A Morning's Walk From London To Kew Part 3

I have long thought that a system of telegraphs for domestic purposes would const.i.tute one perfection of civilization in any country.

Multifarious are the occasions in which individual interests require that events should be communicated with telegraphic celerity. Shipping concerns alone would keep telegraphs constantly at work, between all the ports of the kingdom and Lloyd's coffee-house; and commerce would be essentially served, if, during 'Change-hours at London, Bristol, Liverpool, Hull, and Glasgow, communications could be interchanged relative to the state of markets, purchases, sales, and other transactions of business. How convenient too would be such a rapid intercourse between London and country bankers, in regard to balances, advances, and money transactions; how desirable in law business between London and country pract.i.tioners; and how important in cases of bankruptcy or insolvency! In family concerns, notices of deaths, births, accidents, progressive sickness, &c. it would often be deeply interesting. The state of elections, the issues of lawsuits, determinations of the legislature, questions for answers, and numberless events of more or less importance, would occur sufficient to keep telegraphs in constant requisition, and abundantly repay the cost of maintaining them. A guinea might be paid per hundred miles, for every five or six words, which, in matters of private concern, might, by pre-concert, be transmitted in cypher. Instead of sixty-four telegraphs, we might then require five hundred, and an establishment costing 100,000_l._ per annum; yet five hundred messages and replies per day, between different parts of the kingdom, taken at 2_l._ each, would in two hundred and fifty days produce 250,000_l._ or a net revenue of 150,000_l._ But to achieve so vast a purpose, and to confer on men a species of ubiquity, even if 50,000_l._ per annum were lost to the government, would it not be worth the sacrifice, thus to give to the people of England an advantage not possessed, and never likely to be possessed, by any other people on earth? What a triumph of civilization would be afforded by such an extension of the telegraphic system! The combinations of the #TELESCOPE# began what those of the #TELEGRAPH# would complete. United, they would produce a kind of _finite ubiquity_, rendering the intercourse of an industrious community independent of time and distance, and binding the whole in ties of self-interest, by means which could be achieved only in a high state of civilization through fortunate combinations of human art.

As I looked around me from this eminence, a mult.i.tude of ideas, sympathies, and affections, vibrated within me, which it would be impossible or tedious to a.n.a.lyse. The organ of the Eye was here played upon like that of the Ear in a musical concert. Nor was it the sense alone which was touched by this visual harmony; but every chord and tone found a separate concord or discord, in innumerable a.s.sociations and reminiscences. It was, in truth, a chorus to the eye, unattended by the noise and distraction produced by the laboured compositions of #Handel#; while it filled the whole of its peculiar sense with an effect like one of the tender symphonies of #Haydn#. It was a Panorama, better adapted, however, to a poet than a painter; for it had no foreground, no tangible objects for light and shade, nor any eminences which raise the landscape above an angle of six or eight degrees; yet, to a poet, how rich it was in a.s.sociations--how endless in pictures for the imagination!

The north and north-east were still obscured by the dingy, irregular, and dense Smoke issuing from the volcano of the Metropolis; and, in looking upon it, how difficult it was to avoid tracing the now mingled ma.s.ses back to their several sources, considering the happiness or misery which they reflected from their respective fire-sides, and gaging the aspirations of hope, or the sighs of wretchedness, which a fertile imagination might conceive to be combined with this social atmosphere! Convenient alike to every condition of humanity, it might be considered as flowing at once from the dungeons of despairing convicts, the cellars and garrets of squalid poverty, the busy haunts of avarice, the waste of luxury, and the wantonness of wealth.

Straight before me, the metropolis, like a devouring monster, exhibited its equivocal and meretricious beauties, its extensive manufactories, its a_spir_ing churches and towers, and other innumerable edifices. #Westminster Abbey# stood prominent, at once reviving the recollection of its superst.i.tious origin, and exciting deep veneration as the depository of the relics of so much renown.

What topics for commentary, if they had not been recently exhausted in the cla.s.sical stanzas of a #Maurice#! St. #Paul's#, the monument of Wren, was but just visible through the haze, though the man at the Telegraph a.s.serted, that he could sometimes tell the hour by its dial without the aid of a telescope! How characteristic is this structure become of the British metropolis, and how flat the ma.s.s of common spires and smoky chimneys would now seem without it! The Monument, recording the delusions of faction, and the Tower, with all its gloomy a.s.sociations, were visible in the reach of the river. Of Churches there appeared a monotonous groupe; while the houses presented a dingy and misshapen ma.s.s, as uninteresting at the distance of seven miles as an ant-hill at the distance of seven feet. Indeed, any wretch capable of setting his foot upon an ant-hill, and of destroying it, because it made no palpable appeals to his sympathy, might at this distance, by parity of feeling, let fall a mill-stone on this great city, and extinguish in an instant the hopes and cares of its inhabitants. On this spot then I behold an a.s.semblage of the greatest wonders of man's creation, at a focal distance, which reduces them to the measure of an #ANT-HILL#; and still further off they would be diminished even to a #POINT#! Such is the estimate of the eye, nor is it heightened by that of the ear; for I was a.s.sured that during tranquil nights, particularly by listening near the ground, the confused hum of the vast British metropolis could here be compared only to the buz of a #BEE-HIVE#, or the sound of a #CONCH#! What a lesson do these considerations afford to the pride of man, whose egotism represents him to himself as the most important object of the infinite creation; for whose use, he a.s.serts, all things were made, and to whom all things are subservient! It is, however, natural that the nearest object should fill the largest angle, whether viewed by the mind or the eye; though it is the business of wisdom and philosophy to correct such illusions of our intellectual or sensitive powers.

