FOOTNOTES:[2]Published by Bogue, Fleet Street.
[2]Published by Bogue, Fleet Street.
[2]Published by Bogue, Fleet Street.
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Newshas just reached us from Paris of the death of Madame Sophie Gay. She was a writer of the half-historical, half-sentimental school of French fiction, of which Madame de Genlis, the Duchess d'Abrantes, and Madame de Souza were specimens more or less worthy; but in ease and grace, Madame Gay was superior to all we have mentioned. It is, in our minds, very affecting to witness the last lights of the ancient salons of Paris dropping out one by one. MmeGay has herself, in a single volume published in 1837, entitledSalons Célèbres, left us a very beautiful picture of them as they were in their prime. We have translated—abridging, however, as we went—the opening chapters of this work, and may add a notice of more modern salons, as given by thelively pen of MmeEmile de Girardin—néeDelphine Gay—daughter of MmeSophie. The reader will judge whether the fashionable Frenchmen and Frenchwomen have really profited much by the storms and tempests that have gone over their heads. To be sure, Mmede Girardin's pictures were given twelve years ago; but we believe they would require little change, at least up to the conclusion of the Orleans reign in 1848. The volume from which these last extracts are made, is entitledLettres Parisiennes. It has all the wit and talent of the cleverest of fashionable Frenchwomen. The tone is sometimes extremely good—better than we were led to expect; but the picture it presents is about as mournful a one as pictures of French frivolity usually are. We will, however, leave them to make their own impression. First, then, for MmeSophie Gay and the ancientsalons.
Now that the empire of the salons, she observes, has passed away with that of women, it would be difficult to convey to our youthful France an idea of the influence which certain of these were wont to exercise, in state affairs and in the choice of men in power. To have a salon is far from an easy thing; a crowd of people may, and do every day, give concerts and balls in their gilded apartments, and yet they may never have salons. Essential conditions are required which can rarely be found in conjunction. The most important of all is the talent and character of the lady who does the honours. Without being old, she must have passed the age in which a woman is chiefly spoken of for her prettiness or her dress, and be at that point of time when a woman's mind may rule over the self-love of a man more than her youthful attractions enabled her to rule over his heart.
Rank and fortune were important items, not quite indispensable, however; for Mmedu Deffand was poor, and MmeGeoffrin was the wife of a manufacturer. In the salons of these two women edicts were framed, and academicians reared; but the questions discussed there were not nearly of the importance of those to which Mmede Staël's salon gave rise. It was essential that the mistress of the house should have a decided and superior taste in a variety of ways; also a total absence of those little, envious feelings which might have tended to exclude the fashionable woman or successful author. She must know how to bear enemies in her presence, to place talents according to their worth, to shew the tiresome the way to the door—things which require address and courage.
The salon of Mmede Staël, during three different periods of her life, took considerable modification from the changes of the time; but it was always the same in power, if not in brilliancy.
Under the first Revolution, it was the scene of most momentous deliberations. Barnave, Talleyrand, Lameth, Dupont, Boissy d'Anglas, Portalis, Chénier, Rœderer, and Benjamin Constant, discussed at the place of familiar meeting many a half-formed decree, and many important state nominations. The only member of the Directory who visited there was Barras; and it was a common saying, that every visit cost him a good deed; for Mmede Staël never slackened in her intercessions for the victims of the tribunals. She infused courage into the hearts of those who were pleaders for them. Through her means, Talleyrand was recalled, and even named minister of foreign affairs. 'He wanted some help,' she said, 'in order to arrive at power, but none to enable him to keep it when gained.' Her sagacity was at fault, if she persuaded herself that the returned emigrant-priest would bring harmony into public counsels. On these evenings, pregnant with deeds both evil and good, it was said that some very foul conspiracies were concocted, and some of these were directly imputed to Mmede Staël; but she earnestly denied the truth of such surmises. Her salon, not herself, was guilty. Most generously did she exert herself in behalf of those who suffered after such conspiracies; but some one was heard to say: 'She is a good woman, but would push any of her friends into the water for the delight of fishing them up again with her own tackle.'
When the Consulate was established, Mmede Staël's salon empire was watched by the rising influence of the day with a jealous eye. It was certainly a turbulent scene. Very bitter were the complaints of the men of the Revolution. They had risked so much; they had fought so courageously for liberty! They saw the disorders of the time, but they could not bear to lose all the fruits of their toil; and Garat and Andrieux, Daunon and Benjamin Constant, urged on by the eloquence of Mmede Staël, framed powerful appeals on these occasions for the morrow. Bonaparte could not tolerate this. His power was too recently gained—his projects too unripe. In vain did the friends of Mmede Staël say, that asaloncould never be dangerous to a rule like his. 'It is not a salon,' said he; 'it is a club.' It was, in fact, the antagonism between mind and physical force. The First Consul had said before, of the orators of the Tribune: 'I have no time to answer these refractory speechifiers: theydonothing but perplex all things; they must be silenced.' And one great point of attack was Mmede Staël's salon. It was necessary she should abdicate her throne. A sentence of banishment condemned the brilliant lady to lay down the sceptre. Exiled to Geneva, surrounded by friends, sharing her father's lot, occupied with her daughter's education, she had, it may be thought, plenty of objects: she was unquestionably the first literary woman in Europe, too, and as such, Geneva was as her salon, where she received the homage of royalty and talent. Yet, a true Frenchwoman, unable to bear separation from the peculiar atmosphere in which she had been reared, she pined after it—pined still more for the friends who visited her only to be partakers of her exile; and so she passed the whole period of the Napoleon dynasty.
