ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

fitted to compete with the difficulties and crafts of the world: and we all know and love the artlessness and kindliness of good old master Isaac Walton, and he had but rivers and brooks, and silly fish, for his companions.

Descending the few steps of the green-house, it was impossible not to be struck with the superior odour, foliage, and shape of the plants around us. The nobility of the family seemed to have passed into leaf and blossom, and the myrtles and geraniums grew as of stately birth. They were luxuriant, without a sign of decay; and they spake to my mind of the ladies under whose smiles they might have flourished. I fancied that I detected the hand of one of the youthful countesses of the house among the shining leaves; and I at once imagined her bending over a flight of myrtles arranged on the marble steps, in her silken attire, and with her pearl-bound hair; while an Italian greyhound was looking up at her eyes, and the flowering roses clustered fondly over her head. I have seen old pictures after this fashion, and all before me seemed complete, and pausing only for the presence of such a lady and her milkwhite hound.

We were now conducted towards the castle; and the silence deepened as we approached the grassed dell (a foss of old) and the iron gate that led into the courtyard. We trod our way with timid feet, loth to disturb the mid-day serenity that held reign there. The spacious court had a cold quiet about it (warm though the day might be), resembling that which surrounds a forest spring, or a cloistered abbey. My usual sagacity in castle-hunting conducted me to a wrong gate, which I discovered to be as utterly a "no thoroughfare," as locks, bolts, and bars could make it. This second conviction under the Per versity Act, found no mercy in my

fair judges and I was admonished and sentenced accordingly. The gardener had deserted us, for his dominion was over leaf, and stem, and blossom, and twig,-and extended not to gate, buttress, or window. He had set us in the right path, previous to his departure, and had duly touched his shilling and his hat at our separation: but this same "right path" forked in course of time, and my unfortunate sagacity recommended the wrong prong. I dared not call aloud, for I knew Echo, with her hundred tongues, would reproach me from every angle and nook of the castle; and indeed the locks and bolts had a resolute rust of age and disuse about them, which sadly discouraged all hope of their relaxing for our admission. We retraced our steps, and ultimately succeeded by another path.

But as I returned, I should not, I cannot, omit to mention, that a trifling circumstance sent my mind suddenly back on a boyhood journey. By what slender threads are the thoughts bound each to other !—and how light and strange are the airs that waft the mind on its varying and mystic voyages! A cluster of trees, resembling one that frowned over my school-playground, carried me there on the instant,-and all the idleness, and luxury, and pastime of boyhood, burst in full cry upon my heart. I used to read old ballads in my playground, out of a torn and miserable book, and I have never read with such delight since. This clump of trees reminded me at once of Gilderoy, and Childe Waters, and Earl Percy, and a thousand other names of glory and green song; and I love to be so reminded. My reverence for antiquity was, perhaps, born of these early, ancient, and sweet histories; and therefore am I pleased when I am reminded of them, and of the days when they were first taken into my heart.

OLD BALLADS.

1.

I loved the ballad of Gilderoy,
Dear, dear was it to me;

I read it when I was a boy,

Under the play-ground tree :

I read it in those happy hours
When the setting sun was on our towers.

2.

Oh, many and many an evening fled
O'er me and my ballad-book;
And the antique tale I deeply read,
To the voice of the lofty rook :-
I read of Gawaine, that name of pride,
And of famous Yarrow's bonny bride.

3.

How well do I remember yet,
Reading and reading on,-
Or looking up at the sweet sun-set
Asleep on the turret-stone ;-

And wishing the sun should be ever so-
Though why I wish'd it, I could not know.

4.

Then too, in darkness or in moon-light,
When others were all at rest,-

I told the tale of gallant or knight,
The tale I loved best:

And my school-fellows-half in joy and fear,
Lay wide awake in their beds to hear.

5.

