_Iffley—A Drive Across the Country._
A visit to Magdalen School, and a subsequent dinner with the scholars,
(who are the singers in the chapel), was another of my pleasures, from
which I derived fresh convictions of the superior training of English
school-boys, alike in physical, mental, and moral discipline. Everything
was done with method and precision. The boys looked fresh and rosy, and
perfectly happy, and yet their master was as evidently strict with them,
as he was also kind. Some of them will win scholarships in the college,
and from that, fellowships; and so will make their way to the highest
posts of honour and usefulness, for which they will be thoroughly
furnished in all respects. There is a new Educational College at Radley,
several miles from Oxford, of which the projector and founder is the
well-known Mr. Sewell, of Exeter—by whose kind invitation I went out,
one day, to visit it. I was kindly accompanied by a distinguished Fellow
of Oriel, who with several young men, whom he had enlisted for the
purpose, gave me a row up the Thames to Iffley. We took our boat, in
Christ Church meadows, and so went over the scene of the race which I
have endeavoured to describe. I was unfortunately made steersman, and
more than once found myself running the bow of the boat into the bushes,
while I stared around me, at every beast and bird, and at every wall,
and every bush, and at every green thing, with a greener look no doubt,
to my unlucky companions, than anything in the scene besides. It was the
Thames—or the Isis if you please—it was the river of the Oxonians; and
I lost myself, in contemplations, on the most trifling suggestion of
novelty, or of age, which surrounding objects presented. This little
voyage was realizing to me the dreams of many years; and when we landed
near the picturesque old mill, with which so many drawings and
engravings have made every one acquainted, I felt that anything but my
pilotage was to be credited with our escape from shipwreck. My
conscience accuses me of having paid attention to everything except my
immediate duty.
Iffley Church, as every Ecclesiologist will tell you, is a study of
itself. Five windows in this Church are said to present the
characteristics of five periods of pointed architecture, extending
through as many centuries; while the details of enrichment and design
afford innumerable specimens of inventive art, embracing somewhat of the
rude and elemental Saxon, with the riper and more varied beauties of
Norman embellishment. The church is supposed to have been built in the
earlier part of the twelfth century; it affords many interesting
examples of subsequent alteration and repair; and has lately received
much attention, in the way of retouching and restoring its olden
beauties. In the churchyard is the remnant of its ancient cross, and
also a yew tree scarcely less aged, but much decayed. The font, which
stands near the door, is of large dimensions and of very curious
construction, generally supposed to be Norman, and of the same date with
the Church. Although the beautiful interior retains some useless
appendages of mediæval rites no longer practised, it is a most fitting
and becoming Anglo-Catholic church, and one in every way satisfactory,
as it stands, to the purposes of the English Liturgy. Without and
within, it was, at the time I visited it, the most interesting object of
its kind which I had ever seen.
On resuming our boat, which had been lifted above the dam by means of a
lock, we rowed about a mile further up the river, and then, taking to
the fields, went across them to Radley. Here I met Mr. Sewell, and went
with him to see Radley Church, a picturesque little temple, and then
over his college, chapel and grounds. This college is a very interesting
experiment, and aims to combine, on a plan somewhat novel, several
important elements of academic and religious life. The taste which has
presided over its establishment is very apparent, and not less the
benevolence and piety of its founder. I was surprised to find it,
although so entirely new, presenting everywhere the appearance of age
and completeness. The architecture of the chapel especially, though
plain in comparison with that of almost all older structures of a
similar kind, is yet very effective; and the service, as performed in
it, by the aid of the pupils, was exceedingly inspiring and refreshing.
After a visit which I was kindly led to protract beyond my intent, I
returned to Oxford on foot, in the company of Mr. Sewell. Our path lay
through Bagley-Wood, and never shall I forget the charming
conversational powers of my guide, or the pleasure of wandering, with
such a companion, through the tangled and briery copse, and intervening
glades of that academic forest. At last we struck the Abingdon road, and
entered Oxford by the bridge under the Tower of Magdalen.
