mahogany; his chair was of the same material. He was helped to turtle
and ate it with a silver spoon. To gratify his palate he drank ever
and anon iced punch, sweetened he asked not how, and strengthened
with rum. Over his turbot he sprinkled Cayenne pepper, and flavoured
his cucumber with Chili vinegar. With a curry he called for hot
pickles, and having in the dessert refreshed himself with some
excellent preserved ginger, took a cup of coffee, and concluding with
a small glass of noyeau, stepped again into his dennett, and reached
his villa in safety, blessing the names of Buxton, Wilberforce, and
Macaulay, and receiving the tender compliments of his affectionate
wife upon the virtue of drinking nothing but free sugar.
And this is what five hundred persons do, under the guidance of the
Liverpool speculators, and the leaders of apes and asses in this
metropolis. Let us merely point out to such of our readers who like
the followers of cant, and will not take the trouble of thinking for
themselves, those inconsistencies which one day's adventures of our
pious "saint" develop.
Had he acted upon principle instead of policy, this exemplary old
body would have remembered that rum and coffee, as well as sugar,
are the produce of slave-labour,--that his morning's chocolate and
his afternoon's liqueur have the same origin; he would neither
have ventured to trust to his lance-wood springs, nor have dared
to blow his nose with his cotton handkerchief; neither would he
in the morning after his hearty dinner, have been prevailed upon
to take a little tamarind drink to cool his constitution, nor have
allowed his apothecary to suggest an exhibition of castor-oil
if his indigestion continued; but even if he had overcome these
scruples, how would he have summoned sufficient fortitude to put into
circulation his sovereigns and shillings, which, although our only
circulating medium, are furnished by the labour of slaves, chained
to their horrid work, lest they should risk the punishment of death
by endeavouring to escape the toil and climate to which they are
consigned.
It is with the slavery question as it is with the over-refinement of
all other feelings,--it only requires to be looked into and analysed
to be detected in all its flagrant folly and absurdity. Had our pious
"free and easy" sugar friend followed up his own doctrine, he would
long before this have quitted his villa, disposed of his dennett,
and retired to some cave, where neither eating nor drinking, nor
furniture dyed with fustic and logwood, were required, and have shown
himself a sincere saint, an abjurer of all the good things of this
world, and a man of ten thousand; but until we see the whole life
of a man in the same keeping, and find him equally scrupulous upon
all points, and not exhibiting his piety only where his mercantile
prospects are implicated, we must beg to avow our opinion that
the "free and easy" sugar system at fourteen-pence per pound,
however profitable to the grocer, and gratifying to the East India
proprietor, is neither more nor less than a contemptible absurdity,
and a most unqualified humbug.
PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU'S TOUR.[62]
It would appear that the German publishers are before even our own in
the arts of the puff; at least we have not yet seen a "fashionable
novel" of the Burlington Street manufactory ushered into public life
with the trumpetings of a first-rate English author. This "celebrated
tour," as the advertisements style it, has, however, the advantage
of a preliminary flourish from no less a person than Meinherr von
Goethe, who, among other things, extols the tourist for the accuracy
of his descriptions of English scenery and society, particularly
"the hunting-parties and drinking-bouts, which succeed each other in
an unbroken series," and which "are made tolerable to us" (_i. e._
M. Goethe) "only because he can tolerate them." "The peculiarities
of English manners," continues the puff, "are drawn vividly and
distinctly, without exaggeration;" but how the sage of Weimar should
have fancied himself qualified to form so decided an opinion upon the
accuracy of his _protegé_, we do not presume exactly to understand;
inasmuch as we have reason to believe that he has suffered
eighty-three years of his youth to slip away without availing himself
of an opportunity of judging of our peculiarities from personal
experience.
"Like other unprejudiced travellers of modern times, (he
proceeds) our author is not very much enchanted with the English
form of existence--his cordial and sincere admiration is often
accompanied by unsparing censure.... He is by no means inclined
to favour the faults and weaknesses of the English; and in
these cases--(what cases?)--he has the greatest and best among
them,--those whose reputation is universal,--on his side.
