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From the Dublin University Magazine.

THE HOP-GARDEN; OR, A KENTISH

ACADEMUS.

A FANTASIA.

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with a dinner composed solely of cayenne and Chili-vinegar, with an olive or two by way of dessert.

Now, gentle reader, give me thine hand, and let me lead thee into a garden. Perhaps you know a great deal about gardens. You BEGONE, ye philosophers!-satirists, avaunt! have been to Chiswick often to the BotaniI declare, at the outset of this sketch, or tale cal Gardens in the Regent's Park, to Kew (or whatever else, by the interwoven blessings and Kensington, to Chatsworth, to Versailles, of Momus and Minerva, this article may and to the Tuileries to the gardens of the chance to turn out), that you and yours shall Escurial and of the Alhambra to those have nothing to do with it. You shall not classic gardens of the Ausonian land, and to even read it, if, by fair warning, you can be those beloved of the people and the princes kept off the premises. Let me assure you in Germany? Have you been as far as Rusthat there is nothing here that will conduce sia, to see the emperor's gardens there? Have to your self-glorification. There is not a word you been to Stamboul? and can you-Giaour of praise for either party. The fact is I am as you are, man as you may be - can you tired to death of you both. You, Messieurs boast of having seen the gardens of the Seragles Philosophes, with your absurd doubts and lio? Further east still do you know anyequally absurd confidence--to say nothing thing of" the Gardens of Gul in their bloom," of the "horrid impudence,' as Montaigne beyond the poet's report that they are calls it, with which you pelt one another "sweet?" Have you questioned any intelliwith arguments-have fairly worn out my gent Persian, of the working classes, as to the patience; unfairly, I should have said. You, amount of human labor required to produce ye satirists! ye Arabs of literature! whose an ounce of that far-famed attar? Have you hand is against every man who are no re- yourself taken part in an oriental Feast of specters of persons; ye professors of the art Roses? or even only assisted, à la Française, of offence! whose excellence is in the use of by looking on at such an affair? If you anmissile weapons, from the finely-tempered swer most of these questions in the affirmative jereed down to the merely disgusting rotten - if you are a fashionable Briton, or a wanegg; ye chevaliers errant, but most anti-chiv- dering cosmopolitan - I feel almost ashamed alresque, ye have become a sad weariness to of inviting you into a place so completely my flesh! May I never hear another fine rustic and homely as the one I have in view. stroke of wit-may I never enjoy a hearty Here are no rare flowers of resplendent hues, laugh again if I do not believe that you are various as the rainbow no terraced lawns the worst company in the world to live, move, and pleached alleys-no ornamental founand have one's being in. Dogberry's tedious- tains and neatly rolled gravel walks; nothing ness is as nothing compared with that of a which a Sir William Temple or a Shenstone society that does nothing but joke, and satirize, would desire, to "decorate repose Yet fain and labor to be keen and brilliant. For my would I have your company, gentle reader, own part, gentle reader, I hate a man or wo- though you be a lion at the Travellers Club, man whose conversation is all points; like or enthroned high among the "princes, pohedgehogs or porcupines, they are very curi- tentates, powers," of Almacks' those male, ous to look at, but who would ever think of these feminine. Yes, though you belong to taking them to one's bosom to pet? the crême de la crême of the sky-blue heaven of aristocratic society-which, unlike its godfather, the firmament on high, is not spacious, but extremely narrow; and, instead of bending over all, with graceful amplitude, keeps its starry glories packed together in the smallest orbital space, and covers them with mysterious clouds from the familiar gaze of any lowly wight: though you have put an equatorial belt about the earth, and have sailed “from Indus to the Pole," and know all that is to be seen between China and Peru; be you the very quintessence of fashion, or the most aecomplished vagabond within the four seas, I would, nevertheless, have your company. Ah! I bethink me. There is one name by aid of which I can draw you on with me. Lady Lofty! Mr. Peregrine! do you not know the name of Bass? It has been whispered to me that, in your ladyship' serene and elevated

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As the pseudo-philosophers and professors of sarcasm have now turned away in contempt, let me invite the reader to accompany me to a pleasant place. Before we set off, though, allow me to explain to you that I have a great love in my heart for philosophers, humorists, and wits. It is only those who "imitate" them" so abominably" that I have been addressing above; knowing perfectly well that they would assume the titles to which they have no claim, and listen, accordingly, to what was meant for themselves. There is a great difference between the real men and their imitators as great as that between the true and the false Florimel. The right sort of philosophers never invite you to a feast consisting of bare bones and chaff. The right sort of wits and satirists never think of gratifying a refined taste or a healthy stomach

