All this was said in a language quite peculiar to himself, half English, half German—the English part with a broad German accent, but with the imposing confidence of a man who feels such trifles to be beneath his attention. This truly original language struck me as very characteristic of a man who is unquestionably a person of genius, and of a certain sort of greatness of character.
I had begun my day, very appropriately for England, with the Royal Exchange, the resort of merchants, and ended it with Exeter ‘Change, where I saw the representatives of the colonies,—the wild beasts. Here I found another lion, and this time a genuine one, called Nero, who besideshis tameness, has the rarer merit in our northern latitude, of having presented England with six generations of young lions. He is of enormous size and dignified aspect, but now rests upon his laurels and sleeps royally nearly all day long. If he wakes in an ill humour, however, he makes the old wooden house and all the herd of subject beasts tremble. These consist of elephants, tigers, leopards, hyænas, zebras, monkeys, ostriches, condors, parrots, &c. It is curious that they are not upon the ground floor, but up one or two pair of stairs, so that one can ride on a tame elephant which stands always ready saddled, and enjoy a fine extensive prospect. The variety is great, and the price moderate. The ambassador of the late King of Würtemburg had, as I well remember, more occupation here than in St. James’ and Downing Street; and, indeed, I know that he was for a considerable time in fear of losing his post on account of a strange enormous dead tortoise.
On the way home to my hotel we passed a house which furnished my cicerone with an occasion of telling the following interesting story. If it is ‘brodé,’ I beg of you to blame him and not me.[10]
October 13th.
Fatigued by my tour the day before yesterday, I passed the following morning in my own room. In the evening I visited the English Opera. The house is neither large nor elegant, but the actors very good. There was no opera, however, but hideous melo-drames; first, Frankenstein, where a human being is made by magic,—a manufacture which answers very ill; and then the Vampire, after the well-known tale falsely attributed to Lord Byron. The principal part in both was acted by Mr. Cooke, who is distinguished for a very handsome person, skilful acting, and a remarkably dignified, noble deportment. The acting was, indeed, admirable throughout, but the pieces so stupid and monstrous that it was impossible to sit out the performance. The heat, the exhalations, and the audience were not the most agreeable. Besides all this, the performance lasted from seven to half-past twelve,—too long for the best.
The next day I drove to Hampton Court to visit the palace, the stud, and my old friend Lady ——. Of all three I found the first the least altered, and the celebrated vine laden as usual with grapes. It had considerably above a thousand bunches, and completely covered a hot-house of seventy-five feet long by twenty-five wide. In a corner stood, like the dim progenitor of a haughty race, its brown stem, as lost and obscure as if it did not belong to the magnificent canopy of leaves and fruit which owe their existence to it alone.
Most of the rooms in the palace have still the same furniture as in the time of William the Third. The torn chairs and curtains are carefully preserved. The walls are hung with many interesting and admirable pictures;—above all, the celebrated Cartoons of Raphael, which, however, are soon to be transferred to the King’s new palace. I must only mention two fineportraits,—that of Wolsey, the haughty founder of this palace, and that of Henry the Eighth, his treacherous master. Both are admirable and highly characteristic. You remember that fat lawyer whom we had such difficulty in getting rid of; with an animal expression of countenance, sensual, bloodthirsty as far as the present times render it possible to be so, clever, subtle, full of talent and of craft, with boundless haughtiness, and yet a resistless tendency to the vulgar, and, lastly, utterly and frankly devoid of all conscience;—give the picture of Henry a green frock-coat and pearl buttons, and you have a most faithful portrait of him.
Nature continually repeats herself in different ‘nuances,’—they vary according to the state of mankind and of the world.
In the night I was very nearly suffocated. The Jocrisse I imported, who had probably been too hospitably entertained by some English acquaintance, thought proper to take the coals out of the fireplace while I was asleep, and left them standing in my room in a lackered coal-scuttle. A frightful smoke and infernal smell fortunately awoke me just as I was dreaming that I was a courtier of Henry the Eighth, and was paying my court to a French beauty at the Champ du Drap d’Or; otherwise I should have gone to meet the fair one of my dream in heaven.
Almost like that heaven, as distant and as lovely, appears to me the place where you are dwelling, my truest friend: and thus I send you the kiss of peace across the sea, and close my first English letter, wishing you health and every blessing.
Your devoted L——.
London, Oct. 15th, 1826.
It seems to me that I shall never get accustomed to this climate, for ever since my landing I have felt perpetually unwell. However, so long as I am not confined to my chamber, I do not suffer it to depress me much; I ride a great deal in the lovely cultivated environs of London, and do not abstain from my walks about the town.
The turn of the British Museum came lately, where a strange “Mischmasch” of works of art, natural curiosities, books, and models, are preserved in a miserable building.
At the top of the staircase, as you enter, stand two enormous giraffes, in the character of stuffed guards, or emblems of English taste! There is, doubtless, much that is interesting in the various apartments. I confess, however, to my shame, that I must be in a peculiarly favourable state of mind not to have an attack of indigestion after such a surfeit of sights. Among the antediluvian remains I saw an enormous and remarkably perfect pair of stag’s antlers, at least six times as large as the largest of those which friend C—— keeps in the stag-gallery of his castle. In a huge shed are deposited the noble Elgin Marbles, as they are here called.
A bust of Hippocrates struck me as being so perfect a representation of the physician by profession, that here in England one can hardly look at it without putting one’s hand in one’s pocket.[11]I looked at the celebrated Portland Vase with all the enthusiasm it is calculated to excite. I send youtwo little works on the Vase and the Elgin Marbles, with very tolerable outline engravings. But I must now quit you to give orders about packing; for to-morrow I mean to start for Newmarket races.
Newmarket, Oct. 19th.
The beauty of the country, and the extraordinary neatness and elegance of every place through which my road lay to-day, struck me anew in the most agreeable manner. These fertile and well-cultivated fields; these thousands of comfortable and pretty farm-houses and cottages scattered over every part of the country; this incessant stream of elegant carriages, well-mounted horsemen, and well-dressed foot-passengers, are peculiar to England. The beautiful picture has but one fault,—it is all too cultivated, too perfect; thence always and everywhere the same, and consequently, in the long run, wearisome:—indeed I can even conceive that it must become distasteful in time, like a savoury dish of dainties to the stomach of a sated man. This may explain the great taste of the English for travelling on the Continent. It is just so in life,—the thing men can the least bear is undisturbed good fortune, and it may be doubted whether father Adam would not have died of ennui in paradise.
