Part 17

At West End. Hambledon is a long, straggling village, lying in a little valley formed by some very pretty but not lofty hills. The environs are much prettier than the village itself, which is not far from the North side of Portsdown Hill. This must have once been a considerable place; for here is a church pretty nearly as large as that at Farnham in Surrey, which is quite sufficient for a large town. The means of living has been drawn away from these villages, and the people follow the means. Cheriton and Kilmston and Hambledon and the like have been beggared for the purpose of giving tax-eaters the means of making "_vast improvements, Ma'am_," on the villanous spewy gravel of Windsor Forest! The thing, however, must go _back_. Revolution here or revolution there: bawl, bellow, alarm, as long as the tax-eaters like, _back_ the thing must go. Back, indeed, _it is going_ in some quarters. Those scenes of glorious loyalty, the sea-port places, are beginning to be deserted. How many villages has that scene of all that is wicked and odious, Portsmouth, Gosport, and Portsea; how many villages has that hellish assemblage beggared! It is now being scattered _itself_! Houses which there let for forty or fifty pounds a-year each, now let for three or four shillings a-week each; and thousands, perhaps, cannot be let at all to any body capable of paying rent. There is an absolute tumbling down taking place, where, so lately, there were such "vast improvements, Ma'am!" Does Monsieur de Snip call those improvements, then? Does he insist, that those houses form "an addition to the national capital?" Is it any wonder that a country should be miserable when such notions prevail? And when they can, even in the Parliament, be received with cheering?

_Nov. 24, Sunday._

Set off from Hambledon to go to Thursley in Surrey, about five miles from Godalming. Here I am at Thursley, after as interesting a day as I ever spent in all my life. They say that "_variety_ is charming," and this day I have had of scenes and of soils a variety indeed!

To go to Thursley from Hambledon the plain way was up the downs to Petersfield, and then along the turnpike-road through Liphook, and over Hindhead, at the north-east foot of which Thursley lies. But, I had been over that sweet Hindhead, and had seen too much of turnpike-road and of heath, to think of taking another so large a dose of them. The map of Hampshire (and we had none of Surrey) showed me the way to Headley, which lies on the West of Hindhead, down upon the flat. I knew it was but about five miles from Headley to Thursley; and I, therefore, resolved to go to Headley, in spite of all the remonstrances of friends, who represented to me the danger of breaking my neck at Hawkley and of getting buried in the bogs of Woolmer Forest. My route was through East-Meon, Froxfield, Hawkley, Greatham, and then over Woolmer Forest (a _heath_ if you please), to Headley.

Off we set over the downs (crossing the bottom sweep of Old Winchester Hill) from West-End to East-Meon. We came down a long and steep hill that led us winding round into the village, which lies in a valley that runs in a direction nearly east and west, and that has a rivulet that comes out of the hills towards Petersfield. If I had not seen anything further to-day, I should have dwelt long on the beauties of this place. Here is a very fine valley, in nearly an eliptical form, sheltered by high hills sloping gradually from it; and not far from the middle of this valley there is a hill nearly in the form of a goblet-glass with the foot and stem broken off and turned upside down. And this is clapped down upon the level of the valley, just as you would put such goblet upon a table. The hill is lofty, partly covered with wood, and it gives an air of great singularity to the scene. I am sure that East-Meon has been a _large place_. The church has a _Saxon Tower_, pretty nearly equal, as far as I recollect, to that of the Cathedral at Winchester. The rest of the church has been rebuilt, and, perhaps, several times; but the _tower_ is complete; it has had _a steeple_ put upon it; but it retains all its beauty, and it shows that the church (which is still large) must, at first, have been a very large building. Let those, who talk so glibly of the increase of the population in England, go over the country from Highclere to Hambledon. Let them look at the size of the churches, and let them observe those numerous small enclosures on every side of every village, which had, to a certainty, _each its house_ in former times. But let them go to East-Meon, and account for that church. Where did the hands come from to make it? Look, however, at the downs, the many square miles of downs near this village, all bearing the _marks of the plough_, and all out of tillage for many many years; yet, not one single inch of them but what is vastly superior in quality to any of those great "improvements" on the miserable heaths of Hounslow, Bagshot, and Windsor Forest. It is the destructive, the murderous paper-system, that has transferred the fruit of the labour, and the people along with it, from the different parts of the country to the neighbourhood of the all-devouring _Wen_. I do not believe one word of what is said of the increase of the population. All observation and all reason is against the fact; and, as to the _parliamentary returns_, what need we more than this: that _they_ assert, that the population of Great Britain has increased from ten to fourteen millions in the last _twenty years_! That is enough! A man that can suck that in will believe, literally believe, that the moon is made of green cheese. Such a thing is too monstrous to be swallowed by any body but Englishmen, and by any Englishman not brutified by a Pitt-system.

