The Maese presently brought us opposite to this small port, the
metropolis of the herring fishers; rendered interesting by the patient
industry and useful courage of its inhabitants. We landed at it, but
saw only what was immediately open for observation. Like most of the
Dutch towns, on the banks of rivers, it is protected from floods by
standing at the distance of three or four hundred yards from the shore,
and communicates with the stream only by a narrow, but deep canal.
The best street is built upon the quays of this channel, on which the
herring boats deposit their cargoes before the doors of the owners. We
did not see more than fifty, a great number being then at sea. Except
the business in this street, and the smell of herrings, which prevailed
every where, there was nothing to shew that we were in a place
supported solely by the industry of fishermen; no neglected houses, no
cottages, no dirty streets, no inferiority, in point of neatness and
brightness, to the other towns of Holland.
The inhabitants are remarkable for adhering to the dress, as well as
the employments of their ancestors; so much so, that their clothing is
mentioned in other towns as the representation of the antient national
dress, common throughout all the provinces two centuries since; and it
is certain, that their appearance is exactly such as is delineated in
pictures of that date.
* * * * *
Some miles further, we entered the old Maese, a channel in several
parts very narrow, and evidently preserved by art, but in others nobly
expansive, and filled almost to the level of the luxuriant pastures and
groves that border it. In one part, where the antient stream takes a
circuitous course, a canal has been cut, that shortens the voyage, for
light vessels, by several miles, and barks in one channel are sometimes
visible from the other, their sails swelling over fields, in which, at
a distance, no water is discernible. Neat and substantial farmhouses,
with meadows flaming from them to the river, frequently occurred; and
there were more appearances of the careful labours, peculiar to the
Dutch, than in the great Maese itself, the banks being occasionally
supported, like their dykes, by a compact basket-work of flags and
faggots.
Passing many small villages, or hamlets, we came, at sun-set, to
the large branch of the sea, which spreads from Williamstadt to
Helvoetsluys, and from thence to the German ocean. The former fortress
was faintly visible at a great distance over the water; and, while
we were straining our sight towards it, there was proof enough of a
nearness to the present theatre of war, the sounds of the siege of
Sluys coming loudly and distinctly in the breeze. The characters of
evening had fallen upon the scene in mild and deep solemnity; but the
glories of nature were unfelt, while a dreadful estimation of the
miseries, produced at each return of the sullen roar, pressed almost
exclusively upon the mind; considerations, which were soon after
prolonged by the melancholy view of several English transports, filled
with wounded soldiers, whose blythe music, now at the firing of the
evening gun, was rendered painful by its contrast to the truth of their
conditions.
At Helvoetsluys, nothing was to be heard, but accounts, derived from
many respectable officers, on their way to England, of the unexampled
difficulties borne, cheerfully borne, by the British army, within the
last three months, and deservedly mentioned, not as complaints, but
as proofs of their firmness. There were, however, mingled with these,
many reports as to the contrary conduct even of those continental
troops, which still kept the field with us; of their tardiness,
their irregularity, of the readiness with which they permitted the
British to assume all the dangers of attacks, and of their little
co-operation even in the means of general resistance. _Brave Anglois!
Brave Anglois!_ was the constant shout of these troops, when they had
recourse to the British to regain the posts themselves had just lost,
or to make some assault, which they had refused, or had attempted
with ineffectual formality. They would then follow our troops, and,
when an advantage was gained, seemed to think they had share enough
of the victory, if they were at hand to continue the slaughter of the
retreating, and to engross all the plunder of the dead.
We were as glad to escape from such considerations, as from the crowded
inns of Helvoetsluys, now little more convenient than ships; and, the
next morning, embarked on board the American vessel, then arrived from
Rotterdam. A fair wind soon wafted us out of sight of the low coast of
Holland; but we were afterwards becalmed, and carried by tides so far
towards the Flemish shore as to have the firing before Sluys not only
audible, but terribly loud. For part of three days, we remained within
hearing of this noise; but did not, therefore, think ourselves very
distant from the English coast, knowing that the fire, at the preceding
siege of Nieuport, had been heard as far as the Downs; Nieuport,
the wretched scene of so many massacres, and of distress, which, in
Holland, had been forcibly described to us by eye-witnesses.
