Paul's, and, like many other celebrated places, the visitor ascertains
that it cannot be seen in the one, hurried, tourist visit that is
generally given to them, especially if one wishes to give an
intelligible description to friends, or convey his idea to those who
have not had the opportunity of visiting it. For my own part, it was a
second visit to these old churches I used most to enjoy, when, with
local guide-book and pencil in hand, after perhaps refreshing memory by
a peep the night before into English history, I took a two or three
hours' quiet saunter among the aisles, the old crypts, or beneath the
lofty, quiet old arches, or among the monuments, when I could have time
to read the whole inscription, and pause, and think, and dream over the
lives and career of those who slept beneath
"The storied urn and animated bust."
There are over fifty splendid monuments, chiefly to English naval and
military heroes, in St. Paul's, many of them most elaborate, elegant,
and costly groups of marble statuary; but I left those for the last, and
set about seeing other sights within the old pile, and so first started
for the Whispering Gallery. This is reached by a flight of two hundred
and sixty steps from the transept, and about half way up to it we were
shown the library belonging to the church, containing many rare and
curious works, among them the first book of Common Prayer ever printed,
and a set of old monastic manuscripts, said to have been preserved from
the archives of the old St. Paul's, when it was a Roman cathedral. The
floor of this library is pointed out as a curiosity, being composed of
a mosaic of small pieces of oak wood. Next the visitor is shown the
Geometrical Stairs, a flight of ninety steps, so ingeniously constructed
that they all hang together without any visible means of support except
the bottom step.
Up we go, upward and onward, stopping to see the big bell,--eleven
thousand four hundred and seventy-four pounds,--which is never tolled
except for a death in the royal family. The hour indicated by the big
clock is struck on it by a hammer moved by clock-work; but the big
clapper used in tolling weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. The clock
of St. Paul's seems a gigantic timepiece indeed, when you get up to it;
its faces are fifty-seven feet in circumference, and the minute-hand a
huge bar of steel, weighing seventy-five pounds, and nearly ten feet in
length; the hour or _little_ hand is another bar of about six feet long,
weighing forty-four pounds. The figures on the dial are two feet three
inches long, and the big pendulum, that sets the machinery of this great
time-keeper in motion, is sixteen feet long, with a weight of one
hundred and eight pounds at the end of it.
The Whispering Gallery is a gallery with a light ornamental iron
railing, running entirely round the inside of the base of the cupola, a
distance of one hundred and forty yards; and whispered conversation can
be carried on with persons seated at the extreme opposite side of the
space; the clapping of the hands gives out almost as sharp a report as
the discharge of a rifle. This Whispering Gallery is a fine place to get
a good view of the great paintings in the compartments of the dome,
which represent leading events in the life of St. Paul. It was at the
painting of these pictures that the occurrence took place, so familiar
as a story, where the artist, gradually retiring a few steps backward to
mark the effect of his work, and having unconsciously reached the edge
of the scaffolding, would, by another step, have been precipitated to
the pavement, hundreds of feet below, when a friend, seeing his peril,
with great presence of mind, seized a brush and daubed some fresh paint
upon the picture; the artist rushed forward to prevent the act, and
saved his life. From this gallery we looked far down below to the
tessellated pavement of black and white, the centre beneath the dome
forming a complete mariner's compass, showing the thirty-two points.
Above this are two more galleries around the dome,--the Stone Gallery
and Golden Gallery,--from which a fine view of London, its bridges and
the Thames, can be had, if the day be clear. Above we come to the great
stone lantern, as it is called, which crowns the cathedral, and bears up
its huge ball and cross. Through the floor, in the centre of this
lantern, a hole about the size of a large dinner-plate is cut, and as I
stood there and looked straight down to the floor, over three hundred
feet below, I will confess to a slight feeling of contraction in the
soles of the feet, and after a glance or two at the people below,
dwarfed by distance, I hastily retired with the suspicion of, what if
the plank flooring about that aperture should be weak!
Next comes an ascent into the ball. A series of huge iron bars uphold
the ball and cross; the spaces between them are open to the weather, but
so narrow, that the climber, who makes his way by aid of steps notched
into one of the bars, as he braces his body against the others, could
not possibly get more than an arm out; so the ascent of ten feet or so
is unattended with danger, and we found ourselves standing within this
great globe, which from the streets below appears about the size of a
large foot-ball, but which is of sufficient capacity to contain ten men.
It was a novel experience to stand in that huge metallic sphere, which
was strengthened by great straps of iron almost as big as railroad
rails, and hear the wind, which was blowing freshly at the time, sound
like a steamship's paddle-wheels above our head. Thirty feet above the
globe rises the cross, which is fifteen feet high, and which the guide
affirmed he really believed American visitors would climb and sit
astride of, if there were any way of getting at it.
Having taken the reader to the highest accessible point, we will
now descend to the lowest--the huge crypt, in which rest the last
mortal remains of England's greatest naval and greatest military
heroes,--Nelson and Wellington,--heroes whose pictures you see from one
end of the island to the other, in every conceivable style--their
portraits, naval and battle scenes in which they figured, busts,
monuments, statues, engravings, and bronzes. No picture gallery seems
complete without the death scene of Nelson upon his ship in the hour of
victory; and one sees it so frequently, that he almost yields to the
belief that the subject is as favorite a one with British artists, as
certain scriptural ones used to be with the old Italian painters.
The crypt contains the immense pillars, forty feet square, which support
the floor above, and in that part of it directly beneath the dome is the
splendid black marble sarcophagus of Lord Nelson, surmounted by the
cushion and coronet. This sarcophagus was originally prepared by
Cardinal Wolsey for his own interment at Windsor, but now covers the
remains of the naval hero, and bears upon its side the simple
inscription "HORATIO, VISCOUNT NELSON." In another portion of the crypt
is the large porphyry sarcophagus of the Duke of Wellington, the
enclosure about it lighted with gas from granite candelabra, while all
about in other parts of the crypt, beneath the feet of the visitor, are
memorial slabs, that tell him that the ashes of some of England's most
noted painters and architects rest below. Here lies Sir Christopher
Wren, who built St. Paul's, and who lived to the good old age of
ninety-one. Here sleeps Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and
Benjamin West, painters; here Robert Mylne, who built Blackfriars'
Bridge, and John Rennie, who built Southwark and Waterloo Bridges,
besides many others of more or less note. In another part of the crypt
is preserved the great funeral car, with all its trappings and
decorations, which was used upon the occasion of the funeral ceremonies
of the Duke of Wellington, and which the guide shows with great
_empressement_, expecting an extra sixpence in addition to the three
shillings and two pence you have already expended for tickets to
different parts of the building.
The expenses of the whole sight are as follows: Whispering and other two
galleries, sixpence; to the hall, one shilling and sixpence; library,
geometrical staircase, and clock, eight-pence; crypts, sixpence. Total,
three shillings and two-pence. And now, having seen all else, we take a
saunter through the body of the church, and a glance at the monuments
erected to the memory of those who have added to England's glory upon
the sea and the field of battle.