TO MR. CANNING.

_Worth (Sussex), 10 December, 1822._

SIR,

The agreeable news from France, relative to the intended invasion of Spain, compelled me to break off, in my last Letter, in the middle of my _Rural Ride_ of Sunday, the 24th of November. Before I mount again, which I shall do in this Letter, pray let me ask you what _sort of apology_ is to be offered to the nation, if the French Bourbons be permitted to take quiet possession of Cadiz and of the Spanish naval force? Perhaps you may be disposed to answer, when you have taken time to reflect; and, therefore, leaving you to _muse_ on the matter, I will resume my ride.

_November 24._

(Sunday.) From Hambledon to Thursley (continued).

From East-Meon, I did not go on to Froxfield church, but turned off to the left to a place (a couple of houses) called _Bower_. Near this I stopped at a friend's house, which is in about as lonely a situation as I ever saw. A very pleasant place however. The lands dry, a nice mixture of woods and fields, and a great variety of hill and dell.

Before I came to East-Meon, the soil of the hills was a shallow loam with flints, on a bottom of chalk; but on this side of the valley of East-Meon; that is to say, on the north side, the soil on the hills is a deep, stiff loam, on a bed of a sort of gravel mixed with chalk; and the stones, instead of being grey on the outside and blue on the inside, are yellow on the outside and whitish on the inside. In coming on further to the North, I found, that the bottom was sometimes gravel and sometime chalk. Here, at the time when _whatever it was_ that formed these hills and valleys, the stuff of which Hindhead is composed seems to have run down and mixed itself with the stuff of which _Old Winchester Hill_ is composed. Free chalk (which is the sort found here) is excellent manure for stiff land, and it produces a complete change in the nature of _clays_. It is, therefore, dug here, on the North of East-Meon, about in the fields, where it happens to be found, and is laid out upon the surface, where it is crumbled to powder by the frost, and thus gets incorporated with the loam.

At Bower I got instructions to go to Hawkley, but accompanied with most earnest advice not to go that way, for that it was impossible to get along. The roads were represented as so bad; the floods so much out; the hills and bogs so dangerous; that, really, I began to _doubt_; and, if I had not been brought up amongst the clays of the Holt Forest and the bogs of the neighbouring heaths, I should certainly have turned off to my right, to go over Hindhead, great as was my objection to going that way. "Well, then," said my friend at Bower, "if you _will_ go that way, by G--, you must go down _Hawkley Hanger_;" of which he then gave me _such_ a description! But, even this I found to fall short of the reality. I inquired simply, whether _people were in the habit_ of going down it; and, the answer being in the affirmative, on I went through green lanes and bridle-ways till I came to the turnpike-road from Petersfield to Winchester, which I crossed, going into a narrow and almost untrodden green lane, on the side of which I found a cottage. Upon my asking the way to _Hawkley_, the woman at the cottage said, "Right up the lane, Sir: you'll come to a _hanger_ presently: you must take care, Sir: you can't ride down: will your horses _go alone_?"

