Though I felt perfectly 'blasé' of parks yesterday, and thought I could
never take any interest in them again, I am quite of another mind
to-day, and must in some respects give Hawkestone the preference over
all I have seen. It is not art, nor magnificence, nor aristocratical
splendour, but nature alone, to which it is indebted for this
pre-eminence, and in such a degree that were I gifted with the power of
adding to its beauty, I should ask, What can I add?
Turn your imagination to a spot of ground so commandingly placed, that
from its highest point you can let your eye wander over fifteen
counties. Three sides of this wide panorama rise and fall in constant
change of hill and dale, like the waves of an agitated sea, and are
bounded at the horizon by the strangely-formed jagged outline of the
Welsh mountains, which at either end descend to a fertile plain shaded
by thousands of lofty trees, and in the obscure distance where it blends
with the sky is edged with a white misty line--the ocean.
The Welsh mountains are partly covered with snow, and all the cultivated
country between so thickly intersected with hedge-rows and trees, that
at a distance it has rather the appearance of a thinly planted wood,
here and there broken by water or by numberless fields and meadows. You
stand directly in the centre of this scene, on the summit of a group of
hills, looking down over the tops of groves of oaks and beeches
alternating with the most luxuriant slopes of meadow-land, upon a wall
of rock five or six hundred feet high, which forms numerous steep
precipices and pretty valleys. In one of the gloomiest spots of this
wilderness arise the venerable ruins of 'the Red Castle,' a magnificent
memorial of the time of William the Conqueror.
Now imagine this whole romantic group of hills, which rises isolated
from the very plain, to be surrounded almost in a perfect circle by the
silver waves of the river Hawke. This naturally bounded spot is
Hawkestone Park, a spot whose beauties are so appreciated even in the
neighbourhood, that the brides and bridegrooms of Liverpool and
Shrewsbury come here to pass their honeymoon. The park seems indeed
rather the property of the public than of its possessor, who never
resides here, and whose ruinous and mean-looking house lies hidden in a
corner of the park, like a 'hors d'oeuvre.' There is, however, a
pretty inn, in which visitors find all that is needful to their comfort.
Here we passed the night, and after a good breakfast 'á la fourchette,'
set out on our long excursion on foot; for the roads are so bad that we
could not drive. Our scrambling walk, almost dangerous in winter, lasted
four hours.
We crossed a grassy plain, shaded by oaks and covered with grazing
cattle, to the rocks I have mentioned, in which the pale green veins
show the existence of copper. They rise out of a lofty hanging wood of
old beeches, and are crowned at their summits with black firs, the whole
effect of which is most striking. In this natural wall is a grotto,
which, after climbing wearily along a zig-zag path in the wood, you
reach through a dark covered way more than a hundred feet long, hewn in
the rock. The grotto consists of numerous caverns incrusted with all
sorts of minerals. There are small openings in which are set pieces of
coloured glass cut like brilliants; in the dark they gleam like the
precious stones of Aladdin's cave. An old woman was our guide, and
excited our wonder by her unwearied walking, and the dexterity with
which she climbed up and down the rocks in slippers. The irregular steps
of stone were as smooth as glass, and so difficult sometimes to pass
over, that our good R----, who had iron heels to his boots, complained
bitterly of the efforts he had to make to keep himself up. We reached a
summer-house, built of trunks and branches of trees and covered with
moss, which commanded a picturesque view of a fantastic hill called the
Temple of Patience. Our way then led us to the so-called Swiss Bridge,
which is boldly thrown from one rock to another. As the railing is
partly broken down and the passage rather a dizzy one, my good Julia, if
it were possible for her to have come thus far, would have found an end
to her expedition. How fortunate it is to have such an unwearied guide
through the regions of imagination--one who bears you in an instant
across the giddy bridge, and now places you before a black tower-like
rock projecting out of the glittering beeches, overgrown with thorns and
festooned with garlands of ivy! This was long the abode of a fox, who
lived secure from pursuit in his castle of Malapartus; it is still
called Reynard's House. We went on, up hill and down dale, and at
length, rather tired, reached the terrace, an open place with beautiful
peeps at the country cut in the wood. Not far from thence, behind very
high trees, stands a column a hundred-and-twenty feet high, dedicated to
the founder of the family,--a London merchant and Lord Mayor of London
in the time of Henry the Third,--whose statue crowns the pillar. A
convenient winding staircase in the inside leads to its summit, whence
you overlook the panorama of fifteen counties already mentioned. You
pass through still wider chasms between the rocks to a lovely cottage,
standing in complete seclusion at the end of a green valley, where
formerly various beasts and birds were kept, which are now preserved
stuffed in a room of the cottage. A young woman showed them to us, with
the strange announcement,--'All these animals that you see _used to
live_ formerly.' I spare you the green-house built of masses of rock and
branches of trees, and the Gothic tower--a sort of summer-house, and
lead you a long, long way through wood, then over green hills and
through a narrow defile to the magnificent ruin, the sublimely situated
Red Castle. The decayed walls and the hewn rocky sides are of great
extent. You can reach the interior only through a winding passage
blasted in the rock, so utterly dark that I found myself obliged to use
my guide's petticoat as an Ariadne's clue, for I literally could not see
my hand before my eyes. Out of this tunnel you emerge into a picturesque
alley of rock, with smooth high walls overarched with mountain-ashes. On
the side you perceive a cavern, the mouth of which is still closed with
a rusty iron gate. Climbing rude steps in the rock, you reach the upper
part of the ruin--a high roofless tower, in whose walls, fifteen feet
thick, many trees centuries old have struck their roots, and in the
interior of which is a well, which appears to sink down to the entrails
of the earth. The massy and unshaken barrier around it, the lofty tower
through which the sky appears above, and the bottomless depth beneath,
where reigns eternal night, produce an effect I never remember to have
experienced. You see Hope and Despair allegorically united in one
picture before you. The tower, and the rock on which it stands, look
down from a giddy height, in a perfectly perpendicular line, upon the
valley, in which the huge trees appear like copse-wood.
By a somewhat considerable leap of the imagination you reach a New
Zealander's hut on the banks of a little lake, built many years ago from
a drawing of Captain Cook's, and furnished with arrows, spears,
tomahawks, skulls of eaten enemies, and such-like pretty trifles, the
innocent luxuries of these children of nature.
