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English literature
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A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE
NINTH EDITION
BT DR. WOLFE
Uniform with this volume
LITERARY SHRINES
THE HAUNTS OF SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN
AUTHORS
Treating descriptively and reminiscently of tht
scenes amid which Hawthorne, Longfellow,
ffhittier, Emerson, and many other American
authors lived and wrote
223 pages. Illustrated with four
photogravures. $1.25
A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE AND LITERARY SHRINES
Two volumes in a box, $2.50
AMONG THE HAUNTS
OF FAMOUS BRITISH
AUTHORS
BY THEODORE F^ ,WOLFE
M.D. PH.D.
AUTHOR OF LITERARY SHRINES ETC.
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCVII
Wt
COPYRIGHT, 1895,
BY
THEODORE F. WOLFE.
PWNTED BY J. B. UlPPtNOOTT COMPANY. PHIlADtlPMIA,
PREFACE
Hr* HE favor with which a few articles in the
periodical press, similar to those herewith
presented, have been received induces the hope
that the present volume may prove acceptable.
If some popular literary shrines which are
inevitably included in the writer's personal
itinerary are herein accorded but scant notice,
it is for the reason that they have been alreadv
so oft described that portrayal of them is
therefore purposely omitted from this account
of a literary pilgrimage : even Stratford-on-
Avon here for once escapes description. How
ever, the initial paragraphs of these chapters
lightly outline a series of literary rambles which
the writer has found measurably complete and
consecutive. The pilgrim is understood to make
his start from London.
If these notes of his sojourns in the scenes
hallowed by the presence of British authors or
embalmed in their books shall prove pleasantly
reminiscent to some who have fared to the same
5
Preface
shrines, or helpfully suggestive to others who
contemplate such pilgrimage, then
" not in vain
He wore his sandal shoon and scallop-shell."
The writer is indebted to the publishers of the
Home Journal for permission to reproduce one
or two articles which have appeared in that
periodical.
T. F. W.
CONTENTS
LITERARY HAMPSTEAD AND HIGHGATE.
Haunt of Dickens-Steele-Pope-Keats-Baillie-Johnson
-Hunt- Akensi de-Shelley -Hogarth- Addison-Rich-
ardson-Gay-Besant-Du Maurier-Coleridge, etc
-Grave of George Eliot 13
BY SOUTHWARD AND THAMES-SIDE TO CHEL
SEA.
Chaucer - Shakespeare - Dickens -Walpole- Pepys- Eliot-
Rossetti- Carlyle -Hunt- Gay-Smollett -Kingsley-
Herbert - Dorset-Addison - Shaftesbury-Locke-Bo-
lingbroke-Pope-Richardson t etc. 24
THE SCENE OF GRAY'S ELEGY.
The Country Church-Yard-Tomb of Gray-Stoke- Pogis
Church-Reverie and Reminiscence-Scenes of Mil-
ton-Waller-Porter-Coke-Denham 39
DICKENSLAND: GAD'S HILL AND ABOUT.
Chaucer's Pilgrims -Falstaff -Dickens" s Abode -Study -
Grounds-ffalks-Neighbors-Guests-Scenes of Tales
- Cobham - Rochester - Pip' s Church- Yard - Satis
House, etc 49
7
Contents
PACK
SOME HAUNTS or BYRON.
Birthplace-London Hornet-Murray* t Book-Store Kensal
Green Harrow-Byron' t Tomb-Hit Diadem Hill-
Abode of hit Star of Annesley-Portr alts-Mementos 62
THE HOME or CHILDE HAROLD.
Ncwstcad-Byron' t Apartments Relict and Reminders
Ghost t - Ruins - The Young Oak - Dog's Tomb -
Devil's Wood - Irving Livingstone - Stanley
Joaqmn Miller 80
WARWICKSHIRE : THE LOAMSHIRE or GEORGE
ELIOT.
Mht Mulock- Butler- Somervile- Dyer-Rugby -Homes
of George Eliot-Scenes of Tales-Cheverel-Shepper-
tonMilly's Grave -Paddiford-Milby- Coventry,
etc.-Charactert-Incidents 9*
YORKSHIRE SHRINES : DOTHEBOYS HALL AND
ROKEBY.
Pillage of Boives-Dickent-Squeers' s School-The Master
and his Family-Haunt of Scott 106
STERNE'S SWEET RETIREMENT.
Sutton - Crazy Castle - Torick ' t Church - Parsonage -
Where Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental
Journey were toritten-Reminiscences-Newburgh
Hail-Where Sterne died-Sepulchre Ill
HAWORTH AND THE BRONTES.
The Pillage-Black Bull Inn- Church-Vicar agt- Mem
ory- haunted Rooms - Bronte Tomb-Moors- Bronte
S
Contents
PAGB
Cascade- Wuthering Heights Humble Friends
Relic and Recollection Ill
EARLY HAUNTS or ROBERT COLLYER : EUGENE
ARAM.
Childhood Home-Ilkley Scenes, Friends, Smithy, Chapel-
Bolton -Associations - Wordsworth Rogers Eliot -
Turner - Aram's Homes - Schools - Place of the
Murder-Gibbet-Probable Innocence 136
HOME or SYDNEY SMITH.
Heslington-Foston, Twelve Miles from a Lemon-
Church-Rector'' i Head-Study-Room-of-all-work-
Grounds - Guests - Universal Scratcher - Immortal
Chariot Reminiscences 148
NITHSDALE RAMBLES.
Scott-Hogg-Wordsvoorth-Carlyle" s Birthplace-Homes-
Grave Burns' s Haunts Tomb- Jeanie Deans-
Old Mortality, etc.-Annie Laurie's Birthplace-
Habitation Poet-Lover-Descendants 161
A NIECE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Her Burns/and Cottage Reminiscences of Burns Relict-
Portraits Letters Recitations Account of his
Death-Memories of hit Home Of Bonnie Jean-
Other Heroines l8l
HIGHLAND MARY : HER HOMES AND GRAVE.
Birthplace Personal Appearance-Relations to Burns-
Abodes : Mauchline, Coilsfield, etc. Scenes of
Courtship and Parting-Mementos-Tomb by the
Clyde 194
Contents
PACK
BRONTE SCENES IN BRUSSELS.
School Clan- Rooms - Dormitory - Garden - Scenet and
Events of Gillette and The Profetior-M. Paul-
Madame Beck-Mcmoriei of the Brontet-Confet-
lional-Grave of Jeisy Yorke ZO7
LEMAN'S SHRINES.
Beloved of Litterateurs Gibbon-D* dubigne-Rousseau-
Byron- Shelley -Dickent, etc.-Scenet of Childe
Harold Nouvelle Helo'iu Prisoner of Chilian-
Land of Byron 226
CHATEAUX OF FERNEY AND COPPET.
foltaire't Home, Church, Study, Garden, Relics Liter
ary Court of de Stael-Mementos- Famous Rooms,
Gueiti - Schlegel- Shelley- Constant-Byron- Davy,
etc.-De Sta'e'l's Tomb 238
10
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Castle of Chillon Frontitpiece.
Stoke-Pogis Church and Church-Yard 45
Newstead Abbey 8 1
Home of Annie Laurie 177
LITERARY HAMPSTEAD AND
HIGHGATE
Haunt of Dickens-Steele-Pope-KeatsBaillie-JohnsonHunt
Akenside-Shelley -Hogarth- Addhon Richardson Gay-
BesantDu Maurier Coleridge t etc.-Gra-ve of George
Eliot.
E explorations which first brought re-
nown to the immortal Pickwick were
made among the uplands which border the val
ley of the Thames at the north of London : the
illustrious creator of Pickwick loved to wander"
in the same region through the picturesque
landscapes he made the scenes of many incidents
of his fiction, and the literary prowler of to-day
can hardly find a ramble more to his mind than
that from the former home of Dickens or George
Eliot by Regent's Park to Hampstead, and thence
through the famous heath to Highgate. The
way traverses storied ground and teems with his
toric associations, but these are, for us, lessened
and subordinated by the appeal of memories of
the famous authors who have loved and haunted
this delightful region, and have imparted to it
the tenderest charm. The acclivity of Hamp
stead has measurably resisted the encroachment
of London, and has deflected the railroads with
their disturbing tendencies, so that this old town
probably retains more of its ancient character
13
A Literary Pilgrimage
than any other of the near suburbs, and some
of its quaint streets would scarcely be more
quiet if they lay a hundred miles away from the
metropolis. Off the highway by which we
ascend the hill, we find many evidences of an
tiquity, old streets lined by rows of plain and
sedate dwellings wearing an air of dignified
sobriety which is not of this century, and
which is in grateful contrast with the pert arti
ficiality of the modern fabrics of the vicinage.
Many old houses are draped with ivy or
shrouded by trees of abundant foliage ; some
are shut in by depressing brick walls, over which
float the perfumes of unseen flowers. A few
of the older streets lie in perpetual crepuscule,
being vaulted by gigantic elms and limes as
opaque as arches of masonry.
Along the slope of Haverstock hill, where
our ascent begins, we find the sometime homes
of Percival, Stanfield, Rowland Hill, and the
historian Palgrave. Near by is the cottage where
dwelt Mrs. Barbauld, and the Roslyn House,
where Sheridan, Pitt, Burke, and Fox were
guests of Loughborough. Here, too, formerly
stood the mansion where Steele entertained the
poet of the " Dunciad," with Garth and other
famed wits. On the hill-side a leafy lane leads
out of High Street to the picturesque church
of the parish, whose tower is a conspicuous
14
Baillie Johnson Kit-Kat Club
landmark. Within this fane we find, against
the wall on the right of the chancel, the beauti
ful marble bust recently erected by American
admirers " To the Ever-living Memory" of the
author of " Lamia" and " Hyperion." Here,
too, is the plain memorial tablet of the poetess
Joanna Baillie, who lived in an unpretentious
mansion lately standing in the neighborhood,
where she was visited by Wordsworth, Rogers,
and others of potential genius. In the thickly
tenanted church-yard she sleeps with her sister
near the graves of Incledon, Erskine, and the
historian Mackintosh. Below the church, on
the westering slope, lies embowered Frognall,
once the home of Gay, where Dr. Johnson
lived and wrote " The Vanity of Human Wishes"
in the house where the gifted Nichol now re
sides with the author of " Ships that Pass in the
Night" for a neighbor and with the home of
Besant in view from his study. Near the sum
mit of Hampstead stands a sober old edifice
which was of yore the Upper Flask tavern,
where the famous Kit-Kat Club held its summer
seances, when such luminous spirits as Walpole,
Prior, Dorset, Pope, Congreve, Swift, Steele,
and Addison assembled here in the low-panelled
rooms which we may still see, or beneath the
old trees of the garden, and interchanged sallies
of wit and fancy over their cakes and ale. To
J 5
A Literary Pilgrimage
this inn Lovelace brought the " Clarissa Har-
lowe" of Richardson's famed romance, and here
Steevens, the scholiast of Shakespeare, lived and
died. Flask Walk, which leads out of the high
street among old houses and greeneries, brings
us to the shadowy Well Walk, with its over
arching trees and with many living memories
masoned into its dead walls. Here we see the
little remnant of the once famous well which
for a time made Hampstead a resort for the
fashionable and the suffering. Among the
fancied invalids who once dwelt in Well Walk
was the spouse of Dr. Johnson. Akenside,
Arbuthnot, and Mrs. Barbauld (editor of " Rich
ardson's Correspondence") have sometime lived
in this same little street; here the mother of
Tennyson died, and here the sweet boy-poet
Keats lodged and wrote " Endymion." At a
house still to be seen in the vicinage he was for
two years the guest of his friend Brown ; here
he wrote "Hyperion," "St. Agnes," and the
" Ode to a Nightingale," and here he wasted in
mortal illness, being at last removed to Rome
only to die. Under the limes of Well Walk is
a spot especially hallowed by the memory of
Keats : it was the object and limit of his walks
in his later months, and here was placed a seat
(which until lately was preserved and bore his
name), where he sat for hours at a time beneath
i
Keats The Heath
the whispering boughs, gazing, often through
tears, upon the enchanting vista of wave-like
woods and fields, the valley with its gleaming
lakelets, and the farther slopes crowned by the
spires of Highgate, which rise out of banks of
foliage. The view is no less beautiful than when
Keats's vision lingered lovingly upon it, although
we must go into the open fields to behold it now.
If we bestir ourselves to reach the summit of
the heath before the accustomed pall shall have
settled down upon the great city, the exertion
will be abundantly rewarded by the prospect
that greets us as we overlook the abodes of eight
millions of souls. Such a view is possible no
where else on earth : outspread before us lies the
vast metropolis with its seven thousand miles of
streets, while without and beyond this aggrega
tion of houses we behold an expanse of land
scape diversified with vale and hill, copse and
field, village and park, extending for leagues in
every direction and embracing portions of seven
of England's populous shires. We see the great
dome of St. Paul's and the tall towers of West
minster rising out of the mass of myriad roofs ;
the Crystal Palace glinting amid its green
terraces ; across the city we behold the verdured
slopes of Surrey and, farther away, the higher
hills of Sussex ; our eyes follow the course of
the Thames from imperial Windsor, whose
B I7
A Literary Pilgrimage
battlements are misty in the distance of the
western horizon, to its mouth at Gravesend ;
yonder at the right is Harrow, set on its classic
hill-top, with its ancient church by which the
boy Byron idled and dreamed ; northward we
see pretty Barnet, where " Oliver Twist"
met the " Dodger ;" nearer is romantic High-
gate, and all around us lie the green slopes and
leafy recesses of the heath. Through these
strode the murderer Sykes of Dickens's tale, and
from the higher parts of this common we may
trace the way of his aimless flight from the pur
suing eyes of Nancy, through Islington and
Highgate to Hendon and Hatfield, and thence
to the place of his miserable death at Rotherhithe.-
There are hours of delightful strolling amid the
mazes of the picturesque heath, with its alterna
tions of heathered hills and flower-decked dales,
its pretty pools, its braes of brambled gorse and
pine, its tangle of countless paths. One will
not wonder that it has been the resort of littera
teurs from the time of Dryden till now : Pope,
Goldsmith, and Johnson loved to ramble here ;
Hunt, Dickens, Collins, and Thackeray were fa
miliar with these shady paths ; Nichol, Besant,
James, and Du Maurier are now to be seen among
the walkers on the heath. A worn path bearing
to the right conducts to the turf-carpeted vale
where, in a little cottage whose site is now oc-
il
Leigh Hunt Jack Straw's Castle
cupied by the inn, Leigh Hunt lived for some
years. Such guests as Lamb, Hazlitt, Cole
ridge, Hood, and Cornwall came to this humble
home, and here Shelley met Keats, the "Ado-
nais" of his elegy. Not far away lie the ponds
of Pickwick's unwearied researches ; and in
another corner of the common we find an
ancient tavern bowered with shrubbery, in
whose garden Addison and Steele oft sipped
their ale of a summer evening, and where is still
cherished a portion of a tree planted by Hogarth.
On an elevation of the heath stands "Jack
Straw's Castle," believed to mark the place of
encampment of that rebel chieftain with his
mob of peasantry. It is a curious old structure,
with wainscoted walls, and was especially favored
by Dickens, who often dined here with Maclise
and Forster and read to them his MSS. or
counselled with them concerning his plots.
Out on the heath near by was found the corpse
of Sadlier the speculator, who, after bankrupting
thousands of confiding dupes, committed suicide
here; his career suggested to Dickens the
Merdle and his complaint of ' Little Dorrit."
Among the embowered dwellings beyond West
Heath we find that in which Chatham was
self-immured, the cottage in which Mrs. Coven
try Patmore the Angel in the House died,
the place where Crabbe sojourned with Hoare.
19
A Literary Pilgrimage
This vicinage has been the delight of artists from
the time of Gainsborough, and is still a favorite
sketching ground : here lived Collins and Blake,
and Constable dwelt not far away. The author
of " Trilby," who has recently taken front rank
in the literary profession, long had home and
studio in a picturesque ivy-grown brick mansion
of many angles and turrets, in a quiet street
upon the other side of the hill ; here among his
treasures of art he commenced a third book soon
to be published.
The highway which leads north from Jack
Straw's affords an exhilarating walk, with a
superb prospect upon either hand, and brings
us to the historic Spaniard's Inn, a pleasant
wayside resort decked with vines and flowers,
where pedestrians stop for refreshments. Dick
ens oft came to this place, and here we see the
shady garden, with its tables and seats, where
Mrs. Bardell held with her cronies the mild
revel which was interrupted by the arrest of the
widow for the costs in Bardell vs. Pickwick.
The quiet of this ancient inn was disturbed one
night by a fierce band of Gordon rioters, who
rushed up the paths of the heath on their way
to Mansfield's house, and stopped here to drink
or destroy the contents of the inn-cellars, an
occurrence which is graphically described by
Dickens in the looting of the Maypole Inn of
The Spaniard's Home of Coleridge
Willet, in " Barnaby Rudge." Next to the
Spaniard's once lived Erskine, and among the
grand beeches of Caen Wood we see the house
of Mansfield, where the daughter of Mary
Montagu was mistress, and where illustrious
guests like Pope, Southey, and Coleridge were
entertained.
A farther walk through the noble wood
brings us to the delightful suburb of Highgate,
where we now vainly seek the Arundel House
where the great Bacon died and find only the
site of the simple cottage where Marvell, the
" British Aristides," lived and wrote. The last
home of the author of " Ancient Mariner" is
in a row of pleasant houses on a shady street
called The Grove, a little way from the high
street, which was in Coleridge's time the great
Northern coach-road from London. The house
is a neat brick structure of two stories, in which
we may see the room where the poet lodged
and where he breathed out his melancholy life.
A pretty little patch of turf is in front of the
dwelling, a larger garden, beloved by the poet,
is at the back, and the trees which border the
foot-walk were planted in his lifetime. To this
cosy refuge he came to reside with his friends
the Gilmans ; here he was visited by Hunt, who
once lodged in the next street, Lamb, Hazlitt,
Wordsworth, Shelley, De Quincey, and others
A Literary Pilgrimage
of like fame; and here, for nineteen years,
" afflicted with manifold infirmities," he con
tinued the struggle against a baneful habit, which
ended only with his life. His grave was made
not far away, in a portion of the church-yard
which has since been overbuilt by a school,
among whose crypt-like under-arches we find
the tomb of stone, lying in pathetic and perpet
ual twilight, where the poet sleeps well without
the lethean drug which ruined his life. On this
hill lived " Copperfield" with Dora, and at its
foot is the stone where Whittington sat and
heard the bells recall him to London.
On the slope toward the city is the most
beautiful of the London cemeteries, with a
wealth of verdure and bloom. Within its
hallowed shades lie the ashes of many whose
memories are more fragrant than the flowers
that deck their graves. In a beautiful spot
which was beloved by the sweet singer in life
we find the tomb of Parepa Rosa, tended by
loving hands ; not far away, among the mourn
ing cypresses, lie Lyndhurst and the great Fara
day. A plain tombstone erected by Dickens
marks the sepulchre of his parents, and by it
lies his daughter Dora, her gravestone bearing
now, besides her simple epitaph prepared by
her father, the name of the novelist himself and
the names of two of his sons. Here, too, is
Grave of George Eliot
the grave of Rossetti's young wife, whence his
famous poems were exhumed. Among the many
tombs of the enclosure, the one to which most
pilgrims come is that of the immortal author of
" Romola." On a verdant slope we find the
spot where, upon a cold and stormy day which
tested the affection of her friends, the mortal
part of George Eliot was covered with flowers
and lovingly laid beside the husband of her
youth. Wreaths of flowers conceal the mound,
and out of it rises a monument of gray granite
bearing her name and years and the lines
" Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence."
From the terraces above her bed we look over
the busy metropolis, astir with its myriad pulses
of life and passion, while its rumble and din
sound in our ears in a murmurous monotone.
As we linger amid the lengthening shadows until
the sunset glory fades out of the sky above the
heath and the lights of London gleam mistily
through the smoke, we rejoice that we find the
tomb of George Eliot, not in the aisles of
Westminster, where some would have laid her,
but in this open place, where the winds sigh a
requiem through the swaying boughs, the birds
swirl and twitter in the free azure above, and the
silent stars nightly watch over her grave.
23
BY SOUTHWARK AND
THAMES-SIDE TO CHELSEA
Chaucer - Shakespeare - Dictum - Walpolt - Pepys - Eliot -
Rotutti - Carlyle - Hunt - Gay - Smollett - Kingiley -
Herbert - Dorset - Addiwn - Shaftesbury - Locke - Bo-
lingbroke Pope Richardson, etc.
TF our way to Southwark be that of the pil
grims of Chaucer's time, by the London
Bridge, we have on our right the dark reach of
river where Lizzie Hexam was discovered in the
opening of " Our Mutual Friend," rowing the
boat of the bird of prey ; on the right, too, we
see the Iron Bridge where " Little Dorrit" dis
missed young Chivery ; and a few steps bring
us to a scene of another of Dickens's romances,
the landing-stairs at the end of London Bridge,
where Nancy had the interview with " Oliver
Twist's" friends which cost the outcast her life.
Here, too, the boy Dickens used to await ad
mission to the Marshalsea, often in company
with the little servant of his father's family who
figures in his fiction as the " orfling" of the Mi-
cawber household and the " Marchioness" of
the Brass establishment in Bevis Marks. In the
adjacent church of St. Saviour, part of which
was standing when the Father of English poetry
sojourned in the near Tabard inn, is the effigied
tomb of the poet Gower, a friend of Chaucer ;
The TabardWhite Hart Marshalsea
here also lie buried Shakespeare's brother Ed
mund, an actor ; Fletcher the dramatist, who
lived close by ; and Lawrence Fletcher, copar
cener of Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre,
which stood near at hand, on a portion of the
site of the brewery which Dr. Johnson, ex
ecutor of his friend Thrale, sold to Barclay and
Perkins. The extensions of this establishment
now cover the site of a church where Baxter
preached, and the sepulchre of Cruden, author
of the " Concordance." In near-by Zoar Street,
Bunyan preached in a large chapel near the Fal
con tavern, which was a resort of Shakespeare.
Of the Tabard inn, whence Chaucer's Canter
bury company set out, the pilgrim of to-day finds
naught save the name on the sign of the new tavern
which marks its site on Borough High Street ;
and the picturesque White Hart, which stood
near by an inn known to Shakespeare and men
tioned in his dramas where Jingle of " Pick
wick," eloping with Miss Wardle, was over
taken and Sam Weller discovered, was not long
ago degraded into a vulgar dram-shop. Near St.
Thomas's Church in this neighborhood for
merly stood the hospital in which Akenside was
physician and Keats a student. A little farther
along the High Street we come to a passage at
the left leading into a paved yard which was the
court of the Marshalsea, and the high wall at
15
A Literary Pilgrimage
the right is believed to have been a part of the
old prison where Dickens's father was confined
in the rooms which the novelist assigns to Wil
liam Dorrit, and where " Little Dorrit" was
born and reared. In this court the Dickens
children played, and under yonder pump by the
wall Pancks cooled his head on a memorable
occasion. Just beyond is St. George's Church,
where " Little Dorrit" was baptized and mar
ried, with its vestry where she once slept with
the register under her head ; adjoining is the
church-yard, once overlooked by the prison-
windows of Dickens and Dorrit, where the dis
consolate young Chivery expected to be un
timely laid under a lugubrious epitaph. Another
block brings us to dingy Lant Street " out of
Hight Street, right side the way" where the boy
Dickens lived in the back attic of the same
shabby house in which Bob Sawyer afterward
lodged and gave the party to Pickwick. Be
yond the next turning stood King's Bench
Prison, where Micawber was incarcerated by his
stony-hearted creditors, and beyond this again
we come to the tabernacle where Spurgeon
preached. Turning at the site of Micawber's
prison, the Borough Road conducts us, by the
sponging-house where Hook was confined, to
the Christ Church of Newman Hall, successor
to Rowland Hill : it is a beautiful edifice, erected
a6
Thames-Side Shop of Jenny Wren
largely by contributions from America, its hand
some tower being designed as a monument to
Abraham Lincoln and marked by a memorial
tablet. A little way southward, we find among
the buildings of Lambeth Palace the library of
which Green, the historian of the " English
People," was long custodian, and the ancient
room where Essex and the poet Lovelace were
imprisoned.
Recrossing Father Thames and passing the
oft-described shrines of Westminster we come to
Millbank, the region into which Copperfield
and Peggotty followed the wretched Martha
and saved her from suicide. Out of Millbank
Street, a few steps by a little thoroughfare
bring us into the somnolent Smith Square in
which stands the grotesque church of St. John,
where Churchill once preached, described in
" Our Mutual Friend" as a " very hideous
church with four towers, resembling some petri
fied monster on its back with its legs in the air."
To this place came Charley Hexam and his
school-master and Wrayburn, for here in front
of the church, at a house near the corner, Lizzie
Hexam the best of all Dickens's women
lodged with Jenny Wren. It was a little house
of two stories, and its dingy front room the
shop of the dolls' dress-maker later was used
as a cheap restaurant, where we once regaled
A Literary Pilgrimage
ourselves with a dish of equivocal tea while we
looked about us and recognized the half-door
across which Wrayburn indolently leaned as he
chatted with Lizzie, th seat in front of the wide
window where Jenny sat at her work with her
crutch leaning against the wall, the corner to
which she consigned her " bad old child" in his
drunken disgrace, the stairs which led to
Lizzie's chamber, objects all noted by the ob
servant glance of Dickens as he peered for a
moment through the door-way. Sauntering
southward by Grosvenor Road, where Lizzie
walked with her brother and Headstone, we
have beside us on the left the river, glinting and
shimmering in the morning sunlight and alive
with every sort of craft that plies for trade or
pleasure. It was along these curving reaches of
the Thames that the merry parties of the olden
time, destined like ourselves to Chelsea, used to
row over the miles that then intervened between
London and the ancient village, and here, too,
Franklin, then a printer in Bartholomew Close,
once swam the entire distance from Chelsea to
Blackfriars Bridge. The way along which we
are strolling then lay in the open country, with
leafy lanes leading aside among groves and sun-
flecked fields. But woods and fields have dis
appeared under compact masses of brick and
mortar, and the quaint old suburb is linked to
M
Old Chelsea Walpole
the city by continuous streets and structures.
Contact has not altogether destroyed the dis
tinctive features of the ancient suburb, and we
know when our walk has brought us to its bor
ders. Few of its thoroughfares retain the
dreamful quiet of the olden time, few of its rows
of sombre and dignified dwellings have wholly
escaped the modern eruption of ornate and
staring architecture ; the old and the new are
curiously blended, but enough of the former
remains to remind us that Chelsea is olden and
not modern, and to revive for us the winsome
associations with which the place is permeated.
The suggestion of worshipful antiquity is seen
in sedate, ivy entwined mansions of dusky-hued
brick, in carefully kept old trees which in their
saplinghood knew Pepys, Johnson, or Smollett,
in quaint inns whose homely comforts were en
joyed by illustrious habitues in the long ago.
Our stroll beyond the Grosvenor Road brings
us to the famous " Chelsea Physick Garden,"
presented to the Apothecaries' Society by Sloane,
the founder of the British Museum, who was
a medical student here; it was to this garden
that Polyphilus of the " Rambler" was going to
see a new plant in flower when he was diverted
by meeting the chancellor's coach. At the
adjoining hospital dwelt the gifted Mrs. Somer-
ville, whose husband was a physician there;
29
A Literary Pilgrimage
and the ancient mansion of dingy brick, in
which Walpole lived, and where Pope, Swift,
Gay, and Mary Wortley Montagu were guests,
is a portion of the infirmary, the great draw
ing-room in which the brilliant company met
being a hospital ward. A little way northward,
by Sloane Street, we come to Hans Place, where,
at No. 25, the sweet poetess Letitia Landon
(" L. E. L.") was born in a tiny two-storied
house ; she attended school in a similar house of
the same row, where Miss Mitford and the
authoress of Glenarvon" had before been
pupils. Along the river again we find beyond
the hospital a passage leading to the place of
Paradise Row, where, in a little brick house,
the witching Mancini was visited by Charles
II. and poetized by the brilliant Evremond.
Here, at the corner of Robinson's Lane, Pepys
visited Robarte in "the prettiest contrived
house" the diarist ever saw ; not far away a
comfortable old inn occupies the site of the
dwelling of the historian Faulkner, in the
neighborhood where the essayist Mary Astell
ridiculed by Swift, Addison, Steele, Smollett,
and Congreve had her modest home. Robert
Walpole's later residence stood near Queen's
Road West, and its grounds sloped to the river
just below the Swan Tavern, near the bottom
of the lane now called Swan Walk. It was at
3
Homes of George Eliot and Rossetti
this river inn that Pepys " got affright" on being
told of an eruption of the plague in Chelsea.
For a half-mile or so westward from the Swan,
picturesque Cheyne Walk beloved of the liter
ati stretches along the river-bank. Its many
old houses, with their solemn-visaged fronts
overlooking the river, their iron railings, dusky
walls, tiled roofs, and curious dormer-windows,
are impressive survivors of a past age. At No.
4, a substantial brick house of four stories, with
battlemented roof and with oaken carvings in
the rooms, are preserved some relics of George
Eliot, for this was her last home, and here she
breathed out her life in the same room where
Maclise, friend of Carlyle and Dickens, had
died just a decade before. No. 16, a spacious
dwelling with curved front and finely wrought
iron railing and gate-way, was the home of Ros
setti for the twenty years preceding his death.
With these panelled rooms, which he filled with
quaint and beautiful objects of art, are asso
ciated most of the memories of the gifted poet
and painter. The large lower room was his
studio, where one of his last occupations was
painting a replica of " Beata Beatrix," the por
trait of his wife, whose tragic death darkened
his life. Around the fireplace in this room a
brilliant company held the nightly seances which
a participant styles feasts of the gods. Through
3*
A Literary Pilgrimage
the passage at the side the famous zebu was
conveyed, and reconveyed after his assault upon
the poet in the garden. The rooms above were
sometime tenanted by Meredith, Swinburne,
and Rossetti's brother and biographer, who was
also Whitman's editor and advocate. Later,
the essayist Watts, to whom Rossetti dedicated
his greatest work, resided here to cherish his
friend. The garden, where Rossetti kept his
odd pets and where neighbors remember to
have seen him walking in paint-bedaubed attire
for hours together, is now mostly covered by a
school. At first, many luminaries of letters and art
came to him here, Jones, Millais, Hunt, Gosse,
Browning, Whistler, Morris, Oliver Madox
Brown, whose death elicited Rossetti's " Un
timely Lost," and others like them ; later, when
baneful narcotics had sadly changed his tempera
ment, he dwelt in seclusion, exercising only in
his garden and seeing such devoted friends as
Watts, Knight, Hake, " The Manxman" Hall
Caine, and the gifted sister, author of " Goblin
Market," etc., who was pictured by Rossetti in
his " Girlhood of Mary Virgin," and who
lately died. In his study here he produced his
best work ; here he revised the poems exhumed
from his wife's grave and wrote " The Stream's
Secret" and other parts of the volume which
made his fame and occasioned the battle between
3*
Carlyle's House Smollett Gay
the bards Buchanan and Swinburne ; here he
wrote the magnificent " Rose Mary," " White
Ship," etc., and completed the series of sonnets
which has been pronounced " in its class the
greatest gift poetry has received since Shake
speare."
No. 1 8 was the famous coffee-house and bar
ber-shop of Sloane's servant Salter, called " Don
Saltero" by Gay, Evremond, Steele, Smollett,
and the other wits who frequented his place.
On the Embankment by this Cheyne Walk we
find the statue of Carlyle ; behind it is the dull
little lane of Cheyne Row, whose quiet Carlyle
thought " hardly inferior to Craigenputtock,"
and here at No. 5, later 24, a plain three-storied
house of sullied brick, even more dingy than
its neighbors, the pessimistic sage lived, wrote,
and scolded for half a century. All the wain
scoted rooms are sombre and cheerless, but the
memory-haunted study seems most depressing as
we stand at Carlyle's hearth-stone and look upon
the spot where he sat to write his many books.
The garden was a pleasanter place, with bright
flowers his wife planted, and the tree under
which he loved to smoke and chat. Here
Tennyson lounged with him, devoted to a long
pipe and longer discourse ; here Froude oft
found him on the daily visits which enabled
him to picture the seer, " warts and all ;" here
c 33
A Literary, Pilgrimage
Dickens, Maclisc, and Hunt saw him at his best,
and here the latter wrote " Jenny Kissed Me,"
Jenny being Mrs. Carlyle. To Carlyle in
this sombre home came Emerson, Ruskin, Tyn-
dal, and a host of friends and disciples from all
lands, and hither will come an endless proces
sion of admirers, for many Carlyle belongings
have been recovered, and the place is to be pre
served as a memorial of the stern philosopher.
Around the corner Hunt lived, in the curious
little house Carlyle described, and here he
studied and wrote in the upper front room. On
the next block of the same street stood the
home of Smollett, which was removed the year
that Carlyle came to dwell in the vicinage. It
was a spacious mansion which had been the
Lawrence manor-house. Smollett wrote here
" Count Fathom," " Clinker," and " Launcelot
Greaves," and finished Hume's * England."
Here Garrick, Johnson, Sterne, and other starry
spirits were his guests, and here later lived the
poet Gay and wrote " The Shepherd's Week,"
" Rural Sports," and part of his comedies. In
the cellars of some of the houses at the top of
Lawrence Street may be seen remains of the
ovens of the once famous Chelsea china-factory,
where Dr. Johnson wrought for some time vainly
trying to master the art of china-making, his
pieces always cracking in the oven : a service of
34
Kingsley Herbert Dorset
china presented to him by the factorymen here
was preserved in Holland House. A taste
ful Queen Anne mansion with beautiful interior
decorations, not far from the Carlyle house, was
a domicile of the poet and aesthete Oscar Wilde.
In the picturesque rectory of St. Luke's, a few
rods north from Cheyne Row, the author of
" Hypatia" and his scarcely less famed brother
Henry, of " Ravenshoe," lived as boys, their
father being the incumbent of the parish.
Henry Kingsley presents, in his " Hillyars and
Burtons," charming sketches of Chelsea as it
existed in his boyhood. Overlooking the river
at the foot of the adjoining street, we find Chel
sea Church, one of the most curious and inter
esting of London's many fanes, albeit partially
disfigured by modern changes. In its pulpit
Donne, the poet-divine, preached at the funeral
of the mother of George Herbert ; at its altar
the dramatist Colman was married. Among its
many monuments we find the mural tablet of
Sir Thomas More, a marble slab with an in
scription by himself which formerly described
him as " harassing to thieves, murderers, and
heretics." Here lie the ancestors of the poet
Sidney, and in the little church-yard are the
graves of Shadwell the laureate, who died just
back of the church, of the publisher of "Ju-
nius," and of a brother of Fielding. Leading
35
A Literary Pilgrimage
back from the river here is Church Street, on
which dwelt Swift, Atterbury, and Arbuthnot,
while Steele had a little house near by. The
next street is named for Sir John Danvers, whose
house was at the top of the little street : his
wife was the mother of the poet Herbert, who
dwelt here for a time and wrote some of his
earlier poems ; Donne and the amiable angler
Izaak Walton were frequent guests of Herbert's
mother in this place. The adjacent street marks
the place of Beaufort House, the palatial resi
dence of Sir Thomas More, where he was
visited by his much-married monarch ; where
the learned and colloquial author of " En
comium Moriae," Erasmus, was sometime an
inmate; and where, decades later, Thomas
Sackville, Earl Dorset, wrote the earliest English
tragedy, " Gorboduc." A time-worn structure
between King's Road and the Thames was once
the home of the bewitching Nell Gwynne, and
in later years " became (not inappropriately) a
gin-temple," as Carlyle said : this old edifice
was also sometime occupied by Addison. Back
of King's Road we find the venerable Shaftes-
bury House, in which the famous earl wrote
"Characteristics," Locke began his "Essay,"
and Addison produced some of his Spectator
papers, long transformed into a workhouse, in
the grounds of which we are shown the place
36
Shaftesbury Bolingbroke
of " Locke's yew," recently removed. The Old
World's End Tavern, by Riley Street, was the
notorious resort of Congreve's " Love for
Love ;" the once ill-famed Cremorne Gardens,
just beyond, were erst part of the estate of a
granddaughter of William Penn, who was related
to the Penns of Stoke-Pogis, where Gray wrote
the " Elegy." A near-by little ivy-grown brick
house, with wide windows in its front and an
iron balcony upon its roof, was long the home
of Turner, and in the upper room, through
whose arched window he could look out upon
the river, he died. From the water-edge here
we see, upon the opposite shore, the old church
where Blake was married and Bolingbroke was
buried, and from whose vestry window Turner
made his favorite sketches ; near by is a portion
of the ancient house where Bolingbroke was
born and died, where he entertained such guests
as Chesterfield, Swift, and Pope, and where the
latter wrote part of the " Essay on Man."
