XIII. FAVOURITE PURSUITS OF ENGLISH COTTAGERS AND WORKMEN…

XIII. FAVOURITE PURSUITS OF ENGLISH COTTAGERS AND WORKMEN

In my last chapter I gave a general view of the present rural sports and pastimes of the peasantry--perhaps as it regards wrestling, more prominently than some readers might think judicious. But what is prominent in the country life of any part of England, it is my bounden duty to set before my readers; and there is no feature of English life more remarkable than the sanguine attachment of the people of some particular parts to particular sports; more especially where those sports have relaxed their ancient hold on the people in all other districts, or have refused to be engrafted on other districts; as golf continues to be one of the prime sports of Scotland, but will not travel across the Tweed. Let us now, before closing the department of this work appropriated to the peasantry, notice some characteristic features, which I think must strongly interest us all.

After all, the happiness of a people is not found in their amusements. Amusements may indicate, in a certain degree, that a people is happy; but real happiness is a thing of a more domestic nature. It is a Lar, and belongs to the household, or is to be found in the quiet and enclosed precincts of home gardens. A great portion of the happiness of the common people is therefore little perceived, for it is unobtrusive; and consists in following out those peculiar biases and penchants, which in higher personages are termed genius. The genius of the working classes, which from its deriving little help from science, or field of exercise from circumstance, is seldom admitted to be genius at all, still exhibits itself in a variety of ways, and contributes at once to their prosperity, their happiness, and to the stamping of individual character. A great deal of it is necessarily exerted in their particular trades, and produces all that is beautiful and exquisite in handicraft arts. That which gives an artisan eminence in the workshop of his master, would probably have produced specimens of art that would have claimed the admiration of the whole community. Those glorious specimens of architectural perfection which adorn our chief cathedrals, the work of the middle ages, are the evidences of masonic skill, which in this age might probably have been employed on our plainer structures, or in building steam-engines, or elaborating some piece of plate, or carving the handles of parasols. Circumstance has much to do in the decision of the fate of all genius and ingenuity. It is a striking fact, that the greater number of artisans who eminently excel in their own line, partake largely of the temperament and foibles of genius. They are often irregular in their application to business, fond of company and of its excitements; so that nothing is so common as to say, that man is an inimitable workman, but that he will not work half his time, and is too fond of the public-house, where he draws a circle of admirers around him. But when a man is at once skilful, steady, and enthusiastic in his art,--that man is a happy man. His mind has a constant subject of reflection, of exercise, of satisfaction, before it. He sees with pride the workmanship of his hands, and enjoys with as much inward delight the reputation and applause it brings him, as does a poet, a philosopher, or a conqueror the fame of their respective works.

But, in many others, the peculiar instinct shews itself in some other pursuit than their trade. It does not happen to them to have fallen upon that profession which would have called forth the slumbering spirit, and when it wakes it shews itself in some other form. These men are said to have their HOBBY. They have a favourite scheme, or occupation, which shares their attention with their trade, and often supersedes it. Crabbe, that close observer of whatever passed in this grade of life, has well described these propensities. If they shew themselves in a man’s own trade:

Then to the wealthy you will see denied Comforts and joys that with the poor abide; There are who labour through the year, and yet No more have gained than--not to be in debt; Who still maintain the same laborious course, Yet pleasure hails them from some favourite source; And health, amusement, children, wife, or friend, With life’s dull views their consolations blend.

But if the bias of the mind does not lie in the man’s own art:

Nor these alone possess the lenient power Of soothing life in the desponding hour; Some favourite studies, some delightful care The mind with trouble and distresses share; And by a coin, a flower, a verse, a boat, The stagnant spirits have been set afloat; They pleased at first, and then the habit grew, Till the fond heart no higher pleasure knew. Oft have I smiled the happy pride to see Of humble tradesmen in their evening glee; When of some pleasing,fancied good possessed, Each grew alert, was busy, and was blest. Whether the call-bird yield the hours delight, Or magnified in microscope, the mite; Or whether tumblers, croppers, carriers seize The gentle mind, they rule it, and they please.

Yes, it is in these and many other occupations, dictated by individual organization, or taste, that numbers of the working class find a world of happiness. Some are amateurs of one kind, some of another; some are rearers of fancy pigeons, some of fancy dogs; others are enthusiasts in music, singing, bell-ringing, and make a noise in the world from belfries, organ-lofts, orchestras, at harmonic meetings, and in rural festivals. Some spend a whole life in seeking the perpetual motion; some in devising improvements in steam-engines, and other machines. Whether they deal with realities, or with chimeras, as too often they do, the busy spirit of humanity will be at work in the breasts of the operative class. In the country it assumes many a shape that is beautiful, and others that are picturesque. Some are incorrigible poachers, from the love of the pursuit of wild creatures, of strolling about in solitary glens and woods, of night-watching, and adventure. Others have an inextinguishable love of a gun,--these men all their lives are noted for this propensity. They have a certain keeper-like appearance. They affect fustian or velveteen jackets, with wide skirts, and huge pockets; gaiters, and strong shoes. They have a lounging, yet unauthorized air, which betrays them to be not the true men of office. They have always some excuse for carrying a gun; they are stuffers of curious birds and animals; or they procure them for one who is; and it is alike amazing how they escape the penalties of the law for trespasses and destruction of game, and yet bring home such owls, squirrels, herons, sea-birds, curlews, plovers, martins, and fillimarts, shrikes, waxen-chatterers, and foxes, and young fawns, as are not to be obtained except by a traversing, daily and nightly, of parks, preserves, woods, and chases, as must be perilous, and, indeed, impracticable to any other men. Noblemen and gentlemen generally find it desirable in the end, to instal this particular variety of the human species in all the honours and freedom of keepership. Happy is the man of this stamp who reaches America. That is the land for him! A land of woods, of herds of deer, and turkeys, of bears and buffaloes. There he may roam the paradise of back settlements, and satiate his soul with hunting and shooting; with lying in wait, and with wild adventure, without fear of game-laws, and the obstructions of monopoly.

Others, again, have an indomitable passion for hunting otters, badgers, polecats, rats, hedgehogs, and similar tenants of out-of-the-way dales, river-sides, thickets and plantations; and have perpetually at their heels, terriers of every kind, spaniels, and lurchers. These are generally well entitled to be classed under the head of ragamuffins; and are generally more than half poachers, being as ready to snap up a leveret, rabbit, or young wild duck, as they are to destroy a stoat. But the passion for their peculiar fancy is inextinguishable, and not to be put out by a whole bench of magistrates, or a voyage to New South Wales, for there the dogs would instinctively muster at their heels, and they would be after the kangaroos at the very first opportunity.

A congener of these, and yet of a somewhat more civilized grade, is the bird-catcher and trainer. Beware of your nightingales that come in April from some sunny land, and shew you the preference of settling for the season in your shrubbery, or coppice. If this man be your neighbour, the glorious song of midnight will soon experience a mysterious hush. You hear it, and proclaim the news to your family. By day you catch its not-to-be-mistaken notes amongst the budding trees, as you pass in and out of your grounds. “There is the very same bird come to its favourite spot,” you say, to delight your wife, or sister, or children, who clap their hands, and run to carry the news into the housekeeper’s room. “There is the fine old nightingale again in the shrubbery!” At evening on are put bonnets and hats, shawls and cloaks, and forth sallies the happy domestic group. The air is chill, for it is but April; yet the moon is rising in her sweet pensiveness, and the freshness of the air and the budding boughs are about you. Down the narrow path you go, where the primroses gleam faintly from amongst the mossy stems of the shrubbery trees. Past the rustic summer-house you go, down by the close turf of the shadowy lawn--near to the brook, that flows so subduedly in its singing murmurs that it cannot drown a single bird-note. You have reached the little wooden bridge--and hark!--it is there sure enough! Yes, to-night, and the next, and perhaps the next, it is there,--and then it is gone. You wonder why. Can it have deserted its favourite haunt? Can it be the stormy weather? The east wind must have silenced it? No! it is moping in the cage of that villanous bird-catcher, who is intending to aggravate his crime of kidnapping this prince of air-minstrels, by fetching the blackbird which sings on the top of your ash, and the thrush that flings back his notes from the distant elm. Beware of your woodlarks, and your bullfinches, if this man be your neighbour. He has an ear which recognises in a moment the master singer, and he has a dozen arts to put in practice against his liberty. In his little house is a collection of prisoners that would make any reasonable person’s heart ache. He has blackbirds that are studying artificial tunes,--marches and waltzes--how much more apt one would think them to learn dirges and laments! But he has even poor Robin Redbreast put to school under the nightingale--bullfinches that are blinded, and then made to listen in doleful obedience to his flute or pipe. They are to be piping bullfinches of great note and value. But let us leave the melodious melancholy of his prison-house, and when we have lightened our hearts in the open air, we may muster up charity enough to do the man justice. He has, after all, no lack of kindness in his heart. He takes them captive as the Christians take negroes--to civilize them, and make them happier! His soul is in all that he does. I one day met an old man and woman in a wood. As I drew near them I heard a strange chirping of young birds. It was a fine summer evening. “How is this,” I said; “it is time for the birds to be at roost, and yet I hear young ones chirping?” “0!” said the old man--“here they are;” opening his basket, and shewing a nest full of young canaries. “It was a fine evening,” said he, “and I and my old woman thought a walk would do us good, and we thought it would do the birds good too.”

The delights of angling seize upon another class. People that have not been inoculated with the true spirit, may wonder at the infatuation of anglers--but true anglers leave them very contentedly to their wondering, and follow their diversion with a keen delight. Many old men there are of this class, that have in them a world of science,-- not science of the book, or of regular tuition, but the science of actual experience. Science that lives, and will die with them; except it be dropped out piecemeal, and with the gravity becoming its importance, to some young neophyte, who has won their good graces by his devotion to their beloved craft. All the mysteries of times and seasons, of baits, flies of every shape and hue; worms, gentles, beetles, compositions, or substances found by proof to possess singular charms. These are a possession which they hold with pride, and do not hold in vain. After a close day in the shop or factory, what a luxury is a fine summer evening to one of these men, following some rapid stream, or seated on a green bank, deep in grass and flowers, pulling out the spotted trout, or resolutely, but subtilely, bringing some huge pike or fair grayling from his lurking place beneath the broad stump and spreading boughs of the alder. Or a day, a summer’s day, to such a man, by the Dove, or the Wye, amid the pleasant Derbyshire hills; by Yorkshire or Northumbrian stream; by Trent or Tweed; or the banks of Yarrow; by Teith, or Leven, with the glorious hills and heaths of Scotland round him! Why, such a day to such a man, has in it a life and spirit of enjoyment to which the feelings of cities and palaces are dim. The heart of such a man,--the power and passion of deep felicity that come breathing from mountains and moorlands; from clouds that sail above, and storms blustering and growling in the wind; from all the mighty magnificence, the solitude and antiquity of nature upon him--Ebenezer Elliott only can unfold. The weight of the poor man’s life--the cares of poverty--the striving of huge cities, visit him as he sits by the beautiful stream--beautiful as a dream of eternity, and translucent as the everlasting canopy of heaven above him;--they come--but he casts them off for the time, with the power of one who feels himself strong in the kindred spirit of all things around; strong in knowledge that he is a man; an immortal--a child and pupil in the world-school of the Almighty. For that day he is more than a king--he has the heart of humanity and the faith and spirit of a saint. It is not the rod and line that floats before him--it is not the flowing water, or the captured prey, that he perceives in those moments of admission to the heart of nature, so much as the law of the testimony of love and goodness written on every thing around him with the pencil of Divine beauty. He is no longer the wearied and oppressed--the trodden and despised--walking in thread-bare garments, amid men who scarcely deign to look upon him as a brother man,--but he is reassured and recognised to himself in his own soul as one of those puzzling, aspiring and mysterious existences for whom all this splendid world was built, and for whom eternity opens its expecting gates. These are magnificent speculations for a poor angling weaver or carpenter; but Ebenezer Elliott can tell us, that they are his legitimate thoughts when he can break for an instant the bonds of this toiling age, and escape to the open fields. Let us leave him dipping his line into the waters of refreshing thought, and return to the cottage garden. There we shall see another form of that beneficently varied taste which adds so much to the poor man’s pleasures.

We may look into many a cottage garden, and find it a little world of beauty and pleasant cares. Here one poor man is a lover of bees. He has stored his little sheltered garden with all sorts of flowers that bees love, or that come out early in the year for them. On the sunny side of his little domain you see his rustic shed with its row of hives; all neatly thatched, and all sending out their busy stream of honey-gatherers. There is no man of any reflection but must feel what a source of enjoyment that row of hives has been. What cares and contrivances have contributed to extend that row from the solitary swarm, purchased perhaps in the days of deeper poverty than now presses upon him. What summer-noon watchings there have been for the flight of new swarms; what hurry and ringing of pans and fire-shovels to charm them down; what recapturings and bringing back to the ancient bench to form a new family in the little bee-state.

There is one circumstance, however, connected with the keeping of bees, which spoils the poetry of it; and that is the brimstone pit of destruction that awaits them. But there is many a poor man that loves his bees with a strong affection, and loathes to do them that grievous wrong. He levies tribute, but does not destroy. I once saw a fine instance of this feeling. A poor man, a lover and keeper of bees, heard by chance that a swarm had taken up their abode in the roof of Caverswall Nunnery in Staffordshire; and that the abbess was intending to have them destroyed. His residence was at a distance of seven miles from the Abbey, but he instantly put his favourite volume of “Huber on Bees” in his pocket, and set out. Here, being admitted to the presence of the abbess, he told his errand, and begged that she would not commit so barbarous and inhospitable an act,--that providence seemed to have directed those wonderful little creatures thither as it were, for the certainty of protection from the hearts of Christian ladies. At least he begged that she would read that book before she put her threat into execution. He soon afterwards came to me with a face of great delight, saying--“The abbess has read Huber, and she won’t destroy the bees!”

Many cottagers, again, are most zealous and successful florists.[29] This is a taste full of beauty, and possessing a high charm. To select rich and suitable soils; to sow and plant; to nurse and shade, and water; to watch the growth and expansion of flowers of great promise;--it is sufficient for the enjoyment of one spirit. The number of flowers now cultivated by florists is much increased to what it was. They had only the polyanthus, auricula, hyacinth, carnation, tulip, and ranunculus; but the splendid dahlia, and the pansy now engross much of their attention and admiration. Others, again, are collectors and admirers of insects; and as education extends, natural history will, no doubt, receive many zealous adherents from the operative ranks. Crabbe has described both these tastes as united in one man.

There is my friend, the weaver; strong desires Reign in his breast; ’tis beauty he admires. See! to the shady grove he wings his way, And feels in hope the raptures of the day. Eager he looks; and soon to his glad eyes, From the sweet bower, by nature formed, arise Bright troops of virgin-moths, and new-born butterflies; Who broke that morning from their half-year’s sleep, To fly o’er flowers where they were wont to creep.

Above the sovereign oak, a sovereign skims, The purple Emperor, strong in wing and limbs: There fair Camilla takes her flight serene, Adonis blue, and Paphia, silver queen: With every filmy fly from mead or bower, And hungry Sphynx, who threads the honeyed flower; She o’er the larkspurs’ bed, where sweets abound, Views every bell, and hums the approving sound: Poised on her busy plumes, with feelings nice, She draws from every flower, nor tries a floret twice.

He fears no bailiff’s wrath, no baron’s blame, His is untaxed, and undisputed game; Nor less the place of curious plants he knows; He both his Flora and his Fauna shows. For him is blooming in its rich array, The glorious flower which bore the palm away. In vain a rival tried his utmost art, His was the prize, and joy o’erflowed his heart. “This, this is beauty! cast, I pray, your eyes On this my glory! see the grace--the size! Was ever stem so tall, so stout, so strong, Exact in breadth, in just proportion long; These brilliant hues are all distinct and clean, No kindred tint, no blending streaks between; This is no shaded, run-off, pin-eyed thing, A king of flowers, a flower for England’s king!”

[29] So successful that they were amongst the first to raise fine flowers before floral societies and flower-shows were in existence; and the names of some of these village florists are attached to some of the finest specimens, Hufton, Barker, and Redgate, appellations which some of our finest carnations, polyanthuses, and ranunculuses bear, are those of old Derbyshire villagers, well known to me, who scarcely ever were out of their own rustic districts, but whose names are thus made familiar all the country over.

Lastly, the general pleasures of a garden form a grand item in the enjoyments of the poor man. To shew what these pleasures are, to what an extent they are enjoyed in some districts, even by town mechanics, and how much further they may be extended, I shall quote a portion of a paper published by me in November 1835, in Tait’s Magazine.

