Longwood House

“ We had grapes, peaches, and pears, all inferior, very inferior to the fruit at the Cape. After tiffin we proceeded to Longwood, and passed several very picturesque points on the road. Around Longwood there are more trees, and the appearance of the country is less desolate than in other parts of the island. We were first taken to the old house in which the emperor lived; it is a wretched place, and must ever have been the same. The room into which you enter was used as a billiard-room: the dining-room and the study are wretched holes. The emperor’s bed-room and bath is now a stable. ”

“ Helena!
Workmen had been constantly employed for two months in preparing Longwood for our reception; the result of their labours, however, amounted to little. The entrance to the house was by a room which had just been built, and which was intended to answer the double purpose of an ante-chamber and a dining room. This apartment led to another, which was made the drawing room; beyond this was a third room running in a cross direction and very dark. This was intended to be the depository of the Emperor’s maps and books ”

“ Strongly contrasted with the gloom and sterility of Longwood, is the summer residence of the Governor of St. Helena, lying on Sandy Bay, on the western shore of the island, and about half a German mile from the town. In this beautiful and healthful climate, every tropical plant flourishes in the greatest luxuriance. We were hospitably received at Plantation-house, a handsome, spacious, and convenient building, surrounded by an extensive park. In this delightful spot nature and art have combined at once to charm and to surprise ”

“ We, my mother, Lovell, Fanny, and I, came here yesterday, glad to see Lord Longford surrounded by his friends in old Pakenham Hall hospitable style,—he always cordial, unaffected, and agreeable. The house has been completely new-modelled, chimneys taken down from top to bottom, rooms turned about from lengthways to broad-ways, thrown into one another, and out of one another, and the result is that there is a comfortable excellent drawing-room, dining-room, and library, and the bedchambers are admirable. ”

“ Even when she was in her motor, speeding down Main Street, she'd give you a hail as jolly as if she was your college chum.
Sometimes she'd be alone but generally there was a man along. There were a lot of them hanging round her, which was natural, seeing she had everything to draw them like a candle drawing moths. They'd come and go from town and now and then stay over Sunday at the Longwood Inn—it's a swell little place done up in the Colonial style—and you'd see them riding and walking with her, very devoted. ”

“ Mrs. Taylor and the talkative old friend were among the earliest, and took their seats on the sofa, near Miss Patsey, Mrs. Bibbs, and Mrs. Tibbs. Adeline, with the Saratoga fashionables, soon followed; having remained longer in the dressing-room, in order to wait until each could appear with a beau to lean on. The Longbridge elite arrived in large numbers; Uncle Dozie woke up, and Uncle Josie shook hands as his friends wished him many happy years in his new house. Miss Emmeline and Mrs. Hilson flitted hither and thither ”

“ But still in hall, and park, and parsonage throughout the country the new Lady Longueville was looked for with almost enthusiasm. People were honestly glad that the old house was not to die out. Whatever advances democratical feeling may have made, this pleasure in the continuance of a family is, I believe, universal in England. It gave an almost personal gratification to people who had no connexion whatever with the Longuevilles—such a gratification as bystanders have in seeing an apparently failing cause or combatant pick up strength, and gain at the very end an unhoped-for triumph. ”

“ Now they have wisely provided that the house shall not become a museum, but that it shall remain the home of whose atmosphere and influence they cherish so acute an appreciation.
Longfellow’s bust stands in Westminster Abbey, the first American so to be honored. It is made of marble, and is a good likeness. Longfellow’s soul lives in Cambridge, in his home. The house is a better likeness than the bust, and of warmer stuff. His children’s trust will perpetuate their generosity for our children’s children. ”

“ Years afterward, when Louis Philippe was on the throne of France, he inquired of a Portsmouth lady presented at his court if the mansion of ce brave Gouverneur Langdon was still in existence.
The house stands back a decorous distance from the street, under the shadows of some gigantic oaks or elms, and presents an imposing appearance as you approach it over the tessellated marble walk. A hundred or two feet on either side of the gate, and abutting on the street, is a small square building of brick, one story in height—probably the porter’s lodge and tool-house of former days. ”

