SIGHT-SEEING IN LONDON.
The Tower.--The tall Yankee of inquiring
mind.--Our guide in gorgeous array.--War
trophies.--Knights in armor.--A professional
joke.--The crown jewels.--The house where the
little princes were smothered.--The "Traitor's
Gate."--The Houses of Parliament.--What a throne
is like.--The "woolsack."--The Peeping Gallery for
ladies.--Westminster Hall and the law courts.--The
three drowsy old women.--The Great Panjandrum
himself.--Johnson and the pump.--St.
Paul's.--Wellington's funeral car.--The Whispering
Gallery.--The bell.
THE TOWER.
IT is not a tower at all, as we reckon towers, you must know, but a
walled town upon the banks of the Thames, in the very heart of London.
Hundreds of years ago, when what is now this great city was only moor
and marsh, the Romans built here--a castle, perhaps. Only a bit of
crumbling wall, of mouldering pavement, remain to tell the story. When
the Normans came in to possess the land, William the Conqueror erected
upon this spot a square fortress, with towers rising from its four
corners. Every succeeding monarch added a castle, a tower, a moat, to
strengthen its strength and extend its limits, until, in time, it
covered twelve acres of land, as it does to this day. Here the kings
and queens of England lived in comfortless state, until the time of
Queen Elizabeth, having need to be hedged about with something more than
royalty to insure safety. Times have changed; swords have been beaten
into ploughshares; and where the moat once encircled the tower wall,
flowers blossom now. The dungeons that for centuries held prisoners of
state do not confine any one to-day; and the strongholds that guarded
the person of England's sovereign keep in safety now the jewels and the
crown. There are round towers, and square towers, and, for anything I
know, three-cornered towers, each with its own history of horrors. There
are windows from which people were thrown, bridges over which they were
dragged, and dark holes in which they were incarcerated.
[Illustration: "A dozen umbrellas were tipped up; the rain fell fast
upon a dozen upturned, expectant faces." Page 57.]
To appreciate all this, you should see it--as we did one chilly May
morning. We huddled about the stove in the waiting-room upon the site of
the old royal menagerie, our companions a round man, with a limp gingham
cravat and shabby coat, a little old woman in a poke bonnet, and half a
dozen or more schoolboys from the country. A tall Yankee of inquiring
mind joined us as we sallied from the door, led by a guide gorgeous in
ruff and buckles, cotton velvet and gilt lace, and with all these
glories surmounted by a black hat, that swelled out at the top in a
wonderful manner. Down the narrow street within the gates, over the
slippery cobble-stones, under considerable mental excitement, and our
alpaca umbrella, we followed our guide to an archway, before which he
paused, and struck an attitude. The long Yankee darted forward. "Stand
back, my friends, stand back," said the guide. "You will please form
a circle." Immediately a dozen umbrellas surrounded him. He pointed to a
narrow window over our heads; a dozen umbrellas were tipped up; the rain
fell fast upon a dozen upturned, expectant faces. "In that room, Sir
----" (I could not catch the name) "spent the night before his
execution, in solemn meditation and prayer." There was a circular groan
of sympathy and approval from a dozen lips, the re-cant of a dozen
dripping umbrellas, and we pattered on to the next point of interest,
following our leader through pools of blood, figuratively
speaking,--literally, through pools of water,--our eyes distended, our
cheeks pale with horror. Ah, what treasures of credulity we must have
been to the guides in those days! Time brought unbelief and hardness of
heart.
We mounted stairs narrow and dark; we descended stairs dark and narrow;
we entered chambers gloomy and grim. The half I could not tell--of the
rooms filled with war trophies--scalps in the belt of the nation--from
the Spanish Armada down to the Sepoy rebellion; the long hall, with its
double row of lumbering old warriors encased in steel, as though they
had stepped into a steel tower and walked off, tower and all, some fine
morning; the armory, with its stacked arms for thirty thousand men. "We
may have occasion to use them," said the guide, facetiously, making some
reference to the speech of Mr. Sumner, just then acting the part of a
stick to stir up the British lion. The Yankee chuckled complacently, and
we, too, refused to quake. There was a room filled with instruments of
torture, diabolical inventions, recalling the days of the Inquisition.
The Yankee expressed a desire to "see how some o' them things worked."