Of the moral condition, and feelings, concentrated within a spot thus embraced by a glance of the eye, how impossible to form an estimate!

Supposing 900,000 human beings are thus huddled together, in 150,000 houses, we may conclude, that 100,000 will always be lying on the bed of sickness, and that 30,000 are constantly afflicted by mortal diseases, eighty of whom expire every day, or three in every hour! Of the 150,000 house-keepers, above 50,000 are racked by poverty, or by the dread of its approach; other 50,000 maintain a precarious independence; while the remaining 50,000 enjoy comfort and happiness, chequered, however, by care and the conflict of human pa.s.sions. The greater part of the first cla.s.s are either already plunged, or predisposed to plunge, into vices and crimes unknown except in such a city; those of the second cla.s.s maintain a virtuous struggle, but more frequently sink into the lower, than rise into the higher cla.s.s; while, among the third cla.s.s, there are found all degrees of virtue and worth, although mixed with an envious spirit of rivalry, and an indulgence in expense and luxury that greatly reduce the number of truly happy families.

On the north, north-west, and east, I still beheld the signs of this overgrown metropolis in villages, which branch, like luxuriant shoots, on every side. And it was only on the south and south-west, in the swelling downs and in the charms of Box-hill, Leith-hill, and Dorking, that I could discover the unsophisticated beauties of nature, which seemed to mock the toils of man, in the contrast they afforded to the scene in the opposite direction. Yet men, who never receive instruction except through their own experience, flock in tens of thousands to share in the lottery presented to their ambition in great cities, where thousands perish while in pursuit of the prize, where other thousands obtain nothing but blanks and disappointments, and whence the tens who achieve their object, gladly escape to enjoy their wealth, free from the disturbance of city pa.s.sions, amid the placid and unchangeable beauties of nature.

In looking around me from the windows of Hartley's Fire-house, it was impossible to avoid reflecting on the wretchedness of Want existing in the sooty metropolis, and the waste of Means in the uncultivated country immediately around me. I had just been sympathizing with the forlorn inhabitants of the workhouse at Wandsworth, at the distance of only a mile; and half a dozen other such receptacles of misery invited commiseration within equal distances, in other directions; yet a radius of a few hundred yards round this spot would have included as much unappropriated and useless land as might have sufficed to confer independence and plenty on their hopeless inmates! In the north-eastern direction, within a distance of ten miles, at least twenty thousand families might be discovered pining in squalid misery; though here I found myself in an unpeopled and uncultivated tract, nearly four miles square, and containing above fifteen thousand acres of good soil, capable of affording independent subsistence to half as many families!

I could not help exclaiming against the perversity of reason--the indifference of power--the complication of folly--and the ascendancy of turpitude, which, separately or conjointly, continue to produce circ.u.mstances so cruel and preposterous! Let it be recorded, said I, to the eternal disgrace of all modern statesmen, of many hundreds of ambitious legislators, and of our scientific economists, that in this luxuriant county of Surrey, there still exist, without productive cultivation, no less than 25,000 acres of open commons; 30,000 acres of useless parks, 48,000 acres of heaths, and 30,000 acres of chalk hills, serving but to subsist a few herds of deer and cattle, and to grow some unproductive trees, though at the very instant 10,000 families in the same county are dependent on the bounty of their respective parishes! Is this, said I, the vaunted age of reason? Are these the genuine fruits of civilization? Do such circ.u.mstances indicate the ascendency of benevolence? Do they not rather demonstrate that the principle of doing to others as we would be done unto, has little influence on the practices of our Statesmen and Legislators?

I may be told, that the principle of enclosing waste lands has long been recognised in the prevailing system of economy, and that the Legislature is incessantly active in pa.s.sing Bills for new enclosures.

But, I ask, for whom, and for whose benefit, are these bills pa.s.sed?

Do they provide for the poor? Do they help those who require help? Do they, by augmenting the supply, make provisions cheaper? Do they increase the number of independent fire-sides?--Rather, do they not wantonly add to the means of monopolists? Do they not give where nothing is wanted, however much may be coveted? Do they not add to the number of va.s.sals, and diminish the number of freemen? Do they not abridge the scanty means of the poor in the free use of their bare-cropt commons? And do they not transfer those means to others who do not want them, and who, without the aid of new laws could never have enjoyed them?

Yet does reason afford no alternative? Is benevolence forced to prefer barren heaths from which cottagers may derive scanty meals, merely because those who have the power fail to reconcile the rights f others who want, with the benefit of the whole community? Is our wisdom confined in so narrow a circle? Has nature provided abundance, and do we create insuperable bars to its enjoyment? Is such the line of demarcation between the selfish ordinances of man, and the wise dispensations of Providence?

Let me recommend our legislators for once to put their greedy, covetous, and inordinate Selves out of consideration. The poor may not be qualified to plead their rights, except by acts of rioting; but let them find clamorous advocates in the consciences of some of their law-makers. In spite, then, of the fees of parliament, I exhort the Legislature to pa.s.s a #GENERAL ENCLOSURE BILL#, not such a one, however, as would be recommended by the ill.u.s.trious Board of Agriculture, but founded on such principles as might appropriately confer on it the t.i.tle of #A BILL FOR THE EXTINCTION OF WANT#!

