Passages from the English Notebooks, Complete

Nevertheless, the columns, of the Southport Visitor begin to be well replenished with the names of guests, and the town is assuming its aspect of summer life. To say the truth, except where cultivation has done its utmost, there is very little difference between winter and summer in the mere material aspect of Southport; there being nothing but a waste of sand intermixed with plashy pools to seaward, and a desert of sand-hillocks on the land side. But now the brown, weather-hardened donkey-women haunt people that stray along the reaches, and delicate persons face the cold, rasping, ill-tempered blast on the promenade, and children dig in the sands; and, for want of something better, it seems to be determined that this shall be considered spring.

Southport is as stupid a place as I ever lived in; and I cannot but bewail our ill fortune to have been compelled to spend so many months on these barren sands, when almost every other square yard of England contains something that would have been historically or poetically interesting. Our life here has been a blank. There was, indeed, a shipwreck, a month or two ago, when a large ship came ashore within a mile from our windows; the larger portion of the crew landing safely on the hither sands, while six or seven betook themselves to the boat, and were lost in attempting to gain the shore, on the other side of the Ribble. After a lapse of several weeks, two or three of their drowned bodies were found floating in this vicinity, and brought to Southport for burial; so that it really is not at all improbable that Milton's Lycidas floated hereabouts, in the rise and lapse of the tides, and that his bones may still be whitening among the sands.

In the same gale that wrecked the above-mentioned vessel, a portion of a ship's mast was driven ashore, after evidently having been a very long time in and under water; for it was covered with great barnacles, and torn sea-weed, insomuch that there was scarcely a bare place along its whole length; clusters of sea-anemones were sticking to it, and I know not what strange marine productions besides. J – at once recognized the sea-anemones, knowing them by his much reading of Gosse's Aquarium; and though they must now have been two or three days high and dry out of water, he made an extempore aquarium out of a bowl, and put in above a dozen of these strange creatures. In a little while they bloomed out wonderfully, and even seemed to produce young anemones; but, from some fault in his management, they afterwards grew sickly and died. S – thinks that the old storm-shattered mast, so studded with the growth of the ocean depths, is a relic of the Spanish Armada which strewed its wrecks along all the shores of England; but I hardly think it would have taken three hundred years to produce this crop of barnacles and sea-anemones. A single summer might probably have done it.

Yesterday we all of us except R – went to Liverpool to see the performances of an American circus company. I had previously been, a day or two before, with J – , and had been happy to perceive that the fact of its being an American establishment really induced some slight swelling of the heart within me. It is ridiculous enough, to be sure, but I like to find myself not wholly destitute of this noble weakness, patriotism. As for the circus, I never was fond of that species of entertainment, nor do I find in this one the flash and glitter and whirl which I remember in other American exhibitions.

[Here follow the visits to Lincoln and Boston, printed in Our Old Home.

– ED.]

May 27th. – We left Boston by railway at noon, and arrived in PETERBOROUGH in about an hour and a quarter, and have put up at the Railway Hotel. After dinner we walked into the town to see

THE CATHEDRAL,

of the towers and arches of which we had already had a glimpse from our parlor window.

Our journey from Boston hitherward was through a perfectly level country, – the fens of Lincolnshire, – green, green, and nothing else, with old villages and farm-houses and old church-towers; very pleasant and rather wearisomely monotonous. To return to Peterborough. It is a town of ancient aspect; and we passed, on our way towards the market-place, a very ancient-looking church, with a very far projecting porch, opening in front and on each side through arches of broad sweep. The street by which we approached from our hotel led us into the market-place, which had what looked like an old Guildhall on one side. On the opposite side, above the houses, appeared the towers of the cathedral, and a street leads from the market-place to its front, through an arched gateway, which used to be the external entrance to the abbey, I suppose, of which the cathedral was formerly the church. The front of the cathedral is very striking, and unlike any other that I have seen; being formed by three lofty and majestic arches in a row, with three gable peaks above them, forming a sort of colonnade, within which is the western entrance of the nave. The towers are massive, but low in proportion to their bulk. There are no spires, but pinnacles and statues, and all the rich detail of Gothic architecture, the whole of a venerable gray line. It is in perfect repair, and has not suffered externally, except by the loss of multitudes of statues, gargoyles, and miscellaneous eccentricities of sculpture, which used to smile, frown, laugh, and weep over the faces of these old fabrics.

We entered through a side portal, and sat down on a bench in the nave, and kept ourselves quiet; for the organ was sounding, and the choristers were chanting in the choir. The nave and transepts are very noble, with clustered pillars and Norman arches, and a great height under the central tower; the whole, however, being covered with plaster and whitewash, except the roof, which is of painted oak. This latter adornment has the merit, I believe, of being veritably ancient; but certainly I should prefer the oak of its native hue, for the effect of the paint is to make it appear as if the ceiling were covered with imitation mosaic-work or an oil-cloth carpet.

