At Wotton, many curious memorials remain. Adjacent to the house are the conservatory, flower-garden, the former stored with curious exotic and native plants and flowers, and the latter embellished with a fountain, a temple, or colonnade, and an elevated turfed mount, cut into terraces; and here, enclosed within a brick wall, is all that remains of Evelyn's flower-garden, which was to have formed one of the principal objects in his "Elysium Britannicum." His Diary is well known; and his Sylva is a beautiful and enduring memorial of his amusements, his occupations, and his studies, his private happiness and his public virtues. Many millions of timber-trees have been propagated and planted at the instigation and by the sole direction of that book—one of the few books in the world which completely effected what it was designed to do. While Britain [says D'Israeli the elder] retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the Sylva of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant oaks. It was an author in his studious retreat, who, casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted.
Persons who are familiar with the picturesque environs of Dorking will remember Milton House, which was built at Evelyn's expense. It is now called Milton Court, and is about a mile west of the town. It is of red brick, and has a grand staircase with massive supports and balusters, a great hall, and many noble rooms. The house was let some years since in tenements to poor families. It has since been restored and furnished in the style of the period. Its history has a literary interest. For nearly a quarter of a century it was the abode of Jeremiah Markland, a model critic "for modesty, candour, literary honesty, and courteousness to other scholars." He will be remembered as one of the eminent Grecians of Christ's Hospital. He lived in bachelorship at Milton Court, among his books; or, as his pupil, Strode, tells us, "In 1752, being grown old, and having, moreover, long and painful fits of the gout, he was glad to find, what his inclination and infirmities, which made him unfit for the world and company, had for a long time led him to—a very private place of retirement, near Dorking, in Surrey." In this sequestered spot Markland saw little company: his walks were almost confined to the garden at the back of the house; and he described himself, in 1755, to be "as much out of the way of hearing as of getting." We have more than once enjoyed the elysium of the old scholar's garden. But troubles came to disturb his peace. Markland had not the rambling old house to himself. His landlady, the widow Rose, got into a lawsuit with her son, when Jeremiah distressed himself to aid the widow in the suit, which she lost; and after that Markland spent his whole fortune in relieving the distresses of the Rose family. This led him to accept an annuity from his former pupil, Strode. Markland died at Milton Court in 1776, in his eighty-third year; and Strode placed a brass plate in the chancel of Dorking Church in memory of the learning and virtue of Markland. He left his books and papers to Dr. Heberden. The story of old Jeremiah's charity is very naïve:—"Poor as I am," said he, "I would rather have pawned the coat on my back than have left the afflicted good woman and her children to starve,"—an episode of charity and friendship which has its sweet uses.
There are two ancient objects at Milton. The water-mill, adjoining the green, is believed to be that mentioned in the survey of the manor, in Domesday book; and on Milton-heath, upon an elevated spot, is a Tumulus, now distinguished by a clump of firs; and near it is War-field. The name of the adjoining estate, Bury Hill, makes us, as Miss Hawkins observes, "seek, in our walks, the very footmarks of the Roman soldier."
[LORD BOLINGBROKE AT BATTERSEA.]
his parish and manor, three miles south-west of London, on the Surrey bank of the Thames, appertained, from a very early period, to the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster; and is conjectured, by Lysons, to have been therefrom named, in the Conqueror's Survey, Patricsey, which, in the Saxon, is Peter's water, or river; since written Battrichsey, Battersey, and Battersea. It passed to the Crown, at the dissolution of religious houses: in 1627 it was granted to the St. John family, in whose possession the property remained till 1763.
Here, in a spacious mansion, eastward of the church, was born, October 1, 1678, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, one of the brilliant lights of the Augustan age of literature in England. Here Pope spent most of his time with Bolingbroke, after the return of the latter from his seven years' exile;[79] and his house became also the resort of Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and other leading contemporary men of genius. Lord Marchmont was living with Lord Bolingbroke, at Battersea, when he discovered that Mr. Allen, of Bath, had printed 500 copies of the Essay on a Patriot King from the copy which Bolingbroke had presented to Pope—six copies only were printed. Thereupon, Lord Marchmont sent Mr. Gravenkop for the whole cargo, who carried them out in a waggon, and the books were burnt on the lawn in the presence of Lord Bolingbroke. Thenceforth he mostly resided at Battersea from 1742 until his death in 1751. He sunk under the dreadful malady beneath which he had long lingered—a cancer in the face—which he bore with exemplary fortitude; "a fortitude," says Lord Brougham, "drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and, unhappily, not aided by the consolation of any religion; for having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens."
Bolingbroke, with his second wife, niece of Madame de Maintenon, lie in the family vault in St. Mary's Church, where there is an elegant monument by Roubiliac, with busts of the great lord and his lady; the epitaphs on both were written by Lord Bolingbroke: that upon himself is still extant, in his own handwriting, in the British Museum: "Here lies Henry St. John, in the reign of Queen Anne Secretary of State, and Viscount Bolingbroke; in the days of King George I. and King George II., something more and better."