_Harrow—Coventry—Warwickshire._
I went into the country on Ascension Day to keep the feast, at an
interesting place in the neighbourhood of Harrow. As I was rushing at
the last minute to gain a seat in the railway train, I saw a hand
beckoning me from one of the carriages, and so took my seat beside the
Bishop of Oxford. He was going to spend the day at the same place, a
fact of which I had not the least idea beforehand, but which, of course,
greatly heightened my anticipations of pleasure, on making the
discovery. Arrived, the Bishop was received by the Rev. Mr. ——, and I
was kindly invited to accompany him to breakfast, after a brief survey
of the attractions of the place. First, we went with our reverend host
to see a sort of training school, in which he was giving some young men
of limited means all the substantial parts of a University education. We
went into their chapel, and joined in the devotions with which they
began their day. We were then conducted through the establishment
connected with which was a printing press, worked by the pupils, and a
chemical laboratory, in which they were producing stained glass for the
chapel. In the garden I saw a novelty in the horticultural art, which
struck me as not unworthy of imitation. A small piece of ground had been
ingeniously shaped into a miniature Switzerland. Here, for example, was
the Righi, with a corresponding depression for the Lake of the Four
Cantons. A bucket of water poured into such a depression, makes the
little scene into an artificial reality, serving to convey a
geographical idea much more forcibly than any map could possibly do.
From this college we went to an “Agricultural School,” where some plain
farmer’s boys, in their working attire, were gathered to prayers before
engaging in the labour of the day. A certain amount of education is
furnished to these lads, in return for their toil, and they pay some
fees beside; the plan proposing to elevate this class of the peasantry,
especially in morals and religious knowledge. Thence, we went to the
parish-schools which were also opened by prayer; and then the children
were catechised, in the presence of the Bishop. After this we adjourned
to breakfast, and then went to the Church; a very plain, but substantial
and architectural one, lately substituted for its dilapidated
predecessor. The Bishop preached, entirely extemporaneously, having been
pressed into the service against his intentions. As he eloquently
exhorted us to follow our ascended Lord, I could not but think how
entirely different from the ordinary American notion of an English
Bishop, in labors and in spirit, was this estimable prelate. The Holy
Communion followed, and there was a large number of devout partakers,
representing all classes of society. I was glad to see, for example,
some plain farmers, in their frocks, and two of the railway-guards, in
their liveries.
While walking through the lanes, with the Bishop and this laborious
pastor, a little boy ran up to us with oak-leaves, and a branch
containing oak-apples. It was the 29th of May; and the Bishop playfully
asked the lad why he carried them. “To remember King Charles,” said the
little fellow—as he further enforced the sale of these memorials of the
Restoration.
During the residue of the day, I shared the labours of the pastor, as he
went about the parish, visiting here a sick person, and there a poor
one; and, towards evening, returning to the grounds of the training
school, I joined in a game of cricket, which the young men were playing
in high glee. Chasing the ball as it bounded over the field, or hid
itself in the hedge; scratching my hands with nettles, and joining in
the shouts of frolic, with these happy youths; and finally sitting at my
leisure to watch the beautiful evening sky, against which stood out the
graceful spire and foliage of Harrow-on-the-Hill, while the neighbouring
bells of Stanmore pealed a sunset song, I could not but murmur to
myself, with Gray—
“I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.”
In rambling about, we had a good view of the former residence of Queen
Adelaide, in which she had lately died. She was much beloved and
respected for her unaffected piety, and her manifold good works.
In the twilight we went to church again. The service was sung to a very
pleasing chant, in which all joined with heart, and then the pastor
entered the pulpit, and preached, extemporaneously, on the text, “_It is
expedient for you that I go away._” The sermon was an allegory, of
exceeding beauty, perfectly sustained throughout, and that, to all
appearance, without effort. I shall never forget it, nor the powerful
impression it produced at the time. I have, since, quoted it entire, in
my own pulpit, (with full credit to the source from which it was
derived,) and was happy to observe the effect it was capable of
producing, even at second hand. I left the scene of this pleasing day’s
experiences, with a sweet elevation of feeling, inspired by the
solemnities in which I had engaged, and by the sermons which I had been
so fortunate as to hear. Oh! lovely Church of England, how little they
know thee who revile thee! how unworthy of their baptism are they who
have cast themselves from thy motherly bosom!
