From London to Land's End, Page 3

marked out was exceeding large, near ten miles in circumference,

  and ended west upon the open Downs, in view of the town of

  Stockbridge.

  This house was afterwards settled, with a royal revenue also, as an

  appanage (established by Parliament) upon Prince George of Denmark

  for his life, in case he had out-lived the queen; but his Royal

  Highness dying before her Majesty, all hope of seeing this design

  perfected, or the house finished, is now vanished.

  I cannot omit that there are several public edifices in this city

  and in the neighbourhood, as the hospitals and the building

  adjoining near the east gate; and towards the north a piece of an

  old monastery undemolished, and which is still preserved to the

  religion, being the residence of some private Roman Catholic

  gentlemen, where they have an oratory, and, as they say, live still

  according to the rules of St. Benedict. This building is called

  Hide House; and as they live very usefully, and to the highest

  degree obliging among their neighbours, they meet with no

  obstruction or disturbance from anybody.

  Winchester is a place of no trade other than is naturally

  occasioned by the inhabitants of the city and neighbouring villages

  one with another. Here is no manufacture, no navigation; there was

  indeed an attempt to make the river navigable from Southampton, and

  it was once made practicable, but it never answered the expense so

  as to give encouragement to the undertakers.

  Here is a great deal of good company, and abundance of gentry being

  in the neighbourhood, it adds to the sociableness of the place.

  The clergy also here are, generally speaking, very rich and very

  numerous.

  As there is such good company, so they are gotten into that new-

  fashioned way of conversing by assemblies. I shall do no more than

  mention them here; they are pleasant and agreeable to the young

  peoples, and sometimes fatal to them, of which, in its place,

  Winchester has its share of the mirth. May it escape the ill-

  consequences!

  The hospital on the south of this city, at a mile distant on the

  road to Southampton, is worth notice. It is said to be founded by

  King William Rufus, but was not endowed or appointed till later

  times by Cardinal Beaufort. Every traveller that knocks at the

  door of this house in his way, and asks for it, claims the relief

  of a piece of white bread and a cup of beer, and this donation is

  still continued. A quantity of good beer is set apart every day to

  be given away, and what is left is distributed to other poor, but

  none of it kept to the next day.

  How the revenues of this hospital, which should maintain the master

  and thirty private gentlemen (whom they call Fellows, but ought to

  call Brothers), is now reduced to maintain only fourteen, while the

  master lives in a figure equal to the best gentleman in the

  country, would be well worth the inquiry of a proper visitor, if

  such can be named. It is a thing worthy of complaint when public

  charities, designed for the relief of the poor, are embezzled and

  depredated by the rich, and turned to the support of luxury and

  pride.

  From Winchester is about twenty-five miles, and over the most

  charming plains that can anywhere be seen (far, in my opinion,

  excelling the plains of Mecca), we come to Salisbury. The vast

  flocks of sheep which one everywhere sees upon these Downs, and the

  great number of those flocks, is a sight truly worth observation;

  it is ordinary for these flocks to contain from three thousand to

  five thousand in a flock, and several private farmers hereabouts

  have two or three such flocks.

  But it is more remarkable still how a great part of these Downs

  comes, by a new method of husbandry, to be not only made arable

  (which they never were in former days), but to bear excellent

  wheat, and great crops, too, though otherwise poor barren land, and

  never known to our ancestors to be capable of any such thing--nay,

  they would perhaps have laughed at any one that would have gone

  about to plough up the wild downs and hills where the sheep were

  wont to go. But experience has made the present age wiser and more

  skilful in husbandry; for by only folding the sheep upon the

  ploughed lands--those lands which otherwise are barren, and where

  the plough goes within three or four inches of the solid rock of

  chalk, are made fruitful and bear very good wheat, as well as rye

  and barley. I shall say more of this when I come to speak of the

  same practice farther in the country.

  This plain country continues in length from Winchester to Salisbury

  (twenty-five miles), from thence to Dorchester (twenty-two miles),

  thence to Weymouth (six miles); so that they lie near fifty miles

  in length and breadth; they reach also in some places thirty-five

  to forty miles. They who would make any practicable guess at the

  number of sheep usually fed on these Downs may take it from a

  calculation made, as I was told, at Dorchester, that there were six

  hundred thousand sheep fed within six miles of that town, measuring

  every way round and the town in the centre.

  As we passed this plain country, we saw a great many old camps, as

  well Roman as British, and several remains of the ancient

  inhabitants of this kingdom, and of their wars, battles,

  entrenchments, encampments, buildings, and other fortifications,

  which are indeed very agreeable to a traveller that has read

  anything of the history of the country. Old Sarum is as remarkable

  as any of these, where there is a double entrenchment, with a deep

  graff or ditch to either of them; the area about one hundred yards

  in diameter, taking in the whole crown of the hill, and thereby

  rendering the ascent very difficult. Near this there is one farm-

  house, which is all the remains I could see of any town in or near

  the place (for the encampment has no resemblance of a town), and

  yet this is called the borough of Old Sarum, and sends two members

  to Parliament. Whom those members can justly say they represent

  would be hard for them to answer.

