Leamington, November 14th, 1859.--J---- and I walked to Lillington the
other day. Its little church was undergoing renovation when we were here
two years ago, and now seems to be quite renewed, with the exception of
its square, gray, battlemented tower, which has still the aspect of
unadulterated antiquity. On Saturday J----- and I walked to Warwick by
the old road, passing over the bridge of the Avon, within view of the
castle. It is as fine a piece of English scenery as exists anywhere,--
the quiet little river, shadowed with drooping trees, and, in its vista,
the gray towers and long line of windows of the lordly castle, with a
picturesquely varied outline; ancient strength, a little softened by
decay. . . . .
The town of Warwick, I think, has been considerably modernized since I
first saw it. The whole of the central portion of the principal street
now looks modern, with its stuccoed or brick fronts of houses, and, in
many cases, handsome shop windows. Leicester Hospital and its adjoining
chapel still look venerably antique; and so does a gateway that half
bestrides the street. Beyond these two points on either side it has a
much older aspect. The modern signs heighten the antique impression.
February 5th, 1860.--Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch are staying for a little while
at Mr. B------'s at Coventry, and Mr. B------ called upon us the other
day, with Mr. Bennoch, and invited us to go and see the lions of
Coventry; so yesterday U---- and I went. It was not my first visit,
therefore I have little or nothing to record, unless it were to describe
a ribbon-factory into which Mr. B------ took us. But I have no
comprehension of machinery, and have only a confused recollection of an
edifice of four or five stories, on each floor of which were rows of huge
machines, all busy with their iron hands and joints in turning out
delicate ribbons. It was very curious and unintelligible to me to
observe how they caused different colored patterns to appear, and even
flowers to blossom, on the plain surface of a ribbon. Some of the
designs were pretty, and I was told that one manufacturer pays 500 pounds
annually to French artists (or artisans, for I do not know whether they
have a connection with higher art) merely for new patterns of ribbons.
The English find it impossible to supply themselves with tasteful
productions of this sort merely from the resources of English fancy. If
an Englishman possessed the artistic faculty to the degree requisite to
produce such things, he would doubtless think himself a great artist, and
scorn to devote himself to these humble purposes. Every Frenchman is
probably more of an artist than one Englishman in a thousand.
We ascended to the very roof of the factory, and gazed thence over smoky
Coventry, which is now a town of very considerable size, and rapidly on
the increase. The three famous spires rise out of the midst, that of St.
Michael being the tallest and very beautiful. Had the day been clear, we
should have had a wide view on all sides; for Warwickshire is well laid
out for distant prospects, if you can only gain a little elevation from
which to see them.
Descending from the roof, we next went to see Trinity Church, which has
just come through an entire process of renovation, whereby much of its
pristine beauty has doubtless been restored; but its venerable awfulness
is greatly impaired. We went into three churches, and found that they
had all been subjected to the same process. It would be nonsense to
regret it, because the very existence of these old edifices is involved
in their being renewed; but it certainly does deprive them of a great
part of their charm, and puts one in mind of wigs, padding, and all such
devices for giving decrepitude the aspect of youth. In the pavement of
the nave and aisles there are worn tombstones, with defaced inscriptions,
and discolored marbles affixed against the wall; monuments, too, where a
mediaeval man and wife sleep side by side on a marble slab; and other
tombs so old that the inscriptions are quite gone. Over an arch, in one
of the churches, there was a fresco, so old, dark, faded, and blackened,
that I found it impossible to make out a single figure or the slightest
hint of the design. On the whole, after seeing the churches of Italy, I
was not greatly impressed with these attempts to renew the ancient beauty
of old English minsters; it would be better to preserve as sedulously
as possible their aspect of decay, in which consists the principal
charm. . . . .
On our way to Mr. B------'s house, we looked into the quadrangle of a
charity-school and old men's hospital, and afterwards stepped into a
large Roman Catholic church, erected within these few years past, and
closely imitating the mediaeval architecture and arrangements. It is
strange what a plaything, a trifle, an unserious affair, this imitative
spirit makes of a huge, ponderous edifice, which if it had really been
built five hundred years ago would have been worthy of all respect. I
think the time must soon come when this sort of thing will be held in
utmost scorn, until the lapse of time shall give it a claim to respect.
But, methinks, we had better strike out any kind of architecture, so it
be our own, however wretched, than thus tread back upon the past.
Mr. B------ now conducted us to his residence, which stands a little
beyond the outskirts of the city, on the declivity of a hill, and in so
windy a spot that, as he assured me, the very plants are blown out of the
ground. He pointed to two maimed trees whose tops were blown off by a
gale two or three years since; but the foliage still covers their
shortened summits in summer, so that he does not think it desirable to
cut them down.
In America, a man of Mr. B------'s property would take upon himself the
state and dignity of a millionaire. It is a blessed thing in England,
that money gives a man no pretensions to rank, and does not bring the
responsibilities of a great position.
We found three or four gentlemen to meet us at dinner,--a Mr. D------ and
a Mr. B------, an author, having written a book called "The Philosophy of
Necessity," and is acquainted with Emerson, who spent two or three days
at his house when last in England. He was very kindly appreciative of my
own productions, as was also his wife, next to whom I sat at dinner. She
talked to me about the author of "Adam Bede," whom she has known
intimately all her life. . . . . Miss Evans (who wrote "Adam Bede") was
the daughter of a steward, and gained her exact knowledge of English
rural life by the connection with which this origin brought her with the
farmers. She was entirely self-educated, and has made herself an
admirable scholar in classical as well as in modern languages. Those
who knew her had always recognized her wonderful endowments, and only
watched to see in what way they would develop themselves. She is a
person of the simplest manners and character, amiable and unpretending,
and Mrs. B------ spoke of her with great affection and respect. . . . .
Mr. B------, our host, is an extremely sensible man; and it is remarkable
how many sensible men there are in England,--men who have read and
thought, and can develop very good ideas, not exactly original, yet so
much the product of their own minds that they can fairly call them their
own.
February 18th.--. . . . This present month has been somewhat less dismal
than the preceding ones; there have been some sunny and breezy days when
there was life in the air, affording something like enjoyment in a walk,
especially when the ground was frozen. It is agreeable to see the fields
still green through a partial covering of snow; the trunks and branches
of the leafless trees, moreover, have a verdant aspect, very unlike that
of American trees in winter, for they are covered with a delicate green
moss, which is not so observable in summer. Often, too, there is a twine
of green ivy up and down the trunk. The other day, as J----- and I were
walking to Whitnash, an elm was felled right across our path, and I was
much struck by this verdant coating of moss over all its surface,--the
moss plants too minute to be seen individually, but making the whole tree
green. It has a pleasant effect here, where it is the natural aspect of
trees in general; but in America a mossy tree-trunk is not a pleasant
object, because it is associated with damp, low, unwholesome situations.
The lack of foliage gives many new peeps and vistas, hereabouts, which I
never saw in summer.
March 17th.--J----- and I walked to Warwick yesterday forenoon, and went
into St. Mary's Church, to see the Beauchamp chapel. . . . . On one side
of it were some worn steps ascending to a confessional, where the priest
used to sit, while the penitent, in the body of the church, poured his
sins through a perforated auricle into this unseen receptacle. The
sexton showed us, too, a very old chest which had been found in the
burial vault, with some ancient armor stored away in it. Three or four
helmets of rusty iron, one of them barred, the last with visors, and all
intolerably weighty, were ranged in a row. What heads those must have
been that could bear such massiveness! On one of the helmets was a
wooden crest--some bird or other--that of itself weighed several
pounds. . . . .
April 23d.--We have been here several weeks. . . . . Had I seen Bath
earlier in my English life, I might have written many pages about it, for
it is really a picturesque and interesting city. It is completely
sheltered in the lap of hills, the sides of the valley rising steep and
high from the level spot on which it stands, and through which runs the
muddy little stream of the Avon. The older part of the town is on the
level, and the more modern growth--the growth of more than a hundred
years--climbs higher and higher up the hillside, till the upper streets
are very airy and lofty. The houses are built almost entirely of Bath
stone, which in time loses its original buff color, and is darkened by
age and coal-smoke into a dusky gray; but still the city looks clean and
pure as compared with most other English towns. In its architecture, it
has somewhat of a Parisian aspect, the houses having roofs rising steep
from their high fronts, which are often adorned with pillars, pilasters,
and other good devices, so that you see it to be a town built with some
general idea of beauty, and not for business. There are Circuses,
Crescents, Terraces, Parades, and all such fine names as we have become
familiar with at Leamington, and other watering-places. The declivity of
most of the streets keeps them remarkably clean, and they are paved in a
very comfortable way, with large blocks of stone, so that the middle of
the street is generally practicable to walk upon, although the sidewalks
leave no temptation so to do, being of generous width. In many alleys,
and round about the abbey and other edifices, the pavement is of square
flags, like those of Florence, and as smooth as a palace floor. On the
whole, I suppose there is no place in England where a retired man, with a
moderate income, could live so tolerably as at Bath; it being almost a
city in size and social advantages; quite so, indeed, if eighty thousand
people make a city,--and yet having no annoyance of business nor spirit
of worldly struggle. All modes of enjoyment that English people like may
be had here; and even the climate is said to be milder than elsewhere in
England. How this may be, I know not; but we have rain or passing
showers almost every day since we arrived, and I suspect the surrounding
hills are just about of that inconvenient height, that keeps catching
clouds, and compelling them to squeeze out their moisture upon the
included valley. The air, however, certainly is preferable to that of
Leamington. . . . .
There are no antiquities except the abbey, which has not the interest of
many other English churches and cathedrals. In the midst of the old part
of the town stands the house which was formerly Beau Nash's residence,
but which is now part of the establishment of an ale-merchant. The
edifice is a tall, but rather mean-looking, stone building, with the
entrance from a little side court, which is so cumbered with empty
beer-barrels as hardly to afford a passage. The doorway has some
architectural pretensions, being pillared and with some sculptured
devices--whether lions or winged heraldic monstrosities I forget--on the
pediment. Within, there is a small entry, not large enough to be termed
a hall, and a staircase, with carved balustrade, ascending by angular
turns and square landing-places. For a long course of years, ending a
little more than a century ago, princes, nobles, and all the great and
beautiful people of old times, used to go up that staircase, to pay their
respects to the King of Bath. On the side of the house there is a marble
slab inserted, recording that here he resided, and that here he died in
1767, between eighty and ninety years of age. My first acquaintance with
him was in Smollett's "Roderick Random," and I have met him in a hundred
other novels.
His marble statue is in a niche at one end of the great pump-room, in
wig, square-skirted coat, flapped waistcoat, and all the queer costume of
the period, still looking ghost-like upon the scene where he used to be
an autocrat. Marble is not a good material for Beau Nash, however; or,
if so, it requires color to set him off adequately. . . . .
It is usual in Bath to see the old sign of the checker-board on the
doorposts of taverns. It was originally a token that the game might be
played there, and is now merely a tavern-sign.