appearance of the females that I met in the streets. While strolling in
the skirts of the town, I came across a group of girls and boys, in
which a laughable scene of nautical gallantry was going on. The boys,
lads of fourteen or fifteen, were young sailors, and among the girls,
who were of the same age and class, was one of bewitching beauty. There
had been some very palpable passages of coquetry between the two
parties, when one of the young sailors, a tight lad of thirteen or
fourteen, rushed into the bevy of petticoats, and, borne away by an
ecstasy of admiration, but certainly guided by an excellent taste, he
seized the young Venus round the neck, and dealt out some as hearty
smacks as I remember to have heard. The working of emotion in the face
of the girl was a perfect study. Confusion and shame came first;
indignation followed; and, darting out from among her companions, she
dealt her robust young admirer such a slap in the face, that it sounded
like the report of a pocket pistol. The blow was well meant, and
admirably administered. It left the mark of every finger on the cheek of
the sturdy little fellow. The lad clenched his fist, seemed much
disposed to retort in kind, and ended by telling his beautiful
antagonist that it was very fortunate for her she was not a boy. But it
was the face of the girl herself that drew my attention. It was like a
mirror which reflected every passing thought. When she gave the blow, it
was red with indignation. This feeling instantly gave way to a kinder
sentiment, and her colour softened to a flush of surprise at the
boldness of her own act. Then came a laugh, and a look about her, as if
to inquire if she had been very wrong; the whole terminating in an
expression of regret in the prettiest blue eyes in the world, which
might have satisfied any one that an offence occasioned by her own sweet
face, was not unpardonable. The sweetness, the ingenuousness, the spirit
mingled with softness, exhibited in the countenance of this girl, are, I
think, all characteristic of the English female countenance, when it has
not been marble-ized by the over-wrought polish of high breeding.
Similar countenances occur in America, though, I think, less frequently
than here, and I believe them to be quite peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon
race. The workings of such a countenance are like the play of lights and
shades in a southern sky.
From the windows of the inn we had a very good view of a small
castellated dwelling that one of the King’s architects had caused to be
erected for himself. The effect of gray towers seen over the tree-tops,
with glimpses of the lawn, visible through vistas in the copses, was
exceedingly pretty, though the indescribable influence of association
prevented us from paying that homage to turrets and walls of the
nineteenth, that we were ready so devotedly to pay to any thing of the
thirteenth, or fourteenth, centuries.
We broke bread, for the first time in Europe, that evening, having made
an early and a hurried dinner on board the ship. The Isle of Wight is
celebrated for its butter, and yet we found it difficult to eat it! The
English, and many other European nations, put no salt in their table
butter, and we, who had been accustomed to the American usage, exclaimed
with one voice against its insipidity. A near relation of A——’s, who
once served in the British army, used to relate an anecdote on the
subject of tastes, that is quite in point. A brother officer, who had
gone safely through the celebrated siege of Gibraltar, landed at
Portsmouth, on his return home. Among the other privations of his recent
service, he had been compelled to eat butter whose fragrance scented the
whole Rock. Before retiring for the night, he gave particular orders to
have hot rolls and Isle of Wight butter served for breakfast. The first
mouthful disappointed him, and of course the unlucky waiter suffered.
The latter protested that he had executed the order to the letter.
“Then, take away your Isle of Wight butter,” growled the officer, “and
bring me some that _has a taste_.”
Like him of Gibraltar, we were ready to exclaim, “take away your Isle of
Wight butter, and bring us some from the good ship Hudson,” which,
though not quite as fragrant as that which had obtained its odour in a
siege, was not entirely without a taste. This little event, homely as it
may appear, is connected with the principle that influences the
decisions of more than half of those who visit foreign nations. Usages
are condemned because they are not our own; practices are denounced if
their connexion with fitness is not self-apparent to our inexperience;
and men and things are judged by rules that are of local origin and
local application. The moral will be complete when I add, that we, who
were so fastidious about the butter at Cowes, after an absence of nearly
eight years from America, had the salt regularly worked out of all we
ate, for months after our return home, protesting there was no such
thing as good butter in America. Had Mrs. —— introduced the Philadelphia
butter, however, I think her husband must have succumbed, for I believe
it to be the best in the world, not even excepting that of Leyden.
