%v IliP //? /Z£. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/englandillustrat01mann BICHJHOND BllIDGE AMD CASTLE, YOltKSHIRE, ENGLAND ILLUSTRATED WITH PEN AND PENCIL By SAMUEL MANNING, LL.D., and S. G. GREEN, D.D. NEW YORK: HURST & COMPANY, Publishers, 122 Nassau Street. STOWE PARK. PREFACE. T HOUSANDS of Americans visit London each season, and find objects of interest and sources of amuse¬ ment and instruction in that great metropolis of England and the world. There are motives, quite independent of the love for natural beauty, which lead these hard-worked Americans of our generation to escape at intervals to as great a distance as possible from the scene of their daily occupations. The effort for this, however, often ends in disappointment ; and many return from the eager excitements of London more debilitated and exhausted than when they began their journey, and with the determination never again to cross the Atlantic. An American visiting London could hardly share such a feeling, still less form such a resolution did he visit England as well as London. 1 here is a considerable exhaustion incident to a summer residence in London which can be repaired in no way so well as in making short trips to points of interest which are to be found in any direction throughout England. it is true that the rivers do not flow from glaciers, and the proudest mountain heights may easily be scaled in an afternoon ; there is no gloomy grandeur of pine V PREFACE. forests or stupendous background of snowy peaks ; but there is beauty and sub¬ limity, too, for those who know how to observe the earth, and sea, and sky : and in less than a day’s journey, the tired American in London may find many a sequestered retreat, where pure air and lovely scenery will bring to him a refresh¬ ment all the more welcome because associated with the language, the habits, and the rural scenes of a royal people. This volume is intended to recall, by the aid of pen and pencil, some English scenes in which such refreshing influences have been enjoyed by some discreet American travelers. And, as every wanderer over English ground finds himself in the footsteps of the great and good, ample use has been made of the biographical and literary associations which these scenes continually awaken. To say that this edition of England Illustrated will be of interest to English¬ men residing in America would be to utter a truism. That it will be examined and read with interest, also, alike by those Americans who have visited England and those who have been deprived of that pleasure, is the aspiration of the compiler. BARDEN TOWER, NEAR BOLTON, YORKSHIRE. List of Illustrations. Richmond Bridge and Castle, Yorkshire . Frontispiece. Stowe Park.• - - page 5 Barden Tower, near Bolton, Yorkshire. 6 THE RIVER THAMES. Caversham. . page 10 Thames Head, and Hoar Stone . . ‘ 11 The Seven Springs . 11 First Bridge over the Thames 12 Windsor. 15 Lechlade ...... 18 The Martyrs’ Memorial, Oxford . . 19 Landing-place, Nuneham 20 Henley-on-Thames . 21 Near Pangbourne . , page 22 Woods and River, Cliefden . 24 Bray Church . 26 Eton from the River . . 27 Magna Ckarta Island 29 Laleham Ferry .... . 30 Swallows at Islewortli 32 Twickenham Church . . 33 Wind against Tide, Tilbury Fort . 36 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES: SURREY, KENT AND SUSSEX. A Surrey Common . 40 Harvest Scene in the Weald . 41 Weald of Sussex.... . 42 Horsted Keynes Church . 43 Hurstmonceux Castle. . 45 Beachy Head. 40 FORESTS AND In the New Forest .58 Group of Forest Ponies .... 59 In the New Forest . . . . .01 A Scene in the New Forest — The Rufus Stone . 02 Leatherheacl Church, near Dorking . . 48 Cobden’s Birthplace at Midhurst . . 49 Shere Church ...... 50 At Haslemere ...... 51 A Hop Garden ...... 53 Windmill near Arundel .... 55 WOODLANDS. The New Forest — Autumn . . . .03 Lyndhurst, Hants ..... 04 Stonehenge ....... 05 Burnham....... 69 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. SHAKSPERE’S COUNTRY. Warwick Castle. page 72 Shakspere Monument. page 82 Shakspere’s Birthplace, as restored 73 Kenilworth Castle, from the Tilt-yard . 74 Interior of Stratford-on-Avon Church . 83 Warwick Castle .... 75 Anne Hathaway’s Cottage 84 Beauchamp Chapel . . . . . 77 Kitchen in Shakspere’s House . 86 Statue of Shakspere, Stratford Town Hall 78 Stratford-on-Avon Church 79 Room in which Shakspere was born 87 Avenue to Stratford-on-Avon Church Door 81 Shakspere’s Birthplace, before Restoration 88 THE COUNTRY OF BUNYAN AND COWPER. On the Canal, at Berkhampstead . 92 Bunyan’s Monument, Bedford . . 98 Yardley Oak ..... 93 Buriyan Gates, Bedford . 99 Birthplace of Cowper, Berkhampstead Belfry Door, Elstow Church . 101 Rectory ...... . 94 Old Hostelry, Elstow . 102 Olney Vicarage .... 95 Residence of William Cowper, Olney . 103 Elstow ...... . 96 Weston Lodge, Olney . 103 Bedford. 97 East Dereham Church . 104 THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. Pike Pool—Beresford Dale . . 106 Haddon Hall ..... . 114 Winter Time—Feeding the Deer in Chats- Chatsworth—“ The Palace of the Peak ” . 115 worth Park ..... . 107 Dovedale. . 109 Matlock ...... . 117 “The Shivering Mountain” . 112 High Tor, Matlock .... . 118 Edensor. . 113 Lea Hurst: Miss Nightingale’s Home . 119 WESTWARD HO! Cheddar Cliffs ..... . 122 Little Mis Tor. . 136 On the Teign, Devon . 123 Hey Tor Rocks .... . 137 The Glastonbury Thorn . . 124 On the Slopes of Dartmoor • 138 Glastonbury Abbey .... . 125 Lidford Cascade .... 139 Village in the Quantocks. . 126 Lidford Gorge ..... . 140 Alfoxden, with Wordsworth’s House. . 127 Tavistock. ...... 141 Minehead. ..... . 128 The Dart at Dittersliam . 142 At Lynmoutli . . , . 129 Tintagel Castle and Rocks 143 Clovelly ...... . 132 St. Pirans, Perranzabuloe . . 145 On the Dart; Berry Pomeroy Castle and Land’s End. 146 Harford Bridge .... . 134 St. Michael’s Mount . 148 Dartmoor. ..... . 135 First and Last House, Land’s End 9 THE ENGLISH LAKES. Derwentwater. . 150 Borrowdale ..... . 156 Furness Abbey . . 151 The Bowder Stone, Borrowdale . 157 Among the Fells .... . 152 i Ullswater ...... 158 Friar’s Crag, Keswick . 154 The Upper Falls, Rydal . 159 Lodore. . 155 | Grasmere ....... 161 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE EASTERN COUNTIES. Yarmouth Jetty .... page 164 Cromer ...... . 165 Caistor Castle ..... . 165 Scene on the Fens .... . 166 Whittlesea Mere as it is . . 167 Cutting Reeds in the Fens . 168 Southey’s Grave .... . 168 Holm Lode (in the Fen Country) . 169 Skating in the Fens. . 170 Stalking Sledge. . 171 ROUND ABOUT SOME The Black Country and Dudley Castle . 180 Kirkstall Abbey .... . 181 The Wharfe. ..... . 182 A Yorkshire Dale . . 183 Fountains Abbey .... . 184 Wycliffe Church .... . 185 THE ISLE The Needles ..... . 190 Scratcliell’s Bay .... . 191 Carisbrooke Castle .... . 191 Whippingliam Church . 192 SNOWDONIA Menai Bridge ..... . 195 Snowdon ...... . 196 Pont Aberglaslyn. .... . 197 Bettws-y-Coed. .... . 198 Water-fall near Cape! Curig . 199 The Fairies’ Glen, Bettws-y-Coed . . 200 The Moors above Bettws-y-Coed . 201 Walsingham Abbey. . . = page 172 Crowland in Winter ..... 173 Crowland Abbey and. Church. . . 174 Snuff Tower. ...... 175 Norwich, from tlie Meadows . . . 176 Ethelbert Gate, Norwich .... 177 Yarmouth Tollhouse, and entrance to the Old Gaol.177 Sandringham . . . . . .178 Church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth . . 179 INDUSTRIAL CENTERS. In the Cheviot Hills ..... 186 Roman Wall . . 187 Section of Roman Wall .... 187 Warkworth Castle ..... 188 Dunstanborough Castle, Northumberland 189 Grace Darling’s Tomb .... 189 OF WIGHT. Shanklin Chine. Arreton Church .... Brading Church . . The Solent, with Netlev Hospital AND WALES. Conway Castle Craig-y-Dinas .... Lady’s Fall .... The Cilhepste Fall Gateway of Manorbeer Castle. Storm on the Welsh Coast. 193 194 194 194 202 203 203 204 205 206 FIRST AND LAST HOUSE, LAND’S END. % CAYEESHAM. ‘ My eye, descending from the hill, surveys Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays. Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean’s sons, By his old sire, to his embraces runs, Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal life to meet eternity.’ Sir John Denham : Cooper s Hill, lines 159-164. I THAMES HEAD AND HOAR STONE. THE RIVER THAMES. THE SEVEN SPRINGS. T HE Thames, unrivaled among Eng¬ lish rivers in beauty as in fame, is really little known even by English¬ men. Of the millions who line its banks, few have any acquaintance with its higher streams, or know them further than by occasional glances through rail¬ way carriage windows, at Maidenhead, Reading:, PangTourne, or between Abingf- don and Oxford. Multitudes, even, who love the Oxford waters, and are familiar with every turn of the banks between Folly Bridge and Nuneham, have never sought to explore the scenes of surpass¬ ing beauty where the river flows on, almost in loneliness, in its descent to London ; visited by few, save by those happy travelers who, with boat and tent, pleasant companionship, and well-chosen books — Izaak Walton’s Angler among the rest—pass leisurely from reach to reach of the silver stream. Then higher up than Oxford, who knows the Thames? Who can even tell where it arises, and through what district it flows? There is a vague belief in many minds, fostered by some ancient manuals of geography, that the Thames is originally the Isis, so called until it receives the river Thame, the auspicious union being denoted by the pluralizing of the latter II THE RIVER THAMES. word. The whole account is pure invention. No doubt the great river does receive the Thame or Tame, near Wallingford ; but a Tame is also tributary to the Trent; and there is a Teme among the affluents of the Severn. The truth appears to be that Teme, Tame, or Thame, is an old Keltic word meaning ‘smooth,’ or ‘broad’; and that Tamesis, of which Thames is merely a contraction, is formed by the addition to this root of the old ‘ Es,’ water, so familiar to us in ‘ Ouse,’ 1 ‘ Esk,’ ‘ Uiske,’ ‘ Exe,’ so that Tam-es means simply the ‘broad water,’ and is Latinized into Tamesis. The last two syllables again of this word are fancifully changed into Isis, which is thus taken as a poetic appellation of the river. In point of fact, Isis is used only by the poets, or by those who affect poetic diction. Thus Wharton in his address to Oxford : ‘ Lo, your loved Isis, from the bordering vale, With all a mother’s fondness bids you hail.’ The name, then, of the Thames is singular, not plural ; while yet the river is formed by many confluent streams descending from the Cotswold Hills. Which is the actual source is perhaps a question of words ; and yet it is one as keenly con¬ tended, and by as many competing localities, as the birthplace of Homer was of old. Of the seven, however, only two can show a plausible case. The traditional ‘ Thames Head ’ is in Trewsbury Mead, three miles from Cirencester. This Trewsbury Mead, the guide-books say, is ‘ not far from Tetbury Road Station ’ on the Great Western Railway. The fact is, that there is now no ‘ Tetbury Road Station ’ for passengers ; the traffic of antique little Tetbury having been transferred to Kemble, the junction which also serves Cirencester. There are two ways of reaching the infant Thames. One is from Kemble, where a short stroll through pleasant meadows brings the pedestrian to the river, covered —when we saw it on a bright day in early summer—with the leaves and blossoms of the water ranunculus ; while a board affixed to a tree upon the bank, threatening penalties to unauthorized anglers, suggested that already the Thames had won its character as a fishing stream. Not far off, a by-path from a main road near a great railway-arch is carried across the river by the first Thames bridge , a modest affair of three arches, on which the tourist, if disposed to a contem¬ plation of contrasts, may stand and think of the last bridge that spans the stream, the wonderful structure by the Tower of London. Should the visitor follow the course of the dwindling- stream though the mea- dows, he will by-and-by find himself near the high embankment of the Thames and Severn Canal, in its day a work of great enterprise and utility, and still occasionally used as a link between the two famous rivers. But he will do better to return to the junction and proceed to Cirencester: ‘Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire,’ 1 ‘ The Ouse, whom men do Isis rightly name.’ — Spenser, Faerie Queene. THE FIRST BRIDGE OVER THE THAMES. 12 THE RIVER THAMES. as Shakspere has it, in the last act of King Richard the Second , so perpetuating a local pronunciation rapidly falling into disuse. The town itself, among its verdant rolling uplands, is worth a day’s visit, even apart from its association with the Thames. Once, perhaps because of its position near the source of the great river, Cirencester was the center of Roman civilization and luxury in this island. To the city of Corinium, as it was then called, from the ancient British name Caer Corin, four of the chief Roman roads converged : the Fosse Way from the northeast, Ake- man Street from the southwest, and Ermine Street intersecting them from the southeast and northwest, while Icknield Street passed at a little distance to the east. These roads, turned into good English turnpikes (if we may use a word which our successors will hardly understand), running in long, straight lines through the undu¬ lating landscape, after the Roman fashion, are still a prominent feature in the scene. Cirencester itself has almost lost the aspect of a Roman city, save in some green mounds, revealing to an antiquary’s eye the ancient earthworks, and still occasion¬ ally yielding to the delver pieces of pottery, coins, and other relics ; as well as in the 'very manifest lines of a considerable amphitheater, now called the Bull Ring. The chief Roman remains from time to time discovered are preserved in the Cor¬ inium Museum, close to the railway station, a collection well catalogued and admir¬ ably kept, containing statuettes, pottery, and household implements of all kinds, vividly illustrating every feature of Roman provincial life in Britain. Two remark¬ ably fine tesselated pavements, with hunting and other scenes, disinterred in the center of the town about forty years ago, occupy the central floor of the museum, one of them having unfortunately been much injured in removal. The sculptor Westmacott says of them : 4 Here is grandeur of form, dignity of character, and great breadth of treatment, which strongly reminds one of the finest Greek schools.’ A three or four miles’ drive along the old Akeman Street takes the visitor to a point in the road where the high embankment of the canal comes into full view, crossing the meadows on the left. On the right, the church tower of Coates (the name being, no doubt, connected with Cotswold ) is seen among the trees. Here, we are told, rises the Thames. But where? A peasant appears from a roadside cot¬ tage to explain. ‘ People come here,’ he says, ‘ in the summer, when there is no wa¬ ter, and go away saying there is naught to see. They should come in the winter, and see how these meadows are all flooded!’ The fact is, that the traditional source of the Thames is in a deep spring, below a mound covered with trees and brush¬ wood, and with the stones of a ruined well. In summer weather no water comes to the surface, in rainy seasons and in winter it often breaks forth and dispreads itself over the meadows before it finds any regular channel. In fact, the first sign of the existence of any spring whatever, when we visited the spot, was in a pumping- engine on the towing-path of the embankment, some three-quarters of a mile from ‘ Thames Head,’ which was in full activity, raising water from the deep under¬ ground store to supply the canal. The water appeared of crystal purity as it welled forth from the ugly little engine-house in continual ripples on the dull and weedy stream. This novel illustration of ‘infant labor’ was almost a painful one ; at any rate it formed an impressive comment on the reported saying of Brindley the engineer, that 4 the great use of rivers is to feed canals.’ Half-a-mile farther down, when clear of the pumping-engine, the baby river issues again to light, and wanders at its own sweet will, where we met it in our walk from Kemble. The cut at the 13 THE RIVER THAMES. head of this chapter delineates its early course, and shows ‘ the Hoar Stone,’an ancient boundary, mentioned in a charter of King Htthelstan, a.d. 931. As we have already hinted, however, there is another claimant to the honor of being the source of the Thames, in the ‘ Seven Springs’ at Cubberley, near Chelten¬ ham, ten miles higher up than Coates. The question is one rather of words than of hydrography ; and certainly the appellation of the Thames in old charters, as well as the immemorial names of lands adjacent to Coates, as ‘ Thames Meadow,’ * Thames Furlong,’ and the like, seem to show that this is the recognized fountain¬ head of the river. On the other hand, the stream that rises at Cubberley is on higher ground and farther from the mouth of the river. Only, it is called ‘ the Churn.’ It also runs southwards to Cirencester; and at Lechlade, ten miles farther on, the two unite. Whether ‘the Churn’ be the true Thames or not, the drive from Cheltenham to the Seven Springs is not one to be neglected by any tourist who may be so fortunate as to find himself in that town of leafy trees and fair gardens on a bright day in early summer. The longer but the finer road sweeps round the magnificent escarpment of Leckhampton Hill, one of the finest points of view in the Cotswolds. Here, beneath the crest of the hill, the tourist is sure to have his attention called to an irregular column or pile of rocks, called from time immemorial the Devil’s Chimney. It has probably been separated from the oolitic mass by the action of wa¬ ter washing away the softer and more friable parts of the rock. The impression can scarcely be resisted that, in the broken line of the Cotswolds along this route, there is a pre-historic line of cliffs, the boundary of a vast channel, with its bays and head¬ lands, what is now the valley of the Severn having been an arm of the sea, and the Malvern Hills being heights upon the opposite shore. This hill should be climbed, if the visitor can climb at all, for the sake of the glorious outspread landscape, embracing the Yale of the Severn, the Forest of Dean, and the Malvern Hills ; while the contrast between the bare crags in the foreground and the splendid luxu¬ riance of the valleys is a feast of color to the eye. But as the main object is to find the ‘ Seven Springs,’ the road must be pursued a little farther, when suddenly they appear by the wayside—a small pond under a bank by the wall, over which are two twisted ash trees; while in ceaseless trickle rather than in full stream the k seven ’ tiny cataracts descend from the bank. In the wall is a tablet with the hexameter inscription : ‘ Hie tuus, O Tamesine Pater, septemgeminus fons.’ (Here, O Father Thames, is thy sevenfold source !) Beyond the wall there is a view of what appears a pleasure-ground, where the stream from the Springs expands into a little lake before descending into the valley. On the lake we discerned a solitary white swan floating; and, altogether, one could not help thinking that—Cirencester traditions notwithstanding—this ought to be the source of the river. Our driver had been careful to warn us not to be dis- ‘appointed : ‘ people generally were.’ ‘ Is that all ? ’ they would say; * drive back to Cheltenham !’ But to us the scene appeared very characteristic and lovely, and, so far as our verdict might go, we were ready to identify the Churn with Father Thames. Nay, there is some local ground for this conclusion, quite apart from the hexameter, and much earlier. For after all Churn is probably Covin? and Corin in 1 Some, however, identify the word with the Keltic Chivyrn, 1 swift ’ or ‘ nimble.’ 14 WINDSOR THE RIVER THAMES. Keltic is Summit. Cirencester itself is Corin-cester, ‘ the camp of the Summit/and here is the Summit itself! At the little market-town of Cricklade the two streams unite their force, which is still inconsiderable ; and from this point the river flows onwards, through rich meadows and beside quiet villages : much, to say the truth, like other rivers, or dis¬ tinguished only by the transparency of its gentle stream. For, issuing from a broad surface of oolite rock, it has brought no mountain debris or dull clay to sully its brightness, no town defilement, nor trace of higher rapids in turbid waves and hurrying foam. It lingers amid quiet beauties, scarcely veiling from sight the rich herbarium which it fosters in its bed, save where the shadows of trees reflected in the calm water mingle confusedly with the forms of aquatic plants. Meanwhile other streams swell the current. As an unknown poet somewhat loftily sings : ‘From various springs divided waters glide, In different colors roll a different tide ; Murmur along their crooked banks awhile :— At once they murmur, and enrich the isle, Awhile distinct, through many channels run. But meet at last, and sweetly flow in one Their joy to lose their long distinguished names, And make one glorious and immortal Thames.’ Of the little streams thus described, the most important are the Coin and the Leche ; as Drayton has it in his Polyolbion : ‘ Clere Coin and lovely Leche, so dun from Cotswold’s plain.’ The confluence of these streams with the Thames and Severn Canal at Lech- lade makes the river navigable for barges ; and from this point it sets up a towing- path. Below Lechlade it passes into almost perfect solitude. Few walks in Eng¬ land of the same distance are at once so quietly interesting and so utterly lonely as the walk along the grassy towing-path of the Thames. A constant water-traffic was once maintained between London and Bristol by way of Lechlade and the canal; but this is now superseded by the railway, and the sight of a passing barge is rare. The river after leaving Gloucestershire divides, in many a winding, the counties of Oxford and Berks. The hills of the latter county, with their wood-crowned summits, pleasantly bound the view to the south ; Farringdon Hill being for a long distance conspicuous among them. Half-way between Lechlade and Oxford is the hamlet of Siford, or Shiford—one of the great historic spots of England, if rightly considered, although now isolated and unknown. For there, as an ancient chron¬ icler commemorates, King Alfred the Great held Parliament a thousand years ago. ‘ There sat at Siford many thanes and many bishops, Learned men, proud earls and awful knights, There was Earl yElfric, learned in the law, And Alfred, England’s herdsman, England’s darling, He was King in England. He began to teach them how they should live.’ The impression which the first sight of Oxford makes upon the stranger is probably unique, in whatever direction he first approaches it, and from whatever point he first descries its spires and towers. True, of late years the acces- 17 THE RIVER THAMES. sories of the railway invasion, so long resisted by the University authorities, have given a new aspect to the scene ; but nothing can quite destroy the stately dignity and venerable calm. The traveler who approaches by the river receives the full impression. As he floats along the quiet stream, the stately domes and towers come suddenly into view, and the green railway embankment in the foreground scarcely impairs the antique beauty of the picture. Oxford is probably Ousenford—the ford over the Ouse or ‘Water.’ Its waters indeed are many, and almost labyrinthine ; but we get clear of the river at Hythe Bridge, and care for a while only to explore Colleges, Halls, and Libraries ; pausing before the Martyrs’ Memorial, to breathe the hope that ‘the candle’ once lighted LECHLADE. there may still brightly burn ; while Keble College, farther on, is a memorial of one who, though of another school of thought from ourselves, has given musical and touching expression to the holiest musings of devout hearts. But to describe this Avonderful city is beyond our present scope. Let us hurry down to Christ Church Meadows, where the Cherwell sweeps round to join the Thames; then across to the Broad Walk, past Merton Meadow and the Botanical Gardens, to Magdalen Bridge, where a splendid view of the city is again obtained ; thence up High Street to the center of the city, and down St. Aldate’s Street to Folly Bridge, where boats of all sizes are in waiting. This bridge may appear strangely named, as a main approach to the renowned seat of learning. Various stories are told as to the origin of the Perhaps it may be from some tradition of Roger Bac^n, who had his study is name. THE RIVER THAMES. cind laboratory here, over the ancient gate. There was a saying that this study would fall when a man more learned than Bacon passed under it ; so that the name may be an uncomplimentary reference to the troops of students entering Oxford by this thoroughfare. But such speculations need not hinder us. We are bound for London—a voyage of some 115 miles, though only 52 by rail. Many boatmen will prefer to take the train for Goring, saving six-and-twenty miles of water traveling, and avoiding the most tedious and on the whole least picturesque part of the journey. Still, in any case, Nuneham must be seen, with Iffley Lock and Sandford THE MARTYRS’ MEMORIAL, OXFORD. Lasher—familiar names to boating men !—upon the way. Nuneham is a charming domain, scene of picnic parties innumerable, yet freshly beautiful to every visitor who can enjoy woodland walks and verdant slopes, and gardens, planned by Mason the poet, in which art and taste have, as it were, only improved upon the hints and suggestions of Nature ; and breezy heights from which the prospect, if less exten¬ sive than some other far-famed English views, may surely vie in loveliness with any of them. The intending visitor must be careful to ascertain the days and conditions of access to the ground ; and in his ramble must be sure to include the old ‘ Carfax’ conduit, removed in 1787 from the ‘fourways’ (for the ‘Car’ is evidently qziatre. 19 THE RIVER THAMES. whatever the ‘ fax’ may be) in Oxford, and set on a commanding eminence, the dis¬ tant spires and towers of the city, with Blenheim Woods in the background, being seen in one direction, and the view in another bounded by the line of the Chiltern Hills. When the oarsman has once left behind the wooded slopes of Nuneham, with the overhanging trees reflected in the silvery waters, he will find the way to Abing¬ don monotonous. He will perhaps be startled by seeing picnic parties in large boats, towed from the shore by stalwart peasants harnessed to the rope. Let us hope that the toil is easier than it looks ! On the whole, we do not recommend the long detour by Abingdon, although Clifton Hampden is charming, and Dorchester, near the junction of the Thame and the Thames—once a Roman camp, afterwards the see of the first Bishop of Wessex, but now a poor village—is well worth a visit. It is startling to find a minster in a hamlet. Probably, however, the antiqu’ary may be more interested in the remains of the Whittenham earthworks, which in British or Saxon times defended the meeting-point of the rivers. The Thame flows in on the left. On the hill to the right is- Sinodun, a remarkably fine British camp. The whole neighborhood, so still and peaceful now, tells of bygone greatness, and of many a struggle of which the records have vanished from the page of history. Not far from Dorchester in an¬ other direction is Chalgrove Field, where the brave and patriotic Hampden received his death- wound. His name, and that of Falkland, to be noticed further on, awaken in these scenes, now so tranquil, the remembrance of the stormy times when in this Thames Valley were waged those conflicts out of which in so large a measure sprang the freedom and progress of modern England. At Dorchester we are still eleven miles by water from Goring; and while the angler may loiter down the stream, we must hasten on, though ancient Wallingford and rustic Cleeve are not unworthy of notice. At Goring the chief beauties of the river begin to disclose themselves. Emerson says of the English landscape, that ‘ it seems to be finished with the pencil instead of the plow.’ The fields are cultivated like gardens. Neat, trim hedgerows, picturesque villages, spires peeping from among groves of trees, cottages gay with flowers and evergreens, suggest that the landscape gardener rather than the agriculturist has been everywhere at work. If this be true of England as a whole, it is yet more strikingly true of the district through which we are about to pass. A thousand years of peaceful industry have subdued the wildness of Nature ; and the river glides between banks radiant with beauty : ‘ The little hills rejoice on every side ; the pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys are covered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they also sing.’ Yet there is no lack of variety. The course of the river is broken up by LANDING-PLACE, NUNEHAM. 20 THE RIVER THAMES. innumerable ‘aits’ (‘eyots’), or little islands; some covered with trees which dip their branches into the stream, others with reeds and osier, the haunts of wild fowl; on others, again, a cottage or a summer-house peeps out from amongst the foli- age. Sometimes these aits seem to block up the chan¬ nel, and leave no exit, so that the boat seems to be afloat on a tiny lake, till a stroke or two of the oar dis¬ closes a narrow passage into the stream beyond. Some¬ times a line of chalk-down bounds the view, its deli¬ cately curved sides dotted over with juniper bushes, the dark green of which con¬ trasts finely with the light gray of the turf. Then appears a range of hanging beech-wood coming: down to the water’s edge, or a broad expanse of meadow, where the cattle wade knee-deep in grass, or a mansion whose grounds have been trans¬ formed into a paradise by lavish expenditure and fine taste, or a village, the rustic beauty of which might realize the dreams of poet or of painter. The locks, mill- dams, or weirs with their dashing waters, give anima¬ tion to the scene. Nor is that additional charm often wanting of which Dr. John¬ son used to speak. ‘ The finest landscape in the world,’ he would say, ‘ is improved by a good inn in the fore¬ ground.’ True, there are no great hotels, after the modern fashion ; but a series of comfortable, homely village inns will be found, such as Izaak Walton loved, and which are still favorite haunts with the brethren of 1 the gentle craft.' 21 HENLEY-ON-THAMES. THE RIVER THAMES. The landlord, learned in all anglers’ lore, is delighted to show where the big pike lies in a sedgy pool, where the perch will bite most freely, or to suggest the most killing fly to cast for trout over the mill-pond ; and is not too proud, when the day’s task is done, to wait upon the oarsman or the angler at his evening meal. To describe in detail all the points of beauty that lie before us would require far more space than we have at disposal ; and a dry catalogue of names would interest no one. We have started, as said before, from Goring, where the twin vil¬ lage Streatley — bearing in its name a reminiscence of the old Roman road Icknield Street—nestles at the foot of its romantic wooded hill. The comfort of the little hostelry and the charm of the scenery invite a longer stay, but we must press on. Pangbourne and Whitchurch, also twin villages, joined by a pretty wooden bridge, once more invite delay. On the right, the little river Pang flows in between green hills; on the left, or the Whitchurch side, heights clothed with the richest foliage shut in the scene. The cottages are embosomed amid the trees ; the clear river catches a thousand reflections from hillside and sky ; the waters of the weir dash merrily down ; and the fishermen, each in his punt moored near midstream, yielding themselves to the tranquil delight of the perfect scene, are further gladdened by many an encouraging nibble. Surely of all amusements the most restful is fishing from a punt! Most persons would find a day of absolute idleness intoler¬ able. But here we have just that measure of expectation and ex¬ citement which enable even a busy and active man to sit all day doing nothing. Into the question of the cruelty of the sport we do not enter; but its soothing, tranquil¬ lizing character cannot be denied. For ourselves, our business is not to angle, but to observe. As we row past these grave and solemn men, absorbed in the endeavor to hook a dace or gudgeon, and recognize among them one or two of the hardest workers in London, we feel, at any rate, that the familiar sneer about ‘a rod with a line at one end, and a fool at the other,’ may not be alto¬ gether just. 1 1 As we write, the following letter to the Times arrests our attention ; it is too graphic, as well as accurate, to be lost: * I will not tell you where I am, except that I am staying at an hotel on the banks of the River Thames. I hesitate to name the place, charming as it is, because I am sure, when its beauties are known, it will be hopelessly vulgarized. Mine host, the pleasantest of landlords, his wife, the most agreeable of her sex, will charge, too, in proportion as the plutocracy invade us. I am surrounded by the most charming scenery. Few know, and still fewer appreciate, the beauties of our own River Thames. I have been up and down the Rhine ; but I confess, taking all in all, Oxford to Gravesend pleases me more. Here, in addition to what I have described, I am on the river’s brink ; I can row about to my heart’s content for a very moderate figure ; excel¬ lent fishing ; newspapers to be procured, and postal arrangements of a character not to worry you, and yet sufficient to keep you an fait with your business arrangements. What do I want more ? Prices are moderate, the village contains houses suitable to all classes, and the inhabitants are pleased to see you. I can wear flannels without being stared at, and I can see the opposite sex, in the most bewitching and fascinating of costumes, rowing about (with satisfaction, too) the so-called lords of creation. As for children, there is no end of amusement for them — dabbling in the water, feeding the swans, the fields, and the safety of 2 punt. We have both aristocratic and well-to-do people here — names well known in town ; but I must not, nor will I, betrcv 12 WOODS AND RIVER ; CLIEFDEN' THE RIVER THAMES. Passing a series of verdant lawns, sloping to the river’s brink, we reach Maple- durham and Purley, on opposite sides of the river at one of its most exquisite bends. The former place is celebrated by Pope as the retreat of his ladye-love Martha Blount, when ‘ She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks, Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks.’ The latter was the residence of Warren Hastings during his trial, and is not to be •confounded with the Purley in Surrey, where Horne Tooke wrote his celebrated Diversions, on the origin and history of words. The next halting-place is Caversham, sometimes magniloquently described as 4 the port of Reading.’ Here the Thames widens out, as shown in the view which prefaces the present chapter ; the eel-traps, or ‘ bucks,’ extending half across the river. A little lower down, the Rennet, ‘ for silver eels renowned,’ as Pope has it, flows in from the southwest, with its memories of the high-minded and chivalrous Falkland, who fell at the battle of Newbury, on the banks of this river. Then the Loddon enters the Thames from the south, between Shiplake and Wargrave. The picturesque churches of these two villages are soon passed, and we enter the fine •expanse of Henley Reach, famous in boat-racing annals. Here for many years the University matches were rowed before their removal to Putney. No sheet of water could be better suited to the purpose, and the change is regretted by many boat- ingr-men. We are now approaching the point at which the beauty of the river culminates. From Marlow, past Cookham, Hedsor and Cliefden, to Maidenhead, a distance of •eight or ten miles, we gladly suspend the labor of the oar, and let the boat drift slowly with the stream. As we glide along, even this gentle motion is too rapid, and we linger on the way to feast our eyes upon the infinitely varied combination of chalk cliff and swelling hill and luxuriant foliage which every turn of the river brings to view : ‘Woods, meadows, hamlets, farms, Spires in the vale and towers upon the hills ; The great chalk quarries glaring through the shade, The pleasant lanes and hedgerows, and those homes Which seemed the very dwellings of content And peace and sunshine.’ 1 The ‘castled crags’ of the Rhine and the Moselle,—the ‘blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,’—the massive grandeur of the banks of the Danube, are far more imposing and stimulating ; but the quiet, tranquil loveliness of this part of the Thames may make good its claim to take rank even with those world-famed rivers. There is something both unique and charming in the dry ‘ combes,’or fissures in the chalk ranges, rapidly descending and garnished with sweeping foliage of untrimmed beech trees. The branches gracefully bend down to the slope of the rising sward ; while, from the steepness of the angle, the tree-tops appear from them. On the towing-path this morning was to be seen the smartest of our judges in a straw hat and a tourist suit, equally becoming to him as it was well cut. * Let me advise all your readers who are hesitating where to go not to overlook the natural beauties of our River Thames. There are one or two steamers that make the journey up and down the river in three days, stopping at various places, and giving ample opportunity for passengers both to see and appreciate the scenery. ‘ E. C. W.’ 1 Down Stream to London. By the Rev. S. J. Stone. 25 THE RIVER THAMES. below as a succession of pinnacles against the sky. Many a roamer through dis¬ tant lands has come home to give the palm for the perfection of natural beauty to the rocks and hanging woods of Cliefden. That they are within an hour’s run of London does not indeed abate their claim to admiration, but may suggest the rea¬ son why they are so comparatively little known. Maidenhead is on the other side of the river ; Taplow opposite. The bridge between them—one of Brunei’s works—will be noted for its enormous span ; its elliptical brick arches being, it is said, the widest of the kind in the world. From this point, if the beauty decreases, the historical interest becomes greater at every turn. First we pass the village and church of Bray. The scenery here is of little interest; but it is impossible not to give a thought to ‘ the Vicar,’ Symond Sym- onds, commemorated in song. Let it be noted, however, that the lyrist has used a poetic license in his dates. The historian, Thomas Fuller, tells the story : ‘ The vivacious vicar, living under King Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protes¬ tant again. He had seen some martyrs burnt (two miles off) at Windsor, and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. The vicar being taxed by one for being a turncoat and incon- stant changeling ; “ Not so,” said he, “ for I always keep my principle, which is this—to live and to die the Vicar of Bray.” ’ The type is but too true to human nature, and not only in matters ecclesiastical. But in¬ stead of staying to moralize, we will notice with interest that in this church is preserved an ancient copy of Fox’s Book of Martyrs, chained to the reading-desk, as in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It is better to be reminded of ‘ the faith and patience of the saints,’ than of the light convictions and the easy apostasy of politic ‘ believers ’; and so the old church at Bray has taught us a refreshing and unexpected lesson. Soon the towers of Windsor are seen rising above the trees; then Eton College comes into view, with its ‘ distant spires, antique towers That crown the watery glade.’ Perhaps the best view of the castle from the Thames is that from a point just beyond the Great Western Railway bridge. When the Queen is absent, access to the state apartments is liberally permitted. St. George’s Chapel, built by Edward IV., is the finest existing specimen of the architecture of that period ; and the view from the North Terrace, constructed by Queen Elizabeth, is perhaps the most beautiful on the River Thames. A little lower down, and we are passing between Runnimede (‘ Meadow of 26 ETON FROM THE RIVER. THE RIVER THAMES. Council ’), where the barons camped, and Magna Charta Island, where the great charter of English liberty was signed ; and a temporary struggle between kings and nobles laid the broad foundations of English freedom. As we sweep round the bend beneath the broad meadow and the wooded Isle, ‘while we muse the fire burneth,’—the ardor of grateful love to Him who has shaped the destinies of our beloved land, and has never from that hour withdrawn the trust then committed to the nation, of being the guardians and pioneers of the world’s freedom. A multi¬ tude of thoughts and questionings throng in upon us, but we must not lose the opportunity of impressing on our memory the outward features of the scene. There is not much to see : if there be time to land upon the island, it will be as well to do so, and to enter the pretty modern cottage there erected, containing the very stone— if tradition is to be believed—on which the Charter was laid for the royal signature. From Runnimede it is but an easy climb to the brow of Cooper’s Hill, with its far-famed view of the river, of Windsor, and its woods. Dr. Johnson speaks of Sir John Den¬ ham’s poem, of which we have taken some lines as the motto to this chapter, as ‘the first English specimen of local poetry.’ Its subject, as well as its style, will preserve it from the oblivion to which the greater number of the poet’s works have descended. Another Coin falls into the river, to the left, a little farther on—suggestive, in its name, of the Roman occupation; the ‘street’ to the west here crossing the Thames by a bridge. ‘ London Stone,’ a few hundred yards lower down, marks the entrance into Middlesex; then clean and quiet Staines—‘ Stones,’ so termed, per¬ haps, from the piers of the old Roman bridge, or, it may be, from the London Stone itself, comes into view : but if the traveler has time to spare, he will rather pause at Laleham, so well known to every Christian educator as the earliest scene of Arnold’s labors. ‘ The first reception of the tidings of his election at Rugby,’ we are told by his biographer, ‘was overclouded with deep sorrow at leaving the scene of so much happiness. Years after he had left it, he still retained his early affection for it, and till he purchased his house in Westmoreland, he entertained a lingering hope that he might return to it in his old age, when he should have retired from Rugby. Often he would revisit it, and delighted in renewing his acquaintance with all the families of the poor whom he had known during his residence ; in showing to his children his former haunts ; in looking once again on his favorite views of the great MAGNA CHARTA ISLAND. 29 THE RIVER THAMES. plain of Middlesex —the lonely walks along the quiet banks of the Thames—the retired garden with its “Campus Martius,” and its “wilderness of trees,” which lay behind the house, and which had been the scene of so many sportive games and serious conversations.’ 1 Chertsey, on the other side of the river, is next passed, the leisurely traveler having the opportunity, if he so please, of visiting the house of Cowley the poet, or of climbing to St Anne’s Hill, once the residence of the statesman Charles James Fox. Then, still on the right, the mouth of the Wey is seen, the pretty town of Weybridge not being far off. Towns and villages now multiply: the villas of city men begin to dot the banks ; and the suburban railway station appears, with its hurrying morning and evening crowds. The chronicle of names now would be like the monotonous cry of the railway porter: ‘ Shepperton ; Walton; Sunbury ; Hampton.’ But as yet we need not join with the throng. The ‘silent highway’— as the river has been called— is also a retreat. Still we can leisurely survey the charm, which, so long as the sky, the water, and the trees remain, no builder can efface, although he may try his best, or worst. A bend in the river between Shepperton and Walton is of historic interest, as there Julius Caesar with his legions forced the passage of the Thames, and routed the British General Cassivelaunus. ‘ Caesar led his army to the territories of Cassive¬ launus, to the river Thames, which river can be crossed on foot in one place only, and that with dif¬ ficulty. On arriving, he perceived that great forces of the enemy were drawn up on the opposite bank, which was moreover fortified by sharp stakes set along the margin, a similar stockade being fixed in the bed of the river, and covered by the stream. Having ascertained these facts from prisoners and deserters, Caesar sent the cavalry in front, and ordered the legions to follow immediately. The soldiers advanced with such rapidity and impetuosity, although up to their necks in the water, that the enemy could not withstand the onset, but quitted the banks and betook themselves to flight.’ 2 The name Cowey, or Coway Stakes, to this day commemorates the event. 1 Stanley’s Life , vol i., p. 37. One of Arnold’s Laleham pupils, afterwards his colleague at Rugby, writes: ‘The most remarkable thing, which struck me at once in joining the Laleham circle, was the wonderful healthiness of tone and feeling which prevailed in it. Everything about me I immediately felt to be most real ; it was a place where a new-comer at once felt that a great and earnest work was going forward. Dr. Arnold's great power as a private tutor resided in this, that he gave such an intense earnestness to life. Every pupil was made to feel that there was a work for him to do—that his happiness as well as his duty lay in doing that work well. Hence, an indescribable zest was communicated to a young man’s feeling about life ; a strange joy came over him on discovering that he had the means of being useful, and thus of being happy ; and a deep respect and ardent attachment sprang up toward him who had taught him thus to value life and his own self, and his work and mission in this world.’ 5 Caesar, Commentaries. Book v. § 19, \ calls the council, states the certain day ? forms the phalanx, and who points the way !’— Pope. THE RIVER THAMES. TWICKENHAM CHURCH. this pretty neighborhood, and the poet’s memory is reverenced in the village accord¬ ingly. Here are the first and last verses : ‘ When sultry suns and dusty streets proclaim town’s “ winter season,” And rural scenes and cool retreats sound something like high treason— I steal away to shades serene which yet no bard has hit on, And change the bustling, heartless scene for quietude and Ditton. ********* Here, in a placid waking dream, I’m free from worldly troubles, Calm as the rippling silver stream that in the sunshine bubbles ; And when sweet Eden’s blissful bowers, some abler bard has writ on, Despairing to transcend his powers, I’ll ditto say for Ditton.’ Two or three miles farther, and just past Hampton village, on the left bank, the traveler will notice a little rotunda with a Grecian portico with a mansion of some pretensions in the wooded background. The house was Garrick’s residence, and in the rotunda there originally stood Roubiliac’s famous statue of Shakspere, now in the British Museum. Bushey Park and Hampton Court next tempt us to the shore. Great names of history again rise to memory—Wolsey, Cromwell, William III. But the charm of Hampton Court is, that its palace and gardens are free of access to the people ; a privilege which, all the summer through, is appreciated by eager, happy throngs. But let us cross the river to the comparative solitude of the two Dittons—‘Thames’ and ‘Long.’ An improtnptu of poor Theodore Hook, lively and graceful, according to his wont, has led many a tourist in search of a holiday to 33 THE RIVER THAMES. Then comes trim Surbiton with its villas, and Kingston—once, as its name imports, a town of kings. For here were crowned several Saxon monarchs; is there not the coronation-stone in the market-place, engraven with their names ? Teddington Lock, a little lower down, is the last upon the Thames; and here too the anglers of the river put forth their chief and almost their final strength. The mile from Teddington to Eel-pie Island off Twickenham will be an unusually quiet one, if the voyager interfere not with the sport of one or other of these gentry, drawing down their resentment accordingly. Strawberry Hill reminds us of Hor¬ ace Walpole, literary idleness, sham Gothic, and bric-a-brac. We glance and pass on. Pope’s Villa no longer exists ; only a relic of his famous grotto remains ; but a monument to the poet is in Twickenham Church, with an inscription by Warbur- ton, setting forth that Pope ‘would not be buried in Westminster Abbey.’ Past wood-fringed meadows on either hand, the ‘ Broadwater,’ now rightly named, sweeps on to Richmond, where we must ascend the far-famed hill, to gaze once more upon the finest river-view in Europe. A little farther down, on autumn days, off Isleworth, may be descried flights of swallows, preparing for their outward journey. ‘ They arrive,’ writes the artist who has depicted the scene, ‘ in a mass, at the same hour, without confusion, as it were in regiments, and in some of their oblique evolutions resemble a drift of black snow. At dusk they all sink down into the island or “ ait ” opposite the church of Isleworth, where a large bed of osiers affords them in its slender wands a settling-place for the night.’ From this point, all Londoners know their river. The beauty of nature is no longer present, but a new sentiment of wonder and interest takes possession of us. We feel the stir and hear the roar of the great Babel. What were once quiet sub¬ urban villages are now but a part of the metropolis. Still, however, they retain something of the quaint picturesqueness of the last century. In many a nook and corner we come upon solid, comfortable houses of red brick, where our great-grand¬ mothers, over a ‘ dish of tea,’ may have discussed the ‘ poems of a person of qual¬ ity,’ or ‘ the writings of the ingenious Mr. Addison.’ These relics of the last cen¬ tury are rapidly disappearing, but are imitated with some success in the mansions which line the broad embankment between Cheyne Walk at Chelsea and the beau¬ tiful Albert Suspension Bridge. The noble embankments which now skirt so large a portion of the London River, and the bridges old and new, afford every facility for the full study of the Thames in all its aspects. Yet those who only cross with the hurrying crowd miss half the picturesqueness of what many who have traveled far still recognize as among the most picturesque city views in Europe. Wordsworth’s sonnet, begin¬ ning— * Earth has not anything to show more fair,’ was written on Westminster Bridge ! But then it was on an early summer morn¬ ing, when the ‘ mighty heart ’ of the city was ‘lying still,’ and the ‘ very houses seemed asleep.’ The blue sky, unobscured by smoke, hung in the freshness of the dawn over the dwellings of men and the heaven-pointing spires. The night airs had swept away every city taint, and the atmosphere was pure as among the moun¬ tains or by the sea. The experiment is worth making still—at the cost of an hour or two’s earlier rising, to prove how exhilarating, fresh, and delightful the London 34 From a Jainting\ WIND AGAINST TIDE (TILBURY FORT) [by Stanfield, THE RIVER THAMES. air may be. Or perhaps the charm of the scene may be more deeply felt amid the mystery of night, when the clouds have dispersed, and but for some rare footfalls there is silence, and the countless lights stretch in long lines, reflected by the gent¬ ly rippling waters, while even the bright glare of the railway lamps aloft only add •color and splendor to the gleaming array, and the steadfast stars hang overhead. By night, or in early morning, perhaps through force of contrast, the full beauty of these London river scenes is felt. Or, to vary the impression, we may take boat, as did our fathers, from bridge to bridge, ‘from Westminster to Rotherhithe,’ or farther down the broadening stream, with the wealth of the world, as it almost seems, ranged on either hand in the close-crowded vessels or the stupendous ware¬ houses. Every such excursion is a new revelation, even to minds accustomed to the scene, of what is meant by English commerce, and of the ties which connect us with all mankind. Yet there is much to remind us that the universal reign of peace has not as yet set in. Grim preparations for defense and war bespeak a nation prepared, if needs be, for strife. And as at length we reach Tilbury Fort, and glow under the influence of the invigorating sea-breeze, great memories rush in upon us of armaments once gathered here ; to lead, as it seemed, a forlorn hope. When King James I. threatened the recalcitrant corporation of London with the removal of the court to Oxford, the Lord Mayor, with scarcely veiled sarcasm, replied, ‘ May it please your Majesty, of your grace, not to take away the Thames too ! ’ The words were worthy of a London citizen, and may well remind us, before we pass to other English scenes, of that which, after all, is the glory of the river. We have been dwelling chiefly on its picturesque and recreative aspects ; and of these it is hardly possible to make too much, as is shown by the largely increasing number of weary brain-workers whose choicest holidays, in house-boat, fishing-punt, or tiny yacht, are found in the upper reaches of the Thames. But below the bridges of the metropolis, a new world seemed to open—a busy, crowded, restless world, darkened by many a cloud of smoke, filled with strange outcries in many tongues, with unlovely ranges of building, mile after mile, until the clear water is reached at length between the marshes of Essex and the hills of Kent. o But these are only the outward aspects of the scene. Look at it in another light, and this Lower Thames inspires us with wonder and almost awe at the bound¬ less wealth and world-wide commerce which it bears upon its ample bosom. For good or for evil, influences are going forth from these broad waters, incessantly, to affect all mankind. Ever and anon, some vessel of the yet untried ‘ navy of the future’ looms into sight, with its grand powers of defense, its terrible possibilities of destruction. But not by these is the real power of Britain put forth. They are but .a reserve. It is another navy that conveys the real power of the country to the nations. Take him for all in all, the British sailor is a fine noble-hearted fellow, with faults on the surface, but a heart of oak beneath. It is not wonderful that he is the object of much benevolent and Christian attention, both ashore and afloat. But, returning to our favorite river. Of the outward-bound ships, dropping •downward with the tide, there are those which convey the Missionary to his scene of ihallow^d toil :— ‘ Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the Press, Fly happy with the mission of the Cross . 1 THE RIVER THAMES. A friend of ours in long passed days, used to tell us of the first time he listened to Robert Hall, and of the first words which he caught from the great preacher’s lips. The place of worship was crowded, and for a time the low utterances of Mr. Hall’s marvelous voice were completely lost. The assembly was standing in prayer, as the custom then was. By degrees a hush crept over the throng—a silence that might be felt—then through the stillness stole the preacher’s voice, in sweet and solemn continuance of his hitherto unheard supplication : And may the breath of prayer fill the sails of every missionary ship , and waft it all over the world! These memories and thoughts, and ‘ the vision that shall be,’ have led us far. The stream whose course we have traced from the tiny rivulet in Trewsbury Mead has become to our thoughts the channel of communications which, for good or evil, are affecting every nation under heaven. A SURREY COMMON. What pleasant groves, what goodly fields ! How fruitful hills and dales have we ! How sweet an air our climate yields ! How stored with flocks and herds are we ! * * * * * * So in the sweet refreshing shade Of Thy protection sitting down, The gracious favors we have had, Relate we will to Thy renown.' George Wither : Songs and Hymns of the Church, H E is a benefactor to his species who makes two blades of corn to grow where only one grew before.’ The substantial truth of the aphorism none will question ; yet it would be a doubtful benefit if all the waste lands were reclaimed and brought under the plow. Enclosure Acts, by extending the area of the productive soil, have increased the resources of the country and the food of the people. But the total absorption into cultivated farms of heath, forest, and wood¬ land would be to purchase the utilitarian advantage at too high a price. The open commons of Surrey and the rolling downs of Sussex are, in their way, of a beauty unsurpassed. Both are chiefly due to the great chalk formation, which comes down in a southwesterly direction from the eastern counties, breaks into the Chiltern Hills, extends over the greater part of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Hamp¬ shire ; and in the east of the last-named county becomes separated into two branches; one, the ‘ North Downs,’ running almost due east to the North Foreland and Shakspere’s Cliff; the other, the ‘ South Downs,’ pursuing a southeasterly direction to Beachy Head. In their long and undulating course, they form innumer¬ able combinations of picturesque beauty. Places elsewhere, well known and des¬ ervedly famous, are rivaled in loveliness by many a sequestered scene in the line of 41 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. the lower chalk country, of which few but the thinly scattered inhabitants, and now- ana then an unconventional tourist, have ever heard. The charm of these lines of rolling upland is much enhanced by the great rough plain which they inclose—‘the Weald ’ ( i.e ., Forest), as it is termed—extend¬ ing in an irregular triangle from the point where the Downs diverge to the British Channel. Geologists have framed many theories as to the formation of the Weald. It belongs to the oolite formation below the chalk ; it is the uppermost member of that formation, and was a deposit of sands and clays in a tropical climate, as is- abundantly evident from animal and vegetable remains found there. These prove the existence of islands, banks and forests, forming the shores of a vast estuary, the WEALD OF SUSSEX. embouchure of some great river from the west. At one time the deep chalk deposit extended all over it ; but this was disturbed by a line of elevation running along its east and west axes, the superincumbent chalk being broken up and washed away; hence the cliff-like aspect of the Downs in many places, where they descend precipi¬ tously to the sandy and gravelly ledge of the valley, as to a beach. The remains of the huge land lizards and iguanodons of the Weald, collected by the late Doctor Mantell, form one of the most conspicuous exhibitions of fossil bones in the British Museum. The pretty little fossil ferns, Lonchopteris and Sphenopteris, found nature-printed on the sand-stones, are, on the other hand, the very counterparts, in size and delicacy, of their present successors. 42 SO UTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. In early times, as every local historian tells, the Weald was a chief seat of the iron manufacture in Great Britain. The ironstone found here was certainly wrought by the Romans and Saxons, if not by the Ancient Britons ; and down to the seven¬ teenth century the trade was prosperous. Many an old manor-house, to the present day, attests this former prosperity, while its memories linger also in such local names.' as Furnace Place, Cinder Hill, and Hammer Pond. The balustrades round St. HORSTED KEYNES CHURCH. Paul’s Cathedral are a relic of the Sussex ironworks. Want of fuel, and the more abundant and rich ironstone of the coal-measures, caused the decay of the industry, after whole forests had been destroyed to feed the furnaces. The old-fashioned cot¬ tages, here and there remaining, speak of days of former prosperity among the working-classes ; nor are they even yet devoid of comfort, although the transition has been great—ironworkers then, chicken-fatteners now ! The ridge that runs through the center of the Weald is called the Forest Ridge O o o 43 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. and Ashdown. It is here that the chief beauties of the district are concentrated, while the whole plain lies open to view from the heights. Starting from East Grin- stead, near to which is the source of the Medway, a walk of extraordinary interest and sylvan beauty leads by Forest Row and the ruins of Brambletye House up to High Beeches ; from which spot a pleasant excursion may be made to Horsted Keynes, where the gentle and saintly Archbishop Leighton lies buried. His grave is in the chancel ; his tombstone outside the church. Thence, bearing to the east, the traveler may work his way to Crowborough Beacon, near the road from Tun¬ bridge Wells to Lewes, where, with a foreground of moss and fern dotted here and there by fir trees, he may look over the whole rolling surface of the Weald, rich with the flowers of spring, the blossoms of summer, or the golden fruitage and yellow corn of the autumn ; while the purple downs on either hand close in the prospect, with just one gleam, beyond Beachy Head, of the distant sea. Then, if desirous of prolonging his ramble to other points of view, he may cross the hills to Heathfield, resting on the way at Mayfield, an old-world Wealden town, once a residence of archbishops, and the traditional scene of the renowned combat between Dunstan and the Devil. Here the traveler may find a temporary resting-place in some rustic hostelry, where, if luxuries are not obtainable, the eggs and bacon are wholesome and abundant ; the sheets are fragrant with lavender ; and, though perhaps a little wondered at by the rustic children, he will have a home-like welcome. Again we leave the beaten track, and push on through the vale of Heathfield to the south ; for a walk of seven or eight miles will bring us to Hurstmonceux, insep¬ arably connected with the name and work of Archdeacon Hare, the philosophic theologian and devout Christian, whose books on the Victory of Faith and the Mis¬ sion of the Comforter have done so much to elevate the religious thought of the age ; and who, by his Vindication of Ltither , has made it impossible for any man of com¬ petent knowledge and fair judgment to repeat old calumnies against the great Reformer. We visit the castle—one of the finest remains of the later feudalism— fortress and mansion in one. ‘ Persons who have visited Rome,’ writes Archdeacon Hare, ‘on entering the Castle-court, and seeing the piles of brickwork strewn about, have been reminded of the Baths of Caracalla, though of course on a miniature scale ; the illusion being perhaps fostered by the deep blue of the Sussex sky, which, when compared with that in more northerly parts of England, has almost an Italian character.’ After exploring the great ruddy-tinted ruins, we may ascend to the church, taking a glance at the rectory, the home of so much piety and genius, seeing once again in thought the archdeacon’s friend and curate, poor John Sterling, as described by Hare, with his tall form rapidly advancing across the lawn to the study window ; or more pensively may pass to the churchyard, where so many mem¬ bers of the parted family band sleep as ‘ one in Christ.’ Before turning northwards, let us make our way to Beachy Head, grandest of the English chalk headlands in the south ; thence, either turning westward to Sea- ford, with its grand cliff scenery, or in the opposite direction to Eastbourne, that bright modern watering-place, between the sea and the hills, with the quaint Sussex village in the background. Here, resting for a while, we may prepare for a long, health-giving, inspiring ramble over the South Downs, ‘that chain of majestic mountains,’ as White of Selbourne calls them—for the most part bare, treeless hills, sweeping in many a grand curve, broken by shadowed ‘ coombes,’ or wooded 44 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE. Steyning is the nearest station to Chanctonbury, and we would advise the tourist to take train there for the North Downs, or, better still, to proceed in the opposite direction to Arundel, famous for its picturesque castle and park, with its fair historic pastures : but in either case the Weald will be crossed vid Horsham. About half-way between Arundel and Horsham, many a traveler will be disposed to turn off to the little Sussex town of Midhurst, on the edge of the Weald, where Richard Cobden was born, and where the old ‘ Schola Grammaticalis,’ the most prominent building in the town, has the twin honor of the great Free Trader’s early education and that of Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist. Between Midhurst and Dorking, whither the traveler is bound, he may see to his left the wooded slopes and imposing tower-crowned summit of Leith Hill, the flowery 'deans.’ On the way to Lewes, Firle Beacon, one of the highest points of the Downs, may be ascended, after which the traveler may take the rail to Brighton and Shoreham, and strike up hill again into what is perhaps the finest part of the range, where from Chanctonbury Ring he will be able to command at one view all its most characteristic features. The height itself is conspicuous far and wide, from its dark crown of fir trees. Probably the ‘ Ring ’ denotes here the ancient entrench¬ ment, British or Roman, which is circular, or it may be a reminiscence of the time when fairies were believed in ; ‘ fairy rings ’ being a common feature of the Downs ; caused really by the growth of mushrooms, the grass by the decay of the latter becoming a deeper green. BEACHY HEAD. SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. loftiest elevation in Southeastern England. If he can leave the rail, say at the little roadside station of Capel, and climb the hill from the southeast by Ockley and Tanhurst, he will not only be richly rewarded, but may perhaps express his astonishment that such views and such a walk should be found within a short afternoon’s journey of London. * From the summit of Leith Hill, it is said that ten counties are visible ; not only Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, but Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buck¬ inghamshire, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and Essex. The eye ranges, in short, from a height of just less than 1000 feet over a circumference of 200 miles of fair and various landscape ; valley and upland ; broad meadows and wooded slopes, with many an open ridge against the sky. Only the charm of river or lake is wanting : but we are in no mood to be critical. Downwards, the walk is full of interest, through wooded lanes to Anstiebury, where there is a fine Roman encampment, and on to romantic Holmwood, with its pine woods and breezy common ; past Deep- dene, the wonderfully beautiful seat of the Hope family, and so to Dorking, where 48 LEATHERHEAD CHURCH, NEAR DORKING. SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. the wearied pedestrian will find a pleasant rest, with nothing to excite him, save the remembrances of his little excursion. If he had not been well prepared for its exceeding loveliness beforehand, it must have been to him a surprise as well as a delight. Comparisons are proverbially distasteful, but we can understand, if we cannot wholly endorse, the rapturous verdict of John Dennis, who gives it as his opinion that the prospect from Leith Hill ‘ surpasses at once in rural charm, pomp, and magnificence’ the view of the Val d’Arno from the Apennines, or of the Cam- pagna from Tivoli. The charm of this neighborhood is now well understood by not a few wearied Londoners, who find a summer’s home in one or other of the many picturesque farmhouses—many of them really fine specimens of eighteenth, and even seven¬ teenth, century architecture. Nor can there well be a greater rest for the parents, or delight for the children, than this dwelling amid rural sights and sounds in the cobden’s birthplace, at midhurst. brightest time of the year. These Sussex and Surrey farmsteads are becoming formidable rivals to the crowded seaside. Not only so, but in our walks through these districts we have often met the pale-cheeked, hollow-eyed, prematurely quick¬ witted boys and girls of London ‘ slums,’ sent hither by thoughtful, well-timed charity, and cared for by kindly cottagers, until in a very few weeks they learn to play and run like country children, and carry back with them some color on their sallow cheeks, with a store of happy remembrances to brighten their poor lives. Among the philanthropic schemes of the day there is hardly one that has in it greater promise of good than this effort to bring the sweet influences of country life to bear upon the children of the gutter and the squalid back streets of town. No doubt the scheme, like others, requires to be very carefully worked out in detail, with caution on many points that need not be indicated here. But, well managed, it must be a moral and educational influence fraught with blessing. 49. SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. We are now fairly in the Surrey Hills, and may put what some will think the very crown to these south¬ eastern excursions by a walk from Dorking to Farnham. Ascending by one of many lanes, shadowed (at the time of our visit) by hedges bright with hawthorn berries, and tall trees just touched with the russet and gold of early autumn, we are soon upon an upland stretch of heath and forest, still remaining in all the wildness of nature. Sometimes the path leads us between venerable trees— oak and beech, and yew, whose branches form an impenetrable roof overhead, then traverses a sweep of bare hill, bright with gorse and heather, then plunges into some fairy dell, carpeted with softest moss. Many of the ‘ stately homes of England ’ upon the lower slopes, with their embowering trees, add a charm to the scene by their reminiscences as well as by their beauty. To the left is Wotton; made famous by the name and genius of John Evelyn, author of Sylva and the Diary —the scholar, gentleman, and Christian—pure-minded in an age of corruption, and the admiration of dissolute courtiers, who could respect what they would not imitate. SHERE CHURCH. 50 SO U TH-Jz A S TERN RAMBLES. It is to him that Cowley says : ‘ Happy art thou, whom God does bless With the full choice of thine own happiness ; And happier yet, because thou’rt blest With wisdom how to choose the best.’ That the choice was made, for life and death, appears by the inscription which Evelyn directed to be placed on his tombstone at Wotton. ‘ That living in an age AT HASLEMERE. of extraordinary events and revolution, he had learned from thence this truth, which he desired might be thus communicated to posterity : that all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but real piety.’ Beyond Wotton is the charming village of Shere, with its picturesque little church and crystal stream. Two or three miles farther, Albury is reached, with its lovely gardens designed by Evelyn. The curious traveler may here inspect the sumptuous church erected by the late Mr. Drummond, the owner of Albury, for the followers of Edward Irving. The worth of Mr. Drummond’s character, with the shrewd sense and caustic wit by which he was wont to enliven the debates of the 51 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. House of Commons, laid a deeper hold upon his contemporaries than his theologi¬ cal peculiarities ; and the special views of which this temple is the costly memorial have proved of insufficient power to sway the minds and hearts of men. Still ascending, we reach again the summit of steep downs, and, advancing by noble yew trees, gain at Newlands’ Corner another magnificent view. The hill of the ‘ Holy Martyrs’ ’ Chapel, now corrupted to ‘ Saint Martha’s,’ may next be climbed, and a short rest at the fine old town of Guildford will be welcome. The castle, the churches with their monuments, and Archbishop Abbot’s Hospital, are all worthy of a visit ; and a run by rail to Haslemere, near which beautiful village Lord Ten¬ nyson has fixed his abode, may well occupy a leisure day, with, if possible, a climb to Blackdown, a mile or two beyond the poet’s residence, with its fresh breezes and splendid prospects. But for the pedestrian a much finer approach to Haslemere will be over the upland commons from Farnham. Reserving, therefore, this excur¬ sion for the present, let us press on from Guildford to Farnham by a ten miles’ walk over the ‘ Hog’s Back.’ Climbing from the Guildford station through pleasant lanes, the traveler emerges upon a narrow chalk-ridge, half a mile wide, and nearly level, which ety¬ mologists tell us was called by the Anglo-Saxons Hoga, a hill, whence the ridge received its name. Possibly, however, a simpler derivation, as the more obvious, is also the more correct. The long upland unbroken line might not inaptly have been compared with one of those long, lean, narrow-backed swine with which early Eng¬ lish illuminations make us familiar ; and the homeliness of the name would quite accord with the habit of early topographers. The walk is interesting, but, after the varied beauties of the way from Dorking to Guildford, may appear at first slightly monotonous. On either side the fair, fertile champaign of Surrey stretches to the horizon, broken here and there by low wood-crowned hills ; and at one point especially, between Puttenham on the left, and Wanborough on the right, the com. binations of view are very striking. Puttenham church-tower, and the manor-house, formerly the Priory, peep out from amongst the foliage of some grand old trees. A few cottages and farmhouses lie scattered about picturesquely, forming the very- ideal of an old English village ; while pine-covered Crooksbury Hill, with the ‘ Devil’s Jumps ’ and Hindhead in the farther distance, make a striking background to the view. ‘ Wan,’ is evidently ‘ Woden,’ and here there was no doubt a shrine of the ancient Saxon deity. We must not omit in passing to drink of the Wanbor¬ ough spring, among the freshest and purest in England; never known, it is said, to freeze. Pursuing our journey, we presently look down upon Moor Park, and Waver- ley, which we may either visit now, descending by the little village of Seale, or reserve for an excursion from Farnham. Waverley contains the picturesque re¬ mains of an old Cistercian Abbey, built as the Cistercians always did build, in a charming valley, embosomed in hills, irrigated by a clear running stream, abound¬ ing in fish, and with current enough to turn the mill of the monastery. The annals of this great establishment, extending over two hundred and thirty years, were pub¬ lished toward the close of the seventeenth century; and Sir Walter Scott took from them the name now so familiar wherever the English language is spoken. Divided from Waverley by a winding lane, whose high banks and profuse undergrowth remind us of Devonshire, lies Moor Park. Hither Sir William Temple 52 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. retired from the toils of state, to occupy his leisure by gardening, planting, and in writing memoirs. A trim garden, with stiff-clipped hedges, and watered by a straight canal which runs through it, is doubtless a reminiscence of Temple’s resi¬ dence as our ambassador at the Hague. ‘ But,’ says Lord Macaulay, ‘ there were other inmates of Moor Park to whom a higher interest belongs. An eccentric, un¬ couth, disagreeable young Irishman, who had narrowly escaped plucking at Dublin, attended Sir William as an amanuensis for board and twenty pounds a year ; dined at the second table, wrote bad verses in praise of his employer, and made love to a A HOP-GARDEN. very pretty dark-eyed young girl, who waited on Lady Giffard. Little did Temple imagine that the coarse exterior of his dependant concealed a genius equally suited to politics and to letters, a genius destined to shake great kingdoms, to stir the laughter and the rage of millions, and to leave to posterity memorials which can only perish with the English language. Little did he think that the flirtation in his servants’ hall, which he, perhaps, scarcely deigned to make the subject of a jest, was the beginning of a long, unprosperous love, which was to be as widely famed as the passion of Petrarch or Abelard. Sir William’s secretary was Jonathan Swift. Lady Giffard’s waiting-maid was poor Stella.’ 53 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. Just outside the lodge gate, at the end of the park farthest from the mansion, is. a small house covered with roses and evergreens. It is known to the peasantry as ‘ Dame Swift’s Cottage.’ Our rustic guide pointed it out by this name, but who Dame Swift was he did not know. He had never heard of Stella and her sad his¬ tory. An object of far greater interest to him was a large fox-earth, a couple of hundred yards away, in which some years ago ‘a miser’ had lived and died. A whole crop of legends have already sprung up about the mysterious inmate of the cave. He was a nobleman, so said our informant, who had been crossed in love ; he had made a vow that no human being should see his face, and accordingly never came out till after nightfall, even then being closely wrapped up in his cloak. After his death a party of ladies and gentlemen came down from London in a post-chaise and four; and, having buried the body, carried away ‘ a cartload of golden guineas, and fine dresses, which he had hid in the cave.' The picturesqueness of the approach to Farnham, whether over the last ridge of the Hog’s Back, or through the lanes from Seale, Moor Park, and Waverley, is. much enhanced by the hop-gardens, which occupy about a thousand acres in the neighborhood. For excellence the Farnham hops are considered to bear the palm, although the chief field of this peculiar branch of cultivation is in Kent. No south¬ eastern rambles, especially in the early autumn, would be complete without a visit to the gardens where the hop-picking is in full operation. It is the great holiday for thousands of the humbler class of Londoners, as well as the chosen resort of thous¬ ands of the ‘ finest pisantry ’ from the Emerald Isle. Costermongers, watermen, sempstresses, factory girls, laborers of all descriptions, young and old, bear a hand at the work. The air is invigorating, the task to the industrious is easy, and the pay is not bad. The hop-pickers, who are in such numbers that they cannot obtain even humble lodgings in the villages, sleep in barns, sheds, stables, and booths, or even under the hedges in the lanes. A rough kind of order is maintained among them¬ selves ; although outbreaks of violence and debauchery sometimes happen. On the whole, the work is not unhealthy, and the opportunity of engaging in it is as real a boon to the hop-pickers as a journey to Scarborough or Biarritz to those of another class. Besides which, the great gathering of people gives opportunities of which Christian activity avails itself; and the evening visit to the encampment, the homely address, the quiet talk, and the well-chosen tract, have been instrumental of lasting good to those whom religious agencies elsewhere have failed to reach. Farnham has special associations with both the Church and the Army ; and the impartial visitor will no doubt take an opportunity of seeing the stately moated castle, the abode of the Bishops of Winchester, and of visiting the neighboring camp of Aldershot. The politician will recall the name of William Cobbett, who was born in this neighborhood, and, in his own direct and homely style, often dwells on his boyish recollections of its charms. Some will not forget another name asso¬ ciated with this little Surrey town. One among the sweetest singers of our modern Israel, Augustus Toplady, was born at Farnham. He died at the age of thirty- eight, but he lived long enough to write ‘ Rock of Ages, cleft for me ’ ; and none need covet a nobler earthly immortality. From Farnham, as we have said, the pedestrian may pursue his way over breezy uplands by Hindhead and the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl ’ to Haslemere—a grand and inspiring nine miles’ walk : or he may return, as we were fain to do, by rail to 54 SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES. London, only turning aside at Weybridge to Addlestone to see the Crouch Oak— one of the famous trees of England. Crouch perhaps means cross, from some mark upon the tree, once showing it to be on the boundary of Windsor Forest. But however this may be, the tree is a grand relic of the past. John Wycliffe, it is said, once preached under its spreading branches ; and a better-attested tradition repre¬ sents ‘ the good Queen Bess ’ as having once dined beneath its shadow. WINDMILL NEAR ARUNDEL. IN THE NEW FOREST. ‘ The groves were God’s first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood, Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication.’ William Cullen Bryant, THE NEW FOREST.—A GROUP OF FOREST PONIES. FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. W HEN Britain was first brought by Roman ambition within the knowledge of Southern Europe, the interior of the island was one vast forest. Csesar and Strabo agree in describing its towns as being nothing more than spaces cleared of trees—‘ royds,’ or ‘thwaites,’ in North of England phrase—where a few huts were placed and defended by ditch or rampart. Somersetshire and the adjacent counties were covered by the Coit Mawr, or Great Wood. Asser tells us that Berkshire was so called from the Wood of Berroc, where the box-tree grew most abundantly. Buckinghamshire was so called from the great forests of beech (hoc), of which the remnants still survive. The Cotswold Hills, and the Wolds of Yorkshire, are shown by their names to-have been once far-spreading woodlands ; and the same may be said of the Weald of Sussex, the subject, in part, of the pre¬ ceding chapter. ‘ In the district of the Weald,’ writes the Rev. Isaac Taylor, ‘almost every local name, for miles and miles, terminates in hurst, ley, den, or field. The hursts were the dense portions of the forests; the leys are the open forest- glades where the cattle love to lie ; the dens are the deep-wooded valleys, and the fields were little patches of “felled” or cleared land in the midst of the surrounding forest. From Petersfield and Midhurst, by Billinghurst, Cuckfield, Wadhurst, and Lamberhurst as far as Hawkshurst and Tenderden, these names stretch in an unin¬ terrupted string.’ And, again, ‘A line of names ending in den testifies to the exist¬ ence of the forest tract in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Huntingdon, which formed the western boundary of the East Saxon and East Anglian Kingdom. Henley in Arden and Hampton in Arden are vestiges of the great Warwickshire forest of Arden, which stretched from the Forest of Dean to Sherwood Forest.’ Hampshire was already a forest in the time of William the Conqueror ; all he did was to sweep away the towns and villages which had sprung up within its precincts. Epping and Hainault are but fragments of the ancient forest of Essex, which extended as far as Colchester. Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire and the other northern counties, were the haunts of the wolf, the wild boar, and the red deer, which roamed at will over moorland and forest, and have given their names here and there to a bold upland or sequestered nook. 59 FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. Even down to the time of Queen Elizabeth immense tracts of primeval forest remained unreclaimed. And here it should be noted that though, as a matter of fact, forest lands are generally woodlands also, this is not essential to the meaning of the word. A ‘ forest,’ says Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood , 1 ‘ is probably a wilderness, or uncultivated tract of country ; but, as such were commonly overgrown with trees, the word took the meaning of a large wood. We have many forests in England without a stick of timber upon them.’ It is especially so in Scotland, as many ?. traveler who has driven all the long day by the treeless ‘ Forest of Breadalbane’ will well remember. The question has been recently much discussed in England as to whether the forests ought to be retained in their present extent. Economists have shown by cal¬ culation that forests do not pay. It is said that they encourage idleness and poach¬ ing, and thus lead to crime. Estimates have been made of the amount of grain which might be raised if the soil were brought under the plow. Yet few persons who have wandered through the glades of these glorious woodlands would be willing to part with them. Admit that the cost of maintenance is in excess of their return to the national exchequer, yet England is rich enough to bear the loss ; and it is a poor economy which reduces everything to a pecuniary estimate. 4 Man shall not live by bread alone.’ In God’s world beauty has its place as well as utility. ‘ Consider the lilies.’ ‘ God might have made enough—enough For every want of ours, For temperance, medicine, and use, And yet have made no flowers.’ 4 He hath made everything beautiful in its time’; and intends that we should re¬ joice in His works as well as feed upon His bounty and learn from His wisdom. While by no means insensible to the charm of a richly cultivated district, where ‘the pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn,’ yet let us trust that the day is far distant when the few remaining forests shall have disap¬ peared before modern improvements and scientific husbandry. To the lover of nature, forest scenery is beautiful at all seasons. How pleasant is it, in the hot summer noon, to lie beneath the 4 leafy screen,’ through which the sunlight flickers like golden rain ; to watch the multitudinous life around us—the squirrel flashing from bough to bough, the rabbit darting past with quick, jerky move¬ ments, the birds flitting hither and thither in busy idleness, the columns of insects in ceaseless, aimless, gliding motion—and to listen to the mysterious undertone of sound which pervades rather than disturbs the silence ! Beautiful, too, are the woods when autumn has touched their greenery with its own variety of hue. From the old Speech House of the Forest of Dean we have looked out as on a billowy, far-extending sea of glory—elm, oak, beech, ash, maple, all with their own peculiar tints, yet bleeding into one harmonious chord of color in the light of the wester¬ ing sun ; whilst from among them the holly and the yew stood out like green islands set in an ocean of gold. A little later in the year, and we tread among the rustling leaves, whilst over us interlaces in intricate tracery a network of branches, twigs, and sprays :— 6o ‘ The ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. 1 Dictionary of English Etymology. FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. IN THE NEW FOREST. Return a few weeks afterwards, and surely it will be felt that forest scenery is never more fairy-like than when the bare boughs are feathered o with snowflakes, or sparkle with icicles that flash like diamonds in the wintry sunlight, or faintly tinkle overhead as they sway to and fro in the icy breeze. Never is the forest more solemn than when, with a sound like thunder or the raging sea, the wind tosses the giant branches in wild commotion. We cannot wonder that Schiller delighted to wander alone in the stormy midnight through the woods, listening to the tempest which raged aloft, or that much of his grandest poetry was composed amid scenes like these. Nor must we forget the aspect of the woods in early spring, when Nature is just awakening from her winter’s sleep. It needs a quick eye to trace the delicate shades of color which then succeed each other—the dull brown first brightening into a reddish hue, as the glossy leaf-cases begin to expand, then a faint hint of tender green as the pale leaves burst from their enclosure one after another, tinging with color the skeleton branches which they are soon to clothe with their beautiful mantle. ‘Mysterious round ! What skill, what force divine, Deep felt, in these appear ! A simple train, Yet so delightful, mixed with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined, Shade unperceived so softening into shade, And all so forming an harmonious whole. That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.’ 61 FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. The New Forest claims precedence over all others, from its extent, its pictur¬ esque beauty, and its historical associations. Though greatly encroached upon since the time that the Conqueror ‘loved its red deer as if he were their father,’ and the Red King fell beneath the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrell, it still contains long stretches of wild moorland, and mighty oaks which may have been venerable in the days of the Plantagenets. The red deer have entirely disappeared. About a hundred fallow deer yet remain. They are very shy, hiding themselves in the least visited recesses of the Forest, and are rarely seen except during the annual hunt, which takes place every spring. In 1874 a pack of bloodhounds was brought down by Lord Londesborough, who owns a beautiful park near Lyndhurst. The sport, THE RUFUS STONE, NEW FOREST. however, is said not to have been very good. Numerous droves of forest ponies run wild, and with the herds of swine feeding upon the acorns and beech-mast, give animation to the scene. Amid the forest glades even pigs become picturesque. Charming excursions may be made into the Forest from the towns on its borders, Southampton, Lymington, Christchurch, or Ringwood. But he who would fully appreciate its beauties must take up his quarters at Lyndhurst, in the very heart of its finest scenery. From this center, walks or drives may be taken in every direction, and in almost endless variety. One of these, describing a circuit of about twelve miles, past the Rufus Stone and Boldrewood, claims especial mention. The road leads for a short distance through a richly wooded and highly cultivated dis¬ trict, by Rushpole Wood, past the pretty village of Minstead, where the ‘ Trusty 62 FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. Servant,’ after the old English fashion of serious humor, is an allegory upon a sign¬ post. Soon we pass Castle Malwood, Sir William Harcourt’s seat, with its magnifi¬ cent trees, and fine distant prospects through leafy avenues, extending over the New Forest, and reaching to Southampton Water, the Solent, and hi the Isle of Wight. In the Keep of this Castle, it is said William Rufus slept the night before his fatal hunt¬ ing excursion. A little farther on, a turn to the right leads down to a leafy dell, where the ‘Rufus Stone ’ commemorates the Red King’s death. The stone is en¬ cased in a triangular prism of iron, between five and six feet in height, bearing an inscription on each of its ‘Here stood the oak tree on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag, glanced and struck King William the Second, surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which he instantly died, on the 2nd day of August, Anno noo.’ ‘ King William the Second, surnamed Rufus, being slain as before related, was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkis, and drawn from thence to Winchester, and buried in the cathedral Church of that city.’ THE NEW FOREST IN AUTUMN. three sides, telling the story of the catastrophe, as handed down by tra¬ dition. FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. ‘ That the spot where an event so memorable had happened might not hereafter be forgotten, this stone was set up by John, Lord Delaware, who had seen the tree growing in this place, Anno 1745. This stone having been so much mutilated, and the inscription on each of its three sides defaced, this more durable memorial, with the original inscriptions, was erected in the year 1841, by Mr. Sturges Bourne, Warden.’ We leave this solitary royal monument to the swine that roam the Forest in search of beech-mast and acorns, and to the birds which make the woods musical throughout its whole extent, and climb by a track through the greensward to Stony Cross, where luncheon at an excellent inn is welcome ; and we can gaze at leisure upon another splendid view over woods and uplands. Then, repassing Castle Mal- wood and Minstead, we return by the beautiful walks of Manor Wood and Park, LYNDHURST, HANTS. over the breezy Emery Down, affording another succession of beautiful views, to Lyndhurst. The walk has been long, and is only a specimen of the enchanting excursions open in all directions to the lovers of forest scenery, to whom the very names, as we write them down, Boldrewood—Brockenhurst, Beaulieu (which we must pronounce Bewley to be understood by the natives), and many more—call up memories of some of the pleasantest days and happiest wanderings that they have known in this fair England. But, before we leave Lyndhurst, let us go up the steep churchyard steps and enter the building. We have noticed as characteristic of the district that the churches are placed on elevated mounds, often evidently artificial. Many are fine specimens of Norman architecture, but this at Lyndhurst is modern. Its chief attraction is Sir Frederick Leighton’s fresco of the ‘Ten Virgins,’over the Com¬ munion Table—a gift of the great artist to the church, and one of his finest works. The attitudes of the virgins on each side of the central figure are very varied and thrillingly impressive. Those at the right hand seem as if they could hardly believe 64 STONEHENGE. FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. tneir own joy; in most of them there is an exquisite suggestion of humility. An angel stands by the bridegroom to give them welcome. On the other side, where the foolish virgins are found—some in wild agony, others in sullen despair—another angel stands with outstretched hand as if to bid them depart; and the expression of sternness chastened by tender compassion in this angel’s face appears to us the crowning achievement of the painter, and one of the most touching things we have ever seen in sacred art. The whole picture is a commentary of unsurpassed impres¬ siveness on the solemn parable— ‘Too late ! too late ! ye cannot enter now ! On other parts of England’s forest scenery, only less noteworthy than the above, we must not now linger. The tourist who has a day or two at disposal may well combine with his New Forest excursions a' visit to Salisbury Plain, and especially to Stonehenge, that unique and mysterious British sanctuary. The Plain itself is not what many travelers expect to find. In literature it appears far more desolate and sterile than it will actually be found. Nor is it a level expanse such as its name suggests. Once it was a bare, wind-swept, undulating plateau, with innumerable tumuli, and barrows often marked by clumps of trees. The barrows and tumuli remain, silent memorials of nameless warriors and forgotten armies. But the barrenness has given way to cultivation ; and, though many parts of the widespread tract are bleak enough in the wild winds of spring and autumn, there is not much to distinguish the plain from other rural scenes where an open country is dotted over with well-kept farms, wide pasture lands, and villages sheltered in leafy hollows. A pleasant breezy drive leads from Salisbury, past the grassy mound of Old Sarum, by Amesbury and ‘ Ves¬ pasian’s Camp,’ toward the quiet hill-brow where the gray stones of the Druid monument stand out against the horizon. To the unpracticed eye they at first ap¬ pear small—almost insignificant—in contrast with the great sweep of the surround¬ ing plain ; but on approaching them we apprehend their vastness. After a time it becomes easy to reconstruct in thought the circles of the great temple ; somewhat helped, perhaps, by the pictures of Stonehenge as restored, which the visitor will find offered for sale on the spot. But of the mystery there is no solution, excepting that some connection with sun-worship is proved by one significant circumstance. From the central slab, or ‘altar,’ along one of the avenues, a small stone is seen at some distance outside the circle, and this proves to be exactly in a line between the altar and the point of sunrise on the longest day. Such coincidence can hardly be accidental; but what it precisely signifies no records exist to show. Passing now westwards, we reach the Forest of Dean, less extensive than the New Forest, but hardly less beautiful, — ‘ The queen of forests all that west of Severn lie.’ — Drayton. It occupies the high ground between the valleys of the Severn and the Wye. What Lyndhurst is to the one, the Speech House is to the other. The I'oresters’ Courts have been held here for centuries, in a large hall paneled with dark oak and hung round with deer’s antlers. Here the ‘ verderers,’ foresters, ‘ gavellers,’ miners, and Crown agents meet to discuss in open court their various claims in a sort of local parliament. Originally the King’s Lodge, it is now a comfortable inn, affording 07 FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. good accommodation for the lovers of sylvan scenery. The deer, with which the forest once abounded, diminished in numbers up to 1850, when they were removed. But, as in the New Forest, droves of ponies and herds of swine roam at large among the trees, giving animation and interest to the landscape. A different feeling is aroused by the sight of furnaces and coal-pits in different directions, indicative of the mineral treasures hidden beneath the fair surface of this forest. Ironworks have in fact existed here from very early times ; the forest trees having, as in the Weald of Sussex, afforded an abundant supply of fuel, though (thanks to the coal-beds beneath) without the same result in denuding the district of its leafy glories. Savernake Forest, in Wiltshire, the property of the Marquis of Ailesbury, is the only English forest belonging to a subject, and is especially remarkable for its avenues of trees. One, of magnificent beeches, is nearly four miles in length, and is intersected at one point of its course by three separate ‘walks,’ or forest vistas, placed at such angles as, with the avenue itself, to command eight points of the compass. The effect is unique and beautiful, the artificial character of the arrange¬ ment being amply compensated by the exceeding luxuriance of the thickset trees, and the soft loveliness of the verdant flowery glades which they inclose. The smooth, bright foliage of the beech is interspersed with the darker shade of the fir, while towering elms and majestic, wide-spreading oaks diversify the line of view in endless, beautiful variety. At one point, a clump of trees will be reached—the veterans of the forest, with moss-clad trunks and gnarled, half-leafless branches ; the chief being known as the King Oak, but sometimes called the Duke’s, from the Lord Protector Somerset, with whom this tree was a favorite. The railway from Hunger- ford to Marlborough skirts this forest, the southern portion of which is known as- Tottenham Park. An obelisk, erected on one of its highest points in 1781, to com¬ memorate the recovery of George III., forms an easily recognizable landmark, and may also guide the wanderer in the forest glades, who might else be bewildered by the very uniformity of the long lines of foliage. On the whole, if this Forest of Savernake has not the vast extent or the wild natural beauty of some other forests, it has all the charm that the richest luxuriance can give ; while some of its noblest trees will be found away from the great avenues, on the gentle slopes or in the mossy dells which diversify the surface of this most beautiful domain. Nor will the visitor in spring-time fail to be delighted by the great banks of rhododendron and azalea, which at many parts add color and splendor to the scene. Among the smaller woodlands, the Burnham Beeches claim special notice. They are reached by a charming drive of five or six miles from Maidenhead. The road leads at first through one of the most highly cultivated and fertile districts in Eng¬ land, and then enters Dropmore Park, with its stately avenues of cedar and pine, and some of the finest araucarias in Europe. The Beeches occupy a knoll which rises, from the plain, over which it commands splendid views, Windsor Castle and the valley of the Thames being conspicuous objects in the landscape. The trees are many of them of immense girth ; but, having been pollarded—tradition says by Cromwell’s troopers—they do not attain a great height. They are thus wanting in the feathery grace and sweep which form the characteristic beauty of the beech ; but, in exchange for this, the gnarled, twisted branches are in the very highest degree picturesque, and to the wearied Londoner few ways of spending a summer’s day can be more enjoyable than a ramble over the Burnham Knoll, with its turfy slopes and 6S FORESTS AND WOODLANDS. BURNHAM. shaded dells, or, better still, a picnic with some chosen friends in the shadow of one or other of these stupendous trees. Space will not allow us to do more than refer to the forests of Epping and Hainault, so invaluable to wearied Londoners ; or of Sherwood, with its memories of Robin Hood and his ‘ merry men ; or of Charnwood, with its wooded heights and picturesque ruins ; or of Needwood, between the Dove and the I rent ; 01 ot \\ mi- tlebury and Delamere, with many others. I he names recall the memories of happy days spent beneath their leafy screen, or in wandering over breezy heights, with grateful thoughts of— o o ‘ That unwearied love Which planned and built, and still upholds this world, So clothed with beauty for rebellious man.’ 69 WARWICK CASTLE. ‘ The stately homes of England, How beautiful they stand, Amidst their tall ancestral trees O’er all the pleasant land ! The deer across their greensward bound, Through shade and sunny gleam, And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream.’ Mrs. Hemans. shakspere’s birthplace, as restored. SHAKSPERE’S COUNTRY. T HE traveler who would enter into the full charm of ‘ Shakspere’s country’is recommended to start from the quaint and ancient city of Coventry, and to pursue the high road to Warwick, taking, Kenilworth in his way. There is scarcely a walk in England more perfect in its own kind of beauty than the five miles from Coventry to Kenilworth. A wide, well-kept road follows, almost in a ■straight line, the undulations of the hills. Soon after leaving the city, a broad, flower-enameled coppice, open to the road, is reached ; then the hedgerows are flanked on both sides with noble elms, forming a stately avenue, through which glimpses are ever and anon obtained of purple, wood-crested hills in the distance. Broad rolling pastures, and cornfields, rich in promise, stretch away on either hand; the grassy roadside and high hedge-banks, showing the deep red subsoil of the sand¬ stone, or variegated clays of the red marls, are bright with wild flowers, and the air is musical with the song of birds. Travelers are few ; the railway scream in the dis¬ tance, to the left, suggests that all who are in a hurry to reach their destination have taken another route; if it be holiday time, parties of young men on Coventry bicycles are sure to flash past; but it is our delight to linger and enjoy. We are, as Thomas Fuller says, in the ‘ Medi-terranean ’ part of England; and English scenery nowhere displays a more characteristic charm. 73 SHAKSPERE 'S COUNTRY. Kenilworth old church and the castle at length are reached ; the latter, a stately ruin. The visitor will duly note Caesar’s Tower, the original keep, with its walls, in some parts, sixteen feet thick ; then the remains of the magnificent banqueting hall, built by John of Gaunt, and, lastly, the dilapidated towers erected by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, one part of which bears the name of poor Amy Robsart. No officious cicerone is likely to offer his services; a trifling gate fee opens the place freely to all, either to rest on the greensward, or to climb the battered ram¬ parts ; to survey, at one view, the ancient moat, the castle garden, the tilt-yard, where knights met in mimic battle ; the bed of the lake, where sea-fights were imitated for a monarch’s sport—in short, the impressive memorials of a fashion in life and act which has long since yielded to nobler things. ‘ The massy ruins,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘only serve to show what their splendor once was, and to. KENILWORTH CASTLE, FROM THE TILT-YARD. impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the- happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in industrious contentment.’ The town of Kenilworth is of considerable size, containing, at the last census, more than 3000 inhabitants. The traveler may rest here, or in a quaint little hostelry close to the castle gates, not forgetting to visit the ancient church—that at the other end of the town is modern, and need not detain him. After due refreshment, he will probably be in the humor for another five miles’ walk, or drive, along a road almost equal in beauty to that by which he came, to Warwick, calling at Guy’s Cliff by the way. He had better make up his mind, for the time at least, to believe in Guy, ‘ the Saxon giant,’ who slew the ‘dun cow,’ and, after a life of doughty deeds, retired to a hermitage here, where the Avon opens into a lake-like transparent pool, at the foot of the exquisitely wooded cliff. The cave of the giant’s retreat may be seen ; and the traveler will be charmed by the fair mansion, on the one side overhanging the Avon, and on the other opening down a long avenue, flowery and verdant, to the high road. 74 WARWICK CASTLE SHAKSPERE'S COUNTRY. Warwick Castle is so frequently visited that it needs little description. The winding road, cut out of the solid rock from the lodge to the castle gate, is a fitting approach to the stately fortress-palace, and well prepares the visitor for what is to follow. Some will prefer to traverse the gardens, so far as watchful custodians per¬ mit, turning aside to the solid-looking Gothic conservatory to see the great Warwick vase, brought from fair Tivoli; others will follow the courteous housekeeper down the long suite of castle halls, noting the glorious views from the deep embayed win¬ dows, duly admiring the bed in which Queen Anne once slept, with the portrait of her majesty, plump and rubicund, on the opposite wall. The logs heaped up, as logs have been for centuries, in readiness for the great hall fire, carry the mind back to olden fashions ; the inlaid table of precious stones, said to have been worth ten thous¬ and pounds, but recently injured by some silly tourist, excites a languid curiosity; BEAUCHAMP CHAPEL, ST. MARY'S CHURCH, WARWICK. the helmet of Oliver Cromwell, an authentic relic, suggests many a thought of the great brain which it once enclosed; and, while other items in the antique show pass as phantasmagoria before the bewildered attention, there are some portraits on the walls to have seen which is a lasting pleasure of memory. It is a happy thing that these were spared by the fire of 1871 ; justly counted as a national calamity rather than a family misfortune. The traces of the conflagration are now almost wholly removed, although some priceless treasures have been irrecoverably lost. At the lodge, by the castle gate, there is a museum of curiosities, which will interest the believers in the great ‘Guy,’ and will amuse others. For there is the giant’s ‘por¬ ridge pot’ of bell-metal, vast in circumference and resonant in ring; with his staff, his horse’s armor, and, to crown all, some ribs of the ‘dun cow’ herself! What if, in sober truth, some last lingerer of a species now extinct roamed over the great forest of Arden, the terror of the country, until Sir Guy wrought deliverance? Warwick itself need not detain us long; the church, however, demands a visit; and the Beauchamp Chapel, with its monuments, is one of the finest in England. 77 SHAKSPERE'S COUNTRY. But the pedestrian will probably elect to spend the night at Leamington, close by, before continuing his pilgrimage. A visit to the beautiful Jephson Gardens, with their wealth of evergreen oaks, soft turfy lawn, and broad fair water, will afford him a pleasant evening ; and the next morning will see him en route for Stratford-on- Avon. Again let him take the road, drinking in the influence of the pleasant War¬ wickshire scene : quiet rural loveliness, varying with every mile, and glimpses of the silver Avon at intervals, enhancing the charm. A slight detour will lead to Hamp¬ ton Lucy and Charlecote House and Park, memorable for the exploits of Shak- spere’s youth, and for the worshipful dignity of Sir Thomas Lucy, the presumed •original of Mr. Justice Shallow. The park having been skirted, or crossed, the tourist proceeds three or four miles farther by a good road, and enters Stratford-on- Avon by a stone bridge of great length, crossing the Avon and adjacent low-lying meadows. The bridge, which dates from the reign of Henry VII., has been widened, on an ingenious plan, by a footpath sup¬ ported on a kind of iron balcony. It is easy, however, to imagine its exact appearance when Shakspere paced its narrow roadway, or hung over its parapet to watch the skimming swallow or the darting trout and minnow. This Warwickshire town has been so often and so exhaustively described that we may well forbear from any minute de¬ tail. Every visitor knows, with tolerable accuracy, what he has to expect. He finds, as he had anticipated, a quiet country town, very much like other towns ; neither obtrusively modern, nor quaintly antique— in one word, commonplace, save for the all-pervading presence and memory of statue of shakspere in front of stratford Shakspere. The house in Henley Street, town hall. where he is said to have been born, will be first visited, of course ; then the tourist will walk along the High Street^ noting the Shakspere memorials in the shop-windows, looking up as he passes to the fine statue of the poet, placed by Garrick in front of the Town Hall. At the site of New Place, now an open, well-kept garden, with here and there some of the shattered foundations of the poet’s house, protected by wire-work, on the green¬ sward, the visitor will add his tribute of wonder, if not of contempt, to the twin memories of Sir Hugh Clopton, who pulled down Shakspere’s house in one genera¬ tion, and of the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who cut down Shakspere’s mulberry-tree in another. Just opposite are the guild chapel, the guildhall, with the grammar school, where the poet, no doubt, received his education ; and, after some further walking, the extremity of the town will be reached, where a little gate opens to a charming avenue of overarching lime-trees, leading to the church. Before he enters, let him 78 STRATFORD-ON-AVON CHURCH. ■ * SNAKSPERE 'S COUNTRY. pass round to the other side, where the churchyard gently slopes to the Avon, and drink in the tranquillity and beauty of the rustic scene. Then, after gaining admis¬ sion, he will go straight to the chancel and gaze upon those which, after all, are the only memorials of the poet which possess a really satisfying value, the monument and the tomb. As all the world knows, the tomb is a dark slab, lying in the chancel, the in¬ scription turned to the east. No name is given, only the lines, here copied from a photograph : ‘Good Frend for Iesvs sake forbeare TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE : Blest be y° man y* spares thes stones, And cvrst be he y* moves my bones.’ AVENUE TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON CHURCH DOOR. These lines are not the only doggerel, whether justly or unjustly, fathered upon Shakspere. The prostrate figure on a tomb in the east wall of the chancel, repre¬ senting Shakspere’s contemporary and intimate, John-a-Combe, suggests another stanza, even inferior in taste and diction. But we have no room now for such recollections. Above us, on the left, is the monument of the poet, colored, accord¬ ing to the fashion of the time, with scarlet doublet, black sleeveless gown, florid sheeks, and gentle hazel eyes. How Mr. Malone, the commentator, not content Si SHAKSPERE'S COUNTRY. with ‘improving’ the plays, caused the bust also to be improved by a coating of white paint, how the barbarism was removed in 1861, and the statue restored, is a tale often told. The effigy certainly existed within seven years of Shakspere’s death, so that, in all probability, we have a faithful representation of the poet as his contemporaries knew him. The following Latin and English inscriptions are beneath his bust : 'Judicio Pylivm, genio socratem, arte maronem tegit, popvlvs mseret, olympvs habet.’ terra (In judgment a Nestor, in genius a Socrates, in art a Virgil : Earth covers him, the people mourns him, heaven possesses him.) ‘ Stay Passenger, why goest thov by so fast, Read, if thov canst whom enviovs death hath PLAST Within this monvment, Shakspere, with whome Qvick nat\re dide ; whose name doth deck y 3 TOMBE Far MORE THAN COST ; SITH ALL Y* HE HATH WRITT Leaves living art bvt page to serve his witt. Obiit an 0 Doi. 1616. Hitatis 53 die 23 Ap.‘ The inscription is clumsy enough, but proves that the poet’s greatness was not, as sometimes alleged, unrecognized in his own generation. The epitaph on Mistress Su¬ sanna Hall, Shakspere’s favorite daughter, struck a higher note. Thus it began :— ‘ Witty above her sex—but that’s not all— Wise to salvation, was good Mistress Hall. Something of Shakspere was in that ; but this Wholly of Him with Whom she’s now in bliss.’ It is to be regretted that this inscrip¬ tion has been effaced, to make room for the epitaph of some obscure descendant. That to Shakspere’s widow, the wife of his youth, Anne Hathaway, however, remains as placed over her grave by her son ; there is something in it pathetically and nobly Christian. It is in Latin, and may be rendered freely : ‘ My Mother : thou gavest me milk and life : alas, for me, that I can but repay thee with a sepulchre ! Would that some good angel might roll the stone away, and thy form come forth in the Saviours likeness ! But my pray¬ ers avail not. Come quickly, O Christ ! then shall my Mother, though enclosed in the tomb, arise and mount to heaven ! ’ Before leaving the church we may note some other monuments which in any other place would be considered worth attention ; as well as a stained glass window, illustrating from Scripture Shakspere’s Seven Ages of Man. Moses the infant, 82 THE MONUMENT. SHA KSPERE 'S CO UN TR Y. Jacob the lover, Deborah the judge, and one or two other representations are inter¬ esting, but the observer feels that the types of character are not Shakspere’s. The day’s explorations are not yet over. The epitaph on Anne Hathaway's tomb, if nothing else, has quickened our desire to know something more of her sur¬ roundings in those days when Shakspere won and wooed her in her rustic home. Retracing our steps through the town, we are directed to a field-path bearing straight for Shottery, a village but a mile distant. It is not difficult to picture the youthful lover, out here in the fair open country, among the wild flowers which line the walk, and which he has so well described ; for there are few traditions of Strat¬ ford-on-Avon better authenticated than that which represents this as Shakspere’s INTERIOR OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON CHURCH. ( The man is pointing to Shakspere's tomb: the monument is that on the north -wait, immediately to the right of the door. The recumbent figure is that of John-a-Combe.) walk in the days when he ‘went courting.’ The village is a straggling one, with a look of comfort about its farmsteads and cottages ; and, at the farthest extremity from Stratford, in a pleasant dell opposite a willow-shaded stream, we find the cot¬ tage, not much altered, it may be, in externals, since the poet, then a lad of eigh¬ teen, there found his bride. The capacious chimney-corner, where no doubt the lovers sat, is genuine ; and other antique relics, from a carved bedstead to an old Bible, carry the mind back, at least, to the era of the poet; while the garden and orchard, with the well of pure spring water, must be much as Shakspere saw them. And now, having returned to our comfortable hotel—where almost every room, SHAKSPERE 'S COUNTRY. by the way, is named after one of the dramas, ours be¬ ing ‘ All’s Well that Ends Well ’— what was the net result of the visit in regard to the personality and history of the great poet ? It may seem a anne hathaway’s cottage. strange thing to confess, but the ef¬ fect of the whole was to put Shakspere himself farther from us, and to deepen the mys¬ tery which every student of his life and works finds so perplexing. For, save the monument and the tomb, there was absolutely nothing to tell of the poet’s life ; no scrap of his writing, no book known to have been his, no original authentic record of his words and deeds, no contemporary portrait, no object, whether article of furniture, pen, inkstand, or other implement of daily use, associated with his name. Strange that a generation which, as we have seen, so honored his genius and character, should not have preserved the poorest or smallest memorial of his life among them ! True, there is an old, worm-eaten desk in the birth-place, at which he may have sat in the grammar-school ; in a room above the seed-shop in the town there is a rude piece of carving, representing David and Goliath, which once ornamented a room of the house in Henley Street, and bears an inscription, ‘ said to have been com¬ posed by Shakspere,’ a.d. 1606. Let our readers judge :— ‘ Goliath comes with sword and spear, And David with his sling : Although Goliath rage and swear Down David doth him bring.’ For the rest, the relics are evidently imported : an ancient bedstead, old-fash¬ ioned chairs, and the like ; interesting in their way, but with nothing to tell us of the poet. He remains to the most zealous relic-hunter as great a mystery as Homer himself. Or if in anything here we see the poet, it is in those scenes of 84 SHAKSPERE 'S COUNTRY. external nature which he has so vividly pictured. We find him among the flowers ; beside the ‘ bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.’ With a happy ingenuity the garden of the house in Henley Street, now prettily and daintily kept, has been planted to a great extent with Shakspere’s flowers ; ‘pansies for thoughts,’ ‘rosemary for remembrance,’ with ‘columbines,’ the ‘blue- veined violets,’ the wild thyme, woodbine, musk-rose, and many more. His works are his true monument ; and of these there is in the same house a very large and noble collection, with a whole library of literature bearing upon them, gathered with admirable care. Yet how few autobiographical details do the volume contain ! How hopeless the task of constructing, even from the sonnets, a connected picture of his life and career! And of the half-dozen anecdotes which have in one way or other descended to us of his words and ways, who can say that any detail is true ? It is, perhaps, from the portraits, after all, that we may gain the most trust¬ worthy impression of the poet’s individuality. That on the tomb is for obvious reasons the most valuable. There it has been, in the sight of all men, from the very days of Shakspere. The eyes of his widow and of their children must often have rested upon it; and'there can be no doubt that it presents the true aspect of the man. The engravings of the bust, and even the photographs, seem to us to exaggerate the calm, serene expression of the countenance. Partly, it may be, from the effect of the coloring on the full and shapely cheeks, there is an air almost of joviality about the face. It is much more easy to recognize the Warwickshire Squire of New Place than to feel the presence of the poet of all time. There is, in the Henley Street house, a portrait, lately discovered, with a somewhat remarkable history. The antiquity of this portrait seems indubitable ; but the face seems a copy, and, so far as we could judge without seeing the two side by side, a very exact copy, of that on the monument. For the high, intellectual cast of features which we naturally associate with Shakspere, we must go rather to the ‘ Chandos portrait,’ now in the National Portrait Gallery, or to the terra-cotta bust, disinterred in 1845 f rom the site of the old theater in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and presented by the Duke of Devonshire to the Garrick Club. In a somewhat rough fashion, the Droeshout portrait, prefixed to the first folio edition of the plays, in 1623, gives a similar impression of power. But most of all is the greatness of Shakspere brought home to us by the simple record of the names of those who, from all quarters of the world, have come to this little Warwickshire town to do homage to his memory. In all the world there is no shrine of pilgrimage like this, not only in the number of the visitants, but in their wonderful variety of character, temperament, and belief. The power of the spell shows the magician. The fading penciled inscriptions which cover the walls of the chamber in Henley Street; the pages of the autograph books; the words in which visitors have recorded their impressions, 1 attest the strange attractiveness and power of this one genius. Perhaps the most interesting of the autograph books is that 'See Washington Irving’s Sketch Book, Hugh Miller’s England and itt People, William Howitt’s Visits to Remarkable Places, Mrs. Stowe’s Sunny Memories. 