448 Notes on Gardens and Country Seats : — Fontkitt. 



performed in the same manner. Suddenly he has been known 

 to order a hundred pairs of blankets to be purchased and given 

 away; or all the firs to be cutout of an extensive plantation, and 

 all the poor who chose to take them away to be permitted to do 

 so, provided it were done in one night. He has also been 

 known suddenly to order all the waggons and carts that could 

 be procured to be sent off for coal to be distributed among the 

 poor. Mr. Beckford seldom rode out beyond his gates, but 

 when he did he was generally asked for charity by the poor 

 people. Sometimes he used to throw a 1/. note or a guinea to 

 them, and sometimes he used to turn round and give the sup- 

 pliants a severe horsewhipping. When the last was the case, 

 soon after he had ridden away, he generally sent back a guinea 

 or two to the party who had been beaten. In his mode of life 

 Mr. Beckford had many singularities ; though he never had any 

 society, yet he had his table covered every day in the most 

 splendid style. He has been known to give orders for a dinner 

 for twelve persons, and to sit down alone to it attended by twelve 

 servants in full dress, eat of one dish, and send all the rest away. 

 There were no bells in the house, with the exception, we believe, 

 of one room, occupied occasionally by his daughter, the Duchess 

 of Hamilton, The servants used to wait by turns in the ante- 

 rooms to the rooms which Mr. Beckford might occupy at the 

 time. The rooms in which he lived in general were exceed- 

 ingly small, and even low in the ceiling. In short, according 

 to our ideas of a well-proportioned room, there never was one 

 in the building. The finest were cubes of 22 ft. on the side. 



One of the last things which Mr. Beckford did, after having 

 sold Fonthill, and ordered horses to be put to his carriage to 

 leave the place for ever, was to mount his pony, and ride 

 round with his gardener, to give dii'ections for various alter- 

 ations and improvements which he wished to have executed. 

 On returning to the house, his carriage being ready, he stepped 

 into it, and has never visited Fonthill since. Though Mr. 

 Beckford spent immense sums of money at Fonthill (we were 

 informed, on what we consider good authority, that the place in 

 all cost him 1,6'00,000Z.), it does not appear that he has at all 

 elevated the character of the labouring classes in the neighbour- 

 hood ; on the contrary, we were informed by Mr. Joy, the 

 manager for the present proprietor, that the effect was directly 

 the reverse. The men, in Mr. Beckford's time, were sunk past 

 recovery in habits of drunkenness ; and the consequence is, that 

 there are now only two or three of the village labourers alive 

 who were then employed. The labourers, however, generally, 

 in this part of the country, are deeply degraded by the system 

 of making up their wages from the poor's rates ; so much so, 

 indeed, that many of the married men drink every shilling that 



