Leitch Ritchie

“ The better to secure the ruin, a new gate of antique workmanship, with iron ornaments, is put up. When this is suddenly opened, the effect is most striking and surprising. You suddenly look down the avenue of ivy-clad pillars, and see their grand perspective lines closed, at a distance of three hundred feet, by a magnificent window eighty feet high and thirty broad: through its intricate and beautiful tracery you see a wooded mountain, from whose side project abrupt masses of rock. Over head the wind plays in the garlands of ivy, and the clouds pass swiftly across the deep blue sky. ”

“ Worcester is one of the most aristocratic looking towns in England, and presents every token of being a wealthy and flourishing place. Its cathedral, an edifice of the beginning of the thirteenth century, has drawn hither many a pilgrim foot even from foreign countries. Our present business, however, is with the works of nature, or with those of art fallen into decay, and their fragments standing amidst the eternal youth of the hills and rivers, like monuments of the insignificance of man. ”

“ I shall not attempt to describe the unbounded expanse of country around and beneath, which embraces an extent of nearly three hundred miles. The eye, satiated with the distant prospect, reposes at length on the near views, dwells on the country immediately beneath and around, is attracted with the pleasing position of Monmouth, here seen to singular advantage, admires the elegant bend and silvery current of the Monnow, glistening through meads, in its way to the Wye, and the junction of the two rivers, which forms an assemblage of beautiful objects. ”

“ From the length of the nave, the height of the walls, the aspiring form of the pointed arches, and the size of the east window, which closes the perspective, the first impressions are those of grandeur and sublimity. But as these emotions subside, and we descend from the contemplation of the whole to the examination of the parts, we are no less struck with the regularity of the plan, the lightness of the architecture, and the delicacy of the ornaments; we feel that elegance is its characteristic no less than grandeur, and that the whole is a combination of the beautiful and the sublime. ”

“ On reaching Ross, after emerging from the tumult, or sublimity, of the lower passage, he will gaze with delight on one of the most quietly beautiful landscapes in England—whose smooth green eminences, gentle groves, orchards and hop plantations (the latter far finer objects than the vineyards of the continent) , white cottages, villages, and village spires, give an endless and yet simple variety to the picture. After passing Hereford, in quest of new excitement, the scene-hunter will pronounce a similar character of landscape tame. ”

“ But it may be, that the romance of its rocks and woods impending over the current, and the deep stillness of the scene, broken only by the rippling sound of its flow, may harmonize too closely with the holy solitude we have left. Our sensations are uninterrupted; we carry with us the ruins and their associations; the mouldering abbey glides upon the stream before us; and the recesses of the rocks, and deep paths of the woods, are peopled with the spectres of the monastery. ”

“ But the Coldwell rocks want no associations of the kind: they are fragments of the temples of nature, and have nothing to do with the history of man. To our judgment, the shadowy hollows scooped out of the sides of the precipices, and overhung by foliage, which are nothing more than the sites of lime kilns, are more advantageous to the picture than the finest ruins imaginable. They come in without pretence; they make no effort at rivalry; but present the idea of human nature in an attitude of befitting humility and simplicity. ”

“ But, as if aware of the disadvantage even of a sublime uniformity, nature has spread upon the opposite side a scene incomparable for richness and variety. A bright green sward, broken into narrow patches, swells upwards from the water’s edge, till it is lost in acclivities mantled with woods; and rising from the ridge of these, a mass of perpendicular rock towers aloft to the height, as it is computed, of eight hundred feet, overhung with shaggy thickets.
We now turn the peninsula of Lancaut, which comes sloping down from Tiddenham Chase, till it terminates in fertile meadows ”

“ A level country lies a few hundred feet below us, and extends in front, and on either side, till it is lost in the distance, or bound in by low and filmy hills which just mark the horizon with their waving line of shadow. This expanse is studded with towns, and villages, and seats, and cottages, and square towers, and tapering spires, rising amidst woods and groves, and surrounded by green fields and meadows. A great part of the peculiar character of the landscape is due to the enclosures of various kinds of foliage which separate one field from another. ”

“ Near this spot, the great Druid of the Wye, the poet of nature internal and external, produced a poem which in all probability will be read, either with tears or smiles of delight, long after the works of man shall have completely obliterated those features of the grand, the beautiful, the simple, and sublime, to which it is our humble task to point the finger. ”

“ Near the top a pointed fragment of solitary rock, rising above the rest, has rather a fantastic appearance—but it is not without its effect in marking the scene . . . On the right side of the river, the bank forms a woody amphitheatre, following the course of the stream round the promontory. Its lower skirts are adorned with a hamlet, in the midst of which volumes of thick smoke, thrown up at intervals from an iron forge, as its fires receive fresh fuel, add double grandeur to the scene. ”

“ The admirable taste so unequivocally displayed by the monks of old, in the selection of sites for their ascetic retreats, could not have overlooked this characteristic of the Wye; and accordingly we find, in the most beautiful of these delightful nooks, standing on a gently swelling meadow, by the banks of the lake-like river, the finest conventual ruins in England. ”

“ Leaving Hay, the valley widens, the background softens, and the whole scene assumes the character of an English vale, where the hills on each side are cultivated to the summit. On the right, as we proceed, a deep umbrageous wood comes in to give effect, just where effect was wanting; and, surmounting a conical eminence above the road, near the second milestone, the hoary ruins of Clifford Castle intermix with the monotony of modern life the associations of the olden time. ”

“ But their dizzy heights and abrupt precipices are softened by the woods which form a no less conspicuous feature in the romantic scenery; they are not meagre plantations placed by art, but a tract of forests scattered by the hand of nature. ”

“ Monmouth, as the half-way station between Ross and Chepstow for the tourists of the Wye, usually claims a large portion of their attention; and, independently of its historical associations, the delightful walks in the neighbourhood abundantly repay it. The views from numerous points are very beautiful; and one more especially, independently of the nearer parts of the picture, commands on all sides an expanse of country which seems absolutely unlimited. ”

“ We do not say that it affords the accommodation of a city on the top of a Welsh mountain, but yet to the traveller who has seen more of the world than the plains of England, it will make a very desirable resting-place. Such traveller, on dismounting from the Aberystwith mail, will be right glad to sit down by a clean and bright fire-side, and if the turf should not be lighted in the parlour, he will be proud of the privilege of the kitchen. ”

“ Nature has added her ornaments to the decorations of art; some of the windows are wholly obscured, others partially shaded with tufts of ivy, or edged with lighter foliage; the tendrils creep along the walls, wind round the pillars, wreath the capitals, or, hanging down in clusters, obscure the space beneath. ”

“ A scene at the New Weir on the Wye, which in itself is truly great and awful, so far from being disturbed, becomes more interesting and important by the business to which it is destined. It is a chasm between two high ranges of hills, that rise almost perpendicularly from the water: the rocks on the sides are mostly heavy masses, and their colour is generally brown; but here and there a pale craggy shape starts up to a vast height above the rest, unconnected, broken, and bare: large trees frequently force out their way amongst them ”

“ The traces of a Roman camp on Woldbury Hill, and on Eaton Hill those of an ancient fortification, forming a link in the chain of defences which formerly ran along this part of the country, may be inspected with advantage by the pedestrian who is read in antiquarian lore; but to others there will appear nothing which should detain their steps before the little town of Ross. Here commences the tour of the lower Wye—of that part of the river which is known to fame as the Wye. As for the town itself, it is neat and prim-looking, sitting quietly upon an eminence above the river. ”

“ The great hall was sixty-five feet long and twenty-eight broad, and appears to have been a magnificent apartment of the time of Edward I., as its windows indicate. The fire-place is still distinguishable in the great kitchen. Communicating with the hall is a smaller room, from which a passage led into another room of state, fifty-five feet by twenty; and this opened into the ladies’ tower, standing upon the brow of a lofty precipice, and commanding a delightful view over the country. ”

