We landed on the pier at Southampton about one, and found ourselves truly in England. "Boat, sir, boat?" "Coach, sir, coach?" "London, sir, London?"—"No; we have need of neither!"—"Thank'ee, sir—thank'ee, sir." These few words, in one sense, are an epitome of England. They rang in our ears for the first five minutes after landing. Pressing forward for a livelihood, a multitude of conveniences, a choice of amusements, and a trained, but a heartless and unmeaning civility. "No; I do not want a boat." "Thank'ee, sir." You are just as much "thank'ee" if you do not employ the man as if you did. You are thanked for condescending to give an order, for declining, for listening. It is plain to see that such thanks dwell only on the lips. And yet we so easily get to be sophisticated; words can be so readily made to supplant things; deference, however unmeaning, is usually so grateful, that one soon becomes accustomed to all this, and even begins to complain that he is not imposed on.
We turned into the first clean-looking inn that offered. It was called the Vine, and though a second-rate house, for Southampton even, we were sufficiently well served. Everything was neat, and the waiter, an old man with a powdered bead, was as methodical as a clock, and a most busy servitor to human wants. He told me he had been twenty-eight years doing exactly the same things daily, and in precisely the same place. Think of a man crying "Coming, sir," and setting table, for a whole life, within an area of forty feet square! Truly, this was not America.
The principal street in Southampton, though making a sweep, is a broad, clean avenue, that is lined with houses having, with very few exceptions, bow-windows, as far as an ancient gate, a part of the old defences of the town. Here the High-street is divided into "Above-bar" and "Below-bar". The former is much the most modern, and promises to be an exceedingly pretty place when a little more advanced. "Below-bar" is neat and agreeable too. The people appeared singularly well dressed, after New York. The women, though less fashionably attired than our own, taking the Paris modes for the criterion, were in beautiful English chintzes, spotlessly neat, and the men all looked as if they had been born with hat-brushes and clothes-brushes in their hands, and yet every one was in a sort of seashorecostume. I saw many men whom my nautical instinct detected at once to be naval officers,—some of whom must have been captains,—in round-abouts; but it was quite impossible to criticise toilettes that were so faultlessly neat, and so perfectly well arranged.
We ordered dinner, and sallied forth in quest of lodgings. Southampton is said to be peculiar for "long passages, bow-windows, and old maids." I can vouch that it merits the two first distinctions. The season had scarcely commenced, and we had little difficulty in obtaining rooms, the bow-window and long passage included. These lodgings comprise one or more drawing-rooms, the requisite number of bed-rooms, and the use of the kitchen. The people of the house, ordinarily tradespeople, do the cooking and furnish the necessary attendance. We engaged an extra servant, and prepared to take possession that evening.
When we returned to the Vine, we found a visitor in this land of strangers. Mrs. R——, of New York, a relative and an old friend, had heard that Americans of our name were there, and she came doubting and hoping to the Vine. We found that the windows of our own drawing-room looked directly into those of hers. A few doors below us dwelt Mrs. L——, a still nearer relative; and a few days later, we hadvis-à-vis, Mrs. M'A——, a sister of A——'s, on whom we all laid eyes for the first time in our lives! Such little incidents recall to mind the close consanguinity of the two nations; although for myself, I have always felt as a stranger in England. This has not been so much from the want of kindness and a community of opinion many subjects, as from a consciousness, that in the whole of that great nation, there is not a single individual with whom I could claim affinity. And yet, with a slight exception, we are purely of English extraction. Our father was the great-great-grandson of an Englishman. I once met with a man, (an Englishman,) who bore so strong a resemblance to him, in stature, form, walk, features and expression, that I actually took the trouble to ascertain his name. He even had our own. I had no means of tracing the matter any farther; but here was physical evidence to show the affinity between the two people. On the other hand, A—— comes of the Huguenots. She is purely American by every intermarriage, from the time of Louis the Fourteenth down, and yet she found cousins in England at every turn, and even a child of the same parents, who was as much of an Englishwoman as she herself was an American.
We drank to the happiness of America, at dinner. That day, fifty years, she declared herself a nation; that very day, and nearly at that hour, two of the co-labourers in the great work we celebrated, departed in company for the world of spirits!
A day or two was necessary to become familiarized to the novel objects around us, and my departure for London was postponed. We profited by the delay, to visit Netley Abbey, a ruin of some note, at no great distance from Southampton. The road was circuitous, and we passed several pretty country-houses, few of which exceeded in size or embellishments, shrubbery excepted, similar dwellings at home. There was one, however, of an architecture much more ancient than we had been accustomed to see, it being, by all appearance, of the time of Elizabeth or James. It had turrets and battlements, but was otherwise plain.
The abbey was a fine, without being a very imposing, ruin, standing in the midst of a field of English neatness, prettily relieved by woods. The window already mentioned formed the finest part. The effect of these ruins on us proved the wonderful power of association. The greater force of the past than of the future on the mind, can only be the result of questionable causes. Our real concern with the future is incalculably the greatest, and yet we are dreaming over our own graves, on the events and scenes which throw a charm around the graves of those who have gone before us! Had we seen Netley Abbey, just as far advanced towards completion, as it was, in fact, advanced towards decay, our speculations would have been limited by a few conjectures on its probable appearance; but gazing at it as we did, we peopled its passages, imagined Benedictines stalking along its galleries, and fancied that we heard the voices of the choir, pealing among its arches.
Our fresh American feelings were strangely interrupted by the sounds of junketing. A party of Southampton cockneys, (there are cockneys even in New York,) having established themselves on the grass, in one of the courts, were lighting a fire, and were deliberately proceeding to make tea! "To tea, and ruins," the invitations most probably run. We retreated into a little battery of the bluff King Hal, that was near by, a work that sufficiently proved the state of nautical warfare in the sixteenth century.
Road to London.—Royal Pastime.—Cockney Coachman.—Winchester Assizes.—Approach to London.—The Parks.—Piccadilly.—Street Excursion.—Strangers in London.—Americans in England.—Westminster Abbey.—Gothic Decorations.—Westminster Hall.—Inquisitive Barber.—Pastaand Malibran.—Drury-lane Theatre.—A Pickpocket.—A Fellow-traveller.—English Gentlemen.—A Radical.—Encampment of Gipsies.—NationalDistinctions.—Antiquities.—National Peculiarities.
To R. COOPER, ESQ. COOPERSTOWN.
At a very early hour one of the London coaches stopped at the door. I had secured a seat by the side of the coachman, and we went through the "bar" at a round trot. The distance was about sixty miles, and I had paid a guinea for my place. There were four or five other passengers, all on the outside.
The road between Southampton and London is one of little interest; even the highway itself is not as good as usual, for the first twenty or thirty miles, being made chiefly of gravel, instead of broken stones. The soil for a long distance was thirsty, and the verdure was nearly gone. England feels a drought sooner than most countries, probably from the circumstances of its vegetation being so little accustomed to the absence of moisture, and to the comparative lightness of the dews. The winds, until just before the arrival of the Hudson, had been blowing from the eastward for several weeks, and in England this is usually a dry wind. The roads were dusty, the hedges were brown, and the fields had nothing to boast of over our own verdure. Indeed, it is unusual to see the grasses of New York so much discoloured, so early in the season.
