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Peacock, in his story of Gryll Grange, makes the announcement that the New Forest is now enclosed, and that he proposes never to visit it again. Twenty-five years of ruthless devastation followed the passing of that Act. The deer disappeared. Stretches of open beechwood and green lawns broken by thickets of ancient thorn and holly vanished under the official axe.
Headlong Hall and Nightmare Abbey, Melincourt and Crotchet Castle , as well as Gryll Grange itself, all have the uniform, though by no means monotonous, canvas of a party of guests assembled at a country-house and consisting of a number of "originals," with one or more common-sense but by no means commonplace characters to serve as contrast.
And the occasion was worthy alike of the smell and of the noise; for King Alef, finding that after the Ogre's death the neighboring kings were but too ready to make reprisals on him for his champion's murders and robberies, had made a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Hannibal the son of Gryll, King of Marazion, and had confirmed the same by bestowing on him the hand of his fair daughter.
He was the author of several somewhat whimsical, but quite unique novels, full of paradox, prejudice, and curious learning, with witty dialogue and occasional poems interspersed. Among them are Headlong Hall , Nightmare Abbey , Maid Marian , Misfortunes of Elphin , Crotchet Castle , and Gryll Grange . He was the intimate friend of Shelley, memoirs of whom he contributed to Fraser's Magazine.
Then in 1860 he put forth Gryll Grange, and some five years later died, a very old man, in 1866. Peacock at all times was a writer of verse, and the songs which diversify his novels are among their most delightful features; but his more ambitious poetical efforts, which date from his earlier years, The Genius of the Thames and Rhododaphne, are not of much mark.
She was of a practical limited nature; she saw very clearly what she saw, but she walked in blinkers, and had neither comprehension of nor sympathy with those of a wider vision. She was at this time a woman of forty, comfortable to look upon and the wife of Mr. Robert Pettifer, the head of the well-known firm of solicitors, Pettifer, Gryll and Musgrave. Mrs.
More than thirty years after date Gryll Grange is not obsolete even as a picture of manners; while Crotchet Castle, obsolete in a few externals, is as fresh as ever in substance, owing to its close grasp of essential humanity.
In Crotchet Castle the progress of Reform was already beginning to produce a beneficent effect of reaction upon him, and in Gryll Grange, though the manners and cast are surprisingly modern, the whole tone is conservative with a small if not even with a large C for the most prominent and well treated character is a Churchman of the best academic Tory type.
In the progress of his books from Headlong Hall to Gryll Grange the last separated from the group to which the first belongs by more than twice as many years as were covered by that group itself he mellowed his tone, but altered his scheme very little.
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