Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present Part 22

Mrs. Evelyn had acquired the more polished manners of French society without losing her naturally simple tastes. That she cannot have formed a favourable opinion of English refinement we know from the contrast which her husband draws between the two countries in his _Characters of England_, written when they returned from the Continent.

Mrs. Evelyn was an experienced housewife, and had a special eye "to the care of cakes, stilling, and sweetmeats, and such useful things." "The hospitality of Sayes Court, which was accepted by royalty and extended to _savans_, divines, and men of letters, was not withheld from the country neighbours at Deptford." Certainly, her own words depict her practice, for she considered "the care of children's education, observing a husband's commands, a.s.sisting the sick, relieving the poor, and being serviceable to her friends, of sufficient weight to employ the most improved capacities." That Mrs. Evelyn had close insight into character and great nicety of judgment, we learn from her contemporaries, as also that her "great discernment and wit" were never abused. Ever sedate and kindly, she bore a succession of family bereavements with Christian resignation.

At Wotton, many curious memorials remain. Adjacent to the house are the conservatory, flower-garden, the former stored with curious exotic and native plants and flowers, and the latter embellished with a fountain, a temple, or colonnade, and an elevated turfed mount, cut into terraces; and here, enclosed within a brick wall, is all that remains of Evelyn's flower-garden, which was to have formed one of the princ.i.p.al objects in his "Elysium Britannic.u.m." His _Diary_ is well known; and his _Sylva_ is a beautiful and enduring memorial of his amus.e.m.e.nts, his occupations, and his studies, his private happiness and his public virtues. Many millions of timber-trees have been propagated and planted at the instigation and by the sole direction of that book--one of the few books in the world which completely effected what it was designed to do. While Britain [says D'Israeli the elder] retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the _Sylva_ of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant oaks. It was an author in his studious retreat, who, casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted.

Persons who are familiar with the picturesque environs of Dorking will remember Milton House, which was built at Evelyn's expense. It is now called Milton Court, and is about a mile west of the town. It is of red brick, and has a grand staircase with ma.s.sive supports and bal.u.s.ters, a great hall, and many n.o.ble rooms. The house was let some years since in tenements to poor families. It has since been restored and furnished in the style of the period. Its history has a literary interest. For nearly a quarter of a century it was the abode of Jeremiah Markland, a model critic "for modesty, candour, literary honesty, and courteousness to other scholars." He will be remembered as one of the eminent Grecians of Christ's Hospital. He lived in bachelors.h.i.+p at Milton Court, among his books; or, as his pupil, Strode, tells us, "In 1752, being grown old, and having, moreover, long and painful fits of the gout, he was glad to find, what his inclination and infirmities, which made him unfit for the world and company, had for a long time led him to--a very private place of retirement, near Dorking, in Surrey." In this sequestered spot Markland saw little company: his walks were almost confined to the garden at the back of the house; and he described himself, in 1755, to be "as much out of the way of hearing as of getting." We have more than once enjoyed the elysium of the old scholar's garden. But troubles came to disturb his peace. Markland had not the rambling old house to himself. His landlady, the widow Rose, got into a lawsuit with her son, when Jeremiah distressed himself to aid the widow in the suit, which she lost; and after that Markland spent his whole fortune in relieving the distresses of the Rose family. This led him to accept an annuity from his former pupil, Strode. Markland died at Milton Court in 1776, in his eighty-third year; and Strode placed a bra.s.s plate in the chancel of Dorking Church in memory of the learning and virtue of Markland. He left his books and papers to Dr. Heberden. The story of old Jeremiah's charity is very nave:--"Poor as I am," said he, "I would rather have p.a.w.ned the coat on my back than have left the afflicted good woman and her children to starve,"--an episode of charity and friends.h.i.+p which has its sweet uses.

There are two ancient objects at Milton. The water-mill, adjoining the green, is believed to be that mentioned in the survey of the manor, in Domesday book; and on Milton-heath, upon an elevated spot, is a _Tumulus_, now distinguished by a clump of firs; and near it is _War_-field. The name of the adjoining estate, Bury Hill, makes us, as Miss Hawkins observes, "seek, in our walks, the very footmarks of the Roman soldier."

LORD BOLINGBROKE AT BATTERSEA.

