PILGRIMAGE TO THE FAR WEST.—OXFORD-STREET.—HYDE-PARK IN THE SEASON.—ROTTEN ROW.—THE DUKE AND THE QUEEN.—THE FRONT OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE.—DR. KEIF ENTERS, MAKES A SPEECH ON BRITISH LOYALTY, AND EXIT.—THE IRON SHUTTERS OF APSLEY-HOUSE.—THE BRITISH GENERAL AND THE RIOTERS.
PILGRIMAGE TO THE FAR WEST.—OXFORD-STREET.—HYDE-PARK IN THE SEASON.—ROTTEN ROW.—THE DUKE AND THE QUEEN.—THE FRONT OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE.—DR. KEIF ENTERS, MAKES A SPEECH ON BRITISH LOYALTY, AND EXIT.—THE IRON SHUTTERS OF APSLEY-HOUSE.—THE BRITISH GENERAL AND THE RIOTERS.
HITHERTOour excursions have been confined to the east; but now we propose leaving Russell and Bedford Squares and the British Museum to the right, and Covent-garden and all its theatres to the left, to direct our pilgrimage through Oxford-street to the West. Oxford-street holds the medium between the city streets and the West-end streets. Its public is mixed; goods, waggons, and private carriages, omnibuses, and men and women on horseback, men of business, fashionable loungers, and curious strangers, are mixed up; shops of all sorts, from the most elegant drapers’ shops down to the lowest oyster-stall, may be found in it; and there are, moreover, legions of costermongers, and shoals of advertising vans. Oxford-street is long and broad enough to take in the population of a small town. It changes its character several times, according to the greater or less elegance of the quarter through which it runs. After we have walked a good half-hour in a straight line, and in the present instance we have walked very fast, looking neither to the right nor to the left, we reach a part where the row of houses on the left side terminates, and Hyde Park commences. Here there is a high arch of white marble, which every body admires, and a small stone, which no one notices, because it stands near the pump from which the cabmen fetch water for their horses; an inscription on this stone tells us, that here is the site of the famous Tyburn Turnpike. The arch, a curtailed imitation of the triumphal arch of Constantine, cost George IV. £60,000, and stood in front of Buckingham-palace. A few months ago, it was removed to Hyde Park,where it now stands in all its marble glory. Does it perform the functions of a gate? No! because there is no wall. Is it a triumphal-arch? Perhaps so, to commemorate the bad taste of its founder. At all events, it promotes the interests of unity, for on the opposite side of Hyde Park there has been these many years past a similar gate, which opens a way through nothing, and there is a triumphal arch in the face of it, which trumpets forth the good taste ofPunch, whose paternal exhortations could not prevent the Duke of Wellington from being placed on that perilous height.
The English are in many respects like our own good honest peasants. So long as the latter keep to their ploughs, they are most amiable and respectable; but if you find them in town, and induce them to put on fashionable clothes, you may rely on it that thus affected they will give you plenty of kicks. Let an Englishman make a park, and his production will be admirable; but if you wish for an entrance into a park, you had better not apply to him. Fortunately Hyde Park is much larger than its two splendid portals. There is plenty of room to lose them from your sight; and there are a great many agreeable scenes which will banish them from your memory. Passing through the Marble-arch to those regions where the Exhibition building stands, we cross a meadow large enough to induce us to believe that we are far away from London. In the west, the ground rises in gentle hills with picturesque groups of trees on their summits and in the valleys; here and there an old tufted oak, with its gnarled branches boldly stretched out; the grass is fresh and green, though all the passengers walk on it. It is green up to the very trunks of the trees, whose shade is generally injurious to vegetation; it is green throughout the winter and through the summer months, though there is not a drop of rain for many weeks, for the mild and moist atmosphere nourishes it and favours the growth of ivy which clusters round any tree too old to resist its approaches. Thus does Hyde Park extend far to the west and the south, until it finds its limits in bricks and mortar. A slight blue mist hangs on the distant trees; and through the mist down in the south there are church towers looming in the far distance like the battlements of turretted castlesin the midst of romantic forests. The trees recede; a small lake comes in view, it is an artificial extension of the Serpentine, which has the honor of seeing the elegance of London riding and driving on its banks. Early in the morning the lake is plebeian. The children of the neighbourhood swim their boats on it; apprentices on their way to work make desperate casts for some half-starved gudgeon; the ducks come forward in dirty morning wrappers. Nursery-maids with babies innumerable take walks by order; and at a very early hour a great many plebeians have the impertinence to bathe in the little lake. But to-day the park and the river are in true aristocratic splendour; here and there, there is indeed some stray nursery-maid walking on the grass, and some little tub of a boat with a ragged sail floating on the lake; there is also a group of anglers demonstrating to one another with great patience that the fish wont bite to-day, but all along the banks of the river far down to the end of the park and up to the majestic shades of Kensington gardens there is an interminable throng of horses and carriages. Those who have seen the Prater of Vienna in the first weeks of May will be rather disappointed with the aspect of the drive in Hyde Park, where the upper classes of London congregate in the evening between five and seven o’clock, partly to take the air, and partly because it is considered fashionable to see now and then in order to be seen. Extravagant turn-outs and liveries, such as the Viennese produce with great ostentation, are not to be found in London. The English aristocracy like to make an impression by the simplicity and solidity of their appearance; and the metropolis is the last of all places where they would wish to excite attention by a dashing and extravagant exterior. They have not the least desire either to dazzle or to awe the tradespeople or to make them envious. They are too sure of their position to be tempted to advertise it: whoever wants this assurance cannot pretend to belong to the aristocracy. By far more interesting, and indeed unrivalled, is Rotten-row, the long broad road for horsemen, where, on fine summer evenings, all the youth, beauty, celebrity, and wealth of London may be seen on horse-back.
Hundreds of equestrians, ladies and gentlemen, gallop to andfro. How fresh and rosy these English girls are! How firmly they sit! What splendid forms and expressive features! Free, fresh, bold, and natural. The blue veil flutters, and so does the riding-habit; a word to the horse and movement of the bridle, and they gallop on, nodding to friends to the right and left, the happiness of youth expressed in face and form, and no idea, no thought, for the thousand sorrows of this earth. A man of a harmless and merry mind may pass a happy summer’s evening in looking at this the most splendid of all female cavalcades; but he who has become conscious of those all-pervading sufferings of humanity which, felt through thousands of years, denied through thousands of years, and asserted only within the last few years by the millions of our earth—he who has pressed this thorny knowledge of the world to his heart, let him avoid this spot of happiness-breathing splendour, lest the thorns wound him more severely still. Then comes an old man, with his horse walking at a slow pace, his low hat pushed back that the white hair on his temples may have the benefit of the breeze. His head bent forward, the bridle dangling in a hand weak with age, the splendour of the eyes half-dimmed, his cheeks sunken, wrinkles round his mouth and on his forehead, his aquiline nose bony and protruding; who does not know him? His horse walks gently on the sand; every one takes off his hat; the young horse-women get out of his way; and the Duke smiles to the right and to the left. Few persons can boast of so happy a youth as this old man’s age. He turns round the corner; the long broad row becomes still more crowded; large groups of ten or twenty move up and down; fast riding is quite out of the question, when all of a sudden a couple come forward at a quick pace. There is room for them and their horses in the midst of Rotten-row, however full it may be, for every one is eager to make way for them: it is the Queen and her husband, without martial pomp and splendour, without a single naked sword within sight. The crowd closes in behind her; the young women appear excited; the old men smile with great glee at seeing their Queen in such good health. Dandies in marvellous trowsers, incredible waistcoats, and stunning ties, put up their glasses; the anglers on the lake crowd to one side in order to see the Queen; the nurserymaids,the babies, and the boys with their hoops come up to the railings; the grass plots, where just now large groups of people sat chatting, are left vacant, and the shades of the evening are over the park. The sun is going down behind the trees; its parting rays rest on the Crystal Palace with a purple and golden glare, whose reflection falls on Rotten-row and its horsemen.
