Please to take this in small doses, but not fasting.
Let us go back, if you please, to Cambridge. Thursday morning we went to
breakfast with Mr. Smedley. It had been a dreadful rainy night, but
luckily the rain ceased in the morning, and the streets were dried by
the wind on purpose for us. In Sidney College we found your friend in
neat, cheerful rooms, with orange-fringed curtains, pretty drawings, and
prints: breakfast-table as plentifully prepared as you could have had
it--tea, coffee, tongue, cold beef, exquisite bread, and many inches of
butter. I suppose you know, but no one else at home can guess, why I say
_inches_ of butter. All the butter in Cambridge must be stretched into
rolls a yard in length and an inch in diameter, and these are sold by
inches, and measured out by compasses, in a truly mathematical manner,
worthy of a university.
Mr. Smedley made us feel at home at once: my mother made tea, I coffee;
he called you "Sneyd," and my father seemed quite pleased. After having
admired the drawings and pictures, and Fanny's kettle-holder, we sallied
forth with our friendly guide. It was quite fine and sunshiny, and the
gardens and academic shades really beautiful. We went to the University
Hall--the election of a new Professor to the Chemical Professorship was
going on. Farish was one of the candidates: the man of whom Leslie
Foster used to talk in such raptures when he first came from Cambridge;
the man who lectured on arches, and whose paradox of the one-toothed
wheel William will recollect. My father was introduced to him, and
invited him to dine with us: Mr. Farish accepted the invitation. We sat
on a bench with a few ladies. A number of Fellows, with black tiles on
their heads, walked up and down the hall, whispering to one another; and
in five minutes Mr. Smedley said, "The election is over: I must go and
congratulate Mr. Professor Farish."
We next proceeded to the University Library, not nearly so fine as the
Dublin College Library. Saw Edward the Sixth's famous little MS.
exercise book: hand good, and ink admirable; shame to the modern
chemists, who cannot make half as good ink now! Saw Faustus' first
printed book and a Persian letter to Lord Wellesley, and an Indian idol,
said to be made of rice, looking like, and when I lifted it feeling as
heavy as, marble. Mr. Smedley smiled at my being so taken with an idol,
and I told him that I was curious about this rice-marble, because we had
lately seen at Derby a vase of similar substance, about which there had
been great debates. Mr. Smedley then explained to me that the same word
in Persian expresses rice and the composition of which these idols are
made.
We saw the MS. written on papyrus leaves: I had seen the papyrus at the
Liverpool Botanic Garden, and had wondered how the stiff bark could be
rolled up; and here I saw that it is not rolled up, but cut in strips
and fastened with strings at each end.
In this library were three casts, taken after death--how or why they
came there I don't know, but they were very striking--one of Charles
XII., with the hole in the forehead where the bullet entered at the
siege of Fredericks-hall; that of Pitt, very like his statue from the
life, and all the prints of him; and that of Fox, shocking! no character
of greatness or ability--nothing but pain, weakness, and imbecility. It
is said to be so unlike what he was in health, that none would know it.
One looks at casts taken after death with curiosity and interest, and
yet it is not probable that they should show the real natural or
habitual character of the person: they can often only mark the degree of
bodily pain or ease felt in the moment of death. I think these casts
made me pause to reflect more than anything else I saw this day.
Went next to Trinity College Library: beautiful! I liked the glass doors
opening to the gardens at the end, and trees in full leaf. The
proportions of this room are excellent, and everything but the ceiling,
which is too plain. The busts of Bacon and Newton excellent; but that of
Bacon looks more like a courtier than a philosopher: his ruff is
elegantly plaited in white marble. By Cipriani's painted window, with
its glorious anachronisms, we were much amused; and I regret that it is
not recorded in Irish Bulls. It represents the presentation of Sir Isaac
Newton to His Majesty George the _Third_, seated on his throne, and
_Bacon_ seated on the steps of the said throne writing! Cipriani had
made the King, Henry VIII., but the Fellows of the College thought it
would be pretty to pay a compliment to His Gracious Majesty George III.,
so they made Cipriani cut off Henry VIII.'s head, and stick King George
in his place: the junction is still to be seen in the first design of
the picture, covered with a pasted paper cravat! like the figure that
changes heads in the _Little Henry_ book.
