[33]The fourme of the Trinity was founden in manne, that was Adam our forefadir, of earth oon personne, and Eve, of Adam, the secunde persone; and of them both was the third persone. At the deth of a manne three bellis shulde be ronge, as his knyll, in worscheppe of the Trinetie; and for a womanne, who was the secunde persone of the Trinetee, two bellis should be rungen.—Ancient Homily.
[33]The fourme of the Trinity was founden in manne, that was Adam our forefadir, of earth oon personne, and Eve, of Adam, the secunde persone; and of them both was the third persone. At the deth of a manne three bellis shulde be ronge, as his knyll, in worscheppe of the Trinetie; and for a womanne, who was the secunde persone of the Trinetee, two bellis should be rungen.—Ancient Homily.
The funeral of the young in the country has something particularly striking in it—the coffin being borne by six of the deceased’s own age. That of a young girl is more particularly so—the coffin being covered with a white pall, the six bearers being dressed in white with white hoods, the chief mourners in black with black hoods.
Nothing can, in fact, be more widely different in feeling and effect than town and country funerals. In town a strange corpse passes along, amid thousands of strangers, and human nature seems shorn of that interest which it ought, especially in its last stage, to possess. In the country, every man, woman, and child goes down to the dust amid those who have known them from their youth, and all miss them from their place. Nature seems,in its silence to sympathise with the mourners. The green mound of the rural churchyard opens to receive the slumberer to a peaceful resting-place, and the yews or lindens which he climbed when a boy in pursuit of bird’s-nest, moth, or cockchaffer, overshadow, as it were, with a kindred feeling his grave.
The custom of strewing flowers before the houses at weddings, and on other occasions of rejoicing, is now nearly gone out, but at Knutsford in Cheshire, and probably at some few other places, they have a practice which seems to have sprung out of it. On all joyful occasions they sprinkle the ground before the houses of all those who are supposed to sympathise in the gladness, with red sand, and then taking a funnel, filled with white sand, sprinkle a pattern of flowers on the red ground. At weddings this is generally accompanied with a stanza or two of traditionary verse. As
Long may they live,Happy may they be,Blest with content,And from misfortune free.Long may they live,Happy may they be;And blest with a numerousPro-ge-ny.
Long may they live,Happy may they be,Blest with content,And from misfortune free.Long may they live,Happy may they be;And blest with a numerousPro-ge-ny.
In the north of England a curious practice prevails the first time a young child is sent out with the nurse. At every house of the parents’ friends, where the nurse calls, it receives an egg and some salt; and in Northumberland it is so general, that they carry a basket for the purpose. The child of a friend of ours received from an old lady from the north, an egg, a penny loaf, and a bunch of matches. The meaning of which let the wise interpret as they can.
Such customs linger northward more tenaciously than in the south, and are even too numerous for record here. In various northern counties, particularly Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, they keep up the ancient practice of rush-bearing; but instead of carrying rushes to strew the church floor, as their ancestors did, who had no other floor to the church, they now chiefly retain the gay garland of flowers carried by young women, and accompanied by the rustic minstrels. In Lancashire andCheshire they still eat Simnel cake on Mid-lent Sunday, that is, a particular saffron cake, called after Lambert Simnel, who was a baker, and is supposed to have been famous for it. Theyride stang,[34]that is, set a scolding wife on a lean old horse, with the face to the tail, and parade her through the village with a tremendous clamour of frying pans, and other noise. They hang bushes at each others’ doors on May morning which are expressive of each others’ characters. A sort of languagedes arbresestablished by antiquity, expressing either compliment or sincere criticism, as it may be. A branch of birch signifies a pretty girl; of alder or owler, as they call it, a scold; of oak, a good woman; of broom, a good housewife: but gorse, nettles, sawdust, or sycamore, cast the very worst imputations on a woman’s character, and vary according as she be girl, wife or widow. These are, it is said, not seldom used by the malicious to blast the character of the innocent. The girls wear little bags of dragon’s-blood upon their hearts to inspire their swains with love. They curtsey to the new moon and turn the money in their pockets, whichoughtto be doubled before the moon is old. They shut their eyes when they see a pie-ball horse, and wish a secret wish, taking care never to see the same horse again, or it would spoil the charm. With them the dog-rose is unlucky; if you give one, you will quarrel with the person, however dear to you; if you form a design near one it will come to nought. A shooting star is falling love in their eyes; and in their opinion the foxglove is not like other flowers, it has knowledge; it knows when a spirit passes, and always bows the head. They have, therefore, a secret awe of it. They are careful to have money in their pockets when they hear the first note of the cuckoo, for they will be rich or poor through the year accordingly. They believe also that whatever they chance to be doing when they first hear the cuckoo, they will do all the year. They have the firmest faith that no person can die on a bed in which are the feathers of pigeons or any wild birds. Such are some of the simple chains with which ancient superstition bound the minds of our ancestors, and which education has not yet quite worn asunder.
[34]A stang means a pole, and probably the old custom was to use a pole instead of a horse.
[34]A stang means a pole, and probably the old custom was to use a pole instead of a horse.
There is, however, one good custom which the present age has rapidly obliterated—that of leaving open the country churchyard. In towns, there is perhaps less attraction to a churchyard in the mass of strange corpses which are there congregated, and the wilderness of bare flags which cover them; and there may be more cause for the vigilant prevention of the violation of the sanctity and decorum of the spot. But why must the country churchyard be shut up? Why should that generally picturesque and quiet place be prohibited to the stranger or the mourner? Some of the churchyards in these kingdoms are amongst the most romantic and lovely spots within them. What ancient, quiet, delicious spots have I seen of this kind amongst our mountains, and upon our coasts! What prospects, landward and seaward, do some of them give! How sweetly lies the rustic parsonage often along their side; its shrubbery lawn scarcely separated from the sacred ground. Why should these be closed? “There have been depredations,” say the authorities. Then let the beadle see to it; let the offenders be punished; let the parish school and the minister teach better manners; but let these haunts of the sad or the meditative, be open to our feet as they were to those of our fathers. I must confess that I strongly sympathise with my brother, Richard Howitt, in the feelings expressed in Tait’s Magazine for June 1836. “The yew trees, which adorned, with a solemn gracefulness, the churchyard of my native place, are cut down; the footpaths across it are closed; the walls are raised; for stiles, there are gates locked, and topped with iron spikes. A wider barrier than death is interposed betwixt the living and the dead. I must confess that I like it not. Why should man destroy the sanctities of time and nature? Beautiful is the picture drawn byCrabbe:—
Yes! there are real mourners. I have seenA fair, sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene;Attention through the day her duties claimed,And to be useful as resigned she aimed.Neatly she dressed, nor vainly seemed to expectPity for grief, or pardon for neglect;But when her wearied parents sank to sleep,She sought her place to meditate and weep.******She placed a decent stone his grave above,Neatly engraved—an offering of her love:For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,Awake alike to duty and the dead.******Here will she come, and on the grave will sit,Folding her arms in long abstracted fit;But if observer pass will take her round,And careless seem, for she would not be found.
