YOUNG AUTHORSHIP IN VERSE AND PROSE.
Of my earliest MS., written soon after my seventh birthday, I have no
copy, and only a very confused memory: but I remember that my good
mother treasured for years and showed to many friends something in the
nature of an elegy which a broken-hearted little brother wrote on the
death of an infant sister from his first school: this is only mentioned
in case any one of my older readers may possibly supply such a lost MS.
in a child's roundhand. At school, chiefly as a young Carthusian, I
frequently broke out into verse, where prose translation was more
properly required: seeing that it pleased my indolence to be poetical
where I was not sure of literal accuracy, and (I may add) it rejoiced me
to induce a certain undermaster to suspect and sometimes to accuse this
small poetaster of having "cribbed" his metrical version from some
unknown collection of poems: however, he had always to be satisfied with
my assurance as to authenticity, for he was sure to be baffled in his
inquiries elsewhere.
One such instance is extant as thus,--for I kept a copy, as the
assembled Charterhouse masters seemed to think it too good to be
original for a small boy of twelve to thirteen. Here then, as a specimen
of one of my early bits of literature, is a genuine and unaltered poem
(for any modern improvements would not be honest) in the shape of a
translated Greek epigram from the Anthologia:--
"Not Juno's eye of fire divine
Can vie my Melite, with thine
So heavenly pure and bright;
Nor can Minerva's hand excel
That pretty hand I know so well,
So small and lily-white.
"Not Venus can such charms disclose
As those sweet lips of blushing rose
And ivory bosom show;
Not Thetis' nimble foot can tread
More lightly o'er her coral bed
Than thy soft foot of snow.
"What happiness thy face bestows
When smiling on a lover's woes!
Thrice happy then is he
Who hears thy soul-subduing song,--
O more than blest, to whom belong
The charms of Melite!"
I was head of the lower school then, and I remember the father of Bernal
Osborne patting my curly locks and scolding his whiskered son for
letting a small boy be above him.
Much about this time, and until I left Charterhouse at sixteen, there
proceeded from my pen numerous other mild rhymed pieces and sundry
unsuccessful prize poems; _e.g._, three on Carthage, the second Temple
of Jerusalem, and the Tower of London, whereof I have schoolboy copies
not worth notice; besides divers metrical translations of Horace,
Æschylus, Virgil; and a few songs and album verses for young lady
friends, one being set by a Mr. Sala (perhaps G.A.S. had a musical
relative) with an impromptu or two, whereof the following "On a shell
sounding like the sea" is a fair specimen for a boy:--
"I remember the voice of the flood
Hoarse breaking upon the rough shore,
As a linnet remembers the wood
And his warblings so joyous before."
Of course, this class of my juvenile lyrics was holiday work, and barely
worth a record, except to save a fly in amber, like this.
* * * * *
Whilst I was at Charterhouse, occurred my first Continental journey,
when my excellent father took his small party all through France in his
private travelling carriage, bought at Calais for the trip (it was long
before railways were invented), and I jotted down in verse our daily
adventures in the rumble. The whole journal, entitled "Rough Rhymes," in
divers metres, grave and gay, was published by the "Literary Chronicle"
in 1826, and the editor thereof, Mr. Jerdan, says, after some
compliments, "the author is in his sixteenth year,"--which fixes the
date. Possibly, a brief specimen or two of this may please: take the
livelier first,--on French cookery: if trivial, the lines are genuine: I
must not doctor anything up even by a word.
"Now Muse, you must versify your very best,
To sing how they ransack the East and the West,
To tell how they plunder the North and the South
For food for the stomach and zest for the mouth!
Such savoury stews, and such odorous dishes,
Such soups, and (at Calais) such capital fishes!
With sauces so strange they disguise the lean meat
That you seldom, or never, know what you're to eat;
Such fricandeaux, fricassees epicurean,
Such vins-ordinaires, and such banquets Circean,--
And the nice little nothings which very soon vanish
Before you are able your plate to replenish,--
Such exquisite eatables! and for your drink
Not porter or ale, but--what do you think?
'Tis Burgundy, Bourdeaux, real red rosy wine,
Which you quaff at a draught, neat nectar, divine!
Thus they pamper the taste with everything good
And of an old shoe can make savoury food,
But the worst of it is that when you have done
You are nearly as famish'd as when you begun!"
For a more serious morsel, take the closing lines on Rouen:--
"Yes, proud Cathedral, ages pass'd away
While generations lived their little day,--
France has been deluged with her patriots' blood
By traitors to their country and their God,--
The face of Europe has been changed, but thou
Hast stood sublime in changelessness till now,
Exulting in thy glories of carved stone,
A living monument of ages gone!--
Yet--time hath touch'd thee too; thy prime is o'er,--
A few short years, and thou must be no more;
Ev'n thou must bend beneath the common fate,
But in thy very ruins wilt be great!"