Opening from this was an unlighted apartment, with walls of stone, a
dungeon indeed, in which we were made to believe that Sir Walter Raleigh
spent twelve years of his life. No shadow of doubt would have fallen
upon our unquestioning minds, had we been told that he amused himself
during this time by standing upon his head. "Walk in, walk in," said the
smiling guide, as we peered into its darkness. We obeyed. "Now," said
he, "that you may appreciate his situation, I will step out and close
the door." The little old woman screamed; the Yankee made one stride to
the opening; the guide laughed. It was only a professional joke; there
was no door. We saw the bare prison-room, with its rough fireplace, the
slits between the stones of the wall to admit light and air, and the
initials of Lady Jane Grey, with a host more of forgotten names, upon
the walls. Just outside, within the quadrangle, where the grass grew
green beneath the summer rain, she was beheaded,--poor little
innocent,--who had no desire to be a queen! In another tower close by,
guarded by iron bars, were the royal jewels and the crown, for which all
this blood was shed--pretty baubles of gold and precious stones, but
hardly worth so many lives.
You remember the story of the princes smothered in the Tower by command
of their cruel uncle? There was the narrow passage in the wall where the
murderers came at night; the worn step by which they entered the great,
bare room where the little victims slept; the winding stairs down which
the bodies were thrown. Beneath the great stone at the foot they were
secretly buried. Then the stairway was walled up, lest the stones should
cry out; and no one knew the story of the burial until long, long
afterwards--only a few years since--when the walled-up stairway was
discovered, the stones at the foot displaced, and a heap of dust, of
little crumbling bones, revealed it. A rosy-faced, motherly woman, the
wife of a soldier quartered in the barracks here, answered the rap of
the guide upon the nail-studded door opening from one of the courts, and
told us the old story. "The bed of the princes stood just there," she
said, pointing to one corner, where, by a curious coincidence, a little
bed was standing now. She answered the question in our eyes with, "My
boys sleep there." "But do you not fear that the murderers will come
back some night by this same winding way, and smother them?" How she
laughed! And, indeed, what had ghosts to do with such a cheery body!
Down through the "Traitors' Gate," with its spiked portcullis, we could
see the steps leading to the water. Through this gate prisoners were
brought from trial at Westminster. It is said that the Princess
Elizabeth was dragged up here when she refused to come of her own will,
knowing too well that they who entered here left hope behind. A little
later, with music and the waving of banners, and amid the shouts of the
people, she rode out of the great gates into the city, the Queen of
England.
THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
Though they have stood barely thirty years, already the soft gray
limestone begins to crumble away,--the elements, with a sense of the
fitness of things, striving to act the part of time, and bring them into
a likeness of the adjoining abbey. There is an exquisite beauty in the
thousand gilded points and pinnacles that pierce the fog, or shine
softly through the mist that veils the city. Ethereal, shadowy, unreal
they are, like the spires of a celestial city, or the far away towers
and turrets we see sometimes at sunset in the western sky.
Here, you know, are the chambers of the Houses of Lords and Commons,
with the attendant lobbies, libraries, committee-rooms, &c., and a
withdrawing-room for the use of the queen when she is graciously pleased
to open Parliament in person. The speaker of the House of Commons, as
well as some other officials, reside here--a novel idea to us, who could
hardly imagine the speaker of our House of Representatives taking up his
abode in the Capitol! Parliament was not in session, and we walked
through the various rooms at will, even to the robing-room of the noble
lords, where the peg upon which Lord Stanley hangs his hat was pointed
out; and very like other pegs it was. At one end of the chamber of the
House of Lords is the throne. It is a simple affair enough--a gilded
arm-chair on a little platform reached by two or three steps, and with
crimson hangings. Extending down on either side are the
crimson-cushioned seats without desks. In the centre is a large square
ottoman,--the woolsack,--which might, with equal appropriateness, be
called almost anything else. Above, a narrow gallery offers a
lounging-place to the sons and friends of the peers; and at one end,
above the throne, is a high loft, a kind of uplifted amen corner, for
strangers, with a space where women may sit and look down through a
screen of lattice-work upon the proceedings below. It seems a remnant of
Eastern customs, strangely out of place in this Western world, and akin
to the shrouding of ourselves in veils, like our Oriental sisters. Or
can it be that the noble lords are more keenly sensitive to the
distracting influence of bright eyes than other men?