And they heard how Lord Percy a hunting went

In the noble Douglas' wood;

And how his cloth-yard bow was bent,

And how arose that feud

Which laid the proud Earl Douglas low,
And loosen'd for ever the Percy bow!

6.

I told at night, from my pillow, the tale
Of the young Plantagenet ;

And how he was led by a man in mail,

To where the watch was set

By the loftiest tent, while the moon did reign

In glory pale over Bosworth plain.

7.

And when I came to speak how the Childe-
The unknown Childe-was met

And caress'd with a rapture sad and wild,

By Richard Plantagenet!

My hearers thrill'd in their beds, and sigh'd
That Richard in Bosworth battle died!

8.

Those nights are over-those nights are gone! And the towers I ne'er shall see

While the sun-set gilds the old grey stone,

Nor sit by the play-ground tree!

The rooks are dead-long, long ago-
And I have been in the world also.

9.

But I love the old, old ballads yet,
Of Percy and Gilderoy,-
And of gallant Richard Plantagenet,
The obscure and kingly boy.

And when I read them, I seem to be
Young, and under the play-ground tree.

Warwick Castle.

[ocr errors]

But to leave this idle verse, and to proceed in that sensible and direct style of prose, which best becomes the faithful and unaffected historianI turn my Pegasus loose, dismounting at the proper entrance to the court-yard of Warwick Castle. We entered at a pannel of the iron gate, if I may so express myself, for the enormous worked leaves of the gate itself seemed "not easily moved; and, indeed, from the repose of the bolts and hinges, I should guess that when moved, they would "be perplexed in the extreme." A sixteenth, however, made gate enough for such as myself, and I entered with a stoop of the head, not perhaps from any great necessity, but from a disinclination to appear so very a dwarf as this diminished aperture would endeavour to make me. We all crossed the court-yard, with great diffidence gingerly, as Sterne would more aptly express it, as though we were likely to meet a group of the early inhabitants of the castle, walking forth in doublet and hose, in ruff and hood: for my own part, I can safely say, that I had some such feeling; I was, indeed, conscious that my blue coat had no business to bring its abominable gilt buttons into so venerable and ancient a place My Wellingtons were on a trespass. Had Guy, accoutred in the armour, or even in the stately undress of his time, met me in the court, he might have run me through with one of his eyelashes; so very a nothing did I seem to be in that spacious, awful, and noiseless square. We spake in whispers, or in respectful undertones, lest some of the dead Earls might overhear us, or the Countess of two centuries ago overtake our steps in the glory of her brocade, and have our modern bodies unceremoniously put out. A domestic of the castle, as we approached the entrance door, came from a small side portal, and crossed to some other part of the building. This was, as heretofore, an old man. I beckoned him to me, and begged him to procure us admission to the interior, which he very readily and respectfully undertook to do. He had what may be called "a silver look." His manners, however, I thought, had much of the courtesy of the earlier ages, when servants were indeed servants, and

[July,

kept their stations with a becoming and worthy humility. He entered the castle, to procure us the guardianship of the venerable housekeeper, and we patiently awaited his return.

66

Methought the voice of antiquity the pavement had a stainless and was audible in the space around me, aged look,-and the trees stood aseeming to muse over the mystery of round, beautiful, and full of years; time, or to utter, as they stirred in past. It has been said, and greatly the wind, the awful language of the said, "stones have been known to move, and trees to speak." I heard their voices now! Every thing about me awed the present into nothingand the days of old came trooping and pride, to take their solemn march forth in all their pomp, circumstance, through the mind. While we waited the return of our aged messenger, court, and called from many a nook our imaginations peopled the empty and angle, the figures of Butler, and Groom, and Squire, in all the antique costume of the best days of the castle. "Who cannot behold," said Earl cross that white and regular one of my companions, an armed pavement, and even now, methinks I see him enter that left wing, and hear in the long, dim, and intricate pasthe ring of his iron heel, as he is lost sages." Look," cried I, "at that and you will see two antique cooks, low door, in the corner of the castle his full flagons, staggering along in with larded beef, and the butler with stately order, to the servant's hall." I could have schemed a life away in companions were no less inclined to these antique speculations, and my abandon their thoughts to such aged but the return of our grey-haired whimsies, and delectable illusions; Mercury put a finish to these our little Essays on Population, and recalled us to "the business in hand." The old man came forth, followed to the door by a most venerable lady, clad as beseemed her office, and whom he quietly motioned us to approach. We advanced accordingly to the presence of Mrs. Hume (I love to speak her name), and beheld Warwick Castle. Well worthy was the aged and comely housekeeper of she to hold the keys-but not at the fag end of a period must she be de

