 | A sketch of old England |  |
LETTER VII.
At Gloucester I received some information which induced
me to alter my original design of penetrating into Wales from
that quarter, and determined me to proceed to Shrewsbury,
have an opportunity of seeing one of the finest parts of the
country. As it was of little consequence to me which way I
entered into Wales, I accordingly proceeded towards Shrewsbury,
by the vale of Evesham, and another beautiful vale
extending to the foot of Coteswold Hills. Crossing another
hill, which separates the two valleys, I had a noble prospect
of the cities of Gloucester and Worcester, with almost countless
villas and villages, in the midst of a rich assemblage of
natural beauty. At the foot of this hill is the ancient Evesham,
which lies on the river Avon, out of which I drank to
the memory of Shakespeare. But what was rather extraordinary,
I found very little inspiration therefrom.
Somewhere about two centuries ago, Coteswold Hill was
famed for certain annual sports, called Dover's Olympics, of
which Anthony Wood gives the following account:
“These games were began and continued at a certain time
in the year, for forty years, by one Robert Dover, an attorney
of Benton-on-the-Health, in Warwickshire, son of John
Dover of Norfolk; who being full of activity, and of a generous,
free, and public spirit, did, with leave of James the
First, select a place on Coteswold Hills, in Gloucestershire,
whereon these games should be acted. Endimion Porter, Esq.
a native of that county, and a servant of that King, a person
also of a most generous spirit, did, to encourage Dover, give
him some of the King's old clothes, with a hat, and feather,
and ruff, purposely to grace him, and consequently the solemnity.
Dover was constantly there in person, well mounted
and accoutred, and was the chief director and manager of
those games, frequented by the nobility and gentry, (some of
whom came sixty miles to see them) even till the rascally
rebellion was begun by the Presbyterians; which gave a stop
to their proceedings, and spoiled all that was generous or ingenious
elsewhere.” These games were celebrated in verses by
Ben Jonson, Drayton, Randolph, Marmyon, Heywood, and
many other wits of the day. Their poems, it is said, were
collected and published, with a picture of Dover on horseback,
superintending the games: the book, I believe, is not extant.
We now advanced into Warwickshire, famous for its valiant
champion, Guy, and a thousand times more famous for
its Shakespeare, to whom the world is indebted for more
pleasant hours than all the bloody triumphs of a thousand heroes
have ever bestowed upon mankind. What a charming
reflection it is, to think that genius has the power of giving
delight, when the organization of mind and matter which produced
it is dissolved for ever! Soon we saw the spire of
river. Nobody would ever have heard either of the town or
the river, beyond their neighbourhood, were it not for the
name of Shakespeare, who has conferred a never-dying
fame upon both. Stratford is now a place of pilgrimage, like
the grave of Washington, at Mount Vernon. They are worthy
to be mentioned together, for one is the birth-place of the
first of poets; the other, the tomb of the first of men. Our
countryman, Irving, has lately given so pleasing an account
of this place, and all the localities connected with the life of
the poet, that I will not attempt any thing of the kind, for it
would only be repeating what another has said much better.
From hence to Warwick, where every body knows there is
one of the finest castles, or show-places, in this country. It
is remarkable for some pretended reliques of the champion
Guy, who, judging from his porridge pot, was a great hero,
at least in trencher feats. You have no doubt seen views of
this castle, as it is in all the picturesque works; and if you
have not, it is impossible to convey any likeness in words.
What amused me most was, the honest country people I occasionally
conversed with, who repeated, with an air of most
credulous gravity, all the enormous tales recorded of this renowned
trencher-man, Sir Guy, whose legendary feats in valorous
fight, and valorous eating, are all authenticated by a
statue, at Guy's Cliff, in the neighbourhood, of most gigantic
proportions.
From Warwick I passed the castle of Kenilworth, which
has lately been dug out of its ruins by the indefatigable pen of
the “Great Unknown.” It is a fine ruin, overgrown with ivy:
the comparatively modern additions of the Earl of Leicester
are gone to decay, while the more ancient still subsist in tolerable
preservation. Rout, and revel, and beer-drinking, bearbaiting,
and other royal sports, are here succeeded by silence,
decay, and desolation. These castles formed the links of that
vast feudal chain which bound the people of the middle ages.
