... "with grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
A pillar of state: deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin."
He has work to do yet. If he were only fifty instead of seventy odd!
Well, God bless him for what he has done; may he rule England long!
[Sidenote: _The Queen Dowager._]
A memorable event occurred at Windsor, Sunday, June 19th--the Queen
Dowager reached her seventy-first year. At breakfast Mr. B. rose, and
addressing himself to her, made one of the sweetest, prettiest speeches
ever heard. He presented to her an exquisite silver cup, ornamented with
birds and flowers, and inscribed: "Presented to Mrs. M. C. at Windsor,
by the members of the coaching-party, upon her seventy-first birthday."
Mr. B.'s reference to her intense love of nature in all its glorious
forms, from the tiny gowan to the extended landscape, was most
appropriate.
We were completely surprised; and when the speaker concluded, the Scribe
was about to rise and respond, but a slight motion from Her Majesty
apprized him that she preferred to reply in person. She acquitted
herself grandly. Her speech was a gem (Mem.--it was so short). After
thanking her dear friends, she said:
"I can only wish that you may all have as good health, as complete
command of all your faculties, and enjoy flowers and birds and all
things of nature as much as I do at seventy-one." Here the voice
trembled. There were not many dry eyes. The quiver ran through the
party, and without another word the Queen sat slowly down. I was very,
very proud of that seventy-year old (I am often that), and deeply moved,
as she was, by this touching evidence of the regard of the
coaching-party for her.
This incident led to some funny stories about presentation speeches.
Upon a recent occasion, not far from Paisley, Aggie told us, a worthy
deacon had been selected to present a robe to the minister. The church
was crowded, and the recipient stood expectantly at the foot of the
pulpit, surrounded by the members of his family. Amid breathless silence
the committee entered and marched up the aisle, headed by the deacon
bearing the gift in his extended arms. On reaching the pulpit a stand
was made, but never a word came from the deacon, down whose brow the
perspiration rolled in great drops. He was in a daze, but a touch from
one of the committee brought him back to something like a realizing
sense of his position, and he stammered out, as he handed the robe to
the minister:
"Mr. Broon,
Here's the goon."
You need not laugh. It is not likely that you could make as good a
speech, which, I'll wager, is far better than the one over which he had
spent sleepless nights, but which providentially left him at the
critical moment.
Windsor, seen from any direction at a distance, is _par excellence_ the
castle--a truly royal residence; but, seen closely, it loses the grand
and sinks into something of prettiness. It is no longer commanding, and
is insignificant in comparison with the true castles of the North, the
surroundings of which are in keeping with the idea of a stronghold, and
take you at once to the times of the chieftain and his armed men. There
is nothing of this at Windsor, and the glamour disappears when you begin
to analyze. Royalty's famous abode should be looked at, as royalty
itself should be--at a safe distance.
[Sidenote: _St. George's Chapel._]
Service at St. George's Chapel will not soon be forgotten by our party.
The stalls of the Knights of the Garter, over the canopies of which hang
their swords and mantles surmounted by their crests and armorial
bearings, carry one far back into the days of chivalry. One stall
arrested and held my attention--that of the Earl of Beaconsfield. When I
was not gazing at Gladstone's face, I was moralizing upon the last
Knight of the Garter, whose flag still floats above the stall. Disraeli
won the blue ribbon about as worthily as most men, and by much the same
means--he flattered the monarch. But there is this to be said of him: he
had brains and made himself.
What a commentary upon pride of birth, the flag of the poor literary
adventurer floating beside that of my lord duke's! It pleased me much to
see it. How that man must have chuckled as he bowed his way among his
dupes, from Her Majesty to Salisbury, and passed the radical extension
of the suffrage that doomed hereditary privilege to speedy extinction.
But where will imperialism get such another leader, after all? It has
not found him yet.
"What is that up there?" asked one of our party. "The royal box, miss."
Were we really at the opera, then? A royal box in a church for the
worship of God! Did you ever hear anything like that! There is a royal
staircase, too. Why not? You would not have royalty on an equality with
us, would you, even if we are all alike miserable sinners and engaged in
the worship of that God who is no respecter of persons.
"Well, I think this is awful," said one of the party. "I don't believe
the good Queen would go to church in this way, if she only thought of
it. Our President and family have their pew just like the rest of us."
Our English members were equally surprised that the American should see
anything shocking in the practice, and the ladies fought out the matter
between themselves; the Americans insisting that the Queen should attend
worship as other poor sinners do, since all are equal in God's eyes; and
the English saying little, but evidently harboring the idea that even in
heaven special accommodations would probably be found reserved for
royalty, with maybe a special staircase to ascend by. Early education
and inherited tendencies account for much.
