SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.

Ship Gladiator, off the Isle of Wight,

Evening of June 9th, 1839.

The bullet which preserves the perpendicular of my cabin-lamp is at last

still, I congratulate myself; and with it my optic nerve resumes its

proper and steady function. The vagrant tumblers, the peripatetic

teeth-brushes, the dancing stools, the sidling wash-basins and

_et-ceteras_, have returned to a steady life. The creaking bulkheads cry

no more. I sit on a trunk which will not run away with me, and pen and

paper look up into my face with their natural sobriety and attention. I

have no apology for not writing to you, except want of event since we

parted. There is not a milestone in the three thousand four hundred

miles I have travelled. “Travelled!” said I. I am as unconscious of

having moved from the wave on which you left me at Staten Island as the

prisoner in the hulk. I have pitched forward and backward, and rolled

from my left cheek to my right; but as to any feeling of having gone

_onward_ I am as unconscious of it as a lobster backing after the ebb.

The sea is a dreary vacuity, in which he, perhaps, who was ever well

upon it, can find material for thought. But for one, I will sell at

sixpence a month, all copyhold upon so much of my life as is destined

“to the deep, the blue, the black” (and whatever else he calls it,) of

my friend the song-writer.

Yet there are some moments recorded, first with a sigh, which we find

afterward copied into memory with a smile. Here and there a thought has

come to me from the wave, snatched listlessly from the elements—here

and there a word has been said which on shore should have been wit or

good feeling—here and there a “good morning,” responded to with an

effort, has from its courtesy or heartiness, left an impression which

will make to-morrow’s parting phrases more earnest than I had

anticipated.—With this green isle to windward and the smell of earth

and flowers coming to my nostrils once more, I begin to feel an interest

in several who have sailed with me. Humanity, killed in me invariably by

salt-water, revives, I think, with this breath of hawthorn.

The pilot tells us that the Montreal, which sailed ten days before us,

has not yet passed up the channel, and that we have brought with us the

first west wind they have had in many weeks. The sailors do not know

what to say to this, for we had four parsons on board, and, by all

sea-canons, they are invariable Jonahs. One of these gentlemen, by the

way, is an abolitionist, on a begging crusade for a school devoted to

the amalgam of color, and very much to the amusement of the passengers,

he met the steward’s usual demand for a fee with an application for a

contribution to the funds of his society! His expectations from British

sympathy are large, for he is accompanied by a lay brother “used to

keeping accounts,” whose sole errand is to record the golden results of

his friend’s eloquence. But “eight bells” warn me to bed; so when I have

recorded the good qualities of the Gladiator, which are many, and those

of her captain, which are more, I will put out my sea lamp for the last

time, and get into my _premonitory_ “six feet by two.”

* * * * *

_The George Inn, Portsmouth._—This is a morning in which (under my

circumstances) it would be difficult not to be pleased with the entire

world. A fair day in June, newly from sea, and with a journey of seventy

miles before me on a swift coach, through rural England, is what I call

a programme of a pleasant day. Determined not to put myself in the way

of a disappointment, I accepted, without the slightest hesitation, on

landing at the wharf, the services of an elderly gentleman in shabby

black, who proposed to stand between me and all my annoyances of the

morning. He was to get my baggage through the customs, submit for me to

all the inevitable impositions of tide-waiters, secure my place in the

coach, bespeak me a fried sole and green peas, and sum up his services,

all in one short phrase of _l. s. d._ So putting my temper into my

pocket, and making up my mind to let roguery take the wall of me for one

day unchallenged, I mounted to the grassy ramparts of the town to walk

off the small remainder of sea-air from my stomach, and admire

everything that came in my way. I would recommend to all newly landed

passengers from the packets to step up and accept of the sympathy of the

oaks of the “king’s bastion” in their disgust for the sea. Those

sensible trees, leaning toward the earth, and throwing out their boughs

as usual to the landward, present to the seaward exposure a turned-up

and gnarled look of nausea and disgust which is as expressive to the

commonest observer as a sick man’s first look at his bolus. I have great

affinity with trees, and I believe implicitly, that what is disagreeable

to the tree can not be pleasant to the man. The salt air is not so

corrosive here as in the Mediterranean, where the leaves of the olive

are eaten off entirely on the side toward the sea; but it is quite

enough to make a sensible tree turn up its nose, and in that attitude

stands most expressively every oak on the “king’s bastion.”

* * * * *

The first few miles out of Portsmouth form one long alley of ornamented

cottages—wood-bine creeping and roses flowering over them all. If there

were but two between Portsmouth and London—two even of the meanest we

saw—a traveller from any other land would think it worth his while to

describe them minutely. As there are two thousand (more or less,) they

must pass with a bare mention. Yet I became conscious of a new feeling

in seeing these rural paradises; and I record it as the first point in

which I find myself worse for having become a “dweller in the shade.” I

was envious. Formerly, in passing a tasteful retreat, or a fine manor, I

could say, “What a bright lawn! What a trim and fragrant hedge! What

luxuriant creepers! I congratulate their fortunate owner!” Now it is,

“How I wish I had that hedge at Glenmary! How I envy these people their

shrubs, trellises, and flowers!” I wonder not a little how the English

Emigrant can make a home among our unsightly stumps that can ever breed

a forgetfulness of all these refined ruralities.

After the first few miles, I discovered that the two windows of the

coach were very limited frames for the rapid succession of pictures

presented to my eye, and changing places with William, who was on the

top of the coach, I found myself between two tory politicians setting

forth to each other most eloquently the mal-administration of the whigs

and the queen’s mismanagement. As I was two months behind the English

news I listened with some interest. They made out to their own

satisfaction that the queen was a silly girl; that she had been caught

in a decided fib about Sir Robert Peel’s exactions with respect to the

household; and one of the Jeremiahs, who seemed to be a sturdy grazier,

said that “in ’igh life the queen-dowager’s ’ealth was now received

uniwersally with three times three, while Victoria’s was drank in solemn

silence.” Her majesty received no better treatment at the hands of a

whig on the other end of the seat; and as we whirled under the long park

fence of Claremont, the country palace of Leopold and the Princess

Charlotte, he took the pension of the Belgian king for the burden of his

lamentation, and, between whig and tory, England certainly seemed to be

in a bad way. This Claremont, it will be remembered by the readers of

D’Israeli’s novels, is the original of the picture of the luxurious

_maison de plaisance_, drawn in “the Young Duke.”

We got glimpses of the old palace at Esher, of Hampton Court, of Pitt’s

country seat at Putney, and of Jane Porter’s cottage at Esher, and in

the seventh hour from leaving Portsmouth (seventy-four miles) we found

the vehicles thickening, the omnibuses passing, the blue-coated

policemen occurring at short intervals, and the roads delightfully

watered—symptoms of suburban London. We skirted the privileged paling

of Hyde Park; and I could see, over the rails, the flying and gay

colored equipages, the dandy horsemen, the pedestrian ladies followed by

footmen with their gold sticks, the fashionable throng, in short, which,

separated by an iron barrier from all contact with unsightliness and

vulgarity, struts its hour in this green cage of aristocracy.

Around the triumphal arch opposite the duke of Wellington’s was

assembled a large crowd of carriages and horsemen. The queen was coming

from Buckingham palace through the Green park, and they were waiting for

a glimpse of Her Majesty on horseback. The Regulator whirled mercilessly

on; but far down, through the long avenues of trees, I could see a

movement of scarlet liveries, and a party coming rapidly toward us on

horseback. We missed the Queen by a couple of minutes.

It was just the hour when all London is abroad, and Piccadilly was one

long cavalcade of splendid equipages on their way to the park. I

remembered many a face, and many a crest; but either the faces had

beautified in my memory, or three years had done time’s pitiless work on

them all. Near Devonshire house I saw, fretting behind the slow-moving

press of vehicle, a pair of magnificent and fiery blood horses, drawing

a coach, which, though quite new, was of a color and picked out with a

peculiar stripe that was familiar to my eye. The next glance convinced

me that the livery was that of Lady Blessington; but, for the light

chariot in which she used to drive, here was a stately coach—for the

one tall footman, two—for the plain but elegant harness, a sumptuous

and superb caparison—the whole turn-out on a scale of splendor

unequalled by anything around us. Another moment decided the doubt—for

as we came against the carriage, following, ourselves, an embarrassed

press of vehicles, her ladyship appeared, leaning back in the corner

with her wrists crossed, the same in the grace of her attitude and the

elegance of her toilet, but stouter, more energetic, and graver in the

expression of her face, than I ever remembered to have seen her. From

the top of the stage-coach I looked, unseen, directly down upon her, and

probably got, by chance, a daylight and more correct view of her

countenance than I should obtain in a year of opera and drawing-room

observation. Tired and dusty, we were turned from hotel to hotel, all

full and overflowing; and finding at last a corner at Ragget’s in Dover

street, we dressed, dined, and posted to Woolwich. Unexpected and

mournful news closed our first day in England with tears.

* * * * *

I drove up to London the second day after our arrival, and having a

little “Grub-street” business, made my way to the purlieus of

publishers, Paternoster row. If you could imagine a paper-mine, with a

very deep cut shaft laid open to the surface of the earth, you might get

some idea of Ivy lane. One walks along through its dim subterranean

light, with no idea of breathing the proper atmosphere of day and open

air. A strong smell of new books in the nostrils, and one long stripe of

blue sky much farther off than usual, are the predominant impressions.

From the dens of the publishers, I wormed my way through the crowds of

Cheapside and the Strand, toward that part of London, which, as Horace

Smith says, is “open at the top.” Something in the way of a ship’s

fender, to save the hips and elbows would sell well, I should think, to

pedestrians in London. What crowds, to be sure! On a Sunday, in New

York, when all the churches are pouring forth their congregations at the

same moment, you have seen a faint image of the Strand. The style of the

hack cabriolets is very much changed since I was in London. The

passenger sits about as high up from the ground as he would in a common

chair—the body of the vehicle suspended from the axle instead of being

placed upon it, and the wheels very high. The driver’s seat would suit a

sailor, for it answers to the ship’s tiller, well astern. He whips over

the passenger’s head. I saw one or two private vehicles built on this

principle, certainly one of safety, though they have something the

_beauty_ of a prize hog.

The new National Gallery in Trafalgar square, not finished when I left

England, opened upon me as I entered Charing Cross, with what I could

not but feel was a very fine effect, though critically, its

“pepper-boxity” is not very creditable to the architect. Fine old

Northumberland house, with its stern lion atop on one side, the

beautiful Club house on the other, St. Martin’s noble church and the

Gallery—with such a fine opening in the very _cor cordium_ of London,

could not fail of producing a noble metropolitan view.

The street in front of the gallery was crowded with carriages, showing a

throng of visiters within; and mounting the imposing steps, (the

loftiness of the vestibule dropping plump as I paid my shilling

entrance,) I found myself in a hall whose extending lines of pillars ran

through the entire length of the building, offering to the eye a truly

noble perspective. Off from this hall, to the right and left, lay the

galleries of antique and modern paintings, and the latter were crowded

with the fair and fashionable mistresses of the equipages without. You

will not care to be bothered with criticism on pictures, and mine was a

cursory glance—but a delicious, full-length portrait of a noble lady by

Grant, whose talent is now making some noise in London, a glorious

painting of Van Amburgh among his lions by Edwin Landseer, and a

portrait of Miss Pardoe in a Turkish costume with her pretty feet coiled

under her on a Persian carpet, by Pickersgill, are among those I

remember. I found a great many acquaintances in the gallery; and I was

sitting upon a bench with a lady, who pointed out to me a portrait of

Lord Lyndhurst in his chancellor’s wig and robes—a very fine picture of

a man of sixty or thereabouts. Directly between me and it, as I looked,

sidled a person with his back to me, cutting off my view very

provokingly. “When this dandy gets out of the way with his eyeglass,”

said I, “I shall be able to see the picture.” My friend smiled. “Who do

you take the dandy to be?” It was a well formed man, dressed in the top

of the fashion with very straight back, curling brown hair, and the look

of perhaps thirty years of age. As he passed on and I caught his

profile, I saw it was Lord Lyndhurst himself.

* * * * *

I had not seen Taglioni since the first representation of the Sylphide,

eight or nine years ago at Paris. Last night I was at the opera, and saw

her in La Gitana; and except that her limbs are the least in the world

rounder and fuller, she is, in person, absolutely unchanged. I can

appreciate now, better than I could then (when opera dancing was new to

me,) what it is that gives this divine woman the right to her proud

title of _La Déesse de la Danse_. It is easy for the Ellslers and

Augusta, and others who are said to be only second to her, to copy her

flying steps, and even to produce by elasticity of limb, the beautiful

effect of touching the earth, like a thing afloat, without being

indebted to it for the rebound. But Taglioni alone _finishes_ the step,

or the pirouette, or the arrowy bound over the scene, as calmly, as

accurately, as faultlessly, as she begins it. She floats out of a

pirouette as if instead of being made giddy, she had been lulled by it

into a smiling and child-like dream, and instead of trying herself and

her _a plomb_ (as is seen all other dancers, by their effort to recover

composure,) it had been the moment when she had rallied and been

refreshed. The smile, so expressive of enjoyment in her own grace, which

steals over Taglioni’s lips when she closes a difficult step, seems

communicated in an indefinable languor, to her limbs. You cannot fancy

her fatigued when, with her peculiar softness of motion, she courtesies

to the applause of an enchanted audience, and walks lightly away. You

are never apprehensive that she has undertaken too much. You never

detect as you do in all other dancers, defects slurred over adroitly and

movements that, from their anticipating the music of the ballet, are

known by the critical eye to cover some flaw in the step, from giddiness

or loss of balance. But oh what a new relation bears the music to the

dance, when this spirit of grace replaces her companions in the ballet!

Whether the motion seems born of the music, or the music floats out of

her dreamy motion, the enchanted gazer might be almost embarrassed to

know.

In the new ballet of La Gitana, the music is based upon the Mazurka. The

story is the old one of the child of a grandee of Spain, stolen by

gipsies, and recovered by chance in Russia. The gradual stealing over

her of music she had heard in her childhood was the finest piece of

pantomimic acting I ever saw. But there is one dance, _the Cachucha_,

introduced at the close of the ballet, in which Taglioni has enchanted

the world anew. It could only be done by herself; for there is a

succession of flying movements expressive of alarm, in the midst of

which she alights and stands poised upon the points of her feet, with a

look over her shoulder of _fierté_ and animation possible to no other

face, I think, in the world. It was like a deer standing with expanded

nostril and neck uplifted to its loftiest height, at the first scent of

his pursuers in the breeze. It was the very soul of swiftness embodied

in a look! How can I describe it to you?

* * * * *

My last eight hours have been spent between Bedlam and the opera—one of

those antipodal contrasts of which London life affords so many. Thanks

to God, and to the Howards who have arizen in our time, a madhouse is no

longer the heart-rending scene that it used to be; and Bedlam, though a

place of melancholy imprisonment, is as cheering a spectacle to the

humane as imprisonment can be made by care and kindness. Of the three

hundred persons who are inmates of its wards, the greater part seemed

quiet and content, some playing at ball in the spacious court-yards,

some lying on the grass, and some working voluntarily at a kind of wheel

arranged for raising water to their rooms.

On the end of a bench in one of the courts, quite apart from the other

patients, sat the youth who came up two hundred miles from the country

to marry the queen! You will remember the story of his forcing himself

into Buckingham palace. He was a stout, sandy-haired, sad-looking young

man, of perhaps twenty-four; and with his arms crossed, and his eyes on

the ground, he sat like a statue, never moving even an eyelash while we

were there. There was a very gentlemanlike man working at the

waterwheel, or rather walking round with his hand on the bar, in a gait

that would have suited the most finished exquisite of a

drawing-room—Mr. Davis, who shot (I think) at Lord Londonderry. Then in

an upper room we saw the Captain Brown who shook his fist in the queen’s

face when she went to the city—really a most officer-like and handsome

fellow; and in the next room poor old Hatfield who shot at George the

Third, and has been in Bedlam for forty years—quite sane! He was a

gallant dragoon, and his face is seamed with scars got in battle before

his crime. He employs himself with writing poetry on the death of his

birds and cats whom he has outlived in prison—all the society he has

had in this long and weary imprisonment. He received us very

courteously; and called our attention to his favorite canary, showed us

his poetry, and all with a sad, mild, subdued resignation that quite

moved me.

In the female wards I saw nothing very striking, except one very

noble-looking woman who was standing at her grated window, entirely

absorbed in reading the Bible. Her face expressed the most heart-rending

melancholy I had ever witnessed. She has been for years under the

terrible belief that she has committed “the unpardonable sin,” and

though quiet all the day, her agony at night becomes horrible. What a

comment on a much practiced mode of preaching the mild and forgiving

religion of our Savior!

As I was leaving one of the wards, a young woman of nineteen or twenty

came up to me with a very polite courtesy and said, “Will you be so kind

as to have me released from this dreadful place?” “I am afraid I can

not,” said I. “Then,” she replied laying her hand on my arm, with a most

appealing earnestness, “perhaps you will on Monday—you know I’ve

nothing to pack!” The matron here interposed, and led her away, but she

kept her eyes on us till the door closed. She was confined there for the

murder of her child.

We visited the kitchens, wash-houses, bakery, &c., &c.—all clean,

orderly, and admirable, and left our names on the visitors’ book, quite

of the opinion of a Frenchman who was there just before us, and who had

written under his own name this expressive praise:—“_J’ai visite

certains palais moins beaux et moins bien entretenus que cette maison de

la folie._”

Two hours after I was listening to the overture of La Cenerentola, and

watching the entrance, to the opera, of the gay, the celebrated, and the

noble. In the house I had left, night had brought with it (as it does

always to the insane) a maddening and terrific exaltation of brain and

spirit—but how different from that exaltation of brain and spirit

sought at the same hour by creatures of the same human family, at the

opera! It was difficult not to wonder at the distribution of allotments

to mankind. In a box on the left of me sat the Queen, keeping time with

a fan to the delicious singing of Pauline Garcia, her favorite minister

standing behind her chair, and her maids of honor around—herself the

smiling, youthful, and admired Sovereign of the most powerful nation on

earth! I thought of the poor girl in her miserable cell at Bedlam

imploring release.

The Queen’s face has thinned and grown more oval since I saw her at a

drawing-room four years ago, as Princess Victoria. She has been

compelled to _think_ since then, and such exigencies, in all stations of

life, work out the expression of the face. She has now what I should

pronounce a decidedly intellectual countenance, a little petulant withal

when she turns to speak, but on the whole quite beautiful enough for a

virgin queen. No particular attention seemed paid to her by the

audience. She was dressed less gayly than many others around her. Her

box was at the left side of the house undistinguished by any mark of

royalty, and a stranger would never have suspected her presence.

Pauline Garcia sang better than I thought it possible for any one to

sing after Malibran was dead. She has her sister’s look about the

forehead and eyes, and all her sister’s soul and passionateness in her

style of singing. Her face is otherwise very plain, but, plain as it is,

the opera-going public prefer her already to the beautiful and more

powerful Grisi. The latter long triumphant _prima donna_ is said to be

very unhappy at her eclipse by this new favorite; and it is curious

enough to hear the hundred and one faults found in the declining

songstress by those who once would not admit that she could be

transcended on earth. A very celebrated person, whom I remembered, when

in London before, giving Grisi the most unqualified eulogy, assured the

gay admirers in her box last night that she had _always_ said that Grisi

had nothing but lungs and fine eyes. She was a great healthy Italian

girl, and could sing in tune; but soul or sentiment she never had! Poor

Grisi! Hers is the lot of all who are so unhappy as to have been much

admired. “_Le monde ne hait rien autant que ses idoles quand ils sont à

terre_,” said the wise La Bruyere.

