_Richmond_, 21_st_ _June_, 1782.
YESTERDAY afternoon I had the luxury for the first time of being driven
in an English stage. These coaches are, at least in the eyes of a
foreigner, quite elegant, lined in the inside; and with two seats large
enough to accommodate six persons; but it must be owned, when the
carriage is full, the company are rather crowded.
At the White Hart from whence the coach sets out, there was, at first
only an elderly lady who got in; but as we drove along, it was soon
filled, and mostly by ladies, there being only one more gentleman and
myself. The conversation of the ladies among themselves, who appeared to
be a little acquainted with each other, seemed to me to be but very
insipid and tiresome. All I could do was, I drew out my book of the
roads, and marked the way we were going.
Before you well know that you are out of London you are already in
Kensington and Hammersmith; because there are all the way houses on both
sides, after you are out of the city; just as you may remember the case
is with us when you drive from Berlin to Schoneberg; although in point of
prospect, houses and streets, the difference, no doubt, is prodigious.
It was a fine day, and there were various delightful prospects on both
sides, on which the eye would willingly have dwelt longer, had not our
coach rolled on past them, so provokingly quick. It appeared somewhat
singular to me, when at a few miles from London, I saw at a distance a
beautiful white house; and perceived on the high road, on which we were
driving, a direction post, on which were written these words: “that great
white house at a distance is a boarding-school!”
The man who was with us in the coach pointed out to us the country seats
of the lords and great people by which we passed; and entertained us with
all kind of stories of robberies which had been committed on travellers,
hereabouts; so that the ladies at last began to be rather afraid; on
which he began to stand up for the superior honour of the English
robbers, when compared with the French: the former he said robbed only,
the latter both robbed and murdered.
Notwithstanding this there are in England another species of villains,
who also murder, and that oftentimes for the merest trifle, of which they
rob the person murdered. These are called footpads, and are the lowest
class of English rogues; amongst whom in general there reigns something
like some regard to character.
The highest order of thieves are the pickpockets or cutpurses, whom you
find everywhere; and sometimes even in the best companies. They are
generally well and handsomely dressed, so that you take them to be
persons of rank; as indeed may sometimes be the case: persons who by
extravagance and excesses have reduced themselves to want, and find
themselves obliged at last to have recourse to pilfering and thieving.
Next to them come the highwaymen, who rob on horseback; and often, they
say, even with unloaded pistols, they terrify travellers, in order to put
themselves in possession of their purses. Among these persons, however,
there are instances of true greatness of soul, there are numberless
instances of their returning a part of their booty, where the party
robbed has appeared to be particularly distressed; and they are seldom
guilty of murder.
Then comes the third and lowest, and worst of all thieves and rogues, the
footpads before mentioned; who are on foot, and often murder in the most
inhuman manner, for the sake of only a few shillings, any unfortunate
people who happen to fall in their way. Of this several mournful
instances may be read almost daily in the English papers. Probably they
murder, because they cannot like highwaymen, aided by their horses, make
a rapid flight: and therefore such pests are frequently pretty easily
pursued and taken if the person robbed gives information of his robbery
in time.
But to return to our stage, I must observe, that they have here a curious
way of riding, not in, but upon a stage-coach. Persons to whom it is not
convenient to pay a full price, instead of the inside, sit on the top of
the coach, without any seats or even a rail. By what means passengers
thus fasten themselves securely on the roof of these vehicles, I know
not; but you constantly see numbers seated there, apparently at their
ease, and in perfect safety.
This they call riding on the outside; for which they pay only half as
much as those pay who are within: we had at present six of these
passengers over our heads, who, when we alighted, frequently made such a
noise and bustle, as sometimes almost frightened us. He who can properly
balance himself, rides not incommodiously on the outside; and in summer
time, in fine weather, on account of the prospects, it certainly is more
pleasant than it is within: excepting that the company is generally low,
and the dust is likewise more troublesome than in the inside, where, at
any rate, you may draw up the windows according to your pleasure.
In Kensington, where we stopped, a Jew applied for a place along with us;
but as there was no seat vacant in the inside, he would not ride on the
outside, which seemed not quite to please my travelling companions. They
could not help thinking it somewhat preposterous that a Jew should be
ashamed to ride on the outside, or on any side, and in any way; since as
they added, he was nothing more than a Jew. This antipathy and prejudice
against the Jews, I have noticed to be far more common here, than it is
even with us, who certainly are not partial to them.
Of the beautiful country seats and villas which we now passed, I could
only through the windows of our coach gain a partial and indistinct
prospect, which led me to wish, as I soon most earnestly did, to be
released from this movable prison. Towards evening we arrived at
Richmond. In London, before I set out, I had paid one shilling; another
was now demanded, so that upon the whole, from London to Richmond, the
passage in the stage costs just two shillings.
As soon as I had alighted at an inn and had drunk my tea, I went out
immediately to see the town and the circumjacent country.
Even this town, though hardly out of sight of London, is more
countrified, pleasanter, and more cheerful than London, and the houses do
not seem to be so much blackened by smoke. The people also appeared to
me here more sociable and more hospitable. I saw several sitting on
benches before their doors, to enjoy the cool breeze of the evening. On
a large green area in the middle of the town, a number of boys, and even
young men, were enjoying themselves, and playing at trap-ball. In the
streets there reigned here, compared to London, a pleasing rural
tranquillity, and I breathed a purer and fresher air.
I went now out of the town over a bridge, which lies across the Thames,
and where you pay a penny as often as you pass over it. The bridge is
lofty and built in the form of an arch, and from it you enter immediately
into a most charming valley, that winds all along the banks of the
Thames.
