Sunday, April 25.
We started early, and hurried over four leagues of the same open and uninteresting country, which brought us to Dorchester, the capital of the province, or county town, as it is called, because the provincial prison is here, and here the judges come twice a-year to decide all causes civil and criminal. The prison is a modern building: the height and strength of its walls, its iron-grated windows, and its strong gateway, with fetters hanging over the entrance, sufficiently characterise it as a place of punishment, and render it a good representation of a giant’s castle in romance.
When J— passed through this town on his way to Spain, he visited Gilbert Wakefield, a celebrated scholar, who was confined here as a favourer of the French Revolution. One of the bishops had written a book upon the state of public affairs, just at the time when the minister proposed to take from every man the tithe of his income: this the bishop did not think sufficient; so he suggested instead, that a tenth should be levied of all the capital in the kingdom; arguing, that as every person would be affected in the same proportion, all would remain relatively as before, and in fact no person be affected at all. This curious argument he enforced by as curious an illustration; he said, “That if the foundation of a great building were to sink equally in every part at the same time, the whole pile, instead of suffering any injury, would become the firmer.”—“True,” said Wakefield in his reply, “and you, my lord bishop, who dwell in the upper apartments, might still enjoy the prospect from your window;—but what would become of me and the good people who live upon the ground floor?”
Wakefield was particularly obnoxious to the government, because his character stood very high among the Dissenters for learning and integrity, and his opinions were proportionately of weight. They brought him to trial for having in his answer to the bishop’s pamphlet applied the fable of the Ass and his Panniers to existing circumstances. Had it indeed been circulated among the poor, its tendency would certainly have been mischievous; but in the form in which it appeared it was evidently designed as a warning to the rulers, not as an address to the mob. He was, however, condemned to two years confinement in this prison, this place being chosen as out of reach of his friends, to make imprisonment more painful. The public feeling upon this rigorous treatment of so eminent a man was strongly expressed, and a subscription was publicly raised for him which amounted to above fifteen hundred pieces-of-eight, and which enabled his family to remove to Dorchester and settle there. But the magistrates, whose business it was to oversee the prison, would neither permit them to lodge with him in his confinement, nor even to visit him daily. He was thus prevented from proceeding with the education of his children, an occupation which he had ever regarded as a duty, and which had been one of his highest enjoyments. But, in the midst of vexations and insults, he steadily continued to pursue both his literary and christian labours; affording to his fellow prisoners what assistance was in his power, endeavouring to reclaim the vicious, and preparing the condemned for death. His imprisonment eventually proved fatal. He had been warned on its expiration to accustom himself slowly to his former habits of exercise, or a fever would inevitably be the consequence; a fact known by experience. In spite of all his precautions it took place; and while his friends were rejoicing at his deliverance he was cut off. As a polemical and political writer he indulged an asperity of language which he had learnt from his favourite philologists, but in private life no man was more generally or more deservedly beloved, and he had a fearless and inflexible honesty which made him utterly regardless of all danger, and would have enabled him to exult in martyrdom. When J— had related this history to me, I could not but observe how far more humane it was to prevent the publication of obnoxious books than to permit them to be printed and then punish the persons concerned. “This,” he said, “would be too open a violation of the liberty of the press.”
By the time we had breakfasted the bells for divine service were ringing, and I took the opportunity to step into one of their churches. The office is performed in a desk immediately under the pulpit, not at the altar: there were no lights burning, nor any church vessels, nor ornaments to be seen. Monuments are fixed against the walls and pillars, and I thought there was a damp and unwholesome smell, perhaps because I involuntarily expected the frankincense. They have an abominable custom of partitioning their churches into divisions which they call pews, and which are private property; so that the wealthy sit at their ease, or kneel upon cushions, while the poor stand during the whole service in the aisle.
An attempt was made something more than a century ago to rear silkworms in this neighbourhood by a Mr Newberry; a man of many whimsies he was called, and whimsical indeed he must have been; for the different buildings for his silkworms and his laboratories were so numerous that his house looked like a village, and all his laundry and dairy work was done by men, because he would suffer no women servants about him.
The road still lay over the downs; this is a great sheep country, above 150,000 are annually sold from Dorsetshire to other parts of England; they are larger than ours, and I think less beautiful, the wool being more curled and less soft in its appearance. It was once supposed that the thyme in these pastures was so nourishing as to make the ewes produce twins, a story which may be classed with the tale of the Lusitanian foals of the wind; it is however true that the ewes are purchased by the farmers near the metropolis, for the sake of fattening their lambs for the London market, because they yean earlier than any others. The day was very fine, and the sight of this open and naked country, where nothing was to be seen but an extent of short green turf under a sky of cloudless blue, was singular and beautiful. There are upon the downs many sepulchral hillocks, here called barrows, of antiquity beyond the reach of history. We past by a village church as the people were assembling for service, men and women all in their clean Sunday clothes; the men standing in groups by the church-yard stile, or before the porch, or sitting upon the tombstones, a hale and ruddy race. The dresses seem every where the same, without the slightest provincial difference: all the men wear hats, the least graceful and least convenient covering for the head that ever was devised. I have not yet seen a cocked hat except upon the officers. They bury the dead both in town and country round the churches, and the church-yards are full of upright stones, on which the name and age of the deceased is inscribed, usually with some account of his good qualities, and not unfrequently some rude religious rhyme. I observe that the oldest churches are always the most beautiful, here as well as every where else; for as we think more of ourselves and less of religion, more of this world and less of the next, we build better houses and worse churches. There are no storks here: the jackdaw, a social and noisy bird, commonly builds in the steeples. Little reverence is shown either to the church or the cemetery; the boys play with a ball against the tower, and the priest’s horse is permitted to graze upon the graves.
At Blandford we changed chaises; a wealthy and cheerful town. The English cities have no open centre like our plazas; but, in amends for this, the streets are far wider and more airy: indeed they have never sun enough to make them desirous of shade. The prosperity of the kingdom has been fatal to the antiquities, and consequently to the picturesque beauty of the towns. Walls, gates, and castles have been demolished to make room for the growth of streets. You are delighted with the appearance of opulence in the houses, and the perfect cleanliness every where when you are within the town; but without, there is nothing which the painter would choose for his subject, nothing to call up the recollections of old times, and those feelings with which we always remember the age of the shield and the lance.
This town and Dorchester, but this in particular, has suffered much from fire; a tremendous calamity which is every day occurring in England, and against which daily and dreadful experience has not yet taught them to adopt any general means of prevention. There are large plantations about Blandford:—I do not like the English method of planting in what they call belts about their estates; nothing can be more formal or less beautiful, especially as the fir is the favourite tree, which precludes all variety of shape and colour. By some absurdity which I cannot explain, they set the young trees so thick that unless three-fourths be weeded out, the remainder cannot grow at all; and when they are weeded, those which are left, if they do not wither and perish in consequence of the exposure, rarely attain to any size or strength.
Our next stage was to the episcopal city of Salisbury; here we left the down-country, and once more entered upon cultivated fields and inclosures. The trees in these hedge-rows, if they are at all lofty, have all their boughs clipt to the very top; nothing can look more naked and deplorable. When they grow by the way-side, this is enjoined by law, because their droppings after rain injure the road, and their shade prevents it from drying. The climate has so much rain and so little sun, that over-hanging boughs have been found in like manner injurious to pasture or arable lands, and the trees, therefore, are every where thus deformed. The approach to Salisbury is very delightful;—little rivers or rivulets are seen in every direction; houses extending into the country, garden-trees within the city, and the spire of the cathedral over-topping all; the highest and the most beautiful in the whole kingdom.