Gray days and gold

Front matter

Class Book

Copyrights

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Preface

This book relates to the gray days of an American traveller in the mother-land and to the gold of thought and fancy that can be found there. In its predecessor, Shakespeare's England, an attempt was made to describe, in a simple, unconventional manner, lovely scenes which are inseparably intertwined with the name and memory of Shakespeare, and also to reflect the charm of that English scenery which, to an imaginative mind, is, and must always be, impressive by reason of its gentle beauty, venerable antiquity, and romantic association, — a charm which has inspired much of the best English Poetry, of which Shakespeare is the fountain head. This book continues the same treatment of kindred themes, taking them as they chanced to occur, and commenting on them in a sympathetic spirit, with no thought of assuming to be mentor or guide.

In its original form, — Edinburgh, 1889, New York, 1892, — Gray Days and Gold comprised, besides the chapters on England and English themes, several papers on the land of Burns and Scott. My first visit

to Scotland was made in 1888, and was limited to

10 PREFACE

the Lowlands, but since then I have had the privilege of making many Highland rambles, and, in particular, of passing thoughtful days in the wild and lovely Island of Iona, one of the most interesting places in Europe. It has seemed desirable that all my sketches of Scotland should form a single group, and those readers who care to keep me company beyond the limits of this work will find the sketches which have been withheld from this, the final form of Gray Days and Gold, together with other memorials of my travel in that country, coordinated in my new book, a companion to this one, called Over the Border. To supply the place of the chapters thus withdrawn I have inserted several papers of mine, on English themes, first published in my Old Shrines and Ivy, now long out of print, and therewith have incorporated other sketches of mine which have not hitherto been collected: I have also used a short paper recording impressions on the occasion of my first visit to France, made not long after the close of the war between that country and Germany. Before submitting this book to public consideration I have, furthermore, rewritten a considerable part of its contents and revised the rest, so that now it is entirely a new work in form and largely so in substance.

In its first shape Gray Days has passed through more

PREFACE 11

than fifteen large editions. Its success, abroad as well as at home, — and, indeed, the success that has attended all my publications, — is deeply gratifying to me, the more so that I did not expect it. That which has pleased many and pleased long must, we are assured by one of the wisest of men and greatest of writers, be held to possess merit, and surely no author can rightly be censured for vanity who is pleased because he has given pleasure while endeavoring to adhere, in literary expression, to the requirements of truth, simplicity, and beauty. My sketches of travel are the spontaneous creations of genial impulse, and, in as far as I thought about them at all, I did not suppose that they would endure beyond the hour. If I had expected the remarkably cordial approbation which has been accorded to my humble studies of British scenery and life, I should have tried to make them better, and especially I should, from the first, have taken scrupulous care to verify every date and every statement of fact set forth in my text. That precaution I did not invariably take, except in my critical and biographical work, but, as my mood was that of contemplation and reverie, so my method was that of the dreamer who drifts carelessly from one attractive place to another, uttering what-

12 PREFACE

ever thoughts happen to come to him. In later editions of my sketches of travel, however, and particularly in preparing the text for the final editions of Shakespeare's England, Gray Days, and Over the Border, / have made conscientious and diligent endeavor to remove every defect and to correct every error, and if any errors have crept into my text I shall be grateful to such readers as may be kind enough to bring them to my attention.

If it should be thought presumptuous on my part that I have tried to celebrate the beauties of our ancestral home I can only plead, in extenuation, an irresistible impulse of reverence and affection for them. My presentment of them should not give offence, and perhaps it will be found sufficiently vital, various, and sympathetic to awaken and sustain a momentary interest in the minds of those readers who love to muse and dream over relics and records of the past. If by happy fortune it should do more than that, — if it should help to impress my countrymen, so many of whom annually travel in Great Britain, with the superlative importance of adorning the physical aspect and refining the material civilization of America by a reproduction within its borders of whatever is valuable m the long experience and whatever is noble, tranquil, and

PREFACE 13

beautiful in the domestic and religious spirit of the British Islands, — my labor will not have been vain. The supreme need of this time is a practical conviction that progress does not consist merely in material prosperity, but largely in spiritual advancement. Use has long been almost exclusively worshipped. The welfare of the future lies in the worship of Beauty. This idea might, perhaps, to the sociologist or the political economist, seem fantastic, but if each member of a community were insistent to live a beautiful life, to be companioned by faith and hope, to diffuse kindness, and, as far as possible, to be surrounded by objects and influences of beauty, the community would be benefited by that insistence. To the worship of beauty these pages, — and all other pages that my pen has written, — are devoted, with all that it implies of sympathy with the good instincts and faith in the high destiny of the human race.

