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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, j 
 
A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE 
 
BY DR. WOLFE 
 Uniform with this volume 
 
 LITERARY SHRINES 
 
 THE HAUNTS OF SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN 
 AUTHORS 
 
 Treating descriptively and reminiscently of the 
 scenes amid which Hawthorne, Longfellow, 
 Whittier, Emerson, and many other American 
 authors lived and wrote 
 
 223 pages. Illustrated with four 
 photogravures. $1.25 
 
 A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE AND LITERARY SHRINES 
 
 Two volumes in a box, $2.50 
 
 *■*> 
 
A LITERARY 
 PILGRIMAGE 
 
 AMONG THE HAUNTS 
 OF FAMOUS BRITISH 
 AUTHORS 
 
 BY THEODORE F. WOLFE 
 M.D. Ph.D. 
 
 \ AUTHOR OF LITERARY SHRINES ETC. 
 
 
 
 ****)*% 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 PHILADELPHIA. MDCCCXCV 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 j^^te-^ 
 

 Copyright, 1895, 
 
 BY 
 
 Theodore F. Wolfe. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 'T^HE favor with which a few articles in the 
 periodical press, similar to those herewith 
 presented, have been received induces the hope 
 that the present volume may prove acceptable. 
 If some popular literary shrines which are 
 inevitably included in the writer's personal 
 itinerary are herein accorded but scant notice, 
 it is for the reason that they have been already 
 so oft described that portrayal of them is 
 therefore purposely omitted from this account 
 of a literary pilgrimage : even Stratford-on- 
 Avon here for once escapes description. How- 
 ever, the initial paragraphs of these chapters 
 lightly outline a series of literary rambles which 
 the writer has found measurably complete and 
 consecutive. The pilgrim is understood to make 
 his start from London. 
 
 If these notes of his sojourns in the scenes 
 hallowed by the presence of British authors or 
 embalmed in their books shall prove pleasantly 
 reminiscent to some who have fared to the same 
 
Preface 
 
 shrines, or helpfully suggestive to others who 
 contemplate such pilgrimage, then 
 
 " not in vain 
 He wore his sandal shoon and scallop-shell." 
 
 The writer is indebted to the publishers of the 
 Home Journal for permission to reproduce one 
 or two articles which have appeared in that 
 periodical. 
 
 T. F. W. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Literary Hampstead and Highgate. 
 Haunt of Dickens— Steele-Pope— Keats-Baillie-yohnson 
 — Hunt- Akensi de-Shelley -Hogarth— Addison-Rich- 
 ardson— Gay-Besant-Du Maurier-Coleridge t etc. 
 —Grave of George Eliot 13 
 
 By Southwark and Thames-Side to Chel- 
 sea. 
 Chaucer - Shakespeare - Dickens -Walpole-Pepys- Eliot- 
 Rossetti - Carlyle - Hunt- Gay-Smollett - Kingsley— 
 Herbert — Dor set- Addison - Shaftesbury-Locke—Bo- 
 lingbroke-Pope-Richardson y etc. 24 
 
 The Scene of Gray's Elegy. 
 The Country Church- Yard- Tomb of Gray— Stoke- Pogis 
 Church-Reverie and Reminiscence-Scenes of Mil- 
 ton-Waller-Porter-Coke-Denham 39 
 
 DlCKENSLAND *. Gad's HlLL AND ABOUT. 
 
 Chaucer 1 s Pilgrims -Falstaff -Dickens* s Abode —Study — 
 Grounds-Walks-Neighbors-Guests-Scenes of Tales 
 -Cobham — Rochester - Pip's Church- Yard - Satis 
 House, etc. 49 
 
 7 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Some Haunts of Byron. 
 
 Birthplace-London Homes-Murray' s Book-Store-Kensal 
 Green- Harrow-Byron 1 s Tomb-H'ts Diadem Hill- 
 Abode of his Star of Annesley-P or traits-Mementos 6a 
 
 The Home of Childe Harold. 
 Newstead- Byron' s Apartments— Relics and Reminders- 
 Ghosts -Ruins -The Toung Oak -Dog's Tomb — 
 Devil's Wood— Irving — Livingstone — Stanley — 
 Joaquin Miller 80 
 
 Warwickshire : the Loamshire of George 
 Eliot. 
 
 Miss Mulock- Butler -Somervile- Dyer-Rugby -Homes 
 of George Eliot-Scenes of Tales- Cheverel-Shepper- 
 ton-Milly' s Grave - Paddiford-Milby- Coventry , 
 etc. -Characters-Incidents 91 
 
 Yorkshire Shrines : Dotheboys Hall and 
 
 ROKEBY. 
 
 Village of Boives-Dickens-Squeers' s School-Tke Master 
 
 and his Family-Haunt of Scott 106 
 
 Sterne's Sweet Retirement. 
 Sutton - Crazy Castle - Torick's Church - Parsonage - 
 Where Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental 
 Journey were ivritten-Reminiscences-Netuburgk 
 Hall- Where Sterne died-Sepulchre Ill 
 
 Haworth and the Brontes. 
 The Village-Black Bull Inn-Church-Vicar age-Mem- 
 ory -haunted Rooms - Bronte Tomb- Moors-Bronte 
 8 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Cascade- Wuthering Heights - Humble Friends - 
 Relic and Recollection 1 21 
 
 Early Haunts or Robert Collyer : Eugene 
 
 Aram. 
 
 Childhood Home-Ilkley Scenes, Friends, Smithy , Chapel- 
 
 Bolton -Associations -Wordsworth -Rogers— Eliot - 
 
 Turner - Aram's Homes — Schools — Place of the 
 
 Murder-Gibbet-Probable Innocence 136 
 
 Home or Sydney Smith. 
 Heslington—Foston, Twelve Miles from a Lemon— 
 Church-Rector'' s Head-Study- Room-of-all-ivori— 
 Grounds - Guests - Universal Scratcher — Immortal 
 Chariot— Reminiscences 1 48 
 
 Nithsdale Rambles. 
 Scott— Hogg— Wordsivorth-Carlyle' s Birthplace-Homes— 
 Grave- Burns' s Haunts — Tomb— J eanie Deans- 
 Old Mortality, etc.-Annie Laurie's Birthplace- 
 Habitation— Poet-Lover-Descendants 161 
 
 A Niece of Robert Burns. 
 Her Burnsland Cottage— Reminiscences of Burns— Relics- 
 Portraits — Letters — Recitations — Account of his 
 Death-Memories of his Home— Of Bonnie yean- 
 Other Heroines t 181 
 
 Highland Mary : her Homes and Grave. 
 
 Birthplace — Personal Appearance— Relations to Burns- 
 Abodes : Mauchline, Coilsfield, etc. — Scenes of 
 Courtship and Parting-Mementos— Tomb by the 
 
 Clyde 194 
 
 9 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bronte Scenes in Brussels. 
 School— Class- Rooms - Dormitory - Garden - Scenes and 
 Events of Villette and The Professor-M. Paul- 
 Madame Beck-Memories of the Brontes-Confes- 
 sional-Grave of Jessy Yorke . 207 
 
 Leman's Shrines. 
 Beloved of Litterateurs- Gibbon-D 1 Aubign'e— Rousseau- 
 Byron— Shelley —Dickens^ etc.— Scenes of Childe 
 Harold- Nouvelle HeloYse- Prisoner of Chillon- 
 Land of Byron 226 
 
 Chateaux or Ferney and Coppet. 
 
 Voltaire's Home, Church, Study, Garden, Relics-Liter- 
 ary Court of de Stael— Mementos-Famous Rooms, 
 Guests - Schlegel— Shelley-Constant-Byron-Davy , 
 etc.-De Stairs Tomb 238 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Castle of Chillon Frontispiece. 
 
 Stoke-Pogis Church and Church- Yard 45 
 
 Newstead Abbey 81 
 
 Home of Annie Laurie 177 
 

LITERARY HAMPSTEAD AND 
 HIGHGATE 
 
 Haunt of Dickens-Bteele-Pope-Keats—Baillie— Johnson-Hunt 
 —Akenside-Shelley— Hogarth— Addison— Richardson— Gay— 
 Besant-Du Mauri er - Coleridge , etc.-Grave of George 
 Eliot. 
 
 'T'HE explorations which first brought re- 
 "** nown to the immortal Pickwick were 
 made among the uplands which border the val- 
 ley of the Thames at the north of London : the 
 illustrious creator of Pickwick loved to wander 
 in the same region through the picturesque 
 landscapes he made the scenes of many incidents 
 of his fiction, and the literary prowler of to-day 
 can hardly find a ramble more to his mind than 
 that from the former home of Dickens or George 
 Eliot by Regent's Park to Hampstead, and thence 
 through the famous heath to Highgate. The 
 way traverses storied ground and teems with his- 
 toric associations, but these are, for us, lessened 
 and subordinated by the appeal of memories of 
 the famed literati who have loved and haunted 
 this delightful region, and have imparted to it 
 the tenderest charm. The acclivity of Hamp- 
 stead has measurably resisted the encroachment 
 of London, and has deflected the railroads with 
 their disturbing tendencies, so that this old town 
 probably retains more of its ancient character 
 '3 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 than any other of the near suburbs, and some 
 of its quaint streets would scarcely be more 
 quiet if they lay a hundred miles away from the 
 metropolis. Off the highway by which we 
 ascend the hill, we find many evidences of an- 
 tiquity, old streets lined by rows of plain and 
 sedate dwellings wearing an air of dignified 
 sobriety which is not of this century, and 
 which is in grateful contrast with the pert arti- 
 ficiality of the modern fabrics of the vicinage. 
 Many old houses are draped with ivy or 
 shrouded by trees of abundant foliage; some 
 are shut in by depressing brick walls, over which 
 float the perfumes of unseen flowers. A few 
 of the older streets lie in perpetual crepuscule, 
 being vaulted by gigantic elms and limes as 
 opaque as arches of masonry. 
 
 Along the slope of Haverstock hill, where 
 our ascent begins, we find the sometime homes 
 of Percival, Stanfield, Rowland Hill, and the 
 historian Palgrave. Near by is the cottage where 
 dwelt Mrs. Barbauld, and the Roslyn House, 
 where Sheridan, Pitt, Burke, and Fox were 
 guests of Loughborough. Here, too, formerly 
 stood the mansion where Steele entertained the 
 poet of the " Dunciad," with Garth and other 
 famed wits. On the hill-side a leafy lane leads 
 out of High Street to the picturesque church 
 of the parish, whose tower is a conspicuous 
 14 
 
Baillie — Johnson — Kit-Kat Club 
 
 landmark. Within this fane we find, against 
 the wall on the right of the chancel, the beauti- 
 ful marble bust recently erected by American 
 admirers " To the Ever-living Memory" of the 
 author of " Lamia" and '* Hyperion." Here, 
 too, is the plain memorial tablet of the poetess 
 Joanna Baillie, who lived in an unpretentious 
 mansion lately standing in the neighborhood, 
 where she was visited by Wordsworth, Rogers, 
 and others of potential genius. In the thickly 
 tenanted church-yard she sleeps with her sister 
 near the graves of Incledon, Erskine, and the 
 historian Mackintosh. Below the church, on 
 the westering slope, lies embowered Frognall, 
 once the home of Gay, where Dr. Johnson 
 lived and wrote " The Vanity of Human Wishes" 
 in the house where the gifted Nichol now re- 
 sides with the author of " Ships that Pass in the 
 Night" for a neighbor and with the home of 
 Besant in view from his study. Near the sum- 
 mit of Hampstead stands a sober old edifice 
 which was of yore the Upper Flask tavern, 
 where the famous Kit-Kat Club held its summer 
 seances, when such luminous spirits as Walpole, 
 Prior, Dorset, Pope, Congreve, Swift, Steele, 
 and Addison assembled here in the low-panelled 
 rooms which we may still see, or beneath the 
 old trees of the garden, and interchanged sallies 
 of wit and fancy over their cakes and ale. To 
 *5 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 this inn Lovelace brought the " Clarissa Har- 
 lowe" of Richardson's famed romance, and here 
 Steevens, the scholiast of Shakespeare, lived and 
 died. Flask Walk, which leads out of the high 
 street among old houses and greeneries, brings 
 us to the shadowy Well Walk, with its over- 
 arching trees and with many living memories 
 masoned into its dead walls. Here we see the 
 little remnant of the once famous well which 
 for a time made Hampstead a resort for the 
 fashionable and the suffering. Among the 
 fancied invalids who once dwelt in Well Walk 
 was the spouse of Dr. Johnson. Akenside, 
 Arbuthnot, and Mrs. Barbauld (editor of " Rich- 
 ardson's Correspondence") have sometime lived 
 in this same little street; here the mother of 
 Tennyson died, and here the sweet boy-poet 
 Keats lodged and wrote " Endymion." At a 
 house still to be seen in the vicinage he was for 
 two years the guest of his friend Brown ; here 
 he wrote "Hyperion," "St. Agnes," and the 
 " Ode to a Nightingale," and here he wasted in 
 mortal illness, being at last removed to Rome 
 only to die. Under the limes of Well Walk is 
 a spot especially hallowed by the memory of 
 Keats : it was the object and limit of his walks 
 in his later months, and here was placed a seat 
 (which until lately was preserved and bore his 
 name), where he sat for hours at a time beneath 
 16 
 
Keats — The Heath 
 
 the whispering boughs, gazing, often through 
 tears, upon the enchanting vista of wave-like 
 woods and fields, the valley with its gleaming 
 lakelets, and the farther slopes crowned by the 
 spires of Highgate, which rise out of banks of 
 foliage. The view is no less beautiful than when 
 Keats' s vision lingered lovingly upon it, although 
 we must go into the open fields to behold it now. 
 If we bestir ourselves to reach the summit of 
 the heath before the accustomed pall shall have 
 settled down upon the great city, the exertion 
 will be abundantly rewarded by the prospect 
 that greets us as we overlook the abodes of eight 
 millions of souls. Such a view is possible no- 
 where else on earth ; outspread before us lies the 
 vast metropolis with its seven thousand miles of 
 streets, while without and beyond this aggrega- 
 tion of houses we behold an expanse of land- 
 scape diversified with vale and hill, copse and 
 field, village and park, extending for leagues in 
 every direction and embracing portions of seven 
 of England's populous shires. We see the great 
 dome of St. Paul's and the tall towers of West- 
 minster rising out of the mass of myriad roofs ; 
 the Crystal Palace glinting amid its green 
 terraces ; across the city we behold the verdured 
 slopes of Surrey and, farther away, the higher 
 hills of Sussex ; our eyes follow the course of 
 
 the Thames from imperial Windsor, whose 
 b 17 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 battlements are misty in the distance of the 
 western horizon, to its mouth at Gravesend; 
 yonder at the right is Harrow, set on its classic 
 hill-top, with its ancient church by which the 
 boy Byron idled and dreamed ; northward we 
 see pretty Barnet, where " Oliver Twist" 
 met the "Dodger;" nearer is romantic High- 
 gate, and all around us lie the green slopes and 
 leafy recesses of the heath. Through these 
 strode the murderer Sykes of Dickens's tale, and 
 from the higher parts of this common we may 
 trace the way of his aimless flight from the pur- 
 suing eyes of Nancy, — through Islington and 
 Highgate to Hendon and Hatfield, and thence 
 to the place of his miserable death at Rotherhithe. 
 There are hours of delightful strolling amid the 
 mazes of the picturesque heath, with its alterna- 
 tions of heath ered hills and flower-decked dales, 
 its pretty pools, its braes of brambled gorse and 
 pine, its tangle of countless paths. One will 
 not wonder that it has been the resort of littera- 
 teurs from the time of Dryden till now : Pope, 
 Goldsmith, and Johnson loved to ramble here ; 
 Hunt, Dickens, Collins, and Thackeray were fa- 
 miliar with these shady paths ; Nichol, Besant, 
 James, and Du Maurier are now to be seen among 
 the walkers on the heath. A worn path bearing 
 to the right conducts to the turf-carpeted vale 
 where, in a little cottage whose site is now oc- 
 
Leigh Hunt — Jack Straw's Castle 
 
 cupied by the inn, Leigh Hunt lived for some 
 years. Such guests as Lamb, Hazlitt, Coleridge, 
 Hood, and Cornwall came to this humble home, 
 and here Shelley lovingly tended his dying 
 " Adonais," Keats. Not far away lie the ponds 
 of Pickwick's unwearied researches ; and in 
 another corner of the common we find an 
 ancient tavern bowered with shrubbery, in 
 whose garden Addison and Steele oft sipped 
 their ale of a summer evening, and where is still 
 cherished a portion of a tree planted by Hogarth. 
 On an elevation of the heath stands "Jack 
 Straw's Castle," believed to mark the place of 
 encampment of that rebel chieftain with his 
 mob of peasantry. It is a curious old structure, 
 with wainscoted walls, and was especially favored 
 by Dickens, who often dined here with Maclise 
 and Forster and read to them his MSS. or 
 counselled with them concerning his plots. 
 Out on the heath near by was found the corpse 
 of Sadlier the speculator, who, after bankrupting 
 thousand's of confiding dupes, committed suicide 
 here; his career suggested to Dickens the 
 Merdle and his complaint of ** Little Dorrit." 
 Among the embowered dwellings beyond West 
 Heath we find that in which Chatham was 
 self-immured, the cottage in which Mrs. Coven- 
 try Patmore — the Angel in the House — died, 
 the place where Crabbe sojourned with Hoare. 
 19 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 This vicinage has been the delight of artists from 
 the time of Gainsborough, and is still a favorite 
 sketching ground : here lived Collins and Blake, 
 and Constable dwelt not far away. The author 
 of " Trilby," who has recently taken front rank 
 in the literary profession, has long had home 
 and studio in a picturesque ivy-grown brick 
 mansion of many angles and turrets, in a quiet 
 street upon the other side of the hill ; here 
 among his treasures of art he is engaged upon a 
 third book soon to be published. 
 
 The highway which leads north from Jack 
 Straw's affords an exhilarating walk, with a 
 superb prospect upon either hand, and brings 
 us to the historic Spaniard's Inn, a pleasant 
 wayside resort decked with vines and flowers, 
 where pedestrians stop for refreshments. Dick- 
 ens oft came to this place, and here we see the 
 shady garden, with its tables and seats, where 
 Mrs. Bardell held with her cronies the mild 
 revel which was interrupted by the arrest of the 
 widow for the costs in Bardell vs. Pickwick. 
 The quiet of this ancient inn was disturbed one 
 night by a fierce band of Gordon rioters, who 
 rushed up the paths of the heath on their way 
 to Mansfield's house, and stopped here to drink 
 or destroy the contents of the inn-cellars, — an 
 occurrence which is graphically described by 
 Dickens in the looting of the Maypole Inn of 
 
The Spaniard's — Home of Coleridge 
 
 Willet, in " Barnaby Rudge." Next to the 
 Spaniard's once lived Erskine, and among the 
 grand beeches of Caen Wood we see the house 
 of Mansfield, where the daughter of Mary- 
 Montagu was mistress, and where illustrious 
 guests like Pope, Southey, and Coleridge were 
 entertained. 
 
 A farther walk through the noble wood 
 brings us to the delightful suburb of Highgate, 
 where we now vainly seek the Arundel House 
 where the great Bacon died and find only the 
 site of the simple cottage where Marvell, the 
 " British Aristides," lived and wrote. The last 
 home of the author of '* Ancient Mariner" is 
 in a row of pleasant houses on a shady street 
 called The Grove, a little way from the high 
 street, which was in Coleridge's time the great 
 Northern coach-road from London. The house 
 is a neat brick structure of two stories, in which 
 we may see the room where the poet lodged 
 and where he breathed out his melancholy life. 
 A pretty little patch of turf is in front of the 
 dwelling, a larger garden, beloved by the poet, 
 is at the back, and the trees which border the 
 foot-walk were planted in his lifetime. To this 
 cosy refuge he came to reside with his friends 
 the Gilmans ; here he was visited by Hunt, who 
 once lodged in the next street, Lamb, Hazlitt, 
 Wordsworth, Shelley, De guincey, and others 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of like fame ; and here, for nineteen years, 
 "afflicted with manifold infirmities," he con- 
 tinued \he struggle against a baneful habit, which 
 ended only with his life. His grave was made 
 not far away, in a portion of the church-yard 
 which has since been overbuilt by a school, 
 among whose crypt-like under-arches we find 
 the tomb of stone, lying in pathetic and perpet- 
 ual twilight, where the poet sleeps well without 
 the lethean drug which ruined his life. On this 
 hill lived " Copperfield" with Dora, and at its 
 foot is the stone where Whittington sat and 
 heard the bells recall him to London. 
 
 On the slope toward the city is the most 
 beautiful of the London cemeteries, with a 
 wealth of verdure and bloom. Within its 
 hallowed shades lie the ashes of many whose 
 memories are more fragrant than the flowers 
 that deck their graves. In a beautiful spot 
 which was beloved by the sweet singer in life 
 we find the tomb of Parepa Rosa, tended by 
 loving hands ; not far away, among the mourn- 
 ing cypresses, lie Lyndhurst and the great Fara- 
 day. A plain tombstone erected by Dickens 
 marks the sepulchre of his parents, and by it 
 lies his daughter Dora, her gravestone bearing 
 now, besides her simple epitaph prepared by 
 her father, the name of the novelist himself and 
 the names of two of his sons. Here, too, is 
 
Grave of George Eliot 
 
 the grave of Rossetti's young wife, whence his 
 famous poems were exhumed. Among the many 
 tombs of the enclosure, the one to which most 
 pilgrims come is that of the immortal author of 
 " Romola." On a verdant slope we find the 
 spot where, upon a cold and stormy day which 
 tested the affection of her friends, the mortal 
 part of George Eliot was covered with flowers 
 and lovingly laid beside the husband of her 
 youth. Wreaths of flowers conceal the mound, 
 and out of it rises a monument of gray granite 
 bearing her name and years and the lines 
 
 " Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In minds made better by their presence." 
 
 From the terraces above her bed we look over 
 the busy metropolis, astir with its myriad pulses 
 of life and passion, while its rumble and din 
 sound in our ears in a murmurous monotone. 
 As we linger amid the lengthening shadows until 
 the sunset glory fades out of the sky above the 
 heath and the lights of London gleam mistily 
 through the smoke, we rejoice that we find the 
 tomb of George Eliot, not in the aisles of 
 Westminster, where some would have laid her, 
 but in this open place, where the winds sigh a 
 requiem through the swaying boughs, the birds 
 swirl and twitter in the free azure above, and the 
 silent stars nightly watch over her grave. 
 *3 
 
BY SOUTHWARK AND 
 THAMES-SIDE TO CHELSEA 
 
 Chaucer - Shakespeare - Dickens - JValpole - Pepys - Eliot - 
 Rossetti - Carlyle - Hunt - Gay - Smollett - Kingsley - 
 Herbert - Dorset - Addison - Shaftesbury - Locke - Bo- 
 lingbroke — Pope — Richardson, etc. 
 
 TF our way to Southwark be that of the pil- 
 grims of Chaucer's time, by the London 
 Bridge, we have on our right the dark reach of 
 river where Lizzie Hexam was discovered in the 
 opening of " Our Mutual Friend," rowing the 
 boat of the bird of prey ; on the right, too, we 
 see the Iron Bridge where '* Little Dorrit" dis- 
 missed young Chivery ; and a few steps bring 
 us to a scene of another of Dickens's romances, 
 the landing-stairs at the end of London Bridge, 
 where Nancy had the interview with " Oliver 
 Twist's" friends which cost the outcast her life. 
 Here, too, the boy Dickens used to await ad- 
 mission to the Marshalsea, often in company 
 with the little servant of his father's family who 
 figures in his fiction as the <f orfling" of the Mi- 
 cawber household and the " Marchioness" of 
 the Brass establishment in Bevis Marks. In the 
 adjacent church of St. Saviour, part of which 
 was standing when the Father of English poetry 
 sojourned in the near Tabard inn, is the effigied 
 tomb of the poet Gower, a friend of Chaucer ; 
 *4 
 
The Tabard — White Hart — Marshalsea 
 
 here also lie buried Shakespeare's brother Ed- 
 mund, an actor ; Fletcher the dramatist, who 
 lived close by ; and Lawrence Fletcher, copar- 
 cener of Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre, 
 which stood near at hand, on a portion of the 
 site of the brewery which Dr. Johnson, ex- 
 ecutor of his friend Thrale, sold to Barclay and 
 Perkins. The extensions of this establishment 
 now cover the site of a church where Baxter 
 preached, and the sepulchre of Cruden, author 
 of the " Concordance." In near-by Zoar Street, 
 Bunyan preached in a large chapel near the Fal- 
 con tavern, which was a resort of Shakespeare. 
 Of the Tabard inn, whence Chaucer's Canter- 
 bury company set out, the pilgrim of to-day finds 
 naught save the name on the sign of the new tavern 
 which marks its site on Borough High Street ; 
 and the picturesque White Hart, which stood 
 near by — an inn known to Shakespeare and men- 
 tioned in his dramas — where Jingle of " Pick- 
 wick," eloping with Miss Wardle, was over- 
 taken and Sam Weller discovered, was not long 
 ago degraded into a vulgar dram-shop. Near St. 
 Thomas's Church in this neighborhood for- 
 merly stood the hospital in which Akenside was 
 physician and Keats a student. A little farther 
 along the High Street we come to a passage at 
 the left leading into a paved yard which was the 
 court of the Marshalsea, and the high wall at 
 *5 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the right is believed to have been a part of the 
 old prison where Dickens's father was confined 
 in the rooms which the novelist assigns to Wil- 
 liam Dorrit, and where " Little Dorrit" was 
 born and reared. In this court the Dickens 
 children played, and under yonder pump by the 
 wall Pancks cooled his head on a memorable 
 occasion. Just beyond is St. George's Church, 
 where " Little Dorrit" was baptized and mar- 
 ried, with its vestry where she once slept with 
 the register under her head; adjoining is the 
 church-yard, once overlooked by the prison- 
 windows of Dickens and Dorrit, where the dis- 
 consolate young Chivery expected to be un- 
 timely laid under a lugubrious epitaph. Another 
 block brings us to dingy Lant Street — " out of 
 Hight Street, right side the way" — where the boy 
 Dickens lived in the back attic of the same 
 shabby house in which Bob Sawyer afterward 
 lodged and gave the party to Pickwick. Be- 
 yond the next turning stood King's Bench 
 Prison, where Micawber was incarcerated by his 
 stony-hearted creditors, and beyond this again 
 we come to the tabernacle where Spurgeon 
 preached. Turning at the site of Micawber's 
 prison, the Borough Road conducts us, by the 
 sponging-house where Hook was confined, to 
 the Christ Church of Newman Hall, — successor 
 to Rowland Hill : it is a beautiful edifice, erected 
 26 
 
Thames-Side — Shop of Jenny Wren 
 
 largely by contributions from America, its hand- 
 some tower being designed as a monument to 
 Abraham Lincoln and marked by a memorial 
 tablet. A little way southward, we find among 
 the buildings of Lambeth Palace the library of 
 which Green, the historian of the " English 
 People," was long custodian, and the ancient 
 room where Essex and the poet Lovelace were 
 imprisoned. 
 
 Recrossing Father Thames and passing the 
 oft-described shrines of Westminster we come to 
 Millbank, the region into which Copperfield 
 and Peggotty followed the wretched Martha 
 and saved her from suicide. Out of Millbank 
 Street, a few steps by a little thoroughfare 
 bring us into the somnolent Smith Square in 
 which stands the grotesque church of St. John, 
 where Churchill once preached, — described in 
 " Our Mutual Friend" as a " very hideous 
 church with four towers, resembling some petri- 
 fied monster on its back with its legs in the air." 
 To this place came Charley Hexam and his 
 school-master and Wrayburn, for here in front 
 of the church, at a house near the corner, Lizzie 
 Hexam — the best of all Dickens's women — 
 lodged with Jenny Wren. It was a little house 
 of two stories, and its dingy front room — the 
 shop of the dolls' dress-maker — later was used 
 as a cheap restaurant, where we once regaled 
 27 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 ourselves with a dish of equivocal tea while we 
 looked about us and recognized the half-door 
 across which Wrayburn indolently leaned as he 
 chatted with Lizzie, the seat in front of the wide 
 window where Jenny sat at her work with her 
 crutch leaning against the wall, the corner to 
 which she consigned her " bad old child" in his 
 drunken disgrace, the stairs which led to 
 Lizzie's chamber, — objects all noted by the ob- 
 servant glance of Dickens as he peered for a 
 moment through the door-way. Sauntering 
 southward by Grosvenor Road, where Lizzie 
 walked with her brother and Headstone, we 
 have beside us on the left the river, glinting and 
 shimmering in the morning sunlight and alive 
 with every sort of craft that plies for trade or 
 pleasure. It was along these curving reaches of 
 the Thames that the merry parties of the olden 
 time, destined like ourselves to Chelsea, used to 
 row over the miles that then intervened between 
 London and the ancient village, and here, too, 
 Franklin, then a printer in Bartholomew Close, 
 once swam the entire distance from Chelsea to 
 Blackfriars Bridge. The way along which we 
 are strolling then lay in the open country, with 
 leafy lanes leading aside among groves and sun- 
 flecked fields. But woods and fields have dis- 
 appeared under compact masses of brick and 
 mortar, and the quaint old suburb is linked to 
 28 
 
Old Chelsea— Walpole 
 
 the city by continuous streets and structures. 
 Contact has not altogether destroyed the dis- 
 tinctive features of the ancient suburb, and we 
 know when our walk has brought us to its bor- 
 ders. Few of its thoroughfares retain the 
 dreamful quiet of the olden time, few of its rows 
 of sombre and dignified dwellings have wholly 
 escaped the modern eruption of ornate and 
 staring architecture ; the old and the new are 
 curiously blended, but enough of the former 
 remains to remind us that Chelsea is olden and 
 not modern, and to revive for us the winsome 
 associations with which the place is permeated. 
 The suggestion of worshipful antiquity is seen 
 in sedate, ivy entwined mansions of dusky-hued 
 brick, in carefully kept old trees which in their 
 saplinghood knew Pepys, Johnson, or Smollett, 
 in quaint inns whose homely comforts were en- 
 joyed by illustrious habitues in the long ago. 
 
 Our stroll beyond the Grosvenor Road brings 
 us to the famous " Chelsea Physick Garden," 
 presented to the Apothecaries' Society by Sloane, 
 the founder of the British Museum, who was 
 a medical student here; it was to this garden 
 that Polyphilus of the " Rambler" was going to 
 see a new plant in flower when he was diverted 
 by meeting the chancellor's coach. At the 
 adjoining hospital dwelt the gifted Mrs. Somer- 
 ville, whose husband was a physician there; 
 29 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 and the ancient mansion of dingy brick, in 
 which Walpole lived, and where Pope, Swift, 
 Gay, and Mary Wortley Montagu were guests, 
 is a portion of the infirmary, — the great draw- 
 ing-room in which the brilliant company met 
 being a hospital ward. A little way northward, 
 by Sloane Street, we come to Hans Place, where, 
 at No. 25, the sweet poetess Letitia Landon 
 (" L. E. L.") was born in a tiny two-storied 
 house ; she attended school in a similar house of 
 the same row, where Miss Mitford and the 
 authoress of " Glenarvon" had before been 
 pupils. Along the river again we find beyond 
 the hospital a passage leading to the place of 
 Paradise Row, where, in a little brick house, 
 the witching Mancini was visited by Charles 
 II. and poetized by the brilliant Evremond. 
 Here, at the corner of Robinson's Lane, Pepys 
 visited Robarte in " the prettiest contrived 
 house" the diarist ever saw ; not far away a 
 comfortable old inn occupies the site of the 
 dwelling of the historian Faulkner, in the 
 neighborhood where the essayist Mary Astell 
 — ridiculed by Swift, Addison, Steele, Smollett, 
 and Congreve — had her modest home. Robert 
 Walpole's later residence stood near Queen's 
 Road West, and its grounds sloped to the river 
 just below the Swan Tavern, near the bottom 
 of the lane now called Swan Walk. It was at 
 30 
 
Homes of George Eliot and Rossetti 
 
 this river inn that Pepys " got affright" on being 
 told of an eruption of the plague in Chelsea. 
 
 For a half-mile or so westward from the Swan, 
 picturesque Cheyne Walk — beloved of the liter- 
 ati — stretches along the river-bank. Its many 
 old houses, with their solemn-visaged fronts 
 overlooking the river, their iron railings, dusky 
 walls, tiled roofs, and curious dormer-windows, 
 are impressive survivors of a past age. At No. 
 4, a substantial brick house of four stories, with 
 battlemented roof and with oaken carvings in 
 the rooms, are preserved some relics of George 
 Eliot, for this was her last home, and here she 
 breathed out her life in the same room where 
 Maclise, friend of Carlyle and Dickens, had 
 died just a decade before. No. 16, a spacious 
 dwelling with curved front and finely wrought 
 iron railing and gate-way, was the home of Ros- 
 setti for the twenty years preceding his death. 
 With these panelled rooms, which he filled with 
 quaint and beautiful objects of art, are asso- 
 ciated most of the memories of the gifted poet 
 and painter. The large lower room was his 
 studio, where one of his last occupations was 
 painting a replica of ** Beata Beatrix," the por- 
 trait of his wife, whose tragic death darkened 
 his life. Around the fireplace in this room a 
 brilliant company held the nightly seances which 
 a participant styles feasts of the gods. Through 
 3* 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the passage at the side the famous zebu was 
 conveyed, and reconveyed after his assault upon 
 the poet in the garden. The rooms above were 
 sometime tenanted by Meredith, Swinburne, 
 and Rossetti's brother and biographer, who was 
 also Whitman's editor and advocate. Later, 
 the essayist Watts, to whom Rossetti dedicated 
 his greatest work, resided here to cherish his 
 friend. The garden, where Rossetti kept his 
 odd pets and where neighbors remember to 
 have seen him walking in paint-bedaubed attire 
 for hours together, is now mostly covered by a 
 school. At first, many luminaries of letters and art 
 came to him here, — Jones, Millais, Hunt, Gosse, 
 Browning, Whistler, Morris, Oliver Madox 
 Brown, whose death elicited Rossetti's " Un- 
 timely Lost," and others like them ; later, when 
 baneful narcotics had sadly changed his tempera- 
 ment, he dwelt in seclusion, exercising only in 
 his garden and seeing such devoted friends as 
 Watts, Knight, Hake, " The Manxman" Hall 
 Caine, and the gifted sister, author of " Goblin 
 Market," etc., who was pictured by Rossetti in 
 his " Girlhood of Mary Virgin," and who 
 lately died. In his study here he produced his 
 best work ; here he revised the poems exhumed 
 from his wife's grave and wrote " The Stream's 
 Secret" and other parts of the volume which 
 made his fame and occasioned the battle between 
 32 
 
Carlyle's House — Smollett — Gay 
 
 the bards Buchanan and Swinburne ; here he 
 wrote the magnificent " Rose Mary," M White 
 Ship," etc., and completed the series of sonnets 
 which has been pronounced " in its class the 
 greatest gift poetry has received since Shake- 
 speare." 
 
 No. 1 8 was the famous coffee-house and bar- 
 ber-shop of Sloane's servant Salter, — called " Don 
 Saltero" by Gay, Evremond, Steele, Smollett, 
 and the other wits who frequented his place. 
 On the Embankment by this Cheyne Walk we 
 find the statue of Carlyle ; behind it is the dull 
 little lane of Cheyne Row, whose quiet Carlyle 
 thought " hardly inferior to Craigenputtock," 
 and here at No. 5, later 24, a plain three-storied 
 house of sullied brick, — even more dingy than 
 its neighbors, — the pessimistic sage lived, wrote, 
 and scolded for half a century. All the wain- 
 scoted rooms are bare and cheerless, but the 
 memory-haunted study seems most depressing as 
 we stand at Carlyle's hearth-stone and look upon 
 the spot where he sat to write his many books. 
 The garden was a pleasanter place, with bright 
 flowers his wife planted, and the tree under 
 which he loved to smoke and chat. Here 
 Tennyson lounged with him, devoted to a long 
 pipe and longer discourse ; here Froude oft 
 found him on the daily visits which enabled 
 him to picture the seer, " warts and all ;" here 
 c 33 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Dickens, Maclise, and Hunt saw him at his best, 
 and here the latter wrote "Jenny Kissed Me," 
 — Jenny being Mrs. Carlyle. To Carlyle in 
 this sombre home came Emerson, Ruskin, Tyn- 
 dal, and a host of friends and disciples from all 
 lands, and hither will come an endless proces- 
 sion of admirers, for it is planned to restore 
 Carlyle's belongings to these rooms and preserve 
 the place as a memorial of the stern philosopher. 
 Around the corner Hunt lived, in the curious 
 little house Carlyle described, and here he 
 studied and wrote in the upper front room. On 
 the next block of the same street stood the 
 home of Smollett, which was removed the year 
 that Carlyle came to dwell in the vicinage. It 
 was a spacious mansion which had been the 
 Lawrence manor-house. Smollett wrote here 
 " Count Fathom," " Clinker," and " Launcelot 
 Greaves," and finished Hume's " England." 
 Here Garrick, Johnson, Sterne, and other starry 
 spirits were his guests, and here later lived the 
 poet Gay and wrote " The Shepherd's Week," 
 " Rural Sports," and part of his comedies. In 
 the cellars of some of the houses at the top of 
 Lawrence Street may be seen remains of the 
 ovens of the once famous Chelsea china-factory, 
 where Dr. Johnson wrought for some time vainly 
 trying to master the art of china-making, — his 
 pieces always cracking in the oven : a service of 
 34 
 
Kingsley — Herbert — Dorset 
 
 china "presented to him by the factorymen here 
 was preserved in Holland House. A taste- 
 ful Queen Anne mansion with beautiful interior 
 decorations, not far from the Carlyle house, was 
 a domicile of the poet and aesthete Oscar Wilde. 
 In the picturesque rectory of St. Luke's, a few 
 rods north from Cheyne Row, the author of 
 " Hypatia" and his scarcely less famed brother 
 Henry, of " Ravenshoe," lived as boys, their 
 father being the incumbent of the parish. 
 Henry Kingsley presents, in his " Hillyars and 
 Burtons," charming sketches of Chelsea as it 
 existed in his boyhood. Overlooking the river 
 at the foot of the adjoining street, we find Chel- 
 sea Church, one of the most curious and inter- 
 esting of London's many fanes, albeit partially 
 disfigured by modern changes. In its pulpit 
 Donne, the poet-divine, preached at the funeral 
 of the mother of George Herbert ; at its altar 
 the dramatist Colman was married. Among its 
 many monuments we find the mural tablet of 
 Sir Thomas More, a marble slab with an in- 
 scription by himself which formerly described 
 him as " harassing to thieves, murderers, and 
 heretics." Here lie the ancestors of the poet 
 Sidney, and in the little church-yard are the 
 graves of Shadwell the laureate, who died just 
 back of the church, of the publisher of "Ju- 
 nius," and of a brother of Fielding. Leading 
 35 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 back from the river here is Church Street, on 
 which dwelt Swift, Atterbury, and Arbuthnot, 
 while Steele had a little house near by. The 
 next street is named for Sir John Danvers, whose 
 house was at the top of the little street : his 
 wife was the mother of the poet Herbert, who 
 dwelt here for a time and wrote some of his 
 earlier poems ; Donne and the amiable angler 
 Izaak Walton were frequent guests of Herbert's 
 mother in this place. The adjacent street marks 
 the place of Beaufort House, the palatial resi- 
 dence of Sir Thomas More, where he was 
 visited by his much-married monarch ; where 
 the learned and colloquial author of " En- 
 comium Moriae," Erasmus, was sometime an 
 inmate ; and where, decades later, Thomas 
 Sackville, Earl Dorset, wrote the earliest English 
 tragedy, " Gorboduc." A time-worn structure 
 between King's Road and the Thames was once 
 the home of the bewitching Nell Gwynne, and 
 in later years " became (not inappropriately) a 
 gin-temple," as Carlyle said : this old edifice 
 was also sometime occupied by Addison. Back 
 of King's Road we find the venerable Shaftes- 
 bury House, — in which the famous earl wrote 
 " Characteristics," Locke began his " Essay," 
 and Addison produced some of his Spectator 
 papers, — long transformed into a workhouse, in 
 the grounds of which we are shown the place 
 36 
 
Shaftesbury — Bolingbroke 
 
 of " Locke's yew," recently removed. The Old 
 World's End Tavern, by Riley Street, was the 
 notorious resort of Congreve's " Love for 
 Love ;" the once ill-famed Cremorne Gardens, 
 just beyond, were erst part of the estate of a 
 granddaughter of William Penn, who was related 
 to the Penns of Stoke-Pogis, where Gray wrote 
 the "Elegy." A near-by little ivy-grown brick 
 house, with wide windows in its front and an 
 iron balcony upon its roof, was long the home 
 of Turner, and in the upper room, through 
 whose arched window he could look out upon 
 the river, he died. From the water-edge here 
 we see, upon the opposite shore, the old church 
 where Blake was married and Bolingbroke was 
 buried, and from whose vestry window Turner 
 made his favorite sketches ; near by is a portion 
 of the ancient house where Bolingbroke was 
 born and died, where he entertained such guests 
 as Chesterfield, Swift, and Pope, and where the 
 latter wrote part of the " Essay on Man." 
 Beyond Chelsea we find at Fulham the spot 
 where lived and died Richardson, who is said to 
 have written " Clarissa Harlowe" here ; and, 
 near the river, the place of the home of Hook, 
 and his mural tablet in the old church by which 
 he lies, near the grave of the poet Vincent 
 Bourne. Our ramble by Thames-side may be 
 pleasantly prolonged through a region rife with 
 37 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the associations we esteem most precious. Our 
 way lies among the sometime haunts of Cowley, 
 Bulwer, Pepys, Thomson, Marryat, Pope, 
 Hogarth, Tennyson, Fielding, "Junius," Gar- 
 rick, and many another shining one. Some of 
 kindred genius dwell now incarnate in this mem- 
 ory-haunted district by the river-side, — the gifted 
 Miss Braddon, the erudite Stephens, the radical 
 Labouchere, now living in Pope's famous villa, — 
 but it is the memory of the mighty dead that 
 impresses us as we saunter amid the scenes they 
 loved and which inspired or witnessed the work 
 for which the world gives them honor and 
 homage ; we find their accustomed resorts, the 
 rural habitations where many of them dwelt and 
 died, the dim church aisles or the turf-grown 
 graves where they are laid at last in the dream- 
 less sleep whose waking we may not know. 
 