Here we closed our walk, leaving unseen several devices which deform the
place, and which, as well as (alas!) the paths, are somewhat in decay.
But these defects are slight, in a whole so full of sublime and
wondrously-varied natural beauty.
_Newport, Jan. 3rd._
It is winter in good earnest;--the earth covered with ice and six inches
of snow, and the cold in the rooms, so insufficiently warmed by open
fires, almost insufferable. As I passed the greater part of the day in
the carriage, I have little to tell.
_Birmingham, Jan. 4th._
To-day too we saw nothing remarkable on our road but a newly laid out
park through which we drove, with a small but elegant garden, with very
pretty flower-stands of various sorts, and baskets, all of fine wire,
and clothed with creepers. R---- was obliged to draw them with stiff
fingers.
The inn at which we ate our luncheon bore the date 1603 carved in stone,
and is the prettiest specimen of a cottage in an antique style, with
brickwork in various patterns, I have met with. Towards evening we
reached Birmingham, where I am reposing comfortably after the excessive
cold.
_January 6th._
The whole day has been, as in my last visit, devoted to the
manufactories and warehouses. The poor workmen, however, have a bad time
of it. Their earnings are sufficient, it is true; but many of their
occupations are of such a kind that the slightest neglect or
carelessness may be productive of the most dreadful consequences. I saw
a man whose business it is to hold the piece of metal out of which
livery buttons are stamped. He has had his thumbs twice shattered, and
they are now only little formless lumps of flesh. Wo to those whose
clothes approach too near to the steam-engines or other hideous
machines! Many a one has this inexorable power seized and crushed, as
the boa crushes its helpless prey. Some occupations are as unhealthy as
those of the lead-works in Siberia; and in others there is a stench
which a stranger can scarcely endure for a minute.
Everything has its dark side,--this advanced state of manufacture among
the rest; but that is no reason for rejecting it.
Even virtue has its disadvantages when it oversteps the bounds of
moderation; while on the other hand the greatest evil, crime itself not
excepted, has its bright spots.
It is remarkable that, in spite of this wonderful progress in all
discoveries, the English have not yet been able, as Mr. Thomasson
assured me, to rival the iron-castings of Berlin. What I saw of this
kind were immeasurably inferior. I am sometimes tempted to think that we
are arrived at that point at which, far as the English now excel us,
they will begin to descend, and we to ascend. But as they have to fall
from such a height, and we to rise from such a depth, a long time may
elapse before we arrive at the meeting-point. However, as I said, I
think we have started on the road. _Deutschland, Gluck auff!_ if thy
sons obtain but freedom, their efforts will succeed.
_Stratford-on-Avon, Jan. 6th._
This day's journey was not long, but full of interest; for the place
whence my letter is dated is the birth-place of Shakspeare.
It is profoundly affecting to see the familiar trifles which centuries
ago stood in immediate and domestic contact with so great and beloved a
man; then to visit the place where his bones have long been mouldering;
and thus in a few moments to traverse the long way from his cradle to
his grave. The house in which he was born, and the very room hallowed by
this great event, still stand almost unchanged. The latter is perfectly
like a humble tradesman's room, such as we commonly find them in our
small towns; quite suited to the times when England stood on the same
step of civilization which the lower classes still occupy with us. The
walls are completely covered with the names of men of every country and
rank; and although I do not particularly like the parasitical appendages
on foreign greatness, like insects clinging to marble palaces, yet I
could not resist the impulse of gratitude and veneration, which led me
to add my name to the others.
The church on the Avon (the same river which washes the noble walls of
Warwick,) where Shakspeare lies buried, is a beautiful remnant of
antiquity, adorned with numerous remarkable monuments; among which, that
of the chief of poets is, of course, the most conspicuous. It was
formerly painted and gilded, as was the bust; but through the stupidity
of a certain Malone, was whitewashed over about a century ago, by which
it lost much of its singular character. The bust is far from having any
merit as a work of art: it is devoid of expression, and probably,
therefore, of resemblance. It was not without a considerable outlay of
trouble and money that I succeeded in getting a little engraving of the
monument in the original colours,--the last copy the clerk's wife had,
as she assured me. I send it with my letter.
I also bought in a bookseller's shop several views of the place, and of
the objects I have mentioned. In the town-house there is a large picture
of Shakspeare, painted in more recent times; and a still better one of
Garrick, which has some resemblance, not only in the features but the
'tournure' to Iffland.
_Oxford, Jan. 7th._
After having given the 'parkomanie' two days rest, we revived it to-day,
having visited no less than four great parks, the last of which was the
famous Blenheim. But in order:--'Exécutez vous.'
First we passed through Eastrop Park, remarkable in as far as it is of
the time in which the French style had just begun to decline; but at
this transition period the change was as yet so slight, that avenues of
clumps, of different but regularly alternating figures, replaced avenues
of single trees; and hedges were planted in serpentine lines. The whole
appeared in great decay.
Ditchley Park is more beautiful. Unfortunately, the English climate
played us a sad trick to-day. In the morning (for the second time since
we left London) the sun shone, and we were triumphing in our good luck,
when suddenly there fell such a fog that during the whole remaining day
we never could see a hundred steps before us,--often scarcely ten. In
the house we found a number of good pictures, especially very fine
portraits, but no creature could tell us whom they represented. We
learned nothing new in _our_ art, but we found a novelty in another
department. In the gamekeeper's lodge, in default of spoils of nobler
beasts, were about six dozen rats nailed up, their legs and tails
displayed with great taste.
Our third visit was to Blandford Park, belonging to Lord Churchill; very
inconsiderable as a park, but the house contains some noble pictures.
Two, I particularly envied the possessor. The first, a female figure,
attributed, no doubt falsely, to Michael Angelo. The drawing is
certainly bold, but there is a truth and elasticity in the flesh, a
Titian-like colouring, and a lovely archness of expression, which betray
no Michael Angelo,--even suppose the assertion to be false, that we
possess no oil-paintings of that great master.
The second riveted me still more;--a Judith ascribed to Cigoli, a
painter whose works I do not remember to have seen. The subject is
common enough: the triumphant virgin, with the trunkless head in her
hand, has always appeared to me rather disgusting than attractive; but
here the artist has diffused an expression over Judith's elevated and
captivating face, which appears to me to be conceived in the very spirit
of poetry.
