CHAPTER X.

THE CIRCUIT OF THE LAKE.

THE VILLAGE AND CHURCH AGAIN—THE DEER PARK—HIGH GROUND, LITTLE ARROW, AND HAWTHWAITE—TORVER—HEM HALL—TORVER MILL—SUNNY BANK—OXNESS—BROWN HOW—WATER-YEAT—ARKLID—NIBTHWAITE—WATERPARK—THE LAKE FOOT—“THE GRIDIRON,” AND FIR ISLAND—BRANTWOOD—CONISTONE BANK—BANK GROUND—T’ HO'PENNY YALL 'US—TENT LODGE.

I intend now to treat you to a fourteen miles’ ride, namely, down the western side of the Lake and up the eastern, to accomplish which it is necessary again to pass through the village by Yewdale Bridge, the Crown Inn and the Church. When I last mentioned the Church to you, I think I alluded to “an old oak chest,” with a very oddly constructed padlock, in which chest is deposited a mass of ancient documents connected with the ecclesiastical business of the chapelry. Since then, through the polite attention of my urbane and erudite friend, the parish clerk, I have had an opportunity of rummaging at will through these parochial archives, but the only papers possessing the least interest were a number of slips, each recording the oaths of two people—always females by the bye—as to the costume in which defunct persons were carried to their long home. As these afford a striking and instructive instance of the wisdom of our ancestors, and refer to an act of Parliament, of the existence of which, at any period of our national annals, perhaps you were not cognizant, any more than I was myself, I have taken the liberty of transcribing one of the most legible; and here it is:—

[Sidenote: AN OLD MONOPOLY.]

Parociall Chappell de Coniston.

We Elizabeth Grigg widdow and Agnes Fleming widow—doe severally make oath that ye corps of Elizabeth wife of George Towers was buryed April ye 3d day Anno Dmi 1688 And was not put in wrapt or wound up in any shirt shift sheet or shroud made or mingled with Flax Hemp Hair Gold or Silver &c; nor in any coffin lined or faced with Cloath &c; nor now other material but sheeps wooll only According to Act of Parliamt. In Testemony whereof we ye sd. Eliz Grigg and Agnes Fleming have hereunto set our hands and seals

Capt. et. Jurat Septimo die Elizabeth Grigg Aprilis Anno Dmie 1688 Her X mark Coram me Agnes Fleming Rogero Atkinsonne Her X mark

You cross the Church Bridge, and, riding down the village in the same direction as before, leave it at Parkgate, where the road enters the old deer park, still pretty well covered with coppice wood, oaks and other trees from the Lake side, about half a mile to your left to the top of Bleathwaite, the same distance to your right. Looking back from the little height beyond Parkgate, you have a delicious view of the scenery around the upper part of the Lake, and it is, perhaps, as well that the wooded park soon screens this view from your admiring retrospection, or it is possible that your progress southward might be seriously retarded by your “longing, lingering looks behind.”

After emerging from the forest-fringed road through the park, you soon pass the pleasant residence called High Ground, and the picturesque homestead of Little Arrow, and leaving the beautiful farm of Hawthwaite considerably to the left, you shortly enter the ancient and primitive chapelry of Torver, where—

“Provided you've got a strong taste for rusticity, And Wordsworth has not made you sick of simplicity”—

you may have your taste gratified, for there are few places now in England, where old-fashioned and unsophisticated habits and manners prevail more decidedly than in Torver. There is no account of any family of rank ever being resident in Torver, and nearly all the land is still possessed by the descendants of the men whom Sir Walter Scott apostrophizes as

[Sidenote: PEOPLE AND STEEPLE-(HOUSE.)]

“——Those gallant yeomen, England’s peculiar and appropriate sons, Known in no other land. Each boasts his hearth And field as free as the best lord his barony, Owing subjection to no human vassalage, Save to their King and law. Hence are they resolute, Leading the van on every day of battle, As men who know the blessings they defend. Hence are they frank and generous in peace, As men who have their portion in its plenty; No other kingdom shows such worth and happiness Veiled in such low estate.”

A very neat and appropriate chapel has just been erected in Torver, after a design furnished gratuitously by Mr M. Thompson, an architect resident, I believe, in Kendal. The old chapel, removed in 1848, was an object of interest from the fact of its having been consecrated by Archbishop Cranmer, and said to have been the first church erected in England for the exercise of the Protestant form of worship.