More than enough of this brief memory of "Sixty Years Since," which has
no other extant record, and is only given as a sample of the rest,
equally juvenile. Three years however before, this, my earliest piece
printed, I find among my papers a very faded copy of my first MS. in
verse, being part of an attempted prize poem at Charterhouse on
Carthage, written at the age of thirteen in 1823; for auld langsyne's
sake I rescue its conclusion thus curtly from oblivion,--though no doubt
archæologically faulty:--
"Where sculptured temples once appeared to sight,
Now dismal ruins meet the moon's pale light,--
Where regal pomp once shone with gorgeous ray,
And kings successive held their transient sway;--
Where once the priest his sacred victims led
And on the altars their warm lifeblood shed,--
Where swollen rivers once had amply flowed
And splendid galleys down the stream had rowed,
A dreary wilderness now meets the view,
And nought but Memory can trace the clue!"
The poor little schoolboy's muse was perhaps quite of the pedestrian
order: but so also, the critics said, had been stern old Dr. Johnson's
in his "London."
Mere school-exercises (whereof I have some antique copybooks before me),
cannot be held to count for much as early literature; though I know not
why some of my Greek Iambic translations of the Psalms and Shakespeare,
as also sundry very respectable versions of English poems into Latin
Sapphics and Alcaics still among my archives, should not have been
shrined--as they were offered at the time--in Dr. Haig Brown's
Carthusian Anthology. However somehow these have escaped printer's
ink,--the only true _elixir vitæ_--and we must therefore suppose them
not quite worthy to be bracketed with the classical versification of
Buchanan or even of Mr. John Milton,--albeit actually superior to sundry
of the aforesaid Anthologia Carthusiana; so of these we will say
nothing.
Of other sorts of schoolboy literaria whereof from time to time I was
guilty let me save here (by way of change) one or two of my trivial
humoristics: here is one, not seen in print till now; "Sapphics to my
Umbrella,--written on a very rainy day," in 1827. N.B. If Canning in his
Eton days immortalised sapphically a knifegrinder, why shouldn't a young
Carthusian similarly celebrate his gingham?
"Valued companion of my expeditions,
Wanderings, and my street perambulations,
What can be more deserving of my praises
Than my umbrella?
"Under thine ample covering rejoicing,
(All the 'canaille' tumultuously running)
While the rain streams and patters from the housetops,
Slow and majestic,
"I trudge along unwetted, though an ocean
Pours from the clouds, as if some Abernethy
Had given all the nubilary regions
Purges cathartic!
"Others run on in piteous condition,
Black desperation painted in their faces,
While the full flood descends in very pailfuls
Streaming upon them.
"Yea, 'tis as if some cunning necromancer
Had drawn a circle magically round me,
Till like the wretched victim of Kehama,
(Southey's abortion)
"Nothing like liquor ever could approach me!
But it is thou, disinterested comrade,
Bearest the rainy weather uncomplaining,
Oh, my umbrella!
"How many hats, and 'upper Bens,' and new coats,
How many wretched duckings hast thou saved me
Well--I have done--but must be still indebted
To my umbrella!"
Another such trifle may be permissible, as thus: also about an umbrella,
a stolen one. On the occasion of my loss I wrote this to rebuke the
thief, "The height of honesty:"--
"Three friends once, in the course of conversation,
Touch'd upon honesty: 'No virtue better,'
Says Dick, quite lost in sweet self-admiration,
'I'm sure I'm honest;--ay--beyond the letter:
You know the field I rent; beneath the ground
My plough stuck in the middle of a furrow
And there a pot of golden coins I found!
My landlord has it, without fail, to-morrow.'
Thus modestly his good intents he told:
'But stay,' says Bob,' we soon shall see who's best,
A _stranger_ left with me uncounted gold!
But I'll not touch it; which is honestest?'
'Your honest acts I've heard,' says Jack, 'but I
Have done much better, would that all folks learn'd it,
Mine is the highest pitch of honesty--
I borrow'd an umbrella and--_return'd it!!_'".
_N.B._--I remember that Dr. Buckland, whose geological lectures I
attended, had the words "Stolen from Dr. Buckland" engraved on the ivory
handle of _his_ umbrella: he never lost it again.
In the way of prose, not printed (though much later on I have since
published "Paterfamilias's Diary of Everybody's Tour") I have kept
journals of holiday travel _passim_, whereof I now make a brief mention.
