canary seed. The plants were too
far advanced to be cut in order to be bleached for the making
of plat; but I got the reaper to select me a few green stalks
that grew near a bush that stood on the outside of the piece.
These I have brought on with me, in order to give them a trial.

From Dover to the Wen 249

At Sarr I began to cross the marsh, and had, after this, to come
through the village of Up-street, and another village called
Steady, before I got to Canterbury. At Up-street I was struck
with the words written upon a board which was fastened upon
a pole, which pole was standing in a garden near a neat little
box of a house. The words were these. " PARADISE PLACE.
Spring guns and steel traps are set here" A pretty idea it must
give us of Paradise to know that spring guns and steel traps are
set in it! This is doubtless some stock-jobber's place; for, in
the first place, the name is likely to have been selected by one
of that crew; and, in the next place, whenever any of them go
to the country, they look upon it that they are to begin a sort
of warfare against everything around them. They invariably
look upon every labourer as a thief.

As you approach Canterbury, from the Isle of Thanet, you
have another instance of the squanderings of the lawyer minis-
ters. Nothing equals the ditches, the caverns, the holes, the
tanks, and hiding-places of the hill at Dover; but, considerable
as the city of Canterbury is, that city, within its gates, stands
upon less ground than those horrible erections, the barracks of
Pitt, Dundas, and Perceval. They are perfectly enormous ; but
thanks be unto God, they begin to crumble down. They have
a sickly hue : all is lassitude about them : endless are their lawns,
their gravel walks, and their ornaments; but their lawns are
unshaven, their gravel walks grassy, and their ornaments putting
on the garments of ugliness. You see the grass growing opposite
the doorways. A hole in the window strikes you here and there.
Lamp posts there are, but no lamps. Here are horse-barracks,
foot-barracks, artillery-barracks, engineer-barracks: a whole
country of barracks; but only here and there a soldier. The
thing is actually perishing. It is typical of the state of the great
Thing of things. It gave me inexpressible pleasure to perceive
the gloom that seemed to hang over these barracks, which once
swarmed with soldiers and their blithe companions, as a hive
swarms with bees. These barracks now look like the environs
of a hive in winter. Westminster Abbey Church is not the place
for the monument of Pitt; the statue of the great snorting
bawler ought to be stuck up here, just in the midst of this
hundred or two of acres covered with barracks. These barracks,
too, were erected in order to compel the French to return to
the payment of tithes; in order to bring their necks again under
the yoke of the lords and the clergy. That has not been accom-
plished. The French, as Mr. Hoggart assures us, have neither

250 Rural Rides

tithes, taxes, nor rates; and the people of Canterbury know
that they have a hop-duty to pay, while Mr. Hoggart, of Broad
Street, tells them that he has farms to let, in France, where there
are hop-gardens and where there is no hop-duty. They have
lately had races at Canterbury; and the mayor and aldermen,
in order to get the Prince Leopold to attend them, presented
him with the Freedom of the City; but it rained all the time
and he did not come ! The mayor and aldermen do not under-
stand things half so well as this German gentleman, who has
managed his matters as well, I think, as any one that I ever
heard of.

This fine old town, or rather city, is remarkable for cleanliness
and niceness, notwithstanding it has a cathedral in it. The
country round it is very rich, and this year, while the hops are
so bad in most other parts, they are not so very bad just about
Canterbury.

ELVERTON FARM, NEAR FAVERSHAM,

Friday Morning, 5 Sept.

In going through Canterbury, yesterday, I gave a boy six-
pence to hold my horse, while I went into the cathedral, just
to thank St. Swithin for the trick that he had played my friends,
the Quakers. Led along by the wet weather till after the
harvest had actually begun, and then to find the weather turn
fine, all of a sudden! This must have soused them pretty
decently; and I hear of one, who, at Canterbury, has made a
bargain by which he will certainly lose two thousand pounds.
The land where I am now is equal to that of the Isle of Thanet.
The harvest is nearly over, and all the crops have been pro-
digiously fine. In coming from Canterbury, you come to the
top of a hill, called Baughton Hill, at four miles from Canterbury
on the London Road; and you there look down into one of the
finest flats in England. A piece of marsh comes up nearly to
Faversham; and at the edge of that marsh lies the farm where
I now am. The land here is a deep loam upon chalk ; and this
is also the nature of the land in the Isle of Thanet and all the
way from that to Dover. The orchards grow well upon this
soil. The trees grow finely, the fruit is large and of fine flavour.

In 1821 I gave Mr. William Waller, who lives here, some
American apple-cuttings; and he has now some as fine Newtown
Pippins as one would wish to see. They are very large of their
sort; very free in their growth; and they promise to be very
fine apples of the kind. Mr. Waller had cuttings from me of

From Dover to the Wen 251

several sorts, in 1822. These were cut down last year; they
have, of course, made shoots this summer; and great numbers
of these shoots have fruit-spurs, which will have blossom, if not
fruit, next year. This very rarely happens, I believe; and the
state of Mr. Waller's trees clearly proves to me that the intro-
duction of these American trees would be a great improvement.
My American apples, when I left Kensington, promised to
be very fine; and the apples, which I have frequently mentioned
as being upon cuttings imported last spring, promised to come
to perfection; a thing which, I believe, we have not an instance
of before.

MERRYWORTH,

Friday Evening, 5 Sept.

A friend at Tenterden told me that, if I had a mind to know
Kent, I must go through Romney Marsh to Dover, from Dover
to Sandwich, from Sandwich to Margate, from Margate to
Canterbury, from Canterbury to Faversham, from Faversham to
Maidstone, and from Maidstone to Tonbridge. I found from
Mr. Waller, this morning, that the regular turnpike route, from
his house to Maidstone, was through Sittingbourne. I had been
along that road several times; and besides, to be covered with
dust was what I could not think of, when I had it in my power
to get to Maidstone without it. I took the road across the
country, quitting the London road, or rather, crossing it, in the
dell, between Ospringe and Green Street. I instantly began
to go up hill, slowly, indeed; but up hill. I came through the
villages of Newnham, Doddington, Ringlestone, and to that of
Hollingbourne. I had come up hill for thirteen miles, from
Mr. Waller's house. At last, I got to the top of this hill, and
went along, for some distance, upon level ground. I found I
was got upon just the same sort of land as that on the hill at
Folkestone, at Reigate, at Ropley, and at Ashmansworth.
The red clayey loam, mixed up with great yellow flint stones.
I found fine meadows here, just such as are at Ashmansworth
(that is to say, on the north Hampshire hills). This sort of
ground is characterised by an astonishing depth that they have
to go for the water. At Ashmansworth, they go to a depth of
more than three hundred feet. As I was riding along upon the
top of this hill in Kent, I saw the same beautiful sort of meadows
that there are at Ashmansworth; I saw the corn backward;
I was just thinking to go up to some house, to ask how far they
had to go for water, when I saw a large well-bucket, and all the

252 Rural Rides

chains and wheels belonging to such a concern; but here was
also the tackle for a horse to work in drawing up the water!
I asked about the depth of the well; and the information I
received must have been incorrect; because I was told it was
three hundred yards. I asked this of a public-house keeper
further on, not seeing anybody where the farm-house was. I
make no doubt that the depth is, as near as possible, that of
Ashmansworth. Upon the top of this hill, I saw the finest field
of beans that I have seen this year, and, by very far, indeed,
the finest piece of hops. A beautiful piece of hops, surrounded
by beautiful plantations of young ash, producing poles for
hop-gardens. My road here pointed towards the west. It soon
wheeled round towards the south; and, all of a sudden, I found
myself upon the edge of a hill, as lofty and as steep as that at
Folkestone, at Reigate, or at Ashmansworth. It was the same
famous chalk ridge that I was crossing again. When I got to
the edge of the hill, and before I got off my horse to lead him
down this more than mile of hill, I sat and surveyed the prospect
before me, and to the right and to the left. This is what the
people of Kent call the Garden of Eden. It is a district of
meadows, corn fields, hop-gardens, and orchards of apples, pears,
cherries and filberts, with very little if any land which cannot,
with propriety, be called good. There are plantations of
chestnut and of ash frequently occurring; and as these are cut
when long enough to make poles for hops, they are at all times
objects of great beauty.

At the foot of the hill of which I have been speaking is the
village of Hollingbourne; thence you come on to Maidstone.
From Maidstone to this place (Merryworth) is about seven miles,
and these are the finest seven miles that I have ever seen in
England or anywhere else. The Medway is to your left, with
its meadows about a mile wide. You cross the Medway, in
coming out of Maidstone, and it goes and finds its way down to
Rochester, through a break in the chalk ridge. From Maidstone
to Merryworth, I should think that there were hop-gardens on
one half of the way on both sides of the road. Then looking
across the Medway, you see hop-gardens and orchards two miles
deep, on the side of a gently rising ground: and this continues
with you all the way from Maidstone to Merryworth. The
orchards form a great feature of the country; and the planta-
tions of ashes and of chestnuts that I mentioned before, add
greatly to the beauty. These gardens of hops are kept very
clean, in general, though some of them have been neglected this

From Dover to the Wen 253

year owing to the bad appearance of the crop. The culture is
sometimes mixed : that is to say, apple-trees or cherry-trees or
filbert- trees and hops, in the same ground. This is a good way,
they say, of raising an orchard. I do not believe it; and I think
that nothing is gained by any of these mixtures. They plant
apple-trees or cherry- trees in rows here; they then plant a
filbert- tree close to each of these large fruit- trees; and then they
cultivate the middle of the ground by planting potatoes. This
is being too greedy. It is impossible that they can gain by this.
What they gain one way they lose the other way; and I verily
believe that the most profitable way would be never to mix
things at all. In coming from Maidstone I passed through a
village called Teston, where Lord Basham has a seat.

TONBRIDGE,
Saturday Morning, 6 Sept.

I came off from Merryworth a little before five o'clock, passed
the seat of Lord Torrington, the friend of Mr. Barretto. This
Mr. Barretto ought not to be forgotten so soon. In 1820 he sued
for articles of the peace against Lord Torrington, for having
menaced him, in consequence of his having pressed his lordship
about some money. It seems that Lord Torrington had known
him in the East Indies; that they came home together, or soon
after one another; that his lordship invited Mr. Barretto to his
best parties in India; that he got him introduced at court in
England by Sidmouth; that he got him made a Fellow of the
Royal Society ; and that he tried to get him introduced into
Parliament. His lordship, when Barretto rudely pressed him
for his money, reminded him of all this, and of the many diffi-
culties that he had had to overcome with regard to his colour
and so forth. Nevertheless, the dingy skinned court visitant
pressed in such a way that Lord Torrington was obliged to be
pretty smart with him, whereupon the other sued for articles
of the peace against his lordship; but these were not granted
by the court. This Barretto issued a handbill at the last election
as a candidate for St. Albans. I am truly sorry that he was
not elected. Lord Camelford threatened to put in his black
fellow; but he was a sad swaggering fellow; and had, at last,
too much of the boroughmonger in him to do a thing so meri-
torious. Lord Torrington's is but an indifferent looking place.

I here began to see South Down sheep again, which I had
not seen since the time I left Tenterden. All along here the

254 Rural Rides

villages are at not more than two miles distance from each
other. They have all large churches, and scarcely anybody
to go to them. At a village called Hadlow, there is a house
belonging to a Mr. May, the most singular looking thing I ever
saw. An immense house stuck all over with a parcel of chim-
neys, or things like chimneys; little brick columns, with a sort
of caps on them, looking like carnation sticks, with caps at the
top to catch the earwigs. The building is all of brick, and has
the oddest appearance of anything I ever saw. This Tonbridge
is but a common country town, though very clean, and the people
looking very well. The climate must be pretty warm here,
for in entering the town I saw a large Althea Frutex in bloom,
a thing rare enough, any year, and particularly a year like this.

WESTERHAM,
Saturday, Noon, 6. Sept.

Instead of going on to the Wen along the turnpike-road
through Sevenoaks, I turned to my left when I got about a
mile out of Tonbridge, in order to come along that tract of
country called the Weald of Kent; that is to say, the solid
clays, which have no bottom, which are unmixed with chalk,
sand, stone, or anything else; the country of dirty roads and
of oak trees. I stopped at Tonbridge only a few minutes;
but in the Weald I stopped to breakfast at a place called
Leigh. From Leigh I came to Chittingstone causeway, leaving
Tonbridge Wells six miles over the hills to my left. From
Chittingstone I came to Bough-beach, thence to Four Elms,
and thence to this little market-town of Westerham, which is
just upon the border of Kent. Indeed, Kent, Surrey, and
Sussex form a joining very near to this town. Westerham,
exactly like Reigate and Godstone, and Sevenoaks, and Dorking,
and Folkestone, lies between the sand-ridge and the chalk-ridge.
The valley is here a little wider than at Reigate, and that is all
the difference there is between the places. As soon as you get
over the sand hill to the south of Reigate, you get into the
Weald of Surrey; and here, as soon as you get over the sand
hill to the south of Westerham, you get into the Weald of Kent.

I have now, in order to get to the Wen, to cross the chalk-
ridge once more, and at a point where I never crossed it before.
Coming through the Weald I found the corn very good; and
low as the ground is, wet as it is, cold as it is, there will be
very little of the wheat which will not be housed before Saturday

From Dover to the Wen 255

night. All the corn is good, and the barley excellent. Not
far from Bough-beach, I saw two oak trees, one of which was,
they told me, more than thirty feet round, and the other more
than twenty-seven ; but they have been hollow for half a century.
They are not much bigger than the oak upon Tilford Green, if
any. I mean in the trunk; but they are hollow, while that tree
is sound in all its parts, and growing still. I have had a most
beautiful ride through the Weald. The day is very hot; but I
have been in the shade; and my horse's feet very often in the
rivulets and wet lanes. In one place I rode above a mile com-
pletely arched over by the boughs of the underwood, growing in
the banks of the lane. What an odd taste that man must have
who prefers a turnpike-road to a lane like this.

Very near to Westerham there are hops : and I have seen now
and then a little bit of hop garden, even in the Weald. Hops
will grow well where lucerne will grow well; and lucerne will
grow well where there is a rich top and a dry bottom. When
therefore you see hops in the Weald, it is on the side of some hill,
where there is sand or stone at bottom, and not where there is
real clay beneath. There appear to be hops, here and there, all
along from nearly at Dover to Alton, in Hampshire. You find
them all along Kent; you find them at Westerham; across at
Worth, in Sussex; at Godstone, in Surrey; over to the north of
Merrow Down, near Guildford; atGodalming; under the Hog's-
back, at Farnham ; and all along that way to Alton. But there,,
I think, they end. The whole face of the country seems to rise,
when you get just beyond Alton, and to keep up. Whether
you look to the north, the south, or west, the land seems to rise,
and the hops cease, till you come again away to the north-west,
in Herefordshire.

KENSINGTON,
Saturday Night, 6 Sept.

Here I close my day, at the end of forty-four miles. In
coming up the chalk hill from Westerham, I prepared myself
for the red stiff clay-like loam, the big yellow flints and the
meadows; and I found them all. I have now gone over this
chalk-ridge in the following places : at Coombe in the north-west
of Hampshire ; I mean the north-west corner, the very extremity
of the county. I have gone over it at Ashmansworth, or High-
clere, going from Newbury to Andover; at King's Clere, going
from Newbury to Winchester ; at Ropley, going from Alresford
to Selborne; at Dippinghall going from Crondall to Thursly; at

256

Rural Rides

Merrow, going from Chertsey to Chilworth; at Reigate; at
Westerham, and then, between these, at Godstone; at Seven-
oaks, going from London to Battle; at Hollingbourne, as
mentioned above, and at Folkestone. In all these places I have
crossed this chalk-ridge. Everywhere, upon the top of it, I have
found a flat, and the soil of all these flats I have found to be a
red stiff loam mingled up with big yellow flints. A soil difficult
to work; but by no means bad, whether for wood, hops, grass,
orchards or corn. I once before mentioned that I was assured
that the pasture upon these bleak hills was as rich as that which
is found in the north of Wiltshire, in the neighbourhood of
Swindon, where they make some of the best cheese in the kingdom.
Upon these hills I have never found the labouring people poor
and miserable, as in the rich vales. All is not appropriated
where there are coppices and wood, where the cultivation is not
so easy and the produce so very large.

After getting up the hill from Westerham, I had a general
descent to perform all the way to the Thames. When you get
to Beckenham, which is the last parish in Kent, the country
begins to assume a cockney-like appearance; all is artificial,
and you no longer feel any interest in it. I was anxious to make
this journey into Kent, in the midst of harvest, in order that I
might know the real state of the crops. The result of my observa-
tions and my inquiries is, that the crop is afull average crop of
everything except barley, and that the barley yields a great deal
more than an average crop. I thought that the beans were very
poor during my ride into Hampshire; but I then saw no real
bean countries. I have seen such countries now; and I do not
think that the beans present us with a bad crop. As to the
quality, it is, in no case (except perhaps the barley), equal to
that of last year. We had, last year, an Italian summer. When
the wheat or other grain has to ripen in wet weather, it will not
be bright, as it will when it has to ripen in fair weather. It will
have a dingy or clouded appearance; and perhaps the flour may
not be quite so good. The wheat, in fact, will not be so heavy.
In order to enable others to judge, as well as myself, I took
samples from the fields as I went along. I took them very fairly,
and as often as I thought that there was any material change in
the soil or other circumstances. During the ride I took sixteen
samples. These are now at the office of the Register, in Fleet
Street, where they may be seen by any gentleman who thinks the
information likely to be useful to him. The samples are
numbered, and there is a reference pointing out the place

From Dover to the Wen 257

where each sample was taken. The opinions that I gather
amount to this: that there is an average crop of everything,
and a little more of barley.

Now then we shall see how all this tallies with the schemes,
with the intentions and expectations of our matchless gentle-
men at Whitehall. These wise men have put forth their views
in the Courier of the 27th of August, and in words which ought
never to be forgotten, and which, at any rate, shall be recorded
here.

" GRAIN. — During the present unsettled state of the weather,
it is impossible for the best informed persons to anticipate upon
good grounds what will be the future price of agricultural produce.
Should the season even yet prove favourable, for the operations
of the harvest, there is every probability of the average price of
grain continuing at that exact price, which will prove most
conducive to the interests of the corn growers, and at the same
time encouraging to the agriculture of our colonial possessions.
We do not speak lightly on this subject, for we are aware that
his majesty's ministers have been fully alive to the inquiries
from all qualified quarters as to the effect likely to be produced
on the markets from the addition of the present crops to the
stock of wheat already on hand. The result of these inquiries
is, that in the highest quarters there exists the full expectation
that towards the month of November the price of wheat will
nearly approach to seventy shillings, a price which, while it
affords the extent of remuneration to the British farmer recog-
nised by the corn laws, will at the same time admit of the sale of
the Canadian bonded wheat; and the introduction of this foreign
corn, grown by British colonists, will contribute to keeping
down our markets, and exclude foreign grain from other
quarters."

