2. _Windermere and Its Neighborhood_--Bowness and its church. The steamer trip. Elleray and Christopher North. Hawkshead and the Wordsworth Grammar-School. Coniston. Brantwood and Ruskin. The Duddon Valley.
3. _Ambleside, Grasmere, and Keswick_--Coaching. Dove"s Nest. Fox How, the home of Thomas Arnold. Rydal Mount. Nab Cottage and Hartley Coleridge. Grasmere Church and Wordsworth grave and monument. Keswick and the home of Southey, Greta Hall. Crosthwaite Church and Southey"s tomb. Derwent.w.a.ter and the Friar"s Crag. The Falls of Lodore.
4. _The Lake School of Poets_--Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge.
Readings from Wordsworth"s Excursion and his sonnets. Reading from Southey"s Lodore.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--Eric Robertson: Wordsworthshire. Rawnsley: Life and Nature at the English Lakes (also several other books by the same author). Knight: The English Lake District as Interpreted in the Poems of Wordsworth. A. G. Bradley (and Pennell): Highways and Byways in the Lake District. Palmer: The English Lakes.
If possible, have a talk on Dorothy Wordsworth and the home life of brother and sister. Mention some of their visitors, among them Charles Lamb, the friend of the three Lake Poets. Read Wordsworth"s poem about his wife: "She was a Phantom of Delight." The connection of the Arnolds, Thomas and Matthew, with the lake country is full of interest, as well as that of Harriet Martineau. Refer also to Arthur Hugh Clough, who lived here for a time. The schools founded by Ruskin are worth study, where the plowboys learned to make beautiful pottery, and the farmers"
daughters, embroidery.
VI--THE SHAKESPEARE COUNTRY
1. _Stratford on Avon_--Shakespeare"s birthplace; the signatures of famous people on the walls; the museum, the garden. The Grammar-School.
New Place and the Mulberry-Tree. The church and the tomb of Shakespeare, with its inscription. The river Avon.
2. _Around Stratford_--Shottery and the home of Ann Hathaway. Charlcote and the deer-park. The Elizabethan mansion and the church of Hampton Lucy.
3. _Kenilworth_--The famous revels prepared for Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester in 1574. Shakespeare"s relation to the Queen and the court. Were any plays written at her suggestion? The present ruins of Kenilworth and Amy Robsart"s tower.
4. _Warwick_--The castle and its treasures and history. Leycester Hospital. The Church of Saint Mary with the tomb of the great Earl of Leicester. Guy"s Cliff.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--William Winter: Shakespeare"s England. Goadby: The England of Shakespeare. Leyland: The Shakespeare Country Ill.u.s.trated.
Turner: Shakespeare"s Land.
The country about Stratford is constantly referred to in the plays of Shakespeare. In Henry IV., The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merry Wives of Windsor there are numerous pa.s.sages which touch it. The Forest of Arden is deserving of a side-trip, and on the way travelers watch for the wild thyme, the primroses, the violets, and other flowers mentioned by Shakespeare. There may be a little tour to Coventry, the quaint old town a.s.sociated with the story of Lady G.o.diva. Photographs for ill.u.s.trating the Shakespeare country are abundant and beautiful, and are easily obtained.
VII--SCOTLAND (PART I)
1. _Edinburgh_--General appearance of the city. The old town and the new. The castle. Saint Giles"s. The Knox house. Holyrood. The Tolbooth.
The wynds. The Canongate. Grey Friars. The Scott monument. The university.
2. _Through the Lakes and the Trossachs to Glasgow_--Railway, steamer, and coach. Stirling: the castle, field of Bannockburn, the Wallace monument. The Trossachs. Loch Katrine and Ellen"s Isle (see The Lady of the Lake). Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond. Glasgow: the cathedral, the university. The Clyde. Reading from The Lady of the Lake.
3. _The Land of Burns_--Ayr: the Auld Brig and the New Brig, Burns"s cottage, the Brig o" Doon, Auld Alloway Kirk. The Burns monument.
Dumfries: Burns"s house (where he died), his grave and monument. Reading of Tam o" Shanter.
4. _Scott"s Country_--Abbotsford. Melrose. Dryburgh. Reading from Washington Irving"s account of his visit to Abbotsford, and the account of Scott"s funeral in Lockhart"s Life of Scott.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--William Winter: Over the Border. Hunnewell: Lands of Scott. Crockett: In the Border Country. Crockett: The Scott Country. Sir H. E. Maxwell: The Story of the Tweed.
