three times over. Some drew round the fire, and told long stories
about their horses, about their adventures, their overturns, and
breakings down. They discussed the credits of different merchants and
different inns; and the two wags told several choice anecdotes of
pretty chamber-maids, and kind landladies. All this passed as they
were quietly taking what they called their night-caps, that is to say,
strong glasses of brandy and water and sugar, or some other mixture of
the kind; after which they one after another rang for "Boots" and the
chamber-maid, and walked off to bed in old shoes cut down into
marvellously uncomfortable slippers.
There was only one man left; a short-legged, long-bodied, plethoric
fellow, with a very large, sandy head. He sat by himself, with a glass
of port wine negus, and a spoon; sipping and stirring, and meditating
and sipping, until nothing was left but the spoon. He gradually fell
asleep bolt upright in his chair, with the empty glass standing before
him; and the candle seemed to fall asleep too, for the wick grew long,
and black, and cabbaged at the end, and dimmed the little light that
remained in the chamber. The gloom that now prevailed was contagious.
Around hung the shapeless, and almost spectral, box-coats of departed
travellers, long since buried in deep sleep. I only heard the ticking
of the clock, with the deep-drawn breathings of the sleeping topers,
and the drippings of the rain, drop--drop--drop, from the eaves of the
house. The church-bells chimed midnight. All at once the stout
gentleman began to walk overhead, pacing slowly backwards and
forwards. There was something extremely awful in all this, especially
to one in my state of nerves. These ghastly greatcoats, these guttural
breathings, and the creaking footsteps of this mysterious being. His
steps grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. I could bear
it no longer. I was wound up to the desperation of a hero of romance.
"Be he who or what he may," said I to myself, "I'll have a sight of
him!" I seized a chamber candle, and hurried up to number 13. The door
stood ajar. I hesitated--I entered: the room was deserted. There stood
a large, broad-bottomed elbow chair at a table, on which was an empty
tumbler, and a "Times" newspaper, and the room smelt powerfully of
Stilton cheese.
The mysterious stranger had evidently but just retired. I turned off,
sorely disappointed, to my room, which had been changed to the front
of the house. As I went along the corridor, I saw a large pair of
boots, with dirty, waxed tops, standing at the door of a bed-chamber.
They doubtless belonged to the unknown; but it would not do to disturb
so redoubtable a personage in his den; he might discharge a pistol, or
something worse, at my head. I went to bed, therefore, and lay awake
half the night in a terrible nervous state; and even when I fell
asleep, I was still haunted in my dreams by the idea of the stout
gentleman and his wax-topped boots.
I slept rather late the next morning, and was awakened by some stir
and bustle in the house, which I could not at first comprehend; until
getting more awake, I found there was a mail-coach starting from the
door. Suddenly there was a cry from below, "The gentleman has forgot
his umbrella! look for the gentleman's umbrella in No. 13!" I heard an
immediate scampering of a chamber-maid along the passage, and a shrill
reply as she ran, "Here it is! here's the gentleman's umbrella!"
The mysterious stranger then was on the point of setting off. This was
the only chance I should ever have of knowing him. I sprang out of
bed, scrambled to the window, snatched aside the curtains, and just
caught a glimpse of the rear of a person getting in at the coach-door.
The skirts of a brown coat parted behind, and gave me a full view of
the broad disk of a pair of drab breeches. The door closed--"all
right!" was the word--the coach whirled off:--and that was all I ever
saw of the stout gentleman!
FOREST TREES.
"A living gallery of aged trees."
One of the favourite themes of boasting with the Squire, is the noble
trees on his estate, which, in truth, has some of the finest that I
have seen in England. There is something august and solemn in the
great avenues of stately oaks that gather their branches together high
in air, and seem to reduce the pedestrians beneath them to mere
pigmies. "An avenue of oaks or elms," the Squire observes, "is the
true colonnade that should lead to a gentleman's house. As to stone
and marble, any one can rear them at once--they are the work of the
day; but commend me to the colonnades that have grown old and great
with the family, and tell by their grandeur how long the family has
endured."