 38 
 
THE SCENE OF GRAYS 
 ELEGY 
 
 The Country Church- Yard - Tomb of Gray — Stoke-Pogis 
 Church - Reverie and Reminiscence — Scenes of Mi/ton — 
 Waller - Porter - Coke - Denham. 
 
 /^UR visit to the country church-yard where 
 ^"^ the ashes of Gray repose amid the scenes 
 his muse immortalized is the culmination and the 
 fitting end of a literary pilgrimage westward from 
 London to Windsor and the nearer shrines of 
 Thames-vale. Our way has led us to the some- 
 time homes of Pope, Fielding, Shelley, Garrick, 
 Burke, Richardson ; to the birthplaces of Waller 
 and Gibbon, the graves of "Junius," Hogarth, 
 Thomson, and Penn ; to the cottage where Jane 
 Porter wrote her wondrous tales, and the ivy- 
 grown church where Tennyson was married. 
 Nearer the scene of the " Elegy" we visit other 
 shrines : the Horton where Milton wrote his 
 earlier works, " Masque of Comus," " Lycidas," 
 " Arcades ;" the Hallbarn where Waller com- 
 posed the panegyric to Cromwell, the " Con- 
 gratulation," and other once famous poems ; the 
 mansion where the Herschels studied and wrote. 
 We have had the gray spire of Stoke-Pogis 
 Church in view during this last day of our ram- 
 ble. From the summit of the " Cooper's Hill" 
 39 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of Denham's best-known poem, from the battle- 
 ments of Windsor and the windows of Eton, 
 from the elm-shaded meads that border the 
 Thames and the fields redolent of lime-trees and 
 new-mown hay where we loitered, we have had 
 tempting glimpses of that " ivy-mantled tower" 
 that made us wish the winged hours more swift ; 
 for we have purposely deferred our visit to that 
 sacred spot so that the even-tide and the hour 
 the curfew tolled " the knell of parting day" 
 across this peaceful landscape may find us amid 
 the old graves where " the rude forefathers of 
 the hamlet sleep." As we approach through ver- 
 dant lanes bordered by fields where the plough- 
 man is yet at his toil and the herds feed among the 
 buttercups, the abundant ivy upon the tower 
 gleams in the light of the declining sun, and the 
 "yew-tree's shade" falls far aslant upon the 
 mouldering turf-heaps. The sequestered God's- 
 acre, consecrated by the genius of Gray, lies in 
 languorous solitude, far removed from the high- 
 way and within the precincts of a grand park 
 once the possession of descendants of Penn. 
 Just without the enclosure stands a cenotaph 
 erected by John Penn, grandson of the founder 
 of Pennsylvania ; it represents a sarcophagus and 
 is ostensibly commemorative of Gray, but, as has 
 been said, it " resembles nothing so much as a 
 huge tea-caddy," and its inscription celebrates the 
 40 
 
The Country Church-Yard 
 
 builder more than the bard. Within the church- 
 yard all is rest and peace ; the strife and fever 
 of life intrude not here ; no sound of the busy- 
 world breaks in upon the hush that pervades this 
 spot, and '* all the air a solemn stillness holds. " 
 Something of the serenity which here pervades 
 earth and sky steals into and uplifts the soul, and 
 the demons of greed and passion are subdued 
 and silenced as we stand above the tomb of Gray 
 and realize all the imagery of the " Elegy." 
 While our hearts are thrilling with the associa- 
 tions of the place and the hour, while the ashes 
 of the tender poet rest at our feet and the objects 
 that inspired the matchless poem surround us, 
 we may hope to share in some measure the ten- 
 derer emotions to which the contemplation of 
 this scene stirred his soul. As we ponder these 
 objects, upon which his loving vision lingered, 
 they seem strangely familiar; we feel that we 
 have known them long and will love them 
 alway. 
 
 One must visit this spot if he would appre- 
 ciate the absolute fidelity to nature of the 
 «' Elegy :" its imagery is the exact reproduction 
 of the scene lying about us, which is practically 
 unchanged since that time so long ago when 
 Gray drafted his poem here. Above us rises 
 the square tower, mantled with ivy and sur- 
 mounted by a tapering spire whose shadow now 
 4» 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 falls athwart the grave of the poet ; here are the 
 rugged elms with their foliage swaying in the 
 summer breeze above the lowly graves ; yonder 
 by the church porch is the dark yew whose 
 opaque shade covers the site of the poet's ac- 
 customed seat on the needle-carpeted sward ; 
 around us are scattered the mouldering heaps 
 beneath which, " each in his narrow cell for- 
 ever laid," sleep the rustic dead. Some of the 
 humble mounds are unmarked by any token of 
 memory or grief, but many bear the " frail 
 memorials," often rude slabs of wood, which 
 loving but unskilled hands have graven with 
 " uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture," with 
 the names and years of the unhonored dead, 
 and " many a holy text that teach the rustic 
 moralist to die." Some of these lowly graves 
 hold the forefathers of families who, not con- 
 tent with the sequestered vale of life which 
 sufficed for these simple folk, have sought on 
 another shore largesses of fame or fortune un- 
 attainable here. Among the names " spelled by 
 the unlettered muse" upon the stones around 
 us we see those of Goddard, Perry, Gould, 
 Cooper, Geer, and many others familiar to our 
 American ears. The overarching glades of the 
 woods which skirt the sacred precinct were the 
 haunt of the " youth to fortune and to fame 
 unknown ;" the nodding beech, that " wreathes 
 42 
 
Tomb of Gray 
 
 its old fantastic roots so high" in the grove at 
 near-by Burnham, was his favorite tree, as it was 
 that of Gray ; afar through the haze of a golden 
 after-glow we see the "antique towers" of 
 Eton, the stately brow of Windsor, with its 
 royal battlements, and nearer the wave of woods 
 and fields and all the dream-like beauty of the 
 landscape upon which the eyes of Gray so often 
 dwelt, a landscape that literally glimmers in the 
 fading light. 
 
 A tablet set by Penn in the chancel wall 
 beneath the mullioned window is inscribed, 
 " Opposite this stone, in the same tomb upon 
 which he so feelingly recorded his grief at the 
 loss of a beloved parent, are deposited the re- 
 mains of Thomas Gray, author of the Elegy 
 written in a Country Church-yard." A few feet 
 distant is the tomb he erected for his mother, 
 which now conceals the ashes of the gentle 
 poet. It is of the plainest and simplest, a low 
 structure of brick, covered by a marble slab. 
 No '* storied urn or animated bust" is needed to 
 perpetuate the name of him who made himself 
 immortal ; even his name is not graven upon the 
 marble. We are come directly from the splen- 
 dors of the royal chapels of Windsor, where 
 costly sculpture, gilding, and superlative epi- 
 taphs mark the sepulchres of some who were 
 mediocre or mendicant of mind and virtue, and 
 43 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 we are, therefore, the more impressed by the 
 fitting simplicity of the poet's tomb among the 
 humble dead whose artless tale he told. At 
 the grave of Gray, how tawdry seems the pomp 
 of those kingly mausoleums, how mean some 
 of the lives the bedizened monuments commem- 
 orate, of how little consequence that the world 
 should know where such dust is hid from sight ! 
 At the grave of Gray, if anywhere the wide 
 world round, we will correctly value the vanities, 
 ambitions, and rewards of earth. Gray's desire 
 to be buried here saved him from what some 
 one has called the " misfortune of burial in 
 Westminster." While the pilgrim vainly seeks 
 in that national mausoleum the tombs of Shake- 
 speare, Milton, Byron, Gray, Wordsworth, 
 Thackeray, Coleridge, Eliot, and others of di- 
 vine genius, and finds instead the graves of many 
 sordid and impure, entombment there may be a 
 misfortune. Happily the poet of the Elegy 
 reposes in his church-yard, beside the beings he 
 best loved, on the spot he frequented in life and 
 hallowed by his genius, among those whose 
 virtues he sang ; here his grave perpetually em- 
 phasizes the sublime teachings of his verse and 
 affords a most touching association. The only 
 inscription upon the slab is the poet's tribute to 
 his aunt, Mary Antrobus, and to " Dorothy 
 Gray, the careful and tender mother of many 
 44 
 
The Ivy-Mantled Church 
 
 children, of whom one alone had the misfortune 
 to survive her." It has been our pleasure on a 
 previous day to seek out amid the din of London 
 the spot where, in a modest dwelling, this 
 mother gave birth to the poet, and where she 
 and Mary Antrobus sold laces to maintain the 
 "many children." 
 
 Set upon a gentle eminence in the midst of 
 this peaceful scene, the church has a picturesque 
 beauty which harmonizes well with its environ- 
 ment. It is low and sombre, but age has given 
 a dignity and grace which would make it attrac- 
 tive apart from its associations. Overrunning 
 the walls, shrouding the crumbling battlements 
 of the tower, clambering along the steep roofs, 
 clinging to the highest gables, and festooning the 
 stained windows, are masses of dark ivy, which 
 conceal the inroads of time and impart to the 
 whole structure a beauty that wins us com- 
 pletely. The tower is early English, the chan- 
 cel is Norman, and the newer portions of the 
 edifice were already old when Gray frequented 
 the place. A path bordered by abundant roses 
 leads from the gate-way of the enclosure to the 
 quaint porch of timbers and the entrance to the 
 church. Within, the light falls dimly at this 
 hour upon the curious little galleries of the 
 peasantry, the great pew of the Penns, the 
 humbler place at the end of the south aisle where 
 45 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Gray came to pray, the huge mural tablet and 
 the burial vault where the son of William Penn 
 and his family sleep in death. In the park close 
 by is the palace of the Penns, and the mansion 
 where Charles I. was imprisoned and where 
 Coke wrote some of his Commentaries and enter- 
 tained his queen. Not far distant is the house 
 — now a fine abode — which Gray shared for 
 some years with his mother and aunt, and where 
 his bedroom and study may still be seen. Far- 
 ther away are the Beaconsfield which furnished 
 the title of the gifted author of " Lothair," and 
 the old church where Burke and Waller await 
 the resurrection. 
 
 In the twilight we hastily sketch Gray's u ivy- 
 mantled tower," and then sit by his tomb gazing 
 upon the fading landscape and recalling the life 
 of this divine poet and the lines of the match- 
 less poem which was drafted here and with ex- 
 quisite care revised and polished year after year 
 before it was given to the world. It may not 
 be generally known that he discarded six stanzas 
 from the original draft, — among them this, writ- 
 ten as the fourth stanza : 
 
 " Hark, how the sacred calm that breathes around 
 Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease ; 
 In still small accents whispering from the ground 
 A grateful earnest of eternal peace } ' ' 
 46 
 
Discarded Stanzas 
 this, from the reply of the " hoary-headed 
 
 11 Him have we seen the greenwood side along 
 
 While o'er the heath we hied, our labor done, 
 Oft as the wood-lark piped her farewell song 
 With wistful eyes pursue the setting sunj" 
 
 and this, from the description of the poet's 
 grave : 
 
 " There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
 
 By hands unseen, are showers of violets found j 
 The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
 And little footsteps lightly print the ground." 
 
 We may judge what was the high standard of 
 Gray, and what the transcending quality of the 
 finished poem from which its author could, 
 after years of deliberation, reject such stanzas. 
 The Elegy is the expression in divinest poetry 
 of the best conceptions of a noble soul upon 
 the most serious topic on which human thought 
 can dwell. No wonder that the world has 
 literally learned by heart those precious lines ; 
 that they are the solace of the thoughtful and 
 the bereft in every clime where mortals meditate 
 on death ; that the brave Wolfe, on the way to 
 his triumphal death, should recite them in the 
 darkness and declare he had rather be their 
 author than the victor in the morrow's battle ; 
 47 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 that the great Webster, on his death-bed, should 
 beg to hear them, and die at last with their 
 melody sounding in his ears. 
 
 As the glow fades out of the darkening sky, 
 the birds in the leafy elms one by one cease 
 their songs, " the lowing herds wind slowly 
 o'er the lea" to distant folds, the " drowsy 
 tinklings" grow fainter, the summer wind sigh- 
 ing among the trees dies with the day, and the 
 scene which seemed still before is noiseless now. 
 In this hush we are content to leave this death- 
 less poet and the spot he loved. We gather ivy 
 from the old wall and a spray from the boughs 
 of his dreaming yew, and take our way back to 
 the busy haunts of men. 
 
DICKENSLAND: GAD'S HILL 
 AND ABOUT 
 
 Chaucer'' s Pilgrims-Falstaff-Dickens' s Abode-Study-Grounds 
 —Walks — Neighbors— Guests — Scenes of Tales — Cobham— 
 Rochester- Pip's Church- Yard-Satis House, etc. 
 
 " 'TpO go to Gad's Hill," said Dickens, in a 
 note of invitation, " you leave Charing 
 Cross at nine o'clock by North Kent Railway 
 for Higham." Guided by these directions and 
 equipped with a letter from Dickens's son, we 
 find ourselves gliding eastward among the chim- 
 neys of London and, a little later, emerging into 
 the fields of Kent, — Jingle's region of " apples, 
 cherries, hops, and women." The Thames is 
 on our left ; we pass many river-towns, — Dart- 
 ford where Wat Tyler lived, Gravesend where 
 Pocahontas died, — but most of our way is through 
 the open country, where we have glimpses of 
 fields, parks, and leafy lanes, with here and 
 there picturesque camps of gypsies or of peripa- 
 tetic rascals " goin' a-hoppin'." From wretched 
 Higham a walk of half an hour among orchards 
 and between hedges of wild-rose and honey- 
 suckle brings us to the hill which Shakespeare 
 and Dickens have made classic ground, and soon 
 we see, above the tree-tops, the glittering vane 
 which surmounted the home of the world's 
 d 49 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 greatest novelist. The name Gad's (vagabond's) 
 Hill is a survival of the time when the depre- 
 dations of highwaymen upon "pilgrims going 
 to Canterbury with rich offerings and traders 
 riding to London with fat purses" gave to this 
 spot the ill repute it had in Shakespeare's day : 
 it was here he located FalstafF's great exploit. 
 The tuft of evergreens which crowns the hill 
 about Dickens's retreat is the remnant of thick 
 woods once closely bordering the highway, in 
 which the "men in buckram" lay concealed, 
 and the robbery of the franklin was committed 
 in front of the spot where the Dickens house 
 stands. By this road passed Chaucer, who had 
 property near by, gathering from the pilgrims 
 his " Canterbury Tales." In all time to come 
 the great master of romance who came here to 
 live and die will be worthily associated with 
 Shakespeare and Chaucer in the renown of Gad's 
 Hill. In becoming possessor of this place, 
 Dickens realized a dream of his boyhood and 
 an ambition of his life. In one of his travellers' 
 sketches he introduces a " queer small boy" 
 (himself) gazing at Gad's Hill House and pre- 
 dicting his future ownership, which the author 
 finds annoying " because it happens to be my 
 house and I believe what he said was true." 
 When at last the place was for sale, Dickens 
 did not wait to examine it ; he never was inside 
 5° 
 
Gad's Hill House 
 
 the house until he went to direct its repair. 
 Eighteen hundred pounds was the price ; a 
 thousand more were expended for enlargement 
 of the grounds and alterations of the house, 
 which, despite his declaration that he had 
 " stuck bits upon it in all manner of ways," 
 did not greatly change it from what it was when 
 it became the goal of his childish aspirations. 
 At first it was his summer residence merely, — 
 his wife came with him the first summer, — but 
 three years later he sold Tavistock House, and 
 Gad's Hill was thenceforth his home. From 
 the bustle and din of the city he returned to the 
 haunts of his boyhood to find restful quiet and 
 time for leisurely work among these " blessed 
 woods and fields" which had ever held his 
 heart. For nine years after the death of Dick- 
 ens Gad's Hill was occupied by his oldest son ; 
 its ownership has since twice or thrice changed. 
 Its elevated site and commanding view render 
 it one of the most conspicuous, as it is one of 
 the most lovely, spots in Kent. The mansion 
 is an unpretentious, old-fashioned, two-storied 
 structure of fourteen rooms. Its brick walls are 
 surmounted by Mansard roofs above which rises 
 a bell-turret ; a pillared portico, where Dickens 
 sat with his family on summer evenings, shades 
 the front entrance ; wide bay-windows project 
 upon either side ; flowers and vines clamber 
 5' 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 upon the walls, and a delightfully home-like air 
 pervades the place. It seems withal a modest 
 seat for one who left half a million dollars at his 
 death. At the right of the entrance-hall we see 
 Dickens's library and study, a cosy room shown 
 in the picture of •* The Empty Chair :" here 
 are shelves which held his books ; the panels he 
 decorated with counterfeit book-backs ; the nook 
 where perched the mounted remains of his 
 raven, the " Grip" of " Barnaby Rudge." By 
 this bay-window, whence he could look across 
 the lawn to the cedars beyond the highway, 
 stood his chair and the desk where he wrote 
 many of the works by which the world will 
 know him alway. Behind the study was his 
 billiard-room, and upon the opposite side of the 
 hall the parlor, with the dining-room adjoining 
 it at the back, both bedecked with the many mir- 
 rors which delighted the master. Opening out 
 of these rooms is a conservatory, paid for out of 
 " the golden shower from America" and com- 
 pleted but a few days before Dickens's death, 
 holding yet the ferns he tended. The dining- 
 room was the scene of much of that emphatic 
 hospitality which it pleased the novelist to dis- 
 pense, his exuberant spirits making him the 
 leader in all the jollity and conviviality of the 
 board. Here he compounded for bibulous 
 guests his famous " cider-cup of Gad's Hill," 
 5* 
 
Gad's Hill — House and Grounds 
 
 and at the same table he was stricken with death ; 
 on a couch beneath yonder window, the one 
 nearest the hall, he died on the anniversary of 
 the railway accident which so frightfully im- 
 perilled his life. From this window we look 
 out upon a lawn decked with shrubbery and see 
 across undulating cornfields his beloved Cob- 
 ham. From the parquetted hall, stairs lead 
 to the modest chambers, — that of Dickens being 
 above the drawing-room. He lined the stair- 
 way with prints of Hogarth's works, and de- 
 clared he never came down the stairs without 
 pausing to wonder at the sagacity and skill 
 which had produced the masterful pictures of 
 human life. The house is invested with roses, 
 and parterres of the red geraniums which the 
 master loved are ranged upon every side. It 
 was some fresh manifestation of his passion for 
 these flowers that elicited from his daughter the 
 averment, M Papa, I think when you are an 
 angel your wings will be made of looking- 
 glasses and your crown of scarlet geraniums." 
 Beneath a rose-tree not far from the window 
 where Dickens died, a bed blooming with blue 
 lobelia holds the tiny grave of " Dick" and the 
 tender memorial of the novelist to that " Best 
 of Birds." The row of gleaming limes which 
 shadow the porch was planted by Dickens's 
 own hands. The pedestal of the sundial upon 
 S3 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the lawn is a massive balustrade of the old stone 
 bridge at near-by Rochester, which little David 
 Copperfield crossed "foot-sore and weary" on 
 his way to his aunt, and from which Pickwick 
 contemplated the castle-ruin, the cathedral, the 
 peaceful Medway. At the left of the mansion 
 are the carriage-house and the school-room of 
 Dickens's sons. In another portion of the 
 grounds are his tennis-court and the bowling- 
 green which he prepared, where he became a 
 skilful and tireless player. The broad meadow 
 beyond the lawn was a later purchase, and the 
 many limes which beautify it were rooted by 
 Dickens. Here numerous cricket matches were 
 played, and he would watch the players or keep 
 the score "the whole day long." It was in 
 this meadow that he rehearsed his readings, and 
 his talking, laughing, weeping, and gesticulating 
 here " all to himself" excited among his neigh- 
 bors suspicion of his insanity. From the front 
 lawn a tunnel constructed by Dickens passes 
 beneath the highway to " The Wilderness," a 
 thickly wooded shrubbery, where magnificent 
 cedars uprear their venerable forms and many 
 sombre firs, survivors of the forest which erst 
 covered the countryside, cluster upon the hill- 
 top. Here Dickens's favorite dog, the " Linda" 
 of his letters, lies buried. Amid the leafy se- 
 clusion of this retreat, and upon the very spot 
 54 
 
Dickens's Chalet 
 
 where Falstaff was routed by Hal and Poins 
 (" the eleven men in buckram"), Dickens 
 erected the chalet sent to him in pieces by 
 Fechter, the upper room of which — up among 
 the quivering boughs, where " birds and butter- 
 flies fly in and out, and green branches shoot in 
 at the windows" — Dickens lined with mirrors 
 and used as his study in summer. Of the work 
 produced at Gad's Hill—" Two Cities," " Un- 
 commercial Traveller," " Mutual Friend," " Ed- 
 win Drood," and many tales and sketches of " All 
 the Year Round" — much was written in this 
 leaf-environed nook ; here the master wrought 
 through the golden hours of his last day of con- 
 scious life, here he wrote his last paragraph and 
 at the close of that June day let fall his pen, 
 never to take it up again. From the place of the 
 chalet we behold the view which delighted the 
 heart of Dickens, — his desk was so placed that 
 his eyes would rest upon this view whenever he 
 raised them from his work, — the fields of waving 
 corn, the green expanse of meadows, the sail- 
 dotted river. 
 
 Many friends came to Dickens in this pleasant 
 Kentish home, — Forster, Maclise, Reade, Ma- 
 cready, Leech, Collins, Yates, Hans Christian 
 Andersen, Mr. and Mrs. Fields, Longfellow and 
 his daughters, Fechter and his wife: some of 
 them were guests here for many days together. 
 55 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 The master was the most genial of hosts, appar- 
 ently the happiest of men, with the hearty 
 laugh which Montaigne says never comes from 
 a bad heart. After the morning task in library 
 or chalet he gave the rest of the day to exercise 
 and recreation, often at games with his guests 
 in the grounds, but taking daily in rain or shine 
 the long walks which made his lithe figure and 
 rapid gait familiar to all the cottagers and field- 
 laborers of the countryside. It is pleasant to 
 hear the loving testimony of these simple folk 
 — many of them descendants of the " men of 
 Kent" who followed the standard of Wat Tyler 
 from Blackheath to London — concerning Dick- 
 ens's uniform kindness, his helpful generosity, 
 his scrupulous regard of the rights of inferiors, 
 the traits which won their hearts. One rustic 
 neighbor declares, " Dickens was a main good 
 man, sir : it was a sorry day for the neighborhood 
 when he was taken away." Near the gate of 
 Gad's Hill House is a wayside inn, the " Sir 
 John Falstaff," which for more than two cen- 
 turies has stood for remembrance of that worthy's 
 exploit at this place. Its weather-worn sign 
 bears portraits of Falstaff" and Prince Hal and a 
 picture of the " Merry Wives of Windsor" put- 
 ting Falstaff into the basket. The name of a 
 son of the recent keeper of this hostelry, Ed- 
 ward Trood, doubtless suggested the title of the 
 56 
 
Scenes of Great Expectations 
 
 " Mystery*' which must, alas ! remain a mystery 
 evermore. 
 
 From the inn a lane leads to a sightly summit 
 surmounted by a monument which Dickens 
 called " Andersen's Monument," because it was 
 the resort of that illustrious author while a 
 guest at Gad's Hill. Its far-reaching prospect 
 is indeed alluring : on every hand vast, wave- 
 like expanses of forest and orchard, moor and 
 mead, sweep away to the horizon, while north- 
 ward, beyond great cornfields and market-gardens, 
 we see twenty miles of the Thames — " stealing 
 steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life" 
 — bordered here by a wilderness of low-lying 
 marsh. A walk beloved of Dickens brings us 
 to one of his favorite haunts, — a dreary church- 
 yard on the margin of this marsh. It lies in 
 the dismal, ague-haunted " hundred of Loo," a 
 peninsula between the Thames and the Medway 
 having a broad hem of desolate fens along the 
 river-banks — a weird, little known region, whose 
 ancient reputation was unsavory. A wooden 
 finger on a post directs us to Cooling, — Dickens 
 makes Pip say that this direction was never ac- 
 cepted, no one ever came, — a forlorn hamlet 
 which straggles about the ruins of Cooling Cas- 
 tle. This was an ancient seat of the Cobhams ; 
 through a Cobham heiress it passed to Oldcastle, 
 leader of the Lollards, who shut himself up here 
 57 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 and was dragged hence to martyrdom. It is 
 noteworthy that this Oldcastle has been thought 
 to be the original of Falstaff, the hero of Gad's 
 Hill. Of the stronghold little remains save the 
 machicolated gate-way, flanked with ponderous 
 round towers bearing quaint inscriptions. The 
 water of the moat is green and stagnant, sug- 
 gesting frogs and rheumatism, and the space it 
 encloses is occupied by the cottage of a farmer. 
 The forge and cottage of Joe Gargery are not 
 found in the wretched village, — indeed, we 
 should be sorry to find that splendid fellow and 
 the good Betty so poorly housed, — but beyond 
 the narrow street and at the verge of the marshes 
 we come to a low, quaint, square-towered old 
 church, which rises from a wind-swept, nettle- 
 grown church-yard, the scene of the opening 
 chapter of " Great Expectations." Yonder 
 mound, whose gravestone is inscribed to George 
 Comfort, "Also Sarah, Wife of the Above," 
 stands for the tomb of Pip's parents ; and sunken 
 in the grass at our feet is the row of little grave- 
 stones whose curious shape led Pip to believe 
 that his little brothers (whose graves they 
 marked) " had been born on their backs, with 
 their hands in their trousers pockets, and had 
 never taken them out in this stage of existence." 
 Over this low wall which divides God's-acre 
 from the marshes the convict climbed, and we, 
 58 
 
The Marshes — Cobham 
 
 standing upon it, look across the scene of his 
 chase and capture, which Pip witnessed from 
 Joe's back. On this sombre autumn afternoon 
 of our visit the landscape is startlingly like that 
 the terrified boy beheld : we see the same far- 
 stretching waste of marshes, the intersecting 
 dikes, the low, leaden line of the river beyond, 
 dark mists hanging heavy over all, while the 
 chill wind blows in our faces from its '« savage 
 lair" in the sea. Upon yonder flat tombstone 
 in the far corner of the church-yard Dickens sat 
 and lunched with Fields when he last walked to 
 this place. Hidden now in the mists, but not 
 far distant, and reached by a foot-path from the 
 road to Chalk, is a dirty and dilapidated Thames- 
 side inn, whose creaking sign-board reads, " Ship 
 and Lobster :" this is The Ship of " Great Ex- 
 pectations," where Pip and his party slept the 
 night preceding their attempt to put Magwich 
 on the steamer, and the open river below the 
 little causeway is the scene of their mischance 
 and the transport's recapture. 
 
 The walk which Dickens most enjoyed — the 
 one which was his last before he died — was to 
 and around Cobham, the seat of his friend 
 Darnley. We follow the way once so familiar 
 to his feet, through the noble park which the 
 Pickwick Club found " so thoroughly delightful," 
 on a June afternoon, by the stately old hall 
 59 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 where lately stood Dickens's chalet, and farther, 
 through majestic forest and open glade, to the 
 place whence Pickwick — overcome by cold 
 punch — was wheeled to the pound. Skirting 
 the park on our return, we come to Cobham 
 village and the neat Leather Bottle Inn to which 
 the lovelorn Tupman retired to conceal his woe 
 after his discomfiture at Manor Farm, and where 
 Dickens himself, rambling in the neighborhood 
 with Forster, lodged in 1841. Here is the 
 little church-yard where Pickwick walked with 
 Tupman and persuaded him to return to the 
 world, and hard by the cottage of Bill Stumps, 
 before which Pickwick made the immortal dis- 
 covery which was ** the pride of his friends and 
 the envy of every antiquarian in this or any 
 other country." Another favorite walk of 
 Dickens conducts us, past a quaint, rambling 
 mansion of dingy brick which served as the 
 model for Satis House of " Great Expectations," 
 to Rochester, the Cloisterham of " Edwin 
 Drood." Here we find the Bull Inn, — " good 
 house, nice beds," — where the Pickwick Club 
 lodged, in rooms 13 and 19, and the ballroom, 
 where Tupman and Jingle (the latter in Winkle's 
 coat) danced with the widow and enraged little 
 Slammer ; the Watt's Charity of " The Uncom- 
 mercial Traveller;" the picturesque castle-ruin 
 which Dickens frequented and has so charmingly 
 60 
 
Cloisterham — Land of Dickens 
 
 described. Here, too, is the gray old cathedral 
 he loved, which appears in many of his tales, 
 from Jingle's piquant account of it in " Pickwick" 
 to that touching description of this ancient fane 
 in the last lines of the master, written within 
 sound of its bells and but a few hours before 
 his death. 
 
 This region of sunny Kent, the scene of his 
 earliest and latest years, may fitly be called The 
 Land of Dickens, so intimately is it associated 
 with his life and work. Here at near-by Chat- 
 ham (whence he used to come to gaze longingly 
 at Gad's Hill House), in a whitewashed cottage 
 on Ordnance Place, he lived as a child ; at 
 yonder village of Chalk he spent his honey- 
 moon, its expenses being defrayed by the sale 
 of the first numbers of " Pickwick ;" here were 
 the habitual resorts of his holiday leisure ; here 
 was his latest home ; here he died, and here he 
 desired to be buried. This district was no less 
 the life-haunt and home of his imagination and 
 genius. The scenes of his most effective ro- 
 mances are laid here ; into the fabric of many 
 a tale and sketch his fancy has woven the fa- 
 miliar features of town and hamlet, field and 
 forest, marsh and river, of the region he knew 
 and loved so well ; here his first tale opens, 
 here his last tale ends. 
 
 61 
 
SOME HAUNTS OF BYRON 
 
 Birthplace — London Homes - Murray* s Book-Store — Kensal 
 Green — Harrow — Byron's Tomb — His Diadem Hill — 
 Abode of his Star of Annesley — Portraits — Mementos. 
 
 /^\F the places in and about great London 
 ^^ which were associated with the brief life 
 of Byron, the rage for improvement which holds 
 nothing sacred has spared a few, and the quest 
 for Byron-haunts is still fairly rewarded. Holies 
 Street, where he was born, has not long been re- 
 signed to trade : we have known it as a somno- 
 lent little street whose grateful quiet — reached 
 by a step from the tumult of De Quincey's 
 " stony-hearted step-mother" — made it seem 
 like a placid pool beside a riotous torrent. It is 
 scarce a furlong in length, and from the shade of 
 Cavendish Square at its extremity we could look, 
 between bordering rows of modest dwellings, to 
 the square where Ralph Nickleby lived and 
 Mary Wortley Montagu died. At our right, a 
 little way down the street, stood a small, plain, 
 two-storied house of dingy brick, where the 
 poet's mother lodged in the upper front room at 
 the time of his birth. This dwelling was No. 
 1 6, later 24, and has now given place to a shop. 
 An unpretentious tenement near Sloane Square 
 was Byron's home during his pupilage with Dr. 
 Glennie. 
 
 62 
 
London Homes 
 
 In the house No. 8 St. James Street, nearly 
 opposite the place where Gibbon died, Byron 
 had for some years a suite of rooms. Here he 
 was convenient to Almack's aristocratic ball- 
 rooms and St. James Theatre, and was in the then, 
 as it is now, centre of fashionable club-life. 
 His residence here began when he came to Lon- 
 don to publish " Bards and Reviewers," was 
 resumed upon his return from the Levantine tour, 
 and continued during the publication of the early 
 cantos of " Childe Harold" and other poems 
 written on that tour. In these rooms " Cor- 
 sair," " The Giaour," and " Bride of Abydos" 
 were written, the latter in a single night and 
 with one quill. The last year of Byron's resi- 
 dence here was the period of his highest popu- 
 larity, when he was the especial pet of London 
 society queens, one of whom — who later wrote 
 a book to defame him — was recognized in bifur- 
 cated masculine garb in these chambers. On the 
 same street is the home of White's Club, the 
 Bays' of " Pendennis," of which the present 
 Lord Byron is a member, and on the site of the 
 Carlton Club, Pall Mall, stood the Star and 
 Garter tavern, where, in room No. 7 at the 
 right on the first floor, the poet's predecessor 
 killed his neighbor Chaworth, grand-uncle of 
 Byron's -* star of Annesley." Adjoining the 
 Academy of Arts in Piccadilly is that " college 
 63 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of bachelors," the Albany apartment house where 
 Dickens lodged " Fascination'* Fledgeby and laid 
 the scene of his flagellation by Lammle and the 
 dressing of his wounds with pepper by Jenny 
 Wren. Here the handsome suite A 2 was the 
 abode of Byron for the year or so preceding his 
 hapless marriage, and here " Lara" and ■* Hebrew 
 Melodies" were written. The poet had passed 
 the zenith of the social horizon, and the " Byron- 
 madness" was waning, when he came to the 
 Albany ; still, the visits of fair admirers were 
 vouchsafed him in these rooms. It was here 
 that the girl whose story Guiccioli adduces as 
 evidence of Byron's virtuous self-denial came to 
 him for counsel. If the partiality of his mis- 
 tress has unduly praised his conduct at this time, 
 it is a thousandfold outweighed by the bitter- 
 ness of another narrative — happily discredited, 
 if not disproven — which indicates this same 
 period as being that of the beginning of a liaison 
 with his sister. To these rooms Moore was a 
 daily visitant, and Canning then lodged on the 
 second floor adjoining the suite E 1, where 
 Macaulay wrote the " History of England"" and 
 many essays. Byron's last abode in London was 
 a stately house in Piccadilly, opposite Green 
 Park and not far from the then London sojourn 
 of Scott. Byron's dwelling, now No. 139, 
 belonged to the Duchess of Devon, and was 
 64 
 
London Homes 
 
 known as 13 Piccadilly Terrace. To this 
 elegant home he brought his bride after the 
 " treacle-moon," and here passed the remainder 
 of their brief period of cohabitation. Here 
 '* The Siege of Corinth," w Parisina," and many- 
 minor poems were penned, the MS. of some 
 being in the handwriting of his wife. Here 
 Augusta Leigh was a guest warmly welcomed 
 by Lady Byron, despite her alleged knowledge 
 of the "shocking misconduct" of Byron and 
 his sister in this house. Here Ada, "sole 
 daughter of his house and heart," was born, and 
 from here, a few weeks later, his wife went 
 forth, never to see him again. Some letters came 
 from her to this home, — playful notes to Byron 
 inviting him to follow her, affectionate epistles 
 to the sister, then a final letter announcing her de- 
 termination never to return. In the ten months 
 during which Byron occupied this house it was 
 nine times in possession of bailiffs on account 
 of his debts. It has since been refaced and re- 
 paired, but the original rooms remain. Hamilton 
 Place now leads from it to Hamilton Gardens, 
 where stands a beautiful statue of Byron. To 
 the mansion of Sir Edward Knatchbull, No. 25 
 Great George Street, a site now occupied by the 
 Institute of Engineers, the corpse of Byron was 
 brought upon its arrival from Greece ; and here 
 in the great parlors, but a few steps from the 
 b 65 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 spot where the remains of Sheridan had lain 
 eight years before, Byron's body lay in state 
 while his friends vainly sought sepulture for it in 
 Westminster. 
 
 At No. 50 Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, not 
 far from the Albany, is the establishment of John 
 Murray, whose predecessor, John Murray II., 
 published " Childe Harold" and all Byron's 
 subsequent poems to the earlier cantos of " Don 
 Juan." At this house the poet was a frequent 
 and familiar lounger. Here, in a cosy drawing- 
 room which is handsomely furnished and em- 
 bellished, Murray used to hold a literary court, 
 and here Byron first shook hands with the 
 " great Wizard of the North" and met Moore, 
 Canning, Southey, Gifford, and other litterateurs. 
 Scott afterward wrote, " Byron and I met for 
 an hour or two daily in Murray's drawing-room, 
 and found much to say to each other." During 
 his residence in London, Byron was customarily 
 one of the coterie of authors — facetiously called 
 the *' four o'clock club" — which daily assembled 
 in this room. The seances were frequented at 
 one time or another by most of the stars of 
 English letters, embracing, besides those above 
 named, Campbell, Hallam, Crabbe, Lockhart, 
 Disraeli, Irving, George Ticknor, etc. We 
 find the room little changed since their time. 
 Original portraits of that brilliant company look 
 66 
 
Murray's 
 
 down from the walls of the room they haunted 
 in life, and the visitor thrills with the thought 
 that in some subtile sense their presence per- 
 vades it still. In this room Ada Byron, kept in 
 ignorance of her father until womanhood, first 
 saw his handwriting, and in yonder fireplace 
 beneath his portrait, four days after intelligence 
 of his death had reached London, the manu- 
 script of his much-discussed " Memoirs" was 
 burned at the desire of Lady Byron and in the 
 presence of Moore and Byron's executor, Hob- 
 house, who had witnessed his hapless marriage. 
 Until the death of Byron his relations with 
 Murray were most cordial, and the present John 
 Murray IV., grandson of Byron's publisher, 
 possesses numerous letters of the poet, some of 
 which were used in Moore's " Life." Per- 
 haps most interesting of Byron's many rhyming 
 epistles is the one commencing, — 
 
 " My dear Mr. Murray, 
 You're in a blanked hurry 
 To set up this ultimate canto," 
 
 which announces the final completion of" Childe 
 Harold." Among many mementos of Byron 
 cherished in this famous room are the original 
 MSS. of " Bards and Reviewers" and of most 
 of his later poems. With them are other 
 priceless MSS. of Scott, Swift, Gray, Southey, 
 67 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Livingstone, Irving, Motley, etc. The Murray- 
 Ill, who used to show us these treasures with 
 reverent pride, and who could boast that he 
 had known Byron, Scott, and Goethe, died not 
 long ago. When we ask for the Bible popularly 
 believed to have been given to Murray by Byron 
 with a line so altered as to read " now Barabbas 
 was a publisher" we are told this joke was 
 Campbell's and was upon another publisher than 
 Murray. Byron's signet-ring has passed to the 
 possession of Pierre Barlow, Esq., of New York. 
 Litterateurs still come to " Murray's den," 
 though not so often as in the time when clubs 
 were less popular : among those who may some- 
 times be met here are Argyll, Knight, Layard, 
 Dufferin, Temple, Francis Darwin, etc. Mur- 
 rays' was the home of the Review — " whose 
 mission in life is to hang, draw, and Quarter/y," 
 as one victim avers — to which came Charlotte 
 Bronte's burly Irish uncle with his shillelah in 
 search of the harsh reviewer of "Jane Eyre," 
 and haunted the place until he was turned away. 
 A most delightful outing is the jaunt from 
 Byron's London haunts, past Kensal Green, 
 where we find the precious graves in which 
 sleep Thackeray, Motley, Cunningham, Jame- 
 son, Hood, Hunt, Sydney Smith, and Mrs. 
 Hawthorne, — the latter beneath ivy from her 
 Wayside home and periwinkle from her hus- 
 68 
 
Kensal Green — Harrow 
 
 band's tomb on the piny hill-top at Concord, — 
 to Harrow, the " Ida" of Byron's verse. Here 
 is the ancient school of which Sheridan, Peel, 
 Perceval, Trollope,.and others famous in letters 
 or politics were inmates ; where Byron was for 
 years "a troublesome and mischievous pupil" 
 and made the acquaintance of Clare, Dorset, 
 and others to whom some of his poems are 
 addressed, and of Wildman who rescued his 
 Newstead from ruin : the present Byron and 
 the son of Ada Byron were also Harrow boys. 
 Here may be seen some of the poet's worn and 
 scribbled books ; his name graven by him upon 
 a panel of the oldest building ; the Peachie 
 tombstone — protected now by iron bars — which 
 was his evening resort, where some of his 
 stanzas were composed, and whence he beheld 
 a landscape of enchanting beauty. Near this 
 beloved spot, where Byron once desired to be 
 entombed, sleeps a sinless child of sin, his 
 daughter Allegra, born of Mrs. Shelley's sister. 
 At Harrow, Byron repaid help upon his exer- 
 cises by fighting for his assistant ; his successes 
 here were mainly pugilistic, but his battles were 
 often those of younger and weaker boys, and 
 the spot where he fought the tyrants of the 
 school is pointed out with interest and pride. 
 
