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Travels in England in 1782

C >> Charles P. Moritz >> Travels in England in 1782




The river Avon is here pretty broad, and a row of neat though humble
cottages, only one storey high, with shingled roofs, are ranged all
along its banks. These houses impressed me strongly with the idea
of patriarchal simplicity and content.

We went to see Shakespeare's own house, which, of all the houses at
Stratford I think is now the worst, and one that made the least
appearance. Yet, who would not be proud to be the owner of it?
There now however lived in it only two old people, who show it to
strangers for a trifle, and what little they earn thus is their
chief income.

Shakespeare's chair, in which he used to sit before the door, was so
cut to pieces that it hardly looked like a chair; for every one that
travels through Stratford cuts off a chip as a remembrance, which he
carefully preserves, and deems a precious relic, I also cut myself a
piece of it, but reverencing Shakespeare as I do, I am almost
ashamed to own to you it was so small that I have lost it, and
therefore you will not see it on my return.

As we travelled, I observed every spot with attention, fancying to
myself that such or such a spot might be the place where such a
genius as Shakespeare's first dawned, and received those first
impressions from surrounding nature which are so strongly marked in
all his works. The first impressions of childhood, I knew, were
strong and permanent; of course I made sure of seeing here some
images at least of the wonderful conceptions of this wonderful man.
But my imagination misled me, and I was disappointed; for I saw
nothing in the country thereabouts at all striking, or in any
respect particularly beautiful. It was not at all wild and
romantic; but rather distinguished for an air of neatness and
simplicity.

We arrived at Birmingham about three o'clock in the afternoon. I
had already paid sixteen shillings at Stratford for my place in the
coach from Oxford to Birmingham. At Oxford they had not asked
anything of me, and indeed you are not obliged in general in
England, as you are in Germany, to pay your passage beforehand.

My companion and myself alighted at the inn where the coach stopped.
We parted with some reluctance, and I was obliged to promise him
that, on my return to London, I would certainly call on him, for
which purpose he gave me his address. His father was Dr. Wilson, a
celebrated author in his particular style of writing.

I now inquired for the house of Mr. Fothergill, to whom I was
recommended, and I was readily directed to it, but had the
misfortune to learn, at the same time, that this very Mr. Fothergill
had died about eight days before. As, therefore, under these
circumstances, my recommendation to him was likely to be but of
little use, I had the less desire to tarry long at Birmingham, and
so, without staying a minute longer, I immediately inquired the road
to Derby, and left Birmingham. Of this famous manufacturing town,
therefore, I can give you no account.

The road from Birmingham onwards is not very agreeable, being in
general uncommonly sandy. Yet the same evening I reached a little
place called Sutton, where everything, however, appeared to be too
grand for me to hope to obtain lodgings in it, till quite at the end
of it I came to a small inn with the sign of the Swan, under which
was written Aulton, brickmaker.

This seemed to have something in it that suited me, and therefore I
boldly went into it; and when in I did not immediately, as
heretofore, inquire if I could stay all night there, but asked for a
pint of ale. I own I felt myself disheartened by their calling me
nothing but master, and by their showing me into the kitchen, where
the landlady was sitting at a table and complaining much of the
toothache. The compassion I expressed for her on this account, as a
stranger, seemed soon to recommend me to her favour, and she herself
asked me if I would not stay the night there? To this I most
readily assented; and thus I was again happy in a lodging for
another night.

The company I here met with consisted of a female chimney-sweeper
and her children, who, on my sitting down in the kitchen, soon drank
to my health, and began a conversation with me and the landlady.

She related to us her history, which I am not ashamed to own I
thought not uninteresting. She had married early, but had the hard
luck to be soon deprived of her husband, by his being pressed as a
soldier. She neither saw nor heard of him for many years, so
concluded he was dead. Thus destitute, she lived seven years as a
servant in Ireland, without any one's knowing that she was married.
During this time her husband, who was a chimney-sweeper, came back
to England and settled at Lichfield, resumed his old trade, and did
well in it. As soon as he was in good circumstances, he everywhere
made inquiry for his wife, and at last found out where she was, and
immediately fetched her from Ireland. There surely is something
pleasing in this constancy of affection in a chimney-sweeper. She
told us, with tears in her eyes, in what a style of grandeur he had
conducted her into Lichfield; and how, in honour to her, he made a
splendid feast on the occasion. At this same Lichfield, which is
only two miles from Sutton, and through which she said the road lay
which I was to travel to-morrow, she still lived with this same
excellent husband, where they were noted for their industry, where
everybody respected them, and where, though in the lowest sphere,
they are passing through life neither uselessly nor unhappily.

