CHAPTER IV

TRAVELS

It is impossible to do more here than merely to sketch the possibilities in a “History of the Tour and the Guide Book,” because the mass of material to be gone over is so great. Pinkerton’s “Catalogue of Voyages and Travels,” published in 1814, gives over 4,500 books. It is so elaborately tabulated that it is not easy to use, but it is possible to cull from its voluminous pages a fairly compendious list of such travels as were published in England in the eighteenth century. In this list there are about 360 books. Of these 360 books all but 84 are travels outside of Great Britain and Ireland. Their distribution through the century indicates a steady growth of interest in foreign lands, for nearly half of the English accounts of travels in other countries belong in the last quarter of the century. But these foreign tours, however interesting in themselves, are outside the present field of inquiry. They were undertaken usually with some definite purpose. Antiquities, curiosities, minerals; laws, manners, customs; utilitarian possibilities--these were the leading subjects of inquiry. In the titles such phrases as, “relating chiefly to the history, antiquities, and geography;” “remarks on Characters and Manners;” “chiefly relative to the knowledge of mankind, industry, literature, and natural history;” “with an account of the most memorable sieges;” “containing a great variety of geographical, topographical and political observations;” “containing specially a description of fortified towns;” “containing a Picture of the Country, the Manners, and the Actual Government,” are of constant recurrence and serve to mark out the general scope of these works. There are, to be sure, in these books, many scattered descriptions of the natural scenes visited. This is especially true of the “Travels” in the last quarter of the century. But to study these descriptions, even superficially, would be too wide a work for the present limits. Furthermore, the accounts of the tours made in the United Kingdom will doubtless reveal the characteristics of the observations made in foreign lands.

One of the early books of English travel in the eighteenth century is Mr. Martin’s “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland” (1703). It is this book that stirred Dr. Johnson to make his visit to the Hebrides, and it is from this that Mallet drew the details for his “Amyntor and Theodora.” In the Preface Martin says:

Perhaps it is peculiar to those isles, that they have never been described till now by any man that was a native of the country, or had traveled them.... Descriptions of countries, without the natural histories of them, are now justly reckoned to be defective. This I had a particular regard to in the following descriptions, and have everywhere taken notice of the nature of the climate and soil, and of the remarkable cures performed by the natives merely by the use of simples.

This preliminary promise of first-hand observation, especially so far as Nature is concerned, is hardly carried out. The book is a credulous, entertaining, unsifted narrative of whatever marvels came to his ears. His interest rested chiefly on strange cures made by the use of “simples.” The “Description” has the negative importance of entirely ignoring Nature. In its 120 pages there is not a word or phrase in recognition of the wild and beautiful scenery in these islands.

The same distinction holds of Brand’s “Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth, and Caithness” (1701). Brand was one of a commission sent by the General Assembly to inquire into religious matters in the northern islands, so it is not strange that he bestows much attention on heathenish and popish rites, charms, and superstitions. He is also much interested in the prevailing diseases and the means of cure employed by the natives, and he says much of their customs, manners, and personal appearance. He describes the crops, the climate, the favorite articles of food, but his eyes are holden to the charms of scenery.

In 1715 appeared Alexander Pennecuik’s “Description of Tweeddale.” He was a physician and for thirty years his employment had obliged him to know and observe every corner of Tweeddale. He found great pleasure in “herbalizing shady groves and mountains,” and the chief value of his work is accordingly in its numerous botanical observations. Not a stray sentence indicates pleasure in the beauty of the Lowland mountains.

Except for the work of Brand, Martin, and Pennecuik, the first half of the century shows but a meager list of travels. Besides eight “Tours” published anonymously, Pinkerton records only Gordon’s “Itinerarium Septentrionale” (in Scotland and Northern England) in 1726, and Macky’s “Journey through England” in 1732. In 1762 appeared Hamilton’s “Letters from Antrim,” the chief subject of which was announced to be “the Natural History of the Basaltes.” Mr. Hamilton spoke occasionally of the beautiful and picturesque appearance of the Irish coast, but he professed himself an advocate of Mr. Locke’s system of a dictionary of pictures in preference to a dictionary of tedious descriptions. From 1764 to 1769 Mr. Bushe added his contribution to Irish “Travels,” the objects dwelt upon in his “Hibernia Curiosa” being “Manners, observations on the state of Trade and Agriculture, and Natural Curiosities.”

