Rural Rides — Rural Ride through the South East of Hampshire &c. Part 1

THROUGH THE SOUTH-EAST OF HAMPSHIRE, BACK THROUGH THE SOUTH-WEST OF SURREY, ALONG THE WEALD OF SURREY, AND THEN OVER THE SURREY HILLS DOWN TO THE WEN.

_Batley (Hampshire), 5th August, 1823. _ I got to Fareham on Saturday night, after having got a soaking on the South Downs on the morning of that day.

On the Sunday morning, intending to go and spend the day at Titchfield (about three miles and a half from Fareham), and perceiving, upon looking out of the window, about 5 o'clock in the morning, that it was likely to rain, I got up, struck a bustle, got up the ostler, set off and got to my destined point before 7 o'clock in the morning.

And here I experienced the benefits of early rising; for I had scarcely got well and safely under cover, when St. Swithin began to pour down again, and he continued to pour during the whole of the day.

From Fareham to Titchfield village a large part of the ground is a common enclosed some years ago.

It is therefore amongst the worst of the land in the country.

Yet I did not see a bad field of corn along here, and the Swedish turnips were, I think, full as fine as any that I saw upon the South Downs.

But it is to be observed that this land is in the hands of dead-weight people, and is conveniently situated for the receiving of manure from Portsmouth.

Before I got to my friend's house, I passed by a farm where I expected to find a wheat-rick standing.

I did not, however; and this is the strongest possible proof that the stock of corn is gone out of the hands of the farmers.

I set out from Titchfield at 7 o'clock in the evening, and had seven miles to go to reach Botley.

It rained, but I got myself well furnished forth as a defence against the rain.

I had not gone two hundred yards before the rain ceased; so that I was singularly fortunate as to rain this day; and I had now to congratulate myself on the success of the remedy for the hooping-cough which I used the day before on the South Downs; for really, though I had a spell or two of coughing on Saturday morning when I set out from Petworth, I have not had, up to this hour, any spell at all since I got wet upon the South Downs.

I got to Botley about nine o'clock, having stopped two or three times to look about me as I went along; for I had, in the first place, to ride, for about three miles of my road, upon a turnpike road of which I was the projector, and, indeed, the maker.

In the next place I had to ride, for something better than half a mile of my way, along between fields and coppices that were mine until they came into the hands of the mortgagee, and by the side of cottages of my own building.

The only matter of much interest with me was the state of the inhabitants of those cottages.

I stopped at two or three places, and made some little enquiries; I rode up to two or three houses in the village of Botley, which I had to pass through, and just before it was dark I got to a farmhouse close by the church, and what was more, not a great many yards from the dwelling of that delectable creature, the Botley parson, whom, however, I have not seen during my stay at this place.

Botley lies in a valley, the soil of which is a deep and stiff clay.

Oak trees grow well; and this year the wheat grows well, as it does upon all the clays that I have seen.

I have never seen the wheat better in general, in this part of the country, than it is now.

I have, I think, seen it heavier; but never clearer from blight.

It is backward compared to the wheat in many other parts; some of it is quite green; but none of it has any appearance of blight.

This is not much of a barley country.

The oats are good.

The beans that I have seen, very indifferent.

The best news that I have learnt here is, that the Botley parson is become quite a gentle creature, compared to what he used to be.

The people in the village have told me some most ridiculous stories about his having been hoaxed in London!

It seems that somebody danced him up from Botley to London, by telling him that a legacy had been left him, or some such story.

Up went the parson on horseback, being in too great a hurry to run the risk of coach.

The hoaxers, it appears, got him to some hotel, and there set upon him a whole tribe of applicants, wet-nurses, dry-nurses, lawyers with deeds of conveyance for borrowed money, curates in want of churches, coffin-makers, travelling companions, ladies' maids, dealers in Yorkshire hams, Newcastle coals, and dealers in dried night-soil at Islington.

In short, if I am rightly informed, they kept the parson in town for several days, bothered him three parts out of his senses, compelled him to escape, as it were, from a fire; and then, when he got home, he found the village posted all over with handbills giving an account of his adventure, under the pretence of offering 500_l.

_ reward for a discovery of the hoaxers!

The good of it was the parson ascribed his disgrace _to me_, and they say that he perseveres to this hour in accusing me of it.

Upon my word, I had nothing to do with the matter, and this affair only shows that I am not the only friend that the parson has in the world.

