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Title: Letters from England by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, Volume 2 (of 3) - Translated from the Spanish
Author: Southey, Robert
Language: English
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Transcriber's note:
This work is by Robert Southey. It is a fictitious account of an
imaginary Spanish nobleman travelling through England.
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Hyphenation has been
rationalised. Inconsistent spelling (including accents and capitals) has
been retained.
Small capitals have been replaced by full capitals. Italics are
indicated by _underscores_.
LETTERS
FROM
ENGLAND:
BY
DON MANUEL ALVAREZ ESPRIELLA.
_TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH._
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND
BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1814.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.
CONTENTS
OF THE
SECOND VOLUME.
LETTER XXXII.
Page
High-street, Oxford.—Dress of the Oxonians.—Christ Church Walk.—Friar
Bacon's Study.—Lincoln College.—Baliol.—Trinity.—New College.—Saint
John's.—Mode of Living at the Colleges.—Servitors.—Summer Lightning.
1
LETTER XXXIII.
Reform in the Examinations at Oxford.—Nothing but Divinity studied
there.—Tendency towards the Catholic Faith long continued there.—New
Edifices.—The Bodleian.—The Schools.
18
LETTER XXXIV.
Godstow.—Fair Rosamund.—Blenheim.— Water-Works at Enstone.—Four-shire
Stone.—Road to Worcester.—Vale of Evesham.—Hop-yards.—Malvern Hills.
27
LETTER XXXV.
Man killed at Worcester by a Sword-fish.—Teignton Squash.—Grafting.—Ned
of the Toddin.—Worcester China.—Cathedral.—St Wulstan.—K. John's
Grave.—Journey to Birmingham.
38
LETTER XXXVI.
Birmingham.—Miserable State of the Artificers.—Bad Guns manufactured
for the Guinea Trade.—Anecdotes of Systematic Roguery.—Coiners.—
Forgers.—Riots in 1791.—More Excuse for Dishonesty here than in any
other Place.
56
LETTER XXXVII.
Mail Coaches.—Mr Palmer ill-used.—Vicinity of Birmingham.—Collieries
on fire.—Stafford.—Stone.—Newcastle-under-Line.—Punishments for
Scolding.—Cheshire.—Bridgewater Arms at Manchester.
67
LETTER XXXVIII.
Manchester.—Cotton Manufactory.—Remarks upon the pernicious Effects of
the manufacturing System.
81
LETTER XXXIX.
Manchester.—Journey to Chester.—Packet-boat.—Brindley.—Rail
Roads.—Chester Cathedral.—New Jail.—Assassination in the South of
Europe not like Murder in England.—Number of Criminals,—but Abatement
of Atrocity in Crimes.—Mitigation of Penal Law.—Robert Dew.—Excellent
Administration of Justice.—Amendments still desired.
96
LETTER XL.
Voyage to Liverpool.—Filthy Custom at the Inns.—School of the
Blind.—Athenæum.—Mr Roscoe.—Journey to Kendal.
113
LETTER XLI.
Queen Mary I.—Lake of Winandermere.—Ambleside—Lake of Coniston.—
Kirkstone Mountain.—Lake of Brotherwater.—Paterdale.—Lake of
Ulswater.—Penrith.
127
LETTER XLII.
Keswick, and its Lake.—Lodore Waterfall.—Ascent of Skiddaw.
146
LETTER XLIII.
Borrodale.—Wasdale.—Waswater.—Calder Bridge.—Ennerdale.—Crummock
Water.—Lake of Buttermere.—Lakes on the Mountains.
160
LETTER XLIV.
Departure from the Lakes.—Wigton.—Carlisle.—Penrith.—The Borderers.—The
Pillar of the Countess.—Appleby.—Brough.—Stainmoor.—Bowes.—Yorkshire
Schools.
183
LETTER XLV.
York City and Minster.—Journey to Lincoln.—Travellers imposed
upon.—Innkeepers.—Ferry over the Trent.—Lincoln.—Great Tom.—
Newark.—Alconbury Hill.
206
LETTER XLVI.
Cambridge.—Republican Tendency of Schools counteracted at
College.—College a useful Place for the debauched Students, a
melancholy one for others.—Fellowships.—Advantage of a University
Education.—Not so necessary as it once was.
223
LETTER XLVII.
Newmarket.—Cruelty of Horse-racing.—Process of Wasting.—Character of a
Man of the Turf.—Royston.—Buntingford.—Cheshunt.—Return to London.
241
LETTER XLVIII.
Middlesex Election.—Nottingham Election.—Seats in Parliament, how
obtained.—Modes of Bribery.—Aylesbury.—Ilchester.—Contested
Elections.—Marriages at Bristol.—Want of Talent in the English
Government accounted for.
250
LETTER XLIX.
Fashion.—Total Change in the English Costume.—Leathern Breeches.—
Shoes.—Boots.—Inventors of new Fashions.—Colours.—Female Fashions.—
Tight Lacing.—Hair-dressing.—Hoops.—Bustlers.—Rumps.—Merry-thoughts
and Pads.
268
LETTER L.
Lady Wortley Montagu's Remark upon Credulity.—Superstitions of the
English respecting the Cure of Diseases.—Sickness and Healing connected
with Superstition.—Wesley's Primitive Physic.—Quacks.—Dr Graham.—
Tractors.—Magnetic Girdles.—Quoz.—Quack Medicines.
278
LETTER LI.
Account of Animal Magnetism. 304
LETTER LII.
Blasphemous Conclusion of Mainauduc's Lectures.—The Effects which he
produced explained—Disappearance of the Imposture.
331
LETTER LIII.
Methodists.—Wesley and Whitfield.—Different Methods of attacking the
Establishment.—Tithes.—Methodism approaches Popery, and paves the Way
for it.—William Huntington, S. S.
340
ESPRIELLA'S
LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.
LETTER XXXII.
_High-street, Oxford.—Dress of the Oxonians.—Christ Church Walk.—Friar
Bacon's Study.—Lincoln College.—Baliol.—Trinity.—New College.—Saint
John's.—Mode of Living at the Colleges.—Servitors.—Summer Lightning._
D. has a relation at one of the colleges, to whom he dispatched a note
immediately upon our arrival. By the time tea was ready he was with us.
It must be admitted, that though the English are in general inhospitable
towards foreigners, no people can be more courteous to those who are
properly introduced. The young student told us that he should show us
the University with as much pleasure as we could see it; for he had
abstained from visiting many things himself, till he should have a lion
to take with him. Upon enquiring the meaning of this strange term, I
found that I was a lion myself; it is the name for a stranger in Oxford.
The High-street, in which our inn is situated, is said to be the finest
street in Europe. The Calle de Alcala is longer, broader, straighter,
and, were the trees in the Prado of tolerable size, would have a finer
termination. In point of fine buildings, I should suppose no street can
be compared with this; but the whole cannot be seen at once, because it
is not sufficiently straight.
The dress of the collegians is picturesque; that which the great body of
students wear is not unlike that of a secular priest. The cap is square,
worn diagonally, covered with black cloth, and has a silk tassel in the
middle: noblemen have the tassel of gold. It is graceful, but
inconvenient, being of no use against sun, wind, or rain. Every degree
has its distinguishing habit; they are not numerous, and all are of the
same colour. I was the more sensible of the beauty of this collegiate
costume, as cloaks are not worn in this country: there are no monastics,
and the clergy are not to be distinguished from the laity; so that there
is a total want of drapery in the dress of Englishmen every where,
except in the universities.
We went after tea to a walk belonging to the college of Christ Church, a
foundation of the famous Wolsey, who thus made some compensation to
literature, and, as he thought, to the church, for the injury which he
had done them. The foundation has been greatly increased;—it has a
modern square, finely built, with a modern gateway leading to it; but
modern buildings are not in keeping with the monastic character of the
place. Our monasteries, indeed, are rarely or never so beautiful as
these colleges: these are lighter, without being the less venerable in
appearance, and have that propriety about them which characterizes every
thing English. The greater part of Christ Church college is antient;
nothing can be finer than the great gateway, the great square, and the
open ascent to the refectory, though the great square is debased by a
little miserable fountain of green and stinking water in the centre, so
pitiful, that the famous _Mannekè_ of Brussels might well be placed in
the midst of it, as the appropriate god of the puddle.
The walk belonging to this college is truly beautiful: a long avenue of
fine old elms, whose boughs form a perfect arch in the vista, well
exemplifying the hypothesis, that Gothic church architecture was
designed to imitate the places where the Pagan Goths worshipped in the
forest. At the termination of the walk a narrower way trends off, and
winds round a large meadow by the side of the Isis, a river as much
celebrated by the English poets, as the Mondego by the Portuguese.
Nothing could be conceived more cheerful than the scene: a number of
pleasure-boats were gliding in all directions upon this clear and rapid
stream; some with spread sails; in others the caps and tassels of the
students formed a curious contrast with their employment at the oar.
Many of the smaller boats had only a single person in each; and in some
of these he sat face forward, leaning back as in a chair, and plying
with both hands a double-bladed oar in alternate strokes, so that his
motion was like the path of a serpent. One of these canoes is, I was
assured, so exceedingly light, that a man can carry it; but few persons
are skilful or venturous enough to use it. Just where the river
approaches nearest to the city, an old indented bridge stretches across,
and a little fall cuts off all communication by boats with the upper
part. Several smaller bridges over branches of the river were in sight,
on some of which houses are built. On one of these formerly stood the
study of Roger Bacon, the celebrated Franciscan. It was said, that
whenever a wiser than he should pass under it, it would fall upon his
head. I know not whether he who ordered its demolition was under any
personal apprehensions, but it has been pulled down, not many years ago.
It might have stood another millennium before the prediction would have
been accomplished.
Our land view was not less interesting, nor less cheerful, than that
towards the water. The winding walk was planted, with trees well
disposed in groups, and all flourishing in a genial soil and climate:
some poplars among them are of remarkable growth. Here the students were
seen in great numbers; some with flowing gowns, others having rolled
them up behind, others again with the folds gathered up and flung
loosely over the arm. Spires, and towers, and pinnacles, and the great
dome of the Radcliffe library, appeared over the high elms. The banks of
Ilyssus, and the groves of Academus, could never have presented a sight
more beautiful.
We walked till nine o'clock was announced by Great Tom, as the bell of
Christ Church college is called: probably the last bell in the kingdom
which has been baptized. It is of great size, and its tone full and
sonorous. This is the supper hour in the colleges, after which the gates
are shut. The names of those students who return late are taken down,
and reported to the master; and if the irregularity be often repeated,
the offender receives a reprimand. Order seems to be maintained here
without severity; I heard no complaint of discipline from the young men,
and the tutors on their part have as little reason to be displeased.
The next morning when I awoke, so many bells were chiming for church
service, that for a while I wondered where I was, and could not
immediately believe myself to be in England. We breakfasted with our
fellow-traveller at Lincoln. This is a small and gloomy college; but our
friend's apartments far exceeded in convenience and propriety, any which
I have ever seen in a convent. The tea-kettle was kept boiling on a
chafing-dish; the butter of this place is remarkably good; and we had
each a little loaf set before us, called by the singular name of George
Brown.[1] One man, whom they call a scout, waits upon the residents;
another is the bed-maker. Service is performed in the chapels twice
every day, at seven in the morning, and at five in the afternoon. The
fellows lose their fellowships if they marry. It is surprising that so
much of the original institution should still be preserved. A figure of
the devil formerly stood upon this college; why placed there I have not
learnt; but it is still a proverbial phrase to say of one who shows
displeasure in his countenance, that he looks like the devil over
Lincoln. Another college here has the whimsical ornament of a brazen
nose on its gateway, from which it derives its name.
At ten o'clock the students go to their tutor, and continue with him an
hour. At eleven therefore we called upon D.'s relation at Baliol
college, which, though not large, nor of the handsomest order, is very
neat, and has of late received many improvements, in perfectly good
taste. The refectory is newly built, in the Gothic style; nothing can be
less ornamented, yet nothing seems to need ornament less. There are four
long tables, with benches for the students and bachelors. The fellow's
table is on the dais at the upper end; their chairs are, beyond
comparison, the easiest in which I ever sate down, though made entirely
of wood: the seats are slightly concave from side to side; I know not
how else to describe their peculiarity of construction, yet some thought
and some experience must have been requisite to have attained to their
perfection of easiness, and there may be a secret in the form which I
did not discover. The chapel has some splendid windows of painted glass:
in one, which represents the baptism of Queen Candace's eunuch, the
pearl in the Ethiop's ear was pointed out to me as peculiarly well
executed.
Our friend told us that Cranmer and Latimer were burnt before the
gateway of this college, in bloody Queen Mary's days, by which name they
always designate the sister of the bloody Elizabeth. I could not refrain
from observing that these persecutors only drank of the same cup which
they had administered to others, and reminded him of the blessed John
Forrest, at whose martyrdom these very men had assisted as promoters,
when he and the image of Christ were consumed in the same fire! It is
truly astonishing to see how ignorant the English are of their own
ecclesiastical history.
From hence we went to the adjoining college, which is dedicated to the
Holy Trinity. The garden here is remarkable for a wall of yew, which
encloses it on three sides, cut into regular pilasters and compartments.
D. cried out against it, but I should lament if a thing, which is so
perfect in its kind, and which has been raised with so many years of
care—indeed, so many generations—were to be destroyed, because it does
not suit with the modern improved taste in gardening. You would hardly
conceive that a vegetable wall could be so close and impervious, still
less, that any thing so unnatural could be so beautiful as this really
is. We visited the gardens of two other colleges. In those of New
College, the college arms were formerly cut in box, and the alphabet
grew round them; in another compartment was a sun-dial in box, set round
with true lovers' knots. These have been destroyed, more easily as well
as more rapidly than they were formed; but as nothing beautiful has been
substituted in their places, it had been better if they had suffered
these old oddities to have remained. One proof of their predecessors'
whimsical taste has however been permitted to stand; a row of trees,
every one of which has its lower branches grafted into its next
neighbour, so that the whole are in this way united. The chapel here is
the most beautiful thing in the university: it was repaired about ten
years ago: and when the workmen were preparing the wall to set up a new
altar-piece, they discovered the old one, which had been plastered up in
the days of fanaticism, and which, to the honour of the modern
architect, is said to have differed little in design from that which he
was about to have erected in its place. The whole is exquisitely
beautiful; yet I have heard Englishmen say that new Gothic, and even old
Gothic dust renovated, never produces the same effect as the same
building would do, with the mellowed colouring, the dust, and the
crumbliness of age. The colouring, they say, is too uniform, wanting the
stains which time would give it: the stone too sharp, too fresh from the
chisel. This is the mere prejudice of old habits. They object with
better reason to a Gothic organ, so shaped that a new painted window can
be seen through it, as in a frame: a device fitter for stage effect than
for a chapel. The window itself, which is exceedingly beautiful, was
designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great English master.
The other garden to which we were led, was that of St John's; it is laid
out in the modern taste, with a grass lawn, winding walks, and beds of
flowers and flowering shrubs. High elms, apparently coeval with the
building itself, grow in its front, the back looks into the garden; and
this view is that which I should select, of all others, as giving the
best idea of the beauty and character of the English colleges.
We dined with our friend at Baliol, in the refectory. Instead of
assembling there at the grace, we went into the kitchen, where each
person orders his own mess from what the cook has provided, every thing
having its specific price. The expenses of the week are limited to a
certain sum, and if this be exceeded the transgressor is reprimanded. I
was well pleased at this opportunity of becoming acquainted with the
œconomy of the colleges. The scene itself was curious: the kitchen was
as large as that of a large convent; the grate of a prodigious size,
because roast meat is the chief food of the English; it was so much
shallower than any which I had seen in private families, as to consume
comparatively but little coal; and the bars, contrary to the usual
practice, placed perpendicularly. The cook's knife was nearly as long as
a small sword, and it bent like a foil. The students order their messes
according to seniority: but this custom was waived in our friend's
favour, in courtesy to us as strangers. Every thing was served with that
propriety which is peculiar to the English; we ate off pewter, a relic
of old customs, and drank from silver cups.
I observed that the person who waited on us wore a gown, and had the
appearance of a gentleman. On enquiry, I learnt that he was one of a
class called servitors, who receive their education gratuitously, and
enjoy certain pensions on condition of tolling the bell, waiting at
table, and performing other menial offices. They are the sons of parents
in low life, and are thus educated for the inferior clergy. When we
talked upon this subject, D. said that he felt unpleasantly at calling
to a man as well educated as himself, and of manners equally good, to
bring him a piece of bread or a cup of beer. To this it was replied,
that these persons, being humbly born, feel no humiliation in their
office; that in fact it is none, but rather an advancement in life; that
this was the tenure on which they held situations which were certainly
desirable, and enjoyed advantages which would not else have been within
their reach; and that many eminent men in the English church, among
others the present primate himself, had risen from this humble station.
After dinner we adjourned to our friend's rooms. A small party had been
invited to meet us: wine was set on the table in readiness, and fruit
handed round. This, it seems, is the regular way of passing the
afternoon. The chapel bell rung at five for evening service; some of our
party left us at this summons; others remained, being permitted to
absent themselves occasionally; a relaxation easily granted where
attendance is looked upon as a mere matter of form, not as an act of
religion.
Tea was served as in a private family, the English never dispensing with
this meal. We then walked out, and ascending a hill close to the city,
enjoyed a magnificent prospect of its towers and trees and winding
waters. About ten there began one of the most glorious illuminations
which it is possible to conceive,—far more so than the art of man can
imitate. The day had been unusually hot, and the summer lightning was
more rapid and more vivid than I had ever before seen it. We remained
till midnight in the great street, watching it as it played over the
bridge and the tower of St Magdalen's church. The tower, the bridge, the
trees, and the long street were made as distinct as at noon-day, only
without the colours of day, and with darker shadows,—the shadows,
indeed, being utterly black. The lightning came not in flashes, but in
sheets of flame, quivering and hanging in the sky with visible duration.
At times it seemed as if the heavens had opened to the right and left,
and permitted a momentary sight of the throne of fire.
[1] _George Bruno_, probably some kind of roll so called from its first
maker, like the Sally Lun of Bath.—TR.
LETTER XXXIII.
_Reform in the Examinations at Oxford.—Nothing but Divinity studied
there.—Tendency towards the Catholic Faith long continued there.—New
Edifices.—The Bodleian.—The Schools._
School and college are not united in the English universities. Students
are not admitted till their school education is completed, which is
usually between the age of seventeen and nineteen. Four years are then
to be passed at college before the student can graduate; and till he has
graduated he cannot receive holy orders, nor till he has attained the
age of twenty-two years and a half. Formerly they went younger: the
statutes forbid them to play at certain games in the streets, which are
exclusively the amusement of children; but when the statutes were made,
there were few other schools. The examinations preparatory to graduation
were, till within these three or four years, so trifling as to be the
opprobrium of Oxford. Some score of syllogisms were handed down from one
generation to another; the candidate chose which of these he pleased to
be examined in, and any two books in the learned languages. Any master
of arts who happened to come into the schools might examine him. It was
usually contrived to have a friend ready, lest too much might be
expected, and not unfrequently nothing was done,—the champion had
appeared in the lists, and that was enough. A great change has just
taken place, and the examination is now so serious and severe, that the
present generation speak with envy of the happy days of their
predecessors.
At one of the colleges a needle and thread is given to every member on
New Year's Day, with this admonition: "Take this, and be thrifty!" But
though thrift may be enjoined by the statutes, it is not by the customs,
of Oxford. The expence of living here is prodigious; few have so small a
pension as 150_l._ sterling; and the students of the privileged classes
expend four and five fold this sum. It might be thought that in
learning, as in religion, there should be no distinction of persons.
Distinctions however there are, in the universities, as well as in the
churches; and the noble and wealthy students are admitted to academical
honours, without passing through the term of years which is required
from others.
Lectures are delivered here upon every branch of science: the students
may attend them or not, at their own pleasure, except those of the
divinity professor; a certificate of their attendance upon these is
required before the bishops will ordain any candidate for orders.
Degrees are granted in law, medicine, and music; but law must be studied
in London, medicine in Edinburgh, and music wherever the musician
pleases. It is only for those persons who are designed for the clergy,
that a college education is indispensable; others are sent there because
it is the custom, and because it is convenient that they should be under
some little restraint, and have at least the appearance of having
something to do, when they have ceased to be boys, and are not yet men.
But, strictly speaking, Oxford is a school for divinity, and for nothing
else.
I cannot look upon this beautiful city—for beautiful it is beyond my
powers of language to describe—without a deep feeling of sorrow. The
ways of Providence are indeed mysterious! Little did the pious founders
of these noble institutions think to what a purpose they were one day to
be made subservient: little did they think that they were establishing
seminaries wherein their posterity were to be trained up in heresy and
schism, and disciplined to attack that faith, for the support of which
these stately buildings had been so munificently endowed. That this
perversion might be complete, Catholics are excluded from these very
universities which owe their establishment to Catholic piety. Every
person who enters is obliged to subscribe the heterogeneous articles of
the Church of England; a law which excludes all Dissenters, and thus
shuts out no inconsiderable part of the English youth from the
advantages of a regular education. Yet, to do Oxford justice, it must be
admitted that the apostacy began in the state, and was forced upon her;
that she clung to the faith till the very last, restored it with avidity
under the short sunshine of Philip and Mary's reign, and, whenever there
has appeared any disposition towards Catholicism in the government, has
always inclined towards it as the saving side. More remains of the true
faith are to be found here than exist elsewhere in England, as the
frequency of church service, the celibacy to which the fellows are
restricted, and the prayers which are said in every college for the
souls of the founders and benefactors. It is surprising that so much
should have been permitted to remain; indeed, that the colleges
themselves should have been spared by the barbarous and barbarising
spirit of the founders of the English schism, Lutherans, Calvinists,
Bucerists or Zwinglians, call them which you will; from whichever head
you name it, it is but one beast—with more heads than the hydra, and
upon every forehead is written Blasphemy.[2]
A few buildings have been added to the city in later times,—not like the
former ones. Protestantism builds no cathedrals, and endows no colleges.
These later monuments of liberality have had science in view, instead of
religion: the love of fame upon earth has been the founders' motive, not
the hope of reward in heaven. The theatre, a library, a printing-office,
and an observatory, have all been built since the great rebellion; the
last is newly erected with the money which was designed to supply the
library with books. The Bodleian was thought sufficient; and as there
are college libraries beside, there seems to have been good reason for
diverting the fund to a more necessary purpose. The Radcliffe library,
therefore, as it is called, though highly ornamental to the city, is of
little or no immediate use, the shelves being very thinly furnished. The
Bodleian well deserves its celebrity. It is rich in manuscripts,
especially in Oriental ones, for which it is chiefly indebted to
archbishop Laud, a man who was so nearly a Catholic that he lost his
head in this world, yet still so much a heretic, that it is to be feared
he has not saved his soul in the next. Yet is this fine collection of
more celebrity than real advantage to the university. Students are not
allowed access to it till after they have graduated, and the graduates
avail themselves so little of their privilege, that it may be doubted
whether the books are opened often enough to save them from the worms.
In their museums and libraries the English are not liberal; access to
them is difficult, and the books, though not chained to the shelf, are
confined to the room. Our collections of every kind are at the service
of the public; the doors are open, and every person, rich or poor, may
enter in. If the restrictions in England are necessary, it must be
because honesty is not the characteristic of the nation.
The schools wherein the public examinations are held, are also of later
date than the schism. James I. built them in a style as mixed and
monstrous as that of his own church: all the orders are here mingled
together, with certain improvements after the manner of the age, which
are of no order at all. At the university printing-office, which is
called the Clarendon press, they are busied upon a superb edition of
Strabo, of which great expectations have long been formed by the
learned. The museum contains but a poor collection. Oliver Cromwell's
skull was shown me here, with less respect than I felt at beholding it.
Another of their curiosities is the lanthorn which Guy Vaux held in his
hand when he was apprehended, and the gunpowder plot detected. The
English still believe that this plot was wholly the work of the
Catholics!
[2] In reply to such instances of the author's bigotry, which occur but
too often, the words of an old English divine may not unaptly be quoted.
"Sufficeth it us to know, that as the _herneshaw_, when unable by main
strength to grapple with the _hawk_, doth _slice_ upon her, bespattering
the hawk's wings with dung or ordure, so to conquer with her tail what
she cannot do with her bill and beak: so Papists, finding themselves
unable to encounter the Protestants by force of argument out of the
Scriptures, cast the dung of foul language and filthy railing upon
them."—TR.
LETTER XXXIV.
_Godstow.—Fair Rosamund.—Blenheim.—Water-works at Enstone.—Four-shire
Stone.—Road to Worcester.—Vale of Evesham.—Hop-yards.—Malvern Hills._
Monday, July 5.
The coach by which we were to proceed passes through Oxford between four
and five o'clock in the morning; we left our baggage to be forwarded by
it, and went on one stage the preceding day, by which means we secured a
good night's rest, and saw every thing which could be taken in upon the
way. Two of our Oxford acquaintances bore us company: we started soon
after six, and went by water, rowing up the main stream of the Isis,
between level shores; in some places they were overhung with willows or
alder-bushes, in others the pasture extended to the brink; rising ground
was in view on both sides. Large herds of cattle were grazing in these
rich meadows, and plovers in great numbers wheeling over head. The
scenery was not remarkably beautiful, but it is always delightful to be
upon a clear stream of fresh water in a fine summer day. We ascended the
river about a league to Godstow, where we breakfasted at a little
ale-house by the water-side.
This place is celebrated for the ruins of a nunnery, wherein Fair
Rosamund was buried, the concubine of King Henry II., a woman as famous
for her beauty and misfortunes as our Raquel the Jewess, or the Inez de
Castro of the Portugueze. The popular songs say that Henry, when he went
to the wars, hid her in a labyrinth in the adjoining park at Woodstock,
to save her from his queen. The labyrinth consisted of subterranean
vaults and passages, which led to a tower: through this, however, the
jealous wife found her way, by means of a clue of thread, and made her
rival choose between a dagger and a bowl of poison; she took the poison
and died. The English have many romances upon this subject, which are
exceedingly beautiful. But the truth is, that she retired into this
convent, and there closed a life of penitence by an edifying death. She
was buried in the middle of the quire, her tomb covered with a silken
pall, and tapers kept burning before it, because the king for her sake
had been a great benefactor to the church; till the bishop ordered her
to be removed as being a harlot, and therefore unworthy so honourable a
place of interment. Her bones were once more disturbed at the schism,
when the nunnery was dissolved; and it is certain, by the testimony of
the contemporary heretical writers themselves, that when the leather in
which the body had been shrouded within the leaden coffin was opened, a
sweet odour issued forth. The remains of the building are trifling, and
the only part of the chapel which is roofed, serves as a cow-house,
according to the usual indecency with which such holy ruins are here
profaned. The man who showed us the place, told us it had been built in
the times of the Romans, and seemed, as well he might, to think they
were better times than his own. The grave of Rosamund is still shown; a
hazel tree grows over it, bearing every year a profusion of nuts which
have no kernel. Enough of the last year's produce were lying under the
tree to satisfy me of the truth of this, explain it how you will.
From hence we walked to Blenheim, the palace which the nation built for
the famous Duke of Marlborough; a magnificent monument of public
gratitude, befitting such a nation to erect to such a man. The park in
which it stands is three leagues in circumference. It is the fashion in
England to keep deer within these large, and almost waste, inclosures:
the flesh of these animals is preferred to any other meat; it is
regarded as the choicest dainty of the table, and the price at which it
sells, when it can be purchased, is prodigious. They were standing in
groups under the fine trees which are always to be found in these parks,
others quietly feeding upon the open lawn: their branching antlers,
their slender forms, their spotted skin, the way in which they spring
from the ground and rebound as they alight, and the twinkling motion of
their tails which are never at rest, made them beautiful accompaniments
to the scenery.
We went over the palace, of which, were I to catalogue pictures, and
enumerate room after room, I might give a long and dull account. But
palaces, unless they are technically described to gratify an architect,
are as bad subjects for description as for painting. Be satisfied when I
say that every thing within was splendid, sumptuous, and elegant. Would
it interest you more to read of the length, breadth, and height of
apartments, the colour of hangings, and the subjects of pictures which
you have never seen?
Woodstock is near at hand; a good town, celebrated for smaller articles
of polished steel, such as watch-chains and scissars, and for leathern
gloves and breeches of the best quality. Here we dined: our friends from
Oxford left us after dinner, and we proceeded about a league to Enstone,
a village where the stage would change horses at a convenient hour on
the following morning, and where we were told there were some
water-works which would amuse us, if we were in time to see them. To
effect this we left Woodstock the sooner. It was but a melancholy sight.
The gardens had been made in the days of Charles I. above a century and
half ago, and every thing about them was in a state of decay. The
water-works are of that kind which were fashionable in the days when
they were made;—ingenious devices for wetting the beholder from the
sides, roof, floor, and door-way of the grotto into which he had
entered, and from every object which excited his curiosity. Our inn
furnished us with such a lodging as is called indifferent in England:
but every thing was clean, and we had no cause for complaint. They
brought us two sorts of cheese at supper, neither of which had I ever
before met with; the one was spotted with green, being pleasantly
flavoured with sage; the other veined with the deep red dye of the
beet-root: this must have been merely for ornament, for I could not
perceive that the taste was in the slightest degree affected by the
colouring. There was upon both cheeses the figure of a dolphin, a usual
practice, for which I have never heard any reason assigned.
* * * * *
Tuesday, July 6.
We rose at a wholesome hour, and were ready before six, when the coach
came up. The morning was fine, and we mounted the roof. The country is
uninteresting, hills of neither magnitude nor beauty, and fields
intersected by stone walls. We passed through a town called
Chipping-Norton, which stands on the side of a hill, and then descended
into a marsh, from whence the little town on the hill side became a fine
object. A few miles beyond, a pillar has been erected to mark the spot
where the four shires of Oxford, Warwick, Worcester, and Gloucester
meet; this latter one we now entered. Breakfast was ready for us at
Moreton in the Marsh, a place which seems to have little else to support
it than its situation on the high road from Worcester to London. Before
we entered, the coachman pointed out to us the town of Stow in the Wold,
built on a high hill to our left, where he told us there was neither
fire, water, nor earth. Water was formerly raised from a deep well by
means of a horizontal windmill, but this has fallen to decay.
The marsh ended at Moreton, and we entered upon a country of better
features. We crossed the Campden Hills, ascending a long hill from
Moreton, travelling about two leagues on the top, and descending to a
little town called Broadway. From the height we overlooked the Vale of
Evesham, or of the Red Horse, so called from the figure of a horse cut
in the side of a hill where the soil is of that colour. This is one of
the most fertile parts of England, yet is the vale less striking than
the Vale of Honiton—at least in the point from which we saw it—because
the inequalities, which may render it in parts more beautiful, prevent
it from being seen as a whole. It is remarkable in English history as
the place where Simon de Montford, son to the Champion of the Church
against the Albigenses, was defeated and slain by prince Edward. The
town from whence the vale derives its name is old, and has some fine
remains of an abbey, which I wished to have examined more at leisure
than the laws of a stage-coach would allow.
Our road to Worcester lay through this highly-cultivated valley. I was
delighted with the fine pear-trees which wooded the country, and still
more by the novel appearance of hop-yards, which I had never before
seen, and which were now in full beauty. If this plant be less generous
and less useful than the vine, it is far more beautiful in its culture.
Long poles are fixed into the ground in rows; each has its separate
plant, which climbs up, and having topt, it falls down in curly tresses.
The fruit, if it may be called such, hangs in little clusters; it
resembles the cone of the fir, or rather of the larch, in its shape, but
is of a leafy substance, and hardly larger than an acorn. They use it in
bittering beer, though I am told that there still exists a law which
prohibits its culture as a poisonous weed, and that in the public
breweries cheaper ingredients are fraudulently used. Hop-picking here is
as joyous a time as our vintage. The English have two didactic poems
concerning this favourite plant, which is more precarious than any other
in its crop, being liable to particular blights, so that it often fails.
It is cultivated chiefly in this province and in Kent, and is rarely
attempted in any other part of the kingdom.
Malvern was in sight to the west; a range of mountains standing in the
three provinces of Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford, and on the side
where we beheld them rising immediately from the plain. This sierra is
justly admired for the beauty of its form, and its singular situation.
It is the first which I have seen in England, nor are there any other
mountains between this and the eastern and southern coasts. Westward the
mountainous part begins almost immediately behind it, and extends
through the whole line of Wales. About three we reached Worcester, a
fine and flourishing city, in the midst of this delightful country.
LETTER XXXV.
_Man killed at Worcester by a Sword-fish.—Teignton Squash.—Grafting.—
Ned of the Toddin.—Worcester China.—Cathedral.—St Wulstan.—
K. John's Grave.—Journey to Birmingham._
Tuesday, July 6.
Were I an epicure, I should wish to dine every fast day at Worcester.
The Severn runs through the town, and supplies it with salmon in
abundance, the most delicious of all fish. You would hardly suppose that
there could be any danger from sea-monsters in bathing at such a
distance from the mouth of the river, which is at least five-and-twenty
leagues by the course of the stream; yet about thirty years ago a man
here actually received his death wound in the water from a swordfish.
The fish was caught immediately afterwards, so that the fact was
ascertained beyond a doubt.