The Squire has great reverence for certain venerable trees, gray with
moss, which he considers as the ancient nobility of his domain. There
is the ruin of an enormous oak, which has been so much battered by
time and tempest, that scarce any thing is left; though he says
Christy recollects when, in his boyhood, it was healthy and
nourishing, until it was struck by lightning. It is now a mere trunk,
with one twisted bough stretching up into the air, leaving a green
branch at the end of it. This sturdy wreck is much valued by the
Squire; he calls it his standard-bearer, and compares it to a veteran
warrior beaten down in battle, but bearing up his banner to the last.
He has actually had a fence built round it, to protect it as much as
possible from further injury.
It is with great difficulty that the Squire can ever be brought to
have any tree cut down on his estate. To some he looks with reverence,
as having been planted by his ancestors; to others with a kind of
paternal affection, as having been planted by himself; and he feels a
degree of awe in bringing down, with a few strokes of the axe, what it
has cost centuries to build up. I confess I cannot but sympathize, in
some degree, with the good Squire on the subject. Though brought up in
a country overrun with forests, where trees are apt to be considered
mere encumbrances, and to be laid low without hesitation or remorse,
yet I could never see a fine tree hewn down without concern. The
poets, who are naturally lovers of trees, as they are of every thing
that is beautiful, have artfully awakened great interest in their
favour, by representing them as the habitations of sylvan deities;
insomuch that every great tree had its tutelar genius, or a nymph,
whose existence was limited to its duration. Evelyn, in his Sylva,
makes several pleasing and fanciful allusions to this superstition.
"As the fall," says he, "of a very aged oak, giving a crack like
thunder, has often been heard at many miles' distance; constrained
though I often am to fell them with reluctancy, I do not at any time
remember to have heard the groans of those nymphs (grieving to be
dispossessed of their ancient habitations) without some emotion and
pity." And again, in alluding to a violent storm that had devastated
the woodlands, he says, "Methinks I still hear, sure I am that I still
feel, the dismal groans of our forests; the late dreadful hurricane
having subverted so many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating the
trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen in
battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew
beneath them. The public accounts," he adds, "reckon no less than
three thousand brave oaks in one part only of the forest of Dean blown
down."
I have paused more than once in the wilderness of America, to
contemplate the traces of some blast of wind, which seemed to have
rushed down from the clouds, and ripped its way through the bosom of
the woodlands; rooting up, shivering, and splintering the stoutest
trees, and leaving a long track of desolation. There was something
awful in the vast havoc made among these gigantic plants; and in
considering their magnificent remains, so rudely torn and mangled, and
hurled down to perish prematurely on their native soil, I was
conscious of a strong movement of the sympathy so feelingly expressed
by Evelyn. I recollect, also, hearing a traveller of poetical
Temperament expressing the kind of horror which he felt on Beholding
on the banks of the Missouri, an oak of prodigious size, which had
been, in a manner, overpowered by an enormous wild grape-vine. The
vine had clasped its huge folds round the trunk, and from thence had
wound about every branch and twig, until the mighty tree had withered
in its embrace. It seemed like Laocoon struggling ineffectually in the
hideous coils of the monster Python. It was the lion of trees
perishing in the embraces of a vegetable boa.
I am fond of listening to the conversation of English gentlemen on
rural concerns, and of noticing with what taste and discrimination,
and what strong, unaffected interest they will discuss topics, which,
in other countries, are abandoned to mere woodmen, or rustic
cultivators. I have heard a noble earl descant on park and forest
scenery with the science and feeling of a painter. He dwelt on the
shape and beauty of particular trees on his estate, with as much pride
and technical precision as though he had been discussing the merits of
statues in his collection I found that he had even gone considerable
distances to examine trees which were celebrated among rural amateurs;
for it seems that trees, like horses, have their established points of
excellence; and that there are some in England which enjoy very
extensive celebrity among tree-fanciers, from being perfect in their
kind.
