Memorials of a quiet life. Supplementary volume

Preface

T ONG ago, in the first months of her widowhood, these Memorials were begun by my dearest mother, as a Memoir of her husband, and of their common life at Alton. Many old friends of the family then gladly lent their assistance, and came forward with letters and journals which they offered for her use. But in her weak health she was unable to bear the strain of a work so full of conflicting excitements of pleasure and pain, and, after a long effort, she was reluctantly compelled to lay it aside.

Many years after, when, upon the death of her sister-inlaw, Mrs. Julius Hare, the last link was broken with another portion of her sacred past, and when the remembrance of all that Hurstmonceaux Rectory had been, seemed likely to perish with the loving circle of those who had shared its joys and sorrows, my mother again took up the pen she had so long laid aside, and wished to continue her work as a Memorial of the Two Brothers, Augustus and Julius Hare, who were the authors of the " Guesses at Truth." But age

VI PREFACE.

and infirmity were already pressing upon her, and she soon became unable to do more than arrange the materials in her hands, and add notes for my guidance as to the form and manner in which she wished them to be applied.

In the last two years of her life she yielded to my earnest wish, that — in carrying on her work if I survived her — I might make her who had been the sunshine of my own life the central figure in the picture. And she then consented to employ the short interval through which she was still spared to bless us, in writing down or dictating many fragments concerning those with whom her earlier life was passed, and who had long since joined the unseen " cloud of witnesses."

My mother had always tried to make the simple experience of her own quiet life as useful to others as it might be, and many who came to visit her had found in her gentle counsel that help and comfort which many books and much learning had failed to inspire. Her own heart was always so filled with thankfulness for the many mercies and blessings of her long life, so grateful to the Power which had upheld, guided, and comforted her, that she was ever filled with an earnest yearning to lead others to establish themselves on the same Rock; and whenever she felt that the story of God's dealings in her own life could lead others to a simpler faith and more entire trust in Him, she never allowed any self-seeking reticence to interfere with this instrumentality. " If I might only be a bridge upon which

PREFACE. Vll any Christian might pass over the chasm of doubt and become altogether believing," was her constant feeling, and " Oh, that my past life, which has been so wonderfully blest by God, might be made useful for His service and lead others to more entire trust in Him." And in this feeling, when she was passing away from me, she permitted me, if I thought it could be made useful for others, to uplift the veil of her home life, and allow others to look in upon her private thoughts and meditations, diid so endeavour to make them in some degree sharers in the blessing her dear life has been to me.

My mother's existence was so bound up with that of the immediate circle of her beloved ones, especially with that of her husband, her sister, her brother-in-law Julius, and her two sisters-in-law, Lucy and Esther Hare, that the story of her life becomes of necessity that of their lives also, and this I have tried to tell in no words of my own, but in such selections from their common letters and journals as may give the truest picture of what they were.

It has been rightly observed that no real interest can be derived from a memoir which tells less than "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ;" and thus — while in collecting the fragments which remain from the lives of my loved and lost ones, I am chiefly urged by the desire of making others feel the influence of the sunshine of love which has lighted up my past life — I have striven to make my story no mere eulogy of those of whom I have written,

VI 11 PREFACE.

but to give such traits of their living, acting reality as shall present a true portrait to the reader's mind.

" They are all gone into the world of light !

And I alone sit lingering here ; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear.

" I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days ; My days which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmerings and decays.

" O holy hope, and high humility,

High as the heavens above !

These are your walks, and you have show'd them me To kindle my cold love."

HOLMHURST. August, 1872.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PAGB

I. CHILDHOOD • ..... I

II. STOKE, ALDERLEY, AND HODNET 1 8

III. THE HARES OF HURSTMONCEAUX . , . . .66

IV. AUGUSTUS AND JULIUS HARE 159

V. CHANGES • • • 2O7

VI. WEST WOODHAY 245

VII. HOME PORTRAITURE 284

VIII. TAKING ROOT AT ALTON . . . . . . . 315

X. WILTSHIRE RIOTS AND VILLAGE DUTIES . . • 352

XI. SUNSHINE 383

XII. THE SHADOW OE THE CLOUD 445

I. Childhood

" I begin

My story early — not misled, I trust, By an infirmity of love for days Disowned by memory — ere the breath of spring, Planting my snowdrops among winter snows."

WORDSWORTH, The Prelude.