So keenly, indeed were the horrors of this place conceived by those,
who personally escaped from them, that of the emigrants, rescued
by the intrepidity of our seamen, many suppressed all joy at their
own deliverance by lamentations for the fate of their brethren.
One gentleman was no sooner on board a ship, then exposed to the
batteries on shore, than he climbed the shrouds and remained aloft,
notwithstanding all entreaties, till a severe wound obliged him to
descend. Another, who had been saved from the beach by a young sailor,
was unable to swim so far as the ship; and the honest lad, having taken
him upon his back, struggled hard amidst a shower of balls to save both
their lives. At length, he, too, began to falter; and the weakness of
his efforts, not his complaints, seemed to shew his companion, that
one, or both of them, must perish: the latter nobly asked the lad,
whether he could save his own life, if left to himself; and, receiving
a reluctant reply, that probably he might do so, but that he would
strive for both, the emigrant instantly plunged into the ocean and was
seen no more. The glorious sailor reached his ship, just as he began
again to sail, and was saved.
The calm continued during the day, and the sun set with uncommon
grandeur among clouds of purple, red and gold, that mingling with the
serene azure of the upper sky, composed a richness and harmony of
colouring which we never saw surpassed. It was most interesting to
watch the progress of evening and its effect on the waters; streaks of
light scattered among the dark western clouds, after the sun had set,
and gleaming in long reflection on the sea, while a grey obscurity was
drawing over the east, as the vapours rose gradually from the ocean.
The air was breathless; the tall sails of the vessel were without
motion, and her course upon the deep scarcely perceptible; while,
above, the planet Jupiter burned with steady dignity, and threw a
tremulous line of light on the sea, whose surface flowed in smooth
waveless expanse. Then, other planets appeared, and countless stars
spangled the dark waters. Twilight now pervaded air and ocean, but the
west was still luminous, where one solemn gleam of dusky red edged the
horizon, from under heavy vapours.
It was now that we first discovered some symptoms of England; the
lighthouse on the South-Foreland appeared like a dawning star above the
margin of the sea.
The vessel made little progress during the night. With the earliest
dawn of morning we were on deck, in the hope of seeing the English
coast; but the mists veiled it from our view. A spectacle, however,
the most grand in nature, repaid us for our disappointment, and we
found the circumstances of a sun-rise at sea, yet more interesting than
those of a sun-set. The moon, bright and nearly at her meridian, shed
a strong lustre on the ocean, and gleamed between the sails upon the
deck; but the dawn, beginning to glimmer, contended with her light,
and, soon touching the waters with a cold grey tint, discovered them
spreading all round to the vast horizon. Not a sound broke upon the
silence, except the lulling one occasioned by the course of the vessel
through the waves, and now and then the drowsy song of the pilot, as he
leaned on the helm; his shadowy figure just discerned, and that of a
sailor pacing near the head of the ship with crossed arms and a rolling
step. The captain, wrapt in a sea-coat, lay asleep on the deck, wearied
with the early watch. As the dawn strengthened, it discovered white
sails stealing along the distance, and the flight of some sea-fowls, as
they uttered their slender cry, and then, dropping upon the waves, sat
floating on the surface. Meanwhile, the light tints in the east began
to change, and the skirts of a line of clouds below to assume a hue
of tawny red, which gradually became rich orange and purple. We could
now perceive a long tract of the coast of France, like a dark streak
of vapour hovering in the south, and were somewhat alarmed on finding
ourselves within view of the French shore, while that of England was
still invisible.
The moon-light faded fast from the waters, and soon the long beams of
the sun shot their lines upwards through the clouds and into the clear
blue sky above, and all the sea below glowed with fiery reflections,
for a considerable time, before his disk appeared. At length he rose
from the waves, looking from under clouds of purple and gold; and as he
seemed to touch the water, a distant vessel passed over his disk, like
a dark speck.