My next excursion was into Warwickshire. I went first to Coventry, a
city of which one of my humble ancestry was Mayor, more than two
centuries ago, and for which I entertained a sort of hereditary respect.
It retains much of the aspect it must have borne during that worthy’s
incumbency; for a more mediæval-looking town I saw not in England. Still
unmodernized are its ancient streets and alleys. The houses jut out,
story above story, their gables fronting the way, and so close together,
in the upper parts, that neighbours may light their pipes with each
other across the street, as they lean out of their windows. The famous
three spires of Coventry belong to as many different churches, but seem
to equalize the place in cathedral glories with Lichfield, its sister
see. The spire of St. Michael’s, which is chief among them, is, indeed,
singularly beautiful: and the triplet is well harmonized, and gives the
town a majestic appearance as one approaches it. A town of many spires,
in America, is generally a town of many wrangling creeds; and the major
part of the steeples are but vulgar rivals, realizing the droll idea of
Carlyle’s eel-pot, in which each individual eel is trying to get his
head higher than his neighbour’s. The fact, however, is less droll than
melancholy, when one thinks of the sickening results, upon a community,
of so many religions, all claiming to be reputable types of Christ’s
dear Gospel, although so widely differing among themselves that some
must necessarily be its pestilent antagonists. Dissocial habits; cold
incivilities; open wars; disgraceful rivalries; bickering animosities;
and a degraded moral sentiment—these are the things signified by your
poly-steepled towns in our own land, and God only knows the irreligion
and the contempt for truth, which are festering within them, as the
result of these acrid humours; but as yet, it is not generally so in
England. The three spires of Coventry all point faithfully to the throne
of the Triune God, and are symbols of one Lord, one faith, and one
baptism. Oh, that all who dwell under their shadow knew the blessings of
their ministrations, and received them in spirit and in truth!
The melodious bells of St. Michael’s rung, as I lingered about its
venerable walls; but the interior was undergoing a costly restoration,
and was so obstructed with scaffolding, that I could catch but little of
the effect of its solemn length of nave and chancel, and of the
intersecting arches of its aisles. I afterwards visited Trinity; and
also the ancient St. Mary’s Hall, the scene of the civic pomps of
Coventry, and filled with antiquarian interest in itself and in its
contents. It was not difficult to conjure up the ancient shows of the
adjoining church-yard when Holy Week was celebrated by dramatic
mysteries. But what interested me more than all the rest, was the
grotesque head of a mediæval clown, projecting from an old house, with a
most striking expression of vulgarly impertinent curiosity. The reader
of Tennyson’s exquisite _chef d’œuvre_, will, of course, recognise
“Peeping Tom” in this description. Fabulous may be that beautiful legend
of the Lady Godiva, but the men of Coventry believe it still: and still,
on every Friday in the week of Holy Trinity, its annual fair is opened
with a commemorative procession, in which a fair boy, dressed in
well-knit hosiery, but apparently naked, rides through the ancient
streets, with long and golden hair flowing from head to foot, and
covering his body, as the representative of the sweet bride of Earl
Leofric, who made the burghers of Coventry toll-free, and “gained
herself an everlasting name.” They were making great preparations for
this pageant when I was there, but on the whole I preferred not “to
march through Coventry with them.”
