Figures on a screen
In one place she is represented as sitting in a room, her attitude one of terror. A man is before her presenting a pistol, and a little terrified page is concealing himself under a table. In another, she sits with her mother and a gentleman at tea; a foot-man behind waiting upon them. Again, she is in the gardens or grounds, walking with her cousin, Miss Radford; her rustic hat thrown back upon her shoulders; her beautiful head turned aside; and her hand put forth to receive a letter from a page, kneeling on one knee,—a letter from her lover and subsequent husband.
Again, she is playing with a little child; and in all, her figure is full of exquisite grace and vivacity, and the profile of the face remarkably fine. It is impossible to say with what intense interest we examined these memorials of private life; these passages so full of vitality and character, incidental, but important—the very essence of an autobiography.
On a small table in this room lay a rich fan belonging to Mary Chaworth, which the old woman told us had been laid down by her there on some particular occasion—perhaps the last time she used it, and, therefore, was never moved from the spot. We observed, too, another of those little incidents of family history in this house, which have something peculiarly touching in them. On the staircasestood the sea-chest of a son who died at sea. It stood as it had been sent home after his death, sealed up, and the seals still unbroken. Poor Nanny Marsland said sorrowfully—“Ah, poor fellow! he was a pious lad; he would fain have been a clergyman, but he could not be that—for the living went to his elder brother. He did not like the sea; but he used to write to the poor dear lady, his mother, and say—‘God’s will be done!’ Eh! what sweet letters he used to send, if you could but have heard them—but it’s all one—he’s gone; and his poor mother, that used to sit and cry over them—she’s gone too!”
From the drawing-room we passed to the one called the terrace-room, from its opening by a glass door upon the terrace, which runs along the top of the garden at right angles with the house, and level with this second story, descending to the garden by a double flight of broad stone steps, in the middle of its length, which is about eighty yards. This room formerly contained the billiard-table, and in it Mary Chaworth and her noble lover passed much time. He was fond of the terrace, and used to pace backwards and forwards upon it, and amuse himself with shooting with a pistol at a door. It was here that she last saw him, with the exception of a dinner-visit, after his return from his travels. It was here that he took his last leave of Mary Chaworth, when
He went his way,And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more.
He went his way,And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more.
It was here, then, those ill-fated ones stood, and lingered, and conversed, for at least two hours. Mary Chaworth was here all life and spirit, full of youth, and beauty, and hope. What a change fell upon her after-life! She now stood here, the last scion of a time-honoured race, with large possessions, with the fond belief of sharing them in joy with the chosen of her life. Never did human life present a sadder contrast! There are many reasons why we should draw a veil over this mournful history, much of which will never be known; suffice it to say, that it was not without most real, deep, and agonizing causes, that years after,
In her home, her native home,She dwelt begirt with growing infancy,Daughters and sons of beauty,—but behold!Upon her face there was the tint of grief,The settled shadow of an inward strife,And an unquiet drooping of the eye,As if its lid was charged with unshed tears.
In her home, her native home,She dwelt begirt with growing infancy,Daughters and sons of beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,The settled shadow of an inward strife,And an unquiet drooping of the eye,As if its lid was charged with unshed tears.
It was not without a fearful outraging of trusting affections, the desolation of a spirit trodden and crushed by that which should have shielded it, that
She was changedAs by the sickness of the soul: her mindHad wandered from its dwelling, and her eyesThey had not their own lustre, but the lookWhich is not of the earth; she was becomeThe queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughtsWere combinations of disjointed things;And forms impalpable and unperceivedOf others’ sight, familiar were to hers.
She was changedAs by the sickness of the soul: her mindHad wandered from its dwelling, and her eyesThey had not their own lustre, but the lookWhich is not of the earth; she was becomeThe queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughtsWere combinations of disjointed things;And forms impalpable and unperceivedOf others’ sight, familiar were to hers.
There must have come a day, a soul-prostrating day, when she must have felt the grand mistake she had made, in casting away a heart that never ceased to love her and sorrow for her, and a mind that wrapt her, even severed as it was from her, in an imperishable halo of glory.
There is nothing in all the histories of broken affections and mortal sorrows, more striking and melancholy than the idea of this lady, so bright and joyous-hearted in her youth, sitting in her latter years, for days and weeks, alone and secluded, uninterrupted by any one, in this old house, weeping over the poems which commented in burning words on the individual fortunes of herself and LordByron—
The oneTo end in madness—both in misery.
The oneTo end in madness—both in misery.