* * * * *

Some of the most delightful events in one’s travels are those which

afford the least _matériel_ for description, and such is our _séjour_ of

a few days at the vicarage of B——. It was a venerable old house with

pointed gables, elaborate and pointed windows, with panes of glass of

the size of the palm of the hand, low doors, narrow staircases, all

sorts of unsuspected rooms and creepers outside, trellised and trained

to every corner and angle. Then there was the modern wing, with library

and dining room, large windows, marble fireplaces, and French paper; and

in going from your bedroom to breakfast you might fancy yourself

stepping from Queen Elizabeth’s time to Queen Victoria’s. A high hedge

of holly divided the smoothly-shaven lawn from the church-yard, and in

the midst of the moss-grown headstones stood a gray old church with four

venerable towers, one of the most picturesque and beautiful specimens of

the old English architecture that I have ever seen. The whole group,

church, vicarage, and a small hamlet of vine covered and embowered stone

cottages, lay in the lap of a gently rising sweep of hills, and all

around were spread landscapes of the finished and serene character

peculiar to England—rich fields framed in flowering hedges, clumps of

forest trees, glimpses of distant parks, country seats, and village

spires, and on the horizon a line of mist-clad hills, scarce ever more

distinct than the banks of low-lying clouds retiring after a thunder

storm in America.

Early on Sunday morning we were awakened by the melody of the bells in

the old towers; and with brief pauses between the tunes, they were

played upon most musically, till the hour for the morning services. We

have little idea in America of the perfection to which the chiming of

bells is carried in England. In the towers of this small rural church

are hung eight bells of different tone, and the tunes played on them by

the more accomplished ringers of the neighboring hamlet are varied

endlessly. I lay and listened to the simple airs as they died away over

the valley, with a pleasure I can scarcely express. The morning was

serene and bright, the perfume of the clematis and jasmine flowers at

the window penetrated to the curtains of my bed, and Sunday seemed to

have dawned with the audible worship and palpable incense of nature. We

were told at breakfast that the chimes had been unusually merry, and

were a compliment to ourselves, the villagers always expressing thus

their congratulations on the arrival of guests at the vicarage. The

compliment was repeated between services, and a very long peal rang in

the twilight—our near relationship to the vicar’s family authorizing a

very special rejoicing.

The interior of the church was very ancient looking and rough, the pews

of unpainted oak, and the massive stone walls simply whitewashed. The

congregation was small, perhaps fifty persons, and the men were (with

two exceptions) dressed in russet carters’ frocks, and most of them in

leather leggins. The children sat on low benches placed in the centre of

the one aisle, and the boys, like their fathers, were in smock frocks of

homespun, their heavy shoes shod with iron like horses’ hoofs, and their

little legs buttoned up in the impenetrable gaiters of coarse leather.

They looked, men and boys, as if they were intended to wear but one suit

in this world.

I was struck with the solemnity of the service, and the decorous

attention of men, women, and children, to the responses. It was a

beautiful specimen of simple and pastoral worship. Each family had the

name of their farm or place of residence printed on the back of the pew,

with the number of seats to which they were entitled, probably in

proportion to their tithes. The “living” is worth, if I remember right,

not much over a hundred pounds—an insufficient sum to support so

luxurious a vicarage as is appended to it; but, happily for the people,

the vicar chances to be a man of fortune, and he unites in his excellent

character the exemplary pastor with the physician and lord of the manor.

I left B—— with the conviction that if peace, contentment, and

happiness, inhabit one spot more than all others in a world whose

allotments are so difficult to estimate, it is the vicarage in the bosom

of that rural upland.

* * * * *

We left B—— at twelve in the Brighton “Age”—the “swell coach” of

England. We were to dine thirty miles nearer London, at —— Park, and

we did the distance in exactly three hours, including a stop of fifteen

minutes to dine. We are abused by all travellers for our alacrity in

dining on the road; but what stage-coach in the United States ever

limited its dining time to fifteen minutes, and what American dinner of

roast, pastry, and cheese, was ever dispatched so briefly? Yet the

travellers to Brighton are of the better class; and whose who were my

fellow passengers the day I refer to were particularly well-dressed and

gentlemanly—yet _all_ of them achieved a substantial dinner of beef,

pudding, and cheese, paid their bills, and drained their glass of

porter, within the quarter of an hour. John Bull’s blindness to the beam

in his own eye is perhaps owing to the fact that this hasty meal is

sometimes _called_ a “lunch!”

The _two_ places beside our own in the inside were occupied by a lady

and her maid and two children—an interpretation of number two to which

I would not have agreed if I could have helped it. We cannot always tell

at first sight what will be most amusing, however; and the child of two

years, who sprawled over my rheumatic knees with her mother’s

permission, thereby occasioning on my part a most fixed look out of the

window, furnished me with a curious bit of observation. At one of the

commons we passed, the children running out from a gipsy encampment

flung bunches of heath flowers into the coach, which the little girl

appropriated, and commenced presenting rather graciously to her mother,

the maid, and Mrs. W., all of whom received them with smiles and thanks.

Having rather a sulky face of my own when not particularly called on to

be pleased, the child omitted me for a long time in her distributions.

At last, after collecting and redistributing the flowers for above an

hour, she grew suddenly grave, laid the heath all out upon her lap,

selected the largest and brightest flowers, and made them into a

nosegay. My attention was attracted by the seriousness of the child’s

occupation; and I was watching her without thinking my notice observed,

when she raised her eyes to me timidly, turned her new boquet over and

over, and at last, with a blush, deeper than I ever saw before upon a

child, placed the flowers in my hand and hid her face in her mother’s

bosom. My sulkiness gave way, of course, and the little coquette’s

pleasure in her victory was excessive. For the remainder of the journey,

those who had given her their smiles too readily were entirely

neglected, and all her attentions were showered upon the only one she

had found it difficult to please. I thought it as pretty a specimen of

the ruling passion strong in baby-hood as I ever saw. It was a piece of

finished coquetry in a child not old enough to speak plain.

The coachman of “the Age” was a young man of perhaps thirty, who is

understood to have run through a considerable fortune, and drives for a

living—but he was not at all the sort of looking person you would fancy

for a “swell whip.” He drove beautifully, helped the passengers out and

in, lifted their baggage, &c., very handily, but evidently shunned

notice, and had no desire to chat with the “outsides.” The excessive

difficulty in England of finding _any_ clean way of making a living

after the initiatory age is passed—a difficulty which reduced gentlemen

feel most keenly—probably forced this person as it has others to take

up a vocation for which the world fortunately finds an excuse in

eccentricity. He touches his hat for the half crown or shilling,

although probably if it were offered to him when the whip was out of his

hand he would knock the giver down for his impertinence. I may as well

record here, by the way, for the benefit of those who may wish to know a

comparison between the expense of travelling hero and at home, for two

inside places for thirty miles the coach fare was two pounds, and the

coachman’s fee five shillings, or half a-crown each inside. To get from

the post town to —— Park (two miles) cost me five-and-sixpence for a

“fly,” so that for thirty-two miles travel I paid 2_l._ 10_s._ 6_d._, a

little more than twelve dollars.

And speaking of vocations, it would be a useful lesson to some of our

ambitious youths to try a _beginning_ at getting a living in England. I

was never at all aware of the difficulty of finding even bread and salt

for a young man till I had occasion lately to endeavor to better the

condition of a servant of my own—a lad who has been with me four or

five years, and whose singular intelligence, good principle and high

self-improvement, fitted him, I thought, for any confidential trust or

place whatever.[2] His own ideas, too (I thought, not unreasonably,) had

become somewhat sublimated in America, and he was unwilling to continue

longer as a servant. He went home to his mother, a working woman of

London, and I did my utmost, the month I was in town, inquiring among

all classes of my friends, advertising, &c., to find him any possible

livelihood above menial service. I was met everywhere with the same

answer; “There are hundreds of gentleman’s sons wearing out their youth

in looking for the same thing.” I was told daily that it was quite in

vain—that apprenticeships were as much sought as clerkships, and that

every avenue to the making of a sixpence was overcrammed and

inaccessible. My boy and his mother at last came to their senses; and,

consenting to apply once more for a servant’s place, he was fortunate

enough to engage as valet to bachelor, and is now gone with his new

master on a tour to France. As Harding the painter said to me, when he

returned after his foreign trip; “England is a great place to take the

nonsense out of people.”

* * * * *

When London shall have become the Rome or Athens of a fallen empire (qu.

will it ever?) the termini of the railways will be among its finest

ruins. That of the Birmingham and Liverpool track is almost as

magnificent as that flower of sumptuousness, the royal palace of

Caserta, near Naples. It is really an impressive scene simply to embark

for “Brummagem;” and there is that utility in all this showy expenditure

for arch, gateway, and pillar, that no one is admitted but the

passenger, and you are refreshingly permitted to manage your baggage,

&c. without the assistance of a hundred blackguards at a shilling each.

Then there are “ladies’ waiting-rooms,” and “gentlemen’s waiting-rooms,”

and attached to them every possible convenience, studiously clean and

orderly. I wish the president and directors of the Utica and other

American railroads would step over and take a sumptuary hint.

The cars are divided into stalls, _i. e._ each passenger is cushioned

off by a stuffed partition from his neighbor’s shoulder, and sleeps

without offence or encroachment. When they are crowded, that is an

admirable arrangement; but I have found it very comfortable in long

journeys in America to take advantage of an empty car, and stretch

myself to sleep along the vacant seat. Here, full or empty, you can

occupy but your upright place. In every car are suspended lamps to give

light during the long passages through the subterranean tunnels.

