The Bankers Wife Or Court And City A Novel

Author : Mrs. Gore
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330916575
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (165 download)

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Download or read book The Banker's Wife, Or Court and City written by Mrs. Gore and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Banker's Wife, or Court and City: A Novel Scenes form'd for contemplation, and to nurse The growing need of wisdom, that suggest, By every pleasing images they present. Reflections such as meliorate the heart. Cowper. A lover of the picturesque, whether poet, painter, or simply an enjoyer of Nature's works, may be justified, perhaps, in extending his quest after the sublime and beautiful beyond the limits of the rich but monotonous landscapes of Old England. But, while the indented shores of Naples or cloud-capt mountains of Switzerland attract these dreamy wanderers to fill their albums and sketch-books with sonnets in sixteen lines, or daubings in bistre and cobalt, a notable counter-charm is produced on the minds of foreign tourists in our own country by the neatness, order, and fertility of our rural districts. Scarcely a county but boasts its series of cheerful villages and aristocratic residences, from the stately Gothic hall of earlier centuries to the commodious family mansion of modern times, surrounded by spreading parks and trimly gardens; nor is it easy to travel ten miles in England without passing the lodge-gates of some private domain, unmentioned save in the obscure annals of county-history, which, if the summer residence of some German principicule, would be signalized to tourists with all the descriptive pomp of a guide-book, or the onerous eloquence of the valet de place. If, for instance, as a stranger in the land, you stop to dine or sleep at the little country inn of Ovington, and inquire of mine host of the Burlington Arms whether the neighbourhood contain any object of interest, he will answer, with a stultified look, that there is "nothing thereabouts worth speaking on." "There's the Hyde, an old place as 'longs to the Vernon family; and Squire Hamlyn's, at Dean Park; besides, sir, Rudger Burlinton's farther up along the river; but none on 'em showplaces; and the gentry as likes to visit grand houses be forced to cut across the country, to Burleigh, or Belvoir." Nevertheless, these three domains - the Hyde, Burlington Manor, and Dean Park - are severally citable as models of rural beauty; the neighbourhood which, within a circle of fifteen miles, comprehends the three properties in question, affording a favourable type of that rich and smiling order of home-landscape which seems almost to imbody a portraiture of our social institutions: nothing salient - nothing discordant - a limited horizon - a pleasant foreground, with symbols of peace and prosperity interposing between, and abundant evergreens to plant out the offices, in order to gratify the taste of those who care less whether Lazarus be sitting famished and suffering at their gates, than that the gates should be of sufficient solidity to exclude the spectacle of so piteous an object. The parish of Ovington is, in short, a beautiful country; watered by a fine river, prospered by a fertile soil, unmolested by commercial speculation, undisturbed by factories, unvulgarized by villas; a country such as George Robins would have delighted to describe in his largest capitals and most sonorous periods, had either of the noble mansions in question fallen, at any moment, under the branding-iron of his pen or hammer. At the period to which the reader's attention is humbly requested, the fairest of these estates had of late narrowly escaped this degrading contingency. For nearly a year it had remained an undecided point among the executors of the late Sir Roger Burlington, whether Burlington Manor should be sold outright, to pay oft the mortgages on the Yorkshire property of his son (a minor, scarcely past the age of infancy), or whether the place should be let on lease for a term of twenty-one years. The latter alternative carried the day; thanks, as it was believed, to the advocacy of the most zealous of the guardians, Mr. Hamlyn of Dean Park, whose est