That Irish channel has, as the English say, “a nasty way with it.” I
embarked at noon on the 26th, in a magnificent steamer, the Royal
Sovereign, which had been engaged by Lord Eglington (as _per_
advertisement) to set down at Ardrossan all passengers bound to the
tournament. This was a seventeen hours’ job, including a very cold,
blowy, and rough night; and of the two hundred passengers on board, one
half were so blest as to have berths or settees—the others were
_unblest_, indeed.
I found on board several Americans; and by the time I had looked at the
shape of the Liverpool harbor and seen one or two vessels run in before
a slapping breeze, the premonitory symptom (which had already sent many
to their berths) sent me to mine. The boat was pitching backward and
forward with a sort of handsaw action that was not endurable. By
foregoing my dinner and preserving a horizontal position I escaped all
sickness, and landed at Ardrossan at six the next morning with a
thirty-six hours’ _fast_ upon me, which I trusted my incipient gout
would remember as a _per contra_ to the _feast_ in the promised
“banquet.”
Ardrossan, built chiefly, I believe, by Lord Eglington’s family, and
about eight miles from the castle, is a small but very clean and thrifty
looking hamlet on that part of the western coast of Scotland which lies
opposite the Isle of Arran. Ailsa rock, famous in song, slumbers like a
cloud on the south-western horizon. The long breakers of the channel lay
their lines of foam almost upon the street, and the harbor is formed by
a pier jutting out from a little promontory on the northern extremity of
the town. The one thoroughfare of Ardrossan is kept clean by the broom
of every wind that _sweeps_ the Irish sea. A cleaner or bleaker spot I
never saw.
A Gael, who did not comprehend a syllable of such English as a Yankee
delivers, shouldered my portmanteau without direction or request, and
travelled away to the inn, where he deposited it and held out his hand
in silence. There was certainly quite enough said between us; and
remembering the boisterous accompaniment with which the claims of
porters are usually pushed upon one’s notice, I could well wish that
Gaelic tide-waiters were more common.
“Any room, landlord?” was the first question. “Not a cupboard, sir,” was
the answer.—“Can you give me some breakfast?” asked fifty others in a
breath.—“Breakfast will be put upon all the tables presently,
gentlemen,” said the dismayed Boniface, glancing at the crowds who were
pouring in, and, Scotchmanlike, making no promises to
individuals.—“Landlord!” vociferated a gentleman from the other side of
the hall—“what the devil does this mean? Here’s the room I engaged a
fortnight ago occupied by a dozen people shaving and dressing!”—“I
canna help it, sir! Ye’re welcome to to turn ’em a’ out—_if ye can!_”
said the poor man, lifting up his hands in despair, and retreating to
the kitchen. The hint was a good one, and taking up my own portmanteau,
I opened a door in one of the passages. It led into a small apartment,
which, in more roomy times might have been a pantry, but was now
occupied by three beds and a great variety of baggage. There was a
twopenny glass on the mantel-piece, and a drop or two of water in a
pitcher, and where there were sheets I could make shift for a towel. I
found presently, by the way, that I had had a narrow escape of
surprising some one in bed, for the sheet which did duty as a napkin was
still warm with pressure of the newly-fled occupant.
Three or four smart-looking damsels in caps looked in while I was
engaged in my toilet, and this, with one or two slight observations made
in the apartment, convinced me that I had intruded on the dormitory of
the ladies’ maids belonging to the various parties in the house. A
hurried “God bless us!” as they retreated, however, was all either of
reproach or remonstrance that I was troubled with; and I emerged with a
smooth chin in time for breakfast, very much to the envy and surprise of
my less-enterprising companions.
There was a great scramble for the tea and toast; but uniting forces
with a distinguished literary man whose acquaintance I had been
fortunate enough to make on board the the steamer, we managed to get
places at one of the tables, and achieved our breakfasts in tolerable
comfort. We were still eight miles from Eglington, however, and a
lodging was the next matter of moment. My friend thought he was provided
for nearer the castle, and I went into the street, which I found crowded
with distressed looking people, flying from door to door, with ladies on
their arms and wheelbarrows of baggage at their heels, the townspeople
standing at the doors and corners staring at the novel spectacle in
open-mouthed wonder. Quite in a dilemma whether or not to go on to
Irvine (which, being within two miles of the castle, was probably much
more over-run than Ardrossan) I was standing at the corner of the
street, when a Liverpool gentleman, whose kindness I must record as well
as my pleasure in his society for the two or three days we were
together, came up and offered me a part of a lodging he had that moment
taken. The bed was what we call in America a _bunk_, or a kind of berth
sunk into the wall, and there were two in the same garret, but the
sheets were clean; and there was a large Bible on the table—the latter
a warrant for civility, neatness, and honesty, which, after many years
of travel, I have never found deceptive. I closed immediately with my
friend; and whether it was from a smack of authorship or no, I must say
I took to my garret very kindly.
It was but nine o’clock, and the day was on my hands. Just beneath the
window ran a railroad, built to bring coal to the seaside, and extending
to within a mile of the castle; and with some thirty or forty others, I
embarked in a horse-car for Eglinton to see the preparations for the
following day’s tournament. We were landed near the park gate, after an
hour’s drive through a flat country blackened with coal pits; and it was
with no little relief to the eye that I entered upon a smooth and
gravelled avenue, leading by a mile of shaded windings to the castle.
The day was heavenly; the sun-flecks lay bright as “patines of gold” on
the close-shaven grass beneath the trees; and I thought that nature had
consented for once to remove her eternal mist veil from Scotland, and
let pleasure and sunshine have a holiday together. The sky looked hard
and deep; and I had no more apprehension of rain for the morrow than I
should have had under a July sun in Asia.
Crossing a bright little river (the Lugton I think it is called) whose
sloping banks, as far as I could see up and down, were shaven to the
rich smoothness of “velvet of three-pile,” I came in sight of the castle
towers. Another bridge over a winding of the same river lay to the left,
a Gothic structure of the most rich and airy mould, and from either end
of this extended the enclosed passage for the procession to the lists.
The castle stood high upon a mound beyond. Its round towers were half
concealed by some of the finest trees I ever saw—and though less
antique and of a less frowning and rude aspect than I had expected, it
was a very perfect specimen of modern castellated architecture. On
ascending to the lawn in front of the castle, I found that it was built
less upon a mound than upon the brow of a broad plateau of table-land,
turned sharply by the Lugton, close under the castle walls—a natural
site of singular beauty. Two Saracenic-looking tents of the gayest
colors were pitched upon the bright green lawn at a short distance, and
off to the left, by several glimpses through the trees, I traced along
the banks of the river the winding enclosures for the procession.
The large hall was crowded with servants; but presuming that a knight
who was to do his devoir so conspicuously on the morrow would not be
stirring at so early an hour, I took merely a glance of the armor upon
the walls in passing, and deferring the honor of paying my respects,
crossed the lawn and passed over the Lugton by a rustic foot-bridge in
search of the lists. A crosspath (leading by a small temple enclosed
with wire netting, once an aviary, perhaps, but now hung around in
glorious profusion with game, vension, a boar’s head, and other
comestibles,) brought me in two or three minutes to a hill-side
overlooking the chivalric arena. It was a beautiful sight of itself
without plume or armor. In the centre of a verdant plain, shut in by
hills of an easy slope, wooded richly, appeared an oblong enclosure
glittering at either end with a cluster of tents, striped with the
gayest colors of the rainbow. Between them, on the farther side, stood
three galleries, of which the centre was covered with a Gothic roof
highly ornamented, the four front pillars draped with blue damask, and
supporting a canopy over the throne intended for the Queen of Beauty. A
strongly-built barrier extended through the lists; and heaps of lances,
gay flags, and the heraldic ornaments, still to be added to the tents,
lay around on the bright grass in a picture of no little richness. I was
glad afterward that I had seen thus much with the advantage of an
unclouded sun.
In returning, I passed in the rear of the castle, and looked into the
temporary pavilions erected for the banquet and ball. They were covered
exteriorly with rough board and sails, and communicated by an enclosed
gallery with one of the larger apartments of the castle. The workmen
were still nailing up the drapery, and arranging lamps and flowers; but
with all this disadvantage, the effect of the two immense halls, lined
as they were with crimson and white in broad alternate stripes,
resembling in shape and fashion two gigantic tents, was exceedingly
imposing. Had the magnificent design of Lord Eglinton been successfully
carried out it would have been a scene, with the splendor of the
costumes, the lights, music, and revelry unsurpassed probably by
anything short of enchantment.
* * * * *
PRINCIPAL DAY.—I was awakened at an early hour the morning after
arriving at Ardrossan by a band of music in the street. My first feeling
was delight at seeing a bit of blue sky of the size of my garret
skylight, and a dazzling sunshine on the floor. “Skirling” above all
other instruments of the band, the Highland bagpipe made the air reel
with “A’ the blue bonnets are over the border,” and, hoisting the window
above my head, I strained over the house-leads to look at the performer.
A band of a dozen men in kilt and bonnet were marching up and down, led
by a piper, something in the face like the heathen representations of
Boreas; and on a line of roughly-constructed rail-cars were piled, two
or three deep, a crowd resembling at first sight, a crushed bed of
tulips. Bonnets of every cut and color, from the courtier’s green velvet
to the shepherd’s homely gray, struggled at the top; and over the sides
hung red legs and yellow legs, cross barred stockings and buff boots,
bare feet and pilgrim’s sandals. The masqueraders scolded and laughed,
the boys halloed, the quiet people of Ardrossan stared in grave
astonishment, and, with the assistance of some brawny shoulders, applied
to the sides of the overladen vehicles, the one unhappy horse got his
whimsical load under way for the tournament.
Train followed train, packed with the same motley array; and at ten
o’clock, after a clean and comfortable Scotch breakfast in our host’s
little parlor, we sallied forth to try our luck in the scramble for
places. After a considerable fight we were seated, each with a man in
his lap, when we were ordered down by the conductor, who informed us
that the Chief of the Campbells had taken the car for his party, and
that, with his band in the succeeding one, he was to go in state (upon a
railroad!) to Eglinton. Up swore half-a-dozen Glasgow people, usurpers
like ourselves, that they would give way for no Campbell in the world;
and finding a stout hand laid on my leg to prevent my yielding to the
order to quit, I gave in to what might be called as pretty a bit of
rebellious republicanism as you would find on the Mississippi. The
conductor stormed, but the Scotch bodies sat firm; and as Scot met Scot
in the fight, I was content to sit in silence and take advantage of the
victory. I learned afterwards that the Campbell Chieftain was a Glasgow
manufacturer; and though he undoubtedly had a right to gather his clan,
and take piper and eagle’s plume, there might, possibly, be some jealous
disapprobation at the bottom of his townsmen’s rudeness.
Campbell and his party presently appeared, and a dozen or twenty very
fine-looking men they were. One of the ladies, as well as I could see
through the black lace veil thrown over her cap and plumes, was a
remarkably handsome woman, and I was very glad when the matter was
compromised, and the Campbells distributed among our company. We jogged
on at a slow pace toward the tournament, passing thousands of
pedestrians, the men all shod, and the women all barefoot, with their
shoes in their hands, and nearly every one, in accordance with Lord
Eglinton’s printed request, showing some touch of fancy in his dress. A
plaid over the shoulder, or a Glengary bonnet, or, perhaps, a
goose-feather stuck jauntily in the cap, was enough to show the feeling
of the wearer, and quite enough to give the crowd, all in all, a most
festal and joyous aspect.
The secluded bit of road between the rail-track and the castle lodge,
probably never before disturbed by more than two vehicles at a time, was
thronged with a press of wheels, as closely jammed as Fleet street at
noon. Countrymen’s carts piled with women and children like loads of
market baskets in Kent; post-chaises with exhausted horses and occupants
straining their eyes forward for a sight of the castle; carriages of the
neighboring gentry with “bodkins” and over-packed dickeys, all in
costume; stout farmers on horseback, with plaid and bonnet; gingerbread
and ale carts, pony carts, and coal carts; wheelbarrows with baggage,
and porters with carpet bags and hat boxes, were mixed up in merry
confusion with the most motley throng of pedestrians it has ever been my
fortune to join. The vari-colored tide poured in at the open gate of the
castle; and if I had seen no other procession, the long-extended mass of
caps, bonnets, and plumes, winding through that shaded and beautiful
avenue, would have repaid me for no small proportion of my subsequent
discomfort. I remarked, by the way, that I did not see a _hat_ in the
entire mile between the porter’s lodge and the castle.
The stables, which lay on the left of the approach (a large square
structure with turret and clock, very like four Methodist churches,
_dos-à-dos_,) presented another busy and picturesque scene—horses
half-caparisoned, men-at-arms in buff and steel, and the gay liveries of
the nineteenth century paled by the revived glories of the servitude of
more knightly times. And this part of the scene, too, had its crowd of
laughing and wondering spectators.
On reaching the Gothic bridge over the Lugton, we came upon a _cordon_
of police who encircled the castle, turning the crowd off by the bridge
in the direction of the lists. Sorry to leave my merry and motley
fellow-pedestrians, I presented my card of invitation and passed on
alone to the castle. The sun was at this time shining with occasional
cloudings-over; and the sward and road, after the two or three fine days
we had had, were in the best condition for every purpose of the
tournament.
Two or three noble trees with their foliage nearly to the ground stood
between me and the front of the castle, as I ascended the slope above
the river; and the lifting of a stage-curtain could scarce be more
sudden, or the scene of a drama, more effectively composed, than the
picture disclosed by the last step upon the terrace. Any just
description of it, indeed, must read like a passage from the “prompter’s
book.” I stood for a moment, exactly where you would have placed an
audience. On my left rose a noble castle with four round towers, the
entrance thronged with men-at-arms, and comers and goers in every
variety of costume. On the greensward in front of the castle lounged
three or four gentlemen archers in suits of green silk and velvet. A
cluster of grooms under an immense tree on the right were fitting two or
three superb horses with their armor and caparisons, while one beautiful
blood palfrey, whose fine limbs and delicately veined head and neck were
alone visible under his embroidered saddle and gorgeous trappings of
silk, was held by two “tigers” at a short distance. Still farther on the
right, stood a cluster of gayly decorated tents; and in and out of the
looped-up curtain of the farthest passed constantly the slight forms of
lady archers in caps with snowy plumes, kirtles of green velvet, and
petticoats of white satin, quivers at their backs and bows in their
hands—one tall and stately girl (an Ayrshire lady of very uncommon
beauty, whose name I took some pains to inquire,) conspicuous by her
grace and dignity above all.
The back-ground was equally well composed—the farther side of the lawn
making a sharp descent to the small river which bends around the castle,
the opposite shore thronged with thousands of spectators watching the
scene I have described; and in the distance behind them, the winding
avenue, railed in for the procession, hidden and disclosed by turns
among the noble trees of the park, and alive throughout its whole extent
with the multitudes crowding to the lists. There was a chivalric
splendor in the whole scene, which I thought at the time would repay one
for a long pilgrimage to see it—even should the clouds, which by this
time were coming up very threateningly from the horizon, put a stop to
the tournament altogether.
On entering the castle hall, a lofty room hung round with arms, trophies
of the chase, ancient shields, and armor of every description, I found
myself in a crowd of a very merry and rather a motley character—knights
half armed, esquires in buff, palmers, halberdiers, archers, and
servants in modern livery, here and there a lady, and here and there a
spectator like myself, and in a corner by one of the Gothic
windows—what think you?—a minstrel?—a gray-haired harper?—a jester?
Guess again—_a reporter for the Times!_ With a “walking dictionary” at
his elbow, in the person of the fat butler of the castle, he was
inquiring out the various characters in the crowd, and the rapidity of
his stenographic jottings-down (with their lucid apparition in print two
days after in London) would in the times represented by the costumes
about him, have burnt him at the stake for a wizard with the consent of
every knight in Christendom.
I was received by the knight-marshal of the lists, who did the honors of
hospitality for Lord Eglington during his preparation for the “passage
of arms;” and finding an old friend under the gray beard and scallop
shell of a venerable palmer, whose sandal and bare toes I chanced to
stumble over, we passed in together to the large dining room of the
castle. “Lunch” was on the long table, and some two hundred of the
earl’s out-lodging guests were busy at knife and fork, while here and
there were visible some of those anachronisms which, to me, made the
zest of the tournament—pilgrims eating _Périgord pies_, esquires
dressing after the manner of the thirteenth century diving most
scientifically into the richer veins of _pâtés de foie-gras_, dames in
ruff and farthingale discussing _blue_ blanc-mange, and a knight with an
over-night headache calling out for a cup of tea!
On returning to the hall of the castle, which was the principal place of
assemblage, I saw with no little regret that ladies were coming from
their carriages under umbrellas. The fair archers tripped in doors from
their crowded tent, the knight of the dragon, who had been out to look
after his charger, was being wiped dry by a friendly
pocket-handkerchief, and all countenances had fallen with the barometer.
It was time for the procession to start, however, and the knights
appeared, one by one, armed _cap-à-pie_, all save the helmet, till at
last the hall was crowded with steel-clad and chivalric forms; and they
waited only for the advent of the Queen of Beauty. After admiring not a
little the manly bearing and powerful “thewes and sinews” displayed by
the array of modern English nobility in the trying costumes and harness
of olden time, I stepped out upon the lawn with some curiosity to see
how so much heavy metal was to be got into a demipique saddle. After one
or two ineffectual attempts, foiled partly by the restlessness of his
horse, the first knight called ingloriously for a chair. Another
scrambled over with great difficulty; and I fancy, though Lord Waterford
and Lord Eglinton, and one other whom I noticed, mounted very gallantly
and gracefully, the getting to saddle was possibly the most difficult
feat of the day. The ancient achievement of leaping on the steed’s back
from the ground in complete armor would certainly have broken the spine
of any horse present, and was probably never done but in story. Once in
the saddle, however, English horsemanship told well; and one of the
finest sights of the day I thought was the breaking away of a powerful
horse from the grooms, before his rider had gathered up his reins, and a
career at furious speed through the open park, during which the steel
encumbered horseman rode as safely as a fox-hunter, and subdued the
affrighted animal, and brought him back in a style worthy of a wreath
from the Queen of Beauty.
Driven in by the rain, I was standing at the upper side of the hall,
when a movement in the crowd and an unusual “making-way” announced the
coming of the “cynosure of all eyes.” She entered from the interior of
the castle with her train held up by two beautiful pages of ten or
twelve years of age, and attended by two fair and very young maids of
honor. Her jacket of ermine, her drapery of violet and blue velvet, the
collars of superb jewels which embraced her throat and bosom, and her
sparkling crown, were on her (what they seldom are, but should be only)
mere accessaries to her own predominating and radiant beauty. Lady
Seymour’s features are as nearly faultless as is consistent with
expression; her figure and face are rounded to the complete fulness of
the mould for a Juno; her walk is queenly, and peculiarly unstudied and
graceful, yet (I could not but think then and since) she was not well
chosen for the Queen of a Tournament. The character of her beauty,
uncommon and perfect as it is, is that of delicacy and loveliness—the
lily rather than the rose—the modest pearl, not the imperial diamond.
The eyes to flash over a crowd at a tournament, to be admired from a
distance, to beam down upon a knight kneeling for a public award of
honor, should be full of command, dark, lustrous, and fiery. Hers are of
the sweetest and most tranquil blue that ever reflected the serene
heaven of a happy hearth—eyes to love, not wonder at, to adore and rely
upon, not admire and tremble for. At the distance at which most of the
spectators of the tournament saw Lady Seymour, Fanny Kemble’s stormy
orbs would have shown much finer, and the forced and imperative action
of a stage-taught head and figure would have been more applauded than
the quiet, nameless, and indescribable grace lost to all but those
immediately round her. I had seen the Queen of Beauty in a small
society, dressed in simple white, without an ornament, when she was far
more becomingly dressed and more beautiful than here, and I have never
seen, since, the engravings and prints of Lady Seymour which fill every
window in the London shops, without feeling that it was a profanation of
a style of loveliness that would be—
——“prodigal enough
If it unveiled its beauty to the moon.”
The day wore on, and the knight-marshal of the lists, (Sir Charles Lamb,
the stepfather of Lord Eglinton, by far the most knightly looking person
at the tournament,) appeared in his rich surcoat and embossed armor, and
with a despairing look at the increasing torrents of rain, gave the
order to get to horse. At the first blast of the trumpet, the
thick-leaved trees around the castle gave out each a dozen or two of
gay-colored horsemen who had stood almost unseen under the low hanging
branches—mounted musicians in silk and gay trappings, mounted
men-at-arms in demi-suits of armor, deputy marshals and halberdiers; and
around the western tower, where their caparisons had been arranged and
their horse armor carefully looked to, rode the glittering and noble
company of knights, Lord Eglinton in his armor of inlaid gold, and Lord
Alford, with his athletic frame and very handsome features, conspicuous
above all. The rain, meantime, spared neither the rich tabard of the
pursuivant, nor the embroidered saddle cloths of the queen’s impatient
palfrey: and after a half-dozen of dripping detachments had formed and
led on, as the head of the procession, the lady archers—who were to go
on foot—were called by the marshal with a smile and a glance upward
which might have been construed into a tacit advice to stay in doors.