W. W.

Contents

I. Southampton

II. Salisbury and Stonehenge

III. Haunts of Moore .

I. Southampton

Early in the morning of a brilliant day the Scilly Islands came into view, and I could see the great waves breaking into flying masses and long wreaths of snowy foam on their grim shores and in their rock-bound chasms. Yet a little while and the steep cliffs of Cornwall glimmered into the prospect, with the double towers of the Lizard Light, and I knew that my voyage was accomplished. Then followed the lovely, varied panorama of the Channel Coast, — lonely Eddystone, keeping its sentinel watch in solitude and mystery; the green pastures of Devon; the crags of Portland, gray and emerald and gold, shining, changing, and fading in silver mist; the shelving fringes of the Solent; the sandy

coves and green hills of the beautiful Isle of

Wight; and then, at last, placid Southampton Water, with its little lighthouses and its crescent town, vital with incessant enterprise of the Present and rich with splendid associations of the Past. The gloaming had begun to fade into night when I landed, and in the sleepy stillness of the vacant streets and of the quiet inn I was soon conscious of that feeling of peace and comfort which is the first sensation of the old traveller who comes again into England. It is the sensation of being at home and at rest, after long wandering and much vicissitude, and seldom elsewhere is it found.

If the old city of Southampton were not, as to the majority of ramblers it is, merely a port of entry and departure, if the traveller were constrained to seek it as a goal instead of treating it as a thoroughfare, its uncommon physical beauty and its antiquarian interest would be more widely appreciated and more highly prized than now they appear to be. Objects that are viewed as incidental are seldom comprehended as important. Traffic, with its attendant bustle, imparts to Southampton an habitual air of turbulence and often of commonness. The spirit of the age, notwithstanding that there is a newly awakened feeling of reverence actively at work in many places, makes slight account of picturesque accessories and does little either to perpetuate or to create them. In Southampton, for example, as in ancient Warwick, a tramcar jolts and jangles through the grim arch of a gray stone gate of the Middle Ages, and thus the Present forces its contrast with the Past. Yet here as everywhere the Present and the Past are inseparably associated, the one being the consequence and inheritor of the other, and in no better way can the student of social development pursue his study than in rambling through the streets and among the structures that To-day has built amid the ruins and the relics of Yesterday. A walk in breezy Southampton is full of instruction. There was a merry multitude on the lovely green Common, when first I saw it; a band was playing in its pavilion, and twittering birds were circling around the tree-tops, in the light of the evening sun; but as I stood there and watched the happy throng and listened to the martial music, the scene seemed suddenly to change, and I beheld the armored cohorts of bold King Henry the Fifth, and heard the trumpets blare, and saw the gallant warrior, upon his mail-clad charger, riding downward to the sea, — for Agincourt, and the laurel of everlasting fame.

Many days might pleasurably be spent in Southampton and its charming neighborhood. When there you are at the mouth of the Itchen, the river of Isaak Walton, who lived and died at venerable Winchester, only a few miles away. The ruin of Netley Abbey is close by, — that venerable remnant of an ecclesiastical structure of about the thirteenth century, in which the superb framework of the large western window and the graceful shapes of several lancets, together with many clustered columns, bear witness to the deep devotional spirit and the delicate taste of the pious monks who built it. On every side, indeed, there is something to stimulate the fancy and awaken remembrance of romance and of historic lore. King John's house is extant, in Blue Anchor Lane. King John's Charter can be seen, in the Audit House. The Bridewell Gate still stands, that was built by King Henry the Eighth, and in Bugle Street is the Spanish prison that was used in the time of Queen Anne. At the foot of High Street stood King Canute's palace, and upon the neighboring beach that monarch spoke his vain command to stay the advancing waves, and made his memorable submission to the Power that is greater than kings. In Porter's Lane there is a remnant of his palace, utilized now as a stable. In St. Michael's Square stands an ancient, red-tiled house, made of timber and brick, in which Anne Boleyn once lodged, and which, to this day, bears her name. It is a two-story building, surmounted by four large gables, the front curiously diversified with a crescent pent and with four large diamond-latticed casements; and gazing on it

