1856.] Burdwan Refreshment Room. should not have induced the AngloIndian community to treat with such disrespect their metropolitan city, or to depart from that technical phraseology the sole convenience of which consists in its being universally adopted. At present the anomaly is of little practical consequence; but when the railway system of India is developed, it will be found impossible to let the up and down phraseology of every branch vary with the real or fancied geographical features of the country; and it will be found desirable, though after a long contrary practice perhaps not possible, to adopt the time-honoured English custom, and affix the general designation of 'up' to all those lines which lead to, and not from, the metropolis. Burdwan is, as we have said, the Wolverton, the Swindon, the Peterborough, of the existing portion of the East Indian Railway. The line from Calcutta to Raneegunge consists of only a single rail: single rail traffic has to be managed, of course, with peculiar care. Con sidering, however, that the whole distance is but one hundred and twenty miles, and that there are two through-trains only either way in the twenty-four hours, we think that this necessary caution is a little more than amply represented by a halt at Burdwan of three hours' duration. It gives us time, however, to contemplate the first Indian effort at a railway refreshment-room. Well, we must not be hypercritical. If we think of Birmingham in its palmy days-before the Trent Valley was open; of that iron-roofed station lying so dark and deserted, nothing seen but the dim glimmer of the almost extinguished lamps, and the ghostly outlines of some spare carriages, which look as if they were glad to have a night's sleep in the shed; nothing heard but the footfall of a solitary policeman, when suddenly a long whistle proclaims the approach of the train from the Grand Junction in a moment the station blazes with light brighter than that of day, and the deserted scene is forthwith thronged by a population of porters, cab-drivers, passengers, and hotel waiters ;-if we recal the old refreshment-room, where four long VOL. LIV. NO. CCCXXIV. 683 tables groaned under such joints as the pastures of rich Warwickshire alone could produce, then see, in twenty minutes, the supper over, the train stealing off, the darkness descending as suddenly as it had been dispelled, the platform again silent and deserted:-if we think of all that magic, or of the more ordinary work-a-day neatness of an English refreshment counter, with English women standing behind it, we shall certainly be disappointed by the straggling, open-doored, white-washed, ill-lighted Burdwan refreshment-room; by the slovenly attendance of the sleepy Khidmatgars, half-admiring, half-cursing the unaccountable taste of the English Sahibs, which induces them to run about at night, when they might be in bed, or, if they must travel, might lie at length undisturbed in a soporific palanquin; nor is the culinary treatment of the Bengal beef such as to make him pity the Hindu for being bound to abstain from the flesh of oxen. But if he is a reasonable man, and compares, not with the past of England, but that of India, he owns that he has fallen upon pleasanter lines than were the portion of his Indian forefathers. The Burdwan station and refreshment-room are, it is freely allowed, capable of much improvement; but it is better to come here and find at least some one expecting us, at least a few lamps burning, at least a bottle of beer in the locker, than to be driven in the middle of the night to the inhospitable shelter of a dak bungalow, and having at last succeeded in waking its disgusted Khidmatgar, to be shown into a desolate, unfurnished room, and reconciled to finding himself foodless, candleless, bedless, only because it is precisely what he had made up his mind for, and therefore he is not disappointed. So, again, should murmurs arise concerning the very sober pace of the mail train when in transit, and the very Oriental indifference with which mails and passengers are allowed to sleep away three hours of the night at Burdwan; should some energetic passenger from the Punjab, full of statistics and selections from Government Records, observe that the post is conveyed at a greater YY average speed by mail-cart in the North-west than it is by railway in Bengal; although it may be impossible to contradict him, yet the more patient-minded man recollects that a few years ago he would have been going to Raneegunge in a palanquin; that, after a long night's journey, he would have been only forty miles from Calcutta, whereas now, at midnight, he has accomplished nearly sixty, and will be as far off again in the morning. Again, is it a rainy night-a rainy night in July-in Bengal? He steps with confidence into his first-class