Gracefully and majestically, however, with quiver at her back, and bow
in hand, the tall and fair archer of whose uncommon beauty I have
already spoken, stepped from the castle door; and, regardless of the
rain which fell in drops as large as pearls on her unprotected forehead
and snowy shoulders, she took her place in the procession with her
silken-booted troop picking their way very gingerly over the pools
behind her. Slight as the circumstance may seem, there was in the manner
of the lady, and her calm disregard of self in the cause she had
undertaken, which would leave me in no doubt where to look for a heroine
were the days of Wallace, (whose compatriot she is) to come over again.
The knight-marshal put spurs to his horse, and re-ordered the little
troop to the castle; and regretting that I had not the honor of the
lady’s acquaintance for my authority, I performed my only chivalric
achievement for the day, the sending a halberdier whom I had chanced to
remember as the servant of an old friend, on a crusade into the castle
for a lady’s maid and a pair of dry stockings! Whether they were found,
and the fair archer wore them, or where she and her silk-shod company
have the tournament consumption, rheumatism, or cough, at this hour, I
am sorry I cannot say.
The judge of peace, Lord Saltoun, with his wand, and retainers on foot
bearing heavy battle axes, was one of the best figures in the
procession; though, as he was slightly gray, and his ruby velvet cap and
saturated ruff were poor substitutes for a warm cravat and hat-brim, I
could not but associate his fine horsemanship with a sore throat, and
his retainers and their battle axes with relays of nurses and hot
flannels. The flower of the tournament, in the representing and keeping
up of the assumed character, however, was its king, Lord Londonderry.
He, too, is a man, I should think, on the shady side of fifty, but of
just the high preservation and _embonpoint_ necessary for a royal
presence. His robe of red velvet and ermine swept the ground as he sat
in his saddle; and he managed to keep its immense folds free of his
horse’s legs, and yet to preserve its flow in his prancing motion, with
a grace and ease, I must say, which seemed truly imperial.—His palfrey
was like a fiery Arabian, all action, nerve, and fire; and every step
was a rearing prance, which, but for the tranquil self-possession and
easy control of the king, would have given the spectators some fears for
his royal safety. Lord Londonderry’s whole performance of his part was
without a fault, and chiefly admirable, I thought, from his sustaining
it with that unconsciousness and entire freedom from _mauvaise honte_
which the English seldom can command in new or conspicuous situations.
The Queen of Beauty was called, and her horse led to the door; but the
water ran from the blue saddle cloth and housings like rain from a roof,
and the storm seemed to have increased with the sound of her name. She
came to the door, and gave a deprecating look upward which would have
mollified any thing but a Scotch sky, and, by command of the
knight-marshal, retired again to wait for a less chivalric but drier
conveyance. Her example was followed by the other ladies, and their
horses were led riderless in the procession.
The knights were but half called when I accepted a friend’s kind offer
of a seat in his carriage to the lists. The entire park, as we drove
along, was one vast expanse of umbrellas; and it looked from the
carriage window, like an army of animated and gigantic mushrooms,
shouldering each other in a march. I had no idea till then of the
immense crowd the occasion had called together. The circuitous route
railed in for the procession was lined with spectators six or seven
deep, on either side, throughout its whole extent of a mile; the most
distant recesses of the park were crowded with men, horses, and
vehicles, all pressing onward; and as we approached the lists, we found
the multitude full a quarter of a mile deep, standing on all the
eminences which looked down upon the enclosure, as closely serried
almost as the pit of the opera, and all eyes bent in one direction,
anxiously watching the guarded entrance. I heard the number of persons
present variously estimated during the day, the estimates ranging from
fifty to seventy-five thousand, but I should think the latter was nearer
the mark.
We presented our tickets at the private door, in the rear of the
principal gallery, and found ourselves introduced to a very dry place
among the supports and rafters of the privileged structure. The look-out
was excellent in front, and here I proposed to remain, declining the wet
honor of a place above stairs. The gentleman-usher, however, was very
urgent for our promotion; but as we found him afterward chatting very
familiarly with a party who occupied the seats we had selected, we were
compelled to relinquish the flattering unction that he was actuated by
an intuitive sense of our deservings. On ascending to the covered
gallery, I saw, to my surprise, that some of the best seats in front
were left vacant, and here and there, along the different tiers of
benches, ladies were crowding excessively close together, while before
or behind them there seemed plenty of unoccupied room. A second look
showed me small streams of water coming through the roof, and I found
that a dry seat was totally unattainable. The gallery held about a
thousand persons (the number Lord Eglinton had invited to the banquet
and ball,) and the greater part of these were ladies, most of them in
fancy dresses, and the remainder in very slight
_demi-toilette_—everybody having dressed apparently with a full
reliance on the morning’s promise of fair weather. Less fortunate than
the multitude outside the Earl’s guests seemed not to have numbered
umbrellas among the necessities of a tournament; and the demand for this
despised invention was sufficient (if merit was ever rewarded) to
elevate it for ever after to a rank among chivalric appointments.
Substitutes and imitations of it were made of swords and cashmeres; and
the lenders of veritable umbrellas received smiles which should induce
them, one would think, to carry half-a-dozen to all future tournaments
in Scotland. It was pitiable to see the wreck going on among the
perishable elegancies of Victorine and Herbault—chip hats of the most
faultless _tournure_ collapsing with the wet; starched ruffs quite flat;
dresses passing helplessly from “Lesbia’s” style to “Nora Creina’s;”
shawls, tied by anxious mammas over chapeau and coiffure, crushing
pitilessly the delicate fabric of months of invention; and, more
lamentable still, the fair brows and shoulders of many a lovely woman
proving with rainbow clearness that the colors of the silk or velvet
composing her head-dress were by no means ‘fast.’ The Irvine archers, by
the way, who as the Queen’s body guard, were compelled to expose
themselves to the rain on the grand staircase, resembled a troop of New
Zealanders with their faces tattooed of a delicate green; though, as
their Lincoln bonnets were all made of the same faithless velvet, they
were fortunately streaked so nearly alike as to preserve their uniform.
After a brief consultation between the rheumatisms in my different
limbs, it was decided (since it was vain to hope for shelter for the
entire person) that my cloth cap would be the best recipient for the
inevitable wet; and selecting the best of the vacated places, I seated
myself so as to receive one of the small streams as nearly as possible
on my organ of firmness. Here I was undisturbed, except once that I was
asked, (my seat supposed to be a dry one) to give place for a lady newly
arrived, who, receiving my appropriated rivulet in her neck, immediately
restored it to me with many acknowledgments, and passed on. In point of
position, my seat, which was very near the pavilion of the Queen of
Beauty, was one of the best at the tournament; and diverting my
aqueduct, by a little management, over my left shoulder, I contrived to
be more comfortable, probably, than most of my shivering and melancholy
neighbors.
A great agitation in the crowd, and a dampish sound of coming trumpets
announced the approach of the procession. As it came in sight, and wound
along the curved passage to the lists, its long and serpentine line of
helmets and glittering armor, gonfalons, spear-points, and plumes, just
surging above the moving sea of umbrellas, had the effect of some
gorgeous and bright-scaled dragon swimming in troubled waters. The
leaders of the long cavalcade pranced into the arena at last, and a
tremendous shout from the multitude announced their admiration of the
spectacle. On they came toward the canopy of the Queen of Beauty,
men-at-arms, trumpeters, heralds, and halberdiers, and soon after them
the king of the tournament, with his long scarlet robe flying to the
tempest, and his rearing palfrey straining every nerve to show his pride
and beauty. The first shout from the principal gallery was given in
approbation of this display of horsemanship, as Lord Londonderry rode
past; and considering the damp enthusiasm which prompted it, it should
have been considered rather flattering. Lord Eglinton came on presently,
distinguished above all others no less by the magnificence of his
appointments than by the ease and dignity with which he rode, and his
knightly bearing and stature. His golden armor sat on him as if he had
been used to wear it; and he managed his beautiful charger, and bowed in
reply to the reiterated shouts of the multitude and his friends, with a
grace and chivalric courtesy which drew murmurs of applause from the
spectators long after the cheering had subsided.
The jester rode into the lists upon a gray steed, shaking his bells over
his head, and dressed in an odd costume of blue and yellow, with a broad
flapped hat, asses’ ears, &c. His character was not at first understood
by the crowd, but he soon began to excite merriment by his jokes, and no
little admiration by his capital riding. He was a professional person, I
think it was said, from Astley’s, but as he spoke with a most excellent
Scotch “burr,” he easily passed for an indigenous “fool.” He rode from
side to side of the lists during the whole of the tournament, borrowing
umbrellas, quizzing the knights, &c.
One of the most striking features of the procession was the turn-out of
the knight of the Gael, Lord Glenlyon, with seventy of his clansmen at
his back in plaid and philibeg, and a finer exhibition of calves
(without a joke) could scarce be desired. They followed their chieftain
on foot, and when the procession separated, took up their places in a
line along the palisade serving as a guard to the lists.
After the procession had twice made the circuit of the enclosure, doing
obeisance to the Queen of Beauty, the jester had possession of the field
while the knights retired to don their helmets, (hitherto carried by
their esquires,) and to await the challenge to combat. All eyes were now
bent upon the gorgeous clusters of tents at either extremity of the
oblong area; and in a very few minutes the herald’s trumpet sounded, and
the Knight of the Swan rode forth, having sent his defiance to the
Knight of the Golden Lion. At another blast of the trumpet they set
their lances in rest, selected opposite sides of the long fence or
barrier running lengthwise through the lists, and rode furiously past
each other, the fence of course preventing any contact except that of
their lances. This part of the tournament (the essential part, one would
think) was, from the necessity of the case, the least satisfactory of
all. The knights, though they rode admirably, were so oppressed by the
weight of their armor, and so embarrassed in their motions by the
ill-adjusted joints, that they were like men of wood, unable apparently
even to raise the lance from the thigh on which it rested. I presume no
one of them either saw where he should strike his opponent, or had any
power of directing the weapon. As they rode close to the fence, however,
and a ten-foot pole sawed nearly off in two or three places was laid
crosswise on the legs of each, it would be odd if they did not come in
contact; and the least shock of course splintered the lance—in other
words, finished what was begun by the carpenter’s saw. The great
difficulty was to ride at all under such a tremendous weight, and manage
a horse of spirit, totally unused both to the weight and the clatter of
his own and his rider’s armor. I am sure that Lord Eglinton’s horse, for
one, would have bothered Ivanhoe himself to “bring to the scratch;” and
Lord Waterford’s was the only one that, for all the fright he showed,
might have been selected (as they all should have been) for the virtue
of having peddled tin-ware. These two knights, by the way, ran the best
career, Lord Eglinton, _malgré_ his bolter, coming off the victor.
The rain, meantime, had increased to a deluge, the Queen of Beauty sat
shivering under an umbrella, the jester’s long ears were water-logged,
and lay flat on his shoulders, and everybody in my neighborhood had
expressed a wish for a dry seat and a glass of sherry. The word
“banquet” occurred frequently right and left; hopes for “mulled wine or
something hot before dinner” stole from the lips of a mamma on the seat
behind; and there seemed to be but one chance for the salvation of
health predominant in the minds of all—and that was drinking rather
more freely than usual at the approaching banquet. Judge what must have
been the astonishment, vexation, dread, and despair, of the one thousand
wet, shivering, and hungry candidates for the feast, when Lord Eglinton
rode up to the gallery unhelmeted, and delivered himself as follows:—
“Ladies and gentlemen, I had hoped to have given you all a good dinner;
but to my extreme mortification and regret, I am just informed that the
rain has penetrated the banqueting pavilions, and that, in consequence,
I shall only be able to entertain so many of my friends as can meet
around my ordinary table.”
About as uncomfortable a piece of intelligence to some nine hundred and
sixty of his audience, as they could have received, short of a sentence
for their immediate execution.
To comprehend fully the disastrous extent of the disappointment in the
principal gallery, it must be taken into consideration that the
domicils, fixed or temporary, of the rejected sufferers, were from five
to twenty miles distant—a long ride at best, if begun on the point of
famishing, and in very thin and well-saturated fancy dresses. Grievance
the first, however, was nothing to grievance the second; viz. that from
the tremendous run upon post-horses, and horses of all descriptions,
during the three or four previous days, the _getting to_ the tournament
was the utmost that many parties could achieve. The nearest
baiting-place was several miles off; and in compassion to the poor
beasts, and with the weather promising fair on their arrival, most
persons had consented to take their chance for the quarter of a mile
from the lists to the castle, and had dismissed their carriages with
orders to return at the close of the banquet and ball—daylight the next
morning! The castle, every body knew, was crammed, from “donjon-keep to
turret-top,” with the relatives and friends of the noble earl, and his
private table could accommodate no more than these. _To get home_ was
the inevitable alternative.
The rain poured in a deluge. The entire park was trodden into a slough,
or standing in pools of water—carts, carriages, and horsemen, with
fifty thousand flying pedestrians, crowding every road and avenue. How
to get home _with_ a carriage! How the deuce to get home _without_ one!
A gentleman who had been sent out on the errand of Noah’s dove by a lady
whose carriage and horses were ordered at four the following morning,
came back with the mud up to his knees, and reported that there was not
a wheelbarrow to be had for love or money. After threading the crowd in
every direction, he had offered a large sum, in vain, for a one-horse
cart!
Night was coming on, meantime, very fast; but absorbed by the distresses
of the shivering groups around me, I had scarce remembered that my own
invitation was but to the banquet and ball—and my dinner, consequently,
nine miles off, at Ardrossan. Thanking Heaven, that, at least, I had no
ladies to share my evening’s pilgrimage, I followed the Queen of Beauty
down the muddy and slippery staircase, and, when her majesty had stepped
into her carriage, I stepped over ankles in mud and water, and began my
_wade_ toward the castle.
Six hours of rain, and the trampling of such an immense multitude of men
and horses, had converted the soft and moist sod and soil of the park
into a deep and most adhesive quagmire. Glancing through the labyrinth
of vehicles on every side, and seeing men and horses with their feet
completely sunk below the surface, I saw that there was no possibility
of shying the matter, and that _wade_ was the word. I thought at first,
that I had a claim for a little sympathy on the score of being rather
slenderly shod (the impalpable sole of a pattern leather boot being all
that separated me from the subsoil of the estate of Eglinton;) but
overtaking, presently, a party of four ladies who had lost several shoes
in the mire, and were positively wading on in silk stockings, I took
patience to myself from my advantage in the comparison, and thanked fate
for the thinnest sole with leather to keep it on. The ladies I speak of
were under the charge of a most despairing-looking gentleman, but had
neither cloak nor umbrella, and had evidently made no calculations for a
walk. We differed in our choice of the two sides of a slough, presently,
and they were lost in the crowd; but I could not help smiling, with all
my pity of their woes, to think what a turning up of prunella shoes
there will be, should Lord Eglinton ever plough the chivalric field of
the Tournament.
