old sarum.—country thinly peopled,—basingstoke.—ruins of a catholic chapel.—waste land near london.—staines.—iron bridges.—custom of exposing the dead bodies of criminals.—hounslow.—brentford.—approach to london.—arrival.
monday, april 26.
half a league from salisbury, close on the left of the london road, is old sarum, the sorbiodunum of the romans, famous for many reasons. it covered the top of a round hill, which is still surrounded with a mound of earth and a deep fosse. under the norman kings it was a flourishing town, but subject to two evils; the want of water, and the oppression of the 55castle soldiers. the townsmen, therefore, with one consent, removed to new sarum, the present salisbury, where the first of these evils is more than remedied; and the garrison was no longer maintained at old sarum when there was nobody to be pillaged. so was the original city deserted, except by its right of representation in parliament; not a soul remaining there. seven burgage tenures, in a village westward of it, produce two burgesses to serve in parliament for old sarum; four of these tenures (the majority) were sold very lately for a sum little short of 200,000 peso-duros.
from this place salisbury plain stretches to the north, but little of it is visible from the road which we were travelling: much of this wide waste has lately been inclosed and cultivated. i regretted that i could not visit stonehenge, the famous druidical monument, which was only a league and a half distant: but as j— was on his way home, after so long an absence, i 56could not even express a wish to delay him.
stockbridge and basingstoke were our next stages: the country is mostly down, recently enclosed, and of wonderfully thin population in comparison of the culture. indeed harvest here depends upon a temporary emigration of the western clothiers, who come and work during the harvest months. the few trees in this district grow about the villages which are scattered in the vallies—beautiful objects in an open and naked country. you see flints and chalk in the fields, if the soil be not covered with corn or turnips. basingstoke is a town which stands at the junction of five great roads, and is of course a thriving place. at the north side is a small but beautiful ruin of a chapel once belonging to a brotherhood of the holy ghost. j— led me to see it as a beautiful object, in which light only all englishmen regard such monuments of the piety of their forefathers and of their own lamentable 57apostasy. the roof had once been adorned with the history of the prophets and the holy apostles; but the more beautiful and the more celebrated these decorations, the more zealously were they destroyed in the schism. i felt deeply the profanation, and said a prayer in silence upon the spot where the altar should have stood. one relic of better times is still preserved at basingstoke: in all parishes it is the custom, at stated periods, to walk round the boundaries; but here, and here only, is the procession connected with religion: they begin and conclude the ceremony by singing a psalm under a great elm which grows before the parsonage-house.
two leagues and a half of wooded country reach hertford bridge, a place of nothing but inns for travellers: from hence, with short and casual interruptions, bagshot heath extends to egham, not less than fourteen miles. we were within six leagues of london, a city twice during the late war on the very brink of famine, 58and twice in hourly dread of insurrection from that dreadful cause:—and yet so near it is this tract of country utterly waste! nothing but wild sheep, that run as fleet as hounds, are scattered over this dreary desert: flesh there is none on these wretched creatures; but those who are only half-starved on the heath produce good meat when fatted: all the flesh and all the fat being laid on, as graziers speak, anew, it is equivalent in tenderness to lamb, and in flavour to mutton, and has fame accordingly in the metropolis.
at staines we crost the thames,—not by a new bridge, now for the third time built, but over a crazy wooden one above a century old. we enquired the reason, and heard a curious history. the river here divides the counties of middlesex and surrey; and the magistrates of both counties, having agreed upon the necessity of building a bridge, did not agree exactly as to its situation; neither party would give way, and accordingly each collected materials 59for building a half-bridge from its respective bank, but not opposite to the other. time at length showed the unfitness of this, and convinced them that two half bridges would not make a whole one: they then built three arches close to the old bridge; when weight was laid on the middle piers, they sunk considerably into an unremembered and untried quicksand, and all the work was to be undone. in the meanwhile, an adventurous iron bridge had been built at sunderland, one arch of monstrous span over a river with high rocky banks, so that large ships could sail under. the architect of this work, which was much talked of, offered his services to throw a similar but smaller bridge over the thames. but, alas! his rocky abutments were not there, and he did not believe enough in mathematics to know the mighty lateral pressure of a wide flat arch. stone abutments, however, were to be made; but, from prudential considerations, the middlesex abutment, of seeming 60solidity, was hollow, having been intended for the wine-cellar of a large inn; so as soon as the wooden frame-work was removed, the flat arch took the liberty of pushing away the abutment—alias the wine-cellar—and after carriages had passed over about a week, the fated bridge was once more closed against passage.