A BOUT a mile from the small town of Knutsford in Cheshire, an avenue of elm-trees leads to the pleasant old-fashioned house of Toft. No family but one have ever lived in that house. The family of De Toft claimed direct descent from Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, grandmother of William the Conqueror, and the first De Toft who settled in England came over to this country with his royal cousin. In 1300, the property passed into the hands of the Leycesters, when its heiress, in the reign of Richard II., married Rafe Leycester, of Tabley, a younger brother of the family who then, as now, occupied the adjoining estate. Until late years the alliances of Cheshire gentry were almost always sought within the limits of " the good old county," and thus, in the time of Charles II., the owner of Toft again married into the family of his neighbour at Tabley, in the person of Eleanor, daughter of Sir Peter

VOL. I. B

MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE.

Leycester, the historian, from whom therefore the families of Tabley and Toft are equally descended.

The " Hall " of Toft was built about 1600, on the site of an earlier manor-house, for the chapel of which the Pope had granted an indulgence in 1412. It consists of a central tower with a long, low wing on either side, once of red brick, but long since covered with stucco ; and it looks, on one side across the richly wooded Cheshire plain to the rock which is crowned by Beeston Castle, and on the other upon a low-lying park, studded with fine trees, and upon a large pool into which the family threw their wine at the time of the rising of the Stuarts/' and whence it was fished up, not much improved, a hundred years after.

Rafe Leycester of Toft, whose widow was still living in the old family house at the time this story opens, had been the father of thirteen children of very different ages ; several of these had died in childhood, others were dispersed by marriage or other causes; but the youngest, Oswald, at that time Vicar of Knutsford, was established at Toft with his mother and his eldest brother George, who was unmarried ; and then, and long after, Toft was the centre and rallying-point of the whole family, and beloved and looked upon as one of the dearest arid pleasantest of homes to the circle of relations and friends to whom it was ever open. Its very name as well as look cheered the heart and spoke of love and unity. An aged member of the family used to say that she always thought of this family home in reading that verse in Acts iv., " Neither said any of them that

* The family plate and the maids' hoops were at the same time buried under the manners.

CHILDHOOD.

aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common." It was such a spirit as this which was long manifested in the domestic circle at Toft — what was for the good and enjoyment of one, was also for the others ; for all, ineum and tuum was tuum and meum also.

Oswald Leycester had married Miss Mary Johnson, of Timperley; and at Toft, in the family home of many generations, his four children were born : Catherine, April 15, 1791 ; Edward, Sept. 16, 1794; Charles, March 10, 1796; and Maria, Nov. 22, 1798.

Among the notes which my mother has left concerning her childhood are the following : —

ik When I (Maria Leycester) was born, my grandmother Leycester was still living, and the earliest record of my existence was a quaint Cheshire saying of hers on first seeing the new-born babe — ' Well, she is hearty fow (very ugly), to be sure.' She died in the following February, at the age of ninety.

" My uncle George, with whom we lived, loved to play with me, and used to put me on the chimney-piece, and then laughed at my terror. When my nurse Sail/ was ordered to take me away, because I cried at the sight of visitors, he would say, ' Let them see her cry, for they have seen her laugh often enough ;' and his question of ' why are your eyes so dirty, Maria ? ' was one which I fully believed to be founded on fact, and not on the brown colour of my eyes.

"The earliest recollections of my childhood centre around my mother and my nurse Sally. l The days of ray years are now threescore and ten,' but I remember them both perfectly. I have been told that in her earlier days my mother was very pretty, with a very delicate colour in

MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE.

her cheeks. My recollection of her is as ve.y pale, with light blue eyes, rather a long upper lip, and brown curls in * a front ' — as her own hair was shorn close, and she wore a turban of white muslin, and a clear white muslin handkerchief in folds under her gown. She taught me in all my lessons except French, but her weak health and bad headaches often prevented her hearing me, and many a time I had to stand outside her door waiting till I could be heard, which fretted me a good deal. When the lessons went ill, I was sentenced to sit on the staircase till I was good, and the task perfect. I imagine that though my mother was most gentle, she was firm in her management of me. In after years, her successor, Mrs. Oswald Leycester, used to say that when she had suggested my doing something because it would be pleasant, my mother appealed to me, ' I think my little girl has a better motive for it ; what is it, Mia ? ' and, ' Because it is right] was my reply.

