A TRIP THROUGH THE BRITISH ISLES
I--NEW YORK TO LONDON
1. _Leaving New York_--The docks, the harbor, description of the
steamer; life on the ocean.
2. _The Landing: Liverpool_--The new docks; the art gallery.
3. _On the Way to London_--The Northwestern Railway; English
railway-cars; English traveling companions; the countryside.
4. _The First Stop: Rugby_--English Inns; Thomas Arnold and Rugby
School. Brief reading from Tom Brown's School Days.
5. _Arriving in London_--The London cab; the motor-bus; the London
lodging-house; English and American comfort.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--John C. Van Dyke: The Opal Sea. Hare: Walks in London.
E. V. Lucas: The Friendly Town. Hawthorne: English Note-Books. William
Winter: Grey Days and Gold.
By stopping in Liverpool a few days, there are several delightful
side-trips possible: one to Chester, to see the cathedral, the Roman
ruins, the famous walls, and the Rows; another to Hawarden, the home of
Gladstone, and a third to Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of
Westminster.
By going to London by the Midland, one passes through the Peak country;
look up beautiful Haddon Hall and Chatsworth; read the Story of Dorothy
Vernon and Scott's Peveril of the Peak. Going by the Great Northern, one
can see the famous Five Dukeries, and pass through Sherwood Forest; read
of the latter from Ivanhoe.
II--LONDON
1. _The Largest City in the World_--Study of its map. Statistics. Modern
improvements. Charities. Government (the county council; the Lord Mayor
and aldermen).
2. _The History of London_--The ancient Britons and their pile
dwellings. Coming of the Romans. The days of Alfred. Norman London.
Under the Tudors. The Great Fire and the changes it made.
3. _Survivals of Old London_--Fragments of the Roman wall. The Hall of
William Rufus. The Tower and its church. The Abbey. Readings from The
Spectator and Washington Irving's Sketch-Book, describing the Abbey.
Coronations, including a brief description of that of George V.
4. _Modern London_--Buckingham Palace and its history. The Houses of
Parliament and their decoration. Art galleries and museums and their
most remarkable contents. St. Paul's. Westminster Cathedral. The homes
of the nobility.
5. _Literary Landmarks of London_--Grub Street. The Cheshire Cheese and
the Kit-Kat Club. Dickens's London. Residences of literary people.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--Hare: Walks in London. Besant: London (also his books
about the several sections). Hutton: Literary Landmarks of London.
Singleton: London as Seen and Described by Famous Writers. E. V. Lucas:
The Friendly Town.
An attractive discussion may follow these topics on such themes as the
modern housing problems of London, and the transportation of the city
(trams, tubes, motor-buses). Compare the hotels and restaurants with
those of New York. Shopping. Social settlements, especially Toynbee
Hall. The fashionable residence district. London Bridge by day and by
night. The London pageant of 1911.
III--THE GREAT CATHEDRALS
1. _Canterbury_--Description of the town. St. Martin's, the Mother
Church of England. Monastery of St. Augustine. Architecture of the
cathedral, and periods represented. Great events connected with its
history. Story of Thomas a Becket.
2. _Winchester, Salisbury, and Wells_--The ancient town of Winchester
and its place in English history. Caskets of the Danish kings. The
glass. Graves of Jane Austen and Izaak Walton. Salisbury: the most
symmetrical of the cathedrals. The cloister. Wells: the moated palace of
the bishops; the vicar's close; the chapter-house staircase.
3. _Ely and Peterborough_--Ely: the fens. Story of King Canute. The
military architecture. Peterborough: the screen of the west front; the
painted wood ceiling; the grave of Queen Catharine of Aragon, and the
former grave of Mary Queen of Scots.
4. _Lincoln and Lichfield_--Lincoln: the bishop's eye, and the dean's
eye; site of the shrine of Little Hugh of Lincoln; old houses around
the close. Lichfield: symmetry; monuments of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
Samuel Johnson, and Garrick. Johnson's connection with Lichfield. The
Grammar-School.
5. _York and Durham_--York: the old city and its walls; the Five Sisters
window; the military monuments; the famous chapter-house; the crypt; the
horn of Ulphus. Durham: story of the monks of Lindisfarne and St.