With this idea vividly impressed on our spirits, a darker shade seemed to settle down on those antiquated rooms;—we passed out into the garden, at the door at which Byron passed; we trod that stately terrace, and gazed at the old vase placed in the centre of its massy balustrade, bearing the original escutcheon of the Lord Chaworth, and standing a brave object as seen from the garden, into which we descended, and wandered amongst its high-grown evergreens. But every thing was tinged with the spirit and fate of that unhappy lady. The walks were overgrown with grass; andtufts of snowdrop leaves, now grown wild and shaggy, as they do after the flower is over, grew in them; and tufts of a beautiful and peculiar kind of fumitory, with its pink bloom, and the daffodils and primroses of early spring looked out from amongst the large forest trees that surround the garden. Every thing, even the smallest, seemed in unison with that great spirit of silence and desolation which hovered over the place; and the gusty winds that swept the long wood-walk by which we came away, gave us a most fitting adieu.
We only saw just in time, this interesting old place in its desolation. It is now repaired, altered, and, I understand, every historical identity as far as possible destroyed.
We left Annesley, as we have said, by that long wood-walk which leads to the Mansfield road; and advancing on that road about a mile, then turned to the right through a deep defile down into the fields. Here we found ourselves in an extensive natural amphitheatre, surrounded by bold declivities—in some places bleak and barren, in others, richly embossed with furze and broom. Before us, at the distance of another mile, lay Newstead amid its woods, across a moory flat. The wind whistled and sighed amongst the dry, white, wiry grass, of last year’s growth, as we walked along; and a solitary heron, with slow strokes of its ample wings, flew athwart—not our path, for path we had none, having been tempted into the fields by the beauty of the scene. We followed the course of a little stream, clear as crystal, and swift as human life, and soon found ourselves at the tail of the lake so often referred to by Lord Byron.
Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,Broad as transparent, deep and freshly fedBy a river, which its softened way did takeIn currents through the calmer water spreadAround; the wild fowl nestled in the brakeAnd sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:The woods sloped downward to its brink, and stoodWith their green faces fixed upon the flood.
Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,Broad as transparent, deep and freshly fedBy a river, which its softened way did takeIn currents through the calmer water spreadAround; the wild fowl nestled in the brakeAnd sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:The woods sloped downward to its brink, and stoodWith their green faces fixed upon the flood.
It was a scene that would have delighted Bewick for its picturesquesedgyness. The streams that fed it came down a woody valley shaggy with sedge—the lake thereabout being bordered with tall masses of it. There was a little island all overgrown with it and water-loving trees; and wild fowl in abundance were hastening to hide themselves in its covert, or arose and flew around with a varied clangour. Another moment, and we passed a green knoll, and were in front of the Abbey. John Evelyn, who once visited it, was much struck with the resemblance between its situation and that of Fontainbleau.
Here all was neat and habitable—had an air of human life and human attention about it, that formed a strong contrast to the scene of melancholy desolation we had left; and also to this same scene when I visited it years ago, at the time when it was sold, I believe, to a Mr. Claughton, who afterwards, for some cause or other, threw up the bargain. To give an idea of the impression this place made upon me, I shall merely refer to an account furnished by me many years ago to a periodical of the time, which account was partly quoted by Galt in his Life of Lord Byron, and made liberal use of by Moore, though without acknowledgment. I was a boy, rambling through the woods nutting, when suddenly, I came in front of the Abbey, which I had never seen before, and learned from a peasant who happened to be near, that I might get to see it for the value of an ounce of tobacco given to old Murray, a grey-headed old man—who had been in the family from a boy, and who now, at his own request, lies buried in Hucknall churchyard, as close to the family vault as it was possible to lay him. He and a maid-servant were then the only inmates of the place, being left to superintend the removal of the goods. I marched up to the dismal-looking porch in front, to which you ascended by a flight of steps, and gave a thundering knock, which almost startled me by the hollow sound it seemed to send through the ancient building. After waiting a good while, some one approached, and began to withdraw bars and bolts, and to let fall chains; and presently, the old grey-headed man opened the massy door cautiously, to a width just sufficient to enable him to see who was there. Finding nothing more formidable than a boy, he opened wide, and I inquired if I could see the place. The old man first looked at me, and then around, and said, “How many are there of you?” Ashe was evidently calculating the probable amount of profit, I gave him such evidence of sufficient reward that his doors instantly flew open, and he desired me to wander where I pleased, till he could return to me, having left some important affair inmedias res. Here then was a wilderness of an old house thrown open to me, and the effect it had on my youthful imagination is indescribable.