66

scribed. Her merits claim a mended pen, and a new paragraph.

We saw before us a very aged, but a very hale and intelligent looking lady, somewhat a-kin to the healthy and comely antiquity of the castle committed to her charge. The keen sensible expression of her countenance, the easy, yet respectful familiarity of her address, and the pointed and pretty neatness of her laced cap and silken garments, quite recommended her to my favour. She made no formal and marked curtsey; her whole manner was subdued, quiet, and extremely polite, being quite of the old school. Her body seemed to have settled into a perpetual curtsey; and time had crystallized her politeness. I guessed Mrs. Hume to be of Scotch extraction, if not a native of Scotland, for several reasons:-her features had a lined seriousness and acuteness, which you in vain look for in our foolish southern faces-then her speech had not lost all its original music, and finally, she herself was not in Scotland. These are reasons "plenty as blackberries," and I give them without compulsion.-Oh that the reader could, on the pleasant June morning in which I am writing this, (June is my favourite month,) turn from my idle and imperfect description, and contemplate the pleasant and orderly visage of kind Mrs. Hume, nested in its white laces, and gleaming placidly along from picture to picture, as though she herself were a happy work of the old masters, and partook of the kindness of Time! Would that I could cast aside my pen, and be of her company! She loves the place-it belongs to the Earl of Warwick; or rather, "to the Earl," for to her there is no other Earl!-She is proud of the inlaid and ancient cabinets things of India-ebon-black, with brass birds, and leaves, and clasps, -huge, grand, and (thanks to the inventors!) useless !-She prizes the glowing canvas, more on account of its station in Warwick castle than for its bearing the magic hues of a Rembrandt or a Titian. The lofty rooms, the cedar-lined walls, the glossy wainscots, all speak to her of patient and never-dying grandeur. What to Mrs. Hume is the meanness, the modern noise, the foppery of

this working-day world?-she knows it not! She travels from Rubeus to Titian, from Titian to Guido, from Guido to Vandyke-and there is no change. As were the colours when she was young, such are they still, if not brighter: and it may be, that she scarcely finds her own change a whit different from them. She speaks of the "late Earl" as of some spirit that haunts her, and of the present Lord as of some crowning power with whom she communes, but whom you cannot look to meet. Observe that bust, that is "the Earl."You ask whether the family is at the castle, so much is there of the invisible in true greatness, and she answers in a lower tone,-awed, it may be, by the subject, or fearing lest the nobility of the place should over-hear her, that "the Earl was down last week!" And you seek to know no more.-But I must not keep Mrs. Hume at the entrance of the castle;-she has lifted the key, and is pointing it to the armour-so pray, good reader, let me proceed.

The hall is paved with stones, white and black, alternately:-it is a noble place, and hath a baronial look. The arranged arms, decked with branching antlers of the deer, give that mingled tale of war and chase which at once speaks the lives of the castle's early inhabitants. There was a dreariness about the gloom and haughty silence of this huge place, unbroken, save when the passing of a distant foot disturbed the spirit of the spot for an instant: As when, upon a tranced summer night, Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest

stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,

Save from one gradual solitary gust, Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, As if the ebbing air had but one wave.