One of the first monumental marble groups that the visitor observes on
entering is that of Sir William Ponsonby, whose horse fell under him in
the battle of Waterloo, leaving him to the lances of the French
cuirassiers. It represents Ponsonby as a half-clad figure, slipping from
his horse, that has fallen to its knees, and holding up his hand, as he
dies, to receive a wreath from a rather stiff-looking marble angel, that
has opportunely descended at that moment.
The statue of Dr. Samuel Johnson, represented with a scroll in his hand,
and in the attitude of deep thought, stands upon a pedestal bearing a
long Latin inscription.
The monument by Flaxman to Lord Nelson is quite an elaborate one. It
represents him in his naval full dress, and a cloak falling from his
shoulders, standing upon a pedestal, leaning upon an anchor and coil of
rope. Upon the side of the pedestal are cut allegorical representations
of the North Sea, the German Ocean, the Nile, and the Mediterranean, and
the words Copenhagen--Nile--Trafalgar. At one side of the pedestal
crouches a huge marble lion. At the other stands Britannia, with two
young sailors, pointing out the hero to them for their imitation.
The statue of John Howard, the philanthropist, represents him in Roman
costume, trampling upon some fetters, a key in his right hand, and a
scroll in his left. A bass-relief on the pedestal represents the
benevolent man entering a prison, and bringing food and clothing to
prisoners. A very beautiful inscription tells of his many virtues, his
modesty and worth; of his having received the thanks of both Houses of
British and Irish Parliaments for his services rendered to his country
and mankind, and that his modesty alone defeated various efforts which
were made during his life to erect this statue.
There is a fine statue of Bishop Heber, who, half a century ago (May 15,
1819), wrote the beautiful missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy
mountains," which has since then been translated into foreign tongues at
every missionary station, and sung all over the world. The statue,
executed by Chantrey, represents the bishop kneeling, with his hand
resting upon the Holy Bible.
There are two monuments that will attract the attention of Americans,
from the fact of their being in memory of generals who gained their
laurels in military operations in this country. The first is that of
General Robert Ross, who, in 1814, "executed an enterprise against
Washington, the capital of the United States of America, with complete
success." Valor is represented as placing an American flag upon the
general's tomb, over which Britannia is weeping,--maybe at the vandalism
of the "enterprise." The other monument represents Generals Pakenham and
Gibbs, in full uniform, who, as the inscription informs us, "fell
gloriously, on the 8th of January, 1815, while leading the troops to an
attack of the enemy's works in front of New Orleans."
Lord Collingwood, who was vice-admiral, and commanded the larboard
division at the battle of Trafalgar, has a splendid monument, upon which
a man-of-war is represented bringing home his remains, attended by Fame
and other allegorical figures. That eminent surgeon, Sir Astley Cooper,
who died in 1842, has a fine monument, erected by his contemporaries and
pupils.
A splendid marble group, representing a war-horse bounding over a fallen
soldier, while his rider is falling from the saddle into the arms of a
Highlander, is erected to the memory of Sir Ralph Abercromby, who fell
in Egypt in 1801. A marble figure of a sphinx reposes each side of the
monument. The statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds is by Flaxman, and
represents him clad in the robes of a doctor of law, with a volume in
one hand, and the other resting upon a medallion of Michael Angelo. The
inscription, in Latin, describes him as "prince of the painters of his
age."
Numerous other groups of statuary from the monuments of naval and
military heroes represent them surrounded by allegorical figures of
History, Fame, Valor, &c., and inscriptions set forth their deeds of
bravery, and their services to the nation for whom they poured out their
blood and yielded up their lives.
Monuments to those whose names are well known in this country will also
attract the attention of American visitors, such as that to Henry
Hallam, the historian of the Middle Ages; Turner, the celebrated
painter; Napier, the historian of the peninular war; Sir Henry Lawrence,
who died defending Lucknow, in 1857; and Sir John Moore, who fell at
Corunna, and was buried at midnight on the ramparts, as described in the
well-known ode commencing,--
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried."
Thus it is in the sculptured marble you may in Westminster Abbey, St.
Paul's, and the old cathedrals of the country, read England's history
again, and seem to approach nearer, and have a more realizing sense of
her great men and their deeds, than from the pages of the printed
volume.
In the rush of sight-seeing we had nigh forgotten Guildhall, the home of
Gog and Magog, and the City Hall of London. And, in truth, it is really
not much of a sight to see, in comparison with the many others that
claim the visitor's attention; but we drifted down to the end of King
Street one day, which carried us straight into the entrance of
Guildhall, at the end of the street. The great entrance hall is quite
imposing, being about one hundred and fifty feet long, fifty wide, and
fifty high, lighted with windows of painted glass, while at one end, in
a sort of raised gallery, stand the big wooden figures of the city
giants, Gog and Magog. Around this great hall are several monuments and
groups; among them, those to the Earl of Chatham, Wellington, and
Nelson, and statues of Edward VI., Queen Elizabeth, and Charles I. The
hall is used for elections, city meetings, and banquets--those noted
feasts at which turtle soup is supposed to be so prominent a feature in
the bill of fare.
There are in London quite a number of the buildings or halls of the
guilds or trade associations of old times--nearly fifty, I believe. Many
of the trades have ceased to exist--their very names almost obsolete.
For instance, the association of loriners, united girdlers, and the
bowyers. The members of some of these old corporations or guilds are by
no means all artisans, and about all they have to do is to manage the
charities and trust funds that have descended to them. They meet but
once or twice a year, and then in the old hall, furbished up for the
occasion. The very best of good eating and drinking is provided, and
perhaps, on certain anniversaries, the curious records and annals of the
old society are produced, and, perchance, some old anniversary ceremony
gone through with.
Some of the societies have rare and curious relics, which are brought
out on these occasions. For instance, the fish-mongers have the dagger
with which Wat Tyler was stabbed by one of its members; the armorers and
braziers some fine old silver work; and the barber surgeons a fine,
large picture, by Holbein, representing Henry VIII. presenting the
charter to their company. In Goldsmiths' Hall we saw a splendid specimen
of the goldsmiths' work, in the shape of a gold chandelier, weighing
over one thousand ounces. This hall was rebuilt in 1834, although the
goldsmiths owned the site in 1323. By an act of Parliament, all articles
of gold or silver must be assayed or stamped by this company before
being sold.
In Threadneedle Street, appropriately placed, we saw Merchant Tailors'
Hall, built about 1667; and in the old hall of this company James I.,
and his son Prince Henry, once dined with the company, when verses
composed especially for the occasion by Ben Jonson were recited. Here,
in Threadneedle Street, is the Bank of England, sometimes called the
"Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," which is also one of the sights of
the metropolis, and covers a quadrangular space of nearly four acres.