WESTMINSTER HALL AND THE LAW COURTS.
Adjoining the Houses of Parliament is this vast old hall. For almost
five hundred years has it stood, its curiously carved roof unsupported
by column or pillar. Here royal banquets, as well as Parliaments, have
been held, and more than one court of justice. Here was the great trial
of Warren Hastings. It was empty now of everything but echoes and the
long line of statuary on either side, except the lawyers in their long,
black gowns, who hastened up and down its length, or darted in and out
the three baize doors upon one side, opening into the Courts of
Chancery, Common Pleas, and the Exchequer. Our national curiosity was
aroused, and we mounted the steps to the second, which had won our
sympathies from its democratic name.
There were high, straight-backed pews of familiar appearance, rising one
above the other, into the last of which we climbed, a certain Sunday
solemnity stealing over us, a certain awkward consciousness that we were
the observed of all observers, since we were the only spectators--a
delusion of our vanity, however. In the high gallery before us, in
complacent comfort, sat three fat, drowsy old women (?) in white,
curling wigs, and voluminous gowns, asking all manner of distracting
questions, and requiring to be told over and over again,--after the
manner of drowsy old women,--to the utter confusion of a poor witness in
the front pew, who clung to the rail and swayed about hopelessly, while
he tried to tell his story, as if by this rotary motion he could churn
his ideas into form. Not only did he lose the thread of his
discourse,--he became hopelessly entangled in it. Scratch, scratch,
scratch, went the pens all around him. Every word, as it fell from his
lips, was pounced upon by the begowned, bewigged, bewildering judges,
was twisted and turned by the lawyers, was tossed back and forth
throughout the court-room, until there arose a question in our minds, as
to who was telling the story. All the while the lawyers were glaring
upon him as though he was perjuring himself with every word--as who
would not be, under the circumstances? And such lawyers! They dotted the
pews all around us. The long, black gowns were not so bad; they hid a
deal of awkwardness, I doubt not. But the wigs! the queer little curly
things, perched upon every head, and worn with such a perverse delight
in misfits! the small men being invariably hidden beneath the big wigs,
and the large men strutting about like the great Panjandrum himself with
the little round button at the top! The appearance of one, whose head,
through some uncommon development, rose to a ridge-pole behind, was
surprising, to say the least. It was not alone that his wig was too
small, that a fringe of straight, black hair fell below its entire white
circumference; it was not alone that it was parted upon the wrong side,
or that, being mansard in form, and his head hip-roofed, it could
never, by any process, have been shaped thereto; but I doubt if the
wearing of it upside down, added to all these little drawbacks, could
conduce to the beauty or dignity of any man. Unmindful of this reversed
order of nature, its happy possessor skipped about the court-room,
nodding to his brethren with a blithesome air, to the imminent peril of
his top-knot, which sustained about the same relation to his head as the
sword to that of Damocles. He speered down upon the poor witness. He
pretended to make notes of dreadful import with a screaming quill, and,
in fact, comported himself with an airy unconsciousness delightful to
see.
In regard to the proceedings of the court, I only know that the point
under discussion concerned one Johnson, and a pump; and Mr. Pickwick's
judge sat upon the bench. Whether he was originally round, red-faced,
with gooseberry eyes, I do not remember; but all these pleasing
characteristics he possessed at this present time, as well as a pudgy
forefinger, with which to point his remarks.
"You say," he repeated, with a solemnity of which my pen is incapable,
and impressing every word upon the poor man in the front pew with this
same forefinger, "that--Bunsen--went--to--the--pump?"
"Johnson, my lord," the witness ventured to correct him, in a low tone.
"It makes no difference," responded the judge, irate, "whether it is
Bunsen or Jillson. The question is, Did--Jillson--go--to--the--pump?"
Whom the gods destroy they first deprive of their five senses. Four, at
least, of the poor man's had departed some time since. The fifth
followed. "Johnson went, my lord," he replied, doggedly. Having found
one point upon which his mind was clear, he clung to it with the
tenacity of despair.
"Johnson! who's _Johnson_?" gasped the bewildered judge, over whose face
a net of perplexed lines spread itself upon the introduction of this new
character. In the confusion of denials and explanations that followed,
we descended from our perch, and stole away; nor are we at all sure, to
this day, as to whether Johnson did or did not really go to the pump.