Though this may have had a tendency to produce in the parson that amelioration of deportment which is said to become him so well, there is something else that has taken place, which has, in all probability, had a more powerful influence in this way; namely, a great reduction in the value of the parson's living, which was at one time little short of five hundred pounds a year, and which, I believe, is now not the half of that sum!

This, to be sure, is not only a natural but a necessary consequence of the change in the value of money.

The parsons are neither more nor less than another sort of landlords.

They must fall, of course, in their demands, or their demands will not be paid.

They may take in kind, but that will answer them no purpose at all.

They will be less people than they have been, and will continue to grow less and less, until the day when the whole of the tithes and other Church property, as it is called, shall be applied to public purposes.

_Easton (Hampshire), Wednesday Evening, 6th August.

_ This village of Easton lies at a few miles towards the north-east from Winchester.

It is distant from Botley, by the way which I came, about fifteen or sixteen miles.

I came through Durley, where I went to the house of farmer Mears.

I was very much pleased with what I saw at Durley, which is about two miles from Botley, and is certainly one of the most obscure villages in this whole kingdom.

Mrs. Mears, the farmer's wife, had made, of the crested dog's tail grass, a bonnet which she wears herself.

I there saw girls platting the straw.

They had made plat of several degrees of fineness; and they sell it to some person or persons at Fareham, who, I suppose, makes it into bonnets.

Mrs. Mears, who is a very intelligent and clever woman, has two girls at work, each of whom earns per week as much (within a shilling) as her father, who is a labouring man, earns per week.

The father has at this time only 7_s.

_ per week.

These two girls (and not very stout girls) earn six shillings a week each: thus the income of this family is, from seven shillings a week, raised to nineteen shillings a week.

I shall suppose that this may in some measure be owing to the generosity of ladies in the neighbourhood, and to their desire to promote this domestic manufacture;

but if I suppose that these girls receive double compared to what they will receive for the same quantity of labour when the manufacture becomes more general, is it not a great thing to make the income of the family nineteen shillings a week instead of seven?

Very little, indeed, could these poor things have done in the field during the last forty days.

And, besides, how clean; how healthful; how everything that one could wish is this sort of employment!

The farmer, who is also a very intelligent person, told me that he should endeavour to introduce the manufacture as a thing to assist the obtaining of employment, in order to lessen the amount of the poor-rates.

I think it very likely that this will be done in the parish of Durley.

A most important matter it is, _to put paupers in the way of ceasing to be paupers_.

I could not help admiring the zeal as well as the intelligence of the farmer's wife, who expressed her readiness to teach the girls and women of the parish, in order to enable them to assist themselves.

I shall hear, in all probability, of their proceedings at Durley, and if I do, I shall make a point of communicating to the Public an account of those interesting proceedings.

From the very first, from the first moment of my thinking about this straw affair, I regarded it as likely to assist in bettering the lot of the labouring people.

If it has not this effect, I value it not.

It is not worth the attention of any of us; but I am satisfied that this is the way in which it will work.

I have the pleasure to know that there is one labouring family, at any rate, who are living well through my means.

It is I, who, without knowing them, without ever having seen them, without even now knowing their names, have given the means of good living to a family who were before half-starved.

This is indisputably my work; and when I reflect that there must necessarily be, now, some hundreds of families, and shortly, many thousands of families, in England, who are and will be, through my means, living well instead of being half-starved, I cannot but feel myself consoled; I cannot but feel that I have some compensation for the sentence passed upon me by Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey; and I verily believe, that in the case of this one single family in the parish of Durley I have done more good than Bailey ever did in the whole course of his life, notwithstanding his pious Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer.

I

will allow nothing to be good, with regard to the labouring classes, unless it make an addition to their victuals, drink, or clothing.

As to their _minds_, that is much too sublime matter for me to think about.

I

know that they are in rags, and that they have not a belly-full; and I know that the way to make them good, to make them honest, to make them dutiful, to make them kind to one another, is to enable them to live well; and I also know that none of these things will ever be accomplished by Methodist sermons, and by those stupid, at once stupid and malignant things, and roguish things, called Religious Tracts.

It seems that this farmer at Durley has always read the Register, since the first appearance of little _Two-penny Trash_.

Had it not been for this reading, Mrs. Mears would not have thought about the grass; and had she not thought about the grass, none of the benefits above mentioned would have arisen to her neighbours.

