NOTTINGHAM AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS--NEWSTEAD ABBEY--MANSFIELD--TALK
IN A BLACKSMITH'S SHOP--CHESTERFIELD, CHATSWORTH AND HADDON HALL--
ARISTOCRATIC CIVILISATION, PRESENT AND PAST.
From the Belvoir Vale I continued my walk to Nottingham the
following day; crossing a grand old bridge over the Trent. Take it
all in all, this may be called perhaps the most English town in
England; stirring, plucky and radical; full of industrial intellect
and vigor. Its chief businesses involve and exercise thought; and
thought educed into one direction and activity, runs naturally into
others. The whole population, under these influences, has become
_peopled_ to a remarkable status and strength of opinion, sentiment
and action. They prefix that large and generous quality to their
best doings and institutions, and have their Peoples' College,
Peoples' Park, etc. The Peoples' Charter had its stronghold here,
and all radical reforms are sure to find sympathy and support among
the People of Nottingham. I should think no equal population in the
kingdom would sing "Britons never, never will be slaves," with more
spirit, or, perhaps, with more understanding. Their plucky, English
natures became terribly stirred up in the exciting time of the
Reform Bill, and they burned down the magnificent palace-castle of
the old Duke of Newcastle, crowning the mountainous rock which
terminates on the west the elevated ridge on which the town is
built. When the Bill was carried, and the People had cooled down to
their normal condition of mind, they were obliged to pay for this
evening's illumination of their wrath pretty dearly. The Duke
mulcted the town and county to the tune of 21,000 pounds, or full
$100,000. The castle was no Chepstow structure, rough and rude for
war, but more like the ornate and castellated palace at Heidelberg,
and it was almost as high above the Trent as the latter is above the
Neckar. The view the site commands is truly magnificent, embracing
the Trent Valley, and an extensive vista beyond it. It was really
the great lion of the town, and the People, having paid the 21,000
pounds for dismounting it, because it roared in the wrong direction
on the Reform Bill, expected, of course, that His Grace the Duke
would set it up again on the old pedestal, with its mane and tail
and general aspect much improved. But they counted without their
host. "Is it not lawful to do what I will with my own," was the
substance of his reply; and there stands the blackened, crumbling
ruin to this day, as a silent but grim reproach to the People for
letting their angry passions rise to such destructive excitement on
political questions.
Hosiery and lace are the two great manufacturing interests of
Nottingham, and the tons of these articles it turns out yearly for
the world are astonishing in number and value. A single London
house employs 3,000 hands in the town and immediate vicinity upon
hosiery alone for its establishment. Lace now seems to lead the
way, and there are whole streets of factories and warehouses busy
with its manufacture and sale. Perhaps no fabric in the world ever
tested the ingenuity and value of machinery like this. The cost has
been reduced, from the old hand-working to the present process, from
three dollars to three cents a yard! I think no machinery yet
invented has been endowed with more delicate functions of human
reason and genius than that employed upon the flower-work of this
subtle drapery. Until I saw it with my own eyes, I had concluded
that the machinery invented or employed in America for setting card-
teeth was the most astute, and as nearly approaching the faculties
of the human mind in its apparent thought-power, as it was reverent
and safe to carry anything made of iron and steel, or made by man at
all. To construct a machine which should pass between its fingers a
broad belt of leather and a fine thread of wire, prick rows of holes
across the breadth of the leather, bend, cut off, and insert the
shank ends of the teeth clear through these holes, and clinch them
on the back side, and pour out a continuous, uninterrupted stream of
perfectly-teethed belt, all ready for carding,--this, I fancied, was
the ne plus ultra of mechanical inventions. But it is quite
surpassed by the lace-weaving looms of Nottingham, that work out, to
exquisite perfection, all the flowers, leaves, vines and vein-work
of nature. It was wonderful to see the ductility of cotton, as here
exemplified. The _bobbins_, which, I suppose, are a mere refinement
upon the old hand-thrown shuttle, are of brass, about the size of
half-a-crown. A groove that will just admit the thin edge of a
case-knife, is cut into the rim of the little wheel, about one
quarter of an inch deep. A cotton thread, 120 yards in length, and
strong enough to be twitched about and twisted by a score of
vigorous, chattering, iron fingers, is wound around in this groove.