Perry is the liquor of this country: a cyder made from pears instead of
apples. The common sort when drawn from the cask is inferior to the
apple juice, but generous perry is truly an excellent beverage. It
sparkles in the glass like Champaign, and the people here assure me that
it has not unfrequently been sold as such in London. I am told a
circumstance concerning the particular species of pear from which this
of the finer quality is made, which would stagger my belief, if I did
not recollect that in such cases incredulity is often the characteristic
of ignorance. This species is called the _Teignton squash_—(admire, I
pray you, this specimen of English euphony!)—all the trees have been
grafted from the same original stocks at Teignton; those stocks are now
in the last stage of decay, and all their grafts are decaying at the
same time. They who have made the physiology of plants their study, (and
in no other country has this science ever been so successfully pursued
as here,) assert that with grafted trees this always is the case; that
the graft, being part of an old tree, is not renovated by the new stock
into which it is inoculated, but brings with it the diseases and the age
of that from which it has been taken, and dies at the same time of
natural[3] decay. The tree raised from seed is the progeny of its
parent, and itself a separate individual; it begins a new lease of life.
That which is produced from a graft obtains, like a dismembered polypus,
a separate existence; but its life, like that of the fabled Hamadryads,
ends with that of the trunk from which it sprung.
The adjoining province of Herefordshire, with its immediate vicinity, is
the great cyder country; more and of better quality being made here than
in the West of England. Particular attention is now paid here by
scientific men to the culture of the apple, which they raise from seed,
in conformity to the theory just explained; they choose the seed
carefully, and even assert that the pips from the southern chambers of
the apple are preferable to those in the other side. In many parts of
England cyder is supposed to be an unwholesome liquor; experience here
disproves the opinion. It is the common drink: the people drink it
freely at all times, and in harvest times profusely: a physician of the
country says that any other liquor taken so profusely would be hurtful,
but that no ill effects are produced by this. Madness is said to be
frequent in this province; and those persons, who, when they find two
things coexistent, however unconnected, immediately suppose them to be
cause and effect, attribute it to the use of cyder. If the fact be true,
the solution is obvious; madness is an hereditary disease: in former
times families were more stationary than they are now, intermarriages
took place within a narrow sphere, and the inhabitants of a whole
province would, in not many generations, all be of the same blood.
A generation ago there certainly were in these parts many poor madmen or
idiots, who, being quite harmless, were permitted to wander whither they
would, and received charity at every house in their regular rounds. Of
one of these, his name was Ned of the Toddin, I have just heard a tale
which has thrilled every nerve in me from head to foot. He lived with
his mother, and there was no other in family:—it is remarked that idiots
are always particularly beloved by their mothers, doubtless because they
always continue in a state as helpless and as dependent as infancy. This
poor fellow, in return, was equally fond of his mother; love towards her
was the only feeling of affection which he was capable of, and that
feeling was proportionately strong. The mother fell sick and died: of
death, poor wretch, he knew nothing, and it was in vain to hope to make
him comprehend it. He would not suffer them to bury her, and they were
obliged to put her into the coffin unknown to him, and carry her to the
grave, when, as they imagined, he had been decoyed away to a distance.
Ned of the Toddin, however, suspected that something was designed;
watched them secretly, and as soon as it was dark opened the grave, took
out the body and carried it home. Some of the neighbours compassionately
went into the cottage to look after him: they found the dead body seated
in her own place in the chimney corner, a large fire blazing, which he
had made to warm her, and the idiot son with a large dish of pap
offering to feed her.—"Eat, mother!" he was saying,—"you used to like
it!"—Presently, wondering at her silence, he looked at the face of the
corpse, took the dead hand to feel it, and said, "Why d'ye look so pale,
mother? why be you so cold?"
* * * * *
Wednesday, July 7.
The main manufactory of this place is in porcelain, and the shops in
which this ware is displayed are as splendid and as beautiful as can
possibly be imagined. They are equal in length to a common parochial
church, and these exquisite works of art arranged in them in the best
order upon long counters, around the sides, and in the windows on each
side the door which occupy the whole front. In China it is said that the
prepared clay is buried in deep pits, and left to ripen there for half a
century; by which means their porcelain attains that semi-pellucid and
pearly delicacy which has never been equalled here. If this be the case,
the inferiority of the English ware is accounted for. Trade in England
will not wait for such slow returns. But if the Chinese excel them in
this particular instance, and rival them in the vividness of their
colours, they must yield the palm in whatever depends upon taste. One
dinner service you see painted with landscapes, every separate piece
being a different picture; another represents flowers or fruit coloured
to the life; another, the armorial bearings of the family for whom it
has been fabricated, emblazoned with all the richness of heraldic
colouring. These things are perfect in their kind: yet such are the
effects of prejudice and habit, that the grotesque and tasteless
patterns of the real China are frequently preferred; and the English
copy the hair-lined eyebrows of the Chinese, their unnatural trees and
distorted scenery, as faithfully as if they were equally ignorant of
perspective themselves. There is however thus much to be said in favour
of this prejudice, that plates and tea-saucers have made us better
acquainted with the Chinese than we are with any other distant people.
If we had no other documents concerning this extraordinary nation, a
series of engravings from these their own pictures would be considered
as highly curious, and such a work, if skilfully conducted and
annotated, might still elucidate the writings of travellers, and not
improbably furnish information which it would be in vain to seek in
Europe from other sources.
Another important branch of the trade of Worcester is in leathern
gloves. One inevitable consequence of the unnatural extension of trade
in this land of commerce is, that the slightest change of fashion
reduces so many of the labouring class to immediate distress and ruin.
Three or four years ago the English ladies chose to wear long silken
gloves; the demand for leathern ones immediately ceased, and the women,
whose business it was to make them, were thrown out of employ. This was
the case of many hundreds here in Worcester. In such cases men commonly
complain and submit; but women are more disposed to be mutinous; they
stand less in fear of law, partly from ignorance, partly because they
presume upon the privilege of their sex, and therefore in all public
tumults they are foremost in violence and ferocity. Upon this occasion
they carried their point within their own territories; it was dangerous
to appear in silken gloves in the streets of this city; and one lady,
who foolishly or ignorantly ventured to walk abroad here in this
forbidden fashion, is said to have been seized by the women and whipped.
The cathedral church of this city is a fine Gothic edifice, which has
lately undergone a thorough repair. It is some satisfaction to see, that
if the English build no new cathedrals, they at least preserve the old
ones, which I hope and trust are likely to survive that schism which
threatened them with destruction, and to witness the revival and
restoration of the true faith, whereof they are such splendid memorials.
St Wulstan was the founder. His name indeed is remembered here; but in
this church, where the shrine of the founder was once devoutly visited,
the tomb which is now pointed out to the notice and respect of
travellers is that of the bishop who first set the example of
disobedience to king James II. when he attempted to recall the nation to
the religion of their fathers! It is not in this magnificent monument of
his own rearing that the history of St Wulstan is to be learnt. I have
found in the Chronicle of a Spanish Benedictine what I should never have
heard at Worcester. This holy man was elected to the see against his own
will, nor did he accept it till he had been convinced by signs that it
was the will of God. After some years his enemies conspired to depose
him. There are few finer miracles in hagiology than that which is
recorded as having been vouchsafed upon this occasion. They complained
that he was illiterate, and therefore unworthy of the dignity which he
held. The true cause of the accusation was, that he was a Saxon; the
Norman conquest had been effected since his appointment to the see, and
it was wanted for a foreigner. A council was assembled in Westminster
abbey. The king and the Norman prelates were prejudiced judges; and
Lanfranc, the primate, though too holy a man ever to commit an act of
wilful injustice, in his zeal for learning lent a ready ear to the
charges, and, being an Italian, was easily deceived by the
misrepresentations of the accusers. Accordingly he pronounced sentence
of deposition against the saint, and required him to deliver up his ring
and crosier. St Wulstan, neither feeling dismay at heart, nor
manifesting sorrow in his countenance, rose up as soon as sentence was
pronounced against him, and leaning upon his crosier, replied:
"Certainly I know that I am unworthy of my honourable office, and
unequal to the weight of my dignity; but it is no new thing for me to
know this! I knew it and acknowledged it when my clergy elected me; and
the bishops compelled me to accept it, and holy king Edward, my lord, by
apostolical authority, imposed this weight upon my shoulders, and
ordered this crosier to be given into my hands. You," said he,
addressing himself to Lanfranc, "you demand from me the crosier which
you did not give me, and take from me the office which I did not receive
from you. I therefore, confessing my own insufficiency, and obeying the
decree of the council, yield up my crosier, not to you, but to him from
whose authority I received it." Saying this, he advanced to the tomb of
holy king Edward the Confessor. "There are new laws in this land," he
exclaimed, "a new king and new prelates, who promulgate new sentences!
They accuse thee of error, O holy king, in promoting me, and me of
presumption for having obeyed thee. Then, Edward, thou couldst err, for
thou wert mortal; but now, when peradventure thou art enjoying the
presence of the Lord, now,—canst thou now be deceived?—I will not yield
up my crosier to these from whom I did not receive it; they are men who
may deceive and be deceived. But to thee do I deliver it, who hast
escaped the errors and darkness of the world, and art in the light of
truth; to thee with the best willingness I resign my pastoral staff, and
render up the charge of my flock. My lord and king, give thou the charge
to whom thou thinkest worthy!" He then laid the crosier upon the tomb,
disrobed himself of his episcopal insignia, and took his seat like a
private monk in the assembly. The crosier entered the stone, as if it
had been imbedded in melting wax, and could not be taken from it by any
other hand than by that of the holy bishop who had laid it there.
The grave of king John is here, a monarch remarkable in English history
for having signed the Great Charter, resigned his crown to the pope's
legate, and offered to turn Mohammedan if the Miramolin would assist him
against his subjects. As there were some doubts whether the grave which
was commonly supposed to be his was really so, it was opened two or
three years ago, and the tradition verified. It appeared that it had
been opened before for other motives; for some of the bones were
displaced, and the more valuable parts of his dress missing. As this was
at the time when the revolutionary disposition of the people had
occasioned some acts of unusual rigour on the part of government, it was
remarked in one of the newspapers, that if king John had taken the
opportunity to walk abroad and observe how things were going on, it must
have given him great satisfaction to see how little was left of that
Magna Charta, which he had signed so sorely against his will.
* * * * *
We waited in Worcester for the coach from Bristol to Birmingham, which
passes through in the afternoon, and in which we were tolerably sure of
finding room, as it is one of those huge machines which carries sixteen
withinside. Its shape is that of a coffin[4] placed upside-down; the
door is at the end, and the passengers sit sideways. It is not very
agreeable to enter one of these coaches when it is nearly full: the
first comers take possession of the places nearest the door at one end,
or the window at the other, and the middle seats are left for those who
come in last, and who for that reason, contrary to the parable of the
labourers in the vineyard, may literally be said to bear the heat of the
day. There were twelve passengers already seated when we got in; they
expressed no satisfaction at this acquisition of company; one woman
exclaimed that she was almost stewed to death already, and another cried
out to the coachman that she hoped he would not take in any body else.
The atmosphere of the apartment, indeed, was neither fresher nor more
fragrant than that of a prison; but it was raining hard, and we had no
alternative. The distance was only two stages, that is a long day's
journey in our own country, but here the easy work of five hours; but I
never before passed five hours in travelling so unpleasantly. To see any
thing was impossible; the little windows behind us were on a level with
our heads, the coachman's seat obstructed the one in front, and that in
the door-way was of use only to those who sat by it. Any attempt which
we made at conversation by way of question, was answered with forbidding
brevity; the company was too numerous to be communicative; half of them
went to sleep, and I endeavoured to follow their example, as the best
mode of passing away time so profitless and so uncomfortable. But it was
in vain; heat, noise, and motion, kept me waking. We were heartily
rejoiced when the coach arrived at Birmingham, and we were let loose, to
stretch our limbs at liberty, and breathe an air, cool at least, if not
fresh.
[3] Hudibras might have added this illustration to his well-known simile
of the new noses: but the experiments of Taliacotius have been verified
in modern times; and this may teach us not too hastily to disbelieve an
assertion which certainly appears improbable.—TR.
[4] The author compares one of these coaches elsewhere, (vol. i. p. 35,)
to a trunk with a rounded lid, placed topsy-turvy. It should appear,
therefore, that coffins in Spain are shaped like trunks.—TR.
LETTER XXXVI.
_Birmingham.—Miserable State of the Artificers.—Bad Guns manufactured
for the Guinea Trade.—Anecdotes of Systematic Roguery.—Coiners.—
Forgers.—Riots in 1791.—More Excuse for Dishonesty here than in any
other Place._
Thursday, July 7.—Birmingham.
You will look perhaps with some eagerness for information concerning
this famous city, which Burke, the great orator of the English, calls
the grand toy-shop of Europe. Do not blame me if I disappoint you. I
have seen much, and more than foreigners are usually admitted to see;
but it has been too much to remember, or indeed to comprehend
satisfactorily. I am still giddy, dizzied with the hammering of presses,
the clatter of engines, and the whirling of wheels; my head aches with
the multiplicity of infernal noises, and my eyes with the light of
infernal fires,——I may add, my heart also, at the sight of so many human
beings employed in infernal occupations, and looking as if they were
never destined for any thing better. Our earth was designed to be a
seminary for young angels, but the devil has certainly fixed upon this
spot for his own nursery-garden and hot-house.
You must forgive me, if I do not attempt to describe processes which I
saw too cursorily, and with too little pleasure to understand. A sick
stomach will not digest the food that may be forced down it, and the
intellect is as little able to assimilate that for which it has no
aptitude.
When we look at gold, we do not think of the poor slaves who dug it from
the caverns of the earth; but I shall never think of the wealth of
England, without remembering that I have been in the mines. Not that the
labourers repine at their lot; it is not the least evil of the system,
that they are perfectly well satisfied to be poisoned soul and body.
Foresight is not a human instinct: the more unwholesome the employment,
the higher of course are the wages paid to the workmen; and incredible
as it may seem, a trifling addition to their weekly pay makes these
short-sighted wretches contend for work, which they certainly know will
in a very few years produce disease and death, or cripple them for the
remainder of their existence.
I cannot pretend to say, what is the consumption here of the two-legged
beasts of labour; commerce sends in no returns of its killed and
wounded. Neither can I say that the people look sickly, having seen no
other complexion in the place than what is composed of oil and dust
smoke-dried. Every man whom I meet stinks of train-oil and emery. Some I
have seen with red eyes and green hair; the eyes affected by the fires
to which they are exposed, and the hair turned green by the brass works.
You would not, however, discover any other resemblance to a triton in
them, for water is an element with the use of which, except to supply
steam-engines, they seem to be unacquainted.
The noise of Birmingham is beyond description; the hammers seem never to
be at rest. The filth is sickening: filthy as some of our own old towns
may be, their dirt is inoffensive; it lies in idle heaps, which annoy
none but those who walk within the little reach of their effluvia. But
here it is active and moving, a living principle of mischief, which
fills the whole atmosphere, and penetrates every where, spotting and
staining every thing, and getting into the pores and nostrils. I feel as
if my throat wanted sweeping like an English chimney. Think not,
however, that I am insensible to the wonders of the place:—in no other
age or country was there ever so astonishing a display of human
ingenuity: but watch-chains, necklaces, and bracelets, buttons, buckles,
and snuff-boxes, are dearly purchased at the expence of health and
morality; and if it be considered how large a proportion of that
ingenuity is employed in making what is hurtful as well as what is
useless, it must be confessed that human reason has more cause at
present for humiliation than for triumph at Birmingham.
A regular branch of trade here is the manufacture of guns for the
African market. They are made for about a dollar and a half; the barrel
is filled with water, and if the water does not come through, it is
thought proof sufficient; of course they burst when fired, and mangle
the wretched negro who has purchased them upon the credit of English
faith, and received them most probably as the price of human flesh! No
secret is made of this abominable trade; yet the government never
interferes, and the persons concerned in it are not marked and shunned
as infamous.
In some parts of Italy, the criminal who can prove himself to be the
best workman in any business is pardoned _in favorem artis_, unless his
crime has been coining; a useful sort of benefit of clergy. If ingenuity
were admitted as an excuse for guilt in this country, the Birmingham
rogues might defy the gallows. Even as it is, they set justice at
defiance, and carry on the most illegal practices almost with impunity.
Some spoons which had been stolen here were traced immediately to the
receiver's house: "I know what you are come for," said he to the persons
who entered the room in search of them, "you are come for the spoons,"
and he tossed over the crucible into the fire, because they were not
entirely melted. The officers of justice had received intelligence of a
gang of coiners; the building to which they were directed stood within a
court-yard, and when they reached it they found that the only door was
on the upper story, and could not be reached without a ladder: a ladder
was procured: it was then some time before the door could be forced, and
they heard the people within mocking them all this while. When at last
they had effected their entrance, the coiners pointed to a furnace in
which all the dies and whatever else could criminate them, had been
consumed during this delay. The coins of every country with which
England carries on any intercourse, whether in Europe, Asia, or America,
are counterfeited here and exported. An inexhaustible supply of
halfpence was made for home consumption, till the new coinage put a stop
to this manufactory: it was the common practice of the dealers in this
article, to fry a pan-full every night after supper for the next day's
delivery, thus darkening them, to make them look as if they had been in
circulation.
Assignats were forged here during the late war; but this is less to be
imputed to the Birmingham speculators, than to those wise politicians
who devised so many wise means of ruining France. The forgery of their
own bank notes is carried on with systematic precautions which will
surprise you. Information of a set of forgers had been obtained, and the
officers entered the house: they found no person on any of the lower
floors; but when they reached the garret, one man was at work upon the
plates in the farthest room, who could see them as soon as they had
ascended the stairs. Immediately he opened a trap-door, and descended to
the floor below; before they could reach the spot to follow him, he had
opened a second, and the descent was impracticable for them on account
of its depth: there they stood and beheld him drop from floor to floor
till he reached the cellar, and effected his escape by a subterranean
passage.
You may well imagine what such people as these would be in times of
popular commotion. It was exemplified in 1791. Their fury by good luck
was in favour of the government; they set fire to the houses of all the
more opulent dissenters whom they suspected of disaffection, and
searched every where for the heresiarch Priestley, carrying a spit about
on which they intended to roast him alive. Happily for himself and for
the national character, he had taken alarm and withdrawn in time.
It ought, however, to be remembered that there is more excuse to be made
for dishonesty in Birmingham, than could be pleaded any where else. In
no other place are there so many ingenious mechanics, in no other place
is trade so precarious. War ruins half the manufacturers of Birmingham
by shutting their markets. During the late war nearly three thousand
houses were left untenanted here. Even in time of peace the change of
fashion throws hundreds out of employ. Want comes upon them suddenly;
they cannot dig; and though they might not be ashamed to beg, begging
would avail nothing where there are already so many mendicants. It is
not to be expected that they will patiently be starved, if by any
ingenuity of their own they can save themselves from starving. When one
of Shakspeare's characters is tempted to perform an unlawful action, he
exclaims, "My poverty, but not my will, consents." It is but just, as
well as merciful, to believe that the same extenuation might truly be
pleaded by half the criminals who come under the rod of the law.
Being a foreigner, I could not see Messrs Bolton and Watts's great works
at Soho, which are the boast of Birmingham, and indeed of England. As
these extraordinary men have by the invention of the steam-engine
produced so great a change upon the commercial system, and thereby upon
society in this country, I could have wished to have seen their own
establishment; but it was in vain, and I did not choose by making the
trial to expose myself to the mortification of a refusal.
LETTER XXXVII.
_Mail Coaches.—Mr Palmer ill-used.—Vicinity of Birmingham.—Collieries
on fire.—Stafford.—Stone.—Newcastle-under-Line.—Punishments for
Scolding.—Cheshire.—Bridgewater Arms at Manchester._
Friday, July 9.
The mail coach which communicates between Bristol and Manchester, leaves
Birmingham at a reasonable hour in the morning. These coaches travel at
a rate little short of two leagues in the hour, including all stoppages;
they carry four inside passengers, two outside; the rate of fare is
considerably higher than in other stages; but a preference is given to
these, because they go faster, no unnecessary delays are permitted, and
the traveller who goes in them can calculate his time accurately. Every
coach has its guard, armed with a blunderbuss, who has charge of the
mails; he has a seat affixed behind the coach, from whence he overlooks
it, and gives notice with a horn to clear the road when any thing is in
the way, to bring out the horses when he approaches the end of a stage,
and to be ready with the letter-bags when he enters a post-town. Guards
and coachmen all wear the royal livery, and the royal arms are upon the
coaches.
It is now about twenty years since this plan has been adopted. Before
that time the mails were carried by a single courier, who was as long
again upon the road, and at the mercy of every footpad. They are now
perfectly safe; they go without expense, in consequence of the profits
of the coaches: and the effect of the rapid communication has been to
double that branch of the revenue which is derived from the post-office.
Yet the projector has little reason to be satisfied with the justice of
the nation. He stipulated for a centage upon the clear increase of
revenue above a certain sum. The whole management of the post-office was
intrusted to him; but there were two lords above him with higher powers
and higher salaries. These places he wished to abolish as useless, not
recollecting that government desires to have as many places at its
disposal as possible, and, instead of wanting to curtail the number of
old ones, would have been obliged to him to have invented new. In the
struggle he was displaced himself: so far all was fair, as he only lost
the stake for which he was playing: but advantage was taken of this to
annul the terms of the contract between him and the nation, and assign
him 4000_l._ a-year, in lieu of his per centage, which already amounted
to a much larger sum, and would yearly have increased with the
increasing revenue. Of course he remonstrated against this breach of
public faith; the cause was brought before parliament, and it was
absurdly argued against him, that smaller pensions than this had been
deemed a sufficient reward for their victorious admirals,—as if rewards
and contracts were of the same nature. The minister was against him, and
parliament therefore annulled its own contract in its own favour.[5]
Before this plan of Mr Palmer's was established, the ordinary pace of
travelling in England differed little from what it still is in other
countries: an able-bodied man might walk the usual day's journey. Its
effects have not been confined to the revenue. Other stages immediately
adopted the guard, and became secure from robbers; they were stimulated
to rival speed, and in consequence improvements in coach-building of
some kind or other are every year discovered and adopted; even waggons
travel faster now than post coaches did before this revolution. Hence
travelling consumes at present so much less time, and is attended by so
much less fatigue, that instead of being regarded as an evil, it is one
of the pleasures of the English; and people, as is our case at this very
time, set out upon a journey of two hundred leagues to amuse themselves.
The morning was fair, we mounted the roof, and I looked back upon
Birmingham not without satisfaction at thinking I should never enter it
again. A heavy cloud of smoke hung over the city, above which in many
places black columns were sent up with prodigious force from the
steam-engines. We rejoiced that we were travelling into a better
atmosphere, but the contagion spread far and wide. Every where around
us, instead of the village church, whose steeple usually adorns so
beautifully the English landscape, the tower of some manufactory was to
be seen in the distance, vomiting up flames and smoke, and blasting
every thing around with its metallic vapours. The vicinity was as
thickly peopled as that of London. Instead of cottages we saw streets of
brick hovels, blackened with the smoke of coal fires, which burn day and
night in these dismal regions. Such swarms of children I never beheld in
any other place, nor such wretched ones,—in rags, and their skins
encrusted with soot and filth. The face of the country as we advanced
was more hideous that can be described, uncultivated, black and smoking.
I asked the coachman from whence the smoke proceeded, and he told me the
whole earth beneath us was on fire; some coal-mines had taken fire many
years ago, and still continued to burn. "If you were to travel this road
by night, sir," said he, "you would see the whole country a-fire, and
might fancy you were going to hell!"—A part of the road which is thus
undermined gave way lately under one of the stages; it did not sink deep
enough to kill the passengers by the fall, but one of them had his thigh
broken.
This deplorable country continued for some leagues, till we had passed
Wolverhampton, the last manufacturing town in this direction. Between
this place and Penkridge it improved, we were once more in an
agricultural land, and beheld clean skins and healthy countenances. We
passed through Stafford, the county town, a small but well-built place,
of which the main trade consists in shoes; and dined the next stage
beyond it at Stone. Here were formerly venerated the two martyrs Wulfold
and Rufinus, who were slain by their own father Wulpher, the Pagan king
of Mercia, the father of St Werburga also; who, by the merits of his
children, was himself at last favoured with grace to repentance. All
traces of their worship have long since disappeared; only the town
derives its name from the stones which were heaped over the place of
their burial. Here we entered the country of the potteries, from whence
the greater part of England is supplied with common ware, and also with
that finer sort called Wedgewood, after its inventor, and known all over
Europe. Etruria is the name which he gave to his fabric, because the
Etruscan remains were his models, and to him it is that England, and, it
may be added, Europe,—for where do not the fashions of England
extend?—is indebted for having familiarised to us the beautiful forms of
Etruscan design.
This is a populous province; in no other part have I seen the towns
standing so near together. We soon advanced to Newcastle-under-Line.
Here my friend the coachman told me they had a curious custom of
punishing scolds, by putting a bridle and bitt into the mouth of the
offender, so as to confine her tongue, and leading her in this manner
through the streets as an example. Whether the English women are
particularly addicted to this offence, I am not sufficiently acquainted
with them to say; but it should seem so by the severity with which the
laws regard it. In other places immersion is the punishment; the woman
is fastened in a chair at the end of a long plank or pole, which is
hoisted out over the river, and there elevated or lowered by means of a
lever; in this manner they dip her as often as the officiating constable
thinks proper, or till she no longer displays any inclination to
continue the offence, which probably is not till she has lost the power.
Both methods are effectual ones of enforcing silence upon an unruly
tongue, but they are barbarous customs, and ought to be wholly
disused.[6]
We were now entering Cheshire, the great cheese country, and the
difference between a land of manufactures and a land of pasturage was
delightful. The houses of the labourers were clean cottages: those of
the rich, old mansions with old trees about them in view of the village
church, where generation after generation, for ages back, the heirs of
the family had been baptized in the same font, and buried in the same
vault; not newly-erected brick buildings with shrubs and saplings round
them, in hearing of the mill-wheels and hammer, by which the fortune of
the owner has been fabricated. One house which we passed was the most
singular I have ever seen: very old it must needs be,—how many centuries
I will not venture to conjecture. The materials are wood and mortar
without stone; the timber-frames painted black, and the intervening
panes of plaster-work whitened; no dress in an old picture was ever more
curiously variegated with stripes and slashes. The roof rises into many
points; the upper story projecting over the lower like a machicolated
gateway, except that the projection is far greater; and long windows
with little diamond-shaped panes reach almost from side to side, so that
the rooms must be light as a lantern. There is a moat round it. I should
guess it to be one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the kingdom.
We saw this quiet pastoral country to the best advantage; the sun was
setting, and the long twilight of an English summer evening gives to the
English landscape a charm wholly its own. As soon as it grew dark the
coach lamps were lighted; the horses have no bells, and this is as
needful for the security of other travellers as for our own. But the
roads are wide; and if a traveller keeps his own proper side, according
to the law of the roads, however fearful it may be to see two of these
fiery eyes coming on through the darkness, at the rate of two leagues in
the hour, he is perfectly safe. We meant, when evening closed, to have
forsaken the roof and taken our seats withinside; but the places were
filled by chance passengers picked up on the way, and no choice was left
us. Star-light and a mild summer air made the situation not unpleasant,
if we had not been weary and disposed to sleep; this propensity it was
not safe to indulge; and the two hours after night set in till we
reached Manchester, were the most wearying of the whole day.
The entrance into the city reminded me of London, we drove so long over
rough street stones, only the streets were shorter and the turns we made
more frequent. It was midnight when we alighted at a spacious inn,
called the Bridgewater Arms. In these large manufacturing towns, inns
have neither the cleanliness or comfort which we find in smaller places.
In the country there is a civility about the people of the house, and an
attention on their part, which, though you know hospitality is their
trade, shows, or seems to show, something of the virtue. Here all is
hurry and bustle; customers must come in the way of trade, and they care
not whether you are pleased or not. We were led into a long room, hung
round with great-coats, spurs, and horsewhips, and with so many
portmanteaus and saddle-bags lying about it, that it looked like a
warehouse. Two men were smoking over a bottle of wine at one table; they
were talking of parabolics and elliptics, and describing diagrams on the
table with a wet finger; a single one was writing at another, with a
large pocket-book lying open before him. We called for supper; and he
civilly told us that he also had given a like order, and if we would
permit him should be happy to join us. To this we of course acceded. We
found him to be a commercial traveller, and he gave us some useful
information concerning Manchester, and the best method of proceeding on
our journey. It was going towards two o'clock when we retired. We slept
as usual in a double-bedded room, but we had no inclination to converse
after we were in bed. I fell asleep almost instantaneously, and did not
awake till nine in the morning.—I must not forget to tell you, that over
the entrance to the passage on each side of which the bed-rooms are
arranged, is written in large letters _Morphean!_
[5] If Don Manuel had remained long enough in England, he might have
seen parliament annulling its own contract in its own wrong, granting
away the public money at a time when the people were more heavily
burthened than they had ever been before, and doing this in defiance of
the legal authorities.—TR.
[6] D. Manuel is mistaken in supposing that they are still in use. The
ducking-stools are fallen into decay, and in many places the stocks
also,—little to the credit of the magistrates.—TR.
LETTER XXXVIII.
_Manchester.—Cotton Manufactory.—Remarks upon the pernicious Effects of
the manufacturing System._
J. had provided us with letters to a gentleman in Manchester; we
delivered them after breakfast, and were received with that courtesy
which a foreigner, when he takes with him the expected recommendations,
is sure to experience in England. He took us to one of the great cotton
manufactories, showed us the number of children who were at work there,
and dwelt with delight on the infinite good which resulted from
employing them at so early an age. I listened without contradicting him,
for who would lift up his voice against Diana in Ephesus!—proposed my
questions in such a way as not to imply, or at least not to advance, any
difference of opinion, and returned with a feeling at heart which makes
me thank God I am not an Englishman.
There is a shrub in some of the East Indian islands which the French
call _veloutier_; it exhales an odour that is agreeable at a distance,
becomes less so as you draw nearer, and, when you are quite close to it,
is insupportably loathsome. Alciatus himself could not have imagined an
emblem more appropriate to the commercial prosperity of England.
Mr —— remarked, that nothing could be so beneficial to a country as
manufactures. "You see these children, sir," said he. "In most parts of
England poor children are a burthen to their parents and to the parish;
here the parish, which would else have to support them, is rid of all
expense; they get their bread almost as soon as they can run about, and
by the time they are seven or eight years old bring in money. There is
no idleness among us:—they come at five in the morning; we allow them
half an hour for breakfast, and an hour for dinner; they leave work at
six, and another set relieves them for the night; the wheels never stand
still." I was looking while he spoke, at the unnatural dexterity with
which the fingers of these little creatures were playing in the
machinery, half giddy myself with the noise and the endless motion: and
when he told me there was no rest in these walls, day nor night, I
thought that if Dante had peopled one of his hells with children, here
was a scene worthy to have supplied him with new images of torment.
"These children, then," said I, "have no time to receive instruction."
"That, sir," he replied, "is the evil which we have found. Girls are
employed here from the age you see them till they marry, and then they
know nothing about domestic work, not even how to mend a stocking or
boil a potatoe. But we are remedying this now, and send the children to
school for an hour after they have done work." I asked if so much
confinement did not injure their health. "No," he replied, "they are as
healthy as any children in the world can be. To be sure, many of them as
they grew up went off in consumptions, but consumption was the disease
of the English." I ventured to enquire afterwards concerning the morals
of the people who were trained up in this monstrous manner, and found,
what was to be expected, that in consequence of herding together such
numbers of both sexes, who are utterly uninstructed in the commonest
principles of religion and morality, they were as debauched and
profligate as human beings under the influence of such circumstances
must inevitably be; the men drunken, the women dissolute; that however
high the wages they earned, they were too improvident ever to lay-by for
a time of need; and that, though the parish was not at the expense of
maintaining them when children, it had to provide for them in diseases
induced by their mode of life, and in premature debility and old age;
the poor-rates were oppressively high, and the hospitals and workhouses
always full and overflowing. I enquired how many persons were employed
in the manufactory, and was told, children and all about two hundred.
What was the firm of the house?—There were two partners. So! thought
I,—a hundred to one!
"We are well off for hands in Manchester," said Mr ——; "manufactures are
favourable to population, the poor are not afraid of having a family
here, the parishes therefore have always plenty to apprentice, and we
take them as fast as they can supply us. In new manufacturing towns they
find it difficult to get a supply. Their only method is to send people
round the country to get children from their parents. Women usually
undertake this business; they promise the parents to provide for the
children; one party is glad to be eased of a burthen, and it answers
well to the other to find the young ones in food, lodging, and clothes,
and receive their wages." "But if these children should be ill-used?"
said I. "Sir," he replied, "it never can be the interest of the women to
use them ill, nor of the manufacturers to permit it."
It would have been in vain to argue had I been disposed to it. Mr —— was
a man of humane and kindly nature, who would not himself use any thing
cruelly, and judged of others by his own feelings. I thought of the
cities in Arabian romance, where all the inhabitants were enchanted:
here Commerce is the queen witch, and I had no talisman strong enough to
disenchant those who were daily drinking of the golden cup of her
charms.
We purchase English cloth, English muslins, English buttons, &c. and
admire the excellent skill with which they are fabricated, and wonder
that from such a distance they can be afforded to us at so low a price,
and think what a happy country is England! A happy country indeed it is
for the higher orders; no where have the rich so many enjoyments, no
where have the ambitious so fair a field, no where have the ingenious
such encouragement, no where have the intellectual such advantages; but
to talk of English happiness is like talking of Spartan freedom, the
Helots are overlooked. In no other country can such riches be acquired
by commerce, but it is the one who grows rich by the labour of the
hundred. The hundred human beings like himself, as wonderfully fashioned
by Nature, gifted with the like capacities, and equally made for
immortality, are sacrificed body and soul. Horrible as it must needs
appear, the assertion is true to the very letter. They are deprived in
childhood of all instruction and all enjoyment; of the sports in which
childhood instinctively indulges, of fresh air by day and of natural
sleep by night. Their health physical and moral is alike destroyed; they
die of diseases induced by unremitting task-work, by confinement in the
impure atmosphere of crowded rooms, by the particles of metallic or
vegetable dust which they are continually inhaling; or they live to grow
up without decency, without comfort, and without hope, without morals,
without religion, and without shame, and bring forth slaves like
themselves to tread in the same path of misery.
