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Title: Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2
Author: Henry Hunt
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8461]
[This file was first posted on July 13, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY HUNT, V2 ***
MEMOIRS
OF
HENRY HUNT, ESQ.
AS WRITTEN BY HIMSELF,
IN HIS MAJESTY'S JAIL AT ILCHESTER,
"Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
In every work regard the Writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due."
POPE.
Hunting, shooting, and fishing by day, and mixing in the thoughtless,
gay, and giddy throng by night, soon, however, dispelled any unpleasant
impression which this circumstance had made upon my mind. I every day
became acquainted with new and more fashionable society than I had
before associated with, and as my son was about to be christened, we
were determined to give a sumptuous feast and a ball, at which upwards
of forty friends sat down to dinner. When I recal to mind all those
expensive and thoughtless proceedings, I can reflect with great
satisfaction upon one circumstance; which is, that I never forgot the
poor. I always attended to their complaints, and ministered to their
wants, when I could scarcely find time for any thing else. I never
gave a feast that the poor did not partake of. Whether it were the
celebration of a birth-day, or at a christening, they always came in for
a share. I forgot to mention, that, when my son was born, I kept up the
good ancient custom, which had been exercised with so much old English
hospitality at my birth, by my father. Not only were toast and ale
given to all my friends and neighbours, but my servants also had such a
junketing as they will never forget. My birth-day, the 6th of November,
I continued to celebrate as my father had done before his death; and I
will here take leave to relate in what way I celebrated that event.
I always had a party of private friends; but, while we were enjoying
ourselves with every delicacy which the season afforded, the dinner
generally consisting of different sorts of game of my own killing,
dressed in various shapes--whilst me and my neighbouring friends and
visitors were regaling ourselves, I was never unmindful of my poorer
neighbours. Enford was a very extensive parish, containing a population
of nearly seven hundred inhabitants. Amongst them there were a
considerable number of old persons, for whom, after my father's death,
I had successfully exerted myself, to procure them an increase of their
miserable pittance of parish pay; which pay I had, as the reader will
remember, raised from half-a-crown to three shillings and sixpence each
per week. All these old people of the parish, of the age of sixty-three
and upwards, I invited annually, without any distinction, to come and
partake of the feast on the sixth of November. The servants' hall was
appropriated to their use on that day; and as there were seldom less
than twenty above this age, we always had as large a party as the house
would well contain. There were about equal numbers of men and women, but
several of the latter were the oldest, some of them being nearly ninety
years of age, and many of them above eighty. As this parish consisted of
eight hamlets, some parts of it, where the old persons resided, were at
a distance of nearly two miles; and as, from their extreme old age,
some of the poor creatures were unable to walk so far and back again, I
always sent a cart and horse round to bring them. They had an excellent
dinner of substantial meat and pudding, besides the dainties that went
from my table, after which they regaled themselves with good old October
or cyder. The day and night were always passed with the greatest
hilarity, and I was never completely satisfied, unless I was an
eye-witness that there was as much mirth and jollity amongst my old
friends in the hall, as there was amongst my other friends in the dining
and drawing rooms. To bring these poor old creatures together, and to
make them once a year happy in each other's company, was to me a source
of inexpressible delight. The very first year I assembled them after my
father's death, several of them had never seen each other for eight or
ten years, in consequence of their inability to leave their homes. They
were overjoyed at meeting each other again, as it was a pleasure which
they had long since banished from their hopes. One or two of them, who
had never been a hundred yards from their own humble sheds for years
before, and who had resigned all thoughts of ever going so far from
their homes again, till they were carried to their last long home in the
church-yard, were now inspired with new hopes, and appeared to enjoy new
life; and they actually met their old workfellows and acquaintances, and
spent a pleasant day with them on the 6th of November, in the hall at
Chisenbury House, for eight or ten years afterwards, where they never
failed to recount all the events of their youthful days. They were
all full of the tales of former times, and of the anecdotes of my
forefathers, of which they had been eye-witnesses. One gave a narrative
of a feast of which he had partaken, another had danced at my
grandfather's wedding, a third had nursed my father, and all of them
were past their prime when I was born. To listen to their garrulity, and
to witness the pleasure they felt in describing and recalling to each
other's recollection, the scenes of years long gone by, and their
opinion respecting the alteration in the times, was to me a source of
indescribable delight. An old man and woman, who were each of them above
eighty years of age, always sung with great glee a particular duet,
which they had sung together, at my grandfather's home-harvest, upwards
of sixty years before. Two women and a man, all above eighty, regularly
danced a reel. Each individual sung a song, or told a story, and, to
finish the evening, a tremendous milk-pail, full of humming _toast and
ale_, wound up the annual feast, which set the old boys' and girls'
heads singing again. Then, each heart being made full glad, care was
taken that no accident or inconvenience should happen to such old and
infirm people, by their being obliged to hobble home in the dark. A
steady carter, Thomas Cannings, and an able assistant, loaded them all
up in a waggon, in which they were drawn to their respective homes, and
deposited there in perfect safety, where they enjoyed a second pleasure
in recounting to their neighbours the merry scenes that passed on the
squire's birthday. It will easily be believed by the reader, that
they looked forward to the Christmas treat, of the same sort, and from
thence to the next birth-day, with as much anxiety as the country lads
and lasses look forward to the annual wake or fair.
The oldest woman in the parish had, all the year round, an invitation to
a Sunday's dinner; and, what is very remarkable, Hannah Rumbold, who
was the first Sunday's pensioner of mine, commenced it at the age of
_seventy-four_, and regularly continued it till she was eighty-three;
scarcely ever missing a dinner, from accident or illness, the whole
time, and never from illness, without the dinner being sent to her own
home. This, by some, may be called ostentation--be it so; it was the way
in which I discovered my pride; and I trust, at all events, that it
Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 2 by Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835