In discussing and enacting its provisions, let it be borne in mind, that the surface of the earth, like the atmosphere in which we breathe, and the light in which we see, is the natural and common patrimony of man. Let it be considered, that by nature we are tillers of the soil, and that all the artifices of society, and the employments of towns, are good and desirable in the degree only in which they promote the comforts of the country. Let it be felt, that the 10,000 dest.i.tute families in this county of Surrey, and the half million in England and Wales, are so, merely because servitude or manufactures have failed to sustain them; and that they require, in consequence, the free use of the means presented by nature for their subsistence. In fine, let it be considered, that the unappropriated wastes are a national stock, fortunately in reserve as a provision for the increasing numbers of dest.i.tute; and that no more is required of the law than to arrange and economize the distribution, consistently with the wants of some, and the rights of all.

I indulged myself in a pleasing reverie on this subject, while I rambled from the spot where it originated towards an adjacent house, in which died the late Mr. #Pitt#, a man who had the opportunity of executing that which I have the power only to speculate upon, and who, though resident in this tract, was blind to its capabilities. Ah!

thought I, perhaps in a less selfish age, this very heath, and all the adjoining heaths, waste tracts, and commons, from Bushy to Wimbledon, and from Barnes to Kingston, may be covered with cottages, each surrounded by its two or three acres of productive garden, orchard, and paddock! The healthful and happy inhabitants, emerged from the workhouses, the gaols, the cellars, the stews, the St. Giles's, the loathsome courts, alleys, and lanes of the metropolis, would have reason to return thanksgivings to the wise Legislature, who had thus restored them to the condition of men, and enabled them to exhibit the moral effects of the change. Such, in the opinion of the writer, would be a radical cure for several of the complicated and deep-rooted diseases which now afflict British society; at least, it is a remedy without cost or sacrifice; and, as such, an homage due from affluence and power to indigence and misfortune. Such a plan would draw from the over-peopled towns, that dest.i.tute portion of the population, whose means of living have been reduced or superseded by shoals of adventurers from the country. It would render workhouses useless, except for the vicious or incorrigibly idle; would diminish the poor-rates, and deprive the inmates of gaols of the powerful excuse afforded to crime by the hopeless and galling condition of poverty.

The house in which that darling of Fame, the late Mr. #Pitt#, lived a few years, and terminated his career, is a modest and irregularly-built mansion, surrounded by a few acres of pleasure-ground, and situated about a quarter of a mile from the paling of Richmond Park. My curiosity led me to visit the chamber in which this minister died, to indulge in the vivid a.s.sociations produced by the contemplation of remarkable localities. I seated myself in a chair near the spot where stood the couch on which he took his eternal slumber. I fancied, at the instant, that I still saw the severe visage and gaunt figure of the minister standing between the Treasury-bench and the table of the House of Commons, turning around to his admiring partisans, and filling the ear of his auditory with the deep full tones of a voice that bespoke a colossal stature. Certain phrases which he used to parrot still vibrated on my brain: "Bonaparte, the child and champion of Jacobinism,"--"the preservation of social order in Europe,"--"the destruction of whatever is dear to our feelings as Englishmen,"--"the security of our religion, liberties, and property,"--"indemnity for the past and security for the future," with which he used to bewilder or terrify the plain country gentlemen, or the youths from Eton, Oxford, or Cambridge, who const.i.tute a majority of that House. His success in exciting the pa.s.sions of such senators in favour of discord and war, his lavish expenditure of the public money in corrupting others, and his insincerity in whatever he professed for the public benefit, rendered him through life the subject of my aversion: but, in this chamber, reduced to the level of ordinary men, and sinking under the common infirmities of humanity, his person, character, and premature decease became objects of interesting sympathy. Perhaps he did what he thought best; or, rather, committed the least possible evil amidst the contrariety of interests and pa.s.sions in which he and all public men are placed. This, however, is but a poor apology for one who lent his powerful talents to wage wars that involved the happiness of millions, who became a willing firebrand among nations, and who, as a tool or a princ.i.p.al, was foremost in every work of contemporary mischief. The love of office, and a pa.s.sion for public speaking, were, doubtless, the predominant feelings of his soul. To gratify the former, he became the instrument of others, and thence the sophistry of his eloquence and the insincerity of his character; while, in the proud display of his acknowledged powers as an orator, he was stimulated not less by vanity, than by the virtuous rivalry of Fox. As a financier, he played the part of a n.o.bleman who, having estates, worth 20,000_l._ per annum, mortgages them to enable him to spend 100,000_l._ and then plumes himself on his power, with the same freeholds, to make a greater figure than his predecessors. But, except for the lesson which he afforded to nations never to trust their fortunes in the hands of inexperienced statesmen, why do I gravely discuss the measures and errors of one who did not live long enough to prove his genuine character? No precocity of talents, no mechanical splendour of eloquence, can stand in the place of judgment founded on Experience. At forty-six, Pitt would have begun, like all other men of the same age, to correct the errors of his past life; but, being then cut off--#HIS STORY IS INCOMPLETE#! He had within him the elements of a great man, yet they were called into action before their powers were adjusted and matured; and the world suffered by experiments made in teaching himself, instead of profiting by the union of his experience with his intellectual energies. He was an actor on the stage, while he ought to have been in the closet studying his part; his errors, therefore, merit pity, and those alone are to be blamed for them who made a dishonest use of his precocious powers.

I learnt in the immediate vicinity, that he was much respected, and was a kind master to his domestics. A person, who a little before his death was in this room, told that it was heated to a very high and oppressive temperature; and that the deep voice of the dying minister, as he asked his valet a question, startled this visitor, who had been unused to it. He died calmly, and apparently under none of those political perturbations which, at the period, were mistakenly ascribed to his last moments. The Bishop of Lincoln, who acted the part of his friend and confessor, published an interesting account of his decease, the accuracy of which has never been questioned.