After sitting awhile, we were invited by a verger, who came from within the screen, to enter the choir and hear the rest of the service. We found the choristers there in their white garments, and an audience of half a dozen people, and had time to look at the interior of the choir. All the carved wood-work of the tabernacle, the Bishop's throne, the prebends' stalls, and whatever else, is modern; for this cathedral seems to have suffered wofully from Cromwell's soldiers, who hacked at the old oak, and hammered and pounded upon the marble tombs, till nothing of the first and very few of the latter remain. It is wonderful how suddenly the English people lost their sense of the sanctity of all manner of externals in religion, without losing their religion too. The French, in their Revolution, underwent as sudden a change; but they became pagans and atheists, and threw away the substance with the shadow.

I suspect that the interior arrangement of the choir and the chancel has been greatly modernized; for it is quite unlike anything that I have seen elsewhere. Instead of one vast eastern window, there are rows of windows lighting the Lady Chapel, and seen through rows of arches in the screen of the chancel; the effect being, whoever is to have the credit of it, very rich and beautiful. There is, I think, no stained glass in the windows of the nave, though in the windows of the chancel there is some of recent date, and from fragments of veritable antique. The effect of the whole interior is grand, expansive, and both ponderous and airy; not dim, mysterious, and involved, as Gothic interiors often are, the roundness and openness of the arches being opposed to this latter effect.

When the chanting came to a close, one verger took his stand at the entrance of the choir, and another stood farther up the aisle, and then the door of a stall opened, and forth came a clerical dignity of much breadth and substance, aged and infirm, and was ushered out of the choir with a great deal of ceremony. We took him for the bishop, but he proved to be only a canon. We now engaged an attendant to show us through the Lady Chapel and the other penetralia, which it did not take him long to accomplish. One of the first things he showed us was the tombstone, in the pavement of the southern aisle, beneath which Mary, Queen of Scots, had been originally buried, and where she lay for a quarter of a century, till borne to her present resting-place in Westminster Abbey. It is a plain marble slab, with no inscription. Near this, there was a Saxon monument of the date 870, with sculpture in relief upon it, – the memorial of an Abbot Hedda, who was killed by the Danes when they destroyed the monastery that preceded the abbey and church. I remember, likewise, the recumbent figure of the prelate, whose face has been quite obliterated by Puritanic violence; and I think that there is not a single tomb older than the parliamentary wars, which has not been in like manner battered and shattered, except the Saxon abbot's just mentioned. The most pretentious monument remaining is that of a Mr. Deacon, a gentleman of George I.'s time, in wig and breeches, leaning on his elbow, and resting one hand upon a skull. In the north aisle, precisely opposite to that of Queen Mary, the attendant pointed out to us the slab beneath which lie the ashes of Catharine of Aragon, the divorced queen of Henry VIII.

In the nave there was an ancient font, a venerable and beautiful relic, which has been repaired not long ago, but in such a way as not to lessen its individuality. This sacred vessel suffered especial indignity from Cromwell's soldiers; insomuch that if anything could possibly destroy its sanctity, they would have effected that bad end. On the eastern wall of the nave, and near the entrance, hangs the picture of old Scarlet, the sexton who buried both Mary of Scotland and Catharine of Aragon, and not only these two queens, but everybody else in Peterborough, twice over. I think one feels a sort of enmity and spite against these grave-diggers, who live so long, and seem to contract a kindred and partnership with Death, being boon companions with him, and taking his part against mankind.

In a chapel or some side apartment, there were two pieces of tapestry wretchedly faded, the handiwork of two nuns, and copied from two of Raphael's cartoons.

We now emerged from the cathedral, and walked round its exterior, admiring it to our utmost capacity, and all the more because we had not heard of it beforehand, and expected to see nothing so huge, majestic, grand, and gray. And of all the lovely closes that I ever beheld, that of Peterborough Cathedral is to me the most delightful; so quiet it is, so solemnly and nobly cheerful, so verdant, so sweetly shadowed, and so presided over by the stately minster, and surrounded by ancient and comely habitations of Christian men. The most enchanting place, the most enviable as a residence in all this world, seemed to me that of the Bishop's secretary, standing in the rear of the cathedral, and bordering on the churchyard; so that you pass through hallowed precincts in order to come at it, and find it a Paradise, the holier and sweeter for the dead men who sleep so near. We looked through the gateway into the lawn, which really seemed hardly to belong to this world, so bright and soft the sunshine was, so fresh the grass, so lovely the trees, so trained and refined and mellowed down was the whole nature of the spot, and so shut in and guarded from all intrusion. It is in vain to write about it; nowhere but in England can there be such a spot, nor anywhere but in the close of Peterborough Cathedral.