The dwellings of the labouring manufacturers are in narrow streets and
lanes, blocked up from light and air, not, as in our country, to exclude
an insupportable sun, but crowded together because every inch of land is
of such value, that room for light and air cannot be afforded them. Here
in Manchester a great proportion of the poor lodge in cellars, damp and
dark, where every kind of filth is suffered to accumulate, because no
exertions of domestic care can ever make such homes decent. These places
are so many hot-beds of infection; and the poor in large towns are
rarely or never without an infectious fever among them, a plague of
their own, which leaves the habitations of the rich, like a Goshen of
cleanliness and comfort, unvisited.
Wealth flows into the country, but how does it circulate there? Not
equally and healthfully through the whole system; it sprouts into wens
and tumours, and collects in aneurisms which starve and palsy the
extremities. The government indeed raises millions now as easily as it
raised thousands in the days of Elizabeth: the metropolis is six times
the size which it was a century ago; it has nearly doubled during the
present reign; a thousand carriages drive about the streets of London,
where, three generations ago, there were not an hundred; a thousand
hackney coaches are licensed in the same city, where at the same
distance of time there was not one; they whose grandfathers dined at
noon from wooden trenchers, and upon the produce of their own farms, sit
down by the light of waxen tapers to be served upon silver, and to
partake of delicacies from the four quarters of the globe. But the
number of the poor, and the sufferings of the poor, have continued to
increase; the price of every thing which they consume has always been
advancing, and the price of labour, the only commodity which they have
to dispose of, remains the same. Work-houses are erected in one place,
and infirmaries in another; the poor-rates increase in proportion to the
taxes; and in times of dearth the rich even purchase food, and retail it
to them at a reduced price, or supply them with it gratuitously: still
every year adds to their number. Necessity is the mother of crimes; new
prisons are built, new punishments enacted; but the poor become year
after year more numerous, more miserable, and more depraved; and this is
the inevitable tendency of the manufacturing system.
This system is the boast of England,—long may she continue to boast it
before Spain shall rival her! Yet this is the system which we envy, and
which we are so desirous to imitate. Happily our religion presents one
obstacle; that incessant labour which is required in these task-houses
can never be exacted in a Catholic country, where the Church has wisely
provided so many days of leisure for the purposes of religion and
enjoyment. Against the frequency of these holy days much has been said;
but Heaven forbid that the clamour of philosophizing commercialists
should prevail, and that the Spaniard should ever be brutalized by
unremitting task-work, like the negroes in America, and the labouring
manufacturers in England! Let us leave to England the boast of supplying
all Europe with her wares; let us leave to these lords of the sea the
distinction of which they are so tenacious, that of being the white
slaves of the rest of the world, and doing for it all its dirty work.
The poor must be kept miserably poor, or such a state of things could
not continue; there must be laws to regulate their wages, not by the
value of their work, but by the pleasures of their masters; laws to
prevent their removal from one place to another within the kingdom, and
to prohibit their emigration out of it. They would not be crowded in hot
task-houses by day, and herded together in damp cellars at night; they
would not toil in unwholesome employments from sun-rise till sun-set,
whole days, and whole days and quarters, for with twelve hours labour
the avidity of trade is not satisfied; they would not sweat night and
day, keeping up this _laus perennis_[7] of the Devil, before furnaces
which are never suffered to cool, and breathing in vapours which
inevitably produce disease and death; the poor would never do these
things unless they were miserably poor, unless they were in that state
of abject poverty which precludes instruction, and, by destroying all
hope for the future, reduces man, like the brutes, to seek for nothing
beyond the gratification of present wants.
How England can remedy this evil, for there are not wanting in England
those who perceive and confess it to be an evil, it is not easy to
discover, nor is it my business to enquire. To us it is of more
consequence to know how other countries may avoid it, and, as it is the
prevailing system to encourage manufactures every where, to enquire how
we may reap as much good and as little evil as possible. The best
methods appear to be by extending to the utmost the use of machinery,
and leaving the price of labour to find its own level: the higher it is
the better. The introduction of machinery in an old manufacturing
country always produces distress by throwing workmen out of employ, and
is seldom effected without riots and executions. Where new fabrics are
to be erected it is obvious that this difficulty does not exist, and
equally obvious that, when hard labour can be performed by iron and
wood, it is desirable to spare flesh and blood. High wages are a general
benefit, because money thus distributed is employed to the greatest
general advantage. The labourer, lifted up one step in society, acquires
the pride and the wants, the habits and the feelings, of the class now
next above him.[8] Forethought, which the miserably poor necessarily and
instinctively shun, is, to him who earns a comfortable competence, new
pleasure; he educates his children, in the hope that they may rise
higher than himself, and that he is fitting them for better fortunes.
Prosperity is said to be more dangerous than adversity to human virtue;
both are wholesome when sparingly distributed, both in the excess
perilous always, and often deadly: but if prosperity be thus dangerous,
it is a danger which falls to the lot of few; and it is sufficiently
proved by the vices of those unhappy wretches who exist in slavery,
under whatever form or in whatever disguise, that hope is as essential
to prudence, and to virtue, as to happiness.
[7] I am informed by a catholic, that those convents in which the choir
service is never discontinued are said to have _laus perennis_ there.—TR.
[8] This argument has been placed in a more forcible light in the first
volume of the Annual Review, in an article upon the Reports of the
Society for bettering the Condition of the Poor, attributed to a
gentleman of Norwich. It is one of the ablest chapters upon this branch
of political œconomy that has ever been written.—TR.
LETTER XXXIX.
_Manchester.—Journey to Chester.—Packet-boat.—Brindley.—Rail
Roads.—Chester Cathedral.—New Jail.—Assassination in the South of
Europe not like Murder in England.—Number of Criminals.—but Abatement
of Atrocity in Crimes.—Mitigation of Penal Law.—Robert Dew.—Excellent
Administration of Justice.—Amendments still desired._
A place more destitute of all interesting objects than Manchester it is
not easy to conceive. In size and population it is the second city in
the kingdom, containing above fourscore thousand inhabitants. Imagine
this multitude crowded together in narrow streets, the houses all built
of brick and blackened with smoke; frequent buildings among them as
large as convents, without their antiquity, without their beauty,
without their holiness; where you hear from within, as you pass along,
the everlasting din of machinery; and where, when the bell rings, it is
to call wretches to their work instead of their prayers.... Imagine
this, and you have the materials for a picture of Manchester. The most
remarkable thing which I have seen here is the skin of a snake, fourteen
English feet in length, which was killed in the neighbourhood, and is
preserved in the library of the collegiate church.
We left it willingly on Monday morning, and embarked upon the canal in a
stage-boat bound for Chester, a city which we had been advised by no
means to pass by unseen. This was a new mode of travelling, and a
delightful one it proved. The shape of the machine resembles the common
representations of Noah's ark, except that the roof is flatter, so made
for the convenience of passengers. Within this floating house are two
apartments, seats in which are hired at different prices, the parlour
and the kitchen. Two horses, harnessed one before the other, tow it
along at the rate of a league an hour; the very pace which it is
pleasant to keep up with when walking on the bank. The canal is just
wide enough for two boats to pass; sometimes we sprung ashore, sometimes
stood or sate upon the roof,—till to our surprise we were called down to
dinner, and found that as good a meal had been prepared in the back part
of the boat while we were going on, as would have been supplied at an
inn. We joined in a wish that the same kind of travelling were extended
every where: no time was lost; kitchen and cellars travelled with us;
the motion was imperceptible; we could neither be overturned nor run
away with, if we sunk there was not depth of water to drown us; we could
read as conveniently as in a house, or sleep as quietly as in a bed.
England is now intersected in every direction by canals. This is the
province in which they were first tried by the present duke of
Bridgewater, whose fortune has been amply increased by the success of
his experiment. His engineer Brindley was a singular character, a man of
real genius for this particular employment, who thought of nothing but
locks and levels, perforating hills, and floating barges upon aqueduct
bridges over unmanageable streams. When he had a plan to form he usually
went to bed, and lay there working it out in his head till the design
was completed. It is recorded of him, that being asked in the course of
an examination before the House of Commons for what he supposed rivers
were created, he answered after a pause,—To feed navigable canals.
Excellent as these canals are, rail-roads are found to accomplish the
same purpose at less expense. In these the wheels of the carriage move
in grooves upon iron bars laid all along the road; where there is a
descent no draught is required, and the laden waggons as they run down
draw the empty ones up. These roads are always used in the neighbourhood
of coal-mines and founderies. It has been recommended by speculative men
that they should be universally introduced, and a hope held out that at
some future time this will be done, and all carriages drawn along by the
action of steam-engines erected at proper distances. If this be at
present one of the dreams of philosophy, it is a philosophy by which
trade and manufactures would be benefited and money saved; and the dream
therefore may probably one day be accomplished.
The canal not extending to Chester, we were dismissed from the boat
about half way between the two cities, near the town of Warrington,
which was just distant enough to form a pleasing object through the
intervening trees. A stage, to which we were consigned, was ready to
receive us; and we exchanged, not very willingly, the silent and
imperceptible motion of a water journey, to be jolted over rough roads
in a crowded and noisy coach. The country was little interesting, and
became less so as we advanced. I saw two bodies swinging from a gibbet
by the road side; they had robbed and murdered a post-boy, and,
according to the barbarous and indecent custom of England, were hanged
up upon the spot till their bones should fall asunder.
We found Chester to be as remarkable a place as our travelling friend at
Manchester had represented it. The streets are cut out of a soft red
rock, and passengers walk, not upon flag-stones at the side, as in most
other cities, nor in the middle of the street,—but through the houses,
upon a boarded parade, through what would elsewhere be the front room of
the first floor. Whenever a lane or street strikes off, there is a
flight of steps into the carriage road. The best shops are upon this
covered way, though there are others underneath it on a level with the
street. The cathedral is a mean edifice of soft, red, crumbly stone,
apparently quarried upon the spot: it would have been folly to have
erected any thing better with such wretched materials.
The old walls are yet standing; there is a walk on the top of them, from
whence we overlooked the surrounding country, the mountains of Wales not
far distant, and the river Dee, which passes by the city, and forms an
estuary about two leagues below it. The new jail is considered as a
perfect model of prison architecture, a branch of the art as much
studied by the English of the present day, as ever cathedral building
was by their pious ancestors. The main objects attended to are, that the
prisoners be kept apart from each other, and that the cells should be
always open to inspection, and well ventilated, so as to prevent
infectious disorders, which were commonly occurring in old prisons. The
structure of this particular prison is singularly curious, the cells
being so constructed that the jailor from his dwelling-house can look
into every one,—a counterpart to the whispering dungeons in Sicily,
which would have delighted Dionysius. I thought of Asmodeus and Don
Cleofas. The apartment from whence we were shown the interior of the
prison was well, and even elegantly furnished; there were geraniums
flowering upon stands,—a piano-forte, and music-books lying open,—and
when we looked from the window we saw criminals with irons upon their
legs, in solitary dungeons:—one of them, who was intently reading some
devotional book, was, we were told, certainly to be executed at the next
assizes. Custom soon cauterizes human sympathy; or the situation of the
keeper who sits surrounded with comforts, and has these things always in
view, would be well nigh as deplorable as that of the wretches under his
care.
Of late years the office of jailor has become of considerable
importance, and ennobled by the title of Governor. The increase of
criminals has given it this consequence; and that the number of
criminals must be prodigiously increased, is sufficiently proved by the
frequency and magnitude of these new prisons. In fact, more persons
annually suffer death in this country than in the whole of Christendom
besides; and from hence it has been inferred, that either the people of
England are the most depraved people in Europe, or their laws are the
bloodiest. No, say the English; the true reason is, that in other
countries crimes are committed with impunity,—and they never fail to
instance assassination: thus they satisfy themselves and silence the
objector. True it is that in all the southern parts of Europe, to our
shame be it spoken, assassination is far more frequently committed than
punished; but murder with us, generally speaking, is neither in its
motive nor in its manner, the same atrocious crime which in England is
regarded with such religious abhorrence, and punished with such certain
severity. Among us, a love dispute between peasants or mechanics leads
as regularly to this deadly spirit of revenge, as a quarrel upon the
point of honour between two English gentlemen. The Spanish zagal holds
the life of his rival no cheaper than the English gentleman that of his
equal, who has elbowed him in the street, or intruded into his places at
the theatre; a blow with us is revenged by the knife, as it is in
England with the pistol. The difference is, that the sense of honour
extends lower in society among us, and that the impunity which we allow
to all, is restricted in England to the higher orders; and the truth is,
that, wherever assassination or duelling prevails, the fault is more to
be imputed to the laws than to the people. These are offences from which
men may be easily deterred; life will never be held cheap by the people,
if the laws teach them that it should be held sacred.
Every stage of society has its characteristic crimes. The savage is
hard-hearted to his children, brutal to his women, treacherous to his
enemies; he steals and runs away with his booty; he poisons his weapons;
he is cowardly and cruel. In the barbarian, pride and courage introduce
a sense of honour which lays the foundation for morality: he is a
robber, not a thief, ferocious instead of cunning, rather merciless than
cruel. When states become settled, new offences spring up, as the weeds
in meadow land differ from those of the waste; laws are necessary to
restrain the strong from oppression, and the weak from revenge. A new
tribe of evils accompany civilization and commerce,—the vices which are
fostered by wealth, and the crimes which are produced by want. Still the
progress of the human race, though slow, is sure; the laws and the
people soften alike, and crimes and punishments both become less
atrocious.
More offences are committed in England than in other countries, because
there is more wealth and more want; greater temptations to provoke the
poor, greater poverty to render them liable to temptation, and less
religious instruction to arm them against it. In Scotland, where the
puritan clergy retain something of their primitive zeal, the people are
more moral; poverty is almost general there, and therefore the less
felt, because there is little wealth to invite the contrast. In both
countries the greater number of offences are frauds; even they who prey
upon society partake of its amelioration, and forsake the barbarous
habits of robbery and murder, for methods less perilous to themselves
and to others. The weasel fares better than the wolf, and continues her
secret depredations after the wolf has been extirpated. In Ireland, on
the contrary, where the characteristics of savage life are still to be
found, murder is the most frequent crime; and, horrid as it is, it is
generally rendered still more so by circumstances of wanton cruelty. If
the Welsh are addicted to any peculiar offence it is sheep-stealing,
because the sheep have ceased to be wild,—and the people have not.
The laws are mitigated in due proportion to the amelioration of the
people:—it was formerly the custom, if a prisoner refused to plead to a
capital charge, to stretch him upon his back, and lay weights upon his
breast, which were daily to be increased till he died; now he is
regarded as guilty, and sentenced as such. Till lately, women were burnt
when men were only hanged;[9] the punishment is now the same for both
sexes; the horrible butchery for treason, by which the martyrs suffered
under the persecutions of Elizabeth and James, is commuted for
beheading. In these last instances the mitigation is of the national
manners, and not of the law: but the laws themselves should be amended;
custom is no security: a cruel minister might enforce these inhuman
sentences which are still pronounced,—and nations can never take too
many precautions against the possibility of being rebarbarized. There is
no _Misericordia_ in England: and, except indeed for spiritual
assistance, its humane services are not needed; the prisoners are
sufficiently fed and clothed, and the law which punishes, allows every
alleviation of punishment which does not defeat the main end of justice.
Something of the spirit of this charitable institution was displayed by
an individual in the metropolis two centuries ago. He gave fifty pounds
to the parish in which the great prison is situated, on condition that,
for ever after, a man on the night preceding an execution should go to
Newgate in the dead of the night, and strike with a hand-bell twelve
tolls with double strokes, as near the cells of the condemned criminals
as possible,—then exhort them to repentance. The great bell of the
church was also to toll when they were passing by on their way to
execution, and the bellman was to look over the wall and exhort all good
people to pray to God for the poor sinners who were going to suffer
death. Robert Dew was the name of this pious man: the church is
dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, which these heretics have ingeniously
converted into a saint!
I need not tell you that the torture has long since been abolished in
England. In no other part of the world are laws so well executed; crimes
are never committed here with impunity;—there is no respect of persons,
justice is never defeated by delay, and the people are not familiarised
to cruelty by the sight of cruel punishments. The effect of so
familiarizing a nation has been dreadfully exemplified in France. All
history does not present a spectacle more inexpiably disgraceful to the
country in which it occurred, than the council of surgeons assembled to
fix the sentence of Damiens; a council appointed by the king of France
and his ministers, to discover in what manner the poor madman could be
made to feel the most exquisite tortures, and kept alive as long as
possible to endure them! Louis XV. signed this sentence,—and then
desired he might not be told when it was to be executed,—because it
would hurt his feelings! The present king of England has, in like
manner, twice escaped death; and in both instances the unhappy persons
concerned have been lodged in the public hospital for the insane. Is
there upon record another contrast so striking between two neighbouring
nations?
Even however in England some improvements are still desirable in
criminal law. The principle of the law is, that every man shall be
presumed innocent till he is proved guilty; yet this principle is never
carried into effect, and the accused are confined in irons:—it is
necessary to secure them; but any rigour not absolutely necessary for
this purpose, is in manifest violation of this humane and just axiom. A
pleader should be permitted to defend the prisoner, as well as one to
accuse him; where the innocence of the prisoner is proved, he ought to
be indemnified for the losses he has sustained, and the expenses he has
incurred by his imprisonment and trial; where he is convicted, the
expense of bringing him to justice ought to fall upon the public, not
upon the individual prosecutor, already a sufferer by the offence.
[9] Only for coining, and for murdering their husbands. The author seems
to have supposed it was always the case.—TR.
LETTER XL.
_Voyage to Liverpool.—Filthy Custom at the Inns.—School of the Blind.—
Athenæum.—Mr Roscoe.—Journey to Kendal._
Wednesday, July 14.
We left Chester yesterday at noon, and embarked again upon a canal. Our
last navigation had ended by transferring us to a coach; we had now to
undergo a more unpleasant transfer. The canal reached the Mersey, a huge
river which forms the port of Liverpool, across which we had about three
leagues to sail in a slant direction. A vessel was ready to receive us,
on board of which we embarked, and set sail with a slack wind. At first
it was pleasant sailing,—the day fair, a castellated hill in full view
up the river, and Liverpool at a distance, near to its mouth, upon the
northern shore. But the wind rose, the water became rough, there came on
a gale from the west with heavy rain, which drove us below deck, and
then we were driven up again by the stench of a close cabin, and the
sickness of women and children. The gale was so strong that we had
reason to be thankful for reaching the town in safety.
Immediately upon our landing we were surrounded by boys proffering cards
of the different inns by which they were employed to look out for
strangers, and contesting who should carry our luggage. The rain
continued, and confined us for the evening. They have a filthy custom at
the inns in England, that when you pull off your boots, the man brings
you a pair of old slippers, which serve for all travellers, and indeed
are frequently worn-out shoes with the heels cut away: clean as the
English are, this impropriety does not in the slightest degree offend
them.
The next morning we enquired for a gentleman with whom I had been
acquainted in London. A book containing the names and place of abode of
all the inhabitants is kept in every inn: so that there was no
difficulty in finding him out. With him we spent the day, and were
obliged to him for showing us whatever was most worthy of notice in the
town. There is no cathedral, no castle, gate, town-wall, or monument of
antiquity, no marks of decay. Every thing is the work of late years,
almost of the present generation.
There is but one fine street in the city, which is terminated by the
Exchange, a handsome structure; but as you look up the street to it, it
is not in the centre, and this irregularity produces a singularly
unpleasant effect. One side of the street, it seems, was built with
reference to this Exchange, and the other was to have corresponded with
it; but when the governors of the city came to purchase the ground, some
obstacles were discovered which had not been foreseen. As there are few
fine streets, so there are few which display much poverty: this external
appearance of prosperity is purchased at a dear price; for the poor, as
in Manchester, live mostly in cellars, underground. The height of some
of the warehouses excited the wonder of my companion, and he expressed
his surprise that I should not be astonished at them also. In fact, old
houses in England are generally lower than modern ones, and even these
have never more than four floors. Yet the value of ground is
prodigiously great, and the island is not subject to earthquakes.
Here is a hospital for horses, of which the sign-board caught my eye as
we passed along. We visited a school for the blind, a sight as
interesting as it was melancholy. They make curtain lines by a machine
which a blind man contrived; list-slippers, which were an invention of
the French emigrants; baskets;—every thing, in short, in which the sense
of sight can be supplied by touch. It was surprising to see them move
about the room, steering clear of every thing as surely as though they
had seen what was before them,—as if they had possessed that sixth
sense, which experimental naturalists, the most merciless of human
beings, are said to have discovered in bats, when they have put out
their eyes for the sake of seeing how the tortured animal can find its
way without them. They sung a hymn for our gratification: their voices
were fine; and the deep attention which was manifest in their eyeless
faces, dead as they necessarily were to all external objects which could
distract them, was affecting and even awful. Such as discover a taste
for music are instructed in it; and some have been thus enabled to
support themselves as organists in the churches, and by tuning
instruments. The blind must be very numerous in England, as I am told
there are many such institutions; but there is good reason to hope that
the number will be materially lessened in future by the vaccine
inoculation, a very large proportion of these poor sufferers having lost
their eyes by the smallpox.
Liverpool has become a place of great maritime trade, against every
natural disadvantage. The river is sheltered only from the north, and at
low-water sand-banks may be seen round its mouth for leagues off in
every direction. Vessels when leaving port easily avoid them, because
they start with a fair wind, but to returning ships they are far more
perilous. In spite of this, there is not any other place where so much
mercantile enterprise is displayed in England, nor perhaps in the whole
world.—Two ships came in while we were upon the quay: it was a beautiful
sight to see them enter the docks and take their quiet station, a crowd
flocking towards them, some in curiosity to know what they were, others
in hope and in fear, hastening to see who had returned in them.
Fortunes are made here with a rapidity unexampled in any other part of
England. It is true that many adventurers fail; yet with all the ups and
downs of commercial speculation, Liverpool prospers beyond all other
ports. There is too a princely liberality in its merchants, which, even
in London, is not rivalled. Let any thing be proposed for the advantage
and ornament, or honour of the town, however little akin it may be to
their own pursuits, habits, and feelings, they are ready with
subscriptions to any amount. It has lately been resolved upon to have a
botanical garden here; a large sum has been raised for the purpose, and
the ground purchased. "It will be long," said I to our friend, "before
this can be brought to any perfection." "Oh, sir," said he, with a smile
of triumph which it was delightful to perceive, "you do not know how we
do things at Liverpool. Money and activity work wonders. In half a dozen
years we shall have the finest in England."
The history of their Athenæum is a striking instance of their spirit:—by
this name they call a public library, with a reading-room for the
newspapers and other journals,—for all periodical publications, whether
daily, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, are called _journals_ in England.
Two of the literary inhabitants were talking one day after dinner of the
want of a public library in the town, and they agreed to call a meeting
for the purpose of forming one. The meeting was advertised,—they went to
it,—and found themselves alone. "What shall we do now?" said the one:
"here is an end of the business." "No," said his friend;—"take you the
chair, I will be secretary; we will draw up our resolutions unanimously,
and advertise them." They did so; and in four-and-twenty-hours
sufficient funds were subscribed to establish the finest institution of
the kind in the kingdom.
Literature also flourishes as fairly as commerce. A history of Lorenzo
de Medici appeared here about eight years ago, which even the Italians
have thought worthy of translation. The libraries of Florence were
searched for materials for this work, and many writings of Lorenzo
himself first given to the world in Liverpool. This work of Mr Roscoe's
has diffused a general taste for the literature of Italy. It has been
said of men of letters, that, like prophets, they have no honour in
their own country; but to this saying, to which there are so few
exceptions, one honourable one is to be found here. The people of
Liverpool are proud of their townsman: whether they read his book or
not, they are sensible it has reflected honour upon their town in the
eyes of England and of Europe, and they have a love and jealousy of its
honour, which has seldom been found any where except in those cities
where that love was nationality, because the city and the state were the
same. This high and just estimation of Mr Roscoe is the more
praiseworthy, because he is known to be an enemy to the slave-trade, the
peculiar disgrace of Liverpool.
* * * * *
Thursday, 15.
We had choice of stage-coaches to Kendal, but it was only a choice
between two of the same sort, the long, coffin-shaped machines, of which
we had had so bad a sample between Worcester and Birmingham. One of
these we ascended at seven this morning for a day's journey of twenty
leagues. The outskirts of Liverpool have an unsightly appearance,—new
streets of houses for the poorer classes, which bear no marks either of
cleanliness or comfort, fields cut up for the foundations of other
buildings, brick yards, and kilns smoking on every side. It was not easy
to say where the town ended; for the paved way, which in all other parts
of England ends with the town, continued here the whole stage, sorely to
our annoyance. We passed through Ormskirk, a town chiefly famous for the
preparation of a nostrum of more repute than efficacy against
hydrophobia, and breakfasted a stage beyond it, at a single inn beside a
bridge, the worst and dirtiest house of entertainment which I have yet
seen in England. Sometimes we had a view of the sea towards Ireland; but
the country was flat and unpleasant, and the trees all blighted and
stunted in their growth; they seemed to have shrunk and twisted
themselves to avoid the severity of the sea-blasts.
Preston was the next stage, a large manufacturing town: before we
entered it we crossed the river Ribble by a good bridge, and immediately
ascended a long hill,—it was the only pleasant spot which we had seen
upon the way. Near this place an officer once met his death in battle by
a singular accident. His horse upon some disgust he took at the guns, as
the old writer oddly expresses it, ran off and leapt a ditch; the man's
sword fell, and at the same minute he was thrown upon its point, and it
ran him through. There is a spring about three leagues from hence, the
water of which will burn with a blue flame like spirits of wine. Beyond
Preston the roads were good, and the country also improved. We changed
horses again at Garstang, a little town where the picture over the inn
door caught my notice. It was an eagle carrying away a
child—representing a circumstance which is believed to have happened in
old times in this part of the country. Near the town we saw the ruins of
a castle to the right. Another easy stage brought us to Lancaster, one
of the best built cities in the kingdom. The view as we left it after
dinner was truly fine; two stone bridges over the river Lon, the town on
the opposite bank, and on the highest part of the hill a castle, which
has been newly built or repaired as a prison.—Lancaster could scarcely
have appeared more beautiful in the days of the shield and the lance.
Our land of promise was now in sight; high mountains seen across a great
bay, with all the aërial hues of distance: but the clouds gathered, and
we were driven to take shelter in the coach from a heavy rain. About ten
we arrived at Kendal. Here, while supper was preparing, we sent for A
Guide to the Lakes, and a map of them. This is one of the comforts of
travelling in England;—wherever you go, printed information is to be
found concerning every thing which deserves a stranger's notice. From
hence our pedestrian expedition was to begin. We took out our knapsacks,
stored them with a change of linen, &c., and dispatched our trunks by
the carrier to meet us at Ambleside.
They produced at supper potted char, which is their delicacy, this fish
being peculiar to the Lakes. So many are potted and sent to other parts
of the country, chiefly as presents, that pots are made on purpose,
which have on them a rude representation of the fish. It resembles a
trout, but is I am told more beautifully spotted, and of a more delicate
flavour. In its potted state it was very good, as I suppose any eatable
fish would have been if prepared in the same manner.
LETTER XLI.
_Queen Mary I.—Lake of Winandermere.—Ambleside.—Lake of Coniston.—
Kirkstone Mountain.—Lake of Brotherwater.—Paterdale.—Lake of
Ulswater.—Penrith._
Friday, July 16.
Kendal, though less populous and less busy than the noisy manufacturing
towns which we have left behind us, is yet a place of thriving industry,
and has been so during some centuries. The most interesting fact
connected with its history is this; after the death of Henry VIII. his
daughter, the pious Mary, being deeply concerned for the state of his
unhappy soul, would fain have set apart the revenues of this parochial
church as a fund for masses in his behalf. She consulted proper persons
upon this matter, who assured her that the pope would never consent to
it; and she then, still endeavouring to hope that he was not utterly out
of the reach of intercession, gave the advowson to a college which he
had founded in Cambridge, thinking that, as the foundation of this
college was the best thing he had done for himself, the best thing she
could do for him would be to augment its revenues for his sake.
The morning threatened rain, luckily, as it induced us to provide
ourselves with umbrellas, a precaution which we might otherwise have
neglected. They make these things in England to serve also as
walking-sticks, by which means they are admirably adapted for foot
travellers. Much rain has fallen lately in this neighbourhood; and the
influx of such visitors as ourselves is so great, that the person of
whom we purchased these umbrellas told us, he had sold forty in the
course of the week.
After breakfast we began our march. You would have smiled to see me with
the knapsack buckled over my breast, and a staff in hand, which, if not
so picturesque as the pilgrim's, is certainly more convenient in so
showery a land as this. Our way was up and down steep hills, by a good
road. The carts of this country are drawn by a single horse; and this is
conceived to be so much the best mode of draught, that the Board of
Agriculture is endeavouring to make it general throughout the kingdom.
In about two hours we came in sight of Winandermere, _mere_ being
another word for lake. We had now travelled over two leagues of
uninteresting ground, where the hills were so high as to excite
expectation of something to be seen from the summit which we were
toiling up, and when we had reached the summit, not high enough to
realize the expectation they had excited. The morning had been
over-cast; twice we had been obliged to our portable penthouses for
saving us from a wetting; the sun had oftentimes struggled to show
himself, and as often was overclouded again after ineffectual gleams:
but now, when we had reached the height from which our promised land was
indeed visible, the weather ceased to be doubtful, the sun came fairly
forth, the clouds dispersed, and we sat down upon a little rock by the
road side to overlook the scene, perhaps with greater pleasure, because
we had at one time so little hope of beholding it in such perfection.
The lake which lay below us is about three leagues in length: but a long
narrow island stretches athwart it in the middle, and divides it into
two parts. The lower half resembles a broad river, contracting its
breadth towards the extremity of the view, where the hills on both sides
seem to die away. The upper end is of a more complicated, but far nobler
character. Here the lake is considerably wider; it is studded with many
little islands, and surrounded with mountains, whose varieties of form
and outline it would be hopeless to attempt describing. They have not
that wavy and ocean-like appearance, which you have seen round you among
some of our sierras; each has its individual form and character; and the
whole have a grandeur, an awfulness, to which till now I had been a
stranger. Two or three boats were gliding with white sails upon this
calm and lovely water. The large island in the middle is planted with
ornamental trees, and in the midst of it is a house, for the
architecture of which no other excuse can be offered, than that, being
round, and other houses usually square, something unusual may be
conceived to suit so singular a situation. We were eager for a nearer
view, and proceeded cheerfully to Bowness, a little town upon its shore;
and from thence to the end of a long tongue of land, whence we crossed
to an inn called the Ferry, on the opposite bank,—a single house,
overshadowed by some fine sycamore trees, which grow close to the
water-side.
We were directed to a castellated building above the inn, standing upon
a craggy point, but in a style so foolish, that, if any thing could mar
the beauty of so beautiful a scene, it would be this ridiculous edifice.
This absurdity is not remembered when you are within, and the spot is
well chosen for a banqueting-house. The room was hung with prints,
representing the finest similar landscapes in Great Britain and other
countries, none of the representations exceeding in beauty the real
prospect before us. The windows were bordered with coloured glass, by
which you might either throw a yellow sunshine over the scene, or frost
it, or fantastically tinge it with purple.—Several boats were anchored
off the island; the neighbouring islets appeared more beautiful than
this inhabited one, because their trees and shrubs had not the same
trim, plantation-appearance, and their shores were left with their
natural inequalities and fringe of weeds, whereas the other was built up
like a mound against the water.
After dinner we landed on the island, a liberty which is liberally
allowed to strangers: having perambulated its winding walks, we rowed
about among the other islets, enjoying the delightful scene till
sun-set. Kingdoms, it is said, are never so happy as during those years
when they furnish nothing for historians to record: I think of this now,
when feeling how happy I have been to-day, and how little able I am to
describe this happiness. Had we been robbed on the road, or overtaken by
storms and upset in the lake, here would have been adventures for a
letter:—do not however suppose that I am ambitious of affording you
entertainment at any such price.
* * * * *
Saturday.
We slept at the Ferry House, and the next morning recrossed the water,
and proceeded along a road above the lake, but parallel with it, to the
little village of Ambleside, which is one of the regular stations on the
tour. The upper end of Winandermere became more majestic as we advanced,
mountains of greater height and finer forms opened upon us. The borders
of the lake were spotted with what the English, in opposition to our
application of the word, call _villas_, for which it would be difficult
to find a term,—single houses of the gentry, the _casarias_ of the rich,
which distinguish England so much from other countries, not only in its
appearance, but in the very name of its society. A stronger contrast
cannot well be imagined than that of a shore thus ornamented, and the
wild mountains beyond;—yet wooded hills and crags rising one above the
other, harmonized the whole into one accordant and lovely scene. Grand
and awful I called these mountains yesterday: they are so, and yet the
feeling which the whole scene produces is less that of awe than of
delight. The lake and its green shores seem so made for summer and
sunshine joyousness, that no fitter theatre could be devised for
Venetian pageantry, with the Bucentaur and all its train of gondolas. I
wished for Cleopatra's galley, or for the silken-sailed ships of the
days of chivalry, with their blazonry, their crimson awnings, their
serpent-shaped hulks, music at the prow, and masquers dancing on the
deck.
