“Gloriana”—Queen Elizabeth—did certainly visit this “chosen plot of fertile land;” partook of “a very fair and pleasant banquet” in this park; and from Wilton she carried away many rich gifts, including “a mermaid of gold, having a maid upon her back garnished with sparks of diamonds.”
From a queen to a man of genius, who was a good man, is not a long leap. What visitor to Wilton will forget the name of that George Herbert who was the humble and faithful servant of God—who did His work in this locality, and who, while he threw a line across the glistening Nadder (for he was the disciple as well as the friend of Izaak Walton), here wove those fancies into verse which after ages have not suffered to die?
And surely we may well close our notes on Wilton by quoting good old Izaak’s summary of the character of Lord Edward Herbert:—
“He was one of the handsomest men of his day, of a beauty alike stately, chivalric, and intellectual. His person and features were cultivated by all the disciplines of a time when courtly graces were not insignificant, because a monarch-mind informed the court, nor warlike customs rude or mechanical, for industrial nature had free play in the field, except as restrained by the laws of courtesy and honour. The steel glove became his hand, and the spur his heel; neither can we fancy him out of his place, for any place he would have made his own.”
There is yet another of the worthies of Wilton to claim and receive the homage of every visitor—the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, created Lord Herbert of Lea before his premature death. He did not outlive his brother, the Earl, but his son inherited the titles and estates, and is now, as we have stated, the thirteenth Earl of Pembroke.
There is a statue of Sidney Herbert, by Marochetti, in the Market-place at Salisbury; and a far better statue of him, by Foley, fronts the War Office in Pall Mall: it honours him as the Secretary of War, and makes record of some of his triumphs as the gentle and genial advocate of peace and Christian charity to all mankind. “Sidney Herbert,” says Mr. Hall, who was associated with him as one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Nightingale Fund, “seemed to me a copy, and without an atom deteriorated, of his renowned relative-predecessor, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. He lived in another age, and had to discharge very different duties; but there was the same heroic sentiment, the same high chivalry, the same generous sympathy with suffering, the same stern and steady resolve to right the wrong. It is not too much to say that what we may have imagined of the chivalry of a past age we have witnessed in our own: a gentleman who gave dignity to the loftiest rank; who thought it no condescension to be kind and courteous to the very humblest who approached him. To rare personal advantages he added those of large intellectual acquirements. He spoke, if not as an orator, with impressive eloquence; as a man of practical business, few were his superiors; he had the mind of a statesman, yet gave earnest and thoughtful care to all the minor details of life. His death was a public calamity.”
The New Church at Wilton.
No one who visits Wilton—either the town or the mansion—will leave it without seeing and examining “the New Church,” of which we give an engraving. It was erected in 1844, at the cost of Sidney Herbert, the architects being F. H. Wyatt and D. Brandon. The style, as will be perceived, is that of the ordinary Romanesque. It is a singularly beautiful and very gorgeous structure, built without regard to expense: perhaps there is nothing more perfect, of its class, in the kingdom. The following details from a local newspaper give a technical description of this edifice:—