As I reached the castle, I got upon the Macadamised road, which had the
advantage of a bottom _somewhere_, though it was covered with a liquid
mud, of which every passing foot gave you a spatter to the hips. My
exterior was by this time equally divided between water and dirt, and I
trudged on in comfortable fellowship with farmers, coal-miners, and
Scotch lasses—envying very much the last, for they carried their shoes
in their hands, and held their petticoats, to say the least, clear of
the mud. Many a good joke they seemed to have among them, but as they
spoke in Gaelic, it was lost on my Sassenach ears.
I had looked forward with a faint hope to a gingerbread and ale-cart,
which I remembered having seen in the morning established near the
terminus of the railroad, trusting to refresh my strength and patience
with a glass of anything that goes under the generic name of “summat;”
but though the cart was there, the gingerbread shelf was occupied by a
row of Scotch lasses, crouching together under cover from the rain, and
the pedlar assured me that “there wasna a drap o’ speerit to be got
within ten mile o’ the castle.” One glance at the railroad, where a car
with a single horse was beset by some thousands of shoving and fighting
applicants, convinced me that I had a walk of eight miles to finish my
“purgation by” tournament; and as it was getting too dark to trust to
any picking of the way, I took the middle of the rail-track, and set
forward.
“Oh, but a weary wight was he
When he reached the foot of the dogwood tree.”
Eight miles in a heavy rain, with boots of the consistence of brown
paper, and a road of alternate deep mud and broken stone, should entitle
one to the green turban. I will make the pilgrimage of a Hadjii from the
“farthest inn” with half the endurance.
I found my Liverpool friends over a mutton chop in the snug parlor of
our host, and with a strong brew of hot toddy, and many a laugh at the
day’s adventures by land and water, we got comfortably to bed “somewhere
in the small hours.” And so ended (for me) the great day of the
tournament.
After witnessing the disasters of the first day, the demolition of
costumes, and the perils by water, of masqueraders and spectators, it
was natural to fancy that the tournament was over. So did not seem to
think several thousands of newly-arrived persons, pouring from steamer
after steamer upon the pier of Ardrossan, and in every variety of
costume, from the shepherd’s maud to the courtier’s satin, crowding to
the rail-cars from Eglinton. It appeared from the chance remarks of one
or two who came to our lodgings to deposite their carpet bags, that it
had rained very little in the places from which the steamers had come,
and that they had calculated on the second as the great day of the
joust. No dissuasion had the least effect upon them, and away they went,
bedecked and merry, the sufferers of the day before looking out upon
them, from comfortable hotel and lodging, with prophetic pity.
At noon the sky brightened; and as the cars were running by this time
with diminished loads, I parted from my agreeable friends, and bade
adieu to my garret at Ardrossan. I was bound to Ireland, and my road lay
by Eglinton to Irvine and Ayr. Fellow-passengers with me were twenty or
thirty men in Glengary bonnets, plaids, &c.; and I came in for my share
of the jeers and jokes showered on them by the passengers in the
return-cars, as men bound on a fruitless errand. As we neared the
castle, the crowds of people with disconsolate faces waiting for
conveyances, or standing by the reopened ginger-bread carts in listless
idleness, convinced my companions, at last, that there was nothing to be
seen, for that day at least, at Eglinton. I left them sitting on the
cars, undecided whether to go on or return without losing their places;
and seeing a coach marked “Irvine” standing in the road, I jumped in
without question or ceremony. It belonged to a private party of
gentlemen, who were to visit the castle and tilting-ground on their way
to Irvine; and as they very kindly insisted on my remaining after I had
apologised for the intrusion, I found myself “booked” for a glimpse of
the second day’s attractions.
The avenue to the castle was as crowded as on the day before; but it was
curious to remark how the general aspect of the multitude was changed by
the substitution of disappointment for expectation. The lagging gait and
surly silence, instead of the elastic step and merry joke, seemed to
have darkened the scene more than the withdrawal of the sun, and I was
glad to wrap myself in my cloak, and remember that I was on the wing.
The banner flying at the castle tower was the only sign of motion I
could see in its immediate vicinity; the sail-cloth coverings of the
pavilion were dark with wet; the fine sward was everywhere disfigured
with traces of mud, and the whole scene was dismal and uncomfortable. We
kept on to the lists, and found them, as one of my companions expressed
it, more like a cattle-pen after a fair than a scene of
pleasure—trodden, wet, miry, and deserted. The crowd, content to view
them from a distance, were assembled around the large booths on the
ascent of the rising ground toward the castle, where a band was playing
some merry reels, and the gingerbread and ale venders plied a busy
vocation. A look was enough; and we shaped our course for Irvine,
sympathizing deeply with the disappointment of the high-spirited and
generous Lord of the Tourney. I heard at Irvine, and farther on, that
the tilting would be renewed, and the banquet and ball given on the
succeeding days; but after the wreck of dresses and peril of health I
had witnessed, I was persuaded that the best that could be done would be
but a slender patching up of the original glories as well as a halting
rally of the original spirits of the tournament. So I kept on my way.
TALKS OVER TRAVEL.
LONDON.
There is an inborn and inbred distrust of “foreigners” in
England—continental foreigners, I should say—which keeps the current
of French and Italian society as distinct amid the sea of London, as the
blue Rhone in Lake Leman. The word “foreigner,” in England, conveys
exclusively the idea of a dark-complexioned and whiskered individual, in
a frogged coat and distressed circumstances; and to introduce a
smooth-cheeked, plainly-dressed, _quiet_-looking person by that name,
would strike any circle of ladies and gentlemen as a palpable misnomer.
The violent and unhappy contrast between the Parisian’s mode of life in
London and in Paris, makes it very certain that few of those _bien n’es
et convenablement riches_ will live in London for pleasure; and then the
flood of political _émigrés_, for the last half-century, has monopolised
hair-dressing, &c., &c., to such a degree, that the word Frenchman is
synonymous in English ears with barber and dancing-master. If a dark
gentleman, wearing either whisker or mustache, chance to offend John
Bull in the street, the first opprobrious language he hears—the
strongest that occurs to the fellow’s mind—is “Get out, you
—— Frenchman!”
All this, _malgré_ the rage for foreign lions in London society. A
well-introduced foreigner gets easily into this, and while he keeps his
cabriolet and confines himself to frequenting _soirées_ and accepting
invitations to dine, he will never suspect that he is not on an equal
footing with any “_milor_” in London. If he wishes to be disenchanted,
he has only to change his lodgings from Long’s to Great Russell street,
or (bitterer and readier trial) to propose marriage to the honorable
Augusta or Lady Fanny.