Yes! there are real mourners. I have seenA fair, sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene;Attention through the day her duties claimed,And to be useful as resigned she aimed.Neatly she dressed, nor vainly seemed to expectPity for grief, or pardon for neglect;But when her wearied parents sank to sleep,She sought her place to meditate and weep.
******
She placed a decent stone his grave above,Neatly engraved—an offering of her love:For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,Awake alike to duty and the dead.
******
Here will she come, and on the grave will sit,Folding her arms in long abstracted fit;But if observer pass will take her round,And careless seem, for she would not be found.
“Where is now the free and uninterrupted admission for such mourners? Grief is a retiring creature, who ‘would not be found,’ and will not knock at the door of the constituted authorities for the keys: she will look lingeringly at the impassable barriers and retire. Easy of access were churchyards until lately, with their pleasant footpaths, lying, with the tranquillity of moonlight, in the bosom of towns and villages; old, simple, and venerable,—trodden, it may be, too frequently by unthinking feet—but able at all times to impress a feeling of sacredness—fraught as they were with the solemnities of life and death—on bosoms not over religious; and now, to a fanciful view, they seem more the prisons than the resting-places of the dead.”
We have said that we will look at what education and other causes are doing, and what they are leaving undone in the change of character which they are effecting in the rural population. It appears by the Reports of the Poor-Law and Charity Commissioners that education progresses more in the northern and manufacturing districts than in the southern and agricultural ones. This is, no doubt, very much the case; and what education is leaving undone in these districts is, that it acts too timidly, too much in the spirit of worldly wisdom. It is afraid of making the people too intellectual; of raising their tastes, lest it should spoil them as Gibeonites, hewers of wood and drawers of water. My own experience is, that this is a grand mistake; that you cannot give them too pure and lofty a standard of taste; and that especially, our best and noblest poets, as Milton, Shakspeare, Wordsworth, Cowper, Southey, Campbell, Burns, Bloomfield, etc. should be put into their hands, and particularly into those of the agricultural population. What can be so rational as to imbue the minds of those who are to spend their lives in the fields with all those associations which render the country doubly delightful? It is amazing what avidity they evince for such writers when they are once made familiar with them; and whoever has his mind well stored with the pure and noble sentiments of such writers will never condescend to debase his nature by theft, idleness, and lowhabits. The great alarm has always been that of lifting the poor by such knowledge above their occupations, and filling their heads with airy notions. I can only point again to the agricultural population of Scotland, where such knowledge abounds. If the labourers have not the genius of Burns, many of them have a great portion of the manly and happy feeling with which
He walked in glory and in joy,Following his plough along the mountain side.
He walked in glory and in joy,Following his plough along the mountain side.
There is every reason, so far as experiment goes, to suppose that the same effect would follow in England. Where are there men so sober and industrious as those artisans who are now the steadiest frequenters of Mechanics’ Libraries? I have given, in the first chapter of the Nooks of the World, a striking instance of the effects of such reading on an agricultural labourer. Through my instigation several intelligent families have made themselves acquainted with this meritorious man, and speak with admiration of his manly and superior character. Let the experiment be repeated far and wide!
But education itself yet wants introducing to a vast extent into the agricultural districts. The commissioners give a deplorable picture of the neglect of the agricultural population in the counties bordering on the metropolis. In some parts of Essex, Sussex, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berks, etc., schools of any description are unknown; in others not more than one in fifteen of the labourers are represented as able to read. In this county, Surrey, much the same state of things exists. I have been astounded at the very few labourers that you meet with that can read; and I think I see some striking causes for this neglect of the labouring class in the peculiar state of society here—it has no middle link. A vast number of the aristocracy reside in the county from its proximity to town; and besides these, there are only the farmers and their labourers; the servants of the aristocratic establishments—a numerous and very peculiar class; and the few tradesmen who supply the great houses. The many gradations of rank and property which are found in more trading, manufacturing, and mixed districts do not here exist. It seems as if the Normans and the Saxons had here descended from age to age; two races, distinct in theirhabits as their condition, and with no one principle of amalgamation. The aristocracy shut themselves up in their houses and parks, and are rarely seen beyond them except in their carriages, driving rapidly to town, or to each other’s isolated abodes. They know nothing, and therefore can feel nothing for the toiling class. The effect is visible enough. The working classes grow up with the sense that they are regarded only as necessary implements of agriculture by the aristocracy—and they are churlish and uncouth. They have not the kindliness, and openness of countenance and manner that the peasantry of more socially favourable districts have. The farmers too seem little to employ them as house-servants, fed at their own table. You do not hear of those jolly harvest-suppers, which you may still find in many old-fashioned places, where master and man feast and rejoice together over the in-gathered plenty. So far as downright rusticity goes, there is as much of that within a dozen miles of London as in the farthest county of England; but the peasants seem to have lost much of the sentiment which those of more distant counties possess. They have their wakes and fairs on their extensive commons and greens, and leap in bags, and have wheelbarrow races, and races of women for certain articles of female apparel, gipsies with their lucky-bags and will-pegs; but as to anything of a poetical cast, I do not see it. What a fall from the funeral train going chanting a psalm on its way to the churchyard, to one which I saw the other day in this neighbourhood. The coffin was laid on a cart, and secured with ropes; one shaggy horse went jostling it along; another cart followed, occupied by the chief mourners, half a dozen of them huddled together, and the rest succeeded on foot, in a rude and straggling company.
In many villages I see no church at all; and where they are seen, how different to the fine old churches of most parts of England. As you cast your eyes over a wide landscape, you look in vain for those tall taper spires and massy towers which rise here and there in most English scenery; and find perhaps somewhere a solitary little erection resembling a little wooden dovecote. The piety of these parts never expended itself much in church-building. The villages themselves are often very picturesque. They are frequently scattered along extensive commons, amidst abundantwoods and grey heaths; generally buried in their old orchards, and built with many pictorial angles and projections; often thatched, and consisting of old framed timber-work, or wood altogether, with gardens full of flowers, and goodly rows of beehives. Vines run luxuriantly over their very roofs, and in autumn hang with a prodigality of grapes; and as to the country itself, nothing can be more pastorally and sylvanly sweet than this county. Its grey heaths and pine woods, in one part, remind you of Scotland—its commons, in others, covered with the greenest turf and scattered with oaks, have the appearance of old forests; and wherever you go, you get glimpses into fine woodland valleys, and of old solitary halls standing far off in the midst of them; grey farm houses; old water mills; the most rustic huts; some pastoral stream like the Mole, which goes wandering about through this scenery, fringed with its flags and meadow-sweet, and with its bullrushes bending in its copious stream, as if it were loath to leave it; in short it is a region full of the spirit of the poetry of Keats,—a region lying as it might lie
——————— Before the faëry broodsDrove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods;Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,Sceptre and mantle, clasped with dewy gem,Frighted away the Driads and the FaunsFrom rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipped lawns,—From beechen groves, and shadows numberless.
——————— Before the faëry broodsDrove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods;Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,Sceptre and mantle, clasped with dewy gem,Frighted away the Driads and the FaunsFrom rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipped lawns,—From beechen groves, and shadows numberless.
But the people themselves seem lost in their umbrageous hamlets, and on their commons, unthought of. There is the village of Oxshott, some three miles hence.—Go through it on a Sunday, when the agricultural people are all at leisure, and there they are as thick as motes in the sun, in the middle of the village street. There appears to be no church, nor any inhabitants but farmers and labourers. Boys, girls, men and women, all seem to be out of doors, and all in their every-day garbs. The colour of tawny soiled slops and straw-hats gives, as a painter would say, the prevailing tint to the scene. The boys are busy enough playing at ball, or cricket. The men seem to pass their time sitting on banks and stiles, or gossiping and smoking in groups. Scarcely a soul will move out of the way to let you pass on. The intellectualcondition of this obscure hamlet is strikingly indicated to every passer through, by a large school-house bearing on its front, cut in stone, this proud title—“The Royal Kent School, founded in 1820;”—but which has been since so farconfounded, that its windows are broken to atoms, and it is at once recent and in ruins! This state of things should not be suffered to continue. The vast wealth of the aristocracy living hereabout, and the ignorance around them, very ill accord. Amongst the affluent families in the county, there are, no doubt, many who would be anxious to secure an education to the rural children,if they actually knew that it was needed! In the village of Esher this has recently been done: let us hope that other places will “go and do likewise.”[35]
[35]I am told by intelligent people, who have spent the greater part of their lives here, that the farmers are particularly jealous of the peasantry receiving any education,—they conceive it would spoil them as beasts of burden. This shews what is the deplorable ignorance ofthisclass, too, of the rural population.
[35]I am told by intelligent people, who have spent the greater part of their lives here, that the farmers are particularly jealous of the peasantry receiving any education,—they conceive it would spoil them as beasts of burden. This shews what is the deplorable ignorance ofthisclass, too, of the rural population.
Since writing the above, I have met with the following statements, in Mr. Frederick Hill’s excellent work on National Education. They are in his account of Mr. William Allen’s School of Industry at Lindfield, in Sussex; and are, at once, most confirmatory of the view I have taken of the state of things in this county, and of the remedy to be applied. To benevolent and wealthy landed proprietors they are full of encouragement.
“We visited the school at Lindfield, in July 1831, and it had then been established several years. Before fixing on the spot where to build his school, Mr. Allen sent an intelligent young man on a tour through the county, to find out where a school was most wanted. After a diligent search, Lindfield was pitched upon as the centre of a district in which the peasantry were in a very low state of ignorance. Lindfield is on the road from London to Brighton; distant from London about thirty-seven miles, from Brighton fifteen.
“Not only did Mr. Allen receive no assistance in building his school, but most of the wealthy inhabitants endeavoured to thwart him; while among the peasantry themselves, the most preposterous stories were afloat respecting his designs. These poor people had been so little accustomed to see persons act from other than selfishmotives, that they could not believe it possible that any one would come and erect a large building, at great cost and trouble to himself, merely from a desire of promoting their good. They felt sure that all this outlay was not without some secret object; and at last they explained all, much to their own satisfaction, by referring it to the following notable project.—The building was to be applied to the diabolical purpose of kidnapping children; a high palisade was to be thrown up all round it, and other measures taken to prevent entrance or escape. Then the school was to be opened, and every thing carried on smoothly, and with great appearance of kind and gentle treatment, until such a number of children had been collected as would satisfy the rapacious desires of the wretches who had hatched the wicked scheme; when all at once the gates were to be closed upon them, and the poor innocents shipped off to some distant land!