I soon established amicable relations with my companion on the box. He had been ordered at the Vine to stop for an American, and he soon began to converse about the new world. "Is America anywhere near Van Diemen's Land?" was one of his first questions. I satisfied him on this head, and he apologised for the mistake, by explaining that he had a sister settled in Van Diemen's Land, and he had a natural desire to know something about her welfare! We passed a house which had more the air of a considerable place than any I had yet seen, though of far less architectural pretensions than the miniature castle near Cowes. This, my companion informed me, had once been occupied by George IV. when Prince of Wales. "Here his Royal Highness enjoyed what I call the perfection of life, sir; women, wine, and fox-hunting!" added the professor of the whip, with the leer of a true amateur.
These coachmen are a class by themselves. They have no concern with grooming the horses, and keep the reins for a certain number of relays. They dress in a particular way, without being at all in livery or uniform, like the continental postilions, talk in a particular way, and act in a particular way. We changed this personage for another, about half the distance between Southampton and London. His successor proved to be even a still better specimen of his class. He was a thorough cockney, and altogether the superior of his country colleague, he was clearly the oracle of the boys, delivering his sentiments in the manner of one accustomed to dictate to all in and about the stables. In addition to this, there was an indescribable, but ludicrous salvo to his dignity, in the way of surliness. Some one had engaged him to carry a blackbird to town, and caused him to wait. On this subject he sang a Jeremiad in the true cockney key. "He didn't want totakethebla-a-a-ck-bud; but if the man wanted tosendthebla-a-a-ck-bud, why didn't hebringthebla-a-a-ck-bud?" This is one of the hundred dialects of the lower classes of the English. One of the horses of the last team was restiff, and it became necessary to restrain him by an additional curb before we ventured into the streets of London. I intimated that I had known such horses completely subdued in America by filling their ears with cotton. This suggestion evidently gave offence, and he took occasion soon after to show it. He wrung the nose of the horse with a cord, attaching its end below, in the manner of a severe martingale. While going through this harsh process, which, by the way, effectually subdued the animal, he had leisure to tell him that "he was anEnglishhorse, and not anout-landishhorse, andheknew best what was good for him," with a great deal more similar sound nationality.
Winchester was the only town of any importance on the road. It is pleasantly seated in a valley, is of no great size, is but meanly built, though extremely neat, has a cathedral and a bishop, and is the shire-town of Hampshire. The assizes were sitting, and Southampton was full of troops that had been sent from Winchester, in order to comply with a custom which forbids the military to remain near the courts of justice. England is full of these political mystifications, and it is one of the reasons that she is so much in arrears in many of the great essentials. In carrying out the practice in this identical case, a serious private wrong was inflicted, in order that, in form, an abstract and perfectly useless principle might be maintained. The inns at Southampton were filled with troops, who were billeted on the publicans, will ye, nill ye; and not only the masters of the different houses, but travellers were subjected to a great inconvenience, in order that this abstraction might not be violated. There may be some small remuneration, but no one can suppose for a moment, that the keeper of a genteel establishment of this nature wishes to see his carriage-houses, gateways, and halls thronged with soldiers. Society oppresses him to maintain appearances! At the present day the presence of soldiers might be the means of sustaining justice, while there is not the smallest probability that they would be used for contrary purposes, except in cases in which this usage or law—for I believe there is a statue for it—would not be in the least respected. This is not an age, nor is England the country, in which a judge is to be overawed by the roll of a drum. All sacrifices of common sense, and all recourse to plausible political combinations, whether of individuals or of men, are uniformly made at the expense of the majority. The day is certainly arrived when absurdities like these should be done away with.
The weather was oppressively hot, nor do I remember to have suffered more from the sun than during this little journey. Were I to indulge in the traveller's propensity to refer everything to his own state of feeling, you might be told what a sultry place England is in July. But I was too old a sailor not to understand the cause. The sea is always more temperate than the land, being cooler in summer and warmer in winter. After being thirty days at sea, we all feel this truth, either in one way or the other. I was quitting the coast, too, which is uniformly cooler than the interior.
When some twelve or thirteen miles from town, the coachman pointed to a wood enclosed by a wall, on our left. A rill trickled from the thicket, and ran beneath the road. I was told that Virginia Water lay there, and that the evening before a single footpad had robbed a coach in that precise spot, or within a few hundred yards of the very place where the King of England at the moment was amusing himself with the fishing-rod. Highway robberies, however are now of exceedingly rare occurrence, that in question being spoken of as the only one within the knowledge of my informant for many years.
Our rate of travelling was much the same as that of one of our own better sort of stages. The distance was not materially less than that between Albany and C——n; the roads were not so hilly, and much better than our own road; and yet, at the same season, we usually perform it in about the same time that we went the distance between Southampton and London. The scenery was tame, nor, with the exception of Winchester, was there a single object of any interest visible until we got near London. We crossed the Thames, a stream of trifling expanse, and at Kew we had a glimpse of an old German-looking edifice in yellow bricks, with towers, turrets, and battlements. This was one of the royal palaces. It stood on the opposite side of the river, in the midst of tolerably extensive grounds. Here a nearly incessant stream of vehicles commenced. I attempted to count the stage-coaches, and got as high as thirty-three, when we met a line of mail-coaches, that caused me to stop in despair. I think we met not less than fifty within the last hour of our journey. There were seven belonging to the mail in one group. They all leave London at the same hour, for different parts of the kingdom.
At Hyde Park Corner I began to recall objects known in my early visits to London. Apsley House had changed owners, and had become the property of one whose great name was still in the germ, when I had last seen his present dwelling. The Parks, a gateway or two excepted, were unchanged. In the row of noble houses that line Piccadilly—in that hospital-looking edifice, Devonshire House—in the dingy, mean, irregular, and yet interesting front of St. James's—in Brookes's, White's, the Thatched House, and various other historicalmonuments, I saw no change. Buckingham House had disappeared, and an unintelligible pile was rising on its ruins. A noble "palazzo-non-finito" stood at the angle between the Green and St. James's Parks, and here and there I discovered houses of better architecture than London was wont of old to boast. One of the very best of these, I was told, was raised in honour of Mercury, and probably out of his legitimate profits. It is called Crockford's.
Our "bla-a-a-ck-bud" pulled up in the Strand, at the head of Adam-street, Adelphi, and I descended from my seat at his side. An extra shilling brought the glimmering of a surly smile athwart his blubber-cheeks, and we parted in good-humour. My fellow-travellers were all men of no very high class, but they had been civil, and were sufficiently attentive to my wants, when they found I was a stranger, by pointing out objects on the road, and explaining the usages of the inns. One of them had been in America, and he boasted a little of his intimacy with General This and Commodore That. At one time, too, he appeared somewhat disposed to institute comparisons between the two countries, a good deal at our expense, as you may suppose; but as I made no answers, I soon heard him settling it with his companions, that, after all, it was quite natural a man should not like to hear his own country abused; and so he gave the matter up. With this exception, I had no cause of complaint, but, on the contrary, good reason to be pleased.
I was set down at the Adam-street Hotel, a house much frequented by Americans. The respectable woman who has so long kept it received me with quiet civility, saw that I had a room, and promised me a dinner in a few minutes. While the latter was preparing, having got rid of the dust, I went out into the streets. The lamps were just lighted, and I went swiftly along the Strand, recalling objects at every step. In this manner I passed, at a rapid pace, Somerset House, St. Clement's-le-Dane, St. Mary-le-Strand, Temple-bar, Bridge-street, Ludgate-hill, pausing only before St. Paul's. Along the whole of this line I saw but little change. A grand bridge, Waterloo, with a noble approach to it, had been thrown across the river just above Somerset House, but nearly everything else remained unaltered. I believe my manner, and the eagerness with which I gazed at long-remembered objects, attracted attention; for I soon observed I was dogged around the church by a suspicious-looking fellow. He either suspected me of evil, or, attracted by my want of a London air, he meditated evil himself. Knowing my own innocence, I determined to bring the matter to an issue. We were alone, in a retired part of the place, and, first making sure that my watch, wallet, and handkerchief had not already disappeared, I walked directly up to him, and looked him intently in the face, as if to recognize his features. He took the hint, and, turning on his heels, moved nimbly of. It is surprising how soon an accustomed eye will distinguish a stranger in the streets of a large town. On mentioning this circumstance next day to ——, he said that the Londoners pretend to recognize a rustic air in a countess, if she has been six months from town. Rusticity in such cases, however, must merely mean a little behind the fashions.
I had suffered curiosity to draw me two miles from my dinner, and was as glad to get back as just before I had been to run away from it. Still the past, with the recollections which crowded on the mind, bringing with them a flood of all sorts of associations, prevented me from getting into a coach, which would, in a measure, have excluded objects from my sight. I went to bed that night with the strange sensation of being again in London, after an interval of twenty years.
The next day I set about the business which had brought me to the English capital. Most of our passengers were in town, and we met, as a matter of course. I had calls from three or four Americans established here, some in one capacity, and some in others; for our country has long been giving back its increase to England, in the shape of admirals, generals, judges, artists, writers andnotion-mongers. But what is all this compared to the constant accessions of Europeans among ourselves? Eight years later, on returning home, I found New York, in feeling, opinions, desires, (apart from profit,) and I might almost say, in population, a foreign rather than American town.
I had passed months in London when a boy, and yet had no knowledge of Westminster Abbey! I cannot account for this oversight, for I was a great devotee of Gothic architecture, of which, by the way, I knew nothing, except through the prints; and I could not reproach myself with a want of proper curiosity on such subjects, for I had devoted as much time to their examination as my duty to the ship would at all allow. Still, all I could recall of the abbey was an indistinct image of two towers, with a glimpse in at a great door. Now that I was master of my own movements, one of my first acts was to hurry to the venerable church.
Westminster Abbey is built in the form of a cross, as is, I believe, invariably the case with every Catholic church of any pretension. At its northern end are two towers, and at its southern is the celebrated chapel of Henry VII. This chapel is an addition, which, allowing for a vast difference in the scale, resembles, in its general appearance, a school, or vestry-room, attached to the end of one of our own churches. A Gothic church is, indeed, seldom complete without such a chapel. It is not an easy matter to impress an American with a proper idea of European architecture. Even while the edifice is before his eyes, he is very apt to form an erroneous opinion of its comparative magnitude. The proportions aid deception in the first place, and absence uniformly exaggerates the beauty and extent of familiar objects. None but those who have disciplined the eye, and who have accustomed themselves to measure proportions by rules more definite than those of the fancy, should trust to their judgments in descriptions of this sort.
Westminster itself is not large, however, in comparison with St. Paul's, and an ordinary parish church, called St. Margaret's, which must be, I think, quite as large as Trinity, New York, and stands within a hundred yards of the abbey, is but a pigmy compared with Westminster. I took a position in St. Margaret's church-yard, at a point where the whole of the eastern side of the edifice might be seen, and for the first time in my life gazed upon a truly Gothic structure of any magnitude. It was near sunset, and the light was peculiarly suited to the sombre architecture. The material was a grey stone, that time had rendered dull, and which had broad shades of black about its angles and faces. That of the chapel was fresher, and of a warmer tint; a change well suited to the greater delicacy of the ornaments.
The principal building is in the severer style of the Gothic, without, however, being one of its best specimens. It is comparatively plain, nor are the proportions faultless. The towers are twins, are far from being high, and to me they have since seemed to have a crowded appearance, or to be too near each other; a defect that sensibly lessens the grandeur of the north front. A few feet, more or less, in such a case, may carry the architect too much without, or too much within, the just proportions. I lay claim to very little science on the subject, but I have frequently observed since, that, to my own eye, (and the uninitiated can have no other criterion,) these towers, as seen from the parks, above the tops of the trees, have a contracted and pinched air.
But while the abbey church itself is as plain as almost any similar edifice I remember, its great extent, and the noble windows and doors, rendered it to me deeply impressive. On the other hand, the chapel is an exquisite specimen of the most elaborated ornaments of the style. All sorts of monstrosities have, at one period or another, been pressed into the service of the Gothic, such as lizards, toads, frogs, serpents, dragons, spitfires, and salamanders. There is, I believe, some typical connexion between these offensive objects and the different sins. When well carved, properly placed, and not viewed too near, their effect is far from bad. They help to give the edifice its fretted appearance, or a look resembling that of lace. Various other features, which have been taken from familiar objects, such as parts of castellated buildings, portcullises, and armorial bearings, help to make up the sum of the detail. On Henry the Seventh's chapel, toads, lizards, and the whole group of metaphorical sins are sufficiently numerous, without being offensively apparent; while miniature portcullises, escutcheons, and other ornaments, give the whole the rich and imaginative—almost fairy-like aspect,—which forms the distinctive feature of the most ornamented portions of the order. You have seen ivory work-boxes from the East, that were cut and carved in a way to render them so very complicated, delicate, and beautiful, that they please us without conveying any fixed forms to the mind. It would be no great departure from literal truth, were I to bid you fancy one of these boxes swelled to the dimensions of a church, the material changed to stone, and, after a due allowance for a difference in form, for the painted windows, and for the emblems, were I to add, that such a box would probably give you the best idea of a highly-wrought Gothic edifice, that any comparison of the sort can furnish.
I stood gazing at the pile, until I felt the sensation we term "a creeping of the blood." I know that Westminster, though remarkable for its chapel, was, by no means, a first-rate specimen of its own style of architecture; and, at that moment, a journey through Europe promised to be a gradation of enjoyments, each more exquisite than the other. All the architecture of America united, would not assemble a tithe of the grandeur, the fanciful, or of the beautiful, (a few imitations of Grecian temples excepted,) that were to be seen in this single edifice. If I were to enumerate the strong and excited feelings which are awakened by viewing novel objects, I should place this short visit to the abbey as giving birth in me to sensation No. 1. The emotion of a first landing in Europe had long passed; our recent "land-fall" had been like any other "land-fall," merely pleasant; and I even looked upon St. Paul's as an old and a rather familiar friend. This was absolutely my introduction to the Gothic, and it has proved to be an acquaintance pregnant of more satisfaction than any other it has been my good fortune to make since youth.
It was too late to enter the church, and I turned away towards the adjoining public buildings. The English kings had a palace at Westminster, in the times of the Plantagenets. It was the ancient usage to assemble the parliament, which was little more than alit de justicepreviously to the struggle which terminated in the commonwealth, in the royal residence, and, in this manner, Westminster Palace became, permanently, the place for holding the meetings of these bodies. The buildings, ancient and modern, form a cluster on the banks of the river, and are separated from the abbey by a street. I believe their site was once an island.
