the pre-eminence of the love of nature in the english literature over that of all other modern nations—the promotion of this passion by the writings of professor wilson, in blackwood’s magazine; and by the wood-cuts of bewick—means of still further encouraging it.
in the former chapter i have endeavoured to point out the existence of a striking difference as it regards the love of nature between the classical and modern literature, and to explain, and i hope successfully, the principal causes of it. but it is not the less true, that almost as great a difference exists in this same respect between our british literature, and that of almost all other modern nations. i do not intend to go about very laboriously to attempt to prove this fact, for i think it stands sufficiently self-evident on the face of all modern literature. in science, in art, in history; philosophy, natural and moral; in theological, philological and classical inquiries, the continental nations have attained the highest honours. in biography the french are unrivalled; in autobiography[325] the germans are equally so. in some species of poetry the germans contest the palm with us; in mathematical industry, and historical research, they are greatly our superiors; but with the solitary exceptions of gesner, sturm, and st. pierre, where have they any writers to range with our evelyns, whites, and waltons? or poets, with our thomsons and bloomfields? or indeed, with the whole series of our poets who do not professedly write on the country, but are irresistibly led to it; and from whom the love of it breaks out on all occasions? in the french, the social feeling is the most strongly developed; in the italian, passion and fancy; in the german, the metaphysical. the germans, indeed, most strongly resemble the english in their literary tastes. there seems to be a fellow-feeling between them, resulting from ancient kinship. they have a similar character of simplicity; they are alike grave, solid, and domestic, and prone to deep and melancholy thought. they have a love of nature deep as ours, for the tone of their minds makes them, in every thing they do attach themselves to, earnest and enthusiastic. in every thing relating to the affections, their literature is unrivalled; their feelings are profound, tender, and spiritual; and while a false and superficial taste has made rapid strides amongst us of late years—a taste for glitter, shew, and fashion, the natural accompaniment of wealth and luxury, a growing fondness for german literature must be hailed as a good omen; as likely to give a new infusion of heart and mind to our writings; to re-awaken our love for the simple, the domestic—the fireside love; in fact, to bring us back to what was the ancient character of the english; high-toned in morals, simple in manners, manly and affectionate in heart. their love of nature is as deep as ours; but it is not so equally and extensively diffused. the solemn and speculative cast of their genius has tended to link it with the gloom of forests and tempests, and with the wild fictions of the supernatural, rather than to scatter it over every cheerful field, and cause it to brood over every sunny cottage-garden, amid the odour of flowers and the hum of bees. there is something wonderfully attractive in their descriptions of the old-fashioned homeliness of their rural and domestic manners; in the unbustling quietness of their lives, and in the holy strength of their family attachments. such writings as that idyl of voss, describing the[326] manner of life of the venerable pastor of grenau, the autobiographies of goethe and stilling, seem to carry us back into the simple ages of our own country. that which characterised them, seems to be preserved to the present hour in germany; and then, the affectionate intellectuality of their minds, and their very language, so homely and yet so expressive, cause them to abound in such touches of natural pathos as are nowhere else to be found. yet, when their love of nature exhibits itself in descriptions of country life, amid all these charms, we are often tempted to exclaim with the pastor’s wife in voss, when in a pic-nic party they discovered, while taking tea under the forest trees, that they had forgotten the tea-spoons, and had to substitute pieces of stick for them—“o, dear nature, thou art almost too natural!”
