August 22nd, 1828.

Beloved Julia,

About noon I quitted Dublin entirely alone, comfortably established on my good steed. I left my carriage and people in the town, and sent a little travelling bag, containing my most necessary effects, before me by the stage-coach. Unfortunately, however, this was changed by mistake; and though I waited for it a whole day and night in Bray, only twenty miles from Dublin, it did not overtake me; rather than go back or wait longer, I bought a Scotch cloak and some linen in Bray, and entered on my tour quite after the fashion of a student. I supped with a young parson of good family, who made me laugh heartily at his orthodoxy in matters of religion, interspersed with talk which was by no means remarkable for severe decorum or virtue. But such is the piety of Englishmen,—it is to them at once a party matter and an affair of good manners; and as in politics they follow their party implicitly, through thick and thin, reasonable and unreasonable, because it is their party;—as they submit to a custom for ever because it is a custom; so they regard their religion, (without the least tincture of poetry,) in exactly the same point of view: they go to church on Sundays, just as regularly as they dress every day for dinner; and regard a man who neglects church, just in the same light as one who eats fish with a knife.[123]

Accompanied by the young divine, who was travelling the same way for some distance, I left Bray at five o’clock in the morning. In a most lovely country we passed Kilruddery, a newly built seat of the Earl of Meath, in the style of the houses of Elizabeth’s time;—in this case the masses are not sufficiently large to produce a good effect. The park is not very extensive, but long and narrow; the gardens, in the old French taste, are very celebrated; but, probably owing to our unpretending appearance, we were most discourteously denied admittance. In England this is common enough, but rare in Ireland, and gave no very favourable impression of the philanthropy of the possessor. My companion, who is an adherent of ‘la grace efficace,’—that is to say, who is firmly persuaded that God, from all eternity, predestined his favourites for heaven, and others who pleased him less for hell,—made no doubt; in his wrath, that the Lord of Kilruddery belonged to the latter category. “It is a disgrace to an Irishman!” exclaimed he, angrily; and I had some difficulty in making him understand the duty of tolerance.

A second park, Bellevue, the property of a worthy old gentleman, readily opened its gates to us. Here is a summer-house which seems to hang in the air, and overlooks the ‘Glen of the Downs,’ a deep valley, behind which two extinct volcanoes rear their conical heads. The summer-house had just been prettily covered with purple heather. A less happy thought was a stuffed tiger, lying as if alive in the anteroom.

My travelling chaplain here quitted me, and I rode alone to the vale of Durwan, where, in a narrow romantic pass, stands a rock eighty or a hundred feet high, shaped in the rude outline of the human figure. The country people, who relate many wondrous stories about it, call it the Giant. Not far from it are the ruins of a castle, so entirely overgrown with ivy, that you must approach very near to distinguish it from the surrounding trees. At the end of the valley the path winds over meadows to a considerable height, which command a most exquisite view. I looked across the sea, and saw, almost with a feeling of home sickness, the Welsh mountains in the blue distance.

After having refreshed myself with bread and milk in a little country inn, I took my way to the ‘Devil’s Glen,’ which merits the name it bears. The wild scene opens with a Gothic castle, whose blackened walls rise above the surrounding wood: you then plunge into a glen whose sides gradually rise higher and higher, and are more and more contracted, while the moaning breeze rustles louder through the dark thicket, and the torrent roars more fearfully. I rode on with difficulty over the slippery earth, incessantly annoyed by the overhanging boughs, and suddenly found the path terminated by a magnificent cascade, which plunges headlong over lofty crags, and disappears foaming in the bottom. If not the devil himself, it is at least KÜhleborn.

Most agreeable is the change from this awful glen to the lovely sylvan valley of Rosanna, where I ate my mid-day repast under the shade of high ash-trees. I found two regular English tourists, armed with hortus siccus and hammers. They had resided here for some weeks, during which time they had had the clean table-cloth removed from the dirty table, and remained sitting an hour at dessert, with exactly the same punctuality as in a London coffee-house, though they had miserable sloe-juice instead of claret, and roasted apples instead of ripe fruit.