There is something nobly simple and pure in such a taste: it argues, I
think, a sweet and generous nature, to have this strong relish for the
beauties of vegetation, and this friendship for the hardy and glorious
sons of the forest. There is a grandeur of thought connected with this
part of rural economy. It is, if I may be allowed the figure, the
heroic line of husbandry. It is worthy of liberal, and free-born, and
aspiring men. He who plants an oak, looks forward to future ages, and
plants for posterity. Nothing can be less selfish than this. He cannot
expect to sit in its shade, nor enjoy its shelter; but he exults in
the idea that the acorn which he has buried in the earth shall grow up
into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing, and increasing, and
benefiting mankind, long after he shall have ceased to tread his
paternal fields. Indeed, it is the nature of such occupations to lift
the thoughts above mere worldliness. As the leaves of trees are said
to absorb all noxious qualities of the air, and to breathe forth a
purer atmosphere, so it seems to me as if they drew from us all sordid
and angry passions, and breathed forth peace and philanthropy. There
is a serene and settled majesty in woodland scenery, that enters into
the soul, and dilates and elevates it, and fills it with noble
inclinations. The ancient and hereditary groves, too, that embower
this island, are most of them full of story. They are haunted by the
recollections of great spirits of past ages, who have sought for
relaxation among them from the tumult of arms, or the toils of state,
or have wooed the muse beneath their shade. Who can walk, with soul
unmoved, among the stately groves of Penshurst, where the gallant, the
amiable, the elegant Sir Philip Sidney passed his boyhood; or can look
without fondness upon the tree that is said to have been planted on
his birthday; or can ramble among the classic bowers of Hagley; or can
pause among the solitudes of Windsor Forest, and look at the oaks
around, huge, gray, and time-worn, like the old castle towers, and not
feel as if he were surrounded by so many monuments of long-enduring
glory? It is, when viewed in this light, that planted groves, and
stately avenues, and cultivated parks, have an advantage over the more
luxuriant beauties of unassisted nature. It is that they teem with
moral associations, and keep up the ever-interesting story of human
existence.
It is incumbent, then, on the high and generous spirits of an ancient
nation, to cherish these sacred groves that surround their ancestral
mansions, and to perpetuate them to their descendants. Republican as I
am by birth, and brought up as I have been in republican principles
and habits, I can feel nothing of the servile reverence for titled
rank, merely because it is titled; but I trust that I am neither churl
nor bigot in my creed. I can both see and feel how hereditary
distinction, when it falls to the lot of a generous mind, may elevate
that mind into true nobility. It is one of the effects of hereditary
rank, when it falls thus happily, that it multiplies the duties, and,
as it were, extends the existence of the possessor. He does not feel
himself a mere individual link in creation, responsible only for his
own brief term of being. He carries back his existence in proud
recollection, and he extends it forward in honourable anticipation. He
lives with his ancestry, and he lives with his posterity. To both does
he consider himself involved in deep responsibilities. As he has
received much from those that have gone before, so he feels bound to
transmit much to those who are to come after him. His domestic
undertakings seem to imply a longer existence than those of ordinary
men; none are so apt to build and plant for future centuries, as
noble-spirited men, who have received their heritages from foregone
ages.
I cannot but applaud, therefore, the fondness and pride with which I
have noticed English gentlemen, of generous temperaments, and high
aristocratic feelings, contemplating those magnificent trees, which
rise like towers and pyramids, from the midst of their paternal lands.
There is an affinity between all nature, animate and inanimate: the
oak, in the pride and lustihood of its growth, seems to me to take its
range with the lion and the eagle, and to assimilate, in the grandeur
of its attributes, to heroic and intellectual man. With its mighty
pillar rising straight and direct towards heaven, bearing up its leafy
honours from the impurities of earth, and supporting them aloft in
free air and glorious sunshine, it is an emblem of what a true
nobleman _should be_; a refuge for the weak, a shelter for the
oppressed, a defence for the defenceless; warding off from them the
peltings of the storm, or the scorching rays of arbitrary power. He
who is _this_, is an ornament and a blessing to his native land. He
who is _otherwise_, abuses his eminent advantages; abuses the grandeur
and prosperity which he has drawn from the bosom of his country.
Should tempests arise, and he be laid prostrate by the storm, who
would mourn over his fall? Should he be borne down by the oppressive
hand of power, who would murmur at his fate?--"Why cumbereth he the
ground?"