but the aspect of the different countries is sufficiently indicative of the natural feeling. instead of the solitary chateau, or baronial castle, amid dark forests, or wide unfenced plains; instead of the great landed proprietors crowding into large towns, and the very labourers huddling themselves into villages, and going, as they do, in some parts of france, seven or eight miles on asses to their daily work in the fields, the hills and valleys of england are studded all over with the dwellings of the landed gentry, and the cottages of their husbandmen. villas amid shrubberies and gardens; villages environed with old-fashioned crofts; farm-houses and cottages, singly or in groups—a continuous chain of cultivation and rustic residences stretches from end to end and side to side of the island. our wealthy aristocrats have caught a fatal passion for burying themselves in the capital in a perpetual turmoil of political agitations, ostentatious rivalry, and dissipation—a passion fatal to their own happiness and to the whole character of their minds; but the love of the country is yet strong enough in large classes to maintain our pre-eminence in this respect. the testimony of foreigners, however, is stronger than our own; and foreigners are always struck with the garden-like aspect of england; and the charms of our country houses. a number of a french literary paper, “le panorama de londres,” has fallen accidentally into my hands, while writing this, which contains an article—de la poesie anglaise et de la poesie allemande—from which i transcribe the following passages.
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“england has produced her great epic poet, her great dramatic poet; and the last age gave her reasoning poets in abundance. the time for the one and the other is past. by a revolution, the causes of which it would be difficult to trace, her poetry has changed both its character and object; and strange enough, under the reign of a civilization the most advanced, her poetry has returned to nature. at first, the fact strikes us as an unaccountable anomaly; for what country owes so much to art as england? the very aspect of the country shews everywhere the hand of man. a scientific culture has changed its whole face. the forests have ceased to be impenetrable; the rivers to be wild torrents; the mountains themselves to be savage. human industry has appropriated every thing; fire, air, earth, every thing is subjected, every thing is tamed. the very animals seem to submit themselves voluntarily to the service of man. the horse himself, the english horse, so swift and powerful, scarcely neighs with impatience, or capers with eagerness; his very impetuosity is docile. the englishman is in one sense the king of the world. it is for him that every thing is in motion around him: yet he himself is bound by unchangeable customs. he fears change. he has even a religion of an established order. one would think nothing could be more prosaic than a country thus laboured; yet, nevertheless, all europe resounds with the songs of her poets. amid the miracles of industry, the profusion of riches, the refinement of luxury; in the face of steam-engines, suspension bridges, and railroads, imagination has lost nothing of its ancient empire; on the contrary, during the last thirty years, she has acquired more; she has been borne, as by an irresistible influence, towards the description of natural objects and simple sentiments. she has revelled in the charms of a poetry whose freshness seemed to belong to another age. the fact is, if we regard england more attentively, we shall discover her under a different aspect to what has been usually ascribed to her; and shall be less astonished to find her poetic in seeing her picturesque. that agriculture, so marvellous, is far from having given up every thing to the useful; its object seems rather to have been to embellish than to fertilize the earth. those fields so well tilled, are green and riant; those quiet streams flow brimful through rich meadows; and, thanks to beautiful trees and living[328] hedges, the very plains are charming. those seats where opulence parades all its splendour, are environed by greensward pastured by abundant cattle; and the art which designs those immense parks, seems to have no object but to put into a frame a beautiful landscape. the taste is no longer to dig lakes, to cast up mounts, to plant thickets; but to inclose whole rivers, woods, and mountains. everywhere you discover the sentiment of the beauty of nature. you find it in every class. neither riches nor poverty have been able to extinguish it. we observe in other countries that the sentiment is unknown to the peasantry. they are the towns which they admire: to them the country is merely useful. but in england everybody loves the country; even those who cultivate it. the most humble cottage is a proof of it. the taste which rarely distinguishes the architecture of the english towns, is reserved, i think, for the country houses. the little gardens which lead to them; the orchards which surround them; even the very bushes of jessamine or of rose, which crown their porches or tapestry their walls, seem designed to delight the eye. amid the treasures of an admirable vegetation—gothic ruins, the towers of an old manor, the arches of an abbey, the ivy which clothes the walls of a parish church; the tree scathed and decaying, which has no value but its age; all these things are respected by every one as the monuments of the past, or the ornaments of the country. the whole population interests itself in every thing which adorns its abode; and this nation, the queen of commerce and industry, seems to recollect with affection, that it is to the earth that she owes her wealth, her glory, and her greatness.
