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INTRODUCTION

GRYLL GRANGE

In the following pages the New Forest is always mentioned as if it were still unenclosed. This is the only state in which the Author has been acquainted with it. Since its enclosure, he has never seen it, and purposes never to do so.

MISNOMERS

Ego sic semper et ubique vixi, ut ultimam quamque lucem, taraquam non redituram, consumerem.--Petronius Arbiter.

Always and everywhere I have so lived, that I might consume the passing light as if it were not to return.

Before we proceed further, we will give some account of our interlocutors.

THE SQUIRE AND HIS NIECE

FORTUNA . SPONDET . MULTA . MULTIS . PRESTAT . NEMINI . VIVE . IN . DIES . ET . HORAS . NAM . PROPRIUM . EST . NIHIL. Marmor vetus apud Feam, ad Hor. Epist. i. ii, 23.

Fortune makes many promises to many, Keeps them to none. Live to the days and hours, For nothing is your own.

Spondet Fortuna multa multis, praestat nemini. Vive in dies et horas: nam proprium est nihil.

Streightway he with his virtuous staff them strooke, And streight of beasts they comely men became: Yet being men they did unmanly looke, And stared ghastly, some for inward shame, And some for wrath to see their captive dame: But one above the rest in speciall, That had an hog been late, hight Grylle by name, Repyned greatly, and did him miscall, That had from hoggish forme him brought to naturall.

Said Guyon: 'See the mind of beastly man, That hath so soon forgot the excellence Of his creation when he life began, That now he chooseth, with vile difference, To be a beast, and lacke intelligence.'

Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12.

In Plutarch's dialogue, Ulysses, after his own companions have been restored to the human form, solicits Circe to restore in the same manner any other Greeks who may be under her enchantments. Circe consents, provided they desire it. Gryllus, endowed with speech for the purpose, answers for all, that they had rather remain as they are; and supports the decision by showing the greater comfort of their condition as it is, to what it would probably be if they were again sent forth to share the common lot of mankind. We have unfortunately only the beginning of the dialogue, of which the greater portion has perished.

It might be seen that, to a man who traced his ancestry from the palace of Circe, the first care would be the continuance of his ancient race; but a wife presented to him the forethought of a perturbation of his equanimity, which he never could bring himself to encounter. He liked to dine well, and withal to dine quietly, and to have quiet friends at his table, with whom he could discuss questions which might afford ample room for pleasant conversation, and none for acrimonious dispute. He feared that a wife would interfere with his dinner, his company, and his after-dinner bottle of port. For the perpetuation of his name, he relied on an orphan niece, whom he had brought up from a child, who superintended his household, and sate at the head of his table. She was to be his heiress, and her husband was to take his name. He left the choice to her, but reserved to himself a veto, if he should think the aspirant unworthy of the honourable appellation.

The young lady had too much taste, feeling, and sense to be likely to make a choice which her uncle would not approve; but time, as it rolled on, foreshadowed a result which the squire had not anticipated. Miss Gryll did not seem likely to make any choice at all. The atmosphere of quiet enjoyment in which she had grown up seemed to have steeped her feelings in its own tranquillity; and still more, the affection which she felt for her uncle, and the conviction that, though he had always premeditated her marriage, her departure from his house would be the severest blow that fate could inflict on him, led her to postpone what she knew must be an evil day to him, and might peradventure not be a good one to her.

'Oh, the ancient name of Gryll!; sighed the squire to himself. 'What if it should pass away in the nineteenth century, after having lived from the time of Circe!'

Often, indeed, when he looked at her at the head of his table, the star of his little circle, joyous herself, and the source of joy in others, he thought the actual state of things admitted no change for the better, and the perpetuity of the old name became a secondary consideration; but though the purpose was dimmed in the evening, it usually brightened in the morning. In the meantime, the young lady had many suitors, who were permitted to plead their cause, though they made little apparent progress.

Several young gentlemen of fair promise, seemingly on the point of being accepted, had been, each in his turn, suddenly and summarily dismissed. Why, was the young lady's secret. If it were known, it would be easy, she said, in these days of artificial manners, to counterfeit the presence of the qualities she liked, and, still more easy, the absence of the qualities she disliked. There was sufficient diversity in the characters of the rejected to place conjecture at fault, and Mr. Gryll began to despair.

The uncle and niece had come to a clear understanding on this subject. He might present to her attention any one whom he might deem worthy to be her suitor, and she might reject the suitor without assigning a reason for so doing. In this way several had appeared and passed away, like bubbles on a stream.

Was the young lady over fastidious, or were none among the presented worthy, or had that which was to touch her heart not yet appeared?

Mr. Gryll was the godfather of his niece, and to please him, she had been called Morgana. He had had some thoughts of calling her Circe, but acquiesced in the name of a sister enchantress, who had worked out her own idea of a beautiful garden, and exercised similar power over the minds and forms of men.

THE DUKE'S FOLLY

Moisten your lungs with wine. The dog-star's sway Returns, and all things thirst beneath his ray. Alcaeus

Falernum. Opimianum. Annorum. Centum. Heu! Heu! inquit Trimalchio, ergo diutius vivit vinum quam homuncio! Quare reyye reviovas faciamus. Vita vinum est.-- Petronius Arbiter.

Falernian Opimian Wine an hundred years old. Alas! Alas! exclaimed Trimalchio. This wine lives longer than man! Wherefore let us sing, 'moisten your lungs.' Wine is life.