Amid so many recollections of a graver character, there is one connected
with Oxford which never revives without exciting a smile. I went one day
into the _House of Convocation_, where the Vice-Chancellor was
conferring degrees, in a business way, very few, besides those
immediately interested, being present. Among the candidates was one very
portly individual, who, either from his advancing years, or because of
some new preferment, had felt it his duty to incur the expense of being
made, in course, a Doctor of Divinity. It was evidently many years since
the proposing Doctor had been familiar with University forms and
ceremonies; and it appeared to me that some very rustic parish had
probably, in the meantime, enjoyed the benefit of his services. When the
performance required him to do this, or that, it was apparent that the
worthy divine was not a little confused, while it was still more
painfully clear, that his confusion afforded anything but feelings of
regret to the junior portion of the academical body which surrounded
him. When required to kneel before a very youthful looking proctor, an
audible titter went the rounds, as his burly figure sank to the floor,
amid the balloons of silk with which he was invested, to say nothing of
the gaudy colours which he now wore, for the first time, with
ill-suppressed satisfaction. But the _Oath of Abjuration_ was to be
administered, and this proved the most critical part of the proceedings:
for, oath as it was, it was made almost a farcical formality, by the
manner in which it was taken. As this oath is a little antiquated, at
any rate, and seems hardly demanded by the present relations between a
powerful sovereign and the mere shadow of a pontiff who now apes
Hildebrand, on the Seven Hills, it would seem good taste to go through
with it with as little display of furious Protestantism as possible. So
evidently thought the proctor, but not so the Doctor elect, whose
powerful imagination probably suggested to him that Victoria was Queen
Elizabeth, and Dr. Wiseman a Babbington, as no doubt he is. If her
Majesty labours under similar impressions, she has at least one loyal
subject, and it would have done her heart good to have heard the
utterance of his loyalty on this occasion; for with most earnest
emphasis did he swear, that “he did from his heart detest and abjure, as
impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that princes
excommunicated by the Pope, _may be deposed or murthered by their
subjects_,” &c., &c. So, no doubt, thought and felt all present; but as
the Doctor seemed to consider himself, for the moment, a sort of Abdiel,
and spoke with an epic dignity somewhat unusual to the Convocation
house, it was irresistibly ludicrous to behold the smothered merriment
of the youthful Oxonians, who shook their sides while the Doctor
fulmined, and who seemed to think both him and the Pope a little too old
for Young England and the nineteenth century.
My excursion to Nuneham Courtenay proved but the preface to a much more
important episode, in company with the same agreeable friend who was my
guide on that occasion, and who now drew me into a change of plans and
purposes, to which I owed much subsequent pleasure. We were at breakfast
together, in the rooms of a common friend at Merton, when the scheme was
perfected for a drive through Oxfordshire, in his private carriage, and
for several subsequent excursions, of which the centre should be his
residence, near Cheltenham. A friend, then keeping his terms for a
Master’s degree, at New Inn Hall, gave us his company for a few hours,
on the way; and a delightful companion he proved, not only for his
essential qualities as such, but because he happened to have been a
tourist in America, and was able to imagine, in some degree, how an
American must regard the contrast continually furnished him by a tour in
England. Our road first took us over a corner of Berkshire, through a
pleasing variety of hills and vales, sighting Cumnor on the left, and
passing Wytham on the other hand, and so again entering Oxfordshire, by
a bridge over the Thames, which here makes a bend among the little
mountains. Our first stage was complete when we arrived at Eynsham,
where we drew up at the village inn, and contrived to pass an hour very
pleasantly, although, from the appearance of the place, one would say,
at first, it was fit only to sleep in. How quiet a village can be, even
in populous and busy England, and so hard by Oxford! There stood the
slender market-cross that had survived the storms of centuries, and the
more violent batterings of Puritan iconoclasts. Broken and bruised as it
was, it seemed good for centuries more, amid so peaceful a community as
now surrounds its venerable tutelage. Whether the exemplary character of
the present inhabitants be owing at all to the parish stocks, which
stand near the cross, in most Hudibrastic grouping with surrounding
objects, I cannot determine; but there they are, and I could fancy a
stout brace of Puritans, of Butler’s sort, undergoing its salutary
penance; or even one of Hogarth’s unlucky wights experiencing the rude
sympathies of men and boys in the passiveness of its bondage. How
speaking a picture of rigorous parochial justice those queer old stocks,
under lee of the market-house, afforded to my imagination! How many
vagrant feet and ankles have there been relieved from the curse of Cain!