To-day, however, a due proportion of shadows was provided for me. In consequence of the great resort to the races, I found at every stage only miserable overdriven horses, sometimes none at all, so that, according to the English standard, I travelled wretchedly, and did not reach Newmarket till late at night.
There was no room in any of the inns; and I thought myself happy at last to get one small room in a private house, for which I paid five guineas a week. Fortunately I met an old acquaintance in the same house,—the son of a little Hungarian Magnate, who seems formed to please himself and others by his unpretending good-nature and joyous temper. I revere such natures, precisely because they have all that I want.
Next morning I rode about with him to reconnoitre the ground a little. One day here is precisely like another. At half-past nine in the morning you see some hundreds of race-horses, carefully clothed, taking their morning promenade on a rising ground. The bare, wide-spread heath is covered with them as with a herd of cattle; some are walking at a foot pace, others galloping, some slower, some quicker, but none at full speed. An inspector on a little poney generally accompanies the horses which belong to the same gentleman, or which are under the care of the same training-groom. The horses are all ridden without a saddle by little half-dressed lads, one of whom is every now and then thrown for the amusement of the spectators. After this exhibition, certainly a most interesting one to every amateur of horses, people breakfast, and in half an hour go to the sale, which takes place almost every day in the open street, under the auspices of the far-famed Mr. Tattersall. They then ride or drive to the races.
These begin pretty punctually at twelve o’clock. An interminable grassy plain covered with a thick short turf is the ground, where various distances, from a full German mile as maximum, to an eighth or tenth, as minimum, are marked for the course in a perfectly straight line. Near the end, this course is enclosed between ropes, on the outside of which rows of carriages three and four deep are drawn up, generally without horses, and covered within and without, from top to bottom, with spectators. At the goal itself is a wooden house on wheels, very like those the shepherds have in many parts of Germany, so that it can be moved about in case the course is lengthened or shortened: in this sits the judge. Just opposite to him is apost fixed in the ground, by means of which he determines which horse’s nose first appears exactly on a line with it; for an inch often decides the race: and it is a very skilful piece of policy and jockeyship of the riders here, to betray the real speed of their horses as little as possible, and to display only as much of it as is necessary to win the race. If they see they have no chance, they immediately give up; so that those who contend for victory to the last, are always very nearly together at the goal. The grotesque spectacle of a rider a mile in the rear, belabouring his horse with whip and spur, like a steam-engine, is exhibited only in France and Germany. If two horses reach the post exactly at the same moment, (which frequently happens,) they must run again. The judge is upon oath, and there is no appeal from his decision. The English jockeys (who are not, as foreigners think, little boys, but often dwarfish men of sixty,) form a perfectly distinct class, and are the best practical riders I know of. You remember that I kept race-horses myself, and had a Newmarket jockey for a time in my service, who won a considerable bet for me at Vienna. It amused me greatly to see this fellow ‘training’ himself. After dosing himself severely, he would go out in the greatest heat, dressed in three or four great-coats, ride a certain distance at a hard trot, till the sweat streamed off him in torrents, and he almost sank from exhaustion; ‘mais tel étoit son plaisir,’ and the more completely good-for-nothing he felt, the better he was pleased.[12]
But there are bounds to this: for the man, by excessive training, may reduce himself below the weight which the horse is bound to carry, and thus subject himself to the inconvenient necessity of carrying lead in the girths. At a certain distance from the goal, about a hundred paces to the side, stands another white post called the betting-post. Here the bettors assemble, after they have seen the horses saddled in the stables at the beginning of the course, thoroughly examined into all the circumstances of the impending race, or perhaps given a wink to some devoted jockey. The scene which ensues would to many appear the most strange that ever was exhibited. In noise, uproar, and clamour, it resembles a Jews’ synagogue, with a greater display of passion. The persons of the drama are the first peers of England, livery-servants, the lowest ‘sharpers’ and ‘blacklegs;’—in short, all who have money to bet here claim equal rights; nor is there any marked difference in their external appearance. Most of them have pocket-books in their hands, each calls aloud his bet, and when it is taken, each party immediately notes it in his book. Dukes, lords, grooms, and rogues, shout, scream, and halloo together, and bet together, with a volubility and in a technical language out of which a foreigner is puzzled to make anything; till suddenly the cry is heard, “The horses have started!” In a minute the crowd disperses; but the bettors soon meet again at the ropes which enclose the course. You see a multitude of telescopes, opera-glasses and eye-glasses, levelled from the carriages and by the horsemen, in the direction whence the jockeys are coming. With the speed of the windthey are seen approaching; and for a few moments a deep and anxious silence pervades the motley crowd; while a manager on horseback keeps the course clear, and applies his whip without ceremony to the shoulders of any intruder. The calm endures but a moment;—then once more arises the wildest uproar; shouts and lamentations, curses and cheers re-echo on every side, from Lords and Ladies, far and wide. “Ten to four upon the Admiral!” “A hundred to one upon Madame Vestris!” “Small Beer against the field!” &c. are heard from the almost frantic bettors: and scarcely do you hear a “Done!” uttered here and there, when the noble animals are before you—past you—in the twinkling of an eye; the next moment at the goal, and luck, or skill, or knavery have decided the victory. The great losers look blank for a moment; the winners triumph aloud; many make ‘bonne mine à mauvais jeu,’ and dart to the spot, where the horses are unsaddled and the jockeys weighed, to see if some irregularity may not yet give them a chance. In a quarter of an hour the same scene begins anew with other horses, and is repeated six or seven times. “Voilà les courses de Newmarket!”
The first day I was gifted with such a prophetic vision, that twice, by the mere exercise of my proper observation and judgment, I betted upon the winner at the saddling, and gained a considerable sum. But I had the usual fate of play,—what I won that day I lost the next, and as much more to boot. Whoever is a permanent winner here, is sure of his gamebeforehand; and it is well known that the principles of many of the English nobility are remarkably wide and expansive on this head.
Among the company present, I found several old acquaintances, who gave me permission to see their running horses in the stable, which is regarded as a signal favour. They also offered to introduce me into the Club here;—an honour, however, which I declined. It is purely a gambling Club,—which a man should beware of in England, more than in any other country.
It may be regarded as a part of the national costume, and highly characteristic of the general tradesman-like spirit, that beforehand all advantages are fair; but that after a bet is once taken, though often amidst the greatest hurry and confusion, it is scarcely ever disputed. On the other hand, a man who has lost more than he can pay, before reckoning-day becomes invisible, that is, commits an act of bankruptcy, and betakes himself to the Continent, either for ever, or till he can pay.