Much of the work in “Travels” or “Tours” in the eighteenth century is thrown into the form of familiar letters. By far the most important of these tourists’ letters from the present point of view is Dr. Brown’s description of Keswick in a letter to Lyttleton. This letter was printed at Newcastle in 1767 but it was written at least a year earlier for Dr. Brown died in 1766. Even this date puts it with “John Buncle” and Dr. Dalton’s “Descriptive Poem” as being one of the three earliest descriptions of the Lake Region.[532] Since it is so little known some unusually long extracts from it may be of value:

But at Keswick, you will on one side of the lake, see a rich and beautiful landskip of cultivated fields.... On the opposite shore you will find rocks and cliffs of stupendous height, hanging broken over the lake in horrible grandeur, some of them a thousand feet high; the woods climb up their steep and shaggy sides, where mortal foot never yet approached: on these dreadful heights the eagles build their nests; a variety of waterfalls are seen pouring from their summits and tumbling from rock to rock, in rude and terrible magnificence, while on all sides of this immense amphitheatre the lofty mountains rise around, piercing the clouds in shapes as spiry and fantastic as the very rocks of Dovedale. To this I must add the frequent and bold projection of the cliffs into the lake, forming noble bays and promontories; in other parts they finely retire from it and often open in abrupt chasms or clefts, through which at hand you see rich and uncultivated vales, and, beyond these, at various distance, mountain rising over mountain, among which, new prospects present themselves in mist, till the eye is lost in an agreeable perplexity,

Where active fancy travels beyond sense And pictures things unseen.

Were I to analyze the two places in their constituent principles, I should tell you that the full perfection of Keswick consists of three circumstances, beauty, horror, and immensity united....

So much for what I would call the permanent beauties of this astonishing scene. Were I not afraid of being tiresome I could now dwell as long on its varying or accidental beauties.... Sometimes a serene air and clear sky disclose the tops of the highest hills; at others, you see the clouds involving their summits, resting on their sides or descending to their base, and rolling among the valleys, as in a vast furnace; when the winds are high, they roar among the cliffs and caverns like peals of thunder; then too the clouds are seen in vast bodies sweeping along the hills in gloomy greatness, while the lake joins the tumult and tosses like a sea; but in calm weather the whole scene becomes new; the lake is a perfect mirror and the landscape in all its beauty, islands, fields, woods, rocks and mountains, are seen inverted and floating on its surface. I will now carry you to the top of a cliff, where, if you dare approach the ridge, a new scene of astonishment presents itself; where the valley, lake and islands are seen lying at your feet; where this expanse of water appears diminished to a little pool amidst the vast and immeasurable objects that surround it; for here the summits of more distant hills appear beyond those you have already seen; and rising behind each other in successive ranges and azure groups of craggy and broken steeps, form an immense and awful picture, which can only be expressed by the image of a tempestuous sea of mountains. Let me now conduct you down again to the valley and conclude with one circumstance more, which is, that a walk by still moonlight (at which time the distant waterfalls are heard in all their variety of sound) among these enchanting dales, opens such scenes of delicate beauty, repose and solemnity as exceed all description.

Mr. Gilpin knew Dr. Brown’s “Letter,” for in his Cumberland “Tour” (1772) he justified his own preference for Keswick by saying that this region had also been singled out by Dr. Brown, “who was a man of taste and had seen every part of this country.” Mr. Hutchinson quoted the whole of the “Letter.” Mr. West went to Keswick with the “Letter” in hand, trembling with eagerness to experience the joys it depicted. Certainly this “Letter from Keswick” in the delight with which it dwells on the wild and terrible elements of Nature, in its detailed observation, in its artistic appreciation of the accidental effects of atmospheric conditions, and in its sensitiveness to the spirit of the place, comes very close to the modern enthusiasm for mountains. The details are sometimes exaggerated and the author’s rapture may seem over-stated, but the genuineness of his feeling, and the reality of his knowledge of mountains and lake, must remain unquestioned. The “Letter” is one of the first, and the most considerable of the early contributions to the literature of the Lakes.

