Part 26

In his _Sylva_, Evelyn thus deplores the former devastation: "Methinks that I still hear, sure I am that I feel, the _dismal groans_ of our forests, when that late dreadful Hurricane, happening on the 26th of November, 1703, subverted as many thousands of goodly Oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew beneath them. Myself had 2,000 blown down; several of which, torn up by their fall, raised mounds of earth, near 20 feet high, with great stones intangled among the roots and rubbish, and this almost within sight of my dwelling;--now no more Wotton [Wood-town], stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to own its name."

In the _Diary_, the same calamity is thus noticed: "The effects of the Hurricane and tempest of wind, rain, and lightning thro' all the nation, especially London, were very dismal. Many houses demolished, and people killed. As to my own losses, the submersion of woods and timber, both ornamental and valuable, through my whole estate, and about my house, the woods crowning the garden mount, and growing along the Park meadow, the damage to my own dwelling, farms, and outhouses, is almost tragical, not to be parallel'd with anything happening in our age. I am not able to describe it, but submit to the pleasure of Almighty God."

Notwithstanding these losses, Evelyn's brother would not depart from the oeconomy and hospitality of the old house, but, "_more veterum_, kept a Christmas in which they had not fewer than 300 bumpkins every holiday."

We find recorded among the Curiosities of the place, an oaken plank "of prodigious amplitude," cut out of a tree which grew on this estate, and was felled by Evelyn's grandfather's orders. Its dimensions, when "made a pastry-board" at Wotton, were more than five feet in breadth, nine feet and a half in length, and six inches in thickness; and it had been "abated by one foot," to suit it to the size of the room wherein it was placed.

Upon the death of his brother, in 1699, without any surviving male issue, John Evelyn became possessor of the paternal estates. Wotton House, built of fine red brick, has been enlarged by various members of the Evelyn family. Hence the absence of uniformity in the plan of the house, and within our recollection it has parted with many of its olden features. The apartments are, however, convenient, and realize the comforts of an English gentleman's proper house and home. An etching by John Evelyn shows the mansion in 1653.

Through the valley at Wotton winds a rivulet which was formerly of much importance. Evelyn, in a letter to Aubrey, dated 8th of February, 1675, says that "on the stream near his house formerly stood many powder-mills, erected by his ancestors, who were the very first that brought that invention into England; before which we had all our powder from Flanders." He gives an account of one of these mills blowing up, which broke a beam, fifteen inches in diameter, at Wotton Place; and states that one standing lower down towards Sheire, on blowing up, "shot a piece of timber through a cottage, which took off a poor woman's head, as she was spinning." Besides these mills, were brass, fulling, and hammering mills.

The Evelyns possess much land in the adjoining parish of Abinger; and the seat of the Scarletts, Abinger Hall, gave the title to Lord Chief Baron Scarlett. Originally, it was a small dwelling at the foot of the Downs, belonging to the Dibble family, of whom it was purchased in the reign of George II. by Catherine Forbes, Countess of Donegal, who was the daughter of Arthur, Earl of Granard, and had the honour of being complimented by Dean Swift, in the following lines:--

"Unerring Heaven, with bounteous hand, Has form'd a Model for your Land, Whom Love bestow'd, with every grace, The glory of the Granard race; Now destined by the powers Divine The blessing of another Line. Then, would you paint a matchless Dame, Whom you'd consign to endless fame, Invoke not Cytherea's aid, Nor borrow from the Blue-eyed Maid, Nor need you on the Graces call; Take qualities from DONEGAL."

