Wilson Armistead

“ For Matilda, she regularly went to the Abbey to visit the spot where she last saw him; and there she would stand for hours, with her hands clasped on her breast, gazing on that heaven which alone had been witness to their mutual vows. Indeed, I think this would make a picture almost equal to the other. How fine a contrast would the light and fairy form of Matilda make with the broken fragments of the ruined Abbey; it would give a life and effect to the picture which you have no conception of. ”

“ The stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
If every English churchyard were like ours;
Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth:
We have no need of names and epitaphs;
We talk about the dead by our firesides.
And then for our immortal part! we want
No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale:
The thought of death sits easy on the man
Who has been born and dies among the mountains.
LEONARD.
Your dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts
Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these graves?
PRIEST. ”

“ Will had roused Sir Ferdinand's vengeance, without giving the least hint that he suspected such a thing.
"Shall I!" exclaimed Sir Ferdinand, as soon as Will had retired, "Shall I be made a fool of by a carpenter's son? Shall such a wretch as that presume to be my rival in the affections of the loveliest maid in Cumberland? Curse the idea! He shall be taught to know his duty better. No, I scorn to apply to Sir Allan. I will be my own avenger. Were he removed I should be at peace. That will do. He dies!" ”

“ ASSOCIATIONS OF CARLISLE.
NO one versed in ballad lore—no reader of old poetry and romance, can approach Carlisle for the first time without pleasurable emotion. Carlisle is the border city—the city of King Arthur and his knights. It has been the scene of many a stout siege and bloody feud; of many a fierce foray, and mournful execution, and of many a just punishment upon traitors and reivers. It is, consequently, not to be pictured to the imagination without unusual interest. ”

“ Wicked man could ne'er atone
For his sins and crimes alone,
A purer victim must be found
To wash the stain away."
The bards stopped short, and raised their hands with astonishment—the crowd shrieked out with fear—and all the rites were suspended; for at that moment a flood of water burst out from the fissures of the rock on every side, and came rolling down the dell like a river. The wicket hurdle in which Ella was confined was instantly surrounded by the flood—the fire was quenched, and she came out unhurt. ”

“ Her heart was cold, and no human power could warm it. The noisy mirth of the hall she could hear unmoved; the mazy intricacies of the festive dance could not reanimate her; the glowing beauties of the summer landscape were gloomy and dull as December. She resolved to seclude herself from the giddy world, and brood over her own sorrows in a nunnery. She therefore retired to the Benedictine Convent of Maiden Castle—the ruins of which are still visible behind higher end of Soulby Fell; where she passed her few remaining days in piety and silent solitude. ”

“ The sides of the hoary mountains were clad with spectators, and the glassy surface of the lake was variegated with numbers of pleasure barges, which, trimmed out in all the gayest colours, and glittering in the rays of the meridian sun, gave a new appearance to the celebrated beauties of this matchless vale. The contending boats passed Pocklington's Island, and rounding St. Herbert's Isle and Rampsholme, edged down by the outside of Lord's Island, describing, in the race, almost a perfect circle, and, during the greatest part of it, in full view of the company. ”

“ Charles, with that gallantry which is a concomitant of generous minds, proposed to see the affrighted maid to her father's dwelling. Maria was a girl whom Charles had known from her infancy; he had played with her at school, but he never before observed that she possessed anything superior to the other girls of the dale. But this evening, as she hung on his arm and thanked him with such a pair of soft blue eyes so kindly—as the colour varied so often on her cheek—and her bosom throbbed so agitatedly, he discovered that Maria possessed more charms than all the valley beside. ”

“ Against the truce of Border tide?
And forgotten that the bold Buccleugh
Is keeper here on the Scottish side?
"And have they taken him, Kinmont Willie,
Withouten either dread or fear,
And forgotten that the bold Buccleugh,
Can back a steed and shake a spear?
"O were there war between the lands,
As well as I wot that there is none,
I would slight Carlisle Castell high,
Though it were builded of marble stone.
"I would set that Castell in a low,
And sloken it with English blood,
There's never a man in Cumberland
Should tell where Carlisle Castell stood. ”