Several carriages passed us, and when we reached Ambleside the inn was
full, and they were obliged to lodge us in the village, so great is the
concourse of visitors to these Lakes. Some of the old houses here, with
their open balconies, resemble our cottages and posadas; but these
vestiges of former times will not exist much longer. New houses are
building, old ones modernized, and marks of the influx of money to be
seen every where.
It was noon when we arrived, for the distance was not quite two leagues.
Two smaller lakes were to be seen within a league of Ambleside, called
Ryedale and Grasmere, and two waterfalls on the way. This was our
afternoon's walk, and a more beautiful one perhaps is not to be found in
the wide world. My own recollections are so inadequately represented by
any form of words, that it is best to give up the attempt as hopeless.
One of the waterfalls, however, is of so singular a character that it
may be imagined from description. We were admitted into a little hut,
and then beheld it from the window of a rude room, falling under a
bridge, into a bason between rocks which were overhung with trees. Every
thing is upon so small a scale, that the trick of surprise is not
offensive, and the sort of frame through which it was seen, not
dissuitable to the picture. On our way back we took shelter from a
shower in a cottage, where the mistress was making oaten cakes, the
bread of this province. The dough being laid on a round board, which was
a little hollowed, she clapped it out with her hands till it covered the
board; then slipt it off upon a round iron plate of the same size, which
was placed over a wood fire; and when the cake was crisp on the one
side, as it soon became, being very thin, she turned it. We tasted of
this bread: it was dry, but not unpleasant. They who are accustomed to
it like it well, and think it nutritious; but it is said to produce or
aggravate cutaneous diseases.
* * * * *
Sunday.
The English are not quite so mad in their own country as they are
abroad; and yet follies enough are committed at home to show that
travelling Englishmen are no unfaithful representatives of their
countrymen. We had as singular an instance of their characteristic folly
this morning as could be wished. D. and I were on our way to visit
Coniston Lake, when, as we were ascending a hill, we saw an open
carriage drawn by two horses coming down: the body of the carriage was
placed upon the wheels with the back part forwards, and a gentleman was
driving with his back to the horses, and never looking round. The hill
was steep, and the road winding; he was going at no very safe pace; and
if the horses had not been more cautious than their master, we might
very probably have had an opportunity of seeing what it was in the
inside of his head, which supplied the place of brains. Some wager must
have been the occasion of this prank.
It was but a dreary road to Coniston, of two leagues,—neither were we
well repaid when we got there by the sight of a lake extending into a
tame country. Had we approached from the other end it would not perhaps
have disappointed us, but we came from the mountains at its head,
instead of advancing towards them. Slates of remarkable size are used
for fences and in building about this neighbourhood. They are so high
that I saw one row forming the whole front of a cottage, and in another
place a house-porch was constructed of four, one on each side, and two
leaning against each other for the roof. The quarry is among the
mountains.
The language of the people here is almost unintelligible to me; it
resembles Scotch more than English. D. is frequently at a loss to
understand their meaning, though they seem to have no difficulty in
understanding him.
* * * * *
On Monday we left Ambleside, and toiled up Kirkstone Mountain, perhaps
the longest and most laborious pass in England, a full league up, though
the highest point of the road is considerably below the summit of the
mountain. Immediately upon beginning to descend, a striking scene opened
upon us; we were between two walls of rock, and on the left hand a
brook, increased by innumerable streams from the heights on either side,
rolled down a rocky channel. This opening soon spread into a vale, which
continued to widen before us as we advanced. Here we saw scattered
cottages built of loose stones and covered with slates, both roof and
sides so rudely built, so tinged by weather, and clothed with ferns and
mosses, as to blend with the colours of the natural scenery, almost as
if they had been things of nature themselves, and not the work of man.
They are the rudest cottages which I have seen in England, and indicate
either great laziness in the inhabitants, or dismal poverty.
In this rude vale we met a travelling Jew pedlar, laden with barometers
and thermometers. What an extraordinary land is this! In a place as wild
and savage as the desert of Batuecas might we have purchased such
weather-glasses, as certainly it would be hopeless to seek for in most
of the cities in Spain.
The waters which accompanied our descent spread themselves into a little
lake in the valley, called Brotherwater; small, but exquisitely
beautiful. I have never seen a single spot more beautiful or more
rememberable. The mountain behind,—it is one of the highest in the
country,—forms a cove, in which a single old mansion stands in a green
field among old trees. The most rigid Jeronymites could not wish for a
place of more total seclusion. Out of this lake flowed a little river,
clear, rapid, and melodious; we crossed it, and our path lay along its
banks. How often did I stop and look back, and close my eyes to open
them again, as if repetition could better impress the landscape upon
remembrance than continuity; the delight I felt was mingled with sorrow
by a sense of transitoriness;—it was even painful to behold scenes so
beautiful, knowing that I should never behold them more.
We had started early, to have the day before us, so that we reached
Paterdale to breakfast; the distance was two leagues and a half, enough
to raise an appetite even had it been plain ground,—and the mountain air
had made us almost ravenous. If the people of the inn had not been
prepared for a succession of numerous visitors, our hunger might have
looked for supplies in vain: and if many of their visitors were as
hungry as ourselves, they would breed a famine in the land. No banquet,
no wines could have exhilarated us more than food. We truly felt the joy
of health and the reward of exercise.
The abundance of water in these vales is more delightful than can be
imagined. Nothing languishes here for drought. It is the midst of
summer, and the brooks are full. If the sound of a tank or a water-wheel
is so agreeable, judge what the voice must be of these living streams,
now breaking round rocks, which, in the process of ages, they have worn
smooth, now leaping and foaming from crag to crag, now coursing over a
bed of pebbles. How little do our Valverdes and Valparaisos bear
comparison with these vales, which are kept always green by streams
which never fail!
Here we took boat upon the lake of Ulswater. The beauties of
Winandermere, highly as they had excited our admiration, seemed as
nothing when we compared them with this grander country. Higher
mountains rose here immediately from the Lake, and instead of villas and
gardens there was a forest on the shore. On Winandermere I had wished
for gondolas and mirth and music;—here I should have felt that they were
incongruous with the scene, and with the feelings which it awakened.—The
domestic architecture of the English is however so abominable that it
will spoil whatever can be spoilt. There is a detestable house here
belonging to a gentleman, who, for his great possessions in the vale, is
called the King of Paterdale. Wherever it is seen it is as impertinent
and offensive as the old _Gracioso_[10] in a scene of real passion.
Ulswater forms three reaches,—each three miles in length. The whole can
never be seen at one view, nor indeed any two of the reaches except from
their point. We landed near a singular building, which serves as a
hunting-seat for the duke of Norfolk, and we were admitted to see a
waterfall in his garden. Nature produces as endless varieties of scenery
with the elements of wood, water, and rock, as she does of countenance
with the features of the human face, and it is as hopeless to delineate
by words the real character of one as of the other. Ara Force is the
name of this waterfall. A chaise passed us as we were returning to the
boat; there were three picturesque tourists in it, and one of them was
fast asleep in the corner.
The lake and the mountains end together; a broad and rapid river called
the Emont flows out of it. We landed, and proceeded a league and quarter
through a cultivated country to Penrith, a town which, though we should
have thought little of it in any other part of England, seems here, by
comparison, like a metropolis. The flies have grievously tormented us
upon our walk. I used to complain of our mosquitos, but they have at
least the modesty to wait for night and darkness;—these English
tormentors attack man to his face in broad day-light. Certainly they are
of the same species as those which were chosen to be one of the plagues
of Egypt.
[10] The buffoon of the Spanish stage.—TR.
LETTER XLII.
_Keswick, and its Lake.—Lodore Waterfall.—Ascent of Skiddaw._
Wednesday.
From Penrith to Keswick is four leagues and a half; and as we were told
there was no place where we could breakfast upon the way, we lay in bed
till a later hour than would otherwise have beseemed pedestrians. The
views were uninteresting after such scenery as we had lately passed,
yet, as we were returning to the mountainous country, they improved as
we advanced. Our road lay under one very fine mountain called
Saddleback, and from every little eminence we beheld before us in the
distance the great boundaries of the vale of Keswick. At length, after
walking five hours, we ascended the last hill, and saw the vale below us
with its lake and town, girt round with mountains even more varied in
their outline, and more remarkably grouped, than any which we had left
behind. It was beginning to rain; and to confess the truth, we derived
more satisfaction from the sight of the town than from the wonders
around it. Joyfully we reached the inn to which our trunks had been
directed from Ambleside, but our joy was in no slight degree damped by
the unwelcome intelligence that the house was full. Was there another
inn?—that was full also; the town was crowded with company: but if we
would walk in they would endeavour to procure us beds. In a few minutes
word was brought us that they had procured one bed, if we had no
objection to sleep together,—and if we had, it seemed there was no
alternative. We were assured, for our comfort, that strangers had
sometimes slept in their carriages. Accordingly we were conducted to our
apartment, which proved to be at the house of the barber.
The Barber in England is not the important personage he is in our
country; he meddles with no surgical instruments, and the few who draw
teeth practise exclusively among the poor, and are considered, as
degrading the profession;—still the barber is a person of importance
every where. Our host was as attentively civil as man could be, and
partly out of compliment to him, partly from a fancy to be shaved in the
English fashion, I submitted my chin to him. Barbers-basons, it seems,
are as obsolete here as helmets, and Don Quixote must in this country
have found some other pretext for attacking a poor shaver. Instead of
rubbing the soap upon the face, he used a brush; this mode of operating
is not so cleanly as our own, but it is more expeditious. We find him of
great use in directing our movements here. He has been a sailor; was in
the famous action against the Comte de Grasse; and after having been in
all parts of the world, returned at last to his native place, to pass
the remainder of his days in this humbler but more gainful employment.
His wife was as active as himself in serving us; our trunks were
presently brought up,—the table laid,—dinner brought from the inn;—and
though we might have wished for a larger apartment, which was not to
serve for bed-room as well, yet the behaviour of these people was so
unlike that of inn-waiters, and had so much the appearance of real
hospitality, that the gratification of seeing it was worth some little
inconvenience. The room is very neat, and bears marks of industrious
frugality;—it has a carpet composed of shreds of list of different
colours, and over the chimney-piece is the portrait of one of the
admirals under whom our host had served.
It rained all night, and we were congratulated upon this, because the
waterfall of Lodore, the most famous in all this country, would be in
perfection. As soon as we had breakfasted a boat was ready for us, and
we embarked on the lake, about half a mile from the town. A taste for
the picturesque, if I may so far flatter myself as to reason upon it
from self-observation, differs from a taste for the arts in this
remarkable point,—that instead of making us fastidious, it produces a
disposition to receive delight, and teaches us to feel more pleasure in
discovering beauty, than connoisseurs enjoy in detecting a fault. I have
sometimes been satiated with works of art; a collection of pictures
fatigues me, and I have regarded them at last rather as a task than as a
pleasure. Here, on the contrary, the repetition of such scenes as these
heightens the enjoyment of them. Every thing grows upon me. I become
daily more and more sensible of the heights of the mountains, observe
their forms with a more discriminating eye, and watch with increased
pleasure the wonderful changes they assume under the effect of clouds or
of sunshine.
The Lake of Keswick has this decided advantage over the others which we
have seen, that it immediately appears to be what it is. Winandermere
and Ulswater might be mistaken for great rivers, nor indeed can the
whole extent of either be seen at once; here you are on a land-locked
bason of water, a league in length, and about half as broad,—you do not
wish it to be larger, the mirror is in perfect proportion to its frame.
Skiddaw, the highest and most famous of the English mountains, forms its
northern boundary, and seems to rise almost immediately from its shore,
though it is at the nearest point half a league distant, and the town
intervenes. One long mountain, along which the road forms a fine
terrace, reaches nearly along the whole of its western side; and through
the space between this and the next mountain, which in many points of
view appears like the lower segment of a prodigious circle, a lovely
vale is seen which runs up among the hills. But the pride of the Lake of
Keswick is the head, where the mountains of Borrodale bound the
prospect, in a wilder and grander manner than words can adequately
describe. The cataract of Lodore thunders down its eastern side through
a chasm in the rocks, which are wooded with birch and ash trees. It is a
little river, flowing from a small lake upon the mountains about a
league distant. The water, though there had been heavy rains, was not
adequate to the channel;—indeed it would require a river of considerable
magnitude to fill it,—yet it is at once the finest work and instrument
of rock and water that I have ever seen or heard. At a little
public-house near, where the key of the entrance is kept, they have a
cannon to display the echo; it was discharged for us, and we heard the
sound rolling round from hill to hill,—but for this we paid four
shillings,—which are very nearly a peso duro. So that English echoes
appear to be the most expensive luxuries in which a traveller can
indulge. It is true there was an inferior one which would have cost only
two shillings and sixpence; but when one buys an echo, who would be
content, for the sake of saving eighteen pence, to put up with the
second best, instead of ordering at once the super-extra-double
superfine?
We walked once more at evening to the Lake side. Immediately opposite
the quay is a little island with a dwelling-house upon it. A few years
ago it was hideously disfigured with forts and batteries, a sham church,
and a new druidical temple, and, except a few fir-trees, the whole was
bare. The present owner has done all which a man of taste could do in
removing these deformities: the church is converted into a tool-house,
the forts demolished, the batteries dismantled, the stones of the
druidical temple employed in forming a bank, and the whole island
planted. There is something in this place more like the scenes of
enchantment in the books of chivalry than like any thing in our ordinary
world,—a building, the exterior of which promised all the conveniences
and elegancies of life, surrounded with all ornamental trees, in a
little island the whole of which is one garden, and that in this lovely
lake, girt round on every side with these awful mountains. Immediately
behind it is the long dark western mountain called Brandelow: the
contrast between this and the island, which seemed to be the palace and
garden of the Lady of the Lake, produced the same sort of pleasure that
a tale of enchantment excites, and we beheld it under circumstances
which heightened its wonders, and gave the scene something like the
unreality of a dream. It was a bright evening, the sun shining, and a
few white clouds hanging motionless in the sky. There was not a breath
of air stirring,—not a wave, a ripple, or wrinkle on the lake, so that
it became like a great mirror, and represented the shores, mountains,
sky, and clouds so vividly, that there was not the slightest appearance
of water. The great mountain-opening being reversed, in the shadow
became a huge arch, and through that magnificent portal the long vale
was seen between mountains and bounded by mountain beyond mountain, all
this in the water, the distance perfect as in the actual scene,—the
single houses standing far up in the vale, the smoke from their
chimneys,—every thing the same, the shadow and the substance joining at
their bases, so that it was impossible to distinguish where the reality
ended and the image began. As we stood on the shore, heaven and the
clouds and the sun seemed lying under us; we were looking down into a
sky, as heavenly and as beautiful as that overhead, and the range of
mountains, having one line of summit under our feet and another above
us, were suspended between two firmaments.
* * * * *
Thursday.
This morning we enquired as anxiously about the weather as if we had
been on shipboard, for the destined business of the day was to ascend
the great Skiddaw. After suffering hopes and fears, as sunshine or cloud
seemed to predominate, off we set with a boy to guide us. The foot of
the mountain lies about a mile from the town; the way for the first
stage is along a green path of gradual and uninterrupted ascent, on the
side of a green declivity. At the northern end of the vale there is
another lake, called Bassenthwaite, closed in like a wedge between two
mountains, and bounding the view; the vale, with both its lakes, opened
upon us as we ascended. The second stage was infinitely more laborious,
being so steep, though still perfectly safe, that we were many times
forced to halt for breath, and so long that before we had completed it
the first ascent seemed almost levelled with the vale. Having conquered
this, the summit appeared before us, but an intervening plain, about a
mile across, formed the third stage of the journey; this was easy
travelling over turf and moss. The last part was a ruder ascent over
loose stones with gray moss growing between them,—on the immediate
summit there is no vegetation. We sat down on a rude seat formed by a
pile of these stones, and enjoyed a boundless prospect,—that is, one
which extended as far as the reach of the human eye, but the distance
was dim and indistinct. We saw the sea through a hazy atmosphere, and
the smoke of some towns upon the coast about six leagues off, when we
were directed where to look for them: the Scotch mountains appeared
beyond like clouds, and the Isle of Man, we were told, would have been
visible had the weather been clearer. The home scene of mountains was
more impressive, and in particular the Lake of Bassenthwaite lying under
a precipice beneath us. They who visit the summit usually scratch their
names upon one of the loose stones which form the back to this rude
seat. We felt how natural and how vain it was to leave behind us these
rude memorials, which so few could possibly see, and of those few in all
human probability none would recognise,—yet we followed the example of
our predecessors. There are three such seats upon the three points of
the mountain; all which we visited. It is oftentimes piercingly cold
here, when the weather is temperate in the vale. This inconvenience we
did not perceive, for the wind was in the south,—but it brought on rain
as we were descending, and thoroughly wetted us before we reached home.
After dinner, as the rain still continued, and we could not go further
from home, we went to see an exhibition of pictures of the Lakes, a few
doors distant. There were several views of one called Waswater, which is
so little visited that our book of directions is silent concerning it.
It seemed to us, however, to be of so striking a character, and so
different from all which we have yet seen, that we consulted with our
host concerning the distance and the best mode of getting there, and
have accordingly planned a route which is to include it, and which we
shall commence tomorrow.
The people here wear shoes with wooden soles. D., who had never seen any
thing of the kind before, was inclined to infer from this that the
inhabitants were behind the rest of England in improvement; till I asked
him whether in a country so subject to rain as by experience we knew
this to be, a custom which kept the feet dry ought not to be imputed to
experience of its utility rather than to ignorance; and if, instead of
their following the fashions of the south of England, the other
peasantry would not do wisely in imitating them.
LETTER XLIII.
_Borrodale.—Wasdale.—Waswater.—Calder Bridge.—Ennerdale.—Crummock
Water.—Lake of Buttermere.—Lakes on the Mountains._
Friday.
The Lakes which we were next to explore lay south-west, and west of
Keswick. We took an early breakfast, provided ourselves with some hard
eggs, slung our knapsacks, and started about seven, taking the
horse-road to Lodore. The morning promised well, there was neither sun
to heat us, nor clouds enough to menace rain; but our old tormentors the
flies swarmed from the hedges and coppices by which we passed, as many,
as active, as impudent, and hardly less troublesome than the imps who
beset St Anthony.
For half a league we had no other view than what a gate, a gap in the
hedge, or an occasional rise of ground afforded. On the left was an
insulated hill of considerable height wooded to the summit, and when we
had left this, a coppice which reached to the foot of a long and lofty
range of crags, and spread every where up the acclivity where soil
enough could be found for trees to take root. This covered road
terminated in a noble opening: from a part which was almost completely
overbowered we came out at once upon a terrace above the Lake, the open
crags rising immediately upon the left. Among these rocks some painter
formerly discovered the figure of a female, which, with the help of
imagination, may easily be made out, and accordingly he named the place
Eve's crag, because, he said, she must certainly have been the first
woman.—Lodore was glittering before us, not having yet discharged all
the rain of yesterday; and Borrodale, into which we were bound, became
more beautiful the nearer we approached.
We had consulted tourists and topographers in London, that we might not
overpass any thing worthy of notice, and our Guide to the Lakes was with
us. They told us of tracts of horrible barrenness, of terrific
precipices, rocks rioting upon rocks, and mountains tost together in
chaotic confusion; of stone avalanches rendering the ways impassable,
the fear of some travellers who had shrunk back from this dreadful
entrance into Borrodale, and the heroism of others who had dared to
penetrate into these impenetrable regions:—into these regions, however,
we found no difficulty in walking along a good road, which coaches of
the light English make travel every summer's day. At the head of the
lake, where the river flows into this great reservoir, the vale is about
a mile in width, badly cultured because badly drained, and often
overflowed; but the marsh lands had now their summer green, and every
thing was in its best dress. The vale contracted as we advanced, and was
not half this width when, a mile on, we came to a little village called
the Grange.
This village consists of not more than half a score cottages, which
stand on a little rising by the river side,—built apparently without
mortar, and that so long ago that the stones have the same weather-worn
colour as those which lie upon the mountain side behind them. A few
pines rise over them, the mountains appear to meet a little way on and
form an amphitheatre, and where they meet their base is richly clothed
with coppice wood and young trees. The river, like all the streams of
this country, clear, shallow, and melodious, washes the stone bank on
which the greater number of the pines grow, and forms the foreground
with an old bridge of two arches, as rude in construction as the
cottages. The parapet has fallen down, and the bridge is impassable for
carts, which ford a little way above. The road from the bridge to the
village is in ruins; it had been made with much labour, but has been
long neglected, and the floods have left only the larger and deeper
rooted stones, and in other places the floor of rock; the inhabitants
therefore are relatively poorer than they were in former times.—In this
scene here are all the elements which the painter requires; nothing can
be more simple than the combination, nothing more beautiful. I have
never in all my travels seen a spot which I could recall so vividly; I
never remember it without fancying that it can easily be described,—yet
never attempt to clothe my recollections in words without feeling how
inadequately words can represent them.
Another mile of broken ground, the most interesting which I ever
traversed, brought us to a single rock called the Bowder Stone, a
fragment of great size which has fallen from the heights. The same
person who formerly disfigured the island in Keswick Lake with so many
abominations, has been at work here also; has built a little mock
hermitage, set up a new druidical stone, erected an ugly house for an
old woman to live in who is to show the rock, for fear travellers should
pass under it without seeing it, cleared away all the fragments round
it, and as it rests upon a narrow base, like a ship upon its keel, dug a
hole underneath through which the curious may gratify themselves by
shaking hands with the old woman. The oddity of this amused us greatly,
provoking as it was to meet with such hideous buildings in such a
place,—for the place is as beautiful as eyes can behold, or imagination
conceive. The river flows immediately below, of that pale gray green
transparency which we sometimes see in the last light of the evening
sky; a shelf of pebbles on the opposite shore shows where it finds its
way through a double channel when swoln by rains:—the rest of the shore
is covered with a grove of young trees which reach the foot of a huge
single crag, half clothed with brush-wood:—this crag when seen from
Keswick appears to block up the pass. Southward we looked down into
Borrodale, whither we were bound,—a vale which appeared in the shape of
a horse-shoe.
This lovely vale when we had descended into it, appeared to lie within
an amphitheatre of mountains; but as we advanced we perceived that its
real shape was that of the letter Y: our way lay along the right branch.
They have a pestilential fungus in this country which has precisely the
smell of putrid carrion, and is called by the fit name of the stinker.
It is so frequent as to be quite a nuisance along the road. We passed
through one little village, and left a second on our right, the
loneliest imaginable places;—both villages, and the few single houses
which we saw in the vale, have pines planted about them. A third and
still smaller village called Seathwaite lay before us, drearily
situated, because no attempt has been made to drain the land around,
easily as it might be done. Above this lies the mine of black-lead of
which those pencils so famous over all Europe are made,—it is the only
one of the kind which has yet been discovered. We could not see it, as
it is worked only occasionally, and had just been shut.
Our attention had been too much engaged by the delightful scenes around
us to let us think of the weather, when, to our surprise, it began to
rain hard:—there was no alternative but to proceed, for we were between
two and three leagues from Keswick. Dreary as the wet and plashy ground
about Seathwaite had appeared as we approached, it became cheerful when
we looked back upon it,—for it seemed as if we were leaving all
inhabitable parts,—nothing but rock and mountain was to be seen.—When we
had almost reached the extremity of this ascending vale, we came to a
little bridge, as rude as work of human hands can be; the stream making
a little cataract immediately under it. Here the ascent of the mountain
began, a steep, wet, winding path, more like a goat's highway than the
track of man. It rained heavily; but we consoled ourselves with
remarking that the rain kept us cool, whereas we should otherwise have
suffered much from heat. After long labour we reached a part which from
its easier acclivity seemed almost like a plain; and keeping by the side
of a little stream came to a small mountain lake, or Tarn as it is
called in the language of the country. A crag rose behind it; the water
was so dark that till I came close to it I could scarcely believe it was
clear. It may be thought that there is nothing more in a pool on the
mountains, than in a pool on a plain,—but the thing itself occasions a
totally different sensation. The sense of loneliness is an awful
feeling. I have better understood why the saints of old were wont to
retire into the wilderness, since I have visited these solitudes. The
maps call this Sparkling Tarn; but Low Tarn is the name given it in the
neighbourhood, and another about half an hour's height above it they
call High Tarn. This other is omitted in the maps, which, indeed, the
knowledge we have of their track, little as it is, enables us to say are
very incorrect. It would make a fine picture, and the height of its
situation might be expressed by alpine plants in the foreground.
Beyond this there was about half a mile still up, and by a steeper road.
Having reached the highest point, which is between Scafell and Great
Gabel, two of the highest mountains in England, we saw Wasdale below
bending to the south-west, between mountains whose exceeding height we
were now able to estimate by our own experience,—and to the west the sea
appeared through an opening. The descent may without exaggeration be
called tremendous; not that there is danger, but where any road is
possible, it is not possible to conceive a worse. It is, like the whole
surface round it, composed of loose stones, and the path serpentizes in
turns as short and as frequent as a snake makes in flight. It is withal
as steep as it can be to be practicable for a horse. At first we saw no
vegetation whatever; after a while only a beautiful plant, called here
the stone-fern, or mountain parsley, a lovely plant in any situation,
but appearing greener and lovelier here because it was alone. The
summits every where were wrapt in clouds; on our right, however, we
could see rocks rising in pinnacles and grotesque forms,—like the lines
which I have seen a child draw for rocks and mountains, who had heard of
but never seen them,—or the edge of a thundercloud rent by a storm.
Still more remarkable than the form is the colouring; the stone is red;
loose heaps or rather sheets of stones lay upon the sides,—in the
dialect of the country they call such patches _screes_, and it is
convenient to express them by a single word: those which the last winter
had brought down were in all their fresh redness, others were white with
lichens; here patches and lines of green were interposed. At this height
the white lichen predominated, but in other parts that species is the
commonest which is called the geographical from its resemblance to the
lines of a map; it is of a bright green, veined and spotted with
black,—so bright as if nature, in these the first rudiments of
vegetation, had rivalled the beauty of her choicest works. Wasdale
itself, having few trees and many lines of enclosure, lay below us like
a map.
The Lake was not visible till we were in the valley. It runs from
north-east to south-west, and one mountain extends along the whole of
its southern side, rising not perpendicularly indeed, but so nearly
perpendicular as to afford no path, and so covered with these loose
stones as to allow of no vegetation, and to be called from them _The
Screes_. The stream which accompanied our descent was now swoln into a
river by similar mountain torrents descending from every side. The dale
is better cultivated at the head than Borrodale, being better drained;
and the houses seemed to indicate more comfort and more opulence than
those on the other side the mountain; but stone houses and slate roofs
have an imposing appearance of cleanliness which is not always verified
upon near inspection. Ash trees grow round the houses, greener than the
pine, more graceful, and perhaps more beautiful,—yet we liked them
less:—was this because, even in the midst of summer, the knowledge that
the pine will not fade influences us, though it is not directly
remembered?
The rain now ceased, and the clouds grew thinner. They still concealed
the summits, but now began to adorn the mountain, so light and silvery
did they become. At length they cleared away from the top, and we
perceived that the mountain whose jagged and grotesque rocks we had so
much admired was of pyramidal shape. That on the southern side of the
dale head, which was of greater magnitude, and therefore probably,
though not apparently, of equal height, had three summits. The clouds
floated on its side, and seemed to cling to it. We thought our shore
tamer than the opposite one, till we recollected that the road would not
be visible from the water; and presently the mountain, which had
appeared of little magnitude or beauty while we passed under it, became,
on looking back, the most pyramidal of the whole, and in one point had a
cleft summit like Parnassus; thus forming the third conical mountain of
the group, which rose as if immediately from the head of the Lake, the
dale being lost. But of all objects _the screes_ was the most
extraordinary. Imagine the whole side of a mountain, a league in length,
covered with loose stones, white, red, blue, and green, in long straight
lines as the torrents had left them, in sheets and in patches, sometimes
broken by large fragments of rocks which had unaccountably stopt in
their descent, and by parts which, being too precipitous for the stones
to rest on, were darkened with mosses,—and every variety of form and
colour was reflected by the dark water at its foot: no trees or bushes
upon the whole mountain,—all was bare, but more variegated by this
wonderful mixture of colouring than any vegetation could have made it.
The Lake is a league in length, and the hilly country ends with it. We
entered upon a cultivated track, well wooded, and broken with gentle
swells, the mountains on the right and left receding towards Ennerdale
and Eskdale. About half a league beyond the end of the Lake we came to a
miserable alehouse, the first which we had found all day, where they
charged us an unreasonable price for milk and oaten bread. We went into
a church-yard here, and were surprised at seeing well-designed and
well-lettered tombstones of good red stone, in a place apparently
inhabited by none but poor peasantry. In about another league we came to
a larger village, where manufactures had begotten alehouses; in the
church-yard was a pillar of the Pagan Danes converted into a cross, once
curiously sculptured, but the figures are now nearly effaced. Here we
came into the high road which runs along the coast, and in a short time
arrived at a little town called Calder Bridge, where, to our comfort,
after a walk of not less than seven leagues, we found a good inn. The
bridge from which this place is named is very beautiful; the river flows
over rocks which it has furrowed at the banks, so that shelves of rock
jut out over the water, here green, here amber-coloured; ash,
mountain-ash, and sycamores overhang it.——We have seen inscriptions over
some of the houses in Saxon characters to-day,—a proof how long old
customs have been retained in these parts.
Saturday.
"Well," said D. this morning when he came into my room, "we shall not be
caught in the rain to-day, that is certain,—for we must set off in
it."—We were to return to Keswick by way of Ennerdale and Crummock
Lakes:—the road was not easy for strangers, and we soon lost it; but
while we were stopping to admire an oak growing from three trunks of
equal size which united into one, breast-high from the ground, a man
overtook us and set us right. Perhaps the tree was originally planted
upon a hillock, and these three stems had been the roots. It was nearly
two leagues to Ennerdale bridge, and it rained heavily the whole
way:—there we breakfasted in a dirty and comfortless alehouse;—but while
we dried ourselves by the fire the sun came out, and we set off
cheerfully towards the foot of the Lake.
Ennerdale water is a sort of square, spreading widely at its base. The
mountains seem to have planted their outworks in the lake; they rise
directly up to a certain height on both sides, then leave an interval of
apparently level ground, behind which they start up again to a great
height. All are bare, with something of the same colouring as in
Wasdale, but in a less degree. The Lake is about a league in length; at
its foot the dale is cultivated, spotted with such houses as suit the
scene; and so wooded as to form a fitting and delightful foreground. We
had here a singular and most beautiful effect of shadow. A line of light
crossed the Lake; all that was in sunshine seemed water; all that was in
shade reflected the shores so perfectly, with such a motionless and
entire resemblance, that it appeared as if the water were stopt by some
unseen dam on the edge of a precipice, or abyss, to which no bottom
could be seen.
From this place we ventured to cross the mountains to Crummock, where
there was no track: they told us we could not miss the way; and it was
true,—but woe to the traveller who should be overtaken there by clouds
or by storms! It was a wild tract,—a few straggling sheep upon the green
hill sides, and kites screaming over head, the only living things. We
saw the rude outline of a man cut in the turf by some idle shepherd's
boy, and it gave us some pleasure as being the work of hands. As we were
descending, having effected a passage of nearly three hours, we saw to
our right a chasm in the mountain in which trees were growing, and out
of which a stream issued. There we turned, and soon found that it must
needs be the waterfall called Scale-force, one of the objects especially
marked in our route. The stream falls down a fissure in the rock in one
unbroken stream, from a prodigious height, then rolls along a little
way, and takes a second but less leap, before it issues out.
A heavy shower came on: but we were well repaid on reaching the shore of
Crummock Lake; for one of the loveliest rainbows that ever eyes beheld,
reached along the great mountain opposite,—the colours of the mountain
itself being scarcely less various or less vivid. We came to an inn at
the foot of the Lake, procured a boat and embarked; but this Lake is not
supplied like Winandermere and Keswick. Never did adventurers in search
of pleasure set foot in a more rotten and crazy embarkation,—it was the
ribs and skeleton of a boat: however, there was no other; if we would go
upon the Lake we must be contented with this. We were well repaid:—for,
of all the scenes in the Land of Lakes, that from the middle of Crummock
is assuredly the grandest. In colour the mountains almost rival the
rainbow varieties of Waswater; they rise immediately from the water, and
appear therefore higher and more precipitous than any which we have
seen. Honistar crag forms the termination, the steepest rock in the
whole country, and of the finest form; it resembles the table-mountains
in the East Indies, each of which has its fortress on the summit. To
appearance it was at the end of this water, but a little vale
intervened, and the smaller Lake of Buttermere. We landed at the end,
and walked to the village by this second water, where we took up our
abode for the night, for the first time in a village inn.
* * * * *
Sunday.
The western side of this little lake is formed by a steep mountain
called Red Pike; a stream runs down it, issuing from a Tarn in a bason
near the summit, which, when seen from below, or from the opposite
heights, appears certainly to have been once the crater of a volcano.
The situation of this Tarn was so peculiar that we would not leave it
unseen. Before breakfast we commenced our labour, and labour in truth it
was. We had supposed an hour and a half would be sufficient for the
expedition; but we were that time in getting up, and just as long in
returning, so steep was the mountain side. As we ascended, it was
remarkable to perceive how totally Crummock water had lost all its
grandeur,—it was a striking emblem of human pursuits, thus divested of
their importance and dwindled into insignificance when we look back upon
them. Having conquered the ascent, instead of finding the Tarn
immediately on the edge, as we expected, there was a plain of half a
mile to cross, and then we found it lying under a buttress of rock,—as
lonely a spot as ever mountain kite sailed over. Like Low Tarn, its
waters were dark; but the sun shone, and the wind just breaking up the
surface, rolled over it a fleeting hue like the colour of a pigeon's
neck. There is a pleasure in seeing what few besides ourselves have
seen. One Tarn, I perceive, differs little from another:—but the
slighter the difference of features is, the more pleasure there is in
discovering that difference;—and if another of these mountain pools lay
in our way, I should willingly spend three hours more in ascending to
it.
