There is not a hint in the book of any feeling toward Nature except such as is characteristic of the pseudo-classical poetry.

In “Joseph Andrews” (Fielding, 1742) there are four brief passages in which Nature is touched upon. Two of these are evidently meant as satires on the ordinary descriptions of sunrise. The first one is as follows:

“Aurora now began to show her blooming cheeks over the hills, whilst ten millions of feathered songsters, in jocund chorus, repeated odes a thousand times sweeter than those of our laureate” (p. 43; cf. p. 219). The longest description is of a vale with a winding rivulet, many trees, and soil “spread with a verdure which no paint could imitate,” the whole place being such as “might have raised romantic ideas in older minds than those of Joseph and Fanny” (p. 226).

In “Jonathan Wild” (Fielding, 1743) there are no references to the world of Nature.

In “David Simple” (Sarah Fielding, 1744) the search of the hero for a true friend is so complicated and absorbing an occupation that there is no room for observation of the external world.

In “Clarissa Harlowe” (Richardson, 1748) there is one simile drawn from Nature (Vol. II, p. 478), one mention of the “variegated prospects” from Hampstead Heath (Vol. III, p. 198), and one reference to an overgrown ivy so thick as to be a shelter from the rain (Vol. I, p. 394).

In “Roderick Random” (Smollett, 1748) there are no references to Nature.

Of the eight passages referring to Nature in “Tom Jones” (Fielding, 1749) two are satirical of the conventional descriptions and similitudes of the day.

A third passage, also satirical, is, “And now the moon began to put forth her silver light, as the poets call it (though she looked at that time more like a piece of copper)” (Vol. II, p. 172). There is one appreciative reference to the attractive scenery of Devon and Dorset. The description of Mr. Allworthy’s estate which owed “less to art than to nature,” is modern in tone and marks the break already made with the formal garden (Vol. I, p. 12). In another passage there is an expression of pleasure in a wide prospect, seen by moonlight, for “the solemn light which the moon casts on all objects is beyond expression beautiful, especially to an imagination which is desirous of cultivating melancholy ideas” (Vol. I, p. 422). The other passages are of no significance.

“Peter Wilkins” (Robert Paltock, 1751) is the first and most famous of the successors of “Robinson Crusoe.” The scene of Peter’s trials and successes is laid in Africa and the southern islands. There is but one brief passage in which there is even the slightest indication that the author thought of Nature from any but the utilitarian point of view.

“Pompey the Little” (Coventry, 1751) is a romance ostensibly relating with serio-comic minuteness the life and adventures of a lapdog much in the manner of the novele picaresco of Mendozo and Aleman, but really dealing in thinly disguised social satire. It makes no use of Nature, unless we may count poor Mr. Rhymer who looks at the moon and quotes Milton to the extravagant amusement of a group of dandies who observe him.

In “Peregrine Pickle” (Smollett, 1751) Peregrine sings one of the conventional songs to Emilia, beginning,

This is the only use of Nature in the book. The eighteen months of travel in France and Holland do not suggest a single phrase about the scenery of those countries.

Mrs. Lennox’s “The Female Quixote” (1752) is a record of the absurd and futile attempts of a beautiful maiden unfortunately brought up on “the languishing love romances of the Calprenedos and the Scuderis” to make over the practical world about her according to the laws of love and chivalry. Almost all her adventures occur in the country, but there are only two references to the out-door world. Of the estate of the marquis it is said: “The most laborious endeavours of art had been expended to make it appear like the beautiful product of wild uncultivated nature.”

In another passage the heroine is said to lead her unhappy friend into the garden, “supposing a person whose uneasiness proceeded from love would be pleased with the sight of groves and streams.”

In “Ferdinand Count Fathom” (Smollett, 1753) there is merely a conventional description of a furious storm.

In “Sir Charles Grandison” (Richardson, 1753) there are two interesting passages concerning the estate of Sir Charles. It was his aim not “to force and distort nature, but to help it as he finds it, without letting art be seen in his works, where he can possibly avoid it” (Vol. II, p. 276). A part of the estate was evidently laid out according to the ideas of Kent and Brown, but the orchard “with its regular semicircle rows of pears, apples, cherries, plums and apricots, arranged according to the season of flowering,” belonged to the days of Sir Thomas, when symmetry and regularity ruled (Vol. IV, p. 238). In this novel also is Richardson’s frequently quoted description of Savoy, “equally noted for its poverty and rocky mountains ... one of the worst countries under heaven” (Vol. III, pp. 138–42).