This parish and manor, three miles south-west of London, on the Surrey bank of the Thames, appertained, from a very early period, to the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster; and is conjectured, by Lysons, to have been therefrom named, in the Conqueror's Survey, Patricsey, which, in the Saxon, is Peter's water, or river; since written Battrichsey, Battersey, and Battersea. It pa.s.sed to the Crown, at the dissolution of religious houses: in 1627 it was granted to the St. John family, in whose possession the property remained till 1763.

Here, in a s.p.a.cious mansion, eastward of the church, was born, October 1, 1678, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, one of the brilliant lights of the Augustan age of literature in England. Here Pope spent most of his time with Bolingbroke, after the return of the latter from his seven years' exile;[79] and his house became also the resort of Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and other leading contemporary men of genius. Lord Marchmont was living with Lord Bolingbroke, at Battersea, when he discovered that Mr. Allen, of Bath, had printed 500 copies of the _Essay on a Patriot King_ from the copy which Bolingbroke had presented to Pope--six copies only were printed. Thereupon, Lord Marchmont sent Mr. Gravenkop for the whole cargo, who carried them out in a waggon, and the books were burnt on the lawn in the presence of Lord Bolingbroke. Thenceforth he mostly resided at Battersea from 1742 until his death in 1751. He sunk under the dreadful malady beneath which he had long lingered--a cancer in the face--which he bore with exemplary fort.i.tude; "a fort.i.tude," says Lord Brougham, "drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and, unhappily, not aided by the consolation of any religion; for having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had subst.i.tuted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens."

Bolingbroke, with his second wife, niece of Madame de Maintenon, lie in the family vault in St. Mary's Church, where there is an elegant monument by Roubiliac, with busts of the great lord and his lady; the epitaphs on both were written by Lord Bolingbroke: that upon himself is still extant, in his own handwriting, in the British Museum: "Here lies Henry St. John, in the reign of Queen Anne Secretary of State, and Viscount Bolingbroke; in the days of King George I. and King George II., something more and better."

The greater part of Bolingbroke House was taken down in 1778. In the wing of the mansion, left standing, a parlour of round form, and lined with cedar, was long pointed out as the apartment in which Pope composed his _Essay on Man_; it is said to have been called "Pope's Parlour." The walls may still be seen, but they support a new roof, and can only be distinguished from the rest of the building by their circular form. The mansion was very extensive--forty rooms on a floor.

Upon part of the site was erected a _horizontal mill_, by Captain Hooper, who also built a similar one at Margate. It consisted of a circular wheel, with large boards or vanes fixed parallel to its axis, and arranged at equal distances from each other. Upon these vanes the wind could act, so as to blow the wheel round. But if it were to act upon the vanes at both sides of the wheel at once, it could not, of course, turn it round; hence one side of the wheel must be sheltered, while the other was submitted to the full action of the wind. For this purpose it was enclosed in a large cylindrical framework, with doors or shutters on all sides, to open and admit the wind, or to shut and stop it. If all the shutters on one side were open, whilst all those on the opposite side were closed, the wind acting with undiminished force on the vanes at one side, whilst the opposite vanes are under shelter, turned the mill round; but whenever the wind changed, the disposition of the blinds must be altered, to admit the wind to strike upon the vanes of the wheel in the direction of a tangent to the circle in which they moved.--(Dr. Paris's _Philosophy in Sport_.) This mill resembled a gigantic packing-case, which gave rise to an odd story, that when the Emperor of Russia was in England, in 1814, he took a fancy to Battersea Church, and determined to carry it off to Russia, and had this large packing-case made for it; but as the inhabitants refused to let the church be carried away, the case remained on the spot where it was deposited.

This horizontal air-mill served as a landmark for many miles round: the proprietor was Mr. Hodgson, a maltster and distiller. It was visited by Sir Richard Phillips in his _Morning's Walk from London to Kew_, in 1813, who says: "The mill, its elevated shaft, its vanes, and weather or wind-boards, curious as they would have been on any other site, lost their interest on premises once the residence of the ill.u.s.trious Bolingbroke, and the resort of the philosophers of his day. In ascending the winding flights of its tottering galleries, I could not help wondering at the caprice of events which had converted the dwelling of Bolingbroke into a malting-house and a mill. This house, once sacred to philosophy and poetry, long sanctified by the residence of the n.o.blest genius of his age, honoured by the frequent visits of Pope, and the birthplace of the immortal _Essay on Man_, is now appropriated to the lowest uses. The house of Bolingbroke become a windmill! The spot on which the _Essay on Man_ was concocted and produced, converted into a distillery of pernicious spirits! Such are the lessons of time! Such are the means by which an eternal agency sets at nought the ephemeral importance of man! But yesterday, this spot was the resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment of Bolingbroke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Monson, Mallet, and all the contemporary genius of England--yet a few whirls of the earth round the sun, the change of a figure in the date of the year, and the group have vanished; while I behold hogs and horses, malt-bags and barrels, stills and machinery!

