VISITS TO ENGLAND
[1860, 1868, 1871]
I was born within a mile of the spot where the War of the
Revolution began. My ancestors and other kindred on both
sides took an active and prominent part in the struggle with
England. I am descended from the early Puritans of Massachusetts
in every line of descent. So it will readily be believed
that all my feeling and sympathy have been on the side of
my country in the great controversy with England, which began
with the exile of the Pilgrims in 1620 and continued, with
little interruption, until our last great quarrel with her,
which ended with the arbitration at Geneva. Yet I am a passionate
lover of England. Before I ever went abroad, I longed to
visit the places famous in her history, as a child longs to
go home to his birthplace.
I have visited Europe six times. On each occasion I devoted
the largest part of my time to Great Britain. The desire
to see England again has increased with every visit. Certainly
there is nothing like England, and there never has been anything
like England in the world. Her wonderful history, her wonderful
literature, the beauty of her architecture, the historic and
poetic associations which cluster about every street and river
and mountain and valley, her vigorous life, the sweetness
and beauty of her women, the superb manhood of her men, her
navy, her gracious hospitality, her courage and her lofty
pride--although some single race of people may have excelled
here in a single particular--make up a combination never equalled
in the world. I am, of course, not to be understood to bring
my own country into the comparison.
The first time I went abroad was in 1860. I had for a companion
my friend from infancy, George M. Brooks, of Concord. We
travelled like a couple of Bohemians, never riding where we
could walk; lunching or dining where he happened to find ourselves
when we were hungry; taking second or third class carriages
on the railroads, and getting into conversation with anybody
who would talk to us. I doubt whether I shall ever have in
this world, or in another, a sensation more delicious than
that I had when the old steamer, "America," steamed up the
Channel toward the mouth of the Mersey, with the green shores
of Ireland on one side and England on the other. I am afraid
if I were to relate the story of that journey, it would be
only to please myself by reviving its recollections, and not
for the delight of my readers, so many of whom have a similar
memory of their own.
We heard John Bright and Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston
in a great debate in the House of Commons on the paper duties,
and saw Lord Brougham walking backward and forward on the
terrace by Brougham Castle, near Penrith. We saw Edinburgh
and the Trosachs, and Abbotsford and Stirling. I had been
a loving reader of Scott from my childhood, and was almost
as much at home in Scotland as if I had been born in the Canongate
or the Saltmarket. I had had a special fancy for reading
and studying topographical books on London, and found myself,
pretty soon, so much at home there that I think I could have
made a very decent living as a guide.
We spent a month in Switzerland. I made the journey over
the mountain passes on foot, keeping up with my companion,
who had a horse or a mule. I could walk twenty-five or thirty
miles a day without great fatigue.
Augustus Flagg of the famous book-selling firm of Little
& Brown, with whom I had dealt a great deal, was on the
ship when I went out. He went abroad to purchase books for
his house. In those days the book-stalls in London were mines
of rare treasures. They had not been much examined by collectors
or dealers, and the men who kept them did not know the value
of books that were almost priceless in the eyes of virtuosos.
Mr. Flagg and I spent together a good many days in ransacking
the old book-stalls and shops, some of them in out-of-the-
way places in the old city, even below the Tower. I could
not afford to buy a great many books then. But I knew something
about them, and the experience was like having in my hands
the costliest rubies or diamonds.
The journey each way, which now takes six or seven days, then
took fourteen. The Cunard steamer, whose successor, with
its bilge keel and its vastly greater size, is as comfortable,
even in very rough weather, as the first class city hotel,
was as disagreeable in rough weather, to a man unaccustomed
to the ocean, as a fishing smack. But the passengers got
well acquainted with one another. There was agreeable society
on board, and the days passed pleasantly.
Among the passengers was Joseph Coolidge of Boston, father
of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, late Minister to France. Mr.
Coolidge had been a great traveller in his day; had had some
commercial occupations in the East, and was very pleasant
company. His wife was a granddaughter of Mr. Jefferson.
He told me that two of Mr. Jefferson's daughters--or granddaughters,
I am not now absolutely sure which--had kept school and earned
money, which they had applied to the payment of Mr. Jefferson's
debts. The story was highly creditable to these Virginia
ladies, who might well have thought that their illustrious
ancestor's service might excuse his family from making sacrifices
in discharge of such an obligation, if his countrymen at large
did not feel its force.
I went over pretty much the same ground in 1868 with three
ladies. I made both these journeys as an ordinary sightseer.
I took few letters of introduction. I did not deliver those,
except in one or two cases to American gentlemen living abroad.
One experience in this latter journey, however, it may be
worth while to tell. I had a very pleasant friendship with
Henry T. Parker, a Boston man and a graduate of Harvard,
who had a comfortable property and had married an English
lady and had settled in London. He found an occupation,
congenial to his own taste, in buying books, as agent of some
of the great libraries in the United States, including the
Harvard Library and the Boston City Library. He was an intimate
friend of Mr. Cox, the accomplished Librarian of the Bodleian,
to whom he gave us letters.
Mr. Cox treated us with special courtesy and showed us many
treasures of the Library, especially some wonderful illuminated
manuscripts. One of them, the Duc de Monpensier, who had
been at Oxford shortly before and who was an authority in
such matters, felt confident was illustrated by Raphael. Mr.