The difference between this affair and the spinning-jenny affairs is this: that the spinning-jenny affairs fill the pockets of "rich ruffians," such as those who would have murdered me at Coventry; and that this straw affair makes an addition to the food and raiment of the labouring classes, and gives not a penny to be pocketed by the rich ruffians.

From Durley I came on in company with farmer Mears through Upham.

This Upham is the place where Young, who wrote that bombastical stuff, called "Night Thoughts," was once the parson, and where, I believe, he was born.

Away to the right of Upham lies the little town of Bishop's Waltham, whither I wished to go very much, but it was too late in the day.

From Upham we came on upon the high land, called Black Down.

This has nothing to do with that Black-down Hill, spoken of in my last ride.

We are here getting up upon the chalk hills, which stretch away towards Winchester.

The soil here is a poor blackish stuff, with little white stones in it, upon a bed of chalk.

It was a down not many years ago.

The madness and greediness of the days of paper-money led to the breaking of it up.

The corn upon it is miserable; but as good as can be expected upon such land.

At the end of this tract we come to a spot called Whiteflood, and here we cross the old turnpike road which leads from Winchester to Gosport through Bishop's Waltham.

Whiteflood is at the foot of the first of a series of hills over which you come to get to the top of that lofty ridge called Morning Hill.

The farmer came to the top of the first hill along with me; and he was just about to turn back, when I, looking away to the left, down a valley which stretched across the other side of the down, observed a rather singular appearance, and said to the farmer, "What is that coming up that valley?

is it smoke, or is it a cloud?"

The day had been very fine hitherto; the sun was shining very bright where we were.

The farmer answered, "Oh, it's smoke; it comes from Ouselberry, which is down in that bottom behind those trees."

So saying, we bid each other good day; he went back, and I went on.

Before I had got a hundred and fifty yards from him, the cloud which he had taken for the Ouselberry smoke came upon the hill and wet me to the skin.

He was not far from the house at Whiteflood; but I am sure that he could not entirely escape it.

It is curious to observe how the clouds sail about in the hilly countries, and particularly, I think, amongst the chalk-hills.

I have never observed the like amongst the sand-hills, or amongst rocks.

From Whiteflood you come over a series of hills, part of which form a rabbit-warren called Longwood warren, on the borders of which is the house and estate of Lord Northesk.

These hills are amongst the most barren of the downs of England; yet a part of them was broken up during the rage for improvements; during the rage for what empty men think was an augmenting of the _capital_ of the country.

On about twenty acres of this land, sown with wheat, I should not suppose that there would be twice twenty bushels of grain!

A man must be mad, or nearly mad, to sow wheat upon such a spot.

However, a large part of what was enclosed has been thrown out again already, and the rest will be thrown out in a very few years.

The down itself was poor; what, then, must it be as corn-land!

Think of the destruction which has here taken place.

The herbage was not good, but it was something; it was something for every year, and without trouble.

Instead of grass it will now, for twenty years to come, bear nothing but that species of weeds which is hardy enough to grow where the grass will not grow.

And this was "augmenting the capital of the nation."

These new enclosure-bills were boasted of by George Rose and by Pitt as proofs of national prosperity!

When men in power are ignorant to this extent, who is to expect anything but consequences such as we now behold.

From the top of this high land called _Morning Hill_, and the real name of which is _Magdalen Hill_, from a chapel which once stood there dedicated to Mary Magdalen; from the top of this land you have a view of a circle which is upon an average about seventy miles in diameter; and I believe in no one place so little as fifty miles in diameter.

You see the Isle of Wight in one direction, and in the opposite direction you see the high lands in Berkshire.

It is not a pleasant view, however.

The fertile spots are all too far from you.

Descending from this hill, you cross the turnpike-road (about two miles from Winchester), leading from Winchester to London through Alresford and Farnham.

As soon as you cross the road, you enter the estate of the descendant of Rollo, Duke of Buckingham, which estate is in the parish of Avington.

In this place the Duke has a farm, not very good land.

It is in his own hands.

The corn is indifferent, except the barley, which is everywhere good.

You come a full mile from the roadside down through this farm, to the Duke's mansion-house at Avington, and to the little village of that name, both of them beautifully situated, amidst fine and lofty trees, fine meadows, and streams of clear water.

On this farm of the Duke I saw (in a little close by the farmhouse) several hens in coops with broods of pheasants instead of chickens.

It seems that a gamekeeper lives in the farmhouse, and I dare say the Duke thinks much more of the pheasants than of the corn.