The embellishments which the abbey had received from his lordship, had more of the brilliant conception of the poet in them than of the sober calculations of common life. I passed through many rooms which he had superbly finished, but over which he had permitted so wretched a roof to remain, that, in about half a dozen years, the rain had visited his proudest chambers; the paper had rotted on the walls, and fell in comfortless sheets upon glowing carpets and canopies; upon beds of crimson and gold; clogging the glittering wings of eagles, and dishonouring coronets. From many rooms the furniture was gone. In the entrance hall alone remained the paintings of his old friends—the dog and bear.
The mansion’s self was vast and venerable,With more of the romantic than had beenElsewhere preserved; the cloisters still were stable,The cells too and refectory I ween;An exquisite small chapel had been ableStill unimpaired to decorate the scene;The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,And spoke more of the baron than the monk.Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joinedBy no quite lawful marriage of the arts,Might shock a connoisseur; but, when combined,Formed a whole, which, irregular in parts,Yet left a grand impression on the mind,At least, of those whose eyes are in their hearts.
The mansion’s self was vast and venerable,With more of the romantic than had beenElsewhere preserved; the cloisters still were stable,The cells too and refectory I ween;An exquisite small chapel had been ableStill unimpaired to decorate the scene;The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,And spoke more of the baron than the monk.
Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joinedBy no quite lawful marriage of the arts,Might shock a connoisseur; but, when combined,Formed a whole, which, irregular in parts,Yet left a grand impression on the mind,At least, of those whose eyes are in their hearts.
The long and gloomy gallery, which, whoever views will be strongly reminded of Lara, as indeed a survey of this place will awake more than one scene in that poem,—had not yet relinquished the sombre pictures of its ancientrace—
That frownedIn rude, but antique portraiture around.
That frownedIn rude, but antique portraiture around.
In the study, which is a small chamber overlooking the garden, the books were packed up; but there remained a sofa, over whichhung a sword in a gilt sheath; and at the end of the room opposite the window stood a pair of light fancy stands, each supporting a couple of the most perfect and finely-polished skulls I ever saw; most probably selected, along with the far-famed one converted into a drinking-cup, and inscribed with some well-known verses, from a vast number taken from the abbey cemetery, and piled up in the form of a mausoleum, but since recommitted to the ground. Between them hung a gilt crucifix.
To those skulls he evidently alludes in Lara, where he makes his servants ask oneanother—
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head,Which hands profane had gathered from the dead,That still beside his open volume lay,As if to startle all save him away?
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head,Which hands profane had gathered from the dead,That still beside his open volume lay,As if to startle all save him away?
And they most probably suggested that fine passage in ChildeHarold—
Remove yon skull from out those shattered heaps:Is that a temple where a God may dwell?Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell!Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;Yes, this was once ambition’s airy hall,The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,And passion’s host, that never brooked control:Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ.People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?
Remove yon skull from out those shattered heaps:Is that a temple where a God may dwell?Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell!
Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;Yes, this was once ambition’s airy hall,The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,And passion’s host, that never brooked control:Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ.People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?
In the servants’ hall, lay a stone coffin, in which were fencing gloves and foils; and on the wall of the ample but cheerless kitchen, was painted in large letters, “Waste not, want not.”
During a great part of his lordship’s minority, the abbey was in the occupation of Lord Grey de Ruthen, his hounds, and divers colonies of jackdaws, swallows, and starlings. The internal traces of this Goth were swept away; but without, all appeared as rude and unreclaimed as he could have left it. I must confess, that if I was astonished at the heterogeneous mixture of splendour and ruin within, I was more so at the perfect uniformity of wildness without. I never had been able to conceive poetic genius in its domesticbower, without figuring it, diffusing the polish of its delicate taste on every thing about it. But here the spirit of beauty seemed to have dwelt, but not to have been caressed;—it was the spirit of the wilderness. The gardens were exactly as their late owner described them in his earliestpoems:—
Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle;Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay;In thy once smiling gardens the hemlock and thistle,Now choke up the rose, that late bloomed in the way.
Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle;Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay;In thy once smiling gardens the hemlock and thistle,Now choke up the rose, that late bloomed in the way.
With the exception of the dog’s tomb—a conspicuous and elegant object, placed on an ascent of several steps, crowned with a lambent flame, and panelled with white marble tablets, of which that containing the celebrated epitaph was at that time removed, I do not recollect the slightest trace of culture or improvement. The late lord, a stern and desperate character, who is never mentioned by the neighbouring peasants without a significant shake of the head, might have returned and recognised every thing about him, except, perchance, an additional crop of weeds. There still gloomily slept the old pond, into which he is said to have hurled his lady in one of his fits of fury, whence she was rescued by the gardener; a courageous blade, who was the lord’s master, and chastised him for his barbarity. There still, at the end of the garden, in a grove of oak, two towering satyrs—he with his club, and Mrs. Satyr, with her chubby, cloven-footed brat, placed on pedestals, at the intersections of the narrow and gloomy pathways, struck for a moment, with their grim visages, and silent, shaggy forms, the fear into your bosoms, which is felt by the neighbouring peasantry at “the old lord’s devils.”
