_Skimmings; or a Winter at Schloss Hainfeld in Lower Styria. By
Captain Basil Hall, Royal Navy, F. R. S. Philadelphia: Republished by
Carey, Lea and Blanchard._
“Skimmings,” we apprehend, is hardly better, as a title than
“Pencillings” or “Inklings”—yet Captain Hall has prefixed this little
piece of affectation to some pages of interest. His book, we are
informed in the Preface, is intended as a pioneer to a work of larger
dimensions, and consisting of passages from journals written during
three different excursions to the Continent. The specimen now given us
is principally valuable as treating of a region but little known, or
at least very partially described.
Towards the close of April 1834, the Captain, accompanied by his wife
and family, being on his way from Rome to Naples, received an
invitation from a certain Countess Purgstall to visit her castle or
Schloss of Hainfeld near Gratz in Lower Styria. The Countess, whose
name and existence were equally unknown to our travellers, was found
to be an elderly Scotch lady, who forty years before having married an
Austrian nobleman, went with him to Germany, and never {726} returned
to Scotland. She claimed moreover to be an early friend of Sir James
Hall, the captain's father. Induced by the knowledge of this fact, by
the earnest manner in which the old lady urged her invitation, and
more especially by a desire of seeing Lower Styria, our author paid
her a visit in October, taking the homeward route through that country
instead of following the usual track of English travellers through the
Tyrol.
The Countess Purgstall is a character in whom the reader finds himself
insensibly interested. Her maiden name was Jane Anne Cranstoun. She
was the sister of Lord Corehouse, and of Mrs. Dugald Stuart—moreover
our travellers find her a most agreeable companion and hostess, and
discover beyond a doubt that from herself Sir Walter Scott depicted
Die Vernon, the most original and spirited of his female paintings. It
is, consequently, almost needless to say that in early youth the
Countess was a votary of the gay world; and the circumstances under
which she was so solicitous for a visit from the son of her old
friend, were the more touching on this account. Her only son, a boy of
premature talent, having died, she had given herself up to grief; and
for three years she had been confined to bed. Captain Hall and his
family remained with her, at her urgent desire, until her decease,
which took place upon the 23d of March, within a day of the period
long before designated by herself for that event.
Besides the variety of singular anecdotes respecting the Countess and
her household, the volume is enriched with many curious stories,
scandalous, legendary, or superstitious. In a chapter entitled “The
Neighbors,” we have the Austrian nobility at their country residences
strikingly contrasted with the English _noblesse_. Here is an account
of a dinner given the Captain at the castle of an Hungarian nobleman,
near the village of St. Gothard.
In the midst of these national discussions the dinner appeared; and as
our morning's expedition had made us more than usually hungry, we
looked forward with less dread than we had ever done before to the
overloaded table, which all reports of the nature and extent of a
German dinner led us to expect. But our fears on this score, if we had
any, were groundless, for a less loaded repast never was seen. There
was positively too little for the company, and we felt awkward at
having, by our intrusion, diminished the scanty allowance of the
family. Every dish was carried off the table as clean as if, instead
of a goodly company of Hungarian ladies and gentlemen, with a couple
of hungry heretics from England, the Baron had introduced a dozen of
his wild boar hounds to lick the platters.
As this was the only Hungarian dinner we saw during our stay in these
parts, a notice of it may perhaps interest the lovers of good cheer.
