It took indeed frequently an importunate physical form; it sought emphasis in the use of pea-shooters and water-squirts. At its best, too, it was extremely low and rowdyish. But a stranger, even of the most refined tastes, might be glad to have a glimpse of the vulgar hubbub, for it would make him feel that he was learning something more about the English people. It would remind him that they too are subject to some of the most frolicsome of the human passions, and that the decent, dusky vistas of the London residential streets—those genteel creations of which Thackeray's "Baker Street" is the type—are not a complete symbol of the remarkable race that erected them.
II.
I Was lucky in my weather. On a day even more charmingly fair than the one I have just commemorated, I went down to Hatfield House. I had been assured that it was one of the most interesting of great English mansions, and as I learned that it was shown to strangers with an altogether exemplary liberality, the short journey of less than an hour seemed well worth making. I found the expedition interesting in the highest degree; and my only hesitation in attempting to make a note of my impressions arises from the very purity and perfection of those—from their harmonious character and exquisite quality. Such a place as Hatfield is, to my sense, one of the most beautiful things the world possesses—one of those things which we instinctively feel the vanity of any attempt to reproduce, just as we feel the indisposition to gossip about any deep experience. Sooner or later, however, our experience begins to reverberate; and these poor words may pass as a faint reverberation of Hatfield.
It is the property of the Marquis of Salisbury, and it lies in the county of Hertford, within twenty miles of London. There is a little red-hued village directly at its gates; from the railway station you step directly into the village. But when, having walked along the village street and climbed the gentle eminence on which the walls of the park rest, you pass beneath an old brick archway and step into sight of the mansion and its acres, you seem to leave such matters as railway stations immeasurably far away. You emerge from the shadow of some magnificent trees—shadow that mingles well with the ruddy mottled brickwork of a most picturesque old structure, a chapel turned into a stable, which adjoins the entrance gate and forms an impressive relic of the original and smaller house; then you face to the right, and see, beyond a wide gravelled platform, the long delightful front of the mansion, gazing serenely down one of the sun-chequered avenues of its park.
Hatfield House was one of the finest productions of the Jacobian period, and it remains, I believe, the noblest specimen. It was erected in the course of the first decade of the seventeenth century, by William Cecil, son of Lord Burleigh, the great founder of his race's honors, Elizabeth's minister. There is a story that the Cecil who built the house was himself the surveyor and architect, but I do not find it substantiated in an account of the place given in one of Mr. Murray's excellent publications. If it is true, one cannot but admire so elaborate and definite a vision of the desirable home on the part of a distinguished amateur. To have such a house as Hatfield built for one may seem a rare degree of human felicity; but to build it one's self for one's self adds not a little to the honor and luxury. Built at all events it is in the stateliest fashion, and with the happiest effect to the eye. It is a long red house, with a castellated top and a great many square-bowed windows running vertically from story to story. That is the simplest description that can be given of the front that is turn-
