and more exalted feelings of our con-
dition.

I bent my knee in prayer to the
great Giver of good I joined in the
holy chaunt that reverberated round those
ancient walls I listened with attention
to the exposition of His holy text I
admired the vastness and solidity of the
structure, inspected the different monu-
ments that ornamented its pillars or its



INCIDENT. 229

pavement, and departed with what ?
With feelings of reverence for the piety of
our ancestors who had erected this edifice
to the honour of the holy martyr whose
name it bears? No. Or with a lively
sense of gratitude for the benefits to be
derived from an implicit trust in the
mercies and mediation of One whose
entrance into everlasting life we were
this day called on joyfully to remember ?
Alas ! no. But with much cariosity and a
determination to know more of a certain
object that had taken possession of my
mind, I left the precincts of that holy
temple. I will enter no further into the
occurrences of this day suffice it to say,
that the incident strengthened my inclina-
tion, and afterwards induced me to leave
that road.

But I cannot pass over the consequences
this occurrence had upon my future fate or
fortune, or its effects upon the employment



230 ENGLISH FAMILY.

and rational enjoyment of my vacant hours.
The object of attraction, I soon found,
was one of a large and respectable family
in the town, and I may say, without fear of
being accused of partiality or vanity, four-
teen finer specimens of the genus homo
never sat round a parent's substantially
furnished board. It was well, too, to
witness the order that was observed in this
graduated assembly. Cleanliness and de-
corum, obedience and affection, contentment
and good humour, animated their bright
blue eyes, and set off to perfection their fair
and rosy complexions. There was nothing
either Grecian or Roman in the contour of
their countenances, or in their features
neither in them would the sculptor desire
anything to commend his art ; for the same
impression would guide his chisel as did the
first sight of our Saxon ancestors strike St.
Augustine when he exclaimed, " Non Angli
sed Angeli" The first time I was admitted



ST. ALBANS. 231

to put my feet under the same mahogany,
my eyes were far more feasted than my ap-
petite, though it was pleasantly and politely
courted, and I rose from the table in admi-
ration of the beauty and order of an Eng-
lishman's fire-side.

My Sundays were now generally spent at
St. Albans, and I was soon made acquainted
with the beautiful walks round this inter-
esting old town, the site of so many events
in our history. In the valley at the foot of
the Abbey orchard or grounds runs the
little river Ver now but a trout stream,
though it turns two or three valuable silk
and cotton mills ; but in the time of the
Romans navigable for their armed galleys
and stately barges. Crossing it by a plank
you come to the walls of the ancient Veru-
lam, where the Roman brick is still visible,
and where all attempts to detach one whole
have proved futile. Here, too, did the
masters of the world under Paulinus defeat



232 HUMPHREY OF GLO'STER.

and destroy the army under Boedicea, and
took ample vengeance for the massacre of
their countrymen.

In the time of the heptarchy, St. Albans
became a considerable town that part of
the community whom the fury of the Saxons
had spared removing to a hill which after-
wards bore the same name the Abbey be-
ing founded and built there by Offa, King
of Mercia, in the ninth century though the
British proto- martyr, to whom it was de-
dicated, was beheaded on the spot some 600
years before.

The court was frequently held here in the
time of the Plantagenets, and sometimes
the parliament of those days sat here the
family residence of the mitred abbot, the
monastery, and the neighbouring nunnery
of Sopwell, affording ample accommoda-
tion. One of the most enlightened of our
Princes, Humphrey, Duke of Glo'ster, who
was much in advance of his age, was in-



ELECTIONS. 233

terred here, having, it is supposed, been
foully murdered, at the instigation of his
Uncle, the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester.
Two battles were fought here in the wars of
the roses, in the first of which a great num-
ber of nobles indeed the chiefs of the
Lancastrian party were slaughtered. In
the second the Yorkists were defeated, and
the great Earl of Warwick obliged to fly
for his life. New England hills, as some
artificial mounds are called, apparently a
Roman camp is the site of one, and Ber-
nard's heath of the other. The latter is
now often the scene of a far less bloody and
more rational character the war or game
of cricket.

