In one of his prose writings Mr. Keble speaks of the faithful shepherd going on his way though storms may be raging in the atmosphere; and such might be a description of his own course as regarded his flock, though there were several of these storms that affected him deeply.  One gust came very near home.

The diocesan, Bishop Charles Sumner, was an excellent and conscientious man, with a much deeper sense of his duties as a bishop than his immediate predecessors, and of great kindness and beneficence; but he had been much alarmed and disturbed by the alleged tendencies of the Tracts for the Times, and shared in the desire of most of the authorities to discourage their doctrines and practice.  When, therefore, the curate of Hursley came to Farnham to be admitted to the priesthood, he was required, contrary to the usual custom with candidates, to state categorically his views upon the Holy Eucharist.  He used the expressions of the Catechism, also those of Bishop Ridley, but was desired to use his own individual words; and when these were sent in, he was rejected, though they did not outrun the doctrine that had always been taught by the close followers of the doctrine of the Catechism.  Nevertheless, in spite of this disapproval, there was no withdrawal of his licence, and he remained at Hursley, not thinking it loyal to seek Ordination from another bishop, as would readily have been granted.  He married Mrs. Keble’s cousin, Miss Caroline Coxwell, and their young family was an infinite source of delight to the childless vicarage.

Their baby ways, to one who held that “where christened infants sport, the floor is holy,” and who read a mystical meaning into many of their gestures and words, were a constant joy and inspiration; and there grew up a store of poems upon them and other little ones, especially the children of Dr. George Moberly, then headmaster of Winchester College (later bishop of Salisbury).  These Mr. Keble thought of putting together for publication, being chiefly impelled to do so by the desire to improve Hursley Church, the eighteenth century arrangement of which really prevented the general inculcation of the more reverent observances which teach and imply doctrine.

In consideration of the feelings of certain old parishioners, and the other more pressing needs, as well as of the patience with which so great an enterprise needed in his mind to be contemplated, nine years had elapsed since his incumbency had begun before he wrote: “We are stirring about our Church, and next spring I hope really to go to work; you must come and see the plans first, or else hereafter for ever hold your peace in respect of alleging impediments.  One feels that one’s advanced age has not rendered one fitted to set about such works; but really the irreverence and other mischiefs caused by the present state of Hursley Church seem to leave one no choice.”

The step that had first been taken was one for which many generations far and wide have reason to be grateful, the arrangement and publication of the Lyra Innocentium, to a certain degree on the lines of the Christian Year, so as to have one poem appropriated to each Sunday and holy day (though these were only fully marked off in a later edition).

The book is perhaps less universally read than the Christian Year, and is more unequal, some poems rising higher and into greater beauty, some deeper and showing that the soul had made further progress in these twenty years, some very simple in structure, fit for little children, yet with a grave and solemn thought in the last verse.

Those that are specially full of Hursley atmosphere, on events connected with the author, may be touched on here.

“Christmas Eve Vespers” was suggested by the schoolmaster’s little daughter going into church before the decoration had been put up, and exclaiming, disappointed, “No Christmas!”  “The Second Sunday in Lent” recalls, in the line on “the mimic rain on poplar leaves,” the sounds made by a trembling aspen, whose leaves quivered all through the summer evenings, growing close to the house of Mr. Keble’s life-long friend and biographer, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, at Ottery St. Mary.  An engraving of Raffaelle’s last picture “The Transfiguration” hung in the Vicarage drawing-room.