There are, in the outskirts of Nottingham, upwards of 5000 gardens, the bulk of which are occupied by the working class. A good many there are belonging to the substantial tradesmen and wealthier inhabitants; but the great mass are those of the mechanics. These lie on various sides of the town, in expanses of many acres in a place, and many of them as much as a mile and a half distant from the centre of the town. In the winter they have rather a desolate aspect, with their naked trees and hedges, and all their little summer-houses exposed, damp-looking, and forlorn; but, in spring and summer, they look exceedingly well,--in spring all starred with blossoms, all thick with leaves; and their summer-houses peeping pleasantly from among them. The advantage of these gardens to the working-class of a great manufacturing town, is beyond calculation; and I believe no town in the kingdom has so many of them in proportion to its population. It were to be desired that the example of the Nottingham artisans was imitated by those of other great towns; or rather that the taste for them was encouraged, and, in fact, created by the example of the middle classes, and by patriotic persons laying out fields for this purpose, and letting them at a reasonable rate. A wide difference in the capability of indulging in this healthful species of recreation, must of course, depend on the species of manufacture carried on. Where steam-engines abound, and are at the foundation of all the labours of a place, as in Manchester, for instance, there you will find few gardens in the possession of the mechanics. The steam-engine is a never-resting, unweariable, unpersuadable giant and despot; and will go on thumping and setting thousands of wheels and spindles in motion; and men must stand, as it were, the slaves of its unsleeping energies. O! what was the fate of the ancient genii to the fate of our modern mechanics! What was the fate of “the slaves of the lamp,” or the slaves of talismanic ring, to that of the slaves of the steam-engine! They could vanish and lie at rest till came the irresistible call; they could sport over ocean and desert, through the air and the clouds; they could speed into the depths of space and wander amid the inconceivable mysteries and miracles of unknown worlds, till the omnipotent spell recalled them to execute some temporary wish of their tyrant, and then return to a wide liberty. But the slave of the steam-engine must be at the beck of his tyrant night or day, with only such intervals as barely suffice to restore his wearied strength and faculties:--therefore you shall not see gardens flourish and summer-houses rise in the vicinity of this hurrying and tremendous power. But where it is not, or but partially predominates, there may the mechanic enjoy the real pleasures of a garden. And how many are those pleasures!

Early in spring--as soon, in fact, as the days begin to lengthen and the shrewd air to dry up the wintry moisture--you see them getting into their gardens, clearing away the dead stalks of last year’s growth, and digging up the soil; but especially on fine days in February and March are they busy. Trees are pruned, beds are dug, walks cleaned, and all the refuse and decayed vegetation piled up in heaps; and the smoke of the fires in which it is burnt, rolling up from many a garden, and sending its pungent odour to meet you afar off. It is pleasant to see, as the season advances, how busy their occupants become; bustling there with their basses in their hands and their tools on their shoulders; wheeling in manure; and clearing out their summer-houses; and what an air of daily-increasing neatness they assume, till they are one wide expanse of blossomed fruit-trees and flowering fragrance. Every garden has its summer-house; and these are of all scales and grades, from the erection of a few tub-staves, with an attempt to train a pumpkin or a wild-hop over it, to substantial brick houses with glass windows, good cellars for a deposit of choice wines, a kitchen, and all necessary apparatus, and a good pump to supply them with water. Many are very picturesque rustic huts, built with great taste, and hidden by tall hedges in a perfect little paradise of lawn and shrubbery--most delightful spots to go and read in of a summer day, or to take a dinner or tea in with a pleasant party of friends. Some of these places which belong to the substantial tradespeople have cost their occupiers from one to five hundred pounds, and the pleasure they take in them may be thence imagined; but many of the mechanics have very excellent summer-houses, and there they delight to go, and smoke a solitary pipe, as they look over the smiling face of their garden, or take a quiet stroll amongst their flowers: or to take a pipe with a friend; or to spend a Sunday afternoon, or a summer evening, with their families. The amount of enjoyment which these gardens afford to a great number of families is not easily to be calculated--and then the health and the improved taste! You meet them coming home, having been busy for hours in the freshness of the summer morning in them, and now are carrying home a bass brimful of vegetables for the house. In the evening thitherward you see groups and families going; the key which admits to the common paths that lead between them is produced; a door is opened and closed; and you feel that they are vanished into a pure and sacred retirement, such as the mechanic of a large town could not possess without these suburban gardens. And then to think of the alehouse, the drinking, noisy, politics-bawling alehouse, where a great many of these very men would most probably be, if they had not this attraction,--to think of this, and then to see the variety of sources of a beautiful and healthful interest which they create for themselves here:--what a contrast!--what a most gratifying contrast! There are the worthy couple, sitting in the open summer-house of one garden, quietly enjoying themselves, and watching their children romping on the grass-plot, or playing about the walks; in another, a social group of friends round the tea-table, or enjoying the reward of all their spring labours, picking strawberries fresh from the bed, or raspberries, gooseberries, and currants from the bush. In one you find a grower of fine apples, pears, or plums, or of large gooseberries; in another, a florist, with his show of tulips, ranunculuses, hyacinths, carnations, or other choice flowers, that claim all his leisure moments, and are a source of a thousand cares and interests. And of these cares and interests, the neat awning of white canvass, raised on its light frame of wood; the glasses, and screens of board and matting, to defend those precious objects from every rude attack of sun, wind, or rain--all these are sufficient testimonies; and tell of hours early and late, in the dawn of morning and the dusk of evening, when the happy man has been entranced in his zealous labours, and absorbed in a thousand delicious fancies, and speculations of perfection. Of late, the splendid dahlia and the pansy have become objects of attention; and I believe of the latter flower, till recently despised and overlooked, except in the old English cottage-garden, there are now more than a hundred varieties, of such brilliance and richness of hue, and many of them of such superb expanse of corolla, as merit all the value set upon them.

This is the allotment system of the manufacturing town; to the full as desirable as that for the country, and which may be facilitated, fraught as it is with abundant physical and moral good, by philanthropic individuals to a great extent. At Nottingham, as I have observed, the taste seems to have grown up originally of itself, and then, exciting the attention of speculators, has been extended to its present growth by them. The mechanics there have not their gardens at a cheap rate. They all say that they could purchase their vegetables in the market for the amount of their rent and incidental expenses; but then, they get the health and the enjoyment, and their fruit and vegetables they get so fresh.

There are, according to a personal examination made by myself, now, upwards of 5000 of these gardens, containing, as single gardens, 400 square yards each,--the general scale of a garden; though a good many are held as double, and even treble gardens. These let at from a halfpenny to three halfpence per yard; but averaged at three farthings, make a rental of 1_l._ 5_s._ per garden, or a total of 6250_l._ Five thousand gardens of 400 yards each of clear garden ground, independent of fences and roads, give 413 acres and about a rood. Now, if we add one-fifth for fences and roads, the total quantity of land occupied is 496 acres, or we may say, in round numbers, 500 acres. Here then, 500 acres, which at fifty shillings an acre--a good rent for ordinary purposes, would yield a rent of 1250_l._; yield, by being converted into gardens, a rent of 6250_l._, or a clear profit of 5000_l._

Thus, it is evident, that any persons willing to promote the taste for gardening in the neighbourhood of towns, might double, in many instances, the ordinary rent of the land, and yet let it in gardens at half the price of these Nottingham ones. Even where land in the vicinity of a large town is very highly rented, a halfpenny a yard, and ten gardens to the acre, fences and roads included, would produce 8_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ per acre; no contemptible sum; to say nothing of the real kindness of the accommodation, and the health, pleasure, and pure taste communicated to their fellow men; whilst, against the increased risk of loss, and the increased trouble of the collection of rent, are to be set the value of the garden stock, fruit trees, shrubs, and flower roots, and the summer-houses, which enhance the value to the next tenant.

Here I close this chapter, and this department of my work,--the habits and amusements of the people. It is a subject to which I attach no common importance. The people make the majority of our race; and if they are all equally the objects of that divine care which created them, they must be equally the objects of our truest sympathies. This has not hitherto been sufficiently considered: but every day that consideration must be forced more and more upon us; and we shall be made to feel that no philosophy is good which does not include the poor in its theory; no religion is sound which does not recognise their kinship; no legislation is wise which does not operate for their physical and intellectual benefit; and no country can be said to be truly prosperous, where the multitude is not respectable, enlightened, moral, and happy.

Let us all endeavour to hasten this period, as a living proof that Christianity is really preached to the poor; and that our knowledge has produced the most felicitous of its genuine fruits, in peopling this great nation with a race such as no nation has yet possessed; such as may eat,

Well earned, the bread of service, yet may have A mounting spirit;--one that entertains Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable, Or aught unseemly.

Charles Lamb.

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XIV. SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY

~Sonst stuerzte sich der Himmels-Liebe Kuss Auf mich herab, in ernster Sabbathstille; Da klang so ahndungsvoll des Glockentones Fuelle, Und ein Gebet war bruenstiger Genuss: Ein unbegreiflich holdes Sehnen Trieb mich durch Wald und Wiesen hinzugehn, Und unter tausend heissen Thraenen, Fuehlt’ ich mir eine Welt entstehn.~

Faust.

In other days, the kiss of heavenly love descended upon me in the solemn stillness of the Sabbath; then the full-toned bell sounded so fraught with mystic meaning, and a prayer was vivid enjoyment. A longing, inconceivably sweet, drove me forth to wander over wood and plain, and amid a thousand burning tears, I felt a world rise up to me.

Hayward’s Translation.

Goethe, in his Faust, has given a very lively description of a German multitude bursting out of the city to enjoy an Easter Sunday;--mechanics, students, citizens’ daughters, servant-girls, townsmen, beggars, old women ready to tell fortunes, soldiers, and amongst the rest, his hero Faust and his friend Wagner, proceeding to enjoy a country walk. They reach a rising ground; and Faust says--“Turn and look back from this rising ground upon the town. From forth the gloomy portal presses a motley crowd. Every one suns himself delightedly to-day. They celebrate the rising of the LORD, for they themselves have arisen: from the dark rooms of mean houses; from the bondage of mechanical drudgery; from the confinement of gables and roofs; from the stifling narrowness of streets; from the venerable gloom of churches--are they raised up to the open light of day. But look! look! how quickly the mass is scattering itself through the gardens and fields; how the river, broad and long, tosses many a merry bark upon its surface; and how this last wherry, overladen almost to sinking, moves off. Even from the farthest paths of the mountain, gay-coloured dresses glance upon us. I hear already the bustle of the village. This is the true heaven of the multitude; big and little are huzzaing joyously. Here I am a man--here I may be one.”

Making allowance for the difference of national manners, this might serve for a picture of Sunday in the neighbourhood of a large town in England. Human nature is the same everywhere. The girls are looking out for sweethearts; and both mechanics and students are seeking after the best beer and the prettiest girl:

~Ein starkes bier, ein beitzender Toback, Und eine Magd im Putz dass ist nun mein Geschmack.~

“Strong beer, stinging tobacco, and a girl all in her best,--that is the taste for me,” cries one: and so it is here and everywhere. See how the multitudes of our large manufacturing towns, and of London spend their Sundays. They pour out into the country in all directions, but it is not to enjoy the country only. They do enjoy the country; but it is because it heightens their wild delight in smoking, drinking, and flirtation. Who does not know what innumerable haunts there are within five, ten, or even twenty miles round London, to which these classes repair on Sundays: tea-houses and tea-gardens, country inns, hedge-alehouses, all the old and noted places where good beer and tobacco, merry company, and noisy politics are to be found? Norwood, Greenwich, Richmond, Hampton-Court, Windsor, the Nore, Herne-Bay, Gravesend, Margate; and those old-fashioned places of resort that Hone gives you glimpses of; such as Copenhagen-House, the Sluice-House, Canonbury, etc.--what swarming votaries have they all.[30] And what an immensity of new regions will the railroads that are now beginning to stretch their lines from the metropolis in different directions, lay open--terræ incognitæ, as it were, to the millions that in the dense and ever-growing mass of monstrous London pant after an outburst into the country. Truly may these say, through the medium of this modern and most providential means of occasional dispersion:--

To morrow to fresh fields and pastures new!

[30] The following calculation, made on Whit-Monday 1835, may give some idea of the number of similar pleasure-seekers on a fine summer Sunday. On Monday, between eight in the morning and nine at night, 191 steam-vessels passed through the Pool to and from Margate, Herne-Bay, Sheerness, Southend, the Nore, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich, including several on their way to and from Scotland, Ireland, and the Continent. Each vessel averaged, at least, 500 persons. The above calculation was made by Mr. Brown, a boat-builder in Wapping, who with his servants, watched them all day. But many passed after nine, swelling the number to upwards of 200; so that more than 100,000 persons must have been afloat in the steamers on Monday, exclusive of the passengers in small boats. Several steam-vessels carried 800 and 900 souls each to the Nore and back, One steam-vessel brought back from Greenwich 1000 persons, another 1300, and a third was actually crowded with 1500 passengers.

I well remember two ladies of high reputation in the literary world, who, after reading Faust, were inspired with a desire to see how the lower classes amused themselves on a Sunday in this country. It was, they thought, a subject of profitable study. They could not divest themselves of the idea that the people must wonderfully enjoy themselves, in their own way; and perhaps they might imagine that they should be received and complimented, as Faust and his friend Wagner were. Well; the experiment was tried. Another gentleman and myself accompanied them; and of all schemes we hit upon that of going by the steam-packet to Richmond. It was a fine morning in May. Our packet and another sailed from St. Katherine’s wharf with crowded decks, and a bright sun over our heads, casting its animating glory upon tower and town, over the majestic river, and the green country to which, anon, we emerged. We swept under bridge after bridge, and saw the mighty metropolis, with its vast wilderness of houses, wharfs, warehouses, and great public buildings, rapidly glide away behind us; above all the towers and spires of churches St. Paul’s lifting its solemn dome and glittering cross; and then the villages, splendid villas, and beautiful gardens, with the tall robinias in their new leaves, and covered with their snow-white masses of flowers, in gay succession;--Lambeth, Vauxhall, Chelsea, Battersea, Fulham, Putney, Barnes, Chiswick, Kew, Richmond!--it was a fair and promising scene.

The people on board were well-dressed. There were some portly, middle-aged dames, with gold watches at their sides, and clad in richest silks; and there were some as lovely young ones as London could shew. You were sure that there were plenty of the very-well-to-do-in-the-world about you, if there were none of the very refined; substantial tradespeople, that would have the best the world could procure in eating, drinking, and dressing. And there was a knot of Germans too; men with great mustachios and laced coats; and damsels from whose tongues the strong, homely, expressive German speech seemed to fall wondrous softly. It was quite an attractive circumstance: for our fair friends, being just in the fresh fervour of studying “Die Deutche Sprache,” and reading Faust, imagined every thing in them interesting, and doubtless fancied them just such characters as Goethe would have drawn much out of. All seemed promising, when lo! we were at Richmond, and every thing had been only orderly, cheerful, and nothing more.

Ah well! this was English decorum on a Sunday; if it were not very piquant, it was at least, very commendable. We stepped on shore, lunched, strolled about on the terrace, amid streams of gay people; sat on one of the seats, and gazed over that vast expanse of rich woodland, meads, and villas; wandered down the green meadows towards Petersham and Twickenham, into the woods below the Star-and-Garter, and back to the packet. And now we were destined to see the character of the common people on a Sunday jaunt. The moment the packet began to move, it began to rain, and all the way it rained! rained! rained! The ladies took refuge in the cabin. What a cabin! There were all the sober, orderly throng of the morning, metamorphosed by the power of strong drink into a rackety, roaring, drinking, smoking, insolent, and jammed-together crew. The cabin was crushing full. The stairs were densely packed with people. One of the ladies made a precipitate retreat upon deck, and there, with only the protection of her parasol, stood with the patience of a martyr and the temper of a saint, all the weary length of the voyage, through dripping, drenching, never-ceasing rain! The other, with more fear of her silks and satins, and determined to see what such a crowd was, persisted in staying below. It was an act which only the highest heroism could have maintained. There was a group taking tea at a side-table, all well, very well-dressed people, and holding a conversation of such language! such sentiments! such anecdotes! and accompanied with such bursts of laughter! at what must have stricken people with any sense of decency, dumb! And then there were those spruce youths, so modest in the morning, now drinking pots of porter and smoking cigars. Yes, smoking cigars, though the laws of the cabin, blazoned aloft, proclaimed--“No smoking allowed in the cabin!”--Spite of all cabin, or cabinet, or parliamentary laws, they drank, they smoked, they rolled voluminous clouds from one to another; and when requested to desist, said--“O, certainly! It is perfectly insufferable for people to smoke in such company; they ought to be turned out.” And then all laughed together at their own wit. The captain was called, and begged to enforce his own law; and they cried, “O yes, captain! certainly, certainly,” and then laughed again; and the captain smiled, and withdrew: for what captain could seriously forbid smoke and drink that were purchased of himself?

