The Press. — London, England, 1858-12-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 4, 1858. ,‘ at all changed since it was built by Sir Thos. yavasor in 1610," and that the other is gi a go od Elizabethan house," having been built in 1577. At p. xv., among the " art-collec tions" of the county, we are not reminded of the o ne at Ham-house, which, however, as we learn f rom p. 125, possesses a great number of valuable historical portraits. At p. 12 we find, "the " Kentish border is crossed immediately beyond Addington, and soon appears Wickham-park (Lord Overstone, whose fine collection of pic " tures is however in London)." This would lead a reader to suppose that Wickham-park was in Kent, whereas it is really in Surrey. Nor does it belong to Lord Overstone, having been some years since sold to ',a relative of his, Mr. Lewis Lloyd. In the third place, the name of the demesne is not Wickham-park, but Monk's Orchard, having been rebaptized by Mr. Lloyd, who pulled down the former mansion, and re built it on a more extensive scale. We are also inclined to doubt whether any of Lord Over stone's pictures were ever at Wickham • at all events, the former house must have been too small to contain anything like the whole collec tion. At p. 34, Ashurst Warren is stated to be long to " Wm. Strahan, Esq.," and Denbies to T. Cubitt, Esq." Ashurst was sold after the catastrophe of the well-known firm, and Mr. Cubitt died about two years ago.—" B. Gosling, Esq.," of I3urbridge-hall (p. 133), has long been dead; and " J. Gordon, Esq.," mentioned below, should be "J. Godman " (the well-known brewer). At p. 134, "Pepperharrow "—which should be Peperharow, as the writer's own deri vation shows—is wrongly assigned to Lord Mid dleton, instead of Lord Midleton. The former is of quite a different family, and has, we believe, no property in the south of England. "The " park is well stocked with deer. There have been no deer for many years, and the principal attractions of the place, the pleasure-gardens and views, are not mentioned.—At Penshurst (which we lately visited in company with the Handbook) the information is not quite so commodiously assorted, in one respect, as it might be. The visitor is supposed to enter the park opposite Itedleaf, as he naturally will do if he comes from the rail way-station ; and the Handbook takes him at once to the house. After he has seen it, he will naturally be disposed to see the church and vil lage which lie beyond, and are close at hand ; and, after seeing these, will probably desire to return by some other road. But if he now in quires for " Bear's Oak " (the tree said to have been planted by Sir Philip Sidney, and an ob ject which no ore, of course, would wish to leave unseen), he finds that he has passed near it on his way to the house, and that he has to retrace his steps almost as far as the end of the park by which he entered. This is not well managed, though all the rest of the information about the house is full and neatly arranged. In looking through these guides we have been struck with a certain deficiency of information on the subject of English domestic architecture. Front the description of Penshurst, for instance, it would be impossible to tell whether its style Was classical or Gothic. There may be " grey ness" and "venerable antiquity" about a Palladian house, or indeed about a house that has no styl e a t a ll. Th e same remar k applies to the descriptions of some other places. High clere (Hants), for example. which is a striking, though modernized, edifice, surely demands a line or two to inform the connoisseur of its cha racteristics. From the section on " Antiqui t!es " in the Introduction we learn that hosely is Elizabethan ; but, from the description in the route, that fact could only be gathered by im plication. (By the way, is the editor quite sure of the authenticity of his story of the key of the 101 4 muniment-room having boen lost for two kundred years ? It seems to be derived from l ‘elnPe ; but we have lately heard that it is apocryphal.) It may of course be said, " what "is the use of describing the aspect of a place 4t you are going to sec ? "—to which we reply, first, that persons who have no architectural knowledge cannot tell Elizabethan from Jacobean arc hitecture, and therefore should be told what it is they are looking at; secondly, that there are others with tastes so exclusively archi tectural as to roam about the country more for the purpos e of viewing the outsides of buildings, than for their associations or artistic treasures, and that they would be much obliged who would warn them of the existence and character of houses possessing any such attractive features. With the scanty information given in the handbook on this head, the architectural student would in many cases not know whether to turn out of his path or not. By the general tourist, however, who has no special object except that of seeing whatever is curious of any kind, these books