After passing an ante-chamber, in which is a whole-length picture of my Lady Brooke, with a boy on her knee,-you come to a room lined with carved cedar. The floor is of polished oak, and your image is reflected at your feet, as though you were walking upon water. But Mrs. Hume discourages your stepping off a strip of carpet, by intimating that it is sadly dangerous, though I have some reason to conclude that she does not

choose to have the polish molested. This room is very rich and solemn, and the furniture is costly and massive, to suit it. Among the pictures, the only one I recollect is a Circe, by Guido ;-but I do recollect this. Other rooms follow, with the same intensely bright floors,-filled with curious cabinets and fine pictures, and confirming the magnificence and space of the castle. The picture that made the deepest impression on my mind, was one of Ignatius Loyola, a whole length, by Rubens ;-but it was not the beauty of the colouring, or the name of the master, that worked this impression-it was the sweet and sainted expression of the features, the lustrous resignation of the lifted eyes, the placid virtue of the bald and passionless forehead; and, perhaps, I should not have felt all these so deeply, if they had not been recognized by others with me, as forming the perfect resemblance of a lost friend of ours.

From a small room or cabinet at the end of the building, a window gives you a most romantic view over the Avon, and the country beyond it. My recollection of this part of the castle is, however, rather treacherous. A gallery, with a whole length of Charles I. on horseback, at the one end, leads to the chapel. I was much struck with the neatness and quiet of this place of prayer:-and, indeed, the heart seemed to repose in such an oratory, as in a place of peace, for which it had become fitted by the previous solemnity and magnitude of the castle. Many a prayer hath been felt there, though perchance not uttered, by those who might not be suspected of indulging in devotion at the time. We parted

with Mrs. Hume at the door with

great reluctance, for her intelligent conversation, and engaging manners, had quite delighted us; but she had other visitors to gratify,-and it is not very likely that she shared in all our feelings at the separation.

Before quitting the park, we ascended the mount at the west of the castle, accompanied by a new old gardener, and reached the tower, which is a Gradus ad Parnassum for the number of its steps. Endless, indeed, did seem our upward travel:

it was the journey of life in miniature! In this tower, it is believed, that the lady Ethelfleda, the daughter of King Alfred, sojourned,-making it a melancholy but secure abode. There are, indeed, many interesting stories and magnificent recollections attached to Warwick Castle. In the reign of Henry III. we are told,

that the extraordinary strength of this building was alleged as an excuse for particularly prohibiting the widowed Countess of Warwick from re-marrying with any other than a person attached to the King."George, Duke of Clarence, was, by his brother, Edward IV. created Earl of Warwick, and lived here in great splendour. The Dudleys followed the Plantagenets, and possessed the earldom. The accomplished Sir Fulke Greville, at length, succeeded to the title, and from him the present Earl descended.

But not the least famous of the names which Warwick Castle suggests, is that of Guy-the great Sir Guy-of whom Chaucer speaks,

Men speken of romancis of price,
Of Horne Childe and Ippotis,

Of Bevis and Sir Guy.

The celebrated ballad thus mentioned was, as Dr. Percy informs us, usually sung to the harp at Christmas dinners and bride-ales: it is, as may be expected, quaintly written, and bears marks of great antiquity: in proof of which, the following description of the dragon, which Sir Guy demolished, may suffice.

He is black as any cole,
Rugged as a rough fole;
No man may it pierce it is so hard;
His bodye, from the navill upward,
His neck is great as any summere;
He renneth as swift as any distrere; †
Pawes he hath as a lyon:

*

All that he toucheth he sleath dead downe. Great winges he hath to flight, That is no man that bare him might, There may no man fight him agayne, But that he sleath him certayne: For a fowler beast than is he, Ywis of none never heard ye. Guy, after all this bitter exposition of the dragon's character, settles his business. He also conquered and slew five terrible princes, two giants, another dragon, and a lion, and tri

A thick beam of timber which formerly tied the upper walls of a house together. +A war-horse.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »