Part 2

To describe in detail all the points of beauty that lie before us, would require far more space than we have at disposal; and a dry catalogue of names would interest no one. We have started, as said before, from Goring, where the twin village Streatley--bearing in its name a reminiscence of the old Roman road Ikenild Street,--nestles at the foot of its romantic wooded hill. The comfort of the little hostelry and the charm of the scenery invite a longer stay, but we must press on. Pangbourne and Whitchurch, also twin villages, joined by a pretty wooden bridge, once more invite delay. On the right, the little river Pang flows in between green hills; on the left, or the Whitchurch side, heights clothed with the richest foliage shut in the scene. The cottages are embosomed amid the trees; the clear river catches a thousand reflections from hillside, and sky; the waters of the weir dash merrily down; and the fishermen, each in his punt moored near mid-stream, yielding themselves to the tranquil delight of the perfect scene, are further gladdened by many an encouraging nibble. Surely of all amusements the most restful is fishing from a punt! Most persons would find a day of absolute idleness intolerable. But here we have just that measure of expectation and excitement which enable even a busy and active man to sit all day doing nothing.

Into the question of the cruelty of the sport we do not enter; but its soothing, tranquillising character cannot be denied. For ourselves, our business is not to angle, but to observe. As we row past these grave and solemn men, absorbed in the endeavour to hook a dace or gudgeon, and recognise among them one or two of the hardest workers in London, we feel, at any rate, that the familiar sneer about "a rod with a line at one end, and a fool at the other," may not be altogether just.

Passing a series of verdant lawns, sloping to the river's brink, we reach Mapledurham and Purley, on opposite sides of the river at one of its most exquisite bends. The former place is celebrated by Pope as the retreat of his ladye love Martha Blount; when

"She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks, Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks."

The latter was the residence of Warren Hastings during his trial, and is not to be confounded with the Purley in Surrey, where Horne Tooke wrote his celebrated _Diversions_, on the origin and history of words.

The next halting-place is Caversham, sometimes magniloquently described as "the port of Reading." Here the Thames widens out, as shown in the view which prefaces the present chapter; the eel-traps, or "bucks," extending half across the river. On the occasion of our visit to the spot, it was our intention to stop for the night at Caversham; but as the inn was crowded and noisy, we resolved to push on to Sonning. The evening was already closing in, and before we reached our destination it had grown dark. The trees stood up solemnly against the sky, from which the twilight had not wholly departed. Their shadows fell mysteriously across the river, rendering the task of steering a difficult one.

At length the welcome lights of the village were descried through the deepening gloom; and we landed, having suffered no more serious mishap than running into an ait, which our steersman mistook for a shadow, in the endeavour to avoid a shadow which he mistook for the bank. Next morning, after a plunge into the clear cool water of the pool at the foot of Sonning Weir, a scamper round the village, a climb to the top of the tower for the magnificent view, and a hearty breakfast, we were ready for an early start, whilst the dew was yet on the grass, and the air had not lost its freshness. Here the Kennet, "for silver eels renowned," as Pope has it, flows in from the southwest, with its memories of the high-minded and chivalrous Falkland, who fell at the battle of Newbury, on the banks of this river. A little lower down the Loddon enters the Thames from the south, between Shiplake and Wargrave. The picturesque churches of these two villages were soon passed, and we entered the fine expanse of Henley Reach, famous in boat-racing annals. Here for many years the University matches were rowed before their removal to Putney. No sheet of water could be better suited to the purpose, and the change is regretted by many boating-men.

About four miles below Henley, in one of the loveliest spots on the river, are the ruins of Medmenham Abbey, notorious in the latter half of the eighteenth century, as the scene of the foul and blasphemous orgies of the "Franciscans." The club took its name from Sir Francis Dashwood, its founder, and numbered amongst its members many who were conspicuous, not only for rank and station, but for intellectual ability and political influence. Its proceedings were invested with profound secrecy; but enough was known to show that the most degrading vices were practised, and the lowest depths of wickedness reached;--strange profanation of one of Nature's loveliest shrines!

We are now approaching the point at which the beauty of the river culminates. From Marlow, past Cookham, Hedsor and Cliefden, to Maidenhead, a distance of eight or ten miles, we gladly suspend the labour of the oar, and let the boat drift slowly with the stream. As we glide along, even this gentle motion is too rapid, and we linger on the way to feast our eyes with the infinitely varied combination of chalk cliff and swelling hill and luxuriant foliage which every turn of the river brings to view:

Woods, meadows, hamlets, farms,

Spires in the vale and towers upon the hills;

The great chalk quarries glaring through the shade.

The pleasant lanes and hedgerows, and those homes Which seemed the very dwellings of content and peace and sunshine." *

* Down Stream to London. By the Rev. S. J. Stone.

