Travels in England in 1782 Part 11

The steep rock was covered at the top with green bushes, and now and then a sheep, or a cow, separated from the grazing flock, came to the edge of the precipice, and peeped over it.

I have got, in Milton's "Paradise Lost," which I am reading thoroughly through, just to the part where he describes Paradise, when I arrived here and the following pa.s.sage, which I read at the brink of the river, had a most striking and pleasing effect on me.

The landscape here described was as exactly similar to that I saw before me, as if the poet had taken it from hence

"--delicious Paradise, Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champion head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied."--Book IV. v. 132.

From Matlock Baths you go over Matlock Bridge, to the little town of Matlock itself, which, in reality, scarcely deserves the name of a village, as it consists of but a few and miserable houses. There is here, on account of the baths, a number of horses and carriages, and a great thoroughfare. From hence I came through some villages to a small town of the name of Bakewell. The whole country in this part is hilly and romantic. Often my way led me, by small pa.s.ses, over astonis.h.i.+ng eminences, where, in the deep below me, I saw a few huts or cottages lying. The fencing of the fields with grey stone gave the whole a wild and not very promising appearance. The hills were in general not wooded, but naked and barren; and you saw the flocks at a distance grazing on their summit.

As I was coming through one of the villages, I heard a great farmer's boy eagerly ask another if he did not think I was a Frenchman. It seemed as if he had been waiting some time to see the wonder; for, he spoke as though his wish was now accomplished.

When I was past Bakewell, a place far inferior to Derby, I came by the side of a broad river, to a small eminence, where a fine cultivated field lay before me. This field, all at once, made an indescribable and very pleasing impression on me, which at first, I could not account for; till I recollected having seen, in my childhood, near the village where I was educated, a situation strikingly similar to that now before me here in England.

This field, as if it had been in Germany, was not enclosed with hedges, but every spot in it was uninterruptedly diversified with all kinds of crops and growths of different green and yellowish colours, which gave the whole a most pleasing effect; but besides this large field, the general view of the country, and a thousand other little circ.u.mstances which I cannot now particularly enumerate, served to bring back to my recollection the years of my youth.

Here I rested myself a while, and when I was going on again I thought of the place of my residence, on all my acquaintances, and not a little on you, my dearest friend, and imagined what you would think and say, if you were to see your friend thus wandering here all alone, totally unknown, and in a foreign land. And at that moment I first seriously felt the idea of distance, and the thought that I was now in England, so very far from all I loved, or who loved me, produced in me such sensations as I have not often felt.

It was perhaps the same with you, my dearest friend, when on our journey to Hamburg we drove from Perlsbeg, to your birthplace, the village of Boberow; where, among the farmers, you again found your own playmates, one of whom was now become the bailiff of the place.

On your asking them whether they knew you, one and all of them answered so heartily, "O, yes, yes--why, your are Master Frederic."

The pedantic school-master, you will remember, was not so frank. He expressed himself in the stiff town phrase of, "He had not the honour of knowing you, as during your residence in that village, when a child, he had not been in loco."

I now came through a little place of the name of Ashford, and wished to reach the small village of Wardlow, which was only three miles distant, when two men came after me, at a distance, whom I had already seen at Matlock, who called to me to wait for them. These were the only foot pa.s.sengers since Mr. Maud, who had offered to walk with me.

The one was a saddler, and wore a short brown jacket and an ap.r.o.n, with a round hat. The other was very decently dressed, but a very silent man, whereas the saddler was quite talkative.

I listened with astonishment when I heard him begin to speak of Homer, of Horace, and of Virgil; and still more when he quoted several pa.s.sages, by memory, from each of these authors, p.r.o.nouncing the words, and laying his emphasis, with as much propriety as I could possibly have expected, had he been educated at Cambridge or at Oxford. He advised me not to go to Wardlow, where I should find bad accommodations, but rather a few miles to Tideswell, where he lived. This name is, by a singular abbreviation, p.r.o.nounced Tidsel, the same as Birmingham is called by the common people Brummidgeham.

We halted at a small ale-house on the road-side, where the saddler stopped to drink and talk, and from whence he was in no haste to depart. He had the generosity and honour, however, to pay my share of the reckoning, because, as he said, he had brought me hither.