Abinger Church is of considerable antiquity, and has a higher site than any other church in the county: indeed, Aubrey conjectures the parish to be named from _Abin_, an eminence, or rising ground. The church was carefully restored in 1857. The west end is of the Norman period; the nave Early English; the altar has sedilia, and formerly had a piscina; and on the north side is a chancel belonging to the Wotton estate, and restored at the expense of Mr. Evelyn: here is a small organ. The altar-window of three lights has been filled with painted glass by O'Connor, a very meritorious work. In the churchyard in a vault are interred Lord Chief Baron Abinger, and his first wife: to the latter there is a marble monument on the inner wall of the chancel. His Lordship married secondly the widow of the Rev. Henry John Ridley, a descendant of Bishop Ridley, the Protestant martyr; and among the relics of that devout churchman which descended to Lady Abinger, was the chair in which the Bishop used to study.

On the east side of the churchyard is a small green, on which are stocks and a whipping-post; but these, to the honour of the parish, are believed never to have been used.

There was a Mill at Abinger at the time of the Domesday Survey; and it is not improbable that the present corn and flour mill, at a short distance from the road, may occupy the same site. To return to Wotton House.

The interior of the old place, with its oddly-planned rooms, its quaint carvings, its pictures, more especially the portraits of the Evelyn family, is a most enjoyable nook. The author of _Sylva_, by Kneller, will be recognised as the original of the engraved frontispiece to Evelyn's _Diary_, by economy of printing now become a household book. Among the Wotton relics, of special historic interest, are the Prayer-book used by Charles I. on the scaffold; a pinch of the powder laid by Guido Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators to blow up the Parliament; a curious account, in John Evelyn's hand, of the mode in which the Chancellor Clarendon transacted business with his royal master; several letters of John Evelyn, and his account (recently found) of the expense of his building Milton House, which occupied four years: the house remains to this day. The library of printed books and pamphlets is curious and extensive. Evelyn was a most laborious annotator, never employing an amanuensis: among his MSS. is a Bible in three volumes, the margins filled with closely-written notes.

John Evelyn died at his house (called _the Head_) in Dover-street, Piccadilly, Feb. 27, 1705-6. His remains were interred in Wotton Church: his lady surviving him until 1708-9; when, dying, in her seventy-fourth year, she was buried near him in the chancel. It was Evelyn's wish to have been interred in the Laurel Grove, planted by him at Wotton: this wish was expressed in his Will: "otherwise," he says, "let my grave be in the Corner of the Dormitory of my Ancestors." This was done; and in digging the new Vault was found "an entire skeleton, of gigantick stature."

In all the characters of child, wife, mother, and mistress, Mrs. Evelyn, quiet and unassuming as she was, shone forth pre-eminently. Her trials were many and heavy; her heart was torn with the death of child after child, some in infancy, some in ripe age when they had grown to be the pride and stay of their parents. All died, one by one, out of that numerous progeny, till only a daughter, Mrs. Draper, was left, and the bereaved pair were alone in their old age in the wide old mansion at Wotton. Nothing can exceed the touching pathos of those few words in Mrs. Evelyn's will, where, after desiring that her coffin might be placed near to that of her dear husband, whose death preceded hers by three years, she adds:--"Whose love and friendship I was happy in, fifty-eight years nine months; but by God's providence left a desolate widow, the 27th day of February, 1705, in the seventy-first year of my age."

Mrs. Evelyn had acquired the more polished manners of French society without losing her naturally simple tastes. That she cannot have formed a favourable opinion of English refinement we know from the contrast which her husband draws between the two countries in his _Characters of England_, written when they returned from the Continent.

Mrs. Evelyn was an experienced housewife, and had a special eye "to the care of cakes, stilling, and sweetmeats, and such useful things." "The hospitality of Sayes Court, which was accepted by royalty and extended to _savans_, divines, and men of letters, was not withheld from the country neighbours at Deptford." Certainly, her own words depict her practice, for she considered "the care of children's education, observing a husband's commands, assisting the sick, relieving the poor, and being serviceable to her friends, of sufficient weight to employ the most improved capacities." That Mrs. Evelyn had close insight into character and great nicety of judgment, we learn from her contemporaries, as also that her "great discernment and wit" were never abused. Ever sedate and kindly, she bore a succession of family bereavements with Christian resignation.

