FlitwicJc House. 559 



public-houses have pianofortes, because there all are musicians and 

 dancers. Freedom from national debt, and a thorough general school 

 education, high and equal {Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 76.), would soon ren- 

 der us so, and, in fact, make us every thing to which man, in our latitude 

 may hope to attain. The road to Dunstable has been greatly improved by 

 that first of road-makers, as Macadam is the first of road-menders Mr. 

 Telford. At Dunstable, notwithstanding the number of workers in plait- 

 straw, we could find no one to undertake the manufacture of our Epinal 

 hat. (Vol. IV. p. 491.) The objection was, that the straw did not require to 

 be plaited, that the hats were only calculated for poor people, and that the 

 poor would never buy a thing that was in no case used by the rich ; an argu- 

 ment from which the rich may learn how to introduce good fashions amonn- 

 the poor. The very small village of Flitwick is composed of as miserable 

 cottages as any in England ; the inhabitants, following no manufacture and 

 having very little agricultural employment, derive a great part of their scanty 

 subsistence from the poor-rates. The men are said to be almost all poachers 

 and three fourths of them, we were told, had been on the tread-wheel • 

 some had been transported, one belonged to the Cato Street conspiracy, 

 and one or two have been hanged. At church, on Sunday (July 26.), very 

 few men attended, and the congregation consisted chiefly of young women 

 and children, by no means healthy for a country population. We were not 

 much surprised at hearing two marriages announced ; for, when mankind 

 are in a state of degradation and suffering, there is nothing to restrain them 

 from doing all they incline to do; and every thing will be resorted to that 

 has any chance of procuring present enjoymentj without reference to future 

 consequences. The marriages of poor people are always prolific in children ; 

 they do not always grow up ; but their births and deaths are at least food 

 for the church, as poaching is for the magistracy and the lawyers. The 

 clergyman had an excellent discourse on contentment, and against covet- 

 ousness ! 



Flitwick House; John Thomas Brooks, Esq. — We have already men- 

 tioned this place (Vol. III. p. 246.) as a pattern of order and judicious ar- 

 rangement ; and the proprietor is a warm-hearted man, a kind and liberal 

 master, and a great friend to gardeners and gardening. Both the grounds 

 and house have been materially improved since the period referred to and 

 the whole continues to maintain its high character for good keepino-. A 

 public road has been changed in direction, which, while it has added to the 

 beauty and free unrestrained air of the scenery, has, of course, increased 

 the value of the property. There is not a more universal error in improv- 

 ing grounds than that of sacrificing useful arrangement and permanent 

 beauty to the accidental position of existing trees or plantations. Mr. Brooks 

 has had the courage and good sense to free himself from this morbid sense- 

 less feeling, and to thin out some plantations, and entirely remove others 

 which, though beautiful and thriving of themselves, yet tended to counter- 

 act the general effect of the place. The arboretum has grown so luxu- 

 riantly, that the trees are almost as much crowded as they are in the arbo- 

 retum of the Chiswick garden ; and Mr. Brooks, therefore, very judiciously 

 proposes to distribute them along a shrubbery or plantation walk, at such dis- 

 tances from one another, and from the walk, as will at least admit of their 

 finally attaining their full size. To make room for these trees and shrubs, 

 spaces will be cleared of from 6ft. to 12 ft. in diameter, among the trees 

 and shrubs already there; and as the arboretum plants increase in size, these 

 spaces will be increased also, by thiiming out more trees, so as that the spe- 

 cimens will always stand free of, and untouched by, any other tree. The 

 climbers and twiners will have larch or oak poles terminating in crosslets 

 placed beside them as props, and every species will be named on the ends 

 of bricks, either in Messrs. Loddiges' manner, in that of Mr. Murray of the 

 Glasgow botanic garden (Vol. III. p. 29.), or in the manner which we shall 