[Sidenote: _Royal Etiquette._]
The staircase question led to the story that the Marquis of Lorne was
not allowed to enter some performance by the same stair with his wife.
The American was up at this. "If I had a husband, and he couldn't come
with me, I wouldn't go." This made an end of the discussion, for the
English young lady's eyes told plainly of her secret vow that wherever
she went ---- must go too. All were agreed on this point; but on the
general question it was a drawn battle, the one side declaring that if
they were men they would not have a princess for a wife under any
circumstances, and the other insisting that, if they were princesses,
they would not have anybody but a prince for a husband.
We were honored while here by the presence of Mr. Sidney G. Thomas and
his sister, who came down from London and spent the day with us. Mr.
Thomas is the young chemist, who, in conjunction with his cousin Mr.
Gilchrist, would not accept the dictum of the authorities that
phosphorus, that fiend of steel manufacturers, cannot be expelled from
iron ores at a high temperature. They set to work over a small toy pot,
which deserves to rank with Watt's tea-kettle, to see whether the
scientific world had not blundered. Let me premise that the presence of
phosphorus in pig iron to the extent of more than about one tenth of
one per cent. is fatal to the production of good steel by the Bessemer
or open hearth processes. Do what you will, this troublesome substance
persists in remaining with the iron. If there be phosphorus in the
iron-stone you smelt, every atom of it will be found in the resulting
iron; and if there be any in the limestone, or the coke or coal used,
every atom of it also will find its way into the iron.
It is essential, therefore, that iron-stone should be found practically
free from phosphorus; but unfortunately such ore is scarce, and
therefore expensive. The great iron-stone deposits of England are full
of the enemy; so are those of America; hence, both countries depend
largely upon ores which have to be transported from Spain and other
countries. One authority estimates that if all the high phosphorus ores
in Britain could be made as valuable as those free from the
objectionable ingredient, the saving per annum would go far to pay the
interest upon the national debt. Many have been the attempts to devise
some tempting bait to coax this fiend to forego his strange affinity for
iron, and unite with some other element; but no, his satanic majesty
would cling to the metal.
Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist, in studying some highly creditable
experiments made by my friend Lothian Bell, Esq. (for he was upon the
right track), discovered an oversight which seemed to qualify the
results which he reached, and to render his experiments inconclusive.
It was possible, they thought, that his failure might have resulted from
the fiend not being _kept_ out when he _was_ out. So they went quietly
to work with their toy pot, and Eureka! Their charm had not only
exorcised the fiend, but they had discovered how to lead him away from
the molten metal into the refuse and shut the door on him there. Here
was a triumph indeed! I fancy they neither ate nor slept till repeated
experiments proved that the true charm had been found at last.
[Sidenote: _Iron and Phosphorus._]
Mr. E. Windsor Richards, the broad manager of the largest manufactory of
iron and steel in the world, was soon acquainted by them with the
discovery. He tried it upon a large scale, and announced the end of the
reign of King Phosphorus; but he dies hard. This was some years ago, for
I read the good news a few minutes after I had landed at Naples from the
East, on my way round the world in the year 1879. Many obstacles had yet
to be surmounted, but now every ton of steel manufactured at Mr.
Richards's great works is made from iron stone which a few years ago was
counted worthless for steel. Enough iron stone can be had for three
dollars to make a ton of pig iron suitable for steel rails. The same
amount of low phosphorus stone at Pittsburgh cost last year sixteen
dollars, and yet there are intelligent people who do not understand why
we cannot make rails as cheap as the English.
I wonder if I could explain to the general reader how Messrs. Thomas and
Gilchrist succeeded. It always seems to me like a fairy tale--I will
try. In making steel, ten tons of molten pig iron is run into a big pot
called a converter, and hundreds of jets of air are blown up through the
mass to burn out the silica and carbon, and finally to make it steel.
Now, phosphorus has a greater affinity for lime than for iron when it
reaches a certain temperature, and when the air blast brings the mass to
the required heat, the million particles of phosphorus, like so many
tiny ants disturbed, run hither and thither, quite ready to leave the
iron for the lime. These clever young men first put a lot of lime in the
bottom of the pot as a bait, and into this fly the ants, perfectly
delighted with their new home. The lime and slag float to the top and
are drawn off--but mark you, let the temperature fall and the new home
gets too cold to suit these salamanders, although the temperature may be
over 2,000 degrees, hot enough to melt a bar of steel in a moment if
thrown into the pot. No, they must have 2,500 degrees in the lime or
they will rush back to the metal.