The most unpleasant part of this expedition, fatiguingly steep as it
was,—and nothing could be steeper which was not an actual
precipice,—was, that we had a wall to cross of loose stones, very broad,
and as high as an ordinary man's stature. The utmost care was necessary,
lest we should drag the stones after us; in which case they would have
killed us and buried us at the same time.
Our road to Keswick lay up a long ascent between green swelling
mountains—a pastoral scene, with its stream in the bottom, and
sheep-folds beside it—then down that vale of Newlands, which is seen so
beautifully from Keswick through the great mountain portal.
LETTER XLIV.
_Departure from the Lakes.—Wigton.—Carlisle.—Penrith.—The Borderers.—
The Pillar of the Countess.—Appleby.—Brough.—Stainmoor.—
Bowes.—Yorkshire Schools._
Monday.
We were now to leave the land of lakes and turn our faces towards
London. The regular road would have been to have returned to Penrith,
and there have met the stage; but it would cost us only half a day's
journey to visit Carlisle from whence it starts; and a city whose name
occurs so often in English history, being the frontier town on this part
of the Scotish border, was deserving of this little deviation from the
shortest route. For Carlisle, therefore, we took chaise from Keswick,
the distance being eight leagues. Our road lay under Skiddaw, and, when
we had advanced about five miles, overlooked the lake of Bassenthwaite,
nearly the whole of its length. We now perceived the beauty of this
water, which, because of its vicinity to Keswick, is contemptuously
overlooked by travellers; and the sight of its wooded shores, its
mountainous sides, with its creeks and bays, and the grand termination
formed by the Borrodale mountains as we looked back, made us regret that
we had not devoted a day to exploring it. The road at length bent to the
eastward, leaving the lake; and shortly afterwards, walking up a steep
hill, we had a new and striking view of the vale. The Lake of Keswick
was hidden behind Brandelow, the long mountain which forms its western
bank: over this appeared the mountains behind the waterfall of Lodore,
and over these we could distinguish the point of a remarkable mountain
at the head of Winandermere. This was our last view of this lovely
country: and a certainty that it was the last, that no circumstances
could ever lead me to it again, made me gaze longer and more earnestly,
as if to fix deeper in my memory so exquisite a landscape. I remembered
the day of my departure from my father's house, and, for the first time,
anticipated with fear the time when I should leave England, never to
return to it.
We had left the mountains, but their roots or outworks extended to some
distance before the plain began. The road lay over an open country of
broken ground, with hills at a little distance, enclosed in square
patches, and newly, as it appeared, brought into cultivation. There was
not a single tree rising in the hedge-rows. Our stage was to Wigton,
five leagues and a half, which is unusually far. The postboy rested his
horses at Ireby, one of those townlets in which every thing reminds us
of the distance from a metropolis. It consists of a few houses forming
something like a plaza, grass grows between the stones of the pavement,
and the children came clattering round us in their wooden shoes, as if
the sight of a chaise were a novelty. We soon gained an eminence, from
whence the flat country opened upon us. Solway Firth and the Scotish
mountains lay to the north, to the east and south the plain extended as
far as we could see;—a noble prospect, and to us the more striking as we
had been so much among the close scenery of a mountainous district. We
passed near a quadrangular farm-house, which the driver told us was
built like those in Scotland. The dwelling and out-houses are round the
fold, and the dung-hill in the middle of the court. This form was
evidently devised for defence against cow-stealers.
Wigton bears all the marks of increasing prosperity. It is not many
years since its market was held on Sunday, and the country people bought
their meat before they went into church, carried it into the church with
them, and hung it over the back of their seats till the service was
over. The many well-drest inhabitants whom we beheld were sufficient
proof that no such custom could now be tolerated there. Good inns, good
shops, carts and chaises in the streets, and masons at work upon new
houses, were symptoms of rapid improvement. They paint their houses with
a dark red, thus hiding and disfiguring good stone; perhaps it may be
thought the paint preserves the stone, but there can be no good reason
for preferring so abominable a colour. Going up the stairs of the inn I
noticed a common alehouse print of the battle of Wexford, which was an
action with the Irish insurgents, in the late rebellion in that country.
It represented a lady, by name Miss Redmond, at the head of the rebels,
who is said to have taken arms to revenge the death of her lover. The
artist was probably a well-wisher to the Irishmen.
From hence to Carlisle was less than three leagues, and the cathedral
was in view over the plain. We met carts upon the way having wheels of
primitive rudeness, without spokes, such as are used in our country, and
which I have never till now seen since I left it. One of these wheels we
saw by the road side, laid against the bank as a stile, its two holes
serving as ladder-steps to ascend by. Carlisle is the capital of these
parts, and is indeed a great city. While dinner was preparing we
hastened to the cathedral. Its tower would not be thought fine upon a
parochial English church, and looks the worse for standing upon so large
a body. The inside, however, proved far more interesting than the
exterior had promised. The old stalls remain, admirably carved in
English oak, which rivals stone in durability; but the choir is
disfigured by a double row of those vile partitions which crowd and
debase all the heretical churches; and the window, instead of old
painted glass, of which every pane is stained, having only a border of
bright yellow, with corners of bright green, round uncoloured
compartments, flings a glaring and ill-assorted light. The lives of
St Augustine, St Anthony the Great, and St Cuthbert, are represented
here in a series of pictures. They were plaistered over at the time of
the schism, but have been lately recovered as much as possible, by the
exertions of Percy, the antiquary and poet, who is a dignitary of this
church. As vestiges of antiquity they are curious; but otherwise they
might well have been spared, the subjects being taken from those
fabulous legends by which men of mistaken piety have given so much
occasion of scandal. One of them represents the devil appearing to
St Augustine, with a large book upon his back, fastened with great
clasps, which is the register wherein he keeps his account of sins
committed, and it seems a sufficient load for him. He had brought it to
show the Saint his debtor account, which we are to suppose has been
cancelled by immediate prayer, for the devil is saying, _Pœnitet me tibi
ostendisse librum_, 'I repent having shown thee the book.' Over some of
the oldest tombs we noticed a remarkable form of arch, which might be
adduced as an example of the sylvan origin of Gothic architecture: it
resembles a bent bough, of which the branches have been lopt, but not
close to the stem.
The city walls, which half a century ago were capable of defence, are
now in a state of decay; the castle is still guarded, because within the
court there is a depositary of arms and field-pieces. Here is an entire
portcullis, formed of wood cased with iron. Manufactories of late
introduction have doubled the population within few years, but with
little addition to the decent society of the place. Poor Scotch and poor
Irish chiefly make up the increase, and the city swarms with
manufacturing poor in their usual state of depravity. We are once more
in the land of salmon. Some of the natives here take this fish with a
dexterity truly savage; they ride on horseback into the water, and
pierce them with a heavy trident as long as a tilting-spear.
I observe many peculiarities at our inn. Two grenadiers painted upon
wood, and then cut out to the picture so as to resemble life, keep
guard, one at the bottom of the stairs, another half way up. They
brought us a singular kind of spoon in our negus,—longer than the common
one, the stem round, twisted in the middle, and ending in a heavy button
or head, the heavy end being placed in the glass, and designed to crush
the sugar. The boot-cleaner is an old Scotchman, with all the proverbial
civility of his nation;—he entered with a low bow, and asked if we would
_please to give him leave_ to clean our boots. My bed curtains may serve
as a good specimen of the political freedom permitted in England.
General Washington is there represented driving American Independence in
a car drawn by leopards, a black Triton running beside them, and blowing
his conch,—meant, I conceive, by his crown of feathers, to designate the
native Indians. In another compartment, Liberty and Dr Franklin are
walking hand in hand to the Temple of Fame, where two little cupids
display a globe, on which America and the Atlantic are marked. The tree
of liberty stands by, and the stamp-act reversed is bound round it. I
have often remarked the taste of the people for these coarse allegories.
* * * * *
Tuesday.
At six we were on the roof of the stage-coach on our return to London
after this long journey. We saw symptoms of our vicinity to Scotland
upon the road. Scotch drovers were on their way home, men who are
employed in driving lean cattle into England to be fattened for the
English market; they wore instead of a hat a sort of flat turban, and
had a large mantle of gray checquered cloth scarft round them, a costume
far more graceful than the English. One woman we saw walking barefoot,
and carrying her shoes in her hand.—"'Tis the way they do in Scotland,"
said the coachman, who seemed to pride himself on having been born the
south side of the border. Skiddaw appeared to our right, in a new form,
and of more impressive magnitude than when we first beheld it at its
foot, because we were aware of the distance, and knew by experience its
height. During the whole of the first stage the road inclined towards
the mountains which we had left:—we did not look at them without
something of regret, remembering hours and days spent among them, in
that happy state of health, both bodily and mental, which extracts
enjoyment even from difficulty and toil.
We breakfasted at Penrith. There are the remains of a castle here on a
little eminence, which have been much dilapidated of late;—a fine
gateway has been pulled down for the sake of the materials, and after it
had been demolished, the stones were found to be so excellently cemented
together, that it was cheaper to dig fresh ones than to separate them.
This habit of quarrying in castles and abbeys has been fatal to some of
the most interesting ruins in England. Richard III. resided here when
Duke of Gloucester: the character of this prince, like that of our
Pedro, has been vindicated by late historians; and the prevailing
opinion is, that he has been atrociously calumniated to gratify the
Tudors, an able but a wicked race of princes. It is a proof of his
popular qualities at least, that his memory is still in good odour here,
where he could not have been beloved unless he had eminently deserved to
be so, because the country was attached to the hostile party.
We had an intelligent companion on the roof, a native of the country,
who seemed to take a pleasure in communicating information to us
concerning it, perceiving me to be a foreigner, and that I listened to
him with attention. This rendered the next stage, for unfortunately he
proceeded no farther with us, particularly interesting. The road ran
parallel with the sierra of Crossfell, at some little distance from it;
its length and uniformity of outline so diminished its apparent height,
that I listened to him at first with incredulity when he told me it
exceeded any of the mountains in the lake country: yet books confirm his
statement, and appearances must not be weighed against measurement. It
formed a fine screen to the east. Immediately near Penrith we crossed
two rivers which still retained the wild character of mountain streams.
The country is beautiful, and its scenery enriched by the ruins of many
castles, the strong-holds in former times of the Banditti of the Border.
These Borderers carried the art of cow-stealing to its greatest possible
perfection; they are now reduced to a state of subordination and law,
and their district is as orderly as any in the kingdom; yet in those
parts which are remote from the great roads, though their plundering
habits are laid aside, they retain much of their old rude manners and
barbarous spirit. An instance of this we heard from our companion. A
Borderer, who was at mortal enmity with one of his neighbours, fell
sick, and, being given over, sent for his enemy, that they might be
reconciled. "Ah," said he, when the man entered the room, "I am very
bad, very bad indeed;—d'ye think I shall die?" "Why, hope not," replied
his visitor,—"hope not;—to be sure you are very bad, but for all that
perhaps you may do yet." "No, no," said the other, "I shall die, I know
I shall die,—and so I have sent for you that I may not go out of the
world in enmity with any one. So, d'ye see, we'll be friends. The
quarrel between us is all over,—all over,—and so give me your hand."
Accordingly this token of reconciliation was performed, and the other
took his leave; when, just as he was closing the door after him, the
sick man cried out, "But stop," said he,—"if I should not die this time,
this is to go for nothing: Mind now,—it's all to be just as it was
before, if I do not die."
Not far from Penrith is a pillar of stone, well wrought, and formerly
well emblazoned, with dials on each side, and this inscription upon a
brazen plate:
_This pillar was erected anno 1656, by the Right Honourable Anne,
Countess Dowager of Pembroke, and sole heir of the right honourable
George Earl of Cumberland, &c., for a memorial of her last parting in
this place with her good and pious mother, the right honourable Margaret
Countess Dowager of Cumberland, the 2d of April, 1616. In memory whereof
she also left an annuity of four pounds to be distributed to the poor
within the parish of Brougham every_ _2d day of April, for ever, upon
the Stone Table hard by._
The little low stone table stands close at hand, on which the
distribution of this alms is still made. I have seldom been so
interested by any monument or inscription, as by this, which relates
wholly to the private feelings of an individual. She was an admirable
woman, and her name is still held in veneration.
A little distant, though not in sight of the road, is the scene of a
circumstance which I have seen more frequently related than any other
single anecdote in English books: so deep an interest do these people,
one and all, take either in the practice or the tales of hunting. It is
the park,—Whinfield is its name,—where a hart was once started, and
chased by a single buck-hound from thence to Red Kirk in Scotland, which
is sixty English miles off, and back again, thirty leagues in all. The
hart returned to die upon his lair: he leaped the park pales, and
expired immediately; and the hound, not having strength for the leap,
died on the outside. Their heads were nailed against a hawthorn-tree,
with these lines under them:
Hercules killed Hart-o-Greece,
And Hart-o-Greece killed Hercules.
We passed through Kirkby Thur, that is, the Church by Thor, one of the
few etymological vestiges of Saxon idolatry in England. The worship of
this god was common in these parts; the name Thor occurs in a pedigree,
as that of the lord of one of the manors in Cumberland. Through Temple
Sowerby next, where the Knights Templars were once established. It was
not unusual formerly, for men who found it necessary to limit their
expenses as much as possible, to retire into this neighbourhood, where
thirty years ago they could live in a respectable family for so small a
pension as eighteen English pounds;—a sort of banishment, for there was
then little intercourse between the metropolis and these remote parts,
and no stage coach nearer than York. Then we reached Appleby, the county
town of Westmoreland, though apparently a smaller place than Kendal. The
road runs close by it, but does not enter, a river dividing it from the
town. A castle, one of the few which are still habitable, overlooks it
from a wooded eminence; the river and bridge come into the foreground,
and the whole forms a highly beautiful scene. Here we lost our
companion. He told us that Appleby was almost in as high a state of
faction about horse-racing as ever Constantinople had been from the same
cause.
The road, which was now become of a drearier character, continued under
Crossfell till we approached Brough, when it drew nearer to the sierra
just at its termination. Its sides were broken here with rocks, and
loose stones brought from above by the frosts and torrents. Under it
stood some well-built houses, with a few trees about them, not set
thickly enough to look like plantations, but as if of spontaneous
growth. The appearance of these houses, wherein certainly the elegancies
as well as comforts of life would be found, formed an impressive
contrast with the dreariness of the adjoining country, which was as
bleak and ungenial as the worst wastes of Galicia. At Brough the coach
dined, at an hour unreasonably early, and at an inn bad enough and dirty
enough to be in character with a beggarly town.
Our next stage was over the sierra of Stainmoor, a cold and desolate
tract. The few houses upon the way bear testimony to the severity of the
climate; their roofs are raised to as acute an angle as possible, that
the snow may not lie upon them, which covers these heights probably all
the winter through. Since my first day's journey in Cornwall, I have
seen nothing so desolate, and in this latitude the sky is as cheerless
as the earth. Beyond this is the town of Bowes, which is in Yorkshire, a
huge province, as large as any other three in the island. The town, like
all those which we have seen since Carlisle, has its ruined castle,
meant formerly for protection against their marauding neighbours, who
long after the union of the two kingdoms carried on incessant
hostilities against English beef and mutton.
At Bowes begins the great grazing country for children.—It is the
cheapest part of England, and schools for boys have long been
established here, to which tradesmen, and even some parents of higher
order who think money better than learning, send their children from all
the great towns, even from the western provinces,—but London supplies
the greater number. Two of these lads we took up, who were returning to
their parents in the metropolis after a complete Yorkshire education.
One of them, who was just fourteen, had been four years there, during
which time one of his sisters and his father had died, and he had never
seen face of friend or kinsman. I asked him if he thought he should know
his brothers and sisters when he saw them: he said, he supposed not; but
presently, after a pause, added with a smile in the dialect of the
country, "I think I shall ken 'em too." This was an interesting lad with
a quick eye and a dyspeptic countenance. He will be apprenticed behind
some London counter, or at a lawyer's desk, and die for want of fresh
air. His companion was a fine, thriving, thick-headed fellow, with a
bottle belly and a bulbous nose; of that happy and swinish temperament,
that it might be sworn he would feed and fatten wherever he went.
These schools are upon the most œconomical plan: a pension of sixteen
pounds sterling pays for everything, clothing included. For certain they
are kept upon Spartan fare; but the boys, who were from different
schools, spake well of their masters, and had evidently been happy
there. Sheets are considered as superfluous, and clean linen as a luxury
reserved only for Sundays. They wash their own clothes by means of a
machine; and the masters use no other labourers in getting in their
harvests both of hay and corn; so that what with farming, teaching, and
a small cure, for they are generally priests, they make the system
answer. What is taught is merely what is required for the common
purposes of life, to write well, and be ready at the ordinary operations
of arithmetic. They profess to teach Latin, but I could not find that
the masters ever ventured beyond the grammar. At one of these schools
they had been enacting plays, to which the neighbourhood were admitted
at a price. Three pounds a night had been their receipt, and this was
divided among the boys. Our little friend related this with great
satisfaction, told us that he himself had played a part, and was easily
persuaded to give us one of his songs. They had moveable scenes, he
said, as good as we should see in any theatre.—One of these schools
consists of Irish boys, and the master goes over every summer to catch a
drove of them.
A single house at Greta-Bridge was our next stage, pleasantly situated
beside a clear rapid river in a woody country; but after this single
scene of beauty all was flat and dismal. The road, however, had this
recommendation, that for league after league it was as straight as the
most impatient traveller could wish it. At midnight we left the coach at
Borough-Bridge, bidding adieu to the poor boys who had forty hours to
travel on.
LETTER XLV.
_York City and Minster.—Journey to Lincoln.—Travellers imposed
upon.—Innkeepers.—Ferry over the Trent.—Lincoln.—Great Tom.—Newark.—
Alconbury Hill._
Wednesday.
From Borough-Bridge, which is a little town full of good inns, we took
chaise in the morning for York. The road was a straight line over a dead
flat; the houses which we passed of red brick, roofed with red tiles,
uglier than common cottages, and not promising more comfort within. York
is one of the few English cities with the name of which foreigners are
familiar. I was disappointed that its appearance in the distance was not
finer,—we saw its huge cathedral rising over the level,—but that was
all; and I found that the second city in England was as little imposing
as the metropolis upon a first view. We drove under an old gateway and
up a narrow street, ordered dinner at the inn, and set out to see the
cathedral, here called the minster.
Though I had seen the cathedral churches of Exeter, Salisbury,
Westminster, and Worcester, my expectations were exceeded here; for
though on the outside something, I know not what, is wanting, the
interior surpasses any thing to be seen elsewhere. It is in magnitude
that York minster is unrivalled; it is of the best age of Gothic, and in
admirable repair:—this praise must be given to the English heretics,
that they preserve these monuments of magnificent piety with a proper
care, and do not suffer them to be disfigured by the barbarism of modern
times. Here indeed we felt the full effect of this wonderful
architecture, in which all the parts are highly ornamented, yet the
multiplicity of ornaments contributes to one great impression. We
ascended the tower by such a wearying round of steps that I was
compelled to judge more respectfully of its height, than we had done
when beholding it from below. The day was hazy; we saw however
sufficiently far into a flat country; and the city, and the body of the
immense building below us, with its towers and turrets, its buttresses
and battlements, were objects far more impressive than any distant view.
Having satisfied our curiosity here, we strolled in search of other
objects, saw the castle, which is converted into a prison, and found our
way to a public walk beside the river Ouse, a sluggish and muddy stream,
which, however, as it is navigable, the people of York would be loth to
exchange for one of the wild Cumberland rivers, which we could not but
remember with regret. There is a bridge over it of remarkable
architecture, whose irregular arches, with the old houses adjoining,
form a highly picturesque pile. While we were looking at it, we heard
some one from the ships sing out, "There he goes!" and this was repeated
from vessel to vessel, and from shore to shore, chiefly by boys and
children, in a regular tone, and at regular intervals, almost like
minute guns. It was some time, before we paid any attention to this; but
at last it was repeated so often that it forced itself upon our notice,
and we enquired of a woman, whose little girl was joining in the cry,
what it meant. She told us it was a man, then crossing at the ferry,
whom the children always called after in this way:—she could give no
further account, and did not know that he had done any thing to provoke
it. He was a man in years, and of decent appearance. It is possible that
he may have committed some offence which drew upon him the public
notice,—but it is equally possible that this was begun in sport; and if
so, as the woman indeed understood it to be, it is one of the strangest
instances of popular persecution I ever witnessed. Age and deformity, I
may here remark, are always objects of ridicule in England; it is
disgraceful to the nation to see how the rabble boys are permitted to
torment a poor idiot, if they find one in the streets.
* * * * *
Thursday.
At five in the morning we left York, I could not but admire the
punctuality of the old coachman. He was on his box, we on the
roof,—every thing ready to start. One church clock struck,—another
followed,—house clocks all around us,—"All but the minster," said the
old man,—for the minster was his signal. Presently that began with its
finer tone,—and before the first quarter had ended, crack went his whip
and we were off. It was a cloudy morning,—we passed through Tadcaster,
and a few smaller places not worth naming, because not worth
remembering, till we reached Ferry-bridge to breakfast. The bridge is
new and handsome, yet our bridges are in a better taste than those of
the English:—the river, a slow stream, as dull and uninteresting as a
canal. On to Doncaster, one of the handsomest towns I have ever
seen:—the country around is as insipid as the plains of Old Castille,
though perhaps the Doncastrians are of a different opinion, as their
race-ground is one of the best in England. The scenery improved when we
entered the province of Nottinghamshire, and the sun came out and
brightened every thing; here we saw a few hop-gardens. Our places were
taken to an inn called Markham Moor, from whence we expected to reach
Lincoln time enough to see it easily that evening. It was nineteen miles
from the inn: they told us they had no chaise at home, and must send for
one from Tuxford, therefore we had better go on to Tuxford, which was
two miles further, and then we should be one mile nearer Lincoln. To
this we readily agreed,—but our coach dined at this Markham Moor,—here
would be an hour lost, ill to be spared when we were prest for time:
another stage passed us while we were deliberating, and by the
landlord's especial advice we mounted this and advanced. Lincoln
cathedral was distinctly in sight at this distance.
At Tuxford we ordered chaise for Lincoln, which we had been told was
eighteen miles distant,—the waiter said it was twenty, the landlady that
it was twenty-one. "Why have they no _Corregidores_ in England?" said I
to my companion, who wished as heartily, but as vainly, as myself for
summary redress. The woman knew that we knew we were imposed on, and
expressed it in her countenance and manner. There was no remedy but the
never-failing panacea of patience. Mark the complication of
roguery.—Instead of taking a cross road, which would have cut off two
miles, we were driven back to Markham Moor, by which excellent manœuvre
we had to pay for twenty-one, instead of nineteen, and an additional
turnpike into the bargain. We called at this inn, and asked for the
landlord, meaning to tell him our opinion of his conduct; but he did not
choose to appear. No class of people in England require the
superintendance of law more than the inn-keepers. They fix their own
prices, without any other restriction than their own conscience, and
uniformly charge the fraction of a mile as a whole one, so that the
traveller pays for a mile, in almost every stage, more than he travels.
False weights and measures are punishable here, why should this kind of
measure be exempted?
When we had proceeded about half a league further, the driver dismounted
to open a gate. Just on the other side was a little bridge over a ditch
of clear and slowly-flowing water: the wall of this bridge was continued
far enough, as might have been supposed, for security, and then sloped
aside from the road, and ended. By the side of the road was a steep
bank, not higher than with a bound one might spring up; at the bottom of
this was a young hedge fenced with rails on both sides, at right angles
with the ditch-stream. Our horses went on before the driver could
remount, and they chose to bend this way; the chaise was soon in such a
situation that it was prudent for us with all speed to alight; he held
the horses and out we got; but to get them into the road was not so
easy. Both were spirited beasts, indeed we had been admiring them;—both
were startlish, and the mare vicious;—she had lately run with a chaise
into the river at Newark, and drowned the post-boy. They began to
plunge,—the weight of the chaise, which was on the declivity, pressed
upon them, the horse leapt at the rails and broke them down, the mare
fell in the bottom, and had the bank been in the slightest degree
steeper the chaise must have rolled upon her. As it was, we expected to
see her killed, or her bones broken at least. D. called to the driver to
cut the traces instantly and let the horse loose, or he would frighten
the mare still more, and make bad worse:—he hesitated to do this till
after more plunging the mare got into the ditch:—however, the traces
were loosed, and the beasts got into the road with little other hurt
than the violent agitation they were in. We now exerted all our strength
to drag up the chaise, but to no purpose. D. went one way for help, the
driver another, while I sate upon the wall of the bridge and looked at
the stream. D. brought with him a man and two boys, and the driver a
carthorse, who soon did the business,—and we proceeded not without some
apprehensions of another accident, from the fear of the horses, but,
thanks be to God, all went on well.
We came presently to Dunham Ferry,—the interruption and expence of
crossing here were well compensated by the beauty of the scene. The
Trent at this place is the largest fresh-water river which I have seen
in England,—indeed I believe it rolls a greater body of fresh water to
the sea than any other. Two of its huge arms, which embraced a long
island, met just above the ferry, like two large rivers. The opposite
bank was high and broken. The island terminated in a sharp point, to
which the stream had worn it, and just at this point were about a score
or five-and-twenty remarkably large willow-trees, as tall as elms. Some
men of taste must have planted them two centuries ago; the rest of the
island, as far as we could see, was fine meadow land,—and a colony of
rooks had established their commonwealth in the trees. The country up
the river was a dead flat, with a handsome church in the distance, and
another on the shore which we were leaving; many little islands, with a
bush or two upon them, in the stream below,—the price at the ferry was
half-a-crown, which we thought exorbitantly dear.
The road now ran between plantations of birch, oak, beech, and hazel,
with ditches of clear weedy water on each side, which sometimes spread
into little pools in which the overhanging boughs and bank weeds were
reflected,—a complete contrast to the mountain streams, and yet
beautiful. It opened upon a marsh, and we once more beheld the cathedral
upon its height, now two leagues distant. This magnificent building
stands at the end of a long and high hill, above the city. To the north
there are nine windmills in a row. It has three towers, the two smaller
ones topped with the smallest spires I have ever seen;—they were
beautiful in the distance—yet we doubted whether they ought to have been
there, and in fact they are of modern addition, and not of stone, so
that on a near view they disgrace and disfigure the edifice. Imagine
this seen over a wide plain, this the only object,—than which the power
of man could produce no finer. The nearer we approached the more dreary
was the country—it was one wide fen,—but the more beautiful the city,
and the more majestic the cathedral: Never was an edifice more happily
placed; it overtops a city built on the acclivity of a steep hill,—its
houses intermingled with gardens and orchards. To see it in full
perfection, it should be in the red sunshine of an autumnal evening,
when the red roofs, and red brick houses would harmonize with the sky
and the fading foliage.
Our disasters had delayed us till it was too late to see the church. So
we sate down to a late dinner upon some of the wild fowl of the fens.
Friday.
The exterior of Lincoln cathedral is far more beautiful than that of
York, the inside is far inferior. They have been obliged in some places
to lay a beam from one column to another, to strengthen them; they have
covered it with Gothic work, and it appears at first like a continuation
of the passages above. It is to be wished that in their other modern
works there had been the same approximation to the taste of better
times. A fine Roman pavement was discovered not many years ago in the
centre of the cloister; they have built a little brick building over it
to preserve it with commendable care; but so vile a one as to look like
one of those houses of necessity which are attached to every cottage in
this country—and which it is to be hoped will one day become as general
in our own. A library forms one side of the cloister-quadrangle, which
is also modern and mean. Another vile work of modern time is a picture
of the Annunciation over the altar.
Most of the old windows were demolished in the days of fanaticism; their
place has not been supplied with painted glass,—and from the few which
remain, the effect of the coloured light crowning the little crockets
and pinnacles, and playing upon the columns with red and purple and
saffron shades of light, made us the more regret that all were not in
the same state of beauty. We ascended the highest tower, crossing a
labyrinth of narrow passages; it was a long and wearying way,—the
jackdaws who inhabit these steeples have greatly the advantage of us in
getting to the top of them. How very much must these birds be obliged to
man for building cathedrals for their use! It is something higher than
York, and the labour of climbing it was compensated by a bird's eye view
all around us.
We ascended one of the other towers afterwards to see Great Tom, the
largest bell in England. At first it disappointed me, but the
disappointment wore off, and we became satisfied that it was as great a
thing as it was said to be. A tall man might stand in it, upright; the
mouth measures one and twenty English feet in circumference, and it
would be a large tree of which the girth equalled the size of its
middle. The hours are struck upon it with a hammer. I should tell you
that the method of sounding bells in England is not by striking, but by
swinging them: no bell, however, which approaches nearly to the size of
this is ever moved, except this; it is swung on Whitsunday, and when the
judges arrive to try the prisoners,—another fit occasion would be at
executions, to which it would give great solemnity, for the sound is
heard far and wide over the fens. On other occasions it was disused,
because it shook the tower, but the stones have now been secured with
iron cramps.—Tom, which is the familiar abbreviation of Thomas, seems to
be the only name which they give to a bell in this country.
Only one coach passes through Lincoln on the way to London, and that
early in the morning, we were therefore obliged to return again into the
great north road, which we did by taking chaise to Newark; the road is a
straight line, along an old Roman way. A bridge over the Trent and the
ruins of a castle, which long held out for the king in the great civil
war, are the only remarkable objects in this town,—except indeed that I
saw the name _Ordoyno_ over a shop. The day ended in rain; we got into a
stage in the evening, which took us through the towns of Grantham,
Stamford, and Stilton, and dropt us in the middle of the night at a
single inn called Alconbury-Hill,—where after a few minutes we succeeded
in obtaining admittance and went to bed.
LETTER XLVI.
_Cambridge.—Republican Tendency of Schools counteracted at
College.—College a useful Place for the debauched Students, a
melancholy one for others.—Fellowships.—Advantage of a University
Education.—Not so necessary as it once was._
Wednesday.
From Alconbury-Hill to Cambridge is two short stages,—we passed through
Huntingdon, the birth-place of Oliver Cromwell, and travelled over a
dismal flat, the country northward being one great fen. The whole of
these extensive fens is said once to have been dry and productive ground
reduced to this state by some earthquake or deluge, unremembered in
history. Tools found beneath the soil, and submersed forests, are the
proofs. A century and half ago they began to drain them, and the
draining still proceeds. In old times they were the favourite retreat of
the religious: the waters were at that time carried off by great rivers
through the level, above twenty leagues long, which formed innumerable
lakes, many of them of considerable size, and on the islands in these a
hermitage or a convent was placed in safety from the sudden attack of
the Northern Sea Kings, and in that solitude which its holy inhabitants
desired. The greater number of the old English saints flourished in this
district.
A singular custom prevailed here about fourscore years ago, and perhaps
may not yet be wholly discontinued. The corpse was put into the ground a
few hours after death, and about a week afterwards they buried an empty
coffin with funeral ceremonies. Possibly this strange peculiarity may
have been introduced upon occasion of some pestilence, when it would
have been dangerous to keep the body longer. The body is always kept
some days in England, usually till signs of decay appear.
At length we came in sight of Cambridge:—How inferior to the first view
of Oxford! yet its lofty buildings and old trees gave it a
characteristic appearance, and were more beautiful because in the midst
of such a dreary land. The streets are narrow, and the greater number of
the colleges mean brick buildings; there is, however, one edifice, the
Chapel of King's College, which exceeds any thing in Oxford, and
probably in the world. This unrivalled edifice is dedicated to Mary the
most pure and to St Nicholas. It was finished by the arch-apostate
Henry VIII., when he had just effected his adulterous marriage with Anne
Boleyn, and here their names appear twined together with true lovers'
knots, the only place where his initials remain joined with hers.
In this university are sixteen colleges.[11] The principal one is
dedicated to the most holy Trinity; it consists of two handsome squares,
or quadrangles as they are called, the larger of which the Cantabrigians
would fain believe to be finer than the great quadrangle of Christ
Church at Oxford, of which they may perhaps persuade those who have
never been at Oxford. The Library, the Chapel, and the Refectory were
shown to us; the two latter are little curious, but in the anti-chapel
is a statue of the great Newton by Roubiliac, a name of great eminence
in this country. It is a good example of Vandyke in marble, and that
will give you the best idea of its style and excellence. The sculptor
has endeavoured to make it picturesque, by representing the texture and
the light and shade of silk in the drapery; and as the vulgar can always
comprehend dexterity of hand, and can seldom comprehend any thing above
it, the statue has obtained much admiration for its faults.
The Library is a most magnificent room about an hundred paces in length,
with a painted window at the end, of which it would not be easy to say
whether the design or the execution be most faulty: in this, Minerva,
Bacon, George III., and Newton are all brought together in their
respective costumes. Besides a splendid collection of books, there is a
cabinet of medals here, but they are seldom shown lest they should be
stolen, as books frequently have been. It is singular that in the public
libraries and collections of England there are more precautions taken
against thieves than in any other country in Europe. It is not often I
understand when an offender is discovered that the law is enforced
against him; but now and then, the librarian said, they were obliged to
make an example; and he turned to a MS. Catalogue, and showed us a
record that a member of the University had been degraded for seven years
for this offence. In the University library we were shown several books
which had been stolen, and the title-pages nearly cut out, in order to
avoid detection. Offences of this kind, though in their consequences so
truly abominable, seem to be little thought of. Indeed, it should appear
that the English scarcely think it any crime to plunder the public in
any way.