I could not fail to conjure up a vision of that dark-eyed, golden-haired beauty whose fascination played so large a part in shaping the religious and political destiny of England. There, at those windows, she may have stood and looked forth on the grim, gloomy Norman church that still frowns on the lonely square and would make a darkness even at noon. A few steps from St. Michael's will bring you to a relic of a different kind, fraught with widely different associations, — the birthplace of the pious hymnist, Isaac Watts. The house stands in French Street, a little back from the sidewalk, on the east side, and it is a two-story, red-brick dwelling, having eight windows and two doors in the front of it. Between the house and the street there is a garden, which, when I saw it, was brilliant with the blazing yellow of a mass of blooming marigolds. A tall iron fence encloses the garden, within which are six poplar trees, growing along the margin, and if you stand at the gate and look along French Street you can discern Southampton Water, at no great distance.

o

Q

They venerate the memory of Dr. Watts in Southampton, and they have not only built a church in his honor (it stands near Bar Gate), but have set up a statue of him in the Park, — the figure of the apostolic bard as he appeared when preaching. That piece of sculpture, the pedestal of which is faced with medallions illustrative of the life and labors of Watts, was dedicated by the Earl of Shaftesbury, in July, 1861.

Leaving the birthplace of the old divine you have only to turn a neighboring corner and proceed a short distance to find an effect of contrast still more remarkable, — the remnant of the Domus Dei, in Winkle Street, the burial place of the noblemen, Scrope, Gray, and Cambridge, who lost their lives for conspiracy to assassinate King Henry the Fifth. That edifice, founded in the reign of King Richard the First, was an almshouse in the time of King Harry. All that remains of the original building is the chapel, and that has been restored — a small, dark, oblong structure, partly Norman and partly Early

English. Queen Elizabeth assigned that church for the use of Huguenot refugees who fled from the persecution of the Spanish tyrant, Alva, so perniciously active in the Low Countries, from 1567 to 1573. Service is still performed in it, in the French language. Under its chancel rest the ashes of the false friends, dismissed to their death nearly five centuries ago, who would have slain their king and imperilled their country, and upon the south wall, near to the altar, there is a tablet of gray stone, inscribed with black, indented letters, bearing this record of their fate:

BICHARD, EARL OF CAMBRIDGE,

LORD SCROPE OF MASHAM,

SIR THO. GRAY OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

CONSPIRED TO MURDER KING

HENRY V. IN THIS TOWN AS HE

WAS PREPARING TO SAIL WITH HIS

ARMY AGAINST CHARLES THE SIXTH,

KING OF FRANCE, FOR WHICH

CONSPIRACY THEY WERE EXECUTED

AND BURIED NEAR THIS PLACE

IN THE YEAR

MCCCCXV

As you stand by that sepulchre you will remember with a new interest and emotion the noble, pathetic speech, — as high a strain of pure eloquence and lofty passion as there is in our language, — with which Shakespeare makes the heroic prince, at the same instant, deplore and rebuke the treachery of the friendship in which he had entirely believed and trusted. Those lords were beheaded just outside of Bar Gate. Near to their burial-place, leaning against the wall, is a fine old brass, — ■ the full-length figure, in profile, mounted upon an oak board, of a French cleric of the time of Queen Elizabeth, the head being of marble, while the person is of the dark green hue that old brasses so often acquire, and that seems to enhance at once their interest and their opulence of effect.