Armed with a letter of introduction from one of the directors, or, more
fortunate, in company with one of them, if you chance to enjoy the
acquaintance of any of those worthies, you can make the tour of this
wonderful establishment, finishing with the treasure vault, where you
have the tantalizing privilege of holding a million or two dollars'
worth of English bank notes in your hand, and "hefting" ingots of gold
and bricks of silver.
Then there are twenty-four directors to this bank, and about a thousand
persons employed in it: clerks commence at the age of seventeen,
receiving fifty pounds per annum for their service, and the salary of a
chief of department is twelve hundred pounds. Some old, gray-headed men
that we saw, who had grown round-shouldered over their ledgers, we were
informed had been in the employ of the bank for over forty years. The
operation of collecting the specie for a bank note, which I tested, is
one requiring considerable red tape and circumlocution. You go from
clerk to clerk, registering your address and date of presentation of
notes and their number, till finally you reach the individual who is
weighing and shovelling out sovereigns, who passes out the specie for
the paper. These notes, after being once presented, are never re-issued,
but kept on hand, first having the signatures torn off, for seven years,
and then burned. We visited the storehouse of these "relics of departed
worth," in the bank, where millions of tatterdemalions were heaped up,
awaiting their fiery doom.
That royal gift of Cardinal Wolsey to Henry VIII.--Hampton Court
Palace--is not only noted for its associations of bluff King Hal and the
ambitious cardinal, but as being the residence of several of the most
celebrated of the British sovereigns. The estate went into the clutches
of Henry in 1526. It is about twelve miles from Hyde Park, in London,
and the palace covers about eight acres of ground. It was here that
Edward VI. was born, and his mother, Jane Seymour, died a few days
after; and it was here that Catharine Howard first appeared as Henry
VIII.'s queen, in 1540; and in this palace the licentious brute married
his sixth wife, Catherine Parr; here Edward VI. lived a portion of his
short reign, Queen Mary spent her honeymoon, and Queen Elizabeth
visited. Charles II. was here during the plague in London; and Oliver
Cromwell saw one daughter married and another die beneath its roof;
Charles II. and James II., William III. and George II., have all lived
and held court in this famous old place, which figures so frequently in
the pages of English history; and so short a distance is it from London,
and so cheap are the excursion trains, that, on a pleasant day a
mechanic, his wife, and child may go out, visit the magnificent old
palace, all its rooms, see all its paintings, its superb acres of lawn,
forests, garden, fountains, court-yards, and walks for two shillings
(the railroad fare to go and return for the three). All at Hampton Court
is open free to the public; they may even walk, run, and roll over on
the grass, if they like, if not rude or misbehaved. Many spend a whole
holiday in the palace and its delightful grounds, and on the pleasant
Sunday afternoon I visited them, there were, at least, ten thousand
persons present; yet, so vast is the estate, that, with the exception of
the passage through the different rooms, which are noted as picture
galleries, there was no feeling as of a crowd of visitors.
The guides, who went through the different apartments, explaining their
history, and pointing out the celebrated and beautiful paintings, asked
for no fee or reward, although many a visitor drops a few pence into
their not unwilling hands.
Entering the palace, we went by way of the King's Grand Staircase, as it
is called, the walls and ceilings covered with elegant allegorical
frescoes, and representations of heathen deities--Pan, Ceres, Jupiter,
Juno; Time surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, and Cupids with
flowers; Fame blowing her trumpet, and Peace bearing the palm branch;
Bacchus with his grapes, and Diana seated upon the half moon; Hercules
with his lion skin and club, and Ganymede, on the eagle, presenting the
cup to Jove. From this grand entrance, with necks aching from the upward
gaze, we came to the Guard-room, a spacious hall, some sixty feet in
length, with muskets, halberds, spears, and daggers disposed upon the
walls, forming various fantastic figures.
From thence the visitor passes into the first of the series of state
apartments, which is entitled the King's Presence Chamber, and, after
looking up at the old chandelier, made in the reign of Queen Anne,
suspended from the ceiling, the guide begins to point out and mention a
few of the leading pictures in each room. As there are eighteen or
twenty of these rooms, and over a thousand pictures suspended upon the
walls, to say nothing of the florid and elaborate decorations of the
ceilings by Verio, the number is far too great to be inspected
satisfactorily at a single visit; and upon many scarce more than a
passing glance can be bestowed as you pass along with the group of
sight-seers. I jotted in my note-book several of those before which I
halted longest, such as Charles I. by Vandyke, Ignatius Loyola by
Titian, and the portraits of beauties of Charles II.'s gay court, which
are one of the great attractions of the collection. These portraits were
painted by Sir Peter Lely, and some of them very beautifully executed:
here are the Princess Mary, as Diana; Anne Hyde, Duchess of York; the
Duchess of Richmond, whom Charles wanted to marry, and, if she looked
like her portrait, we applaud his taste in female beauty; the sprightly,
laughing face of Nell Gwynne; Lady Middleton, another beauty, but a
frail one; and the Countess of Ossory, a virtuous one amid the vice and
licentiousness of the "merry monarch's" reign.
In the Queen's Gallery, which is about one hundred and seventy-five feet
in length, there is a very interesting collection; and here the guide
had some indulgence, and allowed us to tarry a little. Great tapestry
hangings, with scenes from the life of Alexander the Great, beautifully
executed, were suspended on the walls; here hung Raphael's portrait,
painted by himself; here Henry VII.'s Children, by Mabeuse; and here old
Holbein (to whose brush we owe all the pictorial representations we have
of Henry VIII.) especially flourishes; for his portraits of Henry when
young, of Erasmus, Will Somers, the king's jester, Francis I. of France,
and others that I do not remember, hang here; there is a beautiful St.
Catherine, by Correggio; a Jewish Rabbi, by Rembrandt; Boar's Head, by
Snyders; Fruit, by Cuyp; a Boy and Fruit, by Murillo; besides scores of
others by great artists. What a collection to be allowed thirty-five
minutes to look at! It was little less than an aggravation.
Next came the Queen's Drawing-room, which contains many pictures from
the pencil of Benjamin West; among them, that with which every one of
us, who has studied an American geography or child's book of history, is
so familiar--the death of General Wolfe at the storming of Quebec. From
out the windows of this room is another of those superb English
landscape views of which I have so often spoken, that we get from the
castles and palaces of the country. A magnificent avenue of lime trees,
nearly a mile in length, stretches out to view, and an artificial river,
or canal, of the same length, shines between the greensward of the park,
while an old English church tower, at the extreme background, fills out
the charming picture of nature.