Meanwhile, in the interval between the banishment of Mmede Staël and her return, the most captivating mistress of a Paris salon appears to have been Mmede Beaumont. She was the daughter of M. de Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs, who had immediately followed Necker. She married early, and not happily. She lived with her father, separated from her husband, and was intrusted to transcribe some of the very important correspondence between Mirabeau and the court. In the Reign of Terror, her father, and it is thought others of her family, fell by the guillotine; but she herself was spared, even against her will. She retired for awhile into the country, visiting among her friends, who did all they could to console her. She was the object of the strongest attachment on the part of Châteaubriand, Joubert, Fontanes, Molé, and many others; and when, once more, quiet and order were restored, even at the sacrifice of much of liberty, she came to Paris again. Her old friends rallied about her, her spirits seemed to revive for awhile, and her salon was for a year or two a scene of remarkable enjoyment. One who truly appreciated her, and who was worthy to be himself the centre of a social circle—M. Joubert, the author of some beautiful thoughts on literature and divers other subjects—thus tenderly commemorates the evenings to which we have alluded: 'Peaceful society! where none of those disuniting pretensions which spoil enjoyment could come; where acknowledged talent was not divorced from good temper; where praise was given to whatever was praiseworthy; where nothing was thought of but what was really attractive. Peaceful society! whose scattered members can never unite again without speaking of her who was the connecting link that brought them all together.'
To our minds, there seems something unique and infinitely touching in this bursting out, though but fora short time, of the slumbering fires of an older society, from underneath the heaps of hard and alien material which had gone far to extinguish every spark of gentleness and refinement. The relics of families—their hearts still bleeding from their wounds—came to forget, if possible, the terrible past, and indulge their quiet hopes for the future. Very soon, indeed, the dream was dispelled; the tyranny proved to some unbearable; and some it vanquished in their highest part—their inward conscience—making them subservient when they might have shunned the danger altogether. But while the quiet interval lasted, it was like an Indian summer, prolonging the intellectual and tasteful beauty which was soon to be overwhelmed by the vulgar splendours of the Empire.
The greatest loss this circle could have had was the first. Mmede Beaumont died at Rome in 1804—attended only by Châteaubriand—who has given an account of the closing scene in his memoirs, and thenceforth it does not appear that the same society reassembled.
But another and third edition of the salon, under Mmede Staël, was witnessed at the Restoration. Hitherto we have sketched from MmeSophie Gay's pictures. At this period, she declares herself unable to bear the mortification of mingling with the public of Paris: she could not see the Cossacks without shuddering. She shut herself up in her house, and knew what passed only through the kindness of friends, who wrote narratives for her amusement of any remarkable incidents they might note. Among these communications, MmeSophie Gay has preserved one from the Marquis de Custine, and she has given it as a faithful picture of one of the last of Mmede Staël's soirées in Paris.
'I am just returned, and will not go to bed without telling you what has most amused me—not thatamusedis the right word, for Mmede Staël's salon is more than a scene of amusement: it is a glass in which is reflected the history of the time. What we see and hear there is more instructive than books, more exciting than many comedies....
'You know that the Duke of Wellington was to visit her this evening for the first time. I went in good time; she was not yet in the room: several others were also waiting—such as the Abbé de Pradt, Benjamin Constant, La Fayette. They were conversing; I remained in one corner, as if listening to them.... At length Mmede Staël came in. "I am late," she said; "but it is not my fault. I was invited to dine at——, and was obliged to go." A great many of the guests were come: all were looking for the hero of the evening—we had seen him only as part of a show, now we wanted to hear him converse. At length he entered. The nobleness of his figure and simplicity of his manners produced a most agreeable impression on us. His pride, as it ought, has nearly the grace of timidity. Mmede Staël, impressed by a style and manner so little like that of our countrymen, said: "He carries his glory as if it were a nothing." Then, by a quick recall of patriotism, she whispered in my ear: "One must admit, however, that nature never made a great man at less expense." It seemed to me that the whole man was portrayed in these brief remarks.
'You would suppose, after thisdébut, that we had a very pleasant evening: you shall judge. The Duke had not reached the end of the salon, when the Abbé de Pradt fastened on him, and actually forced him to listen for at least three-quarters of an hour, while he expressed his ideas—the ideas of the Abbé de Pradt!—upon military tactics. Conceive the wrath of Mmede Staël, and the annoyance of everybody there! M. Schlegel said, that he could fancy he was listening to that rhetorician who pronounced a discourse on the art of war to Hannibal.
'This remark did not make amends for the nuisance of hearing in good French what we all knew before, when what we wanted was to listen to new things, in a foreign accent. Among the very few words which the English general was allowed to put in, I caught one sentence which struck me. While the abbé took breath, or coughed, the warrior had just time to tell us, that the most awful day in the life of a commander is that in which he has gained a battle; because, before having passed a night on the ground, and being assured on the morrow of the departure of the enemy, the conqueror cannot even know whether he is not conquered.