Cuthbert; the dun cow; the prince bishops; the Norman pillars; the
Galilee, and the grave of The Venerable Bede; the knocker.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--Van Rensselaer: English Cathedrals. Pratt: Cathedral
Churches of England. Singleton: Famous Cathedrals as Seen and Described
by Great Writers.
If time permits, this program should occupy two meetings at least. To
the great cathedrals given may be added the smaller ones, Chichester,
Gloucester, Worcester, Chester, Exeter, Ripon and Carlisle. To the
excursion to Wells add a side-trip to Glastonbury, the home of the
Arthurian legends. At Winchester visit the Hospital of St. Cross and the
famous school. At Canterbury read from David Copperfield.
IV--OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE
1. _Oxford: the City_--The Cherwell and the Isis. The castle. Carfax.
The martyrs and their monument. The cathedral. Trips to Iffley,
Blenheim, Woodstock, and Gaunt House.
2. _Oxford: the Colleges_--Origin and constitution of university. New
College: William of Wykeham's Tower and Sir Joshua Reynolds's window;
Christ Church: Cardinal Wolsey, the great bell, the hall and staircase;
Magdalen College: the Founder's Tower, the deer park, Addison's Walk,
the outdoor pulpit; Balliol College: John Balliol, King of Scotland,
Wiclif, Jowett.
3. _Oxford: in English History and Literature_--The monks; the Empress
Matilda; Charles I.; the Oxford Movement. Famous authors educated at
Oxford: Ben Jonson, Sidney, Locke, Jeremy Taylor, Ruskin, Matthew
Arnold, Swinburne, Pater. Books describing life in college at Oxford:
Verdant Green, Hard Cash, Tom Brown at Oxford. Readings about Oxford
from Matthew Arnold, Andrew Lang, and Bagehot.
4. _Cambridge: the City and the Colleges_--The round Norman church; the
Cam and the Backs. Pembroke College: Edmund Spenser's mulberry-tree;
Queen's: the bridge; King's: Henry Seventh's chapel; Trinity: Wren's
library, Milton manuscript; St. John's: the garden; Magdalen: the Pepys
library; Emmanuel: the Puritans' college, John Harvard.
5. _Cambridge and the Intellectual Life of England_--Government and
Science: Bacon, Newton, Harvey, Darwin, Thurlow, Palmerston. Letters:
Ascham, Marlowe, Crashaw, Dryden, Gray, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron,
Thackeray, Tennyson.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--Andrew Lang: Oxford. Edwards: Oxford Painted by John
Fulleylove. Atkinson: Cambridge Described and Illustrated. Stubbs: The
History of Cambridge.
Read especially the famous passage from the preface to Matthew Arnold's
Essays in Criticism, concerning Oxford. Show a photograph of the
beautiful memorial of Shelley and one of Holman Hunt's picture called,
"The Light of the World." Tell of the Bodleian Library and the
Sheldonian Theater. Read O. W. Holmes's account of the granting of
degrees. Under Cambridge, notice King's College chapel and compare the
ceiling with that of Henry Seventh's chapel in Westminster Abbey, built
at the same time. Give a brief paper on Girton and Newnham Colleges for
women.
V--THE LAKE COUNTRY
1. _Introductory Paper_--General description of Westmoreland and
Cumberland Counties. The sixteen lakes, including Windermere, Ullswater,
Coniston, and Derwentwater. History of the region.
2. _Windermere and Its Neighborhood_--Bowness and its church. The
steamer trip. Elleray and Christopher North. Hawkshead and the
Wordsworth Grammar-School. Coniston. Brantwood and Ruskin. The Duddon
Valley.
3. _Ambleside, Grasmere, and Keswick_--Coaching. Dove's Nest. Fox How,
the home of Thomas Arnold. Rydal Mount. Nab Cottage and Hartley
Coleridge. Grasmere Church and Wordsworth grave and monument. Keswick
and the home of Southey, Greta Hall. Crosthwaite Church and Southey's
tomb. Derwentwater and the Friar's Crag. The Falls of Lodore.
4. _The Lake School of Poets_--Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge.
Readings from Wordsworth's Excursion and his sonnets. Reading from
Southey's Lodore.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--Eric Robertson: Wordsworthshire. Rawnsley: Life and
Nature at the English Lakes (also several other books by the same
author). Knight: The English Lake District as Interpreted in the Poems
of Wordsworth. A. G. Bradley (and Pennell): Highways and Byways in the
Lake District. Palmer: The English Lakes.