This old town is also renowned for
its political or electoral contests ; and
before, and more particularly since, the
Reform Bill, has always been open to
the highest bidder. A pot-walloping bo-
rough so near the metropolis, there was



234 BRIBES.

never any lack of candidates, and ludi-
crous and absurd were the means taken
to ensure success. Although it was no-
torious, and well understood on both
sides, that each poor voter was to re-
ceive a certain sum, still it was thought
necessary to give 20?. for a parrot, or
15/. for a monkey, just brought from
abroad, by some seafaring member of a
poor family, to place a London banker,
a city alderman, or a scion of the noble
house of Blenheim, at the head of the poll.
I witnessed two or three of these
exhibitions of the representative system,
during the time I drove through St.
Albans, and I cannot say they gave me
a very lofty idea of the worth of the
constituency, the patriotism of the can-
didates, or the infallibility of our insti-
tutions. The practice, which it was the
intention of the Reform Bill to prevent,
had become more gross and palpable,



BEAUTY. 235

till the Legislature thought it necessary
to suspend the writ, which still remains
in abeyance.

The representation of the county had
long been shared, unopposed, by Mr.
Brand, afterwards Lord Dacre, and Sir
John Sebright; still, they would always,
at a general election, give the voters a
call of recognition. On one occasion,
Sir John, who was noted for his gal-
lantry, called at a house where I was
a frequent visitor, and asked for the
master ; he happened to be engaged at
that moment, and one of his daughters,
a fine beautiful girl in the bloom of
youth, was sent by the mother to re-
ceive him; after the morning's salutation,
he politely asked

"Is your father at home?"

"He is, Sir John," was the reply;
"but he is engaged at this moment."

" I am very glad of it," said the old



236 WALKS.

Baronet, "for I would rather shake hands
with you than any man in England."

I stood unseen at a little distance,
quite pleased with what I witnessed,
and did not know which to admire
most the ready compliment of the
man of breeding, or the unaffected con-
fusion of the lovely girl to whom it
was addressed. In both I saw plainly
that one touch of nature is worth all
the gloss of art.

I will not descant on the agreeable
walks I had in this beautiful neighbour-
hood sometimes in company, sometimes
alone when the thoughts of my former
and present position would find vent in
strains of impassioned verse.

In the meantime, I was repeatedly
called to the bedside of my sick and
declining parent at Leamington, and after
months of intermittent, intense suffering,
with a firmness and resignation worthy



SHAKSPEARE. 237

of all imitation, her spirit was dismissed
to the regions of the blessed. I, with
two brothers, and two sisters, followed
her remains across the country, from
Leamington to our family vault in
Hampshire, which we reached on the
fourth day, passing by Stratford-on-Avon,
Woodstock, Oxford, Wallingford, Reading,
Alton, and Petersfield.

At the first-mentioned town, the birth-
place of our immortal bard, we did not
stop; but two or three years afterwards,
in passing through, I visited what was
once his residence, then standing, and
had the honour of inscribing my name,
in a book kept for that purpose, imme-
diately under those of the two Austrian
Archdukes, who had passed through but
the day before, as well as on the walls of
his bed-room. I also sat in the same
chair in which, I was told by an aged
female, his supposed lineal descendant, it



238 WOODSTOCK.

was his custom to indulge after quitting
the busy scenes of the metropolis saw
the monument or rather effigy erected in
the church to his memory, and read his
epitaph, written by the English Roscius,
which I thought did not sufficiently ex-
press the enthusiastic admiration which
has always been felt for the writings that
bear his name.

At Woodstock we rested for the night,
which gave us an opportunity of viewing
that splendid national reward to the re-
nowned commander who led our armies to
victory on the Continent, foiled the am-
bition of the Grand Monarque, and made
his name famous in our annals. At this
time it was inhabited by his descendant
a necessitous recluse. At Oxford we stopt
but long enough, to admire the archi-
tectural beauties of its High Street, and
for me to wish to change the scene of
my daily labours to this time-honoured



SIR FRANCIS SYKES. 239

University, a change I had for some little
time contemplated.

At Wallingford we again rested, passing
the mansion and estate of Basildon, then
the property and residence of a Baronet
with whom I afterwards became acquaint-
ed.* There was nothing to call for any
particular notice or to engage our atten-
tion in this little Borough town, where,
before the Reform Bill put an extin-
guisher upon the electoral expectations
of the inhabitants, the Miller If used to pay
his nocturnal visits to each individual
voter. My brother and I walked into the
coffee-room of the Inn where we had
put up, with the intention of reading
the London papers, and taking one up,
sat down in one of the boxes. I ob-
served a gentleman on the opposite side
eye us with what I took to be a look

* Sir Francis Sykes.

t The name given to the official employed on these in-
teresting occasions.



