They serve to prove how slavishly men are the creatures of imitation; how seldom, in how few things, and by what small gradations genius gives a novel direction to their practices! When this island was overrun with beasts of prey, in the shape of quadrupeds, and lawless bipeds, the baron and the man of wealth found it necessary to shut themselves within castellated mansions and circumvallated domains; and hence the vulgar association between such establishments and a presumed high rank in their occupiers. The state of the country and of modern society renders them no longer essential to security; yet they are maintained as the effect of a false association; and half the stimulus of avarice would be lost without the anticipated grandeur of a monastic establishment, buried in the centre of a wood, and cut off from the cheerful world, and the healthful circulation of the atmosphere, by damp and mouldering walls! It does not signify how apparently dull, how unappropriate to fixed habits, how unvarying the inanimate scene, how much the inmates may be visited by low fevers, agues, rheumatisms, and pulmonary affections; the manor-house, or the ancient monastery, which has for ages been the residence of nobility, becomes, in consequence, the meed of wealth, and the goal of vulgar hope, to be patiently endured, however little it may be enjoyed! Pride will feed upon the possession; and, if that master-passion be gratified, minor inconveniences will have little weight in making the election.
I confess it—and I make the declaration in the humble form of a confession, in the hope that those who think I have sinned, will be led to forgive my error—that I could not help thinking that the inhabitants of the humble cottages by the way-side, whose doors stood wide open, whose children were intermingling and playing before them, whose society is restricted by no formal reserve, whose means depend on their industry, WHO HAVE NOT LEISURE TO BE UNHAPPY, who cannot afford to stimulate their appetites so as to enfeeble themselves by the languor of repletion, or disease themselves by the corruptions of plethora, and who would have no wants if the bounties of nature were not cruelly intercepted—I could not help feeling, that such unsophisticated beings experience less care, less self-oppression, less disease, more gaiety of heart, more grateful sympathy, and more even of the sense of well-being, than the artificial and constrained personages who, however amiable, and however free from the common vices of rank and wealth, inhabit the adjacent mansions, with all their decorations of art, and all their luxuries of hot-houses, graperies, pineries, ice-houses, temples, grottoes, hermitages, and other fancies, with which power hopes to cheat itself into enjoyment, as an apology for its insatiable monopolies.
The inefficacy of wealth to raise man above his cares and mortal feelings has, however, of late years been so honestly conceded, that the rich have begun, at least in external appearance, to assume the condition of the poor. Hence, few of those mansions are built, or even restored, on whose gloomy character I have been remarking; and our proudest nobility now condescend to inhabit the cheerful, though humble, Cottage. They find, or by their practices they seem to prove they have found, that the nearest approach to happiness, is the nearest approach to the humility of poverty! The thatched roof—the tiny flower-garden—the modest wicket—the honey-suckle bower—the cleanly dairy—the poultry yard—the dove-cote—the piggery—and the rabbit-pen,—comprehended under the names of the Ferme Ornée, or Cottage Ornée, now constitute the favourite establishments of those who found so few comforts in marble porticoes, in walls hung with the works of the Gobelins or the Italian school, in retinues of servants, and extensive parks. What a concession of pride—what a homage rendered to nature—what a consolation to discontented poverty—what a warning to inconsiderate ambition!
Yet our taste ought to be governed by our reason and our wants. Large families require large houses; it is therefore the business of good taste to combine capacity with cheerfulness. Nothing, at the same time, within the sphere of human enjoyment, equals the delight afforded by well-planned garden-grounds; and it is consequently the duty of the artist to unite these with the cheerful family mansion. Here, then, begin the obtrusion, and the alledged necessity of those boundary walls, against which I have been protesting. No such thing—such walls, thanks to the genius and good taste of a Pilton, are become unnecessary. We may now, without walls, have secure boundaries—we may keep out trespassers without excluding the fresh air—and we may circumscribe our limits without diminishing our external prospects. In that case, how different in appearance would be this village of Roehampton—how much more tolerable to its residents—how far more healthy—and how enchanting to strangers,—if, instead of monotonous brick-walls, the boundaries were formed by the magical fences of Pilton, allowing the free passage of the solar rays and the vital air, reciprocating delightful prospects from plantation to plantation, and adding the essential charms of variety to the pleasures of possession.
