Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/74

66 the Hampdens and the Trevor-Hampdens in the church and graveyard beside their pleasant garden walks; they might have been strangers who “tarried” there “but a day;” “the thin air” closed behind them, and the earth received them into her bosom, and their names and individuality are forgotten!

John, the twenty-fourth hereditary lord of the manor of Great Hampden, the last Hampden in the unbroken line of male descent, died unmarried in 1754, after having bequeathed the estate from which his ancestors derived their name to his kinsman, the Honourable Robert Trevor, afterwards Baron Trevor and Viscount Hampden, grandson of Ruth, fourth daughter of the patriot. Within the space of one century, in 1824, the male line of the Trevors also failed; and as that which came through a woman might not go to a woman, this historic property passed to George Robert Hobart, fifth and late Earl of Buckinghamshire, representative of Mary, sixth daughter of the patriot; the Pyes, late of Farringdon, who descended from his eldest daughter, Anne, having been unaccountably overlooked in the settlement of the property made by the twenty-fourth lord. The Earl was absent when we visited the place, but his confidential servant, a Scotch gardener, named Robertson, was in charge of the house and its treasures; he showed us everything worth seeing, and told us all that was known about the relics which its various owners had left behind them.

We certainly fared better at Hampden than did Mr. Noble, the historian of the Cromwells, who found a housekeeper there, “all civility, indeed, but stupid beyond the usual stupidity of such domestics. I asked her, among many other questions, what person a bust (pointing to it) represented: with a low curtsey, she replied: ‘Really, sir, I do not recollect; but it is some old lady of the family, ” and then, with infinite disgust, as if pope or prelate had never been likened to an old woman in this wicked world before, the Rev. Mark Noble proceeds to tell us that the bust in question represented “the wise and worthy Dr. Trevor, Bishop of Durham, without his wig. He was called, for his comeliness, the Beauty of Holiness.”

We viewed the magnificent prospect from the windows of the gallery library at the top of the house: we lingered before the interesting portraits of Robert, first Earl of Lindsey, of Queen Henrietta Maria and Sir Kenelm Digby; some jolly Satyrs led us away into Arcadia; but the extremely characteristic countenance of Bishop Bonner brought us hastily back to the sad realities of the past. It was never our fortune to see such an arrogant plethoric portrait before or since; we wondered how it had fared with the painter, and if the notorious prelate accepted with Christian meekness this exasperating delineation of his personal appearance?

We inspected the well-known Cromwell Bible, with its entries of births, against which are bracketed the names of the sponsors at the baptism of the new-born; and then we turned to contemplate that portrait of the greatest Hampden, which is preserved in his ancient home. It represents a man of middle size and age, with a sallow complexion and delicate features, clad in armour, holding a roll of paper in his hand; his warm brown hair is long and wavy, descending over his shoulders; a faint colour tinges each cheek; the nose is decidedly nondescript; there is life and wit in the small, dark eyes; the brow is intelligent, though not fine or commanding; the mouth (by no means a handsome one) shows strength and character; it is full, yet compressed, resolute, and bespeaking self-control. The attitude and general expression of the face and figure, and the carriage of the head, indicate nervous energy and determination; but the calmly magnificent front, the grand outline, the signal beauty and openness of countenance, the noble form and bearing which distinguish the Port Eliot likeness, are not to be found here.

The few words which his contemporary, Sir Philip Warwick, incidentally dropped, gave us no warrant for expecting “form or comeliness” in the hero we were pursuing from the cradle to the grave.

Mr. Forster tells us, in a note to his “Life of Hampden,” that the latter exchanged portraits with his friend, Sir John Eliot, and that both these pictures are now in the possession of the Eliot family. The same author pronounces their likeness of Hampden the only original in existence; and though we had seen no documentary evidence on the subject, we felt a strong prepossession in favour of the frontispiece which he and Lord Nugent had borrowed from Lord St. Germans’ gallery; it realised our ideal of the popular leader; it looked as we thought John Hampden ought to have looked, and we inquired what ground our guide had for stating that this was the portrait of the patriot.

“I know that it is his likeness,” was the answer, very deliberately given, “for I saw him in his coffin, and I afterwards identified this picture in the presence of my master, the Earl of Buckinghamshire.”

Of course we fixed our astonished eyes upon the sedate Scotch gardener. Were we in the company of the Wandering Jew?

Our guide hastened to inform us that he had been present on the morning of the 21st day of July, 1828, when Lord Nugent exhumed a body which was supposed to be that of John Hampden, in order to ascertain whether he had died “from a shot received in his shoulder, or from the accidental bursting of his pistol in his hand.” The noble biographer had previously obtained the consent of the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, who was then abroad, and that of the rector of the parish, who was present at the disinterment: he was attended by Mr. Denman, the future Lord Chief Justice of England, and a small company of highly intelligent gentlemen, who venerated the memory of the dead; but it is ever to be regretted that no eminent surgeon attended the historic post-mortem examination made that Midsummer