Rural Rides Part 29

"Mr. Goulburn, with a string of figures as long as his arm, had endeavoured to prove in the House of Commons that the withdrawal of the one-pound notes, being altogether so small an amount, little more than two millions, would be of no injury to the country, and that its only effect would be to make bankers more liberal in discounting with their fives. He would appeal to the company if they had found this to be the case. Mr. Goulburn had forgotten that the one-pound notes were the legs upon which the fives walked. He had heard the Duke of Wellington use the same language in the other House. Taught, as they now were, by experience, it would scarcely be believed, fifty years hence, that a set of men could have been found with so little foresight as to have devised measures so fraught with injury.

"He felt convinced that if he looked to the present company, or any other accidentally a.s.sembled, that he would find thirteen gentlemen more fit to manage the affairs of the kingdom than were those who now presided at the head of Government; not that he imputed to them any desire to do wrong, or that they were more corrupt than others; it was clear, that with the eyes of the public upon them they must wish to do right; it was owing to their sheer ignorance, their entire unfitness to carry on the Government, that they did no better. Ignorance and unfitness were, however, pleas which they had no business to make. It was nothing to him if a man was ignorant and stupid, under ordinary circ.u.mstances; but if he entrusted a man with his money, thinking that he was intelligent, and was deceived, then it was something; he had a right to say, 'You are not what I took you for, you are an ignorant fellow; you have deceived me, you are an impostor.' Such was the language proper to all under such circ.u.mstances: never mind their t.i.tles!

"A friend had that morning taken him to view the beautiful vale of Aylesbury, which he had never before seen; and the first thought that struck him, on seeing the rich pasture, was this, 'Good G.o.d! is a country like this to be ruined by the folly of those who govern it?'

When he was a naughty boy, he used to say that if he wanted to select Members for our Houses of Parliament, he would put a string across any road leading _into_ London, and that the first 1000 men that ran against his string, he would choose for Members, and he would bet a wager that they would be better qualified than those who now filled those Houses.

That was when he was a naughty boy; but since that time a Bill had been pa.s.sed which made it banishment for life to use language that brought the Houses of Parliament into contempt, and therefore he did not say so now. The Government, it should be recollected, had pa.s.sed all these Acts with the hearty concurrence of both Houses of Parliament; they were thus backed by these Houses, and they were backed by ninety-nine out of one hundred of the papers, which affected to see all their acts in rose-colour, for no one who was in the habit of reading the papers, could have antic.i.p.ated, from what they there saw, the ruin which had fallen on the country. Thus we had an ignorant Government, an ignorant Parliament, and something worse than an ignorant press; the latter being employed (some of them with considerable talent) to a.s.sail and turn into ridicule those who had the boldness and honesty to declare their dissent from the opinion of the wisdom of the measures of Government. It was no easy task to stand, unmoved, their ridicule and sarcasms, and many were thus deterred from expressing the sentiments of their minds. In this country we had all the elements of prosperity; an industrious people, such as were nowhere else to be found; a country, too, which was once called the finest and greatest on the earth (for whatever might be said of the country in comparison with others, the turnips of England were worth more, this year, than all the vines of France). It was a glorious and a great country until the Government had made it otherwise; and it ought still to be what it once was, and to be capable to driving the Russians back from the country of our old and best ally--the Turks.

During the time of war, we were told that it was necessary to make great sacrifices to save us from disgrace. The people made those sacrifices; they gave up their all. But had the Government done its part; had it saved us from disgrace? No: we were now the laughing-stock of all other countries. The French and all other nations derided us; and by and by it would be seen that they would make a part.i.tion of Turkey with the Russians, and make a fresh subject for laughter. Never since the time of Charles had such disgrace been brought upon the country; and why was this? When were we again to see the labourer receiving his wages from the farmer instead of being sent on the road to break stones? Some people, under this state of things, consoled themselves by saying things would come about again; they had come about before, and would come about again. They deceived themselves, things did not come about; the seasons came about, it was true; but something must be _done_ to bring things about. Instead of the _neuter_ verb (to speak as a grammarian) they should use the _active_; they should not say things will _come_ about, but things must be _put_ about. He thought that the distress would shortly become so great, perhaps, about Christmas, that the Parliamentary gentlemen, finding they received but a small part of their rents, without which they could not do, any more than the farmer, without his crops, would endeavour to bring them about; and the measures they would propose for that purpose, as far as he could judge, would be Bank restriction, and the re-issue of one-pound notes, and what the effect of that would be they would soon see. One of those persons who were so profoundly ignorant, would come down to the House prepared to propose a return to Bank restriction and the issue of small notes, and a bill to that effect would be pa.s.sed. If such a bill did pa.s.s, he would advise all persons to be cautious in their dealings; it would be perilous to make bargains under such a state of things. Money was the measure of value; but if this measure was liable to be three times as large at one time as at another, who could know what to do? how was any one to know how to purchase wheat, if the bushel was to be altered at the pleasure of the Government to three times its present size? The remedy for the evils of the country was not to be found in palliatives; it was not to be found in strong measures. The first step must be taken in the House of Commons, but that was almost hopeless; for although many persons possessed the right of voting, it was of little use to them; whilst a few great men could render their votes of no avail. If we had possessed a House of Commons that represented the feelings and wishes of the people, they would not have submitted to much of what had taken place; and until we had a reform we should never, he believed, see measures emanating from that House which would conduce to the glory and safety of the country. He feared that there would be no improvement until a dreadful convulsion took place, and that was an event which he prayed G.o.d to avert from the country.