  Some will have it that the old city of SORBIODUNUM or Salisbury

  stood here, and was afterwards (for I know not what reasons)

  removed to the low marshy grounds among the rivers, where it now

  stands. But as I see no authority for it other than mere

  tradition, I believe my share of it, and take it AD REFERENDUM.

  Salisbury itself is indeed a large and pleasant city, though I do

  not think it at all the pleasanter for that which they boast so

  much of--namely, the water running through the middle of every

  street--or that it adds anything to the beauty of the place, but

  just the contrary; it keeps the streets always dirty, full of wet

  and filth and weeds, even in the middle of summer.

  The city is placed upon the confluence of two large rivers, the

  Avon and the Willy, neither of them considerable rivers, but very

  large when joined together, and yet larger when they receive a

  third river (viz., the Naddir), which
joins them near Clarendon

  Park, about three miles below the city; then, with a deep channel

  and a current less rapid, they run down to Christchurch, which is

  their port. And where they empty themselves into the sea, from

  that town upwards towards Salisbury they are made navigable to

  within two miles, and might be so quite into the city, were it not

  for the strength of the stream.

  As the city of Winchester is a city without trade--that is to say,

  without any particular manufactures--so this city of Salisbury and

  all the county of Wilts, of which it is the capital, are full of a

  great variety of manufactures, and those some of the most

  considerable in England--namely, the clothing trade and the trade

  of flannels, druggets, and several other sorts of manufactures, of

  which in their order.

  The city of Salisbury has two remarkable manufactures carried on in

  it, and which employ the poor of great part of the country round--

  namely, fine flannels, and long-cloths for the Turkey trade, called

  Salisbury whites. The people of Salisbury are gay and rich, and

  have a flourishing trade; and there is a great deal of good manners

  and good company among them--I mean, among the citizens, besides

  what is found among the gentlemen; for there are many good families

  in Salisbury besides the citizens.

  This society has a great addition from the Close--that is to say,

  the circle of ground walled in adjacent to the cathedral; in which

  the families of the prebendaries and commons, and others of the

  clergy belonging to the cathedral, have their houses, as is usual

  in all cities, where there are cathedral churches. These are so

  considerable here, and the place so large, that it is (as it is

  called in general) like another city.

  The cathedral is famous for the height of its spire, which is

  without exception the highest and the handsomest in England, being

  from the ground 410 feet, and yet the walls so exceeding thin that

  at the upper part of the spire, upon a view made by the late Sir

  Christopher Wren, the wall was found to be less than five inches

  thick; upon which a consultation was had whether the spire, or at

  least the upper part of it, should be taken down, it being supposed

  to have received some damage by the great storm in the year 1703;

  but it was resolved in the negative, and Sir Christopher ordered it

  to be so strengthened with bands of iron plates as has effectually

  secured it; and I have heard some of the best architects say it is

  stronger now than when it was first built.

  They tell us here long stories of the great art used in laying the

  first foundation of this church, the ground being marshy and wet,

  occasioned by the channels of the rivers; that it was laid upon

  piles, according to some, and upon woolpacks, according to others.

  But this is not supposed by those who know that the whole country

  is one rock of chalk, even from the tops of the highest hills to

  the bottom of the deepest rivers.

  They tell us this church was forty years a-building, and cost an

  immense sum of money; but it must be acknowledged that the inside

  of the work is not answerable in the decoration of things to the

  workmanship without. The painting in the choir is mean, and more

  like the ordinary method of common drawing-room or tavern painting

  than that of a church; the carving is good, but very little of it;

  and it is rather a fine church than finely set off.

  The ordinary boast of this building (that there were as many gates

  as months, as many windows as days, as many marble pillars as hours

  in the year) is now no recommendation at all. However, the mention

  of it must be preserved:-

  "As many days as in one year there be,

  So many windows in one church we see;

  As many marble pillars there appear

  As there are hours throughout the fleeting year;

  As many gates as moons one year do view:

  Strange tale to tell, yet not more strange than true."

  There are, however, some very fine monuments in this church;

  particularly one belonging to the noble family of Seymours, since

  Dukes of Somerset (and ancestors of the present flourishing

  family), which on a most melancholy occasion has been now lately

  opened again to receive the body of the late Duchess of Somerset,

  the happy consort for almost forty years of his Grace the present

  Duke, and only daughter and heiress of the ancient and noble family

  of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, whose great estate she brought

  into the family of Somerset, who now enjoy it.

  With her was buried at the same time her Grace's daughter the

  Marchioness of Caermarthen (being married to the Marquis of

  Caermarthen, son and heir-apparent to the Lord of Leeds), who died

  for grief at the loss of the duchess her mother, and was buried

  with her; also her second son, the Duke Percy Somerset, who died a

  few months before, and had been buried in the Abbey church of

  Westminster, but was ordered to be removed and laid here with the

  ancestors of his house. And I hear his Grace designs to have a yet

  more magnificent monument erected in this cathedral for them, just

  by the other which is there already.