The "castled crags" of the Rhine and the Moselle,--the "blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,"--the massive grandeur of the banks of the Danube, are far more imposing and stimulating; but the quiet, tranquil loveliness of this part of the Thames may make good its claim to take rank even with those world-famed rivers. There is something both unique and charming in the dry "combes," or fissures in the chalk ranges, rapidly descending, and garnished with sweeping foliage of untrimmed beech-trees. The branches gracefully bend down to the slope of the rising sward; while, from the steepness of the angle, the tree-tops appear from below as a succession of pinnacles against the sky. Many a roamer through distant lands has come home to give the palm for the perfection of natural beauty to the rocks and hanging woods of Cliefden. That they are within an hour's run of London does not indeed abate their claim to admiration, but may suggest the reason why they are so comparatively little known. The mansion on the height, designed by Sir Charles Barry, is now in the possession of the Duke of Westminster.

Maidenhead is on the other side of the river; Taplow opposite. The bridge between them--one of Brunei's works, will be noted for its enormous span; its elliptical brick arches being, it is said, the widest of the kind in the world. From this point, if the beauty decreases, the historical interest becomes greater at every turn. First we pass the village and church of Bray. The scenery here is of little interest; but it is impossible not to give a thought to the vicar, Symond Symonds, commemorated in song. Let it be noted, however, that the lyrist has used a poetic licence in his dates. The historian, Thomas Fuller, tells the story: "The vivacious vicar, living under King Henry VIII., Edward VI., Oueen Mary, and Oueen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. He had seen some martyrs burnt (two miles off), at Windsor, and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. The vicar being taxed by one for being a turncoat and inconstant changeling. 'Not so,' said he, 'for I always kept my principle, which is this--to live and to die the Vicar of Bray.'" The type is but too true to human nature, and not only in matters ecclesiastical. But instead of staying to moralise, we will notice with interest that in this church is preserved an ancient copy of Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, chained to the reading-desk, as in the days of Oueen Elizabeth. It is better to be reminded of "the faith and patience of the saints," than of the light conviction and easy apostacy of politic "believers;" and so the old church at Bray has taught us a refreshing and unexpected lesson.

Soon the towers of Windsor are seen rising above the trees; then Eton College comes into view, with its

"distant spires, antique towers That crown the watery glade."

Perhaps the best view of the castle from the Thames is that from a point just beyond the Great Western Railway bridge. When the queen is absent, access is easy. St. George's Chapel, built by Edward IV., is the finest existing specimen of the architecture of that period; and the view from the North Terrace, constructed by Queen Elizabeth, is perhaps the most beautiful on the River Thames.

A little lower down, and we are passing between Runnimede ("Meadow of Council"), where the barons camped, and Magna Charta Island, where the great charter of English liberty was signed; and a temporary struggle between king and nobles laid the broad foundations of English freedom.

As we sweep round the bend beneath the broad meadow and the wooded isle, "while we muse the fire burneth,"--the ardour of grateful love to Him who has shaped the destinies of our beloved land, and has never from that hour withdrawn the trust then committed to the nation, of being the guardians and pioneers of the world's freedom. A multitude of thoughts and questionings throng in upon us, but we must not lose the opportunity of impressing on our memory the outward features of the scene. There is not much to see: if there be time to land upon the island, it will be as well to do so, and enter the pretty modern cottage there erected, containing the very stone--if tradition is to be believed--on which the Charter was laid for the royal signature.

From Runnimede, it is but an easy climb to the brow of Cooper's Hill, with its far-famed view of the river, of Windsor, and its woods. Dr. Johnson speaks of Sir John Denham's poem, of which we have taken some lines as the motto to this chapter, as "the first English specimen of local poetry." Its subject, as well as its style, will preserve it from the oblivion to which the greater number of the poet's works have descended.

Another Coin falls into the river, to the left, a little farther on--suggestive, in its name, of the Roman occupation; the "street" to the west here crossing the Thames by a bridge. "London Stone," a few hundred yards lower down, marks the entrance into Middlesex; then clean and quiet Staines----"Stones," so termed, perhaps, from the piers of the old Roman bridge, or, it may be, from the London Stone itself, comes into view: but if the traveller has time to spare, he will rather pause at Laleham, so well known to every Christian educator as the earliest scene of Arnold's labours.

"The first reception of the tidings of his election at Rugby," we are told by his biographer, "was overclouded with deep sorrow at leaving the scene of so much happiness. Years after he had left it, he still retained his early affection for it, and till he had purchased his house in Westmoreland, he entertained a lingering hope that he might return to it in his old age, when he should have retired from Rugby. Often he would revisit it, and delighted in renewing his acquaintance with all the families of the poor whom he had known during his residence; in showing to his children his former haunts; in looking once again on his favourite views of the great plain of Middlesex--the lonely walks along the quiet banks of the Thames--the retired garden with its 'Campus Martins,' and its 'wilderness of trees;' which lay behind the house, and which had been the scenes of so many sportive games and serious conversations." *

Chertsey, on the other side of the river, is next passed, the leisurely traveller having the opportunity, if he so please, of visiting the house of Cowley the poet, or of climbing to St. Anne's Hill, once the residence of the statesman Charles James Fox.

