Letter VI
London, Nov. 25th, 1826.
BELOVED,
It is sometimes a perfect want with me to spend a day entirely alone in my own room. I pass it in a sort of dreamy brooding. I go over the past and the future,--all that I have felt and suffered,--till, by the mixture of so many colours, one misty grey tint overspreads the whole; and the dissonances of life melt away at length, in a soft objectless melancholy.
The barrel-organs which resound day and night in every street, and are at other times insufferable, are favourable to such a state of mind. They too mingle a hundred different airs, till all music loses itself in an indistinct dreamy ringing in the ears.
A much more entertaining thing is another sort of street performance,--a genuine national comedy. It afforded me great amusement from my window, and is well worth a somewhat particular description.
The hero of this drama is Punch,--the English Punch,--perfectly different from the Italian Pulcinella. I send you a faithful portrait of him in the act of beating his wife to death;--for he is the most godless droll that ever I met with; and as completely without conscience as the wood out of which he is made;--a little, too, the type of the nation he represents.
Punch has, like his namesake, something of rum, lemon and sugar in him; he is strong, sour and sweet, and withal pretty indifferent to the confusion he causes. He is, moreover, the most absolute egotist the earth contains, 'et ne doute jamais de rien.' He conquers everything by his invincible merriment and humour, laughs at the laws, at men, and at the devil himself; and shows in part what the Englishman is, in part what he wishes to be, in one composite picture;--on the native side, selfishness, perseverance and high spirit, and, wherever it is called for, reckless determination;--on the foreign, unconquerable levity, and ever ready wit. But allow me to paint Punch to you by his own proper words, and to take my further account of him from his biography.
As a descendant of Pulcinella of Acerra, he is, in the first place, unquestionably a nobleman of ancient stock. Harlequin, Clown, the German Casperle and others are his near of kin;--but he, for his great audacity, stands best as head of the family. Pious, alas! he is not: being a true Englishman, he doubtless goes to church on Sundays; though, may be, would beat any parson to death who bored him with attempts to convert him. It is not to be denied that Punch is a wild fellow,--no very moral personage, and not made of wood for nothing. No man can be better fitted for a boxer,--other men's hits he feels not, and his own are irresistible. With that, he is a true Turk in his small respect for human life; endures no contradiction, and fears not the devil himself. On the other hand, we can but admire his great qualities in many respects. His admirable insensibility, and his already-commended invariable good humour; his high heroic egotism; his unalterable self-complacency; his exhaustless wit, and the consummate cunning with which he gets himself out of every scrape, and triumphs victoriously over every antagonist,--throws a bright lustre over all the little freedoms which he is apt to take with human life. In him has not inaptly been observed a compound of Richard the Third and Falstaff. Even in his outward man he unites the crooked legs and hump-back of Richard, with the portly rotundity of Falstaff; to which are added the long nose and the fiery black eyes of Italy.
His dwelling is a box, with suitable internal decorations, set on four poles,--a theatre which can be erected in a few seconds in any place; a drapery falling over the poles, or legs, conceals Punch's soul, which animates the puppets and lends them the needful words. The drama in which he daily appears in the streets, varies, therefore, with the talents of the person who acts as interpreter between Punch and the public. The course of the incidents is however always essentially the same, and pretty nearly as follows:
As the curtain rises, Punch is heard behind the scenes trolling the French ballad 'Malbrooke s'en va-t-en guerre,' and presently appears dancing, and in high good humour, and in droll verses tells the spectators what manner of humour he is of. He calls himself a gay merry fellow, who loves to give a joke, but is not very ready to take one; and if he is ever gentle, it is only towards the fair sex. With his money he is frank and free; and his grand object is to laugh his whole life long, and to grow as fat as he can. He declares himself a great admirer and seducer of the girls, and, as long as he can get it, a friend of good cheer; when he cannot, however, he can live on cheese-parings, and if he die--why then there's no more to be said, than that's all over, and there's an end of Punch and the play. (This latter avowal unquestionably smells a little of atheism.)
After this monologue, he calls behind the scene for Judy, his young wife, who will not come, but at last sends her dog instead. Punch strokes and caresses him, but the spiteful cur seizes him by the nose, and holds him fast, till after a laughable fight, and various rough jokes of the not too discreet Punch, he at last beats off the dog and gives him a sound drubbing.
His neighbour Scaramouch, hearing the noise, here enters with a large stick, and calls Punch to account why he beat Judy's favourite dog, "that never bit anybody." "And I never beat a dog," replied Punch; "but," continues he, "what have you there in your hand, my dear Scaramouch?" "Oh, nothing but a fiddle; will you hear the tone of it? Do but come and hear what a fine instrument it is." "Thank ye, thank ye, my good Scaramouch," replies Punch modestly, "I can distinguish the tone of it very well here." Scaramouch, however, is not to be so put off, and while he dances about to the sound of his own singing, and flourishes his stick, he gives Punch, as if by accident, a great knock on the head. Punch affects not to heed it, but begins to dance too, and watching his opportunity suddenly snatches the stick out of Scaramouch's hand, and in a trice gives him such a blow with it that poor Scaramouch's head rolls down at his feet,--for where Punch lays about him the grass does not grow. "Ha! ha!" cries he, laughing, "did you hear the fiddle, my good Scaramouch? What a fine tone it has! As long as you live, my lad, you'll never hear a finer. But where is my Judy? My sweet Judy, why don't you come."
Meanwhile Punch has hidden the body of Scaramouch behind the curtain, and Judy, the 'feminine' pendant of her husband, with the same monstrous nose, enters. A comically tender scene ensues, after which Punch asks for his child; Judy goes to fetch it, and Punch breaks forth into an ecstatic monologue on his happiness as a husband and father. The little monster arrives, and now the parents can hardly contain themselves for joy, and lavish upon it the tenderest names and caresses. Judy, however, called away by her household duties, soon departs, and leaves the infant in its father's arms, who somewhat awkwardly tries to play the nurse and to dandle the child, which begins to cry piteously, and to behave very naughtily. Punch at first tries to soothe it, but soon grows impatient, beats it, and, as it screams all the more violently, he flies into a rage, and throws it out of the window, with curses, plump into the street, where it falls among the spectators and breaks its neck. Punch leans over the edge of the stage and looks after it, makes a few grimaces, shakes his head, and begins to laugh, and then dances about, singing merrily.
Meantime Judy returns, and asks with alarm for her darling. "The child is gone to sleep," replies Punch carelessly; however, after a long investigation he is forced to confess that while he was playing with him, he let him fall out of the window. Judy is out of herself, tears her hair, and overwhelms her cruel tyrant with the most dreadful reproaches. In vain does he try to soothe her; she will not hear him, and runs away uttering vehement threats. Punch holds his belly for laughter, dances about, and for very wantonness, beats time with his own head upon the walls. But Judy now comes behind him with a broomstick and belabours him with all her might.
At first he gives her good words, promises never to throw another child out of the window; begs her, however, not to take the joke so seriously;--but finding that nothing will avail, he loses his patience at last, and concludes the affair as with Scaramouch;--he beats poor Judy to death. "Now," says he drily, "our quarrel is over, dear Judy, and if you are satisfied, so am I. Come, stand up again, Judy. Oh, don't sham, this is only one of your tricks. What, you won't get up? Well, then, off with you!" So saying, he flings her after her child into the street.
He does not even trouble himself to look after her, but bursting into one of his usual fits of loud laughter, cries out, "'Tis a fine piece of luck to lose a wife!"
In the second act we find Punch at a rendezvous with his mistress Polly, to whom he pays his court, not in the most refined manner, and assures her that she alone can drive away all his cares, and that if he had as many wives as Solomon, he could kill them all for her sake. A courtier and friend of Polly's then pays him a visit; this time he does not kill his man, but only thrashes him well: he is then 'ennuyé,' and declares that the weather being fine he will take a ride. A wild horse is brought, upon which he capers about for some time in a ludicrous fashion; but at last, from the dreadful plunging of the untameable animal, is thrown. He calls out for help, and happily his friend the doctor happens to be passing, and comes immediately. Punch lies like dead, and groans piteously. The doctor tries to tranquillize him, and feels his pulse: Punch, to be short, makes so uncivil a return for the doctor's attentions, that the latter exclaims, "Here, Master Punch, I bring you a wholesome medicine, the only one fit for you," and begins to thump him soundly with his gold-headed cane.
"Oh dear!" cries Punch, "many thanks to you; I want none of your physic, it gives me the headache." "Ah, that's only because you have taken it in too small doses," says the doctor; "take a little more, and it will cure you."
Punch at last feigns himself conquered, falls down exhausted, and begs for mercy; but when the credulous doctor bends down over him, Punch darts upon him like lightning, wrests the stick out of his hand and lays about him as usual.
"Now," cries he, "you must take a little of your charming physic,--only a little, respected friend;--there--there!"
"Oh Lord, you will kill me!" cries the doctor.
"Not worth talking of--only what's usual--doctors always die when they take their own physic. Come, only one last pill:" and so saying, the ruthless Punch runs him through the body with the point of his stick. The doctor dies. Punch, laughing, exclaims, "Now, my good friend, cure yourself if you can."
[Exit, singing and dancing.
After other adventures, which have almost all the same tragical end, justice is at length awake, and the constable is sent to arrest Punch. He finds him, as usual, in the highest glee, and just busied, as he says, in making music with the help of a dustman's bell (a very 'naïf' confession of the musical capacity of the nation.)
The dialogue is brief and important.[27] It ends with the constable showing Punch the warrant for his arrest: "And," says Punch, "I have a warrant for you, which I will soon execute." Hereupon he seizes the bell, which he has held concealed behind him, and gives the constable such a blow on the occiput, that, like his predecessors, he falls lifeless; whereupon Punch springs off with a 'capriole,' and is heard singing behind the scenes.
The magistrate, who comes after the death of the constable, has no better fate. At length the hangman, in proper person, lies in wait for Punch, who in his joyous recklessness runs upon him without seeing him. For the first time he seems somewhat embarrassed by this rencontre, is very slightly cast down, and does his best to flatter Mr. Ketch; calls him his old friend, and inquires very particularly after the health of Mistress Ketch. The hangman, however, soon makes him understand that all friendship must now have an end; and sets before him what a bad man he is to have killed so many men, and his wife and child.
"As to them," says he, "they were my own property, and 'tis hard if a man may not do what he likes with his own." "And why did you kill the poor doctor, who came to help you?" "Only in self-defence, good Mr. Ketch; he wanted me to take his medicine."
But all excuses and evasions are useless. Three or four men spring forward and bind Punch, whom Ketch leads to prison.
In the next scene we behold him at the back of the stage, trying to look out from behind an iron grating, and rubbing his long nose against the bars. He is very wroth and miserable, yet, according to his use and wont, sings a song to drive away time. Mr. Ketch enters, and with the assistance of his helpers erects a gallows before the prison-door. Punch becomes sorrowful, but, instead of feeling repentance, has only a fit of greater fondness and longing for his Polly. He however mans himself again, and makes various 'bon mots' on the handsome gallows, which he compares to a tree planted, as it seems, for the adornment of his prospect. "How beautiful it will be when it bears fruit!" cries he.
Some men now bring the coffin, and place it at the foot of the gallows. "What have you there?" says Punch. "Ah ha! that is no doubt the basket to put the fruit in."
Meanwhile Ketch returns, and greeting Punch, and opening the door politely, tells him that all is ready,--he may come when he likes. You may think that Punch is not very eager to accept the invitation. After a good deal of discussion Ketch calls out, "It's of no use, Master Punch, you must come out and be hanged."
"You won't be so cruel."
"Why were you so cruel as to kill your wife and child?"
"Is that any reason for your being cruel too?"--(argument against capital punishment.)
Ketch appeals to no better principle than that of the strongest, and drags out Punch by his hair, begging for mercy and promising amendment.
"Now, my good Punch," says Ketch, coolly, "do but have the goodness to put your head into this noose, and all will soon be over." Punch affects awkwardness, and can't get his head right into the noose.
"Good God! how awkward you are!" exclaims Ketch; "you must put your head in so"--showing him. "Ay so, and then draw it tight," cries Punch, drawing up the unwary hangman in a moment, and hanging him on the gallows; after which he hides himself behind the wall. Two men come to take away the body, lay it in the coffin, believing it to be that of the criminal, and carry it out, while Punch laughs in his sleeve, and dances away as usual.
But the shrewdest battle is yet to come, for the devil himself 'in propriâ personâ,' now comes to fetch him. Vainly does Punch lay before him the most acute observations; that he is a very stupid devil to wish to carry off the best friend he has on earth, and the like. The devil will not hear reason, and stretches out his long claws horribly at him. He appears just about to fly away with him, as erst with Faust, but Punch is not so easily to be dealt with; manfully he grasps his murderous staff, and defends himself even against the devil. A fearful fight ensues, and--who would have thought it possible?--Punch, so often in uttermost danger, at length remains universal conqueror, spits the black fiend on his stick, holds him up aloft, and whirling about with him with shouts of triumph, sings, while he laughs more heartily than ever.
I leave it to you to make all the philosophical reflections; of which Punch's career is fitted to excite not a few. Above all interesting would be the inquiry, how far the daily repetition of this favourite popular drama for so many years has influenced the morality of the lower classes.
To conclude,--for the sake of tragic justice, I sketch on the margin of my sheet a second portrait of Punch, as he appears sitting in prison, when the gallows is just brought before him.
In my next letter you will have all the details you desire concerning B----, which pious personage I have to-day forgotten for the more interesting sinner Punch.--Adieu for to day!
December 1st.
You remember what I told you of the mode of letting land in this country. As the builders of houses have only ninety-nine years to reckon on, they build as slightly as possible; the consequence of which is that one is not very sure of one's life in some of the London houses. A house, by no means old, fell last night in St. James's street, close by me, just like a house of cards, carrying the half of another with it. Several persons were severely hurt, but the greater number had time to escape, as there were threatening warnings. Such is the rapidity with which they build here, that in a month the whole will doubtless be standing again, though perhaps not much safer than before.
A few days ago I attended the interesting ceremony of the opening of Parliament by the King in person; a ceremony which has not taken place for several years.
In the centre of the House of Lords were assembled the Peers, their scarlet mantles negligently thrown over their ordinary morning dress. Near the wall opposite to the entrance stood the King's throne; on benches on the left sat a number of ladies in full dress; on the right the diplomatic corps and foreigners. In front of the throne was a bar, and behind it the members of the Lower House, in the common dress of our day. The house without, and the staircase, were filled with servants and heralds in the costume of the fourteenth century.
At two o'clock discharges of cannon announced the arrival of the King in state. A number of magnificent carriages and horses composed the procession, a sketch of which I have taken in my book of reminiscences,[28] and have placed it in contrast with a drawing of one of Cæsar's triumphs. At the sight of these pictures one involuntarily asks oneself, whether mankind have really made any progress. Scarcely, as it seems, in as far as art is concerned; especially when we look at the two prominent personages,--those who occupy the highest seats at the respective ceremonies,--the King's body-coachman, and Cæsar.
At about half-past three the King made his appearance, he alone being in full dress, and truly covered from top to toe with the ancient kingly decorations; with the crown on his head and the sceptre in his hand. He looked pale and bloated, and was obliged to sit on the throne for a considerable time before he could get breath enough to read his speech. During this time he turned friendly glances and considerable bows towards some favoured ladies. On his right stood Lord Liverpool, with the sword of state and the speech in his hand; and the Duke of Wellington on his left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-gray and worn out, that never did human greatness appear to me so little worth; indeed the tragic side of all the comedies we play here below, fell almost heavily on my heart; and yet it excited in me a strong feeling of the comic, to see how the most powerful monarch of the earth was obliged to present himself, as chief actor in a pantomime, before an audience whom he deems so infinitely beneath him. In fact, the whole pageant, including the King's costume, reminded me strikingly of one of those historical plays which are here got up so well; nothing was wanting but the 'flourish of trumpets' which accompanies the entrance and exit of one of Shakspeare's kings, to make the illusion complete.
In spite of his feebleness, George the Fourth read the 'banale' speech with great dignity and a fine voice; but with that royal 'nonchalance' which does not much concern itself what His Majesty promises, or whether or not he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad when the 'corvée' was over, so that the conclusion went off somewhat more rapidly than the beginning.
Since my last letter I have been twice to the theatre, which the late hours of dining render it impossible to do when one has any engagement.
I saw Mozart's Figaro announced at Drury-lane, and delighted myself with the idea of hearing once more the sweet tones of my fatherland:--what then was my astonishment at the unheard-of treatment which the master-work of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the Count, the Countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere actors, and their principal songs, with some little alteration in the words, were sung by the other singers; to add to this, the gardener roared out some interpolated popular English songs, which suited Mozart's music just as a pitch-plaster would suit the face of the Venus de' Medici. The whole opera was moreover 'arranged' by a certain Mr. Bishop (a circumstance which I had seen noticed in the bill, but did not understand till now),--that is, adapted to English ears by means of the most tasteless and shocking alterations.
The English national music, the coarse heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for an instant, has, to me at least, something singularly offensive; an expression of brutal feeling both in pain and pleasure, which smacks of 'roast-beef, plum-pudding, and porter.' You may imagine, therefore, what an agreeable effect these incorporations with the lovely and refined conceptions of Mozart must produce.
'Je n'y pouvais tenir'--poor Mozart appeared to me like a martyr on the cross, and I suffered no less by sympathy.
This abominable practice is the more inexcusable, since here is really no want of meritorious singers, male and female; and, with better arrangement, very good performances might be given. It is true, even if the stage were in good order, a second Orpheus would still be required to tame English audiences.
Far better was the performance in Covent Garden, where Charles Kemble, one of the best English actors, gave an admirable representation of the part of Charles the Second. Kemble is a man of the best education, and has always lived in good society; he is therefore qualified to represent a king royally;--with the 'aisance,' that is proper to all exalted persons. He very skilfully gave an amiable colouring to the levity of Charles the Second; without ever, even in moments of the greatest 'abandon,' losing the type of that inborn conscious dignity, so difficult to imitate. The costume, too, was as if cut out of the frame of an old picture, down to the veriest trifle; and this was observed by all the other actors, for which Kemble, who is also manager, deserves great praise.
I must, however, confess that in the next piece, in which Frederick the Great plays the principal part, there was not the same intimate knowledge and perfect imitation of foreign costume; both the king and his suite seemed to have borrowed their wardrobe from that of a pantomime. Zieten presented himself in a high grenadier's cap, and Seydlitz appeared in locks 'a là Murat,' and with as many orders as that royal actor used to wear; a profusion of which were by no means the fashion in Frederick's day, nor were they then worn as mere appendages of the toilet.
December 2nd.
I often dine at Prince E----'s, who exhibits a perfect model to 'diplomates' how dignified 'représentation' may be combined with agreeable facile manners; and how a man may please every body if he understands the art of placing himself 'à sa portée,' yet without suffering his own dignity to be forgotten for an instant:--'un vrai Seigneur,'--such as are every day becoming rarer. Never too did a foreigner succeed so perfectly in England; and yet, most assuredly, without the slightest concession to English arrogance. This implies infinite tact; the lighter, more vivacious character of a South German; and the most astute intellect concealed beneath the most unpretending 'bonhommie;' the whole backed and set off by a great name and a splendid fortune.
The other members of the diplomatic corps, with few exceptions, are left by him quite in the back-ground, and most of the plenipotentiaries here disappear completely in the crowd. Among the ambassadors there is, however, one of the female sex who plays a great part * * * But more of this another time. I entered upon the subject of Diplomates, only for the sake of repeating to you a very pretty 'bon mot' of one of them whom you know. I heard it to-day at dinner. Count H---- was ambassador at a German court renowned for its economy ('pour ne pas dire mesquinerie,') and on some solemn occasion received a snuff-box with the portrait of the sovereign; which, however, was set round with very small, paltry diamonds. Shortly afterwards, one of his colleagues asked him to show him his present. "Vous ne trouverez pas le portrait ressemblant," said the Count, giving him the snuff-box,--"mais les diamants."
I occasionally see, with great satisfaction, the venerable Elliot, who, together with the dry but very interesting Lord St. Helens, whom Ségur so often mentions in his Memoirs, belongs to the 'Doyens' of English diplomacy, and still dwells with extraordinary pleasure on the recollection of his residence at Dresden. He has several very charming daughters, and finds it difficult to live in a style befitting his rank, for his long services have not been rewarded with English liberality.[29]
Another very interesting person is Sir L---- M----, who was formerly in high favour with the king, then Prince of Wales, and deserves mention, first, because he is a most agreeable Amphitryon and entertains his friends admirably, and secondly, because he is one of the most original of men, and one of the few truly practical philosophers I have ever met with. The prejudices of the many seem for him to have no existence; and nobody could be more difficult to impose on by mere authority, whether on matters of heaven or earth. Although sixty years old, and a martyr to the most unheard-of tortures with which gout and stone can rack an unhappy mortal, no one ever heard a complaint from him; nor is his cheerful, nay merry humour ever saddened by it for a moment. It must be confessed that there are dispositions and temperaments which are worth a hundred thousand a year.
When I was first introduced to him, a short time since, he had just undergone the terrible operation for the stone. The surgeon refused to undertake it, on the ground that the weakness of the patient rendered it too hazardous, but was at length almost compelled by him to perform it. At that time he kept his bed, and looked like a corpse, and at going in I involuntarily made 'une mine de doléance,' upon which he instantly interrupted me, and told me to lay aside all grimaces. "What cannot be cured," said he, "must be endured; and better gaily, that sadly:" for himself, he said, he had certainly abundant cause to laugh at his physicians, who had given him his passport with the utmost certainty at least ten times, but had almost all gone to the d--l before him. "Besides," said he, "I have enjoyed life as few have, and must now learn the dark side." In spite of all his pleasures, and all his pains, the gay-hearted man is still in such good preservation, that, since he is about again, with his artist-like peruque, he does not look much above forty, and exhibits a spirited and 'rayonnante' physiognomy, whose features must once have been handsome.
December 3rd.