On the first day of my visit to Newmarket, my Hungarian friend introduced me to the family of a rich merchant of this neighbourhood, who with his visitors, among whom were some very pretty girls, came daily to the races, and returned home after them. They invited us to dine with them the next day, and stay the day after, which we accepted with much pleasure.
About five o’clock we set out on horseback. A newly planted, very broad double avenue of beeches marked the beginning of our host’s property, and led us through about half a mile of road to the entrance of his park,—a sort of triumphal arch between two lodges, to which the park paling joined. This was however concealed in the plantation for some distance on either side the lodges, so that they appeared to stand in the midst of wood, and thus produced a very good effect. For some time our way led us through a thick plantation, till we reached the lawn, studded with groups of trees, which invariably forms the chief feature of an English park. Here we caught sight of the house, behind which lay the high trees and ‘shrubberies.’
Some cows lay on the grass just before the door of the house, so that we were obliged almost to ride over them—a strange anomaly, which even Repton animadverts upon. It is the custom here to have the park, that isthe ornamented pasture land, extend on one side, if not on both, to the very house; but surely it would be in better taste to have the garden and pleasure-ground around the house. It seems to me, that however agreeable the distant view of cattle may be, their immediate vicinity, with all its accompaniments, is not very pleasant.
We found a pretty numerous company, consisting of the master and mistress of the house, both of middle age, their eldest married daughter with her husband, two younger daughters, a neighbouring Baronet with his pretty wife, and her very pleasing but very melancholy sister, Miss ——, a much courted lady who frequently moves in higher circles, three gentlemen not remarkable for anything, the son of the house, and lastly, a London beau of the second class,—a study of an aspiring City dandy.
The Baronet had served in Germany, and had, as he told us, obtained the cross of Maria Theresa. He did not wear it, because he thought the thing very well for a young man, but not at all suitable to the quiet country gentleman’s life he now led. He was a simple, kind-hearted man, who appeared to have been invited to meet us as best acquainted with the Continent. We however preferred taking lessons in English manners of his wife and her sister.
According to this system of manners, as it appeared, a visit from two ‘Noblemen,’ (even foreign ones, though these are full fifty per cent. under natives,) was an honour to a house of the ‘volée’ of our host’s. We were therefore amazingly ‘fêtés;’ even the dandy was—as far as the rules of his ‘métier’ permitted—civil and obliging to us. It is an almost universal weakness of the unnoble in England, to parade an acquaintance with the noble: the noble do the same with regard to the ‘fashionable’ or ‘exclusive;’ a peculiar caste, anemperium in imperio, which exercises a still more despotical power in society, and is not influenced by rank, still less by riches, but finds the possibility of its maintenance only in this national foible.
It is therefore a great delight to the English of the middle classes to travel on the Continent, where they easily make acquaintance with people of rank, of whom they can talk as of intimate friends when they come home. A merchant’s wife once gave me a specimen of this: “Do you know the Queen of ——?” said she. I replied that “I had had the honour of being presented to her.” “She is a great friend of mine,” added she,—exactly as if she had been talking of her husband’s partner’s wife. She immediately exhibited, among the numerous trinkets which hung about her, a portrait of the Queen, which, as she said, Her Majesty had given her.
It was very likely true, for her daughter produced a letter from Princess ——, a married daughter of the Queen, containing the most confidential communications concerning her marriage and domestic affairs, which has probably been made to serve for some time as ‘cheval de parade’ to gratify the vanity of the possessor. Is it not most extraordinary that our German great people, many of whom are by no means wanting in pride and ‘morgue’ towards their own countrymen, should treat every little English Squire or Miss, however utterly deficient in intellectual pretensions, almost as an equal, without in the least inquiring whether this person occupies a station at home which warrants such a reception?
Nothing lets us down more in the eyes of the English themselves than this obsequious worship of foreigners; the meanness of which consists in this, that its true foundation generally lies in the profound respect which high and low have for English money.
It requires a considerable fortune here to keep up a country-house; for custom demands many luxuries, and, according to the aspiring and imitativemanners of the country, as much (in the main things) at the shopkeeper’s house, as at the Duke’s;—a handsomely fitted-up house, with elegant furniture, plate, servants in new and handsome liveries, a profusion of dishes and foreign wines, rare and expensive dessert, and in all things an appearance of superfluity,—‘plenty’ as the English call it. As long as there are visitors in the house, this way of life goes on; but many a family atones for it by meagre fare when alone: for which reason nobody here ventures to pay a visit in the country without being invited, and these invitations usually fix the day and hour. The acquaintances are generally numerous; and as both room and the time allotted to the reception of guests are small, one must give place to another. True hospitality this can hardly be called; it is rather the display of one’s own possessions, for the purpose of dazzling as many as possible. After a family has thus kept open house for a month or two, they go for the remainder of the time they have to spend in the country, to make visits at the houses of others; but the one hospitable month costs as much as a wealthy landed proprietor spends in a whole year with us.
As you never were in England, I must say a few words on the routine of an English dinner, which, as I have said, is, ‘à peu de chose près’, everywhere alike.
You like the details of daily life, and have often told me that you feel the want of them in most books of travels, and yet that nothing gives you a more lively conception of a foreign country. You must therefore forgive me if I go into trifles.
The gentlemen lead the ladies into the dining-room, not as in France, by the hand, but by the arm; and here, as there, are emancipated from the necessity of those antiquated bows, which even in some of the best society in Germany, are exchanged every time one hands out a lady. On the other hand, there is a most anxious regard to rank, in the midst of all which the strangest blunders are made as to that of foreigners. I execrated mine to-day, as it brought me to the head of the table; while my friend very cleverly slipped himself in between the pretty sisters. When you enter, you find the whole of the first course on the table, as in France.
After the soup is removed, and the covers are taken off, every man helps the dish before him, and offers some of it to his neighbour;[13]if he wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, or send a servant for it;—a very troublesome custom, in place of which, some of the most elegant travelled gentlemen have adopted the more convenient German fashion of sending the servants round with the dishes.
It is not usual to take wine without drinking to another person. When you raise your glass, you look fixedly at the one with whom you are drinking, bow your head, and then drink with great gravity. Certainly many of the customs of the South Sea Islanders, which strike us the most, are less ludicrous. It is esteemed a civility to challenge anybody in this way to drink; and a messenger is often sent from one end of the table to the other to announce to B—— that A—— wishes to take wine with him; whereupon each, sometimes with considerable trouble, catches the other’s eye, and goes through the ceremony of the prescribed nod with great formality, looking at the moment very like a Chinese mandarin. If the company is small, and a man has drunk with everybody, but happens to wish for more wine, he must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself courage enough to brave custom.
