Society in the country house

Front matter

MUDIE'Si^^J LIBRARY,

ESTABLISHED 1842 ^'^

MUDIE'S^s^LIBRARY,

Contents

Sir Robert Peel — Gibbon — Richard Cobden — Prince Bismarck— Benjamin Disraeli — Napoleon III. — Lord Dufferin — Decisive Marriages IN English History.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.

Tin

Chapter I The Evolution Of The Country Host . . . -i?

Introduction — The arrangement of the book in its chronological and geographical relations explained — ^The country house unknown till Chaucer's day — Why — ^The franklin — Baronial despotism — How the country house grew.

Chapter II

Arundel Castle : its development, mythical, feudal, convivial, aristocratic, democratic — The eleventh Duke of Norfolk (the "Jockey")— The twelfth Duke— The present Duke — Petworth : its owners — Goodwood — The Dukes of Richmond — Battle Abbey — The Brownes, the Websters, and the Vanes — The Dukes of Cleveland — " Cheque on Coutts" — Battle Abbey in the present day — Compton Place, Eastbourne — The Duke of Devonshire and Lord Randolph Churchill — Woolbeding Manor — Under Lord Robert Spencer — A fashionable centre — Sir Thomas Wroughton and Sir William Hamilton : their anecdotes — Lord and Lady Lanerton — Stanstead — Lord North and Charles Turner — Sir John Stepney — Stanstead under its successive owners.

Chapter III Page

Hurstmonceux — Its tragic associations — The Naylors and the Hares — Hurstmonceux a theological and literary centre — Parham — The De la Zouches — Lord Selwyn, Reynolds, Beauclerk, Johnson, and Gibbon — Dunford House, Midhurst — Cobden — Bishop Wilberforce — Lavington — The Sargents — Stopham — The Barttelots — Field Place — The Shelleys — Chesworth — Warnham Court — Stanmer — The Pelhams — Stanmer as the cradle of Brighton — Harrison Ainsworth in Sussex — Cuckfield Manor the origin of " Rookwood" — Ovingdean Grange — Brighton Pavilion — Its origin — In the days of the Regency — The Lades and the Barrymores — Lord Thurlow — Sir John Irwine — The Muriettas at Lamberhurst— West Dean — Mr. and Mrs. W. James —Lord Brassey's Normanhurst — Thomas Brassey — Literary parties at Normanhurst — Sir Julian Goldsmid's Fairlight, near Hastings — Butler Johnstone and Ralph Earle — Later guests at Fairlight — Mrs. Duncan Stewart and her anecdotes.

Chapter IV Bridge And The Kentish Gang Io9

The First Marquis of Abergavenny and the Kentish Gang — The first Earl, at Oxford — Bridge Castle — Mr. Markham SpofTorth — The Junior Carlton Club as an Bridge growth — Political movements at Bridge — Its earlier history — Hayes Place — Its associations with the Pitts — Holwood Park — Pitt and Wilberforce and the abolition of the Slave Trade — Chevening — The Stanhopes and Pitts — Chevening's wealth of Pitt memorials — Its nineteenth-century parties and their national results — Knole : its place in English literature, politics, and society — Its visitors' book from Ben Jonson, Raleigh, Bacon to Sir W. H. Russell and Ismail Pasha— Hever Castle : its hosts and guests from the Boleyns to Dickens, Millais, and Burnand — Leeds Castle — Famous guests of two centuries — Beckenham and the lucky Burrell marriages — With Darwin at Downe — Lord Avebury's guests and pets at High Elms — Herbert Spencer on himself and others —

Lord Goschen at Seacox Heath — His Oxford visitors and others — The Kentish country house as a theatrical training school — Harbledown — The Canterbury " Old Stagers" — With the laureate in the Ashford district — Bedgebury : its personal and literary story — Hempsted and Lord Cranbrook — Chilstone and Mr. Akers-Douglas — LuUingstone, Sir W. Hart-Dyke and fish dinners on the lower Thames.

