As the chief trade of Exeter lies with Spain, few places have suffered so much by the late war. We departed about noon the next day; and as we ascended the first hill, looked down upon the city and its cathedral towers to great advantage. Our stage was four leagues, along a road which, a century ago, when there was little travelling, and no care taken of the public ways, was remarkable as the best in the West of England. The vale of Honiton, which we overlooked on the way, is considered as one of the richest landscapes in the kingdom: it is indeed a prodigious extent of highly cultivated country, set thickly with hedges and hedge-row trees; and had we seen it either in its full summer green, or with the richer colouring of autumn, perhaps I might not have been disappointed. Yet I should think the English landscape can never appear rich to a southern eye: the verdure is indeed beautiful and refreshing, but green fields and timber trees have neither the variety nor the luxuriance of happier climates. England seems to be the paradise of sheep and cattle; Valencia of the human race.
Honiton, the town where we changed chaises, has nothing either interesting or remarkable in its appearance, except that here, as at Truro, a little stream flows along the street, and little cisterns or basons, for dipping places, are made before every door. Lace is manufactured here in imitation of the Flanders lace, to which it is inferior because it thickens in washing; the fault is in the thread. I have reason to remember this town, as our lives were endangered here by the misconduct of the innkeeper. There was a demur about procuring horses for us; a pair were fetched from the field, as we afterwards discovered, who had either never been in harness before, or so long out of it as to have become completely unmanageable. As soon as we were shut in, and the driver shook the reins, they ran off—a danger which had been apprehended; for a number of persons had collected round the inn door to see what would be the issue. The driver, who deserved whatever harm could happen to him, for having exposed himself and us to so much danger, had no command whatever over the frightened beasts; he lost his seat presently, and was thrown upon the pole between the horses; still he kept the reins, and almost miraculously prevented himself from falling under the wheels, till the horses were stopped at a time when we momently expected that he would be run over and the chaise overturned. As I saw nothing but ill at this place, so have I heard nothing that is good of it: the borough is notoriously venal; and since it has become so the manners of the people have undergone a marked and correspondent alteration.
This adventure occasioned considerable delay. At length a chaise arrived; and the poor horses, instead of being suffered to rest, weary as they were, for they had just returned from Exeter, were immediately put-to for another journey. One of them had been rubbed raw by the harness. I was in pain the whole way, and could not but consider myself as accessory to an act of cruelty: at every stroke of the whip my conscience upbraided me, and the driver was not sparing of it. It was luckily a short stage of only two leagues and a quarter. English travelling, you see, has its evils and its dangers. The life of a post-horse is truly wretched:—there will be cruel individuals in all countries, but cruelty here is a matter of calculation: the post-masters find it more profitable to overwork their beasts and kill them by hard labour in two or three years, than to let them do half the work and live out their natural length of life. In commerce, even more than in war, both men and beasts are considered merely as machines, and sacrificed with even less compunction.
There is a great fabric of carpets at Axminster, which are woven in one entire piece. We were not detained here many minutes, and here we left the county of Devonshire, which in climate and fertility and beauty is said to exceed most parts of England: if it be indeed so, England has little to boast of. Both their famous pirates, the Drake and the Raleigh, were natives of this province; so also was Oxenham, another of these early Buccaneers, of whose family it is still reported, that before any one dies a bird with a white breast flutters about the bed of the sick person, and vanishes when he expires.
We now entered upon Dorsetshire, a dreary country. Hitherto I had been disposed to think that the English inclosures rather deformed than beautified the landscape, but I now perceived how cheerless and naked the cultivated country appears without them. The hills here are ribbed with furrows, just as it is their fashion to score the skin of roast pork. The soil is chalky and full of flints: night was setting-in, and our horses struck fire at almost every step. This is one of the most salubrious parts of the whole island: it has been ascertained by the late census, that the proportion of deaths in the down-countries to the other parts is as 65 to 80,—a certain proof that inclosures are prejudicial to health.[[3]] After having travelled three leagues we reached Bridport, a well-built and flourishing town. At one time all the cordage for the English navy was manufactured here; and the neighbourhood is so proverbially productive of hemp, that when a man is hanged, they have a vulgar saying, that he has been stabbed with a Bridport dagger. It is probable that both hemp and flax degenerate in England, as seed is annually imported from Riga.
[3]. The dryness of soil is a more probable cause.—Tr.
Here ends our third day’s journey. The roads are better, the towns nearer each other, more busy and more opulent as we advance into the country; the inns more modern though perhaps not better, and travelling more frequent. We are now in the track of the stage-coaches; one passed us this morning, shaped like a trunk with a rounded lid placed topsy-turvy. The passengers sit sideways; it carries sixteen persons withinside, and as many on the roof as can find room; yet this unmerciful weight, with the proportionate luggage of each person, is dragged by four horses, at the rate of a league and a half within the hour. The skill with which the driver guides them with long reins, and directs these huge machines round the corners of the streets, where they always go with increased velocity, and through the sharp turns of the inn gateways, is truly surprising. Accidents, nevertheless, frequently happen; and considering how little time this rapidity allows for observing the country, and how cruelly it is purchased, I prefer the slow and safe movements of the calessa.
LETTER IV.
Dorchester.—Gilbert Wakefield.—Inside of an English Church.—Attempt to rear Silkworms.—Down-country.—Blandford.—Salisbury.—Execrable Alteration of the Cathedral.—Instance of public Impiety.