very severe in her manner and had a very harsh voice: it was as if the
shadow of the Temple always rested upon her. The Duchesse de Berri was
of gentler manners, but less wise. When the family of Charles X. fled
after the revolution of four days, the deputation going to offer the
crown to Louis Philippe found he was out; they found only the Duchess of
Orleans. She was horrified at the very idea and refused point-blank,
saying that her husband would never do such a wrong to his
cousin--‘Grace à Dieu! mon mari ne sera pas usurpateur.’ Going through
the garden at Neuilly, however, the deputation met Madame Adelaïde, who
asked what their business was, and being told what the Duchess had
answered, said, ‘Oh, mais mon frère accepte, certainement il accepte;’
and her view was definitive. She never separated from her brother
afterwards, and he always deferred to her opinion; indeed, as Napoleon
used to say, she was ‘the only man of the family.’ The whole family paid
her great attention. She was enormously rich, and made the Prince de
Joinville her heir. Louis Philippe chose her epitaph in the vaults at
Dreux. It is from Gen. xii. 13: ‘Thou art my sister, and it has been
well with me for thy sake.’
“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton was the first person Queen Marie Amelie sent for
after her accession. She went in the evening, and found the Queen
sitting at a table with Madame Adelaïde and one other lady, the wife of
the Swedish Minister. A place was given to her between the Queen and
Madame Adelaïde. The first words of the Queen seemed ominous--‘Nous
avons laissé notre bonheur à Neuilly, Madame Hamilton.’ But Madame
Adelaïde instantly took up the conversation, and talked of a bullet
which she had found in her mirror, saying that she should never have the
mirror mended, but should preserve it as ‘un souvenir historique.’
“Lady Waterford says how much brighter and happier people are for having
something young about them,--a young lady, a child, a young dog even.
She says, ‘I want to make a picture of Hope painting the future in the
brightest colours. It will be such a beautiful subject. A rainbow will
pour into the room and all its colours be reflected on her palette.’”
* * * * *
“_July 20._--Lady Waterford and the Ellices went to Broadlands, and
returned in the evening radiant, and full of the Conference, with which
they were delighted. I was very sorry indeed to be too ill to go, these
Broadland ‘Conferences’ being quite a type of the times.
“They had a delightful drive through the forest and halted at Lyndhurst,
visiting the ‘King’s House’ and seeing the stirrup which is said to have
belonged to William Rufus. It is of gigantic size, and was probably
really intended, when dogs were forbidden in the forest, as a sort of
standard of measurement, only dogs which could pass through that stirrup
being allowed.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN PORCH, HIGHCLIFFE.][183]
[Illustration: THE SUNDIAL WALK, HIGHCLIFFE.][184]
“At Broadlands, after luncheon, they went out on the lawn, where the
Conference was proceeding under some fine beech-trees. ‘It was like a
Claude,’ said Lady Waterford, the view being over the water, with a
temple on one side and a cypress cutting the sky.’ Mr. Cowper Temple
opened the afternoon meeting with a little speech; a Nonconformist
minister followed, and then the High Church Mr. Wilkinson gave an
address. The most remarkable thing he told was a story of a young lady
who went to a meeting and returned resolved to dedicate herself to God.
She wrote down her dedication, and then said, ‘It shall be from to-day.’
Then she considered that there was so much to be done, &c.--‘It shall be
in three years.’ Again she hesitated and altered what she had
written--‘I may not live: it shall be to-night.” But finally she thought
again how much there was she wanted to do first, and finally wrote--‘In
three weeks I will dedicate myself to God.’ In the morning the paper
was found with all the different erasures and alterations, but the young
lady was dead.... Several other speakers followed, and then Mr. Cowper
Temple knelt on the gravel and prayed: all was most simple and earnest.
“Here at Highcliffe we have sat in the library in the morning, the great
Brugmantia bursting into its bloom of scarlet bells in the conservatory
beyond, Lady Waterford painting at her table, the rest working beneath
the stained window.”
* * * * *
“_Heckfield Place, August 13._--This is a beautiful open country with
lovely woods and purple heaths studded with groups of fine old firs. The
grounds of Heckfield itself are delightful, and the house, of red brick,
stands upon a high bastioned terrace filled with brilliant flower-beds
and overlooking undulating green lawns and an artificial sheet of water.
“Lord Eversley and his daughter Emma received me with most cordial
kindness and a real family welcome, and it was pleasant to see so many
interesting pictures of our common ancestors,--on the staircase a
full-length of my great-grandmother Mrs. Hare, as a young girl tripping
along with her apron full of flowers. There are fine portraits of her
father and mother; and her sister, Helena Lefevre, is represented again
and again, from youth to age.
“Lord and Lady Selborne have been here. He has a stiff manner, but warms
into much pleasantness, and she is very genial: their daughter, Sophy,
is a union of both. I went with Lord Selborne and Miss Palmer to
Strathfieldsaye. The Duke (of Wellington), dressed like a poor
pensioner, received us in his uncomfortable room, where Lord Selborne,
who has a numismatical mania, was glad to stay for two hours examining
coins. Meanwhile the Duke, finding we were really interested, took Miss
Palmer and me upstairs, and showed us all his relics. It was touching to
see the old man, who for the greater part of his lifetime existed in
unloving awe of a father he had always feared and been little noticed
by, now, in the evening of life, treasuring up every reminiscence of him
and considering every memorial as sacred. In his close stuffy little
room were the last pheasants the great Duke had shot, the miniatures of
his mother and aunt and of himself and his brother as children, his
grandfather’s portrait, a good one of Marshal Saxe, and the picture of
the horse Copenhagen. Most of the bedrooms were completely covered with
prints pasted on the walls. It was the great Duke’s fancy. Some of them
are amusing, but the general effect is poor and bad, and the medley
curious, especially in some rooms where they were framed in crowds--Lord
Eldon, Melancthon, and views of the Alhambra together. In the hall hung
a fine beginning of a picture of the great Duke, painted by Goya at
Madrid. Before it was finished the army had moved on to Salamanca. The
Duke had then been made Captain-General of the forces, and upon the
Spanish commander saying in a huff, ‘I will not serve under a
foreigner,’ Goya rejoined, ‘And I will not finish his portrait.’ And he
never did.
“Strathfieldsaye is an unprepossessing house--as the Duke himself said,
‘like a great cottage.’
“Lord Eversley gave, as a curious instance of the awe in which the great
Duke kept his Duchess, that Mrs. Lefevre, going one day to visit her,
found her dissolved in tears. When she asked the reason, the Duchess
said, sobbing, ‘Look there,’ and from the window Mrs. Lefevre saw
workmen cutting down all the ivy which made the whole beauty of the
trees before the house; and when Mrs. Lefevre asked the Duchess why she
did not remonstrate, she showed her a written paper which the head man
had just brought in, having received it from the Duke--‘Field Marshal
the Duke of Wellington desires that the ivy may immediately be cut down
from every tree on his estate.’ They had begun with those nearest home;
the Duke had evidently forgotten to except those, but his order could
not be trifled with.
“One day the great Duke was much surprised by receiving a letter which
he read as follows:--‘Being in the neighbourhood, I venture to ask
permission to see some of your Grace’s best breeches. C. London.’ He
answered to the Bishop of London that he had great pleasure in assenting
to his request, though he must confess it had given him very
considerable surprise. London House was thrown into confusion. The note
was from Loudon, the great gardener, and ‘breeches’ should have been
read ‘beeches.’[185]
“We went on to Silchester, which is one of the three walled Roman towns
of England, Wroxeter and Risborough being the others. The walls, three
miles in circumference, are nearly perfect. In the centre is the forum,
an immense square, 315 feet by 276, surrounded by shops, amongst which
those of the oyster-monger, game-seller, butcher, and jeweller have been
identified. One house retains its curious apparatus for warming very
perfect.”
* * * * *
“_Heckfield, August 14._--Yesterday Colonel Townley came to dine,
celebrated for his ride of eight hundred miles without stopping. It was
of great importance that certain despatches from our Government should
reach Constantinople before the Austrian messenger could deliver his,
and Colonel Townley accomplished it. When within a few hours of
Constantinople, an old wound opened from his exertion, and he felt
almost dying; but just then he caught sight of the Austrian envoy coming
over the brow of a distant hill, and it nerved him, and he rode on and
arrived first. It gained him his colonelcy. He is a pleasant, handsome,
unaffected man.”