“an analogous sentiment pervades the poetry of the english. the verses of their good poets seem to have been composed in the open air; all external objects are by them faithfully portrayed; the impressions they produce are faithfully rendered. simple sentiments, those of a domestic nature, so well protected by a country life, in them preserve all their force and all their purity. their recitals are often the most touching and familiar; when they turn upon great adventures, they are related as they would be on a winter’s evening before the fire of an ancient castle, or of a humble cottage. scarcely an english poet is wanting in descriptive talent, not even the least celebrated amongst them. it shines with great[329] eclat in burns, in crabbe, in walter scott. lord byron, who has so many others, possesses none perhaps in a greater degree than this.”
it is to be hoped that the english poetry will always maintain this character; will always remain the powerful ally of the love of the country: one great means of preserving those features of english rural life so delightfully described in the foregoing extract. amid the fascinations and temptations to a corruption of taste, from the mighty wealth and political influence of this country, it is to the combined effect of real, simple christianity, the love of nature, and of that literature which is in alliance with those great conservative powers, that we must look for the maintenance of a sound national heart and intellect; and consequently, of that great moral ascendency, and genuine glory, that as a nation we have obtained. i long with a most earnest longing, for our stability in this respect; for the preservation of those pure, simple, holy tastes which have led our countrymen in all ages, since reading and civilization came upon them, to delight in the pleasant fields, in the pleasant country houses, in the profound peace of noble woods, so favourable to high and solemn musings; and in all those healthful and animating sports and pursuits that belong to such a life. it has been through the influence of these tastes, and of these home-born but exalted pleasures, by the strong human sympathies engendered by living amongst our manly and high-minded peasantry—the hardy sons and bold defenders of their natal soil,—the strong-hearted old fathers,—the fair and modest daughters of uncorrupted england; by living amongst them as their leaders, counsellors, and protectors; by musing over the inspiring annals of the past days of england; on the solid tomes of our legislators, our divines, philosophers and poets, in the calm twilight of ancient halls, or in the sunny seats of their broad bay-windows, looking out on fields purchased by the blood of patriots, and hoary forests, that have witnessed the toils of their ancestors, or perhaps received them to their dim bosoms in times of danger; it is by such aliment that the british heart has been nourished, and grown to its present greatness, when its pulsations are felt to the very ends of the earth, and by millions of confiding or submissive men, whose destinies[330] depend upon its motions. our arms may have been wielded in many a mighty battle for the accomplishment of this magnificent end, but it was here that the power of victory grew: our counsels may have, wearily, and stroke by stroke, worked out this ample breadth of glory; but it is here, and it was thus, that the wisdom, and the prudence, and the irresistible fortitude sprung, increased, and gave to those brave men and high measures their vigour and stability; here that they were born, and fostered to their beneficent fulness.