Beyond Chelsea we find at Fulham the spot
where lived and died Richardson, who is said to
have written " Clarissa Harlowe" here ; and,
near the river, the place of the home of Hook,
and his mural tablet in the old church by which
he lies, near the grave of the poet Vincent
Bourne. Our ramble by Thames-side may be
pleasantly prolonged through a region rife with
37
A Literary Pilgrimage
the associations we esteem most precious. Our
way lies among the sometime haunts of Cowley,
Bulwer, Pepys, Thomson, Marryat, Pope,
Hogarth, Tennyson, Fielding, "Junius," Gar-
rick, and many another shining one. Some of
lesser genius dwell now incarnate in this mem
ory-haunted district by the river-side, the radi
cal Labouchere, living in Pope's famous villa,
Stephens, and the author of " Aurora Floyd,"
but it is the memory of the mighty dead that
impresses us as we saunter amid the scenes they
loved and which inspired or witnessed the work
for which the world gives them honor and
homage ; we find their accustomed resorts, the
rural habitations where many of them dwelt and
died, the dim church aisles or the turf-grown
graves where they are laid at last in the dream
less sleep whose waking we may not know.
THE SCENE OF GRAY'S
ELEGY
The Country Church- Yard - Tomb of Gray - Stoke-Pogh
Church Re-verie and Reminiscence Scenes of Milton
Waller - Porter - Coke - Denham.
/"~\UR visit to the country church-yard where
^^^ the ashes of Gray repose amid the scenes
his muse immortalized is the culmination and the
fitting end of a literary pilgrimage westward from
London to Windsor and the nearer shrines of
Thames-vale. Our way has led us to the some
time homes of Pope, Fielding, Shelley, Garrick,
Burke, Richardson ; to the birthplaces of Waller
and Gibbon, the graves of "Junius," Hogarth,
Thomson, and Penn ; to the cottage where Jane
Porter wrote her wondrous tales, and the ivy-
grown church where Tennyson was married.
Nearer the scene of the " Elegy" we visit other
shrines : the Horton where Milton wrote his
earlier works, " Masque of Comus," " Lycidas,"
" Arcades ;" the Hallbarn where Waller com
posed the panegyric to Cromwell, the " Con
gratulation," and other once famous poems ; the
mansion where the Herschels studied and wrote.
We have had the gray spire of Stoke-Pogis
Church in view during this last day of our ram
ble. From the summit of the " Cooper's Hill"
39
A Literary Pilgrimage
of Denham's best-known poem, from the battle
ments of Windsor and the windows of Eton,
from the elm-shaded meads that border the
Thames and the fields redolent of lime-trees and
new-mown hay where we loitered, we have had
tempting glimpses of that " ivy-mantled tower"
that made us wish the winged hours more swift ;
for we have purposely deferred our visit to that
sacred spot so that the even-tide and the hour
the curfew tolled " the knell of parting day"
across this peaceful landscape may find us amid
the old graves where " the rude forefathers of
the hamlet sleep." As we approach through ver
dant lanes bordered by fields where the plough
man is yet at his toil and the herds feed among the
buttercups, the abundant ivy upon the tower
gleams in the light of the declining sun, and the
" yew-tree's shade" falls far aslant upon the
mouldering turf-heaps. The sequestered God's-
acre, consecrated by the genius of Gray, lies in
languorous solitude, far removed from the high
way and within the precincts of a grand park
once the possession of descendants of Penn.
Just without the enclosure stands a cenotaph
erected by John Penn, grandson of the founder
of Pennsylvania ; it represents a sarcophagus and
is ostensibly commemorative of Gray, but, as has
been said, it " resembles nothing so much as a
huge tea-caddy," and its inscription celebrates the
40
The Country Church-Yard
builder more than the bard. Within the church
yard all is rest and peace ; the strife and fever
of life intrude not here ; no sound of the busy
world breaks in upon the hush that pervades this
spot, and " all the air a solemn stillness holds."
Something of the serenity which here pervades
earth and sky steals into and uplifts the soul, and
the demons of greed and passion are subdued
and silenced as we stand above the tomb of Gray
and realize all the imagery of the " Elegy."
While our hearts are thrilling with the associa
tions of the place and the hour, while the ashes
of the tender poet rest at our feet and the objects
that inspired the matchless poem surround us,
we may hope to share in some measure the ten
derer emotions to which the contemplation of
this scene stirred his soul. As we ponder these
objects, upon which his loving vision lingered,
they seem strangely familiar ; we feel that we
have known them long and will love them
alway.
One must visit this spot if he would appre
ciate the absolute fidelity to nature of the
" Elegy :" its imagery is the exact reproduction
of the scene lying about us, which is practically
unchanged since that time so long ago when
Gray drafted his poem here. Above us rises
the square tower, mantled with ivy and sur
mounted by a tapering spire whose shadow now
A Literary Pilgrimage
falls athwart the grave of the poet ; here are the
rugged elms with their foliage swaying in the
summer breeze above the lowly graves ; Bonder
by the church porch is the dark yew whose
opaque shade covers the site of the poet's ac
customed seat on the needle-carpeted sward ;
around us are scattered the mouldering heaps
beneath which, " each in his narrow cell for
ever laid," sleep the rustic dead. Some of the
humble mounds are unmarked by any token of
memory or grief, but many bear the " frail
memorials," often rude slabs of wood, which
loving but unskilled hands have graven with
" uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture," with
the names and years of the unhonored dead,
and "many a holy text that teach the rustic
moralist to die." Some of these lowly graves
hold the forefathers of families who, not con
tent with the sequestered vale of life which
sufficed for these simple folk, have sought on
another shore largesses of fame or fortune un
attainable here. Among the names " spelled by
the unlettered muse" upon the stones around
us we see those of Goddard, Perry, Gould,
Cooper, Geer, and many others familiar to our
American ears. The overarching glades of the
woods which skirt the sacred precinct were the
haunt of the "youth to fortune and to fame
unknown ;" the nodding beech, that " wreathes
4*
Tomb of Gray
its old fantastic roots so high" in the grove at
near-by Burnham, was his favorite tree, as it was
that of Gray ; afar through the haze of a golden
after-glow we see the "antique towers" of
Eton, the stately brow of Windsor, with its
royal battlements, and nearer the wave of woods
and fields and all the dream-like beauty of the
landscape upon which the eyes of Gray so often
dwelt, a landscape that literally glimmers in the
fading light.
A tablet set by Penn in the chancel wall
beneath the mullioned window is inscribed,
" Opposite this stone, in the same tomb upon
which he so feelingly recorded his grief at the
loss of a beloved parent, are deposited the re
mains of Thomas Gray, author of the Elegy
written in a Country Church-yard." A few feet
distant is the tomb he erected for his mother,
which now conceals the ashes of the gentle
poet. It is of the plainest and simplest, a low
structure of brick, covered by a marble slab.
No " storied urn or animated bust" is needed to
perpetuate the name of him who made himself
immortal ; even his name is not graven upon the
marble. We are come directly from the splen
dors of the royal chapels of Windsor, where
costly sculpture, gilding, and superlative epi
taphs mark the sepulchres of some who were
mediocre or mendicant of mind and virtue, and
43
A Literary Pilgrimage
we are, therefore, the more impressed by the
fitting simplicity of the poet's tomb among the
humble dead whose artless tale he told. At
the grave of Gray, how tawdry seems the pomp
of those kingly mausoleums, how mean some
of the lives the bedizened monuments commem
orate, of how little consequence that the world
should know where such dust is hid from sight !
At the grave of Gray, if anywhere the wide
world round, we will correctly value the vanities,
ambitions, and rewards of earth. Gray's desire
to be buried here saved him from what some
one has called the " misfortune of burial in
Westminster." While the pilgrim vainly seeks
in that national mausoleum the tombs of Shake
speare, Milton, Byron, Gray, Wordsworth,
Thackeray, Coleridge, Eliot, and others of di
vine genius, and finds instead the graves of many
sordid and impure, entombment there may be a
misfortune. Happily the poet of the Elegy
reposes in his church-yard, beside the beings he
best loved, on the spot he frequented in life and
hallowed by his genius, among those whose
virtues he sang ; here his grave perpetually em
phasizes the sublime teachings of his verse and
affords a most touching association. The only
inscription upon the slab is the poet's tribute to
his aunt, Mary Antrobus, and to " Dorothy
Gray, the careful and tender mother of many
44
STOKE-POGIS CHURCH
A Literary Pilgrimage
we are, therefore, the more impressed by the
fitting simplicity of the poet's tomb among the
hum tie dead whose artless tale he told. At
the ( 'ray, how tawdry seems the pomp
of those kingly mausoleums, how mean some
. lives the bedizened monuments commem
orate, of how little consequence that the world
should know where such dut U 'hid from sight !
At the grave of < nere the wide
world round, we will correctly value the vanities,
ambitions, and rewards of earth. Gray's desire
to be buried here saved him from what some
one has called the " misfortune of burial in
Westminster." While the pilgrim vainly seeks
in that national mausoleum the tombs of Shake
speare, Mikon, Byron, Gray, Wordsworth,
Thackera ge, Eliot, and others of di
vine genius, and finds instead the graves oi many
sordid and impure, entombment there may be a
misfortune. Happily the poet of the Elegy
reposes in his church-yard, beside the beings he
best loved, on the spot he frequented in life and
hallowed by his genius, among those whose
virtues he sang ; here his grave perpetually em
phasizes the sublime teachings of his verse and
affords a most touching association. The only
inscription upon the slab is the poet's tribute to
his aunt, Mary Antrobus. and to " Dorothy
_ > ? JIUH:I aiool-aaorg
Gray, the careful and tender mother of many
44
The Ivy-Mantled Church
children, of whom one alone had the misfortune
to survive her." It has been our pleasure on a
previous day to seek out amid the din of London
the spot where, in a modest dwelling, this
mother gave birth to the poet, and where she
and Mary Antrobus sold laces to maintain the
" many children."
Set upon a gentle eminence in the midst of
this peaceful scene, the church has a picturesque
beauty which harmonizes well with its environ
ment. It is low and sombre, but age has given
a dignity and grace which would make it attrac
tive apart from its associations. Overrunning
the walls, shrouding the crumbling battlements
of the tower, clambering along the steep roofs,
clinging to the highest gables, and festooning the
stained windows, are masses of dark ivy, which
conceal the inroads of time and impart to the
whole structure a beauty that wins us com
pletely. The tower is early English, the chan
cel is Norman, and the newer portions of the
edifice were already old when Gray frequented
the place. A path bordered by abundant roses
leads from the gate-way of the enclosure to the
quaint porch of timbers and the entrance to the
church. Within, the light falls dimly at this
hour upon the curious little galleries of the
peasantry, the great pew of the Penns, the
humbler place at the end of the south aisle where
45
A Literary Pilgrimage
Gray came to pray, the huge mural tablet and
the burial vault where the son of William Penn
and his family sleep in death. In the park close
by is the palace of the Penns, and the mansion
where Charles I. was imprisoned and where
Coke wrote some of his Commentaries and enter
tained his queen. Not far distant is the house
now a fine abode which Gray shared for
some years with his mother and aunt, and where
his bedroom and study may still be seen. Far
ther away are the Beaconsfield which furnished
the title of the gifted author of " Lothair," and
the old church where Burke and Waller await
the resurrection.
In the twilight we hastily sketch Gray's " ivy-
mantled tower," and then sit by his tomb gazing
upon the fading landscape and recalling the life
of this divine poet and the lines of the match
less poem which was drafted here and with ex
quisite care revised and polished year after year
before it was given to the world. It may not
be generally known that he discarded six stanzas
from the original draft, among them this, writ
ten as the fourth stanza :
" Hark, how the sacred calm that breathes around
Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease ;
In still small accents whispering from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace;"
46
Discarded Stanzas
this, from the reply of the " hoary-headed
swain :"
" Him have we seen the greenwood side along
While o'er the heath we hied, our labor done,
Oft as the wood-lark piped her farewell song
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun;"
and this, from the description of the poet's
grave :
" There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
We may judge what was the high standard of
Gray, and what the transcending quality of the
finished poem from which its author could,
after years of deliberation, reject such stanzas.
The Elegy is the expression in divinest poetry
of the best conceptions of a noble soul upon
the most serious topic on which human thought
can dwell. No wonder that the world has
literally learned by heart those precious lines ;
that they are the solace of the thoughtful and
the bereft in every clime where mortals meditate
on death ; that the brave Wolfe, on the way to
his triumphal death, should recite them in the
darkness and declare he had rather be their
author than the victor in the morrow's battle ;
47
A Literary Pilgrimage
that the great Webster, on his death-bed, should
beg to hear them, and die at last with their
melody sounding in his ears.
As the glow fades out of the darkening sky,
the birds in the leafy elms one by one cease
their songs, "the lowing herds wind slowly
o'er the lea" to distant folds, the "drowsy
tinklings" grow fainter, the summer wind sigh
ing among the trees dies with the day, and the
scene which seemed still before is noiseless now.
In this hush we are content to leave this death
less poet and the spot he loved. We gather ivy
from the old wall and a spray from the boughs
of his dreaming yew, and take our way back to
the busy haunts of men.
DICKENSLAND: GAD'S HILL
AND ABOUT
Chaucer's Pilgrims Falstajf Dickens' s Abode-Study-Groundt
Walks Neighbors Guests Scenes of Tales Cobham
Rochester Pip's Church-YardSatis House, etc.
go to Gad's Hill," said Dickens, in a
note of invitation, " you leave Charing
Cross at nine o'clock by North Kent Railway
for Higham." Guided by these directions and
equipped with a letter from Dickens's son, we
find ourselves gliding eastward among the chim
neys of London and, a little later, emerging into
the fields of Kent, Jingle's region of " apples,
cherries, hops, and women." The Thames is
on our left ; we pass many river-towns, Dart-
ford where Wat Tyler lived, Gravesend where
Pocahontas died, but most of our way is through
the open country, where we have glimpses of
fields, parks, and leafy lanes, with here and
there picturesque camps of gypsies or of peripa
tetic rascals " goin' a-hoppin'." From wretched
Higham a walk of half an hour among orchards
and between hedges of wild-rose and honey
suckle brings us to the hill which Shakespeare
and Dickens have made classic ground, and soon
we see, above the tree-tops, the glittering vane
which surmounted the home of the world's
D 49
A Literary Pilgrimage
greatest novelist. The name Gad's (vagabond's)
Hill is a survival of the time when the depre
dations of highwaymen upon " pilgrims going
to Canterbury with rich offerings and traders
riding to London with fat purses" gave to this
spot the ill repute it had in Shakespeare's day :
it was here he located Falstaff's great exploit.
The tuft of evergreens which crowns the hill
about Dickens's retreat is the remnant of thick
woods once closely bordering the highway, in
which the "men in buckram" lay concealed,
and the robbery of the franklin was committed
in front of the spot where the Dickens house
stands. By this road passed Chaucer, who had
property near by, gathering from the pilgrims
his " Canterbury Tales." In all time to come
the great master of romance who came here to
live and die will be worthily associated with
Shakespeare and Chaucer in the renown of Gad's
Hill. In becoming possessor of this place,
Dickens realized a dream of his boyhood and
an ambition of his life. In one of his travellers'
sketches he introduces a " queer small boy"
(himself) gazing at Gad's Hill House and pre
dicting his future ownership, which the author
finds annoying "because it happens to be my
house and I believe what he said was true."
When at last the place was for sale, Dickens
did not wait to examine it ; he never was inside
5
Gad's Hill House
the house until he went to direct its repair.
Eighteen hundred pounds was the price ; a
thousand more were expended for enlargement
of the grounds and alterations of the house,
which, despite his declaration that he had
" stuck bits upon it in all manner of ways,"
did not greatly change it from what it was when
it became the goal of his childish aspirations.
At first it was his summer residence merely,
his wife came with him the first summer, but
three years later he sold Tavistock House, and
Gad's Hill was thenceforth his home. From
the bustle and din of the city he returned to the
haunts of his boyhood to find restful quiet and
time for leisurely work among these " blessed
woods and fields" which had ever held his
heart. For nine years after the death of Dick
ens Gad's Hill was occupied by his oldest son ;
its ownership has since twice or thrice changed.
Its elevated site and commanding view render
it one of the most conspicuous, as it is one of
the most lovely, spots in Kent. The mansion
is an unpretentious, old-fashioned, two-storied
structure of fourteen rooms. Its brick walls are
surmounted by Mansard roofs above which rises
a bell-turret ; a pillared portico, where Dickens
sat with his family on summer evenings, shades
the front entrance ; wide bay-windows project
upon either side ; flowers and vines clamber
5*
A Literary Pilgrimage
upon the walls, and a delightfully home-like air
pervades the place. It seems withal a modest
seat for one who left half a million dollars at his
death. At the right of the entrance-hall we see
Dickens's library and study, a cosy room shown
in the picture of " The Empty Chair :" here
are shelves which held his books ; the panels he
decorated with counterfeit book-backs ; the nook
where perched the mounted remains of his
raven, the " Grip" of " Barnaby Rudge." By
this bay-window, whence he could look across
the lawn to the cedars beyond the highway,
stood his chair and the desk where he wrote
many of the works by which the world will
know him alway. Behind the study was his
billiard-room, and upon the opposite side of the
hall the parlor, with the dining-room adjoining
it at the back, both bedecked with the many mir
rors which delighted the master. Opening out
of these rooms is a conservatory, paid for out of
" the golden shower from America" and com
pleted but a few days before Dickens's death,
holding yet the ferns he tended. The dining-
room was the scene of much of that emphatic
hospitality which it pleased the novelist to dis
pense, his exuberant spirits making him the
leader in all the jollity and conviviality of the
board. Here he compounded for bibulous
guests his famous "cider-cup of Gad's Hill,"
5*
Gad's Hill House and Grounds
and at the same table he was stricken with death ;
on a couch beneath yonder window, the one
nearest the hall, he died on the anniversary of
the railway accident which so frightfully im
perilled his life. From this window we look
out upon a lawn decked with shrubbery and see
across undulating cornfields his beloved Cob-
ham. From the parquetted hall, stairs lead
to the modest chambers, that of Dickens being
above the drawing-room. He lined the stair
way with prints of Hogarth's works, and de
clared he never came down the stairs without
pausing to wonder at the sagacity and skill
which had produced the masterful pictures of
human life. The house is invested with roses,
and parterres of the red geraniums which the
master loved are ranged upon every side. It
was some fresh manifestation of his passion for
these flowers that elicited from his daughter the
averment, " Papa, I think when you are an
angel your wings will be made of looking-
glasses and your crown of scarlet geraniums."
Beneath a rose-tree not far from the window
where Dickens died, a bed blooming with blue
lobelia holds the tiny grave of " Dick" and the
tender memorial of the novelist to that " Best
of Birds." The row of gleaming limes which
shadow the porch was planted by Dickens's
own hands. The pedestal of the sundial upon
53
A Literary Pilgrimage
the lawn is a massive balustrade of the old stone
bridge at near-by Rochester, which little David
Copperfield crossed "foot-sore and weary" on
his way to his aunt, and from which Pickwick
contemplated the castle-ruin, the cathedral, the
peaceful Medway. At the left of the mansion
are the carriage- house and the school-room of
Dickens's sons. In another portion of the
grounds are his tennis-court and the bowling-
green which he prepared, where he became a
skilful and tireless player. The broad meadow
beyond the lawn was a later purchase, and the
many limes which beautify it were rooted by
Dickens. Here numerous cricket matches were
played, and he would watch the players or keep
the score " the whole day long." It was in
this meadow that he rehearsed his readings, and
his talking, laughing, weeping, and gesticulating
here " all to himself" excited among his neigh
bors suspicion of his insanity. From the front
lawn a tunnel constructed by Dickens passes
beneath the highway to " The Wilderness," a
thickly wooded shrubbery, where magnificent
cedars uprear their venerable forms and many
sombre firs, survivors of the forest which erst
covered the countryside, cluster upon the hill
top. Here Dickens's favorite dog, the " Linda"
of his letters, lies buried. Amid the leafy se
clusion of this retreat, and upon the very spot
54
Dickens's Chalet
where Falstaff was routed by Hal and Poins
(" the eleven men in buckram"), Dickens
erected the chalet sent to him in pieces by
Fechter, the upper room of which up among
the quivering boughs, where " birds and butter
flies fly in and out, and green branches shoot in
at the windows" Dickens lined with mirrors
and used as his study in summer. Of the work
produced at Gad's Hill" Two Cities," " Un
commercial Traveller," " Mutual Friend," " Ed
win Drood," and many tales and sketches of " All
the Year Round" much was written in this
leaf-environed nook ; here the master wrought
through the golden hours of his last day of con
scious life, here he wrote his last paragraph and
at the close of that June day let fall his pen,
never to take it up again. From the place of the
chalet we behold the view which delighted the
heart of Dickens, his desk was so placed that
his eyes would rest upon this view whenever he
raised them from his work, the fields of waving
corn, the green expanse of meadows, the sail-
dotted river.
Many friends came to Dickens in this pleasant
Kentish home, Forster, Maclise, Reade, Ma-
cready, Leech, Collins, Yates, Hans Christian
Andersen, Mr. and Mrs. Fields, Longfellow and
his daughters, Fechter and his wife : some of
them were guests here for many days together.
55
A Literary Pilgrimage
The master was the most genial of hosts, appar
ently the happiest of men, with the hearty
laugh which Montaigne says never comes from
a bad heart. After the morning task in library
or chalet he gave the rest of the day to exercise
and recreation, often at games with his guests
in the grounds, but taking daily in rain or shine
the long walks which made his lithe figure and
rapid gait familiar to all the cottagers and field-
laborers of the countryside. It is pleasant to
hear the loving testimony of these simple folk
many of them descendants of the " men of
Kent" who followed the standard of Wat Tyler
from Blackheath to London concerning Dick-
ens's uniform kindness, his helpful generosity,
his scrupulous regard of the rights of inferiors,
the traits which won their hearts. One rustic
neighbor declares, " Dickens was a main good
man, sir : it was a sorry day for the neighborhood
when he was taken away." Near the gate of
Gad's Hill House is a wayside inn, the "Sir
John FalstafF," which for more than two cen
turies has stood for remembrance of that worthy's
exploit at this place. Its weather-worn sign
bears portraits of FalstafF and Prince Hal and a
picture of the " Merry Wives of Windsor" put
ting FalstafF into the basket. The name of a
son of the recent keeper of this hostelry, Ed
ward Trood, doubtless suggested the title of the
56
Scenes of Great Expectations
" Mystery" which must, alas ! remain a mystery
evermore.
From the inn a lane leads to a sightly summit
surmounted by a monument which Dickens
called " Andersen's Monument," because it was
the resort of that illustrious author while a
guest at Gad's Hill. Its far-reaching prospect
is indeed alluring : on every hand vast, wave-
like expanses of forest and ohchard, moor and
mead, sweep away to the horizon, while north
ward, beyond great cornfields and market-gardens,
we see twenty miles of the Thames " stealing
steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life"
bordered here by a wilderness of low-lying
marsh. A walk beloved of Dickens brings us
to one of his favorite haunts, a dreary church
yard on the margin of this marsh. It lies in
the dismal, ague-haunted " hundred of Loo," a
peninsula between the Thames and the Medway
having a broad hem of desolate fens along the
river-banks a weird, little known region, whose
ancient reputation was unsavory. A wooden
finger on a post directs us to Cooling, Dickens
makes Pip say that this direction was never ac
cepted, no one ever came, a forlorn hamlet
which straggles about the ruins of Cooling Cas
tle. This was an ancient seat of the Cobhams ;
through a Cobham heiress it passed to Oldcastle,
leader of the Lollards, who shut himself up here
57
A Literary Pilgrimage
and was dragged hence to martyrdom. It is
noteworthy that this Oldcastle has been thought
to be the original of Falstaff, the hero of Gad's
Hill. Of the stronghold little remains save the
machicolated gate-way, flanked with ponderous
round towers bearing quaint inscriptions. The
water of the moat is green and stagnant, sug
gesting frogs and rheumatism, and the space it
encloses is occupied by the cottage of a farmer.
The forge and cottage of Joe Gargery are not
found in the wretched village, indeed, we
should be sorry to find that splendid fellow and
the good Betty so poorly housed, but beyond
the narrow street and at the verge of the marshes
we come to a low, quaint, square-towered old
church, which rises from a wind-swept, nettle-
grown church-yard, the scene of the opening
chapter of " Great Expectations." Yonder
mound, whose gravestone is inscribed to George
Comfort, "Also Sarah, Wife of the Above,"
stands for the tomb of Pip's parents ; and sunken
in the grass at our feet is the row of little grave
stones whose curious shape led Pip to believe
that his little brothers (whose graves they
marked) ' had been born on their backs, with
their hands in their trousers pockets, and had
never taken them out in this stage of existence."
Over this low wall which divides God's-acre
from the marshes the convict climbed, and we,
The Marshes Cobham
standing upon it, look across the scene of his
chase and capture, which Pip witnessed from
Joe's back. On this sombre autumn afternoon
of our visit the landscape is startlingly like that
the terrified boy beheld : we see the same far-
stretching waste of marshes, the intersecting
dikes, the low, leaden line of the river beyond,
dark mists hanging heavy over all, while the
chill wind blows in our faces from its " savage
lair" in the sea. Upon yonder flat tombstone
in the far corner of the church-yard Dickens sat
and lunched with Fields when he last walked to
this place. Hidden now in the mists, but not
far distant, and reached by a foot-path from the
road to Chalk, is a dirty and dilapidated Thames-
side inn, whose creaking sign-board reads, " Ship
and Lobster :" this is The Ship of " Great Ex
pectations," where Pip and his party slept the
night preceding their attempt to put Magwich
on the steamer, and the open river below the
little causeway is the scene of their mischance
and the transport's recapture.
The walk which Dickens most enjoyed the
one which was his last before he died was to
and around Cobham, the seat of his friend
Darnley. We follow the way once so familiar
to his feet, through the noble park which the
Pickwick Club found " so thoroughly delightful,"
on a June afternoon, by the stately old hall
59
A Literary Pilgrimage
where lately stood Dickens's chalet, and farther,
through majestic forest and open glade, to the
place whence Pickwick overcome by cold
punch was wheeled to the pound. Skirting
the park on our return, we come to Cobham
village and the neat Leather Bottle Inn to which
the lovelorn Tupman retired to conceal his woe
after his discomfiture at Manor Farm, and where
Dickens himself, rambling in the neighborhood
with Forster, lodged in 1841. Here is the
little church-yard where Pickwick walked with
Tupman and persuaded him to return to the
world, and hard by the cottage of Bill Stumps,
before which Pickwick made the immortal dis
covery which was " the pride of his friends and
the envy of every antiquarian in this or any
other country." Another favorite walk of
Dickens conducts us, past a quaint, rambling
mansion of dingy brick which served as the
model for Satis House of " Great Expectations,"
to Rochester, the Cloisterham of "Edwin
Drood." Here we find the Bull Inn, " good
house, nice beds," where the Pickwick Club
lodged, in rooms 13 and 19, and the ballroom,
where Tupman and Jingle (the latter in Winkle's
coat) danced with the widow and enraged little
Slammer ; the Watt's Charity of " The Uncom
mercial Traveller;" the picturesque castle-ruin
which Dickens frequented and has so charmingly
60
Cloisterham Land of Dickens
described. Here, too, is the gray old cathedral
he loved, which appears in many of his tales,
from Jingle's piquant account of it in " Pickwick"
to that touching description of this ancient fane
in the last lines of the master, written within
sound of its bells and but a few hours before
his death.
This region of sunny Kent, the scene of his
earliest and latest years, may fitly be called The
Land of Dickens, so intimately is it associated
with his life and work. Here at near-by Chat
ham (whence he used to come to gaze longingly
at Gad's Hill House), in a whitewashed cottage
on Ordnance Place, he lived as a child ; at
yonder village of Chalk he spent his honey
moon, its expenses being defrayed by the sale
of the first numbers of " Pickwick ;" here were
the habitual resorts of his holiday leisure ; here
was his latest home ; here he died, and here he
desired to be buried. This district was no less
the life-haunt and home of his imagination and
genius. The scenes of his most effective ro
mances are laid here ; into the fabric of many
a tale and sketch his fancy has woven the fa
miliar features of town and hamlet, field and
forest, marsh and river, of the region he knew
and loved so well ; here his first tale opens,
here his last tale ends.
61
SOME HAUNTS OF BYRON
Birthplace - London Hornet - Murray 1 * Book-Store - Kensal
Green - Harrow - Byron's Tomb - Hit Diadem Hill -
Abode of hit Star of Annuley - Portraits - Mementos.
/^\F the places in and about great London
which were associated with the brief life
of Byron, the rage for improvement which holds
nothing sacred has spared a few, and the quest
for Byron-haunts is still fairly rewarded. Holies
Street, where he was born, has not long been re
signed to trade : we have known it as a somno
lent little street whose grateful quiet reached
by a step from the tumult of De Quincey's
"stony-hearted step-mother" made it seem
like a placid pool beside a riotous torrent. It is
scarce a furlong in length, and from the shade of
Cavendish Square at its extremity we could look,
between bordering rows of modest dwellings, to
the square where Ralph Nickleby lived and
Mary Wortley Montagu died. At our right, a
little way down the street, stood a small, plain,
two-storied house of dingy brick, where the
poet's mother lodged in the upper front room at
the time of his birth. This dwelling was No.
1 6, later 24, and has now given place to a shop.
An unpretentious tenement near Sloane Square
was Byron's home during his pupilage with Dr.
Glennie.
6*
London Homes
In the house No. 8 St. James Street, nearly
opposite the place where Gibbon died, Byron
had for some years a suite of rooms. Here he
was convenient to Almack's aristocratic ball
rooms and St. James Theatre, and was in the then,
as it is now, centre of fashionable club-life.
His residence here began when he came to Lon
don to publish " Bards and Reviewers," was
resumed upon his return from the Levantine tour,
and continued during the publication of the early
cantos of ' Childe Harold" and other poems
written on that tour. In these rooms "Cor
sair," " The Giaour," and " Bride of Abydos"
were written, the latter in a single night and
with one quill. The last year of Byron's resi
dence here was the period of his highest popu
larity, when he was the especial pet of London
society queens, one of whom who later wrote
a book to defame him was recognized in bifur
cated masculine garb in these chambers. On the
same street is the home of White's Club, the
Bays' of " Pendennis," of which the present
Lord Byron is a member, and on the site of the
Carlton Club, Pall Mall, stood the Star and
Garter tavern, where, in room No. 7 at the
right on the first floor, the poet's predecessor
killed his neighbor Chaworth, grand-uncle of
Byron's " star of Annesley." Adjoining the
Academy of Arts in Piccadilly is that " college
63
A Literary Pilgrimage
of bachelors," the Albany apartment house where
Dickens lodged " Fascination" Fledgeby and laid
the scene of his flagellation by Lammle and the
dressing of his wounds with pepper by Jenny
Wren. Here the handsome suite A 2 was the
abode of Byron for the year or so preceding his
hapless marriage, and here " Lara" and " Hebrew
Melodies" were written. The poet had passed
the zenith of the social horizon, and the " Byron-
madness" was waning, when he came to the
Albany ; still, the visits of fair admirers were
vouchsafed him in these rooms. It was here
that the girl whose story Guiccioli adduces as
evidence of Byron's virtuous self-denial came to
him for counsel. If the partiality of his mis
tress has unduly praised his conduct at this time,
it is a thousandfold outweighed by the bitter
ness of another narrative happily discredited,
if not disproven which indicates this same
period as being that of the beginning of a liaison
with his sister. To these rooms Moore was a
daily visitant, and Canning then lodged on the
second floor adjoining the suite E I, where
Macaulay wrote the " History of England" and
many essays. Byron's last abode in London was
a stately house in Piccadilly, opposite Green
Park and not far from the then London sojourn
of Scott. Byron's dwelling, now No. 139,
belonged to the Duchess of Devon, and was
London Homes
known as 13 Piccadilly Terrace. To this
elegant home he brought his bride after the
" treacle-moon," and here passed the remainder
of their brief period of cohabitation. Here
" The Siege of Corinth," " Parisina," and many
minor poems were penned, the MS. of some
being in the handwriting of his wife. Here
Augusta Leigh was a guest warmly welcomed
by Lady Byron, despite her alleged knowledge
of the " shocking misconduct" of Byron and
his sister in this house. Here Ada, " sole
daughter of his house and heart," was born, and
from here, a few weeks later, his wife went
forth, never to see him again. Some letters came
from her to this home, playful notes to Byron
inviting him to follow her, affectionate epistles
to the sister, then a final letter announcing her de
termination never to return. In the ten months
during which Byron occupied this house it was
nine times in possession of bailiffs on account
of his debts. It has since been refaced and re
paired, but the original rooms remain. Hamilton
Place now leads from it to Hamilton Gardens,
where stands a beautiful statue of Byron. To
the mansion of Sir Edward Knatchbull, No. 25
Great George Street, a site now occupied by the
Institute of Engineers, the corpse of Byron was
brought upon its arrival from Greece ; and here
in the great parlors, but a few steps from the
65
A Literary Pilgrimage
spot where the remains of Sheridan had lain
eight years before, Byron's body lay in state
while his friends vainly sought sepulture for it in
Westminster.
At No. 50 Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, not
far from the Albany, is the establishment of John
Murray, whose predecessor, John Murray II.,
published " Childe Harold" and all Byron's
subsequent poems to the earlier cantos of " Don
Juan." At this house the poet was a frequent
and familiar lounger. Here, in a cosy drawing-
room which is handsomely furnished and em
bellished, Murray used to hold a literary court,
and here Byron first shook hands with the
" great Wizard of the North" and met Moore,
Canning, Southey, Giffbrd, and other litterateurs.
Scott afterward wrote, " Byron and I met for
an hour or two daily in Murray's drawing-room,
and found much to say to each other." During
his residence in London, Byron was customarily
one of the coterie of authors facetiously called
the " four o'clock club" which daily assembled
in this room. The seances were frequented at
one time or another by most of the stars of
English letters, embracing, besides those above
named, Campbell, Hallam, Crabbe, Lockhart,
Disraeli, Irving, George Ticknor, etc. We
find the room little changed since their time.
Original portraits of that brilliant company look
66
Murray's
down from the walls of the room they haunted
in life, and the visitor thrills with the thought
that in some subtile sense their presence per
vades it still. In this room Ada Byron, kept in
ignorance of her father until womanhood, first
saw his handwriting, and in yonder fireplace
beneath his portrait, four days after intelligence
of his death had reached London, the manu
script of his much-discussed " Memoirs" was
burned at the desire of Lady Byron and in the
presence of Moore and Byron's executor, Hob-
house, who had witnessed his hapless marriage.
Until the death of Byron his relations with
Murray were most cordial, and the present John
Murray IV., grandson of Byron's publisher,
possesses numerous letters of the poet, some of
which were used in Moore's " Life." Per
haps most interesting of Byron's many rhyming
epistles is the one commencing,
" My dear Mr. Murray,
You're in a blanked hurry
To set up this ultimate canto,"
which announces the final completion of "Childe
Harold." Among many mementos of Byron
cherished in this famous room are the original
MSS. of " Bards and Reviewers" and of most
of his later poems. With them are other
priceless MSS. of Scott, Swift, Gray, Southey,
67
A Literary Pilgrimage
I ivingstone, Irving, Motley, etc. The Murray
III. who used to show us these treasures with
reverent pride, and who could boast that he
had known Byron, Scott, and Goethe, died not
long ago. When we ask for the Bible popularly
believed to have been given to Murray by Byron
with a line so altered as to read " now Barabbas
was a publisher ," we are told this joke was
Campbell's and was upon another publisher than
Murray. Byron's signet-ring has passed to the
possession of Pierre Barlow, Esq., of New York.
Litterateurs still come to " Murray's den,"
though not so often as in the time when clubs
were less popular : among those who may some
times be met here are Argyll, Knight, Layard,
Dufferin, Temple, Francis Darwin, etc. Mur-
rays' was the home of the Review " whose
mission in life is to hang, draw, and Quarterly "
as one victim avers to which came Charlotte
Bronte's burly Irish uncle with his shillalah in
search of the harsh reviewer of "Jane Eyre,"
and haunted the place until he was turned away.
A most delightful outing is the jaunt from
Byron's London haunts, past Kensal Green,
where we find the precious graves in which
sleep Thackeray, Motley, Cunningham, Jame
son, Hood, Hunt, Sydney Smith, and Mrs.
Hawthorne, the latter beneath ivy from her
Wayside home and periwinkle from her hus-
68
Kensal Green Harrow
band's tomb on the piny hill-top at Concord,
to Harrow, the " Ida" of Byron's verse. Here
is the ancient school of which Sheridan, Peel,
Perceval, Trollope, and others famous in letters
or politics were inmates ; where Byron was for
years " a troublesome and mischievous pupil"
and made the acquaintance of Clare, Dorset,
and others to whom some of his poems are
addressed, and of Wildman who rescued his
Newstead from ruin : the present Byron and
the son of Ada Byron were also Harrow boys.