From Coventry to Kenilworth, of course. It was late in the afternoon
when I started the rooks in those old ruins, and sat down to watch their
flight about its ivied towers. Here was, indeed, a place for thought,
and for sentimentalism. How the romance of Scott, that once so bewitched
me, (as I read it, stretched in boyish luxury upon the floor of the
verandah of an American villa, on the dear banks of the Hudson,) now
rose about me in a strange dream of reality; and how tormenting the
endeavour to separate the true history from the charming fable! Here the
finely wrought Gothic masonry, and delicate mouldings, and deeply
recessed windows of the great banqueting-room, stand without a roof; and
the ivy that climbs the solid walls, and twists among the shattered
mullions and transoms, is rooted inside of the once hospitable hall, and
beneath the very point in space, where once the haughty Queen Elizabeth
sat in state, on a splendid dais, with Burleigh, and Leicester, and
Raleigh around her, while these cold, damp walls lifted about them their
magnificent tapestries, and gorgeous blazonries of heraldic honour. In
that bay window she once reclined, to look over the park, and to think
thoughts too deep for utterance. The rich architectural work of these
chambers betrays their former splendid uses; and one grudges, to the
great serpent-like convolutions of the ivy-vines, the sole
proprietorship of their surviving graces. Yet there they hang their
melancholy leaves; and the beautiful desolation is possibly rich enough
in its moral effect on the heart of the visitor, to make one contented
on the whole, that the pile was once so great in design, and so
exquisite in detail, and that the ruin is now so complete. Poor Amy
Robsart!
Up and down I went, thinking only of her wrongs. Now the worn steps
wound up to a turret, and now descended to a secret postern. Here was
the orchard, and there the lake, and there the plaisance: now you look
out of a prison-like window, and now you stand in the deep recess of a
lordly oriel. Going into the ancient grounds, I scattered a hundred
sheep, and away they went, bounding over grass as green and velvety, as
they were white and fleecy. These are the successors of those red deer,
fallow deer, and roes, which once stored the chase. The “swifts” darted
from bush to bush, and the thrushes fluttered in the hawthorn; and then
all was as still as if the past hung over the place like a spell, and as
if it were haunted with its own history. Of all this noble castle, there
remains only one outer part, which can shelter a human inhabitant. The
barbican, beneath which Elizabeth must have made that superb entrance,
is still a dwelling; but its occupant is a plain farmer, who would, no
doubt, prefer to be more snugly housed. It seemed strange to find such a
picturesque abode devoted to so homely a use. How glad I should be to
hire it, myself, for a summer lodge, provided I might have the range of
the surrounding domains, without the annoyance of everybody’s intrusion,
and provided I had nothing better to do than to read romances and
history!
Here this farmer lives, in a room of panelled oaken wainscot, enclosed
by walls that might defy artillery. The chimney-piece is a massive bit
of antiquity, partly alabaster curiously wrought, and partly wood of
rich and costly carving. The ragged-staff of Dudley is conspicuous, in
the decorations; it betrays the relics of its former gilding; the
speaking initials R. L. tell the story of its origin, and the motto
_Droit et Loyal_ shows itself, as if in mockery of historical justice,
amid the arms and cognizances of the once proud possessor of the
princely castle of Kenilworth.
The long twilight enabled me to visit Leamington Priors, and to get a
very pleasing impression of its trim and fair abodes, and showy modern
streets. Then away, by night, to Warwick, where I slept at the “Warwick
Arms,” after such a comfortable supper, as one finds nowhere, at the
close of a traveller’s day, except at an English Inn.
It proved a most beautiful morning, next day, and I was up very early,
resolved, before tasting breakfast, to taste all the sweets of the hour
of prime, in one of the most beautiful rural districts of England. I
walked out some two or three miles, on the Kenilworth road, to Guy’s
Cliff, and to the scene, beyond it, of Piers Gaveson’s murder. The
beauty of the day and of the Scenery, the song of birds, and the
blossoms of the hawthorn along the road, were singularly in keeping with
the imagery by which the poet has pictured the early history of a reign,
strikingly coincident with that in which Gaveson’s fortune was made and
ruined:—
“Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm!”
At length, leaping a slight fence, I made my way through a clovered
field, and then through a pretty grove, to what was once Blacklow hill.