A day"s coaching-trip from Edinburgh takes one to the beautiful little chapel of Roslin with its ""Prentice Pillar," and to Hawthornden, the glen where Drummond, the Elizabethan poet, lived. A second excursion may be made to the old university town of Saint Andrews, with its castle (a ruin) and the bottle dungeon, and also the famous golf-links. A trip may be taken to the seaside town of Newhaven, to see the fish-wives in their quaint costumes.
VIII--SCOTLAND (PART II)
1. _Perth and Aberdeen_--Perth: St. John"s Church. Site of the convent and the story of The King"s Tragedy (see Rossetti). Reading from Scott"s Fair Maid of Perth. Balmoral: Reading from Queen Victoria"s Journal in the Highlands. Aberdeen: History. The granite works. The Cathedral of St. Machar. The university (King"s College). Bridge of Don (1320).
2. _Oban_--"The Charing Cross of the Highlands." The Island of Mull.
Staffa ("Island of Pillars") and Fingal"s Cave. Iona. St. Columba"s church. Story of his life. Reading from Bede"s Ecclesiastical History.
The Celtic crosses.
3. _The Caledonian Ca.n.a.l_--Start from Oban. Glencoe and the story of its ma.s.sacre. Ossian"s cave. Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Great Britain).
Invergarry Castle. Fall of Foyers.
4. _Skye and the Islands_--Reading from William Black"s A Princess of Thule; also, from Scott"s Pirate. The Orkney Islands. Sea fowl.
Fisheries. The Shetland Islands. Story of Harold Haarf.a.gr.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--James Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
R. B. Moncrieff: Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Archibald MacMillan: Iona. George Birkbeck Hill: Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.
Introduce in this program the ballads of the Scottish Highlands, either read or sung. The origin of the tartans used by the different clans is interesting, especially if ill.u.s.trated with colored reproductions. The unique Highland costume for men may be described or represented. The bagpipes should be noticed; their peculiar music and their historic use.
IX--WALES
1. _History_--The Romans and their remains. Offa"s d.y.k.e. The Normans and their buildings. Griffith ap Rhyl. Llewlyn the Great. Owen Glendower"s revolt. Origin of the Tudor kings in Wales. The story of the Princes of Wales.
2. _The Country and the People_--Wildness and grandeur. Llandudno, Llangollen, Bettws-y-Coed, Snowdon. Show photographs of the most famous places. The Celts and their languages. National customs of the Welsh: the eisteddfod.
3. _Churches and Castles_--Wrexham Church and the tomb of Elihu Yale.
Valle Crucis Abbey. Truro. St. Asaph"s Cathedral, the smallest in the kingdom, and the grave of Mrs. Hemans. Llandaff Cathedral. Cardiff Castle. Beaumaris. Hawarden Church, in the grounds of Gladstone"s estate. Pembroke, the birthplace of Henry VII. Bangor. Denbigh. Conway.
Carnarvon, the birthplace of the first Prince of Wales. Harlech. Powys.
4. _Literature_--Giraldus Cambrensis. The Arthurian Legends. The Mabinogion. Celtic Folk-lore.
BOOKS TO CONSULT--E. Thomas and R. Fowler: Beautiful Wales. A. G.
Bradley: Highways and Byways in Wales. W. J. Griffith: Short a.n.a.lysis of Welsh History (Temple Primers). George Borrow: Wild Wales. J. B. John: The Mabinogion.
Welsh music should have some place in the program. Great choruses of singers have traveled in America, and may have been heard by some of the club members. The best-known song is the stirring March of the Men of Harlech. An interesting paper may be prepared on the relation existing between Tennyson"s Idyls of the King and the Welsh legends.
X--IRELAND
1. _The History_--The Celts: their characteristics, customs, and folk-lore. The Irish kings. St. Columba and St. Patrick. The conquest.
The question of home rule.
2. _Belfast, the City of the North_--Differences between the people of the north and those of the south. Protestants and Catholics.
Ship-building and the linen industry. Dimensions of some of the recently made ships. The Giant"s Causeway.
3. _Dublin_--The government buildings. Phoenix Park and its history.
The cathedral and Dean Swift. Excursions in the neighborhood.
4. _Cork and the South_--The city and its characteristics. The Gap of Dunloe. The Lakes of Killarney. Blarney Castle. Show photographs.
5. _Irish Literature_--Ancient. Readings from the publications of the Irish Text Society. Oratory. Sheridan, Burke, Grattan, O"Connell.
Folk-tales and folk-songs. See volume x. of Morris"s Irish Literature.