_Sight-seeing—Westminster Hall._
My emotions on first entering Westminster Hall, were scarcely inferior
to those excited by the Abbey. Of course my first glance was towards the
oaken roof, whose noble span, and elaborate construction, have been so
largely eulogized, but which derives a richer glory than its material
one, from the moral sublimity of the historic events, to which its
venerable shadow has been lent. Beneath this roof the Constitution of
England has steadily and majestically matured for centuries; and to this
spot belongs the somewhat mysterious credit of an assimilating power,
akin to that of digestion in the human system. Whatever has been the
food, it has always managed to turn it into wholesome nutriment, and to
add it to the solid substance of the British State in the shape of bone
and sinew, or of veins and nerves. It has been the scene of violence and
outrage, and of both popular and imperial tyranny. No matter! Out of all
this evil has always come substantial good. The roof dates from Richard
Second’s time; and scene the first is the usurpation of the fiery
Bolingbroke. Here rose up that daring subject, amid astounded bishops
and barons, and crossing himself broadly on the breast, profanely
uttered the famous bravado—“In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, do challenge this reaume
of Englande”—adding mysterious words, from which it is equally
difficult to say on what grounds he did or did not rest his claims. Here
old Sir Thomas More forfeited his head, for high treason against “the
best of princes,” as he had long called old Harry Eighth; and here sat
old Hal himself, at Lambert’s trial, interrupting every fresh rejoinder
of the reformer, with the savage assurance—“Thou shalt burn, Lambert!”
I looked towards the great window beneath which he sat—and, lo! it was
no longer a window, but an open way, just constructed for access to the
New Houses of Parliament—a noble alteration, and a very speaking symbol
too, in my opinion; for thus, in the path of history, and from the seat
of law, will the future Senate of the Empire go to their responsible
labors as stewards of the noblest inheritance that exists among mankind.
Let them think, as they pass, of Strafford and of Charles; how in
suffering and sorrow they contributed to the British people that
distinguishing element of loyalty, which has rendered healthful their
not less characteristic love of liberty. Too many, I fear, imbued with
the superficial views of Macaulay, invest with sublimer associations the
fanatical Court which tried and condemned their Sovereign. Here sat
those bold, bad men; and daring, indeed, was their work; nor do I doubt
that it has been over-ruled for good to England; but then it should not
be forgotten, that the subsequent history of progressive and rational
freedom is far more directly the result of the wholesome resistance
opposed by Church and Crown to the spirit of anarchy, than to anything
in that spirit itself. Had the King of England been a Bourbon—had the
Church of England been a Genevan or a Roman one, that flood must have
washed all landmarks away: and the fabric of Constitutional Liberty,
which now attracts the admiration of all thinking men, could never have
been constructed. Honour, then, to the martyrs of Law and of Religion,
who, beneath this roof, built up the only barrier that has turned back
the turbulent waves of modern barbarism! I stood, and thought of
Charles, with sorrow for his grievous faults, but yet with gratitude for
the manly recompense he offered here to a people whom he had
unintentionally injured through their own antiquated laws, but whom he
defended against the worse tyranny of lawless usurpation, by his
majestic protest in this Hall, and by sealing it with his blood. Here,
too, the seven bishops delivered the Church and State of England when
they stood up against the treacherous son of Charles, and completed the
triumph of the Church by proving it as true to the people, as it had
been to the throne, on the same foundation of immutable principle. This
was the roof that rang with the shouts of vindicated justice, when those
fathers of the Church were set free! I looked up, and surveyed every
beam and rafter with reverence. The angels, carved in the hammer-beams,
were looking placidly down, each one with his shield upon his breast,
like the guardian spirits of a nation, true to itself and to ancestral
faith and order. The symbol is an appropriate one; for the frame-work of
the British Constitution is like this roof of Richard in many respects,
but in none more than this—that the strength and beauty of the whole
are fitly framed together, with inseparable features of human wisdom and
of divine truth; the latter being always conspicuous, and investing all
with reverend dignity and grace.
The floor of the old Hall presents a less sentimental aspect, and might
easily plunge imagination, by one step, into the ridiculous. Here are
the barristers walking about with clients, and with each other, arm in
arm, their gray wigs of divers tails, some set awry, and some strongly
contrasted with black and red whiskers, giving them a ludicrous
appearance; while their gowns, some of them shabby enough, are curiously
tucked under the arm, or carelessly dangling about the heels, apparently
an annoyance to the wearers, in either case. The several courts were in
session, in chambers which open out of the hall, along its sides. I
stepped into the Chancellor’s Court, where sat Lord Truro, listening, or
perhaps _not listening_, to the eminent Mr. Bethell. His Lordship in his
walrus wig, with a face proverbially likened to the hippopotamus, seemed
to represent the animal kingdom, as well as that of which the mace and
seal-bag, lying before him, were the familiar tokens. The court-room is
very small, popular audiences being not desirable, and open doors being
all that popular right can require. Here the same barristers looked far
from ludicrous—their attire seemed to fit the place and its duties.
Doubtless the influence of such things is an illusion, but nevertheless
it is a useful one, and contributes to the dignity, which it only
appears to respect. We need some such things in our Republic. Next I
stepped into the Vice-Chancellor’s Court, and saw Sir J. L. Knight Bruce
administering the law; and here I was introduced to several eminent
lawyers, whose cauliflower wigs covered a world of learning and of grave
intelligence. Stepping into the Common Pleas, there sat in a row, Lord
Chief Justice Jervis, and Justices Creswell, Williams and Talfourd. I
could not but look with interest at the author of Ion, but in the
disguise of his magistracy, I looked in vain for any feature which I
could identify with his portraits. In the Court of Queen’s Bench, Lord
Campbell was presiding, with three others; in the Bail Court, I saw
Justice Coleridge; and in the Court of Exchequer, Lord Chief Baron
Pollock, with Barons Park, Platt and Martin. Thus, with the greatest
facility, and in a very short space of time, can one see the most
favoured sons of the British Themis, and gain a good idea of the dignity
and close attention to business with which these courts are managed. The
Supreme Court of our own country, is far inferior in appearance,
although it is the only American Court which admits of any comparison
with these, and yet it is allowed on all hands, that “the law’s delay”
in England is an intolerable grievance, and that the expense of
obtaining justice, at these tribunals, is of itself a crying injustice.
Sallying forth into the street, I went round to view the rising
splendours of the Victoria Tower, the massive proportions of which
almost dwarf those of the Abbey. It confuses the beholder by the
elaborate richness of its details, its profuse symbolism, and all the
variety of its heraldic and allegorical decoration. When completed, it
will give a new, but harmonious aspect, to the acres of sacred and
princely architecture which spread around; but these English builders
are very slow in its construction, and prefer that it should rise only
ten feet a year, rather than hazard its chance of continuing forever.
How differently we _go ahead_ in America! This new palace of Westminster
will still be many years in finishing, but it is worthy of the nation to
let it thus grow after its own fashion. Alas! one fears, however, that
it is to be made the scene of the gradual taking down of the nation
itself. It is too likely to prove the house in which John Bull will be
worried to death by his own family.
In company with a friend, I next “took water” at Westminster bridge, for
a trip down the river. This _silent highway_ is now as busy as the
Strand itself—the spiteful little steamers that ply up and down, being
almost as numerous and as noisy as the omnibusses. Very swiftly we glide
along the river’s graceful bend, passing Whitehall, Richmond Terrace,
and the house lately occupied by Sir Robert Peel; shooting under
Hungerford bridge, past old Buckingham house, and the Adelphi Terrace,
and so under Waterloo bridge, to the Temple Gardens, where we land, and
where I find myself delighted with the casual survey of the different
walks and buildings, and especially with the Temple Church. Emerging
into Fleet-street, choked with carts and carriages, here is Temple-bar!
Passing under its arches, we are in the Strand, and so make our way to
Charing-Cross. Having made a complete circuit, by land and water, I
again went to Westminster bridge, and stepping into a steamer sailed up
the river to Chelsea. Here we pass the river-front of the New Houses of
Parliament; and granting that there is a monotony of aspect in the long
stretch of the pile, as it rises from the water, I think it must be
allowed that, when complete, with its towers and decorations, the whole,
taking the Abbey also into view, will furnish the noblest architectural
display in the world. Westminster bridge should be reconstructed, in
harmony with the rest, and then, whoever may find fault with the scene,
may be safely challenged to find its parallel for magnificence and
imperial effect.
And yet looking to the other side of the river, how far more attractive
to my eye were the quiet gardens and the venerable towers of Lambeth!