“Greatly indeed must a school have been wanted where such unheard-of absurdity could circulate and obtain credence. At length the building, a most substantial and commodious one, was completed, though few indeed were those who at once ventured within the dreaded bounds. However, by dint of perseverance, this number was gradually increased. The few children who did come, began in a short time to take home with them sundry pence, which they had earned in plaiting straw, making baskets, etc.; arts they were learning at school. The boys began to patch their clothes and mend their shoes, without their parents having a penny to pay for the work. Meanwhile there came no authentic accounts of ships lying in wait on the neighbouring coast, nor had even the dreaded iron palisades raised their pointed heads. Little by little, the poor ignorant creatures became assured that there was nothing to fear, but, on the contrary, much practical good to be derived from sending their children to the school; and that strange and incredible as it might seem, the London ‘gemman’ was really come among them as a friend and benefactor. A breach being thus fairly made in the mud-bank of prejudice, it was not long before the whole mass gave way. In short, the scheme proved so completely successful, that at the time we visited the school, almost every child whose parents lived within a distance of three miles, was entered as a pupil, the total number on the list being no lessthan 300. The children are at school eight hours each day; three being employed in manual labour, and five in the ordinary school exercises. There is a provision for a diversity of tastes in the classes of industry; indeed the most unbounded liberality is manifest in all the arrangements. Some are employed as shoemakers, others as tailors, and others again, at platting, basket-making, weaving, printing, gardening, or farming. The children work very cheerfully, and are found to like the classes of industry better than the school.
“The first employment to which the little workers are put, is platting straw. When they areau faitat this, which is generally at the end of a few months, they are promoted to some other craft; the one of highest dignity being that of printer. Before leaving school the child will become tolerably expert at three or four trades. Those who work on the farm have each the sole care of a plot of ground, measuring one-eighth part of an acre, and each is required to do his own digging, sowing, manuring, and reaping. An intelligent husbandman, however, is always on the ground, to teach those who are at fault. The plots of land were all clean and in nice order; and from the variety of produce, oats, turnips, mangel-wurzel, potatoes, and cabbages, the whole had a curious and amusing appearance, reminding one of the quilted counterpanes of former years. We found the system ofmatayerrent in use; each boy being allowed one half of the produce for himself, the other half being paid for the use of the land, the wear and tear of tools, etc. One lad, twelve years old, had in this way received no less a sum than twenty-three shillings and sixpence, as his share of the crop of the preceding year; and we were told that such earnings were by no means uncommon.”
Lady Noel Byron established a school on a similar plan at Ealing, which has been eminently successful. She there educates a number of boys in a manner which must render them far better qualified to fulfil those duties to which they will be called as they grow up, than has yet been done by the old defective modes of England, and especially of English villages. Besides being taught the most useful branches of English education, they work three hours each day, partly for the institution, partly for themselves, in their own gardens. Gardens of a sixteenth of an acre are let tothe elder boys at threepence a month; seeds they either buy of their masters, or procure from their friends. Racks for the tools are put up and numbered, so that each boy has a place for his own, and in that he is required to keep them. The objects of this school are to educate children destined for country pursuits, in a manner to make them better workmen, and more intelligent and happy men than is at present the case. For this purpose it was conceived necessary that they should early acquire the habits of patient industry; that they should be acquainted with the value of labour, and know the connexion between it and property; that they should have intelligence, skill, and an acquaintance with the objects with which they are surrounded; that the higher sentiments, the social and moral part of their being, should obtain a full development.
So industriously have the boys laboured, and so well have they succeeded, that their gardens, with few exceptions, present before the crops are harvested, an appearance of neatness and good husbandry. They have all since, either disposed of their vegetables or taken them home to their families. But vegetables are not the only crop; around the borders of each, flowers are cultivated. It is a great matter to induce a taste for, and give a knowledge of, the manner of cultivating flowers. They are luxuries within the power of every person to command.
There is a considerable gaiety and alacrity in all this; the boys learn to sing many cheerful and merry songs. They strike up a tune as they go out in bands to works, and as they return, they do the same.
It is with the greatest satisfaction that I add, similar schools have been established by Mrs. Tuckfield in Devonshire, Mr. James Cropper in Lancashire, and that the Earl of Lovelace has now built a school on the same plan at Ockham in Surrey, where the same course of education will be given to the peasant children of the neighbourhood. The institution in fact, contains three schools, a boy’s, a girl’s, and an infant school. Suitable buildings are in progress for teaching the boys the rudiments of the most common handicraft trades, as shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry, basket-making, etc. The girls are employed at certain hours, in the dairy, the laundry, and in all kinds of household work. For this purposeable masters and mistresses are engaged, who have been prepared by an especial education and long practice for their arduous office. On our first visit to this interesting establishment, though it was far from being completed, we found about 130 children educating in it. It was delightful to see the young chopsticks of this county, where, from generation to generation, the intellect of the working class has long been suffered to lie as dead and as barren as one of their own sand-hills, clustered about the master in the school, answering questions in geography and natural history with as much quickness and obvious delight, as any children of city or of hall could possibly do; their little ruddy faces, no longer indicative only of health and stupidity, but fairly a-blaze with the workings of their minds, the pleasant thirst of knowledge, and the generous emulation of honest distinction. We walked through the house, and found the neat little girls sewing and ironing, cleaning and scouring, engaged in those very avocations which must some day give comfort to their homes. We saw the boys turn out with their spades, and soon found some of them planting forest trees in a nursery-ground, others planting their own gardens; and what delighted us, was to find on the bordering of their garden ground, a string of little flower-beds, belonging to the girls, which carried me at once away to my own school-days and school-garden at Ackworth.
I have not room here to do more than indicate the existence of this most invaluable school, in a part of the country where rural education is so much wanted. And, indeed, where throughout England are not such invaluable schools wanted? The attention of land owners everywhere ought to be called to this patriotic experiment. Let but such schools as those of the late Captain Brenton, William Allen, Lady Byron, and Lord Lovelace, be once diffused throughout the towns and villages of England, and a revolution will be effected, such as never yet was achieved in any country. An educated population; men no longer apt to grow up in the mere consciousness of their animal nature, but made acquainted with their intellectual powers, their moral qualities and social affections; women having the energies of their true character called forth, and taught to give comfort, and the attraction of intelligence to their homes,—then will England truly have “a boldpeasantry, their country’s pride.” Brutishness and low debauchery must disappear. All will feel the claims which society has upon them; and all will see that, to attain a common share of the good things of life, they must possess activity, prudence, good management, and perseverance. Who can, indeed, imagine to himself what this country must become, with a population thus judiciously educated, filling its towns, its villages, its fields, and overflowing into our colonies, with the certain and splendid dower of industry and intellectual strength?