"The Chairman proposed '_Prosperity to Agriculture_,' when

"Mr. Cobbett again rose, and said the Chairman had told him he was ent.i.tled to give a sentiment. He would give prosperity to the towns of Aylesbury and Tring; but he would again advise those who calculated upon the return of prosperity, to be careful. Until there was an equitable adjustment, or Government took off part of the taxes, which was the same thing, there could be no return of prosperity."

After the reporter went away, we had a great number of toasts, most of which were followed by more or less of speech; and, before we separated, I think that the seeds of common sense, on the subject of our distresses, were pretty well planted in the lower part of Hertfords.h.i.+re, and in Buckinghams.h.i.+re.

The gentlemen present were men of information, well able to communicate to others that which they themselves had heard; and I endeavoured to leave no doubt in the mind of any man that heard me, that the cause of the distress was the work of the Government and House of Commons, and that it was nonsense to hope for a cure until the people had a real voice in the choosing of that House. I think that these truths were well implanted; and I further think that if I could go to the capital of every county in the kingdom, I should leave no doubt in the minds of any part of the people. I must not omit to mention, in conclusion, that though I am no eater or drinker, and though I tasted nothing but the breast of a little chicken, and drank nothing but water, the dinner was the best that ever I saw called a _public dinner_, and certainly unreasonably cheap. There were excellent joints of meat of the finest description, fowls and geese in abundance; and, finally, a very fine haunch of venison, with a bottle of wine for each person; and all for _seven s.h.i.+llings and sixpence per head_. Good waiting upon; civil landlord and landlady; and, in short, everything at this very pretty town pleased me exceedingly. Yet, what is Tring but a fair specimen of English towns and English people? And is it right, and is it to be suffered, that such a people should be plunged into misery by the acts of those whom they pay so generously, and whom they so loyally and cheerfully obey?

As far as I had an opportunity of ascertaining the facts, the farmers feel all the pinchings of distress, and the still harsher pinchings of anxiety for the future; and the labouring people are suffering in a degree not to be described. The shutting of the male paupers up in pounds is common through Bedfords.h.i.+re and Buckinghams.h.i.+re. Left at large during the day, they roam about and maraud. What are the farmers to do with them? G.o.d knows how long the peace is to be kept, if this state of things be not put a stop to. The natural course of things is, that an attempt to impound the paupers in cold weather will produce resistance in some place; that those of one parish will be joined by those of another; that a formidable band will soon be a.s.sembled; then will ensue the rummaging of pantries and cellars; that this will spread from parish to parish; and that, finally, mobs of immense magnitude will set the law at open defiance. Jails are next to useless in such a case: their want of room must leave the greater part of the offenders at large; the agonizing distress of the farmers will make them comparatively indifferent with regard to these violences; and, at last, general confusion will come. This is by no means an unlikely progress, or an unlikely result. It therefore becomes those who have much at stake, to join heartily in their applications to Government, for a timely remedy for these astounding evils.

NORTHERN TOUR.

_Sheffield, 31st January 1830._

On the 26th instant I gave my third lecture at Leeds. I should in vain endeavour to give an adequate description of the pleasure which I felt at my reception, and at the effect which I produced in that fine and opulent capital of this great county of York; for the _capital_ it is in fact, though not in name. On the first evening, the play-house, which is pretty s.p.a.cious, was not completely filled in all its parts; but on the second and the third, it was filled brim full, boxes, pit and gallery; besides a dozen or two of gentlemen who were accommodated with seats on the stage. Owing to a cold which I took at Huddersfield, and which I spoke of before, I was, as the players call it, not in very good _voice_; but the audience made allowance for that, and very wisely preferred sense to sound. I never was more delighted than with my audience at Leeds; and what I set the highest value on, is, that I find I produced a prodigious effect in that important town.