These drapers’ apprentices and shopmen, for such they seemed, gloried in annoying the whole company; and for this purpose, they placed themselves by the open window, so that the draft carried the smoke across all the place. There did but prove to be one real gentleman in the whole troop, who accommodated the lady with a seat--for not a soul besides would stir--and said, as he saw her annoyance; for with all her endurance, this was visible--“Madam, what a hell we have got into!”

And such, thought I, is a specimen of the populace of the mighty and enlightened London! Truly the schoolmaster has work enough yet before him.

It was a party in a parlour, Crammed just as they on land are crammed; Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, All noisy, and all damned!

Our fair friends wished to see the character of the common people in their Sunday recreations, and they saw here a specimen that, I feel persuaded, will satisfy them for life. One, at least, saw this; for the other stood stoically silent upon deck, and saw nothing but rain! rain! rain! O the weary time of that voyage! amid oaths and clamour, vulgarity in all its shapes of swaggering, or maudlin foolishness, riot of action, and indecorum of speech, drinking, smoking, crushing, laughing, swearing,--a confusion carried along the fair Thames, and into the heart of London, worse than that of Babel, and worthy of Pandemonium. How many thousands of such Sunday revellers, steeped in drink, and roystering vulgarity, were pouring into that mighty heart of civilization and Christian knowledge, at the moment we joyfully skipped up Westminster-stairs, and thanked heaven that the Goethe experiment was over.

What London exhibits on its own great scale, all our populous manufacturing towns exhibit, each in its own degree. It is curious to observe from the earliest hour of a Sunday morning, in fine weather, what groups are pouring out into the country. There are mechanics who, in their shops and factories,--while they have been caged up by their imperious necessities during the week, and have only obtained thence sights of the clear blue sky above, of the green fields laughing far away, or have only caught the wafting of a refreshing gale on their fevered cheek as they hurried homeward to a hasty meal, or back again to the incarceration of Mammon,--have had their souls inflamed with desires for breaking away into the free country. These have been planning, day after day, whither they shall go on Sunday. To what distant village; to what object of attraction. There have come visions of a neat country alehouse to them; its clean hearth, sanded floor; its capital ale, and aromatic pipe after a long walk; its pure unadulterated fare, sweet bread, savoury rashers of bacon, beef steaks and onions, and all with most mouth-watering odours. Others have seen clear hurrying trout-streams, or deep still fish-ponds, lying all along wild moors, or amid tangled woods; and they have determined to be with them. They will take angle and net; they will strip off clothes, and take the trout with their hands, from under the grassy banks of their little swift streams. They will have a dash at the squire’s carp, when he and all his people are at church. And, in other seasons, mushroom gathering, and nutting, and all kinds of what is called Sabbath-breaking, come before them with an unconquerable impetus. For to their minds--neglected, but full of strong desires and pent-up energies--nature’s delights, wild pursuits, bodily refreshments, and the enjoyment of one day’s full freedom from towns, red walls, dry pavements, shops, masters, and even wives and children, are mixed up into a strange, but wonderfully bewitching excitement. These are going off, before the world in general is awake, at four, five, or six o’clock in a morning, in clusters of twos and threes, sixes and sevens, with long and eager strides, stout sticks in their hands, and faces set towards the country with a determined expression of fresh-air hungriness. And there, again, are going the bird-catchers; two or three of them, with two or three children with them, perhaps. They have some far-off green lane, or furzy common, or airy down in their mind, to which they are hastening with their cages, carried under a piece of green baize, or blinded with a handkerchief. All the way will they stalk on at a four-mile rate, and these little lads--the least not more than five years old--will go on trotting after them, and never think of weariness till all the sport is over, and they are making their way homeward in the evening. Then shall you see them dragged along by one of their father’s hands; for the men will not slacken pace for them, but pull them along with them; and you will see those little legs go on, trot, trot, trot, till you think they will actually be worn to the stumps before they reach home. These men and eager lads you will find in some solitary spot seven or eight miles off, if you go out so far, seated silently under a tall hedge or old tree, or in some moorland thicket, watching their apparatus, which is placed at a distance; their tame bird, of the species they are seeking to take, chained by its leg to a crossed stick, or a bough thrust into the ground. There it is, hopping about and chirping in the sunshine; and around stand cages containing other decoy birds, and other cages ready to receive the unsuspicious birds, that, attracted by the hopping and chirping of their captive kinsmen, will presently come and alight near them, and speedily get entangled in the limed twigs that are disposed about, or will find the net that is ready spread for them, come swoop over them. Every person who has walked the streets of London, has seen the crowds of these little captives, larks, woodlarks, linnets, goldfinches, nightingales, etc., in the shops, which have been thus caught on all the great heaths and downs, for twenty miles round the metropolis, by fowlers, who are nearly always thus employed there.

Then, again, you see another Sunday class; tradesmen, shopkeepers, and their assistants and apprentices,--all those who have friends in the country,--on horseback or in gigs, driving off to spend the day with those that come occasionally and pay them a visit at markets and fairs. The faces of these are set for farm and other country-houses within twenty miles round. There is not a horse or gig to be had for love or money at any of the livery-stables on a Sunday. These hebdomadal rusticators,--these good dinner-eaters, fruit-devourers, curd-and-cream-consumers, pipe-smokers, and loungers in gardens, garden-arbours, crofts, orchards,--these soi-disant judges of cattle, crops, dogs, guns, game,--these haunters of country-houses, complimenters of country beauties, and lovers of good country fare,--have got them all. Yes, yes, many a pleasant Sunday in the country do these men spend after their fashion,--none of the worst, if none of the holiest; and yet they go to the village church too sometimes, and wonder that so fine a preacher should be hidden in such a place. Towards nine or ten o’clock in the evening, they will be pouring back into the town as blithely as they rolled out in the morning, being now primed with all those good things that lured them away so sharply after breakfast.

And, when they were gone, how sunnily and cheerily passed the day in the town; the merry bells all ringing, the gay people all abroad, streaming along the smooth pavements to church or chapel, or for the forenoon and evening promenade, in their fresh and handsome attire. Such troops of lovely women, such counterpoising numbers of goodly and well-dressed men: all squalor, and poverty, and trouble, and distress, shrunk backward into the alleys and dens out of sight; all cares and tradesmanship shut up in the closed shops and warehouses; and nothing but ease, leisure, bravery of equipment, and shew of wealth, walking in the face of the sun, as if there was no reason why they should not walk there for ever. The very beggars are gone, like swallows in autumn--not one to be seen, except in the secret rendezvous where they pass one long day of luxurious idleness. The barrack has sent forth its troop of soldiers in their rich full-dress. They have marched with sounding music to the great church, with their usual crowd of boys and idle men after them. And then, morning, noon, or evening, you have seen a group of people collect in the market-place, or some open street, that has grown and grown into a large, dense crowd; and then you have seen a man suddenly appear, with bare head, and book in hand, in the centre. This is some field-preacher; one of many hundreds that on this day, in towns, villages, rural lanes, or on heaths and commons, go out to preach to them who are too indifferent, or too shabby, to come into a respectable place of worship.

We often think how strange it would have been to have lived in the days of the Reformation, or of the Puritans, when men full of zeal went to and fro, through the length and breadth of the land, to denounce the dominant form of religion, and preach repentance and salvation from the Bible. We have not the opposition and the persecution now, or we should have just such men and such scenes. There is such freedom for every man to choose his own mode of worship, and the religiously inclined have so many modes to choose from, and to associate them with a circle of people so much after their own hearts, that they have no impulse to seek further; no, not to seek after those who have no particular desire to be found; they think it enough that they have chapel-room and open doors for those who will come. It is chiefly, therefore, the poor that are left to seek after the poor; that feel it incumbent to “go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.” The mechanic, who has been labouring hard all the week in his worldly vocation, now shaves and washes, and dresses the best he may, and goes forth, fearing not the sneers and the scorn of the great and learned, of the worldly-wise and genteel, but comes into the very face of them, and before their gay windows in the open square; often before the lofty church and majestic cathedral, whose organ-tones are deeply pealing in his ears. There he lifts up his homely features, his rudely clipped head; there he lifts up his horny hand, that has for many a year dealt sturdy strokes to inanimate matter, and now deals, with tenfold zeal, strokes as hard to hearts as hard. There he lifts up his voice in no finely modulated or practised tones, but with earnest pleadings and awful threatenings and unfoldings of God’s judgments on the wicked and careless; and then, with as earnest and affectionate expositions of his mercies, arrests, terrifies, melts, and fills with new sensations and desires the hearts of his fellows in the lowest regions of human life, who have lived beyond the sound of heavenly promises, and of God’s love and fear in a great measure, “because no one cared for their souls.”

The wise may wonder; the learned may curl the lip of classical pride; the gay and the happy, who live in splendid houses, and worship in splendid pews and beneath high and arched roofs, may pass by, and not even glance on the poor illiterate preacher and his spell-bound audience; but that man is, after all, a patriot and a scholar; a good subject of the realm--a good servant of heaven; and will probably effect more real benefit in one day, than a dozen of us, who think sufficiently well of our services to the commonwealth, shall effect in all our lives: and till some comprehensive plan is adopted, by which the Sabbath may lay all its advantages, all its holy peace, all its knowledge and heavenly fruition, before every man, woman and child, in this great empire, he must and shall do what he can to supply the deficiency. With all his ignorance,--and he has much,--he has learned what is necessary for the good of his own spirit, and the strength of natural sympathy has taught him the way to communicate it to the hearts of his fellows. He knows the language, the style, the tone of sentiment and the species of argument that the soonest reaches them. He knows their besetments and their wants, for he has been pursued by the same needs, tainted by the same corruptions, baptized into the same distresses; he has an experimental knowledge that no man of another class can have. With all his extravagance,--and he has much,--he has not half the amount that we daily see in more dignified places; and for the wildness, the error, the eccentricity of his doctrines, ah! how much more readily could we match them in those after whom carriages roll, and the world runs, and on whom honours and wealth are heaped as an inadequate reward. See there, how he extends his arms! how he beats the air! how he strains every muscle, and exerts every fibre of his frame, till the perspiration rolls from his heated brow; how he thunders, and makes the whole great area ring with the outbreak of his terrors, his adjurations, and his appeals! And yet, from the simple table on which he is mounted shall no folly proceed, that has not its counterpart in the most dignified pulpit, wholly freed--and that is a world of advantage--from the freezing indifference that fills thousands with its torpidity.

For the seamen, London and Liverpool, and other ports, offer their floating or seamen’s chapels, where they may hear the gospel preached in a language that goes straight to their hearts and understandings, but which a landsman would attempt in vain. Like the lower orders in general, they have a language and an experience of their own, and the man who preaches to them in another language, and with other imagery, cannot keep alive their attention, however eloquent, or however learned; and he who attempts their language without a practical knowledge of their life, only excites their ridicule. It is even necessary, occasionally, to accommodate the language of Scripture to their ideas and experience. A very popular preacher once requested permission to address the sailors in their floating chapel at Liverpool, and, attempting seamen’s language, told them that he who secured an interest in Christ, cast anchor on a rock! At once all eyebrows were elevated in amazement, and broad grins overspread every face. “Hear him! Hear him!” they cried, one to another, “he talks of casting anchor on a rock!” Yet there was no uncommon hardness, or propensity to scoffing in these men; on the contrary, it was admirable to see, when Captain Scoresby, the well-known northern voyager, addressed them, how they kindled with interest, and melted down in emotion: when he told them how Christ preached in a ship, how he loved the mariners of his days, the tears started from their eyes, and rolled over scores of hardy cheeks that had faced the fiercest gales, and been tanned by the hottest suns. It was, and is still, I doubt not, delightful to see such an audience. There was the smart sailor and his smart lass; others with their wives and families; and old men who had spent the greatest portion of a long life on the seas. Such a collection of black and curly heads, of bushy whiskers, of the thin and white hair of age, of eyes gleaming with youth and life, or dimmed by the extremity of years!--such an intent and childlike throng of listeners! all so little accustomed to artifice,--to conceal or feel shame for their emotions,--that the changes of their expressions were as rapid and striking as those of the sun and wind on their own element. There sate some happy fathers, with their children on their knees, as though they saw so little of them, had found them so lately, or must leave them so soon, that they could not have them near enough. There sate strong men, touched to the depth of their hearts by the pathos of the preacher, leaning against the side of the cabin, and weeping unrestrained tears, or listening, with lips apart, in breathless attention; and there sate women, who, when winds and tempests were mentioned, turned a fond, anxious look to some dear one sitting by them; and others, who when the voyagers at sea were prayed for, clasped their hands, and looked to heaven unutterable things. Great must be the comfort and the blessing of thus bringing Christianity to the knowledge of our seafaring men. Great has been its effect amongst the fishermen of Cornwall, as any one may see, who will visit the crowded chapels of St. Ives, and other places.

But there is still another class of preachers that may be encountered on Sundays: the disciples of Irving. None of your simple mechanics, but gentlemen--gentlemen in appearance, in manners, in education. You will see such a one pulling out his pocket Bible, in some public situation, and beginning to address the two or three that happen to stand near. The singularity of the thing soon attracts others; there begins to be a moving from all parts towards that spot, till there is at length a large and dense crowd. There, in the midst of this wondering and promiscuous circle, in the most cultivated tones, with the most proper action, and in the purest language, you hear, perhaps, the Honourable and Reverend ---- himself, “dealing damnation round the land;” depicting his audience in the most fearful colours, as fallen, utterly corrupt, blackened with every imaginable sin, and wandering blindfold on the very brink of hell. In the opinion of some of these preachers, all the world is lying in ignorance and sin; all other preachers of all other creeds are blind leaders of the blind; to him and his few coadjutors alone has the mystery of godliness been revealed; “they are the men, and wisdom shall die with them.” I must confess that to me, this cold Calvinism, this abusive and declamatory zeal, though coming from very gentlemanly mouths, is not a thousandth part so attractive as the warm-hearted, liberal, and affectionate addresses of the illiterate mechanic. Nay, to me it is excessively repulsive; and I would much rather find myself in some far-off village, in some green lane, or on the heath, where such are holding their summer camp-meeting.

I love the sound of hymns On some bright Sabbath morning, on the moor Where all is still save praise; and where hard by The ripe grain shakes its bright beard in the sun: The wild bee hums more solemnly: the deep sky; The fresh green grass, the sun, and sunny brook,-- All look as if they knew the day, the hour, And felt with man the need and joy of thanks.

PHILIP BAILEY’S Festus.

There at least are warmth and enthusiasm; there at least, if there be extravagance, is also an exhibition of much character, and plenty of the picturesque. A crowd of rustic people is assembled; a wagon is drawn thither for a stage, and in it stand men with black skull-caps, or coloured handkerchiefs tied upon their heads to prevent taking cold after their violent exertions; men of those grave and massy, or thin, worn, and sharp features, that tell of strong, rude intellects, or active and consuming spirits; men in whose bright, quick eyes, or still, deep gaze, from beneath shaggy brows, you read passions that will lighten, or a shrewdness that will tell with strong effect. In their addresses you are continually catching the most picturesque expressions, the most unlooked-for illustrations,--often the most irresistibly amusing. I heard one edifying his audience with an account of the apples of the Dead Sea, gathered most likely, at a tenth transmission, from Adam Clarke’s Commentaries. “Ay,” said he, “sin is fair to look at, but foul to taste. It is like those apples that grow by the Red Sea. They are yellow as gold on one side, and rosy-cheeked as a fair maid of a morning on the other; but bite them,--yes, I say bite them, and they are full of pepper and mustard!”

Another was talking of God’s goodness, and applying Christ’s illustration: “‘If you ask your father for bread, will he give you a stone?’ Now, my brethren I don’t mean a stone of bread,--Christ didn’t mean a stone of bread: for, may be, it was not sold by the stone in his time; and he would not be a bad father neither, that gave you a stone of bread at a time; but I mean a stone from the road,--a real pebble, as cold as charity, as bare as the back of my hand, and as hard as the heart of a sinner.”