At Wotton, many curious memorials remain. Adjacent to the house are the conservatory, flower-garden, the former stored with curious exotic and native plants and flowers, and the latter embellished with a fountain, a temple, or colonnade, and an elevated turfed mount, cut into terraces; and here, enclosed within a brick wall, is all that remains of Evelyn's flower-garden, which was to have formed one of the principal objects in his "Elysium Britannicum." His _Diary_ is well known; and his _Sylva_ is a beautiful and enduring memorial of his amusements, his occupations, and his studies, his private happiness and his public virtues. Many millions of timber-trees have been propagated and planted at the instigation and by the sole direction of that book--one of the few books in the world which completely effected what it was designed to do. While Britain [says D'Israeli the elder] retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the _Sylva_ of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant oaks. It was an author in his studious retreat, who, casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted.

Persons who are familiar with the picturesque environs of Dorking will remember Milton House, which was built at Evelyn's expense. It is now called Milton Court, and is about a mile west of the town. It is of red brick, and has a grand staircase with massive supports and balusters, a great hall, and many noble rooms. The house was let some years since in tenements to poor families. It has since been restored and furnished in the style of the period. Its history has a literary interest. For nearly a quarter of a century it was the abode of Jeremiah Markland, a model critic "for modesty, candour, literary honesty, and courteousness to other scholars." He will be remembered as one of the eminent Grecians of Christ's Hospital. He lived in bachelorship at Milton Court, among his books; or, as his pupil, Strode, tells us, "In 1752, being grown old, and having, moreover, long and painful fits of the gout, he was glad to find, what his inclination and infirmities, which made him unfit for the world and company, had for a long time led him to--a very private place of retirement, near Dorking, in Surrey." In this sequestered spot Markland saw little company: his walks were almost confined to the garden at the back of the house; and he described himself, in 1755, to be "as much out of the way of hearing as of getting." We have more than once enjoyed the elysium of the old scholar's garden. But troubles came to disturb his peace. Markland had not the rambling old house to himself. His landlady, the widow Rose, got into a lawsuit with her son, when Jeremiah distressed himself to aid the widow in the suit, which she lost; and after that Markland spent his whole fortune in relieving the distresses of the Rose family. This led him to accept an annuity from his former pupil, Strode. Markland died at Milton Court in 1776, in his eighty-third year; and Strode placed a brass plate in the chancel of Dorking Church in memory of the learning and virtue of Markland. He left his books and papers to Dr. Heberden. The story of old Jeremiah's charity is very naïve:--"Poor as I am," said he, "I would rather have pawned the coat on my back than have left the afflicted good woman and her children to starve,"--an episode of charity and friendship which has its sweet uses.

There are two ancient objects at Milton. The water-mill, adjoining the green, is believed to be that mentioned in the survey of the manor, in Domesday book; and on Milton-heath, upon an elevated spot, is a _Tumulus_, now distinguished by a clump of firs; and near it is _War_-field. The name of the adjoining estate, Bury Hill, makes us, as Miss Hawkins observes, "seek, in our walks, the very footmarks of the Roman soldier."

LORD BOLINGBROKE AT BATTERSEA.

This parish and manor, three miles south-west of London, on the Surrey bank of the Thames, appertained, from a very early period, to the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster; and is conjectured, by Lysons, to have been therefrom named, in the Conqueror's Survey, Patricsey, which, in the Saxon, is Peter's water, or river; since written Battrichsey, Battersey, and Battersea. It passed to the Crown, at the dissolution of religious houses: in 1627 it was granted to the St. John family, in whose possession the property remained till 1763.

