DODINGTON
Eastbury was begun on a scale of princely magnificence{251} by George Dodington, a former Lord of the Admiralty, who, having presumably made some fine pickings in that capacity, determined13 to spend them on becoming a patron of the Arts and an entertainer of literary men, after the fashion of an age in which painters were made to fawn14 upon the powerful, and poets to sing their praises in the blankest of blank verse. Every rich person had his henchmen among the followers15 of the Muses16, and they were petted or scolded, indulged or kept on the chain, just as the humour of the patron at the moment decreed. Unfortunately, however, for this eminently17 eighteenth-century ambition of George Dodington, he died before he could finish his building. All his worldly goods went to his grand-nephew, George Bubb, son of his brother’s daughter, who had married a Weymouth apothecary18 named Jeremias Bubb. Already, under the patronage19 of his uncle, a member of Parliament, and an influential20 person, George on coming into this property assumed the name of Dodington; perhaps also because the obvious nickname of ‘Silly Bubb’ by which he was known might thereby21 become obsolete22.
George Bubb Dodington, as he was now known, immediately stopped the works on his uncle’s palace, and thus the unfinished building remained gaunt and untenanted from 1720 to 1738. Then, as suddenly as the building was stopped, work was resumed again. The vast sum of £140,000 was spent on the completion. Tapestries23, gilding24, marbles, everything of the most costly25 and ornate character was employed, and the grounds which had been newly laid out eighteen{252} years before, and in the interval26 allowed to subside27 into a wilderness28, were set in order again. The reason of this sudden activity was that Dodington had become infected with that same ‘Patron’ mania29 which had caused his uncle to lay the foundation stones of these marble halls. He was at this period forty-seven years of age, and in those years had filled many posts in the Government, and about the rival Whig and Tory Courts of the King and the Prince of Wales. Scheming and intriguing30 from one party to the other, he had always been ambitious of influence, and now that even greater accumulations of wealth had come to him, he set up as the host of birth, beauty, and intellect in these Dorsetshire wilds.
The gossips of the time have left us a picture of the man. Fat, ostentatious, extravagant31, with the love of glitter and colour of a barbarian32, he was yet a wit of repute, and had undoubtedly33 some learning. He possessed34, besides, a considerable share of shrewdness. If he lent £5000 to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and never got it back, we are not to suppose that he ever expected to be repaid. That was, no doubt, regarded as practically an entrance-fee to the exalted35 companionship of a prince of whom it was written, when he came to an untimely end:—
But since it’s Fred who is dead, there’s no more to be said.
A WHIMSICAL FIGURE
That same Fred thought himself the clever man when he remarked ‘Dodington is reckoned clever, but I have borrowed £5000 of him which he will never see again’; but Dodington doubtless imagined the sum to have been well laid out; which, indeed,{253} would have been the case had not the prince died early. M?cenas was, in fact, working for a title, and this was then regarded as the ready way to such a goal. They say the same idea prevails in our own happy times; but that £5000 would not go far towards the realisation of the object. But, be that as it may, Dodington did not win to the Peerage as Lord Melcombe until 1761, and as he died in the succeeding year, his enjoyment36 of the ermine was short. As, however, the working towards an object and its anticipation37 are always more enjoyable than the attainment38 of the end, he is perhaps not to be regarded with pity, or thought a failure.
One who partook of his hospitality at Eastbury, and did not think the kindness experienced there a sufficient reason for silence as to his host’s eccentricities39 and failings, has given us some entertaining stories. The State bed of the gross but witty40 Dodington at Eastbury was covered with gold and silver embroidery41; a gorgeous sight, but closer inspection42 revealed the fact that this splendour had been contrived43 at the expense of his old coats and breeches, whose finery had been so clumsily converted that the remains of the pocket-holes were clearly visible. ‘His vast figure,’ continues this reminiscencing friend, ‘was always arrayed in gorgeous brocades, and when he paid his court at St. James’s, he approached to kiss the Queen’s hand, decked in an embroidered44 suit of silk, with lilac waistcoat and breeches; the latter in the act of kneeling down, forgot their duty and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous and uncourtly manner.’ That{254} must have been a sore blow to the dignity of one who possessed, as we are told, ‘the courtly and profound devotion of a Spaniard towards women, with the ease and gaiety of a Frenchman to men.’
Rolling down the Exeter Road, from his London mansion, or from his suburban45 retreat of ‘La Trappe,’ at Hammersmith, in his gilded46, old-fashioned chariot, he gathered a variety of literary men at what Young calls ‘Pierian Eastbury.’ Johnson, sick of the Chesterfields and the whole gang of literary patrons, scornfully refused Dodington’s proffered47 friendship; but Fielding, Thomson, Bentley, Cumberland, Young, Voltaire, and others were not slow to revel48 in these more or less Arcadian delights. Christopher Pitt wrote to Young, congratulating him on his stay here:—
Where with your Dodington retired49 you sit,
Charmed with his flowing Burgundy and wit;
Where a new Eden in the wild is found,
And all the seasons in a spot of ground.
While Thomson, moved to it by the Burgundy or the more potent50 punch, has celebrated51 palace and park in his Autumn.