ST. PAUL'S.
Imagine our surprise, one day, when admiring a pretty ribbon upon a
friend, to be told that it came from St. Paul's Churchyard. Hardly the
place for ribbons, one would think; but the narrow street which
encircles the cathedral in the form of a bow and its string goes by this
name, and contains, besides the bookstores and publishing houses, some
fine "silk mercers'" establishments.
The gray surface of the grand edifice is streaked with black, as though
time had beaten it with stripes, and a pall of smoke and dust covers the
statues in the court before it. Consecrated ground this is, indeed. From
the earliest times of the Christian religion, through all the bigotry
and fanaticism of the ages that followed, down to the present time, the
word of God has been proclaimed here--in weakness often, in bitterness
many times that belied the spirit of its message; by a priesthood more
corrupt than the people; by noble men, beyond the age in which they
lived, and whom the flames of martyrdom could not appall. Under
Diocletian the first church was destroyed. It was rebuilt, and destroyed
again by the Saxons. Twice has it been levelled to the ground by fire.
But neither sword nor flame could subdue it, and firm as a rock it
stands to-day, as it has stood for nearly two hundred years, and as it
seems likely to stand for ages to come. The sacred stillness that
invests the place was rudely broken, the morning of our visit, by the
blows from the hammers of the workmen, resounding through the dome like
a discharge of artillery. A great stage, and seats in the form of an
amphitheatre, were being erected in the nave for a children's festival,
which prevented our doing more than glance down its length. We read some
of the inscriptions upon the monuments, that one, so often quoted, of
Sir Christopher Wren, among them--"Do you seek his monument? Look around
you;" glanced into the choir, with its Gothic stalls, where the service
is performed, and then descended into the crypt beneath all this, that
labyrinth of damp darkness where so many lie entombed. Here is the
funeral car of Wellington, with candles burning around it, cast from the
conquering cannon which thundered victory to a nation, but sorrow and
death to many a home. Shrouded with velvet it is, as are the horses, in
imitation of those which bore him to his rest. All around were marble
effigies, blackened, broken, as they survived the burning of the late
cathedral, at the time of the great fire. Tombstones formed the
pavement. "Whose can this be?" I said, trying to follow with the point
of my umbrella the half-worn inscription beneath my feet. It was that of
Sir Joshua Reynolds. Strange enough it seemed to us, coming from a
country so new as to have been by no means prolific in great men, to
find them here lying about under our feet.
Having explored the crypt, we prepared to mount the endless winding
stairs, whose final termination is the ball under the cross that
surmounts the whole. Our ambition aimed only at the bell beneath the
ball. We paid an occasional sixpence for the privilege of peeping into
the library,--a most tidy and put-to-rights room, with a floor of wood
patchwork,--and for the right to look down upon the geometrical
staircase which winds around and clings to the wall upon one side, but
is without any visible support upon the other. The "whispering gallery"
was reached after a time. It is the encircling cornice within the dome,
surrounded by a railing, and forming a narrow gallery. "I will remain
here," said the guide, "while you pass around until you are exactly
opposite; wait there until I whisper." Had we possessed the spirit of
Casabianca, we should at this moment be sitting upon that narrow bench
against the wall, with our feet upon the gas-pipes. We waited and
listened, and listened and waited; but the sound of the blows from the
hammers below reverberated like thunder around us. We could not have
heard the crack of doom. Becoming conscious, after a time, that our
guide had disappeared, we came out and continued our ascent. Mrs. K.'s
curiosity, if not satisfied, was at least quenched, and she refused to
go farther. My aspirations still pointed upward. There was another
sixpence, another dizzy mount of dark, twisting stairs, with strength,
ambition, and even curiosity gradually left behind, and with only one
blind instinct remaining--to go on. There was a long, dingy passage,
through which ghostly forms were flitting; there were more stairs, with
twists and turns, forgotten now with other torments; there was the
mounting of half a dozen rickety wooden steps at last, for no object but
to descend shakily upon the other side, and then we found ourselves in a
little dark corner, peering over a dingy rail, with a great, dusky
object filling all the space below. And that was the bell! "Well, and
what of it?" I don't know; but we saw it!