" My nurse was as passionately fond of me as I was of her. Many years after, when she had married, and had a little boy of her own, she said, ' Oh, Miss Maria, I think I am beginning to love him almost as much as I did you.' She had been very well trained, for she had lived as a girl with my aunt J. at Wilmslow, who was so strict with her servants that she kept a pincushion on which she stuck a pin for every fault they committed, as a reminder. With this, my loving nurse, how well I remember the delight of our walks, on spring evenings, into the Toft fields, to see the young lambs and to pick spring flowers. We had also our gardens in the wood, and my brother Edward had a project of digging through the earth to the other side of the world, which gave us unfailing occupation. He and Charles went 10 school at Warrington before they went to Eton and Rugby. Their holidays were a joyful time to me, and Edward used to amuse me by taking me on his knee and

CHILDHOOD.

telling me stories of Sinbad and Ali Baba. The family habit was to dine at three, and to have a hot supper at nine ; and on a Sunday evening, when my brothers were at home, we were allowed to sit up to this supper, having first been made to repeat the Church Catechism. When Edward repeated the explanation he had learnt at school, and ended that of the Lord's Prayer by calling its close the ' Doxology/ we looked upon him as a model of wisdom and knowledge. On these Sunday evenings also, when my sister Kitty was at home, she played a sonata of Haydn or Mozart for uncle George's amusement. This she did with great spirit and execution, and she taught me, though I shed many tears over her lessons.

" My stock of childish literature was limited to a very few books. * Juvenile Travellers,' 'The Robins' (b; Mrs. Trimmer), * Evenings at Home,' * Perambulations cA a Mouse,' * Dick the Little Pony,' ' Jemima Placid,' and Mrs. Trimmer's Old and New Testament abridgments, with her Roman and Grecian histories, were our whole library, till, by the recommendation of some one, my mother procured me ' Goldsmith's Geography/ ' Scripture Biography,' ' Sacred Dialogues,' and the ' Parent's Assistant/ which last I esteemed a perfect treasure, and read and re-read.

" My great delight was to go to Alderley Park and play with the ' Miss Stanleys ' ; and it was a joy when, standing by the breakfast-table, I heard it settled that the carriage was to be ordered to go to Alderley, and that I was to be of the party. In these visits to Alderley, one great source of pleasure was in the children's books which were lent me, of which ' Tales of the Genii/ and such like, were the most attractive. When my little friends returned my visits, we had tea under the trees opposite the book-room, and hideand-seek followed.

" Another happiness of my childhood was derived from

MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE.

the visits of the Ralph Leycesters, who came to Toft every alternate year. Charlotte Leycester and I were inseparable, and for the day before they went away our grief was uncontrollable. I remember vividly the misery of the dreary winter's morning, when little Charlotte came in before daylight to give me a last kiss and say good-bye, before another two years' separation, — and the sad day that followed. We slept in the same room, and many talks we had after we had lain down, ending sometimes with the request, ' When you are asleep, tell me.'

" I had another young companion in the orphan child of my mother's sister, Mrs. Bower, who, on the death of her father, came to live with my mother ; but she was less congenial to me, and I was not sorry when she was sent to live under Mrs. Butler's care, by the seaside, where she died before she was grown up.

" One of my father's sisters having married a brother of Lord Stamford, a great intimacy was carried on between the two families, so that we were very intimate with Lord Stamford's daughters — the Ladies Charlotte, Maria, and Jane Grey, of whom the two elder were about my age. One of our amusements was to change our designations. The Ladies Grey thought it as charming to be called * Miss,' as we did to be styled ' Lady,' and we thus always transferred our titles in our plays.

" The dress of those days was very different to that which children have now. My white frocks were of lawn or Irish cloth, without any work or ornament ; and, when I went out, I used to wear a little green-baize coat. My food also was of the simplest kind, consisting principally of buttermilk and potatoes.

" The church at Knutsford which we attended, and of which my father was vicar, was very large and very ugly. The most striking remembrance that I retain of that church

CHILDHOOD.

is of the Sunday after the news of Nelson's death, when every one appeared in the appointed mourning, with scarlet and black ribbons.

"Great events in the annals of our Toft life were the periodical visits of my father's cousin, Lady Penrhyn, who was prepared for as if she had been the queen ; and she arrived with six horses, and always drove to church with this state. Having no children herself, she had no love for them, and in her visits we were always kept out of the way ; but I amused myself by imitating her pomposity, and strutting about saying, ' Now I am milady Penrhyn.'

"When my sister returned from school, in 1806, she began to educate herself, and a little dressing-room out of our bedroom was furnished with a bookcase and bureau, where she read and wrote ; and, in imitation of her, I also set up a little table with my books and writing things, where I prepared my lessons, which she taught me from that time.