therefore would i have every thing which may tend to keep alive this genuine spirit of england, may keep open all the sources of its strength and its inspiration, encouraged: every taste for the sweet serenity, the animating freshness, the preserving purity of country life, promoted; every thing which can embellish or render it desirable. for this cause i delight in the every-day spreading attachment to all branches of natural history; in the great encouragement given to all books on country affairs; and in the advancing love of landscape-painting, by which the most enchanting views of our mountains, coasts, wild lakes, forests, and pastoral downs will be brought into our cities, and spread in sunshine and in poetry along their walls. for this i am thankful, with a deep thankfulness, for the mighty strains of poetry that have been poured out in this age, brimmed and gushing over with the august spirit of nature: for wordsworth and coleridge; rogers and campbell; for shelley and byron and keats, and for many another noble bard; for the romances of scott, which have pre-eminently piled quenchless fuel on this social flame, by sanctifying many of the most beautiful scenes in the kingdom with the highest historical remembrances; and not less, for that wonderful series of articles by wilson, in blackwood’s magazine,—in their kind, as truly amazing, and as truly glorious, as the romances of scott, or the poetry of wordsworth. far and wide and much as these papers have been admired, wherever the english language is read, i still question whether any one man has a just idea of them as a whole. whatever may be our opinion of the side which this powerful journal has taken in politics, it must be admitted that while it has fought the battles of toryism with vigour, it has fought them in a noble spirit. there was a day when a foul influence[331] had crept into it; when it was personal, rancorous, and apt to descend to language and details below the dignity of its strength; but that day is gone by, and it has been seen with lively satisfaction by all parties that it has purged itself of this evil nature, and as it has become peerless in fame,—it has become more and more generous, forgiving, and superior to every petty nature and narrow feeling. its politics are ultra, but they are full of intellect; and they who desire to see what can be said on the tory side, see it there. but the great attraction to literary men has long been, that splendid series of ample, diffuse, yet overflowing papers, in which every thing relating to poetry and nature find a place. these are singly, and in themselves, specimens of transcendent power; but taken altogether, as a series, are, in the sure unity of one great and correct spirit, such a treasury of criticism as is without a parallel in the annals of literature. for, while they are full of the soundest opinions, because they are the offspring of a deeply poetical mind—a mind strong in the guiding instincts of nature; they are preserved from the dryness and technicality of ordinary criticism by this very poetic temperament. they come upon you like some abounding torrent, streaming on, amid the wildest and noblest scenes; amid mountains and forests and flowery meadows; and bringing to your senses, at once, all their freshness of odours, dews, and living sounds. they are the gorgeous outpourings of a wild, erratic eloquence, that, in its magnificent rush, throws out the most startling, and apparently conflicting dogmas, yet all bound together by a strong bond of sound sense and incorruptible feeling.
they are all poetry:—sometimes, in its weakest and most diluted form; again, gushing into the most melting pathos; and then again playing and frolicking like a happy boy, half beside himself with holiday freedom and sunshine; then vapouring, and rhodomontading, and reeling along in the very drunkenness of a luxuriant fancy, intoxicated at the ambrosia-fountains of the heart; and then, like a strong man, all at once recovering his power and self-possession—if self-possession that can be called, which, in the next moment, gives way to a new impulse, and soars up into the highest regions of eloquence, pouring forth the noblest sentiments and most fervid imaginations, as from an oracle of quenchless inspiration.
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it is in this manner, and this spirit, that the writer has—reviewed shall i say? no, not reviewed, but proclaimed, trumpeted to the farthest regions, idealized, etherealized, and made almost more glorious than they are in their own solemn grandeur, the poems of wordsworth, of milton, of shakspeare, of spenser, of homer, and of many another genuine bard. and it is thus that he has led you over the heathy mountains and along the fairy glens of the north, to many a sweet secluded loch, into many a highland hut. it is thus that he loves to make you observe the noble peasant striding along in his prime of youth—in his sedate manhood—in his hoary age, more beautiful than youth, for then he is crowned with the wisdom of his simple experience of the trials and vanity of life, and of the feeling that he draws near to eternity. it is thus that he bids you stand, and mark the fair young maiden busied about the door of her parental hut, more graceful and happy in the engrossment of her simple duties, beneath the sun and the blue heavens, than the very daughter of the palace in the lap of her artificial enchantments. it is thus he shews you the young mother tossing her laughing infant in the open air, while her two elder children are rolling on the sunny sward, or scrambling up the heathy brae; and her mother sits silently by the door, in the basking tranquillity of age. it is thus that he fills you with the noblest sympathies, with the purest human feelings; and then astonishes you with some sudden feat of leaping, running, or wrestling; and as suddenly is gone with rod in hand, following the course of a clear rapid stream, eagerly intent upon trout or salmon. and then he is the poet again, every atom of him, meek as a bard of nineteen, or of ninety; all tenderness, purity, and holiness; the poet of the city of the plague, or of the children’s dance, forcing you to forget that he ever swaggered in an article, or rollocked in a noctes. he is now basking in the shine of a may-day, amid the sparkling dews, the waving flowers, the running waters, and all the delights of earth, air, and the blue o’erspanning sky.
these are papers that have already done infinite service to the cause of poetry and nature; and therefore do i rejoice in their existence, and addition to all that sublime accumulation of fervid poetry and prose in the praise and love of the country, with which our english literature, above all others, is enriched.
