Envy will be a science
when it learns the use of the microscope.
When leaves fall and flowers fade, great people are
found in their country-seats. Look!—that
is Montfort Court,—a place of regal magnificence,
so far as extent of pile and amplitude of domain could
satisfy the pride of ownership, or inspire the visitor
with the respect due to wealth and power. An
artist could have made nothing of it. The Sumptuous
everywhere; the Picturesque nowhere. The house
was built in the reign of George I., when first commenced
that horror of the beautiful, as something in bad
taste, which, agreeably to our natural love of progress,
progressively advanced through the reigns of succeeding
Georges. An enormous fafade, in dull brown brick;
two wings and a centre, with double flights of steps
to the hall-door from the carriagesweep. No
trees allowed to grow too near the house; in front,
a stately flat with stone balustrades. But wherever
the eye turned, there was nothing to be seen but park,
miles upon miles of park; not a cornfield in sight,
not a roof-tree, not a spire, only those lata silentia,—still
widths of turf, and, somewhat thinly scattered and
afar, those groves of giant trees. The whole
prospect so vast and so monotonous that it never tempted
you to take a walk. No close-neighbouring poetic
thicket into which to plunge, uncertain whither you
would emerge; no devious stream to follow. The
very deer, fat and heavy, seemed bored by pastures
it would take them a week to traverse. People
of moderate wishes and modest fortunes never envied
Montfort Court: they admired it; they were proud
to say they had seen it. But never did they
say—
“Oh,
that for me some home like this would smile!”
Not so, very, very great people!—they rather
coveted than admired. Those oak trees so large,
yet so undecayed; that park, eighteen miles at least
in circumference; that solid palace which, without
inconvenience, could entertain and stow away a king
and his whole court; in short, all that evidence of
a princely territory and a weighty rent-roll made
English dukes respectfully envious, and foreign potentates
gratifyingly jealous.
But turn from the front. Open the gate in that
stone balustrade. Come southward to the garden
side of the house. Lady Montfort’s flower-garden.
Yes; not so dull!—flowers, even autumnal
flowers, enliven any sward. Still, on so large
a scale, and so little relief; so little mystery about
those broad gravel-walks; not a winding alley anywhere.
Oh, for a vulgar summer-house; for some alcove, all
honeysuckle and ivy! But the dahlias are splendid!
Very true; only, dahlias, at the best, are such uninteresting
prosy things. What poet ever wrote upon a dahlia!
Surely Lady Montfort might have introduced a little
more taste here, shown a little more fancy!
Lady Montfort! I should like to see my lord’s