She smiles, including in her wide embraceCity, and town, and tower, and sea with shipsSprinkled; be our companion while we trackHer rivers populous with gliding life;While, free as air, o’er printless sands we march,Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods;Roaming, or resting under grateful shade,In peace and meditative cheerfulness.Wordsworth.
She smiles, including in her wide embraceCity, and town, and tower, and sea with shipsSprinkled; be our companion while we trackHer rivers populous with gliding life;While, free as air, o’er printless sands we march,Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods;Roaming, or resting under grateful shade,In peace and meditative cheerfulness.
Wordsworth.
We have now taken a comprehensive view of the rural life of England; of the mode in which “gentle and simple,” rich and poor, pass their life in the country; of the sports, the pastimes, the labours and various pursuits which fill up the round of rural existence; of the charms and advantages which there await the lovers of peace, of poetry, of natural beauty, and of pure thoughts: and I think it must be confessed that though other countries may boast a more brilliant climate, none can offer a more varied and attractive beauty; other modes of life may be more exciting, but none can be more calmly delightful, none more conducive to a healthful and manly spirit.
The more we see of our own country, the more do we love it; and it is for this reason, that in closing this volume, I cannot take leave of my readers without advising them to do as I have done,—see as much of it as they can. There is no part of it but is filledwith some high historical or literary association: it is the land where brave men have contended and poets sung, and philosophers and politicians have meditated works and measures, of which the world is now reaping the honour and enjoyment; there is no part of it but has some trace of those manners and dialects which belong to the living of a thousand years ago, and therefore are most interesting motives to our tracing back the stream of time, and beholding the growth of our country’s fortunes from age to age; there is no part of it, but has its swarming cities, or its fields smiling like a garden beneath the triumphant effect of British tillage,—or its wild hills and forests, that, untouched by the plough, are left to be fruitful of free thoughts, of poetic feelings, of picturesque beauty and magnificence, of health to the hearts and spirits of our countrymen and countrywomen, necessary to generate those high thoughts and maintain those endeavours that shall yet lead noble England to the height of its destined honour.
It is glorious, indeed, to visit the countries of ancient art and renown—Greece, Italy, Egypt, or sacred Palestine—my spirit kindles at the very mention of them,—yet whether it were my privilege or not to traverse those glorious regions, I should still wish to wander over every hill, and through every busy city of my native land. To me, I repeat, there is no part of this illustrious country but opens some new feeling of affection. As I pass over her plains, I am filled with admiration of that skill and indefatigable industry which have covered them with such affluence of cattle, such exuberant grass, such depths of waving corn; as I pass by her rural halls and hamlet abodes, I find myself perpetually on classic ground, amid the homes of poets and patriots; when I enter her cities, I am struck with all their busy and swarming children, with their endless manufactures; their institutions for rebutting human evils, and raising the human character; with rich men carrying on gigantic enterprises of commerce or national improvement, and poor men associating to ascertain and defend their rights. These are all animating objects of notice; and I will tell those who may not hope to see much of foreign regions, that there is enough in merry England to fill the longest life with delight, go where they will. I would have those who are young and able, to take their knapsacks on their backs, and with a stick in their hand, they mayfind pleasures worth enjoying, go which way they will in these islands, though they do as many an adventurer has done, set up their staff as an indicator, and march off in the direction in which it falls.[36]
[36]Jamais je n’ai tant pensé, tant existé, tant vécu, tant été moi, si j’ose ainsi dire, que dans ceux voyages que j’ai faits seul et à pied. La marche a quelque chose qui anime et avive mes idées; je ne puis presque penser quand je reste en place; il faut que mon corps soit en branle pour y mettre mon esprit. La vue de la campagne, la succession des aspects agréables, le grand air, le grand appétit, la bonne santé que je gagne en marchant, la liberté du cabaret, l’éloignement de tout ce qui me fait sentir ma dépendance, de tout ce qui me rappelle à ma situation, tout cela dégage mon âme, me donne une plus grande audace de penser, me jette en quelque sorte dans l’immensité des êtres pour les combiner, les choisir, me les approprier sans gêne et sans crainte. Je dispose en maître de la nature entière; mon cœur, errant d’objet en objet, s’unit, s’identifie à ceux qui le flattent, s’entoure d’images charmantes, s’enivre de sentiments délicieux. Si pour les fixer je m’amuse à les décrire en moimême, quelle vigueur de pinceau, quelle fraîcheur de coloris, quelle énergie d’expression je leur donne!—Rousseau.
[36]Jamais je n’ai tant pensé, tant existé, tant vécu, tant été moi, si j’ose ainsi dire, que dans ceux voyages que j’ai faits seul et à pied. La marche a quelque chose qui anime et avive mes idées; je ne puis presque penser quand je reste en place; il faut que mon corps soit en branle pour y mettre mon esprit. La vue de la campagne, la succession des aspects agréables, le grand air, le grand appétit, la bonne santé que je gagne en marchant, la liberté du cabaret, l’éloignement de tout ce qui me fait sentir ma dépendance, de tout ce qui me rappelle à ma situation, tout cela dégage mon âme, me donne une plus grande audace de penser, me jette en quelque sorte dans l’immensité des êtres pour les combiner, les choisir, me les approprier sans gêne et sans crainte. Je dispose en maître de la nature entière; mon cœur, errant d’objet en objet, s’unit, s’identifie à ceux qui le flattent, s’entoure d’images charmantes, s’enivre de sentiments délicieux. Si pour les fixer je m’amuse à les décrire en moimême, quelle vigueur de pinceau, quelle fraîcheur de coloris, quelle énergie d’expression je leur donne!—Rousseau.
What a summer’s delight there lies in any one such progress. Suppose you took your route from the metropolis through the south and west. How delightful are the richly cultivated fields, the green hop-grounds, the hanging woods of Kent; how pleasant the heathy hills and scattered woodlands of Surrey; the thickly-strewn villas of the wealthy, the vine-covered cottages and village greens of the poor. Are not the flowery lanes and woody scenery of Berkshire, and the open downs of Wiltshire worth traversing? What a sweet sylvan retirement in the one; what an airy, wide-spreading amplitude of vision in the other! It were worth somewhat to read Miss Mitford’s living sketches in her own sweet neighbourhood; it were worth a great deal more to meet Miss Mitford herself, as she lives amongst her simple neighbours, who know how much she is their friend, or amongst her wealthy and educated ones, who know how much she deserves of their esteem and admiration. Would it be nothing to ramble amongst the ancient walls of Winchester, every spot of which is as thickly strown with historical recollections as it is venerable in presence? Would it be nothing to climb those downs, and see around far-spreading greenness, sinking and swelling in the softest lines of beauty; and below, vales, stretching in different directions, contrasting their rich woodiness most strikingly with the bare solitudesof the down? To see the venerable cathedral lifting its hoary head from the vale, and numbers of subject churches shewing their humbler towers and spires all along the valleys; and catch the glitter of those streams which water those valleys, as they wind to the sun. I have trodden these downs and dales in summer weather with feelings of buoyant delight, that admit of no description. There is Stonehenge, standing in the midst of Salisbury Plain, which is worth a long pilgrimage to see. To see! Yes, and to feel in all its lonely grandeur, with all its savage and mysterious antiquity upon it. It is a walk from Salisbury, that, on a spring or autumn day, with a congenial spirit, were enough to make that a life’s pleasant memory. Ascend first from that truly old English city, along whose streets and past almost every door run living streams of most beautiful water from the sweet brimful Avon—to the ramparts of Old Sarum. What a stupendous work of antiquity you stand upon; what a scene lies all around you! How beautifully rises that noble cathedral above the subject city; how finely the magnificent spire above the fabric itself! Anden passant, what a feature of fair and solemn dignity is the cathedral in our English cities! As you approach them, and see afar off these noble monuments of past science towering aloft in sublime dignity, you are at once reminded that you are on classic ground; that you are about to enter a place where our ancestors worked out some portion of the national fame; and are thereby awakened from other thoughts to look about you for all that is worthy of notice. But this is but a passing tribute to the grave beauty of those glorious old piles—they deserve more; but other objects now call us on. See what green and watered valleys allure you forward. See where the downs stretch their solitary heads amid the clear and spiritual hues of the sky. And as you go on, the chime of flocks, and the discovery of sweet hamlets, and the voices of their children at play, and the tinkle of the plough-team bells, shall make you feel that the rural peace and delight of Old England are as strong in her heart as ever. For myself, the smallest peculiarity of rural fashions and habits in different parts of the country attracts my attention, and gives me a certain degree of pleasure. The sight of herds of swine grazing in the wide fields of Berkshire and Hampshire as orderly as sheep do, is what, atthe first view, gives an agreeable surprise to the man from the midland and northern counties, where it is never seen. The sight of the clematis, which flings its flowery masses over hedges and copses; of myrtles, hydrangeas, fuchias, and other tender plants, blossoming in the gardens of the south: the appearance of different birds and insects, as the chough, the nightingale in greater frequency, the woodlark sending its voice from the distant uplands; the large stag-beetle, and other insects; these, and other things observed in one part of the island which are never met with in another, small matters though they be in themselves, all give a novel interest to some new spot, and some agreeable hour. Nay to me, I say, the very varying of rural costumes and implements are objects of interest. Those odd ladders in Berkshire, stretching at the feet to a width of sometimes two yards, and then tapering up rapidly; as if Berkshire peasants could not stand on such ladders as all England beside stands on. The light wagons and carts in the south, so different from the heavy ones of the midland counties; and some of them so painted and adorned in front with large roses, and other flowers; and their teams, with bells at their bridles, and frames of bells over the leader’s head, and barbaric top-knots on their heads, and scarlet fringes and tassels on their gears; and tails all bound up with ribbons, and curious platting. The wagoners, each in his straw hat and white slop, with
His carter’s-whip, that on his shoulder rests,In air high towering with a boorish pomp,The sceptre of his sway.
His carter’s-whip, that on his shoulder rests,In air high towering with a boorish pomp,The sceptre of his sway.
Horses at plough, harnessed with a simple collar of straw, and a few ropes. Oxen with their heavy wooden yokes ploughing in one part of the country as primitively as they did in the days of Alfred, ay, or of King David; and shepherds with their crooks in another, shew to those who never saw them but in books, that some of our oldest practices still remain.
The various constructions of billhooks, shovels, and wheelbarrows which prevail in different quarters of the island, contribute to the picturesque: from the clumsy rudiment of a barrow seen in Cornwall, which lies on the ground without legs, and the sides of which are cut out of two pieces of wood, rudely tapering off into handles; through all the various shapes of that littlevehicle, up to its most perfect one. The shovels used by the labourers in the West of England, with handles as tall as themselves, would make the men of the midland counties stare; and again, the billhook of the midland counties, with a back edge as well as a front one, would be equally strange to the chopsticks of Surrey and Sussex. The various modes of country employment promote the same effect. The ploughman whistling after his team; the shepherds on the downs, driving their white flocks before them like a rolling cloud to evening fold or morning pasture; the dwellers on heaths and moors, paring the turf for fuel, or cutting from the peat-beds their black bricks, and piling their black pyramids on the waste. Every different district displays its peculiar employment. Durham and Northumberland exhibit their extensive and curious coal mines; Yorkshire and Lancashire their weaving and spinning; the hills of Derbyshire their lead mines; Nottingham and Leicester shires their coals again; Lincoln and Norfolk their vast corn farms; the Southern downs their shepherds; Devon and Cornwall their tin and copper mines; Gloucester and Somerset display their fields of teazles again, indicating that there our finest broad-cloths are made; Stafford and Warwick shires swarm with collieries, iron-founderies, and potteries; and so on. Each district has its peculiar pursuit and occupation pointed out by nature, and all these things give variety to the country and its inhabitants, and scatter everywhere interesting subjects of inquiry for the passer-by.
I say then, cross only the south of England, and how delightful were the route to him who has the love of nature and of his country in his heart; and no imperious cares to dispute it with them. Walk up, as I have said, from Salisbury to Stonehenge. Sit down amid that solemn circle, on one of its fallen stones:—contemplate the gigantic erection, reflect on its antiquity, and what England has passed through and become while those stones have stood there. Walk forth over that beautiful and immense plain,—see the green circles, and lines, and mounds, which ancient superstition or heroism have everywhere traced upon it, and which nature has beautified with a carpet of turf as fine and soft as velvet. Join those simple shepherds, and talk with them. Reflect, poetical as our poets have made the shepherd and his life,—what must be the monotony of that life in lowland counties—day after day, andmonth after month, and year after year,—never varying, except from the geniality of summer to winter; and what it must be then; how dreary its long reign of cold, and wet and snow!
When you leave them, plunge into the New Forest in Hampshire. There is a region where a summer month might be whiled away as in a fairyland. There, in the very heart of that old forest you find the spot where Rufus fell by the bolt of Tyrell, looking very much as it might look then. All around you lie forest and moorland for many a mile. The fallow and red deer in thousands herd there as of old. The squirrels gambol in the oaks above you; the swine rove in the thick fern and the deep glades of the forest as in a state of nature. The dull tinkle of the cattle bell comes through the wood; and ever and anon, as you wander forward, you catch the blue smoke of some hidden abode curling over the tree tops; and come to sylvan bowers, and little bough-overshadowed cottages, as primitive as any that the reign of the Conqueror himself could have shewn. What haunts are in these glades for poets: what streams flow through their bosky banks, to soothe at once the ear and eye enamoured of peace and beauty. What glades for endless grouping and colourings for the painter.
At Boldre you may find a spot worth seeing, for it is the parsonage once inhabited by the venerable William Gilpin, the descendant of Barnard Gilpin, the apostle of the north; the author of “Forest Scenery,”—and near it is the school, which he built and endowed for the poor from the sale of his drawings. Not very distant from this, stands the rural dwelling for many years, and till lately, the residence of one of England’s truest-hearted women, Caroline Bowles, now Mrs. Southey—and not far off you have the woods of Netley Abbey—the Isle of Wight, the Solent, and the open sea.
But still move on through the fair fields of Dorset and Somerset, to the enchanted land of Devon. If you want stern grandeur, follow its north-western coast; if peaceful beauty, look down into some one of its rich vales, green as an emerald, and pastured by its herds of red cattle; if all the summer loveliness of woods and rivers, you may ascend the Tamar or the Tavy, or many another stream; or you may stroll on through valleys that for glorious solitudes, or fair English homes, amid their woods and hills, shallleave you nothing to desire. If you want sternness you may pass into Dartmoor. There are wastes and wilds, crags of granite, views into far-off districts, and the sound of waters hurrying away over their rocky beds, enough to satisfy the largest hungering and thirsting after poetical delight. I shall never forget the feelings of delicious entrancement with which I approached the outskirts of Dartmoor. I found myself among the woods near Haytor Crags. It was an autumn evening. The sun, near its setting, threw its yellow beams amongst the trees, and lit up the ruddy tors on the opposite side of the valley into a beautiful glow. Below, the deep dark river went sounding on its way with a melancholy music, and as I wound up the steep road beneath the gnarled oaks, I ever and anon caught glimpses of the winding valley to the left, all beautiful with wild thickets and half shrouded faces of rock, and still on high those glowing ruddy tors standing in the blue air in their sublime silence. My road wound up, and up, the heather and the bilberry on either hand shewing me that cultivation had never disturbed the soil they grew in; and one sole woodlark from the far-ascending forest to the right, filled the wide solitude with his wild autumnal note. At that moment I reached an eminence, and at once saw the dark crags of Dartmoor high aloft before me, and one large solitary house in the valley beneath the woods. So fair, so silent, save for the woodlark’s note and the moaning river, so unearthly did the whole scene seem—that my imagination delighted to look upon it as an enchanted land,—and to persuade itself that that house stood as it would stand for ages, under the spell of silence, but beyond the reach of death and change.
But even there you need not rest—there lies a land of grey antiquity, of desolate beauty still before you—Cornwall. It is a land almost without a tree. That is, all its high and wild plains are destitute of them, and the bulk of its surface is of this character. Some sweet and sheltered vales it has, filled with noble wood, as that of Tresilian near Truro; but over a great portion of it extend grey heaths. It is a land where the wild furze seems never to have been rooted up, and where the huge masses of stone that lie about its hills and valleys are clad with the lichen of centuries. And yet how does this bare and barren land fasten on your imagination! It is a country that seems to have retained itsancient attachments longer than any other. The British tongue here lingered till lately—as the ruins of King Arthur’s palace still crown the stormy steep of Tintagel; and the saints that succeeded the heroic race, seem to have left their names on almost every town and village.
It were well worth a journey there merely to see the vast mines which perforate the earth, and pass under the very sea; and the swarming population that they employ. It were a beautiful sight to see the bands of young maidens, that sit beneath long sheds, crushing the ore and singing in chorus. But far more were it worth the trip to stand at the Land’s-End, on that lofty, savage, and shattered coast, with the Atlantic roaring all round you. The Hebrides themselves, wild and desolate, and subject to obscuring mists as they are, never made me feel more shipped into a dream-land than that scenery. At one moment the sun shining over the calm sea, in whose transparent depths the tawny rocks were seen far down. Right and left extend the dun cliffs and cavernous precipices, and at their feet the white billows playing gracefully to and fro over the nearly sunken rocks, as through the manes of huge sea-lions. At the next moment all wrapt in the thickest obscurity of mist; the sea only cognizable by its sound; the dun crags looming through the fog vast and awfully, and all round you on the land nothing visible, as you trace back your way, but huge grey stones that strew the whole earth. In the midst of such a scene I came to a little deserted hut, standing close by a solitary mere amongst the rocks, and the dreamy effect became most perfect. What a quick and beautiful contrast was it to this, as the very same night I pursued my way along the shore, the clear moon hanging on the distant horizon, the waves of the ocean on one hand coming up all luminous and breaking on the strand in billows of fire, and on the other hand the sloping turf sown with glowworms for some miles, thick as the stars overhead.