May 28th. – I walked up into the town this morning, and again visited the cathedral. On the way, I observed the Falcon Inn, a very old-fashioned hostelry, with a thatched roof, and what looked like the barn door or stable door in a side front. Very likely it may have been an inn ever since Queen Elizabeth's time. The Guildhall, as I supposed it to be, in the market-place, has a basement story entirely open on all sides, but from its upper story it communicates with a large old house in the rear. I have not seen an older-looking town than Peterborough; but there is little that is picturesque about it, except within the domain of the cathedral. It was very fortunate for the beauty and antiquity of these precincts, that Henry VIII. did not suffer the monkish edifices of the abbey to be overthrown and utterly destroyed, as was the case with so many abbeys, at the Reformation; but, converting the abbey church into a cathedral, he preserved much of the other arrangement of the buildings connected with it. And so it happens that to this day we have the massive and stately gateway, with its great pointed arch, still keeping out the world from those who have inherited the habitations of the old monks; for though the gate is never closed, one feels himself in a sacred seclusion the instant he passes under the archway. And everywhere there are old houses that appear to have been adapted from the monkish residences, or from their spacious offices, and made into convenient dwellings for ecclesiastics, or vergers, or great or small people connected with the cathedral; and with all modern comfort they still retain much of the quaintness of the olden time, – arches, even rows of arcades, pillars, walls, beautified with patches of Gothic sculpture, not wilfully put on by modern taste, but lingering from a long past; deep niches, let into the fronts of houses, and occupied by images of saints; a growth of ivy, overspreading walls, and just allowing the windows to peep through, – so that no novelty, nor anything of our hard, ugly, and actual life comes into these limits, through the defences of the gateway, without being mollified and modified. Except in some of the old colleges of Oxford, I have not seen any other place that impressed me in this way; and the grounds of Peterborough Cathedral have the advantage over even the Oxford colleges, insomuch that the life is here domestic, – that of the family, that of the affections, – a natural life, which one deludes himself with imagining may be made into something sweeter and purer in this beautiful spot than anywhere else. Doubtless the inhabitants find it a stupid and tiresome place enough, and get morbid and sulky, and heavy and obtuse of head and heart, with the monotony of their life. But still I must needs believe that a man with a full mind, and objects to employ his affection, ought to be very happy here. And perhaps the forms and appliances of human life are never fit to make people happy until they cease to be used for the purposes for which they were directly intended, and are taken, as it were, in a sidelong application. I mean that the monks, probably, never enjoyed their own edifices while they were a part of the actual life of the day, so much as these present inhabitants now enjoy them when a new use has grown up apart from the original one.

Towards noon we all walked into the town again, and on our way went into the old church with the projecting portal, which I mentioned yesterday. A woman came hastening with the keys when she saw us looking up at the door. The interior had an exceeding musty odor, and was very ancient, with side aisles opening by a row of pointed arches into the nave, and a gallery of wood on each side, and built across the two rows of arches. It was paved with tombstones, and I suppose the dead people contributed to the musty odor. Very naked and unadorned it was, except with a few mural monuments of no great interest. We stayed but a little while, and amply rewarded the poor woman with a sixpence. Thence we proceeded to the cathedral, pausing by the way to look at the old Guildhall, which is no longer a Guildhall, but a butter-market; and then we bought some prints of exterior and interior views of the Minster, of which there are a great variety on note-paper, letter-sheets, large engravings, and lithographs. It is very beautiful; there seems to be nothing better than to say this over again. We found the doors most hospitably open, and every part entirely free to us, – a kindness and liberality which we have nowhere else experienced in England, whether as regards cathedrals or any other public buildings. My wife sat down to draw the font, and I walked through the Lady Chapel meanwhile, pausing over the empty bed of Queen Mary, and the grave of Queen Catharine, and looking at the rich and sumptuous roof, where a fountain, as it were, of groins of arches spouts from numberless pilasters, intersecting one another in glorious intricacy. Under the central tower, opening to either transept, to the nave, and to the choir, are four majestic arches, which I think must equal in height those of which I saw the ruins, and one, all but perfect, at Furness Abbey. They are about eighty feet high.

I may as well give up Peterborough here, though I hate to leave it undescribed even to the tufts of yellow flowers, which grow on the projections high out of reach, where the winds have sown their seeds in soil made by the aged decay of the edifice. I could write a page, too, about the rooks or jackdaws that flit and clamor about the pinnacles, and dart in and out of the eyelet-holes, the piercings, – whatever they are called, – in the turrets and buttresses. On our way back to the hotel, J – saw an advertisement of some knights in armor that were to tilt to-day; so he and I waited, and by and by a procession appeared, passing through the antique market-place, and in front of the abbey gateway, which might have befitted the same spot three hundred years ago. They were about twenty men-at-arms on horseback, with lances and banners. We were a little too near for the full enjoyment of the spectacle; for, though some of the armor was real, I could not help observing that other suits were made of silver paper or gold tinsel. A policeman (a queer anomaly in reference to such a mediaeval spectacle) told us that they were going to joust and run at the ring, in a field a little beyond the bridge.

TO NOTTINGHAM

May 28th. – We left Peterborough this afternoon, and, however reluctant to leave the cathedral, we were glad to get away from the hotel; for, though outwardly pretentious, it is a wretched and uncomfortable place, with scanty table, poor attendance, and enormous charges. The first stage of our journey to-day was to Grantham, through a country the greater part of which was as level as the Lincolnshire landscapes have been, throughout our experience of them. We saw several old villages, gathered round their several churches; and one of these little communities, "Little Byforth," had a very primitive appearance, – a group of twenty or thirty dwellings of stone and thatch, without a house among them that could be so modern as a hundred years. It is a little wearisome to think of people living from century to century in the same spot, going in and out of the same doors, cultivating the same fields, meeting the same faces, and marrying one another over and over again; and going to the same church, and lying down in the same churchyard, – to appear again, and go through the same monotonous round in the next generation.