In the Queen's Audience Chamber we have old Holbein's works again. The
curious old pictures from his brush here are, Henry VIII. embarking at
Dover; the Battle of Spurs; Meeting of Henry VIII. and the Emperor
Maximilian, and Meeting of Henry VIII. and Francis I. on the Field of
the Cloth of Gold. This last picture has a story, which is to the effect
that in Cromwell's time the Parliament proposed to sell it to the King
of France. The Earl of Pembroke, however, determined that such a
treasure of art and historical memento should not leave England, and
thereupon carefully and secretly cut off the head of Henry the Eighth
from the canvas, so that the French king's agent, discovering the
mutilation, refused to take the painting. When Charles the Second came
to the throne, after the Restoration, Pembroke returned the head, which
had been carefully preserved, and it was very skilfully replaced; so
skilfully, that it was only by getting a view by a side light that we
could discover that it had been disturbed.
In the Private Dining-room, as it is called, are shown three of the
great couches of royalty, the state beds of William III. and his Queen
Mary, and that of George II., and but few pictures of note; so we go on
through other "halls," "writing closets," "audience chambers," &c., till
we reach a fine, lofty gallery, built by Sir Christopher Wren; here we
have more portraits by Holbein, one by Abert Dürer, one of Queen
Elizabeth, in her vast and enormously built up and gaudy costume,
Landscape by Rubens, Battle Piece by Wouvermans, Inside a Farm House by
Teniers, and some two or three hundred others.
After this pictorial surfeit we passed into the magnificent great Gothic
Hall, designed by Wolsey, and finished by Henry VIII., when Anne Boleyn
was queen. This hall is pure Gothic, one hundred and six feet long,
forty wide, and sixty high, the roof very elaborately carved oak,
decorated, with great taste and splendor, with arms and badges of King
Henry. It is somewhat singular that at this very place, which was the
scene of Wolsey's magnificence and Henry's lordly splendor, there should
have been acted, by King George I.'s command, in 1718, Shakespeare's
play of "Henry VIII., or the Fall of Wolsey." The walls of this hall are
hung with splendid arras tapestry, representing the history of Abraham;
around the hall hung portraits of Henry VIII., Wolsey, Jane Seymour, and
Queen Elizabeth; and at intervals are deers' heads, carved from wood,
above which are banners and trophies. The notable feature of the hall,
however, is its stained-glass windows, thirteen in number, besides the
great one and the beautiful oriel window, splendid in its proportions,
fine Gothic canopy, and rich in beautiful colored glass, bearing
armorial devices of the King and Jane Seymour. The Great Window is
divided off into fourteen compartments, one of which has a half-length
portrait of King Henry, and the others are filled with armorial crests
and devices. Six of the other windows bear the armorial pedigrees of the
six wives of the king, and the others various heraldic designs. The
architecture and decorations of this noble hall are very well managed,
and the subdued and colored light, falling upon the rich carving and
Gothic tracery, produces an imposing and strikingly beautiful effect.
After an inside view of the palace and its picture-galleries, the stroll
through the great park is none the less delightful. This park, or rather
the gardens, as they are called, are elegantly laid out with beds of
brilliant-colored flowers, broad gravel walks, beautiful closely-clipped
lawns, and groups of splendid oaks and elms; and, although the grounds
are almost a dead level, with but little inequality, still they are so
beautifully arranged as to present a charming and romantic appearance.
Here crowds of people walked beneath the great trees in the broad shaded
avenues, sat on the velvety turf at the foot of great oaks, or paused
and admired the huge plats of flowers, of brilliant hues and delicious
fragrance, arranged by the gardener's skill in beautiful combinations,
or strolled into the conservatory to see the orange trees, or into the
vinery to see that celebrated grape vine, which is said to be the
largest in Europe; and a royal monster it is, indeed, stretching out its
arms over one hundred and thirty feet, and having a stem that, at three
feet from the ground, measures over thirty inches in circumference. It
was planted in 1768. Its fruit is the richest black Hamburg variety, and
from two thousand to two thousand five hundred bunches of the luscious
spheroids are its annual yield. Not among the least of the attractions
of the gardens is a maze, skilfully constructed of hedges about seven
feet in height, and the walks to the centre, or from the centre to the
outside, so skilfully contrived in labyrinthine passages of puzzling
intricacy as to render it a matter of no ordinary difficulty to
extricate one's self. A guide, however, stands upon an elevated platform
outside, and assists those by his instructions who are unable to do so,
and give up the trial. The shouts of laughter of those who were
entangled in the deceitful avenues told of their enjoyment of the
ingenious puzzle.
Near the maze is one of the large gates of the palace gardens, opening
exactly opposite to Bushy Park; and here we passed out into a great
avenue, a mile in length, of horse-chestnut trees, the air redolent with
their red and white blossoms. In this park the parties who come from
London to visit Hampton Court picnic, as no eatables or picknicking is
permitted in the gardens of the latter. Hawkers and pedlers of eatables
and drinkables, of all kinds and at all prices, were in every direction;
groups under the trees were chatting, lunching, and lounging, and
enjoying themselves.
The finest residence of English royalty, at the present time, is Windsor
Castle; and a pleasant railway ride of twenty miles or so from London
brought us in sight of the splendid great Round Tower, which is so
notable a feature of the place. It crowns the apex of a hill, and is a
conspicuous landmark. Edward III. was born here; Cromwell and Charles
II. have lived here; and a statue of the latter is conspicuous in the
great quadrangle of the castle, which you enter after mounting the hill.
The towers around the walls bear such names as Edward III. Tower,
Lancaster Tower, Brunswick Tower, Victoria Tower, &c.; but the noblest
of all is the great Keep, or Round Tower, which rises to the height of
one hundred and twenty-five feet above the pavement of the quadrangle;
and up to the summit of this I toiled, to be repaid by the charming
English landscape view spread out on every side. Twelve counties were
within the range of vision; the square turrets of old English churches,
arched-stone bridges, the beautiful park and grounds beneath, with
cricketers at play, and the beautiful sheet of water ("Virginia water"),
like a looking-glass beneath the sun, and the Thames winding away in the
distance like a silver ribbon on the green landscape, which was dotted
with villages, elegant country seats and castle-like dwellings of the
aristocracy, formed a picture that it was a luxury to look upon.
Visitors are conducted through the state apartments, which contain many
fine pictures, some magnificent tapestry, and which, of course, are
furnished in regal style. The Gobelin tapestry, and a magnificent
malachite vase,--the latter a gift to the queen from Nicholas, Emperor
of Russia,--were in the Presence Chamber. The Waterloo Chamber contained
many fine portraits of Waterloo heroes by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the
Vandyke Room was hung only with pictures painted by that artist.
