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    Oct. 19, 1850.] &!)£ tLeafrlt. 717

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    '^^ TT1* "f "Fit f T IT J<J XliliUi^U*

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    i wp should do our utmost to encourage t...

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    VIVIAN ON THE WYE. Ft/tte Second. I was ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Oct. 19, 1850.] &!)£ Tleafrlt. 717

    Oct . 19 , 1850 . ] &!) £ tLeafrlt . 717

    '^^ Tt1* "F "Fit F T It J≪J Xliliui^U*

    % u \ h [ h .

    I Wp Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage T...

    i wp should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . — vv G-oktub .

    Vivian On The Wye. Ft/Tte Second. I Was ...

    VIVIAN ON THE WYE . Ft / tte Second . I was cradled in sweetest dreams when the abrupt appearance of McPousto at my bedside , demanding the loan of my razor —( he had brought his own toothbrush)—roused rue to a consciousness of Tintern . The sun shone in at my window , and made the white curtains glare till further repose in bed was impossible . I arose and set about the great solemnity of the day , namely , my bath . There seems to be a popular theory , much in vogue among landlords , that half a pint of reasonably fresh water is an ample supply for one ablebodied gent . So it is , when the gent is a German . Bufc for myself—possibly because I am given to paradox—I always fly right in the face of that theory , and somewhat impress chambermaids with the grandeur of my demands ; I tell them , on Pindar ' s authority—which of course weighs with them—thai ; " water is the first of things ; " and that a gentleman of my colossal proportions cannot be expected to take his bath in a pie dish . To this they assent . I then playfully suggest that if the house possess a washing tub of magnificent diameter , that would be the sort of thing for me . "With uplifted eyebrows , but acquiescent tone , the tub is brought ; a pitcher thereto ; and ... but now we draw the curtains !

    A breakfast of cutlets , eggs , tea , and boulders of bread , was duly disposed of ; cigars were lighted , enquiries made , and off we started for the Devil ' s Peak , which lies on the opposite bank to the Wynd CluT , and though not so celebrated a spot as the Cliff , turned out far more rich in enjoyment to us . Our walk up the mountain side , through the tangled overgrowth , bright with the various glintings of the sunlight on the trembling leaves , was exquisitely romantic . it gave a tinge of pensive melancholy to Peter ' s conversation that sounded like the deep chords of a violoncello . If you could have seen Peter over the blackberry bushes , and heard the eloquent wisdom dropping from his purple-stained mouth ; if you could have seen him as he tore open a sophism with one incisive phrase , and detected the ripest berries with the same acuteness as he detected a fallacy , you would have felt what a privilege it was to travel , with him ! When we reached that bold mass of rock with

    the ecclesiastical denomination Peter stretched himself athwart the Devil's pulpit , invited me to imitate him , and drew forth his cigar-case with a slow deliberate appreciation of the intense luxury of the situation . The sun was streaming down upon us—and a September sun is seldom too hot—the birds were musical around us—beneath us lay the rugged sides of the mountain , the shining Wye silently washing its base , at a little distance stood the abbey ruins , and far into the horizon stretched the lovely outlines of the mountains : clothe this scenery with the endless variety of autumn , and you can then picture to yourselves our state as we lolled there , quietly smoking ,

    musing , and breaking the silence by occasional excursions into the remote but fascinating regions of philosophy and art . I forget how long we idled there , lolling in the glorious sun ; but it must have been at least two hours . We talked , among other things , of Fame , and both confessed to a supreme disregard of that aspiration which once had animated us both . And then we got upon Shakspeare—but he was a standing topic !—and Peter remarked how Shakspeare seems to have suffered from moods of despondency and mistrust , when he envied even the faces of other men , no less than their friends and state—as he records in the 20 th Sonnet : —

    " When , in disgrace with fortune and men s eyes , I all alone beweop my outcast state . And trouble dear heaven with my bootless eric ? , And I iok upon myself and curse my fate , Wishing me like to one more rich in hope , Featured like him , like him with friends possessed ; Desiring this man ' s art and that mail's scope . " " Yes , " said I ; " and that wish of throwing aside his personality , to identify himself with another ' s , was perhaps the dramatic instinct which makes his works such marvels of self-abeyance that you cannot see his j ) ortrait in any of the numerous portraits looking- from his gallery . "

    From that we launched into a discussion , which , as I cannot report it faithfully , I will pass over altogether . Delightful as the Devil ' s Pulpit was , wo were forced to rise and commence our descent . The Abbey awaited us . Ah ! that Abbey ! what a dream of beauty to haunt the soul for ever afterwards with visions of loveliness ! How oft In darfcnes ? , and amid the mnny sliapea Of joyless daylight , —when the fretful stir Unprofitable , and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart , — How oft in spirit liave 1 turned to tliecsl "

    The lines are Wordsworth ' s , but the sentiments are Vivian ' s . I cannot tell what is the distinguishing peculiarity of Tintern Abbey which makes it one of the very loveliest ruins in the world . The grace , the elegance , the matchless beauty of its architecture , of which enough remains to permit the imaginative eye to see the whole building as it stood ; this , I say , is not alone sufficient to explain the effect . Let whoso pleases dwell upon the glories of that western window , the springing elegance of that miraculous shaft rising to heaven like a fervent soul ; let others point out—if they perceive it— how exquisite the proportions of that building are , and how the fine sense of the artist has regulated the apparent strength to the apparent pressure —( which I take to be the cardinal point in all architecture)—for myself I recognize an influence proceeding from some other , and perhaps more complex , source .