It being my intention, on leaving this spot, to descend the hill to Barnes-Elms, and to proceed by that once cla.s.sical resort through Barnes and Mortlake to Kew, I left Mr. Pitt's house on the right, and crossed the common to the retired village of Roehampton.

Opposite to me were the boundaries of Richmond Park; and, little more than half a mile from the house of Pitt, in one of the most picturesque situations of that beautiful demesne, stands the elegant mansion which was presented, it is said, to the then favourite minister, Mr. #Addington#. Thus it appears, that two succeeding ministers of England, in an age reputed enlightened, lived in a district possessing the described capabilities for removing the canker-worm of poverty, yet neither of them displayed sufficient energy or wisdom to apply the remedy to the disease. I am not, however, arrogant enough to adduce my plans as tests of the patriotism of statesmen; but I venture to appeal from the judgment of this age to that of the next, whether any minister could deserve the reputation of sagacity, who, in an over-peopled country, in which large portions of the inhabitants of the towns were dest.i.tute of subsistence, lived themselves in the midst of waste tracts capable of feeding the whole, and yet took no measures nor made a single effort to apply the waste to their wants. If the same facts were related of a ruler in any foreign country, or in any remote age, what would be the inference of a modern English reader in regard to his genuine benevolence, wisdom, or patriotism?

I am desirous of advancing no opinions which can be questioned, yet I cannot refrain from mentioning, in connexion with this wooded horizon, my surprise that peculiar species of trees have not yet formed a line of distinction between inhabited and civilized, and uninhabited and barbarous countries. Does not the principle which converts a heath into pasturage and corn-fields, or a collection of furze-bushes or brambles into a fruit-garden, demand that all unproductive trees should give way as fast as possible, in a civilized country, to other trees which afford food to the inhabitants? Are there not desolate countries enough in which to grow trees for the mere purposes of timber? Are there not soils and situations even in England, where none but timber-trees can grow? And is not the timber of many fruit-trees as useful as the timber of many of the lumber-trees which now enc.u.mber our soil? It is true, that, when wood const.i.tuted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-tree was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants; but that is no longer our condition. I conceive, therefore, that a wise and provident government, which, above all other considerations, should endeavour to feed the people at the least cost and labour, ought to allow no lumber-trees to enc.u.mber the soil until fruit-trees were planted sufficient to supply the inhabitants with as much fruit as their wants or luxuries might require. The primary object of all public economy should be to saturate, a civilized country with food. Why should not pear and walnut-trees supply the place of oaks, elms, and ash; the apple, plum, cherry, damson, and mulberry, that of the birch, yew, and all pollards? It would be difficult, I conceive, to adduce a reason to the contrary; and none which could weigh against the incalculable advantages of an abundant supply of wholesome provisions in this cheap form. Nor does my plan terminate with the ornaments of forests, parks, and hedge-rows; but I ask, why many hedges themselves might not, in like manner, consist of gooseberry and currant trees in their most luxuriant varieties, intermingled with raspberries, nuts, filberts, bullaces, &c.? Not to give this useful and productive face to a country, appears to me to be shutting our eyes to the light; to prefer the useless to the useful; to be so inconsistent as to expect plenty where we take no means to create it; or, in other words; to sow tares and desire to gather wheat, or expect grapes where we have planted only thorns. Let us, even in this point, condescend to borrow a lesson from an ill.u.s.trious, though oft despised, neighbour, who, it appears by the evidence of all travellers, has taken care that the roads and hedges of France should be covered with productive fruit trees. If such also were the condition of Britain, how insignificant would become the anxious questions about a Corn Bill, or the price of any single article of food. We should then partake of the ample stores provided, and perhaps contemplated, by our forefathers, when they rendered indigenous the fruit-trees of warmer climates; and, feeling less solicitude in regard to the gross wants of animal subsistence, we should be enabled to employ our faculties more generally in improving our moral and social condition. We should thus extend the principle, and reduce the general purpose of all productive cultivation to an a.n.a.logous economy, enjoying the fullest triumph which our climate would admit, of the fortunate combinations of human art over the inapt.i.tude and primitive barbarity of nature.

The sequestered village of Roehampton consists of about thirty or forty small houses, in contact; and of a dozen monastic mansions, inhabited by n.o.blemen and well-accredited traders. Each of the latter being surrounded by twenty or thirty acres of garden and pleasure-grounds, and bounded by high brick walls, which in every direction line the roads, Roehampton presents to a stranger a most cheerless aspect. As the plantations are old, the full-grown oaks, elms, and chesnuts, within the walls, add to the gloom, and call to mind those ages of mental paralysis when Druids and Monks gave effect to their impostures by similar arrangements.

They serve to prove how slavishly men are the creatures of imitation; how seldom, in how few things, and by what small gradations genius gives a novel direction to their practices! When this island was overrun with beasts of prey, in the shape of quadrupeds, and lawless bipeds, the baron and the man of wealth found it necessary to shut themselves within castellated mansions and circ.u.mvallated domains; and hence the vulgar a.s.sociation between such establishments and a presumed high rank in their occupiers. The state of the country and of modern society renders them no longer essential to security; yet they are maintained as the effect of a false a.s.sociation; and half the stimulus of avarice would be lost without the antic.i.p.ated grandeur of a monastic establishment, buried in the centre of a wood, and cut off from the cheerful world, and the healthful circulation of the atmosphere, by damp and mouldering walls! It does not signify how apparently dull, how unappropriate to fixed habits, how unvarying the inanimate scene, how much the inmates may be visited by low fevers, agues, rheumatisms, and pulmonary affections; the manor-house, or the ancient monastery, which has for ages been the residence of n.o.bility, becomes, in consequence, the meed of wealth, and the goal of vulgar hope, to be patiently endured, however little it may be enjoyed! Pride will feed upon the possession; and, if that master-pa.s.sion be gratified, minor inconveniences will have little weight in making the election.

