| LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 81 |
It is wonderful how in our “places of rest,” as Bath
and similar towns may be styled, persons living in easy circumstances exhibit so little
increase of mental development. There is a less proportion of those in them who comprehend
and enjoy mental pleasures than where the cares and turmoil of business press upon the busy
occupants in manufacturing towns. Leisure abounds, the things of the mind might, in such
localities, be considered most accessible, for time is not engrossed by labour, yet there
we discover the greatest indifference to them. I do not allude to the visitants to watering
places and spas, but to the fixed residents. Attempts were made, in vain, to carry on with
success, a well edited magazine called the “Bath and Bristol.” There was a large population in the two cities, it was
well conducted, perhaps too well, for the generality of readers, but it had little success.
It wanted more of cant and frivolity. The editor was a man of great moral worth, possessing
many valuable acquirements. Judging from later works, and that class of literature which at
first designed for the kitchen by penny sheet
| 82 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I steamed across the Severn sea to observe some of the nearer scenery of
South Wales, before I left the country. I visited Chepstow with its fine old castle, and
the grave of Southey’s hero, Martyn the regicide, which was in
good condition. The scenery was charming. Piercefield, Tintern, the latter so extremely
fine as a ruin, that no Catholic of taste could wish it restored. Its beauties were
heightened by a thunder storm, which had a singularly fine effect among the coppice covered
hills around. The Wye is unfortunately too inconsiderable a river. From Tintern, through
the woods, I visited Ragland, made too much of a show place, and Carleon, with the Usk
rolling pellucidly along—assuredly we do not lack anything in the way of ruin in
combination with fine scenery in our own island, some of the Welsh castles vying with any
to be seen elsewhere in picturesqueness. I returned by way of Newport, and down the Usk to
the Severn sea, which I crossed to Bristol. The estuary of the Severn is much finer than
that of the Thames. It was early morning when I crossed. A sea of vapour was alone visible.
This speedily rolled away, forming those grand convolutions observed in certain light
states of the atmosphere. The broad expanse of water glowed in the sun like molten gold.
Not a ruffle disturbed the tranquil bosom of a river not in general too placid.
| LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 83 |
I am more and more convinced that to teach reading and writing will not make people think. The little power reason has over the majority will not be increased until instruction goes farther. The Bulls, originally said to be of Gloucester, one of our finer agricultural counties, are still extraordinarily obtuse. One day the clerk came to me with an advertisement, of which I bid him refuse the acceptance, against his notion, and that of too many a proprietary, of the benefit of receiving money whenever it can be obtained, as the first consideration of the press, as well as the butter shop. The case of Dove, executed for the murder of his wife, shows the influence which such charletans have upon stolid minds. The advertisement ran thus:
“One thousand pounds will be paid by the Gloucestershire astronomical, mathematical, and astrological society, to any person proving that the genuine principles of the science of astrology, by which nativities are calculated mathematically, are not founded in eternal truth, by applying to” (here I suppress the name) “Stroudwater, Gloucestershire.
“N.B. Nativities calculated by questions resolved
mathematically, also talismans, &c., &c., prepared by —— as usual,
according to advertisements and bills, a copy of which is in the papers, with the
exception of his residence, which is Stroudwater, and the £500
| 84 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Some divines will agree with this conjurer in his mode of demonstration, for he, too, had recourse to happy non sequiturs to prove his statement. “Astrological coincidence. Mr. Spear of Hammersmith, and Mr. Hemmings of St. Martin’s parish, London, were both born nearly at the same time, and very nearly the same place as George III. They both went into business when the king was crowned, and married the same day as did his majesty. In the London papers for 1820, these facts are recorded by men who show their enmity to astrology on every occasion, they are not, therefore, fabricated.”
This conjurer, I was told, saved money. Education must go farther, or the good expected will not follow, and real genius will be quashed beneath the fiat of conceited mediocrity.
When I was at Plymouth during the last war, I became acquainted with a
pleasant country gentleman, Colonel Houlton, who
commanded one of the Somerset regiments of militia, at the mess of which I had frequently
dined. He was the owner of Farleigh Castle, an old seat of the Hungerfords. The chapel
alone was entire, the tombs in excellent preservation, and still so kept by the colonel.
Some of the bodies of members of the renowned Hungerford family were entire, pickled in
their metal coffins. This mode of preserving bone and integument from becoming chalk and
gas, shows that down to a late period our imitation of the
| LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 85 |
I visited Pen Park Hole, now partially covered over, a perpendicular opening in limestone rock, gloomy and deep. Here a young clergyman came with his intended bride some years ago, and attempting to look down the dark profound, toppled in. Miners were procured, who descended and discovered the body at the bottom. The abyss was found to take the form of a horse shoe.
A solitary walk of mine was to Charlecombe, under Lansdowne, a sweet
seclusion from the busy world. Few visit that little church with its square turret, its
small limpid brook, and its large solitary yew. What a spot for a poet’s grave! It is
not a place to pic-nic with a party, one companion is enough. I had with me once a rotund
son of the church, who relished a good dinner more than the picturesque, and I verily
believe died of good eating, like the D.D. of Cambridge. “who went to his grave
with five fine mackerel large and full of roe, eat all at one dinner, and finished by a
turbot the day after, of which he left only the bones.” There was an old sun
dial here. A church should always have one. When I was a boy, I marked the shadow of noon
on the opposite wall, and used to note its movement while at my book, impatient for twelve
o’clock and liberty, I believe this made me ever after fond of sun dials. I bought a
portable one which I fix with a compass wherever I live, and often waste time in looking at
its shadow. A house in the country is nothing without a dial. The shadow makes us see that
our orb is in motion. The dial, too, links us with
| 86 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“Once at a potent leader’s voice I stayed, Once I went back when a good monarch prayed, Mortals, howe’er we grieve, howe’er deplore, The flying shadow will return no more!” |
I had now sojourned in Bath, for the first time since I had changed the generosity of youth for the cares of manhood. I hoped to fix myself there, rather than in London; but there is no constancy in life. What changes had happened since the monuments of Quin, Draper, and others, had made me think of their doings in the world, and I had first seen Anstey’s grave, in which he had been placed a month or two before! There was more gratification to me in looking at the spot consecrated by genius—the precious gift of heaven to man—than in all the pomp of the courts, and all the parade of the kings I had seen since I last stood on the same spot—when life was novel to me, unused to the sight of kings and pageants, and when the wonders of the many were my marvels as well as theirs.
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* Hours, days, life flies, virtue alone remains. |
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