Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (319 page)
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Authors: Ann Radcliffe
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We were soon after cheered by the faintly seen coast of England, but at the same time discovered, nearer to us on the south-west, the high blue headlands of Calais; and, more eastward, the town, with its large church and the steeples of two others, seated on the edge of the sea. The woods, that fringe the summits of hills rising over it, were easily distinguished with glasses, as well as the national flag on the steeple of the great church. As we proceeded, Calais cliffs, at a considerable distance westward of the town, lost their aërial blue, and shewed an high front of chalky precipice, overtopped by dark downs. Beyond, far to the south-west, and at the foot of a bold promontory, that swelled above all the neighbouring heights, our glasses gave us the towers and ramparts of Boulogne, sloping upward from the shore, with its tall lighthouse on a low point running out into the sea; the whole appearing with considerable dignity and picturesque effect. The hills beyond were tamer, and sunk gradually away in the horizon. At length, the breeze wafting us more to the north, we discriminated the bolder features of the English coast, and, about noon, found ourselves nearly in the middle of the channel, having Picardy on our left and Kent on the right, its white cliffs aspiring with great majesty over the flood. The sweeping bay of Dover, with all its chalky heights, soon after opened. The town appeared low on the shore within, and the castle, with round and massy towers, crowned the vast rock, which, advancing into the sea, formed the eastern point of the crescent, while Shakespeare’s cliff, bolder still and sublime as the eternal name it bears, was the western promontory of the bay. The height and grandeur of this cliff were particularly striking, when a ship was seen sailing at its base, diminished by comparison to an inch. From hence the cliffs towards Folkstone, though still broken and majestic, gradually decline. There are, perhaps, few prospects of sea and shore more animated and magnisicent than this. The vast expanse of water, the character of the cliffs, that guard the coast, the ships of war and various merchantmen moored in the Downs, the lighter vessels skimming along the channel, and the now distant shore of France, with Calais glimmering faintly, and hinting of different modes of life and a new world, all these circumstances formed a scene of preeminent combination, and led to interesting reflection.
Our vessel was bound to Deal, and, leaving Dover and its cliffs on the south, we entered that noble bay, which the rich shores of Kent open for the sea. Gentle hills, swelling all round from the water, green with woods, or cultivation, and speckled with towns and villages, with now and then the towers of an old fortress, offered a landscape particularly cheering to eyes accustomed to the monotonous flatness of Dutch views. And we landed in England under impressions of delight more varied and strong than can be conceived, without referring to the joy of an escape from districts where there was scarcely an home for the natives, and to the love of our own country, greatly enhanced by all that had been seen of others.
Between Deal and London, after being first struck by the superior appearance and manners of the people to those of the countries we had been lately accustomed to, a contrast too obvious as well as too often remarked to be again insisted upon, but which made all the ordinary circumstances of the journey seem new and delightful, the different between the landscapes of England and Germany occurred forcibly to notice. The large scale, in which every division of land appeared in Germany, the long corn grounds, the huge stretches of hills, the vast plains and the wide vallies could not but be beautifully opposed by the varieties and undulations of English surface, with gently swelling slopes, rich in verdure, thick inclosures, woods, bowery hop grounds, sheltered mansions, announcing the wealth, and substantial farms, with neat villages, the comfort of the country. English landscape may be compared to cabinet pictures, delicately beautiful and highly finished; German scenery to paintings for a vestibule, of bold outline and often sublime, but coarse and to be viewed with advantage only from a distance.
Northward, beyond London, we may make one stop, after a country, not otherwise necessary to be noticed, to mention Hardwick, in Derbyshire, a seat of the Duke of Devonshire, once the residence of the Earl of Shrewsbury, to whom Elizabeth deputed the custody of the unfortunate Mary. It stands on an easy height, a few miles to the left of the road from Mansfield to Chesterfield, and is approached through shady lanes, which conceal the view of it, till you are on the confines of the park. Three towers of hoary grey then rise with great majesty among old woods, and their summits appear to be covered with the lightly shivered fragments of battlements, which, however, are soon discovered to be perfectly carved open work, in which the letters E. S. frequently occur under a coronet, the initials, and the memorials of the vanity, of Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, who built the present edifice. Its tall features, of a most picturesque tint, were finely disclosed between the luxuriant woods and over the lawns of the park, which, every now and then, let in a glimpse of the Derbyshire hills. The scenery reminded us of the exquisite descriptions of Harewood,
The deep embowering shades, that veil Elfrida;”
and those of Hardwick once veiled a form as lovely as the ideal graces of the Poet, and conspired to a fate more tragical than that, which Harewood witnessed.
In front of the great gates of the castle court, the ground, adorned by old oaks, suddenly sinks to a darkly shadowed glade, and the view opens over the vale of Scarsdale, bounded by the wild mountains of the Peak. Immediately to the left of the present residence, some ruined features of the antient one, enwreathed with the rich drapery of ivy, give an interest to the scene, which the later, but more historical structure heightens and prolongs. We followed, not without emotion, the walk, which Mary had so often trodden, to the folding doors of the great hall, whose lofty grandeur, aided by silence and seen under the influence of a lowering sky, suited the temper of the whole scene. The tall windows, which half subdue the light they admit, just allowed us to distinguish the large figures in the tapestry, above the oak wainscoting, and shewed a colonnade of oak supporting a gallery along the bottom of the hall, with a pair of gigantic elk’s horns flourishing between the windows opposite to the entrance. The scene of Mary’s arrival and her feelings upon entering this solemn shade came involuntarily to the mind; the noise of horses’ feet and many voices from the court; her proud yet gentle and melancholy look, as, led by my Lord Keeper, she passed slowly up the hall; his somewhat obsequious, yet jealous and vigilant air, while, awed by her dignity and beauty, he remembers the terrors of his own Queen; the silence and anxiety of her maids, and the bustle of the surrounding attendants.