how many a vagabond they have furnished with persuasives to rest and
meditation! Really—one could not be properly pensive, in sight of such
a commentary on human guilt and misery: for the parish stocks are but of
distant kin to gallows and guillotine, and hardly more than little
brothers of whipping-post and pillory; their ignominy being rather that
of ridicule than of scorn, and their severity being the very least of
all the penalties of law. I did not know that such instruments of
wholesome discipline were still in existence under the English sceptre,
and hence my amusement and surprise to behold them, and to find so many
memories of their history reviving at the sight; among which were
prominent those classical verses of the Anti-Jacobin—
“Justice Oldmixen put me in the parish-
Stocks, for a vagrant.”
Verily a queer old place is Eynsham, from the days of King Ethelred, the
Unready, who had a villa here, and those of King Stephen, who gave it
the very equivocal privilege of a market “on the Lord’s day,” under the
patronage of its Abbot and its monks. On inquiring for the remains of
the Abbey, we were informed that some new relics of its ancient chapel
and cemetery had just been discovered in a neighbouring field. We had
therefore the pleasure of seeing, sure enough, the encaustic tiles of
its sanctuary, just laid bare, after ages of concealment in the earth.
They were of various patterns and devices, St. George and the Dragon
forming, apparently, a conspicuous part of the design. But the old
gardener who showed us these discoveries, went on to tell us that in
digging further, he had just laid bare some _frames_ which he should
like to have us see, and so leading us to another part of the ground, he
showed us _the frames_, indeed, which proved to be nothing less than the
skeletons of the old monks of Eynsham, protruding from their graves.
Often had these same “frames” sung in the choir, and walked over those
same tiles we had just been viewing. How old they might be we could not
say; but they were the bones of old Christians, and most probably of
Christian priests, and there they had been laid in hope of the
Resurrection, so that it seemed to me almost profane to be staring at
them, as if they were a show. _Requiescant in pace._
The village church had been an appurtenance of the Abbey, and was, no
doubt, comely in its day. It had suffered not a little, however, from
whitewash, and other _Churchwarden-isms_. There had evidently been a
fine rood-loft, but every vestige of it was gone, save that there was
the solid stair-way in the wall, and there again the door-way, still
open, through which the ancient Gospeller used to make his appearance in
the loft, to read the Holy Evangel for the day. ‘Poor fellow,’ thought
I, ‘when did he climb those steps, and issue from that door, for the
last time? Was he indeed a Gospeller, grateful for a chance thereafter
to read the Word of God, in the vulgar tongue; or was he some Marian
Monk, who had raked the coals about Latimer and Ridley, in Oxford, and
who trembled, while he sung his Latin Missal, lest the news of
Elizabeth’s accession should prove too true?’ How strange it would seem
to an American priest, to find himself officiating, Sunday after Sunday,
in a church whose very walls are a monument, not only of the
Reformation, but of “Hereford Use,” and “Salisbury Use,” or other usages
now forever superseded, but which had a long existence, and have left
their mark, alike in stone and timber, and in the vernacular Liturgy of
the Church of England!
We left the little village, and pursued our journey very pleasantly till
we met the Oxford coach coming down, in full drive, but stopping as we
hailed it, in behalf of our friend of New Inn Hall. He was obliged to
return, for sleeping a single night out of Oxford, during his term,
would disqualify him for his degrees. So we reluctantly saw him climb to
a lofty seat, among a motley crew of passengers, and whirl away, as we
waved him our adieu. We continued our journey to Witney, where again we
paused, to survey its ancient cruciform Church—which would make a fine
cathedral in America—and to take our luncheon with the good vicar, who
received us very hospitably. I was surprised at the greatness of the
Church, and the beauty of many of its details, but I believe it was once
an Abbey Church, and its architectural merits are such as to have
furnished not a few favourite examples to ecclesiological publications.