* * * * *
We were soon after cheered by the faintly seen coast of England, but
at the same time discovered, nearer to us on the south-west, the high
blue headlands of Calais; and, more eastward, the town, with its large
church and the steeples of two others, seated on the edge of the sea.
The woods, that fringe the summits of hills rising over it, were
easily distinguished with glasses, as well as the national flag on
the steeple of the great church. As we proceeded, Calais cliffs, at a
considerable distance westward of the town, lost their aërial blue, and
shewed an high front of chalky precipice, overtopped by dark downs.
Beyond, far to the south-west, and at the foot of a bold promontory,
that swelled above all the neighbouring heights, our glasses gave us
the towers and ramparts of Boulogne, sloping upward from the shore,
with its tall lighthouse on a low point running out into the sea; the
whole appearing with considerable dignity and picturesque effect. The
hills beyond were tamer, and sunk gradually away in the horizon. At
length, the breeze wafting us more to the north, we discriminated the
bolder features of the English coast, and, about noon, found ourselves
nearly in the middle of the channel, having Picardy on our left and
Kent on the right, its white cliffs aspiring with great majesty over
the flood. The sweeping bay of Dover, with all its chalky heights,
soon after opened. The town appeared low on the shore within, and the
castle, with round and massy towers, crowned the vast rock, which,
advancing into the sea, formed the eastern point of the crescent, while
Shakespeare's cliff, bolder still and sublime as the eternal name it
bears, was the western promontory of the bay. The height and grandeur
of this cliff were particularly striking, when a ship was seen sailing
at its base, diminished by comparison to an inch. From hence the cliffs
towards Folkstone, though still broken and majestic, gradually decline.
There are, perhaps, few prospects of sea and shore more animated and
magnificent than this. The vast expanse of water, the character of the
cliffs, that guard the coast, the ships of war and various merchantmen
moored in the Downs, the lighter vessels skimming along the channel,
and the now distant shore of France, with Calais glimmering faintly,
and hinting of different modes of life and a new world, all these
circumstances formed a scene of pre-eminent combination, and led to
interesting reflection.
Our vessel was bound to Deal, and, leaving Dover and its cliffs on the
south, we entered that noble bay, which the rich shores of Kent open
for the sea. Gentle hills, swelling all round from the water, green
with woods, or cultivation, and speckled with towns and villages,
with now and then the towers of an old fortress, offered a landscape
particularly cheering to eyes accustomed to the monotonous flatness of
Dutch views. And we landed in England under impressions of delight more
varied and strong than can be conceived, without referring to the joy
of an escape from districts where there was scarcely an home for the
natives, and to the love of our own country, greatly enhanced by all
that had been seen of others.
Between Deal and London, after being first struck by the superior
appearance and manners of the people to those of the countries we had
been lately accustomed to, a contrast too obvious as well as too often
remarked to be again insisted upon, but which made all the ordinary
circumstances of the journey seem new and delightful, the difference
between the landscapes of England and Germany occurred forcibly to
notice. The large scale, in which every division of land appeared in
Germany, the long corn grounds, the huge stretches of hills, the vast
plains and the wide vallies could not but be beautifully opposed by
the varieties and undulations of English surface, with gently swelling
slopes, rich in verdure, thick enclosures, woods, bowery hop-grounds,
sheltered mansions, announcing the wealth, and substantial farms, with
neat villages, the comfort of the country. English landscape may be
compared to cabinet pictures, delicately beautiful and highly finished;
German scenery to paintings for a vestibule, of bold outline and
often sublime, but coarse and to be viewed with advantage only from a
distance.
Northward, beyond London, we may make one stop, after a country, not
otherwise necessary to be noticed, to mention Hardwick, in Derbyshire,
a seat of the Duke of Devonshire, once the residence of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, to whom Elizabeth deputed the custody of the unfortunate
Mary. It stands on an easy height, a few miles to the left of the
road from Mansfield to Chesterfield, and is approached through shady
lanes, which conceal the view of it, till you are on the confines of
the park. Three towers of hoary grey then rise with great majesty among
old woods, and their summits appear to be covered with the lightly
shivered fragments of battlements, which, however, are soon discovered
to be perfectly carved open work, in which the letters E. S. frequently
occur under a coronet, the initials, and the memorials of the vanity,
of Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, who built the present edifice.