'Everything has its cost in this world, and if every man told us his secret, we should see that the most dazzling triumphs are paid for at their full price. However that may be, I thought there was sense and good taste in the Duke's remark. It seemed as if he tried to make us forgive him for exciting our curiosity so much.
'Many people went away discouraged by the bad manners of M. de Pradt. The hero himself was thinking of a retreat, when Mmede Staël came to release him from the ambuscade into which he had fallen. She retained him near the door, and there was a grave conversation on the English constitution. Mmede Staël could not reconcile the idea of political liberty, with the prevalence of servile forms remaining in the individual relationships of a society so jealous of that liberty as England.
'"Language and aristocratic customs do not annoy people living in a country that is really free," said the Duke. "We use these unimportant formulæ in compliment to the past, and preserve our ceremonies as we keep a memorial, even when it has lost its primitive destination."
'"But is it true," asked Mmede Staël, "that your lord chancellor speaks to the king on his bended knee during the opening address or sitting of parliament?"
'"Yes; quite true."
'"Howdoeshe do it?"
'"He speaks to him kneeling, as I have told you."
'"But how?"
'"Must I shew you? Youwillhave it!" answered the Duke; and he threw himself at the feet of our Corinna.
'"I wish everybody could see him," cried Mmede Staël.
'And everybody there did applaud with one accord. I would not answer for the same unanimity of approbation among the same people after they had reached the foot of the staircase.
'Everybody went away, only I stayed two hours with the mistress of the house and M. Schlegel, whose anger against the abbé did not wear out. These two hours Mmede Staël's conversation enchanted me, proving how much there is to attach us in one who can live at one and the same time so near and yet so far above the world.... I might pass many evenings in recounting in detail the conversation of this evening. There is more than matter for a book in a two hours' talk with Mmede Staël. I had better go to bed, that I may be able to tell you to-morrow all I can only leave you to guess at now.'[3]
And now we come to a later period, and MmeSophie Gay shall give place to her lively and clever daughter Delphine, MmeEmile Girardin.
'Parisian society,' she writes, 'now, in 1839, offers the strangest aspect that ever was seen—a mixture of luxury and rudeness, English propriety and French negligence, political absurdities and revolutionaryterrors, of which it is hard to form a just conception. The luxury of the salons is truly Eastern, not only the salons, indeed, but the anterooms: an anteroom in a handsome hotel is more richly adorned than the most beautiful drawing-room of the provincial prefecture. There, footmen more or less powdered—for there are rebels who choose to wear so little powder, that you would rather take them for millers, in livery, than for servants of the anteroom—these self-styled powdered lackeys offer you a great book, bound in velvet, with the corners bronzed and gilt, in which you are asked to write your name. If the lady of the house is visible, you are pompously ushered into the sanctuary—that is to say, into the second salon or parlour, or closet, oratelier, whichever best assorts with the pretensions of the lady. A dog darts upon you, barks, makes a show of biting you; he is quieted, submits, and regains his purple cushion, growling. Dogs are very much in fashion: together with the fire, flowers, an old aunt, and two toadies, they make up part of the living accompaniments of a genteel salon. As you are an elegant person, of course you are ill-dressed: your coat is dusty, your boots speckled with mud, your hair uncombed, you exhale a strong odour of tobacco. At first glance, such things seem rather disagreeable, common, and inelegant. No such thing: this is exactly the most fashionable style we have; it seems to say: "I have just dismounted from the finest horse in Paris. I am a man of fashion, of that distinguished position in society, that I can go in a morning to call on a duchess,dressed like a highwayman."
'On the other hand, the mistress of the house is charming. One must do women the justice to say, that they never take a pride in ugliness; that they never make elegance to consist in appearing to the greatest possible disadvantage. The woman whom you are visiting, then, is dressed in the best taste. A beautiful lace cap covers her light hair; she wears a soft figured Gros do Naples; her stockings are of exquisite fineness; her shoes irreproachable (we doubt not they bear the mark of either Gros or Müller); her Valenciennes cuffs are irresistible: everything betokens care and fastidious nicety. The freshness of her appearance is a satire on the negligence of yours. One cannot comprehend why this elegant woman should have prepared herself in so costly a manner to receive this man; and in the evening, really the contrast is greater still. Young men no longer wear stockings when they go into a party; yet they dare not just yet present themselves in boots; and therefore they come inbrodequins, like students. We are in the age of thejuste-milieu; and this is appropriate enough. Thebrodequinis in its right place half-way between shoes and boots. These ill-dressed men are surrounded by women blazing in jewels and diamonds, coronets and diadems. It is impossible to believe that such differently dressed beings can be of the same country and station in society; and yet they are all talking and chirping together: and what conversation! what a conflict of subjects! what an inexplicable picture of forethought and thoughtlessness! or rather of apathy!
'"And do you also believe in a revolution, M. de P——?" inquires a charming princess, spreading out her fan.
'"Certainly, madame; and I hope we shall have one sooner than some may think."