Close to the chapel stands the snug and tidy public-house, known pretty widely by the title of Torver Kirk-house, and if you happen to be a-thirst, I can honestly recommend Thomas Massicks’ home-brewed ale. In fulfilment of a trite rhyming proverb, these houses of entertainment, adjoining houses of prayer, are very abundant in our rural parishes, and are so extensively patronized both by wayfarers and neighbours, that Mr Wordsworth, when he says

“The Kirk of Ulpha to the pilgrim’s eye Is welcome as a star, that doth present Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:”

&c. &c., would have given us a truth of much more general application, had he said—

Old Ulpha Kirk-house to the pilgrim’s eye Is welcome as the sun that doth present His blowzy visage through some hopeful rent In clouds, whose rain has left not one stitch dry.

[Sidenote: HILL, MILL AND PILL-(BOXES.)]

After noticing the many old, but comfortable and substantial dwellings with which the remarkably verdant fields of Torver (which flow with milk and honey) are “bedropt,” you must take the road which the guide-post tells you leads to Ulverston—if you can’t read, ask at the blacksmith’s shop—and when you reach the eminence on which stands the old farm-house called Hem, or Hen Hall, turn round and take a good look at the Old Man, who is certainly seen to the greatest advantage from this point of view. In looking at him on any other side, his connection with the chain of hills behind him detracts much from the dignity of his aspect; but from this side, and especially from this precise spot, he appears to stand forth, independent and self-reliant, the advanced guard of an army of Titans.

At Hem Hall, you may leave the high road for about a hundred yards, taking a narrow steep lane straight before you, to look at Torver Mill,—and a splendid fall the “Blackbeck of Torver” makes a little above the mill,—returning to the highway at Beckstones, and descending rapidly till you cross the beck near to the exceedingly well-named farm of Sunny-bank, and the Bobbin Mill. By the bye, if you would like to see how very rapidly they can make bobbins or reels for holding cotton thread, and boxes for holding Professor Holloway’s pills and ointment, by the use of which you may escape the penalty entailed upon us all by old father Adam, you should ask leave to inspect the operations in this bobbin mill, and I have no doubt that my good friend, Mr Kendal, will be happy to do the honours to any pretty-behaved young gentleman like yourself.

[Sidenote: THE LAKE-FOOT.]

You pass Sunny-bank, its pretty farm, its bridge and bobbin mill, and return to the lake-side below the mouth of Torver beck, and opposite to “the Gridiron,” and ride on through the farm-yard of Oxness, past Brown How, near to which a very handsome mansion has just been built upon a singularly beautiful site by the lake side. The scenery here is very picturesque, consisting, as it does, of successive but irregular precipitous ranges of grey rock—in some parts bare, and in others clad with a heavy drapery of glittering ivy—separated by intervals of purple heather, or green brackens and greener pasturage.

You are now near the water-foot, and just before you reach the hamlet of Water-yeat, stop on a little eminence and enjoy a view, one glimpse of which, I have been told, would be ample compensation for a journey from Timbuctoo. The whole length of the lake lies spread out before you, from the Copper sheds at Nibthwaite to the Inn at Waterhead, which last, though at six miles’ distance, is very distinctly seen—beautifully backed up by the slopes and woods of Mr Marshall’s noble park; these again over-topped by the distant, finely-outlined range of mountains beyond Rydal and Grasmere.

At Water-yeat, you take a road leading across the valley and over the river Crake, to a large old farm-house called Arklid, when you again turn your nose towards Conistone, passing through the venerable village of Nibthwaite, and by the richly-wooded grounds of Waterpark, the road sometimes approaching the lake side, and sometimes diverging from it.

[Sidenote: WILSON AND WORDSWORTH.]

The lower part of Conistone Water is said to be tame, and many of its most faithful admirers do not attempt to contradict what has almost assumed the aspect of an admitted fact. But you now see that it is anything but tame, and if you cannot accept the evidence of your own optics, or if you doubt the infallibility of your own taste, you will, perhaps, feel more confidence in your perception of the beautiful, when I tell you what Professor Wilson says anent the foot of this lake. You will please to observe, too, that, as I have already said, the Professor’s taste is somewhat warped by his devotion to his own magnificent Windermere, and that he has, on other occasions, written somewhat slightingly of Conistone Water. Hear what he says now:—“Pull away to the foot of the lake, if you choose, and you will be well repaid for your labour by the pretty promontories and bashful bays they conceal, and merry meadows lying in ambush, and “corn riggs sae bonny” trespassing upon the coppice woods that, year after year, yield up their lingering roots to the ploughshare, and grey, white, blue, green, and brown cottages of every shape and size, and pastoral eminences of old lea crowned with a few pine trees, or with an oak, itself a grove.” There, after that, I hope you will never allow Conistone Water-foot to be twitted with tameness again, without running at least one tilt in its defence.

