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We are now fairly in the Surrey Hills, and may put what some will think the very crown to these south-eastern excursions by a walk from Dorking to Farnham. Ascending by one of many lanes, shadowed (at the time of our visit) by hedges bright with hawthorn berries, and stately trees just touched with the russet and gold of early autumn, we are soon upon an upland stretch of heath and forest, still remaining in all the wildness of nature. Sometimes the path leads us between venerable trees—oak and beech and yew, whose branches form an impenetrable roof overhead, then traverses a sweep of bare hill, bright with gorse and heather, then plunges into some fairy dell, carpeted with softest moss. Many of the “stately homes of England,” with their embowering trees upon the lower slopes, add a charm to the scene by their reminiscences as well as by their beauty. To the left is Wotton; made famous by the name and genius of John Evelyn, author of Sylva and the Diary—the scholar, gentleman, and Christian—pure-minded in an age of corruption, and the admiration of dissolute courtiers, who could respect what they would not imitate. It is to him that Cowley says:
“Happy art thou, whom God does bless
With the full choice of thine own happiness;
And happier yet, because thou’rt blest
With wisdom how to choose the best.”
That the choice was made, for life and death, appears by the inscription which Evelyn directed to be placed on his tombstone at Wotton. “That living in an age of extraordinary events and revolution, he had learned from thence this truth, which he desired might be thus communicated to posterity: that all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but real piety.”
Two or three miles further Albury is reached, with its lovely gardens designed by Evelyn. The curious traveller may here inspect the sumptuous church erected by the late Mr. Drummond, the owner of Albury, for the followers of Edward Irving. The worth of Mr. Drummond’s character, with the shrewd sense and caustic wit by which he was wont to enliven the debates of the House of Commons, laid a deeper hold upon his contemporaries than his theological peculiarities; and the special views of which this temple is the costly memorial have proved of insufficient power to sway the minds and hearts of men. Still ascending, we reach again the summit of steep downs, and advancing by noble yew-trees gain at Newland’s Corner another magnificent view. The hill of the “Holy Martyrs’” Chapel, now corrupted to “Saint Martha’s,” may next be climbed, and a short rest at the fine old town of Guildford will be welcome. The castle, the churches with their monuments, and Archbishop Abbot’s Hospital, are all worthy of a visit; but, unless we have a day to spare, we must be content with but a hurried glance, for we have still the “Hog’s Back” to traverse, a ten miles’ walk to Farnham.
Climbing from the station at Guildford through pleasant lanes, the traveller emerges upon a narrow chalk-ridge, half-a-mile wide, and nearly level, which etymologists tell us was called by the Anglo-Saxons Hoga, a hill, whence the ridge received its name. Possibly, however, a simpler derivation, as the more obvious, is also the more correct. The long upland unbroken line might not unaptly have been compared with one of those long, lean, narrow-backed swine with which early English illuminations make us familiar; and the homeliness of the name would quite accord with the habit of early topographers. The walk is interesting, but, after the varied beauties of the way from Dorking to Guildford, may appear at first slightly monotonous. On either side the fair, fertile champaign of Surrey stretches to the horizon, broken here and there by low wood-crowned hills, and at one point especially, between Puttenham on the left, and Wanborough on the right, the combinations of view are very striking. Puttenham church-tower, and the manor-house, formerly the Priory, peep out from amongst the foliage of some grand old trees. A few cottages and farmhouses lie scattered about picturesquely, forming the very ideal of an old English village; while pine-covered Crooksbury Hill, with the Devil’s Jumps and Hindhead in the farther distance, make a striking background to the view. “Wan” is evidently “Woden,” and here there was no doubt a shrine of the ancient Saxon deity.
We must not omit in passing to drink of the Wanborough spring, among the freshest and purest in England; never known, it is said, to freeze.
Pursuing our journey, we presently look down upon Moor Park and Waverley, which we may either visit now, descending by the little, village of Seale, or reserve for an excursion from Farnham. Waverley contains the picturesque remains of an old Cistercian Abbey, built as the Cistercians always did build, in a charming valley, embosomed in hills, irrigated by a clear running stream, abounding in fish, and with current enough to turn the mill of the monastery. The annals of this great establishment, extending over two hundred and thirty years, were published towards the close of the seventeenth century; and Sir Walter Scott took from them the name now so familiar wherever the English language is spoken.
Divided from Waverley by a winding lane, whose high banks and profuse undergrowth remind us of Devonshire, lies Moor Park. Hither Sir William Temple retired from the toils of State, to occupy his leisure by gardening, planting, and in writing memoirs. A trim garden, with stiff-clipped hedges, and watered by a straight canal which runs through it, is doubtless a reminiscence of Temple’s residence as our ambassador at the Hague. “But,” says Lord Macaulay, “there were other inmates of Moor Park to whom a higher interest belongs. An eccentric, uncouth, disagreeable young Irishman, who had narrowly escaped plucking at Dublin, attended Sir William as an amanuensis for board and twenty pounds a year; dined at the second table, wrote bad verses in praise of his employer, and made love to a very pretty dark-eyed young girl, who waited on Lady Giffard. Little did Temple imagine that the coarse exterior of his dependant concealed a genius equally suited to politics and to letters, a genius destined to shake great kingdoms, to stir the laughter and the rage of millions, and to leave to posterity memorials which can only perish with the English language. Little did he think that the flirtation in his servants’ hall, which he, perhaps, scarcely deigned to make the subject of a jest, was the beginning of a long, unprosperous love, which was to be as widely famed as the passion of Petrarch or Abelard. Sir William’s secretary was Jonathan Swift. Lady Giffard’s waiting-maid was poor Stella.”
Just outside the lodge gate, at the end of the park furthest from the mansion, is a small house covered with roses and evergreens. It is known to the peasantry as Dame Swift’s cottage. Our rustic guide pointed it out by this name, but who Dame Swift was he did not know. He had never heard of Stella and her sad history. An object of far greater interest to him was a large fox-earth, a couple of hundred yards away, in which some years ago “a miser” had lived and died. A whole crop of legends have already sprung up about the mysterious inmate of the cave. He was a nobleman, so said our informant, who had been crossed in love: he had made a vow that no human being should see his face, and accordingly never came out till after nightfall, even then being closely wrapped up in his cloak. After his death a party of ladies and gentlemen came down from London in a post-chaise and four; and having buried the body carried away “a cartload of golden guineas and fine dresses, which he had hid in the cave.”