“The Fourth Sunday in Lent,” on the offering of the lad with the five loaves, was suggested by the stained window on that subject given by the young Marquess of Lothian—a pupil for some years of Mr. Wilson at Ampfield—to the church at Jedburgh, built by his mother.  Now that he has passed away, it may be remarked that he, as well as all the children commemorated in these poems, grew up so as to leave no painful impression connected with them.  “Keep thou, dear boy, thine early vow,” was fulfilled in him, as it was with George Herbert Moberly, the eldest son of Dr. Moberly, who, when a young child staying at the vicarage, was unconsciously the cause of the poems “Loneliness” and “Repeating the Creed,” for Easter Sunday and Low Sunday.  Frightened by unwonted solitude at bedtime, he asked to hear “something true,” and was happy when Mrs. Keble produced the Bible.  He was a boy of beautiful countenance, and his reverent, thoughtful look, as he repeated the Creed, delighted Mr. Keble.  It was little expected then that he was doomed to a life-long struggle with invalidism, though he was able to effect much as a thinker and a priest before he, too, was taken to see in Paradise “the glorious dream around him burst.”

It was a baby sister of his who drew herself up in her nurse’s arms with a pretty gesture, like a pheasant’s neck in a sort of reproof, as she said “Thank you” to her little self, when she had held out a flower to Mr. Keble, which, for once in his life, he did not notice; and his self-reproach produced the thoughts of thankfulness.  One of the gems of the Lyra, “Bereavement,” was the thought that came to the mind of the Pastor as he buried the little sister, the only child except the elder girl, of the bailiff at Dr. Moberly’s farm.  “Fire” embodied his feeling about a burnt child at Ampfield—

We miss thee from thy place at school
   And on thy homeward way,
Where violets, by the shady pool,
   Peep out so shyly gay

The Lullaby, with the view of the burnished cross upon the spire, and the girl singing the baby to sleep with the old Psalm—

In Thee I put my stedfast trust,
Defend me, Lord, for Thou art just,

is another Ampfield scene, inspiring noble and gentle thoughts for Innocents’ Day.

“Lifting up to the Cross” (St. James’s Day) was the product of a drawing brought home from Germany of a sight beheld by Miss Maria Trench, on a journey with Sir William and Lady Heathcote.  She afterwards became Mrs. Robert F. Wilson, and made her first wedded home at Ampfield; and there is another commemoration of that journey in the fountain under the bank in Ampfield churchyard, an imitation of one observed in Tyrol and with the motto—

   While cooling waters here you drink
      Rest not your thoughts below,
   Look to the sacred sign and think
      Whence living waters flow,
Then fearlessly advance by night or day,
The holy Cross stands guardian of your way.

“More Stars” (All Saints’ Day) and “Wakefulness” (The Annunciation) are reminiscences of Charles Coleridge Pode, a little nephew of Mr. Yonge, and his ecstatic joy on the first night of being out of doors late enough to see the glory of the stars.  A few months later, on a sister being born, he hoped that her name would be Mary “because he liked the Virgin Mary.”  And when, only a few days later, his own mother was taken from him, he lay awake and silent, night after night.  He, too, was one who fulfilled his early promise, till, as a young physician, he was cut off after much patient suffering.  “More Stars” is also attributed to an exclamation of one of Mr. Peter Young’s children; but in point of fact, most little ones have broken out in a similar joyous shout on their first conscious sight of the starry heavens.

Mrs. Keble used to forbear telling of the subjects of these poems, lest, as she said, there might be a sort of blight on the children in breaking the reserve; but most of them are beyond the reach of that danger in publicity; and I can only further mention that the village children en masse, and the curate’s in detail, furnished many more of the subjects, while still they only regarded Mr. Keble as their best of playmates.

They cheered him when the great sorrow of his life befell him in the secession of John Henry Newman, hitherto his friend and fellow-worker.  It came at a time when perhaps he was most fitted to bear it, when his brother in Gloucestershire and his wife at home had just begun to recover from a terrible typhoid fever caught at Bude.

Words spoken in the immediate prospect of death, by Mrs. Keble, strengthened her husband’s faith and made him more than ever determined to hold fast by the Church of his fathers; and the thankfulness and exhilaration caused by the improvement in her health carried him the better over the first blow, though he went out alone to a quiet deserted chalk-pit to open the letter which he knew would bring the final news of the reception of his friend into the Roman Church.

