TRAVELS
It is impossible to do more here than merely to sketch the
possibilities in a “History of the Tour and the Guide Book,” because
the mass of material to be gone over is so great. Pinkerton’s
“Catalogue of Voyages and Travels,” published in 1814, gives over 4,500
books. It is so elaborately tabulated that it is not easy to use, but
it is possible to cull from its voluminous pages a fairly compendious
list of such travels as were published in England in the eighteenth
century. In this list there are about 360 books. Of these 360 books
all but 84 are travels outside of Great Britain and Ireland. Their
distribution through the century indicates a steady growth of interest
in foreign lands, for nearly half of the English accounts of travels
in other countries belong in the last quarter of the century. But
these foreign tours, however interesting in themselves, are outside
the present field of inquiry. They were undertaken usually with some
definite purpose. Antiquities, curiosities, minerals; laws, manners,
customs; utilitarian possibilities--these were the leading subjects
of inquiry. In the titles such phrases as, “relating chiefly to the
history, antiquities, and geography;” “remarks on Characters and
Manners;” “chiefly relative to the knowledge of mankind, industry,
literature, and natural history;” “with an account of the most
memorable sieges;” “containing a great variety of geographical,
topographical and political observations;” “containing specially a
description of fortified towns;” “containing a Picture of the Country,
the Manners, and the Actual Government,” are of constant recurrence and
serve to mark out the general scope of these works. There are, to be
sure, in these books, many scattered descriptions of the natural scenes
visited. This is especially true of the “Travels” in the last quarter
of the century. But to study these descriptions, even superficially,
would be too wide a work for the present limits. Furthermore, the
accounts of the tours made in the United Kingdom will doubtless reveal
the characteristics of the observations made in foreign lands.
One of the early books of English travel in the eighteenth century is
Mr. Martin’s “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland” (1703).
It is this book that stirred Dr. Johnson to make his visit to the
Hebrides, and it is from this that Mallet drew the details for his
“Amyntor and Theodora.” In the Preface Martin says:
Perhaps it is peculiar to those isles, that they have never been
described till now by any man that was a native of the country,
or had traveled them.... Descriptions of countries, without
the natural histories of them, are now justly reckoned to be
defective. This I had a particular regard to in the following
descriptions, and have everywhere taken notice of the nature of
the climate and soil, and of the remarkable cures performed by
the natives merely by the use of simples.
This preliminary promise of first-hand observation, especially so far
as Nature is concerned, is hardly carried out. The book is a credulous,
entertaining, unsifted narrative of whatever marvels came to his
ears. His interest rested chiefly on strange cures made by the use of
“simples.” The “Description” has the negative importance of entirely
ignoring Nature. In its 120 pages there is not a word or phrase in
recognition of the wild and beautiful scenery in these islands.
The same distinction holds of Brand’s “Brief Description of Orkney,
Zetland, Pightland-Firth, and Caithness” (1701). Brand was one of a
commission sent by the General Assembly to inquire into religious
matters in the northern islands, so it is not strange that he
bestows much attention on heathenish and popish rites, charms, and
superstitions. He is also much interested in the prevailing diseases
and the means of cure employed by the natives, and he says much of
their customs, manners, and personal appearance. He describes the
crops, the climate, the favorite articles of food, but his eyes are
holden to the charms of scenery.
In 1715 appeared Alexander Pennecuik’s “Description of Tweeddale.” He
was a physician and for thirty years his employment had obliged him to
know and observe every corner of Tweeddale. He found great pleasure in
“herbalizing shady groves and mountains,” and the chief value of his
work is accordingly in its numerous botanical observations. Not a stray
sentence indicates pleasure in the beauty of the Lowland mountains.
Except for the work of Brand, Martin, and Pennecuik, the first half of
the century shows but a meager list of travels. Besides eight “Tours”
published anonymously, Pinkerton records only Gordon’s “Itinerarium
Septentrionale” (in Scotland and Northern England) in 1726, and Macky’s
“Journey through England” in 1732. In 1762 appeared Hamilton’s “Letters
from Antrim,” the chief subject of which was announced to be “the
Natural History of the Basaltes.” Mr. Hamilton spoke occasionally of
the beautiful and picturesque appearance of the Irish coast, but he
professed himself an advocate of Mr. Locke’s system of a dictionary
of pictures in preference to a dictionary of tedious descriptions.
From 1764 to 1769 Mr. Bushe added his contribution to Irish “Travels,”
the objects dwelt upon in his “Hibernia Curiosa” being “Manners,
observations on the state of Trade and Agriculture, and Natural
Curiosities.”