In Southampton, as in many other parts of England, the disposition to preserve the relics of a romantic past is stronger at present than it was a hundred years ago, and for this the antiquarian has reason to be grateful. His constant regret, indeed, is that this gentle impulse did not awaken earlier. The old Castle of Southampton, where King Stephen dwelt, was long ago destroyed, but fragments of the walls remain, and these, it is pleasant to observe, are guarded with scrupulous care. As you stroll along the shore your gaze will wander from the gay and busy steamboats, — alert for the Channel Islands and for France, and seeming like brilliant birds that plume their wings for flight, — and will rest on grim towers and bastions of the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, over which the ivy hangs, in dense draperies of shining foliage, and against which copious flowers of geranium and nasturtium blaze in scarlet and gold. One of those citadels, peacefully occupied now by the Harbor Board, bears record of a time, in 1482, when gunpowder was used there, to repel a night attack made by the French. A straggling procession of belated travellers, bearing bags, rushed wildly by, as I stood before that gray remnant of feudal magnificence, and an idle youth in the gateway, happily provided with a flageolet, gayly performed upon it "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Nothing can exceed, in mingled strangeness and drollery, the use of such quaint places as this for the business and pleasure of the passing hour.

Roaming through the narrow, squalid little thoroughfare of Blue Anchor Lane, amid the picturesque foundations of what was once the royal palace of King John and of King Henry the Third, now a mass of masonry that has outlasted the storms and ravages of almost a thousand years, I looked at dingy lodginghouses that are scarcely more than holes in a wall, and threaded a difficult way among groups of ragged children, silenced for a moment by the presence of a stranger, but soon loud again in their careless frolic over the degraded grandeur of forgotten kings. Blue Anchor Lane leads to the Arcade in the west wall of the city, which, with its nineteen splendid arches, is surely as fine a specimen of true Norman architecture as can be found in the kingdom. Bar Gate, at the top of High Street, is also a noble relic of Norman taste and skill, but Bar Gate has been somewhat modernized by changes and restoration, and the statue, upon its south front, of King George the Third, in the dress of a Roman Emperor, mars its venerable, antique character by suggestion of ludicrous incongruity. Charles Dibdin, who wrote the best sea-songs in our language, was a native of Southampton. Millais, the painter, was born there, as also was the heroic General Gordon. The name of that daring soldier, the eccentric Earl of Peterborough, is associated with the place, for once he owned an estate in its neighborhood, called Bevoir Mount, whither the illustrious Voltaire came, as a visitor, and where can be seen a stately cedar tree beneath which the French cynic often sat.

There is a rapid way of looking at the world, with which many travellers appear to be content, but it can be doubted whether the rapid way is often the wise way. Places no doubt there are through which the pilgrim should pass with convenient speed, but, as a rule, almost every place, in an old country, is a place of interest, and that is especially true of England, where so much has been lost and won, so much done and suffered, such hallowing charms of poetry and such wealth of historic action diffused, that every region has its traditions, every temple its relics, and every city, town, and hamlet its legends, associations, and romance: and certainly every place has its surprises, — as I could not choose but think when, in the course of a lonely walk in Southampton, I found, in the lane called Back of the Walls, the burial-place of that cheery dramatist, John O'Keeffe. He was a blithe spirit, and even to come near his ashes was to be reminded of the joy and sunshine that are in the world, and how idle it is not to rejoice while yet the light endures. John O'Keeffe was a pioneer in the reaction against the sentimental drama in England which culminated with the success of Goldsmith, Colman the younger, and Sheridan, and, as a lover of the dramatic art, I felt that I had come upon the shrine of a benefactor. Many remember "Wild Oats," but few know that the author of that gay comedy, and of about fifty others, rests in an obscure corner of Southampton. He was born in Dublin, in 1747; he had his career as actor and author; he became blind, about 1800; he enjoyed a small pension during the last few years of his life, and he died in 1833, in his eighty-sixth year, and was buried in All Saints' ground, in the parish of St. Lawrence. I had passed many days in solitary rambling about Southampton, and had carefully explored it, yet even then I stumbled upon a novelty, and there is a pleasure in discoveries, such as the routine spectacles do not impart.

