University of Virginia Library

THE ABBEY GARDEN.

The morning after my arrival, I rose at an
early hour. The daylight was peering brightly
between the window curtains, and drawing them
apart, I gazed through the gothic casement upon
a scene that accorded in character with the interior
of the ancient mansion. It was the old
Abbey garden, but altered to suit the tastes of
different times and occupants. In one direction
were shady walks and alleys, broad terraces
and lofty groves; in another, beneath a gray
monastic looking angle of the edifice, overrun
with ivy and surmounted by a cross, lay a small
French garden, with formal flower pots, gravelled
walks, and stately stone balustrades.

The beauty of the morning, and the quiet of
the hour, tempted me to an early stroll; for it
is pleasant to enjoy such old time places alone,
when one may indulge poetical reveries, and
spin cobweb fancies, without interruption. Dressing
myself, therefore, with all speed, I descended
a small flight of steps from the state apartment
into the long corridor over the cloisters, along

which I passed to a door at the farther end.
Here I emerged into the open air, and, descending
another flight of stone steps, found myself in
the centre of what had once been the Abbey
chapel.

Nothing of the sacred edifice remained, however,
but the gothic front, with its deep portal
and grand lancet window, already described.
The nave, the side walls, the choir, the sacristy,
all had disappeared. The open sky was over
my head, a smooth shaven grass plot beneath
my feet. Gravel walks and shrubberies had
succeeded to the shadowy aisles, and stately
trees to the clustering columns.

Instead of the matin orisons of the monks,
however, the ruined walls of the chapel now resounded
to the cawing of innumerable rooks
that were fluttering and hovering about the dark
grove which they inhabited, and preparing for
their morning flight.

My ramble led me along quiet alleys, bordered
by shrubbery, where the solitary water hen

would now and then scud across my path, and
take refuge among the bushes. From hence I
entered upon a broad terraced walk, once a favourite
resort of the friars, which extended the
whole length of the old Abbey garden, passing
along the ancient stone wall which bounded it.
In the centre of the garden lay one of the
monkish fish pools, an oblong sheet of water,
deep set like a mirror, in green sloping banks of
turf. In its glassy bosom was reflected the
dark mass of a neighbouring grove, one of the
most important features of the garden.

This grove goes by the sinister name of “the
Devil's Wood,” and enjoys but an equivocal
character in the neighbourhood. It was planted
by “The Wicked Lord Byron,” during the early
part of his residence at the Abbey, before his fatal
duel with Mr. Chaworth. Having something
of a foreign and classical taste, he set up leaden
statues of satyrs or fawns at each end of the
grove. These statues, like every thing else
about the old Lord, fell under the suspicion and
obloquy that overshadowed him in the latter part
of his life. The country people, who knew
nothing of heathen mythology and its sylvan
deities, looked with horror at idols invested with
the diabolical attributes of horns and cloven
feet. They probably supposed them some object
of secret worship of the gloomy and secluded

misanthrope, and reputed murderer, and
gave them the name of “The old Lord's Devils.”

I penetrated the recesses of the mystic grove.
There stood the ancient and much slandered
statues, overshadowed by tall larches, and stained
by dank green mould. It is not a matter of
surprise, that strange figures thus behoofed and
behorned, and set up in a gloomy grove, should
perplex the minds of the simple and superstitious
yeomanry. There are many of the tastes and
caprices of the rich, that in the eyes of the uneducated
must savour of insanity.

I was attracted to this grove, however, by
memorials of a more touching character. It
had been one of the favourite haunts of the late
Lord Byron. In his farewell visit to the Abbey,
after he had parted with the possession of it, he
passed some time in this grove, in company
with his sister; and as a last memento, engraved
their names on the bark of a tree.

The feelings that agitated his bosom during
this farewell visit, when he beheld round him
objects dear to his pride, and dear to his juvenile
recollections, but of which the narrowness
of his fortune would not permit him to retain
possession, may be gathered from a passage in
a poetical epistle, written to his sister in after
years.

I searched the grove for some time, before I
found the tree on which Lord Byron had left
his frail memorial. It was an elm of peculiar
form, having two trunks, which sprang from the
same root, and, after growing side by side, mingled
their branches together. He had selected
it, doubtless, as emblematical of his sister and
himself. The names of Byron and Augusta
were still visible. They had been deeply cut in
the bark, but the natural growth of the tree was
gradually rendering them illegible, and a few
years hence, strangers will seek in vain for this
record of fraternal affection.

Leaving the grove, I continued my ramble
along a spacious terrace, overlooking what had

once been the kitchen garden of the Abbey.
Below me lay the monks' stew, or fish pond, a
dark pool, overhung by gloomy cypresses, with
a solitary water hen swimming about in it.

A little further on, and the terrace looked
down upon the stately scene on the south side
of the Abbey; the flower garden, with its stone
balustrades and stately peacocks, the lawn, with
its pheasants and partridges, and the soft valley
of Newstead beyond.

At a distance, on the border of the lawn, stood
another memento of Lord Byron; an oak planted
by him in his boyhood, on his first visit to the
Abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in
him, he linked his own destiny with that of the
tree. “As it fares,” said he, “so will fare my
fortunes.” Several years elapsed, many of them
passed in idleness and dissipation. He returned
to the Abbey a youth scarce grown to manhood,
but as he thought with vices and follies beyond
his years. He found his emblem oak almost
choked by weeds and brambles, and took the
lesson to himself.

I leaned over the stone balustrade of the terrace,
and gazed upon the valley of Newstead,
with its silver sheets of water gleaming in the
morning sun. It was a Sabbath morning,
which always seems to have a hallowed influence
over the landscape, probably from the
quiet of the day, and the cessation of all kinds
of week day labour. As I mused upon the
mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies
of the man, whose stormy temperament
forced him from this tranquil paradise to battle
with the passions and perils of the world, the
sweet chime of bells from a village a few miles
distant, came stealing up the valley. Every
sight and sound this morning seemed calculated
to summon up touching recollections of poor
Byron. The chime was from the village spire
of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains
lie buried!

— I have since visited his tomb. It is
in an old gray country church, venerable with
the lapse of centuries. He lies buried beneath
the pavement, at one end of the principal aisle.
A light falls on the spot through the stained
glass of a gothic window, and a tablet on the
adjacent wall announces the family vault of the
Byrons. It had been the wayward intention or

the poet to be entombed, with his faithful dog,
in the monument erected by him in the garden of
Newstead Abbey. His executors showed better
judgment and feeling, in consigning his ashes to
the family sepulchre, to mingle with those of his
mother and his kindred. Here,

How nearly did his dying hour realize the
wish made by him, but a few years previously in
one of his fitful moods of melancholy, and misanthropy:

He died among strangers; in a foreign land,
without a kindred hand to close his eyes, yet he
did not die unwept. With all his faults and errors,
and passions, and caprices, he had the gift

of attaching his humble dependents warmly to
him. One of them, a poor Greek, accompanied
his remains to England, and followed them to
the grave. I am told that, during the ceremony,
he stood holding on by a pew in an agony of
grief, and when all was over, seemed as if he
would have gone down into the tomb with the
body of his master.—A nature that could inspire
such attachments, must have been generous and
beneficent.