“Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm!”
At length, leaping a slight fence, I made my way through a clovered field, and then through a pretty grove, to what was once Blacklow hill. Here is still a sort of cave, which I readily found among the hazels; and on the eminence above it, rises a strongly built and severe looking monument, surmounted by a cross of solid proportions, the whole singularly adapted to the place and purpose. It is a work of late years, and the happy thought of the proprietor of Guy’s Cliff. There was something stirring, too, in reading, in the loneliness of that morning hour, the following inscription on the face of the monument, viz:—“In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, July 1, 1312, by barons lawless as himself, Piers Gaveson, Earl of Cornewall, the minion of a hateful king, and in life and death a memorable instance of misrule.” What a picture of the ferocious past was conjured up by that expression—“beheaded by barons as lawless as himself.” The sweet Avon was flowing through the meads below; there gleamed the feudal towers of Warwick, in the glowing sunrise; and just so it was, that July morning, five hundred years ago, when this rock rang with oaths and curses, the barkings of that fierce Guy de Beauchamp, whom Gaveson had called “the black hound of Arden.” That insult was here avenged in blood; but it only served to fire the thirst of the regicide. Those features upturned to heaven, in the choir of Gloucester, and those imploring hands of poor King Edward, came back, in thought, once more.
Pictures have made my readers familiar with the scenery of Guy’s Cliff. There it stands, on the Avon—in unpretending beauty, ivied up to its chimnies, here an oriel, and there a turret, the very ideal of a fair lady’s bower, and one of the goodliest of “the merry homes of England.” There is a mill over against it, where I stood and admired its quiet romance, in the glory of that summer morning, as the gilding of the sunlight lay on the cold gray of its towers. At the mill, the farmer-lads were washing sheep, and as they plunged in the fleecy ewes, and soused them over and over again, in the sparkling waters of the Avon, I thought an artist would ask no fairer study, for his pencil, than the scene before me. I confess I could not safely look on it without repeating the Tenth Commandment, and I quite deposed my project of renting the Gate-house of Kenilworth, in thinking how much better I should like Guy’s Cliff for my habitation.
My walk into Warwick, again, was full of pleasure. I heard the clock strike in the tower of St. Mary’s, which I saw over a forest of trees, gaily lighted by the sun; and then came a tune from its chime. I paused before old houses, and stared at the curious ancient gateway, under which we had passed in the night. After breakfast I visited the Church, and especially the Beauchamp Chapel, where the ancient lords of Warwick lie on their proud tombs, in sculptured mail, beside their dainty dames, in more delicate attire. This chapel is, of its kind, the finest in the kingdom; the superb tomb of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy, when I saw it at Bruges, reminded me of it, and seemed less imperial. I cannot now recall it in detail, as I wish I could, for the sake of accurate criticism; but at the time I was greatly struck with the state and splendour of such beauty—for ashes! Fulke Greville’s monument is also memorable, if only for the striking tribute it pays to private friendship; for the inscription furnished by himself ekes out the fact of his being “Councillor to King James,” by that of his claim to write himself—“The friend of Sir Philip Sydney.”
I went over Warwick Castle, of course, and surveyed the grounds from the porter’s lodge, where are shown the armour and the porridge-pot of great Guy, and fair Phælice’s slippers, to the garden-house, wherein is kept the gigantic vase from Tivoli. What eyes for natural beauty had those builders of old times! The Avon seems just here to be made for Warwick Castle, and Warwick Castle seems made for it. On the whole, I have seen no residence in Europe, save Windsor Castle, that seemed to me more princely than this. ’Tis not the creation of vulgar opulence, or of an Aladdin-like fortune—but it seems the growth of ages, and the natural concentration of architectural beauty and strength. From its windows such a view of the landscape—in the landscape such views of it! And then its relics and antiquities; its pictures and its portraits; its bed-rooms, and halls, and drawing-rooms; its boudoirs, and its bowers; its chapel, and its whole together—who can but wonder at them, and who would want them? Mine is not so vast an ambition—such “an unbounded stomach.” On the whole I am so reasonable a man, that to gratify my utmost longings for a home—this side “the house not made with hands”—I would take Guy’s Cliff, and leave Warwick Castle untroubled by any writ of ejectment from even a roving wish, or wild, ungoverned thought.
CHAPTER XXII.
Stratford—Shakspeare.