[Return to text]This route leads, among other villages, through that of Sevenoaks, famous as the place where
Jack Cade and his rabble overthrew the forces of Stafford, in the very same year, (1450,)
when Faust and Gutenberg set up the first press in Germany, and long, therefore, before Cade
could have justly complained, as Shakspeare has made him do, that the Lord Say had ‘caused printing
to be used’ in England, and ‘built a paper-mill.’ But who taxes the sun for his spots or Shakspeare
for anachronisms? He who was born to exhaust and imagine worlds, cannot of course be denied
some innocent liberties with chronology. The village in question, however, is more interesting
to travellers from being in the vicinity of Knole, the fine old seat of the dukes of Dorset. The stranger
is led here through long galleries garnished with furniture of the time of Elizabeth and hung with
portraits which at every step recall names of the deepest historical interest. Who can ever forget
that which hangs or hung over the door of Lady Betty Germaine’s chamber? It is Milton in the
bloom of manhood, and the immortal epic seems to be just dawning on those mild and pensive
features. One chamber, of sumptuous appointments remains, (so runs the legend,) as it was last
tenanted by James I., no head less sapient or august having been since permitted to press the pillow.
In another every thing stands as it was arranged for the reception of the second James, who forfeited,
it seems, a luxurious lodging at Knole at the same time that he forfeited his crown. The name of
Lady Betty Germaine, Swift’s friend and correspondent, connects the place with all the celebrities of
the reign of Queen Anne. On emerging from the building we view the magnificent groves of the
park, fit haunt for nightingales, though Becket is said to have driven them by an anathema from the
neighborhood, because their songs interrupted his nocturnal meditations. But the memory of Thomas
Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, (once proprietor of Knole,) the best poet of his time, and ‘the immediate
father-in-verse of Spenser,’ sufficiently redresses the stigma of so churlish a proscription, and
the nightingales may well claim perpetual franchise under sanction of a name to which the ancient
inscription would apply:
Λί δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδονες, ἡσιν ὁ παντων
ἁρπακτὴρ Αὶδης ουκ επὶ χεῖρα βαλεὶ.
Yet live thy nightingales of song: on those
Forgetfulness her hand shall ne’er impose.
[Return to text]Dunum or Duna, sigifieth a hill or higher ground, whence Downs, which cometh of the old French word dun. Coke Lit. 235.
[Return to text]Parody of ‘Andromache:’ Racine’s first tragedy of any note.
[Return to text]Alluding to an epigram of Racine on d’Olonne and de Crequi, written to revenge himself for their attacks on ‘Andromache.’