In the lake below the abbey, the artificial rock, which he piled at a vast expense, still reared its lofty head; but the frigate which fulfilled old Mother Shipton’s prophecy, by sailing on dry land to this place from a distant port, had long vanished; and the only relics of his naval whim were this rock, and his ship-boy, the venerable old Murray, who accompanied me round the premises. The dark, haughty, impetuous, and mad deeds of this nobleman, the poet’s grandfather, no doubt, by making a vivid impression on his youthful fancy, furnished some of the principal materials for the formation of his lordship’s favourite and ever-recurring poeticalhero. His manners and acts are the theme of many a winter’s evening in that neighbourhood. In one of his paroxysms of wrath, he shot his coachman, for giving, in his opinion, an improper precedence, threw the corpse into the carriage, to his lady, mounted, and drove himself. In a quarrel, which originally arose out of a dispute between their gamekeepers, he killed his neighbour, Mr. Chaworth, the lord of the adjoining manor. This rencontre took place at the Star and Garter, Pall-Mall, after a convivial meeting—a club of Nottinghamshire gentlemen. His lordship was committed to the Tower, and on April 16th, 1765, placed at the bar of the House of Lords, and without one dissentient voice, convicted of manslaughter, and discharged on paying his fees, having pleaded certain privileges under a statute of Queen Anne. The particulars may be seen in Vol. X. of State Trials, published by order of the House of Peers.
The old lord, from some cause of irritation against his son, said to be on account of his marriage, who died before coming to the title, did all he could to injure the estate. He is said to have pulled down a considerable part of the house, and sold the materials; he cut down very extensive plantations, and sold the young trees to the bakers of Nottingham to heat their ovens with, or to the nurserymen; two of which, Lombardy poplars, bought at that time, now stand at the head of a fish-pond of my father’s, grown to an immense size.
Mr. Moore has justly remarked, that Lord Byron derived the great peculiarities of his character from his ancestors. After I came away from the abbey, I asked many people in the neighbourhood what sort of a man the noble poet had been. The impression of his energetic but eccentric character was obvious in their reply. “He is the deuce of a fellow for strange fancies; he flogs the old lord to nothing: but he is a hearty good fellow for all that.”
One of these fancies, as related by the miller at the head of the lake, was, to get into a boat, with his two noble Newfoundland dogs, row into the middle of the lake, then dropping the oars, tumble into the water. The faithful animals would immediately follow, seize him by the collar, one on each side, and bear him to land. This miller told me that every month he came to be weighed, and if hefound himself lighter he appeared highly delighted; but if heavier, he went away in obvious ill humour, and without saying a word. At this time even,i. e.before he came of age, he had the greatest horror of corpulency, to which he deemed himself hereditarily prone, and used to lie a certain time every day in a hot-bed, made on purpose, to reduce himself. The master-builder, who had been engaged in the restoration of the abbey, said much about a certainKaled, who then was with him,—probably the same that accompanied him to Brighton, as his younger brother,—and of the wild life kept up, and mad pranks played off, by him and his companions. He described the mornings passing in the most profound quiet, for his lordship and his guests did not rise till about one o’clock; in the afternoon, the place was all alive with them;—they were seen careering in all directions; at midnight, the old abbey was all lit up, and resounded with their jollity. On one occasion they were called up to extricate an unfortunate wight from the old stone coffin, where, in some of their mad pranks, he had secreted himself, and fitted it so well, that it was with difficulty he was drawn out, amid the merriment of his comrades. No person, indeed, could form any correct notion of Byron from his poetry, till the publication of his Don Juan, which exhibits more of the style of his youthful conversational manner than any other of his writings, except his journal. I have heard a lady who used to see him at Mrs. Byron’s, at Nottingham, say that he was then, in his teens, a most rackety fellow; was very fond of going into the kitchen, and baking oatmeal cakes on the fireshovel; on which occasions, the cook would sometimes pin a napkin to his coat, which being discovered on his return to the parlour, he would rush out and pursue the maids in all directions, and, to use the lady’s phrase, turn the house upside down. When they went away, he always took care to ask the servants if his mother had given them any thing; and on their replying in the negative, he would say, “No, no! I knew that well enough;” when he would make them a handsome present.