They are fast disappearing from the land, and let them go:
they swallowed up the cottages, and held the cottagers in
bondage.
Passing some fine seats I now came in sight of Coventry,
famous for Peeping Tom and ribbon weaving. It is an old
city; and all the old cities I have ever seen, except Oxford,
that have not been burned down two or three times at
least, are, to my mind, very ugly. The streets of Coventry
are narrow, inconvenient, and dirty; the houses gloomy, and
the people bear the indelible marks of a manufacturing town.
Soon after leaving this place, which is regularly anathematized
by all picturesque tourists, the country became flat, and apparently
black, malignant, manufacturing smoke, curling to the skies,
or flattening and spreading over the landscape.
Approaching Birmingham, I breathed the very essence of
coal-smoke, which lowered over the pretty, smart, new country-boxes
of the manufacturers. I had passed through this
town before, on my way to London, but as I was in haste to
deliver my —, made no stay here. On this occasion,
however, I spent several days in viewing the manufactories,
and making inquiries as to the effects of the system upon the
morals, manners, and health of the people engaged in them.
The general result of all my experience, observation, and inquiry
I shall perhaps give you in a letter particularly devoted
to the subject, which is just now of peculiar interest in our
country. I found every thing at a stand here; the manufacturers
dispirited; the workmen ragged, starving, and disaffected;
the whole town complaining. Nothing, in fact, can
present a more miserable spectacle, than a place arrested in a
course of almost unparalleled prosperity, by those unaccountable
mutations which turn the tide of commerce into new channels,
and, while they throw thousands out of employment and
bread, produce premature decay, and modern ruins. The most
common appearance here, is that of beggary; the rarest, a
clean face and hands.
Skirting the borders of Worcestershire, Staffordshire, and
Shropshire, the country was beautiful, and some of the views
highly picturesque as well as extensive. In many parts of
Staffordshire especially, the appearance of innumerable furnaces
gave the country at night a most singular aspect. It
seemed that Mr. Hutton's subterranean fire was bursting forth
in every direction, and that the whole interior of the earth was
teeming with combustible matter. I had a view of the Leasowes
and Hagley, two beautiful spots; the one connected
with the genius, taste, and prodigality of Shenstone; the other,
with the name of Lyttelton. The latter place has been fruitful
in distinguished characters. Their beauties are familiar to the
imagination of most general readers in our country, and so I
pass them by. I visited Colebrooke Dale, which is in the way
to Shrewsbury, and where Vulcan and the Cyclops resort.
Every thing is iron here; there is an iron bridge; the seats are
iron; and the men who sit on them are either iron or steel, I
could not tell which. The eternal clink of hammers, the roaring
of the forges, and the columns of thick black smoke, render
this place particularly detestable to ears and eyes of common
sensibility. If ever they catch me there again, I'll give
them full leave, as Shakspeare says, “to hammer me into a
twigger bottle.”
From Colebrooke Dale, winding along the “Noble Severn,”
which may be about as wide as our Thames at Norwich, in
Connecticut, I was highly pleased with the pretty scenery of
the little basin through which the river passes. In getting to
the city, however, it was necessary to mount an eminence, from
whence I had a clear view of the mountains of North Wales.
On the other hand, was a fine hill, called the Wrekin, rising
pretty abruptly out of a great plain and richly clothed with
verdure. I afterwards climbed to the top, in an excursion from
Shrewsbury, and was gratified with a view that paid me for
the labour, which is more than I can say of many others. I
arrived at that city about five in the afternoon, crossing a second
time by a grand bridge over the Severn, which almost flows
round the whole hill on which Shrewsbury is built.