"'Alas!' said I to the occupier, 'and have these things become the representatives of more human genius than England may ever witness on one spot again--have you thus satirised the transitory state of humanity--do you thus become a party with the bigoted enemies of that philosophy which was personified in a Bolingbroke or a Pope?' 'No,' he rejoined, 'I love the name and character of Bolingbroke, and I preserve the house as well as I can with religious veneration: I often smoke my pipe in Mr. Pope's parlour, and think of him with due respect as I walk the part of the terrace opposite his room.' He then conducted me to this interesting parlour, which is of brown polished oak,[80] with a grate and ornaments of the age of George the First; and before its window stood the portion of the terrace upon which the malt-house had not encroached, with the Thames moving majestically under its walls.

"'In this room,' I exclaimed, 'the _Essay on Man_ was probably planned, discussed, and written!' Mr. Hodgson a.s.sured me this had always been called 'Pope's Room,' and he had no doubt it was the apartment usually occupied by that great poet, in his visits to his friend Bolingbroke.

Other parts of the original house remain, and are occupied and kept in good order. He told me, however, that this was but a wing of the mansion, which extended, in Lord Bolingbroke's time, to the churchyard, and is now appropriated to the malting-house and its warehouses."

Sir Richard met with an ancient inhabitant of Battersea, a Mrs.

Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, who well remembered Lord Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out every day in his chariot, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over his eyebrow. She was then but a girl, but she was taught to look upon him with veneration as a great man. As, however, he spent little in the place, and gave little away, he was not much regarded by the people of Battersea. Sir Richard mentioned to her the names of several of Lord Bolingbroke's contemporaries, but she recollected none, except that of Mallet, whom she said she had often seen walking about in the village while he was visiting at Bolingbroke House.[81]

In the first volume of the _Diaries and Correspondence of the Right Hon.

George Rose_, we find the following entry respecting the treachery of Mallet:--"It appears by a letter of Lord Bolingbroke's, dated in 1740, from Angeville, that he had actually written some Essays dedicated to the Earl of Marchmont, of a very different tendency from his former works. These Essays, on his death, fell into the hands of Mr. Mallet, his executor, who had, at the latter end of his life, acquired a decided influence over him, and they did not appear among his lords.h.i.+p's works published by Mallet;[82] nor have they been seen or heard of since. From whence it must be naturally conjectured, that they were destroyed by the latter, from what reason cannot now be known; possibly, to conceal from the world the change, such as it was, in his lords.h.i.+p's sentiments in the latter end of his life, to avoid the discredit to his former works.

In which respect he might have been influenced either by a regard for the n.o.ble Viscount's consistency, or by a desire not to impair the pecuniary advantage he expected from the publication of his lords.h.i.+p's works."

Upon this, the Editor of the _Diaries_, the Rev. Leveson Vernon Harcourt, notes: "The letter to Lord Marchmont here referred to, has a note appended to it by Sir George Rose, the editor of the _Marchmont Papers_, who takes a very different view of its contents from his father. He gravely remarks, that as the posthumous disclosure of Lord Bolingbroke's inveterate hostility to Christianity lays open to the view the bitterness as the extent of it, so the manner of that disclosure precludes any doubt of the earnestness of his desire to give the utmost efficiency and publicity to that hostility, as soon as it could safely be done; that is, as soon as death could s.h.i.+eld him against responsibility to man. Sir George saw plainly enough that when he promised in those Essays to vindicate religion against divinity and G.o.d against man, he was retracting all that he had occasionally said in favour of Christianity; he was upholding the religion of Theism against the doctrines of the Bible, and the G.o.d of nature against the revelation of G.o.d to man."

