Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/562

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL DEC. 11, 1909.

1666/7 ; her marriage licence is dated 12 Feb., 1696/7 ('Marriage Licences of Abp. of Canterbury,* Harleian Soc. vol. xxiv., where the name is wrongly given as Butt) ; and she was buried at Shapwick on 7 July, 1715 (A. J. Jewers, ' Wells Cathedral, 1 1892, p. 50). They had no male issue, and Dodington's hereditary estates of Lexton and Dodington in Somerset, together with the property of Eastbury in Tarrant Gunville parish, which he had purchased about 1709 and his great Parliamentary influence at Weymouth and Bridgwater, came to his nephew George Bubb. Doding- ton's will was proved in London on 10 June, 1720. It was his wish that his surname should be preserved. He therefore obtained a private Act (4 George I. cap. i.) authorizing " George Bubb henceforth to be called by the surname of Dodington, and not by the surname of Bubb li (MS. Act, in Account- ant's Office, House of Lords). From that time forward his nephew was known collo- quially, though not legally, as George Bubb Dodington. The uncle's town house was in Covent Garden, where he kept a collection of coins, " valued at 3,0002. or 4,OOOZ. n (Hearne's ' Collections, 1 vii. 167).

Bubb spent the years 1715-17 in Spain as Envoy Extraordinary, and Stubbes was there as the Envoy's chaplain. But after his great accession of fortune he dwelt in England, and engaged in politics and in the entertainment of his poetical friends, especially at Eastbury. This estate lies on the left bank of the Tarrant, a little river never wider than a few feet, which rises near Stubhampton, a mile or so north of this church of Tarrant Gunville, gives its name as a prefix to eight parishes in succession (a record, I think, in the topographical nomenclature of England), and after a course of less than 12 miles falls into the Stour near Tarrant Crawford.

The stately mansion of Eastbury, begun by the uncle about 1718, was completed by Bubb Dodington, from the designs of Sir John Vanbrugh, about 1738, at a cost of 140,000?. The gardens, designed by Charles Bridgeman, were extensive, and of great beauty ; many of the trees had been brought there from a great distance after 50 years of growth; and the furniture of the house was remarkable for costliness (Colen Campbell, ' Vitruvius Britannicus,' in., 5 plates ; Hut- chins, Dorset, 1 1813, iii. 100 ; 'The Modern British Traveller, 1 1779, p. 429). The last authority says that "the marble tables were extremely curious, being purchased by the late lord from an Italian prince, when

on his travels in that country.' 1 Lotjl in sale catalogue 237 (1909) of Messrs. Sim- mons & Waters of Leamington consisted of letters written from 1732 to 1755 to Bubb Dodington by correspondents at Florence,, and four of them related to some carving: work to be done for him. The present house, a part of one of the wings of the previous mansion, is approached by a level bridge across the Tarrant and by a road which was made about 1890, and at its en- trance into the park passes through a short avenue of yews. A pleasing view of it is in the * Highways and Byways in Dorset,' by Sir Frederick Treves, p. 75. A ' Journal of an Excursion to Eastbury l in May and June, 1767, by Sir Joseph Banks, is printed in the proceedings of the Dorset Natural History, &c., Club, xxi. 143-9 (1900), the estate at that time belonging to his aunt Mrs. Grenville. He described it as " one of the heaviest piles of stone Sir John Van- brugh ever erected.' 1

In this temple of luxury Bubb Dodington entertained some of the poets of the day, starving or otherwise. Stubbes lived at Tarrant Gunville, toiling " in two parishes- for 40?. a year n ; and in the dedication ta Dodington of his ' Dialogue on Beauty * he refers to their " Socratic conversations at Eastbury, in which I had the pleasure to bear a (very little) part. 11 Christopher Pitt, best known as the translator of Vida and Virgil, was the rector of the neighbouring parish of Pimperne, where he entertained his Oxford friends Spence and Rolle, must often hav& taken them to Dodington's hospitable table, or have invited him to meet them in his- own rectory. Among Pitt's poems is an ' Epistle to Dr. Edward Young at Eastbury

1722,' which celebrates its social life :

While with your Dodington retir'd you sit, Charmed with his flowing Burgundy and wit, By turns relieving with the circling draught Each pause of chat and interval of thought j and speaks of Young as studying " Van- brugh' s models " of the rising house or roaming in contemplation " through op'ning vistas and the shady grove.' 1 In a poetical ' Invitation to Mr. Dodington l he dwells on the attractions of his parsonage house : If Dodington will condescend To visit a poetic friend

Your mutton comes from Pimperne down,, Your fish, if any, from the town.

Punch I have store, and beer beside, And port that 's good, though Frenchified.

W. P. COURTNEY, (To be concluded.)