Though ye sud mak ye're bridal bed
Amang pea strae."
So ta-ta all worldly considerations and family alliances, and the rest of it, say the wild romps of the Gay Charioteers.
Royal Visits.
Several years after the death of Coke, Stoke Pogis was for a short time the place of confinement of Charles I., who could see from its windows the towers of Windsor Castle, which he was never again to enter except as a headless corpse. On the death of Viscount Purbeck, who resided in the manor house after Coke's decease, Stoke Pogis passed by purchase into the hands of the Gayer family. When Charles II. came to his own again the then possessor of the mansion was knighted, and became so devoted in his affection for the Stuarts that when in after time King William desired to visit Stoke Pogis to see a place so rich in historical associations, the old knight would not listen to it. In vain did his wife intercede: he declared that the usurper should not cross his threshold, and he kept his word. So it came to be said that Stoke Pogis had sumptuously entertained one sovereign, been the prison of another, and refused admission to a third.
We were told that quite recently Queen Victoria had visited it in person, with a view to its purchase for her daughter, and while walking through its magnificent suite of rooms she expressed the wish that her own Windsor had their equal. She finally decided to purchase Claremont, the price demanded for Stoke, it is said, having been too great to square with her majesty's estimate of value. It is in the market to-day. If any of our bonanza kings want one of the stately homes of England, rich in historical associations and "looking antiquity," here is his chance.
In still later times the old place came into possession of the Penn family, the heirs of our William Penn of Pennsylvania, and it was by one of them, John Penn, that the cenotaph to Gray was erected—for the poet, it will be remembered, was laid in his mother's tomb. This same Penn pulled down much of the old house and rebuilt is as it is to-day.
Our luncheon was to be upon the banks of the Thames to-day, the Old Swan Inn, where the stone bridge crosses the stream, being our base of supplies; but ere this was reached what a lovely picture was ours between Stoke Pogis and the Swan! All that has been sung or written about the valley of the Thames is found to be more than deserved. The silver stream flows gently through the valley, the fertile land rises gradually on both sides, enabling us to get extensive views from the top of the coach. Our road lies over tolerably high ground some distance from the river. Such perfect, quiet, homelike, luxuriant beauty is to be seen nowhere but in England. It is not possible for the elements to be combined to produce a more pleasing picture; and now, after seeing all else between Brighton and Inverness that lay upon our line, we return to the region of Streatley and Maple Durham, and award them the palm as the finest thoroughly English landscape.
We say to the valley of the Thames what the Eastern poet said to the Vale of Cashmere, which is not half so pretty:
"If there be a paradise upon earth,