Travels in England in 1782

Travels in England in 1782

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Title: Travels in England in 1782
Author: Charles P. Moritz
Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5249] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 11, 2002]
[Most recently updated: June 11, 2002]
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Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

TRAVELS IN ENGLAND IN 1782

INTRODUCTION

Charles P. Moritz's "Travels, chiefly on foot, through several parts of
England in 1782, described in Letters to a Friend," were translated from
the German by a lady, and published in 1795. John Pinkerton included
them in the second volume of his Collection of Voyages and Travels.
The writer of this account of England as it was about a hundred years
ago, and seven years before the French Revolution, was a young
Prussian clergyman, simply religious, calmly enthusiastic for the freer
forms of citizenship, which he found in England and contrasted with
the military system of Berlin. The touch of his times was upon him,
with some of the feeling that caused Frenchmen, after the first outbreak
of the Revolution, to hail Englishmen as "their forerunners in the
glorious race." He had learnt English at home, and read Milton, whose
name was inscribed then in German literature on the banners of the
free.
In 1782 Charles Moritz came to England with little in his purse and
"Paradise Lost" in his pocket, which he meant to read in the Land of
Milton. He came ready to admire, and enthusiasm adds some colour to
his earliest impressions; but when they were coloured again by hard
experience, the quiet living sympathy remained. There is nothing small
in the young Pastor Moritz, we feel a noble nature in his true simplicity
of character.
He stayed seven weeks with us, three of them in London. He travelled
on foot to Richmond, Windsor, Oxford, Birmingham, and Matlock,
with some experience of a stage coach on the way back; and when, in

dread of being hurled from his perch on the top as the coach flew down
hill, he tried a safer berth among the luggage in the basket, he had
further experience. It was like that of Hood's old lady, in the same place
of inviting shelter, who, when she crept out, had only breath enough
left to murmur, "Oh, them boxes!"
Pastor Moritz's experience of inns was such as he hardly could pick up
in these days of the free use of the feet. But in those days everybody
who was anybody rode. And even now, there might be cold welcome to
a shabby-looking pedestrian without a knapsack. Pastor Moritz had his
Milton in one pocket and his change of linen in the other. From some
inns he was turned away as a tramp, and in others he found cold
comfort. Yet he could be proud of a bit of practical wisdom drawn by
himself out of the "Vicar of Wakefield," that taught him to conciliate
the innkeeper by drinking with him; and the more the innkeeper drank
of the ale ordered the better, because Pastor Moritz did not like it, and it
did not like him. He also felt experienced in the ways of the world
when, having taken example from the manners of a bar-maid, if he
drank in a full room he did not omit to say, "Your healths, gentlemen
all."
Fielding's Parson Adams, with his AEschylus in his pocket, and Parson
Moritz with his Milton, have points of likeness that bear strong witness
to Fielding's power of entering into the spirit of a true and gentle nature.
After the first touches of enthusiastic sentiment, that represent real
freshness of enjoyment, there is no reaction to