Six juvenile bits of authorship are before me, ranging through the
summers of 1828 to 1835 inclusive; each neatly written in its note-book
on the spot and at the time (therefore fresh and true) decorated with
untutored sketches, and all full of interest ab least to myself in old
memories, faded interests, and departed friends. As very rare survivals
of the past (for who cares to keep as I have done his schoolboy journals
of half a century ago?) I will give at haphazard from each in its order
of time a short quotation by way of sample,--a brick to represent the
house. My first, A.D. 1828, records how my good father took his
sons through the factories of Birmingham and the potteries of
Staffordshire, down an iron mine and a salt mine, &c. &c., thus teaching
us all we could learn energetically and intelligently; it details also
how we were hospitably entertained for a week in each place by the
magnate hosts of Holkar Hall and Inveraray Castle; and how we did all
touristic devoirs by lake, mountain, ruin, and palace: in fact, a short
volume in MS., whereof quite at random here is a specimen page. "Melrose
looks at a distance very little ruinous, but more like a perfect
cathedral. While the horses were being changed we walked to see this
Abbey, a splendid ruin, with two very light and beautiful oriel windows
to the east and south, besides many smaller ones; the architecture being
florid Gothic. The tracery round the capitals of pillars is in wonderful
preservation, looking as fresh and sharp as on the first day of their
creation; instead of the Grecian acanthus _Scotch kail_ being a
favourite ornament. Some of the images still remain in their niches. In
the east aisle is the grave of the famous wizard, Michael Scott, and at
the foot of the tombstone a grim-looking figure,--query himself? In the
ruined cloisters the tracery is of the most delicate description,
foliage of trees and vegetables being carved on them. This Abbey was
founded by David the First, but repaired by James the Fourth, which
accounts for his altered crown appearing in stone on the walls," &c. &c.
The Scotch kail is curious, as indicative of national preference: and
is the wizard still on guard? Recollect that in those days there were no
guide-books,--so every observant traveller had to record for himself
what he saw.
The next, in 1829, was a second visit to the Continent, my first having
been in 1826, with those quotations from "Rough Rhymes" which have
already met your view. In this we took the usual tour of those days,
_viâ_ Brussels and the Rhine to Switzerland, and I might quote plenty
thereof if space and time allowed. Here shall follow a casual page from
the 1829 MS. Journal, now before me.
"Heidelberg has a university of seven hundred students, who wear no
particular academicals, but are generally seen with a little red or blue
cap topping a luxuriant head of hair, a long coat, and moustaches which
usually perform the function of a chimney to pipe or cigar. All along
our to-day's route extended immense fields of tobacco, turnips, and
vegetals of every description. Most of the women seem to be troubled
with goitres, and we observed that all who have them wear rows of
garnets strung tight on the part affected, whether with the idea of
hiding the deformity, or of rendering the beauty of the swelling more
conspicuous, or of charming it away, I cannot tell. The roads in these
parts are much avenued with walnut trees: Fels, our courier, told me
that of all trees they are most subject to be struck by lightning, and
that under them is always a current of air. I insert his information, as
he is both a sensible man, and has had great opportunities of
observing," &c. &c. Here is a gap of three years.
In 1832, my journal about Dorsetshire and the Isle of Wight is chiefly
geological: as this extract shows, it was mainly a search after fossil
spoils at Charmouth:--"Would you like to see a creature with the head of
a lizard, wings of a bat, and tail of a serpent? Such things have been,
as these bones testify; they are called Pterodactyls, and are as big as
ravens. Thus, you see, a dragon is no chimera, but attested by a science
founded on observation, Geology. As their bones (known by their
hollowness) often occur in the coprolites or fossil dung of Plesiosauri,
mighty monsters of the deep like gigantic swans, it is thought they were
their special prey, for which the long and flexible neck of the
Plesiosaurus is an _à priori_ argument," &c. &c.
The 1833 journal is Welsh; and, _inter alia_, I therein drew and I now
record that recently destroyed and more recently restored Druidical
movement, the Buckstone: "A solid mass of rock, not of living adamant
but of dead pudding-stone, seemingly 'by subtle magic poised' on the
brow of a steep and high hill, wooded with oaks: the top of this mass of
rock is an area of fifty-four feet, its base being four, and the height
twelve. It was once a logan stone, but now has no rocking properties;
though most perilously poised on the side of a slope, and certainly, if
in part a work of nature, it must have been helped by art, seeing the
mere action of the atmosphere never could have so exactly chiselled away
all but the centre of gravity. The secret of the Druids, in this
instance at least, was in leaving a large mass behind, which as a lever
counteracted the preponderance of the rock." I drew on the spot two
exact views of it, taken to scale,--whereof this is one,--now of some
curious value, since its intentional destruction last year by a snobbish
party of mischievous idiots. (However, I see by the papers that, at a
cost of £500, it has been replaced.) Let this touch suffice as to my
then growing predilection for Druidism, since expanded by me into
several essays find pamphlets, touching on that strange topic, the
numerous rude stone monuments from Arabia to Mona.