There had been a meeting at Doncaster, a few days before I went to Leeds from Ripley, where one of the speakers, a Mr. Becket Denison, had said, speaking of the taxes, that there must be an application of the _pruning hook_ or of the _sponge_. This gentleman is a banker, I believe; he is one of the Beckets connected with the Lowthers; and he is a brother, or very near relation of that Sir John Becket who is the Judge Advocate General. So that, at last, others can talk of the pruning hook and the sponge, as well as I.

From Leeds I proceeded on to this place, not being able to stop at either Wakefield or Barnsley, except merely to change horses. The people in those towns were apprised of the time that I should pa.s.s through them; and, at each place, great numbers a.s.sembled to see me, to shake me by the hand, and to request me to stop. I was so hoa.r.s.e as not to be able to make the post-boy hear me when I called to him; and, therefore, it would have been useless to stop; yet I promised to go back if my time and my voice would allow me. They do not; and I have written to the gentlemen of those places to inform them, that when I go to Scotland in the spring, I will not fail to stop in those towns, in order to express my grat.i.tude to them. All the way along, from Leeds to Sheffield, it is coal and iron, and iron and coal. It was dark before we reached Sheffield; so that we saw the iron furnaces in all the horrible splendour of their everlasting blaze. Nothing can be conceived more grand or more terrific than the yellow waves of fire that incessantly issue from the top of these furnaces, some of which are close by the way-side. Nature has placed the beds of iron and the beds of coal alongside of each other, and art has taught man to make one to operate upon the other, as to turn the iron-stone into liquid matter, which is drained off from the bottom of the furnace, and afterwards moulded into blocks and bars, and all sorts of things. The combustibles are put into the top of the furnace, which stands thirty, forty, or fifty feet up in the air, and the ever blazing mouth of which is kept supplied with coal and c.o.ke and iron stone, from little iron wagons forced up by steam, and brought down again to be re-filled. It is a surprising thing to behold; and it is impossible to behold it without being convinced that, whatever other nations may do with cotton and with wool, they will never equal England with regard to things made of iron and steel. This Sheffield, and the land all about it, is one bed of iron and coal. They call it black Sheffield, and black enough it is; but from this one town and its environs go nine-tenths of the knives that are used in the whole world; there being, I understand, no knives made at Birmingham; the manufacture of which place consists of the larger sort of implements, of locks of all sorts, and guns and swords, and of all the endless articles of hardware which go to the furnis.h.i.+ng of a house. As to the land, viewed in the way of agriculture, it really does appear to be very little worth. I have not seen, except at Harewood and Ripley, a stack of wheat since I came into Yorks.h.i.+re; and even there, the whole I saw; and all that I have seen since I came into Yorks.h.i.+re; and all that I saw during a ride of six miles that I took into Derbys.h.i.+re the day before yesterday; all put together would not make the one-half of what I have many times seen in one single rick-yard of the vales of Wilts.h.i.+re. But this is all very proper: these coal-diggers, and iron-melters, and knife-makers, compel us to send the food to them, which, indeed, we do very cheerfully, in exchange for the produce of their rocks, and the wondrous works of their hands.

The trade of Sheffield has fallen off less in proportion than that of the other manufacturing districts. North America, and particularly the United States, where the people have so much victuals to cut, form a great branch of the custom of this town. If the people of Sheffield could only receive a tenth part of what their knives sell for by retail in America, Sheffield might pave its streets with silver. A _gross_ of knives and forks is sold to the Americans for less than three knives and forks can be bought at retail in a country store in America. No fear of rivals.h.i.+p in this trade. The Americans may lay on their tariff, and double it, and triple it; but as long as they continue to _cut_ their victuals, from Sheffield they must have the things to cut it with.

The ragged hills all round about this town are bespangled with groups of houses inhabited by the working cutlers. They have not suffered like the working weavers; for, to make knives, there must be the hand of man.

Therefore, machinery cannot come to destroy the wages of the labourer.