I confess it--and I make the declaration in the humble form of a confession, in the hope that those who think I have sinned, will be led to forgive my error--that I could not help thinking that the inhabitants of the humble cottages by the way-side, whose doors stood wide open, whose children were intermingling and playing before them, whose society is restricted by no formal reserve, whose means depend on their industry, #WHO HAVE NOT LEISURE TO BE UNHAPPY#, who cannot afford to stimulate their appet.i.tes so as to enfeeble themselves by the languor of repletion, or disease themselves by the corruptions of plethora, and who would have no wants if the bounties of nature were not cruelly intercepted--I could not help feeling, that such unsophisticated beings experience less care, less self-oppression, less disease, more gaiety of heart, more grateful sympathy, and more even of the sense of well-being, than the artificial and constrained personages who, however amiable, and however free from the common vices of rank and wealth, inhabit the adjacent mansions, with all their decorations of art, and all their luxuries of hot-houses, graperies, pineries, ice-houses, temples, grottoes, hermitages, and other fancies, with which power hopes to cheat itself into enjoyment, as an apology for its insatiable monopolies.

The inefficacy of wealth to raise man above his cares and mortal feelings has, however, of late years been so honestly conceded, that the rich have begun, at least in external appearance, to a.s.sume the condition of the poor. Hence, few of those mansions are built, or even restored, on whose gloomy character I have been remarking; and our proudest n.o.bility now condescend to inhabit the cheerful, though humble, Cottage. They find, or by their practices they seem to prove they have found, that the nearest approach to happiness, is the nearest approach to the humility of poverty! The thatched roof--the tiny flower-garden--the modest wicket--the honey-suckle bower--the cleanly dairy--the poultry yard--the dove-cote--the piggery--and the rabbit-pen,--comprehended under the names of the _Ferme Ornee_, or _Cottage Ornee_, now const.i.tute the favourite establishments of those who found so few comforts in marble porticoes, in walls hung with the works of the Gobelins or the Italian school, in retinues of servants, and extensive parks. What a concession of pride--what a homage rendered to nature--what a consolation to discontented poverty--what a warning to inconsiderate ambition!

Yet our taste ought to be governed by our reason and our wants. Large families require large houses; it is therefore the business of good taste to combine capacity with cheerfulness. Nothing, at the same time, within the sphere of human enjoyment, equals the delight afforded by well-planned garden-grounds; and it is consequently the duty of the artist to unite these with the cheerful family mansion.

Here, then, begin the obtrusion, and the alledged necessity of those boundary walls, against which I have been protesting. No such thing--such walls, thanks to the genius and good taste of a #Pilton#, are become unnecessary. We may now, without walls, have secure boundaries--we may keep out trespa.s.sers without excluding the fresh air--and we may circ.u.mscribe our limits without diminishing our external prospects. In that case, how different in appearance would be this village of Roehampton--how much more tolerable to its residents--how far more healthy--and how enchanting to strangers,--if, instead of monotonous brick-walls, the boundaries were formed by the magical fences of #Pilton#, allowing the free pa.s.sage of the solar rays and the vital air, reciprocating delightful prospects from plantation to plantation, and adding the essential charms of variety to the pleasures of possession.

The first house in the lane is the cla.s.sical seat of the Earl of Besborough, enriched with specimens of ancient statuary from Italy and Greece, and with exquisite pictures of the Italian, Flemish, and Dutch schools. Adjoining, is the highly finished residence of the Marchioness of Downshire; and farther on, are the superb mansions of Mr. Gosling, a banker; and of Mr. Dyer. In the lane leading to Richmond Park, across which there is a delightful drive to the Star-and-Garter, is the charming residence of Mr. Temple; and, farther north, is the splendid mansion of the late Mr. Benjamin Goldsmid, since become the property of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough.

Various a.s.sociations in regard to its first and its present proprietor, drew my attention to the site last mentioned. I had not leisure to examine its interior, but the exterior is in the best style of such edifices. The house looks to the north-west, and, being the last in the descent of the hill, commands an uninterrupted prospect over the country towards Harrow and Elstree. The front consists of a superb portico of white marble columns, in the Corinthian order; but in other respects the house is not very striking, and its dimensions are inconsiderable. The lawn falls pleasingly towards a piece of water, and on its eastern side is a fascinating drive of half-a-mile, terminated by a pair of cast-iron gates of singular beauty. But the object which more particularly called to mind the unbounded wealth of its former proprietor, is a subterraneous way to the kitchen-garden and lawns on the opposite side the road. It is finished with gates resembling those of a fortified castle, with recesses and various ornaments, all of Portland-stone; and on the near side is a s.p.a.cious hermitage.

In this house the late Mr. B. Goldsmid resided, while he balanced the finances of the British empire, and raised for the Pitt Administration those vast sums which enabled it to r.e.t.a.r.d the progress of liberal opinions during the quarter of a century! After the instance of a Goldsmid, the reputed wealth of a Croesus sinks into insignificance.