At the conclusion of the second course comes a sort of intermediate dessert of cheese, butter, salad, raw celery, and the like; after which ale, sometimes thirty or forty years old, and so strong that when thrown on the fire it blazes like spirit, is handed about. The tablecloth is then removed: under it, at the best tables, is a finer, upon which the dessert is set. At inferior ones, it is placed on the bare polished table. It consists of all sorts of hot-house fruits, which are here of the finest quality, Indian and native preserves, stomachic ginger, confitures, and the like. Clean glasses are set before every guest, and, with the dessert plates and knives and forks, small fringed napkins are laid. Three decanters are usually placed before the master of the house, generally containing claret, port, and sherry, or madeira. The host pushes these in stands, or in a little silver wagon on wheels, to his neighbour on the left. Every man pours out his own wine, and if a lady sits next him, also helps her; and so on till the circuit is made, when the same process begins again. Glass jugs filled with water happily enable foreigners to temper the brandy which forms so large a component part of English wines. After the dessert is set on, all the servants leave the room: if more is wanted the bell is rung, and the butler (Haushofmeister) alone brings it in. The ladies sit a quarter of an hour longer, during which time sweet wines are sometimes served, and then rise from table. The men rise at the same time, one opens the door for them, and as soon as they are gone, draw closer together; the host takes the place of the hostess, and the conversation turns upon subjects of local and everyday interest, in which the stranger is pretty nearly forgotten, and must content himself with listening to what he can take very little part in. Every man is, however, at liberty to follow the ladies as soon as he likes,—a liberty of which Count B—— and I very quickly availed ourselves. We had the singular satisfaction of learning that this was in accordance with the latest mode, as much drinking is now ‘unfashionable.’ Accordingly the dandy had already preceded us. We found him with the ladies, who received us in a ‘salon,’ grouped around a large table on which were tea and coffee.[14]When the whole company was re-assembled, all fell off into groups, according to their pleasure. Some entertained themselves with music; here and there a couple whispered in the recess of a window; several talked politics;—the dandy alone remained solitary: sunk into a large easy chair, he had laid his elegantly shod right foot over his left knee, and in that attitude became apparently so absorbed in Madame de Stäel’s ‘Allemagne’ that he took not the slightest notice of any one present.
‘A tout prendre,’ I must do this pretty young fellow the justice to say that he was not at all a bad copy of higher originals. Perhaps I was bribed into this favourable opinion by his talking much at dinner about the great Göthe, and praising his ‘Fost;’ both of whom (Göthe andFost) Lord Byron has brought into fashion in England.Fostseemed to please him, particularly on account of what he conceived to be its atheistical tendency, for he had, as he informed us, spent half his life in Paris, and avowed himself an ‘esprit fort.’
The following day, after all breakfasting together, we rode with the ladiesin the park, which contained nothing remarkable except a canal of stagnant and slimy water, which had cost five thousand pounds in the digging;—an expense better spared. The fruit-gardens and hot-houses were admirable: the latter, a hobby of the proprietor, were heated by steam on a very ingenious plan of his own, and the heat increased or diminished at pleasure by simply turning a cock. Three-and-twenty different sorts of pines,—above which, pendent from the glass roof, hung gigantic purple grapes,—fill these spacious, elegant houses; and in the fruit-garden we admired pears on the wall seven inches in length, sixteen in circumference, and of an excellent flavour.
Several of the gentlemen went hunting; but we preferred the society at home. The gay amusing B—— was become the favourite of the ladies, and was evidently greatly regretted by them when the post-chaise arrived at one o’clock in the morning to take us back to Newmarket. I must confess that we took rather a laughing review of some things that struck us as ridiculous, though I was really ashamed that we were such genuine B—— ‘s[15]as to make ourselves merry at the expense of our host and his company, instead of feeling hearty gratitude for our hospitable reception.
But now-a-days the world is spoiled; and besides, hospitality which springs from ostentation cannot expect the same hearty requital as that which is the offspring of the heart. Probably we guests fared no better in the house we had just quitted.
At the races the next morning we saw the young ladies again, betted gloves with them till we lost, and delighted them with some Paris ones. We declined a second invitation, as we were engaged to a gentleman’s dinner, and Count B—— was going to a fox-hunt at Melton. I shall leave Newmarket too, and continue my letter in London.
Epping-place, Oct. 20th.
I have travelled as far as I wished, and must pass the night here, as the inspection of two parks has fully occupied my day.
My trouble has been richly rewarded. The first, Audley-End, belonging to Lord Braybrooke, claims a place among the finest in the country. The road lies through the middle of it, with a deep ha-ha on each side, which secures the park and yet leaves a full view into it. You see, at first, an extensive green landscape, in the centre of which is a broad, river-like, and beautifully formed piece of water, which unfortunately, however, has too little motion to prevent its being covered with duckweed. Near to the opposite shore stands the splendid Gothic castle, which was originally built by the Duke of Suffolk, and was then three times as large as it is now. The multitude of its towers, projecting angles, and lofty many-formed windows, still give it a very imposing and picturesque appearance.
Although Lady Braybrooke was at home, I obtained the uncommon permission to view it. I entered a wide and very simple hall, ornamented only with some gigantic stag’s horns of great antiquity, and furnished with a few massive benches and chairs, on which the arms of the family were painted; some very old paintings; a Gothic lamp; a large table, consisting of two pieces of serpentine, of which only the upper side was polished, the rest quite rough; and a dozen leather fire-buckets, also painted with the family arms. The ceiling was of wood, with deeply-carved compartments and old faded paintings. One saw at the first glance that it was no house of yesterdayone had entered. A high door of heavy carved oak led from hence into the baron’s hall, a large room whose enormous windows reached from the ceiling to the floor, and afforded a free view of the landscape. Several family pictures, as large as life, partly painted by Vandyck, hung on the opposite wall; and between them rose the huge marble chimney-piece, with the richly-coloured arms of the Suffolks executed upon it in stucco. The third side of the room,—that on which we entered,—was entirely covered with very fine and highly relieved carvings, figures half the size of life, like those one sees in the choirs of Gothic churches. Opposite were large folding doors which opened into the eating-hall, and on each side an open staircase leading to the first story. The dining-room contains a portrait of Suffolk, and one of Queen Elizabeth. Her red hair, ‘fade’ complexion and false look, and her over-done finery, gave no advantageous idea of the vain and gallant ‘Maiden Queen.’
On the first floor is a long narrow gallery full of pretty knick-knacks and antique curiosities. In the centre is a large chart of the winds, connected with the weather-cock on the tower, and destined to show the sportsman every morning which way the wind sets.[16]This serves as drawing-room, for most English country-houses and mansions are judiciously made to contain only one principal entertaining room; which is much more convenient for the reception of a large company.
The chapel is modern, but richly and tastefully ornamented; and here, if the chaplain is absent, the lord of the house, according to ancient usage, reads divine service at ten o’clock every morning, at which all the family and servants must attend.
The park is of considerable extent, but intersected by a troublesome number of fences, which serve to allot to the sheep, cows, horses and deer, their several territories. Of the latter, there are from four to five hundred head, which generally graze pretty near together like a herd of tame cattle, and do not answer at all to our idea of game.[17]The flesh too has a totally different flavour from that of the animals which roam free in our woods, just as they say the flesh of wild oxen differs from that of tame.
The preserves for partridges and hares are also fenced in to protect the low copse from the cattle, in consequence of whose presence, the greater part of an English park consists, as I have already remarked, only of groups of high trees whose branches the cattle cannot reach.
These extensive views, grand and striking as they are at first, become tiresome in time from their uniformity. Nor can I see that the numerous enclosures are advantages to the landscape. Almost every young tree has a fence round it to protect it from the cattle.
Two temples and an obelisk, to which there is no other way than across the turf, have a very heterogeneous appearance in the midst of these pasture-grounds. The distant Gothic tower of Walden church, rearing its head picturesquely over the summits of the oaks, was in much better keeping.
On the other hand I greatly admired the flower-garden and pheasantry. The first describes a large oval, surrounded with a thick natural evergreen wall of yew, laurel, rhododendron, cedar, cypress, box, holly, &c.; a brook, adorned with a grotto and water-fall, flows through the velvet turf, on which the rare and splendid plants and flower-beds of every form and colour group themselves most beautifully.
The pheasantry, which is nearly two miles from this spot, is a thick shady grove of various sorts of trees, of considerable extent, and surrounded by a high wall. We could only get to it over the wet grass, as the gravel-walk commenced from the entrance-gate. This is from economy, for roads are excessively expensive both to make and to keep up in England. There is generally but one carriage-road to the house, and even the footpaths cease with the iron fences of the pleasure-grounds. The English ladies are not so afraid of setting their feet on wet grass as ours are.
After many windings, the path brought me, under a most lovely leafy canopy, unexpectedly before the ivy-covered door of a little building, adjoining to which, still more buried in the wood, was the gamekeeper’s house. This door opened from within, and most enchanting was the view that it disclosed to us. We had entered a little open saloon, the isolated pillars of which were entirely covered with thick monthly roses;—between them was seen a large aviary filled with parrots on the right, and on the left an equally extensive habitation for canaries, goldfinches, and other small birds; before us lay an open grass-plat dotted with evergreens, and behind this a background of high woods, through which small peeps at a distant village and a solitary church-tower had been cut with singular taste and skill.
On this grass-plat, the keeper now called together perfect clouds of gold, silver, and pied pheasants, fowls, of exotic breeds, tame rooks, curious pigeons, and other birds that were accustomed to be fed here, and thronged together in the most gay and motley crowd. Their various manners and gestures, rendered more lively by their passionate eagerness, afforded an amusing spectacle. The behaviour of a gold pheasant who, like a beau of the old school, seemed trying to make his court to all the assembled hens with the most ludicrous struts and airs, was so excessively comic that my old B—— burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; whereat the English servants, who are accustomed to observe an exterior of slavish reverence in the presence of their masters, looked at him with a consternation at his boldness, which amused me as much as the ‘Pantalonnade’ among the fowls.
There are above five hundred gold and silver pheasants. They have all one wing cut as soon as they are hatched, which for ever prevents their flying. They inhabit these woods winter and summer, without wanting even the shelter of a shed,—so mild is this climate.
Not to weary you, I omit the description of the second park, Short Grove, which had nothing remarkable to boast, and appeared much neglected. The house, park, hot-houses, &c., the former completely furnished, were to let for the moderate rent of four hundred a-year,—a very common custom here when the possessors are travelling.
We should not like to imitate it; while on the other hand, a part of our town-houses are almost always let, the proprietors inhabiting only the ‘bel étage.’ This again appears very strange to the English, and certainly is extremely inconvenient, for the presence of several families in one house is not favourable either to order or cleanliness.
The house-door at Short Grove was covered on the outside with looking-glass,—a very pretty idea: as you enter the house you have a beautiful picture of the country.
The great wealth of the landholders of England must always strike people from the Continent, where the landed proprietors are the poorest class, and the least protected by laws and institutions. Here everything conspires for their advantage. It is very difficult for the fundholder to acquire the free and full possession of land. Almost the whole soil is the property of the aristocracy, who generally let it only on lease; so that when a great mancalls a village his, this does not mean, as with us, merely that he has the lordship (Oberherrschafft) over it, but that every house is his absolute property; and only granted to the actual inhabitants for a certain time. You may conceive what enormous and ever increasing revenues this must bring them, in a country where trade and population are continually on the increase; and may admire with me the concert and address with which this aristocracy has contrived for centuries to turn all the institutions of the country to its own advantage.
The free sale of a portion of land is attended by many difficult conditions, and at so high a price that it is out of the reach of small capitalists, who find it more advantageous to hire it on lease. Leases here are, however, of a very different nature from ours. The piece of land is let to the tenant for ninety-nine years on payment of a certain yearly rent, which varies from a few shillings to five and ten pounds yearly per foot of the frontage, if it be for building on; in large portions, it is so much per acre. The tenant now does with it what he likes, builds where he pleases, lays out gardens, pleasure-grounds, and so on: but after the lapse of the ninety-nine years, the whole reverts just as it stands, sound and tight, to the family of the original lord of the soil: nay more; the tenant must keep the house in perfect repair, and paint it every seven years. During his allotted term he may sell or let it to others, but of course only up to that period when it reverts to the original proprietor. Almost all the country-houses, villas, &c., that one sees, thus belong to great land-owners; and although the tenants at the expiration of their term generally re-establish this sort of precarious property in them, yet they must double or treble their rent, according to the increased value of land, or the improvements they themselves have made upon it. Even the greater part of London belongs, on such terms, to certain noblemen, of whom Lord Grosvenor, for instance, is said to derive above 100,000l.a year from his ground-rents. Scarcely a single inhabitant of London, therefore, except a few members of the high aristocracy, is the real owner of his house. Even Rothschild’s is not his own: and when a man buys one, as it is called, people ask him for how long. The price varies according as the house is taken at first hand, commonly then for a rent; or at second or third, and then more usually for a sum of money. The greater part of the profits of industry thus inevitably falls into the hands of the aristocracy, and necessarily increases the enormous influence which they already exercise over the government of the country.[18]
London, October 21st.
