Rural Rides Part 24

"Well, then," says the devil of laziness, "and could you not be contented to live here all the rest of your life; and never again pester yourself with the cursed politics?" "Why, I think I have laboured enough. Let others work now. And such a pretty place for coursing and for hare-hunting and woodc.o.c.k shooting, I dare say; and then those pretty wild-ducks in the water, and the flowers and the gra.s.s and the trees and all the birds in spring and the fresh air, and never, never again to be stifled with the smoke that from the infernal Wen ascendeth for ever more and that every easterly wind brings to choke me at Kensington!" The _last word_ of this soliloquy carried me back, slap, to my own study (very much unlike that which I am in), and bade me think of the GRIDIRON; bade me think of the complete triumph that I have yet to enjoy: promised me the pleasure of seeing a million of trees of my own, and sown by my own hands this very year. Ah! but the hares and the pheasants and the wild ducks! Yes, but the delight of seeing Prosperity Robinson hang his head for shame: the delight of beholding the tormenting embarra.s.sments of those who have so long retained crowds of base miscreants to revile me; the delight of ousting spitten-upon Stanley and bound-over Wood! Yes, but, then, the flowers and the birds and the sweet air! What, then, shall Canning never again hear of the "revered and ruptured Ogden!" Shall he go into his grave without being again reminded of "driving at the whole herd, in order to get at "the _ign.o.ble animal_!" Shall he never again be told of Six-Acts and of his wish "to extinguish that _accursed torch of discord for ever_!" Oh! G.o.d forbid! farewell hares and dogs and birds! what, shall Sidmouth, then, never again hear of his _Power of Imprisonment Bill_, of his _Circular_, of his _Letter of Thanks to the Manchester Yeomanry_! I really jumped up when this thought came athwart my mind, and, without thinking of the breakfast, said to George who was sitting by me, "Go, George, and tell them to saddle the horses;" for, it seemed to me, that I had been meditating some crime. Upon George asking me, whether I would not stop to breakfast? I bade him not order the horses out yet; and here we are, waiting for breakfast.

_Ryall, Wednesday Night, 27th Sept._

After breakfast we took our leave of Sir Thomas Winnington, and of Stanford, very much pleased with our visit. We wished to reach Ryall as early as possible in the day, and we did not, therefore, stop at Worcester. We got here about three o'clock, and we intend to set off, in another direction, early in the morning.

RIDE FROM RYALL, IN WORCESTERs.h.i.+RE, TO BURGHCLERE, IN HAMPs.h.i.+RE.

"Alas, the country! How shall tongue or pen Bewail her now, _un_country gentlemen!

The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, The first to make a malady of peace!

For what were all these country patriots born?

To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn.

But corn, like ev'ry mortal thing, must fall: Kings, conquerors, and, _markets most of all_."

LORD BYRON.

_Ryall, Friday Morning, 29th September, 1826._

I have observed, in this country, and especially near Worcester, that the working people seem to be better off than in many other parts, one cause of which is, I dare say, that _glove manufacturing_, which cannot be carried on by fire or by wind or by water, and which is, therefore, carried on by the _hands_ of human beings. It gives work to women and children as well as to men; and that work is, by a great part of the women and children, done in their cottages, and amidst the fields and hop-gardens, where the husbands and sons must live, in order to raise the food and the drink and the wool. This is a great thing for the land.

If this glove-making were to cease, many of these women and children, now not upon the parish, must instantly be upon the parish. The glove-trade is, like all others, slack from this last change in the value of money; but there is no horrible misery here, as at Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Paisley, and other h.e.l.l-Holes of 84 degrees of heat.

There misery walks abroad in skin, bone and nakedness. There are no subscriptions wanted for Worcester; no militia-clothing. The working people suffer, trades'-people suffer, and who is to escape, except the monopolizers, the Jews, and the tax-eaters, when the Government chooses to raise the value of money, and lower the price of goods? The whole of the industrious part of the country must suffer in such a case; but, where manufacturing is mixed with agriculture, where the wife and daughters are at the needle, or the wheel, while the men and the boys are at plough, and where the manufacturing, of which one or two towns are the centres, is spread over the whole country round about, and particularly where it is, in very great part, performed by females at their _own homes_, and where the earnings come _in aid of the man's wages_; in such case the misery cannot be so great; and accordingly, while there is an absolute destruction of life going on in the h.e.l.l-holes, there is no _visible_ misery at, or near, Worcester; and I cannot take my leave of this county without observing, that I do not recollect to have seen one miserable object in it. The working people all seem to have good large gardens, and pigs in their styes; and this last, say the _feelosofers_ what they will about her "antallectual enjoyments," is the _only_ security for happiness in a labourer's family.