Much of the work in “Travels” or “Tours” in the eighteenth century is
thrown into the form of familiar letters. By far the most important of
these tourists’ letters from the present point of view is Dr. Brown’s
description of Keswick in a letter to Lyttleton. This letter was
printed at Newcastle in 1767 but it was written at least a year earlier
for Dr. Brown died in 1766. Even this date puts it with “John Buncle”
and Dr. Dalton’s “Descriptive Poem” as being one of the three earliest
descriptions of the Lake Region.[532] Since it is so little known some
unusually long extracts from it may be of value:
But at Keswick, you will on one side of the lake, see a rich
and beautiful landskip of cultivated fields.... On the opposite
shore you will find rocks and cliffs of stupendous height,
hanging broken over the lake in horrible grandeur, some of
them a thousand feet high; the woods climb up their steep and
shaggy sides, where mortal foot never yet approached: on these
dreadful heights the eagles build their nests; a variety of
waterfalls are seen pouring from their summits and tumbling
from rock to rock, in rude and terrible magnificence, while on
all sides of this immense amphitheatre the lofty mountains rise
around, piercing the clouds in shapes as spiry and fantastic
as the very rocks of Dovedale. To this I must add the frequent
and bold projection of the cliffs into the lake, forming noble
bays and promontories; in other parts they finely retire from
it and often open in abrupt chasms or clefts, through which at
hand you see rich and uncultivated vales, and, beyond these, at
various distance, mountain rising over mountain, among which,
new prospects present themselves in mist, till the eye is lost
in an agreeable perplexity,
Where active fancy travels beyond sense
And pictures things unseen.
Were I to analyze the two places in their
constituent principles, I should tell you that the full
perfection of Keswick consists of three circumstances, beauty,
horror, and immensity united....
So much for what I would call the permanent beauties of this
astonishing scene. Were I not afraid of being tiresome I could
now dwell as long on its varying or accidental beauties....
Sometimes a serene air and clear sky disclose the tops of the
highest hills; at others, you see the clouds involving their
summits, resting on their sides or descending to their base,
and rolling among the valleys, as in a vast furnace; when the
winds are high, they roar among the cliffs and caverns like
peals of thunder; then too the clouds are seen in vast bodies
sweeping along the hills in gloomy greatness, while the lake
joins the tumult and tosses like a sea; but in calm weather the
whole scene becomes new; the lake is a perfect mirror and the
landscape in all its beauty, islands, fields, woods, rocks and
mountains, are seen inverted and floating on its surface. I will
now carry you to the top of a cliff, where, if you dare approach
the ridge, a new scene of astonishment presents itself; where
the valley, lake and islands are seen lying at your feet; where
this expanse of water appears diminished to a little pool amidst
the vast and immeasurable objects that surround it; for here
the summits of more distant hills appear beyond those you have
already seen; and rising behind each other in successive ranges
and azure groups of craggy and broken steeps, form an immense
and awful picture, which can only be expressed by the image of a
tempestuous sea of mountains. Let me now conduct you down again
to the valley and conclude with one circumstance more, which
is, that a walk by still moonlight (at which time the distant
waterfalls are heard in all their variety of sound) among these
enchanting dales, opens such scenes of delicate beauty, repose
and solemnity as exceed all description.
Mr. Gilpin knew Dr. Brown’s “Letter,” for in his Cumberland “Tour”
(1772) he justified his own preference for Keswick by saying that this
region had also been singled out by Dr. Brown, “who was a man of taste
and had seen every part of this country.” Mr. Hutchinson quoted the
whole of the “Letter.” Mr. West went to Keswick with the “Letter” in
hand, trembling with eagerness to experience the joys it depicted.
Certainly this “Letter from Keswick” in the delight with which it
dwells on the wild and terrible elements of Nature, in its detailed
observation, in its artistic appreciation of the accidental effects
of atmospheric conditions, and in its sensitiveness to the spirit of
the place, comes very close to the modern enthusiasm for mountains.
The details are sometimes exaggerated and the author’s rapture may
seem over-stated, but the genuineness of his feeling, and the reality
of his knowledge of mountains and lake, must remain unquestioned. The
“Letter” is one of the first, and the most considerable of the early
contributions to the literature of the Lakes.
The great period of English travels began in 1767 with Arthur Young’s
“Six Weeks’ Tour in the Southern Counties of England and Wales.” In
1768 (June to November) he wrote his “Six Months’ Tour in the North of
England.” His next important work, “A Farmer’s Tour through the East
of England,” was published in 1771. His “Tour in Ireland” appeared
in 1779. The professed design of these sketches was husbandry.
