Peter's letters to his kinsfolk ; to which is added, postscript addressed to Samuel T. Coleridge

Dedication

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND TH^IaOUD msllOT OY ST. DAVIDS.

My Lord>

I trust you will excuse the liberty I take in inscribing to you a new edition of my Letters from Scotland. That none of these letters were addressed to your Lordship, is a circumstance for which I take great shame to myself, after the very kind manner in which you spoke to me on that head, the day I left you— may I be permitted to add, after the long experience I have had of your Lordship's concern and attachment, in several years of professional attendance, and, since that was laid aside, of private intercourse and friendship.

Letter II. To The Same

Oman's, March 6.

Dear David,

Do you recollect W , of Trinity? I suspect not;

but you have heard of him a thousand times. And yet you may have met him at my rooms, or North's ; for I think he determined, after you began to reside. At all events, you remember to have heard me describe his strange eccentric character— his dissolute behaviour during the first years of his residence — his extravagant zeal of study afterwards — last of all, the absurdity of his sudden elopement, without a degree, after having astonished the examining masters by the splendid commencement of his examination. The man is half-mad in some things ; and that is the key of the whole mystery.

W and I were great friends during the first terms I

spent at Jesus. He had gone to school at Harrow with my brother Samuel, and called on me the very day I entered. What a life was ours in that thoughtless prime of our days ! We spent all the mornings after lecture in utter lounging — eating ice at Jubb's — flirting with Miss Butler — bathing in the Charwell, and so forth. And then, after dinner, we used to have our fruit and wine carried into the garden, (I mean at Trinity,) and there we sat, three or four of us, sipping away for a couple of hours, under the dark refreshing shade of those old beechen bowers. Evensong was no sooner over, than we would down to the Isis, and man one, or sometimes two, of Mother Hall's boats, and so run races against each other, or some of our friends, to Iffley or Sandford. What lots of bread and butter we used to devour at tea, and what delight we felt in rowing back in the cool misty evening — sometimes the moon up long ere we reached Christ Church meadows again. A light supper — cheese-and-bread and lettuces— and a joyous bowl of Bishop — these were the regular conclusion. I would give half I am worth to live one week

of it over again. At that time, W and I, Tom Vere, (of

Corpus,) and one or two more, were never separate above three or four hours in the day.

I was on my way to deliver a letter of introduction to a peter's letters. i5

young barrister of this place, when, in turning the corner of a street, my old friend, Will W , passed close at my elbow. I knew him in a moment, although he is greatly changed, and called after him. He turned round with a fierce air, as if loth to be disturbed, (for he was evidently up to the chin in meditation ;) but, on recognizing his ancient acquaintance, nothing could be more hearty than the kindness of his countenance. After a few hurried interrogations on both sides, diversified by scarcely any responses on either, I took his arm and began to explain to him the purposes of my visit to a city in which he had so little expectation of seeing me. He accompanied me immediately to the Calton Hill, of which I spoke in my last, and where, as he assured me, he spends at least one hour every day when in Edinburgh. On coming down he carried me to the Hotel where I now am ; and, having seen my baggage and horses fairly established, and walked a good deal about the town, we proceeded to his house, where I remained for the rest of the day. I assure you this rencounter has afforded me the highest pleasure, and I doubt not it will be of infinite use to me, moreover — for W is, perhaps, of all men, the very person I should have selected to act as my cicerone in Scotland. Indeed, I wonder at myself for not having made more accurate inquiries about him before I set out ; but I had somehow got a confused idea in my head that he was resident in France or Germany, and really had never thought of him in relation to my own schemes of visiting his country. He has already introduced me to several very pleasant fellows here. But before I describe his companions, I must endeavour to give you some little notion of himself.

After leaving Oxford under the strange circumstances you

have often heard me speak of, W proceeded to the North,

where he spent several years in severe study, not a whit discouraged in his views, or shaken from his attachments, by the singular catastrophe to which the constitutional and irresistible panic of a moment had exposed him. He changed^ however, but indeed it was scarcely possible for him to do otherwise, the course and tenor of his usual pursuits ; passing for a time from the classics, with the greater part of whom he had formed a pretty accurate acquaintance, and flinging himself over head and ears into the very heart of Gothic antiquities, and the history, poetry, and romance, of the middle ages*

Mj peter's letters.