To be very solicitous to preserve what has been raised with so much care and at so much expense is by no means unnatural; but, then, there is a measure to be observed here; and that measure was certainly outstretched in the case of Mr. Deller.

I here saw, at this gamekeeping farmhouse, what I had not seen since my departure from the Wen; namely, a wheat-rick!

Hard, indeed, would it have been if a Plantagenet, turned farmer, had not a wheat-rick in his hands.

This rick contains, I should think, what they call in Hampshire ten loads of wheat, that is to say, fifty quarters, or four hundred bushels.

And this is the only rick, not only of wheat, but of any corn whatever, that I have seen since I left London.

The turnips upon this farm are by no means good; but I was in some measure compensated for the bad turnips by the sight of the Duke's turnip-hoers, about a dozen females, amongst whom there were several very pretty girls, and they were as merry as larks.

There had been a shower that had brought them into a sort of huddle on the road side.

When I came up to them, they all fixed their eyes upon me, and, upon my smiling, they bursted out into laughter.

I observed to them that the Duke of Buckingham was a very happy man to have such turnip-hoers, and really they seemed happier and better off than any work-people that I saw in the fields all the way from London to this spot.

It is curious enough, but I have always observed that the women along this part of the country are usually tall.

These girls were all tall, straight, fair, round-faced, excellent complexion, and uncommonly gay.

They were well dressed too, and I observed the same of all the men that I saw down at Avington.

This could not be the case if the Duke were a cruel or hard master; and this is an act of justice due from me to the descendant of Rollo.

It is in the house of Mr. Deller that I make these notes, but as it is _injustice_ that we dislike, I must do Rollo justice; and I must again say that the good looks and happy faces of his turnip-hoers spoke much more in his praise than could have been spoken by fifty lawyers, like that Storks who was employed, the other day, to plead against the Editor of the _Bucks Chronicle_, for publishing an account of the selling-up of farmer Smith, of Ashendon, in that county.

I came through the Duke's Park to come to Easton, which is the next village below Avington.

A very pretty park.

The house is quite in the bottom; it can be seen in no direction from a distance greater than that of four or five hundred yards.

The river Itchen, which rises near Alresford, which runs down through Winchester to Southampton, goes down the middle of this valley, and waters all its immense quantity of meadows.

The Duke's house stands not far from the river itself.

A stream of water is brought from the river to feed a pond before the house.

There are several avenues of trees which are very beautiful, and some of which give complete shelter to the kitchen garden, which has, besides, extraordinarily high walls.

Never was a greater contrast than that presented by this place and the place of Lord Egremont.

The latter is all loftiness.

Everything is high about it; it has extensive views in all directions.

It sees and can be seen by all the country around.

If I had the ousting of one of these noblemen, I certainly, however, would oust the Duke, who, I dare say, will by no means be desirous of seeing arise the occasion of putting the sincerity of the compliment to the test.

The village of Easton is, like that of Avington, close by the waterside.

The meadows are the attraction; and, indeed, it is the meadows that have caused the villages to exist.

_Selborne (Hants), Thursday, 7th August, Noon.

_ I took leave of Mr. Deller this morning, about 7 o'clock.

Came back through Avington Park, through the village of Avington, and, crossing the Itchen river, came over to the village of Itchen Abas.

_Abas_ means _below_.

It is a French word that came over with Duke Rollo's progenitors.

There needs no better proof of the high descent of the Duke, and of the antiquity of his family.

This is that Itchen Abas where that famous Parson-Justice, the Reverend Robert Wright, lives, who refused to hear Mr. Deller's complaint against the Duke's servant at his own house, and who afterwards, along with Mr. Poulter, bound Mr. Deller over to the Quarter Sessions for the alleged assault.

I have great pleasure in informing the public that Mr. Deller has not had to bear the expenses in this case himself; but that they have been borne by his neighbours, very much to the credit of those neighbours.

I hear of an affair between the Duke of Buckingham and a Mr. Bird, who resides in this neighbourhood.

If I had had time I should have gone to see Mr. Bird, of whose treatment I have heard a great deal, and an account of which treatment ought to be brought before the public.

It is very natural for the Duke of Buckingham to wish to preserve that game which he calls his hobby-horse; it is very natural for him to delight in his hobby; but _hobbies_, my Lord Duke, ought to be gentle, inoffensive, perfectly harmless little creatures.

They ought not to be suffered to kick and fling about them: they ought not to be rough-shod, and, above all things, they ought not to be great things like those which are ridden by the Life-guards: and, like them, be suffered to dance, and caper, and trample poor devils of farmers under foot.

Have your hobbies, my Lords of the Soil, but let them be gentle; in short, let them be hobbies in character with the commons and forests, and not the high-fed hobbies from the barracks at Knightsbridge, such as put poor Mr. Sheriff Waithman's life in jeopardy.

That the game should be preserved, every one that knows anything of the country will allow; but every man of any sense must see that it cannot be preserved by sheer force.

It must be rather through love than through fear; rather through good-will than through ill-will.

If the thing be properly managed, there will be plenty of game without any severity towards any good man.

Mr. Deller's case was so plain: it was so monstrous to think that a man was to be punished for being on his own ground in pursuit of wild animals that he himself had raised: this was so monstrous, that it was only necessary to name it to excite the indignation of the country.

And Mr. Deller has, by his spirit and perseverance, by the coolness and the good sense which he has shown throughout the whole of this proceeding, merited the commendation of every man who is not in his heart an oppressor.

It occurs to me to ask here, who it is that finally _pays_ for those "counsels' opinions" which Poulter and Wright said they took in the case of Mr. Deller; because, if these counsels' opinions are paid for by the county, and if a Justice of the Peace can take as many counsels' opinions as he chooses, I should like to know what fellow, who chooses to put on a bobtail wig and call himself a lawyer, may not have a good living given to him by any crony Justice at the expense of the county.

This never can be legal.

It never can be binding on the county to pay for these counsels' opinions.

However, leaving this to be enquired into another time, we have here, in Mr. Deller's case, an instance of the worth of counsels' opinions.

Mr. Deller went to the two Justices, showed them the Register with the Act of Parliament in it, called upon them to act agreeably to that Act of Parliament; but they chose to take counsels' opinion first.

The two "counsel," the two "lawyers," the two "learned friends," told them that they were right in rejecting the application of Mr. Deller and in binding him over for the assault; and, after all, this Grand Jury threw out the Bill, and in that throwing out showed that they thought the counsels' opinions not worth a straw.

Being upon the subject of matter connected with the conduct of these Parson-Justices, I will here mention what is now going on in Hampshire respecting the accounts of the _Treasurer of the County_.

At the last Quarter Sessions, or at a Meeting of the Magistrates previous to the opening of the Sessions, there was a discussion relative to this matter.

The substance of which appears to have been this; that the Treasurer, Mr. George Hollis, whose accounts had been audited, approved of, and passed every year by the Magistrates, is in arrear to the county to the amount of about four thousand pounds.

Sir Thomas Baring appears to have been the great stickler against Mr. Hollis, who was but feebly defended by his friends.

The Treasurer of a county is compelled to find securities.

These securities have become _exempted_, in consequence of the annual passing of the accounts by the Magistrates!

Nothing can be more just than this exemption.

I am security, suppose, for a Treasurer.

The Magistrates do not pass his accounts on account of a deficiency.

I

make good the deficiency.

But the Magistrates are not to go on year after year passing his accounts, and then, at the end of several years, come and call upon me to make good the deficiencies.

Thus say the securities of Mr. Hollis.

The Magistrates, in fact, are to blame.

One of the Magistrates, a Reverend Mr. Orde, said that the Magistrates were more to blame than the Treasurer; and really I think so too; for, though Mr. Hollis has been a tool for many many years, of Old George Rose and the rest of that crew, it seems impossible to believe that he could have intended anything dishonest, seeing that the detection arose out of an account published by himself in the newspaper, which account he need not have published until three months later than the time when he did publish it.

This is, as he himself states, the best possible proof that he was unconscious of any error or any deficiency.

The fact appears to be this; that Mr. Hollis, who has for many years been Under Sheriff as well as Treasurer of the County, who holds several other offices, and who has, besides, had large pecuniary transactions with his bankers, has for years had his accounts so blended that he has not known how this money belonging to the county stood.

His own statement shows that it was all a mass of confusion.

The errors, he says, have arisen entirely from the negligence of his clerks, and from causes which produced a confusion in his accounts.

This is the fact; but he has been in good fat offices too long not to have made a great many persons think that his offices would be better in _their_ hands; and they appear resolved to oust him.