 In Notts, en route to Newstead, we lodge in 
 an old mansion alleged to have been the abode 
 69 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of the poet in his school-vacations; we have 
 the high authority of the landlord for the con- 
 viction that we occupy the room and the very 
 bed oft used by Byron ; but the credulity even 
 of a pilgrim has a limit, and the agility of the 
 fleas that now inhabit the bed forbids belief 
 that they too are relics of the poet. Better 
 authenticated are the Byron relics of a local 
 society, among which are the boot-trees certified 
 by his bootmaker to be those upon which the 
 poet's boots were fitted. They are of interest 
 as demonstrating that the asymmetry of his feet 
 was much less than has been believed ; one foot 
 was shorter than its fellow, and the ankle was 
 weak, but not deformed. 
 
 From Nottingham a winsome way along a 
 smiling vale, with billowy hills swelling upon 
 either hand, conducts us to the village of Huck- 
 nall. By its market-place an ancient church- 
 tower rises from a grave-strewn enclosure ; we 
 enter the fane through a porch of ponderous 
 timbers, and, traversing the dim aisle, approach 
 the chancel and find there the tomb of Childe 
 Harold. A slab of blue marble, sent by the 
 King of Greece and bearing the word Byron, 
 is set in the pavement to mark the spot where, 
 after the throes of his passion-tossed life, Byron 
 lies among his kindred in " the dreamless sleep 
 that lulls the dead." One who, as a lad, en- 
 70 
 
Tomb of Childe Harold 
 
 tered the vault at the burial of Ada Byron, in- 
 dicates for us its size upon the pavement and the 
 position of the coffins ; Byron, in a coffin cov- 
 ered with velvet and resting upon benches of 
 stone, lies between his mother and the " sole 
 daughter of his house and heart ;" at his feet a 
 receptacle contains his heart and brain. His 
 valet and the Little White Lady of Irving's 
 narrative sleep in the yard near by. A marble 
 tablet on the church wall describes Byron as the 
 " Author of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ;" this 
 was erected by his sister, and near it we saw a 
 chaplet of faded laurel placed years ago by our 
 "Bard of the Sierras." Byron's tomb has 
 never been a popular shrine, but such Americans 
 as Irving, Hawthorne, Halleck, Ludlow, Jo- 
 aquin Miller, and William Winter have been 
 reverent pligrims. Once Byron's " Italian en- 
 chantress," la Guiccioli, was found weeping 
 here and kissing the pavement which covers the 
 lover of her youth. 
 
 Above Hucknall the ancestral domain of the 
 Byrons lies upon the right, while upon the other 
 hand extend the broad lands which were the 
 heritage of Mary Ann Chaworth, Byron's " star 
 of Annesley." From the boundary of the es- 
 tates, where the poet sometimes met his youth- 
 ful love, a stroll across a landscape parquetted 
 with grain-field gold and meadow emerald brings 
 71 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 us to the ancient seat of the time-honored race 
 of which the maiden of Byron's " Dream" — 
 the " Mary" of many poems — was the " last 
 solitary scion left." It is now the property of 
 her great-grandson. Most of her married life 
 was passed elsewhere, and Annesley fell into 
 the neglected condition which Irving describes. 
 Mary's husband, the maligned Musters, instead 
 of hating the place and seeking to destroy its 
 identity, preferred it to his other property, and 
 spent many years after his wife's death in re- 
 storing and beautifying it, taking pains to pre- 
 serve the grounds and the main portion of the 
 mansion in the condition in which his wife had 
 known them in her maidenhood. This became 
 the beloved home of his later years, and here he 
 died. This mansion of the '* Dream" stands 
 upon an elevation overlooking many acres of 
 picturesque park. It is a great, rambling pile 
 of motley architecture, obviously erected by 
 different generations of Chaworths to suit their 
 varying needs and tastes, but the walls are over- 
 grown with clambering vines, which conceal 
 the touch of time and impart to the structure 
 an aspect of harmonious beauty. The prin- 
 cipal facade which presents along the court is 
 imposing and stately, but on every side are 
 pointed gables, stone balustrades, and pictu- 
 resque walls. The interior arrangement of 
 72 
 
Annesley Hall 
 
 the body of the house remains precisely as 
 Mary knew it, even the decorations of some 
 of the rooms having been preserved by the 
 considerate love of her husband and descendants ; 
 and here, despite the averment of a Byron- 
 biographer that " every relic of her ancient 
 family was sold and scattered to the winds," the 
 Chaworth plate, portraits, and other belongings 
 are religiously cherished. We were first in- 
 vited to the place to see these while they were 
 yet displayed by the maid in whose arms Mary 
 died. Upon the walls of the great lower hall 
 are many family pictures, among them that of 
 the Chaworth whom Byron's great-uncle had 
 slain. It was this portrait that Byron feared 
 would come out of its frame to haunt him if he 
 remained here over-night. From the hall low 
 stairs lead to the apartments. At the right is 
 Mary's sitting-room, where Byron spent many 
 hours beside her, listening entranced while she 
 played to him upon the piano which stood in the 
 farther corner. It is a pleasant apartment, its 
 windows looking out upon the garden-beds 
 Mary tended, which we see now ablaze with 
 the flowers known to have been her favorites. 
 In this room, which " her smiles had made a 
 heaven to him," Byron, years afterward, saw 
 Mary for the last time and kissed for its mother's 
 sake " the child that ought to have been his." 
 73 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 On this occasion she made the inquiry which 
 prompted the lines, " To Mrs. Musters, on 
 being asked my reason for quitting England in 
 the spring." This last painful interview is re- 
 called in the poems '« Well, Thou art Happy" 
 and "I've seen my Bride Another's Bride." 
 Above the hall is the large drawing-room, where 
 we see several portraits of Mary, which represent 
 her as a most beautiful woman, with a pa- 
 thetically sweet and winning face, — by no means 
 the " wicked-looking cat" which Byron's jealous 
 wife described. Here, too, are pictures of her 
 husband which fully justify his popular sobriquet, 
 "handsome Jack Musters." Physically they 
 were an admirably matched pair. Out of the 
 drawing-room is the " antique oratory" of 
 the poem, a small apartment above the en- 
 trance-porch, pictured as the scene of Byron's 
 parting with Mary after her announcement 
 of her betrothal. Byron was cordially wel- 
 comed at Annesley ; the family were his rela- 
 tives, and all of them, save that young lady 
 herself, would gladly have had him marry the 
 heiress. Among the guest-chambers is one, 
 called of yore the blue room, which during one 
 summer — after his fear of the family portraits 
 had been subdued by the greater fear of meet- 
 ing " bogles" on his homeward way — Byron 
 often occupied. Here he incensed Nanny the 
 74 
 
Annesley Park — Diadem Hill 
 
 housekeeper by allowing his dog to sleep upon 
 the bed and soil her neat counterpanes. An- 
 other servant, " old Joe," tired of sitting up at 
 night to wait upon him, finally frightened him 
 away by means of some hideous nocturnal 
 noises, which he assured the young poet pro- 
 ceeded from "spooks out of the kirk-yard," 
 — Byron's superstition doubtless suggesting the 
 ruse. 
 
 Giant trees overtop the chimneys and bower 
 the walls of the venerable mansion. The gar- 
 den which Irving found matted and wild was 
 long ago restored by Musters to its former 
 beauty of turf, foliage, and flower. A grand 
 terrace, — one of the finest in England, — with 
 brick walls and carved balustrades of stone man- 
 tled and draped with ivy, lies at the right, with 
 broad steps leading down to the garden where 
 Byron delighted to linger with Mary during the 
 swift hours of one too brief summer. Beneath 
 the terrace is a door, carefully protected by 
 Musters and his descendants, which Byron daily 
 used as a target and in which we see the marks of 
 bullets from his pistol. The grounds are ex- 
 tensive and beautifully diversified by copses of 
 great trees and grassy glades where deer feed 
 amid myriad witcheries of leaf and bloom. 
 Half a mile from the Hall is a shrine that 
 will attract the sentimental prowler, Byron's 
 75 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 diadem hill. Projecting from the extremity of a 
 long line of eminences, it is a landmark to the 
 countryside and overlooks the living landscape 
 which the poet depicted in lines throbbing with 
 life and beauty. From its acclivity we see much 
 of his ancestral Newstead, the adjoining fair 
 acres of Annesley which he would have added 
 to his own, the tower and chimneys of the 
 Hall rising among clustering oaks : beyond these 
 darkly wooded hills decline to the valley, along 
 which we look — past parks, villages, and the 
 church where Byron sleeps — to the spires of 
 the city. As we contemplate the vista from 
 the spot where stood the two bright " beings in 
 the hues of youth," we have about us a ring of 
 dark firs, the " diadem of trees in circular array" 
 pictured in the " Dream," apparently unchanged 
 since the day the maiden and the youth here 
 met for the last time before her marriage. The 
 Byron-writers have united in denouncing Mus- 
 ters for denuding this hill-top in a splenetic 
 endeavor to prevent its identification as the 
 scene of the interview described in the poem. 
 In truth, we owe the preservation of the features 
 which identify this romantic spot to the very 
 hand which the author of " Crayon Miscellany" 
 avers is " execrated by every poetic pilgrim." 
 When natural causes were rapidly destroying 
 the grove, Musters caused its removal and re- 
 76 
 
Byron-Chaworth-Musters 
 
 placed it by saplings grown from cones of the 
 old trees, each fir of the present beautiful diadem 
 being sedulously rooted upon the site of its 
 lineal ancestor. Musters had much greater rea- 
 son to regard this spot with romantic tenderness 
 than had the poet ; here he enjoyed many stolen 
 interviews with his sweetheart, for he was for- 
 bidden to see her in her home, and she, per- 
 verse and persistent in her passion for him, 
 came here daily with the hope of meeting him 
 and watched for his approach along the valley. 
 Upon the very occasion the poem describes, 
 she waited here, " Looking afar if yet her lover's 
 steed kept pace with her expectancy,*' and 
 merely tolerated the company of the "gaby" 
 boy Byron until Musters might arrive. The 
 latter had no reason for the irritable jealousy 
 toward Byron which has been attributed to 
 him, and there is no evidence that he evinced 
 or entertained such a feeling. He freely invited 
 the poet to his house, rode and swam with him, 
 preserved the few Byron mementos at Annesley, 
 and protected the tombs of Byron's ancestors at 
 Colwick. So much of untruth has been pub- 
 lished anent the Byron-Chaworth-Musters mat- 
 ter, and especially concerning the attitude of 
 the lady toward Byron and the conditions of 
 her subsequent life, that it is pleasant, even at 
 this late day, to be able to record upon un- 
 77 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 doubted evidence that her loving admiration for 
 her husband ceased only with her life. 
 
 On the bank of the silvery Trent, three 
 miles from Nottingham, is Colwick Hall, where 
 Mary's married life was spent. This was an 
 ancient seat of the Byrons, said to have been 
 lost by them at the card-table. Mary's home 
 was an imposing mansion, with lofty cupola, 
 balustraded roofs, and stately pediments upheld 
 by Ionic columns. From the front windows 
 we look across a wide expanse of sun-kissed 
 meadow beyond the river, while at the back 
 rocky cliffs rise steeply and are tufted by over- 
 hanging woods. The Hall was attacked and 
 pillaged in 1831 by a Luddite mob, from whom 
 poor Mary escaped half naked into the shrub- 
 bery and lay concealed in the cold wet night. 
 The exposure and terror of this event impaired 
 her reason, and caused her death the next year 
 at Wiverton, another seat of the Chaworths, 
 where her descendants reside. Close by the 
 mansion at Colwick, now a summer resort, was 
 the old gray church, with battlemented tower, 
 where Mary was married, and where she lies in 
 death with her husband and his kindred, near 
 the burial-vault of the ancestors of the lame 
 boy who linked her name to deathless verse. 
 At the side of the altar a beautiful monumental 
 tablet, bearing a graceful female figure and a 
 78 
 
Mary's Grave 
 
 laudatory inscription, is placed in memory of 
 the " star of Annesley," whose brightness went 
 out in distraction and gloom. 
 
 To Byron's early passion and its failure we 
 owe some of the sweetest and tenderest of his 
 songs ; and it has been believed that the memory 
 of that defeat adapted his thoughts to their 
 highest flights and gave added pathos and beauty 
 to his noblest work. Thus all the world were 
 gainers by his disappointment, and evidence is 
 lacking that either the lady or the lover was a 
 loser. 
 
 79 
 
THE HOME OF CHILDE 
 HAROLD 
 
 Ntivittad-Byrori s Apartments-Relics and Reminders-Ghosts- 
 Ruins— The Young Oak — Dog's Tomb -Devil's Wood- 
 Irving-Livingstone-Stanley- Joaquin Miller. 
 
 I1TOWEVER alluring other haunts of Byron 
 may be found, the " hall of his fathers" 
 must remain paramount in the interest and affec- 
 tion of his admirers. The stanzas he addressed 
 to that venerable pile, the graphic description 
 in" Don Juan," the plaintive allusions in " Childe 
 Harold," its own romantic history as a mediaeval 
 fortress and shrine, and its association with the 
 bard who inherited its lands and dwelt beneath 
 its battlements, render Newstead Abbey a Mecca 
 to which the steps of pilgrims tend. It came 
 to the Byrons by royal gift, and in the middle of 
 the last century was inherited by the poet's pre- 
 decessor the Wicked Byron, who killed his 
 neighbor of Annesley and so desolated the Abbey 
 that the only spot sheltered from the storms was 
 a corner of the scullery where he breathed out 
 his wretched life. The poet occupied the place 
 at intervals for twenty years, and then sold it to 
 Colonel Wildman, who had been his form-fellow 
 at Harrow, and to whom we are mainly indebted 
 for the restoration of the edifice and the preserva- 
 80 
 

The Abbey — Chapel Ruin 
 
 tion of every memento of the poet and his race. 
 At the death of Wildman the Abbey became the 
 property of Colonel W. F. Webb, a sharer in 
 Livingstone's explorations, who gathers here a 
 brilliant circle of authors, artists, travellers, and 
 wits whose gayety dispels the hoary and ghostly 
 associations of the place. 
 
 From the boundary of the estate a broad 
 avenue, lined with noble trees, leads to an inner 
 park of eight hundred acres, among whose sylvan 
 beauties our way lies, through verdant glades and 
 under leafy boughs whose shadows the sunshine 
 prints upon the path, until we see, from the 
 verge of the wood, the noble pile rising amid an 
 environment of lawn and lake, grove and garden. 
 It is a vast stone structure, composed of motley 
 parts joined " by no quite lawful marriage of the 
 arts" into an harmonious and impressive whole. 
 The western facade is the one usually pictured, 
 because it contains the Byron apartments and best 
 displays the characteristic features of the edifice, 
 having a castellated tower at one extremity, 
 while to the other is joined the ruined chapel 
 front which, as an example of its style, is 
 rivalled in architectural value only by St. Mary's 
 at York. This Newstead fragment, retaining 
 its perfect proportions, its noble windows, its 
 gray statue of the Virgin and " God-born Child" 
 in the high niche of the gable, — the whole 
 p 81 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 draped and garlanded with ivy which conceals 
 the scars of Cromwell's cannon-balls, — is a vision 
 of unique beauty. From the Gothic door-way 
 of the mansion we are admitted to a gallery 
 with a low-vaulted roof of stone upheld by 
 massive columns. This was the crypt of the 
 abbot's dormitory ; it adjoins the cloisters, and, 
 like them, was used by the Wicked Byron as a 
 stable for cattle. It is now adorned with the 
 spoils of African deserts, trophies of the mighty 
 huntsman who now inhabits the Abbey. One 
 of these, the skin of a noble lion, is said to 
 have belonged to a beast which had mutilated 
 Livingstone and was standing above his body 
 when a ball from Webb's rifle laid him low and 
 saved the great explorer. From the crypt, stone 
 stairs lead to the corridors above the cloisters : 
 in Byron's time entrance was between a bear 
 and a wolf chained on these stairs and menacing 
 the guest from either side. Out of the corridor 
 adjoining the chapel ruin a spiral stairway ascends 
 to a plain and sombre suite of rooms, once the 
 abbot's lodgings, but cherished now because 
 they were the private apartments of Byron. 
 His chamber is neither large nor elegant, its walls 
 are plainly papered, and its single oriel window 
 is shaded by a faded curtain. The room remains 
 as Byron last occupied it : his carpet is upon the 
 floor; the carved bedstead, with its gilt posts 
 82 
 
Byron's Apartments 
 
 and lordly coronets, is the one brought by him 
 from college; its curtains and coverings are 
 those he used ; above the mantel is the mir- 
 ror which often reflected his handsome features. 
 We sit in his embroidered arm-chair by the 
 window, overlooking lawn and lake and the 
 wood he planted, and write out upon his plain 
 table the memoranda from which this article is 
 prepared. The tourist is told that the chamber 
 has never been used since Byron left it; but 
 Irving occupied it for some time, as his letters to 
 his brother declare, and a few years ago our 
 Joaquin Miller lay here in Byron's bed, and saw, 
 in the moonbeams sharply reflected from the 
 mirror into his face, an explanation of the 
 ghostly apparitions which Byron beheld in this 
 glass. In the adjoining room are a portrait of 
 the poet's " corporeal pastor," Jackson, in arena 
 costume, and a painting of Byron's valet, Joe 
 Murray, a bright-looking fellow of pleasing face 
 and faultless attire. This room was sometime 
 occupied by Byron's pretty page, whom the 
 housekeeper believed to be a girl in masquerade : 
 this page was introduced elsewhere as the poet's 
 younger brother Gordon, and an attempt has 
 been made to identify her with the mysterious 
 '* Thyrza" of his poems, and with " Astarte" 
 also. The third room of the suite, Byron's 
 dressing-room and study, was one of the haunts 
 83 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of the goblin friar who was heard stalking amid 
 the dim cloisters or in the apartments above. 
 Byron's room here is the Gothic chamber of 
 the Norman abbey where " Don Juan" slept 
 and dreamed of Aurora Raby, and the corridor 
 is the " gallery of sombre hue" where he pur- 
 sued the sable phantom and captured a very 
 material duchess. Directly beneath is a pan- 
 elled apartment of moderate dimensions which 
 was Byron's dining-room and the scene of many 
 a revel when the monk's skull, brimming with 
 wine, was sent round by the poet's guests. His 
 sideboard is still here, his heavy table remains 
 in the middle of the room, and the famous skull, 
 mounted as a drinking-cup and inscribed with 
 the familiar anacreontic, is carefully preserved. 
 The library is a stately and spacious apartment : 
 here, among many mementos of the poet, Ada 
 Byron first heard a poem of her father's ; here 
 Byron's Italian friend la Guiccioli made notes 
 for her " Recollections," and here Livingstone 
 penned portions of the books which record his 
 explorations. In the grand hall we see the 
 elevated chimney-piece beneath which Byron 
 and his guests heaped so great a fire, on the first 
 night of his occupancy of the Abbey, that its 
 destruction was threatened. This superb apart- 
 ment, the old dormitory of the monks, was 
 used by the poet as a shooting-gallery, and was 
 84 
 
Relics 
 
 one of the haunts of his •« Black Friar." The 
 drawing-room of the mansion is palatial in 
 dimensions and furnishing. Its panels and gro- 
 tesque carvings have been restored, and this an- 
 cient room, once the refectory of the monks and 
 later the hay-loft of the Wicked Byron, is now 
 a marvel of elegance. Here is the familiar por- 
 trait of Byron at twenty-three, an earlier water- 
 color picturing him in college gown, and a later 
 bust in marble. Here by her desire the body 
 of Ada Byron lay in state, and from here it was 
 borne to rest beside her father at near-by Huck- 
 nall, more than realizing the closing stanzas of 
 the third canto of " Childe Harold." 
 
 In these stately rooms and in the adjoining 
 corridors are numerous priceless relics of the 
 immortal bard ; among them, the cap, belt, and 
 cimeter he wore in Greece; his foils, spurs, 
 stirrups, and boxing-gloves; a painting of his 
 famous dog Boatswain ; the bronze candlesticks 
 from his writing-table and the table upon which 
 were written " Bards and Reviewers," poems 
 of " Hours of Idleness," " Hebrew Melodies," 
 and portions of his masterpiece, " Childe Har- 
 old." Preserved here, with Byron's will, un- 
 published letters, and scraps of verse, are papers 
 which indicate that the poet's chef-d* ceuvre was 
 originally designed for private circulation and 
 was entitled " Childe Byron." An interesting 
 85 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 relic is a section of the noted " twin-tree" 
 bearing the names " Byron — Augusta" carved by 
 the poet at his last visit to the Abbey. Our 
 own Barnum once visited the place and offered 
 Wildman five hundred pounds for this double 
 tree (then standing in the grove), intending to re- 
 move it for exhibition ; the colonel indignantly 
 replied that five thousand would not purchase it, 
 and that " the man capable of such a project de- 
 served to be gibbeted." Here, too, are the por- 
 trait of the first lord of Newstead, "John 
 Byron - the - Little - with- the - Great - Beard ;" the 
 huge iron knocker in use on the door of the 
 Abbey seven centuries ago ; a collection of 
 mediaeval armor and weapons ; some personal 
 belongings of Livingstone, and many specimens 
 of fauna and flora gathered by him and Webb 
 in the dark continent. One vaulted apartment 
 of exquisite proportions, erst the sanctuary of 
 the abbot, and later Byron's dog-kennel, is now 
 the chapel of the household. Newstead has 
 been the abode of royalty, and holds rooms in 
 which, from the time of Edward III., kings have 
 often lodged. We see the chamber occupied by 
 Ada Byron during her visit ; another, adorned 
 with quaint carvings and once haunted by Byron- 
 of-the-Great-Beard, was used by Irving. The 
 noble chambers contain richly carved furniture, 
 costly tapestries, and beds of such altitude that 
 86 
 
Court and Gardens 
 
 steps are provided for scaling them. The hang- 
 ings of one bed belonged to Prince Rupert, and 
 its counterpane was embroidered by Mary Queen 
 of Scots. 
 
 In the centre of the edifice is the quadrangular 
 court, surrounded by a series of low-vaulted 
 arcades, once the stables of the Wicked Byron 
 and long ago the " cloisters dim and damp" of 
 the monks whose dust moulders now beneath 
 the pavement. One crypt-like cell which holds 
 the boilers for heating the mansion was Byron's 
 swimming-bath. In the middle of the court 
 the ancient stone fountain, with its grotesque 
 sculptures of saints and monsters, graven by the 
 patient toil of the monks, still sends out sprays 
 of coolness. 
 
 We spend delightful hours loitering in the 
 ancient gardens of the friars and about their 
 ruined chapel. Through its mighty window, 
 " yawning all desolate," pours a flood of western 
 light upon the turf that covers the holy ground 
 where congregations knelt in worship ; while, 
 amid the dust of the priests and near the 
 site of the altar where they " raised their pious 
 voices but to pray," Byron's dog lies in a tomb 
 far handsomer than that which holds his noble 
 master. It was in excavating Boatswain's grave 
 that Byron found the skull afterward used as a 
 drinking-cup. The dog's monument consists of 
 87 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 a wide pedestal, surmounted by a panelled altar- 
 stone which upholds a funeral urn and bears 
 Byron's familiar eulogistic inscription and the 
 misanthropic stanzas ending with the lines, — 
 
 " To mark a friend's remains these stones arise j 
 I never knew but one, and here he lies.** 
 
 Other panels were designed to bear the epitaph 
 of Byron, who directed in his will (1811) that 
 he should be buried in this spot with his valet 
 and dog ; it is said to have been discovered that 
 the poet had made careful preparation for his 
 entombment here, the stone trestles and slab to 
 support his coffin being in place upon the pave- 
 ment, but the sale of Newstead led to his in- 
 terment elsewhere, and faithful Murray — who 
 declined to lie here " alone with the dog" — 
 sleeps near his master. 
 
 The gardens of the Abbey lie about its 
 ancient walls : here are the fish-pools of the 
 monks ; the noble terrace ; the " Young Oak" 
 of Byron's poem, planted by his hands and now 
 grown into a large and graceful tree ; other trees 
 rooted by Livingstone and Stanley while guests 
 here. At one side is a grove of beeches and 
 yews, in whose gloomy recesses theWicked Byron 
 erected leaden statues of Pan and Pandora, of 
 which the rustics were so afraid that they would 
 not go near them after nightfall, and which are 
 88 
 
Grounds — Recollections 
 
 still respectfully spoken of in the servants' hall 
 as " Mr. and Mrs. Devil. " Before the mansion 
 lies the lucid lake described in " Don Juan :" 
 the forest that shades its shore and sweeps over 
 the farther hill-side was planted by Byron to 
 repair the spoliation of his uncle, and is called 
 the " Poet's Wood." Upon some of the farms 
 of the domain live descendants of Nancy Smith, 
 whom Irving's readers will remember, her son 
 having married despite his mother's protest and 
 reared a family. One aged servitor claims to 
 remember Irving's visit, and opines "the old 
 colonel [Wildman] thought him a very fine 
 man — for an American." He recounts some 
 peccadilloes of Joe Murray, traditional among 
 the servants, which show that worthy to have 
 been less precise in morals than in dress. The 
 ancient Byron estates were among the haunts of 
 one whose exploits inspired a book of ballads, 
 and we here see Robin Hood's cave and other 
 reminders of the bold outlaw and his " merrie 
 men in Lyncolne greene." 
 
 Such, briefly, is the condition of Byron's an- 
 cestral home as it appears nearly eighty years 
 after he saw it for the last time. Besides the 
 charms which won his affection and made him 
 relinquish the Abbey with such poignant regret, 
 it holds for us an added spell in that it has been 
 the habitation of a transcendent genius. Where 
 89 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Wildman's fortune failed his wishes the present 
 owner has supplemented his work, until the vast 
 pile now gleams with more than its ancient 
 splendor ; and, as we take a last view through a 
 glade whose beauty fitly frames the picture of 
 the restored mansion, we trust that somehow 
 and somewhere Byron knows that his hope for 
 his beloved Newstead is accomplished : 
 
 " Haply thy sun emerging yet may shine, 
 Thee to irradiate with meridian ray j 
 Hours splendid as the past may still be thine, 
 And bless thy future as thy former day.'* 
 
WARWICKSHIRE: THE LOAM- 
 SHIRE OF GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 Miss Mulock — Butler — Somervile — Dyer — Rugby — Homes of 
 George Eliot — Scenes of Tales — Cheverel — Shepperton — 
 Miltys Grave- Paddiford-Milby- Coventry, etc.-CAar- 
 acters— Incidents. 
 
 QOME one has said that to write about War- 
 *** wickshire is to write about Shakespeare. 
 True, the transcending fame of the bard of Avon 
 gives the places associated with his life and genius 
 pre-eminence, but the literary rambler will find 
 in this heart of England other shrines worthy 
 of homage. Inevitably our pilgrimage includes 
 the Stratford scenes, — from the birthplace and 
 the Hathaway cottage to the fane where all the 
 world bows at Shakespeare's tomb, — but, reso- 
 lutely repressing the inclination to describe again 
 these oft-described resorts, we fare to less fa- 
 miliar shrines : to the birthplace of the author of 
 " Hudibras" and the haunts and tomb of Somer- 
 vile, poet of" The Chase" and " Rural Sports ;" 
 to the Rhynhill of Braddon's tale and the Kenil- 
 worth of Scott's matchless romance ; to Bilton, 
 where Addison sometime dwelt, and the Cal- 
 thorpe home of Dyer, bard of " Grongar Hill" 
 and " The Fleece," where we find his garden 
 and a tree he planted which shades now his battle- 
 9i 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 merited old church ; to Rugby, where we see 
 the dormitory of " Tom Brown" Hughes, the 
 class-rooms he shared with Clough, Matthew 
 Arnold, and Dean Stanley, the grave of the 
 beloved Dr. Arnold in the " Rugby Chapel" of 
 his son's poem. 
 
 At Avonmouth we find the Norton Bury of 
 "John Halifax," and the old inn where Dinah 
 Mulock lived while writing this her popular 
 tale. The inn garden holds the yew hedge of 
 the novel, «* fifteen feet high and as many thick," 
 and the sward over which crept the lame Phin- 
 eas : sitting there, we see the view the boy 
 admired, — the old Abbey tower, the mill of Abel 
 Fletcher, the river where the famished rioters 
 fought for the grains the grim old man had flung 
 into the water, the green level of the Ham dot- 
 ted with cattle, the white sails of the encircling 
 Severn, the farther sweep of country extending 
 to the distant hills, — and hear the sweet-toned 
 Abbey chimes and the lazy whir of the mill 
 which sounded so pleasantly in Phineas's ears. 
 
 "John Halifax" was published simultaneously 
 with another tale of Warwickshire life, " Amos 
 Barton." We are newly come from the London 
 homes of George Eliot and her grave on the 
 Highgate hill-side, and now, as we traverse sweet 
 Avonvale, we gladly remember that Shakespeare's 
 shire is hers as well. A jaunt of a score of 
 92 
 
Other Shrines — Loamshire 
 
 miles from Stratford brings us to the scenes amid 
 which she was born and grew to physical and 
 mental maturity. Our course by " Avon's 
 stream," bowered by willows or bordered by 
 meads, lies past the noble park where Shake- 
 speare did not steal deer and the palace of his 
 Justice Shallow where he was not arraigned for 
 poaching. (We find it as impossible to keep 
 Shakespeare out of our MS. as did Mr. Dick of 
 " Copperfield" to keep Charles I. out of the 
 memorial.) Beyond Charlecote is storied War- 
 wick Castle with the old mansion of Compton 
 Wyniates, dwelling of the royalist knight of 
 Scott's " Woodstock," not far away. Beyond 
 these again we come to the Coventry region and 
 the frontier of the " Loamshire" whose character- 
 istics are imaged and whose traditions, phases of 
 life, and scenery are wrought with tender touch 
 into poem and tale by George Eliot and so made 
 familiar to all the world. Warwickshire scenery 
 is not sublime; Dr. Arnold characterized it as 
 "an endless monotony of enclosed fields and 
 hedgerow trees." While its landscapes lack 
 striking features, theirs is the quiet, unobtrusive 
 beauty which Hawthorne loved and which for 
 us is full of restful charm. Across sunny vales 
 and gentle eminences we look away to the far-off 
 Malvern Hills, whose shadowy outlines bound 
 many a u Loamshire" landscape. We see vis- 
 93 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 tas of low-lying meads with circling " lines of 
 willows marking the watercourses ;" of slum- 
 berous expanses of green or golden fields ; of 
 villages grouped about gray church-towers ; of 
 groves of venerable woods, — survivors of Shake- 
 speare's " Forest of Arden" which erst clothed 
 the countryside. We find it, indeed, " worth 
 the journey hither only to see the hedgerows," — 
 green, fragrant walls of hawthorn which border 
 lane and highway, bound garden and field. 
 With their gleaming boughs rayed by bright 
 blossoms and festooned with interlacing vines, 
 these barriers are often marvels of beauty and 
 strength. Between miles of such hedgerows, 
 and beneath lines of overshading elms, a high- 
 way running northward from the town of Godiva 
 and " Peeping Tom" brings us to the great 
 Arbury property of the Newdigates, where we 
 find the South Farm homestead in which Robert 
 Evans — newly appointed agent of the estate — 
 temporarily placed his family, and where, in the 
 room at the left of the central chimney-stack, at 
 five o'clock on the morning of St. Cecilia's day, 
 1 8 19, his youngest child, Mary Ann, was born. 
 It is a broad-eaved, many-gabled, two-storied 
 structure of stuccoed stone, with trim hedges 
 and flower-bordered garden-beds about it, a 
 wider environment of lawn and woodland, and 
 colonnades of the elms which figure in her poems 
 94 
 
Birthplace and Home of George Eliot 
 
 and were already venerable when she saw the 
 light beneath their shade. On the same estate, 
 near the highway between Bedworth and Nun- 
 eaton, is Griff House, " the warm nest where 
 her affections were fledged," to which she was 
 removed at the age of four months, and where 
 her first score years of life were passed. It is a 
 pleasant and picturesque double-storied mansion 
 of brick, quaint and comfortable. Massy ivy- 
 mantles its walls, climbs to its gables, overruns 
 its roofs, peeps in at its tiny-paned casements ; 
 doves coo upon its ridges. About it flowers 
 shine from their setting in the emerald of the 
 lawn, and great trees open their leaves to the sun- 
 shine and winds of summer. Spacious rooms lie 
 upon either side of the entrance : of the one at 
 the left, the novelist gives us a glimpse in " The 
 Mill on the Floss." It is a home-like apartment, 
 with low walls and a pleasant fireplace ; it was the 
 dining-room and sitting-room also in the days 
 when " the little wench" Mary Ann was the pet 
 of the household. Here she acted charades 
 with her brother Isaac and astonished the family 
 . by repeating stories from " Miller's Jest Book," 
 a treasured volume of hers in that early time. 
 We learn from Maggie Tulliver — in whose 
 childhood is pictured the author's inner life as a 
 child — that Defoe's "History of the Devil" 
 was another of Mary Ann's juvenile favorites, 
 95 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 and her relatives preserve the worn copy she 
 used to read here before this fireplace with her 
 father, containing the pictures of the drowning 
 witch and the devil which little Maggie explained 
 to Mr. Riley in "The Mill on the Floss." 
 Here, years afterward, Mary Ann heard, from 
 her '* Methodist Aunt Samuel," the thrilling story 
 of the girl executed for child-murder, which 
 was the germ of the great romance "Adam 
 Bede." The aunt, who had been a preacher in 
 earlier life, remained at GrifF for some time, and 
 George Eliot has told us that the character of 
 Dinah Morris grew out of her recollections of 
 this relative. It may be noted that in real life 
 Dinah married Seth Bede, Adam being drawn in 
 part — like Caleb Garth — from the novelist's 
 father. In this same room, but a few years ago, 
 the «' Brother" of the poem, who played here 
 at charades with little Mary Ann, suddenly ex- 
 pired in his chair but a few minutes after his 
 return from " Shepperton Church." The win- 
 dows of Mary Ann's chamber command a reach 
 of the coach-road of " Felix Holt" and a farther 
 vista of woodlands and fields ; in another 
 chamber is the mahogany bed beneath which 
 she was once found hidden to avoid going to 
 school. In the roof is the attic which was 
 Maggie Tulliver's retreat, where she kept her 
 wooden doll with the nails in its head, and here 
 96 
 
Scenes of her Tales 
 
 is the chimney-stack against which that vicarious 
 sufferer was ground and beaten. The death of 
 her mother, Mrs. Hackit of " Barton," made 
 Mary Ann mistress of Griff at sixteen. At 
 Griff's gates stood the cottage of Dame Moore's 
 school, where the novelist began her education, 
 and where years after she used to collect the 
 children of the vicinage for religious instruction 
 each Sabbath. A son of Mrs. Moore lately 
 lived not far away, and had more to say in praise 
 of " Mary Hann" than of her surviving kinsfolk, 
 who seem ashamed of their relationship to the 
 novelist. In a shaded part of the garden lately 
 stood a bower with a stone table, which George 
 Eliot doubtless had in mind when she described 
 the finding of Casaubon's corpse in the arbor at 
 Lowick. The exhausted quarries in the shale 
 close by, a resort of Mary Ann's girlhood, are 
 the " Red Deeps" where Maggie met her lover ; 
 the " brown canal" of the poem winds through 
 the near hollow ; and beyond it, on *' an apology 
 for an elevation of ground," is the " College" 
 workhouse to which Amos Barton walked 
 through the sleet to read prayers. Not far 
 distant is Arbury Hall, seat of the Newdigates, 
 for whom the tenant of Griff was and is agent. 
 This is the Cheverel Manor of " Gilfil," an 
 imposing castellated structure of gray stone, with 
 flanking towers and great mullioned windows 
 g 97 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of multishaped panes, famous for its elaborately- 
 decorated ceilings. That George Eliot had 
 often been within this mansion is shown by her 
 familiarity with the arrangement and ornamenta- 
 tion of the rooms, accurately described as scenes 
 of many incidents of the tale. In the grounds, 
 too, the imagery of the " Love Story" may be 
 perfectly realized : here are the lawn where little 
 Caterina sat with Lady Cheverel, and the shim- 
 mering pool, with its swans and water-lilies, 
 which was searched for her corpse the morning 
 of her flight ; at a little distance we find " Moss- 
 lands," and the cottage of the gardener to which 
 the dead body of Wybrow was carried; and, 
 farther away, the spot under giant limes where 
 the poor girl, coming to meet her recreant lover 
 "with a dagger in her dress and murder in her 
 heart," found him lying dead in the path, his 
 hand clutching the dark leaves, his eyes unheed- 
 ing the " sunlight that darted upon them be- 
 tween the boughs." A touching incident in the 
 life of a former owner of Arbury was made the 
 plot of Otway's tragedy " The Orphan." 
 
 A mile northward from Griff is the quaint 
 church of Chilvers Coton, where Mary Ann 
 was christened at the age of a week, where a 
 little later her " devotional patience" was fostered 
 by smuggled bread-and-butter, and where as 
 child and woman she worshipped for twenty 
 98 
 
Shepperton Church — Milly's Grave 
 
 years. It is a massive stone edifice with Gothic 
 windows, one of them being a memorial of the 
 wife of Isaac Evans, and with a square tower 
 rising above its low roofs ; at one corner, " a 
 flight of stone steps, with their wooden rail run- 
 ning up the outer wall," still leads to the chil- 
 dren's gallery as in the days of Gilfil and Amos 
 Barton, for this is the Shepperton Church of the 
 tales. Within we see the memorials of Rev. 
 Gilpin Ebdell (thought to be Gilfil) and of 
 the original of Mrs. Farquhar ; the place where 
 Gilfil read his sermons from manuscript " rather 
 yellow and worn at the edges," and where Barton 
 later "preached without book." About the 
 renovated fane is the church-yard, with its grassy 
 mounds and mouldering tombstones, one of which, 
 protected by a paling and shaded by leafy boughs, 
 is crowned by a funeral urn and marks the spot 
 where Milly was laid, — '* the sweet mother with 
 her baby in her arms," — the grave to which Bar- 
 ton came back an old man with Patty supporting 
 his infirm steps. Its inscription is to " Emma, 
 beloved wife of Revd. John Gwyther, B.A.," 
 curate here in George Eliot's girlhood : during 
 his incumbency the community felt aggrieved 
 for his wife on account of the prolonged stay 
 at the parsonage of a strange woman who, years 
 after, was described as Countess Czerlaski by 
 one who as a child had seen her here. Not far 
 99 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 from Milly's monument the parents of George 
 Eliot lie in one grave, with Isaac, the " Brother" 
 of her poem, sleeping near. By the church- 
 yard wall stands the pleasant ivy-grown parson- 
 age to which Gilfil brought his dark-eyed bride, 
 and where, after brief months of happiness, he 
 lived the long years of solitude and sorrow. 
 We see the cosy parlor — smelling no longer of 
 his or Barton's pipe — where the lonely old man 
 sat with his dog, and above, its pretty window 
 overlooking the garden, the chamber where he 
 tenderly cherished the dainty belongings of his 
 dead wife with the unused baby-clothes her 
 fingers had fashioned, and where, in another 
 tale, is laid one of the most affecting and high- 
 wrought scenes in all fiction, the death of Milly 
 Barton. 
 
 A half-mile distant lies the village of Attle- 
 boro, where, at the age of five, Mary Ann was 
 sent to Miss Lathorn's school ; and a mile south- 
 ward from GrifF, in a region blackened by pits, 
 is the town of Bedworth, — '* dingy with coal- 
 dust and noisy with looms," — whose men " walk 
 with knees bent outward from squatting in the 
 mine," and whose haggard, overworked women 
 and dirty children and cottages are pathetically 
 pictured in " Felix Holt." Obviously the 
 changes of the half-century which has elapsed 
 since George Eliot knew its wretchedness have 
 
Milby — Liggins 
 
 wrought little improvement in this place, over 
 which her nephew is rector : we see pale, 
 hungry faces in the streets, squalor in the poor 
 dwellings, proofs of pinching poverty every- 
 where. A little beyond Chilvers Coton we find 
 the market-town of Nuneaton, the Milby of 
 the romances. The shaking of hand-looms is 
 less noticeable now than in George Eliot's 
 school-days here, factories having supplanted 
 the cottage industry ; but the dingy, smoky 
 town, with its environment of flat fields, is still 
 "nothing but dreary prose." Here we find, 
 near the church, " The Elms" of her girlhood, 
 a tall brick edifice embowered with ivy ; on its 
 garden side, the long low-ceiled school-room, 
 with its heavy beams, broad windows, and plain 
 furniture, where she was four years a pupil ; the 
 dormitory whence she beheld the riot which she 
 describes in the election-riot at Treby in «« Felix 
 Holt." Another vision of her girlhood here 
 was a " tall, black-coated young clergyman-in- 
 embryo," Liggins by name, who afterward 
 claimed the authorship of her books and so far 
 imposed upon the public that a subscription was 
 made for him. Mrs. Gaskell was one of the last 
 to relinquish the belief that Liggins was George 
 Eliot. He spent most of his time drinking, but 
 did his own house-work, and was found by a 
 deputation of literary admirers washing his slop- 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 basin at the pump. All about us at Nuneaton 
 lie familiar objects : the cosy Bull Inn is the 
 " Red Lion" where, in the opening of " Janet's 
 Repentance," Dempser is discovered in theologic 
 discussion, and from whose window he harangued 
 the anti-Tyranite mob ; the fine old church, 
 with its beautiful oaken carvings, is the sanctuary 
 where Mr. Crewe, in brown Brutus wig, deliv- 
 ered his " inaudible sermons," and where Mr. 
 Elty preached later ; adjoining is the parsonage, 
 erst redolent of Crewe's tobacco, where Janet 
 helped his deaf wife to spread the luncheon for 
 the bishop, and where, in the time of Elty, Bar- 
 ton came to the sessions of the " Clerical Meet- 
 ing and Book Society ;" on this Church street, 
 " Orchard Street" of Eliot, a quaint stuccoed 
 house with casement windows was Dempser's 
 home, whence he thrust his wife at midnight 
 into the darkness and cold ; the arched passage 
 near by is that through which she fled to the 
 haven of Mrs. Pettifer's house. A little way 
 westward amid the pits is Stockingford, " Paddi- 
 ford" of the tale, and the chapel where Mr. 
 Tyran preached. A cousin of George Eliot's 
 was recently a coal-master in this vicinity. 
 