Saw Milton's original MSS. of his lesser poems, and his letters and his
plan of a tragedy on the subject of _Paradise Lost_, which tragedy I
rejoice he did not write. I have not such delight in seeing the
handwriting of great authors and great folk as some people have; besides
by this time I had become very hungry, and was right glad to accept Mr.
Smedley's proposal that we should repair to his rooms and take some
sandwiches.
Rested, ate, talked, looked at the engravings of Clarke's marbles, and
read the account of how these ponderous marbles had been transported to
England. We saw the marbles themselves. The famous enormous head of
Ceres must have belonged to a gigantic statue, and perhaps at a great
height may have had a fine effect. It is in a sadly mutilated condition;
there is no face; the appearance of the head in front is exactly like
that of Sophy's doll, whose face has peeled off, yet Clarke strokes it
and talks of its beautiful _contour._ The hair is fine, and the figure,
from its vast size, may be sublime.
After having recruited our strength, we set out again to the
Vice-Chancellor Davis's, to see a famous picture of Cromwell. As we
knocked at his Vice-Chancellorship's door, Mr. Smedley said to me, "Now,
Miss Edgeworth, if you would but settle in Cambridge! here is our
Vice-Chancellor a bachelor ... _do_ consider about it."
We went upstairs; found the Vice-Chancellor's room empty; had leisure
before he appeared to examine the fine picture of Cromwell, in which
there is more the expression of greatness of mind and determination than
his usual character of hypocrisy. This portrait seems to say, "Take away
that bauble," not "We are looking for the corkscrew."
The Vice-Chancellor entered, and such a wretched, pale, unhealthy object
I have seldom beheld! He seemed crippled and writhing with rheumatic
pains, hardly able to walk. After a few minutes had passed, Mr. Smedley
came round to me and whispered, "Have you made up your mind?" "Yes,
quite, thank you."
Now for the beauty of Cambridge--the beauty of beauties--King's College
Chapel! On the first entrance I felt silenced by admiration. I never saw
anything at once so beautiful and so sublime. The prints give a good
idea of the beauty of the spandrilled ceiling, with its rich and light
ornaments; but no engraved representation can give an idea of the effect
of size, height, and _continuity_ of grandeur in the whole building.
Besides, the idea of DURATION, the sublime idea of having lasted for
ages, is more fully suggested by the sight of the real building than it
can be by any representation or description: for which reason I only
tell you the effect it had upon my mind.
The organ began to play an anthem of Handel's while we were in the
chapel: I wished for you, my dear Sneyd, particularly at that moment!
Your friend took us up the hundred stairs to the roof, where he was
delighted with the sound of the organ and the chanting voices rising
from the choir below. My father was absorbed in the mechanical wonders
of the roof: that stone roof, of which Sir Christopher Wren said, "Show
me how the first stone was laid, and I will show you how the second is
laid."
Mr. Smedley exclaimed, "Is not the sound of the organ fine?" To which my
father, at cross purposes, answered, "Yes, the iron was certainly added
afterwards."
Mr. Smedley at once confessed that he had no knowledge or taste for
mechanics, but he had the patience and good-nature to walk up and down
this stone platform for three-quarters of an hour. He stood observing my
mother's very eager examination with my father of the defects in the
wooden roof, and pointing out where it had been cut away to admit the
stone, as a proof that the stone roof had been an afterthought; and at
last turned to me with a look of astonishment. "Mrs. Edgeworth seems to
have this taste for mechanics _too._" He spoke of it as a kind of mania.
So I nodded at him very gravely, and answered, "Yes, you will find us
all tinctured with it, more or less." At last, to Mr. Smedley's great
joy, he got my father alive off this roof, and on his way to Downing,
the new college of which Leslie Foster talked so much, and said was to
be like the Parthenon. Shockingly windy walk: thought my brains would
have been blown out. Passed Peter House, and saw the rooms in which Gray
lived, and the irons of his fire-escape at the window. Warned Mr.
Smedley of the danger of my father being caught by a coachmaker's yard
which we were to pass. My father overheard me, laughed, and contented
himself with a side glance at the springs of gigs, and escaped that
danger. I nearly disgraced myself, as the company were admiring the
front of Emmanuel College, by looking at a tall man stooping to kiss a
little child. Got at last, in spite of the wind and coachmakers' yards,
within view of Downing College, and was sadly disappointed. It will
never bear comparison with King's College Chapel.
Home to dinner: Mr. Farish and Mr. Smedley were very agreeable and
entertaining, and _did_ very well together, though such different
persons. Mr. Farish is the most primitive, simple-hearted man I ever
saw.