Nor did his Hursley plans stand still.  Under the management of Sir John Taylor Coleridge and other friends, the Christian Year had become much more profitable, and the Lyra also brought in a considerable quota, so that the entire work could be undertaken at Mr. Keble’s expense.

It was decided, partly by Mr. Yonge himself, that the enterprise was on too large a scale for his partial knowledge, and moreover, much progress had been made during these nine years in ecclesiology, so that architects who had made it their study were to be found.  The design was committed to William Harrison, Esq., a relation of Archdeacon Harrison, a very old friend and contemporary.  It followed the lines of the existing church, which were found to be so solid and well built as for the most part only to need casing and not renewal, nor was the old tower taken down.

The contract with Locke and Nesham was for £3380, exclusive of the flooring, the wood-work, and other fittings of the interior.  For this £1200 was set aside, but the sum was much exceeded, and there were many offerings from private friends.

The altar of cedar-wood was the gift of Robert Williams, Esq.; the altar plate was given by Mrs. Heathcote; the rails by the architect; the font by the Rev. William Butler and Emma his wife, and the clergy and sisters of Wantage.  Mr. Butler was then vicar of Wantage, later canon of Worcester and dean of Lincoln.  The present cedar credence table was made long after Mr. Keble’s death, the original one was walnut, matching the chancel fittings.

This was proposed as the inscription on the base of the font, to be entirely hidden—

Ecclesiæ Parochiali
Sanctorum Omnium
In agro Hursleiense
Hunc Fontem, Lavacrum Regenerationis,
In honorem D. N. J. C.
Gratis animis
D.D.D.
Presbyteri, Diacones, Lectores, Sorores
Ecclesiæ SS. Petri et Pauli
Indigna familia
Apud Wantagium

Whether the whole was actually cut out on the under side of the granite step must be uncertain.

The steps of the sanctuary have in encaustic tiles these texts.  On the lowest:

Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life, and enter through the gates into the city.

On the step on which the rails stand:

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

On the next:

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

And on the highest:

Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty, they shall behold the land that is very far off.

The lectern was the offering of the friend of his youth, the Rev. Charles Dyson, Rector of Dogmersfield, copied from that at Corpus Christi College, where they first met.

The corbels were carefully chosen: those by the chancel arch are heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, as exponents of the inner mysteries; those by the east window are St. Athanasius and St. Augustine as champions of the faith.  On the corbels of the north porch, looking towards the hills of Winchester, are Bishops Andrewes and Ken on the outside; on the inside, Wykeham and Waynflete.  On the south porch, St. Augustine of Canterbury, and the Empress Helena over the door; on the outside, Bishop Sumner and Queen Victoria to mark the date of building.

“How would you like to have the book boards of the seats?” wrote the architect; “perhaps it would suggest the idea of a prayer desk if they were made to slope as the chancel stalls?”

And certainly their finials do suggest kneeling, and the arrangement is such that it is nearly impossible not to assume a really devotional attitude.

A stranger clergyman visited the church, measured the font and the height to the ceiling, and in due time, in 1850, there arrived the beautiful carved canopy, the donor never being known.

The windows did not receive their coloured glass at first; but Mr. Keble had an earnest wish to make them follow the wonderful emblematic series to which he had been accustomed in the really unique Church of Fairford, where he had grown up.  The glass of these windows had been taken in a Flemish ship on the way to Spain by one John Tame, a Gloucestershire merchant, who had proceeded to rebuild his parish church so as fitly to receive it, and he must also have obtained the key to their wonderful and suggestive arrangement.