I had an introduction to a resident member of ——; it proved a very
valuable one, and there are few of my English friends from whose
conversation I have derived so much instruction. The objects of
curiosity in Cambridge were soon seen, but we remained a few days there,
for the pleasure of his society. The University was almost empty, it
being now the vacation time. There is a greater variety of dresses here
than at Oxford, the colleges not dressing all alike, and some wearing
purple instead of black. The privileged class also wear a hat instead of
the academical cap. A round church of the Templars, built after the Holy
Sepulchre, is one of the most remarkable things in this university.—I
was pleased too with the sight of a huge concave celestial globe, in the
midst of which you stand, and it revolves round you. The Cam, a lazy
stream, winds behind the town and through the college walks, collecting
filth as it goes. "Yonder," said our friend, "are the Gogmagog
Hills;"—in spite of their gigantic appellation they are so very like a
plain, that I looked all around to see where they were.
* * * * *
"What a happy life," said I to our Cambridge friend, "must you lead in
your English universities! You have the advantages of a monastery
without its restrictions, the enjoyments of the world without its
cares,—the true _otium cum dignitate_." He shook his head and answered,
"It is a joyous place for the young, and a convenient place for all of
us,—but for none is it a happy one—and he soon convinced me that I was
mistaken in the favourable judgment which I had formed. I will endeavour
to retrace the substance of a long and interesting evening's
conversation.
It is a joyous place for the young,—joy and happiness however are not
synonymous. They come hither from school, no longer to be treated as
children; their studies and their amusement are almost at their own
discretion, and they have money at command. But as at college they first
assume the character of man, it is there also that they are first made
to feel their relative situation in society. Schools in England,
especially those public ones from which the universities are chiefly
supplied, are truly republican. The master perhaps will pay as much
deference to rank as he possibly can, and more than he honestly
ought:—it is, however, but little that he can pay the institutions have
been too wisely framed to be counteracted, and titles and families are
not regarded by the boys. The distinctions which they make are in the
spirit of a barbarous, not of a commercial calculating people; bodily
endowments hold the first, mental the second place. The best bruiser
enjoys the highest reputation; next to him, but after a long interval,
comes the best cricket-player, the third place, at a still more
respectful distance, is allowed to the cleverest, who, in the opinion of
his fellows, always takes place of the best scholar. In the world,—and
the college is not out of it like the cloister,—all this is reversed
into its right order; but the gifts of fortune are placed above all.
Whatever habits and feelings of equality may have been generated at
school, are to be got rid of at college,—and this is soon done. The
first thing which the new student perceives on his arrival, is, that his
school-fellows, who are there before him, pass him in the streets as if
they knew him not, and perhaps stare him full in the face, that he may
be sure it is not done through inadvertency. The ceremony of
introduction must take place before two young men who for years have
eaten at the same table, studied in the same class, and perhaps slept in
the same chamber,—can possibly know each other when they meet at
college.
There is to be found every where a great number of those persons whom we
cannot prove to be human beings by any rational characteristic which
they possess; but who must be admitted to be so, by a sort of _reductio
ad absurdum_, because they cannot possibly be any thing else. They pass
for men, in the world, because it has pleased God for wise purposes,
however inscrutable to us, to set them upon two legs instead of four; to
give them smooth skins and no tail, and to enable them to speak without
having their tongues slit. They are like those weeds which will spring
up and thrive in every soil and every climate, and which no favourable
circumstances can ever improve into utility. It is of little consequence
whether they shoot water-fowl, attend horse-races, frequent the brothel,
and encourage the wine trade in one place or another; but as a few years
of this kind of life usually satisfy a man for the rest of it, it is
convenient that there should be a place appointed where one of this
description can pass through this course of studies out of sight of his
relations, and without injuring his character; and from whence he can
come with the advantage of having been at the University, and a
qualification which enables him to undertake the cure of souls. The
heretical bishops never enquire into the moral conduct of those upon
whom they lay their unhallowed hands,—and as for the quantity of
learning which is required,—M. Maillardet, who exhibits his Androeides
in London, could put enough into an automaton.
Such men as these enjoy more happiness, such as their happiness is, at
the University than during any other part of their lives. It is a
pleasant place also for the lilies of the world, they who have neither
to toil nor to spin; but for those who have the world before them, there
is perhaps no place in their whole journey where they feel less at ease.
It is the port from whence they are to embark,—and who can stand upon
the beach and look upon the sea whereon he is about to trust himself and
his fortunes, without feeling his heart sink at the uncertainty of the
adventure? True it is that these reflections do not continue long upon a
young man's mind, yet they occur so often as insensibly to affect its
whole feelings. The way of life is like the prospect from his window,—he
beholds it not while he is employed, but in the intervals of employment,
when he lifts up his eyes, the prospect is before him. The frequent
change of his associates is another melancholy circumstance. A sort of
periodical and premature mortality takes place among his friends: term
after term they drop off to their respective allotments, which are
perhaps so distant from his own, that years may elapse, or the whole
lease of life be run out, before he ever again meets with the man whom
habits of daily and intimate intercourse had endeared to him.
Let us now suppose the student to be successful in his collegiate
pursuits, he obtains a fellowship,—and is, in the opinion of his
friends, provided for for life. Settled for life he would indeed have
been according to the original institution, and it still is a provision
for him as long as he retains it,—but mark the consequences of the
schism,—of altering the parts of an establishment without considering
their relations to the whole. A certain number of benefices belong to
the college, to which, as they become vacant, the fellows succeed
according to seniority, vacating their fellowships by accepting a
benefice, or by marrying. Here one of the evils of a married clergy is
perceived. Where celibacy is never regarded as a virtue, it is naturally
considered as a misfortune. Attachments are formed more easily perhaps
in this country than in any other, because there is little restraint in
the intercourse between the sexes, and all persons go so much from home
into public. But the situation of the college-fellow who has engaged his
affections is truly pitiable. Looking with envious eyes at those above
him on the list, and counting the ages of those who hold the livings for
which he is to wait, he passes years after years in this disquieting and
wretched state of hope. The woman, in like manner, wears away her youth
in dependent expectation, and they meet at last, if they live to meet,
not till the fall of the leaf—not till the habits and tempers of both
are become fixt and constitutional, so as no longer to be capable of
assimilating each to the other.
I enquired what were the real advantages of these institutions to the
country at large, and to the individuals who study in them. "They are of
this service," he replied, "to the country at large, that they are the
great schools by which established opinions are inculcated and
perpetuated. I do not know that men gain much here, yet it is a regular
and essential part of our system of education, and they who have not
gone through it always feel that their education has been defective. A
knowledge of the world, that is to say, of our world and of the men in
it, is gained here, and that knowledge remains when Greek and geometry
are forgotten." I asked him which was the best of the two universities;
he answered that Cambridge was as much superior to Oxford, as Oxford was
to Salamanca. I could not forbear smiling at his scale of depreciation:
he perceived it, and begged my pardon, saying, that he as little
intended to undervalue the establishments of my country, as to overrate
the one of which he was himself a member. "We are bad enough," said he,
"Heaven knows, but not so bad as Oxford. They are now attempting to
imitate us in some of those points wherein the advantage on our part is
too notorious to be disputed. The effect may be seen in another
generation,—meantime the imitation is a confession of inferiority."
"Still," said I, "we may regard the universities as the seats of
learning and of the Muses." "As for the Muses, sir," said he, "you have
traversed the banks of the Cam, and must know whether you have seen any
nine ladies there who answer their description. We do certainly produce
verses both Greek and Latin which are worthy of gold medals, and English
ones also, after the newest and most approved receipt for verse-making.
Of leading, such as is required for the purposes of tuition there is
much,—beyond it, except in mathematics, none. In this we only share the
common degeneracy. The Mohammedans believe that when Gog and Magog are
to come, the race of men will have dwindled to such littleness, that a
shoe of one of the present generation will serve them for a house. If
this prophecy be typical of the intellectual diminution of the species,
Gog and Magog may soon be expected in the neighbourhood of their own
hills."
"The truth is, sir," he continued, "that the institutions of men grow
old like men themselves, and, like women, are always the last to
perceive their own decay. When universities were the only schools of
learning they were of great and important utility; as soon as there were
others, they ceased to be the best, because their forms were prescribed,
and they could adopt no improvement till long after it was generally
acknowledged. There are other causes of decline.—We educate for only one
profession: when colleges were founded that one was the most important;
it is now no longer so; they who are destined for the others find it
necessary to study elsewhere, and it begins to be perceived that this is
not a necessary stage upon the road. This might be remedied. We have
professors of every thing, who hold their situations and do nothing. In
Edinburgh the income of the professor depends upon his exertions, and in
consequence the reputation of that university is so high, that
Englishmen think it necessary to finish their education by passing a
year there. They learn shallow metaphysics there, and come back worse
than they went, inasmuch as it is better to be empty than flatulent."
[11] Accurately speaking, there are twelve colleges and four halls.—TR.
LETTER XLVII.
_Newmarket.—Cruelty of Horse-racing.—Process of Wasting.—Character of a
Man of the Turf.—Royston.—Buntingford.—Cheshunt.—Return to London._
Three leagues from Cambridge is the town of Newmarket, famous for its
adjoining race-ground, the great scene of English extravagance and
folly. They who have seen the races tell me it is a fine sight:—the
horses are the most perfect animals of their kind, and their speed is
wonderful; but it is a cruel and detestable sport. The whip and the spur
are unmercifully used. Some of the leading men of the turf, as they are
called, will make their horses run two or three times in as many days,
till every fibre in them is sore, and they are disabled for ever by over
exertion. Whatever pleasure, therefore, a man of clean conscience might
lawfully have taken in beholding such sports, when they were instituted
(if such was their origin) for the sake of improving the breed, and were
purely trials of swiftness, is at an end. The animal, who evidently
delights in the outset, and ambitiously strains himself to his full
length and speed, is lashed and gored till his blood mingles with his
foam, because his owner has staked thousands upon the issue of the race:
and so far is this practice from tending to the improvement of the
breed, that at present it confessedly injures it, because horses are
brought to the course before they have grown to their full strength, and
are thereby prevented from ever attaining to it.
It is hardly less hurtful to the riders; their sufferings, however,
would rather excite mirth than compassion, if any thing connected with
the degradation of a human being could be regarded without some sense of
awe and humiliation. These gentlemen are called jockeys. Jockeyship is a
particular trade in England;—I beg its pardon—a profession. A few
persons retain one in their establishment, but in general they go to
Newmarket and offer their services for the occasion. Three guineas are
the fee for riding a race; if much be depending upon it, as is usually
the case, the winner receives a present. Now, in these matches the
weight which the horses are to carry is always stipulated. Should the
jockey be too light, he carries something about him to make up the due
number of pounds; but if unhappily he exceeds this number, he must
undergo a course of wasting. Had Procrustes heard of this invention, he
would have made all travellers equal in weight as well as in measure,
and his balance would have been as famous as his bed. In order to get
rid of this supererogatory flesh they are purged and sweated; made to
take long walks with thick clothing on; then immediately on their return
drink cold water, and stew between two feather beds, and in this manner
melt themselves down to the lawful standard. One of the most eminent of
these jockeys lately wasted eighteen pounds in three days; so violent a
reduction that it is supposed he will never recover from it.
Our friend here once heard the character of one of the great Newmarket
heroes from a groom. Mr ——, said the man, was the best sportsman on the
turf; he would bet upon any thing and to any sum, and make such matches
as nobody else could ever have thought of making, only it was a pity
that he was such a fool—he was a fool to be sure. It was difficult to
say whether the fellow was most impressed by the absolute folly of his
hero, or by his undaunted love of gambling; the one he could not speak
of without admiration, and he laughed while he was bemoaning the other:
for certain, he said, there was nobody like him for spirit,—he was ready
for any thing; but then unluckily he was such a cursed fool. To be sure
he was losing his fortune as fast as it could go. But his comfort was,
he used to say, that when all was gone he was sure of a place, for his
friend Lord —— had promised to make him his whipper-in.
The pedigree of the horse is as carefully preserved as that of the
master; and can in many instances be traced further back. In general the
English horses are less beautiful than ours, and they are disfigured by
the barbarous custom of mutilating the tail and ears. Dogs suffer the
same cruel mutilation. It is surprising how little use is made of the
ass here; it is employed only by the lowest people in the vilest
services; miserably fed and more miserably treated. Mules are seldom
seen: in Elizabeth's days a large male ass which had been brought from
France into Cornwall began a fabric of them, and the people knocked them
on the head for monsters as soon as they were foaled.
* * * * *
Had it been the racing season I should have gone to Newmarket; the
ground itself, celebrated as it is, did not tempt me. Our friend was
going to the immediate vicinity of London; so having his company we
travelled by chaise, the expense for three persons not materially
exceeding that of going by stage. Royston was our first post. In this
neighbourhood there was a man lately who believed himself entitled to a
large estate which was wrongfully withheld from him; he worked at some
daily labour, and his custom was to live as penuriously as was possible,
and expend the savings of the whole year in giving a dinner upon his
birth-day at a public-house upon the estate, to which he invited by
public notices all persons who would please to come. D. remembers in his
childhood a man, who, under the same feeling, had vowed never to put on
clean linen, wash himself, shave his beard, comb his hair, or cut his
nails, till he had recovered his right; a vow which he kept during the
remainder of his life, and died in his dirt. They called him Black John,
and he was the terror of children.
At Buntingford is a mansion built about two centuries ago, of which they
say that when the house was built the staircase was forgotten; a common
story this of all those old houses which have the winding turret
staircase: something more remarkable is, that it has a room to which
there is no entrance. By Ware we saw the New River: a canal which begins
there and supplies great part of London with water,—sufficiently filthy
it must needs be, for it is open the whole way, and as it approaches the
suburbs is the common bathing-place of the rabble,—yet the Londoners are
perfectly contented with it! We passed through Cheshunt, a village
memorable as being the place where Richard Cromwell lived in peace and
privacy to a good old age, and died[12] as he had lived,—a happier man
than his more illustrious father. Here also was the favourite palace of
James I.; it has been demolished; but a moss walk under a long avenue of
elms, a part of his gardens, is still preserved. Near this is a cross at
Waltham, one of those which Edward I. erected at every place where the
body of his excellent queen halted on the way to its burial. It is a
beautiful monument of pious antiquity, though mutilated and otherwise
defaced by time. Nothing else worthy of notice occurred on the road,
which lay through the province of Hertfordshire. The country, though
tame, is beautiful; far more so than any which we had seen since our
departure from the land of Lakes.
Widely different were the feelings with which I arrived at J——'s door
from what they had been that evening when it was first opened to me.
Then I came as a stranger; now I was returning as if to my own house. My
reception, indeed, could hardly have been more affectionate in my own
family. J—— and his wife welcomed me like a brother, Harriet climbed my
knee, and John danced about the room for joy that Senor Manuel was come
home again.
[12] The tomb of Richard Cromwell is at Hursley, near Winchester.—TR.
LETTER XLVIII.
_Middlesex Election.—Nottingham Election.—Seats in Parliament how
obtained.—Modes of Bribery.—Aylesbury.—Ilchester.—Contested
Elections.—Marriages at Bristol.—Want of Talent in the English
Government accounted for._
During my travels I have missed the sight of a popular election. That
for Middlesex has been carried on with uncommon asperity; it is the only
instance wherein the ministry have exerted their influence; for,
contrary to the custom of all their predecessors, they have fairly
trusted themselves to the opinion of the people. Here, however, they
have taken a part,—and here they have been beaten, because they stood
upon the very worst ground which they could possibly have chosen.
The English have a law called the _habeas corpus_, which they regard,
with good reason, as the main pillar of their freedom. By this law it is
the right of every person who is arrested upon a criminal charge, to be
tried at the first sessions after his arrest; so that, while this law
continues in force, no person can be wrongfully detained in prison, but
his guilt or innocence must be fairly proved. It was thought expedient
to suspend this statute during the late revolutionary ferment. The place
chosen for the suspected persons was a prison in the immediate suburb of
the metropolis; being one of the new buildings upon the fashionable
plan. Complaints were made by the prisoners of cruel usage, and Sir
Francis Burdett, a young man who has warmly espoused the popular party,
brought the business forward in parliament. A wise minister would have
listened to the complaint, examined into it, and redressed the
grievance, even ostentatiously; for the object of government being to
secure these men, and it being also notorious that there was no legal
proof of guilt against them, as if there had they would have been
brought to trial, all rigour not absolutely necessary for the purposes
of confinement, appeared like a determination to punish them in every
way they could, and consequently as an act of arbitrary and cruel power.
But pride and obstinacy are the predominant parts of Mr Pitt's
character; right or wrong he never yields; and he now chose to show his
power by protecting the gaoler in defiance of public opinion. Repeated
complaints were made; and it was affirmed upon oath that a Colonel
Despard, one of these prisoners, had been confined there in a cell
without windows, and without fire, till his feet were ulcered with the
frost. At length a deputation was named to inspect the prison:—it
consisted chiefly of persons disposed to see every thing with favourable
eyes; and, as you may well suppose, the prison was prepared for their
visitation. When they came into the cell where a sailor was confined who
had been concerned in the great mutiny, one of the deputies noticed a
bird which hopped about him, and said how tame it was. "Aye, sir," said
the man, "this place will tame any thing!" and though a hardy English
sailor, he burst into tears. The report was in favour of the prison.
Complaints, however, were still continued. The place acquired the name
of the Bastille; and merely upon the ground of having raised his voice
in parliament against this new species of punishment, Sir Francis
Burdett has become the most popular man in England. He offered himself
as candidate for Middlesex. The ministry acted unwisely in opposing him;
and still more unwisely in supporting against him a man who had no other
possible claim to their support, than that he was implicated in the
charges against the management of the prison, because he was one of the
magistrates whose duty it was to inspect it, and he had given it his
full approbation. By this impolicy they made the question of the
Middlesex election to be this,—whether this system of imprisonment was
approved of by the people or not; and the answer has been most
undeniably given against them.
Electioneering, as they call it, is a game at which every kind of deceit
seems to be considered lawful. On these occasions, men, who at other
times regard it as a duty to speak truth, and think their honour
implicated in their word, scruple not at asserting the grossest and most
impudent falsehoods, if thereby they can obtain a momentary advantage
over the hostile party. A striking instance of this has occurred with
respect to the election for Nottingham, a considerable town in the
middle of England, where the contest has been violent, because
party-spirit has always been carried to a high degree there. Some years
ago the mob ducked those who were most obnoxious to them, and killed
some of them in the operation. This was not forgotten. The opposite
party had the ascendancy now, and those who were noted as having been
active in this outrageous cruelty were severely handled. In such cases
of summary justice the innocent are liable to suffer with the guilty,
and the rabble, when they had got the power, abused it. Whoever voted
for the obnoxious candidate had the skirts of his coat cut off, and it
was well if he escaped without further injury. It might have been
thought that the plain statement of these facts would have sufficed to
show that the election was not a fair one; but instead of being
satisfied with a plain tale, a gentleman comes forward as the advocate
of the unsuccessful party, accuses all the other party of the most
violent jacobinism, and asserts that at the triumph of the winning
candidate the tree of liberty was carried before him, and that a naked
woman walked in the procession as the Goddess of Reason. The history of
the tree is, that as the candidate's name happened to be Birch, a birch
bough was borne in his honour: the other falsehood is so apparent that
no person supposes this writer can possibly believe it himself. It is a
pious fraud to answer a party purpose, and on such occasions no frauds,
pious or impious, are scrupled.
Any thing like election, in the plain sense of the word, is unknown in
England. Members are never chosen for parliament as deputies were for a
Cortes, because they are the fittest persons to be deputed. Some seats
are private property;—that is, the right of voting belongs to a few
householders, sometimes not more than half a dozen, and of course these
votes are commanded by the owner of the estate. The fewer they are, the
more easily they are managed. Great part of a borough in the west of
England was consumed some years ago by fire, and the lord of the manor
would not suffer the houses to be rebuilt for this reason. If such an
estate be to be sold, it is publicly advertised as carrying with it the
power of returning two members; sometimes that power is veiled under the
modest phrase of _a valuable appendage to the estate_, or _the desirable
privilege of nominating to seats in a certain assembly_. Government hold
many of these boroughs, and individuals buy in at others. The price is
as well known as the value of land, or of stock, and it is not uncommon
to see a seat in a certain house advertised for in the public
newspapers. In this manner are a majority of the members returned. You
will see then that the house of commons must necessarily be a manageable
body. This is as it should be;[13] the people have all the forms of
freedom, and the crown governs them while they believe they govern
themselves. Burleigh foresaw this, and said that to govern _through_ a
parliament was the securest method of exercising power.
In other places, where the number of voters is something greater, so as
to be too many for this kind of quiet and absolute control, the business
is more difficult, and sometimes more expensive. The candidate then,
instead of paying a settled sum to the lord of the borough, must deal
individually with the constituents, who sell themselves to the highest
bidder. Remember that an oath against bribery is required! A common mode
of evading the letter of the oath is to lay a wager. "I will bet so
much," says the agent of the candidate, "that you do not vote for us."
"Done," says the voter freeman,—goes to the hustings, gives his voice,
and returns to receive the money, not as the price of his suffrage, but
as the bet which he has won. As all this is in direct violation of law,
though both parties use the same means, the losing one never scruples to
accuse his successful opponent of bribery, if he thinks he can establish
the charge; and thus the mystery of iniquity is brought to light. It is
said that at Aylesbury a punch-bowl full of guineas stood upon the table
in the committee-room, and the voters were helped out of it. The price
of votes varies according to their number. In some places it is as low
as forty shillings, in others, at Ilchester for instance, it is thirty
pounds. "Thirty pounds," said the apothecary of the place on his
examination, "is the price of an Ilchester voter." When he was asked how
he came to know the sum so accurately, he replied, that he attended the
families of the voters professionally, and his bills were paid at
election times with the money. A set of such constituents once waited
upon the member whom they had chosen, to request that he would vote
against the minister. "D—mn you!" was his answer: "What! have I not
bought you? And do you think I will not sell you?"
It is only in large cities that any trial of public opinion is made,—for
in the counties the contest, if any there be, lies between the great
families, and a sort of hereditary influence is maintained, which is
perhaps unobjectionable. But in large cities public opinion and faction
have their full scope. Every resource of violence and of cunning is here
brought into play. A great proportion of the inferior voters are
necessarily under the absolute control of their employers; but there are
always many who are to be influenced by weighty arguments applied to the
palm of the hand; and the struggle for these, when the parties happen to
be well balanced, leads to a thousand devices. The moment one party can
lay hold on a voter of this description, they endeavour to keep him
constantly drunk till the time of election, and never to lose sight of
him. If the others can catch him, and overbid them, they, on their part,
are afraid of a rescue, carry their prize out of town, and coop him in
some barn or outhouse, where they stuff him day and night with meat and
drink till they bring him up to the place of polling, oftentimes so
intoxicated that the fellow must be led between two others, one to hold
him up as he gives his voice, while the other shows him a card in the
palm of his hand, with the name of the candidate written in large
letters, lest he should forget for whom he is to vote.
The qualification for voting differs at different places. At Bristol a
freeman's daughter conveys it by marriage. Women enter into the heat of
party even more eagerly than men, and, when the mob is more than usually
mischievous, are sure to be at the head of it. In one election for that
city, which was violently disputed, it was common for the same woman to
marry several men. The mode of divorce was, that as soon as the ceremony
was over, and the parties came out of church, they went into the
church-yard, and shaking hands over a grave, cried, "Now death us do
part;"—away then went the man to vote with his new qualification, and
the woman to qualify another husband at another church.
Such tricks are well understood, and practised by all parties: but if an
appeal be made against a return as having been thus obtained by illegal
means, the cause is tried in the house[14] of commons, and these are
perhaps the only subjects which are decided there with strict
impartiality. Bribery is punished in him who gives, by the loss of his
seat, and he may be prosecuted for heavy fines: he who receives, falls
under the penal law—the heaviest punishment ought to fall upon the
tempter; and as government in England is made a trade, it seems hard
that the poor should not get something by it once in seven years, when
they are to pay so much for it all the rest of the time.
These abuses are not necessarily inherent in the nature of popular
election; they would effectually be precluded by the use of the ballot.
The popular party call loudly for reform, but they are divided among
themselves as to what reform they would have; and the aristocracy of the
country, as they have every thing in their own hands, will never consent
to any which would destroy their own influence.
One evil consequence results from this mode of representation, which
affects the rulers as well as the people. The house of commons has not,
and cannot have, its proportion of talents: its members are wholly
chosen from among persons of great fortune. The more limited the number
out of which they are chosen, the less must be the chance of finding
able men: there is, therefore, a natural unfitness in having a
legislative body composed wholly of the rich. It is known both at
schools and at universities, that the students of the privileged classes
are generally remiss in their studies, and inferior in information for
that reason to their contemporaries;—there is, therefore, less chance of
finding a due proportion of knowledge among them. Being rich, and
associating wholly with the rich, they have no knowledge of the real
state of the great body for whom they are to legislate, and little
sympathy for distresses which they have never felt: a legislature
composed wholly of the rich, is therefore liable to lay the public
burthens oppressively upon the inferior ranks.
There are two ways in which men of talents, who are not men of fortune,
find their way into parliament. The minister sometimes picks out a few
promising plants from the university, and forces them in his hot-bed.
They are chosen so young that they cannot by any possibility have
acquired information to fit them for their situations; they are so
flattered by the choice that they are puffed up with conceit, and so
fettered by it that they must be at the beck of their patron. The other
method is by way of the law. But men who make their way up by legal
practice, learn, in the course of that practice, to disregard right and
wrong, and to consider themselves entirely as pleaders on the one side.
They continue to be pleaders and partisans in the legislature, and never
become statesmen.
From these causes it is, that, while the English people are held in
admiration by all the world, the English government is regarded in so
very different a light; and hence it is, that the councils of England
have been directed by such a succession of weak ministers, and marked by
such a series of political errors. An absolute monarch looks for talents
wherever they are to be found, and the French negotiators have always
recovered whatever the English fleets have won.
Long peace is not more unfavourable to the skill of an army, than long
security to the wisdom of a government. In times of internal commotion,
all stirring spirits come forward; the whole intellect of a nation is
called forth; good men sacrifice the comforts of a wise privacy to serve
their country; bad men press on to advance themselves; the good fall a
sacrifice, and the government is resigned into the hands of able
villains. When, on the contrary, every thing has long been safe, as is
the case in England, politics become an established trade; to which a
certain cast are regularly born and bred. They are bred to it as others
are to the navy, to the law, or to the church; with this wide
difference, that no predisposing aptitude of talents has been consulted,
and no study of the profession is required. It is fine weather; the ship
is heavy laden; she has a double and treble allowance of officers and
supernumeraries,—men enough on board, but no seamen; still it is fine
weather, and as long as it continues so the ship sails smoothly, and
every thing goes on as well as if Christopher Columbus himself had the
command. Changes are made in the equipage; the doctor and the pilot take
each other's places; the gunner is made cook, and the cook gunner; it
may happen, indeed, that he may charge the guns with peas, and shot them
with potatoes,—what matters it while there is no enemy at hand?
[13] Spaniard! But is he wishing to recommend a Cortes, by insinuating
that it would strengthen the power of the crown?—TR.
[14] A committee chosen from the house of commons.—TR.
LETTER XLIX.
_Fashion.—Total Change in the English Costume.—Leathern Breeches.—
Shoes.—Boots.—Inventors of new Fashions.—Colours.—Female Fashions.—
Tight lacing.—Hair-dressing.—Hoops.—Bustlers.—Rumps.—Merry-Thoughts
and Pads._
The caprice of fashion in this country would appear incredible to you,
if you did not know me too well to suspect me either of invention or
exaggeration. Every part of the dress, from head to foot, undergoes such
frequent changes, that the English costume is at present as totally
unlike what it was thirty years ago, as it is to the Grecian or Turkish
habit. These people have always been thus capricious. Above two
centuries ago a satirist here painted one of his countrymen standing
naked, with a pair of shears in one hand, and a piece of cloth in the
other, saying
I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear,
For now I will wear this, and now I will wear that,
And now I will wear I cannot tell what.
When J. was a school-boy every body wore leathern breeches, which were
made so tight that it was a good half-hour's work to get them on the
first time. The maker was obliged to assist at this operation:—observe,
this personage is not called a tailor, but a maker of breeches,—tailors
are considered as an inferior class, and never meddle with leather. When
a gentleman was in labour of a new pair of leathern breeches, all his
strength was required to force himself into them, and all the
assistant-operators to draw them on: when it was nearly accomplished,
the maker put his hands between the patient's legs, closed them, and
bade him sit on them like a saddle, and kick out one leg at a time, as
if swimming. They could not be buttoned without the help of an
instrument. Of course they fitted like another skin; but woe to him who
was caught in the rain in them!—it was like plucking a skin off to get
out of them.
The shoes—I am not going back beyond a score of years in any of these
instances—were made to a point in our unnatural method; they were then
rounded, then squared, lastly made right and left like gloves to fit the
feet. At one time the waistcoat was so long as to make the wearer seem
all body; at another time so short that he was all limbs. The skirts of
the coat were now cut away so as almost to leave all behind bare as a
baboon, and now brought forward to meet over the thigh like a petticoat.
Now the cape was laid flat upon the shoulders, now it stood up straight
and stiff like an implement of torture, now was rounded off like a
cable. Formerly the half-boot was laced: the first improvement was to
draw it on like a whole-boot; it was then discovered that a band at the
back was better than a seam, and that a silken tassel in front would be
highly ornamental, and no doubt of essential use. By this time the
half-boot was grown to the size of the whole one. The Austrians, as they
were called, yielded to the Hessians, which, having the seams on each
side instead of down the back, were more expensive, and therefore more
fashionable. Then came an invention for wrinkling the leather upon the
instep into round folds, which were of singular utility in retaining the
dirt and baffling the shoeblack. At length a superior genius having
arisen among boot-makers, the wheel went completely round, and at this
present time every body must be seen in a pair of whole-boots of this
great man's making.
"Almost all new fashions offend me," says Feyjoo, "except those which
either circumscribe expense, or add to decency."—I am afraid that
those reasons are practically reversed in England, and that fashions are
followed with avidity in proportion as they are extravagant and
indecorous—to use the lightest term. The most absurd mode which I have
yet heard of was that of oiling the coat and cold-pressing it; this gave
it a high gloss, but every particle of dust adhered to it, and after it
had been twice or thrice worn it was unfit to be seen. This folly, which
is but of very late date, was too extravagant to last, and never I
believe extended into the country. I asked my tailor one day, who is a
sensible man in his way, who invented the fashions. "Why, sir," said he,
"I believe it is the young gentlemen who walk in Bond-street. They come
to me, and give me orders for a new cut, and perhaps it takes, and
perhaps it does not. It is all fancy, you know, sir." This street serves
as a Prado or Alameda for all the fops of rank, and happy is he who gets
the start in a new cut; in the fall of a cape, the shape of a sleeve, or
the pattern of a button. This emulation produces many abortive attempts,
and it is amusing to see the innovations which are daily hazarded
without ever attaining to the dignity of a fashion.
Colour, as well as shape, is an affair of fashionable legislation.
Language is nowhere so imperfect as in defining colours; but if
philosophical language be deficient here, the creative genius of fashion
is never at a loss for terms. What think you of the Emperor's eye, of
the Mud of Paris, and _Le soupir étouffé_,—the Sigh supprest? These I
presume were exotic flowers of phraseology, imported for the use of the
ladies; it is however of as much importance to man as to woman, that he
should appear in the prevailing colour. My tailor tells me I must have
pantaloons of a reddish cast, "All on the reds now, sir!" and reddish
accordingly they are, in due conformity to his prescription. It is even
regulated whether the coat shall be worn open or buttoned, and if
buttoned, whether by one button or two, and by which. Sometimes a cane
is to be carried in the hand, sometimes a club, sometimes a common twig;
at present the more deformed and crooked in its growth the better. At
one time every man walked the streets with his hands in his coat pocket.
The length of the neck-handkerchief, the shape, the mode of tying it,
must all be in the mode. There is a professor in the famous Bondstreet,
who, in lessons at half-a-guinea, instructs gentlemen in the art of
tying their neck-handkerchiefs in the newest and most approved style.
The women have been more extravagant than the men;—to be more foolish
was impossible. Twenty years ago the smaller the waist the more
beautiful it was esteemed. To be shaped like a wasp was therefore the
object of female ambition; and so tight did they lace themselves, or
rather so tightly were they laced, for it required assistant strength to
fasten their girths, that women have frequently fainted from the
pressure, and some actually perished by this monstrous kind of suicide.
About the same time they all wore powder; the hair at the sides was
stuck out in stiff curls, or rolls, tier above tier, fastened with long
double black pins; behind it was matted with pomatum into one broad flat
mass, which was doubled back and pinned upon a cushion, against which
the toupee was frizzed up, and the whole frosted over with powder,
white, brown, pink, or yellow. This was the golden age of hairdressers;
the ladies were completely dependent upon them, and obliged to wait,
patiently or impatiently, for their turn. On important occasions, when
very many were to be drest for the same spectacle, it was not unusual to
submit to the operation over night, and sit up all night in
consequence,—for to have lain down would have disordered the whole
furniture of the upper story. The great hoop, which is now confined to
the court, was then commonly worn in private parties. Besides this there
were protuberances on the hips called bustlers, another behind which was
called in plain language a rump, and a merry-thought of wire on the
breast to puff out the handkerchief like a pouting pigeon. Women were
obliged to sip their tea with the corner of their mouths, and to eat
sideways. A yet more extraordinary costume succeeded, that of pads in
front, to imitate what it must have been originally invented to conceal.
All these fashions went like the French monarchy, and about the same
time; but when the ladies began to strip themselves, they did not know
where to stop.