It will be recollected that Edward III. instituted the Order of the
Garter at Windsor, in 1349, and in St. George's Hall, or the State
Dining-room, as it is called, is where the queen confers the order. At
the upper end of this hall, which is two hundred feet in length, is the
throne upon its raised dais. Upon one side of the apartment are hung the
portraits of England's sovereigns, while upon the other are the coats of
arms of the original Knights of the Garter, elegantly emblazoned with
their names and titles, and those of their successors. The ceiling is
also elegantly ornamented. The most attractive apartment is the long
gallery, about fifteen feet wide and four hundred and fifty long, which
is rich in bronzes, busts, and pictures, although we looked with some
interest at a shattered section of the mast of Lord Nelson's flag-ship,
the Victory, which bears the mark of the enemy's cannon-shot, and is
surmounted by a bust of Nelson, in a room called the Guard Chamber; and
in the same room is a shield, inlaid with gold and silver-work,
presented by Francis I. to Henry VIII. at their celebrated meeting on
the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Next after the state apartments St. George's Chapel engaged our
attention. This chapel was begun by Edward IV. in 1461, and not
completed till early in the sixteenth century. The architectural beauty
of the interior is indescribable. The richly-ornamented roof and the
great east window are most exquisitely done, and it is a wonder that
tourists, authors, and the guide-books do not say more than they do
about it. Knights of the Garter are installed here. Their banners and
escutcheons hang above their carved oaken stalls. A wrought steel
screen, by that cunning artificer in iron, Quintin Matsys, stands above
the last resting-place of Edward IV. Here, below the marble pavement,
rests the gigantic frame of Henry VIII.; here slumber Charles I. and
Henry VI, George III., IV., and William IV. The monument to the Princess
Charlotte is a magnificent group, representing her upon a couch as if
just expired, and a sheet thrown over the body, while her maids by its
side, with mantles thrown over their heads, are bowed down with grief.
Above, the spirit is represented as an angel soaring towards heaven--a
figure exquisitely cut, and so gracefully poised that the spectator half
expects to see it rise, float away into the air, and soar out of sight.
The effect is much heightened by the admirable manner in which it has
been managed to have the light fall upon this beautiful sculpture.
There is a home park to Windsor Castle; and how large, think you,
American reader, is this home park for British royalty? Why, _only_ five
hundred acres! This is connected with Windsor Great Park by the Long
Walk, a splendid avenue lined with elms, which avenue is continued on
for three miles. The Great Park has one thousand eight hundred acres
within its area. Here was Windsor Forest, Herne's Oak, where Herne the
Hunter was said to dash forth upon his steed, and where old Falstaff,--
"A Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i' the forest,"--
made his assignation with the merry wives of Windsor. Old Windsor itself
is some little distance away, nestled down on the banks of the River
Thames; and though we saw some ancient houses and an inn or two, there
were none that, in our brief sojourn, we could conjure by imagination
into such a one as fat Jack and his friends, Bardolph and Pistol,
swilled sack in, nor anything that looked like the Garter Inn, or
Mistress Quickly. One inn rejoices in the name of Star and Garter, but
the briskness and modern style of it savored not of Jack Falstaff's
time.
We closed our visit to Windsor with an inspection of the royal stables,
or Queen's Mews, as they call them here. These stables were very well
arranged and kept, and contain nearly a hundred horses when all are in.
Many were away with the family, who were absent at the time of our
visit; but there were the horses for park drives, the horses for road
drives, &c., while there were also a dozen or more very handsome
barouches, pony and basket carriages, and seven handsome carriages for
the queen and suite to go to and from railway stations, Clarences, and
various other vehicles, among them a large open-sided affair, with a
white tent-like roof, a present from Louis Philippe. Considering that
this is only one of the Queen's Mews, it seemed as if this part of her
"establishment" was regal indeed. After patting the fat old white pony,
which her majesty always uses in her morning drives in the park when at
Windsor, we presented our cicerone with an English shilling, which,
notwithstanding he wore the queen's livery, he did not scorn to receive,
and, taking a glance at the interior of the Riding School, which is a
handsomely-arranged room about two hundred feet long, where scions of
royalty may be taught to
"Witch the world with noble horsemanship,"
we bade adieu to Windsor.
If there is any one thing aggravating to the American tourist, on his
first trip to England, it is the supreme indifference of the English
press to American affairs. Accustomed to the liberal enterprise of the
press of his own country, which, with a prodigality of expenditure,
stops at nothing when news is to be had, and which every morning
actually gives him news from all parts of the world, in addition to
copious extracts from foreign and domestic papers, he is struck with
astonishment at the comparative lack of enterprise shown by the London
papers.
The London Times, which for the past half century it has been the custom
for American papers to gratuitously advertise in paragraphs about its
wonderful system and enterprise, can no more compare with the New York
Tribune and New York Herald in lateness of news, amount of news by
telegraph, and correspondence, than a stage coach with a locomotive.
Marked features in the Times are the finished style of its editorials
and correspondence, and its parliamentary reports, although the latter,
I hardly think, are much better made up than the American Congressional
reports in our own papers. But where the inferiority of the English, and
the superiority of the American papers is most conspicuous, is in the
matter of telegraphic despatches, the American papers using the
telegraph without stint, and the English very sparingly. The New York
Tribune will generally give its readers, every morning, from five to
eight times as much by home lines of wire as the London Times. To be
sure we have a much larger extent of territory, at home, that the wires
go over; but then the American papers generally give more telegraphic
news from the continent of Europe even, than the London papers.
The American, on his first visit to England, calls for the Times at his
breakfast table, and if he is lucky enough to get one, turns eagerly to
the telegraphic column to see what may be the latest news from America.
He finds a despatch of from six to twelve lines, in which the quotations
of the price of United States stocks, New York Central, Erie, Illinois
Central, and some other railroad shares, are given, and, perhaps, a line
or two saying that Honorable Thaddeus Stevens, member of Congress, died
this morning, or the president has appointed George S. Boutwell
secretary of the treasury department. A hundred other matters, which
affect British and American commerce, are not reported; intelligence
interesting to Americans, or any one who has _ever been_ to America, is
not alluded to; extracts from American papers seldom given, and, when
given, only such as will give a prejudiced impression. Accounts of the
commercial, agricultural, and material progress of the country seem to
be carefully and jealously excluded from their columns, and after a
month's reading of English newspapers, your wonder that the English
people are so ignorant of America will give place to astonishment that
they should have any correct impression of it whatever.
Take, for example, the well-known speech of Senator Sumner upon the
Alabama claims, which, day after day, the papers of London thundered,
roared, and howled over, wrote against and commented on, and not one of
them printed in its columns until an American publishing house, in
London, in answer to the call for it, issued it in a pamphlet. Every
American knows that had a speech of equal importance, relating to this
country, been made in England, it would have been telegraphed to and
have appeared in our journals, _entire_, within twenty-four hours after
it had been made. Then, again, the enterprise of our own press is shown
in its giving extracts, pro and con, of the opinions of the British
press, so that the American reader feels that he is "posted," and may
judge for himself; whereas, in the English papers, he gets only one side
of the question, and a meagre allowance at that.
Murders, railroad accidents, steamboat explosions, riots, and suicides
are the favorite extracts from the American press made by the London
papers. The progress of great railroads, increase of great cities in
size, and the progress of this country in industry, science, art, and
manufactures, are only occasionally alluded to.
