Part 2 (1/2)

_NB_--I reical lectures I attended, had the words ”Stolen froraved on the ivory handle of _his_ uain

In the way of prose, not printed (though much later on I have since published ”Paterfamilias's Diary of Everybody's Tour”) I have kept journals of holiday travel _passim_, whereof I now make a brief mention

Six juvenile bits of authorshi+p are before h the summers of 1828 to 1835 inclusive; each neatly written in its note-book on the spot and at the time (therefore fresh and true) decorated with untutored sketches, and all full of interest ab least to myself in old memories, faded interests, and departed friends As very rare survivals of the past (for who cares to keep as I have done his schoolboy journals of half a century ago?) I will give at haphazard from each in its order of time a short quotation by way of sample,--a brick to represent the house My first, AD 1828, records how ham and the potteries of Staffordshi+re, down an ironus all we could learn energetically and intelligently; it details also hoere hospitably entertained for a week in each place by the nate hosts of Holkar Hall and Inveraray Castle; and hoe did all touristic devoirs by lake, mountain, ruin, and palace: in fact, a short volue ”Melrose looks at a distance very little ruinous, butchanged alked to see this Abbey, a splendid ruin, with two very light and beautiful oriel s to the east and south, besidesflorid Gothic The tracery round the capitals of pillars is in wonderful preservation, looking as fresh and sharp as on the first day of their creation; instead of the Grecian acanthus _Scotch kail_ being a favourite ornaes still rerave of the famous wizard, Michael Scott, and at the foot of the toure,--query himself? In the ruined cloisters the tracery is of the etables being carved on them This Abbey was founded by David the First, but repaired by Ja in stone on the walls,” &c &c

The Scotch kail is curious, as indicative of national preference: and is the wizard still on guard? Recollect that in those days there were no guide-books,--so every observant traveller had to record for himself what he saw

The next, in 1829, was a second visit to the Continent, h Rhymes” which have already met your view In this we took the usual tour of those days, _via_ Brussels and the Rhine to Switzerland, and I ht quote plenty thereof if space and tie fro has a university of seven hundred students, ear no particular acadeenerally seen with a little red or blue cap topping a luxuriant head of hair, a long coat, and moustaches which usually perfor our to-day's route extended ietals of every description Most of the wooitres, and we observed that all who have theht on the part affected, whether with the idea of hiding the deforit away, I cannot tell The roads in these parts are much avenued alnut trees: Fels, our courier, told htning, and that under them is always a current of air I insert his inforreat opportunities of observing,” &c &c Here is a gap of three years

In 1832, ht is chiefly geological: as this extract shows, it was mainly a search after fossil spoils at Charmouth:--”Would you like to see a creature with the head of a lizard, wings of a bat, and tail of a serpent? Such things have been, as these bones testify; they are called Pterodactyls, and are as big as ravens Thus, you see, a dragon is no chiy As their bones (known by their hollowness) often occur in the coprolites or fossil dung of Plesiosauri, ht they were their special prey, for which the long and flexible neck of the Plesiosaurus is an _a priori_ argument,” &c &c

The 1833 journal is Welsh; and, _inter alia_, I therein drew and I now record that recently destroyed and more recently restored Druidical move adaic poised' on the brow of a steep and high hill, wooded with oaks: the top of thisfour, and the height twelve It was once a logan stone, but now has no rocking properties; though most perilously poised on the side of a slope, and certainly, if in part a work of nature, itthe mere action of the atmosphere never could have so exactly chiselled away all but the centre of gravity The secret of the Druids, in this instance at least, was in leaving a large mass behind, which as a lever counteracted the preponderance of the rock” I drew on the spot two exact views of it, taken to scale,--whereof this is one,--now of some curious value, since its intentional destruction last year by a snobbish party of mischievous idiots (However, I see by the papers that, at a cost of 500, it has been replaced) Let this touch suffice as topredilection for Druidism, since expanded by e topic, the numerous rude stone monuments from Arabia to Mona

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The 1834 journal regards Scotland,--a country I have since visited several tie round from Thurso _via_ Cape Wrath to the Hebrides; whereof, perhaps, ive what follows; the locality is near Inverness and the Caledonian Canal: ”We now bent our steps toward Craig Phadrick, two miles north This is the site of one of the celebrated vitrified forts, concerning the creation of which there has been so much learned discussion And verily there is room, for there is mystery: I will detailOn the sulo enclosure of eighty yards by twenty, with entrances east and west, a space of five yards being between the two oblongs The mounds were outwardly of turf, but under a thin skin of this was a thick continuous wall of ether in a hotchpot!