Fairford Church is much larger than Hursley, so that the plan could not be exactly followed, but it was always in Mr. Keble’s mind.  It was proposed that the glass should be given by the contribution of friends and lovers of the Christian Year.  Two of the windows came from the Offertory on the Consecration day, one three-light was given by Mrs. Heathcote (mother of Sir William), another by Sir William and Lady Heathcote, one by the Marchioness of Bath, and one by the Marchioness of Lothian.  The designs were more or less suggested by Dyce and Copley Fielding, but the execution was carried out by Wailes, under the supervision of Butterfield.  The whole work was an immense delight to Mr. Keble, and so anxious was he that the whole should be in keeping, that the east window was actually put in three times before it was judged satisfactory.  The plan of the whole was Mr. Keble’s own; and though the colours are deeper, and what is now called more crude, than suits the taste of the present day, they must be looked upon with reverence as the outcome of his meditations and his great delight.  I transcribe the explanation that his sister Elisabeth wrote of their arrangement:

The Hursley windows are meant to be a course of Instruction in Sacred History from Adam to the last day the church being dedicated to All Saints.

The north-west window has Adam and Noah.  The windows along the north aisle each represent two persons from the Old Testament.

The three-light window on the north side, David with the ground plan of the Temple, Moses with the Tables of the Law, Solomon with the Model of the Temple.  The Medallion under Moses is the Altar of Incense, and some of the Holy things.

The whole of that window means to represent the fixing and finishing of the Old Religion.

Then comes in the north chancel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, the prophets preparing for the Gospel.

The north-east window has the Circumcision connecting the Law with the Church, with the figures of Anna and Simeon on each side.

East window: The Crucifixion, The Blessed Virgin and St. John on each side, The Agony, Bearing the Cross, and the Scourging.

The side window of the Sanctuary has St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist as the nearest Martyrs to our Lord, both before and after Him, and their martyrdoms underneath.

The south-east window: The Resurrection, with soldiers at the Sepulchre.  St. Peter and St. Paul on each side.

The south chancel windows: The Four Evangelists; under, St. Luke, the Disciples at Emmaus; under, St. John, he and St. Peter at the Sepulchre.

The three-light south window: St. James the Less, first Bishop of Jerusalem; underneath, the Council in Acts x. 6.  At his side two successors of the Apostles, St. Clement of Rome, Phil. iv. 3, and St. Dionysius of Athens, Acts xvii. 34, to show how the Church is built upon the Apostles.

In the west window, the Last Judgment, with St. Michael with his scales, and answering to Adam and Noah in the west window of the north aisle; and as a repentance window, St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalene in the west of the south aisle.  In the two windows close to the font, St. Philip and Nicodemus, for baptism.

So were carried out the lines in the Lyra Innocentium.

   The Saints are there the Living Dead,
The mourners glad and strong;
   This sacred floor their quiet bed,
Their beams from every window shed
   Their voice in every song.

The clerestory windows were put in somewhat later, on finding that the church was dark, and Mr. Keble wished to have the children mentioned in Scripture, in outline upon them, but this was not carried out.

It was first thought probable that readers of the Christian Year and the Lyra Innocentium might have presented these stained windows, but the plan fell through, and the only others actually given were the repentance window, representing St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalene, by Mr. Harrison.  Two were paid for by special offertories, and the rest were finally given by Mr. Keble, as the sums came in from his published writings.

Those forebodings of Mr. Keble’s mercifully never were realised; many more years were granted in which Hursley saw the Church and the secular power working together in an almost ideal way.

To speak of what Sir William Heathcote was as a county gentleman would be difficult.  He was for many years Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, and it is worth recording that when King Frederick William IV. of Prussia wished for information on the practical working of the English system of government, and sent over two jurists to enquire into the working of the unpaid magistracy, they were advised to attend the Winchester Quarter Sessions, as one of the best regulated to be found.  They were guests at Hursley Park, and, as a domestic matter, their interest in English dishes, and likewise their surprise at the status of an English clergyman, were long remembered.

Considerable county undertakings originated in these days—a new and well-managed lunatic asylum at Fareham, a renewed jail on the then approved principles, and the inauguration of county police.  In all these undertakings Sir William Heathcote and Mr. Yonge were active movers, and gave constant superintendence while they were carried out.  Ill health obliged Sir William to retire from the representation of North Hants in the Conservative interest in 1847, but in 1854, on the recommendation of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, he was elected member for the University of Oxford, and so remained till his final retirement in 1868.  What he was in both public and private capacities has nowhere been better expressed than by the late Earl of Carnarvon in a letter to the editor of the Times.

