I hope you follow me on the map, which will make my letters more intelligible to you, though you cannot enjoy with me the beautiful views, of which I shall bring you back faithful copies in the port-folio of my memory.
I revisited the magnificent castle this morning. A blooming girl was my guide, and formed a graceful contrast to the blackened towers, the dreadful prison of the regicide Marten, and the dark dungeons, to which we descended by a long staircase. I next visited a church with a remarkably beautiful Saxon porch, and a highly ornamented font in the same style. Here the unfortunate Marten lies buried. He was one of Charles the First’s judges, and was imprisoned in Chepstow Castle for forty years, without ever, as it is asserted, losing his spirits. After the first few years his confinement seems to have been less vigorous, and to have gone on gradually becoming less severe. At least the girl showed me three rooms, of which the lowest was a most horrible hole,—while she ciceronised in the following words: “Here Marten was put at first, while he was wicked; but when he became serious, he was moved a story higher; and at last, when he was religious, he had the room with the beautiful view.”
At two o’clock I set out for Bristol on a crowded stage-coach; notwithstanding the violent rain, I with difficulty obtained a place on the box. We crossed a handsome bridge, affording the best point of view of the castle, which stands on a perpendicular rock overhanging the Wye, a position which gives it its peculiarly picturesque character. We kept Piercefield Park, and its wall of rocks on one side the river, long in view. I remarked to the proprietor of the stage, who drove, that the possessor of this beautiful estate must be a happy man. “By no means,” replied he; “the poor devil is over head and ears in debt, has a numerous family, and wishes with all his heart to find a good purchaser for Piercefield. Three months ago every thing was settled with a rich Liverpool merchant, who was going to buy it for his youngest son; but before the bargain was completed, this son married an actress, the father disinherited him, and the thing went off.” Here was matter for moralizing.
Meantime the weather grew worse; and at length ended in a complete storm. We had it in our backs indeed, but the passage across the Channel was extremely unpleasant: the four horses, all the luggage, and the passengers, were huddled ‘pèle mêle’ into a little boat, which was so crowded one could hardly move. The post next to the horses was really one of danger, for they sometimes shyed at the sails, especially when they were shifted.
On one of these occasions a gentleman fell, together with the box on which he was sitting, directly under them. The good-natured animals, however, only trod on him a little, they did not attempt to kick him. The boat, driven violently by the wind, lay quite on her side; and the waves incessantly dashed over us, and wetted us from head to foot. When we reached the end of our voyage, the landing was equally wearisome and dirty; and I lost, to my great annoyance, a part of Lord Byron’s works. I was told that accidents often happen at this ferry, from the frequent storms and the numerous rocks.
About six months ago the boat went down with the mail, and several persons lost their lives. We could not reach the usual landing-place, where there is a house, and were obliged to disembark on the shore, whence we walked to the inn along a strand of red and white veined marble. Here we got into another stage, filled with twenty persons, and drove (but not so quickly as the mail,) to Bristol.—I could see nothing of this admired city but the bright lamps and gay well-stored shops.
Bath, December 21st. Evening.
When I question my memory what it is that makes the Wye so much more beautiful than most rivers, I find that it is the marked and bold character of its shores, which never fall away into tame monotonous lines, nor exhibit an unmeaning variety: that it is almost always skirted by wood, rocks, or meadows enlivened by houses; seldom by fields, or cultivated land, which though useful are rarely picturesque. Its numerous and bold windings cause an incessant change in the grouping of the shores, so that the same objects present themselves under a hundred different and beautiful aspects. This, by the way, is doubtless the ground of the preference landscape gardeners have given to winding roads over straight, and not that imaginary line of beauty about which so much has been said.
As the objects which present themselves along the Wye are almost always few, and in large masses, they invariably form beautiful pictures,—for pictures require to be bounded or framed. Nature creates according to a standard which we cannot judge of in its total effect; the highest harmony of which must therefore be lost to us:—Art strives to form a part of this into an ideal whole, which the eye and mind of man can take in. This is in my opinion the idea which lies at the bottom of landscape gardening. But Nature herself here and there furnishes a perfect pattern or model for such creations of art,—a landscape microcosm; and seldom can more such models be found within the same distance than in the course of this voyage, where every bend of the river presents a fresh feast of art, if I may so speak.
Pope somewhere says,