CHAPTER XXVI.

_The Wye and the Severn—Bristol and Wells._

The next day found me again ascending the Malvern hills, on a coach-top, the guard playing the merriest notes, upon his horn, as we rapidly trotted through the town. After another view of the vale of Gloucester, we turned into Herefordshire, and descended into the valley that spreads from the western slope of the Malverns. We had fine views of Edensor, the estate of Lord Somers, and of a monumental column, upon the crown of a hill. I was glad, too, to see on the roadside, marking some parochial boundary, a stone cross, such as is frequent on the Continent, and might, without any evil, be a familiar object in any Christian country. As we approached Ledbury, we met a band of gipsies in their proverbial rags and wretchedness, skulking along the road, and exhibiting very few of those bewitching peculiarities of appearance with which painters and romancers are fond of investing them. I had never met them before, and was sorry not to be able to stop and talk with them. An impression of awe haunted me for some time as I meditated upon their mysterious barbarism, and tried to recall the glimpse of their weird features, which I had caught as they passed by. I never saw any of their kind, on any other occasion afterwards, and think they must be growing scarce, even in England.

At Ledbury I was particularly struck with an outside view of the parish Church, which is but one of a thousand churches in England which of themselves are enough to reward a traveller for journeying through it. Sir Walter Scott has justly awarded to them the credit of being the most beautiful temples in the world, and the most becoming for their holy purposes. Our next stage brought us to Ross so famous for the memory of John Kyrle and his beneficent deeds. Its “heaven-directed spire” surmounts the hill, on which the town is built; and every where, in Ross, the traces of his good works, as well as many of the works themselves, survive to consecrate his name. The house in which he dwelt is adorned with a medallion portrait of “the man of Ross,” sunk in the wall, and visible to every passenger. He was indeed all that the poet has made him in descriptive verse; and he was something more, for he was a zealous Churchman, and a faithful attendant upon the daily service. I made my way to the Church, and was pleased to find its churchyard cross entire, and a cross upon its gable. The interior, though very old fashioned, was adorned with flowers, in honour of Pentecost, and its monuments are many and curious. Among them was one of those altar-tombs, on which lie at full length a knight and his sweet dame, the latter with her delicate hand held in his rough grasp, as if their union were inseparable by death itself. I was deeply touched by such a memorial of love, which we must believe to have been sincere, and to which fancy attributes all that is constant on the part of the lady, and all that is chivalrous on the part of her lord. But where is the monument of Kyrle? There is a bust and an inscription, but his monument, like Christopher Wren’s, is the Church itself; for he built its spire, and something more beside. There is a story, too, that when the bells were cast, he was present, and threw into the melting metal a silver tankard, from which he and the workmen had just drunk to the king’s health. As I was passing round, the sexton said to me, “you shall now see something that you never saw before,” and he pointed out a couple of elm trees, growing in the Church, and reaching to the roof. What is the more remarkable, they are growing in the pew where the Man of Ross was accustomed to worship, as if to testify the fidelity of God to the promise—“He shall be like a tree, planted by the water-side, his leaf also shall not wither.” One would almost believe that they must have been planted on purpose, but the truth is rather the reverse. They are in fact the fruit of Kyrle’s own planting; for he set a row of elms in the churchyard, which were cut down by a churlish vicar, but from which these shoots have sprung up in the house of God, as it were in silent remonstrance. It is hard not to see something providential in the coincidence, by which, what would be a curiosity anywhere, is thus connected with the blessed example of one of the most benevolent and virtuous of mankind. The trees screen one of the windows, and appear to thrive in the climate of the sanctuary, their leaves putting forth earlier, and falling later than those of the trees in the churchyard.