'"What! monsieur—you make me tremble."
'"Can you, then, be afraid of a revolution which will bring about what you wish for?"
'"No; but we shall have some cruel moments to pass through."
'"Some may; but not everybody."
'"Bah! revolutions make no selection; and then, when once the scaffold is set up"——
'"How fast you travel, madame: in our day we shall never bear with scaffolds. The days of Terror will never return!"
'"I think with M. de P——," chimes in a young dandy, playing with a Chinese ape on the table: "I rather look for civil war."
'"I do not expect it; we have not energy enough for a civil war." ...
'"But you will have household assassinations, probably, if that will be any comfort."
'"And then, the pillage of Paris!"
'"Pillage!"
'"Certainly." And every one cries:
'"Oh, well, if there is pillage, I will be in it."
'"I shall come to your house, madame," says one. "I shall carry away this beautiful vase."
'"And I, the plate."
'"And I, the charming portrait."
'"I have no fixed idea yet. I shall come to your house to-morrow, madame, to choose," &c.
'"All this will be very amusing; and yet, when the day comes, I shall not be sorry to be in Italy."
'"Well, let us set out, then."
'"Not yet, but soon. I will warn you when it is best to go." And so they talk on of all these horrible things, half buried under canopies oflampas, surrounded by flowers, by the light of thousands of wax-candles burning in golden lustres; and these women, who foresee such great catastrophes—tragical events, which may divide them from all they love, from parents, from friends—have beautiful dresses, with trimmings from England, and make the prettiest little gestures while speaking. It is because in France vanity is so deeply rooted that it leads to indifference. Presumption stands in lieu of courage. They believe in disasters, but only for others: they never seem to expect them for themselves.'
So much for national character. If all this be a truthful picture, and really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded the limits we had assigned to it; and the things thataremust ever prevail in our pages over those that have been.
FOOTNOTES:[3]Perhaps the reader of the above will partake our own feeling of surprise at one circumstance which it records. How happened it, that the accomplished lady of a Parisian salon could not shield her chief guest, and all her guests, from the impertinence of one among them? To us this seems incomprehensible, and excites our suspicion that Mmede Staël could not have been among those mistresses of the science of tact, of whom elsewhere MmeGay speaks. The whole charm of the evening was here allowed to be spoiled.
[3]Perhaps the reader of the above will partake our own feeling of surprise at one circumstance which it records. How happened it, that the accomplished lady of a Parisian salon could not shield her chief guest, and all her guests, from the impertinence of one among them? To us this seems incomprehensible, and excites our suspicion that Mmede Staël could not have been among those mistresses of the science of tact, of whom elsewhere MmeGay speaks. The whole charm of the evening was here allowed to be spoiled.
[3]Perhaps the reader of the above will partake our own feeling of surprise at one circumstance which it records. How happened it, that the accomplished lady of a Parisian salon could not shield her chief guest, and all her guests, from the impertinence of one among them? To us this seems incomprehensible, and excites our suspicion that Mmede Staël could not have been among those mistresses of the science of tact, of whom elsewhere MmeGay speaks. The whole charm of the evening was here allowed to be spoiled.
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Thefather of mental philosophy, Aristotle, begins his work on ethics by telling us, that nothing exists without some theory or reason attached to it. The following out of this view leads to classification—that great engine of knowledge. We see things at first in isolated individuality or confused masses. Investigation teaches us to separate them into groups, which have some common and important principle of unity, though each individual of the group may be different from the others in detail. Thus we arrive at the great classifications of natural science, with which every one is more or less familiar. But the works of men have their classification too, for in human effort like causes produce like effects. Most people know what schools of poetry, painting, and music are. In architecture, we know, too, that there are great divisions—such as classic and Gothic. But many have yet to learn how far classification may go; and it is a new feature to have the peculiar national architecture of Scotland separated from that of England, and its peculiarities traced to interesting national events and habits. The common observer is apt to think that all buildings are much alike, or that each is alone in its peculiarities. Before classification can take place, there must be a collection and comparison of leading characteristics;and this is not easily accomplished with the edifices scattered over a whole country. It may be said that it was never done for Scotland, until Mr Billings completed his great series of engravings of the baronial and ecclesiastical antiquities of Scotland.
Taking the former—the baronial—for our text, we find ourselves now for the first time in a condition to discover the leading features of the Scottish school of architecture, and to connect it with the history of Scotland. We know that until the wars of Wallace and Bruce, the two countries, England and Scotland, could scarcely be said to be entirely separated; at all events, they did not stand in open hostility to each other. Endless animosities, however, naturally followed a war in which the one country tried to enslave the other, and where the weaker only escaped annihilation by a desperate struggle. It is not unnatural, therefore, to expect that the habits of the two countries diverged from each other as time passed on; and this process is very distinctly shewn in the character of the edifices used by the barons and lairds of Scotland. A very few of the oldest strongholds resemble those of the same period in England. The English baronial castle of the thirteenth century generally consisted of several massive square or round towers, broad at the base, and tapering upwards, arranged at distances from each other, so that lofty embattled walls or curtains stood between them, making a ground-plan of which the towers formed the angles. The doors and windows were generally in the Gothic or pointed style of architecture, and the vaulted chambers were frequently of the same. There are not above three or four such edifices in Scotland. The most complete, perhaps, is the old part of Caerlaverock, in Dumfriesshire; another fine specimen is Dirleton, in East Lothian; and to these may be added Bothwell, in Clydesdale, and Kildrummie, in Aberdeenshire.