 Eight miles from Griff is Coventry, where our 
 companion is one who had met Rossetti there 
 forty years before. George Eliot was sometime 
 a pupil of Miss Franklin's school, lately standing 
 
Coventry — Birds Grove 
 
 in Little Park Street, and saw there that lady's 
 father, whom she described as Rev. Rufus Lyon 
 of Treby Chapel. His diminutive legs, large 
 head, and other peculiarities are yet remembered 
 by some who were in the school ; his home is 
 accurately pictured in "Felix Holt." In the 
 Foleshill suburb we find the stone villa of Birds 
 Grove, which was the home of the novelist after 
 Isaac Evans had succeeded his father at Griff. 
 The house has been enlarged, but the apartments 
 she knew are little changed : a plain little room 
 above the entrance, whose window looked beyond 
 the tree-tops to the superb spire of St. Michael's 
 Church, — where Kemble and Siddons were mar- 
 ried, — was her study, in which, despite her tasks 
 as her father's housewife and nurse, she accom- 
 plished much literary work. At the right of 
 the window stood her desk, with an ivory crucifix 
 above it, and here her translation of Strauss's 
 " Leben Jesu," undertaken through the persua- 
 sion of her friends at Rosehill, was written. 
 Some portions of this work she found distressing ; 
 she declared to Mrs. Bray that nothing but the 
 sight of the Christ image enabled her to endure 
 dissecting the beautiful story of the crucifixion. 
 Adjoining the study is her modest bedchamber, 
 and beyond it that of her father, where during 
 many months of sickness she was his sole attend- 
 ant, often sitting the long night through at his 
 103 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 bedside with her hand in his. The grounds are 
 little changed, save that the occupant has removed 
 much of the foliage which formerly shrouded 
 the mansion, but some of George Eliot's favorite 
 trees remain on the lawn. Half a mile away is 
 the pretty villa of Rosehill, whilom the home 
 of Mrs. Bray and her sister Sara Hennel, who 
 were the most valued friends of the novelist's 
 young-womanhood and exerted the strongest in- 
 fluence upon her life. Her letters to these 
 friends constitute a great part of Cross's " Life." 
 At Rosehill she met Chapman, Mackay, Robert 
 Owen, Combe, Thackeray, Herbert Spencer, 
 and others of like genius, and here she spent a 
 day with Emerson and wrote next day, " I have 
 seen Emerson — the first man I have ever seen." 
 Sara Hennel testifies that Emerson was impressed 
 with Miss Evans and declared, " That young 
 lady has a serious soul." When he asked her, 
 " What one book do you like best ?" and she 
 replied, " Rousseau's Confessions," he quickly 
 responded, " So do I : there is a point of sym- 
 pathy between us." After her father's death 
 she was for sixteen months a resident at Rose- 
 hill, and there wrote, among other things, the re- 
 view of Mackay's " Progress of the Intellect." 
 Financial reverses caused the Brays long ago to 
 relinquish this beautiful home, but some of this 
 household were lately living in another suburb 
 104 
 
Coventry Friends 
 
 of Coventry and receiving an annuity bequeathed 
 by George Eliot. Here, too, lately resided 
 another old-time friend, the Mary Sibtree of the 
 novelist's Coventry days, to whom were addressed 
 some of the letters used by Cross. 
 
 In 1 85 1 George Eliot left this circle of 
 friends to become an inmate of Chapman's 
 house in London, returning to them for occasional 
 visits for the next few years ; then came her 
 union with Lewes, after which the loved scenes 
 of her youth knew her no more in the flesh ; 
 but the allusions to them which run like threads 
 of gold through all her work show how oft she 
 revisited them in " shadowy spirit form." 
 
 105 
 
YORKSHIRE SHRINES: DO- 
 
 THEBOYS HALL AND 
 
 ROKEBY 
 
 Village of Bowes- Dickens-Squeers' s School— The Master and 
 his Family-Haunt of Scott. 
 
 TT^ROM the familiar shrines of Cumberland, 
 •*■ the lakeside haunts of Wordsworth, 
 Southey, and Coleridge, a journey across a wild 
 moorland region — from whose higher crags we 
 see through the fog-rifts the German Ocean and 
 the Irish Sea — brings us into Gretavale, on the 
 northern border of great Yorkshire. In the 
 upper portion of the valley, among the outlying 
 spurs of the Pennines, the storied Greta flows 
 at the foot of a bleak, treeless hill on whose 
 summit we find the village of Bowes. This 
 was the Lavatrae of the Romans, who for three 
 centuries had here a station, and remains of great 
 Roman works may still be traced in the 
 vicinage ; but to the literary pilgrim Bowes is 
 chiefly of interest as representing " the delightful 
 village of Dotheboys" described in Squeers's 
 advertisement of his school in " Nicholas 
 Nickleby." The aspect of the village is dreary 
 and desolate in the extreme. A single street, 
 steep and straight, bordered by straggling houses 
 of dull gray stone, extends along the hill, which 
 106 
 
Bowes — Dotheboys Hall 
 
 is crowned by the church and an ancient castle : 
 the dun moors decline steeply on every side, 
 leaving the treeless village dismal and bare and 
 often exposed to a wind " fit to knock a man off 
 his legs," as Squeers said to Nicholas. In the 
 midst of the village stands a cosy inn, where 
 Dickens for some time lodged and was visited by 
 John Browdie, and where we are shown the 
 wainscoted apartment in which some portion 
 of " Nickleby" was noted. At the time of 
 Dickens's sojourn here, Bowes was the centre of 
 the pernicious cheap-school system which he 
 came to expose, and half the houses of the 
 village were "academies" similar to that of 
 Squeers : among them one is pointed out as 
 being the place where Cobden was a pupil. 
 But most interesting of all is the large house at 
 the top of the hill which Dickens depicted as 
 Dotheboys Hall, — by which name it was long 
 known among the older dwellers of the place, — 
 a long, heavy, two-storied, dingy structure of 
 stone, with many windows along its front, and 
 presenting, despite its bowering vines and trees, 
 an aspect so chill and cheerless that one can 
 scarcely conceive of a more depressing domicile 
 for the neglected children who once thronged it. 
 Through an archway at one end could be seen 
 the pump which was frozen on the first morning 
 of Nicholas's stay, and beyond it the garden 
 107 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 which, by a surprising mistake, Dickens repre- 
 sents a pupil to be weeding on a freezing winter's 
 day. 
 
 A few residents of the neighborhood remem- 
 ber the " measther" of Dotheboys Hall ; his 
 name, like Squeers's, was of one syllable and 
 began with S ; in person he was not like Squeers, 
 nor was he an ignorant man. A quondam pupil 
 of the school informed the writer that Johnny 
 S. was fairly drawn as Wackford Squeers, but 
 Miss S. was a young lady of considerable refine- 
 ment and was in no sense like the spiteful Fanny 
 of the tale. Squeers had the largest of the 
 schools, and, besides rooms in the adjoining 
 house, he hired barns in which to lodge his 
 many pupils. A farm attached to his house 
 was cultivated by the scholars, whose food was 
 chiefly oatmeal : scanty diet and liberal flogging 
 was the portion of all who displeased the master. 
 According to local belief, this school was not so 
 bad as some of its neighbors, and no one of the 
 schools realized all the wretchedness which 
 Dickens portrays; yet, despite the author's 
 avowal that Squeers was a representative of a 
 class, and not an individual, the popular identifi- 
 cation of this school as the typical Dotheboys, 
 and the odium consequent thereupon, wrought 
 its speedy ruin and the death of the master and 
 mistress. The latter result is to be deplored, for 
 1 08 
 
Squeers — Rokeby 
 
 the reason that in the case of this pair the 
 abhorrence seems to have been not wholly 
 deserved. Two charges, at least, which affected 
 them most painfully — that of goading the boys to 
 suicide and that of feeding them upon the flesh of 
 diseased cattle — were, by the testimony of their 
 neighbors, unfounded so far as the proprietors 
 of this school were concerned. Relatives of 
 Squeers lately occupied Dotheboys Hall, which 
 had become a farm-house, and other relatives 
 and descendants are respectable denizens of the 
 vicinity. Dickens's exposure of the schools led 
 to their extinction and to the consignment of 
 Bowes to its present somnolent condition. In 
 the village church-yard lie the lovers whose 
 simultaneous deaths were commemorated by 
 Mallet in " Edwin and Emma." At Barnard 
 Castle, a few miles away, the prototype of New- 
 man Noggs is still traditionally known, and known 
 as " a gentleman." 
 
 The abounding beauties of the Greta have 
 been painted by Turner and sung by Scott, both 
 frequenters of this vale. From Bowes, a ram- 
 ble along the lovely stream, between steep tree- 
 shaded banks where it chafes and " greets" over 
 the great rocks, and through mossy dells where it 
 softly murmurs its content, brings us to the 
 demesne of Rokeby, where Scott laid the scene 
 of his famous poem. On every hand amid this 
 109 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 region of enchantment, in glade and grove, in 
 riven cliff and headlong torrent, in sunny slope and 
 dingle's shade, we recognize the poetic imagery 
 of Scott. Every turn reveals some new vista, 
 rendered doubly delightful by the romantic asso- 
 ciations with which the great poet has invested 
 it. To the poet himself Greta's banks were 
 potent allurements, and they were his habitual 
 haunts during his sojourns in the valley. A de- 
 scendant of the friend whom Scott visited here 
 and to whom the poem is inscribed, points out 
 to us a natural grotto, in the precipitous bank 
 above the stream, where the poet often sat, and 
 where some part of ** Rokeby" was pondered 
 and composed amid the scenery it portrays. 
 
STERNE'S SWEET RETIRE- 
 MENT 
 
 Sutton-Crazy Castle-ToricV s Church-Parsonage- Where Tris- 
 tram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey were ivritten- 
 Reminiscences - Newburgh Hall - Where Sterne died- 
 Sepulchre. 
 
 A T historic old York we are fairly in the 
 ^*" midst of great Yorkshire : standing upon 
 the tower of its colossal cathedral, we overlook 
 half that ancient county. At our feet lie the 
 quaint olden streets depicted in Collins's " No 
 Name," where erstwhile dwelt Porteus, Defoe, 
 Wallis, Lindley Murray, Mrs. Stannard, Poole of 
 " Synopsis Criticorum," Burton the author im- 
 mortalized by Sterne as '* Dr. Slop." Below us 
 we see the feudal castle where Eugene Aram was 
 hanged, the ancient city wall with its gate-ways 
 and battlements, the ruins of mediaeval shrine 
 and of Roman citadel and necropolis ; abroad 
 we behold the vale which Bunsen pronounces 
 the " most beautiful in the world (the vale of 
 Normandy excepted)," with its streams, its 
 mosaics of green and golden fields and sombre 
 woods, its distant border of savage moors and 
 uplands. The Ouse, shining like a ribbon of 
 silver, flows at our feet ; we may trace its course 
 from the hills of Craven on the one hand, 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 while southward we behold it " slow winding 
 through the level plain" on its way to the sea ; 
 into its valley we see the Wharfe flowing from 
 the lovely dale where Collyer grew to manhood, 
 and, farther away, the Aire emerging from the 
 dreary region where lived the sad sisters Bronte 
 and wove the sombre threads of their lives into 
 romance. The Foss flows toward us from the 
 northeast, and our view along its valley embraces 
 the region where dwelt Sydney Smith, while 
 rising in the north are the Hambleton Hills, 
 which shelter the vale where Sterne wrote the 
 books that made him famous. Indeed, this 
 region of York is pervaded with memories of 
 that prince of sentimentalists : in the great 
 minster beneath us we find the tomb and monu- 
 ment of his grandfather, once archbishop of 
 this diocese ; in the carved pulpit of the min- 
 ster Sterne preached as prebendary, and here he 
 delivered his last sermon ; his uncle was a dig- 
 nitary of the old minster ; his " indefatigably 
 prolific" mother was native to this region ; his 
 wife was born here, and was first seen and loved 
 by Sterne within sound of the glorious minster 
 bells ; most of his adult life was passed within 
 sight of the minster towers. 
 
 At Sutton, Sterne's first living, the pilgrim 
 finds little to reward his devotion. Sterne's life 
 here was obscure and, save in preparation, un- 
 
Crazy Castle 
 
 productive. Skelton Castle was then the seat of 
 his college friend Stevenson, author of " Crazy- 
 Tales," etc., who was the Eugenius of" Shandy," 
 and to whom the " Sentimental Journey" was in- 
 scribed. Here Sterne found a library rich in rare 
 treatises upon unusual subjects, in which, during 
 his stay at Sutton, he spent much time and ac- 
 quired a fund of odd and fanciful learning which 
 constituted in part his equipment for his work. 
 We find this castle nearer the stern coast which 
 Yorkshire opposes to the endless thunders of the 
 North Sea. Once a Roman stronghold, then a 
 feudal fortress and castle of the Bruces, later a 
 country-seat, it has since Sterne's time been re- 
 built and modernized out of all semblance to the 
 " Crazy Castle" of his letters. It is believed 
 that only a few of the rooms remain substan- 
 tially as he knew them. A tradition is preserved 
 to the effect that during his visits here he bribed 
 the servants to tie the vane with the point 
 toward the west, because Eugenius would never 
 leave his bed while an east wind prevailed. A 
 near-by hill is called Sterne's Seat, but time has 
 left here little to remind us of the sentimental 
 " Yorick" who long haunted the place. It is 
 only at Coxwold, fourteen miles from York and 
 in the deeper depths of the shire, that we find 
 many remaining objects that were associated 
 with his work and with that portion of his life 
 
 H II 3 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 which chiefly concerns the literary world. A 
 result of the publication of the first part of 
 " Tristram Shandy" was the presentation of this 
 living to its author, and his removal to this 
 sequestered retreat, which was to be his home 
 during his too few remaining years. The ham- 
 let has now a railway station, but the usual 
 approach is by a rustic highway which conducts 
 to and constitutes the village street. Within the 
 hamlet we find a low-eaved road-side inn, and by 
 it the shaded green where the rural festivals were 
 held, and where, to celebrate the coronation of 
 George III., Sterne had an ox roasted whole and 
 served with great quantities of ale to his parish- 
 ioners. Just beyond, Sterne's church stands in- 
 tact upon a gentle eminence, overlooking a 
 lovely pastoral landscape bounded by verdant 
 hills. The church dates from the fifteenth cen- 
 tury and is a pleasing structure of perpendicular 
 Gothic style, with a shapely octagonal tower 
 embellished with fretted pinnacles and a para- 
 pet of graceful design. One window has been 
 filled with stained glass, but Sterne's pulpit 
 remains, and the interior of the edifice is scarcely 
 changed since he preached here his quaint ser- 
 mons. The walls are plain ; the low ceiling is 
 divided by beams whose intersections are marked 
 by grotesque bosses ; the whole effect is depress- 
 ing, and to the sensitive " Yorick" — haunted as 
 114 
 
Sterne's Church— Shandy Hall 
 
 he was by habitual dread that his ministrations 
 might provoke a fatal pulmonary hemorrhage — 
 it must have been dismal indeed. Among the 
 effigied tombs of the Fauconbergs which line 
 the chancel we find that of Sterne's friend who 
 gave him this living. 
 
 Beyond the church and near the highway 
 stands the quaint and picturesque old edifice 
 where dwelt Sterne during the eight famous 
 years of his life. In his letters he calls it 
 Castle Shandy, and in all the countryside it is 
 now known as Shandy Hall, shandy meaning in 
 the local dialect crack-brained. It is a long, 
 rambling, low-eaved fabric, with many heavy 
 gables and chimneys, and steep roofs of tiles. 
 Curious little casements are under the eaves; 
 larger windows look out from the gables and are 
 aligned nearer the ground, many of them shaded 
 by the dark ivy which clings to the old walls 
 and overruns the roofs. Abutting the kitchen is 
 an astounding pyramidal structure of masonry — 
 an Ailsa Craig in shape and solidity, yet more 
 resembling Stromboli with its emissions of 
 smoke, — which, beginning at the ground as a 
 buttress, terminates as a kitchen-chimney and 
 imparts to this portion of the house an archi- 
 tectural character altogether unique. Shrubbery 
 grows about the old domicile, venerable trees 
 which may have cast their shade upon ** Yorick" 
 "5 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 himself are by the door, and the aspect of the 
 place is decidedly attractive. To Sir George 
 Wombwell, who inherits the Fauconberg estate 
 through a daughter of Sterne's patron, we are 
 indebted for the preservation of the exterior of 
 the house in the condition it was when Sterne 
 inhabited it; but the interior has been parti- 
 tioned into two dwellings and thus considerably 
 altered. However, we may see the same 
 sombre wainscots and low ceiling that Sterne 
 knew, and we find the one room which inter- 
 ests us most — Sterne's parlor and study — little 
 changed. It is a pleasant apartment, with win- 
 dows looking into the garden, where stood the 
 summer-house in which he sometimes wrote, 
 and beyond which was the sward where " my 
 uncle Toby" habitually demonstrated the siege 
 of Namur and Dendermond. On the low walls 
 of this room Sterne disposed his seven hundred 
 books, — -" bought at a purchase dog-cheap," — and 
 here he wrote, besides his sermons, seven volumes 
 of " Tristram Shandy" and the ■* Sentimental 
 Journey." There is a local tradition that other 
 MSS. written here were found by the succeed- 
 ing tenant and used to line the hangings of the 
 room. Sterne's letters afford glimpses of him 
 in this room : in one we see him " before the 
 fire, with his cat purring beside him ;" in 
 another he is "sitting here and cudgelling his 
 116 
 
Sterne's Parsonage — Study 
 
 brains" for ideas, though he usually wrote 
 facilely and rapidly ; in another he shows us a 
 prettier picture, in which '• My Lydia" (his 
 daughter) " helps to copy for me, and my wife 
 knits and listens as I read her chapters ;" and 
 later, after his estrangement from Mrs. Sterne, 
 we see him " sitting here alone, as sad and soli- 
 tary as a tomcat, which by the way is all the 
 company I keep." In the repose of this charm- 
 ing place, and amid the peaceful influences about 
 him here in his pretty home, Sterne appears at 
 his best. And here for a time he was happy ; 
 we find his letters attesting, '« I am in high spirits, 
 care never enters this cottage ;" " I am happy as 
 a prince at Coxwold ;" " I wish you could see 
 in what a princely manner I live. I sit down to 
 dinner — fish and wild fowl, or a couple of fowls, 
 with cream and all the simple plenty a rich 
 valley can produce, with a clean cloth on my 
 table and a bottle of wine on my right hand to 
 drink your health." But the melancholy days 
 came all too soon ; the " bursting of vessels in 
 his lungs" became more and more frequent, his 
 struggle with dread consumption was inaugurated, 
 and now his letters from the pretty parsonage 
 abound with references to his "vile cough, 
 weak nerves, dismal headaches," etc. Now his 
 " sweet retirement" has become " a cuckoldy 
 retreat ;" he complains of its situation, of its 
 117 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 " death-doing, pestiferous wind." Returning to 
 it from a sentimental journey or from a brilliant 
 season of lionizing in London, he finds its quiet 
 and seclusion insufferably irksome. Mortally ill, 
 growing old, hopelessly estranged from his wife, 
 deprived of the companionship of his idolized 
 child, the poor master of Castle Shandy is u sad 
 and desolate," his " pleasures are few," he sits 
 "alone in silence and gloom." Such were some 
 of the diverse phases of his life which these 
 dumb walls have witnessed ; in the dismalest, 
 they have seen him at his desk here, resolutely 
 ignoring his ills and tracing the passages of wit 
 and fancy which were to delight the world. 
 The incomplete " Sentimental Journey" was 
 written in his last months of life. 
 
 A mile from Sterne's cottage, and approached 
 by a way oft trodden by him and his " little 
 Lyd," is Newburgh Hall, the ancient seat of 
 Sterne's friend. Parts of the walls of a priory 
 founded here in 1145 are incorporated into the 
 oldest portion of the hall, and this has been 
 added to by successive generations until a great, 
 incongruous pile has resulted, which, however, 
 is not devoid of picturesque beauty. Within 
 this mansion Sterne was a familiar guest : urged 
 by the friendly persistence of Fauconberg, he 
 frequently came here to chat or dine with his 
 friend and the guests of the hall, his brilliant 
 118 
 
Place of Sterne's Death and Burial 
 
 converse making him the life of the company. 
 Among the family portraits here are that of his 
 benefactor and one of Mary Cromwell, wife of 
 the second Fauconberg, who preserved here 
 many relics of the great Protector, including his 
 bones, which were somehow rescued from 
 Tyburn and concealed in a mass of masonry in 
 an upper apartment of the hall. 
 
 Sterne was not only popular with his lordly 
 neighbor of Newburgh, but also, improbable as 
 it would seem, with the illiterate yeomen who 
 were his parishioners : although they understood 
 not the sermons and found the sermonizer in 
 most regards a hopeless enigma, yet, according 
 to the traditions of the place, these simple 
 folk discerned something in the complexly 
 blended character of the creator of " my uncle 
 Toby" which elicited their esteem and prompted 
 many acts "of love and service. In a letter to an 
 American friend, Arthur Lee, Sterne writes, 
 " Not a parishioner catches a hare, a rabbit, or a 
 trout, but he brings it an offering to me." 
 
 As set forth by the inscription at Sterne's cot- 
 tage, he died in London. One autumn day we 
 find ourselves pondering the sad event of his last 
 sojourn in the great city, as we stand upon the 
 spot where his " truceless fight with disease" was 
 ended, barely a fortnight after the " Sentimental 
 Journey" was issued. His wish to die " un- 
 119 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 troubled by the concern of his friends and the 
 last service of wiping his brows and smoothing 
 his pillow" was literally realized. During the 
 publication of the "Journey" he lodged in 
 rooms above a silk-bag shop in Old Bond Street ; 
 here he rapidly sank, and in the evening of 
 March 1 8, 1768, attended only by a hireling 
 who robbed his body, and in the presence of a 
 staring footman, the dying man suddenly cried, 
 " Now it is come !" and, raising his hand as if to 
 repel a blow, expired. A few furlongs distant, 
 opposite Hyde Park, we find an old cemetery 
 hidden from the streets by houses and high walls 
 which shut out the din of the great city. Here, 
 in seclusion almost as complete as that of the 
 graveyard of his own Coxwold, Sterne was 
 consigned to earth. The spot is overlooked by 
 the windows of Thackeray's sometime home. 
 An old tree stands close by, and in its boughs 
 tfye birds twitter above us as we essay to read the 
 inscription which marks Sterne's poor sepulchre. 
 But, mean and neglected as it is, we may never 
 know that his ashes found rest even here; a 
 report which has too many elements of prob- 
 ability and which never was disproved, avers 
 that the grave was desecrated and that a horror- 
 stricken friend recognized Sterne's mutilated 
 corse upon the dissecting-table of a medical 
 school. " Alas, poor Yorick !" 
 
HA WORTH AND THE 
 BRONTES 
 
 The Village - Black Bull Inn- Church -Vicarage- Memory- 
 haunted Rooms-Bronte Tomb-Moors-Bronte Cascade- 
 Wuthering Heights-Humble Friends-Relic and Recollec- 
 tion. 
 
 /"\THER Bronte shrines have engaged us, — 
 ^•^ Guiseley, where Patrick Bronte was mar- 
 ried and Neilson worked as a mill-girl ; the 
 lowly Thornton home, where Charlotte was 
 born ; the cottage where she visited Harriet 
 Martineau ; the school where she found Caro- 
 line Helstone and Rose and Jessy Yorke ; the 
 Fieldhead, Lowood, and Thornfield of her tales ; 
 the Villette where she knew her hero ; but it 
 is the bleak Haworth hill-top where the Brontes 
 wrote the wonderful books and lived the pathetic 
 lives that most attracts and longest holds our 
 steps. Our way is along Airedale, now a high- 
 way of toil and trade, desolated by the need of 
 hungry poverty and greed of hungrier wealth : 
 meads are replaced by blocks of grimy huts, 
 groves are supplanted by factory chimneys that 
 assoil earth and heaven, the once "shining" 
 stream is filthy with the refuse of many mills. 
 At Keighley our walk begins, and, although we 
 have no peas in our " pilgrim shoon," the way 
 is heavy with memories of the sad sisters Bronte 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 who so often trod the dreary miles which bring 
 us to Haworth. The village street, steep as a 
 roof, has a pavement of rude stones, upon which 
 the wooden shoes of the villagers clank with an 
 unfamiliar sound. The dingy houses of gray 
 stone, barren and ugly in architecture, are hud- 
 dled along the incline and encroach upon the 
 narrow street. The place and its situation are a 
 proverb of ugliness in all the countryside ; one 
 dweller in Airedale told us that late in the even- 
 ing of the last day of creation it was found that 
 a little rubbish was left, and out of that Haworth 
 was made. But, grim and rough as it is, the 
 genius of a little woman has made the place 
 illustrious and draws to it visitors from every 
 quarter of the world. We are come in the 
 " glory season" of the moors, and as we climb 
 through the village we behold above and beyond 
 it vast undulating sweeps of amethyst-tinted 
 hills rising circle beyond circle, — all now one 
 great expanse of purple bloom stirred by zephyrs 
 which waft to us the perfume of the heather. 
 
 At the hill-top we come to the Black Bull Inn, 
 where one Bronte drowned his genius in drink, 
 and from our apartment here we look upon all the 
 shrines we seek. The inn stands at the church- 
 yard gates, and is one of the landmarks of the 
 place. Long ago preacher Grimshaw flogged 
 the loungers from its tap-room into chapel ; 
 
Black Bull Inn 
 
 here Wesley and Whitefield lodged when holding 
 meetings on the hill-top ; here Bronte's prede- 
 cessor took refuge from his riotous parishioners, 
 finally escaping through the low casement at the 
 back, — out of which poor Branwell Bronte used 
 to vault when his sisters asked for him at the 
 door. This inn is a quaint structure, low-eaved 
 and cosy ; its furniture is dark with age. We 
 sleep in a bed once occupied by Henry J. Ray- 
 mond, and so lofty that steps are provided to 
 ascend its heights. Our meals are served in the 
 old-fashioned parlor to which Branwell came. 
 In a nook between the fireplace and the before- 
 mentioned casement stood the tall arm-chair, 
 with square seat and quaintly carved back, which 
 was reserved for him. The landlady denied 
 that he was summoned to entertain travellers 
 here : " he never needed to be sent for, he came 
 fast enough of himseP." His wit and convivi- 
 ality were usually the life of the circle, but at 
 times he was mute and abstracted and for hours 
 together " would just sit and sit in his corner 
 there." She described him as a "little, red- 
 haired, light-complexioned chap, cleverer than 
 all his sisters put together. What they put in 
 their books they got from him," quoth she, re- 
 minding us of the statement in Grundy's Remi- 
 niscences that Branwell declared he invented the 
 plot and wrote the major part of " Wuthering 
 123 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Heights." Certain it is he possessed transcend- 
 ing genius and that in this room that genius was 
 slain. Here he received the message of re- 
 nunciation from his depraved mistress which 
 finally wrecked his life ; the landlady, entering 
 after the messenger had gone, found him in a fit 
 on the floor. Emily Bronte's rescue of her dog, 
 an incident recorded in " Shirley," occurred at 
 the inn door. 
 
 The graveyard is so thickly sown with black- 
 ened tombstones that there is scant space for 
 blade or foliage to relieve its dreariness, and the 
 villagers, for whom the yard is a thoroughfare, 
 step from tomb to tomb : in the time of the 
 Brontes the village women dried their linen on 
 these graves. Close to the wall which divides 
 the church-yard from the vicarage is a plain stone 
 set by Charlotte Bronte to mark the grave of 
 Tabby, the faithful servant who served the 
 Brontes from their childhood till all but Charlotte 
 were dead. The very ancient church-tower 
 still " rises dark from the stony enclosure of its 
 yard ;" the church itself has been remodelled and 
 much of its romantic interest destroyed. No 
 interments have been made in the vaults beneath 
 the aisles since Mr. Bronte was laid there. The 
 site of the Bronte pew is by the chancel ; here 
 Emily sat in the farther corner, Anne next, and 
 Charlotte by the door, within a foot of the spot 
 124 
 
Church — Bronte* Tomb 
 
 where her ashes now lie. A former sacristan 
 remembered to have seen Thackeray and Miss 
 Martineau sitting with Charlotte in the pew. 
 And here, almost directly above her sepulchre, 
 she stood one summer morning and gave herself 
 in marriage to the man who served for her as 
 " faithfully and long as did Jacob for Rachel." 
 The Bronte tablet in the wall bears a uniquely 
 pathetic record, its twelve lines registering 
 eight deaths, of which Mr. Bronte's, at the age 
 of eighty-five, is the last. On a side aisle is a 
 beautiful stained window inscribed " To the 
 Glory of God, in Memory of Charlotte Bronte, 
 by an American citizen." The list shows that 
 most of the visitors come from America, and it was 
 left for a dweller in that far land to set up here 
 almost the only voluntary memento of England's 
 great novelist. A worn page of the register 
 displays the tremulous autograph of Charlotte 
 as she signs her maiden name for the last time, 
 and the signatures of the witnesses to her mar- 
 riage, — Miss Wooler, of ** Roe Head," and 
 Ellen Nussy, who is the E of Charlotte's letters 
 and the Caroline of " Shirley." 
 
 The vicarage and its garden are out of a cor- 
 ner of the church-yard and separated from it by 
 a low wall. A lane lies along one side of the 
 church-yard and leads from the street to the 
 vicarage gates. The garden, which was Emily's 
 125 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 care, where she tended stunted shrubs and 
 borders of unresponsive flowers and where 
 Charlotte planted the currant-bushes, is beauti- 
 ful with foliage and flowers, and its boundary- 
 wall is overtopped by a screen of trees which 
 shuts out the depressing prospect of the graves 
 from the vicarage windows and makes the place 
 seem less " a church-yard home" than when the 
 Brontes inhabited it. The dwelling is of gray 
 stone, two stories high, of plain and sombre as- 
 pect. A wing is added, the little window-panes 
 are replaced by larger squares, the stone floors 
 are removed or concealed, curtains — forbidden 
 by Mr. Bronte's dread of lire — shade the win- 
 dows, and the once bare interior is furbished and 
 furnished in modern style ; but the arrangement 
 of the apartments is unchanged. Most interest- 
 ing of these is the Bronte parlor, at the left of 
 the entrance ; here the three curates of" Shirley" 
 used to take tea with Mr. Bronte and were up- 
 braided by Charlotte for their intolerance ; here 
 the sisters discussed their plots and read each 
 other's MSS. ; here they transmuted the sorrows 
 of their lives into the stories which make the 
 name of Bronte immortal ; here Emily, " her 
 imagination occupied with Wuthering Heights," 
 watched in the darkness to admit Branwell com- 
 ing late and drunken from the Black Bull ; here 
 Charlotte, the survivor of all, paced the night- 
 126 
 
Bronte Parsonage — Apartments 
 
 watches in solitary anguish, haunted by the 
 vanished faces, the voices forever stilled, the 
 echoing footsteps that came no more. Here, 
 too, she lay in her coffin. The room behind 
 the parlor was fitted by Charlotte for Nichols's 
 study. On the right was Bronte's study, and 
 behind it the kitchen, where the sisters read with 
 their books propped on the table before them 
 while they worked, and where Emily (prototype 
 of « Shirley"), bitten by a dog at the gate of 
 the lane, took one of Tabby's glowing irons 
 from the fire and cauterized the wound, telling 
 no one till danger was past. Above the parlor 
 is the chamber in which Charlotte and Emily 
 died, the scene of Nichols's loving ministrations 
 to his suffering wife. Above Bronte's study was 
 his chamber ; the adjoining children's study was 
 later Branwell's apartment and the theatre of the 
 most terrible tragedies of the stricken family ; 
 here that ill-fated youth writhed in the horrors 
 of mania-a-potu ; here Emily rescued him — 
 stricken with drunken stupor — from his burning 
 couch, as "Jane Eyre" saved Rochester ; here he 
 breathed out his blighted life erect upon his 
 feet, his pockets filled with love-letters from the 
 perfidious woman who wrought his ruin. Even 
 now the isolated site of the parsonage, its en- 
 vironment of graves and wild moors, its exposure 
 to the fierce winds of the long winters, make 
 1*7 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 it unspeakably dreary; in the Bronte time it 
 must have been cheerless indeed. Its influence 
 darkened the lives of the inmates and left its 
 fateful impression upon the books here produced. 
 Visitors are rarely admitted to the vicarage ; 
 among those against whom its doors have been 
 closed is the gifted daughter of Charlotte's 
 literary idol, to whom "Jane Eyre" was dedi- 
 cated, Thackeray. 
 
 By the vicarage lane were the cottage of 
 Tabby's sister, the school the Brontes daily 
 visited, and the sexton's dwelling where the 
 curates lodged. Behind the vicarage a savage 
 expanse of gorse and heather rises to the horizon 
 and stretches many miles away : a path oft trod- 
 den by the Brontes leads between low walls 
 from their home to this open moor, their habit- 
 ual resort in childhood and womanhood. The 
 higher plateaus afford a wide prospect, but, 
 despite the August bloom and fragrance and the 
 delightful play of light and shadow along the 
 sinuous sweeps, the aspect of the bleak, treeless, 
 houseless waste of uplands is even now dispirit- 
 ing ; when frosts have destroyed its verdure 
 and wintry skies frown above, its gloom and 
 desolation must be terrible beyond description. 
 Remembering that the sisters found even these 
 usually dismal moors a welcome relief from their 
 tomb of a dwelling, we may appreciate the utter 
 128 
 
The Moors — Wuthering Heights 
 
 dreariness of their situation and the pathos of 
 Charlotte's declaration, "I always dislike to 
 leave Haworth, it takes so long to be content 
 again after I return." We trace the steps of 
 the Brontes across the moor to the cascade, 
 called now the " Bronte Falls," where a brook- 
 let descends over great boulders into a shaded 
 glen. This was their favorite excursion, and 
 as we loiter here we recall their many visits 
 to the spot: first they came four children to 
 play upon these rocks ; later came three grave 
 maidens with Caroline Helstone or Rose Yorke ; 
 later came two saddened women ; and then Char- 
 lotte came alone, finding the moor a featureless 
 wilderness full of torturing reminders of her 
 dead, and seeing their vanished forms " in the 
 blue tints, the pale mists, the waves and shadows 
 of the horizon." Later still, during her few 
 months of happiness, she came here many times 
 with her husband, and her last walk on earth was 
 made with him to see the cascade " in its winter 
 wildness and power." 
 
 Above the village was the parsonage of Grim- 
 shaw and the original " Wuthering Heights." 
 It was a sombre structure ; a few trees grew 
 about it, the moors rose behind ; the apartments 
 were like the oak-lined, stone-paved interior 
 pictured in the tale, while the inscription above 
 the door, H E 1659, was changed to Hareton 
 1 129 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Earnshaw 1 500 by Miss Bronte, who described 
 here much of her own grandfather's early life 
 and suffering and portrayed his wife in Catherine 
 Linton. It is notable that the name Earnshaw 
 and other names in the Bronte books may be 
 seen on shop-signs along the way the sisters 
 walked to Keighley. 
 
 Among the villagers we meet some who re- 
 member the Brontes with affection and pride. 
 We find them so uniformly courteous that we 
 are willing to doubt Mrs. Gaskell's ascriptions 
 of surly rudeness. They indignantly deny the 
 statements of Reid, Gaskell, and others regard- 
 ing the character of Mr. Bronte. One whose 
 relations to that clergyman entitle him to 
 credence assures us that Bronte did not destroy 
 his wife's silk dress, nor burn his children's 
 colored shoes, nor discharge pistols as a safety- 
 valve for his temper : " he didn't have that sort 
 of a temper." It would appear that many 
 charges of the biographers were made upon the 
 authority of a peculating servant whom Bronte 
 had angered by dismissal. Some parishioners 
 testify that " the Brontes had odd ways of 
 their own," " went their gait and didn't meddle 
 o'ermuch with us ;" ** nobody had a word against 
 them." Charlotte's husband, too, became pop- 
 ular after her death, perhaps at first because 
 of his tender care of her father : " to see the 
 130 
 
Recollections of the Bronte's 
 
 good old man and Nichols together when the 
 rest were dead, and Mr. Bronte so helpless and 
 blind, was just a pretty sight." We hear more 
 than once of Bronte's wonderful cravat : he 
 habitually covered it himself, putting on new 
 silk without removing the old, until in the course 
 of years it became one of the sights of the 
 place, having acquired such phenomenal propor- 
 tions that it concealed half his head. Many 
 still remember hearing him preach from the 
 depths of this cravat, while the sexton perambu- 
 lated the aisles with a staff to stir up the sleepers 
 and threaten the lads. Mr. Wood, a cabinet- 
 maker of the village, was church-warden in 
 Bronte's incumbency and an intimate friend of 
 the family till the death of the last member : his 
 loving hands fashioned the coffins for them all. 
 He was sent for to see Richmond's portrait of 
 Charlotte on its arrival, and was laughed at by 
 that lady for not recognizing the likeness ; while 
 Tabby insisted that a portrait of Wellington, 
 which came in the same case, was a picture of 
 Mr. Bronte. That clergyman often complained 
 to Wood that Mrs. Gaskell " tried to make us 
 all appear as bad as she could." We find some 
 survivors of Charlotte's Sunday-school class 
 among the villagers. From one, who was also 
 singer in Bronte's church choir, we obtain 
 pictures of the church and rectory as they ap- 
 131 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 peared in Charlotte's lifetime and a photographic 
 copy of Branwell's painting of himself and sis- 
 ters, in which the likenesses are said to be ex- 
 cellent. Charlotte is remembered as being 
 " good looking," having a wealth of lustrous 
 hair and remarkably expressive eyes. She was 
 usually neatly apparelled in black, and was so 
 small that when Mrs. F. entered her class, at the 
 age of twelve, the pupil was larger than the 
 teacher. Another of Charlotte's class remem- 
 bers her as being nervously quick in all her 
 movements and a rapid walker ; a third stood in 
 the church-yard and saw her pass from the vicar- 
 age to the church on the morning of her mar- 
 riage wearing a very plain bridal dress and a 
 white bonnet trimmed with green leaves. A 
 few brief months later this person, from the 
 same spot, beheld the mortal part of her im- 
 mortal friend borne by a grief-stricken company 
 along the same path to her burial. In the hands 
 of another of Charlotte's pupils we see a vol- 
 ume of the original edition of the poems of 
 the three sisters, presented by Charlotte, and a 
 Yorkshire collection of hymns which contains 
 some of Anne's sweet verses. 
 
 It is evident that, of all the family, the hapless 
 
 Branwell was most admired by the villagers. 
 
 They delight to extol his pleasant manners, his 
 
 ready repartee, his wonderful learning, his am- 
 
 i 3 z 
 
Branwell Bronte — Bronte Relics 
 
 bidextrousness, his personal courage. On one 
 occasion restraint was required to prevent his 
 attacking alone a dozen mill-rioters, " any one of 
 whom could have put him in his pocket." 
 Holding a pen in each hand, he could simul- 
 taneously write letters on two dissimilar subjects 
 while he discoursed on a third. Wood thought 
 him naturally the brightest of the family, and 
 believed that lack of occupation, in a place 
 where there was nothing to stimulate mental 
 effort, accounted for his vices and failures. He 
 came often with his sisters to Wood's house, and 
 would talk by the hour of his projects to achieve 
 fame and fortune. One of his associates pre- 
 served some letters received from him while he 
 was " away tutoring," in which he shamelessly 
 recorded his follies and referred to himself as a 
 "Joseph in Egypt." A local society has col- 
 lected in its museum some Bronte mementos : a 
 relative of Martha, Tabby's successor in the 
 household, saved a few, — Charlotte's silken 
 purse, her thimble-case and some articles of 
 dress, elementary drawings made by the sisters, 
 autograph letters of Charlotte and her copies of 
 the " Quarterly" and other periodicals in which 
 she had read the reviews of "Jane Eyre." 
 Among the treasures Wood preserved were 
 sketches by Emily and Branwell; a signatured 
 set of Bronte volumes presented by Bronte the 
 133 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 day before his death ; Charlotte's worn history 
 containing annotations in her microscopic chi- 
 rography ; a copy of " Jane Eyre" presented by 
 Charlotte before its authorship was ascertained ; 
 an article on " Advantages of Poverty," by Mrs. 
 Bronte ; a highly graphic tale and religious poems 
 by Mr. Bronte. Comment upon the latter re- 
 minded Wood that Bronte had shown him some 
 poems by an Irish ancestor Hugh Bronte, and 
 that he had met at the vicarage an irate relative 
 who came from Ireland with a shillalah to 
 " break the head" of a cruel critic of " Jane 
 Eyre." Most of the Bronte belongings were 
 removed by Mr. Nichols. He served the parish 
 assiduously, as the people declare, for fifteen 
 years, and at Bronte's death they desired that 
 Nichols should succeed him ; but the living was 
 bestowed upon a stranger, and Nichols removed 
 to the south of Ireland, where he married his 
 cousin and is now a gentleman farmer. Martha 
 Brown, the devoted servant of the family, accom- 
 panied him, and Nancy Wainwright, the Brontes' 
 nurse, died some years ago in Bradford work- 
 house : so every living vestige of the family has 
 disappeared from the vicinage. 
 
