Part 8
The bard whose “lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share” indeed, while more than one of his publishers dropped off “flaccid and drained,” was able later on to build himself a retreat on the Sussex wilds of Blackdown, in a sense even further “from noise and smoke of town.” But he still spent part of the year at Farringford; and much of his poetry is coloured by the Isle of Wight scenery, notably _Maud_, that “pet bantling” of his to which early critics were so unkind. Enoch Arden, too, might be thought to have hailed from this shore, but that hazel nuts do not flourish in the Island, unless in the half fossilized form of “Noah’s nuts” found in Compton Chine; also, on critical consideration, there appears no long street climbing out of Freshwater, whose “mouldered church,” moreover, has been quite masked by rebuilding--but these are poetical properties readily inserted into any picture, such as one that could be taken from a hundred villages on our coast--
Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm; And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf, In cluster; then a moulder’d church, and higher, A long street climbs to one tall-tower’d mill; And high in heaven behind it a grey down With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood, By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes Green in a cup-like hollow of the down.
Often from these downs, the poet must have watched--
Below the milky steep Some ship of battle slowly creep, And on through zones of light and shadow Glimmer away to the lonely deep.
From his own window, he could catch--
The voice of the long sea-wave as it swelled, Now and then in the dim-gray dawn.
And often his steps were turned to that finest scene within an hour’s stroll--
The broad white brow of the Isle--that bay with the coloured sand--Rich was the rose of sunset there, as we drew to the land.
On such points of vantage, he was inspired with loyalty and patriotism very different from the feelings of his predecessor in the laureateship, who “uttered nothing base,” but who was certainly disposed to frown, when, from the Island cliffs, he saw a British fleet sailing forth against the soon clouded dawn of liberty in France.
Tennyson naturally had a dread of new building about Freshwater; and some other landowners here seem to share the same exclusive spirit, which may account for the neighbourhood not being more “developed” as a resort, while its warmest admirers lament how much it has grown since the Laureate settled here. It has no want of attractions, not always accessible on the steep face of chalk, scarred and pitted by works of time like Freshwater Arch and Freshwater Cave near the little bay, beyond which come honeycombings known by such names as “Neptune’s Caves” and “Bar Cave”--“Frenchman’s Hole,” from an escaped prisoner said to have starved here--Lord Holmes’ “Parlour,” “Kitchen,” and “Cellar,” where that governor was in the way
of entertaining his friends--“Roe’s Hall”--“Preston’s Bower”--the “Wedge Rock,” a triangular mass wedged in between the cliff and an isolated pyramid some 50 feet high--the “Arched Cavern” in Scratchell’s Bay, and the “Needles Cave,” into which small boats can peep before rounding the jagged corner. It is said that Professor Tyndall used to keep himself in climbing practice by scrambling on these treacherous rocks; and if this be true, I so far question the wisdom of that pundit. The harrying of airy nests makes a better excuse for such riskful gymnastics. The fissured cliff line is tenanted by sea-fowl, which the report of a gun brings out in screaming and hovering crowds, conspicuous among them the black and white cormorants nicknamed “Isle of Wight parsons.”
These sights are to be visited by boat, if a stranger have stomach for the adventure. On foot one can mount the back of the cliff known at first as the Nodes, then as the Mainbench, or in general as the High Downs. At the highest point of the Nodes, nearly 500 feet, the old beacon has been replaced by an Iona Cross in memory of Tennyson, with whom this was a favourite walk in the wildest weather. A grand walk it is upon a crest of greensward so smooth that bicycles find a track here among the flying golf balls. In dry weather this smooth turf is slippery, as one might find too late on its treacherous edges. Further on, the straight way is barred by a fort, where, between Scratchell’s Bay and Alum Bay, the ridge narrows and drops to the spur pointed by those insular masses known as the “Needles,” that, seen at a hazy distance, rise out of the sea like three castles.
The name of this famous point has been connected with the German _Nieder Fels_; but there seems no need of going further than a homely simile that would come to mind and mouth of sailors who, in another language, have threaded the same suggestion on the southernmost rocks of Africa. Of the three sharp-backed islets that stand out here braving the winds and waves, the innermost is known to have risen 120 feet higher in a tall pillar called “Lot’s Wife,” which fell in 1784. Since Turner painted them, unless they loomed for him through a haze of imagination, the Needles have dwindled in size. Naturally of course they are worn away by every gale, like their kinsmen “Old Harry and his Wife” on the Dorset coast, one of which isolated masses has been washed down to a stump within the last few years, the same end as threatens the “Parson and Clerk” off the red sandstone cliffs of Devon; and in the far north the more robustly gigantic “Old Man of Hoy” has now but one leg to stand on.
