D ROUND ABOUT LEAMINGTON. AME FASHION is sometimes exceedingly capricious, and if her ladyship were to set down her daintily-shod foot in the middle of the desert of Sahara, people would have to go and discover beauties in Central Africa. Are not the ruins of Aladdin's palace there? and if the dear Duchess of Blankshire decided that it would be of interest to find them, Lady Smythe would feel acutely that archæology was the only pursuit worth following, and Mrs. De Jones that her life had hitherto been wasted, and that existence elsewhere was insupportable. It was, however, in the happiest and most sensible mood of the whimsical divinity that she selected Leamington as an abiding place, for there is probably not а more satisfactory locality in the country than the pleasant little Warwickshire town; and I propose, out of gratitude for pleasure received there, to set down a few of its varied attractions. It is all very well to affirm that Pomona Gardens is the 'place to spend a happy day,' or that Shrimpington is the only thoroughly enjoyable residence in England;' but people require details of their prospective pleasures nowadays, and are becoming less and less ready to take things on trust and to believe all that they are told. Probably there was a time when some members of a confiding public really thought that if they sent 51. to Mr. Rooker to back a horse, that astute gentleman would return them 3847. 10s. next Monday week, less 3s. 9d. commission: that grocers were to be implicitly relied on when they stated that our sherry at 21s. a dozen is a well-matured fruity wine, fully equal to that usually sold by wine-merchants at 848.,' &c. &c.; but alas! the age has grown prosaic and practical; the public discovered that Monday week never came, and that the sherry was not the only thing that was sold. This, however, from some points of view might almost be regarded as a digression. The rapid growth and steadilyincreasing popularity of Leamington speak sufficiently in its favour; but my object is rather to take a hasty glance at its singularly interesting surroundings than to describe the town itself, to discuss the position of the town clock, or to give an elaborate medical statement of the composition of the Spa water. I know the taste of it, and have very strong reasons for believing in its efficacy; but, to lay bare a confiding bosom to the world in general, I may confess that the elaborate analysis which is at present before me conveys no very definite meaning to my mind, and would probably not prove of absorbing interest to the readers of this magazine. It will be sufficient on that point to quote a contemporary (the Lancet'), which politely calls Leamington the Bethesda of the Midlands,' and declares the waters have positively improved of late years. In all seriousness, there is no doubt they are of immense benefit to invalids. As to the town itself, it is exceedingly picturesque, and so marvellously clean that all other places look dirty beside it. Magnificent trees spring up among the houses in all parts of it; and in the centre are the famous Jephson Gardens, sacred to archery and croquet, where the Leamington belles, in bewitching costumes, do as much execution with their eyes as with their arrows. Two miles from Leamington stands Warwick, perhaps the most interesting old town in England. Warwick Castle, of which the nucleus was started nearly a thousand years ago by King Alfred's daughter, is a tangible piece of ancientry; but the stories of King Arthur and the Round Table, and many other old English stories, give it a yet more special flavour of romance and legenderie. How the castle was destroyed when the flaming broiles of Danish warres under King Canutus caught hold of all England,' and all other details of its fortunes, are fully discussed by old Sir William Dugdale, most delicious of historians. Many mighty men have held the castle, amongst them the great Sir Guy of Warwick: but I must confess that his conduct irritates me. I don't care if he was nine feet high, and if he did slay Colbrand the Saracen giant (how tall was Colbrand, I wonder? for Sir Guy's blows only reached up to his shoulder!); and the fact of his making an example of the enormous dun cow, and effectually putting a stop to the unpleasant vagaries of the green dragon, cannot induce me to admire the way in which he treated his wife. Does every one know the legend? On returning from the Holy Land in palmer's guise, King Athelstan, warned by a dream, went to meet him, and asked him to fight Colbrand, as the war was to be decided by single combat. He was duly discovered, 'neatly clad in a white short-sliev'd gown reaching to mid-leg, with a garland of roses upon his head,' and it is therefore scarcely surprising that no one recognised him. He undertook the fight, however, which lasted all day long; but as evening closed, ' Guy, with all his strength fetching a blow, cut off his (enemy's) head.' Thereupon he made himself secretly known to the king, and hewing himself a cave in a rock-the celebrated Guy's Cliffe-near