carriage and lets it rain. He can go to sleep without any philanthropic cares for the poor bearers, with no selfish anxiety lest the roof of his vehicle should leak, with no misgivings as to how soon he shall be deposited with a crash on the soaked and slip pery ground. The East Indian Railway is very slow, but it keeps time. We found ourselves at Raneegunge punctually at six in the morning: one hundred and twenty miles in ten hours-not very fast-twelve miles an hour; let us hope a good paying pace to the proprietors. There is nothing to describe at Raneegunge-there is nothing to see. The little white station-house, the sheds full of wheeled carriages, belonging to the companies which will convey us over the Grand Trunk Road, are the only signs to mark the present terminus of the East Indian Railway. Civilization, as regards locomotion, here abruptly terminates. The mail bags are taken out of their dignified van, and pitched into a very dingy, but very strong, mail-cart, to which a country-bred horse is harnessed, partly by rope, partly by bad leather. A native in indescribable costume mounts in front of the cart, takes a loose hold of the reins-which are never used by a native for the purpose of guiding the horse-sounds a few discordant notes on a cracked bugle, and after a few attempts to lie down on the part of the horse, a few turnings round, a few plunges, the Honourable Company's mail gallops off into the jungle at a tremendous rate, as if barbarism were determined to show civilization what it could do. And indeed the performances of barbarism in these mail-carts are so remarkable, that civilization will have a tough task to beat them. Meanwhile, in his onward journey the most discontented railway passenger soon learns to regret the railway. He asks eagerly when the next section will be opened. He is informed that the line from Burdwan to Raneegunge is not the real railway at all, but only a branch running to some important collieries, temporarily used by passengers till the main line is completed from Burdwan to Rajmahal. When this will be opened it is difficult to ascertain with any precision. The Sonthal insurrection of 1855 interfered greatly with the works in progress; but we believe it is hoped to see the railway finished to Benares in 1858. The part then to be completed will comprehend far the most difficult ground between Calcutta and the North-western Provinces. The easy line from Agra to Allahabad is already in progress. Good hopers will tell us that we shall take a ticket from Calcutta to Delhi in 1860. We cannot tell how this may be, but of this we are as sure as we can be of any future event, that the existing generation of Anglo-Indians will travel by rail from Calcutta to Lahore. The oldest inhabitant of England cannot appreciate the blessing contained in this anticipation. The worst he can recollect is a postchaise; in India they are travelling in doolies still. Seven miles an hour is the worst relic which he can recal of a barbarous age; four is the golden maximum of palanquin possibilities. Discomfort is hydra-headed, and will live for ever; but our children's children, when they look at a decayed palanquin in a modern museum, may congratulate themselves that one of discomfort's most odious avatars expired when that detestable conveyance was superseded; he will bestow a thought of filial compassion on the sorrows of his ancestors as he glides in a firstclass carriage from government to government, lazily looking out of window at the quickly succeeding stations which marked the weekly stages of their slow progress to his benighted forefathers. W. D. A. THE MUNIMENT CHAMBER AT LOSELY PLACE. IN Archbishop Whately's Lectures on Political Economy, occurs the following passage:— Geologists, when commissioning their friends to procure them from any foreign country such specimens as may convey an idea of its geological character, are accustomed to warn them against sending over collections of curiosities-i.e., specimens of spars, stalactites, &c., which are accounted in that country curious from being rarities, and which consequently convey no correct notion of its general features. What they want is specimens of the commonest stratathe stones with which the roads are mended and the houses built, &c. And some fragments of these, which in that country are accounted mere rubbish, they sometimes, with much satisfaction, find casually adhering to the specimens sent them as curiosities, and constituting, for their object, the most important part of the collection. Histories are in general to the political economist, what such collections are to the geologist. The casual allusions to common, and what are considered insignificant matters, convey to him the most valuable information. Now, what histories are to the political economists, records, mémoires