Then, this glove-manufacturing is not like that of cottons, a mere gambling concern, making Baronets to-day and Bankrupts to-morrow, and making those who do the work slaves. Here are no ma.s.ses of people, called together by a _bell_, and "kept _to it_" by a driver; here are no "patriots," who, while they keep Englishmen to it by fines, and almost by the scourge, in a heat of 84 degrees, are pet.i.tioning the Parliament to "give freedom" to the South Americans, who, as these "patriots" have been informed, use a great quant.i.ty of _cottons_!

The dilapidation of parsonage-houses and the depopulation of villages appears not to have been so great just round about Worcester, as in some other parts; but they have made great progress even here. No man appears to fat an ox, or hardly a sheep, except with a view of sending it to London, or to some other infernal resort of monopolizers and tax-eaters.

Here, as in Wilts.h.i.+re and Gloucesters.h.i.+re and Herefords.h.i.+re, you find plenty of large churches without scarcely any people. I dare say, that, even in this county, more than one half of the parishes have either no parsonage-houses at all; or, have not one that a parson thinks fit for him to live in; and, I venture to a.s.sert, that one or the other of these is the case in four parishes out of every five in Herefords.h.i.+re! Is not this a monstrous shame? Is this "a church"? Is this "law"? The parsons get the t.i.thes and the rent of the glebe-lands, and the parsonage-houses are left to tumble down, and nettles and brambles to hide the spot where they stood. But, the fact is, the Jew-system has swept all the little gentry, the small farmers, and the domestic manufacturers away. The land is now used to raise food and drink for the monopolizers and the tax-eaters and their purveyors and lackeys and harlots; and they get together in Wens.

Of all the mean, all the cowardly reptiles, that ever crawled on the face of the earth, the _English land-owners_ are the most mean and the most cowardly: for, while they support the churches in their several parishes, while they see the population drawn away from their parishes to the Wens, while they are taxed to keep the people in the Wens, and while they see their own Parsons pocket the t.i.thes and the glebe-rents, and suffer the parsonage-houses to fall down; while they see all this, they, without uttering a word in the way of complaint, suffer themselves and their neighbours to be taxed, to build new churches for the monopolizers and tax-eaters in those Wens! Never was there in this world a set of reptiles so base as this. Stupid as many of them are, they must clearly see the flagrant injustice of making the depopulated parishes pay for the aggrandizement of those who have caused the depopulation, aye, actually pay taxes _to add to_ the Wens, and, of course, to cause a further depopulation of the taxed villages; stupid beasts as many of them are, they must see the flagrant injustice of this, and mean and cowardly as many of them are, some of them would remonstrate against it; but, alas! the far greater part of them are, themselves, getting, or expecting, _loaves and fishes_, either in their own persons, or in those of their family. They smouch, or want to smouch, some of the taxes; and, therefore, they must not complain. And thus the thing goes on. These landowners see, too, the churches falling down and the parsonage-houses either tumbled down or dilapidated. But, then, mind, they have, amongst them, the giving away of the benefices!

Of course, all they want is the income, and, the less the parsonage-house costs, the larger the spending income. But, in the meanwhile, here is a destruction of public property; and also, from a diversion of the income of the livings, a great injury, great injustice, to the middle and the working cla.s.ses.