At Grantham, our route branches off from the main line; and there was a delay of about an hour, during which we walked up into the town, to take a nearer view of a tall gray steeple which we saw from the railway station. The streets that led from the station were poor and commonplace; and, indeed, a railway seems to have the effect of making its own vicinity mean. We noticed nothing remarkable until we got to the marketplace, in the centre of which there is a cross, doubtless of great antiquity, though it is in too good condition not to have been recently repaired. It consists of an upright pillar, with a pedestal of half a dozen stone steps, which are worn hollow by the many feet that have scraped their hobnailed shoes upon them. Among these feet, it is highly probable, may have been those of Sir Isaac Newton, who was a scholar of the free school of this town; and when J – scampered up the steps, we told him so. Visible from the market-place also stands the Angel Inn, which seems to be a wonderfully old inn, being adorned with gargoyles and other antique sculpture, with projecting windows, and an arched entrance, and presenting altogether a frontispiece of so much venerable state that I feel curious to know its history. Had I been aware that the chief hotel of Grantham were such a time-honored establishment, I should have arranged to pass the night there, especially as there were interesting objects enough in the town to occupy us pleasantly. The church – the steeple of which is seen over the market-place, but is removed from it by a street or two – is very fine; the tower and spire being adorned with arches, canopies, and niches, – twelve of the latter for the twelve Apostles, all of whom have now vanished, – and with fragments of other Gothic ornaments. The jackdaws have taken up their abodes in the crevices and crannies of the upper half of the steeple.

We left Grantham at nearly seven, and reached

NOTTINGHAM

just before eight. The castle, situated on a high and precipitous rock, directly over the edge of which look the walls, was visible, as we drove from the station to our hotel. We followed the advice of a railway attendant in going first to the May Pole, which proved to be a commercial inn, with the air of a drinking-shop, in a by-alley; and, furthermore, they could not take us in. So we drove to the George the Fourth, which seems to be an excellent house; and here I have remained quiet, the size of the town discouraging me from going out in the twilight which was fast coming on after tea. These are glorious long days for travel; daylight fairly between four in the morning and nine at night, and a margin of twilight on either side.

May 29th. – After breakfast, this morning, I wandered out and lost myself; but at last found the post-office, and a letter from Mr. Wilding, with some perplexing intelligence. Nottingham is an unlovely and uninteresting town. The castle I did not see; but, I happened upon a large and stately old church, almost cathedralic in its dimensions. On returning to the hotel, we deliberated on the mode of getting to Newstead Abbey, and we finally decided upon taking a fly, in which conveyance, accordingly, we set out before twelve. It was a slightly overcast day, about half intermixed of shade and sunshine, and rather cool, but not so cool that we could exactly wish it warmer. Our drive to Newstead lay through what was once a portion of Sherwood Forest, though all of it, I believe, has now become private property, and is converted into fertile fields, except where the owners of estates have set out plantations. We have now passed out of the fen-country, and the land rises and falls in gentle swells, presenting a pleasant, but not striking, character of scenery. I remember no remarkable object on the road, – here and there an old inn, a gentleman's seat of moderate pretension, a great deal of tall and continued hedge, a quiet English greenness and rurality, till, drawing near

NEWSTEAD ABBEY,

we began to see copious plantations, principally of firs, larches, and trees of that order, looking very sombre, though with some intermingling of lighter foliage. It was after one when we reached "The Hut," – a small, modern wayside inn, almost directly across the road from the entrance-gate of Newstead. The post-boy calls the distance ten miles from Nottingham. He also averred that it was forbidden to drive visitors within the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of nearly a mile, brought us to a second gate, through which we likewise passed, and walked onward a good way farther, seeing much wood, but as yet nothing of the Abbey. At last, through the trees, we caught a glimpse of its battlements, and saw, too, the gleam of water, and then appeared the Abbey's venerable front. It comprises the western wall of the church, which is all that remains of that fabric, – a great, central window, entirely empty, without tracery or mullions; the ivy clambering up on the inside of the wall, and hanging over in front. The front of the inhabited part of the house extends along on a line with this church wall, rather low, with battlements along its top, and all in good keeping with the ruinous remnant. We met a servant, who replied civilly to our inquiries about the mode of gaining admittance, and bade us ring a bell at the corner of the principal porch. We rang accordingly, and were forthwith admitted into a low, vaulted basement, ponderously wrought with intersecting arches, dark and rather chilly, just like what I remember to have seen at Battle Abbey; and, after waiting here a little while, a respectable elderly gentlewoman appeared, of whom we requested to be shown round the Abbey. She courteously acceded, first presenting us to a book in which to inscribe our names.

