Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878 | Page 3

kindred places of the near neighborhood of Leamington, a
fashionable watering-place two miles and a half distant, one of the
mushrooms of this century, but in a practical point of view one of the
brightest and most attractive places in England. At present it far
surpasses Warwick in business and bustle, and possesses all the
adjuncts of a health-resort, frequented all the year round, and inhabited
by hundreds of resident invalids for the sake of the excellent medical
staff collected there. One of its famous physicians was often sent for,
instead of a London doctor, to the great houses within a radius of forty
or fifty miles. The assembly-rooms, hotels, baths, gardens, bridges and
shops of Leamington vie with those of the continental spas, and the
display of dress and the etiquette of society are in wonderful contrast to
the state of the quiet village fifty years ago. But it is pleasant to know
that the new town has already an endowed hospital, founded by Dr.
Warneford and called by his name, where the poor have gratuitous
baths and the best medical advice. Not content with being a centre in its
own way, Leamington has improved its prospects by setting up as a
rival to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, known as the "hunting
metropolis." Three packs of hounds are hunted regularly during the
season within easy distance of the town, which has also annual
steeplechases and a hunting club; and this sporting element serves to
redeem Leamington from the character of masked melancholy which
often strikes a tourist in visiting a regular health-resort.
In natural beauty Warwickshire is surpassed by other counties, but few
can boast of architectural features equally striking--such magnificent
historical memorials as Kenilworth and Warwick castles, and the
humbler beauties to be found in the houses of Stratford-on-Avon,
Polesworth and Meriden. The last is remarkable--as are, indeed, all the
villages of Warwickshire--for its picturesque beauty, and above all for
the position of its churchyard, whence lovely views are obtained of the
country around. Of Polesworth, Dugdale remarks, that, "for Antiquitie
and venerable esteem it needs not to give Precedence to any in the
Countie." "There is a charming impression of age and quiet dignity in

its remains of old walls, its remains of old trees, its church and its open
common," says Dean Howson. Close to the village, on a hill
commanding a view of it, stands Pooley Hall, whose owner in old days
obtained a license from Pope Urban VI. to build a chapel on his own
land, "by Reason of the Floods at some time, especially in Winter,
which hindered his Accesse to the Mother-Church." In the garden of
this hall, a modest country-house, a type of the ordinary run of English
homes, stands a chapel--not the original one, but built on its site--and
from it one has a view of the level ground, the village and the river,
evidently still liable to floods. The part of the county that joins
Gloucestershire is rich in apple-orchards, which I remember one year in
the blossoming-time, while the early grass, already green and wavy,
fringed the foot of the trees, and by the road as we passed we looked
through hedges and over low walls into gardens full of crocuses,
snowdrops, narcissuses, early pansies and daffodils, for spring gardens
have become rather a mania in England within ten or twelve years.
Here and there older fragments of wall lined the road, and over one of
these, from a height of eight feet or so, dropped a curtain of glossy,
pointed leaves, making a background for the star-shaped yellow
blossoms, nearly as large as passion-flowers, of the St. John's-wort,
with their forest of stamens standing out like golden threads from the
heart of the blossom. At the rectory of the village in question was a
very clever man, an unusual specimen of a clergyman, a thorough man
of the world and a born actor. His father and brother had been famous
on the stage, and he himself struck one as having certainly missed his
calling, though in his appearance and manner he was as free as possible
from that discontented uneasiness with which an underbred person
alone carries a burden. His duties were punctually fulfilled and his
parish-work always in order, yet he went out a good deal and stayed at
large houses, where he was much in request for his marvellous powers
of telling stories. This he did systematically, having a notebook to help
his memory as to what anecdotes he had told and to whom, so that he
never repeated himself to the same audience. Besides stories which he
told dramatically, and with a professional air that made it evident that
to seem inattentive would be an offence, he had theories which he
would bring out in