I had rather possess good copies of such exquisite pictures, than less
interesting originals by great masters:--it is the poetical not the
technical part of a work of art that has charms for me. I pass over a
fine collection of drawings by Raphael, Claude, and Rubens, and many
interesting portraits.
The horrid fog was thicker and thicker, and we saw Blenheim as if by
twilight. In grandeur and magnificence it is doubtless extraordinary;
and I was much pleased with what I saw, or rather divined; for it was
all shrouded in a veil, behind which the sun appeared rayless, like the
moon. The house is very large and regular, built, unhappily, in the old
French style, and truly royal in magnificence. The park is five German
miles in circumference, and the piece of water, the finest work of its
kind existing, occupies alone eight hundred acres. The pleasure-grounds
are on an equally vast scale; forty men are daily employed in mowing.
Opposite to the house the water forms a cascade, so admirably
constructed of large masses of rock brought from a great distance, that
it is difficult to believe it artificial.
One cannot help admiring the grandeur of Brown's genius and conceptions,
as one wanders through these grounds: he is the Shakspeare of gardening.
The plantations have attained to such a height that we saw a single
Portugal laurel growing out of the turf, which measured two hundred feet
in circumference.
The present possessor, with an income of seventy thousand pounds, is so
much in debt that his property is administered for the benefit of his
creditors, and he receives five thousand a year for his life. It is a
grievous pity that he spends this little in pulling in pieces Brown's
imposing gardens, and modernizing them in a miserable taste;
transforming the rich draperies which Brown had thrown around Nature,
into a harlequin jacket of little clumps and beds. A large portion of
the old pleasure-ground is thus destroyed; as the old gardener, almost
with tears in his eyes, remarked to us. Many noble trees lay felled
around; and a black spot on the turf showed the place where a laurel,
nearly as large as the one I mentioned, lately stood in all its pride
and beauty. I thought with grief how vain it is to attempt to found
anything lasting, and saw in imagination those of my successors who will
destroy the plantations which we have designed and tended together with
so much fondness. Blenheim is chiefly situated on the spot where stood
the ancient royal park of Woodstock (which you remember from Walter
Scott's last novel). A great part of the oak wood which existed in the
time of the unhappy Rosamond is still alive, and dying in an agony of a
century's duration. There are perfect monsters of oaks and cedars, both
as to form and size. Many are so entirely enwreathed with ivy that it
has killed them, but at the same time clothed them with a new and more
beautiful evergreen foliage which enwraps the decayed trunk, like a
magnificent shroud, till it falls into dust.
Deer, pheasants and cattle, people the park, whose green plains seemed,
in the uncertain mist, boundless as the sea; in some places, bare as a
Steppe, in others thickly planted.
The interior of the house looks rather neglected, but contains a number
of valuable works of art. It must be confessed that never did a nation
bestow a richer reward on one of its great men than Blenheim, which is
princely even in its minutest details.[38]
As we entered, there was such a smoke that we thought we had to
encounter a second fog in the house. Some very dirty shabby servants--a
thing almost unheard-of here--ran past us to fetch the 'Chátelaine,'
who, wrapped in a Scotch plaid, with a staff in her hand and the air of
an enchantress, advanced with so majestic an air towards us, that one
might have taken her for the Duchess herself. The magic wand was for the
purpose of pointing more conveniently to the various curiosities. As a
preliminary measure, she required that we should inscribe our names in a
large book: unhappily, however, there was no ink in the inkstand, so
that this important ceremony was necessarily dispensed with. We passed
through many chill and faded rooms, decorated with numerous and fine
pictures, though among them are many inferior ones, on which the names
of Raphael, Guido, &c. are liberally bestowed. The gallery is extremely
rich in fine and genuine Rubens'; the most attractive among which, to
me, was his own frequently repeated but excellent portrait. I was also
much interested by a whole length portrait of the wild Duke of
Buckingham, by Van Dyk,--a roué of a very different sort, both in the
delicate turn of the features, the chivalrous dignity, and the tasteful
dress, from our modern ones. Further on is a beautiful Madonna, by Carlo
Dolce, less smooth and 'banale' than most of those by the same master;
and an excellent and most characteristic portrait of Catharine of
Medicis. She is very fair, with exquisitely beautiful hands, and a
singular expression of cold passion (if I may use the words) in her
features, which yet does not excite the feeling of repulsion one would
anticipate. Ruben's wife hangs opposite to her,--a handsome Flemish
housewife, somewhat vulgar, but beautifully painted and admirably
conceived. Philip the Second, by Titian, appeared to me unmeaning:--two
beggar boys, by Morillo, admirable. Lot and his daughters, by
Rubens;--the female figures somewhat less vulgar and coarse than most of
his beauties, who generally have too much in common with the chief
produce of his native country: Lot is admirably painted: the picture is
however a very unpleasing one. In the bedroom was hung, oddly enough, a
disgusting, fearful picture of Seneca's death in the bath,--Seneca
already a livid corpse.
The portrait of the Duke's mother by Sir Joshua Reynolds is extremely
pleasing. Her beauty and sweet child-like look were worthy of a Madonna;
and the little boy is a perfect Cupid, full of archness and grace.
The library is a magnificent room, containing seventeen thousand
volumes, decorated on the one side with a marble statue of Queen Anne;
on the other, a strange pendant--a colossal antique bust of Alexander; a
model of youthful beauty, in my opinion excelling the Apollo Belvedere.
It is more human, and yet the god-like nature appears through the
human,--not indeed in the christian, but the pagan sense of the word.
It is but fair to notice the portrait of the great Duke of Marlborough,
to whom this whole splendid edifice owes its existence. His history is
remarkable in many points of view: I especially advise every man who
_wishes to make his fortune_ to study it attentively; he may learn much
from a character so formed to _get on_ in the world.--The following
anecdote has always appeared to me remarkable, insignificant as was the
incident.
The Duke was one day overtaken by a violent shower of rain while riding
with his suite. He asked his groom for his cloak; and not receiving it
at the instant, repeated his order in a rather hasty tone. This provoked
the man, and he replied with an impertinent air, "Well, I hope you will
wait just till I have unbuckled it." The Duke, without evincing the
slightest irritation, turned smiling to the person next him, and said,
"Now would I not for all the world be of that fellow's temper."