Is this, then, is this "church" a thing to remain untouched? Shall the widow and the orphan, whose money has been borrowed _by the land-owners_ (including the Parsons) to purchase "victories" with; shall they be stripped of their interest, of their very bread, and shall the Parsons, who have let half the parsonage-houses fall down or become unfit to live in, still keep all the t.i.thes and the glebe-lands and the immense landed estates, called Church Lands? Oh, no! Sir James Graham "of Netherby,"

though you are a descendant of the Earls of Monteith, of John of the bright sword, and of the Seventh Earl of Galloway, K.T. (taking care, for G.o.d's sake, not to omit the K.T.); though you may be the _Magnus Apollo_; and, in short, be you what you may, you shall never execute your project of sponging the fund-holders and of leaving Messieurs the Parsons untouched! In many parishes, where the livings are good too, there is neither parsonage-house nor church! This is the case at Draycot Foliot, in Wilts.h.i.+re. The living is a Rectory; the Parson has, of course, both great and small t.i.thes; these t.i.thes and the glebe-land are worth, I am told, more than three hundred pounds a year; and yet there is neither church nor parsonage-house; both have been suffered to fall down and disappear; and, when a new Parson comes to take possession of the living, there is, I am told, a temporary tent, or booth, erected, upon the spot where the church ought to be, for the performance of the _ceremony of induction_! What, then!--Ought not this church to be repealed? An Act of Parliament made this church; an Act of Parliament can unmake it; and is there any but a monster who would suffer this Parson to retain this income, while that of the widow and the orphan was taken away? Oh, no? Sir James Graham of Netherby, who, with the _gridiron before you_, say, that there was "no man, of any authority, who foresaw the effects of Peel's Bill;" oh, no! thou stupid, thou empty-headed, thou insolent aristocratic pamphleteer, the widow and the orphan _shall not_ be robbed of their bread, while this Parson of Draycot Foliot keeps the income of his living!

On my return from Worcester to this place, yesterday, I noticed, at a village called Severn Stoke, a very curiously-constructed grape house; that is to say a hot-house for the raising of grapes. Upon inquiry, I found, that it belonged to a Parson of the name of St. John, whose parsonage house is very near to it, and who, being _sure_ of having the benefice when the then Rector should die, bought a piece of land, and erected his grapery on it, just facing, and only about 50 yards from, the windows, out of which the _old parson_ had to look until the day of his death, with a view, doubtless, of piously furnis.h.i.+ng his aged brother with a _memento mori_ (remember death), quite as significant as a death's head and cross-bones, and yet done in a manner expressive of that fellow-feeling, that delicacy, that abstinence from self-gratification, which are well known to be characteristics almost peculiar to "the cloth"! To those, if there be such, who may be disposed to suspect that the grapery arose, upon the spot where it stands, merely from the desire to have the vines in bearing state, against the time that the old parson should die, or, as I heard the Botley Parson once call it, "kick the bucket;" to such persons I would just put this one question; did they ever either from Scripture or tradition, learn that any of the Apostles or their disciples, erected graperies from motives such as this? They may, indeed, say, that they never heard of the Apostles erecting any graperies at all, much less of their having erected them from such a motive. Nor, to say the truth, did I ever hear of any such erections on the part of those Apostles and those whom they commissioned to preach the word of G.o.d; and, Sir William Scott (now a _lord_ of some sort) never convinced me, by his parson-praising speech of 1802, that to give the church-clergy a due degree of influence over the minds of the people, to make the people revere them, it was necessary that the parsons and their wives should s.h.i.+ne at _b.a.l.l.s_ and in _pump-rooms_. On the contrary, these and the like have taken away almost the whole of their spiritual influence. They never had much; but, lately, and especially since 1793, they have had hardly any at all; and, wherever I go, I find them much better known as _Justices of the Peace_ than as Clergymen. What they would come to, if this system could go on for only a few years longer, I know not: but go on, as it is now going, it cannot much longer; there must be _a settlement of some sort_: and that settlement never can leave that ma.s.s, that immense ma.s.s, of public property, called "church property," to be used as it now is.

I have seen, in this country, and in Herefords.h.i.+re, several pieces of Mangel Wurzel; and, I hear, that it has nowhere failed, as the turnips have. Even the Lucerne has, in some places, failed to a certain extent; but Mr. Walter Palmer, at Pencoyd, in Herefords.h.i.+re, has cut a piece of Lucerne four times this last summer, and, when I saw it, on the 17th Sept. (12 days ago), it was got a foot high towards another cut. But, with one exception (too trifling to mention), Mr. Walter Palmer's Lucerne is on the Tullian plan; that is, it is in rows at four feet distance from each other; so that you plough between as often as you please, and thus, together with a little hand weeding between the plants, keep the ground, at all times, clear of weeds and gra.s.s. Mr.