But it would be idle to attempt a description of either the
machinery or the process.
I went next into a large establishment for dyeing, dressing, winding
and packing the lace for market. It was startling to see the acres
of it dyed black for mourning. Really there seemed enough of it to
drape the whole valley of the shadow of death! It was an impressive
sight truly. If there were other establishments doing the same
thing, Nottingham must turn out weeds of grief enough for several
millions of mourning widows, mothers, sisters and daughters in a
year. I ascended into the dressing-room, I think they called it, in
the upper story, where there was a piece containing one twenty-fifth
of an acre of lace undergoing a fearful operation for a human
constitution to sustain. It was necessary that the heat of the
apartment should be kept at _one hundred and twenty_ degrees! There
was a large number of women and girls, and a few men and boys
working under this melting ordeal. And one of the proprietors was
at their head, in a rather summer dress, and with a seethed and
crimson face beaded with hot perspiration. It was a very delicate
and important operation which he had not only to watch with his own
eyes, but to work at with his own hands. I was glad to learn that
he was a staunch Protestant, and did not believe in _purgatory_; but
those poor girls!--could they be expected to hold to the same belief
under such a test?
I was told that they could get up lace so cheap that the people of
the town frequently cover their gooseberry bushes with it to keep
off the insects. Spider-webbing is a scarcely more gossamer-like
fabric. Sixteen square yards of this lace only weigh about an
ounce! If the negroes on one of the South Carolina Sea-island
plantations could have been shut into that dressing-room for two
whole minutes, with the mercury at 120 degrees, they would have
rolled up the whites of their eyes in perfect amazement and made a
rush for "Dixie" again.
From Nottingham I made an afternoon walk to Mansfield. The weather
was splendid and the country in all the glory of harvest. On
reaching Newstead Abbey, I found, to my regret, that the entree to
the public had been closed by the new proprietor, one, I was told,
of the manufacturing gentry of the Manchester school. Not that he
was less liberal and accommodating to sight-seers than his
predecessors, but because he was making very extensive and costly
improvements in the buildings and grounds. I have seen nothing yet
in England to compare, for ornate carving, with the new gate-way he
is making to the park. It is of the finest kind of arabesque work
done in stone that much resembles the Caen. This prevention barred
me from even a distant view of the once famous residence of Lord
Byron, as it could not be seen from the public road.
Within about three miles of Mansfield, I came to a turnpike gate,--a
neat, cozy, comfortable cottage, got up in the Gothic order. I
stopped to rest a moment, and noticing the good woman setting her
tea-table, I invited myself to a seat at it, on the inn basis, and
had a pleasant meal and chat with her and an under-gamekeeper of the
Duke of Portland, who had come in a little before me. The stories
he told me about the extent of the Duke's possessions were
marvellous, more especially in reference to his game preserves. I
should think there must be a larger number of hares, rabbits and
partridges on his estate than in the whole of New England. As I sat
engaged in conversation with the woman of the house and this
accidental guest, an unmistakable American face met my eyes, as I
raised them to the opposite wall. It was the familiar face of a
Bristol clock, made in the Connecticut village adjoining the one in
which I was born. It wore the same honest expression, which a great
many ill-natured people, especially in our Southern States, have
regarded as covering a dishonest and untruthful mind, or a bad
memory of the hours. Still it is the most ubiquitous Americanism in
the world, and it is pleasant to see its face in so many cottages of
laboring men from Land's End to John O'Groat's.