My national pride being touched at these omissions, I inquired the
reason of them of a good-natured Englishman of my acquaintance one day.
"Well, the fact is, yah see, we don't care much about Americar h'yar,
yah know--yah know--'cept when there's some deuced row, yah know, and
then the Times tells us all about it, yah know."
And it is even so; the national pride is so intense, that the
Englishman, as a general thing, seems to care very little for anything
that is not English; his estimate of anything as good or bad is based
upon its approach to or retreat from the British standard of excellence;
his national vanity leads him to care very little about the progress or
decline of any other country, so long as it does not immediately affect
his own "tight little island." Many have, apparently, pictured in their
minds a map of the world like that of the Chinese topographer, which
gave their own country four fifths of the space, carefully drawn,
leaving the remainder a blank, as occupied by outside barbarians.
"But why," asked I of my good-natured friend, "does the Times give two
columns of bets and horse-race matter, and only a dozen lines about the
great Pacific Railroad?"
"Yaas, ah! the Darby, yah know,--British national sport--every
Englishman knows about the Darby--couldn't make up a book without the
Times, yah know. The Darby's right h'yar, and yah Pacific railway's
three thousand miles off, yah know."
It is to be acknowledged there was a certain degree of force in this
reasoning, but our American newspaper readers, who, from appearances,
number as five to one compared with Englishmen, have been educated up to
such a point of news-getting, that such an argument would fail to
satisfy them. To hear some Englishmen talk, you would think the Times
had been their swaddling-clothes in infancy, was their book of laws in
manhood, and would be their winding-sheet at death.
And yet the Times, despite its great influence, is far exceeded
in circulation by other papers in London--the London Telegraph,
for instance, which, to an American, will seem in its general
characteristics and enterprise the most like an American paper. It takes
more pains to make itself a sheet for popular reading. Its editorials
are not so heavy, either in subject or matter, as the Times, but more
off-hand and easier digested. It seems to be _the_ paper of the middling
classes. In nearly every railroad station I stopped at in England a
handsomely-painted sign-board, sometimes three and sometimes six
feet square, informed me that the London Telegraph had the largest
circulation in the world; and immediately under it we were informed,
upon another sign of the same size, but another color, that the
Evening Standard was the largest paper in the world. Besides these
announcements on signs, we found them on posters of the same size all
over London, wherever bills were posted, and also posted in other
English cities--a style of advertising rather expensive, but hardly so
efficacious as the columns of the newspaper.
One is struck by the difference between the American and English as a
newspaper-reading people. In America, newspapers are seen everywhere;
boys hawk them at every corner; they are sold at news-stands in the
entrance hall of every hotel; newsmen pass through the cars with
armfuls, at intervals, on every railroad line; half a dozen are taken in
every hair-dresser's shop for the use of customers; and the great hotels
have a reading-room with files from all the leading cities, so that a
daily newspaper may be had in America, and is at hand at any and all
times when the reader may wish it; but here in London I found it
comparatively a matter of difficulty always to obtain a daily paper. The
hotel where I lodged, which had some thirty or forty guests, "took in"
_one_ London Daily Times, a Manchester paper, and one other weekly. Of
course the first person who got the Times never resigned it until he had
read it through, and exhausted the patience of anybody else who
undertook to wait for it. There was no news-stand near, nor in the
hotel--"the porter could horder me a Times of the newsman, reg'lar, when
he came round, if I wished it, as would be ready at breakfast."
Some of my English friends smiled, almost incredulously, at my assertion
that our American business men very generally subscribed for from three
to five daily papers, besides weeklies, and wondered "why they wanted to
read the news over so many times," and were also astonished to know that
American coachmen read newspapers while waiting for a fare, a porter
while waiting for a job, or a handcart-man at his cart-stand, that they
were always a prime necessity to passengers in cars and omnibuses, and
were studied, conned, and perused at almost every interval of business,
and occupied no small portion of the leisure hours of all classes of
American citizens. The railroad stations in London are provided with
good news-stands, where the traveller may always obtain the daily and
weekly papers, and also a good supply of excellent light literature. My
foreign experience, thus far, however, has strengthened my conviction
that America is the land of newspapers.
Trying to give the British Museum a thorough examination is somewhat of
a formidable undertaking; for it requires several visits to get even a
superficial view of its valuable contents. The space of seven acres of
ground is occupied by the buildings, which cost over a million pounds
sterling, while the curiosities, relics, antiquities, and library cannot
be estimated in a money value. As an indication, however, of the value,
I may enumerate some of its purchases of collections, &c.: the Charles
Townley collection of Roman sculpture, purchased by government in 1805
for twenty thousand pounds, including Discobolus, noble busts of Homer,
Pericles, Sophocles, &c.; the Elgin Marbles, purchased of Lord Elgin for
thirty-five thousand pounds; the Phygalian Marbles, which cost nineteen
thousand pounds; Portland Vase, eighteen hundred guineas; prints, in the
collection of prints and engravings, costing from two hundred to five
hundred guineas each. The enormous library has swallowed up vast private
collections, besides the valuable ones that have been given to it, among
them that of Sir Thomas Grenville, which cost fifty-four thousand
pounds; George III.'s library, which was given to the government, and
cost one hundred and thirty thousand pounds--an exceedingly rich and
rare collection; the valuable collection of manuscripts--the Cottonian
Harleian, cost ten thousand pounds; Lansdowne, five thousand pounds;
Burney, thirteen thousand pounds, &c. These are only a few of the prices
of leading collections that I find set down in the different hand-books
of the museum; but, as is well known, there are other articles of
antiquity, historical relics, bibliographical curiosities, &c., for
which perfectly fabulous prices have been paid, especially for any
well-authenticated relics or manuscripts relating to the early history
of the country. Sometimes articles of this description find their way
into a public auction sale, and there is a struggle between some wealthy
virtuoso and the museum agent for its possession. But he must be a bold
buyer, with a deep purse, to contend successfully against the British
Museum, when it is decided that any article offered for sale ought to be
added to its collection. The museum is divided into eleven different
departments, viz.: printed books and manuscripts, Oriental antiquities,
Greek and Roman antiquities, British mediæval antiquities, coins and
medals, botany, prints and drawings, zoölogy, palæontology, and
mineralogy.
The library is that portion of the museum most read about by strangers,
and the least seen by visitors, as they are only admitted into a very
few of the rooms in which this enormous collection is contained. There
are now seven hundred thousand volumes, and the number increases at the
rate of about twenty thousand a year; and among some of the curiosities
and literary treasures in this department, I will mention a few, which
will give a faint indication of its incalculable value. There are
seventeen hundred different editions of the Bible, some very rare and
curious; an Arabic edition of the Koran, written in gold, eight hundred
and sixty years ago; a collection of block books, printed from carved
blocks of wood on one side of the leaf only, which was a style of
bookmaking immediately preceding the art of printing.