The Jew broker, year after year, raised for the British government sums of twenty and thirty millions, while the Lydian monarch, with all his boasted treasures, would have been unable to make good even the first instalment! Such, however, is the talisman of credit in a commercial and banking country! In addition to their own funds, and to the funds permanently confided to their prudence from foreign correspondents, amounting to three or four millions, the brothers, Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid, commanded for many years, from day to day, the floating balances of the princ.i.p.al London bankers; and they were among bankers, what bankers are among private traders. It was their daily practice to visit most of the bankers' counting-houses, and address them briefly--"Will you borrow or lend fifty thousand to-day?"--According to the answer, the sum required was deposited on the spot, or carried away--no memorandum pa.s.sed, and a simple entry in their respective books served merely to record the hour when the sum was to be repaid, with its interest. With such credit, and such ready means, it is not to be wondered that the Goldsmids commanded the wealth of the world; nor that their services were courted by an administration which never suffered its projects to languish while these brokers could raise money on exchequer-bills! A paper circulation is, however, a vortex, out of which neither individuals nor governments ever escaped without calamity, and from whose fatal effects the prudence and integrity of these worthy men served as no adequate protection. A whisper that they had omitted to repay a banker's loan at the very hour agreed, first shook their credit; while some changes in the financial arrangements of government, and the malignity of some envious persons, (for rivals they could have none,) led to a fatal catastrophe in regard to one brother in this house; afterwards to a similar tragedy in regard to the other, at Merton; and finally to the breaking-up of their vast establishment. Whether their exertions were beneficial to the country may be doubted; this, however, is certain, that the Goldsmids were men of a princely spirit, who possessed a command of wealth, during the twelve or fifteen years of their career, beyond any example in the domestic history of nations. In this house Benjamin repeatedly gave banquets, worthy of his means, to the chief branches of the royal family, and most of the n.o.bility and gentry of the realm: and it deserves to be mentioned, to his honour, that he was the constant patron of literature and of distressed men of letters. Abraham, in like manner, gave royal entertainments, and was the unshaken friend of Lord Nelson, and of the interesting widow of Sir William Hamilton, whose premature death in a state of poverty, was a consequence of the misfortunes of her generous protector.

Adjoining the splendid iron gates which lead into these grounds, stands a house memorable for the violent effects of a thunder storm.

The records of the year 1780 probably describe the details of these phenomena; but, happening to meet, on the premises, with a man who had witnessed the whole, I collected from him the following particulars:--He related, that, after a pleasant day in September, a sudden storm of thunder and lightning, accompanied by rain and wind, took place, which lasted not more than ten or fifteen minutes. That, believing "the world at an end, his master and family went to prayers;" but, on the noise abating, they found that their extensive barn, with various out-buildings, had been entirely carried away.

Parts of them were found, on the following morning, on Barnes Common, at the distance of a mile, while other parts were scattered around the fields. He related also, that two horses which were feeding in a shed, were driven, with their manger, into the ditch on the opposite side of the lane; and that a loaded cart was torn from the shafts and wheels, and wafted into an adjoining field. A crop of turnips were mowed down as with a scythe, and a double row of twenty or thirty full-grown elms, which stood on the sides of the lane, were torn up by the roots.

One man was killed in the barn, and six others were wounded, or so severely shocked as to require relief in an hospital.

Having never before met with a case of such total destruction from the action of electricity, I considered these facts as too interesting to be lost. It may be worth while to add, in elucidation, that the mischief was doubtless occasioned by an ascending ball; or rather, as the action extended over a surface of three or four acres, by a succession of ascending b.a.l.l.s.[3] The conducting substances were dry or imperfect, and thence the violence of the explosions. This is neither the time nor place to speak of the erroneous views still entertained of a power which is only known to us by experiments made within a non-conducting atmosphere, whose antagonist properties, or peculiar relations to it, afford results which are mistakenly ascribed to the power itself, as properties _per se_. Are we warranted in calling in an independent agent to account for phenomena which are governed in their appearances by every different _surface_ in connexion with which they are exhibited, and which can be produced only in certain cla.s.ses of _surfaces_ in fixed relations to other _surfaces_? Can the cause of phenomena, of which we have no knowledge but in the antagonist relations of _surfaces_ called conducting and non-conducting, be philosophically considered but as _the mere effect_ of those nicely-adjusted relations? Can that power be said to be distinct from the inherent properties of various matter, which can never be exhibited except in contrast, as _plus_ on one surface, and _minus_ in another, or, if positive on A. necessarily and simultaneously negative on B.? Are the phenomena called #LIGHT#, #HEAT#, #GRAVITATION#, #COHESION#, #ELECTRICITY#, #GALVANISM#, and #MAGNETISM#, produced by different powers of nature, or by the action of one power on different bodies, or by the action of different bodies on one active power? Do not the phenomena appear constantly to accompany the same bodies, and are they not therefore occasioned by the qualities of the bodies? May not the different qualities of bodies be sufficient to explain the phenomena on the hypothesis of one active power? Is it necessary that the phenomena should be confined to particular bodies, if there are as many active fluids as phenomena? Is not the exact limitation of each set of phenomena to particular bodies conclusive evidence that the phenomena grow out of some antagonist qualities of those bodies? In fine, do not the varying powers calculated to produce the phenomena, consist of the varying qualities of bodies, and the varying circ.u.mstances in which they are placed in regard to each other; and may not the active power be fixed and always the same? Does not this conclusion best accord with the simplicity of nature? Is it probable that two active powers could be co-existent?

May not the elasticity of a universal medium account for most of the intricate phenomena of bodies? May not motion grow out of the vacuum between the atoms of that universal medium? May there not be set within set, each necessary to the motion of the other, till we approximate a plenum? May not certain varieties of these involved series of atoms const.i.tute the several media which produce the several phenomena of matter?

