# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Chester

CHESTER.
Queer, quaint, old Chester,—I had heard of thee
 From one, who in his boyhood knew thee well,
And therefore did I scan with earnest eye
 The castled turret, where he used to dwell,
And the fair walnut tree, whose branches bent Their broad, embracing arms around the battlement.
His graphic words were like the painter's touch,
 So true to life, that I could scarce persuade
Myself I had not seen thy face before,
 Or round their ancient walls and ramparts strayed,
And often, as thy varied haunts I ken'd
Stretched out my hand to thee, as a familiar friend.
Grotesque and honest-hearted art thou, sure,
 And so behind this very changeful day,
So fond of antique fashions, it would seem
 Thou must have slept an age or two away.
Thy very streets are galleries, and I trow
Thy people all were born some hundred years ago.
Old Rome was once thy guest, beyond a doubt,
 And many a keepsake to thy hand she gave,
Trinket, and rusted coin, and lettered stone,
 Ere with her legions she recrossed the wave,
And thou dost hoard her gifts with pride and care,
As erst the Gracchian dame displayed her jewels rare.
Here,'neath thy dim Cathedral let us pause,
 And list the echo of that sacred chime,
That, when the heathen darkness fled away,
 Went up at Easter and at Christmas time,
Chants of His birth, who woke the angel-train,
And of that bursting tomb, where Death himself was slain.
Ho! Mercian Abbey, hast thou ne'er a tale
 Of grim Wulpherius, with his warriors dread?
Or of the veiled nuns at vigil pale,
 Who owned the rule of Saxon Ethelfled?
Did hopeless love in yon dark cloisters sigh?
Or in thy dungeon vaults some hapless victim die?
And there mid graceful shades is Eaton Hall,
 With princely gate and Gothic front of pride,
In modern beauty, though perchance we fain
 Might choose with hoar antiquity to bide,
For she, with muffled brow and legend wild,
Knows well to charm the ear of Fancy's musing child.
Baronial splendor decks yon gilded halls,
 And here in niches cold are armed knights,
And costly paintings on the lofty walls,
 And every charm that luxury delights,
And ample parks, and velvet lawns, where stray
The ruminating herd, or the white lambkins play.
But yet the flowers, that with their thousand eyes
 Look timid up and nurse their infant gem,
To me are dearer than the gorgeous dome
 Or fretted arch, that overshadows them.
Methought their soft lips ask, all bright with dew,
The welfare of their friends, that in my country grew.
Yes, in my simple garden, far away
 Beyond the ocean waves, that toss and roll,
Your gentle kindred drink the healthful ray,
 Heaven's holy voice within their secret soul,
And the same words they speak, so pure and free,
Unto my loved ones there, that here ye say to me.
Tuesday, August 25, 1840.
The features of Chester are peculiar, at least to an American eye. Its dwellings are so constructed, with a story projecting over the side-walks, that the passengers move along through covered vestibules; and at first view, they who are in the streets seem to be in the houses, and they who are in the houses, in the streets. It exhibits the only specimen of ancient for​tification in England, with the exception of Carlisle. Its walls are nearly two miles in circumference, and afford an agreeable promenade. The towers, by which they were defended, were anciently placed at bow-shot distance, that they might afford aid to each other, as well as annoy by their arrows a besieging enemy.
Chester has a Castle where a garrison is stationed, and a Cathedral erected in the fifteenth century, which is 350 feet in length, by 75 in breadth, and the altitude of the tower 127. Its most ancient portion, which was originally an abbey, was founded 1160 years since, by Wulpherius, king of Mercia. The Danes destroyed it when they took possession of Chester, in 895; but it was afterwards restored, and placed under the government of Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great. Beneath its low- browed arches we were shown the tomb of Henry IV. of Germany, and some Roman relics. Among the latter was a stone, with an obscure Latin inscription, purporting that one thousand paces of the wall were built by the cohort under Ocratius Maximinius. It is well known that the head-quarters of the twentieth Roman legion were at Chester, and that it is supposed to derive its name from Castrum, a camp or military station. Many circumstances led me to explore with peculiar interest this antique and fortified town.
A ride of four miles beyond it brings you to Eaton-Hall, the seat of the Marquis of Westminster. Its principal gate of entrance is said to have been erect​ed at the expense of £ 10,000; and the grounds, which are seven miles in extent, are laid out in parks, interspersed with shrubbery, beautiful flowers, and tasteful porters' lodges. The mansion, a specimen of the modern Gothic, is seven hundred feet in length, and exhibits an imposing range of towers, pinnacles, and turrets. The interior has a costly display of paintings, statuary, sculpture, and gilding. The dining-room, state bed-room, and superb library, one hundred and thirty feet in length, and divided into three compartments, with other richly- furnished apartments were shown to us. As it was the first baronial establishment our republican eyes had ever beheld, we regarded it with attention. There was much to admire, especially in the high state of cultivation that marked its environs; yet the mind reverted with a deeper sympathy to the time-worn structures we had just quitted, and preferred to linger among the shadows of mouldering antiquity.
During our ride of ten miles from Chester to Eastham, where we took passage in a steamer for Liverpool, we had delightful views of the blossomed hedges and cottage-homes of England. And as whatever we see of surpassing excellence in a foreign country, we are naturally desirous of transplanting to our own, we could not avoid wishing that our agricultural friends at home, who are such models of industry and domestic virtue, would be more careful to surround their dwellings with comfortable and agreeable objects. Were ​they to build on a smaller scale, and spare the expense of large rooms, seldom to be used, and never to be warmed, for a fruit enclosure, or a walk of shrubbery, or a garden with flowers, would it not make their young people love home the better, and be happier there? What is lovely to the eye need be no hindrance to the "things that are of good report." It may be a help to them. If the farmer, instead of making war on all the forest-trees, as if they were Amorites and Jebusites, whom he had been commanded to exterminate, would save some of those majestic columns of his Maker's workmanship, and even indulge himself in the pleasure of planting others, on the borders of the sunny road, or by the sparkling fountain, he might hear the wearied traveller bless him. And if, instead of counting it lost time to beautify the home where he trains his little ones, he would in his leisure moments nurture a vine, or a rose-plant for them, and teach them to admire the bud opening its infant eye, and the tendril reaching forth its clasping hands, he would find their characters refining under these sweet rural influences, and their hearts more ready to appreciate His goodness, who feedeth the lily on the moorlands, and maketh the "wilderness to blossom as the rose."