This afternoon I got home safe and well through the incessant rain, refreshed myself with a good dinner at the Club, and in the evening, let me tell you, won just six times my travelling expenses. I am well and in good spirits, and find that I want nothing but you.
Let me finish my letter at so favourable a conjuncture. It is already swelled to a packet.
Ever your faithfully devoted L——.
London, Nov. 20th, 1826.
Beloved Friend,
I advise travellers never to take servants out of their fatherland into strange countries, especially if they imagine they shall save by it,—now-a-days always a prime object. This piece of economy belongs to the class of those,oneof which costs more thanfourpieces of extravagance; besides which, one hangs a load round one’s neck which is burthensome in various ways.
These wise reflections are excited in me by my old valet, who seems inclined to fall into the English spleen because he finds so many daily difficulties here;—above all, in getting soup for his dinner, the thought of which beloved aliment of his home calls tears into his eyes. He reminds me of the Prussian soldiers, who, amid streams of Champagne, beat the French peasants for not setting Stettin beer before them.
True it is that the English of the middle classes, accustomed to substantial flesh diet, are not acquainted with the Northern broths and soups: what goes under that name in England is an expensive extract of all sorts of peppers and spices from both Indies, like that brewed in a witches’ cauldron. The face of my faithful liegeman, at the first spoonful of this compound he put into his mouth, would have been worthy to figure in Peregrine Pickle’s antique repast, and turned my anger into loud laughter. Yet I see beforehand that his devotion to me will be wrecked on this rock; for our Germans are, and ever will be, curious beings; holding longer than any others to the accustomed,—be it faith, love or soup.
In the absence of society, the various Clubs, (to which, contrary to former custom, a stranger can now gain admittance,) are a very agreeable resource. Our ambassador introduced me into two of them,—the United Service Club, into which no foreigners are admitted except ambassadors and military men,—the latter of the rank of staff-officers: and the Traveller’s Club, into which every foreigner of education, who has good introductions, is admitted; though every three months he is made to undergo the somewhat humiliating ceremony of requesting a fresh permission, to which he is held with almost uncivil severity.
In Germany, people have as little notion of the elegance and comfort of Clubs, as of the rigorous execution of their laws which prevail here.
All that luxury and convenience, without magnificence, demand, is here to be found in as great perfection as in the best private houses. The stairs and rooms are covered with fresh and handsome carpets, and rugs (sheepskins with the wool nicely prepared and dyed of bright colours) are laid before the doors to prevent drafts; marble chimney-pieces, handsome looking-glasses (always of one piece,—a necessary part of solid English luxury), a profusion of furniture, &c. render every apartment extremely comfortable. Even scales, by which to ascertain one’s weight daily—a strange taste of the English—are not wanting. The numerous servants are never seen but in shoes, and in the neatest livery or plain clothes; and a porter is always at his post to take charge of great-coats and umbrellas. This latter article in England deserves attention, since umbrellas, which are unfortunately soindispensable, are stolen in the most shameless manner, be it where it may, if you do not take particular care of them. This fact is so notorious that I must translate for your amusement a passage from a newspaper, relating to some Society for the encouragement of virtue, which was to award a prize for the most honourable action. “The choice,” continues the author, “was become extremely difficult; and it was nearly determined to give the prize to an individual who had paid his tailor’s bill punctually for several years; when another was pointed out, who had twice sent home an umbrella left at his house. At this unheard-of act,” adds the journalist, “the company first fell into mute wonder that so much virtue was still found in Israel; but at length loud and enthusiastic applause left the choice no longer doubtful.”
In the elegant and well-furnished library there is also a person always at hand to fetch you the books you want. You find all the journals in a well-arranged reading-room; and in a small room for maps and charts,[20]a choice of the newest and best in their kind. This is so arranged that all the maps, rolled up, hang one over another on the wall, thus occupying but a small space; and each is easily drawn down for use by a little loop in the centre. A pull at a loop at the side rolls up the map again by a very simple piece of mechanism. The name of each country is inscribed in such large letters on the mahogany staff on which the map is rolled, that it may be read with ease across the room. By this contrivance a great number of maps may be hung in a very small closet, and when wanted, may be found and inspected in a moment, without the slightest trouble, or derangement of the others.
The table,—I mean the eating,—with most men the first thing, and with me not the last,—is generally prepared by a French cook, as well and as cheaply as it is possible to have it in London. As the Club provides the wines, and sells them again to each member, they are very drinkable and reasonable. But ‘gourmands’ must ever miss the finest wines, even at the best tables in London. This arises from the strange habit of the English (and these people, too, stick faster to their habits than an oyster to its shell,) of getting their wines from London wine-merchants, instead of importing them from the places where they grow, as we do. Now these wine-merchants adulterate their wine to such a degree, that one who was lately prosecuted for having some thousand bottles of port and claret in his cellars which had not paid duty, proved that all this wine was manufactured by himself in London, and thus escaped the penalty. You may imagine, therefore, what sort of brewage you often get under the high-sounding names of Champagne, Lafitte, &c. The dealers scarcely ever buy the very best which is to be had in the native lands of the several wines, for the obvious reason that they could make little or no profit of it; at best they only use it to enable them to get off other wine of inferior quality.
Excuse this wine-digression, which to you, who drink only water, cannot be very interesting; but you know I write for us both, and to me the subject is I confess not unimportant. “Gern fuhre ich Wein im Munde.”
But let us back to our Clubs.
The peculiarity of English manners may be much better observed here, at the first ‘abord,’ than in the great world, which is everywhere more or less alike; whereas the same individuals, of whom it is in part composed,show themselves here with much less restraint. In the first place, the stranger must admire the refinement of convenience with which Englishmen sit: it must be confessed that a man who is ignorant of the ingenious English chairs, of every form, and adapted to every degree of fatigue, indisposition, or constitutional peculiarity, really loses a large share of earthly enjoyment. It is a positive pleasure even to see an Englishman sit, or rather lie, in one of these couch-like chairs by the fire-side. A contrivance like a reading-desk attached to the arm, and furnished with a candlestick, is so placed before him, that with the slightest touch he can bring it nearer or further, push it to the right or the left, at pleasure. A curious machine, several of which stand around the large fire-place, receives one or both of his feet; and the hat on his head completes the enchanting picture of superlative comfort.