Chapter V

Penshurst, the earliest country house of the better sort — Its owners and name — The Sidneys — The origin of the name — Sir Henry Sidney — Sir Philip Sidney — Robert Sidney, first Earl of Leicester — His literary parties at Penshurst — Ben Jonson a frequent visitor — Robert Sidney, second Earl of Leicester, politician, administrator, host — The Royal children, the Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester, for a time his paying guests at Penshurst— "Sacharissa" (Lady Dorothy Sidney) — Immortalised by her rejected lover, the poet Waller — Algernon Sidney, her favourite brother — Another brother, Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney — Penshurst becomes a Whig house.

Chapter VI

Success of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia" compared with that of Lewis Carroll's " Alice in Wonderland " — Wilton House — The Pembroke Herberts — William, third Earl of Pembroke — Henrietta de Querouaille, wife of seventh Earl — The "architect" (ninth) Earl — His widow's marriage with Captain Barnard — The tenth Earl's elopement with Kitty Hunter — Lady Pembroke, her pretty sisters and smart contemporaries — English peeresses masquerading as Greek girls — The Wilton visitors' book from Horace Walpole to George Payne — Palmerston at Wilton and Sidney Herbert.

Chapter VII Page

The first Lord Cork — His descendants — The Boyles and the Cavendishes — The title passes to the fifth Lord Orrery — Marston and its literary associations — Swift, Burnet, and Gay — "The Beggar's Opera" — Lavinia Fenton and the Duke of Bolton — Actresses and the Bolton peerage — The seventh Countess of Cork — Longleat — Its history — The Thynnes — Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, and Thomas Ken — Friendship between them — Ken made Bishop of Bath and Wells by Charles II. — One of the " Seven Bishops " — Refuses to take the oath of allegiance to William III. — Retires to Longleat — It becomes a centre of learning — Izaac Walton marries Ken's sister — The party at Longleat — Secular associations — Edward Seymour, first Duke of Somerset — Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley — Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton — Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland — The Earl of Carnarvon — "Tom of Ten Thousand " — Thomas Thynne, third Viscount Weymouth— Longleat's recent poUtical associations — Mr. Gladstone and the fourth Marquess of Bath in 1884 — Intervention of Canon MacCoU — The Longleat County Franchise Bill of 1884— The fifth Lord Bath and the Health Congress, 1904.

Chapter VIII

Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury and Chancellor — His childhood, &c. — His political intrigues — Wimborne St. Giles — The seventh Earl, the philanthropist — His family anecdotes — Lord Palmerston at Wimborne St. Giles — Monuments of the Earls of Shaftesbury — Canford Manor — John of Gaunt and Geoffrey Chaucer — Sir John Guest — Mr. H. A. Layard — Lord Randolph Churchill — Milton Abbey — The Tregonwells — The Hambros — Crichel — George III.'s journey from Cheltenham to Weymouth — The Sturts and their property — George III. at Weymouth — The King and the Prince Regent — James I. and Anne of Denmark at Weymouth — Lulworth Castle — The Empress Eugenie — The party at Lulworth — La belle Americaine and the English peerage — The Welds — — Abraham Hayward at Westhill.

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Chapter IX Page

The Scilly Islands — Their place in legend and history — Tresco Abbey — " King " Augustus Smith — ^John Douglas Cook on the identity of the Islands — Other Tresco guests — Douglas Cook at Tintagel — Details of the history and " government" of Tresco — Miss RhodaBroughton — "Only just eighteen!" — Charles Reade — H. S. Stokes — Pencarrow : Sir William and Lady Molesworth — Literary and political visitors — David Urquhart — Captain Gronow — J. A. Roebuck — Mr. Leonard Courtney — Tom Hood, the younger — Theatrical guests — Foreign royalties at Pencarrow — Stow — The genealogy of the Granvilles and Baths — Stow formerly a Royalist centre- — The house as it used to be — Lord Lansdowne's advice to his clerical nephew — The Moncks of Cornwall and Devon — Berry Court — Werrington — The Rev. H. A. Simcoe at Penheale — His encouragement of village industries — The Rev. R. S. Hawker at Morwenstow — Tennyson — The sermon and sack of potatoes — Lord Falmouth's Tregothnan — The Laureate's recognition of a Homeric precedent in the park — Carnanton : its Disraelian and other associations — Boconnoc : its story and its cricket week — Polwhele, a type of the smaller Cornish country house— The descendants of Maria Theresa's favourite noble.