Towards evening, the Hudson having landed all her cabin passengers, and
the most of those who were in the steerage, went round the eastern point
of the little port, on her way to London.
After taking an early breakfast, we all got into a carriage called a
sociable, which is very like a larger sort of American coachee, and went
to Newport, the principal town of the island. The road ran between
hedges, and the scenery was strictly English. Small enclosures, copses,
a sward clipped close as velvet, and trees (of no great size or beauty,
however) scattered in the fields, with an effect nearly equal to
landscape gardening, were the predominant features. The drought had less
influence on the verdure here than in Dorsetshire. The road was narrow
and winding, the very _beau idéal_ of a highway; for, in this
particular, the general rule obtains that what is agreeable is the least
useful. Thanks to the practical good sense and perseverance of Mr.
M‘Adam, not only the road in question, but nearly all the roads of Great
Britain have been made, within the last five-and-twenty years, to
resemble, in appearance, but really to exceed in solidity and strength,
the roads one formerly saw in the grounds of private gentlemen. These
roads are almost flat, and when they have been properly constructed the
wheel rolls over them as if passing along a bed of iron. Apart from the
levels, which, of course, are not so rigidly observed, there is not, in
fact, any very sensible difference between the draft on a really good
M‘Adamized road and on a rail-road. We have a few roads in America that
are nearly as good as most one meets with, but we have nothing that
deserves to be termed a real imitation of the system of Mr. M‘Adam.
The distance to Newport was only four or five miles. The town itself, a
borough, but otherwise of little note, lies in a very sweet vale, and is
neat but plain, resembling, in all but its greater appearance of
antiquity and the greater size of its churches, one of our own
provincial towns of the same size. A—— and myself took a fly, and went,
by a very rural road, to Carisbrooke, a distance of about a mile, in
quest of lodgings. Carisbrooke is a mere village, but the whole valley
in this part of the island is so highly cultivated, and so many pretty
cottages meet the eye—not cottages of the poor, but cottages of the
rich—that it has an air of finish and high cultivation that we are
accustomed to see only in the immediate vicinity of large towns, and not
always even there.
On reaching the hamlet of Carisbrooke we found ourselves immediately
beneath the castle. There was a fine old village church, one of those
picturesque rustic edifices which abound in England, a building that
time had warped and twisted in such a way as to leave few parallel
lines, or straight edges, or even regular angles, in any part of it.
They told us, also, that the remains of a ruined priory were at hand. We
have often laughed since at the eagerness and delight with which we
hurried off to look at these venerable objects. It was soon decided,
however, that it was a pleasure too exquisite to be niggardly enjoyed
alone, and the carriage was sent back with orders to bring up the whole
party.
While the fly—a Liliputian coach, drawn by a single horse; a sort of
diminutive buggy—was absent, we went in quest of the priory. The people
were very civil, and quite readily pointed out the way. We found the
ruin in a farm yard. There was literally nothing but a very small
fragment of a blind wall, but with these materials we went to work with
the imagination, and soon completed the whole edifice. We might even
have peopled it, had not Carisbrooke, with its keep, its gate-way, and
its ivy-clad ramparts, lay in full view, inviting us to something less
ideal. The church, too, the rude, old, humpbacked church was already
opened, waiting to be inspected.
The interior of this building was as ancient, in appearance at least,
and quite as little in harmony with right lines and regular angles, as
its exterior. All the wood work was of unpainted oak, a colour, however,
that was scarcely dark enough to be rich; a circumstance which, to
American eyes, at least, eyes on whose lenses paint is ever present,
gave it an unfinished look. Had we seen this old building five years
later, we might have thought differently. As for the English oak, of
which one has heard so much, it is no great matter; our own common oaks
are much prettier, and did we understand their beauty, there would not
be a village church in America, that, in this particular, would not
excel the finest English cathedral. I saw nothing, in all Europe, of
this nature, that equalled the common oaken doors of the hall at C——,
which you know so well.
