It is vain for me to attempt a minute description of the pleasures of this day’s drive. The scenery was richly varied, and after seeing the finest scenery of Savoy, and of the Swiss Cantons, I still recall it with satisfaction, and long to go through it once more. Our way lay along the skirts of the dreary Lake Ogwen, and then over its desolate heath; from which our emerging into the enchanting Yale of Capel Curig, was like turning from a page of Dante’s Inferno to a passage in his description of Paradise. Here majesty and loveliness indeed combine, in the sweet diversity of woods and waters, and vales and mountains, to furnish an ideal of natural beauty, which might satisfy a poet or a painter. Amid all, rises the glorious summit of old Snowdon, of which I obtained my finest impressions from this spot. The scenery of the river Swallow, by which our way continued, is marvellously picturesque, and its waterfall is admirable, even to the eye of an American. Near Bettws-y-coed, the panorama assumed a more pastoral character, and gave us a glimpse into the Vale of Llanrwst; and then, for a long time, every turn opened new scenes of beauty and delight. At Cerrig-y-Druddion, if the scenery was distasteful again, not so were the trout from the mountain streams, on which I made a delicious repast. It was from this place, to which the poor prince had made good his retreat, that the primitive Caradoc, with his family, were carried prisoners to Rome, where he made that famous speech, which is the memorial of his name. Through various scenes of interest, which I might be more willing to enumerate, were only their names pronounceable, I reached Corwen, where was the hold of Glendower, and where, in the ancient Church, I visited the tomb inscribed Jorwerth, Vicarius de Corvaen Ora pro eo. At the inn sat an old blind Welshman, playing the Welsh harp, and soliciting charity, which, for Homer’s sake, no one could refuse. Thenceforward the scenery again increased in interest.
The Vale of Edeyrnion opened into our view as we continued our journey along the windings of the beautiful outlet of the Bala Lake, and from hence to Llangollen, beauty, rather than grandeur, was characteristic of the scenery. But no every-day sort of beauty is to be imagined when I speak of this charming region, at which it was a feast to look, even for a moment. The swells and slopes of the land; the variety of the foliage; the graceful curves of the river-banks; and the outlines of the mountainous distance, with the hues which various tillage, and crops, gave to the meadows and the upland, were continual sources of delight, in which there was no monotony, and no surfeit. Nothing was wanting, but only the kindling eye of some enraptured friend to meet my own, and a voice to say with mine, “This indeed is a paradise!” Such would be the exclamation of any admirer of natural scenery, at the point where the ruinous pile of the Abbey of Valle Crucis lifts into view the arch and tracery of its great East window, amid the harmonious boughs and verdure of gigantic trees. It is a favourite view with painters, and has become familiar from the efforts of both pencil and burin. Scarcely less so is the conical hill, which overhangs Llangollen, and on the summit of which some remnants of wall that serve to give a very picturesque completeness to its outline, retain the name of Castell Dinas Bran, with the reputation of a primeval British work. At Llangollen, a handsome bridge, which spans the river Dee, blends with the prospect of the town in pleasing proportion. I climbed a little eminence, and broke through a sort of copse, into the pleasant grounds of Plas Newydd, the famous retreat of two eccentric ladies, who, not quite a hundred years ago, while Llangollen was yet unsung and unknown, became recluses of the Vale, and lived here in philosophical contempt of the world, and in ardent communion with nature. They both rest in the parish churchyard, where one stone records their several dates, and those of an humble girl, who was long their faithful servant. As they were persons who had figured in the gay world, their story has become a sort of local tradition, which is always repeated with respect; and portraits of Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler, in full Welsh costume, are sold in the shops, and hung up at the inn. I could not greatly admire their cottage; but it was, no doubt, quite snug, and pretty enough for two old ladies that were of a mind to be philosophers.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Wye and the Severn—Bristol and Wells.