"The great charm, however, which attaches us to his side,
consists in the moral manifestations of his nature, which run
through the book: his clear understanding, and simple natural
manner, render him highly interesting. We are agreeably affected
by the sight of a right-minded and kind-hearted man, who
describes with charming frankness the conflict between will and
accomplishment!" (What does the Patriarch mean?)
"We represent him to ourselves as of dignified and prepossessing
exterior. He knows how instantly to place himself on an equality
with high and low, and to be welcome to all;--that he excites
the attention of women is natural enough--he attracts and is
attracted; but his experience of the world enables him to
terminate any little _affaires du cœur_ without violence or
indecorum."
We shall presently enable the reader to judge for himself as to some
points of this eulogy. Meantime, we turn the leaf, and find a second
flourish from--the translator of these wonderful letters.
"A rumour," says this cautious and disinterested critic, "has
ascribed them to Prince Puckler-Muskau, a subject of Prussia,
who is known to have travelled in England and Ireland about the
period at which they were written. He has even been mentioned
as the author in the Berlin newspapers: as, however, he has not
thought fit to accept the authorship, we have no right to fix it
upon him, though the voice of Germany has perhaps sufficiently
established his claim to it. At all events, the Letters contain
allusions to his rank which fully justify us in ascribing them to
a German Prince."
After Goethe and the translator, or, in German phrase, oversetter,
comes the editor!--who, in the midst of some would-be-pathetic cant,
drops two bits of information, both entirely false; namely, that "the
letters, with very few and unimportant exceptions, were written at
the moment;" and, secondly, that "the author is dead!" The editor
adds that there actually exist four volumes of this correspondence,
but from "various circumstances, which cannot be explained, it has
been found necessary to publish the two last volumes first;"--the
pair, as yet unprinted, containing his highness's opinions and
illustrations of London society, as these, now before us, exhibit
the "manners and customs" of the provinces, and of Ireland.
As to the alleged demise of the author--Shakspeare mentions a certain
class of persons who "die many times before their deaths;" and
perhaps his highness may have thought it as well to feel his ground
with our provinces before venturing upon what he calls "the _grand
foyer_ of European aristocracy." However--unless the whole affair
is an impudent juggle--we are justified in fixing this performance
upon the Prince Puckler-Muskau; and we only wonder how any English
reviewer of the book could have hesitated about doing so, provided
he had read as far as page 284 of the first volume, where we find
our "German prince" at Limerick, in company with Mr. O'Connell, a
relation of the great agitator.
"We quitted the church, and were proceeding to visit the rock
near the Shannon, upon which the English signed the treaty after
the battle of the Boyne--a treaty which they have not been
remarkably scrupulous in observing. I remarked that we were
followed by an immense crowd of people, which increased like
an avalanche, and testified equal respect and enthusiasm. All
on a sudden they shouted, 'Long life to Napoleon and Marshal
----.' 'Good God,' said I, 'for whom do the people take me? As
a perfectly unpretending stranger I cannot in the least degree
understand why they seem disposed to do me so much honour.' 'Was
not your father the Prince of ----?' said O'Connell. 'Oh no,'
replied I; 'my father was indeed a nobleman of rather an older
date, but very far from being so celebrated.' 'You must forgive
us then,' said O'Connell, incredulously; 'for, to tell you the
truth, you are believed to be a natural son of Napoleon, whose
partiality to your supposed mother was well known.' 'You joke,'
said I, laughing: 'I am at least ten years too old to be the son
of the great emperor and the beautiful princess.' He shook his
head, however, and I reached my inn amid reiterated shouts. Here
I shut myself up, and I shall not quit my retreat to-day. The
people, however, patiently posted themselves under my windows,
and did not disperse until it was nearly dark."
