Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
TRAVELS IN ENGLAND
IN 1782
* * * * *
BY
C. P. MORITZ.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1886.
INTRODUCTION
CHARLES P. MORITZ’S “Travels, chiefly on foot, through several parts of
England in 1782, described in Letters to a Friend,” were translated from
the German by a lady, and published in 1795. John Pinkerton included
them in the second volume of his Collection of Voyages and Travels.
The writer of this account of England as it was about a hundred years
ago, and seven years before the French Revolution, was a young Prussian
clergyman, simply religious, calmly enthusiastic for the freer forms of
citizenship, which he found in England and contrasted with the military
system of Berlin. The touch of his times was upon him, with some of the
feeling that caused Frenchmen, after the first outbreak of the
Revolution, to hail Englishmen as “their forerunners in the glorious
race.” He had learnt English at home, and read Milton, whose name was
inscribed then in German literature on the banners of the free.
In 1782 Charles Moritz came to England with little in his purse and
“Paradise Lost” in his pocket, which he meant to read in the Land of
Milton. He came ready to admire, and enthusiasm adds some colour to his
earliest impressions; but when they were coloured again by hard
experience, the quiet living sympathy remained. There is nothing small
in the young Pastor Moritz, we feel a noble nature in his true simplicity
of character.
He stayed seven weeks with us, three of them in London. He travelled on
foot to Richmond, Windsor, Oxford, Birmingham, and Matlock, with some
experience of a stage coach on the way back; and when, in dread of being
hurled from his perch on the top as the coach flew down hill, he tried a
safer berth among the luggage in the basket, he had further experience.
It was like that of Hood’s old lady, in the same place of inviting
shelter, who, when she crept out, had only breath enough left to murmur,
“Oh, them boxes!”
Pastor Moritz’s experience of inns was such as he hardly could pick up in
these days of the free use of the feet. But in those days everybody who
was anybody rode. And even now, there might be cold welcome to a
shabby-looking pedestrian without a knapsack. Pastor Moritz had his
Milton in one pocket and his change of linen in the other. From some
inns he was turned away as a tramp, and in others he found cold comfort.
Yet he could be proud of a bit of practical wisdom drawn by himself out
of the “Vicar of Wakefield,” that taught him to conciliate the innkeeper
by drinking with him; and the more the innkeeper drank of the ale ordered
the better, because Pastor Moritz did not like it, and it did not like
him. He also felt experienced in the ways of the world when, having
taken example from the manners of a bar-maid, if he drank in a full room
he did not omit to say, “Your healths, gentlemen all.”
Fielding’s Parson Adams, with his Æschylus in his pocket, and Parson
Moritz with his Milton, have points of likeness that bear strong witness
to Fielding’s power of entering into the spirit of a true and gentle
nature. After the first touches of enthusiastic sentiment, that
represent real freshness of enjoyment, there is no reaction to excess in
opposite extreme. The young foot traveller settles down to simple truth,
retains his faith in English character, and reports ill-usage without a
word of bitterness.
The great charm of this book is its unconscious expression of the
writer’s character. His simple truthfulness presents to us of 1886 as
much of the England of 1782 as he was able to see with eyes full of
intelligence and a heart full of kindness. He heard Burke speak on the
death of his friend and patron Lord Rockingham, with sudden rebuke to an
indolent and inattentive house. He heard young Pitt, and saw how he
could fix, boy as he looked, every man’s attention.
“Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.”
And when the power is so friendly as that of the Pastor Moritz, we may,
if wise, know ourselves better than from a thousand satires, but if
foolish we may let all run into self-praise.
H. M.
CHAPTER I.
_On the Thames_, 31st _May_.
AT length, my dearest Gedike, I find myself safely landed on the happy
shores of that country, a sight of which has, for many years, been my
most earnest wish; and whither I have so often in imagination transported
myself. A few hours ago the green hills of England yet swam imperfectly
before our eyes, scarcely perceptible in the distant horizon: they now
unfold themselves on either side, forming as it were a double
amphitheatre. The sun bursts through the clouds, and gilds alternately
the shrubs and meadows on the distant shores, and we now espy the tops of
two masts of ships just peeping above the surface of the deep. What an
awful warning to adventurous men! We now sail close by those very sands
(the Goodwin) where so many unfortunate persons have found their graves.
The shores now regularly draw nearer to each other: the danger of the
voyage is over; and the season for enjoyment, unembittered by cares,
commences. How do we feel ourselves, we, who have long been wandering as
it were, in a boundless space, on having once more gained prospects that
are not without limits! I should imagine our sensations as somewhat like
those of the traveller who traverses the immeasurable deserts of America,
when fortunately he obtains a hut wherein to shelter himself; in those
moments he certainly enjoys himself; nor does he then complain of its
being too small. It is indeed the lot of man to be always circumscribed
to a narrow space, even when he wanders over the most extensive regions;
even when the huge sea envelops him all around, and wraps him close to
its bosom, in the act, as it were, of swallowing him up in a moment:
still he is separated from all the circumjacent immensity of space only
by one small part, or insignificant portion of that immensity.
That portion of this space, which I now see surrounding me, is a most
delightful selection from the whole of beautiful nature. Here is the
Thames full of large and small ships and boats, dispersed here and there,
which are either sailing on with us, or lying at anchor; and there the
hills on either side, clad with so soft and mild a green, as I have
nowhere else ever seen equalled. The charming banks of the Elbe, which I
so lately quitted, are as much surpassed by these shores as autumn is by
spring! I see everywhere nothing but fertile and cultivated lands; and
those living hedges which in England more than in any other country, form
the boundaries of the green cornfields, and give to the whole of the
distant country the appearance of a large and majestic garden. The neat
villages and small towns with sundry intermediate country seats, suggest
ideas of prosperity and opulence which is not possible to describe.
The prospect towards Gravesend is particularly beautiful. It is a clever
little town, built on the side of a hill; about which there lie hill and
dale and meadows, and arable land, intermixed with pleasure grounds and
country seats; all diversified in the most agreeable manner. On one of
the highest of these hills near Gravesend stands a windmill, which is a
very good object, as you see it at some distance, as well as part of the
country around it, on the windings of the Thames. But as few human
pleasures are ever complete and perfect, we too, amidst the pleasing
contemplation of all these beauties, found ourselves exposed on the
quarter-deck to uncommonly cold and piercing weather. An unintermitting
violent shower of rain has driven me into the cabin, where I am now
endeavouring to divert a gloomy hour by giving you the description of a
pleasing one.