Here may be seen some of the poet's worn and
scribbled books ; his name graven by him upon
a panel of the oldest building; the Peachie
tombstone protected now by iron bars which
was his evening resort, where some of his
stanzas were composed, and whence he beheld
a landscape of enchanting beauty. Near this
beloved spot, where Byron once desired to be
entombed, sleeps a sinless child of sin, his
daughter Allegra, born of Mrs. Shelley's sister.
At Harrow, Byron repaid help upon his exer
cises by fighting for his assistant ; his successes
here were mainly pugilistic, but his battles were
often those of younger and weaker boys, and
the spot where he fought the tyrants of the
school is pointed out with interest and pride.
In Notts, en route to Newstead, we lodge in
an old mansion alleged to have been the abode
69
A Literary Pilgrimage
of the poet in his school-vacations ; we have
the high authority of the landlord for the con
viction that we occupy the room and the very
bed oft used by Byron ; but the credulity even
of a pilgrim has a limit, and the agility of the
fleas that now inhabit the bed forbids belief
that they too are relics of the poet. Better
authenticated are the Byron relics of a local
society, among which are the boot-trees certified
by his bootmaker to be those upon which the
poet's boots were fitted. They are of interest
as demonstrating that the asymmetry of his feet
was much less than has been believed ; one foot
was shorter than its fellow, and the ankle was
weak, but not deformed.
From Nottingham a winsome way along a
smiling vale, with billowy hills swelling upon
either hand, conducts us to the village of Huck-
nall. By its market-place an ancient church-
tower rises from a grave-strewn enclosure ; we
enter the fane through a porch of ponderous
timbers, and, traversing the dim aisle, approach
the chancel and find there the tomb of Childe
Harold. A slab of blue marble, sent by the
King of Greece and bearing the word Byron,
is set in the pavement to mark the spot where,
after the throes of his passion-tossed life, Byron
lies among his kindred in " the dreamless sleep
that lulls the dead." One who, as a lad, en-
70
Tomb of Childe Harold
tered the vault at the burial of Ada Byron, in
dicates for us its size upon the pavement and the
position of the coffins ; Byron, in a coffin cov
ered with velvet and resting upon benches of
stone, lies between his mother and the " sole
daughter of his house and heart ;" at his feet a
receptacle contains his heart and brain. His
valet and the Little White Lady of Irving's
narrative sleep in the yard near by. A marble
tablet on the church wall describes Byron as the
" Author of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ;" this
was erected by his sister, and near it we saw a
chaplet of faded laurel placed years ago by our
" Bard of the Sierras." Byron's tomb has
never been a popular shrine, but such Americans
as Irving, Hawthorne, Halleck, Ludlow, Jo-
aquin Miller, and William Winter have been
reverent pilgrims. Once Byron's " Italian en
chantress," la Guiccioli, was found weeping
here and kissing the pavement which covers the
lover of her youth.
Above Hucknall the ancestral domain of the
Byrons lies upon the right, while upon the other
hand extend the broad lands which were the
heritage of Mary Ann Chaworth, Byron's " star
of Annesley." From the boundary of the es
tates, where the poet sometimes met his youth
ful love, a stroll across a landscape parquetted
with grain-field gold and meadow emerald brings
71
A Literary Pilgrimage
us to the ancient seat of the time-honored race
of which the maiden of Byron's " Dream"
the " Mary" of many poems was the " last
solitary scion left." It is now the property of
her great-grandson. Most of her married life
was passed elsewhere, and Annesley fell into
the neglected condition which Irving describes.
Mary's husband, the maligned Musters, instead
of hating the place and seeking to destroy its
identity, preferred it to his other property, and
spent many years after his wife's death in re
storing and beautifying it, taking pains to pre
serve the grounds and the main portion of the
mansion in the condition in which his wife had
known them in her maidenhood. This became
the beloved home of his later years, and here he
died. This mansion of the " Dream" stands
upon an elevation overlooking many acres of
picturesque park. It is a great, rambling pile
of motley architecture, obviously erected by
different generations of Chaworths to suit their
varying needs and tastes, but the walls are over
grown with clambering vines, which conceal
the touch of time and impart to the structure
an aspect of harmonious beauty. The prin
cipal fasade which presents along the court is
imposing and stately, but on every side are
pointed gables, stone balustrades, and pictu
resque walls. The interior arrangement of
Annesley Hall
the body of the house remains precisely as
Mary knew it, even the decorations of some
of the rooms having been preserved by the
considerate love of her husband and descendants ;
and here, despite the averment of a Byron-
biographer that " every relic of her ancient
family was sold and scattered to the winds," the
Chaworth plate, portraits, and other belongings
are religiously cherished. We were first in
vited to the place to see these while they were
yet displayed by the maid in whose arms Mary
died. Upon the walls of the great lower hall
are many family pictures, among them that of
the Chaworth whom Byron's great-uncle had
slain. It was this portrait that Byron feared
would come out of its frame to haunt him if he
remained here over-night. From the hall low
stairs lead to the apartments. At the right is
Mary's sitting-room, where Byron spent many
hours beside her, listening entranced while she
played to him upon the piano which stood in the
farther corner. It is a pleasant apartment, its
windows looking out upon the garden-beds
Mary tended, which we see now ablaze with
the flowers known to have been her favorites.
In this room, which " her smiles had made a
heaven to him," Byron, years afterward, saw
Mary for the last time and kissed for its mother's
sake " the child that ought to have been his."
73
A Literary Pilgrimage
On this occasion she made the inquiry which
prompted the lines, " To Mrs. Musters, on
being asked my reason for quitting England in
the spring." This last painful interview is re
called in the poems " Well, Thou art Happy"
and " I've seen my Bride Another's Bride."
Above the hall is the large drawing-room, where
we see several portraits of Mary, which represent
her as a most beautiful woman, with a pa
thetically sweet and winning face, by no means
the " wicked-looking cat" which Byron's jealous
wife described. Here, too, are pictures of her
husband which fully justify his popular sobriquet,
" handsome Jack Musters." Physically they
were an admirably matched pair. Out of the
drawing-room is the " antique oratory" of
the poem, a small apartment above the en
trance-porch, pictured as the scene of Byron's
parting with Mary after her announcement
of her betrothal. Byron was cordially wel
comed at Annesley ; the family were his rela
tives, and all of them, save that young lady
herself, would gladly have had him marry the
heiress. Among the guest-chambers is one,
called of yore the blue room, which during one
summer after his fear of the family portraits
had been subdued by the greater fear of meet
ing " bogles" on his homeward way Byron
often occupied. Here he incensed Nanny the
74
Annesley Park Diadem Hill
housekeeper by allowing his dog to sleep upon
the bed and soil her neat counterpanes. An
other servant, " old Joe," tired of sitting up at
night to wait upon him, finally frightened him
away by means of some hideous nocturnal
noises, which he assured the young poet pro
ceeded from " spooks out of the kirk-yard,"
Byron's superstition doubtless suggesting the
ruse.
Giant trees overtop the chimneys and bower
the walls of the venerable mansion. The gar
den which Irving found matted and wild was
long ago restored by Musters to its former
beauty of turf, foliage, and flower. A grand
terrace, one of the finest in England, with
brick walls and carved balustrades of stone man
tled and draped with ivy, lies at the right, with
broad steps leading down to the garden where
Byron delighted to linger with Mary during the
swift hours of one too brief summer. Beneath
the terrace is a door, carefully protected by
Musters and his descendants, which Byron daily
used as a target and in which we see the marks of
bullets from his pistol. The grounds are ex
tensive and beautifully diversified by copses of
great trees and grassy glades where deer feed
amid myriad witcheries of leaf and bloom.
Half a mile from the Hall is a shrine that
will attract the sentimental prowler, Byron's
75
A Literary Pilgrimage
diadem hill. Projecting from the extremity of a
long line of eminences, it is a landmark to the
countryside and overlooks the living landscape
which the poet depicted in lines throbbing with
life and beauty. From its acclivity we see much
of his ancestral Newstead, the adjoining fair
acres of Annesley which he would have added
to his own, the tower and chimneys of the
Hall rising among clustering oaks : beyond these
darkly wooded hills decline to the valley, along
which we look past parks, villages, and the
church where Byron sleeps to the spires of
the city. As we contemplate the vista from
the spot where stood the two bright " beings in
the hues of youth," we have about us a ring of
dark firs, the " diadem of trees in circular array"
pictured in the " Dream," apparently unchanged
since the day the maiden and the youth here
met for the last time before her marriage. The
Byron-writers have united in denouncing Mus
ters for denuding this hill-top in a splenetic
endeavor to prevent its identification as the
scene of the interview described in the poem.
In truth, we owe the preservation of the features
which identify this romantic spot to the very
hand which the author of " Crayon Miscellany"
avers is " execrated by every poetic pilgrim."
When natural causes were rapidly destroying
the grove, Musters caused its removal and re-
76
Byron-Chaworth-Musters
placed it by saplings grown from cones of the
old trees, each fir of the present beautiful diadem
being sedulously rooted upon the site of its
lineal ancestor. Musters had much greater rea
son to regard this spot with romantic tenderness
than had the poet ; here he enjoyed many stolen
interviews with his sweetheart, for he was for
bidden to see her in her home, and she, per
verse and persistent in her passion for him,
came here daily with the hope of meeting him
and watched for his approach along the valley.
Upon the very occasion the poem describes,
she waited here, " Looking afar if yet her lover's
steed kept pace with her expectancy," and
merely tolerated the company of the " gaby"
boy Byron until Musters might arrive. The
latter had no reason for the irritable jealousy
toward Byron which has been attributed to
him, and there is no evidence that he evinced
or entertained such a feeling. He freely invited
the poet to his house, rode and swam with him,
preserved the few Byron mementos at Annesley,
and protected the tombs of Byron's ancestors at
Colwick. So much of untruth has been pub
lished anent the Byron-Chaworth-Musters mat
ter, and especially concerning the attitude of
the lady toward Byron and the conditions of
her subsequent life, that it is pleasant, even at
this late day, to be able to record upon un-
77
A Literary Pilgrimage
doubted evidence that her loving admiration for
her husband ceased only with her life.
On the bank of the silvery Trent, three
miles from Nottingham, is Colwick Hall, where
Mary's married life was spent. This was an
ancient seat of the Byrons, said to have been
lost by them at the card-table. Mary's home
was an imposing mansion, with lofty cupola,
balustraded roofs, and stately pediments upheld
by Ionic columns. From the front windows
we look across a wide expanse of sun-kissed
meadow beyond the river, while at the back
rocky cliffs rise steeply and are tufted by over
hanging woods. The Hall was attacked and
pillaged in 1 83 1 by a Luddite mob, from whom
poor Mary escaped half naked into the shrub
bery and lay concealed in the cold wet night.
The exposure and terror of this event impaired
her reason, and caused her death the next year
at Wiverton, another seat of the Chaworths,
where her descendants reside. Close by the
mansion at Colwick, now a summer resort, was
the old gray church, with battlemented tower,
where Mary was married, and where she lies in
death with her husband and his kindred, near
the burial-vault of the ancestors of the lame
boy who linked her name to deathless verse.
At the side of the altar a beautiful monumental
tablet, bearing a graceful female figure and a
Mary's Grave
laudatory inscription, is placed in memory of
the " star of Annesley," whose brightness went
out in distraction and gloom.
To Byron's early passion and its failure we
owe some of the sweetest and tenderest of his
songs ; and it has been believed that the memory
of that defeat adapted his thoughts to their
highest flights and gave added pathos and beauty
to his noblest work. Thus all the world were
gainers by his disappointment, and evidence is
lacking that either the lady or the lover was a
loser.
79
THE HOME OF CHILDE
HAROLD
Nciuittad- Byron 1 1 Apartments Relics and Reminders-Ghosts-
Ruins- The Young Oak Dog's Tomb Devil's Wood-
Irving-Livingstonc-Stanley-Joatjuin Miller.
tTOWEVER alluring other haunts of Byron
* may be found, the " hall of his fathers"
must remain paramount in the interest and affec
tion of his admirers. The stanzas he addressed
to that venerable pile, the graphic description
in " Don Juan," the plaintive allusions in " Childe
Harold," its own romantic history as a mediaeval
fortress and shrine, and its association with the
bard who inherited its lands and dwelt beneath
its battlements, render Newstead Abbey a Mecca
to which the steps of pilgrims tend. It came
to the Byrons by royal gift, and in the middle of
the last century was inherited by the poet's pre
decessor the Wicked Byron, who killed his
neighbor of Annesley and so desolated the Abbey
that the only spot sheltered from the storms was
a corner of the scullery where he breathed out
his wretched life. The poet occupied the place
at intervals for twenty years, and then sold it to
Colonel Wildman, who had been his form-fellow
at Harrow, and to whom we are mainly indebted
for the restoration of the edifice and the preserva-
lo
NEWSTEAD ABBEY
THE HOME OF CHILDE
HAROLD
Nc-wtttad- Byron t Apartmtnti- Rtliu and ReminJeri-GAottt-
Ruins - The Young Oak - Dtf't Tomb - Devil 't Wood-
Irving-Livingstone Stanley- J^a^u:tl Miller.
ILJOWEVER alluring other haunts of Byron
* * may be found, the ." hall of his fathers"
must remain paramount in the interest and affec
tion of his admirers. The stanzas he addressed
to that venerable pile, the graphic description
in" Don Juan," the plaintive allusions jn " Childe
Harold," its own romantic history as a mediaeval
fortress and shrine, and its association with the
bard who inherited its lands and dwelt beneath
its battlements, render Newstead Abbey a Mecca
to which the steps of pilgrims tend. It came
to the Byrons middle of
the last century WM inherited by the poet's pre
decessor the fUron, who killed his
neighbor of Anncslcy and so desolated the Abbey
that the only spot sheltered from the storms was
a corner of the scullery where he breathed out
his wretched life. The poet occupied the place
at intervals for twenty years, and then sold it to
Colonel Wildman, who had been his form fellow
at Harrow, and to whom we are mainly indebted
for the restoration of the edifice and the preserva-
So
YiaaA
The Abbey Chapel Ruin
tion of every memento of the poet and his race.
At the death of Wildman the Abbey became the
property of Colonel W. F. Webb, a sharer in
Livingstone's explorations, who gathers here a
brilliant circle of authors, artists, travellers, and
wits whose gayety dispels the hoary and ghostly
associations of the place.
From the boundary of the estate a broad
avenue, lined with noble trees, leads to an inner
park of eight hundred acres, among whose sylvan
beauties our way lies, through verdant glades and
under leafy boughs whose shadows the sunshine
prints upon the path, until we see, from the
verge of the wood, the noble pile rising amid an
environment of lawn and lake, grove and garden.
It is a vast stone structure, composed of motley
parts joined " by no quite lawful marriage of the
arts" into an harmonious and impressive whole.
The western facade is the one usually pictured,
because it contains the Byron apartments and best
displays the characteristic features of the edifice,
having a castellated tower at one extremity,
while to the other is joined the ruined chapel
front which, as an example of its style, is
rivalled in architectural value only by St. Mary's
at York. This Newstead fragment, retaining
its perfect proportions, its noble windows, its
gray statue of the Virgin and " God-born Child"
in the high niche of the gable, the whole
81
A Literary. Pilgrimage
draped and garlanded with ivy which conceals
the scars of Cromwell's cannon-balls, is a vision
of unique beauty. From the Gothic door-way
of the mansion we are admitted to a gallery
with a low-vaulted roof of stone upheld by
massive columns. This was the crypt of the
abbot's dormitory ; it adjoins the cloisters, and,
like them, was used by the Wicked Byron as a
stable for cattle. It is now adorned with the
spoils of African deserts, trophies of the mighty
huntsman who now inhabits the Abbey. One
of these, the skin of a noble lion, is said to
have belonged to a beast which had mutilated
Livingstone and was standing above his body
when a ball from Webb's rifle laid him low and
saved the great explorer. From the crypt, stone
stairs lead to the corridors above the cloisters :
in Byron's time entrance was between a bear
and a wolf chained on these stairs and menacing
the guest from either side. Out of the corridor
adjoining the chapel ruin a spiral stairway ascends
to a plain and sombre suite of rooms, once the
abbot's lodgings, but cherished now because
they were the private apartments of Byron.
His chamber is neither large nor elegant, its walls
are plainly papered, and its single oriel window
is shaded by a faded curtain. The room remains
as Byron last occupied it : his carpet is upon the
floor; the carved bedstead, with its gilt posts
82
Byron's Apartments
and lordly coronets, is the one brought by him
from college ; its curtains and coverings are
those he used ; above the mantel is the mir
ror which often reflected his handsome features.
We sit in his embroidered arm-chair by the
window, overlooking lawn and lake and the
wood he planted, and write out upon his plain
table the memoranda from which this article is
prepared. The tourist is told that the chamber
has never been used since Byron left it ; but
Irving occupied it for some time, as his letters to
his brother declare, and a few years ago our
Joaquin Miller lay here in Byron's bed, and saw,
in the moonbeams sharply reflected from the
mirror into his face, an explanation of the
ghostly apparitions which Byron beheld in this
glass. In the adjoining room are a portrait of
the poet's " corporeal pastor," Jackson, in arena
costume, and a painting of Byron's valet, Joe
Murray, a bright-looking fellow of pleasing face
and faultless attire. This room was sometime
occupied by Byron's pretty page, whom the
housekeeper believed to be a girl in masquerade :
this page was introduced elsewhere as the poet's
younger brother Gordon, and an attempt has
been made to identify her with the mysterious
" Thyrza" of his poems, and with " Astarte"
also. The third room of the suite, Byron's
dressing-room and study, was one of the haunts
83
A Literary Pilgrimage
of the goblin friar who was heard stalking amid
the dim cloisters or in the apartments above.
Byron's room here is the Gothic chamber of
the Norman abbey where " Don Juan" slept
and dreamed of Aurora Raby, and the corridor
is the " gallery of sombre hue" where he pur
sued the sable phantom and captured a very
material duchess. Directly beneath is a pan
elled apartment of moderate dimensions which
was Byron's dining-room and the scene of many
a revel when the monk's skull, brimming with
wine, was sent round by the poet's guests. His
sideboard is still here, his heavy table remains
in the middle of the room, and the famous skull,
mounted as a drinking-cup and inscribed with
the familiar anacreontic, is carefully preserved.
The library is a stately and spacious apartment :
here, among many mementos of the poet, Ada
Byron first heard a poem of her father's ; here
Byron's Italian friend la Guiccioli made notes
for her " Recollections," and here Livingstone
penned portions of the books which record his
explorations. In the grand hall we see the
elevated chimney-piece beneath which Byron
and his guests heaped so great a fire, on the first
night of his occupancy of the Abbey, that its
destruction was threatened. This superb apart
ment, the old dormitory of the monks, was
used by the poet as a shooting-gallery, and was
84
Relics
one of the haunts of his " Black Friar." The
drawing-room of the mansion is palatial in
dimensions and furnishing. Its panels and gro
tesque carvings have been restored, and this an
cient room, once the refectory of the monks and
later the hay-loft of the Wicked Byron, is now
a marvel of elegance. Here is the familiar por
trait of Byron at twenty-three, an earlier water-
color picturing him in college gown, and a later
bust in marble. Here by her desire the body
of Ada Byron lay in state, and from here it was
borne to rest beside her father at near-by Huck-
nall, more than realizing the closing stanzas of
the third canto of " Childe Harold."
In these stately rooms and in the adjoining
corridors are numerous priceless relics of the
immortal bard ; among them, the cap, belt, and
cimeter he wore in Greece; his foils, spurs,
stirrups, and boxing-gloves; a painting of his
famous dog Boatswain ; the bronze candlesticks
from his writing-table and the table upon which
were written " Bards and Reviewers," poems
of " Hours of Idleness," " Hebrew Melodies,"
and portions of his masterpiece, " Childe Har
old." Preserved here, with Byron's will, un
published letters, and scraps of verse, are papers
which indicate that the poet's chef-d'oeuvre was
originally designed for private circulation and
was entitled " Childe Byron." An interesting
85
A Literary Pilgrimage
relic is a section of the noted " twin-tree"
bearing the names " Byron Augusta" carved by
the poet at his last visit to the Abbey. Our
own Barnum once visited the place and offered
Wildman five hundred pounds for this double
tree (then standing in the grove), intending to re
move it for exhibition ; the colonel indignantly
replied that five thousand would not purchase it,
and that " the man capable of such a project de
served to be gibbeted." Here, too, are the por
trait of the first lord of Newstead, "John
Byron - the - Little - with- the - Great - Beard ;" the
huge iron knocker in use on the door of the
Abbey seven centuries ago ; a collection of
mediaeval armor and weapons ; some personal
belongings of Livingstone, and many specimens
of fauna and flora gathered by him and Webb
in the dark continent. One vaulted apartment
of exquisite proportions, erst the sanctuary of
the abbot, and later Byron's dog-kennel, is now
the chapel of the household. Newstead has
been the abode of royalty, and holds rooms in
which, from the time of Edward III., kings have
often lodged. We see the chamber occupied by
Ada Byron during her visit; another, adorned
with quaint carvings and once haunted by Byron-
of-the-Great- Beard, was used by Irving. The
noble chambers contain richly carved furniture,
costly tapestries, and beds of such altitude that
86
Court and Gardens
steps are provided for scaling them. The hang
ings of one bed belonged to Prince Rupert, and
its counterpane was embroidered by Mary Queen
of Scots.
In the centre of the edifice is the quadrangular
court, surrounded by a series of low-vaulted
arcades, once the stables of the Wicked Byron
and long ago the " cloisters dim and damp" of
the monks whose dust moulders now beneath
the pavement. One crypt-like cell which holds
the boilers for heating the mansion was Byron's
swimming-bath. In the middle of the court
the ancient stone fountain, with its grotesque
sculptures of saints and monsters, graven by the
patient toil of the monks, still sends out sprays
of coolness.
We spend delightful hours loitering in the
ancient gardens of the friars and about their
ruined chapel. Through its mighty window,
" yawning all desolate," pours a flood of western
light upon the turf that covers the holy ground
where congregations knelt in worship ; while,
amid the dust of the priests and near the
site of the altar where they " raised their pious
voices but to pray," Byron's dog lies in a tomb
far handsomer than that which holds his noble
master. It was in excavating Boatswain's grave
that Byron found the skull afterward used as a
drinking-cup. The dog's monument consists of
A Literary Pilgrimage
a wide pedestal, surmounted by a panelled altar-
stone which upholds a funeral urn and bears
Byron's familiar eulogistic inscription and the
misanthropic stanzas ending with the lines,
" To mark a friend's remains these stones arise ;
I never knew but one, and here he lies."
Other panels were designed to bear the epitaph
of Byron, who directed in his will (1811) that
he should be buried in this spot with his valet
and dog ; it is said to have been discovered that
the poet had made careful preparation for his
entombment here, the stone trestles and slab to
support his coffin being in place upon the pave
ment, but the sale of Newstead led to his in
terment elsewhere, and faithful Murray who
declined to lie here "alone with the dog"
sleeps near his master.
The gardens of the Abbey lie about its
ancient walls: here are the fish-pools of the
monks ; the noble terrace ; the " Young Oak"
of Byron's poem, planted by his hands and now
grown into a large and graceful tree ; other trees
rooted by Livingstone and Stanley while guests
here. At one side is a grove of beeches and
yews, in whose gloomy recesses the Wicked Byron
erected leaden statues of Pan and Pandora, of
which the. rustics were so afraid that they would
not go near them after nightfall, and which are
88
Grounds Recollections
still respectfully spoken of in the servants' hall
as " Mr. and Mrs. Devil." Before the mansion
lies the lucid lake described in " Don Juan :"
the forest that shades its shore and sweeps over
the farther hill-side was planted by Byron to
repair the spoliation of his uncle, and is called
the " Poet's Wood." Upon some of the farms
of the domain live descendants of Nancy Smith,
whom Irving's readers will remember, her son
having married despite his mother's protest and
reared a family. One aged servitor claims to
remember Irving's visit, and opines " the old
colonel [Wildman] thought him a very fine
man for an American." He recounts some
peccadilloes of Joe Murray, traditional among
the servants, which show that worthy to have
been less precise in morals than in dress. The
ancient Byron estates were among the haunts of
one whose exploits inspired a book of ballads,
and we here see Robin Hood's cave and other
reminders of the bold outlaw and his " merrie
men in Lyncolne greene."
Such, briefly, is the condition of Byron's an
cestral home as it appears nearly eighty years
after he saw it for the last time. Besides the
charms which won his affection and made him
relinquish the Abbey with such poignant regret,
it holds for us an added spell in that it has been
the habitation of a transcendent genius. Where
A Literary Pilgrimage
Wildman's fortune failed his wishes the present
owner has supplemented his work, until the vast
pile now gleams with more than its ancient
splendor ; and, as we take a last view through a
glade whose beauty fitly frames the picture of
the restored mansion, we trust that somehow
and somewhere Byron knows that his hope for
his beloved Newstead is accomplished :
" Haply thy sun emerging yet may shine,
Thee to irradiate with meridian ray ;
Hours splendid as the past may still be thine,
And bless thy future as thy former day."
90
WARWICKSHIRE: THE LOAM-
SHIRE OF GEORGE ELIOT
Miss Mulock Sutler Somer-vile Dyer Rugby Homes of
George Eliot Scenes of Tales Che-verel Shepperton
Milly'f Gra-ve-Paddiford Milky-Coventry, etc. Char
acters Incidents.
OOME one has said that to write about War-
*"^ wickshire is to write about Shakespeare.
True, the transcending fame of the bard of Avon
gives the places associated with his life and genius
pre-eminence, but the literary rambler will find
in this heart of England other shrines worthy
of homage. Inevitably our pilgrimage includes
the Stratford scenes, from the birthplace and
the Hathaway cottage to the fane where all the
world bows at Shakespeare's tomb, but, reso
lutely repressing the inclination to describe again
these oft-described resorts, we fare to less fa
miliar shrines : to the birthplace of the author of
" Hudibras" and the haunts and tomb of Somer-
vile, poet of" The Chase" and " Rural Sports ;"
to the Rhynhill of Braddon's tale and the Kenil-
worth of Scott's matchless romance ; to Bilton,
where Addison sometime dwelt, and the Cal-
thorpe home of Dyer, bard of " Grongar Hill"
and " The Fleece," where we find his garden
and a tree he planted which shades now his battle-
A Literary Pilgrimage
merited old church ; to Rugby, where we see
the dormitory of " Tom Brown" Hughes, the
class-rooms he shared with Clough, Matthew
Arnold, and Dean Stanley, the grave of the
beloved Dr. Arnold in the " Rugby Chapel" of
his son's poem.
At Avonmouth we find the Norton Bury of
"John Halifax," and the old inn where Dinah
Mulock lived while writing this her popular
tale. The inn garden holds the yew hedge of
the novel, " fifteen feet high and as many thick,"
and the sward over which crept the lame Phin-
eas : sitting there, we see the view the boy
admired, the old Abbey tower, the mill of Abel
Fletcher, the river where the famished rioters
fought for the grains the grim old man had flung
into the water, the green level of the Ham dot
ted with cattle, the white sails of the encircling
Severn, the farther sweep of country extending
to the distant hills, and hear the sweet-toned
Abbey chimes and the lazy whir of the mill
which sounded so pleasantly in Phineas's ears.
"John Halifax" was published simultaneously
with another tale of Warwickshire life, " Amos
Barton." We are newly come from the London
homes of George Eliot and her grave on the
Highgate hill-side, and now, as we traverse sweet
Avonvale, we gladly remember that Shakespeare's
shire is hers as well. A jaunt of a score of
9*
Other Shrines Loamshire
miles from Stratford brings us to the scenes amid
which she was born and grew to physical and
mental maturity. Our course by "Avon's
stream," bowered by willows or bordered by
meads, lies past the noble park where Shake
speare did not steal deer and the palace of his
Justice Shallow where he was not arraigned for
poaching. (We find it as impossible to keep
Shakespeare out of our MS. as did Mr. Dick of
" Copperfield" to keep Charles I. out of the
memorial.) Beyond Charlecote is storied War
wick Castle, with the old mansion of Compton
Wyniates, dwelling of the royalist knight of
Scott's " Woodstock," not far away. Beyond
these again we come to the Coventry region and
the frontier of the " Loamshire" whose character
istics are imaged and whose traditions, phases of
life, and scenery are wrought with tender touch
into poem and tale by George Eliot and so made
familiar to all the world. Warwickshire scenery
is not sublime ; Dr. Arnold characterized it as
"an endless monotony of enclosed fields and
hedgerow trees." While its landscapes lack
striking features, theirs is the quiet, unobtrusive
beauty which Hawthorne loved and which for
us is full of restful charm. Across sunny vales
and gentle eminences we look away to the far-off
Malvern Hills, whose shadowy outlines bound
many a " Loamshire" landscape. We see vis-
93
A Literary Pilgrimage
tas of low-lying meads with circling " lines of
willows marking the watercourses ;" of slum
berous expanses of green or golden fields ; of
villages grouped about gray church-towers ; of
groves of venerable woods, survivors of Shake
speare's " Forest of Arden" which erst clothed
the countryside. We find it, indeed, " worth
the journey hither only to see the hedgerows,"
green, fragrant walls of hawthorn which border
lane and highway, bound garden and field.
With their gleaming boughs rayed by bright
blossoms and festooned with interlacing vines,
these barriers are often marvels of beauty and
strength. Between miles of such hedgerows,
and beneath lines of overshading elms, a high
way running northward from the town of Godiva
and " Peeping Tom" brings us to the great
Arbury property of the Newdigates, where we
find the South Farm homestead in which Robert
Evans newly appointed agent of the estate
temporarily placed his family, and where, in the
room at the left of the central chimney-stack, at
five o'clock on the morning of St. Cecilia's day,
1819, his youngest child, Mary Ann, was born.
It is a broad-eaved, many-gabled, two-storied
structure of stuccoed stone, with trim hedges
and flower-bordered garden-beds about it, a
wider environment of lawn and woodland, and
colonnades of the elms which figure in her poems
94
Birthplace and Home of George Eliot
and were already venerable when she saw the
light beneath their shade. On the same estate,
near the highway between Bedworth and Nun-
eaton, is Griff House, " the warm nest where
her affections were fledged," to which she was
removed at the age of four months, and where
her first score years of life were passed. It is a
pleasant and picturesque double-storied mansion
of brick, quaint and comfortable. Massy ivy
mantles its walls, climbs to its gables, overruns
its roofs, peeps in at its tiny-paned casements ;
doves coo upon its ridges. About it flowers
shine from their setting in the emerald of the
lawn, and great trees open their leaves to the sun
shine and winds of summer. Spacious rooms lie
upon either side of the entrance : of the one at
the left, the novelist gives us a glimpse in " The
Mill on the Floss." It is a home-like apartment,
with low walls and a pleasant fireplace ; it was the
dining-room and sitting-room also in the days
when " the little wench" Mary Ann was the pet
of the household. Here she acted charades
with her brother Isaac and astonished the family
by repeating stories from " Miller's Jest Book,"
a treasured volume of hers in that early time.
We learn from Maggie Tulliver in whose
childhood is pictured the author's inner life as a
child that Defoe's "History of the Devil"
was another of Mary Ann's juvenile favorites,
95
A Literary Pilgrimage
and her relatives preserve the worn copy she
used to read here before this fireplace with her
father, containing the pictures of the drowning
witch and the devil which little Maggie explained
to Mr. Riley in "The Mill on the Floss."
Here, years afterward, Mary Ann heard, from
her " Methodist Aunt Samuel," the thrilling story
of the girl executed for child-murder, which
was the germ of the great romance " Adam
Bede." The aunt, who had been a preacher in
earlier life, remained at Griff for some time, and
George Eliot has told us that the character of
Dinah Morris grew out of her recollections of
this relative. It may be noted that in real life
Dinah married Seth Bede, Adam being drawn in
part like Caleb Garth from the novelist's
father. In this same room, but a few years ago,
the " Brother" of the poem, who played here
at charades with little Mary Ann, suddenly ex
pired in his chair but a few minutes after his
return from " Shepperton Church." The win
dows of Mary Ann's chamber command a reach
of the coach-road of " Felix Holt" and a farther
vista of woodlands and fields ; in another
chamber is the mahogany bed beneath which
she was once found hidden to avoid going to
school. In the roof is the attic which was
Maggie Tulliver's retreat, where she kept her
wooden doll with the nails in its head, and here
96
Scenes of her Tales
is the chimney-stack against which that vicarious
sufferer was ground and beaten. The death of
her mother, Mrs. Hackit of " Barton," made
Mary Ann mistress of Griff at sixteen. At
Griff's gates stood the cottage of Dame Moore's
school, where the novelist began her education,
and where years after she used to collect the
children of the vicinage for religious instruction
each Sabbath. A son of Mrs. Moore lately
lived not far away, and had more to say in praise
of " Mary Hann" than of her surviving kinsfolk,
who seem ashamed of their relationship to the
novelist. In a shaded part of the garden lately
stood a bower with a stone table, which George
Eliot doubtless had in mind when she described
the finding of Casaubon's corpse in the arbor at
Lowick. The exhausted quarries in the shale
close by, a resort of Mary Ann's girlhood, are
the " Red Deeps" where Maggie met her lover ;
the " brown canal" of the poem winds through
the near hollow ; and beyond it, on " an apology
for an elevation of ground," is the " College"
workhouse to which Amos Barton walked
through the sleet to read prayers. Not far
distant is Arbury Hall, seat of the Newdigates,
for whom the tenant of Griff was and is agent.
This is the Cheverel Manor of " Gilfil," an
imposing castellated structure of gray stone, with
flanking towers and great mullioned windows
G 97
A Literary Pilgrimage
of multishaped panes, famous for its elaborately
decorated ceilings. That George Eliot had
often been within this mansion is shown by her
familiarity with the arrangement and ornamenta
tion of the rooms, accurately described as scenes
of many incidents of the tale. In the grounds,
too, the imagery of the " Love Story" may be
perfectly realized : here are the lawn where little
Caterina sat with Lady Cheverel, and the shim
mering pool, with its swans and water-lilies,
which was searched for her corpse the morning
of her flight ; at a little distance we find " Moss-
lands," and the cottage of the gardener to which
the dead body of Wybrow was carried ; and,
farther away, the spot under giant limes where
the poor girl, coming to meet her recreant lover
"with a dagger in her dress and murder in her
heart," found him lying dead in the path, his
hand clutching the dark leaves, his eyes unheed
ing the "sunlight that darted upon them be
tween the boughs." A touching incident in the
life of a former owner of Arbury was made the
plot of Otway's tragedy " The Orphan."
A mile northward from Griff is the quaint
church of Chilvers Coton, where Mary Ann
was christened at the age of a week, where a
little later her " devotional patience" was fostered
by smuggled bread-and-butter, and where as
child and woman she worshipped for twenty
98
Shepperton Church Milly's Grave
years. It is a massive stone edifice with Gothic
windows, one of them being a memorial of the
wife of Isaac Evans, and with a square tower
rising above its low roofs ; at one corner, " a
flight of stone steps, with their wooden rail run
ning up the outer wall," still leads to the chil
dren's gallery as in the days of Gilfil and Amos
Barton, for this is the Shepperton Church of the
tales. Within we see the memorials of Rev.
Gilpin Ebdell (thought to be Gilfil) and of
the original of Mrs. Farquhar ; the place where
Gilfil read his sermons from manuscript " rather
yellow and worn at the edges," and where Barton
later " preached without book." About the
renovated fane is the church-yard, with its grassy
mounds and mouldering tombstones, one of which,
protected by a paling and shaded by leafy boughs,
is crowned by a funeral urn and marks the spot
where Milly was laid, " the sweet mother with
her baby in her arms," the grave to which Bar
ton came back an old man with Patty supporting
his infirm steps. Its inscription is to " Emma,
beloved wife of Revd. John Gwyther, B.A.,"
curate here in George Eliot's girlhood : during
his incumbency the community felt aggrieved
for his wife on account of the prolonged stay
at the parsonage of a strange woman who, years
after, was described as Countess Czerlaski by
one who as a child had seen her here. Not far
99
A Literary Pilgrimage
from Milly's monument the parents of George
Eliot lie in one grave, with Isaac, the " Brother"
of her poem, sleeping near. By the church
yard wall stands the pleasant ivy-grown parson
age to which Gilfil brought his dark-eyed bride,
and where, after brief months of happiness, he
lived the long years of solitude and sorrow.
We see the cosy parlor smelling no longer of
his or Barton's pipe where the lonely old man
sat with his dog, and above, its pretty window
overlooking the garden, the chamber where he
tenderly cherished the dainty belongings of his
dead wife with the unused baby-clothes her
fingers had fashioned, and where, in another
tale, is laid one of the most affecting and high-
wrought scenes in all fiction, the death of Milly
Barton.