“ LONGUEVILLE, the name of a French family which originated with Jean, count of Dunois, the “Bastard of Orleans,” to whom Charles VII. gave the countship of Longueville in Normandy in 1443. François of Orleans, count of Longueville, was created duke in 1505. The marriage of his brother Louis with Jeanne, daughter and heiress of Philip, count of Baden-Hochberg-Sausenberg (d. 1503) , added considerable estates to the house of Longueville. Henry, duc de Longueville (d. 1663) , took an important part in the Fronde, and for a long time held the royal troops in check in Normandy. ”

“ Mr Donaldson became the purchaser, and immediately commenced to build Luck's Lodge, or Lottery Hall, which to-day arrested your attention. As you may have seen, it was built under the direction of no architect but caprice, or a fickle and uninformed taste. The house was furnished expensively; there were card-tables and dining-tables, the couch, the sofa, and the harpsichord. Mrs Donaldson was afraid to touch the furniture, and she thought it little short of sin to sit upon the hair-bottomed mahogany chairs, which were studded with brass nails, bright as the stars in the firmament. ”

“ Hubbard's—have been built, another large tavern has been commenced, and two additional steamboats may be seen lying at the wharf. The value of property in the village itself, is said to have doubled, at least; new streets are laid out, and branch rail-roads are talked of; and many people flatter themselves that Longbridge will figure in the next census as a flourishing city, with the full honours of a Corporation, Mayor, and Aldermen. In the population, corresponding changes are also perceptible; many new faces are seen in the streets, new names are observed on the signs ”

“ He soon grew fond of his new employment, and pressed all the inhabitants of Longwood into the service. Even the ladies had great difficulty to avoid being set to work. He laughed at them, urged them, entreated them, and used all his arts of persuasion, particularly with Madame Bertrand. He assured her that the exercise of gardening was much better than all the doctor's prescriptions—that it was in fact one of his prescriptions. ”

“ Both to John of Padua and John Thorpe (unless they be one and the same person) the designs for the house were attributed; but from documents lately discovered, the most probable solution of the mystery is, that Sir John made use of designs prepared many years before by his patron, the Duke of Somerset, for a house on his own estate; this would account for the name of the architect not being mentioned in the records of the building. Be this as it may, the fame of Longleat and its beauty reached the ears of Queen Elizabeth, and she resolved to judge for herself, even before its completion ”

“ He took up the candle burning on the table for the cigars, and led the way into the basement of the beautiful old Colonial mansion, doubly memorable as Washington's headquarters while he was in Cambridge, and as the home of Longfellow for so many years. The taper cast just the right gleams on the darkness, bringing into relief the massive piers of brick, and the solid walls of stone, which gave the cellar the effect of a casemate in some fortress, and leaving the corners and distances to a romantic gloom. ”

“ Longueville lived on the east side of Bow Street, Covent Garden, and in his house Samuel Butler was often relieved. He was anxious that the poet's remains should be laid in Westminster Abbey, but as he could not find sufficient friends to bear a share of the expense, they were buried ‘with the greatest privacy, but at the same time very decently,’ at his own cost, in the churchyard of St. ”

“ THE THUNDERBOLT. Longueville Hall, the principal residence of Sir Alexis Longueville, Bart., is one of the first houses of its class in the south of England. It is not of the first magnitude, but it is of the first excellence. It has always been the home of wealth—nothing about it has ever fallen into decay. The façade is pure Italian, and has been ascribed to a very great name indeed in architecture ”

“ From Longtown to Langholm is a drive that must give pleasure and satisfaction to any one who has a taste for natural beauty in its natural state; not but the eye, during that delightful stage, is regaled by the soft scenes of dressed nature, at Netherby, in the possession of Sir James Graham, whose house and park ornament the south side of the river Esk. Almost the whole of the road from Longtown to Langholm runs by the side of this fine water, which is rolling beneath ”