O'Keeffe's sepulchre is somewhat difficult of access, the cemetery of All Saints, long ago disused, being situated in a squalid region and enclosed within a high wall. The key to the place was obtained from the neighboring abode of a butcher, some of whose sheep were grazing among the graves. The least of those animals was so tame that he came to me and thrust his nose into my hand. "I keep that there one,"

the serious butcher said, "to lead the others to death." No arrangement, surely, could be more harmonious with those grim surroundings. The graves in that forlorn yard are numerous, and each one is not only marked by a tall, perpendicular stone but also covered with a flat slab, the inscription being indented, and painted black. O'Keeffe's grave is close to the wall, near a large wooden gate, in the southeast corner of the enclosure. The environment of shops and stables, the absence of foliage and flowers, and the presence of rubbish invested it with an air of extreme desolation; but all sepulchres, however they may be beautified, are unspeakably dreary, when you consider their stony silence and muse on the humor, grace, and joy that were hushed and hidden in their depths. The mourners for the sprightly dramatist have long since followed him to rest, and here, as elsewhere, charitable, consoling Time turns all things to peace. The inscription upon the tombstone, once viewed through tears, is read without a sigh:

WITHIN THIS GEAVE

ARE DEPOSITED

THE MORTAL REMAINS OF

JOHN o'KEEFFE ESQ,

A PIOUS MEMBER OF THE

HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE

IN THE 86TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

HE WAS BORN IN DUBLIN, IRELAND,

THE 24th OF JUNE, 1747,

AND DIED AT SOUTHAMPTON

THE 4TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833.

BLESSED BE HIS SPIRIT

IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR

JESUS CHRIST.

THE ABOVE INSCRIPTION WRITTEN

AND THIS STONE PLACED

TO HIS BELOVED MEMORY

BY HIS ONLY DAUGHTER AND SURVIVING

CHILD

ADELAIDE o'KEEFFE.

Many excursions are practicable from Southampton. One of the prettiest of them is the drive westward, by the Commercial Road and Romsey Lane, to the village of Millbrook, where there is an old church, and where, in the cemetery, an obelisk of granite marks the resting place of Robert Pollok, author of "The Course of Time," — a poem much read and admired by pious persons long ago. The New Forest, ten miles from the city, is readily accessible, where the visitor will see the picturesque, ivy-clad ruin of Beaulieu Abbey, a religious house founded, 1204, in the reign of King John, and, in a dell called Canterton Glen, the spot, duly marked, where King William the Second was slain by the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrell, in August, 1100. Another excursion, which can be made on foot, is the ramble along the Avenue to Southampton Common, and so, beneath oaks, elms, and lime-trees, and through a tangle of shrubbery, to a beautiful cemetery, in which hawthorns, evergreens, and a radiant profusion of flowers have made a veritable bower for the awful silence and inscrutable majesty of death. I went there to look upon the burial-place of my old friend Edward A. Sothern, the once famous comedian, and I came to it in an afternoon that was all sunshine and fragrance, — like the days of careless mirth that once we knew together. There never can have been a more whimsical spirit. I have not known an actor who added to the faculty of eccentric humor a more subtle perception of character or a more neat artistic skill in the display of it. Few players have made as much laughter or given as much innocent pleasure. But Sothern, who could not bear prosperity, lived too much for enjoyment, and so, prematurely, his bright career ended. A simple cross of white marble marks the place of his last sleep, and the leaves of a sturdy oak rustle over it, and as I turned away from that place of peace I saw the shimmering roses all around, and heard the cawing of rooks in distant elms and felt that in this slumber there are no dreams and that with the dead all is well.

Artemus Ward died in Southampton. It seems but yesterday since those lords of frolic were my companions, but the grass has long been growing over them and the echo of their laughter has died away. Historic association dignifies a place, but it is personal association that makes it familiar. In Southampton Bay the Pilgrim Fathers, nearly three hundred years ago, prepared to set sail to found another England in the western world. Many memories haunt the town, but to one dreamer its name will ever, first of all, bring back the slumberous whisper of leaves that ripple in a summer wind, and the balm of flowers that breathe their blessing on a comrade's rest.