Long time a county member, and intimately acquainted with the subjects and interests which formed the heritage of English county gentlemen, he was, as a chairman of Quarter Sessions, recognised and often appealed to as the very representative and pattern of the class; and when afterwards he accepted the blue riband of Parliamentary representation as member for the University of Oxford, from first to last, through all the waves and weathers of political and personal bitterness, he retained the trust of friend and opponent.  So long as he cared to keep that seat, all men desired to keep him.  For this was his special characteristic, that in every period and pursuit of life, in the public business of his county, in the House of Commons, in the University, he not only enjoyed respect and affection, but he conciliated the confidence of all.

It was the unconscious tribute to a whole life and character.  For to a remarkable clearness and vigour of intellect, he added a fairness of mind, a persuasiveness and courtesy of manner, with an inflexible uprightness of purpose, which won to him friend and stranger alike.  I have never known any one who was not bettered by his converse, but I think none outside his own county and society can fully appreciate the remarkable influence which his name and character—in the later years it might be truly said “clarum et venerabile nomen”—exercised on all with whom he was connected.  If indeed he had a fault, it was that his standard of action was so high, his nature so absolutely above the littleness of ordinary life, that he attributed to inferior men far purer and more unselfish objects than those that really moved them.  “Vixit enim tanquam in Platonis politeia, non tanquam in Romuli faece.”

It is the common fault of biographers to over-colour the character of a favourite hero, but those who knew Sir William Heathcote will admit that there is no exaggeration in what I have said.  He was the highest product of a class and school of thought which is fast disappearing, and which will perhaps find few representatives in the next generation.  With change of time comes also change of men; and the statesmen and politicians of the new world, whatever their merits or demerits, will probably be of a very different order from him of whom I am writing.  The old university culture, the fastidious taste, the independence of thought, the union of political life with county associations—bound up as they are in this case by a rare intelligence and a moderation of mind which trimmed, with an almost judicial impartiality, the balance of thought on all matters submitted to him—are not a combination to be easily found in any age or society; but it may be safely predicted that they will be even less common in the coming age than they were in the generation of which Sir William Heathcote was a representative and ornament.  Be this, however, as it may, I desire, by your favour, to record here the loss of one who deserved, if ever man did, the name of an English worthy.

The Golden Age of Hursley did not deduce all its honour from the manor house.  The vicarage was perhaps the true centre of the light which the Park reflected, or rather both knew that their radiance alike came from One Source above, in whose Light they sought to walk.

The happy, sometimes playful, intercourse between them may perhaps best be exemplified by the petition sent up by Mr. Keble on an alarm that the copse on Ladwell hill was about to be cut down in obedience to the dicta of agricultural judges who much objected to trees and broad hedgerows.

Ladwell, or as it probably ought to be, Ladywell hill, is a steep bank, thickly clothed with trees and copsewood, with cottages nestling under it, on the southward road from Hursley, and on the top the pathway to Field House, the farm rented by Dr. Moberly, Headmaster of Winchester College (since Bishop of Salisbury) as the holiday resort of his family.  It is a delightful place, well worthy of the plea for its preservation.

TO THE LORD OF THE MANOR OF MERDON.

The Petition of Sundry Life-Tenants or Hereditary
Denizens of the Said Manor.