Everybody who knows the society of Paris knows something of a handsome
and very elegant young baron of the Faubourg St. Germain, who, with
small fortune, very great taste, and greater credit, contrived to go on
very swimmingly as an adorable _roue_ and _vaurien_ till he was hard
upon twenty-five. At the first crisis in his affairs, the ladies, who
hold all the politics in their laps, got him appointed consul to
Algiers, or minister to Venezuela, and with this pretty pretext for
selling his horses and dressing-gowns, these cherished articles brought
twice their original value and saved his _loyauté_, and set him up in
fans and monkeys at his place of exile. A year of this was enough for
the darling of Paris, and not more than a day before his desolate loves
would have ceased to mourn for him, he galloped into his hotel with a
new fashion of whiskers, a black female slave, and the most delicious
histories of his adventures during the ages he had been exiled. Down to
the earth and their previous obscurity dropped the rivals who were just
beginning to usurp his glories. A new stud, an indescribable vehicle, a
suite of rooms _à l’Africaine_, and a mystery, preserved at some
expense, about his negress, kept all Paris, including his new creditors,
in admiring astonishment for a year. Among the crowd of his worshippers,
not the last or least fervent, were the fair-haired and glowing beauties
who assemble at the _levees_ of their ambassador in the Rue St. Honore,
and upon whom _le beau Adolphe_ had looked as pretty savages, whose
frightful toilets and horrid French accent might be tolerated one
evening in the week—_vu le souper!_
Eclipses will arrive as calculated by insignificant astronomers,
however, and debts will become due as presumed by vulgar tradesmen. _Le
beau Adolphe_ began to see another crisis, and betook himself to his old
advisers, who were _désolés_ to the last degree; but there was a new
government, and the blood of the Faubourg was at a discount. No
embassies were to be had for nothing. With a deep sigh, and a gentle
tone, to spare his feelings as much as possible, his friend ventures to
suggest to him that it will be necessary to sacrifice himself.
“_Ahi! mais comment!_”
“Marry one of these _bêtes Anglaises_, who drink you up with their great
blue eyes, and are made of gold!”
Adolph buried his face in his gold-fringed oriental pocket-handkerchief;
but when the first agony was passed, his resolution was taken, and he
determined to go to England. The first beautiful creature he should see,
whose funds were enormous and well-invested, should bear away from all
the love, rank, and poverty of France, the perfumed hand he looked upon.
A flourishing letter, written in a small, cramped hand, but with a seal
on whose breadth of wax and blazon all the united heraldry of France was
interwoven, arrived, through the ambassador’s despatch box, to the
address of Miladi ——, Belgrave square, announcing, in full, that _le
beau Adolphe_ was coming to London to marry the richest heiress in good
society—and as Paris could not spare him more than a week, he wished
those who had daughters to marry, answering the description, to be _bien
prévenus_ of his visit and errand. With the letter came a compend of his
genealogy, from the man who spoke French in the confusion of Babel to
_le dit_ Baron Adolphe.
To London came the valet of _le beau_ baron, two days before his master,
bringing his slippers and dressing gown to be aired after their sea
voyage across the channel. To London followed the irresistible youth,
cursing, in the politest French, the necessity which subtracted a week
from a life measured with such “diamond sparks” as his own in Paris. He
sat himself down in his hotel, sent his man Porphyre with his card to
every noble and rich house, whose barbarian tenants he had ever seen in
the Champs Elysees, and waited the result. Invitations from fair ladies,
who remembered him as the man the French belles were mad about, and from
literary ladies, who wanted his whiskers and black eyes to give their
_soirées_ the necessary foreign complexion, flowed in on all sides, and
Monsieur Adolphe selected his most _mignon_ cane and his happiest design
in a stocking, and “_rendered himself_” through the rain like a martyr.
No offers of marriage the first evening!
None the second!!
None the third!!!
_Le beau Adolphe_ began to think either that English papas did not
propose their daughters to people as in France; or, perhaps, that the
lady whom he had commissioned to circulate his wishes had not
sufficiently advertised him. She _had_, however.
He took advice, and found it would be necessary to take the first step
himself. This was disagreeable, and he said to himself, “_Le jeu ne vaut
pas la chandelle_”; but his youth was passing, and his English fortune
was at interest.
He went to Almack’s, and proposed to the first authenticated fortune
that accepted his hand for a waltz. The young lady first laughed, and
then told her mother, who told her son, who thought it an insult, and
called out _le beau Adolphe_, very much to the astonishment of himself
and Porphyre. The thing was explained, and the baron looked about the
next day for one _pas si bête_. Found a young lady with half a million
sterling, proposed in a morning call, and was obliged to ring for
assistance, his intended having gone into convulsions with laughing at
him. The story by this time had got pretty well distributed through the
different strata of London society;—and when _le beau Adolphe_,
convinced that he would not succeed with the noble heiresses of Belgrave
square, condescended, in his extremity, to send his heart by his valet
to a rich little vulgarian, who “never had a grandfather,” and lived in
Harley street, he narrowly escaped being prosecuted for a nuisance, and,
Paris being now in possession of the enemy, he buried his sorrows in
Belgium. After a short exile his friends procured him a vice-consulate
in some port in the North Sea, and there probably at this moment he
sorrowfully vegetates.
This is not a story _founded upon_ fact, but literally true.—Many of
the circumstances came under my own observation; and the whole thus
affords a laughable example of the esteem in which what an English
fox-hunter would call a “trashy Frenchman” is held in England, as well
as of the _travestie_ produced by transplanting the usages of one
country to another.
Ridiculous as any intimate mixture of English and French ideas and
persons seems to be in London, the foreign society of itself in that
capital is exceedingly spiritual and agreeable. The various European
embassies and their _attachés_, with their distinguished travellers,
from their several countries, accidentally belonging to each; the French
and Italians, married to English noblemen and gentry, and living in
London, and the English themselves, who have become cosmopolite by
residence in other countries, form a very large society in which mix,
_on perfectly equal terms_, the first singers of the opera, and foreign
musicians and artists generally. This last circumstance gives a peculiar
charm to these _reunions_, though it imparts a pride and haughty bearing
to the _prima donna_ and her fraternity, which is, at least, sometimes
very inconvenient to themselves. The remark recalls to my mind a scene I
once witnessed in London, which will illustrate the feeling better than
an essay upon it.
I was at one of those private concerts given at an enormous expense
during the opera season, at which “assisted” Julia Grisi, Rubini,
Lablache, Tamburini, and Ivanhoff. Grisi came in the carriage of a
foreign lady of rank, _who had dined with her_, and she walked into the
room looking like an empress. She was dressed in the plainest white,
with her glossy haircut smooth from her brow, and a single white
japonica dropped over one of her temples. The lady who brought her
chaperoned her during the evening, as if she had been her daughter, and
under the excitement of her own table and the kindness of her friends,
she sung with a rapture and a _freshet_ of glory (if one may borrow a
word from the Mississippi) which set all hearts on fire. She surpassed
her most applauded hour on the stage—for it was worth her while. The
audience was composed, almost exclusively, of those who are not only
cultivated judges, but who sometimes repay delight with a present of
diamonds.
Lablache shook the house to its foundations in his turn; Rubini ran
through his miraculous compass with the ease, truth, and melody, for
which his singing is unsurpassed; Tamburini poured his rich and even
fullness on the ear, and Russian Ivanhoff, the one southern singing-bird
who has come out of the north, wire-drew his fine and spiritual notes,
till they who had been flushed, and tearful, and silent, when the others
had sang, drowned his voice in the poorer applause of exclamation and
surprise.