I suppose ten thousand people, three fourths of them Americans, have written descriptions of Newstead Abbey; and none of them, so far as I have read, give any true idea of the place; neither will my description, if I write one. In fact, I forget very much that I saw, and especially in what order the objects came. In the basement was Byron's bath, – a dark and cold and cellarlike hole, which it must have required good courage to plunge into; in this region, too, or near it, was the chapel, which Colonel Wildman has decorously fitted up, and where service is now regularly performed, but which was used as a dog's kennel in Byron's time.

After seeing this, we were led to Byron's own bedchamber, which remains just as when he slept in it, – the furniture and all the other arrangements being religiously preserved. It was in the plainest possible style, homely, indeed, and almost mean, – an ordinary paper-hanging, and everything so commonplace that it was only the deep embrasure of the window that made it look unlike a bedchamber in a middling-class lodging-house. It would have seemed difficult, beforehand, to fit up a room in that picturesque old edifice so that it should be utterly void of picturesqueness; but it was effected in this apartment, and I suppose it is a specimen of the way in which old mansions used to be robbed of their antique character, and adapted to modern tastes, before mediaeval antiquities came into fashion. Some prints of the Cambridge colleges, and other pictures indicating Byron's predilections at the time, and which he himself had hung there, were on the walls. This, the housekeeper told us, had been the Abbot's chamber, in the monastic time. Adjoining it is the haunted room, where the ghostly monk, whom Byron introduces into Don Juan, is said to have his lurking-place. It is fitted up in the same style as Byron's, and used to be occupied by his valet or page. No doubt in his Lordship's day, these were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down condition, inside and out, when he bought it.

It is very different now. After showing us these two apartments of Byron and his servant, the housekeeper led us from one to another and another magnificent chamber fitted up in antique style, with oak panelling, and heavily carved bedsteads, of Queen Elizabeth's time, or of the Stuarts, hung with rich tapestry curtains of similar date, and with beautiful old cabinets of carved wood, sculptured in relief, or tortoise-shell and ivory. The very pictures and realities, these rooms were, of stately comfort; and they were called by the name of kings, – King Edward's, King Charles II's, King Henry VII's chamber; and they were hung with beautiful pictures, many of them portraits of these kings. The chimney-pieces were carved and emblazoned; and all, so far as I could judge, was in perfect keeping, so that if a prince or noble of three centuries ago were to come to lodge at Newstead Abbey, he would hardly know that he had strayed out of his own century. And yet he might have known by some token, for there are volumes of poetry and light literature on the tables in these royal bedchambers, and in that of Henry VII. I saw The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter in Routledge's edition.

Certainly the house is admirably fitted up; and there must have been something very excellent and comprehensive in the domestic arrangements of the monks, since they adapt themselves so well to a state of society entirely different from that in which they originated. The library is a very comfortable room, and provocative of studious ideas, though lounging and luxurious. It is long, and rather low, furnished with soft couches, and, on the whole, though a man might dream of study, I think he would be most likely to read nothing but novels there. I know not what the room was in monkish times, but it was waste and ruinous in Lord Byron's. Here, I think, the housekeeper unlocked a beautiful cabinet, and took out the famous skull which Lord Byron transformed into a drinking-goblet. It has a silver rim and stand, but still the ugly skull is bare and evident, and the naked inner bone receives the wine. I should think it would hold at least a quart, – enough to overpower any living head into which this death's-head should transfer its contents; and a man must be either very drunk or very thirsty, before he would taste wine out of such a goblet. I think Byron's freak was outdone by that of a cousin of my own, who once solemnly assured me that he had a spittoon made out of the skull of his enemy. The ancient coffin in which the goblet-skull was found was shown us in the basement of the Abbey.

There was much more to see in the house than I had any previous notion of; but except the two chambers already noticed, nothing remained the least as Byron left it. Yes, another place there was, – his own small dining-room, with a table of moderate size, where, no doubt, the skull-goblet has often gone its rounds. Colonel Wildman's dining-room was once Byron's shooting-gallery, and the original refectory of the monks. It is now magnificently arranged, with a vaulted roof, a music-gallery at one end, suits of armor and weapons on the walls, and mailed arms extended, holding candelabras. There are one or two painted windows, commemorative of the Peninsular war, and the battles in which the Colonel and his two brothers fought, – for these Wildmen seem to have been mighty troopers, and Colonel Wildman is represented as a fierce-looking mustachioed hussar at two different ages. The housekeeper spoke of him affectionately, but says that he is now getting into years, and that they fancy him failing. He has no children. He appears to have been on good terms with Byron, and had the latter ever returned to England, he was under promise to make his first visit to his old home, and it was in such an expectation that Colonel Wildman had kept Byron's private apartments in the same condition in which he found them. Byron was informed of all the Colonel's fittings up and restorations, and when he introduces the Abbey in Don Juan, the poet describes it, not as he himself left it, but as Colonel Wildman has restored it. There is a beautiful drawing-room, and all these apartments are adorned with pictures, the collection being especially rich in portraits by Sir Peter Lely, – that of Nell Gwynn being one, who is one of the few beautiful women whom I have seen on canvas.