We rolled from under the Brobdignag roof of the terminus, as the church

of Mary-le-bone (Cockney for Marie la-bonne, but so carved on the

frieze) struck six. Our speed was increased presently to thirty miles in

the hour; and with the exception of the slower rate in passing the

tunnels, and the slackening and getting under way at the different

stations, this rate was kept up throughout. We arrived at Liverpool (205

miles or upward) at three o’clock, our stoppages having exceeded an hour

altogether.

I thought toward the end, that all this might be very pleasant with a

consignment of buttons or an errand to Gretna Green. But for the

_pleasure_ of the thing I would as lief sit in an arm-chair and see

bales of striped green silk unfolded for eight hours as _travel_ the

same length of time by the railroad. (I have described in this simile

exactly the appearance of the fields as you see them in flying past.)

The old women and cabbages gain by it, perhaps, for you cannot tell

whether they are not girls and roses. The washerwoman at her tub follows

the lady on the lawn so quickly that you confound the two

irresistibly—the thatched cottages look like browsing donkeys, and the

browsing donkeys like thatched cottages—you ask the name of a town, and

by the time you get up your finger you point at a spot three miles

off—in short, the salmon well packed in straw on the top of the coach,

and called fresh fish after a journey of 200 miles, sees quite as much

of the country as his most intellectual fellow-passenger. I foresee in

all this a new distinction in phraseology. “Have you travelled in

England?” will soon be a question having no reference to railroads. The

winding turnpike and cross-roads, the coaches and post carriages, will

be resumed by all those who consider the sense of sight as useful in

travel, and the bagmen and letter-bags will have almost undisputed

possession of the rail-cars.

The _Adelphi_ is the Astor house of Liverpool, a very large and showy

hotel near the terminus of the railway. We were shown into rather a

magnificent parlor on our arrival; and very hungry with rail-roading

since six in the morning, we ordered dinner at their earliest

convenience. It came after a full hour, and we sat down to four superb

silver covers, anticipating a meal corresponding to the stout person and

pompous manners of the fattest waiter I have seen in my travels. The

grand cover was removed with a flourish and disclosed—divers small bits

of second hand beefsteak, toasted brown and warped at the corners by a

second fire; and, on the removal of the other three silver pagodas, our

eyes were gratified by a dish of peas that had been once used for green

soup, three similarly toasted and warped mutton chops, and three

potatoes. Quite incredulous of the cook’s intentions, I ventured to

suggest to the waiter that he had probably mistaken the tray and brought

us the dinner of some sportsman’s respectable brace of pointers; but on

being assured that there were no dogs in the cellar, I sent word to the

master of the house that we had rather a preference for a dinner new and

hot, and would wait till he could provide it. Half an hour more brought

up the landlord’s apologies and a fresh and hot beefsteak, followed by a

tough crusted apple-pie, custard, and cheese—and with a bottle of

Moselle which _was_ good, we finished our dinner at one of the most

expensive and showy hotels in England. The manners and fare at the

American hotels being always described as exponents of civilization by

English travellers, I shall be excused for giving a counter-picture of

one of the most boasted of their own.

Regretting exceedingly that the recent mourning of my two companions

must prevent their presence at the gay festivities of Eglington, I put

them on board the steamer, bound on a visit to relatives in Dublin, and

returned to the Adelphi to wait _en garçon_ for the Glasgow steamer of

Monday. My chamber is a large and well-furnished room, with windows

looking out on the area shut in by the wings of the house; and I must

make you still more contented at the Astor, by describing what is going

on below at this moment. It is half-past eight, and a Sunday morning.

All the bells of the house, it seems to me, are ringing, most of them

very impatiently, and in the area before the kitchen windows are six or

eight idle waiters, and four or five female scullions, playing,

quarrelling, scolding and screaming; the language of both men and women

more profane and indecent than anything I have ever before chanced to

hear, and every word audible in every room in this quarter of the hotel.

This has been going on since six this morning; and I seriously declare I

do not think I ever heard as much indecent conversation in my life as

for three mortal hours must have “murdered sleep” for every lady and

gentleman lodged on the rear side of the “crack hotel” of Liverpool.

Sick of the scene described above, I went out just now to take a turn or

two in my slippers in the long entry. Up and down, giving me a most

appealing stare whenever we met, dawdled also the fat waiter who served

up the cold victuals of yesterday. He evidently had some errand with me,

but what I did not immediately fathom. At last he approached—

“You—a—got your things, sir?”

“What things?”

“The stick and umbrella, I carried to your bedroom, sir?”

“Yes, thank you,” and I resumed my walk.

The waiter resumed his, and presently approached again.

“You—a—don’t intend to use the parlor again, sir?”

“No: I have explained to the master of the house that I shall breakfast

in the coffee-room.” And again I walked on.

My friend began again at the next turn.

“You—a—pay for those ladies’ dinner yourself, sir?”

“Yes.” I walked on once more.

Once more approaches my fat incubus, and with a twirl of the towel in

his hand looks as if he would fain be delivered of something.

“Why the d—l am I badgered in this way?” I stormed out at last, losing

patience at his stammering hesitation, and making a move to get round

the fat obstruction and pursue my walk.

“Will you—a—remember the waiter, if you please, sir?”

“Oh! I was not aware that I was to pay the waiter at every meal. I

generally do it when I leave the house. Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to

let me finish my walk, and trust me till to-morrow morning?”

P. S. _Evening in the coffee-room._—They say the best beginning in love

is a decided aversion, and badly as I began at Liverpool, I shall always

have a tender recollection of it for the unequalled luxury of its

_baths_. A long and beautiful Grecian building crests the head of

George’s pier, built by the corporation of Liverpool, and devoted

exclusively to salt-water baths. I walked down in the twilight to enjoy

this refreshing luxury, and it being Sunday evening, I was shown into

the ladies’ end of the building. The room where I waited till the bath

was prepared was a lofty and finely proportioned apartment, elegantly

furnished, and lined with superbly bound books and pictures, the tables

covered with engravings, and the whole looking like a central apartment

in a nobleman’s residence. A boy showed me presently into a small

drawing-room, to which was attached a bath closet, the two rooms lined,

boudoir fashion, with chintz, a clock over the bath, a nice carpet and

stove, in short, every luxury possible to such an establishment. I asked

the boy if the gentlemen’s baths were as elegant as these. “Oh yes,” he

said: “there are two splendid pictures of Niagara Falls and Catskill.”

“Who painted them?” “Mr. Wall.” “And whose are they?” “They belong to

our father, sir!” I made up my mind that “our father” was a man of taste

and a credit to Liverpool.

* * * * *

I have just returned from the dinner given to Macready at the

Freemason’s tavern. The hall, so celebrated for public “feeds,” is a

beautiful room of a very showy style of architecture, with three

galleries, and a raised floor at the end, usually occupied by the

cross-table. It accommodated on this occasion four hundred persons.

From the peculiar object of the meeting to do honor to an actor for his

intellectual qualities, and for his efforts to spiritualize and elevate

the stage, there probably never was collected together in one room so

much talent and accomplishment. Artists, authors, critics, publishers

and amateurs of the stage—a large body in London—made up the company.

My attention was called by one of my neighbors to the singularly

superior character of the _heads_ about us, and I had already observed

the striking difference, both in head and physiognomy, between this and

a common assemblage of men. Most of the persons connected with the

press, it was said, were present; and perhaps it would have been a

worthy service to the world had some shorn Samson, among the authors,

pulled the temple upon the heads of the Philistines.

The cry of “make way!” introduced the duke of Sussex, the chairman of

the meeting—a stout, mild-looking, dignified old man, wearing a close

black scull-cap and the star and riband. He was followed by Lord

Conyngham, who, as grand chamberlain, had done much to promote the

interest of the drama; by Lord Nugent (whom I had last seen sailing a

_scampavia_ in the bay of Corfu,) by Sir Lytton Bulwer, Mr. Sheil, Sir

Martin Shee, Young, the actor, Mr. Milnes, the poet, and other

distinguished men. I should have said, by the way, Mr. Macready followed

next his Royal Highness.

The cheering and huzzas, as this procession walked up the room, were

completely deafening. Macready looked deadly pale and rather overcome;

and amid the waving of handkerchiefs and the stunning uproar of four

hundred “gentlemen and scholars,” the Duke placed the tragedian at his

right hand, and took his seat before the turbot.

The dinner was an uncommonly bad one; but of this I had been forewarned,

and so had taken a provisory chop at the club. I had leisure, therefore,

to look about me, and truly there was work enough for the eyes. M——’s

head interested me more than any one’s else, for it was the

personification of his lofty, liberal, and poetic genius. His hair,

which was long and profuse, curled in tendrils over the loftiest

forehead; but about the lower part of the face lay all the

characteristics which go to make up a voluptuous yet generous, an

enthusiastic and fiery, yet self-possessed and well-directed character.

He was excessively handsome; yet it was the beauty of Massaniello, or

Salvator Rosa, with more of intellect than both together. All in all, I

never saw a finer face for an artist; and judging from his looks and

from his works (he is perhaps twenty-four,) I would stake my sagacity on

a bold prophecy of his greatness.

On the same side were the L——s, very quiet-looking men, and S—— the

portrait-painter, a merry looking grenadier, and L—— B—— the poet,

with a face _like_ a poet. Near me was Lover, the painter, poet,

novelist, song and music writer, dramatist, and good fellow—seven

characters of which his friends scarce know in which he is most

excellent—and he has a round Irish face, with a bright twinkle in his

eye, and a plump little body which carries off all his gifts as if they

were no load at all.—And on my left was S——, the glorious painter of

Venice, of the battle of Trafalgar, the unequalled painter of the sea in

all its belongings; and you would take him for a gallant lieutenant of

the navy, and with the fire of a score of battles asleep in his eye, and

the roughening of a hundred tempests in his cheek. A franker and more

manly face would not cross your eye in a year’s travel.