The village itself is a decayed one, having formerly been of consequence
as the seat of a famous blanket manufacture, which made “Witney” a
household word with housewives, especially in cold weather. Our drive
next brought us to Minster-Lovel, the scene of the “Old English Baron;”
and next to a “deserted village,” which looked as little like Auburn as
possible, for it had been built by a pack of infidels, to show the world
what a village ought to be, and so had speedily become as dead as
Pompeii. It was now “for sale,” but no one seemed disposed to buy, and I
suspect it may yet be had at a bargain. England is no soil for fools to
flourish in; and it is a pity that when they find it out, they are so
wont to come to America, where they join the Mormons, or set up for
superfine republicans, and vent their hatred of England in our
newspapers, which are then quoted by the writers in the _London Times_,
as proof of American feelings towards the mother country.
The country we were now traversing had once been scoured by the troopers
of the fiery Rupert, and my friend, whom I will call Mr. V——, finding
my enthusiasm rising at the mention of his clarion and jack-boots, began
to play upon me by suggesting that some mounds which we saw in the
distance were the remains of one of his encampments. This was a very
fine idea, but, resolved to hunt up the local traditions with respect to
it, I asked a passing boor if he could tell me anything about the
barrows. Oh, for a page of “the Antiquary,” to give my reader some
conception of the effect produced by the reply! “Prætorian
here—Prætorian there,” said old Edie Ochiltree, “I mind the bigging
o’t;” and with equal bathos responded my boor—“Them there be some old
brick-yards!” “Alas!” cried I—“it is Monkbarns and castrametation, over
again;” and a laugh arose from the Oxford pilgrims, at which the boor
startled, and fled away, no doubt with strong persuasion that we were a
pair of madmen, just broke loose from the deserted settlement aforesaid,
of which, I should have mentioned, the neighbouring peasantry seemed to
entertain a very wholesome fear.
Commend me to Burford, our next halting-place, as a village of most
exemplary independence of this nineteenth century. Some old houses,
which struck me as I entered it, bore an inscription by which I learned
that a good burgess built them for a charitable use in the time of Queen
Elizabeth. I should think no house had been built in Burford since that
date, so entirely unlike a modern town is its chief street, with all its
lanes and by-ways. Here, now, was England—the England we read of! None
of your Manchesters and Liverpools, but an innocent, sleepy old village
that was of vast repute when those snobbish places were unknown. Here
met a Church Synod, A. D., 685, to settle the question about the British
Easter usages, and here worthy Peter Heylin was born in 1600. The little
river Windrush runs through the place, and on its banks stands the
ancient Church of St. John the Baptist, to which we repaired forthwith.
Here we found an unexpected treat, in the exceeding richness of its
Norman architecture, and in the many delicate traces of its former
perfection, which had escaped the ravages of time. The tower and spire,
the south porch and the windows, afforded a most entertaining and
instructive study. Some old inscriptions remained, entreating the
passer-by to pray for the departed soul of such and such benefactors.
The interior enchanted me. Here was a “Silvester aisle,” in which, for
generation after generation, certain worthies of that name have been
buried under costly monuments, most curious to behold. But what pleased
me most was one of those huge monuments, like an ancient state-bed, with
canopy and posts complete, on which lay, side by side, a worthy knight
and his dame, persons of a famous repute under Queen Elizabeth, and the
grand-parents of the stainless Falkland. “Sir Launcelot Tanefield” was
the name of the knight, and if I mistake not, he was, at one time, Lord
Chief Justice of England, and Burford was his native place. From this
charming old Church I could hardly tear myself away. I suspect few
travellers have visited it, and I congratulated myself on having met
with such a friend as V——, to draw me out of the beaten track, and
show me something of England, that is England still.
Continuing our journey, we passed an old Manor house, picturesquely
seated in a valley, at which I could have looked contentedly for an
hour, so entirely did it answer to my ideas of many a manorial
residence, which had pleased my boyish fancy, in novels and romances.