Westminster Hall was built as the banqueting room of the palace. There is no uniformity in the architecture of the pile, which is exceedingly complicated and confused. My examination, at this time, was too hurried for details; and I shall refer you to a later visit to England for a description. A vacant space at the abbey end of the palace is called Old Palace-yard, which sufficiently indicates the locality of the ancient royal residence; and a similar, but larger space or square, at the entrance to the hall, is known as New Palace-yard. Two sides of the latter are filled with the buildings of the pile; namely, the courts of law, the principal part of the hall, and certain houses that are occupied by some of the minor functionaries of the establishment, with buildings to contain records, etc. The latter are mean, and altogether unworthy of the neighbourhood. They were plastered on the exterior, and observing a hole in the mortar, I approached and found to my surprise, that here, in the heart of the English capital, as a part of the legislative and judicial structures, in plain view, and on the most frequented square of the vicinity, were houses actually built of wood, and covered with lath and mortar!
The next morning I sent for a hair-dresser. As he entered the room I made him a sign, without speaking, to cut my hair. I was reading the morning paper, and my operator had got half through with his job, without a syllable being exchanged between us, when the man of the comb suddenly demanded, "What is the reason, sir, that the Americans think everything in their own country so much better than it is everywhere else?" You will suppose that thebrusquerie, as well as the purport of this interrogatory, occasioned some surprise. How he knew I was an American at all I am unable to say, but the fellow had been fidgeting the whole time to break out upon me with this question.
I mention the anecdote, in order to show you how lively and general the feeling of jealousy has got to be among our transatlantic kinsmen. There will be a better occasion to speak of this hereafter.
London was empty. The fashionable streets were actually without a soul, for minutes at a time; and, without seeing it, I could not have believed that a town which, at certain times, is so crowded as actually to render crossing its streets hazardous, was ever so like a mere wilderness of houses. During these recesses in dissipation and fashion, I believe that the meanest residents disappear for a few months.
Our fellow-traveller, Mr. L——, however, was in London, and we passed a day or two in company. As he is a votary of music, he took me to hear Madame Pasta. I was nearly as much struck with the extent and magnificence of the Opera-house, as I had been with the architecture of the Abbey. The brilliant manner in which it was lighted, in particular, excited my admiration, for want of light is a decided and a prominent fault of all scenic exhibitions at home, whether they are made in public or in private. Madame Pasta playedSemiramide"How do you like her?" demanded L——, at the close of the first act. "Extremely; I scarce know which to praise the most, the command and the range of her voice, or her powers as a mere actress. But, don't you think her exceedingly like theSignorina?" The present Madame Malibran was then singing in New York, under the name of Signorina Garcia. L—— laughed, and told me the remark was well enough, but I had not put the question in exactly the proper form. "Do you not think the Signorina exceedingly like Madame Pasta?" would have been better. I had got the matter wrong end foremost.
L—— reminded me of our having amused ourselves on the passage with the nasal tones of the chorus at New York. He now directed my attention to the same peculiarity here. In this particular I saw no difference; nor should there be any, for I believe nearly all who are on the American stage, in any character, are foreigners, and chiefly English.
The next day we went to old Drury, where we found a countryman, and townsman, Mr. Stephen Price, in the chair of Sheridan. The season was over, but we were shown the whole of the interior. It is also a magnificent structure in extent and internal embellishment, though a very plain brick pile externally. It must have eight or ten times the cubic contents of the largest American theatre. The rival building, Covent Garden, is within a few hundred feet of it, and has much more of architectural pretension, though neither can lay claim to much. The taste of the latter is very well, but it is built of that penny-saving material, stuccoed bricks.
We dined with Mr. Price, and on the table was some of our own justly-celebrated Madeira. L——, who is an oracle on these subjects, pronounced it injured. He was told it was so lately arrived from New York, that there had not been time to affect it. This fact, coupled with others that have since come to my knowledge, induce me to believe that the change of tastes, which is so often remarked in liquors, fruits, and other eatables, is as much wrought on ourselves, as in the much-abused viands. Those delicate organs which are necessary to this particular sense may readily undergo modifications by the varieties of temperature. We know that taste and its sister sense, smelling, are both temporarily destroyed by colds. The voice is signally affected by temperature. In cold climates it is clear and soft; in warm, harsh and deep. All these facts would serve to sustain the probability of the theory that a large portion of the strictures that are lavished on the products of different countries, should be lavished on our own capricious organs.Au reste, the consequence is much the same, let the cause be what it will.
Mr. M——, an Englishman, who has many business concerns with America, came in while we were still at table, and I quitted the house in his company. It was still broad daylight. As we were walking together, arm and arm, my companion suddenly placed a hand behind him, and said, "My fine fellow, you are there, are you?" A lad of about seventeen had a hand in one of his pockets, feeling for his handkerchief. The case was perfectly clear, for Mr. M—— had him still in his gripe when I saw them. Instead of showing apprehension or shame, the fellow began to bluster and threaten. My companion, after a word or two of advice, hurried me from the spot. On expressing the surprise I felt at his permitting such a hardened rogue to go at large, he said that our wisest course was to get away. The lad was evidently supported by a gang, and we might be beaten as well as robbed, for our pains. Besides, the handkerchief was not actually taken, attendance in the courts was both expensive and vexatious, and he would be bound over to prosecute. In England, the complainant is compelled to prosecute, which is, in effect, a premium on crime! We retain many of the absurdities of the common law, and, among others, some which depend on a distinction between the intention and the commission of the act; but I do not know that any of our States are so unjust as to punish a citizen, in this way, because he has already been the victim of a rogue.
After all, I am not so certain our law is much better; but I believe more of theonusof obtaining justice falls on the injured party here than it does with us: still we are both too much under the dominion of the common law.
The next day I was looking at a bronze statue of Achilles, at Hyde Park Corner, which had been erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington. The place, like every other fashionable haunt at that season, was comparatively deserted. Still, there might have been fifty persons in sight. "Stop him! stop him!" cried a man, who was chasing another directly towards me. The chase, to use nautical terms, began to lighten ship by throwing overboard first one article and then another. As these objects were cast in different directions, he probably hoped that his pursuer, like Atalantis, might stop to pick them up. The last that appeared in the air was a hat, when, finding himself hemmed in between three of us, the thief suffered himself to be taken. A young man had been sleeping on the grass, and this land-pirate had absolutely succeeded in getting his shoes, his handkerchief, and his hat; but an attempt totake off his cravathad awoke the sleeper. In this case, the prisoner was marched off under sundry severe threats of vengeance; for therobbeewas heated with the run, and really looked so ridiculous that his anger was quite natural.
My business was now done, and I left London in a night-coach for Southampton. The place of rendezvous was the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly—a spot almost as celebrated for those who arein transitu, as was the Isthmus of Suez of old. I took an inside seat this time, for the convenience of a nap. At first, I had but a single fellow-traveller. Venturing to ask him the names of one or two objects that we passed, and fearing he might think my curiosity impertinent, I apologized for it, by mentioning that I was a foreigner. "A foreigner!" he exclaimed; "why, you speak English as well as I do myself!" I confess I had thought, until that moment, that the advantage, in this particular, was altogether on my side; but it seems I was mistaken. By way of relieving his mind, however, I told him I was an American. "An American!" and he seemed more puzzled than ever. After a few minutes of meditation on what he had just heard, he civilly pointed to a bit of meadow through which the Thames meanders, and good-naturedly told me it was Runnymeade. I presume my manner denoted a proper interest, for he now took up the subject of the English Barons, and entered into a long account of their modern magnificence and wealth. This is a topic that a large class in England, who only know their aristocracy by report, usually discuss with great unction. They appear to have the same pride in the superiority of their great families, that the American slave is known to feel in the importance of his master. I say this seriously, and not with a view to sneer, but to point out to you a state of feeling that, at first, struck me as very extraordinary. I suppose that the feelings of both castes depend on a very natural principle. The Englishman, however, as he is better educated, has one respectable feature in his deference. He exults with reason in the superiority of his betters over the betters of most other people: in this particular he is fully borne out by the fact. Subsequent observation has given me occasion to observe, that the English gentleman, in appearance, attainments, manliness, and perhaps I might add, principles, although this and deportment are points on which I should speak with less confidence, stands at the head of his class in Christendom. This should not be, nor would it be, were the gentlemen of America equal to their fortunes, which, unhappily, they are not. Facts have so far preceded opinions at home, as to leave but few minds capable of keeping in their company. But this is a subject to which we may also have occasion to return.