We were shown specimens of the earliest productions of the printing
press, some of which, for clearness and beauty of execution, are most
remarkable. The Mazarine Bible, 1455, is very fine. Then we saw a copy
of Cicero, printed by Fust and Schoeffer, in 1465. The first edition
of the first Latin classic printed, and one of the two books in which
Greek type was used;--the press work of this was excellent. A Psalter,
in Latin, in 1457, by Fust and Schoeffer, on vellum, and the first
book printed in colors, the typography clear, and beautifully executed.
The first edition of Reynard the Fox, printed 1479. A splendid copy of
Livy, printed on vellum, in 1469, for Pope Alexander VI., and the only
copy on vellum known to exist;--this volume cost nine hundred pounds in
1815. The first edition of the first book printed in Greek characters,
being a Greek Grammar, printed in Milan, in 1475. The first book in
which catch-words were used. The first book in which the attempt was
made to produce cheap books by compressing the matter, and reducing the
size of the page, was a little copy of Virgil, issued in Venice in 1501;
and the present price would be far from cheap. The first book printed in
France, the first in Vienna, &c. "The Game and Playe of Chess," printed
by Caxton, in Westminster Abbey, in 1474, and which was the first
edition of the first book printed in England. Then there was the first
edition of old Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, printed in 1476, by Caxton.
Cauntyrburye was the way they spelled it in his time. Æsop's Fables,
with curious old wood-cuts, printed by Caxton, in 1484. The first
printed document relative to America, Columbus's letter, written eight
months after his discovery, and printed in Rome in 1493. The first
edition of Paradise Lost, and of Robinson Crusoe. And our eyes were made
to ache by trying to read a "microscopic" edition of Horace, printed in
the smallest type ever produced, and undecipherable except with a
magnifying glass.
Besides these, and hundreds of other old books, enough to drive a
bibliomaniac out of his remaining senses, were specimens of fine and
sumptuous printing, some of which, in the fifteenth century, on vellum,
were a little short of marvellous in execution, and unsurpassed by
anything I ever saw in modern printing. An allegorical poem, in German,
printed on the occasion of the marriage of Maximilian I., at Nuremberg,
in 1517, was a perfect wonder of typographic art and beauty, and
challenges the attention of every one, more especially those versed in
typography, as a marvel of the art. I have not space for enumeration of
any of the wondrous specimens of beautiful illuminated works, printed on
vellum and parchment, in colors undimmed by hundreds of years, and which
the printer of to-day labors in vain to surpass. The purple and gold,
the rich crimson and emerald green, that absolutely flash out on the
pages of those exquisite volumes known as Books of Hours, printed in
1488, 1493, and thereabouts, are the most prodigal luxury of the art I
ever laid my eyes upon; and the patience, labor, time, and care required
to bring out lines, spaces, and letters to such perfection must have
been very great, to say nothing of the quality of ink that has held its
brilliancy for more than three centuries and a half.
Next we have books tracing the rise and progress of illustration, and
then a collection of books with autographs. In these last are some
autographs worth having, as, for instance, the autograph of Martin
Luther, in the first volume of a copy of the German Bible, which Bible
was afterwards in the possession of Melanchthon, who wrote a long note
on the fly-leaf of the second volume, signing it with his autograph; an
autograph of Charles I. in a volume of almanacs for the year 1624; an
autograph of Milton on a copy of Aratus's Phænomena; that of Lord Bacon
on a copy of Fulgentius; autograph of Katherine Parr, last wife of Henry
VIII., in a French volume; and that of Ben Jonson in a presentation copy
of his Volpone.
The library has an extensive collection of newspapers, the oldest being
a Venetian Gazette, bearing the date of 1570.
The great reading-room of the library, where free admission to read is
granted to any person over eighteen years of age who can procure a
recommendation from a person of respectability, is a magnificent
apartment. It is a great circular space, containing forty-eight thousand
superficial feet, covered by a dome one hundred and forty feet in
diameter, and one hundred and six feet high. This room is open from nine
A. M. to five or six P. M., and is always well lighted and warmed, and
contains thirty-seven reading tables, with two or three exclusively for
ladies. The floor is covered with a material which deadens the sound of
footsteps, and no loud talking is permitted; so that every opportunity
is afforded for quiet study. Quite a number were busily engaged, some
with a large heap of volumes about them, evidently looking up
authorities; others slowly and patiently transcribing or translating
from some ancient black-letter volume before them; and still others
quietly and comfortably enjoying the last new novel. There is space
afforded for three hundred readers, and in the centre of the room, on
shelves, are catalogues of the books and manuscripts contained in the
library. Close at hand, running round the apartment, are shelves
containing books of reference, or "lifts of the lazy," such as
dictionaries, encyclopædias, &c., which readers are allowed to take from
the shelves themselves. These form of themselves a library of twenty
thousand volumes. For other books the reader fills out a card, and hands
it to one of the attendants, who sends for it by others, who fetch it
from its near or distant shelf.
The catalogue of the library is not finished, and there is a saying that
the man is not living who will see it finished, the regular additions
and occasional bequests serving to keep it in a perpetually unfinished
condition. The most noted of the bequests are those presented by Right
Hon. Thomas Grenville and George III. The former donor, whose gift was
twenty thousand two hundred and forty volumes, worth over fifty thousand
pounds, bequeathed his library to the nation as an act of justice,
saying in his will that the greater part of it had been purchased from
the profits of a sinecure office, and he acknowledged the obligation to
the public by giving it to the museum for public use. The library of
George III. contained eighty thousand volumes, and is kept in a gallery
built expressly to hold it.
The Egyptian Galleries contain an endless collection of antiquities from
that ancient land. From Memphis there are old monuments, fragments of
statues, slabs with innumerable hieroglyphics, while old Thebes, the
capital of ancient Egypt, seems to have been ransacked to have furnished
slabs, stones, carvings, fragments of monuments, hieroglyphical
inscriptions, and sarcophagi. In these galleries we saw the granite
statue of Rameses II., the colossal granite head and shoulders from the
Memnonium at Thebes; the head of a colossal ram from an avenue of them
which leads up to the gateway of one of the great palaces at Karnak;
here were two granite lions from Nubia; a colossal head brought from
Karnak by Belzoni; and heaps of carved plunder stolen from old Egypt by
British travellers and the British government; mummies, articles taken
from mummy pits, ornaments, vases, Egyptian papyri, monuments cut by
chisels two thousand years before Christ; implements the very use of
which can now only be surmised; carvings of scenes in domestic life that
are guessed at, and of battles, feasts, sieges, and triumphs, of which
no other record exists--a wonder to the curious, and a not yet solved
problem to the scholar.
