OUR VILLAGE.
Miss MITFORD has at length bid a formal adieu to Our Village. These are the last sketches we are to have of Aberleigh, and all its homely curiosities. Five volumes, Miss MITFoRD thinks, are space enough to write the history of one village in. The history of many kingdoms is often contained in three, it is true ; but then, Our Village is mankind in small, and a hundred volumes would not have exhausted the subject.
The Sketches in this volume are not all new : several we have met with before, in the Annuals, &c.; a circumstance which greatly takes off the bloom of a new publication : and, on the whole, perhaps, this volume has the air of being the sweepings of " our study." It nevertheless contains some good things. Miss MrrFoRD is one of the truest of our painters of life; and we trust, that instead of writing tragedies or editing American tales, she will proceed to the town next to " Our Village," and realize the desideratum mentioned in her excellent sketch of a widow gentle- woman.
I have never had much acquaintance with a country-town life,—an ignorance Which I regret exceedingly; not merely because such a life comprises so much of the intelligence, cultivation, and moral excellence of that most intelligent, Cultivated, and excellent body of persons, the middle classes, as they are called, of England ; but because, so far as authorship is concerned; it is decidedly the sphere which presents most noveltyosnd would be most valuable as affording a series of unhackneyed studies to an observer and delineator of common nature: To the novelist, indeed, an English provincial town offers. ground almost un, trodden •' and the bold man who shall first adventure from the tempting regions of high life, or low life, or Irish life, or life abroad, or lift in- the olden times, into that sphere where he has hitherto found so many readers and so few sub.. jects, will, if he write with truth and vividness, find his reward in the strong and clinging interest which we never fail to feel when every-day. objects are pre. sented to us under a new and striking form—the deep and genuine gratification excited by an union of the original and the familiar. But when will such an adventurer arise ? Who shall dare to delineate the humours of an apothecary? or the parties of his wife? or the loves of his daughter ? Who will have cou- rage to make a hero of an attorney? or to throw the halo of imagination around the head of a country brewer? Alas ! alas ! until a grand literary reform shall take place, boroughs and county towns must be content to remain in obscurity, —represented in the House indeed, but absolute nullities in the library.
Illy acquaintance with the subject, slight as I have acknowledged it to be, has the further disadvantage of being almost wholly recollective, referring to per- sons who have long passed away, and to a state of things which I suspect has no present existence ; for in country towns, as in other places, society has been progressing (if I may borrow that expressive Americanism) at a very rapid rate, for the last twenty years; and when I go into the goodly streets of B. (where I still possess some few younger friends), I cannot help looking around me, and wondering whether the very race of may old acquaintance be not extinct with the indii'llluals, or whether there be still a class of respectable elderly gentlewo- men, who, with no apparent object or interest in lite, do yet contrive to live, and to live happily, by the help of a little innocent gossiping, and a great deal of visiting and cards.
Our only further quotation from this last despatch from the Village, shall be the description of a fox-chase by the authoress, in which she rivals 'Nimrod himself.
" Now, my dearest, I am going to tell you of an exploit of mine, which I longed for you extremely to share. Last Saturday I dined at the house of a friend in the neighbourhood; and was reproached by another friend, a spirited young fox-hunter, with never having gone to see the hounds throw off. I said that I should greatly enjoy the sight, and would certainly go some day or other : the lady of the house replied, that she would drive me; the conversation then turned to other subjects, and I never expected to hear more of the scheme. " The next day, however, Sir John calling on my fair friend, the plan was mentioned and settled; and the. young gentleman who had originally suggested the expedition, rode over to let me know that at half-past nine the next day, Mrs. S. would call for me.