 A resident of near-by Wharfedale lately pos- 
 sessed a package of Charlotte's essays, written 
 at the Brussels school and amended by " M. 
 Paul." Study of these confirms the belief that 
 i34 
 
Charlotte Bronte's Husband 
 
 she was for a time tortured by a hopeless love 
 for her preceptor, husband of " Madame Beck," 
 and that it was this wretched passage in her life, 
 rather than the fall of her brother, which 
 *' drove her to literary speech for relief." Her 
 marriage with Nichols was eventually happy, 
 but her own descriptions of him show that his 
 were not the attributes that would please her 
 fancy or readily gain her love. In " Shirley" 
 she writes of him as successor of Malone : ". the 
 circumstance of finding himself invited to tea 
 with a Dissenter would unhinge him for a week ; 
 the spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in 
 church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow- 
 creature being interred with Christian rites, 
 these things would make strange havoc in his 
 physical and mental economy." In a letter to 
 E. Charlotte writes, " I am not to marry Mr. 
 Nichols. I couldn't think of mentioning such 
 a rumor to him, even as a joke. It would make 
 me the laughing-stock of himself and fellow- 
 curates for half a year to come. They regard 
 me as an old maid, and I regard them, one and all, 
 as highly uninteresting, narrow, and unattractive 
 specimens of the coarser sex." Why then did 
 she finally accept Mr. Nichols? Was it not 
 from the same motive that had led her to 
 reject his addresses not long before, the desire to 
 please her father ? 
 
 i35 
 
EARLY HAUNTS OF ROBERT 
 COLLYER: EUGENE ARAM 
 
 Childhood Home - Ilkley Scenes, Friends, Smithy, Chapel - 
 Bolton— Associations- Wordsworth-Rogers-Eliot- Turner- 
 Aram's Homes-Schools-Place of the Murder-Gibbet- 
 Probable Innocence. 
 
 ' I *HE factory-town of Keighley, — amid the 
 moors of western Yorkshire, — to which the 
 Bronte pilgrimage brings us, becomes itself an 
 object of interest when we remember it was the 
 birthplace of Robert Collyer. On a dingy 
 side-street resonant with the din of spindles and 
 looms and sullied with soot from factory chim- 
 neys, of humble parentage, and in a home not 
 less lowly than that of another Yorkshire black- 
 smith in which Faraday was born, our orator 
 and author first saw the light. Collyer came to 
 Keighley " only to be born," and soon was re- 
 moved to the lovely Washburndale, a few miles 
 away. Here we find the place of the boyhood 
 home he has made known to us — the cottage of 
 two rooms with whitewashed walls and floor 
 of flags — occupied by the mansion of a mill- 
 owner, and the Collyer family vanished from 
 the vicinage. "Little Sam," the kind-hearted 
 father, fell dead at his anvil one summer day ; 
 the blue-eyed, fair-haired mother, of whom the 
 136 
 
Early Home — School — Companions 
 
 preacher so loves to speak, died in benign age ; 
 and the boisterous bairns who once filled the cot- 
 tage are scattered in the Old World and the New. 
 A little way down the sparkling burn is the pictu- 
 resque old church of Fewston, where Collyer 
 was christened, where Amos Barton of George 
 Eliot's tale later preached, and where the poet 
 Edward Fairfax — of the ancient family which 
 gave to Virginia its best blood — was buried with 
 his child who " was held to have died of witch- 
 craft." Near by was Collyer's school, taught by 
 a crippled and cross-eyed old fiddler named 
 Willie Hardie, who survived at our first sojourn 
 in the dale and had much to tell about his pupil 
 " Boab," whom he had often " fairly thrashed." 
 Collyer's school education ended in his eighth 
 year, and he was early apprenticed at Ilkley, in 
 the next valley, where he grew to physical 
 manhood and attained to a measure of that intel- 
 lectual stature which has since been recognized. 
 At Ilkley we find some who remember when 
 Collyer came first, a stripling lad, to work in 
 " owd Jackie's" smithy, and who in the long-ago 
 worked, played, and fought with him in the 
 village or read with him on the moors. One 
 remembers that he was from the first an insatiable 
 student, often reading as he plied the bellows or 
 switched the flies from a customer's horse. His 
 master "Jackie" Birch, who was native of 
 137 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Eugene Aram's home, is recalled as a selfish and 
 unpopular man, who had no sympathy with the 
 lad's studious habit, but tolerated it when it did 
 not interfere with his work. Collyer's love of 
 books was contagious, and soon a little circle of 
 lads habitually assembled, whenever released 
 from toil, to read with him the volumes borrowed 
 from friends or purchased by clubbing their own 
 scant hoards. A survivor of this group walked 
 with us through the village, pointing out the 
 spots associated with Collyer's life here, and 
 afterward showed us upon the slopes of the 
 overlooking hills the nooks where the lads read 
 together in summer holidays. Collyer was 
 especially intimate with the Dobsons : of these 
 John was best beloved, because he shared most 
 fully Collyer's studies and aspirations ; between 
 the two an affectionate friendship was formed 
 which, despite long separation and disparity of 
 position, — for John remained a laborer, — ended 
 only with his death. When, thirty years ago 
 Collyer — honored and famous — revisited the 
 scenes of his early struggles and was eagerly in- 
 vited to opulent and cultured homes, he turned 
 away from all to abide in the humble cottage of 
 Dobson, which we found near the site of the 
 smithy and occupied by others who were friends 
 of Collyer's youth. His associates of the early 
 time — some of them old and poor — tell us with 
 138 
 
Collyer's Humble Friends — The Smithy 
 
 obvious pleasure and pride of his visits to their 
 poor homes in these later summers when he 
 comes to the place, and we suspect he often 
 leaves with them more substantial tokens of his 
 remembrance than kind words and wishes : 
 indeed, he once made us his almoner to the more 
 needy of them, one of whom we found in the 
 workhouse. Some of his old-time friends recall 
 the circumstances of his conversion under the 
 preaching of a Wesleyan named Bland, his own 
 eloquent and touching prayers, and his first tim- 
 orous essays to conduct the services of the little 
 chapel to which the villagers were bidden by 
 the bellman, who proclaimed through the streets, 
 " The blacksmith will preach t'night." When 
 he preaches at Ilkley now, the Assembly-rooms 
 are thronged with friends, old and new, eager to 
 hear him. "Jackie" sleeps with his fathers, and 
 the smithy is replaced by a modern cottage, into 
 whose masonry many blackened stones from the 
 old forge were incorporated. One of Collyer's 
 chums showed us the door of the smithy which 
 he had rescued from demolition and religiously 
 preserved, and presented us with a photograph 
 which we were assured represents the building 
 just as Collyer knew it, — a long, low fabric of 
 stone, with a shed joined at one end, two forge 
 chimneys rising out of the roof, and the rough 
 doors and window-shutters placarded with public 
 139 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 notices. Before the forge was demolished, the 
 large two-horned anvil on which Collyer 
 wrought twelve years was bought for a price 
 and removed to Chicago, where it is still pre- 
 served in the study of Unity Church, albeit 
 Collyer long ago predicted to the writer, with 
 a characteristic twinkle and a sweet hint of the 
 dialect his tongue was born to, " they'll soon 
 be sellin* thet for old iron." 
 
 The health-giving waters of the hill-sides attract 
 hundreds of invalids and idlers, and the Ilkley of 
 to-day is a smart town of well-kept houses, 
 hotels, and shops, amid which we find here and 
 there a quaint low-roofed structure which is a 
 relic of the village of Collyer's boyhood. 
 Among the survivals is the chapel — now a 
 local museum, inaugurated by Collyer — where 
 our " blacksmith" was converted and where he 
 labored at the spiritual anvil as a local preacher. 
 He has told us that for his labors in the Wes- 
 leyan pulpit during several years in Yorkshire 
 and America he received in all seven dollars and 
 fifty cents ; he expounded for love, but pounded 
 for a living. Another survival is the ancient 
 parish church, built upon the site of the Roman 
 fortress Olicana and of stones from its ruined 
 walls, which preserves in its masonry many anti- 
 quarian treasures of Roman sculpture and in- 
 scription. Standing without are three curious 
 140 
 
Wharfedale Antiquities — Scenery 
 
 monolithic columns, graven with mythological 
 figures of men, dragons, birds, etc., which give 
 them an archaeological value beyond price. A 
 doltish rector damaged them by using them as 
 gate-posts ; from this degradation the hands of 
 Collyer helped to rescue them, and the same 
 hands fashioned at the forge the neat iron gates 
 which enclose the church-yard. 
 
 By the village and through the dale which 
 Gray thought so beautiful flows the Wharfe; 
 winding amid verdant meads, rushing between 
 lofty banks, or loitering in sunny shallows, it 
 holds its shining course to the Ouse, beyond the 
 fateful field of Towton, where the red rose of 
 Lancaster went down in blood. Ilkley nestles 
 cosily at the foot of green slopes which swell 
 away from the stream and are dotted with copses 
 and embowered villas. Farther away the dim 
 lines rise to the heights of the Whernside, 
 whence we look to the chimneys of Leeds and 
 the towers of York's mighty minster. Detached 
 from Rumbald's cliffs lie two masses, called 
 " Cow and Calf Rocks," bearing the imprint of 
 giant Rumbald's foot : these rocks are a resort 
 of the young people, and here Collyer and his 
 friends oft came with their books. From this 
 point Wharfedale, domed by a summer sky, 
 seems a paradise of loveliness ; its every aspect, 
 from the glinting stream to the highest moor- 
 141 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 land crags, is replete with the beauty Turner 
 loved to paint and which here first inspired his 
 genius. Ruskin discerns this Wharfedale scenery 
 throughout the great artist's works, bits of its 
 beauty being unconsciously wrought into other 
 scenes. These landscapes were a daily vision to 
 the eyes of Collyer in the days when Turner 
 still came to the neighborhood. This region 
 abounds with memorials of the mighty past, 
 with treasures of Druidical, Runic, and Roman 
 history and tradition, but the literary pilgrim 
 finds it rife with associations for him still more 
 interesting : here lived the ancestors of our 
 Longfellow, and the family whence Thackeray 
 sprang ; the fathers of that gentle singer, Heber, 
 dwelt in their castle here and sleep now under 
 the pavement of the church ; a little way across 
 the moors the Brontes dwelt and died. Here, 
 too, lived the Fairfaxes, — one of them a poet 
 and translator of Tasso, — and among their tombs 
 we find that of Fawkes of Farnley, Turner's 
 early friend and patron, while at the near-by hall 
 are the rooms the painter occupied during the 
 years he was transferring to canvas the beauties 
 he here beheld. Farnley holds the best private 
 collection of Turner's works, comprising, besides 
 many finished pictures, numerous drawings and 
 color-sketches made here. 
 
 A delightful excursion from Ilkley, one never 
 Hz 
 
Bolton Abbey — Nidderdale 
 
 omitted by Collyer from his summer saunter- 
 ings in Wharfedale, is to the sacred shades of 
 Bolton Abbey. The way is enlivened with the 
 prattle and sheen of the limpid Wharfe. A 
 mile past the hamlet of Addingham, where 
 Collyer preached his first sermon, the stream 
 curves about a slight eminence which is crowned 
 by the ruins of the ancient shrine. Some por- 
 tions of the walls are fallen and concealed by 
 shrubbery ; other portions withstand the ravages 
 of the centuries, and we see the crumbling arches, 
 ruined cloisters, and mullioned windows, man- 
 tled with masses of ivy and bloom and set in the 
 scene of restful beauty which Turner painted 
 and Rogers and Wordsworth poetized. Our 
 pleasure in the ruin and its environment of wood, 
 mead, and stream is enhanced by the companion- 
 ship of one who had, on another summer's day, 
 explored the charms of the spot with George 
 Eliot, and who repeats to us her expressions of 
 rapturous delight at each new vista. Words- 
 worth loved this spot, and the incident to which 
 the Abbey owed its erection — the drowning of 
 young Romilly, the noble " Boy of Egremond," 
 in the gorge near by — is beautifully told by him 
 in the familiar poems written here. 
 
 Another excursion, by Knaresborough and 
 the deadly field of Marston Moor, brings us into 
 lovely Nidderdale, where stalks the dus&y ghost 
 143 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of the Eugene Aram of Bulwer's tale and Hood's 
 poem amid the scenes of his early life and of 
 the crime for which he died. In the upper 
 portion of the valley the Nidd winds like a 
 ribbon of silver between green braes and moor- 
 land hills which rise steeply to the narrow 
 horizon. From either side brooklets flow 
 through wooded glens to join the wimpling 
 Nidd, and at the mouth of one of these we find 
 Ramsgill, where Aram was born. It is a strag- 
 gling hamlet of thatched cottages, set among 
 bowering orchards and gardens and wearing an 
 aspect of tranquil comfort. The site of the 
 laborer's hut in which the gentle student was 
 born is shown at the back of one of the newer 
 cottages of the place. Farther up the picturesque 
 stream is the pretty village of Lofthouse, an 
 assemblage of gray stone houses nestled beneath 
 clustering trees, to which Aram returned after a 
 short residence at Skipton, in the dale of the 
 Brontes. Here he wooed sweet Annie Spence 
 and passed his early years of married life ; here 
 his first children were born and one of them 
 died. At the church in near-by Middlesmoor 
 he was married ; here his first child was chris- 
 tened, and in the bleak church-yard it was buried. 
 Near a sombre "gill" which opens into the 
 valley some distance below was Gowthwaite 
 Hall, where Aram taught his first pupils, — an 
 
Aram's Schools — Place of Murder 
 
 ancient, rambling structure of stone, two stories 
 in height, with many steep gables and wide 
 latticed windows. Venerable trees shaded the 
 walls, leafy vines climbed to and overran the 
 roofs, and a quaint garden of prim squares and 
 formally trimmed foliage lay at one side. We 
 found these externals little changed since Aram 
 was tutor here. The partition of the mansion 
 into three tenements had altered the arrange- 
 ment of the interior, but the wide stairway still 
 led from the entrance to the upper room at the 
 east end, where Aram taught : it was a large, 
 lofty apartment, reputed to be haunted, changed 
 since his time only by the closing of one case- 
 ment. Richard Craven was then tenant of the 
 Hall, and his son, the erudite doctor, doubtless 
 received his first tuition in this room and from 
 Aram. 
 
 Some miles down the valley is Knaresborough 
 to which Aram removed from Lofthouse to estab- 
 lish a school, and where eleven years later the 
 murder was committed. Soon after, Aram re- 
 moved from the neighborhood, and during his 
 residence at Lynn, where he was arrested for 
 the crime, he was some time tutor in the house 
 of Bulwer's grandfather, a circumstance which 
 led to the production of the fascinating tale. A 
 little way out of Knaresborough, in a recess at the 
 base of the limestone cliffs which here border 
 K 145 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the murmuring Nidd, is the place where Clarke 
 was killed and buried. This impressive spot 
 was long the hermitage of " Sir Robert," who 
 formed the cave out of the crag. In clearing 
 the rubbish from the place after the publication 
 of Bulwer's tale, the remains of a little shrine 
 were found, and a coffin hewn from the rock, 
 which proved that the hermitage had before 
 been a place of burial, as urged by Aram in his 
 defence. Upon a hill of the forest not far away 
 the body of Aram hung in irons, and local 
 tradition avers that his widow watched to recover 
 the bones as they fell, and when she had at last 
 interred them all, emigrated with her children 
 to America. 
 
 It is noteworthy that belief in his innocence 
 was universal among those who knew him in this 
 countryside. Incidents illustrating his self- 
 denial, patient forbearance, disregard for money, 
 and care to preserve even the lowest forms 
 of life are still cherished and recounted here as 
 showing that robbery and murder were for 
 him impossible crimes. We were reminded, too, 
 that at the time of Clarke's disappearance 
 Aram was husband of a woman of his own 
 station, father of a family, and master of a 
 moderately prosperous school, — conditions of 
 which Bulwer could scarcely have been unaware, 
 and which are inconsistent with the only motives 
 146 
 
Belief in Aram's Innocence 
 
 suggested as inciting Aram to crime. In the 
 opinion of the descendants of Aram's old neigh- 
 bors in his native Nidderdale, Houseman was 
 alone guilty ; and if Aram had, instead of under- 
 taking to conduct his own defence, intrusted it to 
 proper counsel, the trial would have resulted in 
 his acquittal. 
 
 '47 
 
HOME OF SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 Heslington—Foston y Twelve Miles from a Lemon-Church— 
 Rector* i Head - Study — Room-of-all-tvork — Grounds- 
 Guests- Universal Scratcher- Immortal Chariot-Reminis- 
 cences. 
 
 ' I *HE metropolis of England holds many- 
 places which knew " the greatest of the 
 many Smiths :" dwellings he some time inhabited, 
 mansions in which he was the honored guest, 
 pulpits and rostrums from which he discoursed, 
 the room in which he died, the tomb where 
 loving hands laid him beside his son. But it is 
 in a remote valley of Yorkshire, where half his 
 adult years were passed in a lonely retreat among 
 the humble poor, that we find the scenes most 
 intimately associated with the fruitful period of 
 his life. In the lovely dale of York, not far 
 from one of the ancient gates and within sound 
 of the bells of the great minster, is the village 
 of Heslington, Smith's first place of abode in 
 Yorkshire. His dwelling here — lately the 
 rectory of a parish which has been created since 
 his time, and one of the best houses of the village 
 — is a spacious and substantial old-fashioned 
 mansion of brick, two stories in height and 
 delightfully cosy in appearance. Large bow- 
 windows, built by Smith, project from the front 
 and rise to the eaves. The rooms are of com- 
 148 
 
Heslington — Foston-le-Clay 
 
 fortable dimensions, and that in which Smith 
 wrote is " glorified" by the sunlight from one 
 of his great windows, near which his writing- 
 table was placed. The house stands a rod or 
 two from the highway, amid a mass of foliage ; 
 an iron railing borders the yard, trees grow upon 
 either side, and at the back is an ample garden 
 which was Smith's especial delight, and which 
 he paced for hours as he pondered his composi- 
 tions. It was here that the dignified Jeffrey of 
 the Edinburgh Review rode the children's pet 
 donkey over the grass. Smith's famous " Peter 
 Plimley" letters were produced at Heslington. 
 He never felt at home here, because he constantly 
 contemplated removing. His own parish had 
 no rectory, and he was permitted by his bishop 
 to reside here while he sought to exchange the 
 living for another : failing in this, he was allowed 
 a further term in which to erect a dwelling in 
 his parish, consequently Heslington was his 
 home for some years. During this time he 
 made weekly excursions to his church, twelve 
 miles distant, behind a steed which he commem- 
 orates as Peter the Cruel, and in the year he 
 built his parsonage the excursions were so 
 frequent that he computed he had ridden Peter 
 "several times round the world, going and 
 coming from Heslington." 
 
 In the remoter hamlet of Foston, "twelve 
 149 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 miles from a lemon," we find the church where 
 he ministered for twenty years and the house 
 which was his home longer than any other. 
 Our way thither — the same once so familiar to 
 Smith and his cruel steed — lies along the green 
 valley through which the wimpling Foss ripples 
 and sings on its way to the Ouse. In sun and 
 shadow our road leads through a pleasant country 
 until we see the roofs of Smith's parsonage 
 rising among the tree-tops. The Rector's Head, 
 as the wit delighted to call his home, stands 
 among the glebe-lands at a little distance from 
 the highway, and a carriage-drive — constructed 
 by Smith after some of his guests had been 
 almost inextricably mired in their attempts to 
 reach his door — conducts from a road-side gate 
 near the school through the tasteful and well- 
 kept grounds. Before we reach the rectory a 
 second barrier is encountered, Smith's " Screech- 
 ing Gate," which, like the gate at "Amen 
 Corner," remains just as it was when he be- 
 stowed its name. The mansion, of which he 
 was both architect and builder, described by him 
 and his friend Loch as " the ugliest house ever 
 seen," presents a singularly attractive aspect of 
 cosiness and comfort. The edifice is somewhat 
 improved since the great essayist dwelt beneath 
 its roof, but the original structure remains, — an 
 oblong brick fabric, of ample proportions and 
 150 
 
Smith's Parsonage 
 
 unpretentious architecture, two stories in height, 
 with hip-roofs of warm-tinted tiles. A large 
 bay-window struts from one side wall ; a beauti- 
 ful conservatory abuts upon another side; a 
 little porch, overgrown with creepers and 
 flowers, protects the entrance. The once plain 
 brickwork, which rose bare of ornamentation, is 
 mantled with ivy and flowering vines which 
 clamber to the roofs and riot along the walls, 
 imparting to the "unparsonic parsonage" a 
 picturesque charm which no architectural decora- 
 tion could produce. The bare field in which 
 Smith erected his house has been transformed 
 into an Eden of beauty and bloom ; on every 
 side are velvety lawns, curving walks, beds of 
 flowers, patches of shrubbery, and groups of 
 woodland trees, forming a pretty park, mostly 
 planned by Smith and planted by his hand. 
 Within, we find the apartments spacious and 
 cheerful : the windows are the same that were 
 screened by the many-hued patchwork shades 
 designed by Smith and wrought by the deft fin- 
 gers of his daughters, the chimney-pieces of 
 Portland stone which he erected remain, but 
 tasteful and elegant furniture now replaces the 
 rude handiwork of the village carpenter, which 
 was disposed through these rooms during Smith's 
 incumbency. He blithely tells a guest, "I 
 needed furniture ; I bought a cart-load of boards 
 151 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 and got the carpenter, Jack Robinson ; told him, 
 * Jack, furnish my house,' and you see the result." 
 Some of the resulting furniture is still preserved 
 in the neighborhood and valued above price. 
 From the bay-window of the parlor the gray 
 towers of York's colossal cathedral are seen ten 
 miles away ; the room adjoining at the left is the 
 memorable apartment which was Smith's study, 
 school-room, court, surgery, and what-not. Here 
 his gayly-bound books were arranged by his 
 daughter, the future Lady Holland, and here, 
 when not applied to him, his famous " rheumatic 
 armor" stood in a bag in yonder corner. Here 
 he wrote his sermons, his brilliant and witty 
 essays, the wise and effective disquisitions on 
 the disabilities of the Catholics, the coruscating 
 and incisive articles for the Review which elec- 
 trified the English world. In this room he 
 taught his children and gave Bible lessons to the 
 youth of the parish, some of whom survive to 
 praise and bless him ; here, too, he prescribed for 
 the sick and dispensed mercy rather than justice 
 to culprits haled before him ; for, as his letters 
 declare, he was at once " village magistrate, vil- 
 lage parson, village doctor, village comforter, and 
 Edinburgh Reviewer." To these manifold 
 avocations he added, despite his " not knowing 
 a turnip from a carrot," that of the farmer, and 
 managed the three hundred acres of glebe-lands 
 152 
 
Fields and Farmsteading 
 
 which were so unproductive that no one else 
 would cultivate them. A door-way of the rectory- 
 overlooks most of the plantation, and he sus- 
 pended here a telescope and a tremendous speak- 
 ing-trumpet by means of which he could ob- 
 serve and direct much of his operations without 
 himself going afield. Behind the house, and 
 screened by trees which Smith planted, are the 
 farmstead buildings he planned ; here are the 
 stables and pens where he was welcomed by 
 every individual of his stock, whom he daily 
 visited to feed and pet ; here is the enclosure 
 where he found his fuddled pigs " grunting God 
 save the King about the sty" after he had admin- 
 istered a medicament of fermented grains. In 
 the adjoining field is the site of his " Universal 
 Scratcher," — a sharp-edged pole having a tall 
 support at one extremity and a low one at the 
 other, which so adapted it to the height of every 
 animal that " they could scratch themselves with 
 the greatest facility and luxury ; even the 
 • Reviewer* [himself] could take his turn." 
 
 Of Smith's life in this retirement his many 
 letters and the memoirs of his daughter give us 
 pleasant pictures. Although he said his whole 
 life had " been passed like a razor, in hot water 
 or a scrape," the years spent here seem to have 
 been happy ones. Even his removal to this 
 house while it was yet so damp that the walls 
 »53 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 ran down with wet and the grounds were so 
 miry that his wife lost her shoes at the door, 
 was made enjoyable. He writes to one friend, 
 " I am too busy to be lonely ;" to another, " I 
 thank God who made me poor that he also 
 made me merry, a better gift than much land with 
 a doleful heart ;" to another, "I am content 
 and doubling in size every year ;" to Lady Grey, 
 " Come and see how happy people can be in a 
 small parsonage ;" to Jeffrey, " My situation is 
 one of great solitude, but I possess myself in 
 cheerfulness. " He had expended upon his im- 
 provements here more than the living was worth, 
 therefore economy ruled the selection of the 
 personnel of this establishment. Faithful Annie 
 Kay was first employed as child's-maid ; later she 
 was housekeeper and trusted friend, removed 
 from here with her loved master, attended him 
 in his last illness, and lies near him in the long 
 sleep. A garden girl, made like a mile-stone, 
 was hired by Smith, who " christened her Bunch, 
 gave her a napkin, and made her his butler." 
 Jack Robinson was retained as general factotum 
 of the place, and Molly Mills, " a yeowoman, 
 with short petticoat, legs like mill-posts, and 
 cheeks shrivelled like winter apples," did duty as 
 " cow-, pig-, poultry-, garden-, and post-woman." 
 Guests testify that good-natured training had, 
 out of this unpromising material, produced such 
 i54 
 
Guests — Reminiscences 
 
 efficient servants that the household ran smoothly 
 in the stress of much company. For, despite the 
 seclusion of Smith's retreat, his fame and the 
 charm and wit of his conversation drew many 
 visitors to his house. Lords Carlisle and Mor- 
 peth were almost weekly guests ; Sir Humphry 
 Davy and his gifted wife were many times guests 
 for days together ; among those who came less 
 frequently were Jeffrey, Macaulay, Marcet, 
 Dugald Stewart, John Murray, Mackintosh, and 
 Lord and Lady Holland, with many of less 
 fame ; and we may imagine something of the 
 scintillant converse these rooms knew when the 
 master wit entertained such company. Neither 
 his friends nor his literary pursuits were allowed 
 to interfere with his attentions to the simple 
 rustics of his parish ; in sickness and trouble he 
 was tireless in their service, furnishing medicines, 
 food, and clothing out of his slender means. 
 During the prevalence of an infectious fever he 
 was constantly among them, as physician, nurse, 
 and priest. The oldest parishioners speak of him 
 by his Christian name, and testify that he was 
 universally beloved. One lately remembered 
 that Sydney had cared for his father during a 
 long illness and maintained the family until he 
 could return to his work. Another had been 
 accustomed, as a child, to run after Sydney on 
 the highway and cling to him until he bestowed 
 i55 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the sugar-plums he always carried in his pockets. 
 In one portion of the glebe we found small 
 enclosures of land stocked with abundant fruit- 
 trees and called Sydney's Orchards, which were 
 planted by him and given to the parishioners at 
 a nominal rental. 
 
 Smith's solitary excursions through the parish 
 were made astride a gaunt charger, called by him 
 Calamity, noted for length of limb and strength 
 of appetite, as well as for a propensity to part 
 company with his rider, sometimes throwing the 
 great Smith " over his head into the next parish." 
 But when the rector's family were to accom- 
 pany him, the ancient green chariot was 
 employed. This was believed to have been the 
 first vehicle of the kind, was purchased by Smith 
 at second (or twenty-second) hand, and was from 
 time to time partially restored by the unskilled 
 village mechanics. Anent this structure the 
 delightful Smith writes, " Each year added to its 
 charms : it grew younger and younger : a new 
 wheel, a new spring; I christened it the Im- 
 mortal : it was known everywhere : the village 
 boys cheered it, the village dogs barked at it.'* 
 To the ends of the shafts Smith attached a rod 
 so that it projected in front of the horse and 
 sustained a measure of grain just beyond his 
 reach, — a device which evoked a maximum of 
 speed from the beast with the minimum of 
 156 
 
The Chariot— Church 
 
 exertion on the part of the driver, the deluded 
 horse being '* stimulated to unwonted efforts by- 
 hope of overtaking the provender." We have 
 talked with some in the vicinage who remem- 
 bered seeing Smith and his family riding in this 
 perennial chariot, drawn by a plough-horse 
 which was harnessed with plough-lines and 
 driven by a plough-boy. 
 
 A mile from the rectory, past the few strag- 
 gling cottages of the hamlet, we come to the 
 quaint little church of Foston, one of the oldest 
 in England. It was already in existence in 1081 
 when Doomsday Book was compiled, being then 
 the property of Earl Allen : later it was con- 
 veyed to St. Mary's Abbey, whose ruins — mar- 
 vellously beautiful even in decay — we find at the 
 gates of York. It is noteworthy that this church 
 of Foston early contained an image of the Virgin 
 of such repute that people flocked to it in great 
 numbers, and in 13 13 the archbishop issued an 
 edict that they should not desert their own 
 churches to come here. Smith's church is 
 prettily placed upon a gentle eminence from 
 which we look across a wave-like expanse of 
 smiling fields to steeper slopes beyond, a picture 
 of pastoral peace and calm. Beneath the many 
 mouldering heaps of the church-yard sleep the 
 rustic poor for whom Smith labored, many of 
 them having been committed to their narrow 
 157 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 cells, " in the certain hope of the life to come," 
 by his kindly hands. Among the graves stands 
 the old church, the plainest and smallest of its 
 kind. The present venerable and reverend in- 
 cumbent, to whom we are indebted for many 
 courtesies, has at his own expense restored the 
 chancel as a memorial of his wife, but the 
 principal portion of the edifice remains the same 
 " miserable hovel" that Macaulay described in 
 Smiths day. A heavy porch shelters the en- 
 trance, and above this is a sculptured Norman 
 arch of great antiquity, a Scripture subject being 
 graven upon each stone, that upon the key-block 
 representing the Last Supper. The bare walls 
 are surmounted by a dilapidated belfry, and the 
 barn-like edifice is desolate and neglected. We 
 find the interior dismal and depressive, and quite 
 unchanged since Smith's time, save that the stove- 
 pipe now enters a flue instead of emerging 
 through a window. The quaint old pulpit, 
 perched high in the corner opposite the gallery 
 and beneath a huge sounding-board, is the same 
 in which he so often stood ; its frayed and faded 
 cushions are said to be those that he belabored 
 in his discourses, and out of which, on one 
 occasion, he raised such a cloud of dust " that 
 for some minutes he lost sight of the congrega- 
 tion." The pewter communion plate he used 
 is preserved in a recess of the wall. Across the 
 158 
 
Smith's Church 
 
 end and along one side of the church extends a 
 gallery, in which sat the children under Smith's 
 sharp eye, and kept in order, as some remember, 
 by " a threaten-shake of his head." Along the 
 front of this gallery ugly wooden pegs are aligned, 
 on which the occupants of the pews hang their 
 wraps, and so diminutive is the place that there 
 are but four pews between door and pulpit. 
 The present rector, whose father owned most 
 of the parish and was Smith's firm friend, at- 
 tended as a boy Smith's ministrations here, and 
 remembers something of the direct eloquence 
 of his sermons and their impressive effect upon 
 the auditors. Attracted by his fame, some came 
 from far to hear him preach who afterward 
 became his ardent friends, among these being 
 Macaulay and the Mrs. Apreece whom de Stael 
 depicted as " Corinne" and who subsequently, 
 as wife of Humphry Davy, was guest at The 
 Rector's Head. In this shabby little church 
 Smith gave away his daughter Emily, the Arch- 
 bishop of York reading the marriage service ; 
 and not long after Smith removed to Somerset, 
 and Foston saw him no more. 
 
 The church contains no memorial of any sort 
 in memory of Smith. The decayed condition 
 of this temple has long been a reproach to the 
 resident gentry. Since those whose property 
 interests are most concerned in the restoration 
 '59 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of the church have declined to enter upon it, 
 the good rector contemplates undertaking it at 
 his own charge. Not long ago he was engaged 
 upon the plans, and it may be that, by the time 
 these pages reach the reader, Foston church as 
 Smith knew it will have ceased to exist. The 
 writer has a lively hope that some of the New 
 World pilgrims who have marked other Old 
 World shrines which else had been neglected, 
 will set in these renovated walls an enduring 
 memorial — of pictured glass or sculptured stone 
 or graven metal — in remembrance of the illus- 
 trious author-divine who, during his best years, 
 ministered in this lowly place to a congregation 
 of rude and unlettered poor. 
 
 :6o 
 
NITHSDALE RAMBLES 
 
 Scott — Hogg — Wordsworth — CarlyW s Birthplace - Homes — 
 Grave— Burns' s Haunts-Tomb- J eanie Deans— Old Mor- 
 tality, etc.-Annie Laurie's Birthplace-Habitation-Poet- 
 Lover-Descendants. 
 
 "C^ROM the " Heart of Mid-Lothian" and the 
 ■"■ many shrines of picturesque Edinburgh, 
 once the literary capital of Britain, our saunter- 
 ings bring us to other haunts of the " Wizard 
 of the North :" to his oft described Abbotsford, 
 — that baronial " romance in stone and lime," — 
 with its libraries and armories, its precious 
 relics and more precious memories of its illus- 
 trious builder and occupant, who here literally 
 " wrote himself to death ;" to the dream-like, 
 ivy-grown ruins of holy Melrose, whose beauties 
 he sang and within whose crumbling walls he 
 lingered and mused ; to his tomb fittingly placed 
 amid the ruined arches and mouldering pillars 
 of Dryburgh Abbey, embowered by venerable 
 trees and mantled by clinging vines. Strolling 
 thence among the " Braes of Yarrow," the Yar- 
 row of Wordsworth and Hamilton, through the 
 haunts of Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, and pass- 
 ing the Hartfell, we come into the dale of 
 Annan, and follow that winsome water past 
 Moffat, where lived Burns's daughter, to historic 
 Applegarth, and thence by Lockerby approach 
 l 161 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Ecclefechan, the hamlet of Carlyle's birth and 
 sepulture. Among the lowly stone cottages on 
 the straggling street of the rude village is a 
 double dwelling with an arched passage-way 
 through the middle of its lower story ; this 
 humble structure was erected by the stone- 
 mason James Carlyle, and the northern end of it 
 was his home when his illustrious son was born. 
 Opening from the street is a narrow door ; beside 
 it is a diminutive window, with a similar one 
 above and another over the arch. The exterior 
 is now smartened somewhat, — the shillings of 
 pilgrims would pay for that, — but the abode is 
 pathetically small, bare, and poor. The one 
 lower room is so contracted that the Carlyles 
 could not all sit at the table, and Thomas used 
 to eat his porridge outside the door. Some 
 Carlyle relics from Cheyne Row — letters, por- 
 traits, pieces of china, study-lamp, tea-caddy, 
 and other articles — are preserved in the room 
 above, and adjoining it is the narrow chamber 
 above the archway where the great historian, 
 essayist, and cynic was born. In this comfort- 
 less home, and amid the dreary surroundings of 
 this hard and rough village, which is little im- 
 proved since the days of border war and pillage, 
 he was reared. The stern savagery of the 
 physical horizon of his boyhood here, and the 
 hateful and uncongenial character of his environ- 
 162 
 
Carlyle's Birthplace — Grave 
 
 ment at the most impressionable period of his 
 life, may account to us for much of the morose 
 cynicism of his later years. Further excuse for 
 his petulance and his acerbities of tongue and 
 temper is found in his dyspepsia, and a very 
 limited experience of Ecclefechan cookery suf- 
 fices to convince us that his indigestion was 
 another unhappy sequence of his early life in 
 this border hamlet. In " Sartor Resartus" he 
 has vivaciously recorded some of the incidents 
 and impressions of his childhood here, — notably 
 the passage of the Carlisle coach, like " some 
 terrestrial moon, coming from he knew not 
 where, going he knew not whither." A shabby 
 cross-street leads to the village graveyard, 
 which was old a thousand years ago, and there, 
 within a few rods of the spot of his birth, the 
 great Carlyle is forever laid, with his parents 
 and kindred. The yard is a forlorn enclosure, 
 huddled with hundreds of unmarked graves, and 
 with other hundreds of crumbling memorials 
 drooping aslant among the brambles which infest 
 the place. The tombstone of Carlyle, within 
 an iron railing, is a little more pretentious 
 than those about it, but his grave seems 
 neglected ; daisies and coarse grass grow about 
 it, and the only tokens of reverent memory 
 it bears are placed by Americans, who constitute 
 the majority of the pilgrims to this place. Not 
 163 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 far from the kirk-yard is a lowly cottage, hardly 
 better than a hut, in which dwelt Burns's " Lass 
 of Ecclefechan." 
 
 By a transverse road from Lockerby we come 
 to the ruined Lochmaben Castle of Bruce, and 
 thence into Nithsdale and to Dumfries, the 
 ancient capital of southwestern Scotland. Here 
 lived Edward Irving, and here Allan Cunning- 
 ham toiled as a common mason ; but the gray 
 town is interesting to us chiefly because of its 
 associations with Burns. Here are the tavern, 
 familiar to us as the " howfF," which he fre- 
 quented, and where he made love to the bar- 
 maid, " Anna of the Gowden Locks ;" the 
 parlor where his wit kept the table in a roar ; 
 the heavy chair in the " ingle neuk" where he 
 habitually sat, and, in the room above, the lines 
 to " Lovely Polly Stewart" graven by his hand 
 upon the pane. From the inn a malodorous 
 lane, named Burns Street, and oft threaded by 
 the bard when he " wasna fou but just had 
 plenty," leads to the poor dwelling where lived 
 and died the poet of his country and of mankind. 
 An environment more repulsive and depressing, 
 a spot more unworthy to be the home of a poet 
 of nature, can scarcely be imagined. Here not 
 a flower nor a green bough, not even a grass- 
 blade, met his vision, not one beautiful object 
 appeased his poetic taste ; he saw only the 
 164 
 
Dumfries — Burns's Dwelling — Tomb 
 
 squalid street infested by unwashed bairns and 
 bordered by rows of mean cottages. How shall 
 we extol the genius which in such an uncon- 
 genial atmosphere produced those exquisite 
 poems which for a century have been read and 
 loved in every clime ? His own dwelling, a 
 bare two-storied cottage, is hardly more decent 
 than its neighbors. Within, we find a kitchen 
 and sitting-room, small and low-ceiled ; above, a 
 windowed closet, — sometimes used by the poet 
 as a study, — and the poor little chamber where 
 he died, only thirty-seven years after he first 
 saw the light in the clay biggin by his bonnie 
 Doon. 
 
 The interior of St. Michael's Church has 
 been refitted, and the sacristan can show us now 
 only the site of Burns's seat, behind a great 
 pillar which hid him from the preacher, and 
 that of the Jenny on whose bonnet he saw the 
 " crowlin' " pediculus. Through the crowded 
 church-yard a path beaten by countless pilgrims 
 from every quarter of the globe conducts to the 
 place where he lies with " Bonnie Jean" and 
 some of their children. The costly mausoleum 
 which now covers his tomb — erected by those 
 who had neglected or shunned him in his life — 
 is to us less impressive than the poor little grave- 
 stone which the faithful Jean first placed above 
 him, which now forms part of the pavement. 
 i6 S 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 The ambitious statue, designed to represent 
 Genius throwing her mantle over Burns at the 
 plough, suggests, as some one has said, that a 
 bath-woman bringing a wet sheet to an unwill- 
 ing patient had served as a model. Oddly- 
 enough, the grave of John Bushby, an attorney 
 oft lampooned in Burns's verse, lies but a few 
 feet from that of the poet. 
 