The Assyrian Galleries, with their wealth of antiquities from ancient
Nineveh, brought principally by Mr. Layard, are very interesting. Here
we may study the bass-relief from Sennacherib's palace, and the
hieroglyphics on a monument to Sardanapalus, and bass-reliefs of the
battles and sieges of his reign; the best specimens of Assyrian
sculpture, glass, ivory, and bronze ornaments, mosaics, seals, obelisks,
and statues, the dates of which are from seven to eight hundred years
before the Christian era. Think of being shown a fragment of an
inscription relating to Nebuchadnezzar, and another of Darius I., a
bass-relief of Sardanapalus the Great, the writing implements of the
ancient Egyptians, the harps, flutes, and cymbals, and the very dolls
with which their children played three thousand years ago!
The lover of Roman and Grecian antiquities may enjoy himself to his
heart's content in the Roman and Grecian Galleries, where ancient
sculptures by artists whose names have perished, though their
works still challenge admiration, will attract the attention. In
these galleries the gods and goddesses of mythology are liberally
represented--the Townley Venus, Discobolus (quoit-thrower), elegant
bust of Apollo, heads and busts of noble Greeks and Romans, and the
celebrated marble bust, Clytie; that exquisitely-cut head rising above
the bust, which springs from a half-unfolded flower.
The Elgin Marbles are in two rooms, known as the Elgin Rooms. These
marble sculptures were obtained by the Earl of Elgin, in 1802, while he
was the British ambassador at Constantinople, the sultan granting him a
firman to remove from Athens whatever monuments he might wish. He
accordingly stripped from the Parthenon huge slabs of bass-reliefs,
marble figures, and ornamental portions of that noble building.
Whatever may be said of this desecration of the Athenian temple, it is
altogether probable that these world-renowned sculptures and most
splendid specimens of Grecian art are better preserved here, and of more
service to the world, than they would have been if suffered to remain in
the ruin of the temple. The beauty of these sculptures, notwithstanding
the dilapidated and shattered condition of some of them, shows in what
perfection the art flourished when they were executed, and the figures
are models yet unsurpassed among artists of our own time.
Besides these galleries, there is also a gallery of Anglo-Roman
antiquities, found in Britain, another of British antiquities anterior
to the Romans, embracing such remains as have been found of the period
previous to the Roman conquest, known as the stone and bronze period
among the antiquaries; also a collection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities,
including Saxon swords, spear-heads, bronze ornaments, coins, &c.; then
comes a mediæval collection, a vast array of enamelled work, vases,
jewelry, armor, mosaic work, seals, earthen ware, and weapons of the
middle ages; two great Vase Rooms, filled with Grecian, Italian, Roman,
and other antique vases, found principally in tombs and ancient
monuments, from the rudest to the most graceful of forms; the Bronze
Room, where we revelled amid ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan bronzes,
and found that the Bacchus, Mercury, and Jupiter, and the lions,
dolphins, satyrs, and vases of antiquity, are still the most beautiful
and graceful works of art extant, and that a large portion of those of
our own time are but reproductions of these great originals of a former
age.
If the visitor have a zoölogical taste, the four great galleries of
zoölogical specimens--beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes--will engage
his attention, in which all sorts and every kind of stuffed specimens
are displayed; and in another gallery a splendid collection of fossils
may be inspected, where are the remains of the gigantic iguanodon and
megalosaurus, skeleton portions of an enormous bird, ten feet high, from
New Zealand,--the unpronounceable Latin name of which I forgot to note
down,--a splendid entire skeleton of the great Irish deer, fossil fish,
imprints of bird tracks found in rocks, of skeletons of antediluvian
animals, plants, and shells, and huge skeletons of the megatherium and
mastodon, skeletons and fragments of gigantic reindeer, elk, oxen, ibex,
turtles, and huge lizards and crocodiles now extinct. There are also
halls and departments for botany and mineralogy, coin and medal room,
which, besides its splendid numismatical collection, contains the
celebrated Portland Vase, and some curious historical relics.
Apropos of historical relics; in a room not far from the entrance hall
there are some most interesting historical and literary curiosities,
over and about which I loitered with unabated interest, for here I
looked upon the original deed of a house in Blackfriars, dated March 11,
1612, and signed William Shakespeare. Here we saw the original Magna
Charta, the very piece of parchment that had been thumbed by the
rebellious barons, and to which King John affixed his unwilling
signature at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. This piece of discolored
parchment, with the quaint, regular, clerkly old English handwriting,
and the fragment of the tyrant's great seal hanging to it, is the
instrument that we have read so much of, as the chief foundation of the
constitutional liberties of the people of England, first executed over
six centuries and a half ago, and confirmed since then by no less than
thirty-eight solemn ratifications. It is certainly one of the most
interesting English documents in existence, and we looked upon it with
feelings something akin to veneration.
Displayed in glass cases, we read the original draft of the will of
Mary, Queen of Scots, in her own handwriting, the original manuscript of
Kenilworth in Walter Scott's handwriting, the original manuscript of
Pope's translation of the Iliad, a tragedy in the handwriting of Tasso,
the original manuscript of Macaulay's England, Sterne's Sentimental
Journey in the author's handwriting, Nelson's own pen sketch of the
battle of the Nile, Milton's original agreement for the sale of Paradise
Lost, which was completed April 27, 1667, the author being then
fifty-eight years of age. The terms of the sale, which was made to
Samuel Symons, a bookseller, was five pounds down, with a promise of
five pounds more when thirteen hundred copies of the first edition
should have been sold, another five pounds more when thirteen hundred
copies of the second edition should be sold, and so on for successive
editions. It was not, however, till 1674, the year of his death, that
the second edition was published; and in December, 1680, Milton's widow
sold all her interest in the work for eight pounds, paid by Symons.
We saw here the little prayer book used by Lady Jane Grey on the
scaffold, with her name, Jane Dudley, in her own handwriting on the
fly-leaf; autographic letters from British sovereigns, including those
of Richard III., Henry IV., Prince Hal, Edward the Black Prince, Henry
VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, Bloody Mary, Charles II., Mary, Queen of
Scots, and Oliver Cromwell. Nor were these all. Here were Hogarth's
receipted bills for some of his pictures, the original Bull of Pope Leo
X., conferring on Henry VIII. the title of Defender of the Faith (and a
precious bull he made of it), autographic letters of Peter the Great,
Martin Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey,
Archbishop Cranmer, John Knox, Robert, Earl of Essex, Dudley, Earl of
Leicester, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton; then a batch of literary
names, letters from Addison, Dryden, Spenser, Moliere, Corneille; papers
signed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon
Bonaparte, Francis I., Philip II., Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII. of
Sweden, and so many fresh and interesting surprises greeted me that I
verily believe that at last I should have copied down in the little
note-book, from which I am writing out these memoranda, a despatch from
Julius Cæsar, announcing that he yesterday passed the River Rubicon, or
his "_Veni, Vidi, Vici_," with the feeling that it was quite correct
that such a document should be there.