An English By-Lane [pp. 231-234]

A4V EiVGLIISH B Y-LANE.
AN X E N G LISH BY-L A4 NE.
BY CHARLES E. PASCOE.
T is Leigh Hunt, in one of his charming essays,
who dwells upon the pleasure of tracing a con necting link of friendship between the writers and
gossips of his own day and those of an age gone by.
He shows us how Moore, whom he knew, knew
Sheridan; Sheridan knew Johnson, who was the
friend of Savage, who knew Steele, who knew Pope.
Pope was intimate with Congreve, and Congreve
with Dryden. Dryden is said to have visited Mil ton. Then we can trace a something more than
friendship between "rare Sir William Davenant"
and the immortal author of" Paradise Lost," for the
venerable poet is said to have saved Davenant's life
after the latter had attempted and failed to get away
to Virginia. Davenant knew Hobbes, who knew
Bacon, who knew Ben Jonson, who was intimate
with Beaumont and Fletcher, Selden, Clarendon,
Raleigh, and the other wits and great men of Eliza beth's time, until we have a continuous chain of
what Hunt is pleased to call "beamy hands," from
our times up to Shakespeare. If the reader-the
middle-aged reader-will take the trouble to throw
such a bridge of thought as the foregoing suggests
across his own mind, he will be astonished at the
degree of affinity which he may establish between
men and things of the present and men and things
of the past. He will find that the apparently limit less space of time comprised within a hundred years
fades into nothingness, and soon he stands talking
with the veritable ancestor who formed one of that
small band of dauntless men who signed the compact
in the little cabin of the Mayflower. And it is sur prising how delightful this process of mental bridge building becomes when its foundations are thoughts
suggested by the contemplation with the naked eye
of some old relic, or an ancient church, or some
building of historic fame, which serves to withdraw
us for the moment from the actual present to events
connected with days that are long past.
Srolling from off the main road the other day
into the quiet retreat of a peaceful little pathway, in
a green country lane on the borders of Hertfordshire
-literally on the borders, for it is at a point where
that very lovely English shire joins itself to Middlesex-I fell a-musing upon a few fragments of history,
which thrust themselves upon the memory, connected with the leafy shade where I found myself walking. Hidden between some trees, whose boughs
were weighted with the exquisitely delicate pink-andwhite flower of the sweet-smelling chestnut, was an
unpretending little church. Truly an unpretending
little church: a primitive building enough, of red
brick without, quite destitute of ornament, and conspicuous for a certain grave simplicity. It could
boast a low, embattled structure, which did duty as
a tower, and which seemed to lay some claim also to
being styled a Norman belfry; but so overgrown was
this toy-tower with ivy, which hung in luxurious
folds slantingly to the roof, that the dear little relic
of feudal times had but small chance of asserting its
claim to the dignity of being classed as a specimen
of that rare early church architecture which I take
to have been imported into Britain by William the
Norman. Around the church was a picturesque and
peaceful God's-acre, given over to the chirruping of
birds, and to the cultivation of rose-trees, fuschia bushes, laurestines, and such like trifles of Nature;
and little mounds of emerald-green turf sprinkled
with daisies marked out the spots where parishion ers of lowly degree had been laid to rest in graves
ten thousand times more becoming than the lordliest
mausoleum ever raised over the remains of wealthy
and pompous humanity. In a corner, over against
the church, nestling again beneath the wide-spread ing branches of flowering trees, was the rectory, out
of keeping with the little church in regard to archi tecture, but part and parcel of itself in respect of
graceful surroundings and primitive natural beauties.
I had strolled down one of the neat graveled path ways beside the rector's house, until I found myself
standing opposite to a grave, the headstone of which
bore the following inscription:
" IN MEMORY OF
WILLIAM POWELL,
THE HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH,
WHO WAS BURIED FEBRUARY 27, I780, AGED 78 YEARS.
HE WAS PARISH-CLERK DURING THE TIME
THE IMMORTAL HANDEL
WAS ORGANIST OF THIS CHURCH."
An anvil and a hammer, and the first note of the de licious melody from the great composer's "Suites de
Pieces pour le Clavecin," were cut into the stone in
bass-relief. Then I fell a-musing, as I say, and it
was not difficult to bridge over in a few moments a
good century and a half of history, and picture to the
mind events which had happened in the little church,
and in the green lane adjoining, and in the surrounding neighborhood, in the days when the first of the
kings of the Hanoverian dynasty began to rule in
England. This was the church-the chapel, he preferred to call it, as more in keeping with his own
lordly and ambitious pretensions-of James Brydges,
the famous Duke of Chandos. Paymaster of the
forces during the reign of Queen Anne, he seems to
have accumulated an enormous fortune in a surprisingly short space of time, and to have lost it
almost as readily as it had been acquired. Writes
Speaker Onslow of this duke, in a foot-note to the
annotated edition of Burnet's "History of his Own
Time: " " He (Brydges) was the most surprising instance of a change of fortune raised by himself that
has happened in any age. He never inherited more
than a few hundred pounds a year, and in little
more than ten years, living expensively the while,
he had accumulated a fortune of between six and
seven hundred thousand pounds. Without an;
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