At no great distance from the house we came to a rising ground, where my philosophical saddler made me observe a prospect, which was perhaps the only one of the kind in England. Below us was a hollow, not unlike a huge kettle, hollowed out of the surrounding ma.s.s of earth; and at the bottom of it a little valley, where the green meadow was divided by a small rivulet, that ran in serpentine windings, its banks graced with the most inviting walks; behind a small winding, there is just seen a house where one of the most distinguished inhabitants of this happy vale, a great philosopher, lives retired, dedicating almost all his time to his favourite studies. He has transplanted a number of foreign plants into his grounds. My guide fell into almost a poetic rapture as he pointed out to me the beauties of this vale, while our third companion, who grew tired, became impatient at our tediousness.

We were now led by a steep road to the vale, through which we pa.s.sed, and then ascended again among the hills on the other side.

Not far from Tideswell our third companion left us, as he lived in a neighbouring place. As we now at length saw Tideswell lying before us in the vale, the saddler began to give me an account of his family, adding, by way of episode, that he never quarrelled with his wife, nor had ever once threatened her with his fist, much less, ever lifted it against her. For his own sake, he said, he never called her names, nor gave her the lie. I must here observe, that it is the greatest offence you can give any one in England to say to him, YOU LIE.

To be called a LIAR is a still greater affront, and you ARE A d.a.m.nED LIAR, is the very acme of vulgar abuse.

Just as in Germany, no one will bear the name of a SCOUNDREL, or KNAVE, or as in all quarrels, the bestowing such epithets on our adversary is the signal for fighting, so the term of a LIAR in England is the most offensive, and is always resented by blows. A man would never forgive himself, nor be forgiven, who could bear to be called a LIAR.

Our Jackey in London once looked at me with astonishment, on my happening to say to him in a joke, you ARE A LIAR. I a.s.sure you I had much to do before I could pacify him.

If one may form a judgment of the character of the whole nation, from such little circ.u.mstances as this, I must say this rooted hatred of the word liar appears to me to be no bad trait in the English.

But to return to my travelling companion, who further told me that he was obliged to earn his livelihood, at some distance from home, and that he was now returning for the first time, for these two months, to his family.

He showed me a row of trees near the town which he said his father had planted, and which, therefore, he never could look at but with emotion, though he pa.s.sed them often as he went backwards and forwards on his little journeys to and from his birthplace. His father, he added, had once been a rich man, but had expended all his fortune to support one son. Unfortunately for himself as well as his family, his father had gone to America and left the rest of his children poor, notwithstanding which, his memory was still dear to him, and he was always affected by the sight of these trees.

Tideswell consists of two rows of low houses, built of rough grey stone. My guide, immediately on our entrance into the place, bade me take notice of the church, which was very handsome, and notwithstanding its age, had still some pretensions to be considered as an edifice built in the modern taste.

He now asked me whether he should show me to a great inn or to a cheap one, and as I preferred the latter, he went with me himself to a small public-house, and very particularly recommended me to their care as his fellow-traveller, and a clever man not without learning.

The people here also endeavoured to accommodate me most magnificently, and for this purpose gave me some toasted cheese, which was Ches.h.i.+re cheese roasted and half melted at the fire.

This, in England it seems, is reckoned good eating, but, unfortunately for me, I could not touch a bit of it; I therefore invited my landlord to partake of it, and he indeed seemed to feast on it. As I neither drank brandy nor ale, he told me I lived far too sparingly for a foot traveller; he wondered how I had strength to walk so well and so far.

I avail myself of this opportunity to observe that the English innkeepers are in general great ale drinkers, and for this reason most of them are gross and corpulent; in particular they are plump and rosy in their faces. I once heard it said of one of them, that the extravasated claret in his phiz might well remind one, as Falstaff says of Bardolph, of h.e.l.l-fire.

The next morning my landlady did me the honour to drink coffee with me, but helped me very sparingly to milk and sugar. It was Sunday, and I went with my landlord to a barber, on whose shop was written "Shaving for a penny." There were a great many inhabitants a.s.sembled there, who took me for a gentleman, on account, I suppose, of my hat, which I had bought in London for a guinea, and which they all admired. I considered this as a proof that pomp and finery had not yet become general thus far from London.

You frequently find in England, at many of the houses of the common people, printed papers, with sundry apt and good moral maxims and rules fastened against the room door, just as we find them in Germany. On such wretched paper some of the most delightful and the finest sentiments may be read, such as would do honour to any writer of any country.