à servir, and old family MSS. are to the historian. These are the sources whence come the 'casual allusions' which convey such valuable information. It is, however, but casual allusions' that the historian can afford to give. His business is to deal with general principles, and to trace in broad lines the transitionary states, the revolutions, and the progress of the human race; time and space are alike wanting him for the introduction of matter which may enable his readers fully to realize the condition of society at any one given period. In order to this, nothing is so effectual as a knowledge of the common things, the common business, common talk, and common amusements of the time. Such knowledge is best gained from contemporary documents; and it is on this account we have thought that a visit to an old muniment room may not be unacceptable to the readers of Fraser. As the charm of locality is very strong in the case of most people, we propose first to give a slight sketch of the house wherein the MSS. to which we have alluded are deposited. Thus we shall be provided with a kind of background against which to hang our historical pictures, and which will serve also to show them off to greater advantage. Not far from Guildford, in the most picturesque portion of the beautiful county of Surrey, there rises, backed by lofty forest trees, a venerable mansion of grey-stone. The centre of the building dates from 1568, and part of it is still surrounded by a moat, the remains of an earlier house situated on the same site. To a person of vivid imagination there is something poetical and impressive in the whole aspect of the mansion, in the quiet colour of the stone; in the combined simplicity and irregularity of the architecture; in the grandeur of the deep-set mullion windows, of unequal heights, and placed at unequal distances, no two of them being of the same dimensions; and above all, in the solitude of the place, and the silence which hovers over it, broken only by the cawing of the rooks which inhabit the adjacent trees. In front of the house stretches an extensive park, well filled with fine old timber, the soft undulations of the pleasaunce being bounded to the north by the range of hills called the Hog's Back. Behind the mansion, looking southwards, is the garden, with its trim-cut hedges, bright turf walks, and grassy slopes, where for generations children have played and basked in the warmth of the Midsummer sun. But full of poetry as Losely Place is by day, beheld by moonlight it shows like a dream, or as if its turrets were dimly seen by the light of memory alone. The interior of the mansion does not belie the expectations to which the exterior gives rise. A noble hall occupies the central portion of the building; on each side of it are mullioned windows; one, the king of all, is set, as it were, in a corner-i.e., at one end of the south side-in a deep recess of its own, and reaches to the top of the hall. Against the panelled walls are hung old armour, weapons of various kinds, stags' horns, and portraits of ancestors of the family. Running across one end is an oak gallery, communicating with bedchambers hung with old tapestry, on which, doubtless, Queen Elizabeth's and King James's eyes often gazed during their visits to the mansion. Amongst the apartments, with all of which some historical reminiscence or other is associated, the most interesting is the state drawing-room, with its fretted ceiling, adorned with Gothic tracery and pendant corbels. The chimneypiece, a curious and elaborate piece of architecture, is ornamented with grotesque heads of clowns, cut out of the chalk of the country; while here and there are introduced a cockatrice and a spray of the mulberry-tree. From floor to ceiling, foliage and monsters, coats of arms and various animals, blend curiously together; the commonest among the devices being Moor cocks and hens, with punning mottoes on the name of the family, Moore and Moor being considered identical. In this room are some valuable historical portraits : one of Anne Boleyn, presented to the family, if we remember rightly, by Queen Elizabeth; another of herself; and a third, of King Edward VI. There is also an elaborate piece of needlework, the performance of Queen Elizabeth during one of her visits, and representing a wreath of roses, faded now, and surrounding a crown, while the royal initials are seen beneath. We have already alluded to the king's' and queen's' bedchambers; there is also a library and morning room, which we should like to notice, were it not that we must hasten now to the muniment room, a little chamber lined with old oaken coffers, to which we promised to introduce our readers. These coffers are filled with MSS. inscribed by royal and noble hands; others by eminent divines, and characters well