The landlady, during her absence, told me as in confidence, that
this chimney-sweeper's husband, as meanly as I might fancy she now
appeared, was worth a thousand pounds, and that without reckoning in
their plate and furniture, that he always wore his silver watch, and
that when he passed through Sutton, and lodged there, he paid like a
nobleman.

She further remarked that the wife was indeed rather low-lived; but
that the husband was one of the best-behaved, politest, and civilest
men in the world. I had myself taken notice that this same dingy
companion of mine had something singularly coarse and vulgar in her
pronunciation. The word old, for example, she sounded like auld.
In other respects, I had not yet remarked any striking variety or
difference from the pronunciation of Oxford or London.

To-morrow the chimney-sweeper, said she, her husband, would not be
at home, but if I came back by the way of Lichfield, she would take
the liberty to request the honour of a visit, and to this end she
told me her name and the place of her abode.

At night the rest of the family, a son and daughter of the landlady,
came home, and paid all possible attention to their sick mother. I
supped with the family, and they here behaved to me as if we had
already lived many years together.

Happening to mention that I was, if not a scholar, yet a student,
the son told me there was at Sutton a celebrated grammar-school,
where the school-master received two hundred pounds a year settled
salary, besides the income arising from the scholars.

And this was only in a village. I thought, and not without some
shame and sorrow, of our grammar-schools in Germany, and the
miserable pay of the masters.

When I paid my reckoning the next morning, I observed the uncommon
difference here and at Windsor, Nettlebed, and Oxford. At Oxford I
was obliged to pay for my supper, bed, and breakfast at least three
shillings, and one to the waiter. I here paid for my supper, bed,
and breakfast only one shilling, and to the daughter, whom I was to
consider as chambermaid, fourpence; for which she very civilly
thanked me, and gave me a written recommendation to an inn at
Lichfield, where I should be well lodged, as the people in Lichfield
were, in general, she said, very proud. This written recommendation
was a masterpiece of orthography, and showed that in England, as
well as elsewhere, there are people who write entirely from the ear,
and as they pronounce. In English, however, it seems to look
particularly odd, but perhaps that may be the case in all languages
that are not native.

I took leave here, as one does of good friends, with a certain
promise that on my return I would certainly call on them again.

At noon I got to Lichfield, an old-fashioned town with narrow dirty
streets, where for the first time I saw round panes of glass in the
windows. The place to mime wore an unfriendly appearance; I
therefore made no use of my recommendation, but went straight
through, and only bought some bread at a baker's, which I took along
with me.

At night I reached Burton, where the famous Burton ale is brewed.
By this time I felt myself pretty well tired, and therefore proposed
to stay the night here. But my courage failed me, and I dropped the
resolution immediately on my entering the town. The houses and
everything else seemed to wear as grand an appearance, almost, as if
I had been still in London. And yet the manners of some of its
inhabitants were so thoroughly rustic and rude, that I saw them
actually pointing at me with their fingers as a foreigner. And now,
to complete my chagrin and mortification, I came to a long street,
where everybody on both sides of the way were at their doors, and
actually made me run the gauntlet through their inquiring looks.
Some even hissed at me as I passed along. All my arguments to
induce me to pluck up my courage, such as the certainty that I
should never see these people again nor they me, were of no use.
Burton became odious and almost insupportable to me; and the street
appeared as long and tired me as much, as if I had walked a mile.
This strongly-marked contemptuous treatment of a stranger, who was
travelling through their country merely from the respect he bore it,
I experienced nowhere but at Burton.