240 A BEUTE.

of suspicion, and when the waiter came
in he spoke to him, and then walked
out apparently very much displeased. On
asking the waiter what the gentleman
had said to him, he replied that he
wanted to know what business we had
there, as it was a subscription-room.

This was before dinner; in the evening
we went in again to the room, where sat
the old gentleman reading the paper
that had arrived by that day's post.
Observing that he took his eyes off the
paper to look at us, I accosted him, " I am
afraid we are unwelcome intruders."

He replied with a grunt, and con-
tinued the perusal of his paper. "When
you have done with the paper I should
be much obliged if you would allow me
to see it," I said. He made no answer,
but when he had finished, he got up,
deliberately rolled up the paper, and put
it in his pocket, and was walking away,
when he was stopped by another who



SHUTTLE WORTH. 241

had observed his demeanour, and who
insisted on his leaving the paper on the
table. " Do you want it ? " he said.

" Whether I want it or not," was the
reply, "you have no right to take it out
of the room."

Upon which he very ungraciously gave
it up, and the gentleman politely
handed it to us. After satisfying our-
selves, and chatting with the stranger, who
gave us an account of his uncouth fellow-
townsman, we returned to our own room,
when my brother, still a little sore at his
ungentlemanlike conduct, and wishing
to retaliate, asked me to write a line or
two, and put up on the mantel -piece in
the coffee-room. Whereupon, having ascer-
tained his name, I penned the following :

" Strange animals I've often seen
In many towns where I have been ;
But, till I came to Wallingford,
!No other place could e'er afford
A brute that on two legs went forth,
And he was yclept Shuttleworth."

VOL. II. R



242 BURIAL.

This we left for the offender to digest
as best he might, and proceeded on our
journey, stopping at Reading to dine,
and at Alton to sleep.

At twelve the next day we reached
Petersfield, where the passing-bell mourn-
fully tolled as we went slowly down the
High Street, and stopped at the princi-
pal Inn, where some few who had known
the departed came to condole with my
sisters on the loss they had sustained, and
to recall her many excellent qualities.

Arrived at the place of sepulture, we
were joined by my married sister and
her husband ; while the poor natives of
the village, who still retained a lively
remembrance of her unostentatious good-
ness and charity, came to pay their last
tribute of respect.



243



CHAPTER VII.

OXFORD.

King Charles An Indiscreet Act A New Country
Proprietor The Cheltenham Coach Scions of the
Nobility An Unexpected Interview The Roebuck
Bishop Atterbury Horse-dealing Fire and Water
Hydropathic Cure Reflections Piccadilly The Black
Dog at Bedfont A Compromise An Old Acquaintance
Henley-on-Thames An Eclipse of the Sun An Un-
natural Son Full Stop.

KING CHARLES THE FIRST has been made to
state, that in mundane affairs there is no
such thing as fortune or misfortune, but
that all is either discretion or indiscretion.
No man had a greater right to say so than
that unfortunate monarch. I must have

K2



244 PROMISES.

been the most indiscreet man alive ; for
all the exertions I ever made, all I ever
undertook or did, to extricate myself
from the slough into which unto-
ward circumstances had driven me, only
served to plunge me further in the
mire.

The person who had succeeded my
father in the large establishment I have
before spoken of, and who became a
very wealthy man partly, if not chiefly,
from my father's ruin, which he had
been the principal means of accomplish-
ing had promised to assist me in my
endeavours to regain my position ; and
I was simple enough to believe him, and
put faith in his promises. This was a
folly on my part, and showed want
of knowledge of the world, which may
well rank as an indiscretion. Never-
theless, it was this promise that first
induced me to commit a greater in-



NEW HOME. 245

discretion, in quitting a certain and
well-established concern for an appoint-
ment that was quite new to me, and
its success uncertain ; thus leaving my-
self open to the fate of those, whose
interests are generally sacrificed or over-
looked, when an accommodation or com-
promise takes place between two hostile
parties.