 Our ramble along the wimpling Nith lies for 
 the most part in a second Burnsland, so closely 
 is it associated with his personality and poetry. 
 The beauties of the stream itself are celebrated 
 in half a score of his songs. Every seat and 
 scene are sung in his verse ; every neighborhood 
 and almost every house preserve some priceless 
 relic or some touching reminiscence of the 
 ploughman-bard. A short way above Dumfries 
 we come to the picturesque ruin of Lincluden 
 Abbey, at the meeting of the waters of Cluden 
 and Nith. The crumbling walls are enshrouded 
 in ivy and surrounded by giant trees, among 
 which Burns loved to loiter. His " Evening 
 View" and "Vision" commemorate this ruin, 
 and the poem " Lincluden" was written here. 
 In a tasteful cottage not far from the Abbey 
 sojourned the Mrs. Goldie who communicated 
 to Scott the incidents which he wrought into 
 his " Heart of Mid-Lothian," and it was in the 
 little kitchen of this cottage that the lady talked 
 1 66 
 
Jeanie Deans — Carlyle's Craigenputtock 
 
 with Helen Walker, the original Jeanie Deans. 
 In a poor little low-eaved dwelling, a mile or 
 two up the valley, that heroine lived, keeping a 
 dame's school and rearing chickens ; and our 
 course along the tuneful stream brings us to the 
 ancient and sequestered kirk-yard of Irongray, 
 where, among the grass-grown graves of the 
 Covenanters, her ashes repose beneath a tomb- 
 stone erected by Scott himself and marked by 
 an inscription from his hand : " Respect the 
 Grave of Poverty when associated with love of 
 Truth and dear Affection." Farther in this 
 lovely region we come to ancient Dunscore and 
 the monument of Scott's " Old Mortality ;" and 
 beyond Moniaive we find, near the source of 
 the Cairn, Craigenputtock — the abode where 
 " Thomas the Thunderer prepared his bolts" 
 before he removed to London. This dreary 
 place, " the loneliest in Britain," had been the 
 abode of many generations of Mrs. Carlyle's 
 ancestors, — among whom were " several black- 
 guards but not one blockhead," — and Carlyle 
 built and furnished the house here to which he 
 brought the bride he had wedded after his re- 
 pulsion by sweet Kitty Kirkpatrick, the Blumine 
 of his " Romance." It is a severely plain and 
 substantial two-storied structure of stone with 
 steep gables. The entrance is under a little 
 porch in the middle of the front ; on either side 
 167 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 is a single window, with another above it in the 
 second story. There are comfortable and com- 
 modious rooms at each side of the entrance, and 
 a large kitchen is joined at the back. Carlyle's 
 study, a rather sombre apartment, with a dispirit- 
 ing outlook, is at the left ; a fireplace which the 
 sage especially loved is in one wall, his writing- 
 table stood near it, and here he sat and clothed 
 in virile diction the brilliant thoughts which had 
 come to him as he paced among his trees or 
 loitered on the near hill-tops. The dining-room 
 and parlor are on the other side, looking out 
 upon wild and gloomy crags. Mrs. Carlyle's 
 pen long ago introduced us to this interior, and, 
 although all her furniture, except perhaps the 
 kitchen " dresser," has been removed, we recog- 
 nize the household nooks she has mentioned. 
 The kitchen, which was the scene of her tear- 
 ful housekeeping trials, seems most familiar; 
 its chimney retains its abominable habits, but 
 a recent incumbent, instead of crying as did 
 Mrs. Carlyle, declared the " chimla made her 
 feel like sweerin\" Great ash-trees, which were 
 old when the sage dwelt beneath them, overtop the 
 house ; many beautiful flowers — some survivors of 
 those planted by Carlyle and his wife — bloom in 
 the yard. In front a wide field slopes away to 
 a tributary of the Cairn, but sombre moorland 
 hills rise at the back and cluster close about the 
 1 68 
 
Carlyle's Craigenputtock 
 
 house on either side, imparting to the place an 
 indescribably depressing aspect : as we contem- 
 plate the desolate savagery of this wilderness, 
 we can understand why one of Carlyle's prede- 
 cessors here killed himself and others " took to 
 drink." 
 
 The bare summit behind the house overlooks 
 Carlyle's estate of a thousand acres and, beyond 
 it, an expanse of bleak hills and black morasses. 
 From the craggy brow on the left, the spot 
 where Carlyle and Emerson sat and talked of the 
 immortality of the soul, we see Dunscore and a 
 superb vista of the valley towards Dumfries and 
 the Wordsworth country. The isolation of this 
 place — so complete that at one time not even a 
 beggar came here for three months — was an 
 advantage to Carlyle at this period. He speaks 
 of it as a place of plain living and high 
 thinking : life here appeared to him " an hum- 
 ble russet-coated epic," and long afterward he 
 referred to the years of their stay in this waste 
 as being " perhaps the happiest of their lives." 
 This expresses his own feeling rather than that 
 of his wife, whose discontent finds expression in 
 many ways, notably in her poem " To a 
 Swallow." Carlyle produced here some of his 
 best work, including the matchless " Sartor 
 Resartus," the essay on Burns, and several 
 scintillant articles for the various reviews which 
 169 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 denoted the rise of a new star of genius ; but 
 the period of his stay here was essentially one 
 of study and thought, and, plenteous as it was in 
 production, it was more prolific in preparation 
 for the great work he had to do. To Carlyle 
 in this solitude Jeffrey was a visitor, as well as 
 " Christopher North," Hazlitt, and Edward 
 Irving: hither, "like an angel from heaven," 
 came Emerson to greet the new genius on the 
 threshold of its career and to enjoy the " quiet 
 night of clear, fine talk." Carlyle bequeathed 
 this estate to the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 Another day, our ramble follows the wind- 
 ing Nith northward from Lincluden. As we 
 proceed, the lovely and opulent dale, once the 
 scene of clannish strife, presents an appearance 
 of peaceful beauty, pervaded everywhere with 
 the sentiment of Burns. In one enchanting 
 spot the stream circles about the grounds of 
 ancient Friars Carse, now a tasteful and pretty 
 seat. It was erstwhile the residence of Burns's 
 friend Riddel, to which the poet was warmly 
 welcomed : here he composed the poem " Thou 
 whom Chance may hither lead," and here he 
 presided at the famous drinking-match which he 
 told to future ages in " The Whistle." It is 
 noteworthy that the first Scotch winner of the 
 Whistle was father of Annie Laurie of the popu- 
 lar song, and that the contest here was between 
 170 
 
 
 
Friars Carse — Burns's Ellisland 
 
 two of her grandnephews and her grandson, — 
 the latter being victorious. Burns celebrated 
 his friend of this old hermitage in seven of his 
 poems ; and the present proprietor carefully 
 cherishes the window upon whose pane the 
 bard inscribed " Lines written in Friars Carse." 
 A little way beyond lies Druidical Holywood, 
 where once dwelt the author of " De Sphzera," 
 and next we find the Nith curving among the 
 acres which Burns tilled in his happiest years, 
 at Ellisland. Embowered in roses and perched 
 upon an eminence overhanging the stream is the 
 plain little dwelling which he erected with his 
 own hands for the reception of his bonnie Jean. 
 It is little changed since the time he lived under 
 its lowly roof. We think the rooms dingy and 
 bare, but they are better than those of his abode 
 at Alloway and Mossgiel, much better than those 
 in which he died at Dumfries. In the largest 
 of the apartments, by a window which looks 
 down the dreamful valley, Burns had a rude 
 table, and here he penned some of the most 
 touchingly beautiful poetry of our language, — 
 poems which he had pondered as he worked or 
 walked afield. Adjoining the house is the yard 
 where he produced the exquisite lines " To 
 Mary in Heaven ;" in this near-by field he met 
 " The Wounded Hare" of his verse ; in yonder 
 path along the murmuring Nith he composed the 
 171 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 immortal " Tarn O'Shanter," laughing aloud the 
 while at the pictures his fancy conjured ; and all 
 about us are reminders of the bard and of the 
 idyllic life which here inspired his muse : it 
 would repay a longer journey to see the spot 
 where the one song "John Anderson, my Jo" 
 was pondered and written. 
 
 A further jaunt amid varied beauties of wood- 
 land shade and meadow sunshine, of gentle dale 
 and savage scaur, brings us past historic Close- 
 burn to the neighborhood of Thornhill. Here 
 at the Buccleuch Arms the illegitimate daughter 
 of Burns was for thirty years a servant, and 
 boasted of having had a chat with Scott among 
 the burnished utensils of her kitchen. Two 
 miles eastward Scott found the Balfour's Cave 
 and Leap described in " Old Mortality." In 
 the vicinage of Thornhill, Nithsdale expands into 
 a broad champaign, begirt by rugged hills and 
 diversified with upland brae, shadowy copse, 
 sunny mead, and opulent plantation. This lovely 
 region, dotted with pretty hamlets, embowered 
 villas, and moss-grown ruins, and teeming with 
 the charming associations of history and senti- 
 ment, holds for us a crowning interest which 
 has drawn our steps into its romantic haunts : it 
 was the birthplace and life-long home of Annie 
 Laurie. On the right of the Nith, among the 
 bonnie braes of the song, we find the ancient 
 172 
 
Annie Laurie — Early Home 
 
 manor-house of Maxwelton, where the heroine 
 was born. The first of her race to reside here 
 was her great-grandfather, who in 1611 built 
 additions to the old tower already existing. 
 The marriage-stone of Annie Laurie's grand- 
 parents, John Laurie and Agnes Grierson, is 
 set in the massive walls and graven with their 
 initials, crest, and date. This Agnes was 
 daughter of the bloody persecutor who figures in 
 " Redgauntlet," and whose ashes lie in Dunscore 
 kirk-yard, not far distant. Another stone in the 
 Maxwelton house commemorates the marriage 
 of Robert Laurie and Jean Riddel, the parents 
 of the heroine of the song, — this Robert being 
 the champion of Bacchus who won the Whistle 
 from the noble Danish toper. In this ancient 
 abode, according to a record made by her father, 
 "At the pleasure of the Almighty God, my 
 daughter Anna Laurie was born upon the 16th 
 day of Deer., 1682 years, about six o'clock 
 in the morning ;" here the bonnie maiden grew 
 to womanhood ; here occurred the episode to 
 which the world is indebted for the sweet song ; 
 from here she married and went to her future 
 home, but a few miles away. In the last cen- 
 tury much of the venerable edifice was destroyed, 
 but the older portion, which had been part of a 
 stronghold in the time of the border wars, remains 
 intact since Annie dwelt within. This part is 
 173 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 still called The Tower, and consists of a large 
 rectangular structure, with a ponderous semi- 
 circular fabric abutting it at one end, its fortress- 
 like walls being five feet in thickness and clothed 
 by a luxuriant growth of ivy. Newer portions 
 have been added in varying styles, and the man- 
 sion is now an elegant and substantial seat. All 
 about it lie terraced lawns, with parterres of 
 flowers, noble trees, and banks of shrubbery : 
 lovely grounds slope away from the house and 
 command an enchanting view which must often 
 have delighted the vision of the fair Annie. 
 Her boudoir is in the second story of The 
 Tower ; it is a corner room, forming now an 
 alcove of the drawing-room ; it has a vaulted 
 ceiling of stone, and its windows, pierced in the 
 ponderous walls, look out through the ivy and 
 across an expanse of sward, flower, and foliage 
 to the wooded braes where she kept tryst with 
 her lover. Among the treasures of the old 
 house is a portrait of the bonnie heroine which 
 shows her as an impressively beautiful woman, 
 of lissome figure, large and tender eyes, long 
 oval face with Grecian features, wide forehead 
 framed by a profusion of dark-brown hair. Her 
 hands, like her " fairy feet," were of exceptional 
 smallness and beauty. The present owner of 
 Maxwelton, to whom the writer is indebted for 
 many courtesies, is Sir Emilius Laurie ; from 
 i74 
 
Annie Laurie and her Lover 
 
 him and from the lineal descendants of the 
 widely-sung Annie who still inhabit Nithsdale 
 are derived the materials for this account of that 
 winsome lady. The lover who immortalized 
 her was William Douglas of Fingland, and she 
 requited him by breaking " her promise true" 
 and marrying another man. Douglas is said to 
 have been the hero of the song " Willie was a 
 Wanton Wag ;" he was one of the best swords- 
 men of his time, and his personal qualities 
 gained him the patronage of the gueensberry 
 family and secured him social advantages to which 
 his lower rank and poverty constituted no claim. 
 He and Annie met at an Edinburgh ball, and 
 seem to have promptly become enamoured of each 
 other. To separate them, Sir Robert quickly 
 carried his family back to Nithsdale, but Douglas 
 as quickly followed, and lurked in the vicinage 
 for some months, clandestinely meeting his love 
 among " Maxwelton's bonnie braes." Here the 
 pair plighted troth, and when Douglas returned 
 to Edinburgh, to assist in a projected Stuart up- 
 rising, he took with him the promise which he 
 celebrated in the tender melody. The song was 
 published in an Edinburgh paper and attracted 
 much notice. Douglas's devotion to the Jacob- 
 ites cost him his sweetheart; his political in- 
 trigues being suspected, he was forced to fly the 
 country, and when, after some years passed in 
 175 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 France, he secured pardon and returned, she 
 was the wife of another. After giving "her 
 promise true" to some other lovers, she married 
 in 1709 Alexander Fergusson, a neighboring 
 laird, who could not write poetry but had 
 " muckle siller an* Ian' " and a genealogy as long 
 as Leviticus. Douglas and Annie never met 
 again, and she makes but a single reference to 
 him in her letters : being told of his return, she 
 wrote to her sister, Mrs. Riddel, grandmother 
 of Burns's friend, " I trust he has forsaken his 
 treasonable opinions and is content." 
 
 A stroll of but a few miles along the songful 
 stream brings us by the palace of " bold Buc- 
 cleuch" to Craigdarrock, Annie Laurie's home 
 for more than half a century. It is a spacious 
 and handsome edifice of three stories, with dor- 
 mer-windows in the hip-roof; a conservatory is 
 connected at one end, bow-windows project 
 from either side, and clambering vines cover the 
 walls of the lower stories. 
 
 It is beautifully placed in a vale overlooking the 
 winding stream, with the rugged Craigdarrock 
 looming steeply in the background. Most of 
 the mansion was built under the direction of 
 Annie Laurie, and the gardens were laid out by 
 her in their formal style : a delightful walk 
 beneath the trees on the margin of the Nith was 
 her favorite resort, and is still known by her 
 176 
 

Her Later Home — Burial-place 
 
 name. Within the spacious rooms are preserved 
 many of her belongings : curious furniture and 
 hangings, quaint fineries of dress, her porcelain 
 snuff-box, her will, a package of her letters 
 written in the prim fashion of her time and 
 signed "Anna." Through these epistles we 
 look in vain for indications of the wit and genius 
 which one naturally attributes to the possessor 
 of the bright face which inspired a deathless 
 song. In this house she lived happily with her 
 husband, and was at once the Lady Bountiful and 
 the matchmaker-in-ordinary for the whole 
 countryside ; here she died, aged seventy-nine. 
 This estate has been handed down from father 
 to son for fifteen generations, the present urbane 
 laird, Captain Cutlar Fergusson, being a great- 
 great-grandson of Annie Laurie and grandson 
 of the hero of Burns's u Whistle." This famous 
 trophy — a plain object in dark wood — is pre- 
 served here at Craigdarrock, and has not been 
 challenged for since the bout which Burns 
 witnessed. 
 
 In the now ruined church of Glencairn, 
 hardly a mile from her birthplace, and not far 
 from her later home, Annie Laurie worshipped, 
 and in its yard, which has been a place of burial 
 for a thousand years, she was laid with her hus- 
 band, among the many generations of his kindred, 
 by the gable-end of the ancient church. Her 
 
 M 1?7 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 sepulchre was not marked, and it is to be feared 
 the bones of the erst beauteous lady have been 
 more than once disturbed in excavating for later 
 interments in the crowded plot. From the 
 summit of Craigdarrock we look upon the wilder 
 beauty of the upper Nith, a region of moorland 
 hills and dusky glens, where we may find the 
 birthplace of " the Admirable Crichton," and 
 beyond it the bleak domain where the poet 
 Allan Ramsay first saw the light. Beyond this, 
 again, the sweet Afton " flows amang its green 
 braes," and we come to the Ayrshire shrines of 
 Burns. 
 
 A few miles westward from Craigdarrock, and 
 not so far from Carlyle's lonely den, is Fingland 
 farm, the birthplace and home of Annie's poet- 
 lover. It lies among sterile hills in the wild 
 Glenkens of ancient Galloway, near the source 
 of Ken water. From neighboring elevations 
 we see Craigenputtock and the swelling Sol- 
 way, and westward we look, across the dark 
 fens and heathery hills of the region " blest 
 with the smell of bog-myrtle and peat," al- 
 most to the Irish Sea. In this region Crockett 
 was reared, and he pictures it in his charm- 
 ing tales " The Raiders" and " The Lilac Sun- 
 bonnet." 
 
 No trace of the peel-tower in which Douglas 
 dwelt remains, but we know that it stood within 
 178 
 
Annie Laurie — The Singer and the Song 
 
 an enclosing wall twenty yards square and one 
 yard in thickness. The tower had projecting 
 battlements ; its apartments, placed above each 
 other, were reached by a narrow, easily defended 
 stair. In such a home and amid this most dis- 
 mal environment Douglas grew to manhood, his 
 poetic power unsuspected until it was called 
 forth by the love and beauty of Annie Laurie. 
 Later he wrote many poems, but diligent inquiry 
 among the families of Buccleuch and Queens- 
 berry shows that few of his productions are now 
 extant save the famous love-song. It is notable 
 that he did not " lay doun his head and die" 
 for the faithless Annie ; instead, he made a run- 
 away marriage with Elizabeth Clerk, of Glen- 
 borg, in his native Galloway, subsided into 
 prosy country life, and reared a family of six 
 children, of whom one, Archibald, rose to the 
 rank of lieutenant-general in Brittany. 
 
 Douglas's song was revised by Lady Scott, 
 sister of the late Duke of Buccleuch, and pub- 
 lished by her for the benefit of the widows and 
 orphans made by the Crimean War. Lines of 
 the original, for which the writer is indebted to 
 a descendant of Annie Laurie, are hereto ap- 
 pended, that the reader may appreciate how much 
 of the tender beauty of the popular version of 
 the song is attributable to the poetic talent of 
 Lady Scott. 
 
 179 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 " Maxwelton banks are bonnie, 
 
 Where early fa's the dew, 
 Where me and Annie Laurie 
 
 Made up the promise true : 
 Made up the promise true, 
 
 And ne'er forget will I : 
 And for bonnie Annie Laurie 
 
 I'd lay doun my head and die. 
 
 ** She/s backit like a peacock j 
 
 She's breastit like a swan j 
 She's jimp about the middle; 
 
 Her waist ye weel may span : 
 Her waist ye weel may span, — 
 
 She has a rolling eye j 
 And for bonnie Annie Laurie 
 
 I'd lay doun my head and die." 
 
 1 80 
 
A NIECE OF ROBERT BURNS 
 
 Her Burns/and Cottage-Reminiscences of Burns-Relics-Por- 
 traits-Letters— Recitations-Account of his Death-Memo- 
 ries of his Home-Of Bonnie yean-Other Heroines. 
 
 TN the course of a summer ramble in Burns- 
 land we had sought out the homes, the 
 haunts, the tomb of the ploughman poet, and had 
 bent at many a shrine hallowed by his memory 
 or his song. From the cottage of ** Bonnie 
 Jean" and the tomb of" Holy Willie," the field 
 of the " Mountain Daisy" and the church of the 
 "Holy Fair," the birthplace of "Highland 
 Mary" and the grave of " Mary Morison," we 
 came to the shrines of auld Ayr, beside the sea. 
 Here we find the " Twa Brigs" of his poem ; the 
 graves of the ministers satirized in " The Kirk's 
 Alarm ;" the old inn of " Tarn O'Shanter," and 
 the very room, with its ingle, where Tarn and 
 Souter Johnny " got fou thegither," and where 
 we may sip the nappy from the wooden caup 
 which Tarn often drained. From Ayr a delight- 
 ful stroll along the highway where Tarn made 
 his memorable ride, and where William Burns 
 carried the howdie upon the pillion behind him 
 on another stormy winter's night when the poet 
 was born, brought us to the hamlet of Alloway 
 and the place of Burns's early life. Here are the 
 auld clay biggin, with its rude stone floor and 
 181 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 roof of thatch, erected by the unskilled hands 
 of his father, where the poet first saw the light, 
 and where he laid the scene of the immortal 
 " Cotter's Saturday Night ;" the fields where 
 his young hands toiled to aid his burdened sire ; 
 the kirk-yard where his kindred lie buried, some 
 of their epitaphs written by him ; the " auld 
 haunted kirk," — where Tam interrupted the 
 witches' dance, — unknown save for the genius of 
 the lad born by its roofless walls ; the Burns 
 monument, with its priceless relics ; the ivy- 
 grown bridge, four centuries old, whose arch 
 spans the songful stream and across which Tam 
 galloped in such sore peril, and its " key-stane," 
 where Meg lost " her ain gray tail" to Nannie, 
 fleetest of the pursuers ; the enchanting " banks 
 and braes of bonnie Doon," where Burns wan- 
 dered a brown-eyed boy, and later found the in- 
 spiration of many of his exquisite strains. We 
 have known few scenes more lovely than this 
 in which his young life was passed : long and 
 delightful is our lingering here, for interwoven 
 with the many natural beauties are winsome 
 memories of the bard whose spirit and genius 
 pervade all the scene. 
 
 Returning thence past the " thorn aboon the 
 
 well" (the well is closed now) and the " meikle- 
 
 stane" to the ancient ford " where in the snaw 
 
 the chapman smoor'd," we made a detour south- 
 
 182 
 
Miss Burns Begg — Bridgeside Cot 
 
 ward, and came by a pleasant way — having in 
 view on the right the picturesque ruin of Greenan 
 Castle upon a cliff overhanging the sea — to 
 Bridgeside cottage, the home of Miss Isabella 
 Burns Begg, niece of the poet and long his only 
 surviving near relative. We found a cottage of 
 stone, from whose thatched roof a dormer-win- 
 dow, brilliant with flowers, peeped out through 
 the foliage which half concealed the tiny home- 
 let. The trimmest of little maids admitted us 
 at the gate and led along a path bordered with 
 flowers to the cottage door, where stood Miss 
 Begg beaming a welcome upon the pilgrims 
 from America. We were ushered into a pret- 
 tily furnished little room, upon whose walls 
 hung a portrait of Burns, one of his sister Mrs. 
 Begg, and some framed autograph letters of the 
 bard, which the niece " knew by heart." She 
 was the daughter and namesake of Burns's young- 
 est and favorite sister, who married John Begg. 
 We found her a singularly active and vivacious 
 old lady, cheery and intelligent, and more than 
 pleased to have secured appreciative auditors for 
 her reminiscences of her gifted uncle. She was 
 of slender habit, had a bright and winning face, 
 soft gray hair partially concealed by a cap, and 
 when she was seated beneath the Burns por- 
 trait we could see that her large dark eyes — 
 now sparkling with merriment or misty with 
 183 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 emotion, and again literally glowing with feeling 
 — were like those on the canvas. Among the 
 treasures of this room was a worn copy of 
 Thomson's "Seasons," a favorite book of 
 Burns, which he had freely annotated ; his 
 name in it is written " Burnes," as the family 
 spelled it down to the publication of the bard's 
 first volume. In the course of a long and pleas- 
 ant chat we learned that Miss Begg had lived 
 many years in the cottage, first with her mother 
 and later with her sister Agnes, — named for 
 Burns's mother, — who died before our visit and 
 was laid beside her parents and the father of 
 Burns in the kirk-yard of auld Alloway, where 
 Miss Begg expected " soom day, please God an 
 it be soon," to go to await the resurrection, 
 thinking it an u ill hap" that she survived her 
 sister. She innocently inquired if we " kenned 
 her nephew Robert in America," and then ex- 
 plained that he and a niece of hers had formerly 
 lived with her, but she had discovered that " they 
 were sweetheartin* and wantin* to marry, which 
 she wouldna allow, so they went to America," 
 leaving her alone with her handmaiden. Most 
 of her visitors had been Americans. She re- 
 membered the visits of Hawthorne, Grant, Stan- 
 ley, and Helen Hunt Jackson, — the last with 
 greatest pleasure, — and thought that w Americans 
 care most about Burns." She mentioned the visit 
 184 
 
Recitations — Bonnie Jean 
 
 of a Virginian maid, who by rapturous praise 
 of the uncle completely won the heart of the 
 niece. The fair enthusiast had most of Burns's 
 poems at her tongue's end, but insisted upon 
 having them repeated by Miss Begg, and at 
 parting exclaimed, after much kissing, '* Oh, 
 but I always pray God that when he takes me 
 to heaven he will give me the place next to 
 Burns." Apparently, Robin still has power to 
 disturb the peace of " the lasses O." Yet we 
 can well excuse the effusiveness of our com- 
 patriot : to have listened to the old lady as she 
 sat under his portrait, her eyes twinkling or 
 softening like his own, her voice thrilling with 
 sympathetic feeling as she repeated in his own 
 sweet dialect the tender stanzas, " But pleasures 
 are like poppies spread," " My Mary ! dear de- 
 parted shade !" and " Oh, happy love, when 
 love like this is found," and others of like pathos 
 and beauty, is a rapture not to be forgotten. 
 She spoke quickly, and the Scottish accent kept 
 one's ears on the alert, but it rendered the lines 
 doubly effective and melodious. Many of the 
 poems were inspired by special events of which 
 Miss Begg had knowledge from her mother, 
 which she recalled with evident relish. She 
 distinctly remembered the bard's widow, " Bon- 
 nie Jean," and often visited her in the poor 
 home where he died. Jean had a sunny tem- 
 ,85 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 per, a kind heart, a handsome figure, a fine voice, 
 and lustrous eyes, but her brunette face was 
 never bonnie. While she lacked intellectual 
 appreciation of his genius, she was proud of and 
 idolized him, finding ready excuse and forgive- 
 ness for his failings. When the frail " Anna 
 with the Gowden Locks" bore him an illegiti- 
 mate child, Jean cradled it with her own, and 
 loyally averred to all visitors, " It's only a nee- 
 bor's bairn I'm bringin' up." (" Ay, she must 
 V lo'ed him," was Miss Begg's comment on this 
 part of her narrative.) Jean had told that in his 
 last years the poet habitually wore a blue coat, 
 with nankeen trousers (when the weather would 
 allow), and his coat-collar was so high that 
 his hat turned up at the back. Her account of 
 the manner of his death is startling, and differs 
 from that given by the biographers. He lay 
 apparently asleep when " sweet Jessy" — to 
 whom his last poem was written — approached, 
 and, to remind him of his medicine, touched 
 the cup to his lips ; he started, drained the cup, 
 then sprang headlong to the foot of the bed, 
 threw his hands forward like one about to swim, 
 and, falling on his face, expired with a groan. 
 Jean saw him for the last time on the evening 
 before his funeral, when his wasted body lay in 
 a cheap coffin covered with flowers, his care- 
 worn face framed by the wavy masses of his 
 186 
 
Reminiscences — Burns' Youth 
 
 sable hair, then sprinkled with gray. At his 
 death he left MSS. in the garret of his abode, 
 which were scattered and lost because Jean was 
 unable to take care of them, — a loss which must 
 ever be deplored. 
 
 One of the delights of Miss Begg's girlhood 
 was the converse of Burns's mother concerning 
 her first-born and favorite child, the poet, a 
 theme of which she never tired. Miss Begg 
 remembered her as a " chirk" old lady with 
 snapping black eyes and an abundant stock of 
 legends and ballads. She used to declare that 
 Bobbie had often heard her sing " Auld Lang 
 Syne" in his boyhood ; hence it would appear 
 that, at most, he only revised that precious old 
 song. Miss Begg more than once heard the 
 mother tell, with manifest gusto, this incident 
 of their residence at Lochlea. Robert was al- 
 ready inclined to be wild, and between visiting 
 his sweetheart Ellison Begbie — " the lass of 
 the twa sparkling, roguish een" — and attend- 
 ing the Tarbolton club and Masonic lodge was 
 abroad until an unseemly hour every night, and 
 his mother or Isabella sat up to let him in. His 
 anxious sire, the priest-like father of the " Cot- 
 ter's Saturday Night," determined to administer 
 an effectual rebuke to the son's misconduct, and 
 one night startled the mother by announcing 
 significantly that he would wait to admit the 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 lad. She lay for hours (Robert was later than 
 ever that night), dreading the encounter between 
 the two, till she heard the boy whistling " Tib- 
 bie Fowler" as he approached. Then the door 
 opened : the father grimly demanded what had 
 kept him so late; the son, for reply, gave a 
 comical description of his meeting auld Hornie 
 on the way home, — an adventure narrated in 
 the "Address to the De'il," — and next the 
 mother heard the pair seat themselves by the 
 fire, where for two hours the father roared with 
 laughter at Robert's ludicrous account of the 
 evening's doings at the club, — she, meanwhile, 
 nearly choking with her efforts to restrain the 
 laughter which might remind her husband of his 
 intended reproof. Thereafter the lad stayed out 
 as late as he pleased without rebuke. The 
 niece had been told by her mother that Burns 
 was deeply distressed at his father's death-bed 
 by the old man's fears for the future of his way- 
 ward son ; and when his father's death made 
 Robert the head of the family, he every morn- 
 ing led the household in "the most beautiful 
 prayers ever heard ;" later, at Ellisland and else- 
 where, he continued this practice, and on the 
 Sabbath instructed them in the Catechism and 
 Confession. Mrs. Begg's most pleasing recol- 
 lections of her brother were associated with the 
 farm-life at Mossgiel, where he so far gave her 
 ■81 
 
Mossgiel — Recollections 
 
 his confidence that she was allowed to see his 
 poems in the course of their composition. He 
 would ponder his stanzas during his labors 
 afield, and when he came to the house for a 
 meal he would go to the little garret where he 
 and his brother Gilbert slept and hastily pen 
 them upon a table which stood under the one 
 little window. Here Isabella would find them, 
 and, after repeated perusals, would arrange them 
 in the drawer; and so it passed that her bright eyes 
 were the first, besides his own, to see " The Twa 
 Dogs," " Winter's Night," « The Bard's Epi- 
 taph," "The Cotter's Saturday Night," the 
 satirical poems, and most of the productions which 
 were published in his Kilmarnock volume. His 
 sister testified that he was always affectionate to 
 the family, and that after his removal to a home 
 of his own he invariably brought a present for 
 each when he revisited the farm, the present for 
 his mother being always, despite his poverty, a 
 costly pound of tea. Most of the receipts from 
 his publishers were given to the family at Moss- 
 giel. Miss Begg intimated that Burns's mother 
 did not at first like his wife, because of the cir- 
 cumstances of the marriage, but Jean's stanch 
 devotion to her husband won the heart of the 
 doting mother, and they became warm friends 
 and spent much time together after Burns's 
 death. The niece believed that the accounts 
 189 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of his intemperance are mostly untrue. Her 
 mother, who was twenty-five years old at the 
 time of his decease, always asserted that she 
 " never saw him fou," and believed it was his 
 antagonism to the " unco* guid" that made them 
 ready to believe and circulate any idle report to 
 his discredit. 
 
 Mrs. Begg saw and liked *« Highland Mary" 
 at the house of Gavin Hamilton, and knew Miss 
 Dunlop, the blooming Keith of Burns's " New- 
 Year Day." Another of his heroines the niece 
 had herself visited with her mother ; this was 
 Mrs. Jessy Thompson, nee Lewars, who was a 
 ministering angel in his final illness, and was re- 
 paid by the only thing he could bestow, — a song 
 of exquisite sweetness, " Here's a health to ane 
 I lo'e dear." Our informant had seen in that 
 lady's hands the lines beginning " Thine be the 
 volumes, Jessy fair," which the poet gave her 
 with a present of books within a month of his 
 death. Many other reminiscences related by 
 the niece are to be found in the biographies of 
 the bard, and need not be repeated. The let- 
 ters which hung upon her walls are not included 
 in any published collection. She assisted us 
 in copying the following to Burns's youngest 
 brother : 
 
 190 
 
A Letter of Burns 
 
 " Isle, Tuesday Evening. 
 " Dear William, — In my last I recom- 
 mended that valuable apothegm, Learn taciturn- 
 ity. It is certain that nobody can know our 
 thoughts, and yet, from a slight observation of 
 mankind, one would not think so. What mis- 
 chiefs daily arise from silly garrulity and foolish 
 confidence ! There is an excellent Scots saying 
 that a man's mind is his kingdom. It is cer- 
 tainly so, but how few can govern that kingdom 
 with propriety ! The serious mischiefs in Busi- 
 ness which this Flux of language occasions do 
 not come immediately to your situation, but in 
 another point of view — the dignity of man — 
 now is the time that will make or mar. Yours 
 is the time of life for laying in habits. You 
 cannot avoid it, tho' you will choose, and these 
 habits will stick to your last end. At after- 
 periods, even at so little advance as my years, 
 'tis true that one may still be very sharp-sighted 
 to one's habitual failings and weaknesses, but to 
 eradicate them, or even to amend them, is quite 
 a different matter. Acquired at first by acci- 
 dent, they by-and-by begin to be, as it were, a 
 necessary part of our existence. I have not 
 time for more. Whatever you read, whatever 
 you hear of that strange creature man, look into 
 the living world about you, look to yourself, for 
 191 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the evidences of the fact or the application of 
 the doctrine. I am ever yours, 
 
 ** Robert Burns. 
 " Mr. William Burns, Saddler, Longtown." 
 
 The sentiment and style of this epistle are 
 suggestive of the stilted conversations of Burns, 
 recorded in Hugh Miller's " Recollections." 
 Miss Begg was pleased by some account we could 
 give her of American Burns monuments and fes- 
 tivals ; she seemed reluctant to have us leave, 
 called to us a cheery ■* God keep ye !" when we 
 were without the gate, and stood looking after 
 us until the intervening foliage hid her from our 
 sight. As we walked Ayr-ward, while the sun 
 was settling in a golden haze behind the hills of 
 Arran, we felt that we had been very near to 
 Burns that day, — had almost felt the thrill of his 
 presence, the charm of his voice, and had in 
 some measure made a personal acquaintance with 
 him which would evermore move us to a ten- 
 derer regard for the man and a truer appreciation 
 of his verse, as well as a fuller charity for his 
 
 faults, — 
 
 We know in part what he has done, 
 God knows what he resisted. 
 
 For some months after our visit to Bridgeside, 
 quaint letters — one of them containing a por- 
 trait of the worthy occupant of the cottage — 
 192 
 
Death of Burns's Niece 
 
 followed us thence across the sea. These came 
 at increasing intervals and then stopped; the 
 kindly heart of the niece of Burns had ceased to 
 beat on her eightieth birthday. 
 
 A recent pilgrim in Burnsland found an added 
 line on the gravestone in the old kirk-yard, to 
 tell that Isabella Burns Begg rests there in 
 eternal peace. At Bridgeside, her once cher- 
 ished garden is a waste and her tiny cottage has 
 wholly disappeared. " So do things pass away 
 like a tale that is told." 
 
 193 
 
HIGHLAND MARY: HER 
 HOMES AND GRAVE 
 
 Birthplace — Personal Appearance — Relations to Burns — 
 Abodes : Mauchline, Coilsfield, etc.-Scenes of Courtship 
 and Parting — Mementos — Tomb by the Clyde. 
 
 HP HERE is no stronger proof of the transcend- 
 "*• ing power of the genius of Burns than is 
 found in the fact that, by a bare half dozen of 
 his stanzas, an humble dairy servant — else un- 
 heard of outside her parish and forgotten at her 
 death — is immortalized as a peeress of Petrarch's 
 Laura and Dante's Beatrice, and has been for a 
 century loved and mourned of all the world. 
 We owe much of our tenderest poesy to the 
 heroines whose charms have attuned the fancy 
 and aroused the impassioned muse of enamoured 
 bards; readers have always exhibited a natural 
 avidity to realize the personality of the beings 
 who inspired the tender lays, — prompted often 
 by mere curiosity, but more often by a desire to 
 appreciate the tastes and motives of the poets 
 themselves. How little is known of Highland 
 Mary, the most famous heroine of modern song, 
 is shown by the brief, incoherent, and often con- 
 tradictory allusions to her which the biographies 
 of the ploughman-poet contain. This paper, 
 — prepared during a sojourn in " The Land 
 o' Burns," — while it adds a little to our meagre 
 194 
 
Birthplace — Early Home 
 
 knowledge of Mary Campbell, aims to present 
 consecutively and congruously so much as may 
 now be known of her brief life, her relations to 
 the bard, and her sad, heroic death. 
 
 She first saw the light in 1764, at Ardrossan, 
 on the coast, fifteen miles northward from the 
 " auld town of Ayr." Her parentage was of the 
 humblest, her father being a sailor before the 
 mast, and the poor dwelling which sheltered her 
 was in no way superior to the meanest of those 
 we find to-day on the narrow streets of her vil- 
 lage. From her birthplace we see, across the 
 Firth of Clyde, the beetling mountains of the 
 Highlands, where she afterward dwelt, and 
 southward the great mass of Ailsa Craig loom- 
 ing, a gigantic pyramid, out of the sea. Mary 
 was named for her aunt, wife of Peter McPher- 
 son, a ship-carpenter of Greenock, in whose 
 house Mary died. In her infancy her family 
 removed to the vicinage of Dunoon, on the 
 western shore of the Firth, eight miles below 
 Greenock, leaving the oldest daughter at Ar- 
 drossan. Mary grew to young womanhood 
 near Dunoon, then returned to Ayrshire, and 
 found occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton, 
 where her acquaintance with Burns soon began. 
 He told a lady that he first saw Mary while 
 walking in the woods of Coilsfield, and first 
 spoke with her at a rustic merry-making, and, 
 195 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 " having the luck to win her regards from other 
 suitors," they speedily became intimate. At this 
 period of life Burns's " eternal propensity to fall 
 into love" was unusually active, even for him, and 
 his passion for Mary (at this time) was one of 
 several which engaged his heart in the interval 
 between the reign of Ellison Begbie — " the lass 
 of the twa sparkling, roguish een" — and that of 
 " Bonnie Jean." Mary subsequently became a 
 servant in the house of Burns's landlord, Gavin 
 Hamilton, a lawyer of Mauchline, who had 
 early recognized the genius of the bard and ad- 
 mitted him to an intimate friendship, despite his 
 inferior condition. When Hamilton was perse- 
 cuted by the kirk, Burns, partly out of sympa- 
 thy with him, wrote the satires, " Holy Willie's 
 Prayer," « The Twa Herds," and " The Holy 
 Fair," which served to unite the friends more 
 closely, and brought the poet often to the house 
 where Mary was an inmate. This house — a 
 sombre structure of stone, little more preten- 
 tious than its neighbors — we found on the 
 shabby street not far from Armour's cottage, 
 the church of " The Holy Fair," and " Posie 
 Nansie's" inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" used 
 to congregate. Among the dingy rooms shown 
 us in Hamilton's house was that in which he 
 married Burns to " Bonnie Jean" Armour. 
 The bard's niece, Miss Begg, of Bridgeside, 
 196 
 
Personal Appearance 
 
 told the writer that she often heard Burns's 
 mother describe Mary as she saw her at Hamil- 
 ton's : she had a bonnie face, a complexion of 
 unusual fairness, soft blue eyes, a profusion of 
 shining hair which fell to her knees, a petite fig- 
 ure which made her seem younger than her 
 twenty summers, a bright smile, and pleasing 
 manners, which won the old lady's heart. This 
 description is, in superlative phrase, corrobo- 
 rated by Lindsay in Hugh Miller's w Recol- 
 lections :" she was " beautiful, sylph-like," her 
 bust and neck were " exquisitely moulded," her 
 arms and feet " had a statue-like symmetry and 
 marble-like whiteness ;" but it was in her lovely 
 countenance that "nature seemed to have ex- 
 hausted her utmost skill," — " the loveliest creat- 
 ure I have ever seen," etc. All who have 
 written of her have noticed her beauty, her good 
 sense, her modesty and self-respect. But these 
 qualities were now insufficient to hold the roving 
 fancy of Burns, whose " susceptibility to imme- 
 diate impressions" (so called by Byron, who 
 had the same failing) passes belief. His first 
 ephemeral fancy for Mary took little hold upon 
 his heart, and the best that can be said of it is 
 that it was more innocent than the loves which 
 came before and after it. Within a stone's-throw 
 of Mary dwelt Jean Armour, and when the 
 former returned to Coilsfield, he promptly fell 
 197 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 in love with Jean, and solaced himself with her 
 more buxom and compliant charms. It was a 
 year or so later, when his intercourse with Jean 
 had burdened him with grief and shame, that 
 the tender and romantic affection for Mary came 
 into his life. She was yet at Coilsfield, and 
 while he was in hiding — his heart tortured by 
 the apparent perfidy of Jean and all the country- 
 side condemning his misconduct — his intimacy 
 with Mary was renewed ; his quickened vision 
 now discerned her endearing attributes, her trust 
 and sympathy were precious in his distress, 
 and awoke in him an affection such as he never 
 felt for any other woman. During a few brief 
 weeks the lovers spent their evenings and Sab- 
 baths together, loitering amid the 
 
 " Banks and braes and streams around 
 The castle of Montgomery," 
 
 talking of the golden days that were to be theirs 
 when present troubles were past j then came the 
 parting which the world will never forget, and 
 Mary relinquished her service and went to her 
 parents at Campbeltown, — a port of Cantyre 
 behind " Arran's mountain isle." Of this part- 
 ing Burns says, in a letter to Thomson, " We 
 met by appointment on the second Sunday of 
 May, in a sequestered spot on the Ayr, where 
 we spent the day in taking farewell before she 
 198 
 
Betrothal and Parting — Mementos 
 
 should embark for the West Highlands to pre- 
 pare for our projected change of life." Lovers 
 of Burns linger over this final parting, and detail 
 the impressive ceremonials with which the pair 
 solemnized their betrothal : they stood on either 
 side of a brook, they laved their hands in the 
 water and scattered it in the air to symbolize the 
 purity of their intentions ; clasping hands above 
 an open Bible, they swore to be true to each 
 other forever, then exchanged Bibles, and parted 
 never to meet more. It is not strange that 
 when death had left him nothing of her but her 
 poor little Bible, a tress of her golden hair, and 
 a tender memory of her love, the recollection 
 of this farewell remained in his soul forever. 
 He has pictured it in the exquisite lines of 
 «« Highland Mary" and " To Mary in Heaven." 
 In the monument at Alloway — between the 
 " auld haunted kirk" and the bridge where 
 Maggie lost her tail — we are shown a memento 
 of the parting ; it is the Bible which Burns gave 
 to Mary and above which their vows were said. 
 At Mary's death it passed to her sister, at Ar- 
 drossan, who bequeathed it to her son William 
 Anderson ; subsequently it was carried to Amer- 
 ica by one of the family, whence it has been 
 recovered to be treasured here. It is a pocket 
 edition in two volumes, to one of which is 
 attached a lock of poor Mary's shining hair. 
 199 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Within the cover of the first volume the hand 
 of Burns has written, " And ye shall not swear 
 by my name falsely, I am the Lord ;" within 
 the second, " Thou shalt not forswear thyself 
 but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." 
 Upon a blank leaf of each volume is Burns's 
 Masonic signet, with the signature, "Robert 
 Burns, Mossgiel," written beneath. Mary's 
 spinning-wheel is preserved in the adjoining 
 cottage. A few of her bright hairs, severed in 
 her fatal fever, are among the treasures of the 
 writer and lie before him as he pens these lines. 
 A visit to the scenes of the brief passion of 
 the pair is a pleasing incident of our Burns-pil- 
 grimage. Coilsfield House is somewhat changed 
 since Mary dwelt beneath its roof, — a great ram- 
 bling edifice of gray weather-worn stone with a 
 row of white pillars aligned along its facade, its 
 massive walls embowered in foliage and envi- 
 roned by the grand woods which Burns and 
 Mary knew so well. It was then a seat of Colo- 
 nel Hugh Montgomerie, a patron of Burns. 
 The name Coilsfield is derived from Coila, the 
 traditional appellation of the district. The 
 grounds comprise a billowy expanse of wood 
 and sward ; great reaches of turf, dotted with 
 trees already venerable when the lovers here had 
 their tryst a hundred years ago, slope away from 
 the mansion to the Faile and border its mur- 
 
Coilsfield — Plans of the Lovers 
 
 muring course to the Ayr. Here we trace with 
 romantic interest the wanderings of the pair 
 during the swift hours of that last day of part- 
 ing love, their lingering way 'neath the " wild 
 wood's thickening green," by the pebbled shore 
 of Ayr to the brooklet where their vows were 
 made, and thence along the Faile to the wood- 
 land shades of Coilsfield, where, at the close of 
 that winged day, " pledging oft to meet again, 
 they tore themselves asunder." Howitt found 
 at Coilsfield a thorn-tree, called by all the coun- 
 try " Highland Mary's thorn," and believed to 
 be the place of final parting ; years ago the tree 
 was notched and broken by souvenir seekers ; if 
 it be still in existence the present occupant of 
 Coilsfield is unaware. 
 