Mr Wordsworth says that the lakes in general should be approached by this road, and as he says it well, and, like the true worshipper of Nature that he undoubtedly is, I feel constrained to quote him:—“The stranger, from the moment he sets his foot upon these (Lancaster) sands, seems to leave the turmoil and traffic of the world behind him; and, crossing the majestic plain when the sea has retired, he beholds, rising apparently from its base, the cluster of mountains among which he is going to wander; and towards whose recesses, by the vale of Conistone, he is gradually and peacefully led.”

As you pursue your pleasant road along the lake, now rising and descending over a gentle hillock, and again running along the level lake shore, the Conistone fells become grander and grander, as you bring them nearer, the Old Man still towering over his compeers, the Patriarch of his tribe, and seeming what the Professor happily says “he certainly is, with his firm foot and sunny brow,

‘The king o’ guid fellows and wale o’ auld men.'”

[Sidenote: “WORDSWORTH’S SEAT.”]

Again, passing “the Gridiron” and then Fir Island close to this side of the lake, the road runs between the lake and the most attractively placed villa of Brantwood, in the charming grounds of which is a seat called “Wordsworth's seat,” because that great poet is in the habit of recommending it to his friends as the point whence _he_ thinks the beauties of Conistone are beheld to the most advantage: and certainly the landscape from the said seat is truly exquisite, if such a young-lady-like term can with propriety be applied to a view, where none may say whether the grand or the beautiful predominates. The sparkling waters of the lake in the foreground,—beyond it the fertile plain and green acclivity, sheltered and shaded by an abundance of scattered and congregated trees and by giant hedge-rows, and dotted and diversified by innumerable white, grey, and _black_ houses, peeping here and there from their embowering foliage, or smiling over the brilliant verdure of the fields,—the picture being filled up in the background by that most magnificent of all mountain ranges, comprising Walna Scar, the Old Man, Brim Fell, High Carr, Oukrigg, Weatherlam, Henn Crag, Yewdale Crag and Raven Crag, with their countless waterfalls shining, here like patches, and there like zig-zag lines of snow, forming altogether a _coup d'œil_ rarely to be equalled—never surpassed.

[Sidenote: A HOME OF GENIUS.]

Leaving this highly favoured spot, you proceed past the gate of Conistone Bank and Black-beck Cottage, nestling prettily in the overhanging wood, with which the road is thickly fringed, sometimes on one side, but more frequently on both, and wherever the western side is left open, you have the view respecting which Miss Martineau says,—“And there he (the traveller) will assuredly pause, and hope that he may never forget what he now sees. He has probably never beheld a scene which conveyed a stronger impression of joyful charm; of fertility, prosperity, comfort, nestling in the bosom of the rarest beauty.

* * * * *

The traveller feasts his eye with the scattered dwellings under their sheltering woods,—the cheerful town, the rich slopes, and the dark gorge and summits of Yewdale behind; while the broad water lies as still as heaven between shore and shore.”

After pausing, as Miss Martineau says you assuredly will, for a reasonable space, pray move on, passing, down to your left, the two pretty farms of Bank-ground, one of which is in the course of conversion into an ornamental cottage residence, by a lady whose ancestors have possessed it for centuries. Then passing the large new house built upon the site of the old cottage which used to rejoice in a name suggestive of the low-priced jollifications of ancient times, namely the Halfpenny Ale-house, or, more correctly, t'Ho'penny Yall'us, you descend by Howhead, and soon run to cover under the umbrageous groves of Tent Lodge, decidedly the most interesting of all the seats around Conistone Lake, having, for many years, been the residence of a family, widely celebrated on account of the wonderful talents and acquirements of one of its female members—the learned, elegant, estimable, and accomplished Elizabeth Smith. I might myself from my own knowledge of that lady’s history and character, picked up in this locality, which she, for years, honoured and adorned with her residence, and which was the scene of her early death, give a sketch of her story. But this has been done already by much abler hands, amongst others by Mr De Quincey in _Tait’s Magazine_, and of his excellent paper on Miss Smith, I propose to offer such an epitome as, with due regard for time and space, will enable you to form some notion of her extraordinary character and attainments.