This style was long followed in England. It is known as the baronial, and architects in all parts of the country, when building a modern mansion in the castellated manner, have invariably followed it. It is easy to see, however, that it was early abandoned in Scotland, the people not taking their forms of architecture from a nation with which they had no connection but that of hostility. The first species of national baronial architecture to which they resorted was a very simple one, characteristic of an impoverished people. It consisted of little more than four stone walls, forming what in fortification is called a blockhouse. The walls were extremely thick, with few apertures, and these suspiciously small. But these old towers or keeps were not without some scientific preparations for defence. In the more ancient baronial castles, the large square or round towers at the angles served to flank the walls or curtains between them; that is, supposing an enemy to be approaching the main gate, he could be attacked on either side from the towers at the angles. To serve the same purpose, the Scottish keeps had small bastions or turrets at the corners, which, projecting over the wall, flanked it on each face. The simple expedient here adopted is at the root of all the complex devices of fortification. The main thing is just to build a strong edifice, and then, by flanking outworks, to prevent an enemy from getting up to it. In other respects, these square towers were scarcely to be considered peculiarly Scottish. They are to be found in all parts of the world—along the Wall of China; in the Russian steppes; in Italy, where they are sometimes remains of republican Rome; and in Central India. They constitute, in fact, the most primitive form of a fortified house.
When we come a century or two later, the difference between the English and Scottish styles becomes more distinct and interesting. Almost every one is acquainted with that beautiful style of building called in England the Tudor or Elizabethan, with its decorated chimneys, its ornamented gables, and large oriel or bow windows. It is not well suited for defence, and denotes a rich country, where private warfare has decayed. This class of edifice is rarely, if at all, to be found north of the border; but much as it is to be admired, a contemporary style sprang up in Scotland entirely distinct from it, yet, in our opinion, quite fitted to rival it in interest and beauty. It was derived, in some measure, from Flanders, but chiefly from France. The Scots naturally looked to their friends as an example, rather than to their enemies. Many of the Scottish gentry made their fortunes in the French service, and when they came home, naturally desired to imitate, on such a scale as they could afford, the châteaux of their allies and patrons. The state of the country, too, made it a more suitable pattern than the Tudor style. France was still a country of feudal warfare—so was Scotland; and it was necessary in both to have defence associated with ornament. The chief peculiarity of this new style was, the quantity of sharp-topped turrets, which form a sort of crest to the many details of the lower parts of the buildings. These are not solely ornamental; they succeeded the bastions of the old square towers, and served the same purpose. Among the secondary peculiarities of these buildings, may be counted an extremely rich and profuse ornamentation of the upper parts—probably the only portions out of the way of mischief. Indeed, the edifice is sometimes a mere square block for two or three storeys, while it is crowned, as it were, with a rich group of turrets and minarets, gables, window-tops, ornamented chimneys, and gilded vanes. In many instances, the great square block of older days received this fantastic French termination at a later time—as, for instance, the famous castle of Glammis, in Strathmore.
It almost appears as if this style, which has its own peculiar beauties, had been adopted out of a national antagonism to the contemporary style in England. The Tudor architecture has always a horizontal tendency, spreading itself out in broad open screens or wall-plates, diversified by occasional angular eminences—as, for instance, in the tops of the decorated windows. But in the Gallo-Scottish style everything tends to the perpendicular, not only in the long, narrow shapes of the buildings themselves, and their tall, spiral turrets, but in the many decorations which incrust them. This decoration has an extremely rich look, from the quantity of breaks, and the absence of bare wall or long straight lines. Thus, to save the uniform plainness of the straight gable-line, it is broken into small gradations called 'crow-steps.' Every one who looks at old houses in Scotland must be familiar with this feature, and must have noticed its picturesqueness. It appears to have been derived from the Flemish houses, where, however, the steps or terraces are much larger, and not so effective, since, instead of merely breaking and enriching the line of the gable, they break it up, as it were, into separate pieces.