We make no apology for anticipating here the arrival of his highness
at Limerick, because, by showing in the outset the mistake that
Mr. O'Connell made between the titles of Prince de la Moscowa
and Prince Muskau, we establish at once the identity of Goethe's
"unprejudiced traveller," and a "right-minded" and "decorous"
terminater of _affaires de cœur_--of whom many of our readers have
had some personal knowledge--and whose imposing mustachios are still
fresh in our own recollection. The cold nights of November do not
more surely portend to the anxious sportsman in the country the
approach of woodcocks, than do the balmy zephyrs of May foretell the
arrival of illustrious foreigners in London; each succeeding season
brings its flock of princes, counts, and barons, who go the ordinary
round of dinners, assemblies, concerts and balls; yawn each of them
one night under the gallery of the House of Commons; one day take
their position on the bench at the Old Bailey; visit the Court of
Chancery; snatch a glimpse of the House of Peers; mount St. Paul's;
dive into the Tunnel; see Windsor; breakfast at Sandhurst; attend
a review on a wet morning in Hyde Park; dance at Almack's; try for
an heiress--fail; make a tour of the provinces; enjoy a battue in
Norfolk; sink into a coal-pit in Northumberland; admire grouse and
pibrochs in Scotland; fly along a rail-road; tread the plank of a
steam-packet, and so depart,--"and then are heard no more."
Such was this Prince Puckler-Muskau; and such were his qualifications
and opportunities for depicting that
"strange insular life which" (according to the clear and
consistent summary of M. Goethe) "is based in boundless
wealth and civil freedom, in universal monotony and manifold
diversity--formal and capricious, active and torpid, energetic
and dull, comfortable and tedious, the envy and the derision of
the world!"
His first letter, addressed, as all his letters are, to his "dear
Julia,"--(that is to say, no doubt, his highness's consort,
Princess Puckler, to his alliance with whom, we believe, he owed
his princeship)--is dated Cheltenham, July 12, 1828; and the first
observation which his highness is pleased to make upon his arrival at
that popular watering-place is one of a mixed character, political,
statistical, and philosophical, whence may be derived a tolerably
fair estimate of his highness's accuracy and knowledge of "things
in general." He is describing to his "dear Julia" the nature and
character of the distress amongst the lower orders in England, and
its causes and origin.
"The distress," says his highness, "in truth, consisted in this:
that the people, instead of having three or four meals a day,
with tea, cold meat, bread and butter, beefsteaks, or roast meat,
were now obliged to content themselves with two, consisting only
of meat and potatoes. It was, however, just harvest time, and the
want of labourers in the fields so great, that the farmers gave
almost any wages. Nevertheless, I was assured that the mechanics
would rather destroy all the machinery and actually starve,
than bring themselves to take a sickle in their hands, or bind
a sheaf, so intractable and obstinate are the English common
people rendered by their universal comfort, and the certainty of
obtaining employment if they vigorously seek it. From what I have
now told you, you may imagine what deductions you ought to make
from newspaper articles."
This valuable information is followed by an anecdote:--
"Yesterday, '_entre le poire et le fromage_,'"--(at what period
of a Cheltenham dinner that might be, his highness does not
condescend to explain)--"I received the twice-declined visit of
the master of the ceremonies, a gentleman who does the honour
of the baths, and exercises a considerable authority over
the company of an English watering-place, in virtue of which
he welcomes strangers with most anti-English officiousness
and pomposity, and manifests great care and zeal for their
entertainment. An Englishman invested with such a character has
_mauvais jeu_, and vividly recalls the ass in the fable, who
tried to imitate the caresses of the lap-dog. I could not get
rid of my visitor till he had swallowed some bottles of claret
with me, and devoured all the dessert the house afforded. At
length he took his leave, first extorting from me a promise
that I would honour the ball of the following evening with my
presence. However, I had so little inclination for company and
new acquaintances, that I made _faux bond_, and left Cheltenham
early in the morning."
Who the master of the ceremonies at Cheltenham, thus uncourteously
likened by his highness unto an ass, may be, we have not the
advantage of knowing; but certain it is that, however derogatory
such an office might at first sight appear, the characters and
profession of some of the individuals filling it prove that it is
not so considered; and it is, at all events, highly improbable that
a gentleman, paying an official visit to a foreign prince, would
force his society upon his illustrious host for a sufficient length
of time to drink several bottles of claret; and still more improbable
is it that any man--gentleman or not--could contrive to "devour all
the dessert the Plough at Cheltenham afforded," at a sitting. If,
however, the _arbiter elegantiarum_ of Cheltenham did really conduct
himself in the manner described, he followed the example of Hamlet
with the daggers,--he spoke of ceremony, but used none.
At page 14, we reach Llangollen, where his highness is pleased to
make an observation, which, coming from a prince, sounds strange.