And these follies travel where the science and literature and domestic
improvements of the English never reach! Well does Anguillesi say in his
address to Fashion:
Non perchè libera e industre
Grande è in pace è grande in guerra,
Or tra noi si chiara e illustre
E la triplice Inghilterra;
Non perchè del suo Newtono
Và quel suol fastoso e lieto,
E del Grande per cui sono
Nomi eterni Otello e Amleto;
Ma perchè ti nacque idéa
D' abbigliarti a foggia inglese,
Oggidi, possente Dea,
Parla ognun di quel paese.
Quindi in bella emulazione
Quai _Mylord_ vestir noi vedi,
E l'italiche matrone
Come l'angliche _Myledi_.
Not because she is free and industrious, great in
peace and great in war, is triple England now so dear
and so illustrious among us; not because that land
proudly rejoices in her Newton, and in that great
one by whom Othello and Hamlet are become immortal
names. But because it has pleased thee, O
powerful goddess, to attire thyself after the English
mode,—every one speaks of that country. Hence
it is that in fine emulation we are seen to dress like
My-lord, and Italian matrons like the English My-lady.—TR.
LETTER L.
_Lady Wortley Montagu's Remark upon Credulity.—Superstitions of the
English respecting the Cure of Diseases.—Sickness and Healing connected
with Superstition.—Wesley's Primitive Physic.—Quacks.—Dr Graham.—
Tractors.—Magnetic Girdles.—Quoz.—Quack Medicines._
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the best letter-writer of this or of any
other country, has accounted for the extraordinary facility with which
her countrymen are duped by the most ignorant quacks, very truly and
very ingeniously. "The English," she says, "are more easily infatuated
than any other people by the hope of a panacea, nor is there any other
country in the world where such great fortunes are made by physicians. I
attribute this to the foolish credulity of mankind. As we no longer
trust in miracles and relics, we run as eagerly after receipts and
doctors, and the money which was given three centuries ago for the
health of the soul, is now given for the health of the body, by the same
sort of people, women and half-witted men. Quacks are despised in
countries where they have shrines and images."
How much to be lamented is the perversion of a mind like hers, which,
had it not been heretical, would have been so truly excellent! She
perceives the truth; but having been nursed up in a false religion, and
afterwards associated with persons who had none, she does not perceive
the whole truth, and confounds light and darkness. The foolish credulity
of mankind!—To be without faith and hope is as unnatural a state for the
heart as to be without affections. Man is a credulous animal; perhaps he
has never yet been defined by a characteristic which more peculiarly and
exclusively designates him, certainly never by a nobler one; for faith
and hope are what the heretics mean by credulity. The fact is, as she
states it. Infidelity and heresy cannot destroy the nature of man, but
they pervert it; they deprive him of his trust in God, and he puts it in
man; they take away the staff of his support, and he leans upon a broken
reed.
In the worst sufferings and the most imminent peril a true catholic
never needs despair; such is the power of the saints, and the infinite
mercy of God and the most holy Mary: but the heretics in such cases have
only to despair and die. They have no saint to look to for every
particular disease, no faith in relics to make them whole. If a piece of
the true cross were brought to a dying Englishman, though its efficacy
had been proved by a thousand miracles, he would reject it even at the
last gasp; such is the pride and obstinacy of heresy, and so completely
does it harden the heart.
There are a thousand facts to verify the remark of Lady Wortley. The
boasted knowledge of England has not sunk deep; it is like the golden
surface of a lackered watch, which covers, and but barely covers, the
base metal. The great mass of the people are as ignorant, and as well
contented with their ignorance, as any the most illiterate nation in
Europe: and even among those who might be expected to know better, it is
astonishing how slowly information makes way to any practical utility.
In domestic medicine for instance;—a defluxion is here called a cold,
and therefore for its name's sake must be expelled by heat. Oil is
employed to soften a hard cough, and lemon juice to cut it; because in
English sourness is synonymous with sharpness, and what is sharp must
needs cut. But it is of superstition that I am to speak, and perverted
credulity.
The abracadabra of the old heretics was lately in use as a charm for the
ague, and probably still is where the ague is to be found, for that
disease has almost wholly disappeared within the last generation. For
warts there are manifold charms. The person who wishes to be rid of them
takes a stick, and cuts a notch in it for every wart, and buries it, and
as it rots the warts are to decay. Or he steals a piece of beef and rubs
over them, and buries it in like manner. Or stealing dry peas or beans,
and wrapping them up, one for each wart, he carries the parcel to a
place where four roads meet, and tosses it over his head, not looking
behind to see where it falls; he will lose the warts, and whoever picks
it up will have them. But there are gifted old women who have only to
slip a thread over these excrescencies, or touch them with their saliva,
and they dry away.
It is a truth, that we have but too many such superstitious follies;
with us, however, there is always some mixture of devotion in them, and
the error, though it be an error, and as such deservedly discouraged, is
at least pious. He who psalms a sick man, or fancies that the oil from
his saint's lamp will heal him of all his complaints, errs on the safe
side. Here none of these palliations are to be found; the practices have
not merely no reference to religion, but have even the characters of
witchcraft. The materials for the charm must be stolen to render them
efficacious, secrecy is enjoined, and it is supposed that the evil is
only to be got rid of by transferring it to another. In Catholic
countries the confessor commands the thief to make restitution,—here the
person who has been robbed repairs to a witch or wizard to recover the
loss, or learn who the criminal is, by means of a familiar spirit! A
Cunning-Man, or a Cunning-Woman, as they are termed, is to be found near
every town, and though the laws are occasionally put in force against
them, still it is a gainful trade. This it is to deprive credulity of
its proper food.
None suffer so severely from this as they who are labouring under
diseases; if money is to be gotten, such is the spirit of trade, neither
the dying nor the dead are spared, and quackery is carried to greater
perfection of villainy here than in any other part of the world.
Sickness humbles the pride of man; it forces upon him a sense of his own
weakness, and teaches him to feel his dependence upon unseen Powers:
that therefore which makes wise men devout, makes the ignorant
superstitious. Among savages the physician and the conjurer are always
the same. The operations of sickness and of healing are alike
mysterious, and hence arises the predilection of many enthusiasts for
quackery, and the ostentation which all quacks make of religion, or of
some extraordinary power in themselves. The favourite assertion formerly
in all countries was, that of an innate gift as a seventh son, I know
not on what superstition founded, and of course augmented seven fold in
due proportion, if the father had been a seventh son also, or even the
mother a seventh daughter, for in this case there is no Salic law.
Another has claimed the same privilege because he was born deaf and
dumb, as if nature had thus indemnified him for the faculties of which
he was deprived. The kings of England long since the schism, though the
practice is now disused, have touched for the evil, and used to appoint
a day in the Gazette for publicly doing it. Where this divine property
has not been ascribed to the physician it has been imputed to the
medicine. The most notorious of these worthies who flourishes at present
calls his composition the Cordial Balm of Gilead, and prefaces every
advertisement with a text from Jeremiah, "Is there no Balm in Gilead? is
there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of
my people recovered?"—Thus the Arabs attribute the virtue of their balm
to the blood of those who were slain at Beder. We see among ourselves
but too many scandalous proofs of this weakness. A Cistercian historian
assures us that he was cured of an obstinate illness by taking a pill of
the earth of the pit in which God made Adam: and at this day the
rinsings of the cup are eagerly sought after by the sick,
notwithstanding the prohibition of the church.
Perhaps we are indebted to the Jews for the vulgar feeling of the divine
origin of the healing art. They will have it that Adam had an intuitive
knowledge of medicine, and that Solomon's Book of Trees[15] and Herbs
was written by inspiration. The founder of the Quakers was in danger of
taking to the practice of physic from a similar notion. He fancied that
he was in the same state as Adam before the fall, and that the nature
and virtues of all things were opened to him, and he was at a stand, as
he says, whether he should practise physic for the good of mankind.
Wesley went beyond him, and published what he called Primitive Physic,
fancying himself chosen to restore medicine as well as religion, and to
prescribe both for body and soul, like St Luke. The greater number of
his remedies are old women's receipts, neither good nor ill; but others
are of a more desperate nature. For a cold in the head he directs you to
pare an orange very thin, roll it up inside out, and put a plug in each
nostril; for the wind colic, to eat parched peas; for the gout, to apply
a raw beef-steak to the part affected; for raving madness, to set the
patient with his head under a great waterfall as long as his strength
will bear it; and for asthma and hypochondriasis, to take an ounce of
quicksilver every morning! If all his prescriptions had been like this
last, his book might have been entitled, after the favourite form of the
English, Every Man his own Poisoner. In general they are sufficiently
innocent; which is fortunate, for I have selected these instances from
the twenty-first edition of his work, and no doubt the purchasers place
in it implicit confidence.
Any scientific discovery is immediately seized by some of the numerous
adventurers in this country, who prey upon the follies and the miseries
of their fellow-creatures. The most eminent quack of the last generation
was a Doctor Graham, who tampered with electricity in a manner too
infamous to be reported, and for which he ought to have received the
most exemplary public punishment. This man was half mad, and his madness
at last, contrary to the usual process, got the better of his knavery.
His latest method of practice was something violent; it was to bury his
patients up to the chin in fresh mould. J. saw half a score of them
exhibited in this manner for a shilling:—a part of the exhibition was to
see them perform afterwards upon shoulders of mutton, to prove that when
they rose from the grave they were as devouring as the grave itself. The
operation lasted four hours: they suffered, as might be seen in their
countenances, intensely from cold for the first two, during the third
they grew warmer, and in the last perspired profusely, so that when they
were taken out the mould reeked like a new dunghill. Sailors are said to
have practised this mode of cure successfully for the scurvy. The doctor
used sometimes to be buried himself for the sake of keeping his patients
company: one day, when he was in this condition, a farmer emptied a
watering-pot upon his head to make him grow. When J. saw him he was
sitting up to the neck in a bath of warm mud, with his hair powdered and
in full dress. As he was haranguing upon the excellent state of health
which he enjoyed from the practice of earth-bathing, as he called it, J.
asked him, Why then, if there was nothing the matter with him, he sate
in the mud? The question puzzled him.—Why, he said,—why—it was—it was—it
was to show people that it did no harm,—that it was quite innocent,—that
it was very agreeable: and then brightening his countenance with a smile
at the happiness of the thought, he added, "It gives me, sir, a skin as
soft as the feathers of Venus' dove." This man lived upon vegetables,
and delighted in declaiming against the sin of being carnivorous, and
the dreadful effects of making the stomach a grave and charnel-house for
slaughtered bodies. Latterly he became wholly an enthusiast, would
madden himself with ether, run out into the streets, and strip himself
to clothe the first beggar whom he met.
Galvanism, like electricity, was no sooner discovered than it was
applied to purposes of quackery. The credit of this is due to America;
and it must be admitted that the inventor has the honour of having
levied a heavier tax upon credulity than any of his predecessors ever
dared attempt: in this respect he is the Mr Pitt of his profession. For
two pieces of base metal, not longer than the little finger, and not
larger than a nail, he is modest enough to charge five guineas. These
Tractors, as they are called, are to cure all sores, swellings, burns,
tooth-ache, &c. &c.: and that the purchasers may beware of counterfeits,
which is the advice always given by this worshipful fraternity, a
portrait of the tractor is engraved upon his hand-bills, both a front
view and a back one, accompanied with a striking likeness of the
leathern case in which they are contained. Many cures have certainly
been performed by them, and how those cures are performed has been as
certainly exemplified by some very ingenious experiments which were made
at Bath and Bristol. Pieces of wood, and others of common iron, shaped
and coloured like the tractors, were tried there upon some paralytic
patients in the Infirmary. The mode of operating consists in nothing
more than in gently stroking the part affected with the point of the
instrument, and so, according to the theory, conducting off into the
atmosphere the galvanic matter of pain! It is impossible that where
there is no sore, this can give any pain whatever,—yet the patients were
in agonies. One of them declared that he had suffered less when pieces
of the bone of his leg had been cut out,—and they were actually enabled
to move limbs which before were dead with palsy.—False relics have
wrought true miracles.
Another gentleman quacks with oxygen, and recommends what he calls vital
wine as a cure for all diseases. Vital wine must be admitted to be
something extraordinary; but what is that to a people for whom solar and
lunar tinctures have been prepared! Another has risen from a travelling
cart to the luxuries of a chariot by selling magnetic girdles; his
theory is, that the magnetic virtue attracts the iron in the blood, and
makes the little red globules revolve faster, each upon its own axis, in
the rapidity and regularity of which revolutions health consists,—and
this he proves to the people by showing them how a needle is set in
motion by his girdles. But magnetism has been made the basis of a far
more portentous quackery, which is in all its parts so extraordinary
that it merits a full account, not merely in a Picture of England, but
also in the history of the century which has just expired. My next shall
develop this at length.
The reason why these scoundrels succeed to so much greater an extent in
England than in any other country, is because they are enabled to make
themselves so generally known by means of the newspapers, and, in
consequence of the great internal commerce, to have their agents every
where, and thus do as much mischief every where, as if the Devil had
endowed them with a portion of his own ubiquity. Not only do the London
papers find their way over the whole kingdom, but every considerable
town in the provinces has one or more of its own, and in these they
insert their long advertisements with an endless perseverance which must
attract notice, and make them and their medicines talked of. How
effectually this may be done, I can illustrate by an odd anecdote. Some
twelve or fifteen years ago a wager was laid between two persons in
London, that the one would, in the course of a few weeks, make any
nonsensical word, which the other should choose to invent, a general
subject of conversation. Accordingly he employed people to write in
chalk upon all the walls in London the word _Quoz_. Every body saw this
word wherever they went staring them in the face, and nobody could
divine its meaning. The newspapers noticed it,—What can it be? was the
general cry, and the man won his wager.
Upon this system the quacks persist in advertising at an enormous
expense, for which, however, they receive ample interest,—and which
indeed they do not always honestly pay. Part of their scheme is to
advertise in newspapers which are newly set up, and which, therefore,
insert their notices at an under price; and one fellow, when he was
applied to for payment, refused, saying that his clerk had ordered the
insertion without his knowledge. To go to law with him would have been a
remedy worse than the disease.
El vencido vencido,
Y el vencedor perdido,[16]
is true here as well as in other countries.
These wretches know the sufferings and the hopes of mankind, and they
mock the one and aggravate the other. They who suffer, listen gladly to
any thing which promises relief; and these men insert such cases of
miraculous cures, signed and sworn to and attested, that they who do not
understand how often the recovery may be real and the cure
imaginary,—the fact true and the application false,—yield to the weight
of human testimony, and have faith to the destruction of their bodies,
though they will have none to the salvation of their souls.
Attestations to these cases are procured in many ways. A quack of the
first water for a long time sent his prescriptions to the shop of some
druggists of great respectability. After some months he called there in
his carriage, and introduced himself, saying that they must often have
seen his name, and that he now came to complain of them, for
unintentionally doing him very serious mischief. "Gentlemen," said he,
"you charge your drugs too low. As medical men yourselves you _must_
know how much depends upon faith, and people have no faith in what is
cheap,—they will not believe that any thing can do them good unless they
pay smartly for it. I must beg you to raise your prices, and raise them
high too, double and treble what they now are at least,—or I really must
send my patients elsewhere." This was strange, and what they were
requested to do was not after the ordinary custom of fair trading;—but
as it did not appear that there could be any other advantage resulting
to him from it than what he had stated, they at last promised to do as
he desired. This visit led to some further acquaintance; and after
another long interval, they were persuaded one day to dine with their
friend the Doctor. During dinner the servant announced that a person
from the country wished to see the Doctor, and thank him for having
cured him. "Oh," said he, "don't you know that I am engaged? These
people wear me out of my very life! Give the good man something to eat
and drink, tell him I am very glad he is got well, and send him away."
The servant came in again,—"Sir, he will not go,—he says it is a most
wonderful cure,—that you have raised him from the dead, and he cannot be
happy till he has seen you and thanked you himself. He is come a long
way from the country, sir." "Gentlemen," said the Doctor, "you see how
it is. I do not know how to get rid of him, unless you will have the
goodness to allow him just to come in, and then he will be satisfied and
let us alone. This is the way I am plagued!" In came the countryman, and
began to bless the Doctor, as the means under God, of snatching him from
the grave; and offered him money tied up in a leathern bag, saying it
was all the compensation he could make; but if it were ten times as much
it would be too little,—the Doctor crying, "Well, well, my friend, I am
glad to see you so well," and refusing to take his money. Still the man
persisted, and would tell the company his case,—he could not in
conscience be easy if he did not,—and he began a long story, which the
Doctor first attempted to stop, and then affected not to listen to,—till
at length, by little and little, he began to give ear to it, and seemed
greatly interested before he had done, and interrupted him with
questions. At last he called for pen and ink, saying—"This is so very
extraordinary a case that I must not lose it;" and making the man repeat
it as he wrote, frequently said to his visitors, "Gentlemen, I beg you
will take notice of this,—it is a very remarkable case:" and when he had
finished writing it, he said to them, "You have heard the good man's
story, and I am sure can have no objection to subscribe your names as
witnesses." The trick was apparent, and they begged leave to decline
appearing upon the occasion. "Why, gentlemen," said he, "you and I had
better continue friends. You must be sensible that I have been the means
of putting very great and unusual profits into your hands, and you will
not surely refuse me so trifling a return as that of attesting a case
which you have heard from the man himself, and can have no doubt about!"
There was no remedy: they were caught, felt themselves in his power, and
were obliged to submit to the mortification of seeing themselves
advertised as witnesses to a cure which they knew to be a juggle.
This same man once practised a similar trick in such a way that the wit
almost atones for the roguery. Some young men of fashion thought it
would be a good joke to get him to dinner and make him drunk, and one of
them invited him for this purpose. The Doctor went, and left his friend
the countryman to follow him, and find him out;—of course it was still
better sport for them to hear the case. But the next morning it appeared
in the newspapers with the names of the whole party to attest it.
Government gives an indirect sort of sanction to these worst of all
impostors. They enter the receipt of their medicines as a discovery, and
for the payment of about 100_l._ sterling, take out a privilege, which
is here called a patent, prohibiting all other persons from compounding
the same; then they announce their discoveries as by the king's
authority, and thus the ignorant are deceived. The Scotch[17]
Universities also sell them degrees in medicine without the slightest
examination,—this trade in degrees being their main support,—and they
are legally as true Doctors in medicine as the best of the profession.
This infamous practice might soon be put a stop to. Their medicines may
be classed under three heads; they are either such as can do no good,
but produce immediate exhilaration, because they contain either laudanum
or spirits; or they are well-known drugs given in stronger doses than
usual, so as to be sure of producing immediate good at the probable
chance of occasioning after mischief; or they are more rarely new
medicines, introduced before the regular practitioners will venture to
employ them. In this way arsenic was first employed. The famous fever
powder of Dr James is of this description; he knew it would be adopted
in general practice, and, to secure the profits to his representatives
after the term of his privilege should have expired, had recourse to
means which cannot be justified. Every person upon taking out a patent
is obliged to specify upon oath the particular discovery on which he
grounds his claim to it. He entered a false receipt: so that, though the
ingredients have been since detected by analysis, still the exact
proportions and the method of preparation are supposed to be known only
to those who have succeeded to his rights, and who in consequence still
derive an ample income from the success of this artifice.
There is yet another mystery of iniquity to be revealed. Some of the
rascals who practise much in a particular branch of their art are
connected with gamblers. They get intimate with their young moneyed
patients, and as they keep splendid houses, invite them to grand
entertainments, where part of the gang are ready to meet them, and when
the wine is done with the dice are produced.
[15] 1 Kings, iv. 33.
[16] _He who loses, loses, and he who wins is ruined._—TR.
[17] Don Manuel should have said _some_ of the
Scotch Universities, and not have involved Edinburgh
and Glasgow in the censure.—TR.
LETTER LI.
_Account of Animal Magnetism._
I shall devote this letter to a full account of the theory of Animal
Magnetism, which was put a stop to in France by the joint authority of
the Church and State, but had its fair career in England. The Lectures
of Mainauduc, who was the teacher in this country, were published, and
from them I have drawn this detail:
Leggilo,[18] che meno
Leggerlo a te, che a me scriverlo costa.
According to this new system of physics, the earth, its atmosphere, and
all their productions are only one, and each is but a separate portion
of the whole, accasionally produced and received back into itself, for
the purpose of maintaining a continual and regular rotation of animate
and inanimate substances. An universal connection subsists between every
particle and mass of particles of this whole, whether they be
comprehended under the title of solids or fluids, or distinguished by
the particular appellation of men, beasts, birds, fish, trees, plants,
or herbs; all are particles of the same original mass, and are in
perpetual cycle employed in the work of forming, feeding, decomposing,
and again re-forming bodies or masses. A regular attachment universally
exists between all particles of a similar nature throughout the whole;
and all forms composed in and of any medium of particles, must be
influenced by whatever affects that medium, or sets its particles in
motion; so that every form in the earth and atmosphere must receive and
partake of every impulse received by the general medium of atoms in
which and of which they are formed.
All forms are subject to one general law; action and re-action produce
heat, some of their constituent atoms are rendered fluid by heat, and
form streams, and convey into the form atoms for its increase and
nourishment; this is called composition by vegetation and circulation.
Circulation not only brings in particles for growth and nourishment, but
it also carries off the useless ones. The passages through which these
particles pass in and out, are called pores. By a pore we are to
understand a space formed between every two solid atoms in the whole
vegetating world, by the liquefaction of the atom, which, when solid,
filled up that space. As circulation, vegetation, and consequently
animal life, arise from the formation of pores, so the destruction of
them must terminate every process of animal existence, and each partial
derangement of porosity induces incipient destruction of the form, or
what is called disease.
By the process of circulation atoms of various kinds are carried in,
deposited, and thrown out of each part of every form; and every form is
surrounded and protected by an atmosphere peculiar to itself, composed
of these particles of circulating fluids, and analogous to the general
atmosphere of the earth. This is the general atmosphere of the form. The
solid parts of the body throw off in the same manner their useless
particles, but these pass off and become blended with those of the
general atmosphere of the earth. These are called the emanations of the
form. Thus, then, earth and atmosphere are one whole, of which every
form is but a part; the whole and all its parts are subject to the same
laws, and are supported by action; action produces re-action; action and
re-action produce heat; heat produces fluidity; fluidity produces pores;
pores produce circulation; circulation produces vegetation; vegetation
produces forms; forms are composed of solids and fluids; solids produce
emanations; fluids produce atmospheres; atmospheres and emanations
produce partial decomposition; total decomposition is death; death and
decomposition return the atoms to the general mass for re-production.
The whole vegetating system is comprised in miniature in man. He is
composed of pipes beyond conception numerous, and formed of particles
between which the most minute porosity admits, in every direction, the
passage of atoms and fluids. The immense quantity of air which is
continually passing in and out through every part and pore of the body,
carries in with it such atoms as may become mixed with the general
atmosphere, and these must either pass out again, or stop in their
passage. If they should be of a hurtful nature, they injure the parts
through which they pass, or in which they stop; if, on the contrary,
they should be healthy and natural, they contribute to health and
nourishment. Butchers, publicans, cooks, living in an atmosphere of
nutritious substances, generally become corpulent, though they have
slender appetites; painters, plumbers, dyers, and those who are employed
in atmospheres of pernicious substances, become gradually diseased, and
frequently lose the use of their limbs long before decomposition takes
place for their relief.
Hence it appears that the free circulation of healthy atoms through the
whole form is necessary, and that obstructions of its porosity, or
stoppage of its circulating particles, must occasion derangement in the
system, and be followed by disease. To obviate this evil, innumerable
conductors are placed in the body, adapted, by their extreme
sensibility, to convey information of every impression to the sensorium;
which, according to the nature of the impression, or the injury
received, agitates, shakes, or contracts the form to thrust forth the
offending cause. This is Nature's established mode of cure, and the
efficacy of the exertion depends on the strength of the system; but
these salutary efforts have been mistaken for disease.
As every impression is received through one medium, disposed over the
whole form for that purpose, it may be asserted that there is but one
sense, and that all these impressions are only divisions of the sense of
feeling. The accuracy of any of these divisions depends on the health of
the nervous system in general.—This nervous or conducting system is only
a portion of a much greater one, similar in its nature, but far more
extensive in its employment.
There are in the general atmosphere innumerable strings of its component
atoms; the business of these strings is to receive and convey, from and
through every part of the atmosphere, of the earth and of their
inhabitants, whatever impulses they receive. These conductors are to be
called atmospherical nerves; the nerves of the human body are connected
with these, or rather are a part of them.
This is elucidated by the phænomena of sound. Theorists agree that sound
is produced in a bell by the tremulous motion of its component atoms,
which alternately changes its shape from round to oval a million times
in one instant; as is proved by horizontally introducing a bar into the
aperture, which, counteracting one of the contractions, the bell
splits.—The conveyance of sound they account for by saying that the
atoms of the atmosphere are displaced by the alternate contractions of
the bell. Place a lighted candle near the bell, and this theory is
overthrown: if the general atmosphere is agitated, wind must result, but
the flame of the candle remains steady. Let us substitute the true
process.
Every impression in nature has its own peculiar set of conductors, and
no two sets interfere with, or impede, each other. The stroke of the
bell affects the nearest atom of the nerves of sound, and runs along
them in every direction. Human nerves are continuations of the
atmospherical; all animated beings being only as warts or excrescences
which have sprung up amidst these atmospherical nerves, and are
permeated by them in every direction. The atmospherical nerves of sound
are parts of the auditory nerves in man; the atmospherical nerves of
light are continued through man to form his optic nerves; and thus the
auditory and optic nerves of one man are the auditory and optic nerves
of every animated being in the universe, because all are branches sent
off from the same great tree in the parent earth and atmosphere.
It may be asked, What prevents the derangement of these innumerable
strings when the atmosphere is violently agitated? Aërial nerves are
like those of animated bodies, composed of atoms, but the atoms are in
loose contact. When a ray of sunshine comes through the hole in a
window-shutter the atoms are visible, and the hand may pass through
them, but they instantly resume their situations by their attractive
connection.
Every inanimate substance is attached to its similar; all animate and
inanimate substances are attached to each other by every similar part in
each of their compositions; all animate beings are attached to each
other by every similar atom in their respective forms, and all these
attachments are formed by atmospherical nerves. If two musical
instruments perfectly in unison be placed one at each end of the same
apartment, whatever note is struck upon the one will be repeated by the
other. Martial music may be heard by a whole army in the field; each
note has its peculiar conductor in the general atmosphere, and each ear
must be connected with the atmospherical conductor of each note; so that
every note has not only its separate conductor in the atmosphere, but
also its separate conductor in every ear.—We have got through the
hypothesis, now to the application.
The mind is the arbitrator over the bones, the muscles, the nerves, and
the body in general, and is that something which the anatomist's knife
can neither dissect, discover, nor destroy. But to define what that
something is, we must apply to the words of our Saviour,—"It is not ye
that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." The
decisions, adoptions, and commands of this spirit are man's volition;
but we are not accustomed to investigate the means by which volition is
exerted, nor to seek for the privilege of improving it beyond the common
necessary avocations of life. Yet, if it be properly sought for, a power
of volition may be called forth in man, in a far more exalted degree
than what he now exerts; a power subordinate to a far superior one, by
whom it is portioned out to individuals according to the purposes for
which they exert it, and which is partially or totally recalled when
neglected or abused. The accomplishment of any purpose of the will
depends physically on the length of time required for its performance,
and on the undisturbed continuance of the act of volition during that
time. The least interruption, or the change of the will to any other
subject before the first intention is accomplished, totally destroys the
influence. This axiom is unalterable in this new science of healing,
that to produce salutary effects the suggestion must be pure and moral,
the attention steadily determined, the intention single and fixed, and
volition vigorously exerted, continuing unvaried and unrelaxed either
till the purpose is effected or relinquished.
On the pretensions to inspiration which are implied here I shall remark
elsewhere, nor will I interrupt the account with any comments upon the
impudent hypocrisy with which it is seasoned to the public taste. To
proceed then;—the atmospherical part of the human body is capable of
contraction, of distention, and of direction; it may be attracted from,
or distended to, any unlimited distance, and may be so directed as to
penetrate any other form in nature.
The rejected atoms from the fluid, and emanations from the solid parts
of bodies, when rightly understood, are the only and unerring criterion
by which the obstructions and diseases of each part can be ascertained,
and when judiciously employed they become material instruments for the
removal of every malady. They are subject to the influence of volition,
and may be forced out of their natural course, or attracted into the
pores of the operator; and the human body, which in many respects
resembles a sponge, is adapted to receive such emanations and
atmospheres as a skilful practitioner may propel into any part of it,
and to afford them a free passage wherever he directs them. The
countless number of universal nerves which combine with, and are regular
continuations of, those similar conductors called nerves in animal
forms, are subject to the influence of man's spiritual volition, and are
affected or influenced if we strike one or more of them with the atoms
which are continually flowing from us; that affection is conveyed on to
such parts of the body as those conductors are attached to, and the
nature and degree of the impulse will be according to the nature of the
intention and the energy of the volition.
To determine the situation, nature, and extent of derangement or
disease, recourse must be had to the atoms which proceed from the
patient, for the rejected atoms resemble in their healthy or diseased
qualities the parts from which they pass. These particles of matter are
so immediately subject to the influence of combined spiritual volition,
that the established system by which they are mixed with the universal
medium gives way during our exertion, and they follow the course which
we prescribe; and whatever may be the direction or medium through which
we propel them, they remain unalterably the same, and continue passive
and unchanged either by distance, direction, or contact, until we
withdraw that influence, and discharge them from our service.
To judge of the state of the part from whence these atoms proceed, they
must be attracted to some part of the examiner's body, and must strike
his nerves; this process is called receiving impressions or sensations
from the patient. Every substance in nature will afford some impression
to that part of his body which the experienced examiner opposes to
receive it, but professors usually prefer the hands and especially the
fingers. The roots of the nails most commonly announce the first
impressions, because the cuticle is thinnest in that part, and the
pungent emanations more readily arrive at the nerves. No part perhaps of
this astonishing science, says the lecturer, creates more jealousy among
students than their susceptibility of sensations. Some enjoy that
privilege to a great degree of accuracy even at the first essay, whilst
others are in pursuit of it for months. This difference is at first
constitutional; but when the science has produced a proper influence on
the mind and morals, the impressions insensibly grow into accuracy. It
sometimes happens that they who were most susceptible at first become
totally deprived of that blessing until they approve themselves more
worthy servants. It is essentially necessary to render the process of
receiving the atoms emitted from every object familiar; this will be
effected by habitually seeking for them. For this purpose students
should frequently receive the emanations from salt, sugar, water, fire,
and in short from every substance which occurs; by this means they soon
become expert.
There are two modes of Examination; the first is that which should
accurately be attended to by newly initiated students, as it affords a
catalogue of sensations which become a regular standard to judge of all
diseases by, and to reduce examination to accuracy and perfection. This
mode consists in opposing one or both hands towards the patient. The
examiner should sit or stand in an easy position, cautiously avoiding
all pressure on his body or arms, lest he should suspect the impressions
to proceed from that cause rather than from the disease. He should fix
on some particular part of the patient, external or internal; then
turning the backs of his hands, he must vigorously and steadily command
the emanations and atmosphere which pass from that part to strike his
hands, and he must closely attend to whatever impressions are produced
on them. He must not permit his attention to wander from the object: if
he should, his labour is entirely lost. To render the process more
steady, the eyes of the examiner should be fixed on the part to which he
is attending, with the unvaried intent of directing the effluent atoms
towards his hands; it might naturally be supposed that his eyes should
be open, but is better they were shut, as all extraneous objects are by
that means excluded, and the porosity of the eyelids removes the idea of
impediment. It is perfectly immaterial what may be the distance between
the examiner and the patient: the process and the impressions will be
exactly the same, provided he calls forth in himself the requisite
exertion.
The second mode of examination is by opposing the whole body to that of
the patient. In this the operator must not seek to know where the
patient is, but recollecting that all human beings are connected to each
other by innumerable atmospherical nerves, and that the whole medium in
which they are placed is composed of loose atoms, he must fix his
attention upon the patient, as if he stood before him. Thus situated, he
must vigorously exert his power to attract all the emanations and
atmospheres proceeding from the patient to himself. The atoms, then,
which proceed from each particular part of the patient run to the same
parts of the examiner, who feels in every part of his own person
whatever the patient feels in his, only in a less degree, but always
sufficiently to enable him to describe the feelings of the patient, and
to ascertain the very spot in which the derangement exists, and the
consequences resulting from it. If the examiner's attention is directed
only to one particular viscus, that same viscus alone will receive
information in himself; but if it be generally directed, every part of
his body will give an account of its own proceedings. It is to be
remarked that undiseased parts will not convey any remarkable impression
to the examiner, as nothing results from health but gentle, soft,
equable heat.
The mode of healing is termed Treating;—it is a process made use of by
the operator to create, if partially obliterated, or to increase, if
become languid, the natural action and re-action in any part of the
body; and to assist nature by imitating and re-establishing her own law,
when she is become inadequate to the task. This process is the opposite
to the last; in that the examiner attracted the atoms from the patient
to himself, but in this he must propel the atoms from himself to the
patient. By a steady exertion of compound volition we have it in our
power to propel the particles which emanate from our own body, against
and into whatever part of any other form we fix our intention upon, and
can force them in any direction and to any distance. Thus, by a
continual and regular succession of particles directed vigorously in a
rapid stream against those atoms which are stopt in their passage and
accumulated into a heap, we break down the impediments, push off those
atoms which we detach, direct them into the circulating currents for
evacuation, and save the system from all the evil consequences which its
impeded functions were occasioning. This is like throwing handfuls of
shot at a heap of sand in a rivulet, which, as the grains of sand are
separated from each other, washes them along before it. As all
obstructions are not equally hard or compact, they are not all destroyed
with the same facility. A single look will often prove sufficient for a
recent accumulation of particles, for an accidental contraction, or a
sudden distention, whereas those of long standing and of a more serious
nature demand frequent, long, and judiciously-varied treatment.