In a very short time this spot will be empty.
But all hail to thee, Colossus of glass! thou most moral production of these latter days; iron-ribbed, many-eyed, with thy many-coloured flags, which would make believe that all the nations are united by the bonds of brotherhood; and that peace, universal peace, shall henceforth reign among the sons of men.
The flags flutter gaily through the cool of the evening. There the Prussian colours are all but entwined with those of Austria. Here the Papal States touch upon Sardinia. And down there!O sancta Simplicitas!the Russian eagle stretches his wings, and flutters as if impelled by a desire to fraternise with the stars and stripes of North America!
Our enthusiasm is cooled down by a loud laugh and a shrill voice, which hails us from a distance. It is Dr. Keif who indulges, and not for the first time either, in the questionable amusement of mimicking the mode and manner of speech of a distinguished member of the great Sclavonian family.
“By St. Nicolas!” said the Doctor; “why, you Chop-fallen, look out! Look you at flags, Silly, to find colours your own black, red, gold? Blockheads! Croat is brother likewise; and Czech himself speaks quite good German, ours, when likes, and Emperor permits. Magyar have shall German blows and Italian likewise. Piff! Paff! shot through heart by command German! Is now everything good German, all, Welchland, Poland, and Serbonia likewise, as they would at Frankfort have it! Capital times these!”
“But, my dear Doctor, you are in capital spirits to-night. Some intrigue, eh! Indeed, you look quite smart! Green coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and dirty boots. Why you are dressed after the image of a Russian cavalier. Did you happen to see the Queen, and has that sight made you so very loyal!”
“A truce to all logic!” cried the Doctor; “And don’t make any bad jokes about the Queen, if you love me. I respect her; on my soul, I do! But since youwilltalk of the Queen, I will tell you of the first of May, the day Her Majesty opened this place! You must have read, when it once became known, that the Lady Victoria in her own little person intended to open that great Exhibition, that a rush was made on the season tickets, expensive though they were. The Wicked on the continent smiled at this ‘pedantic, antiquated, and unseasonable loyalty of the British people.’ These were the very words the miscreants printed in their papers. I trust they won’t do so again, and I protest against such language. I am free to confess there is much childish harmlessness and practical calculation in this same loyalty. But if it were innate in the English as some ninnies have had the simplicity to believe—if it were a gift of nature, such as fine eyes, or a humped back, or a free native country—then I say, it would be void of all moral meaning. But it is not the result of thoughtless stupidity; for the Anglo Saxon race is not by any means a race of idiots. And the history of England shews that this British loyalty is not the creature of habit and education; nor is it perpetuated by climatic causes, as Cretinism is in Styria. English loyalty is the expression of conscious respect for the principles of monarchy, when worthily represented. Queen Victoria has neither the energy of Catharine of Russia, nor has she the genius of Maria Theresa. But in her principles of government she has always been just to the voice of the majority. She is a constitutional Queen, such as the Queen of England should be. Let no man tell me that shemustbe so; that shecannotbe otherwise even if shewould. She cannot, indeed, send her ministers and the members of the opposition to Botany Bay; nor can she stifle the radical press, or overthrow the constitution as others did in other places. But a Queen, who may select her ministers, dissolve the parliament, and create peers, has a deal of power to do evil. English royalty is not altogether such a farce as the Germans generally believe. That Queen Victoria uses her power for good is her merit; and, because she does so, her’s is the most fortunate head of all the heads whom fate has burdened with a golden crown. She isworshipped, adored, and idolised, by millions, who think it the greatest happiness to look at her face. I wish you had been here on that memorable first of May! I wish you had seen this park and the people—and well-dressed people too—thronging Rotten Row to see the Queen go by. The park was literally black with them. You saw nothing but heads to the very tree-tops. They risked their lives for the Queen, for all the world as if they were the most accomplished of courtiers. The whole of the public were mad, excepting myself and her Majesty.”
“My dear Doctor, what a splendid opportunity for you to make a revolutionary speech to so large an assembly.”
“Yes, indeed!” said the Doctor. “A capital opening for a martyr to the cause. How quickly the populace would have torn me to pieces! But, in sober seriousness, I am not the man I used to be. On this island you doff the revolutionary garment, as snakes do their enamelled skin. When fresh from Germany, I was red and shaggy, as Esau of old; for on the other side of the Channel, affairs were really too lamentable and disgraceful. But, after my first four weeks among these smooth-shaved and really-constitutionally-governed barbarians, I, too, became smooth and mannerly, as Jacob the Patriarch. Another year will make me a constitutional monarchist, and a score of years or so will convert me into an absolutist of Montalembert’s stamp. Isn’t it disgusting! This impertinently, carefully-observed constitution of the English tears my republican toga into shreds, as day follows day. Only think,” continued the Doctor, “of addressing revolutionary observations to these contented Englishmen! It’s the most insane idea that I ever heard of! Are revolutions to be stamped out of the soil? Can they thrive without sunlight and rain, without provocation from the higher regions? The mob of our stamp have never yet made a revolution: kings make them. Of course they know not what they do.”
There is no stopping the Doctor when he once begins to speak. In his conversations with his German friends, he is eloquent on the merits of England; but at Sir John’s tea-table he fights tooth and nail for his beloved Germany. Quite a psychological phenomenon, which may be observed in the majority of the better class of German residents in England.
We walk slowly forward, and leave the park by the gate at Hyde Park Corner. The roads are now empty, for wealth and fashion have gone home to their dinners; and the hackney-coaches and omnibuses are not permitted to enter the sacred precincts. Enormous crowds of these excluded plebeian vehicles are collected at the gate, and move about wildly, to the manifest danger of all those who wish to cross the road. And high above the tumultuous movement and the crowd stands the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, almost opposite to Apsley House, in which the great warrior lived at the time this chapter was penned by the author.
It has rarely been the lot of a man so frequently to witness his own apotheosis as the Duke of Wellington; and yet how gloomy looks Apsley House on the fresh green borders of the park. The windows, shut up from year’s end to year’s end, and protected by bullet-proof shutters of massive iron—the very railings in front of the house boarded up, to exclude the curiosity of the passers-by—all owing to the riots which preceded the passing of the Reform Bill—riots in which the castles of the Tories were burnt down in the provinces, while in the metropolis the populace threatened the life of the greatest captain of the age.
Of course the Reform Bill would have been passed, even without riots and incendiarism. But it is not fair in Englishmen utterly to forget the bloody scenes which even in late years have been enacting in their own country, while anything like a riot on the Continent induces them to protest, “that those people are not fit for liberty.” Nor is it fair in a large party on the Continent, who are always referring to the moderation and good sense of Englishmen, utterly to forget the scenes of blood and destruction which ushered in the Reform Bill.
But what did a British Government do in those days of passion and terror? Did they at once declare that the British people were unfit for liberal institutions, merely because the violence of the catastrophe gave a temporary ascendancy to a couple of thousands of hot-headed mad-caps? Did they proclaim the state of siege? Did they fetter the press? Did they invade and search the houses of the citizens? Were Englishmen triedby courts-martial? Were punishments inflicted for political opinions and thoughts? Did malice go hand in hand with the administration of justice? Nothing of the kind! The incendiaries were arrested wherever they could be caught; but no one on either side of the Channel ever thought of saying, that the British nation was not ripe for freedom!
And what was the Duke of Wellington’s conduct when the mob assailed Apsley House? A continental general would have run away, or he would have led an army against the rioters. The Duke barricaded his house to the best of his ability. The old soldier stood up to defend his house and his person. He, the Field Marshal of all European countries, the Warden of the Cinque Ports, the Commander-in-Chief of the British army, he didnotissue his orders for the drums to beat, and his soldiers didnotfire upon the misguided populace. But when the storm was over, he had bullet-proof shutters made to his windows, and those shutters he kept closed, that the people should never forget theirbrutalattack upon the old lion. Well done, man of Waterloo! He has since risen in the estimation of the public; but, as I said before, most Englishmen, in judging of the affairs of the Continent, give not one passing thought to the bullet-proof shutters of Apsley House.
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.—FASHIONABLE QUARTERS.—LONDON IN 1752.—ST. JAMES’S PALACE.—PAST AND PRESENT.—PALL MALL.—THE LAND OF CLUBS.—MRS. GRUNDY ON THE CLUBS.—ST. JAMES’S PARK.—BUCKINGHAM PALACE.—WATERLOO PLACE.—TRAFALGAR-SQUARE.
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.—FASHIONABLE QUARTERS.—LONDON IN 1752.—ST. JAMES’S PALACE.—PAST AND PRESENT.—PALL MALL.—THE LAND OF CLUBS.—MRS. GRUNDY ON THE CLUBS.—ST. JAMES’S PARK.—BUCKINGHAM PALACE.—WATERLOO PLACE.—TRAFALGAR-SQUARE.
THEREis scarcely a nation so fond of green trees and green meadow-land as the English. They adore the splendid trees of their parks as the Druids did their sacred oaks; it is quite a pleasure to see that their conquests of nature, and other successful efforts to train its agencies to the weaving of woollen yarns, and the working of spinning-jennies, have not deprived them of a sense for those beauties of nature which cannot be reduced to capital and interest.
The English people are a gigantic refutation of that current untruth, that over cultivation estranges us from nature. Fire, water, earth, and air, are in England more than in any other part of the world, employed in the service of capital. In England they fatten their fields with manure which has travelled many thousands of miles, and which has been collected from some barren rock on the ocean; in England nature is compelled to produce water-lilies from the tropics, and fruit of various kinds of unnatural size; in England they eat grapes from Oporto—plums from Malta—peaches from Provence—pine-apples from Bermuda—bananas from St. Domingo—and nuts from the Brazils. Whatever cannot be grown on English soil is imported from other parts of the world; but, nevertheless, the English retain their affection for the trees and meadows, forests and shrubs of their own country. This law of nature, which is partly influenced by dietetic considerations, may be observed in any part of the metropolis. The best houses are always near the squares and the parks. That part of Piccadilly which faces thePark is elegant, expensive, and aristocratic; the other portion of that street, which extends deep into the vast ocean of houses, assumes a business aspect, and belongs to trade. But even that portion of Piccadilly which is now inhabited by the aristocracy was a most wretched place about one hundred years ago. There were a great many taverns whose fame was none of the best; and, on review days, the soldiers from the neighbouring barracks sat in front of the houses on wooden benches, whilst their hair was being powdered, and their pig-tails tied up. During this interesting operation, they laughed and joked with the maid-servants who passed that way. As a natural consequence of these proceedings, the quarter was avoided by the respectable classes.
From Piccadilly towards the north, and along the whole breadth of Hyde-park is Park-lane, with its charming houses built in the villa style, and similar to those of Brighton, for they have irregular fantastic balconies, rotundas, and verandahs. In Brighton these contrivances facilitate the view of the sea; here they help to a view of the park. Palace-like in their interiors, and filled with all those comforts which in English houses alone can be found in such beautiful harmony, and yet so unassuming, they do not, by their exterior, overawe the passers-by with the wealth of their inhabitants. Formerly this street was Tyburn-lane. The very name reminds one of hanging and quartering. At the present day, Park-lane, and all the streets around it, are the head-quarters of wealth and aristocracy. Plate-glass windows—powdered footmen—melancholy stillness—heavy carriages waiting at small doors—no shops, omnibuses, or carts—in cold, rainy, winter nights, perhaps here and there a woman and her child half-naked, and more than half-starved, crouching down in some dark corner. Such is the character of this part of the town, where, among old walls and green squares stand the most splendid houses of the aristocracy; and which, with few interruptions only, extends to the regions of Bond-street.
St. James’s-street connects Piccadilly with Pall-mall. We are still in the quarters of splendour, and we are approaching theland of clubs and royalty. In the beginning of the 18th century there were a great many theatres in and around St. James’s. In the chronicles of those old theatres, there is a deal of matter for the student of the life and character of old London. The managers were speculators; the public were credulous; there was a strong hankering after miracles, and a decided predilection for noise. On the whole, people in those days were much the same as they are now, but there was more coarseness, more massiveness, and less grace. We go down St. James’ Street, and reach the point where it joins Pall Mall; there we stand, in front of St. James’ Palace, an old, black, and rambling building, with no interest, except what it derives from the past; and even in the past, it was considered as a mere appendage to Whitehall; and only after Whitehall was burned down, did St. James’ Palace become the real seat of royalty; and it continued to be so until George IV. took up his residence at Buckingham Palace. At the present day, the old palace is used for court ceremonies only; the Queen holds her levees and drawing-rooms in it. In the three large saloons there are, on such occasions, crowds of people who have theentrée, in full dress, and great splendour, thronging round the throne, which is ornamented with a canopy of red velvet, and a gold star and crown. The walls are decorated with pictures of the battles of Waterloo and Vittoria; in the back-ground are the Queen’s apartments, where she receives her ministers. The anti-chambers are filled with yeomen of the guard, and court officials of every description. In the court-yard are the state-carriages of the nobility; and the streets around the park are thronged with crowds of anxious spectators.