Kemble gave me a high treat this evening as Falstaff. It is certain that even the greatest dramatic poets stand in need of the actor's aid to bring out their work. I never so fully understood the character of the mad knight; never was it so manifest to me what his outward deportment must have been, as since I saw him new-born in the person of Charles Kemble. His dress and mask were striking indeed, but by no means such a caricature as on our stages. Still less had he the air of a man of low rank and breeding, visibly a mere 'farceur,' as Devrient, for instance, represented him in Berlin. Falstaff, although a man of vulgar soul, is still by habit and inclination a practised courtier; and the coarseness which he often assumes in the prince's company is at least as much intentional acting, employed by him to amuse the Prince (for princes often love vulgarity from its very contrast with the gloomy elevation of their own station,) as to gratify his own humour. Mr. Kemble caught the finest shades of the character; for, although he never lost sight of the natural, invincible humour, the witty presence of mind, and the diverting drollery which made Falstaff such an agreeable companion,--nay, which rendered him almost a necessary of life to those who had once associated with him,--he is quite another man when he appears at Court in the presence of the king and other dignified persons; or when he plays antics with the Prince and his companions; or, lastly, when he is alone with the latter. In the first case, you see a facetious man, somewhat like the Maréchal de Bassompierre, ludicrously fat, but a man of dignified and gentleman-like air; always a joker, it is true, but in a good 'ton,' never forgetting the respect due to the place and the presence in which he is. In the second stage, he allows himself to go much further; takes all sorts of coarse freedoms; but ever with observable care to exalt the Prince, and to assume only the privilege of a Court fool, who, apparently, may say all that comes into his head. In the last stage, we see Falstaff in complete 'negligé,' after he has thrown off all regard to appearances. Here he wallows delightfully in the mire, like a swine in a ditch; and yet even here he still remains original, and excites more laughter than disgust. This is the supreme art, the last triumph of the poet: he alone can give, even to the most horrid monsters of sin and shame, something like a divine impress; something which awakens our interest and attracts us, even to our own astonishment. This is the high dramatic truth, the creative power of genius, speaking of which Walter Scott so prettily says, "I can only compare Shakspeare with that man in the Arabian Nights, who has the power of passing into any body at pleasure, and imitating its feelings and actions."
I must here remark, that there is but one character in this immortal poet's works which always appeared to me ill-drawn and unnatural, nor does any excite less interest in general. This is the king in Hamlet. To mention only one trait, it appears to me quite psycologically false, when the author makes the king kneel down, and then exclaim, "I cannot pray." The king is never represented as an irreligious man, a subtle sceptic, but merely as a coarse sensual sinner; now we daily see that a man of this cast cannot only pray regularly and zealously, but even pray that his crimes may prosper: like that woman who was found alone in a robber's cave, after the capture of the gang, on her knees, praying earnestly to heaven that the expedition in which she believed them then engaged might be successful, and that they might return laden with booty.
Nay even public pre-appointed prayers have often no better aim. What examples of this kind does not history afford! No, the sinful king can pray,--the person in this tragedy who cannot, is Hamlet. For it is only the unbelieving; the man who wants to fathom everything; the spiritual chemist who sees one apparently firm substance after another melt away; this man--till he is enabled by the divine influence to construct one,[30] inward and indestructible, (and this point Hamlet has manifestly not reached) this man alone, I say, cannot pray, for the Object fails him. He cannot deny it to himself,--when he prays, he is only acting a part with himself. This is a melancholy process to pass through, and is imputed to unhappy mortals as a crime by those who first place the poor child on the bed of Procrustes, and by that means often render it impossible for the cramped and shortened limbs ever to extend themselves again to their natural length.
But back to the play. It concluded with a melo-drama, in which a large Newfoundland dog really acted admirably; he defended a banner for a long time, pursued the enemy, and afterwards came on the stage wounded, lame, and bleeding, and died in the most masterly manner, with a last wag of the tail that was really full of genius. You would have sworn that the good beast knew at least as well as any of his human companions what he was about.
I left the theatre in such good humour that I won eight rubbers at whist after it at the Club, for luck at play goes with good spirits and confidence.--But good night.
December 4th.
In consequence of the opening of Parliament, society begins to be more lively, though London 'en gros' is still empty.
The most elegant ladies of the first circles now give small parties, access to which is far more difficult to most Englishmen than to foreigners of rank; for the despotism of fashion, as I have already told you, rules in this land of freedom with iron sceptre, and extends through all classes in a manner we on the Continent have no conception of.
But without indulging too early in general observations, I will describe to you my own way of life in London.
I rise late; read, like a half-nationalized foreigner, three or four newspapers at breakfast; look in my 'visiting-book' what visits I have to pay, and either drive to pay them in my cabriolet or ride. In the course of these excursions, I sometimes catch the enjoyment of the picturesque; the struggle of the blood-red sun with the winter fogs often produces wild and singular effects of light. After my visits are paid, I ride for several hours about the beautiful environs of London, return when it grows dark, work a little, dress for dinner, which is at seven or eight, and spend the evening either in the theatre or at some small party. The ludicrous 'routs,'--at which one hardly finds standing-room on the staircase,--where one pushes and is pushed, and is kept for hours in a hot-house temperature,--have not yet commenced. In England however, except in a few diplomatic houses, you can go nowhere in an evening except on special invitation. In these small parties there is not much 'géne,' but general conversation has no place: each gentleman usually singles out a lady who peculiarly interests him, and does not quit her for the whole evening. Many fair ones are thus frequently left sitting alone, without an opportunity of speaking a word; they however do not betray any dissatisfaction, even by a look or gesture, for they are of a very passive nature. Every body of course speaks French, as with us, 'tant bien que mal,' but this continued 'géne' annoys the ladies so much after a time, that a man has no little advantage who can speak English tolerably.
You see this life is pretty much a 'far niente,' though not a very sweet one to my taste, for I love society only in intimate circles, and attach myself with difficulty,--indeed now scarcely at all,--to new acquaintances. The ennui, which seizes me in such an indifferent state of mind, is too clearly written on my undiplomatic face not to extend to others as contagiously as yawning. Here and there I find an exception:--to-day for instance I made the acquaintance of Mr. Morier, the clever and very agreeable author of Hadji Baba; and of Mr. Hope, the imputed author of Anastasius, a work of far higher genius. This book is worthy of Byron: many maintain that Mr. Hope, who is rather remarkable for his reserve than for anything poetical in his appearance, cannot possibly have written it. This doubt derives considerable force from a work which Mr. Hope formerly published on furniture, the style and contents of which certainly contrast strangely with the glowing impassioned Anastasius, overflowing with thought and feeling. An acquaintance of mine said to me, "One thing or the other: either Anastasius is not by him, or the work on furniture." But matter so different brings with it as different a style; and as I observed Mr. Hope, perhaps with involuntary prepossession, he appeared to me no ordinary man. He is very rich, and his house full of treasures of art, and of luxuries which I shall describe hereafter. His furniture theory, which is fashioned on the antique, I cannot praise in practice:--the chairs are ungovernable; other trophy-like structures look ridiculous, and the sofas have such sharp salient points in all directions, that an incautious sitter might hurt himself seriously.
On my return home at night I found your letter, which, like everything from you, gave me more pleasure than aught else can. Say not, however, that the pain of parting occasions you such deep depression,--let it not be deeper than a joyful meeting can at once remove; and that is probably not very distant.
That you point to another life, as soon as things do not go precisely according to our wishes in this, seems to me, dearest, to show a want of Christian patience and confidence. No, I confess it, spite of transient fits of melancholy, I still feel the attraction of earth; and this 'span of life,' as you call it, has strong hold on my heart. If indeed you, my affectionate tutelary goddess, were also Fortuna, I should fare better than any mortal living: 'et toutes les étoiles pâliraient devant la mienne;'--but since you love me, you are my Fortuna, and I desire no better.
Do not suffer your own melancholy, or mine, to deceive you. As for me, you know that a nothing raises the barometer of my spirits, and a nothing often depresses it. This is certainly too delicate a nervous organization, and little fitted for every-day, home-baked (hausbacknen) happiness,--which requires strong nerves.
December 5th.
Oberon, Weber's song of the swan, has occupied my evening.--The execution of both the instrumental and vocal parts left much to desire; but on the whole, the opera was extremely well performed, for London. The best part was the decorations, especially at the conjuration of the spirits. They appear, not, as usual, in the standing costume,--scarlet jackets and breeches, with snaky locks and flames on their heads,--but in the form of huge rocky caves, which occupy the whole stage; every mass of rock then suddenly changes into some fantastic and frightful form or face, gleaming with many-coloured flames and lurid light, out of which here and there a whole figure leans grinning forward, while the fearful thrilling music re-echoes on every side from the moving chorus of rocks.
The opera itself I regard as one of Weber's feebler productions. There are beautiful parts, especially the introduction, which is truly elf-like. I am less delighted with the overture, though so highly extolled by connoisseurs.
I ought to have begun by telling you that I was presented to the King to-day, at a great levée.--I give you as a proof of the extraordinary voluntary seclusion of the present sovereign, that our Secretary of Legation was presented with me for the first time, though he has been here in that capacity for two years. His Majesty has a very good memory. He immediately recollected my former visit to England, though he mistook the date of it by several years. I took occasion to make my compliments to him on the extraordinary embellishment of London since that time, which indeed is to be ascribed in great measure to him. After a gracious reply, I passed on, and placed myself in a convenient station for seeing the whole spectacle. It was odd enough.
The king, on account of the feeble state of his health, remained seated;--the company marched past him in a line; each made his bow, was addressed or not, and then either placed himself in the row on the other side of the room, or quitted it. All those who had received any appointment kneeled down before the king and kissed his hand, at which the American Minister, near whom I had accidentally placed myself, made a rather satirical face. The clergymen and lawyers in their black gowns and white powdered wigs, short and long, had a most whimsical masquerading appearance. One of them was the object of an almost universal ill-suppressed laugh. This personage had kneeled to be 'knighted,' as the English call it, and in this posture, with the long fleece on his head, looked exactly like a sheep at the slaughter-block. His Majesty signed to the great Field Marshal to give him his sword. For the first time, perhaps, the great warrior could not draw the sword from the scabbard; he pulled and pulled,--all in vain. The king waiting with outstretched arm; the duke vainly pulling with all his might; the unhappy martyr prostrate in silent resignation, as if expecting his end, and the whole brilliant court standing around in anxious expectation:--it was a group worthy of Gilray's pencil. At length the state weapon started like a flash of lightning from its sheath. His Majesty grasped it impatiently,--indeed his arm was probably weary and benumbed with being so long extended,--so that the sword, instead of alighting on a new knight, fell on an old wig, which for a moment enveloped king and subject in a cloud of powder.
December 6th.
Mr. R---- had long ago invited me to visit him at his country-house, and I took advantage of a disengaged day to drive out with my friend L---- to dine there. The royal banker has bought no ducal residence, but lives in a pretty villa. We found some Directors of the East India Company, and several members of his own family and faith, whom I liked very much. I extremely respect this family for having the courage to remain Jews. Only an idiot can esteem a Jew the less for his religion, but renegades have always a presumption against their sincerity, which it is difficult to get over.
There are three cases in which I should unconditionally allow Jews to change their religion. First, if they really believe that only Christians can be saved; secondly, if their daughters wish to marry Christians, who will have them on no other terms; thirdly, if a Jew were elected king of a Christian people,--a thing by no means impossible, since men far below the rank of Jewish barons, and notorious for the absence of all religion, have frequently ascended the throne in these latter days.[31]
Mr. R---- was in high good-humour, amusing, and talkative. It was diverting to hear him explain to us the pictures around his dining-room, (all portraits of the sovereigns of Europe, presented through their ministers,) and talk of the originals as his very good friends, and, in a certain sense, his equals. "Yes," said he, "the ---- once pressed me for a loan, and in the same week in which I received his autograph letter, his father wrote to me also with his own hand from Rome to beg me for Heaven's sake not to have any concern in it, for that I could not have to do with a more dishonest man than his son." 'C'était sans doute très Catholique;' probably, however, the letter was written by the old ----, who hated her own son to such a degree, that she used to say of him,--everybody knows how unjustly,--"He has the heart of a t---- with the face of an a----."
The others' turn came next. * * *
He concluded, however, by modestly calling himself the dutiful and generously paid agent and servant of these high potentates, all of whom he honoured equally, let the state of politics be what it might; for, said he, laughing, "I never like to quarrel with my bread and butter."
It shows great prudence in Mr. R---- to have accepted neither title nor order, and thus to have preserved a far more respectable independence. He doubtless owes much to the good advice of his extremely amiable and judicious wife, who excels him in tact and knowledge of the world, though not perhaps in acuteness and talents for business.
On our way there we had been tempted to alight to see the state-carriage of another monarch of Asiatic origin, the King of the Birmans. It was taken in the late war. It is crowded with precious stones, valued at six thousand pounds, and has a splendid effect by candlelight: its canopy-like pyramidal form seemed to me in better taste than that of our carriages. The attendants sitting on it were odd enough,--two little boys and two peacocks, carved in wood and beautifully painted and varnished. At the time it was taken, it was drawn by two white elephants; and fifteen thousand precious stones, great and small, all unpolished, still adorn the gilded wood of which it is made. A number of curious and costly Birman arms were placed, as trophies, round the spacious apartment, which gave a doubly rich and interesting effect to the whole exhibition. As people always give a great deal for money here, there was a Poecilorama in an adjoining room, consisting also of Birman and Indian views, over which the light is ingeniously thrown so as to produce very lively and varied effects.
I don't know why such things are not used as decorations for rooms. At a fête, for instance, a room thus fitted up would surely be a much greater novelty than the hackneyed ornaments of gay draperies, orange trees, and flowers.
December 8th.
On my way home from a dinner at M. de Polignac's, a very agreeable but highly orthodox representative of 'l'ancien regime,' I was in time to find the celebrated Mathews "At Home" at his theatre. The curtain was dropped, and Mr. Mathews sitting in front of it at a table covered with a cloth.
He began by discursively relating to the public that he was just returned from a journey to Paris, where he had met with many original individuals and droll adventures. Imperceptibly he passed from the narrative style to a perfectly dramatic performance, in which, with almost inconceivable talent and memory, he placed before the eyes of his audience all that he had witnessed; while he so totally altered his face, speech, and whole exterior, with the rapidity of lightning, that one must have seen it to believe it possible. His outward helps consist only of a cap, a cloak, a false nose, a wig, &c., which he draws from under the table cover, and with these slender means produces an entire and instant transformation. The applause was tumultuous and the laughter incessant. The principal persons (who were introduced in various situations,) were an old Englishman, who found fault with everything abroad and praised everything at home; a provincial lady who never walked in the street without a French dictionary in her hand, worried the passers-by with incessant questions, and seized every opportunity of assisting other English people with her superior knowledge, in doing which, as may be imagined, she stumbled upon the most perverted, burlesque, and often equivocal expressions; a dandy from the city, who affected 'le grand air;' and his opposite, a fat farmer from Yorkshire, who played pretty much the part of farmer Feldkümmel. The most amusing thing to me was an English lecture on craniology by Spurzheim. The likeness to that person, so well known in England,--to his whole manner and his German accent,--was so perfect, that the theatre shook with incessant laughter.
I was less pleased with some other imitations; particularly that of Talma, who is far above the reach of any mere mimic, be his talents what they may. Besides, his death is too recent, and sorrow for his irreparable loss too great in the mind of every lover of art, to render such a parody agreeable.
The performance concluded with a little farce, for which the curtain was drawn up, and in which Mathews again played alone. He filled seven or eight different parts, exclusive of those of a dog and a child, which were indeed personated by puppets, but which he barked and prattled, in as masterly a manner as he spoke the others. At first he is a French tutor, who is going to travel with a little lord ten years old, whom he shuts into a guitar-case that he may save the fare of the diligence, and at the same time charge it to the papa. At every stage he takes him out, to give him air and make him say his lesson. He carries on the conversation with infinite drollery, and surprising skill as a ventriloquist. The boy's resistance to being shut up in his box again,--the way in which his murmurs and complaints die away, like the waltz in the Freischütz, till at length the lid is clapped to, and the last tones come from the shut case like a faint echo,--are inconceivably comic.
After many adventures which beset the diligence and its passengers, an old maid (again Mathews) makes her appearance. She has a favourite lapdog, which is not suffered to travel inside, but which she is trying to smuggle in, and fixes her eye on the guitar-case as a fit hiding-place for her darling. In her hurry to accomplish her purpose she does not observe that the place is already occupied. But hardly has she laid the case out of her hand, when the dog begins to growl and bark, the boy to howl, and she to scream for help; which trio made the gallery almost frantic with delight.
The whole affair is, as you perceive, not exactly æsthetic, and rather fitted to an English stomach than to any other. It is, indeed, almost painful to see such skill devoted to such absurd buffooneries; the talent, however, is still most remarkable; and even the physical powers wonderful, which can support these efforts of acting and continual speaking, with all these fatiguing disguises, without a single slip or stumble, for hours together.
Not to require as great an exertion of patience from you, I will now conclude. I wish heartily that my display of the meagre peep-shows of the town may not tire you too much. You asked for pictures of daily life; you expect from me no statistical work, no topography, no regular enumeration of the so-called sights of London, and no systematic treatise on England; nor am I in any condition to afford you such.
Receive, therefore, the unpretending humble fare I send you, in good part. It is at all events now and then seasoned with a grain of pepper.
Your faithful L----.
Letter VII
London, Dec. 9th, 1826.
DEAREST FRIEND,
It is not uninteresting to attend the auctions here; first, on account of the multitude of extremely rare and valuable things, which form the wonderful activity of life and the constant vicissitudes of fortune are daily brought into the market, and often sold very cheap; and secondly, for the ingenuity and eloquence of the auctioneers, of which I have already made honourable mention. They embroider their orations with more wit gratis, than ours would be willing to furnish for ready money.
This morning I saw the sale of an Indian cabinet, the property of a bankrupt Nabob, which contained some curious and beautiful works of art. "The possessor of these treasures," said the orator, "has taken much trouble for nothing; for nothing to himself, I mean, but a great deal to you, gentlemen. He had once doubtless more money than wit, but has now, as certainly, more wit than money." "Modesty and merit," observed he afterwards, "go together only thus far,--both begin with an m." And in this style, and with such 'jeus de mots,' he continued. "What enables the poor to live?" concluded he. "Charity or liberality do but little towards it. Vanity, vanity is the thing,--not theirs, poor devils, but that of the rich. If you then, gentlemen, will but display a little of this praiseworthy vanity, and buy, you will earn a blessing even without meaning it."
Yes, truly, thought I, there you are right, old jester, for so admirably is the world contrived, that good must ever arise out of evil; and the existence of evil only serves to render the good which succeeds it more conspicuous.
One must moralize everywhere.
I dined at the house of a lady of distinction, who talked to me the whole time we were at table about Napoleon, and, with true English exaggeration, was so enamoured of him, that she thought the execution of the Duke d'Enghien, and the betrayal of Spain, laudable acts.
Though I do not go quite so far, I am, as you know, an admirer of this man's colossal greatness, and delighted my neighbour highly by describing to her Napoleon's former magnificence, of which I was an eyewitness,--those brilliant days in which Cæsar himself stood amazed at his splendour;
"Quand les ambassadeurs de tant de rois divers Vinrent le reconnoître au nom de l'univers."
For his own fame, I do not wish otherwise any of his later misfortunes; nor for the tragic interest, any of his errors and faults. He bore 'coups d'épées' and 'coups d'épingles' with equal fortitude and dignity; and left an epitaph worthy of his life in the words, 'Je lègue l'opprobre de ma mort à l'Angleterre.'
Thus much is certain, he is still too near us for impartial judgment; and experience has amply taught us that it was less his despotic principles than his personal aggrandisement which provoked such inveterate hostility. The principles exist still; but, God be praised, the energy with which he put them in practice, is utterly wanting, and that is a great gain for human nature.[32]
There is now a French theatre here, which is attained only by the best company, and nevertheless is like a dark little private theatre. Perlet and Laporte are its great supports, and play admirably. The latter also, with true French assurance, acts on the English stage, and thinks, when the audience laughs at his accent and French manners, that it is merely a tribute to his 'vis comica.'
I went to the theatre with Mrs. ----, wife of the well-known minister and member of parliament, and accompanied her after the play to the first genuine rout I have attended this time of my being in England,--what is more, too, in a house in which I was entirely a stranger. It is the custom here to take your friends to parties of this sort, and to present them, then and there, to the mistress of the house, who never thinks you can bring enough to fill her small rooms to suffocation: the more the better; and for the full satisfaction of her vanity, a 'bagarre' must arise among the carriages below; some must be broken to pieces, and a few men and horses killed or hurt, so that the 'Morning Post' of the following day may parade a long article on the extremely 'fashionable soirée' given by 'Lady Vain,' or 'Lady Foolish.'
In the course of the evening I made a more interesting acquaintance than I expected on the staircase, (I could get no further,) in Lady C---- B----, who has some reputation as an authoress. She is the sister of a Duke, and was a celebrated beauty.
The next morning I called on her, and found everything in her house brown, in every possible shade;--furniture, curtains, carpets, her own and her children's dresses, presented no other colour. The room was without looking-glasses or pictures; and its only ornaments were casts from the antique.
* * * * *
After I had been there some time, the celebrated bookseller C---- entered. This man has made a fortune by Walter Scott's novels, though, as I was told, he refused his first and best, Waverly, and at last gave but a small sum for it. I hope the charming Lady C---- B---- had better cause to be satisfied with him. I thought it discreet to leave her with her man of business, and made my bow.
December 10th.
The affairs of Portugal are now much discussed in all circles; and the Marquis P---- read us the just printed English Declaration to-night, in a box at the French theatre. Politics are here a main ingredient of social intercourse; as they begin to be in Paris, and will in time become in our sleepy Germany; for the whole world has now that tendency. The lighter and more frivolous pleasures suffer by this change; and the art of conversation as it once flourished in France, will perhaps soon be entirely lost. In this country I should rather think it never existed, unless perhaps in Charles the Second's time. And, indeed, people here are too slavishly subject to established usages; too systematic in all their enjoyments; too incredibly kneaded up with prejudices; in a word, too little vivacious, to attain to that unfettered spring and freedom of spirit, which must ever be the sole basis of agreeable society. I must confess that I know none more monotonous, nor more persuaded of its own pre-excellence, than the highest society of this country,--with but few exceptions, and those chiefly among foreigners, or persons who have resided a good deal on the Continent. A stony, marble-cold spirit of caste and fashion rules all classes, and makes the highest tedious, the lower ridiculous. True politeness of the heart and cheerful 'bonhommie' are rarely to be met with in what is called society; nor, if we look for foreign ingredients, do we find either French grace and vivacity, or Italian naturalness; but at most, German stiffness and awkwardness concealed under an iron mask of arrogance and 'hauteur.'