I speak of the delight which a solitary man may gather up for ever from such excursions; that will come before him again and again in all their beauty from his past existence, into many a crowd and many a solitary room; but how much more may be reaped by a congenial band of affectionate spirits in such a course.To them, a thousand different incidents or odd adventures, flashes of wit and moments of enjoyment, combine to quicken both their pleasures and friendship. The very flight from a shower, or the dining on a turnip-pie, no very uncommon dish in the rural inns of Cornwall, may furnish merriment for the future. And if this one route would be a delicious summer’s ramble, with all its coasting and its sea-ports into the bargain, how many such stretch themselves in every direction through England. The fair orchard-scenes of Hereford and Worcester, in spring all one region of bloom and fragrance,—the hills of Malvern and the Wrekin. The fairy dales of Derbyshire; the sweet forest and pastoral scenes of Staffordshire; the wild dales, the scars and tarns of Yorkshire; the equally beautiful valleys and hills of Lancashire, with all those quaint old halls that are scattered through it, memorials of past times, and all connected with some incident or other of English history. And then there is Northumberland—the classic ground of the ancient ballad—the country of the Percy—of Chevy Chace—of the Hermit of Warkworth—of Otterburn and Humbledown—of Flodden, and many another stirring scene. And besides all these are the mountain regions of Cumberland, of Wales, of Scotland, and Ireland, that by the power of steam are being brought every day more within the reach of thousands. What an inexhaustible wealth of beauty lies in those regions! These, if every other portion of the kingdom were reduced by ploughing and manufacturing and steaming to the veriest common-place, these, in the immortal strength of their nature, bid defiance to the efforts of any antagonist, or reducing spirit. These will still remain wild and fair, the refuge and haunt of the painter and the poet—of all lovers of beauty, and breathers after quiet and freshness. Nothing can pull down their lofty and scathed heads; nothing can dry up those everlasting waters, that leap down their cliffs, and run along their vales in gladness; nothing can certainly exterminate those dark heaths, and drain off those mountain lakes, where health and liberty seem to dwell together; nothing can efface the loveliness of those regions, save the hand of Him who placed them there. I rejoice to think that while this great nation remains, whatever may be the magnitude of the designs for the good of the world in which Providence purposes to employ it,—however populous it may be necessaryfor it to become,—whatever the machinery and manufactories that may be needfully at work in it; that while Cumberland, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland continue, there will continue regions of indestructible beauty—of free and unpruned nature, so fair that those who are not satisfied therewith, would not be satisfied with the whole universe. More sublimity other countries may boast, more beauty has fallen to the lot of none on God’s globe. And what a satisfaction it is, to see that our poetry of late years has awakened the public mind to a full sense of our natural advantages. It may be said that many traverse the continent who never see their own country, but it cannot be said that the beauty of our own fair islands is overlooked. On the contrary, every one who travels through them himself, sees how increasing are the numbers who do the same. To many a point of beauty and historic interest I have been, from the very Land’s-End to John O’Groat’s; and I do not know one spot of any claims to attention, which I did not find numerously visited from the earliest spring to late in the year. I once was at Loch Katrine early in April, and there were arrivals of several carriages a day. I was at the Land’s-End late in October, and as I reached the Logan Rock, a very interesting party of young people were just coming away from it. As I have said, I walked up to Stonehenge from Salisbury in order to enjoy it in all its solitude. This was late in the autumn; yet I found a large party there, and the shepherds assured me that every day, and all day long, it would continue so till severe weather set in. When Dr. Johnson went as far as the Hebrides, it was reckoned a rare thing. In the summer of 1836, I visited Staffa and Iona in company with seventy persons; and all summer long, three or four times a-week, do those places see scarcely less than a hundred English people land upon them.
Who indeed does not know how every pleasant place on our coasts, how the Peak of Derbyshire, how all Wales, the Highlands of Scotland and many parts of Ireland are annually thronged with people, who break away from towns and trade to refresh their spirits with the invigorating spirit of the mountains, and with the sights and sounds of ocean? Nay, such is the pressure of the tourist current, that whatever place steam-vessels reach in the mountain districts—it is one of the most ludicrous scenes imaginable to seea packet come to the pier, and its whole swarm of passengers leap ashore and proceed at full gallop to storm the inns for beds and accommodation. I have myself, as I believe I have before stated, been forced in the throng up to the very attics of one of these inns by the rush of people, who filled the whole staircase, and indeed house, calling out for beds, while the poor landlady was wringing her hands in despair of reducing the clamorous chorus into some sort of order.
Ludicrous as this recital however is, the spirit which occasions it is an excellent one. It is full of health and good moral feeling. It is one which, if it goes on, hand in hand with our machinery and our literature, must produce the happiest effects. I trust that this volume will add its quota to that love of the country which I would desire to see possessing a corner of every human being’s heart. While that is there, I am sure there must be an undecayed portion of the original heart of humanity,—a remnant, at least, of that tone of spirit which makes heaven desirable, and which is capable of enjoying it. He that loves the country as God has made it, in all its varying beauty and immortal freshness, must love God and man too; and while he seeks in mountain solitudes and on sea shores, relief from the weariness of too long jostling in the crowd, will find with delight how this very solitude will quicken his appetite for human society, and his perception of the comforts and home-pleasures of towns. I declare, that when I have been for weeks roaming amongst forests and mountain wastes, I feel, on coming into a city, a sense of its life, activity, and social condition which was before become comparatively dim. As I have entered one in the early morning, and have seen the neat young housemaids rubbing the knockers and cleaning down the steps of their masters’ doors, and have caught glimpses, as I passed along, of well oil-clothed passages, and well carpeted rooms, and fires already burning cheerfully,—I have felt a sense of the comforts and pleasantness of English homes that I have rarely felt besides. Or at evening, as we pass where blinds are yet undrawn, and where fires are seen warmly illumining fair rooms, and happy faces are congregated around them, who has not felt the same thing?
But we must now close this volume; and how can that be more fitly done than by ending as we began, and acknowledging with arejoicing thankfulness, “that the lines have indeed fallen to us in pleasant places,” in a land which it would be difficult to pronounce more blessed in its literature, its religious spirit, or in the splendid dowry of its natural beauty.