How happy did I feel when I again found myself out of their town,
although at that moment I did not know where I should find a lodging
for the night, and was, besides, excessively tired. But I pursued
my journey, and still kept in the road to Derby, along a footpath
which I knew to be right. It led across a very pleasant mead, the
hedges of which were separated by stiles, over which I was often
obliged to clamber. When I had walked some distance without meeting
with an inn on the road, and it had already begun to be dark, I at
last sat me down near a small toll-house, or a turnpike-gate, in
order to rest myself, and also to see whether the man at the
turnpike could and would lodge me.

After I had sat here a considerable time, a farmer came riding by,
and asked me where I wanted to go? I told him I was so tired that I
could go no farther. On this the good-natured and truly hospitable
man, of his own accord and without the least distrust, offered to
take me behind him on his horse and carry me to a neighbouring inn,
where he said I might stay all night.

The horse was a tall one, and I could not easily get up. The
turnpike-man, who appeared to be quite decrepid and infirm, on this
came out. I took it for granted, however, that he who appeared to
have hardly sufficient strength to support himself could not help
me. This poor looking, feeble old man, however, took hold of me
with one arm, and lifted me with a single jerk upon the horse so
quick and so alertly that it quite astonished me.

And now I trotted on with my charming farmer, who did not ask me one
single impertinent question, but set me down quietly at the inn, and
immediately rode away to his own village, which lay to the left.

This inn was called the Bear, and not improperly; for the landlord
went about and growled at his people just like a bear, so that at
first I expected no favourable reception. I endeavoured to gentle
him a little by asking for a mug of ale, and once or twice drinking
to him. This succeeded; he soon became so very civil and
conversable, that I began to think him quite a pleasant fellow.
This device I had learnt of the "Vicar of Wakefield," who always
made his hosts affable by inviting them to drink with him. It was
an expedient that suited me also in another point of view, as the
strong ale of England did not at all agree with me.

This innkeeper called me sir; and he made his people lay a separate
table for himself and me; for he said he could see plainly I was a
gentleman.

In our chat, we talked much of George the Second, who appeared to be
his favourite king, much more so than George the Third. And among
others things, we talked of the battle at Dettingen, of which he
knew many particulars. I was obliged also in my turn to tell him
stories of our great King of Prussia, and his numerous armies, and
also what sheep sold for in Prussia. After we had been thus talking
some time, chiefly on political matters, he all at once asked me if
I could blow the French horn? This he supposed I could do, only
because I came from Germany; for he said he remembered, when he was
a boy, a German had once stopped at the inn with his parents who
blew the French horn extremely well. He therefore fancied this was
a talent peculiar to the Germans.

I removed this error, and we resumed our political topics, while his
children and servants at some distance listened with great respect
to our conversation.

Thus I again spent a very agreeable evening; and when I had
breakfasted in the morning, my bill was not more than it had been at
Sutton. I at length reached the common before Derby on Friday
morning. The air was mild, and I seemed to feel myself uncommonly
cheerful and happy. About noon the romantic part of the country
began to open upon me. I came to a lofty eminence, where all at
once I saw a boundless prospect of hills before me, behind which
fresh hills seemed always to arise, and to be infinite.

The ground now seemed undulatory, and to rise and fall like waves;
when at the summit of the rise I seemed to be first raised aloft,
and had an extensive view all around me, and the next moment, when I
went down the hill, I lost it.

In the afternoon I saw Derby in the vale before me, and I was now an
hundred and twenty-six miles from London. Derby is but a small, and
not very considerable town. It was market-day when I got there, and
I was obliged to pass through a crowd of people: but there was here
no such odious curiosity, no offensive staring, as at Burton. At
this place too I took notice that I began to be always civilly bowed
to by the children of the villages through which I passed.

From Derby to the baths of Matlock, which is one of the most
romantic situations, it was still fifteen miles. On my way thither,
I came to a long and extensive village, which I believe was called
Duffield. They here at least did not show me into the kitchen, but
into the parlour; and I dined on cold victuals.

The prints and pictures which I have generally seen at these inns
are, I think, almost always prints of the royal family, oftentimes
in a group, where the king, as the father of the family, assembles
his children around him; or else I have found a map of London, and
not seldom the portrait of the King of Prussia; I have met with it
several times. You also sometimes see some of the droll prints of
Hogarth. The heat being now very great, I several times in this
village heard the commiserating exclamation of "Good God Almighty!"
by which the people expressed their pity for me, as being a poor
foot passenger.

