Coming from Easton yesterday, I learned that Sir Charles Ogle, the eldest son and successor of Sir Chaloner Ogle, had sold to some General, his mansion and estate at Martyr’s Worthy, a village on the North side of the Hichen, just opposite Easton. The Ogles had been here for a couple of centuries perhaps. They are gone off now, “for good and all,” as the country people call it. Well, what I have to say to Sir Charles Ogle upon this occasion is this: “It was you, who moved at the county meeting, in 1817, that Address to the Regent, which you brought ready engrossed upon parchment, which Fleming, the Sheriff, declared to have been carried, though a word of it never was heard by the meeting; which address applauded the power of imprisonment bill, just then passed; and the like of which address, you will not in all human probability, ever again move in Hampshire, and, I hope, nowhere else. So, you see, Sir Charles, there is one consolation, at any rate.”

I learned, too, that Greame, a famously loyal ’squire and justice, whose son was, a few years ago, made a Distributor of Stamps in this county, was become so modest as to exchange his big and ancient mansion at Cheriton, or somewhere there, for a very moderate-sized house in the town of Alresford! I saw his household goods advertised in the Hampshire newspaper, a little while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my eyes, or, rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I remembered the loyal ’Squire; and I, with singular satisfaction, record this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt, proceeded solely from that prevalence of mind over matter, which the Scotch feelosofers have taken such pains to inculcate, and which makes him flee from greatness as from that which diminishes the quantity of “intellectual enjoyment;” and so now he,

“Wondering man can want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.”

And they really tell me, that his present house is not much bigger than that of my dear, good old grandmother Cobbett. But (and it may not be wholly useless for the ’Squire to know it) she never burnt candles; but rushes dipped in grease, as I have described them in my Cottage Economy; and this was one of the means that she made use of in order to secure a bit of good bacon and good bread to eat, and that made her never give me potatoes, cold or hot. No bad hint for the ’Squire, father of the distributor of Stamps. Good bacon is a very nice thing, I can assure him; and, if the quantity be small, it is all the sweeter; provided, however, it be not too small. This ’Squire used to be a great friend of Old George Rose. But his patron’s taste was different from his. George preferred a big house to a little one; and George began with a little one, and ended with a big one.

Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and supporter of Old George Rose, ’Squire Rawlinson, whom I remember a very great ’squire in this county. He is now a Police-’squire in London, and is one of those guardians of the Wen, respecting whose proceedings we read eternal columns in the broad-sheet.

This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o’clock in the morning, a sort of a jangling, made by a bell or two in the Cathedral. We were getting ready to be off, to cross the country to Burghclere, which lies under the lofty hills at Highclere, about 22 miles from this city; but hearing the bells of the cathedral, I took Richard to show him that ancient and most magnificent pile, and particularly to show him the tomb of that famous bishop of Winchester, William of Wykham; who was the Chancellor and the Minister of the great and glorious King, Edward III.; who sprang from poor parents in the little village of Wykham, three miles from Botley; and who, amongst other great and most munificent deeds, founded the famous College, or School, of Winchester, and also one of the Colleges at Oxford. I told Richard about this as we went from the inn down to the cathedral; and, when I showed him the tomb, where the bishop lies on his back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his head, his shepherd’s crook by his side, with little children at his feet, their hands put together in a praying attitude, he looked with a degree of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took him as far as I could about the cathedral. The “service” was now begun. There is a dean, and God knows how many prebends belonging to this immensely rich bishopric and chapter; and there were, at this “service,” two or three men and five or six boys in white surplices, with a congregation of fifteen women and four men! Gracious God! If William of Wykham could, at that moment, have been raised from his tomb! If Saint Swithin, whose name the cathedral bears, or Alfred the Great, to whom St. Swithin was tutor: if either of these could have come, and had been told, that that was now what was carried on by men, who talked of the “damnable errors” of those who founded that very church! But it beggars one’s feelings to attempt to find words whereby to express them upon such a subject and such an occasion. How, then, am I to describe what I felt, when I yesterday saw in Hyde Meadow, a county bridewell, standing on the very spot, where stood the Abbey which was founded and endowed by Alfred, which contained the bones of that maker of the English name, and also those of the learned monk, St. Grimbald, whom Alfred brought to England to begin the teaching at Oxford!

After we came out of the cathedral, Richard said, “Why, Papa, nobody can build such places now, can they?” “No, my dear,” said I. “That building was made when there were no poor wretches in England, called paupers; when there were no poor-rates; when every labouring man was clothed in good woollen cloth; and when all had a plenty of meat and bread and beer.” This talk lasted us to the inn, where, just as we were going to set off, it most curiously happened, that a parcel which had come from Kensington by the night coach, was put into my hands by the landlord, containing, amongst other things, a pamphlet, sent to me from Rome, being an Italian translation of No. I. of the “Protestant Reformation.” I will here insert the title for the satisfaction of Doctor Black, who, some time ago, expressed his utter astonishment, that “such a work should be published in the nineteenth century.” Why, Doctor? Did you want me to stop till the twentieth century? That would have been a little too long, Doctor.

Storia
Della
Riforma Protestante
In Inghilterra ed in Irlanda
La quale Dimostra
Come un tal’ avvenimento ha impoverito
E degradato il grosso del popolo in que’ paesi
in una serie di lettere indirizzate
A tutti i sensati e guisti inglesi
Da
Guglielmo Cobbett
E
Dall’ inglese recate in italiano
Da
Dominico Gregorj.
Roma 1825.
Presso Francesco Bourlie.
Con Approvazione.

There, Doctor Black. Write you a book that shall be translated into any foreign language; and when you have done that, you may again call mine “pig’s meat.”