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but there is one person to whom i must still give a separate mention; an individual to whom we owe a signal increase of country delight,—thomas bewick. every painter of landscape is a friend to the best feelings and tastes of humanity; but bewick has, in a manner, created a new art. he has struck out a peculiar mode of embellishing books with snatches of rural scenery, that will, if pursued in the true spirit, do more to diffuse a love of the country than all other modes of engraving put together. to see what may be done, let us only see what he has done. through his revival of the art of wood-cutting, we have now hundreds of wood-engravers, and thousands of wood-embellished books: yet lay your hands on any one of these volumes, and, with all deference to the great talent evinced, the great beauty produced,—till you open bewick you shall not know what wood-cutting is capable of doing for books on the country.
i have heard some wood-engravers speak with contempt of bewick, and say—“why he was very well for his time of day, but we have scores that can excel him now.” to such men i have only one reply—“you don’t understand the country. i grant you there are many who can produce a more showy print; but it was not show which bewick aimed at,—it was truth: and if you will know which is most excellent, take the one and the other; and let them be both opened before some country family of taste, and you will see that your print will dazzle the eye for a moment; it will be a moment of surprise and delight; but when the moment is past, the eye will fall on bewick, and there it will be riveted; and there, the longer it dwells the stronger will be its fascination, and it will be the beginning of an everlasting love.” and why is this? simply because we have in one, splendour of style; in the other, nature! pure, faithful, and picturesque nature,—nature in her most felicitous, or most solemn moments. i have heard those who loved the country, and loved it because they knew it, say, that the opening of bewick was a new era in their lives. i have seen how his volumes are loved, and treasured, and reverted to, time after time, in many a country house; the more familiar, the more prized; the oftener seen, the oftener desired.
and why should it not be so? it is not so much as a triumph of art, as a triumph of genius, that they are love-worthy. yet as[334] specimens of art they have eminent merit. see, in what a small space he gives you a whole landscape—a whole wide heath, or stormy coast, with their appropriate objects. see, with a single line, a single touch, what a world of effect he has achieved! but it is the spirit of the conception, and the sacred fidelity to nature, which stamp their value upon his works. they are the works of an eye which sees in a moment what in a scene advances beyond common-place; what in it has a story, a moral, a sarcasm, or touch of transcendent beauty. they are the works of a heart bound by a bond of indissoluble love to the sweetness and peace of nature; rich in recollections of all her forms and hues; and of a spirit which cherished no ambition, no hope on earth, superior to that of throwing into his transcriptions the express image of his beloved nature.