These are the moments when that gloomy building is lighted up with the splendour of modern royalty; at all other times, night and day, red grenadiers pace to and fro in front of the dark walls. The court-yards are given up to the gambols of birds, cats, and children; but every morning, a military band of music plays in the colour court.
Pall Mall is one of the most splendid streets in London; its splendour is chiefly owing to the club houses. There are,in this street, the Oxford and Cambridge Club, the Army and Navy Club, the Carlton, the Reform, the Travellers’, and the Athenæum. Besides these, there are in London a large number of club-houses, of which it may generally be said, that their chief end and aim is to procure a comfortable home by means of association, in as cheap and perfect a manner as possible.
But the words, “as cheap and perfect as possible,” convey quite a different idea to the German to what they do to the Englishman. A short explanation may not, perhaps, be out of place at this point.
A younger son of an old house, with an income of, say from two to four hundred pounds, cannot live, and do as others do, within the limits of that income. He can neither take and furnish a house, nor can he keep a retinue of servants or give dinners to his friends. The club is his home, and stands him in the place of an establishment. At the club, spacious and splendidly furnished saloons are at his disposal; there is a library, a reading-room, baths, and dressing-rooms. At the club he finds all the last new works and periodicals; a crowd of servants attend upon him; and the cooking is irreproachable. The expenses of the establishment are defrayed by the annual contributions and the entrance fees. But, of course, neither the annual contributions nor the entrance-fees, pay for the dinners and suppers, the wines and cigars, of the members. Members do dine at the clubs: indeed, the providing of dinners is among the leading objects of these establishments, and the dinners are good and cheap, compared to the extortionate prices of the London hotels. The club provides everything, and gives it at cost price; a member of a good club pays five shillings for a dinner, which in an hotel would be charged, at least, four times that sum.
Thehabituésof the London Clubs would be shocked if they were asked to pass their hours and half-hours in our German coffee and reading-rooms; and, on the other hand, persons accustomed to the bee-hive life of Vienna coffee-houses consider the London Clubs as dull though handsome edifices. Lordly halls,splendid carpets, sofas, arm-chairs, strong, soft, and roomy, in which a man might dream away his life; writing and reading-rooms tranquil enough to suit a poet, and yet grand, imposing, aristocratic; doors covered with cloth to prevent the noise of their opening and shutting, and their brass handles resplendent as the purest gold; enormous fire-places surrounded by slabs of the whitest marble; the furniture of mahogany and palisander; the staircases broad and imposing as in thepalazzosof Rome; the kitchenschefs d’oeuvreof modern architecture; bath and dressing-rooms got up with all the requirements of modern luxury; in short, the whole house full of comfortable splendour and substantial wealth. All this astonishes but does not dazzle one, because here prevails that grand substantial taste in domestic arrangements and furniture, in which the English surpass all other nations, and which it is most difficult to imitate, because it is most expensive.
The influence which club-life exercises on the character of Englishmen is still an open question among them. The majority of the fairer portion of Her Majesty’s subjects hate and detest the clubs most cordially. Mrs. Grundy is loud in her complaints, that all that lounging, gossiping, and smoking deprives those “brutes of men” of the delight they would otherwise take in her intellectual society, and that club dinners make men such epicures, they actually turn up their noses at cold mutton. And even when at home, Mr. Grundy is always dull, and goes about sulking with Mrs. Grundy. To be sure, all he wants is to pick a quarrel, and go and spend his evening in that “horrid club.” But there are some women who presume to differ from the views of this admirable type of old English matrons. They are fond of clubs, and hold a man all the more fitted for the fetters of matrimony after yawning away a couple of years in one of these British monasteries. The club-men, say these ladies, make capital husbands; for the regulations of the club-houses admit of no domestic vices, and these regulations are enforced with such severity, that a woman’s rule appears gentle ever afterwards.
The windows of almost all the club-houses in Pall Mall have the most charming views on St. James’s Park. It is the smallest of all the parks; but it is a perfect jewel amidst the splendid buildings which surround it on all sides. On its glassy lake fine shrubs, and beeches, and ash-trees on the banks throw their trembling shadows; tame water-fowl of every description swim on it or waddle on the green sward near, and eat the crumbs which the children have brought for them. The paths are skirted with flower-beds, with luxurious grass-plots behind them; and on sunny days these grass-plots are crowded with happy children, who prefer this park to all others, for the water-birds are such grateful guests, and look so amiable and stupid, and are so fond of biscuits, and never bite any one. And the sheep, too, are altogether different from all other sheep in the world; they are so tame and fat, and never think of running away when a good child pats their backs, and gives them some bread to eat. And there are green boats, and for one penny they take you over to the other side; and the water, too, is green, much greener than the boat; and there is no danger of horses and carriages, and children may run and jump about without let or hindrance, and there are such numbers of children too. In short, there is no saying how much pleasure the London children take in St. James’s Park.
On the Continent, too, there are parks; they are larger, and are taken more care of, and by far more ornamental than the London parks. But all strangers who come to London must find that their imperial and royal palace gardens at home, with all their waterworks, and Chinese pagodas, Greek temples, and artificial romanticisms, do not make anything like that cheerful, refreshing, tranquillising, and yet exciting impression which the parks of England produce. It is certainly not the climate which works this miracle, nor is it a peculiarity of the soil, for fine meadow-land there is in plenty on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube. The English alone know how to handle Nature, so that it remains nature; they alone can here and there take off a tree, and in another place add some shrubs, without, therefore,forcing vegetation into the narrow sphere of arbitrary and artificial laws. Our great gardens at home want wide open grassplots; where such are, the shrubs and plantations encroach upon them; none are allowed to leave the paths and walk over the grass, and the public are confined to, and crowded on, the sand-covered paths, whence they may look at the clumps of trees, and the narrow empty clearances between them. On such spots in England you find the most splendid cattle; children are playing there, and men and women come and go, giving life, movement, and colouring to the landscape; and, since parks are but imitations of nature, life, movement, and colour are absolutely necessary to them.
This life on the green sward in the very heart of the metropolis gives the parks a rural and idyllic aspect; while, on the other hand, it suggested the saying, that all England gives one the idea of a large park.
At the western end of St. James’s park is the Queen’s palace—a stately building not a grand one; though extensive enough to astonish those strangers who have read in the newspapers that Her Britannic Majesty complains of want of houseroom. And here it ought to be remarked, that, during the present reign alone not less than £150,000 have been voted by parliament for the extension and improvement of Buckingham Palace. Thanks to so large a sum of money, the palace is now both comfortable and splendid, with itsfaçadeoverlooking the Green park and St. James’s park, with the armorial lion and unicorn, which have lately been placed on the gates in so exquisitely ludicrous a manner, that they turn their backs, at one and the same time, upon one another, the palace, and the queen. To the south, the palace commands a view of the ocean of houses yclept Pimlico; to the north it overlooks the shady groves and meadow grounds of Hyde-park; and on its northern side are splendid gardens nearly as large as St. James’s park. Thus is Buckingham Palace situated in the midst of green trees, and removed as far as possible from the smoky atmosphere of the metropolis. And yet they say that the site is not so healthy as might be wished;and the royal family pass only a few months in the year in this their official residence. They prefer Windsor, the valleys of Balmoral, and Osborne (the most charming of marine villas) in the Isle of Wight.
We return to Pall Mall, and passing Marlborough House (at one time the residence of King Leopold of Belgium), we enter St. James’s square; and passing the famous house at the corner of King-street from the steps of which George IV., on the night of the 20th June, 1818, proclaimed the news of the victorious battle of Waterloo, we proceed in an eastern direction, and, emerging from Pall Mall enter an open place—the end of Regent-street—whence broad stone stairs lead down into St. James’s park. This is Waterloo-place, surrounded by columned mansions. On each side of the broad stone stairs are rows of stately palace-like houses. One of them serves as an asylum to the Prussian Embassy, and another is interesting to the continental visitor because it is Lord Palmerston’s town-house. In front of the stairs is the Duke of York’s column, of which very little can be said, except that it is ninety-four feet high, and some years ago the jumping down from the top and being smashed on the broad stones at its base, was a fashionable mode of committing suicide. It’s a pity that none of the poor wretches ever thought of over throwing and jumping down with the statue of the Duke of York, for it stands ridiculously high, and the impression it makes on that bad eminence is by no means agreeable.
We cross Waterloo-place, and passing Her Majesty’s theatre and the Haymarket on our left, we hail the equestrian statue of George III. Again the houses recede, and again a gigantic column with a dwarfish man on its top pierces the skies. Then another George—the fourth of the name—on an iron horse, and there are two fountains, and there is also the National Gallery, and St. Martin’s Church, and the lion looking down from Northumberland House upon the street noise and the streams of life and traffic which here cross and recross in all directions. We are at the foot of the Nelson column, in Trafalgar-square, which native enthusiasm and foreign scoffers say is like thePlace de laConcordeat Paris. And here we stop for the present. Politeness induces us to say as little as possible of Trafalgar-square. Besides it is high time to introduce our readers to a friend of Dr. Keif’s, to whom we propose devoting the next chapter.
ONE OF DR. KEIF’S ADVENTURES.—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OLD ENGLAND.—A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.—ENGLISHFlegeljahre.—THE ORDINANCES OF FASHION.—OUR FRIEND’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.—THE GENTLEMAN’S OCCUPATIONS AND ECCENTRICITIES.—FOREIGNERS.—JOHN BULL ON FOREIGNERS GENERALLY.—STRIFE AND PEACE.
ONE OF DR. KEIF’S ADVENTURES.—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OLD ENGLAND.—A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.—ENGLISHFlegeljahre.—THE ORDINANCES OF FASHION.—OUR FRIEND’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.—THE GENTLEMAN’S OCCUPATIONS AND ECCENTRICITIES.—FOREIGNERS.—JOHN BULL ON FOREIGNERS GENERALLY.—STRIFE AND PEACE.
AMONGthe thousand-and-one adventures which Dr. Keif had in the very first week of the season, there was one which, as fate willed it, became entitled to a page in the chronicles of our house.[E]One night at the Opera, he met a gentleman whom many years ago he had seen among the ruins of Heidelberg Castle. Dr. Keif was, of course, overjoyed to see his old friend, and, for many days he sang that friend’s praises in the most extravagant terms. He told the ladies of the house that the gentleman he had met was a Don Juan, whose very appearance conquered legions of “blue devils,” while the glance of his eye was enough to attract and subdue any female heart.
[E]It is of no use concealing the fact, that our house is that of a respectable London citizen. We will, therefore, confess that Sir John is neither a knight nor a baronet, but that we—without the intervention and assistance of Her Gracious Majesty—considering his eminent services on behalf of our readers, knighted him by means of a silver tea-spoon.
[E]It is of no use concealing the fact, that our house is that of a respectable London citizen. We will, therefore, confess that Sir John is neither a knight nor a baronet, but that we—without the intervention and assistance of Her Gracious Majesty—considering his eminent services on behalf of our readers, knighted him by means of a silver tea-spoon.
“Oh, indeed!” said I; “then he’s a dandy?” “Never mind,” whispered Dr. Keif, with an air of profoundmystery. “He’ll be worth his weight in gold as an ally. He isn’t even an Englishman, I tell you. That is to say, not a modern Englishman, but a youthful scion of merry old England. Not a trace of orthodoxy is to be found in him, neither in church nor in kitchen matters, neither in criticism nor in politics.” And to Sir John the learned doctor said:—
“Sir,—I have found the man who first gave me an idea of the greatness of England; who persuaded me to study ‘Johnson’s Dictionary’; and to whom I am indirectly indebted for your acquaintance, respect, and friendship.”
Of course we were all very desirous to see this remarkable man. And here we ought to remark, that in an English family the introduction of a stranger is not so usual and common-place an event as in Germany and France. Previous to, and after your first visit, the family meet in council. Your good and bad qualities are weighed in the scale of domestic criticism; for every member of the family sees in you, eventually, a bridegroom, brother-in-law, son-in-law, uncle, or master. At all events you are considered as a suitor for the privileges of a friend of the family, for the slight and passing acquaintances of continental life are unknown in these circles. The very servants in such houses are hereditary, and hold their places for life; the nurse is hired for three generations; the coachman’s grandfather trained the mare whose great grand-daughter is now the property of the son of the house. The question whether the doors of the sanctuary are to be opened, concerns all the members of the family, and gives rise to lengthy discussions and animated debates. While the parlour votes you a gentleman, low voices of warning are heard from the depths of the kitchen; for the cook says:—
“Sure no one knows what church you go to on a Sunday; and the other day your coat was buttoned up to the chin; for all the world as if you had cause to conceal your linen or the want of it.”
Even Miss Lollypop, though but just in her teens, and fresh from the nursery, takes part in the debate, and raises her shrill voice in condemnation.
“I can’t bear him, mamma,” says she; “and I won’t remain inthe room when he comes. How can he dare to pinch my cheek as if I were but a child?”