The next day found me again ascending the Malvern hills, on a coach-top, the guard playing the merriest notes, upon his horn, as we rapidly trotted through the town. After another view of the vale of Gloucester, we turned into Herefordshire, and descended into the valley that spreads from the western slope of the Malverns. We had fine views of Edensor, the estate of Lord Somers, and of a monumental column, upon the crown of a hill. I was glad, too, to see on the roadside, marking some parochial boundary, a stone cross, such as is frequent on the Continent, and might, without any evil, be a familiar object in any Christian country. As we approached Ledbury, we met a band of gipsies in their proverbial rags and wretchedness, skulking along the road, and exhibiting very few of those bewitching peculiarities of appearance with which painters and romancers are fond of investing them. I had never met them before, and was sorry not to be able to stop and talk with them. An impression of awe haunted me for some time as I meditated upon their mysterious barbarism, and tried to recall the glimpse of their weird features, which I had caught as they passed by. I never saw any of their kind, on any other occasion afterwards, and think they must be growing scarce, even in England.
At Ledbury I was particularly struck with an outside view of the parish Church, which is but one of a thousand churches in England which of themselves are enough to reward a traveller for journeying through it. Sir Walter Scott has justly awarded to them the credit of being the most beautiful temples in the world, and the most becoming for their holy purposes. Our next stage brought us to Ross so famous for the memory of John Kyrle and his beneficent deeds. Its “heaven-directed spire” surmounts the hill, on which the town is built; and every where, in Ross, the traces of his good works, as well as many of the works themselves, survive to consecrate his name. The house in which he dwelt is adorned with a medallion portrait of “the man of Ross,” sunk in the wall, and visible to every passenger. He was indeed all that the poet has made him in descriptive verse; and he was something more, for he was a zealous Churchman, and a faithful attendant upon the daily service. I made my way to the Church, and was pleased to find its churchyard cross entire, and a cross upon its gable. The interior, though very old fashioned, was adorned with flowers, in honour of Pentecost, and its monuments are many and curious. Among them was one of those altar-tombs, on which lie at full length a knight and his sweet dame, the latter with her delicate hand held in his rough grasp, as if their union were inseparable by death itself. I was deeply touched by such a memorial of love, which we must believe to have been sincere, and to which fancy attributes all that is constant on the part of the lady, and all that is chivalrous on the part of her lord. But where is the monument of Kyrle? There is a bust and an inscription, but his monument, like Christopher Wren’s, is the Church itself; for he built its spire, and something more beside. There is a story, too, that when the bells were cast, he was present, and threw into the melting metal a silver tankard, from which he and the workmen had just drunk to the king’s health. As I was passing round, the sexton said to me, “you shall now see something that you never saw before,” and he pointed out a couple of elm trees, growing in the Church, and reaching to the roof. What is the more remarkable, they are growing in the pew where the Man of Ross was accustomed to worship, as if to testify the fidelity of God to the promise—“He shall be like a tree, planted by the water-side, his leaf also shall not wither.” One would almost believe that they must have been planted on purpose, but the truth is rather the reverse. They are in fact the fruit of Kyrle’s own planting; for he set a row of elms in the churchyard, which were cut down by a churlish vicar, but from which these shoots have sprung up in the house of God, as it were in silent remonstrance. It is hard not to see something providential in the coincidence, by which, what would be a curiosity anywhere, is thus connected with the blessed example of one of the most benevolent and virtuous of mankind. The trees screen one of the windows, and appear to thrive in the climate of the sanctuary, their leaves putting forth earlier, and falling later than those of the trees in the churchyard.