The home demand has been very much diminished; but still the depression has here not been what it has been, and what it is, where the machinery can be brought into play. We are here just upon the borders of Derbys.h.i.+re, a nook of which runs up and separates Yorks.h.i.+re from Nottinghams.h.i.+re. I went to a village, the day before yesterday, called _Mosborough_, the whole of the people of which are employed in the making of _sickles_ and _scythes_; and where, as I was told, they are very well off even in these times. A prodigious quant.i.ty of these things go to the United States of America. In short, there are about twelve millions of people there continually consuming these things; and the hardware merchants here have their agents and their stores in the great towns of America, which country, as far as relates to this branch of business, is still a part of old England.

Upon my arriving here on Wednesday night, the 27th instant, I by no means intended to lecture until I should be a little recovered from my cold; but, to my great mortification, I found that the lecture had been advertised, and that great numbers of persons had actually a.s.sembled. To send them out again, and give back the money, was a thing not to be attempted. I, therefore, went to the Music Hall, the place which had been taken for the purpose, gave them a specimen of the state of my voice, asked them whether I should proceed, and they, answering in the affirmative, on I went. I then rested until yesterday, and shall conclude my labours here to-morrow, and then proceed to "_fair Nottingham_," as we used to sing when I was a boy, in celebrating the glorious exploits of "Robin Hood and Little John." By the by, as we went from Huddersfield to Dewsbury, we pa.s.sed by a hill which is celebrated as being the burial-place of the famed Robin Hood, of whom the people in this country talk to this day.

At Nottingham, they have advertised for my lecturing at the play-house, for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th of February, and for a public breakfast to be given to me on the first of those days, I having declined a dinner agreeably to my original notification, and my friends insisting upon something or other in that sort of way. It is very curious that I have always had a very great desire to see Nottingham. This desire certainly originated in the great interest that I used to take, and that all country boys took, in the history of Robin Hood, in the record of whose achievements, which were so well calculated to excite admiration in the country boys, this Nottingham, with the word "_fair_" always before it, was so often mentioned. The word _fair_, as used by our forefathers, meant fine; for we frequently read in old descriptions of parts of the country of such a district or such a parish, containing a _fair_ mansion, and the like; so that this town appears to have been celebrated as a very fine place, even in ancient times; but within the last thirty years, Nottingham has stood high in my estimation, from the conduct of its people; from their public spirit; from their excellent sense as to public matters; from the n.o.ble struggle which they have made from the beginning of the French war to the present hour: if only forty towns in England equal in size to Nottingham had followed its bright example, there would have been no French war against liberty; the Debt would have been now nearly paid off, and we should have known nothing of those manifold miseries which now afflict, and those greater miseries which now menace, the country. The French would not have been in Cadiz; the Russians would not have been at Constantinople; the Americans would not have been in the Floridas; we should not have had to dread the combined fleets of America, France, and Russia; and, which is the worst of all, we should not have seen the jails four times as big as they were; and should not have seen Englishmen reduced to such a state of misery as for the honest labouring man to be fed worse than the felons in the jails.

EASTERN TOUR.

"You permit the Jews openly to preach in their synagogues, and call Jesus Christ an impostor; and you send women to jail (to be brought to bed there, too), for declaring their unbelief in Christianity."--_King of Bohemia's Letter to Canning, published in the Register, 4th of January, 1823._

_Hargham, 22nd March, 1830._

I set off from London on the 8th of March, got to Bury St. Edmund's that evening; and, to my great mortification, saw the county-election and the a.s.sizes both going on at Chelmsford, where, of course, a great part of the people of Ess.e.x were met. If I had been aware of that, I should certainly have stopped at Chelmsford in order to address a few words of sense to the unfortunate const.i.tuents of Mr. Western. At Bury St.

Edmund's I gave a lecture on the ninth and another on the tenth of March, in the playhouse, to very crowded audiences. I went to Norwich on the 12th, and gave a lecture there on that evening, and on the evening of the 13th. The audience here was more numerous than at Bury St.

Edmund's, but not so numerous in proportion to the size of the place; and, contrary to what has happened in most other places, it consisted more of town's people than of country people.

During the 14th and 15th, I was at a friend's house at Yelverton, half way between Norwich and Bungay, which last is in Suffolk, and at which place I lectured on the 16th to an audience consisting chiefly of farmers, and was entertained there in a most hospitable and kind manner at the house of a friend.

The next day, being the 17th, I went to Eye, and there lectured in the evening in the neat little playhouse of the place, which was crowded in every part, stage and all. The audience consisted almost entirely of farmers, who had come in from Diss, from Harleston, and from all the villages round about, in this fertile and thickly-settled neighbourhood.

