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a Hogarthian sketch of "ringing pigs," in which he introduced my urchin face just peeping above the paling.

Hours and hours have I passed in clambering the tottering staircases of the old mansion. The people in that part called it Old Place, and it then contained perfect rooms; whilst the vaults afforded excellent cellarage for home-made wine, potatoes, &c. It must have been a quiet retreat, being almost embosomed in forest scenery, and, from the lowness of its site, scarcely discernible at a mile distant; but well calculated for the abode of a jocund cavalier-an odd admixture of fox-hunting and politics-just as the novelist has made him stand out from his page, as the painters of that time have done on their canvas. The old moated house which has been alluded to, stood still deeper in the forest vale. I remember we put into its hall one day during a heavy fall of snow, in a surveying excursion, when my curiosity was soon satisfied on being told it was haunted—an idea somewhat fostered by the licentious character of its former occupant.

As I became familiarized with the country, the attraction of Old Place rather increased than wore off. I delighted to roam about its courtyard with as much triumph as Okey or Lilburn did in the days of its better fortune. I had already learned to venerate the ruin as a wreck of time, and to speculate on its fall. It still appeared to me a stupendous building. But, I was still at a loss for the history of Old Place; the vicar came from East Grinstead to fish in the mill-stream, and he set me to dig worms for his line; but in return gave me no information, and the surveyor was not a whit more communicative. The outline of the building long remained in my mind's eye; and the winds whistling through its shattered tower and the paneless casement were in my ears.

The house was built of the best stone of the district, and was of good masonry. How I loved to ramble about the large kitchen-garden of the estate, where I first learned the names of scores of old plants, such as enabled the Lady Bountiful of other days to gladden many a drooping heart, and recruit many a wasted frame; in short, the Brambletye garden was my earliest herbal. The large square bed of “Balm of Gilead;" the wormwood and rue, and the mints and sages, and marjorams; were never-ending sources of interest. In short, this was the first oletory, or herb-garden I had been admitted to; the lavender and rosemary bushes, the feathery fennel, and the stately artichoke and sunflower; the rare barberry; the luxuriant strawberry, whose leaf has been borrowed to deck the brows of dukes; the marigolds for soups and salads; the gay nasturtium for garnish and pickle; the bright gilliflower and the blushing peony; and scores of other old plants and flowers, and their mystic uses; were my constant delight; and I had even learned to believe in the defensative properties of the houseleek, which is thought to protect from lightning the house upon which it grows. Nor must I forget the elder, with the water distilled from whose flowers my good aunt daily aided her otherwise beautiful complexion. She was wise as a Druid priestess in all the mysteries of the old garden plants.

The bees in the farmhouse garden were my pets; and with childlike simplicity I assisted in the errors of a larger growth by lustily using the key and fireshovel upon swarming occasions, and assisting to rub the inside of the new hive with bean and other balsamic blossoms; services which were rewarded with a large pot of honey at Michaelmas. What a host of truths and errors is an inquiring child often told of the history of the bee, one of the most curious chapters in the economy of the world.

The flour-mill was another perpetual source of curiosity. I could not decide whether it was the mill of the manor at which the lord ground his tenants' bread-corn; but I peeped with wonder at the whirling mill-stones, and grew amazed at the gigantic water-wheel, and scarcely durst venture to pick out the small fish from the stake-net in the mill

stream.

My first enjoyment of a garden of a higher order I drew from the horticultural triumphs of Speaker Abbott, at Kidbrook, but a short distance from Brambletye. The straggling hamlet of Forest Row adjoining is said to have been built for the accommodation of the lords and their retinue, who came to rouse the hart in the adjoining forest of Ashdown. What a primitive place was this! almost the only noise in the Row was the constant buzz of the boys' day-school, with its open door; and here, a generation before people swallowed strychnine in their beer, the old drug wife was content to have written upon her drawer, "Ox. vomit." Forest Hill had its fair, and my aunt, like a good Calvinist, who looked upon a fair as leaven of wickedness, bribed me with a bowl of syllabub not to go. I swallowed the lure, but treacherously stole across the fields, after dark, to the Fair, much to the annoyance of one of the farmgirls, who was being soundly kissed by her sweetheart on the way. How the Calvinistic old lady lectured me at the next prayer-meeting at Brambletye for my arch deceit! With fatalistic tendency she implicitly believed in the luck of horse-shoes, and rewarded me whenever I was fortunate enough to find one of these relics of rustic augury.