Its dingy brick, and solemn little windows, with the reverend ivy
spreading everywhere about its walls, seemed to house the decent and
comely spirit of religion itself: and one could almost gather the true
character of the Church of England, from a single glance at this old
ecclesiastical palace, amid the stirring and splendid objects with which
it is surrounded. Old, and yet not too old; retired, and yet not
estranged from men; learned, and yet domestic; religious, yet nothing
ascetic; and dignified, without pride or ostentation; such is the ideal
of the Metro-political palace, on the margin of the Thames. I thought as
I glided by, of the time when Henry stopped his barge just here to take
in Archbishop Cranmer, and give him a taste of his royal displeasure:
and of the time when Laud entered his barge at the same place, to go by
water to the Tower, “his poor neighbours of Lambeth following him with
their blessings and prayers for his safe return.” They knew his better
part.
We had a fine view of Chelsea Hospital, and passed by Chelsea Church,
famous for the monument of Sir Thomas More. We landed not far from this
Church, and called upon Martin, whose illustrations of Milton and
“Belshazzar’s Feast” have rendered him celebrated as a painter of a
certain class of subjects, and in a very peculiar style. He was engaged
on a picture of the Judgment, full of his mannerism, and sadly blemished
by offences against doctrinal truth, but not devoid of merit or of
interest. He asked about Allston and his Belshazzar, and also made
inquiries about Morse, of whose claim as the inventor of the Electric
Telegraph, he was entirely ignorant. Returning, we landed at Lambeth,
and my friend left his card at the Archbishop’s; observing, as we passed
into the court, that we should find the door of the residence itself
standing open, with a servant ready to receive us, as we accordingly
did. Such is the custom.
We then crossed Westminster bridge, and went to Whitehall, on foot,
visiting the Banqueting-room, now a royal chapel. The Apotheosis of
James the First, by Rubens, adorns the roof, but I tried in vain to be
pleased with it. The first question—“which is the fatal window through
which King Charles passed to the scaffold”—I asked quite in vain, for
nobody seems to be entirely sure about it. The chapel is heavy, and
unecclesiastical, although more like a sanctuary, in appearance, than
the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. We went into the court, or garden
behind the Banqueting-house, to look at James Second’s statue, by
Grinling Gibbons. It is in Roman costume, and defiled by soot and dust,
and the peculiar pointing position of one of its hands, has given
currency to a vulgar error, that it indicates the spot where the blood
of Charles fell from the scaffold. A soldier mounts guard in this place,
for it is yet regarded as a royal palace; all beside is quiet, and I
often returned to the spot during my residence in London, as one well
fitted for meditation, recalling such historical associations as memory
retained, and striving in vain to conceive it possible that here, in
very deed, such thrilling scenes were enacted two hundred years ago.
Even now there is nothing ancient about the looks of Whitehall. It
requires an effort to connect it at all with the past: and when one sees
the vane upon its roof, and imagines it the very one to which James
Second was always looking, while he prayed the Virgin and all the Saints
to keep William of Orange off the coast, even the era of 1688 seems
reduced to a modern date, and stripped of all its character as something
ancestral, and belonging to past time. I confess that in this garden of
Whitehall, I awoke from an American illusion, and began to feel that two
centuries is a very short period of time; just as afterward, on the
Continent, the scale took another slide upwards, and taught me to feel
that everything is modern which has happened since the Christian era.
This discovery gives one a curious sensation, and I am not sure that I
am the happier for having seen monuments of real antiquity, which have
had the effect of freshening the comparative antiquity of England, and
of reducing everything in America to the dead level of time present. I
was happier when I visited the ruins of the old Fort on Lake George, and
innocently imagined it a spot both ancient and august.
My reader will think my day sufficiently full already, but I must not
conclude without some reference to the pleasures of the evening. I drove
out to Chelsea, where the pupils of St. Mark’s Training College
performed the Oratorio of “Israel in Egypt.” The hail-stone chorus was
given with great effect, and several of the solos and recitatives were
creditably executed. I saw there, among others, Lord Monteagle, better
known as Mr. Spring Rice, but was more pleased with an introduction to
the head of the College, Mr. Derwent Coleridge, who showed me a very
striking portrait of his father—“the rapt one of the godlike forehead,”
and made some feeling allusions to his brother Hartley, then lately
dead. I saw also another member of this interesting family, Sara
Coleridge, one of the cleverest of womankind. Returning to London, I
stepped from the carriage at Hyde Park Corner, where chariots and wheels
of every description were still rumbling incessantly, and where the
gas-lamps made it light as day, though it was now eleven o’clock. I
looked at Apsley-house, where the Iron Duke was then living, and so made
my way along Piccadilly and St. James’s-street, as pleasantly as if I
had known them all my days, but thinking such thoughts as nothing but an
American’s earliest experiences of London life can possibly inspire.