Davy took the title of his work from Bacon, and planned it while he was at Balliol. And he read widely, making notes and extracts and abstracts and indices, all with a view to writing a systematic treatise on Divinity. But (unconsciously, I think) he departed from his plan, though he retained the title; and in the end his work was not what Bacon meant, nor what anybody wanted. Being in the form of sermons, it was useless as a book of reference; and, being in substance an encyclopædia, it did not make good sermons. One wonders how his country congregations felt, when he preached to them in this wise, vol. i, pages 292-4, “The most ancient Nations, the Egyptians and Phœnicians, did agree with the Grecians that the World did begin etc.... Aristotle himself says etc.... Maximus Tyrius also observes etc.... Josephus and all the Jewish Doctors do abundantly confirm it.” But he also had many shrewd things to say, and often said them very neatly, especially in his foot-notes. And these sayings of his might well be put together in a little volume as The Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. William Davy.
For many years he lived at Lustleigh Rectory, a venerable house that was transformed to something new and strange at the time of the Gothic Revival. But that was after his time; and he speaks of it as “nearly in ruins” in 1808. He quitted it in 1818, and went to live at Wilmead, which his son had lately bought. And the old man used always to come striding down across the fields, and take the path from Wreyland, when he went from Wilmead to the village or the church.
While living at the Rectory, he built a terraced garden that was celebrated in its day, but vanished when the grounds were laid out more ambitiously. And, when he moved to Wilmead, he built himself a garden there, on the knoll of ground behind the house. One can see that this knoll was covered with rocks, and that he cleared some of them away by blasting, and used the fragments for retaining-walls. In this way he formed five terraces, which still remain.
There are stories of his planting the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments in his garden up at Wilmead. According to the memoir of him by his son, he actually did plant (in box) some texts of Scripture and his own name and the date. “Into whichever walk any one turned, some divine or moral precept met the eye, as the different letters were nearly six inches long, and being kept regularly trimmed were easily to be read.” In 1838 one could read ‘know thyself,’ ‘act wisely,’ ‘deal fairly,’ ‘live peaceably,’ ‘love one another,’ ‘W Davy 1818.’ There must have been much more, as he called it his “Living body of Divinity” in contrast to his System. But, whatever it was that he planted, it has all vanished now.
Box has been put to quite another use in the Pope’s private gardens at the Vatican. They have a gigantic Cardinal’s Hat, with all its cords and tassels, edged with box and filled with brilliant flowers. I have seen it only in the autumn, when the flowers are going off; but in the early summer it must be magnificent.
In this neighbourhood a great deal of box-edging has been destroyed in recent years, the pretext being that it harbours slugs, and they eat up all the flowers in the beds. But slugs seldom eat begonias; and begonias look very gorgeous against the dark green of the box. I have used them most successfully these last fifteen years.
Most of the old houses here have groups of box-edged beds with narrow paths between them, making up some pattern as a whole. And these are known as Pixey Gardens. As pixies are twelve inches high, these little paths are pretty much the same to them as Devonshire lanes to human beings. I was taught that one could always tell a pixey from a fairy, as fairies wear clothes, and pixies go without; but I have never seen either sort myself, in a pixey garden or elsewhere.
A very cautious old lady once remarked to me that she had never seen any pixies herself, but she knew so many people who said they had seen pixies, that she would not undertake to say that there were no such things. This puts the pixies in pretty much the same position as the Russian soldiers who passed through England at the beginning of the War.
There was formerly a draw-well in front of the house, and its site is marked by the second of the round beds in the Pixey Garden. I imagine that the garden was not made until the well had been filled in, and that this was not till 1839, when the present well was sunk; but I do not know for certain. The garden was rectangular till 1899; and then I added the semi-circular end, and made a gateway through the orchard hedge, carrying the main path round the semi-circle to the gateway.
In altering the path, a dog’s skeleton was found at the foot of the espalier pear tree. There is a dog in the full-length portrait of my grandfather’s grandfather, and there is the same dog in the picture of the family in 1787; and somebody suggested that this might be the dog, whose grave we had disturbed. The skeleton had crumbled, but the skull was sound; and I showed it to various people, who were fond of dogs, and thought they understood them. Some thought it might be that dog’s skull, while others thought the dog was of another breed. At last, I got an introduction to a high authority at the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and I showed him the skull and photographs of both the pictures. I became aware that he was staring at me in amazement, and at last he gasped:—“But it isn’t a dog at all. It’s a badger.”