It was very vexatious, with her fastidious love of cleanliness, which her husband has borne witness to, to see him walking about in linen the complexion of which Sir John Hawkins said shamed her, and it was not less vexatious, perhaps, to have her personal wishes frustrated; for, having hair as blond as a babe’s, we are told that she was always endeavouring to dye it black, much to the great Khan of Literature’s dissatisfaction. But with all her pitiful little failings, when death had dulled the fair hair and stilled the querulous lips for ever, her husband, we are told, sincerely mourned her loss.[88]
It is said that at one time Dr. Akenside lived in Frognal, but the place of his abode is not known. Apropos of this unfortunate poet, a curious story is told in connection with him, very disgraceful to the perpetrator of the fraud. A literary man, known to Frederick, Prince of Wales, as a poet and writer of varieties, when Dr. Akenside published his ‘Pleasures of Imagination’ without his name, tacitly concurred in the supposition that he was the writer of the poem, and absolutely maintained himself, or was maintained, in Dublin for some years on the reputation it gained him.[89]
Priory Lodge.
I find the family of the Bocketts, who were living in this neighbourhood in 1722, resided at Frognal in 1811. They were connected with the famous Lord Erskine; the late Mrs. Bockett, who died at Hampstead some twenty-five years ago, was his niece.
Turning to the right past the toll-gate, the road runs between high walls, fringed with ivy, pendent grasses, and long trails of purple toad-flax overtopped by trees to Frognal Rise; past Frognal House,[90] now the home of Mr. Walter Rye, and other modern mansions in handsome grounds, whence the main road follows its course to Branch Hill, and is continued to the West Heath Road. Branch Hill is the site of Branch Hill Lodge, standing in ample grounds upon an elevation that commands extensive and beautiful views. Brewer describes it as a well-proportioned family residence, though not of capacious dimensions. It has, however, undergone many additions and alterations since Brewer’s time.
Branch Hill Lodge was partly built by Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls, on the site of an older mansion, parts of which it included, but it had been so altered and enlarged that only a very small portion of it remained in the house which was standing when Lysons wrote. Sir Thomas bequeathed it to his patron, the notorious Thomas Parker (Lord Chancellor Macclesfield), ‘who was obliged to purchase the copyhold part of the premises from the heirs of Sir Thomas Clarke, in consequence of his having failed to surrender it to the uses of his will.’ It was after Lord Macclesfield’s enforced retirement from office that he came to reside here. Twenty-five years previously he had been impeached by the House of Commons for fraudulent practices, for which he was condemned to pay a fine of £30,000, with imprisonment till it was paid. The standard of morality was not very high at this period, and though some person amongst the crowd who had followed him on his way to the Tower cried out that Staffordshire had produced three of the greatest rascals in England—Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild, and Tom Parker—the cry had ceased long before the six weeks of his imprisonment ended; and time and more recent rascality somewhat shaded his lordship’s association in this triumvirate before he took up his abode at Branch Hill Lodge, where he lived for several years.