[Illustration]
The 1834 journal regards Scotland,--a country I have since visited
several times, including the Orkneys and Shetlands, and the voyage round
from Thurso _viâ_ Cape Wrath to the Hebrides; whereof, perhaps, more
anon. For a specimen page of this let me give what follows; the locality
is near Inverness and the Caledonian Canal: "We now bent our steps
toward Craig Phadrick, two miles north. This is the site of one of the
celebrated vitrified forts, concerning the creation of which there has
been so much learned discussion. And verily there is room, for there is
mystery: I will detail what we saw. On the summit of a steep hill of
conglomerate rock we could trace very clearly a double oblong enclosure
of eighty yards by twenty, with entrances east and west, a space of five
yards being between the two oblongs. The mounds were outwardly of turf,
but under a thin skin of this was a thick continuous wall of molten
stone, granite, gneiss, and sandstone, bubbling together in a hotchpot!
The existence of these forts (occurring frequently on the heights and of
various shapes) is attempted to be explained by divers theories. One man
tells us they were beacons; but, first, what an enormous one is here,
one hundred and twenty-four feet by sixty of blazing wood, timber being
scarce too! next, they sometimes occur in low situations from which a
flame could scarcely be seen; thirdly, common wood fire will not melt
granite. Another pundit says they are volcanic. O wondrous volcano to
spout oblong concentric areas of stone walls! Perhaps the best
explanation is that the Celts cemented these hilltops of strongholds by
means of coarse glass, a sort of red-hot mortar, using sea-sand and
seaweed as a flux. This is Professor Whewell's idea, and with him we had
some interesting conversation on that and other subjects." Of this
Scotch tour, full of interest, thus very curtly. Turn we now to Ireland
in 1835. My record of just fifty years ago is much what it might be now,
starvation, beggary, and human wretchedness of all sorts in the midst of
a rich land, through indolence relapsed into a jungle of thorns and
briars, quaking bogs, and sterile mountains; whisky, and the idle
uncertain potato, combining with ignorance and priestcraft, to
demoralise the excitable unreasoning race of modern Celts. Let us turn
from the sad scenes of which my said diary is full, to my day at the
spar caverns of Kingston. "At the bottom of a stone quarry, we clad
ourselves in sack garments that mud wouldn't spoil, and with lit candles
descended into the abyss, hands, knees, and elbows being of as much
service as our feet. Now, I am not going to map my way after the manner
of guide-books, nor to nickname the gorgeous architecture of nature
according to the caprice of a rude peasant on the spot or the fancy of a
passing stranger. I might fill a page with accounts of Turks' tents,
beehives, judges' wigs, harps, handkerchiefs, and flitches of bacon, but
I rather choose to speak of these subterranean palaces with none of such
vulgar similarities. No one ever saw such magnificence in stalactites;
from the black fissured roofs of antres vast and low-browed caves they
are hanging, of all conceivable shapes and sizes and descriptions. Now a
tall-fluted column, now a fringed canopy, now like a large white sheet
flung over a beetling rock in the elegant folds and easy drapery of a
curtain, everywhere are pure white stalactites like icicles straining to
meet the sturdier mounds of stalagmite below; whilst in the smaller
caves slender tubes extend from top to bottom like congealed rain. One
cavern is quite curtained round with dazzling and wavy tapestry; another
has gigantic masses of the white spar pouring from its crannied roof
like boiled Brobdingnag macaroni; others like heaps of snowy linen lying
about or hanging from the ceiling. The extent of the caves is quite
unknown: eleven acres (I was told) have been surveyed and mapped, while
there are six avenues still unexplored, and you may already wander for
twenty-four hours through the discovered provinces of the gnome king."
This is not to be compared with Kentucky, perhaps not quite with
Derbyshire; but it seemed to me marvellous at the time. Let this much
suffice as hinted reference to those early journals, which, if the world
were not already more full of books than of their readers, would be as
well worth printing in their integrity as many others of their bound and
lettered brethren.