Now, none but those who had known the immense value of a stone of bread would be likely to think of such a thing, or to guard against such a mistake. But with such laughable errors, with much ignorance and outrageous cant, there is often mixed up a rude intellectual strength, and a freshness of thought that never knew the process of taming and trammelling called education, and that fears no criticism; and flashes of poetical light, that please the more for the rudeness of their accompaniment. There are women, too, that exhort in soft voices and pathetic tones on such occasions; and, suddenly the crowd will divide itself into several companies, and go singing to different parts of the field. Their hymns have a wild vivacity, a metaphoric boldness, and strange as it may seem, a greater spirituality about them than those of any other English sect that I have come in contact with. It is well known that they are set to some of the finest and liveliest, and most touching song-tunes; and hence, perhaps partly their startling effect; having divested themselves of that dry and dolorous monotony that hangs about sectarian hymns in general. They describe the Christian life under the figure of battles and campaigns, with “Christ their conquering captain” at their head; as pilgrimages, and night-watches; and hence their addresses are full of the most vivid imagery. I well remember, in the dusk of a fine summer evening, the moon hanging in the far western sky, the dark leaves of the brookside alders rustling in the twilight air, hearing, from the dim heath where they were holding their camp-meetings, the wild sound of one of these hymns. It was the dialogue of a spirit questioning and answering itself in the passage of death and the entrance into the happy land, and the chorused words of “All is well!--All is well!” came over the shadowy waste with an unearthly effect.

Singing then, such hymns,--but on these occasions chiefly of supplication or triumph,--they kneel down, each company in a circle; the leaders pray; and it is curious to see what looks of holy jealousy are cast from one circle to another, as the voice of one leader predominates over those of the others by its vehemence, its loudness, or its eloquence; drawing speedily away all the audience of the less gifted. It is scarcely now to be expected that we shall ever find a Whitefield, a Wesley, a Fox, or a Bunyan, on such an occasion, but from the effect of the enthusiasm, the earnestness, the wild energy and rude eloquence, that I have seen in a few humble men, I can well imagine, with Lord Byron, what must be the impression made by one strong mind under the broad blue sky, and amid the accompanying picturesqueness of scene and people.

But let us away into the far, far country! Into the still, pure, unadulterated country. Ah! here indeed is a Sabbath! What a sunny peace, what a calm yet glad repose lies on its fair hills; over all its solemn woods! How its flowery dales, and deep, secluded valleys reflect the holy tranquillity of heaven! It is morning; and the sun comes up the sky as if he knew it was a day of universal pause in the workings of the world; he shines over the glittering dews, and green leaves, and ten thousand blossoms; and the birds fill the blue fresh air with a rapture of music. The earth looks new and beautiful as on the day of its creation; but it is as full of rest as if it drew near to its close--all its revolutions past, all its turbulence hushed, all its mighty griefs healed, its mysterious destinies accomplished; and the light of eternity about to break over it with a new and imperishable power. Man rests from his labours, and every thing rests with him. There lie the weary steeds that have dragged the chain, and smarted under the lash--that have pulled the plough and the ponderous wagon, or flown over hill and dale at man’s bidding; there they lie, on the slope of the sunny field; and the very sheep and cattle seem imbued with their luxurious enjoyment of rest. The farmer has been walking into his fields, looking over this gate and that fence, into enclosures of grass, mottled with flowers like a carpet, or rich green corn growing almost visibly; at his cattle and his flock; and now he comes back with leisurely steps, and enters the shady quiet of his house. And it is a shady quiet. The sun glances about its porch, and flickers amongst the leaves on the wall, and the sparrows chirp, and fly to and fro; but the dog lies and slumbers on the step of the door, or only raises his head to snap at the flies that molest him. The very cat, coiled up on a sunbright border in the garden, sleeps voluptuously:--within, all is cleanness and rest. There is none of the running and racketing of the busy week-day: the pressing of curds, and shaping and turning of cheese; the rolling of the barrel-churn; the scouring of pails; the pumping, and slopping, and working, and chattering, and singing, and scolding of dairymaids. All that can be dispensed with, is, and what must be done is done quietly, and is early away. There is a clean, cool parlour; the open window lets in the odour of the garden--the yet cool and delicious odour, and the hum of bees. Flowers stand in their pots in the window; gathered flowers stand on the breakfast table; and the farmer’s comely wife, already dressed for the day, as she sees him come in, sits down to pour out his coffee. Over the croft-gate the labourers are leaning, talking of the last week’s achievements, and those of the week to come; and in many a cottage garden the cottagers, with their wives and children, are wandering up and down, admiring the growth of this and that; and every one settles in his own mind, that his cabbages, and peas, and beans are the best in the whole country; and that as for currants, gooseberries, apricots, and strawberries, there never were such crops since trees and bushes grew.

But the bells ring out from the old church tower. The pastor is already issuing from his pleasant parsonage; groups of peasantry are already seen streaming over the uplands towards the village. In the lanes, gay ribbons and Sunday-gowns glance from between the trees, and every house sends forth its inhabitants to worship. Blessings on those old grey fabrics, that stand on many a hill and in many a lowly hollow, all over this beloved country; for much as we reprobate that system of private or political patronage by which unqualified, unholy, and unchristian men have sometimes been thrust into their ancient pulpits, I am of Sir Walter Scott’s opinion, that no places are so congenial to the holy simplicity of Christian worship as they are. They have an air of antiquity about them--a shaded sanctity, and stand so venerably amid the most English scenes, and the tombs of generations of the dead, that we cannot enter them without having our imaginations and our hearts powerfully impressed with every feeling and thought that can make us love our country, and yet feel that it is not our abiding place. Those antique arches, those low massy doors, were raised in days that are long gone by; around these walls, nay, beneath our very feet, sleep those who, in their generations, helped, each in his little sphere, to build up England to her present pitch of greatness. We catch glimpses of that deep veneration, of that unambitious simplicity of mind and manner that we would fain hold fast amid our growing knowledge, and its inevitable remodelling of the whole framework of society. We are made to feel earnestly the desire to pluck the spirit of faith, the integrity of character, and the whole heart of love to kin and country, out of the ignorance and blind subjection of the past. Therefore is it that I have always loved the village church, that I have delighted to stroll far through the summer fields; and hear still onward its bells ringing happily; to enter and sit down amongst its rustic congregation,--better pleased with their murmur of responses, and their artless but earnest chant, than with all the splendour and parade of more lofty fabrics. Therefore is it that I long to see the people rescued from the thraldom of aristocratic patronage, that they may select at their own will, the pious and pure hearted to fill every pulpit in the land, and station in every parish a lover of God, a lover of the country, and a lover of the poor.

But Sunday morning is past: the afternoon is rolling away; but it shall not roll away without its dower of happiness shed on every down, and into every beautiful vale of this fair kingdom. Closed are the doors of the church, but opened are those of thousands and tens of thousands of dwellings to receive friends and kindred. And around the pleasant tea-table, happy groups are gathering in each other’s houses, freed from the clinging, pressing, enslaving cares of the six days; and sweetly, and full of renewing strength to the heart, does the evening there roll away. And does it not roll as sweetly where, by many a cottage-door, the aged grandfather and grandmother sit with two generations about them, and bask in another glorious Sabbath sunset? And is it not sweet where friends stroll through the delicious fields, in high or cheerful talk; along the green lane, or broom-engoldened hill-side; or down into the woodland valley, where the waters run clear and chimingly, amid the dipping grass and the brooklime; and the yellow beams of the descending sun glance serenely amongst the trees? And is it not sweet where, on some sequestered stile, sit two happy lovers, or where they stray along some twilight path, and the woodbine and the wild-rose are drooping their flowery boughs over them, while earth and heaven, supremely lovely in themselves, take new and divine hues from their own passionate spirits; and youth and truth are theirs: the present is theirs in love, the future is theirs in high confidence: all that makes glorious the life of angels is theirs for the time. Yes! all through the breadth of this great land,--through its cities, its villages, its fair fields, its liberated millions are walking in the eye of heaven, drinking in its sublime calm, refreshed by its gales, soothed by the peaceful beauty of the earth. There is a pause of profound, holy tranquillity, in which twilight drops down upon innumerable roofs, and prayers ascend from countless hearths in city and in field, on heath and mountain,--and then, ’tis gone; and the Sabbath is ended.

But blessings, and ten thousand blessings be upon that day; and let myriads of thanks stream up to the Throne of God, for this divine and regenerating gift to man. As I have sate in some flowery dale, with the sweetness of May around me, on a week-day, I have thought of all the millions of immortal creatures toiling for their daily life in factories and shops, amid the whirl of machinery and the greedy cravings of mercantile gain, and suddenly this golden interval of time has lain before me in all its brightness,--a time, and a perpetually recurring time, in which the iron grasp of earthly tyranny is loosed, and Peace, Faith, and Freedom, the angels of God, come down and walk once more amongst men!

Ten thousand blessings on this day, the friend of man and beast. The bigot would rob it of its healthful freedom, on the one hand, and coop man up in his work-a-day dungeons, and cause him to walk with downcast eyes and demure steps; and the libertine would desecrate all its sober decorum on the other. God, and the sound heart and sterling sense of Englishmen, preserve it from both these evils! Let us still avoid Puritan rigidity, and French dissipation. Let our children and our servants, and those who toil for us in vaults, and shops, and factories, between the intervals of solemn worship have freedom to walk in the face of heaven and the beauty of earth, for in the great temple of nature stand together, Health and Piety. For myself, I speak from experience, it has always been my delight to go out on a Sunday, and like Isaac, meditate in the fields, and especially, in the sweet tranquillity and amid the gathering shadows of evening; and never in temple or in closet, did more hallowed influences fall upon my heart. With the twilight and the hush of earth, a tenderness has stolen upon me; a desire for every thing pure and holy; a love for every creature on which God has stamped the wonder of his handiwork; but especially for every child of humanity; and then have I been made to feel that there is no Oratory like that which has heaven itself for its roof, and no teaching like the teaching of the SPIRIT which created, and still overshadows the world with its Infinite wings.

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XV. CHEAP PLEASURES OF COUNTRY LIFE

To the real lover of the country there needs no great events, no exciting circumstances to effect his happiness. The freshness of the country, and the profoundness of its quiet, are to him full of happiness. The whole round of the seasons, the passage of every day, the still walk amongst fields and woods, and by running waters, are to him sources of perpetual pleasures. When “the winter is over and gone,” he sees with joy the increased light amongst the breaking clouds and dispersing fogs; he feels with delight the milder temperature; he passes by, and observes the first bursting from the warm southern banks of green, luxuriant plants,--the arum, the mercury, the crisp chervil, the wrinkled leaves of the primrose, the blossomed branch of the apricot and peach on the sunny walls of the cottage, and the almond in the garden and shrubbery, like a tree of rosy sunshine, ere a leaf is yet seen; these things he sees with a feeling that has more true delight in it than ever was known to city drawing-room or palace. To me, the most ordinary walk in the country is, and always has been a luxury. I remember what joy these things gave me when a boy, and now they give me again a boy’s heart. I remember the enjoyment I experienced, when an old sportsman used to take his gun on his arm on a Saturday afternoon, when my village school made holiday, and led me up long lanes, between high mossy banks, where the little runnels come rushing and chiming along, between high, overhanging hedges; and through wide, still, shady woods; and across fields deep with greenest grass, and bright with sunshine, and all the glory of spring; and everywhere pointed out to me the nests of birds, each built in its peculiar situation; the robin and the yellow-hammer on the bank; blackbirds and throstles in the hedges, or under the roots of some old tree overhanging a stream, or set amongst the boughs of the young fir-trees in the plantations. I remember how I used to delight in the depth of rich grass and flowery weeds in the open fields and along the sunshiny hedges; in the hedges themselves, all clad in their young leaves, sprinkled with glittering morning dews, and perhaps waving with the utmost prodigality of hawthorn bloom. I remember too, with what earnest delight I used to gaze on the bushes of the wild-rose briar, and admire the singular beauty of its finely-cut and emerald-green leaves, amongst which the whitethroat framed its gauzy nest. All this I remember: and while I think of it, I seem to hear the lark singing in the clear air above me, as he used to do, with a

Joy we never can come near:

and I now see more clearly what it was that produced such an effect upon me. It was that beauty, that wide-spreading, cheering, heart-strengthening beauty--which God hath showered on the face of the earth, to make us feel his presence in his works; and to learn to love him as we go along the most solitary paths, and to rejoice in his goodness, where the world comes not between us and the perception of it. It was that beauty, which is indeed a revelation from heaven, that then made itself felt in my young heart, and has only grown more dear to me every year and every day, and I trust has not been wanting of all that good effect which it is intended it should produce, by weaning us from worldly pleasures, by bringing us to feel habitually the presence of love, and providence, and divine purity, as we go along in solitude and thought; in short, in keeping alive in our hearts the freshness of their feelings and the strength of their better hopes. All this I remember, and it is like the light of a perpetual summer morning in the far-off horizon of memory; and I say, all these delicious feelings have gone with me through life, and do, and will, go with all those who love nature with a filial love.

The first glimpses of spring have in our eyes and hearts an indescribable charm. There is a freshness and a mellowness in the earth then, after the frosts and rains of winter, that give a beauty to it that it possesses at no other period of the year. I never see it, and smell the odour of the upturned soil, without seeming to feel renewed our ancient kinship with the earth whence we sprung, which gives us such manifold blessings all our natural lives, and takes us to its peaceful bosom when we lie down wearied, wasted, and heart-worn. When the labourer cuts his ditches, and piles up his banks anew, there is a beauty in the dark, clear, smooth earth, which his spade cleaves so shiningly. As the children of the village hunt over the steep banks for violets or snail-shells, or the early robin’s nest, your eye is made conscious of the beauty of those banks, with their crumbling mould and springing plants. As the drainer cuts his drain in the greensward of the meadows; as the ploughman turns up the broad lea, all is rich and beautiful. And then, as the hedges and trees clothe themselves in their new and delicate foliage; as the winds come singing sonorously; as the grass and flowers spring beneath your feet; as April now smiles out joyously and bright, and now broods still and beneficent, with a gloom in its sky so unlike the gloom of autumn or winter--a gloom casting a dark shade on the distant landscape, while, in other quarters, the light comes bursting and gushing through the thinner places of the clouds; and fields lie hushed amid light mists, and scattered with a silvery dew in such a living, prolific greenness, that you feel that the birth of millions of flowers is rapidly maturing; that violets must be springing in legions along the hedges and in the copses; and that the old, yellow English daffodil is nodding in tufts in village crofts, and over the margins of mossy wells.

At such times, so deeply do we feel the entrancing influence of spring, that we cannot help breaking out into an affectionate apostrophe in praise of her:

All sadness from my heart is gone-- All sadness, and all fears, Till I forget that thou art one Who metest out our years.

And then, when May comes in, and we walk abroad some fine, sunshiny, breezy, yet balmy day,--balmy in hollows and dells, and along southern uplands; fresh blowing on the ridges of the downs--breezy in the forest glades; and hear the ringing notes of the blackbird and thrush, and the lark calling to high heaven itself in uncontrolable joy; and see peasants out in fields and gardens, women, from the lady of the hall to the dame of the cottage, drawn out to be genial lookers-on, and directors in the renewal of flower-borders, in the sowing of seeds and planting of shrubs; and see old men sitting on stone or wooden benches on the warm side of the house, or leading some little child by the hand down the lane,--two links come strangely together, from the extremities of the chain of human life; one not having yet arrived at the troubles of humanity, the other past them; yet what a wide, dark care-land lying between them!--to see groups of children scattered here and there over the happy fields, tracing the hedge-sides, or the clear streams, or running to secure the first cowslips, while their clear voices come ringing from the distant steeps and hill-tops, why--there is happiness to the nature-loving and man-loving spirit, that is as far beyond the power of human expression, as God’s goodness is beyond mortal comprehension.

There is a season of early spring marked by a succession of flowers that has something in it to me more tenderly poetical than any other part of the year. It is that between the appearance of the snowdrop and the cowslip, with all the intermediate links of the crocus, the violet, the primrose, the anemone, and the bluebell. They have, in themselves, such delicate grace, and are surrounded in our minds by so many poetical associations, and they mark the fleet passing of a period of so much anticipation, that they are seen with a delight at their re-appearance, and a regret that they must so soon be gone by. Then, too, they have the world almost all to themselves. They are the few beloved children of the early time. All their more gorgeous and joyous kindred are still slumbering in the earth. They come forth and salute us amid the naked landscape, amid wild, chill winds and beating rain. When the cowslip disappears it is no longer so; all is greenness and sunshine; a thousand blossoms hang on the forest bough, or flutter on the earth; and the delicacy of our perceptions is lost in the profusion of beauty.