But here lay a difficulty: 2,500 degrees is so very hot that no ordinary
pot lining will stand it, and of course the iron pot itself will not
last a moment. If ganister or fire brick is used it just crumbles away,
and besides this, the plaguey particles of phosphorus will rush into it
and tear it all to pieces. The great point is to get a basic lining,
that is, one free from silica. This has at last been accomplished, and
now the basic process is destined to revolutionize the manufacture of
steel, for out of the poorest ores, and even out of puddle cinder, steel
or iron much purer than any now made for rails or bridges can be
obtained, and the two young chemists, patentees of the Thomas-Gilchrist
process, take their rank in the domain of metallurgy with Cort, Nelson,
Bessemer and Siemens. These young men have done more for England's
greatness than all her kings and queens and aristocracy put together.
[Sidenote: _A Modern Moses._]
It was this pale Gladstonian-looking youth we had with us for the day
and for our Sunday evening dinner at Windsor. He wears no title--he is
too sound a Radical, and too sensible a man to change the name his
honored father gave him--but nevertheless we felt we had one of the
great men of our generation as our guest. If it be true, as it is, that
he who causes two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before is a
benefactor to the race, what is the magician who takes from the bowels
of the earth a ton of dross, and transforms it into steel before our
eyes--strikes with his enchanted wand a hundred mines of worthless stone
and turns it into gold, as the prophet struck the dry rock and called
water forth? The age of real miracles is not over, you see, it has only
begun, and Thomas is our modern Moses; his miracle seems as much greater
than that of his prototype as the nineteenth century is advanced beyond
that of the Jewish dispensation.
Monday was another thoroughly English day. The silver Thames, that
glistened in the sun, was enlivened by many stately swans. The castle
towered in all its majesty, vivified by the meteor flag which fluttered
in the breeze. The grounds of Eton were crowded with nice-looking
English boys as we passed. Many of us walked down the steep hill and far
into the country in advance of the coach, and felt once more that a fine
day in the south of England was perfection indeed. The sun here reminds
one of the cup that cheers, but does not inebriate: its rays cheer, but
never scorch. You could not tell whether, if there were to be any
change, you would prefer it to be a shade cooler or a shade warmer.
The swans of Windsor are an institution almost as old as the castle
itself, for they are mentioned in records more than five hundred years
ago. The swan is indeed a royal bird, and it is said that no subject can
own them when at large in a public river except by special grant from
the crown. Such a grant is accompanied by a swan-mark for each _game_ of
swans--the proper term, mark you, for a collection of the noble birds.
You may say a flock of geese but not of swans; a game of swans, please,
if you would "speak by the card." The corporation of Windsor has
possessed the right of keeping swans in the Thames almost from time
immemorial. Formerly the king's swanherd made an annual expedition up
the river to mark them. He and his assistants chased the poor frightened
birds in boats, caught them roughly with long hooks, with little
deference to their beautiful plumage, and marked them by cutting one or
more nicks in the upper mandible of their beaks. This expedition, called
swan-upping (corrupted into swan-hopping), is still made by the deputies
of the Dyers' and Vintners' companies, now the principal swan owners on
the Thames, the mark of the former being one nick and of the latter two
nicks on the bill.
[Sidenote: _Stoke Pogis._]
Stoke Pogis is a few miles out of our direct road, but who would miss
that, even were the detour double what the ordnance survey makes it?
Besides, had not a dear friend, a stay-at-home, told us that one of the
happiest days of her life was that spent in making a pilgrimage to the
shrine of the poet from this very Windsor? Gray's was the first shrine
at which we stopped to worship, and the beauty, the stillness, the peace
of that low, quaint, ivy-covered church, and its old-fashioned
graveyard, sank into our hearts. Surely no one could revive memories
more sweetly English than he who gave us the Elegy. Some lines, and even
verses of that gem, will endure, it may safely be predicted, as long as
anything English does, and that is saying much. We found just such a
churchyard as seemed suited to the ode. Gray is fortunate in his
resting-place. Earth has no prettier, calmer spot to give her child
than this. It is the very ideal God's acre. The little church, too, is
perfect. How fine is Gray's inscription upon his mother's tomb! I avoid
cemeteries whenever possible, but this seemed more like a place where
one revisits those he has once known than that where, alas! we must
mourn those lost forever. Gray's voice--the voice of one that is still,
even the touch of the vanished hand, these seemed to be found there, for
after our visit the poet was closer to me than he had ever been before.