[Sidenote: DE QUINCEY LOQUITUR.]

The narcotic-loving philosopher commences thus:—“On a little verdant knoll, near the north-eastern margin of the lake, stands a small villa, called Tent Lodge, built by Colonel Smith, and for many years occupied by his family. That daughter of Colonel Smith who drew the public attention so powerfully upon herself by the splendour of her attainments, had died some months before I came into the country. But yet, as I was subsequently acquainted with her family through the Lloyds (who were within on easy drive of Tent Lodge), and as, moreover, with regard to Miss Elizabeth Smith herself, I came to know more than the world knew—drawing my knowledge from many of her friends, but especially from Mrs Hannah More, who had been intimately connected with her, for these reasons, I shall rehearse the leading points of her story; and the rather because her family, who were equally interested in that story, long continued to form part of the lake society. On my first becoming acquainted with Miss Smith’s pretensions, it is true that I regarded them with but little concern, for nothing ever interests me less than great philological attainments, or, at least, that mode of philological learning which consists in mastery over languages. But one reason for this indifference is, that the apparent splendour is too often a false one. They who know a vast number of languages, rarely know any one with accuracy; and the more they gain in one way, the more they lose in another. With Miss Smith, however, I gradually came to know that this was not the case, or, at any rate, but partially the case; for of some languages which she possessed, and those the least accessible, it appeared finally that she had even [Sidenote: A FEMALE’S LORE.] a critical knowledge. It created also a secondary interest in these difficult accomplishments of hers to find that they were so very extensive. Secondly, that they were nearly all of self-acquisition. Thirdly, that they were borne so meekly, and with unaffected absence of all ostentation. As to the first point, it appears that she made herself mistress of the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the Latin, the German, the Greek, and the Hebrew languages. She had no inconsiderable knowledge of the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Persic. She was a good geometrician and algebraist. She was a very expert musician. She drew from nature, and had an accurate knowledge of perspective. Finally, she manifested an early talent for poetry; but, from pure modesty, destroyed most of what she had written, as her acquaintance with the Hebrew models had elevated the standard of true poetry in her mind, so as to disgust her with what she now viewed as the tameness and inefficiency of her own performances. As to the second point—that for these attainments she was indebted almost exclusively to her own energy, this is placed beyond all doubt, by the fact, that the only governess she ever had (a young lady not much beyond her own age) did not herself possess, and therefore could not have communicated any knowledge of languages, beyond a little French and Italian. Finally, as to the modesty with which she wore her distinctions, _that_ is sufficiently established by every page of her printed works, and her letters. Greater diffidence as respected herself, or less willingness to obtrude her knowledge upon strangers, or even upon those correspondents who would have wished her to make a little more display, cannot be imagined. And yet I repeat that her knowledge was as sound and as profound as it was extensive. For, taking only one instance of this, her translation of Job has been pronounced by Biblical critics of the first rank, a work of real and intrinsic value, without any reference to the disadvantages of the translation, or without needing any allowance whatever. In particular, Dr Magee, the celebrated writer on the Atonement, and subsequently a dignitary of the Irish Church—certainly one of the best qualified judges at that time—describes it as 'conveying more of the character and meaning of the Hebrew, with fewer departures from the idiom of the English, than any other translation whatever that we possess.'”

[Sidenote: MISS SMITH’S STORY.]