Mansfield is a very substantial and venerable town, bearing a name
which one distinguished man has rendered illustrious by wearing it
through a brilliant life. It is situated near the celebrated
Sherwood Forest, and is marked by many features of peculiar
interest. One of its noticeable celebrities is the house in which
Lord Chesterfield resided. It is now occupied by a Wesleyan
minister, who elaborates his sermons in the very room, I believe, in
which that fashionable nobleman penned his polite literature for
youthful candidates for the uppermost circles of society. In the
centre of the market place there is a magnificent monument erected
to the memory of the late Lord George Bentinck, who was held in high
esteem by the people of the town and vicinity. The manufactures are
pretty much the same as in Nottingham. They turn out a great
production of raw material in red sandstone, very much resembling
our Portland, quite as fine, hard and durable. Immense blocks of it
are quarried and conveyed to London and to all parts of the kingdom.
The town also supplies a vast amount of moulding sand, of nearly the
same color and consistency as that we procure from Albany. I
stopped on my way into the town to take a turn through the cemetery,
which was very beautifully laid out, and looked like a great garden
lawn belted with shrubbery, and illuminated with the variegated
lamps of flowers of every hue and breath. The meandering walks were
all laid with asphalte, which presented a new and striking contrast
to the gorgeous borders and the vivid green of the cleanly shaven
grass. Many of the little graves were made in nests of geraniums
and other modest and sweet-eyed stars of hope.
Next day I had a very enjoyable walk in a north-westerly direction
to Chesterfield. On the way, called in at a blacksmith's shop, and
had a long talk with the smith-in-chief on matters connected with
his trade. The "custom-work" of such shops in country villages in
England is like that in ours fifty years ago--embracing the greatest
variety of jobs. Articles now made with us in large manufacturing
establishments at a price which would starve a master and his
apprentice to compete with, are hammered out in these English shops
on a single anvil. On comparing notes with this knight of the
hammer, I learned a fact I had not known before. His price for
horse-shoeing varied according to the size of the hoof, just as our
leather-shoemakers charge according to the foot. On taking leave of
him he intimated, in the most frank and natural way in the world,
that, in our exchange of information, the balance was in his favor,
and that I could not but think it fair to pay him the difference. I
looked at him first inquiringly and doubtingly, embarrassed with the
idea that I had not understood him, or that he was a journeyman and
not the master of the establishment. But he was as free and easy
and natural as possible. An American tobacco-chewer, of fifty
years' standing, would not have asked a cut from a neighbor's
"lady's twist," or "pig-tail" in more perfect good faith. That
good, round, English face would have blushed crimson if the man
suspected that I misunderstood him. Nay, more, he would quite
likely have thrown the pennies at my head if I had offered them to
him to buy bread or bacon with for himself and family. I had no
reason for a moment's doubt. It all meant _beer_, "only that and
nothing more;" a mere pour boire souvenir to celebrate our mutual
acquaintance. So I gave him a couple of pennies, just as I would
have given him a bite of tobacco if we had both been in that line.
I feared to give him more, lest he might think I meant bread and
bacon and thought him a beggar. But I ventured to tell him,
however, that I did not use that beverage myself, and hoped he would
wish me health in some better enjoyment.
I saw, for the first time, a number of Spanish cattle feeding in a
pasture. They were large, variously colored animals with the
widely-branching horns that distinguish them. A man must have a
long range of buildings to stable a score of creatures with such
horns, and for that reason they will only be kept as curiosities in
these northern latitudes. And they are curiosities of animal life,
heightened to a wonderment when placed side by side with the black
Galloways, or those British breeds of cattle which have no horns at
all. I should not wonder, however, if this large, cream-colored
stock from Spain should be introduced here to cross with the
Durhams, Devons, and Herefords.
When about half-way from Mansfield to Chesterfield, a remarkable
change came over the face of the landscape. The mosaic work of the
hill-sides and valleys showed more green squares than before.