The Scottish style has not, indeed, slavishly adopted any foreign model. It is, as we have remarked, chieflyadopted from the French; but it has characteristics and beauties of its own. No one, we believe, had any conception of their extent and variety, until they were brought to light by the artistic labours of Mr Billings. In some instances, to bring out the full effect of the ornamental parts of these buildings without overloading his picture with the more cumbrous plain stone-work, he brings forward, by some artistic manœuvre, the crest of the building, as if the spectator saw it from a scaffold or a balloon level with the highest storey. The effect of the rich Oriental-looking mass of decoration thus concentrated is extremely striking, and one is apt to ask, if it is possible that the country so often characterised as bare, cold, and impoverished, could have produced these gorgeous edifices. Their number and distribution through the most remote parts of the land are equally remarkable. Among Mr Billings's specimens, we have, in the southern part of Scotland, Pinkie, near Musselburgh; Auchans and Kelburn, in Ayrshire; Newark, on the Clyde; Airth and Argyle's Lodging, in Stirling. Going northward, we come to Elcho and Glammis, and to Muchalls and Crathes, in Kincardineshire. It is remarkable, that the further north we go, the French style becomes more conspicuous and complete. Many of the finest specimens are to be found in Aberdeenshire. Fyvie Castle, which was built for a Scottish chancellor—Seton, Earl of Dunfermline—is almost a complete French château of the sixteenth century, such as the traveller may have seen in sunny Guienne or Anjou; and there it stands transplanted, like an exotic, among the bleak hills of the north. It is only natural to find in connection with such a circumstance, that Seton received his education in France, and passed a considerable part of his life there. Whether from such an example or not, the Aberdeenshire lairds seem to have been all ambitious of possessing French châteaux; and thus in the county of primitive rock, where there is certainly little else to remind us of French habits or ideas, we have some admirable specimens of that foreign architectural school in Castle Fraser, Craigievar, Midmar, Tolquhon, Dalpersie, and Udny. Nearer Inverness, we have Balveny, Castle-Stewart, and Cawdor.
The same foreign influence is exhibited in our street architecture, some specimens of which are engraved in the work to which we have referred.[4]Every one knows that the lofty Scottish edifices with common stairs—houses built above each other, in fact—give our large towns a character totally different from those of England; but it is equally clear that the practice was derived from France, where it is still in full observance literally among all classes, since the different social grades occupy separate floors of the same edifices. In thecoup d'étatof 1851, it will be remembered, that in making the arrests of the leading men supposed to be inimical to Louis Napoleon, one of the difficulties—as the affair took place at midnight—was to know the floors in which they lived; for these great statesmen and generals inhabited houses with common stairs.
We have here discussed one special feature of Mr Billings's work, on account of the remarks which it suggests; but it is only right to mention, before parting with it, that it contains engravings of every thing that is remarkable in the ancient architecture of Scotland, whether it be called civil and baronial or ecclesiastical. Certainly, the remains of antiquity in North Britain were never previously so amply and completely illustrated. Nor is it without reason, that some contemporary critics have maintained this to be the most entire collection of the sort which any nation possesses. The chief merits of the views consist in their accuracy and effect. They are wonderfully clear and minute, so that every detail of the least importance is brought out as distinctly as in a model, while this is accomplished without sacrifice of their artistic effect as pictures.
FOOTNOTES:[4]Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland. By William Burn and W. Billings. 4 vols. 4to. Blackwoods, Edinburgh.
[4]Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland. By William Burn and W. Billings. 4 vols. 4to. Blackwoods, Edinburgh.
[4]Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland. By William Burn and W. Billings. 4 vols. 4to. Blackwoods, Edinburgh.
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Aboutseventy-five years ago, there was at Charleston, in South Carolina, a family consisting of several members. It belonged to the middle class—that is to say, contained barristers, bankers, merchants, solicitors, and so on—all of them animated, at least so far as appears, by a high sense of honour and integrity. But noble sentiments are no certain guarantee against poverty. One of the members of the family in question became embarrassed, borrowed L.1000 of one of his relatives, but was soon after seized with paralysis, and, having kept his bed five years, died, leaving behind him a widow with several children. He could bequeath them no property, instead of which they received as their inheritance high principles, and a strong affection for the memory of their father. The widow also was, in this respect, perfectly in harmony with her sons. By dint, therefore, of prudence, industry, and economy, they amassed among them the sum of L.400, which they rigidly appropriated to the repayment of a part of their father's debt. The old man had, indeed, called them together around his death-bed, and told them that, instead of a fortune, he left them a duty to perform; and that if it could not be accomplished in one generation, it must be handed down from father to son, until the descendants of the B——s had paid every farthing to the descendants of the S——s.
While matters stood in this predicament, the creditor part of the family removed to England, and the debtors remained at Charleston, struggling with difficulties and embarrassments, which not only disabled them from paying the paternal debt, but kept them perpetually in honourable poverty. Of course, the wish to pay in such minds survived the ability. It would have been to them an enjoyment of a high order to hunt out their relatives in England, and place in their hands the owing L.600. This pleasure, which they were destined never to taste, often formed the subject of conversation around their fireside; and the children, as they grew up, were initiated into the mystery of the L.600.
But that generation passed away, and another succeeded to the liability; not that there existed any liability in law, for though a deed had been executed, it had lapsed in the course of time, so that there was really no obligation but that which was the strongest of all—an uneradicable sense of right. Often and often did the B——s of Charleston meet and consult together on this famous debt, which every one wished, but no one could afford, to pay. The sons were married, and had children whom it was incumbent on them to support; the daughters had married, too, but their husbands possibly did not acquire with their wives the chivalrous sense of duty which possessed the breast of every member, male and female, of the B. family, and inspired them with a wish to do justice when fortune permitted.
It would be infinitely agreeable to collect and peruse the letters and records of consultations which passed or took place between the members of this family on the subject of the L.600. These documents would form the materials of one of the most delightful romances in the world—the romance of honour, which never dies in some families, but is transmitted from generation to generation like a treasure above all price. When this brief notice is read in Charleston, it may possibly lead to the collection of these materials, which, with the proper names of all the persons engaged, should, we think, be laid before the world as a pleasing record of hereditary nobility of sentiment.