A movement in the church-yard called us out, and we became pained
witnesses of the interment of two of the “unhonoured dead.” The air,
manner, and conduct of these funerals, made a deep impression on us
both. The dead were a woman and a child, but of different families.
There were three or four mourners belonging to each party. Both the
bodies were brought in the same horse cart, and they were buried by the
same service. The coffins were of some coarse wood stained with black,
in a way to betray poverty. It was literally _le convoi du pauvre_.
Deference to their superiors, and the struggle to maintain appearances,
for there was a semblance of the pomp of wo, even in these extraordinary
groups, of which all were in deep mourning, contrasted strangely with
the extreme poverty of the parties, the niggardly administration of the
sacred offices, and the business-like manner of the whole _transaction_.
The mourners evidently struggled between natural grief and the
bewilderment of their situation. The clergyman was a goodlooking young
man, in a dirty surplice. Most probably he was a curate. He read the
service in a strong voice, but without reverence, and as if he were
doing it by the job. In every way, short-measure was dealt out to the
poor mourners. When the solemn words of “dust to dust, ashes to ashes,”
were uttered, he bowed hastily towards each grave,—he stood between
them,—and the assistants met his wholesale administration of the rites
with a wholesale sympathy.
The ceremony was no sooner over, than the clergyman and his clerk
retired into the church. One or two of the men cast wistful eyes toward
the graves, neither of which was half filled, and reluctantly followed.
I could scarcely believe my senses, and ventured to approach the door.
Here I met such a view as I had never before seen, and hope never to
witness again. On one side of me two men were filling the graves; on the
opposite, two others were actually paying the funeral fees. In one ear
was the hollow sound of the clod on the coffin; in the other the
chinking of silver on the altar! Yea, literally on the altar! We are
certainly far behind this great people in many essential particulars;
our manners are less formed; our civilization is less perfect; but
thanks to the spirit which led our ancestors into the wilderness, such
mockery of the Almighty and his worship, such a mingling of God and
Mammon, never yet disgraced the temple within the wide reach of the
American borders.
We were joined by the whole party before the sods were laid on the
graves of the poor; but some time after the silver had been given for
the consolations of religion. With melancholy reflections we mounted to
the castle. A—— had been educated in opinions peculiarly favourable to
England, but I saw, as we walked mournfully away from the spot, that one
fact like this, did more to remove the film from her eyes, than volumes
of reading.
Carisbrooke has been too often described to need many words. Externally,
it is a pile of high battlemented wall, completely buried in ivy,
forming within a large area, that was once subdivided into courts, of
which, however, there are, at present, scarcely any remains. We found an
old woman as warder, who occupied a room or two, in a sort of cottage
that had been made out of the ruins. The part of the edifice which had
been the prison of Charles I. was a total ruin, resembling any ordinary
house without roof, floors, or chimneys. The aperture of the window,
through which he attempted to escape, is still visible. It is in the
outer wall, against which the principal apartments had been erected. The
whole work stands on a high irregular ridge of a rocky hill, the keep
being much the most elevated. We ascended to the sort of bastion which
its summit forms, whence the view was charming. The whole vale, which
contains Carisbrooke and Newport, with a multitude of cottages, villas,
farm-houses, and orchards, with meads, lawns, and shrubberies, lay in
full view, and we had distant glimpses of the water. The setting of this
sweet picture, or the adjacent hills, was as naked and brown, as the
vale itself was crowded with objects and verdant. The Isle of Wight, as
a whole, did not strike me as being either particularly fertile, or
particularly beautiful, while it contains certain spots that are
eminently both. I have sailed entirely round it, more than once, and
judging from the appearance of its coasts, and from what was visible in
this little excursion, I should think that it had more than a usual
amount of waste, treeless land. The sea-views are fine, as a matter of
course, and the air is pure and bracing. It is consequently much
frequented in summer. It were better to call it the “watering place,”
than to call it the “garden of England.”
We had come in quest of a house where the family might be left, for a
few days, while I went up to London. But the whole party was anxious to
put their feet in _bonâ fide_ old England, before they crossed the
channel, and the plan was changed to meet their wishes. We slept that
night at Newport, therefore, and returned in the morning to Cowes, early
enough to get on board a steam-boat for Southampton. This town lies
several miles up an estuary that receives one or two small streams.