In spite of this, the 'nimbus' of a firmly anchored aristocracy and vast wealth, (combined with admirable taste in spending it, which no one can deny them,) has stamped the Great World of this country as that 'par excellence,' of Europe, to which all other nations must more or less give way. But that foreigners individually and personally do not find it agreeable, is evident by their rarity in England, and by the still greater rarity of their desire to stay long. Every one of them at the bottom of his heart thanks God when he is out of English society; though personal vanity afterwards, leads him to extol that uninspiring foggy sun, whose beams assuredly gave him but little 'comfort' when he lived in them.
Far more loveable, because far more loving, do the English appear in their domestic and most intimate relations; though even here some 'baroque' customs;--for instance, that sons in the highest ranks, as soon as they are fledged, leave the paternal roof and live alone; nay actually do not present themselves at their fathers' dinner-table without a formal invitation. I lately read a moving instance of conjugal affection in the newspaper: The Marquis of Hastings died in Malta; shortly before his death he ordered that his right hand should be cut off immediately after his death, and sent to his wife. A gentleman of my acquaintance, out of real tenderness, and with her previously obtained permission, cut off his mother's head, that he might keep the skull as long as he lived; while other Englishmen, I really believe, would rather endure eternal torments than permit the scalpel to come near their bodies. The laws enjoin the most scrupulous fulfilment of such dispositions of a deceased person; however extravagant they may be, they must be executed. I am told there is a country-house in England where a corpse, fully dressed, has been standing at a window for the last half-century, and still overlooks its former property.
Just as I was going to entertain you with more English originalities, my long-desired head-gardener entered my room, bringing your letters. What a pity that you could not put yourself into the large packet, (of course in all your 'fraicheur,' and not like Lord Hastings' hand,) or inhabit a pretty box, like Göthe's delightful Gnome, so that I might call you out and share with you every enjoyment, fresh as it arises, without this long interval! As it is, you are melancholy, because I was so a fortnight before; or your sympathizing answer to a cheerful letter of mine arrives just as I am labouring under a fresh attack of 'spleen.' As you say, such an old letter is often like a dead body which, after being forgotten, is fished up out of the sea.
I must laugh at you, and scold you for one thing--that you write me, as is your way, scarcely any details about what is passing at my beloved M----, and send me, instead, long extracts out of a book of Travels in Africa, which I have read here ages ago in the original. I will certainly pay you in your own coin the next time you do so. I am just studying a very interesting work, Dass Preussische Exercier-Reglement von 1805, out of which, when other matter fails me, I shall send you the cleverest and most entertaining extracts. O you gentle lamb! you shall often be 'shorn' with these African novelties of yours; the more so, as the last shearing took place a long time ago, and you must be sitting as deeply imbedded in your wool as the Knights of St. John in B----, when, displaying their double crosses, they await the highest bidder on their Woolsacks. The seat of the Lord Chancellor here is also a Woolsack, but of rather a more aristocratical sort, more nearly allied to the Golden Fleece.
I now make almost daily park-excursions with R----, to render his visit to England as useful as possible; for a good gardener will learn more here in his profession during a short stay, than in a study of ten years at home. There are indeed in the immediate neighbourhood of London a great number of very interesting seats, all of them situated on very pleasant and animated roads. Amongst these may particularly be mentioned a villa of Lord Mansfield's, the decorations of which do much honour to the taste of his lady. Sion House, belonging to the Duke of Northumberland, and laid out by Brown, is also extremely worth seeing, on account of its remarkable green-houses, and the multitude of gigantic exotic trees in the open air, none of which would bear our climate. Here are also to be seen whole groves of rhododendrons, camellias, &c., which are but partially covered in winter; and all kinds of beautiful evergreens thrive luxuriantly in every season.
The green and hot-houses, which form a front of three hundred feet, consist only of stone, iron and glass; a style of building which has here the additional advantage of being cheaper than that with wood.
I was interested by a kind of chain, the links of which consisted of scythes, for the purpose of clearing the large standing waters (a defect in most English parks): by merely drawing it, like a drag-net, along the bottom, it entirely removes the weeds. In the vast pleasure-ground twelve men are daily mowing from five till nine o'clock. By this means high grass is never to be seen there, and at the same time the disagreeable general mowing is avoided, which destroys the neatness of the garden for some days. It is true that they can do only a part daily; but it is so managed that they finish a certain allotted portion, and they come round so often that the difference in the turf is not perceptible. This short grass is, indeed, quite lost to economy; but beauty and utility cannot always be combined, and the latter must certainly be subordinate in a pleasure-ground, or it is better to relinquish all pretensions to one. Kew, which is on the opposite bank of the river, unquestionably possesses the most complete collection of exotic plants in Europe. The park has also a great advantage in its beautiful situation on the Thames, but is in general rather neglected. Yew trees are found here of the height of our firs, and very fine specimens of holly and evergreen oak; in other respects the old Queen's plantations are not very tasteful.
Wimbledon Park, stretching over several hills and full of beautiful groups of trees, present fine views, but the effect of the whole is spoiled by some degree of monotony.
---- House is very near, and almost in the suburbs of London: its architecture is not without interest.
I tell you nothing of the enchanting valley of Richmond. Every traveller falls into an ecstacy about it, and with justice; but he does not always excite a similar feeling in the reader by his descriptions. I therefore avoid them, and remark only that the excellent aristocratic inn (the Star and Garter,) from which one overlooks this paradise, whilst one's corporeal wants are admirably provided for, enhances the pleasure. Solitude and tranquillity joined to every comfort of life, in a country beautiful above all expression, powerfully invite to enjoyment.
In the evening I took R---- to the Adelphi Theatre. It is small and neat, and distinguished for the goodness of its machinery; just now, too, it possesses several excellent actors. One of them played the drunkard more naturally than I ever saw it. It is true that he has more facilities here for the study of that state of mind,--for the same reason that the ancients represented the naked figure better than our artists,--namely, because they saw it more frequently. An excellent trait of real life was, that the drunkard, who cherished a tender passion for a young and poor girl in the house where he lodged, when sober formed other projects, but in his drunken fits invariably returned with tears 'à ses anciennes amours,' and in that state of mind was at length happily brought to marry her.
December 23d.
Many thanks for the news from B----. I am particularly pleased that Alexander Von Humboldt is employed by Government. It must give pleasure to every patriot to see a man like him at length fixed in his native country, which is so justly proud of his fame in all parts of the world. It must be a happy occurrence too for many circles there, in which the salt will at length be mingled, the want of which has so long rendered them quite unpalatable.
How much I lament the accident which has befallen our good and noble King, (and I had already learned it from L----,) you can easily imagine, as you know my feelings on that subject; but I hope to God that his strong constitution, and the help of such skilful men, will remove every remaining evil. How rare, and how beautiful, to hear a whole nation exclaim with one heart and mind, "May heaven preserve to us our beloved Monarch!"[33]
My own state of spirits is, 'au reste,' somewhat of the same melancholy cast, probably from the everlasting fogs, which are often so bad that one is obliged to light candles in the middle of the day, and yet cannot see. 'Le pire est, que je suis tantôt trop, et tantôt trop peu sensible á l'opinion et aux procédés des autres.' In the former disposition, (and dispositions unfortunately govern me with despotic power,) they not only make me sad or cheerful, but, what is worse, wise or foolish. I sometimes appear to myself like a person who has climbed up a ladder of ropes, where his hands have grown benumbed; and after hanging for a long time near the top, and endeavouring to get still higher, is now on the point of being obliged to let go, and fall down again to the bottom. And yet, perhaps, when once arrived on the level plain of common-place and obscurity, he may be more tranquil than in the stormy breezes; and though his hopes be less, he may be surrounded by a happier, though a more simple reality. But a truce to such vain speculations. They are unprofitable, and even fears of a threatening real misfortune ought always to be forcibly banished; for why torment ourself with anxieties about that which may come, and yet perhaps never does come; yet, as a mere dreamy phantom, has embittered so much of a present which might otherwise have been cheerful?
In all such states of mind, your image is my best comfort; and to you, my only and unchanging friend, I turn at length with tearful eyes, and tender gratitude for all your manifold love, kindness and indulgence. In your faithful bosom I deposit my grief as well as my joy, and all my hopes; the most brilliant fulfilment of which would, without you, lose all value for me.
But now I must leave you, as my duty requires, (for otherwise I would not,) to go to a large party; where I am destined, as in life, to lose myself in the multitude. It is, I think, my last visit to the gay world, as I am preparing to set out on a park-and-garden journey with B----, which probably will take us a month. The present season is indeed just the best for him who wishes to make landscape-gardening a study, for the leafless trees afford a clear and free view in all directions; one can thus see the whole artificial landscape in a single tour, understand the effects produced, and judge of the whole like a plan on paper; as well as distinguish the parts of every plantation in their intended order.
Yesterday we visited, 'en attendant,' the parks in town,--Kensington Gardens;--Regent's park, 'en détail,' &c., on which occasion we did not omit to look in at the Diorama exhibited there. This far surpassed my expectations, and all that I had formerly seen of the same kind. It is certainly impossible to deceive the senses more effectually; even with the certitude of illusion one can hardly persuade himself it exists. The picture represented the interior of a large abbey-church, appearing perfectly in its real dimensions. A side door is open, ivy climbs through the windows, and the sun occasionally shines through the door, and lightens with a cheering beam the remains of coloured windows, glittering through cobwebs. Through the opposite window at the end you see the neglected garden of the monastery, and above it, single clouds in the sky, which, flitting stormily across, occasionally obscure the sunlight, and throw deep shadows over the church--tranquil as death; where the crumbled but magnificent remains of an ancient knight reposes in gloomy majesty.
As our departure is fixed for to-morrow, I send off this letter, although it has not yet grown to the usual corpulence. How slender are yours in comparison! Certainly, whenever our descendants find the dusty correspondence of their ancestors in a corner of the old library, they will be equally astonished at my prodigality and at your avarice, 'A propos,' do not be too dissipated in B----, and forget not, even for the shortest time,
The most faithful of your friends, L.
Letter VIII
Watford, December 25, 1826.
DEAR FRIEND,
This morning we started,--unluckily in bad rainy weather. Ten miles from London we commenced operations with the inspection of two villas and a large park, near the pretty little village of Stanmore. The first villa was thoroughly in the rural Gothic style, with ornamented pointed gables; a 'genre' in which English architects are peculiarly happy. The interior was also most prettily fitted up in the same style, and at the same time extremely comfortable and inviting. Even the doors in the walls surrounding the kitchen-garden were adorned with windows of coloured glass at the top, which had a singular and beautiful brilliancy among the foliage. The little flower-garden, too, was laid out in beds of Gothic forms surrounded by gravel walks, and the fancy had not a bad effect.
Very different was the aspect of the other villa, in the Italian taste, with large vases before it, filled not with flowers but with green and yellow gourds and pumpkins. A superabundance of wooden statues, painted white, decorated, or rather deformed, the gardens. Among them a roaring rampant lion vainly sought to inspire terror, and a Cupid hanging in a bush threatened, as abortively, the passengers with his darts.
The Priory, formerly a religious house, now the seat of Lord Aberdeen, has many beauties. The number of magnificent firs and pines in the park give it a singularly foreign air. The simple beautiful house is almost concealed amid trees of every size and form, so that one catches only glimpses of it glancing between the shrubs, or overtopping the high trees. This is always very advantageous to buildings, especially those of an antique character. One seldom sees here those unbroken views over a long and narrow strip of level grass, but which have no other effect than that of making distance appear less than it really is. We walked about the grounds for a considerable time, while a bevy of young ladies and gentlemen of the family came around us, mounted on small Scotch poneys; and one of the latter, a pretty boy, attached himself to us as guide, and showed us the interior of the house, whose dark walls were most luxuriantly clothed, up to the very roof, with ivy, pomegranate and China-rose. It was twilight before we quitted the park, and in half an hour we reached the little town of Watford, where I am now reposing in a good inn. R---- takes this opportunity of commending himself most respectfully to you, and is writing very busily in his journal, which makes me laugh.
I must just remark, that at Stanmore Priory we saw (I steal it out of the fore-named journal) a single rhododendron standing abroad, fifteen feet high, and covering a circumference of at least twenty-five feet with its thick branches. Such vegetation is more inviting to 'parkomanie' than ours.
Woburn, December 26th.
We have made a calculation, dear Julia, that if you were with us (a wish ever present to the minds of your faithful servants) you could not, with your aversion to foot-exercise, see above a quarter of a park a-day; and that it would take you at least four hundred and twenty years to see all the parks in England, of which there are doubtless at least a hundred thousand, for they swarm whichever way you turn your steps. Of course we visit only the great ones, or look, 'en passant,' at any little villa that particularly strikes and pleases us. Notwithstanding this, we have seen so many proud and magnificent seats to-day, that we are still in perfect rapture at them. For I, you know, never could subscribe to the rule of the 'nil admirari,' which cramps and destroys our best enjoyments.
Before I begin my description, I must, however, give the excellent inns their meed of praise. In the country, even in small villages, you find them equally neat and well attended. Cleanliness, great convenience, and even elegance, are always combined in them; and a stranger is never invited to eat, sit and sleep in the same room, as in the German inns, in which there are generally only ball-rooms and bed-chambers.
The table-service generally consists of silver and porcelain: the furniture is well contrived; the beds always excellent; and the friendly, flickering fire never fails to greet you.
A detailed description of this morning's breakfast will give you the best idea of the wants and the comfortable living of English travellers.
N. B. I had ordered nothing but tea. The following is what I found set out when I quitted my bed-room,--in a little town scarcely so extensive as one of our villages. In the middle of the table smoked a large tea-urn, prettily surrounded by silver tea-canisters, a slop-basin, and a milk-jug. There were three small Wedgwood plates, with as many knives and forks, and two large cups of beautiful porcelain: by them stood an inviting plate of boiled eggs, another 'ditto' of broiled 'oreilles de cochon à la Sainte Ménéhould;' a plate of muffins, kept warm by a hot water-plate; another with cold ham; flaky white bread, 'dry and buttered toast,' the best fresh butter in an elegant glass vessel; convenient receptacles for salt and pepper, English mustard and 'moutarde de maille;' lastly, a silver tea-caddy, with very good green and black tea.
This most luxurious meal,--which I hope you will think I have described as picturesquely as a landscape,--is, moreover, in proportion very cheap; for it was charged in the bill only two shillings (16 Gr.). Travelling is however, on the whole, very expensive,--especially the posting (which is exactly four times as much as with us,) and the fees which you are expected to be giving all day long, in all directions, to every species of servant and attendant.
At ten o'clock we reached Cashiobury Park, the seat of the Earl of Essex. I sent in my name to him; upon which his son-in-law, Mr. F----, (whom I had formerly known in Dresden, and with whom I was happy to renew my acquaintance,) came to conduct me about. The house is modern Gothic, and magnificently furnished. You enter a hall with coloured windows, which afford a view into an inner court laid out as a flower-garden: leaving the hall, you go through a long gallery on the side, hung with armour, to the rich carved oak staircase leading to the library, which here generally serves as principal drawing-room. The library has two small cabinets looking on the garden, and filled with rarities. Among these I was particularly pleased with two numerous sketches by Denon, representing the levée of Cardinal Bernis at Rome, and a dinner at Voltaire's, with the Abbé Maury, Diderot, Helvetius, d'Alembert, and other philosophers,--all portraits.
I was much interested too by a complete toilet of Marie Antoinette's, on which the portraits of her husband and of Henry the Fourth were painted in several places. From the library you go into an equally rich second drawing-room; and from thence into the dining-room. Near to both these rooms was a green-house, in the form of a chapel; and in every apartment windows down to the ground afforded a view of the noble park and the river flowing through it. On a distant rising ground you look along a very broad avenue of limes, exactly at the end of which, during a part of the summer, the sun sets: its horizontal rays passing along the whole length of the green-house must afford the most splendid natural decoration, heightened by the reflection of its beams from a large mirror at the end. The walls of the dining-room are covered with oaken 'boiserie,' with beautiful cornices and carving; the furniture is of rose-wood, silk and velvet; and valuable pictures in antique gilded frames adorn the walls. The proportions of the room may be called hall-like, and the whole is regularly heated to a temperature of fourteen degrees of Reaumur.
The somewhat remote stables and all the domestic offices, &c., are on the left, connected with the house by an embattled wall; so that the building extends along an uninterrupted length of a thousand feet.
The flower-gardens occupy a very considerable space. Part of them are laid out in the usual style; that is, a long green-house at the bottom, in front of which are several 'berceaux' and shady walks around a large grass-plat, which is broken with beds of all forms, and dotted with rare trees and shrubs. But here was also something new;--a deep secluded valley of oval form, around which is a thick belt of evergreens, and rock-plants planted impenetrably thick on artificial rockeries; a background of lofty fir-trees and oak, with their tops waving in the wind; and, at one end of the grass-plat, a single magnificent lime-tree surrounded by a bench. From this point the whole of the little valley was covered with an embroidered parterre of the prettiest forms, although perfectly regular. The egress from this enclosure lay through a grotto overgrown with ivy, and lined with beautiful stones and shells, into a square rose-garden surrounded with laurel hedges, in the centre of which is a temple, and opposite to the entrance a conservatory for aquatic plants. The rose-beds are cut in various figures, which intersect each other. A walk, overarched with thick beeches neatly trimmed with the shears, winds in a sinuous line from this point to the Chinese garden, which is likewise enclosed by high trees and walls, and contains a number of vases, benches, fountains, and a third green-house,--all in the genuine Chinese style. Here were beds surrounded by circles of white, blue, and red sand, fantastic dwarf plants, and many dozens of large China vases placed on pedestals, thickly overgrown with trailing evergreens and exotics. The windows of the house were painted like Chinese hangings, and convex mirrors placed in the interior, which reflected us as in a 'camera obscura.' I say nothing of the endless rows of rich hot-houses and forcing-beds, nor of the kitchen-gardens. You may estimate the thing for yourself, when I repeat to you Mr. F----'s assurance that the park, gardens, and house cost ten thousand a-year to keep up. The Earl has his own workmen in every department; masons, carpenters, cabinet-makers, &c., each of whom has his prescribed province. One has, for instance, only to keep the fences in order, another the rooms, a third the furniture, &c.; a plan well worthy of imitation in the country.
I paid my visit to the venerable Earl, who kept his chamber with the gout, and received from the kind friendly old man the best information, and some (highly necessary) cards of admittance for my further journey.
Our road lay for a long time through the park, till we reached one of the principal features in it, called the Swiss Cottage, which stands in a lovely secluded spot in the midst of a grove on the bank of the river. We drove over the turf; for, as I have told you, many parks here are quite like free uncultivated ground, and have often only one road, which leads up to the house and out on the other side. Having regained the high road, we drove along twenty miles of country, all equally beautiful, equally luxuriant in fertility and vegetation, and at five o'clock reached Ashridge Park, the seat of the Earl of Bridgewater. Here you can follow me better, dear Julia, if you open Repton's book, in which you will find several views, and the ground-plan of this charming garden, which old Repton himself laid out. Remember the 'Rosary,' and you will immediately know where to look for it. This park is one of the largest in England, for it is nearly three German miles in circumference; and the house which, like Cashiobury, is modern Gothic, is almost endless, with all its walls, towers, and courts. I must, however, frankly confess, that this modern Gothic ('castellated') style, which looks so fairy-like on paper, in reality often strikes one not only as tasteless, but even somewhat absurd, from its overloaded and incongruous air.
If in the midst of the most cultivated, peaceful fields, amid the mingled beauties of countless flowers, you see a sort of fortress, with turrets, loopholes, and battlements, not one of which has the slightest purpose or utility, and, moreover, many of them standing on no firmer basis than glass walls (the green-houses and conservatories connected with the apartments,)--it is just as ridiculous and incongruous, as if you were to meet the possessor of these pretty flower-gardens walking about in them in helm and harness. The antique, the old Italian, or merely romantic[34] style, adapted to our times, harmonizes infinitely better with such surrounding objects, has a more cheerful character, and even, with smaller masses, a much grander and more majestic air.
The interior of this house has certainly the most striking effect, and may truly be called princely. The possessor has very wisely limited himself to few, but large, entertaining-rooms. You enter the hall, which is hung with armour and adorned with antique furniture. You then come to the staircase, the most magnificent in its kind that can be imagined. Running up three lofty stories, with the same number of galleries, it almost equals the tower of a church in height and size: the walls are of polished stone, the railings of bright brass, the ceiling of wood beautifully carved in panels and adorned with paintings, and around each landing-place or gallery are niches with statues of the Kings of England in stone. Ascending this staircase we reached a drawing-room decorated with crimson velvet and gilded furniture, lighted in front by enormous windows which occupy nearly the whole side of the room, and disclose the view of the 'pleasure-ground' and park. Sidewards, on the left, is another room as large, in which are a billiard-table and the library. On the other side, in the same suite, is the dining-room; and behind it a noble green-house and orangery, through which you pass into the chapel, which is adorned with ten windows of genuine antique painted glass, and with admirable carvings in wood. All the benches are of walnut-tree, covered with crimson velvet.
In the rooms are some fine and interesting pictures, but most of them by modern artists. The pleasure-grounds and gardens are still larger than those at Cashiobury. You will find a part of them in Repton, viz. the American garden, the Monk's garden, and the Rosary; to which I must add, first, the very elegant French garden, with a covered gallery, on one side; a porcelain-like ornament with flower-pots in the centre; and a large parterre, every bed of which is filled with a different sort of flower: secondly, the Rockery, in which are to be found every kind of rock and creeping plant. Nothing but the long habit of great luxury could enable people even to conceive a whole so manifold, so equally exemplary in all its parts, and in such perfect order and condition; for we must confess that even our sovereigns possess only fragments of what is here found united. Some thousand head of deer, and countless groups of giant trees, animate and adorn the park, which with the exception of the road leading through it, is left wholly to nature, and to its numerous grazing herds.
