CHARLES KINGSLEY'S GARDEN.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12933, 12 October 1907, Page 7

CHARLES KINGSLEY'S GARDEN.

Mise Rose* Kingsley, daughter of the late Rev. Charles Kingeley, in a recently published volume, gives an intererting account of tho rectory garden at Evcrsley. She says:— '•When the Enclosure Act waa passed, ' a large- amount of moorland* beyond tho Mount was allotted to the "glebe. My fathrr disapproved of the measure m deeply as did Shakespeare of tho 'micloeing of Welcombe, , and opposed it by all means in his power. But wlicn once it wa« a fait accompli ho tried to make the best of it by plantin a; and beautifying a strip of throe or four hundred yard*, lying along tho high road, and sloping down west to tho great glebe field. . . ♦ An old sand pit close to the hut wae overgrown with gigantic brambles, a thorny waste: and theeo my father eet to work to root out—no easy task, ; as all know who have tried to grub old brambles. But with a strong , clawing fork, made by the village blacksmith according to hie instructions, he would tear up their mighty rooU whenever he had a spare halfhour, and conquered them'at last. One day, while ho was thus employed, Dr. Benson, then headmaster of Wellington College, found his way up to the Mount, with Dr. Lightfoot. who was staying- with him. Both wore at onco imprnserd for work on the bramble roots, and the eight of that learned and great divine, afterwarde Bishop of Durham, toiling away in his shirt sWtm as earnestly as any day-labourer working for his bread, ,was a sight never to be forgotten." Miss Kingsley is perhaps at her best, and certainly at her most interesting, in this last chapter of her book. "Of ell spote in the rectory garden, memories crowd most thickly β-bwit tho three giant fir-trees. - Memories !of gatherings round the great South American hoimmock, that hung in win- j ter across the study, and in summer j from the huge horizontal limb of the : «yt«er fir-tree. Gatherings when tillc m 'high eroprize' between men of letters, divines «md echolam, famous soldiers and sailors, statesmen and men of scienoe; Bowed freely and eagerly; broken by some flesh of humour, fenne turn- of thought ac tender «c it wot unexpected, from their host, touching tfoe dark places with light and d»wiog the best from each speaker. There wae no lack of whole-heirted la.ushter, of gentle gaiety, in these eyropoeiume, when the talk remged up M d doirn the universe, from the beede that cmwled in the graes to the last. Bfll before I Parliament, from mai>'« wayß I works to thingH Divine. \ -Strangely diversified were the visiters who f<*m<l their nay to the

"*U>ry i n thoee BnndMJf 1 Bewa to ccc « tired compositor from £ j*" s ** kondon printing-houee, who nad come down to talk over ««• grievances of hie fellowworkmen. Another Sunday, that ™>yal persoMge whom my fatner loved with such devoted loyeJty, setting on his fine brown charger at the door, before riding bick to the" camp of his gallant 10th Husears in Bramshill Park. Yet. again, gentle Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, coining to stay with the man whose books eIW and her husband hid read in their far-off Pacific kingdom, end to see what English boys' cricket was like at WelTuvgton College. Or Alfred Tennyson—as he then wee— einoking pipes in the study, when he came to see whether tho beautiful oJd iiriok liouse Farm, close to the Mount, would bo « fit place to settle in when he won his lovely bride. . . . "but n.orc prwious tar are memories oi the quiet homo life. Hot days when my father would tempt his favourite pair of nailer jacks from their, hole in the lawn beyond the acacia tree, and walk up and down udmiring the colours on their b&oke, while the little creitures sot contentedly in his hand, or when he would pcrs::edo tho hclf-tame slow-worm to cio.no out of hie n«vt in tho rteop, thyme-grown br.Jik of the sunk fence. .Urmorici of warm summer evenings, when, in the. sett dusk, German partson:js . n:J English glees would float up in tho still air l>er.ett.th the hug« uino,.y cf the fir boiiglis, and my f'lthor would ark ior one u.:id another of his favourites, or bid the rinyere lie-ten to th-o chirring of tire uiiiutjer, or hold up v hand to jjcint out the Healthy fliy;!it of a wJiito barn-owl." —————— i