It is painful to reflect upon this prostration of a splendid intellect; and we are but slightly relieved by Lord Chesterfield's statement, in one of his Letters, published by Lord Mahon, in his edition of Chesterfield's _Works_ (ii. 450), that "Bolingbroke only doubted, and by no means rejected, a future state." We know that Bolingbroke denied to Pope his disbelief of the moral attributes of G.o.d, of which Pope told his friends with great joy. How ungrateful a return for this "excessive friendliness" was the indignation which Bolingbroke expressed at the priest having attended Pope in his last moments![83]

It is now, we believe, admitted on all hands that Christianity has not found a very formidable opponent in Bolingbroke, and that his objections, for the most part, only betray his own half-learning. Lord Brougham, whose touching remark we have already quoted, concludes his sketch of Lord Bolingbroke with this eloquent summing up: "Such was Bolingbroke, and as such he must be regarded by impartial posterity, after the violence of party has long subsided, and the view is no more intercepted either by the rancour of political enmity, or by the partiality of adherents, or by the fondness of friends.h.i.+p. Such, too, is Bolingbroke when the gloss of trivial accomplishments is worn off by time, and the l.u.s.tre of genius itself has faded beside the simple, translucent light of virtue. The contemplation is not without its uses.

The glare of talents and success is apt to obscure defects, which are incomparably more mischievous than any intellectual powers can be either useful or admirable. Nor can a lasting renown--a renown that alone deserves to be courted of a rational being--ever be built upon any foundations save those which are laid in an honest heart and a firm purpose, both conspiring to work out the good of mankind. That renown will be as imperishable as it is pure."[84]

Among the memorials of the Bolingbrokes, in Battersea Church, is the altar-window, filled with old stained gla.s.s, preserved from the former church, and executed at the expense of the St. Johns. It includes portraits of Henry VII., his grandmother, the Lady Margaret Beauchamp, and Queen Elizabeth; together with numerous s.h.i.+elds of arms, showing the alliances of the family.

York House, at Battersea, the mansion of Booth, Archbishop of York, who died in 1480, and bequeathed it to his successors in the See, was mostly taken down some sixty years ago. Archbishop Holgate was one of the few prelates who resided here; he was imprisoned and deprived by Queen Mary for being a married man, and lost much property by illegal seizure. In Strype's _Life of Cranmer_, p. 308, it is stated that the officers who were employed to apprehend the Archbishop rifled his house at Battersea, and took away from thence 300_l_. of gold coin; 1600 ounces of plate; a mitre of fine gold, set with very fine diamonds, sapphires, and balists, other good stones and pearls; some very valuable rings; and the Archbishop's seal and signet.

There was long a tradition at Battersea that some ancient walls remaining there were a portion of the residence of the father of Queen Anne Boleyn. It appears from the monument to Queen Elizabeth, in Battersea Church, that the Boleyns were related to the St. Johns. Upon this Sir Richard Phillips contends that at York House, above named, resided Wolsey, as Archbishop of York. "Here Henry VIII. first saw Anne Boleyn; and here that scene took place which Shakspeare records in his play of Henry VIII.; and which he described truly, because he wrote it for Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, within fifty years of the event, and must himself have known living witnesses of its verity. Hence it becomes more than probable, that Sir Thomas Boleyn actually resided in the vicinity, and that his daughter was accidentally among the guests at that princely entertainment. I know it is contended that this interview took place at York House, Whitehall; but Shakspeare makes the King come by water; and York House, Battersea, was, beyond all doubt, a residence of Wolsey, and is provided with a creek from the Thames, for the evident purpose of facilitating in the course by water. Besides, the owner informed me, that a few years since he had pulled down a superb room, called 'the ball-room,' the panels of which were curiously painted, and the divisions silvered. He also stated that the room had a dome and a richly-ornamented ceiling, and that he once saw an ancient print, representing the first interview of Henry VIII. with Anne Boleyn, in which the room was portrayed exactly like the one that, in modernizing his house, he had found it necessary to destroy."

FOOTNOTES:

[79] Horace Walpole tells us that Sir Robert Walpole, against the earnest representations of his family and most intimate friends, had consented to the recall of Bolingbroke ("that intriguing Proteus") from banishment, excepting only his re-admission to the House of Lords.

"Bolingbroke, at his return [1723], could not avoid waiting on Sir Robert to thank him, and was invited to dine with him at Chelsea; but whether tortured at witnessing Walpole's serene frankness and felicity, or suffocated with indignation and confusion at being forced to be obliged to one whom he hated and envied, the first morsel he put into his mouth was near choking him, and he was reduced to rise from table and leave the room for some minutes. I never heard of their meeting more."--Walpole's _Reminiscences_.

[80] It is also said to have been lined with cedar.--See _ante_, p. 345.

[81] The upper part of the mill was taken down; the lower part is still used for grinding corn. The situation of the old mansion is indicated by the names of Bolingbroke-gardens and Bolingbroke-terrace.