The coach stopped, and we took up a third inside. This man proved to be a radical. He soon began to make side-hits at the "nobility and gentry," and, mingled with some biting truths, he uttered a vast deal of nonsense. While he was in the midst of his denunciations, the coach again stopped, and one of the outsides was driven into it by the night air. He was evidently a gentleman, and the guard afterwards told me he was a Captain Somebody, and a nephew of a Lord Something, to whose country place he was going. The appearance of the captain checked the radical for a little while; but, finding that the other was quiet, he soon returned to the attack. The aristocrat was silent, and the admirer of aristocracy evidently thought himself too good to enter into a dispute with one of the mere people; forto admirearistocracy was, in his eyes, something like anillustration; but wincing under one of the other's home-pushes, he said, "These opinions may do very well for this gentleman," meaning me, who as yet had not uttered a syllable—"who is an American; but I must say, I think them out of place in the mouth of an Englishman." The radical regarded me a moment, and inquired if what the other had just said was true. I answered that it was. He then began an eulogium on America; which, like his Jeremiad on England, had a good many truths blended with a great deal of nonsense. At length, he unfortunately referred to me, to corroborate one of his most capital errors. As this could not be done conscientiously, for his theory depended on the material misconstruction of giving the whole legislative power to Congress, I was obliged to explain the mistake into which he had fallen. The captain and thetoadywere both evidently pleased; nor can I say, I was sorry the appeal had been made, for it had the effect of silencing a commentator, who knew very little of his subject. The captain manifested his satisfaction, by commencing a conversation, which lasted until we all went to sleep. Both the captain and the radical quitted us in the night.
Men like the one just described do the truth a great deal of harm. Their knowledge does not extend to first principles, and they are always for maintaining their positions by a citation of facts. One half of the latter are imagined; and even that which is true is so enveloped with collateral absurdities, that when pushed, they are invariably exposed. These are the travellers who come among us Liberals, and go back Tories. Finding that things fall short of the political Elysiums of their imaginations, they fly into the opposite extreme, as a sort ofamende honorableto their own folly and ignorance.
At the distance of a few miles from Winchester, we passed an encampment of gipsies, by the way-side. They were better-looking than I had expected to see them, though their faces were hardly perceptible in the grey of the morning. They appeared well fed and very comfortably bivouacked. Why do not these people appear in America? or, do they come, and get absorbed, like all the rest, by the humane and popular tendencies of the country? What a homage will it be to the institutions, if it be found that even a gipsy cease to be a gipsy in such a country! Just as the sun rose, I got out to our lodgings and went to bed.
After a sound sleep of two or three hours, I rose and went to the drawing-room. A lady was in it, seated in a way to allow me to see no more than a small part of her side-face. In that little, I saw the countenance of your aunt's family. It was the sister whom we had never seen, and who had hastened out of Hertfordshire to meet us. There are obvious reasons why such a subject cannot be treated in this letter, but the study of two sisters who had been educated, the one in England and the other in America, who possessed so much in common, and yet, who were separated by so much that was not in common, was to me a matter of singular interest. It showed me, at a glance, the manner in which the distinctive moral and physical features of nations are formed; the points of resemblance being just sufficient to render the points of difference more obvious.
A new and nearer route to Netley had been discovered during my absence, and our unpractised Americans had done little else than admire ruins for the past week. The European who comes to America plunges into the virgin forest with wonder and delight; while the American who goes to Europe finds his greatest pleasure, at first, in hunting up the memorials of the past. Each is in quest of novelty, and is burning with the desire to gaze at objects of which he has often read.
The steam-boat made but one or two voyages a week between Southampton and Havre, and we were obliged to wait a day or two for the next trip. The intervening time was passed in the manner just named. Every place of any importance in England has some work or other written on the subject of its history, its beauties, and its monuments. It is lucky to escape a folio. Our works on Southampton, (which are of moderate dimensions, however,) spoke of some Roman remains in the neighbourhood. The spot was found, and, although the imagination was of greater use than common in following the author's description, we stood on the spot with a species of antiquarian awe.
Southampton had formerly been a port of some importance. Many of the expeditions sent against France embarked here, and the town had once been well fortified, for the warfare of the period. A good deal of the old wall remains. All of this was industriously traced out; while the bow-windows, long passages, and old maids, found no favour in our eyes.
One simple and touching memorial I well remember. There is a ferry between the town and the grounds near Netley Abbey. A lady had caught a cold, which terminated in death, in consequence of waiting on the shore, during a storm, for the arrival of a boat. To protect others from a similar calamity, she had ordered a very suitable defence against the weather to be built on the fatal spot, and to be kept in repair for ever. The structure is entirely of stone, small and exceedingly simple and ingenious. The ground plan is that of a Greek cross. On this foundation are reared four walls, which, of course, cross each other in the centre at right angles. A little above the height of a man, the whole is amply roofed. Let the wind blow which way it will, you perceive there is always shelter. There is no external wall, and the diameter of the whole does not exceed ten feet, if it be as much. This little work is exceedingly English, and it is just as unlike anything American as possible. It has its origin in benevolence, is original in the idea, and it is picturesque. We might accomplish the benevolence, but it would be of a more public character: the picturesque is a thing of which we hardly know the meaning; and as for the originality, the dread of doing anything different from his neighbour would effectually prevent an American from erecting such a shelter; even charity with us being subject to the control of the general voice. On the other hand, what a clever expedient would have been devised, in the first instance, in America, to get across the ferry without taking cold! All these little peculiarities have an intimate connexion with national character and national habits. The desire to be independent and original causes a multitude of silly things to be invented here, while the apprehension of doing anything different from those around them causes a multitude of silly things to beperpetuatedin America; and yet we are children of the same parents! When profit is in view, we have but one soul and that is certainly inventive enough; but when money has been made, and is to be spent, we really do not seem to know how to set about it, except by routine.
Quit England.—Approach to France.—Havre.—Our Reception there.—FemaleCommissionnaire.—Clamour of Drums.—Port of Havre.—ProjectedEnterprize.—American Enterprize.—Steam-boatExcursion.—Honfleur.—Rouen.—French Exaction.—AmericanPorters.—Rouen Cathedral.—Our Cicerone.—A Diligence.—PicturesqueRoad.—European Peasantry.—Aspect of the Country.—Church atLouviers.—Village near Vernon.—Rosny.—Mantes.—Bourbon Magnificence.—Approach to Paris—Enter Paris.
To R. COOPER, ESQ., COOPERSTOWN.
