What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

I remember in connection with poor Farmer and her heresies, an incident which must have been ridiculous enough to the adult actors in it. Dr. Nott, one of the prebendaries of Winchester, was an old and intimate friend of my mother’s—had been such I believe, before her marriage. The mention of this gentleman recalls to my mind—but this recollection dates from a later day,—that it used to be said satirically, with what truth I will not attempt to guess, that there was a large Chapter at Winchester and Nott, one of them, a clergyman: the intention being to insinuate that he was the only properly clerical character among them. At all events, Dr. Nott was an exemplary dignitary of the Church, not only in character, tastes, and pursuits, but in outward presentment also. I remember well his spare figure, his pale and delicately cut features, his black gaiters to the knee, and his elaborate white neckcloth. He was a competent, and what would have been called in that day an “elegant” Italian scholar. It was wholly under his supervision, that a few years subsequently the extensive restoration and repair of Winchester Cathedral was executed; a supervision which cost him, in consequence of a fall from a ladder in the nave, a broken leg and subsequent lameness for life. He had, if I mistake not, been one of the tutors of the Princess Charlotte.

Well, upon one occasion of a visit of Dr. Nott’s in Keppel Street, we children were summoned to the drawing-room for his inspection; and in reply to a variety of questions as to progress, and goodness in the nursery, etc., I, as the eldest, took courage to reply that if we were not always as good and obedient in the nursery as might be desired, the circumstance was to be attributed to the painful fact that our nurse was an Anabaptist! Whether Dr. Nott was selected as the recipient of this confidential communication because I had any vague idea that this disgraceful circumstance had any special connection with his department of human affairs, I cannot say. We were however told that the fact was no wise incompatible with Farmer’s character as an excellent nurse and good servant, and least of all could be considered as absolving us from the duty of obedience. I remember that I wondered then,—and I wonder still—what passed upon the subject between my mother and the Doctor after our dismissal to the nursery.

Another intimate friend of my mother’s and frequent visitor in Keppel Street was Lady Dyer, the wife, and subsequently widow of General Sir Thomas Dyer. Sir Thomas resided on his estate of Ovington, near Winchester; and I take it that my mother’s intimacy with Lady Dyer had been brought about by the friendship existing between both ladies and Miss Gabell, the eldest daughter of Dr. Gabell, the Head Master of Winchester College. Lady Dyer, after several years of widowhood, married the Baron de Zandt; and I remember, very many years subsequently to the time that I am here writing of, visiting her with my mother at her schloss, near Bamberg, where she lived in the huge house alone after losing her second husband.

I fancy it was mainly due to her intimacy with my mother during those years in Keppel Street that the house was frequented by several Italians; exiles from their own country under stress of political troubles. Especially I remember among these General Guglielmo Pepe, subsequently the hero of the hopeless defence of Venice against the Austrians. Of course I was too young to know or see much of him in the Keppel Street days; but many years afterwards I had abundant opportunities of knowing Pepe’s genuine nobility of character, high honour, and ardent patriotism. He was a remarkably handsome man, but not a brilliant or amusing companion. I remember that his sobriquet among the three ladies mentioned together above was Gateau de Plomb! But none the less was he highly and genuinely respected by them. He had a kind of simple, dignified, placid manner of enunciating the most astounding platitudes, and replying to the laughter they sometimes produced by a calm, gentle smile, which showed how impossible it was for his simple soul to imagine that his hearers were otherwise than delighted with his wit and wisdom. How well I can remember the pleasure his visits were wont to afford in the nursery by reason of the dried Neapolitan figs and Mandarin oranges, which he used to receive from his brother, General Fiorestano Pepe, and never failed to distribute among his English friends. His brother, when Guglielmo threw in his lot with the “patriots,” never forfeited his allegiance or quarrelled with the King of Naples. Yet the two brothers continued on affectionately fraternal terms to the last.

The quiet course of those Keppel Street years was, as I remember, once or twice broken by the great event of a visit to Heckfield to my maternal grandfather, the Rev. William Milton, a ci-devant Fellow of New College. He had at that time married a second wife, a Miss Partington, his first wife, a Derbyshire Gresley, my maternal grandmother, whom I had never seen, having died young. As my grandfather Milton was the son of a Bristol saddler (who lived to the age of ninety-nine), I suppose his marriage with a Gresley must have been deemed a mésalliance for the lady. But her death having occurred before my time, I never heard anything of this.

The vicar of Heckfield held the adjoining chapelry of Mattingly, at which place the morning service was performed on alternate Sundays. He was an excellent parish priest after the fashion of his day;—that is to say he was kindly to all, liberal to the poor to the utmost extent of his means, and well beloved by his neighbours, high and low. He was a charming old man, markedly gentlemanlike and suave in his manner; very nice in his person; clever unquestionably in a queer, crotchety sort of way; and thoroughly minded to do his duty according to his lights in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. But he would have had no more idea of attempting anything of the nature of active parochial work or reform, as understood at the present day, than he would have had of scheming to pay the National Debt. Indeed, the latter would have been the more likely to occupy his mind of the two, for he was crotchety and full of schemes. Especially he was fond of mechanics, and spent much money and much labour during many years on a favourite scheme for obviating the danger arising from the liability of a stage coach to be upset. He published more than one pamphlet on the subject, illustrated—I can see the pages before me now—by designs of various queer-looking models. There was a large coach-house attached to the vicarage, and it was always full of the strangest collection of models of coaches. I remember well that they all appeared to me hideous, and as æsthetically inferior to my admired “Telegraphs” and “High-Flyers” as a modern ironclad seems to the three-decker of his youth in the eyes of an old sailor. But, as may be imagined. I never ventured to broach any such heresy in my grandfather’s hearing! I should unquestionably have done so had it been my father. But lesser acquaintanceship and the venerable age of my grandfather checked my presumption.

There was—and doubtless is—a very pretty evergreen-embowered lawn at the vicarage, and on this also there always used to be some model or other intended to illustrate the principles of traction. One I especially remember which was called (not, it may seem, very grammatically) rotis volventibus. This machine consisted of two huge wheels, some ten feet high, joined together by a number of cross-bars at a distance of a foot or so from each other. It will be understood what a delightful amusement it must have been to creep into the interior of this structure, and cause it to roll over the smoothly shaven turf by stepping treadmill fashion on the cross-bars one after the other. But unfortunately in one part of the lawn there was a steep declivity, and one day, when the idea of making rotis volventibus descend this slope became irresistible, there was a tremendous smashing of the evergreen hedge, and a black-and-blue little body, whose escape without broken bones was deemed truly prodigious.

“Never, Tom,” said my grandfather, “put in motion forces which you are unable to control!”

The words remained implanted in my memory. But I do not suppose they carried much instruction with them to my mind at the time.

I believe my grandfather spent more money on his mechanical fads than was quite prudent, and took out patents which were about as remunerative and useful as that which Charles the Second is said to have granted to a sailor who stood on his head on the top of Salisbury steeple, securing to him the monopoly of that practice!