known in history; whilst many contain the correspondence of female ancestors of the family. After these MSS. had lain perdu, as it were, for nearly two centuries, a selection from them was made many years ago, and these were collected and bound in nine folio volumes; others which . were still left in their ancient depositories, have been deciphered, transcribed, and edited, with the consent of the family. The book is now, however, out of print, and therefore we have no fear that, in speaking of the MSS., we shall be telling a familiar tale. Amongst so much that is interesting, and that in so graphic a manner brings before us the life of our ancestors during the sixteenth century, it is not easy to decide to which of the MSS. we should first direct attention. It may, however, be best to follow a chronological order, so we begin with a series of documents relating to Sir Thomas Cawarden, of Bletchingly in Surrey. We are informed by Mr. Kempe, the editor of the Losely MSS., that Sir Thomas was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VIII., Master of the Revels, and Keeper of the King's Tents, Hales, and Toyles: the hales being temporary sheds of timber-work used as stables; and the toyles either enclosures into which game was driven, or used for barriers at tournaments. It will be remembered that at that time it was the custom of every great and wealthy person, from the king downwards, to have in his establishment, during the festival of Christmas, a Lord of Misrule, who was for the time being all-powerful in the household, and whose office it was to devise entertainments suitable to the season. There was great rivalry amongst the various Lords of Misrule, as we learn from Stow, who tells us that the mayor of London and the sheriffs had each their several masters of merry disports, who were ever contending, without quarrel, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders. In the reign of Edward VI. a gentleman of the name of George Ferrers, distinguished for military service under Henry VIII., a poet and a Member of Parliament, and who is spoken of by Leland as one of the most learned and illustrious men of the time, was appointed Lord of Misrule to the king. The Losely MSS. show us how this accomplished gentleman fulfilled his duties. A little before Christmas, 1552, he writes an account of his 1856.] Christmas Entertainments. intended proceedings to Sir Thomas The place which friars occupy in this category may perhaps show the estimation in which they were held at that period. Mr. Ferrers concludes his directions with an account of the entertainments devised for each of the holy days:-one is to be occupied with feats of arms, another in hunting and hawking, on another he desires to have a chal 687 lenge performed with hobby horses, when he proposes to be present in person, and so on. In this correspondence there are continual complaints made by the Lord of Misrule as to the apparel provided, and respecting which he thus expresses himself:-* It seemeth unto us that as touching the apparel of our councillors you have mistaken the persons that should wear them, as Sir Robert Stafford and Thomas Wyndesor, with other gentlemen that stand upon their reputation, and would not be seen in London so torchlike disguised, for as much as they are worthy or hope to be worthy. If we now examine a little into Sir Thomas Cawarden's account of the expenses incurred by the Lord of Misrule, we shall find that the sums expended in these entertainments must have been enormous. On Christmas-day, 1552, Mr. Ferrers' own dress consisted of a robe of white baldekin, which was a stuff of the richest manufacture, composed of silk and gold threads, which dress cost £16 16s. 8d.; then he had a coat of cloth of silver, £27 16s.; a cap of maintenance of red feathers; a pair of hose made of a yard of cloth of gold embroidered, and lined with silver sarcenet; a pair of white buskins; slippers of Bruges satin, and a girdle of yellow sarcenet. Then came expensive costumes for the children of the Lord of Misrule, the legitimate progeny and the base sons (always a part of the royal pageant), his councillors, pages, and officers ; trumpeters, orators, footmen, ushers, &c. În addition to these are dresses for other characters, amongst which we notice an Irishman and Irishwoman. The man is dressed in a 'large garment of blue and red satin lined with black buckram, a wig of black flax, and a head-piece of damask, a sword, and a pair of buskins of Bruges satin; the Irishwoman, in a mantle of red and blue satin lined with red buckram, a smock of yellow buckram, a flaxen wig, and a girdle of red sarcenet.' The total cost of these different costumes amounted to something like £500; besides which were various charges for garniture and work * The spelling has been modernized throughout. |