A fair was going on in the town, and the streets were filled with the peasantry. Everywhere pedlars were setting forth the merits of their wares, and among them was a fellow bawling—“Here’s the last dying speech and confession, &c.”—as he exhibited the doleful print of a gallows and its dangling victim. Such incidents are not rarely met in the narratives of a certain class of novelists, and I have certainly read, somewhere, of just such a market-day as I encountered at Ross. I walked slowly down the hill into the valley of the Wye, turning constantly to observe the fine situation of the town, till the coach overtook me. The country here is rich but simply pretty, and as yet it revealed none of the glories for which the Wye is celebrated. Goodrich Court, a modern mansion, is a fine object, however, and the remains of Goodrich Castle are an imposing feature in the scene; and all the more so for its association with the cavaliers, from whom it was finally taken by Cromwell, and reduced to ruins. As you enter Monmouthshire, a glorious view begins to open, and from about this point the scenery of the river increases in wildness and grandeur. I was, at first, at a loss to know why Wordsworth should have called the Wye sylvan, for such was far from being its character, in Herefordshire; but now the entire appropriateness of the epithet was disclosed, and yet I am well aware that I lost many of the finest features of the stream by not descending it in a boat. With Monmouth itself, I was somewhat disappointed, its Church having suffered many things of many churchwardens, and the remains of the priory, where Henry the Fifth was born, having become incorporated with the modern walls of a boarding-school. I left Monmouth with gratitude to Fluellyn for his idea of its wondrous resemblance to Macedon, which I should not have imagined, had he not helped the world to it. The glories of the scenery round St. Briavel’s and near the tiny little Church at Llandogo, should have had the further benefit of his minute and luminous descriptive powers, as I can liken it to nothing else in the world but itself, for its combination of simply rural features, with those which are highly picturesque. An American is struck with the charm imparted to such scenery, by a pretty church or a neat and secluded hamlet, quite as much as he is impressed by the scenery itself; and I was often led to think what the valley of the Mohawk might be, had it the advantage of that still retirement, and of those Arcadian groves, which impart a peculiar effect to the sterner beauties of the Wye. At Tintern Parva we were shown the ancestral habitation of Fielding, and passed a new church which was well worthy of note. But the neighbourhood of Tintern Abbey eclipsed every other thought, and I strained my sight for the earliest possible glimpse of the delightful vision. A storm which had been threatening, broke upon us, unfortunately, at the critical point, and I first beheld that magnificent ruin in circumstances which increased its desolation. In spite of the rain, however, I embraced an opportunity of entering its walls and surveying it for a few moments, amid the wild confusion of the elements. The rain dashing through its rich but broken tracery, and the wind tossing the gorgeous drapery of its mantling ivy, with the melancholy sighs it gave amid the columns, and along the aisles, deepened the solemn impression of the spot, and gave a heightened interest to the thoughts of its former sacred uses, when it resounded with the chant of priests and the swells of music from the organ. As I purposed a more leisurely visit in fairer weather, I was willing to have seen it thus amid storm and tempest. I resumed my journey to Chepstow; and as the storm soon abated, and was succeeded by sunshine, I had many fine views of the windings of the river, some of which are very bold, sweeping, amid precipitous banks, crowned with the richest foliage and verdure. Chepstow itself has many beauties, as seen from the Wye, and after slightly surveying the town and castle, I crossed the iron bridge, and drove to Tidenham, where a kind welcome awaited me at the vicarage, from one with whom I had corresponded long before I left America. I was sorry, however, to find myself a source of disappointment to the children of my kind entertainers, who had been unable to divest themselves, notwithstanding the benevolent dissuasions of their parents, of the romantic idea that the American visitor would present himself in aboriginal costume, and contribute to their amusement by exhibiting his red visage, and lending them his bow and arrows. Their father is now a Missionary Bishop, in Africa.