But then, in that calmer season, when May has put on all its wealth and splendour; when the fields are deep with grass, and golden and purple with flowers; when the hawthorn is a miracle of beauty and sweetness, perfuming the whole air, what paradises of delight are gardens--warm, flowery, odorous--happy with the hum of bees: and old orchards, where you may witness what Coleridge so feelingly describes in a noble blank-verse letter to his brother:--

As now, on some delicious eve, We in our sweet sequestered orchard plot Sit on the tree crooked earthward; whose old boughs, That hang above us in an arborous roof, Stirred by the faint gale of departing May, Send their loose blossoms slanting o’er our heads!

And thus it is through every season. In June and July, the glow and perpetual beauty of the country; the abundance of grass and flowers; the charm of river sides, of angling in woodland streams; the magnificence of thunder-storms; the breaking out of coolness and freshness after them; the delights of running waters; bathing and sailing; the fragrance of fields and gardens; the beauty of summer moonlight; the picturesque cheerfulness of hay-harvest; the enjoyment of rich mountain scenery; rambling amongst the brightness of morning dews, along valleys, past the outstretched feet of heathy hills; lying on some moorland slope conscious of all the singular hush and glow of noon; watching all the varying lights and hues, listening to the varied sounds of evening in glens, now basking in the yellow calm sunshine, now deep in gloom; amid towering crags, by the dash of waters, or on some airy ridge that catches the last glow of heaven, taking in a vast stretch of scenes that defy alike the power of pen and pencil.

Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wild landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; a living thing Which acts upon the mind, and with such hues As clothe the Almighty Spirit when he makes Spirits perceive his presence.

Coleridge.

And then the corn-harvest, with all its happy human groups, and rich colours; the calm, steady splendour of autumn days; the deepening silence of the decaying year, its returning storms and pictorial tints; the very gloom and awfulness with which the year retreats, sending the spirit inwards. In all these scenes and changes, the soul of the lover of Nature luxuriates; and even finds beauty and strength in the stern visitations of winter. He goes with Nature in all her rounds, and rejoices with her in all. There needs for him no great event, no combination of stirring circumstances; it is not even necessary to him that he be poet, or painter, or sportsman; if he have not the skill or faculty of any, he has the spirit of all. For him there are spread out in earth and heaven, pictures such as never graced the galleries of art. He sees splendours, and scenes painted by the hand of the Almighty, for whose faintest imitations the connoisseur would pay the price of an estate. To him every landscape presents beauty; to him every gale breathes pleasure; and every change of scene or season is a new unfolding of enjoyment. He knows nothing of the heart-burnings and jealousies which infest crowded places. He is not saddened by the sight of wickedness, or the experience of ingratitude and deceit. He is exempt from the ennui of polished society; the sneers of its unkindly criticism; and the hollowness of its professions. He converses with the Great Spirit which lives through the universe, and fills the hearts that open to its influence with purity, humanity, the sweetest sympathies, the most holy desires; and overshadows them with that profound peace and that inward satisfaction, which are themselves the most substantial happiness.

That these are no vain imaginations, but positive realities, scattered abroad for universal acceptance as much as the blessings of air and sunshine, we have only to open the works of our best writers to be convinced of;--to see how the expression of their happiness breaks from them continually. It is this overflowing and irrepressible gladness of a heart resting on nature which gives such a charm to the writings of White and Evelyn, and good old Izaak Walton. And the poets--they are full of it. Listen to them, and then consider the nobility of their views, and the lofty purity of their souls, and then admit the power and depth of that influence which lives in Nature and speaks in Christianity.

So shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language which thy God Utters; who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,-- Whether the summer clothe the genial earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the turfs of snow in the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall, Heard only in the traces of the blast; Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

Coleridge.

And for the cordial, substantial, heart-filling contentment which is gathered from the quietness of rural life, hear what Sir Henry Wotton, a most accomplished man, who had seen much of court life, both at home and abroad, says,

Would the world now adopt me for her heir; Would beauty’s queen entitle me the fair; Fame speak me Fortune’s minion; could I vie Angels[31] with India; with a speaking eye, Command bare heads, bowed knees; strike justice dumb. As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs; be called “great master” In the loose rhymes of every poetaster-- Could I be more than any man that lives, Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, Than ever fortune would have made them mine; And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.

Welcome pure thoughts! welcome ye silent groves! These guests, these courts my soul most dearly loves. Now the winged people of the sky shall sing My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring; A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass, In which I will adore sweet virtue’s face. Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, No broken vows dwell here, no pale-faced fears; Then here I’ll sit, and sigh my hot love’s folly, And learn to affect a holy melancholy: And if contentment be a stranger then, I’ll ne’er look for it but in heaven again.

[31] Piece of money value ten shillings.

Such are the pleasures that lie in the path of the lover of the country; pleasures like the blessings of the Gospel, to be had without money, and without price. There are many, no doubt, who will deem them dull and insignificant; but the peace which they bring “passeth understanding,” and we can make a triumphant appeal from the frivolous and the dissipated, to the wise and noble of every country and age.

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XVI. LINGERING CUSTOMS

Many precious rites And customs of our rural ancestry Are gone, or stealing from us.

Wordsworth.

How rapidly is the fashion of the ancient rural life of England disappearing! Every one who lived in the country in his youth, and looks back to that period now, feels how much is lost! How many of the beautiful old customs, the hearty old customs, the poetical old customs, are gone! Modern ambition, modern wealth, modern notions of social proprieties, modern education, are all hewing at the root of the poetical and picturesque, the simple and cordial in rural life; and what are they substituting in their stead? We will endeavour, anon, to shew what they are doing, and what they are leaving undone; just now let us try to seize on the fluttering apparition of primitive custom, and bid it a hearty good-bye, before it is gone for ever. I have, in another place, shewn how all the more fanciful and refined of our village festal habits have vanished. The May-day dances, and gathering of May-branches--the scattering of flowers on holiday occasions in village streets, and about our houses. Even the planting of flowers about the graves in our village churchyards, once so common in England, is now rarely to be seen. Camden in his Britannia, and John Evelyn mention that it was the custom of their times in Surrey, but who in Surrey sees anything of the kind now?[32] You may meet with a solitary shrub, or with graves bound down with withes and briars; but nothing of that general planting of flowering shrubs which you see in Wales. It is the fate of champaign countries, to have their rustic customs sooner obliterated than those of mountain regions. The Scotch still retain their penny-weddings and Halloweens, the Welsh their singular wedding customs, and funeral customs as singular; but how wonderfully have the simple customs on these occasions of our English hamlets dwindled in our days! Washington Irving, in an interesting paper in the Sketch-Book, speaks of a practice in some villages of hanging up in the churches at the funeral of a maiden, gloves and garlands cut in paper. In what church is that done now-a-days? And yet, though I never saw a funeral in which so beautiful and appropriate a practice was retained, I well recollect seeing those gloves and garlands hanging in the church of my native village in Derbyshire; and I have heard my mother say, that in her younger days she has helped to cut and prepare them for the funeral of young women of the place. The garlands were originally of actual flowers--lilies and roses--and the gloves of white kid. For these had become substituted simple white paper. There was a garland then, of imitative roses and lilies wreathed round a bow of peeled willow--a pair of gloves cut in paper, and a white handkerchief of the same material on which was written some texts of Scripture, or some stanzas of poetry applicable to the occasion, and to the hope of immortality in the deceased; and these were not unfrequently chosen for the purpose by the dying maiden herself. These emblems of purity and evanescent youth were laid on the coffin during the funeral procession, as the sword and cap of the soldier on his, and were then suspended in the body of the church; and there hung, till they fell through time, or till all who had an interest in the deceased were dead or departed. In all the village churches into which I have been in various parts of the kingdom, I do not recollect seeing any of those maiden trophies, except in this one; and they, on the coming of a new incumbent, were removed in a general church-cleaning many years ago.

[32] In John Evelyn’s own churchyard at Wootten, there is now not the least trace of this beautiful custom.

And yet, where is it that our old customs, and the impress of past times and generations, linger so strongly as about our village churches in England! Entering one of them in some retired district on a Sunday, you seem to step back into a past age. The quaint old place--its rude and ancient pillars and arches--its oaken pews and pulpit, grown almost black with years; the massy font, the grim, grotesque human heads for corbels, every one differing from the other, where the mason seems to have indulged his humorous fancy without regard to the sacred character of the house in which they were to figure--the contrasting, though often faded splendour of the squire’s pew; the heavy tombs, with procumbent effigies of knight and dame--the mural tablets to the memory of departed rectors; the hatchment in sign of some once important personage gone to his long home--and the half-worn stones on which you tread,

Where many a holy text around is strewn, To teach the rustic moralist to die.

And then, the simple congregation! All in their best attire, in cut and texture guiltless of modern fashion: the clergyman, who with the air of a gentleman, has probably caught somewhat of the Doric air of the region; and the old clerk with his long coat, and long hair combed over his shoulders, doling out his responses with a peculiar twang, to which an ancient parish clerk can only attain. Then the little music-loft, with its musicians, consisting of a bass-viol, a bassoon, and hautboy, and the whole congregation singing with all their heart and soul. These are remnants of antiquity that are nowhere else to be found. There is a paper in Blackwood’s Magazine for April 1838, called “Church Music and other Parochials,” which gives you a picture of things which everybody who has gone to a thoroughly old-fashioned country church has seen over and over. The old clerk, the writer says, always reads Cheberims and Sepherims, and most unequivocally--“I am a Lion to my mother’s children,” and truly he sometimes looks not unlike one: and when told by the clergyman that he must take him to task to teach him to read and give the responses differently, he replies--“Why, sir, if I must read just like you there wouldn’t be a bit of difference between us.”

Such is the peculiar elocution of the true old parish clerk, that even a dog is sensible of it. I wandered into a rustic church where I accidentally saw the congregation collecting, having at my heels a little favourite spaniel. The church stood in the middle of a field at some distance from the hamlet, and I did not see where to secure the dog during the service; I therefore trusted to his general good behaviour, and made him lie down under the seat. Here he slept very quietly for some time; but at the very first sound of the clerk’s voice, which was of the genuine traditional tone, up he jumped and began to bark most vociferously. I kicked him with my heel; menaced him with look and hand; set my foot on him; held his mouth--but all was in vain. While the clergyman, who, I must confess, shewed great forbearance, perceiving that I was a stranger, and who moreover betrayed by a suppressed smile that he also perceived the true cause of the dog’s irritation, was reading the lessons, the dog was perfectly still; again the clerk said, “amen,” and again up started Fido and barked as loud as ever. The case was hopeless--nothing remained but to retire.

In some of these rustic temples you sometimes see things that would electrify a city audience with surprise. I once saw a venerable clergyman on the edge of Yorkshire perpetrate a pun in the midst of the service with all gravity. As he was reading the morning lessons, a fellow who had probably been a little elated over-night, or not _im_probably the same morning, suddenly cried out--“Arise and shine!”--The rector paused and said, “Who was that?” “It was Joseph Twigg, sir,” responded some one. “Then twig him out!” rejoined the rector, as glibly and yet as gravely as possible. A smile, and indeed a general display of open mouths and grinning teeth appeared in his congregation--but Joseph Twigg was twigged out, and the rector went on.

Around these old buildings cling all the ancient superstitions. They are as much haunted as ever. They are as prolific of stories of ghosts and apparitions as ever. There are yet young people who go and watch in those old porches on St. Mark’s-eve to see whom they shall marry, and will sow hempseed backward at midnight round the whole church for the same purpose. In many parts of the country none will be buried on the north side of the church; and accordingly that side of the churchyard is commonly one unbroken level of greensward, although all the rest be crowded to excess with graves. The north side of the church, by immemorial custom, is the allotted portion of the suicide and the outcast. Accordingly, in many churchyards, that part is purposely very small. It is in many so little visited, that it is a wilderness, grown in summer breast-high with mallows, nettles, chervil, elder bushes,

Hemlocks and darnels dank.

The writer of the article in Blackwood’s Magazine just mentioned, says, “I have often tried to make out the exact ideas the poor people have of angels--for they talk a great deal about them. The best that I can make of it is, that they are children, or children’s heads and shoulders winged, as represented in church paintings, and in plaster-of-Paris on ceilings. We have a goodly row of them all the length of one ceiling, and it cost the parish, or rather the then minister, I believe, who indulged them, no trifle to have the eyes blacked, and nostrils, and a touch of light red in the cheeks. It is notorious and scriptural, they think, that the body dies, but nothing being said about the head and shoulders, they have a sort of belief that they are preserved to angels--which are no other than dead young children.” There is no doubt that nearly all the idea which many country people possess of cherubims and angels is derived from these plaster heads, or from those cherubims with full-blown cheeks and gilded wings, and those gilded angels with long trumpets depicted on gravestones. Ministers preach about angels and spirits as things which everybody comprehends, but which they have no actual conception of, only as they see them represented by the chisels and gold-leaf of country masons; and the story of the country fellow who had shot an owl, and was thus accosted by his wife--“Don’t thee know what thee hast done? Why, thee hast killed one of ar parson’s cherabums!” is not so outré as it might appear to many.

But we must leave these superstitions to the winter fireside of the hamlet. More of the old customs connected with funerals than with any other events, remain in primitive districts. In Derbyshire, when the body is laid out, the nurse who attended the deceased, and has performed this last office, goes round to “bid to the berrin” (funeral). The names of the parties to be invited are given to her, and away she trudges from house to house, over hill and dale, sometimes to a considerable distance. She delivers her message, and names the day and hour. Refreshments are forthwith set before her. However she may protest that she wants nothing--can eat nothing--out come, at least, the sweet loaf, and currant or ginger wine. The family gathers round as she sits, to hear all particulars of the illness; how it came on; what doctor was employed; all the progress of the complaint; which leads probably to whole histories of similar illnesses which they have known,--all the sayings of the deceased; the end he made, which is generally described by saying, “he died like a lamb!”--“What sort of a corpse is it?” which generally is answered by the information, that “he looks just like himself for all the world--with a most heavenly smile on his countenance.” All these matters are drunk in with great interest, and with many solemn wishes that they may all make as comfortable an end. Some trifle, sixpence or thereabout, is given to the nurse, and on she trudges to the next place. There is no doubt but that the death of an individual in one of these rustic places is felt ten times as much by his acquaintance as that of a citizen by his. The bustle of persons and events in city life so break down the force of the event, and so much sooner elbow it out of mind. In the country, the moment a passing bell is heard to toll, you see every individual all attention; every one cries “hush.” They stand in the attitude of profound listeners. The bell, by some signals which they all understand, proclaims to them the sex, and married or single state of the deceased, and then counts out his or her age.[33] Having ascertained these particulars, they begin to speculate, for they already know everybody that is ill in the parish, and thus generally discover pretty certainly before any other intelligence reaches them, whose bell it is. That bell is sufficient text for the discourse of the day. They run over all the biography of the individual, and bring up many an anecdote of him and his cotemporaries, which had long slept in their minds. When those invited to the funeral arrive, a substantial meal is often given, followed by wine and cake: and besides the customary distribution of scarfs, hatbands and gloves, a packet of sponge-cake made on purpose, of a prescriptive size and shape, and called “berrin-cake,” is delivered to every one before the setting out of the funeral, to take home with him, wrapped in fine writing paper, and sealed with black wax. Nothing can be more solemn than the behaviour of all the spectators as the train passes along the road, all passengers stopping till the funeral is gone by; all taking off their hats, and watching its onward course in silence. In some places the old custom of chanting a psalm as they proceed towards the churchyard is still kept up, and nothing can be more impressive than the effect of that chant, as it comes mingled with the solemn tolling of the bell over some neighbouring hill, or along a quiet valley, of a summer’s evening. When the train reaches the churchyard-gate, it halts, and if the clergyman be not ready to receive it, the coffin is sometimes set down upon trestles or chairs, and the company waits till the clergyman appears. It seems to be looked upon as an established mark of respect for the clergyman to meet the funeral at the gate, and it is beautiful to see the serious and unhurried manner in which the country clergyman of the more pure and primitive districts goes forth to receive the dead to its resting-place, repeating aloud as he precedes the funeral to the church, a portion of the service for the occasion.

[33] The fourme of the Trinity was founden in manne, that was Adam our forefadir, of earth oon personne, and Eve, of Adam, the secunde persone; and of them both was the third persone. At the deth of a manne three bellis shulde be ronge, as his knyll, in worscheppe of the Trinetie; and for a womanne, who was the secunde persone of the Trinetee, two bellis should be rungen.--Ancient Homily.

The funeral of the young in the country has something particularly striking in it--the coffin being borne by six of the deceased’s own age. That of a young girl is more particularly so--the coffin being covered with a white pall, the six bearers being dressed in white with white hoods, the chief mourners in black with black hoods.