I stayed at Eye all the day of the 18th, having appointed to be at Ipswich on the 19th. Eye is a beautiful little place, though an exceedingly rotten borough.

All was harmony and good humour: everybody appeared to be of one mind; and as these friends observed to me, so I thought, that more effect had been produced by this one lecture in that neighbourhood, than could have been produced in a whole year, if the Register had been put into the hands of every one of the hearers during that s.p.a.ce of time; for though I never attempt to put forth that sort of stuff which the "intense"

people on the other side of St. George's Channel call "_eloquence_," I bring out strings of very interesting facts; I use pretty powerful arguments; and I hammer them down so closely upon the mind, that they seldom fail to produce a lasting impression.

On the 19th I proceeded to Ipswich, not imagining it to be the fine, populous, and beautiful place that I found it to be. On that night, and on the night of the 20th, I lectured to boxes and pit, crowded princ.i.p.ally with opulent farmers, and to a gallery filled, apparently, with journeymen tradesmen and their wives. On the Sunday before I came away, I heard, from all quarters, that my audiences had retired deeply impressed with the truths which I had endeavoured to inculcate. One thing, however, occurred towards the close of the lecture of Sat.u.r.day, the 20th, that I deem worthy of particular attention. In general it would be useless for me to attempt to give anything like _a report_ of these speeches of mine, consisting as they do of words uttered pretty nearly as fast as I can utter them, during a s.p.a.ce of never less than two, and sometimes of nearly three hours. But there occurred here something that I must notice. I was speaking of _the degrees_ by which the established church had been losing its _legal influence_ since the peace. First, the _Unitarian Bill_, removing the penal act which forbade an impugning of the doctrine of the Trinity; second, the repeal of the _Test Act_, which declared, in effect, that the religion of any of the Dissenters was as good as that of the church of England; third, the repeal of the penal and excluding laws with regard to the _Catholics_; and this last act, said I, does in effect declare that the thing called "the _Reformation_" was _unnecessary_. "No," said one gentleman, in a very loud voice, and he was followed by four or five more, who said "No, No." "Then," said I, "we will, if you like, put it _to the vote_.

Understand, gentlemen, that _I do not say_, whatever I may think, that the Reformation was unnecessary; but I say that _this act amounts to a declaration_ that it was unnecessary; and, without losing our good humour, we will, if that gentleman choose, put this question to the vote." I paused a little while, receiving no answer, and perceiving that the company were with me, I proceeded with my speech, concluding with the complete demolis.h.i.+ng blow which the church would receive by the bill for giving civil and political power for training to the bar, and seating on the bench, for placing in the commons and amongst the peers, and for placing in the council, along with the King himself, _those who deny that there ever existed a Redeemer_; who give the name of _impostor_ to him whom _we wors.h.i.+p as G.o.d_, and who boast of having hanged him upon the cross. "Judge you, gentlemen," said I, "of the figure which England will make, when its laws will seat on the bench, from which people have been sentenced to suffer most severely for denying the truth of Christianity; from which bench it has been held that _Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land_; judge you of the figure which England will make amongst Christian nations, when a Jew, a blasphemer of Christ, a professor of the doctrines of those who murdered him, shall be sitting upon that bench; and judge, gentlemen, what we must think of _the clergy_ of this church of ours, _if they remain silent_ while such a law shall be pa.s.sed."

We were entertained at Ipswich by a very kind and excellent friend, whom, as is generally the case, I had never seen or heard of before. The morning of the day of the last lecture, I walked about five miles, then went to his house to breakfast, and stayed with him and dined. On the Sunday morning, before I came away, I walked about six miles, and repeated the good cheer at breakfast at the same place. Here I heard the first singing of the birds this year; and I here observed an instance of that _petticoat government_, which, apparently, pervades the whole of animated nature. A lark, very near to me in a ploughed field, rose from the ground, and was saluting the sun with his delightful song. He was got about as high as the dome of St. Paul's, having me for a motionless and admiring auditor, when the hen started up from nearly the same spot whence the c.o.c.k had risen, flew up and pa.s.sed close by him. I could not hear what she said; but supposed that she must have given him a pretty smart reprimand; for down she came upon the ground, and he, ceasing to sing, took a twirl in the air, and came down after her. Others have, I dare say, seen this a thousand times over; but I never observed it before.