I, for my part, am glad of it; for I remember his coming up to me in the Grand Jury Chamber, just after the people at St. Stephen's had passed Power-of-Imprisonment Bill in 1817; I remember his coming up to me as the Under Sheriff of Willis, the man that we now call Flemming, who has _begun_ to build a house at North Stoneham; I remember his coming up to me, and with all the base sauciness of a thorough-paced Pittite, _telling me to disperse or he would take me into custody_!

I remember this of Mr. Hollis, and I am therefore glad that calamity has befallen him; but I must say that after reading his own account of the matter;

after reading the debate of the Magistrates; and after hearing the observations and opinions of well-informed and impartial persons in Hampshire who dislike Mr. Hollis as much as I do; I must say that I think him perfectly clear of all intention to commit anything like fraud, or to make anything worthy of the name of false account; and I am convinced that this affair, which will now prove extremely calamitous to him, might have been laughed at by him at the time when wheat was fifteen shillings a bushel.

This change in the affairs of the Government; this penury now experienced by the Pittites at Whitehall, reaches, in its influence, to every part of the country.

The Barings are now the great men in Hampshire.

They were not such in the days of George Rose while George was able to make the people believe that it was necessary to give their money freely to preserve the "blessed comforts of religion."

George Rose would have thrown his shield over Mr. Hollis;

his broad and brazen shield.

In Hampshire the _Bishop_, too, is changed.

The present is doubtless as pious as the last, every bit; and has the same Bishop-like views; but it is not the same family; it is not the Garniers and Poulters and Norths and De Grays and Haygarths; it is not precisely the same set who have the power in their hands.

Things, therefore, take another turn.

The Pittite jolter-heads are all broken-backed; and the Barings come forward with their well-known weight of metal.

It was exceedingly unfortunate for Mr. Hollis that Sir Thomas Baring happened to be against him.

However, the thing will do good altogether.

The county is placed in a pretty situation: its Treasurer has had his accounts regularly passed by the Magistrates; and these Magistrates come at last and discover that they have for a long time been passing accounts that they ought not to pass.

These Magistrates have exempted the securities of Mr. Hollis, but not a word do they say about making good the deficiencies.

What redress, then, have the people of the county?

They have no redress, unless they can obtain it by petitioning the Parliament; and if they do not petition, if they do not state their case, and that boldly too, they deserve everything that can befall them from similar causes.

I am astonished at the boldness of the Magistrates.

I am astonished that they should think of calling Mr. Hollis to account without being prepared for rendering an account of their own conduct.

However, we shall see what they will do in the end.

And when we have seen that, we shall see whether the county will rest quietly under the loss which it is likely to sustain.

I must now go back to Itchen Abas, where, in the farm-yard of a farmer, Courtenay, I saw another wheat-rick.

From Itchen Abas I came up the valley to Itchen Stoke.

Soon after that I crossed the Itchen river, came out into the Alresford turnpike road, and came on towards Alresford, having the valley now upon my left.

If the hay be down all the way to Southampton in the same manner that it is along here, there are thousands of acres of hay rotting on the sides of this Itchen river.

Most of the meadows are watered artificially.

The crops of grass are heavy, and they appear to have been cut precisely in the right time to be spoiled.

Coming on towards Alresford, I saw a gentleman (about a quarter of a mile beyond Alresford) coming out of his gate with his hat off, looking towards the south-west, as if to see what sort of weather it was likely to be.

This was no other than Mr. Rolleston or Rawlinson, who, it appears, has a box and some land here.

This gentleman was, when I lived in Hampshire, one of those worthy men, who, in the several counties of England, executed "without any sort of remuneration" such a large portion of that justice which is the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world.

We are often told, especially in Parliament, of the _disinterestedness_ of these persons; of their worthiness, their piety, their loyalty, their excellent qualities of all sorts, but particularly of their _disinterestedness_, in taking upon them the office of Justice of the Peace; spending so much time, taking so much trouble, and all for nothing at all, but for the pure love of their King and country.

And the worst of it is, that our Ministers _impose_ upon this disinterestedness and generosity; and, as in the case of Mr. Rawlinson, at the end of, perhaps, a dozen years of _services_ voluntarily rendered to "King and country," they force him, sorely against his will, no doubt, to become a Police Magistrate in London!

To be sure there are five or six hundred pounds a-year of public money attached to this; but what are these paltry pounds to a "country gentleman," who so disinterestedly rendered us services for so many years?

Hampshire is fertile in persons of this disinterested stamp.

There is a _'Squire_ Greme, who lives across the country, not many miles from the spot where I saw "Mr. Justice" Rawlinson.

