Arthur Young

“ A reading habit is a great blessing. I am sure I find it so, for though I have risen at 3 A.M. since I have been here, and not once been in bed at four, still I am not tired at night. A walk is a refreshment to be had in the country in a moment, but at London half a mile of street thronged and noisy, and then only a crowded park, with sights to wound or to tempt. I do not like snow, but a deep one and blustering wind here is preferable to calm sunshine in the streets of London.
But much as I like Bradfield even alone, I must leave it and get quickly into Essex. ”

“ Lowering the hill the scenery is yet more agreeable. The near inclosures are margined with trees, through whose open branches are seen whole fields of the most lively verdure. The trees gather into groups, and the lawn swells into gentle inequalities, while the river winding beneath renders the whole truly pleasing.
Breakfasted at the inn at Tinnyhinch, and then drove to the park to see the waterfall. The park itself is fine; you enter it between two vast masses of mountain, covered with wood, forming a vale scattered with trees, through which flows a river on a broken rocky channel. ”

“ How a person of fortune and the world can be one I know not. They are never cool, and have no time for reading or thought. It is madness to continue in such a state, but to travel 120 miles in order to enter a fresh scene of it, and perhaps within earshot of such a profane beast and fool as that Captain G. I sat near last year—this would be insanity. What a spectacle at Woburn was that miserably swearing profligate, Major B., of Sussex, at the age of eighty-one, sticking to the last moment to worldly dissipation, and utterly regardless of what is to become of him hereafter. ”

“ You advance scarcely twenty yards before a pretty scene opens to the left—a distant landscape of inclosures, with a river winding between the hills to the sea. Passing to the right, fresh scenes of wood appear; half-way to the bottom, one different from the preceding is seen; you are almost inclosed in wood, and look to the right through some low oaks on the opposite bank of wood, with an edging of trees through which the sky is seen, which, added to an uncommon elegance in the outline of the hill, has a most pleasing effect. ”

“ An extravagant duchess, Paris toys, a great farm, little economy, and immense debts, will prove a canker in all the rosebuds of his garden of life. The providence of the Almighty governs all, and will not permit an utter forgetfulness of Him to produce even the temporal happiness which is alone sought for.
I am tired of the whole, and long for the retirement and quiet of Bradfield after so many weeks of London, and this finishing of hurry and bustle. ”

“ Nothing can exceed the beauty of the water, when not discoloured by rain; its lucid transparency shows, at considerable depths, every pebble no bigger than a pin, every rocky basin alive with trout and eels, that play and dash among the rocks as if endowed with that native vigour which animates, in a superior degree, every inhabitant of the mountains, from the bounding red deer and the soaring eagle down even to the fishes of the brook. Every five minutes you have a water-fall in these glens, which in any other region would stop every traveller to admire it. ”

“ This tour hangs on my mind; nothing would suit my feelings so well as to stay here in my present melancholy gloom, reading divinity, and endeavouring so steadily to fix my mind on eternity and the hope of joining my dear child, as to work a change in my habits, my life, my conversation, and pursuits; and to do all that human frailty will permit to reconcile myself to the Almighty. These thoughts, however, I shall try to preserve in spite of a journey. ”

“ Passed through the deer-park wood of old oaks, spread over the side of a bold hill, and of such an extent, that the scene is a truly forest one, without any other boundary in view than what the stems of trees offer from mere extent, retiring one behind another till they thicken so much to the eye, under the shade of their spreading tops, as to form a distant wall of wood. ”

“ The Norfolk farmers are rich and profligate; of course oaths and profanations salute the ear at every turn; and gentlemen and the great, when without ladies, are too apt to be as bad as the mob, and many of them much worse. I am never in such company, but the repugnance of my soul to it is so great, that much as I love agriculture I can renounce it with more pleasure than I can partake of it thus contaminated. I shall get to Bradfield as soon as possible, I hope on Saturday, and having much to do there, God send that employment may keep me out of all temptation. ”

“ Lord Ross has made walks round the island, from which there is a considerable variety of prospect. A temple is built on a gentle hill, commanding the view of the wooded islands above-mentioned, but the most pleasing prospect of them is coming out from the grotto. They appear in an uncommon beauty; two seem to join, and the water which flows between takes the appearance of a fine bay, projecting deep into a dark wood: nothing can be more beautiful. The park hill rises above them, and the whole is backed with mountains. ”

“ When a work appears, the object and execution of which are equally novel and unexampled, it is not surprising that a certain measure of success should attend such a work. Nothing in the least similar to it had before appeared in the English language; for though there had been a tour of Great Britain, and other tours through great part of the kingdom, yet all these works agreed in one circumstance—that of the authors confining their attention absolutely to towns and seats, without paying any more thought to agriculture than if that art had no existence between the towns they visited. ”

“ The river forms a creek between two hills, one Lota, the other opening to another hill of inclosures well wooded. As the boat leaves the shore nothing can be finer than the view behind us; the back woods of Lota, the house and lawn, and the high bold inclosures towards Cork, form the finest shore imaginable, leading to Cork, the city appearing in full view, Dunkettle wooded inclosures, a fine sweep of hill, joining Mr. Hoare’s at Factory Hill, whose woods have a beautiful effect. Dunkettle House almost lost in a wood. As we advance, the woods of Lota and Dunkettle unite in one fine mass. ”

“ Had I gone directly from London on my tour, plunging from one busy scene to another, my mind would have had no time to cool, none to settle into any calm and tranquil state for reflection, which is unfavourable to the growth of religion, of morals, nay, of talents to perform anything of consequence. A round of business or dissipation thus unbroken is mischievous to the heart, ties it to the world, and unfits it for every effort of regeneration and repentance, or of meditation and philosophy. ”