A fair was going on in the town, and the streets were filled with the peasantry. Everywhere pedlars were setting forth the merits of their wares, and among them was a fellow bawling—“Here’s the last dying speech and confession, &c.”—as he exhibited the doleful print of a gallows and its dangling victim. Such incidents are not rarely met in the narratives of a certain class of novelists, and I have certainly read, somewhere, of just such a market-day as I encountered at Ross. I walked slowly down the hill into the valley of the Wye, turning constantly to observe the fine situation of the town, till the coach overtook me. The country here is rich but simply pretty, and as yet it revealed none of the glories for which the Wye is celebrated. Goodrich Court, a modern mansion, is a fine object, however, and the remains of Goodrich Castle are an imposing feature in the scene; and all the more so for its association with the cavaliers, from whom it was finally taken by Cromwell, and reduced to ruins. As you enter Monmouthshire, a glorious view begins to open, and from about this point the scenery of the river increases in wildness and grandeur. I was, at first, at a loss to know why Wordsworth should have called the Wye sylvan, for such was far from being its character, in Herefordshire; but now the entire appropriateness of the epithet was disclosed, and yet I am well aware that I lost many of the finest features of the stream by not descending it in a boat. With Monmouth itself, I was somewhat disappointed, its Church having suffered many things of many churchwardens, and the remains of the priory, where Henry the Fifth was born, having become incorporated with the modern walls of a boarding-school. I left Monmouth with gratitude to Fluellyn for his idea of its wondrous resemblance to Macedon, which I should not have imagined, had he not helped the world to it. The glories of the scenery round St. Briavel’s and near the tiny little Church at Llandogo, should have had the further benefit of his minute and luminous descriptive powers, as I can liken it to nothing else in the world but itself, for its combination of simply rural features, with those which are highly picturesque. An American is struck with the charm imparted to such scenery, by a pretty church or a neat and secluded hamlet, quite as much as he is impressed by the scenery itself; and I was often led to think what the valley of the Mohawk might be, had it the advantage of that still retirement, and of those Arcadian groves, which impart a peculiar effect to the sterner beauties of the Wye. At Tintern Parva we were shown the ancestral habitation of Fielding, and passed a new church which was well worthy of note. But the neighbourhood of Tintern Abbey eclipsed every other thought, and I strained my sight for the earliest possible glimpse of the delightful vision. A storm which had been threatening, broke upon us, unfortunately, at the critical point, and I first beheld that magnificent ruin in circumstances which increased its desolation. In spite of the rain, however, I embraced an opportunity of entering its walls and surveying it for a few moments, amid the wild confusion of the elements. The rain dashing through its rich but broken tracery, and the wind tossing the gorgeous drapery of its mantling ivy, with the melancholy sighs it gave amid the columns, and along the aisles, deepened the solemn impression of the spot, and gave a heightened interest to the thoughts of its former sacred uses, when it resounded with the chant of priests and the swells of music from the organ. As I purposed a more leisurely visit in fairer weather, I was willing to have seen it thus amid storm and tempest. I resumed my journey to Chepstow; and as the storm soon abated, and was succeeded by sunshine, I had many fine views of the windings of the river, some of which are very bold, sweeping, amid precipitous banks, crowned with the richest foliage and verdure. Chepstow itself has many beauties, as seen from the Wye, and after slightly surveying the town and castle, I crossed the iron bridge, and drove to Tidenham, where a kind welcome awaited me at the vicarage, from one with whom I had corresponded long before I left America. I was sorry, however, to find myself a source of disappointment to the children of my kind entertainers, who had been unable to divest themselves, notwithstanding the benevolent dissuasions of their parents, of the romantic idea that the American visitor would present himself in aboriginal costume, and contribute to their amusement by exhibiting his red visage, and lending them his bow and arrows. Their father is now a Missionary Bishop, in Africa.