The great period of English travels began in 1767 with Arthur Young’s “Six Weeks’ Tour in the Southern Counties of England and Wales.” In 1768 (June to November) he wrote his “Six Months’ Tour in the North of England.” His next important work, “A Farmer’s Tour through the East of England,” was published in 1771. His “Tour in Ireland” appeared in 1779. The professed design of these sketches was husbandry. Agriculture, industry, population, farming experiments, prices, laws--these were the topics on which he wished to inform himself and others. He had apparently, in his original plan, no thought of describing the country through which he passed. There is in this respect a significant difference between the books of 1767–68 and that of 1779. In the first two he kept the text rigorously free from all weakening admixture of landscape, the enthusiastic descriptions of scenery appearing as footnotes. In the last, the descriptions are boldly incorporated into the text, and form, what is more, a surprisingly large proportion of it. In 1767–68 he described such places as he happened to pass near. In 1779 he followed up one river and down another professedly in search of “wild and romantic landscapes.” In general character, however, the descriptions do not greatly vary in the three books. The most numerous descriptions are of gentlemen’s estates, perhaps in courteous repayment of hospitalities received. These accounts are always detailed and often tedious. Young apparently went about with the polite owner, sat in his seats, looked down his vistas, observed his temples, and took notes thereon. Our chief interest in these passages is the testimony they bear to Young’s own preference for estates where art had done the least and Nature most. “The owner has had the good judgment merely to assist nature,” or “merely to render natural beauties accessible” are characteristic words of praise. The best descriptions are not, however, of estates, but of grand natural scenes. It is views from Persfeld on the Why (Wye);[533] the wild country along the Tees; the English Lakes; the waterfalls and wild glens near Powerscourt; the mountains and lakes of Killarney, that really stir him. Such spots he describes with an enthusiasm that never flags. He is tediously minute. He cannot let a detail escape. And through all there is an eager, overflowing delight, a rapturous pleasure in wild scenery such as we find in no traveler before Young except Brown. He broods over a fine landscape. He is unwilling to lose one of its possible charms. At Derwentwater he rows all around the lake, around each island, stops to hunt up unseen waterfalls, climbs all crags that promise fine views. He is indefatigable. No peril stops him. He wonders why the people of Keswick do not at once cut paths to the fine views so that no one need miss them. As he climbs Skiddaw he laughs with scorn as he mentally compares “the effects of a Louis’ magnificence to the play of nature in the vale of Keswick.” His exclamation, “How trifling the labors of art to the mere sport of nature!” certainly marks a rebound from conventional standards. The view of “Winandermere” from the heights on the eastern shore is, he thinks, “the most superlative view that nature can exhibit” or, if not, she is “more fertile in beauties” than his imagination can conceive. “To ride the eighteen miles from Bernard Castle to the falls of the Tees one could well afford,” he says, “a journey of a thousand miles.” He rides out to Haws Water. He makes a close study of Hulls Water. The whole region holds him with a fascination nowhere repeated till he finds himself, ten years later, among similar wild scenes in Ireland. Here, almost forgetting that he is a scientific farmer in search of information, he wanders along the picturesque banks of the Liffey, the Boyne, the Nore, the Boyle, visits Lake Ennel, Loch Earne, the lakes of Killarney, and writes descriptions in the manner of the most voluminous and ardent of modern sightseers. Young’s significance in this study rests not so much on any artistic excellence of expression as on his wide observation, his personal enthusiasm for Nature, and his early date.

The next traveler of importance was Thomas Gray. The openness of Gray’s mind to pleasure from the external world is hardly at all indicated in his poetry. In his prose we find it especially in the “Journal in the Lakes” in 1769. Thirty years before this, his “Journal in France” had given some hint of his taste for wild scenery, but at that time, though he expressed great pleasure in the “magnificent rudeness” of the Alps, he had not entirely broken away from the current conceptions and the current phraseology, as is shown by the sentence: “You here meet with all the beauties so savage and horrid a place can present you with.”

Gray’s published letters extend from 1739 to 1770. Scattered through these are occasional passages indicative of a genuine love of Nature. In the midst of a humorous letter to Walpole (Sept. 1737) he speaks of “venerable beeches ... always dreaming out their old stories to the winds.” After he came back from Scotland, in 1765, he wrote to Mr. Mason:

I am returned from Scotland charmed with my expedition; it is of the Highlands I speak; the Lowlands are worth seeing once, but the mountains are ecstatic, and ought to be visited in pilgrimage once a year. None but these monstrous creatures of God know how to join so much beauty with so much horror. A fig for your poets, painters, gardeners, and clergymen, that have not been up among them; their imagination can be made up of nothing but bowling-greens, flowering shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet ditches, shell-grottoes, and Chinese rails.