He tells his Julia that "where he pays well, he is always the first
person!" "We represent him to ourselves (quoth Goethe) as of a
dignified appearance;" but the landlords and waiters seem to have
wanted such discrimination. He then informs us--
"that his appetite, enormously sharpened by the mountain air,
was most agreeably invited by the aspect of the smoking coffee,
fresh guinea-fowls' eggs, deep yellow mountain butter, thick
cream, 'toasted muffins' (a delicate sort of cake eaten hot with
butter), and lastly, two red spotted trout just caught; all
placed on a snow-white table-cloth of Irish damask;--a breakfast
which Walter Scott's heroes in 'the highlands' might have been
thankful to receive at the hands of that great painter of human
necessities. '_Je dévore déjà un œuf._'--Adieu!"
It is laid down by Hannah, in "Hamilton's Bawn," that a captain of a
horse
"has never a hand that is idle;
For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the bridle;"
and we infer, from the animated account given by his highness of his
own activity, that he must have been either a dragoon or a hussar,
for, while with one hand he is describing to the sentimental Julia
the delights of his breakfast, he is, by his own showing, actually
eating an egg with the other.--His notion of being served with
guinea-fowls' eggs we presume to have arisen from the price which the
innkeeper charged for them, for although eggs are plenty in Wales,
princes are scarce; but what his highness means by describing Sir
Walter Scott as a great painter of human necessities, is quite beyond
us.--After breakfast, he impudently intrudes himself on Lady Eleanor
Butler and Miss Ponsonby, and quizzes them and their pretty cottage
in a style which, all the circumstances considered, one might almost
be tempted to call brutal. Those amiable spinsters are, however, no
more--and we may pass on.
By a reference to page 27, we find that his highness slept
"admirably," on the night of the 15th of August, at his inn in Wales,
where he describes himself sitting at the window, looking at the sea,
and the ships thereon. "On the landward"--whatever that means--he
says, "rises a castle of black marble, surrounded by ancient oaks."
And in this retirement he finds, "very unexpectedly,"--we should
think so,--a "thin" friend of his, with "magnificent calves,
elegantly dressed;" a gentleman who is "so good-natured and yet so
sarcastic, so English and yet so German," etc., etc.; and this so
delightful personage tells him a story, which, in order to fill up
a certain number of pages, his highness is good enough to repeat,
though it contains nothing worthy of notice, except an ill-natured
slap at the poor Duke of St. Albans, who treated him with every mark
of civility when he was in England.
His highness is tempted to visit the marble castle which he has seen
from his window, and is "remarkably well received there."
"The bells of the various rooms," says his highness, "are
suspended in a row on the wall, numbered, so that it is
immediately seen in what room any one has rung; the sort of
pendulum which is attached to each wire continues to vibrate for
ten minutes after the sound has ceased, to remind the sluggish of
their duty."
"The females of the establishment," continues his highness, "have
also a large common room, in which, when they have nothing else
to do, they sew, knit, and spin; close to this is a closet for
washing the glass and china, which comes within their province.
Each of them, as well as of the man-servants, has her separate
bed-chamber in the highest story. Only the housekeeper and the
butler have distinct apartments below. Immediately adjoining
that of the housekeeper, is a room where coffee is made, and
the store-room, containing everything requisite for breakfast,
which important meal, in England, belongs specially to her
department.... Near the butler's room is his pantry, a spacious
fire-proof room with closets on every side for the reception of
the plate, which he cleans here, and the glass and china used at
dinner, which must be delivered back into his custody as soon as
it is washed by the women. All these arrangements are executed
with the greatest punctuality. A locked staircase leads from the
pantry into the beer and wine cellar, which is likewise under the
butler's jurisdiction."
Of the cordiality of his highness's reception at the marble castle
we have no doubt; but he leaves us in the dark as to whether he had
been the guest of the housekeeper or the butler, though we confess
we rather incline to the former, not only because, according to his
guarantee, the author of the "Sorrows of Werter," he attracted women
and was attracted by them, because he refers, with something of a
regretful feeling, to the "locked staircase" of the wine-cellar:
had the butler been at home, there is every reason to hope that
his highness would not have found it closed against him, but, like
another Archer, would have been kindly welcomed by the Cambrian Scrub.
