THE UNIVERSAL FAMILY PAPER FOR INTER-COMMUNICATIONS ON 



NATURAL HISTORY-POPULAR SCIENCE-THINGS IN GENERAL. 



Conducted by WILLIAM KIDD, of Hammersmith,— 



Author of the Familiar and Popular Essays on "Natural History;" "British Song 

 Birds;" " Birds of Passage ; " "Instinct and Reason;" " The Aviary," &c. 



"the OBJECT of our work is to make men WISER, without obliging them to turn over folios and 



QUARTOS.— TO FURNISH MATTER FOR THINKING AS WELL AS READING."— EVELYN. 



No. 24.— 1852. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 12. 



Price l^d. 



Or, in Monthly Parts, Price Id. 



REMINISCENCES OF A VISIT TO BRIGNALL 

 AND BOKEBY. 



PART II.— ROKEBY. 



BY WILLIAM SPOONER. 



I never looked a last adieu 

 To things familiar, hut my heart 

 Shrank, with a feeling almost pain, 

 Even from their lifelessness to part. 



Mrs. Southey. 



( Continued from page 355.) 



Furnished with the requisite card 

 of admission to the domain of Rokeby, I 

 presented myself on the following morning 

 at the lodge entrance. 



After enrolling my name in the visitors 1 

 book, the path to the river side was pointed 

 out to me by the keeper of the lodge, who 

 was kindly tending a young rook which had 

 been injured by a fall from the nest a few 

 days before. The invalid, I remember, was 

 perched upon a lower branch of one of the 

 large trees adjoining the lodge, and it was 

 pleasing to hear that the parent birds fre- 

 quently visited their unlucky offspring. I 

 had no doubt that, by the old birds 1 attention 

 and the good man's kind assistance, Master 

 Jim would soon be in a condition to wing 

 his flight to the neighboring pastures in com- 

 pany with the rest of the family. 



Crossing the open glade of the park which 

 lies between the river and the lodge, and 

 which was richly gemmed with a variety of 

 beautiful woodland flowers— the wild hya- 

 cinth in particular, among the most striking, 

 I reached a carefully-arranged flower garden 

 near the river side. Leaving that gay plot 

 of highly-cultivated ground on my right, I 

 found myself immediately on the banks of 

 the Greta. 



Emerging from " Brignall's dark wood 

 glen, 11 the river flows on in a wide expanse ; 

 and passing under the old bridge, continues 

 so to flow for some short distance, until it 

 finds a passage through the romantic ravine 



which divides Rokeby from Mortham. The 

 former is situate on the left bank, and the 

 latter on the right of the Greta. 



The " great magician, 11 who, by his potent 

 skill has brought before the mental vision of 

 his reader, the wilds of his native country 

 in all their grandeur and magnificence, de- 

 scribes this scene with the same truthful and 

 magic pen : — " The river runs with very 

 great rapidity over a bed of solid rock, 

 broken by many shelving descents, down 

 which the stream dashes with great noise 

 and impetuosity, vindicating its etymology, 

 which has been derived from the Gothic, 

 Gridan, to clamor. The banks partake of 

 the same wild and romantic character ; being 

 chiefly lofty cliffs of limestone rock, whose 

 grey color contrasts admirably with the 

 various trees and shrubs which find root 

 among the crevices, as well as with the hue 

 of the ivy, which clings around them in pro- 

 fusion, — hanging down from their projections 

 in long sweeping tendrils. At other points, 

 the rocks give place to precipitous banks of 

 earth, bearing large trees intermixed with 

 copse wood. In one spot the dell, which is 

 elsewhere very narrow, widens for a space, 

 to leave room for a dark grove of yew trees, 

 intermixed here and there with aged pines of 

 uncommon size. Directly opposite to this 

 sombre thicket, the cliffs on the Rokeby side 

 of the Greta, are tall, white, and fringed 

 with all kinds of deciduous shrubs. The 

 whole scenery of this spot is so much 

 adapted to the ideas of superstition, that it 

 has acquired the name of Blockula, from the 

 place where the Swedish witches were sup- 

 posed to hold their Sabbath. The dell, how- 

 ever, has superstitions of its own growth ; for 

 it is supposed to be haunted by a female 

 spectre, called the Dobie of Mortham.' 1 



At the time of my visit (more than thirty 

 years after Sir Walter wrote the eibove de- 

 scription), I found the tall cliffs on the 

 Rokeby side also wreathed with ivy, which 

 from their lofty crests hung in long floating- 

 tendrils — 



Vol. I.— New Series. 