Chapter X

Port Eliot, formerly a Republican centre, compared with Stow, a Royalist centre — Portraits of the Eliots, John Hampden, &c. — Other pictures — The Eliot family — Sir John Eliot and Hampden— Pitt at Port Eliot— The Grenvilles — A contretemps — Pitt at Plymouth — The St. Germans peers — Mount Edgcumbe — The Rev. Barter of Cornworthy and his three sons — Cothele, the ancient seat of the Edgcumbes — Its antiquities — Royal visitors at Mount Edgcumbe — Chatham in the West of England — An anecdote of Chatham and the Duke of Newcastle — Heligan, the home of the Tremaynes — Mrs. Boscawen — The Duchess of Portland — Mount Edgcumbe a resort of

II beauty and learning — Hayes Barton, Raleigh's birthplace — Bicton — The Rolles, first Whigs, afterwards Tories — John, Lord RoUe, the mock hero of the " Rolliad " — Its writers, Colonel Fitzpatrick, &c. — Modern Bicton — Peamore — The Kekewiches — Archbishop Comwallis — A legal precedent — Peamore guests — Pynes — The Northcotes — Memorials of the first baronet. Sir John Northcote — Lord Iddesleigh and his visitors.

Chapter XI Where Devon And Somerset Meet 3oi

The West-country seats of the Acland family, Killerton Park and Holnicote — Holnicote the meeting place of Wilberforce and his allies — The origin of Grillion's Club — Ashley Combe — Byron's daughter, Ada, first Countess of Lovelace — Robert Southey at Ashley Combe — The Lovelace progenitors — John Locke — The seventh Lord King, father of the first Earl — The connection of Ashley Combe with the Byron name — Castlehill, a political country house — The Earls of Fortescue — "A School of Manners" — Pixton — The second Lord Carnarvon — Eggesford — The fifth Earl of Portsmouth — His relations with Sir Thomas Acland — Doubts and conjectures about Acland's speech — The Church militant in the Exmoor district — Canon Cook — Bishops Wordsworth and Browne — The Greek Archbishop Lycurgus — Sir George WilUams — Orchard Wyndham — Sir William Wyndham and his guests — St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, &c. — Atterbury Trelawny and Dean Swift — Dunster Castle — The Luttrells — Colonel Luttrell — Temple LuttreU — Henry Luttrell, the wit — Gladstone and the ancient Greeks — St. Audries — The two Sir Samuel Hoods — ^The Mallets and the Balches — Sir Peregrine Acland's Fairfield — Dr. Johnson on the origin of the word "Quantock" — The Acland-Hoods — "Shake an ass and go " — St. Audries a centre of Unionism — ^A curious memorial of the Palmers — Enmore Castle, the home of the Egmont Percevals — Chapel Cleve — Thomas Poole — Wordsworth and Coleridge at Alfoxden — The last St. Albyn owner, the omnibus driver — Quantock Lodge — Lord Westbury and Lord Selbome — Country houses round Quantock Lodge — Sydney Smith at Combe Florey — Enmore Castle and Quantock Lodge to-day.

Chapter XII Page

Halswell — The Tyntes — The Bridgwater elections — " The Man in the Moon " — Baron Tripp, the introducer of the waltz and his colleagues — Bulwer Lytton's presence of mind — Brymore, the home of John Pym — Its connection with Francis Bacon — Pym's mother, Lady Rous, and wife, Anna Hooker — ^Lady Rous's funeral sermon preached by Charles Fitz-Geoffrey — Wentworth (Strafford) at Brymore — Pym and Hampden — Brymore's later owners — Guests at Brymore during Pym's life, Sir John Popham, Thomas Coryate — Cricket-St. Thomas, the house of Sir Amias Preston — Ralph, Lord Hopton — Ralph Cudworth — Dr. Joseph Wolff at Ile-Brewers Rectory — ^Archdeacon Denison at East Brent Rectory — Freeman at Sommerleaze — Sir William Pynsent of Burton-Pjmsent — His legacies to Chatham — William Pitt's childhood at Burton- Pynsent — Ralph Allen's Prior Park, standing in the same relation to Bath as Stanmer to Brighton — ^Allen, the original of Squire Alworthy in " Tom Jones " — Prior Park an open house — Its guests — ^Warbvurton — Literary Visitors — Dean Swift — Bowood — First Marquis of Lansdowne, his descent from the Pettys and the Fitzmaurices — His grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Kerry — Bowood parties — Bentham, Dumont, Priestly — Lansdowne's household accounts — The third Marquis — Thomas Moore and other visitors — Bowood in the present day — The poet Bowles at Bremhill — Barley Wood, the home of Hannah More — Raikes, the founder of the Sunday School and his Cotswold guests — Blaise Castle, the home of Wilberforce's friend, Harford.