After the lapse of many years, a widow and her three nephews found themselves in possession of thenecessary means for paying the family debt. Three-quarters of a century had elapsed. The children and the children's children of the original borrower had passed away; but the honour of the B. family had been transmitted intact to the fourth generation, and a search was immediately commenced to discover the creditors in England. This, however, as may well be supposed, was no easy task. The members of the S. family had multiplied and separated, married and intermarried, become poor and wealthy, distinguished and obscure by turns, changed their topographical as well as their social position, and disappeared entirely from the spot they had occupied on their first arrival from America.
But honour is indefatigable, and by degrees a letter reached a person in Kensington, who happened to possess some knowledge of a lady of the S. family, married to a solicitor practising with great success and distinction in London. When the letter came to hand, she at first doubted whether it might not be a sort of grave hoax, intended to excite expectation for the pleasure of witnessing its disappointment. However, the English solicitor, accustomed to the incidents of life, thought there would at least be no harm in replying to the letter from Charleston, and discovering in this way the real state of the affair.
Some delay necessarily occurred, especially as the B. family in America were old world sort of people, accustomed to transact business slowly and methodically, and with due attention to the minutest points. But at length a reply came, in which the writer observed, that if a deed of release were drawn up, signed by all the parties concerned in England, and transmitted to America, the L.600 should immediately be forwarded for distribution among the members of the S. family. Some demur now arose. Some of the persons concerned growing prudent as the chances of recovering the money appeared to multiply, thought it would be wrong to send the deed of release before the money had been received. But the solicitor had not learned, in the practice of his profession, to form so low an estimate of human nature. He considered confidence in this case to be synonymous with prudence, and at anyrate resolved to take upon himself the entire responsibility of complying with the wishes of the Americans. He accordingly drew up the necessary document, got it signed by as many as participated in his views, and sent it across the Atlantic, without the slightest doubt or hesitation. There had been something in the rough, blunt honesty of Mr B——'s letter that inspired in the man of law the utmost reliance on his faith, though during the interval which elapsed between the transmission of the deed and the reception of an answer from the States, several of his friends exhibited a disposition to make themselves merry at the expense of his chivalry. But when we consider all the particulars of the case, we can hardly fail to perceive that he ran no risk whatever; for even if the debt had not legally lapsed, the people who had retained it in their memory through three generations—who had from father to son practised strict economy in order to relieve themselves from the burden—who had, with much difficulty and some expense, sought out the heirs of their creditor in a distant country, could scarcely be suspected of any inclination to finish off with a fraud at last.
Still, if there was honour on one side, there was enlarged confidence on the other; and in the course of a few months, the American mail brought to London the famous L.600 due since before the War of Independence. The business now was to divide and distribute it. Of course, each of the creditors was loud in expressions of admiration of the honour of the B. family, whose representative, while forwarding the money, asked with much simplicity to have a few old English newspapers sent out to him by way of acknowledgment. For his own part, however, he experienced a strong desire to behold some of the persons to whom he had thus paid a debt of the last century; and he gave a warm and pressing invitation to any of them, to come out and stay as long as they thought proper at his house in Charleston. Had the invitation been accepted, we cannot doubt that Brother Jonathan would have acted as hospitably in the character of host as he behaved honourably in that of debtor. It would have been a pleasure, we might indeed say a distinction, to live under the same roof with such a man, whose very name carries us back to the primitive times of the colony, when Charleston was a city of the British Empire, and English laws, manners, habits, and feelings regulated the proceedings and relations of its inhabitants. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the London solicitor will some day drop in quietly upon his friend in Charleston, to smoke a cigar, and discuss old times with him. He will in that case probably fancy himself chatting with a contemporary of Rip Van Winkle. Doubtless there are thousands of such men in the States, where frequently everything that is estimable in the English character is cultivated with assiduity.
How the property was distributed among the S. family in England, we need not say. Each surviving individual had his or her share. The solicitor was only connected with them by marriage; but with good old English ideas of uprightness and integrity, he was fully able to appreciate the Charleston lawyer's sentiments. He would have done exactly the same himself under similar circumstances; and therefore, had the sum been tens of thousands instead of hundreds, it could not be said to have fallen into bad hands. Whether the transaction above noticed has led or not to a continued correspondence between the families, we are unable to say; but we think the creditors in England would naturally have felt a pleasure in exchanging intelligence from time to time with their worthy debtors in Charleston. These things, however, are private, and therefore we do not intend to trench upon them.
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Itis not many years since Mr Ward first drew the attention of botanists to the cultivation of plants in closely-glazed cases; but the most sanguine dreams of the discoverer could not then have foretold the many useful purposes to which the Wardian Case has become applicable, nor the important influence which it was destined to obtain in promoting the pleasant pursuits of gardening and botany. The Wardian Case has been instrumental in diffusing a love of these pursuits among all classes of society. It has opened up to those whose pursuits confine them within the limits of the city's smoke-cloud, a means whereby they may obtain 'a peep at nature, if they can no more.' Far removed from green fields and leafy woods, they may, for instance, enjoy their leisure mornings in watching one of the most beautiful phenomena of vegetable development—the evolution of the circinate fronds of the fern; a plant in every respect associated with elegance and beauty. This kind of gardening has, therefore, become of late years one of the most fashionable, while at the same time one of the most pleasant sources of domestic amusement.