The general process of treatment is an influence of mind over organized
matter, in which unorganized matter is the occasional instrument. The
mind should be able to perform this work without any particular motions
of the body, or of its extremities. But, says the professor,
inexperience, and the frequent disturbances which occur to divert the
attention, induce us to adopt some mode of action, the constant
repetition of which may attract, rouse, or recall the mind to its
subject, when it becomes languid, or diverted from its employment.
Hence, he adds, we generally employ our hands in the act of treating,
and write, as it were, our various intentions on each part by the
motions we make towards it: or, in fact, we trace on the diseased part
with our current of emanations the various curative intentions of our
mind or spirit.
The Pathology is soon explained. The impressions produced upon the
fingers of the examiner by the stone will be heaviness, indolence, and
cold. Burns and scalds produce heavy dull pricking at first, when
inflammation has taken place great heat and sharp pricking, but indolent
numbness from the centre. Rheumatic headache occasions pricking,
numbness, and creeping or vermicular motion, heat if the patient be
strong, cold if he be relaxed. Inflammation caused by confined wind
produces intense heat, pricking and creeping; the heat is occasioned by
the inflammation, the pricking by the wind acting against the obstructed
pores, and the creeping by the motion of the wind from one part to
another. Pus communicates to the hand of the examiner such a feeling of
softness as we should expect from dipping the hand in it, but combined
with pricking from the motion which the wind contained in it makes in
its endeavours to escape. Diseased lungs make the fingers feel as if
dough had been permitted to dry on them, this is called clumsy
stiffness. Pleurisy occasions creeping, heat and pricking; deafness,
resistance and numbness. Contracted nerves announce themselves to the
examiner by a pressure round his fingers, as if a string was tightly
bound round them; cases of relaxed habit by a lengthened debilitated
sensation; diseased spleen, or ovaries, by a spinning in the fingers'
ends, as if something were twirling about in them. The impression which
scrofula produces upon the practitioner is curious and extraordinary: at
every motion which he makes, the joints of his fingers, wrists, elbows,
and shoulders crack. Worms excite creeping and pinching; bruises,
heaviness in the hands, and numbness of the fingers.
The Modus Operandi must now be exemplified, premising, according to the
professor's words, that the operator's own emanations become for him
invisible fingers, which penetrate the pores, and are to be considered
as the natural and only ingredients which are or can be adapted to the
removal of nervous, or of any other affections of the body.
Instead therefore of lithotomy, the stone may thus be cured without
danger or pain. This invisible power must be applied to the juices which
circulate in the vicinity of the stone: and they must be conducted to
the stone and applied to its surface, that the stone may be soaked in
them for the purpose of dissolving the gum which makes the particles of
sand cohere. If the hands are employed in this process, the mind must
conceive that the streams of atoms which continually rush forth from the
fingers, are continued on, and lengthened out into long invisible
fingers which become continuations of our natural ones; and which, being
composed of minute particles, are perfectly adapted to pass through the
pores of another form, and to be applied, as we should apply our visible
fingers, to the very part on which it is intended to act. The last
process is Action: by striking those very emanating particles that
constitute that invisible elongation of the part of our own body which
it is intended to employ, whether it be the hand, the eye, or any other
part,—by striking them forcibly in constant and rapid succession against
the stone, the particles of sand, having been rendered less tenacious by
the soaking, loosen, and fall apart, and are washed out of the body by
the natural evacuation.
One instance more will suffice. In cases of indigestion the sensations
produced by the ropy humour in the stomach are a thick gummy feel on the
fingers; and when they are gently moved they meet with a slight degree
of resistance. To judge of the depth of this slimy humour the fingers
must be perpendicularly dipt in it to the bottom of the stomach; the
consequence will be the impression of a circular line as if a string
surrounded each finger, marking the depth to which they had sunk. Now to
remove this derangement, the coat of the stomach must be cleared, which
is done by the invisible fingers scraping all the internal surface.
You have here the whole sum and substance of a secret for which a
hundred guineas were originally paid by aspirants, and which was
afterwards published at five guineas by subscription. The list of
subscribers contains the names of some nobles and of one bishop; but it
is short, and for that reason I suppose the second and third parts,
which were to contain new systems of anatomy and midwifery, as improved
by this new science, were never published.
It follows incontrovertibly from the principles which have been
advanced, that as the practitioners in this art heal diseases, so they
can communicate them; that they can give the itch by shaking with
invisible hands, and send a fit of the gout to any person whom they are
disposed to oblige. The Indian jongleurs, who, like these English
impostors, affect to feel the same pain as the patient, lay claim to
this power; but it did not answer the purposes of imposture here to
pretend to a power of doing mischief.
[18] _Read it; for it will cost you less to read it than it did me to
write it._—TR.
LETTER LII.
_Blasphemous Conclusion of Mainauduc's Lectures.—The Effects which he
produced explained.—Disappearance of the Imposture._
The conclusion of the extraordinary book from whence I have condensed
the summary of this prodigious quackery, is even more extraordinary and
more daring than the quackery itself. It may be transcribed without
offence to religion, for every catholic will regard its atrocious
impiety with due abhorrence.
"I flatter myself," says this man at the close of his lectures, "you are
now convinced that this science is of too exalted a nature to be trifled
with or despised; and I fondly hope that even the superficial specimen
which you have thus far received has given you room to suppose it, not a
human device, held out for the sportive gratification of the idle
moment, but a divine call from the affectionate creating Parent,
inviting his rebellious children by every persuasive, by every tender
motive, to renounce the destructive allurements of earthly influence,
and to perform the duties which he sent his beloved Son into the world
to inculcate, as the only and effectual conditions on which the deluded
spirit in man should escape future punishment. The apostles received and
accepted of those terms; disciples out of number embraced the doctrine,
and by example, by discourse, and by cures, influenced the minds of the
unthinking multitude, absorbed in sin, and rioting in obstinate
disobedience.—Again, the Almighty Father deigns to rouse his children
from that indifference to their impending fate, into which the watchful
enemy omits no opportunity of enticing them. To lead our Saviour from
his duty, the tempter showed and offered him all this world's
grandeur;—so he daily in some degree does to us. Our Saviour spurned him
with contempt, and so must we. Our blessed Saviour, whose spirit was a
stranger to sin, cured by perfect spiritual and physical innocence, and
by an uninterrupted dependence on his Great, Omnipotent, Spiritual
Father. He never failed. His chosen apostles cured by relinquishing this
world and following him. We have but one example, that I can recollect,
of their having failed, and then Christ told them what was necessary to
ensure success. The disciples and the followers of the apostles
performed many cures, but how far they were checquered by failures I am
not informed. Paracelsus, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Robert Fludd, and
several others, experienced sufficient power in themselves to verify the
words of our Saviour; but were soon deprived of what was only lent to
urge them to seek for the great original cause. "Verily, verily," said
Christ, "the works which I do shall ye do also; and greater works than
these shall ye do, for I go unto my father." Valentine Greatrakes, by
obeying the instructions imparted to him in visions, performed many
cures; but ceasing to look up to the source, and giving way to medical
importunity, he administered drugs, and could not expect success.
Gasner, a moral and religious man, performed many cures; he was shut up
in a convent, through the ignorance of his superiors, and the
superstitious blindness of the age he lived in; thence his progress was
trivial, though his dawnings seemed to promise much. Mesmer pillaged the
subject from Sir Robert Fludd, and found to a certainty the existence of
the power: undisposed to attend to our Saviour's information, he
preferred loadstones and magnetic ideas to the service of the Great
Author; and after performing several accidental cures, his magnetism and
his errors shared the fate of his predecessors. Doctor D'Eslon, his
partner, though a man of strong reason and impartiality, ascribed the
power which he experienced to the physical will of man; and after
performing some cures, he fell asleep. At length, after so many
centuries of ignorance, it has graciously pleased the Almighty Father to
draw aside the veil, and disclose his sacred mysteries to this favoured
generation. And when I shall be called home, it will, I hope, appear,
that for a bright and happy certainty of serving my God, and living with
my Saviour, I pointed out to you, my brethren, the Almighty's real
science, and that path to Heaven, which Christ, _the only perfect and
successful one of this list_, left to mankind, as his last testament,
and inestimable dying gift."[19]
This portentous blasphemy shows to what excess any kind of impiety may
be carried on in this country, provided it does not appear as a direct
attack upon religion. So infamous an impostor would in our country
quickly have been silenced by the Holy Office, or, to speak more truly,
the salutary dread of the Holy Office would have restrained him within
decent bounds. Was he pure rogue undiluted with any mixture of
enthusiasm, or did he, contrary to the ordinary process, begin in rogue,
and end in enthusiast?
It is a common observation, that a man may tell a story of his own
invention so often that he verily believes it himself at last. There is
more than this in the present case. Mainauduc pretended to possess an
extraordinary power over the bodily functions of others: it was easy to
hire patients at first who would act as he prescribed, and much was to
be expected afterwards from credulity; but that it should prove that he
actually did possess this power in as great a degree as he ever
pretended, over persons not in collusion with him, nor prepared to be
affected by their previous belief, but unprejudiced, incredulous,
reasonable people, philosophical observers who went to examine and
detect the imposition, in sound health of body and mind, was more than
he expected, and perhaps more than he could explain. This actually was
the case; they who went to hear him with a firm and rational disbelief,
expecting to be amused by the folly of his patients, were themselves
thrown into what is called _the crisis_: his steady looks and continued
gesticulations arrested their attention, made them dizzy, deranged the
ordinary functions of the system, and fairly deprived them for a time of
all voluntary power, and all perception.
How dangerous a power this was, and to what detestable purposes it might
be applied, need not be explained. The solution is easy and convincing,
but it by no means follows that he himself comprehended it. If we direct
our attention to the involuntary operations of life within us, they are
immediately deranged. Think for a minute upon the palpitation of the
heart, endeavour to feel the peristaltic motion, or breathe by an act of
volition, and you disturb those actions which the life within us carries
on unerringly, and as far as we can perceive unconsciously. Any person
may make the experiment, and satisfy himself. The animal magnetists kept
up this unnatural state of attention long enough by their treatment to
produce a suspension of these involuntary motions, and consequent
insensibility.
In a country like this, where the government has no discretionary power
of interfering, to punish villany, and of course where whosoever can
invent a new roguery may practise it with impunity, till a new law be
made to render it criminal, Mainauduc might have gone on triumphantly,
and have made himself the head of a sect, or even a religion, had the
times been favourable. But politics interfered, and took off the
attention of all the wilder and busier spirits. He died, and left a
woman to succeed him in the chair. The female caliph either wanted
ability to keep the believers together, or having made a fortune thought
it best to retire from trade. So the school was broken up. Happily for
some of the disciples, who could not exist without a constant supply of
new miracles to feed their credulity, Richard Brothers appeared, who
laid higher claims than Mainauduc, and promised more wonderful things.
But of him hereafter.
[19] The translator thought the daring impiety of this whole extract so
truly extraordinary, that he determined to seek for it in the original
work, instead of re-translating it from D. Manuel's Spanish. With much
difficulty he succeeded in finding the book: it is a large thin quarto
volume, printed in 1798, with a portrait of Mainauduc from a picture by
Cosway. From this the technical language of the summary has been
corrected, and the exact words of this extract copied, so that the
reader may rely upon their perfect accuracy.—TR.
LETTER LIII.
_Methodists.—Wesley and Whitfield.—Different Methods of attacking the
Establishment.—Tithes.—Methodism approaches Popery, and paves the Way
for it.—William Huntingdon, S. S._
In the year 1729 a great rent was made in the ragged robe of heresy.
Wesley and Whitfield were the Luther and Calvin of this schism, which
will probably, at no very remote time, end in the overthrow of the
Established Heretical Church.
They began when young men at Oxford by collecting together a few persons
who were of serious dispositions like themselves, meeting together in
prayer, visiting the prisoners, and communicating whenever the sacrament
was administered. Both took orders in the Establishment, and for awhile
differed only from their brethren by preaching with more zeal. But they
soon outwent them in heresy also, and began to preach of the inefficacy
and worthlessness of good works, and of the necessity of being born
again, a doctrine which they perverted into the wildest enthusiasm. The
new birth they affirmed was to take place instantaneously, and to be
accompanied with an assurance of salvation; but throes and agonies worse
than death were to precede it. The effect which they produced by such a
doctrine, being both men of burning fanaticism, and of that kind of
eloquence which suited their hearers, is wonderful. They had no sooner
convinced their believers of the necessity of this new birth, than
instances enough took place. The people were seized with demoniacal
convulsions; shrieks and yells were set up by frantic women; men fell as
if shot through the heart; and after hours of such sufferings and
contortions as required the immediate aid either of the exorcist or the
beadle, they became assured that they were born again, and fully certain
that their redemption was now sealed.
There may have been some trick in these exhibitions, but that in the
main there was no wilful deception is beyond a doubt. _Duæ res_, says
St Augustine, _faciunt in homine omnia peccata, timor scilicet et
cupiditas: timor facit fugere omnia quæ sunt carni molesta; cupiditas
facit habere omnia quæ sunt carni suavia_. These powerful passions were
excited in the most powerful degree. They terrified their hearers as
children are terrified by tales of apparitions, and the difference of
effect was according to the difference of the dose, just as the
drunkenness produced by brandy is more furious than that which is
produced by wine. All those affections which are half-mental,
half-bodily, are contagious;—yawning, for instance, is always, and
laughter frequently so. When one person was thus violently affected, it
was like jarring a string in a room full of musical instruments. The
history of all opinions evinces that there are epidemics of the mind.
Such scenes could not be tolerated in the churches. They then took to
the streets and fields, to the utter astonishment of the English clergy,
who in their ignorance cried out against this as a novelty. Had these
men, happily for themselves, been born in a catholic country, it is most
probable that they might indeed have been burning and shining lights.
Their zeal, their talents, and their intrepid and indefatigable ardour,
might have made them saints instead of heresiarchs, had they submitted
themselves to the unerring rule of faith, instead of blindly trusting to
their own perverted judgments. It was of such men, and of such errors,
that St Leo the Great said: _In hanc insipientiam cadunt, qui cum ad
cognoscendam veritatem aliquo impediuntur obscuro, non ad Propheticas
voces, non ad Apostolicas_ _literas, nec ad Evangelicas auctoritates,
sed ad semetipsos recurrunt; sed ideo magistri erroris existunt, quia
veritatis discipuli non fuere_.
Thousands and tens of thousands flocked to hear them; and the more they
were opposed the more rapidly their converts increased. Riots were
raised against them in many places, which were frequently abetted by the
magistrates. There is a good anecdote recorded of the mayor of Tiverton,
who was advised to follow Gamaliel's advice, and leave the Methodists
(as they are called) and their religion to themselves. "What, sir!" said
he: "Why, what reason can there be for any new religion in Tiverton?
another way of going to Heaven when there are so many already? Why, sir,
there's the Old Church and the New Church, that's one religion; there's
Parson Kiddell's at the Pitt Meeting, that's two; Parson Westcott's in
Peter Street, that's three; and old Parson Terry's in Newport Street, is
four.—Four ways of going to Heaven already!—and if they won't go to
Heaven by one or other of these ways, by —— they sha'n't go to Heaven at
all from Tiverton, while I am mayor of the town."—The outrages of the
mob became at length so violent that the sufferers appealed to the laws
for protection, and from that time they have remained unmolested.
The two leaders did not long agree. Wesley had deliberately asserted,
that no good works can be done before justification, none which have not
in them the nature of sin,—the abominable doctrine which the Bonzes of
Japan preach in honour of their deity Amida! Whitfield added to this the
predestinarian heresy, at once the most absurd and most blasphemous that
ever human presumption has devised. The Methodists divided under these
leaders into the two parties of Arminians and Calvinists. Both parties
protested against separating from the Church, though they were excluded
from the churches. Wesley however, who was the more ambitious of the
two, succeeded in establishing a new church government, of which he was
the heretical pope. There was no difficulty in obtaining assistants; he
admitted lay preachers, and latterly administered ordination himself.
The œconomy of his church is well constructed. He had felt how greatly
the people are influenced by novelty, and thus experimentally discovered
one of the causes why the Established clergy produced so little effect.
His preachers, therefore, are never to remain long in one place. A
double purpose is answered by this; a perpetual succession of preachers
keeps up that stimulus without which the people would relapse into
conformity, and the preachers themselves are prevented from obtaining in
any place that settled and rooted influence which would enable them to
declare themselves independent of Wesley's Connection (as the sect is
called), and open shop for themselves. An hundred of these itinerants
compose the Conference, which is an annual assembly, the cortes or
council of these heretics, or, like our national councils, both in one;
wherein the state of their numbers and funds is reported and examined,
stations appointed for the preachers, and all the affairs of the society
regulated. The authority of the preachers is strengthened by the system
of confession,—confession without absolution, and so perverted as to be
truly mischievous. Every parish is divided into small classes, in which
the sexes are separated, and also the married and the single. The
members of each class are mutually to confess to and question each
other, and all are to confess to the priest, to whom also the leader of
each class is to report the state of each individual's conscience. The
leader also receives the contributions, which he delivers to the
stewards. The whole kingdom is divided into districts, to each of which
there is an assistant or bishop appointed, who oversees all the
congregations within his limits; and thus the conference, which is
composed of these assistants and preachers, possesses a more intimate
knowledge of all persons under their influence than ever was yet
effected by any system of police, how rigorous soever.
While Wesley lived his authority was unlimited. He resolutely asserted
it, and the right was acknowledged. It was supposed that his death would
lead to the dissolution of the body, or at least a schism; but it
produced no change. The absolute empire which he had exercised passed at
once into a republic, or rather oligarchy of preachers, without struggle
or difficulty, and their numbers have continued to increase with yearly
accelerating rapidity. He lived to the great age of eighty-eight, for
more than fifty years of which he had risen at four o'clock, preached
twice and sometimes thrice a day, and travelled between four and five
thousand miles every year, being seldom or never a week in the same
place; and yet he found leisure to be one of the most voluminous writers
in the language. The body lay in state for several days,—in his gown and
band in the coffin, where it was visited by forty or fifty thousand
persons, constables attending to maintain order. It was buried before
break of day, to prevent the accidents which undoubtedly would else have
taken place. For many weeks afterward a curious scene was exhibited at
his different chapels, where the books of the society are always sold.
One was crying "The true and genuine life of Mr Wesley!" another bawling
against him, "This is the real life!" and a third vociferating to the
people to beware of spurious accounts, and buy the authentic one from
him.
Wesley had no wish to separate from the Establishment, and for many
years he and his preachers opened their meeting-houses only at hours
when there was no service in the churches. This is no longer the case,
and the two parties are now at open war. The Methodists gain ground;
their preachers are indefatigable in making converts: but there is no
instance of any person's becoming a convert to the Establishment;—waifs
and strays from other communities fall into it, such as rich
Presbyterians, who are tempted by municipal honours, and young Quakers
who forsake their sect because they choose to dress in the fashion and
frequent the theatre; but no persons join it from conviction. The
meeting-houses fill by draining the churches, of which the Methodists
will have no scruple to take possession when they shall become the
majority, because they profess to hold the same tenets, and to have no
objection to the discipline.
The Whitfield party go a surer way to work. They assert that they hold
the articles of the Church of England, which the clergy themselves do
not; and therefore they cry out against the clergy as apostates and
interlopers. The truth is, that the articles of this Church are
Calvinistic, and that, heretical as the clergy are, they are not so
heretical as they would be if they adhered to them. The Whitfield
Methodists, therefore, aim, step by step, at supplanting the Church.
They have funds for educating hopeful subjects and purchasing
church-livings for them, simony being practised with little or no
disguise in this country, where every thing has its price. Thus have
they introduced a clamorous and active party into the Church, who, under
the self-assumed title of Evangelical or Gospel Preachers, cry out for
reform—for the letter of the articles—and are preparing to eject their
supiner colleagues. In parishes where these conforming Calvinists have
not got possession of the church, they have their meetings, and they
have also their county rovers, who itinerate like their Wesley-brethren.
The Calvinistic dissenters are gradually incorporating with them, and
will in a few generations disappear.
The rapidity with which both these bodies continue to increase may well
alarm the regular clergy; but they having been panic-struck by the
French Revolution and Dr Priestley, think of nothing but Atheists and
Socinians, and are insensible of the danger arising from this domestic
enemy. The Methodists have this also in their favour, that while the end
at which they are aiming is not seen, the immediate reformation which
they produce is manifest. They do, what the Clergy are equally pledged
to do, but neglect doing;—they keep a watchful eye over the morals of
their adherents, and introduce habits of sobriety, order, and honesty.
The present good, which is very great, is felt by those who do not
perceive that these people lay claim to infallibility, and that
intolerance is inseparable from that awful attribute which they have
usurped.
The Establishment is in danger from another cause. For many years past
the farmers have murmured at the payment of tithes;—a sin of old times,
which has been greatly aggravated by the consequences of the national
schism: since the gentry have turned farmers these murmurs have become
louder, and associations have been formed for procuring the abolishment
of tithes, on the ground that they impede agricultural improvements.
Government has lent ear to these representations, and it is by no means
improbable that it will one day avail itself of this pretext, to sell
the tithes, as the land-tax has already been sold, and fund the
money;—that is, make use of it for its own exigencies, and give the
clergy salaries,—thus reducing them to be pensioners of the state. The
right of assembling in a house of their own they have suffered to lapse;
and they have suffered also without a struggle, a law to be passed
declaring them incapable of sitting in the House of Commons;—which law
was enacted merely for the sake of excluding an obnoxious individual.
There will, therefore, be none but the bishops to defend their
rights,—but the bishops look up to the crown for promotion. If such a
measure be once proposed, the Dissenters will petition in its favour,
and the farmers will all rejoice in it, forgetting that if the tenth is
not paid to the priest it must to the landholder, whom they know by
experience to be the more rigid collector of the two. When the
constitutional foundations of the church are thus shaken, the
Methodists, who have already a party in the legislature, will come
forward, and offer a national church at a cheaper rate, which they will
say is the true Church of England, because it adheres to the letter of
the canons. I know not what is to save the heretical establishment,
unless government should remember that when the catholic religion was
pulled down, it brought down the throne in its fall.
It is not the nature of man to be irreligious; he listens eagerly to
those who promise to lead him to salvation, and welcomes those who come
in the name of the Lord with a warmth of faith, which makes it the more
lamentable that he should so often be deluded. How then is it that the
English clergy have so little hold upon the affections of the people?
Partly it must be their own fault, partly the effect of that false
system upon which they are established. Religion here has been divested
both of its spirit and its substance—what is left is neither soul nor
body, but the spectral form of what once had both, such as old chemists
pretended to raise from the ashes of a flower, or the church-yard
apparitions, which Gaffarel explains by this experiment. There is
nothing here for the senses, nothing for the imagination,—no visible
object of adoration, at which piety shall drink, as at a fountain of
living waters. The church service here is not a propitiatory sacrifice,
and it is regarded with less reverence for being in the vulgar tongue,
being thereby deprived of all that mysteriousness which is always
connected with whatever is unknown. When the resident priest is a man of
zeal and beneficence, his personal qualities counteract the deadening
tendency of the system; these qualities are not often found united; it
is true that sometimes they are found, and that then it is scarcely
possible to conceive a man more respected or more useful than an English
clergyman—(saving always his unhappy heresy)—but it is also true that
the clergy are more frequently inactive; that they think more of
receiving their dues than of discharging their duty; that the rector is
employed in secular business and secular amusements instead of looking
into the spiritual concerns of his flock, and that his deputy the curate
is too much upon a level with the poor to be respected by them. The
consequence is, that they are yielding to the Methodists without a
struggle, and that the Methodists are preparing the way for the
restoration of the true church. Beelzebub is casting out Beelzebub. They
are doing this in many ways: they have taught the people the necessity
of being certain of their own salvation, but there is no certainty upon
which the mind can rest except it be upon the absolving power of an
infallible church; they have reconciled them to a belief that the age of
miracles is not past,—no saint has recorded so many of himself as
Wesley; and they have broken them in to the yoke of confession, which is
what formerly so intolerably galled their rebellious necks. Whatever, in
fact, in methodism is different from the established church, is to be
found in the practices of the true church; its pretensions to novelty
are fallacious; it has only revived what here, unhappily, had become
obsolete, and has worsened whatever it has altered. Hence it is that
they make converts among every people except the Catholics; which makes
them say, in their blindness, that atheism is better than popery, for of
an atheist there is hope, but a papist is irreclaimable:—that is, they
can overthrow the sandy foundations of human error, but not the rock of
truth. Our priests have not found them so invincible; a nephew of Wesley
himself, the son of his brother and colleague, was, in his own
life-time, reclaimed, and brought within the fold of the Church.
Wesley was often accused of being a Jesuit;—would to Heaven the
imputation had been true! but his abominable opinions respecting good
works made a gulf between him and the church as wide as that between
Dives and Lazarus. Perhaps, if it had not been for this accusation, he
would have approached still nearer to it, and enjoined celibacy to his
preachers, instead of only recommending it.
The paroxysms and epilepsies of enthusiasm are now no longer heard of
among these people,—good proof that they were real in the beginning of
the sect. Occasionally an instance happens, and when it begins the
disease runs through the particular congregation; this is called a great
revival of religion in that place, but there it ends. Such instances are
rare, and groaning and sobbing supply the place of fits and convulsions.
I know a lady who was one day questioning a beggar woman concerning her
way of life, and the woman told her she had been one of my lady's
groaners, which she explained by saying that she was hired at so much a
week to attend at Lady Huntingdon's chapel, and groan during the sermon.
The countess of Huntingdon was the great patroness of Whitfield, and his
preachers were usually called by her name,—which they have now dropt for
the better title of Evangelicals.
Notwithstanding the precautions which the Methodists have taken to keep
their preachers dependent upon the general body, the standard of revolt
is sometimes erected; and a successful rebel establishes a little
kingdom of his own. One of these independent chieftains has published an
account of himself, which he calls God the Guardian of the Poor and the
Bank of Faith. His name is William Huntington, and he styles himself S.
S. which signifies Sinner Saved.
The tale which this man tells is truly curious. He was originally a
coal-heaver, one of those men whose occupation and singular appearance I
have noticed in a former letter; but finding praying and preaching a
more promising trade, he ventured upon the experiment of living by faith
alone, and the experiment has answered. The man had talents, and soon
obtained hearers. It was easy to let them know, without asking for
either, that he relied upon them for food and clothing. At first
supplies came in slowly,—a pound of tea and a pound of sugar at a time,
and sometimes an old suit of clothes. As he got more hearers they found
out that it was for their credit he should make a better appearance in
the world. If at any time things did not come when they were wanted, he
prayed for them, knowing well where his prayers would be heard. As a
specimen, take a story which I shall annex in his own words, that the
original may prove the truth of the translation, which might else not
unreasonably be suspected.
"Having now had my horse for some time, and riding a great deal every
week, I soon wore my _breeches_ out, as they were not fit to ride in. I
hope the reader will excuse my mentioning the word _breeches_, which I
should have avoided, had not this passage of scripture obtruded into my
mind, just as I had resolved in my own thoughts not to mention this kind
providence of God. 'And thou shalt make linen breeches to cover their
nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs shall they reach,' &c.
Exod. xxviii. 42, 43. By which and three others, (namely, Ezek. xliv.
18; Lev. vi. 10; and Lev. xvi. 4.) I saw that it was no crime to mention
the word _breeches_, nor the way in which God sent them to me; Aaron and
his sons being clothed entirely by Providence; and as God himself
condescended to give orders what they should be made of, and how they
should be cut, and I believe the same God ordered mine, as I trust it
will appear in the following history.
"The scripture tells us to call no man master, for one is our master,
even Christ. I therefore told my most bountiful and ever-adored master
what I wanted; and he, who stripped Adam and Eve of their fig-leaved
aprons, and made coats of skins and clothed them; and who clothes the
grass of the field, which to-day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven;
must clothe us, or we shall soon go naked; and so Israel found it when
God took away his wool, and his flax, which they prepared for Baal: for
which iniquity was their skirts discovered, and their heels made bare.
Jer. xiii. 22.
"I often made very free in my prayers with my valuable Master for this
favour, but he still kept me so amazingly poor that I could not get them
at any rate. At last I was determined to go to a friend of mine at
Kingston, who is of that branch of business, to bespeak a pair; and to
get him to trust me until my Master sent me money to pay him. I was that
day going to London, fully determined to bespeak them as I rode through
the town. However, when I passed the shop I forgot it; but when I came
to London I called on Mr Croucher, a shoemaker in Shepherd's Market, who
told me a parcel was left there for me, but what it was he knew not. I
opened it, and behold there was a pair of _leather breeches_ with a note
in them! the substance of which was, to the best of my remembrance, as
follows:
"'SIR,
"'I have sent you a pair of breeches, and hope they will fit. I beg your
acceptance of them; and, if they want any alteration, leave in a note
what the alteration is, and I will call in a few days and alter them.
'J. S.'
"'I tried them on, and they fitted as well as if I had been measured for
them: at which I was amazed, having never been measured by any
leather-breeches maker in London. I wrote an answer to the note to this
effect:
"'SIR,
"'I received your present, and thank you for it. I was going to order a
pair of leather breeches to be made, because I did not know till now
that my Master had bespoke them of you. They fit very well; which fully
convinces me that the same God, who moved thy heart to give, guided thy
hand to cut; because he perfectly knows my size, having clothed me in a
miraculous manner for near five years. When you are in trouble, sir, I
hope you will tell my Master of this, and what you have done for me, and
he will repay you with honour.'
"This is as nearly as I am able to relate it; and I added:
"'I cannot make out I. S. unless I put I. for Israelite indeed, and S.
for Sincerity; because you did not 'sound a trumpet before you, as the
hypocrites do.'
"About that time twelvemonth I got another pair of breeches in the same
extraordinary manner, without my ever being measured for them."
Step by step, by drawing on his Master, as he calls him, and persuading
the congregation to accept his draft, this Sinner Saved has got two
chapels of his own, a house in the country, and a coach to carry him
backwards and forwards.
My curiosity was greatly excited to see the author of this book, which
is not only curious for the matter which it contains, but is also
written with much unaffected originality. I went accordingly to
Providence Chapel. It has three galleries, built one above another like
a theatre; for, when he wanted to enlarge it, an exorbitant ground-rent
was demanded: "So," says the doctor, as he calls himself, "_the heavens,
even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath he given to the
children of men_. —Finding nothing could be done with the
_earth-holders_, I turned my eyes another way, and determined to build
my _stories in the heaven_ (Amos ix. 6.), where I should find more room,
and less rent." The place, however, notwithstanding its great height,
was so crowded, that I could with difficulty find standing room in the
door-way. The doctor was throned on high in the middle of the chapel,—in
a higher pulpit than I have ever seen elsewhere: he is a fat,
little-eyed man, with a dew-lap at his chin, and a velvet voice; who,
instead of straining himself by speaking loud, enforces what he says
more easily by a significant nod of the head. St Jerome has almost
prophetically described him,—_ante nudo eras pede, modo non solum
calceato, sed et ornato: tunc pexâ tunicâ, et nigrâ subuculâ vestiebaris
sordidatus, et pallidus, et callosam opere gestitans manum, nunc lineis
et sericis vestibus, et Atrabatum et Laodiceæ indumentis ornatus
incedis; rubent buccæ, nitet cutis, comæ in occipitium frontemque
tornantur, protensus est aqualiculus, insurgunt humeri, turget guttur,
et de obesis faucibus vix suffocata verba promuntur_. His congregation
looked as if they were already so near the fire and brimstone, that the
fumes had coloured their complexions. They had as distinct a physiognomy
as the Jews, with a dismal expression of spiritual pride in it, as if
they firmly believed in the reprobation of every body except themselves.
It would be rash, and probably unjust, to call this man a rogue. He may
fancy himself to be really divinely favoured, because, like Elijah, he
is fed by ravens,—not remembering that his ravens are tame ones, whom he
has trained to bring him food. The success of his own pretensions may
make him believe them. Thus it is: the poor solitary madman who calls
himself Ambassador from the Man in the Moon, is confined as a madman,
because he can persuade nobody to believe him;—but he who calls himself
Ambassador from the Lord is credited, and suffered to go at large; the
moment that madness becomes contagious it is safe!
Huntington's success has occasioned imitators, one of whom, who had
formerly been a drover of cattle, insisted upon having a carriage also;
he obtained it, and in imitation of the S. S. placed upon it A. J. C.
for Ambassador of Jesus Christ! Then he called upon his congregation for
horses, and now threatens to leave them because they are so unreasonable
as to demur at finding corn for them. The proof, he says, of their being
true Christians is their readiness to support the preachers of the
Gospel. Another of these fellows told his congregation one day after
service, that he wanted 300_l._ for the work of the Lord, and must have
it directly. They subscribed what money they had about them, and some
would then have gone home for more;—he said No, that would not do; he
wanted it immediately, and they must go into the vestry and give checks
upon their hankers—which they obediently did.—And the English call us a
priest-ridden people!
Morality, says one of these faith-preachers—is the great Antichrist.
There are two roads to the devil, which are equally sure; the one is by
profaneness, the other by good works; and the devil likes the latter way
best, because people expect to be saved by it, and so are taken in.—You
will smile at all this, and say
Que quien sigue locos en loco se muda,
Segun que lo dize el viejo refran:[20]
but you will also groan in spirit over this poor deluded country, once
so fruitful in saints and martyrs.
[20] That he who follows madmen becomes mad himself, as the old proverb
says.—TR.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
EDINBURGH:
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