At Boldre you may find a spot worth seeing, for it is the parsonage once inhabited by the venerable William Gilpin, the descendant of Barnard Gilpin, the apostle of the north; the author of “Forest Scenery,”—and near it is the school, which he built and endowed for the poor from the sale of his drawings. Not very distant from this, stands the rural dwelling for many years, and till lately, the residence of one of England’s truest-hearted women, Caroline Bowles, now Mrs. Southey—and not far off you have the woods of Netley Abbey—the Isle of Wight, the Solent, and the open sea.
But still move on through the fair fields of Dorset and Somerset, to the enchanted land of Devon. If you want stern grandeur, follow its north-western coast; if peaceful beauty, look down into some one of its rich vales, green as an emerald, and pastured by its herds of red cattle; if all the summer loveliness of woods and rivers, you may ascend the Tamar or the Tavy, or many another stream; or you may stroll on through valleys that for glorious solitudes, or fair English homes, amid their woods and hills, shall leave you nothing to desire. If you want sternness you may pass into Dartmoor. There are wastes and wilds, crags of granite, views into far-off districts, and the sound of waters hurrying away over their rocky beds, enough to satisfy the largest hungering and thirsting after poetical delight. I shall never forget the feelings of delicious entrancement with which I approached the outskirts of Dartmoor. I found myself among the woods near Haytor Crags. It was an autumn evening. The sun, near its setting, threw its yellow beams amongst the trees, and lit up the ruddy tors on the opposite side of the valley into a beautiful glow. Below, the deep dark river went sounding on its way with a melancholy music, and as I wound up the steep road beneath the gnarled oaks, I ever and anon caught glimpses of the winding valley to the left, all beautiful with wild thickets and half shrouded faces of rock, and still on high those glowing ruddy tors standing in the blue air in their sublime silence. My road wound up, and up, the heather and the bilberry on either hand shewing me that cultivation had never disturbed the soil they grew in; and one sole woodlark from the far-ascending forest to the right, filled the wide solitude with his wild autumnal note. At that moment I reached an eminence, and at once saw the dark crags of Dartmoor high aloft before me, and one large solitary house in the valley beneath the woods. So fair, so silent, save for the woodlark’s note and the moaning river, so unearthly did the whole scene seem—that my imagination delighted to look upon it as an enchanted land,—and to persuade itself that that house stood as it would stand for ages, under the spell of silence, but beyond the reach of death and change.
But even there you need not rest—there lies a land of grey antiquity, of desolate beauty still before you—Cornwall. It is a land almost without a tree. That is, all its high and wild plains are destitute of them, and the bulk of its surface is of this character. Some sweet and sheltered vales it has, filled with noble wood, as that of Tresilian near Truro; but over a great portion of it extend grey heaths. It is a land where the wild furze seems never to have been rooted up, and where the huge masses of stone that lie about its hills and valleys are clad with the lichen of centuries. And yet how does this bare and barren land fasten on your imagination! It is a country that seems to have retained its ancient attachments longer than any other. The British tongue here lingered till lately—as the ruins of King Arthur’s palace still crown the stormy steep of Tintagel; and the saints that succeeded the heroic race, seem to have left their names on almost every town and village.
It were well worth a journey there merely to see the vast mines which perforate the earth, and pass under the very sea; and the swarming population that they employ. It were a beautiful sight to see the bands of young maidens, that sit beneath long sheds, crushing the ore and singing in chorus. But far more were it worth the trip to stand at the Land’s-End, on that lofty, savage, and shattered coast, with the Atlantic roaring all round you. The Hebrides themselves, wild and desolate, and subject to obscuring mists as they are, never made me feel more shipped into a dream-land than that scenery. At one moment the sun shining over the calm sea, in whose transparent depths the tawny rocks were seen far down. Right and left extend the dun cliffs and cavernous precipices, and at their feet the white billows playing gracefully to and fro over the nearly sunken rocks, as through the manes of huge sea-lions. At the next moment all wrapt in the thickest obscurity of mist; the sea only cognizable by its sound; the dun crags looming through the fog vast and awfully, and all round you on the land nothing visible, as you trace back your way, but huge grey stones that strew the whole earth. In the midst of such a scene I came to a little deserted hut, standing close by a solitary mere amongst the rocks, and the dreamy effect became most perfect. What a quick and beautiful contrast was it to this, as the very same night I pursued my way along the shore, the clear moon hanging on the distant horizon, the waves of the ocean on one hand coming up all luminous and breaking on the strand in billows of fire, and on the other hand the sloping turf sown with glowworms for some miles, thick as the stars overhead.
