than Bulwer's. Gay, quick, various, half-satirical, and always fresh
and different from everybody else, he seemed to talk because he could
not help it, and infected everybody with his spirits. I can not give
even the substance of it in a letter, for it was in a great measure
local or personal. A great deal of fun was made of a proposal by Lady
Blessington to take Bulwer to America and show him at so much a head.
She asked me whether I thought it would be a good speculation. I took
upon myself to assure her ladyship, that, provided she played
_showman_ the "concern," as they would phrase it in America, would be
certainly a profitable one. Bulwer said he would rather go in disguise
and hear them abuse his books. It would be pleasant, he thought, to
hear the opinions of people who judged him neither as a member of
parliament nor a dandy--simply a book-maker. Smith asked him if he
kept an amanuensis. "No," he said, "I scribble it all out myself, and
send it to the press in a most ungentlemanlike hand, half print and
half hieroglyphic, with all its imperfections on its head, and correct
in the proof--very much to the dissatisfaction of the publisher, who
sends me in a bill of sixteen pounds six shillings and fourpence for
extra corrections. Then I am free to confess I don't know grammar.
Lady Blessington, do you know grammar? I detest grammar. There never
was such a thing heard of before Lindley Murray. I wonder what they
did for grammar before his day! Oh, the delicious blunders one sees
when they are irretrievable! And the best of it is, the critics never
get hold of them. Thank Heaven for second editions, that one may
scratch out his blots, and go down clean and gentleman-like to
posterity!" Smith asked him if he had ever reviewed one of his own
books. "No--but I _could_! And then how I should like to recriminate
and defend myself indignantly! I think I could be preciously severe.
Depend upon it nobody knows a book's defects half so well as its
author. I have a great idea of criticising my works for my posthumous
memoirs. Shall I, Smith? Shall I, Lady Blessington?"
Bulwer's voice, like his brother's, is exceedingly lover-like and
sweet. His playful tones are quite delicious, and his clear laugh is
the soul of sincere and careless merriment.
It is quite impossible to convey in a letter scrawled literally,
between the end of a late visit and a tempting pillow, the evanescent
and pure spirit of a conversation of wits. I must confine myself, of
course, in such sketches, to the mere sentiment of things that concern
general literature and ourselves.
"The Rejected Addresses" got upon his crutches about three o'clock in
the morning, and I made my exit with the rest, thanking Heaven, that,
though in a strange country, my mother tongue was the language of its
men of genius.
LETTER LXX.
LONDON--VISIT TO A RACE-COURSE--GIPSIES--THE PRINCESS
VICTORIA--SPLENDID APPEARANCE OF THE ENGLISH NOBILITY--A
BREAKFAST WITH ELIA AND BRIDGET ELIA--MYSTIFICATION--CHARLES
LAMB'S OPINION OF AMERICAN AUTHORS.
I have just returned from _Ascot races_. Ascot Heath, on which the
course is laid out, is a high platform of land, beautifully situated
on a hill above Windsor Castle, about twenty-five miles from London. I
went down with a party of gentlemen in the morning and returned at
evening, doing the distance, with relays of horses in something less
than three hours. This, one would think, is very fair speed, but we
were passed continually by the "bloods" of the road, in comparison
with whom we seemed getting on rather at a snail's pace.
The scenery on the way was truly English--one series of finished
landscapes, of every variety of combination. Lawns, fancy-cottages,
manor-houses, groves, roses and flower-gardens make up England. It
surfeits the eye at last. You could not drop a poet out of the clouds
upon any part of it I have seen, where, within five minutes' walk, he
would not find himself in Paradise.
We flew past Virginia Water and through the sun-flecked shades of
Windsor Park, with the speed of the wind. On reaching the Heath, we
dashed out of the road, and cutting through fern and brier, our
experienced whip put his wheels on the rim of the course, as near the
stands as some thousands of carriages arrived before us would permit,
and then, cautioning us to take the bearings of our position, lest we
should lose him after the race, he took off his horses, and left us to
choose our own places.