Agriculture, industry, population, farming experiments, prices,
laws--these were the topics on which he wished to inform himself
and others. He had apparently, in his original plan, no thought of
describing the country through which he passed. There is in this
respect a significant difference between the books of 1767–68 and
that of 1779. In the first two he kept the text rigorously free from
all weakening admixture of landscape, the enthusiastic descriptions
of scenery appearing as footnotes. In the last, the descriptions
are boldly incorporated into the text, and form, what is more, a
surprisingly large proportion of it. In 1767–68 he described such
places as he happened to pass near. In 1779 he followed up one
river and down another professedly in search of “wild and romantic
landscapes.” In general character, however, the descriptions do not
greatly vary in the three books. The most numerous descriptions are of
gentlemen’s estates, perhaps in courteous repayment of hospitalities
received. These accounts are always detailed and often tedious. Young
apparently went about with the polite owner, sat in his seats, looked
down his vistas, observed his temples, and took notes thereon. Our
chief interest in these passages is the testimony they bear to Young’s
own preference for estates where art had done the least and Nature
most. “The owner has had the good judgment merely to assist nature,” or
“merely to render natural beauties accessible” are characteristic words
of praise. The best descriptions are not, however, of estates, but of
grand natural scenes. It is views from Persfeld on the Why (Wye);[533]
the wild country along the Tees; the English Lakes; the waterfalls and
wild glens near Powerscourt; the mountains and lakes of Killarney,
that really stir him. Such spots he describes with an enthusiasm that
never flags. He is tediously minute. He cannot let a detail escape.
And through all there is an eager, overflowing delight, a rapturous
pleasure in wild scenery such as we find in no traveler before Young
except Brown. He broods over a fine landscape. He is unwilling to lose
one of its possible charms. At Derwentwater he rows all around the
lake, around each island, stops to hunt up unseen waterfalls, climbs
all crags that promise fine views. He is indefatigable. No peril
stops him. He wonders why the people of Keswick do not at once cut
paths to the fine views so that no one need miss them. As he climbs
Skiddaw he laughs with scorn as he mentally compares “the effects of
a Louis’ magnificence to the play of nature in the vale of Keswick.”
His exclamation, “How trifling the labors of art to the mere sport of
nature!” certainly marks a rebound from conventional standards. The
view of “Winandermere” from the heights on the eastern shore is, he
thinks, “the most superlative view that nature can exhibit” or, if not,
she is “more fertile in beauties” than his imagination can conceive.
“To ride the eighteen miles from Bernard Castle to the falls of the
Tees one could well afford,” he says, “a journey of a thousand miles.”
He rides out to Haws Water. He makes a close study of Hulls Water. The
whole region holds him with a fascination nowhere repeated till he
finds himself, ten years later, among similar wild scenes in Ireland.
Here, almost forgetting that he is a scientific farmer in search of
information, he wanders along the picturesque banks of the Liffey, the
Boyne, the Nore, the Boyle, visits Lake Ennel, Loch Earne, the lakes of
Killarney, and writes descriptions in the manner of the most voluminous
and ardent of modern sightseers. Young’s significance in this study
rests not so much on any artistic excellence of expression as on his
wide observation, his personal enthusiasm for Nature, and his early
date.
The next traveler of importance was Thomas Gray. The openness of Gray’s
mind to pleasure from the external world is hardly at all indicated in
his poetry. In his prose we find it especially in the “Journal in the
Lakes” in 1769. Thirty years before this, his “Journal in France” had
given some hint of his taste for wild scenery, but at that time, though
he expressed great pleasure in the “magnificent rudeness” of the Alps,
he had not entirely broken away from the current conceptions and the
current phraseology, as is shown by the sentence: “You here meet with
all the beauties so savage and horrid a place can present you with.”
Gray’s published letters extend from 1739 to 1770. Scattered through
these are occasional passages indicative of a genuine love of Nature.
In the midst of a humorous letter to Walpole (Sept. 1737) he speaks
of “venerable beeches ... always dreaming out their old stories to
the winds.” After he came back from Scotland, in 1765, he wrote to Mr.
Mason:
I am returned from Scotland charmed with my expedition; it is
of the Highlands I speak; the Lowlands are worth seeing once,
but the mountains are ecstatic, and ought to be visited in
pilgrimage once a year. None but these monstrous creatures of
God know how to join so much beauty with so much horror. A fig
for your poets, painters, gardeners, and clergymen, that have
not been up among them; their imagination can be made up of
nothing but bowling-greens, flowering shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet
ditches, shell-grottoes, and Chinese rails.
So early as 1739 he expressed his dislike of formal gardens in his
sarcastic description of the grounds at Versailles. The same feeling
of irritation at the preponderance of art over Nature recurs in his
description of Warwick in 1754. That even the most natural garden did
not satisfy Gray as did wild Nature we see from Mason’s lines written
just after the death of Gray. He evidently had not approved of “The
Garden” as a subject for a poem and Mason represents him as saying:
“Why waste thy numbers on a trivial art,
That ill can mimic e’en the humblest charms
Of all-majestic Nature?” At the words
His eye would glisten, and his accents glow
With all the poet’s frenzy. “Sovereign Queen!