On we trotted up this pretty green lane; and indeed, we had been coming gently and generally up hill for a good while. The lane was between highish banks and pretty high stuff growing on the banks, so that we could see no distance from us, and could receive not the smallest hint of what was so near at hand. The lane had a little turn towards the end; so that, out we came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the hanger! And never, in all my life, was I so surprised and so delighted! I pulled up my horse, and sat and looked; and it was like looking from the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the valley was land and not water. I looked at my servant, to see what effect this unexpected sight had upon him. His surprise was as great as mine, though he had been bred amongst the North Hampshire hills. Those who had so strenuously dwelt on the dirt and dangers of this route, had said not a word about beauties, the matchless beauties of the scenery. These hangers are woods on the sides of very steep hills. The trees and underwood _hang_, in some sort, to the ground, instead of _standing on_ it. Hence these places are called _Hangers_. From the summit of that which I had now to descend, I looked down upon the villages of Hawkley, Greatham, Selborne and some others.

From the south-east, round, southward, to the north-west, the main valley has cross-valleys running out of it, the hills on the sides of which are very steep, and, in many parts, covered with wood. The hills that form these cross-valleys run out into the main valley, like piers into the sea. Two of these promontories, of great height, are on the west side of the main valley, and were the first objects that struck my sight when I came to the edge of the hanger, which was on the south. The ends of these promontories are nearly perpendicular, and their tops so high in the air, that you cannot look at the village below without something like a feeling of apprehension. The leaves are all off, the hop-poles are in stack, the fields have little verdure; but, while the spot is beautiful beyond description even now, I must leave to imagination to suppose what it is, when the trees and hangers and hedges are in leaf, the corn waving, the meadows bright, and the hops upon the poles!

From the south-west, round, eastward, to the north, lie the _heaths_, of which Woolmer Forest makes a part, and these go gradually rising up to Hindhead, the crown of which is to the north-west, leaving the rest of the circle (the part from north to north-west) to be occupied by a continuation of the valley towards Headley, Binstead, Frensham and the Holt Forest. So that even the _contrast_ in the view from the top of the hanger is as great as can possibly be imagined. Men, however, are not to have such beautiful views as this without some trouble. We had had the view; but we had to go down the hanger. We had, indeed, some roads to get along, as we could, afterwards; but we had to get down the hanger first. The horses took the lead, and crept partly down upon their feet and partly upon their hocks. It was extremely slippery too; for the soil is a sort of marle, or, as they call it here, maume, or mame, which is, when wet, very much like _grey soap_. In such a case it was likely that I should keep in the rear, which I did, and I descended by taking hold of the branches of the underwood, and so letting myself down. When we got to the bottom, I bade my man, when he should go back to Uphusband, tell the people there, that _Ashmansworth Lane_ is not the _worst_ piece of road in the world. Our worst, however, was not come yet, nor had we by any means seen the most novel sights.

After crossing a little field and going through a farm-yard, we came into a lane, which was, at once, road and river. We found a hard bottom, however; and when we got out of the water, we got into a lane with high banks. The banks were quarries of white stone, like Portland-stone, and the bed of the road was of the same stone; and, the rains having been heavy for a day or two before, the whole was as clean and as white as the steps of a fund-holder or dead-weight door-way in one of the Squares of the _Wen_. Here were we, then, going along a stone road with stone banks, and yet the underwood and trees grew well upon the tops of the banks. In the solid stone beneath us, there were a horse-track and wheel-tracks, the former about three and the latter about six inches deep. How many many ages it must have taken the horses' feet, the wheels, and the water, to wear down this stone, so as to form a hollow way! The horses seemed alarmed at their situation; they trod with fear; but they took us along very nicely, and, at last, got us safe into the indescribable dirt and mire of the road from Hawkley Green to Greatham. Here the bottom of all the land is this solid white stone, and the top is that _mame_, which I have before described. The hop-roots penetrate down into this stone. How deep the stone may go I know not; but, when I came to look up at the end of one of the piers, or promontories, mentioned above, I found that it was all of this same stone.