It is not thus with such as we have known and loved in the flesh--their
graves let us silently avoid. He whom you seek is not here; but the
great dead, whom we have known only through their souls, do come closer
to us as we stand over their graves. The flesh we have known has become
spiritualized; the spirits we have known become in a measure
materialized, and I felt I had a firmer hold upon Gray from having stood
over his dust.
Here is the inscription he put upon his mother's grave:
"Dorothy Gray.
The careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom alone
had the misfortune to survive her."
The touch in the last words, "the misfortune to survive her!"--Carlyle's
words upon his wife's tomb recur to me:
"And he feels that the light of his life has gone out."
These were men wailing for women. I cannot believe but that there are
many women who would prefer to share the fate of men who die. There is
such love on earth. Sujatas are not confined to India. As she says:
"But if Death called Senani, I should mount
The pile and lay that dear head in my lap,
My daily way, rejoicing when the torch
Lit the quick flame and rolled the choking smoke.
For it is written, if an Indian wife
Die so, her love shall give her husband's soul
For every hair upon her head, a crore
Of years in Swerza."
I think I know women who would esteem it a mercy to be allowed to pass
away with _him_, if the Eternal had not set his "canon 'gainst
self-slaughter." This prohibition the Indian wots not of, but mounts the
pile believing as thoroughly as Abraham did when he placed Isaac on the
altar, that God wills it so. They were equally mistaken; and this
suggests that we may all be very much surprised when we come to
understand rightly, how very seldom the unknown requires any sacrifice
of what is pleasing to us in this present world of his. It seems to me
it is not God but men who are disposed to make the path so very thorny.
[Sidenote: _Gray's Tomb._]
Upon Gray's own tomb there is inscribed:
"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill.
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;
Another came, nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he."
One perfect gem outweighs a thousand mediocre performances and makes its
creator immortal. The world has not a second Gray's Elegy among all its
treasures. Nor is it likely to have. We found you still in your
accustomed place.
The manor house of Stoke Pogis, which took its name from a marriage,
away back in the 13th century, between a member of the Pogis family and
an heiress, Amicia de Stoke, furnished the subject of Gray's "Long
Story," a poem known now only to the curious student of English
literature. How fortunate for the world that the poet did not let his
reputation rest upon it!
[Sidenote: _Chief Justice Coke._]
The old house, built in the time of good Queen Bess on an older
foundation, is still more noted as the home of Sir Edward Coke, the
famous Lord Chief Justice and the rival of Bacon. In 1601 Coke, who had
married three years before a wealthy young widow, Lady Hatton of Hatton
House, the daughter of Lord Burleigh, entertained the Virgin Queen at
Stoke Pogis in a manner befitting the royal dignity and the length of
his own purse. Among other presents which her Majesty graciously deigned
to accept at the hands of her subject on the occasion was jewelry valued
at L1,000, a large sum in those days.
Coke's marriage did not turn out very happily. He was old enough to be
his wife's father, and she always affected for him the utmost contempt,
even forbidding him to enter her house in London except by the back
door. The poor man bore his hen-pecking in silence for many years, but
at last she went one step too far. During his absence in London she
packed up and removed from Stoke to one of her own houses his plate and
other valuables. The outraged husband forcibly entered her house and
reclaimed his property, taking, as she said, some of hers also. This led
to legal proceedings, in which she, through the aid of Bacon, got the
better of him, and a reconciliation took place.
The next year the broil took another phase. Lady Hatton--she always
refused to take Coke's name--had borne him a daughter, who was the
heiress of her mother's estates as well as of Coke's wealth. Her hand
had been sought by Sir John Villiers, but as he was poor his suit had
been rejected. A turn came in the tide. Coke, shorn of most of his
honors, was in disgrace, and the Duke of Buckingham, Sir John's brother,
was King James's favorite and the dispenser of immense patronage. Coke,
with the object of winning back the royal favor and of humbling Bacon,
his great enemy, now determined to ally himself with the rising house,
and offered his daughter to Villiers. Lady Hatton, who had not been
consulted in the matter, refused her consent, ran away with her
daughter, and concealed her in the house of a kinsman. But Coke found
out her hiding place, and with a dozen stout fellows broke into the
house and seized his daughter. Lady Hatton, aided by Bacon, carried her
case to the privy council and Coke was proceeded against in the Star
Chamber. But with Buckingham behind him the old lawyer proved too strong
for Bacon this time, and succeeded in throwing his wife into prison and
in forcing her to consent to the match.
