July 17.—Left Holland House to make a tour in the Highlands of Scotland. As I was with child and Charles had not been inoculated, the intended journey on the Continent was delayed. We arrived, on the 19th, at York, which little Marsh had reached before us. We went that evening to see the Cathedral, which is certainly both grand and spacious, but inferior to any Gothic buildings I have seen. It is scarcely as fine as Salisbury, and certainly not equal to that of Amiens. Those in Italy again are in a different taste; that at Pavia is, I believe, anterior to any we have in England. It is very ugly, and bears the rugged marks of tasteless cost and unskilful labour. York is one of the oldest cities in the island, and to a lover of Shakespeare all around it is classical ground. The remains of the walls, the city gates, and the ruins of an old nunnery near the river make it altogether a place rather worth seeing.
CASTLE HOWARD
On ye 20th we went with Marsh to see Castle Howard.[219] The road lies over bleak and dreary moors, which may have charms to a sportsman’s eye, but can afford nothing but wearisome disgust to the traveller. The château is a magnificent pile, surrounded with the appropriate ornaments of woods and gardens, etc., but the sight of a country residence inspires me with gloom. I feel escaped from some misfortune when I get out of its precincts. The most conspicuous object by way of decoration from the windows and terraces of the mansion is the Mausoleum intended for the sepulchre of the family.
To my fancy I had as lief have my rooms hung round with death’s heads and cross-bones, as behold in moments of recreation that perpetual mementi mori [sic], and I have always entered into the feelings that actuated Louis XIV. when he left St. Germains and built Versailles, because the pleasantest apartments looked towards St. Denis, the last resting-place of the Royal bones of ye Bourbons. I never could approve the necessity of inculcating an eternal view of death; we daily feel that it is inevitable from the frequent derangement of our fragile bodies, and as it neither makes us wiser or happier to be in expectation of the event and certainly embitters enjoyments, I disapprove of the system. The opposite extreme is ridiculous, and the great Empress of Russia showed her own littleness in forbidding mourning and the sight of funerals, especially as she was so prodigal of the lives of her subjects.
Almost all the principal apartments are decorated with a full-length portrait of the pompous possessor in the most stately attitudes, in robes of ye Peerage, Viceroyalty, and Knighthood, etc.; whereas his wife, who was one of the prettiest women of her time, is only once represented in a small picture, in which he, by-the-bye, is again the principal object. Not to be scandalous, I could not, however, help remarking the recherche of French luxury in the apartments dedicated to the use of Ly. S., and called hers by name. We returned and dined at York, and proceeded from thence to Knaresborough, where we saw the Dripping Well, which is a small stream issuing from the side of a calcareous hill. The water, like that at Terni, incrusts whatever is exposed to its action with a calcareous texture around it, commonly called petrifaction.
We got at night to Ripon. The next day we went to Fountains Abbey, the sight of which highly gratified me. Nothing that I have seen in England bears any comparison to the pleasure I received from seeing it. The ruins are kept in such excellent preservation that in many points of view one might give in to the illusion of its being still tenanted by its venerable owners, and such is the superstitious awe inspired by monastic gloom that I almost wished it were possible to indulge in a serious mood. Old Jenkins, who lived and died in the neighbourhood of the Abbey, and whose life closed with the century at the age of one hundred and sixty-nine years, remembered the dissolution of the Abbey and spoke with emotion of the élan it occasioned in the country. He remembered a hundred and thirty years before being sent to the Abbey to inquire how the Abbot was, and being ordered roast beef and wassel in a Black Jack.
Travellers are carried to see Studley, but to me the eight miles would have been tedious, as the beauties consist in bold views. Now to a person glowing with admiration for the Alpine views of Switzerland, Tyrol, etc., the insipid tinkling of a puny stream gurgling over a few large pebbles could afford but slender room for admiration; therefore I declined going. We intended going to Sunderland to see the iron bridge,[220] but as we overtook Ld. Lauderdale upon the road we decided upon pleasant conversation in preference to a curious sight, so we stopped at Newcastle.
ALNWICK
The next day, 22nd., we saw the once proud seat of the Percies. Alnwick, on the outside, revives the recollection of all one has heard of baronial splendour, battlements, towers, gateways, portcullis, etc., immense courts, thick walls, and everything demonstrative of savage, solitary, brutal power and magnitude. The late Duchess built the present fabric upon the site of the primitive castle, but much is from traditional guess. The inside corresponds but feebly with the outward promise; the whole is fitted up in a tinsel, gingerbread taste, rather adapted to a theatrical representation than a permanent decoration. It must be an unpleasant residence, as comfort, nay, even common convenience is sacrificed to preserve the appearance of a fortress. At some distance upon the coast is seen the crestfallen towers of Warkworth, the usual residence of the Percies, and from whence Hotspur issued to return no more in his rebellion against the ungrateful monarch. It is in that castle Shakespeare lays his scene in the 2nd part of Henry IV., where Northumberland receives the tidings of Hotspur’s untimely end. One custom, probably descended from the earliest days of the glory of their house, is preserved at Alnwick. When the Duke is willing to receive the visits of the neighbouring gentry, a flag is hung upon the highest turret as a signal that he may be approached. How far the democratic spirit that so generally pervades all ranks submits to this aristocratical summons I know not.
On that night we slept at Berwick; the Tweed is wide and handsome. Its width is more properly derived from the waters of the sea than from its own mass of tributary streams. From thence to Edinburgh the road lies along an elevated coast; the view of the sea is very pleasing. The colour was blue, unlike the green and yellow streaks that disfigure the muddy channel. I was gratified at quitting ye uniform features, both of towns, villages, and country, that fatigue the eye in England; one enclosure is like another, and when you have seen a street lined with red-brick, three-windowed houses, you have seen the extent of their architecture and the summit of their taste.