I had two particular objects in view, which induced me to
spend three or four days at Shrewsbury: one was to see the
prison, which is conducted and governed according to the
system proposed by Mr. Howard, and combines with it a
house of correction; the other was, to inspect the House of
Industry, which is considered one of the most luxurious receptacles
of idleness and beggary in this country. Having
made the necessary arrangements, I accordingly first visited
the prison. The area within the walls contains about two
acres of ground; you enter by the porter's lodge, over the
gate of which is a bust of Mr. Howard, that benevolent man
and inflexible father! The ground floor on the left is occupied
by the turnkey's rooms, above which are his bed-chambers;
that on the right is occupied by the lazaretto, where is a hot
and cold bath, an oven to fumigate clothes, which are taken
from the prisoners, and a prison uniform put on them. Other
rooms up stairs are appropriated to the performance of the last
offices for criminals by the clergy, previously to execution
on the flat roof above. The debtors, male and female, female
felons, capital male felons, petty male felons, women of
ill fame, and vagrants, male and female disorderly servants,
and apprentices, male vagrants and deserters, are each accommodated
with a spacious court, day rooms, and sleeping rooms,
so that it is quite a luxury to be here. In addition to these,
there are two courts for male and female refractory prisoners,
together with a detached infirmary, with separate courts, day-rooms,
and sleeping-rooms: in short, my dear brother, beyond
all doubt, a large proportion of the prisoners here are better
lodged, better fed, and better clothed, than they were at home.
In fact, nine out of ten, of the people of England, do not
spend as much as it costs to maintain a pauper here.
All this is pretty enough in theory, and looks very like humanity;
If people will divert the laws from their original intention, and
make that, in effect, a reward, which was intended, and ought
to be, a punishment; if they will build palaces for felons and
paupers to revel in at the expense of honest industry, why
nothing is to be said against humanity, which, under pretence
of tenderness to the worthless and unprincipled, pardons the
wretch who is only liberated to commit new crimes, or feeds
and lodges him in infinite comfort at the expense of the society
he has offended. Experience, not argument, must cure these
indiscreet gambols of philanthropists. It will not be long
before they discover, that they are only heaping coals of fire
upon the heads of thousands, in the remote hope of reclaiming
one, and offering premiums to vice and immorality. If Mrs.
Fry will bribe women of ill fame to reformation, by supporting
them comfortably, while thousands of wives and mothers,
who never wallowed in scenes of corruption, but have worked
their fingers to the bone, to keep themselves and their children
from want, are pining in hopeless and obscure wretchedness;
let her do it, I say again. Instead of offering premiums to
virtue, she is proposing temptations to vice, since it seems
women must first become infamous in society, in order to
entitle themselves to her notice and bounty. No wonder, my
dear brother, that vice should thrive, poverty multiply, and
prodigality and idleness increase here, under this new system
of patronage. But the voice of warning is the voice of one
crying in the wilderness; or, if it be heard, it is only heard for
the purpose of bringing the charge of inhumanity against him
who uttered the warning. It is not difficult to predict the
result of all these injudicious measures.
From the prison I was carried to what I supposed to be a
palace, beautifully situated on a lofty bank, and overlooking
one of the finest prospects imaginable. Concluding there was
some mistake, I begged to be conducted to the poor house.
My guide, with an air of great self-complacency, assured me
this was the poor house, and that it cost, first and last, above
twenty thousand pounds sterling. It is a superb building,
affording such luxurious lodgings and excellent accommodations,
that I was not surprised people preferred living there
in idleness and luxury, to working hard at home, and faring
indifferently. In looking over the books, and seeing the vast
quantities of provisions, the number of fat beeves slaughtered
for the entertainment of these sumptuous beggars, I no longer
wondered that beggary was grown so respectable a trade. It
is quite natural that the people of England should be degraded
into paupers, when they are thus actually seduced into idleness,
instead of being deterred by the certainty of want, and all its
train of ills. Is this humanity, is this charity? thought I. Is
it thus, that the happiness of human beings is brought about,
by tempting them from labour and economy by the prospect of
indulgence and plenty, at the expense of others? Is it thus
that children are prepared to encounter the labours to which
their birth renders them liable, by being pampered in this
splendid eating-house? I put some of these questions to those
about me, and never got a civil word afterwards. These people
share in the good things, and grow rich on charities. It is a fine
thing, brother, to manage the concerns of the poor in this country.
I wish some one would have the honest hardihood to
speak of these institutions as they deserve; risk the reputation
of a philanthropist in the attempt to restrain the progress of
idleness and beggary, and rid the industrious of the task, not
only of supplying their own wants, but of pampering those of
others. He might be a martyr to his honesty, but I am mistaken
if posterity would not do him justice.
| A sketch of old England | |