Travels in England in 1782 by Karl Philipp Moritz (most read books of all time .TXT) 📕

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.

To be called a LIAR is a still greater affront, and you ARE A DAMNED LIAR, is the very acme of vulgar abuse.

Just as in Germany, no one will bear the name of a SCOUNDREL, or KNAVE, or as in all quarrels, the bestowing such epithets on our adversary is the signal for fighting, so the term of a LIAR in England is the most offensive, and is always resented by blows. A man would never forgive himself, nor be forgiven, who could bear to be called a LIAR.

Our Jackey in London once looked at me with astonishment, on my happening to say to him in a joke, you ARE A LIAR. I assure you I had much to do before I could pacify him.

If one may form a judgment of the character of the whole nation, from such little circumstances as this, I must say this rooted hatred of the word liar appears to me to be no bad trait in the English.

But to return to my travelling companion, who further told me that he was obliged to earn his livelihood, at some distance from home, and that he