In connection with these journals, I have been specially requested to
add to the above this record following (dated forty-four years ago) as a
specimen of my letter-writing in old days: it has pen-and-ink sketches,
here inserted by way of rough and ready illustration. The whole letter
is printed in its integrity as desired, and tells its own archæological
tale, though rather voluminously; but in the prehistoric era before
Rowland Hill arose, to give us cheap stamps for short notes, it was an
economy to make a letter as long as possible to pay for its exorbitant
postage: for example, my letters to and from Oxford used to cost
eightpence--or double if in an envelope, then absurdly surcharged.
_My Cornish Expedition._
[Illustration: [The Arms of Cornwall]
8th and 9th of January 1840.
"FOR ONE AND ALL"]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
My Dear Mother, and all good Domiciliars,--
I suppose it to be the intention of our worshipful and right
bankrupt Government that everybody write to everybody true, full,
and particular accounts of all things which he, she, or it, may
have done, be doing, or be about to do; and seeing I may have
something to say which will interest you all, I fulfil the
gossiping intentions of the Collective Wisdom, and give you an
omnibus epistle. Now, I recommend a good map, a quiet mind, and as
Charley says, Atten_tion_.--The bright, clear, frosty morning of
the 8th found me at Devonport, and nine o'clock beheld the same
egregious individual, well-benjamined, patronising with his bodily
presence the roof of the Falmouth coach. A steam ferry-bridge took
us across the Hamoaze, which, with its stationed hulks, scattered
shipping, and town and country banks, made, as it always makes, a
beautiful landscape. At Torpoint we first encountered venerable
Cornwall; and a pretty drive of sixteen miles, well wooded, and
watered by several intrusions of the unsatisfied sea, brought coach
and contents to Liskeard, a clean, granite, country town, with
palatial inn, and (in common with the whole of Devonshire and
Cornwall) a large many gabled church, covered with carved cathedral
windows, and shadowed by ancient elms. Not being able to accomplish
everything, I heard of, but saw not, divers antiquities in the
distant neighbourhood of St. Clare, such as a circle of stones, an
old church and well, and the natural curiosity called the
cheese-ring, being a mass of layered granite capriciously
decomposed: these "unseen ones" (what a mysterious name for a
three-volumed Bentleyism!) I do not regret, for I know how to
appreciate those wonders, the only enchantment whereof is,
distance. So suffered I conveyance to Lostwithiel, a town lying in
a hollow under the pictorial auspices of Restormel Castle, whose
ivied ruins up the valley are fine and Raglandish: while the rest
were bolting a coach dinner, I betook me to ye church, and was
charmed with a curious antique font, and the tower, an octagon
gothic lantern with extinguisher atop, like this: as far as memory
serves me. Onward again, through St. Blazey, and a mining district,
not ill-wooded, nor unpicturesque, to the fair town of St. Austle,
which the piety of Cornish ancestors has furnished with another
splendid specimen of ecclesiastical architecture, the upper half of
the chief tower, a square one, being fretted on every stone with
florid carving, and grotesque devices: but what shall I say of
Probus tower, which from top to bottom is covered with delicate
tracery cut in granite? it rises above the miserable surrounding
village, a satire upon neighbouring degeneracy in things religious:
you must often have seen drawings of Probus at the Watercolour
Exhibition, as it is a regular artists' lion. At about half-past
six we got into Truro, a clean wide flourishing town with London
shops, a commemorative column, a fine spired church, bridges over
narrow streams, and, like most other West of England towns, well
payed and gas-lighted. From this, I had intended to go to Falmouth,
but a diligent brain-sucking of coach comrades induced me to jump
at once into a branch conveyance to Penzance, so passing sleepy
Redruth, Camborne, and St. Erth in the dark, I found myself safely
housed at the Union Inn, Penzance, at half-past eleven. Talking of
unions, the country is studded here as everywhere with them; fine
buildings put to the pernicious use of imprisoning for life those
whose only crime is poverty, and destined to be metamorphosed ere
long (so I prophesy) into lunatic asylums for desperate
ministerialists, prisons for the Chartists, veterinary colleges for
cattle with the rot, and as one good end, hospitals for the poor.
Near Redruth, I took notice in the moonlight of Carn-bréh, the
remains of a British beacon or hill-fort, much of the antiquarian
interest of which has been destroyed by a neighbouring squire
having added to it _modern_ ruins, to make it an object from his
hall! the whole hill, like much of the country, is sprinkled with
granite blocks higgledi-piggledy, and it is a grand dispute among
the pundits, whether or not the Archdruid Nature has been playing
at marbles in these parts; I wished to satisfy myself about it, but
couldn't stop, and so there's no use in grummering about regrets.
I've seen enough, to be able to judge _à priori_, that father
Noah's flood piled the hill with blocks, which have served one Dr.