On quitting England, we embarked from the very strand where Henry V. embarked for the fruitless field of Agincourt. A fearful rumour had gone abroad that the Camilla (the steam-boat) had been shorn of a wing, and there were many rueful faces in the boat that took us off to the vessel. In plainer speech, one of the boilers was out of order, and the passage was to be made with just half the usual propelling power. At that season, or indeed at any season, the only probable consequence was loss of time. With a strong head-wind, it is true, the Camilla might have been compelled to return; but this might also have happened with the use of both the boilers.
Our adventurers did not see things in this light. The division of employments, which produces prices so cheap and good, makes bad travellers. Our boat's cargo embarked with fear and trembling, and "She has but one boiler!" passed from mouth to mouth amid ominous faces. A bachelor-looking personage, of about fifty, with his person well swaddled in July, declared in a loud voice, that we were "all going on board to be drowned." This startled A——, who, having full faith in my nautical experience, asked what we were to think of it? It was a mere question between ten hours and fifteen, and so I told her. The females, who had just before been trembling with alarm, brightened at this, and two or three of them civilly thanked me for the information they had thus obtained incidentally!—"Boat, sir! boat!" "Thank 'ee, sir; thank 'ee, sir."
We found two or three parties on board of a higher condition than common. Apprehension cast a shade over the cold marble-like polish of even the English aristocrat; for if, as Mrs. Opie has well observed, there is nothing "so like a lord in a passion as a commoner in a passion," "your fear" is also a sad leveller. The boat was soon under way, and gradually our cargo of mental apprehensions settled into the usual dolorous physical suffering of landsmen in rough water. So much for excessive civilization. The want of a boiler under similar circumstances, would have excited no feeling whatever among a similar number of Americans, nineteen in twenty of whom, thanks to their rough-and-tumble habits, would know exactly what to think of it.
I was seated, during a part of the day, near a group of young men, who were conversing with a lady of some three or four and twenty. They expressed their surprise at meeting her on board. She told them it was a sudden whim; that no one knew of her movements; she meant only to be gone a fortnight, to take a run into Normandy. In the course of the conversation I learned that she was single, and had a maid and a footman with her. In this guise she might go where she pleased; whereas, had she taken "an escort" in the American fashion, her character would have suffered. This usage, however, is English rather than European. Single women on the Continent, except in extraordinary cases, are obliged to maintain far greater reserve even than with us; and there, single or married, they cannot travel under the protection of any man who is not very nearly connected with them, domestics and dependants excepted.
The debates about proceeding at all had detained us so long, and the "one boiler" proved to be so powerless, that night set in, and we had not yet made the coast of France. The breeze had been fresh, but it lulled towards sunset, though not before we began to feel the influence of the tides. About midnight, however, I heard some one exclaim, "Land!" and we all hastened on deck, to take a first look at France.
The boat was running along beneath some cliffs. The moon was shining bright, and her rays lighted up the chalky sides of the high coast, giving them a ghostly hue. The towers of two lighthouses also glittered on a headland near by. Presently a long sea-wall became visible, and, rounding its end, we shot into smooth water. We entered the little port of Havre between artificial works, on one of which stands a low, massive, circular tower, that tradition attributes to no less a personage than Julius Caesar.
What a change in so short a time! On the other side of the Channel, beyond the usual demands for employment, which were made in a modest way, and the eternal "Thank'ee, sir," there was a quiet in the people that was not entirely free from a suspicion of surliness. Here every man seemed to have two voices, both of which he used as if with no other desire than to hear himself speak. Notwithstanding the hour, which was past midnight, the quay was well lined, and a dozen officials poured on board the boat to prevent our landing. Custom-house officers, gendarmes, with enormous hats, and female commissionaires, were counteracting each other at every turn. At length we were permitted to land, being ordered up to a building near by. Here the females were taken into a separate room, where their persons were examined by functionaries of their own sex for contraband goods! This process has been described to me as being to the last degree offensive and humiliating. My own person was respected, I know not, why, for we were herded like sheep. As we were without spot, at least so far as smuggling was concerned, we were soon liberated. All our effects were left in the office, and we were turned into the streets without even a rag but what we had on. This was an inauspicious commencement for a country so polished; and yet, when one comes to look at the causes, it is not easy to point out an alternative. It was our own fault that we came so late.
The streets were empty, and the tall grey houses, narrow avenues, and the unaccustomed objects, presented a strange spectacle by the placid light of the moon. It appeared as if we had alighted in a different planet. Though fatigued and sleepy, the whole party would involuntarily stop to admire some novelty, and our march was straggling and irregular. One house refused us after another, and it soon became seriously a question whether the night was not to be passed in the open air. P—— was less than three years old, and as we had a regular gradation from that age upward, ourdébutin France promised to be anything but agreeable. The guide said his resources were exhausted, and hinted at the impossibility of getting in. Nothing but the inns was open, and at all these we were refused. At length I remembered that, in poring over an English guide-book, purchased in New York, a certain Hôtel d'Angleterre had been recommended as the best house in Havre. "Savez-vous, mon ami, où est l'Hôtel d'Angleterre?"—"Ma fois, oui; c'est tout près." This "ma fois, oui," was ominous, and the "c'est tout, près," was more so still. Thither we went, however, and we were received. Then commenced the process of climbing. We ascended several stories, by a narrow crooked staircase, and were shown into rooms on the fifth floor.
The floors were of waxed tiles, without carpets or mats, and the furniture was tawdry. We got into our beds, which fatigue could scarcely render it possible to endure, on account of the bugs. A more infernal night I never passed, and I have often thought since, how hazardous it is to trust to first impressions. This night, and one or two more passed at Havre, and one other passed between Rouen and Paris, were among the most uncomfortable I can remember; and yet if I were to name a country in which one would be the most certain to get a good and a clean bed, I think I should name France!
The next morning I arose and went down the ladder, for it was little better, to the lower world. The servant wished to know if we intended to use thetable d'hôte, which he pronounced excellent. Curiosity induced me to look at the appliances. It was a dark, dirty and crowded room, and yet not without certain savoury smells. French cookery can even get the better of French dirt. It was the only place about the house, the kitchen excepted, where a tolerable smell was to be found, and I mounted to the upper regions in self-defence.
An hour or two afterwards, the consul did me the favour to call. I apologized for the necessity of causing him to clamber up so high. "It is not a misfortune here," was the answer, "for the higher one is, the purer is the atmosphere;" and he was right enough. It was not necessary to explain that we were in an inferior house, and certainly everything was extremely novel. At breakfast, however, there was a sensible improvement. The linen was white as snow; we were served with silver forks—it was a breakfastà la fourchette—spotlessly clean napkins, excellent rolls, and delicious butter, to say nothing ofcôtelettesthat appeared to have been cooked by magic. Your aunt and myself looked at each other with ludicrous satisfaction when we came to taste coffee, which happened to be precisely at the same instant. It was the first time either of us had ever tasted French coffee—it would scarcely be exaggeration to say, that either of us had ever tasted coffee at all. I have had many French cooks since; have lived years in the capital of France itself, but I could never yet obtain a servant who understood the secret of makingcafé au lait, as it is made in most of the inns andcafésof that country. The discrepancy between the excellence of the table and the abominations of the place struck them all, so forcibly, that the rest of the party did little else but talk about it. As for myself, I wished to do nothing but eat.
I had now another specimen of national manners. It was necessary to get our luggage through the custom-house. The consul recommended acommissionnaireto help me. "You are not to be surprised," he said, laughing, as he went away, "if I send you one in petticoats." In a few minutes, sure enough, one of thebeau sexepresented herself. Her name was Désirée, and an abler negotiator was never employed. She scolded, coaxed, advised, wrangled, and uniformly triumphed. The officers were more civil, by daylight, than we had found them under the influence of the moon, and our business was soon effected.