Its tall features, of a most picturesque tint, were finely disclosed
between the luxuriant woods and over the lawns of the park, which,
every now and then, let in a glimpse of the Derbyshire hills. The
scenery reminded us of the exquisite descriptions of Harewood,
"The deep embowering shades, that veil Elfrida;"
and those of Hardwick once veiled a form as lovely as the ideal graces
of the Poet, and conspired to a fate more tragical than that, which
Harewood witnessed.
In front of the great gates of the castle court, the ground, adorned
by old oaks, suddenly sinks to a darkly shadowed glade, and the view
opens over the vale of Scarsdale, bounded by the wild mountains of the
Peak. Immediately to the left of the present residence, some ruined
features of the antient one, enwreathed with the rich drapery of ivy,
give an interest to the scene, which the later, but more historical
structure heightens and prolongs. We followed, not without emotion,
the walk, which Mary had so often trodden, to the folding doors of the
great hall, whose lofty grandeur, aided by silence and seen under the
influence of a lowering sky, suited the temper of the whole scene. The
tall windows, which half subdue the light they admit, just allowed
us to distinguish the large figures in the tapestry, above the oak
wainscoting, and shewed a colonnade of oak supporting a gallery
along the bottom of the hall, with a pair of gigantic elk's horns
flourishing between the windows opposite to the entrance. The scene of
Mary's arrival and her feelings upon entering this solemn shade came
involuntarily to the mind; the noise of horses' feet and many voices
from the court; her proud yet gentle and melancholy look, as, led by my
Lord Keeper, she passed slowly up the hall; his somewhat obsequious,
yet jealous and vigilant air, while, awed by her dignity and beauty, he
remembers the terrors of his own Queen; the silence and anxiety of her
maids, and the bustle of the surrounding attendants.
From the hall a stair-case ascends to the gallery of a small chapel,
in which the chairs and cushions, used by Mary, still remain, and
proceeds to the first story, where only one apartment bears memorials
of her imprisonment, the bed, tapestry and chairs having been worked
by herself. This tapestry is richly embossed with emblematic figures,
each with its title worked above it, and, having been scrupulously
preserved, is still entire and fresh.
Over the chimney of an adjoining dining-room, to which, as well as to
other apartments on this floor, some modern furniture has been added,
is this motto carved in oak:
"There is only this: To fear God and keep his Commandments."
So much less valuable was timber than workmanship, when this mansion
was constructed, that, where the stair-cases are not of stone, they
are formed of solid oaken steps, instead of planks; such is that from
the second, or state story to the roof, whence, on clear days, York and
Lincoln Cathedrals are said to be included in the extensive prospect.
This second floor is that, which gives its chief interest to the
edifice. Nearly all the apartments of it were allotted to Mary; some of
them for state purposes; and the furniture is known by other proofs,
than its appearance, to remain as she left it. The chief room, or that
of audience, is of uncommon loftiness, and strikes by its grandeur,
before the veneration and tenderness arise, which its antiquities, and
the plainly told tale of the sufferings they witnessed, excite.
The walls, which are covered to a considerable height with tapestry,
are painted above with historical groups. The chairs are of black
velvet, nearly concealed by a raised needle-work of gold, silver and
colours, that mingle with surprising richness, and remain in fresh
preservation. The upper end of the room is distinguished by a lofty
canopy of the same materials, and by steps which support two chairs;
so that the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury probably enjoyed their
own stateliness here, as well as assisted in the ceremonies practised
before Mary. A carpeted table, in front of the canopy, was, perhaps,
the desk of Commissioners, or Secretaries, who here recorded some of
the proceedings concerning her; below which, the room breaks into a
spacious recess, where a few articles of furniture are deposited, not
originally placed in it; a bed of state, used by Mary, the curtains of
gold tissue, but in so tattered a condition, that its original texture
can scarcely be perceived. This and the chairs, which accompany it, are
supposed to have been much earlier than Mary's time.