The marriage took place at Hampton Court in the presence of the king,
the queen, and the most distinguished of the nobility, and Frances
became Lady Villiers. Stoke Pogis was settled on the bridegroom, who was
shortly raised to the peerage as Viscount Purbeck and Baron Villiers, of
Stoke Pogis, and Coke flattered himself that his troubles had at last
ended. But the marriage resulted like many another ill-assorted union.
Lady Villiers, after driving her husband nearly to the verge of
distraction, eloped with Sir Robert Howard, and lived for many years an
eventful and scandalous life, which finally brought its reward in her
degradation, imprisonment, and death.
If the course of true love never runs smooth, it may be taken for
granted that the stream is even more tempestuous when marriage is made a
matter of family alliance with no love at all in the matter. Our young
ladies were unanimous upon this point, and one and all declared their
firm resolve and readiness to trust to "true love" with all its risks.
The Queen Dowager, being appealed to by them for support, settled the
matter by reciting the lines of an old Scotch song:
"Lassie tak the man ye loe
Whate'er ye're minnie say,
Though ye sud mak ye're bridal bed
Amang pea strae."
So ta-ta all worldly considerations and family alliances, and the rest
of it, say the wild romps of the Gay Charioteers.
[Sidenote: _Royal Visits._]
Several years after the death of Coke, Stoke Pogis was for a short time
the place of confinement of Charles I., who could see from its windows
the towers of Windsor Castle, which he was never again to enter except
as a headless corpse. On the death of Viscount Purbeck, who resided in
the manor house after Coke's decease, Stoke Pogis passed by purchase
into the hands of the Gayer family. When Charles II. came to his own
again the then possessor of the mansion was knighted, and became so
devoted in his affection for the Stuarts that when in after time King
William desired to visit Stoke Pogis to see a place so rich in
historical associations, the old knight would not listen to it. In vain
did his wife intercede: he declared that the usurper should not cross
his threshold, and he kept his word. So it came to be said that Stoke
Pogis had sumptuously entertained one sovereign, been the prison of
another, and refused admission to a third.
We were told that quite recently Queen Victoria had visited it in
person, with a view to its purchase for her daughter, and while walking
through its magnificent suite of rooms she expressed the wish that her
own Windsor had their equal. She finally decided to purchase Claremont,
the price demanded for Stoke, it is said, having been too great to
square with her majesty's estimate of value. It is in the market to-day.
If any of our bonanza kings want one of the stately homes of England,
rich in historical associations and "looking antiquity," here is his
chance.
In still later times the old place came into possession of the Penn
family, the heirs of our William Penn of Pennsylvania, and it was by one
of them, John Penn, that the cenotaph to Gray was erected--for the poet,
it will be remembered, was laid in his mother's tomb. This same Penn
pulled down much of the old house and rebuilt is as it is to-day.
Our luncheon was to be upon the banks of the Thames to-day, the Old Swan
Inn, where the stone bridge crosses the stream, being our base of
supplies; but ere this was reached what a lovely picture was ours
between Stoke Pogis and the Swan! All that has been sung or written
about the valley of the Thames is found to be more than deserved. The
silver stream flows gently through the valley, the fertile land rises
gradually on both sides, enabling us to get extensive views from the top
of the coach. Our road lies over tolerably high ground some distance
from the river. Such perfect, quiet, homelike, luxuriant beauty is to be
seen nowhere but in England. It is not possible for the elements to be
combined to produce a more pleasing picture; and now, after seeing all
else between Brighton and Inverness that lay upon our line, we return to
the region of Streatley and Maple Durham, and award them the palm as the
finest thoroughly English landscape.
We say to the valley of the Thames what the Eastern poet said to the
Vale of Cashmere, which is not half so pretty:
"If there be a paradise upon earth,
It is here, it is here."
The Old Swan proved to be, both in structure and location, a fit
component part of the sylvan scene around. There ran the Thames in
limpid purity, a picturesque stone bridge overhanging it, and the
road-side inn within a few yards of the grassy bank.
[Sidenote: _Skylarks._]
The rugs were laid under a chestnut tree, and our first picnic luncheon
spread on the buttercups and daisies. Swallows skimmed the water, bees
hummed above us--but stop! what's that, and where? Our first skylark
singing at heaven's gate! All who heard this never-to-be-forgotten song
for the first time were up and on their feet in an instant; but the tiny
songster which was then filling the azure vault with music was nowhere
to be seen. It's worth an Atlantic voyage to hear a skylark for the
first time. Even luncheon was neglected a while, hungry as we were, that
we might if possible catch a glimpse of the warbler. The flood of song
poured forth as we stood wrapt awaiting the descent of the messenger
from heaven. At last a small black speck came into sight. He is so
little to see--so great to hear!