I speak of the delight which a solitary man may gather up for ever from such excursions; that will come before him again and again in all their beauty from his past existence, into many a crowd and many a solitary room; but how much more may be reaped by a congenial band of affectionate spirits in such a course. To them, a thousand different incidents or odd adventures, flashes of wit and moments of enjoyment, combine to quicken both their pleasures and friendship. The very flight from a shower, or the dining on a turnip-pie, no very uncommon dish in the rural inns of Cornwall, may furnish merriment for the future. And if this one route would be a delicious summer’s ramble, with all its coasting and its sea-ports into the bargain, how many such stretch themselves in every direction through England. The fair orchard-scenes of Hereford and Worcester, in spring all one region of bloom and fragrance,—the hills of Malvern and the Wrekin. The fairy dales of Derbyshire; the sweet forest and pastoral scenes of Staffordshire; the wild dales, the scars and tarns of Yorkshire; the equally beautiful valleys and hills of Lancashire, with all those quaint old halls that are scattered through it, memorials of past times, and all connected with some incident or other of English history. And then there is Northumberland—the classic ground of the ancient ballad—the country of the Percy—of Chevy Chace—of the Hermit of Warkworth—of Otterburn and Humbledown—of Flodden, and many another stirring scene. And besides all these are the mountain regions of Cumberland, of Wales, of Scotland, and Ireland, that by the power of steam are being brought every day more within the reach of thousands. What an inexhaustible wealth of beauty lies in those regions! These, if every other portion of the kingdom were reduced by ploughing and manufacturing and steaming to the veriest common-place, these, in the immortal strength of their nature, bid defiance to the efforts of any antagonist, or reducing spirit. These will still remain wild and fair, the refuge and haunt of the painter and the poet—of all lovers of beauty, and breathers after quiet and freshness. Nothing can pull down their lofty and scathed heads; nothing can dry up those everlasting waters, that leap down their cliffs, and run along their vales in gladness; nothing can certainly exterminate those dark heaths, and drain off those mountain lakes, where health and liberty seem to dwell together; nothing can efface the loveliness of those regions, save the hand of Him who placed them there. I rejoice to think that while this great nation remains, whatever may be the magnitude of the designs for the good of the world in which Providence purposes to employ it,—however populous it may be necessary for it to become,—whatever the machinery and manufactories that may be needfully at work in it; that while Cumberland, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland continue, there will continue regions of indestructible beauty—of free and unpruned nature, so fair that those who are not satisfied therewith, would not be satisfied with the whole universe. More sublimity other countries may boast, more beauty has fallen to the lot of none on God’s globe. And what a satisfaction it is, to see that our poetry of late years has awakened the public mind to a full sense of our natural advantages. It may be said that many traverse the continent who never see their own country, but it cannot be said that the beauty of our own fair islands is overlooked. On the contrary, every one who travels through them himself, sees how increasing are the numbers who do the same. To many a point of beauty and historic interest I have been, from the very Land’s-End to John O’Groat’s; and I do not know one spot of any claims to attention, which I did not find numerously visited from the earliest spring to late in the year. I once was at Loch Katrine early in April, and there were arrivals of several carriages a day. I was at the Land’s-End late in October, and as I reached the Logan Rock, a very interesting party of young people were just coming away from it. As I have said, I walked up to Stonehenge from Salisbury in order to enjoy it in all its solitude. This was late in the autumn; yet I found a large party there, and the shepherds assured me that every day, and all day long, it would continue so till severe weather set in. When Dr. Johnson went as far as the Hebrides, it was reckoned a rare thing. In the summer of 1836, I visited Staffa and Iona in company with seventy persons; and all summer long, three or four times a-week, do those places see scarcely less than a hundred English people land upon them.
Who indeed does not know how every pleasant place on our coasts, how the Peak of Derbyshire, how all Wales, the Highlands of Scotland and many parts of Ireland are annually thronged with people, who break away from towns and trade to refresh their spirits with the invigorating spirit of the mountains, and with the sights and sounds of ocean? Nay, such is the pressure of the tourist current, that whatever place steam-vessels reach in the mountain districts—it is one of the most ludicrous scenes imaginable to see a packet come to the pier, and its whole swarm of passengers leap ashore and proceed at full gallop to storm the inns for beds and accommodation. I have myself, as I believe I have before stated, been forced in the throng up to the very attics of one of these inns by the rush of people, who filled the whole staircase, and indeed house, calling out for beds, while the poor landlady was wringing her hands in despair of reducing the clamorous chorus into some sort of order.
Ludicrous as this recital however is, the spirit which occasions it is an excellent one. It is full of health and good moral feeling. It is one which, if it goes on, hand in hand with our machinery and our literature, must produce the happiest effects. I trust that this volume will add its quota to that love of the country which I would desire to see possessing a corner of every human being’s heart. While that is there, I am sure there must be an undecayed portion of the original heart of humanity,—a remnant, at least, of that tone of spirit which makes heaven desirable, and which is capable of enjoying it. He that loves the country as God has made it, in all its varying beauty and immortal freshness, must love God and man too; and while he seeks in mountain solitudes and on sea shores, relief from the weariness of too long jostling in the crowd, will find with delight how this very solitude will quicken his appetite for human society, and his perception of the comforts and home-pleasures of towns. I declare, that when I have been for weeks roaming amongst forests and mountain wastes, I feel, on coming into a city, a sense of its life, activity, and social condition which was before become comparatively dim. As I have entered one in the early morning, and have seen the neat young housemaids rubbing the knockers and cleaning down the steps of their masters’ doors, and have caught glimpses, as I passed along, of well oil-clothed passages, and well carpeted rooms, and fires already burning cheerfully,—I have felt a sense of the comforts and pleasantness of English homes that I have rarely felt besides. Or at evening, as we pass where blinds are yet undrawn, and where fires are seen warmly illumining fair rooms, and happy faces are congregated around them, who has not felt the same thing?
But we must now close this volume; and how can that be more fitly done than by ending as we began, and acknowledging with a rejoicing thankfulness, “that the lines have indeed fallen to us in pleasant places,” in a land which it would be difficult to pronounce more blessed in its literature, its religious spirit, or in the splendid dowry of its natural beauty.