Borlase and others as occasions for earning the character of
blockheads. One thing is man's doing, without _much_ dispute, and
that is, an obelisk in honour of old Lord De Dunstanville, which is
a conspicuous toothpick on the hilltop: no doubt, as in this case,
nature brought the stones there, and man did his part in arranging
them; poor Dr. B. would have you believe that every natural rock
had been lifted here bodily for architectural purposes, and as
bodily made a most elaborate and labyrinthine ruin afterwards. At
Penzance, a broiled fish supper, and to bed by midnight, having
ordered a twilight gig, wherein by 7 on the ninth I was traversing
the beautiful bay. Penzance is a fine town in a splendid situation;
the bay, bounded by the Lizard and its opposite bold
brother-headland, inclosing St. Michael's Mount, and having a
fertile and villa-studded background; the town full of good
handsome shops (one like the Egyptian Hall), a large cathedralish
church, and with a very special market-place, of light granite, in
the form of a plain Grecian temple, surmounted at the middle by an
imposing dome. As I had duly culled information from the natives, I
lost no time in breakfasting, but drove off, bun in hand, to
explore the country of the Druids. Now, if the matters I succeeded
in visiting were in isolated and plain situations, they might have
been less disappointing; but where the face of the whole soil is
covered naturally with jutting rocks, and timeworn boulders of
granite, one doesn't feel much astonishment to see some one stone
set on end a little more obviously than the rest, or to find out by
dint of perseverance a little arrangement, which may or may not be
accidental: added to this, the cottages, and walls, and field
enclosures are built of such immense blocks cleared off the surface
of the fields, that one's mind is prepared for far more than the
Druids ever did: many a Stonehengeified doorway, many a Titanic
pigstye, many a "Pelion-on-Ossa" questionable-sentry box, puts one
out of conceit with our puny ancestors. I went first to the
Dâns-mene, a famous stone-circle; and felt not a little vexed to
find that I, little i, am feet taller than any of the uprights
there, not 25 in number, and no bigger than field gateposts. It is
evidently the consecrated portion of a battlefield, for there are
several single stones dotted about the neighbourhood, to mark where
heroes fell; like those at Inveraray, but smaller. The habit all
through Cornwall of setting up a stone in every field, for cattle
to scratch themselves withal, seems to be a sly satire against
other rubbing-stones for A.S. Ses. A few dreary miles further
brought me to the "voonder of voonders," the Logan-Rock, which on
the map is near Boskenna. The cliff and coast scenery is superb;
immense masses of granite of all shapes and sizes tumbled about in
all directions; what wonder that in such a heap of giant pebbles
_one_ should be found ricketty? or more, what wonder that the very
decomposing nature of coarse granite should have caused the
atmosphere to eat away, gradually, all but the actual centre of
gravity? both at the Logan, and Land's End, and Mount St. Michael,
I am sure I have seen a hundred rocks wasted very nearly to the
moving point, and I could mention specifically six, which in 20
years will rock, or in half an hour of chiselling would. In part
proof of what I say, the Land-End people, jealous of Logan
customers, have just found out a great rock in their parts, which
two men can make to move; I recommended a long-handled chisel, and
have little doubt that my hint will be acted on; by next season,
the Cornish antiquaries will be puzzling their musty brains over
marks of "druidical" tools; essays will appear, to demonstrate that
the chippings were accomplished by the consecrated golden sickle;
the rock will be proved to have been quarried at Normandy, and
ferried over; facsimiles of the cuts will be lithographed; and the
Innkeeper of the "First and Last house in England" will gratefully
present a piece of plate (a Druid "spanning" [consider Ezekiel's
"putting the branch to the nose" as a sign of contempt]!) to the
author of "Hints for a Chisel," "Proverbial Phil.," &c. &c. &c.