From the hall a staircase ascends to the gallery of a small chapel, in which the chairs and cushions, used by Mary, still remain, and proceeds to the first story, where only one apartment bears memorials of her imprisonment, the bed, tapestry and chairs having been worked by herself. This tapestry is richly embossed with emblematic figures, each with its title worked above it, and, having been scrupulously preserved, is still entire and fresh.
Over the chimney of an adjoining dining-room, to which, as well as to other apartments on this floor, some modern furniture has been added, is this motto carved in oak:
“There is only this: To fear God and keep his Commandments.”
So much less valuable was timber than workmanship, when this mansion was constructed, that, where the staircases are not of stone, they are formed of solid oaken steps, instead of planks; such is that from the second, or state story to the roof, whence, on clear days, York and Lincoln Cathedrals are said to be included in the extensive prospect. This second floor is that, which gives its chief interest to the edifice. Nearly all the apartments of it were allotted to Mary; some of them for state purposes; and the furniture is known by other proofs, than its appearance, to remain as she left it. The chief room, or that of audience, is of uncommon loftiness, and strikes by its grandeur, before the veneration and tenderness arise, which its antiquities, and the plainly told tale of the sufferings they witnessed, excite.
The walls, which are covered to a considerable height with tapestry, are painted above with historical groups. The chairs are of black velvet, nearly concealed by a raised needlework of gold, silver and colours, that mingle with surprising richness, and remain in fresh preservation. The upper end of the room is distinguished by a lofty canopy of the same materials, and by steps which support two chairs; so that the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury probably enjoyed their own stateliness here, as well as assisted in the ceremonies practised before Mary. A carpeted table, in front of the canopy, was, perhaps, the desk of Commissioners, or Secretaries, who here recorded some of the proceedings concerning her; below which, the room breaks into a spacious recess, where a few articles of furniture are deposited, not originally placed in it; a bed of state, used by Mary, the curtains of gold tissue, but in so tattered a condition, that its orginal texture can scarcely be perceived. This and the chairs, which accompany it, are supposed to have been much earlier than Mary’s time.
A short passage leads from the state apartment to her own chamber, a small room, overlooked from the passage by a window, which enabled her attendants to know, that she was contriving no means of escape through the others into the court. The bed and chairs of this room are of black velvet, embroidered by herself; the toilet of gold tissue; all more decayed than worn, and probably used only towards the conclusion of her imprisonment here, when she was removed from some better apartment, in which the antient bed, now in the stateroom, had been placed. The date 1599 is once or twice inscribed in this chamber; for no reason, that could relate to Mary, who was removed hence in 1584, and fell, by the often-blooded hands of Elizabeth, in 1587.
These are the apartments, distinguished by having been the residence of so unhappy a personage. On the other side of the mansion, a grand gallery occupies the length of the whole front, which is
What remains of the more antient building is a ruin, which, standing nearly on the brink of the glade, is a fine object from this. A few apartments, though approached with difficulty through the fragments of others, are still almost entire, and the dimensions of that called the Giant’s Chamber are remarkable for the beauty of their proportion.
From Hardwick to within a few miles of Middleton, the beauty of the country declines, while the sublimity is not perfected; but, from the north-west brow of Brampton Moor, the vast hills of Derbyshire appear in wild and ghastly succession. Middleton, hewn out of the grey rocks, that impend over it, and scarcely distinguishable from them, is worth notice for its very small and neat octagon church, built partly by brief and partly by a donation from the Duke of Devonshire. The valley, or rather chasm, at the entrance of which it stands, is called Middleton Dale, and runs, for two miles, between perpendicular walls of rock, which have more the appearance of having been torn asunder by some convulsive rent of the earth, than any we have elsewhere seen. The strata are horizontal, and the edges of each are often distinct and rounded; one of the characteristics of granite. Three grey rocks, resembling castles, project from these solid walls, and, now and then, a lime-kiln, round like a bastion, half involves in smoke a figure, who, standing on the summit, looks the Witch of the Dale, on an edge of her cauldron, watching the workings of incantation.
The chasm opened, at length, to a hill, whence wild moorish mountains were seen on all sides, some entirely covered with the dull purple of heath, others green, but without enclosures, except sometimes a stone wall, and the dark sides of others marked only by the blue smoke of weeds, driven in circles near the ground.
Towards sun-set, from a hill in Cheshire, we had a vast view over part of that county and nearly all Lancashire, a scene of fertile plains and gentle heights, till some broad and towering mountains, at an immense distance, were but uncertainly distinguished from the clouds. Soon after, the cheerful populousness of the rich towns and villages in Lancashire supplied objects for attention of a different character; Stockport first, crowded with buildings and people, as much so as some of the busiest quarters in London, with large blazing fires in every house, by the light of which women were frequently spinning, and manufacturers issuing from their workshops and filling the steep streets, which the chaise rolled down with dangerous rapidity; then an almost continued street of villages to Manchester, some miles before which the road was busy with passengers and carriages, as well as bordered by handsome country houses; and, finally for this day, Manchester itself; a second London; enormous to those, who have not seen the first, almost tumultuous with business, and yet well proved to afford the necessary peacefulness to science, letters and taste. And not only for itself may Manchester be an object of admiration, but for the contrast of its useful profits to the wealth of a neighbouring place, immersed in the dreadful guilt of the Slave Trade, with the continuance of which to believe national prosperity compatible, is to hope, that the actions of nations pass unseen before the Almighty, or to suppose extenuation of crimes by increase of criminality, and that the eternal laws of right and truth, which smite the wickedness of individuals, are too weak to struggle with the accumulated and comprehensive guilt of a national participation in robbery, cruelty and murder.