“ Cartoonists, pamphleteers, Bourbonites, treasonites, meteoric females, all were supplied with the requisite material for declamatory speeches to be hurled at the Emperor in the hope of being reaped to the glory of God and the British ministry. The story of the attempted invasion of Longwood and its sequel shocks the fine susceptibilities of the satellites by whom Lowe is surrounded. They bellow out frothy words of vengeance. Sir Thomas Reade, the noisiest filibuster of them all, indicates his method of settling matters at Longwood. ”

“ Yet, seriously, though the generality of farm-steadings have little to boast of as regards situation, there are many pleasing exceptions. Nay, there are some to be found occupying the most choice positions—surrounded with or overlooking all that is beautiful in nature. One of these, most certainly, is the farm-house of West Mains, in the parish of Longorton, Lanarkshire. ”

“ The very servants—who, when amidst the strapping, stall-fed, gold-laced lackeys of the Mansion House, and transferred, with the chairs and tables, from one Lord Mayor to another, dared not speak, nor look, nor say their lives were their own—strutted about the house, and banged the doors, and spoke of their missis as if she had been an old apple-woman. ”

“ If we look in upon the Sherwood household a few weeks later, we will find them comfortably settled in the busy town of Lennoxville, a town which is noted throughout New England for its manufacturing industries. The house is pleasantly situated a short distance back from the street, allowing room for a neat lawn in front of the house, which is made more attractive by a few flower-beds set near the front entrance, and beneath the windows. ”

“ The Tower of London, the eyrie of Dumbarton Castle, even Fort William itself, were named as possible places of detention. Were they suited to this child of the Mediterranean? He needed sun; he needed exercise; he needed society. All these he could have on the plateau of Longwood, in a singularly equable climate, where the heat of the tropics is assuaged by the south-east trade wind, and plants of the sub-tropical and temperate zones alike flourish. ”

“ Longnor Hall, a substantial red-brick structure, stands in the midst of a finely timbered park, in one corner whereof rises the early eighteenth-century chapel, a curious little edifice with the pigeon-hole pews of the 'churchwarden' era, and gates carefully locked lest, perchance, the lover of old things should spy out the nakedness of the land! ”

“ The Bishop's Castle railway, commencing at Craven Arms, affords the readiest means of approach to the locality. Away to the south as we jaunt leisurely along we get a glimpse of Cheney Longville, a pretty secluded hamlet hidden away amidst copses and pasture fields, with never a highroad near it. Some slight remains of the old fortified manor-house of Cheney Longville still exist, incorporated with an antiquated farmhouse containing much fine carved oak furniture. ”

“ Balcomb, however, who held the situation of purveyor, with one or two other inhabitants of the island, sometimes visited at Longwood. The general intercourse between the French prisoners and the colonists was carried on by means of the French domestics, who had the privilege of visiting James' Town as often as they pleased, and whose doing so could infer no disadvantageous suspicions. But the society of Longwood gained no advantage by the intercourse with James' Town, although unquestionably the facility of foreign communication was considerably increased to the exiles. ”

“ Coke had been astute enough to secure a comfortable country-house, at a very convenient distance from London, through Lady Elizabeth. Her ladyship had held a mortgage upon Stoke Pogis, a place that belonged formerly to the Earls of Huntingdon, [4] and Coke, either by foreclosing or by selling, obtained possession of the property. As it stood but three or four miles to the north of Windsor, the situation was excellent. [5] Sir Edward's London house was in the then fashionable quarter of Holborn, a place to which dwellers in the city used to go for change of air. ”

“ You had the candour to tell me that 230you could not permit me and the individuals at Longwood to combine our ideas; or, in other words, to ascertain our real wishes. You have, doubtless, very good reasons for this. I say nothing against it; only I cannot suffer myself to be duped, or to be the means of leading into error those who take an interest in my fate.
“You“You are too advantageously situated, Sir, between Longwood and me; and if I must write to Count Bertrand, not my own sentiments, but what you may think proper to dictate, I decline holding any communication with him. ”