The existence of these forts (occurring frequently on the heights and of various shapes) is attempted to be explained by divers theories One man tells us they were beacons; but, first, what an enormous one is here, one hundred and twenty-four feet by sixty of blazing wood, ti scarce too! next, they sometimes occur in low situations from which a flame could scarcely be seen; thirdly, coranite Another pundit says they are volcanic O wondrous volcano to spout oblong concentric areas of stone walls! Perhaps the best explanation is that the Celts celass, a sort of red-hotsea-sand and seaweed as a flux This is Professor Whewell's idea, and with hi conversation on that and other subjects” Of this Scotch tour, full of interest, thus very curtly Turnto Ireland in 1835 My record of just fifty years ago is ary, and human wretchedness of all sorts in the le of thorns and briars, quaking bogs, and sterilewith ignorance and priestcraft, to de race of modern Celts Let us turn from the sad scenes of which ston ”At the bottoarments that mud wouldn't spoil, and with lit candles descended into the abyss, hands, knees, and elbows being of asto uide-books, nor to nickna to the caprice of a rude peasant on the spot or the fancy of a passing stranger I e with accounts of Turks' tents, beehives, judges' wigs, harps, handkerchiefs, and flitches of bacon, but I rather choose to speak of these subterranean palaces with none of such vulgar sinificence in stalactites; from the black fissured roofs of antres vast and loed caves they are hanging, of all conceivable shapes and sizes and descriptions Now a tall-fluted colu over a beetling rock in the elegant folds and easy drapery of a curtain, everywhere are pure white stalactites like icicles straining to mite belohilst in the sealed rain One cavern is quite curtained round with dazzling and wavy tapestry; another has giganticfro ing fro The extent of the caves is quite unknown: eleven acres (I was told) have been surveyed and mapped, while there are six avenues still unexplored, and you h the discovered provinces of the gno”

This is not to be compared with Kentucky, perhaps not quite with Derbyshi+re; but it seemed to me marvellous at the time Let this much suffice as hinted reference to those early journals, which, if the world were not already more full of books than of their readers, would be as orth printing in their integrity as many others of their bound and lettered brethren

In connection with these journals, I have been specially requested to add to the above this record following (dated forty-four years ago) as a speci in old days: it has pen-and-ink sketches, here inserted by way of rough and ready illustration The whole letter is printed in its integrity as desired, and tells its own archaeological tale, though rather voluminously; but in the prehistoric era before Rowland Hill arose, to give us cheap stamps for short notes, it was an econo as possible to pay for its exorbitant postage: for exahtpence--or double if in an envelope, then absurdly surcharged

_My Cornish Expedition_

[Illustration: [The Arms of Cornwall]

8th and 9th of January 1840

”FOR ONE AND ALL”]

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My Dear Mother, and all good Domiciliars,--

I suppose it to be the intention of our worshi+pful and right bankrupt Government that everybody write to everybody true, full, and particular accounts of all things which he, she, or it,Ito say which will interest you all, I fulfil the gossiping intentions of the Collective Wisdoood ht, clear, frostyof the 8th found ious individual, well-benja with his bodily presence the roof of the Fale took us across the Ha, and town and country banks, made, as it always makes, a beautiful landscape At Torpoint we first encountered venerable Cornwall; and a pretty drive of sixteen miles, ooded, and watered by several intrusions of the unsatisfied sea, brought coach and contents to Liskeard, a clean, granite, country toith palatial inn, and (in coe abled church, covered with carved cathedral s, and shadowed by ancient el, I heard of, but saw not, divers antiquities in the distant neighbourhood of St Clare, such as a circle of stones, an old church and well, and the natural curiosity called the cheese-ring, being a ranite capriciously decomposed: these ”unseen ones” (what a ret, for I kno to appreciate those wonders, the only enchantment whereof is, distance So suffered I conveyance to Lostwithiel, a town lying in a hollow under the pictorial auspices of Restorlandish: while the rest were bolting a coach dinner, I betook me to ye church, and was charothic lantern with extinguisher atop, like this: as far as h St Blazey, and adistrict, not ill-wooded, nor unpicturesque, to the fair town of St Austle, which the piety of Cornish ancestors has furnished with another splendid specimen of ecclesiastical architecture, the upper half of the chief tower, a square one, being fretted on every stone with florid carving, and grotesque devices: but what shall I say of Probus tohich froranite? it rises above the eneracy in things religious: you s of Probus at the Watercolour Exhibition, as it is a regular artists' lion At about half-past six we got into Truro, a clean wide flourishi+ng toith London shops, a coes over narrow strealand toell payed and gas-lighted Froent brain-sucking of coach comrades induced me to ju sleepy Redruth, Camborne, and St Erth in the dark, I found myself safely housed at the Union Inn, Penzance, at half-past eleven Talking of unions, the country is studded here as everywhere with the for life those whose only cri (so I prophesy) into lunatic asylums for desperate es for cattle with the rot, and as one good end, hospitals for the poor

Near Redruth, I took notice in the ht of Carn-breh, the remains of a British beacon or hill-fort, much of the antiquarian interest of which has been destroyed by a neighbouring squire having added to it _modern_ ruins, to make it an object from his hall! the whole hill, like ledi-piggledy, and it is a grand dispute a the pundits, whether or not the Archdruid Nature has been playing at marbles in these parts; I wished to satisfy ruh, to be able to judge _a priori_, that father Noah's flood piled the hill with blocks, which have served one Dr