This latter circumstance is the most difficult of imitation to a man brought up in the old school. Though he can never refrain from a provincial sort of shudder when he enters the brilliantly lighted saloon of the Club-house, where dukes, ambassadors and lords, elegantly dressed, are sitting at the card-tables, yet if he wishes to be ‘fashionable’ he must keep on his hat, advance to a party at whist, nod to one or two of his acquaintances; then carelessly taking up a newspaper, sink down on a sofa, and, not till after some time, ‘nonchalament’ throw down his hat (which perhaps has all the while been a horrid annoyance to him); or, if he stays but a few minutes, not take it off at all.
The practice of half lying instead of sitting; sometimes of lying at full length on the carpet at the feet of ladies; of crossing one leg over the other in such a manner as to hold the foot in the hand; of putting the hands in the arm-holes of the waistcoat, and so on,—are all things which have obtained in the best company and the most exclusive circles: it is therefore very possible that the keeping on the hat may arrive at the same honour. In this case it will doubtless find its way into Paris society, which, after being formerly aped by all Europe, now disdains not to ape the English,—sometimes grotesquely enough,—and, as is usual in such cases, often outdoes its original.
On the other hand, the English take it very ill of foreigners, if they reprove a waiter who makes them wait, or brings one thing instead of another, or if they give their commands in a loud or lordly tone of voice; though the English themselves often do this in their own country, and much more in ours, and though the dining-room of the Club is in fact only a more elegant sort of ‘restauration,’ where every man must pay his reckoning after he has dined. It is regarded not only as improper, but as unpleasant and offensive, if any one reads during dinner. It is not the fashion in England; and, as I have this bad habit in a supreme degree, I have sometimes remarked satirical signs of displeasure on the countenances of a few Islanders of the old school, who shook their heads as they passed me. One must be on one’s guard, generally, to do things as little as possible unlike the English, and yet not to try to imitate them servilely in everything, for no race of men can be more intolerant. Most of them see with reluctance the introduction of any foreigner into their more private societies, and all regard it as a distinguished favour and obligation conferred on us.
But of all offences against English manners which a man can commit, the three following are the greatest:—to put his knife to his mouth instead of his fork; to take up sugar or asparagus with his fingers; or, above all, to spit anywhere in a room. These are certainly laudable prohibitions, and well-bred people of all countries avoid such practices,—though even on these pointsmanners alter greatly; for Marshal Richelieu detected an adventurer who passed himself off for a man of rank, by the single circumstance of his taking up olives with his fork and not with his fingers. The ridiculous thing is the amazing importance which is here attached to them. The last-named crime is so pedantically proscribed in England, that you might seek through all London in vain to find such a piece of furniture as a spitting-box. A Dutchman, who was very uncomfortable for the want of one, declared with great indignation, that an Englishman’s only spitting-box was his stomach. These things are, I repeat, more than trivial, but the most important rules of behaviour in foreign countries almost always regard trivialities. Had I, for example, to give a few universal rules to a young traveller, I should seriously counsel him thus:—In Naples, treat the people brutally; in Rome, be natural; in Austria, don’t talk politics; in France, give yourself no airs; in Germany, a great many; and in England, don’t spit. With these rules, the young man would get on very well. What one must justly admire is the well-adapted arrangement of every thing belonging to the economy of life and of all public establishments in England, as well as the systematical rigour with which what has once been determined on is unalterably followed up. In Germany, all good institutions soon fall asleep, and new brooms alone sweep clean; here it is quite otherwise. On the other hand, every thing is not required of the same person, but exactly so much, and no more, as falls within his department. The treatment of servants is as excellent as their performance of their duties. Each has his prescribed field of activity; in which, however, the strictest and most punctual execution of orders is required of him, and in any case of neglect the master knows whom he has to call to account. At the same time, the servants enjoy a reasonable freedom, and have certain portions of time allotted to them, which their master carefully respects. The whole treatment of the serving classes is much more decorous, and combined with more ‘égards,’ than with us; but then they are so entirely excluded from all familiarity, and such profound respect is exacted from them, that they appear to be considered rather as machines than as beings of the same order. This, and their high wages, are no doubt the causes that the servants really possess more external dignity than any other class in England, relatively to their station.
In many cases it would be a very pardonable blunder in a foreigner to take the valet for the lord, especially if he happened to imagine thatcourtesyand a good address were the distinguishing marks of a man of quality. This test would be by no means applicable in England, where these advantages are not to be found among the majority of persons of the higher classes; though there are some brilliant exceptions, and their absence is often redeemed by admirable and solid qualities.
In the men, indeed, their arrogance, often amounting to rudeness, and their high opinion of themselves, do not sit so ill; but in the women, it is as disgusting and repulsive, as, in some other of their countrywomen, the vain effort to ape continental grace and vivacity.
I once before praised the admirable spirit of adaptation and arrangement which pervades all establishments here. As a sample, I will give you the organization of the card-room in the Traveller’s Club-house. This is not properly a gaming club, but, as its name denotes, one expressly for travellers. Such only can become actual members of it as have travelled a certain prescribed number of miles on the Continent, or have made yet more distant expeditions. In spite of this, one does not perceive that they are become less English, which, however, I do not quarrel with. At the Travellers’ Club, then, short whist and ecarté are played very high, but no hazard.
In our Casinos, ‘Ressources,’ and so on, a man who wishes to play must first laboriously seek out a party; and if the tables are full, may have to wait hours till one is vacant. Here it is a law that every one who comes may take his seat at any table at which a rubber has just ended, when he who has played two consecutive rubbers must give up his place. It is pleasant, too, to a man who has lost, and fancies that the luck goes with the place, to quit it and seek better fortune in another.
In the centre of the room stands a ‘bureau’ at which is posted a clerk, who rings whenever a waiter is wanted; brings the bill;[21]and, if any contested point occur, fetches the classical authorities on whist; for never is the slightest offence against the rules of the game suffered to pass without the infliction of the annexed punishment. This is rather annoying to a man who plays only for amusement; but yet it is a wise plan, and forms good players. The same clerk distributes the markers to the players to obviate the great annoyance of meeting with a bad payer, the Club is the universal payer. Actual money does not make its appearance, but every man who sits down to play receives a little basket of markers of various forms, the value of which is inscribed upon them, and which the clerk enters in his book; as often as he loses, he asks for more. Each player reckons with the clerk, and either proves his loss, or, if he has won, delivers up the markers. In either case he receives a card containing a statement of the result, and the duplicate of the reckoning in the account-book.
