Famous Persons and Places

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

“Thank you,” said I; “I am a calculator too!”

The conversation ceased, and I thought from the boatman’s look, that he had more respect than love for us. The cloud of snowy sail traversed the breadth of the channel with the speed of a bird, wheeled again upon her opposite tack, and soon disappeared from view, taking with her the dove of my imagination to return with an olive-branch from home. It must be a cold American heart whose strings are not swept by that bright flag in a foreign land, like a harp with the impassioned prelude of the master.

Cowes was soon upon our lee, with her fairy fleet of yachts lying at anchor—Lord Yarborough’s frigate-looking craft asleep amid its dependent brood, with all its fine tracery of rigging drawn on a cloudless sky, the picture of what it is, and what all vessels seem to me, a thing for pleasure only. Darting about like a swallow on the wing, a small, gayly-painted sloop-yacht, as graceful and slender as the first bow of the new moon, played off the roadstead for the sole pleasure of motion, careless whither; and meantime the low-fringed shores of the Southampton side grew more and more distinct, and before we had well settled upon our cushions, the old tower of the Abbey lay sharp over the bow.

We enjoyed the first ramble through the ruins the better, that to see them was a secondary object. The first was to select a grassy spot for our table. Threading the old unroofed vaults with this errand, the pause of involuntary homage exacted by a sudden burst upon an arch or a fretted window, was natural and true; and for those who are disturbed by the formal and trite enthusiasm of companions who admire by a prompter, this stalking-horse of another pursuit was not an indifferent advantage.

The great roof over the principal nave of the Abbey has fallen in, and lies in rugged and picturesque masses within the Gothic shell—windows, arches, secret staircases, and gray walls, all breaking up the blue sky around, but leaving above, for a smooth and eternal roof, an oblong and ivy-fringed segment of the blue plane of heaven. It seems to rest on those crumbling corners as you stand within.

We selected a rising bank under the shoulder of a rock, grown over with moss and ivy, and following the suggestion of a pretty lover of the picturesque, the shawls and cloaks, with their bright colors, were thrown over the nearest fragments of the roof, and every body unbonneted and assisted in the arrangements. An old woman who sold apples outside the walls was employed to built a fire for our teakettle in a niche where, doubtless, in its holier days, had stood the effigy of a saint; and at the pedestals of a cluster of slender columns our attendants displayed upon a table a show of pasties and bright wines, that, if there be monkish spirits who walk at Netley, we have added a poignant regret to their purgatories, that their airy stomachs can be no more vino ciboque gravati.

We were doing justice to a pretty shoulder of lamb, with mint sauce, when a slender youth, who had been wandering around with a portfolio, took up an artist’s position in the farther corner of the ruins, and began to sketch the scene. I mentally felicitated him on the accident that had brought him to Netley at that particular moment, for a prettier picture than that before him an artist could scarce have thrown together. The inequalities of the floor of the Abbey provided a mossy table for every two or three of the gayly-dressed ladies, and there they reclined in small and graceful groups, their white dresses relieved on the luxuriant grass, and between them, half-buried in moss, the sparkling glasses full of bright wines, and an air of ease and grace over all, which could belong only to the two extremes of Arcadian simplicity, or its high bred imitation. We amused ourselves with the idea of appearing, some six months after, in the middle ground of a landscape, in a picturesque annual; and I am afraid that I detected, on the first suggestion of the idea, a little unconscious attitudinizing in some of the younger members of the party. It was proposed that the artist should be invited to take wine with us; but as a rosy-cheeked page donned his gold hat to carry our compliments, the busy draughtsman was joined by one or two ladies not quite so attractive-looking as himself, but evidently of his own party, and our messenger was recalled. Sequitur—they who would find adventure should travel alone.

The monastic ruins of England derive a very peculiar and touching beauty from the bright veil of ivy which almost buries them from the sun. This constant and affectionate mourner draws from the moisture of the climate a vividness and luxuriance which is found in no other land. Hence the remarkable loveliness of Netley—a quality which impresses the visiters to this spot, far more than the melancholy usually inspired by decay.

Our gayety shocked some of the sentimental people rambling about the ruins, for it is difficult for those who have not dined to sympathize with the mirth of those who have. How often we mistake for sadness the depression of an empty stomach! How differently authors and travellers would write, if they commenced the day, instead of ending it, with meats and wine! I was led to these reflections by coming suddenly upon a young lady and her companion (possibly her lover,) in climbing a ruined staircase sheathed within the wall of the Abbey. They were standing at one of the windows, quite unconscious of my neighborhood, and looking down upon the gay party of ladies below, who were still amid the débris of the feast arranging their bonnets for a walk.

“What a want of soul,” said the lady, “to be eating and drinking in such a place!”