The bells were ringing in honour of Professor Farish's election, or, as
Mr. Smedley said, at the Professor's expense.
Farish insisted upon it very coolly that they were not ringing for him,
but for a shoulder of mutton.
"A shoulder of mutton! what do you mean?"
"Why, a man left to the University a shoulder of mutton for every
Thursday, on condition that the bells should always ring for him on that
day: so this is for the shoulder of mutton."
Mr. Farish paid us no compliments in words, but his coming to spend the
evening with us the day of his election, when I suppose he might have
been feasted by all the grand and learned in the University, was, I
think, the greatest honour my father has received since he came to
England; and so he felt it.
I suppose you know that Mr. Smedley has published minutes of the trial
of that Mr. Kendal who was accused of having set fire to Sidney College,
and who, though brought off by the talents of Garrow, was so generally
thought to be guilty, and to have only escaped by a quirk of the law,
that he has been expelled the University. What a strange thing that this
trial at Cambridge and that in Dublin, of incendiaries, [Footnote: The
trial in Dublin was that of "Moscow Cavendish."] should take place
within so short a time of each other! It seems as if the fashion of
certain crimes prevailed at certain times.
"Good-bye, Mr. Smedley! I hope you like us half as well as we liked
you." We thought it well worth our while to have come thirty miles out
of our way to see him and Cambridge, and you, Sneyd, have the thanks of
the whole party for your advice.
In passing through the village of Trumpington, and just as we came
within sight of Dr. Clarke's house, [Footnote: Edward Daniel Clarke,
1769-1822, one of the most distinguished travellers of the eighteenth
century, was Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge.] I urged my father to
call upon him.
"Without an introduction, and two ladies with me! No, with all my
impudence, my dear Maria, I cannot do that."
"Oh, do! you will repent afterwards if you do not: we shall never have
another opportunity of seeing him."
"Well, at your peril, then, be it."
He let down the glass, and ordered the postillion to drive up to Dr.
Clarke's house. I quailed in the corner the moment I heard the order
given, but said nought. Out jumped my father, and during two or three
minutes whilst he was in the house, and my mother and I waiting in the
carriage at the door, I was in an agony. But it was soon over; for out
came little Dr. Clarke flying to us, all civility, and joy, and
gratitude, and honour, and pleasure, "ashamed and obliged," as he handed
us up the steps and into a very elegant drawing-room.
I do not know whether you have seen him, but from the print I had
imagined he was a large man, with dark eyes and hair, and a penetrating
countenance. No such thing: he is a little, square, pale, flat-faced,
good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great
credulity of countenance, and still greater benevolence. In a moment he
whisked about the different rooms upstairs and down, to get together
books, sketches, everything that could please us; and Angelica's
drawings--she draws beautifully.
Angelica herself, Mrs. Clarke, is a timid, dark, soft-eyed woman, with a
good figure. I am told it is rude to say a person is very clean, but I
may praise Angelica for looking elegantly clean, brilliantly white, with
a lace Mary Queen of Scots cap, like that which I am sure you remember
on Lady Adelaide Forbes. She received us with timid courtesy, but her
timidity soon wore off, and the half-hour we spent here made us wish to
have spent an hour. Dr. Clarke seemed highly gratified that his travels
in Greece had interested us so much: showed us the original drawings of
Moscow, and a book of views of the ruins at Athens by the draughtsman
who went out with the Duc de Choiseul Gouffier--beautifully done; mere
outlines, perfectly distinct, and giving, I think, better architectural
ideas than we have from more finished and flattered drawings.
We were sorry not to see more, and glad we had seen so much, of Dr.
Clarke and his Angelica, and his fine little boy about five years old. A
tall, dark-eyed, fine fashionable-looking man, Dr. Clarke introduced to
us as Mr. Walpole. My father entered into conversation with him, and
found he had known Captain Beaufort in the Mediterranean.
When we were going away, Dr. Clarke, between my mother and me, seemed
puzzled how to get us both into the carriage at once; but he called to
Mr. Walpole. "Walpole, put this lady into the carriage."
And with a "Meadows" air he obeyed.
Now we are again on the London road, and nothing interrupted our perusal
_Pride and Prejudice_ for the rest of the morning. I am desired not to
give you my opinion of _Pride and Prejudice_, but desire you to get it
directly, and tell us yours.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.