This 'Squire also has served the country for nothing during a great many years; and of late years, the 'Squire Junior, eager, apparently to emulate his sire, has become a distributor of stamps for this famous county of Hants!

What _sons_ 'Squire Rawlinson may have is more than I know at present, though I will endeavour to know it, and to find out whether they also be _serving_ us.

A great deal has been said about the debt of gratitude due from the people to the Justices of the Peace.

An account, containing the names and places of abode of the Justices, and of the public money, or titles, received by them and by their relations; such an account would be a very useful thing.

We should then know the real amount of this debt of gratitude.

We shall see such an account by-and-by; and we should have seen it long ago if there had been, in a certain place, only one single man disposed to do his duty.

I came through Alresford about eight o'clock, having loitered a good deal in coming up the valley.

After quitting Alresford you come (on the road towards Alton) to the village of Bishop's Sutton; and then to a place called Ropley Dean, where there is a house or two.

Just before you come to Ropley Dean, you see the beginning of the Valley of Itchen.

The _Itchen_ river falls into the salt water at Southampton.

It rises, or rather has its first rise, just by the road side at Ropley Dean, which is at the foot of that very high land which lies between Alresford and Alton.

All along by the Itchen river, up to its very source, there are meadows; and this vale of meadows, which is about twenty-five miles in length, and is in some places a mile wide, is, at the point of which I am now speaking, only about twice as wide as my horse is long!

This vale of Itchen is worthy of particular attention.

There are few spots in England more fertile or more pleasant; and none, I believe, more healthy.

Following the bed of the river, or, rather, the middle of the vale, it is about five-and-twenty miles in length, from Ropley Dean to the village of South Stoneham, which is just above Southampton.

The average width of the meadows is, I should think, a hundred rods at the least; and if I am right in this conjecture, the vale contains about five thousand acres of meadows, large part of which is regularly watered.

The sides of the vale are, until you come down to within about six or eight miles of Southampton, hills or rising grounds of chalk, covered more or less thickly with loam.

Where the hills rise up very steeply from the valley the fertility of the corn-lands is not so great;

but for a considerable part of the way the corn-lands are excellent, and the farmhouses, to which those lands belong, are, for the far greater part, under covert of the hills on the edge of the valley.

Soon after the rising of the stream, it forms itself into some capital ponds at Alresford.

These, doubtless, were augmented by art, in order to supply Winchester with fish.

The fertility of this vale, and of the surrounding country, is best proved by the fact that, besides the town of Alresford and that of Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each having its parish church, upon its borders.

When we consider these things we are not surprised that a spot situated about half way down this vale should have been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should have been for a great number of years a place of residence for the Kings of England.

Winchester, which is at present a mere nothing to what it once was, stands across the vale at a place where the vale is made very narrow by the jutting forward of two immense hills.

From the point where the river passes through the city, you go, whether eastward or westward, a full mile up a very steep hill all the way.

The city is, of course, in one of the deepest holes that can be imagined.

It never could have been thought of as a place to be defended since the discovery of gunpowder; and, indeed, one would think that very considerable annoyance might be given to the inhabitants even by the flinging of the flint-stones from the hills down into the city.

At Ropley Dean, before I mounted the hill to come on towards Rotherham Park, I baited my horse.

Here the ground is precisely like that at Ashmansworth on the borders of Berkshire, which, indeed, I could see from the ground of which I am now speaking.

In coming up the hill, I had the house and farm of Mr. Duthy to my right.

Seeing some very fine Swedish turnips, I naturally expected that they belonged to this gentleman, who is Secretary to the Agricultural Society of Hampshire;

but I found that they belonged to a farmer Mayhew.

The soil is, along upon this high land, a deep loam, bordering on a clay, red in colour, and pretty full of large, rough, yellow-looking stones, very much like some of the land in Huntingdonshire; but here is a bed of chalk under this.

Everything is backward here.

The wheat is perfectly green in most places; but it is everywhere pretty good.

I have observed, all the way along, that the wheat is good upon the stiff, strong land.

It is so here; but it is very backward.

The greater part of it is full three weeks behind the wheat under Portsdown Hill.

But few farmhouses come within my sight along here; but in one of them there was a wheat-rick, which is the third I have seen since I quitted the Wen.

In descending from this high ground, in order to reach the village of East Tisted, which lies on the turnpike road from the Wen to Gosport through Alton, I had to cross Rotherham Park.