will be found admirable helps ; and those inhabitants of London, who have not many holidays, and who like to make the most of what they have, will feel especially grateful to Mr. Murray for having so speedily taken up four counties so near to the metropolis, and thus enabled all who love to visit scenes of antiquity, historic interest, or natural beauty, to do so in the readiest manner, and furnished them with a stock of information which is, on the whole, not less usefully selected than it is agreeably conveyed. The Scouring of the White Horse. By the Author of " Toni Brown's School Days." London : Macmillan and Co. Wm has not heard of the Vale of White Horse ? and what passenger by the luxuriously rolling Great Western has not wondered what was the origin and meaning of that great awkward looking similitude of the White Horse which gives a name to the fertile and sporting district on the borders of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, of which the author of " Tom Brown's School days " writes with so much knowledge, so much verve, and so much geniality of spirit ? It is a magnificent country, full of interest for men of all kinds, full of legends and historic remem brances, of liberal and enlightened landowners, of enterprizing and jolly farmers, of first-rate sportsmen, of sturdy men, and handsome women. The author is evidently not only a Vale of White Horse-man by birth, but thoroughly and enthu siastically so by strong local affection and local associations, which he retains with a freshness and heartiness that do one good, and carry all the reader's sympathies irresistibly along with the writer. The book is got up with every incident of attractiveness which can be imagined—elegant binding, admirable clear type, and illustratio.ls by that greatest delineator of characteristics, Mr. Richard Doyle. The beauty on the surface, nevertheless, is its least recommendation. There is under that surface a high tone of thought and earnest purpose, which engages our strongest interest, and to which we most heartily say, God speed it. We trust it may find a place on the table of every mechanics' institute, and every village reading-room. Far more good will it do there than the hard, purely intellectual books with which it is still the fashion to load them, with its kindly and genial feeling, its neighbourly and hearty spirit, its sympathy with the Homes of England and those ties which used to bind Englishmen to them, and its cheerful Chris tianity. Would that there were more like the author of " Tom Brown's School Days " and " The Scouring of the White Horse" to supply antidotes to those cosmopolitan theories which are so falsely supposed to raise the intellects and advance the social views of the People. The plot of the book is slight enough, and the principal use of the London clerk on his vacation tour is to conduct the reader through the locali ties and scenes which give the author his oppor tunities for impressing his views and feelings upon the public mind. Slight as it is, however, the little plot carries interest along with it on its path ; and sketchy as the characters of the dramatis personae may be, it is impossible to help becoming attached to them, so great, so effective are the touches with which they arc dashed in, and so great is the charm of the author's style. The London clerk goes to spend his long vaca tion with a jolly yeoman in the Vale, and his visit happens to fall at the same time as the great festival of the West, which is known as the Scouring of the White Horse. The last, we be lieve, was in September, 1857. Joe the Farmer, his mother, his sister, and their pursuits and habits are delightfully sketched; and the language in which the life and the sports of the Vale are depicted has not been surpassed by any . writer whom we can call to mind fiir originality and effect. The following passages, extracted almost at random, will show upon what we found our 1189 When he had done his story, I asked him about tho White Horse, and he pointed me out the highest of the hills which ran along on our left hand a mile or two away. There, sure enough, I saw the figure quite plain ; but he did'nt know much about it. Only, he said, he had always heard tell that it was cut out by King Alfred the Great, who lived in those parts ; and ' there was a main sight of strange old things up there on the hill, besides the White Horse; and though he did'nt know much abut how they got there, he was sort of proud of them, and was glad to pay his pound or two, or double that if it was wanted, to keep them as they should be ; ' " for, you see," said Joe, " we've lived about here, father and son, pretty nigh ever since King Alfred's time, which I reckon is a smartish time ago, though I forget how long." And though I think Joe, and parties in the counties generally, set too much store by such things, and hold their noses much higher than they've any need to do, because their families have never eared to move