Nothing can, in fact, be more widely different in feeling and effect than town and country funerals. In town a strange corpse passes along, amid thousands of strangers, and human nature seems shorn of that interest which it ought, especially in its last stage, to possess. In the country, every man, woman, and child goes down to the dust amid those who have known them from their youth, and all miss them from their place. Nature seems, in its silence to sympathise with the mourners. The green mound of the rural churchyard opens to receive the slumberer to a peaceful resting-place, and the yews or lindens which he climbed when a boy in pursuit of bird’s-nest, moth, or cockchaffer, overshadow, as it were, with a kindred feeling his grave.

The custom of strewing flowers before the houses at weddings, and on other occasions of rejoicing, is now nearly gone out, but at Knutsford in Cheshire, and probably at some few other places, they have a practice which seems to have sprung out of it. On all joyful occasions they sprinkle the ground before the houses of all those who are supposed to sympathise in the gladness, with red sand, and then taking a funnel, filled with white sand, sprinkle a pattern of flowers on the red ground. At weddings this is generally accompanied with a stanza or two of traditionary verse. As

Long may they live, Happy may they be, Blest with content, And from misfortune free. Long may they live, Happy may they be; And blest with a numerous Pro-ge-ny.

In the north of England a curious practice prevails the first time a young child is sent out with the nurse. At every house of the parents’ friends, where the nurse calls, it receives an egg and some salt; and in Northumberland it is so general, that they carry a basket for the purpose. The child of a friend of ours received from an old lady from the north, an egg, a penny loaf, and a bunch of matches. The meaning of which let the wise interpret as they can.

Such customs linger northward more tenaciously than in the south, and are even too numerous for record here. In various northern counties, particularly Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, they keep up the ancient practice of rush-bearing; but instead of carrying rushes to strew the church floor, as their ancestors did, who had no other floor to the church, they now chiefly retain the gay garland of flowers carried by young women, and accompanied by the rustic minstrels. In Lancashire and Cheshire they still eat Simnel cake on Mid-lent Sunday, that is, a particular saffron cake, called after Lambert Simnel, who was a baker, and is supposed to have been famous for it. They ride stang,[34] that is, set a scolding wife on a lean old horse, with the face to the tail, and parade her through the village with a tremendous clamour of frying pans, and other noise. They hang bushes at each others’ doors on May morning which are expressive of each others’ characters. A sort of language des arbres established by antiquity, expressing either compliment or sincere criticism, as it may be. A branch of birch signifies a pretty girl; of alder or owler, as they call it, a scold; of oak, a good woman; of broom, a good housewife: but gorse, nettles, sawdust, or sycamore, cast the very worst imputations on a woman’s character, and vary according as she be girl, wife or widow. These are, it is said, not seldom used by the malicious to blast the character of the innocent. The girls wear little bags of dragon’s-blood upon their hearts to inspire their swains with love. They curtsey to the new moon and turn the money in their pockets, which ought to be doubled before the moon is old. They shut their eyes when they see a pie-ball horse, and wish a secret wish, taking care never to see the same horse again, or it would spoil the charm. With them the dog-rose is unlucky; if you give one, you will quarrel with the person, however dear to you; if you form a design near one it will come to nought. A shooting star is falling love in their eyes; and in their opinion the foxglove is not like other flowers, it has knowledge; it knows when a spirit passes, and always bows the head. They have, therefore, a secret awe of it. They are careful to have money in their pockets when they hear the first note of the cuckoo, for they will be rich or poor through the year accordingly. They believe also that whatever they chance to be doing when they first hear the cuckoo, they will do all the year. They have the firmest faith that no person can die on a bed in which are the feathers of pigeons or any wild birds. Such are some of the simple chains with which ancient superstition bound the minds of our ancestors, and which education has not yet quite worn asunder.

[34] A stang means a pole, and probably the old custom was to use a pole instead of a horse.

There is, however, one good custom which the present age has rapidly obliterated--that of leaving open the country churchyard. In towns, there is perhaps less attraction to a churchyard in the mass of strange corpses which are there congregated, and the wilderness of bare flags which cover them; and there may be more cause for the vigilant prevention of the violation of the sanctity and decorum of the spot. But why must the country churchyard be shut up? Why should that generally picturesque and quiet place be prohibited to the stranger or the mourner? Some of the churchyards in these kingdoms are amongst the most romantic and lovely spots within them. What ancient, quiet, delicious spots have I seen of this kind amongst our mountains, and upon our coasts! What prospects, landward and seaward, do some of them give! How sweetly lies the rustic parsonage often along their side; its shrubbery lawn scarcely separated from the sacred ground. Why should these be closed? “There have been depredations,” say the authorities. Then let the beadle see to it; let the offenders be punished; let the parish school and the minister teach better manners; but let these haunts of the sad or the meditative, be open to our feet as they were to those of our fathers. I must confess that I strongly sympathise with my brother, Richard Howitt, in the feelings expressed in Tait’s Magazine for June 1836. “The yew trees, which adorned, with a solemn gracefulness, the churchyard of my native place, are cut down; the footpaths across it are closed; the walls are raised; for stiles, there are gates locked, and topped with iron spikes. A wider barrier than death is interposed betwixt the living and the dead. I must confess that I like it not. Why should man destroy the sanctities of time and nature? Beautiful is the picture drawn by Crabbe:--

Yes! there are real mourners. I have seen A fair, sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene; Attention through the day her duties claimed, And to be useful as resigned she aimed. Neatly she dressed, nor vainly seemed to expect Pity for grief, or pardon for neglect; But when her wearied parents sank to sleep, She sought her place to meditate and weep.

* * * * * *

She placed a decent stone his grave above, Neatly engraved--an offering of her love: For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed, Awake alike to duty and the dead.

* * * * * *

Here will she come, and on the grave will sit, Folding her arms in long abstracted fit; But if observer pass will take her round, And careless seem, for she would not be found.

“Where is now the free and uninterrupted admission for such mourners? Grief is a retiring creature, who ‘would not be found,’ and will not knock at the door of the constituted authorities for the keys: she will look lingeringly at the impassable barriers and retire. Easy of access were churchyards until lately, with their pleasant footpaths, lying, with the tranquillity of moonlight, in the bosom of towns and villages; old, simple, and venerable,--trodden, it may be, too frequently by unthinking feet--but able at all times to impress a feeling of sacredness--fraught as they were with the solemnities of life and death--on bosoms not over religious; and now, to a fanciful view, they seem more the prisons than the resting-places of the dead.”

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XVII. EDUCATION OF THE RURAL POPULATION

We have said that we will look at what education and other causes are doing, and what they are leaving undone in the change of character which they are effecting in the rural population. It appears by the Reports of the Poor-Law and Charity Commissioners that education progresses more in the northern and manufacturing districts than in the southern and agricultural ones. This is, no doubt, very much the case; and what education is leaving undone in these districts is, that it acts too timidly, too much in the spirit of worldly wisdom. It is afraid of making the people too intellectual; of raising their tastes, lest it should spoil them as Gibeonites, hewers of wood and drawers of water. My own experience is, that this is a grand mistake; that you cannot give them too pure and lofty a standard of taste; and that especially, our best and noblest poets, as Milton, Shakspeare, Wordsworth, Cowper, Southey, Campbell, Burns, Bloomfield, etc. should be put into their hands, and particularly into those of the agricultural population. What can be so rational as to imbue the minds of those who are to spend their lives in the fields with all those associations which render the country doubly delightful? It is amazing what avidity they evince for such writers when they are once made familiar with them; and whoever has his mind well stored with the pure and noble sentiments of such writers will never condescend to debase his nature by theft, idleness, and low habits. The great alarm has always been that of lifting the poor by such knowledge above their occupations, and filling their heads with airy notions. I can only point again to the agricultural population of Scotland, where such knowledge abounds. If the labourers have not the genius of Burns, many of them have a great portion of the manly and happy feeling with which

He walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough along the mountain side.

There is every reason, so far as experiment goes, to suppose that the same effect would follow in England. Where are there men so sober and industrious as those artisans who are now the steadiest frequenters of Mechanics’ Libraries? I have given, in the first chapter of the Nooks of the World, a striking instance of the effects of such reading on an agricultural labourer. Through my instigation several intelligent families have made themselves acquainted with this meritorious man, and speak with admiration of his manly and superior character. Let the experiment be repeated far and wide!

But education itself yet wants introducing to a vast extent into the agricultural districts. The commissioners give a deplorable picture of the neglect of the agricultural population in the counties bordering on the metropolis. In some parts of Essex, Sussex, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berks, etc., schools of any description are unknown; in others not more than one in fifteen of the labourers are represented as able to read. In this county, Surrey, much the same state of things exists. I have been astounded at the very few labourers that you meet with that can read; and I think I see some striking causes for this neglect of the labouring class in the peculiar state of society here--it has no middle link. A vast number of the aristocracy reside in the county from its proximity to town; and besides these, there are only the farmers and their labourers; the servants of the aristocratic establishments--a numerous and very peculiar class; and the few tradesmen who supply the great houses. The many gradations of rank and property which are found in more trading, manufacturing, and mixed districts do not here exist. It seems as if the Normans and the Saxons had here descended from age to age; two races, distinct in their habits as their condition, and with no one principle of amalgamation. The aristocracy shut themselves up in their houses and parks, and are rarely seen beyond them except in their carriages, driving rapidly to town, or to each other’s isolated abodes. They know nothing, and therefore can feel nothing for the toiling class. The effect is visible enough. The working classes grow up with the sense that they are regarded only as necessary implements of agriculture by the aristocracy--and they are churlish and uncouth. They have not the kindliness, and openness of countenance and manner that the peasantry of more socially favourable districts have. The farmers too seem little to employ them as house-servants, fed at their own table. You do not hear of those jolly harvest-suppers, which you may still find in many old-fashioned places, where master and man feast and rejoice together over the in-gathered plenty. So far as downright rusticity goes, there is as much of that within a dozen miles of London as in the farthest county of England; but the peasants seem to have lost much of the sentiment which those of more distant counties possess. They have their wakes and fairs on their extensive commons and greens, and leap in bags, and have wheelbarrow races, and races of women for certain articles of female apparel, gipsies with their lucky-bags and will-pegs; but as to anything of a poetical cast, I do not see it. What a fall from the funeral train going chanting a psalm on its way to the churchyard, to one which I saw the other day in this neighbourhood. The coffin was laid on a cart, and secured with ropes; one shaggy horse went jostling it along; another cart followed, occupied by the chief mourners, half a dozen of them huddled together, and the rest succeeded on foot, in a rude and straggling company.

In many villages I see no church at all; and where they are seen, how different to the fine old churches of most parts of England. As you cast your eyes over a wide landscape, you look in vain for those tall taper spires and massy towers which rise here and there in most English scenery; and find perhaps somewhere a solitary little erection resembling a little wooden dovecote. The piety of these parts never expended itself much in church-building. The villages themselves are often very picturesque. They are frequently scattered along extensive commons, amidst abundant woods and grey heaths; generally buried in their old orchards, and built with many pictorial angles and projections; often thatched, and consisting of old framed timber-work, or wood altogether, with gardens full of flowers, and goodly rows of beehives. Vines run luxuriantly over their very roofs, and in autumn hang with a prodigality of grapes; and as to the country itself, nothing can be more pastorally and sylvanly sweet than this county. Its grey heaths and pine woods, in one part, remind you of Scotland--its commons, in others, covered with the greenest turf and scattered with oaks, have the appearance of old forests; and wherever you go, you get glimpses into fine woodland valleys, and of old solitary halls standing far off in the midst of them; grey farm houses; old water mills; the most rustic huts; some pastoral stream like the Mole, which goes wandering about through this scenery, fringed with its flags and meadow-sweet, and with its bullrushes bending in its copious stream, as if it were loath to leave it; in short it is a region full of the spirit of the poetry of Keats,--a region lying as it might lie

-------------- Before the faëry broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods; Before King Oberon’s bright diadem, Sceptre and mantle, clasped with dewy gem, Frighted away the Driads and the Fauns From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipped lawns,-- From beechen groves, and shadows numberless.

But the people themselves seem lost in their umbrageous hamlets, and on their commons, unthought of. There is the village of Oxshott, some three miles hence.--Go through it on a Sunday, when the agricultural people are all at leisure, and there they are as thick as motes in the sun, in the middle of the village street. There appears to be no church, nor any inhabitants but farmers and labourers. Boys, girls, men and women, all seem to be out of doors, and all in their every-day garbs. The colour of tawny soiled slops and straw-hats gives, as a painter would say, the prevailing tint to the scene. The boys are busy enough playing at ball, or cricket. The men seem to pass their time sitting on banks and stiles, or gossiping and smoking in groups. Scarcely a soul will move out of the way to let you pass on. The intellectual condition of this obscure hamlet is strikingly indicated to every passer through, by a large school-house bearing on its front, cut in stone, this proud title--“THE ROYAL KENT SCHOOL, founded in 1820;”--but which has been since so far _con_founded, that its windows are broken to atoms, and it is at once recent and in ruins! This state of things should not be suffered to continue. The vast wealth of the aristocracy living hereabout, and the ignorance around them, very ill accord. Amongst the affluent families in the county, there are, no doubt, many who would be anxious to secure an education to the rural children, if they actually knew that it was needed! In the village of Esher this has recently been done: let us hope that other places will “go and do likewise.”[35]

[35] I am told by intelligent people, who have spent the greater part of their lives here, that the farmers are particularly jealous of the peasantry receiving any education,--they conceive it would spoil them as beasts of burden. This shews what is the deplorable ignorance of this class, too, of the rural population.

Since writing the above, I have met with the following statements, in Mr. Frederick Hill’s excellent work on National Education. They are in his account of Mr. William Allen’s School of Industry at Lindfield, in Sussex; and are, at once, most confirmatory of the view I have taken of the state of things in this county, and of the remedy to be applied. To benevolent and wealthy landed proprietors they are full of encouragement.

“We visited the school at Lindfield, in July 1831, and it had then been established several years. Before fixing on the spot where to build his school, Mr. Allen sent an intelligent young man on a tour through the county, to find out where a school was most wanted. After a diligent search, Lindfield was pitched upon as the centre of a district in which the peasantry were in a very low state of ignorance. Lindfield is on the road from London to Brighton; distant from London about thirty-seven miles, from Brighton fifteen.

“Not only did Mr. Allen receive no assistance in building his school, but most of the wealthy inhabitants endeavoured to thwart him; while among the peasantry themselves, the most preposterous stories were afloat respecting his designs. These poor people had been so little accustomed to see persons act from other than selfish motives, that they could not believe it possible that any one would come and erect a large building, at great cost and trouble to himself, merely from a desire of promoting their good. They felt sure that all this outlay was not without some secret object; and at last they explained all, much to their own satisfaction, by referring it to the following notable project.--The building was to be applied to the diabolical purpose of kidnapping children; a high palisade was to be thrown up all round it, and other measures taken to prevent entrance or escape. Then the school was to be opened, and every thing carried on smoothly, and with great appearance of kind and gentle treatment, until such a number of children had been collected as would satisfy the rapacious desires of the wretches who had hatched the wicked scheme; when all at once the gates were to be closed upon them, and the poor innocents shipped off to some distant land!

“Greatly indeed must a school have been wanted where such unheard-of absurdity could circulate and obtain credence. At length the building, a most substantial and commodious one, was completed, though few indeed were those who at once ventured within the dreaded bounds. However, by dint of perseverance, this number was gradually increased. The few children who did come, began in a short time to take home with them sundry pence, which they had earned in plaiting straw, making baskets, etc.; arts they were learning at school. The boys began to patch their clothes and mend their shoes, without their parents having a penny to pay for the work. Meanwhile there came no authentic accounts of ships lying in wait on the neighbouring coast, nor had even the dreaded iron palisades raised their pointed heads. Little by little, the poor ignorant creatures became assured that there was nothing to fear, but, on the contrary, much practical good to be derived from sending their children to the school; and that strange and incredible as it might seem, the London ‘gemman’ was really come among them as a friend and benefactor. A breach being thus fairly made in the mud-bank of prejudice, it was not long before the whole mass gave way. In short, the scheme proved so completely successful, that at the time we visited the school, almost every child whose parents lived within a distance of three miles, was entered as a pupil, the total number on the list being no less than 300. The children are at school eight hours each day; three being employed in manual labour, and five in the ordinary school exercises. There is a provision for a diversity of tastes in the classes of industry; indeed the most unbounded liberality is manifest in all the arrangements. Some are employed as shoemakers, others as tailors, and others again, at platting, basket-making, weaving, printing, gardening, or farming. The children work very cheerfully, and are found to like the classes of industry better than the school.

