Anyone who is teased by the notion that it would be pleasant to be
remembered, in the sense of being read, after death, cannot do better
to secure that end than compose an Itinerary and leave it behind him
in manuscript, with his name legibly inscribed thereon. If an honest
bit of work, noting distances, detailing expenses, naming landmarks,
moors, mountains, harbours, docks, buildings--indeed, anything which,
as lawyers say, savours of realty--and but scantily interspersed with
reflections, and with no quotations, why, then, such a piece of work,
however long publication may be delayed--and a century or two will not
matter in the least--cannot fail, whenever it is printed, to attract
attention, to excite general interest and secure a permanent hold in
every decent library in the kingdom.
Time cannot stale an Itinerary. _Iter, Via, Actus_ are words of pith
and moment. Stage-coaches, express trains, motor-cars, have written,
or are now writing, their eventful histories over the face of these
islands; but, whatever changes they have made or are destined to make,
they have left untouched the mystery of the road, although for the
moment the latest comer may seem injuriously to have affected its
majesty.
The Itinerist alone among authors is always sure of an audience. No
matter where, no matter when, he has but to tell us how he footed it
and what he saw by the wayside, and we must listen. How can we help
it? Two hundred years ago, it may be, this Itinerist came through our
village, passed by the wall of our homestead, climbed our familiar
hill, and went on his way; it is perhaps but two lines and a half he
can afford to give us, but what lines they are! How different with
sermons, poems, and novels! On each of these is the stamp of the
author's age; sentiments, fashions, thoughts, faiths, phraseology, all
worn out--cold, dirty grate, where once there was a blazing fire.
Cheerlessness personified! Leland's anti-Papal treatise in forty-five
chapters remains in learned custody--a manuscript; a publisher it will
never find. We still have Papists and anti-Papists; in this case the
fire still blazes, but the grates are of an entirely different
construction. Leland's treatise is out of date. But his _Itinerary_ in
nine volumes, a favourite book throughout the eighteenth century,
which has graced many a bookseller's catalogue for the last hundred
years, and seldom without eliciting a purchaser--Leland's _Itinerary_
is to-day being reprinted under the most able editorship. The charm of
the road is irresistible. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful
book, with a great tradition behind it and a future still before it;
but it has not escaped the ravages of time, and I would, now, at all
events, gladly exchange it for Oliver Goldsmith's _Itinerary through
Germany with a Flute_!
Vain authors, publisher's men, may write as they like about
_Shakespeare's_ country, or _Scott's_ country, or _Carlyle's_ country,
or _Crockett's_ country, but--
'Oh, good gigantic smile of the brown old earth!'
the land laughs at the delusions of the men who hurriedly cross its
surface.
'Rydal and Fairfield are there,--
In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.
So it is, so it will be for aye,
Nature is fresh as of old,
Is lovely, a mortal is dead.'
These reflections, which by themselves would be enough to sink even an
Itinerary, seemed forced upon me by the publication of _A Journey to
Edenborough in Scotland by Joseph Taylor, Late of the Inner Temple,
Esquire_. This journey was made two hundred years ago in the Long
Vacation of 1705, but has just been printed from the original
manuscript, under the editorship of Mr. William Cowan, by the
well-known Edinburgh bookseller, Mr. Brown, of Princes Street, to whom
all lovers of things Scottish already owe much.
Nobody can hope to be less known than this our latest Itinerist, for
not only is he not in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, but it
is at present impossible to say which of two Joseph Taylors he was.
The House of the Winged Horse has ever had Taylors on its roll, the
sign of the Middle Temple, a very fleecy sheep, being perhaps
unattractive to the clan, and in 1705 it so happened that not only
were there two Taylors, but two Joseph Taylors, entitled to write
themselves 'of the Inner Temple, Esquire.' Which was the Itinerist?
Mr. Cowan, going by age, thinks that the Itinerist can hardly have
been the Joseph Taylor who was admitted to the Inn in 1663, as in that
case he must have been at least fifty-eight when he travelled to
Edinburgh. For my part, I see nothing in the _Itinerary_ to preclude
the possibility of its author having attained that age at the date of
its composition. I observe in the _Itinerary_ references which point
to the Itinerist being a Kentish man, and he mentions more than once
his 'Cousin D'aeth.' Research among the papers of the D'aeths of
Knowlton Court, near Dover, might result in the discovery which of
these two Taylors really was the Itinerist. As nothing else is at
present known about either, the investigation could probably be made
without passion or party or even religious bias. It might be
best begun by Mr. Cowan telling us in whose custody he found the
manuscript, and how it came there. These statements should always
be made when old manuscripts are first printed.