About twelve o'clock, my son and I set off for this place (Hargham), coming through Needham Market, Stowmarket, Bury St. Edmund's, and Thetford, at which latter place I intended to have lectured to-day and to-morrow, where the theatre was to have been the scene, but the mayor of the town thought it best not to give his permission until the a.s.sizes (which commence to-day the 22nd) should be over, lest the judge should take offence, seeing that it is the custom, while his Lords.h.i.+p is in the town, to give up the civil jurisdiction to him. Bless his wors.h.i.+p! what in all the world should he think would take me to Thetford, _except it being a time for holding the a.s.sizes_? At no _other_ time should I have dreamed of finding an audience in so small a place, and in a country so thinly inhabited. I was attracted, too, by the desire of meeting some of my "_learned friends_" from the Wen; for I deal in arguments founded on the _law of the land_, and on _Acts of Parliament_. The deuce take this mayor for disappointing me; and, now, I am afraid that I shall not fall in with this learned body during the whole of my spring tour.

Finding Thetford to be forbidden ground, I came hither to Sir Thomas Beevor's, where I had left my two daughters, having, since the 12th inclusive, travelled 120 miles, and delivered six lectures. Those 120 miles have been through a fine _farming country_, and without my seeing, until I came to Thetford, but one spot of waste or common land, and that not exceeding, I should think, from fifty to eighty acres. From this place to Norwich, and through Attleborough and Wymondham, the land is all good, and the farming excellent. It is pretty nearly the same from Norwich to Bungay, where we enter Suffolk. Bungay is a large and fine town, with three churches, lying on the side of some very fine meadows.

Harleston, on the road to Eye, is a very pretty market-town: of Eye, I have spoken before. From Eye to Ipswich, we pa.s.s through a series of villages, and at Ipswich, to my great surprise, we found a most beautiful town, with a population of about twelve thousand persons; and here our profound Prime Minister might have seen most abundant evidence of prosperity; for the _new houses_ are, indeed, very numerous. But if our famed and profound Prime Minister, having Mr. Wilmot Horton by the arm, and standing upon one of the hills that surround this town, and which, each hill seeming to surpa.s.s the other hill in beauty, command a complete view of every house, or, at least, of the top of every house, in this opulent town; if he, thus standing, and thus accompanied, were to hold up his hands, clap them together, and bless G.o.d for the proofs of prosperity contained in the new and red bricks, and were to cast his eye southward of the town, and see the numerous little vessels upon the little arm of the sea which comes up from Harwich, and which here finds its termination; and were, in those vessels, to discover an additional proof of prosperity; if he were to be thus situated, and to be thus feeling, would not some doubts be awakened in his mind; if I, standing behind him, were to whisper in his ear, "Do you not think that the greater part of these new houses have been created by taxes, which went to pay the about 20,000 _troops_ that were stationed here for pretty nearly 20 years during the war, and some of which are stationed here still? Look at that immense building, my Lord Duke: it is fresh and _new_ and fine and splendid, and contains indubitable marks of opulence; but it is a BARRACK; aye, and the money to build that barrack, and to maintain the 20,000 troops, has a.s.sisted to beggar, to dilapidate, to plunge into ruin and decay, hundreds upon hundreds of villages and hamlets in Wilts.h.i.+re, in Dorsets.h.i.+re, in Somersets.h.i.+re, and in other counties who shared not in the ruthless squanderings of the war. But,"

leaning my arm upon the Duke's shoulder, and giving Wilmot a poke in the poll to make him listen and look, and pointing with my fore-finger to the twelve large, lofty, and magnificent churches, each of them at least 700 years old, and saying, "Do you think Ipswich was not larger and far more populous 700 years ago than it is at this hour?" Putting this question to him, would it not check his exultation, and would it not make even Wilmot begin to reflect?

Even at this hour, with all the unnatural swellings of the war, there are not two thousand people, _including the bed-ridden and the babies_, to each of the magnificent churches. Of adults, there cannot be more than about 1400 to a church; and there is one of the churches which, being well filled, as in ancient times, would contain from four to seven thousand persons, for the nave of it appears to me to be larger than St.

Andrew's Hall at Norwich, which Hall was formerly the church of the Benedictine Priory. And, perhaps, the great church here might have belonged to some monastery; for here were three Augustine priories, one of them founded in the reign of William the Conqueror, another founded in the reign of Henry the Second, another in the reign of King John, with an Augustine friary, a Carmelite friary, an hospital founded in the reign of King John; and here, too, was the college founded by Cardinal Wolsey, the gateway of which, though built in brick, is still preserved, being the same sort of architecture as that of Hampton Court, and St.