A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.
Printed bookes he contemnes, as a novelty of this latter age; but
a manuscript he pores on everlastingly; especially if the cover be
all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis betweene every
syllable.
--_Mico-Cosmographie_, 1638.
The Squire receives great sympathy and support, in his antiquated
humours, from the parson, of whom I made some mention on my former
visit to the Hall, and who acts as a kind of family chaplain. He has
been cherished by the Squire almost constantly, since the time that
they were fellow-students at Oxford; for it is one of the peculiar
advantages of these great universities, that they often link the poor
scholar to the rich patron, by early and heart-felt ties, that last
through life, without the usual humiliations of dependence and
patronage. Under the fostering protection of the Squire, therefore,
the little parson has pursued his studies in peace. Having lived
almost entirely among books, and those, too, old books, he is quite
ignorant of the world, and his mind is as antiquated as the garden at
the Hall, where the flowers are all arranged in formal beds, and the
yew-trees clipped into urns and peacocks.
His taste for literary antiquities was first imbibed in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford; where, when a student, he passed many an hour
foraging among the old manuscripts. He has since, at different times,
visited most of the curious libraries in England, and has ransacked
many of the cathedrals. With all his quaint and curious learning, he
has nothing of arrogance or pedantry; but that unaffected earnestness
and guileless simplicity which seem to belong to the literary
antiquary.
He is a dark, mouldy little man, and rather dry in his manner; yet, on
his favourite theme, he kindles up, and at times is even eloquent. No
fox-hunter, recounting his last day's sport, could be more animated
than I have seen the worthy parson, when relating his search after a
curious document, which he had traced from library to library, until
he fairly unearthed it in the dusty chapter-house of a cathedral.
When, too, he describes some venerable manuscript, with its rich
illuminations, its thick creamy vellum, its glossy ink, and the odour
of the cloisters that seemed to exhale from it, he rivals the
enthusiasm of a Parisian epicure, expatiating on the merits of a
Perigord pie, or a _Patté de Strasbourg_.
His brain seems absolutely haunted with love-sick dreams about
gorgeous old works in "silk linings, triple gold bands, and tinted
leather, locked up in wire cases, and secured from the vulgar hands
of the mere reader;" and, to continue the happy expressions of an
ingenious writer, "dazzling one's eyes like eastern beauties, peering
through their jealousies."[3]
[Footnote 3: D'Israeli--_Curiosities of Literature_.]
He has a great desire, however, to read such works in the old
libraries and chapter-houses to which they belong; for he thinks a
black-letter volume reads best in one of those venerable chambers
where the light struggles through dusty lancet windows and painted
glass; and that it loses half its zest, if taken away from the
neighbourhood of the quaintly-carved oaken book-case and Gothic
reading-desk. At his suggestion, the Squire has had the library
furnished in this antique taste, and several of the windows glazed
with painted glass, that they may throw a properly tempered light upon
the pages of their favourite old authors.
The parson, I am told, has been for some time meditating a commentary
on Strutt, Brand, and Douce, in which he means to detect them in
sundry dangerous errors in respect to popular games and superstitions;
a work to which the Squire looks forward with great interest. He is,
also, a casual contributor to that long-established repository of
national customs and antiquities, the Gentleman's Magazine, and is one
of those that every now and then make an inquiry concerning some
obsolete custom or rare legend; nay, it is said that several of his
communications have been at least six inches in length. He frequently
receives parcels by coach from different parts of the kingdom,
containing mouldy volumes and almost illegible manuscripts; for it is
singular what an active correspondence is kept up among literary
antiquaries, and how soon the fame of any rare volume, or unique copy,
just discovered among the rubbish of a library, is circulated among
them. The parson is more busy than common just now, being a little
flurried by an advertisement of a work, said to be preparing for the
press, on the mythology of the middle ages. The little man has long
been gathering together all the hobgoblin tales he could collect,
illustrative of the superstitions of former times; and he is in a
complete fever lest this formidable rival should take the field before
him.