Palmer says, that his acre (he has no more) has kept two horses all the summer; and he seems to complain, that it has done no more. Indeed! A stout horse will eat much more than a fatting ox. This gra.s.s will fat any ox, or sheep; and would not Mr. Palmer like to have ten acres of land that would fat a score of oxen? They would do this, if they were managed well. But is it _nothing_ to keep a team of four horses, for five months in the year, on the produce of two acres of land? If a man say that, he must, of course, be eagerly looking forward to another world; for nothing will satisfy him in this. A good crop of early cabbages may be had between the rows of Lucerne.

_Cabbages_ have, generally, wholly failed. Those that I see are almost all too backward to make much of heads; though it is surprising how fast they will grow and come to perfection as soon as there is _twelve hours of night_. I am here, however, speaking of the large sorts of cabbage; for the smaller sorts will loave in summer. Mr. Walter Palmer has now a piece of these, of which I think there are from 17 to 20 _tons_ to the acre; and this, too, observe, after a season which, on the same farm, has not suffered a turnip of any sort to come. If he had had 20 acres of these, he might have almost laughed at the failure of his turnips, and at the short crop of hay. And this is a crop of which a man may always be _sure_, if he take proper pains. These cabbages (Early Yorks or some such sort) should, if you want them in June or July, be sown early in the previous August. If you want them in winter, sown in April, and treated as pointed out in my _Cottage Economy_. These small sorts stand the winter better than the large; they are more nutritious; and they occupy the ground little more than half the time. _Dwarf Savoys_ are the finest and richest and most nutritious of cabbages. Sown early in April, and planted out early in July, they will, at 18 inches apart each way, yield a crop of 30 to 40 tons by Christmas. But all this supposes land very good, or, very well manured, and plants of a good sort, and well raised and planted, and the ground well tilled after planting; and a crop of 30 tons is worth all these and all the care and all the pains that a man can possibly take.

I am here amongst the finest of cattle, and the finest sheep of the Leicester kind, that I ever saw. My host, Mr. Price, is famed as a breeder of cattle and sheep. The cattle are of the Hereford kind, and the sheep surpa.s.sing any animals of the kind that I ever saw. The animals seem to be made for the soil, and the soil for them.

In taking leave of this county, I repeat, with great satisfaction, what I before said about the apparent comparatively happy state of the labouring people; and I have been very much pleased with the tone and manner in which they are spoken to and spoken of by their superiors. I hear of no _hard_ treatment of them here, such as I have but too often heard of in some counties, and too often witnessed in others; and I quit Worcesters.h.i.+re, and particularly the house in which I am, with all those feelings which are naturally produced by the kindest of receptions from frank and sensible people.

_Fairford (Gloucesters.h.i.+re), Sat.u.r.day Morning, 30th Sept._

Though we came about 45 miles yesterday, we are up by day-light, and just about to set off to sleep at Hayden, near Swindon, in Wilts.h.i.+re.

_Hayden, Sat.u.r.day Night, 30th Sept._

From Ryall, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, we came, yesterday (Friday) morning, first to Tewksbury in Gloucesters.h.i.+re. This is a good, substantial town, which, for many years, sent to Parliament that sensible and honest and constant hater of Pitt and his infernal politics, James Martin, and which now sends to the same place his son, Mr. John Martin, who, when the memorable _Kentish Pet.i.tion_ was presented, in June 1822, proposed that it should not be received, or that, if it were received, "the House should not separate, until it had resolved, that the interest of the Debt should never be reduced"! Castlereagh abused the pet.i.tion; but was for _receiving_ it, in _order to fix on it a mark of the House's reprobation_. I said, in the next Register, that this fellow was _mad_; and, in six or seven weeks from that day, he cut his own throat, and was declared to have been mad at the time when this pet.i.tion was presented!

The mess that "_the House_," will be in will be bad enough as it is; but what would have been its mess, if it had, in its strong fit of "good faith," been furious enough to adopt Mr. Martin's "resolution"!

