A genial hearth ------
And a refined rusticity, belong
To the neat mansion.’
Among the benefits arising, as Mr. Coleridge has well observed,
from a Church establishment of endowments corresponding with
the wealth of the country to which it belongs, may be reckoned
as eminently important, the examples of civility and refinement
which the Clergy stationed at intervals, afford to the whole
people. The established clergy in many parts of England have
long been, as they continue to be, the principal bulwark against
barbarism, and the link which unites the sequestered peasantry
with the intellectual advancement of the age. Nor is it below
the dignity of the subject to observe, that their taste, as acting
upon rural residences and scenery often furnishes models which
country gentlemen, who are more at liberty to follow the caprices
of fashion, might profit by. The precincts of an old residence
must be treated by ecclesiastics with respect, both from prudence
and necessity. I remember being much pleased, some years
ago, at Rose Castle, the rural seat of the See of Carlisle, with a
style of garden and architecture, which, if the place had belonged
to a wealthy layman, would no doubt have been swept away. A
parsonage-house generally stands not far from the church; this
proximity imposes favourable restraints, and sometimes suggests
an affecting union of the accommodations and elegancies of life
with the outward signs of piety and mortality. With pleasure
I recal to mind a happy instance of this in the residence of an
old and much-valued Friend in Oxfordshire. The house and
church stand parallel to each other, at a small distance; a circular
lawn or rather grass-plot, spreads between them; shrubs
and trees curve from each side of the dwelling, veiling, but not
hiding, the church. From the front of this dwelling, no part of
the burial-ground is seen; but as you wind by the side of the
shrubs towards the steeple-end of the church, the eye catches a
single, small, low, monumental headstone, moss-grown, sinking
into, and gently inclining towards the earth. Advance, and the
churchyard, populous and gay with glittering tombstones, opens
upon the view. This humble, and beautiful parsonage called
forth a tribute, for which see the seventh of the “Miscellaneous
Sonnets,” Part 3.
where, his flock among,