And you, O unsuspecting stranger, have no idea of the sensation which your knock produces throughout the house; and when, on going away, Sir John shakes hands with you, and sees you to the door, asking you to call again, you are, perhaps—continental as you are—cautious enough to consider all this as a mark of cheap and common politeness! You are mistaken. Sir John lays great stress on his religious observance of the ordinances of old English family life, and he quotes, with much emphasis, the following paragraph of that most explicit of all unpublished law books:—
“And in case the stranger, male or female, doth, by a comely form and demure carriage, gain thy British heart, then shalt thou, when he or she departeth, give his or her hand a hearty shake, to signify and prove thereby that he or she shall always be welcome at thy table, at thy fireside, and in the spare bedroom which is on thy premises. But if thou dost not like him or her, then his or her hand shall not be so shaken.”
Robert Baxter, Esq., or, simply Mr. Baxter, as we by this time are accustomed to call him, had, thanks to his friend and eulogist, no difficulties whatever to contend with. He marched in with flying colours. He came, saw, and conquered. The “hearty shake of the hand” was resolved upon before he had emptied his first cup of tea at our fireside. By this time, he is the most intimate friend of the family; he comes and goes away at his liking—takes the children out in his gig—and has, in short, made such progress in the space of a very few weeks, that, in direct violation of another paragraph of the family ordinances, he lays hands even on the sacred poker, and actually pokes the fire with it; a privilege which, according to law, should not be conceded, even to a friend, before the expiration of the seventh year of amicable intercourse.
Let no one fancy that these remarks are an introduction to a novellistic plot. To dispel all suspicions on this head, I proceed at once to unmask Dr. Keif’s abominable perfidy—one which the ladies of the house vow they will forgive, but which they cannot forget. Only fancy their disappointment! Keif’s “Don Juan,”his “amiable hero,” his “capital fellow,” for thus it pleased the doctor to call him—Mr. Baxter, in fact, is a grey-haired old man. Dr. Keif was cunning enough to excuse the incorrectness of his description by pleading short-sightedness. “It never had struck him—indeed it had not—and,—
“After all,” said our learned friend; “though not exactly young, Mr. Baxter is youthful. His whiskers, for instance, are brown; and his large, clear eyes, how free and open do they look at all and everything! Has he not an aristocratic hand? Is not his chin round, his forehead white, and his toilet irreproachable? In short, the more I think of it, the more firmly am I persuaded, that Mr. Baxter is quite a Don Juan if compared with your absurd London greenhorns, whose lengthy faces make all the French shop-girls in Regent-street gape.”
“True!” said I. “In my opinion, Mr. Baxter’s grey hair is his best recommendation, for none but children and old men are truly amiable in England. No creature on earth more excels in charming merriness and bold natural freshness, than your little freeborn, trouserless Briton. But the moment the boy sports the very ghost of a stray hair on his upper lip—the moment he lays in a stock of razors and stiff shirt collars—that very moment does your English boy undergo a most shocking metamorphosis, and one which even Doyle would despair to depict. The ‘Flegeljahre’—the period of sowing wild oats—with other nations a mere transition period, scarcely longer than a northern spring, is, in the case of an Englishman, protracted through ten years and more. With the very brightest character it lasts up to six-and-twenty; but it also frequently happens that the modern Englishman, like unto Tully’s Roman, remains an ‘adolescens’ up to forty. There is something altogether indescribable in this EnglishFlegeljahrcharacter. Fancy a cross between an unctuous missionary and a fast under-graduate, duly coated, cravated brushed up and dressed out for the dining-room; and you will have a tolerably approximating idea of theFlegel-youth, who eager to be very respectable and romantic at one and the same time, succeeds in appearing either insufferably tedious or unconstitutionally comical. Is it their hypochondriacal climate? So do the continentals ask every year, when the English exodusarrives on their shores. Or is it Church and State? Is it a fault of education, or a want of digestion, which causes these wealthy, tall islanders, with their red faces and costly coats, to stand forth so queer, and out of the common order of human creatures? They are neat to perfection, and got up regardless of expense in all their details; but take the fellow as a whole, and you find him mighty unsavoury.
“You will find the reason neither in the fog, nor in constitutional liberty. No Act of Parliament forbids a man to cultivate the graces; and the climate enacts flannel only, but by no means the ‘Zopf.’ It is not a want of education, but a superabundance of it. It is the education of a rigidly puritanical governess, whose name we never pronounce without a feeling of secret awe. That governess is more fervently adored than the Established Church; people fear her more than they did the Spanish Inquisition. As Fate sat enthroned in mysterious majesty above the gods of Greece, so does this cruel mistress lord it over Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and all the other glories of Old England. Her name isGentility! Liberty of the Press and popular agitation avail not against her. The Commons of England have conquered the strongholds of Toryism; Mr. Cobden and his Cotton Lords have trampled Protection under foot, and light is being let even into the gloomy caverns of Chancery. But what agitator dares to league the cunningly separated classes of English society against only one of the one thousand three hundred positive and negative enactments of Gentility, whereby the favoured people of the isles are distinguished from the pagans of the continent—from the immoral, uneducated barbarians—from those ‘soap-renouncing’ foreigners! Who liberates the freeborn Briton from the fear of ‘losing caste’ (a genuine British phrase this!), which follows him as his shadow, whithersoever he may direct his steps—which haunts him even in rural retirement—and which, in a town containing near three millions of inhabitants, admits not even of one single circle of free and general sociability! At a political meeting, perhaps, there may exist something like an approximation of the upper and lower classes, and peers and draymen, cheese-mongers and guardsmen, may, on such occasions, breathe the sameair, and fill it with their cheers and groans. But I will rather believe that St. Peter’s of Rome and St. Paul’s of London can come together, than that the cousin of a Right Honourable will knowingly, and with tolerance prepense, eat his dinner at the same table with the keeper of a cheese-shop.
“We, the foreigners, are blind to the graces of the EnglishFlegel-youth. His manners, which we liken to those of a dancing bear, are, in the eyes of the natives, respectable; what we contemn as a mincing chilliness of address, is exalted as the decent reserve of the true Briton. Of course there are exceptions, especially within these latter days. Now and then we meet with daring innovators, who doubt the exclusive decency of English manners. There are bold sceptics, proclaiming in the East and in the West that a man with a coloured neck-tie ought to be able to appear in the pit of the Italian Opera, without thereby obliging all proper-minded females in the five rows of boxes to faint away and be carried out forthwith. Others pretend that at table you may take the fork with your right hand, without by so doing affixing an indelible stigma to your name; and that there is a possibility of pardon, even for the man who eats mustard with his mutton. The very boldest assert that you may take a pea with your knife, and eat the pea too, and yet be a gentleman for all that. These are charming signs of the times; they awaken hopes which another generation will perhaps justify. But, generally speaking, there is no denying it, that the free social spirit of merry Old England is most frequently to be found among the elderly men.”
Grey hair, with red cheeks, is pleasing to look at; and doubly pleasing are those colours when they ornament the head of a gentleman, for in such a case they announce the presence of all sorts of manly amiabilities. The word “gentleman” has been shockingly profaned in England. According to Sir John’s cynical definition, any man is a gentleman who pays his tailor’s bill. The correctness of that definition would appear to be generally allowed, for the name is most liberally bestowed on dandies and blockheads, wealthy tradesmen and sporting men. But in these pages I speak of the “Gentleman” in the truest and noblest senseof the term. He is a joint production of nature, art, and accident; and there are many conditions to the perfection of thisbeau ideal.
