PRE-EMINENCE OF ENGLAND AS A PLACE OF COUNTRY RESIDENCE.
 
Let every man who has a sufficiency for the enjoyment of life, thank heaven most fervently that he lives in this country and age. They may tell us of the beauty of southern skies, and the softness of southern climates; but where is the land which a man would rather choose to call himself a native of—because it combines more of the requisites for a happy and useful existence; more of the moral, social, and intellectual advantages, without which fair skies or soft climates would become dolorous, or at best, indifferent? I say, let every man gratefully rejoice, who has the means of commanding the full blessings of English life,—for alas! there are thousands and millions of our countrymen who possess but a scanty portion of these; whose lives are too long and continuous a course[2] of toil and anxiety to permit them even to look round them and see how vast are the powers of enjoyment in this country, and how few of those sources of ease, comfort, and refined pleasure are within their reach. I trust a better day is coming to this portion of our population; that many circumstances are working together to confer on the toiling children of these kingdoms the social rewards which their unwearied industry so richly merits; but for those who already hold in their hands the golden key, where is the country like England? If we are naturally proud of making a portion of a mighty and a glorious kingdom, where is the kingdom like England? It is a land of which the most ambitious or magnanimous spirit may well say with a high emotion—“That is my country!” Over what an extent of the earth it stretches its territories; over what swarming and diversified millions it extends its sceptre! On every side of the globe, lie its outspread regions; under every aspect of heaven, walk its free or tributary people. In the West Indies; in the vaster dominions of the East; in America and Australia; through each wide continent, and many a fair island! But its political and moral power extends even far beyond these. What nation is there, however great, that does not look with breathless anxiety to the movements of England; what country is not bound up with it in the strongest interests and hopes; what country is there which does not feel the influence of its moral energy? Through all the cities and forests of Republican America, the spirit of England, as well as its language, lives and glows. France, Germany, and even Russia to the depths of its frozen heart, feel the emanations of its free and popular institutions. Every pulse of love which beats here—every principle of justice that is more clearly recognised—every sentiment of Christianity that is elevated on the broad basis of the human heart, hence spreads through the earth as from a centre of moral life, and produces in the remotest regions its portion of civilization.
Hence do I love my country!—and partake
Of kindred agitations for her sake;
She visits oftentimes my midnight dream;
Her glory meets me with the earliest beam
Of light, which tells that morning is awake.—Wordsworth.
It is something to make a part, however small, of such a[3] nation. It is something to feel that you have such a scope of power and beneficence in the earth. But when you add to this, the food laid up for the heart and the intellect in this island—the wealth of literature and science; the spirit of freedom in which they are nourished, and by which they are prosecuted; the sound religious feeling which has always distinguished it as a nation; the philanthropic institutions that exist in it—every true heart must felicitate itself that its lot is cast in this kingdom.
Such are the moral, political, and intellectual advantages of English life, which must make any noble-minded and reflecting man feel, as he considers his position in the scale of humanity, that he is “a citizen of no mean city.” But our social advantages are not a whit behind these. Can any state of society be well conceived, on which the arts and sciences, literature, and general knowledge, can shed more social conveniences and refined enjoyments? In our houses, in our furniture, in all the materials for our dresses, in the apparatus for our tables and the endless variety of good things by which they are supplied, for which every region has been traversed, and every art in bringing them home, or raising them at home, has been exerted; in books and paintings; in the wonderful provision and accumulation of every article in our shops, that the real wants or the most fanciful desires of men or women may seek for; in our gardens, roads, the beautiful and affluent cultivation of the country,—what nation is there, or has there been, which can for a moment bear a comparison with England?
Ye miserable ancients, had ye these?