The Warwicks.h.i.+re Avon falls into the Severn here, and on the sides of both, for many miles back, there are the finest meadows that ever were seen. In looking over them, and beholding the endless flocks and herds, one wonders what can become of all the meat! By riding on about eight or nine miles farther, however, this wonder is a little diminished; for here we come to one of the devouring Wens; namely, Cheltenham, which is what they call a "watering place;" that is to say, a place, to which East India plunderers, West India floggers, English tax-gorgers, together with gluttons, drunkards, and debauchees of all descriptions, female as well as male, resort, at the suggestion of silently laughing quacks, in the hope of getting rid of the bodily consequences of their manifold sins and iniquities. When I enter a place like this, I always feel disposed to squeeze up my nose with my fingers. It is nonsense, to be sure; but I conceit that every two-legged creature, that I see coming near me, is about to cover me with the poisonous proceeds of its impurities. To places like this come all that is knavish and all that is foolish and all that is base; gamesters, pickpockets, and harlots; young wife-hunters in search of rich and ugly and old women, and young husband-hunters in search of rich and wrinkled or half-rotten men, the former resolutely bent, be the means what they may, to give the latter heirs to their lands and tenements. These things are notorious; and Sir William Scott, in his speech of 1802, in favour of the non-residence of the Clergy, expressly said, that they and their families ought to appear at watering places, and that this was amongst the means of making them respected by their flocks! Memorandum: he was a member for Oxford when he said this!

Before we got into Cheltenham, I learned from a coal-carter which way we had to go, in order to see "_The New Buildings_," which are now nearly at a stand. We rode up the main street of the town, for some distance, and then turned off to the left, which soon brought us to the "desolation of abomination." I have seldom seen anything with more heartfelt satisfaction. "Oh!" said I to myself, "the accursed THING has certainly got a _blow_, then, in every part of its corrupt and corrupting carca.s.s!" The whole town (and it was now ten o'clock) looked delightfully dull. I did not see more than four or five carriages, and, perhaps, twenty people on horse-back; and these seemed, by their hook-noses and round eyes, and by the long and sooty necks of the women, to be, for the greater part, _Jews and Jewesses_. The place really appears to be sinking very fast; and I have been told, and believe the fact, that houses, in Cheltenham, will now sell for only just about one-third as much as the same would have sold for only in last October.

It is curious to see the names which the vermin owners have put upon the houses here. There is a new row of most gaudy and fantastical dwelling places, called "Colombia Place," given it, doubtless, by some dealer in _Bonds_. There is what a boy told us was the "_New Spa_;" there is "_Waterloo-house_!" Oh! how I rejoice at the ruin of the base creatures!

There is "_Liverpool-Cottage_," "_Canning-Cottage_," "_Peel-Cottage_;"

and the good of it is, that the ridiculous beasts have put this word _cottage_ upon scores of houses, and some very mean and shabby houses, standing along, and making part of an unbroken street! What a figure this place will cut in another year or two! I should not wonder to see it nearly wholly deserted. It is situated in a nasty, flat, stupid spot, without anything pleasant near it. A putting down of the one pound notes will soon take away its _spa_-people. Those of the notes, that have already been cut off, have, it seems, lessened the quant.i.ty of ailments very considerably; another brush will cure all the complaints!

They have had some rains in the summer not far from this place; for we saw in the streets very fine turnips for sale as vegetables, and broccoli with heads six or eight inches over! But as to the meat, it was nothing to be compared with that of Warminster, in Wilts.h.i.+re; that is to say, the veal and lamb. I have paid particular attention to this matter, at Worcester and Tewksbury as well as at Cheltenham; and I have seen no veal and no lamb to be compared with those of Warminster. I have been thinking, but cannot imagine how it is, that the Wen-Devils, either at Bath or London, do not get this meat away from Warminster. I hope that my observations on it will not set them to work; for, if it do, the people of Warminster will never have a bit of good meat again.

After Cheltenham we had to reach this pretty little town of Fairford, the regular turnpike road to which lay through Cirencester; but I had from a fine map, at Sir Thomas Winnington's, traced out a line for us along through a chain of villages, leaving Cirencester away to our right, and never coming nearer than seven or eight miles to it. We came through Dodeswell, Withington, Chedworth, Winston, and the two Colnes.

