Old Roads and New Roads

Finally, we entreat of you to read this book in the temper which a certain English worthy recommends for his own.

“One or two things yet I was desirous to have amended, if I could, concerning the manner of handling this my subject, for which I must apologize, deprecari, and upon better advice give the friendly reader notice. I neglect phrases, and labour wholly to inform my reader’s understanding, not to please his ear. ’Tis my study to express myself readily and plainly as it happens: so that, as a river runs, sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow: now direct, then per ambages: now deep, then shallow: now muddy, then clear: now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow now serious, then light, as the present subject required, or as at the time I was affected. And if thou vouchsafe to read this Treatise, it shall seem to thee no otherwise than the way to an ordinary traveller, sometimes fair, sometimes foul; here champion, there enclosed; barren in one place, better soil in another. By woods, groves, hills, dales, plains, and lead thee per ardua montium et lubrica vallium et roscida cespitum et glebosa camporum, through variety of objects, to that which thou shalt like or haply dislike.”

If thou art scholarly, Gentle Reader, running to and fro on Old or New Roads may do thee good. It will afford thee time to rest eye and hand, and furnish thee with more glimpses of this working world than are to be seen from a library-window. But if it chance that thou be not clerkly, then mayest thou both ‘run to and fro’ and ‘increase thy knowledge’ even with the aid of so poor a guide as he who now bids thee “Heartily Farewell.”

1

The appellation of this, the earliest Roman road, affords another instructive example of the connection between the necessary wants of man and civilization. Salt, among the first needs of the city of Romulus, produced the path from the Salt-works; and the convenience of the Salt-work Road led ultimately to the construction of the Appian, Flaminian, and Æmilian.

2

The first introduction of stirrups was probably not earlier than the end of the sixth century, a. d. See Beckmann’s ‘History of Inventions and Discoveries,’ Eng. Trans., 1817, vol. ii. pp. 255–270.

3

It is acknowledged on all hands that no people talk so much about weather as the English. It is also true that no literature contains so many descriptions of the sensations dependent on the seasons. A French or Italian poet generally goes to Arcadia to fetch images proper for “a fine day.” We, on the contrary, paint from the life. Chaucer luxuriates, in his opening lines of the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ on the blessings and virtues of “April shoures.” Our modern novelists are always very diffuse meteorologists. In lands where the seasons are unhappily uniform, the natives are debarred from this unfailing topic of conversation. Hajji Baba, in Mr. Morier’s pleasant tale, is amazed at being told at Ispahan, by the surgeon of the English Embassy, that “it was a fine day.” On the banks of the South American rivers, mosquitoes afford a useful substitute for meteorological remarks. – “How did you sleep last night?” “Sleep! not a wink. I was hitting at the mosquitoes all night, and am, you see, bitten like a roach notwithstanding.”

4

The historian might have added to this description of Roman carriages an allusion to the sumptuousness of Roman harness. Apuleius informs us that “necklaces of gold and silver thread embroidered with pearls encircled the necks of the horses; that the head-bands glittered with gems; and the saddles, traces, and reins were cased in bright ribbons.”

5

Not always, on horseback: for while the knight, as his Latin designation eques implied, was always mounted on a charger, his lady sometimes rode beside him on an ass: —

“A loyely ladie rode him faire beside,Upon a lowly asse, more white than snow;Yet she much whiter; but the same did hideUnder a vele, that wimpled was full low;And over all a black stole did she throw:As one that inly mourned so was she sad,And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow.”

6

We do not remember to have seen it remarked that Shakspeare has described all the good points of a horse, as well as (in the passage in the text) every imaginable bad one. The horse of Adonis was

“Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide.”

7

Riding as a Squire of Dames was occasionally a service of some danger. The long hair-pins which the ladies wore in their capillary towers were, as it appears from the following story, “as sharp as any swords.” “Pardon me, good signor Don Quixote,” says the duenna Donna Rodriguez to that unrivalled knight, “but as often as I call to mind my unhappy spouse, my eyes are brim-full. With what stateliness did he use to carry my lady behind him on a puissant mule, for in those days coaches and side-saddles were not in fashion, and the ladies rode behind their squires. On a certain day, at the entrance into St. James’s Street in Madrid, which is very narrow, a judge of one of the courts happened to be coming out with two of his officers, and as soon as my good squire saw him – so well-bred and punctilious was my husband – he turned his mule about, as if he designed to wait upon him home. My lady, who was behind him, said to him in a low voice, ‘What are you doing, blockhead? am I not here?’ The Judge civilly stopped his horse and said, ‘Keep on your way, Sir, for it is my business rather to wait on my lady Donna Casilda.’ My husband persisted, cap in hand, in his intention to wait upon the Judge, which my lady perceiving, full of choler and indignation, she pulled out a great pin and stuck it into his back; whereupon my husband bawled out, and, writhing his body, down he came with his lady to the ground. My mistress was forced to walk home on foot, and my husband went to a barber-surgeon’s, telling him he was run quite through and through the bowels. But because of this, and also because he was a little short-sighted, my lady turned him away; the grief whereof, I believe, verily was the death of him.”

8

One of the most affecting of Wordsworth’s pictures of rural manners is his sketch of the Old Cumberland Beggar. The opening lines of this excellent poem mark the usual station of the mendicant: —

“I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;And he was seated by the highway side,On a low structure of rude masonryBuilt at the foot of a huge hill, that theyWho lead their horses down the steep rough roadMay thence remount at ease.”

9

The practice of complimenting distinguished personages by suspending their portraits over ale-house doors sometimes indeed led to ludicrous consequences. We all remember the conversion of Sir Roger de Coverley’s good-humoured visage into a frowning Saracen’s Head. Soon after Dr. Watson had been installed at Llandaff, a rural Boniface exchanged for his original sign of the Cock an effigy of his new Diocesan. But somehow the ale was not so well relished by his customers as formerly. The head of the Bishop proved less inviting to the thirsty than the comb and spurs of the original Chanticleer. So to win back again the golden opinions of the public, mine host adopted an ingenious device. From reverence to the Church he retained the portrait of Dr. Watson, but as a concession to popular preferences he caused to be written under it the following inscription: —

“This is the old Cock.”

10

The splendour and costliness of English signboards seem to have struck foreigners very forcibly. Moritz, from whom we have already quoted, says that “the amazing large signs which, at the entrance of villages, hang in the middle of the street, being fastened to large beams, which are extended across the street from one house to another opposite to it, particularly struck me. These sign-posts have the appearance of gates, or gateways, for which I at first took them, but the whole apparatus, unnecessarily large as it seems to be, is intended for nothing more than to tell the inquisitive traveller that there is an inn.” It marks in some degree the territorial prejudices of the English people that the principal inn of a hamlet usually “hangs out” the crest of the family, if it be indeed an ancient house, at the neighbouring hall or great house, whether it be a Swan, a Griffin, a St. George, or other heraldic or historic emblem or hero.

11

We have availed ourselves of Mr. Cary’s skilful translation of Brunetto’s description of his journey from Florence to Valladolid, whither he had been sent on an embassy by the Guelph party: – “Un scolaio – Sur un muletto baio,” etc.

12

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to observe how much indebted our great poets have been to the early travellers. Milton had perhaps this passage in his memory when he wrote the speech of the Lady in ‘Comus’: —

“A thousand fantasiesBegin to throng into my memory,Of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire,And aery tongues, that syllable men’s namesOn sands and shores and desert wildernesses.”

13

“The isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep,Will make me sleep again.” —Tempest, act iii. sc. 2.

14

Among the most satisfactory of such works, we would especially mention ‘A History of the English Railway,’ by John Francis, in two volumes, 8vo, to which our own sketch is under great obligations.

15

The staff of an ancient Curator Viarum resembled very nearly the accompaniments of a modern Railway contractor. “Caius Gracchus,” says Plutarch, “was appointed supreme director for making roads, etc. The people were charmed to see him followed by such numbers of architects, artificers, ambassadors, and magistrates: and he applied to the whole with as much activity, and despatched it with as much ease, as if there had been only one thing for him to attend to: insomuch that they who both hated and feared the man were struck with his amazing industry, and the celerity of his operations.”