[82] Mallet did not fail to publish, after Bolingbroke's death, his writings disclosing his opposition to revealed religion, which drew from Johnson the severe remark, that Bolingbroke, "having loaded a blunderbuss, and pointed it against Christianity, had not the courage to discharge it himself, but left half-a-crown to a hungry Scotchman to pull the trigger after his death."

[83] Communication to _Notes and Queries_, Second Series, No. 212, by the Author of the present volume.

[84] _Historical Sketches of Statesmen._ Third Series, vol. ii.

corrected Edition.

THE LAST OF EPPING FOREST.

In the twelfth edition of _The Ambulator_, edited nearly half a century ago by that trustworthy topographer, Mr. E. W. Brayley, under "Epping Forest," we read "a plan for the inclosure of the Forest has been recently projected." And this plan has been slowly but surely put into execution; the inclosures having been so numerous that little remains of this charming forest district, with its verdant glades, secluded dells, thickets, majestic oaks, and sinking vistas of enchanting wilderness and cheerful landscape, to gladden the hearts of the toilers in the vast metropolis.

The Forest remains where it was. Brayley describes it as a royal chase, extending from Epping almost to London, anciently a very extensive district; and, under the name of the Forest of Ess.e.x, including a great part of the county. It had afterwards the name of Waltham Forest, which it long since yielded to its present appellation. To this Forest, that of Hainault, which lies to the south-east, was once, it is supposed, an appendage: it was formerly styled "the Queen's Forest," and it possesses more beautiful scenery than, perhaps, any other forest in England. The Crown possesses the whole of the rights over Hainault, and the encroachments are not nearly so numerous here as in Epping Forest, where the Crown has only certain rights--the right of vert and venison. The loss of the picturesque features of wild expanse of woodlands, heath, and mosses; of vast ma.s.ses of umbrageous tree-tops, and little patches of cultivation--here and there a little town, sending up its fleecy smoke amidst the forest boughs--must excite concern amongst all who take interest in the amus.e.m.e.nts of the people. How truthfully has the isolated picture of forest life been sung:

"From age to age no tumult did arouse The peaceful dwellers; there they lived and died, Pa.s.sing a dreamy life, diversified By nought of novelty, save now and then A horn, resounding through the forest glen, Woke them as from a trance, and led them out To catch a brief glimpse of the hunt's wild rout-- The music of the hounds; the tramp and rush Of steeds and men;--and then a sudden hush Left round the eager listeners; the deep mood Of awful, dead, and twilight solitude, Fallen again upon that forest vast."

The Forest remains where and as it was, save that invasions on the waste, and encroachments, have from time to time greatly restricted its extent; not so the city, for that has advanced, and meets the old liberty at half-way. Now the metropolis reaches to Bow, or nearly to Stratford, where the Forest commences; and there the road divides, one branch leading northward to Chigwell, the other eastward to Romford. In extent it reaches five miles from Ilford on the south, nearly to Abridge on the north, by four miles from Woodford-bridge on the west, to Havering-at-Bower on the east. Were the whole area of this scope one continuous chase, there would be some 12,000 acres; but from the numberless excisions from, and appropriations of the liberty, the contents of the whole do not at present amount to 4,000 acres.

It appears that an Act of Parliament was pa.s.sed (the 14th and 15th Vict.) for the disafforesting and inclosure of Hainault Forest; that on the 24th August, 1851, a commission was formed for the purpose: and summary execution was done upon 14,000 oak-trees, which had stood unmolested for centuries. This was preliminary to the utter clearance, parcelling out, and selling off of the whole domain.[85]

The signal advantage of Epping Forest over all other open s.p.a.ces is that in it alone thousands can at the same time enjoy the country in its natural aspect in that privacy without which the country, as such, is no enjoyment at all. That the inhabitants of London highly appreciate this advantage is shown by the fact that thousands every fine day in the year pa.s.s by the Parks that are provided for them near their own doors, and travel weary miles to reach the fragment of the Forest that is left to them.

The case of Epping Forest is matter of dispute. There is an opinion entertained by persons whose opinions command respect that the lords of the several manors included within the precincts of Epping Forest are ent.i.tled to call for an inclosure of the portions of the Forest in which they are respectively interested, whenever they please; and that the Crown is not justified, on the ground of public advantage, in setting up its rights as an impediment to such inclosure.