Mr. J—— was just beyond, a tall, sagacious looking good humored person

of forty-five. He was a man of very kind manners, and was treated with

great marks of liking and respect by all about him. But directly

opposite to me sat so exact a picture of Paul Pry as he is represented

on the stage, particularly of my friend Finn in that character, that it

was difficult not to smile in looking at him. To my surprise, I heard

some one point him out, soon after, as the well-known original in that

character—the gentleman, whose peculiarities of person, as well as

manners, were copied in the farce of Mr. Poole. “That’s my name—what’s

yours?” said he the moment after he had seated himself, thrusting his

card close to the nose of the gentleman next him. I took it of course

for a piece of fun between two very old friends, but to my astonishment

the gentleman next him was as much astonished as I.

The few servants scattered up and down were deaf to everything but calls

for champagne (furnished only at an extra charge when called for—a very

mean system for a public dinner by the way,) and the wines on the table

seemed selected to drive one to champagne or the doctor. Each person had

four plates, and when used, they were to be put under the bench, or on

the top of your head, or to be sat upon, or what you would except to be

taken away, and the soup and fish, and the roast and boiled and all,

having been put on together, was all removed at one fell swoop—the

entire operation of dinner having lasted just _twenty-five minutes_.

Keep this fact till we are recorded by some new English traveller as the

most expeditious eaters in Christendom.

Here end my croakings, however, for the speeches commenced directly, and

admirable they were. To the undoing of much prejudice got by hearsay, I

listened to Bulwer. He is, beyond all comparison, the most graceful and

effective speaker I ever heard in England. All the world tells you that

he makes signal failures in oratory—yet he rose, when his health was

drank, and, in self-possessed, graceful, unhesitating language, playful,

yet dignified, warm, yet not extravagant, he replied to the compliments

of His Royal Highness, and brought forward his plan (as you have seen it

reported in the newspapers) for the erection of a new theatre for the

legitimate drama and Macready. I remember once hearing that Bulwer had a

belief in his future eminence as an orator—and I would warrant his

warmest anticipations in that career of ambition. He is a better speaker

than Sheil, who followed him, and Sheil is renowned as an orator. Really

there is nothing like one’s own eyes and ears in this world of envy and

misrepresentation.

D—— sat near Sheil, at the cross-table, very silent, as is his custom

and that of most keen observers. The courtly Sir Martin Shea was near

B——, looking like some fine old picture of a wit of Charles the

second’s time, and he and Y—— the actor made two very opposite and

gentlemanlike speeches. I believe I have told you nearly all that struck

me except what was reported in the gazettes, and that you have no need

to read over again. I got away at eleven, and reached the opera in time

to hear the last act of the Puritani, and see the Elsslers dance in the

ballet, and with a look in at a ball, I concluded one of those

exhausting, exciting, overdone London days, which are pleasanter to

remember than to enjoy, and pleasanter to read about than either.

* * * * *

One of the most elegant and agreeable persons I ever saw was Miss Jane

Porter, and I think her conversation more delightful to remember than

any person’s I ever knew. A distinguished artist told me that he

remembered her when she was his beau-ideal of female beauty; but in

those days she was more “fancy-rapt,” and gave in less to the current

and spirit of society. Age has made her, if it may be so expressed, less

selfish in her use of thought, and she pours it forth like

Pactolus—that gold which is sand from others. She is still what I

should call a handsome woman, or, if that be not allowed, she is the

wreck of more than a common allotment of beauty, and looks it. Her

person is remarkably erect, her eyes and eyelids (in this latter

resembling Scott) very heavily moulded, and her smile is beautiful. It

strikes me that it always is so—where it ever was. The smile seems to

be the work of the soul.

I have passed months under the same roof with Miss Porter, and nothing

gave me more pleasure than to find the company in that hospitable house

dwindled to a “fit audience though few,” and gathered around the figure

in deep mourning which occupied the warmest corner of the sofa. In any

vein, and _apropos_ to the gravest and the gayest subject, her

well-stored mind and memory flowed forth in the same rich current of

mingled story and reflection, and I never saw an impatient listener

beside her. I recollect, one evening, a lady’s singing “Auld Robin

Gray,” and some one remarking, (rather unsentimentally) at the close,

“By-the-by, what is Lady ——, (the authoress of the ballad) doing with

so many carpenters. Berkely square is quite deafened with their

hammering.” “_Apropos_ of carpenters and Lady ——,” said Miss

Porter—“this same charming ballad writer owes something to the craft.

She was better-born than provided with the gifts of fortune, and in her

younger days was once on a visit to a noble house, when to her dismay, a

large and fashionable company arrived, who brought with them a mania for

private theatricals. Her wardrobe was very slender, barely sufficient

for the ordinary events of a week-day, and her purse contained one

solitary shilling. To leave the house was out of the question, to feign

illness as much so, and to decline taking a part was impossible, for her

talent and sprightliness were the hope of the theatre. A part was cast

for her, and, in despair, she excused herself from the gay party bound

to the country town to make purchases of silk and satin, and shut

herself up, a prey to mortified low spirits. The character required a

smart village dress, and it certainly did not seem that it could come

out of a shilling. She sat at her window, biting her lips, and turning

over in her mind whether she could borrow of some one, when her

attention was attracted to a carpenter, who was employed in the

construction of a stage in the large hall, and who, in the court below,

was turning off from his plane broad and long shavings of a peculiarly

striped wood. It struck her that it was like riband. The next moment she

was below, and begged of the man to give her half a dozen lengths as

smooth as he could shave them. He performed his task well, and

depositing them in her apartment, she set off alone on horseback to the

village, and with her single shilling succeeded in purchasing a chip hat

of the coarsest fabric. She carried it home, exultingly, trimmed it with

her pine shavings, and on the evening of the performance appeared with a

white dress, and hat and belt ribands which were the envy of the

audience. The success of her invention gave her spirits and assurance,

and she played to admiration. The sequel will justify my first remark.

She made a conquest on that night of one of her titled auditors, whom

she afterward married.—You will allow that Lady —— may afford to be

tolerant of carpenters.”

An eminent clergyman one evening became the subject of conversation, and

a wonder was expressed that he had never married. “That wonder,” said

Miss Porter, “was once expressed to the reverend gentleman himself, in

my hearing, and he told a story in answer which I will tell you—and

perhaps, slight as it may seem, it is the history of other hearts as

sensitive and delicate as his own. Soon after his ordination, he

preached once every Sabbath, for a clergyman in a village not twenty

miles from London. Among his auditors, from Sunday to Sunday, he

observed a young lady, who always occupied a certain seat, and whose

close attention began insensibly to grow to him an object of thought and

pleasure. She left the church as soon as service was over, and it so

chanced that he went on for a year without knowing her name; but his

sermon was never written without many a thought how she would approve

it, nor preached with satisfaction unless he read approbation in her

face. Gradually he came to think on her at other times than when writing

sermons, and to wish to see her on other days than Sundays; but the

weeks slipped on, and though he fancied she grew paler and thinner, he

never brought himself to the resolution either to ask her name, or to

seek to speak with her. By these silent steps, however, love had worked

into his heart, and he had made up his mind to seek her acquaintance and

marry her, if possible, when one day he was sent for to minister at a

funeral. The face of the corpse was the same that had looked up to him

Sunday after Sunday, till he had learned to make it a part of his

religion and his life. He was unable to perform the service, and another

clergyman present officiated; and after she was buried, her father took

him aside, and begged his pardon for giving him pain—but he could not

resist the impulse to tell him that his daughter had mentioned his name

with her last breath, and he was afraid that a concealed affection for

him had hurried her to the grave. Since that, said the clergyman in

question, my heart has been dead within me, and I look forward only. I

shall speak to her in heaven.”

* * * * *

London is wonderfully embellished within the last three years—not so

much by new buildings, public or private, but by the almost insane

rivalry that exists among the tradesmen to outshow each other in the

expensive magnificence of their shops. When I was in England before,

there were two or three of these palaces of columns and plate-glass—a

couple of shawl shops, and a glass warehouse or two, but now the west

end and the city have each their scores of establishments, of which you

would think the plate-glass alone would ruin any body but Aladdin. After

an absence of a month from town lately, I gave myself the always

delightful treat of an after-dinner ramble among the illuminated palaces

of Regent street and its neighborhood, and to my surprise found four new

wonders of this description—a shawl house in the upper Regent’s Circus,

a silk mercer’s in Oxford street, a whip maker’s in Regent street, and a

fancy stationer’s in the Quadrant—either of which establishments fifty

years ago would have been the talk of all Europe. The first-mentioned

warehouse lines one of the quarters of the Regent Circus, and turns the

corner of Oxford street with what seems but one window—a series of

glass plates, only divided by brass rods, reaching from the ground to

the roof—window panes twelve feet high, and four or five feet broad!

The opportunity which this immense transparency of front gives for the

display of goods is proportionately improved; and in the mixture of

colors and fabrics to attract attention there is evidently no small

degree of art—so harmonious are the colors and yet so gorgeous the

show. I see that several more _renovations_ are taking place in

different parts of both “city” and “town;” and London promises,

somewhere in the next decimals, to complete its emergence from the

chrysalis with a glory to which eastern tales will be very gingerbread

matters indeed.

If I may judge by my own experience and by what I can see in the

streets, all this night-splendor out of doors empties the

playhouses—for I would rather walk Regent street of an evening than see

ninety-nine plays in a hundred; and so think apparently multitudes of

people, who stroll up and down the clean and broad London sidewalks,

gazing in at the gorgeous succession of shop-windows, and by the

day-bright glare of the illumination extending nods and smiles—the

street, indeed, becoming gradually a fashionable evening promenade, as

cheap as it is amusing and delightful. There are large classes of

society, who find the evenings long in their dingy and inconvenient

homes, and who must go _somewhere_; and while the streets were dark, and

poorly paved and lighted, the play-house was the only resort where they

could beguile their cares with splendor and amusement, and in those days

theatricals flourished, as in these days of improved thoroughfares and

gay shops they evidently languish. I will lend the hint to the next

essayist on the “Decline of the Drama.”