At seven o’clock I mounted my horse again, galloped ten miles along the main road, and just before sunset reached the exquisitely beautiful Avondale. In this paradise every possible charm is united. A wood which appears of measureless extent, two noble rivers, rocks of every variety of picturesque form, the greenest meadows, the most varied and luxuriant shrubberies and thickets; in short, scenery changing at every step, yet never diminishing in beauty. The last time I traversed the valley it was moonlight, and I should have found my way with difficulty but for a young man who was returning from shooting; with true Irish kindness and courtesy he accompanied me at least three miles on foot, far beyond the most intricate parts. The night was extremely clear and mild, the sky as blue as by day, and the moon lustrous as a gem. Though I lost something in extent of view, I gained perhaps more by the magic light which was diffused through the atmosphere; by the darker and more fantastic ‘contours’ of the rocks,—the thought-pregnant stillness,—and the sweetly-awful loneliness of night.

At ten o’clock I reached the end of my day’s journey, Avoca Inn; where I found very tolerable accommodation, kind and hearty attendance, and moderate charges. I met another English tourist in the eating-room:—but this was a high spirited and interesting young man, who fully sympathized in my rapture at the enchanting country, and with whom I talked away a very pleasant hour at tea, before I sat down to write to you. But now good night, for mountain travelling demands early rising.

Roundwood, August 23rd.

Yesterday I rode eight German miles,—to-day nine; and my chest is not at all the worse. Pleasure is an excellent restorative; and I have seen so many varied objects, that these few days appear to me like so many weeks.

I had slept well, though the broken windows of my chamber were only repaired with pillows. My humble lodging was succeeded by a better breakfast, and my horse was excellently taken care of. I ride like the Arabs, either at a gallop or a foot pace: this fatigues one the least, and gets over the most ground. My first excursion was to the celebrated ‘Meeting of the Waters,’ where the two rivers Avon-beg and Avon-more unite their streams. They have chosen the most picturesque spot in which to celebrate their nuptial feast.

On a rock on this side stands Castle Howard, with its numerous towers and battlements, which, unluckily, were but just finished, and on a near approach lost all their imposing effect. I found the castle still buried in sleep; and a servant in his shirt showed me the pictures, among which is a splendid portrait of Mary Stuart. This must be a speaking likeness; it is clearly of her time; and the attractive, truly French face, with the delicate nose, the captivating mouth, the languishing fire of the eyes; and that indescribable, inimitable expression which, without making any direct advance, yet somehow inspires courage, and though not devoid of womanly dignity, yet at the first glance bespeaks confidence and intimacy,—all convince one that thus the woman must have looked, whom scarcely any man could approach nearly, however severed by inequality of rank, without soon assuming the character of a lover. Her hands are exquisite; and in her dress, although of the ‘barroque’ style of that age, there reigns such harmony, that one is instantly convinced she was not less skilled in the arts of the toilet than her countrywomen of the present day.

An excellent road leads from this place through the ‘entire vale’ to the park of Bally-Arthur. The peculiar characteristic of this valley is, that the hills on either side are clothed with such impenetrable beech-woods that there is no visible interval between the masses, and it really looks as if you could ride on the tops of the trees. I here quitted the road, and followed a footpath in the thicket, which led me to a very beautiful view; at the termination of the long glen, the towers of Arklow appeared as if set in a frame. About a mile and a half further on, the path suddenly ends in a ha-ha, over which my horse utterly refused to leap. As the wall was on my side, and the turf below very soft, I hit upon a new expedient: I tied my handkerchief over the eyes of the refractory beast, and pushed him down backwards over the wall. He was very little frightened, and not at all hurt by the fall as I had expected, and grazed peaceably blindfold till I rejoined him. This manoeuvre saved me at least five miles.

The new park in which I now found myself,—for all this part of the country is a continued pleasure-ground,—belonged to Shelton Abbey, a modern piece of Gothicry, intended to represent an old abbey. The possessors had been absent for years; and a negro who was at work in the garden, showed me the rooms, in which are some very interesting pictures. The hero of one is the great-grandfather of the possessor; the scene in Italy, and the costume, as well as the manners represented, most strange and even revolting. The civil negro led me across the fields and through a pretty deep ford in the river, (whose ice-cold waters did not seem to alarm him), to the town of Arklow, whence I returned along the high road to dinner at Avoca Inn. In the course of my ride I ascended another hill, from which I looked down into three distinct valleys, the contrasted character of which afforded a most singular view. Scarcely had I seated myself at table (at Avoca), when I was told that some one wished to speak to me. A young man, whom I had never seen, was shown in, and presented to me a pocket-book, which, to my no small astonishment, I recognized as my own; containing, besides other important papers which I always carry about me, all the money I had taken for my journey. I had, Lord knows how, dropped it out of my breast-pocket in the summer-house; and had, therefore, no small reason to congratulate myself on so honourable and obliging a finder. In England I should hardly have had the good fortune to see my pocket-book again, even if a ‘gentleman’ had found it; he would probably have let it lie in peace,—or kept it.

I must here take occasion to explain to you what this far-famed epithet ‘gentleman’ means, since the signification affixed to it is inimitably characteristic of the English.

‘A gentleman’ is neither a man of noble birth, nor a man of noble sentiments (weder ein Edelmann noch ein edler Mann—neither a Nobleman nor a noble man;) but, in strictness,[124] a man of independent means, and perfect knowledge of the usages of good society. He who serves or works for the public in any way, (the higher functionaries of the state, and here and there a poet or artist of the first category only excepted,) is no ‘gentleman,’ or at best only a half a one. I was greatly astonished at hearing a certain well-known personage, with whom all lovers of horses, native and foreign, are well acquainted; who is rich, who is on a footing of intimacy with many Dukes and Lords, and enjoys great consideration, but who presides at a weekly auction of horses (thereby doing useful service to the public)—say of himself, “I can’t imagine how the Duke of B—— could commission me to carry a challenge to Count M——; he ought to have employed a gentleman,—those things are not in my way.”

A really poor man, who is not in a situation to contract debts, can on no terms be a ‘gentleman.’ On the contrary, a rich scamp, who has had what is called a good education, so long as he preserves his ‘character’[125] (reputation) dexterously, passes for a ‘perfect gentleman.’ In the exclusive society of London there are yet finer ‘nuances.’ A man, for instance, who were to manifest any timidity or courtesy towards women, instead of treating them in a familiar, confident, and ‘nonchalant’ manner, would awaken the suspicion that he was ‘no gentleman:’ but should the luckless man ask twice for soup at dinner, or appear in evening dress at a breakfast which begins at three in the afternoon and ends at midnight,—he may be a prince and a ‘millionaire,’ but he is no gentleman.

But let us back from Babylon’s tyrannous jargon to the freedom of the hills. The country through which I now rode was strikingly like the flat part of Switzerland, gradually rising till I found myself opposite to the highest mountains of Wicklow, whose heads were shrouded in clouds. The valley of Glenmalure has a character of desolate sublimity, which harmonized perfectly with the weather. In the midst stands a deserted and already decaying barrack, which looks like a haunted castle;—neither tree nor bush is to be seen, and the sides of the mountains are covered with loose stones. The valley has only subterranean inhabitants, and their life produces death. Here are great lead-works, whose unwholesome exhalations are traced on the pallid faces of the workmen. I dressed myself in a black slop, and was driven into one of the entrances,—a gloomy and terrific journey. The passages were cold as ice; pitch-darkness reigned in them, and a cutting wind loaded with a death-like smell blew in our faces. Minute drops fell with a hollow sound from the low roof, which bent us nearly double; and the jolting of the car, which a man dragged slowly over the rugged bottom, completed the picture of horrors.

The delicate state of my chest did not permit me to remain long here, and I gave up all further researches, glad ‘once more to see the rosy light.’

I had now to ride over a new and magnificent military road (for the government has the watchfulness of a bad conscience about Ireland,) over one of the mountains which enclose the valley. The view from the heights was extensive and beautiful, and yet of a very different character from any I had yet seen: it was much improved by a most favourable light thrown by the sun from beneath a line of black clouds. No effect of light gives such clearness and brilliancy to distant objects as this. The rays lay in broad stripes like a glory on the intersecting lines of hills; and the two ‘Sugar Loaves’ stood overtopping all, in deep blue against this clear horizon. The way down the mountain is so serpentine that I could gallop along it with ease. It was nevertheless quite evening before I reached the last valley which I had yet to see in this day’s tour—the Valley of the Seven Churches. Here stood, above a thousand years ago, ‘sic fabula docet,’ a large city with seven churches, which the Danes destroyed. A handsome gateway still remains almost entire, though the key-stone is wanting. Time has repaired this loss by a thick ivy branch, which holds together the whole arch. Seven distinct ruins are, according to the popular belief, the remains of those holy structures which gave its name to the valley. Only one of them indisputably bears this character, and is remarkable from one of the highest of those strange mysterious towers, without doors or windows, which are found near many ruins of religious houses in Ireland. At the further end of the valley, sunk in the deepest hollow and most sacred repose, sleep two dark lakes, celebrated for the adventures of Saint Kevin. The rocks around them are uncommonly steep, and in many places formed like stairs. In one is a narrow and deep cleft, exactly as if cut by a mighty blow. The legend tells that the young giant Fian MacCumhal, being thought by his comrades yet too weak to serve in the war they were then waging, cleft the rock with his sword, and so put an end to their doubts. Further still, in a rock overhanging the lake, you descry a black hole in the cave,—Saint Kevin’s cell.

Here the saint sought refuge from the persecuting love of the king’s beautiful daughter Cathelin, and lived for a long time in solitude on roots and herbs. In a fatal hour the wandering fair-one discovered the fugitive, and surprised him in the dead of night on his mossy couch. With sweet kisses she awakened the ungallant saint; who seeing his danger, took the desperate resolution of pushing Cathelin over the precipice into the lake, where she lost life and love in its dark waters.

But the man of God felt some touch of human pity, and commanded that no other life should ever be lost in these waters,—a charm which, as my guide testified, is in full force to this day. This ‘cicerone’ was a pretty, and as usual half-naked, boy of about eleven; his dress was a specimen of an Irish toilette, worthy of mention. He wore the coat of a grown man, which besides many diaphanous places, was deficient in a sleeve and a half, and one flap, while the other streamed after him like the tail of a comet. Neckcloth, waistcoat, and shirt were dismissed, as wholly superfluous: to make amends, the remains of a pair of red plush breeches made a most magnificent appearance, though in somewhat strong contrast with the naked legs beneath. To see this figure scramble over the rocks like a squirrel, singing all the while bits of “Tommy”[126] Moore and Walter Scott, was certainly characteristic. As he led me to the cave, at a point where the passage was rather slippery, he cried, “Oh you can come on very well; I brought Sir Walter Scott here, and he climbed over the worst places, though he had a lame foot.” He could talk of nothing else; and recited rapidly four lines which Scott or Moore, I forget which, had composed in the cavern. These people are so exactly suited to the wild and ruin-clad country, that without them it would lose much of its romantic interest.

In order to reach a tolerable inn at night, I had to ride ten miles over an interminable moor, the usual haunt of all sorts of spirits, though only now and then a solitary Will-o’-the-wisp flitted by me.

When I reached the village, both the inns were filled with ‘tourists;’ and it was with the greatest difficulty that I procured a little sort of ante-room, in which I was to sleep on straw. The tea, butter, toast and eggs were, however, excellent, and hunger seasoned my repast. I cannot describe to you how delightful this life is to me. Amidst all its privations, I feel myself a hundred times more ‘À mon aise,’ than encumbered and annoyed with a thousand unnecessary conveniences. I am as free as the bird in the air, and that is one of the highest enjoyments.

And now, honour to whom honour is due. Few men would sit down with religious regularity every evening, after such fatigues, to write you a faithful report of all the events of the day. If it does but give you pleasure, I am rewarded a thousandfold.

Bray, August 24th.

Gall maintained, as you may remember, when he examined my skull in Paris, that I have a very prominent organ of veneration. Nevertheless many have regarded me as a vile heretic; but he was right;—that is, if religion consists in love, and in a sincere striving after truth. In such a joyful, pious frame of mind did I greet the fresh morning with prayer and praise, and the inward brightness broke through the gloomy damp mist which surrounded me; for the weather was extremely bad. The road too was desert and melancholy;—but, patience! the evening brought back sunshine and beauty.

For the present I saw nothing around me, as far as my eye could reach, but barren heath and moor; a stormy wind blew across it in gusts; and drove before it the rack, which, when I came within its reach, wetted me like a heavy rain. Short and feeble gleams of sun gave momentary hope, till about noon the clouds parted; and exactly as I reached the summit of the mountain above the magnificent valley and lake of Luggelaw, the sun gilded all the country beneath me, though the tops of the hills were yet shrouded in mist.

This valley belongs to a wealthy proprietor, who has converted it into a delightful park. It is singularly laid out, and I will try to give you an idea of it. The valley forms a nearly regular long oval basin. The lake occupies the immediate fore-ground to the mountain’s foot; the middle-ground is meadow-land, studded with groups of trees, and watered by a meandering stream; and in its centre, backed by a solitary rock, is an elegant ‘shooting lodge.’ The mountains surrounding the valley are very high and steep, and rise on every side, in a bare and unbroken line from the perfectly level plain. On the left are naked rocks of imposing aspect, only here and there overgrown with heath-plants; the three other sides are clothed with thick and varied vegetation, whose foliage hangs into the very lake. At the spot where the mountain streams flow through bright green herbage into the lake, it forms a broad waterfall. It is indeed a lovely spot of earth, lonely and secluded; the wood full of game, the lake full of fish, and nature full of poetry. As the shooting season has not yet begun, the proprietor was absent; and the wife of the steward, a still pretty woman, though rather ‘passÉe,’ with handsome white hands, and manners above her station, at my request prepared my breakfast; while her lively little son conducted me about the valley. A beautiful greyhound, who bounded over the ground as lightly as a leaf borne by the wind, and enjoyed his freedom in the wildest gambols, accompanied us. We climbed, not without pain to my chest, ‘car je ne vaux plus rien À pied,’ to a rocky table-land, four hundred feet high, which overlooks the whole valley. Opposite is a strange sport of nature,—a monstrous face regularly formed in stone, looking gloomily and angrily on the lake below. The eye-brows and beard were distinctly marked by moss heath, and the prominent cheeks and deep sunk eyes perfectly formed by the clefts in the rock. The mouth is open;—when you remove further off it closes, but without altering the other features. It is really a high prerogative to possess such a living image of a mountain spirit. He looks, however, as I said, angrily on the lake, and seems to call aloud with open mouth, “Ye human creatures, leave my valley, my fish, my game, my rocks, and woods in peace! Leave them, or I will bury you, ye pigmies, under my ruins!” But it is in vain! the voice of spirits is become powerless since man’s own spirit awoke. RÜbezahl’s countenance is turned to stone, and his voice dies away in the gusty breeze, which irreverently sports with his bushy eyebrows, and curls the waves of the lake as if in scorn against him.

An interval of ten miles of uninteresting country lay between this walk and my arrival at the gate of the park of P——, one of the most extensive and beautiful in Ireland. But it was Sunday, the lord of the domain a saint,—and of course the gate locked. On this day, according to his view of the matter, a pious man must on no account leave his house except to enclose himself within the gloomy walls of a damp church: on no account rejoice himself in God’s own wondrous and magnificent temple. This was a sin to which Lord P—— would by no means afford encouragement, and at his recent departure had therefore prohibited the opening of his gate. Instructed by the adventure which you may recollect befell me in England, I made no attempt at winning a passage by means of a gift, but pursued my way along a wall, over which from time to time I cast a longing and stolen glance at the magnificent waterfall and the enchanting scene. Thou beneficent God! thought I, in what different ways art thou worshipped! One man roasts his neighbour to thy honour; another fashions thee as Apis: some represent thee more partial and unjust than the devil himself; others think they offer thee the most acceptable service when they deface thy loveliest gifts, or deprive themselves and others of the enjoyment of them. Oh! Lord P——, you will not read these lines; but it were good for you if you could, and if you would lay them to heart! Full many a poor man, who sweats through the whole week that he may pay you your rent, would feel his heart expand with joy on a Sunday in your beautiful park, and would bless the goodness of that God who has not left him wholly destitute; who has spread out before his eyes the glory and the beauty of creation. And this joy would be reflected back upon yourself;—but perhaps, you are not even present? Perhaps you send your pious commands from afar? You are, perhaps, like so many of your colleagues, one of those ‘absentees’ who by the hands of ravenous and merciless agents strip the people of their last rag, rob them of their last potatoe,[127] to enrich the charlatans of London, Paris, or Italy. Then, indeed, if that be the case, your religion can hardly go beyond superstitious veneration for the Sunday, and for the ceremonies of your priests.

From hence to Bray the cultivation is luxuriant; the country is filled with houses and gardens of the opulent citizens: the road lies at the foot of the Great Sugar Loaf, whose hoary naked cone is barren of all vegetation. I saw some travellers who had just ascended it, and looked like moving chess-men; I envied them the magnificent view, for the day was brilliant and the atmosphere perfectly clear. Towards evening I lay myself down in a lonely spot, among the field-flowers by the side of a brook, and gave myself up to a dreamy and grateful delight in this beautiful world; leaving, like a knight-errant, my faithful steed to graze by my side. I thought of you and of past times; I called on the living to appear, and the dead to arise, and looked into my past life as into a mirror—now with a melancholy, then with a cheerful smile: for through all the follies and vanities of this world, through errors and faults, there still ran one pure silver thread strong enough to endure;—feelings of childlike love, and a high capacity for enjoyments which God’s goodness renders attainable by all.

I returned to Bray in good time, and found my travelling-bag arrived; it contained many things which, after long privation, were not to be despised: among others, it afforded me the most interesting of companions, Lord Byron. I have now two portraits of him before me, drawings which have been given me, and which I have had bound in the Giaour and Don Juan. Like Napoleon, while yet aspiring, he is thin, wild and melancholy; when he had reached the summit, he is fat and smiling. But in both these otherwise so different countenances is seen that scornful, haughty spirit, deeply shaken by fate, more deeply sensitive by nature, which animated these features.

I can never refrain from laughing at the English, who pass such pitiful cockney judgments on this their second poet (for after Shakspeare the palm is surely his,) because he ridiculed their pedantry, because he could not adapt himself to the manners and usages of their little nook, nor share in their cold superstition; because their insipidity was sickening to him, and because he denounced their arrogance and hypocrisy. Many of them cross themselves (inwardly) when they mention him; and even the women, though their cheeks glow with enthusiasm when they read him, in public take part vehemently against their secret favourite.

It was worthy of grateful Germany, worthy of our Patriarch, to erect a lasting German arch of triumph, to a man who belongs to Europe, opposite to that monument of infamy which the English have laboured to build.

Could I but bid you a ‘farewell’ as immortal as his,—it should be no last, I hope no long farewell, but as tender and as touching. Think of me thus.

Your faithful L——.