ROKEBY.
WALTER SCOTT, who, to quote the words of Dr. Whitaker, the learned historian of Richrnoudshire, "diffused much innocent and elegant pleasure by his writings," has no doubt done much to spread the fame of Rokeby, but it is not at all clear to us where hie influence in this respect has told. In the North of England, we believe, the beauty of Teesdale, and especially of this part of it, has always been recognised with something like patriotic affection ; and as for the South, we found it hard to prevent our friends there, when we said we were going to Rokeby, from confusing it with Rugby, and pity- ing us accordingly. In 1811, Mr. Morritt writes to his friend Scott,—" Should I, in consequence of your celebrity, be obliged to leave Rokeby, from the influx of Cockney romancers, artists, illustrators, and sentimental tourists, I shall retreat to Ashestiel, and thus visit on you the sine of your writings. At all events, however, I shall certainly raise the rent of my inn at Greta Bridge, on the first notice of your book, as I hear the people of Callender have made a fortune by you." The poem was published in 1813, but it is not on record that Mr. Merritt was ever in any danger of being driven from his home. Was it that the Roundheads were unpalatable in fiction, as the poet himself and his friend, Mr. Merritt, thought ; or that the poem was bad, as the world thinks (and there are certainly very few nice characters depicted in it) ; ortis it that canny York- shire is so very much less emotional than Perthshire 4 Rokeby is, indeed, a show-place, but guides who, on the other side of the Tweed, would spout Sir Walter in the face of every big rock in the path, making us feel what Byron calls "the fatal facility of octosyllabie verse," here do their work in plain prose, and do not injure our pleasure at all. Our guide is an old soldier, who has gone through a campaign in Afghanistan and the defence of Lucknow. We enter the park, which, for a quarter of a mile, differs little from any other park. We go through a wicket-gate, and at once come upon "the mountain rent and liven," which, according to Scott, might be imagined as giving a channel to the stream. So far from there being anything like a mountain in the ease, everything is on a very small scale, except the trees and the butterburs. What we really see, after emerging from a thicket of yew trees, close by the gate, is a dark-brown river, making its way quietly over a smooth-lying rock-bed, with very stately beech and sycamore trees on one side, and on the other a line of low cliffs, nowhere more than fifty feet in height, half hidden by clumpy sycamores and ivy, and crowned by Scotch firs above. All this is so beautiful in itself (a fine day being taken for granted), that the vulgar element of size is not needed to awaken our admiration. Scott's exaggeration of scale is, in fact, a survival of the method of description in vogue before his time, when to express any excitement of feeling about what we should call picturesque scenery, it was necessary to speak of all rocks and mountains as if they were always frowning and black, beetling and big. Our forefathers really had no sense of scale in these matters. Daniel Defoe, who travelled in this part of the world, could hardly find words strong enough to express his sense of its terrible wildness. Now-a-days, we might call such scenery dull and gloomy, if we saw it in dull weather, but we should never think of calling it anything worse. In truth, weather cannot be too fine for Rokeby. By noontide or by twilight, a fair summer day makes it grand with colour and strong light and shade. The sunbeam slides through one mass of leaves after another, lights up entanglements of ivy and trail- ing plants, fills the recessed angles of the limestone crags with soft greenish-golden light, and rests on the warm grey surface of one, while another, perhaps close by, is left, with all its square joints and fissures, in most delicious shadow. Then the water, if the river is low, is of the colour of a topaz, to begin with, and so shallow in many places that the sunbeam can be traced almost right across on the smooth sandstone floor, or flecks it with patches of dazzling light; and over these burning, bright spaces you can see the shadow of the foam-globes pass swiftly, where a current, after having caught against one of the grey stones lying in mid-stream, with a dancing ripple, flows onward, marked by a long, slender chain of eager little foam-bubbles. Trees rise high above (the blue of the sky showing vividly amongst their topmost sprays), with a profuse undergrowth of every green thing which flourishes in Teesdale, from sycamores and elms down to roses and honey-suckles, ragwort, wood- spurge, and the brightest of wood-sorrel. Tumbled about be- neath these, again, half in and half out of the water, is the wreck of storm and flood, great blocks of stone and pale skeletons of dead trees. A little further on, the limestone wall comes out on the other or left-hand side of the Greta (it is a marked feature in Rokeby scenery that you never get a precipice on both sides of the river-hollow at once, but always find an alternation of sheer cliff on one side, with smooth meadow and rounded bank on the other), and we have on our right hand an open space, occupied in this instance by a yew. grove, of which more anon. Then comes a passage where the actual bed of the stream is deeply trenched, and is altogether composed of huge blocks of mountain limestone, amongst which the water forces its way. As the trees here almost meet over- head, leaving only an irregular strip of sky between them, this is, perhaps, on the whole, the most notable scene in the park.