Humbly Sheweth,—

That by custom of this clime,
Even from immemorial time,
We, or our forefathers old
(As in Withering’s list enrolled)
Have in occupation been
Of all nooks and corners green
Where the swelling meadows sweet
With the waving woodlands meet.
There we peep and disappear,
There, in games to fairies dear
All the spring-tide hours we spend,
Hiding, seeking without end.
And sometimes a merry train
Comes upon us from the lane:
Every gleaming afternoon
All through April, May, and June,
Boys and maidens, birds and bees,
Airy whisperings of all trees,
With their music will supply
All we need of sympathy.
Now and then a graver guest
For one moment here will rest
Loitering in his pastoral walk,
And with us hold kindly talk.
To himself we’ve heard him say,
“Thanks that I may hither stray,
Worn with age and sin and care,
Here to breathe the pure, glad air,
Here Faith’s lesson learn anew,
Of this happy vernal crew.
Here the fragrant shrubs around,
And the graceful shadowy ground,
And the village tones afar,
And the steeple with its star,
And the clouds that gently move,
Turn the heart to trust and love.”
   Thus we fared in ages past,
But the nineteenth age at last,
(As your suppliants are advised)
Reigns, and we no more are prized.
Now a giant plump and tall,
Called High Farming stalks o’er all,
Platforms, railings and straight lines,
Are the charms for which he pines.
Forms mysterious, ancient hues,
He with untired hate pursues;
And his cruel word and will
Is, from every copse-crowned hill
Every glade in meadow deep,
Us and our green bowers to sweep.
Now our prayer is, Here and there
May your Honour deign to spare
Shady spots and nooks, where we
Yet may flourish, safe and free.
So old Hampshire still may own
(Charm to other shires unknown)
Bays and creeks of grassy lawn
Half beneath his woods withdrawn;
So from many a joyous child,
Many a sire and mother mild,
For the sheltering boughs so sweet
And the blossoms at their feet,
Thanks with prayers shall find their way;
And we flowers, if we may pray,
With our very best would own
Your young floweret newly blown.

Anemone nemorosa
Primula vulgaris
Orchis
Daffodil
Cowslip
Strawberry
Violet
Innumerable Signatures. etc. etc. etc.

Ladwell Hill,
2nd April 1851.

“The young flow’ret newly blown” was Sir William’s son Godfrey, who faded at seven years old.  When his mind was wandering, one of his dreamy utterances was, “I should like to fly softly.”  And therefore Mr. Keble suggested that the words on his little grave (outside the mausoleum) should be “Who are these that fly as a cloud?”

The intercourse of the vicarage with the Park, as with all this neighbourhood, was affectionate, intimate, or neighbourly and friendly, according as there was likeness of mind.  The impression left was always a cheerful one of hospitality and of a kind of being on holy ground.  The house stands on the side of a rapid slope from the Park, with a terrace raised on brick arches overlooking the lawn, only separated by a low wall from the Churchyard.  Here, in early summer, the school children from both the outlying congregations met those of Hursley at tea, and for games in the Park, ending with standing round in the twilight below the terrace, and singing the National Anthem and Bishop Ken’s Evening Hymn.  The Anniversary of the Consecration Day, falling late in the autumn, was the occasion of a feast for the elders of the parish above sixty years old.  This followed, of course, on festal services, when those who heard it can hardly forget a sermon of Warden Barter’s on the 134th Psalm, when, with the noble sweetness of his countenance lighted up, he spoke of our delight in nature being the joy of a child in the beauty of his father’s house.

A new organ had been given, and the choir had been brought to great improvement during the few years that the Rev. W. Le Geyt was at Hursley.  Also a mission school chapel had been built at Pitt, a hamlet on the downs towards Winchester, and a second curate had been added to the staff.  The present writer can only dwell with thankfulness too deep to be spoken on Mr. Keble’s influence, not so much friendly as fatherly, and he was the best and kindest of critics in literary affairs.

But throughout, the vicar was the personal minister to each individual of his flock—teaching in the school, catechising in the church, most carefully preparing for Confirmation, watching over the homes, and, however otherwise busied, always at the beck and call of every one in the parish.  To the old men and women of the workhouse he paid special attention, bringing them little dainties, trying to brighten their dull minds as a means of reaching their souls, and endeavouring to raise their spirits to higher things.  One who had been removed to another Union, when asked how he liked Hursley, said, “It seemed as if they was saying Holy, Holy, Holy, all day long.”