Bitten at as they are by old _Edax Rerum_, the Needles have still a bulk which, dwarfed against the cliffs behind, might not be guessed till one’s eyes are fixed upon the lighthouse on the outermost rock, or upon human figures displayed against them, to give their due proportion. Thomas Webster, the geologist, saw them about a century ago under most picturesque conditions, when the fifty-gun frigate _Pomone_ had stuck fast upon the outer edge, and lay captive there, to be broken up by the next gale, the waves already spouting through her ports and hatchways, while all around swarmed a fleet of smaller vessels engaged in salving the wreck, or bringing idle spectators to such a singular scene: he was surprised to find the frigate’s hull overtopped by more than three-fourths of the rock.
On the north side of the Needles opens Alum Bay, where German visitors will not fail to exclaim _Wunderschön!_ and Americans to admire the works of nature as “elegant!” This famous geological transformation scene is formed by the Eocene strata turning up beside the chalk, as at the east end of the Island, but here with more striking effect, so as to be a spectacle for the most unlearned eye as well as a lesson of extraordinary value for those who can read it, through the manner in which the beds have been heaved, contorted and thrown into a vertical position of display. The chalk on one side with its tender tints is faced on the other by variegated bands of clay, marl, and sand, the hues of which, after heavy rain especially, are vivid far beyond our common experience of the “brown old earth,” in some lights presenting the rainbow of colour described by Englefield, to be so often quoted: “deep purplish-red, dusky blue, bright ochreous-yellow, grey approaching nearly to white, and absolute black, succeed each other, as sharply defined as the stripes in silk; and after rain the sun, which, from about noon till his setting in summer, illuminates them more and more, gives a brilliancy to some of these nearly as resplendent as the high lights on real silk.”
His geological ally Webster renders an almost as high-coloured account in more matter-of-fact style. The Alum Bay cliffs, he says,
... consist, generally, of a vast number of alternations of layers of very pure clay, and pure sand, with ferruginous sand and shale. Of these beds some are several feet, whilst others are not an eighth of an inch in thickness. Next to the chalk, is a vertical bed of chalk marl; then one of clay of a deep red colour, or sometimes mottled red and white. This is succeeded by a very thick bed of dark blue clay with green earth, containing nodules of marl or argillaceous limestone with fossil shells. Then follows a vast succession of alternating beds of sand of various colours, white, bright yellow, green, red and grey; plastic clay, white, black, grey and red; ferruginous sandstone and shale, together with several beds of a species of coal, or lignite, the vegetable origin of which is evident. The number and variety of these vertical layers is quite endless, and I can compare them to nothing better than the stripes on the leaves of a tulip. On cutting down pieces of the cliffs, it is astonishing to see the extreme brightness of the colours, and the delicacy and thinness of the several layers of white and red sand, shale and white sand, yellow clay and white or red sand, and indeed almost every imaginable combination of these materials. These cliffs, although so highly coloured that they could scarcely come within the limits of picturesque beauty, were not, however, without their share of harmony. The tints suited each other admirably; and their whole appearance, though almost beyond the reach of art to imitate, was extremely pleasing to the eye. Their forms, divested of colour, when viewed near, and from the beach, were often of the most sublime class; resembling the weather-worn peaks of Alpine heights. This circumstance they derive from the same source as those primitive mountains; for the strata being vertical, the rains and snow water enter between them, and wear deep channels, leaving the more solid parts sharp and pointed.
The alum that gives the name to this bay, oozing from its motley face, seems no longer of commercial account; but the pure white sand is used in glass-making, and the coloured sands are arranged in fantastic patterns to make curiosities or memorials for the excursionists who flock to this spot by coach, by steamer from Bournemouth and other seaside towns, or by an hour’s walk from Freshwater station. For their entertainment, there are two hostelries and some humbler refreshment rooms; but as yet Alum Bay has not been turned into a bathing-place, though round its northern corner rises one of the favourite summer resorts of the Island.
Another contrast appears from the hollow behind the bay. The chalk downs on one side are smooth, as if shaved by their own razor-like edges; on the other, Headon Hill swells up in moorland knolls and banks of heather, its rough sides clothed with tufts of yellow flowerets and ragged grass. Headon Warren is a fitting _alias_. From its blunt head, some 400 feet, we look down upon the lower and darker cliffs of the inner coast, studded with brick forts that would be an ugly sight to an enemy seeking to force the passage of the Solent.