But--_revenous à nos moutons_: to _the_ Logan: until it was
scrupulously pointed out, by so tangible a manner as my boy-guide
getting _on_ it, I could scarcely distinguish it from the fine
hurlyburly of rocks around. That it moves there is no question; but
when I tell you that it is now obliged to be artificially kept from
falling, by a chain fixing it behind, and a beam to rest on before,
I think you will agree with me in muttering "the humbug!" Artists
have so diligently falsified the view, _ad captandum_, that you
will have some difficulty in recognising so old a friend as the
Logan: it is commonly drawn as if isolated, _thus_, and would so,
no doubt, be very astonishing; but, when my memory puts it as
above, stapled, and _obliged_ to remain for Cockneys to log it,
surrounded by a much more imposing brotherhood, my wonder only is
that it keeps its lion character, and that, considering the easy
explication of its natural cause or accident, it should ever have
been conceived to be man's doing; perhaps the Druids availed
themselves of so lucky a chance for miracle-mongering, but as to
having contrived it, you might as well say that they built the
cliffs. It strikes me, moreover, that Cornwall could never have
been the headquarters of Druidism, inasmuch as the soil is too
scanty for oaks: there isn't a tree of any size, much less an oak
tree in all West Cornwall: they must have cut samphire from the
rocks, instead of misletoe from oaks, and the old gentlemen must
have been pretty tolerable climbers, victim and all, to have got
near enough to touch the Logan: to be sure it was a frosty day, and
iron-shod shoes on icy granite are not over coalescible, but I did
not dare scramble to it, as a tumble would have insured a
particularly uncomfortable death; and although the interesting
"Leaper from the Logan, or Martin Martyr" would have had his name
enshrined in young lady sonnets, and azure albums, such immortality
had little charms for me. I contented myself with being able to
swear that I have seen 90 tons of stone moved by a child of ten
years old. Near it is another, called the logging lady, a block,
upright like its neighbours, about 12 feet high, and which the boy
told me could only be made to log by two men with poles; in fact,
one end is worn with levers: well, I told him to try and move it;
no use, says he; try, said I; he did try, and couldn't; well, I
took a sight of where I thought he could do it, and set him to
push; forthwith, my lady tottered, and I told the boy, if he would
only keep to himself where he pushed it would be a banknote to him.
I mention this to illustrate what I verily believe, to wit, that,
if a man only took the breakneck trouble to clamber and try, he
would discover several rocking-stones; but the fact is, this would
diminish the wonder, and Cockneys wouldn't come to see what is
easily explained: your Druids, with imaginary dynamics, invest
nature's freaks with mysterious interest. But away to Tol Peden
Penwith, where there is another curiosity; in the smooth green
middle of a narrow promontory, surrounded and terminated by the
boldest rock-scenery, strangely drops down for a perpendicular
hundred feet, a circular chasm, not ill named the Funnel, and which
not even a stolid Borlase can pretend was dug by the Druids: at the
bottom there is communication with the sea by means of a cavern,
and in stormy weather the rush up this gigantic earth's
chimney-must be something terrible: will this convey a rough idea?
the scenery all round is really magnificent, and the looking down
this black smooth stone-pit is quite fearful; it slopes away so
deceitfully, and looks like a huge lion-ant's nest. Few people see
this, because you can only get at it by a walk of a mile, but I
think it quite as worth seeing as the logan-rock. My next object
was the Land's End, where, as elsewhere, I did signalise myself by
_not_ scribbling my autograph on a rock, or carving M.F.T. on the
sod: the rocky coast is of the same grand character; granite bits,
as big as houses, floundering over each other like whales at play;
the cliffs, cavernous, castellated, mossgrown, and weatherbeaten;
it looks _like_ a Land's end, a regular break up of the world's
then useless ribs: an outlier of rocks in the sea, surmounted by a
lighthouse: looks _like_ the end of the struggle between conquering
man, and sturdy desolation. One place, where I tremble to think I
have been, struck me as quite awful: helped by an iron-handed
sailor, who comforts you in the dizzy scramble with "Never fear,
sir, you shan't fall, unless I fall too," you fearfully pick your
way to the extreme end, where it goes slick down, and lying
prostrate on the slippery granite (which looks disjointed
everywhere, and as if it would fall with you, bodily) with head
strained over you see under you a dreadful cavern, open nearly to
where you are, up which roars the white and angry sea. O brother
David, and foot-tingling Sire, never can you take that look; and
never would I again. Only think of tipping over! ugh.--Into the gig
again, beside my shrewd Sam Weller driver, and away. Here and there
about this part of Cornwall are studded rude stone crosses,
probably of the time of St. Colomba, as they are similar to those
at Iona: about two or three feet high, and very rude. In one place,
I noticed what seemed to be a headless female figure, perhaps the
Virgin, and as large as life: my Jehu said he had heard that it
once had a head. We soon came to a small square inclosure, said to
be a most ancient cemetery; I scrambled over the wall, and found
among the briars and weeds one solitary tomb of a venerable and
Runic aspect, but I soon found out that it recorded the name of
somebody who departed Ye LYFE somewhere in 1577; nothing so
