CHAPTER IX.

ALTHORP.

Wisdom loves

This seat serene, and Virtue's self approves.

Here come the Griev'd a change of thought to find,

The Curious here, to feed a craving mind;

Here the Devout their peaceful temple choose,

And here the Poet meets his favouring Muse.

CRABBE-The Library.

IN the third volume of The Bibliographical Decameron, and in a note at the 388th page of that same volume, will be found the following passage:

"It was quite at the end of the month of May, in the year 1811, that I paid my first visit to the Noble Owner of the residence under description. The day had been excessively hot, and I reached Althorp, from London, between the hours of six and seven, to a late dinner. The sun was then beginning to decline, so as to cast a breadth of shadow from the long avenues of elm and beech, and lime, with which the back front of the house is adorned*, or enfiladed. Sitting on a seat beneath one of these elms-the cawing of innumerable rooks from the adjoining avenues - the tranquillity of the approaching evening-the calm, clear,

* You approach the front of the house through avenues of oak, of which some are indisputably proved to have been growing towards the latter end of the reign of Henry VII.

and almost cloudless sky-and (shall I dare avow it?) more than either of these causes, or the whole of them collectively, the near and immediate view of a suite of rooms in which was contained the FINEST PRIVATE Collection of Books PERHAPS IN EUROPE-could not fail to produce emotions; of no ordinary occurrence, to one, who, for several previous years, had vehemently sought after such a gratification After a due time devoted to musing, I entered the aforesaid suite of rooms, and more especially rested in that wherein a fine Raphael was over the fire-place, and a French clock was ticking upon the marble mantle-piece. The cloth was laid, and the exemplification of the good old maxim (the usual theme of our school days) nil præter ordinem. was singularly manifested to view. The sun was now sinking lower and lower, and the shadows became proportionably broad and massive. No sound was heard from without, save the nibbling of the deer, who quite peeped into the windows of the apartment. His Lordship arrived at

seven.....

6

ર.

"I will conclude this View of the Interior' (as the Flemish painters designate such subjects) by adding, that that congenial visit was the prelude to the many subsequent ones which have taken place since the said 'year 1811 But the mansion-the library-rejoins the impetuous reader! I must be briefer than I could wish in satisfying such impetuosity. Yet know, cultivator of bibliomanical antiquities, that the name of SPENCER or Despencer (for merly the same) is far from being barren in the annals of book-collecting; for in the ancient time, Hugh Despencer had a Son, Thomas, Earl of Gloucester, who, in 21 Rich. II., by petition in Parliament, obtained the revocation of the judgment of exile against his great grandfather, Hugh Le Despencer. In this petition it is stated (inter alia) that he, the said Hugh, had at that time, Plate, Jewels, and ready money better than 10,0007., xxxvi sacks of wool, and a LIBRARY OF BOKES.' Collins, in his Baronetage, vol. i.

p. 309, edit. 1720, refers to Rot. Parl. 21 Ric. II. n. 35, 60, 64, 68," &c.

Now, if the reader pleases, he may contrast this somewhat quaint, but drawn on the spot," picture of Althorp, with that which has been recently published in the pages of one of the most celebrated female writers of the day. Mrs. Jamieson's outof-door winter view of Althorp shall speak for itself in the subjoined note*. Mine is a summer

* "It was on such a day as I have seen in Italy in the month of December, but which, in our chill climate, seemed so unseasonably, so ominously beautiful, that it was like the hectic loveliness brightening the eyes and flushing the cheek of consumption, that I found myself in the domains of ALTHORP. Autumn, dying in the lap of winter, looked out with one bright parting smile; the soft air breathed of summer; the withered leaves, heaped on the path, told a different tale. The slant, pale sun shone out, with all heaven to himself: not a cloud was there, not a breeze to stir the leafless woods-those venerable woods which Evelyn loved and commemorated. I was much struck with the inscription on a stone tablet, in a fine old wood near the house: this wood was planted by Sir William Spencer, Knight of the Bath, in the year of our Lord, 1624'-on the other side, 'up and bee doing, and God will prosper.' It is mentioned in Evelyn's 'Sylva.' The fine majestic old oaks, scattered over the park, tossed their huge bare arms against the blue sky; a thin hoar frost, dissolving as the sun rose higher, left the lawns and hills sparkling and glancing in its ray; and then a hare raced across the open glade—

' And with her feet she from the plashy earth

Raises a mist, which, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.'

Nothing disturbed the serene stillness, except a pheasant whirring from a neighbouring thicket, or at intervals the belling of the deer, a sound so peculiar, and so fitted to the scene, that I sympathized in the taste of one of the noble progenitors of the Spencers, who had built a hunting lodge in a sequestered spot, that he might hear the harte bell.' This was a day, an hour, a scene, with all its associations, its quietness, and

view. It is pleasing to tread the same ground, and to gaze upon many of the same objects, with a writer of the charm and power of Mrs. Jamieson's pen; but at the expense of having my principles of chivalry questioned, I must be permitted to break a tiny lance with that "fair Ladye," in commenting upon a few defects of omission and commission which seem to me to be involved in her description. In the first place, it is to be regretted that Mrs. Jamieson suffered her agility of limbs, or buoyancy of spirits, to carry her up the " the "great staircase" before she had made the Tour "of all the rooms below;" and most marvellous, or at least incomprehensible, to me, it is, that of a mansion, in which the FINEST PRIVATE LIBRARY IN EUROPE is contained — and which library may be said to be nearer three than two hundred feet in length-No mention whatever is made!

beauty, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.' All worldly cares and pains were laid asleep; while memory, fancy, and feeling waked. Althorp does not frown upon us in the gloom of remote antiquity; it has not the warlike glories of some of the baronial residences of our old nobility; it is not built, like a watch tower, on a hill, to lord it over feudal vassals; it is not bristled with battlements and turrets. It stands in a valley, with the gradual hills undulating round it, clothed with rich woods. It has altogether a look of compactness and comfort, without pretension, which, with the pastoral beauty of the landscape, and low situation, recall the ancient vocation of the family, whose grandeur was first founded, like that of the patriarchs of old, on the multitude of their flocks and herds."-Visits at Home and Abroad.

A beautiful copper-plate vignette of this "UP AND be doing" Wood may be seen in the des Althorpianæ, vol. i. p. 18, which had doubtless escaped the recollection of Mrs. Jamieson.