Mr. Benyon had no heir, and the estate went, with another vast property of sixty thousand acres, to the present Mr. Benyon, of Berkshire.
XLIII.
A family with which I was in close intimacy, indeed on affectionate terms, was the Wilsons, of Stowlangtoft Hall. Let those who from their disappointments in life have formed a bad opinion of mankind go among such people as these!
The father of Henry Wilson resided on his estate at Highbury; he had been a great merchant, a calling from which so many great things have emanated in our country, and one which will cease to exist when we reach our socialistic days; for who would give the energy of his commercial genius as a servant of the State, and pile up tens of thousands to enrich Cabinets whose members had better have remained prize-fighters and the like?
Mr. Wilson purchased two baronets’ estates in Suffolk—one of Sir George Wombwell, the historic seat of Stowlangtoft; one, Langham Hall, the property adjoining, of Sir Henry Blake. He also held lands in Norfolk.
Henry Wilson, his son and my kindest and best of friends, resided always at Stowlangtoft; at one time he represented the county in Parliament. He was educated at Oxford, where he made friends enough to last for a lifetime, all of whom, like himself, were thoroughly good men, and many of them fellow-students of Oriel. There was Rickards, who became his rector, a college-friend; and one of those who joined the set of Newman and Manning for a time. There was Porcher, Yarde Buller of Downs,[2] Kindersley, Mozley; nearly all these were guests from time to time of Rickards and Wilson; in fact, the only one I do not recall as having met at the hall or rectory was Newman.
It was a deadly surprise to Rickards when Newman and Manning kicked against the Reformation and became inceptor-candidates for the Papacy. The Church, from its own point of view, may have deemed it fortunate that these two gentlemen took their stroll from Oxford to Rome, or they might have become Anglican archbishops, and have looked the Holy City up later in life.
Sir R. Kindersley was a most genial man, quiet and sensible, like most of those who rise to eminence. He gave his daughter in marriage to Wilson’s eldest son, and Wilson gave one of his daughters to Kindersley’s eldest son, and a daughter by this marriage is now Lady Herschell. Miss Wilson had been long adopted by the Porchers, who wished her and young Kindersley to be their heirs.
Henry Wilson had a large family by his first wife, who was a Maitland. He married a second time, the daughter of Lord Henry Fitz-Roy, a son of the Duke of Grafton. This lady brought him several children. She was a devoted mother to both families; as conscientious a lady as was ever born to fulfil great duties. She not only treated her stepchildren exactly as she did her own, but acquired for them the same affection as she felt for those which she had brought into the world.