We parted with the housekeeper, and I with a good many shillings, at the door by which we entered; and our next business was to see the private grounds and gardens. A little boy attended us through the first part of our progress, but soon appeared the veritable gardener, – a shrewd and sensible old man, who has been very many years on the place. There was nothing of special interest as concerning Byron until we entered the original old monkish garden, which is still laid out in the same fashion as the monks left it, with a large, oblong piece of water in the centre, and terraced banks rising at two or three different stages with perfect regularity around it; so that the sheet of water looks like the plate of an immense looking-glass, of which the terraces form the frame. It seems as if, were there any giant large enough, he might raise up this mirror and set it on end. In the monks' garden, there is a marble statue of Pan, which, the gardener told us, was brought by the "Wicked Lord" (great-uncle of Byron) from Italy, and was supposed by the country people to represent the Devil, and to be the object of his worship, – a natural idea enough, in view of his horns and cloven feet and tail, though this indicates, at all events, a very jolly devil. There is also a female statue, beautiful from the waist upward, but shaggy and cloven-footed below, and holding a little cloven-footed child by the hand. This, the old gardener assured us, was Pandora, wife of the above-mentioned Pan, with her son. Not far from this spot, we came to the tree on which Byron carved his own name and that of his sister Augusta. It is a tree of twin stems, – a birch-tree, I think, – growing up side by side. One of the stems still lives and flourishes, but that on which he carved the two names is quite dead, as if there had been something fatal in the inscription that has made it forever famous. The names are still very legible, although the letters had been closed up by the growth of the bark before the tree died. They must have been deeply cut at first.

There are old yew-trees of unknown antiquity in this garden, and many other interesting things; and among them may be reckoned a fountain of very pure water, called the "Holy Well," of which we drank. There are several fountains, besides the large mirror in the centre of the garden; and these are mostly inhabited by carp, the genuine descendants of those which peopled the fish-ponds in the days of the monks. Coming in front of the Abbey, the gardener showed us the oak that Byron planted, now a vigorous young tree; and the monument which he erected to his Newfoundland dog, and which is larger than most Christians get, being composed of a marble, altar-shaped tomb, surrounded by a circular area of steps, as much as twenty feet in diameter. The gardener said, however, that Byron intended this, not merely as the burial-place of his dog, but for himself too, and his sister. I know not how this may have been, but this inconvenience would have attended his being buried there, that, on transfer of the estate, his mortal remains would have become the property of some other man.

We had now come to the empty space, – a smooth green lawn, where had once been the Abbey church. The length had been sixty-four yards, the gardener said, and within his remembrance there had been many remains of it, but now they are quite removed, with the exception of the one ivy-grown western wall, which, as I mentioned, forms a picturesque part of the present front of the Abbey. Through a door in this wall the gardener now let us out…

In the evening our landlady, who seems to be a very intelligent woman, of a superior class to most landladies, came into our parlor, while I was out, and talked about the present race of Byrons and Lovelaces, who have often been at this house. There seems to be a taint in the Byron blood which makes those who inherit it wicked, mad, and miserable. Even Colonel Wildman comes in for a share of this ill luck, for he has almost ruined himself by his expenditure on the estate, and by his lavish hospitality, especially to the Duke of Sussex, who liked the Colonel, and used often to visit him during his lifetime, and his Royal Highness's gentlemen ate and drank Colonel Wildman almost up. So says our good landlady. At any rate, looking at this miserable race of Byrons, who held the estate so long, and at Colonel Wildman, whom it has ruined in forty years, we might see grounds for believing in the evil fate which is supposed to attend confiscated church property. Nevertheless, I would accept the estate, were it offered me.

… Glancing back, I see that I have omitted some items that were curious in describing the house; for instance, one of the cabinets had been the personal property of Queen Elizabeth. It seems to me that the fashion of modern furniture has nothing to equal these old cabinets for beauty and convenience. In the state apartments, the floors were so highly waxed and polished that we slid on them as if on ice, and could only make sure of our footing by treading on strips of carpeting that were laid down.

June 7th. – We left Nottingham a week ago, and made our first stage to Derby, where we had to wait an hour or two at a great, bustling, pell-mell, crowded railway station. It was much thronged with second and third class passengers, coming and departing in continual trains; for these were the Whitsuntide holidays, which set all the lower orders of English people astir. This time of festival was evidently the origin of the old "Election" holidays in Massachusetts; the latter occurring at the same period of the year, and being celebrated (so long as they could be so) in very much the same way, with games, idleness, merriment of set purpose, and drunkenness. After a weary while we took the train for

MATLOCK,

via Ambergate, and arrived of the former place late in the afternoon. The village of Matlock is situated on the banks of the Derwent, in a delightful little nook among the hills, which rise above it in steeps, and in precipitous crags, and shut out the world so effectually that I wonder how the railway ever found it out. Indeed, it does make its approach to this region through a long tunnel. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon when we arrived, and my present impressions are, that I have never seen anywhere else such exquisite scenery as that which surrounds the village. The street itself, to be sure, is commonplace enough, and hot, dusty, and disagreeable; but if you look above it, or on either side, there are green hills descending abruptly down, and softened with woods, amid which are seen villas, cottages, castles; and beyond the river is a line of crags, perhaps three hundred feet high, clothed with shrubbery in some parts from top to bottom, but in other places presenting a sheer precipice of rock, over which tumbles, as it were, a cascade of ivy and creeping plants. It is very beautiful, and, I might almost say, very wild; but it has those characteristics of finish, and of being redeemed from nature, and converted into a portion of the adornment of a great garden, which I find in all English scenery. Not that I complain of this; on the contrary, there is nothing that delights an American more, in contrast with the roughness and ruggedness of his native scenes, – to which, also, he might be glad to return after a while.