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circles, pale ale is deemed a beverage not un- your face. However, he would probably say worthy of goddesses; that it sometimes even somewhat emphatically that it is an abuse of takes precedence of Champagne and Lafitte language to call prettiness and elegance, grace up there. Of the devotion of Mr. Peregrine and grandeur. Still you may catch him in a and his brothers to the creamy amber flood, mood to admire Donizetti. Bellini and are we not certified in the books of the travel- Rossini he will find beauties in of himself; but lers of Great Britain, whose name is Legion? for the French light opera composers, or for At the top of the great Pyramid, and at the composers of any class of French music, if you lowest depth of Schemnitz-in the vineyards praise them to him—gare á vous―he cannot of France, and in the Desert of Sahara - at stand it. We are all said to be mad upon one the sources of the Nile, and at the mouths of point; Mr. Clement Young's mad point is the Ganges at the diggings in Australia, and French music-an innocent one enough. the other diggings at Nineveh-at the North Au reste, he speaks the French language Cape, in the face of the midnight sun, and at (with a Kentish accent); he drinks French Cape Horn, in the very teeth of the terrible wines, likes French cookery, and is highly icebergs-in London and in Pekin- the amused at French politics. He admires bold Briton quaffs the benignant Bass. All French women in France, and in fashionmankind imitate him, when they can-Turks, able society here; but he could never be perTartars, Affghans, Hindoos, Burmese, Chi- suaded to let his only daughter, Rose, have a nese, Japanese, Esquimaux, Arabs, Egyp- French bonne, or a French governess, or even tians, Caffres, Moors, Algerines; beyond the go to Paris to complete her education. Her Atlantic wave, Yankees, Blue Noses, Mexi- mother was an English gentlewoman; and cans, and the Lost Tribes, Peruvians, Chilians, when she died, in Rose's second year, ClemBrazilians, and the dwellers in Patagonia ert Young vowed within himself to train Rose all declare, by precept and example, that into just such another woman - the crown since the cunning infant Bacchus discovered and perfection of the female character. He the use of the grape, there has been no inven- loved his wife so well that he mourned for tion so universally delectable as this of the her ever after her death. There was no Alton brewer. Come, then, and see the second Mrs. Young-the tall, strong, handplace whence the immortal Bass procures his some man of three and thirty lived alone with bitter. his little girl; taught her, played with her, walked and rode with her, devoted his time and his thoughts to her. Between the education of his daughter and the management of his property, Mr. Young led a busy, useful, and certainly far from an unhappy life. He was on very good terms with his neighbors; but the two whom he loved the most were those who lived nearest to him — the vicar and the organist of the village which stood on his estate. The name of this village was Greenwood. Greenwood Church was the boast of the country for twenty miles round. It was as handsome a village church as you ever saw; rustic yet noble, with three spacious aisles and a fine chancel, an east window that would have been no discredit to a cathedral·

For you who are not too fine to enjoy rusticity-not too blazé for simple pleasures-not too high to be shocked at the sight of low company not too enervated by the unwholesome imprisonment of luxurious drawingrooms, to be afraid of spending a day in the open air come you with me, on a visit to my friend, Clement Young, of Ivy Hatch Manor, near Kent. I will do my best to make the time pass agreeably; the very cleverest man on earth could do no more. So if you are not pleased it is not my fault. In the words of an old French writer:-"Je n'ay pas entrepris de contenter tout le monde; mesme Jupiter n'agrée à tous?"*

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Clement Young is a gentleman by birth and education. He lives on a small estate of his own, and farms it himself. In his heart he has a great deal of old English warmth, and in his head a considerable amount of new English light. He does not hate the French, except on his musical side; there, I confess, he will not endure them. He loves and studies music, more Germanico. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Weber, and Beethoven are his idols; he can see a great deal of good in Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, but will not hesitate to tell you that they are very much overrated. Talk to him about the grace and grandeur of Donizetti, and, but that he is a gentleman, he would laugh in

* Bouchet.