This vicarage is of modern erection, but in very good ecclesiastical style, and has a pretty garden, in which I saw my amiable friend the vicar taking the air, when I rose in the morning. I was glad that so pleasant an abode had fallen to the lot of so good a man. After breakfast, while he visited his poor and sick, I went on a little pony, with a servant at my side, to Cockshoot Hill, which looks down upon the Wye nearly opposite the Windcliff. Tidenham itself stands on a narrow peninsula, with the Wye on one side, and the broad Severn on the other, and just below Cockshoot Hill this peninsula forces the river Wye to make an extraordinary bend beneath its precipitous banks, on which stands the pretty hamlet of Llancaut. The view, at this point, is therefore peculiarly fine, and affords, in one spot called “Double-view,” the unusual spectacle of both rivers—the Wye, with its sylvan charms on one hand, and the expanse of the Severn, with its ships and steamers, on the other. I was best pleased with the Wye, the Windcliff, the projecting rocks called the Twelve Apostles, and the entire scene on that side, as far as the eye could stretch, above and below. The farms and fruit-trees of the peninsula were also pleasing in their way, and the more so, because it was now the season of blossoms, and every breeze was fragrant. My return was enlivened by views of the Severn, which were often much heightened in effect by the turns of the road, and the openings amid thick trees, through which I descried them; and I was gratified to be joined by a labouring man, who insisted on walking with us, and pointing out favourite prospects, apparently not so much in hopes of a fee, as to testify his regard for a guest of the vicar, of whom he spoke in unbounded terms of respect, as the blessing of the country round. I found the Church opened, and service going on: and when it was over, was informed by the vicar himself of the various merits of the sacred place as an architectural specimen. The font was an ancient Norman one, of lead, and is regarded as curious. So are the windows, which exhibit a semi-flamboyant tracery, by no means common. A gradual restoration is going on, at the expense of the vicar and his personal friends; but I was amused by the white-washed tower, which remains thus disfigured, while the rest of the Church has been reduced to its natural color. It seems that this white tower has long been a landmark of the Severn, and serves a useful purpose, in the piloting of vessels. With an interference which would strike us Americans as very arbitrary, the Government, therefore, forbade that the tower of Tidenham Church should be made to look any less like a whited sepulchre; and so it stands, as a pillar of salt, to this day.

The rest of the day was devoted to an excursion to Tintern, to which the ladies contributed their agreeable society. The party proved a very cheerful one, and we encountered scarcely any fatigue of which our fairer associates did not bear their full share. In surveying the remains of Chepstow castle, only, were we without their company. I found it a noble ruin, even after my visit to Caernarvon. It was reduced to ruin by Cromwell, after a desperate fight, but one of its towers was long afterwards—for twenty years—the prison of Henry Marten, the regicide. It must once have been a splendid hold of feudalism, and its halls and windows still retain many traces of the Saxon and Norman richness of its original beauty.

We climbed the Windcliff, and thence surveyed the combined glories of land, and sea, and of inland stream, which are its peculiar charm. Where else can be seen such a prospect: such inland river scenery, blended with the view of a broad arm of ocean, side by side, and apparently not united? It would be vain for me to attempt description, but I found it all I could ask; and on that breezy height recalled to mind those incomparable lines of Wordsworth, composed upon the spot or near it, in which he exhorts the lover of Nature to store up such scenes in memory, and thus make “the mind a mansion for all lovely forms.” There are caves below, through which one of my female friends led me like a Sybil; and then I went under her kind escort through a wild American-like wood, to rejoin our carriage. Two miles more of delightful scenery, and I stood again in Tintern Abbey, and wandered through its holy aisles, and climbed to its venerable summit. Here, over the lofty arches of the transept, I walked, as in a path through a wood, the shrubbery growing wildly on both sides, as on the brow of a natural cliff. White roses flourish there in abundance; and it is only at intervals that you can get a glimpse of the Abbey-floor beneath. Around you is a beautiful prospect of the river, and of an amphitheatre of hills; and when you stand in the aisles below, and view these same hills through the broken windows, you feel that they should never have been glazed, except with transparent glass. On the whole, when the beauty of its situation is fully taken into consideration, in addition to the original graces of its architecture,—its graceful pillars, its aerial arches, its gorgeous windows,—and when we observe the fond effect with which nature has clothed the pile in verdure, as if resuming her power with tenderness, and striving to repair the decays of art, with her own triumphant creations; when all these, and other attractions which cannot be enumerated in description, are united in the estimate, I cannot but give to Tintern Abbey the credit of being the fairest sight, of its kind, which ever filled my vision. I have since seen many similar objects, combining architectural beauties with those of nature, but were I allowed to choose one more glimpse of such a picture, among all, I think I should say to the enchanter—“let me have another look at Tintern.”