A half-mile distant lies the village of Attle-
boro, where, at the age of five, Mary Ann was
sent to Miss Lathorn's school ; and a mile south
ward from Griff, in a region blackened by pits,
is the town of Bedworth, '* dingy with coal-
dust and noisy with looms," whose men " walk
with knees bent outward from squatting in the
mine," and whose haggard, overworked women
and dirty children and cottages are pathetically
pictured in " Felix Holt." Obviously the
changes of the half-century which has elapsed
since George Eliot knew its wretchedness have
Milby Liggins
wrought little improvement in this place, over
which her nephew is rector : we see pale,
hungry faces in the streets, squalor in the poor
dwellings, proofs of pinching poverty every
where. A little beyond Chilvers Coton we find
the market-town of Nuneaton, the Milby of
the romances. The shaking of hand-looms is
less noticeable now than in George Eliot's
school-days here, factories having supplanted
the cottage industry ; but the dingy, smoky
town, with its environment of flat fields, is still
" nothing but dreary prose." Here we find,
near the church, " The Elms" of her girlhood,
a tall brick edifice embowered with ivy ; on its
garden side, the long low-ceiled school-room,
with its heavy beams, broad windows, and plain
furniture, where she was four years a pupil ; the
dormitory whence she beheld the riot which she
describes in the election-riot at Treby in " Felix
Holt." Another vision of her girlhood here
was a " tall, black-coated young clergyman-in-
embryo," Liggins by name, who afterward
claimed the authorship of her books and so far
imposed upon the public that a subscription was
made for him. Mrs. Gaskell was one of the last
to relinquish the belief that Liggins was George
Eliot. He spent most of his time drinking, but
did his own house-work, and was found by a
deputation of literary admirers washing his slop-
101
A Literary Pilgrimage
basin at the pump. All about us at Nuneaton
lie familiar objects : the cosy Bull Inn is the
" Red Lion" where, in the opening of " Janet's
Repentance," Dempser is discovered in theologic
discussion, and from whose window he harangued
the anti-Tyranite mob ; the fine old church,
with its beautiful oaken carvings, is the sanctuary
where Mr. Crewe, in brown Brutus wig, deliv
ered his " inaudible sermons," and where Mr.
Elty preached later ; adjoining is the parsonage,
erst redolent of Crewe's tobacco, where Janet
helped his deaf wife to spread the luncheon for
the bishop, and where, in the time of Elty, Bar
ton came to the sessions of the " Clerical Meet
ing and Book Society ;" on this Church street,
" Orchard Street" of Eliot, a quaint stuccoed
house with casement windows was Dempser's
home, whence he thrust his wife at midnight
into the darkness and cold ; the arched passage
near by is that through which she fled to the
haven of Mrs. Pettifer's house. A little way
westward amid the pits is Stockingford, " Paddi-
ford" of the tale, and the chapel where Mr.
Tyran preached. A cousin of George Eliot's
was recently a coal-master in this vicinity.
Eight miles from Griff is Coventry, where our
companion is one who had met Rossetti there
forty years before. George Eliot was sometime
a pupil of Miss Franklin's school, lately standing
Coventry Birds Grove
in Little Park Street, and saw there that lady's
father, whom she described as Rev. Rufus Lyon
of Treby Chapel. His diminutive legs, large
head, and other peculiarities are yet remembered
by some who were in the school ; his home is
accurately pictured in " Felix Holt." In the
Foleshill suburb we find the stone villa of Birds
Grove, which was the home of the novelist after
Isaac Evans had succeeded his father at Griff.
The house has been enlarged, but the apartments
she knew are little changed : a plain little room
above the entrance, whose window looked beyond
the tree-tops to the superb spire of St. Michael's
Church, where Kemble and Siddons were mar
ried, was her study, in which, despite her tasks
as her father's housewife and nurse, she accom
plished much literary work. At the right of
the window stood her desk, with an ivory crucifix
above it, and here her translation of Strauss's
" Leben Jesu," undertaken through the persua
sion of her friends at Rosehill, was written.
Some portions of this work she found distressing ;
she declared to Mrs. Bray that nothing but the
sight of the Christ image enabled her to endure
dissecting the beautiful story of the crucifixion.
Adjoining the study is her modest bedchamber,
and beyond it that of her father, where during
many months of sickness she was his sole attend
ant, often sitting the long night through at his
103
A Literary Pilgrimage
bedside with her hand in his. The grounds are
little changed, save that the occupant has removed
much of the foliage which formerly shrouded
the mansion, but some of George Eliot's favorite
trees remain on the lawn. Half a mile away is
the pretty villa of Rosehill, whilom the home
of Mrs. Bray and her sister Sara Hennel, who
were the most valued friends of the novelist's
young-womanhood and exerted the strongest in
fluence upon her life. Her letters to these
friends constitute a great part of Cross's " Life."
At Rosehill she met Chapman, Mackay, Robert
Owen, Combe, Thackeray, Herbert Spencer,
and others of like genius, and here she spent a
day with Emerson and wrote next day, " I have
seen Emerson the first man I have ever seen."
Sara Hennel testifies that Emerson was impressed
with Miss Evans and declared, " That young
lady has a serious soul." When he asked her,
" What one book do you like best ?" and she
replied, " Rousseau's Confessions," he quickly
responded, " So do I : there is a point of sym
pathy between us." After her father's death
she was for sixteen months a resident at Rose-
hill, and there wrote, among other things, the re
view of Mackay's " Progress of the Intellect."
Financial reverses caused the Brays long ago to
relinquish this beautiful home, but some of this
household were lately living in another suburb
104
Coventry Friends
of Coventry and receiving an annuity bequeathed
by George Eliot. Here, too, lately resided
another old-time friend, the Mary Sibtree of the
novelist's Coventry days, to whom were addressed
some of the letters used by Cross.
In 1851 George Eliot left this circle of
friends to become an inmate of Chapman's
house in London, returning to them for occasional
visits for the next few years; then came her
union with Lewes, after which the loved scenes
of her youth knew her no more in the flesh ;
but the allusions to them which run like threads
of gold through all her work show how oft she
revisited them in " shadowy spirit form."
105
YORKSHIRE SHRINES: Da
THEBOYS HALL AND
ROKEBY
Village of Bowes Dickent-Squeer? t School The Master and
his Family-Haunt of Scott.
T^ROM the familiar shrines of Cumberland,
* the lakeside haunts of Wordsworth,
Southey, and Coleridge, a journey across a wild
moorland region from whose higher crags we
see through the fog-rifts the German Ocean and
the Irish Sea brings us into Gretavale, on the
northern border of great Yorkshire. In the
upper portion of the valley, among the outlying
spurs of the Pennines, the storied Greta flows
at the foot of a bleak, treeless hill on whose
summit we find the village of Bowes. This
was the Lavatrae of the Romans, who for three
centuries had here a station, and remains of great
Roman works may still be traced in the
vicinage ; but to the literary pilgrim Bowes is
chiefly of interest as representing " the delightful
village of Dotheboys" described in Squeers's
advertisement of his school in " Nicholas
Nickleby." The aspect of the village is dreary
and desolate in the extreme. A single street,
steep and straight, bordered by straggling houses
of dull gray stone, extends along the hill, which
1 06
Bowes Dotheboys Hall
is crowned by the church and an ancient castle :
the dun moors decline steeply on every side,
leaving the treeless village dismal and bare and
often exposed to a wind " fit to knock a man off
his legs," as Squeers said to Nicholas. In the
midst of the village stands a cosy inn, where
Dickens for some time lodged and was visited by
John Browdie, and where we are shown the
wainscoted apartment in which some portion
of " Nickleby" was noted. At the time of
Dickens's sojourn here, Bowes was the centre of
the pernicious cheap-school system which he
came to expose, and half the houses of the
village were " academies" similar to that of
Squeers : among them one is pointed out as
being the place where Cobden was a pupil.
But most interesting of all is the large house at
the top of the hill which Dickens depicted as
Dotheboys Hall, by which name it was long
known among the older dwellers of the place,
a long, heavy, two-storied, dingy structure of
stone, with many windows along its front, and
presenting, despite its bowering vines and trees,
an aspect so chill and cheerless that one can
scarcely conceive of a more depressing domicile
for the neglected children who once thronged it.
Through an archway at one end could be seen
the pump which was frozen on the first morning
of Nicholas's stay, and beyond it the garden
107
A Literary Pilgrimage
which, by a surprising mistake, Dickens repre
sents a pupil to be weeding on a freezing winter's
day.
A few residents of the neighborhood remem
ber the " measther" of Dotheboys Hall ; his
name, like Squeers's, was of one syllable and
began with S ; in person he was not like Squeers,
nor was he an ignorant man. A quondam pupil
of the school informed the writer that Johnny
S. was fairly drawn as Wackford Squeers, but
Miss S. was a young lady of considerable refine
ment and was in no sense like the spiteful Fanny
of the tale. Squeers had the largest of the
schools, and, besides rooms in the adjoining
house, he hired barns in which to lodge his
many pupils. A farm attached to his house
was cultivated by the scholars, whose food was
chiefly oatmeal : scanty diet and liberal flogging
was the portion of all who displeased the master.
According to local belief, this school was not so
bad as some of its neighbors, and no one of the
schools realized all the wretchedness which
Dickens portrays; yet, despite the author's
avowal that Squeers was a representative of a
class, and not an individual, the popular identifi
cation of this school as the typical Dotheboys,
and the odium consequent thereupon, wrought
its speedy ruin and the death of the master and
mistress. The latter result is to be deplored, for
1 08
Squeers Rokeby
the reason that in the case of this pair the
abhorrence seems to have been not wholly
deserved. Two charges, at least, which affected
them most painfully that of goading the boys to
suicide and that of feeding them upon the flesh of
diseased cattle were, by the testimony of their
neighbors, unfounded so far as the proprietors
of this school were concerned. Relatives of
Squeers lately occupied Dotheboys Hall, which
had become a farm-house, and other relatives
and descendants are respectable denizens of the
vicinity. Dickens's exposure of the schools led
to their extinction and to the consignment of
Bowes to its present somnolent condition. In
the village church-yard lie the lovers whose
simultaneous deaths were commemorated by
Mallet in "Edwin and Emma." At Barnard
Castle, a few miles away, the prototype of New
man Noggs is still traditionally known, and known
as " a gentleman."
The abounding beauties of the Greta have
been painted by Turner and sung by Scott, both
frequenters of this vale. From Bowes, a ram
ble along the lovely stream, between steep tree-
shaded banks where it chafes and " greets" over
the great rocks, and through mossy dells where it
softly murmurs its content, brings us to the
demesne of Rokeby, where Scott laid the scene
of his famous poem. On every hand amid this
109
A Literary Pilgrimage
region of enchantment, in glade and grove, in
riven clifFand headlong torrent, in sunny slope and
dingle's shade, we recognize the poetic imagery
of Scott. Every turn reveals some new vista,
rendered doubly delightful by the romantic asso
ciations with which the great poet has invested
it. To the poet himself Greta's banks were
potent allurements, and they were his habitual
haunts during his sojourns in the valley. A de
scendant of the friend whom Scott visited here
and to whom the poem is inscribed, points out
to us a natural grotto, in the precipitous bank
above the stream, where the poet often sat, and
where some part of " Rokeby" was pondered
and composed amid the scenery it portrays.
STERNE'S SWEET RETIRE
MENT
Sutton-Craxy Castle- Yorick's Church-Parsonage-Jfhere Tris
tram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey were -written
Reminiscences -Newburgh Hall - Where Sterne died-
Sepulchre.
A T historic old York we are fairly in the
^^ midst of great Yorkshire : standing upon
the tower of its colossal cathedral, we overlook
half that ancient county. At our feet lie the
quaint olden streets depicted in Collins's " No
Name," where erstwhile dwelt Porteus, Defoe,
Wallis, Lindley Murray, Mrs. Stannard, Poole of
"Synopsis Criticorum," Burton the author im
mortalized by Sterne as " Dr. Slop." Below us
we see the feudal castle where Eugene Aram was
hanged, the ancient city wall with its gate-ways
and battlements, the ruins of mediaeval shrine
and of Roman citadel and necropolis ; abroad
we behold the vale which Bunsen pronounces
the " most beautiful in the world (the vale of
Normandy excepted)," with its streams, its
mosaics of green and golden fields and sombre
woods, its distant border of savage moors and
uplands. The Ouse, shining like a ribbon of
silver, flows at our feet ; we may trace its course
from the hills of Craven on the one hand,
A Literary Pilgrimage
while southward we behold it "slow winding
through the level plain" on its way to the sea ;
into its valley we see the Wharfe flowing from
the lovely dale where Collyer grew to manhood,
and, farther away, the Aire emerging from the
dreary region where lived the sad sisters Bronte
and wove the sombre threads of their lives into
romance. The Foss flows toward us from the
northeast, and our view along its valley embraces
the region where dwelt Sydney Smith, while
rising in the north are the Hambleton Hills,
which shelter the vale where Sterne wrote the
books that made him famous. Indeed, this
region of York is pervaded with memories of
that prince of sentimentalists : in the great
minster beneath us we find the tomb and monu
ment of his grandfather, once archbishop of
this diocese ; in the carved pulpit of the min
ster Sterne preached as prebendary, and here he
delivered his last sermon ; his uncle was a dig
nitary of the old minster ; his " indefatigably
prolific" mother was native to this region ; his
wife was born here, and was first seen and loved
by Sterne within sound of the glorious minster
bells ; most of his adult life was passed within
sight of the minster towers.
At Sutton, Sterne's first living, the pilgrim
finds little to reward his devotion. Sterne's life
here was obscure and, save in preparation, un-
112
Crazy Castle
productive. Skelton Castle was then the seat of
his college friend Stevenson, author of " Crazy
Tales," etc., who was the Eugenius of" Shandy,"
and to whom the " Sentimental Journey" was in
scribed. Here Sterne found a library rich in rare
treatises upon unusual subjects, in which, during
his stay at Sutton, he spent much time and ac
quired a fund of odd and fanciful learning which
constituted in part his equipment for his work.
We find this castle nearer the stern coast which
Yorkshire opposes to the endless thunders of the
North Sea. Once a Roman stronghold, then a
feudal fortress and castle of the Bruces, later a
country-seat, it has since Sterne's time been re
built and modernized out of all semblance to the
" Crazy Castle" of his letters. It is believed
that only a few of the rooms remain substan
tially as he knew them. A tradition is preserved
to the effect that during his visits here he bribed
the servants to tie the vane with the point
toward the west, because Eugenius would never
leave his bed while an east wind prevailed. A
near-by hill is called Sterne's Seat, but time has
left here little to remind us of the sentimental
" Yorick" who long haunted the place. It is
only at Coxwold, fourteen miles from York and
in the deeper depths of the shire, that we find
many remaining objects that were associated
with his work and with that portion of his life
H 113
A Literary Pilgrimage
which chiefly concerns the literary world. A
result of the publication of the first part of
" Tristram Shandy" was the presentation of this
living to its author, and his removal to this
sequestered retreat, which was to be his home
during his too few remaining years. The ham
let has now a railway station, but the usual
approach is by a rustic highway which conducts
to and constitutes the village street. Within the
hamlet we find a low-eaved road-side inn, and by
it the shaded green where the rural festivals were
held, and where, to celebrate the coronation of
George III., Sterne had an ox roasted whole and
served with great quantities of ale to his parish
ioners. Just beyond, Sterne's church stands in
tact upon a gentle eminence, overlooking a
lovely pastoral landscape bounded by verdant
hills. The church dates from the fifteenth cen
tury and is a pleasing structure of perpendicular
Gothic style, with a shapely octagonal tower
embellished with fretted pinnacles and a para
pet of graceful design. One window has been
filled with stained glass, but Sterne's pulpit
remains, and the interior of the edifice is scarcely
changed since he preached here his quaint ser
mons. The walls are plain ; the low ceiling is
divided by beams whose intersections are marked
by grotesque bosses ; the whole effect is depress
ing, and to the sensitive " Yorick" haunted as
114
Sterne's Church Shandy Hall
he was by habitual dread that his ministrations
might provoke a fatal pulmonary hemorrhage
it must have been dismal indeed. Among the
effigied tombs of the Fauconbergs which line
the chancel we find that of Sterne's friend who
gave him this living.
Beyond the church and near the highway
stands the quaint and picturesque old edifice
where dwelt Sterne during the eight famous
years of his life. In his letters he calls it
Castle Shandy, and in all the countryside it is
now known as Shandy Hall, shandy meaning in
the local dialect crack-brained. It is a long,
rambling, low-eaved fabric, with many heavy
gables and chimneys, and steep roofs of tiles.
Curious little casements are under the eaves ;
larger windows look out from the gables and are
aligned nearer the ground, many of them shaded
by the dark ivy which clings to the old walls
and overruns the roofs. Abutting the kitchen is
an astounding pyramidal structure of masonry
an Ailsa Craig in shape and solidity, yet more
resembling Stromboli with its emissions of
smoke, which, beginning at the ground as a
buttress, terminates as a kitchen-chimney and
imparts to this portion of the house an archi
tectural character altogether unique. Shrubbery
grows about the old domicile, venerable trees
which may have cast their shade upon " Yorick"
"5
A Literary Pilgrimage
himself are by the door, and the aspect of the
place is decidedly attractive. To Sir George
Wombwell, who inherits the Fauconberg estate
through a daughter of Sterne's patron, we are
indebted for the preservation of the exterior of
the house in the condition it was when Sterne
inhabited it j but the interior has been parti
tioned into two dwellings and thus considerably
altered. However, we may see the same
sombre wainscots and low ceiling that Sterne
knew, and we find the one room which inter
ests us most Sterne's parlor and study little
changed. It is a pleasant apartment, with win
dows looking into the garden, where stood the
summer-house in which he sometimes wrote,
and beyond which was the sward where " my
uncle Toby" habitually demonstrated the siege
of Namur and Dendermond. On the low walls
of this room Sterne disposed his seven hundred
books, " bought at a purchase dog-cheap," and
here he wrote, besides his sermons, seven volumes
of "Tristram Shandy" and the "Sentimental
Journey." There is a local tradition that other
MSS. written here were found by the succeed
ing tenant and used to line the hangings of the
room. Sterne's letters afford glimpses of him
in this room : in one we see him " before the
fire, with his cat purring beside him;" in
another he is " sitting here and cudgelling his
116
Sterne's Parsonage Study
brains" for ideas, though he usually wrote
facilely and rapidly ; in another he shows us a
prettier picture, in which " My Lydia" (his
daughter) " helps to copy for me, and my wife
knits and listens as I read her chapters ;" and
later, after his estrangement from Mrs. Sterne,
we see him " sitting here alone, as sad and soli
tary as a tomcat, which by the way is all the
company I keep." In the repose of this charm
ing place, and amid the peaceful influences about
him here in his pretty home, Sterne appears at
his best. And here for a time he was happy ;
we find his letters attesting, " I am in high spirits,
care never enters this cottage ;" " I am happy as
a prince at Coxwold ;" " I wish you could see
in what a princely manner I live. I sit down to
dinner fish and wild fowl, or a couple of fowls,
with cream and all the simple plenty a rich
valley can produce, with a clean cloth on my
table and a bottle of wine on my right hand to
drink your health." But the melancholy days
came all too soon ; the " bursting of vessels in
his lungs" became more and more frequent, his
struggle with dread consumption was inaugurated,
and now his letters from the pretty parsonage
abound with references to his " vile cough,
weak nerves, dismal headaches," etc. Now his
" sweet retirement" has become " a cuckoldy
retreat ;" he complains of its situation, of its
"7
A Literary Pilgrimage
"death-doing, pestiferous wind." Returning to
it from a sentimental journey or from a brilliant
season of lionizing in London, he finds its quiet
and seclusion insufferably irksome. Mortally ill,
growing old, hopelessly estranged from his wife,
deprived of the companionship of his idolized
child, the poor master of Castle Shandy is ' sad
and desolate," his " pleasures are few," he sits
" alone in silence and gloom." Such were some
of the diverse phases of his life which these
dumb walls have witnessed; in the dismalest,
they have seen him at his desk here, resolutely
ignoring his ills and tracing the passages of wit
and fancy which were to delight the world.
The incomplete " Sentimental Journey" was
written in his last months of life.
A mile from Sterne's cottage, and approached
by a way oft trodden by him and his " little
Lyd," is Newburgh Hall, the ancient seat of
Sterne's friend. Parts of the walls of a priory
founded here in 1145 are incorporated into the
oldest portion of the hall, and this has been
added to by successive generations until a great,
incongruous pile has resulted, which, however,
is not devoid of picturesque beauty. Within
this mansion Sterne was a familiar guest : urged
by the friendly persistence of Fauconberg, he
frequently came here to chat or dine with his
friend and the guests of the hall, his brilliant
iig
Place of Sterne's Death and Burial
converse making him the life of the company.
Among the family portraits here are that of his
benefactor and one of Mary Cromwell, wife of
the second Fauconberg, who preserved here
many relics of the great Protector, including his
bones, which were somehow rescued from
Tyburn and concealed in a mass of masonry in
an upper apartment of the hall.
Sterne was not only popular with his lordly
neighbor of Newburgh, but also, improbable as
it would seem, with the illiterate yeomen who
were his parishioners : although they understood
not the sermons and found the sermonizer in
most regards a hopeless enigma, yet, according
to the traditions of the place, these simple
folk discerned something in the complexly
blended character of the creator of " my uncle
Toby" which elicited their esteem and prompted
many acts of love and service. In a letter to an
American friend, Arthur Lee, Sterne writes,
" Not a parishioner catches a hare, a rabbit, or a
trout, but he brings it an offering to me."
As set forth by the inscription at Sterne's cot
tage, he died in London. One autumn day we
find ourselves pondering the sad event of his last
sojourn in the great city, as we stand upon the
spot where his " truceless fight with disease" was
ended, barely a fortnight after the " Sentimental
Journey" was issued. His wish to die " un-
119
A Literary Pilgrimage
troubled by the concern of his friends and the
last service of wiping his brows and smoothing
his pillow" was literally realized. During the
publication of the "Journey" he lodged in
rooms above a silk-bag shop in Old Bond Street ;
here he rapidly sank, and in the evening of
March 18, 1768, attended only by a hireling
who robbed his body, and in the presence of a
staring footman, the dying man suddenly cried,
" Now it is come !" and, raising his hand as if to
repel a blow, expired. A few furlongs distant,
opposite Hyde Park, we find an old cemetery
hidden from the streets by houses and high walls
which shut out the din of the great city. Here,
in seclusion almost as complete as that of the
graveyard of his own Coxwold, Sterne was
consigned to earth. The spot is overlooked by
the windows of Thackeray's sometime home.
An old tree stands close by, and in its boughs
the birds twitter above us as we essay to read the
inscription which marks Sterne's poor sepulchre.
But, mean and neglected as it is, we may never
know that his ashes found rest even here; a
report which has too many elements of prob
ability and which never was disproved, avers
that the grave was desecrated and that a horror-
stricken friend recognized Sterne's mutilated
corse upon the dissecting-table of a medical
school. " Alas, poor Yorick !"
HA WORTH AND THE
BRONTES
The Village -Black Bull Inn -Church -Vicarage- Memory
haunted Rooms-Bronte Tomb-Moon-Bronte Cascade-
Wuthering Heights-Humble Friends-Relic and Recollec~
tion.
/"\THER Bronte shrines have engaged us, .
^^ Guiseley, where Patrick Bronte was mar,
ried and Neilson worked as a mill-girl ; the
lowly Thornton home, where Charlotte was
born; the cottage where she visited Harriet
Martineau ; the school where she found Caro
line Helstone and Rose and Jessy Yorke; the
Fieldhead, Lowood, and Thornfield of her tales ;
the Villette where she knew her hero ; but it
is the bleak Haworth hill-top where the Brontes
wrote the wonderful books and lived the pathetic
lives that most attracts and longest holds our
steps. Our way is along Airedale, now a high
way of toil and trade, desolated by the need of
hungry poverty and greed of hungrier wealth :
meads are replaced by blocks of. grimy huts,
groves are supplanted by factory chimneys that
assoil earth and heaven, the once "shining"
stream is filthy with the refuse of many mills.
At Keighley our walk begins, and, although we
have no peas in our " pilgrim shoon," the way
is heavy with memories of the sad sisters Bronte
A Literary Pilgrimage
who so often trod the dreary miles which bring
us to Haworth. The village street, steep as a
roof, has a pavement of rude stones, upon which
the wooden shoes of the villagers clank with an
unfamiliar sound. The dingy houses of gray
stone, barren and ugly in architecture, are hud
dled along the incline and encroach upon the
narrow street. The place and its situation are a
proverb of ugliness in all the countryside ; one
dweller in Airedale told us that late in the even
ing of the last day of creation it was found that
a little rubbish was left, and out of that Haworth
was made. But, grim and rough as it is, the
genius of a little woman has made the place
illustrious and draws to it visitors from every
quarter of the world. We are come in the
" glory season" of the moors, and as we climb
through the village we behold above and beyond
it vast undulating sweeps of amethyst-tinted
hills rising circle beyond circle, all now one
great expanse of purple bloom stirred by zephyrs
which waft to us the perfume of the heather.
At the hill-top we come to the Black Bull Inn,
where one Bronte drowned his genius in drink,
and from our apartment here we look upon all the
shrines we seek. The inn stands at the church
yard gates, and is one of the landmarks of the
place. Long ago preacher Grimshaw flogged
the loungers from its tap-room into chapel ;
Black Bull Inn
here Wesley and Whitefield lodged when holding
meetings on the hill-top ; here Bronte's prede
cessor took refuge from his riotous parishioners,
finally escaping through the low casement at the
back, out of which poor Branwell Bronte used
to vault when his sisters asked for him at the
door. This inn is a quaint structure, low-eaved
and cosy ; its furniture is dark with age. We
sleep in a bed once occupied by Henry J. Ray
mond, and so lofty that steps are provided to
ascend its heights. Our meals are served in the
old-fashioned parlor to which Branwell came.
In a nook between the fireplace and the before-
mentioned casement stood the tall arm-chair,
with square seat and quaintly carved back, which
was reserved for him. The landlady denied
that he was summoned to entertain travellers
here : " he never needed to be sent for, he came
fast enough of himselV His wit and convivi
ality were usually the life of the circle, but at
times he was mute and abstracted and for hours
together " would just sit and sit in his corner
there." She described him as a "little, red-
haired, light-complexioned chap, cleverer than
all his sisters put together. What they put in
their books they got from him," quoth she, re
minding us of the statement in Grundy's Remi
niscences that Branwell declared he invented the
plot and wrote the major part of " Wuthering
123
A Literary Pilgrimage
Heights." Certain it is he possessed transcend
ing genius and that in this room that genius was
slain. Here he received the message of re
nunciation from his depraved mistress which
finally wrecked his life ; the landlady, entering
after the messenger had gone, found him in a fit
on the floor. Emily Bronte's rescue of her dog,
an incident recorded in " Shirley," occurred at
the inn door.
The graveyard is so thickly sown with black
ened tombstones that there is scant space for
blade or foliage to relieve its dreariness, and the
villagers, for whom the yard is a thoroughfare,
step from tomb to tomb : in the time of the
Brontes the village women dried their linen on
these graves. Close to the wall which divides
the church-yard from the vicarage is a plain stone
set by Charlotte Bronte to mark the grave of
Tabby, the faithful servant who served the
Brontes from their childhood till all but Charlotte
were dead. The very ancient church-tower
still " rises dark from the stony enclosure of its
yard ;" the church itself has been remodelled and
much of its romantic interest destroyed. No
interments have been made in the vaults beneath
the aisles since Mr. Bronte was laid there. The
site of the Bronte pew is by the chancel ; here
Emily sat in the farther corner, Anne next, and
Charlotte by the door, within a foot of the spot
Church Bronte Tomb
where her ashes now lie. A former sacristan
remembered to have seen Thackeray and Miss
Martineau sitting with Charlotte in the pew.
And here, almost directly above her sepulchre,
she stood one summer morning and gave herself
in marriage to the man who served for her as
" faithfully and long as did Jacob for Rachel."
The Bronte tablet in the wall bears a uniquely
pathetic record, its twelve lines registering
eight deaths, of which Mr. Bronte's, at the age
of eighty-five, is the last. On a side aisle is a
beautiful stained window inscribed " To the
Glory of God, in Memory of Charlotte Bronte,
by an American citizen." The list shows that
most of the visitors come from America, and it was
left for a dweller in that far land to set up here
almost the only voluntary memento of England's
great novelist. A worn page of the register
displays the tremulous autograph of Charlotte
as she signs her maiden name for the last time,
and the signatures of the witnesses to her mar
riage, Miss Wooler, of " Roe Head," and
Ellen Nussy, who is the E of Charlotte's letters
and the Caroline of " Shirley."
The vicarage and its garden are out of a cor
ner of the church-yard and separated from it by
a low wall. A lane lies along one side of the
church-yard and leads from the street to the
vicarage gates. The garden, which was Emily's
125
A Literary Pilgrimage
care, where she tended stunted shrubs and
borders of unresponsive flowers and where
Charlotte planted the currant-bushes, is beauti
ful with foliage and flowers, and its boundary
wall is overtopped by a screen of trees which
shuts out the depressing prospect of the graves
from the vicarage windows and makes the place
seem less " a church-yard home" than when the
Brontes inhabited it. The dwelling is of gray
stone, two stories high, of plain and sombre as
pect. A wing is added, the little window-panes
are replaced by larger squares, the stone floors
are removed or concealed, curtains forbidden
by Mr. Bronte's dread of fire shade the win
dows, and the once bare interior is furbished and
furnished in modern style ; but the arrangement
of the apartments is unchanged. Most interest
ing of these is the Bronte parlor, at the left of
the entrance ; here the three curates of" Shirley"
used to take tea with Mr. Bronte and were up
braided by Charlotte for their intolerance ; here
the sisters discussed their plots and read each
other's MSS. ; here they transmuted the sorrows
of their lives into the stories which make the
name of Bronte immortal ; here Emily, " her
imagination occupied with Wuthering Heights,"
watched in the darkness to admit Branwell com
ing late and drunken from the Black Bull ; here
Charlotte, the survivor of all, paced the night-
iz6
Bronte Parsonage Apartments
watches in solitary anguish, haunted by the
vanished faces, the voices forever stilled, the
echoing footsteps that came no more. Here,
too, she lay in her coffin. The room behind
the parlor was fitted by Charlotte for Nichols's
study. On the right was Bronte's study, and
behind it the kitchen, where the sisters read with
their books propped on the table before them
while they worked, and where Emily (prototype
of " Shirley"), bitten by a dog at the gate of
the lane, took one of Tabby's glowing irons
from the fire and cauterized the wound, telling
no one till danger was past. Above the parlor
is the chamber in which Charlotte and Emily
died, the scene of Nichols's loving ministrations
to his suffering wife. Above Bronte's study was
his chamber ; the adjoining children's study was
later Branwell's apartment and the theatre of the
most terrible tragedies of the stricken family ;
here that ill-fated youth writhed'in the horrors
of mania-a-potu ; here Emily rescued him
stricken with drunken stupor from his burning
couch, as "Jane Eyre" saved Rochester ; here he
breathed out his blighted life erect upon his
feet, his pockets filled with love-letters from the
perfidious woman who wrought his ruin. Even
now the isolated site of the parsonage, its en
vironment of graves and wild moors, its exposure
to the fierce winds of the long winters, make
127
A Literary Pilgrimage
it unspeakably dreary; in the Bronte time it
must have been cheerless indeed. Its influence
darkened the lives of the inmates and left its
fateful impression upon the books here produced.
Visitors are rarely admitted to the vicarage ;
among those against whom its doors have been
closed is the gifted daughter of Charlotte's
literary idol, to whom "Jane Eyre" was dedi
cated, Thackeray.
By the vicarage lane were the cottage of
Tabby's sister, the school the Brontes daily
visited, and the sexton's dwelling where the
curates lodged. Behind the vicarage a savage
expanse of gorse and heather rises to the horizon
and stretches many miles away : a path oft trod
den by the Brontes leads between low walls
from their home to this open moor, their habit
ual resort in childhood and womanhood. The
higher plateaus afford a wide prospect, but,
despite the August bloom and fragrance and the
delightful play of light and shadow along the
sinuous sweeps, the aspect of the bleak, treeless,
houseless waste of uplands is even now dispirit
ing ; when frosts have destroyed its verdure
and wintry skies frown above, its gloom and
desolation must be terrible beyond description.
Remembering that the sisters found even these
usually dismal moors a welcome relief from their
tomb of a dwelling, we may appreciate the utter
128
The Moors Wuthering Heights
dreariness of their situation and the pathos of
Charlotte's declaration, "I always dislike to
leave Haworth, it takes so long to be content
again after I return." We trace the steps of
the Brontes across the moor to the cascade,
called now the " Bronte Falls," where a brook
let descends over great boulders into a shaded
glen. This was their favorite excursion, and
as we loiter here we recall their many visits
to the spot : first they came four children to
play upon these rocks ; later came three grave
maidens with Caroline Helstone or Rose Yorke;
later came two saddened women ; and then Char
lotte came alone, finding the moor a featureless
wilderness full of torturing reminders of her
dead, and seeing their vanished forms " in the
blue tints, the pale mists, the waves and shadows
of the horizon." Later still, during her few
months of happiness, she came here many times
with her husband, and her last walk on earth was
made with him to see the cascade " in its winter
wildness and power."
Above the village was the parsonage of Grim-
shaw and the original "Wuthering Heights."
It was a sombre structure; a few trees grew
about it, the moors rose behind ; the apartments
were like the oak-lined, stone-paved interior
pictured in the tale, while the inscription above
the door, HE 1659, was changed to Hareton
> 129
A Literary Pilgrimage
Earnshaw 1500 by Miss Bronte, who described
here much of her own grandfather's early life
and suffering and portrayed his wife in Catherine
Linton. It is notable that the name Earnshaw
and other names in the Bronte books may be
seen on shop-signs along the way the sisters
walked to Keighley.
Among the villagers we meet some who re
member the Brontes with affection and pride.
We find them so uniformly courteous that we
are willing to doubt Mrs. Gaskell's ascriptions
of surly rudeness. They indignantly deny the
statements of Reid, Gaskell, and others regard
ing the character of Mr. Bronte. One whose
relations to that clergyman entitle him to
credence assures us that Bronte did not destroy
his wife's silk dress, nor burn his children's
colored shoes, nor discharge pistols as a safety-
valve for his temper : " he didn't have that sort
of a temper." It would appear that many
charges of the biographers were made upon the
authority of a peculating servant whom Bronte
had angered by dismissal. Some parishioners
testify that "the Brontes had odd ways of
their own," " went their gait and didn't meddle
o'ermuch with us ;" " nobody had a word against
them." Charlotte's husband, too, became pop
ular after her death, perhaps at first because
of his tender care of her father : " to see the
130
Recollections of the Brontes
good old man and Nichols together when the
rest were dead, and Mr. Bronte so helpless and
blind, was just a pretty sight." We hear more
than once of Bronte's wonderful cravat : he
habitually covered it himself, putting on new
silk without removing the old, until in the course
of years it became one of the sights of the
place, having acquired such phenomenal propor
tions that it concealed half his head. Many
still remember hearing him preach from the
depths of this cravat, while the sexton perambu
lated the aisles with a staff to stir up the sleepers
and threaten the lads. Mr. Wood, a cabinet
maker of the village, was church-warden in
Bronte's incumbency and an intimate friend of
the family till the death of the last member : his
loving hands fashioned the coffins for them all.
He was sent for to see Richmond's portrait of
Charlotte on its arrival, and was laughed at by
that lady for not recognizing the likeness ; while
Tabby insisted that a portrait of Wellington,
which came in the same case, was a picture of
Mr. Bronte. That clergyman often complained
to Wood that Mrs. Gaskell " tried to make us
all appear as bad as she could." We find some
survivors of Charlotte's Sunday-school class
among the villagers. From one, who was also
singer in Bronte's church choir, we obtain
pictures of the church and rectory as they ap-
131
A Literary Pilgrimage
peared in Charlotte's lifetime and a photographic
copy of Branwell's painting of himself and sis
ters, in which the likenesses are said to he ex
cellent. Charlotte is remembered as being
"good looking," having a wealth of lustrous
hair and remarkably expressive eyes. She was
usually neatly apparelled in black, and was so
small that when Mrs. F. entered her class, at the
age of twelve, the pupil was larger than the
teacher. Another of Charlotte's class remem
bers her as being nervously quick in all her
movements and a rapid walker ; a third stood in
the church-yard and saw her pass from the vicar
age to the church on the morning of her mar
riage wearing a very plain bridal dress and a
white bonnet trimmed with green leaves. A
few brief months later this person, from the
same spot, beheld the mortal part of her im
mortal friend borne by a grief-stricken company
along the same path to her burial. In the hands
of another of Charlotte's pupils we see a vol
ume of the original edition of the poems of
the three sisters, presented by Charlotte, and a
Yorkshire collection of hymns which contains
some of Anne's sweet verses.
It is evident that, of all the family, the hapless
Branwell was most admired by the villagers.
They delight to extol his pleasant manners, his
ready repartee, his wonderful learning, his am-
131
Branwell Bronte Bronte Relics
bidextrousness, his personal courage. On one
occasion restraint was required to prevent his
attacking alone a dozen mill-rioters, " any one of
whom could have put him in his pocket."