For instance, I read among other things this golden rule on such an ordinary printed paper stuck against a room door, "Make no comparisons;" and if you consider how many quarrels, and how much mischief arise in the world from odious comparisons of the merits of one with the merits of another, the most delightful lessons of morality are contained in the few words of the above-mentioned rule.

A man to whom I gave sixpence conducted me out of the town to the road leading to Castleton, which was close to a wall of stones confusedly heaped one upon another, as I have before described. The whole country was hilly and rough, and the ground covered with brown heath. Here and there some sheep were feeding.

I made a little digression to a hill to the left, where I had a prospect awfully beautiful, composed almost entirely of naked rocks, far and near, among which, those that were entirely covered with black heath made a most tremendous appearance.

I was now a hundred and seventy miles from London, when I ascended one of the highest hills, and all at once perceived a beautiful vale below me, which was traversed by rivers and brooks and enclosed on all sides by hills. In this vale lay Castleton, a small town with low houses, which takes its name from an old castle, whose ruins are still to be seen here.

A narrow path, which wound itself down the side of the rock, led me through the vale into the street of Castleton, where I soon found an inn, and also soon dined. After dinner I made the best of my way to the cavern.

A little rivulet, which runs through the middle of the town, led me to its entrance.

I stood here a few moments, full of wonder and astonishment at the amazing height of the steep rock before me, covered on each side with ivy and other shrubs. At its summit are the decayed wall and towers of an ancient castle which formerly stood on this rock, and at its foot the monstrous aperture or mouth to the entrance of the cavern, where it is pitch dark when one looks down even at mid-day.

As I was standing here full of admiration, I perceived, at the entrance of the cavern, a man of a rude and rough appearance, who asked me if I wished to see the Peak, and the echo strongly reverberated his coa.r.s.e voice.

Answering as I did in the affirmative, he next further asked me if I should want to be carried to the other side of the stream, telling me at the same time what the sum would be which I must pay for it.

This man had, along with his black stringy hair and his dirty and tattered clothes, such a singularly wild and infernal look, that he actually struck me as a real Charon. His voice, and the questions he asked me, were not of a kind to remove this notion, so that, far from its requiring any effort of imagination, I found it not easy to avoid believing that, at length, I had actually reached Avernus, was about to cross Acheron, and to be ferried by Charon.

I had no sooner agreed to his demand, than he told me all I had to do was boldly to follow him, and thus we entered the cavern.

To the left, in the entrance of the cavern, lay the trunk of a tree that had been cut down, on which several of the boys of the town were playing.

Our way seemed to be altogether on a descent, though not steep, so that the light which came in at the mouth of the cavern near the entrance gradually forsook us, and when we had gone forward a few steps farther, I was astonished by a sight which, of all other, I here the least expected. I perceived to the right, in the hollow of the cavern, a whole subterranean village, where the inhabitants, on account of its being Sunday, were resting from their work, and with happy and cheerful looks were sitting at the doors of their huts along with their children.

We had scarcely pa.s.sed these small subterranean houses when I perceived a number of large wheels, on which on week days these human moles, the inhabitants of the cavern, make ropes.

I fancied I here saw the wheel of Ixion, and the incessant labour of the Danaides.

The opening through which the light came seemed, as we descended, every moment to become less and less, and the darkness at every step to increase, till at length only a few rays appeared, as if darting through a crevice, and just tinging the small clouds of smoke which, at dusk, raised themselves to the mouth of the cavern.

This gradual growth, or increase of darkness, awakens in a contemplative mind a soft melancholy. As you go down the gentle descent of the cavern, you can hardly help fancying the moment is come when, without pain or grief, the thread of life is about to be snapped; and that you are now going thus quietly to that land of peace where trouble is no more.

At length the great cavern in the rock closed itself, in the same manner as heaven and earth seem to join each other, when we came to a little door, where an old woman came out of one of the huts, and brought two candles, of which we each took one.

My guide now opened the door, which completely shut out the faint glimmering of light, which, till then, it was still possible to perceive, and led us to the inmost centre of this dreary temple of old Chaos and Night, as if, till now, we had only been traversing the outer courts. The rock was here so low, that we were obliged to stoop very much for some few steps in order to get through; but how great was my astonishment, when we had pa.s.sed this narrow pa.s.sage and again stood upright, at once to perceive, as well as the feeble light of our candles would permit, the amazing length, breadth, and height of the cavern; compared to which the monstrous opening through which we had already pa.s.sed was nothing!