An interesting companion to the Wardian Case has lately been presented in the Aquatic Plant Case, or Parlour Aquarium, due to the ingenuity of Mr Warington, and which has for its object, as its name indicates, the cultivation of aquatic or water plants. It may be described as a combination of the Wardian Case and the gold-fish globe, the object being to illustrate the mutual dependence of animal and vegetable life. Mr Warington has lately detailed his experiments. 'The small gold-fish were placed in a glass-receiver of about twelve gallons' capacity, having a cover of thin muslin stretched over a stout copper wire, bent into acircle, placed over its mouth, so as to exclude as much as possible the sooty dust of the London atmosphere, without, at the same time, impeding the free passage of the atmospheric air. This receiver was about half-filled with ordinary spring-water, and supplied at the bottom with sand and mud, together with loose stones of limestone tufa from Matlock, and of sandstone: these were arranged so that the fish could get below.... A small plant ofVallisneria spiraliswas introduced, its roots being inserted in the mud and sand, and covered by one of the loose stones, so as to retain the plant in its position.... The materials being thus arranged, all appeared to go on well for a short time, until circumstances occurred which indicated that another and very material agent was required to perfect the adjustment.' The decaying leaves of the vallisneria produced a slime which began to affect the fish injuriously: this it was necessary to get quit of. Mr Warington introduced five or six snails (Limnea stagnalis), 'which soon removed the nuisance, and restored the fish to a healthy state; thus perfecting the balance between the animal and vegetable inhabitants, and enabling both to perform their functions with health and energy. So luxuriant was the growth of the vallisneria under these circumstances, that by the autumn the one solitary plant originally introduced had thrown out very numerous offshoots and suckers, thus multiplying to the extent of upwards of thirty-five strong plants, and these threw up their long spiral flower-stems in all directions, so that at one time more than forty blossoms were counted lying on the surface of the water. The fish have been lively, bright in colour, and appear very healthy; and the snails also—judging from the enormous quantities of gelatinous masses of eggs which they have deposited on all parts of the receiver, as well as on the fragments of stone—appear to thrive wonderfully, affording a large quantity of food to the fish in the form of the young snails, which are devoured as soon as they exhibit signs of vitality and locomotion, and before their shell has become hardened.'
In remarking upon the result of his experiments, Mr Warington observes: 'Thus we have that admirable balance sustained between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and that in a liquid element. The fish, in its respiration, consumes the oxygen held in solution by the water as atmospheric air, furnishes carbonic acid, feeds on the insects and young snails, and excretes material well adapted as a rich food to the plant, and well fitted for its luxuriant growth. The plant, by its respiration, consumes the carbonic acid produced by the fish, appropriating the carbon to the construction of its tissues and fibres, and liberates the oxygen in its gaseous state to sustain the healthy functions of the animal life; at the same time that it feeds on the rejected matter, which has fulfilled its purposes in the nourishment of the fish and snail, and preserves the water constantly in a clean and healthy condition. While the slimy snail, finding its proper nutriment in the decomposing vegetable matter and minute confervoid growth, prevents their accumulation by removing them; and by its vital powers converts what would otherwise act as a poison into a rich and fruitful nutriment, again to constitute a pabulum for the vegetable growth, while it also acts the important part of a purveyor to its finny neighbours.'[5]This perfect adjustment in the economy of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, whereby the vital functions of each are permanently maintained, is one of the most beautiful phenomena of organic nature.
The Parlour Aquarium affords valuable, we might say invaluable, facilities to the naturalist in the prosecution of his researches. The botanist can now conveniently watch the development of aquatic plants under conditionsnotunnatural, throughout the entire period of their existence, from their germination to the production of flowers and the perfection of seeds; and we are in hopes that much of the obscurity that invests many aquatic vegetables will in consequence be cleared up. The zoologist is perhaps even more indebted to the invention. The habits, not only of the fishes, but of the mollusca, can be accurately studied under natural conditions, and many important facts of their history ascertained and illustrated. The water-beetles and other aquatic insects will also come in for a share of attention.
In concluding his paper in theGarden Companion(i. p. 7), Mr Warington states, that he is at present attempting a similar arrangement with a confined portion of sea-water, employing some of the green sea-weeds as the vegetable members of the circle, and the common winkle or whelk to represent the water-snails. In a Report of the Yorkshire Naturalist's Club, November 5, 1851,[6]we observe it stated, that Mr Charlesworth read an extract from a letter from a gentleman in America, detailing some successful experiments on keeping marine molluscs alive in sea-water for months; but our inquiries have not been successful in eliciting any further information on the subject.
Experiments of our own have led to the conclusion, that some families of aquatic plants are altogether unsuitable for the Parlour Aquarium—such as, potamogeton, chara, &c., which very soon communicate a putrescent odour to the water in which they are grown, rendering it highly disagreeable in a sitting-room.