85 S/LA KSPERE' S CO UN TR Y. which was removed from the house in Henley Street many years ago, and is now to be seen in the room over the seed-shop, to which we have referred already. It seems to have been purchased and presented by an American gentleman, Mr. T. H. Perkins, of Boston, in 1812; and its pages contain the autographs of Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Mitford, Joanna Baillie, James Mont¬ gomery, Charles Dickens, Professors Sedgwick and Whewell, ‘William Duke of Clarence,’ ‘Arthur Duke of Wellington,’ with a host beside. A thoughtful hour may well be spent in turning the well-worn pages, and in meditating on ‘ the vanity and glory of literature.’ For there was one point in which even Shakspere failed ; and the admiring reverence with which we join the throng of pilgrims to the shrine never passes into worship. We mean, of course, such ‘ worship ’ as a merely human being may supposably claim ; and, in view of the highest possibilities of our nature, we mark in Shakspere a certain limitation on the heavenward side of his genius. The point at , , which intellectual sympathy and admir¬ ing affection pass into adoration is the point at which we are raised beyond our¬ selves, and made conscious of the infinite. Never will our moral nature consent to unite with our reason and our heart in yielding its deepest reverence, until it is uplifted into that sphere in which we can only walk by faith, and from which we can look down upon earthly things dwarfed and humbled by the comparison with the illimitable beyond. Now Shakspere’s genius belongs essentially to the lower sphere. On earth he is the master. Every phase of nature, every subtlety of the intellect, every winding of the heart, is familiar to him. To use the com parison, often repeated because always felt to be so just, his won¬ derful mind was the mirror of all earthly shapes and various human energies. His own idiosyncrasy never appears ; the mirror is absolutely colorless and true. His genius is universal ; in reading him we are but surveying the face? of nature. To many a subtle criticism the answer has been given, Shakspere surely never meant this ! The reply may be, Perhaps not, but Nature meant it ; and, therefore, we have a right to find it there! Such is the highest achievement of literature , whose business it is to reflect the facts of the world, of society, of the human heart—plentifully to declare the thing as it is, and compen¬ diously to reduce this round world into the microcosm of a book. Here is Shak¬ spere’s transcendent power, and the secret of his supremacy among writers. He is simply the greatest literary man of the modern world. The transparency of the mirror, to return to the illustration, is maintained, not only by the absence of intru¬ sive individuality, but by his perfect mastery over the instrument of expression. It is worth while to read his dramas over again, as a study of language alone. No English writer has ever approached Shakspere in the precision, picturesqueness, and 86 KITCHEN IN SHAK¬ SPERE’S HOUSE. SHAKSPERE'S COUNTRY. the finished, yet seemingly careless, beauty of his diction. His prose is even more marvelous than his poetry. In the sense in which we use the word ‘ classic,’ his works may truly be called the foremost classic, not only of Great Britain, but of the world. What, then, is the defect which will forever prevent Shakspere from receiving the entire homage of the heart of man ? In a sentence, the mirror is turned toward earth alone, and in its very completeness hides heaven from the view. ‘ It would be impossible,’ says a writer of our own day, ‘ to find a more remarkable example of a genius wide as the world, yet not in any sense above the world, than our great Eng¬ lish poet’s.’ And again, 4 It would be almost impossible to find any great Christian poet whose type of imagination is so entirely and singularly contrasted with that of the Bible, or in whom that peculiar faculty which, for want of a better term, we are forced to call the thirst for the supernatural , is more remarkably absent.’ This statement we accept, in full remembrance of the morals manifold, the theological references, and Scriptural parallels, which are scattered through the poet’s writings. The late Bishop Wordsworth, of St. Andrew’s, and others have spent much labor, not altogether unprofitably, in showing that Shakspere knew his Bible: while, oddly enough, among the passages expunged by the estimable Bowdler, the Biblical references occupy a considerable place, as though it had been profanity to introduce them in such a connection. The most is made of Shakspere’s religiousness by Archbishop Trench, in a sermon preached at Stratford-on-Avon at the Shakspere Tercentenary, in 1864. 4 He knew the deep corruption of our fallen nature, the desperate wickedness of the heart of man ; else he would never have put into the mouth of a prince of stain¬ less life such a confession as this : " I am myself indifferent honest : but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me ;. with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.” He has set forth the scheme of our redemption in words as lovely as have ever flowed from the lips of uninspired man :—• 87 SHAKESPERE'S COUNTRY. “ Why, all the souls that live were forfeit once, And He that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy.” He has put home to the holiest here their need of an infinite forgiveness from Him who requires truth in the inward parts:— “ How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are! ” ‘ He was one who was well aware what a stewardship was his own in those marvelous gifts which had been entrusted to him, for he has himself told us :— “ Heaven does with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves : for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike As if we had them not.” And again he has told us that “ Spirits are not finely touched But for fine issues : ” assuredly not ignorant how finely his own had been touched, and what would be demanded from him in return. He was one who certainly knew that there is none so wise that he can “ circumvent God and that for a man, whether he be called early or late, shakspere’s birthplace before restoration. 83 “ Ripeness is all.” SHAKSPERE'S COUNTRY. Who shall persuade us that he abode outside of that holy temple of our faith, whereof he has uttered such glorious things—admiring its beauty, but not himself entering to worship there?’ To the same effect, we may quote the preliminary sentence of Shakspere’s will: ‘I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping, and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting.’ With such a master of words, this avowal would be no mere formality. During Shakspere’s last residence at Stratford, moreover, the town was under strong religious influences. Many a ‘ great man in Israel,’ in fraternal visits to the Rev. Richard Byfield, the vicar, is said to have been hospitably entertained at New Place ; and memorable evenings must have been spent in converse on the highest themes. In addition to all this, the following sonnet furnishes an interest¬ ing proof that the heart of Shakspere, at an earlier period, had not been unsuscep¬ tible to religious sentiments and aspirations : ‘ Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth, Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay ? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? Shall worms, inheritors of thine excess, Eat up thy charge ? Is this thy body’s end ? Then, soul, live thou upon thy body’s loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; Within be fed, without be rich no more : So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And, death once dead, there’s no more dying then.’— Sonnet cxlvi. All that such words suggest we gladly admit among the probabilities of Shak¬ spere’s unknown life. But in his dramas themselves we find no assured grasp of the highest spiritual truth, nothing to show that such truth controlled his views of life with imperial sway ; little or nothing to uplift the reader from the play of human passions and the entanglement of human interests to the higher realms of Faith. It is the same Shakspere who reveals the depths of human corruption, and the noble¬ ness of human excellence. But in portraying the latter, he stops short, and fails 'exactly where the higher light of faith would have enabled him to complete the delineation. His best and greatest characters are a law unto themselves: his men are passionate and strong ; his women are beautiful, with a loveliness that scarcely ever reminds us of heaven : he has neither ‘ raised the mortal to the skies,’ nor ‘brought the an^el down.’ We turn, then, from Stratford-on-Avon, feeling, as we have said, more deeply than ever the mystery that overhangs the career of the man, admiring, if possible, more heartily than ever the genius of the poet, and acknowledging, not without mournfulness, how much greater Shakspere might have been. For there was an inspiration within his reach that would have made him chief among the witnesses of God to men ; and his magnificent endowments would then have been the richest offering ever placed by human hand upon that altar which ‘ sanctifieth both the giver and the ofift.’ 8o 1 God gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordained to fill. ***** To me an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life.’ Cowper : The Task , Book bj r yc THE COUNTRY OF BUNYAN AND COWPER. The River Ouse. OME of the most characteristic excursions through the gently undulating rural scen¬ ery which distinguishes so large a por¬ tion of the south midland district of Enof- land may be made along the towing-paths of the canals. The notion may appear un¬ romantic ; the pathway is artificial, yet it has now become rusticated and fringed with various verdure ; some of the asso¬ ciations of the canal are anything but at¬ tractive, but upon the whole the charm is great. A wide level path, driven straight across smiling valleys and by the side of hills, here and there skirting a fair park, and occasionally bringing some broad open landscape into sudden view, with the gleam and coolness of still waters ever at the traveler’s side, affords him a ‘strong climber of the mountain’s side may the more delightful, because they can be enjoyed with no more fatigue than that of a leisurely, health-giving stroll. It was by such a walk as this through some of the pleasantest parts of Hert¬ fordshire that we first made our way to Berkhampstead, the birthplace of William Cowper, turning from the canal bank to the embowered fragments of the castle, and through the quiet little town to the * public way,’ — the pretty rural by-road where the ‘ gardener Robin ’ drew his little master to school: YARDLEY OAK. succession of pictures which perhaps the disdain, but which to many will be all ‘ Delighted with the bauble coach, and wrapped In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped,’ while the fond mother watched her darling from the ‘ nursery window,’ the memory of which one pathetic poem has made immortal. In a well-known sentence, Lord Macaulay affirms in reference to the seven¬ teenth century : ‘ We are not afraid to say that, though there were many clever men in England during the lattef half of that century, there were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty in a very eminent degree. One of these minds produced the Paradise Lost; the other, the Pilgrims Progress.' Similarly, with regard to the brilliant literary period which began toward the close of the eigh¬ teenth century, ‘ we are not afraid to say ’ that, although there were many poets in 93 THE COUNTRY OF RUNYAN AND COWPER. England of no mean order, there were but two to whom it was griven to view nature simply and sincerely, so as adequately to express ‘ the delight of man in the works of God.’ One of these poets produced The Task , the other The Excursion. When Macaulay wrote, the place of Bunyan in literature was still held a little doubtful ; the place of Cowper among poets is not wholly unquestioned now. Some are impatient of his simplicity, others scorn his piety, many cannot escape, as they read, from the shadow of the darkness in which he wrote. But we cannot doubt that, when the coming reaction from feverishness and heathenism in poetry shall have set in, the name of Cowper will win increasing honor ; men will search for themselves into the source of those bright phrases, happy allusions, ‘ jewels five words long, that on the stretched forefinger of all time sparkle for ever,’ for which the world is often unconsciously indebted to his poems; while his incomparable letters will remain as the finest and most brilliant specimens of an art which penny postage, telegrams, and post-cards have rendered almost extinct. BIRTHPLACE OF COWPER, BERKHAMPSTEAD RECTORY. No one, at any rate, will wonder now that we should turn awhile from more outwardly striking or enchanting scenes to the ground made classic and sacred to the Christian by the memories of Bunyan and Cowper. We may associate their names, not only from their brotherhood in faith and teaching, but from the coinci¬ dence which identifies their respective homes with one and the same river, and blends their memories with the fair, still landscapes through which it steals. The Ouse, most meandering of English streams, waters a country almost perfectly level throughout, though here and there fringed by the undulations of the receding Chilterns; with a picturesqueness derived from rich meadows, broad pastures with flowery hedgerows, and tall, stately trees ; while in many places the still river expands into a miniature lake, with water-lilies floating upon its bosom. Among scenes likes these the great dreamer passed his youth, in his village home 94 THE COUNTRY OF RUNYAN AND COW PER. at Elstow ; often visiting the neighboring town of Bedford, where we may picture him as leaning in many a musing fit over the old Ouse Bridge, on which the town prison then stood. The bridge is gone, the town has become a thriving modern bustling place ; only the river remains, and the country walk to Elstow is little changed. There is the cottage which tradition identifies with Bunyan : with the church and the belfry, so memorable in the record of his experiences : the village green, on which, in his thoughtless youth, he used to play at ‘tip-cat’: there is nothing more to see ; but it is impossible to pace through those homely ways with¬ out remembering how once the place was luminous to his awe-stricken spirit with ‘the light that never was on sea or shore,’ and the landscape on which his inward eye was fixed was closed in by the great white throne. It is remarkable that there is in Bunyan’s writings so little of local coloring. OLNEY VICARAGE. His fields, hills, and valleys are not of earth. The ‘wilderness of this world’ through which he wandered was something quite apart from the Bedfordshire fiats, although indeed ‘the den’ on which he lighted is but too truthful a representation of the county prison, which was so long Bunyan’s ‘home .’ 1 Even where familiar scenes may have supplied the groundwork of the picture, incidental touches show that his soul was beyond them. His hillsides are covered with ‘vineyards’; the meadows by the river-side are fair with ‘ lilies ’; the fruits in the orchard have 1 Dr. Brown, in his Life of Bunyan. has shown that the prison in which Bunyan spent twelve memorable years (1660-1672) was not the old town jail on Ouse Bridge, but the county prison, of which only the fragment of a wall remains. But the ‘ Dream ’ may have come to him during a subsequent six months’ confinement in the town jail, 1675-6. The Pilgrim's Progress was first published 1678. 95 THE COUNTRY OF RUNYAN AND COW PER. mystic healing virtue. The scenery of Palestine rather than of Bedfordshire is, present to his view, and his well-loved Bible has contributed as much to his descrip¬ tions as any reminiscences of his excursion around his native place. But it was after all in no earthly walks or haunts of men that he found the prototypes of his immortal pictures. They are idealized experiences, and from the Wicket-gate to the Land of Beulah they all represent what he had seen and felt only in his soul. No doubt the people are in many cases less abstract. A very remarkable edition of the Pilgrim s Progress, published some years ago by an artist of rare promise, since deceased, portrayed the personages of the allegory in the very guise in which Bunyan must often have met the originals up and down in Bedfordshire. Such faces may be seen to-day. We ourselves thought we saw Mr. Honesty, in a brown coat, looking at some bullocks in the Bedford market-place. Ignorance tried to entice us into a theological discussion at the little country-side inn where we rested for the night: the ELSTOW. next morning, as we passed along, Mercy was knitting at a farm-house door, while- young Mr. Brisk, driving by in his gig, made her an elaborate bow, of which we were glad to see she took the slightest possible notice. Bedford is now, at least, rich in memorials of its illustrious citizen and prisoner for conscience, sake. The Bunyan Statue, presented by the Duke of Bedford, was erected in 1874, and is one of the noblest and most characteristic out-of-door monu¬ ments in England. It has indeed been suggested that Bunyan might more appropri¬ ately have been represented in the attitude of writing than in that of preaching ; but it should be remembered that the latter was the work he chose and loved, and that his greatest works were penned during the period of enforced silence. It is there¬ fore with a fine appropriateness that he is represented as standing, as if in the presence of some vast congregation, the Bible in his hand, his eyes uplifted to. 96 THE COUNTRY OF RUNYAN AND COW PER. heaven, while upon the pedestal are carved his own words : ‘ It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand. The law of truth was written upon his lips.It stood as if it pleaded with men.’ 1 No visitor to Bedford should neglect the rapidly accumulating Bunyan Museum,, comprising not only some simple relics of his lifetime, as his staff, jug, and the like, with books bearing his autograph—his priceless Bible and Fox’s Martyrs —but the various editions of his works, and in particular a collection of the illustrations of the Pilgrinis Progress, from the first rude designs to the latest products of artistic skill. These are stored with reverent care, in connection with the place of worship occu¬ pied by the Christian Church to which he ministered, and now known as Bunyan Meeting. To this edifice, likewise, a pair of massive bronze gates have been contrib¬ uted by the Duke of Bedford, with panels illustrative of scenes from the allegory. From Bedford to Olney, the distance by rail is between ten and eleven miles : by ‘ the sinuous Ouse,’ probably between thirty and forty. Few travelers, therefore, will care to ascend by the river banks, and the frequent shallows preclude the thought of a boating excursion, which otherwise would, by its leisurely length, be some preparation for our exchange of the associations of the seventeenth century for those of the eighteenth. One hundred and three years separated the birthday 1 Pilgrim's Progress. Picture of a ‘ Grave Person ’ in the Interpreter’s House. BEDFORD. 97 BUNYAN MONUMENT, BEDFORD. pare in their passionate anxiety with the annals of Cowper’s despair. The great dreamer soon escaped from Doubting Castle to the Delectable Mountains ; but, for the poet, the dungeon bars remained unloosed until the final summons came to the everlasti no* hills. 1 o 1 ‘ From the moment of Cowper’s death, till the coffin was closed,’ writes his friend and relative Mr. Johnson, ‘ the ex¬ pression into which his countenance had settled was that of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise .'— Southey's Life. 9$ THE COUNTRY OF BUNYAN AND COWPER. of Bunyan from that of Cowper. 1 he interval marks the greatest advance that had ever been made in the history of English thought and freedom. But in the essentials of faith and teaching the two men were one : nor in some of their experi¬ ences were they very dissimilar. Both were sensitive, conscientious, and often, in the midst of their holiest longings after God, were most terror-stricken by the thoughts of the wrath to come. Some pages of Bunyan’s autobiography may com- BUKYAX GATES, BEDFORD. 99 THE COUNTRY OF BUNYAN AND CO IVPER. The sensitiveness of Cowper to external influences was so great as to raise the ■doubt whether other scenes and a different atmosphere might not have prevented many of his sorrows. On the death of his father, when the poet had reached the age of twenty-five, he touchingly and expressively tells us that it had never till then occurred to him ‘that a parson has no fee-simple in the house and glebe he occupies. There was,’ he says, ‘ neither tree, nor gate, nor stile in all that country to which I did not feel a relation, and the house itself I preferred to a palace.’ To Hunting¬ don, where he first made acquaintance with the Ouse, and became an inmate with the Unwins, he clung very lovingly, although he does not rate the charms of the neighborhood very highly. ‘ My lot is cast in a country where we have neither woods nor commons, nor pleasant prospects : all flat and insipid ; in the summer adorned only with blue willows, and in the winter covered with a flood.’ But it was at Olney that Cowper found such scenery as he could appreciate and love. ‘ He does not,’ in the words of Sir James Mackintosh, ‘ describe the most beautiful scenes in nature; he discovers what is most beautiful in ordinary scenes. •eye and his moral heart detected beauty in the sandy flats of Buck¬ inghamshire.’ The walk, espec¬ ially, from the quiet little town to the village of Weston Underwood, he has made classic amonor English scenes by the description in the first book of The Task. We know not where, in the whole com¬ pass of English poetry, to find a delineation so literally truthful as well as so delicately touched. Leaving Olney, where, in truth, there is not much to detain us save the poet’s home—the same in outward aspect, at least, as during the twenty years spent by him within its walls, and the summer-house in the garden, where he sat and wrote, while Mrs. Unwin knitted, and Puss, Tiny, and Bess sported upon the grass—we may climb the little eminence above the river, and, with an admiration like that of the poet a century ago, ‘dwell upon the scene.’ There is the ‘ distant plow, slow moving,’ and ‘ Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o’er, Conducts the eye along his sinuous course Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, Stand, never overlooked, our favorite elms, That screen the herdsman’s solitary hut ; While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; IOI In fact, Cowper saw very few beautiful scenes, but his poetical BELFRY DOOR, ELSTOW CHURCH. THE COUNTRY OF BUN VAN AND COIVPER. Displaying on its varied side the grace Of hedgerow beauties numberless, square tower, Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells Just undulates upon the listening ear ; Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote.’ We are now at the upper corner of the Throckmorton Park. Pursuing our way* we listen to the music of ‘ nature inanimate,’ of rippling brook or sighing wind, and of ‘nature animate,’ of ‘ten thousand warblers’ that so soothed the poet’s soul. A dip in the walk from where the elms inclose the upper park, and the chestnuts spread their shade, brings us into a grassy dell where, by a ‘ rustic bridge,’ we cross to the opposite slope, reascend to the ‘ alcove,’ survey from the ‘ speculative height ’ the pasture with its ‘ fleecy tenants,’ the ‘ sunburnt hayfield ’ the ‘ woodland scene*' OLD HOSTELRY, ELSTOW. the trees, each with its own hue, as so exquisitely depicted by the poet, while Ouse in the distance ‘ glitters in the sun.’ At length the great avenue is reached. ‘ How airy and how light the graceful arch, Yet awful as the consecrated roof Re-echoing pious anthems ! while beneath, The chequered earth seems restless as a flood Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance, Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick, And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves Play wanton, every moment, every spot.’ Such were the scenes dearest to Cowper, and dear to many still for his sake. True, they are not unlike others. A thousand scenes are as beautiful, and manv art 102 THE COUNTRY OF RUNYAN AND CO IVPER. RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM COWPER, OLNEY. avenue, up and down in English parks, is of a nobler stateliness. Yet may this be visited with a special delight for its own sake and for Cowper’s. It is something to be able to look with a poet’s eye, to have his thoughts and words so familiar to memory as to blend with the current of our own, as if spontaneously. We learn anew how to observe, and our emotions become almost unconsciously ennobled and refined. It is characteristic of Cowper’s mind that scenery of a loftier and more excit¬ ing order had a disquieting effect upon him. Of his journey to Eastham, in Sussex, to visit his friend Hayley, he writes: ‘I indeed myself was a little daunted by the tremendous height of the Sussex Hills, in comparison with which all that I had seen elsewhere are dwarfs. But I only was alarmed; Mrs. Unwin had no such sensations, but was always cheerful from the beginning of our ex- pedition to the end of it.’ And again : ‘The charms of the place, uncommon as they are, have not in the least alien, ated my affections from Weston. The genius of that place suits me better ; it has an air of snug concealment, in which a disposition like mine feels pecu¬ liarly gratified, whereas here I see from every window woods like forests, and hills like mountains—a wildness, in short, that rather increases my natural melan¬ choly.’ A little while before, on Mr. Newton’s return from the glories of Cheddar, Cowper writes : ‘ I would that I could see some of the mountains which you have seen, especially because Dr. Johnson has pronounced that no man is qualified to be a poet who has never seen a mountain. But mountains I shall never see, unless perhaps in a dream, or unless there are such in heaven. Nor those,’ the poor heart-stricken poet makes haste to add, ‘ unless I receive twice as much mercy as ever yet was shown to any man.’ The last sentence prepares us for East Dereham, with its sad associations. But even from these we need not shrink. The homely Norfolk town brought to the troubled soul deliverance. Few, it may be, would turn aside to visit the place for its own sake ; but the remembrance of the poet may well attract. T he house in WESTON LODGE, OLNEY. •~3 THE COUNTRY OF RUNYAN AND COW PER. which he died has been replaced by a Congregational Church bearing his name— twin brother, so to speak, though with scarcely the same appropriateness, to Bunyan Chapel in Bedford. But it is in the church where he lies buried, and in the tomb raised to his memory, that the true interest lies. Never was death more an angel of mercy than to this darkly shadowed spirit. We all know the words in which the most gifted of English poetesses, at ‘ Cowper’s Grave,’ has set the thoughts of many Christian hearts to words that deserve to be immortal: EAST DEREHAM CHURCH. ‘ Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother while she blesses, And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses ; That turns his fevered eyes around —My mother ! where's my mother ? As if such tender words and looks could come from any other! The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending o’er him, Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore him ! Thus woke the Poet from the dream his life’s long fever gave him, Beneath those deep pathetic eyes, which closed in death to save him ! Thus ? oh, not thus ! no type of earth could image that awaking, Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs round him breaking, Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted, But felt those eyes alone, and knew —My Saviour ! not deserted! ’ PIKE POOL, BERESFORD DALE. ‘ Viator. —But what have we got here ? A rock springing up in the middle of the river ! This is one of the oddest sights that ever I saw. ‘ Piscator. —Why, sir, from that pike that you see standing up there distant from the rock, this is called Pike Pool : and young Mr. Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw it in landscape, in black and white, in a blank book I have at home.’ The Complete Angler. ro6 WINTER-TIME.—FEEDING THE DEER IN CHATSWORTH PARK. THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. T HE traveler into Derbyshire, unaccustomed to the district, may not unnaturally inquire for ‘ the Peak,’ which he has been taught to consider one of the chief English mountains, and the name of which has always suggested to him something like a pyramid of rock,—an English Matterhorn. He will be soon undeceived, and then may paradoxically declare the peculiarity of ‘ the Peak District ’ to be that there is no Peak ! The range so called is a bulky mass of millstone grit, rising irregularly from the limestone formation which occupies the southern part of Derby¬ shire, and extending in long spurs, or arms, north and northeast into Yorkshire as far as Sheffield, and west and south into Cheshire and Staffordshire. The plateau is covered by wild moorland, clothed with fern, moss, and heather, and broken up by deep hollows and glens, through which streamlets descend, each through its own belt of verdure, from the spongy morasses above, forming in their course many a minute but picturesque waterfall. The pedestrian who establishes himself in the little inn at Ashopton will have the opportunity of exploring many a breezy height and romantic glen ; while, if he has strength of limb and of lungs to make his way to Kinderscout, the highest point of all, he will breathe, at the elevation of not quite two thousand feet, as fresh and exhilarating an atmosphere as can be found anywhere in these islands ; the busy smoky city of Manchester being at a distance, ‘as the crow dies,’ of little more than fifteen miles! It is no wonder that a select company of hard-worked men, who have lighted on this nook among the hills, hav¬ ing a taste for natural history, resort hither year after year, finding a refreshment in the repeated visit equal at least to that which their fellow-citizens enjoy, at greater cost, in the terraces of Buxton, or on the gigantic slope of Matlock Bank. 107 THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. Where the limestone emerges from under the mass of grit, the scenery alto gether changes. For roughly rounded, dark-colored rocks, covered with ling and bracken, now appear narrow glens, bold escarped edges, cliffs splintered into pin¬ nacles and pierced by wonderful caves, traversed by hidden streams. Of these caves the ‘ Peak Cavern’ at Castleton is the largest, that of the ‘Blue John Mine’ the most beautiful, from its veins of Derbyshire spar. The tourist, however, who confines himself to the Peak District proper, with its immediately outlying scenery, will have a very inadequate view of the charms of Derbyshire. He can scarcely do better than begin at the other extremity, ascend¬ ing the Dove, through its limestone valley, as far as Buxton, thence taking rail to Chapel-en-le-Frith, expatiating over the Peak moorlands according to time and inclination, descending to the limestone region again at Castleton, and following the Derwent in its downward course to Ambergate, pausing in his way to visit Chats- worth and Haddon Hall, and to stay awhile at Matlock. Having thus planned our own journey, our starting-point was Ashbourne,'a quiet, pretty little town at the extremity of a branch railway. There was not much in the town itself to detain us : we could only pay a hurried visit to the church, whose beautiful spire, 212 feet high, is sometimes called the Pride of the Peak. There are some striking monuments ; and among them one with an inscription of almost unequaled mournfulness. It is to an only child, a daughter : ‘She was in form and intellect most exquisite. The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail bark, and the wreck was total.’ Never was plaint of sorrowing despair more touching. Let us hope, both that the parents’ darling was a lamb in the Good Shepherd’s fold, and that the sorrowing father and mother found at length that there can be no total wreck to those whose treasure is in heaven ! A night’s refreshing rest at the inn, where several nationalities oddly combine to make up one complex sign—the fierce Saracen, the thick-lipped negro, the Eng¬ lish huntsman in his coat of Lincoln green !—and we sallied forth on a glorious day of early autumn to make our first acquaintance with Dovedale. Leaving the town at the extremity farthest from the railway station, we found ourselves on a well-kept, undulating road, skirted by fair pastures on either hand ; the absence of corn-fields being a very marked feature in the landscape. Turning into pleasant country lanes to the left, we soon reached the garden gate of a finely situated rural inn, the * Peveril of the Peak,’ whence a short cut would have led us over the brow of the hill into Dovedale ; but we were anxious to visit Ilam, and therefore made a detour as far as the ‘ Izaak Walton,’ so well known to brothers of the ‘ gentle craft.’ A little farther, and we were in the identical Happy Valley of Rasselas, where we found a charming little village, with school-house and drinking-fountain, park and hall and church, and every cottage a picture. Two little rivers meet here, one of them the Manifold, the other and larger the Dove ; and, after a hurried view of the lovely valley, we lost no time in making our way to the entrance of the far-famed Dale. As most of our readers will know, the Dove divides Staffordshire from Derbyshire : we took the Derbyshire side, entering a little gate on the river bank, and leisurely, and with many a pause, pursued a walk with which surely in England there are few to compare. The river is a shallow, sparkling stream, with many a pool dear to the angler, and hurrying down, babbling over pebbles, and broken in its course by many a tiny waterfall. On both sides rise tall limestone cliffs, splintered into countless 108 nOVF.DALE THE PEAK OE DERBYSHIRE. fantastic forms—rocky walls, towers, and pinnacles, and in one place a natural arch¬ way near the summit, leading to the uplands beyond. And all up the .sloping sides, and wherever root-hold could be obtained on pinnacle and crag, were clustered shrubs and trees of every shade of foliage, with the first touch of autumn to heighten the exquisite variety by tints which as yet suggested only afar off the thought of decay. The solitude of the scene served but to enhance its loveliness. For that road by the river-side is no broad, well-beaten track. No vehicle can pass, and even the pedestrian has sometimes to pick his way with difficulty. The stillness, on the day of our visit, was unbroken save for the murmur of the water, the twitter of the birds, and the rustling of the branches in the gentle breeze. The blue sky over¬ head, and the sunlight casting shadows upon the cliffs and the stream, completed the picture ; and if the memory of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton haunted their favorite stream, it so happened that we encountered none of their disciples. Many travelers leave the glen at Mill Dale, where a pleasant country lane to the right enables them to gain the high road between Ashbourne and Buxton. Time and strength permitting, however, we would strongly advise the tourist to make his way by the river banks to Hartington, passing through Beresford Dale, where at Pike Pool, represented in the frontispiece to this chapter, all the beauties of the Dove Valley are concentrated at one view. A limestone obelisk stands in the middle of the river, with a background of rich foliage, just touched, at the time of our visit, with autumnal hues, while the clear water eddied and sparkled around its base. This pool was the favorite resort of Walton and his friend Cotton. Many allusions to the spot will be found in The Complete Angler; and the com¬ fortable inn at Hartington, reached from Beresford Dale by a walk for about a mile through pleasant meadows, bears Charles Cotton’s name. At Hartington, the high road to Buxton may be taken ; or, far better, the traveler may make his way to the famous watering-place, by the plateau which divides the valley of the Dove from that of its tributary Manifold ; he will then descend to the former valley near Longnor, and thence may climb to Axe Edge, a great outlying southerly branch or spur of the gritstone, from which the Dove has its rise. Parting with this lovely river at its very fountain-head, Ave find it difficult to believe that so much beauty and even grandeur can have been included in the twenty miles’ course of a little English stream, and are ready to indorse the enthu¬ siastic tribute of Cotton : ‘ Such streams Rome’s yellow Tiber cannot show, The Iberian Tagus or Ligurian Po : The Maese, the Danube and the Rhine Are puddle-water all, compared with thine, And Loire’s pure streams yet too polluted are With thine much purer to compare : The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine Are both too mean, Beloved Dove, with thee To claim priority : Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoined, submit, And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.’ At Buxton, easily reached from Axe Edge, we found every variety of excursion and other enjoyments open to us, ‘ for a consideration,’ while the place itself, from hi THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. the unsurpassed purity of its air, the healing qualities of its hot springs, and the fas¬ cinating contrivances which abound on all hands to make leisure delightful, induces the most eager tourist to rest awhile. The Derbyshire dales, moreover, that may be easily explored from this point, are very fine ; the whole of the Peak, in fact, is open to his exploration, with facilities of ready return. We could give, however, but a hurried glance to their manifold beauties, being bent upon descending the Derwent in some such leisurely fashion as that in which we had ascended the Dove. We had, indeed, the railway now to facilitate the latter half of our journey—no slight matter ; and yet this had the effect of bringing multitudes of travelers, like ourselves, so that the end of the Derbyshire tour was taken in company with a crowd. For a time, however, we were comparatively alone, as far as to Castleton* THE ‘ SHIVERING MOUNTAIN.’ by Mam Tor, the wonderful ‘Shivering Mountain,’ where the sandstone and moun¬ tain limestone meet; so called from the loose shale which is constantly descending its side, and which, in popular belief, does not diminish the mountain’s bulk : thence down through the Winnyats or Windgates, a picturesque pass between lofty cliffs,, taking its name from the winds which are said to rage almost ceaselessly through the narrow defile, although at the time of our visit the air was calm, while the lights and shadows of a perfect autumn day beautified the gray limestone crags. The ruins of Peveril’s Castle, and the gloomy caves of Castleton, of course, were visited. Then began the journey down the Derwent, embracing pretty Hathersage, with its ancient camps, tumuli, and other remains whose origin can only be conjectured. 112 THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. Here is the traditionary grave of Robin Hood’s gigantic comrade, ‘ Little John.’ A 4 Gospel Stone,’ in this village, once used as a pulpit, perpetuates the memory of the open-air harvest and thanksgiving services of past generations ; while in the village of Eyam, three or four miles lower down, the 4 Pulpit Rock,’ in a natural dell still called a ‘ church,’ brings to mind the heroism of a devoted pastor, who, during the plague of 1665, when it would have been dangerous to meet in any building, daily assembled his parishioners in this place to pray with them, to teach, and to console. The traveler will not regret the slight detour from the road by the river to visit this most interesting spot; and he may return to the Derwent by Middleton Dale, another magnificent pass through limestone cliffs. Hence he will soon reach Edensor, the ‘model village,’ and Chatsworth, ‘the Palace of the Peak.’ The splendors of the park and mansion are so familiar to thousands,—to whom in fact ‘ the Peak of Derbyshire ’ is a name suggestive only of Chatsworth and Haddon Hall,— that we need attempt no descrip¬ tion here. The visitor may follow his own bent, whether to wander in the stately park, or to join the hourly procession along the silken- roped avenue, through the corri¬ dors and apartments of the Hall, with due admiration of the pic¬ tures, the statuary, and the won¬ derful carving ; thence passing out into the conservatory and the gar dens, where nature has done so much, and art so much more. Truly, days at Chatsworth are among the bright days of life, especially if there be time and opportunity also to visit Haddon Hall, that almost unique specimen of an old baronial English home, empty and dismantled now, but carefully preserved, and beautiful for situation, upon the Derbyshire edensor. Wye, which here descends from its limestone glens and dales, through the pretty town of Bakewell, to unite at Rowsley with the Derwent. At this junction, too, the traveler comes upon the railway, and will be tempted to pass only too rapidly by the beauties of the Derwent Valley between Rowsley and Ambergate. We can but assure him that he will lose much by so doing; that Darley Dale and Moor are very beautiful, and that the tourist who rushes on to Matlock Bath without staying to climb Matlock Bank does an injustice to Derby¬ shire scenery; while, if he be in pursuit of health, he can find no better resting-place than at the renowned hydropathic establishments which occupy the heights. Still,. THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. most who are in search of the picturesque will prefer to seek it at Matlock Bath, where indeed they will not be left to discover it for themselves. In this famous spot the beauties of nature are all catalogued, ticketed, and forced on the attention by signboards and handbills. Here is the path to ‘ the beautiful scenery ’ (admis¬ sion so much); there ‘the romantic rocks’ (again a fee) ; there the ferry to ‘the Lovers’ Walk,’ a charming path by the river-side, overshadowed by trees ; and so on. Petrifying wells offer their rival attractions, and caves in the limestone are re¬ peatedly illuminated, during the season, for the delight of excursionists. The market for fossils, spar, photographs, ferns, and all the wonderful things that nobody buys HADDON HALL. except at watering-places, is brisk and incessant. But when we have added to all this that the heights are truly magnificent, the woods and river very lovely, and the arrangements of the hotels most homelike and satisfactory, it will not be wondered at that the balance of pleasure remained largely in favor of Matlock. It would be certainly pleasanter to discover for oneself that here is ‘ the Switzerland of Eng¬ land,’ than to have the fact thrust upon one’s attention by placards at every turn ; but perhaps there are those to whom the information thus afforded is welcome, while the enormous highly colored pictures of valley, dale, and crag, which adorn every railway station on the line, no doubt perform their part in attracting and in¬ structing visitors. They need certainly be at no loss to occupy their time toadvan- CHATSWORTH, THE * PALACE OF THE PEAK THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. tage, whether their stay be longer or shorter. Everything is made easy for them. Practicable paths have been constructed to all the noblest points of view : the fatigue of mountain-climbing is reduced to a minimum ; and the landscapes dis¬ closed. even from a moderate elevation, by the judicious pruning and removal of in- MATLOCK. tercepting foliage, are such as to repay most richly the moderate efiort requisite for the ascent. Lord Byron writes that there are views in Derbyshire ‘as noble as in Greece or Switzerland.’ He was probably thinking of the prospect from Masson, from which the whole valley, with its boundary of tors, or limestone cliffs, is out¬ spread before the observer, while the river sparkles beneath, reflecting masses of foliage, with depths of heavenly blue between ; and, beyond the scarred and broken THE EE A A' OF DERBYSHIRE. ramparts of the glen, purple moorlands stretch away to the high and curving line of the horizon. The traveler southward, who has accompanied us thus far, if yet unsated with beauty, will be wise in walking or driving by road from Matlock to Cromford, the HIGH TOR, MATLOCK. next station, instead of proceeding by. railway. The pass between the limestone cliffs, although the great majority of passengers leave it unnoticed, is really, for its length, as fine as almost any of the dales in the higher part of the country. At Cromford there is the stately mansion of the Arkwrights, and a little beyond, on the other side of the railway, is Lea Hurst, the home of Miss Florence Nightingale, 118 THE TEA A' OF DERBYSHIRE. a name that will be gratefully enshrined in the memories of the English people, even when war shall be no more. From this spot the valley gradually broadens, still richly wooded up the heights, with fair meadows on the river banks. And so we reach Ambergate, where we re-enter the busy world, bearing with us ineffaceable memories of the beauties and the wonders of ‘ the Peak.’ LEA HURST, MISS NIGHTINGALE’S HOME. ng CHEDDAR CLIFFS. ‘ Pause, ere we enter the long craggy vale ; It seems the abode of solitude. So high The rock’s bleak summit frowns above our head. Looking immediate down, we almost fear Lest some enormous fragment should descend With hideous sweep into the vale, and crush The intruding visitant. No sound is here. Save of the stream that shrills, and now and then A cry as of faint wailing, when the kite Comes sailing o’er the crags, or straggling lamb Bleats for its mother. ’ W. L. Bowles. ON THE TEIGN, DEVON. WESTWARD HO! LMOST every place of popular resort has its ‘ season,’ when its charms are supposed to be at their highest, and the annual migration of visitors sets in. The period is not always determined by climate or calendar ; and such is the caprice of fashion, that many a lovely spot is left well-nigh solitary during the weeks of its full perfection, the crowd beginning to gather when the beauties of the place are on the wane. Tastes will undoubtedly differ as to the most favorable time to visit one or another beautiful scene ; but none, we should imagine, will dispute our opinion that the best season for travel in the west of England is in the early spring. We leave the north, with patches of snow yet on the hills, and the first leaflets struggling in vain to unfold them¬ selves on the blackened branches; or, if we hail from the metropolis, we gladly turn our backs on wind-swept streets and bleak sub¬ urban roads, to find ourselves in two or three hours speeding beneath soft sun¬ shine, between far-extending orchards, in all the loveliness of their delicate bloom, while the grass is of a richer tint, the blue sky dappled with fleecy clouds of a more exquisite purity, and instead of the slowly relaxing grasp of winter, the promise of summer already thrills the air. * The flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’ But whither shall we direct our steps? It is the perfection of comfort in travel¬ ing to have time at command. We need be in no haste to leave the apple-blossomy valleys of Somersetshire, even for the woods and cliffs of Devon ; and if the tourist 12*3 WESTWARD HO! would visit a spot which, in its own way, is unique in England, let him turn aside, as we did, soon after leaving Bristol, to a rift in the Mendip Hills, and make his way through the pass between the Cheddar Cliffs. Cut sheer through the hill, from summit to base, is an extraordinary cleft. The road which winds along the bottom of the ravine is in some places only wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass abreast. On the right hand side a perpendicular wall of rock rises to the height of THE GLASTONBURY THORN. about four hundred and thirty feet. Its surface is broken by enormous buttresses, like the towers of some Titanic castle, surmounted by spires and pinnacles, whose light, airy grace contrasts finely with the massive walls on which they rest. Down the face of the cliff long festoons of ivy and creeping plants wave to and fro. The scanty soil on the ledges and in the fissures is bright with wild flowers. The yew and mountain ash, dwarfed into mere shrubs, seen to cling with a precarious foothold to the face of the rock. Far above us innumerable jackdaws and crows chatter noisily, and hawks, with which the district abounds, soar across the narrow I2d WESTWARD HO! strip of sky overhead. The opposite side of the ravine is less precipitous, though even here it is steep enough to task the energies of the climber, and grand masses of GLASTONBURY ABBEY. rock stand out from the hill-side. Conspicuous amongst these is the Lion Rock, so" called from its extraordinary resemblance to a crouching lion. This district abounds in caverns, many of them of great extent and beauty, which will well repay a visit. 