Shortly after my arrival at the Hall, I called at the parsonage, in
company with Mr. Bracebridge and the general. The parson had not been
seen for several days, which was a matter of some surprise, as he was
an almost daily visitor at the Hall. We found him in his study; a
small dusky chamber, lighted by a lattice window that looked into the
church-yard, and was overshadowed by a yew-tree. His chair was
surrounded by folios and quartos, piled upon the floor, and his table
was covered with books and manuscripts. The cause of his seclusion was
a work which he had recently received, and with which he had retired
in rapture from the world, and shut himself up to enjoy a literary
honeymoon undisturbed. Never did boarding-school girl devour the pages
of a sentimental novel, or Don Quixote a chivalrous romance, with more
intense delight than did the little man banquet on the pages of this
delicious work. It was Dibdin's Bibliographical Tour; a work
calculated to have as intoxicating an effect on the imaginations of
literary antiquaries, as the adventures of the heroes of the round
table, on all true knights; or the tales of the early American
voyagers on the ardent spirits of the age, filling them with dreams of
Mexican and Peruvian mines, and of the golden realm of El Dorado.
The good parson had looked forward to this bibliographical expedition
as of far greater importance than those to Africa or the North Pole.
With what eagerness had he seized upon the history of the enterprise!
with what interest had he followed the redoubtable bibliographer and
his graphical squire in their adventurous roamings among Norman
castles, and cathedrals, and French libraries, and German convents and
universities; penetrating into the prison-houses of vellum
manuscripts, and exquisitely illuminated missals, and revealing their
beauties to the world!
When the parson had finished a rapturous eulogy on this most curious
and entertaining work, he drew forth from a little drawer a
manuscript, lately received from a correspondent, which had perplexed
him sadly. It was written in Norman French, in very ancient
characters, and so faded and mouldered away as to be almost illegible.
It was apparently an old Norman drinking song, that might have been
brought over by one of William the Conqueror's carousing followers.
The writing was just legible enough to keep a keen antiquity-hunter on
a doubtful chase; here and there he would be completely thrown out,
and then there would be a few words so plainly written as to put him
on the scent again. In this way he had been led on for a whole day,
until he had found himself completely at fault.
The Squire endeavoured to assist him, but was equally baffled. The old
general listened for some time to the discussion, and then asked the
parson if he had read Captain Morris's, or George Stevens's, or
Anacreon Moore's bacchanalian songs? On the other replying in the
negative, "Oh, then," said the general, with a sagacious nod, "if you
want a drinking song, I can furnish you with the latest collection--I
did not know you had a turn for those kind of things; and I can lend
you the Encyclopedia of Wit into the bargain. I never travel without
them; they're excellent reading at an inn."
It would not be easy to describe the odd look of surprise and
perplexity of the parson, at this proposal; or the difficulty the
Squire had in making the general comprehend, that though a jovial song
of the present day was but a foolish sound in the ears of wisdom, and
beneath the notice of a learned man, yet a trowl, written by a tosspot
several hundred years since, was a matter worthy of the gravest
research, and enough to set whole colleges by the ears.
I have since pondered much on this matter, and have figured to myself
what may be the fate of our current literature, when retrieved,
piecemeal, by future antiquaries, from among the rubbish of ages. What
a Magnus Apollo, for instance, will Moore become, among sober divines
and dusty schoolmen! Even his festive and amatory songs, which are now
the mere quickeners of our social moments, or the delights of our
drawing-rooms, will then become matters of laborious research and
painful collation. How many a grave professor will then waste his
midnight oil, or worry his brain through a long morning, endeavouring
to restore the pure text, or illustrate the biographical hints of
"Come, tell me, says Rosa, as kissing and kissed;" and how many an
arid old bookworm, like the worthy little parson, will give up in
despair, after vainly striving to fill up some fatal hiatus in "Fanny
of Timmol"!
Nor is it merely such exquisite authors as Moore that are doomed to
consume the oil of future antiquaries. Many a poor scribbler, who is
now, apparently, sent to oblivion by pastrycooks and cheese-mongers,
will then rise again in fragments, and flourish in learned
immortality.