There are a few dwellings on the banks of the latter, that are about the
size and of the appearance of the better sort of country houses on the
Hudson, although more attention appears to have been generally paid to
the grounds. There were two more of Henry VIIIth’s forts, and we caught
a glimpse of a fine, ruined, Gothic window, in passing Netley Abbey.
We landed on the pier at Southampton about one, and found ourselves
truly in England. “Boat, sir, boat?” “Coach, sir, coach?” “London, sir,
London?”—“No—we have need of neither!”—“Thank ‘ee, sir—thank ’ee, sir.”
These few words, in one sense, are an epitome of England. They rang in
our ears for the first five minutes after landing. Pressing forward for
a livelihood, a multitude of conveniences, a choice of amusements, and a
trained, but a heartless and unmeaning civility. “No, I do not want a
boat.” “Thank ’ee, sir.” You are just as much “thank ’ee” if you do not
employ the man, as if you did. You are thanked for condescending to give
an order, for declining, for listening. It is plain to see that such
thanks dwell only on the lips. And yet we so easily get to be
sophisticated; words can be so readily made to supplant things;
deference, however unmeaning, is usually so grateful, that one soon
becomes accustomed to all this, and even begins to complain that he is
not imposed on.
We turned into the first clean-looking inn that offered. It was called
the Vine, and though a second-rate house, for Southampton even, we were
sufficiently well served. Every thing was neat, and the waiter, an old
man with a powdered head, was as methodical as a clock, and a most busy
servitor to human wants. He told me he had been twenty-eight years doing
exactly the same things daily, and in precisely the same place. Think of
a man crying “coming, sir,” and setting table, for a whole life, within
an area of forty feet square! Truly, this was not America.
The principal street in Southampton, though making a sweep, is a broad,
clean avenue, that is lined with houses having, with very few
exceptions, bow-windows, as far as an ancient gate, a part of the old
defences of the town. Here the High Street is divided into “Above-bar”
and “Below-bar.” The former is much the most modern, and promises to be
an exceedingly pretty place, when a little more advanced. “Below-bar” is
neat and agreeable too. The people appeared singularly well dressed,
after New York. The women, though less fashionably attired than our own,
taking the Paris modes for the criterion, were in beautiful English
chintzes, spotlessly neat, and the men all looked as if they had been
born with hat-brushes and clothes-brushes in their hands, and yet every
one was in a sort of sea-shore _costume_. I saw many men whom my
nautical instinct detected at once to be naval officers,—some of whom
must have been captains—in round-abouts; but it was quite impossible to
criticise toilettes that were so faultlessly neat, and so perfectly well
arranged.
We ordered dinner, and sallied forth in quest of lodgings. Southampton
is said to be peculiar for “long passages, bow-windows, and old maids.”
I can vouch that it merits the two first distinctions. The season had
scarcely commenced, and we had little difficulty in obtaining rooms, the
bow-window and long passage included. These lodgings comprise one or
more drawing-rooms, the requisite number of bed-rooms, and the use of
the kitchen. The people of the house, ordinarily trades-people, do the
cooking and furnish the necessary attendance. We engaged an extra
servant, and prepared to take possession that evening.
When we returned to the Vine, we found a visiter, in this land of
strangers. Mrs. R——, of New York, a relative and an old friend, had
heard that Americans of our name, were there, and she came doubting, and
hoping, to the Vine. We found that the windows of our own drawing-room
looked directly into those of hers. A few doors below us, dwelt Mrs.
L——, a still nearer relative, and a few days later, we had _vis-à-vis_,
Mrs. M‘A——, a sister of A——’s, on whom we all laid eyes for the first
time in our lives! Such little incidents recall to mind the close
consanguinity of the two nations, although for myself, I have always
felt as a stranger in England. This has not been so much from the want
of kindness and a community of opinion on many subjects, as from a
consciousness, that in the whole of that great nation, there is not a
single individual, with whom I could claim affinity. And yet, with a
slight exception, we are purely of English extraction. Our father was
the great-great-grand-son of an Englishman. I once met with a man, (an
Englishman,) who bore so strong a resemblance to him, in stature, form,
walk, features, and expression, that I actually took the trouble to
ascertain his name. He even had our own. I had no means of tracing the
matter any farther, but here was physical evidence to show the affinity
between the two people. On the other hand, A—— comes of the Huguenots.
She is purely American by every intermarriage, from the time of Louis
XIVth, down, and yet she found cousins, in England, at every turn, and
even a child of the same parents, who was as much of an English woman,
as she herself was an American.
We drunk to the happiness of America, at dinner. That day, fifty years,
she declared herself a nation; that very day, and nearly, at that hour,
two of the co-labourers in the great work we celebrated, departed in
company for the world of spirits!
A day or two was necessary to become familiarized to the novel objects
around us, and my departure for London was postponed. We profited by the
delay, to visit Netley Abbey, a ruin of some note, at no great distance
from Southampton. The road was circuitous, and we passed several pretty
country houses, few of which exceeded in size or embellishments,
shrubbery excepted, similar dwellings at home. There was one, however,
of an architecture much more ancient than we had been accustomed to see,
it being, by all appearance, of the time of Elizabeth or James. It had
turrets and battlements, but was otherwise plain.
The Abbey was a fine, without being a very imposing, ruin, standing in
the midst of a field of English neatness, prettily relieved by woods.
The window already mentioned, formed the finest part. The effect of
these ruins on us proved the wonderful power of association. The greater
force of the past than of the future on the mind, can only be the result
of questionable causes. Our real concern with the future is incalculably
the greatest, and yet we are dreaming over our own graves, on the events
and scenes which throw a charm around the graves of those who have gone
before us! Had we seen Netley Abbey, just as far advanced towards
completion, as it was, in fact, advanced towards decay, our speculations
would have been limited by a few conjectures on its probable appearance,
but gazing at it, as we did, we peopled its passages, imagined
Benedictines stalking along its galleries, and fancied that we heard the
voices of the choir, pealing among its arches.
Our fresh American feelings were strangely interrupted by the sounds of
junketting. A party of Southampton cocknies, (there are cocknies even in
New York,) having established themselves on the grass, in one of the
courts, were lighting a fire, and were deliberately proceeding to make
tea! “To tea, and ruins,” the invitations most probably run. We
retreated into a little battery of the bluff King Hal, that was near by,
a work that sufficiently proved the state of nautical warfare in the
sixteenth century.
LETTER III.
TO R. COOPER, ESQ., COOPERSTOWN.
At a very early hour, one of the London coaches stopped at the door. I
had secured a seat by the side of the coachman, and we went through the
“bar” at a round trot. The distance was about sixty miles, and I had
paid a guinea for my place. There were four or five other passengers,
all on the outside.
The road between Southampton and London, is one of little interest; even
the highway itself is not as good as usual, for the first twenty or
thirty miles, being made chiefly of gravel, instead of broken stones.
The soil for a long distance was thirsty, and the verdure was nearly
gone. England feels a drought sooner than most countries, probably from
the circumstance of its vegetation being so little accustomed to the
absence of moisture, and to the comparative lightness of the dews. The
wind, until just before the arrival of the Hudson, had been blowing from
the eastward for several weeks, and in England this is usually a dry
wind. The roads were dusty, the hedges were brown, and the fields had
nothing to boast of over our own verdure. Indeed, it is unusual to see
the grasses of New York so much discoloured, so early in the season.
I soon established amicable relations with my companion on the box. He
had been ordered at the Vine to stop for an American, and he soon began
to converse about the new world. “Is America any where near Van Dieman’s
Land?” was one of his first questions. I satisfied him on this head, and
he apologized for the mistake, by explaining that he had a sister
settled in Van Dieman’s Land, and he had a natural desire to know
something about her welfare! We passed a house which had more the air of
a considerable place than any I had yet seen, though of far less
architectural pretensions than the miniature castle near Cowes. This my
companion informed me, had once been occupied by George IVth, when
Prince of Wales. “Here his Royal Highness enjoyed what I call the
perfection of life, sir; women, wine, and fox-hunting!” added the
professor of the whip, with the leer of a true amateur.