 At the time of his parting with Mary, Burns 
 had already resolved to emigrate to Jamaica, and 
 it has been supposed, from his own statements and 
 those of his biographers, that the pair planned to 
 emigrate together; but Burns soon abandoned 
 this project and, perhaps, all thought of marrying 
 Mary. The song commencing " Will ye go to 
 the Indies, my Mary ?" has been quoted to show 
 he expected her to accompany him, but he says, 
 in an epistle to Thomson, that this was his fare- 
 well to her, and in another song, written while 
 preparing to embark, he declares that it is leaving 
 Mary that makes him wish to tarry. Further, 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 we find that with the first nine pounds received 
 from the sale of his poems he purchased a single 
 passage to Jamaica, — manifestly having no inten- 
 tion of taking her with him. Her being at 
 Greenock in October, en route to a new place 
 of service at Glasgow, indicates she had no 
 hope that he would marry her then, or soon. 
 True, he afterward said she came to Greenock 
 to meet him, but it is certain that he knew 
 nothing of her being there until after her death. 
 During the summer of 1786, while she was pre- 
 paring to wed him, he indited two love-songs to 
 her, but they are not more glowing than those 
 of the same time to several inamoratas, — less 
 impassioned than the " Farewell to Eliza" and 
 allusions to Jean in " Farewell, old Scotia's bleak 
 domains," — and barely four weeks after his ar- 
 dent and solemn parting with Mary we find him 
 writing to Brice, " I do still love Jean to dis- 
 traction." Poor Mary ! Possibly the fever 
 mercifully saved her from dying of a broken 
 heart. The bard's anomalous affectional condi- 
 tion and conduct may perhaps be explained by 
 assuming that he loved Mary with a refined and 
 spiritual passion so different from his love for 
 others — and especially from his conjugal love 
 for Jean — that the passions could coexist in his 
 heart. The alternative explanation is that his 
 love for Mary, while she lived, was by no means 
 202 
 
Burns's Regard for Mary — Her Death 
 
 the absorbing passion which he afterward be- 
 lieved it to have been. When death had hal- 
 lowed his memories of her love and of all their 
 sweet intercourse, — beneficent death ! that beau- 
 tifies, ennobles, irradiates, in the remembrance 
 of survivors, the loved ones its touch has taken, 
 — then his soul, swelling with the passion that 
 throbs in the strains of " To Mary in Heaven," 
 would not own to itself that its love had ever 
 been less. 
 
 Mary remained at Campbeltown during the 
 summer of 1786. Coming to Greenock in the 
 autumn, she found her brother sick of a malig- 
 nant fever at the house of her aunt ; bravely 
 disregarding danger of contagion, she devoted 
 herself to nursing him, and brought him to a 
 safe convalescence only to be herself stricken by 
 his malady and to rapidly sink and die, a sacrifice 
 to her sisterly affection. By this time the suc- 
 cess of his poems had determined Burns to re- 
 main in Scotland, and he returned to Mossgiel, 
 where tidings of Mary's death reached him. 
 His brother relates that when the letter was 
 handed to him he went to the window to read 
 it, then his face was observed to change sud- 
 denly, and he quickly went out without speak- 
 ing. In June of the next year he made a soli- 
 tary journey to the Highlands, apparently drawn 
 by memory of Mary. If, indeed, he dropped 
 203 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 a tear upon her neglected grave and visited 
 her humble Highland home, we may almost 
 forgive him the excesses of that tour, if not 
 the renewed liaison with Jean which imme- 
 diately preceded, and the amorous correspond- 
 ence with " Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose) which 
 followed it. 
 
 Whatever the quality or degree of his passion 
 for Mary living, his grief for her dead was deep 
 and tender, and expired only with his life. 
 Cherished in his heart, it manifested itself now 
 in some passage of a letter, now in some pa- 
 thetic burst of song, — like " The Lament" and 
 " Highland Mary," — and again in some emo- 
 tional act. Of many such acts narrated to the 
 writer by Burns's niece, the following is, per- 
 haps, most striking. The poet attended the 
 wedding of Kirstie Kirkpatrick, a favorite of his, 
 who often sang his songs for him, and, after the 
 wedded pair had retired, a lass of the company, 
 being asked to sing, began " Highland Mary." 
 Its effect upon Burns " was painful to witness ; 
 he started to his feet, prayed her in God's name 
 to forbear, then hastened to the door of the 
 marriage-chamber and entreated the bride to 
 come and quiet his mind with a verse or two 
 of * Bonnie Doon.' " The lines " To Mary in 
 Heaven" and the pathetic incidents of their com- 
 position show most touchingly how he mourned 
 204 
 
Her Grave 
 
 his fair-haired lassie years after she ceased to be. 
 It was at Ellisland, October 20, 1789, the anni- 
 versary of Mary's death, an occasion which 
 brought afresh to his heart memories of the ten- 
 der past. Jean has told us of his increasing si- 
 lence and unrest as the day declined, of his 
 aimless wandering by Nithside at nightfall, of 
 his rapt abstraction as he lay pillowed by the 
 sheaves of his stack-yard, gazing entranced at 
 the " lingering star" above him till the immortal 
 song was born. 
 
 Poor Mary is laid in the burial-plot of her 
 uncle in the west kirk-yard of Greenock, near 
 Crawford Street; our pilgrimage in Burnsland 
 may fitly end at her grave. A pathway, beaten 
 by the feet of many reverent visitors, leads us to 
 the spot. It is so pathetically different from the 
 scenes she loved in life, — the heather-clad slopes 
 of her Highland home, the seclusion of the 
 wooded braes where she loitered with her poet- 
 lover. Scant foliage is about her ; few birds 
 sing above her here. She lies by the wall; 
 narrow streets hem in the enclosure ; the air is 
 sullied by smoke from factories and from steam- 
 ers passing within a stone's-throw on the busy 
 Clyde ; the clanging of many hammers and the 
 discordant din of machinery and traffic invade 
 the place and sound in our ears as we muse above 
 the ashes of the gentle lassie. 
 205 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 For half a century her grave was unmarked 
 and neglected ; then, by subscription, a monu- 
 ment of marble, twelve feet in height, and of 
 graceful proportions, was raised. It bears a 
 sculptured medallion representing Burns and 
 Mary, with clasped hands, plighting their troth. 
 Beneath is the simple inscription, read oft by 
 eyes dim with tears : 
 
 Erected Over the Grave of 
 Highland Mary 
 1842. 
 " My Mary, dear departed shade, 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest?" 
 
 206 
 
BRONTE SCENES IN BRUS- 
 SELS 
 
 School-Class-Rooms-Dormitory— Garden-Scenes and Events of 
 Villette andThe Professor-M. Paul-Madame Beck-Mem- 
 ories of the Brontes-Confessional-Grave of Jessy Torke. 
 
 1X7E had " done" Brussels after the approved 
 * * fashion, — had faithfully visited the 
 churches, palaces, museums, theatres, galleries, 
 monuments ; had duly admired thd windows and 
 carvings of the grand cathedral, the tower and 
 tapestry and frescos and facade of the Hotel de 
 Ville, the stately halls and the gilded dome of 
 the Courts of Justice, and the consummate beauty 
 of the Bourse ; had diligently sought out the 
 naive boy-fountain, and had made the usual ex- 
 cursion to the field of Waterloo. 
 
 This delightful task being conscientiously 
 discharged, we proposed to devote our last day in 
 the Belgian capital to the accomplishment of one 
 of the cherished projects of our lives, — the search- 
 ing out of the localities associated with Charlotte 
 Bronte's unhappy school-life here, which she 
 has so graphically portrayed. For our purpose 
 no guide was needful, for the topography and 
 local coloring of " Villette" and " The Profes- 
 sor" are as vivid and unmistakable as in the best 
 work of Dickens himself. Proceeding from St. 
 207 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Gudule to the Rue Royale, and a short distance 
 along that thoroughfare, we reached the park 
 and a locality familiar to Miss Bronte's readers. 
 Seated in this lovely pleasure-ground, the gift 
 of the Empress Maria Theresa, with its cool 
 shade all about us, we noted the long avenues 
 and the paths winding amid trees and shrubbery, 
 the dark foliage ineffectually veiling the gleaming 
 statuary and the sheen of bright fountains, " the 
 stone basin with its clear depth, the thick- 
 planted trees which framed this tremulous and 
 rippled mirror," the groups of happy people 
 filling the seats in secluded nooks or loitering in 
 the mazes and listening to the music ; we noted 
 all this, and felt that Miss Bronte had revealed 
 it to us long ago. It was across this park that 
 Lucy Snowe was piloted from the bureau of the 
 diligence by the chivalrous Dr. John on the 
 night when she, despoiled, helpless, and solitary, 
 arrived in Brussels. She found the park deserted, 
 the paths miry, the water dripping from the 
 trees. " In the double gloom of tree and fog 
 she could not see her guide, and could only fol- 
 low his tread" in the darkness. We recalled 
 another scene under these same trees, on a 
 night when the gate-way was "spanned by a 
 flaming arch of massed stars." The park was a 
 "forest with sparks of purple and ruby and 
 golden fire gemming the foliage," and Lucy, 
 208 
 
The Park — Heger Mansion 
 
 driven from her couch by mental torture, 
 wandered unrecognized amid the gay throng at 
 the midnight concert of the Festival of the 
 Martyrs and looked upon her lover, her friends 
 the Brettons, and the secret junta of her enemies, 
 Madame Beck, Madame Walravens, and PSre 
 Silas. The sense of familiarity with the vici- 
 nage grew as we observed our surroundings. 
 Facing us, at the extremity of the park, was the 
 palace of the king, in the small square across the 
 Rue Royale at our right was the statue of Gen- 
 eral Beliard, and we knew that just behind it we 
 should find the Bronte school j for " The Pro- 
 fessor," standing by the statue, had looked down 
 a great staircase to the door-way of the school, 
 and poor Lucy on that forlorn first night in 
 " Villette," to avoid a pair of ruffians, had 
 hastened down a flight of steps from the Rue 
 Royale and had come, not to the inn she sought, 
 but to the pensionnat of Madame Beck. From the 
 statue we descended, by a series of stone stairs, 
 into a narrow street, old-fashioned and clean, 
 quiet and secluded in the very heart of the great 
 city, and just opposite the foot of the steps we 
 came to the wide door of a spacious, quadrangu- 
 lar, stuccoed old mansion, with a bit of foliage 
 showing over a high wall at one side. A bright 
 plate embellished the door and bore the name 
 Heger. A Latin inscription in the wall of the 
 o 209 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 house showed it to have been given to the Guild 
 of Royal Archers by the Infanta Isabelle early 
 in the seventeenth century. Long before that 
 the garden had been the orchard and herbary of 
 a convent and the Hospital for the Poor. 
 
 We were detained at the door long enough 
 to remember Lucy standing there, trembling and 
 anxious, awaiting admission, and then we too 
 were " let in by a bonne in a smart cap," appar- 
 ently a fit successor to the Rosine of other days, 
 and entered the corridor. This was paved with 
 blocks of black and white marble and had 
 painted walls. It extended through the entire 
 depth of the house, and at its farther extremity 
 an open door afforded us a glimpse of the garden. 
 We were ushered into the little salon at the left 
 of the passage, the one often mentioned in 
 " Villette," and here we made known our wish 
 to see the garden and class-rooms, and met with 
 a prompt refusal from the neat portresse. We 
 tried diplomacy (also lucre) without avail: it 
 was the grandes vacances, M. Heger was engaged, 
 we could not be gratified, — unless, indeed, we 
 were patrons of the school. At this juncture a 
 portly, ruddy-faced lady of middle age and most 
 courteous of speech and manner appeared, and, 
 addressing us in faultless English, introduced 
 herself as Mdlle. Heger, co-directress of the 
 school, and "wholly at our service." In 
 210 
 
Characters of Villette 
 
 response to our apologies for the intrusion and 
 explanations of the desire which had prompted 
 it, we received complaisant assurances of wel- 
 come ; yet the manner of our entertainer indi- 
 cated that she did not share in our admiration and 
 enthusiasm for Charlotte Bronte and her books. 
 In the subsequent conversation it appeared that 
 Mademoiselle and her family hold decided 
 opinions upon the subject, — something more 
 than mere lack of admiration. She was familiar 
 with the novels, and thought that, while they 
 exhibit a talent certainly not above mediocrity, 
 they reflect the injustice, the untruthfulness, and 
 the ingratitude of their creator. We were obliged 
 to confess to ourselves that the family have 
 reason for this view, when we reflected that in 
 the books Miss Bronte has assailed their religion 
 and disparaged the school and the characters of 
 the teachers and pupils, has depicted Madame 
 Heger in the odious duad of Madame Beck and 
 Mdlle. Reuter, has represented M. Heger as the 
 scheming and deceitful Pelet and the preposter- 
 ous Paul, Lucy Snowe's lover; that this lover 
 was the husband of Madame Heger, and father 
 of the family of children to whom Lucy was at 
 first bonne d'enfants, and that possibly the 
 daughter she has described as the thieving, 
 vicious Desiree — " that tadpole Desiree Beck" 
 — was this very lady now so politely entertaining 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 us. To all this add the significant fact that 
 " Villette" is an autobiographical novel, which 
 " records the most vivid passages in Miss 
 Bronte's own sad heart's history," not a few of 
 the incidents being transcripts " from the darkest 
 chapter of her own life," and the light which 
 the consideration of this fact throws upon her 
 relations with members of the family will help 
 us to apprehend the stand-point from which the 
 Hegers judge Miss Bronte and her work, and to 
 excuse a natural resentment against one who has 
 presented them in a decidedly bad light. How 
 bad we realized when, during the ensuing chat, 
 we called to mind just what she had written of 
 them. As Madame Beck, Madame Heger had 
 been represented as lying, deceitful, and shame- 
 less, as " watching and spying everywhere, 
 peeping through every key-hole, listening behind 
 every door," as duplicating Lucy's keys and 
 secretly searching her bureau, as meanly ab- 
 stracting her letters and reading them to others, 
 as immodestly laying herself out to entrap the 
 man to whom she had given her love unsought. 
 It was some accession to the existing animosity 
 between herself and Madame Heger which pre- 
 cipitated Miss Bronte's departure from the pen- 
 sionnat. Mrs. Gaskell ascribes their mutual dis- 
 like to Charlotte's free expression of her aversion 
 to the Catholic Church, of which Madame 
 
The Hegers 
 
 Heger was a devotee, and hence ■• wounded in 
 her most cherished opinions ;" but a later writer 
 plainly intimates that Miss Bronte hated the 
 woman who sat for Madame Beck because mar- 
 riage had given to her the man whom Miss 
 Bronte loved, and that " Madame Beck had 
 need to be a detective in her own house." The 
 death of Madame Heger had rendered the 
 family, who held her only as a sacred memory, 
 more keenly sensitive than ever to anything 
 which would seem by implication to disparage 
 her. 
 
 For himself, it would appear that M. Heger 
 had less cause for resentment ; for, although in 
 " Villette" his double is pictured as " a waspish 
 little despot," as detestably ugly, in his anger 
 closely resembling " a black and sallow tiger," 
 as having an "overmastering love of authority 
 and public display," as playing the spy and 
 reading purloined letters, and in the Bronte 
 epistles Charlotte declares he is choleric and 
 irritable, compels her to make her French trans- 
 lations without a dictionary or grammar, and 
 then has "his eyes almost plucked out of his 
 head" by the occasional English word she is 
 obliged to introduce, etc., yet all this is partially 
 atoned for by the warm praise she subsequently 
 accords him for his goodness to her and his dis- 
 interested friendship, by the poignant regret she 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 expresses at parting with him, — perhaps wholly- 
 expiated by the high compliment she pays him 
 of making her heroine fall in love with him, or 
 the higher compliment it is suspected she paid 
 him of falling in love with him herself. One 
 who reads the strange history of passion in 
 u Villette," in conjunction with her letters, 
 " will know more of the truth of her stay in 
 Brussels than if a dozen biographers had under- 
 taken to tell the whole tale." Still, M. Heger 
 can hardly be pleased by having members of his 
 school set forth as stupid, animal, and inferior, 
 " their principles rotten to the core, steeped in 
 systematic sensuality," by having his religion 
 styled " besotted papistry, a piece of childish 
 humbug," and the like. Something of the dis- 
 pleasure of the family was revealed in the course 
 of our conversation with Mdlle. Heger-, but the 
 specific causes were but cursorily touched upon. 
 She could have no personal recollection of the 
 Brontes ; her knowledge of them was derived 
 from her parents and the teachers, — presumably 
 the " repulsive old maids" of Charlotte's letters. 
 One teacher whom we saw in the school had 
 been a classmate of Charlotte's here. The 
 Brontes had not been popular with the school. 
 Their " heretical" religion had something to do 
 with this ; but their manifest avoidance of the 
 other pupils during hours of recreation, Mad- 
 214 
 
Recollections of the Brontes 
 
 emoiselle thought, had been a more potent cause, 
 — Emily, in particular, not speaking with her 
 school-mates or teachers, except when obliged to 
 do so. The other pupils thought them of out- 
 landish accent and manners, and ridiculously old 
 to be at school at all, — being twenty-four and 
 twenty-six, and seeming even older. Their 
 sombre and ugly costumes were fruitful causes 
 of mirth to the gay young Belgian misses. The 
 Brontes were not brilliant students, and none of 
 their companions had ever suspected that they 
 were geniuses. Of the two, Emily was consid- 
 ered to be the more talented, but she was obsti- 
 nate and opinionated. Some of the pupils had 
 been inclined to reskt having Charlotte placed 
 over them as teacher, and may have been muti- 
 nous. After her return from Haworth she 
 taught English to M. Heger and his brother-in- 
 law. M. Heger gave the sisters private lessons 
 in French without charge, and for some time 
 preserved their compositions, which Mrs. Gas- 
 kell copied. Mrs. Gaskell visited the pensionn at 
 in quest of material for her biography of Char- 
 lotte, and received all the aid M. Heger could 
 afford : the information thus obtained was, we 
 were told, fairly used. Miss Bronte's letters 
 from Brussels, so freely quoted in Mrs. Gaskell's 
 ** Life," were addressed to Ellen Nussy, a famil- 
 iar friend of Charlotte's, whose signature we saw 
 "5 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 in the register at Haworth as witness to Miss 
 Bronte's marriage. The Hegers had no sus- 
 picion that she had been so unhappy with them 
 as these letters indicate, and she had assigned a 
 totally different reason for her sudden return to 
 England. She had been introduced to Madame 
 Heger by Mrs. Jenkins, wife of the then chap- 
 lain of the British Embassy at the Court of Bel- 
 gium ; she had frequently visited that lady and 
 other friends in Brussels, — among them Mary 
 
 and Martha Taylor and the family of a Dr. 
 
 (not " Dr. John"), — and therefore her life here 
 need not have been so lonely and desolate as it 
 was made to appear. 
 
 The Hegers usually have a few English pupils 
 in the school, but have never had an American. 
 American tourists have before called to look at 
 the garden, but the family are not pleased by 
 the notoriety with which Miss Bronte has in- 
 vested it. However, Mdlle. Heger kindly offered 
 to conduct us over any portion of the establish- 
 ment we might care to see, and led the way along 
 the corridor to the narrow, high- walled garden. 
 We found it smaller than in the time when Miss 
 Bronte loitered here in weariness and solitude. 
 Mdlle. Heger explained that, while the width 
 remained the same, the erection of class-rooms 
 for the day-pupils had diminished the length by 
 some yards. Tall houses surrounded and shut 
 ftifi 
 
The Garden 
 
 it in on either side, making it close and sombre, 
 and the noises of the great city all about it 
 penetrated only as a far-away murmur. There 
 was a plat of verdant turf in the centre, bordered 
 by scant flowers and gravelled walks, along which 
 shrubs of evergreen were irregularly disposed. 
 A few seats were here and there within the shade, 
 where, as in Miss Bronte's time, the externats 
 ate the lunch brought with them to the school ; 
 and overlooking it all stood the great pear-trees, 
 whose gnarled and deformed trunks were relics 
 of the time of the convent. Beyond these and 
 along the gray wall which bounded the farther 
 side of the enclosure was the sheltered walk 
 which was Miss Bronte's favorite retreat, the 
 "allee defendue" of her novels. It was screened 
 by shrubs and perfumed by flowers, and, being 
 secure from the intrusion of pupils, we could 
 well believe that Charlotte and her heroine found 
 here restful seclusion. The coolness and quiet 
 and, more than all, the throng of vivid associa- 
 tions which filled the place tempted us to linger. 
 The garden was not a spacious nor even a pretty 
 one, and yet it seemed to us singularly pleasing 
 and familiar, as if we were revisiting it after an 
 absence. Seated upon a rustic bench close at 
 hand, possibly the very one which Lucy had 
 "reclaimed from fungi and mould," how the 
 memories came surging up in our minds ! How 
 zi7 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 often in the summer twilight poor Charlotte had 
 lingered here in solitude after the day's burdens 
 and trials with " stupid and impertinent" pupils ! 
 How often, with weary feet and a dreary heart, 
 she had paced this secluded walk and thought, 
 with longing, of the dear ones in far-away 
 Haworth parsonage ! In this sheltered corner 
 her other self, Lucy, sat and listened to the dis- 
 tant chimes and thought forbidden thoughts and 
 cherished impossible hopes. Here she met and 
 talked with Dr. John. Deep beneath this 
 " Methuselah of a pear-tree," the one nearest 
 the end of the alley, lies the imprisoned dust of 
 the poor nun who was buried alive ages ago for 
 some sin against her vow, and whose perambu- 
 lating ghost so disquieted poor Lucy. At the 
 root of this same tree one miserable night Lucy 
 buried her precious letters, and meant also to 
 bury a grief and her great affection for Dr. 
 John. Here she leant her brow against Methu- 
 selah's knotty trunk and uttered to herself those 
 brave words of renunciation, " Good-night, Dr. 
 John ; you are good, you are beautiful, but you 
 are not mine. Good-night, and God bless you !" 
 Here she held pleasant converse with M. Paul, 
 and with him, spellbound, saw the ghost of the 
 nun descend from the leafy shadows overhead 
 and, sweeping close past their wondering faces, 
 disappear behind yonder screen of shrubbery 
 tl8 
 
Garden — School 
 
 into the darkness of the summer night. By that 
 tall tree next the class-rooms the ghost was wont 
 to ascend to meet its material sweetheart, Fan- 
 shawe, in the great garret beneath yonder sky- 
 light, — the garret where Lucy retired to read Dr. 
 John's letter, and wherein M. Paul confined her 
 to learn her part in the vaudeville for Madame 
 Beck's ftte-day. In this nook where we sat 
 " The Professor" had walked and talked with 
 and almost made love to Mdlle. Reuter, and 
 from yonder window overlooking the alley had 
 seen that perfidious fair one in dalliance with 
 Pelet beneath these pear-trees. From that win- 
 dow M. Paul watched Lucy as she sat or walked 
 in the all'ee defendue, dogged by Madame Beck ; 
 from the same window were thrown the love- 
 letters which fell at Lucy's feet sitting here. 
 Leaves from the overhanging boughs were 
 plucked for us as souvenirs of the place ; then, 
 reverently traversing once more the narrow alley 
 so often traced in weariness by Charlotte Bronte, 
 we turned away. From the garden we entered 
 the long and spacious class-room of the first and 
 second divisions. A movable partition divided 
 it across the middle when the classes were in 
 session ; the floor was of bare boards cleanly 
 scoured. There were long ranges of desks and 
 benches upon either side, and a lane through 
 the middle led up to a raised platform at the end 
 219 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of the room, where the instructor's chair and 
 desk were placed. 
 
 How quickly our fancy peopled the place ! 
 On these front seats sat the gay and indocile 
 Belgian girls. There, " in the last row, in the 
 quietest corner, sat Emily and Charlotte side by 
 side, insensible to anything about them ;" and 
 at the same desk, " in the farthest seat of the 
 farthest row," sat Mdlle. Henri during Crims- 
 worth's English lessons. Here Lucy's desk was 
 rummaged by Paul and the tell-tale odor of 
 cigars left behind. Here, after school-hours, 
 Miss Bronte taught Heger English, he taught 
 her French, and Paul taught Lucy arithmetic 
 and (incidentally) love. This was the scene of 
 their tite-cl-tHtes, of his efforts to persuade her 
 into his religious faith, of their ludicrous sup- 
 per of biscuit and baked apples, and of his final 
 violent outbreak with Madame Beck, when she 
 literally thrust herself between him and his love. 
 From this platform Crimsworth and Lucy and 
 Charlotte Bronte herself had given instruction 
 to pupils whose insubordination had first to be 
 confronted and overcome. Here Paul and Heger 
 gave lectures upon literature, and Paul delivered 
 his spiteful tirade against the English on the 
 morning of his fite-day. Upon this desk were 
 heaped his bouquets that morning ; from its 
 smooth surface poor Lucy dislodged and fract- 
 
M. Paul 
 
 ured his spectacles; and here, seated in Paul's 
 chair, at Paul's desk, we saw and were presented 
 to Paul Emanuel himself, — M. Heger. 
 
 It was something more than curiosity which 
 made us alert to note the appearance and manner 
 of this man, who has been so nearly associated 
 with Miss Bronte in an intercourse which col- 
 ored her subsequent life and determined her life- 
 work, who has been made the hero of her novels 
 and has been deemed the hero of her own heart's 
 romance ; and yet we were curious to know 
 what manner of man it was who has been so 
 much as suspected of being honored with the 
 love and preference of the dainty Charlotte 
 Bronte. During a short conversation with him 
 we had opportunity to observe that in person 
 this " wise, good, and religious" man must, at 
 the time Miss Bronte knew him, have more 
 closely resembled Pelet of " The Professor" 
 than any other of her pen-portaits : indeed, after 
 the lapse of more than forty years that delinea- 
 tion still, for the most part, aptly applied to him. 
 He was of middle size, of rather spare habit of 
 body ; his face was fair and the features pleasing 
 and regular, the cheeks were thin and the mouth 
 flexible, the eyes — somewhat sunken — were of 
 mild blue and of singularly pleasant expres- 
 sion. We found him aged and somewhat in- 
 firm ; his finely-shaped head was fringed with 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 white hair, and partial baldness contributed rev- 
 erence to his presence and tended to enhance 
 the intellectual effect of his wide brow. In 
 repose his countenance showed a hint of melan- 
 choly : as Miss Bronte said, his " physiognomy 
 was fine et spirituelle ,•" one would hardly 
 imagine it could ever resemble the " visage of 
 a black and sallow tiger." His voice was low 
 and soft, his bow still " very polite, not the- 
 atrical, scarcely French," his manner suave and 
 courteous, his dress scrupulously neat. He ac- 
 costed us in the language Miss Bronte taught 
 him forty years ago, and his accent and diction 
 honored her instruction. He was talking with 
 some patrons, and, as his daughter had hinted 
 that he was averse to speaking of Miss Bronte, 
 we soon took leave of him and were shown 
 other parts of the school. The other class- 
 rooms, used for less advanced pupils, were 
 smaller. In one of them Miss Bronte had 
 ruled as monitress after her return from Ha- 
 worth. The large dormitory of the pensionnat 
 was above the long class-room, and in the time 
 of the Brontes most of the boarders — about 
 twenty in number — slept here. Their cots were 
 arranged along either side, and the position of 
 those occupied by the Brontes was pointed out 
 to us at the extreme end of the room. It was 
 here that Lucy suffered the horrors of hypo- 
 
School Scenes — The Confessional 
 
 chondria, so graphically portrayed in " Villette," 
 and found the discarded costume of the spectral 
 nun lying upon her bed, and here Miss Bronte 
 passed those nights of wakeful misery which 
 Mrs. Gaskell describes. A long, narrow room 
 in front of the class-rooms was shown us as the 
 refectoire, where the Brontes, with the other 
 boarders, took their meals, presided over by M. 
 and Madame Heger, and where, during the 
 evenings, the lessons for the ensuing days were 
 prepared. Here were held the evening prayers 
 which Charlotte used to avoid by escaping into 
 the garden. This, too, was the scene of Paul's 
 readings to teachers and pupils, and of some of 
 his spasms of petulance, which readers of "Vil- 
 lette" will remember. From the refectoire we 
 passed again into the corridor, where we made 
 our adieus to our affable conductress. She ex- 
 plained that, whereas this establishment had 
 been both a pensionnat and an externaty having 
 about seventy day-pupils and twenty boarders 
 when Miss Bronte was here, it was after the 
 death of Madame Heger used as a day-school 
 only, — the pensionnat being in another street. 
 
 The genuine local color Miss Bronte gives in 
 " Villette" enabled us to be sure that we had 
 found the sombre old church where Lucy, 
 arrested in passing by the sound of the bells, 
 knelt upon the stone pavement, passing thence 
 223 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 into the confessional of Pere Silas. Certain it 
 is that this old church lies upon the route she 
 would take in the walk from the school to the 
 Protestant cemetery, which she had set out to 
 do that afternoon, and the narrow streets which 
 lie beyond the church correspond to those in 
 which she was lost. Certain, too, it is said to 
 be that this incident is taken from her own ex- 
 perience. Reid says, " During one of the long 
 holidays, when her mind was restless and dis- 
 turbed, she found sympathy, if not peace, in the 
 counsels of a priest in the confessional, who 
 soothed her troubled spirit without attempting 
 to enmesh it in the folds of Romanism. " 
 
 Our way to the Protestant cemetery — a spot 
 sadly familiar to Miss Bronte, and the usual 
 termination of her walks — lay past the site of 
 the Porte de Louvain and out to the hills be- 
 yond the old city limits. From our path we 
 saw more than one tree-shrouded farm-house 
 which might have been the place of Paul's 
 breakfast with his school, and at least one quaint 
 mansion, with green-tufted and terraced lawns, 
 which might have served Miss Bronte as the 
 model for La Terrasse, the suburban home of the 
 Brettons and temporary abode of the Taylor 
 sisters whom she visited here. From the ceme- 
 tery are beautiful vistas of farther lines of hills, 
 of intervening valleys, of farms and villas, and 
 224 
 
The Cemetery 
 
 of the great city lying below. Miss Bronte has 
 well described this place : " Here, on pages of 
 stone and of brass, are written names, dates, last 
 tributes of pomp or love, in English, French, 
 German, and Latin." There are stone crosses 
 all about, and great thickets of roses and yews ; 
 " cypresses that stand straight and mute, and 
 willows that hang low and still ;" and there are 
 " dim garlands of everlasting flowers." Here 
 " The Professor" found his long-sought sweet- 
 heart kneeling at a new-made grave under the 
 overhanging trees. And here we found the 
 shrine of poor Charlotte Bronte's many pil- 
 grimages hither, — the burial-place of her friend 
 and school-mate, the Jessy Yorke of " Shirley ;" 
 the spot where, under " green sod and a gray 
 marble head-stone, cold, coffined, solitary, Jessy 
 sleeps below." 
 
 225 
 
LEMAN'S SHRINES 
 
 Beloved of Litt'erateurs-Gibbon-D* Aubigne-Rouneau-Byron— 
 Shelley— Dickens y etc.— Scenes of Childe Harold-Nouvelle 
 Helo'ise-Prisoner of Chillon-Land of Byron. 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE in the track of Childe 
 ■*** Harold brings us from the shores of Al- 
 bion, by Belgium's capital and deadly Waterloo, 
 along the castled Rhine and over mountain-pass 
 to " Italia, home and grave of empires," and to 
 the sublimer scenery of " Manfred," " Chillon," 
 and third canto of the pilgrim-poet's master- 
 piece ; to his "silver-sheeted Staubbach" and 
 " arrowy Rhone," " soaring Jungfrau" and 
 " bleak Mont Blanc." We linger with especial 
 pleasure on the shores of ** placid Leman," in 
 an enchanting region which teems with literary 
 shrines and is pervaded with memories and 
 associations — often so thrilling and vivid that 
 they seem like veritable and sensible presences 
 — of the brilliant number who have here had 
 their haunts. Here Calvin wrought his Com- 
 mentaries ; here Voltaire polished his darts ; 
 here Rousseau laid his impassioned tale ; here 
 Dickens, Byron, and Shelley loitered and wrote ; 
 here Gibbon and de Stael, Schlegel and Con- 
 stant, and many another scarcely less famous, 
 lived and wrought the treasures of their knowl- 
 edge and fancy into the literature of the world. 
 226 
 
Haunts of Litterateurs 
 
 A lingering voyage round the lake, like that of 
 Byron and Shelley, is a delight to be remembered 
 through a lifetime, and affords opportunity to 
 visit the spots consecrated by genius upon these 
 shores. At Geneva we find the inn where 
 Byron lodged and first met the author of " Queen 
 Mab," the house in which Rousseau was born, 
 the place where d'Aubigne wrote his history, 
 the sometime home of John Calvin. Near by, 
 in a house presented by the Genevese after his 
 release from the long imprisonment suffered on 
 their account, dwelt Bonnivard, Byron's immor- 
 tal " Prisoner of Chillon," and here he suffered 
 from his procession of wives and finally died. 
 Just beyond the site of the fortifications, on the 
 east side of the city, is an eminence whose slopes 
 are tastefully laid out with walks that wind, 
 amid sward and shrub, to the observatory which 
 crowns the summit and marks the site of Bon- 
 nivard's Priory of St. Victor, lost to him by his 
 devotion to Genevan independence. Not far 
 away is the public library, founded by his be- 
 quest of his modest collection of books and MSS. 
 which we see here carefully preserved. Here 
 also is an old portrait of the prisoner, which 
 represents him as a reckless and jolly " good 
 fellow" rather than a saintly hero, and accords 
 better with his character as described by late 
 writers than with the common conception of him. 
 227 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 Byron loved this Leman lake, and it is said his 
 discontented sprite still walks its margins ; cer- 
 tain it is he remains its poetic genius; his melody 
 seems to wake in every breeze that stirs its 
 surface. The Villa Diodati, a plain, quadrangu- 
 lar, three-storied mansion of moderate dimen- 
 sions, standing on the shore a few miles from 
 Geneva, was the handsome " Giaour's" first 
 home after his separation from Lady Byron and 
 his exile from England. It had been the resi- 
 dence of the Genevan Professor Diodati and the 
 sojourn of his friend the poet Milton. Pleasant 
 vineyards surround the place and slope away to 
 the water, but there is little in the spot or its 
 near environment to commend it to the fancy of 
 a poet. Byron's study here was a sombre room 
 at the back from which neither the lake nor the 
 snowy peaks were visible, and here he wrote, 
 besides many minor poems, " Manfred," " Pro- 
 metheus," " Darkness," " Dream," and the third 
 canto of "Childe Harold." Here also he 
 wrote " Marriage of Belphegor," a tale setting 
 forth his version of his own infelicitous marriage ; 
 but hearing that his wife was seriously ill, he 
 burned it in his study fire. From here, by in- 
 stigation of de Stael, he sent to Lady Byron in- 
 effectual overtures for a reconciliation. His 
 companion at the villa was an eccentric Italian 
 physician, Polidori, who was uncle to the poet 
 
 2*8 
 
 
Byron at Villa Diodati — Shelley 
 
 Rossetti, and who here quarrelled with Byron's 
 guests and wrote " The Vampire," a weird pro- 
 duction afterward attributed to Byron. Lovers 
 of Byron owe much to his sojourn on Leman ; 
 he found in the inspiring landscapes here, 
 especially in the environment of mountains, a 
 power that profoundly stirred what his wife 
 called " the angel in him." His letters recog- 
 nize an afflatus breathed upon him by the "majesty 
 around and above," and the quality of the poems 
 here produced shows his yielding and response 
 to that benign influence ; many a gem of poetic 
 thought was here begotten of lake and mount 
 and cataract, which otherwise had never been. 
 The insincere stanzas of some of his later poems 
 would scarcely have been written on Leman. 
 As we muse in the spots he frequented — wander- 
 ing on the entrancing margins or floating on the 
 crystal waters — and look thence upon the snow- 
 crowned peaks, resplendent in the sunshine or 
 roseate in the after-glow, we aspire to not only 
 partake of his rapture in this sublime beauty, but 
 to appreciate the deeper feelings to which it 
 moved him. 
 
 A villa near Byron's, and reached by a path 
 through his grounds, — Maison Chapuis, of Mont 
 AUegra, — was occupied that summer by the " im- 
 passioned Ariel of English verse," with Mary 
 Shelley and her brunette relative Jane Clermont 
 229 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 (the Claire of Shelley's journal), who after bore 
 to Byron a daughter called Alba by the Shelleys, 
 but later named by Byron Allegra, for the 
 place where he had known the mother. At 
 Mont Allegra " Bridge of Arve," ** Intellectual 
 Beauty," and Mrs. Shelley's weird " Franken- 
 stein" were penned. Here Byron was a daily vis- 
 itant, and the Shelleys were the usual companions 
 of his excursions upon the lake of beauty, in a 
 picturesque lateen-rigged boat which was the 
 property of the poets and the counterpart of 
 which we see moored by the Diodati shore, 
 looking like a bit of the Levant transported to 
 this tramontane water. The " white phantom" 
 observed by telescopists on the opposite shore to 
 sometimes embark with Byron, and which he 
 gravely told Madame de Stael was his dog, was 
 doubtless the frail Claire. The admonitions of 
 de Stael anent his mode of life provoked Byron 
 to take sure revenge by being attentive to her 
 husband, which the overshadowing wife always 
 resented as an affront upon herself. It is said 
 the poet's observation of this pair prompted the 
 couplet of " Don Juan :" 
 
 M But oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual, 
 Inform us truly, have they not henpecked you all ?" 
 