As soon as any one is indebted more than a hundred pounds, he must pay it in the following morning to the clerk; and every man who has any demands can claim his money at any time.
None but a nation so entirely commercial as the English can be expected to attain to this perfection of methodizing and arrangement. In no other country are what are here emphatically called ‘habits of business’ carried so extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of order, of despatch, of inflexibleroutine, nowhere so well understood. This is the great key to the most striking national characteristics. The quantity of material objects produced and accomplished—the work done—in England, exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes and the qualities which have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, the contracted views, theroutinehabits of thought as well as of action, the inveterate prejudices, the unbounded desire for, and deference to, wealth, which characterize the mass of Englishmen.
It were much to be wished that in our German cities we imitated the organization of English Clubs, which would be very practicable as to the essentials, though our poverty would compel us to dispense with many of their luxuries. In this case we ought to repay the English like for like, and not prostrate ourselves in puerile slavish admiration of their money and their name; but while we treated them with all civility, and even with more courtesy than they show to us, yet let them see that Germans are masters of their own house, particularly as many of them only come among us either to economize, or to form connexions with people of rank, from which their own station at home excluded them, or to have the satisfaction of showing us that in all arrangements for physical comfort we are still barbarians compared with them.[22]
It is indeed inconceivable, and a proof that it is only necessary to treat us contemptuously in order to obtain our reverence, that, as I have remarked, the mere name of Englishman is, with us, equivalent to the highest title. Many a person, who would scarcely get admission into very inferior circles in England, where the whole of society, down to the very lowest classes, is so stiffly aristocratical, in the various states of Germany is received at Court and fête by the first nobility; every act of coarseness and ill-breeding is set down as a trait of charming English originality, till perhaps, by some accident, a really respectable Englishman comes to the place, and people learn with astonishment that they have been doing all this honour to an ensign ‘on half pay,’ or a rich tailor or shoemaker. An individual of this rank is, however, generally, at least civil, but the impertinence of some of the higher classes surpasses all belief.
I know that in one of the largest towns of Germany, a prince of the royal house, distinguished for his frank, chivalrous courtesy, and his amiable character, invited an English Viscount, who was but just arrived, and had not yet been presented to him, to a hunting-party; to which His Lordship replied,that he could not accept the invitation, as the prince was perfectly unknown to him.
It is true, that no foreigner will ever have it in his power so to requite a similar civility in England, where a grandee considers an invitation to dinner (they are very liberal of invitations to routs and soirées, for the sake of filling their rooms) as the most signal honour he can confer upon even a distinguished foreigner,—an honour only to be obtained by long acquaintance, or by very powerful letters of introduction. But if by any miracle such a ready attention were to be paid in England, it would be impossible to find a single man of any pretensions to breeding, on the whole Continent, who would make such a return as this boorish lord did.[23]
November 21st.
I called yesterday morning on L—— to execute your commission, but did not find him at home. Instead of him, I found to my great joy a letter from you, which I was so impatient to read, that I set myself down in his room, and read it attentively two or three times. Your affection, which strives to spare me everything disagreeable, and dwells only upon those subjects which can give me pleasure, I acknowledge most gratefully. But you must not spare me more than you are convinced you can do without detriment to our common interests. You estimate my letters far more highly than they deserve; but you may imagine that, in my eyes, it is a very amiable fault in you to overvalue me thus. Love paints the smallest merit in magic colours. I will, however, do myself the justice to believe that you, who have had such ample opportunities of knowing me, may find in me qualities which shrink from the rude touch of the world. This consoled me,—but your expression “that all you wrote appeared to you so incoherent, that you thought the grief of parting had weakened your intellects,” gave me great pain. Do I then want phrases? How much more delightful is that natural, confidential talk, which flows on without constraintand without effort, andthereforeexpresses itself admirably. I am particularly delighted at your sentiments concerning what I tell you; they are ever exactly such as I expect and share.
Accompany your friend to the capital:—it will amuse you, and at the same time you will find many opportunities of promoting our interests. ‘Les absens ont tort;’ never forget that. I must disapprove B——’s levity. He has no solicitude about his reputation, though he be in fact an angel of virtue and benevolence; he who cares not what is said of him,—perhaps even laughs at it,—will soon find that the malignity of men has left him in the same condition as to reputation as Peter Schlemil was with regard to his shadow. At first he thought it nothing to forego a thing so unsubstantial: but in the end he could scarcely endure existence without it. Only in the deepest solitude, far from all the world, striding restlessly with his seven-league boots from the north pole to the south, and living for science alone, did he find some tranquillity and peace. At the conclusion of your letter I see but too clearly that melancholy gains the upper hand,—and I could say something on that subject too,—‘mais il faut du courage.’ In every life there are periods of trial, moments when the bitterest drops in the cup must be drained. If the sun do but illumine the evening, we will not murmur at the noontide heat.
But enough of these serious subjects: let me now turn your attention from them, by leading you to the Haymarket Theatre, which I lately visited, when the celebrated Liston enchanted the public for the hundred-and-second time in Paul Pry, a sort of foolish lout. The actor, who is said to have made a fortune of six thousand a-year, is one of those whom I should call natural comic actors, of the same class as were Unzelmann and Wurm in Berlin, and Bösenberg and Döring in Dresden; men who, without any profound study of their art, excite laughter by a certain drollery of manner peculiar to themselves, an inexhaustible humour, ‘qui coule de source;’ though frequently in private life they are hypochondriacal, as it is said to be the case with Liston.
The notorious Madame Vestris, who formerly made ‘furore,’ was also there. She is somewhat ‘passée,’ but still very fascinating on the stage. She is an excellent singer, and still better actor, and a greater favourite of the English public even than Liston. Her great celebrity, however, rests on the beauty of her legs, which are become a standing article in the theatrical criticisms of the newspapers, and are often displayed by her in man’s attire. The grace and the exhaustless spirit and wit of her acting are also truly enchanting, though she sometimes disgusts one by her want of modesty, and coquettes too much with the audience. It may truly be said in every sense of the words, that Madame Vestris belongs to all Europe. Her father was an Italian; her mother a German and a good pianoforte player; her husband, of the illustrious dancing family of France, and herself an Englishwoman: any chasms in her connexion with other European nations are more than filled up by hundreds of the most ‘marquant’ lovers. She also speaks several languages with the utmost fluency. In the character of the German ‘broom girl’ she sings