A thousand red and yellow flags were flying from as many snowy tents
in the midst of the green heath; ballad-singers and bands of music
were amusing their little audiences in every direction; splendid
markees covering gambling-tables, surrounded the winning-post; groups
of country people were busy in every bush, eating and singing, and the
great stands were piled with row upon row of human heads waiting
anxiously for the exhilarating contest.
Soon after we arrived, the King and royal family drove up the course
with twenty carriages, and scores of postillions and outriders in red
and gold, flying over the turf as majesty flies in no other country;
and, immediately after, the bell rang to clear the course for the
race. _Such_ horses! The earth seemed to fling them off as they
touched it. The lean jockeys, in their party-colored caps and jackets,
rode the fine-limbed, slender creatures up and down together, and then
returning to the starting-post, off they shot like so many arrows from
the bow.
_Whiz!_ you could tell neither color nor shape as they passed across
the eye. Their swiftness was incredible. A horse of Lord
Chesterfield's was rather the favorite; and for the sake of his
great-grandfather, I had backed him with my small wager, "Glaucus is
losing," said some one on the top of a carriage above me, but round
they swept again, and I could just see that one glorious creature was
doubling the leaps of every other horse, and in a moment Glaucus and
Lord Chesterfield had won.
The course between the races is a promenade of some thousands of the
best-dressed people in England. I thought I had never seen so many
handsome men and women, but particularly _men_. The nobility of this
country, unlike every other, is by far the manliest and finest looking
class of its population. The _contadini_ of Rome, the _lazzaroni_ of
Naples, the _paysans_ of France, are incomparably more handsome than
their superiors in rank, but it is strikingly different here. A set of
more elegant and well-proportioned men than those pointed out to me by
my friends as the noblemen on the course, I never saw, except only in
Greece. The Albanians are seraphs to look at.
Excitement is hungry, and, after the first race, our party produced
their baskets and bottles, and spreading out the cold pie and
champaign upon the grass, between the wheels of the carriages, we
drank Lord Chesterfield's health and ate for our own, in an _al
fresco_ style worthy of Italy. Two veritable Bohemians, brown,
black-eyed gipsies, the models of those I had seen in their wicker
tents in Asia, profited by the liberality of the hour, and came in for
an upper crust to a pigeon pie, that, to tell the truth, they seemed
to appreciate.
Race followed race, but I am not a contributor to the Sporting
Magazine, and could not give you their merits in comprehensible terms
if I were.
In one of the intervals, I walked under the King's stand, and saw Her
Majesty, the Queen, and the young Princess Victoria, very distinctly.
They were listening to a ballad-singer, and leaning over the front of
the box with an amused attention, quite as sincere, apparently, as any
beggar's in the ring. The Queen is the plainest woman in her
dominions, beyond a doubt. The Princess is much better-looking than
the pictures of her in the shops, and, for the heir to such a crown as
that of England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting. She will
be sold, poor thing--bartered away by those great dealers in royal
hearts, whose grand calculations will not be much consolation to her,
if she happens to have a taste of her own.
* * * * *
[The following sketch was written a short time previous to the death
of Charles Lamb.]
Invited to breakfast with a gentleman in the temple to meet
Charles Lamb and his sister--"Elia and Bridget Elia." I never
in my life had an invitation more to my taste. The essays of
Elia are certainly the most charming things in the world, and
it has been for the last ten years, my highest compliment to
the literary taste of a friend to present him with a copy. Who
has not smiled over the humorous description of Mrs. Battle?
Who that has read Elia would not give more to see him than all
the other authors of his time put together?
Our host was rather a character. I had brought a letter of
introduction to him from Walter Savage Landor, the author of
Imaginary Conversations, living at Florence, with a request
that he would put me in the way of seeing one or two men about
whom I had a curiosity, Lamb more particularly. I could not
have been recommended to a better person. Mr. R. is a
gentleman who, everybody says, _should have been_ an author,
but who never wrote a book. He is a profound German scholar,
has travelled much, is the intimate friend of Southey,
Coleridge, and Lamb, has breakfasted with Goethe, travelled
with Wordsworth through France and Italy, and spends part of
every summer with him, and knows everything and everybody that
is distinguished--in short, is, in his bachelor's chambers in
the temple, the friendly nucleus of a great part of the talent
of England.