his castle, lived a heremite's life' for many years, going up to the castle disguised to solicit alms, and daily witnessing his wife's grief at his supposed absence. It may have been very noble behaviour, but the morality of it appears to me singularly shaky. Poetically pretty, if you like; but surely his first duty was to return to his family; and I fancy that the Sir James Hannen of the period would have had a few words to say to him if he had not kept so very dark. Just before his death he did acknowledge himself to his affectionate Phillis,' who died fifteen days after him. The first Earls of Warwick seem to have found a special amusement in fighting giants, and their coat of arms was taken from an incident in one of these combats. According to old Dugdale, Morvidus, son of Arthgal, a Knight of the Round Table, being a man of great valour, slew a mighty Gyant in a single Duell, which Gyant encountred him with a young tree pull'd up by the root, the boughs being snag'd from it, in token whereof he and his successors, Earles of Warwick in the time of the Brittans, bore a Ragged staff of silver on a sable shield for their cognusance.' Both as a building, and for its contents, the Castle of to-day is one of the most interesting of show - places. The pictures are splendid. There is one little Circe, by Guido, which is worth a whole gallery. The celebrated antique Bacchanalian Vase, found at the bottom of the lake at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, is kept in the greenhouse; and a mighty vase it is, 20 feet in circumference at the brim, and holding 163 gallons. As for the walks round about Guy's Cliffe, old Fuller says, A man in travelling many miles cannot meet with so much astonishing variety as this one furlong doth afford.' A few miles farther south is Stratford-on-Avon, a place which has 'caused the effusion of so much Christian ink,' to quote Mat Prior. Once more let it be recorded that here in 1564 Shakespeare was born; that he married Anne Hathaway soon after leaving school, his first child making its appearance in 1583. That a taste for Lucy of Charlecote's venison brought upon him the wrath of that magnate, who displayed so little of the quality of mercy that Shakespeare was obliged to leave the county, which he did after writing some stinging verses, and fixing them to the Charlecote gates. That he came to town, and held horses outside the theatre, and eventually made his way on to the boards, producing his first play, the 'First Part of King Henry VI.,' in 1589; gradually growing into our Shakespeare. What does it matter if the Menæchonic' of Plautus was the foundation of the Comedy of Errors,' or the 'Electra' of Sophocles the origin of Hamlet ;' if All's Well that Ends Well' and Cymbeline' were taken from Boccaccio, or if Drayton's Nymphidia' suggested The Midsummer Night's Dream,' as old Ben Jonson was so fond of pointing out? Shakespeare has most assuredly made them his own. With all respect for the old Latin proverb, De mortuis, &c., I am afraid it is only too plain that Jonson was not an amiable character, though he owed everything to Shakespeare, who took him up when every one else had rejected him. If only some Boswell of the period had jotted down notes of those celebrated witcombats which used to take place at the Mermaid between the two dramatists! Fancy heavy old Ben 6 plodding away at an elaborate sarcasm, and Shakespeare delicately slipping in between the joints of his opponent's harness, as only he could. He wrote some five-and-thirty plays, to sum up,. acquired fame and fortune, and died in his native town. Five miles from Leamington is Lord Leigh's fine old house, Stoneleigh Abbey; and the village possesses a very special interest in these days as a place where the good old-fashioned cordiality is kept up between the landlord and his people. Why foul-mouthed agitators are allowed to go up and down the country, stirring up discord and evil feeling, is a question which our present administration may or may not be able to answer." The great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great,' in the old Roman days which Lord Macaulay eulogises, and so it is now at Stoneleigh. How much longer will it be before the labourer ceases to listen to these wretched pests who live upon his weakness? Cannot he see that strikes always cause misery, and that unions entirely fetter his freedom of action, making him, in fact, a slave to a vulgar gang of lazy tyrants who use him for their own selfish ends? Why is it, we will consider as we journey north to Kenilworth, that the writers of guide-books will not say what they have got to say, and have done with it? Why does the author of a certain work stop me on the threshold by talking about those useful and wellinformed members of society who travel periodically throughout the kingdom to execute commissions in trade and commerce,' when all his meaning might be expressed by the one word 'bagmen,' or, if the good old name is out of date, by the two words commercial This paper was written some months ago. |