“ Gilpin, “a grand view presented itself, and we rested on our oars to examine it. A reach of the river, forming a noble bay, is spread before the eye. The bank on the right is steep, and covered with wood, beyond which a bold promontory shoots out, crowned with a castle rising among trees. This view, which is one of the grandest on the river, I should not scruple to call correctly picturesque.”
Near the spot where Mr. Gilpin must have been is the ferry where Henry IV., who was waiting to be taken across, received intelligence of his queen’s being delivered of a prince at Monmouth Castle. ”

“ The eye passes rapidly along a range of elegant gothic pillars, and, glancing under the sublime arches which supported the tower, fixes itself on the splendid relics of the eastern window, the grand termination of the choir. ”

“ The country seats of the great land proprietors, with their accompaniments of lawn and plantation, extending as far as the eye can reach, form a part of the picture; and so do the cottages of the village peasantry, with their little gardens before the door, admitting a peep into the interior of the humble abode. In the aristocratical dwellings, half hidden in that paradise of groves and glades, we find every refinement that gold can purchase, or taste produce: in the huts, comfort, and its inseparable adjunct cleanliness, are the most striking characteristics. ”

“ We do not leave the Wye unexplored, and go abroad in search of some other river of its own identical character. p. 2What we gaze at in strange lands is not wood, and water, and rock, but all these seen through a new medium—accompanied by adjuncts which array universal nature herself in a foreign costume. A tree peculiar to the country—a peasant in an un-English garb—a cottage of unaccustomed form—the slightest peculiarity in national manners—even the traces of a different system of agriculture—all contribute to the impression of novelty in which consists the excitement of foreign travel. ”

“ The banks for the most part rise abruptly from the edge of the water, and are clothed with forests, or are broken into cliffs. In some places they approach so near that the river occupies the whole intermediate space, and nothing is seen but woods, rocks, and water; in others, they alternately recede, and the eye catches an occasional glimpse of hamlets, ruins, and detached buildings, partly seated on the margin of the stream, and partly scattered on the rising grounds. ”

“ The town itself has a good deal of character. It is decidedly a Welsh town; and notwithstanding the commingling that must have taken place in the races, it possesses that foreign aspect which is so exciting to the curiosity.
This appearance, however, is still more evident in the next place at which we arrive, Builth; but the traveller must not be in a hurry to get there. The valley of the Wye, during the fourteen miles which intervene, presents a continuous series of picturesque views, sufficient of themselves to make the reputation of the river. ”

“ It is not our intention to notice any of the numerous seats and mansions with which this delightful region abounds; but, leaving the tourist to make such easy discoveries for himself, we would hint to him that, while at Monmouth, he has an opportunity, without great expense of time or labour, of making himself acquainted with many interesting objects which ought to be considered as adjuncts of the tour of the Wye. ”

“ The stream rushes down a precipitous descent of seventy feet, into a hollow with craggy and unequal sides. The spot of the cascade is marked by an insulated rock, eighteen or twenty feet high, standing erect above it like a monument.
After passing the village of Penybont, the Llanbadarn Vawr, or great church of Badarn, is to the left of the road, an edifice which dates from the time of the Conqueror; and nothing else of interest is observable till we reach Rhaiadyr, on the Banks of the Wye. ”

“ Gilpin describes Tintern Abbey as occupying “a great eminence, in the middle of a circular valley;” and another author declares its site, somewhat tautologically, to be a flat plain; to which some idle person has taken the liberty of appending this marginal note, in the copy of the work in the British Museum—“Flat plain indeed! It is situated just at the brow of a richly wooded hill!” The truth is, that the ruin itself is not to be entirely depended upon, as it contrives to assume a different appearance even in respect of position, at every turn. ”