Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II

Another of our excursions was to Ockwells – a curious and beautiful specimen of domestic architecture in the days before the Tudors. Strange it seems to me that no one has exactly imitated that graceful front, with its steep roof terminated on either side by two projecting gables, the inner one lower than the other, adorned with oak carving, regular and delicate as that on an ivory fan. The porch has equal elegance. One almost expects to see some baronial hawking party, or some bridal procession issue from its recesses. The great hall, although its grand open roof has been barbarously closed up, still retains its fine proportions, its dais, its music gallery, and the long range of windows, still adorned with the mottos and escutcheons of the Norreys's, their kindred and allies. It has long been used as a farm-house; and one marvels that the painted windows should have remained uninjured through four centuries of neglect and change. Much that was interesting has disappeared, but enough still remains to gratify those who love to examine the picturesque dwellings of our ancestors. The noble staircase, the iron-studded door, the prodigious lock, the gigantic key (too heavy for a woman to wield), the cloistered passages, the old-fashioned buttery-hatch, give a view not merely of the degree of civilization of the age, but of the habits and customs of familiar daily life.

Another drive took us to the old grounds of Lady Place, where, in demolishing the house, care had been taken to preserve the vaults in which the great Whig leaders wrote and signed the famous letter to William of Orange, which drove James the Second from the throne. A gloomy place it is now – a sort of underground ruin – and gloomy enough the patriots must have found it on that memorable occasion: the tombs of the monks (it had formerly been a monastery) under their feet, the rugged walls around them, and no ray of light, except the lanterns they may have brought with them, or the torches that they lit. Surely the signature of that summons which secured the liberties of England would make an impressive picture – Lord Somers in the foreground, and the other Whig statesmen grouped around him. A Latin inscription records a visit made by George the Third to the vaults; and truly it is among the places that monarchs would do well to visit – full of stern lessons!

Chief pilgrimage of all was one that led us first to Beaconsfield, through the delightful lanes of Buckinghamshire, with their luxuriance of hedge-row timber, and their patches of heathy common. There we paid willing homage to all that remained of the habitation consecrated by the genius of Edmund Burke. Little is left, beyond gates and outbuildings, for the house has been burnt down and the grounds disparked; but still some of his old walks remained, and an old well and traces of an old garden – and pleasant it was to tread where such a man had trodden, and to converse with the few who still remembered him. We saw, too, the stalwart yeoman who had the honor not only of furnishing to Sir Joshua the model of his "Infant Hercules," but even of suggesting the subject. Thus it happened. Passing a few days with Mr. Burke at his favorite retirement, the great painter accompanied his host on a visit to his bailiff. A noble boy lay sprawling in the cradle in the room where they sat. His mother would fain have removed him, but Sir Joshua, then commissioned to paint a picture for the Empress Catherine, requested that the child might remain, sent with all speed for pallet and easel, and accomplished his task with that success which so frequently waits upon a sudden inspiration. It is remarkable that the good farmer, whose hearty cordial kindness I shall not soon forget, has kept in a manner most unusual the promise of his sturdy infancy, and makes as near an approach to the proportions of the fabled Hercules as ever Buckinghamshire yeoman displayed.

Beaconsfield, however, and even the cherished retirement of Burke, was by no means the goal of our pilgrimage. The true shrine was to be found four miles farther, in the small cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, where Milton found a refuge during the Great Plague of London.

The road wound through lanes still shadier and hedge-rows still richer, where the tall trees rose from banks overhung with fern, intermixed with spires of purple foxglove; sometimes broken by a bit of mossy park-paling, sometimes by the light shades of a beech-wood, until at last we reached the quiet and secluded village whose very first dwelling was consecrated by the abode of the great poet.

