Leaving Lancaster, we wound along the southern brow of the vale of
the Lune, which there serpentizes among meadows, and is soon after
shut up between steep shrubby banks. From the heights we had some fine
retrospects of Lancaster and the distant sea; but, about three miles
from the town, the hills open forward to a view as much distinguished
by the notice of Mr. GRAY, as by its own charms. We here looked down
over a woody and finely broken fore-ground upon the Lune and the vale
of Lonsdale, undulating in richly cultivated slopes, with Ingleborough,
for the back-ground, bearing its bold promontory on high, the very
crown and paragon of the landscape. To the west, the vale winds from
sight among smoother hills; and the gracefully falling line of a
mountain, on the left, forms, with the wooded heights, on the right, a
kind of frame for the distant picture.
The road now turned into the sweetly retired vale of Caton, and by the
village church-yard, in which there is not a single gravestone, to
Hornby, a small straggling town, delightfully seated near the entrance
of the vale of Lonsdale. Its thin toppling castle is seen among wood,
at a considerable distance, with a dark hill rising over it. What
remains of the old edifice is a square grey building, with a slender
watch-tower, rising in one corner, like a feather in a hat, which joins
the modern mansion of white stone, and gives it a singular appearance,
by seeming to start from the centre of its roof.
In front, a steep lawn descends between avenues of old wood, and the
park extends along the skirts of the craggy hill, that towers above.
At its foot, is a good stone bridge over the Wenning, now shrunk in
its pebbly bed, and, further on, near the castle, the church, shewing
a handsome octagonal tower, crowned with battlements. The road then
becomes extremely interesting, and, at Melling, a village on a brow
some miles further, the view opens over the whole vale of Lonsdale.
The eye now passes, beneath the arching foliage of some trees in
the fore-ground, to the sweeping valley, where meadows of the most
vivid green and dark woods, with white cottages and villages peeping
from among them, mingle with surprising richness, and undulate from
either bank of the Lune to the feet of hills. Ingleborough, rising
from elegantly swelling ground, overlooked this enchanting vale, on
the right, clouds rolling along its broken top, like smoke from a
cauldron, and its hoary tint forming a boundary to the soft verdure
and rich woodlands of the slopes, at its feet. The perspective was
terminated by the tall peeping heads of the Westmoreland fells, the
nearer ones tinged with faintest purple, the more distant with light
azure; and this is the general boundary to a scene, in the midst
of which, enclosed between nearer and lower hills, lies the vale
of Lonsdale, of a character mild, delicate and reposing, like the
countenance of a Madona.
Descending Melling brow, and winding among the perpetually-changing
scenery of the valley, we approached Ingleborough; and it was
interesting to observe the lines of its bolder features gradually
strengthening, and the shadowy markings of its minuter ones becoming
more distinct, as we advanced. Rock and grey crags looked out from
the heath, on every side; but its form on each was very different.
Towards Lonsdale, the mountain is bold and majestic, rising in abrupt
and broken precipices, and, often impending, till, at the summit,
it suddenly becomes flat, and is level for nearly a mile, whence it
descends, in along gradual ridge, to Craven in Yorkshire. In summer,
some festivities are annually celebrated on this top, and the country
people, as they "drink the freshness of the mountain breeze[1]," look
over the wild moorlands of Yorkshire, the rich vales of Lancashire, and
to the sublime mountains of Westmoreland.
[1] Mrs. Barbauld.
Crossing a small bridge, we turned from Ingleborough, and passed very
near the antient walls of Thirlham Castle, little of which is now
remaining. The ruin is on a green broken knoll, one side of which is
darkened with brush-wood and dwarf-oak. Cattle were reposing in the
shade, on the bank of a rivulet, that rippled through what was formerly
the castle ditch. A few old trees waved over what was once a tower,
now covered with ivy.
Some miles further, we crossed the Leck, a shrunk and desolate stream,
nearly choked with pebbles, winding in a deep rocky glen, where trees
and shrubs marked the winter boundary of the waters. Our road, mounting
a green eminence of the opposite bank, on which stands Overborough, the
handsome modern mansion of Mr. FENWICK, wound between plantations and
meadows, painted with yellow and purple flowers, like those of spring.
As we passed through their gentle slopes, we had, now and then, sweet
views between the foliage, on the left, into the vale of Lonsdale, now
contracting in its course, and winding into ruder scenery. Among these
catches, the best picture was, perhaps, where the white town of Kirby
Lonsdale shelves along the opposite bank, having rough heathy hills
immediately above it, and, below, a venerable Gothic bridge over the
Lune, rising in tall arches, like an antient aqueduct; its grey tint
agreeing well with the silvery lightness of the water and the green
shades, that flourished from the steep margin over the abutments.
The view from this bridge, too, was beautiful. The river, foaming
below among masses of dark rock, variegated with light tints of grey,
as if touched by the painter's pencil, withdrew towards the south in
a straight channel, with the woods of Overborough on the left. The
vale, dilating, opened a long perspective to Ingleborough and many
blue mountains more distant, with all the little villages we had
passed, glittering on the intervening eminences. The colouring of some
low hills, on the right, was particularly beautiful, long shades of
wood being overtopped with brown heath, while, below, meadows of soft
verdure fell gently towards the river bank.
Kirby Lonsdale, a neat little town, commanding the whole vale, is on
the western steep. We staid two hours at it, gratified by witnessing,
at the first inn we reached, the abundance of the country and the
goodwill of the people. In times, when the prices of necessary articles
are increasing with the taste for all unnecessary display, instances
of cheapness may be to persons of small incomes something more than
mere physical treasures; they have a moral value in contributing to
independence of mind.
