THE MODERN SPECTATOR Vol. V No. IV

TO THE MODERN SPECTATOR.

Sir,--Without meaning to question the probability of the account which you gave of the Overhill family in your last number, I beg leave to offer you the representation of a country family, which, I hope, will redeem provincial life from those unfavourable impressions which Mr. Truman’s letter is calculated to produce. I have also paid a long-promised visit to a relation, a reverend divine, in a distant part of England; but I found him in a mansion “where sweet content doth dwell and learned ease,” and which the virtues and the graces inhabit in an inseparable union.

As the time of my arrival was known, I was met by Doctor Goodall about five miles from his house, when, dismounting from his horse, he got into my chaise, embraced me with a glow of honest affection, and prepared me, by his conversation, for the reception I was to find, and the comfort I was to enjoy beneath his roof. He had ordered the postillion to take a private road, which led to the gate of his garden, where I found Mrs. Goodall and her two eldest daughters ready to receive me in a manner at once polite and affectionate. We walked through a delightful garden to the house, where the youngest daughter, a counterpart in form and manners of those I had already seen, was prepared to welcome me with a smile of modesty and regard to the happy threshold. She apologized with a most graceful simplicity for not having been at the garden-gate to receive me; but her sisters and herself, she said, took it by turns to be housekeepers for the week; and that being the term of her office, it became her to remain within the circle of her duty: “However,” added she, “I have also my advantage, as, from the circumstance, I shall have the more immediate pleasure of attending upon you.”

I now entered a large, old-fashioned, convenient house, where cleanliness and comfort seemed to occupy every corner; and while I sat at the tea-table, surrounded with these amiable people, I enjoyed a state of tranquil luxury, which the hurries of a hurrying life had prevented me from having hitherto experienced. The rest of the evening passed, as it had begun, in conversation which wanted neither interest nor vivacity; when supper was served at an early hour, on account of my journey; and prayers having been read by the doctor to the whole family. I was conducted to my chamber. With a mind soothed by the pleasing attentions of this excellent family, and my body rather fatigued by a cross-country journey of fifty miles, I need not add, that my repose was calm and sound; and that I awoke in the morning to health, spirits, and satisfaction.

The prospect from my chamber was over a beautiful lawn, varied by plantations and enameled with flowers; and, on opening the window, a voice, sweet as music, bade me good morrow. It was to the eldest of the young ladies, who was gathering a nosegay to present to me at breakfast, to whom I was indebted for the charming salutation; and I was immediately summoned by a gentle rap at the door, and another votive good morrow, from the second of the sisterhood, who conducted me into a long gallery, with a large bow-window at the end of it, round whose Gothic frame the jessamine and the honeysuckle mingled their flowers and their fragrance. Here the breakfast was arranged, whose luxuries were supplied by the housewifery of the girls; and here were continued the delightful enjoyments of the preceding evening, heightened by a new day, a smiling sky, invigorated spirits, and unconstrained regard.

This gallery seemed to contain every thing that could improve the mind, and fill up the day with elegant useful amusement. At the opposite end of it, there was a small organ and other instruments of music, with a large glass case, which contained a well arranged philosophical apparatus; and, in other parts of this capacious room, there were implements, not only of design and embroidery, but of the less elegant, though, perhaps, more necessary branches of female qualification.

When I had examined this well-ordered arrangement of domestic pleasure, the doctor proposed a walking excursion, in order to shew me, what he very justly styled, the comforts of his little domain. We, therefore, sallied forth, and, passing through the garden, entered a well-planted serpentine walk, which commanded various views of a very pleasing country; and, continuing to skirt a very rich, but narrow valley for about a mile, terminated in a small grove of stately oaks and beeches. Beneath this spot a rivulet meandered, whose surface was agitated by a waterfall, which, though at some distance, formed a beautiful object for the eye, while it enlivened the ear by its irregular murmurs. Here we all sat down, under a kind of over-hanging clift, covered with ivy and skirted with laurel. At this moment, my senses, which were wrapped up in the charming circumstances about me, received a sudden, but delightful animation, by the bursting forth of the village peal, which, in unequal and swelling sounds, congratulated my arrival. The doctor enlarged upon the rude state in which he found the place at his first coming to it, with the plan of its subsequent improvements. In one spot he acknowledged the suggestions of his wife, in others the fancy of his girls; and thus we continued our return to the house, which received a very pleasing variety from our passing through the village, where I perceived, with much sensibility, the affectionate respect which the humble parishioners were proud of shewing to their pastor. When we reached the rectory, the doctor retired, without apology, to his study; and his good lady, after telling me that a bell would ring to give me half an hour’s notice of dinner, retired with my fair cousins to the little offices of the toilette.

I then went for a short time to my chamber, and afterwards, strolled into the garden, where, beneath the shade of a sycamore, I amused myself in comparing the vain, noisy, intruding hospitality of public life, with the calm, cheerful, and unaffected welcome of Goodington Parsonage. Nay, so deeply were my thoughts engaged in reflecting on the superiority of virtue, and the contentment which arises from innocent pleasures, over the interrupted, feverish delights, if they may deserve that name, of ostentation, folly, and fashion, that the dinner bell had rung twice without my hearing its summons; so that when dinner was served, the London cousin was lost, till those voices, which were sufficient to animate the trees around me, called me to myself, and the hospitable board that waited my appearance.

There I found the doctor’s curate, a young divine of very amiable aspect; and a modest, well-behaved, neighbouring young squire, who had just completed an university education, and was about taking possession of a very handsome estate adjoining to the doctor’s parish. The table was covered with plenty, and possessed all the luxuries of nature unsophisticated by those of art. Good humour came with the dessert, and an enlivened conversation filled up the interval, till we were summoned to tea at a little cottage, whose front commands a cheerful prospect of rural variety; while the back part communicates with the dairy and a small farm, whose occupations amuse the leisure, and whose productions supply the table, of its reverend owner,

Here I drank milk warm from the cow, saw the arrangements of tillage and pasture with a more minute intelligent eye than I had hitherto seen them; was instructed in the nature and amused with the process of rearing the various species of fowl for use or amusement, and found my cup of tea brimful of fragrance.

An approaching storm forced our return sooner than was intended; but it could not be too soon for the entertainment that followed. A concert in the gallery concluded the evening. The young ladies took their separate instruments, while the curate and the Oxonian aided the charming band. My fair cousins sometimes sung alone, and sometimes in parts, and their mother joined the chorus; while I, delighted with the harmonious scene, could only ask myself, whether I was on earth or in heaven.

I have thus given you, sir, a complete description of one day, that you may form a judgment of all the rest; which, though varied by excursions, the visits of neighbours, and country amusements, were all equally pleasant, rational, and improving.

To enjoy mirth without noise, conversation without calumny, luxury without extravagance, elegance without vanity, and pleasure without repentance, was my happy lot during the month which I passed at Goodington Parsonage.

SAMUEL LOVEL.