It was evening. The sun was just shedding her last parting rays on the
valley; but such an evening, and such a valley! Oh, it is impossible I
should ever forget them. The terrace at Richmond does assuredly afford
one of the finest prospects in the world. Whatever is charming in
nature, or pleasing in art, is to be seen here. Nothing I had ever seen,
or ever can see elsewhere, is to be compared to it. My feelings, during
the few short enraptured minutes that I stood there, it is impossible for
any pen to describe.
One of my first sensations was chagrin and sorrow for the days and hours
I had wasted in London, and I had vented a thousand bitter reproaches on
my irresolution, that I had not long ago quitted that huge dungeon to
come here and pass my time in paradise.
Yes, my friend, whatever be your ideas of paradise, and how luxuriantly
soever it may be depicted to your imagination, I venture to foretell that
here you will be sure to find all those ideas realised. In every point
of view, Richmond is assuredly one of the first situations in the world.
Here it was that Thomson and Pope gleaned from nature all those beautiful
passages with which their inimitable writings abound.
Instead of the incessant distressing noise in London, I saw here at a
distance, sundry little family parties walking arm in arm along the banks
of the Thames. Everything breathed a soft and pleasing calm, which
warmed my heart and filed it with some of the most pleasing sensations of
which our nature is susceptible.
Beneath I trod on that fresh, even, and soft verdure which is to be seen
only in England. On one side of me lay a wood, than which nature cannot
produce a finer, and on the other the Thames, with its shelvy bank and
charming lawns rising like an amphitheatre, along which, here and there,
one espies a picturesque white house, aspiring in majestic simplicity to
pierce the dark foliage of the surrounding trees; thus studding, like
stars in the galaxy, the rich expanse of this charming vale.
Sweet Richmond! never, no, never, shall I forget that lovely evening,
when from thy fairy hills thou didst so hospitably smile on me, a poor
lonely, insignificant stranger! As I traversed to and fro thy meads, thy
little swelling hills and flowery dells, and above all that queen of all
rivers, thy own majestic Thames, I forgot all sublunary cares, and
thought only of heaven and heavenly things. Happy, thrice happy am I, I
again and again exclaimed, that I am no longer in yon gloomy city, but
here in Elysium, in Richmond.
O ye copsy hills, ye green meadows, and ye rich streams in this blessed
country, how have ye enchanted me? Still, however, let me recollect and
resolve, as I firmly do, that even ye shall not prevent my return to
those barren and dusty lands where my, perhaps a less indulgent, destiny
has placed me, and where, in the due discharge of all the arduous and
important duties of that humble function to which providence has called
me, I must and I will faithfully exert my best talents, and in that
exertion find pleasure, and I trust, happiness. In every future moment
of my life, however, the recollection of this scene, and the feelings it
inspired, shall cheer my labours and invigorate my efforts.
These were some of my reflections, my dearest friend, during my solitary
walk. Of the evening I passed at Richmond, I speak feebly when I content
myself with saying only, it was one of the pleasantest I ever spent in my
life.
I now resolved to go to bed early, with a firm purpose of also rising
early the next day to revisit this charming walk; for I thought to
myself, I have now seen this temple of the modern world imperfectly; I
have seen it only by moonlight. How much more charming must it be when
glistening with the morning dew! These fond hopes, alas, were all
disappointed. In all great schemes of enjoyment, it is, I believe, no
bad way always to figure to yourself some possible evil that may arise,
and to anticipate a disappointment. If I had done so, I should not
perhaps have felt the mortification I then experienced quite so pungent.
By some means or other I stayed too long out, and so when I returned to
Richmond, I had forgot the name and the sign of the inn where I had
before stopped; it cost me no little trouble to find it again.
When at last I got back, I told the people what a sweet walk I had had,
and they then spoke much of a prospect from a neighbouring hill, known by
the name of Richmond Hill, which was the very same hill from the top of
which I had just been gazing at the houses in the vale, the preceding
evening. From this same kill, therefore, I resolved the next morning to
see the sun rise.
The landlady of this house was a notable one, and talked so much and so
loud to her servants, that I could not get to sleep till it was pretty
late. However, I was up next morning at three o’clock, and was now
particularly sensible of the great inconveniences they sustain in England
by their bad custom of rising so late, for as I was the only one in this
family who was up, I could not get out of the house. This obliged me to
spend three most irksome and heavy hours till six o’clock; however, a
servant at length opened the door, and I rushed out to climb Richmond
Hill. To my infinite disappointment, within the space of an hour, the
sky had become overcast, and it was now so cloudy that I could not even
see, nor of course enjoy one half of the delightful prospect that lay
before me.
On the top of this hill is an alley of chestnut trees, under which here
and there seats are placed. Behind the alley is a row of well-built
gentlemen’s country seats. One does not wonder to see it thus occupied;
besides the pure air, the prospect exceeds everything else of the kind in
the world. I never saw a palace which, if I were the owner of it, I
would not give for any of the houses I now saw on Richmond Terrace.
The descent of the hill to the Thames is covered with verdure, the Thames
at the foot of it forms near a semicircle, in which it seems to embrace
woody plains, with meadows and country seats in its bosom. On one side
you see the town and its magnificent bridge, and on the other a dark
wood.
At a distance you could perceive, peeping out among the meadows and
woods, sundry small villages, so that notwithstanding the dulness of the
weather, this prospect even now was one of the finest I had ever seen.
But what is the reason that yesterday evening my feelings were far more
acute and lively, the impressions made on me much stronger, when from the
vale I viewed the hill and fancied that there was in it every thing that
was delightful, than they are this morning, when from the hill I
overlooked the vale and knew pretty exactly what it contained?
I have now finished my breakfast, and once more seize my staff, the only
companion I have, and now again set out on this romantic journey on foot.
From Windsor you shall hear more of me.