Chapter XIII

Mr. Percy Wyndham at Clouds — The Clouds house-parties and modern politics — East Knoyle House — The Seymours — Breamore — Fonthill — William Beckford — Samuel Rogers as his guest — Beckford's eccentricities — His Lansdowne tower at Bath — Beckford compared by Rogers with E. A. Poe^Ford Abbey — Jeremy Bentham and the Mills — Life at Ford Abbey — Jean Nicolas Grou, the French divine, at Lulworth — Bryanston and the Portmans —

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Hambledon House and the Pitt ladies — ^The Grange — Lord and Lady Ashburton and their guests — Carlyle — His snub to John Forster — Mrs. Carlyle — Highclere — ^The cedars — Highclere owners, the Pembroke and Carnarvon Herberts — ^The fourth Earl of Carnarvon — Political parties at Highclere — ^Boerguests — Hurstboume — Count Munster — Lord and Lady Granville — Memorials of Isaac Newton J. C. Jeaflfreson — ^Tedworth — ^Thomas Assheton Smith, the celebrated sportsman — At Eton — ^As a Parliamentary candidate-^His fight with the coal-heaver — Smith as a Hampshire squire — His opinion of Canning — Hursley — Sir William Heathcote and Keble — F. Rogers (Lord Blachford) — Hursley to-day — Strathfieldsaye — ^Anecdotes of the great Duke of Wellington — The second Duke — The Rev. G. R. Gleig—" Copenhagen's " grave— The Duke of MaJakhoflPs shooting performance — Henry Irving and other guests at Strathfieldsaye.

Chapter XIV From The Hampshire Avon To The Thames . . . 384

Heron Court — ^The second and third Earls Malmesbury — Heron Court anecdotes — The duel between O'Connell and Alvanley — The American lady in Italy — Heron Court guests — Sir Henry Drummond Wolff at Boscombe Tower — Henry Reeve's Foxholes — ^The Longmans at Famborough HUl — Sclater-Booth (Lord Basing) and Disraeli — Famborough HUl as the home of the Empress Eugenie — Her household — Hazeley, the home of Mrs. Singleton (Lady Currie) — Lady Strangford, her only rival in conversational qualities — Matthew Arnold as the guest of Lord and Lady GrevUle — ^John Evelyn's house at Wotton Mr. F. Leveson-Gower's Epsom parties at Holmbury — " Mr. Simpson " at the Rookery — Mrs. George Grote and her eccentricities — Henry Reeve and Mrs. Grote — Mrs. Craven — Her admiration for General Gordon — Her imitations of public men — Her comment on Palmerston — " Conversation " Sharpe at Fridley Farm — ^The Fridley portraits — Sir James Mackintosh — Marden Park — ^WUliam Wilberforce and the French emigre — "The Gallic temj)erament " — Maiden's associations of Pitt — Robert Lowe — Nelson's farewell at Merton — Henry Hope's home, the Deepdene— Hope's influence on Disraeli's novels — "Young Englandism " — ^The Duke of York's guests at Oatlands

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Park — Francis Jeffirey — Lord Yarmouth — The Duchess of York and Lady Culling — Thomas Raikes and the Duchess's pets — Madame de Stael — Chiswick House — The Boyles — Sir Humphry Davy — Cliveden — The meeting of Prince George and Lord Bute — Cliveden's various owners — Other riverside houses — Edmund Yates's parties at Marlow — Lichfield House — Mr. and Mrs. John Maxwell (Miss Braddon) and their Uterary guests.