The journey began on August 2, 1705. The party consisted of Mr. Taylor
and his two friends, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Sloman. They travelled on
horseback, and often had difficulties with the poor beast that carried
their luggage. They reached Edinburgh in the evening of August 31, and
left it on their return journey on September 8, and got home on the
25th of the same month. The _Itinerary_ concludes as follows:
'Thus we spent almost 2 months in a Journy of many 100 miles,
sometimes thro' very charming Countryes, and at other times over
desolate and Barren Mountaines, and yet met with no particular
misfortune in all the Time.'
I may say at once of these three Itinerists--Mr. Taylor, Mr. Harrison,
and Mr. Sloman--that they appear to have been thoroughly
commonplace, well behaved, occasionally hilarious Englishmen, ready to
endure whatever befell them, if unavoidable; accustomed to take their
ease in their inn and to turn round and look at any pretty woman they
might chance to meet on their travels. Their first experience of what
the Itinerist calls 'the prodigies of Nature,' 'at once an occasion
both of Horrour and Admiration,' was in the Peak Country 'described in
poetry by the ingenious Mr. Cotton.' This part of the world they 'did'
with something of the earnestness of the modern tourist. But I hardly
think they enjoyed themselves. The 'prodigious' caverns and strange
petrifactions shocked them; 'nothing can be more terrible or shocking
to Nature.' Mam Tor, with its 1,710 feet, proved very impressive, 'a
vast high mountain reaching to the very clouds.' This gloom of the
Derbyshire hills and stony valleys was partially dispelled for our
travellers by a certain 'fair Gloriana' they met at Buxton, with whom
they had great fun, 'so much the greater, because we never expected
such heavenly enjoyments in so desolate a country.' If it be on
susceptibilities of this nature that Mr. Cowan rests his case for
thinking that the Itinerist can hardly have attained 'the blasted
antiquity' of fifty-eight, we must think Mr. Cowan a trifle hasty, or
a very young man, perhaps under forty, which is young for an editor.
After describing, somewhat too much like an auctioneer, the splendours
of Chatsworth, 'a Paradise in the deserts of Arabia,' the Itinerist
proceeds on his way north through Nottingham to Belvoir Castle, where
'my Lord Rosses Gentleman (to whom Mr. Harrison was recommended)
entertained us by his Lordship's command with good wine and the best
of malt liquors which the cellar abounds with'; the pictures in the
Long Gallery were shown them by 'my Lord himself.' At Doncaster, 'a
neat market-town which consists only in one long street,' they had
some superlative salmon just taken out of the river. By Knaresborough
Spaw, where they drank the waters and had icy cold baths, and dined at
the ordinary with a parson whose conversation startled the propriety
of the Templar, the travellers made their way to York, and for the
first and last time a few pages of _Guide Book_ are improperly
introduced. Then on to Scarborough.
'The next morning early we left Scarborough and travelled through a
dismall road, particularly near Robins Hood Bay; we were obliged to
lead our horses, and had much ado to get down a vast craggy
mountain which lyes within a quarter of a mile of it. The Bay is
about a mile broad, and inhabited by poor fishermen. We stopt to
taste some of their liquor and discourse with them. They told us
the French privateers came into the Very Bay and took 2 of their
Vessels but the day before, which were ransom'd for £25 a piece. We
saw a great many vessels lying upon the Shore, the masters not
daring to venture out to sea for fear of undergoing the same fate.'
We boast too readily of our inviolate shores.
A curious description is given of the Duke of Buckingham's alum works
near Whitby. The travellers then procured a guide, and traversed 'the
vast moors which lye between Whitby and Gisborough.' The civic
magnificence of Newcastle greatly struck our travellers, who, happier
than their modern successors, were able to see the town miles off. The
Itinerist quotes with gusto the civic proverb that the men of
Newcastle pay nothing for the Way, the Word, or the Water, 'for the
Ministers of Religion are maintained, the streets paved, and the
Conduits kept up at the publick charge.' A disagreeable account is
given of the brutishness of the people employed in the salt works at
Tynemouth. At Berwick the travellers got into trouble with the sentry,
but the mistake was rectified with the captain of the guard over '2
bowles of punch, there being no wine in the town.'