At Hawkley Green, I asked a farmer the way to Thursley. He pointed to one of two roads going from the green; but it appearing to me, that that would lead me up to the London road and over Hindhead, I gave him to understand that I was resolved to get along, somehow or other, through the "low countries." He besought me not to think of it. However, finding me resolved, he got a man to go a little way to put me into the Greatham road. The man came, but the farmer could not let me go off without renewing his entreaties, that I would go away to Liphook, in which entreaties the man joined, though he was to be paid very well for his trouble.

Off we went, however, to Greatham. I am thinking, whether I ever did see _worse_ roads. Upon the whole, I think, I have; though I am not sure that the roads of New Jersey, between Trenton and Elizabeth-Town, at the breaking up of winter, be worse. Talk of _shows_, indeed! Take a piece of this road; just a cut across, and a rod long, and carry it up to London. That would be something like a _show_!

Upon leaving Greatham we came out upon Woolmer Forest. Just as we were coming out of Greatham, I asked a man the way to Thursley. "You _must_ go to _Liphook_, Sir," said he. "But," I said, "I _will not_ go to Liphook." These people seemed to be posted at all these stages to turn me aside from my purpose, and to make me go over that _Hindhead_, which I had resolved to avoid. I went on a little further, and asked another man the way to Headley, which, as I have already observed, lies on the western foot of Hindhead, whence I knew there must be a road to Thursley (which lies at the North East foot) without going over that miserable hill. The man told me, that I must go across the _forest_. I asked him whether it was a _good_ road: "It is a _sound_ road," said he, laying a weighty emphasis upon the word _sound_. "Do people _go_ it?" said I. "_Ye-es_," said he. "Oh then," said I, to my man, "as it is a _sound_ road, keep you close to my heels, and do not attempt to go aside, not even for a foot." Indeed, it was a _sound_ road. The rain of the night had made the fresh horse tracks visible. And we got to Headley in a short time, over a sand-road, which seemed so delightful after the flints and stone and dirt and sloughs that we had passed over and through since the morning! This road was not, if we had been benighted, without its dangers, the forest being full of quags and quicksands. This is a tract of Crown lands, or, properly speaking, _public lands_, on some parts of which our Land Steward, Mr. Huskisson, is making some plantations of trees, partly fir, and partly other trees. What he can plant the _fir_ for, God only knows, seeing that the country is already over-stocked with that rubbish. But this _public land_ concern is a very great concern.

If I were a Member of Parliament, I _would_ know what timber has been cut down, and what it has been sold for, since year 1790. However, this matter must be _investigated_, first or last. It never can be omitted in the winding up of the concern; and that winding up must come out of wheat at four shillings a bushel. It is said, hereabouts, that a man who lives near Liphook, and who is so mighty a hunter and game pursuer, that they call him _William Rufus_; it is said that this man is _Lord of the Manor of Woolmer Forest_. This he cannot be without _a grant_ to that effect; and, if there be a grant, there must have been a _reason_ for the grant. This _reason_ I should very much like to know; and this I would know if I were a Member of Parliament. That the people call him the _Lord of the Manor_ is certain; but he can hardly make preserves of the plantations; for it is well known how marvellously _hares_ and _young trees_ agree together! This is a matter of great public importance; and yet, how, in the present state of things, is an _investigation_ to be obtained? Is there a man in Parliament that will call for it? Not one. Would a dissolution of Parliament mend the matter? No; for the same men would be there still. They are the same men that have been there for these thirty years; and the _same men_ they will be, and they _must be_, until there be _a reform_. To be sure when one dies, or cuts his throat (as in the case of Castlereagh), another _one_ comes; but it is the _same body_. And, as long as it is that same body, things will always go on as they now go on. However, as Mr. Canning says the body "_works well_," we must not say the contrary.

The soil of this tract is, generally, a black sand, which, in some places, becomes _peat_, which makes very tolerable fuel. In some parts there is clay at bottom; and there the _oaks_ would grow; but not while there are _hares_ in any number on the forest. If trees be to grow here, there ought to be no hares, and as little hunting as possible.