The concert was over by twelve, the gold and silver paper bills of the
performance were turned into fans, and every one was waiting till supper
should be announced—the _prima donna_ still sitting by her friend, but
surrounded by foreign _attachés_, and in the highest elation at her own
success. The doors of an inner suite of rooms were thrown open at last,
and Grisi’s _cordon_ of admirers prepared to follow her in and wait on
her at supper. At this moment, one of the powdered menials of the house
stepped up and informed her very respectfully _that supper was prepared
in a separate room for the singers_!
Medea, in her most tragic hour, never stood so absolutely the picture of
hate as did Grisi for a single instant, in the centre of that
aristocratic crowd. Her chest swelled and rose, her lips closed over her
snowy teeth, and compressed till the blood left them, and, for myself, I
looked unconsciously to see where she would strike. I knew, then, that
there was more than fancy—there was nature and capability of the
_real_—in the _imaginary_ passions she plays so powerfully. A laugh of
extreme amusement at the scene from the high-born woman who had
accompanied her, suddenly turned her humor, and she stopped in the midst
of a muttering of Italian, in which I could distinguish only the
terminations, and, with a sort of theatrical quickness of transition,
joined heartily in her mirth. It was immediately proposed by this lady,
however, that herself and their particular circle should join the
insulted _prima donna_ at the lower table, and they succeeded by this
manœuvre in retaining Rubini and the others, who were leaving the house
in a most unequivocal Italian fury.
I had been fortunate enough to be included in the invitation, and with
one or two foreign diplomatic men, I followed Grisi and her amused
friend to a small room on a lower floor, that seemed to be the
housekeeper’s parlor. Here supper was set for six (including the man who
had played the piano,) and on the side-table stood every variety of wine
and fruit, and there was nothing in the supper, at least, to make us
regret the table we had left. With a most imperative gesture and rather
an amusing attempt at English, Grisi ordered the servants out of the
room, and locked the door, and from that moment the conversation
commenced and continued in their own musical, passionate, and energetic
Italian. My long residence in that country had made me at home in it;
every one present spoke it fluently; and I had an opportunity I might
never have again, of seeing with what abandonment these children of the
sun throw aside rank and distinction (yet without forgetting it,) and
join with those who are their superiors in every circumstance of life in
the gayeties of a chance hour.
Out of their own country these singers would probably acknowledge no
higher rank than that of the kind and gifted lady who was their guest;
yet, with the briefest apology at finding the room too cold after the
heat of the concert, they put on their cloaks and hats as a safeguard to
their lungs (more valuable to them than to others;) and as most of the
cloaks were the worse for travel, and the hats were opera-hats with two
corners, the grotesque contrast with the diamonds of one lady, and the
radiant beauty of the other, may easily be imagined.
Singing should be hungry work, by the knife and fork they played; and
between the excavations of truffle pies, and the bumpers of champagne
and burgundy, the words were few. Lablache appeared to be an established
droll, and every syllable he found time to utter was received with the
most unbounded laughter. Kubini could not recover from the slight he
conceived put upon him and his profession by the separate table; and he
continually reminded Grisi, who by this time had quite recovered her
good humor, that, the night before, supping at Devonshire house, the
Duke of Wellington had held her gloves on one side, while His Grace,
their host attended to her on the other.
“_E vero!_” said Ivanhoff, with a look of modest admiration at the
_prima donna_.
“_E vero, e bravo!_” cried Tamburini, with his sepulchral-talking tone,
much deeper than his singing.
“_Si, si, si, bravo!_” echoed all the company; and the haughty and happy
actress nodded all round with a radiant smile, and repeated, in her
silver tones, “_Grazie! cari amici! grazie!_”
As the servants had been turned out, the removal of the first course was
managed in _pic-nic_ fashion; and when the fruit and fresh bottles of
wine were set upon the table by the _attachés_, and younger gentlemen,
the health of the Princess who honored them by her presence was proposed
in that language, which, it seems to me, is more capable than all others
of expressing affectionate and respectful devotion. All uncovered and
stood up, and Grisi, with tears in her eyes, kissed the hand of her
benefactress and friend, and drank her health in silence.
It is a polite and common accomplishment in Italy to improvise in verse,
and the lady I speak of is well known among her immediate friends for a
singular facility in this beautiful art. She reflected a moment or two
with the moisture in her eyes, and then commenced, low and soft, a poem,
of which it would be difficult, nay impossible, to convey, in English,
an idea of its music and beauty. It took us back to Italy, to its
heavenly climate, its glorious arts, its beauty and its ruins, and
concluded with a line of which I remember the sentiment to have been,
“_out of Italy every land is exile!_”
The glasses were raised as she ceased, and every one repeated after her,
“_Fuori d’Italia tutto e esilio!_”
“_Ma!_” cried out the fat Lablache, holding up his glass of champagne,
and looking through it with one eye, “_siamo ben esiliati qua!_” and
with a word of drollery, the party recovered its gayer tone, and the
humor and wit flowed on brilliantly as before.
The house had long been still, and the last carriage belonging to the
company above stairs had rolled from the door, when Grisi suddenly
remembered a bird that she had lately bought, of which she proceeded to
give us a description that probably penetrated to every corner of the
silent mansion. It was a mocking bird, that had been kept two years in
the opera house, and between rehearsal and performance had learned parts
of everything it had overheard. It was the property of the woman who
took care of the wardrobes. Grisi had accidentally seen it, and
immediately purchased it for two guineas. How much of embellishment
there was in her imitations of her treasure I do not know; but certainly
the whole power of her wondrous voice, passion, and knowledge of music,
seemed drunk up at once in the wild, various, difficult, and rapid
mixture of the capricious melody she undertook. First came, without the
passage which it usually terminates, the long throat-down, gurgling,
water-toned trill, in which Rubini (but for the bird and its mistress,
it seemed to me,) would have been inimitable: then, right upon it, as if
it were the beginning of a bar, and in the most unbreathing continuity,
followed a brilliant passage from the Barber of Seville run into the
passionate prayer of Anna Bolena in her madness, and followed by the air
of “_Suoni la tromba intrepida_,” the tremendous duet in the Puritani,
between Tamburini and Lablache. Up to the sky and down to the earth
again—away with a note of the wildest gladness, and back upon a note of
the most touching melancholy—if the bird but half equals the imitation
of his mistress, he were worth the jewel in a sultan’s turban.
“Giulia!” “Giulietta!” “Giuliettina!” cried out one and another as she
ceased, expressing in their Italian diminutives, the love and delight
she had inspired by her incomparable execution.
The stillness of the house in the occasional pauses of conversation
reminded the gay party, at last, that it was wearing late. The door was
unlocked, and the half-dozen sleepy footmen hanging about the hall were
dispatched for the cloaks and carriages; the drowsy porter was roused
from his deep leathern _dormeuse_, and opened the door—and broad upon
the street lay the cold gray light of a summer’s morning. I declined an
offer to be set down by a friend’s cab, and strolled off to Hyde Park to
surprise myself with a sunrise; balancing the silent rebuke in the fresh
and healthy countenances of early laborers going to their toil, against
the effervescence of a champagne hour which, since such come so rarely,
may come, for me, with what untimeliness they please.