Behold, and tremble, while thou view’st her state
Throned on the heights of Skiddaw; call thy art
To build her such a throne; that art will feel
How vain her best pretensions. Trace her march
Amid the purple crags of Borrowdale,” etc.
In general, however, the testimony of the letters is to a scientific
rather than a poetic love of Nature. There are many exact records of
the weather, of the coming crops, of the blossoming of flowers. A
single example may serve as typical. It is a record of observations
made at Stoke Pogis in July, 1754.
Barley was in ear on the first day; gray and white peas in
bloom. The bean flowers were going off. Duke-cherries in plenty
on the 5th; hearts were also ripe. Green melons on the 6th, but
watry and not sweet. Currants began to ripen on the 8th, and red
gooseberries had changed color.
And so on with nearly a hundred more of the tabulated natural facts.
Of Gray as a traveler Sir James Mackintosh is quoted by Mitford as
saying: “Gray was the _first_ discoverer of the natural beauties
in England, and has marked out the course of every picturesque journey
that can be made in it.”
The dogmatic absoluteness of such a statement is its own ruin. We have
already seen that Gray had at least three predecessors, Dalton, Amory,
and Brown, in his recognition of the beauty of the Lake Region, and
many a new tour was sought out by later lovers of the picturesque.
But Gray’s “Journal in the Lakes,” though not first, is certainly
most important. Both in feeling and in spontaneity and adequacy of
expression it shows a marked advance on his preceding work, and as
literature it is distinctly in advance of what others had done.
The whole of this famous tour occupied but three weeks, and the trip
in the Lakes but ten days. Gray was by no means so unwearied in
sight-seeing as Young. He was “not fond of dirt,” and he was fastidious
about roads and inns. He did not go on an eager search for views. He
did not climb Skiddaw, and he passed by Orrest-Head. He saw what he
could see comfortably. His descriptions are quiet and controlled. They
have none of the “dizzy raptures” of Brown and Young. There is no
straining after epithets, no struggle to find expression adequate to
the emotion. The following brief quotations may serve to indicate his
style:
The shining purity of the lake, just ruffled by the breeze,
enough to show it is alive.
The lake majestic in its calmness.
Little shining torrents hurry down the rocks.
The grass was covered with a hoar frost, which soon melted, and
exhaled in a thin blueish smoke.
In the evening walked alone down to the lake after sunset and
saw the solemn colouring of night draw on, the last gleam of
sunshine fading away on the hill-tops, the deep serene of the
waters and the long shadows of the mountains thrown across them.
At distance heard the murmur of many waterfalls not audible in
the day-time. Wished for the moon, but she was _dark to me and
silent, hid in her vacant interlunar cave_.
The charm of Gray’s descriptions lies in a certain bare perfection of
phrase, in his direct, unadorned statement of beautiful facts. His
words have a vital, penetrating quality, while his sense of form,
his artistic reticence, keep his enthusiasm free from exclamatory
extravagances.
Thomas Pennant’s first tour in Scotland was made in 1769. The notes
taken on this tour were put into shape and published in 1771.
Dissatisfied with the result, he went again in 1772, and his “Second
Tour in Scotland and the Hebrides” appeared in 1776. In the first
tour his professed object was the study of zoölogy. In the second he
was assisted by two friends, one trained in botany, and the other
well up in Scotch customs and legends. But Pennant’s interest was not
confined to zoölogy and botany, to manners and customs. His curiosity
was omnivorous and insatiable. Everything was fish that came to his
net, and his industry in note-taking was prodigious. The two journeys
occupied six months, and the record of what he saw and heard filled 570
folio pages.
In this mass of observations not more than ten pages, all told,
have anything to do with the scenery through which he passed. Such
descriptive passages as do occur are usually of torrents, rapid, rocky
rivers, or the shores of lakes. The best of these are of the banks
of the Nith, the falls of CoryLin in the Clyde, the Cascades at
Moness, which he calls “an epitome of everything that can be admired
in the curiosity of waterfalls,” the falls and streams near Loch
Maree, Aysgarth Force in the Ure, the little lake of Barrisdale on the
Inverness coast, Coniston, and Derwentwater. He prides himself on being
one of the first to describe Coniston.
The scenery about this lake, which is scarcely mentioned, is
extremely noble. The east and west sides are bounded by high
hills often wooded; but in general composed of grey rock, and
coarse vegetation; much juniper creeps along the surface;
and some beautiful hollies are finely intermixed. At the
northwestern extremity the vast mountains called Coniston fells
form a magnificent mass. In the midst is a great bosom retiring
inward, which affords great quantities of fine slate.