Here, in a spacious mansion, eastward of the church, was born, October 1, 1678, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, one of the brilliant lights of the Augustan age of literature in England. Here Pope spent most of his time with Bolingbroke, after the return of the latter from his seven years' exile;[79] and his house became also the resort of Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and other leading contemporary men of genius. Lord Marchmont was living with Lord Bolingbroke, at Battersea, when he discovered that Mr. Allen, of Bath, had printed 500 copies of the _Essay on a Patriot King_ from the copy which Bolingbroke had presented to Pope--six copies only were printed. Thereupon, Lord Marchmont sent Mr. Gravenkop for the whole cargo, who carried them out in a waggon, and the books were burnt on the lawn in the presence of Lord Bolingbroke. Thenceforth he mostly resided at Battersea from 1742 until his death in 1751. He sunk under the dreadful malady beneath which he had long lingered--a cancer in the face--which he bore with exemplary fortitude; "a fortitude," says Lord Brougham, "drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and, unhappily, not aided by the consolation of any religion; for having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens."

Bolingbroke, with his second wife, niece of Madame de Maintenon, lie in the family vault in St. Mary's Church, where there is an elegant monument by Roubiliac, with busts of the great lord and his lady; the epitaphs on both were written by Lord Bolingbroke: that upon himself is still extant, in his own handwriting, in the British Museum: "Here lies Henry St. John, in the reign of Queen Anne Secretary of State, and Viscount Bolingbroke; in the days of King George I. and King George II., something more and better."

The greater part of Bolingbroke House was taken down in 1778. In the wing of the mansion, left standing, a parlour of round form, and lined with cedar, was long pointed out as the apartment in which Pope composed his _Essay on Man_; it is said to have been called "Pope's Parlour." The walls may still be seen, but they support a new roof, and can only be distinguished from the rest of the building by their circular form. The mansion was very extensive--forty rooms on a floor.

Upon part of the site was erected a _horizontal mill_, by Captain Hooper, who also built a similar one at Margate. It consisted of a circular wheel, with large boards or vanes fixed parallel to its axis, and arranged at equal distances from each other. Upon these vanes the wind could act, so as to blow the wheel round. But if it were to act upon the vanes at both sides of the wheel at once, it could not, of course, turn it round; hence one side of the wheel must be sheltered, while the other was submitted to the full action of the wind. For this purpose it was enclosed in a large cylindrical framework, with doors or shutters on all sides, to open and admit the wind, or to shut and stop it. If all the shutters on one side were open, whilst all those on the opposite side were closed, the wind acting with undiminished force on the vanes at one side, whilst the opposite vanes are under shelter, turned the mill round; but whenever the wind changed, the disposition of the blinds must be altered, to admit the wind to strike upon the vanes of the wheel in the direction of a tangent to the circle in which they moved.--(Dr. Paris's _Philosophy in Sport_.) This mill resembled a gigantic packing-case, which gave rise to an odd story, that when the Emperor of Russia was in England, in 1814, he took a fancy to Battersea Church, and determined to carry it off to Russia, and had this large packing-case made for it; but as the inhabitants refused to let the church be carried away, the case remained on the spot where it was deposited.

This horizontal air-mill served as a landmark for many miles round: the proprietor was Mr. Hodgson, a maltster and distiller. It was visited by Sir Richard Phillips in his _Morning's Walk from London to Kew_, in 1813, who says: "The mill, its elevated shaft, its vanes, and weather or wind-boards, curious as they would have been on any other site, lost their interest on premises once the residence of the illustrious Bolingbroke, and the resort of the philosophers of his day. In ascending the winding flights of its tottering galleries, I could not help wondering at the caprice of events which had converted the dwelling of Bolingbroke into a malting-house and a mill. This house, once sacred to philosophy and poetry, long sanctified by the residence of the noblest genius of his age, honoured by the frequent visits of Pope, and the birthplace of the immortal _Essay on Man_, is now appropriated to the lowest uses. The house of Bolingbroke become a windmill! The spot on which the _Essay on Man_ was concocted and produced, converted into a distillery of pernicious spirits! Such are the lessons of time! Such are the means by which an eternal agency sets at nought the ephemeral importance of man! But yesterday, this spot was the resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment of Bolingbroke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Monson, Mallet, and all the contemporary genius of England--yet a few whirls of the earth round the sun, the change of a figure in the date of the year, and the group have vanished; while I behold hogs and horses, malt-bags and barrels, stills and machinery!

