Insanity in some degree ran through the Martin family. His brother John, who died in 1854, was a prominent artist, whose unbalanced mind did not give way, but led him to paint extraordinary pictures, chiefly of Scriptural interest and apocalyptic horrors. He was in his day considered a genius, and many of his terrific imaginations were engraved and must yet be familiar: such pictures as “Belshazzar’s Feast,” “The Eve of the Deluge,” “The Last Man,” and “The Plains of Heaven”: pictures well calculated to give children nightmares.
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We must now leave York for the North. To do so, we proceed through Bootham Bar, where the taxis linger that ply between the city and the railway station.
Let us glance back upon the picturesque sky-line of City and Minster and read, maybe, the modern explanatory historical inscription placed on the ancient Bar. Thus:—
“Entry from North through Forest of Galtres. In old times armed men were stationed here to watch, and to conduct travellers through the forest and protect them against the wolves.
“The Royal Arms were taken down in 1650, when Cromwell passed through, against Scotland. Heads of three rebels exposed here, for attempting to restore Commonwealth, 1663.
“Erected on Roman foundation, probably early in 13th centy.
“Interior rebuilt with freestone, 1719.
“The portcullis remains.”
So, in those ancient times when the Forest of Galtres lay immediately before you on passing out of Bootham Bar and going North—the forest with wolves and bandits—you stepped not into a suburb, but came directly off the threshold into the wild.
To-day, outside the walls we come at once into the district of Clifton, after Knavesmire the finest suburb of York; the wide road lined with old mansions that almost reek of prebendal appointments, J.P.’s, incomes of over two thousand a year, and butlers. It is true that there are those which cannot be included in this category, but they are here on sufferance and as a foil to the majesty of their superiors, just as the Lunatic Asylum a little farther down the road gives, or should give, by contrast a finer flavour to the lives of those who have not to live in it. There is another pleasing thing at Clifton, in the altogether charming new building of the “White Horse” inn, which seems to hint that they have at last begun to recover the lost art in Yorkshire of building houses that are not vulgar or hideous. It is full time.
Would you see a charming village church, a jewel in its sort? Then, when reaching Skelton, three miles onward, explore the bye-road at the back of the village, over whose clustered few roofs its Early English bell-cote peeps. But a moment, please, before we reach it. This “bye-road” is the original highway, and the “back” of the village street its old front. There is a moral application somewhere in these altered circumstances for those who have the wit, the inclination, and the opportunity to seek it.
