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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