 Passing for the present the shrines of Ferney 
 and Coppet, we find in picturesque Lausanne the 
 230 
 
Voltaire — Gibbon — Dickens 
 
 quaint house in which Voltaire lived several 
 winters, and not far away the place where 
 Secretan died a few months ago. Gibbon*s 
 dwelling has been demolished, but we find the 
 place of his summer-house where the great his- 
 tory was completed, and of his famous rose-tree 
 where Byron gathered roses long ago. Madame 
 de Genlis narrates this incident of the great "De- 
 cliner and Faller" at Lausanne : he was enam- 
 oured of the comely Madame Crousaz, and, find- 
 ing her alone, he knelt at her feet and besought 
 her love. He received an unfavorable reply, but 
 remained in his humble posture until the lady, 
 after repeatedly requesting him to arise, discov- 
 ered that his weight made it impossible, and 
 summoned a servant to assist him to regain his 
 feet. His obesity seems to have been a stand- 
 ing jest among his acquaintances : a sufferer 
 from indigestion, due to lack of exercise, was 
 advised by a witty friend to " walk twice around 
 Gibbon before breakfast. " Several decades later 
 another illustrious English man of letters so- 
 journed in Lausanne. A pretty cottage-villa, 
 with embowered walls and flower-shaded porti- 
 cos which look from a mild eminence across 
 the crescentic lake, was, in 1846, the dwelling of* 
 Dickens, who here wrote one of the matchless 
 Christmas stories and a part of " Dombey and 
 Son." From the magnificent slope of Lausanne 
 a 3 i 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the whole lake region is visible, with the dark 
 Juras rising to the western horizon, the Alps of 
 Savoy, and " the monarch of mountains with 
 a diadem of snow" upholding the sky away in 
 the south. At the foot of this slope is the 
 port-town of Ouchy, a resort of Byron's in his 
 sailing excursions ; at the plain little Anchor inn 
 near the quai (Byron called it a " wretched inn") 
 he lodged, and here, being detained two days 
 (June 26 and 27, 18 16) by a storm which over- 
 took him on his return from Chillon and Clarens, 
 he wrote the touching " Prisoner of Chillon." 
 In a parsonage not far from Lausanne was reared 
 sweet Susanne Curchord, erst fiance of Gibbon, 
 and later the mother of de Stael. 
 
 Eastward is " Clarens, birthplace of deep 
 love," whose " air is the breath of passionate 
 thought, whose trees take root in love ;" about 
 it lies the charming region which Rousseau chose 
 for his fiction and peopled with affections, and 
 where Byron, Houghton, and Shelley loved to 
 linger. Here the latter first read " Nouvelle 
 Heloi'se" amid the settings of its scenes ; here 
 Byron wrote many glowing lines, inspired by 
 the beauty and romantic associations around 
 him. From the vine-clad terraces which cling 
 to the heights we behold the view which enrapt- 
 ured the poet, — a broad expanse of lacustrine 
 beauty and Alpine sublimity, embracing the 
 
Rousseau — Chillon 
 
 Leman shores from the Rhone to the Juras of 
 Gex, the entire width of the " bleu impossible" 
 lake and Alp piled on Alp beyond. Back of 
 Clarens we find the spot of Rousseau's " Bosquet 
 de Julie," and, at a little distance among embow- 
 ering trees, the birthplace of a woman stranger 
 than any fancied character of his fiction, the 
 Madame de War/ens of his " Confessions." 
 
 Between Clarens and Villeneuve, on an 
 isolated rock whose base is laved by Leman's 
 waters, which " meet and flow a thousand feet 
 in depth below," stands the grim prison of 
 Chillon, the scene of Byron's poem. The 
 fortress is an irregular pile of masonry, and, 
 with its massive walls, loop-holed towers, and 
 white battlements, is a picturesque object seen 
 across wide reaches of the lake. The present 
 structure is a hoary successor to a stronghold 
 still more ancient : the prehistoric lake-dwellers 
 here had a fortress and were succeeded by the 
 Franks and Romans. Of the present structure, 
 the Romanesque columns and the range of dun- 
 geons are known to have been in existence in 
 830, when Count Wala, a cousin of Charlemagne, 
 for alluding to the wife of Louis the Debonair 
 as " that adulterous woman," was incarcerated 
 here. Thus Judith's reputation was vindicated 
 and the earliest certain date of this fortress fixed. 
 The present superstructure remains unchanged 
 *33 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 since the thirteenth century. It is now con- 
 nected with the shore by a wooden structure 
 which spans the moat and replaces the ancient 
 drawbridge. Through a massive gate-way we 
 enter a roughly-paved court, whence a bluff 
 Savoyard conducts us through the romantic pile. 
 Among the apartments of the ducal family we 
 see the banqueting-hall where the dukes held 
 roistering wassail ; the kitchen on whose great 
 hearth oxen were roasted whole ; the Chamber 
 of Inquisition where hapless prisoners were tor- 
 tured to extort confession, this room being near 
 the chamber of the duchess, into which — de- 
 spite its thick wall, — the shrieks of the tortured 
 must have sometimes penetrated and disturbed 
 Her Serene Highness. Outside her door is a 
 post to which the wretches were bound, and it is 
 scored by marks of the irons which cauterized 
 their flesh ; in a near corner stood a rack which 
 rent them limb from limb. The crypt beneath, 
 with its low arched vaults and its graceful pillars 
 rising out of the rock, is the most interesting 
 portion of the fortress. Referring to their 
 architectural perfection, Longfellow once said 
 these were the " most delightful dungeons he ever 
 saw," but as we stand in their twilight gloom 
 the horrors of their history weigh heavily on 
 the heart. During this century the castle has 
 been used as an arsenal, but occasionally also 
 234 
 
Prison of Chillon 
 
 as a prison, and Byron found some of these 
 w chambers of sorrow" tenanted at the time 
 of his visits. One contracted cell is that in 
 which the condemned passed their last night of 
 life chained upon a rock, near the beam upon 
 which they were strangled and the opening 
 through which their bodies were thrust into the 
 lake. Another vault contains a pit or well, with 
 a spiral stair down which poor dupes stepped 
 into a yawning depth and — eternity. A third 
 chamber, so dark that its grotesque carvings are 
 scarcely discernible and no missal could be read 
 by daylight, was the chapel of the fortress. 
 Traversing the succession of dungeons, we come 
 to the last and largest, and reverently stand 
 beside the column where Byron's prisoner was 
 chained. This "dungeon deep and old" lies 
 not beneath the level of the lake, as Byron 
 believed, yet it is sufficiently dank and dismal to 
 be the appropriate scene of the touching and 
 tragic story which he located here. It is a long, 
 crypt-like apartment, whose vaulted roof of rock 
 is upheld by the " seven pillars of Gothic 
 mould" aligned along the middle. It is dimly 
 lighted by loop-holes pierced in the ponderous 
 walls for the feudal bowmen ; through these 
 narrow apertures, where the prisoner " felt the 
 winter's spray wash through the bars when winds 
 were high," we look out, as did he, upon the 
 235 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 distant town, " the lake with its white sails," 
 the " mountains high," and the little Isle de Paix 
 — " scarce broader than the dungeon floor" — 
 gleaming like an emerald from a setting of 
 amethyst. Here is Bonnivard's chain, scarce 
 four feet long, and in the central pillar the ring 
 which held it. The light, falling aslant 
 " through the cleft of the thick wall" upon the 
 floor, shows us the pathway worn in the rock 
 by the pacing of the prisoner during the weary 
 years, and reveals — graven on the column-stone 
 by the poet's hand — the name Byron. 
 
 At Chillon we are in the midst of a region 
 pervaded by the sentiment of the pilgrim-poet. 
 The Byron path leads from the shore to the 
 broad terraces of the Hotel Byron, whence we 
 behold as in a picture the romantic scene his 
 poetry portrays, — the " mountains with their 
 thousand years of snow," the shimmering water 
 of " the wide long lake," the dark slopes of the 
 Juras terraced to their summits, the "white- 
 walled towns" upon the nearer hill-sides. 
 Directly before us — bearing its three tall trees 
 — •* the little isle, the only one in view," smiles 
 in our faces from the bosom of the water ; on 
 the right we see sweet Clarens and the pictu- 
 resque battlements of Chillon ; on the left, the 
 glittering peaks of Dent du Midi and the Alps 
 of Savoy, with the " Rhone in fullest flow" 
 236 
 
Rousseau and Byron Scenes 
 
 between the rocky heights ; while from the 
 farther shore rise the cliffs of Meillerie, at 
 whose base Byron and Shelley, clinging to their 
 frail boat, narrowly escaped a watery grave on 
 the very spot where St. Preux and Julia of 
 " Nouvelle Heloi'se" were rescued from the 
 same fate. 
 
 Our farewell view of this Land of Byron is 
 taken on a cloudless summer night, when the 
 radiance of the harvest moon exalts and glori- 
 fies all the scene ; the grim prison of Bonnivard 
 is transformed into a snowy palace of peaceful 
 delights, the white mountain-peaks gleam with 
 the chaste lustre of pearls, the vine-embowered 
 village on the shore seems an Aidenn of purity 
 and light, and the sheen of the tremulous water 
 is that of a sea of molten silver. Surely, on all 
 her round, " Luna lights no spot more fair." 
 
 *37 
 
CHATEAUX OF FERNEY AND 
 COPPET 
 
 Voltaire's Home, Church, Study, Garden, Relics-Literary 
 Court of de Sta'e'l— Mementos— Famous Rooms, Guests— 
 Schlegel-Skelley— Constant- By ron-Da-vy, etc.-De Sta'eVs 
 Tomb. 
 
 \ LITERARY pilgrimage on Leman's 
 •*■** shores that did not include Ferney 
 among its shrines would be obviously incom- 
 plete. No matter how widely we may dissent 
 from his opinions or how much we may deplore 
 some of his utterances, the brilliant philosopher 
 who for so many years inhabited that spot and 
 made it the intellectual capital of the world 
 commands a place in letters which we may 
 neither gainsay nor ignore, and the Chateau 
 Voltaire is to many visitors one of the chief 
 objects of interest in the neighborhood of 
 Geneva. 
 
 Beneath a summer sky a delightful jaunt of a 
 few miles, among orchards and vineyards and 
 past the ancestral home of Albert Gallatin, 
 brings us to Voltaire's domain in Gex. The 
 mansion and town of Ferney were alike the 
 creation of the genius loci ; he was architect and 
 builder of both. The town and its factories 
 were erected to give shelter and employment to 
 hundreds of artisans who appealed to him 
 238 
 
 
Voltaire's Church — Mansion 
 
 against oppressive employers at Geneva. The 
 place has obviously degenerated since his time ; 
 an air of shabbiness and thriftlessness prevails, 
 and ancient smells by no means suggestive of 
 " the odors of Araby the blest" obtrude upon 
 the pilgrim. At the public fountain stout-armed 
 women were washing family linen manifestly 
 long unused to such manipulation. Near by 
 dwell descendants of Voltaire's secretary Wag- 
 niere. Upon a verdant plateau farther away, 
 in the heart of one of the most beautiful regions 
 of earth, " girdled by eighty leagues of moun- 
 tains that pierce the sky," was Voltaire's last 
 home. By its gate is the little church he built, 
 bearing upon its gable his inscription " Deo 
 Erexit Voltaire." Here he attended mass with 
 his niece, and, as seigneur, was always incensed 
 by the priest ; here he gave in marriage his 
 adopted daughters ; here he preached a homily 
 against theft ; and here he built for himself a 
 tomb, projecting into the side of the church, — 
 " neither within nor without," as he explained 
 to a guest, — where he hoped to be buried. The 
 church was long used as a tenement, later it has 
 been a storage- and tool-house. The chateau is 
 a spacious and dignified three-storied structure 
 of Italian style, attractive in appearance and 
 well suited to one of Voltaire's tastes and occu- 
 pations. The exterior has been somewhat 
 a 39 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 altered, but the apartments of the philosopher 
 are essentially unchanged. The late proprietor 
 preserved the study and bedroom nearly as Vol- 
 taire left them when he started upon his fatal 
 visit to Paris. They are small, with high 
 ceilings, quaint carvings, faded tapestries, and 
 are obviously planned to facilitate the work of 
 the busiest author the world has known, who 
 here, after the age of threescore, wrote a 
 hundred and sixty works. Many of these as- 
 sailed the church authorities, who had shown 
 themselves capable of punishing mere difference 
 of opinion by the rack and the stake, but " the 
 religion of the Sermon on the Mount and the 
 character of men of good and consistent lives" 
 they did not attack : some of the books were 
 cursed at Rome, some at Geneva, others were 
 burned at both places. 
 
 Disposed in Voltaire's rooms we have seen his 
 heavy furniture ; his study-chair standing by the 
 table upon which he wrote half of each day ; 
 his beautiful porcelain stove, a gift from Fred- 
 erick the Great ; a draped mausoleum bearing 
 an inscription by Voltaire and designed by his 
 protege to contain his heart ; many paintings 
 presented by royal admirers, — Albani's " Toilet 
 of Venus," Titian's " Venus and Love," a picture 
 of Voltaire's chimney-sweep, portrait of Lecain 
 who acted so many of Voltaire's tragedies, por- 
 240 
 
His Rooms — Furniture 
 
 traits of that philosopher, a fanciful deification 
 of him by Duplessis ; on the same wall, coarse 
 engravings of Washington and Franklin. Frank- 
 lin was the firm friend of Voltaire, and it was his 
 letters which first brought to Ferney news of 
 the Declaration of Independence. The dis- 
 colored embroidery of Voltaire's bed and arm- 
 chair was wrought by his niece Madame Denis, 
 " the little fat woman round as a ball." Habit- 
 ually complaining of illness in his last years, he 
 spent more than half his time in this quaint bed. 
 He had a desk, containing writing materials, sus- 
 pended above the bed so that he could write 
 here day or night, and the amount of work he 
 thus accomplished is astounding : in the last four 
 years of feeble life he wrote thirty works vary- 
 ing in size from a pamphlet to a ponderous 
 tome. His breakfast was served in bed, and here 
 he habitually attended to his correspondence, 
 which included most of the sovereigns of Europe 
 and the learned and great of all climes. In this 
 bed he once lay for weeks feigning mortal illness, 
 and thus induced the priest to give him the 
 viaticum. This bedroom, too, was the scene of 
 many quarrels with his niece regarding her ex- 
 travagances, but as we sit in his chair by his 
 bedside we prefer to recall more pleasing inci- 
 dents the room has witnessed ; here he dictated 
 to Marie Corneille the ardent words which 
 q 241 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 brought reparation to many a cruelly wronged 
 family ; this was the scene of his many pleasant- 
 ries with the house-keeper " Baba," and of the 
 loving ministrations of his sweet ward "Belle 
 et Bonne." 
 
 Many of Voltaire's belongings have been 
 removed and his estate has been shorn of its 
 vast dimensions, but much remains to remind us 
 of the genius of the place. Here are the 
 gardens, lawns, and shrubberies he planted ; on 
 this turf-grown terrace beneath his study win- 
 dows he paced as he planned his compositions, 
 and here, at the age of eighty-three, he evolved 
 " Irene" and parts of " Agathocele j" near by 
 are his fount, his arbored promenade, the shaded 
 spot where he wrote in summer days, the place 
 of the lightning-rod made for him by Franklin. 
 Long reaches of the hedge were rooted by him, 
 many of the trees are from the nursery he cult- 
 ured, the cedars were raised from seeds sent to 
 him by the Empress Catherine. A venerable 
 tree in the park was planted by Voltaire's own 
 hands : when we point to a blemish upon its 
 trunk and ask our guide, whose family have 
 dwelt on the estate since the time of Voltaire, 
 if that is the effect of lightning, as has been 
 averred, he indignantly declares the only damage 
 the tree ever sustained has been from visitors 
 who, to secure souvenirs of the illustrious phi- 
 242 
 
An Intellectual Capital — Reminiscences 
 
 losopher, would destroy the whole tree were he 
 not alert to protect it. 
 
 For twenty years this home of Voltaire was 
 the centre and pharos of the intellectual world. 
 To this court kings sent couriers with proffers of 
 honors and assurances of esteem ; hither came 
 legions of litterateurs, academicians, politicians, 
 eager to hail the savant or to secure his commen- 
 dation. " All roads then led to Ferney as they 
 once did to Rome," and the hospitalities of the 
 chateau were so taxed that Voltaire declared he 
 was innkeeper for all Europe. He habitually 
 complained of the climate here, " Lapland in 
 winter, Naples in summer ;" during some seasons 
 " thirty leagues of snow were visible from his 
 windows ;" but on the July day of our visit the 
 atmosphere is exquisitely delightful and Voltaire's 
 " desert" seems a paradise. Behind us rise the 
 vine-clad slopes of Jura, below lies the lake like 
 an amethystine sea, afar gleam the snow-crowned 
 peaks, and about us in the old gardens are the 
 golden sunshine, . the incense of flowers, the 
 twitter of birds, and all the charm of sweet 
 summer-time. As we linger in the spots he loved 
 it is pleasant to recall the good that mingled in 
 the oddly composite nature of the daring old 
 man who inhabited this beautiful scene and 
 created much of its beauty ; to remember that 
 dumb creatures loved him and fed from his hand ; 
 243 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 that the destitute and oppressed never vainly 
 applied to him for succor or protection ; that in 
 varying phrase he solemnly averred, in letters of 
 counsel to youthful admirers in his own and 
 other lands, " We are in the world only for the 
 good we can do." 
 
 Of the galaxy of litterateurs who had home 
 or haunt by Leman's margins Madame de Stael, 
 by her long residence and many incidents of her 
 career, seems most closely associated with this 
 region of delights. The chateau of Coppet 
 has for two centuries belonged to her family ; 
 here some portion of her girlhood was passed ; 
 here she found asylum from the horrors of the 
 French Revolution and residence when Na- 
 poleon banished her from his capital. Later 
 her son Auguste dwelt here, and the place is 
 now the property of her great-granddaughter. 
 Literary and social associations render this 
 mediaeval chateau one of the most interesting 
 spots on earth. Exiled from the society of 
 Paris, de Stael erected here a court which 
 became the centre of intellectual Europe. Cop- 
 pet was in itself a lustrous microcosm whose 
 attraction was the conversation of its hostess 
 and queen, which allured the wit and wisdom 
 of a continent, making this court not only a 
 literary centre, but a political power of which 
 Napoleon, by his proscriptions, proclaimed his 
 244 
 
Home of de Stael 
 
 fear. The great number of illustrious courtiers 
 who came to Coppet caused the priestess of its 
 hospitalities to aver she needed " a cook whose 
 heels were winged." 
 
 The darkly-verdured terraces of Jura on the 
 one hand, the blue waters and the farther snowy 
 peaks on the other, fitly environ the enchanting 
 scene in the midst of which was set the abode 
 of the greatest woman of her time. From 
 Geneva a charming sail along the lake conveys 
 us to her home and sepulchre. We approach 
 the chateau between rows of venerable trees 
 beneath which de Stael loitered with her 
 guests. The stately edifice rises from three 
 sides of a court, whence we are admitted to a 
 large hall on the lower floor which she used as 
 a theatre. These walls, which give back only 
 the echo of our foot-falls, have resounded with 
 the applause of fastidious auditors when the 
 queen of Coppet, with her children and Re- 
 camier, de Sabran, Werner, Jenner, Constant, 
 Von Vought, or Ida Brun acted upon a stage at 
 yonder end of the room. The composition of 
 plays for this theatre was sometime de StaeFs 
 principal recreation : these have been published 
 as " Essais Dramatiques." But more ambitious 
 dramas were presented ; the matchless Juliette 
 acted here with Sabran and de Stael in " Semir- 
 amis ;" Werner assisted in the first presentation 
 245 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 of "Attila," which was written here; Con- 
 stant's " Wallenstein" was composed here and 
 first produced on this stage, as was also Oehlen- 
 schlager's " Hakon Jarl." De Stael was an 
 efficient actress, her lustrous eyes, superb arms, 
 and strong and flexible voice compensating for 
 deficiencies of training. A broad stair leads 
 from the silent theatre to the principal apart- 
 ments, among which we find the library where 
 Necker wrote his " Politics and Finance," the 
 grand salon and reception-rooms, — all of impos- 
 ing dimensions and having parquetted floors. 
 Arranged in these rooms are many mementos of 
 the daughter of genius who once inhabited 
 them, — hangings of tapestry ; antique spindle- 
 legged furniture carved and gilded in quaint 
 fashion ; the cherub-bedecked clock that stood 
 above her desk ; her books and inkstand ; the 
 desk upon which " Necker," " Germany," 
 "Allemagne," and many minor treatises were 
 written. Upon the wall is her portrait, by 
 David, which pictures her with bare arms and 
 shoulders, her head crowned by a nimbus of 
 yellow turban which she wore when costumed 
 as " Corinne :" the features are not classical, but 
 the brunette face, with its splendid dark eyes, is 
 comely as well as intellectual, and obviously 
 contradicts Byron's declaration, " She is so ugly 
 I wonder how the best intellect of France could 
 246 
 
 
Memorable Rooms — Mementos 
 
 have taken up such a residence.'* Schaffer's 
 portrait of her daughter hangs near by, display- 
 ing a face of striking beauty, and a picture of 
 Madame Necker, de StaeTs mother, represents a 
 sweet-faced woman who smiles upon the visitor 
 despite the discomfort of a painfully tight fitting 
 dress of white satin. Here also are portraits of 
 Necker, of de StaeTs first husband, of her son 
 Auguste, of Schlegel, and of other literary 
 confreres y a statue of her father, by Tieck, and a 
 bust of Rocca, her youthful second husband. 
 The latter represents a finely-shaped head and a 
 winning face. Byron thought Rocca notably 
 handsome, and Frederica Brun testified, " he had 
 the most magnificent head I ever saw." He 
 was so slender that one of de StaeTs courtiers 
 wondered " how his many wounds found a 
 place upon him :" these wounds, received in the 
 Peninsula, won for him the sympathy of de 
 Stael, which deepened into love. 
 
 As we wander through the rooms, waking the 
 echoes and viewing the souvenirs of the illustri- 
 ous dead, as we ponder their lives, their aims, 
 their works, it seems, amid the viyid associations 
 of the place, to require no supernal effort of the 
 fancy to repeople it with the brilliant company 
 who were wont to assemble here. Of these 
 apartments, the salon, from whose wall looks 
 down the portrait of Corinna, will longest hold 
 247 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 the pilgrim. It was the throne-room of this 
 court : here resorted a throng of the best and 
 noblest minds, litterateurs, scientists, men of 
 largest thought, of highest rank. Here Recamier 
 was a frequent guest: yonder mirror, with its 
 multipanes framed in gilt metal, often reflected 
 her lovely face. In this room she danced for 
 the delight of de Stael her famous gavotte, 
 which had transported the beau monde of Paris, 
 and was rewarded by its celebration in " Co- 
 rinne." Some who came to this court remained 
 as residential guests : for fifteen years Sismondi 
 worked here upon his " Literature of Southern 
 Europe," etc. ; here the sage Bonstetten wrote 
 many of his twenty-five volumes ; here Schlegel, 
 the great critic of his age, who is commem- 
 orated in " Corinne" as Castel-Forte, was installed 
 for twelve years and prepared his works on 
 dramatic literature ; here Werner, author of 
 "Luther," "Wanda," etc., wrote much of his 
 mystic poetry ; here the Danish national poet 
 composed his noblest tragedies, " Correggio" 
 being a souvenir of Coppet; here Constant 
 penned many dramas. Among the frequenters of 
 this salon were Madame de Saussure, famous for 
 her books on education ; Frederica Brun, with 
 her daughter Ida who is imaged in " Allemagne ;" 
 Sir Humphry and Lady Davy, the latter being the 
 realization of " Corinne ;" Madame de Kriide- 
 24.8 
 
Literary Court and Courtiers 
 
 ner, author of " Valerie," from whom Delphine 
 was mainly drawn ; Barante the critic ; Dumont, 
 editor of Jeremy Bentham. Of those who 
 came less often were Cuvier, Gibbon, Ritter, 
 Lacretelle, Mirabeau, Houghton, Brougham, 
 Ampere, Byron, Shelley, Montmorency, Wy- 
 nona,Tieck, Miiller, Candolle, de Sergey, Prince 
 Augustus, and scores of others. 
 
 This room, where that galaxy assembled, has 
 witnessed the most wonderful intellectual seances 
 of the century. We may imagine something 
 of the brilliancy of an assembly of such minds 
 presided over by de Stael, — what gayety, what 
 coruscations of wit, what displays of wisdom, 
 what keenness of discussion were not possible to 
 such a circle ! For some time religious tenets 
 were frequently under consideration. Every 
 shade of belief, doubt, and agnosticism had its 
 defenders in the company. Sismondi was cor- 
 responding with Channing of Boston, whose 
 views he espoused, and the arrival of each letter 
 caused the renewal of the argument in which 
 de Stael was the principal advocate of the 
 spiritual motive of Christianity as against a 
 system of mere well-doing. All questions of 
 literature, art, ethics, philosophy, politics, were 
 considered here by the most capable minds of 
 the age, the discussions being oft prolonged into 
 the night. But that there may be too much 
 249 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 even of a good thing is naively confessed by 
 Bonstetten, one of the lights of these seances , in 
 his letters : " I feel tired by surfeit of intellect : 
 there is more mind expended at Coppet in a 
 day than in many countries in a year, but I am 
 half dead." Scintillant converse was inter- 
 spersed with music from the old harpsichord in 
 yonder corner, — touched by ringers that now are 
 dust, — with recitations and reading of MSS. It 
 was the habit of de Stael to read to the circle, 
 for their criticism, what she had written during 
 the morning, and to discuss the subsequent 
 chapters. Guests who were writing at the 
 chateau then read their compositions — Bonstet- 
 ten's "Latium" often put the company to sleep — 
 and eagerly sought de StaePs suggestions ; " the 
 lesser lights were glad to borrow warmth and 
 lustre from the central sun." Chateauvieux 
 declares, " She formed my mental character ; 
 for twenty years my sentiments were founded 
 upon hers." Sismondi says, — She determined 
 my literary career ; her good sense guided my 
 pen." Bonstetten, Schlegel, Werner, and others 
 bear similar testimony to the value of her 
 counsel. 
 
 The place was never more animated than in 
 
 the last summer of her life, when Byron and 
 
 Shelley used to cross the lake to join the circle 
 
 in this room. De Stael had met Byron in Lon- 
 
 250 
 
Byron, Shelley, etc. 
 
 don during the ephemeral " Byron-madness," 
 and now, in his social exile, her doors were freely- 
 open to him : his letters testify " she made Cop- 
 pet as agreeable as society and talent can make 
 any place on earth." Here he first saw •* Glen- 
 arvon," a venomous attack upon him which 
 seems to have served no purpose save to illustrate 
 the aphorism about "a woman scorned," its 
 authoress having been notoriously importunate 
 for Byron's favor, even attempting, it was said, 
 to enter his apartments in male attire. In this 
 salon Mrs. Hervey, the novelist, feigned to faint 
 at Byron's approach : from the balcony outside 
 these windows, where de Stael and her sire 
 stood and saw Napoleon's army cross the Swiss 
 frontier, Byron looked upon the scene which 
 inspired some of his divinest stanzas. The 
 chateau was a busy place in those years : a guest 
 writes from here, " In every corner one is at 
 a literary task ; de Stael is writing * Exile,' 
 Auguste and Constant a tragedy, Sabran an opera, 
 Sismondi his ' Republics,' Bonstetten a philos- 
 ophy, and Rocca his ' Spanish War.' " 
 
 One noble chamber hung with dim tapestries 
 is that erst occupied by Recamier : it had before 
 been the sick-room of Madame Necker and the 
 scene of her husband's loving care of her, which 
 de Stael so touchingly records. The chamber 
 of de Stael is near by, its windows overlooking 
 
A Literary Pilgrimage 
 
 her sepulchre : here she wrote the books which 
 made her fame ; here she instructed her children, 
 their Sabbath lessons being from the devout 
 treatises of her father and a Kempis's " Imitation 
 of Christ," the book she read in her own dying 
 hours. A smaller room, looking out upon the 
 park, the terraces of Jura, and the white walls of 
 Lausanne, was shared by Constant and Bonstet- 
 ten. In the tower above have been found letters 
 written by Gibbon to \i\s fiance, who became the 
 mother of de Stael : they have been published 
 by the grandson of de Stael, and show that the 
 conduct of the great " Decliner and Faller" 
 toward the then poor girl was thoroughly selfish 
 and unscrupulous. 
 
 The rooms are renovated and the place is 
 offered for rent, but nothing is destroyed. The 
 formal park at the side of the chateau is little 
 changed : along yonder wooded aisle and upon 
 this all'ee between prim patches of sward the 
 de Stael walked with her guests in the summers 
 of long ago ; upon the seat beneath this coppice, 
 beside this placid pool, or on the margin of 
 yonder brooklet from the top of Jura, they 
 lingered in brilliant converse till the stars came 
 out one by one above the darkening mountains. 
 These — the mute, soulless inanimates — remain, 
 while the illustrious company that quickened and 
 glorified them all has vanished from human ken. 
 252 
 
Tomb of Necker and de Stael 
 
 Some rods distant from the chateau, shaded 
 by a sombre grove and bounded by a hoary 
 wall, is the picturesque chapel in which Necker 
 is laid with his wife, to whose tomb he, for 
 many years, daily came to pray. In the same 
 crypt the mortal part of de Stael rests at his 
 feet ; the portal was walled up at her burial and 
 eye hath not since seen her sepulchre. A stone 
 which marks the grave of her son Auguste, and 
 lies on the threshold of that sealed portal, is 
 fittingly inscribed, " Why seek ye the living 
 among the dead ?" 
 
 Beyond the closed gate we pause for a parting 
 view of the scene now flooded with sunshine, 
 and as we leave the place we carry thence that 
 resplendent vision embalmed in a memory that 
 will abide with us forever. As I write these 
 closing lines I see again that summer sky, cloud- 
 less save for the fleece floating above Jura like 
 that which the bereaved Necker fancied was 
 bearing the soul of his wife to paradise. I see 
 again the glimmering water ; the mountains 
 with their tiaras of snow, sending back the sun- 
 beams from their shining peaks like reflections 
 from the pearly gates that enclose the Celestial 
 City ; and, amid this sublime beauty, the gleam- 
 ing sycamores that sway above the tomb of 
 ** the incomparable Corinna." 
 
 253 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbotsford, — Scott, — 161. 
 
 Addison, 15, 19, 30, 36, 91. 
 
 Akenside, 16, 25. 
 
 Andersen, Hans Christian, 55, 57. 
 
 Annesley Hall and Park, 71-77. 
 
 Aram, Eugene; Scenes, III, 144-147. 
 
 Arbuthnot, 16, 36. 
 
 Arnold, Dr. and Matthew, 92. 
 
 Astell, Mary, 30. 
 
 Bacon, 21. 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, 15. 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs., 14, 16. 
 
 Besant, 15, 18. 
 
 Bolingbroke, 37. 
 
 Bolton Abbey, 143. 
 
 Bonnivard, Francis, 227. 
 
 Bowes, Dotheboys, 106. 
 
 Braddon, Miss, 38. 
 
 Bronte's, The, 68 j Brussels, 134, 207; Haworth, 121 j 
 
 Scenes and Characters of Tales, 121, 124, 126, 127, 
 
 129, 135, 207-225. 
 Brown, Oliver Madox, 32. 
 Brussels, — Villette, — Bronte* Scenes, 207. 
 Bulwer, — Eugene Aram, — 144-147. 
 Burnsj Alloway, 181 ; Dumfries 164; Ellisland, 171 j 
 
 Grave, 165 ; Haunts, — Scenes of Poems, — 164, 165, 
 
 166, 170, 171, 178, 181, 196, 200, 2055 Heroines, 
 
 185, 190, 194; Niece, 183. 
 Butler, Samuel, 91. 
 Byron; Annesley, 71; Coppet, 250 ; Harrow, 69; 
 
 Newstead, 80 ; Leman 226-237; London, 62; 
 -55 
 
Index 
 
 Scenes of Poems, 69, 72-77, 80-90, 226, 232, 233, 
 
 251 j Tomb, 70. 
 Caine, Hall, mentioned, 32. 
 Campbell, 66, 68. 
 Canning, 64. 
 Carlyle, Birthplace, 162 j Homes, 33, 162, 167 $ Sepulchre, 
 
 163. 
 Chaucer, 24, 25, 50. 
 Chaworth, Mary Ann, 71-79. 
 Chelsea, 29-37. 
 Chillon, 233. 
 
 Clarens, — Rousseau, — 232. 
 Coleridge, 19, 1065 Grave, 22; Home, 21. 
 Collyer, Robert, Early Haunts, 136. 
 Colwick Hall, — Chaworth-Musters, — 78. 
 Congreve, mentioned, 15, 30, 37. 
 Constant, 245, 246, 248, 251, 252. 
 Cooling, — Great Expectations, — 57. 
 Coppet, — Madame de Stael, — 244. 
 Coventry, — George Eliot, — 102. 
 Coxwold, — Sterne, — 1 13. 
 Crabbe, mentioned, 19, 66. 
 Craigenputtock, — Carlyle, — 1 67. 
 Crockett, S. R., 178. 
 Cunningham, Allan, 164. 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, mentioned, 155, 159, 248. 
 Denham, mentioned, 40. 
 De Quincey, mentioned, 21, 62. 
 
 De Stael, 159, 228, 230; Home and Sepulchre, 244. 
 Dickens, 13, 19, 20, 24, 28, 34, 230; Gad's Hill, 49} 
 
 Scenes of Tales, 18-20, 22, 24-28, 54, 57-61, 64, 
 
 106. 
 Donne, John, 35, 36. 
 Dorset, — Shaftesbury, — 15, 36. 
 256 
 
Index 
 
 Dotheboys, — Nicholas Nickleby, — 106. 
 
 Douglas, Poet of Annie Laurie, 175-179. 
 
 Du Maurier, 18, 20. 
 
 Dumfries, — Burns, — 1 64. 
 
 Dyer, 91. 
 
 Ecclefechan, — Carlyle, — 1 62. 
 
 Eliot, George, 31, 1435 Birthplace, Early Homes, 93; 
 
 Grave, 23 j Scenes and Characters of Fiction, 93, 95- 
 
 103. 
 Emerson, 34, 104, 169, 170. 
 Erasmus, mentioned, 36. 
 Fairfax, Edward, 137, 142. 
 FalstafT, 50, 55, 56, 58. 
 Ferney , — Voltaire, — 23 8 . 
 Fields, James T., 55, 59. 
 Foston, — Sydney Smith, — 149. 
 Froude, 33. 
 
 Gad's Hill, — Dickens, Shakespeare, — 49. 
 Gaskell, Mrs., 101, 130, 131, 215, 223. 
 Gay, 15, 30, 33, 34. 
 Geneva, 227. 
 
 Gibbon, 39, 63; On Leman, 231, 232, 249, 252. 
 Goldsmith, mentioned, 18. 
 Gray, — Scene of Elegy, — 39. 
 Hampstead, Literary, 13. 
 Harridan, Mrs., 15. 
 Harrow, — Byron, — 18, 69. 
 Haworth, — The Brontes, — 121. 
 Hawthorne, 68, 71, 184. 
 Hazlitt, mentioned, 19, 21, 170. 
 Herbert, George, 36. 
 Heslington, — Sydney Smith, — 148. 
 Highgate, Literary, 21. 
 
 Highland Mary, — Homes, Scenes, Grave, — 195. 
 R 257 
 
Index 
 
 Hogarth, 19. 
 
 Hogg, mentioned, 161. 
 
 Hood, mentioned, 19, 68. 
 
 Hook, Theodore, 26, 37. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, 18, 19, 21, 34, 68. 
 
 Ilkley, — Collyer, etc., — 137. 
 
 Irving, Edward, mentioned, 164, 170. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 66, 71, 72, 76, 83, 86, 89. 
 
 Jackson, Helen Hunt, mentioned, 184. 
 
 Jeanie Deans, 167. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 149, 154, 155, 170. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., 15, 18, 25, 34. 
 
 Keats, 15, 16, 19, 25. 
 
 Keighley, — Bronte, Collyer, — 121, 136. 
 
 Kensal Green, Graves of Literati, 68. 
 
 Kingsley, 35. 
 
 Kit-Kat Club, 15. 
 
 Lake Leman, — Literary Shrines, — 226-253. 
 
 Lamb, mentioned, 19, 21. 
 
 Landon, Letitia E., 30. 
 
 Laurie, Annie, Birthplace and Homes, 172, 176; 
 
 Grave, 177; Song, 180. 
 Lausanne, — Gibbon, Dickens, etc., — 230. 
 Livingstone, 81, 82, 84, 86. 
 Loamshire of George Eliot, 93. 
 Locke, 36. 
 
 London, 13, 17, 24, 45, 62, 119, 148. 
 Longfellow, alluded to, 55, 142, 234. 
 Macaulay, 64, 155, 158, 159. 
 Maclise, 19, 31, 34, 55. 
 Marvell, 21. 
 
 Maxwelton, — Annie Laurie, — 173. 
 Melrose, — Scott, — 161. 
 Miller, Joaquin, 71, 83. 
 
 258 
 
Index 
 
 Milton, 39, 228. 
 
 Mitford, Miss, mentioned, 30. 
 
 Montagu, Mary Wortley, 21, 31, 62. 
 
 Moore, 64, 67. 
 
 Mulock, Miss,- — John Halifax Scenes, — 92. 
 
 Murray, John, — Drawing-Room, — 66. 
 
 Newburgh, — Sterne, — 118. 
 
 Nevvstead Abbey, — Byron, — 80. 
 
 Nidderdale, — Eugene Aram, — 143. 
 
 Niece of Burns, 183 ; quoted, 196, 204. 
 
 Nithsdale, — Burns, Scott, Carlyle, — 164. 
 
 Nuneaton, — Milby of Eliot, — 101. 
 
 Pepys, 3°> 3 1 - 
 
 Pope, 14, 15, 18, 21, 30, 37, 38. 
 
 Porter, Jane, 39. 
 
 Ramsay, Allan, 178. 
 
 Richardson, 16, 37. 
 
 Rochester, — Dickens, — 54, 60, 61. 
 
 Rogers, mentioned, 15, 143. 
 
 Rokeby, — Scott, — 109. 
 
 Rossetti, 23, 229 j Home and Friends, 31, 32. 
 
 Rousseau, 227; Scenes of Fiction, 232, 233, 237. 
 
 Rugby, — Hughes, Arnold, — 92. 
 
 Ruskin, mentioned, 34. 
 
 Schlegel, 248. 
 
 Scott; Abodes and Resorts, 64, 66, 109, 161, 172; 
 
 Scenes and Characters, 109, 161, 167, 172. 
 Shakespeare, 25, 50, 91, 92, 93. 
 Shelley, 19, 21 ; Leman, 227, 229, 232, 237, 250. 
 Shepperton Church and Parsonage, 98. 
 Smith, Sydney, 68 ; Yorkshire Homes and Church, 148. 
 Smollett, 30, 33, 34. 
 Somervile, 91. 
 Somerville, Mrs., 29. 
 
 259 
 
Index 
 
 Southey, mentioned, 21, 106. 
 
 Southwark, — Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, — 24. 
 
 Stanley, H. M., 88, 184. 
 
 Steele, 14, 15, 19, 30, 33, 36. 
 
 Sterne, 34 ; Grave, 1 20 5 Home and Study, 112, 113, 115; 
 
 Resorts, 113, 118. 
 Stoke-Pogis, — Gray, — 39. 
 Swift, 15, 30, 36, 37. 
 Swinburne, 32, 33. 
 Tennyson, 33, 39. 
 Thackeray, 18, 68, 104, 120. 
 Turner, 37, 142, 143. 
 Voltaire, Chateau and Study, 238. 
 Waller, 39, 46. 
 Walpole, 15, 30. 
 Walton, mentioned, 36. 
 Watts, Theodore, 32. 
 Wilde, Oscar, 35. 
 
 Wordsworth, 15, 21, 106, 143, 161. 
 Wuthering Heights, 129. 
 York, — Sterne, etc., — in. 
 Yorkshire Shrines, 106, ill, 121, 136, 148. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 260 
 
LITERARY SHRINES: 
 
 THE HAUNTS OF SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN 
 AUTHORS. 
 
 By Theo. F. Wolfe, M.D., Ph.D., 
 
 Author of "A Literary Pilgrimage," etc. 
 
 Illustrated with four photogravures. 
 Crushed buckram, gilt top, deckel edges, $1.25; 
 half calf or half morocco, $3.00. 
 
 CONTAINS, AMONG OTHERS, CHAPTERS TREATING OF 
 
 CONCORD : A Village of Literary Shrines. 
 
 THE OLD MANSE. 
 
 THE HOMES OF EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 
 
 HAWTHORNE'S "WAYSIDE." 
 
 THE WALDEN OF THOREAU. 
 
 IN LITERARY BOSTON. 
 
 OUT OF BOSTON: Cambridge— Elm wood— Mt. 
 Auburn — "Wayside Inn" — Brook Farm — Web- 
 ster's Marshfield— Homes of Whittier, Haw- 
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 IN BERKSHIRE WITH HAWTHORNE: The 
 Graylock Region— Middle and Lower Berk- 
 shire—Haunts of Hawthorne, Thoreau, Bryant, 
 Melville, Sedgwick, Kemble, Holmes, Long- 
 fellow, etc. 
 
 A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET. 
 
 Uniform with " A Literary Pilgrimage. 
 
 J. B. Lippincott Company, Publishers. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
By Anne Hollingsworth 
 
 Wharton. 
 
 Through Colonial Doorways. 
 
 V/ith a number of Colonial Illustrations from Drawings 
 specially made for the work. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 "It is a pleasant retrospect of fashionable New York 
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 Colonial Days and Dames. 
 
 "With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 "In less skilful hands than those of Anne Holllings- 
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 J. B. Lippincott Company, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
By Charles Conrad Abbott, 
 
 The Birds About Us. 
 
 Illustrated. i2tno. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 Travels in a Tree-Top. 
 
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 Recent Rambles; 
 
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 J. B. Lippincott Company, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
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