CHAPTER IX.

VISIT TO HOLKHAM, THE ESTATE OF MR. COKE, NORFOLK COUNTY-THE SHEEP SHEARING-PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT-ENTERTAINMENT AT CARLTON HOUSE-LORD CASTLEREAGH SPEAKS OF THE FLORIDA TREATY-WHAT HE AFTERWARDS SAYS ON THAT SUBJECT, AND ON THE CASES OF ARBUTHNOT AND AMBRISTER, AT THE AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR'S.

July 12. Yesterday I returned from a visit to Mr. Coke, of Holkham, Norfolk County. He invited me last year; but unable, from duties under an approaching negotiation, to leave town at that time, I was forced to decline, which gave me double pleasure in accepting this year. I met a large company. We had the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Albemarle, Lord Huntingfield, Sir Henry Fane, Sir Henry Erne, Sir Jacob Astley, Sir John Sinclair, Sir William Bolton, General Fitzroy, Captain Edgell of the Navy, Mr. Wilbraham, of Cheshire, Mr. Beckford, of Suffolk, Mr. Maude, of Yorkshire,

Mr. Beaumont, of the House of Commons, Dr. Rigby, Mr. Owen, Mr. Bennett, Sir Robert Harland, the Marquis of Tavistock, Lord Barrington, the Earl of Bradford, Lord Nugent, and many others whose names I cannot recall. Of my countrymen, there were General Harper, of Maryland, General Boyd, of Boston, Mr. Oliver and Mr. Patterson, of Baltimore, Mr. Somerville, of Maryland, and Mr. Ogle Tayloe, of Virginia, the latter an attaché to my Legation.

Holkham is among the best cultivated estates in England. Of the entire system of agriculture by which Mr. Coke has so greatly improved it, as well as benefitted England by his example of good farming during more than forty years, thus increasing the public wealth as well as his own, I am not qualified to speak properly. The whole has been well described by Dr. Rigby, of Norwich, in his excellent little work entitled, "Holkham and its Agriculture;" but I may note in general terms a few of the things which struck me as an American and stranger, in my visit of a week to this celebrated

estate.

The occasion on which we were assembled was called the "Sheep Shearing." It was the fortythird anniversary of this attractive festival; attractive even to Englishmen-accustomed as they are to agricultural beauty, and to fine old country home

steads, established and maintained throughout ages, in so many different parts of England. The term "Sheep Shearing" conveys, by itself, but a limited idea of what is witnessed at Holkham. The operations embrace every thing connected with agriculture in the broadest sense; such as, an inspection of all the farms which make up the Holkham estate, with the modes of tillage practised on each, for all varieties of crops; an exhibition of cattle, with the modes of feeding and keeping them; ploughing matches; hay making; a display of agricultural implements, and modes of using them; the visiting of various out-buildings, stables, and so on, best adapted to good farming and the rearing and care of stock; with much more that I need not specify. Sheep Shearing there was, indeed; but it was only one item in this full round of practical agriculture. The whole lasted three days, occupying the morning of each, until dinner time at about 5 o'clock. The shearing of sheep, was the closing operation of the third day.

Such is the general scene as far as agriculture is concerned, which is its primary object. Mr. Coke explains to his guests and friends, all his processes and results. This is done without form, in conversation on his grounds; or at the dinner table; and, even more impressively, on horseback. Then it is that you have more of the port of the old

English country gentleman, as he jovially rides from field to field, and farm to farm, attended by his friends, who are also mounted. From these also, he invites inquiry and criticism; and, from those agricultural in their pursuits, a communication of their modes of farming, that results may be compared, and truth the better arrived at in this great science.

Of the social scene which goes hand in hand with it all, I hardly dare trust myself to speak, lest I should seem to exaggerate. The number of Mr. Coke's guests, meaning those lodged at his mansion, was, I believe, about fifty, comprehending those I have named and others as I could scarcely know all in a visit of a week. But his friends and neighbors of the county of Norfolk, and the country gentlemen and visitors from parts of England further off, arriving every morning after breakfast, in carriages or on horseback, during the continuance of the scene, under invitations from Mr. Coke to be present at it and stay to dinner, amounted to about six hundred each day. On the second day, I was informed that, including the home guests, covers were laid down for six hundred and fifty. All were comfortably accommodated, and fared sumptuously. Holkham House covers an acre of ground. Looking at it on one of the mornings after breakfast, with the Duke of Bedford and others, and viewing its imposing

centre, from which proceed four wings connected by corridors, the general conjecture seemed to be, that such an edifice could scarcely be built at the present day for less than half a million of pounds sterling. It was built, I understood, in the middle or early part of last century by Lord Leicester, who was many years in Italy, where he studied the models upon which, after his return to England, it was erected.

Of the furniture in such a mansion, the paintings, tapestry, rural ornaments, and all else, it need but be said, that they are adapted to the mansion itself; ancient, rich, and appropriate. The library, of many thousand volumes, is a treasure; and (shall I tell it?) there, yes, there, on one of the days when I entered it, during a short interval between the morning excursions and the dinner hour, did I catch stragglers, of the home guests, country gentlemen too, who had not been out to the fields or farms at all, although they had come all the way to Holkham to attend the Sheep Shearing! And no wonder! In fact, they were of the younger portion of the guests (young-uns, as Mr. Coke slyly said, in jeering them) not long from the University; so recently, that the love of practically inspecting wheat fields, even if they had yielded twice twelve combs* the acre, or of seeing turnips drilled in ridges on the *Ninety-six bushels.