Scotland was now in sight, and the travellers became grave, as
befitted the occasion. They were told that the journey that lay before
them was extremely dangerous, that 'twould be difficult to escape with
their lives, much less (ominous words) without 'the distemper of the
country.' But Mr. Taylor, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Sloman were as brave
as Mr. Pickwick, and they would on. 'Yet notwithstanding all these sad
representations, we resolv'd to proceed and stand by one another to
the last.'
What the Itinerists thought of Scotland when they got there is not for
me to say. I was once a Scottish member.
They arrived in Edinburgh at a great crisis in Scottish history. They
saw the Duke of Argyll, as Queen Anne's Lord High Commissioner, go to
the Parliament House in this manner:
'First a coach and six Horses for his Gentlemen, then a Trumpet,
then his own coach with six white horses, which were very fine,
being those presented by King William to the Duke of Queensbury,
and by him sold to the Duke of Argyle for £300; next goes a troop
of Horse Guards, cloathed like my Lord of Oxford's Regiment, but
the horses are of several colours; and the Lord Chancellor and the
Secretary of State, and the Lord Chief Justice Clerk, and other
officers of State close the cavalcade in coaches and six horses.
Thus the Commissioner goes and returns every day.'
The Itinerists followed the Duke and his procession into the
Parliament House, and heard debated the great question--the greatest
of all possible questions for Scotland--whether this magnificence
should cease, whether there should be an end of an auld sang--in
short, whether the proposed Act of Union should be proceeded with. By
special favour, our Itinerists had leave to stand upon the steps of
the throne, and witnessed a famous fiery and prolonged debate, the
Duke once turning to them and saying, _sotto voce_, 'It is now
deciding whether England and Scotland shall go together by the ears.'
How it was decided we all know, and that it was wisely decided no one
doubts; yet, when we read our Itinerist's account of the Duke's coach
and horses, and the cavalcade that followed him, and remember that
this was what happened every day during the sitting of the Parliament,
and must not be confounded with the greater glories of the first day
of a Parliament, when every member, be he peer, knight of the shire,
or burgh member, had to ride on horseback in the procession, it is
impossible not to feel the force of Miss Grisel Dalmahoy's appeal in
the _Heart of Midlothian_, she being an ancient sempstress, to Mr.
Saddletree, the harness-maker:
'And as for the Lords of States ye suld mind the riding o' the
Parliament in the gude auld time before the Union. A year's rent o'
mony a gude estate gaed for horse-graith and harnessing, forby
broidered robes and foot-mantles that wad hae stude by their lane
with gold and brocade, and that were muckle in my ain line.'
The graphic account of a famous debate given by, Taylor is worth
comparing with the _Lockhart Papers_ and Hill Burton. The date is a
little troublesome. According to our Itinerist, he heard the
discussion as to whether the Queen or the Scottish Parliament should
nominate the Commissioners. Now, according to the histories, this
all-important discussion began and ended on September 1, but our
Itinerist had only arrived in Edinburgh the night before the first,
and gives us to understand that he owed his invitation to be present
to the fact that whilst in Edinburgh he and his friends had had the
honour to have several lords and members of Parliament to dine, and
that these guests informed him 'of the grand day when the Act was to
be passed or rejected.' The Itinerist's account is too particular--for
he gives the result of the voting--to admit of any possibility of a
mistake, and he describes how several of the members came afterwards
to his lodgings, and, so he writes, 'embraced us with all the outward
marks of love and kindness, and seemed mightily pleased at what was
done, and told us we should now be no more English and Scotch, but
Brittons.' In the matter of nomenclature, at all events, the promises
of the Union have not been carried out.
After September 1 the Parliament did not meet till the 4th, when an
Address was passed to the Queen, but apparently without any repetition
of debate. So it really is a little difficult to reconcile the dates.
Perhaps Itinerists are best advised to keep off public events.
How our travellers escaped the 'national distemper' and journeyed
home by Ecclefechan, Carlisle, Shap Fell, Liverpool, Chester,
Coventry, and Warwick must be read in the _Journey_ itself, which,
though it only occupies 182 small pages, is full of matter and even
merriment; in fact, it is an excellent itinerary.