At Dodeswell we came up a long and steep hill, which brought us out of the great vale of Gloucester and up upon the Cotswold Hills, which name is tautological, I believe; for I think that _wold_ meaned _high lands of great extent_. Such is the Cotswold, at any rate, for it is a tract of country stretching across, in a south-easterly direction from Dodeswell to near Fairford, and in a north-easterly direction, from Pitchcomb Hill, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re (which, remember, I descended on the 12th September) to near Witney in Oxfords.h.i.+re. Here we were, then, when we got fairly up upon the Wold, with the vale of Gloucester at our back, Oxford and its vale to our left, the vale of Wilts.h.i.+re to our right, and the vale of Berks.h.i.+re in our front: and from one particular point, I could see a part of each of them. This Wold is, in itself, an ugly country. The soil is what is called a _stone brash_ below, with a reddish earth mixed with little bits of this brash at top, and, for the greater part of the Wold, even this soil is very shallow; and as fields are divided by walls made of this brash, and as there are, for a mile or two together, no trees to be seen, and as the surface is not smooth and green like the downs, this is a sort of country, having less to please the eye than any other that I have ever seen, always save and except the _heaths_ like those of Bagshot and Hindhead. Yet, even this Wold has many fertile dells in it, and sends out, from its highest parts, several streams, each of which has its pretty valley and its meadows. And here has come down to us, from a distance of many centuries, a particular race of sheep, called the _Cotswold_ breed, which are, of course, the best suited to the country. They are short and stocky, and appear to me to be about half way, in point of size, between the Rylands and the South Downs. When crossed with the Leicester, as they are pretty generally in the North of Wilts.h.i.+re, they make very beautiful and even large sheep; quite large enough, and, people say, very profitable.

A _route_, when it lies through _villages_, is one thing on a _map_, and quite another thing on the ground. Our line of villages, from Cheltenham to Fairford was very nearly straight upon the map; but, upon the ground, it took us round about a great many miles, besides now and then a little going back, to get into the right road; and, which was a great inconvenience, not a public-house was there on our road, until we got within eight miles of Fairford. Resolved that not one single farthing of my money should be spent in the Wen of Cheltenham, we came through that place, expecting to find a public-house in the first or second of the villages; but not one was there, over the whole of the Wold; and though I had, by pocketing some slices of meat and bread at Ryall, provided against this contingency, as far as related to ourselves, I could make no such provision for our horses, and they went a great deal too far without baiting. Plenty of farm-houses, and, if they had been in America, we need have looked for no other. Very likely (I hope it at any rate) almost any farmer on the Cotswold would have given us what we wanted, if we had asked for it; but the fas.h.i.+on, the good old fas.h.i.+on, was, by the h.e.l.lish system of funding and taxing and monopolizing, driven across the Atlantic. And is England _never_ to see it return! Is the h.e.l.lish system to last _for ever_!

Doctor Black, in remarking upon my Ride down the vale of the Salisbury Avon, says, that there has, doubtless, been a falling off in the population of the villages, "lying amongst the chalk-hills;" aye, and lying everywhere else too; or, how comes it, that four-fifths of the parishes of Herefords.h.i.+re, abounding in rich land, in meadows, orchards, and pastures, have either no parsonage-houses at all, or have none that a Parson thinks fit for him to live in? I vouch for the fact; I will, whether in Parliament or not, prove the fact to the Parliament: and, if the fact be such, the conclusion is inevitable. But how melancholy is the sight of these decayed and still decaying villages in the dells of the Cotswold, where the building materials, being stone, the ruins do not totally disappear for ages! The village of Withington (mentioned above) has a church like a small cathedral, and the whole of the population is now only 603 persons, men, women, and children! So that, according to the Scotch fellows, this immense and fine church, which is as sound as it was 7 or 800 years ago, was built by and for a population, containing, at most, only about 120 grown up and able-abodied men! But here, in this once populous village, or I think town, you see _all_ the indubitable marks of most melancholy decay.

There are several lanes, crossing each other, which _must_ have been _streets_ formerly. There is a large open s.p.a.ce where the princ.i.p.al streets meet. There are, against this open place, two large, old, roomy houses, with gateways into back parts of them, and with large stone _upping-blocks_ against the walls of them in the street. These were manifestly considerable _inns_, and, in this open place, markets or fairs, or both used to be held. I asked two men, who were thres.h.i.+ng in a barn, how long it was since their public-house was put down, or dropped?