i know not how these iron bridges may appear to an english eye, but to a spaniard’s they are utterly detestable. the colour, where it is not black, is rusty, and the hollow, open, spider work, which they so much praise for its lightness, has no appearance of solidity. of all the works of man, there is not any one which unites so well with natural scenery, and so heightens its beauty, as a bridge, if any taste, or rather if no bad taste, be displayed in its structure. this is exemplified in the rude as well as in the magnificent; by the stepping stones or crossing plank of a village brook, as well as by the immortal works of trajan: but to look at these 61iron bridges which are bespoken at the foundries, you would actually suppose that the architect had studied at the confectioner’s, and borrowed his ornaments from the sugar temples of a desert. it is curious that this execrable improvement, as every novelty is called in england, should have been introduced by the notorious politician, paine, who came over from america, upon this speculation, and exhibited one as a show upon dry ground in the metropolis.[4]
4. the great sunderland bridge has lately become liable to tremendous vibrations, and thereby established the unfitness of building any more such.—tr.
staines was so called, because the boundary stone which marked the extent of the city of london’s jurisdiction up the river formerly stood here. the country on the london side had once been a forest; but has now no other wood remaining than a few gibbets; on one of which, according to the barbarous custom of this country, a criminal was hanging in chains. some 62five-and-twenty years ago, about a hundred such were exposed upon the heath; so that from whatever quarter the wind blew, it brought with it a cadaverous and pestilential odour. the nation is becoming more civilized; they now take the bodies down after reasonable exposure; and it will probably not be long before a practice so offensive to public feeling, and public decency, will be altogether discontinued. this heath is infamous for the robberies which are committed upon it, at all hours of the day and night, though travellers and stage-coaches are continually passing: the banditti are chiefly horsemen, who strike across with their booty into one of the roads, which intersect it in every direction, and easily escape pursuit; an additional reason for inclosing the waste. we passed close to some powder-mills, which are either so ill-contrived, or so carelessly managed, that they are blown up about once a-year: then we entered the great western road at hounslow; from thence 63to the metropolis is only two leagues and a half.
three miles further is brentford, the county town of middlesex, and of all places the most famous in the electioneering history of england. it was now almost one continued street to london. the number of travellers perfectly astonished me, prepared as i had been by the gradual increase along the road; horsemen and footmen, carriages of every description and every shape, waggons and carts and covered carts, stage-coaches, long, square, and double, coaches, chariots, chaises, gigs, buggies, curricles, and phaetons; the sound of their wheels ploughing through the wet gravel was as continuous and incessant as the roar of the waves on the sea beach. evening was now setting in, and it was dark before we reached hyde park corner, the entrance of the capital. we had travelled for some time in silence; j—’s thoughts were upon his family, and i was as naturally led to think on mine, from whom i 64was now separated by so wide a tract of sea and land, among heretics and strangers, a people notoriously inhospitable to foreigners, without a single friend or acquaintance, except my companion. you will not wonder if my spirits were depressed; in truth, i never felt more deeply dejected; and the more i was surprised at the length of the streets, the lines of lamps, and of illuminated shops, and the stream of population to which there seemed to be no end,—the more i felt the solitariness of my own situation.
the chaise at last stopped at j—’s door in ——. i was welcomed as kindly as i could wish: my apartment had been made ready: i pleaded fatigue, and soon retired.