We have now passed the middle of the century and there has not been in the works of fiction mentioned a single passage indicating any close observation or love of Nature, and hardly a passage showing any knowledge of Nature except as found in parks and gardens. But in 1756–66 there appeared a fantastic novel by Thomas Amory called “The Life of John Buncle,” which is notable in the present study because nearly all the adventures whereby the hero gains and loses his seven Socinian wives occur among the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland. We have but to compare the book with Mrs. Ward’s “Robert Elsmere” to see how extravagantly unreal are most of Amory’s descriptions. They often contain marvels equal to those of “Vathek.” The mountains are made as lofty and dangerous as the most inaccessible Alps, and they are so heaped in together that progress from one valley to another would be out of the question were it not for convenient caves and natural tunnels by which the venturesome hero makes his way from vale to vale. But in the midst of these absurdities and impossibilities, there are occasional passages of effective description, and of real appreciation of wild mountain scenery. It is an entirely new note in fiction and it followed close upon the poem by Dr. Dalton, which was probably the first poetical tribute to the scenery of the Lakes. Mr. Amory aptly describes mountain tarns as pools of “black, standing, unfathomable water” (Vol. I, p. 290). He frequently gives enthusiastic descriptions of the views from mountain tops. In one passage he says: “I climbed up to the top by a steep, craggy way. This was very difficult and dangerous, but I had an enchanting prospect when I gained the summit of the hill.... The vast hills had a fine effect in the view” (Vol. II, p. 122; cf. Vol. I, p. 167).

Of Westmoreland he says:

And, again, “Westmoreland is the most beautiful and romantic solitude in the world” (Vol. III, p. 151). The first volume of Amory’s book appeared in 1756. The other volumes, written at intervals thereafter, were published in 1766. The best passages are in the third volume, but at the latest they must have been written three years before Gray made his tour to the lakes. It would be interesting to know whether Gray had read “John Buncle,” as Amory had Dalton’s poem. At any rate Amory’s novel shows how early the Lake District was visited by lovers of the beautiful, for he not only describes it himself, but he speaks as if there were already a good deal of discussion as to the rival charms of Keswick and Westmoreland.

In “Rasselas” (Dr. Johnson, 1759) the scenery of the Happy Valley is briefly described. Since it was a spot where “all the diversities of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its evils were extracted and excluded,” it would be in vain to look for first-hand description. We have merely an impossible combination of millennial details. After leaving the Happy Valley Imlac wanders through the world, but his only impression from Nature is a feeling of repulsion at the “barren uniformity” of the ocean. When he tried to be a poet he did, to be sure, turn to Nature. He “ranged mountains and deserts for images and similitudes” in true classical style. He studied trees and flowers, he wandered along rivulets, and sometimes he watched the clouds, for “to a poet nothing can be useless.” Dr. Johnson’s use of Nature in “Rasselas” is tasteless and insipid.

Sterne’s one allusion to Nature in “Tristram Shandy” (1759–67) is too characteristic to be omitted. It occurs in the description of a journey.

In “Almoran and Hamet” (Hawkesworth, 1761), an oriental tale, there is no use of Nature except in a few far-fetched similes, and one or two phrases about the lengthening evening shadows.

In “Sir Launcelot Greaves” (Smollett, 1762) there is no reference to Nature except in a sarcastic allusion to poets who cannot talk of a beautiful girl without “blending the lily and the rose and bringing in a parcel of similes of cowslips, carnations, pinks, and daisies.”

Mrs. Brooke’s “The History of Lady Julia Mandeville” (1763) has a hero and a heroine who rejoice in “a genuine taste for elegant nature,” and their letters contain some descriptive passages evidently intended to combine vividness and elegance. The gardens and parks behind the house are “romantic beyond the wantonness of imagination,” and the whole adjoining country has “every charm of lovely unadorned nature.” Beyond the house there is “an avenue of the tallest trees which lets in the prospect of a fruitful valley, bounded at a distance by a mountain, down the sides of which rushes a foaming cascade, which spreads into a thousand meandering streams in the vale below.” In the woods are rustic temples “in the most elegant style of simplicity.” At the close of a walk they come to a grotto “wildly lovely, its entrance almost hidden by the vines that flaunt over its top,” and there they find an opportune repast with servants in attendance. The motherly care with which Mrs. Brooke preserves her delicately bred characters from roughness or fatigue or hunger interferes somewhat with her attempts to represent “simple, unadorned nature,” and in spite of her protests against “the gloomy haunts of London” she never quite gets out into the free country. Her raptures have a forced, made-up air. The exclamatory ecstacy of such passages as the following is certainly open to suspicion:

There is a more genuine ring to Lady Wilmot’s protest, “The finest landscape is a dreary wild without people.”

Most of the action in Mrs. Brooke’s second novel, “Emily Montague,” is laid in Canada, which country Mrs. Brooke had visited. The book represents her enjoyment of the strange scenes about her. The beauty of the river Montmorenci more than repays Miss Arabella Fermor for the fatigues of a voyage across the Atlantic. The hero finds that the streams and mountains of England seem petty when he is in the presence of the majesty and sublimity of the western world. The descriptions are perhaps over-elaborate, but they are not ineffective, and they show much closer knowledge of natural phenomena and more real interest in them, than do the tamer passages in the preceding novel.

In the famous “Castle of Otranto” (Walpole, 1764) there is no use whatever of Nature.

In Brooke’s “Fool of Quality” (1766) the sky is fitly spoken of as “a stupendous expanse sumptuously furnished with a profusion of planets.” Certainly no other sort of sky would have presumed to bend down over Mr. Brooke’s stupendous little prig of a hero. The chief use of Nature, however, is in similes for Harry’s countenance which is “like sunshine on a dark day,” or a “lake on a summer’s evening showing heaven in its bosom,” or, if bathed in tears as it frequently was, “like the sun in a shower.”

The charm of “The Vicar of Wakefield” (Goldsmith, 1766) rests upon its sweetness and purity, its quaint humor, and its quality of fresh, open-air wholesomeness. Its use of Nature is of the most casual, unemphasized sort. There are not in the whole work twenty-five lines concerning the country scenes in which all the action takes place. And yet these simple, direct phrases have a magical power of suggestion. The seat under the hawthorn where the family drank their tea and watched the sunset, the dinner in the hayfield, the brief description of the little farm, have in them the power of reality and do more to give a free, out-of-doors atmosphere to the story than all Mrs. Brooke’s panegyrics. But here, as in Goldsmith’s other works, the stress is on the characters, and the little, truthful pictures of Nature seem almost accidental.

In Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey” (1768) there is no use of external Nature.

Of Mackenzie’s “Man of Feeling” (1771) the same may be said unless, indeed, we except one reference to a scene “not unlike Salvator’s backgrounds.”

Smollett’s “Humphrey Clinker” (1771) is the last of his novels and the only one in which there is effective use of Nature. Smollett was born and brought up in the valley of the Leven; and he spent some months there before the final trip to Italy for his health. He was in Leghorn about a year before he died, and during this year he wrote “Humphrey Clinker.” It recounts the travels of Matthew Bramble in search of health. The love of Nature comes out chiefly in the letters supposed to be written from Scotland. He speaks with pleasure of the “huge dusky mountains of the West Highlands, piled one over another,” and of Loch Lomond, that “surprising body of pure, transparent water, unfathomably deep in many places,” with its green, wooded islands. His delight in the wild scenery of Scotland is thus expressed:

On the country of Ossian he says:

Smollett’s love for the Leven, that “charming stream ... transparent, pastoral, delightful,” is further evidenced by this “Ode to the Leven,” a single stanza of which may be quoted here:

Smollett has one character who labored under ἀγροφοβια, or horror of green fields, but that was manifestly not his own case. Though he completely ignored Nature in his other books, “Humphrey Clinker” is ample proof of his sensitiveness to Nature and his descriptive power. It needed a touch of homesickness and the vivifying force of early associations to bring the feeling to the surface, but as soon as it found expression there was revealed a closeness of observation and a genuineness of affection for Nature in her milder forms not found in any novel before “Humphrey Clinker.” The nearest approach to it is in the fantastic work of Amory.

In Clara Reeve’s “Old English Baron” (1777) there is one brief conventional passage about the morning serenade of the birds and the fragrance of the woodbine (p. 27).

In “Julia de Roubigné” (1777) Mackenzie makes more use of Nature than he had in “The Man of Feeling.” Julia and Savillon are both represented as finding pleasure in the beautiful country around them. In one letter Julia says: “Methinks I should hate to have been born in a town; when I say my native brook, or my native hill, I talk of friends of whom the remembrance warms my heart.” In the serenity of Nature she finds calmness after spiritual tumult. Belville, the home of Julia, is described as “a venerable pile, the remains of ancient Gothic magnificence.” The most attractive part of the estate was “a wild and rocky dell, where tasteless wealth had never warred on nature, nor even elegance refined or embellished her beauties. The walks are only worn by the tread of shepherds and the banks only smoothed by the feeding of their flocks.” There is great regret expressed when the new owner of Belville cuts down the trees, and puts in modern adornments “which they call Chinese.” In this novel Mackenzie shows a real though narrow appreciation of free, unsubdued Nature.

In Fanny Burney’s “Evelina” (1778) the only touch of Nature is a criticism of Vauxhall Gardens as being too formal and regular. In “Cecilia” (1782) there is no use of Nature.

William Beckford’s “Vathek” (1784) is an extravaganza where there is no pretense of representing Nature as it is. A single quotation will give the general tone. It is a description of a high mountain:

In Dr. Moore’s “Zeluco” (1786) neither the hero himself, that “finished model of depravity,” nor any of the characters associated with him, show any knowledge of the existence of any world outside their own intrigues and counter-intrigues.

Mrs. Inchbald’s “A Simple Story” (1791) is a study of true and false education. There is in it no word concerning Nature. The same may be said of her “Nature and Art,” published in 1796.

Godwin’s story, “Caleb Williams” (1794), has one brief, conventional description of a sunrise. This ignoring of Nature seems the more surprising in Godwin since his next novel, published ten years later, “Fleetwood, or the New Man of Feeling,” is full of the wild scenery of Wales and is really the study of a character made sensitive by early and constant communion with Nature. But this novel would carry us into the next century.

Another novel of some repute toward the close of the century is Robert Bage’s “Hermsprong, or Man as He Is Not” (1796). It was read chiefly for its political bias toward the popular democratical doctrines. The scene is laid chiefly in the country and there are occasional pleasant bits of description. They are unimportant, but the book cannot be dismissed without a reference to the hero who was compelled, by lack of funds, to seek a country retreat, and who fortified his failing resolution to leave the beloved city by quoting Thomson’s “Seasons.”

The two authors who first made extensive use of Nature in fiction are Mrs. Charlotte Smith and Mrs. Ann Radcliffe.

Mrs. Smith shows in her novels and poems a really ardent enjoyment, though seldom a close knowledge, of Nature. She indulges in long and animated descriptions of places of which she has only vaguely heard and the result is sometimes as amazing as the scenes in “Vathek.” In “The Old Manor House” (1793), her best work, a part of the scene is laid in the northern United States and Canada. Here is her idea of spring in that region:

The following is a description of Canada on the banks of the St. Lawrence, “a very few days” after the severest winter weather:

Mrs. Smith’s imagination certainly had other laws than the dull ones imposed by the facts of the case. She could hardly have mixed up zones and seasons and flowers and fruits more successfully if she had tried. But the notable point here is that there was in her mind an instinctive and inevitable dwelling upon the scenery of the country through which she led her hero. The English scenes are much better. The following passage shows well her emotional openness to the influence of Nature.

Mrs. Barbauld says that Mrs. Smith was one of the first to introduce description of scenery into fiction. That she had predecessors we have already seen, but it is true that she laid much more stress on Nature than had any other novelist except Mrs. Radcliffe. Mrs. Smith has frequent descriptions that are not needed for the progress of the plot or the development of the characters, but are written purely for their own sake. She also often uses Nature as dramatic background and she represents her hero as deeply influenced by Nature. Mrs. Smith’s poems further attest her love of Nature. In one poem she says,

In another she addresses the South Downs,

Mrs. Smith’s life was a most unhappy one, and she found her real comfort in Nature.

Mrs. Radcliffe’s “Romance of a Forest” (1791) appeared two years before “The Old Manor House,” and “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794) one year after. In these novels by Mrs. Radcliffe the romantic landscape was presented in its complete form. Except in the most rapid parts of the story there is greater stress on the scenery than on the characters. Emily, Adeline, and Clara seldom indulge in an emotion without first describing the dell or glen or forest glade, to which they have wandered. They are never too deeply agitated to observe the glories of sunrise and sunset. A wide view can soothe any grief. This susceptibility of the heroines to Nature is represented as one of their greatest charms. Mrs. Radcliffe had never seen most of the scenes she described. She had never been in France, Italy, or Switzerland. The landscapes she gives us do not bear the stamp of reality. They are ideal compositions but they are never merely an inventory nor are they impossible combinations. Though not exactly true, they can be read with pleasure because the details are blended into harmonious and lovely pictures which seem to have caught the actual spirit of the places described. She delighted in all kinds of Nature, peaceful or wild, but her especial pleasure was in those phases of Nature ignored by the classicists. Mountains, the ocean, the phenomena of the sky, and deep forests, are chiefly dwelt upon in her descriptions. Her love of the ocean is really a new element in the general attitude toward Nature. Painting, poetry, and fiction had up to this time put little stress on the ocean, but Mrs. Radcliffe in frequent passages shows that her own feeling was that of Adeline, of whom she says, “Of all the grand objects which nature had exhibited the ocean supplied her with the most sublime admiration. She loved to wander alone by its shore.” It is, however, in the representation of forest scenes that Mrs. Radcliffe’s most effective work is done. The wild and terrifying influence of the dark woods that cover the Apennines, all the dim and shadowy loveliness, all the mystery and suggestiveness of the romantic forest about the ruined abbey, reappear in her descriptions. Her feeling toward mountains is one of almost extravagant delight in their vastness, their wildness, their remoteness, and inaccessibility. She is deeply sensitive to all the “goings on” in the sky. She catches with accuracy the most ethereal, delicate, evanescent effects. It is especially mystery and remoteness that she loves, hence night, moonlight, and stars attract her. Closely connected with her pleasure in the sky is her artistic openness to all aërial transformations. In her wide views over land and sea, in vistas caught through forest glades, in pictures of twilight or dawn, of sunrise or sunset, she seldom fails to note the quick shiftings of color and form, the interplay of light and shade, the dimness, the transparency, the luminosity, resulting from atmospheric changes.