So early as 1739 he expressed his dislike of formal gardens in his sarcastic description of the grounds at Versailles. The same feeling of irritation at the preponderance of art over Nature recurs in his description of Warwick in 1754. That even the most natural garden did not satisfy Gray as did wild Nature we see from Mason’s lines written just after the death of Gray. He evidently had not approved of “The Garden” as a subject for a poem and Mason represents him as saying:

“Why waste thy numbers on a trivial art, That ill can mimic e’en the humblest charms Of all-majestic Nature?” At the words His eye would glisten, and his accents glow With all the poet’s frenzy. “Sovereign Queen! Behold, and tremble, while thou view’st her state Throned on the heights of Skiddaw; call thy art To build her such a throne; that art will feel How vain her best pretensions. Trace her march Amid the purple crags of Borrowdale,” etc.

In general, however, the testimony of the letters is to a scientific rather than a poetic love of Nature. There are many exact records of the weather, of the coming crops, of the blossoming of flowers. A single example may serve as typical. It is a record of observations made at Stoke Pogis in July, 1754.

Barley was in ear on the first day; gray and white peas in bloom. The bean flowers were going off. Duke-cherries in plenty on the 5th; hearts were also ripe. Green melons on the 6th, but watry and not sweet. Currants began to ripen on the 8th, and red gooseberries had changed color.

And so on with nearly a hundred more of the tabulated natural facts.

Of Gray as a traveler Sir James Mackintosh is quoted by Mitford as saying: “Gray was the _first_ discoverer of the natural beauties in England, and has marked out the course of every picturesque journey that can be made in it.”

The dogmatic absoluteness of such a statement is its own ruin. We have already seen that Gray had at least three predecessors, Dalton, Amory, and Brown, in his recognition of the beauty of the Lake Region, and many a new tour was sought out by later lovers of the picturesque. But Gray’s “Journal in the Lakes,” though not first, is certainly most important. Both in feeling and in spontaneity and adequacy of expression it shows a marked advance on his preceding work, and as literature it is distinctly in advance of what others had done.

The whole of this famous tour occupied but three weeks, and the trip in the Lakes but ten days. Gray was by no means so unwearied in sight-seeing as Young. He was “not fond of dirt,” and he was fastidious about roads and inns. He did not go on an eager search for views. He did not climb Skiddaw, and he passed by Orrest-Head. He saw what he could see comfortably. His descriptions are quiet and controlled. They have none of the “dizzy raptures” of Brown and Young. There is no straining after epithets, no struggle to find expression adequate to the emotion. The following brief quotations may serve to indicate his style:

The shining purity of the lake, just ruffled by the breeze, enough to show it is alive.

The lake majestic in its calmness.

Little shining torrents hurry down the rocks.

The grass was covered with a hoar frost, which soon melted, and exhaled in a thin blueish smoke.

In the evening walked alone down to the lake after sunset and saw the solemn colouring of night draw on, the last gleam of sunshine fading away on the hill-tops, the deep serene of the waters and the long shadows of the mountains thrown across them.

At distance heard the murmur of many waterfalls not audible in the day-time. Wished for the moon, but she was _dark to me and silent, hid in her vacant interlunar cave_.

The charm of Gray’s descriptions lies in a certain bare perfection of phrase, in his direct, unadorned statement of beautiful facts. His words have a vital, penetrating quality, while his sense of form, his artistic reticence, keep his enthusiasm free from exclamatory extravagances.

Thomas Pennant’s first tour in Scotland was made in 1769. The notes taken on this tour were put into shape and published in 1771. Dissatisfied with the result, he went again in 1772, and his “Second Tour in Scotland and the Hebrides” appeared in 1776. In the first tour his professed object was the study of zoölogy. In the second he was assisted by two friends, one trained in botany, and the other well up in Scotch customs and legends. But Pennant’s interest was not confined to zoölogy and botany, to manners and customs. His curiosity was omnivorous and insatiable. Everything was fish that came to his net, and his industry in note-taking was prodigious. The two journeys occupied six months, and the record of what he saw and heard filled 570 folio pages.

In this mass of observations not more than ten pages, all told, have anything to do with the scenery through which he passed. Such descriptive passages as do occur are usually of torrents, rapid, rocky rivers, or the shores of lakes. The best of these are of the banks of the Nith, the falls of CoryLin in the Clyde, the Cascades at Moness, which he calls “an epitome of everything that can be admired in the curiosity of waterfalls,” the falls and streams near Loch Maree, Aysgarth Force in the Ure, the little lake of Barrisdale on the Inverness coast, Coniston, and Derwentwater. He prides himself on being one of the first to describe Coniston.