this is the great secret of the delight in his wood-cuts. they are full of all those beauties, those fine yet impressive beauties, that arrest the gaze of the lovers of nature; and they are so faithful that they never deceive, or disappoint the experienced eye. the vignettes of his natural history are in themselves a series of stories so clearly told that they require no explanation, and are full of the most varied human interest. he delights in the picturesque and beautiful in nature, and the grotesque in life. whatever he introduces, its genuine characteristics are all about it; beast or bird, there it is in the very scenery, and amid the very concomitants that you see it surrounded by in nature. you miss nothing that you find in the same situation in the real scene and circumstance; and, what is of more consequence, you never see a single thing introduced which has no business there. he is the very burns of wood-engraving. he has the same intense love of nature; his bold freedom of spirit; his flashes of indignant feeling; his love of satire; and his ridicule of human vanity and cant. in his landscapes, he gives you every thing the most poetical:—wide, wild moors; the desolation of winter; the falling fane, and the crumbling tower; wild scenes on northern shores, with their rocks and sea-fowl, their wrecks and tempests. in his village scenes you have every feature of village life given with a precision and a spirit equally admirable. he delights to seize hold on humanity even in some of its degradations, as drunkenness and gluttony, and hogarth-like, to excite[335] your disgust against the abuse of god’s good things and man’s high nature. he delights equally to exhibit those ragged rapscallions that abound in the streets of towns, and the purlieus of villages; uncultivated, neglected, and therefore graceless, reckless—vulgarity and wickedness stamped on their features, and even in their strong, close-cut, thick-set heads of hair; full of mischief and cruelty from top to toe. there you have them, just in the commission of those barbarities or depredations that speak volumes for the necessity of better popular education: and as for beggars, strollers with bear and monkey, lame soldiers, and all the groups of tatterdemalions that are scattered all over this country, there is no end of them. at times he is full of whim; at others half in jest, and half in solemn earnest. again, he touches you with pity for the aged and forlorn; and often rises into a tone of deep moral warning, and into actual demonstrations of the sublime and beautiful.
the elements in their majesty are made to laugh to scorn the inflated vanity of man. a stately church has sometime been reared on a pleasant and commanding mount near the sea. you are made to call to mind the pride and the gratulation in which it was erected in the palmy days of the catholic faith. you see it in its newness, with all its fair proportions and noble completeness—a beautiful temple to the christian deity. you see how the country people come in awe and wonder to behold it; into what a silence of veneration they drop as they approach; with what a prostration of astonishment of heart they enter, while the new and merry bells sound above their heads; and all abroad the glad sunshine of summer is pouring, and casts its light into the glorious interior; and the sea-breeze comes fluttering with a full delight; and every thing seems to speak of triumph, stability, and enduring joy. you know with what solemn pomp the prelate, in full canonicals, and followed by his train of clerical brethren in their becoming robes, and surrounded by the powerful and the beautiful of the neighbourhood, proceeds to perform the rites of consecration. and with what pride the great family, who have given the land to god, and expended the revenues of ample estates for many years in erecting this goodly fabric, see all, hear all, and find hard work to conceal the inward swell of gratified ambition. how they[336] look on all the accomplished miracle of the place; the lofty, arched roof above; the stately columns along the aisles; the priest in his pulpit; the people in their seats. with what proud gratulation they hear the voices of the choristers break forth, and fill “this house which they have built.” with what a high, elating, intoxicating feeling, with what a proud joy they kneel down on the silken cushions, and open the golden clasps of their richly-painted missals! all this we see; and then the dream of strength and glory and endurance is gone;—is gone from them and you. there stands the ancient church! ancient? yes, it is now ancient. all that dream of delight, all that throng of wondering people, have long passed away. yes! the very founders, whose hearts beat in pride, are now dust and ashes beneath your feet;—ay, and their children and children’s children to the sixth or seventh generation. that noble fabric, then so fair of hue; so admirable in its workmanship; so sharp in all its mouldings, and delicate in its tracery; that temple in which so many prayers were put up for the mariner tossed on that wilderness of mighty waters on which it looked—is a ruin! the winds and the tempests of ages have blown and beaten upon it. the ocean has come in fury, and rent away its western front, that so gloriously used to fling back the splendours of the setting sun; and the very mound of the dead is rifled by the billows. what is that which i read upon a fallen stone, over which the waves, at every returning tide, wash with insulting strength? “this stone is erected to perpetuate the memory of ——.” o pride! o vanity and swelling confidence of “man that is a worm”—what a rebuke! but what is this? another stone fallen—and fallen yet lower;—“custos rotulorum, of the county of ——.” and have time and tide not spared even this great man? is the very keeper of the rolls gone, and his monument after him? where then is human stability? the waves, and that ransacked monument, and that stately ruin of a church, all say, not on earth; not in the works of man. the very house which he had raised, the very ground which he had consecrated, are pulled down by the elements; and even the bones of himself and children are swept into the great deep. i do not know, in the catalogue of the paintings with which this country is enriched, one that speaks with a more sublime power to the[337] imagination than this wood-cut of the littleness of human pride; and of the only sure hope of honour and endurance, in the eternity of virtue.