Such anecdotes of his youth abound; but one is too characteristic to be omitted. An old man of the name of Kemp, of Farnsfield, was one day in Southwell, when a dog in the minster-yard fell upon his little dog. He was beating it off, when a genteelboy came up, and in a very decided tone said, “Let them fight it out—they find their own clothes, don’t they?” The old man said, clothes or no clothes, his dog should not be worried. A stander-by asked him if he knew to whom he spoke. The old man said he neither knew nor cared. “It is Lord Byron,” said the person; but the old man said he did not care whether he was a lord or a duke, they should not worry his dog; and having got his little dog under his arm, he marched off in none of the best humour. Some time afterwards, however, seeing “Hours of Idleness and other Poems, by Lord Byron,” advertised, he recollected the spirit of the lad with so much admiration, that he took his stick and set off to Newark to purchase the book, and always afterwards remained a great admirer of his works.
Such was my acquaintance with the place then; it is now a good, substantial, and very comfortable family mansion. With its external appearance the public is well acquainted through various prints; and the only objects in the interior, which can much interest strangers, as connected with the history of Lord Byron, are equally familiar. The picture of his wolf-dog, and his Newfoundland-dog—the living Newfoundland-dog which he had with him in Greece; the skull-cup kept in a cabinet in the drawing-room, and the little chapel and cloisters mentioned by him. There are also in a lumber-room the identical stone-coffin, and the foils I saw there twenty years ago, and a portrait of old Murray smoking his pipe. There is also the well-known portrait by Phillips. A full-length likeness of him as about to embark on his first travels, which was in the drawing-room at that time, is now gone, but has been engraved for Mr. Murray’s edition of his Life and Works.
It is fortunate for the public that the place has fallen into the hands of a gentleman who affords the utmost facility for the inspection of it by strangers. Nothing can exceed the easy courtesy with which it is thrown open to them; and, as an old schoolfellow of Lord Byron’s, we believe Colonel Wildman is as desirous as any man can be not to obliterate any traces of his lordship’s former life here. There are some particulars, however, in which I think this care might have been carried more thoroughly into act. In the first place, I think a style of architecture in restoring the abbey mighthave been adopted more abbey-like—more in keeping with the old part of it—and more consonant to the particular state of feeling with which admirers of the noble poet’s genius would be likely to approach it. To my taste it is too square and massy in itstout ensemble. I do not see why the architect, whoever he was, should have gone back in the date of his style beyond that of the ancient remains. The old western front is a specimen of what Rickman calls the early English order of Anglo-Gothic architecture; so light, so airy, so pure and beautiful, that the juxta-position of a heavy Norman style, and especially of the ponderous, square, and stunted tower at the south-west corner, is strange, and anything but pleasing. A greater variety of outline—the projection of porches and buttresses—the aspiring altitude of pointed gables—clustered chimneys, and slender, sky-seeking turrets, would certainly have given greater effect. Instead of a square mass of stone, as it appears at a distance, it would have proclaimed its own beauty to the eye from every far-off point at which it may be discovered. Any one who has seen Fonthill, Abbotsford from the Galashiel’s road, or Ilam from the entrance of Dovedale, may imagine how much more that effect would be in accordance, not only with a low situation, but with the mental impressions of a poetic visiter.
I cannot help, too, regretting that the poet’s study should now be converted into a common bed-room; and most of all, that the antique fountain which stood in front of the abbey, and makes so strong a feature in the very graphic picture of the place drawn in Don Juan, should be removed. It now adorns the inner quadrangle, or cloister court, and is certainly a very beautiful object there, as may be seen by the print in Murray’s edition of Byron’s Works. I do not wonder at Colonel Wildman desiring to grace this court with a fountain, but I wonder extremely at his gracing it withthisfountain. I must for ever deplore its removal, as the breaking up of that most vivid picture of the front, given by the poet to allposterity:—
A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile,While yet the church was Rome’s, stood half apart,In a grand arch, which once screened many an aisle.These last had disappeared—a loss to art;The first yet frowned superbly o’er the soil,And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,Which mourned the power of time’s or tempest’s march,In gazing on that venerable arch.Within a niche nigh to its pinnacle,Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone:And these had fallen, not when the friars fell,But in the war which struck Charles from his throne.*****But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned,The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child,With her son in her blessed arms, looked round,Spared by some chance, when all beside was spoiled;She made the earth below seem holy ground.This may be superstition weak, or wild;But even the painted relics of a shrineOf any worship, wake some thoughts divine.A mighty window, hollow in the centre;Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,Through which the deepened glories once could enter,Streaming from off the sun like seraph’s wings,Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,The gale sweeps through its fretwork; and oft singsThe owl his anthem, where the silenced quireLie with their hallelujahs quenched like fire.Amid the court a Gothic fountain played,Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint—Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,And here, perhaps, a monster, there a saint:The spring gushed through grim mouths, of granite made,And sparkled into basins, where it spentIts little torrent in a thousand bubbles,Like man’s vain glory, and his vainer troubles.
A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile,While yet the church was Rome’s, stood half apart,In a grand arch, which once screened many an aisle.These last had disappeared—a loss to art;The first yet frowned superbly o’er the soil,And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,Which mourned the power of time’s or tempest’s march,In gazing on that venerable arch.
Within a niche nigh to its pinnacle,Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone:And these had fallen, not when the friars fell,But in the war which struck Charles from his throne.
*****
But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned,The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child,With her son in her blessed arms, looked round,Spared by some chance, when all beside was spoiled;She made the earth below seem holy ground.This may be superstition weak, or wild;But even the painted relics of a shrineOf any worship, wake some thoughts divine.
A mighty window, hollow in the centre;Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,Through which the deepened glories once could enter,Streaming from off the sun like seraph’s wings,Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,The gale sweeps through its fretwork; and oft singsThe owl his anthem, where the silenced quireLie with their hallelujahs quenched like fire.
Amid the court a Gothic fountain played,Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint—Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,And here, perhaps, a monster, there a saint:The spring gushed through grim mouths, of granite made,And sparkled into basins, where it spentIts little torrent in a thousand bubbles,Like man’s vain glory, and his vainer troubles.
It was seeing how exactly all this was a copy of the original—how there stood the mighty window, shewing through it the garden and dog’s tomb—how the Virgin there still stood aloft with her child, distinct, bold, and beautiful—but the fountain was gone, that we could not help loudly expressing our regret. When the valet who attended us came to the inner court, “There,” he said, “you see is the fountain—it is all there, quite perfect.” “Yes, yes,” we could not help replying, “that is the very thing we are sorry for—its being all there. A man might cut off his nose, and put it in his pocket, and when any one wondered at his mutilated face, cry, ‘O, it is all here; I have it in my pocket.’ The mischief would be,that it was in the wrong place, and his face spoiled for ever.” To every visiter of taste, the abbey front must be thus injured whilst it and the poet’s description of it last together.
These are things to regret; for the rest, the place is a very pleasant place. The new stone-work is very substantially and well done; there is a great deal of modern elegance about the house; a fortune must have been spent upon it. The grounds before the new front are extremely improved; and the old gardens, with very correct feeling, have been suffered to retain their ancient character. An oak planted by Lord Byron is shewn; and why should he not have a tree as well as Shakspeare, Milton, and Johnson? The initials of himself and his sister upon a tree in the satyr-grove at the end of the garden, are said to have been pointed out by his sister herself, the Honourable Mrs. Leigh, on her visit there some time ago. The tree has two boles issuing from one root, a very appropriate emblem of their consanguinity.
The scenery around presents many features that recal incidents in his life, or passages in his poems. There are the houses where Fletcher and Rushton lived—the two followers of his, who are addressed in the ballad in the first canto of Childe Harold, beginning at the thirdstanza—
Come hither, hither, my little page:
Come hither, hither, my little page:
But in the progress of improvement, the mill, where he used to be weighed, is just now destroyed. Down the valley, in front of the abbey, is a rich prospect over woods, and around are distant slopes scattered with young plantations, that in time will add eminently to the beauty of this secluded spot; and supply the place, in some degree, of those old and magnificent woods in which the abbey was formerly embosomed.
Here ended our ramble, having gone over ground and through places that the genius of one man in a brief life has sanctified to all times; for likeus—
Hither romantic pilgrims shall betakeThemselves from distant lands. When we are stillIn centuries of sleep, his fame will wake,And his great memory with deep feelings fillThese scenes that he has trod, and hallow every hill.
Hither romantic pilgrims shall betakeThemselves from distant lands. When we are stillIn centuries of sleep, his fame will wake,And his great memory with deep feelings fillThese scenes that he has trod, and hallow every hill.
Here too we leave the Old Houses of England, in the words of John Evelyn:—“Other there are, sweet and delectable country-seats and villas of the noblesse, and rich and opulent gentry, built and environed with parks, paddocks, plantations, etc.: adapted to country and rural seats, dispersed through the whole nation, conspicuous, not only for the structure of their houses, built upon the best rules of architecture, but for situation, gardens, canals, walks, avenues, parks, forests, ponds, prospects, and vistas; groves, woods, and large plantations; and other the most charming and delightful recesses, natural and artificial; but to enumerate and describe what were extraordinary in these and the rest would furnish volumes, for who has not either seen, admired, or heardof—
Otter hunt
How delicious is our old park scenery! How wise that such places as Richmond, Greenwich, and such old parks in the neighbourhood of the Metropolis, are kept up and kept open, that our citizens may occasionally get out of the smoke and noise of the great Babel, and breathe all their freshness, and feel all their influence! Who does not often, in the midst of brick-and-mortar regions, summon up before his imagination this old park or forest scenery? The ferny or heathy slopes, under old, stately, gnarled oaks, or thorns as old, with ivy having stems nearly as thick as their own, climbing up them, and clinging to them, and sometimes incorporating itself so completely with their heads, as to make them look entirely ivy-trees. The footpaths, with turf short and soft as velvet, running through the bracken. The sunny silence that lies on the open glades and brown uplands; the cool breezy feeling under the shade; the grashopperchitheringamongst the bents; the hawk hovering and whimpering over-head; the keeper lounging along invelveteen jacket, and with his gun, at a distance, or firing at some destructive bird. The herds of deer, fallow or red, congregated beneath the shadow of the trees, or lying in the sun if not too warm, their quick ears and tails keeping up a perpetual twinkle; the belling of scattered deer, as they go bounding and mincing daintily across the openings, here and there,—the old ones hoarse and deep, the young shrill and plaintive. Cattle with whisking tails, grazing sedately; the woodpecker’s laughter from afar; the little tree-creeper running up the ancient boles, always beginning at the bottom, and going upwards with a quick, gliding, progress—the quaint cries of other birds and wild creatures, the daws and the rooks feeding together, and mingling their different voices of pert and grave accent. The squirrel running with extended tail along the ground, or flourishing it over his head, as he sits on the tree; or fixing himself, when suddenly come upon, in the attitude of an old, brown, decayed branch by the tree side, as motionless as the deadest branch in the forest. The hum of insects all around you, the low still murmur of sunny music,
Nature’s ceaseless hum,Voice of the desert, never dumb.
Nature’s ceaseless hum,Voice of the desert, never dumb.
The pheasant’s crow; the pheasant with all her brood springing around you, one by one, from the turf where you are standing amid the bracken—here one! there one! close under your feet, with a sudden, startling whirr,—to compare nature with art, country scenes with city ones, like so many squibs and crackers fired off about you in smart succession, where you don’t look for them. That most ancient and most original of all ladders, a bough with some pegs driven through it, reared against a tree for the keeper to reach the nests of hawks or magpies, or to fetch down a brood of young jackdaws for a pie, quite as savoury a dish as one made with young rooks or pigeons; or for him to sit aloft amongst the foliage, and watch for the approach of deer, or fawn, when he is commissioned to shoot one. The profound and basking silence all around you, as you sit on some dry ferny mound, and look far and wide through the glimmering heat, or the cool shadow. The far-off sounds—rooks telling of some old Hall that stands slumberously amid the woods; or dogs, sending from theirhidden kennel amongst the trees, their sonorous yelling. Forest smells, that rise up deliciously as you cross dim thickets or tread the spongy turf all fragrant with thyme, and sprinkled with the light harebell. Huge limbs of oak riven off by tempests, or the old oak itself, a vast, knotty, and decayed mass, lying on the ground, and perhaps the woodman gravely labouring upon it, lopping its boughs, riving its huge, misshapen stem, piling it in stacks of cord-wood, or binding them into billets. The keeper’s house near, in its own paled enclosure; and all about, old thorns hung with the dried and haggard remains of wild-cats, polecats, weasels, hawks, owls, jays, and othervermin, as he deems them; or the same most picturesquely displayed on the sturdy boles of the vast oaks; and lastly, the mere, the lake, in the depth of the woodlands, shrouded in screening masses of flags and reeds, the beautiful flowering-rush, the magnificent great water-dock, with leaves as huge and green as if they grew by some Indian river—the tall club-mace, the thousands of wild-ducks, teals, or wigeons, that start up at your approach with clattering wings, and cries of quick alarm.
Who that has wandered through our old parks and forests, is not familiar with all these sights and sounds? does not long to witness them again, ever and anon, when he has been “long in city pent,” till he is fain to mount his horse and ride off into some such ancient, quiet, and dreamy region, as Crabbe suddenly mounted his, and rode forty miles to see again the sea?
Classical rurla scene
One of the most conspicuous features of English literature, is that intense love of the sublime and beautiful in Nature, which pervades, with a living spirit, the works of our poets; gives so peculiar a charm to the writings of our naturalists; possesses great prominence in our travellers; is mingled with the fervent breathings of our religious treatises; and even finds its way into the volumes of our philosophy. If we look into the literature of the continental nations, we find it existing there, more or less, but in a lower tone than in our own; if we look back into that of the ancients, we find it there too, but still fainter, more confined in its scope, and scattered, as it were, into distant and isolated spots. I think nothingcan be more striking than the truth of this; and it is a curious matter of observation, that there should be this great distinction, and of inquiry whence it has arisen. The love of the beauty and sublimity of Nature is an inherent principle in the human soul; but like all other of our finer qualities, it is later in its development than the common ones, and requires, not repression, but fostering and cultivation. It is like the love of the fine arts; it slumbers in the bosom that passes through life in its native rudeness. It lies in the unploughed ground of the human mind,—a seed buried below the influence that alone can call it into activity.
Yes, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea;Like the man’s thoughts, dark in the infant brain;Like aught that is, which wraps what is to be;
Yes, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea;Like the man’s thoughts, dark in the infant brain;Like aught that is, which wraps what is to be;
there it lies, deep in the soil of common events and cares, and untouched by the divine atmosphere of knowledge which a more easy and advanced condition brings with it. In others, it is partially vivified, but cannot flourish; it is choked with the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches; but in minds that are fed with substantial knowledge, and have their intellectual power reached, and their affections kindled by the blessedness of refined and Christian culture,—then it grows with their growth and strengthens with their strength. It daily enlarges its grasp, and its appetite; it expands perpetually the circle of its horizon. The love of the fine arts is but a modification of this great passion. Their objects are the same—the sublime and the beautiful; and the same purity and elevation of taste accompany them both. This is the original and legitimate passion. In our love of the fine arts, our attention is occupied with human imitations of what is beautiful in nature;—in this, we fix our admiration at once on the magnificent works of the Great Artist of the Universe.
We might, therefore, reasonably expect to find in the literature of the ancients, what is actually the case, a less refined, less expanded, less penetrating and absorbing existence of this affection. Everywhere the love of nature must exist. In all ages and all countries, so is the outward universe framed to influence the inward, that men must be impressed by the grandeur of creation, and attracted by its beauty, so far as the human is at all advancedbeyond the limits of mere animal existence. But in the ancient world education was never popular; it extended only to a few; and of these few a majority were occupied in the pursuits of art, or the speculations of philosophy; and poetry, and especially the poetry of nature, had scanty followers. The great poets of all ages, even of those but semi-civilized, must necessarily have minds so sensitive to the influence of all kinds of beauty that they could not help being alive to that of nature; and this was the case with the great poets of Greece. We put out of the present question the dramatic and lyrical ones; for to them the passions and interests of men were the engrossing objects; but in Homer, Hesiod, and Theocritus, we may fairly expect to discover the amount of the ancients’ perception of natural beauty, and their love of it. But in these how far is it behind what it is in the moderns. They were often enraptured with the pleasantness of nature, but it was seldom with more than its pleasantness. Their Elysian Fields are composed of flowery meads, with pleasant trees and running waters, where the happy spirits led a life of luxurious repose. Their celebrated Arcadia is faithfully described in such Idyllia as those of Bion and Moschus;—youths and damsels feeding their flocks amid the charms of a pastoral country, to whose beauties they were alive in proportion as they ministered to luxurious enjoyment. Beyond this they seldom looked;—seldom describe the sublime aspects and phenomena of the universe. Homer, indeed, is the greatest exception,—his soul was cast in a mighty mould. His beautiful description of a moonlight night is known to all readers. He speaks, too, of the splendour of the starry heavens; and he describes tempests with great majesty; but this rather as they are terrible in their effects on men, than as sublime in themselves. Minds even of the noblest class had not arrived at that full comprehension of nature which sees sublimity in the gloom and terror of tempests, independent of their effects; the grandeur of beauty in desolation itself; in splintered mountains, wild wildernesses, and the awfulness of solitude. They had not become tremblingly alive to all the lesser traces and shades of beauty in the face of nature, for they had not reached either of the extremities of perception—the vast on one hand—minute perfection on the other. They did not pursue the forms of beauty into leaf and flower; into thecheerful culture of the field, or the brown tinges of the desert. They did not watch the growing or fading lights of the sky, and the colours, as they lived or died on the distant mountain tops;—the passing of light and shadow over earth and ocean. Their acquaintance with the subtle spirit of the universe had not become so intimate. They abode most in the general; they admired in the mass; for they had not arrived at the refinement of very delicate, or extensive analysis; and they did not go out to admire as the moderns; their admiration of nature was not advanced, as with us, into an art and a passion. Beauty rather fell upon their senses than was inquired after. They were pleased, and did not always seek out the operative causes of their sensations. Their mention of their delight was, therefore, generally incidental. They were in the condition and state of mind of the old man in Wordsworth’s ballad, whosays—