But, indiscretion or not, the change had
the recommendation of novelty, and what
was my principal object the hours of
employment would be more congenial to
the wishes and domestic comforts of one
who was again desirous of having an
establishment of his own, however it
might differ from the last in degree; of
again living not entirely by or for him-
self, but of providing a new home,
however humble it might be, for his
two children, where he might become
again possessed of those social and ra-



246 OXFOKD.

tional enjoyments of which he had been
deprived.

I cannot, though at this distance of
time, but feel the sting of conscience at
leaving my father that is, his employ
to enter that of one of his most viru-
lent opponents, so soon after a great
domestic calamity had befallen him. But
it was so. Fate, as the poet says, hur-
ried me on ; and, all things being ar-
ranged, I started from the establishment
I once considered myself heir to, on the
box of a new Cheltenham coach, which
I was to drive to Oxford. It was in-
tended that I should be a part-proprietor.
Indeed, I had promised to work a stage
myself, so anxious was I to get upon
that road, which appeared to me to be
the most fashionable and the most fre-
quented out of London ; but, not seeing
my way quite clear, I declined and it
was quite as well I did, the coach, as I



OPPONENTS. 247

might have foreseen, being discontinued
within the year.

Now, there were two parties in Oxford
concerned in coaches, one of whom I have
before spoken of as an old-established
country proprietor a man of the first re-
spectability and considerable substance, who
was looked up to by all the fraternity as an
excellent master ; the other an intruder a
man of whom few spoke well and for
whom I had the greatest dislike, from the
vulgar impertinence of his manners, and
the evil reports about his tastes. His posi-
tion and his chicanery just enabled him to
allure the simple and unprincipled to unite
with him in opposition to the man whom
he could injure and annoy, but not ruin.
Such was his vindictive feeling, that he
once said, while eating a sheep's heart for
his breakfast, and being complimented by
one of his parasites on the keenness of
his appetite, that he only wished it was



248 THE ROAD.

Dicky Costar's meaning his opponent lie
should eat it with much more satisfaction ;
and I verily believed him.

With neither of these parties was I, or
the coach I drove, at all connected ; and
the London proprietor, horsing it all the
way to Oxford, he committed everything
to my management. I must confess that
I was, for the time, highly pleased with
the change I had made. It was summer
time, and the road, as far as Maidenhead
or Henley, was pleasant and populous.
Consequently, the retail trade* was abund-
ant therefore very profitable to the man
at the helm, as Jack would call the coach-
man. The company also was mostly of the
first order. We were patronised liberally
by some of the first houses of the Nobility
and Gentry, whose mansions and estates lay
in the counties of Oxford or Gloucester
particularly those of Somerset and Berke-

* The term given by the fraternity to short passengers.



DUKE OF BEAUFORT. 249

ley ; and I believe I may boast of being
the first who put reins into the hand of the
late Duke of Beaufort, then Marquis of
Worcester, who soon became a proficient in
the art. The other family had a seat at
Cranford Bridge, about four miles beyond
Hounslow, long the residence of the late
Countess; and as the sons counted six or
seven in number, I frequently had the
honour of the company of one or other of
them on the box.

I always found them free and affable, as
I ever did most others of true Nobility,
with whom I often came in contact.

On one occasion, I remember, when one
of the junior members of the family, who
has since rendered himself conspicuous in
their unhappy division, accompanied me
on the box, and we had spent the morning
in agreeable conversation, I happened
to say that I had never seen a certain
celebrated actress off the stage, but that I



250 INTRODUCTION.

admired her very much on. " Oh," he
said, " I expect them up to-day," meaning
his brother and the lady. We had scarcely
arrived at the "Roebuck " at Oxford, where I
stopped, before a carriage drove up with
four post horses, the owner of Berkeley
Castle inside, with a lady, whom I imme-
diately recognized as the one we had been
speaking of. The Colonel I knew also, as
who did not who had once seen his hand-
some person. My late companion went
to the carriage-door and chatted a little ;
but before the fresh horses were put to,
he called me to him, and, addressing the
lady, said

" Ann, here is a friend of mine, who
has a great wish to be introduced to
you."

Somewhat abashed at so sudden an
appeal to my gallantry, raising my hat,
I unhesitatingly stepped forward, when
the lady held out her hand, and,



ROEBUCK. 251

with one of her beautiful smiles, said
"I am sure I shall be highly ho-
noured by his acquaintance."