Borlase and others as occasions for earning the character of blockheads One thing is , without _much_ dispute, and that is, an obelisk in honour of old Lord De Dunstanville, which is a conspicuous toothpick on the hilltop: no doubt, as in this case, nature brought the stones there, andthem; poor Dr B would have you believe that every natural rock had been lifted here bodily for architectural purposes, and as bodily made a most elaborate and labyrinthine ruin afterwards At Penzance, a broiled fish supper, and to bed by , wherein by 7 on the ninth I was traversing the beautiful bay Penzance is a fine town in a splendid situation; the bay, bounded by the Lizard and its opposite bold brother-headland, inclosing St Michael's Mount, and having a fertile and villa-studded background; the town full of good handsoe cathedralish church, and with a very special ranite, in the form of a plain Grecian te dome As I had duly culled infor, but drove off, bun in hand, to explore the country of the Druids Now, if thewere in isolated and plain situations, they ; but where the face of the whole soil is covered naturally with jutting rocks, and tiranite, one doesn't feel much astonishment to see some one stone set on end a little more obviously than the rest, or to find out by dint of perseverance a little arrangement, which es, and walls, and field enclosures are built of such immense blocks cleared off the surface of the fields, that one's mind is prepared for far eified doorway, stye, many a ”Pelion-on-Ossa” questionable-sentry box, puts one out of conceit with our puny ancestors I went first to the Dans-mene, a famous stone-circle; and felt not a little vexed to find that I, little i, ahts there, not 25 in nuateposts It is evidently the consecrated portion of a battlefield, for there are several single stones dotted about the neighbourhood, to mark where heroes fell; like those at Inveraray, but s up a stone in every field, for cattle to scratch the-stones for AS Ses A few dreary an-Rock, which on the map is near Boskenna The cliff and coast scenery is superb; iranite of all shapes and sizes tumbled about in all directions; onder that in such a heap of giant pebbles _one_ should be found ricketty? ornature of coarse granite should have caused the atradually, all but the actual centre of gravity? both at the Logan, and Land's End, and Mount St Michael, I am sure I have seen a hundred rocks wasted very nearly to thepoint, and I could mention specifically six, which in 20 years will rock, or in half an hour of chiselling would In part proof of what I say, the Land-End people, jealous of Logan custoreat rock in their parts, which two -handled chisel, and have little doubt that my hint will be acted on; by next season, the Cornish antiquaries will be puzzling their musty brains over marks of ”druidical” tools; essays will appear, to des were accoolden sickle; the rock will be proved to have been quarried at Norraphed; and the Innkeeper of the ”First and Last house in England” will gratefully present a piece of plate (a Druid ”spanning” [consider Ezekiel's ”putting the branch to the nose” as a sign of contempt]!) to the author of ”Hints for a Chisel,” ”Proverbial Phil,” &c &c &c

But--_revenous a nos an: until it was scrupulously pointed out, by so tangible a_on_ it, I could scarcely distinguish it from the fine hurlyburly of rocks around That it moves there is no question; but when I tell you that it is now obliged to be artificially kept fro it behind, and a bearee with ently falsified the view, _ad captandu so old a friend as the Logan: it is commonly drawn as if isolated, _thus_, and would so, no doubt, be very astonishi+ng; but, when ed_ to re it, surrounded by abrotherhood, my wonder only is that it keeps its lion character, and that, considering the easy explication of its natural cause or accident, it should ever have been conceived to be ; perhaps the Druids availed the, but as to having contrived it, you ht as well say that they built the cliffs It strikes me, moreover, that Cornwall could never have been the headquarters of Druidism, inasmuch as the soil is too scanty for oaks: there isn't a tree of any size, much less an oak tree in all West Cornwall: they must have cut samphire froentlemen must have been pretty tolerable clih to touch the Logan: to be sure it was a frosty day, and iron-shod shoes on icy granite are not over coalescible, but I did not dare scramble to it, as a tumble would have insured a particularly unco ”Leaper froan, or Martin Martyr” would have had his na lady sonnets, and azure albums, such immortality had little char able to swear that I have seen 90 tons of stone moved by a child of ten years old Near it is another, called the logging lady, a block, upright like its neighbours, about 12 feet high, and which the boy toldby two men with poles; in fact, one end is ith levers: well, I told him to try and move it; no use, says he; try, said I; he did try, and couldn't; well, I took a sight of where I thought he could do it, and set him to push; forthwith, my lady tottered, and I told the boy, if he would only keep to himself where he pushed it would be a banknote to him

I mention this to illustrate what I verily believe, to wit, that, if a man only took the breakneck trouble to cla-stones; but the fact is, this would diminish the wonder, and cockneys wouldn't coinary dynamics, invest nature's freaks with mysterious interest But away to Tol Peden Penwith, where there is another curiosity; in the sreen middle of a narrow promontory, surrounded and terely drops down for a perpendicular hundred feet, a circular chasm, not ill named the Funnel, and which not even a stolid Borlase can pretend was dug by the Druids: at the bottom there is communication with the sea by antic earth's chih idea?