Chapter XV

Lord Petersham — Osterley Park — Lady Jersey's parties — Lady Melbourne — Lord Byron — The future Emperor Napoleon III., aged twenty-one — Lady Jersey's troubles — Modem Osterley — Sion House — Edward Irving — Henry Drummond — The conferences at Albury — "Honeymoon Hall" — Lord North and Colonel Barre at Bushey Park — Charles James Fox at St. Anne's Hill — Fox and Rogers in Paris — Mrs. Fox in the cupboard — Fox at Holland House — Gibbon's and Lavater's impressions of Fox — Earl (Lord John) Russell at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond — Owen, Dickens, and Forster — Reminiscences of Napoleon III. and Carlyle — John Bright as the guest of Sir Coutts Lindsay at Shepperton — Strawberry Hill — Lady Carlingford and her husbands — Mr. Henry Labouchere's parties at Pope's Villa— Sir M. E. Grant-Duff at York House — Lord Reay — ^The Oxford Movement — E. B. Pusey — Pusey House — Nuneham — Mrs. Montagu's Sandilands — The Country House era of Oxford — ^The academic parties of Jowett, Pattison, and Wynter — ^Jowett anecdotes — Lord Granville's account of Bishop Wilberforce's death — Mr. Ralli's parties at Cranleigh — Lord Kitchener — Lord Rendel's Hatchlands — Sarsden Rectory — Anecdotes of Bishop Wilberforce — Lord Rosebery's guests at the Durdans — Frank Lawley — Mr. Angerstein — ^The Marquis of Hastings.

Chapter XVI

Mr. A. Brassey's Heythrop — " History Hut " — Mrs. Duncan Stewart's stories — Kingston, Lisle, and Beckett — Squire Aitkins — Old Lady Stanley — Broughton Castle — Fawsley — John Pym — Canon Jelf and the King of

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Hanover — Lord Saye-and-Sele and Augustus Hare — Lady Granville's story apropos of the Battle of the Nile — Daylesford, Warren Hastings' home — Hastings and the Countess Inhoff — Lady Ducie's reminiscences — Hatfield tragedy and pastime — Under the third Marquis and Marchioness — Famous guests — Count Herbert Bismarck — King Edward VII. as Prince of Wales — Lady Salisbury and her journalistic guest — Wrest : its various owners — Henry Greville and croquet — Alfred Montgomery on " A moral Cremorne " — The dandies — Lady Cowper's stories of Mr. and Mrs. " Poodle " Byng— Brocket— The Lamb family — Lord and Lady Melbourne (Lady Caroline Ponsonby) — Brocket, Byron, and Lady Melbourne — Lord Palmerston — Knebworth — Anecdotes of Bulwer Lytton — Houghton and Woburn — Samuel Whitbread at South Hill — Baron Ferdinand Rothschild's Waddesdon — Its trees and visitors — Other Rothschild palaces — Mentmore and Halden — Disraeli as a Buckinghamshire squire — His Hughenden guests. Sir William Harcourt, I_ord Glenesk, and Thomas Hamber — Primroses and peacocks — Disraeli's reminiscences of the Duke of Buckingham at Stowe, 1848 — Disraeli's obligations to the Midland Dukeries — Rayners — Belvoir Castle — The Earl of Shrewsbury's Alton Towers — " You call them savages ! "

Chapter XVII

Westwood Park — Sir John Pakington, afterwards Lord Hampton — C. N.Newdegate — Sir Stafford Northcote — Expressions that originated at Westwood — The Anglican Deputation to Disraeli — Kinsham Court — Byron and his guests — The Countess Guiccioli's visit to England — The Duke of Beaufort's Troy House — Sir Richard Hill at Hawkstone — Lord Dartmouth, " the psalm-singer " — Rowland Hill, the evangelist^Edmund Burke's Butler's Hall — An asylum for religious refugees — Famous visitors — Sir Joshua Reynolds and the "infant Hercules" — Lord Nugent (" Squire Gawkey ") at Gosfield — Lord (Squire) Western ofRivenhall — His hatred of Canning — Twentieth-century Essex hosts and guests — Mr. Chamberlain's Highbury— Alnwick and Raby as social patterns for Gunnersbury, Tring, Highbury, and West Dean.

INDEX 487

Chapter I

Introduction — The arrangement of the book in its chronological and geographical relations explained — The country house unknown till Chaucer's day — Why — The franklin — Baronial despotism — How the country house grew.

"It snowed in his house of meat and drink, Of all the dainties whereon one could think."

CHAUCER'S portrait of the fourteenth century franklin is a sketch from life of the mediaeval country gentleman who was the first representative and lineal progenitor of the hosts that are to figure prominently in the following pages. The rural home of the English gentleman appears as a centre of social or political life and interest during the period covered by the " Canterbury Tales." I shall briefly sketch the conditions under which the country-house system became possible. I shall next pass to the most typical and interesting instances of its complete organisation in Tudor times, showing how it then discharged many of the functions fulfilled to-day by the newspaper, by the circulating library, or by more exclusive methods of information ; how, at the same time, it began to occupy a recognised place in the organisation of party politics; and how, from the seventeenth century to the present hour, in all the great movements of English life, the opportunities of the country house have proved the necessary and the eventful supplements to the agencies of parliament and platform. The same houses have supplied the scene for events equally interesting, but belonging to widely separated periods. To each house one visit must suffice. The unities of time must therefore be sacrificed to the unities of place. Geography will supply the only practicable principle of grouping. The series of country-house visits that the reader is now invited to pay will conveniently commence with the south-east corner of England. The route will then proceed through the southern and western counties. The line taken through the Midlands will bring us fairly into East Anglia. Thence progress will be made in a northern direction. At all points there will be the opportunity of illustrating differences between the new and the old rigime in country-house life.

Nor will the connection of the country house with other national interests and occupations, often of a mutually opposite character, be ignored. Anglicanism, evangelicalism, the social and spiritual awakening which resulted in the reform of the prison, of the poor-law system, and in the abolition of the slave trade, are as rich in country-house associations as the chase, the turf, the stage.

Before attempting to work up into a consistent picture the available details of country-house society

i8

The Shipman in Society

during the franklin period, it may be as well to summarise the obvious reasons why the country house could only have begun to exist between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The fusion of Norman and Anglo-Saxon gentry had not, at an earlier date, come within measurable distance of completeness. The very idea of middle-class traders being socially incorporated into the aristocratic or squirearchical order would have been unintelligible. The condition of England was, as will presently be seen, one, not merely of social disorganisation, but of chronic and dangerous disturbance. Agricultural depression, long lasting and intensified by a continuance of bad seasons, had rendered quite impossible anything like regular hospitalities on the part of landlords, small or great. In Chaucer's day, prosperity in foreign commerce had given timely relief to hosts of all degrees. In every part of the country were well-kept houses, belonging to representative owners, of the commercial class, but of aristocratic associations and prejudices. Chaucer's Shipman in the " Canterbury Tales" may have hailed from Dartmouth. That western seaport, in the opulence of its suburban residents, as well as in its collective contributions to the State navy at times of national peril, was characteristic of the nation and the times. It was the age in which a London Lord Mayor, John Philipot, by successful ventures like those of Chaucer's " Shipman," had amassed a fortune; he had manned a squadron, ready, as occasion might arise, for incorporation into the royal navy. Nor was this the only way in which, like other great citizens, he served the State. His business skill brought him into requisition with the Court for arranging the subsidies in the French wars. His influence must at least have been as great on land as on sea. The "Shipman" of the "Canterbury Tales," possibly something of a pirate as well as a trader, seems to have come from the banks of the Devonshire Dart. John Philipot, to his estate near Dartford in his native county of Kent, added houses and lands in other parts of the country. He was, in fact, one of those large and hospitable proprietors whose clientele included a number of vavasors or smaller owners who saw their natural patrons in their many-acred and wealthier neighbours. To Philipot and others in his position belonged the house where —

"His table dormant in the hall alway. Stood ready covered all the longe day."