This vicarage is of modern erection, but in very good ecclesiastical style, and has a pretty garden, in which I saw my amiable friend the vicar taking the air, when I rose in the morning. I was glad that so pleasant an abode had fallen to the lot of so good a man. After breakfast, while he visited his poor and sick, I went on a little pony, with a servant at my side, to Cockshoot Hill, which looks down upon the Wye nearly opposite the Windcliff. Tidenham itself stands on a narrow peninsula, with the Wye on one side, and the broad Severn on the other, and just below Cockshoot Hill this peninsula forces the river Wye to make an extraordinary bend beneath its precipitous banks, on which stands the pretty hamlet of Llancaut. The view, at this point, is therefore peculiarly fine, and affords, in one spot called “Double-view,” the unusual spectacle of both rivers—the Wye, with its sylvan charms on one hand, and the expanse of the Severn, with its ships and steamers, on the other. I was best pleased with the Wye, the Windcliff, the projecting rocks called the Twelve Apostles, and the entire scene on that side, as far as the eye could stretch, above and below. The farms and fruit-trees of the peninsula were also pleasing in their way, and the more so, because it was now the season of blossoms, and every breeze was fragrant. My return was enlivened by views of the Severn, which were often much heightened in effect by the turns of the road, and the openings amid thick trees, through which I descried them; and I was gratified to be joined by a labouring man, who insisted on walking with us, and pointing out favourite prospects, apparently not so much in hopes of a fee, as to testify his regard for a guest of the vicar, of whom he spoke in unbounded terms of respect, as the blessing of the country round. I found the Church opened, and service going on: and when it was over, was informed by the vicar himself of the various merits of the sacred place as an architectural specimen. The font was an ancient Norman one, of lead, and is regarded as curious. So are the windows, which exhibit a semi-flamboyant tracery, by no means common. A gradual restoration is going on, at the expense of the vicar and his personal friends; but I was amused by the white-washed tower, which remains thus disfigured, while the rest of the Church has been reduced to its natural color. It seems that this white tower has long been a landmark of the Severn, and serves a useful purpose, in the piloting of vessels. With an interference which would strike us Americans as very arbitrary, the Government, therefore, forbade that the tower of Tidenham Church should be made to look any less like a whited sepulchre; and so it stands, as a pillar of salt, to this day.
The rest of the day was devoted to an excursion to Tintern, to which the ladies contributed their agreeable society. The party proved a very cheerful one, and we encountered scarcely any fatigue of which our fairer associates did not bear their full share. In surveying the remains of Chepstow castle, only, were we without their company. I found it a noble ruin, even after my visit to Caernarvon. It was reduced to ruin by Cromwell, after a desperate fight, but one of its towers was long afterwards—for twenty years—the prison of Henry Marten, the regicide. It must once have been a splendid hold of feudalism, and its halls and windows still retain many traces of the Saxon and Norman richness of its original beauty.
We climbed the Windcliff, and thence surveyed the combined glories of land, and sea, and of inland stream, which are its peculiar charm. Where else can be seen such a prospect: such inland river scenery, blended with the view of a broad arm of ocean, side by side, and apparently not united? It would be vain for me to attempt description, but I found it all I could ask; and on that breezy height recalled to mind those incomparable lines of Wordsworth, composed upon the spot or near it, in which he exhorts the lover of Nature to store up such scenes in memory, and thus make “the mind a mansion for all lovely forms.” There are caves below, through which one of my female friends led me like a Sybil; and then I went under her kind escort through a wild American-like wood, to rejoin our carriage. Two miles more of delightful scenery, and I stood again in Tintern Abbey, and wandered through its holy aisles, and climbed to its venerable summit. Here, over the lofty arches of the transept, I walked, as in a path through a wood, the shrubbery growing wildly on both sides, as on the brow of a natural cliff. White roses flourish there in abundance; and it is only at intervals that you can get a glimpse of the Abbey-floor beneath. Around you is a beautiful prospect of the river, and of an amphitheatre of hills; and when you stand in the aisles below, and view these same hills through the broken windows, you feel that they should never have been glazed, except with transparent glass. On the whole, when the beauty of its situation is fully taken into consideration, in addition to the original graces of its architecture,—its graceful pillars, its aerial arches, its gorgeous windows,—and when we observe the fond effect with which nature has clothed the pile in verdure, as if resuming her power with tenderness, and striving to repair the decays of art, with her own triumphant creations; when all these, and other attractions which cannot be enumerated in description, are united in the estimate, I cannot but give to Tintern Abbey the credit of being the fairest sight, of its kind, which ever filled my vision. I have since seen many similar objects, combining architectural beauties with those of nature, but were I allowed to choose one more glimpse of such a picture, among all, I think I should say to the enchanter—“let me have another look at Tintern.”