“The first employment to which the little workers are put, is platting straw. When they are au fait at this, which is generally at the end of a few months, they are promoted to some other craft; the one of highest dignity being that of printer. Before leaving school the child will become tolerably expert at three or four trades. Those who work on the farm have each the sole care of a plot of ground, measuring one-eighth part of an acre, and each is required to do his own digging, sowing, manuring, and reaping. An intelligent husbandman, however, is always on the ground, to teach those who are at fault. The plots of land were all clean and in nice order; and from the variety of produce, oats, turnips, mangel-wurzel, potatoes, and cabbages, the whole had a curious and amusing appearance, reminding one of the quilted counterpanes of former years. We found the system of matayer rent in use; each boy being allowed one half of the produce for himself, the other half being paid for the use of the land, the wear and tear of tools, etc. One lad, twelve years old, had in this way received no less a sum than twenty-three shillings and sixpence, as his share of the crop of the preceding year; and we were told that such earnings were by no means uncommon.”

Lady Noel Byron established a school on a similar plan at Ealing, which has been eminently successful. She there educates a number of boys in a manner which must render them far better qualified to fulfil those duties to which they will be called as they grow up, than has yet been done by the old defective modes of England, and especially of English villages. Besides being taught the most useful branches of English education, they work three hours each day, partly for the institution, partly for themselves, in their own gardens. Gardens of a sixteenth of an acre are let to the elder boys at threepence a month; seeds they either buy of their masters, or procure from their friends. Racks for the tools are put up and numbered, so that each boy has a place for his own, and in that he is required to keep them. The objects of this school are to educate children destined for country pursuits, in a manner to make them better workmen, and more intelligent and happy men than is at present the case. For this purpose it was conceived necessary that they should early acquire the habits of patient industry; that they should be acquainted with the value of labour, and know the connexion between it and property; that they should have intelligence, skill, and an acquaintance with the objects with which they are surrounded; that the higher sentiments, the social and moral part of their being, should obtain a full development.

So industriously have the boys laboured, and so well have they succeeded, that their gardens, with few exceptions, present before the crops are harvested, an appearance of neatness and good husbandry. They have all since, either disposed of their vegetables or taken them home to their families. But vegetables are not the only crop; around the borders of each, flowers are cultivated. It is a great matter to induce a taste for, and give a knowledge of, the manner of cultivating flowers. They are luxuries within the power of every person to command.

There is a considerable gaiety and alacrity in all this; the boys learn to sing many cheerful and merry songs. They strike up a tune as they go out in bands to works, and as they return, they do the same.

It is with the greatest satisfaction that I add, similar schools have been established by Mrs. Tuckfield in Devonshire, Mr. James Cropper in Lancashire, and that the Earl of Lovelace has now built a school on the same plan at Ockham in Surrey, where the same course of education will be given to the peasant children of the neighbourhood. The institution in fact, contains three schools, a boy’s, a girl’s, and an infant school. Suitable buildings are in progress for teaching the boys the rudiments of the most common handicraft trades, as shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry, basket-making, etc. The girls are employed at certain hours, in the dairy, the laundry, and in all kinds of household work. For this purpose able masters and mistresses are engaged, who have been prepared by an especial education and long practice for their arduous office. On our first visit to this interesting establishment, though it was far from being completed, we found about 130 children educating in it. It was delightful to see the young chopsticks of this county, where, from generation to generation, the intellect of the working class has long been suffered to lie as dead and as barren as one of their own sand-hills, clustered about the master in the school, answering questions in geography and natural history with as much quickness and obvious delight, as any children of city or of hall could possibly do; their little ruddy faces, no longer indicative only of health and stupidity, but fairly a-blaze with the workings of their minds, the pleasant thirst of knowledge, and the generous emulation of honest distinction. We walked through the house, and found the neat little girls sewing and ironing, cleaning and scouring, engaged in those very avocations which must some day give comfort to their homes. We saw the boys turn out with their spades, and soon found some of them planting forest trees in a nursery-ground, others planting their own gardens; and what delighted us, was to find on the bordering of their garden ground, a string of little flower-beds, belonging to the girls, which carried me at once away to my own school-days and school-garden at Ackworth.

I have not room here to do more than indicate the existence of this most invaluable school, in a part of the country where rural education is so much wanted. And, indeed, where throughout England are not such invaluable schools wanted? The attention of land owners everywhere ought to be called to this patriotic experiment. Let but such schools as those of the late Captain Brenton, William Allen, Lady Byron, and Lord Lovelace, be once diffused throughout the towns and villages of England, and a revolution will be effected, such as never yet was achieved in any country. An educated population; men no longer apt to grow up in the mere consciousness of their animal nature, but made acquainted with their intellectual powers, their moral qualities and social affections; women having the energies of their true character called forth, and taught to give comfort, and the attraction of intelligence to their homes,--then will England truly have “a bold peasantry, their country’s pride.” Brutishness and low debauchery must disappear. All will feel the claims which society has upon them; and all will see that, to attain a common share of the good things of life, they must possess activity, prudence, good management, and perseverance. Who can, indeed, imagine to himself what this country must become, with a population thus judiciously educated, filling its towns, its villages, its fields, and overflowing into our colonies, with the certain and splendid dower of industry and intellectual strength?

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XVIII. CONCLUDING CHAPTER

She smiles, including in her wide embrace City, and town, and tower, and sea with ships Sprinkled; be our companion while we track Her rivers populous with gliding life; While, free as air, o’er printless sands we march, Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods; Roaming, or resting under grateful shade, In peace and meditative cheerfulness.

Wordsworth.

We have now taken a comprehensive view of the rural life of England; of the mode in which “gentle and simple,” rich and poor, pass their life in the country; of the sports, the pastimes, the labours and various pursuits which fill up the round of rural existence; of the charms and advantages which there await the lovers of peace, of poetry, of natural beauty, and of pure thoughts: and I think it must be confessed that though other countries may boast a more brilliant climate, none can offer a more varied and attractive beauty; other modes of life may be more exciting, but none can be more calmly delightful, none more conducive to a healthful and manly spirit.

The more we see of our own country, the more do we love it; and it is for this reason, that in closing this volume, I cannot take leave of my readers without advising them to do as I have done,--see as much of it as they can. There is no part of it but is filled with some high historical or literary association: it is the land where brave men have contended and poets sung, and philosophers and politicians have meditated works and measures, of which the world is now reaping the honour and enjoyment; there is no part of it but has some trace of those manners and dialects which belong to the living of a thousand years ago, and therefore are most interesting motives to our tracing back the stream of time, and beholding the growth of our country’s fortunes from age to age; there is no part of it, but has its swarming cities, or its fields smiling like a garden beneath the triumphant effect of British tillage,--or its wild hills and forests, that, untouched by the plough, are left to be fruitful of free thoughts, of poetic feelings, of picturesque beauty and magnificence, of health to the hearts and spirits of our countrymen and countrywomen, necessary to generate those high thoughts and maintain those endeavours that shall yet lead noble England to the height of its destined honour.

It is glorious, indeed, to visit the countries of ancient art and renown--Greece, Italy, Egypt, or sacred Palestine--my spirit kindles at the very mention of them,--yet whether it were my privilege or not to traverse those glorious regions, I should still wish to wander over every hill, and through every busy city of my native land. To me, I repeat, there is no part of this illustrious country but opens some new feeling of affection. As I pass over her plains, I am filled with admiration of that skill and indefatigable industry which have covered them with such affluence of cattle, such exuberant grass, such depths of waving corn; as I pass by her rural halls and hamlet abodes, I find myself perpetually on classic ground, amid the homes of poets and patriots; when I enter her cities, I am struck with all their busy and swarming children, with their endless manufactures; their institutions for rebutting human evils, and raising the human character; with rich men carrying on gigantic enterprises of commerce or national improvement, and poor men associating to ascertain and defend their rights. These are all animating objects of notice; and I will tell those who may not hope to see much of foreign regions, that there is enough in merry England to fill the longest life with delight, go where they will. I would have those who are young and able, to take their knapsacks on their backs, and with a stick in their hand, they may find pleasures worth enjoying, go which way they will in these islands, though they do as many an adventurer has done, set up their staff as an indicator, and march off in the direction in which it falls.[36]

[36] Jamais je n’ai tant pensé, tant existé, tant vécu, tant été moi, si j’ose ainsi dire, que dans ceux voyages que j’ai faits seul et à pied. La marche a quelque chose qui anime et avive mes idées; je ne puis presque penser quand je reste en place; il faut que mon corps soit en branle pour y mettre mon esprit. La vue de la campagne, la succession des aspects agréables, le grand air, le grand appétit, la bonne santé que je gagne en marchant, la liberté du cabaret, l’éloignement de tout ce qui me fait sentir ma dépendance, de tout ce qui me rappelle à ma situation, tout cela dégage mon âme, me donne une plus grande audace de penser, me jette en quelque sorte dans l’immensité des êtres pour les combiner, les choisir, me les approprier sans gêne et sans crainte. Je dispose en maître de la nature entière; mon cœur, errant d’objet en objet, s’unit, s’identifie à ceux qui le flattent, s’entoure d’images charmantes, s’enivre de sentiments délicieux. Si pour les fixer je m’amuse à les décrire en moimême, quelle vigueur de pinceau, quelle fraîcheur de coloris, quelle énergie d’expression je leur donne!--Rousseau.

What a summer’s delight there lies in any one such progress. Suppose you took your route from the metropolis through the south and west. How delightful are the richly cultivated fields, the green hop-grounds, the hanging woods of Kent; how pleasant the heathy hills and scattered woodlands of Surrey; the thickly-strewn villas of the wealthy, the vine-covered cottages and village greens of the poor. Are not the flowery lanes and woody scenery of Berkshire, and the open downs of Wiltshire worth traversing? What a sweet sylvan retirement in the one; what an airy, wide-spreading amplitude of vision in the other! It were worth somewhat to read Miss Mitford’s living sketches in her own sweet neighbourhood; it were worth a great deal more to meet Miss Mitford herself, as she lives amongst her simple neighbours, who know how much she is their friend, or amongst her wealthy and educated ones, who know how much she deserves of their esteem and admiration. Would it be nothing to ramble amongst the ancient walls of Winchester, every spot of which is as thickly strown with historical recollections as it is venerable in presence? Would it be nothing to climb those downs, and see around far-spreading greenness, sinking and swelling in the softest lines of beauty; and below, vales, stretching in different directions, contrasting their rich woodiness most strikingly with the bare solitudes of the down? To see the venerable cathedral lifting its hoary head from the vale, and numbers of subject churches shewing their humbler towers and spires all along the valleys; and catch the glitter of those streams which water those valleys, as they wind to the sun. I have trodden these downs and dales in summer weather with feelings of buoyant delight, that admit of no description. There is Stonehenge, standing in the midst of Salisbury Plain, which is worth a long pilgrimage to see. To see! Yes, and to feel in all its lonely grandeur, with all its savage and mysterious antiquity upon it. It is a walk from Salisbury, that, on a spring or autumn day, with a congenial spirit, were enough to make that a life’s pleasant memory. Ascend first from that truly old English city, along whose streets and past almost every door run living streams of most beautiful water from the sweet brimful Avon--to the ramparts of Old Sarum. What a stupendous work of antiquity you stand upon; what a scene lies all around you! How beautifully rises that noble cathedral above the subject city; how finely the magnificent spire above the fabric itself! And en passant, what a feature of fair and solemn dignity is the cathedral in our English cities! As you approach them, and see afar off these noble monuments of past science towering aloft in sublime dignity, you are at once reminded that you are on classic ground; that you are about to enter a place where our ancestors worked out some portion of the national fame; and are thereby awakened from other thoughts to look about you for all that is worthy of notice. But this is but a passing tribute to the grave beauty of those glorious old piles--they deserve more; but other objects now call us on. See what green and watered valleys allure you forward. See where the downs stretch their solitary heads amid the clear and spiritual hues of the sky. And as you go on, the chime of flocks, and the discovery of sweet hamlets, and the voices of their children at play, and the tinkle of the plough-team bells, shall make you feel that the rural peace and delight of Old England are as strong in her heart as ever. For myself, the smallest peculiarity of rural fashions and habits in different parts of the country attracts my attention, and gives me a certain degree of pleasure. The sight of herds of swine grazing in the wide fields of Berkshire and Hampshire as orderly as sheep do, is what, at the first view, gives an agreeable surprise to the man from the midland and northern counties, where it is never seen. The sight of the clematis, which flings its flowery masses over hedges and copses; of myrtles, hydrangeas, fuchias, and other tender plants, blossoming in the gardens of the south: the appearance of different birds and insects, as the chough, the nightingale in greater frequency, the woodlark sending its voice from the distant uplands; the large stag-beetle, and other insects; these, and other things observed in one part of the island which are never met with in another, small matters though they be in themselves, all give a novel interest to some new spot, and some agreeable hour. Nay to me, I say, the very varying of rural costumes and implements are objects of interest. Those odd ladders in Berkshire, stretching at the feet to a width of sometimes two yards, and then tapering up rapidly; as if Berkshire peasants could not stand on such ladders as all England beside stands on. The light wagons and carts in the south, so different from the heavy ones of the midland counties; and some of them so painted and adorned in front with large roses, and other flowers; and their teams, with bells at their bridles, and frames of bells over the leader’s head, and barbaric top-knots on their heads, and scarlet fringes and tassels on their gears; and tails all bound up with ribbons, and curious platting. The wagoners, each in his straw hat and white slop, with

His carter’s-whip, that on his shoulder rests, In air high towering with a boorish pomp, The sceptre of his sway.

Horses at plough, harnessed with a simple collar of straw, and a few ropes. Oxen with their heavy wooden yokes ploughing in one part of the country as primitively as they did in the days of Alfred, ay, or of King David; and shepherds with their crooks in another, shew to those who never saw them but in books, that some of our oldest practices still remain.

The various constructions of billhooks, shovels, and wheelbarrows which prevail in different quarters of the island, contribute to the picturesque: from the clumsy rudiment of a barrow seen in Cornwall, which lies on the ground without legs, and the sides of which are cut out of two pieces of wood, rudely tapering off into handles; through all the various shapes of that little vehicle, up to its most perfect one. The shovels used by the labourers in the West of England, with handles as tall as themselves, would make the men of the midland counties stare; and again, the billhook of the midland counties, with a back edge as well as a front one, would be equally strange to the chopsticks of Surrey and Sussex. The various modes of country employment promote the same effect. The ploughman whistling after his team; the shepherds on the downs, driving their white flocks before them like a rolling cloud to evening fold or morning pasture; the dwellers on heaths and moors, paring the turf for fuel, or cutting from the peat-beds their black bricks, and piling their black pyramids on the waste. Every different district displays its peculiar employment. Durham and Northumberland exhibit their extensive and curious coal mines; Yorkshire and Lancashire their weaving and spinning; the hills of Derbyshire their lead mines; Nottingham and Leicester shires their coals again; Lincoln and Norfolk their vast corn farms; the Southern downs their shepherds; Devon and Cornwall their tin and copper mines; Gloucester and Somerset display their fields of teazles again, indicating that there our finest broad-cloths are made; Stafford and Warwick shires swarm with collieries, iron-founderies, and potteries; and so on. Each district has its peculiar pursuit and occupation pointed out by nature, and all these things give variety to the country and its inhabitants, and scatter everywhere interesting subjects of inquiry for the passer-by.

I say then, cross only the south of England, and how delightful were the route to him who has the love of nature and of his country in his heart; and no imperious cares to dispute it with them. Walk up, as I have said, from Salisbury to Stonehenge. Sit down amid that solemn circle, on one of its fallen stones:--contemplate the gigantic erection, reflect on its antiquity, and what England has passed through and become while those stones have stood there. Walk forth over that beautiful and immense plain,--see the green circles, and lines, and mounds, which ancient superstition or heroism have everywhere traced upon it, and which nature has beautified with a carpet of turf as fine and soft as velvet. Join those simple shepherds, and talk with them. Reflect, poetical as our poets have made the shepherd and his life,--what must be the monotony of that life in lowland counties--day after day, and month after month, and year after year,--never varying, except from the geniality of summer to winter; and what it must be then; how dreary its long reign of cold, and wet and snow!

