From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England.Bates, Katharine Lee
General
From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England.
Bates, Katharine Lee
England -- Description and travel
The ancient city has other memories. Farquhar set the scene of his
"Beaux' Stratagem" there. Major André knew those shaded walks. In the
south transept of the cathedral is the sepulchre of Garrick, whose
death, the inscription tells us, "eclipsed the gaiety of nations and
impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure." It may be
recalled that Hawthorne found it "really pleasant" to meet Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu's tomb in the minster, and that Scott asserts there
used to be, in "moated Lichfield's lofty pile," a monument to Marmion,
whose castle stood a few miles to the southeast, at Tamworth.
But the motor-car, full-fed with gasoline, would brook no further
pause. As self-important as John Hobs, the famous Tanner of Tamworth
whom "not to know was to know nobody," it stormed through Uttoxeter
and on, outsmelling the breweries of Burton-on-Trent. Ducks, hens,
cats, dogs, babies, the aged and infirm, the halt and the blind,
scuttled to left and right. Policemen glared out at it from their
"motor-traps" in the hedges. A group of small boys sent a rattle of
stones against it. Rocester! Only three miles away were the ruins of
the Cistercian Abbey of Croxden. We would have liked to see them, if
only to investigate the story that the heart of King John is buried
there, for we had never before heard that he had a heart; but while we
were voicing our desire we had already crossed the Dove and whizzed
into Derbyshire.
Dovedale was our goal. This beautiful border district of Derby and
Staffordshire abounds in literary associations. Near Ilam Hall, whose
grounds are said to have suggested to Dr. Johnson the "happy valley"
in "Rasselas," and in whose grotto Congreve wrote his "Old Bachelor,"
stands the famous Isaak Walton Inn. The patron saint of the region is
the Gentle Angler, who in these "flowery meads" and by these "crystal
streams" loved to
"see a black-bird feed her young,
Or a laverock build her nest."
Here he would raise his
"low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love."
On a stone at the source of the Dove, and again on the Fishing-House
which has stood since 1674 "Piscatoribus sacrum," his initials are
interlaced with those of his friend and fellow-fisherman Charles
Cotton, the patron sinner of the locality. In Beresford Dale may be
found the little cave where this gay and thriftless gentleman, author
of the second part of "The Complete Angler," used to hide from his
creditors. At Wootton Hall Jean Jacques Rousseau once resided for over
a year, writing on his "Confessions" and amusing himself scattering
through Dovedale the seeds of many of the mountain plants of France.
In a cottage at Church Mayfield, Moore wrote his "Lalla Rookh," and
near Colwich Abbey once stood the house in which Handel composed much
of the "Messiah."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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