Mr De Quincey next proceeds to “briefly sketch her story”—mentioning her birth at Burnhall, in the county of Durham, in 1776—the engagement of her governess—the acquisition of, and removal of the family to “the splendid inheritance of Piercefield, a show place on the banks of the Wye”—their numerous visitors there, and the influence of two of them (Mrs Bowdler and her daughter) in exciting in Miss Smith her ardent and enduring love of learning and piety—the ruin that, in her 16th year, fell upon “the house of Piercefield. The whole estate, a splendid one, was swept away by the failure of one banking house;” the greatest loss to Miss Smith being the library, which followed the general wreck—“not a volume, not a pamphlet was reserved; for the family were proud in their integrity, and would receive no favours from the creditors.” Then the residence of the family in many different parts of the kingdom under their sadly altered circumstances, and the comfort they derived from their daughter, who, “young as she was, became the moral support of the whole family, and the fountain from which they all drew consolation and fortitude;”—their settlement in Patterdale, and then finally at Conistone, in the cottage close behind Tent Lodge—for the villa was built, after Miss Smith’s death, on the spot where the _tent_ stood in which, during her long illness, she was wont to enjoy [Sidenote: PRAISE WORTH HAVING.] the breezes from the lake, and the glorious scenery around it—the manner in which her fatal illness was contracted—its progress—her death in 1806, at the lamentably early age of 29—and several anecdotes illustrating the extraordinary and various perfections of Miss Smith’s character, are all detailed by Mr De Quincey at great length, with great elegance of diction and great force of expression, as this last extract will serve to exemplify:—“She was buried in Hawkshead Church-yard, where a small tablet of white marble is raised to her memory, on which there is the scantiest record that, for a person so eminently accomplished, I ever met with. After mentioning her birth and age (twenty-nine), it closes thus:—‘She possessed great talents, exalted virtues, and humble piety.’ Anything so unsatisfactory or so common-place, I have rarely known. As much or more is often said of the most insipid people; whereas Miss Smith was really a most extraordinary person. I have conversed with Mrs Hannah More often about her; and I never failed to draw forth some fresh anecdote illustrating the vast extent of her knowledge, the simplicity of her character, the gentleness of her manners, and her unaffected humility. She passed, it is true, almost inaudibly through life; and the stir which was made after her death, soon subsided. But the reason was, that she wrote but little! Had it been possible for the world to measure her by her powers, rather than by her performances, she would have been placed, perhaps, in the estimate of posterity, at the head of learned women; whilst her sweet and feminine character would have rescued her from all shadow and suspicion of that reproach which too often settles upon the learned character, when supported by female aspirants.”

[Sidenote: HEREDITARY LACK OF TASTE.]

This you will admit to be no ordinary measure of praise; and when you reflect that it is meted out by one of the greatest and most philosophic scholars of this or any other age—one whose acquaintance with literature (and _literateurs_), ancient and modern, is inferior to that of no other writer whatever, you will pardon me for lingering so long at Tent Lodge, and for taking such extensive liberties with the English Opium Eater’s charming papers on the “Society of the Lakes,” and, at the risk of greatly overstepping my usual limits, I must make _one_ further quotation:—“The family of Tent Lodge continued to reside at Conistone for many years; and they were connected with the Lake literary clan chiefly through the Lloyds, and those who visited the Lloyds; for it is another and striking proof of the slight hold which Wordsworth, &c., had upon the public esteem in those days, that even Miss Smith, with all her excessive diffidence in judging of books and authors, never seems, in any one of her letters, to have felt the slightest interest about Wordsworth or Coleridge.” It is possible that Miss Smith’s indifference about Wordsworth was, like the rash humour of Cassius, something that her mother gave her, for it may be admitted to be a defect in the otherwise powerful understanding of that venerable lady—whose memory is cherished in Conistone with undiminishing respect and affection—that, to the close of her long life, she always appeared to regard our greatest of living bards with something more like contempt than anything else. Indeed I have seen a copy of verses written by her, parodizing one of his poems, perhaps the most beautiful and pathetic he has produced. If my memory does not betray me, the parody commenced somewhat in this way:—

“He dwelt by the untrodden ways, Near Rydal’s grassy mead, A Bard whom there were none to praise, And very few to read.”

The imitation, you observe, is sufficiently close to the original.

[Sidenote: AN ILLUSTRIOUS NAME.]

I believe the only surviving member of Mrs Smith's once numerous family, is one of her sons, now Sir Chas. Smith, who has pitched his tent far from Tent Lodge. After Mrs Smith’s death, the villa was purchased by Mr Jas. G. Marshall, and, it is understood, is about to become the residence of a gentleman whose family name is not unknown in modern literature, nor yet in old romance.

NOTE.—I ought, in this tenth division of my discourse, to have remembered my promise relative to the floating island. I make the best reparation I can by telling you now, that the last time I saw the said island, it was stranded amongst the reeds between the Copper Quay at Nibthwaite and the outlet of the lake, and when I looked for it again, it had left that berth, and gone I knew not whither; but on enquiring after it at the Commodore of the Copper fleet, I was informed that the erratic object of my solicitude is now occupying a berth in juxta-position to Mr Harrison’s quay, below Waterpark, where it may be inspected. Ben’s memory is failing, or he would have told me the number of trees upon it, having counted them one day whilst on duty in its vicinity. However, it may suffice to inform you that it is a piece of earth about twenty yards square, well covered with herbage and young birches of decent growth. Altogether, were it not for its unfortunate preference of short to long voyages, it would be a highly important addition to the attractions of Conistone Water, and decidedly the best specimen of its genus in the kingdom.