It is a small tenement of four rooms, one on either side the door, standing in a little garden, and having its gable to the road. A short inscription, almost hidden by the foliage of the vine, tells that Milton once lived within those sacred walls. The cottage has been so seldom visited, is so little desecrated by thronging admirers, and has suffered so little from alteration or decay, and all about it has so exactly the serene and tranquil aspect that one should expect to see in an English village two centuries ago, that it requires but a slight effort of fancy to image to ourselves the old blind bard still sitting in that little parlor, or sunning himself on the garden-seat beside the well. Milton is said to have corrected at Chalfont some of the sheets of the "Paradise Lost." The "Paradise Regained" he certainly composed there. One loves to think of him in that calm retreat – to look round that poor room and think how Genius ennobles all that she touches! Heaven forfend that change in any shape, whether of embellishment or of decay, should fall upon that cottage!

Another resort of ours, not a pilgrimage, but a haunt, was the forest of old pollards, known by the name of Burnham Beeches. A real forest it is – six hundred acres in extent, and varied by steep declivities, wild dells, and tangled dingles. The ground, clothed with the fine short turf where the thyme and the harebell love to grow, is partly covered with luxuriant fern; and the juniper and the holly form a fitting underwood for those magnificent trees, hollowed by age, whose profuse canopy of leafy boughs seems so much too heavy for the thin rind by which it is supported. Mr. Grote has a house here on which we looked with reverence; and in one of the loveliest spots we came upon a monument erected by Mrs. Grote in memory of Mendelssohn, and enriched by an elegant inscription from her pen.

We were never weary of wandering among the Burnham Beeches; sometimes taking Dropmore by the way, where the taste of the late Lord Grenville created from a barren heath a perfect Eden of rare trees and matchless flowers. But even better than amid that sweet woodland scene did I love to ramble by the side of the Thames, as it bounded the beautiful grounds of Lord Orkney, or the magnificent demesne of Sir George Warrender, the verdant lawns of Cliefden.

That place also is full of memories. There it was that the famous Duke of Buckingham fought his no less famous duel with Lord Shrewsbury, while the fair countess, dressed, rather than disguised, as a page, held the horse of her victorious paramour. We loved to gaze on that princely mansion – since a second time burnt down – repeating to each other the marvelous lines in which our two matchless satirists have immortalized the duke's follies, and doubting which portrait were the best. We may at least be sure that no third painter will excel them. Alas! who reads Pope or Dryden now? I am afraid, very much afraid, that to many a fair young reader these celebrated characters will be as good as manuscript. I will at all events try the experiment. Here they be:

"In the first rank of these did Zimri standA man so various, that he seemed to beNot one, but all mankind's epitome;Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,Was every thing by starts and nothing long;But in the course of one revolving moon,Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon,Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinkingBesides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.Blest madman, who could every hour employWith something new to wish or to enjoy!"Dryden. Absalom and Achitophel.

Now for the little hunchback of Twickenham:

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,The walls of plaster, and the floor of dung;On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw,The George and Garter dangling from that bed,Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red:Great Villiers lies: – but, ah, how changed from him,That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim,Gallant and gay in Cliefden's proud alcove,The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love!Or just as gay at council 'mid the ringOf mimic statesmen and their merry king!No wit to flatter left of all his store;No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;There, victor of his health, of fortune, friendsAnd fame, the lord of useless thousands ends?"Pope. Moral Essays.

FLOWERS IN THE SICK ROOM

Among the terrors of our youth we well remember there were certain poisonous exhalations said to arise from plants and flowers if allowed to share our sleeping-room during the night, as though objects of loveliness when seen by daylight took advantage of the darkness to assume the qualities of the ghoul or the vampire. Well do we remember how maternal anxiety removed every portion of vegetable life from our bedroom, lest its gases should poison us before morning! This opinion, and the cognate one that plants in rooms are always injurious, is prevalent still, and it operates most unfavorably in the case of the bed-ridden, or the invalid, by depriving them of a chamber garden which would otherwise make time put off his leaden wings, and while away, in innocent amusement, many a lagging hour. Now we assure our readers that this is a popular superstition, and will endeavor to put them in possession of the grounds on which our statement is founded. In doing so, we do not put forth any opinions of our own, but the deductions of science, for the truth of which any one acquainted with vegetable physiology can vouch.