Diamodned with panes of quiet device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,

and enriched with a choir organ which has
been highly praised for its tone by a prebend
of York and a Birmingham connoisseur. This
instrument was the gift of Mr. Young; and
it cost him more money than he could well
afford; especially as it entailed upon him
the expense of paying an organist, the parish
being too poor to afford sixty pounds a-year
for the luxury of church music. This luxury
Mr. Young allowed himself and the rest of
the congregation. The country folks walked
five or six miles to hear the service at Green-
wood Church; and the gentry, who had been

used to London Sacred-Harmonic, and Phil- her, she would walk to the vicarage pew, and harmonic, and various cathedral perform- he to the vestry. There were others, too, who ances, would drive as far on Sunday to hear loved Carey Herbert, and showed it, even on old Steinberg's voluntaries, and the very entering the church. Mr. Young and Rose creditable singing of his choir boys-mere always looked up to the organ-loft before they peasant children, in whom he had developed entered the grand pew belonging to the a taste for music. The vicar, too, was a manor-house; and though Rose could exgreat attraction. He read the prayers, and change no affectionate glances with her friend, preached so well, that the strangers who the sight of Carey's lovely face, full of music heard him said it was a thousand pities he and holiness, shed a glow of love and devotion was buried in such an out-of-the-way place. over her heart. Carey, too, loved Rose so But the vicar thought not so. He felt that well, that old Fritz Steinberg never forgot to he was useful where he was; and he went bend forward and whisper - "Mees Rose ees about his Master's business, perfectly content now just herein getreten." Upon which Carey with his lot. He had no ambition, and was Herbert's sightless eyes would turn downglad that the lines had fallen to him in a wards, and her lips would open with a pleasant place. He was a widower, like his smile. friend and patron; and, like him, had an But these remarks are merely introductory. only daughter, whom he loved passing It was not to the dear old church at Greenwell." The affection between Mr. Herbert wood that I wished to conduct you, kind and his child, Carey, was more tender, if reader, nor to the manor-house itself, though possible, than that between Mr. Young and that were worth notice. I don't care how Rose, for Carey was blind. Sweet Carey far you have travelled, or how many singular Herbert! - gentlest of mortals! - I can see and beautiful habitations you have seen; you you now, moving along with the cautious, never saw one like Ivy Hatch. In the first steady, even pace peculiar to the blind, with place, it was, as Miss Herbert (the aunt) deyour tall, graceful figure erect, and your clared, "no shape at all." It was built in beautiful face turned a little upward, as if all the disorders of architecture. One front seeking the dayspring from on high, your was long and low, and another was short, aru within your father's-not that you with a lofty gable; some windows were large needed his guidance, for you knew well every and mullioned, with small diamond panes ; inch of ground in and about your native place, some were bay-windows, projecting a great but because he loved to have you close to way beyond the walls, and others were him, to feel your hand near his heart. Thus narrow lattices inserted at the inner side of have I seen you walk among loving and re-a wall which was a yard in thickness. spectful groups of poor people, through the There were two wings, totally unlike each village, on a Sunday morning, your sedate other- -one was of red brick, and the other maiden aunt keeping pace on the other side; of flint-stone; the roof in most parts was I have noted your father's careful guidance lofty, and the innumerable chimneys started up the churchyard steps, and down those up in every part of it without any regard to deeper steps into the Gothic porch; I have congruity. Yet was there a harmony and often watched Aunt Mary take a hasty step picturesque effect about the place. or two in advance, that she might close any pew doors that happened to be open, and might strike against the blind girl in her passage down the aisle. I have also watched old Fritz Steinberg, up in the organ-loft, on the look-out for his favorite pupil. As soon as she entered the church, he would shake the cushion in the arm-chair beside his stool, and place it so as to be most convenient to her; then he would run down the steep flight of stairs to meet her and her father and aunt, and help to conduct her to the seat of honor he had prepared; for Carey Herbert sang with the village children, and her voice in the anthem moved the hearts of old and young, and sometimes brought tears to the eyes of old Steinberg, who would mutter to himself "Engelschön! Himmelswürdig!" When he had seen his daughter comfortably seated, Mr. Herbert would descend with his sister into the aisle, when, after another glance up to the darling child, as they called

This

was the work of dame Nature; she; seeing that Art had turned her back on Ivy Hatch, set herself to work to make architectural ornaments of her own there. And she made a very good job of it, as all persons of enlarged taste declared, when they came to examine it from the west, which was the chief front. This could only be done when you were within the garden-gates, and on the mossy lawn close to the house; for, though it stood on very high ground, it was so thickly surrounded by magnificent trees, that you could only catch sight of an absurd chimney-top here and there from a distance.