During this time Mr. Keble wrote his Life of Bishop Wilson, making two visits to the Isle of Man to study the situation and the documents there preserved; various of the “Plain Sermons”; some controversial pamphlets defending the cause of the Church; and above all, the treatise on “Eucharistic Adoration.”  He assisted Dr. J. M. Neale in drawing up the Salisbury Hymnal, a precursor of Hymns Ancient and Modern, and contributed several hymns, especially those for Rogation days, for the service for Holy Matrimony, and a very grand one for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, which has not found place in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

In the October of 1853, the Rev. Robert F. Wilson having resigned the curacy of Ampfield, he was replaced by the Rev. John Frewen Moor, who on 12th January of the next year became perpetual curate and by and by vicar.

Improvements in the church advanced in his time.  The stained glass of the east and west windows of the church were given by Sir William and Lady Heathcote, the south-east window is a memorial of Mr. Keble, the other south windows of Mr. Moor’s three sons, one of whom was drowned while preparing for mission work in Newfoundland, and another died on his return from what was truly a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

On Mr. Keble’s death, the Rev. James Gavin Young, brother to the much beloved curate, the Rev. Peter Young, was presented to the living of Hursley.

In 1871 the Rev. William Bigg Wither, after thirty-five years’ diligent work in the parish, decided on accepting the rectory of Hardwicke in Buckinghamshire.  Great improvements had taken place in his time, and he was greatly beloved by his flock, from whom, for nearly forty years, he had never been absent for a single Sunday, and during all that time had given them the privilege of daily matins and evensong.

As he never liked the acceptance of testimonials, it was resolved that, in memory of his long services, a new girls’ school should be built, the old one having become quite insufficient, and with it a master’s house with a tower to contain a village clock, which was given out of the savings of Mrs. Smith and her sister and brother Miss and Mr. Pink, a kind old thatcher, who will long be remembered.

In that year, 1869, Bishop Sumner resigned the see of Winchester, and for three years the diocese had the benefit of the great powers and eloquence of Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, whose Confirmation addresses at each of the churches will be remembered for life by his candidates.

The Rev. Walter Francis Elgie became Mr. Young’s curate at Otterbourne, and in 1875 the first vicar thereof, Sir William Heathcote having arranged the means of undoing Bishop Pontissara’s injustice.  This was rendered practicable by the liberality of Mrs. William Gibbs, who purchased the advowson of Otterbourne for a sum that Sir William applied to the endowment of Hursley, so as to compensate for the loss of the tithes of Otterbourne.

By this time a considerable industry had grown up at Allbrook with a saw mill and brick making, and the inhabitants, with a little assistance, erected a mission chapel and school.  There the kind and excellent Rowland Jones Bateman, Esquire, of the Grange, gave hearty assistance as a teacher, and latterly as a licensed reader, being thus appointed by Bishop Edward Harold Browne, who succeeded to the See of Winchester on the sudden death of Bishop Wilberforce.

He came to reconsecrate Otterbourne Church, when an apse had been added to the choir, and several other alterations made, with the view of rendering it more suitable for devout worship than knowledge or means had made practicable when the church was built; and other alterations have since been made in the same direction.

The kindly and open-hearted Squire of Cranbury, Thomas Chamberlayne, Esq., died on October 1876, being succeeded by his son Tankerville Chamberlayne, Esq.; and Brambridge, after descending from the Smythes to a niece, the Honourable Mrs. Craven, whose son sold it, has since several times changed owners.

On the 25th February 1881, Otterbourne lost the first vicar, Mr. Elgie, and the Rev. Henry Walter Brock was presented to the vicarage, when many improvements were further carried on.

But change and decay mark every generation in turn, and there is little else to record.  The joyous genial days at Hursley Park had passed away, and the days of agricultural depression had set in, causing much trouble and anxiety, with alterations met with simple bravery and cheerfulness, according with the character that could bear adversity as nobly as prosperity.