Holding a pen in each hand, he could simul
taneously write letters on two dissimilar subjects
while he discoursed on a third. Wood thought
him naturally the brightest of the family, and
believed that lack of occupation, in a place
where there was nothing to stimulate mental
effort, accounted for his vices and failures. He
came often with his sisters to Wood's house, and
would talk by the hour of his projects to achieve
fame and fortune. One of his associates pre
served some letters received from him while he
was " away tutoring," in which he shamelessly
recorded his follies and referred to himself as a
"Joseph in Egypt." A local society has col
lected in its museum some Bronte mementos : a
relative of Martha, Tabby's successor in the
household, saved a few, Charlotte's silken
purse, her thimble-case and some articles of
dress, elementary drawings made by the sisters,
autograph letters of Charlotte and her copies of
the " Quarterly" and other periodicals in which
she had read the reviews of "Jane Eyre."
Among the treasures Wood preserved were
sketches by Emily and Branwell ; a signatured
set of Bronte volumes presented by Bronte the
'33
A Literary Pilgrimage
day before his death ; Charlotte's worn history
containing annotations in her microscopic chi-
rography ; a copy of " Jane Eyre" presented by
Charlotte before its authorship was ascertained ;
an article on " Advantages of Poverty," by Mrs.
Bronte ; a highly graphic tale and religious poems
by Mr. Bronte. Comment upon the latter re
minded Wood that Bronte had shown him some
poems by an Irish ancestor Hugh Bronte, and
that he had met at the vicarage an irate relative
who came from Ireland with a shillalah to
"break the head" of a cruel critic of "Jane
Eyre." Most of the Bronte belongings were
removed by Mr. Nichols. He served the parish
assiduously, as the people declare, for fifteen
years, and at Bronte's death they desired that
Nichols should succeed him ; but the living was
bestowed upon a stranger, and Nichols removed
to the south of Ireland, where he married his
cousin and is now a gentleman farmer. Martha
Brown, the devoted servant of the family, accom
panied him, and Nancy Wainwright, the Brontes'
nurse, died some years ago in Bradford work
house : so every living vestige of the family has
disappeared from the vicinage.
A resident of near-by Wharfedale lately pos
sessed a package of Charlotte's essays, written
at the Brussels school and amended by " M.
Paul." Study of these confirms the belief that
Charlotte Bronte's Husband
she was for a time tortured by a hopeless love
for her preceptor, husband of " Madame Beck,"
and that it was this wretched passage in her life,
rather than the fall of her brother, which
" drove her to literary speech for relief." Her
marriage with Nichols was eventually happy,
but her own descriptions of him show that his
were not the attributes that would please her
fancy or readily gain her love. In " Shirley"
she writes of him as successor of Malone : " the
circumstance of finding himself invited to tea
with a Dissenter would unhinge him for a week ;
the spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in
church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-
creature being interred with Christian rites,
these things would make strange havoc in his
physical and mental economy." In a letter to
E. Charlotte writes, " I am not to marry Mr.
Nichols. I couldn't think of mentioning such
a rumor to him, even as a joke. It would make
me the laughing-stock of himself and fellow-
curates for half a year to come. They regard
me as an old maid, and I regard them, one and all,
as highly uninteresting, narrow, and unattractive
specimens of the coarser sex." Why then did
she finally accept Mr. Nichols? Was it not
from the same motive that had led her to
reject his addresses not long before, the desire to
please her father ?
EARLY HAUNTS OF ROBERT
COLLYER: EUGENE ARAM
Childhood Home - Ilkley Scenes, Friends, Smithy, Chapel -
Bolton Associations- fPordstuorth-Rogers Eliot- Turner
Aram's Homes-Schooli-Place of the Murder-Gibbet-
Probable Innocence.
'""* HE factory-town of Keighley, amid the
moors of western Yorkshire, to which the
Bronte pilgrimage brings us, becomes itself an
object of interest when we remember it was the
birthplace of Robert Collyer. On a dingy
side-street resonant with the din of spindles and
looms and sullied with soot from factory chim
neys, of humble parentage, and in a home not
less lowly than that of another Yorkshire black
smith in which Faraday was born, our orator
and author first saw the light. Collyer came to
Keighley " only to be born," and soon was re
moved to the lovely Washburndale, a few miles
away. Here we find the place of the boyhood
home he has made known to us the cottage of
two rooms with whitewashed walls and floor
of flags occupied by the mansion of a mill-
owner, and the Collyer family vanished from
the vicinage. " Little Sam," the kind-hearted
father, fell dead at his anvil one summer day ;
the blue-eyed, fair-haired mother, of whom the
136
Early Home School Companions
preacher so loves to speak, died in benign age ;
and the boisterous bairns who once filled the cot
tage are scattered in the Old World and the New.
A little way down the sparkling burn is the pictu
resque old church of Fewston, where Collyer
was christened, where Amos Barton of George
Eliot's tale later preached, and where the poet
Edward Fairfax of the ancient family which
gave to Virginia its best blood was buried with
his child who " was held to have died of witch
craft." Near by was Collyer's school, taught by
a crippled and cross-eyed old fiddler named
Willie Hardie, who survived at our first sojourn
in the dale and had much to tell about his pupil
" Boab," whom he had often " fairly thrashed."
Collyer's school education ended in his eighth
year, and he was early apprenticed at Ilkley, in
the next valley, where he grew to physical
manhood and attained to a measure of that intel
lectual stature which has since been recognized.
At Ilkley we find some who remember when
Collyer came first, a stripling lad, to work in
" owd Jackie's" smithy, and who in the long-ago
worked, played, and fought with him in the
village or read with him on the moors. One
remembers that he was from the first an insatiable
student, often reading as he plied the bellows or
switched the flies from a customer's horse. His
master "Jackie" Birch, who was native of
137
A Literary Pilgrimage
Eugene Aram's home, is recalled as a selfish and
unpopular man, who had no sympathy with the
lad's studious habit, but tolerated it when it did
not interfere with his work. Collyer's love of
books was contagious, and soon a little circle of
lads habitually assembled, whenever released
from toil, to read with him the volumes borrowed
from friends or purchased by clubbing their own
scant hoards. A survivor of this group walked
with us through the village, pointing out the
spots associated with Collyer's life here, and
afterward showed us upon the slopes of the
overlooking hills the nooks where the lads read
together in summer holidays. Collyer was
especially intimate with the Dobsons : of these
John was best beloved, because he shared most
fully Collyer's studies and aspirations ; between
the two an affectionate friendship was formed
which, despite long separation and disparity of
position, for John remained a laborer, ended
only with his death. When, thirty years ago,
Collyer honored and famous revisited the
scenes of his early struggles and was eagerly in
vited to opulent and cultured homes, he turned
away from all to abide in the humble cottage of
Dobson, which we found near the site of the
smithy and occupied by others who were friends
of Collyer's youth. His associates of the early
time some of them old and poor tell us with
138
Collyer's Humble Friends The Smithy
obvious pleasure and pride of his visits to their
poor homes in these later summers when he
comes to the place, and we suspect he often
leaves with them more substantial tokens of his
remembrance than kind words and wishes :
indeed, he once made us his almoner to the more
needy of them, one of whom we found in the
workhouse. Some of his old-time friends recall
the circumstances of his conversion under the
preaching of a Wesleyan named Bland, his own
eloquent and touching prayers, and his first tim
orous essays to conduct the services of the little
chapel to which the villagers were bidden by
the bellman, who proclaimed through the streets,
" The blacksmith will preach t'night." When
he preaches at Ilkley now, the Assembly-rooms
are thronged with friends, old and new, eager to
hear him. " Jackie" sleeps with his fathers, and
the smithy is replaced by a modern cottage, into
whose masonry many blackened stones from the
old forge were incorporated. One of Collyer's
chums showed us the door of the smithy which
he had rescued from demolition and religiously
preserved, and presented us with a photograph
which we were assured represents the building
just as Collyer knew it, a long, low fabric of
stone, with a shed joined at one end, two forge
chimneys rising out of the roof, and the rough
doors and window-shutters placarded with public
139
A Literary Pilgrimage
notices. Before the forge was demolished, the
large two-horned anvil on which Collyer
wrought twelve years was bought for a price
and removed to Chicago, where it is still pre
served in the study of Unity Church, albeit
Collyer long ago predicted to the writer, with
a characteristic twinkle and a sweet hint of the
dialect his tongue was born to, " they'll soon
be sellin* tbet for old iron."
The health-giving waters of the hill-sides attract
hundreds of invalids and idlers, and the Ilkley of
to-day is a smart town of well-kept houses,
hotels, and shops, amid which we find here and
there a quaint low-roofed structure which is a
relic of the village of Collyer's boyhood.
Among the survivals is the chapel now a
local museum, inaugurated by Collyer where
our " blacksmith" was converted and where he
labored at the spiritual anvil as a local preacher.
He has told us that for his labors in the Wes-
leyan pulpit during several years in Yorkshire
and America he received in all seven dollars and
fifty cents ; he expounded for love, but pounded
for a living. Another survival is the ancient
parish church, built upon the site of the Roman
fortress Olicana and of stones from its ruined
walls, which preserves in its masonry many anti
quarian treasures of Roman sculpture and in
scription. Standing without are three curious
140
Wharfedale Antiquities Scenery
monolithic columns, graven with mythological
figures of men, dragons, birds, etc., which give
them an archaeological value beyond price. A
doltish rector damaged them by using them as
gate-posts ; from this degradation the hands of
Collyer helped to rescue them, and the same
hands fashioned at the forge the neat iron gates
which enclose the church-yard.
By the village and through the dale which
Gray thought so beautiful flows the Wharfe ;
winding amid verdant meads, rushing between
lofty banks, or loitering in sunny shallows, it
holds its shining course to the Ouse, beyond the
fateful field of Towton, where the red rose of
Lancaster went down in blood. Ilkley nestles
cosily at the foot of green slopes which swell
away from the stream and are dotted with copses
and embowered villas. Farther away the dim
lines rise to the heights of the Whernside,
whence we look to the chimneys of Leeds and
the towers of York's mighty minster. Detached
from Rumbald's cliffs lie two masses, called
" Cow and Calf Rocks," bearing the imprint of
giant Rumbald's foot : these rocks are a resort
of the young people, and here Collyer and his
friends oft came with their books. From this
point Wharfedale, domed by a summer sky,
seems a paradise of loveliness ; its every aspect,
from the glinting stream to the highest moor-
141
A Literary Pilgrimage
land crags, is replete with the beauty Turner
loved to paint and which here first inspired his
genius. Ruskin discerns this Wharfedale scenery
throughout the great artist's works, bits of its
beauty being unconsciously wrought into other
scenes. These landscapes were a daily vision to
the eyes of Collyer in the days when Turner
still came to the neighborhood. This region
abounds with memorials of the mighty past,
with treasures of Druidical, Runic, and Roman
history and tradition, but the literary pilgrim
finds it rife with associations for him still more
interesting : here lived the ancestors of our
Longfellow, and the family whence Thackeray
sprang ; the fathers of that gentle singer, Heber,
dwelt in their castle here and sleep now under
the pavement of the church ; a little way across
the moors the Brontes dwelt and died. Here,
too, lived the Fairfaxes, one of them a poet
and translator of Tasso, and among their tombs
we find that of Fawkes of Farnley, Turner's
early friend and patron, while at the near-by hall
are the rooms the painter occupied during the
years he was transferring to canvas the beauties
he here beheld. Farnley holds the best private
collection of Turner's works, comprising, besides
many finished pictures, numerous drawings and
color-sketches made here.
A delightful excursion from Ilkley, one never
Bolton Abbey Nidderdale
omitted by Collyer from his summer saunter-
ings in Wharfedale, is to the sacred shades of
Bolton Abbey. The way is enlivened with the
prattle and sheen of the limpid Wharfe. A
mile past the hamlet of Addingham, where
Collyer preached his first sermon, the stream
curves about a slight eminence which is crowned
by the ruins of the ancient shrine. Some por
tions of the walls are fallen and concealed by
shrubbery ; other portions withstand the ravages
of the centuries, and we see the crumbling arches,
ruined cloisters, and mullioned windows, man
tled with masses of ivy and bloom and set in the
scene of restful beauty which Turner painted
and Rogers and Wordsworth poetized. Our
pleasure in the ruin and its environment of wood,
mead, and stream is enhanced by the companion
ship of one who had, on another summer's day,
explored the charms of the spot with George
Eliot, and who repeats to us her expressions of
rapturous delight at each new vista. Words
worth loved this spot, and the incident to which
the Abbey owed its erection the drowning of
young Romilly, the noble " Boy of Egremond,"
in the gorge near by is beautifully told by him
in the familiar poems written here.
Another excursion, by Knaresborough and
the deadly field of Marston Moor, brings us into
lovely Nidderdale, where stalks the dusky ghost
A Literary Pilgrimage
of the Eugene Aram of Bulwer's tale and Hood'
poem amid the scenes of his early life and of
the crime for which he died. In the upper
portion of the valley the Nidd winds like a
ribbon of silver between green braes and moor
land hills which rise steeply to the narrow
horizon. From either side brooklets flow
through wooded glens to join the wimpling
Nidd, and at the mouth of one of these we find
Ramsgill, where Aram was born. It is a strag
gling hamlet of thatched cottages, set among
bowering orchards and gardens and wearing an
aspect of tranquil comfort. The site of the
laborer's hut in which the gentle student was
born is shown at the back of one of the newer
cottages of the place. Farther up the picturesque
stream is the pretty village of Lofthouse, an
assemblage of gray stone houses nestled beneath
clustering trees, to which Aram returned after a
short residence at Skipton, in the dale of the
Brontes. Here he wooed sweet Annie Spence
and passed his early years of married life ; here
his first children were born and one of them
died. At the church in near-by Middlesmoor
he was married ; here his first child was chris
tened, and in the bleak church-yard it was buried.
Near a sombre " gill" which opens into the
valley some distance below was Gowthwaite
Hall, where Aram taught his first pupils, an
144
Aram's Schools Place of Murder
ancient, rambling structure of stone, two stories
in height, with many steep gables and wide
latticed windows. Venerable trees shaded the
walls, leafy vines climbed to and overran the
roofs, and a quaint garden of prim squares and
formally trimmed foliage lay at one side. We
found these externals little changed since Aram
was tutor here. The partition of the mansion
into three tenements had altered the arrange
ment of the interior, but the wide stairway still
led from the entrance to the upper room at the
east end, where Aram taught : it was a large,
lofty apartment, reputed to be haunted, changed
since his time only by the closing of one case
ment. Richard Craven was then tenant of the
Hall, and his son, the erudite doctor, doubtless
received his first tuition in this room and from
Aram.
Some miles down the valley is Knaresborough,
to which Aram removed from Lofthouse to estab
lish a school, and where eleven years later the
murder was committed. Soon after, Aram re
moved from the neighborhood, and during his
residence at Lynn, where he was arrested for
the crime, he was some time tutor in the house
of Bulwer's grandfather, a circumstance which
led to the production of the fascinating tale. A
little way out of Knaresborough, in a recess at the
base of the limestone cliffs which here border
145
A Literary Pilgrimage
the murmuring Nidd, is the place where Clarke
was killed and buried. This impressive spot
was long the hermitage of " Saint Robert," who
formed the cave out of the crag. In clearing
the rubbish from the place after the publication
of Bulwer's tale, the remains of a little shrine
were found, and a coffin hewn from the rock,
which proved that the hermitage had before
been a place of burial, as urged by Aram in his
defence. Upon a hill of the forest not far away
the body of Aram hung in irons, and local
tradition avers that his widow watched to recover
the bones as they fell, and when she had at last
interred them all, emigrated with her children
to America.
It is noteworthy that belief in his innocence
was universal among those who knew him in this
countryside. Incidents illustrating his self-
denial, patient forbearance, disregard for money,
and care to preserve even the lowest forms
of life are still cherished and recounted here as
showing that robbery and murder were for
him impossible crimes. We were reminded, too,
that at the time of Clarke's disappearance
Aram was husband of a woman of his own
station, father of a family, and master of a
moderately prosperous school, conditions of
which Bulwer could scarcely have been unaware,
and which are inconsistent with the only motives
146
Belief in Aram's Innocence
suggested as inciting Aram to crime. In the
opinion of the descendants of Aram's old neigh
bors in his native Nidderdale, Houseman was
alone guilty ; and if Aram had, instead of under
taking to conduct his own defence, intrusted it to
proper counsel, the trial would have resulted in
his acquittal.
HOME OF SYDNEY SMITH
Heslington-Foston, Twelve Miles from a Lemon-Ckurck-
Rcctor's Head - Study - Room-of-all-iaork Groundi-
Guests- Uniiierial Scratc her Immortal Chariot- Reminis-
' I *HE metropolis of England holds many
places which knew " the greatest of the
many Smiths :" dwellings he some time inhabited,
mansions in which he was the honored guest,
pulpits and rostrums from which he discoursed,
the room in which he died, the tomb where
loving hands laid him beside his son. But it is
in a remote valley of Yorkshire, where half his
adult years were passed in a lonely retreat among
the humble poor, that we find the scenes most
intimately associated with the fruitful period of
his life. In the lovely dale of York, not far
from one of the ancient gates and within sound
of the bells of the great minster, is the village
of Heslington, Smith's first place of abode in
Yorkshire. His dwelling here lately the
rectory of a parish which has been created since
his time, and one of the best houses of the village
is a spacious and substantial old-fashioned
mansion of brick, two stories in height and
delightfully cosy in appearance. Large bow-
windows, built by Smith, project from the front
and rise to the eaves. The rooms are of com-
142
Heslington Foston-le-Clay
fortable dimensions, and that in which Smith
wrote is " glorified" by the sunlight from one
of his great windows, near which his writing-
table was placed. The house stands a rod or
two from the highway, amid a mass of foliage ;
an iron railing borders the yard, trees grow upon
either side, and at the back is an ample garden
which was Smith's especial delight, and which
he paced for hours as he pondered his composi
tions. It was here that the dignified Jeffrey of
the Edinburgh Review rode the children's pet
donkey over the grass. Smith's famous " Peter
Plimley" letters were produced at Heslington.
He never felt at home here, because he constantly
contemplated removing. His own parish had
no rectory, and he was permitted by his bishop
to reside here while he sought to exchange the
living for another : failing in this, he was allowed
a further term in which to erect a dwelling in
his parish, consequently Heslington was his
home for some years. During this time he
made weekly excursions to his church, twelve
miles distant, behind a steed which he commem
orates as Peter the Cruel, and in the year he
built his parsonage the excursions were so
frequent that he computed he had ridden Peter
"several times round the world, going and
coming from Heslington."
In the remoter hamlet of Foston, "twelve
149
A Literary Pilgrimage
miles from a lemon," we find the church where
he ministered for twenty years and the house
which was his home longer than any other.
Our way thither the same once so familiar to
Smith and his cruel steed lies along the green
valley through which the wimpling Foss ripples
and sings on its way to the Ouse. In sun and
shadow our road leads through a pleasant country
until we see the roofs of Smith's parsonage
rising among the tree-tops. The Rector's Head,
as the wit delighted to call his home, stands
among the glebe-lands at a little distance from
the highway, and a carriage-drive constructed
by Smith after some of his guests had been
almost inextricably mired in their attempts to
reach his door conducts from a road-side gate
near the school through the tasteful and well-
kept grounds. Before we reach the rectory a
second barrier is encountered, Smith's " Screech
ing Gate," which, like the gate at "Amen
Corner," remains just as it was when he be
stowed its name. The mansion, of which he
was both architect and builder, described by him
and his friend Loch as " the ugliest house ever
seen," presents a singularly attractive aspect of
cosiness and comfort. The edifice is somewhat
improved since the great essayist dwelt beneath
its roof, but the original structure remains, an
oblong brick fabric, of ample proportions and
150
Smith's Parsonage
unpretentious architecture, two stories in height,
with hip-roofs of warm-tinted tiles. A large
bay-window struts from one side wall ; a beauti
ful conservatory abuts upon another side ; a
little porch, overgrown with creepers and
flowers, protects the entrance. The once plain
brickwork, which rose bare of ornamentation, is
mantled with ivy and flowering vines which
clamber to the roofs and riot along the walls,
imparting to the " unparsonic parsonage" a
picturesque charm which no architectural decora
tion could produce. The bare field in which
Smith erected his house has been transformed
into an Eden of beauty and bloom ; on every
side are velvety lawns, curving walks, beds of
flowers, patches of shrubbery, and groups of
woodland trees, forming a pretty park, mostly
planned by Smith and planted by his hand.
Within, we find the apartments spacious and
cheerful : the windows are the same that were
screened by the many-hued patchwork shades
designed by Smith and wrought by the deft fin
gers of his daughters, the chimney-pieces of
Portland stone which he erected remain, but
tasteful and elegant furniture now replaces the
rude handiwork of the village carpenter, which
was disposed through these rooms during Smith's
incumbency. He blithely tells a guest, " I
needed furniture ; I bought a cart-load of boards
A Literary Pilgrimage
and got the carpenter, Jack Robinson ; told him,
' Jack, furnish my house,' and you see the result."
Some of the resulting furniture is still preserved
in the neighborhood and valued above price.
From the bay-window of the parlor the gray
towers of York's colossal cathedral are seen ten
miles away ; the room adjoining at the left is the
memorable apartment which was Smith's study,
school-room, court, surgery, and what-not. Here
his gayly-bound books were arranged by his
daughter, the future Lady Holland, and here,
when not applied to him, his famous " rheumatic
armor" stood in a bag in yonder corner. Here
he wrote his sermons, his brilliant and witty
essays, the wise and effective disquisitions on
the disabilities of the Catholics, the coruscating
and incisive articles for the Review which elec
trified the English world. In this room he
taught his children and gave Bible lessons to the
youth of the parish, some of whom survive to
praise and bless him ; here, too, he prescribed for
the sick and dispensed mercy rather than justice
to culprits haled before him ; for, as his letters
declare, he was at once " village magistrate, vil
lage parson, village doctor, village comforter, and
Edinburgh Reviewer." To these manifold
avocations he added, despite his " not knowing
a turnip from a carrot," that of the farmer, and
managed the three hundred acre of glebe-lands
15*
Fields and Farmsteading
which were so unproductive that no one else
would cultivate them. A door-way of the rectory
overlooks most of the plantation, and he sus
pended here a telescope and a tremendous speak
ing-trumpet by means of which he could ob
serve and direct much of his operations without
himself going afield. Behind the house, and
screened by trees which Smith planted, are the
farmstead buildings he planned; here are the
stables and pens where he was welcomed by
every individual of his stock, whom he daily
visited to feed and pet ; here is the enclosure
where he found his fuddled pigs " grunting God
save the King about the sty" after he had admin
istered a medicament of fermented grains. In
the adjoining field is the site of his " Universal
Scratcher," a sharp-edged pole having a tall
support at one extremity and a low one at the
other, which so adapted it to the height of every
animal that " they could scratch themselves with
the greatest facility and luxury ; even the
' Reviewer* [himself] could take his turn."
Of Smith's life in this retirement his many
letters and the memoirs of his daughter give us
pleasant pictures. Although he said his whole
life had " been passed like a razor, in hot water
or a scrape," the years spent here seem to have
been happy ones. Even his removal to this
house while it was yet so damp that the walls
A Literary Pilgrimage
ran down with wet and the grounds were so
miry that his wife lost her shoes at the door,
was made enjoyable. He writes to one friend,
" I am too busy to be lonely ;" to another, " I
thank God who made me poor that he also
made me merry, a better gift than much land with
a doleful heart ;" to another, " I am content
and doubling in size every year ;" to Lady Grey,
" Come and see how happy people can be in a
small parsonage ;" to Jeffrey, " My situation is
one of great solitude, but I possess myself in
cheerfulness." He had expended upon his im
provements here more than the living was worth,
therefore economy ruled the selection of the
personnel of this establishment. Faithful Annie
Kay was first employed as child's-maid ; later she
was housekeeper and trusted friend, removed
from here with her loved master, attended him
in his last illness, and lies near him in the long
sleep. A garden girl, made like a mile-stone,
was hired by Smith, who " christened her Bunch,
gave her a napkin, and made her his butler."
Jack Robinson was retained as general factotum
of the place, and Molly Mills, " a yeowoman,
with short petticoat, legs like mill-posts, and
cheeks shrivelled like winter apples," did duty as
" cow-, pig-, poultry-, garden-, and post-woman."
Guests testify that good-natured training had,
out of this unpromising material, produced such
'54
Guests Reminiscences
efficient servants that the household ran smoothly
in the stress of much company. For, despite the
seclusion of Smith's retreat, his fame and the
charm and wit of his conversation drew many
visitors to his house. Lords Carlisle and Mor-
peth were almost weekly guests ; Sir Humphry
Davy and his gifted wife were many times guests
for days together ; among those^who came less
frequently were Jeffrey, Macaulay, Marcet,
Dugald Stewart, John Murray, Mackintosh, and
Lord and Lady Holland, with many of less
fame ; and we may imagine something of the
scintillant converse these rooms knew when the
master wit entertained such company. Neither
his friends nor his literary pursuits were allowed
to interfere with his attentions to the simple
rustics of his parish ; in sickness and trouble he
was tireless in their service, furnishing medicines,
food, and clothing out of his slender means.
During the prevalence of an infectious fever he
was constantly among them, as physician, nurse,
and priest. The oldest parishioners speak of him
by his Christian name, and testify that he was
universally beloved. One lately remembered
that Sydney had cared for his father during a
long illness and maintained the family until he
could return to his work. Another had been
accustomed, as a child, to run after Sydney on
the highway and cling to him until he bestowed
'55
A Literary Pilgrimage
the sugar-plums he always carried in his pockets.
In one portion of the glebe we found small
enclosures of land stocked with abundant fruit-
trees and called Sydney's Orchards, which were
planted by him and given to the parishioners at
a nominal rental.
Smith's solitary excursions through the parish
were made astride a gaunt charger, called by him
Calamity, noted for length of limb and strength
of appetite, as well as for a propensity to part
company with his rider, sometimes throwing the
great Smith " over his head into the next parish."
But when the rector's family were to accom
pany him, the ancient green chariot was
employed. This was believed to have been the
first vehicle of the kind, was purchased by Smith
at second (or twenty-second) hand, and was from
time to time partially restored by the unskilled
village mechanics. Anent this structure the
delightful Smith writes, " Each year added to its
charms : it grew younger and younger : a new
wheel, a new spring ; I christened it the Im
mortal : it was known everywhere : the village
boys cheered it, the village dogs barked at it."
To the ends of the shafts Smith attached a rod
so that it projected in front of the horse and
sustained a measure of grain just beyond his
reach, a device which evoked a maximum of
speed from the beast with the minimum of
156
The Chariot Church
exertion on the part of the driver, the deluded
horse being " stimulated to unwonted efforts by
hope of overtaking the provender." We have
talked with some in the vicinage who remem
bered seeing Smith and his family riding in this
perennial chariot, drawn by a plough-horse
which was harnessed with plough-lines and
driven by a plough-boy.
A mile from the rectory, past the few strag
gling cottages of the hamlet, we come to the
quaint little church of Foston, one of the oldest
in England. It was already in existence in 1081
when Doomsday Book was compiled, being then
the property of Earl Allen : later it was con
veyed to St. Mary's Abbey, whose ruins mar
vellously beautiful even in decay we find at the
gates of York. It is noteworthy that this church
of Foston early contained an image of the Virgin
of such repute that people flocked to it in great
numbers, and in 1313 the archbishop issued an
edict that they should not desert their own
churches to come here. Smith's church is
prettily placed upon a gentle eminence from
which we look across a wave-like expanse of
smiling fields to steeper slopes beyond, a picture
of pastoral peace and calm. Beneath the many
mouldering heaps of the church-yard sleep the
rustic poor for whom Smith labored, many of
them having been committed to their narrow
157
A Literary Pilgrimage
cells, " in the certain hope of the life to come,"
by his kindly hands. Among the graves stands
the old church, the plainest and smallest of its
kind. The present venerable and reverend in
cumbent, to whom we are indebted for many
courtesies, has at his own expense restored the
chancel as a memorial of his wife, but the
principal portion of the edifice remains the same
" miserable hovel" that Macaulay described in
Smith's day. A heavy porch shelters the en
trance, and above this is a sculptured Norman
arch of great antiquity, a Scripture subject being
graven upon each stone, that upon the key-block
representing the Last Supper. The bare walls
are surmounted by a dilapidated belfry, and the
barn-like edifice is desolate and neglected. We
find the interior dismal and depressive, and quite
unchanged since Smith's time, save that the stove
pipe now enters a flue instead of emerging
through a window. The quaint old pulpit,
perched high in the corner opposite the gallery
and beneath a huge sounding-board, is the same
in which he so often stood ; its frayed and faded
cushions are said to be those that he belabored
in his discourses, and out of which, on one
occasion, he raised such a cloud of dust " that
for some minutes he lost sight of the congrega
tion." The pewter communion plate he used
is preserved in a recess of the wall. Across the
158
Smith's Church
end and along one side of the church extends a
gallery, in which sat the children under Smith's
sharp eye, and kept in order, as some remember,
by " a threaten-shake of his head." Along the
front of this gallery ugly wooden pegs are aligned,
on which the occupants of the pews hang their
wraps, and so diminutive is the place that there
are but four pews between door and pulpit.
The present rector, whose father owned most
of the parish and was Smith's firm friend, at
tended as a boy Smith's ministrations here, and
remembers something of the direct eloquence
of his sermons and their impressive effect upon
the auditors. Attracted by his fame, some came
from far to hear him preach who afterward
became his ardent friends, among these being
Macaulay and the Mrs. Apreece whom de Stael
depicted as " Corinne" and who subsequently,
as wife of Humphry Davy, was guest at The
Rector's Head. In this shabby little church
Smith gave away his daughter Emily, the Arch
bishop of York reading the marriage service ;
and not long after Smith removed to Somerset,
and Foston saw him no more.
The church contains no memorial of any sort
in memory of Smith. The decayed condition/
of this temple has long been a reproach to the
resident gentry. Since those whose property
interests are most concerned in the restoration
J59
A Literary Pilgrimage
of the church have declined to enter upon it,
the good rector contemplates undertaking it at
his own charge. Not long ago he was engaged
upon the plans, and it may be that, by the time
these pages reach the reader, Foston church as
Smith knew it will have ceased to exist. The
writer has a lively hope that some of the New
World pilgrims who have marked other Old
World shrines which else had been neglected,
will set in these renovated walls an enduring
memorial -of pictured glass or sculptured stone
or graven metal in remembrance of the illus
trious author-divine who, during his best years,
ministered in this lowly place to a congregation
of rude and unlettered poor.
160
NITHSDALE RAMBLES
Scott Hogg Wordsivorth Carlyle's Birthplace Homes
Grave Burns' s Haunts Tomb Jeanie Deans Old Mor
tality, etc.-Annie Laurie's Birthplace-Habitation-Poet-
Lover-Descendants.
the " Heart of Mid-Lothian" and the
many shrines of picturesque Edinburgh,
once the literary capital of Britain, our saunter-
ings bring us to other haunts of the " Wizard
of the North :" to his oft described Abbotsford,
that baronial " romance in stone and lime,"
with its libraries and armories, its precious
relics and more precious memories of its illus
trious builder and occupant, who here literally
" wrote himself to death ;" to the dream-like,
ivy-grown ruins of holy Melrose, whose beauties
he sang and within whose crumbling walls he
lingered and mused ; to his tomb fittingly placed
amid the ruined arches and mouldering pillars
of Dryburgh Abbey, embowered by venerable
trees and mantled by clinging vines. Strolling
thence among the " Braes of Yarrow," the Yar
row of Wordsworth and Hamilton, through the
haunts of Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, and pass
ing the Hartfell, we come into the dale of
Annan, and follow that winsome water past
Moffat, where lived Burns's daughter, to historic
Applegarth, and thence by Lockerby approach
L 161
A Literary Pilgrimage
Ecclefechan, the hamlet of Carlyle's birth and
sepulture. Among the lowly stone cottages on
the straggling street of the rude village is a
double dwelling with an arched passage-way
through the middle of its lower story ; this
humble structure was erected by the stone
mason James Carlyle, and the northern end of it
was his home when his illustrious son was born.
Opening from the street is a narrow door ; beside
it is a diminutive window, with a similar one
above and another over the arch. The exterior
is now smartened somewhat, the shillings of
pilgrims would pay for that, but the abode is
pathetically small, bare, and poor. The one
lower room is so contracted that the Carlyles
could not all sit at the table, and Thomas used
to eat his porridge outside the door. Some
Carlyle relics from Cheyne Row letters, por
traits, pieces of china, study-lamp, tea-caddy,
and other articles are preserved in the room
above, and adjoining it is the narrow chamber
above the archway where the great historian,
essayist, and cynic was born. In this comfort
less home, and amid the dreary surroundings of
this hard and rough village, which is little im
proved since the days of border war and pillage,
he was reared. The stern savagery of the
physical horizon of his boyhood here, and the
hateful and uncongenial character of his environ-
162
Carlyle's Birthplace Grave
ment at the most impressionable period of his
life, may account to us for much of the morose
cynicism of his later years. Further excuse for
his petulance and his acerbities of tongue and
temper is found in his dyspepsia, and a very
limited experience of Ecclefechan cookery suf
fices to convince us that his indigestion was
another unhappy sequence of his early life in
this border hamlet. In "Sartor Resartus" he
has vivaciously recorded some of the incidents
and impressions of his childhood here, notably
the passage of the Carlisle coach, like "some
terrestrial moon, coming from he knew not
where, going he knew not whither." A shabby
cross-street leads to the village graveyard,
which was old a thousand years ago, and there,
within a few rods of the spot of his birth, the
great Carlyle is forever laid, with his parents
and kindred. The yard is a forlorn enclosure,
huddled with hundreds of unmarked graves, and
with other hundreds of crumbling memorials
drooping aslant among the brambles which infest
the place. The tombstone of Carlyle, within
an iron railing, is a little more pretentious
than those about it, but his grave seems
neglected ; daisies and coarse grass grow about
it, and the only tokens of reverent memory
it bears are placed by Americans, who constitute
the majority of the pilgrims to this place. Not
163
A Literary Pilgrimage
far from the kirk-yard is a lowly cottage, hardly
better than a hut, in which dwelt Burns's " Lass
of Ecclefechan."
By a transverse road from Lockerby we come
to the ruined Lochmaben Castle of Bruce, and
thence into Nithsdale and to Dumfries, the
ancient capital of southwestern Scotland. Here
lived Edward Irving, and here Allan Cunning
ham toiled as a common mason ; but the gray
town is interesting to us chiefly because of its
associations with Burns. Here are the tavern,
familiar to us as the " howfF," which he fre
quented, and where he made love to the bar
maid, " Anna of the Gowden Locks ;" the
parlor where his wit kept the table in a roar ;
the heavy chair in the " ingle neuk" where he
habitually sat, and, in the room above, the lines
to " Lovely Polly Stewart" graven by his hand
upon the pane. From the inn a malodorous
lane, named Burns Street, and oft threaded by
the bard when he " wasna fou but just had
plenty," leads to the poor dwelling where lived
and died the poet of his country and of mankind.
An environment more repulsive and depressing,
a spot more unworthy to be the home of a poet
of nature, can scarcely be imagined. Here not
a flower nor a green bough, not even a grass-
blade, met his vision, not one beautiful object
appeased his poetic taste ; he saw only the
164
Dumfries Burns's Dwelling Tomb
squalid street infested by unwashed bairns and
bordered by rows of mean cottages. How shall
we extol the genius which in such an uncon
genial atmosphere produced those exquisite
poems which for a century have been read and
loved in every clime ? His own dwelling, a
bare two-storied cottage, is hardly more decent
than its neighbors. Within, we find a kitchen
and sitting-room, small and low-ceiled ; above, a
windowed closet, sometimes used by the poet
as a study, and the poor little chamber where
he died, only thirty-seven years after he first
saw the light in the clay biggin by his bonnie
Doon.
The interior of St. Michael's Church has
been refitted, and the sacristan can show us now
only the site of Burns's seat, behind a great
pillar which hid him from the preacher, and
that of the Jenny on whose bonnet he saw the
" crowlin' " pediculus. Through the crowded
church-yard a path beaten by countless pilgrims
from every quarter of the globe conducts to the
place where he lies with " Bonnie Jean" and
some of their children. The costly mausoleum
which now covers his tomb erected by those
who had neglected or shunned him in his life
is to us less impressive than the poor little grave
stone which the faithful Jean first placed above
him, which now forms part of the pavement.
165
A Literary Pilgrimage
The ambitious statue, designed to represent
Genius throwing her mantle over Burns at the
plough, suggests, as some one has said, that a
bath-woman bringing a wet sheet to an unwill
ing patient had served as a model. Oddly
enough, the grave of John Bushby, an attorney
oft lampooned in Burns's verse, lies but a few
feet from that of the poet.
Our ramble along the wimpling Nith lies for
the most part in a second Burnsland, so closely
is it associated with his personality and poetry.
The beauties of the stream itself are celebrated
in half a score of his songs. Every seat and
scene are sung in his verse ; every neighborhood
and almost every house preserve some priceless
relic or some touching reminiscence of the
ploughman-bard. A short way above Dumfries
we come to the picturesque ruin of Lincluden
Abbey, at the meeting of the waters of Cluden
and Nith. The crumbling walls are enshrouded
in ivy and surrounded by giant trees, among
which Burns loved to loiter. His " Evening
View" and " Vision" commemorate this ruin,
and the poem " Lincluden" was written here.
In a tasteful cottage not far from the Abbey
sojourned the Mrs. Goldie who communicated
to Scott the incidents which he wrought into
his " Heart of Mid-Lothian," and it was in the
little kitchen of this cottage that the lady talked
1 66
Jeanie Deans Carlyle's Craigenputtock
with Helen Walker, the original Jeanie Deans.
In a poor little low-eaved dwelling, a mile or
two up the valley, that heroine lived, keeping a
dame's school and rearing chickens ; and our
course along the tuneful stream brings us to the
ancient and sequestered kirk-yard of Irongray,
where, among the grass-grown graves of the
Covenanters, her ashes repose beneath a tomb
stone erected by Scott himself and marked by
an inscription from his hand : " Respect the
Grave of Poverty when associated with love of
Truth and dear Affection." Farther in this
lovely region we come to ancient Dunscore and
the monument of Scott's " Old Mortality ;" and
beyond Moniaive we find, near the source of
the Cairn, Craigenputtock the abode where
" Thomas the Thunderer prepared his bolts"
before he removed to London. This dreary
place, " the loneliest in Britain," had been the
abode of many generations of Mrs. Carlyle's
ancestors, among whom were " several black
guards but not one blockhead," and Carlyle
rebuilt and furnished the house here to which
he brought the bride he had wedded after his
repulsion by his fair Rose-goddess, the Blumine
of his " Romance." It is a severely plain and
substantial two-storied structure of stone with
steep gables. The entrance is under a little
porch in the middle of the front ; on either side
167
A Literary Pilgrimage
is a single window, with another above it in the
second story. There are comfortable and com
modious rooms at each side of the entrance, and
a large kitchen is joined at the back. Carlyle's
study, a rather sombre apartment, with a dispirit
ing outlook, is at the left ; a fireplace which the
sage especially loved is in one wall, his writing-
table stood near it, and here he sat and clothed
in virile diction the brilliant thoughts which had
come to him as he paced among his trees or
loitered on the near hill-tops. The dining-room
and parlor are on the other side, looking out
upon wild and gloomy crags. Mrs. Carlyle's
pen long ago introduced us to this interior, and,
although all her furniture, except perhaps the
kitchen " dresser," has been removed, we recog
nize the household nooks she has mentioned.
The kitchen, which was the scene of her tear
ful housekeeping trials, seems most familiar;
its chimney retains its abominable habits, but
a recent incumbent, instead of crying as did
Mrs. Carlyle, declared the " chimla made her
feel like sweerin'." Great ash-trees, which were
old when the sage dwelt beneath them, overtop the
house; many beautiful flowers some survivors of
those planted by Carlyle and his wife bloom in
the yard. In front a wide field slopes away to
a tributary of the Cairn, but sombre moorland
hills rise at the back and cluster close about the
1 68
Carlyle's Craigenputtock
house on either side, imparting to the place an
indescribably depressing aspect : as we contem
plate the desolate savagery of this wilderness,
we can understand why one of Carlyle's prede
cessors here killed himself and others " took to
drink."
The bare summit behind the house overlooks
Carlyle's estate of a thousand acres and, beyond
it, an expanse of bleak hills and black morasses.
From the craggy brow on the left, the spot
where Carlyle and Emerson sat and talked of the
immortality of the soul, we see Dunscore and a
superb vista of the valley towards Dumfries and
the Wordsworth country. The isolation of this
place so complete that at one time not even a
beggar came here for three months was an
advantage to Carlyle at this period. He speaks
of it as a place of plain living and high
thinking : life here appeared to him " an hum
ble russet-coated epic," and long afterward he
referred to the years of their stay in this waste
as being " perhaps the happiest of their lives."
This expresses his own feeling rather than that
of his wife, whose discontent finds expression in
many ways, notably in her poem " To a
Swallow." Carlyle produced here some of his
best work, including the matchless " Sartor
Resartus," the essay on Burns, and several
scintillant articles for the various reviews which
169
A Literary Pilgrimage
denoted the rise of a new star of genius ; but
the period of his stay here was essentially one
of study and thought, and, plenteous as it was in
production, it was more prolific in preparation
for the great work he had to do. To Carlyle
in this solitude Jeffrey was a visitor, as well as
" Christopher North," Hazlitt, and Edward
Irving : hither, " like an angel from heaven,"
came Emerson to greet the new genius on the
threshold of its career and to enjoy the " quiet
night of clear, fine talk." Carlyle bequeathed
this estate to the University of Edinburgh.
Another day, our ramble follows the wind
ing Nith northward from Lincluden. As we
proceed, the lovely and opulent dale, once the
scene of clannish strife, presents an appearance
of peaceful beauty, pervaded everywhere with
the sentiment of Burns. In one enchanting
spot the stream circles about the grounds of
ancient Friars Carse, now a tasteful and pretty
seat. It was erstwhile the residence of Burns's
friend Riddel, to which the poet was warmly
welcomed : here he composed the poem " Thou
whom Chance may hither lead," and here he
presided at the famous drinking-match which he
told to future ages in " The Whistle." It is
noteworthy that the first Scotch winner of the
Whistle was father of Annie Laurie of the popu
lar song, and that the contest here was between
170
Friars Carse Burns's Ellisland
two of her grandnephews and her grandson,
the latter being victorious. Burns celebrated
his friend of this old hermitage in seven of his
poems ; and the present proprietor carefully
cherishes the window upon whose pane the
bard inscribed " Lines written in Friars Carse."
A little way beyond lies Druidical Holywood,
where once dwelt the author of " De Sphaera,"
and next we find the Nith curving among the
acres which Burns tilled in his happiest years,
at Ellisland. Embowered in roses and perched
upon an eminence overhanging the stream is the
plain little dwelling which he erected with his
own hands for the reception of his bonnie Jean.
It is little changed since the time he lived under
its lowly roof. We think the rooms dingy and
bare, but they are better than those of his abode
at Alloway and Mossgiel, much better than those
in which he died at Dumfries. In the largest
of the apartments, by a window which looks
down the dreamful valley, Burns had a rude
table, and here he penned some of the most
touchingly beautiful poetry of our language,
poems which he had pondered as he worked or
walked afield. Adjoining the house is the yard
where he produced the exquisite lines " To
Mary in Heaven ;" in this near-by field he met
" The Wounded Hare" of his verse ; in yonder
path along the murmuring Nith he composed the
171
A Literary Pilgrimage
immortal " Tarn O'Shanter," laughing aloud the
while at the pictures his fancy conjured ; and all
about us are reminders of the bard and of the
idyllic life which here inspired his muse: it
would repay a longer journey to see the spot
where the one song "John Anderson, my Jo"
was pondered and written.
A further jaunt amid varied beauties of wood
land shade and meadow sunshine, of gentle dale
and savage scaur, brings us past historic Close-
burn to the neighborhood of Thornhill. Here
at the Buccleuch Arms the illegitimate daughter
of Burns was for thirty years a servant, and
boasted of having had a chat with Scott among
the burnished utensils of her kitchen. Two
miles eastward Scott found the Balfour's Cave
and Leap described in " Old Mortality." Mid
dle Nithsdale expands into a broad valley, com
manded by lofty Queensberry and lower green
hills and diversified with upland brae, shadowy
copse, sunny mead, and opulent plantation. This
lovely region, dotted with pretty hamlets, em
bowered villas, and moss-grown ruins, and teem
ing with the charming associations of history and
sentiment, holds for us a crowning interest which
has drawn our steps into its romantic haunts : it
was the birthplace and life-long home of Annie
Laurie. On the right of the Nith, among the
bonnie braes of the song, we find the ancient
172
Annie Laurie Early Home
manor-house of Maxwelton, where the heroine
was born. The first of her race to reside here
was her great-grandfather, who in 1611 built
additions to the old tower already existing.
The marriage-stone of Annie Laurie's grand
parents, John Laurie and Agnes Grierson, is
set in the massive walls and graven with their
initials, crest, and date. This Agnes was
daughter of the bloody persecutor who figures in
" Redgauntlet," and whose ashes lie in Dunscore
kirk-yard, not far distant. Another stone in the
Maxwelton house commemorates the marriage
of Robert Laurie and Jean Riddel, the parents
of the heroine of the song, this Robert being
the champion of Bacchus who won the Whistle
from the noble Danish toper. In this ancient
abode, according to a record made by her father,
"At the pleasure of the Almighty God, my
daughter Anna Laurie was born upon the i6th
day of Deer., 1682 years, about six o'clock
in the morning ;" here the bonnie maiden grew
to womanhood ; here occurred the episode to
which the world is indebted for the sweet song ;
from here she married and went to her future
home, but a few miles away. In the last cen
tury much of the venerable edifice was destroyed,
but the older portion, which had been part of a
stronghold in the time of the border wars, remains
intact since Annie dwelt within. This part is
173
A Literary Pilgrimage
still called The Tower, and consists of a large
rectangular structure, with a ponderous semi
circular fabric abutting it at one end, its fortress-
like walls being five feet in thickness and clothed
by a luxuriant growth of ivy. Newer portions
have been added in varying styles, and the man
sion is now an elegant and substantial seat. All
about it lie terraced lawns, with parterres of
flowers, noble trees, and banks of shrubbery :
lovely grounds slope away from the house and
command an enchanting view which must often
have delighted the vision of the fair Annie.
Her boudoir is in the second story of The
Tower ; it is a corner room, forming now an
alcove of the drawing-room ; it has a vaulted
ceiling of stone, and its windows, pierced in the
ponderous walls, look out through the ivy and
across an expanse of sward, flower, and foliage
to the wooded braes where she kept tryst with
her lover. Among the treasures of the old
house is a portrait of the bonnie heroine which
shows her as an impressively beautiful woman,
of lissome figure, large and tender eyes, long
oval face with Grecian features, wide forehead
framed by a profusion of dark-brown hair. Her
hands, like her " fairy feet," were of exceptional
smallness and beauty. The present owner of
Maxwelton, to whom the writer is indebted for
many courtesies, is Sir Emilius Laurie ; from
174
Annie Laurie and her Lover
him and from the lineal descendants of the
widely-sung Annie who still inhabit Nithsdale
are derived the materials for this account of that
winsome lady. The lover who immortalized
her was William Douglas of Fingland, and she
requited him by breaking " her promise true"
and marrying another man. Douglas is said to
have been the hero of the song " Willie was a
Wanton Wag ;" he was one of the best swords
men of his time, and his personal qualities
gained him the patronage of the Queensberry
family and secured him social advantages to which
his lower rank and poverty constituted no claim.
He and Annie met at an Edinburgh ball, and
seem to have promptly become enamoured of each
other. To separate them, Sir Robert quickly
carried his family back to Nithsdale, but Douglas
as quickly followed, and lurked in the vicinage
for some months, clandestinely meeting his love
among " Maxwelton's bonnie braes." Here the
pair plighted troth, and when Douglas returned
to Edinburgh, to assist in a projected Stuart up
rising, he took with him the promise which he
celebrated in the tender melody. The song was
published in an Edinburgh paper and attracted
much notice. Douglas's devotion to the Jacob
ites cost him his sweetheart; his political in
trigues being suspected, he was forced to fly the
country, and when, after some years passed in
175
A Literary Pilgrimage
France, he secured pardon and returned, she
was the wife of another. After giving " her
promise true" to some other lovers, she married
in 1709 Alexander Fergusson, a neighboring
laird, who could not write poetry but had
" muckle siller an* Ian' " and a genealogy as long
as Leviticus. Douglas and Annie never met
again, and she makes but a single reference to
him in her letters : being told of his return, she
wrote to her sister, Mrs. Riddel, grandmother
of Burns's friend, " I trust he has forsaken his
treasonable opinions and is content."
A stroll of but a few miles along a delightful
way, fanned by the sweet summer winds, brings
us to Craigdarrock, Annie Laurie's home for
more than half a century. It is a spacious and
handsome edifice of three stories, with dormer-
windows in the hip-roof; a conservatory is
connected at one end, bow-windows project
from either side, and clambering vines cover the
walls of the lower stories.
It is beautifully placed in a vale overlooking the
winding stream, with the rugged Craigdarrock
looming steeply in the background. Most of
the mansion was built under the direction of
Annie Laurie, and the gardens were laid out by
her in their formal style : a delightful walk
beneath the trees on the margin of the water was
her favorite resort, and is still known by her
176
HOME OF ANNIE LAURIE
A Literary Pilgrimage
France, he secured pardon md returned, she
was the wife of another. After giving "her
promise true" to tome other lovers, she married
in 1709 Alexander ' -puison, a neighboring
laird, whr. could c poetry but had
" muckK and a genealogy as long
as Leviticus. Doughi and Annie never met
again, and sho m*>t* but a single reference to
him in her ]-,-:er* : being told of his return, she
wrote to her sister, Mrs. Riddel, grandmother
of Burns's friend, " I trust he has forsaken his
treasonable opinions and is content."
A stroll of but a few miles along a delightful
way, fanned by the sweet summer winds, brings
us to Craigdarrock, Annie Laurie's home for
more than half a century. It is a spacious and
handsome edifice of three < n dormer-
window ca*enratorv is
conn* 'ojcct
from ..unbering vine-* cover the
walls of the lower stories.
It is beautifully placed in a vale overlooking the
winding stream, with the rugged Craigdarrock
looming steeply in the background. Most of
the mansion was built under the direction of
Annie Laurie, and the gardens were laid uut by
her in their formal style : a delightful walk
beneath the trees on the margin of the water was
her favorite resort, and is still known by her
176
iinwA 10
Her Later Home Burial-place
name. Within the spacious rooms are preserved
many of her belongings : curious furniture and
hangings, quaint fineries of dress, her porcelain
snuff-box, her will, a package of her letters
written in the prim fashion of her time and
signed "Anna." Through these epistles we
look in vain for indications of the wit and genius
which one naturally attributes to the possessor
of the bright face which inspired a deathless
song. In this house she lived happily with her
husband, and was at once the Lady Bountiful and
the matchmaker-in-ordinary for the whole
countryside ; here she died, aged seventy-nine.
This estate has been handed down from father
to son for fifteen generations, the present urbane
laird, Captain Cutlar Fergusson, being a great-
great-grandson of Annie Laurie and grandson
of the hero of Burns's " Whistle." This famous
trophy a plain object in dark wood is pre
served here at Craigdarrock, and has not been
challenged for since the bout which Burns
witnessed.
In the now ruined church of Glencairn,
hardly a mile from her birthplace, and not far
from her later home, Annie Laurie worshipped,
and in its yard, which has been a place of burial
for a thousand years, she was laid with her hus
band, among the many generations of his kindred,
by the gable-end of the ancient church. Her
M , 77
A Literary Pilgrimage
sepulchre was not marked, and it is to be feared
the bones of the erst beauteous lady have been
more than once disturbed in excavating for later
interments in the crowded plot. From the
summit of Craigdarrock we look upon the wilder
beauty of the upper Nith, a region of moorland
hills and dusky glens, where we may find the
birthplace of " the Admirable Crichton," and
beyond it the bleak domain where the poet
Allan Ramsay first saw the light. Beyond this,
again, the sweet Afton " flows amang its green
braes," and we come to the Ayrshire shrines of
Burns.
A few miles westward from Craigdarrock, and
not so far from Carlyle's lonely den, is Fingland
farm, the birthplace and home of Annie's poet-
lover. It lies among sterile hills in the wild
Glenkens of ancient Galloway, near the source
of Ken water. From neighboring elevations
we see Craigenputtock and the swelling Sol-
way, and westward we look, across the dark
fens and heathery hills of the region " blest
with the smell of bog-myrtle and peat," al
most to the Irish Sea. In this region Crockett
was reared, and he pictures it in his charm
ing tales " The Raiders" and " The Lilac Sun-
bonnet."
No trace of the peel-tower in which Douglas
dwelt remains, but we know that it stood within
178
Annie Laurie The Singer and the Song
an enclosing wall twenty yards square and one
yard in thickness. The tower had projecting
battlements ; its apartments, placed above each
other, were reached by a narrow, easily defended
stair. In such a home and amid this most dis
mal environment Douglas grew to manhood, his
poetic power unsuspected until it was called
forth by the love and beauty of Annie Laurie.
Later he wrote many poems, but diligent inquiry
among the families of Buccleuch and Queens-
berry shows that few of his productions are now
extant save the famous love-song. It is notable
that he did not " lay doun his head and die"
for the faithless Annie ; instead, he made a run
away marriage with Elizabeth Clerk, of Glen-
borg, in his native Galloway, subsided into
prosy country life, and reared a family of six
children, of whom one, Archibald, rose to the
rank of lieutenant-general in Brittany.
Douglas's song was revised by Lady Scott,
sister of the late Duke of Buccleuch, and pub
lished by her for the benefit of the widows and
orphans made by the Crimean War. Lines of
the original, for which the writer is indebted to
a descendant of Annie Laurie, are hereto ap
pended, that the reader may appreciate how much
of the tender beauty of the popular version of
the song is attributable to the poetic talent of
Lady Scott.
179
A Literary Pilgrimage
" Maxwelton banks are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew,
Where me and Annie Laurie
Made up the promise true :
Made up the promise true,
And ne'er forget will I :
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay doun my head and die.
" She's backit like a peacock ;
She's breastit like a swan ;
She's jimp about the middle ;
Her waist ye weel may span :
Her waist ye weel may span,
She has a rolling eye ;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay doun my head and die."
180
A NIECE OF ROBERT BURNS
Her Burns/and Cottage-Reminiscences of Sums-Relics Por
traits Letters Recitations-account of his Death Memo
ries of his Home Of Bonnie yean Other Heroines.
TN the course of a summer ramble in Burns-
land we had sought out the homes, the
haunts, the tomb of the ploughman poet, and had
bent at many a shrine hallowed by his memory
or his song. From the cottage of " Bonnie
Jean" and the tomb of " Holy Willie," the field
of the " Mountain Daisy" and the church of the
"Holy Fair," the birthplace of "Highland
Mary" and the grave of " Mary Morison," we
came to the shrines of auld Ayr, beside the sea.
Here we find the " Twa Brigs" of his poem ; the
graves of the ministers satirized in " The Kirk's
Alarm ;" the old inn of " Tarn O'Shanter," and
the very room, with its ingle, where Tarn and
Souter Johnny " got fou thegither," and where
we may sip the nappy from the wooden caup
which Tarn often drained. From Ayr a delight
ful stroll along the highway where Tam made
his memorable ride, and where William Burns
carried the howdie upon the pillion behind him
on another stormy winter's night when the poet
was born, brought us to the hamlet of Alloway
and the place of Burns's early life. Here are the
auld clay biggin, with its rude stone floor and
181
A Literary Pilgrimage
roof of thatch, erected by the unskilled hands
of his father, where the poet first saw the light,
and where he laid the scene of the immortal
"Cotter's Saturday Night;" the fields where
his young hands toiled to aid his burdened sire ;
the kirk-yard where his kindred lie buried, some
of their epitaphs written by him ; the " auld
haunted kirk," where Tarn interrupted the
witches' dance, unknown save for the genius of
the lad born by its roofless walls; the Burns
monument, with its priceless relics ; the ivy-
grown bridge, four centuries old, whose arch
spans the songful stream and across which Tarn
galloped in such sore peril, and its " key-stane,"
where Meg lost " her ain gray tail" to Nannie,
fleetest of the pursuers ; the enchanting " banks
and braes of bonnie Doon," where Burns wan
dered a brown-eyed boy, and later found the in
spiration of many of his exquisite strains. We
have known few scenes more lovely than this
in which his young life was passed : long and
delightful is our lingering here, for interwoven
with the many natural beauties are winsome
memories of the bard whose spirit and genius
pervade all the scene.
Returning thence past the " thorn aboon the
well" (the well is closed now) and the " meikle-
stane" to the ancient ford " where in the snaw
the chapman smoor'd," we made a detour south.
181
Miss Burns Begg Bridgeside Cot
ward, and came by a pleasant way having in
view on the right the picturesque ruin of Greenan
Castle upon a cliff overhanging the sea to
Bridgeside cottage, the home of Miss Isabella
Burns Begg, niece of the poet and long his only
surviving near relative. We found a cottage of
stone, from whose thatched roof a dormer-win
dow, brilliant with flowers, peeped out through
the foliage which half concealed the tiny home-
let. The trimmest of little maids admitted us
at the gate and led along a path bordered with
flowers to the cottage door, where stood Miss
Begg beaming a welcome upon the pilgrims
from America. We were ushered into a pret
tily furnished little room, upon whose walls
hung a portrait of Burns, one of his sister Mrs.
Begg, and some framed autograph letters of the
bard, which the niece " knew by heart." She
was the daughter and namesake of Burns's young
est and favorite sister, who married John Begg.
We found her a singularly active and vivacious
old lady, cheery and intelligent, and more than
pleased to have secured appreciative auditors for
her reminiscences of her gifted uncle. She was
of slender habit, had a bright and winning face,
soft gray hair partially concealed by a cap, and
when she was seated beneath the Burns por
trait we could see that her large dark eyes
now sparkling with merriment or misty with
'83
A Literary Pilgrimage
emotion, and again literally glowing with feeling
were like those on the canvas. Among the
treasures of this room was a worn copy of
Thomson's "Seasons," a favorite book of
Burns, which he had freely annotated; his
name in it is written " Burnes," as the family
spelled it down to the publication of the bard's
first volume. In the course of a long and pleas
ant chat we learned that Miss Begg had lived
many years in the cottage, first with her mother
and later with her sister Agnes, named for
Burns's mother, who died before our visit and
was laid beside her parents and the father of
Burns in the kirk-yard of auld Alloway, where
Miss Begg expected " soom day, please God an
it be soon," to go to await the resurrection,
thinking it an "ill hap" that she survived her
sister. She innocently inquired if we " kenned
her nephew Robert in America," and then ex
plained that he and a niece of hers had formerly
lived with her, but she had discovered that " they
were sweetheartin' and wantin' to marry, which
she wouldna allow, so they went to America,"
leaving her alone with her handmaiden. Most
of her visitors had been Americans. She re
membered the visits of Hawthorne, Grant, Stan
ley, and Helen Hunt Jackson, the last with
greatest pleasure, and thought that " Americans
care most about Burns." She mentioned the visit
184
Recitations Bonnie Jean
of a Virginian maid, who by rapturous praise
of the uncle completely won the heart of the
niece. The fair enthusiast had most of Burns's
poems at her tongue's end, but insisted upon
having them repeated by Miss Begg, and at
parting exclaimed, after much kissing, " Oh,
but I always pray God that when he takes me
to heaven he will give me the place next to
Burns." Apparently, Robin still has power to
disturb the peace of " the lasses O." Yet we
can well excuse the effusiveness of our com
patriot : to have listened to the old lady as she
sat under his portrait, her eyes twinkling or
softening like his own, her voice thrilling with
sympathetic feeling as she repeated in his own
sweet dialect the tender stanzas, " But pleasures
are like poppies spread," " My Mary ! dear de
parted shade !" and " Oh, happy love, when
love like this is found," and others of like pathos
and beauty, is a rapture not to be forgotten.
She spoke quickly, and the Scottish accent kept
one's ears on the alert, but it rendered the lines
doubly effective and melodious. Many of the
poems were inspired by special events of which
Miss Begg had knowledge from her mother,
which she recalled with evident relish. She
distinctly remembered the bard's widow, " Bon
nie Jean," and often visited her in the poor
home where he died. Jean had a sunny tern-
185
A Literary Pilgrimage
per, a kind heart, a handsome figure, a fine voice,
and lustrous eyes, but her brunette face was
never bonnie. While she lacked intellectual
appreciation of his genius, she was proud of and
idolized him, finding ready excuse and forgive
ness for his failings. When the frail " Anna
with the Gowden Locks" bore him an illegiti
mate child, Jean cradled it with her own, and
loyally averred to all visitors, " It's only a nee-
bor's bairn I'm bringin' up." (" Ay, she must
'a' lo'ed him," was Miss Begg's comment on this
part of her narrative.) Jean had told that in his
last years the poet habitually wore a blue coat,
with nankeen trousers (when the weather would
allow), and his coat-collar was so high that
his hat turned up at the back. Her account of
the manner of his death is startling, and differs
from that given by the biographers. He lay
apparently asleep when " sweet Jessy" to
whom his last poem was written approached,
and, to remind him of his medicine, touched
the cup to his lips ; he started, drained the cup,
then sprang headlong to the foot of the bed,
threw his hands forward like one about to swim,
and, falling on his face, expired with a groan.
Jean saw him for the last time on the evening
before his funeral, when his wasted body lay in
a cheap coffin covered with flowers, his care
worn face framed by the wavy masses of his
186
Reminiscences Burns' Youth
sable hair, then sprinkled with gray. At his
death he left MSS. in the garret of his abode,
which were scattered and lost because Jean was
unable to take care of them, a loss which must
ever be deplored.
One of the delights of Miss Begg's girlhood
was the converse of Burns's mother concerning
her first-born and favorite child, the poet, a
theme of which she never tired. Miss Begg
remembered her as a " chirk" old lady with
snapping black eyes and an' abundant stock of
legends and ballads. She used to declare that
Bobbie had often heard her sing " Auld Lang
Syne" in his boyhood ; hence it would appear
that, at most, he only revised that precious old
song. Miss Begg more than once heard the
mother tell, with manifest gusto, this incident
of their residence at Lochlea. Robert was al
ready inclined to be wild, and between visiting
his sweetheart Ellison Begbie " the lass of
the twa sparkling, roguish een" and attend
ing the TarboJton club and Masonic lodge was
abroad until an unseemly hour every night, and
his mother or Isabella sat up to let him in. His
anxious sire, the priest-like father of the " Cot
ter's Saturday Night," determined to administer
an effectual rebuke to the son's misconduct, and
one night startled the mother by announcing
significantly that he would wait to admit the
187
A Literary Pilgrimage
lad. She lay for hours (Robert was later than
ever that night), dreading the encounter between
the two, till she heard the boy whistling " Tib
bie Fowler" as he approached. Then the door
opened : the father grimly demanded what had
kept him so late; the son, for reply, gave a
comical description of his meeting auld Hornie
on the way home, an adventure narrated in
the "Address to the De'il," and next the
mother heard the pair seat themselves by the
fire, where for two hours the father roared with
laughter at Robert's ludicrous account of the
evening's doings at the club, she, meanwhile,
nearly choking with her efforts to restrain the
laughter which might remind her husband of his
intended reproof. Thereafter the lad stayed out
as late as he pleased without rebuke. The
niece had been told by her mother that Burns
was deeply distressed at his father's death-bed
by the old man's fears for the future of his way
ward son ; and when his father's death made
Robert the head of the family, he every morn
ing led the household in " the most beautiful
prayers ever heard ;" later, at Ellisland and else
where, he continued this practice, and on the
Sabbath instructed them in the Catechism and
Confession. Mrs. Begg's most pleasing recol
lections of her brother were associated with the
farm-life at Mossgiel, where he so far gave her
188
Mossgiel Recollections
his confidence that she was allowed to see his
poems in the course of their composition. He
would ponder his stanzas during his labors
afield, and when he came to the house for a
meal he would go to the little garret where he
and his brother Gilbert slept and hastily pen
them upon a table which stood under the one
little window. Here Isabella would find them,
and, after repeated perusals, would arrange them
in the drawer ; and so it passed that her bright eyes
were the first, besides his own, to see " The Twa
Dogs," " Winter's Night," " The Bard's Epi
taph," " The Cotter's Saturday Night," the
satirical poems, and most of the productions which
were published in his Kilmarnock volume. His
sister testified that he was always affectionate to
the family, and that after his removal to a home
of his own he invariably brought a present for
each when he revisited the farm, the present for
his mother being always, despite his poverty, a
costly pound of tea. Most of the receipts from
his publishers were given to the family at Moss
giel. Miss Begg intimated that Burns's mother
did not at first like his wife, because of the cir
cumstances of the marriage, but Jean's stanch
devotion to her husband won the heart of the
doting mother, and they became warm friends
and spent much time together after Burns's
death. The niece believed that the accounts
189
A Literary Pilgrimage
of his intemperance are mostly untrue. Her
mother, who was twenty-five years old at the
time of his decease, always asserted that she
" never saw him fou," and believed it was his
antagonism to the ' unco* guid" that made them
ready to believe and circulate any idle report to
his discredit.
Mrs. Begg saw and liked " Highland Mary"
at the house of Gavin Hamilton, and knew Miss
Dunlop, the blooming Keith of Burns's " New-
Year Day." Another of his heroines the niece
had herself visited with her mother ; this was
Mrs. Jessy Thompson, nee Lewars, who was a
ministering angel in his final illness, and was re
paid by the only thing he could bestow, a song
of exquisite sweetness, " Here's a health to ane
I lo'e dear." Our informant had seen in that
lady's hands the lines beginning " Thine be the
volumes, Jessy fair," which the poet gave her
with a present of books within a month of his
death. Many other reminiscences related by
the niece are to be found in the biographies of
the bard, and need not be repeated. The let
ters which hung upon her walls are not included
in any published collection. She assisted us
in copying the following to Burns's youngest
brother :
190
A Letter of Burns
** ISLE, Tuesday Evening.
" DEAR WILLIAM, In my last I recom
mended that valuable apothegm, Learn taciturn
ity. It is certain that nobody can know our
thoughts, and yet, from a slight observation of
mankind, one would not think so. What mis
chiefs daily arise from silly garrulity and foolish
confidence ! There is an excellent Scots saying
that a man's mind is his kingdom. It is cer
tainly so, but how few can govern that kingdom
with propriety ! The serious mischiefs in Busi
ness which this Flux of language occasions do
not come immediately to your situation, but in
another point of view the dignity of man
now is the time that will make or mar. Yours
is the time of life for laying in habits. You
cannot avoid it, tho' you will choose, and these
habits will stick to your last end. At after-
periods, even at so little advance as my years,
'tis true that one may still be very sharp-sighted
to one's habitual failings and weaknesses, but to
eradicate them, or even to amend them, is quite
a different matter. Acquired at first by acci
dent, they by-and-by begin to be, as it were, a
necessary part of our existence. I have not
time for more. Whatever you read, whatever
you hear of that strange creature man, look into
the living world about you, look to yourself, for
191
A Literary Pilgrimage
the evidences of the fact or the application of
the doctrine. I am ever yours,
" ROBERT BURNS.
" MR. WILLIAM BURNS, Saddler, Longtown."
The sentiment and style of this epistle are
suggestive of the stilted conversations of Burns,
recorded in Hugh Miller's " Recollections."
Miss Begg was pleased by some account we could
give her of American Burns monuments and fes
tivals ; she seemed reluctant to have us leave,
called to us a cheery " God keep ye !" when we
were without the gate, and stood looking after
us until the intervening foliage hid her from our
sight. As we walked Ayr-ward, while the sun
was setting in a golden haze behind the hills of
Arran, we felt that we had been very near to
Burns that day, had almost felt the thrill of his
presence, the charm of his voice, and had in
some measure made a personal acquaintance with
him which would evermore move us to a ten
derer regard for the man and a truer appreciation
of his verse, as well as a fuller charity for his
faults:
We know in part what he has done,
God knows what he resisted.
For some months after our visit to Bridgeside,
quaint letters one of them containing a por
trait of the worthy occupant of the cottage
19*
Death of Burns's Niece
followed us thence across the sea. These came
at increasing intervals and then stopped; the
kindly heart of the niece of Burns had ceased to
beat on her eightieth birthday.
A recent pilgrim in Burnsland found an added
line on the gravestone in the old kirk-yard, to
tell that Isabella Burns Begg rests there in
eternal peace. At Bridgeside, her once cher
ished garden is a waste and her tiny cottage has
wholly disappeared. " So do things pass away
like a tale that is told."
193
HIGHLAND MARY: HER
HOMES AND GRAVE
Birthplace Personal Appearance Relation! to Burnt
Abodes : Mauchline, Coilsfield, etc.-Scenet of Courtship
and Parting Mementos Tomb by the Clyde.
'"INHERE is no stronger proof of the transcend-
* ing power of the genius of Burns than is
found in the fact that, by a bare half dozen of
his stanzas, an humble dairy servant else un
heard of outside her parish and forgotten at her
death is immortalized as a peeress of Petrarch's
Laura and Dante's Beatrice, and has been for a
century loved and mourned of all the world.
We owe much of our tenderest poesy to the
heroines whose charms have attuned the fancy
and aroused the impassioned muse of enamoured
bards; readers have always exhibited a natural
avidity to realize the personality of the beings
who inspired the tender lays, prompted often
by mere curiosity, but more often by a desire to
appreciate the tastes and motives of the poets
themselves. How little is known of Highland
Mary, the most famous heroine of modern song,
is shown by the brief, incoherent, and often con
tradictory allusions to her which the biographies
of the ploughman-poet contain. This paper,
prepared during a sojourn in " The Land
o' Burns," while it adds a little to our meagre
194
Birthplace Early Home
knowledge of Mary Campbell, aims to present
consecutively and congruously so much as may
now be known of her brief life, her relations to
the bard, and her sad, heroic death.
She first saw the light in 1764, at Ardrossan,
on the coast, fifteen miles northward from the
" auld town of Ayr." Her parentage was of the
humblest, her father being a sailor before the
mast, and the poor dwelling which sheltered her
was in no way superior to the meanest of those
we find to-day on the narrow streets of her vil
lage. From her birthplace we see, across the
Firth of Clyde, the beetling mountains of the
Highlands, where she afterward dwelt, and
southward the great mass of Ailsa Craig loom
ing, a gigantic pyramid, out of the sea. Mary
was named for her aunt, wife of Peter McPher-
son, a ship-carpenter of Greenock, in whose
house Mary died. In her infancy her family
removed to the vicinage of Dunoon, on the
western shore of the Firth, eight miles below
Greenock, leaving the oldest daughter at Ar
drossan. Mary grew to young womanhood
near Dunoon, then returned to Ayrshire, and
found occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton,
where her acquaintance with Burns soon began.
He told a lady that he first saw Mary while
walking in the woods of Coilsfield, and first
spoke with her at a rustic merry-making, and,
195
A Literary Pilgrimage
" having the luck to win her regards from other
suitors," they speedily became intimate. At this
period of life Burns's " eternal propensity to fall
into love" was unusually active, even for him, and
his passion for Mary (at this time) was one of
several which engaged his heart in the interval
between the reign of Ellison Begbie " the lass
of the twa sparkling, roguish een" and that of
" Bonnie Jean." Mary subsequently became a
servant in the house of Burns's landlord, Gavin
Hamilton, a lawyer of Mauchline, who had
early recognized the genius of the bard and ad
mitted him to an intimate friendship, despite his
inferior condition. When Hamilton was perse
cuted by the kirk, Burns, partly out of sympa
thy with him, wrote the satires, " Holy Willie's
Prayer," " The Twa Herds," and The Holy
Fair," which served to unite the friends more
closely, and brought the poet often to the house
where Mary was an inmate. This house a
sombre structure of stone, little more preten
tious than its neighbors we found on the
shabby street not far from Armour's cottage,
the church of " The Holy Fair," and " Posie
Nansie's" inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" used
to congregate. Among the dingy rooms shown
us in Hamilton's house was that in which he
married Burns to " Bonnie Jean" Armour.