A short passage leads from the state apartment to her own chamber, a
small room, overlooked from the passage by a window, which enabled her
attendants to know, that she was contriving no means of escape through
the others into the court. The bed and chairs of this room are of black
velvet, embroidered by herself; the toilet of gold tissue; all more
decayed than worn, and probably used only towards the conclusion of her
imprisonment here, when she was removed from some better apartment, in
which the antient bed, now in the state-room, had been placed. The date
1599 is once or twice inscribed in this chamber; for no reason, that
could relate to Mary, who was removed hence in 1584, and fell, by the
often-blooded hands of Elizabeth, in 1587.
These are the apartments, distinguished by having been the residence
of so unhappy a personage. On the other side of the mansion, a grand
gallery occupies the length of the whole front, which is 165 feet, and
contains many portraits, now placed carelessly on chairs, or the floor;
amongst them an head of Sir Thomas More, apparently very fine; heads
of Henries the Fourth, Seventh and Eighth; a portrait of Lady Jane
Gray, meek and fair, before a harpsichord, on which a psalm-book is
opened; at the bottom of the gallery, Elizabeth, slyly proud and meanly
violent; and, at the top, Mary, in black, taken a short time before
her death, her countenance much faded, deeply marked by indignation
and grief, and reduced as if to the spectre of herself, frowning with
suspicion upon all who approached it; the black eyes looking out from
their corners, thin lips, somewhat aquiline nose and beautiful chin.
What remains of the more antient building is a ruin, which, standing
nearly on the brink of the glade, is a fine object from this. A few
apartments, though approached with difficulty through the fragments of
others, are still almost entire, and the dimensions of that called the
Giant's Chamber are remarkable for the beauty of their proportion.
From Hardwick to within a few miles of Middleton, the beauty of the
country declines, while the sublimity is not perfected; but, from
the north-west brow of Brampton Moor, the vast hills of Derbyshire
appear, in wild and ghastly succession. Middleton, hewn out of the grey
rocks, that impend over it, and scarcely distinguishable from them, is
worth notice for its very small and neat octagon church, built partly
by brief and partly by a donation from the Duke of Devonshire. The
valley, or rather chasm, at the entrance of which it stands, is called
Middleton Dale, and runs, for two miles, between perpendicular walls
of rock, which have more the appearance of having been torn asunder by
some convulsive rent of the earth, than any we have elsewhere seen.
The strata are horizontal, and the edges of each are often distinct
and rounded; one of the characteristics of granite. Three grey rocks,
resembling castles, project from these solid walls, and, now and then,
a lime-kiln, round like a bastion, half involves in smoke a figure,
who, standing on the summit, looks the Witch of the Dale, on an edge of
her cauldron, watching the workings of incantation.
The chasm opened, at length, to a hill, whence wild moorish mountains
were seen on all sides, some entirely covered with the dull purple of
heath, others green, but without enclosures, except sometimes a stone
wall, and the dark sides of others marked only by the blue smoke of
weeds, driven in circles near the ground.
Towards sun-set, from a hill in Cheshire, we had a vast view over part
of that county and nearly all Lancashire, a scene of fertile plains
and gentle heights, till some broad and towering mountains, at an
immense distance, were but uncertainly distinguished from the clouds.
Soon after, the cheerful populousness of the rich towns and villages
in Lancashire supplied objects for attention of a different character;
Stockport first, crowded with buildings and people, as much so as
some of the busiest quarters in London, with large blazing fires in
every house, by the light of which women were frequently spinning,
and manufacturers issuing from their workshops and filling the steep
streets, which the chaise rolled down with; dangerous rapidity; then
an almost continued street of villages to Manchester, some miles
before which the road was busy with passengers and carriages, as well
as bordered by handsome country houses; and, finally for this day,
Manchester itself; a second London; enormous to those, who have not
seen the first, almost tumultuous with business, and yet well proved
to afford the necessary peacefulness to science, letters and taste.