W—— had brought with him a spy-glass. It was old and of little value, but it was an heir-loom of the family. It came from the Hall at C——n, and had become historical for its service in detecting deer, in the lake, during the early years of the settlement. This glass had disappeared. No inquiry could recover it. "Send for Désirée," said the consul. Désirée came, received her orders, and in half an hour the glass was restored. There was an oversight in not getting a passport, when we were about to quit Havre. The office hours were over, and the steam-boat could not wait. "Were is Désirée?" Désirée was made acquainted with the difficulty, and the passport was obtained. "Désirée, où est Désirée?" cried some one in the crowd, that had assembled to see the Camilla start for England, the day after our arrival. "Here is an Englishman who is too late to get his passportviséd," said this person to Désirée, so near me that I heard it all; "the boat goes in ten minutes—what is to be done?"—"Ma foi—it is too late!" "Try,ma bonne—it's a pity he should lose his passage—voici." The Englishman gave his fee. Désirée looked about her, and then taking the idler by the arm, she hurried him through the crowd, this way and that way, ending by putting him aboard without any passport at all. "It is too late to get one," she said; "and they can but send you back." He passed undetected. France has a plenty of these managing females, though Désirée is one of the cleverest of them all. I understood this woman had passed a year or two in England, expressly to fit herself for her present occupation, by learning the language.
While engaged in taking our passages on board the steam-boat for Rouen, some one called me by name, in English. The sound of the most familiar words, in one's own language, soon get to be startling in a foreign country. I remember, on returning to England, after an absence of five years, that it was more than a week before I could persuade myself I was not addressed whenever a passer-by spoke suddenly. On the present occasion, I was called to by an old schoolboy acquaintance, Mr. H——r, who was a consul in England, but who had taken a house on what is called theCôte, a hill-side, just above Ingouville, a village at no great distance from the town. We went out to his pretty little cottage, which enjoyed a charming view. Indeed I should particularize this spot as the one which gave me the first idea of one species of distinctive European scenery. The houses cling to the declivity, rising above each other in a way that might literally enable one to toss a stone into his neighbour's chimney-top. They are of stone, but being whitewashed, and very numerous, they give the whole mountain-side the appearance of a pretty hamlet, scattered without order in the midst of gardens. Italy abounds with such little scenes; nor are they unfrequent in France, especially in the vicinity of towns; though whitened edifices are far from being the prevailing taste of that country.
That evening we had an infernal clamour of drums in the principal street, which happened to be our own. There might have been fifty, unaccompanied by any wind instrument. The French do not use the fife, and when one is treated to the drum, it is generally in large potions, and nothing but drum. This is a relic of barbarism, and is quite unworthy of a musical age. There is more or less of it in all the garrisoned towns of Europe. You may imagine the satisfaction with which one listens to a hundred or two of these plaintive instruments, beat between houses six or eight stories high, in a narrow street, and with desperate perseverance! The object is to recall the troops to their quarters.
Havre is a tide-harbour. In America, where there is, on an average, not more than five feet of rise and fall to the water of the sea, such a haven would, of course, be impracticable for large vessels. But the majority of the ports on the British Channel are of this character, and indeed a large portion of the harbours of Great Britain. Calais, Boulogne, Havre, and Dieppe, are all inaccessible at low water. The cliffs are broken by a large ravine, a creek makes up the gorge, or a small stream flows outward into the sea, a basin is excavated, the entrance is rendered safe by moles which project into deep water, and the town is crowded around this semi-artificial port as well as circumstances will allow. Such is, more or less, the history of them all. Havre, however, is in some measure an exception. It stands on a plain, that I should think had once been a marsh. The cliffs are near it, seaward, and towards the interior there are fine receding hills, leaving a sufficient site, notwithstanding, for a town of large dimensions.
The port of Havre has been much improved of late years. Large basins have been excavated, and formed into regular wet docks. They are nearly in the centre of the town. The mole stretches out several hundred yards on that side of the entrance of the port which is next the sea. Here signals are regularly made to acquaint vessels in the offing with the precise number of feet that can be brought into the port. These signals are changed at the rise or fall of every foot, according to a graduated scale which is near the signal pole. At dead low water the entrance to the harbour, and the outer harbour itself, are merely beds of soft mud. Machines are kept constantly at work to deepen them.
The ship from sea makes the lights, and judges of the state of the tide by the signals. She rounds the Mole-Head at the distance of fifty or sixty yards, and sails along a passage too narrow to admit another vessel, at the same moment, into the harbour. Here she finds from eighteen to twenty, or even twenty-four feet of water, according to circumstances. She is hauled up to the gates of a dock, which are opened at high water only. As the water falls, one gate is shut, and the entrance to the dock becomes a lock: vessels can enter, therefore, as long as there remains sufficient water in the outer harbour for a ship to float. If caught outside, however, she must lie in the mud until the ensuing tide.
Havre is the sea-port of Paris, and is rapidly increasing in importance. There is a project for connecting the latter with the sea by a ship channel. Such a project is hardly suited to the French impulses, which imagine a thousand grand projects, but hardly ever convert any of them to much practical good. The opinions of the people are formed on habits of great saving, and it requires older calculations, greater familiarity with risks, and more liberal notions of industry, and, possibly, more capital than is commonly found in their enterprises, to induce the people to encounter the extra charges of these improvements, when they can have recourse to what, in their eyes, are simpler and safer means of making money. The government employs men of science, who conceive well; but their conceptions are but indifferently sustained by the average practical intellect of the country. In this particular France is the very converse of America.
The project of making a sea-port of Paris, is founded on a principle that is radically wrong. It is easier to build a house on the sea-side, than to carry the sea into the interior. But the political economy of France, like that of nearly all the continental nations, is based on a false principle, that of forcing improvements. The intellects of the mass should first be acted on, and when the public mind is sufficiently improved to benefit by innovations, the public sentiment might be trusted to decide the questions of locality and usefulness. The French system looks to a concentration of everything in Paris. The political organization of the country favours such a scheme, and in a project of this sort, the interests of all the northern and western departments would be sacrificed to the interests of Paris. As for the departments east and south of Paris, they would in no degree be benefited by making a port of Paris, as goods would still have to be transshipped to reach them. A system of canals and railroads is much wanted in France, and most of all, a system of general instruction, to prepare the minds of the operatives to profit by such advantages. When I say that we are behind our facts in America, I do not mean in a physical, but in a moral sense. All that is visible and tangible is led by opinion; in all that is purely moral, the facts precede the notions of the people.
I found, at a later day, many droll theories broached in France, more especially in the Chamber of Deputies, on the subject of our own great success in the useful enterprises. As is usual, in such cases, any reason but the true one was given. At the period of our arrival in Europe, the plan of connecting the great lakes with the Atlantic had just been completed, and the vast results were beginning to attract attention in Europe. At first, it was thought, as a matter of course, that engineers from the old world had been employed. This was disproved, and it was shown that they who laid out the work, however skilful they may have since become by practice, were at first little more than common American surveyors. Then the trifling cost was a stumbling-block, for labour was known to be far better paid in America than in Europe; and lastly, the results created astonishment. Several deputies affirmed that the cause of the great success was owing to the fact, that in America we trusted such things to private competition, whereas, in France, the government meddled with everything. But it was the state governments, (which indeed alone possess the necessary means and authority,) that had caused most of the American canals to be constructed. These political economists knew too little of other systems to apply a clever saying of their own—Il y a de la Rochefoucald, et de la Rouchefoucald. All governments do not wither what they touch.