RUINED EASTBURY
Dodington had either no stomach for fighting, or else was a good fellow beyond the common run, as the following affair proves. Eastbury marches with Cranborne Chase, and one day the Ranger52 found one of Dodington’s keepers with his dogs in a part of the Chase called Burseystool Walk. The keeper was warned that if he was found there again, his dogs would be shot and himself prosecuted53; but despite this warning he was found near the same spot a few{255} days later, when the Ranger, having a gun in his hand, put his threat into execution and shot the three dogs as they were drinking in a pool, with their heads close together, in one of the Ridings. Dodington, in a first outburst of fury, sent a challenge to the Ranger over this affair, and the Ranger bought a sword and sent a friend to call on the challenger to fix time and place for the encounter; but by that time Dodington had thought better of it, and instead of making arrangements to shed the enemy’s gore54, invited both him and his friend to dinner. They met and had a jovial55 time together, and the sword remained unspotted.
On Dodington’s death his estates passed to Earl Temple, who could not afford to keep up the vast place. He accordingly offered an income of £200 a year to anyone who would live at Eastbury and keep it in repair. No one came forward to accept these terms; and so, after the pictures, objects of art, and the furniture had been sold, the great house was pulled down, piecemeal56, in 1795, with the exception of this solitary57 fragment.
There is room for much reflection in Eastbury Park to-day, by the crumbling58 archway with the two large fir-trees growing between the joints59 of its masonry60; by the remaining wing, or the foundations of the rest of the vanished house, which can still be distinctly traced in the grass during dry summers. The stories of ‘Haunted Eastbury’ and of the headless coachman and his four-in-hand are dying out, but the panelled room in which Doggett, Earl Temple’s fraudulent steward61, shot himself is still to be seen.{256} Doggett had embezzled62 money, and when discovered found this the only way out of his trouble.
When the church of Tarrant Gunville, just outside the Park gates, was rebuilt in 1845 the workmen found his body, the legs tied together with a yellow silk ribbon which was as bright and fresh as the day it was tied.
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1 flamboyant | |
adj.火焰般的,华丽的,炫耀的 | |
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2 squires | |
n.地主,乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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3 ponderous | |
adj.沉重的,笨重的,(文章)冗长的 | |
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4 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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5 colonnade | |
n.柱廊 | |
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6 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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7 sinister | |
adj.不吉利的,凶恶的,左边的 | |
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8 sundered | |
v.隔开,分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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10 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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11 hospitable | |
adj.好客的;宽容的;有利的,适宜的 | |
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12 mansion | |
n.大厦,大楼;宅第 | |
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13 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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14 fawn | |
n.未满周岁的小鹿;v.巴结,奉承 | |
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15 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
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16 muses | |
v.沉思,冥想( muse的第三人称单数 );沉思自语说(某事) | |
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17 eminently | |
adv.突出地;显著地;不寻常地 | |
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18 apothecary | |
n.药剂师 | |
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19 patronage | |
n.赞助,支援,援助;光顾,捧场 | |
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20 influential | |
adj.有影响的,有权势的 | |
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21 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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22 obsolete | |
adj.已废弃的,过时的 | |
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23 tapestries | |
n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 );绣帷,织锦v.用挂毯(或绣帷)装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24 gilding | |
n.贴金箔,镀金 | |
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25 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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26 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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27 subside | |
vi.平静,平息;下沉,塌陷,沉降 | |
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28 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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29 mania | |
n.疯狂;躁狂症,狂热,癖好 | |
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30 intriguing | |
adj.有趣的;迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词);激起…的好奇心 | |
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31 extravagant | |
adj.奢侈的;过分的;(言行等)放肆的 | |
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32 barbarian | |
n.野蛮人;adj.野蛮(人)的;未开化的 | |
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33 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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34 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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35 exalted | |
adj.(地位等)高的,崇高的;尊贵的,高尚的 | |
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36 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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37 anticipation | |
n.预期,预料,期望 | |
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38 attainment | |
n.达到,到达;[常pl.]成就,造诣 | |
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39 eccentricities | |
n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 );反常;怪癖 | |
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40 witty | |
adj.机智的,风趣的 | |
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41 embroidery | |
n.绣花,刺绣;绣制品 | |
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42 inspection | |
n.检查,审查,检阅 | |
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43 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
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44 embroidered | |
adj.绣花的 | |
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45 suburban | |
adj.城郊的,在郊区的 | |
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46 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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47 proffered | |
v.提供,贡献,提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48 revel | |
vi.狂欢作乐,陶醉;n.作乐,狂欢 | |
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49 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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50 potent | |
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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51 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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52 ranger | |
n.国家公园管理员,护林员;骑兵巡逻队员 | |
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53 prosecuted | |
a.被起诉的 | |
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54 gore | |
n.凝血,血污;v.(动物)用角撞伤,用牙刺破;缝以补裆;顶 | |
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55 jovial | |
adj.快乐的,好交际的 | |
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56 piecemeal | |
adj.零碎的;n.片,块;adv.逐渐地;v.弄成碎块 | |
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57 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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58 crumbling | |
adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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59 joints | |
接头( joint的名词复数 ); 关节; 公共场所(尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所) (非正式); 一块烤肉 (英式英语) | |
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60 masonry | |
n.砖土建筑;砖石 | |
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61 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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62 embezzled | |
v.贪污,盗用(公款)( embezzle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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