We have done now with wonders, but the north-western face of the Island makes a pleasant shore line, on which, in a mile or so, is reached the snug beach of Totland Bay, the chief bathing-place of this end, all new and smart, its big hotel standing out over the pier, like colonel of a regiment of lodging-houses and villas. Round the next corner comes Colwell Bay, another stretch of sand on which a younger resort is growing up beside crumbling cliffs and tiny chines. At the further horn stands Albert Fort, nicknamed the “brick three-decker,” commanding the narrowest part of the Solent, where a long narrow spit from the mainland throws Hurst Castle more than half-way across the three-knot channel, hardly needed as a stepping-stone by any giant who might care to hop over. The next corner, bearing up the Victoria Fort, brings us round to the estuary of the Yar, a stream that shows more estuary than river, opening out with as much complacency as if it drained a basin of ten times three miles. The mouth of this shallow gulf, towards the sea pleasantly masked in woods, is crossed by a causeway leading into Yarmouth.
YARMOUTH
Among its other misfortunes this little Yarmouth has had that of being over-crowed by the bloated renown of Great Yarmouth, which trumpets forth many high notes of interest, from its cathedral-like church and its ancient “Rows,” to its herring fleet and its Cockney paradises. The author of _David Copperfield_ himself might not find much to say about the Isle of Wight Yarmouth, which yet, by its past dignity, seems to demand a chapter, where it must play at least the part of text like that blessed word Mesopotamia. If we writers might never fill a few pages without having anything particular to say, what would become of the circulating libraries? So let us see what may be said under the head of Yarmouth, taken with a stretch of country beyond which deserves to be better known than it is to the Island visitors.
This little town or big village is best known to strangers by the pier of the shortest crossing from Lymington, not indeed the most convenient one, as there is a gap between the landing and the station, and trains of the Freshwater line seem to run in no close connection with the steamers, or make only a mocking show of connection that adds insult to injury. So one may find oneself stranded here for an hour or two, unless he can go straight on by coach to Freshwater Bay or to Totland Bay, to which also some of the steamers run in the season. But weak-stomached voyagers hail the half-hour’s passage as being mostly in the winding mud flats of the Lymington River, with an open prospect towards the Needles, and the low walls of Hurst Castle at the point of its long spit. Hereabouts is the proposed line of a Solent Tunnel which as yet remains in the air, but as _fait accompli_ might lift poor Yarmouth’s head, or Totland Bay’s, to the height of proud Ryde.
Simple as it stands now, Yarmouth is one of the Island’s three ancient boroughs, old enough to have been more than once burned by French excursionists in the bad old days, and a place of comparatively more importance a century ago, when fleets of sails might be wind-bound here for weeks. As bulwark against French and other attacks, a castle was built at the mouth of the Yar, whose remains are now enclosed in the grounds of the Pier Hotel, itself still recalling its state when it was the mansion of Sir Robert Holmes, and entertained Charles II. Else, Yarmouth has not much to boast in the way of architecture, unless some quaint old houses, refreshing after the modernity of Totland Bay. The Church, dating from James I., shows a collection of Holmes’ monuments, chief among them a fine statue of Sir Robert Holmes, which had a curious history: it is
said to have been meant for Louis XIV., but being captured at sea along with the sculptor, he was forced to fit it with a head of Sir Robert. This local worthy, Governor of the Island under Charles II., and a benefactor to the town by embanking its marshy estuary, had a wider renown as one of our early Nelsons; he is repeatedly mentioned in Pepys’ _Diary_, and his epitaph tells in sounding Latin how, among other exploits, he more than once beat the Dutch, not always beaten at sea by Charles’ sailors, how he took from them the colony of _Nova Belgia_, now better known as New York, and how he captured a cargo of Guinea gold that was coined into a word of much credit in our language.
The Island boasts at least one other sailor as having earned a place in our story. There was a poor tailor’s apprentice of Bonchurch who, according to the legend, ran away to the king’s navy, proved himself in his first fight worth more than nine men, and rose to be Admiral Sir Thomas Hopson, knighted by Queen Anne for breaking the boom at Vigo. These rough coasts have all along nursed a breed of stout sea-dogs, not always so well employed as in fighting the battles of their country. A century ago Yarmouth, and indeed all this corner, seems to have been a nest of amphibian waiters on the tides of fortune, passing as fishermen plain, but often coloured as smugglers, and proving excellent food for powder when they could be pressed into the navy blue.
Such proof spirits made boon companions for the eccentric painter George Morland, when in 1799 he fled from London to escape bailiffs. He had thus nearly jumped from the frying-pan into the fire, since at Yarmouth he and his brother were arrested by a party of the Dorset militia on suspicion of being spies for the French--why else should strangers be sketching the coast? At Shanklin, the same suspicion fell upon another artist, whom the fishermen began to pelt from his easel, but he, being a very fat man, cleared himself by patting his paunch, and exclaiming, “Does this look like anything French?” There was a spy-fever all over the Island at that time. In Morland’s case, amid the hoots of a patriotic populace, the military Dogberries marched off their prisoners to Newport, where they were discharged by the magistrates only on condition of making no more sketches. In spite of such prohibition, some of Morland’s best work represents the Freshwater cliffs and the fishing folk of this coast.
