第27章 LETTER IX(1)

I have already informed you that there are only two noblemen who have estates of any magnitude in Norway.One of these has a house near Tonsberg,at which he has not resided for some years,having been at court,or on embassies.He is now the Danish Ambassador in London.The house is pleasantly situated,and the grounds about it fine;but their neglected appearance plainly tells that there is nobody at home.

A stupid kind of sadness,to my eye,always reigns in a huge habitation where only servants live to put cases on the furniture and open the windows.I enter as I would into the tomb of the Capulets,to look at the family pictures that here frown in armour,or smile in ermine.The mildew respects not the lordly robe,and the worm riots unchecked on the cheek of beauty.

There was nothing in the architecture of the building,or the form of the furniture,to detain me from the avenue where the aged pines stretched along majestically.Time had given a greyish cast to their ever-green foliage;and they stood,like sires of the forest,sheltered on all sides by a rising progeny.I had not ever seen so many oaks together in Norway as in these woods,nor such large aspens as here were agitated by the breeze,rendering the wind audible--nay musical;for melody seemed on the wing around me.How different was the fresh odour that reanimated me in the avenue,from the damp chillness of the apartments;and as little did the gloomy thoughtfulness excited by the dusty hangings,and worm-eaten pictures,resemble the reveries inspired by the soothing melancholy of their shade.In the winter,these august pines,towering above the snow,must relieve the eye beyond measure and give life to the white waste.

The continual recurrence of pine and fir groves in the day sometimes wearies the sight,but in the evening,nothing can be more picturesque,or,more properly speaking,better calculated to produce poetical images.Passing through them,I have been struck with a mystic kind of reverence,and I did,as it were,homage to their venerable shadows.Not nymphs,but philosophers,seemed to inhabit them--ever musing;I could scarcely conceive that they were without some consciousness of existence--without a calm enjoyment of the pleasure they diffused.

How often do my feelings produce ideas that remind me of the origin of many poetical fictions.In solitude,the imagination bodies forth its conceptions unrestrained,and stops enraptured to adore the beings of its own creation.These are moments of bliss;and the memory recalls them with delight.

But I have almost forgotten the matters of fact I meant to relate,respecting the counts.They have the presentation of the livings on their estates,appoint the judges,and different civil officers,the Crown reserving to itself the privilege of sanctioning them.But though they appoint,they cannot dismiss.Their tenants also occupy their farms for life,and are obliged to obey any summons to work on the part he reserves for himself;but they are paid for their labour.In short,I have seldom heard of any noblemen so innoxious.

Observing that the gardens round the count's estate were better cultivated than any I had before seen,I was led to reflect on the advantages which naturally accrue from the feudal tenures.The tenants of the count are obliged to work at a stated price,in his grounds and garden;and the instruction which they imperceptibly receive from the head gardener tends to render them useful,and makes them,in the common course of things,better husbandmen and gardeners on their own little farms.Thus the great,who alone travel in this period of society,for the observation of manners and customs made by sailors is very confined,bring home improvement to promote their own comfort,which is gradually spread abroad amongst the people,till they are stimulated to think for themselves.

The bishops have not large revenues,and the priests are appointed by the king before they come to them to be ordained.There is commonly some little farm annexed to the parsonage,and the inhabitants subscribe voluntarily,three times a year,in addition to the church fees,for the support of the clergyman.The church lands were seized when Lutheranism was introduced,the desire of obtaining them being probably the real stimulus of reformation.The tithes,which are never required in kind,are divided into three parts--one to the king,another to the incumbent,and the third to repair the dilapidations of the parsonage.They do not amount to much.And the stipend allowed to the different civil officers is also too small,scarcely deserving to be termed an independence;that of the custom-house officers is not sufficient to procure the necessaries of life--no wonder,then,if necessity leads them to knavery.Much public virtue cannot be expected till every employment,putting perquisites out of the question,has a salary sufficient to reward industry;--whilst none are so great as to permit the possessor to remain idle.It is this want of proportion between profit and labour which debases men,producing the sycophantic appellations of patron and client,and that pernicious esprit du corps,proverbially vicious.

The farmers are hospitable as well as independent.Offering once to pay for some coffee I drank when taking shelter from the rain,I was asked,rather angrily,if a little coffee was worth paying for.

They smoke,and drink drams,but not so much as formerly.