There's nice gentlemen of Whitehall! What pretty gentle-
men they are ! " Envy of surrounding nations" indeed, to be
under command of pretty gentlemen who can make calcula-
tions so nice, and put forth predictions so positive upon such a
subject! " Admiration of the world " indeed, to live under the
command of men who can so control seasons and markets; or,
at least, who can so dive into the secrets of trade, and find out
the contents of the fields, barns, and ricks, as to be able to
balance things so nicely as to cause the Canadian corn to find a
market, without injuring the sale of that of the British farmer,
and without admitting that of the French farmer and the other
farmers of the continent! Happy, too happy, rogues that we

258 Rural Rides

are, to be under the guidance of such pretty gentlemen, and right
just is it that we should be banished for life, if we utter a word
tending to bring such pretty gentlemen into contempt.

Let it be observed that this paragraph must have come from
Whitehall. This wretched paper is the demi-official organ of
the government. As to the owners of the paper, Daniel
Stewart, that notorious fellow, Street, and the rest of them,
not excluding the brother of the great Oracle, which brother
bought, the other day, a share of this vehicle of baseness and
folly; as to these fellows, they have no control other than what
relates to the expenditure and the receipts of the vehicle. They
get their news from the offices of the Whitehall people, and their
paper is the mouthpiece of those same people. Mark this, I
I pray you, reader; and let the French people mark it, too, and
then take their revenge for the Waterloo insolence. This being
the case, then, this paragraph proceeding from the pretty
gentlemen, what a light it throws on their expectations, their
hopes, and their fears. They see that wheat at seventy shillings
a quarter is necessary to them ! Ah ! pray mark that ! They
see that wheat at seventy shillings a quarter is necessary to
them; and, therefore, they say that wheat will be at seventy
shillings a quarter, the price, as they call it, necessary to re-
munerate the British farmer. And how do the conjurors at
Whitehall know this? Why, they have made full inquiries " in
qualified quarters." And the qualified quarters have satisfied
the " highest quarters," that, " towards the month of November,
the price of wheat will nearly approach to seventy shillings the
quarter!" I wonder what the words towards the 'end of
November " may mean. Devil's in't if middle of September is
not " towards November; " and the wheat, instead of going on
towards seventy shillings, is very fast coming down to forty.
The beast who wrote this paragraph; the pretty beast; this
" envy of surrounding nations " wrote it on the 2)th of August,
a soaking wet Saturday I The pretty beast was not aware that
the next day was going to be fine, and that we were to have only
the succeeding Tuesday and half the following Saturday of wet
weather until the whole of the harvest should be in. The pretty
beast wrote while the rain was spattering against the window;
and he did " not speak lightly," but was fully aware that the
highest quarters, having made inquiries of the qualified quarters,
were sure that wheat would be at seventy shillings during the
ensuing year. What will be the price of wheat it is impossible
for any one of say. I know a gentleman, who is a very good

From Dover to the Wen 259

judge of such matters, who is of opinion that the average price
of wheat will be thirty- two shillings a quarter, or lower, before
Christmas; this is not quite half what the highest quarters
expect, in consequence of the inquiries which they have made
of the qualified quarters. I do not say that the average of wheat
will come down to thirty-two shillings ; but this I know, that at
Reading, last Saturday, about forty-five shillings was the price;
and I hear that, in Norfolk, the price is forty -two. The
highest quarters, and the infamous London press, will, at any
rate, be prettily exposed before Christmas. Old Sir Thomas
Lethbridge, too, and Gaffer Gooch, and his base tribe of Pittites
at Ipswich; Coke and Suffield, and their crew; all these will be
prettily laughed at; nor will that " tall soul," Lord Milton, escape
being reminded of his profound and patriotic observation
relative to " this self-renovating country." No sooner did he
see the wheat get up to sixty or seventy shillings than he lost all
his alarms; found that all things were right, turned his back on
Yorkshire reformers, and went and toiled for Scarlett at Peter-
borough : and discovered that there was nothing wrong, at last,
and that the " self-renovating country '" would triumph over
all its difficulties! — So it will, " tall soul; " it will triumph over
all its difficulties: it will renovate itself: it will purge itself of
rotten boroughs, of vile boroughmongers, their tools and their
stopgaps; it will purge itself of all the villainies which now
corrode its heart; it will, in short, free itself from those curses
which the expenditure of eight or nine hundred millions of
English money took place in order to make perpetual; it will,
in short, become as free from oppression, as easy and as happy as
the gallant and sensible nation on the other side of the Channel.
This is the sort of renovation, but not renovation by the means
of wheat at seventy shillings a quarter. Renovation it will
have: it will rouse and will shake from itself curses like the
pension which is paid to Burke' s executors. This is the sort of
renovation, " tall soul; " and not wheat at seventy shillings a
quarter, while it is at twenty-five shillings a quarter in France.
Pray observe, reader, how the " tall soul " catched at the rise in
the price of wheat: how he snapped at it: how quickly he ceased
his attacks upon the Whitehall people and upon the system.
He thought he had been deceived : he thought that things were
coming about again ; and so he drew in his horns, and began to
talk about the self-renovating country. This was the tone of
them all. This was the tone of all the boroughmongers; all
the friends of the system; all those who, like Lethbridge, had

260 Rural Rides

begun to be staggered. They had deviated, for a moment, into
our path! but they popped back again the moment they saw
the price of wheat rise! All the enemies of reform, all the
calumniators of reformers, all the friends of the system, most
anxiously desired a rise in the price of wheat. Mark the curious
fact that all the vile press of London; the whole of that in-
famous press; that newspapers, magazines, reviews: the whole
of the base thing; and a baser surely this world never saw;
that the whole of this base thing rejoiced, exulted, crowed over
me, and told an impudent lie, in order to have the crowing;
crowed, for what? Because wheat and bread were become dear I
A newspaper hatched under a corrupt priest, a profligate priest,
and recently espoused to the hell of Pall Mall; even this vile
thing crowed because wheat and bread had become dear ! Now,
it is notorious that, heretofore, every periodical publication in
this kingdom was in the constant habit of lamenting when
bread became dear, and of rejoicing when it became cheap.
This is notorious. Nay, it is equally notorious, that this in-
famous press was everlastingly assailing bakers, and millers, and
butchers, for not selling bread, flour, and meat cheaper than they
were selling them. In how many hundreds of instances has
this infamous press caused attacks to be made by the mob upon
tradesmen of this description ! All these things are notorious.
Moreover, notorious it is that, long previous to every harvest,
this infamous, this execrable, this beastly press, was engaged in
stunning the public with accounts of the great crop which was
just coming forward! There was always, with this press, a
prodigiously large crop. This was invariably the case. It
was never known to be the contrary.

Now these things are perfectly well known to every man in
England. How comes it, then, reader, that the profligate, the
trading, the lying, the infamous press of London, has now totally
changed its tone and bias. The base thing never now tells us
that there is a great crop or even a good crop. It never now
wants cheap bread and cheap wheat and cheap meat. It never
now finds fault of bakers and butchers. It now always en-
deavours to make it appear that corn is dearer than it is. The
base Morning Herald, about three weeks ago, not only suppressed
the fact of the fall of wheat, but asserted that there had been a
rise in the price. Now why is all this ? That is a great question,
reader. That is a very interesting question. Why has this
infamous press, which always pursues that which it thinks its
own interest; why has it taken this strange turn? This is the

From Dover to the Wen 261

reason : stupid as the base thing is, it has arrived at a conviction
that if the price of the produce of the land cannot be kept up to
something approaching ten shillings a bushel for good wheat, the
hellish system of funding must be blown up. The infamous
press has arrived at a conviction that that cheating, that
fraudulent system by which this press lives, must be destroyed
unless the price of corn can be kept up. The infamous traders
of the press are perfectly well satisfied that the interest of the
debt must be reduced, unless wheat can be kept up to nearly
ten shillings a bushel. Stupid as they are, and stupid as the
fellows down at Westminster are, they know very well that the
whole system, stock-jobbers, Jews, cant and all, go to the devil
at once as soon as a deduction is made from the interest of the
debt. Knowing this, they want wheat to sell high; because it
has, at last, been hammered into their skulls that the interest
cannot be paid in full if wheat sells low. Delightful is the
dilemma in which they are. Dear bread does not suit their
manufactories, and cheap bread does not suit their debt.
" Envy of surrounding nations" how hard it is that Providence
will not enable your farmers to sell dear and the consumers to
buy cheap ! These are the things that you want. Admiration
of the world you are ; but have these things you will not. There
may be those, indeed, who question whether you yourself know
what you want; but, at any rate, if you want these things, you
will not have them.

Before I conclude, let me ask the reader to take a look at the
singularity of the tone and tricks of this Six-Acts Government.
Is it not a novelty in the world to see a government, and in
ordinary seasons, too, having its whole soul absorbed in con-
siderations relating to the price of corn? There are our neigh-
bours, the French, who have got a government engaged in taking
military possession of a great neighbouring kingdom to free
which from these very French we have recently expended a
hundred and fifty millions of money. Our neighbours have got
a government that is thus engaged, and we have got a govern-
ment that employs itself in making incessant " inquiries in all
the qualified quarters " relative to the price of wheat! Curious
employment for a government! Singular occupation for the
ministers of the Great George ! They seem to think nothing of
Spain, with its eleven millions of people, being in fact added to
France. Wholly insensible do they appear to concerns of this
sort, while they sit thinking, day and night, upon the price of
the bushel of wheat!

262 Rural Rides

However, they are not, after all, such fools as they appear
to be. Despicable, indeed, must be that nation whose safety or
whose happiness does, in any degree, depend on so fluctuating
a thing as the price of corn. This is a matter that we must take
as it comes. The seasons will be what they will be; and all the
calculations of statesmen must be made wholly independent of
the changes and chances of seasons. This has always been the
case, to be sure. What nation could ever carry on its affairs,
if it had to take into consideration the price of corn? Never-
theless, such is the situation of our government that its very
existence, in its present way, depends upon the price of corn.
The pretty fellows at Whitehall, if you may say to them: Well, but
look at Spain; look at the enormous strides of the French; think
of the consequences in case of another war; look, too. at the grow-
ing marine of America. See, Mr. Jenkinson, see, Mr. Canning,
see, Mr. Huskisson, see, Mr. Peel, and all ye tribe of Grenvilles,
see, what tremendous dangers are gathering together about us!
" Us! ' Aye, about you ; but pray think what tremendous
dangers wheat at four shillings a bushel will bring about us I
This is the gist. Here lies the whole of it. We laugh at a
government employing itself in making calculations about the
price of corn, and in employing its press to put forth market
puffs. We laugh at these things; but we should not laugh, if
we considered that it is on the price of wheat that the duration
of the power and the profits of these men depends. They know
what they want; and they wish to believe themselves, and to
make others believe, that they shall have it. I have observed
before, but it is necessary to observe again, that all those who
are for the system, let them be Opposition or Opposition not, feel
as Whitehall feels about the price of corn. I have given an
instance in the " tall soul; " but it is the same with the whole
of them, with the whole of those who do not wish to see this
infernal system changed. I was informed, and I believe it to be
true, that the Marquis of Lansdowne said, last April, when the
great rise took place in the price of corn, that he had always
thought that the cash-measures had but little effect on prices;
but that he was now satisfied that those measures had no effect
at all on prices! Now, what is our situation; what is the
situation of this country, if we must have the present ministry,
or a ministry of which the Marquis of Lansdowne is to be a
member, if the Marquis of Lansdowne did utter these words?
And again, I say, that I verily believe he did utter them.

Ours is a government that now seems to depend very much

From Dover to the Wen 263

upon the weather. The old type of a ship at sea will not do now,
ours is a weather government; and to know the state of it, we
must have recourse to those glasses that the Jews carry about.
Weather depends upon the winds, in a great measure; and I
have no scruple to say, that the situation of those two right
honourable youths, that are now gone to the Lakes in the north ;
that their situation, next winter, will be rendered very irksome,
not to say perilous, by the present easterly wind, if it should
continue about fifteen days longer. Pitt, when he had just
made a monstrous issue of paper, and had, thereby, actually
put the match which blowed up the old She Devil in 1797 — Pitt,
at that time, congratulated the nation that the wisdom of
parliament had established a solid system of finance. Anything
but solid it assuredly was; but his system of finance was as
worthy of being called solid, as that system of government which
now manifestly depends upon the weather and the winds.

Since my return home (it is now Thursday, nth September),
I have received letters from the east, from the north, and from
the west. All tell me that the harvest is very far advanced, and
that the crops are free from blight. These letters are not par-
ticular as to the weight of the crop; except that they all say that
the barley is excellent. The wind is now coming from the east.
There is every appearance of the fine weather continuing.
Before Christmas, we shall have the wheat down to what will
be a fair average price in future. I always said that the late
rise was a mere puff. It was, in part, a scarcity rise. The wheat
of 1821 was grown and bad. That of 1822 had to be begun
upon in July. The crop has had to last thirteen months and a
half. The present crop will have to last only eleven months, or
less. The crop of barley, last year, was so very bad; so very
small; and the crop of the year before so very bad in quality
that wheat was malted, last year, in great quantities, instead
of barley. This year, the crop of barley is prodigious. All
these things considered, wheat, if the cash-measures had had
no effect, must have been a hundred and forty shillings a quarter,
and barley eighty. Yet the first never got to seventy, and the
latter never got to forty! And yet there was a man who
tjalls himself a statesman to say that that mere puff of a rise
satisfied him that the cash-measures had never had any effect!
Ah! they are all afraid to believe in the effect of those cash-
measures: they tremble like children at the sight of the rod,
when you hold up before them the effect of those cash-measures.
Their only hope is, that I am wrong in my opinions upon that

264 Rural Rides

subject; because, if I am right, their system is condemned to
speedy destruction !

I thus conclude, for the present, my remarks relative to the
harvest and the price of corn. It is the great subject of the
day; and the comfort is that we are now speedily to see whether
I be right or whether the Marquis of Lansdowne be right. As
to the infamous London press, the moment the wheat comes
down to forty shillings, that is to say, an average government
return of forty shillings, I will spend ten pounds in placarding
this infamous press, after the manner in which we used to placard
the base and detestable enemies of the queen. This infamous
press has been what is vulgarly called " running its rigs '" for
several months past. The Quakers have been urging it on,
underhanded. They have, I understand, been bribing it pretty
deeply, in order to calumniate me, and to favour their own
monopoly, but, thank God, the cunning knaves have outwitted
themselves. They won't play at cards; but they will play at
Stocks ; they will play at lottery tickets, and they will play at
Mark Lane. They have played a silly game, this time. Saint
Swithin, that good old Roman Catholic Saint, seemed to have
set a trap for them: he went on, wet, wet, wet, even until the
harvest began. Then, after two or three days' sunshine, shock-
ing wet again. The ground soaking, the wheat growing, and the
" Friends" the gentle Friends, seeking the Spirit, were as busy
amongst the sacks at Mark Lane as the devil in a high wind.
In short they bought away, with all the gain of Godliness, and
a little more, before their eyes. All of a sudden, Saint Swithin
took away his clouds; out came the sun; the wind got round
to the east; just sun enough and just wind enough; and as the
wheat ricks everywhere rose up, the long jaws of the Quakers
dropped down; and their faces of slate became of a darker hue.
That sect will certainly be punished this year; and let us hope
that such a change will take place in their concerns as will compel
a part of them to labour, at any rate; for, at present, their sect
is a perfect monster in society; a whole sect, not one man of
whom earns his living by the sweat of his brow. A sect a great
deal worse than the Jews ; for some of them do work. However,
God send us the easterly wind for another fortnight, and we shall
certainly see some of this sect at work.

FROM KENSINGTON, ACROSS SURREY, AND ALONG

THAT COUNTY

REIGATE,
Wednesday Evening, 19 October, 1825.

HAVING some business at Hartswood, near Reigate, I intended
to come off this morning on horseback, along with my son
Richard, but it rained so furiously the last night that we gave
up the horse project for to-day, being, by appointment, to be
at Reigate by ten o'clock to-day: so that we came off this morn-
ing at five o'clock in a post-chaise, intending to return home
and take our horses. Finding, however, that we cannot quit
this place till Friday, we have now sent for our horses, though the
weather is dreadfully wet. But we are under a farm-house roof,
and the wind may whistle and the rain fall as much as they like.

REIGATE,
Thursday Evening, 20 October.

Having done my business at Hartswood to-day about eleven
o'clock, I went to a sale at a farm, which the farmer is quitting.
Here I had a view of what has long been going on all over the
country. The farm, which belongs to Christ's Hospital, has
been held by a man of the name of Charington, in whose family
the lease has been, I hear, a great number of years. The house
is hidden by trees. It stands in the Weald of Surrey, close by
the River Mole, which is here a mere rivulet, though just below
this house the rivulet supplies the very prettiest flour-mill I ever
saw in my life.

Everything about this farm-house was formerly the scene of
plain manners and plentiful living. Oak clothes-chests, oak
bedsteads, oak chests of drawers, and oak tables to eat on, long,
strong, and well supplied with joint stools. Some of the things
were many hundreds of years old. But all appeared to be in a
state of decay and nearly of disuse. There appeared to have
been hardly any family in that house, where formerly there were,
in all probability, from ten to fifteen men, boys, and maids:
and, which was the worst of all, there was a parlour. Aye, and

265

266 Rural Rides

a carpet and bell-pull too ! One end of the front of this once plain
and substantial house had been moulded into a " parlour ; "
and there was the mahogany table, and the fine chairs, and the
fine glass, and all as bare-faced upstart as any stock-jobber in
the kingdom can boast of. And there were the decanters, the
glasses, the " dinner-set " of crockery-ware, and all just in the
true stock-jobber style. And I dare say it has been 'Squire
Charington and the Miss Charington's; and not plain Master
Charington, and his son Hodge, and his daughter Betty Charing-
ton, all of whom this accursed system has, in all likelihood,
transmuted into a species of mock gentlefolks, while it has
ground the labourers down into real slaves. Why do not
farmers now feed and lodge their work-people, as they did
formerly? Because they cannot keep them upon so little as
they give them in wages. This is the real cause of the change.
There needs no more to prove that the lot of the working classes
has become worse than it formerly was. This fact alone is quite
sufficient to settle this point. All the world knows that a
number of people, boarded in the same house, and at the same
table, can, with as good food, be boarded much cheaper than
those persons divided into twos, threes, or fours, can be boarded.
This is a well-known truth: therefore, if the farmer now shuts
his pantry against his labourers, and pays them wholly in money,
is it not clear that he does it because he thereby gives them a
living cheaper to him ; that is to say, a worse living than formerly?
Mind, he has a house for them ; a kitchen for them to sit in, bed-
rooms for them to sleep in, tables, and stools, and benches, of
everlasting duration. All these he has: all these cost him
nothing; and yet so much does he gain by pinching them in
wages that he lets all these things remain as of no use rather
than feed labourers in the house. Judge, then, of the change
that has taken place in the condition of these labourers ! And
be astonished, if you can, at the pauperism and the crimes that
now disgrace this once happy and moral England.