James's Palace.

There is no doubt but that this was a much greater place than it is now.

It is the great outlet for the immense quant.i.ties of corn grown in this most productive county, and by farmers the most clever that ever lived.

I am told that wheat is worth six s.h.i.+llings a quarter more, at some times, at Ipswich than at Norwich, the navigation to London being so much more speedy and safe. Immense quant.i.ties of flour are sent from this town. The windmills on the hills in the vicinage are so numerous that I counted, whilst standing in one place, no less than seventeen.

They are all painted or washed white; the sails are black; it was a fine morning, the wind was brisk, and their twirling altogether added greatly to the beauty of the scene, which, having the broad and beautiful arm of the sea on the one hand, and the fields and meadows, studded with farm-houses, on the other, appeared to me the most beautiful sight of the kind that I had ever beheld. The town and its churches were down in the dell before me, and the only object that came to disfigure the scene was THE BARRACK, and made me utter involuntarily the words of BLACKSTONE: "The laws of England recognise no distinction between the citizen and the soldier; they know of no standing soldier: no inland fortresses; no barracks." "Ah!" said I to myself, but loud enough for any one to have heard me a hundred yards, "such _were_ the laws of England when ma.s.s was said in those magnificent churches, and such they continued until a _septennial_ Parliament came and deprived the people of England of their rights."

I know of no town to be compared with Ipswich, except it be Nottingham; and there is this difference in the two; that Nottingham stands high, and, on one side, looks over a very fine country; whereas Ipswich is in a dell, meadows running up above it, and a beautiful arm of the sea below it. The town itself is substantially built, well paved, everything good and solid, and no wretched dwellings to be seen on its outskirts.

From the town itself, you can see nothing; but you can, in no direction, go from it a quarter of a mile without finding views that a painter might crave, and then, the country round about it, so well cultivated; the land in such a beautiful state, the farm-houses all white, and all so much alike; the barns, and everything about the homesteads so snug: the stocks of turnips so abundant everywhere; the sheep and cattle in such fine order; the wheat all drilled; the ploughman so expert; the furrows, if a quarter of a mile long, as straight as a line, and laid as truly as if with a level: in short, here is everything to delight the eye, and to make the people proud of their country; and this is the case throughout the whole of this county. I have always found Suffolk farmers great boasters of their superiority over others; and I must say that it is not without reason.

But, observe, this has been a very _highly-favoured county_: it has had poured into it millions upon millions of money, drawn from Wilts.h.i.+re, and other inland counties. I should suppose that Wilts.h.i.+re alone has, within the last forty years, had two or three millions of money drawn from it, _to be given to Ess.e.x and Suffolk_. At one time there were not less than sixty thousand men kept on foot in these counties. The increase of London, too, the swellings of the immortal Wen, have a.s.sisted to heap wealth upon these counties; but, in spite of all this, the distress pervades all ranks and degrees, except those who live on the taxes. At Eye, b.u.t.ter used to sell for eighteen-pence a pound: it now sells for nine-pence halfpenny, though the gra.s.s has not yet begun to spring; and eggs were sold at thirty for a s.h.i.+lling. Fine times for me, whose princ.i.p.al food is eggs, and whose sole drink is milk, but very bad times for those who sell me the food and the drink.

