were to reward the first-comers. Lo! also, Chloe, Lalage, and Amaryllis, emulous for their swains, lifted exhorting voices; and the oldest inhabitants “a-sunning sat” in the pick of the seats, and discussed the competitors on their merits. It was with regret that we tore ourselves away from these Arcadian games. The sounds of merrymaking followed us through the trees as we dropped down to Charlcote, just below,
“Where Avon’s Stream, with many a sportive Turn,
Exhilarates the Meads, and to his Bed
Hele’s gentle current wooes, by Lucy’s hand
In every graceful Ornament attired,
And worthier, such, to share his liquid Realms.”
So writes the Rev. Richard Jago, M.A., a local poet of the last century, in “Edgehill; or, The Rural Prospect Delineated and Moralized. A Poem in Four Books, printed for J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1767;” and though the bard’s language is more flowery than Avon’s banks, it shall stand. We had amused ourselves on the voyage by choosing and rechoosing the spot whither we should some day return and pass our declining years. P. (who has high thoughts now and then) had been all for Warwick Castle, Q. for Ashow, and the merits of each had been hotly wrangled over. But we shook hands over Charlcote.
HAMPTON LUCY, FROM THE MEADOWS
Less stately than Stoneleigh, less picturesque than Guy’s Cliffe, less imposing than Warwick Castle, Charlcote is lovelier and more human than any. The red-brick Elizabethan house stands on the river’s brink. From the geranium beds on its terrace a flight of steps leads down to the water, and over its graceful balustrade, beside the little leaden statuettes, you may lean and feed the swans just below. Across the stream, over the fern-beds and swelling green turf, are dotted the antlers of the Charlcote deer, red and fallow; yonder “Hele’s gentle current” winds down from the Edge Hills; to your right, the trees part and give a glimpse only of Hampton Lucy church; behind you rise the peaked gables, turrets, and tall chimneys of the house, projecting and receding, so that from whatever quarter the sun may strike there is always a bold play of light and shade on the soft-colored bricks.
The house was built by Sir Thomas Lucy in the first year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign; and in compliment to his queen, who paid Charlcote a visit not long after, the knight built on the side which turns from the river an entrance porch which, abutting between two wings, gives the form of an E. This porch leads to the queer gate-house, whence, between an avenue of limes, you reach Charlcote church—a sober little pile beside the high-road, and just outside the rough-split oak palings of the park. It holds the monuments of Sir Thomas Lucy and his wife, and in praise of the latter an epitaph worth remembering for the tender simplicity of its close:
“Set down by him that best did know
What hath been written to be true.—Thomas Lucy.”
In the graveyard outside is a plain stone to a lesser pair—John Gibbs, aged 81, and his wife, aged 55—who are made to say, somewhat cynically: