Now, indeed, for the first time, I am filled with real and unbounded
enthusiasm. What I have hitherto described was a smiling country,
combined with everything that art and money could produce. I left it
with a feeling of satisfaction; and, although I have seen things like
it,--nay, even possess them,--not without admiration. But what I saw
to-day was more than that,--it was an enchanted palace decked in the
most charming garb of poetry, and surrounded by all the majesty of
history, the sight of which still fills me with delighted astonishment.
You, accomplished reader of history and memoirs, know better than I that
the Earls of Warwick were once the mightiest vassals of England, and
that the great Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, boasted of having deposed
three kings, and placed as many on the vacant throne. This was his
castle, standing ever since the ninth century, and in the possession of
the same family since the reign of Elizabeth. A tower of the castle,
said to have been built by Beauchamp himself, remains unaltered; and the
whole stands colossal and mighty, like an embodied vision of former
times.
From a considerable distance you see the dark mass of stone towering
above the primæval cedars, chestnuts, oaks and limes. It stands on the
rocks on the shore of the Avon, and rises to a perpendicular height of
two hundred feet above the level of the water. Two towers of different
forms overtop the building itself almost in an equal degree. A ruined
pier of a bridge, overhung with trees, stands in the middle of the
river, which becoming deeper just at the point where the building
begins, forms a foaming waterfall, and turns a mill, which appears only
like a low abutment of the castle. Going on, you lose sight of the
castle for awhile, and soon find yourself before a high embattled wall,
built of large blocks of stone covered by Time with moss and creeping
plants. Lofty iron gates slowly unfold to admit you to a deep hollow way
blasted in the rock, the stone walls of which are tapestried with the
most luxuriant vegetation. The carriage rolled with a heavy dull sound
along the smooth rock, which old oaks darkly overshadow. Suddenly, at a
turn of the way, the castle starts from the wood into broad open
daylight, resting on a soft grassy slope; and the large arch of the
entrance dwindles to the size of an insignificant doorway between the
two enormous towers, at the foot of which you now stand. A still greater
surprise now awaits you when you pass through the second iron gate into
the court-yard: it is almost impossible to imagine anything more
picturesque, and at the same time more imposing.
Let your fancy conjure up a space about twice as large as the interior
of the Colosseum at Rome, and let it transport you into a forest of
romantic luxuriance. You now overlook the large court, surrounded by
mossy trees and majestic buildings, which, though of every variety of
form, combine to create one sublime and connected whole, whose lines now
shooting upwards, now falling off into the blue air, with the
continually changing beauty of the green earth beneath, produce, not
symmetry indeed, but that _higher harmony_, elsewhere proper to Nature's
own works alone. The first glance at your feet falls on a broad simple
carpet of turf, around which a softly winding gravel-walk leads to the
entrance and exit of the gigantic edifice. Looking backwards, your eye
rests on the two black towers, of which the oldest, called Guy's Tower,
rears its head aloft in solitary threatening majesty, high above all the
surrounding foliage, and looks as if cast in one mass of solid
iron;--the other, built by Beauchamp, is half hidden by a pine and a
chestnut, the noble growth of centuries. Broad-leaved ivy and vines
climb along the walls, here twining around the tower, there shooting up
to its very summit. On your left lie the inhabited part of the castle,
and the chapel, ornamented with many lofty windows of various size and
form; while the opposite side of the vast quadrangle, almost entirely
without windows, presents only a mighty mass of embattled stone, broken
by a few larches of colossal height, and huge arbutuses which have grown
to a surprizing size in the shelter they have so long enjoyed. But the
sublimest spectacle yet awaits you, when you raise your eyes straight
before you. On this fourth side, the ground, which has sunk into a low
bushy basin forming the court, and with which the buildings also descend
for a considerable space, rises again in the form of a steep conical
hill, along the sides of which climb the rugged walls of the castle.
This hill, and the keep which crowns it, are thickly overgrown at the
top with underwood, which only creeps round the foot of the towers and
walls. Behind it, however, rise gigantic venerable trees, towering above
all the rock-like structure. Their bare stems seem to float in upper
air; while at the very summit of the building rises a daring bridge,
set, as it were, on either side within trees; and as the clouds drift
across the blue sky, the broadest and most brilliant masses of light
break magically from under the towering arch and the dark coronet of
trees.
Figure this to yourself;--behold the whole of this magical scene at one
glance;--connect with it all its associations;--think that here nine
centuries of haughty power, of triumphant victory and destructive
overthrow, of bloody deeds and wild greatness,--perhaps too of gentle
love and noble magnanimity,--have left, in part, their visible traces,
and where _they_ are not, their vague romantic memory;--and then judge
with what feelings I could place myself in the situation of the man to
whom such recollections are daily suggested by these
objects,--recollections which, to him, have all the sanctity of kindred
and blood;--the man who still inhabits the very dwelling of that first
possessor of the fortress of Warwick, that half-fabulous Guy, who lived
a thousand years ago, and whose corroded armour, together with a hundred
weapons of renowned ancestors, is preserved in the antique hall. Is
there a human being so unpoetical as not to feel that the glories of
such memorials, even to this very day, throw a lustre around the
feeblest representative of such a race?
To make my description in some degree clear, I annex a ground-plan,
which may help your imagination. You must imagine the river at a great
depth below the castle-plain, and not visible from the point I have been
describing. The first sight of it you catch is from the castle windows,
together with the noble park, whose lines of wood blend on every side
with the horizon.
You ascend from the court to the dwelling-rooms by only a few steps,
first through a passage, and thence into the hall, on each side of which
extend the entertaining-rooms in an unbroken line of three hundred and
forty feet. Although almost 'de plein-pied' with the court, these rooms
are more than fifty feet above the Avon, which flows on the other side.
From eight to fourteen feet thickness of wall forms, in each
window-recess, a complete closet, with the most beautiful varied view
over the river, wildly foaming below, and further on flowing through the
park in soft windings, till lost in the dim distance. Had I till now,
from the first sight of the castle, advanced from surprise to
surprise,--all this was surpassed, though in another way, by what
awaited me in the interior. I fancied myself transported back into
by-gone ages as I entered the gigantic baronial hall,--a perfect picture
of Walter Scott's;--the walls panelled with carved cedar; hung with
every kind of knightly accoutrement; spacious enough to feast trains of
vassals,--and saw before me a marble chimney-piece under which I could
perfectly well walk with my hat on, and stand by the fire, which blazed
like a funeral pile from a strange antique iron grate in the form of a
basket, three hundred years old. On the side, true to ancient custom,
was a stack of oak logs piled up upon a stand of cedar, which was placed
on the stone floor partially covered by 'hautelisse' carpets. A
man-servant dressed in brown, whose dress, with his gold knee-bands,
epaulets and trimmings, had a very antique air, fed the mighty fire from
time to time with an enormous block. Here, in every circumstance, the
difference between the genuine old feudal greatness and the modern
imitations was as striking, as that between the moss-grown remains of
the weather-beaten fortress and the ruins built yesterday in the garden
of some rich contractor. Almost everything in the room was old, stately,
and original; nothing tasteless or incongruous, and all preserved with
the greatest care and affection. Among them were many rich and rare
articles which could no longer be procured,--silk, velvet, gold and
silver blended and interwoven. The furniture consists almost entirely
either of uncommonly rich gilding, of dark brown carved walnut or oak,
or of those antique French 'commodes' and cabinets inlaid with brass,
the proper name of which I have forgotten. There were also many fine
specimens of mosaic, as well as of beautiful marquetry. A fire-screen,
with a massy gold frame, consisted of a plate of glass so transparent
that it was scarcely distinguishable from the air. To those who love to
see the cheerful blaze without being scorched, such a screen is a great
luxury. In one of the chambers stands a state bed, presented to one of
the Earls of Warwick by Queen Anne; it is of red velvet embroidered, and
is still in good preservation. The treasures of art are countless. Among
the pictures, there was not one 'mediocre;' they are almost all by the
first masters: but, beyond this, many of them have a peculiar family
interest. There are a great many ancestral portraits by Titian, Van Dyk,
and Rubens. The gem of the collection is one of Raphael's most
enchanting pictures, the beautiful Joan of Arragon,--of whom, strangely
enough, there are four portraits, each of which is declared to be
genuine. Three of them must of course be copies, but are no longer
distinguishable from the original. One is at Paris, one at Rome, one at
Vienna, and the fourth here. I know them all, and must give unqualified
preference to this. There is an enchantment about this splendid woman
which is wholly indescribable. An eye leading to the very depths of the
soul; queenlike majesty united with the most feminine sensibility;
intense passion blended with the sweetest melancholy; and withal, a
beauty of form, a transparent delicacy of skin, and a truth, brilliancy
and grace of the drapery and ornaments, such as only a divine genius
could call into perfect being.
Among the most interesting portraits, both for the subject and the
handling, are the following.
First, Machiavelli, by Titian.--Precisely as I should imagine him. A
face of great acuteness and prudence, and of suffering,--as if lamenting
over the profoundly-studied worthless side of human nature; that
hound-like character which loves where it is spurned, follows where it
fears, and is faithful where it is fed. A trace of compassionate scorn
plays round the thin lips, while the dark eye appears turned
reflectingly inward.
It appears strange, at first sight, that this great and classic writer
should so long have been misunderstood in the grossest manner. Either he
has been represented as a moral scarecrow (and how miserable is
Voltaire's refutation of that notion!); or the most fantastic hypothesis
is put forth, that his book is a satire. On more attentive observation,
we arrive at the conviction that it was reserved for modern times, in
which politics at length begin to be viewed and understood from a higher
and really humane point of view, to form a correct judgment of
Machiavel's Prince.
To all arbitrary princes--and under that name I class all those who
think themselves invested with power solely 'par la grace de Dieu' and
for their own advantage,--all conquerors, and children of fortune, whom
some chance has given to the people they regard as their property,--to
all such as these, this profound and acute writer shows the true and
only way to prosper; the exhaustive system they must of necessity
follow, in order to maintain a power radically sprung from the soil of
sin and error. His book is, and must ever be, the true, inimitable
gospel of such rulers; and we Prussians, especially, have reason to
congratulate ourselves that Napoleon had learned his Machiavel so
ill;--we should otherwise probably be still groaning under his yoke.
That Machiavel felt all the value and the power of freedom, is plain,
from many passages in his book. In one he says, "He who has conquered a
_free_ city, has no secure means of keeping it, but either to destroy
it, or to people it with new inhabitants; _for no benefit a sovereign
can confer will ever make it forget its lost freedom_."
By proving, as he incontestably does, that such a degree of arbitrary
power can be maintained only by the utter disregard of all morality, and
by seriously inculcating this doctrine upon princes, he also
demonstrates but too plainly, that the whole frame of society, in his
time, contained within itself a principle of demoralization; and that no
true happiness, no true civilization, was possible to any people till
that principle was detected and destroyed. The events of modern times,
and their consequences, have at length opened their eyes to this truth,
and they will not close them again!
The Duke of Alva, by Titian.--Full of expression, and, as I believe,
faithful;--for this man was by no means a caricature of cruelty and
gloom;--earnest, fantastical, proud, firm as iron; practically
exhibiting the Ideal of an inflexibly faithful servant, who, having once
undertaken a charge, looks neither to the right nor to the left in the
execution of it; is ready blindly to fulfil the will of his God and of
his master, and asks not whether thousands perish in torture; in a word,
a powerful mind, not base but contracted, which lets others think for
it, and works to establish their authority.
Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn, by Holbein.[37]--The King in a
splendid dress,--a fat, rather butcher-like man, in whom sensuality,
cunning, cruelty, and strength, rule in a frightfully complacent and
almost jovial physiognomy. You see that such a man might make you
tremble, and yet somehow attach you. Anne Boleyn is a good-natured,
unmeaning, almost stupid-looking, genuine English beauty, like many one
sees now, only in another dress.
Cromwell, by Van Dyk.--A magnificent head: somewhat of the bronze
gladiator-look of Napoleon; but with much coarser features, through
which, as behind a mask, is seen the light of a great soul: enthusiasm
is, however, too little perceptible in them. There is an expression of
cunning in the eye, combined with something of honesty, which renders it
the more deceptive; but not a trace of cruelty,--with that, indeed, the
Protector cannot be reproached. The execution of the King was a cruel
act, but one which appeared to Cromwell's mind in the light of a
necessary political operation, and in no degree sprang from a delight in
bloodshed. Under this picture hangs Cromwell's own helmet.
Prince Rupert, by Van Dyk.--Completely the bold soldier! Every inch a
cavalier! I do not mean in the exclusive sense of an adherent of the
King, but in that of an accomplished gentleman and knight: a handsome
face, as dangerous to women as to the enemy, and the picturesque garb
and port of a warrior.
Elizabeth, by Holbein.--The best and perhaps the most faithful picture I
have ever seen of her. She is represented in her prime, almost
disgustingly fair, or rather white, with pale red hair. The eyes
somewhat Albino-like, and almost without eyebrows. There is an
artificial good-nature, but a false expression. Vehement passions and a
furious temper seem to lie hidden under that pallid exterior, like a
volcano under snow; while the intense desire to please is betrayed by
the rich and over-ornamented dress. Quite different,--stern, hard, and
dangerous to approach,--does she appear in the pictures of her at an
advanced age, but even then extremely over-dressed.
Mary of Scotland.--Probably painted in prison, and shortly before her
death: it has the air of a matron of forty.--There is still the
faultless beauty; but it is no longer the light-minded Mary, full of the
enjoyment of life, and of her own resistless charms; but visibly
purified by misfortune,--with a sedate expression;--in short, Schiller's
Mary,--a noble nature, which has at length found itself again! It is one
of the rarest pictures of the unhappy Queen, whom one is accustomed to
see depicted in all the splendour of youth and beauty.
Ignatius Loyola, by Rubens.--A very beautifully painted and grand
picture; but which immediately strikes one as a fiction, and no
portrait. The sanctified expression, common to so many pictures of
saints and priests, is unmeaning. The colouring is by far the finest
thing about the picture.
But I should never have done, were I to attempt to go through this
gallery. I must take you for a minute into the furthest cabinet, which
contains a beautiful collection of enamels, chiefly after designs by
Raphael, and a marble bust of the Black Prince, a sturdy soldier both in
head and hand,--at a time when the latter alone sufficed to secure the
highest renown.
Many valuable Etruscan vases and other works of art, besides the
pictures and antiques, decorate the various apartments, and with great
good taste are arranged so as to appear as harmonious accessories,
instead of being heaped up in a gallery by themselves as dead masses.
It was pointed out to me as a proof of the perfect and solid
architecture of the castle,--that, in spite of its age, when all the
doors of the suite of rooms are shut, you see the bust placed exactly in
the centre of the furthest cabinet, through the keyholes, along a length
of three hundred and fifty feet;--a perfection, indeed, which our
present race of workmen would never think of approaching. Though, as I
told you, the walls of the hall are hung with a great quantity of
armour, there is also an armoury, which is extremely rich. Here is the
leathern collar, stained with blood blackened by time, in which Lord
Brook, an ancestor of the present Earl, was slain at the battle of
Litchfield. In one corner of the room lies a curious specimen of art,
very heterogeneous with the rest,--a monkey, cast in iron, of a
perfection and 'abandon' in the disposition of the limbs which rivals
Nature herself. I was sorry the 'châtellaine' could not tell me who had
made the model for this cast. He must be an eminent master who could
thus express all the monkey grace and suppleness with such perfect
fidelity, in an attitude of the most enjoying laziness.
Before I quitted the princely Warwick, I ascended one of the highest
towers, and enjoyed a rich and beautiful prospect on every side. The
weather was tolerably clear. Far more enchanting than this panorama,
however, was the long walk in the gardens which surround the castle on
two sides, whose character of serene grandeur is admirably adapted to
that of the building. The height and beauty of the trees, the luxuriance
of the vegetation and of the turf, cannot be exceeded; while a number of
gigantic cedars, and the ever-varying aspect of the majestic castle,
through whose lofty cruciform loop-holes the rays of light played, threw
such enchantment over the whole scene that I could hardly tear myself
away. We walked about till the moon rose; and her light, as we looked
through the darkening alleys, gave to all objects a more solemn and
gigantic character. We could therefore only see the celebrated colossal
Warwick Vase by lamplight. It holds several hundred gallons, and is
adorned with the most beautiful workmanship. We also saw some ancient
curiosities which are kept in the Porter's Lodge; particularly some
cows' horns and wild boar's tusks, ascribed to beasts which Guy,--a hero
of Saxon times, the fabulous ancestor of the first Earls of Warwick,--is
said to have destroyed. The dimensions of his arms, which are preserved
here, bespeak a man of such strength and stature as Nature no longer
produces.
Here at length I took a lingering farewell of Warwick Castle, and laid
the recollection, like a dream of the sublime and shadowy past, on my
heart. I felt, in the faint moonlight, like a child who sees a fantastic
giant head of far distant ages beckoning to it with friendly nod over
the summit of the wood.
With such fancies, dear Julia, I will go to sleep, and wake to meet them
again in the morning, for another scene of romance awaits me,--the ruins
of Kenilworth.
_Birmingham, Dec. 29th: Evening._
I must continue my narrative.--Leamington ('car il faut pourtant que
j'en dise quelque chose') was only a little village a few years ago, and
is now a rich and elegant town, containing ten or twelve palace-like
inns, four large bath-houses with colonnades and gardens, several
libraries, with which are connected card, billiard, concert and
ball-rooms (one for six hundred persons,) and a host of private houses,
which are almost entirely occupied by visitors, and spring out of the
earth like mushrooms. All here is on a vast scale, though the waters are
insignificant. The same are used for drinking as for bathing, and yet it
swarms with visitors. The baths are as spacious as the English beds, and
are lined throughout with earthenware tiles.
Not far from Leamington, and a league from Warwick, is a beautiful
enchanting spot called Guy's Cliff; part of the house is as old as
Warwick Castle. Under it is a deep cavern, in the picturesque rocky
shore of the Avon, into which, as tradition says, Guy of Warwick, after
many high deeds at home and abroad, secretly retired to close his life
in pious meditation. After two years of incessant search, his
inconsolable wife found him lying dead in his cave, and in despair threw
herself down from the rocks into the Avon. In later times a chapel was
built in the rock to commemorate this tragic event, and adorned by Henry
the Third with a statue of Sir Guy. This has unhappily been so mutilated
by Cromwell's troops, that it is now but a shapeless block. Opposite to
the chapel are twelve monks' cells hewn in the rock, now used as
stables. The chapel itself, which has been entirely renovated in the
interior, is connected with the dwelling of the proprietor, part of
which is Gothic some centuries old, part in the old Italian style, and
part quite new, built exactly to correspond with the most ancient part.
The whole is extremely picturesque, and the interior is fitted up with
equal attention to taste and comfort. The drawing-room, with its two
deep window-recesses, struck me as uncommonly cheerful. One of these
windows stands above a rock which rises fifty feet perpendicularly from
the river, in whose bosom lies a lovely little island, and behind it a
wide prospect of luxuriant meadows, beautiful trees, and, quite in the
background, a village half buried in wood. At a short distance on the
side is an extremely ancient mill, said to have been in existence before
the Norman invasion. A little further off, the picture was terminated by
a woody hill, also within the enclosure of the park, on which a high
cross marks the spot where Gavestone, the infamous favourite of Edward
the Second, was executed by the rebellious lords Warwick and Arundel.
All these recollections, united with so many natural beauties, make a
strong impression on the mind.--The other window afforded a perfect
contrast with this. It overlooks a level plain laid out as a very pretty
French garden, in which gay porcelain ornaments and coloured sand
mingled their hues with the flowers, and terminates in a beautiful alley
overshadowed with ivy cut into a pointed arch. In the room itself
sparkled a cheerful fire; choice pictures adorned the walls, and several
sofas of various forms, tables covered with curiosities, and furniture
standing about in agreeable disorder, gave it the most inviting and
home-like air.
I returned back to the town of Warwick to see the church, and the chapel
containing the monument of the great King-Maker, which he placed there
in his life-time, and now reposes under. His statue of metal lies on the
sarcophagus; an eagle and a bear at his feet. The head is very
expressive and natural. He does not fold his hands as is the case in
most statues of knights, but only raises them a little to heaven, as
though he would not pray, and could greet even his Maker only with a
gesture of courtesy: his head is slightly inclined, but with no air of
humility. Round his stone coffin are emblazoned the splendid bearings of
all his lordships, and an enormous sword lies threatening by his side.
The splendid painted windows, and the numerous well-preserved and richly
gilded ornaments give to the whole a stately, solemn character.
A family of the town most unfortunately got permission, about a hundred
and fifty years ago, to erect a monument to some country 'squire or
other, immediately under the large central window. It occupies the
entire wall, and destroys the beautiful simplicity of the whole by this
hideous, disgraceful modern excrescence.
By the side-wall lies another intruder carved in stone, but one of
better pretensions;--no less a man than the powerful earl of Leicester:
he is represented of middle age, a handsome, high-bred and haughty
looking man; but without the lofty genius in his features so strikingly
portrayed on the metal countenance of the great Warwick.
A few posts from Leamington, in a country which gradually becomes more
solitary and dreary, lies Kenilworth.
With Sir Walter Scott's captivating book in my hand I wandered amid
these ruins, which call up such varied feelings. They cover a space of
more than three-quarters of a mile in circumference, and exhibit,
although in rapid decay, many traces of great and singular magnificence.
The oldest part of the castle, built in 1120, still stands the firmest,
while the part added by Leicester is almost utterly destroyed. The wide
moat which formerly surrounded the castle, and around which stretched a
park of thirty English miles in circuit, was dried up in Cromwell's
time, in the hope of finding treasure in it. The park, too, has long
disappeared, and is now changed into fields, on which are some scattered
cottages. A part of the castle, standing isolated and almost hidden
under creeping plants, is transformed into a kind of out-work; and the
whole surrounding country has a more barren, deserted and melancholy
aspect than any part we have travelled through. But this harmonizes well
with the character of the principal object, and enhances the saddening
effect of greatness in such utter decay.
The balcony called Elizabeth's Bower is still standing; and the
tradition goes, that in moonlight nights a white figure is often seen
there looking fixedly and immovably into the depth below. The ruins of
the banqueting-hall, with the gigantic chimney-piece, the extensive
kitchen, and the wine-cellar beneath, are still clearly distinguishable;
and many a lonesome chamber may still be standing in the towers, to
which all access is cut off. The fancy delights in guessing the past by
what still remains; and I often dreamed, while climbing among the ruins,
that I had found the very spot where the infamous Vernon traitorously
plunged the truest and most unhappy of wives into eternal night. But
equally lost are the traces of the crimes and of the virtues which lived
within these walls; Time has long since thrown his all-concealing veil
over them; and gone are the eternally-repeated sorrows and joys, the
mouldering splendour, and the transient struggle.
The day was gloomy; black clouds rolled across the heavens, and
occasionally a yellow tawny light broke from between them; the wind
whistled among the ivy, and piped shrilly through the vacant windows;
now and then a stone loosened itself from the crumbling building, and
rolled clattering down the outer wall. Not a human being was to be seen;
all was solitary, awful;--a gloomy but sublime memorial of destruction.
Such moments are really consolatory:--we feel more vividly than at any
other that it is not worth while to grieve and trouble ourselves about
earthly things, since sorrow, like joy, lasts but for a moment. As an
illustration of the eternal mutation of human affairs, I found myself
transported in the evening from the mute and lifeless ruins to the
prosaic tumult of a multitude, busied but in gain; in the reeking,
smoky, bustling manufacturing town of Birmingham. The last romantic
sight was the flames which at night-fall illuminated the town on all
sides from the tall chimneys of the iron-works. Here is an end to all
sport of the fancy till more fitting time and place.
_December 30th._
Birmingham is one of the most considerable and one of the ugliest towns
of England. It contains a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, of
whom two-thirds are doubtless workmen, and indeed, it presents only the
appearance of an immeasurable workshop.
Immediately after breakfast I went to the manufactory of Mr. Thomasson,
our consul here,--the second in extent. The first,--where a thousand
workmen are daily employed, and an eighty-horse power steam-engine is
applied to innumerable uses, even in the manufactory of livery buttons
and pins' heads,--has been hermetically sealed to all foreigners ever
since the visit of the Austrian princes, one of whose suite carried away
some important secret.
I passed several hours here with great interest, though in hideous,
dirty, and stinking holes, which serve as the various workshops; and
made a button, which R---- will deliver to you as a proof of my
industry.
In a better room below are set out all the productions of the
manufactory, in gold, silver, bronze, plated, and lackered wares, the
latter surpassing their Japan originals in beauty; steel wares of every
kind;--all in a profusion and elegance which really excite amazement.
Among other things, I saw the copy of the Warwick Vase, of the same size
as the original. It is cast in bronze, and cost four thousand pounds. I
saw also magnificent table-services in plated ware, brought to such
perfection that it is impossible to distinguish it from silver. The
great people here often mix it among their plate, as the Paris ladies
mix false stones and pearls with their real ones.
I made acquaintance with a multitude of new and agreeable inventions of
luxuries in great and small, and could not quite resist the temptation
to buy, which is here so powerful. The trifles I bought will soon reach
you in a well-packed box.
The iron-works, with their gigantic steam-engines, the needle
manufactory, the steel works,--where you find every article from the
most delicate scissars to the largest grate, polished like mirrors, with
all the intermediate 'nuances,'--afford agreeable occupation for a
day:--but pardon me any further description of them; 'Ce n'est pas mon
métier.'
_December 31st:--Sunday._
As the manufactories are at rest to-day, I made an excursion to Aston
Hall, the seat of Mr. Watt, where, indeed, there is little to be seen in
the way of gardening, but the old house contains many curious portraits.
Unfortunately an ignorant porter could give me but little information
about them.
There was an extremely fine picture of Gustavus Adolphus, as large as
life. The good-nature, dignity and prudence; the clear honest eyes,
which yet express much more than honesty; and the gentle, but not the
less firm, assurance in his whole aspect,--were in the highest degree
attractive. Near to it stood an excellent bust of Cromwell, which I
should think a better likeness than the picture at Warwick. It is more
consonant with his historic character;--coarse, and, if you will, vulgar
features; but a rocky nature in the whole countenance, clearly allied to
that dark enthusiasm and demoniac cunning which so truly characterize
the man. Two cannon-balls which Cromwell threw into the house, then
fortified, and which broke the banisters in two places, are carefully
left on the very spot where they fell, and the railing not
repaired,--though it has since most stupidly been painted white even in
the broken part.
Not to lose a day, as there is nothing to see here but workshops, I
intend to set off this evening and travel through the night to Chester.
There we shall spend to-morrow in seeing Eaton, Lord Grosvenor's
celebrated seat, of which I wrote you word that Bathiany gave me such a
magnificent description, and which, according to all I hear, contains
whatever gold can procure. The day after to-morrow I shall return
hither, visit some more manufactories, and then go back to Oxford, in
the neighbourhood of which are two of the largest parks in England,
Blenheim and Stowe.
_Chester, January 1st, 1827._
Another year gone! None of the worst to me, except for the separation
from you. I lighted the lamp in the carriage and read Lady Morgan's last
novel with great pleasure, while we rolled swiftly over the level road.
As soon as the hand reached twelve o'clock, R---- congratulated me on
the new year, for myself and for you. In twelve hours more we reached
Chester, an ancient 'baroque' city.
Though we had gone nineteen German miles in thirteen hours, I find that
in England, as well as in France, as you go further from the metropolis
you find a general deterioration;--the inns are less excellent, the
post-horses worse, the postilions more dirty, the dress of the people
generally less respectable, and the air of bustle and business less. At
the same time, the dearness increases, and you are subjected to many
extortions which, nearer to London, are prevented by the great
competition.
The new year set in with unfavourable weather. It rained the whole day.
As soon as we had made a little toilet, we hastened to see the wonders
of Eaton Hall, of which, however, my expectations were not very high.
Moderate as they were, they were scarcely realized. The park and the
gardens were, to my taste, the most unmeaning of any of their class I
had seen, although of vast extent; and the house excited just the same
feeling in me as Ashbridge, only with the difference that it is still
more overloaded, and internally far less beautiful, though furnished
still more expensively, in patches. You find all imaginable splendour
and ostentation which a man who has an income of a million of our money
can display; but taste not perhaps in the same profusion. In this chaos
of modern Gothic excrescences, I remarked ill-painted modern glass
windows, and shapeless tables and chairs, which most incongruously
affected to imitate architectural ornaments. I did not find one single
thing worth sketching; and it is perfectly inconceivable to me how M.
Lainé, (to whose merits in the embellishment of his country all must do
justice,) could, in the Annals of the Berlin Horticultural Society,
prefer this to any he had seen; at which indeed his English critics have
made merry not a little. M. Lainé imitated this garden in the one in
front of the palace at Potsdam. In his place I should, I confess, have
chosen another model; though this style is certainly far better suited
to the palace in question than to a Gothic castle. Treasures of art I
saw none: the best was a middling picture by West. All the magnificence
lay in the gorgeous materials, and the profuse display of money. The
drawing-room or library, would, for size, make a very good
riding-school. The large portraits of the possessor and his wife, in the
dining-room, have little interest, except for their acquaintances. A
number of 'affreux' little Gothic temples, deface the pleasure-ground,
which has, moreover, no fine trees: the soil is not very favourable, and
the whole seems laid out in comparatively recent times. The country is
rather pretty, though not picturesque, and too flat.
As we had time to spare, we visited the royal castle of Chester which is
now converted into an excellent county gaol. The whole arrangement of it
seemed to me most humane and perfect. The view from the terrace of the
'corps de logis,' in which are the Courts of Justice, down upon the
prisoners in their cells, is extremely curious and surprising.
Imagine a high terrace of rock, on which stands a castle with two wings.
The 'corps de logis' is, as I said, dedicated to the courts, which are
very spacious; and the wings, to the prisoners for debt. The court-yard
is laid out as a little garden, in which the debtors may walk. Under the
court are cells in which the criminals are confined; the further end on
the right is appropriated to the women. The cells are separate, and
radiate from a centre; the little piece of ground in front of each is a
garden for the use of the prisoner, in which he is permitted to walk;
before trial his dress is gray; after it, red and green. In each
division of the building behind the cells is a large common-room, with a
fire, in which the prisoners work. The cells are clean and airy; the
food varies with the degree of crime,--the lowest is bread, potatoes and
salt. To-day, being new-year's-day, all the prisoners had roast-beef,
plum-pudding, and ale. Most of them, especially the women, became very
animated, and made a horrible noise, with hurrahs to the health of the
Mayor who had given them this fête.
The view from the upper terrace, over the gardens, the prison, and a
noble country, with the river winding below, just behind the cells;--on
the side, the roofs and towers of the city in picturesque confusion; and
in the distance, the mountains of Wales,--is magnificent, and 'a tout
prendre' our country counsellors of justice (_Oberlandes gerichtsrathe_)
are seldom lodged so well as the rogues and thieves here.
Thank Heaven, we set out on our return to-morrow, for I am quite weary
of parks and sights. I am afraid you will be no less so, of my
monotonous letters; but as you have said A you must say B, and so
prepare for a dozen parks before we reach London.
Meanwhile I send my epistle thither, to afford you at least an interval,
and pray God to have you in his merciful and faithful keeping.
Your ever devoted L----.