When you leave them, plunge into the New Forest in Hampshire. There is a region where a summer month might be whiled away as in a fairyland. There, in the very heart of that old forest you find the spot where Rufus fell by the bolt of Tyrell, looking very much as it might look then. All around you lie forest and moorland for many a mile. The fallow and red deer in thousands herd there as of old. The squirrels gambol in the oaks above you; the swine rove in the thick fern and the deep glades of the forest as in a state of nature. The dull tinkle of the cattle bell comes through the wood; and ever and anon, as you wander forward, you catch the blue smoke of some hidden abode curling over the tree tops; and come to sylvan bowers, and little bough-overshadowed cottages, as primitive as any that the reign of the Conqueror himself could have shewn. What haunts are in these glades for poets: what streams flow through their bosky banks, to soothe at once the ear and eye enamoured of peace and beauty. What glades for endless grouping and colourings for the painter.

At Boldre you may find a spot worth seeing, for it is the parsonage once inhabited by the venerable William Gilpin, the descendant of Barnard Gilpin, the apostle of the north; the author of “Forest Scenery,”--and near it is the school, which he built and endowed for the poor from the sale of his drawings. Not very distant from this, stands the rural dwelling for many years, and till lately, the residence of one of England’s truest-hearted women, Caroline Bowles, now Mrs. Southey--and not far off you have the woods of Netley Abbey--the Isle of Wight, the Solent, and the open sea.

But still move on through the fair fields of Dorset and Somerset, to the enchanted land of Devon. If you want stern grandeur, follow its north-western coast; if peaceful beauty, look down into some one of its rich vales, green as an emerald, and pastured by its herds of red cattle; if all the summer loveliness of woods and rivers, you may ascend the Tamar or the Tavy, or many another stream; or you may stroll on through valleys that for glorious solitudes, or fair English homes, amid their woods and hills, shall leave you nothing to desire. If you want sternness you may pass into Dartmoor. There are wastes and wilds, crags of granite, views into far-off districts, and the sound of waters hurrying away over their rocky beds, enough to satisfy the largest hungering and thirsting after poetical delight. I shall never forget the feelings of delicious entrancement with which I approached the outskirts of Dartmoor. I found myself among the woods near Haytor Crags. It was an autumn evening. The sun, near its setting, threw its yellow beams amongst the trees, and lit up the ruddy tors on the opposite side of the valley into a beautiful glow. Below, the deep dark river went sounding on its way with a melancholy music, and as I wound up the steep road beneath the gnarled oaks, I ever and anon caught glimpses of the winding valley to the left, all beautiful with wild thickets and half shrouded faces of rock, and still on high those glowing ruddy tors standing in the blue air in their sublime silence. My road wound up, and up, the heather and the bilberry on either hand shewing me that cultivation had never disturbed the soil they grew in; and one sole woodlark from the far-ascending forest to the right, filled the wide solitude with his wild autumnal note. At that moment I reached an eminence, and at once saw the dark crags of Dartmoor high aloft before me, and one large solitary house in the valley beneath the woods. So fair, so silent, save for the woodlark’s note and the moaning river, so unearthly did the whole scene seem--that my imagination delighted to look upon it as an enchanted land,--and to persuade itself that that house stood as it would stand for ages, under the spell of silence, but beyond the reach of death and change.

But even there you need not rest--there lies a land of grey antiquity, of desolate beauty still before you--Cornwall. It is a land almost without a tree. That is, all its high and wild plains are destitute of them, and the bulk of its surface is of this character. Some sweet and sheltered vales it has, filled with noble wood, as that of Tresilian near Truro; but over a great portion of it extend grey heaths. It is a land where the wild furze seems never to have been rooted up, and where the huge masses of stone that lie about its hills and valleys are clad with the lichen of centuries. And yet how does this bare and barren land fasten on your imagination! It is a country that seems to have retained its ancient attachments longer than any other. The British tongue here lingered till lately--as the ruins of King Arthur’s palace still crown the stormy steep of Tintagel; and the saints that succeeded the heroic race, seem to have left their names on almost every town and village.

It were well worth a journey there merely to see the vast mines which perforate the earth, and pass under the very sea; and the swarming population that they employ. It were a beautiful sight to see the bands of young maidens, that sit beneath long sheds, crushing the ore and singing in chorus. But far more were it worth the trip to stand at the Land’s-End, on that lofty, savage, and shattered coast, with the Atlantic roaring all round you. The Hebrides themselves, wild and desolate, and subject to obscuring mists as they are, never made me feel more shipped into a dream-land than that scenery. At one moment the sun shining over the calm sea, in whose transparent depths the tawny rocks were seen far down. Right and left extend the dun cliffs and cavernous precipices, and at their feet the white billows playing gracefully to and fro over the nearly sunken rocks, as through the manes of huge sea-lions. At the next moment all wrapt in the thickest obscurity of mist; the sea only cognizable by its sound; the dun crags looming through the fog vast and awfully, and all round you on the land nothing visible, as you trace back your way, but huge grey stones that strew the whole earth. In the midst of such a scene I came to a little deserted hut, standing close by a solitary mere amongst the rocks, and the dreamy effect became most perfect. What a quick and beautiful contrast was it to this, as the very same night I pursued my way along the shore, the clear moon hanging on the distant horizon, the waves of the ocean on one hand coming up all luminous and breaking on the strand in billows of fire, and on the other hand the sloping turf sown with glowworms for some miles, thick as the stars overhead.

I speak of the delight which a solitary man may gather up for ever from such excursions; that will come before him again and again in all their beauty from his past existence, into many a crowd and many a solitary room; but how much more may be reaped by a congenial band of affectionate spirits in such a course. To them, a thousand different incidents or odd adventures, flashes of wit and moments of enjoyment, combine to quicken both their pleasures and friendship. The very flight from a shower, or the dining on a turnip-pie, no very uncommon dish in the rural inns of Cornwall, may furnish merriment for the future. And if this one route would be a delicious summer’s ramble, with all its coasting and its sea-ports into the bargain, how many such stretch themselves in every direction through England. The fair orchard-scenes of Hereford and Worcester, in spring all one region of bloom and fragrance,--the hills of Malvern and the Wrekin. The fairy dales of Derbyshire; the sweet forest and pastoral scenes of Staffordshire; the wild dales, the scars and tarns of Yorkshire; the equally beautiful valleys and hills of Lancashire, with all those quaint old halls that are scattered through it, memorials of past times, and all connected with some incident or other of English history. And then there is Northumberland--the classic ground of the ancient ballad--the country of the Percy--of Chevy Chace--of the Hermit of Warkworth--of Otterburn and Humbledown--of Flodden, and many another stirring scene. And besides all these are the mountain regions of Cumberland, of Wales, of Scotland, and Ireland, that by the power of steam are being brought every day more within the reach of thousands. What an inexhaustible wealth of beauty lies in those regions! These, if every other portion of the kingdom were reduced by ploughing and manufacturing and steaming to the veriest common-place, these, in the immortal strength of their nature, bid defiance to the efforts of any antagonist, or reducing spirit. These will still remain wild and fair, the refuge and haunt of the painter and the poet--of all lovers of beauty, and breathers after quiet and freshness. Nothing can pull down their lofty and scathed heads; nothing can dry up those everlasting waters, that leap down their cliffs, and run along their vales in gladness; nothing can certainly exterminate those dark heaths, and drain off those mountain lakes, where health and liberty seem to dwell together; nothing can efface the loveliness of those regions, save the hand of Him who placed them there. I rejoice to think that while this great nation remains, whatever may be the magnitude of the designs for the good of the world in which Providence purposes to employ it,--however populous it may be necessary for it to become,--whatever the machinery and manufactories that may be needfully at work in it; that while Cumberland, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland continue, there will continue regions of indestructible beauty--of free and unpruned nature, so fair that those who are not satisfied therewith, would not be satisfied with the whole universe. More sublimity other countries may boast, more beauty has fallen to the lot of none on God’s globe. And what a satisfaction it is, to see that our poetry of late years has awakened the public mind to a full sense of our natural advantages. It may be said that many traverse the continent who never see their own country, but it cannot be said that the beauty of our own fair islands is overlooked. On the contrary, every one who travels through them himself, sees how increasing are the numbers who do the same. To many a point of beauty and historic interest I have been, from the very Land’s-End to John O’Groat’s; and I do not know one spot of any claims to attention, which I did not find numerously visited from the earliest spring to late in the year. I once was at Loch Katrine early in April, and there were arrivals of several carriages a day. I was at the Land’s-End late in October, and as I reached the Logan Rock, a very interesting party of young people were just coming away from it. As I have said, I walked up to Stonehenge from Salisbury in order to enjoy it in all its solitude. This was late in the autumn; yet I found a large party there, and the shepherds assured me that every day, and all day long, it would continue so till severe weather set in. When Dr. Johnson went as far as the Hebrides, it was reckoned a rare thing. In the summer of 1836, I visited Staffa and Iona in company with seventy persons; and all summer long, three or four times a-week, do those places see scarcely less than a hundred English people land upon them.

Who indeed does not know how every pleasant place on our coasts, how the Peak of Derbyshire, how all Wales, the Highlands of Scotland and many parts of Ireland are annually thronged with people, who break away from towns and trade to refresh their spirits with the invigorating spirit of the mountains, and with the sights and sounds of ocean? Nay, such is the pressure of the tourist current, that whatever place steam-vessels reach in the mountain districts--it is one of the most ludicrous scenes imaginable to see a packet come to the pier, and its whole swarm of passengers leap ashore and proceed at full gallop to storm the inns for beds and accommodation. I have myself, as I believe I have before stated, been forced in the throng up to the very attics of one of these inns by the rush of people, who filled the whole staircase, and indeed house, calling out for beds, while the poor landlady was wringing her hands in despair of reducing the clamorous chorus into some sort of order.

Ludicrous as this recital however is, the spirit which occasions it is an excellent one. It is full of health and good moral feeling. It is one which, if it goes on, hand in hand with our machinery and our literature, must produce the happiest effects. I trust that this volume will add its quota to that love of the country which I would desire to see possessing a corner of every human being’s heart. While that is there, I am sure there must be an undecayed portion of the original heart of humanity,--a remnant, at least, of that tone of spirit which makes heaven desirable, and which is capable of enjoying it. He that loves the country as God has made it, in all its varying beauty and immortal freshness, must love God and man too; and while he seeks in mountain solitudes and on sea shores, relief from the weariness of too long jostling in the crowd, will find with delight how this very solitude will quicken his appetite for human society, and his perception of the comforts and home-pleasures of towns. I declare, that when I have been for weeks roaming amongst forests and mountain wastes, I feel, on coming into a city, a sense of its life, activity, and social condition which was before become comparatively dim. As I have entered one in the early morning, and have seen the neat young housemaids rubbing the knockers and cleaning down the steps of their masters’ doors, and have caught glimpses, as I passed along, of well oil-clothed passages, and well carpeted rooms, and fires already burning cheerfully,--I have felt a sense of the comforts and pleasantness of English homes that I have rarely felt besides. Or at evening, as we pass where blinds are yet undrawn, and where fires are seen warmly illumining fair rooms, and happy faces are congregated around them, who has not felt the same thing?

But we must now close this volume; and how can that be more fitly done than by ending as we began, and acknowledging with a rejoicing thankfulness, “that the lines have indeed fallen to us in pleasant places,” in a land which it would be difficult to pronounce more blessed in its literature, its religious spirit, or in the splendid dowry of its natural beauty.

London; Printed by Manning and Mason, Ivy Lane.

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

VISITS TO REMARKABLE PLACES; ~Old halls, Battle-fields,~ AND SCENES ILLUSTRATIVE OF STRIKING PASSAGES IN ENGLISH HISTORY AND POETRY.

With Forty Illustrations by S. WILLIAMS, price One Guinea.

CONTENTS.

I.--Visit to Penshurst in Kent; the Ancient Seat of the Sidneys. II.--Visit to the Field of Culloden. III.--Visit to Stratford-on-Avon; and the Haunts of Shakspeare--Charlecote Hall--Clopton Hall, etc. IV.--Visit to Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, as connected with Elizabeth of Bohemia, and the Gunpowder Plot. V.--Visit to Lindisfarne, Flodden Field, and the Scenery of Marmion. VI.--Visit to Bolton Priory, and Scenes of the White Doe of Rylston. VII.--Visit to Hampton Court. VIII.--Visits to Compton-Winyates, Warwickshire, a solitary old Seat of the Marquis of Northampton. IX.--A Day-Dream at Tintagel. X.--Visit to Staffa and Iona. XI.-Visit to Edge-Hill. XII.--Visit to the Great Jesuits’ College at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. XIII.--Visit to the Ancient City of Winchester. XIV.--Visit to Wotton Hall, Staffordshire--Alfieri and Rousseau in England--Traditions of Rousseau at Wotton. XV.--Sacrament Sunday Kilmorac in the Highlands.

“Written with the enthusiasm of a poet and the knowledge of an antiquary.”--Monthly Chronicle.

THE BOY’S COUNTRY BOOK; BEING THE REAL LIFE OF A COUNTRY BOY, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF; EXHIBITING ALL THE AMUSEMENTS, PLEASURES, AND PURSUITS OF CHILDREN IN THE COUNTRY.

1 vol. fcap. 8vo., with about 40 Woodcuts by S. WILLIAMS, 8s. cloth lettered.

CONTENTS.

I.--Sketch of his Life. II.--Peter Scroggins the Pony, and the Coal Pits. III.--Journey into the Peak--Peak Scenery and Mines. IV.--Village Trades, and Companions. V.--Spring and Summer Pleasures.--Birds, Gardening, etc. VI.--Summer, Autumn, and Winter Pleasures.--Bathing, Angling, Haymaking; Nutting, Acorn-gathering, Crab and Apple-gathering; Woodmen, Charcoal-burners, and Wood Scenery; Amusements in Frost and Snow. VII.--Domestic Animals, and their Treatment; Horsemanship; Rabbit-keeping; Pigeons; Dogs, and their Exploits. VIII.--Juvenile Mechanics. IX.--Occupations of the Children of the Poor. X.--Days at my Grandfather’s. XI.--Fireside Amusements and Stories. XII.--Fireside Tales--Seeking a Fortune, etc. XIII.--Fireside Amusements, and Village Stories. XIV.--Philosophical Experiments and Sleight-of-hand Feats. XV.--School Days. XVI.--School Days continued--Ackworth Scenes and Characters. XVII.--A Summer-day’s Adventure of Three School Boys. XVIII.--School Adventures at Tamworth. XIX.--Further Scenes and Events at Tamworth. XX.--Rent-Night Suppers and Cousin John’s Stories. XXI.--Conclusion; and Recollections of Early Life.

“One of the most fascinating fictions, for young or old, that has ever graced our literature.”--Monthly Chronicle.

COLONIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY; A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES, IN ALL THEIR COLONIES, BY THE EUROPEANS.

1 vol. post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ cloth lettered.

“We have no hesitation in pronouncing this the most important and valuable work that Mr. Howitt has produced.”--Tait’s Magazine.

Preparing for Publication, in one Volume, 8vo.

THE BALLAD POETRY OF MRS. HOWITT.

To be beautifully Embellished by Wood Engravings from Original Designs.

Transcriber’s Notes

The original language has been retained (including inconsistent and erroneous spelling, use of diacriticals, capitalisation and hyphenation), except as mentioned below.

Depending on the hard- and software used and their settings, not all elements may display as intended.

Page 38, Bürschen: should be either Burschen (plural) or Bürschchen (diminutive plural).

Page 171, Ziguene: should be Zigeuner.

Page 555, ahndungsvoll: should be ahnungsvoll.

Changes made

Footnotes have been moved to under the paragraph or poem to which they refer.

Some obvious minor punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected silently.

Most of the corrections made have been verified with later editions of the same book.

Page xi: Embellishment numbers added

Page xviii: part title CAUSES OF THE STRONG ATTACHMENT OF THE ENGLISH TO COUNTRY LIFE. inserted cf. text

Page xx: Purkiss changed to Purkess cf. text

Page 28: géne changed to gêne

Page 31: beau ideal changed to beau idéal

Page 64: closing quote mark inserted at the end of the calculation

Page 165: part title PICTURESQUE AND MORAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY inserted cf. table of contents

Page 173: overrun the country changed to overran the country

Page 301: closing quote mark inserted after list of houses

Page 348: part title THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND inserted cf. table of contents

Page 358/359: the lay-out of the quoted sources has been standardised

Page 371: salvage genius changed to savage genius

Page 376: this forests abounds changed to this forest abounds

Page 414-415, footnote 26: the footnote marker was missing from the source document; a later (1841) corrected edition has the footnote marker after ... jousts and tourneys

Page 491: closing quote mark inserted after verse

Page 493: closing quote mark inserted after at the wake

Page 587: opening quote mark inserted before What sort of a corpse.

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