He very often notes wide views, and he has an unfailing interest of a
scientific, botanical sort in the forests through which they pass.
He never, however, notes any but the permanent details of a scene.
There is not a hint that he saw the varying, evanescent, atmospheric
effects, so important an element in the beauty and sublimity of
mountain scenery. He does admit that the “Highlands like other
beauties, have their good and bad days,” but there is nothing in his
books to show that he knew them apart.
On the whole he shows a preference for a region of smooth, rich, arable
land. On leaving the Highlands his comment is,
The country continually improves; the mountains sink gradually
into small hills; the land is highly cultivated, well planted,
and well inhabited. I was struck with rapture at a sight so long
new to me. Nothing can equal the contrast between the black,
barren, dreary glens of the morning ride and the soft scenes of
the evening.
He dislikes the Borrowdale end of Derwentwater where “all the possible
variety of Alpine scenery is exhibited, with all the horror of
precipice, broken crag, or overhanging rock, or insulated pyramidal
hills.” He prefers the outlook toward Skiddaw.
But the opposite or northern view is in all respects a strong
and beautiful contrast; Skiddaw shows its vast base, and
bounding all that part of this vale, rises gently to a height
that sinks the neighboring hills; opens a pleasing front, smooth
and verdant, smiling over the country like a gentle, generous
lord, while the fells of Barrowdale frown upon it like a
hardened tyrant. Skiddaw is covered with grass to within half a
mile of the summit; after which it becomes stony.
So far as Nature is concerned, the passages cited show Pennant at his
best. His descriptions are full, clear, painstaking, but unimaginative.
He is as impersonal and impartial, as conscientiously exact, in taking
notes on a landscape as in recording the annual haul of fish in
Scotch lakes. Beautiful scenes were to him an object of intellectual
curiosity. They made no artistic or emotional appeal. “The visions of
the hills and the souls of lonely places” were a strain upon him. He
was glad to come forth into fertile valleys and pleasant corn lands.
All this is true, and Pennant shows much less of the new spirit than
Brown, Amory, Young, and Gray. But his work was done independently of
theirs, and in 1769. He must have been in the Lake District a month
before Gray, and he penetrated into much wilder regions of Scotland
than had before been described. That his instinctive shrinking from
wild scenes should have been so far overcome as it was, that he should
have been often forced into admiration, is of itself proof of the
strength of the new impulse.
The Rev. William Gilpin made many tours and gave full accounts of them,
but the accounts were not published till years after the tours were
made. His chief travels in their order are:
(1) Tour in Norfolk, Cambridge, Suffolk, and Essex (1769; account
published 1809); (2) tour along the river Wye (1770; published 1782);
(3) tour in Cumberland and Westmoreland (1772; published 1786); (4)
tour in North Wales (1773; published 1809); (5) tour in Hampshire,
Sussex, and Kent (1774; published 1804); (6) tour in the Highlands of
Scotland (1776; published 1789); (7) tour in Western England (before
1778; published 1798).
Mr. Gilpin’s point of view is clearly stated in the Preface to the
first of these publications. “The following little work proposes a new
object of pursuit: that of examining the face of a country by the rules
of picturesque beauty.” He hopes that no one will consider his plan
unduly light and trivial for a clergyman. He is himself convinced that
to study the beauty of a country is as noble, in a way as useful, as to
study its agriculture.
By picturesque beauty Gilpin always means beauty that can be put into
a picture. He draws pictures of mountains to show whether they have or
have not a good sky-line. Some are too regular, some are grotesque,
some look deformed. He seldom dwells long on wide views because they
are so difficult to make interesting in a picture. The grandeur of
Penmaenmawr and Snowdon hardly makes up to him for their lack of
picturesqueness. Penmaenmawr “has no variety of line, but is one heavy
lumpish form.” He starts up Snowdon, but finding that it is merely “a
collection of mountains formed on the old gigantic plan of heaping
mountain on mountain,” he does not go to the top, but contents himself
with quoting Pennant’s description of the view.
Gilpin’s language is often borrowed from the art of painting. He calls
the steep banks of rivers “side screens;” the changing view before him
as he floats down the river is a “front screen.” He is always talking
about foregrounds and backgrounds and perspective and composition. He
says that Nature is great in design, an admirable colorist, and that
she harmonizes tints with infinite variety and beauty. But, he adds,
she is seldom so correct in composition as to produce a
harmonious whole. Either the foreground or the background is
disproportioned, or some awkward line runs through the piece; or
a tree is ill placed, or a bank is formal; or something or other
is not as it should be.