II. Salisbury And Stonehenge

A pleasant course, if you would drift from the Channel coast into the Midlands, is to go from Southampton, by either Winchester or, less directly, by Salisbury, to Basingstoke, and thence northward by Reading and Oxford. Another good way is to loiter along the west of England, taking the track of the Cathedral Towns, and viewing whatever of historic interest can be observed in those places and in the memorable regions that environ them. There should be no inexorable route, for the chief charm of travel is liberty to indulge fancy, and, in England, whichever way you turn you will surely find some peculiar beauty to reward your quest. My path traversed Salisbury, Amesbury, Stonehenge, Glastonbury, Wells, Cheddar, Bristol, Gloucester,

Worcester, and Evesham, and all the while it seemed to wind through a fairy realm of flowers and dreams. Each part of England has its charming peculiarities, but the general characteristic of English scenery is loveliness. The cities are the workshops; the rest is a garden of diversified beauty. As you range through the country you gaze on wooded hills glimmering in the distance, dark or bright beneath skies of cloud or sun, — never one thing long, but changeful, like a capricious girl, whose loveliness is the more bewitching because of her caprice. Green fields, in which cattle are grazing and sheep are couched beneath the trees, fill the foreground of the prospect. Here and there stately manor houses gleam in lordly groves. Little cottages, picturesque with thatched roofs and tiny latticed windows, nestle by the roadside. Some of the fields have been gleaned and ploughed, so that the bare earth, in rich brown squares, presents a lively contrast to meadows of brilliant grass and masses of rippling barley. Now and then you see a comely mare, with her awkward little colt, reposing in the shadow of a copse. Yellow haystacks, artfully trimmed, attract the eye, and circular clumps of trees upon the hill-slopes attest the wise care of the gardener of an earlier day. The land is gently undulating, and in the valleys there are rows of pollard willows, by which you can trace the current of a hidden stream. Far away or near at hand sometimes suddenly appears a gray spire or a grim tower, suggesting thought of monastic seclusion or historic antiquity. White roads, often for many miles devoid equally of vehicles and pedestrians, wind through the plains and over the ridges of lonely hills. Rivers gleam in the landscape, some rapid and some tranquil. Rain-clouds frequently drift over the scene, but only serve to make it more sweetly beautiful. The countryside is a continuous pageant, softly blending wood and meadow, park and common, church and castle, lawn and pasture, clouds that are like bronze, and earth that is clad in scarlet and green, — while over the broad expanse of this various loveliness, in which the fresh garlands of Nature deck with bloom the crumbling relics of an historic architectural grandeur, the skies of summer bend with a benediction of smiling grace.

"Once more I came to Sarum Close." It is many a year since I read "The Angel in the House," — that chivalric, tender poem by Coventry Patmore, — but it came freshly into my thoughts, as I walked again along the familiar avenue, and approached the beautiful Cathedral of Salisbury. No fitter environment could be found for a representative love-story of the fastidious order, and seldom in poetical literature has scenery been so deftly blended with sentiment as it is in Patmore's melodious pages. Among the cities of England none can excel Salisbury in opulent refinement. The White Hart, near the Cathedral, is a desirable, convenient inn, and from that point it is easily possible to visit many scenes of interest and delight. A walk of two miles, mostly through fields, will bring you to Bemerton, and then you are in the valley where George Herbert lived some part of his saintly life and wrote some of his exquisite devotional poetry. St. Andrew's, the tiny church of Bemerton, nestles deep in the bosom of a green vale, forming the apex of a small churchyard, full of roses and cedar trees, and over it broods the blessing of perfect repose. Chief among the inscriptions within its walls are the sacred words of promise and comfort, "In this place will I give peace," and no words could better express the spirit and influence of Herbert's temple. I entered the church at evening, when it was all in shadow, when birds were calling to their mates, when the children in the neighboring rectory were singing a vesper hymn, and when, at the approach of night, the summer breeze was heavy with the scent of roses and of new-mown hay; and very sweet it was, there to meditate upon the pure spirit, gentle life, and exquisite art of the poet and preacher whose presence once made it a shrine for many loving worshippers, and whose name has hallowed it forever. Herbert died at Bemerton, in 1633, and his dust reposes near the altar of his church. That church is only fifty feet long, by fourteen wide, and it is said to have been built in 1408, by an Abbess of Wilton, — which then was a convent, and on the site of which now stands Wilton House, the splendid abode of the noble family of Pembroke. The chancel, — once repaired by Herbert, to whom the church was precious, — was rebuilt in 1866.