She looked upon Nature not only, as she said of one of her own characters, “with the eye of an artist, but with the raptures of a poet.” The effect of Nature on man in soothing his grief, modifying his passions, and elevating his character is everywhere insisted upon. As Adeline’s eyes “wandered through the romantic glades that opened into the forest her heart was gladdened.” Through the melancholy boughs the evening twilight, which still colored the air, “diffused a solemnity that vibrated in thrilling sensations upon the hearts of the travellers.... The tranquillity of the scene, which autumn had touched with her sweetest tints, softened her mind to a tender kind of melancholy.”

The Alps “filled her mind with sublime emotions.” The solitary grandeur of these scenes both “assisted and soothed the melancholy of her heart.” The stillness and total seclusion of the scene, the stupendous mountains, the gloomy grandeur of the woods, “diffuse a sacred enthusiasm over the mind and awaken sensations truly sublime.” Such a scene “fills the soul with emotions of indescribable awe, and seems to lift it to a nobler nature.” “It was in the tranquil observation of beautiful nature” that Clara’s mind recovered its tone. The moonlight on the sea seemed to “diffuse peace.” Twilight sometimes “inspires the mind with pensive tenderness,” sometimes “exalts it to sublime meditations.” The Alps inspire reflections that “soften and elevate the heart and fill it with the certainty of a present God.” Such expressions were repeated with an insistence that becomes monotonous. There is, indeed, an element of sameness in all the descriptions, an effect the more tiresome because they are so numerous. So large a descriptive element would hardly be admitted in a novel today unless justified by some remarkable power of word-painting. Mrs. Radcliffe’s descriptions would doubtless invite the modern reader, at least after a steady progress through four or five volumes, to do some judicious skipping. But thought of as in her own day, Mrs. Radcliffe must always rank as a discoverer, so new and fresh was this element she brought into fiction. As is usual with discoverers she overworked her idea. She was not a great genius. She was often weakly sentimental. But she had a genuine and most ardent love of Nature, and, when at her best, had exceptional descriptive power. Her fame and her influence on succeeding literature rest on these characteristics.

In “Fiction,” as in “Travels” and “Poetry,” there is the transfer of interest from what man does or is, to the powers of untrammeled Nature. The new spirit here, as in “Travels,” is late in finding adequate expression. We can hardly put any real beginnings of it earlier than “John Buncle” (1756–66). Even after that, development is spasmodic and slow. In most of the novels and romances we find the romantic impulse to see strange lands, but men and manners absorb the attention of the travelers. Mrs. Radcliffe’s fugitives in “The Romance of the Forest,” the travelers in “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” and Mrs. Brooke’s soldier in “Emily Montague” are the first to make much of the scenery through which they pass.

In general we may say that novels had little to do with Nature, and romances much. This may account for the lack of reality in the descriptions. There is nothing in any work of fiction at all correspondent to the temperate, truthful, clear-cut work of Cowper and Burns. There is practically nothing of the bald realism of John Scott, whose poetry was written rather in the scientific temper with which most travels were undertaken. Nor, on the other hand, is there anything of the visionary, mystical power of Blake. The best use of Nature in fiction is more akin to the emotionalism of Beattie. Except for Mrs. Radcliffe, and she came late in the century, fiction contributed less to bring about the new attitude toward Nature than did any other form of art expression.

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:

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:

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: