Uphusband once more, and, for the sixth time this year, over the North Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their everlasting flints, I like very much. As you ride along, even in a green lane, the horses’ feet make a noise like hammering. It seems as if you were riding on a mass of iron. Yet the soil is good, and bears some of the best wheat in England. All these high, and indeed, all chalky lands, are excellent for sheep. But, on the top of some of these hills, there are as fine meadows as I ever saw. Pasture richer, perhaps, than that about Swindon in the North of Wiltshire. And the singularity is, that this pasture is on the very tops of these lofty hills, from which you can see the Isle of Wight. There is a stiff loam, in some places twenty feet deep, on a bottom of chalk. Though the grass grows so finely, there is no apparent wetness in the land. The wells are more than three hundred feet deep. The main part of the water, for all uses, comes from the clouds; and, indeed, these are pretty constant companions of these chalk hills, which are very often enveloped in clouds and wet, when it is sunshine down at Burghclere or Uphusband. They manure the land here by digging wells in the fields, and bringing up the chalk, which they spread about on the land; and which, being free-chalk, is reduced to powder by the frosts. A considerable portion of the land is covered with wood; and as, in the clearing of the land, the clearers followed the good soil, without regard to shape of fields, the forms of the woods are of endless variety, which, added to the never-ceasing inequalities of the surface of the whole, makes this, like all the others of the same description, a very pleasant country.
17 November.
Set off from Uphusband for Hambledon. The first place I had to get to was Whitchurch. On my way, and at a short distance from Uphusband, down the valley, I went through a village called Bourn, which takes its name from the water that runs down this valley. A bourn, in the language of our forefathers, seems to be a river, which is, part of the year, without water. There is one of these bourns down this pretty valley. It has, generally, no water till towards Spring, and then it runs for several months. It is the same at the Candovers, as you go across the downs from Odiham to Winchester.
The little village of Bourn, therefore, takes its name from its situation. Then there are two Hurstbourns, one above and one below this village of Bourn. Hurst means, I believe, a Forest. There were, doubtless, one of those on each side of Bourn; and when they became villages, the one above was called Up-hurstbourn, and the one below, Down-hurstbourn; which names have become Uphusband and Downhusband. The lawyers, therefore, who, to the immortal honour of high-blood and Norman descent, are making such a pretty story out for the Lord Chancellor, relative to a Noble Peer who voted for the Bill against the Queen, ought to leave off calling the seat of the noble person Hursperne; for it is at Downhurstbourn where he lives, and where he was visited by Dr. Bankhead!
Whitchurch is a small town, but famous for being the place where the paper has been made for the Borough-Bank! I passed by the mill on my way out to get upon the downs to go to Alresford, where I intended to sleep. I hope the time will come, when a monument will be erected where that mill stands, and when on that monument will be inscribed the curse of England. This spot ought to be held accursed in all time henceforth and for evermore. It has been the spot from which have sprung more and greater mischiefs than ever plagued mankind before. However, the evils now appear to be fast recoiling on the merciless authors of them; and, therefore, one beholds this scene of paper-making with a less degree of rage than formerly. My blood used to boil when I thought of the wretches who carried on and supported the system. It does not boil now, when I think of them. The curse, which they intended solely for others, is now falling on themselves; and I smile at their sufferings. Blasphemy! Atheism! Who can be an Atheist, that sees how justly these wretches are treated; with what exact measure they are receiving the evils which they inflicted on others for a time, and which they intended to inflict on them for ever! If, indeed, the monsters had continued to prosper, one might have been an Atheist. The true history of the rise, progress and fall of these monsters, of their power, their crimes and their punishment, will do more than has been done before to put an end to the doubts of those who have doubts upon this subject.