They told me about sixteen years. One of these men, who was about fifty years of age, could remember _three_ public-houses, one of which was what was called an _inn_! The place stands by the side of a little brook, which here rises, or rather issues, from a high hill, and which, when it has winded down for some miles, and through several villages, begins to be called the River Colne, and continues on, under this name, through Fairford and along, I suppose, till it falls into the Thames.

Withington is very prettily situated; it was, and not very long ago, a gay and nappy place; but it now presents a picture of dilapidation and shabbiness scarcely to be equalled. Here are the yet visible remains of two gentlemen's houses. Great farmers have supplied their place, as to inhabiting; and, I dare say, that some tax-eater, or some blaspheming Jew, or some still more base and wicked loan-mongering robber is now the owner of the land; aye, and all these people are his _slaves_ as completely, and more to their wrong, than the blacks are the slaves of the planters in Jamaica, the farmers here, acting, in fact, in a capacity corresponding with that of the negro-drivers there.

A part, and, perhaps, a considerable part, of the decay and misery of this place, is owing to the use of _machinery_, and to the _monopolizing_, in the manufacture of Blankets, of which fabric the town of Witney (above mentioned) was the centre, and from which town the wool used to be sent round to, and the yarn, or warp, come back from, all these Cotswold villages, and quite into a part of Wilts.h.i.+re. This work is all now gone, and so the women and the girls are a "surplus _popalashon, mon_," and are, of course, to be dealt with by the "Emigration Committee" of the "Collective Wisdom"! There were, only a few years ago, above thirty blanket-manufacturers at Witney: twenty-five of these have been swallowed up by the five that now have all the manufacture in their hands! And all this has been done by that system of gambling and of fict.i.tious money, which has conveyed property from the hands of the many into the hands of the few. But wise Burdett _likes_ this! He wants the land to be cultivated by few hands, and he wants machinery, and all those things, which draw money into _large ma.s.ses_; that make a nation consist of a few of very rich and of millions of very poor! Burdett must look sharp; or this system will play him a trick before it come to an end.

The crops on the Cotswold have been pretty good; and I was very much surprised to see a scattering of early turnips, and, in some places, decent crops. Upon this Wold I saw more early turnips in a mile or two, than I saw in all Herefords.h.i.+re and Worcesters.h.i.+re and in all the rich and low part of Gloucesters.h.i.+re. The high lands always, during the year, and especially during the summer, receive much more of rain than the low lands. The clouds hang about the hills, and the dews, when they rise, go, most frequently, and cap the hills.

Wheat-sowing is yet going on on the Wold; but the greater part of it is sown, and not only sown, but up, and in some places, high enough to "hide a hare." What a difference! In some parts of England, no man thinks of sowing wheat till November, and it is often done in March. If the latter were done on this Wold there would not be a bushel on an acre. The ploughing and other work, on the Wold, is done, in great part, by oxen, and here are some of the finest ox-teams that I ever saw.

All the villages down to Fairford are pretty much in the same dismal condition as that of Withington. Fairford, which is quite on the border of Gloucesters.h.i.+re, is a very pretty little market-town, and has one of the prettiest churches in the kingdom. It was, they say, built in the reign of Henry VII.; and one is naturally surprised to see, that its windows of beautiful stained gla.s.s had the luck to escape, not only the fangs of the ferocious "good Queen Bess;" not only the unsparing plundering minions of James I.; but even the devastating ruffians of Cromwell.