“ Nine miles from Keswick, by the nearest route, lies the lake of Buttermere. Its margin, which is overhung by some of the loftiest and steepest of Cumbrian mountains, exhibits on either side few traces of human neighbourhood; the level area, where the hills recede enough to allow of any, is of a wild, pastoral character, or almost savage; the waters of the lake are deep and sullen; and the barrier mountains, by excluding the sun for much of its daily course, strengthen the gloomy impressions. ”

“ The festoons of flowers waving from the Maypole, and the garlands of the damsels, all gently agitated by a slight breeze, gave a gracefulness to the scene which no language can describe. It seemed as if the exhilarating breath of [Pg 16] spring gave elasticity to the youthful limb, and a higher zest to the spirits, as the lively music gave emotion to the nimble feet of the light-footed dancers.
At the first pause in the dance every eye was attracted towards a most heavenly maiden, attired in the simple garb of a Cumberland shepherdess. ”

“ So apparent, indeed, was his happiness, that it was soon rumoured even of Charles Manson, that, having become a convert to his opinions, and being convinced that domestic life is the surest source of present happiness, and a genial nursery of those qualities which fit us for future felicity, had taken more than one trip among the green hills of Westmorland, in quest of a companion for life. ”

“ Am I, alone, of all my race doomed to drag on a long and weary life, a solitary, friendless creature? I have formed my notions of excellence at an elevation to which human nature does not attain; I will banish these vain ideas; lower my scale of excellence, as to the external and less important parts of personal character, and return into the world, determined to be pleased, to imitate the example of my fellowmen, and, like them, to be happy. ”

“ No part of the world possesses so many charms for the contemplative mind as the admirable scenery of our English Lake District. None can furnish so wide a field for the excursions of a playful imagination, as those peaceful glens which are formed by the fantastic sweeps of our northern mountains. ”

“ It has been truly said the spirit of romance is departing from the land in which we dwell. Our forests are felled where the freebooters of former days flourished—the fish are chased from our lakes by steamboats—the hills of heath, where the deer roved, are enclosed, and ploughed and harrowed over periodically—the green slopes and dusky dells, where nobles chased the roe, and the sunny glades of the forest into which they emerged, with gallant trains and bridles ringing, and their hunting gear glittering in the glorious sunlight of the olden time—all these are gone ”

“ It was midsummer: the fashionable part of the community had left London for their seats in the country, and Edward, tired of its suffocating heat, its forsaken squares, and desolate streets, resolved also to leave it, and revisit, for the first time since his boyhood, the beautiful scenery of his native Westmorland.
He took the coach to Kendal, and there left it; preferring to proceed on foot, as allowing him greater liberty in choosing his route, and in diverging from the high roads when interest or curiosity might prompt him to wander. ”

“ If she did no evil, she did little good. The course of her life was one dead level, without rise and without depression. She acted so as to save appearances with the world; but her heart was a stranger to every generous impulse, her hand was seldom stretched out in active benevolence, and her mind was ignorant of the practical operation of religion and piety. He looked to marriage for a stimulus to renewed exertion, but he could expect no aid from one so listless and apathetic.
"Most exact of men!" exclaimed Charles, "thy conduct is a perfect anomaly. ”

“ We feel, and are thankful for the blessings and comforts which the improved arts of the age impart to us; we exult in the progress of science throughout the land; we can even look with complacency upon a railroad, though it intersect, with its prosaic line, the woodlands where we first felt the poetry of life—though the very hawthorn, beneath which we breathed our vows of eternal fidelity to her who now lies nightly in our bosom, has been rooted up to prepare a path for it. ”

“ One evening about this time, as Charles was returning from an accustomed ramble, where he had been enjoying a view of the mist slowly gathering among the mountain heads to the north, he was aroused from his reverie by a shrill scream; a young female had been pursuing a footpath over the adjoining field, and was at that instant closely followed by a neighbour's bull. Charles, with the speed of lightning, was at the girl's side; and, with a presence of mind oftener found in boys than men, he snatched the umbrella out of her hand, and unfurled it in the enraged animal's face. ”

“ A LEGEND.
NEAR to the bridge which crosses the Lune, not far from Kirkby Lonsdale, the scenery is truly romantic. The river, which is here of considerable width, winds through the bottom of the valley, and is overshadowed by the trees that grow upon its banks. Its current is roughened by the rocks which form its bed, some of which stand up in huge moss-grown blocks in the midst of the stream. The water is clear to a great depth, and the steep grassy banks, and abundance of trees which close in the prospect, give it an air of seclusion. ”

“ While Emma was thus meditating on the happiness which she would soon feel in her mother's arms, Sam came up and commanded her to deliver up her money; she entreated him to leave her a little for a present to her mother, but the human fiend (and human fiends are the worst fiends) , refused to leave her a farthing. He had secured the booty, and Emma was preparing to pursue her journey, when the horrid thought entered his head, that unless he added murder to his robbery, he would be liable to punishment for his crime. ”

“ The passion for solitude and a recluse life which reigned in the days of this saint, and was cherished by the monastic school, at first sight may appear to us uncouth and enthusiastic; yet when we examine into those times, our astonishment will cease, if we consider the estate of those men, who, under all the prejudices of education, were living in an age of ignorance, vassalage, and rapine; and we shall rather applaud than condemn a devotee, who, disgusted with the world and the sins of men, consigns his life to the service of the Deity in retirement. ”

“ While other boys were ranging through the woods in pursuit of bird-nests, Charles would stretch himself on a smooth-faced rock, and pore on the adjacent landscape like one half crazed. To retire into a lonely wood behind his father's house, and teach a little brook, which ran through it, to take a thousand fantastic forms, was to Charles the sweetest recreation he could enjoy. The perpetual wings of time had now spread fifteen or [Pg 32] sixteen winters over the vale of Kentmere, since the stone rolled into Hawes Water, and Charles was grown a tall and graceful boy. ”

“ The devoted pair were swept down the stream, at a rate that made the spectators put their horses to a gallop to keep them in sight, even while the exertions of the brave falconer sufficed to sustain their heads above water, which was only till they came under the bridge, where the water, pent in by the narrow arch, acquired four-fold force, and there they heard him utter a hoarse cry of despair, and the gallant Hawksley and the Lady Eva's beauteous favourite were seen no more, till their bodies were found, days after, on the shore far down the lake. ”

“ Elizabeth was "a butterfly:"—a giddy, thoughtless child of nature, content with the powers which nature had bestowed, and regardless of cultivating and improving them; enjoying the present, as though it comprised the whole period of her existence, and as if there would be no future which called for preparation. An imprudent woman was unsuitable for a wife.
Emma was "an egotist." All her regard seemed to be spent upon her own person. ”

“ True, it may appear to be richer in scenery than in legend, and in poetry than romance; but, the fact is, its legends and romance have been neglected. The district is highly suggestive of both, but it has had no Sir Walter Scott to make the most of them. A part of the land so famous [Pg vii] for beauty and for song, independent of its Border proximity, is one peculiarly favourable to the lovers of old legends; its atmosphere is one in which fancy most delights to soar and to hover, and it contains a mine of materials for romance yet almost untouched. ”

“ Whether we contemplate the sublime grandeur of its mountains, or listen to the melodious murmurs of the distant waterfalls, or meditate along the margins of its woodland streams in the evening's calm, we must be enchanted with the scene, and feel fully prepared to exclaim with the poet:—
"Lives there a man with soul so dead,
As never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!"
The Lake District has long been regarded as the romantic "classic ground" of England. ”

“ Our correspondent says he would be happy if he could here conclude his narrative, as Sir Walter Scott does, with a happy marriage; for however delightful the transition from sorrow to joy may be, the reverse, even in description, has no charms. But poor Charles was doomed to be hurled from the height of his felicity to the lowest depths of despair. The joyful promise had scarcely escaped the lovely lips of Maria, and while her lover was yet giddy with his joy, when the amiable maid was attacked by a severe illness, which baffled all the doctor's skill. ”