With his sense of form Gilpin has also an unusual sensitiveness to
color, and to varieties of light and shade. The following description
of a sunset is typical:
The sun was now descending low, and cast the broad shades of
evening athwart the landscape, while his beams, gleaming with
yellow lustre through the valleys, spread over the inlightened
summits of the mountains a thousand lovely tints--in sober
harmony where some deep recess was faintly shadowed--in
splendid hue where jutting knolls or promontories received
fuller radiance of the diverging ray. The air was still. The
lake, one vast expanse of crystal mirror. The mountain shadows,
which sometimes give the water a deep, black hue (in many
circumstances extremely picturesque) were softened here into a
mild blue tint which swept over half the surface. The other half
received the fair impression of every radiant form that glowed
around. The inverted landscape was touched in fainter colours
than the real one. Yet it was more than _laid in_. It was
almost finished. What an admirable study for the pallet is such
a scene as this!
“No one can paint a country properly,” he says, “unless he has seen
it in various lights.” The local variations caused by the weather,
the time of day, the time of year, “cannot be too much attended to by
all lovers of landscape.” “Every landscape is seen best under _some
peculiar_ illumination.” He has always the painter’s eye for fogs,
mist, haze, soft coloring, atmosphere.
Gilpin studied Nature according to the rules of art, because, as he
said, these rules were drawn from Nature. No man resented more quickly
than he the transforming hand of man in natural scenes. If lands
must be turned to agricultural uses, if fields must be marked off, he
only wishes that it might be made as little apparent as possible. He
hates “a multiplicity of glaring temples” in a landscape. He thinks
most so-called adornments in private grounds are mere “expensive
deformity,” and he calls regular clipped hedges “objects of deformity.”
He apologizes for his severe strictures on several estates in the
Cumberland region by saying that the grand natural scenes so filled his
thought that he could not restrain his contempt for mere embellished,
artificial ones. Such passages are an emphatic indication of the
revolution in taste since the days of the formal garden. Here is a
characteristic sentence written as they leave the Lakes: “Here the
hills grow smooth and lumpish, and the country at every step loses some
of the wild strokes of Nature and degenerates, if I may so speak, into
cultivation.”
Not infrequently Gilpin turns from the painter’s study of the scene,
and gives something of its poetical quality. In speaking of the appeal
made by the Lake Country to the imagination he says, “No tame country,
however beautiful, however adorned, can distend the mind like this
awful and majestic scenery.” Of “Ulzwater” on a perfectly serene day
he says, “So solemn and splendid a scene raises in the mind a sort of
enthusiastic calm which spreads a mild complacence over the breast,
a tranquil pause of mental operations which may be felt but not
described.” And again in his “Essay on Picturesque Travel,”
We are most delighted when some grand scene, though perhaps of
incorrect composition, rising before the eyes, strikes us beyond
the power of thought--when the _vox faucibus haeret_ and
every mental operation is suspended. In this pause of intellect,
this _deliquum_ of the soul, an enthusiastic sensation of
pleasure overspreads it. We rather feel than survey the scene.
These last passages inevitably recall Wordsworth’s analysis of his own
emotions before a beautiful view when
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired,
or the better-known lines in “Tintern Abbey.”
Gilpin, if we take the whole extent of his work, represents the new
spirit more fully than any of the other early travelers. He notes the
permanent and the evanescent. He observes color, form, and motion. The
technical quality of his descriptions does not seriously interfere with
the impression they give of pleasure in free, wild Nature, and he again
and again shows himself capable of an imaginative communion with Nature.
In 1770 appeared “Letters from Snowdon” by Joseph Cradock. This book
is the first record I have found of travels in Wales for the special
purpose of enjoying the scenery. Mr. Cradock says that he had long
wished to visit “The Welsh Alps, the summit of Snowdon” and he seems to
find the reality even more attractive than his imagination had pictured
it. The beautiful little valleys “environed by mountains that scale the
heavens,” and “the infinitely extensive and variegated prospect” from
the top of Snowdon enchant him. The travelers are caught in tempestuous
weather but Mr. Cradock rejoices in the war of the elements and quotes
Thomson’s description of a thunderstorm in Carnarvon. He particularly
recommends the valley of the Dryryd to painters delighting in romantic
Nature because of its picturesque wooded hills, its naked mountains,
rocky rivers, foaming cataracts, transparent lakes, and ruined castles.
Gilpin’s journey up Snowdon was made in the same year but even his
account hardly shows the unforced, uncritical enthusiasm for wild
Nature evinced by Mr. Cradock.