If possible, have a talk on Dorothy Wordsworth and the home life of
brother and sister. Mention some of their visitors, among them Charles
Lamb, the friend of the three Lake Poets. Read Wordsworth's poem about
his wife: "She was a Phantom of Delight." The connection of the Arnolds,
Thomas and Matthew, with the lake country is full of interest, as well
as that of Harriet Martineau. Refer also to Arthur Hugh Clough, who
lived here for a time. The schools founded by Ruskin are worth study,
where the plowboys learned to make beautiful pottery, and the farmers'
daughters, embroidery.
VI--THE SHAKESPEARE COUNTRY
1. _Stratford on Avon_--Shakespeare's birthplace; the signatures of
famous people on the walls; the museum, the garden. The Grammar-School.
New Place and the Mulberry-Tree. The church and the tomb of Shakespeare,
with its inscription. The river Avon.
2. _Around Stratford_--Shottery and the home of Ann Hathaway. Charlcote
and the deer-park. The Elizabethan mansion and the church of Hampton
Lucy.
3. _Kenilworth_--The famous revels prepared for Queen Elizabeth by the
Earl of Leicester in 1574. Shakespeare's relation to the Queen and the
court. Were any plays written at her suggestion? The present ruins of
Kenilworth and Amy Robsart's tower.
4. _Warwick_--The castle and its treasures and history. Leycester
Hospital. The Church of Saint Mary with the tomb of the great Earl of
Leicester. Guy's Cliff.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--William Winter: Shakespeare's England. Goadby: The
England of Shakespeare. Leyland: The Shakespeare Country Illustrated.
Turner: Shakespeare's Land.
The country about Stratford is constantly referred to in the plays of
Shakespeare. In Henry IV., The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merry Wives
of Windsor there are numerous passages which touch it. The Forest of
Arden is deserving of a side-trip, and on the way travelers watch for
the wild thyme, the primroses, the violets, and other flowers mentioned
by Shakespeare. There may be a little tour to Coventry, the quaint old
town associated with the story of Lady Godiva. Photographs for
illustrating the Shakespeare country are abundant and beautiful, and are
easily obtained.
VII--SCOTLAND (PART I)
1. _Edinburgh_--General appearance of the city. The old town and the
new. The castle. Saint Giles's. The Knox house. Holyrood. The Tolbooth.
The wynds. The Canongate. Grey Friars. The Scott monument. The
university.
2. _Through the Lakes and the Trossachs to Glasgow_--Railway, steamer,
and coach. Stirling: the castle, field of Bannockburn, the Wallace
monument. The Trossachs. Loch Katrine and Ellen's Isle (see The Lady of
the Lake). Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond. Glasgow: the cathedral, the
university. The Clyde. Reading from The Lady of the Lake.
3. _The Land of Burns_--Ayr: the Auld Brig and the New Brig, Burns's
cottage, the Brig o' Doon, Auld Alloway Kirk. The Burns monument.
Dumfries: Burns's house (where he died), his grave and monument. Reading
of Tam o' Shanter.
4. _Scott's Country_--Abbotsford. Melrose. Dryburgh. Reading from
Washington Irving's account of his visit to Abbotsford, and the account
of Scott's funeral in Lockhart's Life of Scott.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--William Winter: Over the Border. Hunnewell: Lands of
Scott. Crockett: In the Border Country. Crockett: The Scott Country. Sir
H. E. Maxwell: The Story of the Tweed.
A day's coaching-trip from Edinburgh takes one to the beautiful little
chapel of Roslin with its "'Prentice Pillar," and to Hawthornden, the
glen where Drummond, the Elizabethan poet, lived. A second excursion may
be made to the old university town of Saint Andrews, with its castle (a
ruin) and the bottle dungeon, and also the famous golf-links. A trip may
be taken to the seaside town of Newhaven, to see the fish-wives in their
quaint costumes.
VIII--SCOTLAND (PART II)
1. _Perth and Aberdeen_--Perth: St. John's Church. Site of the convent
and the story of The King's Tragedy (see Rossetti). Reading from
Scott's Fair Maid of Perth. Balmoral: Reading from Queen Victoria's
Journal in the Highlands. Aberdeen: History. The granite works. The
Cathedral of St. Machar. The university (King's College). Bridge of Don
(1320).