And this we may ask, not merely as it respects gas, steam, the marvellous developments of chemistry and electro-magnetism, by which the mode and embellishment of our existence have been so much changed already, and which promise yet changes too vast to be readily familiarized to the imagination,—but of a thousand other privileges and conveniences in which England is pre-eminent. It is, however, to our rural life that we are about to devote our attention; and it is in rural life that the superiority of England is, perhaps, more striking, than in any other respect. Over the whole face of our country the charm of a refined existence is diffused. There is nothing which strikes foreigners so much as the beauty[4] of our country abodes, and the peculiarity of our country life. The elegances, the arts, and refinements of the city, are carried out and blended, from end to end of the island, so beautifully with the peaceful simplicity of the country, that nothing excites more the admiration of strangers than those rural paradises, the halls, castles, abbeys, lodges, and cottages, in which our nobility and gentry spend more or less of every year. Let Prince Pückler Muskau, Washington Irving, Willis, Count Pecchio, Rice, and others, tell you how beautiful, in their eyes, appeared the parks, lawns, fields, and the whole country of England, cultivated like a garden. It is true that our climate is not to be boasted of for its perpetual serenity. It has had no lack of abuse, both from our own countrymen and others. We are none of us without a pretty lively memory of its freaks and changes, its mists and tempests; its winters wild as some of late, and its springs that are often so tardy in their arrival, that they find summer standing in the gate to tell them they are no longer wanted. All this we know; yet which of us is not ready to forgive all this, and to say with a full heart,
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!
Which of us is not grateful and discerning enough to remember, that even our fickle and imperfect climate has qualities to which England owes much of its glory, and we, many a proud feeling and victorious energy? Which of us can forget, that this abused climate, is that which has not enervated by its heats, has not seduced by its amenities, has not depopulated by its malaria, so that under its baneful influence we have become feeble, listless, reckless of honour or virtue; the mean, the slothful, the crouching slaves of barbarians, or even effeminate despots: it is that which has done none of these things; produced no such effects as these; but it is that which has raised millions of frames strong and muscular and combatant, and enduring as the oaks of its rocky hills; that has nerved those frames to the contempt alike of danger and effeminacy; and has quickened them with hearts full of godlike aspirations after a virtuous glory. What a long line—what ages after ages, of invincible heroes, of dauntless martyrs for freedom and religion, of solemn sages and lawgivers, of philosophers and poets, men sober, and prescient, and splendid in all their[5] endowments as any country ever produced;—what a line of these has flourished amid the glooms and severities of this abused climate; and while Italy has sunk into subjection, and Greece has lain waste beneath the feet of the Turk—has piled up by a succession of matchless endeavours the fame and power of England, to the height of its present greatness.
In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakspeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held. In every thing we are sprung
Of earth’s best blood, have titles manifold.
And will any man tell me that the spirit of our climate has had nothing to do with begetting and nourishing the energy which has borne on to immortality these great men; which has quickened us with “earth’s best blood;” which has given us “titles manifold?” The gloom and desolate majesty of autumn—the wild magnificence of thunder-storms, with their vivid lightnings, their awful uproar, the lurid darkness of their clouds, and the outshining of rainbows—have these had no effect on the meditations of divines and the songs of poets? Has the soul-concentrating power of winter driven our writers into their closets in vain? Have the fireside festivities of our darkest season; have the blazing yule-clog, and the merriment of the old English hall—things which have grown out of the very asperity of the climate, left no traces in our literature? Did Milton, Bacon, Spenser, Shakspeare, and such spirits, walk through our solemn halls, whether of learning, or religion, or baronial pomp, all of which have been raised by the very genius of a pensive climate; or did they climb our mountains, and roam our forests, amid winds that roared in the boughs and whirled their leaves at their feet, and gather thence no imagery, no similes, no vigour of thought and language, such as still skies and flowery meadows could not originate? Let us turn to the lays and romances of Scott and Byron, and see whether brown heaths and splintered mountains; the savage ruins of craggy coasts, moaning billows, mists, and rains; the thunder of cataracts, and the sleep of glens, all seen and felt under the alternations of seasons and of weather, such only as an unsettled climate could shew,—have not tinged their spirits,[6] and therefore their works, with hues of an immortal beauty, the splendid product of a boisterous climate. Why, they are these influences which have had no small share in the creation of such men as Burns, Bloomfield, Hogg, and Clare—the shepherd-poets of a free land, and an out-of-door life. Yes, we are indebted to our climate for a mass of good, a host of advantages of which we little dream, till we begin to count them up.