"In 1809 my sister accompanied Mrs. Stanley (afterwards Lady Maria) to London, and I was then sent to a small school kept by Mrs. Butler, a widow lady, who had been governess to the Alderley children. She lived at Leighton Cottage, a pretty picturesque house, near Parkgate, and situated in a lane leading up from the sea-beach to some fields and a barn, which was the scene of our plays. Along the side of this lane flowed a clear brook, and there I first learnt my love of wild flowers, — cranesbill, speedwell, and forget-me-nots. Two of the Stanleys were my companions here, and many other girls. We were all devoted to Mrs. Butler, who wished us all to be like her own children, and we thought it the highest privilege when our turn came for a walk with her, or to have a private talk in her room.

"In 1806 my father's old college friend, Sir Corbet Corbet, had presented him to the living of^toke-upon-Terne, but we only passed the summer months there for the first two years, when my uncle George always accompanied us. This dear uncle of my childhood used to say that he did not see why we should pray against ' sudden death,' he thought it so desirable to avoid a long illness, and in 1809 he was found dead in his bed at Cheltenham, whither he had gone for his health. Upon this, my father resigned the living of Knutsford, and we went to live altogether at Stoke, and my uncle Ralph Leycester, with his children and grandchildren, came to reside at Toft.

"On the 8th of May, 1810, my sister was married in Stoke Church to Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley. Upon her marriage I left Leighton Cottage, and until my mother's death I remained at home. My father gave me lessons in — it must be confessed — bad French and Italian, but it was my sister who still directed my studies by letter, constantly sending me questions on the books which I read, and expecting me to write her the answers. In this way I in a certain sense conducted my own education, and much did I enjoy these studies. Sometimes they were carried on in a little bathing-house on an island in the river Terne, which had been given to me as a possession to plant as I liked with primroses, violets, and snowdrops, and which was a great delight.

" Edward Stanley was to me the kindest of brothers, and great was the amusement he gave by the playful verses he wrote to please me, especially those on the death of one of my black bantams. These bantams were given to me by Lady Corbet, and were fed after breakfast from the dining-room windows: it was the time when Bonaparte's name was held up in terror *to every one, so that when two of the cocks fought the hens, they were named Bonaparte and the King of Rome.

" A rival with Edward Stanley in my affections, as well as in his fun and humour, was my dear uncle, Hugh

CHILDHOOD.

Leycester. He was, both with his brothers and nieces, the great favourite 'of the family — his knowledge and kindness, his generosity and affection, his wit and anecdotes, alike conducing to render him beloved. The only fault which people could find in him was his violent political zeal and Tory partisanship, which made him intolerant of any opposition on these subjects. He had been an intimate personal friend both of Pitt and Perceval, and the sudden death of the latter was a great grief to him. In the later years of his life he was quite deaf, and we could only communicate with him by writing on a slate ; but he continued his lively interest in us all, and after they were too infirm to meet, he kept up a witty daily correspondence with his old friend, Mr. Jekyll, who was his next neighbour in New Street, Spring Gardens.

" Another constant visitor at Stoke was our dear cousin, Eliza White, who often passed many months with us at a time, and who always made herself most pleasant to us all. Often did I sit on a little stool at her feet, pouring out all my childish joys and sorrows, and receiving her counsel.

"As I had no companion, I always accompanied my parents in their visits. Those to Sir Corbet Corbet, at Adderley, were always a great pleasure. Lady Corbet was most amusing. Every morning after breakfast she put on a gardening dress, and with a bunch of keys, knife, &c., at her side, sallied forth to make the round of her stable yard, poultry yard, pigstyes, and gardens, and I thought it a great treat to go with her. Then in the evening she would read to us out of her Italian journals, and my first longings to see Rome came from this source. The house was filled with pictures by old masters, and over the drawing-room chimneypiece was a very beautiful bas-relief of the Nine Muses. The only drawback to the pleasure of Adderley lay in the early dinners at three o'clock, and Sir Corbet's impatience of any unpunctuality ; when he was fidgety, Lady Corbet used to call him ' Sir Crab.'

" The autumn of 1811, which was one of several we spent at Penr.hyn Castle, was most delightful, as Edward and I enjoyed it together, riding on Welsh ponies to the different mountains and waterfalls, How enchanting were the morning walks to the bathing-house ; how pleasant the picnic expeditions to Ogwen Bank, with its waterfalls and garden seats shaped like mushrooms ! Then also there were visits to the slate quarries, and the sight of all the different kinds of slate, called 'Duchesses, Countesses,' &c. In the afternoons, after dinner, we used to walk to Pennysinnant, an ornamented farmhouse, to see the poultry yard, on which occasions I gave great offence to Lady Penrhyn, by admiring the sight of the mountains more than her poultry, and she used to complain of it to my mother. She was very formal and stately, and we were greatly afraid of her, and many a hard gallop home did Edward and I have upon our ponies, to be in time for the early dinner, for fear of the scolding which should await us. Lady Penrhyn had three pugs, very ugly, and always dressed in little scarlet bonnets and cloaks. When she was in London, in her house in Grosvenor Square, they used to be taken out thus attired to walk in the square, with a footman to attend them. She left them each an annuity when she died, and they lived an immense time. Once, in Lord Penrhyn's time, when she and Lord P. were driving in their coach and six, through the streets of Northwich, the pugs were looking out of the windows, and the bystanders, mistaking their species, exclaimed, ' Eh ! milord and milady are mighty fine, but their children are hearty fow.'