Coming from Ipswich to Bury St. Edmund's, you pa.s.s through Needham-market and Stowmarket, two very pretty market towns; and, like all the other towns in Suffolk, free from the drawback of shabby and beggarly houses on the outskirts. I remarked that I did not see in the whole county one single instance of paper or rags supplying the place of gla.s.s in any window, and did not see one miserable hovel in which a labourer resided. The county, however, is _flat_: with the exception of the environs of Ipswich, there is none of that beautiful variety of hill and dale, and hanging woods, that you see at every town in Hamps.h.i.+re, Suss.e.x, and Kent. It is curious, too, that though the people, I mean the poorer cla.s.ses of people, are extremely neat in their houses, and though I found all their gardens dug up and prepared for cropping, you do not see about their cottages (and it is just the same in Norfolk) that _ornamental gardening_; the walks, and the flower borders, and the honey-suckles, and roses, trained over the doors, or over arched sticks, that you see in Hamps.h.i.+re, Suss.e.x, and Kent, that I have many a time sitten upon my horse to look at so long and so often, as greatly to r.e.t.a.r.d me on my journey. Nor is this done for show or ostentation. If you find a cottage in those counties, by the side of a _by lane_, or in the midst of a forest, you find just the same care about the garden and the flowers. In those counties, too, there is great taste with regard _to trees_ of every description, from the hazel to the oak. In Suffolk it appears to be just the contrary: here is the great dissight of all these three eastern counties. Almost every bank of every field is studded with _pollards_, that is to say, trees that have been _beheaded_, at from six to twelve feet from the ground, than which nothing in nature can be more ugly. They send out shoots from the head, which are lopped off once in ten or a dozen years for fuel, or other purposes. To add to the deformity, the ivy is suffered to grow on them, which, at the same time, checks the growth of the shoots. These pollards become hollow very soon, and, as timber, are fit for nothing but gate-posts, even before they be hollow. Upon a farm of a hundred acres these pollards, by root and shade, spoil at least six acres of the ground, besides being most destructive to the fences. Why not plant six acres of the ground with timber and underwood? Half an acre a year would most amply supply the farm with poles and brush, and with everything wanted in the way of fuel; and why not plant hedges to be unbroken by these pollards? I have scarcely seen a single farm of a hundred acres without pollards, sufficient to find the farm-house in fuel, without any a.s.sistance from coals, for several years.

However, the great number of farm-houses in Suffolk, the neatness of those houses, the moderation in point of extent which you generally see, and the great store of the food in the turnips, and the admirable management of the whole, form a pretty good compensation for the want of beauties. The land is generally as clean as a garden ought to be; and, though it varies a good deal as to lightness and stiffness, they make it all bear prodigious quant.i.ties of Swedish turnips; and on them pigs, sheep, and cattle, all equally thrive. I did not observe a single poor miserable animal in the whole county.

To conclude an account of Suffolk, and not to sing the praises of Bury St. Edmund's, would offend every creature of Suffolk birth; even at Ipswich, when I was praising _that place_, the very people of that town asked me if I did not think Bury St. Edmund's the nicest town in the world. Meet them wherever you will, they have all the same boast; and indeed, as a town _in itself_, it is the neatest place that ever was seen. It is airy, it has several fine open places in it, and it has the remains of the famous abbey walls and the abbey gate entire; and it is so clean and so neat that nothing can equal it in that respect. It was a favourite spot in ancient times; greatly endowed with monasteries and hospitals. Besides the famous Benedictine Abbey, there were once a college and a friary; and as to the abbey itself, it was one of the greatest in the kingdom; and was so ancient as to have been founded only about forty years after the landing of Saint Austin in Kent. The land all round about it is good; and the soil is of that nature as not to produce much dirt at any time of the year; but the country about it is _flat_, and not of that beautiful variety that we find at Ipswich.

After all, what is the reflection now called for? It is that this fine county, for which nature has done all that she can do, soil, climate, sea-ports, people; everything that can be done, and an internal government, civil and ecclesiastical, the most complete in the world, wanting nothing but to _be let alone_, to make every soul in it as happy as people can be upon earth; the peace provided for by the county rates; property protected by the law of the land; the poor provided for by the poor-rates; religion provided for by the t.i.thes and the church-rates; easy and safe conveyance provided for by the highway-rates; extraordinary danger provided against by the militia-rates; a complete government in itself; _but having to pay a portion of sixty millions a year in taxes, over and above all this; and that, too, on account of wars carried on, not for the defence of England_, not for the upholding of _English liberty and happiness_, but for the purpose of crus.h.i.+ng liberty and happiness in other countries; and all this because, and only because, a septennial Parliament has deprived the people of their rights.

That which we _admire_ most is not always that which would be _our choice_. One might imagine, that after all that I have said about this fine county, I should certainly prefer it as a place of residence. I should not, however: my choice has been always very much divided between the woods of Suss.e.x and the downs of Wilts.h.i.+re. I should not like to be compelled to decide; but if I were compelled, I do believe that I should fix on some vale in Wilts.h.i.+re. Water meadows at the bottom, corn-land going up towards the hills, those hills being _Down land_, and a farm-house, in a clump of trees, in some little cross vale between the hills, sheltered on every side but the south. In short, if Mr. Bennet would give me a farm, the house of which lies on the right-hand side of the road going from Salisbury to Warminster, in the parish of Norton Bovant, just before you enter that village; if he would but be so good as to do that, I would freely give up all the rest of the world to the possession of whoever may get hold of it. I have hinted this to him once or twice before, but I am sorry to say that he turns a deaf ear to my hinting.