These rural homes of mediaeval England were much more than mere centres of hospitality. The trade routes to the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Levant, and to remoter parts were also those followed by the chivalry, the diplomacy, and the literature of England in their communication with the world beyond seas. Among the guests of the Chaucerian Franklin or of the historic Philipot, were business men who had seen the practical working of the commercial policy pursued by, Edward HI.; its alleged injuries to native manufactures and trade ; the increasing severity of Flemish and German competition with British fishermen and weavers ; above all, the dangerously growing monopoly by

Fashion-Books as They Were

foreign companies of the world's banking business. Such were the conversational topics discussed by experts at these mediseval week-end parties. In the way already described, Philipot and others of his class had given practical proofs of their patriotism. Their social comments on the imperial policy of the Court in its relation with national industry and trade often reached the ears of the king and his ministers. In this way, therefore, something of the work allotted to chambers of commerce to-day was performed by the hospitalities of provincial mansions in the Middle Ages. The entertainments given at the castles of the great aristocracy, a Percy or a Nevill, were for princes and nobles. Of such places nothing was known by common folk except the largess of food to all comers. Such was the English version of the sportula of imperial Rome. Colossal structures like those of Alnwick and Raby were not in those early days popularly associated with good cheer any more than they were with the promotion of national interests in Church or State, in council chamber or mart. With the true founders of the English country house, the franklins or squires, there was talk as well as food to suit all tastes. The men had their politics. The ladies learned what were the latest novelties and vagaries in dress. Comparing notes of impressions among themselves, they soon reproduced the originals which they knew from travellers' tales, in such a way as to set the fashion for a village, a neighbourhood, a town, or an entire county.

Other personages of the famous Prologue mingled with the franklin and his guests. The whole of social England at that time, it must be remembered, was suggestive rather of a family party than of a complex, diversified, and heterogeneous nationality. The four great pestilences between 1348 and 1376 had, on the accession of Richard II., reduced the whole population of the realm to two millions and a half. Classes in the community were separated from each other by none of the modern gulfs. All persons of liberal calling or education were at least mutually as well known among themselves as the average members of a modern club. The Churchmen, the man of law, and the physician who met at the Southwark Tabard, before starting for Thomas a Beckett's shrine, found themselves habitually guests beneath the same coimtry roof. The doctor seems to have been more in consideration as the franklin's guest than among his brother pilgrims on the Old Kent Road. An unwritten law, if not a formal statute, limited the ecclesiastic's visit to three days, lest he should be tempted to stay away too long from his spiritual cure. The professor of the heeding art Wcis exempt from any such restriction, and, if he did not outwear his welcome, was apt to presimie on the elasticity of its limits. Still, his purple overcoat and professional hood of blue with white fur were undoubtedly in social demand, during this insanitary period. The greater the distance from a large town, the more desirous were the rural hosts of securing the presence of the faculty at their week-end parties. What the physician was in Chaucer's day he practically remained to the end of the Middle Ages. Most departments of human knowledge have

Homoeopathy Anticipated

been doomed to go through a preliminary state, in which the true science has been so obscured by vagueness of doctrine, or so stretched beyond its limits by pretenders, as to excite against it the prejudice of the world. Astronomy began in astrology. Chemistry was the child of alchemy. Geology had once been cosmogony. History grew out of a mere confusion of legends, genealogies, and superstitions. Medicine had been witchcraft ; its professors, throughout the whole of the franklin's epoch, retained many signs of its unscientific origin. That fact, however, made the doctor of the day more, rather than less, acceptable as a guest. The ladies of the families he visited were interested, as well as impressed, by his conversational knowledge of professional mysteries.

Receiving with pious gratitude the remedial drugs produced from the recesses of his ample cloak, they listened with reverent credulity to the array of authorities which his memory or his invention enabled him to quote in support of any medicine that his ingenuity prescribed. He began his dinner with citations from Galen, Hippocrates, at a classical house from the Podalirius and Machaon of the Iliad, or, at a religious house, from the beloved physician, St. Luke. By the time the table was being cleared and, for the better repose of the company, servants were bringing fresh rushes into the hall, the prophet of the healing art was treating his hearers to a little anticipation of Hahnemann's leading doctrines and, with instances well known to his hearers, was illustrating the homoeopathic cure for inflammation by a course of gazing at red draperies.