We got in here about four o'clock, and at the house of Mr. Iles, where we slept, pa.s.sed, amongst several friends, a very pleasant evening. This morning, Mr. Iles was so good as to ride with us as far as the house of another friend at Kempsford, which is the last Gloucesters.h.i.+re parish in our route. At this friend's, Mr. Arkall, we saw a fine dairy of about 60 or 80 cows, and a cheese loft with, perhaps, more than two thousand cheeses in it; at least there were many hundreds. This village contains what are said to be the remnants and ruins of a mansion of John of Gaunt. The church is very ancient and very capacious. What tales these churches do tell upon us! What fools, what lazy dogs, what presumptuous a.s.ses, what lying braggarts, they make us appear! No people here, "_mon, teel the Scots cam to seevelize_" us! Impudent, lying beggars! Their stinking "_kelts_" ought to be taken up, and the brazen and insolent vagabonds whipped back to their heaths and their rocks. Let them go and thrive by their "cash-credits," and let their paper-money poet, Walter Scott, immortalize their deeds. That conceited, dunderheaded fellow, George Chalmers, _estimated_ the whole of the population of England and Wales at a few persons more than _two millions_, when England was just at the highest point of her power and glory, and when all these churches had long been built and were resounding with the voice of priests, who resided in their parishes, and who relieved all the poor out of their t.i.thes! But this same Chalmers signed his _solemn conviction_, that Vortigern and the other Ireland-ma.n.u.scripts, which were written by a lad of sixteen, were written by SHAKSPEARE.

In coming to Kempsford we got wet, and nearly to the skin. But our friends gave us coats to put on, while ours were dried, and while we ate our breakfast. In our way to this house, where we now are, Mr. Tucky's, at Heydon, we called at Mr. James Crowdy's, at Highworth, where I was from the 4th to the 9th of September inclusive; but it looked rainy, and, therefore, we did not alight. We got wet again before we reached this place; but, our journey being short, we soon got our clothes dry again.

_Burghclere (Hamps.h.i.+re), Monday, 2nd October._

Yesterday was a really _unfortunate day_. The morning promised fair; but its promises were like those of Burdett! There was a little snivelling, wet, treacherous frost. We had to come through Swindon, and Mr. Tucky had the kindness to come with us, until we got three or four miles on this side (the Hungerford side) of that very neat and plain and solid and respectable market town. Swindon is in Wilts.h.i.+re, and is in the real fat of the land, all being wheat, beans, cheese, or fat meat. In our way to Swindon, Mr. Tucky's farm exhibited to me what I never saw before, four score oxen, all grazing upon one farm, and all nearly fat! They were, some Devons.h.i.+re and some Herefords.h.i.+re. They were fatting on the gra.s.s only; and, I should suppose, that they are worth, or shortly will be, thirty pounds each. But the great pleasure, with which the contemplation of this fine sight was naturally calculated to inspire me, was more than counterbalanced by the thought, that these fine oxen, this primest of human food, was, aye, every mouthful of it, destined to be devoured in the Wen, and that, too, for the far greater part, by the Jews, loan-jobbers, tax-eaters, and their base and prost.i.tuted followers, dependents, purveyors, parasites and pimps, literary as well as other wretches, who, if suffered to live at all, ought to partake of nothing but the offal, and ought to come but one cut before the dogs and cats!

Mind you, there is, in my opinion, no land in England that surpa.s.ses this. There is, I suppose, as good in the three last counties that I have come through; but _better_ than this is, I should think, impossible. There is a pasture-field, of about a hundred acres, close to Swindon, belonging to a Mr. G.o.ddard, which, with its cattle and sheep, was a most beautiful sight. But everything is full of riches; and, as fast as skill and care and industry can extract these riches from the land, the unseen grasp of taxation, loan-jobbing and monopolizing takes them away, leaving the labourers not half a belly-full, compelling the farmer to pinch them or to be ruined himself, and making even the landowner little better than a steward, or bailiff, for the tax-eaters, Jews and jobbers!

Just before we got to Swindon, we crossed a ca.n.a.l at a place where there is a wharf and a coal-yard, and close by these a gentleman's house, with coach-house, stables, walled-in-garden, paddock _orne_, and the rest of those things, which, all together, make up _a villa_, surpa.s.sing the second and approaching towards the first cla.s.s. Seeing a man in the coal-yard, I asked him to what gentleman the house belonged: "to the _head un_ o' the ca.n.a.l," said he. And, when, upon further inquiry of him, I found that it was the villa of the chief manager, I could not help congratulating the proprietors of this aquatic concern; for, though I did not ask the name of the ca.n.a.l, I could readily suppose, that the profits must be prodigious, when the residence of the manager would imply no disparagement of dignity, if occupied by a Secretary of State for the Home, or even for the Foreign, department. I mean an _English_ Secretary of State; for, as to an _American_ one, his salary would be wholly inadequate to a residence in a mansion like this.