[3] I use the word _ball_, because I consider the power called electric, which shews itself between four containing and contained surfaces, as a physical point bearing geometrical relations to those surfaces; which point, by the rapidity of its motion to restore some disturbed equilibrium, generates a continuous fire, and deceives the eye by the semblance of a stream.

Prudence forbids me to extend these queries on subjects which will ever interest the speculative part of mankind, but on which it will be difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at certain and indubitable conclusions: as, however, I have been led into this digression by existing errors relative to Electricity, I may remark, in conclusion, that the phenomena produced by this power arise from the action of opposing surfaces through intervening media; that the excitement impels the surfaces towards each other; and that all the phenomena grow out of the motive quality of intervening bodies, whose surfaces are alternately attracted by the comprehending excited surfaces, or out of the want of perfect smoothness in the opposing or excited surfaces. Electricity is in fact the phenomena of surfaces, growing out of the sole property of their mutual mechanical attractions, which attractions are governed by some necessary relations of the surfaces of the intervening media to the surfaces of the opposing conductors.

At any rate, it is irrational to suppose that the #CAUSE# of #CAUSES# operates in the production of natural phenomena by the aid of such complicated machinery, and such involved powers, as men have forced into nature, for the purpose of accounting for affections on their senses, or effects of matter on matter; in the measure of which they have no standard but their sensitive powers and the undiscovered relations of the agent and patient. Would it not, on the contrary, be more consistent with the proper views of philosophy to dismiss all occult powers, which are so many signs of our ignorance or superst.i.tion, and to search for the #SECONDARY CAUSES# of all phenomena, as well between the smallest as the largest ma.s.ses, in the undeviating laws of #ARITHMETIC#, #GEOMETRY#, and #MECHANICS#; whose simplicity, sublimity, perfection, and immutability, accord with our deductions in regard to the attributes of an #OMNISCIENT ARCHITECT# and #OMNIPOTENT DIRECTOR# of the universe?

This, however, is certain, that such catastrophes as those described could never occur, if the imperfect conductors of which our buildings are generally composed, were encompa.s.sed by more perfect conductors.

The ridge of the roof of every house should be of metal; and, if that metallic ridge were connected with the leaden water-pipes, and by them continued into the ground, all buildings would be protected. A descending or an ascending ball would then find a conduit, by which to pa.s.s, or freely propagate its powers, without the violent effects that accompany its transition through air and other non-conductors. The rods of Franklin are toys, which were ingeniously contrived in the infancy of this branch of science, but they ought now to be forgotten.

Before I dismiss this interesting topic, I would ask whether the transmission of the power called _electric_, to a particular spot, does not always afford evidence, that at that spot there exists, beneath the surface of the earth, either a vein of metallic ore, a spring, or some other competent conductor, which the power called _electric_ is seeking to reach, when the antagonist non-conductors exhibit their destructive phenomena? Does not the power or vacuum created by the change of volume in the aqueous vapour of the cloud, regard only the perfect conductors prepared to receive it, however deeply they may be concealed beneath the surface of the non-conducting or imperfectly-conducting soil and vegetable surface? If it were not so, would not the stroke always affect the higher objects, or prefer palpable conductors in moderately elevated sites? In this instance 200 degrees of the horizon were more elevated than the place attacked, while the destruction proves that the superficies invited no acc.u.mulation here. Must not then the predisposing and operative cause have existed beneath the surface; and, hence, may not the selection of lightning, in most cases where it prefers lower sites, afford evidence of the existence of metallic strata, of springs, or other conducting surfaces, the discovery of which, by such natural test, may sometimes be important to the owner of the soil?

The bottom of Roehampton-lane joins the road which leads from Putney and Wandsworth to Richmond. Here I came again upon the same alluvial Flat which I left when I ascended from Wandsworth to Putney-heath, having since pa.s.sed a corner of the undulating high land on which stand Wimbledon, its common, Roehampton, Richmond-park, and its lovely hill. A more interesting site of the same extent, is not perhaps to be found in the world. Its picturesque beauty, and its general advantages as a place of residence, are attested by the preference given to it by ministers and public men, who select it as a retreat from the cares of ambition. On this ridge Pitt, Tooke, Addington, Burdett, Goldsmid, and Dundas, were recent contemporary residents. Here, amid the orgies of the latter, were probably concerted many of those political projects which have unfortunately desolated the finest portions of Europe, for the wicked, yet vain, purpose of destroying Truth by the sword! In an adjoining domain, Tooke beguiled, in philological pastime, the evening of a life whose meridian had been employed in disputing, inch by inch, the overwhelming march of corrupt influence; while, as though it were for effect of light and shade, the s.p.a.cious plain of Wimbledon served to display the ostentatious manoeuvres of those servile agents of equivocal justice, whose permanent organization by an anti-human policy has been engrafted on modern society, but whose aid would seldom or never be necessary, if the purposes of their employers accorded with the omnipotent influence of truth, reason, and justice.

I was now on the border of Barnes Common, consisting of 500 acres of waste; and at a few paces eastward stands #Barnes poor-house#!