    Standing within the shadow of its ruins , with the fragment of some tomb for a pedestal , I slowly turn my gaze from point to point , drink in the beauty that streams through every opening , and suffer the overflowing emotion to express itself in incoherent exclamations . Through the windows and the rifts appear the rising forms of mountains which encircle the spot : sunlight plays among the ivy clambering about the walls , and throws long shadows on the grassy pavement . The cup is full !

    Leaving the cicerone to bestow his tediousness on others , we held aloof , paced up and down the silent aisle , examined the ruin from every point , and then , reclining on a fragment of crumbling wall , yielded ourselves to the delicious reveries the scene inspired . Ruins are solemn , not only from their speaking in such eloquence of the transitoriness of life and human grandeur , but for the deep retrospections they suggest into our own individual history . These crumbling ruins once housed men who were earnest in their prayers , manful in their struggles with doubt , and venerated by all who

    knew them both for piety and learning . They are silent now ; every atom of their frames scattered by the winds ; every aspiration of their souls , every doubt and every belief passing into our souls , as their bodies pass into new transformations ; and we standing here look back into the centuries and strive to picture to ourselves the manner of men peopling them . Not only so . Our own life has its history and its ruins ! From this standing point look lack , see all the unformed castles , all the shattered columns , all the deserted temples , whose fragments make the past so mournful , and own that man is the microcosm , whose history is likewise the

    history of the world ! I found Peter was very grave ; but as he shortly after mentioned " dinner , " I was puzzled to decide whether his gravity proceeded from sentiment or hunger . For myself I had no appetite , though Peter maliciously remarked that I ate as much as would satisfy a reasonable farmer . After dinner we strolled up to the church on the hill , to enjoy a bit of landscape , and then rambled along the road , "talking of lovely things that conquer death . " On returning to the Rose and Crown we found two travellers seated in the parlour ( there is but one ) . These , whom we subsequently discovered to be the

    Honourable George Dragon and the Honourable W . Dragon , were making a ferocious onslaught upon a the dinatoire . Conversation was soon established between us , owing to McPousto's engaging volubility —( I never get in a word in his presence)—and we had from them an animated picture of their life in Wales , they having pitched a tent on Snowdon and invaded the harper in his halls . They suggested a new route to us , and raised infinite hopes in our bosoms . JEschylus makes Prometheus boast that among the blessings he bestowed on men was that he " gave blind hopes a dwelling in their breasts . " The Honourable Dragons were not unworthy imitators of that ill-treated Caucasian ! But , of that hereafter .

    Our new friends ( one gets friendly so soon over a cigar miles away from home !) wanted to see the Abbey by moonlight , and try the effect of their cornet a piston on its astonished walls . We accompanied them ; but as it was then past eleven there was no one to admit us . After all , what was the necessity of an admission ? We were not fastidious , so—we climbed over the walls ! Unluckily , although we thus invaded the precincts , we could not get into the building itself ; and as for the cornet a piston—not wishing to spend the night with the constable , of course that was abandoned . Round the Abbey we walked , but into it we could not get . Still the aspect was very beautiful , and worth the depredation ! Returning home the Honourable Dragons , both admirable players on the cornet , delighted us and " aggravated" the

    Tinternians by trying the effect of echoes . They played and the notes were caught up by the mountains and flung onwards to the mountains behind them ; and sometimes we had three echoes , "fine by degrees and beautifully less . " This was kept up for some time . As 1 said the pleasure was quite monopolized by us . The Tinternians awaking from their first sleep turned uneasily in their beds , and Fine Ear might doubtless have heard mingling with our musical echoes the moving basses of their stifled " damns ! " These unpoetical persons cared nothing for mountainous reverberations of ha mid , lelizia , or Una furtiva lagrima ; they wanted sleep , and " sleep , " as McPousto once remarked , " is the Supper of the Soul ! " Peter is certainly a profound thinker .

    But , to return to the Tinternians : just as one of the Dragons was making the whole village tremble with a fearful and prolonged blast , a door abruptly opened , and in the doorway there appeared the form of an obese and irritated individual , whose tall nightcap stood upright with indignation , and whoso gusty nightgown revealed glimpses of trembling legs , little enjoying the night air which blew upon them .

    " Do you know , sir , " burst forth the irate owner of the nightcap and legs , " that your horn is a great nuisance at this time o' night ?" ... " Oh , no ! " I replied , with the fervour of intense conviction . " I assure you , it ' s not !" " But I say it is / " spluttered my unmusical opponent . "Wrong , wrong ! It ' s extremely delightful : listen !"

    He was so overpowered by my earnest statement that he slammed the door with violence and retired grumbling to bed . All that night his dreams were hideous with blaring trumpets , lie tossed from side to side , but he could not escape . A demon Konig blew into his ears . The very bedposts twisted themselves into cornets . IIo had a nightmare of music ! We saw him the next morning , in dressing-gown and yellow slippers , reading a newspaper—the look he flung at us was not u loving one .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 19, 1850, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19101850/page/21/