The increased attractiveness of London, from thus disclosing the secrets

of its wondrous wealth, compensates in a degree for what increases as

rapidly on me—the distastefulness of the suburbs, from the forbidding

and repulsive exclusiveness of high garden walls, impermeable

shrubberies, and every sort of contrivance for confining the traveller

to the road, and nothing but the road. What should we say in America to

travelling miles between two brick walls, with no prospect but the

branches of overhanging trees from the invisible park lands on either

side, and the _alley_ of cloudy sky overhead?—How tantalizing to pass

daily by a noble estate with a fine specimen of architecture in its

centre, and see no more of it than a rustic lodge and some miles of the

tops of trees over a paling! All this to me is oppressive—I feel

abridged of breathing room and eyesight—deprived of my liberty—robbed

of my horizon. Much as I admire high preservation and cultivation, I

would almost compromise for a “snake fence” in this part of England.

On a visit to a friend a week or two since in the neighborhood of

London, I chanced, during a long walk, to get a glimpse over the wall of

a nicely-gravelled and secluded path, which commanded what the

proprietor’s fence enviously shut from the road—a noble view of London

and the Thames. Accustomed to see people traversing my own lawn and

fields in America without question, as suits their purpose, and tired of

the bricks, hedges, and placards of blacking and pills, I jumped the

fence, and with feelings of great relief and expansion aired my eyes and

my imagination in the beautiful grounds of my friend’s opulent neighbor.

The Thames, with its innumerable steamers, men-of-war, yachts, wherries,

and ships—a vein of commercial and maritime life lying between the soft

green meadows of Kent and Essex—formed a delicious picture of contrast

and meaning beauty, which I gazed on with great delight for—some ten

minutes. In about that time I was perceived by Mr. B——’s gardener,

who, with a very pokerish stick in his hand, came running toward me,

evidently by his pace, prepared for a vigorous pursuit of the audacious

intruder. He came up to where I stood, quite out of breath, and

demanded, with a tight grasp of his stick, what business I had there. I

was not very well prepared with an answer, and short of beating the man

for his impudence, (which in several ways might have been a losing job,)

I did not see my way very clearly out of Mr. B.’s grounds. My first

intention, to call on the proprietor and apologise for my intrusion

while I complained of the man’s insolence, was defeated by the

information, evidently correct, that Mr. B—— was not resident at the

place, and so I was walked out of the lodge gate with a vagabond’s

warning—never to let him “catch me there again.” So much for my liberal

translation of a park fence.

This spirit of exclusion makes itself even more disagreeably felt where

a gentleman’s paling chances to include any natural curiosity. One of

the wildest, as well as most exquisitely beautiful spots on earth is the

Dargle, in the county Wicklow, in Ireland. It is interesting, besides,

as belonging to the estate of the orator and patriot Grattan. To get to

it, we were let through a gate by an old man, who received a douceur: we

crossed a newly reaped field, and came to another gate; another person

opened this, and we paid another shilling. We walked on toward the glen,

and in the middle of the path, without any object apparently but the

toll, there was another locked gate, and another porter to pay; and when

we made our exit from the opposite extremity of the grounds, after

seeing the Dargle, there was a fourth gate and a fourth porter. The

first field and fee belonged, if I remember rightly, to a Captain

Somebody, but the other three gates belong to the present Mr. Grattan,

who is very welcome to my three shillings, either as a tribute to his

father’s memory, or to the beauty of Tinnehinch and the Dargle. But on

whichever ground he pockets it, the _mode_ of assessment is, to say the

least, ungracious. Without subjecting myself to the charge of a

mercenary feeling, I think I may say that the enthusiasm for natural

scenery is very much clipped and belittled by seeing it at a shilling

the perch—paying the money and taking the look. I should think no sum

lost which was expended in bringing me to so romantic a glen as the

Dargle; but it should be levied somewhere else than within sound of its

wild waterfall—somewhere else than between the waterfall and the fine

mansion of Tinnehinch.

* * * * *

The fish most “out of water” in the world is certainly a Frenchman in

England without acquaintances. The illness of a friend has lately

occasioned me one or two hasty visits to Brighton; and being abandoned

on the first evening to the solitary mercies of the coffee-room of the

hotel, I amused myself not a little with watching the _ennui_ of one of

these unfortunate foreigners who was evidently there simply to qualify

himself to say that he had been at Brighton in the season. I arrived

late, and was dining by myself at one of the small tables, when I became

aware that some one at the other end of the room was watching me very

steadily. The place was as silent as coffee-rooms usually are after the

dinner hour, the rustling of newspapers the only sound that disturbed

the digestion of eight or ten persons present, when the unmistakeable

call of “Vaitare!” informed me that if I looked up I should encounter

the eyes of a Frenchman. The waiter entered at the call, and after a

considerable parley with my opposite neighbor, came over to me and said

in rather an apologetic tone, “Beg pardon, sir, but the _shevaleer_

wishes to know if your name is _Coopair_.” Not very much inclined,

fatigued as I was, for a conversation in French, which I saw would be

the result of a polite answer to his question, I merely shook my head,

and took up the newspaper. The Frenchman drew a long sigh, poured out

his last glass of claret, and crossing his thumbs on the edge of the

table, fell into a profound study of the grain of the mahogany.

What with dawdling over coffee and tea and reading half a dozen

newspapers, I whiled away the time till ten o’clock, pitying

occasionally the unhappy chevalier who exhibited every symptom of a

person bored to the last extremity. One person after another called for

a bedroom candle, and exit finally the Frenchman himself, making me,

however, a most courteous bow as he passed out. There were two gentlemen

left in the room, one a tall and thin old man of seventy, the other a

short and portly man of fifty or thereabouts, both quite bald. They rose

together and came to the fire near which I was sitting.

“That last man that went out calls himself a chevalier,” said the thin

gentleman.

“Yes,” said his stout friend—“he took me for a Mr. Cooper he had

travelled with.”

“The deuce he did,” said the other—“why he took me for a Mr. Cooper,

too, and we are not very much alike.”

“I beg pardon, gentlemen,” said I—“he took me for this Mr. Cooper too.”

The Frenchman’s _ruse_ was discovered. It was instead of a snuff-box—a

way he had of making acquaintance. We had a good laugh at our triple

resemblance (three men more unlike it would be difficult to find,) and

bidding the two Messrs. Cooper good-night, I followed the ingenious

chevalier up stairs.

The next morning I came down rather late to breakfast, and found my

friend chipping his egg-shells to pieces at the table next to the one I

had occupied the night before. He rose immediately with a look of

radiant relief in his countenance, made a most elaborate apology for

having taken me for Mr. Cooper (whom I was so like, _cependant_, that we

should be mistaken for each other by our nearest friends,) and in a few

minutes, Mr. Cooper himself, if he had entered by chance, would have

returned the compliment, and taken me for the chevalier’s most intimate

friend and fellow-traveller.

I remained two or three days at Brighton, and never discovered in that

time that the chevalier’s _ruse_ succeeded with any other person. I was

his only successful resemblance to “Monsieur Coopair.” He always waited

breakfast for me in the coffee room, and when I called for my bill on

the last morning, he dropped his knife and asked if I was going to

London—and at what hour—and if I would be so obliging as to take a

place for him in the same coach.

It was a remarkably fine day; and with my friend by my side outside of

“the Age,” we sped on toward London, the sun getting dimmer and dimmer,

and the fog thicker and more chilly at every mile farther from the sea.

It was a trying atmosphere for the best of spirits—let alone the ever

depressed bosom of a stranger in England. The coach stopped at the

Elephant and Castle, and I ordered down my baggage, and informed my

friend, for the first time, that I was bound to a country-house six

miles from town. I scarce knew how I had escaped telling him of it

before, but his “_impossible! mon ami!_” was said in a tone and

accompanied with a look of the most complete surprise and despair. I was

evidently his only hope in London.

I went up to town a day or two after; and in making my way to

Paternoster Row, I saw my friend on the opposite side of the Strand,

with his hands thrust up to the wrists in the pockets of his “Taglioni,”

and his hat jammed down over his eyes, looking into the shop-windows

without much distinction between the trunkmaker’s and the

printseller’s—evidently miserable beyond being amused by anything. I

was too much in a hurry to cross over and resume my office as

escape-valve to his _ennui_, and I soon outwalked his slow pace, and

lost sight of him. Whatever title he had to “chevalier” (and he was

decidedly too deficient in address to belong to the order

“_d’industrie_”) he had no letter of recommendation in his personal

appearance, and as little the air of even a Frenchman of “quality” as

any man I ever saw in the station of a gentleman. He is, in short, the

person who would first occur to me if I were to see a paragraph in the

Times headed “suicide by a foreigner.”

_Revenons un peu._ Brighton at this season (November) enjoys a climate,

which, as a change from the heavy air in the neighborhood of London, is

extremely exhilarating and agreeable. Though the first day of my arrival

was rainy, a walk up the west cliff gave me a feeling of elasticity and

lightness of spirits, of which I was beginning to forget the very

existence, in the eternal fogs of the six months I had passed inland. I

do not wonder at the passion of the English for Brighton. It is, in

addition to the excellence of the air, both a magnificent city and the

most advantageous ground for the discomfiture of the common enemy,

“winter and rough weather.” The miles of broad gravel walk just out of

reach of the surf of the sea, so hard and so smoothly rolled that they

are dry in five minutes after the rain has ceased to fall, are, alone,

no small item in the comfort of a town of professed idlers and invalids.

I was never tired of sauntering along this smooth promenade so close to

the sea. The beautiful children, who throng the walks in almost all

weathers, (and what children on earth are half as beautiful as English

children?) were to me a constant source of pleasure and amusement. Tire

of this, and by crossing the street you meet a transfer of the gay

throngs of Regent street and Hyde Park, with splendid shops and all the

features of a metropolis, while midway between the sea and this crowded

sidewalk pours a tide of handsome equipages, parties on horseback, and

vehicles of every description, all subservient to exercise and pleasure.

My first visit to Brighton was made in a _very cold day in summer_, and

I saw it through most unfavorable spectacles. But I should think that

along the cliffs, where there are no trees or verdure to be seen, there

is very little apparent difference between summer and winter; and coming

here with the additional clothing of a severer season, the temperature

of the elastic and saline air is not even chilly. The most delicate

children play upon the beach in days when there is no sunshine; and

invalids, wheeled out in these convenient bath chairs, sit for hours by

the seaside, watching the coming and retreating of the waves, apparently

without any sensation of cold—and this in December. In America (in the

same latitudes with Leghorn and Venice) an invalid sitting out of doors

at this season would freeze to death in half an hour. Yet it was as cold

in August, in England, as it has been in November, and it is this

temperate evenness of the weather throughout the year which makes

English climate, on the whole, perhaps the healthiest in the world.

In the few days I was at Brighton, I became very fond of the perpetual

loud beat of the sea upon the shore. Whether, like the “music of the

spheres,” it becomes at last “too constant to be heard,” I did not

ask—but I never lost the consciousness of it except when engaged in

conversation, and I found it company to my thoughts when I dined or

walked alone, and a most agreeable lullaby at night. This majestic

monotone is audible all over Brighton, in-doors and out, and nothing

overpowers it but the wind in a storm; it is even then only by fits, and

the alternation of the hissing and moaning of the blast with the broken

and heavy plash of the waters is so like the sound of a tempest at sea

(the whistling in the rigging, and the burst of the waves) that those

who have been at Brighton in rough weather, have realized all of a storm

at sea but the motion and the sea-sickness—rather a large, but not an

undesirable diminution of experience.

Calling on a friend at Brighton, I was introduced casually to a Mr.

Smith. The name, of course, did not awaken any immediate curiosity, but

a second look at the gentleman did—for I thought I had never seen a

more intellectual or finer head. A fifteen minutes’ conversation, which

touched upon nothing that could give me a clue to his profession, still

satisfied me that so distinguished an address, and so keen an eye, could

belong to no nameless person, and I was scarcely surprised when I read

upon his card at parting—HORACE SMITH. I need not say it was a very

great pleasure to meet him. I was delighted, too, that the author of

books we love as much as “Zillah,” and “Brambletye House,” looks unlike

other men. It gratifies somehow a personal feeling—as if those who had

won so much admiration from us should, for our pride’s sake, wear the

undeniable stamp of superiority—as if we had acquired a property in him

by loving him. How natural it is, when we have talked and thought a

great deal about an author, to call him “ours.” “What Smith? Why _our_

Smith—Horace Smith”—is as common a dialogue between persons who never

saw him as it is among his personal friends.

These two remarkable brothers, James and Horace Smith, are both gifted

with exteriors such as are not often possessed with genius—yet only

James is so fortunate as to have stumbled upon a good painter.

Lonsdale’s portrait of James Smith, engraved by Cousens, is both the

author and the man—as fine a picture of him, with his mind seen through

his features, as was ever done. But there is an engraved picture extant

of the author of Zillah, that, though it is no likeness of the _author_,

is a detestable caricature of the _man_. Really this is a point about

which distinguished men, in justice to themselves, should take some

little care. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits, and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s,

are a sort of biography of the eminent men they painted. The most

enduring history, it has been said, is written in coins. Certainly the

most effective biography is expressed in portraits. Long after the book

and your impressions of the character of which it treats have become dim

in your memory, your impression of the features and mien of a hero or a

poet, as received from a picture, remains indelible. How often does the

face belie the biography—making us think better or worse of the man,

after forming an opinion from a _portrait in words_, that was either

partial or malicious! I am persuaded the world would think better of

Shelley, if there were a correct and adequate portrait of his face, as

it has been described to me by one or two who knew him. How much of the

Byronic idolatry is born and fed from the idealized pictures of him

treasured in every portfolio! Sir Thomas Lawrence, Chalon, and Parris,

have composed between them a biography of Lady Blessington, that have

made her quite independent of the “memoirs” of the next century. And

who, I may safely ask, even in America, has seen the nice, cheerful,

sensible, and motherly face which prefaces the new edition of “The

Manners of the American Domestics,” (I beg pardon for giving the title

from my Kentucky copy) without liking Mrs. Trollope a great deal better

and at once dismissing all idea of “the bazar” as a libel on that most

lady-like countenance?

* * * * *

I think Lady S—— had more talent and distinction crowded into her

pretty rooms last night, than I ever before saw in such small compass.

It is a bijou of a house, full of gems of statuary and painting, but all

its capacity for company lies in a small drawing-room, a smaller

reception room, and a very small, but very exquisite boudoir—yet to

tell you who were there would read like Colburn’s list of authors, added

to a paragraph of noble diners-out from the Morning Post.

The largest lion of the evening certainly was the new Persian

ambassador, a man six feet in his slippers; a height which, with his

peaked calpack, of a foot and a half, super-added, keeps him very much

among the chandeliers. The principal article of his dress does not

diminish the effect of his eminence—a long white shawl worn like a

cloak, and completely enveloping him from beard to toe. From the twisted

shawl around his waist glitters a dagger’s hilt, lumped with

diamonds—and diamonds, in most dazzling profusion, almost cover his

breast. I never saw so many together except in a cabinet of regalia.

Close behind this steeple of shawl and gem, keeps, like a short shadow

when the sun is high, his excellency’s shadow, a dwarfishly small man,

dressed also in cashmere and calpack, and of a most ill-favored and

bow-stringish countenance and mien. The master and man seem chosen for

contrast, the countenance of the ambassador expressing nothing but

extreme good nature. The ambassador talks, too, and the secretary is

dumb.

T—— H—— stood bolt upright against a mirror door, looking like two

T—— H——s trying to see which was taller. The one with his face to me

looked like the incarnation of the John Bull newspaper, for which

expression he was indebted to a very hearty face, and a very round

subject for a buttoned up coat; while the H—— with his back to me

looked like an author, for which he was indebted to an exclusive view of

his cranium. I dare say Mr. H—— would agree with me that he was seen,

on the whole, at a most enviable advantage. It is so seldom we look,

_beyond the man_, at the author.

I have rarely seen a greater contrast in person and expression than

between H—— and B——, who stood near him. Both were talking to

ladies—one bald, burly, upright, and with a face of immovable gravity,

the other slight, with a profusion of curling hair, restless in his

movements, and of a countenance which lights up with a sudden inward

illumination. H——’s partner in the conversation looked into his face

with a ready-prepared smile for what he was going to say, B——’s

listened with an interest complete, but without effort. H—— was

suffering from what I think is the common curse of a reputation for

wit—the expectation of the listener had outrun the performance.

H—— B——, whose diplomatic promotion goes on much faster than can be

pleasing to “_Lady Cheveley_,” has just received his appointment to

Paris—the object of his first wishes. He stood near his brother,

talking to a beautiful and celebrated woman, and I thought, spite of her

ladyship’s unflattering description, I had seldom seen a more

intellectual face, or a more gentlemanly and elegant exterior.

Late in the evening came in his Royal Highness the duke of C——, and I

wondered, as I had done many times before, when in company with one of

these royal brothers, at the uncomfortable etiquette so laboriously

observed toward them. Wherever he moved in the crowded rooms, everybody

rose and stood silent, and by giving way much more than for any one

else, left a perpetual circular space around him, in which, of course,

his conversation had the effect of a lecture to a listening audience. A

more embarrassed manner and a more hesitating mode of speech than the

duke’s, I can not conceive. He is evidently _gene_ to the last degree

with this burdensome deference; and one would think that in the society

of highly-cultivated and aristocratic persons, such as were present, he

would be delighted to put his highness into his pocket when the footman

leaves him at the door, and hear no more of it till he goes again to his

carriage. There was great curiosity to know whether the Duke would think

it etiquetical to speak to the Persian, as in consequence of the

difference between the Shah and the British Envoy the tall minister is

not received at the court of St. James. Lady S—— introduced them,

however, and then the Duke again must have felt his rank nothing less

than a nuisance. It is awkward enough at any time, to converse with a

foreigner who has not forty English words in his vocabulary, but what

with the Duke’s hesitating and difficult utterance, the silence and

attention of the listening guests, and the Persian’s deference and

complete inability to comprehend a syllable, the scene was quite

painful.

There was some of the most exquisite amateur singing I ever heard after

the company thinned off a little, and the fashionable song of the day

was sung by a most beautiful woman in a way to move half the company to

tears. It is called “Ruth,” and is a kind of recitative of the passage

in Scripture, “_Where thou goest I will go_,” &c.

* * * * *

I have driven in the park several days, admiring the queen on horseback,

and observing the changes in the fashions of driving, equipages, &c.,

&c. Her Majesty seems to me to ride very securely and fearlessly, though

it is no wonder that in a country where every body rides, there should

be bolder and better horsewomen. Miss Quentin, one of the maids of

honor, said to be the best female equestrian in England, “takes the

courage out” of the Queen’s horse every morning before the ride—so she

is secured against one class of accidents. I met the royal party

yesterday in full gallop near the centre of Rotten Row, and the two

grooms who ride ahead had brief time to do their work of making the

crowd of carriages give way. On came the Queen upon a dun-colored,

highly-groomed horse, with her prime minister on one side of her, and

Lord Byron upon the other, her _cortège_ of maids of honor and ladies

and lords in waiting checking their more spirited horses, and preserving

always a slight distance between themselves and Her Majesty. Victoria’s

round and plump figure looks extremely well in her dark-green

riding-dress, but I thought the man’s hat unbecoming. Her profile is not

sufficiently good for that trying style, and the cloth riding-cap is so

much prettier, that I wonder she does not remember that “nice customs

courtesy to great _queens_,” and wear what suits her. She rode with her

mouth open, and looked exhilarated with the exercise. Lord Melbourne, it

struck me, was the only person in her party whose face had not the

constrained look of consciousness of observation.