Then, still on the right, the mouth of the Wey is seen, the pretty town of Wey-bridge not being far off. Towns and villages now multiply: the villas of city men begin to dot the banks, and the suburban railway station appears, with its hurrying morning and evening crowds. The chronicle of names now would be like the monotonous cry of the railway porter: "Shepperton; Walton; Sunbury; Hampton." But as yet we need not join with the throng. The "silent highway"--as the river has been called--is also a retreat. Still we can leisurely survey the charm, which, so long as the sky, the water, and the trees remain, no builder can efface, although he may try his best, or worst.

A bend in the river between Shepperton and Walton is of historic interest, as there Julius Cæsar with his legions forced the passage of the Thames, and routed the British General Cassivelaunus. "Cæsar led his army to the territories of Cassivelaunus, to the river Thames, which river can be crossed on foot in one place only, and that with difficulty. On arriving, he perceived that great forces of the enemy were drawn up on the opposite bank, which was moreover fortified by sharp stakes set along the margin, a similar stockade being fixed in the bed of the river, and covered by the stream. Having ascertained these facts from prisoners and deserters, Cæsar sent the cavalry in front, and ordered the legions to follow immediately. The soldiers advanced with such rapidity and impetuosity, although up to their necks in the water, that the enemy could not withstand the onset, but quitted the banks and betook themselves to flight." * The name Cowey, or Coway Stakes, to this day commemorates the event.

* Stanley's _Life_ vol. i. p. 37. One of Arnold's Laleham pupils, afterwards his colleague at Rugby, writes: "The most remarkable thing which struck me at once in joining the Laleham circle, was the wonderful healthiness of tone and feeling which prevailed in it. Everything about me I immediately felt to be most real; it was a place where a new-comer at once felt that a great and earnest work was going forward. Dr. Arnold's great power as a private tutor resided in this, that he gave such an intense earnestness to life. Every pupil was made to feel that there was a work for him to do--that his happiness as well as his duty lay in doing that work well. Hence, an indescribable zest was communicated to a young man's feeling about life; a strange joy came over him on discovering that he had the means of being useful, and thus of being happy; and a deep respect and ardent attachment sprang up towards him who had taught him thus to value life and his own self, and his work and mission in this world." September 23, 1872.

"Who calls the council, states the certain day. Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way."--_Pope_

Two or three miles farther, and just past Hampton village, on the left bank, the traveller will notice a little rotunda with a Grecian portico with a mansion of some pretensions in the wooded back-ground. The house was Garrick's residence, and in the rotunda there originally stood Roubiliac's famous statue of Shakspere, now in the British Museum. Bushey Park and Hampton Court next tempt us to the shore. Great names of history again rise to memory--Wolsey, Cromwell, Williams. But the charm of Hampton Court is, that its palace and gardens are free of access to the people; a privilege which, all the summer through, is appreciated by eager, happy throngs. But let us cross the river to the comparative solitude of the two Dittons--"Thames," and "Long." An _impromptu_ of poor Theodore Hook, lively and graceful, according to his wont, has led many a tourist in search of a holiday to this pretty neighbourhood, and the poet's memory is reverenced in the village accordingly. Here are the first and last verses:

"When sultry suns and dusty streets proclaim town's 'winter season,' And rural scenes and cool retreats sound something like high treason-- I steal away to shades serene which yet no bard has hit on, And change the bustling, heartless scene for quietude and Ditlon. Here, in a placid waking dream, I'm free from worldly troubles, Calm as the rippling silver stream that in the sunshine bubbles; And when sweet Eden's blissful bowers, some abler bard has writ on. Despairing to transcend his powers, I'll-ditto-say for Ditton."

Then comes trim Surbiton with its villas, and Kingston--once, as its name imports, a town of kings. Por here were crowned several Saxon monarchs; is there not the coronation-stone in the market-place, engraven with their names? Teddington Lock, a little lower down, is the last upon the Thames; and here too the anglers of the river put forth their chief and almost their final strength. The mile from Teddington to Eel-pie Island off Twickenham will be a quiet one indeed, if the voyager interfere not with the sport of one or other of these gentry, and draw down their resentment accordingly. Strawberry Hill reminds us of Horace Walpole, literary idleness, sham Gothic, and _bric-à-brac_. We glance and pass on. Pope's Villa no longer exists; only a relic of his famous grotto remains; but a monument to the poet is in Twickenham Church, with an inscription by Warburton, setting forth that Pope "would not be buried in Westminster Abbey."