Accept it as a small sacrifice, dear Julia, that I send you all these minute details. They may not be useless in our own plans and buildings, and are at least more tedious to write than to read.[35]
For better illustration, I take sketches of everything interesting, which will stand us in good stead, as furnishing new ideas. In the morning we are going to see Woburn Abbey, the seat of the Duke of Bedford, one of the richest peers of England, which is said to exceed Ashbridge in extent and grandeur, as much as that does Cashiobury; a very agreeable climax.
The inn whence I write is again very good, and I purpose, after all my fatigues, to do as much honour to my principal meal as I did to my breakfast; though the former is here far more simple, and consists of the same dishes day after day. The eternal 'mutton chops' and a roast fowl with 'bread sauce,' with vegetables boiled in water, and the national sauce, melted butter with flour, always play the principal part.
Leamington, Dec. 21st.
I am now in a large watering-place, of which, however, I have as yet seen but little, as I only arrived at eleven o'clock last night. The greater part of the day was spent in seeing Woburn Abbey. This beautiful palace is in the Italian taste; the design simple and noble, and infinitely more satisfactory than the colossal would-be-Gothic 'nonsense.'
Its stables, riding-school, ball-rooms, statue and picture galleries, conservatories and gardens, form a little town. For three centuries this estate has been transmitted in a direct line in this family,--even in England a rare instance;--so that it is not to be wondered at, if, with an income of a million of our money, an accumulation of luxury and magnificence has been formed here, far exceeding the powers of any private person in our country: and indeed even were money here and there forthcoming in like profusion, yet the state of society adapted for centuries to the providing of the materials for a luxury so refined, and so complete in all its parts, exists not among us.
The house, properly speaking, is a regular quadrangle; and the 'bel étage,' which is always 'de plein pied' in country-houses, forms an unbroken suite of rooms, occupying the whole superficial extent. These rooms are hung with valuable pictures, and richly furnished with massive and magnificent stuffs; the ceilings and the 'embrasures' of the doors are of white plaster with gold ornaments, or of rare carved wood,--all equally simple and massy. In one room was a remarkable collection of miniature portraits of the family, from the first Russell (the name of the Dukes of Bedford) to the present Duke, in an unbroken line. Under such circumstances, a man may be permitted to be a little proud of his family and his noble blood.[36] These miniatures were arranged in a very tasteful manner on crimson velvet, in a long narrow gold frame, and set like medallions. The stoves are mostly of gilt metal, with high marble chimney-pieces; the chandeliers of bronze, richly-gilded; everywhere the same magnificence, yet nowhere overloaded. The library is at the end, divided into two rooms, and opening immediately on the delightful garden with wide glass doors.
The gardens appear to me peculiarly charming, so admirably interwoven with the buildings and so varied that it is difficult to describe them adequately.
To give you at least a general idea of them, let me tell you, that all along the various buildings, which sometimes project, sometimes retreat, form now straight and now curved lines, runs an unbroken arcade clothed with roses and climbing plants. Following this, you come to a succession of different and beautiful gardens. Over the arcade are partly chambers, partly the prettiest little green-houses. One of them contains nothing but heaths, hundreds of which, in full blow, present the loveliest picture, endlessly multiplied by walls of mirror. Immediately under this, Erica-house was the garden for the same tribe of plants; a glass-plat with beds of various forms, all filled with the larger and hardier sorts of heath. In one place the bowery-walk leads quite through a lofty Palm-house, before which lie the most beautiful embroidered parterres, intersected with gravel walks. Adjoining this house is the statue-gallery, the walls of which are covered with various sorts of marble; there are also very beautiful pillars from Italy. It contains a number of antique sculptures, and is terminated at either end by a temple, the one dedicated to Freedom, and adorned with busts of Fox, &c., the other to the Graces, with Canova's exquisite group of the tutelary goddesses. From this point the arcade leads along an interminable plantation, on a sloping bank entirely filled with azaleas and rhododendrous, till you reach the Chinese garden, in which 'the Dairy' is a prominent and beautiful object. It is a sort of Chinese temple, decorated with a profusion of white marble and coloured glasses; in the centre is a fountain, and round the walls hundreds of large dishes and bowls of Chinese and Japan porcelain of every form and colour, filled with new milk and cream. The 'consoles' upon which these vessels stand are perfect models for Chinese furniture. The windows are of ground glass, with Chinese painting, which shows fantastically enough by the dim light.
A further pleasure-ground, with the finest trees and many beautiful surprises,--among others pretty children's gardens, and a grass garden in which all sorts of gramineous plants were cultivated in little beds, forming a sort of chequer-work,--led to the Aviary. This consists of a large place fenced in, and a cottage, with a small pond in the centre, all dedicated to the feathered race. Here the fourth or fifth attendant awaited us, (each of whom expects a fee, so that you cannot see such an establishment under some pounds sterling,) and showed us first several gay-plumed parrots and other rare birds, each of whom had his own dwelling and little garden. These birds' houses were made of twigs interwoven with wire, the roof also of wire, the shrubs around evergreen, as were almost all the other plants in this enclosure. As we walked out upon the open space which occupies the centre, our Papageno whistled, and in an instant the air was literally darkened around us by flights of pigeons, chickens, and heaven knows what birds. Out of every bush started gold and silver, pied and common, pheasants; and from the little lake a black swan galloped heavily forward, expressing his strong desire for food in tones like those of a fretful child. This beautiful bird, raven black with red feet and bill, was exceedingly tame, ate his food 'chemin faisant' out of the keeper's pocket, and did not leave us for a moment while we were sauntering about the birds' paradise, only now and then pushing away an intrusive duck or other of the vulgar herd, or giving a noble gold pheasant a dig in the side. A second interesting but imprisoned inhabitant of this place was Hero, an African crane, a creature that looks as if it were made of porcelain, and frequently reminded me in his movements of our departed dancing Ballerino. The incident of his history which had gained him his lofty name was unknown to the keeper.
The park, which is four German miles in circuit, does not consist merely of heath or meadow-land and trees, but has a fine wood, and also a very beautiful part fenced in, called the 'Thornery,' a wild sort of copse intersected with walks and overgrown with thorns and brushwood; in the midst of which stands a little cottage with the loveliest flower-garden.
Here terminate the splendours of Woburn Abbey. But no--two things I must still mention. In the house, the decorations of which I have described to you 'en gros,' I found a very ingenious contrivance. Round all the apartments of the great quadrangle runs an inner wide gallery, on which several doors open; and a variety of collections, some open, some in glass cases, and here and there interspersed with stands of flowers, are set out. This affords a walk as instructive as it is agreeable in winter or bad weather, and is rendered perfectly comfortable by the 'conduits de chaleur,' which heat the whole house.--The second remarkable thing is a picture of the Earl of Essex as large as life. He is represented as of a fine and slender person, but not a very distinguished face; small features without much expression, small eyes, and a large red beard with dark hair.
But I have written off a quarter of an inch of my finger, and must conclude. To-morrow another step in the ascending scale, for I must see Warwick Castle, which is spoken of as England's pride. I am curious to see if we can really mount higher; hitherto we have certainly ascended from beautiful to more beautiful.
As the mail is just going off I enclose this to L----, who will have the kindness to forward it to you more quickly than it would otherwise go.
Think of the wanderer in your tranquil solitude, and believe that if fate drove him to the antipodes, his heart would ever be near you.
Your L----.
Letter IX
Warwick, Dec. 26th, 1826.
DEAR JULIA,
Now, indeed, for the first time, I am filled with real and unbounded enthusiasm. What I have hitherto described was a smiling country, combined with everything that art and money could produce. I left it with a feeling of satisfaction; and, although I have seen things like it,--nay, even possess them,--not without admiration. But what I saw to-day was more than that,--it was an enchanted palace decked in the most charming garb of poetry, and surrounded by all the majesty of history, the sight of which still fills me with delighted astonishment.
You, accomplished reader of history and memoirs, know better than I that the Earls of Warwick were once the mightiest vassals of England, and that the great Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, boasted of having deposed three kings, and placed as many on the vacant throne. This was his castle, standing ever since the ninth century, and in the possession of the same family since the reign of Elizabeth. A tower of the castle, said to have been built by Beauchamp himself, remains unaltered; and the whole stands colossal and mighty, like an embodied vision of former times.
From a considerable distance you see the dark mass of stone towering above the primæval cedars, chestnuts, oaks and limes. It stands on the rocks on the shore of the Avon, and rises to a perpendicular height of two hundred feet above the level of the water. Two towers of different forms overtop the building itself almost in an equal degree. A ruined pier of a bridge, overhung with trees, stands in the middle of the river, which becoming deeper just at the point where the building begins, forms a foaming waterfall, and turns a mill, which appears only like a low abutment of the castle. Going on, you lose sight of the castle for awhile, and soon find yourself before a high embattled wall, built of large blocks of stone covered by Time with moss and creeping plants. Lofty iron gates slowly unfold to admit you to a deep hollow way blasted in the rock, the stone walls of which are tapestried with the most luxuriant vegetation. The carriage rolled with a heavy dull sound along the smooth rock, which old oaks darkly overshadow. Suddenly, at a turn of the way, the castle starts from the wood into broad open daylight, resting on a soft grassy slope; and the large arch of the entrance dwindles to the size of an insignificant doorway between the two enormous towers, at the foot of which you now stand. A still greater surprise now awaits you when you pass through the second iron gate into the court-yard: it is almost impossible to imagine anything more picturesque, and at the same time more imposing.
Let your fancy conjure up a space about twice as large as the interior of the Colosseum at Rome, and let it transport you into a forest of romantic luxuriance. You now overlook the large court, surrounded by mossy trees and majestic buildings, which, though of every variety of form, combine to create one sublime and connected whole, whose lines now shooting upwards, now falling off into the blue air, with the continually changing beauty of the green earth beneath, produce, not symmetry indeed, but that higher harmony, elsewhere proper to Nature's own works alone. The first glance at your feet falls on a broad simple carpet of turf, around which a softly winding gravel-walk leads to the entrance and exit of the gigantic edifice. Looking backwards, your eye rests on the two black towers, of which the oldest, called Guy's Tower, rears its head aloft in solitary threatening majesty, high above all the surrounding foliage, and looks as if cast in one mass of solid iron;--the other, built by Beauchamp, is half hidden by a pine and a chestnut, the noble growth of centuries. Broad-leaved ivy and vines climb along the walls, here twining around the tower, there shooting up to its very summit. On your left lie the inhabited part of the castle, and the chapel, ornamented with many lofty windows of various size and form; while the opposite side of the vast quadrangle, almost entirely without windows, presents only a mighty mass of embattled stone, broken by a few larches of colossal height, and huge arbutuses which have grown to a surprizing size in the shelter they have so long enjoyed. But the sublimest spectacle yet awaits you, when you raise your eyes straight before you. On this fourth side, the ground, which has sunk into a low bushy basin forming the court, and with which the buildings also descend for a considerable space, rises again in the form of a steep conical hill, along the sides of which climb the rugged walls of the castle. This hill, and the keep which crowns it, are thickly overgrown at the top with underwood, which only creeps round the foot of the towers and walls. Behind it, however, rise gigantic venerable trees, towering above all the rock-like structure. Their bare stems seem to float in upper air; while at the very summit of the building rises a daring bridge, set, as it were, on either side within trees; and as the clouds drift across the blue sky, the broadest and most brilliant masses of light break magically from under the towering arch and the dark coronet of trees.
Figure this to yourself;--behold the whole of this magical scene at one glance;--connect with it all its associations;--think that here nine centuries of haughty power, of triumphant victory and destructive overthrow, of bloody deeds and wild greatness,--perhaps too of gentle love and noble magnanimity,--have left, in part, their visible traces, and where they are not, their vague romantic memory;--and then judge with what feelings I could place myself in the situation of the man to whom such recollections are daily suggested by these objects,--recollections which, to him, have all the sanctity of kindred and blood;--the man who still inhabits the very dwelling of that first possessor of the fortress of Warwick, that half-fabulous Guy, who lived a thousand years ago, and whose corroded armour, together with a hundred weapons of renowned ancestors, is preserved in the antique hall. Is there a human being so unpoetical as not to feel that the glories of such memorials, even to this very day, throw a lustre around the feeblest representative of such a race?
To make my description in some degree clear, I annex a ground-plan, which may help your imagination. You must imagine the river at a great depth below the castle-plain, and not visible from the point I have been describing. The first sight of it you catch is from the castle windows, together with the noble park, whose lines of wood blend on every side with the horizon.
You ascend from the court to the dwelling-rooms by only a few steps, first through a passage, and thence into the hall, on each side of which extend the entertaining-rooms in an unbroken line of three hundred and forty feet. Although almost 'de plein-pied' with the court, these rooms are more than fifty feet above the Avon, which flows on the other side. From eight to fourteen feet thickness of wall forms, in each window-recess, a complete closet, with the most beautiful varied view over the river, wildly foaming below, and further on flowing through the park in soft windings, till lost in the dim distance. Had I till now, from the first sight of the castle, advanced from surprise to surprise,--all this was surpassed, though in another way, by what awaited me in the interior. I fancied myself transported back into by-gone ages as I entered the gigantic baronial hall,--a perfect picture of Walter Scott's;--the walls panelled with carved cedar; hung with every kind of knightly accoutrement; spacious enough to feast trains of vassals,--and saw before me a marble chimney-piece under which I could perfectly well walk with my hat on, and stand by the fire, which blazed like a funeral pile from a strange antique iron grate in the form of a basket, three hundred years old. On the side, true to ancient custom, was a stack of oak logs piled up upon a stand of cedar, which was placed on the stone floor partially covered by 'hautelisse' carpets. A man-servant dressed in brown, whose dress, with his gold knee-bands, epaulets and trimmings, had a very antique air, fed the mighty fire from time to time with an enormous block. Here, in every circumstance, the difference between the genuine old feudal greatness and the modern imitations was as striking, as that between the moss-grown remains of the weather-beaten fortress and the ruins built yesterday in the garden of some rich contractor. Almost everything in the room was old, stately, and original; nothing tasteless or incongruous, and all preserved with the greatest care and affection. Among them were many rich and rare articles which could no longer be procured,--silk, velvet, gold and silver blended and interwoven. The furniture consists almost entirely either of uncommonly rich gilding, of dark brown carved walnut or oak, or of those antique French 'commodes' and cabinets inlaid with brass, the proper name of which I have forgotten. There were also many fine specimens of mosaic, as well as of beautiful marquetry. A fire-screen, with a massy gold frame, consisted of a plate of glass so transparent that it was scarcely distinguishable from the air. To those who love to see the cheerful blaze without being scorched, such a screen is a great luxury. In one of the chambers stands a state bed, presented to one of the Earls of Warwick by Queen Anne; it is of red velvet embroidered, and is still in good preservation. The treasures of art are countless. Among the pictures, there was not one 'mediocre;' they are almost all by the first masters: but, beyond this, many of them have a peculiar family interest. There are a great many ancestral portraits by Titian, Van Dyk, and Rubens. The gem of the collection is one of Raphael's most enchanting pictures, the beautiful Joan of Arragon,--of whom, strangely enough, there are four portraits, each of which is declared to be genuine. Three of them must of course be copies, but are no longer distinguishable from the original. One is at Paris, one at Rome, one at Vienna, and the fourth here. I know them all, and must give unqualified preference to this. There is an enchantment about this splendid woman which is wholly indescribable. An eye leading to the very depths of the soul; queenlike majesty united with the most feminine sensibility; intense passion blended with the sweetest melancholy; and withal, a beauty of form, a transparent delicacy of skin, and a truth, brilliancy and grace of the drapery and ornaments, such as only a divine genius could call into perfect being.
Among the most interesting portraits, both for the subject and the handling, are the following.
First, Machiavelli, by Titian.--Precisely as I should imagine him. A face of great acuteness and prudence, and of suffering,--as if lamenting over the profoundly-studied worthless side of human nature; that hound-like character which loves where it is spurned, follows where it fears, and is faithful where it is fed. A trace of compassionate scorn plays round the thin lips, while the dark eye appears turned reflectingly inward.
It appears strange, at first sight, that this great and classic writer should so long have been misunderstood in the grossest manner. Either he has been represented as a moral scarecrow (and how miserable is Voltaire's refutation of that notion!); or the most fantastic hypothesis is put forth, that his book is a satire. On more attentive observation, we arrive at the conviction that it was reserved for modern times, in which politics at length begin to be viewed and understood from a higher and really humane point of view, to form a correct judgment of Machiavel's Prince.
To all arbitrary princes--and under that name I class all those who think themselves invested with power solely 'par la grace de Dieu' and for their own advantage,--all conquerors, and children of fortune, whom some chance has given to the people they regard as their property,--to all such as these, this profound and acute writer shows the true and only way to prosper; the exhaustive system they must of necessity follow, in order to maintain a power radically sprung from the soil of sin and error. His book is, and must ever be, the true, inimitable gospel of such rulers; and we Prussians, especially, have reason to congratulate ourselves that Napoleon had learned his Machiavel so ill;--we should otherwise probably be still groaning under his yoke.
That Machiavel felt all the value and the power of freedom, is plain, from many passages in his book. In one he says, "He who has conquered a free city, has no secure means of keeping it, but either to destroy it, or to people it with new inhabitants; for no benefit a sovereign can confer will ever make it forget its lost freedom."
By proving, as he incontestably does, that such a degree of arbitrary power can be maintained only by the utter disregard of all morality, and by seriously inculcating this doctrine upon princes, he also demonstrates but too plainly, that the whole frame of society, in his time, contained within itself a principle of demoralization; and that no true happiness, no true civilization, was possible to any people till that principle was detected and destroyed. The events of modern times, and their consequences, have at length opened their eyes to this truth, and they will not close them again!
The Duke of Alva, by Titian.--Full of expression, and, as I believe, faithful;--for this man was by no means a caricature of cruelty and gloom;--earnest, fantastical, proud, firm as iron; practically exhibiting the Ideal of an inflexibly faithful servant, who, having once undertaken a charge, looks neither to the right nor to the left in the execution of it; is ready blindly to fulfil the will of his God and of his master, and asks not whether thousands perish in torture; in a word, a powerful mind, not base but contracted, which lets others think for it, and works to establish their authority.
Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn, by Holbein.[37]--The King in a splendid dress,--a fat, rather butcher-like man, in whom sensuality, cunning, cruelty, and strength, rule in a frightfully complacent and almost jovial physiognomy. You see that such a man might make you tremble, and yet somehow attach you. Anne Boleyn is a good-natured, unmeaning, almost stupid-looking, genuine English beauty, like many one sees now, only in another dress.
Cromwell, by Van Dyk.--A magnificent head: somewhat of the bronze gladiator-look of Napoleon; but with much coarser features, through which, as behind a mask, is seen the light of a great soul: enthusiasm is, however, too little perceptible in them. There is an expression of cunning in the eye, combined with something of honesty, which renders it the more deceptive; but not a trace of cruelty,--with that, indeed, the Protector cannot be reproached. The execution of the King was a cruel act, but one which appeared to Cromwell's mind in the light of a necessary political operation, and in no degree sprang from a delight in bloodshed. Under this picture hangs Cromwell's own helmet.
Prince Rupert, by Van Dyk.--Completely the bold soldier! Every inch a cavalier! I do not mean in the exclusive sense of an adherent of the King, but in that of an accomplished gentleman and knight: a handsome face, as dangerous to women as to the enemy, and the picturesque garb and port of a warrior.
Elizabeth, by Holbein.--The best and perhaps the most faithful picture I have ever seen of her. She is represented in her prime, almost disgustingly fair, or rather white, with pale red hair. The eyes somewhat Albino-like, and almost without eyebrows. There is an artificial good-nature, but a false expression. Vehement passions and a furious temper seem to lie hidden under that pallid exterior, like a volcano under snow; while the intense desire to please is betrayed by the rich and over-ornamented dress. Quite different,--stern, hard, and dangerous to approach,--does she appear in the pictures of her at an advanced age, but even then extremely over-dressed.
Mary of Scotland.--Probably painted in prison, and shortly before her death: it has the air of a matron of forty.--There is still the faultless beauty; but it is no longer the light-minded Mary, full of the enjoyment of life, and of her own resistless charms; but visibly purified by misfortune,--with a sedate expression;--in short, Schiller's Mary,--a noble nature, which has at length found itself again! It is one of the rarest pictures of the unhappy Queen, whom one is accustomed to see depicted in all the splendour of youth and beauty.
Ignatius Loyola, by Rubens.--A very beautifully painted and grand picture; but which immediately strikes one as a fiction, and no portrait. The sanctified expression, common to so many pictures of saints and priests, is unmeaning. The colouring is by far the finest thing about the picture.
But I should never have done, were I to attempt to go through this gallery. I must take you for a minute into the furthest cabinet, which contains a beautiful collection of enamels, chiefly after designs by Raphael, and a marble bust of the Black Prince, a sturdy soldier both in head and hand,--at a time when the latter alone sufficed to secure the highest renown.
Many valuable Etruscan vases and other works of art, besides the pictures and antiques, decorate the various apartments, and with great good taste are arranged so as to appear as harmonious accessories, instead of being heaped up in a gallery by themselves as dead masses.
It was pointed out to me as a proof of the perfect and solid architecture of the castle,--that, in spite of its age, when all the doors of the suite of rooms are shut, you see the bust placed exactly in the centre of the furthest cabinet, through the keyholes, along a length of three hundred and fifty feet;--a perfection, indeed, which our present race of workmen would never think of approaching. Though, as I told you, the walls of the hall are hung with a great quantity of armour, there is also an armoury, which is extremely rich. Here is the leathern collar, stained with blood blackened by time, in which Lord Brook, an ancestor of the present Earl, was slain at the battle of Litchfield. In one corner of the room lies a curious specimen of art, very heterogeneous with the rest,--a monkey, cast in iron, of a perfection and 'abandon' in the disposition of the limbs which rivals Nature herself. I was sorry the 'châtellaine' could not tell me who had made the model for this cast. He must be an eminent master who could thus express all the monkey grace and suppleness with such perfect fidelity, in an attitude of the most enjoying laziness.
Before I quitted the princely Warwick, I ascended one of the highest towers, and enjoyed a rich and beautiful prospect on every side. The weather was tolerably clear. Far more enchanting than this panorama, however, was the long walk in the gardens which surround the castle on two sides, whose character of serene grandeur is admirably adapted to that of the building. The height and beauty of the trees, the luxuriance of the vegetation and of the turf, cannot be exceeded; while a number of gigantic cedars, and the ever-varying aspect of the majestic castle, through whose lofty cruciform loop-holes the rays of light played, threw such enchantment over the whole scene that I could hardly tear myself away. We walked about till the moon rose; and her light, as we looked through the darkening alleys, gave to all objects a more solemn and gigantic character. We could therefore only see the celebrated colossal Warwick Vase by lamplight. It holds several hundred gallons, and is adorned with the most beautiful workmanship. We also saw some ancient curiosities which are kept in the Porter's Lodge; particularly some cows' horns and wild boar's tusks, ascribed to beasts which Guy,--a hero of Saxon times, the fabulous ancestor of the first Earls of Warwick,--is said to have destroyed. The dimensions of his arms, which are preserved here, bespeak a man of such strength and stature as Nature no longer produces.
Here at length I took a lingering farewell of Warwick Castle, and laid the recollection, like a dream of the sublime and shadowy past, on my heart. I felt, in the faint moonlight, like a child who sees a fantastic giant head of far distant ages beckoning to it with friendly nod over the summit of the wood.
With such fancies, dear Julia, I will go to sleep, and wake to meet them again in the morning, for another scene of romance awaits me,--the ruins of Kenilworth.
Birmingham, Dec. 29th: Evening.
I must continue my narrative.--Leamington ('car il faut pourtant que j'en dise quelque chose') was only a little village a few years ago, and is now a rich and elegant town, containing ten or twelve palace-like inns, four large bath-houses with colonnades and gardens, several libraries, with which are connected card, billiard, concert and ball-rooms (one for six hundred persons,) and a host of private houses, which are almost entirely occupied by visitors, and spring out of the earth like mushrooms. All here is on a vast scale, though the waters are insignificant. The same are used for drinking as for bathing, and yet it swarms with visitors. The baths are as spacious as the English beds, and are lined throughout with earthenware tiles.
Not far from Leamington, and a league from Warwick, is a beautiful enchanting spot called Guy's Cliff; part of the house is as old as Warwick Castle. Under it is a deep cavern, in the picturesque rocky shore of the Avon, into which, as tradition says, Guy of Warwick, after many high deeds at home and abroad, secretly retired to close his life in pious meditation. After two years of incessant search, his inconsolable wife found him lying dead in his cave, and in despair threw herself down from the rocks into the Avon. In later times a chapel was built in the rock to commemorate this tragic event, and adorned by Henry the Third with a statue of Sir Guy. This has unhappily been so mutilated by Cromwell's troops, that it is now but a shapeless block. Opposite to the chapel are twelve monks' cells hewn in the rock, now used as stables. The chapel itself, which has been entirely renovated in the interior, is connected with the dwelling of the proprietor, part of which is Gothic some centuries old, part in the old Italian style, and part quite new, built exactly to correspond with the most ancient part. The whole is extremely picturesque, and the interior is fitted up with equal attention to taste and comfort. The drawing-room, with its two deep window-recesses, struck me as uncommonly cheerful. One of these windows stands above a rock which rises fifty feet perpendicularly from the river, in whose bosom lies a lovely little island, and behind it a wide prospect of luxuriant meadows, beautiful trees, and, quite in the background, a village half buried in wood. At a short distance on the side is an extremely ancient mill, said to have been in existence before the Norman invasion. A little further off, the picture was terminated by a woody hill, also within the enclosure of the park, on which a high cross marks the spot where Gavestone, the infamous favourite of Edward the Second, was executed by the rebellious lords Warwick and Arundel. All these recollections, united with so many natural beauties, make a strong impression on the mind.--The other window afforded a perfect contrast with this. It overlooks a level plain laid out as a very pretty French garden, in which gay porcelain ornaments and coloured sand mingled their hues with the flowers, and terminates in a beautiful alley overshadowed with ivy cut into a pointed arch. In the room itself sparkled a cheerful fire; choice pictures adorned the walls, and several sofas of various forms, tables covered with curiosities, and furniture standing about in agreeable disorder, gave it the most inviting and home-like air.
I returned back to the town of Warwick to see the church, and the chapel containing the monument of the great King-Maker, which he placed there in his life-time, and now reposes under. His statue of metal lies on the sarcophagus; an eagle and a bear at his feet. The head is very expressive and natural. He does not fold his hands as is the case in most statues of knights, but only raises them a little to heaven, as though he would not pray, and could greet even his Maker only with a gesture of courtesy: his head is slightly inclined, but with no air of humility. Round his stone coffin are emblazoned the splendid bearings of all his lordships, and an enormous sword lies threatening by his side. The splendid painted windows, and the numerous well-preserved and richly gilded ornaments give to the whole a stately, solemn character.
A family of the town most unfortunately got permission, about a hundred and fifty years ago, to erect a monument to some country 'squire or other, immediately under the large central window. It occupies the entire wall, and destroys the beautiful simplicity of the whole by this hideous, disgraceful modern excrescence.
By the side-wall lies another intruder carved in stone, but one of better pretensions;--no less a man than the powerful earl of Leicester: he is represented of middle age, a handsome, high-bred and haughty looking man; but without the lofty genius in his features so strikingly portrayed on the metal countenance of the great Warwick.
A few posts from Leamington, in a country which gradually becomes more solitary and dreary, lies Kenilworth.
With Sir Walter Scott's captivating book in my hand I wandered amid these ruins, which call up such varied feelings. They cover a space of more than three-quarters of a mile in circumference, and exhibit, although in rapid decay, many traces of great and singular magnificence.
The oldest part of the castle, built in 1120, still stands the firmest, while the part added by Leicester is almost utterly destroyed. The wide moat which formerly surrounded the castle, and around which stretched a park of thirty English miles in circuit, was dried up in Cromwell's time, in the hope of finding treasure in it. The park, too, has long disappeared, and is now changed into fields, on which are some scattered cottages. A part of the castle, standing isolated and almost hidden under creeping plants, is transformed into a kind of out-work; and the whole surrounding country has a more barren, deserted and melancholy aspect than any part we have travelled through. But this harmonizes well with the character of the principal object, and enhances the saddening effect of greatness in such utter decay.
The balcony called Elizabeth's Bower is still standing; and the tradition goes, that in moonlight nights a white figure is often seen there looking fixedly and immovably into the depth below. The ruins of the banqueting-hall, with the gigantic chimney-piece, the extensive kitchen, and the wine-cellar beneath, are still clearly distinguishable; and many a lonesome chamber may still be standing in the towers, to which all access is cut off. The fancy delights in guessing the past by what still remains; and I often dreamed, while climbing among the ruins, that I had found the very spot where the infamous Vernon traitorously plunged the truest and most unhappy of wives into eternal night. But equally lost are the traces of the crimes and of the virtues which lived within these walls; Time has long since thrown his all-concealing veil over them; and gone are the eternally-repeated sorrows and joys, the mouldering splendour, and the transient struggle.
The day was gloomy; black clouds rolled across the heavens, and occasionally a yellow tawny light broke from between them; the wind whistled among the ivy, and piped shrilly through the vacant windows; now and then a stone loosened itself from the crumbling building, and rolled clattering down the outer wall. Not a human being was to be seen; all was solitary, awful;--a gloomy but sublime memorial of destruction.
Such moments are really consolatory:--we feel more vividly than at any other that it is not worth while to grieve and trouble ourselves about earthly things, since sorrow, like joy, lasts but for a moment. As an illustration of the eternal mutation of human affairs, I found myself transported in the evening from the mute and lifeless ruins to the prosaic tumult of a multitude, busied but in gain; in the reeking, smoky, bustling manufacturing town of Birmingham. The last romantic sight was the flames which at night-fall illuminated the town on all sides from the tall chimneys of the iron-works. Here is an end to all sport of the fancy till more fitting time and place.
December 30th.
Birmingham is one of the most considerable and one of the ugliest towns of England. It contains a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, of whom two-thirds are doubtless workmen, and indeed, it presents only the appearance of an immeasurable workshop.
Immediately after breakfast I went to the manufactory of Mr. Thomasson, our consul here,--the second in extent. The first,--where a thousand workmen are daily employed, and an eighty-horse power steam-engine is applied to innumerable uses, even in the manufactory of livery buttons and pins' heads,--has been hermetically sealed to all foreigners ever since the visit of the Austrian princes, one of whose suite carried away some important secret.
I passed several hours here with great interest, though in hideous, dirty, and stinking holes, which serve as the various workshops; and made a button, which R---- will deliver to you as a proof of my industry.
In a better room below are set out all the productions of the manufactory, in gold, silver, bronze, plated, and lackered wares, the latter surpassing their Japan originals in beauty; steel wares of every kind;--all in a profusion and elegance which really excite amazement. Among other things, I saw the copy of the Warwick Vase, of the same size as the original. It is cast in bronze, and cost four thousand pounds. I saw also magnificent table-services in plated ware, brought to such perfection that it is impossible to distinguish it from silver. The great people here often mix it among their plate, as the Paris ladies mix false stones and pearls with their real ones.
I made acquaintance with a multitude of new and agreeable inventions of luxuries in great and small, and could not quite resist the temptation to buy, which is here so powerful. The trifles I bought will soon reach you in a well-packed box.
The iron-works, with their gigantic steam-engines, the needle manufactory, the steel works,--where you find every article from the most delicate scissars to the largest grate, polished like mirrors, with all the intermediate 'nuances,'--afford agreeable occupation for a day:--but pardon me any further description of them; 'Ce n'est pas mon métier.'
December 31st:--Sunday.
As the manufactories are at rest to-day, I made an excursion to Aston Hall, the seat of Mr. Watt, where, indeed, there is little to be seen in the way of gardening, but the old house contains many curious portraits. Unfortunately an ignorant porter could give me but little information about them.
There was an extremely fine picture of Gustavus Adolphus, as large as life. The good-nature, dignity and prudence; the clear honest eyes, which yet express much more than honesty; and the gentle, but not the less firm, assurance in his whole aspect,--were in the highest degree attractive. Near to it stood an excellent bust of Cromwell, which I should think a better likeness than the picture at Warwick. It is more consonant with his historic character;--coarse, and, if you will, vulgar features; but a rocky nature in the whole countenance, clearly allied to that dark enthusiasm and demoniac cunning which so truly characterize the man. Two cannon-balls which Cromwell threw into the house, then fortified, and which broke the banisters in two places, are carefully left on the very spot where they fell, and the railing not repaired,--though it has since most stupidly been painted white even in the broken part.
Not to lose a day, as there is nothing to see here but workshops, I intend to set off this evening and travel through the night to Chester. There we shall spend to-morrow in seeing Eaton, Lord Grosvenor's celebrated seat, of which I wrote you word that Bathiany gave me such a magnificent description, and which, according to all I hear, contains whatever gold can procure. The day after to-morrow I shall return hither, visit some more manufactories, and then go back to Oxford, in the neighbourhood of which are two of the largest parks in England, Blenheim and Stowe.
Chester, January 1st, 1827.
Another year gone! None of the worst to me, except for the separation from you. I lighted the lamp in the carriage and read Lady Morgan's last novel with great pleasure, while we rolled swiftly over the level road. As soon as the hand reached twelve o'clock, R---- congratulated me on the new year, for myself and for you. In twelve hours more we reached Chester, an ancient 'baroque' city.
Though we had gone nineteen German miles in thirteen hours, I find that in England, as well as in France, as you go further from the metropolis you find a general deterioration;--the inns are less excellent, the post-horses worse, the postilions more dirty, the dress of the people generally less respectable, and the air of bustle and business less. At the same time, the dearness increases, and you are subjected to many extortions which, nearer to London, are prevented by the great competition.
The new year set in with unfavourable weather. It rained the whole day. As soon as we had made a little toilet, we hastened to see the wonders of Eaton Hall, of which, however, my expectations were not very high. Moderate as they were, they were scarcely realized. The park and the gardens were, to my taste, the most unmeaning of any of their class I had seen, although of vast extent; and the house excited just the same feeling in me as Ashbridge, only with the difference that it is still more overloaded, and internally far less beautiful, though furnished still more expensively, in patches. You find all imaginable splendour and ostentation which a man who has an income of a million of our money can display; but taste not perhaps in the same profusion. In this chaos of modern Gothic excrescences, I remarked ill-painted modern glass windows, and shapeless tables and chairs, which most incongruously affected to imitate architectural ornaments. I did not find one single thing worth sketching; and it is perfectly inconceivable to me how M. Lainé, (to whose merits in the embellishment of his country all must do justice,) could, in the Annals of the Berlin Horticultural Society, prefer this to any he had seen; at which indeed his English critics have made merry not a little. M. Lainé imitated this garden in the one in front of the palace at Potsdam. In his place I should, I confess, have chosen another model; though this style is certainly far better suited to the palace in question than to a Gothic castle. Treasures of art I saw none: the best was a middling picture by West. All the magnificence lay in the gorgeous materials, and the profuse display of money. The drawing-room or library, would, for size, make a very good riding-school. The large portraits of the possessor and his wife, in the dining-room, have little interest, except for their acquaintances. A number of 'affreux' little Gothic temples, deface the pleasure-ground, which has, moreover, no fine trees: the soil is not very favourable, and the whole seems laid out in comparatively recent times. The country is rather pretty, though not picturesque, and too flat.
As we had time to spare, we visited the royal castle of Chester which is now converted into an excellent county gaol. The whole arrangement of it seemed to me most humane and perfect. The view from the terrace of the 'corps de logis,' in which are the Courts of Justice, down upon the prisoners in their cells, is extremely curious and surprising.
Imagine a high terrace of rock, on which stands a castle with two wings. The 'corps de logis' is, as I said, dedicated to the courts, which are very spacious; and the wings, to the prisoners for debt. The court-yard is laid out as a little garden, in which the debtors may walk. Under the court are cells in which the criminals are confined; the further end on the right is appropriated to the women. The cells are separate, and radiate from a centre; the little piece of ground in front of each is a garden for the use of the prisoner, in which he is permitted to walk; before trial his dress is gray; after it, red and green. In each division of the building behind the cells is a large common-room, with a fire, in which the prisoners work. The cells are clean and airy; the food varies with the degree of crime,--the lowest is bread, potatoes and salt. To-day, being new-year's-day, all the prisoners had roast-beef, plum-pudding, and ale. Most of them, especially the women, became very animated, and made a horrible noise, with hurrahs to the health of the Mayor who had given them this fête.
The view from the upper terrace, over the gardens, the prison, and a noble country, with the river winding below, just behind the cells;--on the side, the roofs and towers of the city in picturesque confusion; and in the distance, the mountains of Wales,--is magnificent, and 'a tout prendre' our country counsellors of justice (Oberlandes gerichtsrathe) are seldom lodged so well as the rogues and thieves here.
Thank Heaven, we set out on our return to-morrow, for I am quite weary of parks and sights. I am afraid you will be no less so, of my monotonous letters; but as you have said A you must say B, and so prepare for a dozen parks before we reach London.
Meanwhile I send my epistle thither, to afford you at least an interval, and pray God to have you in his merciful and faithful keeping.
Your ever devoted L----.
Letter X
Hawkestone Park, Jan. 2nd, 1827.
BELOVED FRIEND,
Though I felt perfectly 'blasé' of parks yesterday, and thought I could never take any interest in them again, I am quite of another mind to-day, and must in some respects give Hawkestone the preference over all I have seen. It is not art, nor magnificence, nor aristocratical splendour, but nature alone, to which it is indebted for this pre-eminence, and in such a degree that were I gifted with the power of adding to its beauty, I should ask, What can I add?
Turn your imagination to a spot of ground so commandingly placed, that from its highest point you can let your eye wander over fifteen counties. Three sides of this wide panorama rise and fall in constant change of hill and dale, like the waves of an agitated sea, and are bounded at the horizon by the strangely-formed jagged outline of the Welsh mountains, which at either end descend to a fertile plain shaded by thousands of lofty trees, and in the obscure distance where it blends with the sky is edged with a white misty line--the ocean.
The Welsh mountains are partly covered with snow, and all the cultivated country between so thickly intersected with hedge-rows and trees, that at a distance it has rather the appearance of a thinly planted wood, here and there broken by water or by numberless fields and meadows. You stand directly in the centre of this scene, on the summit of a group of hills, looking down over the tops of groves of oaks and beeches alternating with the most luxuriant slopes of meadow-land, upon a wall of rock five or six hundred feet high, which forms numerous steep precipices and pretty valleys. In one of the gloomiest spots of this wilderness arise the venerable ruins of 'the Red Castle,' a magnificent memorial of the time of William the Conqueror.
Now imagine this whole romantic group of hills, which rises isolated from the very plain, to be surrounded almost in a perfect circle by the silver waves of the river Hawke. This naturally bounded spot is Hawkestone Park, a spot whose beauties are so appreciated even in the neighbourhood, that the brides and bridegrooms of Liverpool and Shrewsbury come here to pass their honeymoon. The park seems indeed rather the property of the public than of its possessor, who never resides here, and whose ruinous and mean-looking house lies hidden in a corner of the park, like a 'hors d'oeuvre.' There is, however, a pretty inn, in which visitors find all that is needful to their comfort. Here we passed the night, and after a good breakfast 'á la fourchette,' set out on our long excursion on foot; for the roads are so bad that we could not drive. Our scrambling walk, almost dangerous in winter, lasted four hours.
We crossed a grassy plain, shaded by oaks and covered with grazing cattle, to the rocks I have mentioned, in which the pale green veins show the existence of copper. They rise out of a lofty hanging wood of old beeches, and are crowned at their summits with black firs, the whole effect of which is most striking. In this natural wall is a grotto, which, after climbing wearily along a zig-zag path in the wood, you reach through a dark covered way more than a hundred feet long, hewn in the rock. The grotto consists of numerous caverns incrusted with all sorts of minerals. There are small openings in which are set pieces of coloured glass cut like brilliants; in the dark they gleam like the precious stones of Aladdin's cave. An old woman was our guide, and excited our wonder by her unwearied walking, and the dexterity with which she climbed up and down the rocks in slippers. The irregular steps of stone were as smooth as glass, and so difficult sometimes to pass over, that our good R----, who had iron heels to his boots, complained bitterly of the efforts he had to make to keep himself up. We reached a summer-house, built of trunks and branches of trees and covered with moss, which commanded a picturesque view of a fantastic hill called the Temple of Patience. Our way then led us to the so-called Swiss Bridge, which is boldly thrown from one rock to another. As the railing is partly broken down and the passage rather a dizzy one, my good Julia, if it were possible for her to have come thus far, would have found an end to her expedition. How fortunate it is to have such an unwearied guide through the regions of imagination--one who bears you in an instant across the giddy bridge, and now places you before a black tower-like rock projecting out of the glittering beeches, overgrown with thorns and festooned with garlands of ivy! This was long the abode of a fox, who lived secure from pursuit in his castle of Malapartus; it is still called Reynard's House. We went on, up hill and down dale, and at length, rather tired, reached the terrace, an open place with beautiful peeps at the country cut in the wood. Not far from thence, behind very high trees, stands a column a hundred-and-twenty feet high, dedicated to the founder of the family,--a London merchant and Lord Mayor of London in the time of Henry the Third,--whose statue crowns the pillar. A convenient winding staircase in the inside leads to its summit, whence you overlook the panorama of fifteen counties already mentioned. You pass through still wider chasms between the rocks to a lovely cottage, standing in complete seclusion at the end of a green valley, where formerly various beasts and birds were kept, which are now preserved stuffed in a room of the cottage. A young woman showed them to us, with the strange announcement,--'All these animals that you see used to live formerly.' I spare you the green-house built of masses of rock and branches of trees, and the Gothic tower--a sort of summer-house, and lead you a long, long way through wood, then over green hills and through a narrow defile to the magnificent ruin, the sublimely situated Red Castle. The decayed walls and the hewn rocky sides are of great extent. You can reach the interior only through a winding passage blasted in the rock, so utterly dark that I found myself obliged to use my guide's petticoat as an Ariadne's clue, for I literally could not see my hand before my eyes. Out of this tunnel you emerge into a picturesque alley of rock, with smooth high walls overarched with mountain-ashes. On the side you perceive a cavern, the mouth of which is still closed with a rusty iron gate. Climbing rude steps in the rock, you reach the upper part of the ruin--a high roofless tower, in whose walls, fifteen feet thick, many trees centuries old have struck their roots, and in the interior of which is a well, which appears to sink down to the entrails of the earth. The massy and unshaken barrier around it, the lofty tower through which the sky appears above, and the bottomless depth beneath, where reigns eternal night, produce an effect I never remember to have experienced. You see Hope and Despair allegorically united in one picture before you. The tower, and the rock on which it stands, look down from a giddy height, in a perfectly perpendicular line, upon the valley, in which the huge trees appear like copse-wood.
By a somewhat considerable leap of the imagination you reach a New Zealander's hut on the banks of a little lake, built many years ago from a drawing of Captain Cook's, and furnished with arrows, spears, tomahawks, skulls of eaten enemies, and such-like pretty trifles, the innocent luxuries of these children of nature.
Here we closed our walk, leaving unseen several devices which deform the place, and which, as well as (alas!) the paths, are somewhat in decay. But these defects are slight, in a whole so full of sublime and wondrously-varied natural beauty.
Newport, Jan. 3rd.
It is winter in good earnest;--the earth covered with ice and six inches of snow, and the cold in the rooms, so insufficiently warmed by open fires, almost insufferable. As I passed the greater part of the day in the carriage, I have little to tell.
Birmingham, Jan. 4th.
To-day too we saw nothing remarkable on our road but a newly laid out park through which we drove, with a small but elegant garden, with very pretty flower-stands of various sorts, and baskets, all of fine wire, and clothed with creepers. R---- was obliged to draw them with stiff fingers.
The inn at which we ate our luncheon bore the date 1603 carved in stone, and is the prettiest specimen of a cottage in an antique style, with brickwork in various patterns, I have met with. Towards evening we reached Birmingham, where I am reposing comfortably after the excessive cold.
January 6th.
The whole day has been, as in my last visit, devoted to the manufactories and warehouses. The poor workmen, however, have a bad time of it. Their earnings are sufficient, it is true; but many of their occupations are of such a kind that the slightest neglect or carelessness may be productive of the most dreadful consequences. I saw a man whose business it is to hold the piece of metal out of which livery buttons are stamped. He has had his thumbs twice shattered, and they are now only little formless lumps of flesh. Wo to those whose clothes approach too near to the steam-engines or other hideous machines! Many a one has this inexorable power seized and crushed, as the boa crushes its helpless prey. Some occupations are as unhealthy as those of the lead-works in Siberia; and in others there is a stench which a stranger can scarcely endure for a minute.
Everything has its dark side,--this advanced state of manufacture among the rest; but that is no reason for rejecting it.
Even virtue has its disadvantages when it oversteps the bounds of moderation; while on the other hand the greatest evil, crime itself not excepted, has its bright spots.
It is remarkable that, in spite of this wonderful progress in all discoveries, the English have not yet been able, as Mr. Thomasson assured me, to rival the iron-castings of Berlin. What I saw of this kind were immeasurably inferior. I am sometimes tempted to think that we are arrived at that point at which, far as the English now excel us, they will begin to descend, and we to ascend. But as they have to fall from such a height, and we to rise from such a depth, a long time may elapse before we arrive at the meeting-point. However, as I said, I think we have started on the road. Deutschland, Gluck auff! if thy sons obtain but freedom, their efforts will succeed.
Stratford-on-Avon, Jan. 6th.
This day's journey was not long, but full of interest; for the place whence my letter is dated is the birth-place of Shakspeare.
It is profoundly affecting to see the familiar trifles which centuries ago stood in immediate and domestic contact with so great and beloved a man; then to visit the place where his bones have long been mouldering; and thus in a few moments to traverse the long way from his cradle to his grave. The house in which he was born, and the very room hallowed by this great event, still stand almost unchanged. The latter is perfectly like a humble tradesman's room, such as we commonly find them in our small towns; quite suited to the times when England stood on the same step of civilization which the lower classes still occupy with us. The walls are completely covered with the names of men of every country and rank; and although I do not particularly like the parasitical appendages on foreign greatness, like insects clinging to marble palaces, yet I could not resist the impulse of gratitude and veneration, which led me to add my name to the others.
The church on the Avon (the same river which washes the noble walls of Warwick,) where Shakspeare lies buried, is a beautiful remnant of antiquity, adorned with numerous remarkable monuments; among which, that of the chief of poets is, of course, the most conspicuous. It was formerly painted and gilded, as was the bust; but through the stupidity of a certain Malone, was whitewashed over about a century ago, by which it lost much of its singular character. The bust is far from having any merit as a work of art: it is devoid of expression, and probably, therefore, of resemblance. It was not without a considerable outlay of trouble and money that I succeeded in getting a little engraving of the monument in the original colours,--the last copy the clerk's wife had, as she assured me. I send it with my letter.
I also bought in a bookseller's shop several views of the place, and of the objects I have mentioned. In the town-house there is a large picture of Shakspeare, painted in more recent times; and a still better one of Garrick, which has some resemblance, not only in the features but the 'tournure' to Iffland.
Oxford, Jan. 7th.
After having given the 'parkomanie' two days rest, we revived it to-day, having visited no less than four great parks, the last of which was the famous Blenheim. But in order:--'Exécutez vous.'
First we passed through Eastrop Park, remarkable in as far as it is of the time in which the French style had just begun to decline; but at this transition period the change was as yet so slight, that avenues of clumps, of different but regularly alternating figures, replaced avenues of single trees; and hedges were planted in serpentine lines. The whole appeared in great decay.
Ditchley Park is more beautiful. Unfortunately, the English climate played us a sad trick to-day. In the morning (for the second time since we left London) the sun shone, and we were triumphing in our good luck, when suddenly there fell such a fog that during the whole remaining day we never could see a hundred steps before us,--often scarcely ten. In the house we found a number of good pictures, especially very fine portraits, but no creature could tell us whom they represented. We learned nothing new in our art, but we found a novelty in another department. In the gamekeeper's lodge, in default of spoils of nobler beasts, were about six dozen rats nailed up, their legs and tails displayed with great taste.
Our third visit was to Blandford Park, belonging to Lord Churchill; very inconsiderable as a park, but the house contains some noble pictures. Two, I particularly envied the possessor. The first, a female figure, attributed, no doubt falsely, to Michael Angelo. The drawing is certainly bold, but there is a truth and elasticity in the flesh, a Titian-like colouring, and a lovely archness of expression, which betray no Michael Angelo,--even suppose the assertion to be false, that we possess no oil-paintings of that great master.
The second riveted me still more;--a Judith ascribed to Cigoli, a painter whose works I do not remember to have seen. The subject is common enough: the triumphant virgin, with the trunkless head in her hand, has always appeared to me rather disgusting than attractive; but here the artist has diffused an expression over Judith's elevated and captivating face, which appears to me to be conceived in the very spirit of poetry.
I had rather possess good copies of such exquisite pictures, than less interesting originals by great masters:--it is the poetical not the technical part of a work of art that has charms for me. I pass over a fine collection of drawings by Raphael, Claude, and Rubens, and many interesting portraits.
The horrid fog was thicker and thicker, and we saw Blenheim as if by twilight. In grandeur and magnificence it is doubtless extraordinary; and I was much pleased with what I saw, or rather divined; for it was all shrouded in a veil, behind which the sun appeared rayless, like the moon. The house is very large and regular, built, unhappily, in the old French style, and truly royal in magnificence. The park is five German miles in circumference, and the piece of water, the finest work of its kind existing, occupies alone eight hundred acres. The pleasure-grounds are on an equally vast scale; forty men are daily employed in mowing. Opposite to the house the water forms a cascade, so admirably constructed of large masses of rock brought from a great distance, that it is difficult to believe it artificial.
One cannot help admiring the grandeur of Brown's genius and conceptions, as one wanders through these grounds: he is the Shakspeare of gardening. The plantations have attained to such a height that we saw a single Portugal laurel growing out of the turf, which measured two hundred feet in circumference.
The present possessor, with an income of seventy thousand pounds, is so much in debt that his property is administered for the benefit of his creditors, and he receives five thousand a year for his life. It is a grievous pity that he spends this little in pulling in pieces Brown's imposing gardens, and modernizing them in a miserable taste; transforming the rich draperies which Brown had thrown around Nature, into a harlequin jacket of little clumps and beds. A large portion of the old pleasure-ground is thus destroyed; as the old gardener, almost with tears in his eyes, remarked to us. Many noble trees lay felled around; and a black spot on the turf showed the place where a laurel, nearly as large as the one I mentioned, lately stood in all its pride and beauty. I thought with grief how vain it is to attempt to found anything lasting, and saw in imagination those of my successors who will destroy the plantations which we have designed and tended together with so much fondness. Blenheim is chiefly situated on the spot where stood the ancient royal park of Woodstock (which you remember from Walter Scott's last novel). A great part of the oak wood which existed in the time of the unhappy Rosamond is still alive, and dying in an agony of a century's duration. There are perfect monsters of oaks and cedars, both as to form and size. Many are so entirely enwreathed with ivy that it has killed them, but at the same time clothed them with a new and more beautiful evergreen foliage which enwraps the decayed trunk, like a magnificent shroud, till it falls into dust.
Deer, pheasants and cattle, people the park, whose green plains seemed, in the uncertain mist, boundless as the sea; in some places, bare as a Steppe, in others thickly planted.
The interior of the house looks rather neglected, but contains a number of valuable works of art. It must be confessed that never did a nation bestow a richer reward on one of its great men than Blenheim, which is princely even in its minutest details.[38]
As we entered, there was such a smoke that we thought we had to encounter a second fog in the house. Some very dirty shabby servants--a thing almost unheard-of here--ran past us to fetch the 'Chátelaine,' who, wrapped in a Scotch plaid, with a staff in her hand and the air of an enchantress, advanced with so majestic an air towards us, that one might have taken her for the Duchess herself. The magic wand was for the purpose of pointing more conveniently to the various curiosities. As a preliminary measure, she required that we should inscribe our names in a large book: unhappily, however, there was no ink in the inkstand, so that this important ceremony was necessarily dispensed with. We passed through many chill and faded rooms, decorated with numerous and fine pictures, though among them are many inferior ones, on which the names of Raphael, Guido, &c. are liberally bestowed. The gallery is extremely rich in fine and genuine Rubens'; the most attractive among which, to me, was his own frequently repeated but excellent portrait. I was also much interested by a whole length portrait of the wild Duke of Buckingham, by Van Dyk,--a roué of a very different sort, both in the delicate turn of the features, the chivalrous dignity, and the tasteful dress, from our modern ones. Further on is a beautiful Madonna, by Carlo Dolce, less smooth and 'banale' than most of those by the same master; and an excellent and most characteristic portrait of Catharine of Medicis. She is very fair, with exquisitely beautiful hands, and a singular expression of cold passion (if I may use the words) in her features, which yet does not excite the feeling of repulsion one would anticipate. Ruben's wife hangs opposite to her,--a handsome Flemish housewife, somewhat vulgar, but beautifully painted and admirably conceived. Philip the Second, by Titian, appeared to me unmeaning:--two beggar boys, by Morillo, admirable. Lot and his daughters, by Rubens;--the female figures somewhat less vulgar and coarse than most of his beauties, who generally have too much in common with the chief produce of his native country: Lot is admirably painted: the picture is however a very unpleasing one. In the bedroom was hung, oddly enough, a disgusting, fearful picture of Seneca's death in the bath,--Seneca already a livid corpse.
The portrait of the Duke's mother by Sir Joshua Reynolds is extremely pleasing. Her beauty and sweet child-like look were worthy of a Madonna; and the little boy is a perfect Cupid, full of archness and grace.
The library is a magnificent room, containing seventeen thousand volumes, decorated on the one side with a marble statue of Queen Anne; on the other, a strange pendant--a colossal antique bust of Alexander; a model of youthful beauty, in my opinion excelling the Apollo Belvedere. It is more human, and yet the god-like nature appears through the human,--not indeed in the christian, but the pagan sense of the word.
It is but fair to notice the portrait of the great Duke of Marlborough, to whom this whole splendid edifice owes its existence. His history is remarkable in many points of view: I especially advise every man who wishes to make his fortune to study it attentively; he may learn much from a character so formed to get on in the world.--The following anecdote has always appeared to me remarkable, insignificant as was the incident.
The Duke was one day overtaken by a violent shower of rain while riding with his suite. He asked his groom for his cloak; and not receiving it at the instant, repeated his order in a rather hasty tone. This provoked the man, and he replied with an impertinent air, "Well, I hope you will wait just till I have unbuckled it." The Duke, without evincing the slightest irritation, turned smiling to the person next him, and said, "Now would I not for all the world be of that fellow's temper."
The more well-known story of the 'petulance' of the Duchess of Castlemaine, which Churchill turned to such good account, and which in the strangest way laid the basis of his great career, showed an entirely similar 'disposition,' and power over himself.
In night and fog we reached Oxford, where I alighted at the Star, and refreshed myself with an admirable dinner prepared by a French cook from London. Though I do not, like the ancients, regard cooks as objects of religious veneration, I cannot deny that I have singular respect for their art: 'Il est beau au feu' may be said with as much justice of a virtuoso of this kind, as of the most dashing soldier; and in the field of politics and diplomacy, every minister knows how much he is indebted to his cook.
My excursion draws to a close, and in three days I hope to send off B---- with all the materials he has collected, like a bee laden with honey.
January 8th.
Oxford is a most singular city. Such a crowd of magnificent Gothic buildings, from five hundred to a thousand years old, can nowhere else be found collected in one place. There are spots in which you can imagine yourself transported back to the fifteenth century. You see nothing around you but monuments of that period, without a single incongruous object. Many, nay almost all, of these old colleges and churches are also very beautiful in detail, and all of a most picturesque character. I have often wondered why we do not adopt many of the details of this style of architecture; for instance, the broad light windows in two or three divisions, sometimes diversified with large bows and irregularly divided; only habit could make us endure the uniform rows of square holes which we call windows.
I went first to the so-called Theatre, which was built by a bishop three hundred years ago. The iron railing which surrounds it has, instead of pillars, a sort of 'termini' with the heads of the Roman Emperors, a strange fancy, but the effect is not bad. In this theatre--which, as might be expected from its origin, is more like a church--the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the Prince Regent were made Doctors, and were obliged to appear in scarlet robes. The portraits of all three have since been placed here. The King of England in his coronation robes--an admirable picture by Lawrence, worthy of ancient times--hangs in the centre, in a most splendid frame; on either side, in far simpler frames and simpler garb, hang the Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia, also by Lawrence. The King is not like: of the Emperor Alexander I never saw a better portrait.
At the University Stereotype Press, where the printing of a sheet on both sides is accomplished in five minutes, I again displayed my activity, and had the honour to print a sheet, which I send you as companion to the Birmingham button: it contains some interesting incidents concerning the Maccabees.
A great deal of the printing for the Bible Society is done here; and if it goes on at this rate, the time will soon arrive concerning which a periodical called 'The Catholic,' of the year 1824, prophesied in this wise: "If it comes to that, that all read the Bible, the world will be a fit abode only for wild beasts." If "the Catholic" means that all will understand it, he may be right, for then the whole human race will be ripe for another world. Nevertheless I am so far of "the Catholic's" mind, that I think the indiscriminate diffusion of the Bible among all,--even the rudest savages,--is throwing pearls before swine.
I next went to the Museum, which contains a very heterogeneous mixture of things. On the staircase as you enter is a picture of the battle of Pavia, in which the principal figures are portraits painted at the time, as is expressed on the canvass. It is precisely in the style of the old miniatures, and very interesting for the accuracy of the dresses and armour: under it is the inscription "Comen les gens de Lempereur deffirent les francoys en lan 1525." Portraits of Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Richelieu also adorn the staircase. Under them was that of Tradescant, a noted gardener of Charles the First, from which it was impossible to tear his colleague R---- away; he looked at the picture with a sort of protecting air, and was specially delighted with a garland of mulberries and cucumbers which picturesquely surrounded this father of gardeners. The most interesting thing in the picture, to me, was the portrait of a strange large bird; worthy of the Arabian Nights, called Dodo, which belonged to the gardener when alive, and whose like has never been seen in these parts since. As a proof that this is no fable, they showed us the genuine head and beak--wonderfully odd.
In the collection of natural history were a great many rare parrots, and a curious bird with spikes on its wings, with which it spears fish as with a lance. The diminutive warrior, who is only six inches high, looks uncommonly fierce and bold; he is like a miniature crane, only much more cunning and pugnacious. Here is the duck-billed platypus, that strange animal from New Holland. The productions of that part of the globe are so unlike those of all the others, that they almost make one imagine it belongs to another era of creation, or that it dropped on our earth from some wandering star.
The colours of a picture made of humming-bird's feathers seemed something unearthly. Equally curious was a bas-relief of a knight in splendid gold-green armour made of beetles' wings. Our modern knights might be very handsomely represented in steel-blue armour, made from the wings of the dung-beetle. I cannot attempt to give you an inventory of the cabinet of curiosities; I confined myself, as I always do, to what struck me, which was not always the most celebrated;--a jewelled glove of Henry the Eighth's;--an autograph letter of Queen Elizabeth's to Lord Burleigh, beautifully written;--a pretty riding-cloak and shoe of the Maiden Queen, which latter proves the extreme beauty of her foot; lastly, her watch, with a tasteful chain consisting of five medallions in a row, each containing hair of a different colour--probably of her chief favourites. Far more curious and sacred is a medallion with a portrait rudely executed in mosaic, and an inscription signifying that it belonged to the great Alfred. This precious relic was found ten years ago in ploughing a field in the island of Athelney, where Alfred lay hidden from the Danes.
I must now conduct you to the picture-gallery built by Elizabeth, and preserved exactly 'in statu quo.' The roof is of wainscot panelled, and in each panel a coat-of-arms, which has a most antique and magnificent effect. Very good models of the principal temples of antiquity stand in the ante-room. There are some excellent pictures. The one which charmed me the most was an authentic portrait of Mary of Scotland, by Zuccaro, painted just after her arrival from France, and brilliant in all the indescribable radiance and fascination of her youth and freshness. It is easy to understand how it was that this woman had only passionate adorers and devoted partisans, or furious enemies. A face more, in the true sense of the word, charming,--seductive,--can scarcely be imagined: with all its French graces, it however betrays the selfishness of the beauty, the recklessness of unbridled passion; but of malignity or vulgarity, such as we see, the former in Elizabeth, the latter in Catharine of Medicis, not a trace;--in short, a perfectly womanlike, and therefore perfectly captivating character of countenance, with all the virtues and all the weaknesses and vices of her sex in their fullest proportions. I should think the possession of such a picture a real happiness,--that of the original might give one too much trouble. The same artist painted a portrait of Elizabeth, precisely like that at Warwick. The Earl of Leicester, taken shortly before his death, is extremely interesting. His face is as elegant and high-bred as it is handsome; and though not indicative of genius, has the expression of a sagacious, dignified, and powerful man. There are no remains of the brilliancy of youth, but a proud complacent consciousness of secure unalterable favour. In a copy of the School of Athens by Giulio Romano, I admired once more the exquisite face of the young duke of Urbino,--that ideal of soft youthful beauty:--the loveliest girl might be more than satisfied with the possession of it. Garrick's portrait, by Raphael Mengs, did not answer my idea of that great actor so perfectly as the one at Stratford-on-Avon. I was delighted with a picture of Charles the Twelfth, by Schröter,--every inch a grand Don Quixotte: and with a very characteristic Charles the Second, by Sir Peter Lely. Charles' aspect, like his age, seems to me entirely French, even to his features, which are strikingly like those of Bussy Rabutin. His father hangs near,--a more attractive picture than usual. He has unquestionably a fine face, with very speaking eyes; but the soft, melancholy, ideological expression too plainly shows that the bearer of such features was little fitted to encounter such a man as Cromwell, or such an age as that he lived in. It is the greatest calamity for a prince to fall upon an ill-suited time, unless he be strong enough to impress his own stamp upon it. The great Locke, by Gibson, is a pale attenuated student. Near him is a handsome portly Luther, by Holbein;--the stately Handel, by Hodson;--and Hugo Grotius, with his acute, crafty, and yet high chivalrous face, more that of an energetic man of the world than of a man of letters. These are the subjects that struck me the most.
January 9th.
To-day I have walked all over Oxford; and I cannot express with what intense delight I wandered from cloister to cloister, and refreshed myself at this living spring of antiquity.
There is a magnificent avenue of elms, which like the buildings around it, dates from the year 1520. From this queen of avenues, in which not a single tree is wanting, and which leads through a meadow to the river, you see on one side a charming landscape, on the other a part of the city, with five or six of the most beautiful Gothic towers,--ever a noble view, but to-day rendered almost like a picture of fairy enchantment: the sky was overcast, the wind drove the black fantastic clouds, like a herd of wild beasts, across it; at length the most beautiful rainbow, vaulting from one tower and descending on another, spanned the whole city.
From this ancient seat of the Muses of England, from all its colleges,--each different from the other,--each enclosing a spacious court, and adorned with noble towers,--each with its own more or less beautifully ornamented church, its library and picture-gallery, all in their kind of new and varied interest,--I carry away the most agreeable recollections. If you can bear to drink again and again from the old cup, you shall accompany me in my rambles.
My first walk was to the Ratcliffe Library; a round and modern building,--erected, that is, in the last century, at Dr. Ratcliffe's cost,--nearly in the centre of the town. The interior is simply a rotunda in three stages or stories, with a cupola and two open galleries, whence side-rooms radiate from the inner, to the outer circles. Below are casts of the best antiques. A small winding staircase leads to a side tower, from the roof of which you have a splendid view of the Gothic palaces pointing to heaven with their hundred spires. The surrounding country is cheerful, fertile, and well wooded. There are four-and-twenty colleges (a sort of cloister for education,) and thirteen churches in this small town, containing only sixteen thousand inhabitants.
From hence we proceeded to Henry the Eighth's Library, preserved, externally and internally, in nearly its original state, and containing not less than three hundred thousand volumes. The 'locale' is like no other of the kind, and transports one completely into past ages. The cruciform room; the strange shelves; the iron gratings, half blue, half gilded, and of a form no longer seen; the enormous windows, as broad as three church windows together and ornamented with beautiful coloured glass; the gay gilded ceiling, with numberless panels, each containing the picture of an open Bible with four crowns; even the Doctors sitting at the tables in the dress of Luther, which they still wear,--how strangely is the fancy excited by such a scene! A gallery runs round midway of the high shelves, for the purpose of reaching the books above. On the railing of this gallery are hung the portraits of the various librarians, from the first to the last; some, unhappily, in modern dresses, who look like apes among their venerable predecessors. In the middle of the room the shelves are so arranged on either side, that they form a long alley of enclosed closets, in which every man who wishes to use the library can work completely undisturbed,--an old and most exemplary arrangement. There are also books in the rooms which occupy the whole ground-floor of this quadrangular edifice. Here are some very curious manuscripts and specimens of early printing. I saw with sorrow how large a tribute the poverty of Germany has been compelled to pay to the wealth of England; among other things, a magnificent copy of Faust's first Bible, of the year 1440, which I think belonged to our Doctor Barth, and is inscribed with a number of notes in his handwriting. I was delighted to find a manuscript so exactly like a volume of Froissart in our library, (that with the miniatures in every leaf,) embellished with the same arabesques of fruit and flowers on a gold ground, the style and colouring of the figures so precisely the same, that it is scarcely to be doubted they are by the same painter. Unfortunately there is neither name nor date. The text is Quintus Curtius,--all the figures exactly in the costume of the time of the illuminator: Alexander, cased in iron from head to foot, breaks a lance with Darius, and throws him from his saddle, just in the style of the French and English Knights in Froissart.
A very curious French manuscript, the subject of which is an heroic poem, contains the name of the writer with the date 1340, (an extremely rare occurrence,) and under it the name of the painter with the date 1346; this gives reason to conclude that the latter had spent six years in the illuminating, which is almost all executed on a very unusual design, in gold, blue and red in squares, like a carpet. This manuscript is peculiarly interesting from the circumstance that the painter, instead of enclosing the text within a border or arabesque, has surrounded it with a representation of the trades, sports, and pastimes of his time. A cursory glance showed me, together with many games and occupations which we have lost, so many which are still so precisely the same, that I was really surprised. For instance, a masked-ball; Kammerchen vermiethen;[39] the Handespiel, or 'gioco di villano;' the same with the feet, which we boys often used to play in winter to warm ourselves; throwing at cocks, and cockfighting; rope-dancers and conjurors; horse-riders and trained horses, whose feats are more wonderful than ours; rifle-shooting at a man who ('mille pardons') turns himself in unseemly wise to the company, like one still existing on a gate at Lausitz; a smithy, where a horse is shoeing; a wagon, with three large cart-horses harnessed out at length, with harness, &c. all in the present form, even the driver's costume,--a blue slop--the very same; and many other things which I have not time to notice,--showed that though many things change, yet an infinite deal remains unaltered, and perhaps, 'à tout prendre,' human life is more the same in different ages than we generally imagine.
A Boccacio, with exquisitely beautiful miniatures, is one of the show-pieces of the library. A copy of the Acts of the Apostles, of the seventh century, in Greek and Latin, is shown as a great curiosity: each line contains only one word in each language. Considering its great antiquity, it is in very good preservation.
In the beautiful court of All Souls College--which moreover is carpeted with the finest turf--there is a spot whence you have a most magnificent view of spires, towers, and façades of ancient buildings, rising in unbroken series, one behind another, without the least mixture of modern houses. Here is another noble library. In the middle is an orrery, which illustrates our solar system very clearly, and keeps equal course with the sun and planets through the year.
Christ's College is a beautiful building of modern times; a part of it only is very old. The church is of Saxon architecture; round and pointed arches intermingle, but do not at all offend the eye. Here is the famous shrine of St. Frisdewilde, a most magnificent and tasteful Gothic monument of the beginning of the eighth century, and still in good preservation. It was enriched with silver Apostles and other ornaments, which were plundered in Cromwell's time. That unhappy religious war did irreparable damage to the antiquities of England; till then, all these sacred relics were in perfect preservation.
Attached to this college is that most charming walk I described to you above. It leads us to Magdalen College, which has been in part newly restored. The restoration is perfectly in the ancient style, and renders this part of the building secure for five hundred years to come; it has already cost forty thousand pounds, though but a small part is completed:--it may be imagined what enormous sums the execution of such works from the foundation would cost. Nothing great in art can be executed now, for the money it would cost is absolutely unattainable. The sum which formerly purchased a god-like work of Raphael's, would now (even allowing for the difference in the value of money) scarcely buy a moderate portrait by Lawrence. The Botanic Garden, which closed our walk, contains nothing worth describing. I therefore release you for the present, my dear Julia; 'mais c'est á y revenir demain.'
Buckingham, Jan. 10th.
It is a sin how long my private journal has been neglected. The more my letters to you swell, the more does my unhappy journal shrink. If you were to burn these letters, I should have no trace of what had become of me all this time. Imagine how unpleasant to vanish from one's own memory!
My imagination is so 'montée' by the many vestiges and echoes of past times, that I dream of a distant future, in which even ruins will be no more,--in which we shall lose not only these shadows of humanity, but human nature itself, and begin a new life in new spheres. For in remembrance, say what you will, we entirely lose that which we actually were;--even here, the old man nearly loses himself as a child. We may indeed find ourselves again, my best friend, and then will the tie that binds us necessarily re-unite. Let this satisfy us.
'Mais revenons à nos moutons;--c'est à dire, parlons de nouveau de parcs.'
Dreadful weather--rain and darkness, detained me at Oxford till three in the afternoon, when it cleared sufficiently for me to set out. The postilion missed the road, which is not a main one, and drove us a long way about, so that we arrived very late. While the fire was lighting in my room, I sat down in mine host's, where I found a very pretty girl, his niece, and two doctors of the place, with whom I talked away the evening very pleasantly.
Aylesbury, Jan. 11th.
Stowe is, like Blenheim, another specimen of English grandeur and magnificence. The park embraces a large tract of undulating ground, with fine trees; the house is a noble building in the Italian style. The grounds were laid out long ago; and though in many respects beautiful, and remarkable for fine lofty trees, are so overloaded with temples and buildings of all sorts, that the greatest possible improvement to the place would be the pulling down ten or a dozen of them. There is a charming flower-garden, thickly surrounded with high trees, firs, cedars and evergreens, and flowering shrubs. The parterre forms a regular pattern like a carpet, in front of a crescent-formed house filled with rare birds. In the middle of this carpet is a fountain, and on either side are two pretty 'volières' of wire.
In the park stands a tower called the Bourbon Tower, from the circle of limes around it which Louis the Eighteenth planted during his long residence at Hartwell in this neighbourhood. The tower, though modern, is half fallen in. I wish this be no ill omen for the Bourbons in France, where even the sage Charter-giver could obtain no better titles from his subjects than 'Louis l'Inévitable,' and 'Deux Fois Neuf.'
Here is a monument deserving of mention, dedicated to the great men and women of England, with very appropriate inscriptions, and busts modelled after the best pictures.
The façade of the building is four hundred and fifty feet long, and as long is the unbroken 'enfilade' of rooms in the 'bel étage,' which you enter from the garden by a fine flight of steps. You pass through a bronze door into an oval marble hall with a beautiful dome, whence alone it is lighted. A circle of twenty pillars of red scagliola marble surrounds it, and in the niches between them are ten antique statues. The floor is paved with real marble, and a gilded grating admits heated air. I will not weary you with further description of the rooms;--they are very rich, and all more or less decorated with pictures and curiosities. The state bed-room, which is not used, is crowded with fine porcelain, and contains a curious old bed of embroidered velvet with gold fringe.
In a boudoir near were many other curiosities, which we were only permitted to see through a grating. The loss of a ruby necklace formerly belonging to Marie Antoinette, is the very sufficient reason for this prohibition, which is never removed but in the Duke's presence.
The library is a long gallery covered from top to bottom with shelves, with a light and elegant gallery in the middle. An adjoining room, fitted up in the same way, contains nothing but maps and engravings, probably one of the richest collections in the world. This seems the peculiar taste of the present Duke.
The hall on the other side of the house, looking on the park, commands a view which struck me as quite peculiar. You see a large open grassy plain, skirted on either side by an oak wood, and in the middle and back ground meadows and wood interspersed. In the centre of the plain, about sixty or seventy paces from the house, stands, perfectly isolated, a colossal snow-white equestrian statue, of admirable workmanship. The pedestal is so high that the horseman seems to rest on the top of the wood behind him. Not a building, nor any other object than trees, grass, and sky, are visible; and the whole scene so utterly still and inanimate, that the white spectral image rivets the attention:--no finer decoration for Don Juan could be imagined. It happened, too, by a fortunate chance, that the sky on that side of the house was perfectly black with a threatening snow-storm, so that the dazzling white statue stood out in almost fearful grandeur. At the moment, it looked alive, and every muscle seemed to rise in the sharp lights.
Among the pictures is a treasure which seems to be unknown to our German travellers, at least I never saw it noticed:--a genuine portrait of Shakspeare, painted during his lifetime by Barnage. The hypercritics of England will have it there is no genuine portrait of Shakspeare; but it seems to me almost impossible to invent a physiognomy carrying on it such a triumphant air of truth, so fully expressing the grandeur and originality of the man; furnished with all the intellectual elevation, all the acuteness, wit, delicacy, all the genuine humour, whose exhaustless treasures were never so lavished on any mortal. The countenance is nowise what is vulgarly called handsome; but the sublime beauty of the mind within beams from every part. Across the lofty forehead gleam the bright flashes of that daring spirit; the large dark brown eyes are penetrating, fiery, yet mild; around the lips play light irony and good-natured archness, but wedded to a sweet benevolent smile, which lends the highest, the most heart-winning charm to the lofty, awful dignity of the intellectual parts of the face. Wondrously perfect appears the structure of the skull and forehead; there are no single prominences, but all the organs so capacious and complete that we stand astonished before such a glorious pattern of perfect organization, and feel a deep joy at finding the man in so beautiful a harmony with his works.
Two excellent Albrecht Dürers--a pair of female saints in a fantastic landscape--attracted me, particularly by their primitive German character. They are two genuine Nürnberg housewives, dressed in their fatherlandish caps, and taken from nature itself; good-natured, and busied about their saintly affairs.--A picture of Luther, by Holbein, is more intellectual and less fat than usual.
There is a remarkable picture, by Van Dyk, of the Duke of Vieuxville, ambassador from the Court of France to Charles the First, who with chivalrous devotion followed the King into the field and was killed at Newbury. The dress is old, but picturesque;--a white 'juste-au-corps, à la Henri Quatre,' with a black mantle thrown over it; full short black breeches falling over the knee, with silver points; pale violet stockings with gold clocks, and white shoes with gold roses. On the mantle is embroidered the star of the Holy Ghost, four times as large as it is now worn, the blue riband 'en sautoir,' but hanging down very low, and the cross worn in the present fashion, on the side; it is narrower and smaller than now, and hangs by the broad riband almost under the arm.
The Duke de Guise was not such as I had pictured him to myself:--a pale face with reddish beard and hair; with the expression rather of an 'intriguant' than of a great man.--A picture which corresponds better with the character of the person it represents is Count Gondemar, Spanish ambassador to the Court of James the First, by Velasquez; he ingratiated himself with the King by his dog-Latin, in which burlesque form he made free to say anything. He brought the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh to the scaffold by his Jesuitical intrigues.
A picture of Cromwell, by his Court painter Richardson, has a double interest for the family. It was painted expressly for one of the Duke's ancestor's, who appears in the same picture as page, in the act of tying the Protector's scarf. This portrait is not much like the others of the same personage I have seen; it represents him as younger, and of a more refined nature, and is therefore probably flattered. From the hand of a Court painter this is to be expected.
I must only mention two fine and large Teniers', one of which represents three wonderfully characteristic Dutch boors, meeting in a village and gossiping with their pipes in their mouths; an excellent Ruysdael; six famous Rembrandt's, and Titian's lovely mistress. I admired, too, a new specimen of art,--two Sèvres cups with miniatures after Pétitot, by that admirable porcelain-painter Madame Janquotot. The one represents Ninon de l'Enclos, of whom I had never before seen a picture that answered to my idea of her. This expressed her character fully, and is of the most attractive beauty,--genuine French, lively as quicksilver, bold almost to impudence, but too generous and too truly natural to leave any other than an engaging impression on the mind. The other--a gentle, placid, and voluptuous beauty--- was inscribed, Françoise d'Orleans de Valois. As thoroughly initiated in French genealogies and memoirs, you will know who she is. 'Je l'ignore.' Each cup cost a thousand francs.
In a beautiful moonlight we drove to Aylesbury, whence I now write.
Uxbridge, Jan. 12th.
This evening I hope to be in London again. While the horses are putting-to I write a few words. We saw Lord Carrington's park this morning,--for your comfort be it said, the last, at present at least. The garden is nothing remarkable: the house is in the beloved modern Gothic style, but, being simple and unpretending, looks less affected. It is built of stone, without ornament. A good portrait of Pitt hangs in the library. This great man has anything but the face of a man of genius,--and who knows whether posterity will think his deeds betray more than his face?
One thing pretty I observed in the garden,--a thick massy wreath of ivy planted on the turf. It looks as if negligently dropped there. Our excursion was to be closed by the sight of Bulstrode, which Repton describes at such length as the model of parks; but this drop is spared you, my poor Julia, for the Duke of Portland has sold it, and the present owner has felled the trees about which Repton is so enthusiastic, ploughed up the park, and pulled down the house to sell the stone. It was a miserable scene of desolation,--made more miserable by the strange dress of the women at work; they were wrapped from top to toe in blood-red cloaks, and looked like an ill-omened assemblage of executioners.
London, Jan. 13th.
By bright gas-light, which is always like a festal illumination here, we drove into town, and as I wished to have an instant contrast with my park-and-garden life, I alighted at Covent Garden to see my first Christmas pantomime. This is a very favourite spectacle in England, particularly with children; so that I was quite in my place. Playwrights and scene-painters take great pains to make every year's wonders exceed the last. Before I bid you good-night I must give you a rhapsodical sketch of the performance. At the rising of the curtain a thick mist covers the stage and gradually rolls off. This is remarkably well managed by means of fine gauze. In the dim light you distinguish a little cottage, the dwelling of a sorceress; in the back-ground a lake surrounded by mountains, some of whose peaks are clothed with snow. All as yet is misty and indistinct;--the sun then rises triumphantly, chases the morning dews, and the hut, with the village in the distance, now appear in perfect outline. And now you behold upon the roof a large cock, who flaps his wings, plumes himself, stretches his neck, and greets the sun with several very natural Kikerikys.[40] A magpie near him begins to chatter and to strut about, and to peck at a gigantic tom-cat lying in a niche in the wall, who sleepily stretches himself, cleans his face, and purrs most complacently. This tom-cat is acted with great 'virtuosité' by an actor who is afterwards transformed into Harlequin. The way in which he plays with a melon, the lightness and agility with which he climbs up the chimney and down again, his springs, and all his gesture, are so natural that they could only be acquired by a long study of the animal himself. Happily the scenic art is come to that, that it no longer suffers men to be excelled by poodles and monkeys, but has actually raised them to the power of representing those admired animals to the life.
Meanwhile the door opens, and Mother Shipton, a frightful old witch, enters with a son very like herself. The household animals, to whom is added an enormous duck, pay their morning court to the best of their ability. But the witch is in a bad humour, utters a curse upon them all, and changes them on the spot into the persons of the Italian comedy, who, like the rest of the world, persecute each other without rest, till at last the most cunning conquers. The web of story is then spun on through a thousand transformations and extravagances, without any particular connexion, but with occasional good hits at the incidents of the day; and above all, with admirable decorations, and great wit on the part of the machinist. One of the best scenes was the witch's kitchen. A rock cleaves open and displays a large cave, in the midst of which more than a cart-load of wood forms the fire, before which a whole stag with its antlers, a whole ox, and a pig, are turning rapidly on the spit. On a hearth on the right side is baking a pie as big as a wagon, and on the left a plum-pudding of equal calibre is boiling. The 'chef de cuisine' appears with a dozen or two assistants in a grotesque white uniform, with long tails, and each armed with a gigantic knife and fork. The commandant makes them go through a ludicrous exercise, present arms, &c. He then draws them up 'en péloton' to baste the roast, which is performed with ladles of the same huge proportions as the other utensils, while they industriously fan the fire with their tails.
The scene next represents a high castle, to which the colossal 'batterie de cuisine' is conveyed like a park of artillery. It appears smaller and smaller along the winding path, till at length the pie disappears in the horizon like the setting moon.
Next we are transported into a large town, with all sorts of comical inscriptions on the houses, most of them satires on the multitude of new inventions and companies for all manner of undertakings; such as, "Washing Company of the three united kingdoms;" "Steam-boat to America in six days;" "Certain way of winning in the lottery;" "Mining shares at ten pounds a share, by which to become worth a million in ten years." The fore-ground exhibits a tailor's workshop, with several journeymen busily stitching away in the 'rez de chaussée; a pair of shears six yards long are fixed over the door as a sign, with the points upwards. Harlequin arrives, pursued by Pantaloon and Co., and springs through the air with a somerset in at a window on the first story, which breaks with a loud crash. The pursuers drawing back from the 'salto mortale,' tumble over and thump each other with artist-like skill and wonderful suppleness. Ladders are now brought, and they climb into the house after Harlequin: but he has made his escape through the chimney, and runs off over the roofs. Pantaloon with his long chin and beard leans out of the window before which the shears are placed, to see which way Harlequin is gone. Suddenly the parted blades shut to, and his head falls into the street. Pantaloon, not a whit the less, runs down stairs and rushes out at the door after his rolling head;--unluckily a poodle picks it up and runs off with it, and Pantaloon after him. But here he meets Harlequin again, disguised as a doctor, who holds a consultation with three others as to what is to be done for the unhappy Pantaloon. They at length decide to rub the place where the head is wanting with Macassar oil; and by means of this operation a new head happily grows under the eye of the spectators.
In the last act, Tivoli at Paris is well given. A balloon ascends with a pretty child. While he floats from the stage over the heads of the audience the earthly scene gradually sinks, and as the balloon reaches the lofty roof, where it makes a circuit round the chandelier, the stage is filled with rolling clouds through which a thousand stars shine and produce a very pretty illusion.
As the balloon sinks, town and gardens gradually rise again. A rope is next stretched, on which a lady drives a wheelbarrow to the summit of a Gothic tower, in the midst of fire-works; while other 'equilibristes' perform their break-neck feats on level ground.
At the conclusion, the stage is transformed, amid thunder and lightning, into a magnificent Chinese hall with a thousand gay paper lanterns; where all spells are dissolved, the witch banished to the centre of the earth by a beneficent enchanter, and Harlequin, recognized as legitimate prince, marries his Columbine.
On our way home we had another and more terrible spectacle, gratis. A lofty column of lurid smoke poured from a chimney, and soon became tinged with blue, red and green;--the nearer we came the thicker and more variegated it ascended, like one of the Chinese fireworks we had just seen. "Probably," said I to R----, "a chemical laboratory, if it be not indeed a fire in earnest." Hardly had I said the words when my fears were fulfilled. Cries resounded from all sides, the flames streamed wildly forth towards heaven, the people flocked together, and fire-engines soon rattled through the streets. But the huge city swallows up all particular incidents,--five hundred steps further, and the fire in the neighbourhood excited no interest whatever; the guests in an illumined mansion danced merrily, the play-goers walked quietly home, and all traces of alarm or sympathy were lost.
But, my dear Julia, 'il faut que tout finesse'--and so must my long narrative, which certainly furnishes you with a sheet for every year of my life. That it ends with fire you must take as an emblem of ardent love,--and here it is not necessary, as your superstition requires, to exclaim "In a good hour be it said." Every hour, even the most unfortunate, is good--where love is.
Your L----.
Letter XI
London, Jan. 19th, 1827.
DEAREST JULIA,
R---- left London to-day for Harwich, and will be with you in a fortnight. I know how glad you will be to have a living witness of the sayings and doings of your L----; one whom you can question about so many things which, even with the best intentions cannot always find place in letters.
I have now settled myself into a town life again. Yesterday I dined with Prince E----, where the---- secretary of legation kept us in an incessant laugh. He is a kind of agreeable buffoon, and although of very mean extraction, a superlative ultra; ('tel le maitre, tel le valet.') I have often admired the talent of the French, and envied it too, for making the most amusing stories out of the most common-place incidents;--such as lose all their salt coming from any mouth but theirs.
Nobody possesses this talent in a higher degree than Monsieur R----. He affords another proof that it is entirely the result of a language so admirably adapted to produce it, and of an education which springs from the same source; for Monsieur R---- is a German--I think a Swabian; but was brought to France when only two years old, and educated as a Frenchman. Language makes the man, more than blood;--though 'tis true, blood has first made the language.
'Au reste,' one must acknowledge that however brilliant such agreeable chatter may be at the moment, it goes out like a fusee, and leaves nothing on the memory; so that the pedantic German feels a sort of uneasiness after listening to it, and regrets having spent his time so unprofitably. Had it been possible to that element of Germanism which formed our language, to give it that lightness, roundness, agreeable equivocalness, and at the same time precision and definiteness,--qualities which are called into full play in society by French audacity,--the conversation of the German would certainly have been the more satisfactory of the two, for he would never have neglected to connect the useful with the agreeable. As it is, we Germans have nothing left in society, but that sort of talent which the French call 'l'esprit des escaliers;'--that, namely, which suggests to a man as he is going down stairs, the clever things he might have said in the 'salon.'
Of this Frenchman's fireworks and crackers I retain nothing but the following anecdote. A diplomatic writer, who passed as authority in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, concluded a treatise on the great privileges pertaining to foreign envoys, with the following words;--'mais dès qu'un ambassadeur est mort, il rentre dans la vie privée.'
January 22nd.
The poor Duke of York is at length dead, after a long illness, and lay in state yesterday with great magnificence. I saw him in October, and found him, even then, the shadow of the robust stately man whom I had formerly so often seen at Lady L----'s, and at his own house, where six bottles of claret after dinner scarcely made a perceptible change in his countenance. I remember that in one such evening,--it was indeed already after midnight,--he took some of his guests, among whom were the Austrian Ambassador, Count Meerveldt, Count Beroldingen, and myself, into his beautiful armoury. We tried to swing several Turkish sabres, but none of us had a very firm grasp; whence it happened that the Duke and Count Meerveldt both scratched themselves with a sort of straight Indian sword, so as to draw blood. Count Meerveldt then wished to try if it cut as well as a real Damascus, and undertook to cut through one of the wax candles which stood on the table. The experiment answered so ill, that both the candles, candlesticks and all, fell to the ground and were extinguished. While we were groping about in the dark, and trying to find the door, the Duke's aide-de-camp, Colonel C----, stammered out in great agitation, "By God, Sir, I remember the sword is poisoned!" You may conceive the agreeable feelings of the wounded at this intelligence. Happily on further examination it appeared that claret and not poison was at the bottom of the Colonel's exclamation.
The Duke seems to be much regretted, and the whole country wears deep mourning for him, with crape on the hat, and black gloves, 'ce qui fait le désespoir' of all shopkeepers. People put their servants into black liveries, and write on paper with a broad black edge. Meantime the Christmas pantomimes go on as merrily as ever. It has a strange effect to see Harlequin and Columbine skipping about on the stage in all conceivable frivolities and antics, while the coal-black audience, dressed as for a funeral procession, clap and shout with delight.
I this minute received your letter from B----. Really so merry, I might almost say so pungent a one, you have not written of a long time. The B---- originals seem to have quite electrified you, and though I rejoice at it, I can't help being a little jealous. But you will soon come back to your original. I say with Cæsar, I fear not the fat, but the lean; and so long as you tell me that you preserve your charming 'embonpoint,' I am easy. I had a great mind, however, to plague you a little in return; but I know you don't bear jesting 'par distance' well, so I abstain. To vent my humour in some way, I send you a bit out of my journal,--a 'pendant' to your African Travels; for the poor meagre journal is still alive, though it has received no nutriment by the month together, and the little it has had, has not the least 'haut gout.' Don't expect, therefore, anything facetious or satirical, but something quite serious. It is laid upon you as a punishment.