Plants, in a growing state, absorb the oxygen gas of the atmosphere, and throw off carbonic acid; these are facts, and as oxygen is necessary to life and carbonic acid injurious to it, the conclusion has been jumped at that plants in apartments must have a deleterious influence. But there is another fact equally irrefragable, that plants feed on the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, and are, indeed, the grand instruments employed in the laboratory of Nature for purifying it from the noxious exhalations of animal life. From the spacious forests to the blade of grass which forces itself up through the crevices of a street pavement, every portion of verdure is occupied in disinfecting the air. By means of solar light the carbonic acid, when taken in by the leaves, is decomposed, its carbon going to build up the structure of the plant and its disengaged oxygen returning to the air we breathe. It is true that this process is stopped in the darkness, and that then a very small portion of carbonic acid is evolved by plants; but as it is never necessary for a patient to sleep in a room with flowers, we need say nothing on that subject. Cleanliness, and other considerations, would suggest having a bedroom as free as possible during the night, and our object is answered if we show that vegetation is not injurious in the day. That it is, on the contrary, conducive to health, is a plain corollary of science.

Perhaps the error we are speaking of may have originated from confounding the effects of the odors of plants with a general result of their presence. Now, all strong scents are injurious, and those of some flowers are specially so, and ought on no account to be patronized by the invalid. But it happens, fortunately, that a very large class of plants have either no scent at all, or so little as to be of no consequence, so that there is still room for an extensive selection. This, then, is one rule to be observed in chamber gardening. Another is, that the plants admitted should be in perfect health, for while growing vegetation is healthful, it becomes noxious when sickly or dead. Thirdly, let the most scrupulous cleanliness be maintained; the pots, saucers, and the stands being often subjected to ablutions. Under this head also we include the removal of dying leaves, and all flowers, before they have quite lost their beauty, since it is well known that the petals become unpleasant in some varieties as soon as the meridian of their brief life is passed. By giving attention to these simple regulations, a sick chamber may have its windows adorned with flowers without the slightest risk to the health of the occupant, and in saying this we open the way to some of the most gentle lenitives of pain, as well as to sources of rational enjoyment. If those who can go where they please, in the sunshine and the shade, can gather wild flowers in their natural dwellings, and cultivate extensive gardens, still find pleasure in a few favorites in-doors, how much more delight must such treasured possessions confer on those whom Providence has made prisoners and who must have their all of verdure and floral beauty brought to them!

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

LIVELY TURTLE

A SKETCH OF A CONSERVATIVE

I have a comfortable property. What I spend, I spend upon myself; and what I don't spend I save. Those are my principles. I am warmly attached to my principles, and stick to them on all occasions.

I am not, as some people have represented, a mean man. I never denied myself any thing that I thought I should like to have. I may have said to myself "Snoady" – that is my name – "you will get those peaches cheaper if you wait till next week;" or, I may have said to myself, "Snoady, you will get that wine for nothing, if you wait till you are asked out to dine;" but I never deny myself any thing. If I can't get what I want without buying it, and paying its price for it, I do buy it and pay its price for it. I have an appetite bestowed upon me; and, if I balked it, I should consider that I was flying in the face of Providence.

I have no near relation but a brother. If he wants any thing of me, he don't get it. All men are my brothers; and I see no reason why I should make his an exceptional case.

I live at a cathedral town where there is an old corporation. I am not in the Church, but it may be that I hold a little place of some sort. Never mind. It may be profitable. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It may, or it may not, be a sinecure. I don't choose to say, I never enlightened my brother on these subjects, and I consider all men my brothers. The negro is a man and a brother – should I hold myself accountable for my position in life, to him? Certainly not.

I often run up to London. I like London. The way I look at it, is this. London is not a cheap place, but, on the whole, you can get more of the real thing for your money there – I mean the best thing, whatever it is – than you can get in most places. Therefore, I say to the man who has got the money, and wants the thing, "Go to London for it, and treat yourself."

