Leaving the abbey, in half an hour you reach a beautiful and finely kept pleasure-ground, which is rendered peculiarly delightful by its diversity of hill and vale, noble trees, and well-placed clumps; though rather encumbered with a multitude of old-fashioned summer-houses, temples, and worthless leaden statues. In one of these temples, dedicated to the Gods of antiquity, stands a bust of—Nero! But these slight defects might easily be removed, while such a combination of natural beauty can rarely be met with. At the end of the deer-park stands the house of the proprietress, an elderly single lady of large fortune. I met her in the garden, and was invited by her to luncheon, which I gladly accepted, as my long walk had made me very hungry.
To return to the ruin.—Giving way to my critical vein, I must add one thing,—which is, that while too little care is bestowed upon Whitby, too much is bestowed upon this. Not a loose stone lies on the ground, which is mowed as smooth as a carpet. The old cloister garden is laid out in a too modern taste; and were this poetic structure mine, I would immediately set out about creating a little more artificial wildness about it; for the whole ought to partake of that air of half-decayed grandeur which has the greatest power over the imagination.
After my return to Ripon I visited the church there—another beautiful remnant of antiquity, with a choir full of the richest carvings. There is a subterranean arched room—a sort of catacomb, adorned with skulls and bones,—in which I busied myself a long while with my favourite craniological researches. Among these human ruins was a skull so strikingly like my own, that it even struck the clerk. What may the old boy have been?—perhaps myself in another garment? Nobody could give me any account of this house of bone. There was the genuine French skull of an emigrant priest, which the clerk himself had smuggled in. He looked so polite and so talkative, that I fancied he would have said, ‘Monsieur, j’ai l’honneur de vous présenter mes respects; vous êtes trop poli de venir nous rendre visite. Nous avons si rarement l’occasion de causer ici!’ It was a well bred skull—that you saw at the first glance; my portrait, on the other hand, looked very thoughtful and silent. It would be odd enough if one thus stood over one’s own old bones.
Harrowgate, Sept. 28th.
This bathing place is much after the fashion of ours, and more social than most of the English ones. People meet at ‘table d’hôte,’ at tea, and at the waters, and thus easily become acquainted. The place consists of two villages, both pretty and cheerful, and situated in a beautiful fertile country. Unfortunately, the weather is now dreadful: it rains incessantly; and the sulphureous water I drank to-day has made me so ill that I cannot leave my room.
September 29th.
These waters do not agree with me at all; nevertheless, I made my way to-day to the World’s End, a short walk here,—‘The World’s End’ being only a neighbouring village, with a pretty view into—the world’s beginning; for as it is round, you may make it begin and end where you will. At ‘table d’hôte’ I met about seventy other persons. Though the season is nearly over, there are still about a thousand visitors, most of them of the middle classes; for Harrowgate is not one of the fashionable watering places, though it seems to me far more pleasant than the most fashionable Brighton.
An old General of eighty, who was my neighbour at dinner, interested me extremely. He had met with Frederick the Great, Kaunitz, the Emperor Joseph, Mirabeau, and Napoleon, on various occasions of his life, and told me many interesting particulars about them. He had likewise been Governor of Surinam, and of the Isle of France; had commanded for a long time in India, and was now what we call General of Infantry, (next rank to a Field-Marshal.) All this would give him a high station with us:—here, no such thing; and this he remarked himself. “Here,” said he, “the aristocracy is every thing: without family influence, without connexion, without some person of rank by whom a man may be pushed, he may indeed attain a high rank in the army; but, except under some very peculiar circumstances, this gives him no consideration. I am only a baronet,” added he; “yet that empty and trifling hereditary title gives me more consideration than my long services or my high military rank; and I am not called General,—or, as I should be with you, ‘Euer Excellenz,’—but Sir Charles.”
After dinner the company re-assembled to tea, which ended with a little dance.
Leeds, Oct. 1st.