A few steps further, with or without crossing the Dairy Bridge,• bring us to the far-famed junction of the Greta and the Tees. The guide-book grudgingly hints that this scene has been over-praised, and that Devonshire can beat it. We have reason to believe that Turner, who knew what Devonshire can do, did not think so. A point on the right bank of the Greta commands his view. The drawing has been engraved in the Yorkshire series, and belongs now, by Mr. Ruskin's gift, to the University of Oxford. To his repeated praises of this drawing and his estimate of the vast amount of truth which it contains, we humbly subscribe, if we regard it without too much reference to the real scene ; but having Greta and her many-channelled waters before us, and taking Turner's work as a representation of them, we must hold that it is a crucial case of the inade- quateness of skill and feeling—of genius, in fact—to make up for the want of complete knowledge. Or perhaps we may more justly take the drawing as an instance to show how much less interest was felt in a certain set of truths 'by a supremely great artist at that time, than would probably be felt by such an artist now. The larger stream of the Tees flows directly towards us, with thick woods and ledges of pale-grey limestone on either side, until it turns aside, as if it were pushed out of its course by the little, impetuous Greta, and the layers of rock which form its channel. These layers are, it must be owned, very geometri- cal-looking indeed, and it would try the resources of the greatest composer to give their true character consistently with pleasantness of pictorial effect. From the number and minute- ness of their shallow furrows, one might almost imagine that some water-sprite of groat power and evil temper had dealt with Greta as Cyrus, in the old Herodotean story, did with a river which put him to much trouble and delay in getting across it. Cyrus "paid off Gyndes," says the historian, by distributing him into so many driblets that an army could cross dry-shod ; and Greta, in dry weather, is almost lost in the little conduits which traverse, like veins, in all directions, the pavement of bare grey rock. Turner has almost ignored this level floor, with its exact divisions ; he has preferred to dwell on the ddbris which chokes the river-bed ; but he has given as the victory of the Greta over the larger stream, the texture of the sandstone blocks, the plumy toss and fullness of the smaller trees, and above all, the solemn, rigid respectability of the three large elms which guard the house. We cannot but feel that the art-power which made the stiffness of these elms pictorial, could have done as much for the complete geological truth of the rock- foreground, had it so willed. The Greta is by no means always shallow. Like the Tees, it is liable to sudden and dangerous floods. At such times, the river comes down like a solid wall of water, and many are the stories told of hair-breadth escapes. We will tell one with a comical side. William IV., when Duke of
Clarence (perhaps Scott's influence told on him), came to see the park, and on the very day when one of these unexpected floods occurred. While he was walking with Mr. Merritt, the water, as if by magic, rose five or six feet. He watched it with great interest, and then turned round and politely thanked his host for the very picturesque surprise which he had contrived for him.
There is not much history connected with Rokeby. The Morritts have been here about a century ; the Rebinsons held it rather longer ; and before them, we know of no other owners but the Rokebys, who had lands here at the Conquest. They,were a knightly race, whose.names have a place in Frois, sart's ," Chronicles" and ballad-story. Moreover, in 1408, Sir Ralph. Rokeby, high sheriff of Yorkshire, made .head against the Earl ,of Northumberland, and defeated him and his insurrection at.,13samham Moor. The Rokebys retained their high position until the,Civil War, but having taken the part of Charles 1., were SO 'heavily ,fined that they lost their estate. During the latter half of the last century, two aged women who bore the name of Rokeby, and were of the lineage of that ancient and then nearly forgotten house, died in great poverty, in one of the small cottages between the Morritt Arms and Thorpe. Grange.
Waleave the junction safely—few do.; half of the pleasure of '
everyaparty which comes here is conveying, dripping friends who have..fallen into the river, to be dried at the good fire of the inn— and cross the Dairy Bridge to Mortham.Tower. This is said to be the most southerly example of the Border fortress or peel-tower, and was. built in the fifteenth century. it has been-" carefully, restored," but still has its irregularly embattled tower, its narrow .
winding stairs, and its barnekyn enclosure, well walled about, for the protection of cattle. It stands on the site of a still earlier house, which the Rokeby of the day built, after his own hall, on the other side of the river, had been burnt by the Scots, after !Bannockburn. Had " long " Sir. Thomas 'Robinson been
content to live here as. the Rokebys did, his closcend.aute. might hearabeen. here still, but he spent nearly the whole estate in buildieg a splendid new hall, and thea had to sell both house aml laad,to ,Mr. Merritt. This Mr. Merritt, waa., the father of Soott4. olil friend, and was likewise, net;.unprovided with a poet. Mason,. was frequently at Rolreby,.and„ not only sang the praises of the park, in that ponderously' dull poem, "The English. Garden" (at least, we are told F1Pr for shoald never have the courage to, cope with the work itself, for the.sake of verifying the statement),, but ',furbished up goats and ■summer-houses in it, opened out pointa of view, painted aralassquea and.urne on the walls of aroom by the DairyBridge, aud oven-designed a tripod-shaped font for the. church. The Daisy Bridge reminds lie that .wa.are.forgetting, the " Mortham, dolaleyr as the. ghost of the Bakebys is called. She is said to be a beautiful..104.(though how, tradition is enabled to assert this, we knoverwt,..for.she is headless), Dressed. in trailing white silk, she. walks the sombre yeiortree grove, jast above the. bridge, bytwilight. Some say she was a lady, of .Rokeby, inuadered.by robbers., others that her husband killed her in a fit of jealous fury,. However this may be, the stery, pea , that after being loug,cenfinecl under the arch of the Dairy. Bridge by priestly waders and conjurations, she was, , in 1771, released frera her. imprisonment, by the destruction of the bridge ia a flood. We ourselves sometimes wonder whether the, whole logead may not be the result of Sir. Walter's clamorous outcry for traditions,—" true or false, he cared not, so long. as they were picturesque." "Is there a legend. P" he often asked, says r. Morritt. " Sometimes, I was forced to confess there was none." "'Then," said he, f` Let usiriake one ; nothing so eseyns to make It tradition." R.91iebyis a very paradise of wild-flowers. It used to be a para- dise of birds, too, until lately, but the , cruelly ;hard winter, with its snow lying for five long months on the ground, has told on them with frightful severity, Not a.cldrp, or twitter, or quiver of wings is to be heard,—not a Idackhircl, thrush, or red,breast to. be seen. A friend, after a month's residence here, tells Us
that, wallows excepted, he has only seen four small birds ; and the inhabitants say that all last winter, although they spread crumbs, they found what a parish clerk of our acquaintance invariably called "the feathered fools of the air" lying dead by hundreds.
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