The first house in the lane is the classical seat of the Earl of Besborough, enriched with specimens of ancient statuary from Italy and Greece, and with exquisite pictures of the Italian, Flemish, and Dutch schools. Adjoining, is the highly finished residence of the Marchioness of Downshire; and farther on, are the superb mansions of Mr. Gosling, a banker; and of Mr. Dyer. In the lane leading to Richmond Park, across which there is a delightful drive to the Star-and-Garter, is the charming residence of Mr. Temple; and, farther north, is the splendid mansion of the late Mr. Benjamin Goldsmid, since become the property of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough.
Various associations in regard to its first and its present proprietor, drew my attention to the site last mentioned. I had not leisure to examine its interior, but the exterior is in the best style of such edifices. The house looks to the north-west, and, being the last in the descent of the hill, commands an uninterrupted prospect over the country towards Harrow and Elstree. The front consists of a superb portico of white marble columns, in the Corinthian order; but in other respects the house is not very striking, and its dimensions are inconsiderable. The lawn falls pleasingly towards a piece of water, and on its eastern side is a fascinating drive of half-a-mile, terminated by a pair of cast-iron gates of singular beauty. But the object which more particularly called to mind the unbounded wealth of its former proprietor, is a subterraneous way to the kitchen-garden and lawns on the opposite side the road. It is finished with gates resembling those of a fortified castle, with recesses and various ornaments, all of Portland-stone; and on the near side is a spacious hermitage.
In this house the late Mr. B. Goldsmid resided, while he balanced the finances of the British empire, and raised for the Pitt Administration those vast sums which enabled it to retard the progress of liberal opinions during the quarter of a century! After the instance of a Goldsmid, the reputed wealth of a Crœsus sinks into insignificance. The Jew broker, year after year, raised for the British government sums of twenty and thirty millions, while the Lydian monarch, with all his boasted treasures, would have been unable to make good even the first instalment! Such, however, is the talisman of credit in a commercial and banking country! In addition to their own funds, and to the funds permanently confided to their prudence from foreign correspondents, amounting to three or four millions, the brothers, Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid, commanded for many years, from day to day, the floating balances of the principal London bankers; and they were among bankers, what bankers are among private traders. It was their daily practice to visit most of the bankers’ counting-houses, and address them briefly—“Will you borrow or lend fifty thousand to-day?”—According to the answer, the sum required was deposited on the spot, or carried away—no memorandum passed, and a simple entry in their respective books served merely to record the hour when the sum was to be repaid, with its interest. With such credit, and such ready means, it is not to be wondered that the Goldsmids commanded the wealth of the world; nor that their services were courted by an administration which never suffered its projects to languish while these brokers could raise money on exchequer-bills! A paper circulation is, however, a vortex, out of which neither individuals nor governments ever escaped without calamity, and from whose fatal effects the prudence and integrity of these worthy men served as no adequate protection. A whisper that they had omitted to repay a banker’s loan at the very hour agreed, first shook their credit; while some changes in the financial arrangements of government, and the malignity of some envious persons, (for rivals they could have none,) led to a fatal catastrophe in regard to one brother in this house; afterwards to a similar tragedy in regard to the other, at Merton; and finally to the breaking-up of their vast establishment. Whether their exertions were beneficial to the country may be doubted; this, however, is certain, that the Goldsmids were men of a princely spirit, who possessed a command of wealth, during the twelve or fifteen years of their career, beyond any example in the domestic history of nations. In this house Benjamin repeatedly gave banquets, worthy of his means, to the chief branches of the royal family, and most of the nobility and gentry of the realm: and it deserves to be mentioned, to his honour, that he was the constant patron of literature and of distressed men of letters. Abraham, in like manner, gave royal entertainments, and was the unshaken friend of Lord Nelson, and of the interesting widow of Sir William Hamilton, whose premature death in a state of poverty, was a consequence of the misfortunes of her generous protector.