The scenery about this lake, which is scarcely mentioned, is extremely noble. The east and west sides are bounded by high hills often wooded; but in general composed of grey rock, and coarse vegetation; much juniper creeps along the surface; and some beautiful hollies are finely intermixed. At the northwestern extremity the vast mountains called Coniston fells form a magnificent mass. In the midst is a great bosom retiring inward, which affords great quantities of fine slate.

He very often notes wide views, and he has an unfailing interest of a scientific, botanical sort in the forests through which they pass.

He never, however, notes any but the permanent details of a scene. There is not a hint that he saw the varying, evanescent, atmospheric effects, so important an element in the beauty and sublimity of mountain scenery. He does admit that the “Highlands like other beauties, have their good and bad days,” but there is nothing in his books to show that he knew them apart.

On the whole he shows a preference for a region of smooth, rich, arable land. On leaving the Highlands his comment is,

The country continually improves; the mountains sink gradually into small hills; the land is highly cultivated, well planted, and well inhabited. I was struck with rapture at a sight so long new to me. Nothing can equal the contrast between the black, barren, dreary glens of the morning ride and the soft scenes of the evening.

He dislikes the Borrowdale end of Derwentwater where “all the possible variety of Alpine scenery is exhibited, with all the horror of precipice, broken crag, or overhanging rock, or insulated pyramidal hills.” He prefers the outlook toward Skiddaw.

But the opposite or northern view is in all respects a strong and beautiful contrast; Skiddaw shows its vast base, and bounding all that part of this vale, rises gently to a height that sinks the neighboring hills; opens a pleasing front, smooth and verdant, smiling over the country like a gentle, generous lord, while the fells of Barrowdale frown upon it like a hardened tyrant. Skiddaw is covered with grass to within half a mile of the summit; after which it becomes stony.

So far as Nature is concerned, the passages cited show Pennant at his best. His descriptions are full, clear, painstaking, but unimaginative. He is as impersonal and impartial, as conscientiously exact, in taking notes on a landscape as in recording the annual haul of fish in Scotch lakes. Beautiful scenes were to him an object of intellectual curiosity. They made no artistic or emotional appeal. “The visions of the hills and the souls of lonely places” were a strain upon him. He was glad to come forth into fertile valleys and pleasant corn lands.

All this is true, and Pennant shows much less of the new spirit than Brown, Amory, Young, and Gray. But his work was done independently of theirs, and in 1769. He must have been in the Lake District a month before Gray, and he penetrated into much wilder regions of Scotland than had before been described. That his instinctive shrinking from wild scenes should have been so far overcome as it was, that he should have been often forced into admiration, is of itself proof of the strength of the new impulse.

The Rev. William Gilpin made many tours and gave full accounts of them, but the accounts were not published till years after the tours were made. His chief travels in their order are:

(1) Tour in Norfolk, Cambridge, Suffolk, and Essex (1769; account published 1809); (2) tour along the river Wye (1770; published 1782); (3) tour in Cumberland and Westmoreland (1772; published 1786); (4) tour in North Wales (1773; published 1809); (5) tour in Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent (1774; published 1804); (6) tour in the Highlands of Scotland (1776; published 1789); (7) tour in Western England (before 1778; published 1798).

Mr. Gilpin’s point of view is clearly stated in the Preface to the first of these publications. “The following little work proposes a new object of pursuit: that of examining the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty.” He hopes that no one will consider his plan unduly light and trivial for a clergyman. He is himself convinced that to study the beauty of a country is as noble, in a way as useful, as to study its agriculture.

By picturesque beauty Gilpin always means beauty that can be put into a picture. He draws pictures of mountains to show whether they have or have not a good sky-line. Some are too regular, some are grotesque, some look deformed. He seldom dwells long on wide views because they are so difficult to make interesting in a picture. The grandeur of Penmaenmawr and Snowdon hardly makes up to him for their lack of picturesqueness. Penmaenmawr “has no variety of line, but is one heavy lumpish form.” He starts up Snowdon, but finding that it is merely “a collection of mountains formed on the old gigantic plan of heaping mountain on mountain,” he does not go to the top, but contents himself with quoting Pennant’s description of the view.

Gilpin’s language is often borrowed from the art of painting. He calls the steep banks of rivers “side screens;” the changing view before him as he floats down the river is a “front screen.” He is always talking about foregrounds and backgrounds and perspective and composition. He says that Nature is great in design, an admirable colorist, and that she harmonizes tints with infinite variety and beauty. But, he adds,

she is seldom so correct in composition as to produce a harmonious whole. Either the foreground or the background is disproportioned, or some awkward line runs through the piece; or a tree is ill placed, or a bank is formal; or something or other is not as it should be.