The bard's niece, Miss Begg, of Bridgeside,
196
Personal Appearance
told the writer that she often heard Burns's
mother describe Mary as she saw her at Hamil
ton's : she had a bonnie face, a complexion of
unusual fairness, soft blue eyes, a profusion of
shining hair which fell to her knees, a petite fig
ure which made her seem younger than her
twenty summers, a bright smile, and pleasing
manners, which won the old lady's heart. This
description is, in superlative phrase, corrobo
rated by Lindsay in Hugh Miller's ' Recol
lections :" she was " beautiful, sylph-like," her
bust and neck were " exquisitely moulded," her
arms and feet " had a statue-like symmetry and
marble-like whiteness ;" but it was in her lovely
countenance that " nature seemed to have ex
hausted her utmost skill," " the loveliest creat
ure I have ever seen," etc. All who have
written of her have noticed her beauty, her good
sense, her modesty and self-respect. But these
qualities were now insufficient to hold the roving
fancy of Burns, whose " susceptibility to imme
diate impressions" (so called by Byron, who
had the same failing) passes belief. His first
ephemeral fancy for Mary took little hold upon
his heart, and the best that can be said of it is
that it was more innocent than the loves which
came before and after it. Within a stone's-throw
of Mary dwelt Jean Armour, and when the
former returned to Coilsfield, he promptly fell
197
A Literary Pilgrimage
in love with Jean, and solaced himself with her
more buxom and compliant charms. It was a
year or so later, when his intercourse with Jean
had burdened him with grief and shame, that
the tender and romantic affection for Mary came
into his life. She was yet at Coilsneld, and
while he was in hiding his heart tortured by
the apparent perfidy of Jean and all the country
side condemning his misconduct his intimacy
with Mary was renewed ; his quickened vision
now discerned her endearing attributes, her trust
and sympathy were precious in his distress,
and awoke in him an affection such as he never
felt for any other woman. During a few brief
weeks the lovers spent their evenings and Sab
baths together, loitering amid the
" Banks and braes and streams around
The castle of Montgomery,"
talking of the golden days that were to be theirs
when present troubles were past ; then came the
parting which the world will never forget, and
Mary relinquished her service and went to her
parents at Campbeltown, a port of Cantyre
behind " Arran's mountain isle." Of this part
ing Burns says, in a letter to Thomson, " We
met by appointment on the second Sunday of
May, in a sequestered spot on the Ayr, where
we spent the day in taking farewell before she
198
Betrothal and Parting Mementos
should embark for the West Highlands to pre
pare for our projected change of life." Lovers
of Burns linger over this final parting, and detail
the impressive ceremonials with which the pair
solemnized their betrothal : they stood on either
side of a brook, they laved their hands in the
water and scattered it in the air to symbolize the
purity of their intentions ; clasping hands above
an open Bible, they swore to be true to each
other forever, then exchanged Bibles, and parted
never to meet more. It is not strange that
when death had left him nothing of her but her
poor little Bible, a tress of her golden hair, and
a tender memory of her love, the recollection
of this farewell remained in his soul forever.
He has pictured it in the exquisite lines of
" Highland Mary" and " To Mary in Heaven."
In the monument at Alloway between the
" auld haunted kirk" and the bridge where
Maggie lost her tail we are shown a memento
of the parting ; it is the Bible which Burns gave
to Mary and above which their vows were said.
At Mary's death it passed to her sister, at Ar-
drossan, who bequeathed it to her son William
Anderson ; subsequently it was carried to Amer
ica by one of the family, whence it has been
recovered to be treasured here. It is a pocket
edition in two volumes, to one of which is
attached a lock of poor Mary's shining hair.
199
A Literary Pilgrimage
Within the cover of the first volume the hand
of Burns has written, " And ye shall not swear
by my name falsely, I am the Lord ;" within
the second, " Thou shall not forswear thyself,
but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths."
Upon a blank leaf of each volume is Burns's
Masonic signet, with the signature, " Robert
Burns, Mossgiel," written beneath. Mary's
spinning-wheel is preserved in the adjoining
cottage. A few of her bright hairs, severed in
her fatal fever, are among the treasures of the
writer and lie before him as he pens these lines.
A visit to the scenes of the brief passion of
the pair is a pleasing incident of our Burns-pil
grimage. Coilsfield House is somewhat changed
since Mary dwelt beneath its roof, a great ram
bling edifice of gray weather-worn stone with a
row of white pillars aligned along its fa9ade, its
massive walls embowered in foliage and envi
roned by the grand woods which Burns and
Mary knew so well. It was then a seat of Colo
nel Hugh Montgomerie, a patron of Burns.
The name Coilsfield is derived from Coila, the
traditional appellation of the district. The
grounds comprise a billowy expanse of wood
and sward ; great reaches of turf, dotted with
trees already venerable when the lovers here had
their tryst a hundred years ago, slope away from
the mansion to the Faile and border its mur-
MO
Coilsfield Plans of the Lovers
muring course to the Ayr. Here we trace with
romantic interest the wanderings of the pair
during the swift hours of that last day of part
ing love, their lingering way 'neath the " wild
wood's thickening green," by the pebbled shore
of Ayr to the brooklet where their vows were
made, and thence along the Faile to the wood
land shades of Coilsfield, where, at the close of
that winged day, " pledging oft to meet again,
they tore themselves asunder." Howitt found
at Coilsfield a thorn-tree, called by all the coun
try " Highland Mary's thorn," and believed to
be the place of final parting ; years ago the tree
was notched and broken by souvenir seekers ; if
it be still in existence the present occupant of
Coilsfield is unaware.
At the time of his parting with Mary, Burns
had already resolved to emigrate to Jamaica, and
it has been supposed, from his own statements and
those of his biographers, that the pair planned to
emigrate together ; but Burns soon abandoned
this project and, perhaps, all thought of marrying
Mary. The song commencing " Will ye go to
the Indies, my Mary ?" has been quoted to show
he expected her to accompany him, but he says,
in an epistle to Thomson, that this was his fare
well to her, and in another song, written while
preparing to embark, he declares that it is leaving
Mary that makes him wish to tarry. Further,
A Literary Pilgrimage
we find that with the first nine pounds received
from the sale of his poems he purchased a single
passage to Jamaica, manifestly having no inten
tion of taking her with him. Her being at
Greenock in October, en route to a new place
of service at Glasgow, indicates she had no
hope that he would marry her then, or soon.
True, he afterward said she came to Greenock
to meet him, but it is certain that he knew
nothing of her being there until after her death.
During the summer of 1786, while she was pre
paring to wed him, he indited two love-songs to
her, but they are not more glowing than those
of the same time to several inamoratas, less
impassioned than the " Farewell to Eliza" and
allusions to Jean in " Farewell, old Scotia's bleak
domains," and barely four weeks after his ar
dent and solemn parting with Mary we find him
writing to Brice, " I do still love Jean to dis
traction." Poor Mary ! Possibly the fever
mercifully saved her from dying of a broken
heart. The bard's anomalous affectional condi
tion and conduct may perhaps be explained by
assuming that he loved Mary with a refined and
spiritual passion so different from his love for
others and especially from his conjugal love
for Jean that the passions could coexist in his
heart. The alternative explanation is that his
love for Mary, while she lived, was by no means
202
Burns's Regard for Mary Her Death
the absorbing passion which he afterward be
lieved it to have been. When death had hal
lowed his memories of her love and of all their
sweet intercourse, beneficent death ! that beau
tifies, ennobles, irradiates, in the remembrance
of survivors, the loved ones its touch has taken,
then his soul, swelling with the passion that
throbs in the strains of " To Mary in Heaven,"
would not own to itself that its love had ever
been less.
Mary remained at Campbeltown during the
summer of 1786. Coming to Greenock in the
autumn, she found her brother sick of a malig
nant fever at the house of her aunt ; bravely
disregarding danger of contagion, she devoted
herself to nursing him, and brought him to a
safe convalescence only to be herself stricken by
his malady and to rapidly sink and die, a sacrifice
to her sisterly affection. By this time the suc
cess of his poems had determined Burns to re
main in Scotland, and he returned to Mossgiel,
where tidings of Mary's death reached him.
His brother relates that when the letter was
handed to him he went to the window to read
it, then his face was observed to change sud
denly, and he quickly went out without speak
ing. In June of the next year he made a soli
tary journey to the Highlands, apparently drawn
by memory of Mary. If, indeed, he dropped
203
A Literary Pilgrimage
a tear upon her neglected grave and visited
her humble Highland home, we may almost
forgive him the excesses of that tour, if not
the renewed liaison with Jean which imme
diately preceded, and the amorous correspond
ence with " Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose) which
followed it.
Whatever the quality or degree of his passion
for Mary living, his grief for her dead was deep
and tender, and expired only with his life.
Cherished in his heart, it manifested itself now
in some passage of a letter, now in some pa
thetic burst of song, like " The Lament" and
" Highland Mary," and again in some emo
tional act. Of many such acts narrated to the
writer by Burns's niece, the following is, per
haps, most striking. The poet attended the
wedding of Kirstie Kirkpatrick, a favorite of his,
who often sang his songs for him, and, after the
wedded pair had retired, a lass of the company,
being asked to sing, began " Highland Mary."
Its effect upon Burns " was painful to witness ;
he started to his feet, prayed her in God's name
to forbear, then hastened to the door of the
marriage-chamber and entreated the bride to
come and quiet his mind with a verse or two
of ' Bonnie Doon.' " The lines " To Mary in
Heaven" and the pathetic incidents of their com
position show most touchingly how he mourned
204
Her Grave
his fair-haired lassie years after she ceased to be.
It was at Ellisland, October 20, 1789, the anni
versary of Mary's death, an occasion which
brought afresh to his heart memories of the ten
der past. Jean has told us of his increasing si
lence and unrest as the day declined, of his
aimless wandering by Nithside at nightfall, of
his rapt abstraction as he lay pillowed by the
sheaves of his stack-yard, gazing entranced at
the " lingering star" above him till the immortal
song was born.
Poor Mary is laid in the burial-plot of her
uncle in the west kirk-yard of Greenock, near
Crawford Street ; our pilgrimage in Burnsland
may fitly end at her grave. A pathway, beaten
by the feet of many reverent visitors, leads us to
the spot. It is so pathetically different from the
scenes she loved in life, the heather-clad slopes
of her Highland home, the seclusion of the
wooded braes where she loitered with her poet-
lover. Scant foliage is about her ; few birds
sing above her here. She lies by the wall ;
narrow streets hem in the enclosure ; the air is
sullied by smoke from factories and from steam
ers passing within a stone's-throw on the busy
Clyde ; the clanging of many hammers and the
discordant din of machinery and traffic invade
the place and sound in our ears as we muse above
the ashes of the gentle lassie.
205
A Literary Pilgrimage
For half a century her grave was unmarked
and neglected ; then, by subscription, a monu
ment of marble, twelve feet in height, and of
graceful proportions, was raised. It bears a
sculptured medallion representing Burns and
Mary, with clasped hands, plighting their troth.
Beneath is the simple inscription, read oft by
eyes dim with tears :
Erected Over the Grave of
HIGHLAND MARY
1842.
" My Mary, dear departed shade,
Where is thy place of blissful rest?"
106
BRONTE SCENES IN BRUS
SELS
School-Class-Rooms-Dormitory-Garden-Scenes and Events of
Villette andThe Professor-M. Paul Madame Beck-Mem
ories of the Brontes Confessional Grave of Jessy Yorke.
"\ T 7E had " done" Brussels after the approved
^ * fashion, had faithfully visited the
churches, palaces, museums, theatres, galleries,
monuments ; had duly admired the windows and
carvings of the grand cathedral, the tower and
tapestry and frescos and facade of the Hotel de
Ville, the stately halls and the gilded dome of
the Courts of Justice, and the consummate beauty
of the Bourse ; had diligently sought out the
naive boy-fountain, and had made the usual ex
cursion to the field of Waterloo.
This delightful task being conscientiously
discharged, we proposed to devote our last day in
the Belgian capital to the accomplishment of one
of the cherished projects of our lives, the search
ing out of the localities associated with Charlotte
Bronte's unhappy school-life here, which she
has so graphically portrayed. For our purpose
no guide was needful, for the topography and
local coloring of " Villette" and " The Profes
sor" are as vivid and unmistakable as in the best
work of Dickens himself. Proceeding from St.
207
A Literary Pilgrimage
Gudule to the Rue Royale, and a short distance
along that thoroughfare, we reached the park
and a locality familiar to Miss Bronte's readers.
Seated in this lovely pleasure-ground, the gift
of the Empress Maria Theresa, with its cool
shade all about us, we noted the long avenues
and the paths winding amid trees and shrubbery,
the dark foliage ineffectually veiling the gleaming
statuary and the sheen of bright fountains, " the
stone basin with its clear depth, the thick-
planted trees which framed this tremulous and
rippled mirror," the groups of happy people
filling the seats in secluded nooks or loitering in
the mazes and listening to the music ; we noted
all this, and felt that Miss Bronte had revealed
it to us long ago. It was across this park that
Lucy Snowe was piloted from the bureau of the
diligence by the chivalrous Dr. John on the
night when she, despoiled, helpless, and solitary,
arrived in Brussels. She found the park deserted,
the paths miry, the water dripping from the
trees. In the double gloom of tree and fog
she could not see her guide, and could only fol
low his tread" in the darkness. We recalled
another scene under these same trees, on a
night when the gate-way was " spanned by a
flaming arch of massed stars." The park was a
" forest with sparks of purple and ruby and
golden fire gemming the foliage," and Lucy,
208
The Park Heger Mansion
driven from her couch by mental torture,
wandered unrecognized amid the gay throng at
the midnight concert of the Festival of the
Martyrs and looked upon her lover, her friends
the Brettons, and the secret junta of her enemies,
Madame Beck, Madame Walravens, and Pe"re
Silas. The sense of familiarity with the vici
nage grew as we observed our surroundings.
Facing us, at the extremity of the park, was the
palace of the king, in the small square across the
Rue Royale at our right was the statue of Gen
eral Beliard, and we knew that just behind it we
should find the Bronte school ; for " The Pro
fessor," standing by the statue, had looked down
a great staircase to the door-way of the school,
and poor Lucy on that forlorn first night in
" Villette," to avoid a pair of ruffians, had
hastened down a flight of steps from the Rue
Royale and had come, not to the inn she sought,
but to the pensionnat of Madame Beck. From the
statue we descended, by a series of stone stairs,
into a narrow street, old-fashioned and clean,
quiet and secluded in the very heart of the great
city, and just opposite the foot of the steps we
came to the wide door of a spacious, quadrangu
lar, stuccoed old mansion, with a bit of foliage
showing over a high wall at one side. A bright
plate embellished the door and bore the name
Heger. A Latin inscription in the wall of the
o 209
A Literary Pilgrimage
house showed it to have been given to the Guild
of Royal Archers by the Infanta Isabelle early
in the seventeenth century. Long before that
the garden had been the orchard and herbary of
a convent and the Hospital for the Poor.
We were detained at the door long enough
to remember Lucy standing there, trembling and
anxious, awaiting admission, and then we too
were " let in by a bonne in a smart cap," appar
ently a fit successor to the Rosine of other days,
and entered the corridor. This was paved with
blocks of black and white marble and had
painted walls. It extended through the entire
depth of the house, and at its farther extremity
an open door afforded us a glimpse of the garden.
We were ushered into the little salon at the left
of the passage, the one often mentioned in
" Villette," and here we made known our wish
to see the garden and class-rooms, and met with
a prompt refusal from the neat portress. We
tried diplomacy (also lucre) without avail : it
was the grandes vacances, M. Heger was engaged,
we could not be gratified, unless, indeed, we
were patrons of the school. At this juncture a
portly, ruddy-faced lady of middle age and most
courteous of speech and manner appeared, and,
addressing us in faultless English, introduced
herself as Mdlle. Heger, co-directress of the
school, and ''wholly at our service." In
210
Characters of Villette
response to our apologies for the intrusion and
explanations of the desire which had prompted
it, we received complaisant assurances of wel
come ; yet the manner of our entertainer indi
cated that she did not share in our admiration and
enthusiasm for Charlotte Bronte and her books.
In the subsequent conversation it appeared that
Mademoiselle and her family hold decided
opinions upon the subject, something more
than mere lack of admiration. She was familiar
with the novels, and thought that, while they
exhibit a talent certainly not above mediocrity,
they reflect the injustice, the untruthfulness, and
the ingratitude of their creator. We were obliged
to confess to ourselves that the family have
reason for this view, when we reflected that in
the books Miss Bronte has assailed their religion
and disparaged the school and the characters of
the teachers and pupils, has depicted Madame
Heger in the odious duad of Madame Beck and
Mdlle. Reuter, has represented M. Heger as the
scheming and deceitful Pelet and the preposter
ous Paul, Lucy Snowe's lover ; that this lover
was the husband of Madame Heger, and father
of the family of children to whom Lucy was at
first bonne d 1 enfant s, and that possibly the
daughter she has described as the thieving,
vicious Desiree " that tadpole Desiree Beck"
was this very lady now so politely entertaining
A Literary Pilgrimage
us. To all this add the significant fact that
" Villette" is an autobiographical novel, which
" records the most vivid passages in Miss
Bronte's own sad heart's history," not a few of
the incidents being transcripts " from the darkest
chapter of her own life," and the light which
the consideration of this fact throws upon her
relations with members of the family will help
us to apprehend the stand-point from which the
Hegers judge Miss Bronte and her work, and to
excuse a natural resentment against one who has
presented them in a decidedly bad light. How
bad we realized when, during the ensuing chat,
we called to mind just what she had written of
them. As Madame Beck, Madame Heger had
been represented as lying, deceitful, and shame
less, as " watching and spying everywhere,
peeping through every key-hole, listening behind
every door," as duplicating Lucy's keys and
secretly searching her bureau, as meanly ab
stracting her letters and reading them to others,
as immodestly laying herself out to entrap the
man to whom she had given her love unsought.
It was some accession to the existing animosity
between herself and Madame Heger which pre
cipitated Miss Bronte's departure from the pen-
iionnat. Mrs. Gaskell ascribes their mutual dis
like to Charlotte's free expression of her aversion
to the Catholic Church, of which Madame
The H6gers
Heger was a devotee, and hence " wounded in
her most cherished opinions ;" but a later writer
plainly intimates that Miss Bronte hated the
woman who sat for Madame Beck because mar
riage had given to her the man whom Miss
Bronte loved, and that " Madame Beck had
need to be a detective in her own house." The
death of Madame Heger had rendered the
family, who held her only as a sacred memory,
more keenly sensitive than ever to anything
which would seem by implication to disparage
her.
For himself, it would appear that M. Heger
had less cause for resentment ; for, although in
" Villette" his double is pictured as " a waspish
little despot," as detestably ugly, in his anger
closely resembling " a black and sallow tiger,"
as having an "overmastering love of authority
and public display," as playing the spy and
reading purloined letters, and in the Bronte
epistles Charlotte declares he is choleric and
irritable, compels her to make her French trans
lations without a dictionary or grammar, and
then has "his eyes almost plucked out of his
head" by the occasional English .word she is
obliged to introduce, etc., yet all this is partially
atoned for by the warm praise she subsequently
accords him for his goodness to her and his dis
interested friendship, by the poignant regret she
213
A Literary Pilgrimage
expresses at parting with him, perhaps wholly
expiated by the high compliment she pays him
of making her heroine fall in love with him, or
the higher compliment it is suspected she paid
him of falling in love with him herself. One
who reads the strange history of passion in
" Villette," in conjunction with her letters,
" will know more of the truth of her stay in
Brussels than if a dozen biographers had under
taken to tell the whole tale." Still, M. Heger
can hardly be pleased by having members of his
school set forth as stupid, animal, and inferior,
" their principles rotten to the core, steeped in
systematic sensuality," by having his religion
styled " besotted papistry, a piece of childish
humbug," and the like. Something of the dis
pleasure of the family was revealed in the course
of our conversation with Mdlle. Hegen, but the
specific causes were but cursorily touched upon.
She could have no personal recollection of the
Brontes ; her knowledge of them was derived
from her parents and the teachers, presumably
the " repulsive old maids" of Charlotte's letters.
One teacher whom we saw in the school had
been a classmate of Charlotte's here. The
Brontes had not been popular with the school.
Their " heretical" religion had something to do
with this ; but their manifest avoidance of the
other pupils during hours of recreation, Mad-
Recollections of the Brontes
emoiselle thought, had been a more potent cause,
Emily, in particular, not speaking with her
school-mates or teachers, except when obliged to
do so. The other pupils thought them of out
landish accent and manners, and ridiculously old
to be at school at all, being twenty-four and
twenty-six, and seeming even older. Their
sombre and ugly costumes were fruitful causes
of mirth to the gay young Belgian misses. The
Brontes were not brilliant students, and none of
their companions had ever suspected that they
were geniuses. Of the two, Emily was consid
ered to be the more talented, but she was obsti
nate and opinionated. Some of the pupils had
been inclined to resist having Charlotte placed
over them as teacher, and may have been muti
nous. After her return from Haworth she
taught English to M. Heger and his brother-in-
law. M. Heger gave the sisters private lessons
in French without charge, and for some time
preserved their compositions, which Mrs. Gas-
kell copied. Mrs. Gaskell visited the pensionnat
in quest of material for her biography of Char
lotte, and received all the aid M. Heger could
afford : the information thus obtained was, we
were told, fairly used. Miss Bronte's letters
from Brussels, so freely quoted in Mrs. Gaskell's
" Life," were addressed to Ellen Nussy, a famil
iar friend of Charlotte's, whose signature we saw
A Literary Pilgrimage
in the register at Haworth as witness to Miss
Bronte's marriage. The Hegers had no sus
picion that she had been so unhappy with them
as these letters indicate, and she had assigned a
totally different reason for her sudden return to
England. She had been introduced to Madame
Heger by Mrs. Jenkins, wife of the then chap
lain of the British Embassy at the Court of Bel
gium ; she had frequently visited that lady and
other friends in Brussels, among them Mary
and Martha Taylor and the family of a Dr.
(not " Dr. John"), and therefore her life here
need not have been so lonely and desolate as it
was made to appear.
The Hegers usually have a few English pupils
in the school, but have never had an American.
American tourists have before called to look at
the garden, but the family are not pleased by
the notoriety with which Miss Bronte has in
vested it. However, Mdlle. Heger kindly offered
to conduct us over any portion of the establish
ment we might care to see, and led the way along
the corridor to the narrow, high- walled garden.
We found it smaller than in the time when Miss
Bronte loitered here in weariness and solitude.
Mdlle. Heger explained that, while the width
remained the same, the erection of class-rooms
for the day-pupils had diminished the length by
some yards. Tall houses surrounded and shut
116
The Garden
it in on either side, making it close and sombre,
and the noises of the great city all about it
penetrated only as a far-away murmur. There
was a plat of verdant turf in the centre, bordered
by scant flowers and gravelled walks, along which
shrubs of evergreen were irregularly disposed.
A few seats were here and there within the shade,
where, as in Miss Bronte's time, the externats
ate the lunch brought with them to the school ;
and overlooking it all stood the great pear-trees,
whose gnarled and deformed trunks were relics
of the time of the convent. Beyond these and
along the gray wall which bounded the farther
side of the enclosure was the sheltered walk
which was Miss Bronte's favorite retreat, the
"allee defendue" of her novels. It was screened
by shrubs and perfumed by flowers, and, being
secure from the intrusion of pupils, we could
well believe that Charlotte and her heroine found
here restful seclusion. The coolness and quiet
and, more than all, the throng of vivid associa
tions which filled the place tempted us to linger.
The garden was not a spacious nor even a pretty
one, and yet it Deemed to us singularly pleasing
and familiar, as if we were revisiting it after an
absence. Seated upon a rustic bench close at
hand, possibly the very one which Lucy had
" reclaimed from fungi and mould," how the
memories came surging up in our minds ! How
217
A Literary Pilgrimage
often in the summer twilight poor Charlotte had
lingered here in solitude after the day's burdens
and trials with " stupid and impertinent" pupils !
How often, with weary feet and a dreary heart,
she had paced this secluded walk and thought,
with longing, of the dear ones in far-away
Haworth parsonage ! In this sheltered corner
her other self, Lucy, sat and listened to the dis
tant chimes and thought forbidden thoughts and
cherished impossible hopes. Here she met and
talked with Dr. John. Deep beneath this
" Methuselah of a pear-tree," the one nearest
the end of the alley, lies the imprisoned dust of
the poor nun who was buried alive ages ago for
some sin against her vow, and whose perambu
lating ghost so disquieted poor Lucy. At the
root of this same tree one miserable night Lucy
buried her precious letters, and meant also to
bury a grief and her great affection for Dr.
John. Here she leant her brow against Methu
selah's knotty trunk and uttered to herself those
brave words of renunciation, " Good-night, Dr.
John ; you are good, you are beautiful, but you
are not mine. Good-night, and God bless you !"
Here she held pleasant converse with M. Paul,
and with him, spellbound, saw the ghost of the
nun descend from the leafy shadows overhead
and, sweeping close past their wondering faces,
disappear behind yonder screen of shrubbery
218
Garden School
into the darkness of the summer night. By that
tall tree next the class-rooms the ghost was wont
to ascend to meet its material sweetheart, Fan-
shawe, in the great garret beneath yonder sky
light, the garret where Lucy retired to read Dr.
John's letter, and wherein M. Paul confined her
to learn her part in the vaudeville for Madame
Beck's f$te-da.y. In this nook where we sat
" The Professor" had walked and talked with
and almost made love to Mdlle. Reuter, and
from yonder window overlooking the alley had
seen that perfidious fair one in dalliance with
Pelet beneath these pear-trees. From that win
dow M. Paul watched Lucy as she sat or walked
in the all'ee defendue, dogged by Madame Beck j
from the same window were thrown the love-
letters which fell at Lucy's feet sitting here.
Leaves from the overhanging boughs were
plucked for us as souvenirs of the place ; then,
reverently traversing once more the narrow alley
so often traced in weariness by Charlotte Bronte,
we turned away. From the garden we entered
the long and spacious class-room of the first and
second divisions. A movable partition divided
it across the middle when the classes were in
session ; the floor was of bare boards cleanly
scoured. There were long ranges of desks and
benches upon either side, and a lane through
the middle led up to a raised platform at the end
219
A Literary Pilgrimage
of the room, where the instructor's chair and
desk were placed.
How quickly our fancy peopled the place !
On these front seats sat the gay and indocile
Belgian girls. There, " in the last row, in the
quietest corner, sat Emily and Charlotte side by
side, insensible to anything about them ;" and
at the same desk, " in the farthest seat of the
farthest row," sat Mdlle. Henri during Crims-
worth's English lessons. Here Lucy's desk was
rummaged by Paul and the tell-tale odor of
cigars left behind. Here, after school-hours,
Miss Bronte taught Heger English, he taught
her French, and Paul taught Lucy arithmetic
and (incidentally) love. This was the scene of
their t/te-H-t/tes, of his efforts to persuade her
into his religious faith, of their ludicrous sup
per of biscuit and baked apples, and of his final
violent outbreak with Madame Beck, when she
literally thrust herself between him and his love.
From this platform Crimsworth and Lucy and
Charlotte Bronte herself had given instruction
to pupils whose insubordination had first to be
confronted and overcome. Here Paul and Heger
gave -lectures upon literature, and Paul delivered
his spiteful tirade against the English on the
morning of his /?te-day. Upon this desk were
heaped his bouquets that morning ; from its
smooth surface poor Lucy dislodged and fract-
M. Paul
ured his spectacles ; and here, seated in Paul's
chair, at Paul's desk, we saw and were presented
to Paul Emanuel himself, M. Heger.
It was something more than curiosity which
made us alert to note the appearance and manner
of this man, who has been so nearly associated
with Miss Bronte in an intercourse which col
ored her subsequent life and determined her life-
work, who has been made the hero of her novels
and has been deemed the hero of her own heart's
romance ; and yet we were curious to know
what manner of man it was who has been so
much as suspected of being honored with the
love and preference of the dainty Charlotte
Bronte. During a short conversation with him
we had opportunity to observe that in person
this " wise, good, and religious" man must, at
the time Miss Bronte knew him, have more
closely resembled Pelet of " The Professor"
than any other of her pen-portraits : indeed,
after the lapse of more than forty years that
delineation still, for the most part, aptly applied
to him. He was of middle size, of rather spare
habit of body ; his face was fair and the features
pleasing and regular, the cheeks were thin and
the mouth flexible, the eyes somewhat sunken
were mild blue and of singularly pleasant ex
pression. We found him aged and somewhat
infirm ; his finely-shaped head was fringed with
A Literary Pilgrimage
white hair, and partial baldness contributed rev
erence to his presence and tended to enhance
the intellectual effect of his wide brow. In
repose his countenance showed a hint of melan
choly : as Miss Bronte said, his " physiognomy
was fne et spirituelle ," one would hardly
imagine it could ever resemble the " visage of
a black and sallow tiger." His voice was low
and soft, his bow still " very polite, not the
atrical, scarcely French," his manner suave and
courteous, his dress scrupulously neat. He ac
costed us in the language Miss Bronte taught
him forty years ago, and his accent and diction
honored her instruction. He was talking with
some patrons, and, as his daughter had hinted
that he was averse to speaking of Miss Bronte,
we soon took leave of him and were shown
other parts of the school. The other class
rooms, used for less advanced pupils, were
smaller. In one of them Miss Bronte had
ruled as monitress after her return from Ha-
worth. The large dormitory of the pensionnat
was above the long class-room, and in the time
of the Brontes most of the boarders about
twenty in number slept here. Their cots were
arranged along either side, and the position of
those occupied by the Brontes was pointed out
to us at the extreme end of the room. It was
here that Lucy suffered the horrors of hypo-
School Scenes The Confessional
chondria, so graphically portrayed in " Villette,"
and found the discarded costume of the spectral
nun lying upon her bed, and here Miss Bronte
passed those nights of wakeful misery which
Mrs. Gaskell describes. A long, narrow room
in front of the class-rooms was shown us as the
refectoire, where the Brontes, with the other
boarders, took their meals, presided over by M.
and Madame Heger, and where, during the
evenings, the lessons for the ensuing days were
prepared. Here were held the evening prayers
which Charlotte used to avoid by escaping into
the garden. This, too, was the scene of Paul's
readings to teachers and pupils, and of some of
his spasms of petulance, which readers of "Vil
lette" will remember. From the refectoire we
passed again into the corridor, where we made
our adieus to our affable conductress. She ex
plained that, whereas this establishment had
been both a pensionnat and an externat, having
about seventy day-pupils and twenty boarders
when Miss Bronte was here, it was after the
death of Madame Heger used as a day-school
only, the pensionnat being in another street.
The genuine local color Miss Bronte gives in
" Villette" enabled us to be sure that we had
found the sombre old church where Lucy,
arrested in passing by the sound of the bells,
knelt upon the stone pavement, passing thence
123
A Literary Pilgrimage
into the confessional of PSre Silas. Certain it
is that this old church lies upon the route she
would take in the walk from the school to the
Protestant cemetery, which she had set out to
do that afternoon, and the narrow streets which
lie beyond the church correspond to those in
which she was lost. Certain, too, it is said to
be that this incident is taken from her own ex
perience. Reid says, " During one of the long
holidays, when her mind was restless and dis
turbed, she found sympathy, if not peace, in the
counsels of a priest in the confessional, who
soothed her troubled spirit without attempting
to enmesh it in the folds of Romanism."
Our way to the Protestant cemetery a spot
sadly familiar to Miss Bronte, and the usual
termination of her walks lay past the site of
the Porte de Louvain and out to the hills be
yond the old city limits. From our path we
saw more than one tree-shrouded farm-house
which might have been the place of Paul's
breakfast with his school, and at least one quaint
mansion, with green-tufted and terraced lawns,
which might have served Miss Bronte as the
model for La Terrasse, the suburban home of the
Brettons and the temporary abode of the Taylor
sisters whom she visited here. From the ceme
tery we beheld vistas of farther lines of hills,
of intervening valleys, of farms and villas, and
224
The Cemetery
of the great city lying below. Miss Bronte has
well described this place : " Here, on pages of
stone and of brass, are written names, dates, last
tributes of pomp or love, in English, French,
German, and Latin." There are stone crosses
all about, and great thickets of roses and yews ;
" cypresses that stand straight and mute, and
willows that hang low and still ;" and there are
" dim garlands of everlasting flowers." Here
" The Professor" found his long-sought sweet
heart kneeling at a new-made grave under the
overhanging trees. And here we found the
shrine of poor Charlotte Bronte's many pil
grimages hither, the burial-place of her friend
and school-mate, the Jessy Yorke of " Shirley ;"
the spot where, under " green sod and a gray
marble head-stone, cold, coffined, solitary, Jessy
sleeps below."
225
LEMAN'S SHRINES
Beloved of Litterateurs Gibbon-D* Aubigni-Routttau-Byroit-
Shelley Dickens t etc. Scenes of Childt Harold-Nouvelle
Heloi'u-Priioner of Chilian-Land of Byron.
\ PILGRIMAGE in the track of Childe
** Harold brings us from the shores of Al
bion, by Belgium's capital and deadly Waterloo,
along the castled Rhine and over mountain-pass
to " Italia, home and grave of empires," and to
the sublimer scenery of " Manfred," " Chillon,"
and the third canto of the pilgrim-poet's master
piece ; to his *' silver-sheeted Staubbach" and
"arrowy Rhone," "soaring Jungfrau" and
" bleak Mont Blanc." We linger with especial
pleasure on the shores of " placid Leman," in
an enchanting region which teems with literary
shrines and is pervaded with memories and
associations often so thrilling and vivid that
they seem like veritable and sensible presences
of the brilliant number who have here had
their haunts. Here Calvin wrought his Com
mentaries ; here Voltaire polished his darts ;
here Rousseau laid the scenes of his impassioned
tale ; here Dickens, Byron, and Shelley loitered
and wrote ; here Gibbon and de Stael, Schlegel
and Constant, and many another scarcely less
famous, lived and wrought the treasures of their
knowledge and fancy into the literature of the
226
Haunts of Litterateurs
world. A lingering voyage round the lake, like
that of Byron and Shelley, is a delight to be re
membered through a lifetime, and affords oppor
tunity to visit the spots consecrated by genius upon
these shores. At Geneva we find the inn where
Byron lodged and first met the author of " Queen
Mab," the house in which Rousseau was born,
the place where d'Aubigne wrote his history,
the sometime home of John Calvin. Near by,
in a house presented by the Genevese after his
release from the long imprisonment suffered on
their account, dwelt Bonnivard, Byron's immor
tal " Prisoner of Chillon," and here he suffered
from his procession of wives and finally died.
Just beyond the site of the fortifications, on the
east side of the city, is an eminence whose slopes
are tastefully laid out with walks that wind,
amid sward and shrub, to the observatory which
crowns the summit and marks the site of Bon-
nivard's Priory of St. Victor, lost to him by his
devotion to Genevan independence. Not far
away is the public library, founded by his be
quest of his modest collection of books and MSS.
which we see here carefully preserved. Here
also is an old portrait of the prisoner, which
represents him as a reckless and jolly " good
fellow" rather than a saintly hero, and accords
better with his character as described by late
writers than with the common conception of him.
227
A Literary Pilgrimage
Byron loved this Leman lake, and it is said his
discontented sprite still walks its margins ; cer
tain it is he remains its poetic genius; his melody
seems to wake in every breeze that stirs its
surface. The Villa Diodati, a plain, quadrangu
lar, three-storied mansion of moderate dimen
sions, standing on the shore a few miles from
Geneva, was the handsome " Giaour's" first
home after his separation from Lady Byron and
his exile from England. It had been the resi
dence of the Genevan Professor Diodati and the
sojourn of his friend the poet Milton. Pleasant
vineyards surround the place and slope away to
the water, but there is little in the spot or its
near environment to commend it to the fancy of
a poet. Byron's study here was a sombre room
at the back from which neither the lake nor the
snowy peaks were visible, and here he wrote,
besides many minor poems, " Manfred," " Pro
metheus," " Darkness," " Dream," and the third
canto of "Childe Harold." Here also he
wrote " Marriage of Belphegor," a tale setting
forth his version of his own infelicitous marriage ;
but hearing that his wife was seriously ill, he
burned it in his study fire. From here, by in
stigation of de Stael, he sent to Lady Byron in
effectual overtures for a reconciliation. His
companion at the villa was an eccentric Italian
physician, Polidori, who was uncle to the poet
228
Byron at Villa Diodati Shelley
Rossetti, and who here quarrelled with Byron's
guests and wrote " The Vampire," a weird pro
duction afterward attributed to Byron. Lovers
of Byron owe much to his sojourn on Leman ;
he found in the inspiring landscapes here,
especially in the environment of mountains, a
power that profoundly stirred what his wife
called " the angel in him." His letters recog
nize an afflatus breathed upon him by the " majesty
around and above," and the quality of the poems
here produced shows his yielding and response
to that benign influence ; many a gem of poetic
thought was here begotten of lake and mount
and cataract, which otherwise had never been.
The insincere stanzas of some of his later poems
would scarcely have been written on Leman.
As we muse in the spots he frequented wander
ing on the entrancing margins or floating on the
crystal waters and look thence upon the snow-
crowned peaks, resplendent in the sunshine or
roseate in the after-glow, we aspire to not only
partake of his rapture in this sublime beauty, but
to appreciate the deeper feelings to which it
moved him.
A villa near Byron's, and reached by a path
through his grounds, Maison Chapuis, of Mont
Allegra, was occupied that summer by the " im
passioned Ariel of English verse," with Mary
Shelley and her brunette relative Jane Clermont
229
A Literary Pilgrimage
(the Claire of Shelley's journal), who after bore
to Byron a daughter called Alba by the Shelleys,
but later named by Byron Allegra, for the
place where he had known the mother. At
Mont Allegra " Bridge of Arve," " Intellectual
Beauty," and Mrs. Shelley's weird "Franken
stein" were penned. Here Byron was a daily vis
itant, and the Shelleys were the usual companions
of his excursions upon the lake of beauty, in a
picturesque lateen-rigged boat which was the
property of the poets and the counterpart of
which we see moored by the Diodati shore,
looking like a bit of the Levant transported to
this tramontane water. The " white phantom"
observed by telescopists on the opposite shore to
sometimes embark with Byron, and which he
gravely told Madame de Stael was his dog, was
doubtless the frail Claire. The admonitions of
de Stael anent his mode of life provoked Byron
to take sure revenge by being attentive to her
husband, which the overshadowing wife always
resented as an affront upon herself. It is said
the poet's observation of this pair prompted the
couplet of " Don Juan :"
" But oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not henpecked you all ?"
