Laudator Temporis Acti

In what follows, page references are to The Letters of Edward FitzGerald, edd. Alfred McKinley Terhune and Annabelle Burdick Terhune, Volume II: 1851-1866 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).

Letter to George Crabbe (May 20, 1861), p. 399:

But we are split up into the pettiest possible Squirarchy, who want to make the utmost of their little territory; cut down all the Trees, level all the old Violet Banks, and stop up all the Footways they can. The old pleasant way from Hasketon to Bredfield is now a Desert. I was walking it yesterday and had the pleasure of breaking down and through some Bushes and Hurdles put to block up a fallen Stile. I thought what your Father would have said of it all. And really it is the sad ugliness of our once pleasant Fields that half drives me to the Water where the Power of the Squirarchy stops.

Letter to E.B. Cowell (May 22, 1861), pp. 400-401:

My chief Amusement in Life is Boating, on River and Sea. The Country about here is the Cemetery of so many of my oldest Friends: and the petty race of Squires who have succeeded, only use the Earth for an Investment: cut down every old Tree: level every Violet Bank: and make the old Country of my Youth hideous to me in my Decline. There are fewer Birds to be heard, as fewer Trees for them to resort to. So I get to the Water: where Friends are not buried nor Pathways stopt up: but all is, as the Poets say, as Creation’s Dawn beheld.

Letter to W.F. Pollock (January 16, 1862), p. 425:

I assure you our little Squires have so laid bare the Land of all the merit we had, its Trees and Hedgerows, that I turn away with Disgust from my old Haunts of fifty years ago. There is no need for them further to shut up (as they do) our old Footpaths, for one no longer wants to walk them.

Letter to Mrs. W.K. Browne (March 30, 1862), p. 434:

But the Landlords and Farmers have made the Country about here so ugly by cutting down every old Tree and rooting up every old Bank that had a Primrose or a Violet upon it, or a Briar for a Bird to build or sing in, that I am really forced to the River and Sea which these People cannot as yet get hold of to spoil.

Letter to Stephen Spring Rice (September 18, 1862), p. 453:

I really take to River and Sea because the wretched Squires have made my old Country so ugly by cutting down all Trees and Hedges that I don't care to look at it again. Then they steal our old Footpaths: and, when they have stolen them, now employ Police to arrest those who would go that way, as suspected Poachers.

From other letters we know that one of the chief offending squires, in FitzGerald's eyes, was Colonel George Tomline, of Orwell Park (1813-1889).

George Vicat Cole, Spring

Labels: arboricide