And not only for itself may Manchester be an object of admiration, but
for the contrast of its useful profits to the wealth of a neighbouring
place, immersed in the dreadful guilt of the Slave Trade, with the
continuance of which to believe national prosperity compatible, is to
hope, that the actions of nations pass unseen before the Almighty,
or to suppose extenuation of crimes by increase of criminality, and
that the eternal laws of right and truth, which smite the wickedness
of individuals, are too weak to struggle with the accumulated and
comprehensive guilt of a national participation in robbery, cruelty and
murder.
From Manchester to Lancaster the road leads through a pleasant and
populous country, which rises gradually as it approaches the huge hills
we had noticed in the distance from the brow of Cheshire, and whose
attitudes now resembled those of the Rheingau as seen from Mentz.
From some moors on this side of Lancaster the prospects open very
extensively over a rich tract fading into blue ridges; while, on the
left, long lines of distant sea appear, every now and then, over the
dark woods of the shore, with vessels sailing as if on their summits.
But the view from a hill descending to Lancaster is pre-eminent for
grandeur, and comprehends an extent of sea and land, and a union of the
sublime in both, which we have never seen equalled. In the green vale
of the Lune below lies the town, spreading up the side of a round hill
overtopped by the old towers of the castle and the church. Beyond,
over a ridge of gentle heights, which bind the west side of the vale,
the noble inlet of the sea, that flows upon the Ulverston and Lancaster
sands, is seen at the feet of an amphitheatre formed by nearly all the
mountains of the Lakes; an exhibition of alpine grandeur, both in form
and colouring, which, with the extent of water below, compose a scenery
perhaps faintly rivalling that of the Lake of Geneva. To the south and
west, the Irish Channel finishes the view.
The antient town and castle of Lancaster have been so often and so
well described, that little remains to be said of them. To the latter
considerable additions are building in the Gothic style, which,
when time shall have shaded the stone, will harmonize well wish the
venerable towers and gatehouse of the old structure. From a turret
rising over the leads of the castle, called John o' Gaunt's Chair,
the prospect is still finer than from the terrace of the church-yard
below. Overlooking the Lune and its green slopes, the eye ranges to the
bay of the sea beyond, and to the Cumberland and Lancashire mountains.
On an island near the extremity of the peninsula of Low Furness, the
double point of Peel Castle starts up from the sea, but is so distant
that it resembles a forked rock. This peninsula, which separates the
bay of Ulverston from the Irish Channel, swells gradually into a
pointed mountain called Blackcomb, thirty miles from Lancaster, the
first in the amphitheatre, that binds the bay. Hence a range of lower,
but more broken and forked summits, extends northward to the fells
of High Furness, rolled behind each other, huge, towering and dark;
then, higher still, Langdale Pikes, with a confusion of other fells,
that crown the head of Windermere and retire towards Keswick, whose
gigantic mountains, Helvellyn and Saddleback, are, however, sunk in
distance below the horizon of the nearer ones. The top of Skiddaw may
be discerned when the air is clear, but it is too far off to appear
with dignity. From Windermere-Fells the heights soften towards the
Vale of Lonsdale, on the east side of which Ingleborough, a mountain
in Craven, rears his rugged front, the loftiest and most majestic in
the scene. The nearer country, from this point of the landscape, is
intersected with cultivated hills, between which the Lune winds its
bright but shallow stream, falling over a weir and passing under a very
handsome stone bridge at the entrance of the town, in its progress
towards the sea. A ridge of rocky eminences shelters Lancaster on the
east, whence they decline into the low and uninteresting country, that
stretches to the Channel.
The appearance of the northern Fells is ever changing with the weather
and shifting lights. Sometimes they resemble those evening clouds on
the horizon, that catch the last gleams of the sun; at others, wrapt in
dark mist, they are only faintly traced, and seem like stormy vapours
rising from the sea. But in a bright day their appearance is beautiful;
then, their grand outlines are distinctly drawn upon the sky, a vision
of Alps; the rugged sides are faintly marked with light and shadow,
with wood and rock, and here and there a cluster of white cottages, or
farms and hamlets, gleam at their feet along the water's edge. Over the
whole landscape is then drawn a softening azure, or sometimes a purple
hue, exquisitely lovely, while the sea below reflects a brighter tint
of blue.