" At half-past nine, accordingly, she arrived in a small limber pony-carriage, drawn by a high-blooded little Arabian, on whom she herself (the daughter and sister of a whole race of fox-hunters) had been aCcustomed to hunt in Wiltshire, and attended by her husband's hunting-groom, excellently mounted. The wea- ther was all that could be desired,--one of those vapoury, misty autumnal morn- ings, that break into so bright a noon. I was delighted with the project, and with my charming companion, a most lively and intelligent woman; she on her part was pleased to be the cause of so much pleasure, and off we set in the highest possible spirits. " It was the first day of the season; the fixture (are you sportswoman enough, Emily, to understand that technical phrase?) the fixture was in Bramshill Park, and it was expected to be the most numerous field of many years. Mr. Warde- pshaw ! he is too eminent a man to be roistered ! John Warde, the celebrated fox-hunter, the very Nestor of the chase—who, after keeping fox-hounds for fifty-seven years, has, just at seventy-nine, found himself beginning to grow old, and given up his pack—being on a visit at the house, and all the hunt likely to assemble to see this most agreeable person. Very well worth seeing he is,
I assure _you,—certainly one of agreeable
pleasantest men that it has ever been my for- tune to foregather with; full of anecdote, and as beautiful as my own father, in a similar style, just such a specimen of bright, vigorous, blooming, healthful, cheerful old age.
" Well, off we set ; got to Bramshill just as breakfast was over ; saw the hounds brought out in front of the house to be admired ; drove to covert ; saw the finding of the fox; heard the first grand burst at his going off; followed him to another covert; and the scent being bad, and the field so numerous, that he was constantly headed back ; both he, who finally ran to earth, and another fox found subsequently, kept dodging about from thicket to thicket, in that magnificent demesne (the. very perfection of park scenery, hill and dale, and wood and water); and, for above four hours, we, with our spirited little steed, kept up with the chase, driving. over road and no road, across drains, and through gaps ; often run away with, sometimes almost tossed out, but with a degree of delight and enjoyment such as I never felt before, and never, I verily believe, shall feel again.
" The field (above a hundred horsemen, most of them known to any fair companion) were much pleased with our sportsmanship, which in me (much as I have always as an author cherished country sports) was in my own person unexpected. They showed us the kindest attention, brought me the brush, which I have hung up in my greenhouse; and when, at three o'clock, we and Mr. Warde, and two or three others, went in to luncheon, whilst the hounds proceeded to Eversley, I really do not think that there was a gentleman present who was not good-naturedly gratified by our gratification.
" Unless you have seen a pack of hounds throw off, you can hardly imagine the animation or the beauty of the scene. The horses are most beautiful; and the dogs, although not pretty separately, are so when collected, and in their own proper scenery, which is exactly the case with the scarlet coats of the fox- hunters. I had seen nothing of the park before, beyond the cricket-ground, and never could have bad such a guide to its inmost recesses, the very heart of its sylvan solitudes, as the fox. The house, a superb Gothic structure, built by the last Lord Zouch, and kept in proud repair by the present hospitable pos- sessor, is placed on so commanding an eminence, that it seemed meeting us in every direction, and harmonized completely with the old English feeling of the park and the sport. You must see Bramshill : it is like nothing hereabouts, but reminds me of the grand old mansions-in the North of England. Prince Henry (the eldest son of James the First) is said to have resided here; • whilst Inigo Jones contributed to adorn its terraces, and his great enemy, Ben Jonson, projected masques in its courts. It was in this park also, that Archbishop Ab- bott accidentally shot a keeper, who bled to.death within the hour.
" In short, the place is full of histories. It has a haunted room; a chapel shut up, and full of armour; a chest, where, as they say, a bride hid on her wedding-day, and the spring-lock closing; was lost, and perished, and never found until years and years had passed (this story, by the way, is common to old buildings—it used to be told of the great house at Malsanger) • it:swarms with family pictures, has a hall with the dais, much fine tapestry, and is wanting in no point of antique dignity; the library is full of old books, the furniture as true to the ancient fashion as is compptible with modern notions of comfort;. and I cannot conceive a more perfect specimen of a great nobleman's residence in the seventeenth century than theeplendid mansion of Bramshill. You must come back to us, Emily, if only to see the hounds throw offix.the park."
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