EXTRACTS FROM MY JOURNAL.
I was lately reading a review of Lady Morgan's Salvator Rosa. A passage in it touched me deeply, 'et pour cause.' It is the very original description of her hero, nearly as follows.
"With a thirst for praise, which scarcely any applause could satisfy, Salvator united a quickness of perception that rendered him suspicious of pleasing, even at the moment he was most successful. A gaping mouth, a closing lid, a languid look, or an impatient hem! threw him into utter confusion, and deprived him of all presence of mind, of all power of concealing his mortification.... Abandoned by the idle and the great, whom his delightful talents had so long contributed to amuse, he voluntarily excluded himself from the few true and staunch friends who clung to him in his adversity, and shut himself up equally from all he loved and all he despised.... His reference to this journey is curious, as being illustrative of those high imaginations, and lofty and lonely feelings, in which lay all the secret of his peculiar genius: while his pantings after solitude, his vain repinings, exhibit the struggles of a mind divided between a natural love of repose and a factitious ambition for the world's notice and the eclat of fame,--no unusual contrast in those who, being highly gifted and highly organized, are placed by nature above their species in all the splendid endowments of intellect; and who are, by the same nature, again drawn down to its level through their social and sympathetic affections.... His fine but fatal organization, which rendered him so susceptible of impressions, whether of good or evil, and which left him at times no shelter against 'horrible imaginings,' or against those real inflictions, calumny and slander, plunged him too frequently into fits of listless melancholy, when, disabused of all illusion, he saw the species to which he belonged in all the nakedness of its inherent infirmity."
Yes, this picture is copied from the very soul; and it is no less true, that a man born with such a disposition can never feel at ease or happy in the world which surrounds him, unless he be placed very much above it, or live in it entirely unnoticed.
So far I was led by the thoughts of others. Now I must conclude for to-day with a few of my own, the subject of which lies far nearer to our inmost hearts; and discuss a question, the full investigation of which must interest every one, be he ever so little a philosopher by profession.
What is conscience?
Conscience has unquestionably a twofold nature, as it has a twofold source. The one flows from our highest strength, the other from our greatest weakness; the one from the spirit of God dwelling in us, the other from sensual fear. Perfectly to dissever and distinguish these two kinds of conscience, is necessary to that serenity of mind which can arise only out of the utmost possible clearness: for man, when he has once got beyond the original dominant instinct of feeling, attains to the Permanent, even the recognition of truth, only by mental labour and conflict,--the moral 'sweat of his brow.'
Man, however, is a whole, compounded of countless parts; and it is only in the perfect equipoise of these parts, that, as man--that is, as a being at once sensual and spiritual--he can obtain perfect happiness and contentment. It is the common, ever-recurring error, to strive to cultivate one side predominantly:--with one man it is the province of religion; with another, that of severe reason; with the man of the world, those of the understanding and the senses alone. But all these together, exercised, enjoyed, and blended, so to speak, with artist-like skill, can alone produce the most perfect Life for this earth, and for our destinies while upon it,--the complete, entire Truth.
Under this point of view, then, must that which we call Conscience be considered, and the true distinguished from the false.
Under the head of the True, I understand the infallible suggestions of the divine spirit in us; which restrains us from evil, generally, as from the wholly one-sided, inconsistent, and negative: and this requires no further explanation. By the False, I mean that which arises only from the Conventional; from custom, authority, from subtleties which have grown out of these foundations, and from overstrained anxiety;--in a word, from fear. Delicate, excitable natures, in whom the cerebral system predominates, in whom, therefore, the head and the fancy are more powerful and active than the heart: in whom the distributing intellect too easily breaks up and scatters the depth and intensity of the full feelings, are most subject to this kind of error. It is, however, so difficult to follow these subtle ramifications and secret counter-workings, that we often take that for a primary feeling, which is only the retro-action of a sophistical intellect.
Now, as right and wrong, applied to the individual actions of human life with all their various conditions and intricacies, must obviously be relative; nothing remains but that every man should, with the help of all the powers of his soul, make quite clear to himself, sincerely and faithfully lay down to himself, what he can reasonably regard as right and what as wrong; and having ascertained it, thenceforward tranquilly apply that standard; and not trouble himself further about his so-called conscience; that is, the inward uneasiness and uncertainty which disturb the mind under new and conflicting circumstances. These cannot possibly be avoided; since the distinctions we have heard of right and wrong, reasonable and absurd, in our childhood and early youth, will ever exercise an irresistible influence.[41]
To give a few exemplifications.--A man of gentle temper, educated in the fear of God and the love of man, who becomes a soldier, the first time he has to take deliberate aim at human life will hardly do it without a strong pang of conscience. So, at least, it was with me. Nevertheless it is his duty; a duty which may be justified on higher, although worldly grounds; so long at least as mankind are not further advanced than they now are.
In like manner, he who after a long struggle forswears the religion of his fathers--the daily repeated lesson of his youth,--and embraces another on full conviction that it is better, will generally feel a slight, but difficultly subdued inquietude; and it is with that, just as it is with the most absurd fear of ghosts in those who have been educated in the belief of ghosts. They have a ghost-conscience, which they cannot get rid of. Nay, even more; with irritable characters, the mere persuasion that others hold them guilty of an evil action will give them so much the feeling of an evil conscience, that it appears in all its usual outward signs--embarrassment, blushing, and turning pale.
This may be carried so far as to lead to insanity. For instance: A man universally believed to have killed another, or one who really, though quite innocently, has killed another, may never enjoy a moment's tranquillity or happiness again. We even read of a Bramin, whose religious creed makes the murder of an insect as criminal as that of a man, who killed himself because an English 'savant' told him that he never drank a glass of water without destroying thousands of invisible creatures. 'Il n'y a qu'un pas du sublime au ridicule.'
Ugoni, in his Life of one of the most conscientious of men, Passaroni, relates that as he was one day going over the bridge of the 'Porta Orientale,' he saw a man lying fast asleep on the broad stone parapet, whence, if suddenly waked, he would probably have fallen into the river. He seized him by the arm, with difficulty aroused him, and with still greater made him understand why he had waked him. The porter, in a passion, requited his trouble with a hearty curse, and bid him go to the devil. Passaroni, greatly mortified and grieved at being the innocent cause of the man's wrath, pulled out a handful of coin, and gave it to him to drink the giver's health. Thereupon he left him quite satisfied; but had scarcely reached the end of the bridge, when it struck him that his gift would probably produce even worse consequences than his waking of the man had done; for that it would very likely lead the poor fellow into the crime of drunkenness. He immediately hurried back in great anxiety, found the man fortunately at the same spot, where he had laid himself down again exactly in his old position, and begged him, with some embarrassment, to give him back so much of the money as he did not want for his most pressing necessities. But as the rage of the porter, who thought himself fooled, now boiled over more furiously than ever, Passaroni devised another expedient: "Here, my friend," said he, "as you will not give me anything back, take another scudo, and promise me solemnly, that if you spend all the rest of the money in drink, you will buy something with that scudo to eat with it." Having received this promise from the 'fachino,' Passaroni's conscience was at length at rest, and he went contentedly home.
We must, I repeat,--if we would not be either unhappy, or ridiculous, and like a reed shaken with every wind,--educate our consciences as well as all the other faculties of our souls: that is, while we preserve them in all their purity, prescribe to them due limits; for even the noblest are otherwise liable to deterioration and perversion. The simplest and most universally applicable and universally intelligible guide is the precept of Christ, "Do not unto others (nor, we might add, to yourselves) what ye would not that others do unto you."
But as there exist, as yet, no true Christians, certain exceptions to this rule are, and, in the present state of society, must be, permitted, as for instance, the case of the soldier above cited; or that of a man who obeys the laws of honour, which in certain stations it is utterly impossible to brave. And then there remains no other solution of the difficulty, than to allow to others the same liberty of making exceptions that we find ourselves compelled to claim;--in this way we just manage to preserve charity, and, at all events, that justice which is called the 'lex talionis.'
That man has a happy, an enviable existence, to whom nature and surrounding circumstances have made it easy or possible to walk constantly in a beaten track; to be, from youth upwards, kind and loving, moderate in his desires and pure in his actions. The first fault is pregnant with sorrow and evil; for, as our philosophical poet so truly says,
"Das eben ist der Fluch des Bösen Dass es fortwuchernd immer Böses muss gebahren!"
And regeneration in this life is not always to be attained. May it not, then, be the last and highest act of mercy of Eternal Love, to have appointed death as a means of wiping out the confused and blotted scrawl, and restoring the troubled, misguided, soul to the condition of a pure white sheet, ready for happier trials? For that upon which the Holy has already been written here, must far higher bliss be in store. All-loving Justice punishes not as weak man punishes; but it can reward only where reward is due,--where it follows as an inevitable consequence of the past.
January 21st.
It is become very cold again, and the fire-place, 'wo Tag und Nacht die Kohle brennt,' is unhappily quite insufficient to produce a warm room, such as our stoves--which, spite of their ugliness, I now think of as admirably efficient--procure us. To set my blood in motion I ride the more, and to-day, on my way home, saw one of the many Cosmorames exhibited here, which certainly affords a very agreeable chamber journey, as they call it in B----. The picture of the Coronation of Charles the Tenth in the Cathedral at Rheims, doubtless gave me a far more commodious view of it than I should have had in the crowded church. But what tasteless costume, from the King to the lowest courtier! New and old mixed in the most ludicrous and offensive manner! If people will perform such farces, the least they can do is to make them as pretty as those at Franconi's. The ruins of Palmyra lay outstretched in solemn majesty in the boundless Desert, which a caravan in the distant horizon is slowly traversing under a torrid sun.
The most perfect illusion was the great fire at Edinburg:--it actually burned. You saw the flames stream upwards; then clouds of black smoke ascend; while the view of the whole landscape incessantly changed with the changes of this fearful light, just as in a real fire. Probably the proprietor's kitchen was behind the picture, and the fire which heated the fancy of credulous spectators like myself, roasted the leg of mutton which our shillings paid for.
January 28th.
For some days I have vegetated too completely to have much to write to you about. This morning I was not a little surprised to see R----, whom I thought almost with you, enter my room. He had been shipwrecked on his way to Hamburg, and driven back by the storm to Harwich; had passed a whole night in imminent peril, and is so heartily frightened, that he will hear no more of the sea as long as he lives. I therefore send him by Calais, and only write that you may not be uneasy. He has unfortunately lost some of the things he took for you.
Hyde Park afforded a new spectacle this morning. The large lake was frozen, and swarmed with a gay and countless multitude of skaters and others, who enjoyed these wintry pleasures, so rare here, with true child-like delight. A few years ago, in weather like this, a strange wager was laid. The notorious Hunt deals in shoe-blacking: a large sort of wagon filled with it and drawn by four fine horses, which the young gentleman his son drives 'four-in-hand,' daily traverses the city in all directions. This young Hunt betted a hundred pounds that he would drive the equipage in question at full speed across the 'Serpentine,' and won his wager in brilliant style. A caricature immortalized this feat, and the sale of his blacking, as is reasonable, increased threefold.
My house is grown very musical, for Miss A----, a newly-engaged opera-singer, has come to live in it. The thin English walls give me the advantage of hearing her every morning gratis.
I have not been well for some days. The town air does not agree with me, and compels me to follow a 'régime' like that in your song:--
"un bouillon d'un roguon de papillon."
C---- Hall, Feb. 2d.
Lord D----, to whose wife I had been introduced in London, invited me to visit him for a few days at his country house. I accepted his invitation with more pleasure because C---- Hall is the place of which Repton says that he had laboured at its embellishment, together with its proprietor, forty years ago. Indeed it does him the greatest honour; though, from all I saw and heard, it appeared to me that the admirable taste of its Lord was entitled to the largest share of the merit; especially in sparing old trees which Repton would have removed. Nevertheless an honourable feeling of gratitude has dedicated an alcove, commanding a wonderfully beautiful prospect, to the man to whom landscape-gardening is so much indebted. Repton's son, who was with us, had told Lady D---- a great deal about M----; and as she is almost as good a 'parkomane' as myself, we had a very attractive subject in common, and walked about for some hours in the flower-garden, which is still more tasteful than splendid, and is adorned with some graceful marble statues by Canova.
I did not see the master of the house, who was suffering from gout, till we came down to dinner, when I met a large company; amongst others Lord M----, who had just been to inspect the ships of war lying in the Thames.
Lord D---- was lying on a sofa, covered with a Scotch plaid, and embarrassed me a little by his first address.
"You don't know me," said he, "and yet we saw each other very often thirty years ago." Now as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of, I was obliged to beg for a further explanation, though I cannot say I was much delighted at having my age so fully discussed before all the company,--for you know I claim not to look more than thirty. However, I could but admire Lord D----'s memory. He remembered every circumstance of his visit to my parents with the Duke of Portland, and recalled to me many a little forgotten incident. What originals were then to be found, and how joyously and heartily people entered into all sorts of amusement in those days, his conversation gave me new and very entertaining proof of.
He mentioned among others a certain Baron, who believed as firmly in ghosts as in the Gospel, and held Cagliostro for a sort of Messias. One day when he went out alone, to skate on the lake near our house, the whole party dressed themselves in sheets and other things borrowed from the wardrobe of the theatre, and presented to the eyes of the terrified Illuminatus the awful appearance of a party of ghosts, in broad daylight, on the ice. In mortal terror he fell on his knees, spite of his skates; and with a volubility which the venerable Lord could not think of, even now, without laughing, uttered "Abracadabra," and bits of Faust's incantations, interspersed with fragments of quavering psalms. During this, one of the ghosts, who, with the help of a long stick under his sheet, made himself sometimes tall and sometimes low, slipped and fell, stripped of all disguise, directly before the knees of the praying Baron. His faith was too robust, however, to be shaken by such a trifle. On the contrary, his terror was increased to such a pitch, that he sprang up, fell again, in consequence of his unlucky 'chaussure,' but soon scrambled up, and with a dexterity no one gave him credit for before, vanished like the wind, amid the cheers of the whole company.
Even the confession of the whole joke by the actors in it never could convince him that he had been hoaxed, and no power on earth could ever induce him to see the frightful lake again as long as he remained at M----.
You know I cannot avoid the reflections which often fill me with melancholy even on the most joyous occasions. So was it with me now, as Lord D---- thus conjured up before me the picture of departed times;--as he eulogized my grandfather's amiable character, described my mother's high spirit, and what a wild child I was: 'Hélas, ils sont passés ces jours de fête.' The amiable man has long lain mouldering in his grave; the high-spirited young woman is old, and no longer high-spirited; and even the wild boy is more than tamed--nay, not very far from those days in which he will say, "I have no pleasure in them:" the mad-cap young Englishman who played the ghost on the ice, lay before me, an old man, tortured with gout, stretched helpless on a sofa,--the tale of the merry pranks of his youth interrupted by sighs extorted by pain; while the poor fool whom he so terrified as ghost has long been a ghost himself, and the good Lord would be not a little alarmed if his visit happened to be returned. "Oh world, world!" as Napoleon said.[42]
February 3d:--Evening.
Lord D---- possesses a fine collection of pictures, among which are Titian's celebrated Venus; the death of Regulus, by Salvator Rosa; a large picture of Rubens, which has frequently been engraved; and a very fine Guido. In the two latter indeed, a not very agreeable subject, a lifeless head, is the principal object; in the one that of Cyrus, in the other that of John the Baptist. But Guido's Herodias is another of those figures instinct with the genius of poetical, divine beauty, uniting the most lovely womanliness with the deepest tragic expression, which leave so indelible an impression, and are so seldom found in reality. There is a lady of your acquaintance who corresponds with this ideal, Countess A---- of B----. She was, when I knew her,[43] the most beautiful and richly dressed woman I ever beheld. Perfect symmetry, absolute harmony, reigned in her person and in her mind; so that the most heterogeneous things equally became her. Majestic as a queen, when she was 'en representation;' distinguished by the most easy and graceful manners, the most exquisite knowledge of the world, when doing the honours of her own house; and by the most 'naïve,' touching kindness and sweetness in the circle of her family;--but under every aspect rendered more interesting and impressive by a trace of thoughtful melancholy never wholly effaced, allied to that perfect feminine tenderness which gives to woman the highest and most resistless charm in the eyes of men;--her resemblance to this picture of Guido's was striking. Two very pretty attendants of Herodias are in admirable contrast with the main figure. They are perfect ladies-in-waiting, who have no soul for anything beyond their court and their service; and their beauty receives from its very unmeaningness a certain rather animal character, which we can contemplate with an agreeable carelessness--a sort of repose to the mind after the profound and thrilling impression made by the main figure. The one is watching the glance of her mistress with an unmeaning smile; the other looks at the head of the Martyr in the charger with the same indifference as if it were 'a pudding.'
I must describe to you, once for all, the 'vie de château' in England; of course only the common canvas, on which the Special is in every case embroidered by each man according to his fancy. The groundwork is in all the same, nor did I find it at all altered from what I formerly saw here. It forms, without any question, the most agreeable side of English life; for there is great freedom, and a banishment of most of the wearisome ceremonies which, with us, tire both host and guest. Notwithstanding this, one finds not less luxury than in the town; this is rendered less burthensome by the custom I mentioned of receiving guests only during a short period of the year, and on invitation.
The ostentation which, doubtless, lies at the root of such customs, we may well forgive, for the better reception it procures us.
Strangers have generally only one room allotted to them, usually a spacious apartment on the first floor. Englishmen seldom go into this room except to sleep, and to dress twice a-day, which, even without company and in the most strictly domestic circle, is always 'de riguer;' for all meals are commonly taken in company, and any one who wants to write does it in the library. There, also, those who wish to converse give each other 'rendezvous,' to avoid either the whole society, or particular parties, in the formation of which people are quite at liberty. Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours with the young ladies, who are always very literarily inclined. Many a marriage is thus concocted or destroyed, between the 'corpus juris' on the one side and Bouffler's Works on the other, while fashionable novels, as a sort of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle.
Ten or eleven is the hour for breakfast, at which you may appear in 'negligée.' It is always of the same kind as that I described to you in the inn, only of course more elegant and complete. The ladies do the honours of the table very agreeably. If you come down later, when the breakfast is removed, a servant brings you what you want. In many houses he is on the watch till one o'clock, or even later, to see that stragglers do not starve. That half-a-dozen newspapers must lie on the table for every one to read who likes, is, of course, understood. The men now either go out hunting or shooting, or on business; the host does the same, without troubling himself in the least degree about his guests (the truest kindness and good breeding;) and about half an hour before dinner the company meet again in the drawing-room in elegant toilette.
The course and order of dinner I have already described to you.
* * * * *
England is the true land of contrasts--'du haut et du bas' at every step. Thus, even in elegant houses in the country, coachmen and grooms wait at dinner, and are not always free from the odour of the stable. At the second breakfast, the 'luncheon,' which is served a few hours after the first, and is generally eaten only by the women (who like to make 'la petite bouche' at dinner,) there are no napkins, and altogether less neatness and elegance than at the other meals.
This as parenthesis:--I now return to the 'order of the day.' When the men have drunk as much as they wish, they go in search of tea, coffee, and the ladies, and remain for some hours with them, though without mixing much. To-day, for instance, I observed the company was distributed in the following manner. Our suffering host lay on the sofa, dosing a little; five ladies and gentlemen were very attentively reading in various sorts of books (of this number I was one, having some views of parks before me;) another had been playing for a quarter of an hour with a long-suffering dog; two old Members of Parliament were disputing vehemently about the 'Corn Bill;' and the rest of the company were in a dimly-lighted room adjoining, where a pretty girl was playing on the piano-forte, and another, with a most perforating voice, singing ballads.
I cannot help remarking here, that Lord and Lady D---- are among the most enlightened, unpretending, and therefore most agreeable, of the people of rank here. He is of the moderate Opposition, and desires the real good of his country, and nothing else; a patriot wholly devoid of egotism,--the noblest title that a cultivated man can bear. She is goodness, cordiality, and unpretendingness itself.
A light supper of cold meats and fruits is brought, at which every one helps himself, and shortly after midnight all retire. A number of small candlesticks stand ready on a side-table; every man takes his own, and lights himself up to bed; for the greater part of the servants, who have to rise early, are, as is fair and reasonable, gone to bed. The eternal sitting of servants in an ante-room is not the custom here; and except at appointed times, when their services are expected, they are little seen, and one waits on oneself.
At night I found a most excellent chintz bed with a canopy. It was so enormously large that I lay like an icicle in it,--for the distant fire was too remote to give any sensible warmth.
February 5th.
Between ourselves be it said, however agreeable, however unconstrained may be one's abode in another's house, it is always too constrained, too unaccustomed, above all too dependent for me, proud and fond of ease as I am, ever to feel perfectly at home. This I can be nowhere but within my own walls, and, next to that, in a travelling carriage or an inn. This may not be the best taste in the world, but it is mine. There are so many men who have no taste of their own, at all, that I am delighted with myself for having one, though it be not of the best. I shall therefore not exhaust the term of my invitation, but evacuate my large bed to-morrow, and proceed to Brighton, a watering-place now in great fashion.
I have ridden all over the park here, in company with Lord D----'s very kind and polite son. It is less remarkable for features of striking beauty, than for the absence of all defect. Some views through wooded valleys, of the distant Thames, the town of Gravesend and its rising masts, have however a grand character; but nothing can exceed the incomparable skill with which the walls of wood within the park are planted, in masterly imitation of nature. As a study, I should recommend Cobham, in some respects, more than any of the parks I have described; though in extent and costliness it is surpassed by many. It is very modest, but to the admirer of nature its character is only the more delightful and satisfactory. It has also a great variety of hill, valley, and wood.
I took leave of Lady D---- in her own room; a little sanctuary, furnished with delightful disorder and profusion:--the walls full of small 'consoles,' surmounted with mirrors and crowded with choice curiosities; and the floor covered with splendid camellias, in baskets, looking as if they grew there.
Among these flowers, dear Julia, I take my leave of you. I entreat you to send me an answer of equal length, that your conscience may not reproach you with loving me less than I love you.
Your hearty Friend, L----.