Here, nestled in the forest, Brambletye would have been left to its solitude, had not a fortuitous circumstance invested the place with new interest. About the year 1826, Mr. Horace Smith chanced to visit the country, and being much struck with its picturesque scenery, and the story of Brambletye, and the history of its owners, here he laid the opening chapter of his novel of Brambletye House, and which he wrote upon the spot, by taking up his abode at the principal inn of Forest Row. Thither he came to receive inspiration from the localitythe secret of clothing thoughts with reality, and swelling a rivulet of truth into a broad river of fiction. Hundreds of pilgrims who delight in nooks and corners of rural quiet, more especially when they have the halo of history about them, resort to Brambletye every summer and autumn. Following the incident which settled the fate of the mansion -that in the time of the Commonwealth it was the focus of many a Cavalier conspiracy, the novelist says:-" From its not being a place

of any strength or notice, it was imagined that Brambletye might better escape the keen and jealous watchfulness which kept the Protector's eye ever fixed upon the strongholds and defensible mansions of the nobility and gentry; while its proximity to the metropolis, combined with the seclusion of its situation, adapted it to any enterprise which required at the same time secrecy and an easy communication with the metropolis." Our novelist soon leaves Brambletye for another land, but his denouement is brought about by the explosion of a gunpowder-vault, which destroyed part of the mansion; and we may add that a blackened portion of the ruins gave his narrative the air of truth. On the marriage of his hero and heroine, Brambletye House was abandoned to its fate; "and the time that has intervened since its, desertion," says the author, "combining with the casualty and violence by which it was originally shattered and dismantled, has reduced it to its present condition of a desolate and forlorn ruin."

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In the autumn of 1827, about a score of years from my boyhood's dream, I was induced to re-visit Brambletye. During the interval of my visits, the main road, from which a lane branches off to Brambletye, had been cut through an immense chalk hill, so as to save a mile in the distance. As I drew near the lane, about half a mile from the town, a few faint shadowy traces began to gleam across my recollection: I fancied I knew the forms of a few small cottages on the crest of the hill; but the first glimpse of a windmill, the shafts of which once struck me with terror-satisfied me of the identity of the neighbourhood; and looking down from the very summit of the hill, I saw the grey cupola of Brambletye in the solitary stillness of desolation and decay. I hurried on with that blissful ecstasy which a traveller feels on returning to his long-lost home. My eye lingered till, by the descent of the hill, the tower disappeared in the wood. At length I reached the lane. Í clambered over the gate (unluckily fastened), and did not halt till I regained a view of the tower. My approach was a little struggle of human feeling. The smallness of the building seemed to me an optical illusion, as I am aware, a common effect, though not always noticed. The towers which I once viewed as stupendous, were mere buttresses, the windows and doors tiny, and the mansion altogether a piece of mimic grandeur. In like manner, the farmhouse appeared a small cottage, the barns huts, and the mill-stream a trickling ditch; while the lime-trees in front of the house, which I had considered as a forest-like shelter, now appeared stunted in their growth. I made my way to the interior, where the effect was continued: the paved kitchen, the trim parlour, the pantry—all receded: even Gulliver at Lilliput could not have felt more surprise, although he had the aid of wit and philosophy in its delineation.