Yarmouth gives itself few seaside airs; yet one has seen bathing-places with no more to build on. There is a stretch of sand where a few bathing-machines are unlimbered; and at low tide the smell of seaweed and salt mud might be considered medicinal. The Pier Hotel (the ex-“George”) has recently enlarged itself to invite custom; and on the other side of the pier the Solent Yacht Club makes a showy patch upon a general aspect of well-worn old-fashionedness. If one yearn for a thicker mixture of up-to-date buildings, one has only to take the two or three miles’ walk, or few minutes’ railway run to Freshwater.
To the east, the Bouldnor estate has been trying to blossom into a red brick resort upon its wooded shore fringed with sand. By the low cliffs on this side we pass on towards the Hamstead Ledges, mines of fossils wealth, which I have heard a British Association President declare to be the most interesting part of the Island; but the general public takes quite an opposite view. The northern shore, with its muddy flats and crumbling banks, has no attraction for the many, till the sands of Gurnard Bay bring us round to the far stretched esplanade of Cowes.
Behind the coast, Parkhurst Forest once extended from Yarmouth to Cowes, where the country is still dotted with its fragments in woods, copses, and straggling hedgerows. Here, between the Downs and the Solent, runs the railway to Newport, keeping well back in the green plain, with more apparent regard for economy of line than for the convenience of the villages it serves on either hand. Its course, indeed, is soon turned inland by the Newton River, whose crops are raised from salterns and oyster-beds, across which the railway gets glimpses of the sea two or three miles away.
Among the branching creeks of this shallow inlet may be sought out Newton, now a mere hamlet, but, in the teeth of its name, boasting itself the oldest borough in the Island, which till not so long ago returned two members of Parliament, among them such celebrities as Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and George Canning. Though the place has a tiny, tumbledown Town Hall, it was only in the last century that it got a church of its own. But its now larger neighbour Shalfleet, nearer the railway, has one of the most notable churches on the Island, with a massive Norman tower and other relics, such as the rude carving over the north door, the subject of which makes a riddle for antiquaries.
On the opposite side of the line, the pretty village of Calbourne shows another old church, a good deal “restored,” to the scandalising of architectural purists; and near it Swainston is one of the most dignified Wight mansions, incorporating the remains of what was once an episcopal palace of the Winchester diocese. One Rector of Calbourne was that Nicholas Udall, now remembered as author of _Ralph Roister Doister_, the first English comedy, but as Headmaster of Eton noted in his own day for out-Heroding the Tudor Herods in school discipline, if Thomas Tusser’s experience were not exceptional--whose works the irony of time puts on library shelves beside those of his old tyrant--
From Paul’s I went, to Eton sent, To learn straightways the Latin phrase, Where fifty-three stripes given to me At once I had; For fault but small, or none at all, It came to pass, thus beat I was. See, Udall, see, the mercy of thee To me, poor lad!
The Eton boys who painfully learned to act this Orbilius’ comedy, may often have been as sad over it as is the traditional clown in private life. If any of them grew up to be dramatic critics, they might have found some satisfaction in “slating” their ex-master. To us indeed the humours of this farcical piece suggest that our forefathers must have been as easily amused as were Mr Peter Magnus’ friends, to Mr Pickwick’s thinking. But also a play evidently modelled upon Plautus and Terence, with more than a hint of our old friend _Miles Gloriosus_, is remarkable for keeping in view a motto much neglected by many playwrights, _Maxima debetur puero reverentia_, while indeed it condescends to rough vernacular fun such as might not be expected from that strict disciplinarian, who, after retirement to a country parsonage, ended his days in another mastership at Westminster.
Calbourne one understands to be the “Malbourne” of a novel that made some noise, _The Silence of Dean Maitland_, where this countryside and its people are gauzily veiled under such names as “_Old_port” with its “_Burton’s_ Hotel,” and the “_Swaynestone_” lords of the manor; while other scenes of this moving story seem better masked as “Chalkbourne” and “Belminster.” One rather wonders that novelists think it needful to affect such a thin disguise. In another good story of the Isle of Wight, Mrs Oliphant’s _Old Mr Tredgold_, we find the same trick of nomenclature used rather more carelessly, when “Steephill” stands inland from “Sliplin,” and the “_Bunbridge_ cliffs” once betray themselves as Bembridge by a slip of the author’s pen, or of the printer’s eye. We plodding writers of fact are fain to grudge our fanciful brethren such half measures in reality. We would not drive them back upon “the pleasant town of A----” or “the ancient city of B----,” all the letters of the alphabet having long ago been used up in this service; but they might be at a little pain of invention to christen their “St Oggs” and “Claverings”; or at least let them be consistent, and not dump down Portsmouth by its honest name, as that first mentioned novelist does, among her ineffectual _aliases_.