There was only time for a few com-
monplaces on the beauty of the day,
&c., and a laugh and a hearty shake

of the hand, with " How are you, ?"

from her companion, when, the postil-
lions being ready to start, I withdrew,
with as an accomplished a farewell bow
as I knew how to perpetrate, or perhaps
the rules of society could desire. The
author of this attack upon the simpli-
city of my morning's conversation, ac-
companied me to the bar, where we
renewed our gossip over a bottle of cham-
pagne.

The house where I stopped at Oxford
the " Roebuck "was then kept by two
young ladies, possessing other accomplish-
ments, both mental and personal, besides
those necessary for their station, without



252 GOSSIP.

that brusque and familiar air which
generally characterises females brought up
in an Inn at the same time not assum-
ing a particle of the affected importance
common with good-looking landladies.

The time of my daily sojourn that is,
from two or half-past in the day till
the following forenoon passed agreeably
enough ; sometimes at my hotel, where I
met a Fellow of one of the colleges, who
was well known for a singular propensity
he possessed to dive into the secrets and
intrigues of the coaching community. This
was a sort of morbid curiosity, which he
inherited, perhaps, from his unfortunate
ancestor, the Bishop of Rochester who
exercised the same feeling in more im-
portant concerns. He would almost daily
come and chat with me. At other times
perambulating the streets, or gossiping
with the different tradesmen, or examin-
ing at my leisure the colleges and halls,



HORSE DEALING. 253

the celebrated library and theatre, and
other buildings ; so that I could but
contrast the place with the dull, low,
uninviting spot in which I was lately
condemned to spend my vacant hours;
and congratulate myself on the change.

My employer, knowing that Oxford was
a place where harness-horses were some-
times to be picked up on more reason-
able terms than in London, had commis-
sioned me to look out and, as occasion
might offer, purchase some for him. This
I had done much to his satisfaction. One
afternoon a tout, or man who was a sort
of horse-dealer's cad, came and told me,
as a great favour, of a horse that was to
be disposed of for a little money. I went
with him, and was shown a very useful
coach horse. I asked to see him out.
This was complied with, and, running my
eye over him, and approving his action,
I said, "Sound?"



254 HORSE DEALING.

" Perfectly ; but I don't warrant him ?"

"Age?"

"Six years old."

Looking in his mouth, I found this to
be correct.

" Price ? " I said.

" Ten pounds," was the reply.

I immediately concluded something was
wrong, as he looked like a five-and-thirty
pounds' horse.

"He's not a kicker?" I said.

"You can't make him kick," was the
reply.

I was almost ashamed to say, " You
won't warrant him quiet, I suppose ? "

"You can't expect it, at that price;
but all I have told you is true."

"Then I'll have him," I said.

I observed a titter on the lips of the sta-
blemen as I followed him into the house
to give him the money, when the seller
candidly told me that he had given thirty



BREAK. 255

pounds for the horse, and had sold him
two or three times for more money ; but
he had always been returned, as he would
not go in harness. Not very well satis-
fied with my bargain, I walked away,
desiring him to send the horse round to
the "Roebuck."

Early the next morning I borrowed a
break, harnessed him, and put him to
with another horse, but he would not
move; and, touching him with the whip,
he reared right on end, then threw
himself down, and there lay. At this
I scratched my head, and thought it
was a bad case, when my friend who
had kindly put me up to this great
bargain called to me and said, " Master,
master, light a truss of straw and put
under him ! " Nothing loth to make trial
of such a remedy, as I had heard of
it before, though I had never seen it
practised, and there not being many



256 BREAKING A HORSE.

people about, as it was early in the
morning, we unbuckled his traces, got
him out, and with the other horse drew
the break out in the corn market, and
put him to again, as I was not to be
beaten without a further trial. My friend,
therefore, procured me a whisp of straw,
and strewed it on the ground under
him, and when I was ready set fire to
it ; the animal made two or three plunges
clear of the straw, and then threw
himself down.

Satisfied now that he might be
made to go, but not by such means,
I thought I would try another element
which I had before seen applied with
success. After getting him up, I had
him taken down to the canal, where I
found a barge just going to start with
two horses at length ; giving the barge-
man 2s. 6d. to lend me some draught
harness, with his permission we put him



HORSE-BREAKING. 257

in behind the other two, first taking the
precaution to have the barge moored