518 Mr. Gwynn the architect. [1774. When we came back, we took some cold meat, and notwithstanding the Doctor's importunities, went that day to Shrewsbury. SEPTEMBER IO. I sent for Gwynn', and he shewed us the town. The walls are broken, and narrower than those of Chester. The town is large, and has many gentlemen's houses, but the streets are narrow. I saw Taylor's library. We walked in the Quarry; a very pleasant walk by the river. Our inn was not bad. Mr. Gwynn the architect was a native of Shrewsbury, and was at this time completing a bridge across the Severn, called the English Bridge: besides this bridge, he built one at Acham, over the Severn, near to Shrewsbury; and the bridges at Worcester, Oxford [Magdalen Bridge], and Henley. DUPPA. He was also the architect of the Oxford Market, which was opened in 1774. Oxford during the Last Century, ed. 1859, p. 45. Johnson and Boswell travelled to Oxford with him in March, 1776. Ante, ii. 502. In 1778 he got into some difficulties, in which Johnson tried to help him, as is shewn by the following autograph letter in the possession of my friend Mr. M. M. Holloway:'SIR, 'Poor Mr. Gwyn is in great distress under the weight of the late determination against him, and has still hopes that some mitigation may be obtained. If it be true that whatever has by his negligence been amiss, may be redressed for a sum much less than has been awarded, the remaining part ought in equity to be returned, or, what is more desirable, abated. When the money is once paid, there is little hope of getting it again. The load is, I believe, very hard upon him; he indulges some flattering opinions that by the influence of his academical friends it may be lightened, and will not be persuaded but that some testimony of my kindness may be beneficial. I hope he has been guilty of nothing worse than credulity, and he then certainly deserves commiseration. I never heard otherwise than that he was an honest man, and I hope that by your countenance and that of other gentlemen who favour or pity him some relief may be obtained. 'Bolt Court, Fleet-street, 'Jan. 30, 1778.' 'I am, Sir, 'Your most obedient servant, 2 An ancestor of mine, a nursery-gardener, Thomas Wright by name, SEPTEMBER II. 1774.] The Quarry walk at Shrewsbury. 519 SEPTEMBER II. Sunday. We were at St. Chads, a very large and luminous Church. We were on the Castle Hill. SEPTEMBER 12. We called on Dr. Adams', and travelled towards Worcester, through Wenlock; a very mean place, though a borough. At noon, we came to Bridgenorth, and walked about the town, of which one part stands on a high rock; and part very low, by the river. There is an old tower, which, being crooked, leans so much, that it is frightful to pass by it. In the afternoon we came through Kinver, a town in Staffordshire; neat and closely built. I believe it has only one street. The road was so steep and miry, that we were forced to stop at Hartlebury, where we had a very neat inn, though it made a very poor appearance. SEPTEMBER 13. We came to Lord Sandys's, at Ombersley, where we were treated with great civility'. The house is large. The hall is a very noble room. SEPTEMBER 15. We went to Worcester, a very splendid city. The Cathedral after whom my grandfather, Thomas Wright Hill, was called, planted this walk. The tradition preserved in my family is that on his wedding-day he took six men with him and planted these trees. When blamed for keeping the wedding-dinner waiting, he answered, that if what he had been doing turned out well, it would be of far more value than a wedding-dinner. 1 The Rector of St. Chad's, in Shrewsbury. He was appointed Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, in the following year. See ante, ii. 505. 2 'I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit except once in his life, and that was when we were all together at Ombersley.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 103. Mrs. Thrale wrote to him in 1778:- Mr. Scrase gives us fine fruit; I wished you my pear yesterday; but then what would one pear have done for you?' Piozzi Letters, ii. 36. It seems unlikely that Johnson should not at Streatham have had all the wall-fruit that he wished. 520 Hagley. [1774. is very noble, with many remarkable monuments. The library is in the Chapter House. On the table lay the Nurem berg Chronicle, I think, of the first edition. We went to the china warehouse. The Cathedral has a cloister. The long aisle is, in my opinion, neither so wide nor so high as that of Lichfield. SEPTEMBER 16. We went to Hagley, where we were disappointed of the respect and kindness that we expected'. SEPTEMBER 17. We saw the house and park, which equalled my expectation. The house is one square mass. The offices are below. The rooms of elegance on the first floor, with two stories of bedchambers, very well disposed above it. The bedchambers have low windows, which abates the dignity of the house. The park has one artificial ruin', and wants water; there is, however, one temporary cascade. From the farthest hill there is a very wide prospect. SEPTEMBER 18. I went to church. The church is, externally, very mean, 1 This visit was not to Lord Lyttelton, but to his uncle [afterwards by successive creations, Lord Westcote, and Lord Lyttelton], the father of the present Lord Lyttelton, who lived at a house called Little Hagley. DUPPA. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1771 - I would have been glad to go to Hagley in compliance with Mr. Lyttelton's kind invitation, for beside the pleasure of his conversation I should have had the opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering per montes notos et flumina nota, of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my conversations with poor Ford.' Piozzi Letters, i. 42. He had been at school at Stourbridge, close by Hagley. Ante, i. 57. See Walpole's Letters, ix. 123, for an anecdote of Lord Westcote. 'Horace Walpole, writing of Hagley in Sept. 1753 (Letters, ii. 352), says: There is extreme taste in the park: the seats are not the best, but there is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle, built by Miller, that would get him his freedom even of Strawberry [Walpole's own house at Twickenham]: it has the true rust of the Barons' Wars.' and 1774.] Shenstone. 521 and is therefore diligently hidden by a plantation. There are in it several modern monuments of the Lytteltons. There dined with us, Lord Dudley, and Sir Edward Lyttel ton, of Staffordshire, and his Lady. They were all persons of agreeable conversation. I found time to reflect on my birth-day, and offered a prayer, which I hope was heard. : SEPTEMBER 19. We made haste away from a place, where all were offended'. In the way we visited the Leasowes'. It was rain, yet we visited all the waterfalls. There are, in one place, fourteen falls in a short line. It is the next place to Ilam Gardens. Poor Shenstone never tasted his pension. It is not very well proved that any pension was obtained for him. I am afraid that he died of misery1. ''Mrs. Lyttelton forced me to play at whist against my liking, and her husband took away Johnson's candle that he wanted to read by at the other end of the room. Those, I trust, were the offences.' Piozzi MS. CROKER. Johnson (Works, viii. 409) thus writes of Shenstone and the Leasowes: He began to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers. . . . . For awhile the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain. Where there is emulation there will be vanity; and where there is vanity there will be folly. The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye: he valued what he valued merely for its looks; nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if there were any fishes in his water.' See ante, p. 393. 3 See ante, iii. 213, and v. 489. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. We 522 Birmingham workshops. [1774. We came to Birmingham, and I sent for Wheeler, whom I found well. SEPTEMBER 20. We breakfasted with Wheeler', and visited the manufacture of Papier Maché. The paper which they use is smooth whited brown; the varnish is polished with rotten stone. Wheeler gave me a tea-board. We then went to Boulton's', who, with great civility, led us through his shops. I could not distinctly see his enginery. Twelve dozen of buttons for three shillings3. Spoons struck at once. SEPTEMBER 21. Wheeler came to us again. We came easily to Woodstock. SEPTEMBER 22. We saw Blenheim and Woodstock Park'. The Park contains two thousand five hundred acres; about four square miles. It has red deer. It is said that if he had lived a little longer he would have been assisted by a pension: such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed.' Johnson's Works, viii. 410. His friend, Mr. Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote, in a note on this passage says that, if he was sometimes distressed for money, yet he was able to leave legacies and two small annuities. 1 Mr. Duppa-without however giving his authority--says that this was Dr. Wheeler, mentioned ante, iii. 416. The Birmingham Directory for the year 1770 shews that there were two tradesmen in the town of that name, one having the same Christian name, Benjamin, as Dr. Wheeler. 2 Boswell visited these works in 1776. Ante, ii. 525. 3 Burke in the House of Commons on Jan. 25, 1771, in a debate on Falkland's Island, said of the Spanish Declaration:-'It was made, I admit, on the true principles of trade and manufacture. It puts me in mind of a Birmingham button which has passed through an hundred hands, and after all is not worth three-halfpence a dozen.' Parl. Hist. xvi. 1345. ..4 Johnson and Boswell drove through the Park in 1776. Ante, ii. 516. Mr. Bryant |