there is another sketch of a similar class, but of an opposite inculcation. while that strikes at the vaunting spirit of human pride, this speaks a sad consolation to the struggling and miserable. it is a moonlight view of a solitary burial-ground. it is like one of those in scotland, distant from the place of worship; perhaps on a lonely heath. there is not a building in view to give the least feeling of proximity to human life. it is still—far off—and alone. the moon pours a melancholy light on the wild, grassy turf, and the foliage that overhangs the enclosing wall; and here and there, stoop the heavy headstones of the dead. on one in the foreground is inscribed—“good times, bad times, and all times get over.”
his churchyard scenes, indeed, are all full of the most beautiful and truly human sentiment. in one, you have an old man reading a headstone,—“vanitas, vanitatum, omnia vanitas.” it is a sentiment which strikes down to the bottom of his soul, as a voice of warning from heaven, and the voice of memory from the days of his past life. the old man stands propt on his staff, and you cannot misinterpret the thoughts which throng upon him. he is carried back through all his days; his days of boyhood and buoyant youth; his days of manly ardour and triumph; his days of trial and decay—to the very hour in which he stands here. the wife of his youth lies in the dust at his feet; his very children are all gone before him, or remain to neglect him; his friends have dropped away, one after another; he alone is left, a shattered remnant of other and happier times: left in a noisy and a crowded world. truly it is—“vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
but see, here comes a boy driving his hoop. he bounds over the very ground, past the very stone which has conjured up in the old man’s heart such a host of sad thoughts. but none of them come to him. to him all is new; the world is fair; the present is paradise. he scarcely looks around him, and yet he enjoys all nature. the sunshine plays upon his head; the air visits his cheek; the earth is green beneath him. he thinks not of the dead under his feet; of the awful stones around him. he does not even[338] see the old man himself,—a more striking memorial of mortality and the vanity of life than all the rest. this is true human life: age, sad and observant of every solemn memento; youth, in the reckless happiness of its own charmed existence.
there is but a slight step, and hardly that, from his satire to his humour, for one commonly partakes of the other, and in no instance are these mingled qualities more happily shewn than in the cut now engraved, for the first time, and placed at the head of this chapter. but in humorous incidents he abounds. here is a good woman hanging out her clothes. a gipsy-like beggar-woman, with a child at her back, is going out of the garden, and in true beggar recklessness leaves the gate open. while the unconscious dame is busy at her line, in come the hens. one of them is already strutting across her clean white linen, that lies on the grass-plot, and leaving conspicuous marks of her dirty feet; and in are marching a whole drove of young pigs, with the old sow at their heels. in another place is seen the snug garden of some curious florist, with auriculas blooming in pots, and some choice plant under a large glass; and here too a mischievous sow has conducted her brood; and some of them have made their way through the paling, and are in full career towards the auriculas. another moment, and glass, flowers, all will be one piece of destruction. the old sow, shut out by her bulk, and a yoke upon her neck, the token of her propensities, stands watching from beneath her huge slouch ears, with the utmost satisfaction, this scene of devastation.