There was a short avenue of the finest elms I ever saw, which led up from the main street of the village to the garden of the manorhouse. This avenue ran along one side of the churchyard, and the wide-spreading branches of one line of trees overshadowed the long grass of the graves, on one side, and the smoothly-swept turf of the avenue on the

It is a sunny morning, late in September. The hoppers are all busy at their tasks. Only a corner of the large garden (plantation, you would call it) has been cleared. There lie the bare poles, in bundles, on the ground, ready for another year. That looks, indeed, as if summer were gone, to a Kentish eye. But turn away from that winterly sight, to where Autumn smiles and pours forth her abundance. Look down those long, narrow arcades, formed by the luxuriantly-wreathed poles. See how the graceful bines wave in the air, over your head, as you pass along, breathing forth their salubrious perfume-a perfume that is liked as well as that of violets by those who have been accustomed to it from the cradle, but which you, perhaps, may not find so agreeable.

other, while the other line of trees bordered a | tember and October were the gayest months portion of a large hop-garden. The garden of the year at Ivy Hatch. Mr. Young conof Ivy Hatch was enclosed within a fence, on trived to unite business and pleasure in a the inner side of which tall trees and bushy wonderful way. Besides the hopping to sushrubs sprang up as thick as they could grow. perintend, there was the game to be shot. It was of no use trying to look over the fence There were generally several visitors staying at and get a peep at the house. It could not be the house, and the village population was doubseen in that manner; the thicket was as im- led and trebled by the strangers who flocked pervious to the human eye as that which sur- thither to be engaged as pickers. To the rounded the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. Kentish folks the hopping season is what the It was only when you were in the garden, and vintage is to the dwellers on the Rhine. standing on the lawn in front, that you could Have you ever seen a hop-garden? Have see what sort of a place it really was. As to you ever been a hop-picker? No? Follow the house itself, the walls of it I mean, there me, then, into what was called the Manorwas very little of that to be seen. It seemed to garden at Greenwood. It is the one beforebe a mere screen over which Nature delighted mentioned, adjoining the avenue. to train her favorite climbing-plants. In fact, you could see nothing of the house in summer-time, but portions of the windows and the tallest chimneys-all the rest was completely enveloped in clasping greenery, of various kinds. It looked as if some topiarist, of extensive genius, had cut a huge thicket of tall shrubs into the form of a house, of every variety of architecture, and that after his death his heirs had allowed the thing to begin to return to its natural state. In Ivy Hatch you detect the vague outline of a house, but which is wall and which is vegetable, it is not easy to tell. Ivy, of the finest kind, predominates; it runs over the walls, and along the roof, and envelops the chimneys. About the great porch, over it, and on each side, and even inside, grow clematis and jessamine, roses, sweet peas, and convolvulus. A huge vine is trained over one part, a magnolia over another, a pear-tree and a Jamaica creeper completely cover the end of one wing, a sumach and a gigantic honey-suckle contend with the aboriginal ivy for possession of the Step along, among the upright poles -you end of the other. In short, the place looks can do so easily enough, though the ground unlike anything to be seen elsewhere. Rose, is rough. See how beautiful they look in the knowing that the covering of the house was sunlight! Not one atom of the old, ugly its only beauty, never allowed a twig to be cut, except when the windows became obscured. Mr. Young was sometimes afraid that these parasites would pull the house down about their ears; but he could not be unreasonable enough to tear away the things that his wife had planted, and that his daughter loved and admired.

"The old place shall take its chance," he said to himself; "Rose likes it as it is; and I dare say it will last her time, and there's no fear that it will come down in mine."

Mr. Young had a good deal of British enterprise about him. Indeed, he was decidedly of a speculative turn- - in business. Now, the most hazardous department of agriculture in this country is hop-growing; therefore Mr. Young was an extensive hop-grower. In some years he made many thousands by his hops; in other years he lost as many; but, upon the whole, he had been lucky. SepCCCCLXXXVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. II. 44

"It is like a mixture of apples and onions, and tobacco," you say. Well, keep that notion to yourself; it would sound like a disparagement of the thing he loves, to a native of the county.

pole can you see; it is entirely covered from top to bottom with the most beautiful of all climbing plants. How strong, how graceful it is! Look at the dark green, vine-like leaves

- how it contrasts with the soft, delicate, gold-green of the hop itself! How the bines twine and intertwine, and send out fantastic wreathes as they ascend; and then, when they have clambered to the top of the rough old pole, how triumphantly they wave downwards all round it! Whichever way you look are apparently interminable green, Gothicarched alleys, like the one in which we stand; and all among them are the busy groups, hard at work, stripping the hops from the bine. How they laugh and talk! See the babies asleep in baskets or on old coats. See the bigger babies that can run alone, but who cannot work-see how they play-crowning each other, girdling each other, tying each other together with wreaths of hops!