On the right of the park, on a bank of land facing the north-east, I saw a very pretty farmhouse, having everything in excellent order, with fine corn-fields about it, and with a wheat-rick standing in the yard.

This farm, as I afterwards found, belongs to the owner of Rotherham Park, who is also the owner of East Tisted, who has recently built a new house in the park, who has quite metamorphosed the village of Tisted within these eight years, who has, indeed, really and truly improved the whole country just round about here, whose name is Scot, well known as a brickmaker at North End, Fulham, and who has, in Hampshire, supplanted a Norman of the name of Powlet.

The process by which this transfer has taken place is visible enough, to all eyes but the eyes of the jolterheads.

Had there been no Debt created to crush liberty in France and to keep down reformers in England, Mr. Scot would not have had bricks to burn to build houses for the Jews and jobbers and other eaters of taxes; and the Norman Powlet would not have had to pay in taxes, through his own hands and those of his tenants and labourers, the amount of the estate at Tisted, first to be given to the Jews, jobbers, and tax-eaters, and then by them to be given to "'Squire Scot" for his bricks.

However, it is not 'Squire Scot who has assisted to pass laws to make people pay double toll on a Sunday.

'Squire Scot had nothing to do with passing the New Game-laws and Old Ellenborough's Act; 'Squire Scot never invented the New Trespass law, in virtue of which John Cockbain of Whitehaven in the county of Cumberland was, by two clergymen and three other magistrates of that county, sentenced to pay one half-penny for damages and seven shillings costs, for going upon a field, the property of William, Earl of Lonsdale.

In the passing of this Act, which was one of the first passed in the present reign, 'Squire Scot, the brickmaker, had nothing to do.

Go on, good 'Squire, thrust out some more of the Normans: with the fruits of the augmentations which you make to the Wen, go, and take from them their mansions, parks, and villages!

At Tisted I crossed the turnpike road before mentioned, and entered a lane which, at the end of about four miles, brought me to this village of Selborne.

My readers will recollect that I mentioned this Selborne when I was giving an account of Hawkley Hanger, last fall.

I was desirous of seeing this village, about which I have read in the book of Mr. White, and which a reader has been so good as to send me.

From Tisted I came generally up hill till I got within half a mile of this village, when, all of a sudden, I came to the edge of a hill, looked down over all the larger vale of which the little vale of this village makes a part.

Here Hindhead and Black-down Hill came full in my view.

When I was crossing the forest in Sussex, going from Worth to Horsham, these two great hills lay to my west and north-west.

To-day I am got just on the opposite side of them, and see them, of course, towards the east and the south-east, while Leith Hill lies away towards the north-east.

This hill, from which you descend down into Selborne, is very lofty; but, indeed, we are here amongst some of the highest hills in the island, and amongst the sources of rivers.

The hill over which I have come this morning sends the Itchen river forth from one side of it, and the river Wey, which rises near Alton, from the opposite side of it.

Hindhead which lies before me, sends, as I observed upon a former occasion, the Arun forth towards the south and a stream forth towards the north, which meets the river Wey, somewhere above Godalming.

I am told that the springs of these two streams rise in the Hill of Hindhead, or, rather, on one side of the hill, at not many yards from each other.

The village of Selborne is precisely what it is described by Mr. White.

A straggling irregular street, bearing all the marks of great antiquity, and showing, from its lanes and its vicinage generally, that it was once a very considerable place.

I went to look at the spot where Mr. White supposes the convent formerly stood.

It is very beautiful.

Nothing can surpass in beauty these dells and hillocks and hangers, which last are so steep that it is impossible to ascend them, except by means of a serpentine path.

I found here deep hollow ways, with beds and sides of solid white stone; but not quite so white and so solid, I think, as the stone which I found in the roads at Hawkley.

The churchyard of Selborne is most beautifully situated.

The land is good, all about it.

The trees are luxuriant and prone to be lofty and large.

I measured the yew-tree in the churchyard, and found the trunk to be, according to my measurement, twenty-three feet, eight inches, in circumference.

The trunk is very short, as is generally the case with yew-trees; but the head spreads to a very great extent, and the whole tree, though probably several centuries old, appears to be in perfect health.

Here are several hop-plantations in and about this village; but for this once the prayers of the over-production men will be granted, and the devil of any hops there will be.

The bines are scarcely got up the poles; the bines and the leaves are black, nearly, as soot; full as black as a sooty bag or dingy coal-sack, and covered with lice.