And are all our experiences of the English climate those of gloom? Are there no glorious sunsets, no summer evenings, balmy as our dreams of heaven, no long sunny days of summer, no dewy mornings, whose freshness brings with it ideas of earth in its youth, and the glades of Paradise trod by the fair feet of Eve? Have we no sweet memories of youth and friendship, in which such hours, such days, in which fields of harvest, hay-harvest and corn-harvest, with all their rejoicing rustic companies, lie in the sunshine? Are there none of excursions through the mountains, along the sea shores, of sailing on fair lakes, or lying by running waters in green and flowery dales, while overhead shone out skies so blue and serene that they seemed as though they could never change? In every English bosom there lie many such sweet memories; and if we look through the whole of one of the worst seasons that we have, what intervals of pleasant weather we find in it. One of the great charms of this country too, dependent on its climate, is that rich and almost perpetual greenness, of which strangers always speak with admiration.
But what of climate? There are other claims on our affections for this noble country, which, were its climate the most splendid under heaven, would yet cast that far into the shade. What binds us closely to it, next to our living ties, is that every inch of English ground is sanctified by noble deeds, and intellectual renown; but on this topic Mrs. Howitt has, in her Wood-Leighton, put into the mouth of a worthy clergyman of Staffordshire, words that will better express my feelings, than any I can now use.
“I know not how it is; I cannot comprehend the feeling, with which many quit this noble country for ever for strange lands. And yet it may be said, that hundreds do it every day; and for thousands it may indeed be well. For those who have had no prospect but the daily struggle for existence; for those whose[7] minds have not been opened and quickened into a sense of the higher and more spiritual enjoyments which this country affords; for the labouring many, the valleys of Australia or the vast forests and prairies of America may be alluring. But to me,—and therefore, it seems, equally to other men with like tastes and attachments—to quit England, noble, fearless, magnanimous, and Christian England, would be to cut asunder life, and hope, and happiness at once. No! till I voyage to ‘the better land,’ I could never quit England. What! after all the ages that have been spent in making it habitable, and home-like; after all the blood shed in its defence, and for the maintaining of its civil polity; after all the consumption of patriotic thought and enterprise, the labours of philosophers, divines, and statesmen, to civilize and Christianize it; after the time, the capital, the energies employed, from age to age, to cultivate its fields, dry up marshes, build bridges, and lay down roads, raise cities, and fill every house with the products of the arts and the wealth of literature; can there be a spot of earth that can pretend to a tithe of its advantages, or a spot that creates in the heart that higher tone necessary for their full enjoyment? Why, every spot of this island is sanctified, not only by the efforts of countless patriots, but as the birth-place and abode of men of genius. Go where you will, places present themselves to your eyes which are stamped with the memory of some one or other of those ‘burning and shining lights,’ that have illuminated the atmosphere of England with their collective splendour, and made it visible to the men of farthest climates. Even in this secluded district, which, beautiful as it is, is comparatively little known or spoken of, amongst the generality of English people, how many literary recollections surround you! To say nothing of the actors in great historical scenes; the Talbots, Shrewsburys, Dudleys, and Bagots of former ages; or the Ansons, Vernons, St. Vincents, and Pagets of the later and present ones; in this county were born those excellent bishops, Hurd and Newton, and the venerable antiquary and herald, Elias Ashmole. To say nothing of the amount of taste and knowledge that exist in the best classes of society hereabout, we have to-day passed the houses of Thomas Gisborne and Edward Cooper, clergymen who have done honour to their profession by their talents and the liberality of their sentiments. In[8] that antiquated Fauld Hall, once lived old Squire Burton, the brother of the author of the ‘Anatomy of Melancholy;’ and there is little doubt that some part of that remarkable work was written there. By that Dove, Izaak Walton, that pious old man, that lover of the fields, and historian of the worthies of the church, used to stroll and meditate, or converse with his friend Charles Cotton, a Staffordshire man too. In the woods of Wotton, which are very visible hence by daylight, once wandered a very different, but very distinguished person, the wayward Rousseau. In Uttoxeter, that great, but ill-used, and ill-understood astronomer, Flamstead, received the greater part of his education; and from Lichfield, the spires of whose cathedral we have seen to-day, went out Johnson and Garrick, each to achieve supremacy in his own track of distinction. And there, too, lived Anna Seward, who, with all her egotism and faults of taste, was superior to the women of her age, and had the sagacity to perceive amongst the very first, the dawning fame of Southey and Sir Walter Scott.