In

when they have really worked hard. They are, of course, paid for their work at the same rate as the other pickers. Now, this home-bin must of necessity be in the hop-garden; and Mr. Young determined to keep out of the sight and hearing of his daughter and her companions—not poverty and distress but vice and obscene language, to which they would have been exposed had he allowed strangers to work in the same plantation. For their sake, and for the sake of the Greenwood people generally, the manor hop-garden was always picked by the villagers and their home party. The villagers were all delighted to have the young ladies and their friends among them, and the young ladies liked to join in the same work as their humbler neighbors. The high and the low were good friends all the year round at Greenwood, but during the hopping-season they had a great deal in common.

the hop-gardens, small, pale children from London from the purlieus of St. Giles' and Shoreditch- grow fat and rosy in the pure air which they breathe, perhaps for the first and last time. How they enjoy their annual treat in the hop-gardens! It is a thing they never forget; and their mothers and fathers do not forget it either. Here, in the country, they lay aside for a time the grovelling cares and unnatural excitements of their town homes. Whole families of the lowest class of English and Irish turn out from the towns at this season to seek employment in the hopgardens. Young children, and old men and women, are of use here; any one with active hands can pick hops. Each party has a bin to itself, and works together, as it never could work in a close little room. The fresh air raises the spirits, and smoothes the temper. You see how the bins are made. A hop-sack (pocket, is the technical term) is opened at the side, and fastened over a rough Look at the home party now. That is it frame-work of broken poles, so as to form an established under the shadow of one of the oblong bin of about two feet and a half or enormous elms that stretch over from the avethree feet in height, as many in breadth, and nue. You see it looks somewhat different of about double the length. Round these from any other party in the garden. It is a bins the men, women, and children establish graceful group-picturesque and striking themselves; the men generally standing, the enough with its bright-colored shawls women sitting, and the children changing thrown here and there, and the unconventheir posture every two minutes. Women tional costume of both ladies and gentlemen. are generally the best hop-pickers; their hands Let us go a little nearer and examine the are better adapted to this light work than party. those of the men. Persons employed for that That girl with the broad-brimmed straw hat purpose by the owner of the garden, cut the and blue ribbons, and the red-brown woollen bines carefully a little above the root, draw polka jacket - -a costume at once warm and the poles up out of the earth, and lay them convenient—is Rose Young. She is very down ready for the pickers to strip. These pretty, very plump, and very merry, as you men are called the pole-pullers. It would may see in a few minutes. That is her father, not do to trust every one to pull the poles, or now half-buried beneath a burden of richlythe precious roots of the plant would be sadly wreathed hop-poles, which he has just been injured. In this Manor-garden Mr. Young pulling for the party. He is always pole-pulemploys Greenwood people only; in his other ler to the home bin. See him lay them across hop-gardens strangers are employed. Many the bin. Now he stands upright, and gives a of these poor strangers have the worst morals glance across the garden. He is fifty years of and manners, and he is anxious that the age; full of life and energy, strong and active. Greenwood children should not hold much He is as handsome a man as any gentleman intercourse with them. Their parents are in the county. Rose looks up at him now; I grateful for this kind thought. There is also dare say she is thinking so. Her father, another reason why Mr. Young does not like strange to say, fair damsels, is very nearly to admit the corrupted poor of London (whom her beau ideal. She does not admire young he, nevertheless, treats kindly, and pities men- that is, men under thirty. She calls heartily) into this peculiar garden. His daugh- them all boys, just as if she were an old woman, ter and her friend Carey Herbert love the instead of a girl of twenty; and treats them smell of the hops, and ever since they could as if they were not much worth her attention. stand have gone annually into the hop-gardens Look at George Sterling, for instance — that and amused themselves with picking. For the is he drawing one of the poles towards her. last three years they have had a bin of their He is a handsome, clever fellow, and has just own, into which they have picked, assiduous- taken high honors at Cambridge; but Rose ly, for the benefit of an old, bed-ridden wo- thinks nothing of him. He is only four-andman, who has no one to work for her. The twenty. He is a good youth enough, thinks young ladies enlist in their service, as pick- Rose; but who can talk to him when his ers, any visitors who may be staying in their uncle, Mr. Sterling, is near? Mr. Sterling is respective homes, so that they have, in some that gentleman, with stooping shoulders and seasons, averaged thirty bushels a-day—i. e., | grizzled hair, who is standing near the bin,

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