Past wood-fringed meadows on either hand, the "Broadwater," now rightly named--sweeps on to Richmond, where we must ascend the far-famed hill, to gaze once more upon the finest river-view in Europe. A little farther down, on autumn days, off lsleworth, may be descried flights of swallows, preparing for their outward journey. "They arrive," writes the artist who has depicted the scene, "in a mass, at the same hour, without confusion, as it were in regiments, and in some of their oblique evolutions resemble a drift of black snow. At dusk they all sink down into the island or 'ait' opposite the church of Isleworth, where a large bed of osiers affords them in its slender wands a settling-place for the night."

From this point, all Londoners know their river. The beauty of nature is no longer present, but a new sentiment of wonder and interest takes possession of us. We feel the stir and hear the roar of the great Babel. What were once quiet suburban villages are now but a part of the metropolis. Still, however, they retain something of the quaint picturesqueness of the last century. In many a nook and corner we come upon solid comfortable houses of red brick, where our great-grandmothers, over a "dish of tea," may have discussed the "poems of a person of quality," or "the writings of the ingenious Mr. Addison."

These relics of the last century are rapidly disappearing.

Cheyne Walk at Chelsea, which now forms so striking an object from the river, can hardly hold out much longer against the march of modern improvement, and will probably ere long share the fate of the Lord Mayor's barge, and disappear from view.

The noble embankments which now skirt so large a portion of the London river, and the bridges old and new, afford every facility for the full study of the Thames in all its aspects. Yet those who only cross with the hurrying crowd miss half the picturesqueness of what many who have travelled far feel to be among the most picturesque city views in Europe. Wordsworth's sonnet, beginning--

"Earth has not anything to show more fair,"

was written on Westminster Bridge! But then it was on an early summer morning, when the "mighty heart" of the city was "lying still," and the "very houses seemed asleep." The blue sky, unobscured by smoke, hung in the freshness of the dawn over the dwellings of men and the heaven-pointing spires. The night airs had swept away every city taint, and the atmosphere was pure as among the mountains or by the sea. The experiment is worth making still at the cost of an hour or two's earlier rising, to prove how exhilarating, fresh, and delightful the London air may be.

Or perhaps the charm of the scene may be more deeply felt amid the mystery of night, when the clouds have dispersed, and but for some rare footfalls there is silence, and the countless lights stretch in long lines, reflected by the gently rippling waters, while even the bright glare of the railway lamps aloft only add colour and splendour to the gleaming array, and the steadfast stars hang overhead. By night or in early morning, perhaps through force of contrast, the full beauty of these London river scenes are felt. Or, to vary the impression, we may take boat, as did our fathers, from bridge to bridge, "from Westminster to Rotherhithe," or farther down the broadening stream, with the wealth of the world, as it almost seems, ranged on either hand in the close-crowded vessels or the stupendous warehouses. Every such excursion is a new revelation, even to minds accustomed to the scene, of what is meant by English commerce, and of the ties which connect us with all mankind. Yet there is much to remind us that the universal reign of peace has not as yet set in. Grim preparations for defence and war bespeak a nation prepared, if needs be, for strife. And as at length we reach Tilbury Fort, and glow under the influence of the invigorating sea-breeze, great memories rush in upon us of armaments once gathered here; to lead, as it seemed, the forlorn hope;--to attain, as by God's great mercy it proved, the triumphant victory, of British Protestantism and liberty.

When King James I. threatened the recalcitrant corporation of London with the removal of the court to Oxford, the Lord Mayor, with scarcely veiled sarcasm, replied, "May it please your Majesty, of your grace, not to take away the Thames too!" If the Upper Thames awakens our admiration by its loveliness, the Lower Thames inspires us with wonder and almost awe at the boundless wealth and world-wide commerce which it bears upon its ample bosom. Other rivers may vie with it in beauty. In far-reaching influence it stands alone. As we sail through its forest of masts, or follow its course down to the sea, we feel that we are surrounded by influences which stretch to the very ends of the earth. The stream whose course we have traced from the tiny rivulet in Trewsbury Mead has become the channel of communications which, for good or evil, are affecting every nation under heaven. May He who has endowed us with such wealth and power lead us to hold them both under a deep sense of responsibility to Him who gave them!--"Then shall our peace flow like a river, and our righteousness as the waves of the sea."

SOUTH-EASTERN RAMBLES

|HE is a benefactor to his species who makes two blades of corn grow where only one grew before." The substantial truth of the aphorism none will question; vet it would be a doubtful benefit if all our waste lands were reclaimed and brought under the plough. Enclosure Acts, by extending the area of our productive soil, have increased the resources of the country and the food of the people. But the total absorption into cultivated farms of heath, forest, and woodland would be to purchase the utilitarian advantage at too high a price.