Here we had an early and, as it afterwards appeared, a very
exaggerated specimen of the dialect of the country. A woman talked,
for five minutes, against our window, of whose conversation we could
understand scarcely a word. Soon after, a boy replied to a question,
"_I do na ken_," and "_gang_" was presently the common word for _go_;
symptoms of nearness to a country, which we did not approach, without
delighting to enumerate the instances of genius and worth, that adorn
it.
Leaving Kirby Lonsdale by the Kendal road, we mounted a steep hill,
and, looking back from its summit upon the whole vale of Lonsdale,
perceived ourselves to be in the mid-way between beauty and desolation,
so enchanting was the retrospect and so wild and dreary the prospect.
From the neighbourhood of Caton to Kirby the ride was superior, for
elegant beauty, to any we had passed; this from Kirby to Kendal is of
a character distinctly opposite. After losing sight of the vale, the
road lies, for nearly the whole distance, over moors and perpetually
succeeding hills, thinly covered with dark purple heath flowers, of
which the most distant seemed black. The dreariness of the scene was
increased by a heavy rain and by the slowness of our progress, jostling
amongst coal carts, for ten miles of rugged ground. The views over the
Westmoreland mountains were, however, not entirely obscured; their vast
ridges were visible in the horizon to the north and west, line over
line, frequently in five or six ranges. Sometimes the intersecting
mountains opened to others beyond, that fell in deep and abrupt
precipices, their profiles drawing towards a point below and seeming to
sink in a bottomless abyss.
On our way over these wilds, parts of which are called Endmoor and
Cowbrows, we overtook only long trains of coal carts, and, after
ten miles of bleak mountain road, began to desire a temporary home,
somewhat sooner than we perceived Kendal, white-smoking in the dark
vale. As we approached, the outlines of its ruinous castle were just
distinguishable through the gloom, scattered in masses over the top
of a small round hill, on the right. At the entrance of the town, the
river Kent dashed in foam down a weir; beyond it, on a green slope, the
gothic tower of the church was half hid by a cluster of dark trees;
gray fells glimmered in the distance.
We were lodged at another excellent inn, and, the next morning,
walked over the town, which has an air of trade mingled with that of
antiquity. Its history has been given in other places, and we are not
able to discuss the doubt, whether it was the Roman _Brocanonacio_, or
not. The manufacture of cloth, which our statute books testify to have
existed as early as the reign in which _Falstaff_ is made to allude to
it, appears to be still in vigour, for the town is surrounded, towards
the river, with dyeing-grounds. We saw, however, no shades of "Kendal
green," or, indeed, any but bright scarlet.
The church is remarkable for three chapels, memorials of the antient
dignity of three neighbouring families the Bellinghams, Stricklands and
Parrs. These are enclosures, on each side of the altar, differing from
pews chiefly in being large enough to contain tombs. Mr. Gray noticed
them minutely in the year 1769. They were then probably entire; but
the wainscot or railing, which divided the chapel of the Parrs from
the aisle, is now gone. Of two stone tombs in it one is enclosed with
modern railing, and there are many remnants of painted arms on the
adjoining windows. The chapel of the Stricklands, which is between this
and the altar, is separated from the church aisle by a solid wainscot,
to the height of four feet, and after that by a wooden railing with
broken fillagree ornaments. That of the Bellinghams contains an antient
tomb, of which the brass plates, that bore inscriptions and arms, are
now gone, but some traces of the latter remain in plaistered stone at
the side. Over it, are the fragments of an helmet, and, in the roof,
those of armorial bearings, carved in wood. On a pillar, near this, is
an inscription, almost obliterated, in which the following words may
yet be traced:
"Dame Thomasim Thornburgh
Wiffe of Sir William Thornburgh Knyght
Daughter of Sir Robert Bellingham
Gentle Knyght: the ellventhe of August
On thousand fyue hundreth eightie too."
* * * * *
The Saxon has been so strongly engrafted on our language, that, in
reading old inscriptions, especially those, which are likely to have
been spelt, according to the pronunciation, one is frequently reminded
by antient English words of the modern German synonyms. A German of the
present day would say for eleven, eilf, pronounced long like eilve, and
for five, funf, pronounced like fuynf.
Over the chief seat in the old pew of the Bellinghams is a brass plate,
engraved with the figure of a man in armour, and, on each side of it, a
brass escutcheon, of which that on the right has a motto thus spelled,
_Ains. y L'est_. Under the figure is the following inscription, also
cut in brass:
Heer lyeth the bodye of Alan Bellingham esquier who
maryed Catheryan daughter of Anthonye Ducket esquier by
whom he had no children after whose decease he maryed
Dorothie daughter of Thomas Sanford esquier of whom he had
---- sonnes & eight daughters, of which five sonnes & 7
daughters with the said Dorothie ar yeat lyving, he was
threescore and one yares of age & dyed ye 7 of Maye
Ao dni 1577.
The correctness of inserting the unpronounced consonants in the words
Eight and Daughters, notwithstanding the varieties of the other
orthography in this inscription, is a proof of the universality of the
Saxon mode of spelling, with great abundance and even waste of letters;
a mode, which is so incorporated with our language, that those, who
are for dispensing with it in some instances, as in the final k in
"publick" and other words, should consider what a general change they
have to effect, or what partial incongruities they must submit to.
Kendal is built on the lower steeps of a hill, that towers over the
principal street, and bears on one of its brows a testimony to the
independence of the inhabitants, an obelisk dedicated to liberty and
to the memory of the Revolution in 1688. At a time, when the memory
of that revolution is reviled, and the praises of liberty itself
endeavoured to be suppressed by the artifice of imputing to it the
crimes of anarchy, it was impossible to omit any act of veneration to
the blessings of this event. Being thus led to ascend the hill, we had
a view of the country, over which it presides; a scene simple, great
and free as the spirit revered amidst it.