The Rev. Thomas Mozley, in the somewhat discursive reminiscences of his latter years, declares that long before, he had seen one of Mr. Keble’s curates in tears at the possibility of the repeal of the Corn-Laws causing Sir William Heathcote to put down one of his equipages.  None of the curates could recollect the occasion, and certainly they lived to see what might have been more deplored, for at the end of Sir William’s life there were actually only two little ponies in his stables.

Though never a very strong man, he preserved all his powers and his kind interest and thorough attention to whatever was brought before him until the end came, as to “a shock of corn in full season,” and he was taken to his rest on the 17th of August 1881, leaving to all who knew him the precious recollection of emphatically “a just man” serving God in his generation.

That simple walking funeral, devoid of all pomp or show, but attended by at least 130 friends, did indeed show the esteem in which he was held as the moving spring of all the best undertakings for many years in the county; and may Hursley never forget that she is, as it were, consecrated by having been the home of two such men as John Keble and William Heathcote.

Still there are changes to record: Julian Bargus Yonge, after long inactivity from broken health, sold the property at Otterbourne to Major Robert Scarlett, and removed to London, where he died a few days later, in October 1891.

In 1892 Mr. Brock was invited to return to his house in Guernsey to become rector of the parish of St. Pierre au Bois in succession to his father and grandfather, and the Rev. Henry Albany Bowles became vicar of Otterbourne.

Other changes had in the meantime taken place.  The Hursley estate, including not only the Manor of Merdon but recent purchases, had become much encumbered from the inevitable consequences of agricultural depression, and after the provision for the family had been made, of whom there were ten survivors besides Lady Heathcote, it proved that the only way of clearing off the various liabilities was to sell.

Lady Heathcote gave up her right to a life residence at Hursley Park, and after 170 years of possession, during which the family had well merited general affection and esteem, they resigned themselves to the sale of the greater part of the property.  The Park, the advowson of the living, and the greater part of the parish, were bought by Joseph Baxendale, Esq., in 1888.

The more distant portions were more gradually disposed of, and recently the ground of Cranbury Common and Hiltingbury has risen in value from brick-making industries, and the convenience of Chandler’s (or Chaloner’s) Ford Station, and a large and rising colony, on the confines of five parishes, Otterbourne, North Stoneham, Ampfield, Hursley, and Baddesley.  A school chapel was raised, but soon proved insufficient, and there is now a church.  The place has been formed into a separate parish, Otterbourne resigning the hamlet of Fryern Hill; Ampfield, part of Fryern Hill and numerous houses built among the plantations of Cuckoo Bushes and Cranbury Common; and Stoneham, many houses placed among the trees of the former Fleming property.

And another change took place, Mr. Frewen Moor, from increasing age and loss of eyesight, resigned the pastoral charge he had so carefully and affectionately fulfilled for forty-four years, and was succeeded by the Rev. Vere Awdry.

RECTORS AND VICARS OF HURSLEY.

It may be best to conclude with a sketch of the present appearance of the parishes (in 1898).

To begin at the west, where the border is on Romsey, Michelmersh and Farley, the Romsey road, formerly the direct road from Winchester to Salisbury, running through it, beside Ampfield Church and village.  This is high ground, and Ampfield Wood extends along it to the borders of Hursley Park.  It is chiefly of oak, fir, and beech, and on the southern side are the fine arcades of beechwood that Mr. Keble used to call Hursley Cathedral.  From one point in the wood long sight can distinguish a sort of needle which is the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.  The wood is very old, probably primeval, as it is guarded in the oldest notices of the Manor of Merdon, and it contains a flora of its own, in which may be mentioned that rare and beautiful Melittis Melissophyllum, bastard balm, like a purple and white archangel.  The bilberry is plentiful there and all along the beautiful park-like road to Romsey and Salisbury.  The church, raised above the wayside fountain, and the churchyard full of very beautiful varieties of pine, still nestles into the wood, and there is a charming view over the open country towards the south.