“ This is a sort of scene not common in Ireland; it is a great extent alone that will give it. From this hill enter an evergreen plantation, a scene which winds up the deer-park hill, and opens on to the brow of it, which commands a most noble view indeed. The lawns round the house appear at one’s feet, at the bottom of a great declivity of wood, almost everywhere surrounded by plantations. ”

“ The man who has never had his mind enlivened and his senses cheered by contemplating the scenes of nature or the employment of his fellow creatures, would feel much less at the thought of learning whether this would ever be his fate or not, than he who, once having felt in every variety the extent of the blessing, loses it, learns by experience the sadness of the contrast, and goes with a throbbing heart to enquire if any hope exists of again enjoying that power he would gladly forfeit all his possessions to recover. ”

“ Those who are fond of scenes in which Nature reigns in all her wild magnificence should visit this stupendous chain. It consists of many vast mountains, thrown together in an assemblage of the most interesting features, from the boldness and height of the declivities, freedom of outline, and variety of parts, filling a space of about six miles by three or four. Galtymore is the highest point, and rises like the lord and father of the surrounding progeny. From the top you look down upon a great extent of mountain, which shelves away from him to the south, east, and west ”

“ To me be the melancholy duty of noting what is of much more moment than the descent of a peerage or the transfer of an estate—the loss of an animated improver; of one who gave importance to cultivation by a thorough knowledge of political economy, and bent all his endeavours towards making mankind happy by seconding the pursuits of the farmer and the enquiries of the experimentalist. ”

“ The country then opens somewhat, and you pass most of the way for six or seven miles to Innisteague, on a declivity shelving down to the river, which takes a varied winding course, sometimes lively, breaking over a rocky bottom, at others still and deep under the gloom of some fine woods, which hang down the sides of steep hills. Narrow slips of meadow of a beautiful verdure in some places form the shore, and unite with cultivated fields that spread over the adjoining hills, reaching almost the mountain tops. ”

“ Give me leave to return you my respectful thanks, and to assure you that in the twenty-six years I have had transactions with mankind, and whenever in my power have endeavoured to assist as many as I could, I have scarce ever met with so much gratitude as you have shown. It will not be in my power ever again to do you any acceptable service, but for your sake I shall be more ready to do a kind office than ever; so if I mended your fortune by helping you off a hurtful contract, you will mend my heart by making me more in love with mankind, and more ready to seek opportunities of being useful. ”

“ Every feature of the whole view is great, and unites to form a scene of natural magnificence. From hence a riding is cut through the hanging wood, which rises to a central spot, where the General has cleared away the rubbish from under the wood, and made a beautiful waving lawn with many oaks and hollies scattered about it: here he has built a cottage, a pretty, whimsical oval room, from the windows of which are three views, one of distant rich lands opening to the sea, one upon a great mountain, and a third upon a part of the lawn. ”

“ April 4.—At Bradfield. The pleasure of coming into the country from such a place as London is great and pure. The freshness and sweetness of the air, the quiet and stillness, the sunshine unclouded by smoke, the singing of the birds, the verdure of the fields, the budding out of vegetation, altogether is charming. ”

“ The park ranks among the finest in Ireland. It is a vast lawn, which waves over gentle hills, surrounded by plantations of great extent, and which break and divide in places so as to give much variety. A large but gentle vale winds through the whole, in the bottom of which a small stream has been enlarged into a fine river, which throws a cheerfulness through most of the scenes: over it a handsome stone bridge. ”

“ Do you 218mean your heart, and that the philosophical contemplation of so pure an engine as the plough is the sustenance of your best emotions? How will that agree with the panegyrist of a court and the satirist of a farm? Or is it that this inside of yours is a mere bread and cheese cupboard, which, certes, the plough can furnish? Or is it a magic lanthorn full of gay delusions, lighted by tallow from the belly of a sheep? Till you have settled these doubts, I know not which you prefer, manufactures for improving your complection, or agriculture for farming your heart. ”

“ In short, everything, and even such as are apparently of no use to them; nor is it easy to catch them, for they never carry their stolen goods home, but to some bog-hole. Turnips are stolen by car-loads, and two acres of wheat plucked off in a night. In short, their pilfering and stealing is a perfect nuisance. How far it is owing to the oppression of laws aimed solely at the religion of these people, how far to the conduct of the gentlemen and farmers, and how far to the mischievous disposition of the people themselves, it is impossible for a passing traveller to ascertain. ”

“ How much have the clergy to answer for! Reading Barrow and South’s sermons, ‘The Image of God in the Creation,’ which is full of wit. Barrow is a most powerful writer, he pours out a torrent of matter, a stream of mind, as Johnson said of Burke; an amazing flow of conception and of expression, forcible and varied; a rich command of language, and such fertility that one of his sermons would make ten modern ones.
The life I am getting into here of walking and reading is such a contrast to that at London as to be a most pleasant change and recreation to my soul and body. ”

“ The near approach to Tomys exhibits a sweep of wood, so great in extent, and so rich in foliage, that no person can see without admiring it. The mountainous part above is soon excluded by the approach; wood alone is seen, and that in such a noble range as to be greatly striking; it just hollows into a bay, and in the centre of it is a chasm in the wood; this is a bed of a considerable stream, which forms O’Sullivan’s cascade, to which all strangers are conducted, as one of the principal beauties of Killarney. ”