At night I again stopped at an inn on the road, about five miles
from Matlock. I could easily have reached Matlock, but I wished
rather to reserve the first view of the country till the next day
than to get there when it was dark.

But I was not equally fortunate in this inn, as in the two former.
The kitchen was full of farmers, among whom I could not distinguish
the landlord, whose health I should otherwise immediately have
drank. It is true I heard a country girl who was also in the
kitchen, as often as she drank say, "Your health, gentlemen all!"
But I do not know how it was, I forgot to drink any one's health,
which I afterwards found was taken much amiss. The landlord drank
twice to my health sneeringly, as if to reprimand me for my
incivility; and then began to join the rest in ridiculing me, who
almost pointed at me with their fingers. I was thus obliged for a
time to serve the farmers as a laughing-stock, till at length one of
them compassionately said, "Nay, nay, we must do him no harm, for he
is a stranger." The landlord, I suppose, to excuse himself, as if
he thought he had perhaps before gone too far said, "Ay, God forbid
we should hurt any stranger," and ceased his ridicule; but when I
was going to drink his health, he slighted and refused my attention,
and told me, with a sneer, all I had to do was to seat myself in the
chimney-corner, and not trouble myself about the rest of the world.
The landlady seemed to pity me, and so she led me into another room
where I could be alone, saying, "What wicked people!"

I left this unfriendly roof early the next morning, and now quickly
proceeded to Matlock.

The extent of my journey I had now resolved should be the great
cavern near Castleton, in the high Peak of Derbyshire. It was about
twenty miles beyond Matlock.

The country here had quite a different appearance from that at
Windsor and Richmond. Instead of green meadows and pleasant hills,
I now saw barren mountains and lofty rocks; instead of fine living
hedges, the fields and pasture lands here were fenced with a wall of
grey stone; and of this very same stone, which is here everywhere to
be found in plenty, all the houses are built in a very uniform and
patriarchal manner, inasmuch as the rough stones are almost without
any preparation placed one upon another, and compose four walls, so
that in case of necessity, a man might here without much trouble
build himself a house. At Derby the houses seem to be built of the
same stone.

The situation of Matlock itself surpassed every idea I had formed of
it. On the right were some elegant houses for the bathing company,
and lesser cottages suspended like birds' nests in a high rock; to
the left, deep in the bottom, there was a fine bold river, which was
almost hid from the eye by a majestic arch formed by high trees,
which hung over it. A prodigious stone wall extended itself above a
mile along its border, and all along there is a singularly romantic
and beautiful secret walk, sheltered and adorned by many beautiful
shrubs.

The steep rock was covered at the top with green bushes, and now and
then a sheep, or a cow, separated from the grazing flock, came to
the edge of the precipice, and peeped over it.

I have got, in Milton's "Paradise Lost," which I am reading
thoroughly through, just to the part where he describes Paradise,
when I arrived here and the following passage, which I read at the
brink of the river, had a most striking and pleasing effect on me.
The landscape here described was as exactly similar to that I saw
before me, as if the poet had taken it from hence


"--delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champion head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied."--Book IV. v. 132.


From Matlock Baths you go over Matlock Bridge, to the little town of
Matlock itself, which, in reality, scarcely deserves the name of a
village, as it consists of but a few and miserable houses. There is
here, on account of the baths, a number of horses and carriages, and
a great thoroughfare. From hence I came through some villages to a
small town of the name of Bakewell. The whole country in this part
is hilly and romantic. Often my way led me, by small passes, over
astonishing eminences, where, in the deep below me, I saw a few huts
or cottages lying. The fencing of the fields with grey stone gave
the whole a wild and not very promising appearance. The hills were
in general not wooded, but naked and barren; and you saw the flocks
at a distance grazing on their summit.

As I was coming through one of the villages, I heard a great
farmer's boy eagerly ask another if he did not think I was a
Frenchman. It seemed as if he had been waiting some time to see the
wonder; for, he spoke as though his wish was now accomplished.