I observe that the “crack men” ride without martingales, and that the

best turn-outs are driven without a check-rein. The outstretched neck

which is the consequence, has a sort of Arab or blood look, probably the

object of the change; but the drooping head when the horse is walking or

standing seems to me ugly and out of taste. All the new carriages are

built near the ground. The low park-phæton, light as a child’s plaything

and drawn by a pair of ponies, is the fashionable equipage. I saw the

prettiest thing conceivable of this kind yesterday in the park—a lady

driving a pair of small cream-colored horses of great beauty, with her

two children in the phæton, and two grooms behind mounted on

cream-colored saddle-horses, all four of the animals of the finest shape

and action. The new street cabs (precisely the old-fashioned sedan-chair

suspended between four wheels, a foot from the ground) are imitated by

private carriages, and driven with two horses—ugly enough. The

cab-phæton is in great fashion, with either one or two horses. The race

of ponies is greatly improved since I was in England. They are as

well-shaped as the large horse, with very fine coats and great spirit.

The children of the nobility go scampering through the park upon them,

looking like horsemen and horsewomen seen through a reversed

opera-glass. They are scarce larger than a Newfoundland dog, but they

patter along with great speed. There is one fine lad of about eight

years, whose parents seem to have very little care for his neck, and

who, upon a fleet, milk-white, long tailed pony, is seen daily riding at

a rate of twelve miles an hour through the most crowded streets, with a

servant on a tall horse plying whip and spur to keep up with him. The

whole system has the droll effect of a mixture of Lilliput and

Brobdignag.

* * * * *

We met the King of Oude a few days since at a party, and were honored by

an invitation to dine with his Majesty at his house in the Regent’s

park. Yesterday was the appointed day; and with the pleasant

anticipation of an oriental feast we drove up at seven, and were

received by his turbaned _ayahs_, who took shawl and hat with a

reverential salaam, and introduced us to the large drawing-room

overlooking the park. The King was not yet down; but in the corner sat

three parsees or fire worshippers, guests like ourselves, who in their

long white linen robes, bronze faces, and high caps, looked like

anything but “diners-out” in London. To our surprise they addressed us

in excellent English, and we were told afterward that they were all

learned men—facts not put down to the credit of the Ghebirs in Lalla

Rookh.

We were called out upon the balcony to look at a balloon that was

hovering over the park, and on stepping back into the drawing-room, we

found the company all assembled, and our royal host alone wanting. There

were sixteen English ladies present, and five white gentlemen beside

myself. The Orient, however, was well represented. In a corner, leaning

silently against a table, stood Prince Hussein Mirza, the King’s cousin,

and a more romantic and captivating specimen of Hindoo beauty could

scarcely be imagined. He was slender, tall, and of the clearest olive

complexion, his night-black hair falling over his shoulders in

profusion, and his large antelope eyes fixed with calm and lustrous

surprise upon the half denuded forms sitting in a circle before him. We

heard afterward that he has conceived a most uncontrollable and unhappy

passion for a high-born English girl whom he met in society, and that it

is with difficulty that he is persuaded to come out of his room. His

dress was of shawls most gracefully draped about him, and a cap of gold

cloth was thrown carelessly on the side of his head. Altogether he was

like a picture of the imagination.

A middle-aged stout man, ashy black, with Grecian features, and a most

determined and dignified expression of mouth, sat between Lady —— and

Miss Porter, and this was the _Wakeel_ or ambassador of the prince of

Sutara, by name Afzul Ali. He is in England on business for his master,

and if he does not succeed it will be no fault of his under lip. His

secretary, Keeram Ali, stood behind him—the Wakeel dressed in shawls of

bright scarlet, with a white cashmere turban, and the scribe in darker

stuffs of the same fashion. Then there was the King’s physician, a

short, wiry, merry looking, quick-eyed Hindoo, with a sort of quizzical

angle in the pose of his turban: the high-priest, also a most

merry-looking Oriental, and Ali Acbar, a Persian _attaché_. I think

these were all the Asiatics.

The King entered in a few minutes, and made the circuit of the room,

shaking hands most cordially with all his guests. He is a very

royal-looking person indeed. Perhaps you might call him too corpulent,

if his fine height (a little over six feet,) and very fine proportions,

did not give his large size a character of majesty. His chest is full

and round, and his walk erect and full of dignity. He has the Italian

olive complexion, with straight hair, and my own remark at first seeing

him was that of many others, “How like a bronze cast of Napoleon!” The

subsequent study of his features remove this impression, however, for he

is a most “merry monarch,” and is seldom seen without a smile. His dress

was a mixture of oriental and English fashions—a pair of baggy blue

pantaloons, bound around the waist with a rich shawl, a splendid scarlet

waistcoat buttoned close over his spacious chest, and a robe of a very

fine snuff-colored cloth something like a loose dressing gown without a

collar. A cap of silver cloth, and a brilliant blue-satin cravat

completed his costume, unless in his _covering_ should be reckoned an

enormous turquoise ring, which almost entirely concealed one of his

fingers.

_Ekbal-ood-Dowdah_, Nawaub of Oude (his name and title) is at present

appealing to the English against his uncle, who usurps his throne by the

aid and countenance of the East India company. The Mohammedan law, as I

understand, empowers a king to choose his successor from his children

without reference to primogeniture, and the usurper, though an elder

brother, having been imbecile from his youth, Ekbal’s father was

selected by the then king of Oude to succeed him. The question having

been referred to Lord Wellesley, however, then governor of India, he

decided that the English law of primogeniture should prevail, or in

other words—as the king’s friends say—preferred to have for the king

of a subject province an imbecile who would give him no trouble. So

slipped from the Nawaub’s hands a pretty kingdom of six millions of

faithful Mohammedans! I believe this is the “short” of the story. I

wonder (we are reproached so very often by the English for our treatment

of the Indians) whether a counter-chapter of “expedient wrong” might not

be made out from the history of the Indians under British government in

the East.

Dinner was announced with a Hindostanee salaam, and the King gave his

arm to Lady ——. The rest of us “stood not upon the order of our

going,” and I found myself seated at table between my wife and a Polish

Countess, some half-dozen removes from the Nawaub’s right hand. His

Highness commenced helping those about him most plentifully from a large

pillau, talking all the while most merrily in broken English, or

resorting to Hindostanee and his interpreter whenever his tongue got

into trouble. With the exception of one or two English joints, all the

dishes were prepared with rice or saffron, and (wine being forbidden by

the Mohammedan law,) iced water was served round from Indian coolers

freely. For one, I would have compounded for a bottle of wine by taking

the sin of the entire party on my soul, for, what with the exhaustion of

a long London day, and the cloying quality of the Nawaub’s rich dishes,

I began to be sorry I had not brought a flask in my pocket. His

Majesty’s spirits seemed to require no aid from wine. He talked

constantly, and shrewdly, and well. He impresses every one with a high

estimate of his talents, though a more complete and undisguised child of

nature I never saw. Good sense, with good humor, frankness, and

simplicity, seem to be his leading qualities.

We were obliged to take our leave early after dinner, having other

engagements for the evening, but while coffee was serving, the

Hindostanee cook, a funny little old man, came in to receive the

compliments of the company upon his dinner, and to play and dance for

His Majesty’s amusement. He had at his back a long Indian drum, which he

called his “tum tum,” and playing himself an accompaniment upon this, he

sang two or three comic songs in his own language to a sort of wild yet

merry air, very much to the delight of all the orientals. Singer,

dancer, musician, and cook, the king certainly has a jewel of a servant

in him.

One moment bowing ourselves out from the presence of a Hindoo king, and

the next beset by an Irishman with “Heaven bless your honor for the

sixpence you mean to give me!” what contrasts strike the traveller in

this great heart of the world! Paddy lighted us to our carriage with his

lantern, implored the coachman to “dhrive carefully,” and then stood

with his head beat to catch the sound upon the pavement of another

sixpence for his tenderness. Wherever there is a party in the

fashionable quarters of London, these Tantaluses flit about with their

lanterns—for ever at the door of pleasure, yet shivering and starving

for ever in their rags. What a life!

* * * * *

One of the most rational and agreeable of the fashionable resorts in

London is Kensington Gardens, on the days when the royal band plays,

from five to seven o’clock, near the bridge of the Serpentine. Some

twenty of the best instrumental musicians of London station themselves

under the trees in this superb park—for though called “gardens,” it is

but a park with old trees and greensward—and up and down the fine silky

carpet stroll hundreds of the fashionables of “May Fair and Belgrave

Square,” listening a little, perhaps, and chattering a great deal

certainly. It is a good opportunity to see what celebrated beauties look

like by daylight; and, truth to say, one comes to the conclusion, there,

that candle-light is your true Kalydor. It is very ingeniously contrived

by the grand chamberlain that this _public_ music should be played in a

far-away corner of the park, inaccessible except by those who have

carriages. The plebeians, for whose use and pleasure it seems at first

sight graciously contrived, are pretty well sifted by the two miles

walk, and a very aristocratic and well-dressed assembly indeed is that

of Kensington Gardens.

Near the usual stand of the musicians runs a bridle path for horsemen,

separated from the greensward by a sunk fence, and as I was standing by

the edge of the ditch yesterday, the Queen rode by, pulling up to listen

to the music, and smile right and left to the crowd of cavaliers drawn

up in the road. I pulled off my hat and stood uncovered instinctively,

but looking around to see how the promenaders received her, I found to

my surprise that with the exception of a bald-headed nobleman whom I

chanced to know, the Yankee stood alone in his homage to her.

-----

[2] I can record—now fifteen years after—that, in six years from that

time, he had become the conductor of a Scientific Review, in London.