I arrived a half hour before Lamb, and had time to learn some
of his peculiarities. He lives a little out of London, and is
very much of an invalid. Some family circumstances have tended
to depress him very much of late years, and unless excited by
convivial intercourse, he scarce shows a trace of what he was.
He was very much pleased with the American reprint of his
Elia, though it contains several things which are not
his--written so in his style, however, that it is scarce a
wonder the editor should mistake them. If I remember right,
they were "Valentine's Day," the "Nuns of Caverswell," and
"Twelfth Night." He is excessively given to mystifying his
friends, and is never so delighted as when he has persuaded
some one into the belief of one of his grave inventions. His
amusing biographical sketch of Liston was in this vein, and
there was no doubt in anybody's mind that it was authentic,
and written in perfectly good faith. Liston was highly enraged
with it, and Lamb was delighted in proportion.
There was a rap at the door at last, and enter a gentleman in
black small-clothes and gaiters, short and very slight in his
person, his head set on his shoulders with a thoughtful,
forward bent, his hair just sprinkled with gray, a beautiful,
deep-set eye, aquiline nose, and a very indescribable mouth.
Whether it expressed most humor or feeling, good nature or a
kind of whimsical peevishness, or twenty other things which
passed over it by turns, I can not in the least be certain.
His sister, whose literary reputation is associated very
closely with her brother's, and who, as the original of
"Bridget Elia," is a kind of object for literary affection,
came in after him. She is a small, bent figure, evidently a
victim to illness, and hears with difficulty. Her face has
been, I should think, a fine and handsome one, and her bright
gray eye is still full of intelligence and fire. They both
seemed quite at home in our friend's chambers, and as there
was to be no one else, we immediately drew round the breakfast
table. I had set a large arm chair for Miss Lamb. "Don't take
it, Mary," said Lamb, pulling it away from her very gravely,
"it appears as if you were going to have a tooth drawn."
The conversation was very local. Our host and his guest had
not met for some weeks, and they had a great deal to say of
their mutual friends. Perhaps in this way, however, I saw more
of the author, for his manner of speaking of them and the
quaint humor with which he complained of one, and spoke well
of another was so in the vein of his inimitable writings, that
I could have fancied myself listening to an audible
composition of a new Elia. Nothing could be more delightful
than the kindness and affection between the brother and the
sister, though Lamb was continually taking advantage of her
deafness to mystify her with the most singular gravity upon
every topic that was started. "Poor Mary!" said he, "she hears
all of an epigram but the point." "What are you saying of me,
Charles?" she asked. "Mr. Willis," said he, raising his voice,
"admires _your Confessions of a Drunkard_ very much, and I was
saying that it was no merit of yours, that you understood the
subject." We had been speaking of this admirable essay (which
is his own), half an hour before.
The conversation turned upon literature after a while, and our
host, the templar, could not express himself strongly enough
in admiration of Webster's speeches, which he said were
exciting the greatest attention among the politicians and
lawyers of England. Lamb said, "I don't know much of American
authors. Mary, there, devours Cooper's novels with a ravenous
appetite, with which I have no sympathy. The only American
book I ever read twice, was the 'Journal of Edward Woolman,' a
quaker preacher and tailor, whose character is one of the
finest I ever met with. He tells a story or two about negro
slaves that brought the tears into my eyes. I can read no
prose now, though Hazlitt sometimes, to be sure--but then
Hazlitt is worth all modern prose writers put together."
Mr. R. spoke of buying a book of Lamb's, a few days before,
and I mentioned my having bought a copy of Elia the last day I
was in America, to send as a parting gift to one of the most
lovely and talented women in our country.
"What did you give for it?" said Lamb.
"About seven and sixpence."
"Permit me to pay you that," said he, and with the utmost
earnestness he counted out the money upon the table.
"I never yet wrote anything that would sell," he continued. "I
am the publisher's ruin. My last poem won't sell a copy. Have
you seen it, Mr. Willis?"
I had not.
"It's only eighteen pence, and I'll give you sixpence toward
it;" and he described to me where I should find it sticking up
in a shop-window in the Strand.
Lamb ate nothing, and complained in a querulous tone of the
veal pie. There was a kind of potted fish (of which I forget
the name at this moment), which he had expected our friend
would procure for him. He inquired whether there was not a
morsel left perhaps in the bottom of the last pot. Mr. R. was
not sure.
"Send and see," said Lamb, "and if the pot has been cleaned,
bring me the cover. I think the sight of it would do me good."
The cover was brought, upon which there was a picture of the
fish. Lamb kissed it with a reproachful look at his friend,
and then left the table and began to wander round the room
with a broken, uncertain step, as if he almost forgot to put
one leg before the other. His sister rose after a while, and
commenced walking up and down, very much in the same manner,
on the opposite side of the table, and in the course of half
an hour they took their leave.
To any one who loves the writings of Charles Lamb with but
half my own enthusiasm, even these little particulars of an
hour passed in his company, will have an interest. To him who
does not, they will seem dull and idle. Wreck as he certainly
is, and must be, however, of what he was, I would rather have
seen him for that single hour, than the hundred and one sights
of London put together.
LETTER LXXI.
DINNER AT LADY BLESSINGTON'S--BULWER, D'ISRAELI, PROCTER,
FONBLANC, ETC.--ECCENTRICITIES OF BECKFORD, AUTHOR OF
VATHEK--D'ISRAELI'S EXTRAORDINARY TALENT AT DESCRIPTION.
Dined at Lady Blessington's, in company with several authors, three or
four noblemen, and a clever exquisite or two. The authors were Bulwer,
the novelist, and his brother, the statist; Procter (better known as
Barry Cornwall), D'Israeli, the author of Vivian Grey; and Fonblanc,
of the Examiner. The principal nobleman was Lord Durham, and the
principal exquisite (though the word scarce applies to the magnificent
scale on which nature has made him, and on which he makes himself),
was Count D'Orsay. There were plates for twelve.
I had never seen Procter, and, with my passionate love for his poetry,
he was the person at table of the most interest to me. He came late,
and as twilight was just darkening the drawing-room, I could only see
that a small man followed the announcement, with a remarkably timid
manner, and a very white forehead.
D'Israeli had arrived before me, and sat in the deep window, looking
out upon Hyde Park, with the last rays of daylight reflected from the
gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent
leather pumps, a white stick, with a black cord and tassel, and a
quantity of chains about his neck and pockets, served to make him,
even in the dim light, rather a conspicuous object.
Bulwer was very badly dressed, as usual, and wore a flashy waistcoat
of the same description as D'Israeli's. Count D'Orsay was very
splendid, but very undefinable. He seemed showily dressed till you
looked to particulars, and then it seemed only a simple thing, well
fitted to a very magnificent person. Lord Albert Conyngham was a dandy
of common materials; and my Lord Durham, though he looked a young man,
if he passed for a lord at all in America, would pass for a very
ill-dressed one.
For Lady Blessington, she is one of the most handsome, and, quite the
best-dressed woman in London; and, without farther description, I
trust the readers of the Mirror will have little difficulty in
imagining a scene that, taking a wild American into the account, was
made up of rather various material.
The blaze of lamps on the dinner table was very favorable to my
curiosity, and as Procter and D'Israeli sat directly opposite me, I
studied their faces to advantage. Barry Cornwall's forehead and eye
are all that would strike you in his features. His brows are heavy;
and his eye, deeply sunk, has a quick, restless fire, that would have
arrested my attention, I think, had I not known he was a poet. His
voice has the huskiness and elevation of a man more accustomed to
think than converse, and it was never heard except to give a brief and
very condensed opinion, or an illustration, admirably to the point, of
the subject under discussion. He evidently felt that he was only an
observer in the party.
D'Israeli has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is
lividly pale, and but for the energy of his action and the strength of
his lungs, would seem a victim to consumption. His eye is black as
Erebus, and has the most mocking and lying-in-wait sort of expression
conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient
nervousness, and when he has burst forth, as he does constantly, with
a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of
triumphant scorn that would be worthy of a Mephistopheles. His hair is
as extraordinary as his taste in waistcoats. A thick heavy mass of jet
black ringlets falls over his left cheek almost to his collarless
stock, while on the right temple it is parted and put away with the
smooth carefulness of a girl's, and shines most unctiously,
"With thy incomparable oil, Macassar!"
The anxieties of the first course, as usual, kept every mouth occupied
for a while, and then the dandies led off with a discussion of Count
D'Orsay's rifle match (he is the best rifle-shot in England), and
various matters as uninteresting to transatlantic readers. The new
poem, Philip Van Artevald's, came up after a while, and was very much
over-praised (_me judice_). Bulwer said, that as the author was the
principle writer for the Quarterly Review, it was a pity it was first
praised in that periodical, and praised so unqualifiedly. Procter said
nothing about it, and I respected his silence; for, as a poet, he must
have felt the poverty of the poem, and was probably unwilling to
attack a new aspirant in his laurels.
The next book discussed was Beckford's Italy, or rather the next
author, for the _writer_ of Vathek is more original, and more talked
of than his books, and just now occupies much of the attention of
London. Mr. Beckford has been all his life enormously rich, has
luxuriated in every country with the fancy of a poet, and the refined
splendor of a Sybarite, was the admiration of Lord Byron, who visited
him at Cintra, was the owner of Fonthill, and, _plus fort encore_, his
is one of the oldest families in England. What could such a man
attempt that would not be considered extraordinary!
D'Israeli was the only one at table who knew him, and the style in
which he gave a sketch of his habits and manners, was worthy of
himself. I might as well attempt to gather up the foam of the sea, as
to convey an idea of the extraordinary language in which he clothed
his description. There were, at least, five words in every sentence
that must have been very much astonished at the use they were put to,
and yet no others apparently, could so well have conveyed his idea. He
talked like a race-horse approaching the winning-post, every muscle in
action, and the utmost energy of expression flung out in every burst.
It is a great pity he is not in parliament.[11]
The particulars he gave of Beckford, though stripped of his gorgeous
digressions and parentheses, may be interesting. He lives now at Bath,
where he has built a house on two sides of the street, connected by a
covered bridge _a la Ponte de Sospiri_, at Venice. His servants live
on one side, and he and his sole companion on the other. This
companion is a hideous dwarf, who imagines himself, or is, a Spanish
duke; and Mr. Beckford for many years has supported him in a style
befitting his rank, treats him with all the deference due to his
title, and has, in general, no other society (I should not wonder,
myself, if it turned out to be a woman); neither of them is often
seen, and when in London, Mr. Beckford is only to be approached
through his man of business. If you call, he is not at home. If you
would leave a card or address him a note, his servant has strict
orders not to take in anything of the kind. At Bath, he has built a
high tower, which is a great mystery to the inhabitants. Around the
interior, to the very top, it is lined with books, approachable with a
light spiral staircase; and in the pavement below, the owner has
constructed a double crypt for his own body, and that of his dwarf
companion, intending, with a desire for human neighborhood which has
not appeared in his life, to leave the library to the city, that all
who enjoy it shall pass over the bodies below.
Mr. Beckford thinks very highly of his own books, and talks of his
early production (Vathek), in terms of unbounded admiration. He speaks
slightingly of Byron, and of his praise, and affects to despise
utterly the popular taste. It appeared altogether, from D'Israeli's
account, that he is a splendid egotist, determined to free life as
much as possible from its usual fetters, and to enjoy it to the
highest degree of which his genius, backed by an immense fortune, is
capable. He is reputed, however, to be excessively liberal, and to
exercise his ingenuity to contrive secret charities in his
neighborhood.
Victor Hugo and his extraordinary novels came next under discussion;
and D'Israeli, who was fired with his own eloquence, started off,
_apropos des bottes_, with a long story of an empalement he had seen
in Upper Egypt. It was as good, and perhaps as authentic, as the
description of the chow-chow-tow in Vivian Grey. He had arrived at
Cairo on the third day after the man was transfixed by two stakes
from hip to shoulder, and he was still alive! The circumstantiality of
the account was equally horrible and amusing. Then followed the
sufferer's history, with a score of murders and barbarities, heaped
together like Martin's Feast of Belshazzer, with a mixture of horror
and splendor, that was unparalleled in my experience of improvisation.
No mystic priest of the Corybantes could have worked himself up into a
finer phrensy of language.