We had first of all coldish, dirty-looking, thin soup; then a plate
with ill-cut slices of ill-salted tongue; and, after a long and dreary
interval, a dish consisting of slices of boiled beef, very cold, very
fat, and very tough. I know not whence the fat came; for in that
country there are no cattle bred for the table, but only for the
plough and the wagon, and after many years of labor they are killed,
not because they are fit to be eaten, (quite the contrary) but because
they can work no longer. The next dish promised better; it was a
salmon twisted into a circle, with his tail in his mouth, like the
allegorical images of eternity. But I am sure if I were to live, as
the Americans say, from July to Eternity, I should not wish to look
upon the like of such a fish again. It had been brought all the way
from Carinthia by the bold Baron himself. I need not say more. And yet
its bones were so nicely cleaned, that the skeleton might have been
placed in a museum of natural history, and named by Agassiz or
Deshayes without further trouble. Next arrived a dish of sausages
which disappeared in what the Germans call an Augenblick or twinkling
of an eye. Lastly, came the roast, as it always does in those
countries, but instead of a jolly English surloin or haunch, the dish
consisted of a small shred of what they facetiously called venison—but
such venison! Yet had the original stag been alive from which this
morsel was hewn, it could not have moved off faster. To wind up all,
instead of dessert, we were presented with a soup-plate holding eleven
small dry sweet cakes, each as big as a Geneose watch glass. In short,
not to spin out this sad repast, it reminded me of long by-gone days
spent in the midshipmen's birth on short allowance, where the daily
beef and bread of his gracious Majesty used to vanish in like manner,
and leave, as Shakspeare says, “not a wreck behind.” I ought not to
omit that the wine was scarcely drinkable, excepting, I presume, one
bottle of Burgundy, which the generous master of the house kept
faithfully to himself, not offering even the lady by his side, a
stranger and his own invited guest, a single glass, but drinking the
whole, to the last drop, himself! So much for a Hungarian magnate!
At Chapter X, we were somewhat astonished at meeting with an old
friend, in the shape of the verses beginning “_My Life is like the
Summer Rose_.” These lines are thus introduced. “One day, when I
entered the Countess' room, I observed that she had been writing; but
on my sitting down by her bedside, she sent away the apparatus,
retaining only one sheet of paper, which she held up, and said—‘You
have written your life; here is mine,’ and she put into my hands the
following copy of verses, by whom written she would not tell me.
Probably they are by herself, for they are certainly exactly such as
suited her cast of thought.” Here it certainly appears that the
Countess desired the Captain to think them her composition. Surely
these stanzas have had a singular notoriety, and many claimants!
It appears very clearly from the relation of Captain Hall and from a
letter of Lockhart's, published in the volume before us, that the
Countess Purgstall (Miss Cranstoun) had no little influence in the
formation of the literary character of Sir Walter Scott. In his youth
the great novelist, then comparatively unknown, was received on
friendly terms by the family of Dugald Stuart, of which Miss
Cranstoun, the elder sister of Mrs. Stuart, was a member. This
intimacy, we are told, led Sir Walter frequently to consult Miss C. in
regard to his literary productions, and we should infer that the
sagacity of the young lady readily appreciated the great merit of her
protegé. On this head an anecdote of deep interest is related.
Burger's poem “Leonore” was received in Scotland about 1793, and a
translation of it read by Mrs. Barbauld, at the house of Dugald
Stuart. Miss Cranstoun's description of the poem and its effect, took
possession of the mind of Sir Walter, and, having with great effort
studied the lines in the original, he at length completed himself a
poetical translation, and Miss Cranstoun, very much to her
astonishment, was aroused one morning at half past six o'clock, to
listen to its recital by the translator in person. Of course she gave
it all attention, and begged permission to retain the MS. for a few
days to look it over at leisure. To this the poet consented—adding
that she had as well keep it until his return from the country,
whither he was about to proceed on a visit. Of this {727} intended
visit, it seems the critic was aware. As soon as Sir Walter had gone,
she sent for their common friend Mr. Erskine, afterwards Lord
Kinneder, and confided to him a scheme for having the MS. printed. An
arrangement was made with Mr. Robert Miller the bookseller, by which a
small edition of “Leonore” was to be hastily thrown off, one copy to
be done on the finest paper and superbly bound. Mr. Miller had the
book soon ready, and despatched it to the address of “Mr. Scott,” so
as to arrive when the company were assembled round the tea-table after
dinner. Much curiosity was expressed by all—not forgetting Miss C.—to
ascertain the contents of so beautiful a little volume. The envelope
was at length torn off by the astonished author, who, for the first
time, thus saw himself in print, and who, “all unconscious of the
glories which awaited him, had possibly never dreamed of appearing in
such a dress.” He was now called upon to read the poem—and the effect
upon the company is said to have been electrical. These reminiscences
of Sir Walter form, possibly, the most interesting portions of Schloss
Hainfeld. The entire volume, however, has many charms of matter, and
more especially of manner. Captain Hall is no ordinary writer. This
justice must be done him.