  How the Dukes of Somerset came to quit this church for their

  burying-place, and be laid in Westminster Abbey, that I know not;

  but it is certain that the present Duke has chosen to have his

  family laid here with their ancestors, and to that end has caused

  the corpse of his son, the Lord Percy, as above, and one of his

  daughters, who had been buried in the Abbey, to be removed and

  brought down to this vault, which lies in that they call the Virgin

  Mary's Chapel, behind the altar. There is, as above, a noble

  monument for a late Duke and Duchess of Somerset in the place

  already, with their portraits at full-length, their heads lying

  upon cushions, the whole perfectly well wrought in fine polished

  Italian marble, and their sons kneeling by them. Those I suppose

  to be the father of the great Duke of Somerset, uncle to King

  Edward IV.; but after this the family lay in Westminster Abbey,

  where there is also a fine monument for that very duke who was

  beheaded by Edward VI., and who was the great patron of the

  Reformation.

  Among other monuments of noble men in this cathedral they show you

  one that is very extraordinary, and to which there hangs a tale.

  There was in the reign of Philip and Mary a very unhappy murder

  committed by the then Lord Sturton, or Stourton, a family since

  extinct, but well known till within a few years in that country.

  This Lord Stourton being guilty of the said murder, which also was

  aggravated with very bad circumstances, could not obtain the usual

  grace of the Crown (viz., to be beheaded), but Queen Mary

  positively ordered that, like a common malefactor, he should die at

  the gallows. After he was hanged, his friends desiring to have him

  buried at Salisbury, the bishop would not consent that he should be

  buried in the cathedral unless, as a farther mark of infamy, hisr />
  friends would submit to this condition--viz., that the silken

  halter in which he was hanged should be hanged up over his grave in

  the church as a monument of his crime; which was accordingly done,

  and there it is to be seen to this day.

  The putting this halter up here was not so wonderful to me as it

  was that the posterity of that lord, who remained in good rank some

  time after, should never prevail to have that mark of infamy taken

  off from the memory of their ancestor.

  There are several other monuments in this cathedral, as

  particularly of two noblemen of ancient families in Scotland--one

  of the name of Hay, and one of the name of Gordon; but they give us

  nothing of their history, so that we must be content to say there

  they lie, and that is all.

  The cloister, and the chapter-house adjoining to the church, are

  the finest here of any I have seen in England; the latter is

  octagon, or eight-square, and is 150 feet in its circumference; the

  roof bearing all upon one small marble pillar in the centre, which

  you may shake with your hand; and it is hardly to be imagined it

  can be any great support to the roof, which makes it the more

  curious (it is not indeed to be matched, I believe, in Europe).

  From hence directing my course to the seaside in pursuit of my

  first design--viz., of viewing the whole coast of England--I left

  the great road and went down the east side of the river towards New

  Forest and Lymington; and here I saw the ancient house and seat of

  Clarendon, the mansion of the ancient family of Hide, ancestors of

  the great Earl of Clarendon, and from whence his lordship was

  honoured with that title, or the house erected into an honour in

  favour of his family.

  But this being a large county, and full of memorable branches of

  antiquity and modern curiosity, I cannot quit my observations so

  soon. But being happily fixed, by the favour of a particular

  friend, at so beautiful a spot of ground as this of Clarendon Park,

  I made several little excursions from hence to view the northern

  parts of this county--a county so fruitful of wonders that, though

  I do not make antiquity my chief search, yet I must not pass it

  over entirely, where so much of it, and so well worth observation,

  is to be found, which would look as if I either understood not the

  value of the study, or expected my readers should be satisfied with

  a total omission of it.

  I have mentioned that this county is generally a vast continued

  body of high chalky hills, whose tops spread themselves into

  fruitful and pleasant downs and plains, upon which great flocks of

  sheep are fed, &c. But the reader is desired to observe these

  hills and plains are most beautifully intersected and cut through

  by the course of divers pleasant and profitable rivers; in the

  course and near the banks of which there always is a chain of

  fruitful meadows and rich pastures, and those interspersed with

  innumerable pleasant towns, villages, and houses, and among them

  many of considerable magnitude. So that, while you view the downs,

  and think the country wild and uninhabited, yet when you come to

  descend into these vales you are surprised with the most pleasant

  and fertile country in England.

  There are no less than four of these rivers, which meet all

  together at or near the city of Salisbury; especially the waters of

  three of them run through the streets of the city--the Nadder and

  the Willy and the Avon--and the course of these three lead us

  through the whole mountainous part of the county. The two first

  join their waters at Wilton, the shiretown, though a place of no

  great notice now; and these are the waters which run through the

  canal and the gardens of Wilton House, the seat of that ornament of

  nobility and learning, the Earl of Pembroke.

  One cannot be said to have seen anything that a man of curiosity

  would think worth seeing in this county, and not have been at

  Wilton House; but not the beautiful building, not the ancient