Three-fourths of the fields were meadow or pasture, or in mangel or
turnips. There was but one here and there in wheat or other grain.
The road beneath and the sky above began to blacken, and the
chimneys of coal-pits to thicken. Sooty-faced men, horses and
donkeys passed with loaded carts; and all the premonitory aspects of
the "black country" multiplied as I proceeded. I do not recollect
ever seeing a landscape change so suddenly in England.
Chesterfield is an intelligent looking town, evidently growing in
population and prosperity. It has its own unique speciality; almost
as strikingly distinctive as that of Strasburg or Pisa. This is the
most ambiguous and mysterious church spire in the world. It would
be very difficult to convey any idea of it by any description from
an unaided pen; and there is nothing extant that would avail as an
illustration. The church is very old and large, and stands upon a
commanding eminence. The massive tower supports a tall but suddenly
tapering spire of the most puzzling construction to the eye. It
must have been designed by a monk of the olden time, with a Chinese
turn of ingenuity. There is no order known to architecture to
furnish a term or likeness for it. A ridgy, spiral spire are the
three most descriptive words, but these are not half enough for
stating the shape, style and posture of this strange steeple. It is
difficult even to assist the imagination to form an idea of it. I
will essay a few words in that direction. Suppose, then, a plain
spire, 100 feet high, in the form of an attenuated cone, planted
upon a heavy church tower. Now, in imagination, plough this cone
all around into deep ridges from top to bottom. Then mount to the
top, and, with a great iron wrench, give it an even twist clear down
to the base, so that each ridge shall wind entirely around the spire
between the bottom and the top. Then, in giving it this screw-
looking twist, bend over the top, with a gentle incline all the way
down, so that it shall be "out of perpendicular" by about three
feet. Then come down and look at your work, and you will be
astonished at it, standing far or near. The tall, ridgy, curved,
conical screw puzzles you with all sorts of optical illusions. As
the eyes in a front-face portrait follow you around the room in
which it is hung, so this strange spire seems to lean over upon you
at every point, as you walk round the church. Indeed, I believe it
was only found out several centuries after its erection, that it
absolutely leaned more in one direction than another. It is a
remarkable sight from the railway as you approach the town from a
distance. If it may be said reverently, the church, standing on
comparatively a hill, not only lifts its horn on high, but one like
that of a rhinoceros, considerably curved. Just outside the town
stands the house in which George Stephenson lived his last days, and
ended his great life of benefaction to mankind; leaving upon that
haloed spot a _biograph_ which the ages of time to come shall not
wash out.
From Chesterfield I diverged westward to see Chatsworth and Haddon
Hall. Whoever makes this walk or ride, let him be sure to stop at
Watch Hill on the way, and look at the view eastward. It is grander
than that of Belvoir Vale, if not so beautiful.
It was a pleasure quite equal to my anticipation to visit Chatsworth
for the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for
sixteen years. It is the lion number three, according to the
American ranking of the historical edifices and localities of
England. Stratford-upon-Avon, Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are
the three representative celebrities which our travellers think they
must visit, if they would see the life of England's ages from the
best stand-points. And this is the order in which they rank them.
Chatsworth and Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if possible;
so that you may carry the impressions of the one fresh and active
into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in
the kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism _edificed_. It
represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance
of the English nobility five hundred years ago. It was all in its
glory about the time when Thomas-a-Becket the Magnificent used to
entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner
that exceeded regal munificence in those days,--even directing fresh
straw to be laid for them on his ample mansion floor, that they
might not soil the bravery of their dresses when they bunked down
for the night. The building is brimful of the character and history
of that period. Indeed, there are no two milestones of English
history so near together, and yet measuring such a space of the
nation's life and manners between them, as this hall and that of
Chatsworth. It was built, of course, in the bow-and-arrow times,
when the sun had to use the same missiles in shooting its barbed
rays into the narrow apertures of old castles--or the stone coffins
of fear-hunted knights and ladies, as they might be called. What a
monument this to the dispositions and habits of the world, outside
and inside, of that early time! Here is the porter's or warder's
lodge just inside the huge gate. To think of a living being with a
human soul in him burrowing in such a place!--a big, black
sarcophagus without a lid to it, set deep in the solid wall. Then
there is the chapel. Compare it with that of Chatsworth, and you
may count almost on your fingers the centuries that have intervened
between them. It was new-roofed soon after the discovery of
America, and perhaps done up to some show of decency and comfort.