Wordsworth's question, in his Poets Epitaph,

Art thou a man of purple cheer, A rosy man, right plump to see?

might have been answered in the affirmative by the Reverend Doctor Opimian. The worthy divine dwelt in an agreeably situated vicarage, on the outskirts of the New Forest. A good living, a comfortable patrimony, a moderate dowry with his wife, placed him sufficiently above the cares of the world to enable him to gratify all his tastes without minute calculations of cost. His tastes, in fact, were four: a good library, a good dinner, a pleasant garden, and rural walks. He was an athlete in pedestrianism. He took no pleasure in riding, either on horseback or in a carriage; but he kept a brougham for the service of Mrs. Opimian, and for his own occasional use in dining out.

Mrs. Opimian was domestic. The care of the doctor had supplied her with the best books on cookery, to which his own inventive genius and the kindness of friends had added a large, and always increasing manuscript volume. The lady studied them carefully, and by diligent superintendence left the doctor nothing to desire in the service of his table. His cellar was well stocked with a selection of the best vintages, under his own especial charge. In all its arrangements his house was a model of order and comfort; and the whole establishment partook of the genial physiognomy of the master. From the master and mistress to the cook, and from the cook to the torn cat, there was about the inhabitants of the vicarage a sleek and purring rotundity of face and figure that denoted community of feelings, habits, and diet; each in its kind, of course, for the doctor had his port, the cook her ale, and the cat his milk, in sufficiently liberal allowance. In the morning while Mrs. Opimian found ample occupation in the details of her household duties and the care of her little family, the doctor, unless he had predestined the whole day to an excursion, studied in his library. In the afternoon he walked; in the evening he dined; and after dinner read to his wife and family, or heard his children read to him. This was his home life. Now and then he dined out; more frequently than at any other place with his friend and neighbour, Mr. Gryll, who entirely sympathised with him in his taste for a good dinner.

Beyond the limits of his ordinary but within those of his occasional range was a solitary round tower on an eminence backed with wood, which had probably in old days been a landmark for hunters; but having in modern days no very obvious use, was designated, as many such buildings are, by the name of The Folly. The country people called it 'The Duke's Folly,' though who the Duke in question was nobody could tell. Tradition had dropped his name.

One fine Midsummer day, with a southerly breeze and a cloudless sky, the doctor, having taken an early breakfast, in the progress of which he had considerably reduced the altitude of a round of beef, set out with a good stick in his hand and a Newfoundland dog at his heels for one of his longest walks, such as he could only take in the longest days.

The palace in a woody vale they found, High-raised of stone, a shaded space around. Pope.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the doctor, 'but my curiosity is excited by what I see here; and if you do not think it impertinent, and would inform me how these changes have come about, I should be greatly obliged.'

'Most willingly, sir,' said the other; 'but if you will walk in, and see what has been done, the obligation will be mine.'

The doctor readily accepted the proposal. The stranger led the way, across an open space in the wood, to a circular hall, from each side of which a wide passage led, on the left hand to the tower, and on the right to the new building, which was so masked by the wood as not to be visible except from within the glade. It was a square structure of plain stone, much in the same style as that of the tower.

The young gentleman took the left-hand passage, and introduced the doctor to the lower floor of the tower.

'I have divided the tower,' he observed, 'into three rooms: one on each floor. This is the dining-room; above it is my bedroom; above it again is my library. The prospect is good from all the floors, but from the library it is most extensive, as you look over the woods far away into the open sea.'

'A noble dining-room,' said the doctor. 'The height is well proportioned to the diameter. That circular table well becomes the form of the room, and gives promise of a fine prospect in its way.'

'I hope you will favour me by forming a practical judgment on the point,' said his new acquaintance, as he led the way to the upper floor, the doctor marvelling at the extreme courtesy with which he was treated. 'This building,' thought he, 'might belong to the age of chivalry, and my host might be Sir Calidore himself.' But the library brought him back to other days.

The walls were covered with books, the upper portion accessible by a gallery, running entirely round the apartment. The books of the lower circle were all classical; those of the upper, English, Italian, and French, with a few volumes in Spanish.

'You have a great collection of books,' said the doctor.

'I believe,' said the young gentleman, 'I have all the best books in the languages I cultivate. Home Tooke says: "Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, are unfortunately the usual bounds of an English scholar's acquisition." I think any scholar fortunate whose acquisition extends so far. These languages and our own comprise, I believe, with a few rare exceptions, all the best books in the world. I may add Spanish for the sake of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon.

'What you say is very true, sir,' said the other; 'but you know the lines of Milton--

'Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, Be seen in some high lonely tower, Where I may oft outwatch the Bear, With thrice great Hermes.

'These lines have haunted me from very early days, and principally influenced me in purchasing this tower, and placing my library on the top of it. And I have another association with such a mode of life.'

A French clock in the library struck two, and the young gentleman proposed to his visitor to walk into the house. They accordingly descended the stairs, and crossed the entrance-hall to a large drawing-room, simply but handsomely furnished; having some good pictures on the walls, an organ at one end of the room, a piano and harp at the other, and an elegantly-disposed luncheon in the middle.

'At this time of the year,' said the young gentleman, 'I lunch at two, and dine at eight. This gives me two long divisions of the morning, for any in-door and out-door purposes. I hope you will partake with me. You will not find a precedent in Homer for declining the invitation.'

'Really,' said the doctor, 'that argument is cogent and conclusive. I accept with pleasure: and indeed my long walk has given me an appetite.'

'Now you must know,' said the young gentleman, 'I have none but female domestics. You will see my two waiting-maids.'

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