about, and push on the world, and so they know where their grest•grandfathers were born, I couldn't help feeling there was something in it after all. And again : And su the time wore on, till a stout lass in a blue cotton print carne out, and called the cows in to milking; and they all went trooping slowly by into the farmyard, some of them just stopping to stare at me with their mild eyes, and smelling so sweet, that I hadn't the heart to go on smoking, and let my pipe out. And after a bit I followed into the line of sheds where they were being milked by the lass and a man, who balanced himself on two legs of the milking. stool, and drove his head into the cow's side ; and I thought I had never heard a sweeter sound than the tinkling sound which the milk made in the bright tin pails. Can there be more enticing, more true, more healthy pictures of country life ? We wish we could give the description of the great battle fought by Alfred the Great., in which the Banner of the White Horse, after many fluctuations, floated triumphantly monarch of the war, but our space will not permit it ; and we must content ourselves with quoting the account of the Crimean Vale Hero. The song we can't omit, and a very little bit of the sermon with which it closes : There was one man amongst them who struck me par ticularly, I suppose because he wore a Crimean medal with tour clasps, and went quite lame on a crutch. I found out his history. Old Mattingly, the blacksmith of Uffington, had three sons when the Russian war broke out. They all went for soldiers. The first was shot through the hand, as that grey deadly dawn broke over Inkermann, on the sth of November, Had he gone to the rear he would probably have lived. He fought till the last Russian vanished along the distant road, and over the bridge heaped with slain, like a gallant Berkshire lad—and then went to hospital and died of his wounds within a week. The second lies before Sebastopol in the advanced trenches of the right attack. The third, the young artilleryman, went through the whole war, and after escaping bayonet and shot an.l shell, was kicked by the horse of a wounded officer, and probably lamed for life. According to the rules of the service, my informant seemed to think, he was not entitled to a pension for life, " but they had given him one for eighteen mouths after his discharge, so that lie had almost a year of it to run ; and perhaps he might learn blacksmith-work in that time, if he could stand at all, for that was mostly arm-work." I didn't know what the regulations as to pensions were, or how long young Mattingly would take to learn black smith-work, but 1 did feel rather ashamed that England couldn't afford to do a little more for such as he ; and should be glad for my part to pay something towards it, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or somebody, would find out a way to set this right. Or perhaps if this should ever meet the eye of the Commander-in-chief, or of any of the gentlemen who were made 1i.C.14.'s in the a ar-time, or of any other person who has interest in the army, they may see whether anything more can be done for young Mattingly. THE ZONO OF THE ZUMMEDZETSHIRE OWLD GEAMSTER. Chem a Zummerzetshire man Coom here to hey a bit o'vun. Oo'lt try a bout ? I be'sot 'meant Ov any man or mother's zun. Chem a geamater owld and tough, Well knowed drop all the country zide, And many a luay 'Berkshire man To break my yead hey often tried. Who's vor a bout o vriendly plaay, As never should to anger move? 'Lich spwoorts were only menned vor dimly As likes their ranzzards broke for love. And finally, at page 209, of the Sermon on Country Feasts, our readers will find these re markable observations : Then there are the sports for which prizes are giiitt. There is no need to specify them all, and I shall therefbie only speak of the one which is considered the most (*Jac tionable—which many people think should be stopped altogether--I mean wrestling. Whatever I may say on this will apply to all the rest. Now, my brethren, are wrest tug matches a proper way of keeping God's feasts? TIM la the question we have to answer. The object of wrestling and of all other athletic opals is to strengthen men's bodies, and to teach them Muse their strength teadily, to keep their tempers, to endure fatigue and pain. These are all noble ends, my brethren. God gives us few more valuable gilts than strength of body, and courage, and endurance—to you labouring men they are beyond all price. We ought to cultivate them in all right wAys, for they are given us to protect the weak. ,unary more IUL emu. . Les of buildings, The following passages, extracted almost at trod gi v es us f ew i more valuable guts than strength of body, and co nige, ndurance—to you labouring men they 7tistie treasures, random, will show upon what we found our are beyond all price. We ought to cultivate them in all lilted to any one v i ews: — right w for they are given us to protect the weak,