But how small and rude the pulpit and pews--looking like rough-
boarded potato-bins! Here is the great banquet-hall, full to
overflowing with the tracks and cross-tracks of that wild, strange
life of old. There is a fire-place for you, and a mark in the
chimney-back of five hundred Christmas logs. Doubtless this great
stone pavement of a floor was carpeted with straw at these banquets,
after the illustrious Becket's pattern. Here is a memento of the
feast hanging up at the top of the kitchenward door;--a pair of
roughly-forged, rusty handcuffs amalgamated into one pair of jaws,
like a musk-rat trap. What was the use of that thing, conductor?
"That, sir, they put the 'ands in of them as shirked and didn't
drink up all the wine as was poured into their cups, and there they
made them stand on tiptoe up against that door, sir, before all the
company, sir, until they was ashamed of theirselves." Descend into
the kitchen, all scarred with the tremendous cookery of ages. Here
they roasted bullocks whole, and just back in that dark vault with a
slit or two in it for the light, they killed and dressed them.
There are the relics of the shambles. And here is the great form on
which they cut them up into manageable pieces. It would do you
good, you Young America, to see that form, and the cross-gashes of
the meat-axe in it. It is the half of a gigantic English oak, which
was growing in Julius Caesar's time, sawed through lengthwise,
making a top surface several feet wide, black and smooth as ebony.
Some of the bark still clings to the under side. The dancing hall
is the great room of the building. All that the taste, art and
wealth of that day could do, was done to make it a splendid
apartment, and it would pass muster still as a comfortable and
respectable salon. As we pass out, you may decipher the short
prayer cut in the wasting stone of a side portal, "GOD SAVE THE
VERNONS!" I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for
history records much virtue in the family, mingled with some
romantic escapades, which have contributed, I believe, to the
entertainment of many novel readers.
Just what Haddon Hall was to the baronial life and society of
England five hundred years ago, is Chatsworth to the full stature of
modern civilization and aristocratic wealth, taste and position. Of
this it is probably the best measure and representative in the
kingdom; and as such it possesses a special value and interest to
the world at large. Were it not for here and there such an
establishment, we should lack waymarks in the progress of the arts,
sciences and tastes of advancing civilization. Governments and
joint-stock companies may erect and fill, with a world of utilities
and curiosities of ancient and modern times, British Museums,
National Galleries, Crystal Palaces and Polytechnic Institutions;
but not one of these, nor the Louvre, nor Versailles, nor the
Tuileries can compete with one private mind, taste and will
concentrated upon one great work for a lifetime, when endowed with
the requisite perceptions and means competent to carry that work to
the highest perfection of science, genius and art. Museums,
galleries and public institutions of art are exclusively _visiting_
places. The elegancies of _home_ life are all shut out of their
attractions. You see in them the work and presence of a committee,
or corporation, often in discrepant layers of taste and plan. One
mind does not stand out or above the whole, fashioning the tout-
ensemble to the symmetrical lines of one governing, all-pervading
and shaping thought. You see no exquisite artistry of drawing-room
or boudoir elegance and luxury running through living apartments of
home, out into the conservatories, lawns, gardens, park and all its
surroundings and embellishments, making the whole like a great
illuminated volume of family life, which you may peruse page by
page, and trace the same pen and the same story from beginning to
end. Even the grandest royal residences lack, in this quality, what
you will find at Chatsworth. They all show the sharp-edged strata
of unaffiliated tastes and styles of different ages and artists.
They lack the oneness of a single individuality, of one great
symmetrical conception.
This one-mindedness, this one-man power of conception and execution
gives to the Duke of Devonshire's palace at Chatsworth an interest
and a value that probably do not attach to any other private
establishment in England. In this felicitous characteristic it
stands out in remarkable prominence and in striking contrast with
nearly all the other baronial halls of the country. It is the
parlor pier-glass of the present century. It reflects the two
images in vivid apposition--the brilliant civilization of this last,
unfinished age in which we live and the life of bygone centuries;
that is, if Haddon Hall shows its face in it, or if you have the
features of that antiquity before your eyes when you look into the
Chatsworth mirror. The whole of this magnificent establishment
bears the impress of the nineteenth century, inside and outside.
The architecture, sculpture, carving, paintings, engravings,
furniture, libraries, conservatories, flowers, shrubberies and
rockeries all bear and honor the finger-prints of modern taste and
art. In no casket in England, probably, have so many jewels of this
century's civilization been treasured for posterity as in this
mansion on the little meandering Derwent. If England has no grand
National Gallery like the French Louvre, she has works of art that
would fill fifty Louvres, collected and treasured in these quiet
private halls, embosomed in green parks and plantations, from one
end of the land to the other. And in no other country are the
private treasure-houses of genius so accessible to the public as in
this. They doubtless act as educational centres for refining the
habits of the nation; exerting an influence that reaches and
elevates the homes of the people, cultivating in them new
perceptions of beauty and comfort; diffusing a taste for embowering
even humble cottages in shrubbery; making little flower-fringed
lawns, six feet by eight or less; rockeries and ferneries, and
artificial ruins of castles or abbeys of smaller dimensions still.
In passing through the galleries and gardens of Chatsworth you will
recognise the originals of many works of art which command the
admiration of the world. The most familiar to the American visitor
will probably be the great painting of the Bolton Abbey Scene, the
engravings of which are so numerous and admired on both sides of the
Atlantic. But there is the original of a greater work, which has
made the wonder of the age. It is the original of the Great Crystal
Palace of 1851, and the mother of all the palaces of the same
structure which have been or will be erected in time past or to
come. Here it diadems at Chatsworth the choice plants and flowers
of all the tropics; presenting a model which needed only expansion,
and some modifications, to furnish the reproduction that delighted
the world in Hyde Park in 1851.
I was pleasantly impressed with one feature of the economy that
ruled at Chatsworth. Although there were between one and two
thousand deer flecking the park, it was utilised to the pasture of
humbler and more useful animals. Over one hundred poor people's
cows were feeding demurely over its vast extent, even to the gilded
gates of the palace. They are charged only 2 pounds for the season;
which is very moderate, even cheaper than the stony pasturage around
the villages of New England. I noticed a flock of Spanish sheep,
black-and-white, looking like a drove of Berkshire hogs, and
seemingly clothed with bristles instead of wool. They are kept
rather as curiosities than for use.
Chatsworth, with all its treasures and embodiments of wealth, art
and genius, with an estate continuous in one direction for about
thirty miles, is but one of the establishments of the Duke of
Devonshire. He owns a palace on the Thames that might crown the
ambition of a German prince. He also counts in his possessions old
abbeys, baronial halls, parks and towns that once were walled, and
still have streets called after their gates. If any country is to
have a personage occupying such a position, it is well to have a
considerable number of the same class, to yeomanise such an
aristocracy--to make each feel that he has his peers in fifty
others. Otherwise an isolated duke would have to live and move
outside the pale of human society; a proud, haughty entity dashing
about, with not even a comet's orbit nor any fixed place in the
constellation of a nation's communities. It is of great necessity
to him, independent of political considerations, that there is a
House of Peers instituted, in which he may find his social level;
where he may meet his equals in considerable numbers, and feel
himself but a man.