“If this comparatively obscure district can thus boast of having given birth or abode to so many influential intellects, what shall not England—entire and glory-crowned England? And who shall not feel proud to own himself of its race and kindred; and, if he can secure for himself a moderate share of its common goods, be happy to live and die in it!”
Thus it is all England through. There is no part of it, in which you do not become aware that there some portion of our national glory has originated. The very coachmen as you traverse the highways, continually point out to you spots made sacred by men and their acts. There say they, was born, or lived, Milton or Shakspeare, Locke or Bacon, Pope or Dryden; that was the castle of Chaucer; there, now, lives Wordsworth, Southey, or Moore. There Queen Elizabeth was confined in her youth, here she confined Mary of Scotland in her age. There Wickliffe lived, and here his ashes were scattered in the air by his enemies. There Hooker watched his sheep while he pondered on his Ecclesiastical Polity. Here was born Cromwell, or Hampden—here was the favourite retreat of Chatham, Fox, Pitt, or other person, who in his day exerted a powerful influence on the mind or fortunes of this country. These perpetual monitions that we are walking in a land filled from end[9] to end with glorious reminiscences, make country residence in England so delightful. But the testimony of foreigners is more conclusive than our own; and therefore, we will close this chapter with the impression which the entrance into England made on two Americans—Washington Irving and Mr. Willis. Irving’s mind was full of the inspiration of the character of England as he had found it in books. “There is to an American, a volume of associations with the very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with every thing of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years have pondered. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian giants along the coast; the headlands of Ireland, stretching out into the Channel; the Welsh mountains, towering into the clouds; all were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grass-plots. I saw the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighbouring hill—all were characteristic of England.” That is the feeling of an American, arriving here directly from his own country: this is that of one coming from the European Continent. Mr. Willis says, on landing at Dover: “My companion led the way to an hotel, and we were introduced by English waiters (I had not seen such a thing in three years, and it was quite like being waited on by gentlemen) to two blazing coal fires in the coffee-room of the ‘Ship.’ O, what a comfortable place it appeared! A rich Turkey carpet snugly fitted; nicely rubbed mahogany tables; the morning papers from London; bell-ropes that would ring the bell; doors that would shut; a landlady that spoke English, and was kind and civil; and, though there were eight or ten people in the room, no noise above the rustle of a newspaper, and positively rich red damask curtains, neither second-hand nor shabby, to the windows! A greater contrast than this, to the things that answer to them on the Continent, could scarcely be imagined. The fires were burning brilliantly, and the coffee-room was in the nicest order when we descended to our breakfast at six the next morning. The tea-kettle singing on the hearth, the toast was hot, and done to a turn, and the waiter was neither sleepy nor uncivil,—all, again, very unlike a morning at an hotel in La belle France. England is[10] described always very justly, and always in the same words, ‘it is all one garden.’ There is scarce a cottage, between Dover and London (seventy miles) where a poet might not be happy to live. I saw a hundred little spots I coveted with quite a heart-ache. Everybody seemed employed, and everybody well-made and healthy. The relief from the deformity and disease of the way-side beggars of the Continent was very striking.”
It is through this England, thus worthy of our love, whether as seen by our own eyes, or the eyes of intelligent foreigners, that we are about to make our progress, visiting plain and mountain, farm and hamlet, and making acquaintance with the dwellings, habits, and feelings of both gentle and simple.