THE DECEIT OF DESCRIPTIONS OF SCENERY.—THE SOUL OF A LANDSCAPE.—THE
ISLE OF WIGHT, ITS CHARACTERISTICS.—APPROPRIATE DOMESTIC
ARCHITECTURE.—GENIAL CLIMATE.—TROPICAL VERDURE.—THE CLIFFS OF
ALBION.—OSBORNE.—THE ROYAL VILLA.—COUNTRY LIFE OF THE ROYAL
FAMILY.—AGRICULTURAL INCLINATION AND RURAL TASTES.—THE ROYAL
TENANTRY.—A RURAL FETE AT OSBORNE.
[Sidenote: _FAVOUR OF NATURE._]
There is always a strong temptation upon the traveller to endeavour
to so describe fine scenery, and the feelings which it has occasioned
him, that they may be reproduced to the imagination of his friends.
Judging from my own experience, this purpose always fails. I have never
yet seen any thing celebrated in scenery, of which I had previously
obtained a correct conception. Certain striking, prominent points,
that the power of language has been most directed to the painting of,
almost invariably disappoint, and seem little and commonplace, after
the exaggerated forms which have been brought before the mind’s eye.
Beauty, grandeur, impressiveness in any way, from scenery, is not often
to be found in a few prominent, distinguishable features, but in the
manner and the unobserved materials with which these are connected and
combined. Clouds, lights, states of the atmosphere, and circumstances
that we cannot always detect, affect all landscapes, and especially
landscapes in which the vicinity of a body of water is an element, much
more than we are often aware. So it is that the impatient first glance
of the young traveller, or the impertinent critical stare of the old
tourist, is almost never satisfied, if the honest truth be admitted, in
what it has been led to previously imagine. I have heard “Niagara is a
mill-dam,” “Rome is a humbug.”
The deep sentiments of Nature that we sometimes seem to have been made
the confidant of, when among the mountains, or on the moors or the
ocean,—even those of man wrought out in architecture and sculpture and
painting, or of man working in unison with Nature, as sometimes in
the English parks, on the Rhine, and here on the Isle of Wight,—such
revealings are beyond words; they never could be transcribed into
note-books and diaries, and so descriptions of them become caricatures,
and when we see them, we at first say we are disappointed that we find
not the monsters we were told of.
Dame Nature is a gentlewoman. No guide’s fee will obtain you her
favour, no abrupt demand; hardly will she bear questioning, or direct,
curious gazing at her beauty; least of all, will she reveal it truly
to the hurried glance of the passing traveller, while he waits for his
dinner, or fresh horses, or fuel and water; always we must quietly and
unimpatiently wait upon it. Gradually and silently the charm comes over
us; the beauty has entered our souls; we know not exactly when or how,
but going away we remember it with a tender, subdued, filial-like joy.
Does this seem nonsense to you? Very likely, for I am talking of what I
don’t understand. Nature treats me so strangely; it’s past my speaking
sensibly of, and yet, as a part of my travelling experience, I would
speak of it. At times I seem myself to be her favourite, and she brings
me to my knees in deep feeling, such as she blesses no other with;
oftener I see others in ecstasies, while I am left to sentimentalize
and mourn, or to be critical, and sneering, and infidel. Nonsense
still; but tell me, do you think it is only for greed of trouts that
your great and sensitive man lingers long, intently stooping over dark
pools in the spray of the mountain torrents, or stealing softly a way
through the bending rushes, or kneeling lowly on the darkest verdure of
the shaded meadow? What else? I know not what he thinks, but of this I
am assured: while his mind is most intent upon his trivial sport, his
heart and soul will be far more absorbent of the rugged strength, the
diffuse, impetuous brilliance, the indefinite gliding grace, or the
peaceful twilight loveliness, of the scenes around him, than if he went
out searching, labouring directly for it as for bread and fame.
The greater part of the Isle of Wight is more dreary, desolate, bare,
and monotonous, than any equal extent of land you probably ever saw
in America—would be, rather, if it were not that you are rarely out
of sight of the sea; and no landscape, of which that is a part,
ever can be without variety and ever-changing interest. It is, in
fact, _down-land_ in the interior, exactly like that I described in
Wiltshire, and sometimes breaking down into such bright dells as I
there told of. But on the south shore it is rocky, craggy; and after
you have walked through a rather dull country, though pleasing on the
whole, for hours after landing, you come gradually to where the majesty
of vastness, peculiar to the downs and the ocean, alternates or mingles
with dark, picturesque, rugged ravines, chasms, and water-gaps, sublime
rock-masses, and soft, warm, smiling, inviting dells and dingles; and,
withal, there is a strange and fascinating enrichment of half-tropical
foliage, so deep, graceful, and luxuriant, as I never saw before any
where in the world. All this district is thickly inhabited, and yet so
well covered with verdure, or often so tastefully appropriate—quiet,
cosy, ungenteel, yet elegant—are the cottages, that they often add
to, rather than insult and destroy, the natural charm of their
neighbourhood. I am sorry to say, that among the later erections
there are a number of very strong exceptions to this remark.
[Illustration: Small house on a hill]
[Sidenote: _VICTORIA AT HOME._]
In this paradise the climate, by favour of its shelter of hills on the
north, and the equalising influence of the ocean on the south, is,
perhaps, the most equable and genial in the northern temperate zone.
The mercury does not fall as low in winter as at Rome; deciduous trees
lose their verdure but for a brief interval; greensward is evergreen;
tender-roses, fuschias, and the dark, glossy shrubs of Canaan and of
Florida, feel themselves at home, and flourish through the winter.
Where the chalky _downs_ reach the shore without an intervening barrier
of rock, or a gradual sloping descent, they are broken off abruptly
and precipitously; and thus are formed the “white cliffs of _Albion_,”
and a coast scenery with which, for grandeur, there is nothing on our
Atlantic shore that will in the least compare: notwithstanding which,
and although they really are often higher than our church-steeples and
monuments—the familiar _standards_ with which we compare their number
of feet—they have not the stupendous effect upon the mind that I had
always imagined that they must have.
We were rambling for the greater part of two days upon the island,
spending a night near Black-gang-Chine. Returning, we passed near
Osborne, a private estate purchased some years since by the Queen,
upon which she has had erected a villa, said to be an adaptation of
the Grecian style to modern tastes and habits, but of which nothing is
to be seen from without the grounds but the top of a lofty campanile,
from which is now displayed the banner with the royal arms, which
always indicates the presence of the reigning sovereign of Great
Britain. It is the custom of the royal family, when here, to live
in as retired and unstately a way as they can ever be permitted
to. The Prince himself turns farmer, and engages with much ardour
in improving the agricultural capabilities of the soil, much of
which was not originally of a fertile character, but by thorough
drainage, and judicious tillage and manuring, is now producing greatly
enlarged crops. The Prince is well known as a successful breeder and
stockfarmer, having taken several prizes for fat cattle, &c., at the
great annual shows. Her Majesty personally interests herself in the
embellishment of the grounds and the extensive oak plantations which
are being made, and is in the habit of driving herself a pair of
ponies, unattended, through the estate, studying the comfort of her
little cottage tenantry, and in every way she can trying to seem to
herself the good-wife of a respectable country gentleman.
On the last birth-day of Prince Albert, a dinner was given to the
labourers on the estate, with the seamen, boys, and marines of the
Royal Yacht, and the coast-guard and soldiers stationed in the
neighbourhood, (altogether about four hundred persons.) The dinner
was provided in a large tent which was pitched on the lawn in front
of the house, and consisted of a plentiful supply of beef, mutton,
and plum-pudding, with strong ale. After grace had been said by the
bailiff, (overseer,) and the company were seated, the Queen and Prince
walked through the tent, and at the conclusion, after the usual loyal
toasts, all adjourned to the greensward without, and in the presence
of all the royal family engaged in a country dance, and afterwards
in foot-races and in games of cricket and football, and other
old-fashioned rural sports, the Queen remaining with them for several
hours.