Cox had discovered, just before I was there, in some crypt
where it had lain unknown for two hundred years, a touching
letter from Clarendon, who was Chancellor of the University,
which I think will move the heart of every man who loves the
college where he was educated. The letter was written by
Lord Clarendon just after he had landed at Calais, a hopeless
exile, on his last flight from the country to which he was
never again to return. The great orator, statesman, historian,
lawyer, judge,--counsellor, companion and ancestor of monarchs,--
flying for his life, in his old age, into a foreign land,
from the court of which, for a generation, he had been the
ornament and head, soon as his feet touch a place of safety,
thinks of his University. See the noble heart through the
simple and stately rhetoric:
GOOD MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR;
Having found it necessary to transport myselfe out of England,
and not knowing when it shall please God that I shall returne
againe, it becomes me to take care that the University may
not be without the service of a person better able to be of
use to them than I am like to be, and I doe therefore hereby
surrender the office of chancellor into the hand of said University,
to the end that they may make choyce of some other person
better qualified to assist and protect them, than I am. I
am sure he can never be more affectionate to it. I desire
you as the last suite I am likely to make to you, to believe
that I doe not fly my country for guilt, and how passionately
soever I am pursued, that I have not done anything to make
the University ashamed of me, or to repent the good opinion
they had once of me, and though I must have no mention in
your publique devotions, (which I have always exceedingly
valued,) I hope I shall always be remembered in your private
prayers, as
Good Mr. Vice-Chancellor,
Your affectionate servant,
CLARENDON.
CALAIS, this 7-17 Dec., 1667.
In 1871 I went abroad alone. I spent the whole time in England,
except for a brief visit to Scotland. My purpose in going
away was to get a vacation. I meant to do some studying in
the British Museum, especially to make a thorough study of
the conditions and economic principles affecting the strife
between capital and labor, which then threatened both this
country and England. I got a collection of the authorities
and the references. But I did not find that I got a great
deal of light from anything that had been written or said
so far. I made a few very agreeable acquaintances. I had
a letter to Thomas Hughes, and visited at his house. I found
George W. Smalley, who had been a pupil in my office, established
in a delightful house near London. He seemed to be on terms
of intimacy with the famous Englishmen who were the leaders
of both political parties, and with many eminent men of letters.
I spent a delightful evening with Mr. Hughes at a club which
I think was called the European Club, or something like that,
where the members smoked clay pipes and drank beer. There
seemed to be no other provision for the refreshment of the
body or soul. But the conversation was very pleasant. The
members sat together about a table, and the conversation was
quite general and very bright. The talk turned, during the
evening, on Scotsmen. The Englishmen present seemed to have
something left of the old prejudice about Scotland with which
Dr. Johnson was possessed. They imputed to the modern Scotsmen
the same thrifty habit and capacity for looking after himself
that prevailed a hundred years before, when Dr. Johnson and
John Wilkes, who quarrelled about everything else, became
reconciled when they united in abuse of their Northern neighbors.
Sir Frederick Pollock cited a marginal note from the report
of some old criminal case, to the following effect: "Possession
of property in Scotland evidence of stealing in England."
I was guilty of one piece of stupid folly. Mr. Hughes kindly
proposed to take me to see Carlyle. This was not very long
after our war, when our people were full of indignation at
Carlyle's bitter and contemptuous speech about us, especially
his "American Iliad in a Nutshell." I was a little doubtful
about what sort of a reception I should get, and declined
the invitation. I have bitterly regretted this ever since.
My brother visited Carlyle about 1846, bearing with him a
letter from Emerson. Carlyle was very civil to him, and liked
him very much, as appears by a letter from him to Mr. Emerson.
During the visit I heard a great debate between Gladstone
and Disraeli. A brief account of it will be found in the
chapter on "Some Famous Orators I have Heard."
A friend in Worcester gave me a letter to Mr. Wornum, the
Director of the National Gallery, with whom he had been a
fellow-pupil at Kensington. Mr. Wornum received me with great
cordiality. He asked me to come to the Gallery the next
day, when it would be closed to the public. He said he would
be glad to show it to me then, when we would be free of interruption.
He was the author of what I understand to be an excellent
history of painting, and was regarded as the most competent
judge in Europe of the value and merit of paintings. I suppose
Parliament would at any time, on his sole recommendation,
have given ten or twenty or perhaps fifty thousand guineas
for a masterpiece. I shall never forget the delight of that
day. He told me the history of the great paintings in the
National Gallery, some of which had belonged to monarchs,
popes, noblemen or famous merchants of almost all the countries
in Europe. He said that while there were many larger galleries,
the National Gallery was the best in the world as affording
the best and most characteristic examples of every school
of painting. I cannot remember much that was said in that
long day, interrupted only by a pleasant lunch together. But
it was a day full of romance. It was as if I had had in my
hand the crown jewels of every potentate in the world, and
somebody had told me the history of each gem. For this picture
Francis the First, or Charles V., or Henry VIII. had been
bidders. This had belonged to Lorenzo de Medici, or Pope
Leo X. This had come from the famous collection of Charles
I., scattered through Europe on his death; and this had belonged
to some nobleman whose name was greater than that of monarchs.
Mr. Wornum spoke of his treasures with an enthusiasm which
no worshipper at the throne of any Saint or Divinity could
surpass. That day was among the few chiefest delights of
my life.