When I was past Bakewell, a place far inferior to Derby, I came by
the side of a broad river, to a small eminence, where a fine
cultivated field lay before me. This field, all at once, made an
indescribable and very pleasing impression on me, which at first, I
could not account for; till I recollected having seen, in my
childhood, near the village where I was educated, a situation
strikingly similar to that now before me here in England.

This field, as if it had been in Germany, was not enclosed with
hedges, but every spot in it was uninterruptedly diversified with
all kinds of crops and growths of different green and yellowish
colours, which gave the whole a most pleasing effect; but besides
this large field, the general view of the country, and a thousand
other little circumstances which I cannot now particularly
enumerate, served to bring back to my recollection the years of my
youth.

Here I rested myself a while, and when I was going on again I
thought of the place of my residence, on all my acquaintances, and
not a little on you, my dearest friend, and imagined what you would
think and say, if you were to see your friend thus wandering here
all alone, totally unknown, and in a foreign land. And at that
moment I first seriously felt the idea of distance, and the thought
that I was now in England, so very far from all I loved, or who
loved me, produced in me such sensations as I have not often felt.

It was perhaps the same with you, my dearest friend, when on our
journey to Hamburg we drove from Perlsbeg, to your birthplace, the
village of Boberow; where, among the farmers, you again found your
own playmates, one of whom was now become the bailiff of the place.
On your asking them whether they knew you, one and all of them
answered so heartily, "O, yes, yes--why, your are Master Frederic."
The pedantic school-master, you will remember, was not so frank. He
expressed himself in the stiff town phrase of, "He had not the
honour of knowing you, as during your residence in that village,
when a child, he had not been in loco."

I now came through a little place of the name of Ashford, and wished
to reach the small village of Wardlow, which was only three miles
distant, when two men came after me, at a distance, whom I had
already seen at Matlock, who called to me to wait for them. These
were the only foot passengers since Mr. Maud, who had offered to
walk with me.

The one was a saddler, and wore a short brown jacket and an apron,
with a round hat. The other was very decently dressed, but a very
silent man, whereas the saddler was quite talkative.

I listened with astonishment when I heard him begin to speak of
Homer, of Horace, and of Virgil; and still more when he quoted
several passages, by memory, from each of these authors, pronouncing
the words, and laying his emphasis, with as much propriety as I
could possibly have expected, had he been educated at Cambridge or
at Oxford. He advised me not to go to Wardlow, where I should find
bad accommodations, but rather a few miles to Tideswell, where he
lived. This name is, by a singular abbreviation, pronounced Tidsel,
the same as Birmingham is called by the common people Brummidgeham.

We halted at a small ale-house on the road-side, where the saddler
stopped to drink and talk, and from whence he was in no haste to
depart. He had the generosity and honour, however, to pay my share
of the reckoning, because, as he said, he had brought me hither.

At no great distance from the house we came to a rising ground,
where my philosophical saddler made me observe a prospect, which was
perhaps the only one of the kind in England. Below us was a hollow,
not unlike a huge kettle, hollowed out of the surrounding mass of
earth; and at the bottom of it a little valley, where the green
meadow was divided by a small rivulet, that ran in serpentine
windings, its banks graced with the most inviting walks; behind a
small winding, there is just seen a house where one of the most
distinguished inhabitants of this happy vale, a great philosopher,
lives retired, dedicating almost all his time to his favourite
studies. He has transplanted a number of foreign plants into his
grounds. My guide fell into almost a poetic rapture as he pointed
out to me the beauties of this vale, while our third companion, who
grew tired, became impatient at our tediousness.

We were now led by a steep road to the vale, through which we
passed, and then ascended again among the hills on the other side.

Not far from Tideswell our third companion left us, as he lived in a
neighbouring place. As we now at length saw Tideswell lying before
us in the vale, the saddler began to give me an account of his
family, adding, by way of episode, that he never quarrelled with his
wife, nor had ever once threatened her with his fist, much less,
ever lifted it against her. For his own sake, he said, he never
called her names, nor gave her the lie. I must here observe, that
it is the greatest offence you can give any one in England to say to
him, YOU LIE.

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