Quitting Whitchurch, I went off to the left out of the Winchester-road, got out upon the high-lands, took an “observation,” as the sailors call it, and off I rode, in a straight line, over hedge and ditch, towards the rising ground between Stratton Park and Micheldever-Wood; but, before I reached this point, I found some wet meadows and some running water in my way in a little valley running up from the turnpike road to a little place called West Stratton. I, therefore, turned to my left, went down to the turnpike, went a little way along it, then turned to my left, went along by Stratton Park pales down East Stratton-street, and then on towards the Grange Park. Stratton Park is the seat of Sir Thomas Baring, who has here several thousands of acres of land; who has the living of Micheldever, to which, I think, Northington and Swallowfield are joined. Above all, he has Micheldever Wood, which, they say, contains a thousand acres, and which is one of the finest oak-woods in England. This large and very beautiful estate must have belonged to the Church at the time of Henry the Eighth’s “reformation.” It was, I believe, given by him to the family of Russell; and it was, by them, sold to Sir Francis Baring about twenty years ago. Upon the whole, all things considered, the change is for the better. Sir Thomas Baring would not have moved, nay, he did not move, for the pardon of Lopez, while he left Joseph Swann in gaol for four years and a half, without so much as hinting at Swann’s case! Yea, verily, I would rather see this estate in the hands of Sir Thomas Baring than in those of Lopez’s friend. Besides, it seems to be acknowledged that any title is as good as those derived from the old wife-killer. Castlereagh, when the Whigs talked in a rather rude manner about the sinecure places and pensions, told them, that the title of the sinecure man or woman was as good as the titles of the Duke of Bedford! this was plagiarism, to the sure; for Burke had begun it. He called the Duke the Leviathan of grants; and seemed to hint at the propriety of over-hauling them a little. When the men of Kent petitioned for a “just reduction of the National Debt,” Lord John Russell, with that wisdom for which he is renowned, reprobated the prayer; but, having done this in terms not sufficiently unqualified and strong, and having made use of a word of equivocal meaning, the man, that cut his own throat at North Cray, pitched on upon him and told him, that the fundholder had as much right to his dividends, as the Duke of Bedford had to his estates. Upon this the noble reformer and advocate for Lopez mended his expressions; and really said what the North Cray philosopher said he ought to say! Come, come: Micheldever Wood is in very proper hands! A little girl, of whom I asked my way down into East Stratton, and who was dressed in a camlet gown, white apron and plaid cloak (it was Sunday), and who had a book in her hand, told me that Lady Baring gave her the clothes, and had her taught to read and to sing hymns and spiritual songs.
As I came through the Strattons, I saw not less than a dozen girls clad in this same way. It is impossible not to believe that this is done with a good motive; but it is possible not to believe that it is productive of good. It must create hypocrites, and hypocrisy is the great sin of the age. Society is in a queer state when the rich think, that they must educate the poor in order to insure their own safety: for this, at bottom, is the great motive now at work in pushing on the education scheme, though in this particular case, perhaps, there may be a little enthusiasm at work. When persons are glutted with riches; when they have their fill of them; when they are surfeited of all earthly pursuits, they are very apt to begin to think about the next world; and, the moment they begin to think of that, they begin to look over the account that they shall have to present. Hence the far greater part of what are called “charities.” But it is the business of governments to take care that there shall be very little of this glutting with riches, and very little need of “charities.”
From Stratton I went on to Northington Down; then round to the South of the Grange Park (Alex. Baring’s), down to Abbotson, and over some pretty little green hills to Alresford, which is a nice little town of itself, but which presents a singularly beautiful view from the last little hill coming from Abbotson. I could not pass by the Grange Park without thinking of Lord and Lady Henry Stuart, whose lives and deaths surpassed what we read of in the most sentimental romances. Very few things that I have met with in my life ever filled me with sorrow equal to that which I felt at the death of this most virtuous and most amiable pair.
It began raining soon after I got to Alresford, and rained all the evening. I heard here, that a Requisition for a County Meeting was in the course of being signed in different parts of the county. They mean to petition for Reform, I hope. At any rate, I intend to go to see what they do. I saw the parsons at the county meeting in 1817. I should like, of all things, to see them at another meeting now. These are the persons that I have most steadily in my eye. The war and the debt were for the tithes and the boroughs. These must stand or fall together now. I always told the parsons, that they were the greatest fools in the world to put the tithes on board the same boat with the boroughs. I told them so in 1817; and, I fancy, they will soon see all about it.
November 18.