The more well-known story of the 'petulance' of the Duchess of
Castlemaine, which Churchill turned to such good account, and which in
the strangest way laid the basis of his great career, showed an entirely
similar 'disposition,' and power over himself.
In night and fog we reached Oxford, where I alighted at the Star, and
refreshed myself with an admirable dinner prepared by a French cook from
London. Though I do not, like the ancients, regard cooks as objects of
religious veneration, I cannot deny that I have singular respect for
their art: 'Il est beau au feu' may be said with as much justice of a
virtuoso of this kind, as of the most dashing soldier; and in the field
of politics and diplomacy, every minister knows how much he is indebted
to his cook.
My excursion draws to a close, and in three days I hope to send off
B---- with all the materials he has collected, like a bee laden with
honey.
_January 8th._
Oxford is a most singular city. Such a crowd of magnificent Gothic
buildings, from five hundred to a thousand years old, can nowhere else
be found collected in one place. There are spots in which you can
imagine yourself transported back to the fifteenth century. You see
nothing around you but monuments of that period, without a single
incongruous object. Many, nay almost all, of these old colleges and
churches are also very beautiful in detail, and all of a most
picturesque character. I have often wondered why we do not adopt many of
the details of this style of architecture; for instance, the broad
light windows in two or three divisions, sometimes diversified with
large bows and irregularly divided; only habit could make us endure the
uniform rows of square holes which we call windows.
I went first to the so-called Theatre, which was built by a bishop three
hundred years ago. The iron railing which surrounds it has, instead of
pillars, a sort of 'termini' with the heads of the Roman Emperors, a
strange fancy, but the effect is not bad. In this theatre--which, as
might be expected from its origin, is more like a church--the Emperor of
Russia, the King of Prussia, and the Prince Regent were made Doctors,
and were obliged to appear in scarlet robes. The portraits of all three
have since been placed here. The King of England in his coronation
robes--an admirable picture by Lawrence, worthy of ancient times--hangs
in the centre, in a most splendid frame; on either side, in far simpler
frames and simpler garb, hang the Emperor of Russia, and the King of
Prussia, also by Lawrence. The King is not like: of the Emperor
Alexander I never saw a better portrait.
At the University Stereotype Press, where the printing of a sheet on
both sides is accomplished in five minutes, I again displayed my
activity, and had the honour to print a sheet, which I send you as
companion to the Birmingham button: it contains some interesting
incidents concerning the Maccabees.
A great deal of the printing for the Bible Society is done here; and if
it goes on at this rate, the time will soon arrive concerning which a
periodical called 'The Catholic,' of the year 1824, prophesied in this
wise: "If it comes to that, that all read the Bible, the world will be a
fit abode only for wild beasts." If "the Catholic" means that all will
_understand_ it, he may be right, for then the whole human race will be
ripe for another world. Nevertheless I am so far of "the Catholic's"
mind, that I think the indiscriminate diffusion of the Bible among
all,--even the rudest savages,--is throwing pearls before swine.
I next went to the Museum, which contains a very heterogeneous mixture
of things. On the staircase as you enter is a picture of the battle of
Pavia, in which the principal figures are portraits painted at the time,
as is expressed on the canvass. It is precisely in the style of the old
miniatures, and very interesting for the accuracy of the dresses and
armour: under it is the inscription "Comen les gens de Lempereur
deffirent les francoys en lan 1525." Portraits of Cardinal Wolsey and
Cardinal Richelieu also adorn the staircase. Under them was that of
Tradescant, a noted gardener of Charles the First, from which it was
impossible to tear his colleague R---- away; he looked at the picture
with a sort of protecting air, and was specially delighted with a
garland of mulberries and cucumbers which picturesquely surrounded this
father of gardeners. The most interesting thing in the picture, to me,
was the portrait of a strange large bird; worthy of the Arabian Nights,
called Dodo, which belonged to the gardener when alive, and whose like
has never been seen in these parts since. As a proof that this is no
fable, they showed us the genuine head and beak--wonderfully odd.
In the collection of natural history were a great many rare parrots, and
a curious bird with spikes on its wings, with which it spears fish as
with a lance. The diminutive warrior, who is only six inches high, looks
uncommonly fierce and bold; he is like a miniature crane, only much more
cunning and pugnacious. Here is the duck-billed platypus, that strange
animal from New Holland. The productions of that part of the globe are
so unlike those of all the others, that they almost make one imagine it
belongs to another era of creation, or that it dropped on our earth from
some wandering star.
The colours of a picture made of humming-bird's feathers seemed
something unearthly. Equally curious was a bas-relief of a knight in
splendid gold-green armour made of beetles' wings. Our modern knights
might be very handsomely represented in steel-blue armour, made from the
wings of the dung-beetle. I cannot attempt to give you an inventory of
the cabinet of curiosities; I confined myself, as I always do, to what
struck me, which was not always the most celebrated;--a jewelled glove
of Henry the Eighth's;--an autograph letter of Queen Elizabeth's to Lord
Burleigh, beautifully written;--a pretty riding-cloak and shoe of the
Maiden Queen, which latter proves the extreme beauty of her foot;
lastly, her watch, with a tasteful chain consisting of five medallions
in a row, each containing hair of a different colour--probably of her
chief favourites. Far more curious and sacred is a medallion with a
portrait rudely executed in mosaic, and an inscription signifying that
it belonged to the great Alfred. This precious relic was found ten years
ago in ploughing a field in the island of Athelney, where Alfred lay
hidden from the Danes.
I must now conduct you to the picture-gallery built by Elizabeth, and
preserved exactly 'in statu quo.' The roof is of wainscot panelled, and
in each panel a coat-of-arms, which has a most antique and magnificent
effect. Very good models of the principal temples of antiquity stand in
the ante-room. There are some excellent pictures. The one which charmed
me the most was an authentic portrait of Mary of Scotland, by Zuccaro,
painted just after her arrival from France, and brilliant in all the
indescribable radiance and fascination of her youth and freshness. It is
easy to understand how it was that this woman had only passionate
adorers and devoted partisans, or furious enemies. A face more, in the
true sense of the word, _charming_,--seductive,--can scarcely be
imagined: with all its French graces, it however betrays the selfishness
of the beauty, the recklessness of unbridled passion; but of malignity
or vulgarity, such as we see, the former in Elizabeth, the latter in
Catharine of Medicis, not a trace;--in short, a perfectly womanlike, and
_therefore_ perfectly captivating character of countenance, with all the
virtues and all the weaknesses and vices of her sex in their fullest
proportions. I should think the possession of such a picture a real
happiness,--that of the original might give one too much trouble. The
same artist painted a portrait of Elizabeth, precisely like that at
Warwick. The Earl of Leicester, taken shortly before his death, is
extremely interesting. His face is as elegant and high-bred as it is
handsome; and though not indicative of genius, has the expression of a
sagacious, dignified, and powerful man. There are no remains of the
brilliancy of youth, but a proud complacent consciousness of secure
unalterable favour. In a copy of the School of Athens by Giulio Romano,
I admired once more the exquisite face of the young duke of
Urbino,--that ideal of soft youthful beauty:--the loveliest girl might
be more than satisfied with the possession of it. Garrick's portrait, by
Raphael Mengs, did not answer my idea of that great actor so perfectly
as the one at Stratford-on-Avon. I was delighted with a picture of
Charles the Twelfth, by Schröter,--every inch a grand Don Quixotte: and
with a very characteristic Charles the Second, by Sir Peter Lely.
Charles' aspect, like his age, seems to me entirely French, even to his
features, which are strikingly like those of Bussy Rabutin. His father
hangs near,--a more attractive picture than usual. He has
unquestionably a fine face, with very speaking eyes; but the soft,
melancholy, ideological expression too plainly shows that the bearer of
such features was little fitted to encounter such a man as Cromwell, or
such an age as that he lived in. It is the greatest calamity for a
prince to fall upon an ill-suited time, unless he be strong enough to
impress his own stamp upon it. The great Locke, by Gibson, is a pale
attenuated student. Near him is a handsome portly Luther, by
Holbein;--the stately Handel, by Hodson;--and Hugo Grotius, with his
acute, crafty, and yet high chivalrous face, more that of an energetic
man of the world than of a man of letters. These are the subjects that
struck me the most.
_January 9th._
To-day I have walked all over Oxford; and I cannot express with what
intense delight I wandered from cloister to cloister, and refreshed
myself at this living spring of antiquity.
There is a magnificent avenue of elms, which like the buildings around
it, dates from the year 1520. From this queen of avenues, in which not a
single tree is wanting, and which leads through a meadow to the river,
you see on one side a charming landscape, on the other a part of the
city, with five or six of the most beautiful Gothic towers,--ever a
noble view, but to-day rendered almost like a picture of fairy
enchantment: the sky was overcast, the wind drove the black fantastic
clouds, like a herd of wild beasts, across it; at length the most
beautiful rainbow, vaulting from one tower and descending on another,
spanned the whole city.
From this ancient seat of the Muses of England, from all its
colleges,--each different from the other,--each enclosing a spacious
court, and adorned with noble towers,--each with its own more or less
beautifully ornamented church, its library and picture-gallery, all in
their kind of new and varied interest,--I carry away the most agreeable
recollections. If you can bear to drink again and again from the old
cup, you shall accompany me in my rambles.
My first walk was to the Ratcliffe Library; a round and modern
building,--erected, that is, in the last century, at Dr. Ratcliffe's
cost,--nearly in the centre of the town. The interior is simply a
rotunda in three stages or stories, with a cupola and two open
galleries, whence side-rooms radiate from the inner, to the outer
circles. Below are casts of the best antiques. A small winding staircase
leads to a side tower, from the roof of which you have a splendid view
of the Gothic palaces pointing to heaven with their hundred spires. The
surrounding country is cheerful, fertile, and well wooded. There are
four-and-twenty colleges (a sort of cloister for education,) and
thirteen churches in this small town, containing only sixteen thousand
inhabitants.
From hence we proceeded to Henry the Eighth's Library, preserved,
externally and internally, in nearly its original state, and containing
not less than three hundred thousand volumes. The 'locale' is like no
other of the kind, and transports one completely into past ages. The
cruciform room; the strange shelves; the iron gratings, half blue, half
gilded, and of a form no longer seen; the enormous windows, as broad as
three church windows together and ornamented with beautiful coloured
glass; the gay gilded ceiling, with numberless panels, each containing
the picture of an open Bible with four crowns; even the Doctors sitting
at the tables in the dress of Luther, which they still wear,--how
strangely is the fancy excited by such a scene! A gallery runs round
midway of the high shelves, for the purpose of reaching the books
above. On the railing of this gallery are hung the portraits of the
various librarians, from the first to the last; some, unhappily, in
modern dresses, who look like apes among their venerable predecessors.
In the middle of the room the shelves are so arranged on either side,
that they form a long alley of enclosed closets, in which every man who
wishes to use the library can work completely undisturbed,--an old and
most exemplary arrangement. There are also books in the rooms which
occupy the whole ground-floor of this quadrangular edifice. Here are
some very curious manuscripts and specimens of early printing. I saw
with sorrow how large a tribute the poverty of Germany has been
compelled to pay to the wealth of England; among other things, a
magnificent copy of Faust's first Bible, of the year 1440, which I think
belonged to our Doctor Barth, and is inscribed with a number of notes in
his handwriting. I was delighted to find a manuscript so exactly like a
volume of Froissart in our library, (that with the miniatures in every
leaf,) embellished with the same arabesques of fruit and flowers on a
gold ground, the style and colouring of the figures so precisely the
same, that it is scarcely to be doubted they are by the same painter.
Unfortunately there is neither name nor date. The text is Quintus
Curtius,--all the figures exactly in the costume of the time of the
illuminator: Alexander, cased in iron from head to foot, breaks a lance
with Darius, and throws him from his saddle, just in the style of the
French and English Knights in Froissart.
A very curious French manuscript, the subject of which is an heroic
poem, contains the name of the writer with the date 1340, (an extremely
rare occurrence,) and under it the name of the painter with the date
1346; this gives reason to conclude that the latter had spent six years
in the illuminating, which is almost all executed on a very unusual
design, in gold, blue and red in squares, like a carpet. This manuscript
is peculiarly interesting from the circumstance that the painter,
instead of enclosing the text within a border or arabesque, has
surrounded it with a representation of the trades, sports, and pastimes
of his time. A cursory glance showed me, together with many games and
occupations which we have lost, so many which are still so precisely the
same, that I was really surprised. For instance, a masked-ball;
_Kammerchen vermiethen_;[39] the _Handespiel_, or 'gioco di villano;'
the same with the feet, which we boys often used to play in winter to
warm ourselves; throwing at cocks, and cockfighting; rope-dancers and
conjurors; horse-riders and trained horses, whose feats are more
wonderful than ours; rifle-shooting at a man who ('mille pardons') turns
himself in unseemly wise to the company, like one still existing on a
gate at Lausitz; a smithy, where a horse is shoeing; a wagon, with three
large cart-horses harnessed out at length, with harness, &c. all in the
present form, even the driver's costume,--a blue slop--the very same;
and many other things which I have not time to notice,--showed that
though many things change, yet an infinite deal remains unaltered, and
perhaps, 'à tout prendre,' human life is more the same in different ages
than we generally imagine.
A Boccacio, with exquisitely beautiful miniatures, is one of the
show-pieces of the library. A copy of the Acts of the Apostles, of the
seventh century, in Greek and Latin, is shown as a great curiosity: each
line contains only one word in each language. Considering its great
antiquity, it is in very good preservation.
In the beautiful court of All Souls College--which moreover is carpeted
with the finest turf--there is a spot whence you have a most magnificent
view of spires, towers, and façades of ancient buildings, rising in
unbroken series, one behind another, without the least mixture of modern
houses. Here is another noble library. In the middle is an orrery, which
illustrates our solar system very clearly, and keeps equal course with
the sun and planets through the year.
Christ's College is a beautiful building of modern times; a part of it
only is very old. The church is of Saxon architecture; round and pointed
arches intermingle, but do not at all offend the eye. Here is the famous
shrine of St. Frisdewilde, a most magnificent and tasteful Gothic
monument of the beginning of the eighth century, and still in good
preservation. It was enriched with silver Apostles and other ornaments,
which were plundered in Cromwell's time. That unhappy religious war did
irreparable damage to the antiquities of England; till then, all these
sacred relics were in perfect preservation.
Attached to this college is that most charming walk I described to you
above. It leads us to Magdalen College, which has been in part newly
restored. The restoration is perfectly in the ancient style, and renders
this part of the building secure for five hundred years to come; it has
already cost forty thousand pounds, though but a small part is
completed:--it may be imagined what enormous sums the execution of such
works from the foundation would cost. Nothing great in art can be
executed now, for the money it would cost is absolutely unattainable.
The sum which formerly purchased a god-like work of Raphael's, would now
(even allowing for the difference in the value of money) scarcely buy a
moderate portrait by Lawrence. The Botanic Garden, which closed our
walk, contains nothing worth describing. I therefore release you for the
present, my dear Julia; 'mais c'est á y revenir demain.'
_Buckingham, Jan. 10th._
It is a sin how long my private journal has been neglected. The more my
letters to you swell, the more does my unhappy journal shrink. If you
were to burn these letters, I should have no trace of what had become of
me all this time. Imagine how unpleasant to vanish from one's own
memory!
My imagination is so 'montée' by the many vestiges and echoes of past
times, that I dream of a distant future, in which even ruins will be no
more,--in which we shall lose not only these shadows of humanity, but
human nature itself, and begin a new life in new spheres. For in
remembrance, say what you will, we entirely lose that which we actually
were;--even here, the old man nearly loses himself as a child. We may
indeed find ourselves again, my best friend, and then will the tie that
binds us necessarily re-unite. Let this satisfy us.
'Mais revenons à nos moutons;--c'est à dire, parlons de nouveau de
parcs.'
Dreadful weather--rain and darkness, detained me at Oxford till three in
the afternoon, when it cleared sufficiently for me to set out. The
postilion missed the road, which is not a main one, and drove us a long
way about, so that we arrived very late. While the fire was lighting in
my room, I sat down in mine host's, where I found a very pretty girl,
his niece, and two doctors of the place, with whom I talked away the
evening very pleasantly.
_Aylesbury, Jan. 11th._
Stowe is, like Blenheim, another specimen of English grandeur and
magnificence. The park embraces a large tract of undulating ground,
with fine trees; the house is a noble building in the Italian style. The
grounds were laid out long ago; and though in many respects beautiful,
and remarkable for fine lofty trees, are so overloaded with temples and
buildings of all sorts, that the greatest possible improvement to the
place would be the pulling down ten or a dozen of them. There is a
charming flower-garden, thickly surrounded with high trees, firs, cedars
and evergreens, and flowering shrubs. The parterre forms a regular
pattern like a carpet, in front of a crescent-formed house filled with
rare birds. In the middle of this carpet is a fountain, and on either
side are two pretty 'volières' of wire.
In the park stands a tower called the Bourbon Tower, from the circle of
limes around it which Louis the Eighteenth planted during his long
residence at Hartwell in this neighbourhood. The tower, though modern,
is half fallen in. I wish this be no ill omen for the Bourbons in
France, where even the sage Charter-giver could obtain no better titles
from his subjects than 'Louis l'Inévitable,' and 'Deux Fois Neuf.'
Here is a monument deserving of mention, dedicated to the great men and
women of England, with very appropriate inscriptions, and busts modelled
after the best pictures.
The façade of the building is four hundred and fifty feet long, and as
long is the unbroken 'enfilade' of rooms in the 'bel étage,' which you
enter from the garden by a fine flight of steps. You pass through a
bronze door into an oval marble hall with a beautiful dome, whence alone
it is lighted. A circle of twenty pillars of red scagliola marble
surrounds it, and in the niches between them are ten antique statues.
The floor is paved with real marble, and a gilded grating admits heated
air. I will not weary you with further description of the rooms;--they
are very rich, and all more or less decorated with pictures and
curiosities. The state bed-room, which is not used, is crowded with fine
porcelain, and contains a curious old bed of embroidered velvet with
gold fringe.
In a boudoir near were many other curiosities, which we were only
permitted to see through a grating. The loss of a ruby necklace formerly
belonging to Marie Antoinette, is the very sufficient reason for this
prohibition, which is never removed but in the Duke's presence.
The library is a long gallery covered from top to bottom with shelves,
with a light and elegant gallery in the middle. An adjoining room,
fitted up in the same way, contains nothing but maps and engravings,
probably one of the richest collections in the world. This seems the
peculiar taste of the present Duke.
The hall on the other side of the house, looking on the park, commands a
view which struck me as quite peculiar. You see a large open grassy
plain, skirted on either side by an oak wood, and in the middle and back
ground meadows and wood interspersed. In the centre of the plain, about
sixty or seventy paces from the house, stands, perfectly isolated, a
colossal snow-white equestrian statue, of admirable workmanship. The
pedestal is so high that the horseman seems to rest on the top of the
wood behind him. Not a building, nor any other object than trees, grass,
and sky, are visible; and the whole scene so utterly still and
inanimate, that the white spectral image rivets the attention:--no finer
decoration for Don Juan could be imagined. It happened, too, by a
fortunate chance, that the sky on that side of the house was perfectly
black with a threatening snow-storm, so that the dazzling white statue
stood out in almost fearful grandeur. At the moment, it looked alive,
and every muscle seemed to rise in the sharp lights.
Among the pictures is a treasure which seems to be unknown to our German
travellers, at least I never saw it noticed:--a genuine portrait of
Shakspeare, painted during his lifetime by Barnage. The hypercritics of
England will have it there is no genuine portrait of Shakspeare; but it
seems to me almost impossible to _invent_ a physiognomy carrying on it
such a triumphant air of truth, so fully expressing the grandeur and
originality of the man; furnished with all the intellectual elevation,
all the acuteness, wit, delicacy, all the genuine humour, whose
exhaustless treasures were never so lavished on any mortal. The
countenance is nowise what is vulgarly called handsome; but the sublime
beauty of the mind within beams from every part. Across the lofty
forehead gleam the bright flashes of that daring spirit; the large dark
brown eyes are penetrating, fiery, yet mild; around the lips play light
irony and good-natured archness, but wedded to a sweet benevolent smile,
which lends the highest, the most heart-winning charm to the lofty,
awful dignity of the intellectual parts of the face. Wondrously perfect
appears the structure of the skull and forehead; there are no single
prominences, but all the organs so capacious and complete that we stand
astonished before such a glorious pattern of perfect organization, and
feel a deep joy at finding the man in so beautiful a harmony with his
works.
Two excellent Albrecht Dürers--a pair of female saints in a fantastic
landscape--attracted me, particularly by their primitive German
character. They are two genuine Nürnberg housewives, dressed in their
fatherlandish caps, and taken from nature itself; good-natured, and
busied about their saintly affairs.--A picture of Luther, by Holbein, is
more intellectual and less fat than usual.
There is a remarkable picture, by Van Dyk, of the Duke of Vieuxville,
ambassador from the Court of France to Charles the First, who with
chivalrous devotion followed the King into the field and was killed at
Newbury. The dress is old, but picturesque;--a white 'juste-au-corps, à
la Henri Quatre,' with a black mantle thrown over it; full short black
breeches falling over the knee, with silver points; pale violet
stockings with gold clocks, and white shoes with gold roses. On the
mantle is embroidered the star of the Holy Ghost, four times as large as
it is now worn, the blue riband 'en sautoir,' but hanging down very low,
and the cross worn in the present fashion, on the side; it is narrower
and smaller than now, and hangs by the broad riband almost under the
arm.
The Duke de Guise was not such as I had pictured him to myself:--a pale
face with reddish beard and hair; with the expression rather of an
'intriguant' than of a great man.--A picture which corresponds better
with the character of the person it represents is Count Gondemar,
Spanish ambassador to the Court of James the First, by Velasquez; he
ingratiated himself with the King by his dog-Latin, in which burlesque
form he made free to say anything. He brought the gallant Sir Walter
Raleigh to the scaffold by his Jesuitical intrigues.
A picture of Cromwell, by his Court painter Richardson, has a double
interest for the family. It was painted expressly for one of the Duke's
ancestor's, who appears in the same picture as page, in the act of tying
the Protector's scarf. This portrait is not much like the others of the
same personage I have seen; it represents him as younger, and of a more
refined nature, and is therefore probably flattered. From the hand of a
Court painter this is to be expected.
I must only mention two fine and large Teniers', one of which represents
three wonderfully characteristic Dutch boors, meeting in a village and
gossiping with their pipes in their mouths; an excellent Ruysdael; six
famous Rembrandt's, and Titian's lovely mistress. I admired, too, a new
specimen of art,--two Sèvres cups with miniatures after Pétitot, by that
admirable porcelain-painter Madame Janquotot. The one represents Ninon
de l'Enclos, of whom I had never before seen a picture that answered to
my idea of her. This expressed her character fully, and is of the most
attractive beauty,--genuine French, lively as quicksilver, bold almost
to impudence, but too generous and too truly natural to leave any other
than an engaging impression on the mind. The other--a gentle, placid,
and voluptuous beauty--- was inscribed, Françoise d'Orleans de Valois.
As thoroughly initiated in French genealogies and memoirs, you will know
who she is. 'Je l'ignore.' Each cup cost a thousand francs.
In a beautiful moonlight we drove to Aylesbury, whence I now write.
_Uxbridge, Jan. 12th._
This evening I hope to be in London again. While the horses are
putting-to I write a few words. We saw Lord Carrington's park this
morning,--for your comfort be it said, the last, at present at least.
The garden is nothing remarkable: the house is in the beloved modern
Gothic style, but, being simple and unpretending, looks less affected.
It is built of stone, without ornament. A good portrait of Pitt hangs in
the library. This great man has anything but the face of a man of
genius,--and who knows whether posterity will think his deeds betray
more than his face?
One thing pretty I observed in the garden,--a thick massy wreath of ivy
planted on the turf. It looks as if negligently dropped there. Our
excursion was to be closed by the sight of Bulstrode, which Repton
describes at such length as the model of parks; but this drop is spared
you, my poor Julia, for the Duke of Portland has sold it, and the
present owner has felled the trees about which Repton is so
enthusiastic, ploughed up the park, and pulled down the house to sell
the stone. It was a miserable scene of desolation,--made more miserable
by the strange dress of the women at work; they were wrapped from top to
toe in blood-red cloaks, and looked like an ill-omened assemblage of
executioners.
_London, Jan. 13th._
By bright gas-light, which is always like a festal illumination here, we
drove into town, and as I wished to have an instant contrast with my
park-and-garden life, I alighted at Covent Garden to see my first
Christmas pantomime. This is a very favourite spectacle in England,
particularly with children; so that I was quite in my place. Playwrights
and scene-painters take great pains to make every year's wonders exceed
the last. Before I bid you good-night I must give you a rhapsodical
sketch of the performance. At the rising of the curtain a thick mist
covers the stage and gradually rolls off. This is remarkably well
managed by means of fine gauze. In the dim light you distinguish a
little cottage, the dwelling of a sorceress; in the back-ground a lake
surrounded by mountains, some of whose peaks are clothed with snow. All
as yet is misty and indistinct;--the sun then rises triumphantly, chases
the morning dews, and the hut, with the village in the distance, now
appear in perfect outline. And now you behold upon the roof a large
cock, who flaps his wings, plumes himself, stretches his neck, and
greets the sun with several very natural _Kikerikys_.[40] A magpie near
him begins to chatter and to strut about, and to peck at a gigantic
tom-cat lying in a niche in the wall, who sleepily stretches himself,
cleans his face, and purrs most complacently. This tom-cat is acted with
great 'virtuosité' by an actor who is afterwards transformed into
Harlequin. The way in which he plays with a melon, the lightness and
agility with which he climbs up the chimney and down again, his springs,
and all his gesture, are so natural that they could only be acquired by
a long study of the animal himself. Happily the scenic art is come to
that, that it no longer suffers men to be excelled by poodles and
monkeys, but has actually raised them to the power of representing those
admired animals to the life.
Meanwhile the door opens, and Mother Shipton, a frightful old witch,
enters with a son very like herself. The household animals, to whom is
added an enormous duck, pay their morning court to the best of their
ability. But the witch is in a bad humour, utters a curse upon them all,
and changes them on the spot into the persons of the Italian comedy,
who, like the rest of the world, persecute each other without rest, till
at last the most cunning conquers. The web of story is then spun on
through a thousand transformations and extravagances, without any
particular connexion, but with occasional good hits at the incidents of
the day; and above all, with admirable decorations, and great wit on the
part of the machinist. One of the best scenes was the witch's kitchen. A
rock cleaves open and displays a large cave, in the midst of which more
than a cart-load of wood forms the fire, before which a whole stag with
its antlers, a whole ox, and a pig, are turning rapidly on the spit. On
a hearth on the right side is baking a pie as big as a wagon, and on the
left a plum-pudding of equal calibre is boiling. The 'chef de cuisine'
appears with a dozen or two assistants in a grotesque white uniform,
with long tails, and each armed with a gigantic knife and fork. The
commandant makes them go through a ludicrous exercise, present arms, &c.
He then draws them up 'en péloton' to baste the roast, which is
performed with ladles of the same huge proportions as the other
utensils, while they industriously fan the fire with their tails.
The scene next represents a high castle, to which the colossal 'batterie
de cuisine' is conveyed like a park of artillery. It appears smaller and
smaller along the winding path, till at length the pie disappears in the
horizon like the setting moon.
Next we are transported into a large town, with all sorts of comical
inscriptions on the houses, most of them satires on the multitude of new
inventions and companies for all manner of undertakings; such as,
"Washing Company of the three united kingdoms;" "Steam-boat to America
in six days;" "Certain way of winning in the lottery;" "Mining shares at
ten pounds a share, by which to become worth a million in ten years."
The fore-ground exhibits a tailor's workshop, with several journeymen
busily stitching away in the 'rez de chaussée; a pair of shears six
yards long are fixed over the door as a sign, with the points upwards.
Harlequin arrives, pursued by Pantaloon and Co., and springs through the
air with a somerset in at a window on the first story, which breaks with
a loud crash. The pursuers drawing back from the 'salto mortale,' tumble
over and thump each other with artist-like skill and wonderful
suppleness. Ladders are now brought, and they climb into the house after
Harlequin: but he has made his escape through the chimney, and runs off
over the roofs. Pantaloon with his long chin and beard leans out of the
window before which the shears are placed, to see which way Harlequin is
gone. Suddenly the parted blades shut to, and his head falls into the
street. Pantaloon, not a whit the less, runs down stairs and rushes out
at the door after his rolling head;--unluckily a poodle picks it up and
runs off with it, and Pantaloon after him. But here he meets Harlequin
again, disguised as a doctor, who holds a consultation with three others
as to what is to be done for the unhappy Pantaloon. They at length
decide to rub the place where the head is wanting with Macassar oil; and
by means of this operation a new head happily grows under the eye of the
spectators.
In the last act, Tivoli at Paris is well given. A balloon ascends with a
pretty child. While he floats from the stage over the heads of the
audience the earthly scene gradually sinks, and as the balloon reaches
the lofty roof, where it makes a circuit round the chandelier, the stage
is filled with rolling clouds through which a thousand stars shine and
produce a very pretty illusion.
As the balloon sinks, town and gardens gradually rise again. A rope is
next stretched, on which a lady drives a wheelbarrow to the summit of a
Gothic tower, in the midst of fire-works; while other 'equilibristes'
perform their break-neck feats on level ground.
At the conclusion, the stage is transformed, amid thunder and lightning,
into a magnificent Chinese hall with a thousand gay paper lanterns;
where all spells are dissolved, the witch banished to the centre of the
earth by a beneficent enchanter, and Harlequin, recognized as legitimate
prince, marries his Columbine.
On our way home we had another and more terrible spectacle, gratis. A
lofty column of lurid smoke poured from a chimney, and soon became
tinged with blue, red and green;--the nearer we came the thicker and
more variegated it ascended, like one of the Chinese fireworks we had
just seen. "Probably," said I to R----, "a chemical laboratory, if it be
not indeed a fire in earnest." Hardly had I said the words when my fears
were fulfilled. Cries resounded from all sides, the flames streamed
wildly forth towards heaven, the people flocked together, and
fire-engines soon rattled through the streets. But the huge city
swallows up all particular incidents,--five hundred steps further, and
the fire in the neighbourhood excited no interest whatever; the guests
in an illumined mansion danced merrily, the play-goers walked quietly
home, and all traces of alarm or sympathy were lost.
But, my dear Julia, 'il faut que tout finesse'--and so must my long
narrative, which certainly furnishes you with a sheet for every year of
my life. That it ends with fire you must take as an emblem of ardent
love,--and here it is not necessary, as your superstition requires, to
exclaim "In a good hour be it said." Every hour, even the most
unfortunate, is good--where love is.
Your L----.