125 WESTWARD HO! Local tradition affirms that one reaches as far as Wookey Hole, a distance of ten miles. The devoted and self-denying efforts of Mrs. Hannah More must not be for¬ gotten in connection with Cheddar. Barley Wood, her residence, is but a few miles distant ; and from this spot she issued those religious tracts in which she became the chief pioneer in the work that has now grown into such goodly dimensions. From Cheddar the traveler may either continue his journey by way of Wells, or may return at once to the main line, passing near the coast of the Bristol VILLAGE IN THE QUANTOCKS. Channel, with a wide alluvial plain at his left, once covered by an arm of the sea, with islands, as Brent Tor and others, emerging from the waters, and reaching as far as Glastonbury or Avalon—' apple island,’ famed in legend and song. A little farther, and the marshy plain of the Parret stretches away in one direction to Sedgemoor, scene of the ‘last battle fought on English ground ,’ 1 that in which the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth suffered irretrievable defeat, and in another to Athelney, the place of King Alfred’s retreat and noble rally’ against the Danes. In memory of the stories that charmed our childhood, we could do no otherwise than 1 Macaulay The date was July 6, 16S5. 126 WESTWARD HO! take the branch line at Durston, whence a few minutes run peaces us in the marsny, unpicturesque scene so memorable in English story. The whole neighborhood was •evidently once covered with woods and morasses ; good drainage has made it fertile now, but it must be confessed that it must depend for all its attractiveness on its associations. On or near the traditional site of the ‘ neat-herd’s cottage,’ an unpre¬ tending stone pillar, with a lengthy inscription, preserves the memory of Alfred’s sojourn. Resuming the journey westward, we soon discern the towers of the Taunton churches, and may find a welcome night’s rest in this bright and pretty town ; or, turning again off the main line, may pass northwest, by a route full of interest, to the Quantock Hills. On our way we pass Combe Florey, famous as the residence for a time of Sydney Smith, and as the scene of some of the most characteristic stories of his life. But we must not linger in the valley: at every point the wooded ALFOXDEN, WITH WORDSWORTH’S HOUSE. hill-slopes tempt us to climb upwards among shady groves of beech, over turf thick with primroses and bluebells, then out upon the furzy heights. It hardly matters which path we take—whether up Cothelstone, whence the view is perhaps most magnificent, or Will’s Neck, highest point of all, or Hurley Beacon. From hill-top to hill-top we make our way, descending into mossy glens, where the hill stream trickles down in miniature waterfalls, or striking down some deep wooded combe, where the houses of a village nestle among the trees, and the spacious church tells of a time when the inhabitants far outnumbered the present scanty population. In the valley below, to the northeast, we descry the village of Nether Stowey, for some time the residence of Coleridge, and farther to the north, at the foot of one of the loveliest of wooded combes, is Alfoxden, which was at the same time the home of Wordsworth. The two friends have told us how they used to meet and discuss high themes in many a charming stroll, their neighbors much wondering the while, 127 WESTWARD HO! and the government of the day suspecting their advanced opinions. The end was that they had to leave, not before they had made imperishable record of the beauties of the place. Thus Wordsworth writes to Coleridge, in The Prelude ; ‘ Beloved Friend ! When looking back, thou seest in clearer view Than any liveliest sights of yesterday That summer, under whose indulgent skies, Upon smooth Quantock’s airy ridge we roved Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combes : Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart, Didst chaunt the vision of that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes Didst utter of the Lady Christabel.’ The work here accomplished by these poets in their early days, it is not too much to say, has given a new direction to poetic thought. In the Lyrical Ballads, MINEHEAD. here devised and mainly written, a bold attempt was made to leave all beaten tracks and accepted conventionalisms, and to combine with the imagination of the poet simplicity and absolute sincerity. Coleridge, as he fells us in his Biographia Lite- raria , took as his task the exhibition of the supernatural, associated with human interest and emotion, and wrote The Ancient Mariner. Wordsworth undertook to set forth the harmony of the homeliest scenes and experiences of life with high and ennobling thought; hence, in different keys, his poems of We are Seven , Lucy Gray , and the Lines above Tintern Abbey. We shall have to speak of Wordsworth here¬ after in connection with his own beloved Lakeland, but here in Somersetshire we trace the bright dawning of his genius, and visit Alfoxden and Nether Stowey, with due reverence, as the birthplace of modern English poetry. Coleridge, in a note to The Ancient Mariner , says, * It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with Wordsworth and his sister, in the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned and in part composed.’ 128 AT LYNMOUTH WESTWARD HO! The great hilly range to the west, in full view across the valley from the Quan- tocks, is an outlying rampart of Exmoor; and the brown peak in the distance is Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Somersetshire. Our road leads between these heights and the sea, by Dunster, with its great ivied castle overhanging the quaint, feudal-looking little town, and Minehead, a cheerful, unpretending watering- place, to Porlock, where the ascent of what the country people call a ‘ terrible long hill,’ by a zigzag moorland road, leads to a height from which, on looking back, we have a prospect of surpassing grandeur. Let us gaze our fill : if the day be fine, and the atmosphere clear, we shall see nothing nobler in the west of England. To the south the huge masses of Dunkery, brown with heather, rise from a foreground of woods and glens ; below, to the east, lies a fair valley, surrounded with hills of every picturesque variety in form, prominent among which is the rugged side of Bossington Beacon. Toward the southeast, heights on heights arise, some richly wooded, others majestic in their bareness; while to the north and northeast stretches the Bristol Channel, with the Welsh mountains dimly seen beyond. Then we go southwards over a reach of wild moorland, and come upon the indescribable loveliness of Lynmouth and Lynton. At some distance from any railway, accessible only by long walking or driving over hilly roads, or by small boats from steamers on their way up and down the Channel, this fair spot can never attract the crowd ; but those who have wandered by its streams, or climbed its he ights, are singularly unanimous in pronouncing it the most enchanting spot in England. Lynmouth is in the valley, on the shore ; Lynton on the height, four hundred feet above. The name is derived from the lyns, or torrents, which descend separately, each through a wooded gorge or combe, until they meet beside the sea. Great mossy rocks everywhere break the course of the torrents, and the luxuriant foliage which lines the banks, the ferns and flowers, with the overhang-ino- trees, combine to make a succession of perfect pictures. The traveler will, of course, go up Lyndale, the valley of the East Lyn, as far as Watersmeet, and will not omit to explore the quieter, more luxuriant, though less magnificent West Lyn. He will climb to the summit of Lyn Cliff, and will survey at ease the prospect from the summer-house ; and will not omit the extraordinary Valley of Rocks, reached by a grand walk along the face of the cliff which overhangs the sea to the west of Lynton. At a break in this path he suddenly comes to a gigantic gateway, formed of two rocky pyramids, and enters upon a scene which, to his first view, appears strewn with the fragments of some earlier world. ‘ Imagine,’ says Southey, ‘a narrow vale between two ridges of hills, somewhat steep : the southern hill turfed ; the vale, which runs from east to west, covered with huge stones, and fragments of stone among the fern that fills it; the northern ridge completely bare, excoriated of all turf and all soil, the very bones and skeleton of the earth ; rock reclining upon rock, stone piled upon stone, a huge, terrific mass. A palace of the pre-historic kings, a city of the Anakim, must have appeared so shapeless, and yet so like the ruins of what had been shaped after the waters of the flood subsided. ... I never felt the sublimity of solitude before.’ The drive from Lynton to Barnstaple, though not long, being, we believe, somewhat under twenty miles, brought to us a crowd of half-forgotten associations of early days when coach traveling was the chief means of locomotion. The coach itself was of the old build, spick and span in its neatness; the coachman was of old- WESTWARD HO! fashioned ways; the four sleek horses were no mere omnibus hacks, but, as they warmed to their work up and down hill, showed a mettle akin to that of roadsters in days long ago. The villages on the way had no sign of ‘ Station ’or ‘ Station Hotel ’ about them ; children ran from the cottage doors to shout after the coach, or to bring primroses and violets to the passengers ; rustics gathered for a chat where the coachman pulled up, as he did tolerably often, for time seemed but a slight consider¬ ation in that old-world region. And all around was outspread a landscape of rich, ever-changing loveliness, ruddy in soil, rich in verdure, as at one time we descended into lanes, half-embowered by the already luxuriant hedgerows, and at another emerged upon an open moorland, swept by soft breezes from the sea, and enghdled by the hazy forms of distant hills. At length the estuary of the Taw came into view, the houses of Barnstaple appeared, the coach drove into the station yard, and we were in the world again. Another route might have b,een taken from Lynton to Ilfracombe, by way of Combe Martin, with its fine and rocky bay; but we were anxious to reach less crowded and familiar spots than the famous North Devon watering-place, though this also is in its way delightful. We must, however, see one or two farther points on the coast before striking inland again and accordingly took up our night’s quarters at Bideford, famed for the length of its bridge and the steepness of its. streets. Emerging early in the morning from the highest part of the town, we made our way to Westward Ho ! that magni¬ ficent possibility, whose stately mansions and hotels, broad quays and pier, surrounded by vessels from all parts, with its broad, level plain by the sea and noble background of wooded hills, had so often captivated us in railway-station waiting-rooms. We found it all there, except the mansions, the quays, and the ships! The bay is glorious, the plain upon the shore stretches far and wide,—to the satisfaction of golfers, for whose favorite game no spot can be better adapted l there is a great pebble ridge, a natural breakwater two miles long and fifty feet wide, composed of rounded pebbles of carboniferous ‘ grit ’ ; the background of wooded cliffs is magnificent, while a lonely pier, one commodious hotel, a bath-house on a splendid scale, some rows of villas, lodging-houses, and one or two 132 WESTWARD HO! educational establishments, give promise of the prosperity which seems only too long in coming. Returning to Bideford, we started at sunrise the next morning for Clovelly, with high expectations, and under the auspices of the British Government, as our chosen vehicle was the ‘ mail-cart,’ in the shape of a very comfortable wagonette filled with pleasant, chatty passengers, all the livelier, perhaps, from the good-humored con¬ sciousness of merit which early rising is apt to engender. The road was not particu¬ larly striking, save for glimpses of the Channel seen through the light morning haze ; the breath of spring was in the air, and when we alighted at the ‘ Hobby’ gate we were fully prepared for the three miles’ walk by which our breakfast was yet to be earned. The path, in reality a broad, well-kept drive, is carried along the face of the cliff, which shelves gradually, covered thickly with trees and brushwood, to the shore, while the bank towers above, soft with moss and beautiful with flowers. The cliff curves in and out irregularly ; broken in one or two places by deep glens, over which the road is carried by rustic bridges. Long shadows lay, that morning, across the path ; above and below, the tender, budding foliage clothed the dark branches of oak and elm, hazel and beech, in every variety of shade ; the air was musical with birds, and, stirred by the gentle morning breeze and the whisper of the boughs, blended with the distant murmur of the sea. It was a walk to be remembered. At length, at a turning of the road, Clovelly came into sight* about a mile distant—a seemingly confused heap of houses emerging on all sides from thick woodland, and slanting steeply down to a stone pier jutting out into a little bay. At the end of the Hobby walk, the summit of the village was gained, and we were soon descending its curious steep street, not without longing looks at the quaint little lodging-houses, all untenanted as yet. Clovelly is a place to linger in and to dream ! The practical need of the hour, however, was breakfast, during the preparation of which meal it was pleasant to sit in the hotel balcony, and look out upon the bay, with its lines of light and shadow, and the long outline of Lundy Island showing clear in the dis¬ tance : for now the morning mists had lifted, and the brightness of spring was over sea and land. A walk of marvelous beauty followed, into the park of Clovelly Court, over springing turf, through woodlands budding into leaf, and along a stretch of rugged wilderness, preserved, with some art, in its primitive simplicity. Thence, by a winding pathway, or up a steep grassy slope, the highest point may be reached— a noble cliff, called, from some old local story, Gallantry Bower. A little summer¬ house, nestling in the cliff-side, commands a grand range of cliffs, with their curved, contorted strata, peculiar to the carboniferous formation, while many a jutting or broken crag gives a castellated aspect to this bold rampart of the coast. Inland, the scene is full of beauties of hill and glen, in almost measureless variety ; but we could not linger to survey them all ; for our way lay in another direction, before we could feast again on the splendors of cliff and sea. Hartland Point, a little farther on, is the true ‘ Land’s End’ of Devonshire, the terminating promontory of Bideford Bay, a tongue of grassy land, not more than thirty or forty feet wide, at the summit of a tremendous precipice on either side, pointing to a similar projection on the opposite Welsh coast, like twin pillars of Hercules, 1 guarding the estuary of the Severn. It would now have been easy to visit Bude Haven, and so to travel south and 1 Ptolemy, the geographer (second century), is supposed to have referred to Hartland Point as the ‘ Promontory of Hercules.’ 133 WESTWARD HO! southwest a!ong the cliffs which fringe the Atlantic, but our present plan was to strike inland to Dartmoor. The little town of Okehampton was therefore our first destination, reached by a somewhat dull route,—whichever road may be taken,—but, when gained, most interesting. The town lies in a valley, watered by a swift, romantic river, which, at one point, sweeping round a wooded hill, crowned by the ruins of an old castle, forms as lovely a picture as anything of the kind in England. Kingsley abuses Okehampton unjustly, we think ; but, whatever may be thought of the town and its immediate neighborhood, there can be no doubt as to the wonder- ON THE DART : BERRY POMEROY CASTLE AND HARFORD BRIDGE. ful interest of the excursions that may be taken from it as a center. From the castle hill, as from other points in the town, the chief object that arrests the eye is the vast brown sweep of rising ground, suggestive of mysterious desolation beyond, which we know to be the boundary of Dartmoor. Ascending, we find ourselves at first on pleasant, breezy though treeless, heights ; but we keep to beaten paths, and pursue our onward journey. At length the moorland track over which we have passed seems to rise behind us and shut out the world ; and as we gaze around, we feel that all pictures which we had framed to ourselves of wild deserted solitudes are 134 WESTWARD HO! surpassed. ‘ Like the fragments of an earlier world,’ is again the comparison that rises to the lips. We are not unfamiliar with moorland scenery—with Rombald’s Moor, for instance, in Yorkshire, beautiful in its variety of color, from the tender green and softening grays and browns of spring, to the purple, heathery splendors of the autumn, while the song of lark and linnet overhead, or the plaintive cry of the lapwing, gives animation to the scene. But at Dartmoor is a new experience of desolation. The stupendous mass of granite which here crops up from hidden depths is coveied on its broken surface with thick peat, in which the blackened trunks of trees occasionally give evidence of a time when the range was clothed with wood, but which now, for the most part, bears only coarse grass and moss, with heather and whortleberry in the most favored localities. Broad spaces are covered by morass and bog, dangerous to DARTMOOR. the unaccustomed pedestrian. Scanty streams break from the heights, and hurry in all directions down to the valley, swollen to wild fury after a storm. 1 he ‘ tors,’ or shapeless masses of rock, which stand out from the peaty surface in all directions, are but, as it were, the jagged projections from the interior rock-skeleton. Some may be readily ascended; Yes Tor (probably East lor, pronounced Devonshire fashion) being the highest, and on many accounts the best worth climbing. 1 he prospect of the moor from this or any other commanding point can only be described as awful in its grim, monotonous, silent desolation ; the only beauty being that of swelling distant outline, or frequently that of color, when the atmosphere is clear between the frequent showers and the rays of the sun light up the heather and the moss, diversifying the dark shadows of the tors with the various hues of green, with 135 WESTWARD HO r the ruddy gleam of withered fern, and brown rushes in many a morass. But let not the traveler be too hopeful of sunshine and clear air ! For, as the local rhyme says : ‘ The south wind blows, and brings wet weather ; The north gives wet and cold together ; The west wind comes brimful of rain, The east wind drives it back again. Then, if the sun in red should set, We know the morrow must be wet; And if the eve is clad in gray, The next is sure a rainy day.’ Still, the slopes by which Dartmoor descends to the lowlands around are beauti¬ ful. In fact, the mighty granite mass is girdled by an investiture of fair glens and •smiling villages, which yield a succession of some of the brightest pictures that Eng¬ land can anywhere present in the same compass. The drive from Okehampton to Chagford, or to Moreton Hampstead, for instance, is of wonderful charm. Near the former village, the river Teign descends over rocks and bowlders in a richly wooded glen, as beautiful in parts as Dovedale. The rivers, indeed, which come down on all sides from Dartmoor, are the glory of Devonshire. Besides the Teign, there is the Dart itself, one head-stream of which rises near the well- known prison at Prince Town ; with the Taw, Tavy, Avon, Erme, Plym, and streamlets innumerable. The traveler is only embarrassed by the choice of beautiful routes. If from Moreton Hampstead he elects to cross over to the valley of the Dart, making Totnes or Ashburton his headquarters, or if he proceed by the romantic, rock-strewn upland of Lustleigh to Teignmouth or Torquay, he will find the journey full of charm. But perhaps, if the weather be bright, he may long for more bracing air than he will find amid the soft beauties of South Devon. If so, he will do well to cross Dartmoor by the coach-road, from Moreton Hampstead to Tavistock, past the big, gloomy prison, appropriately placed in the very wildest and most desolate part of the whole region. Or, as we did, pro¬ ceeding to Okehampton, he may pass along the western side of Dartmoor by way of Lidford. The railway is carried, in places at a great height, on the open edge of the moor, which it curiously fringes : it seems essentially a holiday line ; there is no burry, and the traveler, as he passes along, may leisurely survey the frowning heights above, or the fair valley below, according to his choice. Lidford station being reached, we left the train, and found ourselves in an un¬ finished-looking spot, with little outwardly to attract. Having, however, received directions how to proceed, we crossed a farmyard, where some cattle with stupen¬ dous horns looked and lowed at us in a manner trying to the nerves. Then, emerg- 136 LITTLE MIS TOR. WESTWARD HO! ing near a river bank, we made our way for less than a mile up the stream, on a grassy path beneath overhanging woods, when, at a sudden turn up a glen that opened to the main stream, the gleam of waters caught the eye, at the first glance like some tall spirit of the dell, glimmering through the foliage that enshrouded it. A more beautiful cascade is hardly to be seen in England, when Dartmoor has had an abundance of rain. At other times, they say, a friendly miller can turn on a supply of water, else thriftily economized for his needs. Happily, no such artificial arrangement was needful on the occasion of our visit ; and we remained long admir¬ ing the lovely picture. Retracing our steps, we climbed to the village, crossing on our way a common¬ place-looking bridge, of a single arch, at a dip in the road, with the sound of a great rush of waters beneath. We looked over the parapet, but could discern nothing, owing to the mass of thick shrubs and foliage which overarched the stream, and made our way up-hill to the village. Here the traveler is directed to the church¬ yard, to see a curious epitaph on a watchmaker, in which some rather obvious allu¬ sions to human life are borrowed from his craft. Students of mortuary inscrip¬ tions are thankful often for small mercies in the way of wit, and are not always careful to note where the humor de