Crossing the broad mouth of the Severn, in a little steamer, we entered the Avon, of a fine afternoon, just as a fleet of similar steamers, taking the tide at flood, were hurrying out to sea. It was a most animating sight, as one after another chased by—this for London, that for Dublin, another for Glasgow, and so on; all flaunting the red cross of St. George, and displaying a full company on deck. I was agreeably surprised by the beauty of this river, which is varied by woods and cliffs, and many striking objects, among which a little ruinous chapel, upon a verdant peninsula, particularly struck me, and the more so, as having been formerly used by fishermen, before going upon their voyages in the channel, as a place of prayer for protection and success. But this river has an historical claim upon the affectionate regard of America, as having sent forth two expeditions to our shores, of the greatest consequence to our whole continent. Upon these waters crept forth to sea, in 1497, the little “Matthew,” on whose deck stood Sebastian Cabot, “uncovering his fine Venetian head” to take a last farewell of his native city, as he boldly stood out to the ocean in search of the New World. Upon that expedition depended the discovery of the mainland of America, and the occupation of the northern half by the Anglo-Saxon race. To this glorious reminiscence has been added the fine contrast presented by the “Great Western,” as she launched forth, in this same river, only a few years ago, in her majestic strength, to inaugurate a new era in the art of navigation, and to unite the Old World and the New by bonds of intercommunication, which imagination itself had never ventured to portray in their present stage of wonderful development. “Upon no waters,” says a popular writer, “save those of the winding Avon, have two such splendid adventures as these been enterprized.”

Passing under the heights of Clifton, and landing in Cumberland basin, I climbed the steep, took my lodgings at Clifton, and then went on foot into Bristol, over Brandon-hill, enjoying the magnificent panorama which unfolds on every side, and comprehends the finest features of town and country, of water and of land. My first thought was the famous Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, and thither I took my way. The poetry of Chatterton was the delight of my boyhood, and this Church I had long desired to see. I found it undergoing restoration, but not the less open to inspection. It is indeed a masterpiece of architecture; its clustered pillars, and the fan-like spread of its vaulting, with its fourfold aisles, and rich quatrefoil windows, affording the keenest satisfaction to the artist, and affecting every man of taste with overwhelming emotions of religion, which may well be made salutary to the soul. Here are some pictures by Hogarth, of a character superior to his general efforts; one of which, representing “the Ascension of our Lord,” shows him to have possessed fine sensibilities, and a delicate appreciation of the more poetical provinces of his art. The monument of “Master Canynge,” the Mayor, who figures so richly in the “Bristowe tragedy,” attracted my profound attention, as did also several others less mentionable, though very interesting. Of Chatterton himself, no monument is to be seen, save the old muniment-room, and the chests, from which he fished his bold idea. The monument, which was erected a few years since to his memory, has for some reason been removed, and now lies dishonoured in the crypt. It is impossible to think of that marvellous boy without pity, in spite of his moral delinquencies; and I can scarcely read the ballad of Charles Bawdin without tears, excited as much by the fate of its author, as of its hero. His moral perceptions must have been of a fine cast, or he never could have conceived that poem; and who would not choose to believe that had he encountered mercy and loving-kindness from those who ought to have befriended him, his splendid genius might have been made a rich blessing to himself and to the world?

As the solemn twilight was coming on, I visited the cathedral. I had not promised myself much from such a visit, for ’tis a mutilated pile, of which the entire nave is lacking. Yet, whether it was the effect of the dim and dying daylight, or whether the architecture and the sepulchral charms of the holy place overpowered me, I left it with the profoundest impressions of awe and tender emotion. The old Norman Chapter-house is an architectural gem, with its intersecting arcades, its rich diapering, and nail-head ornaments, its twisted mouldings, and spiral columns, and the zig-zag groinings of its roof. In the vestry I was shown a curious Saxon carving of Christ saving a soul. My attention was also directed, by the sub-sacrist who attended me, to the ruins of the Bishop’s palace, which fell under the violence of the mob, in 1831, when good Bishop Gray so beautifully distinguished himself and his Order, by exhibiting an apostolic harmony of meekness and resolution. But it was in walking the aisles of the cathedral itself, under the deepening shadows of the evening, that I experienced the full effects which such a place should inspire. From the old and decaying monuments of knights and their dames, I passed with elevated feeling to the modern achievements of Bacon and of Chantry. A kneeling female figure, reflecting the faint light from its pale features and white drapery, and standing out of the darkness, like a pure soul emerging from the valley of the shadow of death, gave me a sensation of unspeakable reverence. Hard by, a chequered day-beam played on the fine outline of a bust of Robert Southey, and this apparition also affected me; but when I came to the little tablet which marks the grave of Mrs. Mason, and spelt out, word by word, the incomparable tribute of conjugal love which it bears, I was overwhelmed; and as I read (I am not ashamed to own it) my tears dropped upon the marble floor. There was barely daylight enough for the effort, but I had known the poem from my earliest childhood, and possibly to this fact I must attribute its overpowering effect upon my feelings. It is to be condemned perhaps as an epitaph; but who can think of criticism when borne along on such a tide of heavenly affection and triumphant faith? I trembled to think I was standing upon the relics of so much loveliness and purity.

“Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear!”

She must have been an angel, to have inspired so much feeling as agony has compressed into that one line! and then, what an image of more than mortal beauty rises before us as we read—

“Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine, Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.”

And did ever love paint such a portrait, in a few touches of passionate apostrophe, as in those in which the heart of her husband speaks on?

“Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty’s sphere as meekly move! And, _if as fair, from vanity as free_; As firm in friendship, and _as fond in love_!”

Never was the glory of true female character so enshrined in language before; but this is not all! The ideal of the Christian woman is brought out in its completeness in what follows:—

“Tell them—though ’tis an awful thing to die, ——’Twas _even to thee_!”

Here is the tender form, and timid step, with all the heroism of the female saint, descending into the dark valley: and at the same time here is the transcendent tribute—

’Twas _even to thee_!

And now comes triumphant faith:—

——“Yet that dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids the pure in heart behold their God.”

I am probably failing in my desire to carry my reader along with me in my own conception of the exceeding merit of these verses, as embodying some of the sublimest, and some of the tenderest affections of the regenerate heart, with the smallest possible sacrifice of that eloquence which is generally mute, in proportion to its expressiveness: but I cannot deny myself the pleasure of recording the fact, that their power over my own feelings, as I read them on the spot, and in the circumstances which I have hinted, was such as beggars description.

A moonlight ramble on the heights of Clifton, and another in the early morning, next day, concluded my rapid visit to this region; and I took the top of the coach soon after to the city of Wells. This little journey over the Mendip hills, which gave me frequent opportunities for walking, was enlivened by the conversation of a sharp-featured little dissenting minister, who volunteered his opinions upon all subjects, and who seemed peculiarly anxious to give me his own opinions of the clergy of the Church. “There are,” said he, with an oracular look, and the keen expression of a desire to know how the fact might strike me, “there are 18,000 Church clergymen in England: of these, there may possibly be 4,000 who are in different degrees evangelical; 4,000 are vicious and idle; and 10,000, including all the young clergy, are _Puseyites_, who neither know how to teach the Gospel, nor what the Gospel is!” He thought there was no prospect of any disruption between Church and State; and, at last, whispered in my ear, that he had serious thoughts of emigrating to America. I was amazed at this little man’s utterly unconscious lack of Christian charity. Of the 10,000 clergy whom he thus denounced in the gross, as evil-minded men, I had myself been for weeks closely associated with many, in whom I had seen exemplified every Christian grace, and from whom I had gathered lessons of practical piety, for which I had reason to bless God. For patience in tribulation, and for pastoral fidelity; for lives devoted to the good of men, and fervent with zeal for the glory of God, I had never seen their equals; and now, to hear them stigmatized in a manner so cool and professional, by one who soon betrayed his personal animosity by adding—“and us, dissenting preachers, they treat as a race of upstart tinkers”—made me lament for poor human nature and its deceitful workings even in good men’s hearts! I consoled my friend by hinting that, in America, the Presbyterian and Congregational pastors had long professed a somewhat similar contempt for the clergy of the Church, having for nearly two centuries been the religious chieftains of our country; but I ventured to intimate that we did not on that account feel the less respect for ourselves, or think it right to deny them the credit of many estimable qualities, and the right of being judged by Him who alone searcheth the heart. I believe it was after this, that the worthy man proposed adding himself to our population; a scheme in which I could not discourage him, convinced, as I was, that a taste of our religious condition might perhaps change his views as to the comparative evils of the English Church, and those of the Saturnalia of unbelief which are fast developing under the influences of our illimitable sectarianism.