When I go, I do it in this manner. I go to Mrs. Skim's Private Hotel and Commercial Lodging House, near Aldersgate-street, City (it is advertised in "Bradshaw's Railway Guide," where I first found it), and there I pay, "for bed and breakfast, with meat, two and ninepence per day, including servants." Now, I have made a calculation, and I am satisfied that Mrs. Skim can not possibly make much profit out of me. In fact, if all her patrons were like me, my opinion is, the woman would be in the Gazette next month.

Why do I go to Mrs. Skim's when I could go to the Clarendon, you may ask? Let us argue that point. If I went to the Clarendon I could get nothing in bed but sleep; could I? No. Now, sleep at the Clarendon is an expensive article; whereas, sleep at Mrs. Skim's, is decidedly cheap. I have made a calculation and I don't hesitate to say, all things considered, that it's cheap. Is it an inferior article, as compared with the Clarendon sleep, or is it of the same quality? I am a heavy sleeper, and it is of the same quality. Then why should I go to the Clarendon?

But as to breakfast? you may say. Very well. As to breakfast. I could get a variety of delicacies for breakfast at the Clarendon, that are out of the question at Mrs. Skim's. Granted. But I don't want to have them! My opinion is, that we are not entirely animal and sensual. Man has an intellect bestowed upon him. If he clogs that intellect by too good a breakfast, how can he properly exert that intellect in meditation, during the day upon his dinner? That's the point. We are not to enchain the soul. We are to let it soar. It is expected of us.

At Mrs. Skim's I get enough for breakfast (there is no limitation to the bread and butter, though there is to the meat), and not too much. I have all my faculties about me, to concentrate upon the object I have mentioned, and I can say to myself besides, "Snoady, you have saved six, eight, ten, fifteen shillings, already to-day. If there is any thing you fancy for your dinner, have it, Snoady, you have earned your reward."

My objection to London, is, that it is the head-quarters of the worst radical sentiments that are broached in England. I consider that it has a great many dangerous people in it. I consider the present publication (if it's "Household Words") very dangerous, and I write this with the view of neutralizing some of its bad effects. My political creed is, let us be comfortable. We are all very comfortable as we are —I am very comfortable as I am – leave us alone!

All mankind are my brothers, and I don't think it Christian – if you come to that – to tell my brother that he is ignorant, or degraded, or dirty, or any thing of the kind. I think it's abusive, and low. You meet me with the observation that I am required to love my brother. I reply, "I do." I am sure I am always willing to say to my brother, "My good fellow, I love you very much; go along with you; keep to your own road; leave me to mine; whatever is, is right; whatever isn't, is wrong; don't make a disturbance!" It seems to me, that this is at once the whole duty of man, and the only temper to go to dinner in.

Going to dinner in this temper in the city of London, one day not long ago, after a bed at Mrs. Skim's, with meat-breakfast and servants included, I was reminded of the observation which, if my memory does not deceive me, was formerly made by somebody on some occasion, that man may learn wisdom from the lower animals. It is a beautiful fact, in my opinion, that great wisdom is to be learned from that noble animal the turtle.

I had made up my mind, in the course of the day I speak of, to have a turtle dinner. I mean a dinner mainly composed of turtle. Just a comfortable tureen of soup, with a pint of punch, and nothing solid to follow, but a tender juicy steak. I like a tender juicy steak. I generally say to myself when I order one, "Snoady, you have done right."

When I make up my mind to have a delicacy, expense is no consideration. The question resolves itself, then, into a question of the very best. I went to a friend of mine who is a member of the Common Council, and with that friend I held the following conversation.

Said I to him, "Mr. Groggles, the best turtle is where?"

Says he, "If you want a basin for lunch, my opinion is, you can't do better than drop into Birch's."

Said I, "Mr. Groggles, I thought you had known me better, than to suppose me capable of a basin. My intention is to dine. A tureen."

Says Mr. Groggles, without a moment's consideration, and in a determined voice. "Right opposite the India House, Leadenhall-street."