Yes!--in this enlightened country--in the vicinage of the residence of many boasted statesmen--stands a #PARISH POOR-HOUSE ON A WASTE#! The unappropriated means of plenty and independence surrounding a mansion of hopeless poverty, maintained by collections of nearly 4000_l._ per annum from the industrious parishioners! Lest readers in future ages should doubt the fact, the antiquary of the year 2500 is hereby a.s.sured,--that it stood at the angle of the Wandsworth and Fulham roads, at the perpendicular distance of a mile from the Thames, and by the side of the fashionable ride from London to Richmond!--Did so monstrous an incongruity never penetrate the heads or hearts of any of the high personages who daily pa.s.s it? Did it never occur to any of them that it would be more rational to convert the materials of this building into cottages, surrounded by two or three acres of the waste, by which the happiness of the poor and the interests of the public would be blended? Can any antiquated feudal right to this useless tract properly supersede the paramount claims of the poor and the public?--From respect to any such right, ought so great a libel on our political economy to be suffered to exist, as a receptacle for the poor in the middle of an uncultivated and unappropriated waste? To dwell further on so mortifying a proof of the fallibility of human wisdom may, however, pique the pride of those who enjoy the power to organize a better system:--I therefore forbear!

These and other considerations prompted me to visit the interior. I found it clean and airy, but the best rooms were not appropriated to the poor. The master and matron were plain honest people, who, I have no doubt, do all the justice that is possible with a wretched pittance of 5_s._ 6_d._ per head per week. Should 4_s._ 6_d._ remain to provide each with twenty-one meals, this is but two-pence half-penny per meal!

Think of this, ye pampered minions of wealth, who gorge turtle at a guinea a pound, who _b.e.a.s.t.i.a.lize_ yourselves with wine at a shilling a gla.s.s, and who wantonly devour a guinea's worth of fruit after finishing a sumptuous dinner!--The guardians have judiciously annexed to the house an acre or two of ground for a garden, which is cultivated by the paupers, and supplies them with sufficient vegetables. This, though a faint approach to my plan, is yet sufficient to prove what the whole common would effect, if properly applied to the wants and natural claims of the poor. It is too often pretended that these wastes are incapable of cultivation--but the fertile appearance of enclosed patches constantly falsifies such selfish and malignant a.s.sertions.

I visited the community of these paupers, consisting in this small parish of only thirty men, women, and children, in one large room.

Among them were some disgusting-looking idiots, a cla.s.s of objects who seem to be the constant nuisance of every poor-house.[4] How painful it must be to honest poverty to be brought into contact with such wretched creatures, who are often vicious, and, in their tricks and habits, always offensive and dirty. Surely, for the sake of these degraded specimens of our kind, as well as out of respect to the parish-poor, who have no choice but to live with them, every county ought to be provided with a special Asylum for idiots; whose purpose should be to smoothen their pa.s.sage through life, and to render it as little noisome to others, and to one another, as possible.

[4] Since these observations were first published, a new law has provided for the separate maintenance of these wretched objects, nearly on the plan suggested.

On leaving this poor-house, I crossed Barnes Common in a north-eastern direction, with a view to visit at Barnes-Elms the former residence of Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, and once the place of meeting of the famous Kit-Cat Club.

On this Common, nature still appeared to be in a primeval and unfinished state. The entire Flat from the high ground to the Thames, is evidently a mere freshwater formation, of comparatively modern date, created out of the rocky ruins which the rains, in a series of ages, have washed from the high grounds, and further augmented by the decay of local vegetation. The adjacent high lands, being elevated above the action of the fresh water, were no doubt marine formations, created by the flowing of the sea during the four thousand years when the earth was last in its perihelion during our summer months; which was between twelve and seven thousand years since. The Flat or fresh-water formation, on which I was walking, still only approaches its completion; and the desiccated soil has not yet fully defined the boundaries of the river. At spring-tides, particularly when the line of the moon's apsides coincides with the syzygies, or when the ascending node is in the vernal equinox, or after heavy rains, the river still overflows its banks, and indicates its originally extended scite under ordinary circ.u.mstances.

The state of transition also appears in marshes, bogs, and ponds, which, but for the interference of man, would many ages ago have been filled up with decayed forests and the remains of undisturbed vegetation. Rivers thus become agents of the #NEVER-CEASING CREATION#, and a means of giving greater equality to the face of the land. The sea, as it retired, either abruptly from some situations, or gradually from others, left dry land, consisting of downs and swelling hills, disposed in all the variety which would be consequential on a succession of floods and ebbs during several thousand years. These downs, acted upon by rain, were mechanically, or in solution, carried off by the water to the lowest levels, the elevations being thereby depressed, and the valleys proportionally raised. The low lands became of course the channels through which the rains returned to the sea, and the successive deposits on their sides, hardened by the wind and sun, have in five or six thousand years created such tracts of alluvial soil, as those which now present themselves in contiguity with most rivers. The soil, thus a.s.sembled and compounded, is similar in its nature to the rocks and hills whence it was washed; but, having been so pulverized and so divided by solution, it forms the finest medium for the secretion of all vegetable principles, and hence the banks of rivers are the favourite residences of man. Should the channel constantly narrow itself more and more, till it becomes choaked in its course, or at its outlet, then, for a time, lakes would be formed, which in like manner would narrow themselves and disappear.

New channels would then be formed, or the rain would so diffuse itself over the surface, that the fall and the evaporation would balance each other.

Such are the unceasing works of #CREATION#, constantly taking place on this exterior surface of the earth; where, though less evident to the senses and experience of man, matter apparently inert is in as progressive a state of change from the operation of unceasing and immutable causes, as in the visible generations of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Thus water, wind, and heat, the energies of which #NEVER CEASE# to be exerted, are constantly producing new combinations, changes, and creations; which, if they accord with the harmony of the whole, are fit and "good;" but, if discordant, are speedily re-organized or extinguished by contrary and opposing powers.