With his sense of form Gilpin has also an unusual sensitiveness to color, and to varieties of light and shade. The following description of a sunset is typical:

The sun was now descending low, and cast the broad shades of evening athwart the landscape, while his beams, gleaming with yellow lustre through the valleys, spread over the inlightened summits of the mountains a thousand lovely tints--in sober harmony where some deep recess was faintly shadowed--in splendid hue where jutting knolls or promontories received fuller radiance of the diverging ray. The air was still. The lake, one vast expanse of crystal mirror. The mountain shadows, which sometimes give the water a deep, black hue (in many circumstances extremely picturesque) were softened here into a mild blue tint which swept over half the surface. The other half received the fair impression of every radiant form that glowed around. The inverted landscape was touched in fainter colours than the real one. Yet it was more than _laid in_. It was almost finished. What an admirable study for the pallet is such a scene as this!

“No one can paint a country properly,” he says, “unless he has seen it in various lights.” The local variations caused by the weather, the time of day, the time of year, “cannot be too much attended to by all lovers of landscape.” “Every landscape is seen best under _some peculiar_ illumination.” He has always the painter’s eye for fogs, mist, haze, soft coloring, atmosphere.

Gilpin studied Nature according to the rules of art, because, as he said, these rules were drawn from Nature. No man resented more quickly than he the transforming hand of man in natural scenes. If lands must be turned to agricultural uses, if fields must be marked off, he only wishes that it might be made as little apparent as possible. He hates “a multiplicity of glaring temples” in a landscape. He thinks most so-called adornments in private grounds are mere “expensive deformity,” and he calls regular clipped hedges “objects of deformity.” He apologizes for his severe strictures on several estates in the Cumberland region by saying that the grand natural scenes so filled his thought that he could not restrain his contempt for mere embellished, artificial ones. Such passages are an emphatic indication of the revolution in taste since the days of the formal garden. Here is a characteristic sentence written as they leave the Lakes: “Here the hills grow smooth and lumpish, and the country at every step loses some of the wild strokes of Nature and degenerates, if I may so speak, into cultivation.”

Not infrequently Gilpin turns from the painter’s study of the scene, and gives something of its poetical quality. In speaking of the appeal made by the Lake Country to the imagination he says, “No tame country, however beautiful, however adorned, can distend the mind like this awful and majestic scenery.” Of “Ulzwater” on a perfectly serene day he says, “So solemn and splendid a scene raises in the mind a sort of enthusiastic calm which spreads a mild complacence over the breast, a tranquil pause of mental operations which may be felt but not described.” And again in his “Essay on Picturesque Travel,”

We are most delighted when some grand scene, though perhaps of incorrect composition, rising before the eyes, strikes us beyond the power of thought--when the _vox faucibus haeret_ and every mental operation is suspended. In this pause of intellect, this _deliquum_ of the soul, an enthusiastic sensation of pleasure overspreads it. We rather feel than survey the scene.

These last passages inevitably recall Wordsworth’s analysis of his own emotions before a beautiful view when

Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired,

or the better-known lines in “Tintern Abbey.”

Gilpin, if we take the whole extent of his work, represents the new spirit more fully than any of the other early travelers. He notes the permanent and the evanescent. He observes color, form, and motion. The technical quality of his descriptions does not seriously interfere with the impression they give of pleasure in free, wild Nature, and he again and again shows himself capable of an imaginative communion with Nature.

In 1770 appeared “Letters from Snowdon” by Joseph Cradock. This book is the first record I have found of travels in Wales for the special purpose of enjoying the scenery. Mr. Cradock says that he had long wished to visit “The Welsh Alps, the summit of Snowdon” and he seems to find the reality even more attractive than his imagination had pictured it. The beautiful little valleys “environed by mountains that scale the heavens,” and “the infinitely extensive and variegated prospect” from the top of Snowdon enchant him. The travelers are caught in tempestuous weather but Mr. Cradock rejoices in the war of the elements and quotes Thomson’s description of a thunderstorm in Carnarvon. He particularly recommends the valley of the Dryryd to painters delighting in romantic Nature because of its picturesque wooded hills, its naked mountains, rocky rivers, foaming cataracts, transparent lakes, and ruined castles. Gilpin’s journey up Snowdon was made in the same year but even his account hardly shows the unforced, uncritical enthusiasm for wild Nature evinced by Mr. Cradock.