These he has quitted by fits and starts, and spent the intervals of their neglect in making himself far better skilled than is common in the modern literature of foreign countries, as well as of England ; but ever since, and up to this moment, they form the staple of his occupation — the daily bread of his mind. He lives almost continually in the days gone by, and feels himself, as he says, almost a stranger among matters which might be supposed to be nearer to him. And yet he is any thing but a stranger to the world he actually lives in ; although indeed he does perhaps regard not a few both of its men and its things, with somewhat of the coldness of an unconcerned visiter. In short, for there is no need to disguise the fact to you, he has nursed himself into such a fervent veneration for the thoughts and feelings of the more ancient times of his country and of ours, (for as to that matter he is no bigot,) that he cannot witness, without a deep mixture of bile, the adoration paid by those around him to thoughts, feelings, and persons, for whom he entertains, if not absolute, at the least no inconsiderable comparative contempt. I have said that he is not a bigot, in regard to any old ideas of difference between his own country and ours. This I attribute in a great measure, certainly, to the course of study he has so devoutly pursued, and which could not have failed, in making him acquainted with the ancient condition of both countries, to reveal to him far more points of agreement than disagreement between them. But a part of his liberality must also, I should think, be ascribed to the influence of his education in England, more particularly in Oxford ; his long residence in that noble city having filled the finest part of his mind with reverent ideas concerning both the old and the present grandeur of England, such as can never be eradicated, nor even weakened, by any after experience of his life. Such, I suspect, from his conversation, to be the truth of the case ; and yet it is only from odd hints and suggestions, that I have made shift to gather so much, for of all men living, he is the least chargeable with the sin of dissertation, and I never heard him in my life give more than one sentence to the expression of any opinion he entertains.

Having now succeeded to the family estate, which is a very

aucient and tolerably productive one, W feels himself

perfectly at liberty to pursue whatever mode of life is most agreeable to his r3iicy. He has travelled a good deal on the continent o: £ trope, and even penetrated into Asia Minor and Egypt, as far up as the Pyramids. These JGurneys, however, could only have been undertaken for the purpose of gratifying some very ardent curiosity, in regard to a few particular points connected with his former devotedness to classical learning ; and he now declares, that unless he should be tempted to visit Spain for the sake of her cathedrals, he will never again leave the white cliffs behind him. He makes an annual or biennial trip to London ; but, with this exception, he is always to be found either at his old castle in Berwickshire, or here in Edinburgh, where he has a very snug house, although by no means in a fashionable part of the town. From a feeling of respect for his ancestors, he refuses to quit the old family residence, which is no other than a lodging up five pair of stairs, in one of those huge aerial edifices of the Old Town — edifices which sometimes contain beneath a single roof a population, layer above layer, household above household, more numerous than that of many a street in

many a city south of the " ideal line." Here W

still sits in the same enormously stuffed and prodigiously backed elbow-chair, and still reposes beneath the same antediluvian testers which served his grandfather, his great grandfather, and all his generations back, for aught I know, to the days of Queen Mary ; it being on many occasions his most chosen boast, that the degradation which affects, in other houses, the blood of the race, has touched in his house nothing but their furniture, and has not totally destroyed even that.

W ushered me into this remarkable habitation of his,

not only without the least symptom of shame for its apparent obscurity, and the equally apparent filth of its approach, but with a certain air of proud and haughty satisfaction, as if he would have been ashamed to have conducted me to one of the newer, more commodious, and more elegant houses we had seen in the New Town. " The times are changed," says he, " since my grandfather, the Lord of Session, used to see all the ladies of quality in Edinburgh in this old-fashioned habitaculum. I desire to see none of them here now. I have a tailor for my neighbour immediately below me — a cobler — a tallow chandler — a dancingroaster— a grocer — and a cowfeeder, are all between me and the street ; and above, God knows what store of washerwomen— French teachers — auctioneers — mid wives — seamstresses— and students of divinity, are between me and the chimney-top. But no matter. I have some claret, which is not too old to be tasteable ; and I shall make an endeavour to give you, at least, as good commons as you were used to at the Bachelor's table of Trinity."

I had no reason to complain of his fare, although I confess, when the covers were first removed, I was not without some apprehensions, that it might prove as Methuselamitish as his dwelling. Whether that might, or might not be, the provender was excellent. It consisted, prim®, of broth made from a sheep's head, with a copious infusion of parsley, and other condiments, which I found more than palatable, especially after, at my host's request, I added a spoonful or two of Burgess to it.

Secttndo, came the aforementioned sheep's head in propria personiz — the hair having been taken off, not by the knife but by the hot-iron, and the skin retaining from this operation, not only an inky hue, which would astound an Exmoorian, but a delicious, oily, fragrant gusto, worthy of being transferred, me judice, to the memorandum-book of Beauvilliers himself. These being removed, then came ?. leg of roasted mutton, five years old at the least, from the Castlemains of W— . A dish of pancakes, very finely powdered with sugar, brought up the rear of the dinner,, every five minutes of which we washed down with a glass of rare sherry, as ancient as Falstaff, or Johannisberg, which my friend had imported himself from the very cellars of Metternicb. A ewe-milk cheese, which I found as good as any thing which ever came from the Pays de Vaud, and a glass of ale, such as I could not beat even in Cardigan, formed a sort of appendage to the feast ; and just before the cloth was drawn, 1 tasted, for the first time, a liqueur, which I prefer vastly to all the Marasquin— ay, to all the Curaeoa in existence — the genuine Usquebaugh of Lochaber. Our Chateau-la-fitte and olives went down after this repast like very nectar and ambrosia. But you will say, 1 am a gourmand even upon paper.

To conclude with a portrait of my entertainer — William

W is a pale-faced, grave-looking thin gentleman, of forty

years old, or thereby. He has a stoop in his gait, and walks peter's letters. M

with his toes in ; but his limbs seem full of sinew, and he is of a seemly breadth across the back. He uses to wear a hat of singular broad brims, like a Quaker, for the convenience of shadow to his eyes, which are weak, though piercing. These he farther comforts and assists by means of a pair of spectacles, of the pure crystalline in winter, " but throughout the sunny portion of the year," green. His nose is turned up somewhat at the point, as it were disdainfully. His lips would be altogether indiscernible, but for the line of their division ; and can call up in no mind (unless, perchance, on the principle of contrast) any phantasy either of cherry or rosebud, to say nothing about bees. This yellow visage of his, with his close firm lips, and his grey eyes shining through his spectacles, as through a burning-glass, more brightly-^ the black beard not over diligently shorn— all lurking under the projecting shadow of that strange brim, compose such a physiognomy, as one would less wonder to meet with in Val~ ladolid, than in Edinburgh. It is plain, yet not ugly. It is monastic, yet it is not anchoretic. It is bitter, and yet it wants not gleams of sheer good humour. In short, it belongs, and only could belong, to the nervous, irritable, enthusiastic, sarcastic William W . The years which had passed since

our parting, had exaggerated the lines of this countenance, and entirely removed every vestige of its bloom. But the features were too marked to have undergone any essential alteration ; and after dinner, when some half a dozen bumpers of claret had somewhat smoothed its asperities, I could almost have fancied myself to be once more transported back to the common-room of Trinity or Jesus.

To you, who know us of old, I need scarcely add, that two Oxonians meeting after such a separation, over such wine, were in no hurry to shorten their sederunt. I think it is very creditable to me, however, that I retained enough of my senses to be able to find my way to Oman's, without accepting, far less asking, either direction or assistance. Of course, I am too well-seasoned a cask to feel the smallest bad effects this morning. Quite the contrary : I have already swallowed three cups of coffee, as many rolls and eggs, and about a pound

of excellent mutton-ham, and expect W every moment to

resume his functions as my LAonizer.

Ever vours,

Letter III. To The Same

March 14.

If you knew what a life I have led since I wrote to you, you would certainly (ee\ no difficulty in comprehending the reason of my silence. I thought my days of utter dissipation had been long since over, but I fear your clerical frown would have told me quite the reverse, had you been present almost any evening that has passed since my arrival in Edinburgh. I shall not shock you with any of the particulars ; remember that you were once a layman yourself, and try to excuse about the worst you can imagine. What a glorious night we spent at your rooms the Saturday before you took orders !

I continue, notwithstanding all this, to pick up a vast deal of information concerning the present literary, political, and religious condition of this country ; and I have already jotted down the heads of several highly valuable letters, in which I design, ere long, to embody the elite of all my acquisitions for your benefit and that of Jack. Perhaps, however, the facts I have gathered may be nothing the worse for undergoing a more leisurely digestion in my own mind, before I think of conveying them to yours. Depend upon it, that I shall very soon put you in possession of more knowledge, touching Scotland, than was ever revealed to any wondering common-room, by any travelled or travelling tutor, since the days of Dr. Johnson. So have patience.

W was never more completely in his element, than

when he took me to see Holyrood. You, who delight in honest enthusiasm, whatever be its objects, would have been gratified beyond measure, with the high jealous air of dignified earnestness he assumed, long before ive arrived even within sight of the old palace. From his own house, the way thither lies straight clown the only great street of the Old Town — a street by far the most impressive in its character of any I have ever seen in Britain. The sombre shadows, cast by those huge houses of which it is composed, and the streams of i'aint light cutting the darkness here and there, where the entrance to some fantastic alley pierces the sable mass of building — the strange projectings, recedings, and windings — the roofs — the stairs — the windows, all so luxuriating in the endless variety of carved work — the fading and mouldering coals of arms, helmets, crests, coronets, supporters, mantles, and pavilions, — all these testimonials of forgotten pride, mingled so profusely with the placards of old clothes'-men, and every ensign of plebeian wretchedness — it is not possible to imagine mere speaking emblems of the decay of a once royal city, or a more appropriate avenue to a deserted palace. W was at home in every nook of this labyrinth. I believe he could more easily tell in what particular house of the Canongate any given lord or baron dwelt two hundred years ago, than he could in what street of the new city his descendant of the present day is to be found. It was quite marvellous with what facility he expounded the minutest hieroglyphics which had, no doubt, once been visible on shields of which my eye could now see nothing but rough outlines and smooth surfaces. " Ha !" said he, " the crescents and the sheaves!" pointing to a tall thin building, from the windows of which sundry patches of wet linen hung dangling over our heads — " the crescents within the tressure — the sheaves — and the sword in pale on the escutcheon of pretence — this was once the palace of the Seatons — Oh! domus antiqua, heu! quam dispari dominare domino!" A little on, the heart and stars of Douglas — the lymphads of Argyle — the lion of Dundas, and I know not how many monsters of how many chieftains, were all saluted in their turn with like exclamations of reverence. He directed my attention to a building of prodigious elevation on the right, altogether having very much the appearance of the more ancient hotels in Paris, and informed me that here was the residence of the Hamiltons, after they had left their house without the walls, in the time of James VI. ; " and here," said he, pointing right forward, " is Holyrood. You are already within the liberty, for we have crossed the strand."

At first sight, this ancient habitation has truly a great deal of royalty in its aspect. Two huge square towers — one many centuries older than the other, but still sufficiently like to balance each other nobly — a low curtain between these, and, in the centre, a spacious gateway under a lofty canopy, somewhat after the fashion of a crown imperial, the whole of fine old grey stone ; in front, an open esplanade, paved with massy pieces of granite, and a few kilted grenadiers loitering about the gate — all had an appearance of neglected majesty, which

*M l'ETER*'S letters*

I could not help feeling to be abundantly impressive. W

uncovered himself as we stept into the porch, and 1 saw by his manner, that I should sorely offend him by omitting the same mark of veneration. Within, I found a melancholy quadrangle, for the most part of a noble architecture, but all over as black as if the sun had never shone upon it since the death of Queen Elizabeth. An ancient gentlewoman, with whom my friend seemed to be on terms of infinite familiarity, undertook forthwith to conduct us over the interior. Here, but for the power of memory, and it may be of imagination, I suspect there would not, after all, be much to merit particular attention. The gallery is long and stately, but the vile daubs of Fergus I. and his progenitors, entirely disfigure it. The adjoining apartments of Queen Mary, now appropriated to the use of the family of Hamilton, are far from noble in their dimensions ; but there is a genuine air of antique grandeur in the hangings and furniture of the inner apartments, none of which have been changed since the time of the most unfortunate of Queens and Beauties — and this is enough to atone for every thing. In the state-room also, the attendant

pointed out a cypher, which she said was Mary's, but W

told me, that, in fact, that room had been last fitted up for Charles I., and that the cypher was composed of his initials, and those of his Queen Henrietta Maria. Here, then, is the bed in which Mary slept with Darnley — the closet where Rizzio was murdered — the ante-chamber in which Knox insulted his sovereign, and made it his boast that he " cared little for the pleasant face of a gentlewoman." There are some portraits, and one exquisite one of Mary herself— I mean an exquisitely beautiful portrait of some exquisite beauty — for as to the real features of the lovely Queen, he must be a more skilful antiquarian than I pretend to be, who could venture any guess with respect to them. Even her eyes are represented of many different colours ; but this I only take as an evidence, that they were of that most delicious of all hues, if hue it may be called, that is as changeful as the cameleon — the hazel. I think it is Mackenzie that raves somewhere so delightfully about those softest, and yet most queenlike of eyes. They have not indeed the dazzling sparkle of the Jewish or Italian black, neither have they the vestal calmness of the bine — but they are the only eyes in the world that have the watery swimming lustre of conscious weakness — and when they can change this for the fire of command, and flash annihilation from their contracting lids, what eyes can be compared to them, or what eyes could be so fitting for Mary ?

The portrait is very beautiful indeed, but it is only a miniature, and by no means satisfies my imagination so much as that in the picture gallery of the Bodleian. There is nothing I should like better than to ascertain the real history of that painting. It is so softly executed, that, at first sight, one would suppose it to be done in water colours, and to be covered with a glass. But it is in oils, and on a very old piece of oak (for I once took it down to examine it.) It strikes me, that they used to tell some story about its having been painted by a nun before Mary left France ; but I suspect the tradition of its history is very vague and uncertain. I think, however, the picture carries much more of the air of reality about it than any I have seen. What luxurious pensiveness in the lips ! what irresistible melting radiance in the eyes — the eye-lids how beautifully oval ; the eye-lashes how long, how tender ! there was no body ever invented the like except Cor-

reggio But I forget that I am not talking to W 9

who would fain, if he could, not only make a beauty, but a saint of her.

There is also a fine portrait of Charles I. — one of the many, many masterly Vandykes. The king is in a riding habit ; he has the same indescribable look of majesty and melancholy which makes it impossible for any man to look upon it without wondering by what process of brutalizing, even a Cromwell or a Bradshaw should ever have learned to regard the original without the reverence of humility. How could any common mortal feel otherwise than abashed in the presence of that " grey discrowned head ?" — And Charles kept his court here too for a time, and Laud preached, and Rothes flattered, and the Presbyterians themselves looked smoothly on all the pageants of his state. What a different kind of journey he lived to make hither, and what a different kind of return to his Whitehall !

Some spacious, but uncomfortable looking apartments in the newer part of the quadrangle, were occupied by the Bourbon princes during their stay here. I saw the Prie-dieu used by Monsieur, and many other little relics of their Catholic devotion ; but in truth, I neither felt, nor pretended to feel, either curiosity or interest about tracing the footsteps of these gentlemen. I have seen these younger sprigs of the lily, and with all my respect for the good old king himself, I wish the lily

24 peter's letter*,

were rid of a few of its incumbrances. I shall write very sooe again, and hope in a more amusing way.

Yours ever,

P. M.

P. S. — I forgot to mention the only inhabitants of this Palace, or rather of its precincts, are gentlemen, who find it convenient to take advantage of the sanctuary still afforded by the royalty of the soil. All around the Palace itself, and its most melancholy garden, there are a variety of little miserable patchwork dwellings, inhabited by a considerable population of gentry, who prefer a residence here to one in a jail. They have abundance of room here within their limits, for the whole of Arthur's Seat is, I believe, considered as part of the royal domain. However, they emerge into the town of a Sunday ; and I am told some of them contrive to cut a very fashionable figure in the streets, while the catchpoles, in obedience to the commandment, " rest from working."

Letter IV. To The Same

March iiO.

I believe, that had I given myself up entirely to the direction of my friend W , I should have known, up to this

hour, very little about Edinburgh more modern than the Canongate, and perhaps heard as little about any worthies she has produced since the murder of Archbishop Sharpe. He seemed to consider it a matter of course, that morning after morning the whole of my time ought to be spent in examining the structure of those gloomy tenements in wynds and closes, which had, in the old time, been honoured with the residence of the haughty Scottish Barons, or the French ambassadors and generals, their constant visiters. In vain did I assure him, that houses of exactly the same sort were to be seen in abundance in the city of London, and that even I myself had been wearied of counting the fleurs-de-lis carved on every roof and chimney piece of a green grocer's habitation in Mincing-lane. Of such food, in his estimation, there could be no satiety ; every land had its coat of arms, and every quartering called up to his memory the whole history of some unfortunate amour, or still more unfortunate marriage •, in so much that, had I taken accurate notes of all his conversation, I am persuaded I might, before this time, have been in a condition to fill more sheets than you might be likely to peruse, with all the mysteries of the causes celebres, or, to speak more plainly, of the Scandalous Chronicle of Scotland. What horrors of barbarism — what scenes of murder, rape, incest — seem to have been the staple commodities of a week-day life, among these ferocious nobles I But, in good truth, I did not come to Scotland to learn such things as these ; and although a little sprinkling of them might be very well in its way, I soon found it expedient to give my good friend a slight hint, that I wished he could contrive to afford me something else for the main woof of

my meditations He begins to understand my drift,

and will, I think, learn to accommodate himself to my humour, pas-a-pas.

Notwithstanding all his devotion to the past, indeed, he is far from being an unconcerned or inept observer of more modern things — and I have already said as much. He is quite aufait, I have found, in regard to the history and performances of all the leading characters of the present day in Scotland ; but, unless questions are put to him, he seems, with a very few exceptions, to make a point of never alluding to their existence. It would appear as if he was not over anxious to remember that such people are ; but when the conversation actually turns on them and their merits, he expresses himself apparently in no uncandid manner concerning the least — and in a tone of genuine admiration concerning the greatest of them. But I despair of making you comprehend the vagaries of such an original.