HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SURREY.*
Highways and Byways in Surrey is a very charming book both to dip into and to read. The secret of that charm is largely to be found in the fact that the author has had a just understauding of the limits of his work, and, aiming neither too high nor too low, has exactly hit the mark. We can best express his method of attacking his subject by saying that he talks to you about each district, village, church, old manor-house, or hill-top with a view from it just as an intelligent and well-read parson or squire or other native-born person talks of his own parish and of the things in it with whose history he has made himself familiar. The parson or squire in question, when he opens his mind to you, tells you what the soil is, what it will grow, how old the church is, why the font is sexagona.1 instead of octagonal, what was the fate of the great family whose monuments still dominate the south aisle, what the parish was celebrated for in past times, who were its most famous inhabitants, and which way came and went the drums and tramplings of the three conquests. Again, be will be able to quote you what is said about the village and district in literature, from Caesar's Com- mentaries to Cobbett's Rural Bides. This is exactly what Mr. Parker does. He has managed somehow or other to possess himself of this kind of local knowledge, or at any rate of a very large share of it, about almost all the villages of Surrey, and he retails that knowledge for his readers with real zest and interest. When he is talking about Tongham or Ockley, or this or that hamlet or manor, you feel that he is quite as proud of it and as deeply interested as "the eldest inhabitant." Again, he has the true traveller's eye, and knows what are the things that people really want to hear about,—and also what are the things about which many of them would prefer to remain ignorant. Sir Thomas Browne in one of his letters to his son when that son was travelling in Hungary tells him that in recounting his travels he need not trouble to be too minute or particular about the geology or mineralogy of the kingdom, but that be should on no account fail to describe 'the dis- coloured alabaster tomb in the barber's shop at Pesth."There is the whole secret of the judicious traveller. " Cut " the mineral deposits, but never forget all that is symbolised by the discoloured alabaster tomb in the barber's shop. What a keen eye had the doctor and divine! He had never visited Hungary himself, but must somewhere have read of the tomb in the barber's shop, and had seized upon it as an eagle seizes her prey. For a lover of the picturesque and the paradoxical like Sir Thomas Browne, what could be more seductive and enchanting than a discoloured alabaster tomb, stand where it would ? But why in a barber's shop ? The answer to that question might open up a story straight from the Arabian Nights.
Though Mr. Parker is so sound on the tomb in the barber's shop, and has in consequence written a book that is delightful to read, it is a very difficult one to review, for by its nature it
is thoroughly and determinedly discursive. It wanders like Surrey's own romantic byways, and one pleasant thing shades, off into another. Every page is sown with something rare and curious. Take, for example, what has chanced at this * Bigme and Byways in Surrey. By Erie Parker. With Illustrations by Thoumon. Loudon: Macmillan and Co. Os.) moment of writing to the reviewer. Fie happens to be a great lover of Pope, and one who has always been partieularly amused by the couplet in the "Essay on the Use of Riches"
"When Hopkins dies a thousand lights attend The Wretch who, living, saved a candle's end."
Well, his sores Surrienses have just led him to that very couplet on p. 429 of Mr. Parker's book where Wimbledon Common is described. Wimbledon Church is said to have many monu- ments, "but the tomb which fascinates is neither of a great Statesman nor a good man." "It is apart in a far corner; over it is laid a tinge slab of black stone, perhaps half a foot thick, and the stone tells you that under it lies the body of John Hopkins, Esquire, familiarly known as Vulture Hopkins:" That and what follows is a priceless find for the lover of Pope's satires, and should send them in troops to the miser's tomb. Another chance shot brings us to Ockley, and a most interesting and delightful passage about Surrey yeomen:— " Snrrey yeomen come nowhere of better stock than the oldest Oakley families, Aubrey tolls a story of one of the Bversheds of Ockley, who, when the heralds made their visitation, was urged to take a coat of arms. 'He told thorn that he knew no difference between gentlemen and yeomen, but that the latter were the better men, and that they were really gentlemen only, who had longer preSerVed their estates and patrimonies in the same place without waste or dissipation ; an observation very just.' Aubrey adds, as examples of yeomen families who bad land at the Conquest, the names of Steere, Harpe, Blether, and Aston. Steer°, like Evershed, is a name that occurs over and over again in the Rogieters, both at Oekley and Capel."
Of course there are bound to be a good many omissions in the book, both conscious and unconscious. No book of reasonable size could hold everything about Surrey. Thus, though we call attention to one omission, it is with no desire to suggest a serious fault. Mr. Parker has failed, as far as we can see, to inchide anything about the Tottenham caves, those strange excavations in the bard sand of which no man lcnoweth the beginnings or the history. In a sense they are one of the most mysterious things in the world. There is no record as to when they were made, why they were made, or who made them. For all one can tell; they may be the work of primitive man, or of persons prosaically anxious to get a good quality of sand some hundred or hundred and fifty years ago. The matter seethe to be one about which nothing can be said, merely because nothing is known. Perhaps this is the reason why Mr. Parker says nothing. Ile may have felt that "nothing can of nothing come," and therefore that the less said about this single equation with two unknowns the better. Why dwell on ca —/J ?
To show how few things are missed by Mr. Parker, we may instance his description of St. George's Hill. He gives a short but excellent account of the way in which the Levellers seized part of the hill to plant roots and beans in expectation of the coming of the Fifth Monarchy. (Henry Sanders, in the Information which be addressed apparently to the Council of State, says "parsnipps, carrotts, and beans.") Fairfax, we are told, sent two troop of horse after them, and their captured. leader, Everard, made him a speech in which he claimed that he had had a vision instructing him to dig and plough the earth for the benefit of the poor, and that his mitaion VOA to help his oppressed follow-Israelites back to their rights over all landed and other property. This Socialistic incident ended in characteristic English fashion, The irate commoners, refasing to allow their common rights to be interfered with by outsiders, drove the Levellers from their common and pulled • up the aforesaid roots and beaus. Ma Parker does not mention what, we believe, was a fact,—that a Bill was actually filed in Chancery against the Levellers by the commoners, setting forth that, though nob being possessed of common rights, they had entered upon land " parcel of the Waste of the Manor of Thames Dillon," and bad done trespass therein. If Mr. Parker had bad more space be would no doubt have quoted the very striking song of the Levellers, which is to be found in the Clarke Papers. It has such a good lilt about it that we cannot forbear transcribing the first three stanzas :— "You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now. You noble Diggers all, stand-up now, The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliora by name Your digging does disdains, and persons all defame. Stand up now, stand up now. Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now, Your houses they pull down, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down to fright poor men in town, But the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the Crown.
Stand up now, Diggers all.
With spades and hoes and plows, stand up now, stand up now,
With spades and hoes and plows stand up now,
Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold To kill you if they could, and rights from you to hold,
Stand up now, Diggers all."
That Mr. Parker's book will find plenty of readers we do not doubt, for Surrey is a county which wins its way into men's hearts. Though we do not hear of Surrey men as we hear of Kentish men, or Somersetshire or Devonshire mem, yet nevertheless the county of blue distances, waving woodlands, and breezy uplands is a land well loved, if silently loved. If its patriotism is for a very large number of its inhabitants
an adopted one, it is none the less strong on that account.
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