Imprimis, he must not be compelled to eat his roast-beef by the sweat of his brow; for he who has to work for his existence in England cannot, of course, be said to be independent. He must have made the grand tour; for to the English the continent is in a manner a social high school and academy. How miraculously is the innate and indestructible kernel of English character developed in such a man! As he ripens in years, he breaks through that icy covering which in his earlier years surrounded him, and he shakes off the chains of etiquette or bears them with a grace which proves that to him they are not a restraint, but an ornament.
A few years later, he eclipses the flower of the male part of society in Germany and France; his jovial humour is restrained by an exquisite tact; his politeness acquires substance from a free and hearty manner. There is in him so grave and natural a manliness, that to oblige him and to be obliged by him is equally agreeable. It would seem that he becomes younger as he advances in years.
Such a man was Robert Baxter, Esq. The history of his development is short and simple enough: shortly after his introduction into our circle he related it one evening—after dinner, of course. For what does the code of family morals enact and prescribe?
“Thou shalt invite a gentleman to a good and solid dinner, the which consisteth of fish and roast-meat, and pudding and wine. But thou shalt not invite him to the eating of cakes and sugar-plums, and much less shalt thou tempt him to asoirée dansante, where he would have much labour and no sustenance. And at table thou shalt not, as the wicked do, make the said gentleman talk of politics, business, science, and divers other heavy matters, lest peradventure his attention should be diverted from the enjoyment of the various dishes which thou shalt set before him.”
Obedient to this law, Sir John gave a grand dinner to all his family to celebrate Mr. Baxter’s acquaintance. It was after thatdinner that our friend, reclining in an easy chair, gave us the following sketch of his former life:—
“ ‘Story—God bless you, I have none to tell, sir.’ My life has been that of a gentleman—comfortable and monotonous throughout. I was brought up by an uncle—of course, he was rich; most uncles are. He spoilt me and left me his property. I went to Harrow and Oxford, where I learnt that no one ever learns anything in those seats of learning, except fighting, hunting, and the art and mystery of writing Latin verses. And after all, to think of the lots of very clever men we have in spite of those places—truly it is miraculous! Old England,—thank goodness!—can’t be ruined; but it wants ventilation. Ventilation in foreign climes is a necessity for the free-born Englishman. That was my idea when I crossed the Channel to Calais. On that occasion I had a curious adventure. Not a duel—no nothing of the kind. I pitched into a Frenchman and knocked him down. The wretch had called me ‘un étranger.’ I did not understand his mode of speech, but a friend who was with me said the words meant ‘a foreigner.’ ‘A foreigner, you scoundrel!’ cried I. ‘How dare you say a free-born Briton is a foreigner!’ and I knocked him down. He got up and challenged me to fight a duel with him, but the police interfered, and I was arrested. The lieutenant of the police who had to examine me, told me, with a kindness which was altogether undeserved on my part, that the word ‘foreigner’ was quite harmless, that it had a relative meaning, and that it might even be complimentary. I could not stand that. I had a dim perception of my being wrong, and of having made an egregious fool of myself, but still I could not get over the contemptuous meaning which we connect with the term; and pig-headed as I was, I replied in English:—
“ ‘Sir, I’d thank you for not addressing such compliments to me. You may call me a non-Frenchman—of course you may; for I am an Englishman and glory in the fact, but I would not be a foreigner—no! not for the world! Rather than submit to such an indignity I’d leave your country at once.’
“He laughed and bowed me out, and that very day I returned to Dover.
“On my second continental tour, I went through Belgium toGermany, and when, after a few years’ residence in that country, I came back to England, I was not alone. I was accompanied by a foreigner—a lady who bore my name. She was not strong, and could not bear the climate. She yearned for her country, but concealed her wish to return. When at length I brought her back to the sunnier clime of Southern Germany, it was too late. That sad event happened many years ago, but though she left me, I was not solitary. Heaven be thanked, I have a son, a dear boy, who is now at college at Heidelberg.”
“Of course, your son is half a foreigner!” said Miss Lollypop, with a slight toss of her head.
“Nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Baxter, with a smile. “He is a Cockney by birth, for he was born within the sound of Bow-bells. But,” added our friend, “I wish him to become so much of a foreigner as to enjoy the brighter sides of English life without a superstitious admiration of the darker ones.”
A pause of general embarrassment followed the conclusion of this short and fragmentary autobiography. The children looked at Mr. Baxter curiously, enquiringly, for a couple of stories and anecdotes seemed still hovering on his lips. But he sat silent and lost in thought. Probably his thoughts were with his son, the Heidelberg student; perhaps he fancied he accompanied that son in his wanderings through some valley in the Alps or to the ruins of some ancient abbey, rich with curious carvings and relics of the olden time. For Mr. Baxter rides the antiquarian hobby as he does his other hobbies, of which many are as laborious as useless. For it ought to be remarked, that a real gentleman hates absolute idleness; some purpose or object, fantastic though it be, he must have: he defies dangers and courts fatigues. The odd freaks which English gentlemen have, and which they are guilty of, to the signal astonishment and amusement of continentalfeuilleton-writers and Gothamites, are mere excrescences of that restless desire of activity which is one of the most splendid qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race. Many thousands of Englishmen, each of whom can afford to make his life one long spell of rest, devote their time and energies to an honourable servitude in the nation’s service, and slave for a single word of thanks from posterity, quite as much as the continentalbureaucratsdo for ordersand pensions. If they want the talents or the ambition necessary for such a career, they will devote themselves to farming or support some one of the numerous charitable institutions of the metropolis or their own county—not only with money, for that were no sacrifice—but also by giving it their time, personal attention, and influence. The active charity of the women is quite as great as that of the men; and this explains the reason why, although in England the gulf between wealth and poverty is wider than in every other country, nevertheless up to the present day there are no symptoms of that patient bitterness of hatred among the lower classes—that harbinger of an approaching doom—which has come to other nations with the gloomy evangel of the future on its pale lips.
As a third class, we have the amateurs and patronisers of arts and sciences; the passionate and most persevering observers of nature, who for many months will watch a swallow’s nest, or fill their diaries with observations on the signs and marks of instinct in cockroaches and snails; the travellers in every clime, who take their coffee with the Shah of Persia, converse with the Sultan on the superior excellence of English railroads; rhyme on, and in presence of, the cypress trees of Scutari; smoke the pipe of peace with the Camanchees and the Last of the Mohicans; and who now and then watch and register the hangman’s tricks of an accomplished despot, in order to recount them to their countrymen, who never believe such shocking stories, unless published under the authority of a gentleman of known respectability, and conservative principles. Those who are altogether unable to employ their leisure hours—that is to say, their lives—usefully, devote themselves to some “sport” with a touching fanaticism, and ride their hobbies with the heroism of world-betterers. Such a man sails in a nut-shell of a yacht to the polar regions, or travels about in Spain to effect the conversion of Jews and gipsies; or he ascends Mont Blanc, and writes a letter to theTimesto commemorate his fatigue and folly.