His highness next visits a slate-quarry, over which he tells us
it "took him a considerable time to take even a hasty glance." He
then gives us the average of casualties which happen annually, and
breaks off into a profane medley of nonsense, impiously entitled
"Reflections of a Pious Soul," upon which we decline commenting, lest
we should be compelled to extract even the smallest portion of it.
In his highness's account of Carnarvon Castle we are favoured
with an historical fact so interesting and so new withal, that
we must extract it bodily, from page 77; which page is moreover
ostentatiously headed, "Origin of the Prince of Wales's Motto."
"On descending, my guide showed me the remains of a vaulted
chamber, in which, according to tradition, Edward II., the first
Prince of Wales, was born. The Welsh, in consequence of the
oppressions of English governors in the earlier times of partial
and momentary conquest, had declared to the king that they would
obey none but a prince of their own nation. Edward therefore
sent for his wife Eleanor in the depth of winter, that she might
lie-in in Caernarvon Castle. She bore a prince; upon which the
king summoned the nobles and chiefs of the land, and asked them
solemnly whether they would submit to the rule of a prince who
was born in Wales, and could not speak a word of English. On
their giving a joyful and surprised assent, he presented to them
his newborn son, exclaiming in broken Welsh, _Eich dyn!_ _i.e._,
'This is your man!' which has been corrupted into the present
motto of the English arms, _Ich Dien_."
It seems hardly worth while detailing the true history of this
motto, since every child knows it--yet to prove, on the spot, the
deplorable ignorance of this pretender, every child does know that
the distinguishing device of the Prince of Wales (having nothing
to do with the English arms), viz., the plume of three ostrich
feathers, with the motto Ich Dien, which, in Prince Puckler's own
mother-tongue, signifies 'I serve,' was assumed by Edward the
Second's grandson, the Black Prince, in memory of the death of John,
king of Bohemia, the lawful owner of the said device, in the battle
of Cressy. One might have expected a little heraldry at least from
the Château of Thonderdentronck.
Ten pages of stupid blasphemy bring us to page 88, where the
baser propensities of his mind give place to its overweening
passion--personal vanity. The hero of "moral manifestations" thus
confides to his dear princess the conquest he has made of a bar-maid
at Bangor:--
"I had read thus far when the little Eliza appeared with my
breakfast, and with an arch good-nature bid me good morning
'after my long sleep.' She had just been to church, had all
the consciousness of being well dressed, and was waiting upon
a foreigner; three things which greatly incline women to be
tender-hearted. She accordingly seemed almost embarrassed when
I inquired about my departure early the following morning....
After dinner I went, under her guidance, to visit the walks round
the town. One of these is most romantically placed on a large
rock. We saw from hence Snowdon, in almost transparent clearness,
undimmed by a single cloud.... After this pastoral walk, tender
mutton closed the day."
Who is not inclined to exclaim with the Welsh, according to his
highness's version, "Eich dyn!" This is your man!
Skipping some more blasphemies, we find ourselves at Kennell Park,
the seat of Colonel Hughes.
"Towards evening," says his highness, "I arrived at the house of
my worthy colonel--a true Englishman in the best sense of the
word" (from being a Welshman, we presume). "He and his amiable
family received me in the friendliest manner. Country gentlemen
of his class, who are in easy circumstances, (with us they would
be thought rich,) and fill a respectable station in society; who
are not eager and anxious pursuers of fashion in London, but
seek to win the affection of their neighbours and tenants; whose
hospitality is not mere ostentation; whose manners are neither
'exclusive' nor outlandish, but who find their dignity in a
domestic life polished by education and adorned by affluence,
and in the observance of the strictest integrity; such form the
most truly respectable class of Englishmen. In the great world
of London, indeed, they play an obscure part; but on the wide
stage of humanity, one of the most noble and elevated that can
be allotted to man. Unfortunately, however, the predominance and
the arrogance of the English aristocracy is so great, and that
of fashion yet so much more absolute and tyrannous, that such
families, if my tribute of praise and admiration were ever to
fall under their eye, would probably feel less flattered by it,
than they would be if I enumerated them among the leaders of
_ton_."--Pp. 137, 138.