Next we passed Barrington Park, the seat of Lord Dynevor, and soon
after, another beautiful park, the seat of Lord Sherborne. And now, our
journey lay over one of the Cotswold hills, which reminded me somewhat
of a drive over Pokono, in Pennsylvania, so lonely and even wild did it
seem, in comparison with the country we had just been traversing. We
came to North Leach, where again we alighted to survey a Church, perched
on a rising ground, above the houses of the village, which are mostly
very old, with curious gables, and built along narrow lanes, in very
primitive style. This Church had suffered more from accidental causes,
than that at Burford, but was scarcely less interesting to me. Its
curious gurgoyles particularly arrested my attention, and within, some
good brasses, and other monuments. It has a fine porch, and its general
architecture seems of a period somewhat between the decorated and the
perpendicular. We were now in Gloucestershire, and I shall never forget
that it was in passing over a hill near Stow-on-the-Wold, that I first
heard the nightingale. “There,” said V——, “there is Philomela! not
mourning, but wooing; ’tis her love-note”—and I listened with a sense
of enchantment. Perhaps I was in the mood to be delighted, for certainly
I had never spent a day in such charming travel before, and I was
conscious of a pleasure, which I cannot describe, arising from the
realization of my dreams, in forecasting, through a long series of
years, such a journey through England.
In descending the Cotswold hills, I caught, here and there, some
enchanting views; little churches perched upon the brows of hillocks, or
half buried in the vales; or farm-houses and cottages not less
beautifully situated; or the seats of country squires and other gentry,
embosomed amid trees, or lifting their chimnies above a few lordly elms.
But the charm of all was yet reserved for me; and just after sunset, as
we wound around a broad hillside, I came upon a scene, at which, it
seemed to me, I might have gazed all my life without weariness or
satiety. ‘Stop—stop! my dear V——, where are you driving?’ said I,
beseeching him to rein up, and let me look for a few minutes on as
perfect a picture of English scenery as ever Gainsborough portrayed, all
spread before us, without a blemish; its lights and shadows just as an
artist would have them; and yet vivid with nature, beyond all that an
artist could create. The time, remember, was evening, in one of its
sweetest effects of sky and atmosphere, cool and calm; the lighter
landscape deeply green; the shadows brown and dying into night; the
water shining here like burnished steel, and there lying in shade, as
darkly liquid as a dark eye in female beauty. The view was a narrow
dell, just below the road, in which stood an old manor house, ivied to
its chimney tops, and encircled by a moat. Smoke of the most delicate
blue was floating thinly from its chimnies, into the clear air; and just
at hand was peeping, from a dense growth of trees, the belfry of a very
tiny Church, which seemed to be there only on purpose to complete the
picture. Cattle were grazing in the meads, and under a vast and sombre
yew tree, sat a group of farm-servants, shearing the largest sheep of
the flock, the wool flaking off upon the green grass, like driven snow.
While we gazed on this living picture, with mute pleasure, the soft
notes of a bird added sweet sounds to the enchantment of sight, and I
sat, as in a spell, without speaking a word. My friend V—— himself,
who had been laughing at me all day, for my enjoyment of what to him
were common and unsuggestive objects, fairly gave up at this point, and
owned it was a sight to make one in love with life. Even now I have
lying before me a letter in which he refers to this view of “the
sheep-shearing,” and concludes by the pathetic announcement that the
horse to which we were indebted for that day’s progress, has since been
sold to a coach proprietor, and now runs leader from Evesham to
Stratford. “Little thinks he,” continues the letter, “as the lash of the
cruel Jehu touches his flank, of the classic ground he travels; little
recks he of Harry of Winchester, Simon de Montfort, or our friend
Rupert—for Rupert had a desperate struggle thereabouts—or yet of Queen
Bess, as he enters Bedford, in Warwickshire, or even of the immortal
Will, as he halts at Stratford.”
So winding down our road, amid firs and oaks, and enjoying new beauties
at every turn, we came through Charlton Kings, into the broad and
teeming vale, adorned by modern Cheltenham. It is a noble amphitheatre,
to which the bold outline of the Cotswold hills gives dignity, and which
abounds with minor charms on every side. I was soon lodged at my friend
V——’s, after due introduction to his family, including a visit to the
nursery, where some lovely children were allowed to salute me with their
innocent kisses, and thus to make me sure of a welcome to their father’s
house.