The case as between the lords of the manor, the Crown, and the public appears to be this:--The Forest comprises the wastes of certain manors, over which, from time immemorial, the lords of these manors had the accustomed rights of pasturage; the Crown had the forestal right of keeping deer in them, and for that purpose of keeping them uninclosed: and the general public had the common right of going upon them as uninclosed land. The lords of the manor are in the actual enjoyment of all the rights of property they ever had in the Forest, but they desire to acquire a species of property in it which has never hitherto belonged to them, and which is inconsistent with other existing rights. The right of the public to go upon the Forest land while it is in its present open condition has become one of transcendent importance; and the real question presented to the Crown is whether it shall cede its rights for the benefit of half-a-dozen persons who desire to acquire a valuable property to which they have no present t.i.tle, or maintain them for the benefit of the large proportion of the British people who live in London and its vicinity. In short, it appears that the rights of the Crown and the public have not been maintained in Epping Forest, because the Government would not incur the expense of litigation.

To show how persons sometimes defeat the cause which they advocate, it may be mentioned that at a meeting held at the Bald-faced Stag, Buckhurst-hill, upon this Forest question, several speakers expatiated at great length on the injustice of excluding the working cla.s.ses of the east end of London from the rural enjoyments of the Forest, owing to the inclosures made by the lords of the manor and other parties. It was, however, shown at the meeting that two gentlemen of the Committee had inclosed a very large portion of the Forest, parts that are the most picturesque and that were most resorted to by the London holiday folks; but, alas! no more Forest remains in the once sylvan neighbourhood of Buckhurst-hill.

The reduction of Epping Forest began in the reign of King John, and was confirmed by Edward IV., when all that part of the Forest which lay to the north of the highway from Stortford to Colchester (very distant from the present boundaries) was disafforested. The Forest was further reduced; but the metes and bounds of it were finally determined in 1640.

The office of Chief Forester for Ess.e.x was deemed highly honorary, and was generally bestowed on some ill.u.s.trious person. The stewards.h.i.+p was also usually enjoyed by one of the n.o.bility. It continued in the De Veres, Earls of Oxford, for many generations; but was taken from them by Edward IV., for their adherence to the Lancastrian party. On the accession of Henry VII., it was restored by grant to John, Earl of Oxford. The steward had the power to subst.i.tute a lieutenant, one riding-forester, and three yeoman-foresters, in the three bailiwicks of the Forest. He also had many lucrative privileges, and was Keeper of Havering-at-Bower, and of the house and park trees.

We remember, many years since, to have visited the Forest for the sake of inspecting the house known as _Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge_, which stands about a mile west of the main road to Epping; and the most direct road to which, in the heart of the Forest, we found to be from about midway between the Bald-faced Stag Inn and the village of Loughton. The view from this point is of surpa.s.sing beauty and extent; whilst it is no wide stretch of conjecture to set down the ancient forest as nearly covering the entire county. The towns, villages, and seats which now stud the district, and the roads which intersect the woody waste, may have been the work of a few centuries; inns and lodges would be among the earliest buildings for retainers, whose business it was to defend and preserve this royal chase, for the privilege of hunting here was confined to the Sovereign and his favourites. Again, those who flocked thither, with such privilege, would well repay the hospitalities of an inn, and "hosteller," even were we to leave out of the reckoning the boon companions.h.i.+p of foresters, and the debauched habits of marauders, who fattened by the infringement of the royal privilege, in wholesale deer-stealing for the London markets. We were told that in Epping churchyard is the tombstone of a follower, whose business it was to convey venison to the metropolis, but who, in one of his midnight returns, was shot by an unknown hand; the almost headless body being found on the road next morning.

The Lodge stands in the parish of Chingford,[86] about one mile from the village, and thus served the purpose of a manor-house, the courts being held here. Chingford Hall, the actual manor-house, is situated a short distance hence; but Mr. Lysons thinks it probable that the site of the ancient manor-house was that of the present Lodge. The manor was purchased in or about 1666, by Thomas Boothby, Esq., from whose family it descended by marriage to the Heathcotes. The Lodge consists of the main building, a bas.e.m.e.nt, and two floors,--and a building ab.u.t.ting upon it, chiefly occupied by the s.p.a.cious staircase. The exterior has little of the air of antiquity comparatively with the interior. The bas.e.m.e.nt is princ.i.p.ally the kitchen, where the large projecting chimney, the olden fire-dogs, and cheerful wood fire, reminded us of "the rural life," if they carried us not back to