In 1773, Mr. Hutchinson and his brother, an accomplished draughtsman, made a tour through the Lakes. In 1774, after the death of his brother, Mr. Hutchinson went over the ground again in order to verify his brother’s incomplete sketches. The observations made in these two tours were published under the title “An Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland.” Hutchinson’s dislike of the wild and desolate region of Stainmore has already been cited, but that quotation alone would give a most unfair impression of the book as a whole. His pleasure in Nature is great. He cares especially for artistic effects of light and shade, and he often spends pages on the changing beauty of a landscape seen at sunset, or sunrise, or after a storm. A single passage may stand as illustrative of many similar ones in the book.

At the foot of this vast range of hills three smaller mounts, of an exact conic form, running parallel, beautified the scene, being covered with verdure to their crowns; the nearest, called Dufton Pike, was shadowed by a passing cloud, save only the summit of its cone, which was touched by a beam which painted it with gold; the second pike was all enlightened and gave its verdure to the prospect as if mantled with velvet; the third stood shadowed, whilst all the range of hills behind were struck with sunshine, showing their cliffs, caverns, and dells in grotesque variety and giving the three pikes a picturesque projection on the landscape.

Mr. Hutchinson had evidently read many of the books treating especially of the beauty of Nature. He quotes the whole of Dr. Brown’s “Letter” and much of Mr. Dalton’s “Poem.” He also quotes freely from Thomson’s “Seasons,” Mason’s “Garden,” and Pennant’s account of Derwentwater. Some of his most effective descriptions are of the road from Keswick to Ambleside, “the finest ride in the north of England;” of the cataract near Ambleside, probably Stock Gill Force; of the ascent of Skiddaw and of a thunderstorm seen from its summit; of Derwentwater from various points of view, and of a moonlight row upon the lake. They are too long to quote, but they all show faithful and minute observation, artistic appreciation of beauties of form and color, and, occasionally, a lively sense of the deeper significance of the places visited.

Five or six years after Mr. Hutchinson’s “Tour” there appeared an important “Guide to the Lakes,” by Mr. West. The second edition, revised and annotated by Mr. Cockin came out in 1779, and the ninth edition in 1807. A special feature of West’s “Guide” was its “Addenda” under which heading he published all the best-known descriptions of the Lakes. The chief of these were Dr. Brown’s “Letter,” portions of Dr. Dalton’s “Poem,” the whole of Gray’s “Journal,” Mr. Cumberland’s “Ode to the Sun,” selections from Relph’s “Cumberland Pastorals,” and two descriptions of tours in search of noted caves. In 1807 were added Mrs. Radcliffe’s “Ride over Skiddaw” (1794) and the Rev. James Plumptre’s “Night Piece on the Banks of Windermere.” The “Guide” itself shows much careful investigation, is written in a clear, intelligible fashion, and betrays genuine and discriminating love of Nature.

The most important English tours were made between 1768 and 1778. Pennant, Gray, Young, Gilpin, and Hutchinson made during these ten years sixteen rather extended journeys, of which they gave full accounts. Besides these we have Dr. Johnson’s “A Journey to the Hebrides” (1773; published 1775), Boswell’s “Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides” (1773; published 1786), and Bray’s “Tour into Derbyshire” (1777). In Boswell’s “Journey” there is not the slightest indication of any interest in the scenery through which they passed, and the general impression given by Boswell is that Johnson’s indifference was equal to his own. For instance, Boswell wonders at the outset if a man who has known “the felicity of London life” can fail to find any narrower existence “insipid or irksome.” He quotes Dr. Johnson as saying at Portree that he “longed to be again in civilized life.” He records his famous sayings, “By seeing London I have seen as much of life as the world can show,” and “Who _can_ like the Highlands?” This is not quite fair to Johnson, because in his own account of the Scotch tour and in his letters there are a few passages that indicate close observation, and even enjoyment, of the wild scenes about him. The finest passage is a description of a storm:

The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills on one side, and fell into one general channel that ran with great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough music of Nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.

But Johnson’s attitude toward the external world was, on the whole, the typical classical one, and is well illustrated by his reply to Mr. Thrale’s attempt to win his admiration of a fine prospect. “Never heed such nonsense; a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of inquiry.”