here again, is a country lad mounted on a shaggy pony, and doubtless sent on some important errand; but a flight of birds has captivated his attention, and so engaged is he in watching, that the pony has wandered out of the way, and has reached the precipitous brink of a river. the lad still gazing after the birds, finding the pony halt, bangs him with his cudgel; the pony hangs back, and the little dog behind with uplifted foot wonders what the lad can mean. there are two men fetching a tub of water from a water-cask, but they are so lost in gossip, that the water is running all away. a countryman to avoid paying toll at a bridge, is fording the river below, holding the tail of his cow. but his hat is blown off, and he dare not let go his hold to save it. he will get a good wetting, and suffer greater loss than the toll; while the tollman and[339] a traveller on the bridge witness and enjoy his dilemma. another countryman is crossing a river in a style grotesque enough. the old man is wading; on his back is his wife, on her’s a child, and on her head a loaded basket. if the old man’s foot slip, what a catastrophe! in one place is an old dame going to the village spring, and finding a whole flock of geese frolicking in it. her looks of execration and her uplifted stick are infinitely amusing. in another, is an old dame about to mount a stile, and a tremendous bull presenting himself on the other side. notwithstanding the bold bearing and protruded cudgel of the old dame, one knows not whether it be most dangerous to fight or flee. and here is the string of a kite caught on the hat of a countryman crossing a stream on horseback. it would be difficult to decide whether the distress of the man or that of the boys is the greater. on goes the horse, and the rider tries in vain to get rid of the string. his fate is to be pulled backward off the horse, or that of the boys to be dragged into the stream, or to lose their kite.
there is another class of vignettes, in which cruelty to animals is held up to abhorrence. there is the man with his cart, striking his horse on the head with a bludgeon; his hat has fallen off in his passion. ragged lads are belabouring an ass with a gorse bush. a hardened lad has a cat and dog harnessed to a little cart in which is a child; the cat is nearly terrified to death at the dog, the child is crying amain; and the lad is trying to force the whole team into the water. in most of these cuts a gallows is seen in the distance, as the probable goal of the career.
another class is that of country accidents, full of appropriate spirit; men crossing streams by means of the long boughs of trees, which are breaking and letting them fall. a blind man led by his dog, crossing a narrow foot-bridge, where the hand-rail is broken down, and his hat is blown away by the wind. old people caught in storms on wide, open heaths; old, weary people far away from any town, as indicated by a milestone marked xi. miles on one side, and xv. on the other. but they are endless, and of endless variety. there are some, as i have said, truly sublime. a shipwrecked man on a rock in mid-ocean praying; the waves leaping and thundering around him; no single vessel in view, his only hope in god. the hull of a vessel lying stranded on a solitary[340] coast. it is evident that it has been there for years; for its ribbed timbers are laid bare, and it speaks both of human catastrophe, and solitude, and decay. a fine contrast,—a circle of men on a village green witnessing a fight, all vulgar eagerness and tumultuous passion; the rainbow, that circle of heaven, spanning the sky beyond them in such pure beauty—in the profound calm and holiness of nature.
through all these representations, the spirit of the picturesque is poured without measure. such winter scenes! such summer scenes! all the occupations and figures of rustic existence; fishermen, hunters, shooters, ploughmen, all in their peculiar scenery and costume. there are anglers in such delicious places, by such clear, rapid, winding waters, with such overhanging rocks and foliage, that one longs instantaneously to be an angler. we have all the spirit of izaak walton’s book, in two square inches of wood-engraving: his descriptions of natural beauty, his deep feeling of country enjoyment, and his single and thankful contentment in his art. there are men and boys sleeping on sunny grass, or beneath the shade of summer trees! o! so luxuriously, that we long to be sleeping there too. there are such wild sea-shores, and caverned rocks, with boys climbing up to get at the sea-fowls’ eggs, and such stormy waters, that we are wild with desire to wander by those rocks and waves. the sedgy water-sides, such as are found on moors where the wild ducks and snipes and herons haunt, are inimitable. nature is everywhere so gloriously, yet so unostentatiously portrayed, as none but the most ardent and devoted of her lovers can portray her. there is nothing gaudy, shewy, or ambitious; she is most simple, and therefore most beautiful.
