MD.CCXIX.”
A Waltonian puzzle in its quaintness, not to speak of the initials! Driving by Graystoke, in which is an old town-cross, we had a sight of its church and castle. But two odd-looking farm-houses, which we passed, presenting at a distance the appearance of forts, surprised me more, by their American names, “Mount Putnam,” and “Bunker-hill.” They were built and named soon after the battle: and the whip laughed as he slyly surmised, that the Duke of Norfolk, to whom they belong, “must have been afraid the ’Mericans were coming over.” At Penrith, I visited the extraordinary grave in the churchyard, called the Giant’s. Its history is lost in the obscure of antiquity; but one Owen is said to lie there, at full length, the head and footstones being fifteen feet apart. The stones are tall needles, of curious form, and covered with Runic carvings and unintelligible words. Not far from Penrith, are some ancient caverns, marked by traces of gigantic inhabitants, such as iron-gratings, and other relics worthy of the habitation of Giant Despair.
Next morning, we were favoured with a brilliant sky and cool breeze, and I took the top of the coach for a drive across the country, through Westmoreland, into Yorkshire. A sweet odour of hay-making filled the air as we started; and soon we had fine views of Brougham-hall, and castle, with a small adjoining park. A more interesting object to me was a small column, by the roadside, celebrated by Wordsworth, called the Countess of Pembroke’s Pillar. It was erected in the evil days of Cromwell, not to celebrate a battle, or a crime, but as a monument of love. On that spot, in her better days, the Lady Anne Clifford had parted, for the last time, with her beloved mother, the Countess Dowager of Pembroke, and she therefore caused this stone to be set as a memorial, and inscribed accordingly. But she did yet more, for hard by is a stone table, on which the anniversary of that parting is annually celebrated by a dole of bread to the poor of the parish of Brougham, to pay for which she left the annual sum of four pounds to the church forever. This is giving a stone to those who ask bread, in an orthodox way. The inscription ends with Laus Deo; and my heart responded in the manner which Wordsworth suggests. “Many a stranger,” he says, “though no clerk, has responded Amen, as he passed by.” Our drive continued a pleasant one till we came to Appleby, an interesting old town, through which runs the river Eden. In its church are monuments of the Lady Anne Clifford and her mother. At Brough, we came to an old castle, erected before the Conquest. Its church has a pulpit, hewn of a single stone; and they tell a good story of its bells. A worthy drover of the adjoining moors, once brought a fine lot of cattle to market, promising to make them bellow all together, and to be heard from Brough to Appleby. Accordingly with the money they sold for, he gave the parish a peal of bells, which constantly fulfils his vow. He deserves to be imitated by richer men. At Brough the coach left me, and I took a post-chaise over the dreary region of Stainmuir; dreary, just then, but not so in the sporting-season, when the moor is alive with hunters and fowlers. At Bowes, again, emerging from the moorlands, we came to the remains of a castle, and to the less interesting relics of a school, which had disappeared under the influence of a general conviction, that it was the original “Dotheboys Hall.” A dull place is Bowes; but striking over a rugged country, northward, I came soon into the charming valley of the Tees, and so arrived at the secluded church and parsonage of Romaldkirk, on a visit to a clergyman, who bearing my maternal name, and deriving from the same lineage, in times long past, yet claimed me as a relative, and welcomed me as a brother. I found a missionary from India, addressing a few of his parishioners, in an adjoining school-house, and there I first saw my hospitable friend, and joined with him in the solemnities of a missionary meeting, among a few of the neighbouring peasantry. With this estimable clergyman, and his family, I tarried till the third day, enjoying greatly their attentive hospitalities, and trying to catch trout in the Tees. The very sound of this rushing river recalled the story of Rokeby, and amid its overhanging foliage, I almost fancied I could see skulking the pirate-figure of Bertram Risingham.
I was not allowed to leave this happy roof unattended. The eldest son of the family, a young Cantab, took me more than twenty miles, to Richmond, through a most romantic country, allowing me to visit the ruins, near Rokeby, and to stop at many interesting spots. We journeyed through Barnard Castle, and by Egglestone Abbey, and met with several adventures in our “search of the picturesque,” but at last emerged into the surprising scenery of Richmond, which I found beautiful beyond all that its name implies, and not unworthy of sharing it with its southern namesake, on the Thames. It is the older of the two, and is remarkable for something more than beauty. It has a touch of grandeur about it, and the ruins of its old historic castle, on the banks of the Swale, full of traditions of feudal sovereignty, and still massive and venerable in appearance, give an imposing air of majesty to the town. The aspect of the valley of the Swale is almost American, in its wildness, in many parts, and I keenly relished even my railway journey through a region so inviting to delay. I made my way to Leeds, where, amid smoke, and much that is disagreeable, stands the interesting Church of St. Mary’s, lately renewed and beautified by its faithful vicar, Dr. Hook. I had barely time to visit this sacred place, and contenting myself with having sighted Kirkstall Abbey, in the vale of Aire, I continued my journey to my first English home, in Warwickshire. The glimpses of Derbyshire scenery which I enjoyed, in my rapid journey, were full of beauty: and the mishap of losing a trunk, gave me the opportunity of putting to the test the fidelity of the English railway system. As soon as I discovered that some blunder had been committed, I informed the guard, and at the first station, telegraphic messages were despatched, and in a short time my trunk followed me to the parsonage, where I passed the Sunday with my friend.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Cowper—Greenwich.