We parted. My mind was not inactive during the day, and at six in the afternoon I repaired to the house of Mr. Groggles's recommendation. At the end of the passage, leading from the street into the coffee-room, I observed a vast and solid chest, in which I then supposed that a turtle of unusual size might be deposited. But, the correspondence between its bulk and that of the charge made for my dinner, afterward satisfied me that it must be the till of the establishment.

I stated to the waiter what had brought me there, and I mentioned Mr. Groggles's name. He feelingly repeated after me, "A tureen of turtle, and a tender juicy steak." His manner, added to the manner of Mr. Groggles in the morning, satisfied me that all was well. The atmosphere of the coffee-room was odoriferous with turtle, and the steams of thousands of gallons, consumed within its walls, hung, in savory grease, upon their surface. I could have inscribed my name with a penknife, if I had been so disposed, in the essence of innumerable turtles. I preferred to fall into a hungry reverie, brought on by the warm breath of the place, and to think of the West Indies and the Island of Ascension.

My dinner came – and went. I will draw a vail over the meal, I will put the cover on the empty tureen, and merely say that it was wonderful – and that I paid for it.

I sat meditating, when all was over, on the imperfect nature of our present existence, in which we can eat only for a limited time, when the waiter roused me with these words.

Said he to me, as he brushed the crumbs off the table, "Would you like to see the turtle, sir?"

"To see what turtle, waiter?" said I (calmly) to him.

"The tanks of turtle below, sir," said he to me.

Tanks of turtle! Good gracious! "Yes!"

The waiter lighted a candle, and conducted me down stairs to a range of vaulted apartments, cleanly white-washed and illuminated with gas, where I saw a sight of the most astonishing and gratifying description, illustrative of the greatness of my native country. "Snoady," was my first observation to myself, "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!"

There were two or three hundred turtle in the vaulted apartments – all alive. Some in tanks, and some taking the air in long dry walks littered down with straw. They were of all sizes; many of them enormous. Some of the enormous ones had entangled themselves with the smaller ones, and pushed and squeezed themselves into corners, with their fins over water-pipes, and their heads downward, where they were apoplectically struggling and splashing, apparently in the last extremity. Others were calm at the bottom of the tanks; others languidly rising to the surface. The turtle in the walks littered down with straw, were calm and motionless. It was a thrilling sight. I admire such a sight. It rouses my imagination. If you wish to try its effect on yours, make a call right opposite the India House any day you please – dine – pay – and ask to be taken below.

Two athletic young men, without coats, and with the sleeves of their shirts tucked up to the shoulders, were in attendance on these noble animals. One of them, wrestling with the most enormous turtle in company, and dragging him up to the edge of the tank, for me to look at, presented an idea to me which I never had before. I ought to observe that I like an idea. I say, when I get a new one, "Snoady, book that!"

My idea, on the present occasion, was – Mr. Groggles! It was not a turtle that I saw, but Mr. Groggles. It was the dead image of Mr. Groggles. He was dragged up to confront me, with his waistcoat – if I may be allowed the expression – toward me; and it was identically the waistcoat of Mr. Groggles. It was the same shape, very nearly the same color, only wanted a gold watch-chain and a bunch of seals, to be the waistcoat of Mr. Groggles. There was what I should call a bursting expression about him in general, which was accurately the expression of Mr. Groggles. I had never closely observed a turtle's throat before. The folds of his loose cravat, I found to be precisely those of Mr. Groggles's cravat. Even the intelligent eye – I mean to say, intelligent enough for a person of correct principles, and not dangerously so – was the eye of Mr. Groggles. When the athletic young man let him go, and, with a roll of his head, he flopped heavily down into the tank, it was exactly the manner of Mr. Groggles as I have seen him ooze away into his seat, after opposing a sanitary motion in the Court of Common Council!

"Snoady," I couldn't help saying to myself, "you have done it. You have got an idea, Snoady, in which a great principle is involved. I congratulate you!" I followed the young man, who dragged up several turtle to the brinks of the various tanks. I found them all the same – all varieties of Mr. Groggles – all extraordinarily like the gentlemen who usually eat them. "Now, Snoady," was my next remark, "what do you deduce from this?"