Mr. Baxter, however, had never been up Mont Blanc, and what is more, it is not likely he will ever make the ascent. He is too old, and too clever. On the evening in question, he gave convincing proof of his shrewd good nature and tact for while wewere all silent and embarrassed, he leant back, with the most comfortable air in the world, and with a look of innocent slyness at our long-drawn faces. Our embarrassment and silence were caused by a word of which Mr. Baxter had made a liberal use in his autobiography, and which he pronounced with a provoking emphasis. It is a word on which whole chapters and books might be written—the word “Foreigner.”
The ancient Greeks spoke of all other nations on the face of the earth as “barbarians”; and for a period, I believe, they were quite right. It is said, whether truly or falsely I will not here investigate; but it is said, that every Englishman thanks God in his morning’s prayers, that he has not been created a foreigner. “He is a foreigner, but a very nice man!” “A very gentlemanly foreigner, indeed!” “What a pity he is a foreigner!” Offensive compliments of this sort fall very frequently from British lips. The tone of pity, contempt, and condescension, with which those disagreeable words are pronounced, is applied, not only with respect to the foreigner, but also to the produce of his country. Bad cherries or plums, are at once declared to be foreign; there is no doubt they come from France, Belgium, or Holland. When our cook opens an egg which offends her olfactory nerves, and when she flings it indignantly into the dust-hole, she accompanies it with the sneering hiss of “foreign”! That wretched egg was laid by a Dutch hen. Of course it was; and probably the passage from Holland was very long and stormy. But alas! all Dutch hens come into evil repute; it is at once understood that, “Them nasty furrin hanimals halways lays bad heggs, Sir.”
A bold attempt to vindicate the rights and the honor of foreigners was, on one Sunday evening, made in Guildford Street, at dinner time, when the glorious roast beef of Old England graced Sir John’s hospitable board.
“This glorious bulwark of your nation,” said Dr. Keif, “is of foreign extraction.”
Sir John dropped his knife with the shock these words gave him.
“I dont understand you, sir,” said he, rather sternly.
“Is not your loin of beef cut from Jütish ox, that was fattenedon the Holstein marshes? Go to Smithfield, and ask the sellers where they got that Homeric beef, to which the British owe their strength, humour, and political superiority?”
Sir John was mute with astonishment and vexation. He could not deny the truth of the learned Doctor’s sally; yet if he admitted it, what—ay, what was to become of the roast beef of Old England?
“Come!” said Dr. Keif, following up his advantage, and raising his glass, “ ‘Here’s a health to Father Rhine!’ What do you say, Sir,” added he, turning to Mr. Baxter; “Is there anything equal to the delight of a walking expedition down the Rhine, or up the Ahr or Mosel?”
Mr. Baxter took the hint.
“Charming!” said he. “Even Sir John must confess that we have some reason for our love of continental life; and that travelling Englishmen, after all, know what is good when they stick to the banks of the Rhine, the Danube, or the Neckar.”
“Certainly,” said Sir John; “to see those countries, and the queer sort of people that live in them, is certainly worth while; but to the English heart there’s no place like home. They have not anything extra in those countries, have they?”
“Yes, they have,” said Mr. Baxter peremptorily. To whom Sir John replied—
“It’s an old proverb, that there’s nothing choice or precious in the world, but money will procure it for you in England.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied Mr. Baxter, with great determination; “there are things rich and rare which could not be had in England—no, not for all the money in the Bank!”
Sir John was extremely shocked. “Sir,” said he; “you astonish me: oblige me by proving your assertion. What is it you allude to?”
“Why, of aVolksfest, a people’s festival, really and truly a festival in the open air, when all ranks and classes join and mix without any thought or possibility of a mob; where the wine calls forth songs and laughter, but where not a single fist is raised to threaten or strike.”
And Mr. Baxter continued, in rather too flattering colours, giving a sketch of the merry German life, and contrasting it withlife in England. He expatiated on the general cultivation of the lower classes, on the toleration of German social life—in short, he lost his way in producing so brilliant an apotheosis of German affairs, that he did not, or would not, pay attention to Sir John, who shook his head in an ominous manner.
At first, Dr. Keif rubbed his hands triumphantly, for on Mr. Baxter’s free-born British lips each word had the charm of authority. But as our friend went on, the Doctor could not but confess to himself, that Mr. Baxter’s victory might possibly lead to that gentleman’s utter ruin in the worthy baronet’s good opinion.
There was a long and awful pause. At length Sir John rose, and with a smile, by no means a natural one, he walked up to Mr. Baxter, held out his hand, dropped it, and said—
“Sir! It’s my opinion you are a respectable man, and I believe you mean what you say; but moderation is good in all matters. You may be just to foreign countries: so am I. But you idolize the Continent, and despise your own country. That—I beg your pardon—but that is not the conduct of an English gentleman!”
Dr. Keif looked very pale and uncomfortable.
“Nonsense, Sir John,” said Mr. Baxter good-humouredly. “Let me say a word to you, and then you may judge whether I love my country less than you do. I have never meddled with politics, but I am something of a Tory; for I take the world as it is, and hold that everything which is, is, if notpour le mieux, according to Voltaire’sCandide, at least not without good reason. But no one ought to claim all honour and glory for him and his. The people of this beautiful island have the inestimable treasures of liberty, power and honour. England is an impregnable fortress; a charming garden fenced in by the ocean and by rocks; her tranquil safety is cheap at any price! No venomous reptiles creep on her soil; the wolves have been exterminated for centuries past. But in return, the sweets of existence are open only to hard labour and high birth. A consequence of this is, a spirit ofcaste, a tendency to seclusion, a stubborn and rugged independence. Look at the Continent. What would those poor nations come to, plagued and hunteddown as they are, if deprived of the comforting amenities of a kindly sociability? What, they have no unity in their states, no protection abroad, no sacredness of law, no safety at home, and yet you would dispute with them the paltry consolation of having better actors than you have! If their towns, with their eternal state of siege, had our fogs and clouds of smoke, our penitential Sundays and breathless week-days, whoever could resist the temptation of committing suicide? Why, such a state of things were a hell upon earth! And can you believe that Providence could allow such a state of things to exist? But to return to England. This country has the greatest Parliament, the most powerful orators, the most humane police, the freest newspapers, the most untouchable liberty; and with all this you lay claim to a monopoly of good potatoes and manners! You would have all the gifts and perfections of earth! But if this our England could, in addition to her solid political heritage, have the charms of continental leisure hours, why then this same England were a Paradise on earth—literally a Paradise, where no one could ever think of dying.”
Sir John was pacified and happy, and said he was. He went about the room singing “God save the Queen,” and would not leave off shaking hands with Mr. Baxter.