Having obtained the key of the only entire room, I hastened across the adjoining field, and in a few moments stood within the principal porch of Brambletye House. Here, such was the summary of my feelings. Within two hundred years the mansion has been erected; by

turns the seat of baronial hospitality and civil feud, the loyalty of Cavaliers; the fanatic outrage of Roundheads; and, ultimately, of wanton mutilation, displaying their hatred of legitimacy. The gate through which Colonel Okey and his men entered was blocked up with a hurdle; and the court-yard in which he marshalled his forces, covered with high flourishing grass: the towers had become mere shells; but the vaults, once stowed with luxuries and weapons, still retained much of their original freshness. What a contrast between these few wrecks of turbulent times and the peaceful scene by which they are now surrounded-a farm and two water-mills-on one side displaying the stormy conflict of passion and desolation-and, on the other, the smiling attributes of humble industry. By a farewell glance, I learned by visitors' names pencilled on the wall (and not unknown to me), that I was not the first to sympathize with the fate of Brambletye. I was told that the place had been visited by hundreds of tourists during the preceding summer. The good housewife added, they borrowed her chairs and other accommodations for their pic-nic fêtes-some of them had not the gratitude to leave the seats in the adjoining field. Lady Morgan may well say of tourists-the only return these fellows make is to put you in their book.

I returned to East Grinstead, where the banker of the place kindly lent me the drawing I have mentioned of Brambletye House, as it appeared in 1780. It was a fine afternoon in October, and we adjourned to the banker's garden, to a seat overhung with the passion-flower in full bloom, to enjoy a little talk about Brambletye and the Comptons, who, I learned, were an amiable family; and traditions of their hospitality were current amongst the old townspeople.

Within a few years, through an almost unpardonable disregard for their associations, the lodge, and some part of the mansion, were pulled down-for the sake of materials—an expectation in which I rejoice to hear the destroyers were disappointed their intrinsic worth not being equal to the labour of removing them. The work of destruction would, however, have been extended to the whole of the ruins, had not some guardian hand interfered for their preservation, which was entirely due to the popularity of Mr. Horace Smith's historical romance. However, Brambletye has since fallen; and much of the baronial hall has been broken up to mend Sussex roads! To what base purposes may not man's handiwork be doomed!

Eleven years ago, all that remained of Brambletye House was one of the towers clothed with stately ivy, and little more than one story of each of the other towers; the intervening portions, with their bay-windows, had disappeared. Nature had, however, lent a helping hand: by the shrubby trees and the ivy, the ruin had gained in that picturesqueness which so often lends a graceful charm to scenes of decaying art.

DOMESTIC ARTS AND CUSTOMS.

Toasting and Toping.

Ir would be hard to tell at what precise time began the practice of Toasting―i.e., naming or proposing any one whose health, success, &c., or any sentiment, which is to be drunk. In the Tatler, No. 24, however, we find the following whimsical explanation:-"It happened that on a public day, a celebrated beauty of those times was in the CrossBath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health in the company. There was in the place a gay fellow, half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he liked not the liquor, he would have the toust. Though he was opposed in his resolution, this whim gave foundation to the present honour which is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been called a toast."

Toasting is, however, mentioned by the classic poets. Thus :

More timely hie thee to the house

With thy bright swans of Paulus Maximus ;
There jest, and feast, make him thine host,

If a fit liver thou dost seeke to toast.

Jonson. Horace, Ode i. book iv. To Venus.

My sober evening let the tankard bless,

With toast embrown'd, and fragrant nutmeg fraught,
While the rich draught with oft-repeated whiffs

Tobacco mild improves.

Warton. A Panegyric on Oxford Ale.

Our ancestors had a great predilection for setting warm substances afloat in their liquor, such as flap-dragons, roasted crabs, and hot toasts of bread. A toast and tankard" was a common expression; but the toast was not confined to ale; it claimed its place in wine, also, as appeared in the following lines by Rochester:

Make it so large, that filled with sack

Up to the swelling brim,

Vast toasts on the delicious lake

Like ships at sea may swim.

A lady's name being coupled with wine, very naturally caused her to be called a toast. Toasting glasses were substituted for grace-cups in the clubs of a later period, when poets inscribed upon them the names of the toasted. Thus, "the Little Whig," Anne, Countess of Sunderland, second daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, a lady of extraordinary beauty, was the celebrated toast and pride of the Whig

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