"'Alas!' said I to the occupier, 'and have these things become the representatives of more human genius than England may ever witness on one spot again--have you thus satirised the transitory state of humanity--do you thus become a party with the bigoted enemies of that philosophy which was personified in a Bolingbroke or a Pope?' 'No,' he rejoined, 'I love the name and character of Bolingbroke, and I preserve the house as well as I can with religious veneration: I often smoke my pipe in Mr. Pope's parlour, and think of him with due respect as I walk the part of the terrace opposite his room.' He then conducted me to this interesting parlour, which is of brown polished oak,[80] with a grate and ornaments of the age of George the First; and before its window stood the portion of the terrace upon which the malt-house had not encroached, with the Thames moving majestically under its walls.

"'In this room,' I exclaimed, 'the _Essay on Man_ was probably planned, discussed, and written!' Mr. Hodgson assured me this had always been called 'Pope's Room,' and he had no doubt it was the apartment usually occupied by that great poet, in his visits to his friend Bolingbroke. Other parts of the original house remain, and are occupied and kept in good order. He told me, however, that this was but a wing of the mansion, which extended, in Lord Bolingbroke's time, to the churchyard, and is now appropriated to the malting-house and its warehouses."

Sir Richard met with an ancient inhabitant of Battersea, a Mrs. Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, who well remembered Lord Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out every day in his chariot, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over his eyebrow. She was then but a girl, but she was taught to look upon him with veneration as a great man. As, however, he spent little in the place, and gave little away, he was not much regarded by the people of Battersea. Sir Richard mentioned to her the names of several of Lord Bolingbroke's contemporaries, but she recollected none, except that of Mallet, whom she said she had often seen walking about in the village while he was visiting at Bolingbroke House.[81]

In the first volume of the _Diaries and Correspondence of the Right Hon. George Rose_, we find the following entry respecting the treachery of Mallet:--"It appears by a letter of Lord Bolingbroke's, dated in 1740, from Angeville, that he had actually written some Essays dedicated to the Earl of Marchmont, of a very different tendency from his former works. These Essays, on his death, fell into the hands of Mr. Mallet, his executor, who had, at the latter end of his life, acquired a decided influence over him, and they did not appear among his lordship's works published by Mallet;[82] nor have they been seen or heard of since. From whence it must be naturally conjectured, that they were destroyed by the latter, from what reason cannot now be known; possibly, to conceal from the world the change, such as it was, in his lordship's sentiments in the latter end of his life, to avoid the discredit to his former works. In which respect he might have been influenced either by a regard for the noble Viscount's consistency, or by a desire not to impair the pecuniary advantage he expected from the publication of his lordship's works."

Upon this, the Editor of the _Diaries_, the Rev. Leveson Vernon Harcourt, notes: "The letter to Lord Marchmont here referred to, has a note appended to it by Sir George Rose, the editor of the _Marchmont Papers_, who takes a very different view of its contents from his father. He gravely remarks, that as the posthumous disclosure of Lord Bolingbroke's inveterate hostility to Christianity lays open to the view the bitterness as the extent of it, so the manner of that disclosure precludes any doubt of the earnestness of his desire to give the utmost efficiency and publicity to that hostility, as soon as it could safely be done; that is, as soon as death could shield him against responsibility to man. Sir George saw plainly enough that when he promised in those Essays to vindicate religion against divinity and God against man, he was retracting all that he had occasionally said in favour of Christianity; he was upholding the religion of Theism against the doctrines of the Bible, and the God of nature against the revelation of God to man."