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I enjoyed this scene, and yet my enjoyment was embittered
both by the memory of the past and the anticipation of the future.
I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days
discontent never visited my mind, and if I was ever overcome by ennui,
the sight of what is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent
and sublime in the productions of man could always interest my heart
and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree;
the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive
to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle
of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.
We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs
and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate
to the most animating epoch of English history. Our little voyages
of discovery were often prolonged by the successive objects
that presented themselves. We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden
and the field on which that patriot fell. For a moment my soul was elevated
from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas
of liberty and self sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments
and the remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains
and look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron
had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless,
into my miserable self.
We left Oxford with regret and proceeded to Matlock, which was
our next place of rest. The country in the neighbourhood
of this village resembled, to a greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland;
but everything is on a lower scale, and the green hills
want the crown of distant white Alps which always attend
on the piny mountains of my native country. We visited the wondrous cave
and the little cabinets of natural history, where the curiosities
are disposed in the same manner as in the collections
at Servox and Chamounix. The latter name made me tremble
when pronounced by Henry, and I hastened to quit Matlock,
with which that terrible scene was thus associated.
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