The land produces, on an average, what it always produced,
but there is a new distribution of the produce. This 'Squire
Charington's father used, I dare say, to sit at the head of the
oak-table along with his men, say grace to them, and cut up the
meat and the pudding. He might take a cup of strong beer to
himself, when they had none; but that was pretty nearly all
the difference in their manner of living. So that all lived well.
But the 'squire had many wine-decanters and wine-glasses and
" a dinner set" and a " breakfast set" and " dessert knives ; " and

Across Surrey 267

these evidently imply carryings on and a consumption that must
of necessity have greatly robbed the long oak table if it had
remained fully tenanted. That long table could not share in the
work of the decanters and the dinner set. Therefore, it became
almost untenanted; the labourers retreated to hovels, called
cottages; and instead of board and lodging, they got money;
so little of it as to enable the employer to drink wine; but, then,
that he might not reduce them to quite starvation, they were
enabled to come to him, in the king's name, and demand food as
paupers. And now, mind, that which a man receives in the
king's name, he knows well he has by force ; and it is not in
nature that he should thank anybody for it, and least of all the
party from whom it is forced. Then, if this sort of force be insuffi-
cient to obtain him enough to eat and to keep him warm, is it
surprising if he think it no great offence against God (who
created no man to starve) to use another sort of force more
within his own control ? Is it, in short, surprising, if he resort
to theft and robbery ?

This is not only the natural progress, but it has been the
progress in England. The blame is not justly imputed to
'Squire Charington and his like: the blame belongs to the
infernal stock- jobbing system. There was no reason to expect
that farmers would not endeavour to keep pace, in point of show
and luxury, with fund-holders, and with all the tribes that war
and taxes created. Farmers were not the authors of the mischief;
and now they are compelled to shut the labourers out of their
houses, and to pinch them in their wages, in order to be able to
pay their own taxes; and, besides this, the manners and the
principles of the working class are so changed that a sort of self-
preservation bids the farmer (especially in some counties) to
keep them from beneath his roof.

I could not quit this farm-house without reflecting on the
thousands of scores of bacon and thousands of bushels of bread
that had been eaten from the long oak-table which, I said to
myself, is now perhaps going at last to the bottom of a bridge
that some stock-jobber will stick up over an artificial river in his

cockney garden. " By it shan't," said I, almost in a real

passion: and so I requested a friend to buy it for me; and if he
do so, I will take it to Kensington, or to Fleet Street, and keep
it for the good it has done in the world.

When the old farm-houses are down (and down they must
come in time) what a miserable thing the countiy will be!
Those that are now erected are mere painted shells, with a

268 Rural Rides

mistress within, who is stuck up in a place she calls a parlour,
with, if she have children, the " young ladies and gentlemen '
about her: some showy chairs and a sofa (a sofa by all means):
half a dozen prints in gilt frames hanging up: some swinging
book-shelves with novels and tracts upon them: a dinner
brought in by a girl that is perhaps better " educated ' ' than
she: two or three nick-nacks to eat instead of a piece of bacon
and a pudding: the house too neat for a dirty-shoed carter to be
allowed to come into; and everything proclaiming to every
sensible beholder that there is here a constant anxiety to make
a show not warranted by the reality. The children (which is the
worst part of it) are all too clever to work : they are all
to be gentlefolks. Go to plough! Good God! What, " young
gentlemen " go to plough ! They become clerks, or some skimmy-
dish thing or other. They flee from the dirty work as cunning
horses do from the bridle. What misery is all this ! WThat a
mass of materials for producing that general and dreadful con-
vulsion that must, first or last, come and blow this funding and
jobbing and enslaving and starving system to atoms !

I was going, to-day, by the side of a plat of ground, where
there was a very fine flock of turkeys. I stopped to admire
them, and observed to the owner how fine they were, when he
answered, " We owe them entirely to you, sir, for we never raised
one till we read your Cottage Economy" I then told him that
we had, this year, raised two broods at Kensington, one black
and one white, one of nine and one of eight; but that, about
three weeks back, they appeared to become dull and pale about
the head; and that, therefore, I sent them to a farm-house,
where they recovered instantly, and the broods being such a
contrast to each other in point of colour, they were now, when
prowling over a grass field, amongst the most agreeable sights that
I had ever seen. I intended, of course, to let them get their full
growth at Kensington, where they were in a grass plat about
fifteen yards square, and where I thought that the feeding of
them, in great abundance, with lettuces and other greens from
the garden, together with grain, would carry them on to perfec-
tion. But I found that I was wrong; and that though you
may raise them to a certain size in a small place and with such
management, they then, if so much confined, begin to be sickly.
Several of mine began actually to droop : and the very day they
were sent into the country, they became as gay as ever, and in
three days all the colour about their heads came back to them.

This town of Reigate had, in former times, a priory, which

Across Surrey 269

had considerable estates in the neighbourhood; and this is
brought to my recollection by a circumstance which has recently
taken place in this very town. We all know how long it has
been the fashion for us to take it for granted that the monasteries
were bad things ; but of late I have made some hundreds of
thousands of very good Protestants begin to suspect that
monasteries were better than poor-rates, and that monks and
nuns, who fed the poor, were better than sinecure and pension
men and women, who feed upon the poor. But how came the
monasteries ! How came this that was at Reigate, for instance ?
Why it was, if I recollect correctly, founded by a Surrey gentle-
man, who gave this spot and other estates to it, and who, as was
usual, provided that masses were to be said in it for his soul
and those of others, and that it should, as usual, give aid to the
poor and needy.

Now, upon the face of the transaction, what harm could this
do the community? On the contrary, it must, one would
think, do it good ; for here was this estate given to a set of land-
lords who never could quit the spot; who could have no families;
who could save no money; who could hold no private property;
who could make no will; who must spend all their income at
Reigate and near it; who, as was the custom, fed the poor,
administered to the sick, and taught some, at least, of the people,
gratis. This, upon the face of the thing, seems to be a very good
way of disposing of a rich man's estate.

" Aye, but," it is said, " he left his estate away from his
relations." That is not sure, by any means. The contrary is
fairly to be presumed. Doubtless, it was the custom for Catholic
priests, before they took their leave of a dying rich man, to
advise him to think of the Church and the Poor ; that is to say, to
exhort him to bequeath something to them; and this has been
made a monstrous charge against that Church. It is surprising
how blind men are, when they have a mind to be blind; what
despicable dolts they are, when they desire to be cheated. We
of the Church of England must have a special deal of good
sense and of modesty, to be sure, to rail against the Catholic
Church on this account, when our own Common Prayer Book,
copied from an act of parliament, commands our parsons to do
just the same thing I

Ah! say the Dissenters, and particularly the Unitarians; that
queer sect, who will have all the wisdom in the world to them-
selves; who will believe and won't believe; who will be Chris-
tians and who won't have a Christ ; who will laugh at you, if

270 Rural Rides

you believe in the Trinity, and who would (if they could) boil
you in oil if you do not believe in the Resurrection: " Oh! "
say the Dissenters, " we know very well that your Church parsons
are commanded to get, if they can, dying people to give their
money and estates to the Church and the poor, as they call the
concern, though the poor, we believe, come in for very little
which is got in this way. But what is your Church ? We are
the real Christians; and we, upon our souls, never play such
tricks; never, no never, terrify old women out of their stockings
full of guineas." " And as to us," say the Unitarians, " we,
the most liberal creatures upon earth; we, whose virtue is
indignant at the tricks by which the monks and nuns got
legacies from dying people to the injury of heirs and other
relations; we, who are the really enlightened, the truly con-
sistent, the benevolent, the disinterested, the exclusive patentees
of the salt of the earth, which is sold only at, or by express per-
mission from our old and original warehouse and manufactory,
Essex Street, in the Strand, first street on the left, going from
Temple Bar towards Charing Cross; we defy you to show that
Unitarian parsons. . . ."

Stop your protestations and hear my Reigate anecdote, which
as I said above, brought the recollection of the Old Priory into
my head. The readers of the Register heard me, several times,
some years ago, mention Mr. Baron Maseres, who was, for a
great many years, what they call Cursitor Baron of the Ex-
chequer. He lived partly in London and partly at Reigate,
for more, I believe, than half a century; and he died, about
two years ago, or less, leaving, I am told, more than a quarter of
a million of money. The Baron came to see me, in Pall Mall,
in 1800. He always came frequently to see me, wherever I was
in London; not by any means omitting to come to see me in
Newgate, where I was imprisoned for two years, with a thousand
pounds fine and seven years' heavy bail, for having expressed
my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen, in the heart of
England, under a guard of German bayonets; and to Newgate
he always came in his wig and gown, in order, as he said, to show
his abhorrence of the sentence. I several times passed a week,
or more, with the Baron at his house, at Reigate, and might
have passed many more, if my time and taste would have
permitted me to accept of his invitations. Therefore, I knew
the Baron well. He was a most conscientious man; he was
when I first knew him still a very clever man ; he retained all
his faculties to a very great age; in 1815, I think it was, I got

Across Surrey 271

a letter from him, written in a firm hand, correctly as to grammar
and ably as to matter, and he must then have been little short
of ninety. He never was a bright man; but had always been
a very sensible, just and humane man, and a man too who
always cared a great deal for the public good; and he was the
only man that I ever heard of, who refused to have his salary
augmented, when an augmentation was offered, and when all
other such salaries were augmented. I had heard of this: I
asked him about it when I saw him again; and he said: " There
was no work to be added, and I saw no justice in adding to the
salary. It must," added he, " be paid by somebody, and the
more I take, the less that somebody must have."

He did not save money for money's sake. He saved it because
his habits would not let him spend it. He kept a house in
Rathbone Place, chambers in the Temple, and his very pretty
place at Reigate. He was by no means stingy, but his scale
and habits were cheap. Then, consider, too, a bachelor of
nearly a hundred years old. His father left him a fortune, his
brother (who also died a very old bachelor), left him another;
and the money lay in the funds, and it went on doubling itself
over and over again, till it became that immense mass which we
have seen above, and which, when the Baron was making his
will, he had neither Catholic priest nor Protestant parson to
exhort him to leave to the Church and the poor, instead of his
relations; though, as we shall presently see, he had somebody
else to whom to leave his great heap of money.

The Baron was a most implacable enemy of the Catholics, as
Catholics. There was rather a peculiar reason for this, his
grandfather having been a French Hugonot and having fled
with his children to England, at the time of the revocation of
the Edict of Nantz. The Baron was a very humane man ; his
humanity made him assist to support the French emigrant
priests ; but, at the same time, he caused Sir Richard Musgrave's
book against the Irish Catholics to be published at his own
expense. He and I never agreed upon this subject; and this
subject was, with him, a vital one. He had no asperity in his
nature; he was naturally all gentleness and benevolence; and,
therefore, he never resented what I said to him on this subject
(and which nobody else ever, I believe, ventured to say to him):
but he did not like it; and he liked it the less because I cer-
tainly beat him in the argument. However, this was long
before he visited me in Newgate: and it never produced (though
the dispute was frequently revived) any difference in his conduct

272 Rural Rides

towards me, which was uniformly friendly to the last time I saw
him before his memory was gone.

There was great excuse for the Baron. From his very birth
he had been taught to hate and abhor the Catholic religion.
He had been told that his father and mother had been driven
out of France by the Catholics: and there was that mother
dinning this in his ears, and all manner of horrible stories along
with it, during all the tender years of his life. In short, the
prejudice made part of his very frame. In the year 1803, in
August, I think it was, I had gone down to his house on a
Friday, and was there on a Sunday. After dinner he and I
and his brother walked to the Priory, as is still called the mansion
house, in the dell at Reigate, which is now occupied by Lord
Eastnor, and in which a Mr. Birket, I think, then lived. After
coming away from the Priory, the Baron (whose native place
was Betchworth, about two or three miles from Reigate), who
knew the history of every house and everything else in this part
of the country, began to tell me why the place was called the
Priory. From this he came to the superstition and dark igno-
rance that induced people to found monasteries; and he dwelt
particularly on the injustice to heirs and relations ; and he went
on, in the usual Protestant strain, and with all the bitterness
of which he was capable, against those crafty priests, who thus
plundered families by means of the influence which they had
over people in their dotage, or who were naturally weak-minded.

Alas ! poor Baron ! he does not seem to have at all foreseen
what was to become of his own money ! What would he have
said to me, if I had answered his observations by predicting,
that he would give his great mass of money to a little parson for
that parson's own private use; leave only a mere pittance to his
own relations; leave the little parson his house in which we
were then sitting (along with all his other real property); that
the little parson would come into the house and take possession ;
and that his own relations (two nieces) would walk out ! Yet
all this has actually taken place, and that, too, after the poor
old Baron's four score years of jokes about the tricks of Popish
priests, practised, in the dark ages, upon the ignorant and super-
stitious people of Reigate.

When I first knew the Baron he was a staunch Church of
England man. He went to church every Sunday once, at least.
He used to take me to Reigate church: and I observed that
he was very well versed in his prayer book. But a decisive
proof of his zeal as a Church of England man is, that he settled

Across Surrey 273

an annual sum on the incumbent of Reigate, in order to induce
him to preach, or pray (I forget which), in the church, twice on
a Sunday, instead of once; and in case this additional preaching,
or praying, were not performed in Reigate church, the annuity
was to go (and sometimes it does now go) to the poor of an
adjoining parish, and not to those of Reigate, lest I suppose
the parson, the overseers, and other ratepayers, might happen
to think that the Baron's annuity would be better laid out in
food for the bodies than for the souls of the poor; or, in other
words, lest the money should be taken annually and added to
the poor-rates to ease the purses of the farmers.

It did not, I dare say, occur to the poor Baron (when he was
making this settlement), that he was now giving money to make
a church parson put up additional prayers, though he had, all
his lifetime, been laughing at those who, in the dark ages, gave
money for this purpose to Catholic priests. Nor did it, I dare
say, occur to the Baron that, in his contingent settlement of the
annuity on the poor of an adjoining parish he as good as de-
clared his opinion that he distrusted the piety of the parson,
the overseers, the churchwardens, and, indeed, of all the people
of Reigate: yes, at the very moment that he was providing
additional prayers for them, he in the very same parchment
put a provision which clearly showed that he was thoroughly
convinced that they, overseers, churchwardens, people, parson
and all, loved money better than prayers.

What was this, then? Was it hypocrisy; was it ostentation?
No: mistake. The Baron thought that those who could not
go to church in the morning ought to have an opportunity of
going in the afternoon. He was aware of the power of money;
but when he came to make his obligatory clause, he was com-
pelled to do that which reflected great discredit on the very
Church and religion which it was his object to honour and
uphold.

However, the Baron was a staunch churchman as this fact
clearly proves : several years he had become what they call an
Unitarian. The first time (I think) that I perceived this was
in 1812. He came to see me in Newgate, and he soon began
to talk about religion, which had not been much his habit.
He went on at a great rate, laughing about the Trinity; and I
remember that he repeated the Unitarian distich, which makes
a joke of the idea of there being a devil, and which they all
repeat to you, and at the same time laugh and look as cunning
and as priggish as jackdaws; just as if they were wiser than all

274 Rural Rides

the rest in the world! I hate to hear the conceited and dis-
gusting prigs seeming to take it for granted that they only are
wise because others believe in the incarnation without being
able to reconcile it to reason. The prigs don't consider that
there is no more reason for the resurrection than for the incarna-
tion ; and yet having taken it into their heads to come up again,
they would murder you, if they dared, if you were to deny the
resurrection. I do most heartily despise this priggish set for
their conceit and impudence; but seeing that they want reason
for the incarnation; seeing that they will have effects, here,
ascribed to none but usual causes, let me put a question or two
to them.

1. Whence comes the white clover, that comes up and covers
all the ground, in America, where hard-wood trees, after
standing for thousands of years, have been burnt down?

2. Whence come (in similar cases as to self-woods) the hurtle-
berries in some places, and the raspberries in others?

3. Whence come fish in new made places where no fish have
ever been put?

4. What causes horse-hair to become living things?

5. What causes frogs to come in drops of rain, or those drops
of rain to turn to frogs, the moment they are on the earth ?

6. What causes musquitoes to come in rain water caught in
a glass, covered over immediately with oil paper, tied down
and so kept till full of these winged torments ?

7. What causes flounders, real little flat fish, brown on one
side, white on the other, mouth side-ways, with tail, fins,
and all, leaping alive, in the inside of a rotten sheep's, and
of every rotten sheep's, liver ?

There, prigs; answer these questions. Fifty might be given
you ; but these are enough. Answer these. I suppose you will
not deny the facts? They are all notoriously true. The last,
which of itself would be quite enough for you, will be attested
on oath, if you like it, by any farmer, ploughman, and shepherd
in England. Answer this question 7, or hold your conceited
gabble about the " impossibility " of that which I need not here
name.

Men of sense do not attempt to discover that which it is
impossible to discover. They leave things pretty much as they

Across Surrey 275

find them ; and take care, at least, not to make changes of any
sort without very evident necessity. The poor Baron, however,
appeared to be quite eaten up with his " rational Christianity/'
He talked like a man who has made a discovery of his own. He
seemed as pleased as I, when I was a boy, used to be, when I had
just found a rabbit's stop, or a blackbird's nest full of young
ones. I do not recollect what I said upon this occasion. It is
most likely that I said nothing in contradiction to him. I saw
the Baron many times after this, but I never talked with him
about religion.

Before the summer of 1822, I had not seen him for a year or
two, perhaps. But in July of that year, on a very hot day, I
was going down Rathbone Place, and, happening to cast my eye
on the Baron's house, I knocked at the door to ask how he was.
His man-servant came to the door, and told me that his master
was at dinner. " Well," said I, "never mind; give my best
respects to him." But the servant (who had always been with
him since I knew him) begged me to come in, for that he was sure
his master would be glad to see me. I thought, as it was likely
that I might never see him again, I would go in. The servant
announced me, and the Baron said, " Beg him to walk in."
In I went, and there I found the Baron at dinner; but not quite
alone ; nor without spiritual as well as carnal and vegetable
nourishment before him: for there, on the opposite side of his
vis-a-vis dining table, sat that nice, neat, straight, prim piece of
mortality, commonly called the Reverend Robert Fellowes,
who was the chaplain to the unfortunate queen until Mr. Alder-
man Wood's son came to supply his place, and who was now,
I could clearly see, in a fair way enough. I had dined, and so
I let them dine on. The Baron was become quite a child, or
worse, as to mind, though he ate as heartily as I ever saw him,
and he was always a great eater. When his servant said, " Here
is Mr. Cobbett, sir; " he said, " How do you do, sir? I have
read much of your writings, sir; but never had the pleasure to see
your person before." After a time I made him recollect me; but
he, directly after, being about to relate something about America,
turned towards me and said, " Were you ever in America, sir? '
But I must mention one proof of the state of his mind. Mr.
Fellowes asked me about the news from Ireland, where the
people were then in a state of starvation (1822), and I answering
that it was likely that many of them would actually be starved
to death, the Baron, quitting his green goose and green pease,
turned to me and said, " Starved, sir! Why don't they go to

276 Rural Rides

the parish ? >: " Why/' said I, " you know, sir, that there are
no poor-rates in Ireland." Upon this he exclaimed, "What!
no poor-rates in Ireland? Why not? I did not know that;
I can't think how that can be." And then he rambled on in a
childish sort of way.

At the end of about half an hour, or it might be more, I shook
hands with the poor old Baron for the last time, well convinced
that I should never see him again, and not less convinced that
I had seen his heir. He died in about a year or so afterwards,
left to his own family about £20,000, and to his ghostly guide,
the Holy Robert Fellowes, all the rest of his immense fortune,
which, as I have been told, amounts to more than a quarter of a
million of money.

Now, the public will recollect that, while Mr. Fellowes was
at the queen's, he was, in the public papers, charged with being
an Unitarian, at the same time that he officiated as her chaplain.
It is also well known that he never publicly contradicted this.
It is, besides, the general belief at Reigate. However, this we
know well, that he is a parson, of one sort or the other, and that
he is not a Catholic priest. That is enough for me. I see this
poor, foolish old man leaving a monstrous mass of money to
this little Protestant parson, whom he had not even known
more, I believe, than about three or four years. When the will
was made I cannot say. I know nothing at all about that.
I am supposing that all was perfectly fair; that the Baron had
his senses when he made his will ; that he clearly meant to do
that which he did. But, then, I must insist that, if he had left
the money to a Catholic priest, to be by him expended on the
endowment of a convent, wherein to say masses and to feed
and teach the poor, it would have been a more sensible and
public-spirited part in the Baron, much more beneficial to the
town and environs of Reigate, and beyond all measure more
honourable to his own memory.

CHILWORTH,
Friday Evening, 21 Oct.

It has been very fine to-day. Yesterday morning there was
snow on Reigate Hill, enough to look white from where we were
in the valley. We set off about half-past one o'clock, and came
all down the valley, through Buckland, Betch worth, Dorking,
Sheer and Aldbury, to this place. Very few prettier rides in
England, and the weather beautifully fine. There are more

Across Surrey 277

meeting-houses than churches in the vale, and I have heard of
no less than five people, in this vale, who have gone crazy on
account of religion.

To-morrow we intend to move on towards the west; to take
a look, just a look, at the Hampshire parsons again. The
turnips seem fine; but they cannot be large. All other things
are very fine indeed. Everything seems to prognosticate a hard
winter. All the country people say that it will be so.

FROM CHILWORTH, IN SURREY, TO WINCHESTER

THURSLEY, FOUR MILES FROM

GODALMING, SURREY,
Sunday Evening, 23 October, 1825.

WE set out from Chilworth to-day about noon. This is a little
hamlet, lying under the south side of St. Martha's Hill; and
on the other side of that hill, a little to the north-west, is the
town of Guildford, which (taken with its environs) I, who have
seen so many, many towns, think the prettiest, and, taken all
together, the most agreeable and most happy-looking that I
ever saw in my life. Here are hill and dell in endless variety.
Here are the chalk and the sand, vieing with each other in
making beautiful scenes. Here is a navigable river and fine
meadows. Here are woods and downs. Here is something of
everything but fat marshes and their skeleton-making agues.
The vale, all the way down to Chilworth from Reigate, is very
delightful.

We did not go to Guildford, nor did we cross the River Wey,
to come through Godalming; but bore away to our left, and
came through the village of Hambleton, going first to Hascomb
to show Richard the South Downs from that high land, which
looks southward over the Wealds of Surrey and Sussex, with
all their fine and innumerable oak-trees. Those that travel on
turnpike-roads know nothing of England. — From Hascomb to
Thursley almost the whole way is across fields, or commons, or
along narrow lands. Here we see the people without any dis-
guise or affectation. Against a great road things are made for
show. Here we see them without any show. And here we gain
real knowledge as to their situation. — We crossed to-day three
turnpike - roads, that from Guildford to Horsham, that from
Godalming to Worthing, I believe, and that from Godalming
to Chichester.

THURSLEY,
Wednesday, 26 Oct.

The weather has been beautiful ever since last Thursday morn-
ing; but there has been a white frost every morning, and the

278

Chilworth to Winchester 279

days have been coldish. Here, however, I am quite at home
in a room where there is one of my American fireplaces,
bought by my host of Mr. Judson of Kensington, who has
made many a score of families comfortable, instead of sitting
shivering in the cold. At the house of the gentleman whose
house I am now in, there is a good deal of fuel-wood; and here
I see in the parlours those fine and cheerful fires that make
a great part of the happiness of the Americans. But these fires
are to be had only in this sort of fireplace. Ten times the fuel;
nay, no quantity, would effect the same object, in any other
fireplace. It is equally good for coal as for wood; but, for
pleasure, a wood-fire is the thing. There is round about almost
every gentleman's or great farmer's house more wood suffered
to rot every year, in one shape or another, than would make
(with this fireplace) a couple of rooms constantly warm, from
October to June. Here, peat, turf, saw-dust, and wood, are
burnt in these fireplaces. My present host has three of the
fireplaces.

Being out a-coursing to-day, I saw a queer-looking building
upon one of the thousands of hills that nature has tossed up in
endless variety of form round the skirts of the lofty Hindhead.
This building is, it seems, called a Semaphore, or Semiphare, or
something of that sort. What this word may have been hatched
out of I cannot say; but it means a. job, I am sure. To call it an
alarm-post would not have been so convenient; for people not
endued with Scotch intellect might have wondered why the
devil we should have to pay for alarm-posts; and might have
thought that, with all our " glorious victories," we had " brought
our hogs to a fine market " if our dread of the enemy were such
as to induce us to have alarm-posts all over the country ! Such
unintellectual people might have thought that we had " con-
quered France by the immortal Wellington " to little purpose,
if we were still in such fear as to build alarm-posts; and they
might, in addition, have observed that for many hundred of
years England stood in need of neither signal-posts nor standing
army of mercenaries ; but relied safely on the courage and public
spirit of the people themselves. By calling the thing by an out-
landish name, these reflections amongst the unintellectual are
obviated. Alarm-post would be a nasty name; and it would
puzzle people exceedingly, when they saw one of these at a place
like Ashe, a little village on the north side of the chalk-ridge
(called the Hog's Back) going from Guildford to Farnham!
What can this be for ? Why are these expensive things put up

280 Rural Rides

all over the country? Respecting the movements of whom is
wanted this alarm-system ? Will no member ask this in parlia-
ment? Not one: not a man: and yet it is a thing to ask about.
Ah ! it is in vain, THING, that you thus are making your prepara-
tions ; in vain that you are setting your trammels ! The debt,
the blessed debt, that best ally of the people, will break them
all; will snap them, as the hornet does the cobweb; and even
these very " Semaphores " contribute towards the force of that
ever -blessed debt. Curious to see how things work I The
" glorious revolution," which was made for the avowed purpose
of maintaining the Protestant ascendency, and which was
followed by such terrible persecution of the Catholics; that
" glorious " affair, which set aside a race of kings, because they
were Catholics, served as the precedent for the American revolu-
tion, also called " glorious," and this second revolution com-
pelled the successors of the makers of the first to begin to cease
their persecutions of the Catholics ! Then again, the debt was
made to raise and keep armies on foot to prevent reform of
parliament, because, as it was feared by the aristocracy, reform
would have humbled them; and this debt, created for this
purpose, is fast sweeping the aristocracy out of their estates, as
a clown, with his foot, kicks field-mice out of their nests. There
was a hope that the debt could have been reduced by stealth,
as it were; that the aristocracy could have been saved in this
way. That hope now no longer exists. In all likelihood the
funds will keep going down. What is to prevent this, if the
interest of Exchequer Bills be raised, as the broadsheet tells
us it is to be? What! the funds fall in time of peace; and the
French funds not fall in time of peace! However, it will all
happen just as it ought to happen. Even the next session of
parliament will bring out matters of some interest. The thing
is now working in the surest possible way.

The great business of life, in the country, appertains, in some
way or other, to the game, and especially at this time of .the
year. If it were not for the game, a country life would be like
an everlasting honeymoon, which would, in about half a century,
put an end to the human race. In towns, or large villages,
people make a shift to find the means of rubbing the rust off
from each other by a vast variety of sources of contest. A
couple of wives meeting in the street, and giving each other a
wry look, or a look not quite civil enough, will, if the parties be
hard pushed for a ground of contention, do pretty well. But
in the country there is, alas! no such resource. Here are no

Chilworth to Winchester 281

walls for people to take of each other. Here they are so placed
as to prevent the possibility of such lucky local contact. Here
is more than room of every sort, elbow, leg, horse, or carriage,
for them all. Even at church (most of the people being in the
meeting-houses) the pews are surprisingly too large. Here,
therefore, where all circumstances seem calculated to cause
never-ceasing concord with its accompanying dullness, there
would be no relief at all, were it not for the game. This, happily,
supplies the place of all other sources of alternate dispute and
reconciliation; it keeps all in life and motion, from the lord
down to the hedger. When I see two men, whether in a market-
room, by the way-side, in a parlour, in a church-yard, or even
in the church itself, engaged in manifestly deep and most
momentous discourse, I will, if it be any time between September
and February, bet ten to one that it is, in some way or other,
about the game. The wives and daughters hear so much of it
that they inevitably get engaged in the disputes; and thus all
are kept in a state of vivid animation. I should like very much
to be able to take a spot, a circle of 12 miles in diameter, and
take an exact account of all the time spent by each individual,
above the age of ten (that is the age they begin at), in talking,
during the game season of one year, about the game and about
sporting exploits. I verily believe that it would amount, upon
an average, to six times as much as all the other talk put to-
gether; and, as to the anger, the satisfaction, the scolding, the
commendation, the chagrin, the exultation, the envy, the
emulation, where are there any of these in the country uncon-
nected with the game ?

There is, however, an important distinction to be made
between hunters (including coursers) and shooters. The latter
are, as far as relates to their exploits, a disagreeable class
compared with the former; and the reason of this is, their doings
are almost wholly their own; while, in the case of the others,
the achievements are the property of the dogs. Nobody likes
to hear another talk much in praise of his own acts, unless those
acts have a manifest tendency to produce some good to the
hearer; and shooters do talk much of their own exploits, and
those exploits rather tend to humiliate the hearer. Then, a
greater shooter will, nine times out of ten, go so far as almost to
lie a little ; and though people do not tell him of it, they do not
like him the better for it; and he but too frequently discovers
that they do not believe him: whereas, hunters are mere
followers of the dogs, as mere spectators; their praises, if any

282 Rural Rides

are called for, are bestowed on the greyhounds, the hounds, the
fox, the hare, or the horses. There is a little rivalship in the
riding, or in the behaviour of the horses; but this has so little
to do with the personal merit of the sportsmen, that it never
produces a want of good fellowship in the evening of the day.
A shooter who has been missing all day, must have an uncommon
share of good sense not to feel mortified while the slaughterers
are relating the adventures of that day; and this is what
cannot exist in the case of the hunters. Bring me into a room,
with a dozen men in it, who have been sporting all day; or
rather let me be in an adjoining room, where I can hear the
sound of their voices, without being able to distinguish the
words, and I will bet ten to one that I tell whether they be
hunters or shooters.

I was once acquainted with a. famous shooter whose name was
William Ewing. He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became
far more renowned by his gun than by his law cases. We spent
scores of days together a shooting, and were extremely well
matched, I having excellent dogs and caring little about my
reputation as a shot, his dogs being good for nothing, and he
caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a lawyer.
The fact which I am going to relate respecting this gentleman
ought to be a warning to young men how they become enamoured
of this species of vanity. W7e had gone about ten miles from
our home, to shoot where partridges were said to be very plentiful.
We found them so. In the course of a November day, he had,
just before dark, shot, and sent to the farm-house, or kept in his
bag, ninety-nine partridges. He made some few double shots,
and he might have a miss or two, for he sometimes shot when
out of my sight, on account of the woods. However, he said
that he killed at every shot; and as he had counted the birds,
when he went to dinner at the farm-house and when he cleaned
his gun, he, just before sunset, knew that he had killed ninety-
nine partridges, every one upon the wing, and a great part, of
them in woods very thickly set with largish trees. It was a
grand achievement; but, unfortunately, he wanted to make it a
hundred. The sun was setting, and, in that country, darkness
comes almost at once; it is more like the going out of a candle
than that of a fire ; and I wanted to be off, as we had a very bad
road to go, and as he, being under strict petticoat government,
to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted, was compelled
to get home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse
and gig) being mine. I, therefore, pressed him to come away,

Chilworth to Winchester 283

and moved on myself towards the house (that of old John Brown,
in Bucks county, grandfather of that General Brown, who gave
some of our whiskered heroes such a rough handling last war,
which was waged for the purpose of " deposing James Madison "),
at which house I would have stayed all night, but from which I
was compelled to go by that watchful government, under which
he had the good fortune to live. Therefore I was in haste to be
off. No : he would kill the hundredth bird ! In vain did I talk of
the bad road and its many dangers for want of moon. The poor
partridges, which we had scattered about, were calling all around
us; and, just at this moment, up got one under his feet, in a
field in which the wheat was three or four inches high. He shot
and missed. " That's it," said he, running as if to pick up the
bird. " What! " said I, " you don't think you killed, do you?
Why there is the bird now, not only alive, but calling in that
wood; " which was at about a hundred yards' distance. He,
in that form of words usually employed in such cases, asserted
that he shot the bird and saw it fall; and I, in much about the
same form of words, asserted that he had missed, and that I, with
my own eyes, saw the bird fly into the wood. This was too
much ! To miss once out of a hundred times ! To lose such a
chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I
liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him, when
he said, " Well, sir, I killed the bird; and if you choose to go
away and take your dog away, so as to prevent me from finding
it, you must do it; the dog is yours, to be sure." ' The dog,"
said I, in a very mild tone, " why, Ewing, there is the spot; and
could we not see it, upon this smooth green surface, if it were
there? " However, he began to look about ; and I called the
dog, and affected to join him in the search. Pity for his weak-
ness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After walking
backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards
square with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us
knew was not there, I had passed him (he going one way and I
the other), and I happened to be turning round just after I had
passed him, when I saw him, putting his hand behind him,
take a partridge out of his bag and let it fall upon the ground I I
felt no temptation to detect him, but turned away my head, and
kept looking about. Presently he, having returned to the spot
where the bird was, called out to me, in a most triumphant tone,
" Here I here I Come here ! " I went up to him, and he, point-
ing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face
at the same time, said, " There, Cobbett; I hope that will be a

Rural Rides

warning to you never to be obstinate again ! " " Well/' said I,
' come along: " and away we went as merry as larks. When
we got to Brown's, he told them the story, triumphed over me
most clamorously; and though he often repeated the story to
my face, I never had the heart to let him know that I knew of
the imposition, which puerile vanity had induced so sensible
and honourable a man to be mean enough to practise.

A professed shot is, almost always, a very disagreeable brother
sportsman. He must, in the first place, have a head rather of
the emptiest to pride himself upon so poor a talent. Then he is
always out of temper, if the game fail, or if he miss it. He never
participates in that great delight which all sensible men enjoy at
beholding the beautiful action, the docility, the zeal, the wonder-
ful sagacity of the pointer and the setter. He is always thinking
about himself : always anxious to surpass his companions. I
remember that, once, Ewing and I had lost our dog. We were
in a wood, and the dog had gone out and found a covey in a
wheat stubble joining the wood. We had been whistling and
calling him for, perhaps, half an hour or more. When we came
out of the wood we saw him pointing, with one foot up; and
soon after, he, keeping his foot and body unmoved, gently
turned round his head towards the spot where he heard us, as il
to bid us come on, and when he saw that we saw him, turned
his head back again. I was so delighted that I stopped to look
with admiration. Ewing, astonished at my want of alacrity,
pushed on, shot one of the partridges, and thought no more
about the conduct of the dog than if the sagacious creature had
had nothing at all to do with the matter. When I left America,
in 1800, 1 gave this dog to Lord Henry Stuart, who was, when he
came home a year or two afterwards, about to bring him to
astonish the sportsmen even in England; but those of Penn-
sylvania were resolved not to part with him, and therefore they
stole him the night before his lordship came away. Lord Henry
had plenty of pointers after his return, and he saw hundreds;
but always declared that he never saw anything approaching in
excellence this American dog. For the information of sports-
men I ought to say that this was a small-headed and sharp-
nosed pointer, hair as fine as that of a greyhound, liitle and short
ears, very light in the body, very long legged, and swift as a good
lurcher. I had him a puppy, and he never had any breaking, but
he pointed staunchly at once; and I am of opinion that this sort
is, in all respects, better than the heavy breed. Mr. Thornton
(I beg his pardon, I believe he is now a knight of some sort), who

Chilworth to Winchester 285

was, and perhaps still is, our envoy in Portugal, at the time here
referred to was a sort of partner with Lord Henry in this famous
dog; and gratitude (to the memory of the dog I mean) will,
I am sure, or at least, I hope so, make him bear witness to the
truth of my character of him; and if one could hear an
ambassador speak out, I think that Mr. Thornton would acknow-
ledge that his calling has brought him in pretty close contact
with many a man who was possessed of most tremendous political
power, without possessing half the sagacity, half the understand-
ing, of this dog, and without being a thousandth part so faithful
to his trust.

I am quite satisfied that there are as many sorts of men as
there are of dogs. Swift was a man, and so is Walter the base.
But is the sort the same? It cannot be education alone that
makes the amazing difference that we see. Besides, we see men
of the very same rank and riches and education differing as
widely as the pointer does from the pug. The name, man, is
common to all the sorts, and hence arises very great mischief.
What confusion must there be in rural affairs, if there were no
names whereby to distinguish hounds, greyhounds, pointers,
spaniels, terriers, and sheep dogs, from each other! And what
pretty work if, without regard to the sorts of dogs, men were to
attempt to employ them I Yet this is done in the case of men I
A man is always a man ; and without the least regard as to
the sort, they are promiscuously placed in all kinds of situations.
Now, if Mr. Brougham, Doctors Birkbeck, Macculloch and
Black, and that profound personage, Lord John Russell, will,
in their forthcoming " London University," teach us how to
divide men into sorts, instead of teaching us to " augment the
capital of the nation " by making paper-money, they will render
us a real service. That will be feelosofy worth attending to.
What would be said of the 'squire who should take a fox-hound
out to find partridges for him to shoot at? Yet would this be
more absurd than to set a man to law-making who was manifestly
formed for the express purpose of sweeping the streets or digging
out sewers ?

FARNHAM, SURREY,

Thursday, 27 Oct.

We came over the heath from Thursley, this morning, on our
way to Winchester. Mr. Wyndham's fox-hounds are coming
to Thursley on Saturday. More than three-fourths of all the
interesting talk in that neighbourhood, for some days past, has

286 Rural Rides

been about this anxiously looked-for event. I have seen no
man, or boy, who did not talk about it. There had been a false
report about it; the hounds did not come ; and the anger of the
disappointed people was very great. At last, however, the
authentic intelligence came, and I left them all as happy as if all
were young and all just going to be married. An abatement
of my pleasure, however, on this joyous occasion was, that I
brought away with me one, who was as eager as the best of them.
Richard, though now only u years and 6 months old, had, it
seems, one fox-hunt, in Herefordshire, last winter; and he
actually has begun to talk rather contemptuously of hare hunting.
To show me that he is in no danger, he has been leaping his horse
over banks and ditches by the road side, all our way across the
country from Reigate; and he joined with such glee in talking
of the expected arrival of the fox-hounds that I felt some little
pain at bringing him away. My engagement at Winchester is
for Saturday; but if it had not been so, the deep and hidden ruts
in the heath, in a wood in the midst of which the hounds are sure
to find, and the immense concourse of horsemen that is sure to be
assembled, would have made me bring him away. Upon the
high, hard and open countries I should not be afraid for him,
but here the danger would have been greater than it would
have been right for me to suffer him to run.

We came hither by the way of Waverley Abbey and Moore
Park. On the commons I showed Richard some of my old hunt-
ing scenes, when I was of his age, or younger, reminding him
that I was obliged to hunt on foot. We got leave to go and see
the grounds at Waverley where all the old monks' garden walls
are totally gone, and where the spot is become a sort of lawn. I
showed him the spot where the strawberry garden was, and
where I, when sent to gather hautboys, used to eat every remark-
ably fine one, instead of letting it go to be eaten by Sir Robert
Rich. I showed him a tree, close by the ruins of the Abbey,
from a limb of which I once fell into the river, in an attempt to
take the nest of a crow, which had artfully placed it upon a
branch so far from the trunk as not to be able to bear the weight
of a boy eight years old. I showed him an old elm-tree, which
was hollow even then, into which I, when a very little boy, once
saw a cat go, that was as big as a middle-sized spaniel dog, for
relating which I got a great scolding, for standing to which I, at
last, got a beating; but stand to which I still did. I have since
many times repeated it; and I would take my oath of it to this
day. When in New Brunswick I saw the great wild grey cat,

Chilworth to Winchester 287

which is there called a Lucifee ; and it seemed to me to be just
such a cat as I had seen at Waverley. I found the ruins not very
greatly diminished; but it is strange how small the mansion,
and ground, and everything but the trees, appeared to me.
They were all great to my mind when I saw them last; and that
early impression had remained, whenever I had talked or
thought of the spot; so that, when I came to see them again,
after seeing the sea and so many other immense things, it seemed
as if they had all been made small. This was not the case with
regard to the trees, which are nearly as big here as they are any
where else; and the old cat-elm, for instance, which Richard
measured with his whip, is about 1 6 or 17 feet round.

From Waverley we went to Moore Park, once the seat of Sir
William Temple, and when I was a very little boy, the seat of
a lady, or a Mrs. Temple. Here I snowed Richard Mother
Ludlum's Hole; but, alas! it is not the enchanting place that I
knew it, nor that which Grose describes in his Antiquities ! The
semicircular paling is gone; the basins, to catch the never-
ceasing little stream, are gone; the iron cups, fastened by chains,
for people to drink out of, are gone; the pavement all broken to
pieces; the seats for people to sit on, on both sides of the cave,
torn up and gone; the stream that ran down a clean paved
channel now making a dirty gutter; and the ground opposite,
which was a grove, chiefly of laurels, intersected by closely
mowed grass-walks, now become a poor, ragged-looking alder-
coppice. Near the mansion, I showed Richard the hill upon
which Dean Swift tells us he used to run for exercise, while he
was pursuing his studies here; and I would have showed him
the garden-seat, under which Sir William Temple's heart was
buried, agreeably to his will; but the seat was gone, also the
wall at the back of it; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn
in which the seat stood was turned into a parcel of divers-
shaped cockney-clumps, planted according to the strictest rules
of artificial and refined vulgarity.

At Waverley, Mr. Thompson, a merchant of some sort, has
succeeded (after the monks) the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert
Rich. At Moore Park, a Mr. Laing, a West India planter or
merchant, has succeeded the Temples; and at the castle of
Farnham, which you see from Moore Park, Bishop Prettyman
Tomline has, at last, after perfectly regular and due gradations,
succeeded William of Wykham ! In coming up from Moore
Park to Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door of a little
old house, where there appeared to be a great parcel of children.

288 Rural Rides

' There, Dick/' said I, " when I was just such a little creature
as that whom you see in the door-way, I lived in this very house
with my grandmother Cobbett." He pulled up his horse, and
looked very hard at it, but said nothing, and on we came.

WINCHESTER,
Sunday Noon, 30 Oct.

We came away from Farnham about noon on Friday, promis-
ing Bishop Prettyman to notice him and his way of living more
fully on our return. At Alton we got some bread and cheese at
a friend's, and then came to Alresford by Medstead, in order to
have fine turf to ride on, and to see on this lofty land that which
is, perhaps, the finest beech-wood in all England. These high
down countries are not garden plats, like Kent; but they have,
from my first seeing them, when I was about ten, always been my
delight. Large sweeping downs, and deep dells here and there,
with villages amongst lofty trees, are my great delight. When
we got to Alresford it was nearly dark, and not being able to find
a room to our liking, we resolved to go, though in the dark, to
Easton, a village about six miles from Alresford down by the side
of the Hichen River.

Coming from Easton yesterday, I learned that Sir Charles
Ogle, the eldest son and successor of Sir Chaloner Ogle, had sold,
to some general, his mansion and estate at Martyr's Worthy, a
village on the north side of the Hichen, just opposite Easton.
The Ogles had been here for a couple of centuries perhaps. They
are gone off now, " for good and all," as the country people call
it. Well, what I have to say to Sir Charles Ogle upon this
occasion is this : " It was you, who moved at the county meeting,
in 1817, that Address to the Regent, which you brought ready
engrossed upon parchment, which Fleming, the sheriff, declared
to have been carried, though a word of it never was heard by
the meeting; which address applauded the power of imprison-
ment bill, just then passed; and the like of which address you
will not in all human probability ever again move in Hampshire,
and, I hope, nowhere else. So, you see, Sir Charles, there is one
consolation, at any rate."

I learned, too, that Greame, a famously loyal 'squire and
justice, whose son was, a few years ago, made a distributor of
stamps in this county, was become so modest as to exchange his
big and ancient mansion at Cheriton, or somewhere there, for a
very moderate-sized house in the town of Alresford! I saw his

Chilworth to Winchester 289

household goods advertised in the Hampshire newspaper, a little
while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my eyes, or,
rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I re-
membered the loyal 'squire; and I, with singular satisfaction,
record this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt,
proceeded solely from that prevalence of mind over matter
which the Scotch feelosofers have taken such pains to inculcate,
and which makes him flee from greatness as from that which
diminishes the quantity of " intellectual enjoyment " ; and so
now he,

" Wondering man can want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."

And they really tell me that his present house is not much
bigger than that of my dear, good old grandmother Cobbett.
But (and it may not be wholly useless for the 'squire to know it)
she never burnt candles ; but rushes dipped in grease, as I have
described them in my Cottage Economy ; and this was one of the
means that she made use of in order to secure a bit of good
bacon and good bread to eat, and that made her never give me
potatoes, cold or hot. No bad hint for the 'squire, father of the
distributor of stamps. Good bacon is a very nice thing, I can
assure him; and if the quantity be small, it is all the sweeter;
provided, however, it be not too small. This 'squire used to be
a great friend of Old George Rose. But his patron's taste was
different from his. George preferred a big house to a little one:
and George began with a little one, and ended with a big one.

Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and supporter
of Old George Rose, 'Squire Rawlinson, whom I remember a
a very great 'squire in this county. He is now a police-' squire
in London, and is one of those guardians of the Wen, respecting
whose proceedings we read eternal columns in the broadsheet.

This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o'clock in the morning,
a sort of a jangling, made by a bell or two in the cathedral. We
were getting ready to be off, to cross the country to Burghclere,
which lies under the lofty hills at Highclere, about 22 miles from
this city; but hearing the bells of the cathedral, I took Richard
to show him that ancient and most magnificent pile, and par-
ticularly to show him the tomb of that famous bishop of Win-
chester, William of Wykham; who was the chancellor and the
minister of the great and glorious king, Edward III.; who
sprang from poor parents in the little village of Wykham, three
miles from Botley; and who, amongst other great and most

290 Rural Rides

munificent deeds, founded the famous college, or school, of
Winchester, and also one of the colleges of Oxford. I told
Richard about this as we went from the inn down to the cathedral ;
and when I showed him the tomb, where the bishop lies on his
back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his head, his shep-
herd's crook by his side, with little children at his feet, their
hands put together in a praying attitude, he looked with a degree
of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took
him as far as I could about the cathedral. The " service " was
now begun. There is a dean, and God knows how many prebends
belonging to this immensely rich bishopric and chapter: and
there were, at this " service/' two or three men and five or six
boys in white surplices, with a congregation of fifteen women and
four men I Gracious God ! If William of Wykham could, at
that moment, have been raised from his tomb ! If Saint Swithin,
whose name the cathedral bears, or Alfred the Great, to whom St.
Swithin was tutor: if either of these could have come, and had
been told, that that was now what was carried on by men, who
talked of the " damnable errors " of those who founded that
very church ! But it beggars one's feelings to attempt to find
words whereby to express them upon such a subject and such an
occasion. How, then, am I to describe what I felt when I
yesterday saw in Hyde Meadow a county bridewell standing on
the very spot where stood the abbey which was founded and
endowed by Alfred, which contained the bones of that maker
of the English name, and also those of the learned monk, St.
Grimbald, whom Alfred brought to England to begin the teaching
at Oxford I

After we came out of the cathedral, Richard said, " Why,
papa, nobody can build such places now, can they? ' " No,
my dear," said I. " That building was made when there were
no poor wretches in England called paupers ; when there were
no poor-rates ; when every labouring man was clothed in good
woollen cloth; and when all had a plenty of meat and bread
and beer." This talk lasted us to the inn, where, just as we
were going to set off, it most curiously happened that a parcel
which had come from Kensington by the night coach was put
into my hands by the landlord, containing, amongst other things,
a pamphlet, sent to me from Rome, being an Italian translation
of No. I. of the Protestant Reformation. I will here insert the
title for the satisfaction of Doctor Black, who, some time ago
expressed his utter astonishment that " such a work should
be published in the nineteenth century." Why, Doctor? Did

Chilworth to Winchester 291

you want me to stop till the twentieth century? That would
have been a little too long, Doctor.

Storia
Delia

Riforma Protestante
In Inghilterra ed in Irlanda

La quale Dimostra
Come un tal' avvenimento ha impoverito

E degradato il grosso del popolo in que' paesi
in una serie di lettere indirizzate
A tutti i sensati e guisti inglesi

Da
Guglielmo Cobbett

E
Dall' inglese recate in italiano

Da
Dominico Gregorj.

Roma 1825.

Presso Francesco Bourlie.
Con Approvazione.

There, Doctor Black. Write you a book that shall be trans-
lated into any foreign language; and when you have done that,
you may again call mine " pig's meat."

FROM WINCHESTER TO BURGHCLERE

BURGHCLERE,

Monday Morning, 31 October, 1825.

WE had, or I had, resolved not to breakfast at Winchester
yesterday: and yet we were detained till nearly noon. But
at last off we came, fasting. The turnpike-road from Winchester
to this place comes through a village called Button Scotney,
and then through Whitchurch, which lies on the Andover and
London road, through Basingstoke. We did not take the cross-
turnpike till we came to Whitchurch. We went to King's
Worthy; that is about two miles on the road from Winchester
to London; and then, turning short to our left, came up upon
the downs to the north of Winchester race-course. Here,
looking back at the city and at the fine valley above and below
it, and at the many smaller valleys that run down from the high
ridges into that great and fertile valley, I could not help admiring
the taste of the ancient kings, who made this city (which once
covered all the hill round about, and which contained 92 churches
and chapels) a chief place of their residence. There are not
many finer spots in England; and if I were to take in a circle
of eight or ten miles of semi-diameter, I should say that I
believe there is not one so fine. Here are hill, dell, water,
meadows, woods, corn-fields, downs: and all of them very
fine and very beautifully disposed. This country does not
present to us that sort of beauties which we see about Guildford
and Godalming, and round the skirts of Hindhead and Black-
down, where the ground lies in the form that the surface-water
in a boiling copper would be in, if you could, by word of com-
mand, make it be still, the variously-shaped bubbles all sticking
up; and really, to look at the face of the earth, who can help
imagining that some such process has produced its present
form ? Leaving this matter to be solved by those who laugh at
mysteries, I repeat, that the country round Winchester does
not present to us beauties of this sort ; but of a sort which I like
a great deal better. Arthur Young calls the vale between
Farnham and Alton the finest ten miles in England. Here is a

292

Winchester to Burghclere 293

river with fine meadows on each side of it, and with rising
grounds on each outside of the meadows, those grounds having
some hop-gardens and some pretty woods. But, though I was
born in this vale, I must confess that the ten miles between
Maidstone and Tunbridge (which the Kentish folks call the
Garden of Eden) is a great deal finer; for here, with a river three
times as big, and a vale three times as broad, there are, on rising
grounds six times as broad, not only hop-gardens and beautiful
woods, but immense orchards of apples, pears, plums, cherries
and filberts, and these, in many cases, with gooseberries and
currants and raspberries beneath; and, all taken together, the
vale is really worthy of the appellation which it bears. But
even this spot, which I believe to be the very finest, as to
fertility and diminutive beauty, in this whole world, I, for my
part, do not like so well; nay, as a spot to live on, I thing nothing
at all of it, compared with a country where high downs prevail,
with here and there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill,
and where you see, in the deep dells, here and there a farm-
house, and here and there a village, the buildings sheltered by
a group of lofty trees.

This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hampshire, it has
its full gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a
great down, with two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it,
belonging to different farms ; and to see, lower down, the folds,
in the fields, ready to receive them for the night. We had,
when we got upon the downs, after leaving Winchester, this
sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our point of
destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close under
the north side of the lofty hill at Highclere, which is called
Beacon-hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of
a Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on
Winchester downs ; and without any regard to roads, we steered
for it, as sailors do for a land-mark. Of these 13 miles (from
Winchester to Whitchurch) we rode about eight or nine upon the
green-sward, or over fields equally smooth. And here is one
great pleasure of living in countries of this sort: no sloughs, no
ditches, no nasty dirty lanes, and the hedges, where there are
any, are more for boundary marks than for fences. Fine for
hunting and coursing: no impediments; no gates to open;
nothing to impede the dogs, the horses, or the view. The water
is not seen running ; but the great bed of chalk holds it, and the
sun draws it up for the benefit of the grass and the corn; and
whatever inconvenience is experienced from the necessity of

294 Rural Rides

deep wells, and of driving sheep and cattle far to water, is amply
made up for by the goodness of the water, and by the complete
absence of floods, of drains, of ditches and of water-furrows.
As things now are, however, these countries have one great
draw-back: the poor day-labourers suffer from the want of fuel,
and they have nothing but their bare pay. For these reasons
they are greatly worse off than those of the woodland countries;
and it is really surprising what a difference there is between the
faces that you see here, and the round, red faces that you see
in the wealds and the forests, particularly in Sussex, where the
labourers will have a meat-pudding of some sort or other; and
where they will have afire to sit by in the winter.

After steering for some time, we came down to a very fine
farm-house, which we stopped a little to admire; and I asked
Richard whether that was not a place to be happy in. The
village, which we found to be Stoke-Charity, was about a mile
lower down this little vale. Before we got to it, we overtook
the owner of the farm, who knew me, though I did not know
him ; but when I found it was Mr. Hinton Bailey, of whom and
whose farm I had heard so much, I was not at all surprised at
the fineness of what I had just seen. I told him that the word
charity, making, as it did, part of the name of this place, had
nearly inspired me with boldness enough to go to the farm-
house, in the ancient style, and ask for something to eat; for
that we had not yet breakfasted. He asked us to go back;
but at Burghclere we were resolved to dine. After, however,
crossing the village, and beginning again to ascend the downs,
we came to a labourer's (once a farm-house}, where I asked the
man whether he had any bread and cheese, and was not a little
pleased to hear him say " Yes." Then I asked him to give
us a bit, protesting that we had not yet broken our fast. He
answered in the affirmative, at once, though I did not talk of
payment. His wife brought out the cut loaf, and a piece of
Wiltshire cheese, and I took them in hand, gave Richard a good
hunch, and took another for myself. I verily believe that all
the pleasure of eating enjoyed by all the feeders in London in
a whole year does not equal that which we enjoyed in gnawing
this bread and cheese, as we rode over this cold down, whip and
bridle-reins in one hand, and the hunch in the other. Richard,
who was purse bearer, gave the woman, by my direction, about
enough to buy two quartern loaves: for she told me that they
had to buy their bread at the mill, not being able to bake them-
selves for want of fuel ; and this, as I said before, is one of the

Winchester to Burghclere 295

draw-backs in this sort of country. I wish every one of these
people had an American fireplace. Here they might then, even
in these bare countries, have comfortable warmth. Rubbish
of any sort would, by this means, give them warmth. I am
now, at six o'clock in the morning, sitting in a room where one
of these fireplaces, with very light turf in it, gives as good and
steady a warmth as it is possible to feel, and which room has, too,
been cured of smoking by this fireplace.

Before we got this supply of bread and cheese, we, though in
ordinary times a couple of singularly jovial companions, and
seldom going a hundred yards (except going very fast) without
one or the other speaking, began to grow dull, or rather glum.
The way seemed long; and, when I had to speak in answer to
Richard, the speaking was as brief as might be. Unfortunately,
just at this critical period, one of the loops that held the straps
of Richard's little portmanteau broke; and it became necessary
(just before we overtook Mr. Bailey) for me to fasten the port-
manteau on before me, upon my saddle. This, which was not
the work of more than five minutes, would, had I had a breakfast,
have been nothing at all, and, indeed, matter of laughter. But,
now, it was something. It was his "fault ': for capering and
jerking about " so." I jumped off, saying, " Here ! I'll carry it
myself" And then I began to take off the remaining strap,
pulling with great violence and in great haste. Just at this
time my eyes met his, in which I saw great surprise ; and, feeling
the just rebuke, feeling heartily ashamed of myself, I instantly
changed my tone and manner, cast the blame upon the saddler,
and talked of the effectual means which we would take to
prevent the like in future.

Now, if such was the effect produced upon me by the want of
food for only two or three hours; me, who had dined well the
day before and eaten toast and butter the over-night; if the
missing of only one breakfast, and that, too, from my own whim,
while I had money in my pocket, to get one at any public-house,
and while I could get one only for asking for at any farm-house;
if the not having breakfasted could, and under such circum-
stances, make me what you may call " cross " to a child like this,
whom I must necessarily love so much, and to whom I never
speak but in the very kindest manner; if this mere absence of a
breakfast could thus put me out of temper, how great are the
allowances that we ought to make for the poor creatures who, in
this once happy and now miserable country, are doomed to lead
a life of constant labour and of half-starvation. I suppose that,

296 Rural Rides

as we rode away from the cottage, we gnawed up, between us, a
pound of bread and a quarter of a pound of cheese. Here was
about five-pence worth at present prices. Even this, which was
only a mere snap, a mere stay-stomach, for us, would, for us two,
come to 35. a week all but a penny. How, then, gracious God !
is a labouring man, his wife, and, perhaps, four or five small
children, to exist upon 8s. or 95. a week ! Aye, and to find house-
rent, clothing, bedding and fuel out of it? Richard and I ate
here, at his snap, more, and much more, than the average of
labourers, their wives and children, have to eat in a whole day,
and that the labourer has to work on too !

When we got here to Burghclere, we were again as hungry as
hunters. What, then, must be the life of these poor creatures?
But is not the state of the country, is not the hellishness of the
system, all depicted in this one disgraceful and damning fact,
that the magistrates, who settle on what the labouring poor
ought to have to live on, ALLOW THEM LESS THAN is ALLOWED TO
FELONS IN THE GAOLS, and allow them nothing for clothing and
fuel and house-rent I And yet, while this is notoriously the case,
while the main body of the working class in England are fed
and clad and even lodged wor3e than felons, and are daily
becoming even worse and worse off, the king is advised to tell
the parliament, and the world, that we are in a state of un-
exampled prosperity, and that this prosperity must be permanent,
because all the GREAT interests are prospering 1 THE WORK-
ING PEOPLE ARE NOT, THEN, " A GREAT INTEREST " !
THEY WILL BE FOUND TO BE ONE, BY AND BY.
What is to be the end of this? What can be the end of it, but
dreadful convulsion ? What other can be produced by a system,
which allows the felon better food, better clothing, and better
lodging than the honest labourer ?

I see that there has been a grand humanity-meeting in Norfolk,
to assure the parliament that these humanity-people will back
it in any measures that it may adopt for freeing the NEGROES.
Mr. Buxton figured here, also Lord Suffield, who appear to have
been the two principal actors, or showers-off. This same Mr.
Buxton opposed the bill intended to relieve the poor in England
by breaking a little into the brewers' monopoly; and, as to Lord
Suffield, if he really wish to free slaves, let him go to Wykham
in this county, where he will see some drawing, like horses,
gravel to repair the roads for the stock-jobbers and dead-weight
and the seat-dealers to ride smoothly on. If he go down a little
further, he will see CONVICTS AT PRECISELY THE SAME WORK,

Winchester to Burghclere 297

harnessed in JUST THE SAME WAY ; but the convicts he will find
hale and ruddy-cheeked, in dresses sufficiently warm, and
bawling and singing; while he will find the labourers thin,
ragged, shivering, dejected mortals, such as never were seen in
any other country upon earth. There is not a negro in the West
Indies who has not more to eat in a day than the average of
English labourers have to eat in a week, and of better food too.
Colonel Wodehouse and a man of the name of Hoseason (whence
came he?), who opposed this humanity-scheme, talked of the
sums necessary to pay the owners of the slaves. They took
special care not to tell the humanity-men to look at home for
slaves to free. No, no! that would have applied to themselves,
as well as to Lord Suffield and humanity Buxton. If it were
worth while to reason with these people, one might ask them,
whether they do not think that another war is likely to relieve
them of all these cares, simply by making the colonies transfer
their allegiance or assert their independence? But to reason
with them is useless. If they can busy themselves with com-
passion for the negroes, while they uphold the system that makes
the labourers of England more wretched, and beyond all measure
more wretched than any negro slaves are, or ever were, or ever
can be, they are unworthy of anything but our contempt.

But the " education " canters are the most curious fellows
of all. They have seen " education " as they call it, and crimes,
go on increasing together, till the gaols, though six times their
former dimensions, will hardly suffice; and yet the canting
creatures still cry that crimes arise from want of what they call
" education ! " They see the felon better fed and better clad
than the honest labourer. They see this; and yet they con-
tinually cry that the crimes arise from a want of " education ! "
What can be the cause of this perverseness ? It is not perverse-
ness: it is roguery, corruption, and tyranny. The tyrant, the
unfeeling tyrant, squeezes the labourers for gain's sake; and the
corrupt politician and literary or tub rogue find an excuse for
him by pretending that it is not want of food and clothing, but
want of education, that makes the poor, starving wretches
thieves and robbers. If the press, if only the press, were to do
its duty, or but a tenth part of its duty, this hellish system could
not go on. But it favours the system by ascribing the misery
to wrong causes. The causes are these : the tax-gatherer presses
the landlord; the landlord the farmer; and the farmer the
labourer. Here it falls at last; and this class is made so miser-
able, that & felon's life is better than that of a labourer. Does

*/>oo
T OtJO

Rural Rides

there want any other cause to produce crimes? But on these
causes, so clear to the eye of reason, so plain from experience, the
press scarcely ever says a single word; while it keeps bothering
our brains about education and morality; and about ignorance
and immorality leading to felonies. To be sure immorality
leads to felonies. Who does not know that? But who is to
expect morality in a half-starved man, who is whipped if he do
not work, though he has not, for his whole day's food, so much as
I and my little boy snapped up in six or seven minutes upon
Stoke-Charity down? Aye! but if the press were to ascribe
the increase of crimes to the true causes, it must go further back.
It must go to the cause of the taxes. It must go to the debt, the
dead-weight, the thundering standing army, the enormous sine-
cures, pensions, and grants; and this would suit but a very small
part of a press, which lives and thrives principally by one or the
other of these.

As with the press, so is it with Mr. Brougham, and all such
politicians. They stop short, or, rather, they begin in the
middle. They attempt to prevent the evils of the deadly ivy by
cropping off, or, rather, bruising a little, a few of its leaves.
They do not assail even its branches, while they appear to look
upon the trunk as something too sacred even to be looked at with
vulgar eyes. Is not the injury recently done to about forty
thousand poor families in and near Plymouth, by the Small-note
Bill, a thing that Mr. Brougham ought to think about before he
thinks anything more about educating those poor families?
Yet, will he, when he again meets the ministers, say a word
about this monstrous evil? I am afraid that no member will
say a word about it; I am rather more than afraid that he will
not. And why ? Because, if he reproach the ministers with
this crying cruelty, they will ask him first, how this is to be
prevented without a repeal of the Small-note Bill (by which
Peel's Bill was partly repealed); then they will ask him how
the prices are to be kept up without the small-notes; then they
will say, " Does the honourable and learned gentleman wish to
see wheat at four shillings a bushel again ? '

B. No (looking at Mr. Western and Daddy Coke), no, no, no !
Upon my honour, no !

MIN. Does the honourable and learned gentleman wish to see
Cobbett again at county meetings, and to see petitions again
coming from those meetings, calling for a reduction of the
interest of the . . . ?

B. No, no, no, upon my soul, no !

Winchester to Burghclere 299

MIN. Does the honourable and learned gentleman wish to
see that " equitable adjustment," which Cobbett has a thousand
times declared can never take place without an application, to
new purposes, of that great mass of public property, commonly
called Church property?

B. (Almost bursting with rage) How dare the honourable
gentleman to suppose me capable of such a thought?

MIN. We suppose nothing. We only ask the question; and
we ask it, because to put an end to the small notes would
inevitably produce all these things; and it is impossible to have
small notes to the extent necessary to keep up prices, without
having, now and then, breaking banks. Banks cannot break
without producing misery; you must have the consequence, if
you will have the cause. The honourable and learned gentle-
man wants the feast without the reckoning. In short, is the
honourable and learned gentleman for putting an end to " public
credit " ?

B. No, no, no, no !

MIN. Then would it not be better for the honourable and
learned gentleman to hold his tongue ?

All men of sense and sincerity will, at once, answer this last
question in the affirmative. They will all say that this is not
opposition to the ministers. The ministers do not wish to see
40,000 families, nor any families at all (who give them no real
annoyance}, reduced to misery; they do not wish to cripple their
own tax-payers; very far from it. If they could carry on the
debt and dead-weight and place and pension and barrack system,
without reducing any quiet people to misery, they would like it
exceedingly; But they do wish to carry on that system; and
he does not oppose them who does not endeavour to put an end
to the system.

This is done by nobody in parliament; and, therefore, there
is, in fact, no opposition ; and this is felt by the whole nation;
and this is the reason why the people now take so little interest
in what is said and done in parliament, compared to that which
they formerly took. This is the reason why there is no man, or
men, whom the people seem to care at all about. A great
portion of the people now clearly understand the nature and
effects of the system ; they are not now to be deceived by speeches
and professions. If Pitt and Fox had now to start, there would
be no " Pittites ' and " Foxites." Those happy days of
political humbug are gone for ever. The " gentlemen opposite "
are opposite only as to mere local position. They sit on the

300 Rural Rides

opposite side of the house: that's all. In every other respect
they are like parson and clerk; or, perhaps, rather more like
the rooks and jackdaws : one caw and the other chatter ; but both
have the same object in view: both are in pursuit of the same
sort of diet. One set is, to be sure, IN place, and the other OUT;
but though the rooks keep the jackdaws on the inferior branches,
these latter would be as clamorous as the rooks themselves
against felling the tree ; and just as clamorous would the " gentle-
men opposite " be against any one who should propose to put
down the system itself. And yet, unless you do that, things
must go on in the present way, and felons must be better fed than
honest labourers ; and starvation and thieving and robbing and
gaol-building and transporting and hanging and penal laws must
go on increasing, as they have gone on from the day of the estab-
lishment of the debt to the present hour. Apropos of penal
laws, Doctor Black (of the Morning Chronicle) is now filling
whole columns with very just remarks on the new and terrible
law, which makes the taking of an apple felony ; but he says
not a word about the silence of Sir Jammy (the humane code-
softener] upon this subject! The "humanity and liberality'
of the parliament have relieved men addicted to fraud and to
certain other crimes from the disgrace of the pillory, and they
have, since Castlereagh cut his own throat, relieved self-slayers
from the disgrace of the cross-road burial; but the same parlia-
ment, amidst all the workings of this rare humanity and liberality,
have made it felony to take an apple off a tree, which last year
was a trivial trespass, and was formerly no offence at all ! How-
ever, even this is necessary, as long as this bank note system
continue in its present way; and all complaints about severity
of laws, levelled at the poor, are useless and foolish ; and these
complaints are even base in those who do their best to uphold a
system which has brought the honest labourer to be fed worse than
the felon. What, short of such laws, can prevent starving men
from coming to take away the dinners of those who have plenty?
" Education I ' Despicable cant and nonsense ! What educa-
tion, what moral precepts, can quiet the gnawings and ragings of
hunger?

Looking, now, back again, for a minute to the little village of
Stoke Charity, the name of which seems to indicate that its
rents formerly belonged wholly to the poor and indigent part of
the community: it is near to Winchester, that grand scene of
ancient learning, piety and munificence. Be this as it may, the
parish formerly contained ten farms, and it now contains but

Winchester to Burghclere 301

two, which are owned by Mr. Hinton Bailey and his nephew,
and, therefore, which may probably become one. There used to
be ten well-fed families in this parish, at any rate : these, taking
five to a family, made fifty well-fed people. And now all are
half-starved, except the curate and the two families. The
blame is not the landowner's; it is nobody's; it is due to the
infernal funding and taxing system, which of necessity drives
property into large masses in order to save itself ; which crushes
little proprietors down into labourers; and which presses them
down in that state, there takes their wages from them and
makes them paupers, their share of food and raiment being
taken away to support debt and dead-weight and army and all
the rest of the enormous expenses, which are required to sustain
this intolerable system. Those, therefore, are fools or hypocrites
who affect to wish to better the lot of the poor labourers and
manufacturers, while they, at the same time, either actively or
passively, uphold the system which is the manifest cause of it.
Here is a system which, clearly as the nose upon your face, you
see taking away the little gentleman's estate, the little farmer's
farm, the poor labourer's meat-dinner and Sunday-coat; and
while you see this so plainly, you, fool or hypocrite, as you are,
cry out for supporting the system that causes it all! Go on,
base wretch; but remember, that of such a progress dreadful
must be the end. The day will come when millions of long-
suffering creatures will be in a state that they and you now little
dream of. All that we now behold of combinations and the like
are mere indications of what the great body of the suffering
people feel, and of the thoughts that are passing in their minds.
The coaxing work of schools and tracts will only add to what would
be quite enough without them. There is not a labourer in the
whole country who does not see to the bottom of this coaxing
work. They are not deceived in this respect. Hunger has opened
their eyes. I'll engage that there is not, even in this obscure
village of Stoke Charity, one single creature, however forlorn,
who does not understand all about the real motives of the school
and the tract and Bible affair as well as Butterworth, or Riving-
ton, or as Joshua Watson himself.

Just after we had finished the bread and cheese, we crossed
the turnpike-road that goes from Basingstoke to Stockbridge;
and Mr. Bailey had told us that we were then to bear away to
our right, and go to the end of a wood (which we saw one end of),
and keep round with that wood, or coppice, as he called it, to our
left; but we, seeing Beacon Hill more to the left, and resolving

302 Rural Rides

to go, as nearly as possible, in a straight line to it, steered directly
over the fields; that is to say, pieces of ground from 30 to 100
acres in each. But a hill which we had to go over, had here
hidden from our sight a part ot this " coppice," which consists,
perhaps, of 150 or 200 acres, and which we found sweeping
round, in a crescent-like form so far, from towards our left, as to
bring our land-mark over the coppice at about the mid-length
of the latter. Upon this discovery we slackened sail; for this
coppice might be a mile across ; and though the bottom was sound
enough, being a coverlet of flints upon a bed of chalk, the under-
wood was too high and too thick for us to face, being, as we were,
at so great a distance from the means of obtaining a fresh supply
of clothes. Our leather leggings would have stood anything;
but our coats were of the common kind; and before we saw
the other side of the coppice we should, I dare say, have been as
ragged as forest-ponies in the month of March.

In this dilemma I stopped, and looked at the coppice. Luckily
two boys, who had been cutting sticks (to sell, I dare say, at
least / hope so), made their appearance, at about half a mile off
on the side for the coppice. Richard galloped off to the boys,
from whom he found that, in one part of the coppice, there was
a road cut across, the point of entrance into which road they
explained to him. This was to us what the discovery of a canal
across the isthmus of Darien would be to a ship in the Gulf of
Mexico wanting to get into the Pacific without doubling Cape
Horn. A beautiful road we found it. I should suppose the
best part of a mile long, perfectly straight, the surface sound
and smooth, about eight feet wide, the whole length seen at
once, and, when you are at one end, the other end seeming to
be hardly a yard wide. When we got about half way, we found
a road that crossed this. These roads are, I suppose, cut for the
hunters. They are very pretty, at any rate, and we found this
one very convenient; for it cut our way short by a full half
mile.

From this coppice to Whitchurch is not more than about
four miles, and we soon reached it, because here you begin to
descend into the vale in which this little town lies, and through
which there runs that stream which turns the mill of 'Squire
Portal, and which mill makes the Bank of England note-paper !
Talk of the Thames and the Hudson with their forests of masts;
talk of the Nile and the Delaware bearing the food of millions
on their bosoms; talk of the Ganges and the Mississippi sending
forth over the world their silks and their cottons; talk of the

Winchester to Burghclere 303

Rio de la Plata and the other rivers, their beds pebbled with
silver and gold and diamonds. What as to their effect on the
condition of mankind, as to the virtues, the vices, the enjoy-
ments and the sufferings of men; what are all these rivers put
together compared with the river of Whitchurch, which a man
of threescore may jump across dry-shod, which moistens a
quarter of a mile wide of poor, rushy meadow, which washes the
skirts of the park and game preserves of that bright patrician
who wedded the daughter of Hanson, the attorney and late
solicitor to the Stamp Office, and which is, to look at it, of far
less importance than any gutter in the Wen! Yet this river,
by merely turning a wheel, which wheel sets some rag-tearers
and grinders and washers and re-compressers in motion, has
produced a greater effect on the condition of men than has been
produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the seas,
all the mines and all the continents in the world. The discovery
of America, and the consequent discovery and use of vast
quantities of silver and gold, did, indeed, produce great effects
on the nations of Europe. They changed the value of money,
and caused, as all such changes must, a transfer of property,
raising up new families and pulling down old ones, a transfer
very little favourable either to morality, or to real and sub-
stantial liberty. But this cause worked slowly ; its consequences
came on by slow degrees ; it made a transfer of property, but it
made that transfer in so small a degree, and it left the property
quiet in the hands of the new possessor for so long a time, that
the effect was not violent, and was not, at any rate, such as to
uproot possessors by whole districts, as the hurricane uproots
the forests.

Not so the product of the little sedgy rivulet of Whitchurch !
It has, in the short space of a hundred and thirty-one years,
and, indeed, in the space of the last forty, caused greater changes
as to property than had been caused by all other things put
together in the long course of seven centuries, though during
that course there had been a sweeping, confiscating Protestant
reformation. Let us look back to the place where I started
on this present rural ride. Poor old Baron Maseres succeeded
at Reigate by little Parson Fellowes, and at Betchworth (three
miles on my road) by Kendrick, is no bad instance to begin with;
for the Baron was nobly descended, though from French
ancestors. At Albury, fifteen miles on my road, Mr. Drummond
(a banker) is in the seat of one of the Howards, and, close by, he
has bought the estate, just pulled down the house, and blotted

304 Rural Rides

out the memory of the Godschalls. At Chilworth, two miles
further down the same vale, and close under St. Martha's Hill,
Mr. Tinkler, a powder-maker (succeeding Hill, another powder-
maker, who had been a breeches-maker at Hounslow) has got
the old mansion and the estate of the old Duchess of Marlborough,
who frequently resided in what was then a large quadrangular
mansion, but the remains of which now serve as out farm-
buildings and a farm-house, which I found inhabited by a poor
labourer and his family, the farm being in the hands of the
powder-maker, who does not find the once noble seat good
enough for him. Coming on to Waverley Abbey, there is Mr.
Thompson, a merchant, succeeding the Orby Hunters and Sir
Robert Rich. Close adjoining, Mr. Laing, a West India dealer
of some sort, has stepped into the place of the lineal descendants
of Sir William Temple. At Farnham the park and palace
remain in the hands of a Bishop of Winchester, as they have
done for about eight hundred years : but why is this ? Because
they are public property; because they cannot, without express
laws, be transferred. Therefore the product of the rivulet of
Whitchurch has had no effect upon the ownership of these,
which are still in the hands of a Bishop of Winchester; not of a
William of Wykham, to be sure; but still in those of a bishop,
at any rate. Coming on to old Alresford (twenty miles from
Farnham) Sheriff, the son of a Sheriff, who was a commissary
in the Ajnerican war, has succeeded the Gages. Two miles
further on, at Abbotston (down on the side of the Itchen)
Alexander Baring has succeeded the heirs and successors of the
Duke of Bolton, the remains of whose noble mansion I once
saw here. Not above a mile higher up, the same Baring has,
at the Grange, with its noble mansion, park and estate, suc-
ceeded the heirs of Lord Northington; and at only about two
miles further, Sir Thomas Baring, at Stratton Park, has suc-
ceeded the Russells in the ownership of the estates of Stratton
and Micheldover, which were once the property of Alfred the
Great! Stepping back, and following my road, down by the
side of the meadows of the beautiful river Itchen, and coming to
Easton, I look across to Martyr's Worthy, and there see (as I
observed before) the Ogles succeeded by a general or a colonel
somebody; but who, or whence, I cannot learn.

This is all in less than four score miles, from Reigate even to
this place where I now am. Oh ! mighty rivulet of Whitchurch !
All our properties, all our laws, all our manners, all our minds,
you have changed ! This, which I have noticed, has all taken

Winchester to Burghclere 305

place within forty, and, most of it, within ten years. The small
gentry, to about the third rank upwards (considering there to be
five ranks from the smallest gentry up to the greatest nobility),
are all gone, nearly to a man, and the small farmers along with
them. The Barings alone have, I should think, swallowed up
thirty or forty of these small gentry without perceiving it.
They, indeed, swallow up the biggest race of all; but innumerable
small fry slip down unperceived, like caplins down the throats
of the sharks, while these latter/^/ only the cod-fish. It fre-
quently happens, too, that a big gentleman or nobleman, whose
estate has been big enough to resist for a long while, and who
has swilled up many caplin-gentry, goes down the throat of the
loan-dealer with all the caplins in his belly.

Thus the Whitchurch rivulet goes on, shifting property from
hand to hand. The big, in order to save themselves from being

' swallowed up quick " (as we used to be taught to say, in our
Church prayers against Buonaparte), make use of their voices
to get, through place, pension, or sinecure, something back from
the taxes. Others of them fall in love with the daughters and
widows of paper-money people, big brewers, and the like; and
sometimes their daughters fall in love with the paper-money
people's sons, or the fathers of those sons; and whether they
be Jews, or not, seems to be little matter with this all-subduing
passion of love. But the small gentry have no resource. While
war lasted, " glorious war," there was a resource; but now, alas !
not only is there no war, but there is no hope of war ; and not
a few of them will actually come to the parish-book. There is no
place for them in the army, church, navy, customs, excise,
pension-list, or anywhere else. All these are now wanted by

1 their betters." A stock-jobber's family will not look at such
pennyless things. So that, while they have been the active,
the zealous, the efficient instruments, in compelling the working
classes to submit to half-starvation, they have at any rate been
brought to the most abject ruin themselves; for which I most
heartily thank God. The " harvest of war " is never to return
without a total blowing up of the paper-system. Spain must
belong to France, St. Domingo must pay her tribute. America
must be paid for slaves taken away in war, she must have
Florida, she must go on openly and avowedly making a navy
for the purpose of humbling us; and all this, and ten times more,
if France and America should choose; and yet we can have
no war as long as the paper-system last; and if that cease, then

what is to come I

306

Rural Rides

BURGHCLERE,

Sunday Morning, 6 November.

It has been fine all the week, until to-day, when we intended
to set off for Hurstbourn-Tarrant, vulgarly called Uphusband,
but the rain seems as if it would stop us. From Whitchurch to
within two miles of this place, it is the same sort of country
as between Winchester and Whitchurch. High, chalk bottom,
open downs or large fields, with here and there a farm-house
in a dell, sheltered by lofty trees, which, to my taste, is the most
pleasant situation in the world.

This has been, with Richard, one whole week of hare-hunting,
and with me, three days and a half. The weather has been
amongst the finest that I ever saw, and Lord Caernarvon's
preserves fill the country with hares, while these hares invite
us to ride about and to see his park and estate, at this fine season
of the year, in every direction. We are now on the north side
of that Beacon Hill for which we steered last Sunday. This
makes part of a chain of lofty chalk-hills and downs, which
divides all the lower part of Hampshire from Berkshire, though
the ancient ruler, owner, of the former took a little strip all
along, on the flat, on this side of the chain, in order, I suppose,
to make the ownership of the hills themselves the more clear of
all dispute; just as the owner of a field-hedge and bank owns
also the ditch on his neighbour's side. From these hills you
look, at one view, over the whole of Berkshire, into Oxfordshire,
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and you can see the Isle of Wight
and the sea. On this north side the chalk soon ceases, the sand
and clay begin, and the oak-woods cover a great part of the
surface. Amongst these is the farm-house in which we are,
and from the warmth and good fare of which we do not mean
to stir until we can do it without the chance of a wet skin.

This rain has given me time to look at the newspapers of about
a week old. Oh, oh! The cotton lords are tearing! Thank
God for that! The lords of the anvil are snapping! Thank
God for that too ! They have kept poor souls, then, in a heat
of 84 degrees to little purpose, after all. The " great interests '
mentioned in the king's speech do not, then, all continue to
flourish ! The " prosperity ' was not, then, " permanent ':
though the king was advised to assert so positively that it
was ! ;' Anglo-Mexican and Pasco-Peruvian " fall in price, and
the Chronicle assures me that " the respectable owners of the
Mexican mining shares mean to take measures to protect their

Winchester to Burghclere 307

property" Indeed! Like protecting the Spanish bonds, I
suppose? Will the Chronicle be so good as to tell us the names
of these "respectable persons?' Doctor Black must know
their names; or else he could not know them to be respectable.
If the parties be those that I have heard, these mining works
may possibly operate with them as an emetic, and make them
throw up a part, at least, of what they have taken down.

There has, I see, at New York been that confusion which I,
four months ago, said would and must take place; that breaking
of merchants and all the ruin which, in such a case, spreads
itself about, ruining families and producing fraud and despair.
Here will be, between the two countries, an interchange of cause
and effect, proceeding from the dealings in cotton, until, first
and last, two or three hundred thousands of persons have, at one
spell of paper-money work, been made to drink deep of misery.
I pity none but the poor English creatures who are compelled
to work on the wool of this accursed weed, which has done so
much mischief to England. The slaves who cultivate and gather
the cotton are well fed. They do not suffer. The sufferers
are those who spin it and weave it and colour it, and the wretched
beings who cover with it those bodies which, as in the time
of old Fortescue, ought to be " clothed throughout in good
woollens."

One newspaper says that Mr. Huskisson is gone to Paris, and
thinks it likely that he will endeavour to " inculcate in the mind
of the Bourbons wise principles oifree trade 1 " What the devil
next ! Persuade them, I suppose, that it is for their good, that
English goods should be admitted into France and into St.
Domingo with little or no duty? Persuade them to make a
treaty of commerce with him; and, in short, persuade them to
make France help to pay the interest of our debt and dead-weight,
lest our system of paper should go to pieces, and lest that should
be followed by a radical reform, which reform would be injurious
to ' the monarchical principle ! " This newspaper politician
does, however, think that the Bourbons will be " too dull " to
comprehend these " enlightened and liberal " notions; and I
think so too. I think the Bourbons, or, rather, those who will
speak for them, will say: " No thank you. You contracted
your debt without our participation; you made your dead-
weight for your own purposes; the seizure of our museums and
the loss of our frontier towns followed your victory of Waterloo,
though we were ' your Allies ' at the time; you made us pay an
enormous tribute after that battle, and kept possession of part

308 Rural Rides

of France till we had paid it; you wished, the other day, to keep
us out of Spain, and you, Mr. Huskisson, in a speech at Liverpool,
called our deliverance of the King of Spain an unjust and un-
principled act of aggression, while Mr. Canning prayed to God
that we might not succeed. No thank you, Mr. Huskisson, no.
No coaxing, sir: we saw, then, too clearly the advantage we
derived from your having a debt and a dead-weight, to wish to
assist in relieving you from either. ' Monarchical principle '
here, or ' monarchical principle ' there, we know that your
mill-stone debt is our best security. We like to have your
wishes, your prayers, and your abuse against us, rather than
your subsidies and your fleets : and so, farewell, Mr. Huskisson:
if you like, the English may drink French wine; but whether
they do or not, the French shall not wear your rotten cottons.
And, as a last word, how did you maintain the ' monarchical
principle/ the ' paternal principle/ or as Castlereagh called it,
the ' social system/ when you called that an unjust and un-
principled aggression which put an end to the bargain by
which the convents and other church-property of Spain were
to be transferred to the Jews and jobbers of London? Bon
jour, Monsieur Huskisson, ci-devant membre et orateur du club
de quatre vingt neuf ! '

If they do not actually say this to him, this is what they
will think; and that is, as to the effect, precisely the same thing.
It is childishness to suppose that any nation will act from a
desire of serving all other nations, or any one other nation, as well
as itself. It will make, unless compelled, no compact by which
it does not think itself a gainer ; and amongst its gains, it must,
and always does, reckon the injury to its rivals. It is a stupid
idea that all nations are to gain by anything. Whatever is the
gain of one, must, in some way or other, be a loss to another.
So that this new project of " free trade " and " mutual gain '
is as pure a humbug as that which the newspapers carried on,
during the " glorious days " of loans, when they told us, at
every loan, that the bargain was " equally advantageous to the
contractors and to the public! ' The fact is the " free trade '
project is clearly the effect of a consciousness of our weakness.
As long as we felt strong, we felt bold, we had no thought of
conciliating the world; we upheld a system of exclusion, which
long experience proved to be founded in sound policy. But we
now find that our debts and our loads of various sorts cripple
us. We feel our incapacity for the carrying of trade sword in
hand: and so we have given up all our old maxims, and are

Winchester to Burghclere 309

endeavouring to persuade the world that we are anxious to
enjoy no advantages that are not enjoyed also by our neigh-
bours. Alas! the world sees very clearly the cause of all this;
and the world laughs at us for our imaginary cunning. My old
doggrel, that used to make me and my friends laugh in Long
Island, is precisely pat to this case.

When his maw was stuffed with paper,
How John Bull did prance and caper!
How he foam'd and how he roar'd:
How his neighbours all he gored !
How he scrap'd the ground and hurl'd
Dirt and filth on all the world !
But John Bull of paper empty,
Though in midst of peace and plenty,
Is modest grown as worn-out sinner,
As Scottish laird that wants a dinner;
As Wilberforce, become content
A rotten burgh to represent ;
As Blue and Buff, when, after hunting
On Yankee coasts their " bits of bunting,"
Came softly back across the seas,
And silent were as mice in cheese.

Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the
Yankees, see very clearly the course of this fit of modesty and
of liberality into which we have so recently fallen. They know
well that a war would play the very devil with our national
faith. They know, in short, that no ministers in their senses
will think of supporting the paper system through another war.
They know well that no ministers that now exist, or are likely
to exist, will venture to endanger the paper-system; and there-
fore they know that (for England) they may now do just what
they please. When the French were about to invade Spain,
Mr. Canning said that his last despatch on the subject was to be
understood as a protest, on the part of England, against per-
manent occupation of any part of Spain by France. There the
French are, however; and at the end of two years and a half
he says that he knows nothing about any intention that they
have to quit Spain, or any part of it.

Why, Saint Domingo was independent. We had traded with
it as an independent state. Is it not clear that if we had said
the word (and had been known to be able to arm}, France would
not have attempted to treat that fine and rich country as a
colony ? Mark how wise this measure of France ! How just, too ;
to obtain by means of a tribute from the St. Domingoians
compensation for the loyalists of that country! Was this done
with regard to the loyalists of America, in the reign of the good

3 lo Rural Rides

jubilee George III.? Oh, no! Those loyalists had to be paid,
and many of them have even yet, at the end of more than half
a century, to be paid out of taxes raised on us, for the losses
occasioned by their disinterested loyalty! This was a master-
stroke on the part of France; she gets about seven millions
sterling in the way of tribute; she makes that rich island yield
to her great commercial advantages; and she, at the same time,
paves the way for effecting one of two objects; namely, getting
the island back again, or throwing our islands into confusion,
whenever it shall be her interest to do it.

This might have been prevented by a word from us, if we had
been ready for war. But we are grown modest ; we are grown
liberal ; we do not want to engross that which fairly belongs
to our neighbours! We have undergone a change, somewhat
like that which marriage produces on a blustering fellow, who,
while single, can but just clear his teeth. This change is quite
surprising, and especially by the time that the second child
comes, the man is loaded ; he looks like a loaded man; his voice
becomes so soft and gentle compared to what it used to be.
Just such are the effects of our load : but the worst of it is, our
neighbours are not thus loaded. However, far be it from me to
regret this, or any part of it. The load is the people's best friend.
If that could, without reform ; if that could be shaken off, leaving
the seat-men and the parsons in their present state, I would not
live in England another day! And I say this with as much
seriousness as if I were upon my death-bed.

The wise men of the newspapers are for a repeal of the Corn
Laws. With all my heart. I will join anybody in a petition for
their repeal. But this will not be done. We shall stop short of
this extent of " liberality," let what may be the consequence
to the manufacturers. The cotton lords must all go, to the last
man, rather than a repeal of these laws will take place : and of
this the newspaper wise men may be assured. The farmers can
but just rub along now, with all their high prices and low
wages. What would be their state, and that of their landlords, if
the wheat were to come down again to 4, 5, or even 6 shillings
a bushel? Universal agricultural bankruptcy would be the
almost instant consequence. Many of them are now deep in
debt from the effects of 1820, 1821, and 1822. One more year
like 1822 would have broken the whole mass up, and left the
lands to be cultivated, under the overseers, for the benefit of the
paupers. Society would have been nearly dissolved, and the
state of nature would have returned. The Small-Note Bill, co-

Winchester to Burghclere 3 1 1

operating with the corn laws, have given a respite, and nothing
more. This bill must remain efficient, paper-money must cover
the country, and the corn laws must remain in force; or an
"equitable adjustment" must take place; or to a state of
nature this country must return. What, then, as 1 want a repeal
of the corn laws, and also want to get rid of the paper-money, I
must want to see this return to a state of nature ? By no means.
I want the " equitable adjustment," and I am quite sure that no
adjustment can be equitable which does not apply every penny's
worth of public property to the payment of the fund-holders
and dead-weight and the like. Clearly just and reasonable
as this is, however, the very mention of it makes the FIRE-
SHOVELS, and some others, half mad. It makes them storm and
rant and swear like Bedlamites. But it is curious to hear them
talk of the impracticability of it; when they all know that,
by only two or three acts of parliament, Henry VIII. did ten
times as much as it would now I hope be necessary to do. If the
duty were imposed on me, no statesman, legislator or lawyer,
but a simple citizen, I think I could, in less than twenty-four
hours, draw up an act, that would give satisfaction to, I will not
say every man; but to, at least, ninety-nine out of every hundred;
an act that would put all affairs of money and of religion to
rights at once; but that would, I must confess, soon take from us
that amiable modesty, of which I have spoken above, and which
is so conspicuously shown in our works of free trade and liberality.
The weather is clearing up; our horses are saddled, and we
are off.

FROM BURGHCLERE TO PETERSFIELD

HURSTBOURN TARRANT (OR UPHUSBAND),

Monday, 7 November, 1825.

WE came off from Burghclere yesterday afternoon, crossing
Lord Caernarvon's park, going out of it on the west side of
Beacon Hill, and sloping away to our right over the downs
towards Woodcote. The afternoon was singularly beautiful.
The downs (even the poorest of them) are perfectly green; the
sheep on the downs look, this year, like fatting sheep : we came
through a fine flock of ewes, and, looking round us, we saw, all
at once, seven flocks, on different parts of the downs, each flock
on an average containing at least 500 sheep.

It is about six miles from Burghclere to this place; and we
made it about twelve; not in order to avoid the turnpike-road;
but because we do not ride about to see turnpike-roads; and,
moreover, because I had seen this most monstrously hilly turn-
pike-road before. We came through a village called Woodcote,
and another called Binley. I never saw any inhabited places
more recluse than these. Yet into these the all-searching eye
of the taxing Thing reaches. Its exciseman can tell it what is
doing even in the little odd corner of Binley; for even there I
saw, over the door of a place not half so good as the place in
which my fowls roost, " Licensed to deal in tea and tobacco"
Poor, half-starved wretches of Binley! The hand of taxation,
the collection for the sinecures and pensions, must fix its nails
even in them, who really appeared too miserable to be called by
the name of people. Yet there was one whom the taxing Thing
had licensed (good God ! licensed /) to serve out cat-lap to these
wretched creatures! And our impudent and ignorant news-
paper scribes talk of the degraded state of the people of Spain I
Impudent impostors ! Can they show a group so wretched, so
miserable, so truly enslaved as this, in all Spain? No: and
those of them who are not sheer fools know it well. But there
would have been misery equal to this in Spain if the Jews and
jobbers could have carried the bond-scheme into effect. The
people of Spain were, through the instrumentality of patriot-
loan makers, within an inch of being made as " enlightened " as

312

Burghclere to Petersfield 3 1 3

the poor, starving things of Binley. They would soon have had
people " licensed " to make them pay the Jews for permission
to chew tobacco, or to have a light in their dreary abodes. The
people of Spain were preserved from this by the French army,
for which the Jews cursed the French army; and the same army
put an end to those " bonds," by means of which pious Pro-
testants hoped to be able to get at the convents in Spain, and
thereby put down " idolatry " in that country. These bonds
seem now not to be worth a farthing; and so after all the Spanish
people will have no one " licensed " by the Jews to make them
pay for turning the fat of their sheep into candles and soap.
These poor creatures that I behold here pass their lives amidst
flocks of sheep ; but never does a morsel of mutton enter their
lips. A labouring man told me, at Binley, that he had not tasted
meat since harvest; and his looks vouched for the statement.
Let the Spaniards come and look at this poor shotten-herring
of a creature ; and then let them estimate what is due to a set of
" enlightening " and loan-making " patriots." Old Fortescue
says that " the English are clothed in good woollens throughout,"
and that they have " plenty of flesh of all sorts to eat." Yes,
but at this time the nation was not mortgaged. The " enlighten-
ing '" patriots would have made Spain what England now is.
The people must never more, after a few years, have tasted
mutton, though living surrounded with flocks of sheep.

EASTON, NEAR WINCHESTER,

Wednesday Evening, 9 Nov.

I intended to go from Uphusband to Stonehenge, thence to
Old Sarum, and thence through the New Forest, to South-
ampton and Botley, and thence across into Sussex, to see Up-
Park, and Cowdry House. But, then, there must be no loss of
time : I must adhere to a certain route as strictly as a regiment
on a march. I had written the route: and Laverstock, after
seeing Stonehenge and Old Sarum, was to be the resting-place of
yesterday (Tuesday); but when it came, it brought rain with it
after a white frost on Monday. It was likely to rain again to-day.
It became necessary to change the route, as I must get to London
by a certain day; and as the first day, on the new route, brought
us here.

I had been three times at Uphusband before, and had, as my
readers will, perhaps, recollect, described the bourn here, or the
brook. It has, in general, no water at all in it from August to

314 Rural Rides

March. There is the bed of a little river; but no water. In
March, or thereabouts, the water begins to boil up, in thousands
upon thousands of places, in the little narrowmeadows, just above
the village; that is to say a little higher up the valley. When
the chalk hills are full; when the chalk will hold no more water;
then it comes out at the lowest spots near these immense hills
and becomes a rivulet first, and then a river. But until this
visit to Uphusband (or Hurstbourn Tarrant, as the map calls
it), little did I imagine that this rivulet, dry half the year, was
the head of the river Teste, which, after passing through Stock-
bridge and Rumsey, falls into the sea near Southampton.

We had to follow the bed of this river to Bourne; but there
the water begins to appear; and it runs all the year long about
a mile lower down. Here it crosses Lord Portsmouth's out-park,
and our road took us the same way to the village called Down
Husband, the scene (as the broadsheet tells us) of so many of
that noble lord's ringing and cart-driving exploits. Here we
crossed the London and Andover road, and leaving Andover to
our right and Whitchurch to our left, we came on to Long Parish,
where, crossing the water, we came up again on that high country
which continues all across to Winchester. After passing Bulling-
ton, Sutton, and Wonston, we veered away from Stoke Charity,
and came across the fields to the high down, whence you see
Winchester, or rather the cathedral; for, at this distance, you
can distinguish nothing else clearly.

As we had to come to this place, which is three miles up the
river Itchen from Winchester, we crossed the Winchester and
Basingstoke road at King's Worthy. This brought us, before
we crossed the river, along through Martyr's Worthy, so long
the seat of the Ogles, and now, as I observed in my last Register,
sold to a general or colonel. These Ogles had been deans, I
believe; or prebends, or something of that sort: and the one
that used to live here had been, and was when he died, an
" admiral." However, this last one, " Sir Charles," the loyal
address mover, is my man for the present. We saw, down by
the water-side, opposite to " Sir Charles's " late family mansion,
a beautiful strawberry garden, capable of being watered by
a branch of the Itchen which comes close by it, and which is,
I suppose, brought there on purpose. Just by, on the green-
sward, under the shade of very fine trees, is an alcove, wherein
to sit to eat the strawberries, coming from the little garden
just mentioned, and met by bowls of cream coming from a little
milk-house, shaded by another clump a little lower down the

Burghclere to Petersfield 315

stream. What delight! What a terrestrial paradise! "Sir
Charles " might be very frequently in this paradise, while that
Sidmouth, whose bill he so applauded, had many men shut up
in loathsome dungeons ! Ah, well ! " Sir Charles," those very
men may, perhaps, at this moment, envy neither you nor Sid-
mouth; no, nor Sidmouth's son and heir, even though Clerk of
the Pells. At any rate, it is not likely that " Sir Charles " will
sit again in this paradise, contemplating another loyal address,
to carry to a county meeting ready engrossed on parchment, to
be presented by Fleming and supported by Lockhart and the
" Hampshire parsons."

I think I saw, as I came along, the new owner of the estate.
It seems that he bought it " stock and fluke " as the sailors call
it; that is to say, that he bought movables and the whole.
He appeared to me to be a keen man. I can't find out where
he comes from, or what he, or his father, has been. I like to see
the revolution going on; but I like to be able to trace the parties
a little more closely. " Sir Charles," the loyal address gentle-
man, lives in London, I hear. I will, I think, call upon him (if
I can find him out) when I get back, and ask how he does now ?
There is one Holiest, a George Holiest, who figured pretty bigly
on that same loyal address day. This man is become quite
an inoffensive harmless creature. If we were to have another
county meeting, he would not, I think, threaten to put the sash
down upon anybody's head ! Oh ! Peel, Peel, Peel ! Thy bill,
oh, Peel, did sicken them so ! Let us, oh, thou offspring of the
great Spinning Jenny promoter, who subscribed ten thousand
pounds towards the late " glorious " war; who was, after that,
made a baronet, and whose biographers (in the Baronetage) tell
the world that he had a " presentiment that he should be the
founder of a family." Oh, thou, thou great Peel, do thou let us
have only two more years of thy bill! Or, oh, great Peel,
minister of the interior, do thou let us have repeal of Corn Bill !
Either will do, great Peel. We shall then see such modest 'squires,
and parsons looking so queer ! However, if thou wilt not listen
to us, great Peel, we must, perhaps (and only perhaps), wait
a little longer. It is sure to come at last, and to come, too, in the
most efficient way.

The water in the Itchen is, they say, famed for its clearness.
As I was crossing the river the other day, at Avington, I told
Richard to look at it, and I asked him if he did not think it very
clear. I now find that this has been remarked by very ancient
writers. I see, in a newspaper just received, an account of

316

Rural Rides

dreadful fires in New Brunswick. It is curious that, in my
Register of the 2Qth October (dated from Chilworth in Surrey),
I should have put a question, relative to the white clover, the
huckleberries, or the raspberries, which start up after the
burning down of woods in America. These fires have been at
two places which I saw when there were hardly any people
in the whole country; and if there never had been any people
there to this day, it would have been a good thing for England.
Those colonies are a dead expense, without a possibility of their
ever being of any use. There are, I see, a church and a barrack
destroyed. And why a barrack? What! were there bayonets
wanted already to keep the people in order? For as to an
enemy, where was he to come from ? And if there really be an
enemy anywhere there about, would it not be a wise way to
leave the worthless country to him, to use it after his own way?
I was at that very Fredericton, where they say thirty houses
and thirty-nine barns have now been burnt. I can remember
when there was no more thought of there ever being a barn
there than there is now thought of there being economy in our
government. The English money used to be spent prettily in
that country. What do we want with armies and barracks and
chaplains in those woods ? What does anybody want with them ;
but we, above all the rest of the world ? There is nothing there,
no house, no barrack, no wharf, nothing, but what is bought
with taxes raised on the half-starving people of England. What
do we want with these wildernesses ? Ah ! but they are wanted
by creatures who will not work in England, and whom this fine
system of ours sends out into those woods to live in idleness
upon the fruit of English labour. The soldier, the commissary,
the barrack-master, all the whole tribe, no matter under what
name ; what keeps them? They are paid " by government; "
and I wish that we constantly bore in mind that the " govern-
ment " pays our money. It is, to be sure, sorrowful to hear of
such fires and such dreadful effects proceeding from them; but
to me it is beyond all measure more sorrowful to see the labourers
of England worse fed than the convicts in the gaols ; and I know
very well that these worthless and jobbing colonies have assisted
to bring England into this horrible state. The honest labouring
man is allowed (aye, by the magistrates) less food than the felon
in the goal; and the felon is clothed and has fuel; and the
labouring man has nothing allowed for these. These worthless
colonies, which find places for people that the Thing provides
for, have helped to produce this dreadful state in England.

Burghclere to Petersfield 317

Therefore, any assistance the sufferers should never have from
me, while I could find an honest and industrious English labourer
(unloaded with a family too) fed worse than a felon in the gaols;
and this I can find in every part of the country.

PETERSFIELD,
Friday Evening, 1 1 November.

We lost another day at Easton; the whole of yesterday it
having rained the whole day; so that we could not have come
an inch but in the wet. We started, therefore, this morning,
coming through the Duke of Buckingham's park, at Avington,
which is close by Easton, and on the same side of the Itchen.
This is a very beautiful place. The house is close down at the
edge of the meadow land ; there is a lawn before it, and a pond
supplied by the Itchen, at the end of the lawn, and bounded by
the park on the other side. The high road, through the park,
goes very near to this water; and we saw thousands of wild-
ducks in the pond, or sitting round on the green edges of it,
while, on one side of the pond, the hares and pheasants were
moving about upon a gravel walk on the side of a very fine
plantation. We looked down upon all this from a rising ground,
and the water, like a looking-glass, showed us the trees, and even
the animals. This is certainly one of the very prettiest spots
in the world. The wild water-fowl seem to take particular
delight in this place. There are a great many at Lord Caer-
narvon's; but there the water is much larger, and the ground
and wood about it comparatively rude and coarse. Here, at
Avington, everything is in such beautiful order; the lawn before
the house is of the finest green, and most neatly kept; and the
edge of the pond (which is of several acres) is as smooth as if it
formed part of a bowling-green. To see so many ze>z7^-fowl, in a
situation where everything is in the parterre-order, has a most
pleasant effect on the mind; and Richard and I, like Pope's
cock in the farm-yard, could not help thanking the duke and
duchess for having generously made such ample provision for
our pleasure, and that, too, merely to please us as we were
passing along. Now this is the advantage of going about on
horseback. On foot, the fatigue is too great, and you go too
slowly. In any sort of carriage, you cannot get into the real
country places. To travel in stage coaches is to be hurried along
by force, in a box, with an air-hole in it, and constantly exposed
to broken limbs, the danger being much greater than that of

318 Rural Rides

ship-board, and the noise much more disagreeable, while the
company is frequently not a great deal more to one's liking.

From this beautiful spot we had to mount gradually the
downs to the southward; but it is impossible to quit the vale
of the Itchen without one more look back at it. To form a just
estimate of its real value, and that of the lands near it, it is only
necessary to know that, from its source, at Bishop's Sutton,
this river has, on its two banks, in the distance of nine miles
(before it reaches Winchester) thirteen parish churches. There
must have been some people to erect these churches. It is
not true, then, that Pitt and George III. created the English
nation, notwithstanding all that the Scotch feeloso/ers are ready
to swear about the matter. In short, there can be no doubt
in the mind of any rational man that in the time of the Plan-
tagenets England was more populous than it is now.

When we began to get up towards the downs we, to our
great surprise, saw them covered with snow. " Sad times
coming on for poor Sir Glory," said I to Richard. " Why? '
said Dick. It was too cold to talk much; and, besides, a great
sluggishness in his horse made us both rather serious. The
horse had been too hard ridden at Burghclere, and had got cold.
This made us change our route again, and instead of going over
the downs towards Hambledon, in our way to see the park and
the innumerable hares and pheasants of Sir Harry Featherstone,
we pulled away more to the left, to go through Bramdean, and
so on to Petersfield, contracting greatly our intended circuit.
And besides, I had never seen Bramdean, the spot on which,
it is said, Alfred fought his last great and glorious battle with
the Danes. A fine country for a battle, sure enough !

A little to our right, as we came along, we left the village of
Kimston, where Squire Grseme once lived, as was before related.
Here, too, lived a Squire Ridge, a famous fox-hunter, at a great
mansion, now used as a farm-house; and it is curious enough
that this squire's son-in-law, one Gunner, an attorney at
Bishop's Waltham, is steward to the man who now owns the
estate.

Before we got to Petersfield, we called at an old friend's and
got some bread and cheese and small beer, which we preferred
to strong. In approaching Petersfield we began to descend
from the high chalk-country, which (with the exception of the
valleys of the Itchen and the Teste) had lasted us from Uphus-
band (almost the north-west point of the county) to this place,
which is not far from the south-east point of it. Here we quit

Burghclere to Petersfield 319

flint and chalk and downs, and take to sand, clay, hedges, and
coppices; and here, on the verge of Hampshire, we begin again
to see those endless little bubble-formed hills that we before
saw round the foot of Hindhead. We have got in in very good
time, and got, at the Dolphin, good stabling for our horses.
The waiters and people at inns look so hard at us 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 I They seem
to pity our taste. I hear people complain of the " exorbitant
charges " at inns; but my wonder always is how the people
can live with charging so little. Except in one single instance,
I have uniformly, since I have been from home, thought the
charges too low for people to live by.

This long evening has given me time to look at the Star news-
paper of last night; and I see that, with all possible desire to
disguise the fact, there is a great " panic " brewing. It is
impossible that this thing can go on, in its present way, for any
length of time. The talk about " speculations "; that is to say,
' adventurous dealings or, rather, commercial gamblings;" the
talk about these having been the cause of the breakings and the
other symptoms of approaching convulsion, is the most miserable
nonsense that ever was conceived in the heads of idiots. These
are effect ; not cause. The cause is the Small-note Bill, that last
brilliant effort of the joint mind of Van and Castlereagh. That
bill was, as I always called it, a respite ; and it was, and could
be, nothing more. It could only put off the evil hour; it could
not prevent the final arrival of that hour. To have proceeded
with Peel's bill was, indeed, to produce total convulsion. The
land must have been surrendered to the overseers for the use
of the poor. That is to say, without an " equitable adjust-
ment." But that adjustment as prayed for by Kent, Norfolk,
Hereford, and Surrey, might have taken place; it ought to have
taken place: and it must, at last, take place, or convulsion
must come. As to the nature of this " adjustment," is it not
most distinctly described in the Norfolk petition? Is not that
memorable petition now in the Journals of the House of Com-
mons ? What more is wanted than to act on the prayer of that
very petition ? Had I to draw up a petition again, I would not
change a single word of that. It pleased Mr. Brougham's " best
public instructor " to abuse that petition, and it pleased Daddy
Coke and the Hickory Quaker, Gurney, and the wise barn-
orator, to calumniate its author. They succeeded; but their
success was but shame to them ; and that author is yet destined

320 Rural Rides

to triumph over them. I have seen no London paper for ten
days, until to-day; and I should not have seen this if the
waiter had not forced it upon me. I know very nearly what
will happen by next May, or thereabouts ; and as to the manner
in which things will work in the meanwhile, it is of far less
consequence to the nation than it is what sort of weather I
shall have to ride in to-morrow. One thing, however, I wish
to observe, and that is, that if any attempt be made to repeal
the Corn Bill, the main body of the farmers will be crushed into
total ruin. I come into contact with few who are not gentle-
men or very substantial farmers: but I know the state of the
whole ; and I know that even with present prices, and with
honest labourers fed worse than felons, it is rub-and-go with
nineteen-twentieths of the farmers; and of this fact I beseech
the ministers to be well aware. And with this fact staring them
in the face ! with that other horrid fact, that by the regulations
of the magistrates (who cannot avoid it, mind), the honest
labourer is fed worse than the convicted felon; with the
breakings of merchants, so ruinous to confiding foreigners, so
disgraceful to the name of England; with the thousands of
industrious and care-taking creatures reduced to beggary by
bank-paper; with panic upon panic, plunging thousands upon
thousands into despair: with all this notorious as the sun at
noon-day, will they again advise their royal master to tell the
parliament and the world, that this country is " in a state of
unequalled prosperity," and that this prosperity ' must be
permanent, because all the great interests are flourishing ? '
Let them! That will not alter the result. I had been, for
several weeks, saying, that the seeming prosperity was fallacious ;
that the cause of it must lead to ultimate and shocking ruin;
that it could not last, because it arose from causes so manifestly
fictitious ; that, in short, it was the fair-looking, but poisonous,
fruit of a miserable expedient. I had been saying this for
several weeks, when out came the king's speech and gave me
and my doctrines the lie direct as to every point. Well: now,
then, we shall soon see.

•Till

•^

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