We put up at the old Bath Hotel, – an immense house, with passages of such extent that at first it seemed almost a day's journey from parlor to bedroom. The house stands on a declivity, and after ascending one pair of stairs, we came, in travelling along the passageway, to a door that opened upon a beautifully arranged garden, with arbors and grottos, and the hillside rising steep above. During all the time of our stay at Matlock there was brilliant sunshine, and, the grass and foliage being in their freshest and most luxuriant phase, the place has left as bright a picture as I have anywhere in my memory.

The morning after our arrival we took a walk, and, following the sound of a church-bell, entered what appeared to be a park, and, passing along a road at the base of a line of crags, soon came in sight of a beautiful church. I rather imagine it to be the place of worship of the Arkwright family, whose seat is in this vicinity, – the descendants of the famous Arkwright who contributed so much towards turning England into a cotton manufactory. We did not enter the church, but passed beyond it, and over a bridge, and along a road that ascended among the hills and finally brought us out by a circuit to the other end of Matlock village, after a walk of three or four miles. In the afternoon we took a boat across the Derwent, – a passage which half a dozen strokes of the oars accomplished, – and reached a very pleasant seclusion called "The Lovers' Walk." A ferriage of twopence pays for the transit across the river, and gives the freedom of these grounds, which are threaded with paths that meander and zigzag to the top of the precipitous ridge, amid trees and shrubbery, and the occasional ease of rustic seats. It is a sweet walk for lovers, and was so for us; although J – , with his scramblings and disappearances, and shouts from above, and headlong scamperings down the precipitous paths, occasionally frightened his mother. After gaining the heights, the path skirts along the precipice, allowing us to see down into the village street, and, nearer, the Derwent winding through the valley so close beneath us that we might have flung a stone into it. These crags would be very rude and harsh if left to themselves, but they are quite softened and made sweet and tender by the great deal of foliage that clothes their sides, and creeps and clambers over them, only letting a stern face of rock be seen here and there, and with a smile rather than a frown.

The next day, Monday, we went to see the grand cavern. The entrance is high up on the hillside, whither we were led by a guide, of whom there are many, and they all pay tribute to the proprietor of the cavern. There is a small shed by the side of the cavern mouth, where the guide provided himself and us with tallow candles, and then led us into the darksome and ugly pit, the entrance of which is not very imposing, for it has a door of rough pine boards, and is kept under lock and key. This is the disagreeable phase-one of the disagreeable phases – of man's conquest over nature in England, – cavern mouths shut up with cellar doors, cataracts under lock and key, precipitous crags compelled to figure in ornamented gardens, – and all accessible at a fixed amount of shillings or pence. It is not possible to draw a full free breath under such circumstances. When you think of it, it makes the wildest scenery look like the artificial rock-work which Englishmen are so fond of displaying in the little bit of grass-plot under their suburban parlor windows. However, the cavern was dreary enough and wild enough, though in a mean sort of way; for it is but a long series of passages and crevices, generally so narrow that you scrape your elbows, and so low that you hit your head. It has nowhere a lofty height, though sometimes it broadens out into ample space, but not into grandeur, the roof being always within reach, and in most places smoky with the tallow candles that have been held up to it. A very dirty, sordid, disagreeable burrow, more like a cellar gone mad than anything else; but it served to show us how the crust of the earth is moulded. This cavern was known to the Romans, and used to be worked by them as a lead-mine. Derbyshire spar is now taken from it; and in some of its crevices the gleam of the tallow candles is faintly reflected from the crystallizations; but, on the whole, I felt like a mole, as I went creeping along, and was glad when we came into the sunshine again. I rather think my idea of a cavern is taken from the one in the Forty Thieves, or in Gil Blas, – a vast, hollow womb, roofed and curtained with obscurity. This reality is very mean.

Leaving the cavern, we went to the guide's cottage, situated high above the village, where he showed us specimens of ornaments and toys manufactured by himself from Derbyshire spar and other materials. There was very pretty mosaic work, flowers of spar, and leaves of malachite, and miniature copies of Cleopatra's Needle, and other Egyptian monuments, and vases of graceful pattern, brooches, too, and many other things. The most valuable spar is called Blue John, and is only to be found in one spot, where, also, the supply is said to be growing scant. We bought a number of articles, and then came homeward, still with our guide, who showed us, on the way, the Romantic Rocks. These are some crags which have been rent away and stand insulated from the hillside, affording a pathway between it and then; while the places can yet be seen where the sundered rocks would fit into the craggy hill if there were but a Titan strong enough to adjust them again. It is a very picturesque spot, and the price for seeing it is twopence; though in our case it was included in the four shillings which we had paid for seeing the cavern. The representative men of England are the showmen and the policemen; both very good people in their way.