Mr. Bray’s “Tour” has a full map and is written somewhat in the guide-book style. Industries, architecture, history, family chronicles, anecdotes, inscriptions, fill up its 135 closely printed folio pages. There is comparatively little about the scenes through which he passed. In describing the various estates which he visited pages are given to house-furnishings for a single paragraph on the grounds. But these seldom go unnoticed. He dislikes the formal garden. He objects to the regular cascades at Matlock. He thinks that the conceits in the water-works at Chatsworth might have been deemed wonderful when they were made, “but those who have contemplated the waterfalls which nature exhibits in this country ... will receive little pleasure from seeing a temporary stream falling down a flight of steps, spouted out of the mouths of dolphins or dragons, or squirted from the leaves of a copper tree.” The most extended description is of the gardens at Stowe, which he praises because, though laid out in the formal style, their regularity has been broken up and disguised. Mr. Bray also shows a liking for wild and romantic scenery. He frequently mentions wide views, and condemns Compton Wyngate because it has no prospect, of which, he adds, “our ancestors appear to have scarce ever thought.” The spots he enjoyed most are Matlock High Tor, and wild places on the Dove and the Derwent, Aysgarth Force in the Ure, and rocky Gordale. He noted especially waterfalls and rivers. Of the Derwent at Matlock he says:

It is a most romantic and beautiful ride. The river is sometimes hid behind trees, sometimes it glides smooth and calm, sometimes a distant fall is heard; here it tumbles over a ledge of rocks stretching quite across, there it rushes over rude fragments, torn by storms from the impending masses. Each side, but particularly the farther one, is bordered by lofty rocks, generally clothed with wood, in the most picturesque manner.

Passages such as this, though perhaps not very effective, show an attention arrested by the beauties of Nature. There is a closeness of detail indicating first-hand observation, and the prevailing tone shows that Mr. Bray justly claims for himself “a taste for nature in her genuine simplicity.”

Of the “Travels” after 1778, numerous as they are, few need special mention, because almost no really new elements appear in them. A few new tours are sketched out, as to the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man. But in general the same old ground is gone over, the preference still being accorded to Scotland, Wales, and the English Lakes. In 1796, but three years before Wordsworth went to Dove Cottage, there appeared four new “Tours” to the Lakes by Rudworth, Walker, Houseman, and Hutchinson. In 1794–95 there were five “Tours” in Wales. Of a few of these “Tours” after 1778 perhaps some mention should be made.

The Rev. Mr. Shaw’s “Tour” (1788) in the west of England is significant for two reasons. It is one of the first books to make literary associations prominent in the description. He says that Woodstock is classic ground because Chaucer lived there; Horton is sacred because of Milton; Beaconsfield, because of Waller; Windsor Forest, because of Pope; and Stoke Pogis, because of “the sublime and the pathetic Gray.” The second point of significance is Mr. Shaw’s evident irritation at the apparently overweening attention to mountains. He says that if people could forget Skiddaw and Ben Lomond for a little while they might be able to see the rich beauty of the champaign country about Malvern Hills. Mr. Shaw goes back to the “crowds and bustle” of London with great regret because, he says, no matter what society you find there, nothing can make up for the pensive enjoyments of a feeling mind in a picturesque country.

Hassel’s “Tour of the Isle of Wight” (1790) is in the style of Gilpin’s work. The general knowledge of the Lake Country and the general admiration of it is shown by his comparisons. A certain spot has “all the appearance of a Westmoreland scene.” Certain noble hills “rise with all the majesty of the Skiddaw mountains.” Hassel’s purpose is a search for the picturesque. He especially notes rich effects of color, and the varying lights of sunrise and sunset. He sees Nature in a succession of pictures, but his language is free from the technicalities of Gilpin.

Robertson’s “Tour in the Isle of Man” (1794) has little effective description, but it is noteworthy as one of the first books of travel to be infected by the sentimental melancholy of the romances. His Manxmen “recline by some romantic stream” in the true pensive spirit. He visits churchyards and solitary places. He pores over the mazy stream, he watches the rooks, he listens to the sighing evening breeze, very much like one of Mrs. Brooke’s lovelorn heroes. Occasionally he has some expressions of deeper import, as when he says that Nature not only charms the eye “but purifies and ennobles the soul.” “The mind is filled with divine enthusiasm.” He is, however, perhaps adequately characterized by the word “romantic,” which he uses until it becomes almost unbearable.

Of “Travels” in general we may say that the transfer of emphasis from man to Nature is strongly marked. The love of Nature as shown in “Travels” is later in development than it is in poetry, but when the new feeling does find expression it sounds no uncertain note, and by the end of the century has reached a statement as bold and unqualified as that which is found in the poetry itself.