* * * * *
“_Deanery, Salisbury, August 15._--I came here yesterday morning to the
Venerable Dean Hamilton of eighty-two, and his wife of seventy-two. He
was a Cambridge friend of my uncle Julius Hare, and lived in the same
circle, of Thirlwall, Whewell, Sedgwick, and the Malcolms, &c. His mind
has all its old power, and he has much that is most interesting to tell
of all the people he has seen. He gave a curious account of breakfasts
at the house of Ugo Foscolo, where everything was served by the most
beautiful maidens in picturesque dresses. He described the eccentric Mr.
Peate, who lived in Trinity, but never came out of his rooms except to
dinner or supper, when he always appeared to the moment. When Dr. Parr
dined, Mr. Peate drew him out in Combination Room, but retired at the
usual hour; only on going away, he walked up to Dr. Parr and said, ‘I
will take leave of you, sir, in words which may possibly not be
unfamiliar to you,’ and made a long set complimentary speech in honour
of learning; it was all taken word for word from an essay Dr. Parr had
published many years before; Peate’s memory was so very extraordinary.
It was not, however, always very convenient, for if a neighbour at
dinner affirmed an opinion, Peate would sometimes say, ‘On such a day or
such a year you expressed such and such an opinion, which was exactly
the reverse of this,’ for he never forgot anything, even the very terms
of an expression.
“There is here in Salisbury the usual familiar society of a cathedral
close--the Canon in residence and the other inhabitants meeting and
going in and out of each others’ houses at all hours. With Canon Douglas
Gordon I have been to the Palace, where we found the Bishop in his
garden, which is quite lovely, the rich green and brilliant flowers
sweeping up into and mingling with the grey arcades and rich chapels of
the cathedral; and from all points the tall heaven-soaring spire is
sublime, especially in the purple shadows of evening, with birds
circling ceaselessly round it.
“The Palace has a grand dull room full of portraits of deceased bishops,
where we had tea. Bishop Moberly, who is still rather schoolmasterish,
has no end of daughters, all so excellent that it has been observed
that whenever a colonist sends home for a commendable wife, you may,
with the most perfect confidence, despatch a Miss Moberly.”
* * * * *
“_August 16._--To Breamore, the fine old Elizabethan house of Sir Edward
Hulse, almost gutted by fire some years ago. I was taken up to the
housetop to survey several surrounding counties, and sat the rest of the
afternoon with the family in the shade of the old red gables. Two very
handsome boys, Edward and Westrow, asked for a story.”
* * * * *
“_Stanmer Park, August 18._--I came here yesterday to Lord Chichester’s.
It is a moderate house in a dullish park, with fine trees and a bright
flower-garden. We pray a great deal, and Lord Chichester--who is
intensely good--makes little sermons at prayers.... Lord Pelham is very
amusing under a quiet manner. ‘I thought I heard your dulcet tones, my
love, so I am coming out to you,’ he is just saying, as he steps through
the open window to his wife upon the verandah.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 4._--A most charming visit to Lady Mary Egerton at Mountfield
Court. Mr. Charles Newton[186] of the British Museum is here, who is
always charming, with ripple of pleasantest anecdote and kindly, genial
manners. He says:--
“General Skenk had a monkey and a parrot, which hated each other. One
day he imprudently went out, leaving them alone together in a room. When
he came back, the monkey was sitting in his arm-chair, bleeding
profusely, and looking very sheepish and ashamed of himself, while the
floor was covered with feathers. The parrot had disappeared, but while
General Skenk was looking for any further remains of it, out from under
a sofa walked a perfectly naked bird, and said, ‘What a hell of a time
we’ve had!’
“Mr. Newton was at a spiritual séance. An old man of the party was told
that the spirit manifested was his wife, upon which he said:--
“‘Is that you, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, it’s me.’
“‘Are you ’appy, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, very ‘appy.’
“‘’Appier than you were with me, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, much ‘appier.’
“‘Where are you, ‘’Arriet?’
“‘In ‘ell.’
“Mr. Newton says that the cry of the wood-pigeon is ‘Sow peas, do, do.’
There is a bird in Turkey of which the male seems to say a string of
words meaning ‘Have you seen my sheep?’ when the female replies, ‘No, I
have not seen them.’ They are said to be a shepherd and shepherdess who
lost all their sheep and died of a broken heart, when they were turned
into birds. But the interesting point is that the story is found in an
old Greek novel--‘Longus.’
“‘The origin of the Torlonia family,’ said Mr. Newton, ‘is very curious.
When Pius VII. wished to excommunicate Napoleon I., he could not find
any one who was bold enough to affix the _scomunica_ to the doors of the
Lateran. At length an old man who sold matches was found who ran the
risk and did it. On the return of the Pope in triumph, the old man was
offered any favour he liked, and he chose the monopoly of tobacco. From
that time every speculation that the Torlonias entered upon was sure to
answer.’
“The late Prince Torlonia, being at Naples, went into the room where the
public appointments were sold by auction. He left his umbrella there,
and went back to get it while the sale was going on. The bidders,
chiefly Neapolitan nobles, were aghast to see the great Torlonia
reappear, and at last, after some consultation, one of them came up to
him and said they would give him 60,000 francs if he would leave.
Instead of showing the intense astonishment he felt at this most
unexpected proposal, Torlonia only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘È
póco,’ and they gave him 100,000.
“The only other guests at Mountfield are a Mr. Baker, a Gloucestershire
squire, and his wife. He is an excellent man, and was the first who
instituted a Reformatory. This he did first at his own expense, but the
Government bought it from him. He speaks with the most dreary voice. Mr.
Newton says it is ‘just the sort of utterance he should be grateful for
if he was making his last speech upon the scaffold.’”
* * * * *
“_Sonning, Dec. 30._--My ever-kind friend Lord Stanhope died on
Christmas Eve. It was only two years from the time of dear Lady
Stanhope’s death, on New Year’s Eve, 1873. She left a paper for her
husband--what she called her ‘Last Words’--imploring him, for her sake,
to go back to his literary interests, not to give up what had been his
work, to try to fill up the blank in his life.
“When Lord Stanhope was dying, he said touchingly to Lady Mohun, ‘You
know what my dearest Emily asked of me in her last words. I have tried
to do as she wished, and you, my dear, have been such a good and kind
daughter to me, _you have almost made me wish to live_.’
“I have been spending charming days with Hugh Pearson. He says, ‘What
will become of a country in which the upper classes are content to be
fed upon Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ’ and the middle classes upon Moody and
Sankey?’ He told me of Justice Knight Bruce’s capital lines--
‘The ladies praise our curate’s eyes;
I cannot see their light divine:
He always shuts them when he prays,
And, when he preaches, closes mine.’”
XVIII
LONDON WALKS AND SOCIETY
* * * * *
“It is an inexpressible pleasure to know a little of the world, and to
be of no character or significancy in it.”--STEELE.
“Arranging long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we’ve set ourselves!
How still the lonely room appears!
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures.”
“Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.”--QUARLES.
“No, when the fight begins within himself,
A man’s worth something.”--BROWNING.
My three thick volumes of the “Cities of Northern and Central Italy”
appeared in the autumn of 1875, a very large edition (3000 copies) being
printed at once. They were immediately the object of a most violent
attack from Mr. Murray, who saw in them rivals to his well-known red
handbooks. A most virulent and abusive article appeared upon my work in
the _Athenæum_, accusing me, amongst other things, of having copied
from Murray’s Handbooks without acknowledgment, and quoting, as proof,
passages relating to Verona in both books, which have the same singular
mistake. It was certainly a curious accident which made me receive the
proof-sheets of Verona when away from home on a visit at Tunbridge
Wells, where the only book of reference accessible was Murray’s
“Handbook of Northern Italy,” which I found in the house, so that the
mistakes in my account of Verona _were_ actually copied from Murray’s
Handbook, to which I was indebted for nothing else whatever, as (though
much delighted with them when they first appeared) I had for years found
Murray’s Handbooks so inefficient, that I had never bought or made any
use of them, preferring the accurate and intelligent Handbooks of the
German _Gsel-fels_. Mr. Murray further took legal proceedings against
me, because in one of my volumes I had mentioned that the Italian Lakes
were included in his Swiss rather than his Italian Handbooks: this
having been altered in recent years, but having been the case in the
only volumes of his Handbooks I had ever possessed. On all occasions,
any little literary success I met with excited bitter animosity from Mr.
Murray.
Another curious attack was made upon me by the eccentric Mr. Freeman,
the historian of the Norman Conquest. He had published in the _Saturday
Review_ a series of short articles on the Italian cities, which I always
felt had never received the attention they deserved, their real interest
having been overlooked owing to the unpopularity of the dogmatic and
verbose style in which they were written. Therefore, really with the
idea of doing Mr. Freeman a good turn, I had rather gone out of my way
to introduce extracts from his articles where I could, that notice might
thus be attracted to them--an attention for which I had already been
thanked by other little-read authors, as, whatever may be the many
faults of my books, they have always had a large circulation. But in the
case of Mr. Freeman, knowing the singular character of the man, I begged
a common friend to write to his daughter and amanuensis to mention my
intention, and ask her, if her father had no objection to my quoting
from his articles, to send me a list of them (as they were unsigned), in
order that I might not confuse them with those of any other person. By
return of post I received, without comment, from Miss Freeman, a list of
her father’s articles, and I naturally considered this as equivalent to
his full permission to quote from them. I was therefore greatly
surprised, when Mr. Freeman’s articles appeared soon afterwards in a
small volume, to find it introduced with a preface, the whole object of
which was, in the most violent manner, to accuse me of theft. I
immediately published a full statement of the circumstances under which
I had quoted from Mr. Freeman in sixteen different newspapers. Mr.
Freeman answered in the _Times_ by repeating his accusation, and in the
_Guardian_ he added, “Though Mr. Hare’s conduct was barefaced and
wholesale robbery, I shall take no further notice of him till he has
stolen something else.”[187]
Mr. Freeman made himself many enemies, but he did not make me one; he
was too odd. His neighbour, the Dean of Wells, Johnson, could not bear
him. When there was an Archæological Meeting at Wells, it was thought
that peace might be made if the Dean could be persuaded to propose the
historian’s health at the dinner. The Dean was quite willing, but he
began his speech unfortunately with--“I rise with great pleasure to
propose the health of our eminent neighbour, Mr. Freeman the historian,
a man who--in his own personal characteristics--has so often depicted
for us the savage character of our first forefathers.”
But in spite of these little catastrophes attending its publication, I
am certain that “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” which cost me
far more pains and labour, and which is more entirely original, than all
my earlier books put together, was by far the best of my writings, up to
that time.
Before the book was out, I was already devoted to a new work, suggested
by the great delight I had long found in London, and by the desire of
awakening others to an enjoyment of its little-known treasures. A set of
lectures delivered at Sir John Shaw-Lefevre’s house in Seymour Street,
and a series of articles in _Good Words_, laid the foundation for my
“Walks in London.” When employed in this work, as in all my others, I
felt all those portions of life to be the most interesting which were
spent in following out any one single purpose.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Jan. 18, 1876._--I went to Cobham for three days last week. Deep snow
was on the ground, but the visit was delightful. I was delighted to find
Lady Pelham there, always so radiant and cordial, and so perfectly
simple. Of the other guests, the most interesting were Lord and Lady
Harris. There were also a great many Kentish men, hunting clergy, who
dressed in top-boots, &c., _during_ their visit, but departed in
ecclesiastical attire.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 19._--Yesterday I went to Lady Taunton. She has a beautiful
portrait of her daughter by young Richmond--a sort of play upon every
possible tone of yellow--a yellow gown, a yellow background, a great
cushion worked with yellow sunflowers, yellow hair looped up with
pearls, only a great white living lily to throw it all back. It is a
most poetical picture.
“In the evening I went to a supper at the house of young F. P. to meet a
whole society of young actors, artists, &c. Eden was there, known in the
stage world as Herbert, a name he took to save the feelings of his
episcopal uncle, Lord Auckland. His is a fine and a charming face, but
rather sad.... There were about fourteen men present, very good singing,
and then supper, much kindness and cordiality, and not a word which all
their mothers and sisters might not have heard. It would not have been
so at college or in a mess-room: so much for maligned actors.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 21._--To see Frederick Walker’s pictures. It is an interesting
collection, as being the written mind of one man. You see the same
picture over and over again, from its first sketch of an idea--merely a
floating idea--to its entire completion, and it is interesting to know
how slow a growth of thought was required to lead up to something,
which, after all, was not so very wonderful in the end. The pictures are
not beautiful, but the man who did them must have been charming, such a
simple lover of farmhouse life, apple-orchards, and old-fashioned
gardens, with a glory of flowers--all the right kinds of flowers
blooming together.