Some Americans have introduced steam-boats on the rivers of France, and on the lakes of Switzerland and Italy. We embarked in one, after passing two delectable nights at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. The boat was a frail-looking thing, and so loaded with passengers, that it appeared actually to stagger under its freight. The Seine has a wide mouth, and a long ground-swell was setting in from the Channel. Our Parisian cockneys, of whom there were several on board, stood aghast. "Nous voici en pleine mer!" one muttered to the other, and the annals of that eventful voyage are still related, I make no question, to admiring auditors in the interior of France. The French make excellent seamen when properly trained; but I think, on the whole, they are more thoroughly landsmen than any people of my acquaintance, who possess a coast. There has been too much sympathy with the army to permit the mariners to receive a proper share of the public favour.
The boat shaped her course diagonally across the broad current, directly for Honfleur. Here we first began to get an idea of the true points of difference between our own scenery and that of the continent of Europe, and chiefly of that of France. The general characteristics of England are not essentially different from those of America, after allowing for a much higher finish in the former, substituting hedges for fences, and stripping the earth of its forests. These, you may think, are, in themselves, grand points of difference, but they fall far short of those which render the continent of Europe altogether of a different nature. Of forest, there is vastly more in France than in England. But, with few exceptions, the fields are not separated by enclosures. The houses are of stone, or of wood, rough-cast. Honfleur, as we approached, had a grey distinctness that is difficult to describe. The atmosphere seemed visible, around the angles of the buildings, as in certain Flemish pictures, bringing out the fine old sombre piles from the depth of the view, in a way to leave little concealed, while nothing was meretricious or gaudy. At first, though we found these hues imposing, and even beautiful, we thought the view would have been gayer and more agreeable, had the tints been livelier; but a little use taught us that our tastes had been corrupted. On our return home every structure appeared flaring and tawdry. Even those of stone had a recent and mushroom air, besides being in colours equally ill suited to architecture or a landscape. The only thing of the sort in America which appeared venerable and of a suitable hue, after an absence of eight years, was our own family abode, and this, the despoiler, paint, had not defiled for near forty years.
We discharged part of our cargo at Honfleur, but the boat was still greatly crowded. Fatigue and ill health rendered standing painful to A——, and all the benches were crowded. She approached a young girl of about eighteen, who occupiedthree chairs. On one she was seated; on another she had her feet; and the third held herreticule. Apologizing for the liberty, A—— asked leave to put thereticuleon the second chair, and to take the third for her own use. This request was refused! The selfishness created by sophistication and a factitious state of things renders such acts quite frequent, for it is more my wish to offer you distinctive traits of character than exceptions. This case of selfishness might have been a little stronger than usual, it is true, but similar acts are of daily occurrence,out of society, in France.In society, the utmost respect to the wants and feelings of others is paid, vastly more than with us; while, with us, it is scarcely too strong to say that such an instance of unfeeling selfishness could scarcely have occurred at all. We may have occasion to inquire into the causes of this difference in national manners hereafter.
The Seine narrows at Quilleboeuf, about thirty miles from Havre, to the width of an ordinary European tide river. On a high bluff we passed a ruin, calledTancarville, which was formerly a castle of the De Montmorencies. This place was the cradle of one of William's barons; and an English descendant, I believe, has been ennobled by the title of Earl of Tankerville.
Above Quilleboeuf the river becomes exceedingly pretty. It is crooked, a charm in itself, has many willowy islands, and here and there a grey venerable town is seated in the opening of the high hills which contract the view, with crumbling towers, and walls that did good service in the times of the old English and French wars. There were fewer seats than might have been expected, though we passed three or four. One near the waterside, of some size, was in the ancient French style, with avenues cut in formal lines, mutilated statues, precise and treeless terraces, and other elaborated monstrosities. These places are not entirely without a pretension to magnificence; but, considered in reference to what is desirable in landscape gardening, they are the verylaid idéalof deformity. After winding our way for eight or ten hours amid such scenes, the towers of Rouen came in view. They had a dark ebony-coloured look, which did great violence to our Manhattanese notions, but which harmonized gloriously with a bluish sky, the grey walls beneath, and a background of hanging fields.
Rouen is a sea-port; vessels of two hundred, or two hundred and fifty tons burden, lying at its quays. Here is also a custom-house, and our baggage was again opened for examination. This was done amid a great deal of noise and confusion, and yet so cursorily as to be of no real service. At Havre, landing as we did in the night, and committing all to Désirée the next day, I escaped collision with subordinates. But, not having a servant, I was now compelled to look after our effects in person. W—— protested that we had fallen among barbarians; what between brawls, contests for the trunks, cries, oaths, and snatching, the scene was equally provoking and comic.
Without schooling, without training of any sort, little checked by morals, pressed upon by society, with nearly every necessary of life highly taxed, and yet entirely loosened from the deference of feudal manners, the Frenchmen of this class have, in general, become what they who wish to ride upon their fellow mortals love to represent them as being, truculent, violent, greedy of gain, and but too much disposed to exaction. There is greatbonhomieand many touches of chivalry in the national character; but it is asking too much to suppose that men who are placed in the situation I have named, should not exhibit some of the most unpleasant traits of human infirmity. Our trunks were put into a handbarrow, and wheeled by two men a few hundred yards, the whole occupying half an hour of time. For this service ten francs were demanded. I offered five, or double what would have been required by a drayman in New York, a place where labour is proverbially dear. This was disdainfully refused, and I was threatened with the law. Of the latter I knew nothing; but, determined not to be bullied into what I felt persuaded was an imposition, I threw down the five francs and walked away. These fellows kept prowling about the hotel the whole day, alternately wheedling and menacing, without success. Towards night one of them appeared, and returned the five francs, saying, that he gave me his services for nothing. I thanked him, and put the money in my pocket. This fit of dignity lasted about five minutes, when, asfinale, I received a proposal to pay the money again, and bring the matter to a close, which was done accordingly.
An Englishman of the same class would have done his work in silence, with a respect approaching to servility, and with a system that any littlecontretemswould derange. He would ask enough, take his money with a "thank 'ee, sir," and go off looking as surly as if he were dissatisfied. An American would do his work silently, but independently as to manner—but a fact will best illustrate the conduct of the American. The day after we landed at New-York, I returned to the ship for the light articles. They made a troublesome load, and filled a horse-cart. "What do you think Ioughtto get for carrying this load, 'sqire?" asked the cartman, as he looked at the baskets, umbrellas, band-boxes, valises, secretaries, trunks, etc. etc.; "it is quite two miles to Carroll Place." "It is, indeed; what is your fare?" "Only thirty-seven and a half cents;" (about two francs;) "and it is justly worth seventy-five, there is so much trumpery." "I will give you a dollar." "No more need be said, sir; you shall have everything safe." I was so much struck with this straight-forward manner of proceeding, after all I had undergone in Europe, that I made a note of it the same day.
The Hôtel de l'Europe, at Rouen, was not a first-rate inn, for France, but it effectually removed the disagreeable impression left by the Hôtel d'Angleterre, at Havre. We were well lodged, well fed, and otherwise well treated. After ordering dinner, all of a suitable age hurried off to the cathedral.