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  Farnham, Surrey, Thursday, Oct. 27th

  We came over the heath from Thursley, this morning, on our way to Winchester. Mr Wyndham’s FOX-HOUNDS are coming to Thursley on Saturday. More than three-fourths of all the interesting talk in that neighbourhood, for some days past, has been about this anxiously looked-for event. I have seen no man, or boy, who did not talk about it. There had been a 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 die best of them. RICHARD, though now only 11 years and 6 months old, had, it seems, one fox-hunt, in Herefordshire, last winter; and he actually has begun to talk 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 die country from Reigate; and he joined with such glee in talking of the expected arrival of die fox-hounds, that I felt some little pain in bringing him away. My engagement at Winchester is for Saturday; but, if it had not been so, die deep and hidden ruts in the heath, in a wood in the midst of which the hounds are sure to find, and die immense concourse of horsemen that is sure to be assembled, would have made me bring him away. Upon die high, hard and open countries, I should not be afraid for him; but, here die danger would have been greater than it would have been right for me to suffer him to run.

  We came hither by die way of WAVERLEY ABBEY and MOORE PARK. On die commons I showed Richard some of my old hunting-scenes, when I was of his age, or younger, reminding him that I was obliged to hunt on foot. We got leave to go and see die 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 die spot where the strawberry garden was, and where I, when sent to gather hautboys, used to eat every remarkably fine one, instead of letting it go to be eaten by Sir ROBERT RICH. I showed him a tree, close by the ruins of the Abbey, from a limb of which I once fell into the river, in an attempt to take the nest of 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, 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 die mansion and ground, and every thing but die 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 die 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 die 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 16 or 17 feet round.

  From Waverley we went to MOORE PARK, once die seat of SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, and, when I was a very little boy, die seat of a Lady, or a Mrs Temple. Here I showed Richard MOTHER LUDLUM’s HOLE; but, alas! it is not die enchanting place that I knew it, nor that which GROSE describes in his Antiquities! The semicircular paling is gone; die basins, to catch die never-ceasing little stream, are gone; die iron cups, fastened by chains, for people to drink out of, are gone; the pavement all broken to pieces; die seats, for people to sit on, on both sides of the cave, torn up and gone; die stream that ran down a clean paved channel, now making a dirty gutter; and die ground opposite, which was a grove, chiefly of laurels, intersected by closely mowed grass-walks, now become a poor, ragged-looking Alder-Coppice. Near die mansion, I showed Richard die 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 die castle of Farnham, which you see from MOORE PARK, Bishop PRETTYMAN TOMLINE has, at last, after perfectly regular and due gradations, succeeded WILLIAM OF WYKHAM! In coming up from Moore Park to Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door of a little old house, where there appeared to be a great parcel of children. ‘There, Dick,’ said I, ‘when I was just such a little creature as that, whom you see in the door-way, I lived in this very house with my grand-mother Cobbett.’ He pulled up his horse, and looked very hard at it, but said nothing, and on we came.

  Winchester, Sunday noon, Oct. 30

  We came away from Farnham about noon on Friday, promising 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, has sold to some General, his mansion and estate at MARTYR’S WORTHY, a village of 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 imprisonment bill, just then passed; and the like of which address, YOU WILL NOT IN ALL HUMAN PROBABILITY, EVER AGAIN MOVE IN HAMPSHIRE, and, I hope, NO WHERE 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 CHERRITON, or somewhere there, for a very moderate-sized house in the town of ALRESFORD! I saw his household goods advertised in the Hampshire newspaper, a little while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my eyes, or, rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I remembered the loyal ‘Squire; and I, with singular satisfaction, record this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt, proceeded solely from that prevalence of mind over matter, which the 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 m
ay be not 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 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 broad-sheet.

  This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o’clock in the morning, a sort of a jangling, made by a bell or two in 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 particularly to show him the tomb of that famous bishop of Winchester, WILLIAM of WYKHAM; who was the Chancellor and the Minister of the great and glorious King, EDWARD III; who sprang from poor parents in the little village of WYKHAM, three miles from Botley; and who, amongst other great and most munificent deeds, founded the famous College, or School, of Winchester, and also one of the Colleges at Oxford. I told Richard about this as we went from the inn down to the cathedral; and, when I showed him the tomb, where the bishop lies on his back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his head, his shepherd’s crook by his side, with little children at his feet, their hands put together in a praying attitude, he looked with a degree of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took him as far as I could about the Cathedral. The service’ was now begun. There is 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 Jive or six boys in white surplices, with a congregation of fifteen women and four men! Gracious God! If WILLIAM of WYKHAM could, at that moment, have 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 BRIDWELL, 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!

  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’3 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 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 translated into any foreign language; and when you have done that, you may again call mine ‘pig’s meat’.

  FROM WIINCHESTER TO BURGHCLERE

  Burghclere, Monday Morning, 31st October, 1825

  We had, or I had, resolved not to breakfast at Winchester yesterday: and yet we were detained till nearly noon. But, at last off we came, fasting. The turnpike road from Winchester to this place comes through a village, called SUTTON SCOTNEY, and then through WHITCHURCH, which lies on the Andover and London road, through Basingstoke. We did not take the cross-turnpike till we came to Whitchurch. We went to King’s Worthy; that is, about two miles on the road from Winchester to London; and then, turning short to our left, came up upon the downs to the north of Winchester race-course. Here, looking back at the city and at the fine valley above and below it, and at the many smaller valleys that run down from the high ridges into that great and fertile valley, I could not help admiring the taste of the ancient kings, who made this city (which once covered all the hill round about, and which contained 92 churches and chapels) a chief place of their residence. There are not many finer spots in England; and if I were to take in a circle of eight or ten miles of semi-diameter, I should say that I believe there is not one so fine. Here are hill, dell, water, meadow, woods, corn-fields, downs; and all of them very fine and very beautifully disposed. This country does not present to us that sort of beauties which we see about Guildford and Godalming, and round the skirts of Hindhead and Blackdown, where the ground lies in the form that the surface-water in a boiling copper would be in, if you could, by word of command, make it be still, the variously-shaped bubbles all sticking up; and really, to look at the face of the earth, who can help imagining, that some such process has produced its present form? Leaving this matter to be solved by those who laugh at mysteries, I repeat, that the country round Winchester does not present to us beauties 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 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 think nothing at all of it, compared with a country where high downs prevail, with here and there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill, and where you see, in the deep dells, here and there a farm-house, and here and there a village, the buildings sheltered by a group of lofty trees.

  This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hampshire, it has its full gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a great down, with two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it,
belonging to different farms; and to see, lower down, the folds, in the fields, ready to receive them for the night. We had, when we got upon the downs, after leaving Winchester, this sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our point of destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close under the north side of the lofty hill at HIGHCLERE, which is called Beacon-hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of a Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on Winchester downs; and without any regard 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 greensward, 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 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 a fire to sit by in the winter.