In 1773, Mr. Hutchinson and his brother, an accomplished draughtsman,
made a tour through the Lakes. In 1774, after the death of his brother,
Mr. Hutchinson went over the ground again in order to verify his
brother’s incomplete sketches. The observations made in these two
tours were published under the title “An Excursion to the Lakes in
Westmoreland and Cumberland.” Hutchinson’s dislike of the wild and
desolate region of Stainmore has already been cited, but that quotation
alone would give a most unfair impression of the book as a whole. His
pleasure in Nature is great. He cares especially for artistic effects
of light and shade, and he often spends pages on the changing beauty
of a landscape seen at sunset, or sunrise, or after a storm. A single
passage may stand as illustrative of many similar ones in the book.
At the foot of this vast range of hills three smaller mounts,
of an exact conic form, running parallel, beautified the scene,
being covered with verdure to their crowns; the nearest, called
Dufton Pike, was shadowed by a passing cloud, save only the
summit of its cone, which was touched by a beam which painted
it with gold; the second pike was all enlightened and gave its
verdure to the prospect as if mantled with velvet; the third
stood shadowed, whilst all the range of hills behind were
struck with sunshine, showing their cliffs, caverns, and dells
in grotesque variety and giving the three pikes a picturesque
projection on the landscape.
Mr. Hutchinson had evidently read many of the books treating especially
of the beauty of Nature. He quotes the whole of Dr. Brown’s “Letter”
and much of Mr. Dalton’s “Poem.” He also quotes freely from Thomson’s
“Seasons,” Mason’s “Garden,” and Pennant’s account of Derwentwater.
Some of his most effective descriptions are of the road from Keswick to
Ambleside, “the finest ride in the north of England;” of the cataract
near Ambleside, probably Stock Gill Force; of the ascent of Skiddaw and
of a thunderstorm seen from its summit; of Derwentwater from various
points of view, and of a moonlight row upon the lake. They are too
long to quote, but they all show faithful and minute observation,
artistic appreciation of beauties of form and color, and, occasionally,
a lively sense of the deeper significance of the places visited.
Five or six years after Mr. Hutchinson’s “Tour” there appeared an
important “Guide to the Lakes,” by Mr. West. The second edition,
revised and annotated by Mr. Cockin came out in 1779, and the ninth
edition in 1807. A special feature of West’s “Guide” was its “Addenda”
under which heading he published all the best-known descriptions of the
Lakes. The chief of these were Dr. Brown’s “Letter,” portions of Dr.
Dalton’s “Poem,” the whole of Gray’s “Journal,” Mr. Cumberland’s “Ode
to the Sun,” selections from Relph’s “Cumberland Pastorals,” and two
descriptions of tours in search of noted caves. In 1807 were added Mrs.
Radcliffe’s “Ride over Skiddaw” (1794) and the Rev. James Plumptre’s
“Night Piece on the Banks of Windermere.” The “Guide” itself shows much
careful investigation, is written in a clear, intelligible fashion, and
betrays genuine and discriminating love of Nature.
The most important English tours were made between 1768 and 1778.
Pennant, Gray, Young, Gilpin, and Hutchinson made during these ten
years sixteen rather extended journeys, of which they gave full
accounts. Besides these we have Dr. Johnson’s “A Journey to the
Hebrides” (1773; published 1775), Boswell’s “Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides” (1773; published 1786), and Bray’s “Tour into Derbyshire”
(1777). In Boswell’s “Journey” there is not the slightest indication of
any interest in the scenery through which they passed, and the general
impression given by Boswell is that Johnson’s indifference was equal
to his own. For instance, Boswell wonders at the outset if a man who
has known “the felicity of London life” can fail to find any narrower
existence “insipid or irksome.” He quotes Dr. Johnson as saying at
Portree that he “longed to be again in civilized life.” He records
his famous sayings, “By seeing London I have seen as much of life as
the world can show,” and “Who _can_ like the Highlands?” This is
not quite fair to Johnson, because in his own account of the Scotch
tour and in his letters there are a few passages that indicate close
observation, and even enjoyment, of the wild scenes about him. The
finest passage is a description of a storm:
The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to
go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts
which poured down the hills on one side, and fell into one
general channel that ran with great violence on the other. The
wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the
blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and
the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough music
of Nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.
But Johnson’s attitude toward the external world was, on the whole,
the typical classical one, and is well illustrated by his reply to Mr.
Thrale’s attempt to win his admiration of a fine prospect. “Never heed
such nonsense; a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether
in one country or another. Let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about
something; men and women are my subjects of inquiry.”
Mr. Bray’s “Tour” has a full map and is written somewhat in the
guide-book style. Industries, architecture, history, family chronicles,
anecdotes, inscriptions, fill up its 135 closely printed folio pages.