Adjoining the splendid iron gates which lead into these grounds, stands a house memorable for the violent effects of a thunder storm. The records of the year 1780 probably describe the details of these phenomena; but, happening to meet, on the premises, with a man who had witnessed the whole, I collected from him the following particulars:—He related, that, after a pleasant day in September, a sudden storm of thunder and lightning, accompanied by rain and wind, took place, which lasted not more than ten or fifteen minutes. That, believing “the world at an end, his master and family went to prayers;” but, on the noise abating, they found that their extensive barn, with various out-buildings, had been entirely carried away. Parts of them were found, on the following morning, on Barnes Common, at the distance of a mile, while other parts were scattered around the fields. He related also, that two horses which were feeding in a shed, were driven, with their manger, into the ditch on the opposite side of the lane; and that a loaded cart was torn from the shafts and wheels, and wafted into an adjoining field. A crop of turnips were mowed down as with a scythe, and a double row of twenty or thirty full-grown elms, which stood on the sides of the lane, were torn up by the roots. One man was killed in the barn, and six others were wounded, or so severely shocked as to require relief in an hospital.
Having never before met with a case of such total destruction from the action of electricity, I considered these facts as too interesting to be lost. It may be worth while to add, in elucidation, that the mischief was doubtless occasioned by an ascending ball; or rather, as the action extended over a surface of three or four acres, by a succession of ascending balls.[3] The conducting substances were dry or imperfect, and thence the violence of the explosions. This is neither the time nor place to speak of the erroneous views still entertained of a power which is only known to us by experiments made within a non-conducting atmosphere, whose antagonist properties, or peculiar relations to it, afford results which are mistakenly ascribed to the power itself, as properties per se. Are we warranted in calling in an independent agent to account for phenomena which are governed in their appearances by every different surface in connexion with which they are exhibited, and which can be produced only in certain classes of surfaces in fixed relations to other surfaces? Can the cause of phenomena, of which we have no knowledge but in the antagonist relations of surfaces called conducting and non-conducting, be philosophically considered but as the mere effect of those nicely-adjusted relations? Can that power be said to be distinct from the inherent properties of various matter, which can never be exhibited except in contrast, as plus on one surface, and minus in another, or, if positive on A. necessarily and simultaneously negative on B.? Are the phenomena called LIGHT, HEAT, GRAVITATION, COHESION, ELECTRICITY, GALVANISM, and MAGNETISM, produced by different powers of nature, or by the action of one power on different bodies, or by the action of different bodies on one active power? Do not the phenomena appear constantly to accompany the same bodies, and are they not therefore occasioned by the qualities of the bodies? May not the different qualities of bodies be sufficient to explain the phenomena on the hypothesis of one active power? Is it necessary that the phenomena should be confined to particular bodies, if there are as many active fluids as phenomena? Is not the exact limitation of each set of phenomena to particular bodies conclusive evidence that the phenomena grow out of some antagonist qualities of those bodies? In fine, do not the varying powers calculated to produce the phenomena, consist of the varying qualities of bodies, and the varying circumstances in which they are placed in regard to each other; and may not the active power be fixed and always the same? Does not this conclusion best accord with the simplicity of nature? Is it probable that two active powers could be co-existent? May not the elasticity of a universal medium account for most of the intricate phenomena of bodies? May not motion grow out of the vacuum between the atoms of that universal medium? May there not be set within set, each necessary to the motion of the other, till we approximate a plenum? May not certain varieties of these involved series of atoms constitute the several media which produce the several phenomena of matter?
Prudence forbids me to extend these queries on subjects which will ever interest the speculative part of mankind, but on which it will be difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at certain and indubitable conclusions: as, however, I have been led into this digression by existing errors relative to Electricity, I may remark, in conclusion, that the phenomena produced by this power arise from the action of opposing surfaces through intervening media; that the excitement impels the surfaces towards each other; and that all the phenomena grow out of the motive quality of intervening bodies, whose surfaces are alternately attracted by the comprehending excited surfaces, or out of the want of perfect smoothness in the opposing or excited surfaces. Electricity is in fact the phenomena of surfaces, growing out of the sole property of their mutual mechanical attractions, which attractions are governed by some necessary relations of the surfaces of the intervening media to the surfaces of the opposing conductors.