Passing for the present the shrines of Ferney
and Coppet, we find in picturesque Lausanne the
230
Voltaire Gibbon Dickens
quaint house in which Voltaire lived several
winters, and not far away the place where
Secretan died a few months ago. Gibbon's
dwelling has been demolished, but we find the
place of his summer-house where the great his
tory was completed, and of his famous rose-tree
where Byron gathered roses long ago. Madame
de Genlis narrates this incident of the great " De-
cliner and Faller" at Lausanne : he was enam
oured of the comely Madame Crousaz, and, find
ing her alone, he knelt at her feet and besought
her love. He received an unfavorable reply, but
remained in his humble posture until the lady,
after repeatedly requesting. him to arise, discov
ered that his weight made it impossible, and
summoned a servant to assist him to regain his
feet. His obesity seems to have been a stand
ing jest among his acquaintances : a sufferer
from indigestion, due to lack of exercise, was
advised by a witty friend to " walk twice around
Gibbon before breakfast." Several decades later
another illustrious English man of letters so
journed in Lausanne. A pretty cottage-villa,
with embowered walls and flower-shaded porti
cos which look from a mild eminence across
the crescentic lake, was, in 1846, the dwelling of
Dickens, who here wrote one of the matchless
Christmas stories and a part of " Dombey and
Son." From the magnificent slope of Lausanne
231
A Literary Pilgrimage
the whole lake region is visible, with the dark
Juras rising to the western horizon, the Alps of
Savoy, and " the monarch of mountains with
a diadem of snow" upholding the sky away in
the south. At the foot of this slope is the
port-town of Ouchy, a resort of Byron's in his
sailing excursions ; at the plain little Anchor inn
near the quai (Byron called it a " wretched inn")
he lodged, and here, being detained two days
(June 26 and 27, 1816) by a storm which over
took him on his return from Chillon and Clarens,
he wrote the touching " Prisoner of Chillon."
In a parsonage not far from Lausanne was reared
sweet Suzanne Curchod, erst fancee of Gibbon,
and later the mother of de Stae'l.
Eastward is " Clarens, birthplace of deep
love," whose " air is the breath of passionate
thought, whose trees take root in love ;" about
it lies the charming region which Rousseau chose
for his fiction and peopled with affections, and
where Byron, Houghton, and Shelley loved to
linger. Here the latter first read " Nouvelle
Helo'fse" amid the settings of its scenes ; here
Byron wrote many glowing lines, inspired by
the beauty and romantic associations around
him. From the vine-clad terraces which cling
to the heights we behold the view which enrapt
ured the poet, a broad expanse of lacustrine
beauty and Alpine sublimity, embracing the
Rousseau Chillon
Leman shores from the Rhone to the Juras of
Gex, the entire width of the " bleu impossible"
lake and Alp piled on Alp beyond. Back of
Clarens we find the spot of Rousseau's " Bosquet
de Julie," and, at a little distance among embow
ering trees, the birthplace of a woman stranger
than any fancied character of his fiction, the
Madame de Warens of his " Confessions."
Between Clarens and Villeneuve, on an
isolated rock whose base is laved by Leman's
waters, which " meet and flow a thousand feet
in depth below," stands the grim prison of
Chillon, the scene of Byron's poem. The
fortress is an irregular pile of masonry, and,
with its massive walls, loop-holed towers, and
white battlements, is a picturesque object seen
across wide reaches of the lake. The present
structure is a hoary successor to a stronghold
still more ancient : the prehistoric lake-dwellers
here had a fortress and were succeeded by the
Franks and Romans. Of the present structure,
the Romanesque columns and the range of dun
geons are known to have been in existence in
830, when Count Wala, a cousin of Charlemagne,
for alluding to the wife of Loui the Debonair
as " that adulterous woman," was incarcerated
here. Thus Judith's reputation was vindicated
and the earliest certain date of this fortress fixed.
The present superstructure remains unchanged
233
A Literary Pilgrimage
since the thirteenth century. It is now con
nected with the shore by a wooden structure
which spans the moat and replaces the ancient
drawbridge. Through a massive gate-way we
enter a roughly-paved court, whence a bluff
Savoyard conducts us through the romantic pile.
Among the apartments of the ducal family we
see the banqueting-hall where the dukes held
roistering wassail ; the kitchen on whose great
hearth oxen were roasted whole ; the Chamber
of Inquisition where hapless prisoners were tor
tured to extort confession, this room being near
the chamber of the duchess, into which de
spite its thick wall the shrieks of the tortured
must have sometimes penetrated and disturbed
Her Serene Highness. Outside her door is a
post to which the wretches were bound, and it is
scored by marks of the irons which cauterized
their flesh ; in a near corner stood a rack which
rent them limb from limb. The crypt beneath,
with its low arched vaults and its graceful pillars
rising out of the rock, is the most interesting
portion of the fortress. Referring to their
architectural perfection, Longfellow once said
these were the " most delightful dungeons he ever
saw," but as we stand in their twilight gloom
the horrors of their history weigh heavily on
the heart. During this century the castle has
been used as an arsenal, but occasionally also
Prison of Chillon
as a prison, and Byron found some of these
" chambers of sorrow" tenanted at the time
of his visits. One contracted cell is that in
which the condemned passed their last night of
life chained upon a rock, near the beam upon
which they were strangled and the opening
through which their bodies were thrust into the
lake. Another vault contains a pit or well, with
a spiral stair down which poor dupes stepped
into a yawning depth and eternity. A third
chamber, so dark that its grotesque carvings are
scarcely discernible and no missal could be read
by daylight, was the chapel of the fortress.
Traversing the succession of dungeons, we come
to the last and largest, and reverently stand
beside the column where Byron's prisoner was
chained. This "dungeon deep and old" lies
not beneath the level of the lake, as Byron
believed, yet it is sufficiently dank and dismal to
be the appropriate scene of the touching and
tragic story which he located here. It is a long,
crypt-like apartment, whose vaulted roof of rock
is upheld by the " seven pillars of Gothic
mould" aligned along the middle. It is dimly
lighted by loop-holes pierced in the ponderous
walls for the feudal bowmen ; through these
narrow apertures, where the prisoner " felt the
winter's spray wash through the bars when winds
were high," we look out, as did he, upon the
235
A Literary Pilgrimage
distant town, " the lake with its white sails,"
the " mountains high," and the little Isle de Paix
"scarce broader than the dungeon floor"
gleaming like an emerald from a setting of
amethyst. Here is Bonnivard's chain, scarce
four feet long, and in the central pillar the ring
which held it. The light, falling aslant
" through the cleft of the thick wall" upon the
floor, shows us the pathway worn in the rock
by the pacing of the prisoner during the weary
years, and reveals graven on the column-stone
by the poet's hand the name Byron.
At Chillon we are in the midst of a region
pervaded by the sentiment of the pilgrim-poet.
The Byron path leads from the shore to the
broad terraces of the Hotel Byron, whence we
behold as in a picture the romantic scene his
poetry portrays, the " mountains with their
thousand years of snow," the shimmering water
of " the wide long lake," the dark slopes of the
Juras terraced to their summits, the "white-
walled towns" upon the nearer hill-sides.
Directly before us bearing its three tall trees
" the little isle, the only one in view," smiles
in our faces from the bosom of the water ; on
the right we see sweet Clarens and the pictu
resque battlements of Chillon ; on the left, the
glittering peaks of Dent du Midi and the Alps
of Savoy, with the " Rhone in fullest flow"
436
Rousseau and Byron Scenes
between the rocky heights ; while from the
farther shore rise the cliffs of Meillerie, at
whose base Byron and Shelley, clinging to their
frail boat, narrowly escaped a watery grave on
the very spot where St. Preux and Julia of
" Nouvelle Helo'ise" were rescued from the
same fate.
Our farewell view of this Land of Byron is
taken on a cloudless summer night, when the
radiance of the harvest moon exalts and glori
fies all the scene ; the grim prison of Bonnivard
is transformed into a snowy palace of peaceful
delights, the white mountain-peaks gleam with
the chaste lustre of pearls, the vine-embowered
village on the shore seems an Aidenn of purity
and light, and the sheen of the tremulous water
is that of a sea of molten silver. Surely, on all
her round, " Luna lights no spot more fair."
237
CHATEAUX OF FERNEY AND
COPPET
Voltaire's Home, Church, Study, Garden, Relict-Literary
Court of de Sta'e'l Mementos- Famous Rooms, Guests
Schlegel-Shelley-Constant- Byron-Davy, etc.-De Stai'i's
Tomb.
LITERARY pilgrimage on Leman's
shores that did not include Ferney
among its shrines would be obviously incom
plete. No matter how widely we may dissent
from his opinions or how much we may deplore
some of his utterances, the brilliant philosopher
who for so many years inhabited that spot and
made it the intellectual capital of the world
commands a place in letters which we may
neither gainsay nor ignore, and the Chateau
Voltaire is to many visitors one of the chief
objects of interest in the neighborhood of
Geneva.
Beneath a summer sky a delightful jaunt of a
few miles, among orchards and vineyards and
past the ancestral home of Albert Gallatin,
brings us to Voltaire's domain in Gex. The
mansion and town of Ferney were alike the
creation of the genius loci / he was architect and
builder of both. The town and its factories
were erected to give shelter and employment to
hundreds of artisans who appealed to him
Voltaire's Church Mansion
against oppressive employers at Geneva. The
place has obviously degenerated since his time ;
an air of shabbiness and thriftlessness prevails,
and ancient smells by no means suggestive of
" the odors of Araby the blest" obtrude upon
the pilgrim. At the public fountain stout-armed
women were washing family linen manifestly
long unused to such manipulation. Near by
dwell descendants of Voltaire's secretary Wag-
mere. Upon a verdant plateau farther away,
in the heart of one of the most beautiful regions
of earth, " girdled by eighty leagues of moun
tains that pierce the sky," was Voltaire's last
home. By its gate is the little church he built,
bearing upon its gable his inscription " Deo
Erexit Voltaire." Here he attended mass with
his niece, and, as seigneur, was always incensed
by the priest; here he gave in marriage his
adopted daughters ; here he preached a homily
against theft ; and here he built for himself a
tomb, projecting into the side of the church,
" neither within nor without," as he explained
to a guest, where he hoped to be buried. The
church was long used as a tenement, later it has
been a storage- and tool-house. The chateau is
a spacious and dignified three-storied structure
of Italian style, attractive in appearance and
well suited to one of Voltaire's tastes and occu
pations. The exterior has been somewhat
A Literary Pilgrimage
altered, but the apartments of the philosopher
are essentially unchanged. The late proprietor
preserved the study and bedroom nearly as Vol
taire left them when he started upon his fatal
visit to Paris. They are small, with high
ceilings, quaint carvings, faded tapestries, and
are obviously planned to facilitate the work of
the busiest author the world has known, who
here, after the age of threescore, wrote a
hundred and sixty works. Many of these as
sailed the church authorities, who had shown
themselves capable of punishing mere difference
of opinion by the rack and the stake, but " the
religion of the Sermon on the Mount and the
character of men of good and consistent lives"
they did not attack : some of the books were
cursed at Rome, some at Geneva, others were
burned at both places.
Disposed in Voltaire's rooms we have seen his
heavy furniture ; his study-chair standing by the
table upon which he wrote half of each day ;
his beautiful porcelain stove, a gift from Fred
erick the Great ; a draped mausoleum bearing
an inscription by Voltaire and designed by his
protege to contain his heart; many paintings
presented by royal admirers, Albani's " Toilet
of Venus," Titian's " Venus and Love," a picture
of Voltaire's chimney-sweep, portrait of Lekain
who acted so many of Voltaire's tragedies, por-
040
His Rooms Furniture
traits of that philosopher, a fanciful deification
of him by Duplessis ; on the same wall, coarse
engravings of Washington and Franklin. Frank
lin was the firm friend of Voltaire, and it was his
letters which first brought to Ferney news of
the Declaration of Independence. The dis
colored embroidery of Voltaire's bed and arm
chair was wrought by his niece Madame Denis,
" the little fat woman round as a ball." Habit
ually complaining of illness in his last years, he
spent more than half his time in this quaint bed.
He had a desk, containing writing materials, sus
pended above the bed so that he could write
here day or night, and the amount of work he
thus accomplished is astounding : in the last four
years of feeble life he wrote thirty works vary
ing in size from a pamphlet to a ponderous
tome. His breakfast was served in bed, and here
he habitually attended to his correspondence,
which included most of the sovereigns of Europe
and the learned and great of all climes. In this
bed he once lay for weeks feigning mortal illness,
and thus induced the priest to give him the
viaticum. This bedroom, too, was the scene of
many quarrels with his niece regarding her ex
travagances, but as we sit in his chair by his
bedside we prefer to recall more pleasing inci
dents the room has witnessed ; here he dictated
to Marie Corneille the ardent words which
<i 241
A Literary Pilgrimage
brought reparation to many a cruelly wronged
family ; this was the scene of his many pleasant
ries with the house-keeper " Baba," and of the
loving ministrations of his sweet ward "Belle
et Bonne."
Many of Voltaire's belongings have been
removed and his estate has been shorn of its
vast dimensions, but much remains to remind us
of the genius of the place. Here are the
gardens, lawns, and shrubberies he planted ; on
this turf-grown terrace beneath his study win
dows he paced as he planned his compositions,
and here, at the age of eighty-three, he evolved
"Irene" and parts of " Agathocles ;" near by
are his fount, his arbored promenade, the shaded
spot where he wrote in summer days, the place
of the lightning-rod made for him by Franklin.
Long reaches of the hedge were rooted by him,
many of the trees are from the nursery he cult
ured, the cedars were raised from seeds sent to
him by the Empress Catherine. A venerable
tree in the park was planted by Voltaire's own
hands : when we point to a blemish upon its
trunk and ask our guide, whose family have
dwelt on the estate since the time of Voltaire,
if that is the effect of lightning, as has been
averred, he indignantly declares the only damage
the tree ever sustained has been from visitors
who, to secure souvenirs of the illustrious phi-
242
An Intellectual Capital Reminiscences
losopher, would destroy the whole tree were he
not alert to protect it.
For twenty years this home of Voltaire was
the centre and pharos of the intellectual world.
To this court kings sent couriers with proffers of
honors and assurances of esteem ; hither came
legions of litterateurs, academicians, politicians,
eager to hail the savant or to secure his commen
dation. " All roads then led to Ferney as they
once did to Rome," and the hospitalities of the
chateau were so taxed that Voltaire declared he
was innkeeper for all Europe. He habitually
complained of the climate here, " Lapland in
winter, Naples in summer ;" during some seasons
" thirty leagues of snow were visible from his
windows ;" but on the July day of our visit the
atmosphere is exquisitely delightful and Voltaire's
" desert" seems a paradise. Behind us rise the
vine-clad slopes of Jura, below lies the lake like
an amethystine sea, afar gleam the snow-crowned
peaks, and about us in the old gardens are the
golden sunshine, the incense of flowers, the
twitter of birds, and all the charm of sweet
summer-time. As we linger in the spots he loved
it is pleasant to recall the good that mingled in
the oddly composite nature of the daring old
man who inhabited this beautiful scene and
created much of its beauty ; to remember that
dumb creatures loved him and fed from his hand ;
Z43
A Literary Pilgrimage
that the destitute and oppressed never vainly
applied to him for succor or protection ; that in
varying phrase he solemnly averred, in letters of
counsel to youthful admirers in his own and
other lands, " We are in the world only for the
good we can do."
Of the galaxy of litterateurs who had home
or haunt by Leman's margins Madame de Stael,
by her long residence and many incidents of her
career, seems most closely associated with this
region of delights. The chateau of Coppet
has for two centuries belonged to her family ;
here some portion of her girlhood was passed ;
here she found asylum from the horrors of the
French Revolution and residence when Na
poleon banished her from his capital. Later
her son Auguste dwelt here, and the place is
now the property of her great-granddaughter.
Literary and social associations render this
mediaeval chateau one of the most interesting
spots on earth. Exiled from the society of
Paris, de Stael erected here a court which
became the centre of intellectual Europe. Cop-
pet was in itself a lustrous microcosm whose
attraction was the conversation of its hostess
and queen, which allured the wit and wisdom
of a continent, making this court not only a
literary centre, but a political power of which
Napoleon, by his proscriptions, proclaimed his
244
Home of de Stael
fear. The great number of illustrious courtiers
who came to Coppet caused the priestess of its
hospitalities to aver she needed " a cook whose
heels were winged."
The darkly-verdured terraces of Jura on the
one hand, the blue waters and the farther snowy
peaks on the other, fitly environ the enchanting
scene in the midst of which was set the abode
of the greatest woman of her time. From
Geneva a charming sail along the lake conveys
us to her home and sepulchre. We approach
the chtteau between rows of venerable trees
beneath which de Stael loitered with her
guests. The stately edifice rises from three
sides of a court, whence we are admitted to a
large hall on the lower floor which she used as
a theatre. These walls, which give back only
the echo of our foot-falls, have resounded with
the applause of fastidious auditors when the
queen of Coppet, with her children and Re-
camier, de Sabran, Werner, Jenner, Constant,
Von Vought, or Ida Brun acted upon a stage at
yonder end of the room. The composition of
plays for this theatre was sometime de Stael's
principal recreation : these have been published
as " Essais Dramatiques." But more ambitious
dramas were presented ; the matchless Juliette
acted here with Sabran and de Stael in " Semir-
amis ;" Werner assisted in the first presentation
245
A Literary Pilgrimage
of "Attila," which was written here; Con
stant's " Wallenstein" was composed here and
first produced on this stage, as was also Oehlen-
schlager's " Hakon Jarl." De Stael was an
efficient actress, her lustrous eyes, superb arms,
and strong and flexible voice compensating for
deficiencies of training. A broad stair leads
from the silent theatre to the principal apart
ments, among which we find the library where
Necker wrote his " Politics and Finance," the
grand salon and reception-rooms, all of impos
ing dimensions and having parquetted floors.
Arranged in these rooms are many mementos of
the daughter of genius who once inhabited
them, hangings of tapestry ; antique spindle-
legged furniture carved and gilded in quaint
fashion ; the cherub-bedecked clock that stood
above her desk ; her books and inkstand ; the desk
upon which " Necker," " Ten Years of Exile,"
"Allemagne," and many minor treatises were
written. Upon the wall is her portrait, by
David, which pictures her with bare arms and
shoulders, her head crowned by a nimbus of
yellow turban which she wore when costumed
as ** Corinne :" the features are not classical, but
the brunette face, with its splendid dark eyes, is
comely as well as intellectual, and obviously
contradicts Byron's declaration, " She is so ugly
I wonder how the best intellect of France could
046
Memorable Rooms Mementos
have taken up such a residence." Schaffer's
portrait of her daughter hangs near by, display
ing a face of striking beauty, and a picture of
Madame Necker, de StaeTs mother, represents a
sweet-faced woman who smiles upon the visitor
despite the discomfort of a painfully tight-fitting
dress of white satin. Here also are portraits of
Necker, of de Stael's first husband, of her son
Auguste, of Schlegel, and of other literary
confreres, a. statue of her father, by Tieck, and a
bust of Rocca, her youthful second husband.
The latter represents a finely-shaped head and a
winning face. Byron thought Rocca notably
handsome, and Frederica Brun testified, " he had
the most magnificent head I ever saw." He
was so slender that one of de Stael's courtiers
wondered "how his many wounds found a
place upon him :" these wounds, received in the
Peninsula, won for him the sympathy of de
Stael, which deepened into love.
As we wander through the rooms, waking the
echoes and viewing the souvenirs of the illustri
ous dead, as we ponder their lives, their aims,
their works, it seems, amid the vivid associations
of the place, to require no supernal effort of the
fancy to repeople it with the brilliant company
who were wont to assemble here. Of these
apartments, the salon, from whose wall looks
down the portrait of Corinna, will longest hold
247
A Literary Pilgrimage
the pilgrim. It was the throne-room of this
court : here resorted a throng of the best and
noblest minds, litterateurs, scientists, men of
largest thought, of highest rank. Here Recamier
was a frequent guest : yonder mirror, with its
multipanes framed in gilt metal, often reflected
her lovely face. In this room she danced for
the delight of de Stael her famous gavotte,
which had transported the beau monde of Paris,
and was rewarded by its celebration in " Co-
rinne." Some who came to this court remained
as residential guests : for fifteen years Sismondi
worked here upon his " Literature of Southern
Europe," etc. ; here the sage Bonstetten wrote
many of his twenty-five volumes ; here Schlegel,
the great critic of his age, who is commem
orated in " Corinne" as Castel-Forte, was installed
for twelve years and prepared his works on
dramatic literature ; here Werner, author of
" Luther," " Wanda," etc., wrote much of his
mystic poetry ; here the Danish national poet
composed his noblest tragedies, " Correggio"
being a souvenir of Coppet ; here Constant
penned many dramas. Among the frequenters of
this salon were Madame de Saussure, famous for
her books on education ; Frederica Brun, with
her daughter Ida who is imaged in " Allemagne ;"
Sir Humphry and Lady Davy, the latter being the
realization of " Corinne ;" Madame de Kriide-
248
Literary Court and Courtiers
ner, author of " Valerie," from whom Delphine
was mainly drawn ; Barante the critic ; Dumont,
editor of Jeremy Bentham. Of those who
came less often were Cuvier, Gibbon, Ritter,
Lacretelle, Mirabeau, Houghton, Brougham,
Ampe're, Byron, Shelley, Montmorency, Wy-
nona, Tieck, Miiller, Candolle, de Sergey, Prince
Augustus, and scores of others.
This room, where that galaxy assembled, has
witnessed the most wonderful intellectual seances
of the century. We may imagine something
of the brilliancy of an assembly of such minds
presided over by de Stael, what gayety, what
coruscations of wit, what displays of wisdom,
what keenness of discussion were not possible to
such a circle ! For some time religious tenets
were frequently under consideration. Every
shade of belief, doubt, and agnosticism had its
defenders in the company. Sismondi was cor
responding with Channing of Boston, whose
views he espoused, and the arrival of each letter
caused the renewal of the argument in which
de Stael was the principal advocate of the
spiritual motive of Christianity as against a
system of mere well-doing. All questions of
literature, art, ethics, philosophy, politics, were
considered here by the most capable minds of
the age, the discussions being oft prolonged into
the night. But that there may be too much
249
A Literary Pilgrimage
even of a good thing is naively confessed by
Bonstetten, one of the lights of these seances, in
his letters : " I feel tired by surfeit of intellect :
there is more mind expended at Coppet in a
day than in many countries in a year, but I am
half dead." Scintillant converse was inter
spersed with music from the old harpsichord in
yonder corner, touched by fingers that now are
dust, with recitations and reading of MSS. It
was the habit of de Stael to read to the circle,
for their criticism, what she had written during
the morning, and to discuss the subsequent
chapters. Guests who were writing at the
chateau then read their compositions Bonstet-
ten's " Latium" often put the company to sleep
and eagerly sought de StaePs suggestions ; " the
lesser lights were glad to borrow warmth and
lustre from the central sun." Chateauvieux
declares, " She formed my mental character ;
for twenty years my sentiments were founded
upon hers." Sismondi says, " She determined
my literary career ; her good sense guided my
pen." Bonstetten, Schlegel, Werner, and others
bear similar testimony to the value of her
counsel.
The place was never more animated than in
the last summer of her life, when Byron and
Shelley used to cross the lake to join the circle
in this room. De Stael had met Byron in Lon-
250
Byron, Shelley, etc.
don during the ephemeral " Byron-madness,"
and now, in his social exile, her doors were freely
open to him : his letters testify " she made Cop-
pet as agreeable as society and talent can make
any place on earth." Here he first saw " Glen-
arvon," a venomous attack upon him which
seems to have served no purpose save to illustrate
the aphorism about "a woman scorned," its
authoress having been notoriously importunate
for Byron's favor, even attempting, it was said,
to enter his apartments in male attire. In this
salon Mrs. Hervey, the novelist, feigned to faint
at Byron's approach : from the balcony outside
these windows, where de Stael and her father
stood and saw Napoleon's army cross the Swiss
frontier, Byron looked upon the scene which
inspired some of his divinest stanzas. The
chateau was a busy place in those years : a guest
writes from here, " In every corner one is at
a literary task; de Stael is writing 'Exile,'
Auguste and Constant a tragedy, Sabran an opera,
Sismondi his ' Republics,' Bonstetten a philos
ophy, and Rocca his ' Spanish War.' "
One noble chamber hung with dim tapestries
is that erst occupied by Recamier : it had before
been the sick-room of Madame Necker and the
scene of her husband's loving care of her, which
de Stael so touchingly records. The chamber
of de Stael is near by, its windows overlooking
251
A Literary Pilgrimage
her sepulchre : here she wrote the books which
made her fame ; here she instructed her children,
their Sabbath lessons being from the devout
treatises of her father and a Kempis's " Imitation
of Christ," the book she read in her own dying
hours. A smaller room, looking out upon the
park, the terraces of Jura, and the white walls of
Lausanne, was shared by Constant and Bonstet-
ten. In the tower above have been found letters
written by Gibbon to his fancee, who became
the mother of de Stael : they have been pub
lished by the grandson of de Stael, and show that
the conduct of the great " Decliner and Faller"
toward the then poor girl was thoroughly selfish
and unscrupulous.
The rooms are renovated and the place is
offered for rent, but nothing is destroyed. The
formal park at the side of the chSteau is little
changed : along yonder wooded aisle and upon
this all'ee between prim patches of sward the
de Stael walked with her guests in the summers
of long ago ; upon the seat beneath this coppice,
beside this placid pool, or on the margin of
yonder brooklet from the top of Jura, they
lingered in brilliant converse till the stars came
out one by one above the darkening mountains.
These the mute, soulless inanimates remain,
while the illustrious company that quickened and
glorified them all has vanished from human ken.
251
Tomb of Necker and de Stael
Some rods distant from the chSteau, shaded
by a sombre grove and bounded by a hoary
wall, is the picturesque chapel in which Necker
is laid with his wife, to whose tomb he, for
many years, daily came to pray. In the same
crypt the mortal part of de Stael rests at his
feet ; the portal was walled up at her burial and
eye hath not since seen her sepulchre. A stone
which marks the grave of her son Auguste, and
lies on the threshold of that sealed portal, is
fittingly inscribed, " Why seek ye the living
among the dead ?"
Beyond the closed gate we pause for a parting
view of the scene, now flooded with sunshine,
and as we leave the place we carry thence that
resplendent vision embalmed in a memory that
will abide with us forever. As I write these
closing lines I see again that summer sky, cloud
less save for the fleece floating above Jura like
that which the bereaved Necker fancied was
bearing the soul of his wife to paradise. I see
again the glimmering water ; the mountains
with their tiaras of snow, sending back the sun
beams from their shining peaks like reflections
from the pearly gates that enclose the Celestial
City ; and, amid this sublime beauty, the gleam
ing sycamores that sway above the tomb of
" the incomparable Corinna."
INDEX
Abbotsford , Scott, 1 6 1 .
Addison, 15, 19, 30, 36, 91.
Akenside, 16, 25.
Andersen, Hans Christian, 55, 57.
Annesley Hall and Park, 71-77.
Aram, Eugene; Scenes, in, 144-147.
Arbuthnot, 16, 36.
Arnold, Dr. and Matthew, 92.
Astell, Mary, 30.
Bacon, 21.
Baillie, Joanna, 15.
Barbauld, Mrs., 14, 1 6.
Besant, 15, 18.
Bolingbroke, 37.
Bolton Abbey, 143.
Bonnivard, Francis, 22,7.
Bowes, Dotheboys, 106.
Braddon, Miss, 38.
Brontes, The, 685 Brussels, 134, 207; Haworth, 121 ;
Scenes and Characters of Tales, 121, 124, 126, 127,
129, 135, 207-225.
Brown, Oliver Madox, 32.
Brussels, Villette, Bronte' Scenes, 207.
Bulwer, Eugene Aram, 144-147.
Burns; Alloway, 181 ; Dumfries, 164; Ellisland, 171;
Grave, 165 ; Haunts, Scenes of Poems, 164, 165,
166, 170, 171, 178, 181, 196, 200, 205 ; Heroines,
185, 190, 194; Niece, 183.
Butler, Samuel, 91.
Byron; Annesley, 71; Coppet, 250; Harrow, 69;
Newstead, 80; Leman, 226-237 ; London, 62;
Index
Scenes of Poems, 69, 71-77, 80-90, 226, 232, 233,
251 ; Tomb, 70.
Caine, Hall, mentioned, 32.
Campbell, 66, 68.
Canning, 64.
Carlyle, Birthplace, i6z ; Home$, 33, 162, 167 ; Sepulchre,
163.
Chaucer, 24, 25, 50.
Chaworth, Mary Ann, 71-79.
Chelsea, 29-37.
Chillon, 233.
Clarens, Rousseau, 232.
Coleridge, 19, 106 ; Grave, 22; Home, 21.
Collyer, Robert, Early Haunts, 136.
Colwick Hall, Chaworth-Musters, 78.
Congreve, mentioned, 15, 30, 37.
Constant, 245, 246, 248, 251, 252.
Cooling, Great Expectations, 57.
Coppet, Madame de Stael, 244.
Coventry, George Eliot, 102.
Coxwold, Sterne, 1 13.
Crabbe, mentioned, 19, 66.
Craigenputtock , Carlyle, 167.
Crockett, S. R., 178.
Cunningham, Allan, 164.
Davy, Sir Humphry, mentioned, 155, 159, 248.
Denham, mentioned, 40.
De Quincey, mentioned, 21, 62.
De Stael, 159, 228, 230; Home and Sepulchre, 244.
Dickens, 13, 19, 20, 24, 28, 34, 230; Gad's Hill, 495
Scenes of Tales, 18-20, 22, 24-28, 54, 57-61, 64,
106.
Donne, John, 35, 36.
Dorset, Shaftesbury, 15, 36.
256
Index
Dotheboys, Nicholas Nickleby, 106.
Douglas, Poet of Annie Laurie, 175-179.
Du Maurier, 18, 20.
D umfries , Burns , 1 64.
Dyer, 91.
Ecclefechan, Carlyle, 1 62.
Eliot, George, 31, 143; Birthplace, Early Homes, 93;
Grave, 23 ; Scenes and Characters of Fiction, 93, 95-
103.
Emerson, 34, 104, 169, 170.
Erasmus, mentioned, 36.
Fairfax, Edward, 137, 142.
Falstaff, 50, 55, 56, 58.
Ferney, Voltaire, 238.
Fields, James T., 55, 59.
Foston, Sydney Smith, 149.
Froude, 33.
Gad's Hill, Dickens, Shakespeare, 49.
Gaskell, Mrs., 101, 130, 131, 215, 223.
Gay, 15, 30, 33, 34.
Geneva, 227.
Gibbon, 39, 63 ; On Leman, 231, 232, 249, 252.
Goldsmith, mentioned, 18.
Gray, Scene of Elegy, 39.
Hampstead, Literary, 13.
Harridan, Mrs., 15.
Harrow, Byron, 18, 69.
Haworth, The Brontes, III.
Hawthorne, 68, 71, 184.
Hazlitt, mentioned, 19, 21, 170.
Herbert, George, 36.
Heslington, Sydney Smith, 148.
Highgate, Literary, 21.
Highland Mary, Homes, Scenes, Grave, 195.
R 157
Index
Hogarth, 19.
Hogg, mentioned, 161.
Hood, mentioned, 19, 68.
Hook, Theodore, 26, 37.
Hunt, Leigh, 18, 19, 21, 34, 68.
Ilkley, Collyer, etc., 137.
Irving, Edward, mentioned, 164, 170.
Irving, Washington, 66, 71, 72, 76, 83, 86, 89.
Jackson, Helen Hunt, mentioned, 184.
Jeanie Deans, 167.
Jeffrey, Francis, 149, 154, 155, 170.
Johnson, Dr., 15, 18, 25, 34.
Keats, 15, 16, 19, 25.
Keighley, Bronte, Collyer, 121, 136.
Kensal Green, Graves of Literati, 68.
Kingsley, 35.
Kit-Kat Club, 15.
Lake Leman, Literary Shrines, 226-253.
Lamb, mentioned, 19, 21.
Landon, Letitia ., 30.
Laurie, Annie, Birthplace and Homes, 172, 176;
Grave, 177; Song, 180.
Lausanne, Gibbon, Dickens, etc., 230.
Livingstone, 81, 82, 84, 86.
Loamshire of George Eliot, 93.
Locke, 36.
London, 13, 17, 24, 45, 62, 119, 148.
Longfellow, alluded to, 55, 142, 234.
Macaulay, 64, 155, 158, 159.
Maclise, 19, 31, 34, 55.
Marvell, 21.
Maxwelton, Annie Laurie, 173.
Melrose , Scott, 1 6 1 .
Miller, Joaquin, 71, 83.
258
Index
Milton, 39, 228.
Mitford, Miss, mentioned, 30.
Montagu, Mary Wortley, 21, 31, 62.
Moore, 64, 67.
Mulock, Miss, John Halifax Scenes, 92,
Murray, John, Drawing-Room, 66.
Newburgh , Sterne, 1 1 8 .
Newstead Abbey, Byron, 80.
Nidderdale, Eugene Aram, 143.
Niece of Burns, 183 ; quoted, 196, 204.
Nithsdale, Burns, Scott, Carlyle, 164.
Nuneaton, Milby of Eliot, 101.
Pe py s > 3. s 1 -
Pope, 14, 15, 18, 21, 30, 37, 38.
Porter, Jane, 39.
Ramsay, Allan, 178.
Richardson, 16, 37.
Rochester, Dickens, 54, 60, 61.
Rogers, mentioned, 15, 143.
Rokeby, Scott, 109.
Rossetti, 23, 229 ; Home and Friends, 31, 32.
Rousseau, 227; Scenes of Fiction, 232, 233, 237.
Rugby, Hughes, Arnold, 92.
Ruskin, mentioned, 34.
Schlegel, 248.
Scott; Abodes and Resorts, 64, 66, 109, 161, 172;
Scenes and Characters, 109, 161, 167, 172.
Shakespeare, 25, 50, 91, 92, 93.
Shelley, 19, 21 ; Leman, 227, 229, 232, 237, 250.
Shepperton Church and Parsonage, 98.
Smith, Sydney, 68 ; Yorkshire Homes and Church, 148.
Smollett, 30, 33, 34.
Somervile, 91.
Somerville, Mrs., 29.
259
Index
Southey, mentioned, 21, 106.
Southwark, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, 24.
Stanley, H. M., 88, 184.
Steele, 14, 15, 19, 30, 33, 36.
Sterne, 34; Grave, iao; Home and Study, n a, 113, 115;
Resorts, 113, 118.
Stoke-Pogis, Gray, 39.
Swift, 13, 30, 36, 37.
Swinburne, 32, 33.
Tennyson, 33, 39.
Thackeray, 18, 68, 104, 120.
Turner, 37, 142, 143.
Voltaire, Chateau and Study, 238.
Waller, 39, 46.
Walpole, 15, 30.
Walton, mentioned, 36.
Watts, Theodore, 32.
Wilde, Oscar, 35.
Wordsworth, 15, 21, 106, 143, 161.
Wuthering Heights, 129.
York, Sterne, etc., in.
Yorkshire Shrines, 106, in, 121, 136, 148.
THE END.
260
LITERARY SHRINES:
THE HAUNTS OF SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN
AUTHORS.
BY THEO. F. WOLFE, M.D., Ph.D.,
Author of "A Literary Pilgrimage," etc.
Illustrated with four photogravures.
izmo. Crushed buckram, gilt top, deckel edges, $1.45 ;
half calf or half morocco, $3.00.
CONTAINS, AMONG OTHERS, CHAPTERS TREATING OF
CONCORD : A Village of Literary Shrines.
THE OLD MANSE.
THE HOMES OF EMERSON AND ALCOTT.
HAWTHORNE'S "WAYSIDE."
THE WALDEN OF THOREAU.
IN LITERARY BOSTON.
OUT OF BOSTON: Cambridge Elmwood Mt.
Auburn " Wayside Inn" Brook Farm Web
ster's Marshfield Homes of Whittier, Haw
thorne's Salem, etc.
IN BERKSHIRE WITH HAWTHORNE: The
Graylock Region Middle and Lower Berk
shireHaunts of Hawthorne, Thoreau, Bryant,
Melville, Sedgwick, Kemble, Holmes, Long
fellow, etc.
A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET.
UNIFORM WITH " A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE."
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Publishers,
PHILADELPHIA.
BY CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT.
THE BIRDS ABOUT Us.
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COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES.
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Wolfe, Theodore Frelinghuysen
109 A. literary pilgrimage
W6
1897
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