2. _Oban_--"The Charing Cross of the Highlands." The Island of Mull.
Staffa ("Island of Pillars") and Fingal's Cave. Iona. St. Columba's
church. Story of his life. Reading from Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
The Celtic crosses.
3. _The Caledonian Canal_--Start from Oban. Glencoe and the story of its
massacre. Ossian's cave. Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Great Britain).
Invergarry Castle. Fall of Foyers.
4. _Skye and the Islands_--Reading from William Black's A Princess of
Thule; also, from Scott's Pirate. The Orkney Islands. Sea fowl.
Fisheries. The Shetland Islands. Story of Harold Haarfagr.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--James Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
R. B. Moncrieff: Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Archibald MacMillan:
Iona. George Birkbeck Hill: Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.
Introduce in this program the ballads of the Scottish Highlands, either
read or sung. The origin of the tartans used by the different clans is
interesting, especially if illustrated with colored reproductions. The
unique Highland costume for men may be described or represented. The
bagpipes should be noticed; their peculiar music and their historic use.
IX--WALES
1. _History_--The Romans and their remains. Offa's Dyke. The Normans and
their buildings. Griffith ap Rhyl. Llewlyn the Great. Owen Glendower's
revolt. Origin of the Tudor kings in Wales. The story of the Princes of
Wales.
2. _The Country and the People_--Wildness and grandeur. Llandudno,
Llangollen, Bettws-y-Coed, Snowdon. Show photographs of the most famous
places. The Celts and their languages. National customs of the Welsh:
the eisteddfod.
3. _Churches and Castles_--Wrexham Church and the tomb of Elihu Yale.
Valle Crucis Abbey. Truro. St. Asaph's Cathedral, the smallest in the
kingdom, and the grave of Mrs. Hemans. Llandaff Cathedral. Cardiff
Castle. Beaumaris. Hawarden Church, in the grounds of Gladstone's
estate. Pembroke, the birthplace of Henry VII. Bangor. Denbigh. Conway.
Carnarvon, the birthplace of the first Prince of Wales. Harlech. Powys.
4. _Literature_--Giraldus Cambrensis. The Arthurian Legends. The
Mabinogion. Celtic Folk-lore.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--E. Thomas and R. Fowler: Beautiful Wales. A. G.
Bradley: Highways and Byways in Wales. W. J. Griffith: Short Analysis of
Welsh History (Temple Primers). George Borrow: Wild Wales. J. B. John:
The Mabinogion.
Welsh music should have some place in the program. Great choruses of
singers have traveled in America, and may have been heard by some of the
club members. The best-known song is the stirring March of the Men of
Harlech. An interesting paper may be prepared on the relation existing
between Tennyson's Idyls of the King and the Welsh legends.
X--IRELAND
1. _The History_--The Celts: their characteristics, customs, and
folk-lore. The Irish kings. St. Columba and St. Patrick. The conquest.
The question of home rule.
2. _Belfast, the City of the North_--Differences between the people of
the north and those of the south. Protestants and Catholics.
Ship-building and the linen industry. Dimensions of some of the recently
made ships. The Giant's Causeway.
3. _Dublin_--The government buildings. Phoenix Park and its history.
The cathedral and Dean Swift. Excursions in the neighborhood.
4. _Cork and the South_--The city and its characteristics. The Gap of
Dunloe. The Lakes of Killarney. Blarney Castle. Show photographs.
5. _Irish Literature_--Ancient. Readings from the publications of the
Irish Text Society. Oratory. Sheridan, Burke, Grattan, O'Connell.
Folk-tales and folk-songs. See volume x. of Morris's Irish Literature.
Novels: Lover, Edgeworth, Lever, William Carleton. Readings. The New
Irish Theater: Yeats, Synge, Lady Gregory.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--Mrs. Alice S. A. Green: Irish Nationality. J. P.
Joyce: The Wonders of Ireland. W. C. O'Donnell: Around the Emerald
Isles. F. Weitenkampf: The Irish Literary Revival.
To vary this program, illustrate with scenes from Sheridan's School for
Scandal, and The Rivals, in costume. Have Moore's ballads sung: Oft in
the Stilly Night, Those Evening Bells, The Last Rose of Summer, and The
Harp that Once Through Tara's Halls. Read from Lever's Charles O'Malley
and from Burke's speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Clever
Irish stories and famous bulls might be given to close the hour.