place of settlement in this new capacity; and here, for some few

months, he had established himself when John his second child was
born. This was Captain Sterling's first attempt towards a fixed

course of life; not a very wise one, I have understood:--yet on the
whole, who, then and there, could have pointed out to him a wiser?

A fixed course of life and activity he could never attain, or not till
very late; and this doubtless was among the important points of his

destiny, and acted both on his own character and that of those who had
to attend him on his wayfarings.

CHAPTER III.
SCHOOLS: LLANBLETHIAN; PARIS; LONDON.

Edward Sterling never shone in farming; indeed I believe he never took
heartily to it, or tried it except in fits. His Bute farm was, at

best, a kind of apology for some far different ideal of a country
establishment which could not be realized; practically a temporary

landing-place from which he could make sallies and excursions in
search of some more generous field of enterprise. Stormy brief

efforts at energetichusbandry, at agriculturalimprovement and rapid
field-labor, alternated with sudden flights to Dublin, to London,

whithersoever any flush of bright outlook which he could denominate
practical, or any gleam of hope which his impatient ennui could

represent as such, allured him. This latter was often enough the
case. In wet hay-times and harvest-times, the dripping outdoor world,

and lounging indoor one, in the absence of the master, offered far
from a satisfactory appearance! Here was, in fact, a man much

imprisoned; haunted, I doubt not, by demons enough; though ever brisk
and brave withal,--iracund, but cheerfullyvigorous, opulent in wise

or unwise hope. A fiery energetic soul consciously and unconsciously
storming for deliverance into better arenas; and this in a restless,

rapid, impetuous, rather than in a strong, silent and deliberate way.
In rainy Bute and the dilapidated Kaimes Castle, it was evident, there

lay no Goshen for such a man. The lease, originally but for some
three years and a half, drawing now to a close, he resolved to quit

Bute; had heard, I know not where, of an eligible cottage without farm
attached, in the pleasant little village of Llanblethian close by

Cowbridge in Glamorganshire; of this he took a lease, and thither with
his family he moved in search of new fortunes. Glamorganshire was at

least a better climate than Bute; no groups of idle or of busy reapers
could here stand waiting on the guidance of a master, for there was no

farm here;--and among its other and probably its chief though secret
advantages, Llanblethian was much more convenient both for Dublin and

London than Kaimes Castle had been.
The removalthither took place in the autumn of 1809. Chief part of

the journey (perhaps from Greenock to Swansea or Bristol) was by sea:
John, just turned of three years, could in after-times remember

nothing of this voyage; Anthony, some eighteen months older, has still
a vivid recollection" target="_blank" title="n.回忆；追想；记忆力">recollection of the gray splashing tumult, and dim sorrow,

uncertainty, regret and distress he underwent: to him a
"dissolving-view" which not only left its effect on the _plate_ (as

all views and dissolving-views doubtless do on that kind of "plate"),
but remained consciously present there. John, in the close of his

twenty-first year, professes not to remember anything whatever of
Bute; his whole existence, in that earliest scene of it, had faded

away from him: Bute also, with its shaggy mountains, moaning woods,
and summer and winter seas, had been wholly a dissolving-view for him,

and had left no consciousimpression, but only, like this voyage, an
effect.

Llanblethian hangs pleasantly, with its white cottages, and orchard
and other trees, on the western slope of a green hill looking far and

wide over green meadows and little or bigger hills, in the pleasant
plain of Glamorgan; a short mile to the south of Cowbridge, to which

smart little town it is properly a kind of suburb. Plain of
Glamorgan, some ten miles wide and thirty or forty long, which they

call the Vale of Glamorgan;--though properly it is not quite a Vale,
there being only one range of mountains to it, if even one: certainly

the central Mountains of Wales do gradually rise, in a miscellaneous
manner, on the north side of it; but on the south are no mountains,

not even land, only the Bristol Channel, and far off, the Hills of
Devonshire, for boundary,--the "English Hills," as the natives call

them, visible from every eminence in those parts. On such wide terms
is it called Vale of Glamorgan. But called by whatever name, it is a

most pleasant fruitful region: kind to the native, interesting to the
visitor. A waving grassy region; cut with innumerableragged lanes;

dotted with sleepy unswept human hamlets, old ruinous castles with
their ivy and their daws, gray sleepy churches with their ditto ditto:

for ivy everywhere abounds; and generally a rank fragrant vegetation
clothes all things; hanging, in rude many-colored festoons and fringed

odoriferous tapestries, on your right and on your left, in every lane.
A country kinder to the sluggard husbandman than any I have ever seen.

