Slymbridge, Gloucestershire. Ir was not my original intention to have travelled so far from home, but being on a visit with an old friend in the neighbourhood, I thought I would walk across and see the old and, as I had heard, beautiful Church of Slymbridge. While on my road I heard the cry of hounds, and very soon in front of me passed a hare, and about four couple of awkward young dogs. It surely cannot be my lord, thought I, who has chosen the Sabbath for a hare-hunt nor indeed was it; the dogs were hunting on their own account, and for their own amusement, as I subsequently learned. They were not interns of his lordship's kennel, but young dogs "out at nurse,' as I think the term is, his lordship compelling every renter of £50 to keep one of those awkward overgrown puppies for the space of a year, until they are qualified for the pack; thus there are few of the tenants, who might not claim the honor of being fosterfather to a foxhound. These creatures have the most extraordinary habits though scattered amongst the farmhouses through the country, they will to the number of six, eight, or ten, meet as it were by concert at some central spot, and, as I said before, commence hunting on their own account, killing hares for themselves, the biggest bully always having the best bit: with the shades of evening they "homeward plod their weary way," "leaving the world to darkness and" the hares, not, however, it is thought by the naturalists round about, without a perfect intelligence to meet again in the morning, when, having had their breakfast (and each is said to eat as much as a pig), these looseliving creatures go out according to appointment for another day's dissipation. It was with no slight relief of mind I saw his lordship was not answerable for this Sunday's sport, and I should have felt comfortable under the conviction that he was saying his prayers in the great pew amidst the ashes of his ancestors, if it were not my misfortune to pass the pool of Slymbridge, when I witnessed that, which had I expected it, I should have gone round sooner than have seen. What think you of one of "The Peers of England's realm, High Lords of State," engaged on a Sabbath day in duck hunting on his own estates, and amongst his own tenants. My lord! my lord! are there not six days when you might decoy ducks to your heart's content, and not set such a pattern to those who look up to you as their exemplar as well as their protector? If you choose to run the risk of the spiritual responsibility of such an act yourself, it is your own business, and if done out of the public sight, I should have nothing to say to it or you. But there are some deeds the mischief of which are not confined to the doer; and what, think you, are likely to be the moral obligations and Sabbath impressions of your tenantry, when they see one powerful by possessions, ennobled by birth, inheriting the accumulated honors of a lofty and long line of ancestors, offending in this open manner, not merely against the solemn code of the decalogue, but the received impressions of society ? should we be surprised if they too deserted their parish church, and turned Sabbath duck-hunters, when "The noblest of the land leads them on ?" Mind, my lord, I ask for no proof of active religion from you; I do not say you ought to go to church " twice on a Sunday, and ring the Castle bell before retiring to rest on the Sabbath night, and call the servants into the baronial hall, and take down the iron clasped family Bible (for Berkeley Castle, after all men say, is not, I am sure, without such an heir-loom, though thrust away somewhere amongst old helmets and hauberks) and have your chaplain read prayers for them there-though such things have been ere now, and that amidst ancestral halls and towers as time-honoured as your own. But there are certain outward observances of order which belong to the list of "duties," which society expects from property in return for the rights it possesses; and one is, a decent example from the great to those dependant upon them. My lord, you have been, as the Irish demagogue says, 66 one of the best abused men in England; and I have no wish to add anything to the amount of invective already launched against you. I speak more in sorrow than in anger when I say, I believe you capable of better things did you not strive against them; and if your haughty spirit would but bow to it, I am convinced that before your hairs, now grey, become thinner, you might do much to leave a truly noble name behind you. All your affected indifference cannot conceal your high mental faculties either from yourself or the world; and I believe no man with your intelligence can be ignorant of the duties he owes to society, to say nothing of heaven and Sabbath duck-hunting in open day, you know just as well as I do, is not an example which a nobleman ought to set his simple tenantry. Not all the excitement of physical enjoyment can keep conscience always at bay; and when the chase is over, and the gloom of evening is gathering around the grey towers of the castle and the ancestral oaks in the park, I think "whispered thoughts" must sometimes creep out from the old banners and armour around the hall, to say "The pride of heraldry, the pomp of power, * * * Await alike the inevitable hour." and that large capacities and wide possessions were not given us to be employed, as if by the brute that perisheth. I am no more a lover of cant than your lordship is said to be, and I know that courtly manners and the bland exterior often smooth over a hollow heart and heartless life, in a sycophantic world's esteem: yet whatever foulness and rottenness there may be within, the whitening of the sepulchre, though it will not deceive the eye that sees through all, is at least an act of deference to the received usages and outward proprieties of society: and there is a description of merit which belongs to polished hypocrisy, you may depend upon it, however in the indignant misanthropy of your nature you may despise it. Sydney Smith told the Pensylvanians "men did not live for gin-sling and sherry-cobbler alone;" to take a liberty with the phrase, it is not for duck-hunting or fox-hunting (however unobjectionable both may be during six days of the week) that a noble of the land alone ought to live; the patriarchial position of a powerful landlord imposes other duties upon him, for which he will be held accountable if not in this world, at least in that upon which he will enter, when "Having drunk and dined The family vault receives another lord." The tall and exquisitely symmetrical spire of Slymbridge, cutting the sky, and "like silent finger" pointing to Heaven, is a beautiful object to the eye. It is one of those sights that, when seen for the first time and from a distance, towering above the old yew trees which vainly attempt to reach it, elicit the lines— "These wonders of his grace, How beautiful they stand! The bulwarks of our land." There were some peasants standing by the south porch. I asked who the parson was. They said a Mr. Goldspur or Goldsburgh, I think: but that he had another living (oh! these "other livings!") in Somersetshire, where he resided: there were, however, two curates, which they seemed to think a very good substitute for one rector. "And here they be," exclaimed my informant, pointing towards a square house adjoining the churchyard, and very like a tea-cannister, though it turned out to be the parsonage, and from which two clergymen were approaching in their gowns and bands. The loiterers bowed to them as they came up, and I, lifting my hat, made a low obeisance, as I always do to those wearing the livery of the church. As soon as the clergy entered, I led the way for the churchyard loungers, and found myself in one of the finest country churches I have been in for some time. I took up my place in one of the stalls of the chancel, where there were some other persons sitting, and from which I had an opportunity of seeing a very primitive congregation and not a very large one. Both curates occupied the reading-desk, dividing the duty, and in the service there was the utmost solemnity and simplicity combined. The singing, however, consisted of a solo from the clerk, to which the congregation listened with breathless attention. I tried to join him, but being at such a distance our voices did not blend, and I gave it up; and indeed he did not seem to want any assistance, for he warbled away as happy and independent as a bird. I afterwards learned from two interesting little girls, daughters of the village tailor, who sat near me, that a violoncello was in contemplation; and I think there was something said about a flute, but on this point I am not quite clear. The elder of the curates, also a Minor Canon of Bristol (the Rev. E. Carter my little neighbours told me his name was), preached, and pleased me so much that I mentally vowed he should have the next living of which I became patron. There was matter in the sermon made plain to the homely comprehensions around him, such as they might carry with them to their hearths, and recollect over again as they sat round their wood fires in their cottages. The building bore internal and external signs of extensive |