extremely ancient. A rough rock-besprinkled hill now attracted me,
as I heard it was called another Carn-bréh, and was surmounted by
some mound, or ruin: so out of the gig, and up in no time. Clearly
it had been an ancient beacon place, as atop are the remains of a
small square-built terrace inclosing some upright stones placed
irregularly,--a sort of huge fireplace. One of the neighbouring
rocks presented on its surface a fine specimen of what are called
rock basins; but unluckily for the antiquary, this excavation is on
the side of the stone, not on the summit; so that it could not
possibly hold water, and is clearly caused by some particular moss
eating away the stone.--By three o'clock returned to Penzance, had
dinner (it was breakfast too), bought a mineral memorial, and in
the gig again, over the sands to the outlandishly named Mara Zion,
or Market Jew, words probably of similar import. Opposite to this
little place, and joined to it by a neck of rocks passable at
low-water, stands that picturesque gem, Mount St. Michael. You know
the sort of thing; an abrupt, pyramid of craggy rock, crowned with
an edifice, half stronghold and half cathedral. It is a home of the
St. Aubyn family, and is well kept up in the ancient style, but in
rather a small way: a portcullised entrance, old armour hanging in
the guard-room, a beautiful dining-hall with carved oak roof, and
panels, and chairs; a chapel to match, with stained windows; an
elegant Gothic drawing-room, white and gold; and everything, down
to black-leather drinking jugs, in character with the feudal
stronghold. I mounted the corkscrew tower, and got to the broken
stone lantern they call St. Michael's chair; an uncomfortable job,
but rewarded by a splendid panorama, gilt by the setting sun: in
the chapel too, I descended into a miserable dungeon communicating
with a monk's stall, where doubtless some self-immured penitent had
wasted life away, only coming to the light for matins, and only
relieved from solitary imprisonment by midnight mass. This has been
discovered but very lately in repairing the chapel: it was walled
up, and contained a skeleton. As a matter of course, this old
castle contains a little hidden room, where that ubiquitous
vagabond, the royal Charles, laid his hunted head: the poor
persecuted debauchee sponged upon all his friends like Bellyserious
Buggins. Back again, by water this time, to little Mara Zion, but
ever and anon looking with admiration on that beautiful mount; the
western rocks are really magnificent, as big as the largest
hay-stacks, and tumbled about as loosely as an emptied sugar-basin;
some hanging by a corner, and others resting on a casual fragment;
I am sure of one logan-stone, if a little impertinent bit of rock
were only moved away; and I walked under and between more Titanic
architecture than Stonehenge can show: the Druids, for my part,
shall have their due, but not where they don't deserve it. At nine,
after a substantial fried-fish tea, I mounted the night coach to
Falmouth,--outside, as there was no room in, and so, through
respectable Helstone, remarkable for a florid Gothic arch erected
to some modern worthy of the town, to decent Penryn, and then by
midnight, to the narrowest of all towns, Falmouth. I longed to get
back to my darlings, and resolved to see them by next morning, so
booked an outside (no room inside, as before) for an immediate
start. Now, you can readily imagine that I was by no means hot, and
though the night of Thursday last was rather mild, still it was
midwinter: accordingly I conceived and executed a marvellous
calorificating plan, which even the mail-coachman had never heard
of. Haying comforted my interiors with hot grog of the stiffest, I
called for another shillingsworth of brandy, and deliberately
emptied it, to the astonished edification of beholders, into my
boots! literal fact, and it kept my feet comfortable all night
long. And so, wrapped all in double clothing, sped I my rapid way,
varying what I had before seen by passing through desolate Bodmin,
and its neighbourhood of rock, moor, and sand: hot coffee at
Liskeard, morning broke soon after, then the glorious sun over the
sea. Hamoaze, the ferry, and Devonport at 1/2 past 8. Much as I
longed to get home, I went forthwith into a hot bath at 102, to
boil out all chills, and thence went spick and span to my happy
rest, having within 48 hours seen the best part of Cornwall and its
wonders, and rode or walked 250 miles. And so, brother David,
commend me for a traveller. HERE ends my Cornish
expedition. Does it recall to thee, O sire, thine own of old time,
undertaken (if I remember rightly) with Dr. Kidd?--Mails then did
not travel like the Quicksilver, averaging 12 miles an hour, and
few people go 40 miles before breakfast. Now, I feel able to get
nearer my Albury destination, and in a week or so, shall hope to be
residing at Dorchester, near the Blandford of paternal
recollections. Did you, dear mother, get a letter from me directed
to Albury? I hope so, for it sets all clear: and if not, I'll set
the nation against cheap postage. I don't feel the least confidence
now in the Post Office, forasmuch as they have no interest in a
letter after it is paid, and many will be mislaid from haste and
multiplicity. Please to say if it came safely to hand, as I judge
it important. If you, dear mother, got my last, I have nothing more
to say, and if not, I'll blow up the Post Office: unpopularity
would send all the letters by carriers: but whether or not, I can't
write any more, so with a due proportion of regards rightly
broadcast around, accept the remainder from--Your affectionate son,
M.F.T.
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