For it lies all on limestone, needs no draining; the soil, everywhere
of handsome depth and finest quality, will grow good crops for you

with the most imperfect tilling. At a safe distance of a day's riding
lie the tartarean copper-forges of Swansea, the tartarean iron-forges

of Merthyr; their sooty battle far away, and not, at such safe
distance, a defilement to the face of the earth and sky, but rather an

encouragement to the earth at least; encouraging the husbandman to
plough better, if he only would.

The peasantry seem indolent and stagnant, but peaceable and
well-provided; much given to Methodism when they have any

character;--for the rest, an innocent good-humored people, who all
drink home-brewed beer, and have brown loaves of the most excellent

home-baked bread. The native peasant village is not generally
beautiful, though it might be, were it swept and trimmed; it gives one

rather the idea of sluttish stagnancy,--an interesting peep into the
Welsh Paradise of Sleepy Hollow. Stones, old kettles, naves of

wheels, all kinds of broken litter, with live pigs and etceteras, lie
about the street: for, as a rule, no rubbish is removed, but waits

patiently the action of mere natural chemistry and accident; if even a
house is burnt or falls, you will find it there after half a century,

only cloaked by the ever-ready ivy. Sluggish man seems never to have
struck a pick into it; his new hut is built close by on ground not

encumbered, and the old stones are still left lying.
This is the ordinary Welsh village; but there are exceptions, where

people of more cultivated tastes have been led to settle, and
Llanblethian is one of the more signal of these. A decidedly cheerful

group of human homes, the greater part of them indeed belonging to
persons of refined habits; trimness, shady shelter, whitewash, neither

conveniency nor decoration has been neglected here. Its effect from
the distance on the eastward is very pretty: you see it like a little

sleeping cataract of white houses, with trees overshadowing and
fringing it; and there the cataract hangs, and does not rush away from

you.
John Sterling spent his next five years in this locality. He did not

again see it for a quarter of a century; but retained, all his life, a
lively remembrance of it; and, just in the end of his twenty-first

year, among his earliest printed pieces, we find an elaborate and
diffuse description of it and its relations to him,--part of which

piece, in spite of its otherwiseinsignificant quality, may find place
here:--

"The fields on which I first looked, and the sands which were marked
by my earliest footsteps, are completely lost to my memory; and of

those ancient walls among which I began to breathe, I retain no
recollection" target="_blank" title="n.回忆；追想；记忆力">recollection more clear than the outlines of a cloud in a moonless

sky. But of L----, the village where I afterwards lived, I persuade
myself that every line and hue is more deeply and accurately fixed

than those of any spot I have since beheld, even though borne in upon
the heart by the association of the strongest feelings.

"My home was built upon the slope of a hill, with a little orchard
stretching down before it, and a garden rising behind. At a

considerable distance beyond and beneath the orchard, a rivulet flowed
through meadows and turned a mill; while, above the garden, the summit

of the hill was crowned by a few gray rocks, from which a yew-tree
grew, solitary and bare. Extending at each side of the orchard,

toward the brook, two scattered patches of cottages lay nestled among
their gardens; and beyond this streamlet and the little mill and

bridge, another slight eminence arose, divided into green fields,
tufted and bordered with copsewood, and crested by a ruined castle,

contemporary, as was said, with the Conquest. I know not whether these
things in truth made up a prospect of much beauty. Since I was eight

years old, I have never seen them; but I well know that no landscape I
have since beheld, no picture of Claude or Salvator, gave me half the

impression of living, heartfelt, perfect beauty which fills my mind
when I think of that green valley, that sparkling rivulet, that broken

fortress of dark antiquity, and that hill with its aged yew and breezy