Here is still a sort of cave, which I readily found among the hazels;
and on the eminence above it, rises a strongly built and severe looking
monument, surmounted by a cross of solid proportions, the whole
singularly adapted to the place and purpose. It is a work of late years,
and the happy thought of the proprietor of Guy’s Cliff. There was
something stirring, too, in reading, in the loneliness of that morning
hour, the following inscription on the face of the monument, viz:—“_In
the hollow of this rock was beheaded, July 1, 1312, by barons lawless as
himself, Piers Gaveson, Earl of Cornewall, the minion of a hateful king,
and in life and death a memorable instance of misrule._” What a picture
of the ferocious past was conjured up by that expression—“beheaded by
barons as lawless as himself.” The sweet Avon was flowing through the
meads below; there gleamed the feudal towers of Warwick, in the glowing
sunrise; and just so it was, that July morning, five hundred years ago,
when this rock rang with oaths and curses, the barkings of that fierce
Guy de Beauchamp, whom Gaveson had called “the black hound of Arden.”
That insult was here avenged in blood; but it only served to fire the
thirst of the regicide. Those features upturned to heaven, in the choir
of Gloucester, and those imploring hands of poor King Edward, came back,
in thought, once more.
Pictures have made my readers familiar with the scenery of Guy’s Cliff.
There it stands, on the Avon—in unpretending beauty, ivied up to its
chimnies, here an oriel, and there a turret, the very ideal of a fair
lady’s bower, and one of the goodliest of “the merry homes of England.”
There is a mill over against it, where I stood and admired its quiet
romance, in the glory of that summer morning, as the gilding of the
sunlight lay on the cold gray of its towers. At the mill, the
farmer-lads were washing sheep, and as they plunged in the fleecy ewes,
and soused them over and over again, in the sparkling waters of the
Avon, I thought an artist would ask no fairer study, for his pencil,
than the scene before me. I confess I could not safely look on it
without repeating the _Tenth Commandment_, and I quite deposed my
project of renting the Gate-house of Kenilworth, in thinking how much
better I should like Guy’s Cliff for my habitation.
My walk into Warwick, again, was full of pleasure. I heard the clock
strike in the tower of St. Mary’s, which I saw over a forest of trees,
gaily lighted by the sun; and then came a tune from its chime. I paused
before old houses, and stared at the curious ancient gateway, under
which we had passed in the night. After breakfast I visited the Church,
and especially the Beauchamp Chapel, where the ancient lords of Warwick
lie on their proud tombs, in sculptured mail, beside their dainty dames,
in more delicate attire. This chapel is, of its kind, the finest in the
kingdom; the superb tomb of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy, when
I saw it at Bruges, reminded me of it, and seemed less imperial. I
cannot now recall it in detail, as I wish I could, for the sake of
accurate criticism; but at the time I was greatly struck with the state
and splendour of such _beauty—for ashes_! Fulke Greville’s monument is
also memorable, if only for the striking tribute it pays to private
friendship; for the inscription furnished by himself ekes out the fact
of his being “Councillor to King James,” by that of his claim to write
himself—“The friend of Sir Philip Sydney.”
I went over Warwick Castle, of course, and surveyed the grounds from the
porter’s lodge, where are shown the armour and the porridge-pot of great
Guy, and fair Phælice’s slippers, to the garden-house, wherein is kept
the gigantic vase from Tivoli. What eyes for natural beauty had those
builders of old times! The Avon seems just here to be made for Warwick
Castle, and Warwick Castle seems made for it. On the whole, I have seen
no residence in Europe, save Windsor Castle, that seemed to me more
princely than this. ’Tis not the creation of vulgar opulence, or of an
Aladdin-like fortune—but it seems the growth of ages, and the natural
concentration of architectural beauty and strength. From its windows
such a view of the landscape—in the landscape such views of it! And
then its relics and antiquities; its pictures and its portraits; its
bed-rooms, and halls, and drawing-rooms; its boudoirs, and its bowers;
its chapel, and its whole together—who can but wonder at them, and who
would want them? Mine is not so vast an ambition—such “an unbounded
stomach.” On the whole I am so reasonable a man, that to gratify my
utmost longings for a home—this side “the house not made with hands”—I
would take Guy’s Cliff, and leave Warwick Castle untroubled by any writ
of ejectment from even a roving wish, or wild, ungoverned thought.