" On our way to and from Penrhyn Castle, we used to visit the Ladies of Llangollen. They were dressed in men's hats and cloth habits, with powdered hair. Lady Eleanor Butler was short and fat, but Miss Ponsonby was tall and

CHILDHOOD. II thin, and used often to be supposed to be a man in disguise. They had a romantic attachment for each other, and had forsaken their own family to be more entirely together, but though professing to lead a recluse life, few people could see more of the world, and their correspondence was with royalties and nobility of all nations. Their cottage was filled with oggetti of every kind, chiefly presents they had received, and it had coloured glass windows and carved oak furniture. It was they who first told Lady Penrhyn that my handsome brother Edward was like her, and it is said they thus gave her the first idea of making him her heir ; but I believe that which really made her do so was her amusement when her young cousin in riding home had not enough money left to pay a turnpike gate, and was obliged to leave his handkerchief in pawn with the toll-collector.

" In July, 1812, my dear mother had a paralytic stroke. Though the immediate danger was averted, she was unable to do anything, or to speak clearly from that time. Every night I used to read to her, and kneel by her bedside to pray before going to bed. She had gradually been regaining her lost powers, could read a few lines, and had begun to knit some socks for her little grandchild, Owen Stanley, when, on October 12, we were waked in the night by her having another seizure, and on the following afternoon her spirit passed away. It was my first affliction, and a very great one. On the day of her burial, I saw the procession from my bedroom window, and realised the lines which I had long been familiar with in Cowper's Poem on his mother's picture : —

' I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,' &c.

My brothers were my chief comforters, and we all tried to soothe our father's grief.

T2 MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE.

" I do not remember ever hearing the slightest cross or angry word pass my mother's lips. She preferred everybody's opinion before her own, and thought no good office too trivial for her performance. She seemed only able to see the good in others, and was ever willing to make allowance for their faults. To the poor she was most kind and charitable, working for them herself with the greatest diligence, and assisting them in every way. To those who had displeased her she was always forgiving, and she never would show any impatience against them, but would reprove them mildly and gently, and during her illness she was always satisfied and grateful for all that was done for her. My brother Edward wrote -some lines after her death, which I will insert here : —

« If filial love could animate the clay, Or bid the flitting soul resume its sway, Say, could I wish reversed the mournful doom "Which laid my mother in the silent tomb ? No ; while with moistened cheek and downcast eye I heave in selfish grief the bitter sigh, Still let me own that lenient was the blow Which put the period to a mother's woe, Which bid disease and pain for ever cease, And whispered, e'en in death, eternal peace.'"

Her mother's death was perhaps the first event which led Maria Leycester, young as she was, to seek the highest source of comfort, and to endeavour to make her life useful and helpful to others. An old yellow fragment of paper still exists on which she poured forth her soul in prayer in the first burst of sorrow.

" Oct. 14, 1812. — Oh ! most holy and merciful God, now in this time of affliction I call unto thee. Oh ! forsake me not — give me strength and fortitude to bear this great trial with resignation to thy divine will. Oh ! comfort and support my afflicted parent and his motherless children ; make us sensible of the justice and wisdom of all thy decrees ; and in thinking of and admiring her virtues, may we endeavour to imitate them, and become, as we hope and trust she is, partakers of thy everlasting kingdom. Oh ! enable me to be a support and blessing to my dear father, may I make it the business of my life to console and comfort him, and may I never give myself up to my own selfish pleasures, but consider him in all my actions. I am deprived of the dear and excellent mother who has been the guide and protector of my youth. Oh ! may I always act as she would wish me to do if she were present, and may I look for that motherly protection (of which I am bereft here on earth) to my heavenly Father. Direct and guide my steps in the paths of wisdom and virtue, make me sensible of the uncertainty of human life, and grant that I may be prepared for death whenever it shall arrive. ' The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord' — 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Amen."