Returning to the hotel, J – and his mother went through the village to the river, near the railway, where J – set himself to fishing, and caught three minnows. I followed, after a while, to fetch them back, and we called into one or two of the many shops in the village, which have articles manufactured of the spar for sale. Some of these are nothing short of magnificent. There was an inlaid table, valued at sixty guineas, and a splendid ornament for any drawing-room; another, inlaid with the squares of a chess-board. We heard of a table in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster, the value of which is three hundred guineas. It would be easy and pleasant to spend a great deal of money in such things as we saw there; but all our purchases in Matlock did not amount to more than twenty shillings, invested in brooches, shawl-pins, little vases and toys, which will be valuable to us as memorials on the other side of the water. After this, we visited a petrifying cave, of which there are several hereabouts. The process of petrifaction requires some months, or perhaps a year or two, varying with the size of the article to be operated upon. The articles are placed in the cave, under the drippings from the roof, and a hard deposit is formed upon them, and sometimes, as in the case of a bird's-nest, causes a curious result, – every straw and hair being immortalized and stiffened into stone. A horse's head was in process of petrifaction; and J – bought a broken eggshell for a penny, though larger articles are expensive. The process would appear to be entirely superficial, – a mere crust on the outside of things, – but we saw some specimens of petrified oak, where the stony substance seemed to be intimately incorporated with the wood, and to have really changed it into stone. These specimens were immensely ponderous, and capable of a high polish, which brought out beautiful streaks and shades.

One might spend a very pleasant summer in Matlock, and I think there can be no more beautiful place in the world; but we left it that afternoon, and railed to Manchester, where we arrived between ten and eleven at night. The next day I left S – to go to the Art Exhibition, and took J – with me to Liverpool, where I had an engagement that admitted of no delay. Thus ended our tour, in which we had seen but a little bit of England, yet rich with variety and interest. What a wonderful land! It is our forefathers' land; our land, for I will not give up such a precious inheritance. We are now back again in flat and sandy Southport, which, during the past week, has been thronged with Whitsuntide people, who crowd the streets, and pass to and fro along the promenade, with a universal and monotonous air of nothing to do, and very little enjoyment. It is a pity that poor folks cannot employ their little hour of leisure to better advantage, in a country where the soil is so veined with gold.

These are delightfully long days. Last night, at half past nine, I could read with perfect ease in parts of the room remote from the window; and at nearly half past eleven there was a broad sheet of daylight in the west, gleaming brightly over the plashy sands. I question whether there be any total night at this season.

June 21st. – Southport, I presume, is now in its most vivid aspect; there being a multitude of visitors here, principally of the middling classes, and a frequent crowd, whom I take to be working-people from Manchester and other factory towns. It is the strangest place to come to for the pleasures of the sea, of which we scarcely have a glimpse from month's end to mouth's end, nor any fresh, exhilarating breath from it, but a lazy, languid atmosphere, brooding over the waste of sands; or even if there be a sulky and bitter wind blowing along the promenade, it still brings no salt elixir. I never was more weary of a place in all my life, and never felt such a disinterested pity as for the people who come here for pleasure. Nevertheless, the town has its amusements; in the first place, the daylong and perennial one of donkey-riding along the sands, large parties of men and girls pottering along together; the Flying Dutchman trundles hither and thither when there is breeze enough; an arch cry-man sets up his targets on the beach; the bathing-houses stand by scores and fifties along the shore, and likewise on the banks of the Ribble, a mile seaward; the hotels have their billiard-rooms; there is a theatre every evening; from morning till night comes a succession of organ-grinders, playing interminably under your window; and a man with a bassoon and a monkey, who takes your pennies and pulls off his cap in acknowledgment; and wandering minstrels, with guitar and voice; and a Highland bagpipe, squealing out a tangled skein of discord, together with a Highland maid, who dances a hornpipe; and Punch and Judy, – in a word, we have specimens of all manner of vagrancy that infests England. In these long days, and long and pleasant ones, the promenade is at its liveliest about nine o'clock, which is but just after sundown; and our little R – finds it difficult to go to sleep amid so much music as comes to her ears from bassoon, bagpipe, organ, guitar, and now and then a military band. One feature of the place is the sick and infirm people, whom we see dragged along in bath-chairs, or dragging their own limbs languidly; or sitting on benches; or meeting in the streets, and making acquaintance on the strength of mutual maladies, – pale men leaning on their ruddy wives; cripples, three or four together in a ring, and planting their crutches in the centre. I don't remember whether I have ever mentioned among the notabilities of Southport the Town Crier, – a meek-looking old man, who sings out his messages in a most doleful tone, as if he took his title in a literal sense, and were really going to cry, or crying in the world's behalf; one other stroller, a foreigner with a dog, shaggy round the head and shoulders, and closely shaven behind. The poor little beast jumped through hoops, ran about on two legs of one side, danced on its hind legs, or on its fore paws, with its hind ones straight up in the air, – all the time keeping a watch on his master's eye, and evidently mindful of many a beating.