There is comparatively little about the scenes through which he
passed. In describing the various estates which he visited pages are
given to house-furnishings for a single paragraph on the grounds. But
these seldom go unnoticed. He dislikes the formal garden. He objects
to the regular cascades at Matlock. He thinks that the conceits in
the water-works at Chatsworth might have been deemed wonderful when
they were made, “but those who have contemplated the waterfalls which
nature exhibits in this country ... will receive little pleasure from
seeing a temporary stream falling down a flight of steps, spouted out
of the mouths of dolphins or dragons, or squirted from the leaves of
a copper tree.” The most extended description is of the gardens at
Stowe, which he praises because, though laid out in the formal style,
their regularity has been broken up and disguised. Mr. Bray also shows
a liking for wild and romantic scenery. He frequently mentions wide
views, and condemns Compton Wyngate because it has no prospect, of
which, he adds, “our ancestors appear to have scarce ever thought.” The
spots he enjoyed most are Matlock High Tor, and wild places on the Dove
and the Derwent, Aysgarth Force in the Ure, and rocky Gordale. He noted
especially waterfalls and rivers. Of the Derwent at Matlock he says:
It is a most romantic and beautiful ride. The river is sometimes
hid behind trees, sometimes it glides smooth and calm, sometimes
a distant fall is heard; here it tumbles over a ledge of rocks
stretching quite across, there it rushes over rude fragments,
torn by storms from the impending masses. Each side, but
particularly the farther one, is bordered by lofty rocks,
generally clothed with wood, in the most picturesque manner.
Passages such as this, though perhaps not very effective, show an
attention arrested by the beauties of Nature. There is a closeness of
detail indicating first-hand observation, and the prevailing tone shows
that Mr. Bray justly claims for himself “a taste for nature in her
genuine simplicity.”
Of the “Travels” after 1778, numerous as they are, few need special
mention, because almost no really new elements appear in them. A few
new tours are sketched out, as to the Isle of Wight and the Isle of
Man. But in general the same old ground is gone over, the preference
still being accorded to Scotland, Wales, and the English Lakes. In
1796, but three years before Wordsworth went to Dove Cottage, there
appeared four new “Tours” to the Lakes by Rudworth, Walker, Houseman,
and Hutchinson. In 1794–95 there were five “Tours” in Wales. Of a few
of these “Tours” after 1778 perhaps some mention should be made.
The Rev. Mr. Shaw’s “Tour” (1788) in the west of England is significant
for two reasons. It is one of the first books to make literary
associations prominent in the description. He says that Woodstock is
classic ground because Chaucer lived there; Horton is sacred because
of Milton; Beaconsfield, because of Waller; Windsor Forest, because of
Pope; and Stoke Pogis, because of “the sublime and the pathetic Gray.”
The second point of significance is Mr. Shaw’s evident irritation at
the apparently overweening attention to mountains. He says that if
people could forget Skiddaw and Ben Lomond for a little while they
might be able to see the rich beauty of the champaign country about
Malvern Hills. Mr. Shaw goes back to the “crowds and bustle” of London
with great regret because, he says, no matter what society you find
there, nothing can make up for the pensive enjoyments of a feeling mind
in a picturesque country.
Hassel’s “Tour of the Isle of Wight” (1790) is in the style of Gilpin’s
work. The general knowledge of the Lake Country and the general
admiration of it is shown by his comparisons. A certain spot has “all
the appearance of a Westmoreland scene.” Certain noble hills “rise with
all the majesty of the Skiddaw mountains.” Hassel’s purpose is a search
for the picturesque. He especially notes rich effects of color, and the
varying lights of sunrise and sunset. He sees Nature in a succession of
pictures, but his language is free from the technicalities of Gilpin.
Robertson’s “Tour in the Isle of Man” (1794) has little effective
description, but it is noteworthy as one of the first books of travel
to be infected by the sentimental melancholy of the romances. His
Manxmen “recline by some romantic stream” in the true pensive spirit.
He visits churchyards and solitary places. He pores over the mazy
stream, he watches the rooks, he listens to the sighing evening breeze,
very much like one of Mrs. Brooke’s lovelorn heroes. Occasionally he
has some expressions of deeper import, as when he says that Nature not
only charms the eye “but purifies and ennobles the soul.” “The mind
is filled with divine enthusiasm.” He is, however, perhaps adequately
characterized by the word “romantic,” which he uses until it becomes
almost unbearable.
Of “Travels” in general we may say that the transfer of emphasis from
man to Nature is strongly marked. The love of Nature as shown in
“Travels” is later in development than it is in poetry, but when the
new feeling does find expression it sounds no uncertain note, and by
the end of the century has reached a statement as bold and unqualified
as that which is found in the poetry itself.