More than once have I betrayed, in the course of my narrative, a strong affection for the name and memory of Cowper. To his poetry and letters, I was introduced in early childhood, by the admiring terms in which a beloved parent often quoted and criticised them; and no subsequent familiarity with them has, in the least, impaired my relish for their peculiar charms. I regard him as the regenerator of English poetry, and as the morning-star of all that truly illustrates the nineteenth century. A gentle but powerful satirist of the evils of his own times, he was a noble agent in the hand of God, for removing them, and making way for a great restoration. Without dreaming of his mission, he was a prime mover in the great action which has thrown off the lethargy of Hanoverianism, and awakened the Church of England to world-wide enterprises of good; and though the injudicious counsels of good John Newton gave a turn to his piety, which may well be deplored in its consequences upon himself, it is ground for rejoicing that the influences of the Church upon his own good taste, were strong enough to rescue his contributions to literature from the degrading effects of religious enthusiasm. If any one will take the trouble to compare “the Task” with such a production as Pollok’s “Course of time,” he will be struck with the force of my remark, for there the same enthusiasm exhibits itself as developed by sectarianism. I was surprised to find how many places in England were fraught with recollections of this retired and sedentary poet. A distant view of St. Alban’s, the banks of the Ouse, the churchyard of St. Margaret’s, and the school-room, at Westminster, the gardens of the Temple, and the little village of St. Neot’s all recalled him to mind, in his various moods, of suffering and dejection. Even the ruins of Netley Abbey revived his memory, for there he seems to have been filled with novel emotions, as an unwonted tourist, with whom romantic scenes were far from familiar. The opposite pole of poetic association became electric in Cheapside, where so many John Gilpins still keep shop, if they do not “ride abroad.” But I frequently passed, on the railway, a village in Hertfordshire, which is invested with memories of a more elevated and affecting character. It was not only the birth-place of the poet, (as well as of Bishop Ken,) but its church-tower is that from which he heard the bell tolled on the burial-day of his mother. Its parsonage was the scene of all those maternal tendernesses, which he has so touchingly celebrated; and who that has shared the love of a Christian mother, can fail to reverence the bard, who has so inimitably enshrined, in poetry, the best and holiest instincts of the human heart, as exhibited in the mutual loves of the mother and her son? I could not leave England without first paying a pilgrimage to those scenes of his maturer life, which have become classic from their frequent mention in his poems.
As I was taking my ticket for a second-class passage to the nearest point on the railway to Olney, I happened to meet a gentleman who had just bought his, and with whom I had the pleasure of some acquaintance. Knowing him to be connected, by marriage and position, with some of the most aristocratic families in the kingdom, I very naturally said to him—“I’m going the same way with you, but shall lose the pleasure of your company, for I’ve only a second-class ticket.” I was amused with his answer:—“Yes, for I’ve only a third-class ticket.” He briefly explained that he was forced to economize, and that, although he did not like it, the inconvenience of a seat among a low-class of people, for a short time, was not so intolerable as a collapsed purse, “especially” he added, “as I am thus enabled to travel in the first-class carriages when I travel with my wife.” Such is the independence as to action, and the freedom as to confession of economy, which characterize a well-bred man, whose position in society is settled; and I could not but think how snobbish, in the contrast, is the conduct of many of my own countrymen, who, if they ever use prudence, in their expenses, are afraid to have it known. An aristocracy of money is not only contemptible in itself, but it curses a land with a universal shame of seeming prudent. It makes the dollared upstart fancy himself a gentleman, while the true gentleman is degraded in his own eyes, as well as in the estimation of the vulgar, by the fact, that his house is small, his furniture plain, and his table frugal. Hence so much upholstery in America; so much hotel-life; and such a contempt for quiet respectability.
This anecdote is not out of place in a chapter devoted to Cowper. The poet was a man of gentle blood, and, in every sense of the word, a gentleman. Many an English nobleman is vastly inferior to him in point of extraction. He was descended from the blood-royal of Henry Third, and in divers ways was allied to the old aristocracy of England. He used to be visited at Olney, by persons of quality, in their chariots; and titled ladies were glad to accept his hospitalities. But his home at Olney, where he lived for years, was one of the humblest in the place, and even his darling residence, at Weston, was such a dwelling as most country-parsons would consider barely comfortable. Now, I do not mean to say that John Bull prefers such an establishment for a gentlemen’s habitation; but I do mean that nobody in England would be so insane as to think less of a gentleman, for living thus humbly, especially if he lived so from principle.
As I came to Newport-Pagnel, a respectable elderly person drove by, in an open carriage, whom the whip pointed out to me as Mr. Bull; the son of Cowper’s old friend, whom he delighted to call his dear Taurus. Having a few minutes to spare in the place, and a proper introduction, I called at his house, and was glad to be shown a portrait of the venerable personage himself—the “smoke-inhaling Bull” of the Letters. A lady of the family politely gave me all needed directions, but assured me I should be greatly disappointed in Olney, where “there was nothing to see but old houses, and a general aspect of decay.” I said—‘Yes, but the house is there—and the summer-house—and the spire—and the bridge?’ I was answered that these were yet remaining, though somewhat the worse for wear and weather; and so, having succeeded in hiring a horse, off I went, alone. As I approached the neighbourhood of Olney, the first truly Cowperish sight that struck me—and I had never seen such a sight before in my life—was a living illustration of his lines:—