A most living landscape it is indeed, including all the objects so vividly here given; amongst them, the most conspicuous, the house of his living ancestors, and the house where he has joined them in death; and extending from the woody skirts of Sherwood Forest to the mill-crowned heights of Nottingham. By the way, a strange mistake of Moore’s here presented itself. Immediately after the passage just quoted, Byron proceeds to speak further of this young pair, and says:—
Even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood,
Looking afar, if yet her lover’s steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
Moore, commenting on this, tells us that the image of the lover’s steed was suggested by the Nottingham race-ground,—a race-ground actually nine miles off, and moreover lying in a hollow and totally hidden from view; had the lady’s eyes, indeed, been so marvellously good as to discern a horse nine miles off! Mary Chaworth, in fact, was looking for her lover’s steed along the road as it winds up the common from Hucknall.
But a stranger discovery soon made us forget this Irish bull. We had no sooner reached the summit of the hill, than to our inexpressible astonishment we found the very trees so strikingly pointed out in this most interesting poem, “the trees in circular array”—cut down! These trees, and none else, cut down! There were the trees crowning the whole length of the “long ridge” standing in their greyness; and there were the stumps of “the trees in circular array” in the earth at our feet! An immediate and irresistible conviction forced itself on our minds; but we write it not; we merely state the fact, that that memorable landmark of love, made interesting to every age by the poetry of passion, had been removed. Our indignation may be imagined when we found that not only had the trees been cut down, but there was an actual attempt to cut down the hill itself, by making a gravel-pit there;—of all places in the world, to think of making a gravel-pit on the top of that steep hill, when it might be got from the bottom of any hill in the neighbourhood. We have since been told that it was the intention of its present proprietor, the husband of Mary Chaworth, to have cut down all the trees upon that hill; but that his design was prevented by the interference of his eldest son, to whom the estate descends by entail; and that he was compelled by the spirited conduct of the son, to plant the hill afresh; but he has complied with the letter, overlooking the spirit of the agreement, in the most perfect style, having planted the sides of the hill all over with fir-trees, so that it will in a short time shroud the place, and smother it completely from the view.[14]
[14] Mentioning the felling of these trees to a mechanic soon afterwards,—“Trees,” I added, “that might be seen so far.” “Seen, sir!” he exclaimed, “those trees were seen all over the world!” He meant through the medium of Byron’s poetry. It was an expression, and accompanied by an energy of feeling, that would have done honour to any man.
The indignation we felt on this occasion, perhaps, made us more sensibly alive to the character of the place. Byron, in some juvenile verses, exclaims—
Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,
Where my thoughtless childhood strayed,
How the northern tempests warring,
How! above thy tufted shade.
So strongly did the wind drive over this ridge, that we could scarcely make head against it; and remembering to have heard of a temple which formerly crowned this hill, but had been blown down either by tempest or war, we looked amongst the broken ground, and perceived considerable remains of masonry, probably the foundations of the temple: nor can a finer situation for such an erection be imagined.
The trees which crowned “the ridge,” and which, at a distance, appeared large, we soon saw, were of stunted growth, with tops curled, and sturdy, as if accustomed to wrestle with the tempests. An avenue of them stretched away into distant woods. Large decayed branches lay here and there beneath, indicating a solitude and neglect of the place pleasing to the imagination. Before us, across a descending slope—the hill of mild and green declivity—extended, right and left, noble woods; and in the midst of them, in the midst of a smaller crescent of wood, we descried the tall grey chimneys and ivy-covered walls and gables of the old Hall, and the top of the church-tower. We hastened down,—observing on our left, in an old forest-slope, a large herd of deer, which had a good effect,—and struck into a footpath that led directly up towards the house. As we drew nearer, the old building, hung with luxuriant ivy and shrouded among tall trees, far overtopping its tall chimneys; amid shrubberies of wondrous growth of evergreens, among which are conspicuous, three remarkable ilexes, with black-green foliage crowning their short thick black trunks, and with grassy openings sloping down to the warm south; struck us forcibly with its picturesque and silent beauty. We found ourselves now, apparently at the back of a high garden-wall, by the side of which ran a row of lime trees, which seemed at one time to have been pollarded and trained espalier-wise, but had now sent up heads of a luxuriant and fantastic growth. On our other hand, lay a wood, from which the thickets being cleared away, left us ample view of its ivy-mantled trees, and the ground beneath them one green expanse of dog’s-mercury and fresh leaves of the blue-bell. Tufts of primroses were scattered all about, and the wood-anemonies trembled in the wind. But over all, such a mantle of deep silence seemed cast, that it reminded us of some enchanted place in the fairy and forest-stories of Tieck.
At the top of this road, turning suddenly to the left, we found ourselves before